Updated post
Thu, 14 Apr 2016 at 6:13 p.m.
TOTAL FICTION
Parliamentary Commissioner for Environment says 30cm rise minimum expected over next 50 years.
### ODT Online Thu, 14 Apr 2016
South Dunedin flood risk [NOT] ‘an issue’
By Timothy Brown
South Dunedin presents the “most troubling example” of high groundwater levels in the country, Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Jan Wright says. Areas like South Dunedin faced greater risk from flooding and liquefaction, Dr Wright said during her keynote address at the New Zealand Planning Institute’s annual conference at the Dunedin Town Hall yesterday. South Dunedin was particularly at risk due to its low-lying nature and its geographic history as marshland.
Read more
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Defending SOUTH DUNEDIN from False Climate Change hypotheses:
ODT 24.3.16
█ Note: Cr Mike Lord attended the South Dunedin public meeting on 7 March 2016.
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
What if? Dunedin... 
Wouldn’t it be a great idea if people looked at the whole picture before declaring Here or There was due to be swamped by melted icebergs! Doesn’t geology have a weeny teeny shred of relevance?
Tectonic. There’s a word! Earthquakes! A panic, Chicken Licken word, like the term Climate Change from which the word Anthropomorphic is usually omitted irrespective of whether it is integal to the intended meaning, or not.
There’s another tectonic thingy that happens too, doesn’t have to be associated with buildings falling down and killing people: the land rises – relative to sea level, if sea level stays the same the houses and roads and cycleways become further above sea level than they were.
If it rises slower than sea level – opposite. If it rises and sea level also rises, the calculations are more complex.
In other words, pronouncements about predicted sea level rise are meaningless without pronouncements about land level rise, or fall.
Both benefit from careful examination of the records going back further than Nana and Pop’s engagement party. Both are worthy of more serious consideration when they are based on facts, not faith.
The worst part of Dr Wright’s spoutings is the statement that defines all of her erraneous conclusions. She states that sea levels are already rising.
Just exactly where is the scientific evidence of that postulate?
Dr.Wright does not appear to have a scientific bent. Is she a doctor of philosophy? It appears so – the philosophy of anthromorphic climate change
A PhD is Doctor of Philosophy in their chosen field. Doctor of Physics is not navel gazing. Will you stop this meta that academics and art historians are impractical and discountable?
The meta is that the PhD or stoopid academic-ferrit in art history or whatever…. is Not focused or internationally proven to add to the field of climate science, geology, marine geology, surveying or other relevant discipline from which to alarm or kindly alert us to SLOW CHANGE THAT IS NOT FLOOD POTENTIAL BY SEA LEVEL RISE AT SOUTH DUNEDIN. We have got a freaking bullet train of lemmings right now HYPOTHETICALLY THINKING to move people out of their Dunedin seaside properties and Actually, RIGHT NOW moving those good people INSTANTANEOUSLY away from their property values and personal investment in a downward spiral. Um, because when the land don’t ever flood who will be the first IN to grab the land and houses for their own gain should even one raindrop fall ?!
Dr Dr MD – an ONLY PhD-academic [not far from the word, epidemic – by the sound….] without scientific fact* is less than any degree at all: a DANGER. Or does not personally own a tide gauge or set of same infernal machines, that are rigorously operated and maintained (corporately); or the independently expertly peer reviewed set of readings, data sets and analyses achieved over a very significant long period of time.
And most certainly DOES NOT answer to “land uplift”** if shouted from the bastard heights (should the angel Hillary be listening).
*In the most basic sense, a scientific fact is an objective and verifiable observation, in contrast with a hypothesis or theory, which is intended to explain or interpret facts.
**Uplift, in geology, vertical elevation of the Earth’s surface in response to natural causes. Broad, relatively slow and gentle uplift is termed warping, or epeirogeny, in contrast to the more concentrated and severe orogeny, the uplift associated with earthquakes and mountain building.
[Wikipedia quicksearch definitions]
I respect academe – in the field of their expertise, Dr Meta, but a physics graduate, not a Phd in physics at all, a PhD in public policy, interference in our lives, in this case sanctioned by the state. And global warming, sealevel rise are not included in the study of physics, but the study of statistics. What is the average level of the sea today, last year and in the last ten thousand years. The limestone 50 miles inland from Oamaru would suggest that over time without man, the sea has fallen dramatically. What Dr Wright needs to overcome is the lack of evidence that her founding philosophy is based around the belief that the sealevel is rising now. I live beside the sea and I see it rising and falling with the tide, but zero evidence of any ingress by the sea where I live. Now it seems that some believe that sea level is rising in some places and not others. The reason it’s called sealevel is because it is level, not up in Brighton and down in Macandrew Bay.
Tectonic movement in New Zealand is a fascinating subject. In the not too distant past, NZ was completely submerged under the sea, and mostly flat, no Alps. The West half of the South Island has lifted many kilometres. Not a few piffling metres. Mt Cook would dwarf Mt Everest if the rock were a little stronger. The North Island has been blanketed in tens of metres of pyroclastic volcanic eruption – imagine a massive Mt Vesuvius blanket. We have so much to worry about, we have nothing to worry about.
How about various academics and art historians stop being impractical and discountable, so as not to bring discredit onto all in their disciplines? Then we’ll be thankfully able to give up the duty of wagging scornful fingers when they spouting piffle.
Got it, Dr Jan Wright is a doctor of philosophy in the field of Public Policy.
She has a degree in physics.
Not much of a science background, but a definite leaning to Social Engineering through public policy.
And get this she presented the 2005 Cycle awards.
I bet there wasn’t a bronze medal- not enough entries.
Why is it that only South Dunedin is being highlighted about climate change, liquefaction and sea level rising. The Taieri sits on a massive reservoir of water. A good shake and liquefaction could see Mosgiel disappear. The predicted sea level rise will see the airport and much of the surrounding farm land go under water. As parts of the Taieri are below sea level now. Remember the floods on the Taieri of the 1980s, before ‘climate change’ had been invented. The airport and roads were out for months. Now with 100 year events expected every two years if the sea level rose 30cm. It could be time to start looking for another site for the airport on higher ground. Tarras could be the site for a new airport with a new subdivision on the drawing board.
Until the T word, Emma, you had me going there for a minute.
Nice one, Emma!
Yes the airport is already the lowest part of Dunedin – but unlike South Dunedin it’s protected by levees – which are the ORC’s responsibility, not the DCC’s … why aren’t they (the ORC) responsible for all the urban catchment?
Dunedin International Airport could be the first international airport to be solely serviced by float planes.
Climate Change invented – Wash your mouth out! The climate has been changing since either God or Big Bang started this whole outfit.
Anthropomorphic climate change was invented as another method like 2k and other scares helpful to public servants and politicians to keep the populous tremulous and contributing ever increasing PAYE to ensure their annual pay rises.
I like Tarras as a new airport, that would make duck shooting even more fun.
Updated Post
(added) Letter to the ODT editor from N. P. Johnstone, MIPENZ dated 24.3.16
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More letters:
ODT 29.3.16
ODT 4.4.16 [click to enlarge]
Any truth to the rumour that a public excluded climate change meeting has been called for next week. To consider the relocation of Dunedin City up to Middlemarch. The one in one hundred year meeting has been brought forward 99 years.
The Tarras mayor (Dave Cull) is p’d off that Middlemarch was chosen. I mean how short sighted is that, once the sea rises as far as Middlemarch, they will have to go again to Tarras, duplicating the Octagon, the airport and meaning that the Middlemarch stadium will be an anachronism. However the owners of businesses in Middlemarch are celebrating planned additions to the cycleway.
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{Not considered a dimunition of position or value – to upset or slight Central Otago. -Eds}
I can see now why the idea of a new pool was floated for Mosgiel.
Ed., there’s nothing dimunitive about Tarras or Middlemarch, it is just that Tarras is uphill from Middlemarch and as a result of the likely outcome of pulling rank, whilst the chair of the planning committee has a business in Middlemarch, the mayor outranks her and has a large eminently subdivisible tract of Tarras and as such if I was a betting man I’d back Tarras as the new capital of Otago, imagine tasting mussels from what was formerly Lake Dunstan, and surfing at the mouth of the Lindis. I mean that climate change could be a huge windfall for the mayor once his subdivision is approved.
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{Couldn’t possibly comment or be thrown in jail. All new municipalities require a penal institution or two. Employment. -Eds}
It’s a dam to protect the Taieri plain from flooding during climate change years.
A wise move to build the new Mosgiel pool on floating foundations, with climate change on the way. Apparently the idea came from the reserve bank who have had experience with floating the dollar.
The [deleted, but hard to read, were the letters L, T & A ?] have contributed considerably as they have floated plenty of dollars down the mudtanks – most of it in the new decreased values of South Dunedin homeowners.
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{Mmm, back to deletions and redactions again, with best guesses. -Eds}
Ed., the LTA, the Lawn Tennis Association, Wimbledon! You are mistaken of course, blaming the Lawn Tennis Association is akin to blaming climate change for the South Dunedin floods. And such a libel could cause the LTA to sue – and they would win.
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{Holy Mackerel, now we’re worried. We so used to enjoy tennis. The association has become quite steeply litigious in guarding its memberships. As well as its stray balls. -Eds}
Holy Mackerel, that’s the fish you’ll soon catch at Tarras-by-the-sea, at the annual Tennis tournament to be held in Munro Lane stadium tennis centre, an adjunct to the new Tarras stadium adjacent.
One thing is for certain, the proposed subdivision of land in Munro Lane, Tarras may be opposed for housing, but the new Wimbletarras and TarrasOtago stadium planned for the land will not be opposed.
Tarras-by-the-sea: Will there be sand sausages, mud tanks and albatrosses at Tarras-by-the-sea?
Received from Neil Johnstone
Thu, 14 Apr 2016 at 9:19 p.m.
█ Message: I have just spotted all the posts on PCE’s address to some planners in Dunedin. Back in January, I wrote a brief letter to PCE [below] seeking justification for her poorly-informed comments on the 2015 South Dunedin flooding, especially with respect to ground water levels. Sometime later I received a response from one of her people. I am happy to provide this on my return to Dunedin. The response was entirely unconvincing, comical if the matter wasn’t serious. I have drafted a response, but have been far too busy to complete this. To summarise, two reports were cited by PCE’s office as justification. Staggeringly, they were both written prior to the June 2015 flood. No peer reviewer’s identity was provided; nor was any data supporting her views on rising groundwater in June 2015 provided.
[click to enlarge]
Neil Johnstone is a man with impeccable qualifications as a commentator on the local scene vis the South Dunedin floods. Not only is he qualified and experienced but most of his career has been devoted to the local area, a rare thing indeed. Just why the DCC haven’t called on his expertise as a referee on the situation instead of the report of the PCE’s Dr Wright is an ongoing mystery.
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{Moderated. -Eds}
Why the DCC is keen on the Wright statements is blindingly obvious Calvin. Her background and beliefs are those that offer a lifeline to anyone wanting to shift responsibility for the floods onto something which is “out of anyone’s control”. So convenient it’s almost unbelievable. Of course it would make sense for the DCC to consult Johnstone, but then again, is doing the sensible thing something that the DCC are renowned for? Leave everyone to ponder that and come to their own conclusions.
█ SITE NOTICE
The debate in the original post and this accompanying thread is considered by the website owner to be clearly in the public interest.
Elizabeth Kerr
Site Owner | What if? Dunedin
Thanks to Neil Johnstone for his efforts. I look forward to seeing the PCE’s response.
Received from Neil Johnstone
Mon, 18 Apr 2016 at 10:10 a.m.
Message: Two responses that I have received from PCE; note dates of replies
and referenced reports, addressee “Mr Jennings”, flowery, indecipherable
signatures and failure to provide satisfactory answers to three simple
questions. I will provide a brief commentary tonight to describe their inaccuracy and worse. Bottom line appears to be that the Office doesn’t analyse data (or maybe prefers to ignore).
[click to enlarge]
Received from Neil Johnstone
Mon, 18 Apr 2016 at 7:34 p.m.
[begins]
As a commentary on the Office of PCE’s response to me of 19 February 2016, I would make the following brief points:
1. The quote from page 40 of the PCE report is truncated, thus losing context. It comes from a chapter entitled ‘High Ground Water Levels’; that is the predominant (virtually sole) topic of the chapter.
2. The quote from page 43 attributes the flooding to heavy rain and high water table.
3. The quote from page 69 states that the drains could not cope with a high water table and little fall to the sea.
4. These paragraphs are stated to “support the conclusion that the flood event was the result of a combination of heavy rainfall, low-lying land with a high water table, and a drainage system that was unable to cope”. Whether that “conclusion” has been produced elsewhere, I do not know. There is no analysis or attempt to apportion relevance. There is no mention of operational failures or land use changes.
5. Rekker, 2012 and; BECA, 2014 are included in the PCE’s report’s references. Obviously, neither can credibly be used to describe the causes of a flood that occurred 3 and 1 years later, respectively.
6. The writer(s) of the report seem unaware of the findings of ORC’s report on the June 2015 flood which details actual ground water data recorded before and throughout the event.
7. No peer reviewer has been named, and no peer review of the PCE report has been provided.
8. I shall leave your readers to draw their own conclusions.
Neil Johnstone
[ends]
Nothing new here Neil, the climatechangers make it up if any facts dispute their theories. First questions should be –
Where is the empirical scientific evidence that the sea level is rising Now.
If it isn’t rising now, when will it start.
If it is rising, how quickly is it rising?
If it is rising minutely, what facts support any rapid increase.
Evidence to be supplied with answers.
Wasn’t the June flood report by the DCC due on the 16 April? Or did I just dream that?
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{You dreamt it, or got a digit wrong. -Eds}
█ The DCC report will be tabled at the Infrastructure Services Committee meeting on 26 April 2016. The report will be available a few days before at the council website http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/
Have just written a comment to ODT Online about this – fit to explode, if they don’t publish it will end up here, redacted ?!
The following is a cautionary tale, and much much worse as the article unfolds. Do read….
Tue, 19 Apr 2016
ODT: Consulting on climate response
The Dunedin City Council will involve the community in developing a response to climate change, a sustainability subcommittee says. Council corporate policy manager Maria Ioannou updated members of the sustainability audit subcommittee in the Civic Centre yesterday. The council working group, formed in 2011 to respond to climate change issues, had decided to engage with key stakeholders and the community before starting any further work.
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The DCC Sustainability Audit Subcommittee [chaired by university academic Janet Stephenson ?!!] met on Monday 18 April 2016 in the Otaru Room Civic Centre, The Octagon at 3pm
Agenda – SAS – 18/04/2016 (PDF, 284.2 KB)
The agenda and reports are located together in this file.
AGENDA (page)
1 Public Forum (4)
2 Apologies (4)
3 Confirmation of Agenda (4)
4 Declaration of Interest (5)
5 Confirmation of Minutes (6)
5.1 Sustainability Audit Subcommittee meeting – 18 April 2016 (6)
Matters Arising from the Minutes
PART A REPORTS (Committee has power to decide these matters)
6 Update on the Climate Change Adaptation work (12)
7 Sustainability within Customer Services Agency activity (15)
8 Wellington City Council Energy Calculator The Chair will lead a discussion on the Wellington 2050 Energy Calculator.
This can be viewed at http://www.climatecalculator.org.nz/
9 Items for Consideration by the Chair
Eighteen pages of “gobbledygook’. The shame of it is that the ratepayers are funding this nonsense as we speak. The mystery is exactly where these ideas are coming from. It most certainly is not empirical science, so one can only presume it is being promulgated and promoted from and by people or organisations with a motive. Our committee and staff are the gullible that are pawns in this almost certainly financial chase.
You missed a bit, Calvin. On page 12 of the SAS agenda+reports we have this:
For around South Dunedin and along the edge of the harbour:
— Engage with the community on climate change adaptation
— Develop non-protection options
— Undertake a cost benefit analysis of identified protection and non-protection options
For the benefit of the ODT, “Non-protection options” means “managed retreat”. As a general rule any decision-making based around the Sustainable Development ideology will be severely fucked-up. If the DCC was following the law (LGA) they would be trying to do this:
“to meet the current and future needs of communities for good-quality local infrastructure in a way that is most cost-effective for households and businesses”.
Sustainable Development has different goals: self promotion being one. The South Dunedin flood has been a great marketing opportunity to sell this poisonous ideology. Another sales technique is ritual sacrifices – not just harmless rituals like recycling paper, but also extremely costly sacrifices like the suburb of South Dunedin. Managed Retreat keeps being mentioned by Dave Cull and his Sustainable foot-soldiers. The citizens of South Dunedin have been through enough. They don’t need these lunatics and their “non-protection options”. Also there is no threat. Sea level rise is so slow that it won’t be a problem in the next 900 years.
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{Election Year. The above comment is published in the public interest. -Eds}
Two interesting items in today’s (20 April ODT) caught my eye. First is the fact that the University of Otago’s Centre for Science Communication is sponsoring Tim Flannery, ‘global warming activist’ to speak in the Regent Theatre tomorrow night. Guess what this prophet of gloom will be saying. Not much doubt where the University stands on this issue.
The other item which caught my eye was Gwynne Dyer’s Warming accelerates in unprecedented way. I was staggered by his claim: “Last year, the average temperature reached one full degree Celsius higher than the pre-industrial average. That is halfway to the plus-two degree level which all the world’s governments have agreed we must never exceed, but at least we got to plus-one slowly, over a period of two centuries.” Staggering that the ODT accepts and publishes without question this stuff. Never mind that two centuries ago, science and technology had no means of establishing the World’s mean temperature in any meaningful way. Nor the fact that no man had set foot in Antarctica or the North Pole regions. Large tracts of the world had never seen nor heard of the science of atmosphere effects on weather or temperature in any meaningful way. C02 was not even known as was oil. Coal was in its infancy as a mass energy producer, and electricity had yet to be understood as an energy source.
None of this deters the so called scientific ‘glitteratti’ from making these outrageous claims, despite the fact that it is at least established that historically the world was in a ‘Little Ice Age’ at the time, subsequently morphing into a ‘warming period’ which is presently still not established if it has reached its zenith or moving back towards a cooling period. No, let’s all get on the band wagon of computer modelling and ride the tax and be the damned popular idiom of doom. Like Lemmings led by ‘zealots’, the world follows in lock step to the tune of “onward Christian soldiers marching as to war”, till it wakes up to the fact that it was all a dream.
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{Aspiring Conversations festival – Wanaka (April 22 to 24). The programme features climatologist Tim Flannery, 2010 New Zealander of the Year Sir Ray Avery, Kiwiblog editor David Farrar, Rhodes Scholar Max Harris, and author Patricia Grace. ODT Link -Eds}
The point as I read it yesterday is that Gwynne Dyer warns of non linear climate change – like a whole new Rash.
Non linear weather change is no surprise to me. There’s even a song about it – Four Seasons in One Day. Climate change, now that’s a greyhound of a different hue and cry.
PCE and her followers need to be PUT OUT OF BUSINESS
Latest unqualified NONSENSE from an IDIOT
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### radionz.co.nz Wed, 6 Jul 2016 at 2:18 p.m.
Sea level threat: MPs told to prepare for compensation claims
By Mei Heron, Political Reporter
The government must be prepared for people demanding compensation as sea level rises make some homes uninsurable, MPs have been told. Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Jan Wright told the Finance and Expenditure Select Committee today that, in the near future, insurers might decide not to cover areas at high-risk of flooding and coastal erosion. Her report, delivered at the end of last year, identified at least 9000 homes around the country located less than 50cm above spring high tides. Dr Wright said the government needed to take leadership as dealing with sea level rise was too complex for individual councils.
“When houses become uninsurable, or insurance becomes unaffordable, or there are certain restrictions put into policies, people are going to be very upset. And so if there are claims of compensation, how does that break down between local government and central government? I just think it’s not too early to start to think about those issues,” she said.
People were still going to want compensation if they were not insured, Dr Wright said. “You just need to look at the red zone in Christchurch where people who were uninsured, the government still needed to pay out some money in the end,” she said.
Dr Wright also wanted real estate agents to include the risk of sea level rise or flooding when selling property so owners could be more informed.
RNZ Link
█ Read the PCE report at http://www.pce.parliament.nz/publications/preparing-new-zealand-for-rising-seas-certainty-and-uncertainty
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Don’t believe the CRAP; worry about bringing pressure to bear on accountabilities of the insurance industry and local authorities with agendas to make money off or defraud the citizens.