Monday, 21 November, 2011 – 12:40

Campaign Speech on the Emissions Trading Scheme

Don Brash, Leader ACT New Zealand

Bureta Park Inn, Tauranga

Monday 21 November 2011

My talk today is about the economy. It’s one of three that I’ll be giving this week as New Zealanders close in on the polls. This particular one focuses on the Emissions Trading Scheme, one of the most damaging policy choices that New Zealand has made in recent years.

This is an adopted article.

New Zealand’s hyperactive adoption of the world’s only all-sectors-all-gases Emissions Trading Scheme will not save us money on international obligations, because after the Kyoto Protocol expires next year there will not be any such obligations. It will not affect the global climate because New Zealand’s emissions form an utterly trivial fraction of global emissions [0.2% - Ed.]. It will not set an example to the world: if anything it will show the world that trying to lead on climate change policy is counterproductive. It might improve “Brand New Zealand,” but only at an unacceptable cost.

First, though, let me set some context. Read more… »

For those hoping our ETS will stem our emissions by requiring a price for them, the Greens have got it badly wrong.

The financiers won’t get rich, neither will the Earth become cool, because the price is collapsing here, too.

First Europe (two or three times!) and now New Zealand. When will the government refund all the extra we’ve been paying for petrol and power?

How much does our ETS increase petrol & power prices?

The following passage is from our government’s web page explaining the ETS. It’s only a short piece, but there are numerous examples of non-sequiturs, or illogical derivations from the previous statement.

Anyone convinced it’s based on science or logic? Anyone at all?

The government reasons*

Most forms of travel are fuelled by liquid fossil fuels, such as petrol and diesel, which result in emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

New Zealanders travel frequently and have a high level of vehicle ownership. Our use of freight transport has increased as the economy has grown, and our geographical isolation makes us reliant on ships and planes to connect us and our products to the rest of the world.

Between 1990 and 2006, total transport emissions increased by 5.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, or 64 per cent. If we do not make changes to the ways we travel and transport freight, or to the technology and fuels we use, transport energy use will grow further. Public transport, biofuels, electric vehicles, rail, cycling and walking, as well as improved vehicle efficiency will all help – as will the ETS.

^*Of course, this is among the worst of oxymorons.

The Herald today fumes over fumes from farming.

There’s so much in their editorial with which to take issue, but a single point glares out from the page. They say:

The whole point of the ETS is that emitters take financial responsibility.

The Herald appears to replace concern for the environment with a vindictive crusade to lay blame. And I thought they just wanted to repair the environment.

Who is the emitter?

Is it the farmer or his customer? Or the customer’s customer? Surely everyone who eats butter or cheese shares a slice of the “blame” for the emissions caused in producing what he eats.

So the final customer should pay a share.

You think they do? But, in an auction, how does the farmer ensure extra on top of the auction price for his milk or meat or whatever, to compensate him for the ETS tax? That’s not going to happen.

Farming is unique in being mostly helpless to recover the ETS costs. Fonterra can adjust their wholesale prices or their payout, Air NZ can charge extra for a carbon footprint and ordinary businesses set or negotiate higher prices as costs increase.

But farmers’ selling prices are dictated by the auction system. They can neither alter the prices nor reduce their emissions. It’s like shooting trout in a barrel. Hardly fair. Unless they’re on a canning or a supermarket contract, and we know how easy it is for the farmer to dictate terms to the buyer…

Responsibility?

The farmer bears the same responsibility for his animal’s “emissions” as Australia bears for the fumes from Chinese power stations burning Australian lignite.

Which is none, of course – China takes responsibility for those emissions; or it would, if it joined the game.

The farmer’s final customers should take responsibility for the products they select, for without their purchase, the farmer would not produce it. Still, it’s far too hard to levy every user of mutton, bacon or milk; much easier to attack the helpless farmer.

And everyone knows the ETS won’t repair the environment anyway.

It’s all symbolic. What a sham.

And we call ourselves grown-ups.

♣

Few people admire farming as we once did when we understood where this country’s wealth was created. On the contrary, farming has come under sustained attack, and from none more strongly than the National Party, once almost a fellowship of farmers and the industry’s staunchest supporter. Now our formerly admired farmers must tolerate the impending ETS tax on ruminant eructation, which farmers are helpless to reduce, yet for which they are further harassed by the modern epithet of “emitter”. As though those clean, natural gases could pollute the environment that has been creating them in vast quantities for millions of years. The “carbon tax” is a significant imposition, yet it’s hardly remarked upon except by those who strive to get it noticed and repealed — or others, apparently more numerous (certainly more vocal and popular with the media), who would gladly see it increased. The Coalition here rails against the unreasonable burden of an ETS which purports to “fight” in our name against so-called “anthropogenic global warming”. Do we still call it that? I guess this month’s stupid synonym is “climate disruption.” But since climate never goes for long without disruption the term defines tautology — how completely brainless to then declare it a crime and seek a culprit. (This press release first published on Scoop).

Press Release: New Zealand Climate Science Coalition

Friday, 16 September 2011, 5:08 pm

NZ farming remains at threat from ETS

“New Zealanders know that their prosperity relies heavily on the farm sector” says the Hon Barry Brill, chairman of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, “and yet the biggest threat to the future of farming is an attack by our own Government. Read more… »

Global agreement transcends environment.

– by Barry Brill, Chairman of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition

When the Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1997, the base year for calculating emissions was back-dated to 1990. They knew then that the ratification process would take many years (it was actually completed in 2005), so why did it hark back to the distant past?

EU

Two big European events occurred in 1991. As a result of the Soviet collapse, heavy industry had closed down in droves throughout the East. And North Sea gas came ashore in the West with a “dash to gas” displacing coal power in the UK, Netherlands, Germany and Denmark.

At the time of the Berlin COP in 1995, EU countries collectively had enough past credits from the 1991-94 period to cover all the obligations they later accepted under the Protocol. It was a no-brainer for them to demand that other developed countries match the EU misfortunes during “the First Commitment Period.” Read more… »

Barry Brill’s sharp analysis brings the ridiculous, unsustainable logic of the Hon Nick Smith under a scrutiny it cannot weather — and that’s without even mentioning the absence of scientific support for the theory of dangerous anthropogenic global warming. What warming? What sea level rise? The sooner John Key’s cabinet realises how Key and Smith have been leading them a nonsensical climatic dance around our trading image and the chance to make a quick buck from trading in the empty-headed, vaporific “carbon credits” the sooner we can eliminate the expensive bureaucratic carbon footprint we’ve acquired for reporting our Kyoto compliance (this press release first published on Scoop).

Press Release: New Zealand Climate Science Coalition

Friday, 16 September 2011, 11:01 am

“The Caygill Review’s recommendation for doubling the current emissions trading scheme (ETS) energy levy over the next three years may be acceptable to the Minister for Climate Change, but it is certainly not acceptable to the people of New Zealand,” said the Hon Barry Brill, chairman of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition.

“The Government’s constant refrain has been that New Zealand will not try to be a world leader and that Kiwis will never be forced to do more than their ‘fair share’ in reducing emissions,” said Mr Brill.

“But what’s ‘fair’ about the ETS?” Read more… »

– by Barry Brill, Chairman of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition

“Biofuels” are combustible liquids made from plants. They can replace petrol and diesel in our engines and are extracted from many different types of plants.

These biologically-based fuels have long been supported by green activists because when you burn them they only emit as much CO2 as the plants absorbed while growing. Their CO2 is taken out of the atmosphere and then returned, while fossil fuels add new CO2, removing nothing. Using biofuels adds no new CO2.

But it was difficult to ignore the fact that world food prices soared in 2008 as a result of US legislation requiring the conversion of US corn into fuel for motor vehicles. That price explosion led to farmers everywhere seeking to expand their cropping areas, often chopping down forests in the process. Here was another of the unforeseen consequences which seem endemic in climate policies.

This led to the new concept known as indirect land-use change (ILUC) being brought into the calculations. If you take a field of grain and sell the crop for biofuel, then somebody, somewhere, will go hungry unless those missing tonnes of grain are grown elsewhere. If the shortfall is grown on farmland created by cutting down forests or draining peat land, it can create enough new climate-warming emissions to cancel out any benefits from using the biofuels in the first place.

That’s an indirect land use change (ILUC). Read more… »

Barry Brill, OBE, chairman of the NZ Climate Science Coalition, former Minister of Science and Technology and former Minister of Energy, thoughtfully offered the ETS Review Panel some assistance in sorting out the issues. He sent the following letter on 28 February to David Caygill, chairman of the ETS Review Panel. Seeing the sharp Brill intellect delineate the economic and political issues with his usual surgical accuracy we await the panel’s Issues Statement with keen interest. Let’s hope the panel approaches its duties with the larger portion of at least one mind still open.

almost — they just want to decide describe the issues

Dear David

I understand that the Review Panel intends to publish an “Issues Statement” prior to undertaking its proposed consultation process on the ETS Review 2011. This will presumably provide a summary of the key issues seen to be raised by the Review’s terms of reference – and might also present the Panel’s preliminary views on some or all of those key issues.

I would like to put forward some suggestions regarding 10 matters the Panel might consider appropriate for inclusion in the Issues Statement.

HELPING NEW ZEALAND TO DELIVER ITS ‘FAIR SHARE’ OF INTERNATIONAL ACTION TO REDUCE EMISSIONS, INCLUDING MEETING ANY INTERNATIONAL OBLIGATIONS

Expectations of international negotiations have changed enormously since the ETS legislation was before Parliament in November 2009. In particular:

• USA, Canada, Japan and Australia have all rejected their proposed ETS mechanisms.
• No other country has enacted any form of ETS since the EU in 2004.
• No other country has sought to suppress emissions by ‘putting a price on’ motor spirits; or on any greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide.
• There is now little prospect of any ‘second commitment period’ under the Kyoto Protocol.
• No legally binding international treaty is likely to be agreed within the next few years. Read more… »

The Gisborne Herald of 12 January, 2011, carried the following letter from my good friend Neil Henderson, founder of Climate Realists, and who has kindly consented to this republication. We might all learn from Neil’s wonderful political instincts. I could mention that the 23% Neil mentions, by which our present emissions exceed our 1990 emissions, match the population increase we have experienced since then. Nick Smith doesn’t mention it, though.

ETS ‘game’ achieves very little

THE terms of reference for the 2011 review of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) have been announced. The need for an ETS in the first place is not up for review, so one must ask “why bother having a review?” If Minister Nick Smith and his colleagues are so convinced the science is settled on Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW), then why do they not get on with the action instead of fluffing around?

Neil Henderson

Let me illustrate with an analogy. Suppose river flow experts told us that the Waipaoa river system was changing in such a way that the present flood protection system would allow Gisborne to be flooded so often in 50 years that the city would be unsafe to live in. They further calculated that to maintain the present level of protection the stopbanks would need to be raised two metres. It is obvious that if we decide to only raise the banks by half a metre, our city would be in grave danger of regular flooding.

The “experts” advising on AGW argue that we need to restrict warming to no more than another two degrees. Reducing emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 is considered by them to be the minimum action required to achieve this. Our Government accepts the need to hold the temperature rise to two degrees. Why then are they procrastinating about the action required? Read more… »

Natural wisps of cloud in the thin Auckland air on 4 January. It is into such thin air as this that all our atmospheric emissions disappear. I said ‘disappear’ and I meant it, because our emissions of ‘greenhouse’ gases are literally invisible. In addition, nearly half of them get absorbed into the land and the sea, NO MATTER HOW MUCH WE EMIT, and nobody knows how it happens. Isn’t that fabulous?

Never more truth said in error

Brian Fallow, in the Herald today, emphasis added (h/t Richard Cumming):

“The review, to be chaired by David Caygill, is a statutory requirement. It is expressly not to revisit the issues, debated at tedious length for at least the past decade, about whether New Zealand should be taking action on climate change at all or whether an emotions trading scheme is the most appropriate response.”

Oh, the emotions trading scheme? Ha-ha! His error illuminates an inconvenient truth about the ETS! It’s founded on emotion. Yes, Brian, I know it was a simple mistake, saying ‘emotions’ instead of ‘emissions’, but it reveals a great deal about the ETS and it’s worth laughing at because you say it again! Further on:

The Obama Administration has acknowledged that a national cap-and-trade (emotions trading) scheme is a non-starter for at least the next couple of years. Japan has shelved its plans for an ETS. Climate policy in Australia remains up in the air.

There can be no clearer example of an “error” revealing the writer’s true thinking. For the ETS depends entirely on trading on our emotions. There’s no science persuading us to reduce our emissions — there’s no evidence. There’s only speculation and the electronic dreams of computer models. The activists convince us only through emotive appeals to save polar bears and other cuddly animals, using graphs of carbon dioxide and temperature to illustrate fraudulent descriptions of climate science. Read more… »

Carbon trading: Sell a product you don’t have and can’t deliver to a buyer who doesn’t want it.

That is the very definition of easy money, yet the NZ Government has proposed that process and legalised it in what they call the “Emissions Trading Scheme.” Though they created it to “fight climate change” they now openly admit it will have no effect upon the climate. But, persuading us to agree to something on grounds later admitted to be false is the definition of fraud. And, since they claim to be “fighting climate change” while admitting the climate will be unaffected, they reveal a distinct denial.

So, regrettably, our Government is controlled by fraudsters and climate deniers.

Since the Government knows about the climate through the climate specialists in NIWA, is NIWA’s scientific advice also controlled by fraudsters and climate deniers? Since the climate specialists in NIWA are also the climate specialists in the NZ Royal Society, is the Royal Society, too, controlled by fraudsters and climate deniers?

The following quotes are from a NZ Herald article, The Carbon Detectives, published Dec 20, 2010.

Bart Chilton, a commissioner at the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, says if the US creates a nationwide cap-and-trade market, carbon could become the world’s most widely traded commodity.

But it’s a “commodity” in fiction, not truth. The commodity of “carbon” is unlike oil, pork bellies or platinum. You don’t possess the commodity you sell, it’s impossible to deliver and anyway the buyer has no reason to receive it.

Such a contract is witless, created only to extract money from the unwitting. If you’re awake, you might become rich, but at the expense of your fellow citizens, who don’t really get a poor bargain: they get no bargain, for the price of everything connected with “carbon” emissions rises and they must pay the increase or go without. There is no benefit.

In a society where getting to work needs a few litres of petrol and keeping the house liveable in winter needs a few kilowatts of electricity, going without is not an option.

Gregg Marland, a staff scientist at the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, says, “If you’re selling oil, you’re actually transferring something tangible. If somebody lies, somebody loses,” he says. “In a CO2 transaction, you can lie and both win.” The seller gets paid, and the buyer has his credit for compliance. “We’re going to create a situation where both sides can win by cheating,” Marland says.

The consequence of this spectacular foolishness cannot be a reduction in atmospheric levels of CO2. Not that that’s a tragedy, because nobody cares and the climate won’t notice. But the money it’s costing us to not reduce CO2 is perfectly scandalous!

The only precedent for such willing self-delusion lies in the Dutch tulip bulb craze, the South Sea Company bubble and the original 1920 Ponzi scheme.

Wake up, my people!

by Richard Cumming

The Climate Conversation Group mounts no argument in favour of real pollution. Real pollution should be eliminated at source, no argument. But nervous, susceptible people call carbon dioxide “pollution” even though all plant life depends utterly upon it and never complains when it gets more. So, to demonstrate the purity of carbon dioxide, here is a picture of it. Forget the images of nuclear power stations puffing steam from their cooling towers, or even, criminally, factory chimneys belching dark, evil gases from their flues; they are put before us to illegitimately malign carbon dioxide and for no other reason. Here is the life-giving carbon dioxide in the raw — clear, odourless, tasteless, so rare we measure it in parts per million (now at 400 ppmv) and completely natural. Breathe deeply.

Our approach

The reality of political decision-making is that much of it is driven by the bevy of backroom advisers retained by the government for the purpose of providing sound, unbiased and well-researched information as the basis on which to make the aforesaid decisions. This group of people are at the forefront of policy formation and much of the research and analysis by them is economic in nature.

What better place then, to go looking for an example of economic analysis to gauge the level of analytical critique directed at the NZ ETS, than the Institute of Policy Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand?

A convenient example that addresses an ETS issue “Free Allocation in the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme A Critical Analysis” Policy Quarterly – Volume 6, Issue 2, February 2010, by Christina Hood will do nicely. The author has impeccable credentials and presents some perfect material for us to gain an insight into the sphere of policy influence in respect to climate change policy. It should be noted that the article has been sourced from outside of the stream that would normally be compiled into executive summary for ministerial consideration, but it is not out of the realm of possibility that an article such as this may gain some traction on the strength of its source — hence the caveat next. Read more… »

An ancient pyramid makes you think.

by Viv Forbes

20th December 2010

One of the fastest growing industries in the world is based on a pyramid of frauds and its inevitable collapse will be worse than the sub-prime crash.

The Global Warming Industry is now fed by billions of dollars from western taxpayers and consumers. It is based on the unproven and now discredited claim that man’s production of carbon dioxide causes dangerous global warming.

The basic fraud is this:

There is no evidence that carbon dioxide controls world temperature – just a theory and the manipulated results from a handful of giant computer models that very few people have checked or understand. But there is clear evidence from historical records of atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperature that carbon dioxide does not control temperature. Rather the reverse – as solar or volcanic heat warms the oceans, the waters expel carbon dioxide. Global warming causes an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, not the reverse. Read more… »

The fun these feet have in the mud is ephemeral – invisible, transient – and the mire in Cancun is spun of similar gossamer – a false, invented dream. Yet the Cancun mire means monetary mischief for me and mine and all mere mortals. Fight –
fight now. Drop back to sleep at your peril.

– by Joe Fone, member of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition

The political consensus in this country is that New Zealand will look good on the world stage because we have an emissions trading scheme in place and that we are therefore leading the world in “fighting climate change”. This dubious honour comes despite earlier assurances by Prime Minister John Key that New Zealand would be a “fast follower” behind Australia.

Back in 2005, Nick Smith argued that any form of carbon tax would be “mad” because “New Zealanders will be the only people in the world paying it” and that it “will drive up the costs of living and undermine the competitiveness of New Zealand business for negligible environmental gain.” Read more… »

Don’t lie to me.

A CCG reader reported on Nick Smith’s presentation on the ETS last Tuesday (I’m not sure where, as I couldn’t see a Tuesday meeting in his published schedule) and mentioned his use of a combined CO2/temperature graph showing a good correlation (h/t to Bulaman). He mentioned its resemblance to the famous hockey stick graph of late 20th Century global temperatures. It deserves a separate post. He says:

The road show here on Tuesday was well attended and a polite reasoned session. The 2 cops in the back of the room after the Gore fiasco might also have moderated things a bit! The rationale for being in the ETS was effectively the precautionary principle jacked up to cost us $1.5 billion. The evidence was our hockey stick friend with CO2 and temp graphed together.

At the Royal Akarana Yacht Club presentation on Thursday which yours truly attended, the combined graph Smith showed us resembles the Mann hockey stick graph, but it is different. It comes from the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change; you can see it in a brochure at the NZ government Climate Change site. The brochures were handed around at the meeting.

This is the graph: Read more… »

Nick Smith, one of our leaders. We would hold him to account for many of his statements on the ETS.

Dr Smith will be at the Royal Akarana Yacht Club tonight, speaking on the Emissions Trading Scheme. The meeting begins at 7:30 pm.

I’ll be there. I encourage anyone of a sceptical cast of mind to attend also and together we can put some pointed questions.

Come early, introduce yourself to me (white beard, black jacket). We can support each other and the cause of truth.

The Carbon Challenge. Whether you believe in dangerous AGW or not, this book presents strong reasons to delay, disable or destroy the ETS. The danger is that warmists will want to strengthen it, ignoring our Chief Scientific Advisor, Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, who says there is no scientific reason for having an ETS, no matter how strong, because it won’t affect the climate. If we ceased all our emissions and returned to a medieval civilisation, still we would fail to affect the climate.

… or is it?

The National government is determined to fire up an emissions trading scheme (ETS) on July 1st, but a new study criticises it forcefully.

NZ sceptics, led by ACT’s John Boscawen, have for some months campaigned against the ETS on scientific and economic grounds, inside and outside the Parliament. But this study by two Victoria University academics – believers in anthropogenic global warming (AGW) – could do more to force a government change of mind than any protest action so far.

Since it comes from within the warmist camp, John Key, Nick Smith and their advisers will, or should, pay it close attention. For it expresses arguments made by supporters of government “climate” policy, so they will be more difficult to dismiss than those of mere “deniers” of “climate change” (whoever they are). Read more… »

The heading dog, symbol for Climate Realists at the Climate Conversation Group weblog, shows how a protest engages the attention of politicians, who all turn to look. The politicians are of course wondering if the nice doggy wants to bite them, but they are also thinking furiously what they might do to change its mind.

Esther and Neil Henderson, the hard-working people behind Climate Realists NZ, want you to know about a major protest march at the Parliament aimed at ending the stupid Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

Tues 22nd June, Civic Centre, Wellington, noon — be early

If you can be in Wellington to support the anti-ETS march on 22 June, please give this notice some prominence on your website and spread it around by email.

Please note some of the details have changed slightly from earlier notices — you should use the details given here.

Esther reports that so far they have had an excellent response from lots of people and they are hopeful of a good turnout on the day, with trucks and tractors from the farmers to add colour and noise.

Come along and help make it a “cannot-ignore” event for the politicians!

Below this point is a rough interpretation of Esther’s latest announcement. It’s rough because it didn’t take too kindly to the transition from Word to html. I should spend some time tidying up the html, but it looks quite funky and it does tell you everything you need to know, so I’m not touching it. Contact details are at the bottom.

PS: I did make one change to Esther’s notice. Since there is, strictly speaking, no such time as “12 pm”, I changed it to “12 noon”. I hope Esther forgives my impertinence and I hope they’re not intending to meet at midnight.

Read more… »

The eyes of New Zealand mainstream journalists, in print and broadcasting, are deliberately out of action. It is a strange event of mass delusion.

How obvious must the lack of credibility in AGW become before New Zealand’s so-called journalists wake up to it?

Their disconnection from reality now transcends mere embarrassment for the onlookers; it has become actually humiliating, because the only remaining reason for our nation’s professional journalists to hold to the IPCC line on dangerous man-made global warming is an intentional neglect of the facts. Read more… »

The NZ Herald reports Nick Smith commenting at the National Party’s northern conference at Waitangi last weekend. He was subjected to some stern questioning about the ETS he insists on installing for us.

He likens the scheme to our contributions to overseas conflicts, reasoning in this way:

“The challenge I give back to you is: when our Anzac troops went to Gallipoli, and when we’ve got our New Zealand troops in Afghanistan, do we really think those New Zealand troops in Afghanistan are going to make a world of difference to the final outcome there?

“No, we don’t. But what we do say, as New Zealanders, and what those Anzacs said in the tradition of New Zealand, is we as a country believe in doing our fair share.”

Nick, the two situations are not comparable. It is ridiculous, one might say even desperate, to attempt to compare them. You see, overseas, we’re fighting with other people. We can actually measure what we do against their efforts.

But with the ETS, we’re not like any other country. Nobody has an ETS like ours. We’re entirely alone.

And we will make no difference to the climate.

Whatever you say it will cost us, it is too much to pay for an empty gesture.

The lack of even the most rudimentary requirements to measure the quantities of carbon dioxide being bought and sold in our Emissions Trading Scheme is simply scandalous.

UPDATE 1: 26 May 10:45 am

So it’s starting. It’s becoming real. For so long just a pie-in-the-sky dream of climate activists wanting so much to save the world from our greed, selfishness and general all-round bad qualities, the grand plan for the Earth’s climate is at last about to take a material form.

The Herald tells us today: “Mercury Energy hikes prices to reflect ETS“. Wonderful. Now we get the higher prices we demanded in order to change the climate. Now we shall be poorer, but happier. Now we can relax. The world is being put to rights.

The Herald says:

The ETS is a government-imposed cost on all electricity and gas production that emits greenhouse gases, reflecting the total volume of greenhouse gases produced by the electricity and gas industries as a whole.

Once upon a time, dear reader, in far-off times when our forefathers were subjects of the King of England, or the Netherlands, laws were introduced to require accurate measuring of everything that was produced and sold by measure. Standards were introduced and strictly enforced to ensure none of His Majesty’s loyal subjects might be defrauded by the unscrupulous manufacturer or vendor. Read more… »

Dr David Wratt, Chief Climate Scientist, NIWA.

NIWA have responded to Rodney Hide’s criticism of their temperature record in two articles: a statement they published yesterday on Scoop, quoting Chief Executive John Morgan and Chief Climate Scientist David Wratt, and an article by Kent Atkinson from NZPA, who interviewed David Wratt and NIWA Communications Manager Michelle Hollis.

Here I review NIWA’s own statement at Scoop.

NIWA CEO John Morgan says, admirably, if predictably, that he supports “the integrity and professionalism” of his scientists. He adds that NIWA is internationally respected but then makes the quite remarkable statement that “we do not get involved in political commentary or process.”

That is an outstanding denial of the candidly political stance taken by the climate scientists under David Wratt, who unblushingly push the IPCC line, that human-caused warming will destroy life on Earth, that any temperature increase in the Earth’s climate should be “controlled” or “managed” below 2°C (as if we had the power to do so), that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide should be “held” at 350 ppmv (as if we had the power to do so) and that the only way to escape ruinous global warming is to stop using petrochemicals and increase the use of all renewable energy sources but not nuclear power. And change our light bulbs and recycle things.

None of that is science; none of that is supported by scientific observations; none of that is anything but policy, politics and advocacy. Read more… »

After posting your email, vote in our ETS poll.

After voting, sign the petition to suspend the ETS.

An email button. Press it to change the country’s future. Press it to send an email to the Prime Minister or change it however you want. Send an email every day to someone who cares what you think — your local MP. Even if they won’t listen to reason, they do at least listen to those who elect them.

The New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is an unnecessary waste of effort and it will increase the cost of living for every household in the land. It starts by raising the prices of electricity and petrol by 5%. The purpose is to change the climate of the earth.

National seem intent upon launching the silly scheme on July 1st. There are about eight weeks to go.

Send an email expressing your opposition to this new tax to your local MP, to the Minister for Climate Change Issues (Nick Smith) and to the Prime Minister.

Write whatever you want to say, of course, but if you asked me to give you some idea of what to say, I would suggest this:

I oppose the ETS. I want you to delay, disable or defeat the ETS. If the ETS goes through in its present form with your support, don’t come crying to me when you don’t get re-elected next year, because I won’t be voting for you and I won’t care if someone else gets your seat.

Read more… »

A suit in handcuffs. Only the educated, trusted men can engage in theft on this grand scale — £156 million! This story concerns GST fraud (called VAT in Europe) but there are easier scams occurring in the carbon trading field, based on the simple fact that the only thing being sold is thin air. Actually, it’s worse than that: they’re selling CO₂. Unmeasurable, invisible and useless to both buyer and seller. At least air is of some use. What a confidence trick!

Sends shivers down the spine, this does. For, not only does “regular” carbon trading take food from the mouths of mothers and babies, but fraudulent activities, increasing costs and therefore prices, take even more. How long before it turns up in New Zealand, if National really does launch its ill-advised scheme on July 1? The most important part of the story waits until the last two paragraphs, though I’ve flagged it in the heading. Further comments below.

First published by BusinessGreen, 30 Apr 2010

by BusinessGreen.com staff

German carbon fraud investigation moves to UK

Prosecutors confirm that four arrests have been made in €180m fraud investigation

German prosecutors today confirmed they have arrested four people in Germany and the UK following raids on more than 50 homes and offices this week in connection with an alleged €180m (£156m) carbon fraud. Read more… »

Our glorious Earth, 4500 million years of age, with its fragile atmosphere, which appears now in dire need of protection from us. Note how thin the atmospheric layer appears in this stunning photograph. This is where talk of emission trading schemes began; their aim was to conserve this thin, life-giving layer. But then financial interests (people with money) saw good possibilities, in gaining permission to sell the thin air, of making, perhaps, a dollar or two for little outlay. All right, no outlay. If the thin air is given further thought as this wonderful new scheme begins to dominate our economies I would be surprised. Powerful forces are pushing the climate change hustle as strongly as they can and the welfare on their mind is not the planet’s.

In the Parliament today, Chris Auchinvole asked Nick Smith (Minister for Climate Change): “Are claims correct that New Zealand is the first in the world to have an emissions trading scheme, and that it is just a tax for revenue purposes?”

And thus did Nick reply:

No, 38 countries have commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, and 29 of them, or three-quarters, already have an emissions trading scheme. Nor is the scheme a tax. Although consumers and businesses will pay $350 million in the first year of the scheme for their emissions, foresters will receive $1,100 million in carbon credits for post-1989 forests. Far from providing net revenue to the Government, the scheme is actually a cost to the Crown. There are 12,000 New Zealanders who, in good faith, planted trees on the assurances of both National and Labour Governments that they would receive carbon credits for those post-1989 forests. The emissions trading scheme honours that commitment.

But the facts are different from those presented by our Nick. Read more… »

It is significant that there are so many voices raised against the ETS.

A cartoon lampooning the ETS. It deserves all the lampooning it gets. Click to see legible text for greater understanding.

Rodney Hide confirms this, saying that he has never received such a high level of public support on any other issue. He says Kiwis around the country are annoyed. They know there’s no need for an expensive ETS that will deliver no benefits whatsoever.

It behoves you to listen to us and very smartly do something about our concerns or next year you will find yourself back in the loneliness of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. Our ETS will do nothing for the environment, will diminish the budgets of hard-working families and will require a monstrous create-nothing bureaucracy.

In addition, though the ETS purports to be based on movements of carbon dioxide into and out of almost every large-scale process in the country, there is no way to measure such movements. If you don’t believe me, ask your officials; uptake and emission of CO2 are based predominantly on computer models.

Since it can’t be measured, everyone can overstate with impunity the quantities involved and has an incentive to do so. Fraud is rife in the overseas schemes and there’s no reason to think it won’t occur here, too.

Because of our power generation structure, even the price of renewable electricity will go up because of the ETS, giving windfall profits of millions of dollars to the generators.

It’s too much to pay; and we refuse to stroke the over-anxious egos of comfortable, middle-class, socialist greenies.

Pay attention: We don’t want an ETS.

John Boscawen has issued a notice which has just reached me. I urge everyone to send it on to family, friends and colleagues. This is your chance to be heard by the government.

Do you want to see all prices rise after July 1?

On July 1, the most pointless tax ever inflicted on New Zealanders will come into force.

It’s called the Emissions Trading Scheme. And it will make not the slightest practical difference to the Earth’s climate.

This is a story on the Emissions Trading Scheme, so I wanted a picture of carbon emissions. But when I was looking, I couldn’t see one, since carbon dioxide emissions are invisible (bit of global warming humour there). This is someone else’s. It’s actually a photo of steam emissions, but because it’s backlit the steam is dark, making it look like carbon, which is black, which makes stupid people everywhere think of carbon dioxide, even though it’s completely transparent, because the eco-mentalists have been showing us these pictures for years. There’s trickery everywhere! Protect yourself — learn the truth!

BUT it will make a HUGE difference to your household budget. Whether you believe in global warming or not, all New Zealanders should be asking why we are the only country in the world to be forcing economy-wide cost increases on all its citizens. For no genuine reason!

Cost increases that will make it harder for our businesses and exporters to compete. And cost essential jobs.

* If you live in Auckland, Hamilton or Christchurch, come to an URGENT PUBLIC MEETING and learn how: *

• The government and power generators will soon be celebrating windfall profits while you’re suffering a 5% price rise.
• Petrol will soon go up 4 cents a litre because of the ETS.
• The above rises will double to 10% and 8 cents a litre by 2013.

• The cost of EVERYTHING ELSE will go up after July 1, as the increased cost of power and transport forces increases across the board.

Read more… »

Power transmission lines at sunset. Note the subtle hint of greenhouse gases,
which are never actually visible.

When will we fight it?

John Boscawen, Act List MP, today issued this press release.

Genesis Energy Confirms Price Increase

New Zealanders can definitely expect to have to pay more for power from July 1, with Genesis Energy CEO Albert Brantley’s confirmation before the Finance Select Committee today that his company “will recover the cost” of complying with the Government’s Emissions Trading Scheme, ACT New Zealand ETS spokesman John Boscawen said today.

“And it is not only the cost of electricity that will increase, but that of petrol and industrial processes as well. The cost of basic food items – such as bread and milk – will also rise as the increase in electricity filters through the economy,” Mr Boscawen said.

“Kiwi families are facing massive price increases and a lower standard of living for no other reason than the Government’s desire to be seen as a world leader heading into the Copenhagen summit.

“But the summit was a failure, and now New Zealand is the only county to implement an all sectors, all gases tax. Not one of our three major trading partners – Australia, the US or China – has implemented an ETS, nor are they likely to.

It is time the Government acknowledges that it is out of step with the international community, and puts the ETS on hold. The pressure on low-income families, the cost in reduced incomes and lost job opportunities is entirely avoidable. It’s not too late to stop,” Mr Boscawen said.

Taxing the air we breathe

No doubt the government is pleased finally to have found a pretext for taxing the very air we breathe. This makes taxation very simple and in future they can avoid straining their creativity trying to arrange for ever greater interference in our lives and increasing their regulation of innocent pleasures. This interference, restricting the innocent pleasure of breathing out, is superlative, for it comes closer to the tyrant’s dream of relentless restraint of the population than any measure before it.

But the price we are to pay for this folly is unacceptable. Read more… »

UPDATE: 1 Jan 2010. I found the “flourish commerce” phrase used by Pears Soap, certainly a more salubrious context than the one I knew it from, but this is the only image I could locate. It’s not legible, but it is there (the evidence is overwhelming; 48,000 national science associations can’t be wrong).

The inside of my grandparents’ white porcelain toilet bowl had the inscription, for the regular edification of we young boys controlling our aim: “Flourish commerce, and let the country live”, enlivened by the stirring sight of New Zealand’s and Great Britain’s crossed flags, in colour.

Written probably in about the 1940s, such frank promotion of commerce was non-controversial in the days before so-called “social welfare” had smuggled its obfuscating tenets into every area of life, until nobody knows where wealth comes from.

These days, forgetting what wealth is and how it’s made, we consider even schools and universities to be centres of production, in the same category as pig farms and steel mills, and we burden their transactions with a Goods and Services and every other sort of tax.

We failed to destroy our own productive capacity

It is fiscal misbehaviour bordering on the criminal to thus reduce funds needed for education, but nobody seems even to notice, much less to complain.

In the Christmas Eve edition of the Herald, Brian Fallow, Economics Editor, pontificates sadly over the failure at Copenhagen of developed nations to destroy their own productive capacity. Read more… »

Written for TOOL Magazine, August 2008

Once upon a time, street-corner zealots shouting “the end is nigh” and warning us to abandon our sins did it for religious reasons. These days, zealots shout the same message with the same warning about sinning, but they do it for climatic reasons. Read more… »