GWPF Newsletter: Europe's Green Utopians Pay Price For Green Energy Folly

Anti-Nuclear, Anti-Coal, Anti-Shale, i.e. Dependent On Russian Gas

In this newsletter:

1) EU Divided Over Russian Gas Dependence & Sanctions 
Stratfor, 25 July 2017

2) Germany’s Green Energy Fiasco Leads To Dependence On Russian Gas
Bloomberg, 4 July 2017

Green Fascism & Climate-Eugenics

‘Bio-Engineering Humans To Stop Climate Change’

In this newsletter:

1) Climate-Eugenics: ‘Bioengineering Humans To Stop Climate Change’
Tony Thomas, Quadrant, 28 July 2017

2) Michael Crichton: Why Politicized Science is Dangerous
Michael Crichton, State of Fear

Melanie Phillips: The Tory Jacobins

The reason why conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic have lost their way so badly in recent years is that they never understood, and paid scant attention to, the culture wars. In Britain, this has now led some of them to come out as warriors on the wrong side.

Conservatism is not an ideology but an attitude of mind. It involves identifying and holding onto what is most valuable and defending it against erosion or attack. In the 18th century this was embodied in the thinking of Edmund Burke, widely considered to be the philosophical godfather of conservative thought, when he defended freedom and human rights against the barbarism of the French Revolution.

NZCPR Weekly: Democracy Under Attack

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

This week, we look into the extent to which our democracy is under attack, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Anthony Willy reviews the state of democracy in New Zealand, and this week’s poll asks whether you believe New Zealanders are too complacent about the rise of the Maori sovereignty movement.

*To read the newsletter click HERE.
*To register for the NZCPR Weekly mailing list, click HERE.  

Guy Benson from the US: Handful of Senate Republicans Join Democrats to Kill 'Skinny Repeal'

In a stunning turn of events early Friday morning, Senate Republicans failed to garner a simple majority for a so-called 'skinny repeal' bill, widely viewed as their last chance to continue the process of repealing and replacing at least some significant elements of Obamacare.  

The final vote was 49-51, with John McCain, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins helping Democrats kill the bill -- which leadership insisted was merely a vehicle to get to a conference committee with members of the House of Representatives. 

Frank Newman: Soaring land values

Last week a government research agency, the Social Policy Evaluation and Research Unit, released a report confirming what many have been saying for years. The report is called Quantifying the impact of land use regulation: Evidence from New Zealand and is available online. 

The question it sought to answer was, "What has caused the price of New Zealand houses to soar in recent years?"

The two key points made in the report are: 

Roy Spencer: Study - Sea Level Rise Revised Downward

If I had not looked past the headline of the press report on a new study, I would have just filed it under “It’s worse than we thought”. 

A new study in Nature reported on July 17 carried the following headlines:

“Satellite snafu masked true sea-level rise for decades”
“Revised tallies confirm that the rate of sea-level rise is accelerating as the Earth warms and ice sheets thaw.”

When I read that, I (like everyone else) assumed that corrections to the satellite sea level data since 1993 have now led to a revised trend toward faster (not slower) sea level rise. Right? 

Wrong.

Matt Ridley: The deep divergence in African genomes

News is dominated by sudden things — bombs, fires, election results — and so gradual news sometimes get left out. The past month has seen three discoveries in Africa that radically change our understanding of a crucial phase in human evolution. For those interested in the common history of all humanity, this should really be among the biggest news of the year.

The first of these discoveries is genetic. Swedish and South African scientists have made the origin of us — modern human beings — an even more mind-bogglingly gradual phenomenon than we used to think. Here is what they found. A skeleton of a boy who died 2,000 years ago at a place called Ballito Bay has yielded a good sample of preserved DNA. He was a Khoe-San, that is to say an indigenous native of southern Africa of the kind once called “bushmen”, who still live in the Kalahari desert.

GWPF Newsletter: UK Government’s Crazy Electric Car Policy Unravels

German States Take Trumpian Climate U-Turn

In this newsletter:

1) UK Government’s Crazy Electric Car Policy Unravels
The Daily Telegraph, 26 July 2017 
 
2) FOI Emails Reveal Obama’s Paris Climate Scheme
The Washington Times, 25 July 2017

Richard Epstein: The Diversity Fundamentalists

Diversity and inclusion (D&I) is the new catchphrase of today’s elite businesses and universities. Those institutions assume D&I is both a means—to excellence—and an end in itself, making them more closely resemble the larger world of which they are a part. So understood, companies from Facebook to Apple to Goldman Sachs, and academic establishments from UC Berkeley to Harvard to Yale, have found their new holy grail. Their commitment to D&I is all too often treated as a self-evident truth that none should be allowed to question in public discourse. But this new consensus for D&I, if left unchallenged, has an unintended consequence: unthinking intellectual rigidity, a malaise that all successful institutions must guard against.

 The first difficulty with D&I is that it says very little about whom to admit and whom to exclude. Scarcity of places is a major constraint, so any institution committed to D&I has to decide whom to exclude from its community. Ironically, these institutions depend for their success on the institution of private property, which gives them the breathing room on which their cooperative activities rest. 

Kevin Donnelly from Australia: Christian values remain at heart of our culture

There’s no doubt the ABC when falsely accusing Christian men of being more prone to family violence is guilty of a cultural-left bias. And it’s not just the ABC that’s running a secular campaign against Christianity.

Read the Fairfax Press and the impression is that paedophilia mainly involves Catholic priests (ignored is that most children are abused by family or relatives), that Catholic schools don’t deserve government funding and that there’s no place for Christianity in public debates on issues such as abortion and euthanasia.

Gerry Eckhoff: Greens Co-Leader

Casting stones at those who are deemed to have committed indiscretions, minor offenses or crimes in this imperfect world of ours is never a particularly smart move. However, scrutiny is part and parcel for those who seek high office such as a Cabinet Minister and must expect to have their actions - past and present, placed under the spotlight. It is also expected of those who exercise their personal judgment, to be entirely consistent whether they happen to be a judge, a French rugby referee or part of this thing we call “public opinion”.  

The admission of politician Metiria Turei, co-leader of the Greens to having committed benefit fraud 20 odd years ago, is a case in point. The discussion seems to have been carefully developed to excuse and justify Ms Turei’s decision. Ms Turei is seemingly now a victim of her own actions. 

GWPF Newsletter: Why the Greens Lost, and Trump Won

The Great Green Diesel Swindle

In this newsletter:

1) Scott Pruitt May Invite Former Obama Official To Lead A Climate ‘Red Team’
Science Magazine, 24 July 2017
 
2) Joel Kotkin: Why the Greens Lost, and Trump Won
The Daily Beast, 22 July 2017 

GWPF Newsletter: German Carmakers’ Shares Crash On Allegations Of Diesel Collusion

Trump Administration Lining Up Climate Change ‘Red Team’

In this newsletter:

1) Europe’s Green Madness: German Carmakers’ Shares Crash On Allegations Of Diesel Collusion
The Daily Telegraph, 24 July 2017 
 
2) Trump Administration Lining Up Climate Change ‘Red Team’
Washington Examiner, 24 July 2017

NZCPR Weekly: Major Election Policies Announced

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

This week, we look at two controversial election policy announcements – by the Greens and New Zealand First, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Michael Coote outlines how Winston Peters could become a stabilising coalition force that keeps the extremist Green and Maori Parties out of Government, and this week’s poll asks whether you believe National should re-affirm its policy to abolish the Maori seats.

*To read the newsletter click HERE.
*To register for the NZCPR Weekly mailing list, click HERE.  

Brian Giesbrecht from Canada: University Succumbs to Politically Correct Nonsense

Why is the university pretending indigenous knowledge and science are the equivalent of our written knowledge base?

I recently listened to an interview of the new head of the University of Manitoba’s Indigenous Knowledge department on CBC radio. She articulately explained that “traditional knowledge” and “indigenous science” have been vital to the survival of the aboriginal culture.

A hunter-gatherer culture depended on information about the movement of animals, weather changes and the medicinal properties of plants, for instance. This important information was passed on orally through many generations, she noted. Because aboriginal culture had no written languages, “keepers” of this knowledge had a special place in the culture.

Nicholas Kerr from the US: Charlie Gard and the need for limited government

A few days after our first child was born, our pediatrician commented at a check-up, “Isn’t it funny that last week you’d never even met Penelope, and now you’d lay down in front of a bus for her?” 

I recalled this as I followed the tragic story of 10-month-old Charlie Gard who suffers from a rare genetic condition. Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) determined that nothing could be done to save him, but his parents wanted to try an experimental treatment in the United States. His doctors did not believe this was in Charlie’s best interests, took the case to court, and won. His parents exhausted all their appeals last week and it appears Charlie will soon be taken off life support.

Matt Ridley: How the electric car revolution could backfire

The British government is under pressure to follow France and Volvo in promising to set a date by which to ban diesel and petrol engines in cars and replace them with electric motors. It should resist the temptation, not because the ambition is wrong but because coercion could backfire.

The electric motor is older than the internal combustion engine by about half a century. Since taking over factories from the steam piston engine at the end of the 19th century, it has become ubiquitous. Twinned with its opposite number, the turbine (which turns work into electricity, rather than vice versa), it drives machines in factories, opens doors, raises lifts, prepares food, brushes teeth and washes plates.

GWPF Newsletter: The Truth About Green Subsidies

In this newsletter:

1) As Japan Cuts Green Subsidies, Up To 100 Japanese Solar Firms Could Go Bust This Year
PV Tech, 18 July 2017

2) As Green Subsidies Dry Up, Ontario Wind Turbine Factory Closes, Shedding Hundreds Of Jobs
Toronto Sun, 18 July 2017

GWPF Newsletter: Will The Sun Put The Brakes On Global Warming?

The Hiatus: One Message For Politicians, Another For Scientists

In this newsletter:

1) Will The Sun Put The Brakes On Global Warming?
Fox News, 16 July 2017
 
2) The Hiatus: One Message For Politicians, Another For Scientists
GWPF Observatory, 17 July 2017