The Farmers Weekly

The Independent,"London, 15 April 2010 -- Steve Connor, Science Editor 

It was the coldest winter in England since 1963 – the coldest in Scotland since 1914 – and weeks of ice, snow and sub-zero temperatures from last December to March defied predictions by climate-change scientists of milder, wetter winters. So what happened?

Dear Editor ,

ACT New Zealand Climate Change Spokesman John Boscawen today called on Climate Change Issues Minister Hon Dr Nick Smith to explain why the Government is pressing ahead with its ETS, causing irreparable harm to the New Zealand economy, when he’s acknowledged it’s likely to be significantly reworked in 2011.

"Nick Smith admitted today that the Government probably won’t proceed with the ETS if our major trading partners haven’t followed suit by 2011.  With the stakes so high it makes you wonder why we are ‘betting the house’ for something that’s not a sure thing," Mr Boscawen said.

Mr Speaker,

It is a privilege to take a call on the Dairy Industry Restructuring (Raw Milk Pricing Methods) Bill, and as I do so at six minutes to midnight, I wonder how many people are listening into this debate?  How many New Zealanders are following a debate on the pricing of raw milk at six minutes to midnight?

The reason that I am taking this opportunity is, as we have heard this evening, the dairy industry is a very, very important part of New Zealand’s economy.
The Hon Dr Nick Smith told the House that over a quarter of New Zealand’s export earnings come from the dairy industry.  It is the single biggest contributor to our export earnings – no other New Zealand industry is as important.

Well Mr Speaker, I would like to raise a very important issue to the dairy industry – the price of inputs, and one input in particular – the cost of the new ETS tax to dairy farmers.

The Emissions Trading Tax will affect all New Zealanders and dairy farmers in particular from 1 July this year.

Press Release by Employers & Manufacturers Association (Northern) at
11:15 am, 08 Apr 2010

The introduction of the Emissions Trading Scheme must be delayed, the
Employers & Manufacturers Association (Northern) says.

"The New Zealand economy is in no state to lead the world with an
emissions trading scheme covering the entire New Zealand economy," said
EMA's chief executive Alasdair Thompson.

"In these circumstances EMA recommends the government legislate to align
the entry of our industry sectors into the ETS with those of our trading
partners, once they have their schemes in place.

"Our financial situation is far too fragile to absorb the extra $255
million the government calculates the ETS will cost all of us.

"The cost is effectively another tax that will impact on every family.

"It will come on top of changes to GST, and also higher ACC levies which
are cutting into the take home pay of all employees right now.

"The ETS will also hit hard the competitiveness of many of our leading
industries, including all our major food producing exporters.

"They will face cost increases that their competitors overseas and in
the New Zealand market do not face.

"It will cost jobs.

"New Zealand is the only country in the world to be introducing an ETS
that covers all sectors and all so called greenhouse gases.

"It was disingenuous of Minister Nick Smith to say on Radio New Zealand
this morning that the EU has an ETS in place - theirs covers only four
percent of EU output; ours covers 100 per cent of output.

"His main reason for proceeding now was that not to would lead to
perverse outcomes in the forestry sector.  However forestry could be
incentivised to keep planting under a low level carbon tax which could
be used to give them a credit though not part of an ETS.

BACKGROUND
United Nations countries belong to an organization called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which publishes a report every six years. Often referred to as the "climate bible" these reports are relied on by governments around the world.

The latest was released in 2007. Sometimes called the AR4 (the Fourth Assessment Report), it contains 44 chapters and is nearly 3,000 pages long. Written by people organized into teams - Working Group 1, 2 and 3 - it consists of three smaller reports bundled into one.

The chairman of the IPCC has repeatedly said the report relies solely on peer-reviewed literature to support its findings. He has said research that hasn't appeared in peer-reviewed journals should be thrown "into the dustbin" (see the last line of this newspaper article). But our audit has discovered almost 5,600 non-peer-reviewed references in this report.

In elementary schools in the United States, students are assigned grades ranging from an A to an F, based on the mark they've achieved out of 100 (see Wikipedia's table here). Most parents would be alarmed if their child brought home a report card similar to the one received by the IPCC.

Guardian.co.uk

John Vidal in Bonn 12 April 2010

Document outlines key messages the Obama administration wants to convey in the run-up to UN climate talks in Mexico in November

A document accidentally left on a European hotel computer and passed to the Guardian reveals the US government's increasingly controversial strategy in the global UN climate talks.

Titled Strategic communications objectives and dated 11 March 2010, it outlines the key messages that the Obama administration wants to convey to its critics and to the world media in the run-up to the vital UN climate talks in Cancun, Mexico in November. (You can read the document text below).

NewScientist

14 April 2010 by Stuart Clark

BRACE yourself for more winters like the last one, northern Europe. Freezing conditions could become more likely: winter temperatures may even plummet to depths last seen at the end of the 17th century, a time known as the Little Ice Age. That's the message from a new study that identifies a compelling link between solar activity and winter temperatures in northern Europe.

The research finds that low solar activity promotes the formation of giant kinks in the jet stream. These kinks can block warm westerly winds from reaching Europe, while allowing in winds from Arctic Siberia. When this happens in winter, northern Europe freezes, even though other, comparable regions of the globe may be experiencing unusually mild conditions.