Perhaps this insurance costs too much?
Between Jan 2010 and March 2011, allegedly, 23 Honduran farmers have been murdered by the owners of a UN-accredited palm oil plantation.
“EU carbon trading rocked by mass killings”
At issue are the reported murders of 23 local farmers who tried to recover land, which they say was illegally sold to big palm oil plantations, such as Grupo Dinant, in a country scarred by widespread human rights abuses.
In July, a report by an International Fact Finding Mission was presented to the European Parliament’s Human Rights Sub-committee, alleging that 23 peasants, one journalist and his partner, had all been murdered in the Bajo Aguán region, between January 2010 and March 2011.
The deaths were facilitated by the “direct involvement of private security guards from some of the local companies who are complicit with police and military officials,” the report said.
In some cases it cited “feigned accidents” in which peasants were run over by security guards working for two named palm oil businessmen. In other cases, the farmers were simply shot, or “disappeared”.
Strangely, though the report was released in July, it’s become news now that a Green MEP and EU policy makers announced they’re shocked. Hmmm.
In Brussels, the Green MEP Bas Eickhout called the alleged human rights abuses “a disgrace”, and told EurActiv he would be pushing the European Commission to bar carbon credits from the plantations from being traded under the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
Green MEPs have been moved to demand that Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard act now against carbon credits from the Honduran palm oil plantations.
The carbon credits gained from the plantation are still being sold on the EU CDM market. The newsworthy issue appears to be that the CDM board recently ruled that the project had met the criteria of it’s mandate — but, there are delays or such-like… a three year gap between stake-holder consultations, and project approvals.
Therein lies the dilemma — if they add in “human rights” to the approval process — it all gets just that much more difficult, costly, burdensome, and even slower. And, in the end, without a trial done in a country with a high quality law and order system, someone could toss in fake allegations to destroy competitors, and the EU would have to protect itself from that too.
It’s not like this “unintended consequence” is unprecedented. In Uganda recently, the New Forests Company burned down people’s houses to grow pine and eucalyptus trees for the carbon credits. In China, rivers have dried up after hydroelectric dams stopped the flow, and people have been evicted from homes and paid little in compensation. Since 2003 new dams have been supposed to get “environmental approval”, but at least one local government admits nearly 40% still go ahead without it.
What can we say? No matter what was traded, in a third world country, we can’t be sure there will be no abuses, no deaths, and no corruption.
But the world has so many bigger problems to deal with than setting up premature trading schemes, which swap pieces of paper for bazillions of dollars in order to solve imaginary problems. Indeed, the too-clever-by-half complexity of trading something that’s difficult to measure, and in a form where corruption is hard to detect, sounds like the best way to attract and feed predatory financial sharks. If there are white collar psychopaths out there (and we know there are), why wouldn’t they find trading CDM’s with the third world appealing?
In the first place, given that GDP is highly correlated with CO2 emissions, it seems cruelly perverse to ask the third world to emit less carbon dioxide so we can emit more.
Good old fashioned trading schemes where people buy real goods would be more likely to be useful to the farmers of Mongolia. In real free markets, money-for-nothing scams are easier to detect, and demand for services or goods rises naturally, rather than “instantly” with a government dictat. Loop-holes are less likely.
A market is a powerful tool. Governments should not “play God” and invent them from thin air, except with extreme care, lest the unintended consequences include the deaths of the innocent and the empowering of the crooked.
First do no harm.
PS: Bear with us with the inline comments, and don’t be surprised if your “reply” drops to the end of the thread (but it might not). If you figure out whats going on, do tell!
I assume you’ve just seen Revkin’s NYT article promoting the DIC connections of the skeptic side. You did the Green side. Would a comparison be in order? With money attached, including Hansen’s recent infor.
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Doug, I’m already onto it. Ta.
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Climate Denial Machine? haha! Is that more or less harmful than the Clean Development Mechanism? It’s the battle of the CDMs. Are observational facts not to be trusted because those who report them are not in the club? Well I think arguments from lack-of-authority and lack-of-consensus are as logically invalid as arguments from authority or consensus.
In my submission to the Joint Select Committee on the Clean Energy Future I explicitly and truthfully stated I have no vested interests related to carbon pricing. That’s more than can be said for some of the commentators that we’ve had around here, I’m sure.
Having said that, if ExxonMobile, or Tasman Resources, or Rio Tinto, or the Koch brothers would like to send me a cheque for $18000 to help pay my rent over the time I’ve already spent researching the facts of climate change this year then that would be $uper, thanks. The fact that ExxonMobile Australia is not opposed to the carbon tax probably won’t help fill my begging bowl.
I’m an increasingly poor entirely self-funded disorganised CAGW skeptic whose only driving ideology on climate change is that legislation in our Parliament should not be based on nonsense, fraud, treason, and hearsay. Let me state my skeptical credentials in the only way that is practical.
I will support limitations on industrial CO2 emissions the day that observational evidence proves:
1) that industry has figured out a way to emit CO2 over the next 3 decades at a rate as high as over the 2001-2010 decade without running short of combustible fuel, AND
2) that human activity is a net source of more CO2 than nature, AND either
3.1) the 95% confident climate sensitivity to doubling CO2 is more than 3 degrees of warming, OR
3.2) the 95% confident level of lowered ocean alkalinity due to projected industrial CO2 is proven to be totally lethal to an organism irreplaceably critical to the survival of either humans, chimps, dolphins, or octopusses.
Condition 2 is already true if you believe the USGS, condition 3.1 is undoubtedly false even by the IPCC’s wide-ranging pastiche of model projections, and I am fairly sure conditions 1 and 3.2 both have about a snowflake’s chance in hell of eventuating. If there are repeatable observations to the contrary then bring it on.
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Bas Eickhout knows when he can gain a couple of votes by pretending to be shocked. But he uses that portal paid for by the sustainable industries, Euractiv for this supposed change of opinion. In this way he is probably trying to “create” the so-called climate fugitives that we have been warned about by Gore et all. His story doesn’t add up. But if this has truly happened, then it is as bad as can be.
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ACM has corrected Revkin’s delusions with a real world version here.
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Try here for ACM’s corrected version of Revkin’s delusions:
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2011/10/the-climate-alarmism-machine/
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LoL… That’s a better.
(now, do the nested comments work.)
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No
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Yes, which means after you refresh the page you have to right back to the beginning and trawl through each post to find the new ones.
Which is why, apart from this one exception, I won’t be using it.
PS Jo – the preview button doesn’t seem to be working.
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Is it time for all the proponents of this farce (AGW) to face legal procedures on behalf of those murdered? There is plenty of blood on their collective hands. They all should be ashamed. They should all serve time in a prison of MY choice!
MemoryVault You were right (you knew) the supporters of AGW are guilty of murder.
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Mark D. – technically it is not the supporters of CAGW that are guilty of murder but those that have miss-represented the science to the legislators and bureaucrats who have set the rules. It is a smaller group and one we can actually focus on and identify.
[snip]
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My first [snip]! I have officially arrived in the blog sphere …
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We did some intensive analysis on CDM about 18 months ago.
CDM was seen as a cash cow by the environmental groups, until organised crime moved in.
This in but one example of what is really going on.
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jo, couldn’t access your site all morning. good to see u back with tthe shocking story from Honduras finally coming to light. if the Greens don’t recall their hostility to trading offsets, and why, the green movement will be finished:
ziggy still hopes to grab the money for nuclear. (following fukushima – the aftermath of which the MSM is ignoring) he’s dreaming. remember Siemens has exited the nuclear energy business altogether:
4 Oct: Australian: Ziggy Switkowski: Better things to buy than offsets
When it comes to greenhouse gases, Treasury modelling points to about a 1 per cent reduction in global emissions in 2050 arising from Australia’s purchases of carbon credits on the international market at a cumulative cost of more than $600 billion (at constant 2011 dollars)…
Finally, for much less than $600bn Australia could have a national network of nuclear power stations to provide 100 per cent of our electricity needs safely and cost-effectively with near zero greenhouse gas emissions. There’d be money left over to build a central repository for spent fuel and other nuclear waste as well as to start an enrichment industry, and to buy and maintain nuclear submarines.
All our stationary energy emission targets would be easily met, and society and industry would have something to point to for their dollars. The intensity of the political debate and media commentary reflects an assumption that climate change is the headline issue of modern times. But is it, and how might all that effort and money be better allocated? I think that’s a debate worth having.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/better-things-to-buy-than-offsets/story-e6frgd0x-1226157559595
what would be “better” ziggy is to drop the entire farce that is CAGW. so much talk of increasing the GST at present and, let’s face it, that is going to happen for sure if the carbon tax is imposed on the country and tax revenues fall due to business closures!
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Pat,
The four reactors at Fukushima that suffered damage were twenty years past their use-by date. The reason they were not replaced as originally planned was because of strong protests by the Green movement against their dismantlement (designed as part of a controlled replacement project).
The other four reactors at Fukushima are newer, and had their emergency generators and diesel supplies housed inside the building complex. They came through the 9.0 earthquake and the tsunami relatively unscathed.
Conclusion: the Green movement in Japan are culpable in the aftereffects of the damaged caused to the earlier reactors.
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I wanted to hit the like button, but it doesn’t seem to work, even after a refresh.
The greens are culpable for way to much misery.
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if i’d known Cannane would ask some of the right questions, i might have turned Auntie on again…however, read it all. has the world ever seen such a financial scam in the making?
3 Oct: ABC Lateline: A trading system is essential: Henry Derwent
International Emissions Trading Association chief Henry Derwent says it is early days in the development of carbon trading systems but those which don’t work are being identified
STEVE CANNANE: We just heard that farmers in the Amazon rainforest can’t access traditional food sources to feed their families because American corporations have bought up the land to use for carbon offsets.
Why should impoverished people have to pay the price for pollution generated by large corporations from other countries?
HENRY DERWENT: Well, they shouldn’t. What you’re seeing there I guess is a reflection of the fact that this is pretty early days for the creation of a type of carbon offsetting known as reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation rate.
This is not yet accepted by the United Nations system. There are some voluntary systems which are accepting deforestation reductions, but everybody is struggling and has been struggling for the last few years to create a system which can’t be abused in the sense of being contrary to the interests of the indigenous people.
And there’s a lot of work going on on this at the moment. I’m sure that there are some systems out there, some offsets which don’t come up to the high standards that are going to be necessary if this is gonna be used fully across the world…
STEVE CANNANE: So what’s the solution to situations like this where, for example, one farmer in the Amazon went to chop down a couple of trees so he could fix a hole in his roof. He was thrown in jail for 11 days for that. What’s the solution to stopping occurrences like that happening?
HENRY DERWENT: I mean, I think you have to define the sorts of emissions reduction schemes that will be accepted for investment purposes and for compliance purposes, not least for countries which are starting compliance systems like Australia’s, which define very clearly what’s acceptable practice and what’s not and make sure that they’re monitored and looked after effectively to make sure that you don’t accept stuff like that.
If you don’t accept it then it has no value and nobody’s going to try to do it again.
STEVE CANNANE: Let’s talk about the scandal where European companies were paying Chinese firms 70 times what it actually cost to eliminate HFC-23, which is an ozone-depleting gas used in making fridges.
Not only were they getting ripped off, but it increased the production of the greenhouse gas because it was seen as a good money earner in China. Why should people have faith in carbon trading when there’s situations like that where there’s rorting and distortions of the market?
HENRY DERWENT: Well, firstly, the issue we’re trying to deal with is a great, great deal bigger than problems that there are over particular emissions reduction types. We’ve got to achieve some form of global trade in emissions reductions, otherwise we are going to find that we just don’t manage to achieve them.
And why should we deny the prospect of global trade in this new commodity when we need action and we need reduction really more than anything else that you can see in the world’s economy going round at the moment? …
At the end of the day, the people who actually do the work with the clipboards and the measurements and the checks are people from companies who do that sort of stuff for lots and lots of other industries. The DNVs, SGSs, Lloyd’s Register, the verification societies and companies around the world who are a normal part of measurement of quality of much of global trade that happens.
STEVE CANNANE: You mentioned – a couple of the companies you mentioned there, DMV and SGS, are probably two of the largest companies who do the verification process. They were both temporarily suspended due to irregularities found in their project assessments in 2008 and 2009. Does that make you question the integrity of the verification process?
HENRY DERWENT: I don’t think so. I don’t think you can have it both ways. If you’re saying there aren’t enough sort of checks and balances, well here’s an example where they did something which was regarded by the authorities, the UN, as being inappropriate, though in at least one case it was merely the result of their employing agents, accredited agents, but agents nonetheless rather than their own direct employees…
STEVE CANNANE: If there have been cases where questionable credits have been used in calculating emissions reductions, how do we know if targets are properly being met?
HENRY DERWENT: If you – the first thing to say is that this is a difficult type of commodity to measure at the best of times. We’re talking about emissions reductions and that means reductions from what? From some sort of baseline…
STEVE CANNANE: Your organisation has an Australian working group. To what degree are Australian companies involved in this discussion at the moment and wanting to get more involved in carbon trading?
HENRY DERWENT: They’re pretty well involved in the discussions of carbon trading obviously.
Everybody’s waiting to see exactly what the political circumstances in Australia will bring, but most companies with a major emissions profile are thinking very, very hard about what their strategy should be in terms of making or buying the reductions which they reckon are going to be imposed on them.
First thing to say is that Australia really wrote the book on emissions trading. The Australian greenhouse gas – greenhouse office about 10 years ago basically set out all the issues which are being pursued in countries across the world at the moment…
STEVE CANNANE: So what kind of Australian companies are involved at the moment in your talks?
HENRY DERWENT: I’m not all that happy about talking about individual companies who are involved because the talks that we’ve got here at the moment are private. There are plenty of sort of public conferences at which you find lots and lots of household name companies represented seeing what’s going on.
But you can bet that all of them are thinking very, very hard about what they would mean. In fact most of them, I guess whether they would admit it or not, have started thinking in terms of a shadow carbon price – the price at which they would be buyers or sellers of carbon units. The price at which they could actually make the next increment of carbon reductions if the government actually requires it.
STEVE CANNANE: So could it be the case that some of the companies that may be fighting a carbon tax in Australia are already talking to you about how they can get involved in emissions trading overseas?
HENRY DERWENT: Oh, absolutely, and that’s not going to be unusual…
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2011/s3331367.htm
NO CARBON TAX, NO ETS. PERIOD.
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So if we can’t get credits from China and India because they scam the CDM and we can’t get credits from third world countries because they might have committed human rights violations to create the credits where exactly are we going to get the credits.
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Um, you can’t, and that is the point.
It is all part of the smoke and mirrors. You are now expected to sit back, grin, and admire their handiwork and how clever they are.
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The sheer inhumanity of the warmist’s project beggars belief. Welcome to Goldman Sachs world.
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So the Socialists have once again got people killed with their idiocy…. They don’t do unintended consequences very well, do they?…. Or they don’t care. After all, they don’t like certain sorts of farmers and fishermen all that much. Certainly not ones that own their own land or aspire to do their own thing and will not conform with the corporate cronyism of Socialist Statist regulation.
They love interfering in everyone else’s lives and receiving money for it….. They just can’t see anything wrong in it. The concept that it is an aggressive act doesn’t even enter their minds… They just think they have the right to do it…. Then they mix it with Ecofascism and Viola!……they are saving the planet too.
Bluddy psychopaths th’ lot of ’em.
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Another Socialist disaster, who would have known? Sorry, all of that contrived world consensus is making me sarcastic, or words to that effect.
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The Australian Crime Commission came out a week ago saying Carbon schemes a Mafia ‘honeypot’.
No comment that I can recall from Mr Combet or anyone from the Treasury modelling team, other than chirping crickets from the Parliament House lawn.
And a warning for us takers of non existent oil money, today there’s an investigative article on Bloomberg critical of Koch Brothers business practices, which are on the face of it highly sus (their practices I mean). So expect to be thumped with this article over and over by CAGW people for roughly the next decade.
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Hmmm.. lets see
A False manipulated market ….
which is an artificial construct…..
administered by anti-social, socially inept and incompetant bankers who value a quick buck over people…..
who have been shown time and time again to exploit these systems for fraudulent purposes (and most likely getting away with it most of the time)….
directed by Opportunistic Politicians whose only motivation is their own hides…..
to fix a problem which does not exist…….
with an invisible trace gas which is plant food…..
which was pushed by Renta a Crowd…..
and supported by Getup….
and spruiked by mathematically challenged sheep…….
Seriously, what could go wrong? Anyone surprised or shocked by this has the intellect of a homeless mans toe jam.
But Don’t worry Mr Combet and Ms Guillard. At least it’s happening in Africa and not in Canberra eh! Gee, that would just be ugly if it was happening in Canberra wouldn’t it?
Just like what you call pollution is going to be shipped off over seas. At least it isn’t in your neighbourhood.
After all, that’s all that matters doesn’t it people?
Nothing to report here, ABC. You can ignore this one. Their lives don’t count. You can sacrifice their plight for the common good. The ends justifies the means eh!
One of these days I’m going to start getting mean on these people.
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To summarise, the Honduras is a tin-pot dictatorship, and some people wanted to make money and killed some others who got in their way.
So it was palm oil they wanted to make money from. It could have been diamonds or gold or coal seam gas, and the result would have been the same.
The problem is that some countries are not very good at the rule of law thingy.
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Unfortunately many of the not-very-good-countries are in the tropics where plants grow well. So the ones in line for the most carbon credits are the likes of Nigeria, Honduras, Guinea, Indonesia, PNG and Venezuela.
Now this will of course go very well, especially since the project auditors will need body armour.
Although do I wait in eager anticipation for a REDD scheme proposal from sunny Nth Korea.
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And which 3rd world countries aren’t in that category, John? Isn’t that the point we are all making? Your buddies are facilitating graft, corruption, profiteering on a scale never seen before, and further entrenching poverty in these countries, pushing those most vulnerable over the edge. We warn you of it, over and over, you refuse to listen, and this is the consequence. Good job! Must be a good view from that ivory tower, John.
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@J Brookes #14
John John John, methinks too much Clive Hamilton logic has pervaded the UWA.
Let me demonstrate by adjusting your sentence a little…
p.s. check out my reply to you on the 90% thread and get a smile on your dial.
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And the Investors looking at making a quick buck knew who they were dealing with as they were trying to make money saving the world from a trace gas too, didn’t they John?
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Your knowledge of recent history is strongly colored by your socialist religion — Honduras, in 2009, acted decisively to maintain their democracy, while the Obama administration did everything in their power (short of actual invasion) to destroy it a la Venezuela.
Look it up on google news.
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Thumbs down button is not working John.
While i am here ARE YOU SERIOUS MAN??????????????????
Just so we are on the same page here the legislation being enacted by governments around the world disguised as GAIA worshipping is nothing more than a scam a scam so grand that even the Nigerians are pondering out loud “why did not we think of that”.
As with all scams a cottage industry of just a lucrative albeit smaller scama has thrived, we see it here in Australia with the pink batts fiasco and the solar panel debacle. But hey John hows a few niggers in a 3rd world country getting killed got to do with saving the planet……….you childish, pretentious, pompous, pig headed, deplorable, dispicable, unethical, inmoral attitude towards this comes as no suprise to me.
You are a pathetic excuse for a human being especially one who claims to be protecting the planet and all its species (well only the useful ones anyway).
You make me sick John……………..
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You still don’t get it do you.
Australia alone will be sending something like $50b per year overseas for purchase of carbon credits (Treasury figures, not mine)
That $50b has to find a home. It can’t find a home in Australia because we aren’t set up to sell credits, only buy them.
What is a couple of peasant farmers and troublemakers to a lot of corrupt officials when that sort of cash is in the way.
Remove the unnecessary and crippling need to send boatloads of cash overseas to ‘tin pot dictatorships’ and the problems would no longer be of our causing.
There really is no difference between large amounts of ‘western’ money finding it’s way to weak countries for drug purchases and carbon credit purchases. On both counts you’ve got an artificial market situation caused by laws in the ‘western’ country funneling excess money into a small industry in small countries, which is quickly captured and controlled people who aren’t the slightest bit interested in the rule of law.
Yes, think about it. There is no difference from the point of view of the peasant that excessive money is coming in to by drugs or credits. Everyone knows the problems that poppy farming in Afghanistan causes, and coca farming in Colombia causes. Now justify how that is different from increasing amounts of both palm oil farming and locking up native forests in order to capture all those dollars forced into these tiny markets.
It is the illegality of drug production in Western countries that pushes the drug prices so high. It is the forced legality of carbon credits that pushes the carbon credits prices high.
It’s about time you in particular stopped trying to defend these people, John. You know they are either morally bankrupt or morally righteous and intellectually bankrupt.
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I really don’t know what to do any more. If I doubt AGW I’m labelled a denier. There’s a battery of believers in Man’s climate change based on guilt that I can’t fight. Jo fights it, Monckton fights it, we all fight it. But we are deniers!! scum!! and Man is the sinner.
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Hi Janama
Your comment “”Monckton fights it, we all fight it. But we are deniers!! scum!! “” is probably made from the point of view of the average voter and is not a good feel.
On the other hand I am a scientist and can say with a lot of certainty that AGW via CO2 is a gigantic scam that has more to do with group psychology than atmospheric science.
Rest easy; it isn’t over yet and they (warmers) WILL be shown to be frauds.
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Scientist aye?
Well I am interested int his fact but am also testing the sub stranding of the site 🙂
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Aye, a scientist.
One who understands and knows things other mortals can only ask about and “trust” they are getting the right answer.
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Look at it this way:
1. You are not a denier.
2. You understand that the climate models are 100% correct, all of the time.
3. The science is settled, there is no longer any room for debate.
4. The only remaining problem is that the Earth is a chaotic system that refuses to comply with the models.
Now, that is hardly your fault, is it.
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John Brookes @ 14
One BIG difference JB.
I’m not being forced to pay for “some tin-pot dictatorship” to kill people for “diamonds, gold or coal seam gas”, while at the same time being assured it’s to “save the planet”.
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I hope Joanne doesn’t mind my linking into one of my own Posts, (again) but this one deals directly with this Clean Development Mechanism, (CDM) which has arisen directly from the Kyoto Protocol that we are signed up to.
Don’t try and tell me this CDM will not be rorted, and as shown with Joanne’s Post, it already seems to be happening.
This CDM is the method that 23 of 192 contributing Countries will be paying for things that will be happening in those 152 Countries that the UNFCCC termed Developing Countries, and how those of us in those 23 Countries, of which Australia is one, will be paying ALL the costs in those other 152 Countries.
The Post is at the following link:
Kyoto Revisited – The Clean Development Mechanism
Tony.
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The thing is Tony if the Kyoto Protocol is not replaced does that mean any commitments we made under Kyoto lapse.
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rukidding,
When originally proposed, Kyoto had a sunset clause inserted, that being 2012, because, at that time, 1997, they felt reasonably assured that by then, there would be a viable replacement in place.
Now, that’s why Copenhagen was always so vitally important, because at Copenhagen, the replacemet was supposed to be put in place to seamlessly take over when Kyoto expired.
However, everything neing so new in 1997, nobody knew what Kyoto really did mean, and no one bothered to read the fine print. Well 152 Countries were happy because they had to do absolutely nothing.
The 23 Countries thought it was ‘feel good’ and was basically, well, pretty meaningless really.
However, as time passed, those 23 Countries saw the iron fist hidden by the velvet glove.
That’s why Copenhagen failed so miserably, despite a ‘nothing’ resolution to save some skins.
Those 23 Countries worked out just what it meant, and what it was going to cost them,and they wanted a new well watered down Protocol to replace Kyoto.
Those 152 Countries wanted nothing to change, because in their eyes, anything new would favour the 23 and work against the 152. Kyoto they argued was an existing legal document that they would desperately fight to keep in place.
Copenhagen became a farce, and Cancun was an even greater farce as the huge contingents of Copenhagen just stayed away because they KNEW in their hearts that there would be nothing new.
Now, with nothing to replace Kyoto, and the UN desperately trying to deny any sunset clause, when it actually does expire, there will be no replacement, and my guess is that if it does expire, then ‘all bets are off’, as some of those 23 Countries have already indicated that they will not sign any renewal of Kyoto.
I also suspect that the UN will just change the rules to keep Kyoto going.
Remember the lead up to Copenhagen, how there was talk about it for months as all arms of the media made mileage from it.
Well, how much have you heard about Durban, which actually starts in 55 days from now.
Kyoto is the sword that will kill itself.
Now (mostly) everyone knows who it actually favoured, well those Countries are in the majority, and with China as part of those 152 Countries, the UN is caught between Scylla and Charybdis.
Tony.
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And, by my analysis, is the reason why the ALP is desperate to force the Carbon Thingy through ASAP.
Consider: they are trying to justify it under the pretext that they are obligated under the Kyoto protocol, and have already made some payments.
So on that basis they force the legislation through, they build in draconian measures to make it difficult for the legislation to be unwound, and then they sit back and wait for Kyoto to quietly die.
And once that has happened, well oh dear, we have all this money coming in which we can’t give back easily, and we can’t stop the flow. How very inconvenient.
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What is really interesting is that things like the carbon tax are full steam ahead in the assumption that Kyoto II is just around the corner.
I’m not sure why no media commentators and/or the opposition don’t raise this question. It’s not like you’re being a denier for asking why we are building an entire scheme that ties in with a UN scheme about to expire next year.
One day the legality of UN agreements is going to be tested, and it’s not going to end well. Either the UN collapses into farce, or an increasing resolution to use force to ensure resolutions will be used. I guess it depends whether it is someone like the US or Australia that decides to snub the UN resolutions, or whether it is someone like Iran or China.
The point is you can’t have overriding social goals like world unity on energy usage without forced compliance, because each individual economic actor (at the individual, family, business and state level) all have a large incentive not to follow the guidelines.
In this climate, nobody is going to voluntarily hold back their economy on the promise of everyone else doing it, when everyone else is patently not doing it. At the moment the only thing holding the carbon trading dreams together is the EU, and the EU isn’t exactly looking solid itself. The forthcoming Greece default will fracture the EU badly from an economic sense, and I suspect political fracturing won’t be too far behind. And where does that leave an expiring Kyoto.
Of course, all this discussion does is highlight the madness of choosing 2012 as the year of implementation of a carbon tax in Australia.
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That is what worries me they could be cooking up anything.Being the termites they are you won’t know about the damage until it is done.After all snake in the grass Combet put us down for a couple of mil last year how much is this year going to cost us.
Tony you say 23 countries do you mean 23 or 22 and the EU.?
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These are the 23 Countries.
24 are listed here, but the U.S. has not ratified Kyoto.
Annex II countries
There are 23 Annex II countries and the European Union. Turkey was removed from the Annex II list in 2001 at its request to recognize its economy as a transition economy. These countries are classified as developed countries which pay for costs of developing countries:
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States of America
Tony.
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Hi Tony, I was under the impresssion that Canada and Japan were out of the the agreement?
Say YES to an election now !!
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Sorry Tony, I didn’t comprehend your post porperly…forget the last comment please
Say YES to ana election now !!
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Tony can we be a transition economy after all we will be transitioning from a first world to a third world economy
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Only works going up I’m afraid, but it’s an interesting point you highlight.
The way it’s going, there are Developed Countries, (Australia included) and Developing Countries.
It would seem that the UN would like to equalise that somewhat.
However, and unwittingly I suspect, it’s not a case of bringing them up to the already Developed status we have, but of taking us back to join them.
Tony.
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The thing is we can see how well big government works with the EU currently falling apart so why would you think the whole world would work under one government.
I can’t see how one world government would work because I am sure that America,China,India,Russia and other countries are not about to give up their sovereignty.
Can you imagine India agreeing to Pakistan leading the UN or America agreeing to Russia or China running the world.
The UN is a great idea until you realise that everyone has an equal vote and you find yourself marginalised.Bit like people who put their private company out to public ownership only to find themself booted out.
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And now from the team that gave us the schools building programs rorts, the home insulation rorts, the green loans scheme rorts and heaven alone knows how many other rorted “green schemes”.
It seems the “world’s greatest treasurer” stuffed up a minor change in company take-over legislation which is now costing us $10 BILLION plus in lost tax revenue.
And remember folks, these were all entirely domestic – the gubmint had TOTAL control (hah hah).
Nonetheless, this SAME bunch of social, scientific and economic pygmies are going to introduce the world’s first unrortable international carbon trading scheme. Dealing with the SAME kind of tinpot dictatorships as featured in the story above no less.
.
What could possibly go wrong?
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Are we having a thumb free day?
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Siliggy,
Just tried to give JB a Thumbs Down – so decided to report him! Didn’t work – but he’ll now know that I thumbed him down!
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Might have got lost in the last post:
Ben Goldacre on bad science
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I’ve got a brilliant idea for the gubmint (and John Brookes) since it (and he) doesn’t seem to mind killing a few (or a lot) of people to achieve our “sustainable green future”, and “save the planet”.
1) – Instead of fighting the current bush fires in Central OZ, instead we help them along. Heck, we could even offer most of the interior to the Yanks to practice carpet-bombing with thermobaric devices to help things along. End result – scorched earth free of all flora and fauna (including humans).
2) – We offer the resultant scorched earth as available for “re-vegetation” (we are expecting another round of La Nina conditions this summer, so it’s not as if we have to actually DO anything).
3) – We “offset” our own “carbon obligations” against part of the “re-vegetation” program, and offer the rest to the UK, Germany, the Yanks and all the other countries
suckered intopartaking in thisscamplan.If this idea has any merit then:
A) – I should be in line for some kind of gubmint “saving the planet” grant; and
B) – We need to act quickly before the Yanks realise they can accomplish the same thing by nuking new Zealand.
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“It seems cruelly perverse to ask the third world to emit less carbon dioxide so we can emit more”. Spot on Jo! Likewise we are implored by our politicians to join them “in reducing fossil fuel use – the greatest moral challenge of our time”; while State and Federal governments are simultaneously overseeing the biggest expansion of coal mining and exports in our history. I guess ‘hypocrisy’ is a word our masters do not understand. But whether in Australia or in third world countries land based carbon offsets are a huge target for scammers, because we can’t realistically measure them with the accuracy and precision that would survive proper scientific and financial audit. To accurately determine carbon fluxes in vegetation based systems it is necessary to concomitantly account for changes in carbon content of the vegetation and the soil supporting it. But commonly the carbon flux determined within the vegetation is (at a practical intensity of sampling)less than the measurement error of the carbon content in the rooting zone of the soil e.g. a carbon flux of 2 t/ha in vegetation might be growing in soil with a measured organic carbon content in the rooting zone of 80+/-4 t/ha. Obviously you can overcome this problem with more intensive sampling, but the cost of doing this will exceed the value of the claimed offsets for the foreseeable future. And of course to account for carbon fluxes in soil it is necessary to measure its carbon content at least twice. I am aware of some 25+ ways to scam land based carbon offsets, based on a 40 year career spent measuring biomass and nutrient content in vegetation(mainly woodland) systems. Yet Australia is preparing to spend billions on purchasing such claimed offsets from presumably ‘honest and reliable’ overseas sources during the next 20-30 years. And most of these offsets will be derived from land that would otherwise be utilised for food production. What has happened to our collective intelligence?
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Bill you obviously have not seen the new trees they are planting they come with their own smart metre accurate to 1 gram of CO2.:-))
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Bill @ 22
You ask “What has happened to our collective intelligence?”.
My response is a) do humans (at any any level, whether family/group/race/nation/species) have a collective intelligence? and b) If we ever had collective intelligence we probably traded it in some get rich quick scheme.
Cheers
NicG.
I’m hoping this is going to post ok as I don’t seem to be able to preview it.
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Comments don’t show up straight away?
One of the nice things about Jo’s blog was the instant gratification of seeing your immortal prose.
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I take it back – last comment appeared instantly……
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[…] this inborn intelligence of our body relies on the nervous system—the focus of chiropractic care.Fighting Chaos Because you and I have a physical body, we’re subjected to various laws of the phys…rom order to disorder. You may have noticed this with objects. Over time your cupboards get […]
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While agreeing that current politics is insane with carbon taxes and the battle is political. Step back to premise 1. i.e. CAGW is a crock. Carbon taxes, ETS etc are derivatives of a scam.
It is only natural to expect some nasty side effects with such a corrupt base.
I trust that one of the unexpected side effects will be the obliteration of the political parties that have championed the CAGW cause.
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Jo,
This crazy scheme is hard to wrap your head around all the scams that are associated with it.
An this is suppose to save the planet?
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From the Strong growth low pollution: modelling a carbon price
(SGLP)
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Just where will any lasting effect of Kyoto be WHEN Greece goes belly up, & takes another dozen or so of the EU with it.
That will leave us as one of the dozen or so left to support the world.
Perhaps we should declare bankrupt first, then stand back & watch the fun
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Strong Growth Low Pollution: Modelling a Carbon Price
So when developing the the carbon tax/permit model, Treasury sought consultation from “Other Stakeholders”
Who are the “Other Stakeholders”? Here in the US the “Other Stakeholders” are congressional family members, large donors and the politicians themselves.
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“Stakeholder” is a key word; you will find papers for “stakeholder based global governance” from the usual suspects. WWF, Greenpeace and other government-funded NGO’s (front groups) are always stakeholders; pretending to represent the interest of ethnic minorities, nature, threatened species. Of course they simply play a role in a Hegelian, well-planned dialectic.
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What a non-story.
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Why Tristan? because you don’t care and that Big Oil does?
How about we think of the consequences of our collective actions and take some responsibility for them. This is the most insidious and most reprehensible side of this scam and trust me you haven’t seen the half of it.
Say YES to an election now !!
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Your reply shows a callousness that only those of the left possess. If they were your family members, then you would squeal like a stuck pig at the injustice, the inhumanity. It is ironic that in your personal conceit, you believe no doubt that you are egalitarian and humanistic, yet when push comes to shove you couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the ramifications of the actions you spruik. So long as you can tell yourself that you are noble, no consequence is worthy of making you reconsider your beliefs. While the evil of right wing hawks is blatant and obvious, the evil of the left is more insidious and every bit as reprehensible. This story is significant as it is a scenario that will be, and probably already is being, played out endlessly around the globe, with criminals and dictators the winners, and the poor and disenfranchised the ultimate losers, victims again of the arrogance and stupidity of people like you, Tristan, in your western ivory towers.
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I echo Mv’s sentiments regarding the nested threads.
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In that case my apologies 🙂
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I truly believe that some of the AGW crowd is altruistic. Ill informed, but they really want to save the planet. Yet while they have their ideals, they have no real world conception, and the results are the unintended consequences such as these. It comes as no shock or surprise to those who live in the real world, earning a living, and trying to better the lives of their children. We know that evil men exist, and nothing is going to get rid of them.
When idealists start making policy, everyone loses.
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The “idealists” are being played. And play their role in the planned scenario. Why, do you think, is it that Greenpeace ecowarriors always manage to abseil surprisingly right in front of those eminently important and tightly guarded summit venues, without ever being shot by some secret service sniper. Because it is all well orchestrated; several possibilities come to mind: The Greenpreace group is infiltrated; but more likely, the upper ranks of Greenpeace coordinate their actions with the services. The grunts might be unwitting idealists.
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More abuse and disenfranchisement in the name of “saving the planet”:
http://iceagenow.info/2011/09/armed-troops-burn-homes-kill-children-global-warming/
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Even before this latest development, the way greens enthusiastically blessed the palm oil scam has been a disgrace. All over Central America, there are valuable natural habitats being scythed to make way for the palms. This happens even in Costa Rica, where you might imagine that the tourist industry had long since proved that you could make money honestly, while leaving the native forests in place. That the greens turned two blind eyes to this wanton destruction simply reinforces what we already knew: that concern for the natural world forms no part of the green ideology.
Honduras is not a dictatorship, as somebody described it, by the way. It is a constitutional democracy, but it is a very poor country, in a part of the world where crime cartels proliferate and where guns and gunmen are both easy to come by. It’s a bit rich for the eu and others to promote a blatant scam, which is an obvious gift for organised crime, and then to claim that the scandal is caused by the local mores.
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Totally agree with you but how would Honduras hold an NGO that is beholding to no-one accountable for such atrocities?
This is such bad news. I can’t believe the Australian government has fallen into this snare, why are we so gullible to believe the IPCC knows what to do to save the planet and we must all be onboard with the idea. As I have said before this is mind numbing!
We have to try and get the government to reconsider this Alliance with the IPCC and Kyoto agreement, it’s total nonsense and criminal.
Say YES to an election now !!
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Today at the UK Conservative Party conference, the Chancellor Mr Osborne had this to say:
Is Australia taking note?
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No
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Sorry, but the UK Conservative party is a self-contradiction.
There are no conservatives left in the UK anymore, save maybe except for Jeremy Clarkson, and he’s not stupid enough to run for parliament.
The UK parliament is made up of socialists arguing about the best way to centrally-plan their economy into dust, all while pretending they are engaging in free market activities. They are completely doomed as they have abandoned the strong English liberal tradition of individual liberty and freedom under the rule of law for centralised planning and a gigantic welfare state. (And that’s true liberal, not American bastardisation and redefinition)
UK commentators often wonder why they have ceded their massive economic lead. The answer is (a) pointless wars and (b) a taste for ignoring their traditions and indulging in just a bit of socialist planning. Does that sound familiar?
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From the Global warmin Policy Foundation
http://www.thegwpf.org/uk-news/4018-global-warming-policy-foundation-calls-on-government-to-suspend-unilateral-climate-targets.html
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This is the second really really awful news about CDM in this week. Notice something? First the evicted Ugandans, now these Palm Oil victims. Oh, and that Wikileaks cable confirming that high ranking officials knew it’s a crock all along, also released this week.
Ask yourself WHY do we suddenly find CDM criticism in the media when it has been criticized in the blogosphere for years now.
Somebody needs to pull the plug on the CDM mechanism and it’s the EU.
EU wants to continue Kyoto:
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110927-715580.html
EU gives 85% of ETS allowances to airlines for free in 2012 (they’ll have to buy the other 15%):
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/airlines-to-receive-85-of-eu-ets-allowances-free-in-2012-362537/
The market needs to be cleared off the cheap CDM credits so EU member states can sell more of their wares; and the prize needs to go up so they can pay for their deficits (whether it’s Greek debt or German, doesn’t matter).
The salvation of the European welfare state through taxing CO2 is on its way.
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My contribution to Kim Carr’s piece in The Australian this morning:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/while-the-war-on-science-rages-the-innovators-go-about-their-work/story-e6frg6zo-1226158425866
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Good article lmwd but the Australian is a right wing rag and will be repremanded when the government has their Media Inquiry and any comments from this will be dismissed as denialist clap trap by the lefties.
I really hope someone, somewhere is listening but I think the message will pass straight through CAGW cerebral thought processes undhindered by conscience or logic.
Say YES to an election now !!
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I found Mr Carr’s article another example of “do as I say not as I do”.
He is writing this as the Minister for Science, yet Dennis Jensen was not allowed to table the climate science papers that Jo described some days ago.
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When we had long lines at the gas station years ago there was a murder over a few gallons of gas.
How much worse will it get over something with a much higher value? I guess we can now see what the greedy will stop at. Not much.
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Echoes of the Highland Clearances, where Scotland was cleared of the many people living on and from the land to make way for a more lucrative cash crop ( sheep) by unscrupulous landlords. Even in those savage times, the stories are mainly of evictions rather than murder.
Many became Australian settlers . Would they be called boat people today I wonder.
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Oddly enough, this bears striking similarities with the South American debt crisis of the mid/late 70’s and early 80’s.
During my time in the RAAF, I took some gentle ribbing because I was the only one of my peers who read the broadsheet Australian, while they all just scanned through the Tele and The Mirror. I would read as much as I could from the paper, and I came across an obscure article, quite long, about Brazil’s debt forgiveness. especially for the U.S. debt Brazil had incurred, and even then it was in the Billions.
The U.S. did a deal with Brazil that they would forgive Brazil’s huge and burgeoning debt, even then in the Billions, if Brazil would temper their clearing of the Amazon jungle, and this was at the start of the environmental age, you know, the Amazon being the lungs of the World and all that.
The Brazilian Government at the time jumped at the offer, well, who wouldn’t, and agreed.
The upshot was that those who were in fact doing the clearing were extremely put out, but it worked for a few years, until enough political power could be mustered by those doing the clearing.
In the end, they just changed the Government to one that was, er, more amenable to the, er, ‘will of the people’, who were perceived as having had their livelihoods cut back.
The new Government now with a ‘considerably’ reduced debt obligation, resumed their clearing at the same level it was previously.
The land was being cleared for two benefits, (a) the timber, and (b) from the now cleared jungle, they put on vast herds of grazing beef, primarily for one market, and yes, you guessed it, the U.S. huge ground beef market, for the American staple, hamburger meat.
The Brazilian Government had come full circle with the added benefit that their previously huge debt was forgiven, for what turned out to be no reason at all.
Do not even try to tell me that something similar to this will be happening again, with the rorting of what is now called CDM.
Tony.
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Hi Joe V @ 40
Can understand the comments on what happened in Britain a long time ago – not pleasant at all but can’t see that too many of the earlier boat people from the late 1970s would like to be associated with current boat people who are perceived to be more economic immigrants than than political refugee.
I can’t remember any riots or violence associated with the late 70s boat people who have worked hard, paid lots of tax and blended in socially.
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When exactly did this go on? I’d like to read more about it. I know that much of the UK was forested once. In erosions on the bare hillsides of the Berwyns I’ve found sizable shrub trunks preserved under at least 10 ft of peat. Sheep tend to eat fresh green saplings so eventually the native vegetation fails to regenerate,- hence the bare hills.
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Hi JKnowles
If you want to read some good historical material you might have a look at Edward Rutherfurd who has written some great books. eg London, Russia, Dublin etc
Not sure whether he has written about the specific area you mention but worth a try.
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some still refusing to acknowledge that the Coalition set up this scheme. reminder from above:
3 Oct: ABC Lateline: A trading system is essential: Henry Derwent, International Emissions Trading Association chief DERWENT: First thing to say is that Australia really wrote the book on emissions trading. The Australian greenhouse gas – greenhouse office about 10 years ago basically set out all the issues which are being pursued in countries across the world at the moment…
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2011/s3331367.htm
last nite i saw a news ticker on Bloomberg saying “EU carbon credits drop to lowest level yet” or words to that effect. it has taken an hour to find any mention online! read all carefully:
3 Oct: Businessweek: Bloomberg: Record Project Flows Test UN CO2 Market as Future in Doubt
A record inflow of projects into the world’s biggest greenhouse gas market threatens to swamp auditors who validate these activities, and they may be forced to reject business, said an industry group.
“I think the next 12 months will test the capacity” of audit firms, said Jonathan Hall, president of the Designated Operational Entities and Independent Entities Association. So- called DOEs are auditors that check that emission-reduction projects in developing nations comply with rules before and after getting greenhouse gas credits…
A record of at least 592 projects entered the validation stage of the Clean Development Mechanism program in the three months ended last week, about 14 percent of all projects seeking registration under the program of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Almost 3,000 projects have already been approved since the program started. Emission reduction projects are seeking registration by the end of next year because of a deadline imposed by the European Union, whose factories and power stations are the main buyers of credits.
The credits are important because they are used to slash compliance costs in the EU, one of the only regions in the world with mandatory carbon constraints. A German coal-burning power utility can make a profit of 7.21 euros ($9.62) a megawatt hour in 2013 using EU carbon allowances. By using cheaper CDM credits, that profit jumps 36 percent to 9.81 euros, according to a so-called clean-dark-spread calculator on Bloomberg…
UN CDM credits, known as Certified Emission Reductions, for December delivery dropped 3.4 percent today to 7.58 euros a metric ton on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London. They’ve fallen 34 percent this year. EU carbon allowances fell 5.1 percent to 10.19 euros.
“I’m aware that there’s a concern” about the ability of the program to meet demand from projects through 2012, said Martin Hession, chairman of the CDM executive board, the market regulator based in Bonn…
(re Durban talks)Some developing nations may boost the risks for investors in the market by preventing an orderly extension beyond 2012, Climate Change Capital Ltd. said last week.
Some nations, especially small countries not receiving money from selling CDM credits, may be tempted to vote against proposals to extend the market, said Steven Gray, a policy expert at the London fund manager who helps represent investors at UN climate talks.
“It’s highly unlikely that the CDM will stop,” Gray said today by phone. Still, there’s enough uncertainty surrounding the future of the program that investors may start to hold back spending, and service providers to the market may find it difficult to keep hiring the people needed to approve projects…
The audit firms, which carry out checks to make sure projects are not overestimating greenhouse-gas reductions, may struggle to justify spending more on technical staff over the next five years, Gray said. Companies will have less incentive to come up with new methodologies for cutting greenhouse gases, he said. “It’s difficult to take investment decisions under the current environment.”…
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-03/record-project-flows-test-un-co2-market-as-future-in-doubt.html
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Donna Lafromboise is continuing her digging and if the following two threads from her site are any indication her upcoming book about the IPCC will be a boomer.( Due out next month, I think) It will hopefully be the sort of thing which will help put the skids under these crazy trading schemes.
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/10/01/78-names/
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/10/04/wwf-influence-at-the-highest-levels-of-the-ipcc/
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Yes her upcoming book is excellent.
It is written in a way that keeps people like us interested, and easy to follow for those who are new to the AGW/IPCC world.
After reading her book (and researching the veracity of her claims) anyone who takes the IPCC and its work seriously is either a fool or a member of the green movement.
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4 Oct: SMH: Lenore Taylor: Carbon trade ‘pot’ for dirty money
THE Australian Crime Commission is doing a new assessment of the potential for organised crime to target Australia’s emissions trading scheme as it works with the Department of Climate Change to minimise the risk…
The Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, warned about the ”scope for scamming” presented by the scheme and also about the ”intrusive carbon cop” being set up to regulate and police it.
Mr Lawler said there was ”some risk that carbon credits could be used for money laundering purposes as they can be bought and traded using criminal proceeds to disguise the true origin of the funds … risks similar to other financial products which represent value such as securities and derivatives”…
http://m.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/carbon-trade-pot-for-dirty-money-20111003-1l5ds.html
3 Oct: Financial Times: Andrew Parker: Turbulence hits EU airline pollution scheme
Airlines face being caught up in a global trade war as opposition grows to the European Union’s controversial plan to make carriers pay for their pollution, the aviation industry’s main representative body warned on Monday.
Tony Tyler, director-general of the International Air Transport Association, told the Financial Times there was a genuine risk that countries outside the EU would take retaliatory action against the bloc’s plan to bring airlines within its carbon emissions trading scheme from January…
Last Friday, 21 countries including the US, Japan, Brazil, Russia, India and China issued a declaration opposing how the EU scheme will apply to flights that start or end in one of the bloc’s 27-member states. They say the scheme was inconsistent with international law and should not apply to flights by non-EU carriers…
“That is the worst possible outcome for us – the airlines being caught in the middle of a trade war,” said Mr Tyler. “Other countries saying to Europe ‘OK, if you are hitting our airlines with additional cost, which you should not be doing, we will hit your airlines’ – none of us wants that.”…
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/cca023aa-edb3-11e0-a9a9-00144feab49a.html#axzz1ZrKHHhFu
3 Oct: Economic Times India: Reuters: EU carbon costs may force refiners to relocate, close
The UK refining industry is seen as being at particular risk due to UK government plans for a carbon floor price that may be above the level set by the market. UK companies such as Ineos are worried they will be put at a competitive disadvantage.
The UK government is planning to introduce the carbon price floor at 16 pounds ($25.09) a tonne from April 1, 2013, rising each year to 30 pounds a tonne in 2020.
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-10-03/news/30238485_1_stanlow-refinery-carbon-price-grangemouth
28 Sept: Recharge News: Carbon price must rise for EU to meet targets and spur investment
The price of carbon in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) will have to rise to €60-90 ($82-123) per tonne if Europe is to meet its targets, an expert warns
That price, calculated by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, is much higher than most people will be expecting.
Guy Turner, director of commodity research at Bloomberg, tells Recharge that until now, the EU Allowances — currently languishing at €12-13 — have been too depressed to spur investment in low-carbon technologies…
According to Turner’s analysis, by 2024, the cost of meeting the EU’s targets will be €100 per tonne of CO² without access to international credits and €65 per tonne if access is permitted…
http://www.rechargenews.com/business_area/finance/article279792.ece
what business is this of scientists?
5 Oct: SMH: Scientists give scheme thumbs-up
Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to British prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Sir David Hendry, head of Oxford University’s Institute for New Economic Thinking and 11 other leading academics from the US, Britain, Norway, Spain and Denmark sent the letter yesterday.
They said addressing climate change was ”one of the greatest and most urgent economic challenges facing the world” and the carbon tax, moving to an emissions trading scheme, would ”help ensure emission reductions at the lowest possible cost”…
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/scientists-give-scheme-thumbsup-20111004-1l79n.html
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“Our new Nobel laureate Dr Gavin Schmidt…”
Taken from Andrew Bolt’s summary of his radio show today, on his site.
Surely this is not correct is it ?? Next thing you’ll be able get Noble Prizes in the Weet Bix box.
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I may be thinking of the wrong Dr Gavin Schmidt here –I hope so !!
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Dr Brian Schmidt I think Ross.
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Hi Jo,
A small correction the term is Brazillion not Bazillion, this precident was set when an advisor told the then President George Bush Jnr a Brazilian had died in Afghanistan. After strangely weeping uncontrollably for more than 5 minutes George asked his advisor “how much is a Brazilian”?
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Hmm.. these are just extensions of existing criminal activities, big deal.
The big issue which McCrann and Ergas have only touched on is what are the TOTAL transfers of wealth within the economy both domestically and internationally as a result of carbon trading.
My back of the envelope calculation using Treasury modeling of the emission reductions and the expected price of the carbon permits to achieve those goals is $1.4 trillion over the period 2020 to 2050!! Of this amount, $650 billion will be for domestic abatement and $750 billion on transfers overseas. The bottom line is that the $1.4 trillion will be stripped from the balance sheet of Australian companies or polluters as the Government likes to demomise them.
I call this “Julia’s trillion dollar folly”!
From the Oxford English Dictionary: Folly A name given to any costly structure considered to have shown folly in the builder
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The worst part of all this is that the brainless journalists who have the gumption to call themselves economic commentators nod in agreement and don’t say anything.
We’ve only got to go back to our old friend the broken window fallacy, and see that this is the equivalent of smashing all windows in Australia once per year. Yes, think of the work for the glaziers! They’d be rich!
Pity about all the other businesses who quietly close up and die because a trillion dollars has dissappeared. For all those thousands a year we’ll pay in carbon taxes is a thousand that won’t end up in the pockets of tourism operators, restuarants, car dealers, furniture stores – on and on and on it goes.
But where are the hard questions (despite Henry Ergas, who is to be commended?). Nope, a quick check today see them arguing over the merits of the non-existent raise in the tax-free threshold.
They may as well take $20 notes out of your wallet and pile them up on the front lawn of canberra and set fire to them. At least that would be fun to watch.
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Mark D in 5,
No Mark you need to look at this like Dr Spock who once said “The needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few”
The many being life on the planet, the few being some poor bastard in Uganda.
These are same people that start wars for profit, they make the rules they break the rules a perfect example is that the USA has lost quite a few troops in Libya along with a hercules plane…WTF!!!!!!! The UN security council resolution stated clearly that there will be no boots on the ground.
They make the rules they break the rules, no difference here, they make the rules on humanitarian rights but yet turn a blind eye to these poor buggars, secret renditions, GITMO etc. Mind you if someone who did not make the rules breaks the rules then all hell will break loose.
The rules are in place so they can make a
shit lobrazillion in easy cash and if a few rules need to be broken along the way then so be it. But dont you dare fly a plane into the EU without paying a CO2 tax coz them there are the rules.10
OT, apparently the IPA got their ‘free speech’ ad posted in The Australian (re: Bolt decision). Does someone have an online version of what appeared in print?
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Try this link.
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Thanks, though I expected more it’s just a list of names. A message would have been nice.
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MV in 17,
When you nuke a desert you get green glass……………close enough?
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“In the first place, given that GDP is highly correlated with CO2 emissions, it seems cruelly perverse to ask the third world to emit less carbon dioxide so we can emit more”.
Even more perverse if the plan is to slow their development and keep them in their “3rd World” status.
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This is a little off topic but i think this is the kind of world John Brooks dreams of.
Two men named Samir Khan and Anwar Al-awlaki both US citizens with links to terrorist organisations where targetted for and assassinated by a predator drone strike care of the Obama government.
Ron Paul who is a presidential candidate claimed this was nothing more than the act of a dictatorship (or words to that effect) below is a comment from an unknown source
Now this is no different to Johns blase attitude towards a few people getting steam rolled by the need to appease GAIA, so i ask you John is this the type of world you wish to live in? A world where the worth of ones life is dependent on what you want to achieve.
As the unknown source said “…then he can kill you. He can kill anyone he doesn’t like….” so to can you get steam rolled by the need to appease GAIA John, anyone can do you understand that?
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Too bad you don’t even have the protection of our constitution
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I’m totally confused (not that that is a surprise to anyone here).
What are you asking Crakar? Do I agree with the US killing know terrorists? Or do I think that you should kill people to save the world?
There is quite a bit of tension between business and locals when it comes to exploiting resources. Think oil and Nigeria. Think coal seam gas and Queensland. The difference is that no one gets killed in QLD.
There was, of course, nothing ideological about the Irish potato famine. No environmental movement. No global warming. Nothing really but greed. The Irish poor were supposed to work on the farms of the landowners, growing food for export, while living on potatoes themselves. The potatoes failed, so they starved – while Ireland continued to export food.
So, given there were no greenies there, just good honest-to-god capatilists, how could such a disaster happen? Indeed, how did any bad things happen before the green menace appeared?
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I’ll probably catch Hell for asking this — and mind you, I’m no fan of killing anyone by any means that might be classified as assassination. But how is this different from the killing of bin Laden?
10
Latest UAH Global temp update for September is +0.29C, is it hot in here or is it just me?
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Jo,
When you subscribe to get new posts via email they do not tell you where they appear, is it possible to get a subscription with the post number detail. Otherwise one has to wade through all the posts looking for the latest which is a real pain and not an exercise worth doing.
Cheers
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The “joys” of nested comments.
It gets REAL interesting when you have a thread of around 300 “original ” comments, plus another 100 or so “replies”, and then you go to bed and our UK and Yank friends get posting, and you wake up and find another 200 posts have been made overnight and 150 of them are “replies” buried somewhere in the stuff you have already ploughed through – maybe two or three times already..
Nested comments are useful to people who are only interested in seeing what sort of response they get to their own comments. They’re easy to spot – they never read any other posts and invariably end up posting links or information that has already been posted.
For anybody actually interested in an ongoing and developing discussion on a topic nested posts are a right royal pain in the backside.
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Crackar and memory vault — thanks for the feedback.
1. Yes, I’ve asked about fixing the numbers so you’ll know where new comments go. We’ll see if we can get #1.1 etc.
2. MV — point taken. On the other hand, nested comments are great for people who arrive late to a thread, it’s so much easier to see answers to each point. As a resource, after the event, nested comments create a lot of value. Hopefully we can overcome some of the difficulties for regular commenters.
For everyone, there is a new repaired version of the page where there are the latest 30 comments displayed for any thread, so you ought to be able to arrive, click Recent Comments (see top right list under “Find Things”, and at least see if there are new interesting points.
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Jo,
I take back my previous comment, um … my following comment … er? Oh well …
The latest comments list is a great alternative to finding out what is going on, but can I suggest that you investigate putting the date/time in the list along with the name of the last comment? Most people have an idea of when they last visited, which makes it easier for people to pick up on those threads that have been active since then.
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I agree MV.
It makes it very difficult to follow how the ideas develop on the thread, and they do develop because, under the old scheme, you would read through previous comments, and how you frame your response would change as a result. That is part of the learning process that multi-threading loses.
What would have been better, IMHO, was to keep the old temporal sequence, but introduce the “Reply” button, and have it automatically add the referenced Name and comment number to the actual reply, as most of us did manually, anyway.
I hate being negative, but I think we lose something with this new format. Others might disagree, because it does tend to coral the trolls to one part of the thread. I guess it depends on your priorities.
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Warning:- Get your sick bag ready if you have the stomach to read this AGW stunt.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/climate-change-and-the-end-of-australia-20111003
Do all you followers of the faith feel just a tiny bit embarassed when you read this crap?
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Crakar24,
naah! I’m not so sure.
It was a really wonderful article.
Don’t you just love it when someone who gets published in Rolling Stone comes to Oz and says the following:
and this:
and this:
and this:
and this:
and this:
But wait, there’s more! In fact 4 more pages of it.
Wish I’d seen this when it came out. I would’ve realised how wrong I really was when I thought Climate Change/Global Warming was a crock of, well, you know what I mean!
Imagine all those young impressionable Rolling Stone readers reading this.
Man! It must be true.
It’s in Rolling Stone!
Tony.
PS Sorry about the wallpaper. My Doctor Smith gene got the better of me, nyuk nyuk nyuk!
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One of my favorites is
It is all just the usual beat up, the drought was caused by AGW and the drought breaking rains were also. I liked the +9C increase in 90 years scary story oh and of course the 3 meter SL rise. Funny how the SL fell by 6 mm in 2010?
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I’m convinced now that this Rolling Stone report was just a rehash of an article written way back in 1921 by a Roman Catholic priest John O’Brien, as shown at the following link:
Global Warming Circa 1921
Tony.
PS John O’Brien – I didn’t want to be too obvious.
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Thanks for that one crakar,
I can hear the rumbling of newly awakened skeptics as a result of that article.
Lets see this one gets published far and wide.
They just keep giving us ammo….
Lets post this to all the warmist blogs and defend it -adam smith style.
haw haw haw.
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Crakar24 – Just read the comments on the article. The author gets a universal pasting!
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The hypocrisy is coming thick and fast, hot on the heels of Krud and the King of Geothermia buying mansions on the banks of rivers and shores of oceans we have carbon Cate arriving back from a weekend away with James Packer, not by car but by helicopter.
Apparently the helicopter would produce twice as much co2 as a car (yeah righto then and Saddam had Nukes) so whilst it is complex to offset it can be done.
This is your future JB and co, you support these scammers for reasons still unknown but in the end you will be shafted just like us whilst the elite “offset” themselves so they can maintain the lifestyle they have grown acccustom to.
Wake up fools.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/sydney-confidential/cate-blanchetts-flight-from-packer-compund-not-so-friendly/story-e6frewz0-1226158425843
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Smarter folk are more likely to be global warming sceptics
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/smarter_folk_are_more_likely_to_be_sceptics/
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For those of you who may want to contact Jeff Goodell to congratulate him on his Rolling Stone article (and maybe suggest he reads the online comments), his email address is:
jeffgoodell@gmail.com
10
Jo’s post is probably highlighting many similar moves in the easily swayed equatorial nations. Only last week The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph carried this story about Uganda
10
Sorry, the link didn’t work.
Take 2
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I’ll go back to computer kindy and learn how to use the links thingy. You’ll have to cut and paste the link.
“http://www.prisonplanet.com/armed-troops-burn-down-homes-kill-children-to-evict-ugandans-in-name-of-global-warming.html”
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Perhaps in the 3rd world farmers die, but farmers all the world over are the ones who have to put their money and livelihoods where their mouth is in the global warming debate. Funny how a lot of farmers don’t believe the scare story.
As Jo is probably already aware, some of our farmers in WA can’t even get a science debate on global warming:
http://fw.farmonline.com.au/news/state/agribusiness-and-general/general/uwa-backs-away-from-climate-change-debate/2306898.aspx?storypage=0
See how they run!
See how they run!
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Hello memoryvault 54.1
The use of the term ‘nested’ seems to imply the writer is a member of a select few, therefore allowed their special jargon (‘Special’ being my own interpretation, meaning: superior in comparison to others of the same kind).
Personally, I’m a ‘nester’, please understand that I don’t spend my life in front of one site and make it my daily obsession. I actually have a life.
My comments are short, because I don’t have an investment in making this site my preoccupation, as much as I love the philosophy and wisdom behind it. If you enjoy the ‘clash of phallic cymbals’, then go for it, and leave me to my poor, insignificant ‘nesting’ status. It’s called democracy.
Thanks, Jo for your comment – 54.1.1
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Tim,
The term “nested” is not mine, and in truth I had not seen this method of posting described as such before Joanne used it when announcing the new site upgrade. Since I don’t even have a word for it I simply used Jo’s terminology.
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/10/site-upgraded/
(First “PS” on bottom of her post).
That being the case, I suggest if you have any issues with possible “implications” regarding the term, you take them up with Jo not me.
As for our disagreeing opinions on the different posting methodologies, well, we agree to disagree, and we have both given Jo our feedback on the matter. I don’t have a problem with that.
Hell, for all I know I’m possibly a minority of one on the issue. And that’s fine too.
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Tim @ 63.
I think you may have misunderstood the term ‘nested’ here.
In this instance nesting serves to gather replies to existing comments and the further responses to those replies. This is nothing to do with any sort of hierachy within the comments or the relationships between comment posters.
I like the idea of nested comments myself as it keeps conversations (and squabbles) together but I find that I have to agree with Memory Vault that this system can obscure recent postings. Not sure what the answer to this might be; colour coding – red for anything less than hour old?
Cheers.
NicG.
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Tim,
Just further to my above comment, I notice that, despite being a self-confessed “nestor”, you didn’t.
When it came to making a comment on an “old” post (mine at 54.1) rather than “nest” it underneath, you made a whole new comment (63), QUOTING the number of my original post, JUST like we all did in the old days, using the “old” ways.
So now I am REALLY confused.
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Big oil cares when convenient. It’s a non-story because the link between these murders and the decision to contain carbon admissions via abatement is spurious. Where there is money and limited rule of law there are murders.
Partisanship is the antithesis of scepticism.
No, but I’d be sad.
It is ironic that in your personal conceit, you believe no doubt that you are egalitarian and humanistic, yet when push comes to shove you couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the ramifications of the actions you spruik. So long as you can tell yourself that you are noble, no consequence is worthy of making you reconsider your beliefs.
I’m not egalitarian, humanistic or noble, and haven’t ever spruiked offshore carbon abatement anywhere. I reconsider my beliefs on a regular basis.
I’ll be sure to cry myself to sleep, from the lofty heights of my abode.
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With very few exceptions, ALL care only when convenient. From Greenpeace to Exxon, only when caring converges with their goals.
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Very selective comment there when the 2nd subsequent sentence I said:
Nothing partisan about that comment at all- I detest extremists on both sides of the equation.
I apologise if I’ve categorised you unfairly as a fair minded, caring individual, I falsely believed that most people at least aspire to that. At least you’re honest. If you don’t favour off shore carbon abatement, then whats your realistic alternative since that’s exactly what our political masters are planning? Are you going to take your protests to the streets then?
In one fell swoop, you’ve just demonstrated exactly what I was saying. Those of a leftist persuasion, and every one of your past posts leads me to the belief that you hold left-leaning views, have a callous indifference to the consequences of their actions. Your sarcasm gives you away. The fact that these 30+ people reside in Honduras, who cares, right? Martin Bryant massacred the same number of people in Port Arthur, will you pretend you had a callous indifference to that, or would it require a sister or spouse to have been killed for you to have any empathy?
The fact that the actions of the West have consistently, no matter what the persuasion of various governments, brought havoc upon the poor in 3rd world countries sits very poorly with me, as they indirectly represent me in their actions. Over the years I have read particularly about the problems of rectifying the crushing poverty in Africa and even proposed some solutions of my own (mentor countries), not that anyone particularly cares what I think. But at least I have some emotional investment in that. In our young life in the privilege of living in a stable and largely peaceful country, has it ever occurred to you to look past your political concerns to a higher purpose that serves your fellow man? Or are we just some bug plague infesting the planet, and if a few have to be squashed, then big deal?
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Or as I’d put it Phil:
Every entity assigns some sort of value to human and environmental life and well being. Most of the large oil companies have acted in ways that seem to indicate that this value is significantly smaller than the cost of being suitably careful or suitably compensatory. Is this position unique to oil companies? Of course not. It’s a property of many, many entities including most large companies and most governments. Despite the preponderance of ‘religious morals’ that seem to spring up in almost every social debate, when faced with the alternative of ‘more power/money’, few people are actually interested in being their brother’s keeper, at least, not when that brother is sufficiently distant/different.
Greenpeace assigns quite a lot of value to human and environmental life and well being, but they also assign seemingly infinite value to certain ideals, such as opposition to nuclear energy. Greenpeace doesn’t assess nuclear power’s value via some cost:benefit algorithm, they oppose it axiomatically. Many NGOs, due to the nature of their genesis, have similarly unwavering values.
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You know, I find myself wondering these days if the ultimate goal of murdering/evicting 3rd world people in order to take over their land is not simply about putting in more profitable crops. If we are truly heading for an ice age similar to, or worse than, the Little Ice Age, then why wouldn’t the richest of the rich try to take control of land in parts of the world that won’t be covered by glaciers? Of course, these days they are likely to do it with a song and dance about saving the globe – right?
I wonder if there is some fine print in the Kyoto agreement (or the others) that says that, if your 3rd world country agrees to benefit from the payola of the developed world, then at any time, for any reason, the donors have the right to come overrun your country, permanently?
Besides reducing the sheer number of people on the planet, would they not also have the goal of herding the remnants into cities so they could furnish them with the equivalent of “bread and circuses” – these days that would be a tablet PC (India just introduced one that sells for the equivalent of $35 to be used by the poor children of that country), and whatever fake food they can come up with (soy, anyone?), with or without the latest in vaccinations?
By the way, what I have read about Brazil is that they removed the rain forests to make way for not just beef cattle, but also for lots of soy farms! Now, there’s a cash crop for you! In the American South, after the War of Northern Agression (a/k/a the Civil War), I understand that the banks urged the farmers to grow cotton because, not only was it a great cash crop, it was also something the people couldn’t eat.
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apart from the Baltimore Sun, no MSM has picked up this story. musn’t burst the bubble…
4 Oct: Reuters: U.S. alleges $9 million biofuel scheme paid for exotic cars
A Maryland man has been charged by the federal government for selling $9 million in fraudulent renewable fuel credits and using the money to buy a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, and a Maserati, among other things.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Tuesday that Rodney Hailey, the owner of Clean Green Fuel, LLC, has been charged with wire fraud, money laundering, and violation of the Clean Air Act in connection to trade in renewable identification numbers, or RINs, purportedly produced by his company.
In addition to the Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati, Hailey allegedly used the proceeds of the wire fraud scheme to buy BMWs, Mercedes Benz’s, a Rolls Royce Phantom, and others, as well as real estate and jewelry, the EPA said.
During an investigation Hailey made numerous false statements to EPA investigators, including that he manufactured the fuel from waste vegetable oil collected from 2,700 restaurants, it said…
“According to the criminal information, Hailey did not have a facility capable of producing biodiesel fuel and his business operation consisted solely of generating false RINs on his computer and marketing them to brokers and oil companies,” the EPA said in a release.
To encourage renewable fuel output, the government requires oil companies that market petroleum in the United States to produce a given quantity of renewable fuel, or to purchase the RIN credits from producers of renewable fuels…
Initial attempts to contact Hailey were unsuccessful. The number for Clean Green Fuel listed on its website has been disconnected.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/04/us-usa-ethanol-fraud-idUSTRE7935AU20111004
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some would call it treason!!! LOL.
6 Oct: SMH: Peter Hartcher: Turnbull calls for leadership on climate
MALCOLM TURNBULL has issued a fresh call for leadership on climate change only a week before the Parliament is due to vote on the Gillard government’s controversial carbon tax.
In a speech in London overnight the opposition spokesman on communications urged “long-term thinking and leadership” to compete with China in fields such as climate change.
“While politicians in the West argue about whether or not climate change is real, in China, the world’s largest emitter, billions are being invested in wind, solar and electric vehicles,” he said in a speech at the London School of Economics…
In contrast to the position of his leader, Tony Abbott, Mr Turnbull supports pricing carbon emissions in Australia.
One reason is that, by raising the price of carbon-based fuels, “green” technologies win a relative boost and attract more investment. This is one of the key reasons the Gillard government uses in support of its proposed carbon tax. The bill to introduce the carbon tax is due…
Mr Turnbull said China had borne out the famous declaration of its revolutionary leader Mao Zedong that “the Chinese people have stood up”.
He said China, India and other powers in Asia had now stood up: “And so, indeed, should we”…
http://www.smh.com.au/national/turnbull-calls-for-leadership-on-climate-20111005-1l9qg.html#ixzz1ZwDgHGxP
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I’ve wondered why the price of fuel bears no relaion to the price of a barrel of oil.As Malcolm says,it is to boost the sale of green technology. – And –
“The next revolution in the Sustainable Development saga appears to be the use of Global Warming hysteria to implement a global carbon tax or carbon credit trading system. This will give the United Nations, or whatever hierarchy oversees the system, complete control of the worlds economy. Fossil fuels are the life blood of any economy. One barrel of oil contains 23,000 hours of human work output. Controlling the amount of oil that can be consumed, and taxing its consumption, will complete the Sustainable Development agenda of controlling and reducing human activity in order to protect Mother Earth from her greatest enemy – humans!”
“Humans on the Earth behave in some ways like a
pathogenic micro-organism, or like the cells of a tumor.“
– Sir James Lovelock,
The Green Agenda
http://green-agenda.com/sustainabledevelopment.html
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Malcolm Turnbull says he has NO plans to cross he floor on a carbon tax vote.
http://wakeup2thelies.com/category/carbon-tax-ets/page/3/
10
Anybody seen or heard anything about this on any Oz media?
http://www.desmogblog.com/canadian-government-sacks-science-advisor
I”m hearing that around 700 have received their marching orders.
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Mark that link goes to a thread date 2008 !!
10
Hi Mark,
I think you are confusing two stories. As correctly pointed out by Ross, your link goes to a story from 2008.
On the other hand your “700 jobs lost” I think relates to the recent announcement by the Canadian gubmint to drastically scale back their ozone monitoring.
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110912/full/477257a.html
The link was originally posted at WUWT by Tim Ball as a possible non-scientific explanation for all the recent hoo-ha about the “ozone hole over the Arctic” (which actually occurred six months ago).
And no, I haven’t seen anything about it in the OZ media.
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I agree Pat. Here’s what I said at Jen’s blog.
Meanwhile Turnbull again proves he’s either a liar or a fool when he promotes China as a green champion.
With the vote for a co2 tax coming up next Wednesday Turnbull’s stupid speech is an idiotic disgrace.
For the record China and India’s co2 emissions will soar for decades to come while the developed world will nearly flatline.
This is just another fool or liar who just cannot understand simple primary school maths.
He has all the credentials to make a good Labor pollie.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/turnbull_does_it_again/
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/index.cfm
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Hi Rereke Whakaaro
October 5, 2011 at 7:45 pm · Reply
MV and RW good idea to have the reply button identify “reply target” but to stick the actual comment where it lands in chronological order.
Such a time waste going back through old stuff.
While not a big blogger I found the old system great.
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A bit o/t but for those of us interested in Michael Mann’s legal battle in Virginia copy of an e mail from John O’Sullivan received today:
Check out the article – very informative
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Val,
Not only is it interesting, it’s also satisfying to see justice closing in on Mann. He seems to be out of places where he can run and hide. Perhaps we’ll finally see what went into his infamous hocky stick.
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The Rolling Stone article typifies the role of the media in promoting AGW; even otherwise sectional or specialist media is prone to take up the AGW lie; for instance the Law Society journal regularly has articles pro-AGW and instructing lawyers about how they can make money from the various AGW legislation; and I have a friend who sends articles from his engineering journal.
Also typically the response from the hoi polli in the general or specialised media is to repudiate the AGW articles or editorial position.
AGW is a strategically orchestrated ideology masquerading as a mass movement; it has been seen through and the next election will remove the political stooges but there will remain entrenched and influential sections of the media, academia, the bureacracy, which will continue to issue propaganda and undermine the flow of open information about the AGW lies.
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talk about in-fighting:
5 Oct: Guardian: Fiona Harvey: Green campaigners condemn Thomson Airways’ biofuels flightService to the Canary Islands that will be powered partly by waste from cooking oil is criticised as ‘hollow PR stunt’
Kenneth Richter, biofuels campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “Biofuels won’t make flying any greener – their production is wrecking rainforests, pushing up food prices and causing yet more climate-changing emissions. The government must curb future demand for flights by halting airport expansion, promoting video conferencing, and developing faster, better and affordable rail services.”
The problem is that biofuels – once greeted by green campaigners as an alternative to fossil fuels – are now regarded as even more environmentally destructive than the fuels they replace. Natural oils such as palm oil are now hugely valuable globally traded commodities, and the rush to cash in has led to the widespread destruction of rainforest in countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia.
For these reasons, green pressure groups want a moratorium on the use of biofuels…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/05/thomson-biofuels-flight
hey, let’s kill manufacturing altogether:
4 Oct: UK Daily Mail: Graham Smith: Love affair with gadgets sends energy bills soaring as average home has 3.5 times more devices than 20 years ago
Computers, plasma TVs, fridge-freezers and tumble dryers to blame
Britain will miss its 2020 domestic appliance carbon reduction target ‘by 7 million tons’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2044661/Gadgets-send-energy-bills-soaring-average-home-3-5-times-20-yrs-ago.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
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“martyr”, not “traitor”:
5 Oct: Guardian: Damian Carrington: Malcolm Turnbull: China and India will become climate leaders
The politician, who has been called a ‘climate martyr’, says a ‘war against science’ would see nations trailing in China’s wake
“China and India will take the global leadership on climate change: they are suffering for it,” Turnbull told the Guardian. He warned that an “extraordinary war against science” in the US and elsewhere would see nations trailing in China’s wake. “The paradox is that as the physical signs of climate change get stronger, the political will gets weaker in the US.”…
“America’s political impotence, cause by their terrible partisanship, will see them left behind.”
Turnbull also lambasted Australia’s Labour prime minister, Julia Gillard, for failing to sell the carbon trading system to the public successfully, and predicted the return of Kevin Rudd, who Gillard ousted, within four months. “The advocacy is just woeful,” he said. “To get big reforms like carbon trading through, you have to understand it completely, be able to articulate it compellingly and the public have to believe you believe it.”…
Turnbull also criticised Rudd. “He abandoned the greatest moral challenge of our age,” when he backed down on carbon trading, he said. “I lost my job because I stuck to my principles, he lost his by abandoning his. The difficulty is that if you keep on selling out your principles in politics, you get left with nothing.”
Winning the argument on cutting greenhouse gas emissions was a question of sticking to your guns, he said, as the idea of billions of people in emerging economies starting to use carbon-based energy at same level as western nations do now “is clearly not sustainable”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/05/malcolm-turnbull-china-india-climate
what extraordinary arrogance from Turnbull!
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Some reading Turnbull might need to catch up on.
Originally found at the daily mail but now found here: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/in_china_true_cost_of_brits_clean_green_wind_power.pdf
A little old but can be found here: http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/20/china-wind-power-business-energy-china.html
and finally
http://www.nationalreview.com/planet-gore/265349/lomborg-china-not-so-green-greg-pollowitz
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JB,
You responded to my post but i have no idea where it is so please accept this post as a rebuttal.
You begin by claiming you are confused so let me clear that up, in the beginning we all aspire to very high standards but over time these standards are slowly eroded until one day we discover we now have no standards at all.
Take the USA for example they began with a standard that meant they did not partake in assassinations of foreigners eg PM’s, dictators, scientists or activists etc. This standard has slowly been eroded to allowing foreign governments to assassinate its own citizens to now openly assassinating its own citizens.
Now dont get me wrong, they might not be nice people but the rule of law must prevail if we ignore it then what kind of society do we live in when one can simply kill another because they dont like them, simply kill them based on assumptions/hearsay etc. The presumption of innocent until proven guilty should be maintained at all costs otherwise we as a society will be poorer for it.
Now take this idea John and apply it to the AGW scam, in the beginning the standard was that we must all lower our emissions, we must all act as one to save the planet…………….well not all of us John, Karbon Kate can still live the life she has grown accustom to, Dick Smith can still fly helicopters, Richard Branson can still run a tourist business into space and living his playboy lifestyle, John Travolta can still fly his jumbo jets and the King of Geothermia can still live in his mansion by the Hawkesbury river and the list goes on.
But lets lower our standards a little more, lets divert a swathe of our agriculture from food production to alternative fuels it dont matter if the poor starve as long as the elite can maintain their standard of living.
Lowering our standards a little more lets displace the Ugandans from their land so we can plant CO2 sucking trees and if they dont go voluntarily lets kill them because we are saving the planet after all.
We can drop our standards even more John by not allowing developing countries the opportunity of dragging its peoples out of abject poverty, by holding them there we can stop CO2 emissions rising further, this will of course extend their misery and maintain the child mortality rate at a very high level but hey we have our lifestyles to protect here oh and of course we are saving the planet after all.
So the question is John how low are we prepared to go? You claim Honduras is lead by a tin pot dictator but i have just shown you the USA is lead by one as well and what about Gillard/Brown are they not also one step away from the tin pot?
How long before it is your turn to feel the wrath of the AGW scam? If you turn a blind eye to the injustices you see there will be nobody left to speak on your behalf when they come for you.
The Standards we walk past today are the standards we strive to attain tomorrow, remember that John.
I hope this clears things up a little.
Crakar24
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Crakar24
Very well said, a statement of principles in an unprincipled world.
As for JB, Churchill best described his moral centre
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Rather than reply to this earlier comment from Rereke at 17.1.1.1 (Joanne, nice addition, so now we know exactly where things are) I’ll open a new Comment because this bears some thought. I mentioned in the comment immediatly prior to Rereke’s comment that the next round of the UNFCCC conferences starts in Durban in a little more than 7 weeks.
I’ve mentioned that a lot about this whole debate stems from Kyoto, how it has a Sunset clause of 2012, how Copenhagen was supposed to put in place a replacement, how that failed so utterly, and then the desperation of Cancun, and now nothing at all anywhere about Durban.
Why would the Labor Government be so desperately trying to push through this plethora of complex intertwined legislation and have it in place BEFORE Durban.
Do they know something that the rest of us don’t?
Kyoto will never be replaced because it offers so much for the 152 Countries at the expense of the 23 who have to foot the bill for everything. Kyoto is a legally binding document that some want watered down (the 23) and some want kept in place, or an equivalent that promises the same as Kyoto. (the 152)
Deals were done at Copenhagen, and at Cancun by Australian representatives at those Conferences, and funds were allocated to the UN from Australia.
If Kyoto is so hopelessly mired by what it promised, which was fine at the time, and not understood properly, and now the intent has become obvious, so obvious that it has become the sword for its own demise with nothing to replace it, will Kyoto in fact just die a death slowly as it expires.
If the current legislation going through here in Australia is in place, then with Kyoto expired, there is effectively no obligation for Australia, or any Country for that fact, to abide by what Kyoto required.
Instead of sending all that money to the UN, as Kyoto and its CDM subsidiary calls for, then all that lovely huge money can just be used here at home to add to our ‘bottom line’ if you can see that.
Conversely, if a replacement for Kyoto cannot be found, as is increasingly becoming obvious, then any legislation arising from Kyoto will be all but impossible to ‘get up’ after the fact, if you can see that.
Hence, they have to desperately push it through ‘right now’, because after Durban, it becomes more apparent that nothing can be found, so any legislation would have zero chance of being put in place.
I understand fully that this snacks almost of ‘conspiracy theory’, but really, think about it.
Why is this so imperative to do ‘right now’, just prior to the Durban round?
The more I think about it, the more I’m just guessing.
‘Somebody’ knows ‘something’, otherwise there would be more time allowed for debate on something that is so obviously huge by its very nature with this legislation. Just what is the rush?
I for one look forward to see what does happen at Durban, and I’m willing to bet that it’s going to add some perspective to this current Australia raft of legislation, now, luckily for some, passed by the Parliament here.
This is beginning to smell like a dead fish.
Tony.
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Ross & MV:
Well that’ll learn me to put my glasses on first thing in the morning!
I heard about the Canadian Govt. doing some housecleaning at their climate dept., did a quick search and came up with that result. Failed to note the date.
Thanks for the correction.
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Tony in post God knows what,
I understand your suspicions of a conspiracy but let me assure you that as a “conspiracy theorist” (and i use that term with all the dripping sarcasm i can muster) there is no conspiracy here well except for the one that states Gillard and Brown are as mad as a two bob watch.
No major countries are looking at an ETS, the USA has shelved theirs and China never had one to begin with, the Limey’s are pulling back on their promise of an 80% cut and the latest rumour doing the rounds is that German are printing up as many Deutch Marks as they can in readiness to leave the EU before they go broke.
So Durban will come and go and in a few years no one will ever remember it but Gillard and Brown will be remember for time immortal as the two most stupid pollies Australia has ever produced.
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This I think will be of interest.
http://www.public-action.com/911/jmcm/physics_1.html
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Completely off topic,
The UNSC resolution to bomb the crap out of Syria has been Vetoed by the Riskies and the Chinese, the USA are of course very upset. Damn shame that.
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Almost but not quite. That should be changed to “The U.S. government is of course very upset.”
The USA (as in the people that make up the country) have other things to worry about, like finding jobs, being able to afford to get to the job once they find one, things like that.
What our government is wanting to do (to us as well as to the rest of the world) more often than not we aren’t consulted on and if we were wouldn’t be listened too. At least until an election comes along and we express ourselves through the ballot box. Then they pay attention. For a little while at least. As with most governments no matter how we bloody their noses at the polls it doesn’t take long for them to return to “business as usual.”
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TonyOz @78:
By virtue of Australia’s ratification of previous UN treaties such as Kyoto, any Durban agreement based on UNFCCC may be binding and continue to dominate internal political and legal process despite a change in government and repeal of such legislation as the carbon TAX.
In Australia parliamentary approval is necessary before ratification of foreign treaties can occur under Section 51 (XX1X) of the constitution. But the carbon TAX gives effect to Australia’s obligations under the UNFCCC. So, if the carbon TAX is passed prior to the Durban meeting then that ratification may already have occurred and Australia will be locked into the UNFCCC.
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The Ausralian Constitution is an ACT of The U.K. Parliament and Australia has never declared independence Therefore, technically we are still a Colony and Colonies cannot make treaties.
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Climate change preventers say that CO2 produced by humankind is atmospheric cumulative – that CO2 atmospheric level reduction can only be achieved by humankind reducing the addition of its CO2 sources.
By that logic how can it be explained that an addition at one speed, adds, but a slowing down of the addition, takes away?
Or is there something wrong with my understanding?
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Hello memoryvault 54.1
Thanks for your courteous reply. I expelled a lot of propaganda based on a false assumption. Maybe some globalist/warmist people should learn this too.
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U.S. alleges $9 million biofuel scheme paid for exotic cars
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/04/us-usa-ethanol-fraud-idUSTRE7935AU20111004
Just the tip of a melting ice berg i suspect
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Where have all the numbers gone?.
cohenite how did you know that TonyOz was at 78?.
Cheers
ruk
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OK forget the above the numbers seem to have reappeared.
Cheers
ruk
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I still dont have numbers.
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Crakar24 if you are still having the problem mine fix its self after I hit the browser refresh(blue ring with arrow on my browser).
Cheers
ruk
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Nope that is not it Ruk, i am using IE7 on this machine, i have another that is using a later version i think, i will try that tonight, does anyone else have the no number issue or is it just me?
There might be another reason why checking tonight will prove a few things.
Thanks for your help Ruk
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I made a short submission to The Clean Energy Bills, as some of you may have seen when Joanne put it into one of here earlier Posts here at this site.
I have just received this reply in an email.
Thank you for your contribution to the inquiry by the Joint Select Committee on Australia’s Clean Energy Future Legislation.
So, it seems like it’s thanks, but no thanks.
Tony.
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Tony in post who knows
More like “be quiet whilst the adults are talking” Tony, but i may have misread the situation :-))
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An interesting piece on Kyoto and related matters ( trading schemes etc.) by a financial “analyst’ in the Asian Times Online
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/MJ05Dj01.html
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Just a reminder of the “global warming is really global cooling” flip flop.
http://iceagenow.info/2011/10/tahoe-%e2%80%98earliest-return-winter-conditions-1969%e2%80%b2/
Just 96 days since it last snowed
And
http://iceagenow.info/2011/10/record-october-snow-mammoth-mountain-ca-video/
Just for good measure, another body blow for Mann and the team.
http://www.clim-past.net/7/1011/2011/cp-7-1011-2011.pdf
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Moschen et al shows how, once you get rid of those damn Yamal tree rings, suddenly the Medieval Warming Period reappears. Hey Presto! Surprising isn’t it.
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Is George Orwells “1984” a Conspiracy Theory or a Conspiracy Fact?
“….In its essence 1984 is an exposure of just such a diabolical plan. Much of what Orwell describes in the nightmare world of 1984 is recognizable as having been taken from the pages of the conspiracy writings that were available during his lifetime. Among the hundreds of articles and essays Orwell wrote throughout his journalistic career he mentions the books, theories and authors that influenced him. These, and his own education and life experiences, contributed to the creation of his masterpiece, 1984. His knowledge of these writings helps explain how Orwell came up with such accurate descriptions of the horrific world Winston inhabits in Oceania, and it re-inforces my belief that 1984 is a cryptic message from Orwell exposing the world organization’s conspirators.”
http://www.orwelltoday.com/conspiracy.shtml
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a Councillor speaking up:
6 Oct: Gold Coast Bulletin: Matthew Killoran: Coast council wants scientist quiet
THE Gold Coast City Council has told a top academic to stop criticising its policies or risk losing council funding for his studies.
Cr Ted Shepherd lashed out at Professor Rodger Tomlinson, head of Griffith University’s Centre for Coastal Management, over comments about rising sea levels and the possible impact on the Coast.
The council gives $500,000 a year to the centre…
Cr Shepherd’s funding threat to Prof Tomlinson came with a demand he be brought before the council to explain his `alarmist’ comments.
Despite the threats by Cr Shepherd, the council’s engineering committee decided to continue funding the centre.
Cr Shepherd, however, questioned why the funding should go ahead when Prof Tomlinson `continually spoke against council policy’.
Queensland Council for Civil Liberties president Michael Cope said it would be undemocratic to cut funding because of comments made by an individual…
“It’s a clear breach of freedom of speech. If they say he’s wrong, they can say that. It would stimulate public debate.”
http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2011/10/06/354985_gold-coast-news.html
examples of Tomlinson’s alarmism:
7 June 2011: Gold Coast Bulletin: Henry Tuttiett: Coast to go under in climate crisis
THE Gold Coast will lose more than 200 commercial buildings and more than 400km of roads to climate change in the next century as rising sea levels take a multi-million dollar toll on the city…
The loss would cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Tweed Coast would also lose about 250km of roads to a sea level rise of the same height…
Labor’s climate commission says the most plausible estimate of sea level rise by 2100 is 0.5 to 1m, higher than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s top range of 0.18 to 0.76m…
Griffith University professor of coastal management Rodger Tomlinson said the Queensland Coastal Management Plan specified an expected sea level rise of 0.8m by 2100.
Under the plan, all structures and infrastructure built on the Queensland coast must be built to withstand the expected rise…
He said a worst-case scenario rise of 1.1m would be bad news for the Gold Coast…
In total, the report identifies $226 billion of infrastructure at risk along the Australian coastline, including between 5800 and 8600 commercial buildings, 3700 and 6200 light industrial buildings and between 27,000 and 35,000 kilometres of roads and rail.
http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2011/06/07/321555_gold-coast-news.html
29 Oct 2009: Ballina Advocate: Storm, tides boost sea levels
IT’S not a matter of if sea levels are going to rise, but it’s a matter of how communities are going to deal with it, according to Professor Rodger Tomlinson…
Prof Tomlinson said the predicted level of sea rise of 0.9m in 100 years for the local area was going to be exacerbated by tides and more regular storm surges – which, combined, could add another three to four metres on to the median sea level.
“What’s does that mean to you living in this beautiful part of the world? Some parts of our community will be permanently inundated,” he told the small gathering at the event…
He said the coastline would recede by as much as 100m to 150m for every metre the sea rises…
http://www.ballinaadvocate.com.au/story/2009/10/29/storm-tides-boost-sea-levels/
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5 Oct: Guardian Damian Carrington Blog: Cameron adds green insult to Osborne’s low-carbon injuryThe prime minister ignores the environmental issues he championed before being elected, following the chancellor’s attack
So the Guardian’s green-o-meter has plunged, and we’ll be reflecting more on this in coming days…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2011/oct/05/cameron-conservative-green-economy-climate-change
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6 Oct: NYT: Matthew L. Wald: E-Mails Suggest White House Weighed a 2nd Solyndra Loan Worth Almost Half a Billion Dollars
Early last year, the Obama administration was so optimistic about the business prospects of Solyndra, the solar equipment manufacturer that declared bankruptcy last month after receiving a $528 million government loan, that officials entertained the possibility of giving the California company a second loan of almost half a billion dollars, according to internal e-mails…
In December 2009, just before the lobbyist’s e-mail about the second loan, a venture capitalist who had put money into Solyndra e-mailed Lawrence H. Summers, then the president’s top economic adviser, to say that a loan guarantee for the company was “good for us,” but that “I can’t imagine it’s a good way for the government to use taxpayer money.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/us/politics/2nd-us-loan-to-solyndra-said-to-have-been-considered.html
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I guess everyone who sent in a document to the Joint Select Committee received their email of commiseration today.
I see TonyFromOz has alerted us already. Amidst the other consolatory platitudes, my notice said:
That’s complete twaddle of course. Mine was more detailed about the (lack of) need for the tax than any other published document I read from the web site last week.
One also wonders how the Green Cooling Association got two bites of the cherry, sending in a “supplementary” document about a week after the deadline had expired. One vote one value, haha.
It seems that as of today all the submissions that will ever be published have been published. There’s a truckload now!
They alphabetically saved the best until last; Xenophon won’t support the legislation.
Not sure if that’s enough to can it.
Unfortunately Xenophon wants to walk the tightrope between climate denial and Marxist suicide by advocating a different method of taxation which is based on emissions intensity, not gross tonnage. He has some other incoherent suggestions such as rewarding voluntary reductions but one wonders how that can be funded if his scheme won’t scrape as much money out of the economy as the Greens’ present monstrosity.
So is this the Greens’ strategy? If it’s a compromise then that must make it okay?? Well we can kick you in the teeth or we can kick you up your seat warmer, which would you prefer? Nice choice.
Xenophon wants an election instead. Yay. :-S And who are our credible alternatives instead?
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Andrew,
You’re asbsolutely correct – got mine today EXACTLY the same as Tony posted.
Absolute BS – bet they never even opened or looked at the ones NOT published.
Cheers,
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Here’s something I got from the Submission of the National Retial Grocers of Australia on the Clean Energy Legislative Package.
World temperature records,
cooperatively generated suggest
that the earth has warmed about
0.7°C over the last century – but half
of this increase occurred before 1940
when carbon dioxide emissions took
off. However all records have been
‘adjusted’ and are criticised by in
scientific peer reviewed papers as to
their accuracy and reliability. The NZ
record is currently under challenge in
the High Court. The Australian record
has similar deficiencies.
Does that mean that since the NZ record is under challenge in the High Court,the same thing could happen to the Australian record,which would throw serious doubt on any said laws based on it?
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Now here’s a sight for sore eyes!
http://cbullitt.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/ill-take-proven-energy-wind-turbine-fail-for-55k-alex/
They must be really slow learners at that school. They’re gonna buy some more renewable snake-oil.
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Did I confuse partisanship with simplistic negative stereotyping? My apologies.
You actually made all sorts of characterisations, none of which casted me positively. Neither Humanism nor Egalitarianism are required to be caring (I don’t know what you mean by fair-minded).
I’d rather any abatement strategies be pursued on Australian soil, not that I’m particularly fond of abatement. I don’t have a political master and I don’t ‘take to the streets’.
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