If you think the Emissions Trading Scheme doesn’t apply to farming until 2015, think again, says ACT MP John Boscawen.

From July 1 costs on most farms will rise by thousands of dollars due to an ETS induced 4c/litre rise in fuel prices, and a 5% hike in electricity charges.

New Zealand now stands alone in implementing such a scheme and he says he would like to see farmers and the public protesting in the streets to persuade Government to ditch it.

“Why are we penalising our farmers? Our farmers have enough problems competing internationally without this,” he told Rural News.

nzherald.co.nz

by David Hastings  27 March 2010

This complaint concerns one story in a climate change feature published in the New Zealand Herald on December 5, 2009 and also online, on the same date. The complaint is upheld.

The complaint

Robin Grieve, Chairman, Pastoral Farming Climate Research, was not objecting to the overall tenor of the reports themselves; rather he was upset about one part of the secondary report under the main heading "In search of low-carbon nirvana".

His complaint focused on its references to the impact of agriculture on New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions. The report said: "In 2007 agriculture produced 36.4 million tonnes of greenhouse gases - 48 per cent of New Zealand's total emissions."

It also said about two-thirds of the emissions were from methane produced by sheep and cattle, with the remaining third from nitrous oxide, mainly from animal waste.

The NZ Press Council has upheld a complaint made by Robin Grieve Chairman of Pastural Farming Climate Research Inc. against the NZ Herald. The complaint concerned their reporting of livestock emissions and the extent of agriculture’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. The complaint was for inaccuracy.

For some time now I have been trying to get the NZ Herald to publish our views about livestock emissions. In particular we have keenly sought to be able to balance the preposterous claims made by vegetarians that vegetarianism is a good way to save the planet from global warming. The claims that meat production is warming the planet are readily and regularly published by the NZ Herald. Counter arguments such as ours are effectively censored out of the public arena by mainstream media such as NZ Herald. I have also sought to put the record straight about the nonsensical carbon dioxide equivalents and how ridiculous it is that an animal can emit huge quantities of these bull shit theoretical emissions when belching, yet add no extra carbon dioxide or methane and cause no increase in any real greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. And as a consequence no global warming.

The NZ Herald has not had a bar of it; they staunchly keep the NZ public misinformed by only offering one side of the argument.

 The Carbon Sense Coalition today said that Earth Hour should be renamed “Blackout Night” and be held outdoors, for the whole night, in mid-winter, on the shortest and coldest day of the year - 22 June in the Southern Hemisphere.

NBR by Andrea Deuchrass

29 March 2010

Both Prime Minister John Key and Environment Minister Nick Smith are dodging questions in the face of growing pressure to place the Emissions Trading Scheme on hold.

The National Business Review understands nine leading business associations sent a joint letter to Mr Key earlier this month asking whether New Zealand climate change policy remained appropriate.

As NBR understands, concerns included:

• The lack of an Australian scheme (after the ETS was designed to align with it)
• Global inaction
• That New Zealand’s ETS was too stringent in its all-sector approach
• The lack of a liquid international carbon market
• The little prospect of progress at the Mexico COP at the end of the year
• Trade disadvantages once businesses enter the ETS in July