Blogs

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

By Richard Rennie

NZ Farmers Weekly

A carbon company has reneged on farm deals valued over $50 million in
the Central North Island and could face charges under the Fair Trading
Act from 15 affected farmers.

Last month New Zealand Farmers Weekly reported on CO2 Farming's efforts
to secure hill country land in the Taumarunui, Taihape and Wairarapa
region to plant in trees and sell the carbon credits on the open market.

"CO2 Farming has never paid any of the money owing to buy either my
property or any of the others owned by 14 other farmers," said Janette
Walker of Pongaroa. 

Walker had originally intended to sell the property to CO2 Farming,
headed up by Robin Lewis and his partner Julie Chegwidden of Rotorua. 

Making no secret of her financial difficulties, Walker has been
responsible for organising the Farmers Weekly banker survey, run in
February. 

She has been under bank pressure to sell her 840ha property and said the
Lewis offer was unconditional, taking an invoice for the deposit,
claiming the GST back and using that as payment toward the property. 

James Delingpole blog

24th February, 2010

Heroic, monotesticular UKIP MEP Nigel Farage was bumped off the BBC Question Time panel at the last minute last week. Shame. That particular edition was broadcast from Middlesbrough and it would have been fascinating to hear the audience’s response to the choice things he was planning to say about the closure of their local steelworks.

Here is how he describes it in a letter:

Sir

Corus’ steelworks at Redcar, near Middlesbrough, “Teesside Cast Products”, is to be closed (”mothballed” is the euphemism). It is Britain’s last great steelworks and an essential national resource. Without it, we are at the world’s mercy.

Hilltopper Haven.com

by John O'Sullivan on February 17, 2010

The world’s largest private sector coal business, the Peabody Energy Company (PEC) has filed a mammoth 240-page “Petition for Reconsideration,” a full-blown legal challenge against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The petition must be answered and covers the entire body of leaked emails from ‘Climategate’ as well as those other ‘gate’ revelations including the frauds allegedly perpetrated under such sub-headings as ‘Himalayan Glaciers,’ ‘African Agricultural Production,’ ‘Amazon Rain Forests,’ ‘Melting Mountain Ice,’ ‘Netherlands Below Sea Level’ as well as those much-publicized abuses of the peer-review literature and so called ‘gray literature.’ These powerful litigants also draw attention to the proven criminal conduct by climate scientists in refusing to honor Freedom of Information law (FOIA) requests.

The Wall Street Journal

23 March 2010

The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admitted for the first time last month that it is facing a crisis of confidence. But the IPCC's failings go far beyond the recent spate of errors identified in its reports. The problem began with the global political climate that led to the formation of the IPCC two decades ago.

Contrary to popular perception, the IPCC is not a scientific organization. It does no research of its own. Composed of scientists nominated by different governments, its key function is to collate evidence of human-induced climate change, not just changes in climate.

It is hardly surprising that with such an inherently biased objective the scientists lost their objectivity. Many of them went on a crusade to support the political goal of proving anthropogenic global warming. Concerns about scientific objectivity and critical discourse were thrown overboard.