David Farrar: The biggest enemies of renewable energy are … environmentalists

Radio NZ reports:

A plan to fast-track a controversial West Coast hydro scheme has been given an initial go-ahead.

The West Coast lines company, Westpower, has applied to fast-track its controversial plans to build a run-of-river hydro scheme on the Waitaha River, and in its draft decision the fast-track expert panel has given it approval.

Ele Ludemann: Inconvenient truths for eco-zealots

Radical environmentalists have had far too loud a voice, and put far too much effort into attempting to put the environmental cart in front of the research, science and technological horses with no regard for the economic and social costs.

At last someone is reminding them of some inconvenient truths:

Viv: Forbes: How to Break the Backbone of Australia

Since the days of the gold rush and the wool boom, Australia has always relied heavily on its great primary industries – mining, farming, forestry and fishing and their supporting transport, energy and processing industries.

First was the export of hides and tallow, wool and timber. Then came the great discoveries of gold, coal, copper and silver-lead-zinc, followed by exports of wheat, butter, meat and cotton. 

Luckily the effects of droughts in the rural sector were often moderated by booms or new discoveries in minerals. 

Paul Driessen: Perverse, Conflicted Ethical Systems

Third Reich Forest Minister Hermann Goering was an avid hiker and ecologist who once sent a man to a concentration camp for cutting up a frog for fish bait. In 1933 he and other Nazi Party leaders enacted anti-vivisection laws to stop what he called “unbearable torture and suffering in animal experiments.”

Intensely hostile to capitalism, the Nazis controlled all industries and envisioned large-scale wind turbine projects that would generate “huge amounts of cheap energy” and create millions of German jobs.

Gerry Eckhoff: Free Speech

Evolutionary science has identified that the most distinguishing feature of human beings is their capacity for complex language. Inherent within the use of language is the right to freedom of speech which is widely accepted precept in the western world’s cultures. It is also well established that we humans have used language in the political sphere for the singular purpose of advancement of a cause or ideology. The politics of the environment is one such more recent example.

 Free speech today cannot be constrained or quantified as it once was. Those freedoms, inherent in our society to speak or challenge without fear or favour -  are paramount.

Matt Ridley: Roundup's advantages

I once tried the organic alternative to the herbicide roundup for clearing weeds from garden paths: a flame-thrower. It was brutal for the environment, incinerating innocent insects and filling the air with emissions. 

Next week I might have to go back to that. Roundup, the world’s safest, cheapest and most effective weedkiller, may be illegal within days in Europe.