Category: Environmentalism
There has been no global warming for the past 16 years. In spite of increasing levels of human emissions of carbon dioxide, world wide global temperatures stopped rising in 1998. Essentially, this means that the dire predictions that the world is headed for a climate catastrophe if mankind keeps on producing carbon dioxide, is not credible.
“Climate Change” has become an important international topic - one might almost say religion. It began life as “Global Warming”. So very many people, including politicians and “news people”, appear to have been overwhelmed by it, and have led others to believe, and follow the doctrine. However, the cost of “Combating Carbon” has been extremely high, and the debt and economic consequences are being passed on to present citizens, and, worse still, to future generations, including all our grandchildren.
The organisation spearheading the protest action against deep sea oil exploration in New Zealand waters is Greenpeace - a large multi-national corporation with 28 offices around the world, and a presence in over 40 countries. In its 2012 annual report, Greenpeace International claims to have almost 24 million supporters assisting it in environmental activism, and an income of $447 million.
The recent kerfuffle about Anadarko and its drilling in our EEZ off the South Waikato coast has stirred a veritable pot of misunderstanding and confusion with regard to exactly what environmental approvals are needed for such a venture, and from whom – largely arising from a knowledge vacuum created by Government and the oil industry, but also from deliberately misleading political interests.
We all know that in the media business, sensation sells. Advocacy groups like Greenpeace have long taken advantage of this by peddling scare stories - the world is running out of oil or food or trees, polar bears are dying out, the earth is becoming overpopulated, or melting glaciers are flooding the planet. Regrettably not enough people understand the need for scepticism over such reports.
Climate change has done more good than harm so far and is likely to continue doing so for most of this century. This is not some barmy, right-wing fantasy; it is the consensus of expert opinion. Yet almost nobody seems to know this.
Last week the United Nations spin machine went into overdrive as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a summary of its latest assessment of the state of the climate. The Summary for Policy Makers was prepared by politicians and bureaucrats representing the governments of many countries that have invested vast amounts of taxpayers’ money into projects designed to stop man-made global warming.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) produces periodic reports on the science and policy relevant to dangerous anthropogenic global warming. These guide all UN members and the annual conferences of the parties which endlessly attempt to negotiate global binding treaties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Last week New Zealanders saw yet another example of minor parliamentary parties, that secure only a fraction of the vote in a general election, having disproportionate power under MMP. In such circumstances, instead of proportional representation, which advocates of MMP argue is a cornerstone value, the system serves up disproportional representation and policy compromise.
One knows all is not well within local government when a council makes national news for something as trivial as a road sign. Here’s some of the background. In 2005 a local business person placed a sign (no larger than an election hoarding) on an existing frame on private property set well into a paddock some 30 metres from a local road.
Loading ...
