To the Select Committee from Alan S 6 October 2009

 

My submission opposes both this bill and the old bill.

 

 

I am sure you are aware of the following information, but my submission requires a degree of background to put it into context.

 

1.      Temperature has been cooling since the beginning of the 21^st century. One of the lead authors for the IPCC, Prof Mojib Latif, is now predicting cooling for the next ten to twenty years despite the increase in CO2 levels. http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2009/09/20/u-s-media-ignoring-about-face-leading-global-warming-proponent This is called a pause in the warming, although others have called the warming a pause in cooling. It does appear to be confusing because it depends on what time scale you choose to use.

 

2.      The Arctic minimum ice extent over summer has been growing for the past two years and in September 2009 was 1 million square kilometres more than in 2007. http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm Embarassingly, climate models predict declining Arctic ice. As there are only 25,000 polar bears, they have gained quite a lot of new playground. The natural cycle has turned. Ice in Antarctica has also been growing. In NZ, the Napier-Taupo highway was closed by snow in October this year!

 

3.      There also appears to be some evidence, which needs investigation, that many of the scientific studies purporting to prove the AGW theory were based on scientific malpractice or just plain error, particularly those based on tree ring proxies, statistical manipulations and/or graphs shaped like hockey sticks showing the medieval warm period as being erased. http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7168 . It is unacceptable that many of the authors of reports, on which AGW theory is based, refused to archive data and it has taken this long (9 years) to discover questionable analysis. It is also unacceptable that lead IPCC authors, who were not supposed to do the actual research, have been authors of the studies selected by themselves for inclusion in IPCC reports to the exclusion of other scientists.

 

4.      All the Hadley CRU data has been lost, so we will never be able to verify whether the earth has actually been warming from this source. The keeper of the data (Mr Phil Jones) has consistently refused to share it before losing it (which surely gives some suspicion that the data was being doctored). All that remains is “adjusted” data and no-one can verify the efficacy of those adjustments.

 

5.      All the global temperature records have also been adjusted to the point a large amount of recent warming is only from either adjustments, the Urban Heat Island effect, changes in siting and/or discontinuing rural sites.

 

6.      There is a report now available which is far more credible than the IPCC report and it has been released by the Non Governmental International Panel on Climate Change. The AGW theory is a non starter in this report. http://www.sepp.org/publications/NIPCC_final.pdf

 

7.      Richard S Lindzen and Yong-Sang Choi have finalised a report which shows that the so-called feedbacks on which AGW is based are overstated in climate models. Climate models are the only source for projections that the world will warm excessively over the next ninety years even though it has now been affirmed that the first twenty to thirty years of this century will be cooling. http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL039628.shtml

 

8.      To my knowledge, there are absolutely no scientific papers or models which predict CO2 to cause cooling for twenty to thirty years and then reverse this effect to cause catastrophic warming. 

 

9.      Not only are temperature studies suspect, historic CO2 levels have also been falsified to imply that CO2 has never been higher, and the growth in CO2 has also been falsified to coincide with temperature rises. This falsification has been done by people asociated with IPCC, the organisation the government believes implicitly. http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202007/20_1-2_CO2_Scandal.pdf 

 

10. Scientists have been unable to find evidence of the tropical hot spot which is necessary to prove the AGW theory and the climate models. If it is not there, there is no Anthropogenic Global Warming, just some warming (which is now cooling).

 

IPCC Scientists have never been 100% sure of anything to do with the AGW theory (hence the use of the words “likely” and “very likely” in IPCC reports – without any scientific basis for these opinions). In addition, it has been made clear by IPCC that they do not predict temperatures into the future, merely make projections. Yet the government is treating the reports as if they are predictions.

 

Although most people believe the world temperatures have increased over the last century, with this new information outlined above, confidence levels on how much this rise has been is severely dented. And whether the temperature increase may be from anthropogenic causes is now so uncertain that it may not remain above 50%.

 

Views on AGW have become polarised. There are 10 times as many scientists who disagree with

the IPCC position and/or its methods than those who support it. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/05/19/the-32000-who-say-no-convincing-evidence/ The subject cries out for an “on the record hearing”. The ideal opportunity would have been for the US Environmental Protection Agency to grant the request of the US Chamber of Commerce. But no. Alarmists will not debate with realists. Again, if the evidence is overwhelming, why do the alarmists not use this to overwhelm realists in a public forum? None of this makes any sense.

 

 

 

 

 

I realise that the issue being addressed by the Emisssions Trading Scheme, and this amendment, is

political more than scientific because some other countries are forcing us to accept the flawed science and reduce our “emissions” of the gas of life. It can be argued that whatever we might do in reducing fossil fuel usage is something we would have to do at some time anyway. But even in this case, it is normal to transition between old technologies and new, and the new is still in the development phase. But my submission relates to agriculture which cannot conceivably be categorised as something we would have to do anyway.

 

 

There are many sources of methane - wetlands, rice paddies, livestock, forests and bush. I am struggling to understand a number of points. How is it justified that livestock emissions are bad while wetland emissions are good? How can anyone in the world think to start penalising rice growing for methane emissions when rice is the staple element of diet for a huge proportion of the world's population? Can we exempt India from emissions from sacred cows?

 

Cows need grass to feed and grow - and grass absorbs CO2. The UN tries to measure emissions from animals without taking account of the absorption on the farm – the farm is likely to be carbon neutral. Why does NZ not take a leadership position in studying the “net” carbon budgets of farms? All we are doing is counting up how many cows are a virtual Huntly Power Station, and finding ways of tampering with nature to get cows to emit less.

 

This country proposes to charge agriculture under the ETS (bad emissions), exclude wetlands (good emissions) and we will be the only country to do this. So we will have export disincentives whilst other countries have export subsidies. Is the government planning on introducing export subsidies to counteract the competitive disadvantages imposed on agriculture by the ETS? And if not, why not?

 

 

The most sensible policy is to leave agriculture out of the ETS. Or if the committee insists on following the now discredited science (for what reason I don't know), then agriculture should only be included on a “net emissions” basis. Some delay will be necessary to work out how to do this.

 

When it comes to Copenhagen, this country cannot commit to carbon reductions while the IPCC science is in disarray unless there is some sort of “get out” clause. Otherwise we could be committed to pay billions per year for something that turns out to be untrue. We could bankrupt the country and not have any effect on the world climate whatsoever . It is now already cooling.

 

 

From a political perspective, it could be argued that none of the current MPs will live to see the results of their decisions regarding curtailing “emissions”. If, however, by next year AGW is shown to be false and based on scientific malpractice, fraud or error, I am sure the electorate will punish individual MPs for their failure to be careful before committing the country to the biggest ongoing cost in its history for no reason. There have been too many warning signs put in the way of our politicians for them to ignore without accepting responsibility.