Here is one for you global warming sceptics. I don’t put myself in that category; my view is that I don’t know if the globe is warming, or if it is cooling, whatever it is doing I don’t know what is causing it. What I do know is that if it is warming it is not because of livestock emissions.
Been much said about Keisha Castle Hughes and Robyn Malcolm and Lucy Lawless and Stephen Tindall and Greenpeace’s $400 million campaign to get us to sign on at Copenhagen. I don’t think it is a big deal. These celebrity endorsements are usually seen for what they are. Of course some people did put money into finance companies as a result of such endorsements so I suppose it is not true for all, and 60-70 thousand people have signed on with this campaign which shows not all of us are clever enough to see through them. Stephen Tindal is a bit of a surprise but the other celebs are not famous because of their intellect and critical thinking. I for one would not seek advice from any of them on anything, least of all on global warming. I certainly would not be happy if my 16 year old daughter got contraceptive advice from Keisha.
It was a dumb move by Key to give her a hard time though. A big PM can not win against a pretty face that most associate with a whale. Radio talkback was fairly hostile towards Keisha after her appearance on Close up, but even so he is on a hiding to nothing on this so now he is going to meet with her. Would be an interesting conversation because I don’t think any of them know much about global warming and carbon. Keisha says she does and she has had extensive indoctrination from Greenpeace so I can understand that she believes she knows a lot. She visited some Pacific Islands that are sinking. She says she witnessed the effect of global warming. I don’t know for sure but I thought it was because of tectonic plates. The Pacific plate is sinking below the continental plates, that is a fact but whether it is sinking the Islands I do not know. Maybe I could ask Keisha.
As for Stephen Tindal well I don’t know him personally but when he stops selling Chinese made junk in his shops I will join Greenpeace myself. If he can’t see the hypocrisy here it may be I overestimated his intellect.
Fact is that this is an international big money campaign with Al Gore involved. They want us to commit to reduce emissions by 40%. This is because some IPCC report reckons we need to or there will be a catastrophe.
The call is to sign on at Copenhagen. This is what is going to replace Kyoto. Kyoto was play money. A practise run, no real money exchanged. Copenhagen is quite different. If we sign it we have to pay if we don’t reduce our emissions. Since we signed Kyoto our emissions have increased and we are now 24 % up on 1990 levels, so to get them down life as we know it is going to change.
That is the thing, I don’t think these celebs know what they are doing, they are dicking with people’s lives. Great to get all emotional about Pacific Islanders and their sinking Islands that have nothing to do with global warming, but what about the thousands of NZers who are going to lose their livelihoods. Do they not care about these people? What about the small rural towns that will be decimated if we de stock our farms and plant forests, both of which will do nothing to reduce global warming. Reducing stock numbers will do nothing because these emissions are carbon neutral. Planting forests does nothing to reduce our emissions, it just delays them so that the next generation can pay for our emissions as well as their own, very selfish and unsustainable indeed. Anyway haven’t you heard, trees emit methane too.
My problem is Kyoto is a dog. It was signed way back and it is full of stupid things. Our negotiators must have left their balls behind because they signed something that is not in NZ’s best interest.
If a ship carrying logs leaves NZ and passes a ship carrying imported oil we in NZ are liable for the carbon emissions from both because we are going to burn the oil and we cut down the trees. We produce food enough for 53 million people, this food is carbon and it is sent overseas and eaten, the carbon is then returned to the atmosphere overseas but we are liable for it. The farmer who exports the carbon in the food and uses imported oil to grow the crop is responsible for both emissions.
HOW DUMB IS THAT!!! And Keisha and Robyn M and Lucy Clueless and some guy called Cliff and the seller of Chinese junk want us to sign on to something like this. It is clearly not in our interests. Al Gore has got to them and they are selling out our country. Tim Grosser is not stupid, he seems quite clever and he shaves so he must have balls but he told me that we don’t have a choice and that this is the way it has to be. The Copenhagen agreement will be just as unfavourable to us as Kyoto.
So why would we sign it. Thankfully it appears there will be no agreement at Copenhagen but it is concerning that NZ would sign one if there was.
So let’s balance things out. Let’s start a “Don’t Sign Anything Stupid” campaign. Kyoto was signed in the dead of night and was a done deal before we realised how stupid it was. Since then we have been constrained by these Kyoto rules. At least with any post Kyoto agreement we are awake to it, we need to steel our negotiators up a bit and tell them not to sign anything stupid and detrimental. At the moment NZ has signalled we will sign so there goes our negotiating power. This indicates to me that our negotiators are muppets and does not fill me with hope.
A “Don’t Sign Anything Stupid” campaign is what we need. Not a lot of thought needed, just campaign on the basis that it is stupid to sign something that is not in our interests. I know they all say it is in our interests to sign something that is not in our best interests because if we don’t we will be lambasted as uncaring, lose our clean and green status and no one will buy our food. But is that really true? I don’t know myself but I don’t see why we can’t refuse to sign on until it a bit less detrimental for us. The mistake is to think we have to sign Copenhagen to be clean and green. The US did not sign Kyoto but on their record they have been more clean and green than us. We can still do all the things we have to do as an international citizen without signing detrimental self harming agreements and they will still buy our food. Any way Stephen Tindal says he cares about the environment but he still shops in China.
I haven’t got anywhere for you to sign for this campaign but instead just forward this email around. Send it to 10 people and something amazing will happen to you. (believe that and you are too gullible to be part of our campaign, you belong in the other campaign with Keisha and co, but please send it on anyway we need more members)
Alan Sutherland says
Remembering that so many submissions to the ETS review were not heard (and therefore I suspect not read), I sent an e-mail to Nick Smith on 11 Aug.
“Dear Dr Smith
The National Party used to rely for its support on the Rural Heartland and I, and probably most other farmers, feel badly betrayed. You rightly point out that Agriculture is a big problem, but no other country is including agriculture in its emission reduction targets so therefore they have not yet come to the realisation that agriculture is not a net emitter, only a gross emitter. Cows, sheep, pigs, llamas, alpacas, horses, vegetables, fruit etc all recycle carbon which is already in the atmosphere or taken from the atmosphere to grow grass. Agriculture may be nearly 50% of gross emissions, but probably accounts for 75% of absorption from the atmosphere – in other words carbon negative.
There is very good reason to remove agriculture from the targets and from the ETS. The country that has performed the best on reducing agricultural emissions is Zimbabwe. You should hold this country up as the model you are trying to emulate.
Alan Sutherland”
The reply I got back is as follows
“On behalf of Hon Dr Nick Smith thank you for your email. Your correspondence has been noted and will be recorded.
All correspondence, including email, is routed through our mail tracking process. Although e-mail increases the speed of delivery, the “behind-the-scenes” efforts of the Minister’s staff in responding to mail cannot always provide the kind of speedy response users of email may anticipate.
While the minister considers all correspondence to be important, if it is obvious that you are writing only to express a personal view your opinion will be noted but a response beyond this acknowledgement may not be sent.
Kind regards”
So there is no evidence that livestock are causing the planet to warm, or to refute my suggestion that agriculture is carbon negative. It is just opinion versus opinion and his opinion counts more. Wouldn’t it have been nice to hear that the Minister has taken on board my comment and is commissioning a study to find out whether Agriculture should be in an ETS scheme based on gross emissions as opposed to net emissions?
Alan
Neil Henderson says
We now have an official “Don’t sign anything stupid” campaign. Alarmed by the stupidity of our government and their announced 2020 emissioms reduction target coupled with the even more ridiculous 40% by 2020 ‘sign on’ campaign, my wife and I have launched an official petition, the wording of which has been approved by the Clerk of the House. It says in effect “that the Government not commit to any emissions reductions at the Copenhagen climate change negotiations, so that excessive hardship to individual New Zealand families and to the New Zealand economy for no measurable benefit to the climate can be avoided.” We have had a website set up where the petition forms can be downloaed. This is not an online petition though. Signatures will be collected on paper and presented to Parliament. The website is http://www.climaterealists.org.nz Please get some forms and help us collect signatures. Please spread the word to your contacts. Copenhagen will be signed if we don’t stop them. We need YOU to do your bit. We have nothing to lose by trying. We have everything to lose by doing nothing