Press Release: NZ Centre For Political Research
Dr Muriel Newman
11 April 2008
http://www.scoop.co.nz:80/stories/PO0804/S00187.htm
QUOTE: "Let's not forget there are powerful vested interests benefiting
from global warming alarmism with vast profit op****tunities and
political reputations at stake. They will hang on as long as a gullible
public allows them to."
QUOTE: "In Canada in 2006 the Conservative Party won the election on a
platform which included scrapping the Kyoto Protocol. They said the cost
to the country of Kyoto commitments was too high."
The climate change debate is forever ****fting as science casts long
shadows of doubt on the predictions of global catastrophe.
The debate gathered a world-wide audience when climate alarmists gained
control of the climate science agenda. Its popularisation has given it a
political momentum that is proving difficult to halt.
At first the alarmists tried to scare us with those exaggerated claims
that man-made greenhouse gas emissions were causing the earth's
temperature to rise. They said there was a direct causal relation****p
between industrialisation (and therefore CO2 emissions) and global
temperatures, and that link was so serious that mankind would bring
about its own demise if immediate action were not taken
These prophets of doom initially ignored the fact that while
concentrations of man-made greenhouse gases have continued to rise,
global temperatures stopped rising ten years ago. However, with the
growing weight of scientific data now indicating the globe could be
cooling, not warming, the alarmists are now talking of a 'climate change'
crisis. They have broadened their rhetoric to accommodate all forms of
extreme weather change - in order to hedge their bets!
When will these alarmists stop, you might well ask?
My answer is they won't. Those promoting the global warming cause will
adapt their reasoning in whatever way is necessary to remain credible in
the eyes of the public. Let's not forget there are powerful vested
interests benefiting from global warming alarmism with vast profit
op****tunities and political reputations at stake. They will hang on as
long as a gullible public allows them to.
And big money there is. All around the world, carbon offset schemes -
many of extremely dubious quality - are growing like topsy. Companies
like Al Gore's Generation Investment Management, which makes money from
investing in "sustainable" businesses, now has $5 billion in funds under
management, according to the New York Times. The runaway success of his
movie "An Inconvenient Truth" would have done the inflow of money into
that fund no harm at all!
This global warming juggernaut, fuelled by United Nations propaganda and
promoted by populist politicians who see "Green" issues as instrumental
to their electoral success, will continue relentlessly until the public
recognise that the ill-advised climate change policies that are being
foisted on them will do nothing to change the climate, but will cost
them dearly. Ironically these policies will have the greatest impact on
the poorest in our community - those Labour and the Greens claim to
protect and foster.
The reality is that the earth is constantly changing. While we are
presently living in temperate times, throughout history the climate has
been both many times hotter and many times colder than it is today.
Claims that mankind is a significant enough force to change the earth's
climate cycles are exaggerated: the largest pro****tion of the earth's
surface - 71 percent - is controlled by ocean systems; a single volcanic
eruption could dwarf all of mankind's emissions; and even our presence
on earth is overstated when one considers that if every man, woman and
child on the planet stood next to each other the whole human population
could easily fit onto an area the size of Stewart Island.
Professor Bob Carter, an environmental scientist at Queensland's James
Cook University and this week's NZCPR Guest Commentator, is presently in
New Zealand on a lecture tour. Professor Carter was called as an expert
witness on climate change by the US Senate and by the UK High Court in
the case which opposed the showing of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth"
in British Schools. In his opinion piece "The IPCC: On the Run At Last",
Bob explains how the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change used unrealistic scientific propaganda to stoke public alarm.
"The evidence for dangerous global warming adduced by the IPCC has never
been strong on empirical science. Endless cir***stantial scare campaigns
have been run about melting glaciers, more droughts and storms and
floods, sea-level rise and polar bears, but all founder on one
inescapable problem - as does Mr. Al Gore's over-hyped science fiction
film. And that is that we live on a naturally variable planet. Change is
what planet Earth does on all scales, and so far not one of the alleged
effects of human-caused global warming has been shown to lie outside
normal planetary variation. Sea-level rising? Sure, it happens. And the
appropriate response is adaptation, as the Dutch have known for
centuries".
Professor Carter goes on to suggest, "The roughly 50 computer experts
and scientists who form the core advisory group for the IPCC's stance
must have realized for several years now that the game was up. There is
indeed copious evidence that climate is changing, as it always has; and
that natural biological and physico-chemical systems - again as always -
are changing in response. But as to human causation - the evidential
cupboard is bare.
"For the last three years, satellite-measured average global temperature
has been declining. Given the occurrence also of record low winter
temperatures and massive snowfalls across both hemispheres this year,
IPCC members have now entered panic mode, the whites of their eyes being
clearly visible as they seek to defend their now unsustainable
hypothesis of dangerous, human-caused global warming".
These issues are extremely im****tant for New Zealand. On the basis of
the IPCC's propaganda and the self-serving hype of Al Gore's convenient
misrepresentations, as well as the UN's flawed Kyoto Protocol, our
government is about to introduce a range of climate change policies that
are not only totally unnecessary, but will cause huge damage to our
economy and our livelihoods. On the agenda is the introduction of the
mandatory use of biofuels, an emissions trading scheme, and a 10-year
ban on the building of new base-load thermal power stations. These are
all radical policies that will put New Zealand out on a limb. No other
government is planning to introduce such harsh initiatives which will
pass such massive costs onto businesses and ultimately consumers.
In signing up to Kyoto, Labour made a commitment that New Zealand would
emit no more than 1990 levels of greenhouse gases during the period from
2008 to 2012 and that credits would be bought for any emissions over
this amount. At the time Labour claimed that the deal would result in
$500 million gain for the government. But their calculation turned out
to be wrong and on current Treasury estimates, that windfall gain has
become a massive $963 million liability. In a re****t "How should we pay
for our Kyoto liability", Business NZ explains that the government is
ru****ng through its climate change policies in order to ensure that the
cost of its political decision to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol is
passed onto the public.
Business NZ believes that since the government planned to pocket the
$500 million windfall gain from Kyoto, so it should be required to pay
the liability out of the consolidated account - instead of trying to
force the cost of that political miscalculation onto the productive
sector.
In Canada in 2006 the Conservative Party won the election on a platform
which included scrapping the Kyoto Protocol. They said the cost to the
country of Kyoto commitments was too high.
That is still an option for New Zealand. The Kyoto Protocol came into
force on 16 February 2005, but under Article 27, any country can
withdraw after three years of it coming into force. This means as from
16 February 2008 New Zealand is free to withdraw - without any
penalties.
In their paper, Business NZ makes a further point about the cost of the
Kyoto liability. They estimate that by transferring the cost from the
state onto the private sector, the total liability to New Zealand will
increase seven-fold, because the private sector does not have the
international purchasing power of a government. That means that the
government will be responsible for the effective loss of several billion
dollars from our economy.
There is some hope. Forces against the Government's radical agenda are
now slowly starting to rally. On Thursday New Zealand's Commissioner for
the Environment, Dr Jan Wright, told Parliament's Environment Select
Committee that the Biofuel Bill is flawed and should be scrapped.
The Bill imposes a mandatory regime for the introduction of biofuel
blends. Under the Bill, from July, land trans****t fuels must contain
0.53 percent of biofuels rising to 3.4 percent by 2012. But the problem
is that the use of biofuels is now threatening world food production.
Crops, traditionally grown for food supplies are being converted into
biofuel production causing food riots in Mexico, Indonesia, Pakistan,
Egypt, Africa and the Philippines. The World Bank has estimated that
more than 30 countries around the world face potential social unrest
because of food shortages.
The biofuel craze has also sparked mass de-forestation, with rain
forests in Central and South America being razed to make way for biofuel
production. This has brought a strong reaction from the British
Government's chief science advisor who stated "The idea that you cut
down rainforest to grow biofuels seems profoundly stupid". The British
Government's top environmental scientist agreed, calling the policy
"totally insane". Meanwhile the German Government scrapped their biofuel
policy when they realised that older cars would have trouble running on
the biofuel blend, forcing poorer car owners to buy more the more
expensive fuel option.
The Emissions Trading Bill that is currently being rushed through the
Select Committee process will expose New Zealand businesses to the most
costly carbon trading scheme in the world. The scheme, which has been
hastily put together and is totally untested, will fully expose New
Zealand businesses to the volatile world price of carbon. A survey
carried out by the Greenhouse Policy Coalition of 41 firms across a
range of sectors indicates that the increase in costs from the Bill will
put at risk 3000 existing jobs and 700 new jobs. With every tonne of
carbon having to face the full international price of carbon some $1.6
billion of new investment will no longer go ahead if the Bill is passed.
With huge concerns also being raised over the security of New Zealand's
future electricity supplies and the excessive power price rises being
predicted as a result of the moratorium on new thermal power generation
contained in the Bill, the government's claims that its climate change
programme will have a minimal impact on the country is patently false.
The timing of these onerous climate change measures could not be worse.
Helen Clark is about to sign a free trade agreement with China, a
country that has no intention of signing up to Kyoto. That will put New
Zealand businesses, trying to compete with low cost im****ted goods, at
an even greater disadvantage. The most sensible move for a New Zealand
Government would be to serve notice of our intention to withdraw from
Kyoto on the basis that the cost to New Zealand is too high and the
effects on the climate non-existent.
--
Warmest Regards
Bonzo
The Fourth Re****t of the IPCC might just as well decree the
suppression of all climatology textbooks, and replace them in our
schools with press communiqués. ... Day after day, the same mantra -
that 'the Earth is warming up' - is churned out in all its forms. As
'the
ice melts' and 'sea level rises' the Apocalypse looms ever nearer!
Without realizing it, or perhaps without wi****ng to, the average
citizen in bamboozled, lobotomized, and lulled into mindless acceptance.
.... Non-believers in the greenhouse scenario are in the
position of those long ago who doubted the existence of God ...
Marcel Leroux
It should be abundantly clear by now that the AGW hypothesis is
contradicted by the facts/measurements/observations and should
therefore be abandoned and be substituted by a hypothesis which
better matches the facts.
- Hans Labohm
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