Enough is enough

It is beyond dispute that Kyoto, emission trading, the fart tax, carbon credits and climate change legislation contribute nothing to the productive goods and services of this country. All the money spent in these areas is totally unproductive. Furthermore it all comes out of the pockets of the taxpayer and ratepayer.

Lawyers and accountants are setting up departments to advise on making money or saving money on these matters. Resource management consultants are in for their share too. Councils are appointing staff to ‘manage’ climate change and wringing their hands while removing yet more fleece from their ratepayers — Government bureacrats, too. Major companies are huddling together in meetings to work out how to persuade the government to load their climate change liabilities on to the taxpayer for a little while longer, reduce their liabilities, neutralize them or even make a profit out of the climate change scam.

There is even an academic department being set up to ‘advise’ on climate change and thus add to the rort on the taxpayer.

Vultures, all with their bloody heads buried in the carcase of the taxpayer. All these costs, for which there are no benefits whatever to the taxpayer, devolve on the taxpayer who, unknowingly, is paying lawyers and the like $300 per hour, $5 per minute or one dollar every twelve seconds, or more, which costs are finally paid in the increased cost of food, fuel and real goods and services.

Enough is enough; is there a political party which has the courage to draw a line under this rort?

Visits: 76

The end of consensus

Dr Naomi Oreskes, in a 2004 essay in Science, claimed that of 928 abstracts published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, 75% of the articles either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, that human activities are affecting the global climate by contributing to warming (admittedly a mild definition of climate change), while none directly dissented from it. Oreskes has been widely quoted in support of the “consensus” among scientists that the science is settled.

If a consensus truly existed then, it certainly does not now. Continue Reading →

Visits: 74

A diet of catastrophe

I frequently encounter thinking people who are concerned that our daily media seem to proffer a diet rich in climate alarmism, but how true really is that impression?

I decided to conduct an informal survey of the online NZ Herald. I found 9 articles over the last 6 months in which the word “catastrophe” or its derivatives appeared in conjunction with the words “global warming” a total of 9 times, which is one alarming article every 2.8 weeks. There were 62 results in all, dating back 7 years, for an overall frequency of one article about every six weeks. Some instances might well have been humorous, tongue-in-cheek or sceptical; one should read them all to find out. This study ignores the broadcast media, which are likewise loaded with references to “fighting climate change” and similar but are harder to review.

I don’t think the Herald is very different from other media. If you add to this newspaper the potential stories on numerous radio stations, television channels, several times a day, and other print media, it’s undeniable that our daily media is full of alarmism. It’s no wonder that we’re worried—we’re being advised to worry! Oddly, I’ve heard some people say “nobody talks about catastrophe”. They are, perforce, deniers. Continue Reading →

Visits: 73

Tax on Carbon Dioxide approved for Bay Area

A controversial new tax on CO2 emissions has just been set by the Air Quality Management board. Companies are to measure and report their own emissions. Businesses say out-of-area firms get an instant advantage over them. Once again, California leads the charge into radical action. Read the original story and see local comment on the new tax at Watts Up With That.

Visits: 91

Consensus (not again!) and very uncertain models

In an editorial on 14 May, Nature calls on governments to “work together to build the supercomputers needed for future predictions that can capture the detail required to inform policy.”

They’re talking about the approximately fifteen detailed computer models developed by teams around the world in a continuing attempt to better understand earth’s complex climate. The modellers want access to supercomputers to help improve their predictions. Fair enough. Everybody wants bigger toys.

But along the way, this prestigious weekly manages some breathtaking assertions that deserve closer attention. Continue Reading →

Visits: 78

Who is going to pay?

So CO2 is now a polluting gas. Does nobody have any elementary science knowledge? Dr Muriel Newman lambasts the Commissioner for the Environment for stupidly declaring CO2 a pollutant. But the campaign against carbon dioxide originates with the IPCC, who breaches its own rules, ignores accepted scientific procedure and whose objective when set up was to find evidence of human interference in the climate. With all those bureaucrats employed for that single purpose, there was never much chance of not finding evidence, was there? more…

Visits: 31

The Great Global Warming Swindle—see it on Prime TV, Sunday, June 1st!

Movie scene
The movie The Great Global Warming Swindle will screen on:
Prime TV
on Sunday, 1 June
at 8.30 pm

Afterwards will be an hour of discussion, with climate realists being represented by Leighton Smith, of NewsTalkZB, and Dr Willem de Lange, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Waikato. Continue Reading →

Visits: 50

Arctic Fairy Tale

The polar bear is now a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. It’s a major victory for environmentalists, who have been looking for a legal back door to limit carbon-dioxide emissions, but Roy Spencer reflects on what else it might mean. Will the bears now be saved? Did they ever need saving? What about freedom and prosperity? more…

Visits: 73

NZ’s ETS and NIWA’s veracity

Fran O’Sullivan, writing in the NZ Herald a few days ago, summarised objections to the government’s Emissions Trading Scheme and the difficulties Labour faces in getting some kind of political consensus together in time to pass some legislation before the election.

I was interested in her conclusion—in passing, though apparently sincere, that:

“New Zealand does need to address climate change issues. But not in a lopsided fashion where ordinary folk—and smaller businesses—feel the brunt first.”

I applaud her concern for “ordinary folk” and their economic difficulties, but the more important question must be: why must we address climate change issues? Continue Reading →

Visits: 25

Just tell me the blasted temperature!

It’s a simple question: “What is the temperature of the earth?” But for those who live here it has no simple answer, nor ever will have—only approximations. For it not only depends on where you put the thermometer, but also, apparently, on who interprets it. For if you own the dataset, you can reduce older temperatures and increase recent ones, just as NASA has been doing, and give the impression of greater warming. Naughty, naughty. more…

Visits: 63