Our Governments’ traditionally reach for the easily accessible taxation tool to solve a problem - any problem. To impose a carbon tax to counter climate change can be described as requiring the paying of real money to ensure the partial removal of a natural and invisible substance, essential for life, to someone (Government) which is no one – who is pretending to do something, while achieving nothing.
So, what are the conditions needed for overcoming climate change that apparently we all seek? A good start would be scientific integrity, and an understanding that there is not always a simple solution (tax) to every problem.
Some years ago in a farmers paddock just north of Roxburgh, a large sign read – “At this historic site in 1836 …….. nothing happened”. In the year 2000, the Y2K bug was predicted to create havoc. That was when planes were widely forecast to fall out of the sky as the year 1999 came to an end and on- board computers simply didn’t know what to do. Predictions by experts of calamitous events were commonplace. Meanwhile the electronic industry positioned itself for a windfall. Billions of dollars were spent on upgrades as systems were deemed to fail causing a loss of data no company or industry could afford. So, what happened nearly twenty years ago? Well actually nothing. Life carried on as normal. The point is that we have come to rely on expert advice on matters of unfathomable science with the rational assumption that the integrity of scientists, whether on weather prediction or some other entirely complex subject - is unimpeachable.
It is therefore entirely reasonable to seek some understanding of the apparent conflicting views within the scientific community around climate science. Direct challenges to the conventional wisdom of the day are rare but costly as astronomer/ physicist Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) found out. These days, abuse is levelled towards anyone espousing “climate heresy”. Instead of having contrary opinion debated in open forums and scientific journals, it would seem journals simply don’t publish opposing views. New Zealand and British physicist Professor Michael Kelly FRS, FREng believes serious debate is being suppressed especially as to the true cost of some of the recommendations by the Royal Society.
Nobel Laureate and prize winner in physics, Ivor Giaever received his award for his work on super-conductors. Presuming he knows something of physics in general, he commented on climate change – to howls of outrage from the perpetually aggrieved. Conversely, a man of absolutely no scientific credential - politician Al Gore - became the darling of the intellectual left with his pronouncements on climate change. It has been unkindly suggested that he (Gore) entered this climate debate solely to remind us all - that not everyone in this world of ours has a purpose. Dr Giaever has spoken of various types of science starting with real science to the pathological to fraudulent science to junk science to pseudo-science. All of which tends to cloud the “incontrovertible truth” of climate change as it is defined and espoused by the climate change lobby. Dr Giaever notes that even the mass of a proton is not incontrovertible, but climate change is (somehow) incontrovertible.
Bjorn Lomborg- an environmental economist points out that the world spends 101 billion in subsidies for so called green energy, but it is being spent on existing technology. Germany has spent 800 billion euros on wind and solar which has hardly made a dent in that nations carbon dioxide emissions.
Prof Lomborg’s solution is spending only in new, innovative research. A transition is needed, similar to the dramatic change from the former use of whale oil to fossil fuels. Our Governments solution would have been to tax whale oil.
Another question of some importance is - what is the optimum temperature that is best for all countries and how and who decides such a question. If NZ is serious about climate change why not confront the use of nuclear power instead of meeting demand thru damming more rivers or exporting/importing coal. Solar and wind generation just don’t work for us in the south - especially during long winter nights.
So, a legitimate question for those of us who struggle to know who and what to believe these days is - why was Robin Hood able to run around Sherwood forest (according to legend in the early middle ages) wearing a tee shirt and tights. Why was the world so warm during that period? And why was there no sea ice in the early 1900s which enabled access thru the fabled north west passage in the Arctic circle. Nor was there sea ice when Scott sailed to the Antarctic in his epic journey to the South pole.
Science will find an answer and soon but only those who practice real science vs the populist variety can apply the scientific integrity needed to engender public confidence and support to solve this issue.
Gerry Eckhoff is a former MP and councillor
on the Otago Regional Council.
4 comments:
Good post. The one sided climate propaganda (Stuff, TVNZ) has been non-stop and intolerable. However, I have seen a lot of teenagers and twenty somethings turn against it as they have been force-fed this propaganda for 20 years through school and uni. They know the world's climate is not going to cause life to end. I note that most comments on general public facebook pages and Stuff push back hard against the hysteria.
I point doubting teenagers to the local tidal gauges and bet them to try and find one where the mean tidal level has risen at all over the last 10 years. If the seas are not rising where is the 1.5m rise coming from?
In a very stable country like Australia physical tide measurements (as opposed to satelite) should reflect the rapidly rising sea level. At Fort Denison in Sydney habour the records go back to 1886, the variations up to 2019 are within normal noise limits. The sea is not rising.
Shock horror could IPCC be wrong ?
I suggest a close examination of Carbon Monoxide (CO) vs Carbon Dioxide (CO2) will reveal that when catalytic converters were made mandatory to be placed in vehicle exhaust systems the catalytic converters turned the previous emitted CO into CO2 by the action of the vehicle catalytic converter.
Similarly the lighter than air CO had dissipated into the higher atmosphere as does methane , while the heavier than air CO2 stayed lower and was more readily traceable . The 1980's correlation of the decline in CO and the rise in CO2 is obvious and easily remedied in New Zealand by removing the catalytic converter during WOF renewal.
CLIMATE CHANGE' CON-JOB
“The Sky is falling" -- Chicken Little
What happened next?
After an acorn fell on her head, Chicken Little raced around in a flap until she had all the other animals believing her misplaced fearmongering that the world was going to end. So they sent a delegation to the King, demanding he do something about it, and save them all.
The classic homily against surrendering personal autonomy to Big Government based on manufactured moral panic.
As HL Mencken reminds us:
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
The underlying agenda?
Anthropogenic climate change has little or no scientific basis. It is in fact a politically constructed myth to empower the unelected UN One-Worlders, who currently remain dependent on the USA for both the footprint of their New York headquarters and the lion’s share of their funding.
If America jerked the rug, the UN would be goneburger and the UN knows it.
The UN has floated a number of unsuccessful wheezes to become self-funding (e.g. a proposed tax on global air miles, the so-called Tobin Tax on international movements of capital, a tax on the use of the “global commons” to be levied on fishing in international waters).
All have come to naught because widespread member-state buy-in hasn’t been achieved.
“Global Warming” (which following evidence of a cooling trend since 1997 that couldn’t be waved away was renamed “Climate Change” to keep the scam going) is carefully crafted to promote the fiction that, to avoid a looming catastrophe, member states must act together in surrendering control over environmental matters to the UN.
Through the emissions trading scam, the UN intends to set up a global welfare state in which “rich” countries are compulsorily soaked for the benefit of so-called “poor” countries, with unelected UN commissars in the middle clipping the ticket.
The UN thus achieves its long-held goal of becoming self-funding, and its One-World agenda of progressively subverting the Nation State out of existence moves a step closer to completion.
All you need to know is the fossil record proves that over many thousands of years, the earth has been far warmer and far cooler than it is today. For much of that time, there were no humans at all. These warming and cooling cycles have continued unabated through thousands of years over which human numbers were negligible, there was no industrial activity, and no mass-scale burning of fossil fuels.
Clearly, something other than human activity drives global climate cycles.
ENDS
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