Comments on: The difference

By: Twisted by Life (@Yossarian25)

Twisted by Life (@Yossarian25) — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 06:40:10 +0000

100% Pure – that’s gay as batshit!

By: Clunking Fist

Clunking Fist — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 04:17:31 +0000

Oh they could well be switching to solar, too, but not at night. Obviously.

By: prgcnt

prgcnt — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 03:25:16 +0000

CF “Hmm, so you haven’t heard about how Germany is switching to coal as they shut their nuclear power stations down in the wake of Fukushima?”

I thought they were switching to solar…?

By: Lee C

Lee C — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 07:32:52 +0000

ps my initial issue was with the rhetorical slant of the original post . . . I guess I’m just thin skinned.

By: Lee C

Lee C — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 07:30:54 +0000

My apologies Doug I had a barny with the missis and you happened to be there. And yes. She started it, with her ‘innocent’ remarks. . . .

By: Clunking Fist

Clunking Fist — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 06:00:47 +0000

True Phil! And some professor says that the newspapers were biased in favour of one candidate over another and another and another at the last election and reportedly claims “the Labour Party have grounds to complain”. (Presumably because Goff got more coverage than Mr Peters?) She wasn’t reported has having concluded that sitting PM might get themselves in Newspapers more than non-sitting Prime Ministers, presumably because she forgot to compare the last election coverage with coverage of past elections. But that probably would have required too much work/was outside the client’s terms of reference?
http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/about-massey/news/article.cfm?mnarticle_uuid=48735398-FC90-8334-7A51-09FCFDB95B7D

What passes for serious academic study now, eh? I’d laugh… if I wasn’t paying for it.

By: phil

phil — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 16:15:14 +0000

Let’s face it guys Helen Kelly, the greens and radio nz say National are baby killing polluters so end of.

By: NeilM

NeilM — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 07:33:13 +0000

Hmm, so you haven’t heard about how Germany is switching to coal,,,

I am indeed aware. I was outlining why I’m sceptical of these sorts of bald comparisons – they strip out a lot of such detail that I believe one needs to make judgement calls about who is doing better or worse.

By: Clunking Fist

Clunking Fist — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 07:05:21 +0000

And don’t forget the Happy Planet Index, where they somehow combined life expectancy, surveyed measures of happiness and “ecological footprint” (I’m still trying to get my head around how they measured that footprint, but it seems to boil down to “high GDP bad, low GDP good” even though in low GDP countries they tend to cut down trees (when animal dung is not available) to burn in open fires indoors, whereas in higher GDP countries we use electricity from hydro or nuclear, even some wind or gas.)

By: Clunking Fist

Clunking Fist — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 06:55:24 +0000

“Germany has increased markedly the proportion of sustainable energy.”
Hmm, so you haven’t heard about how Germany is switching to coal as they shut their nuclear power stations down in the wake of Fukushima? And that due to increasing destabilisation of their grid, they have called a halt to any more wind power?

Wow, two tribes have gone to war here. There can’t be many statisticians here, though, as folk are arguing about the comparison between dubious attempts to rank how green countries are. Seriously?

“The NYT has us as the 18th worst country environmentally and Dr Joy has us as in the bottom half. So pretty bleak.
But in contrast the Yale Environmental Performance Index 2012 has us at 14th best. So considerably better.”

May I suggest you read what proxies these studies have used in order to get to these rankings?