GWPF Newsletter: Four Lessons From A Century of Pandemics

Technology, Ingenuity And Cooperation Will Defeat The Pandemic

In this newsletter:
1) Four Lessons From A Century of Pandemics

WCAI Public Radio, April 2019

Clive Bibby: Watching on TV isn't the same as being there

Recently, l tuned in to watch the NZ cricket team doing battle with their Aussie counterparts at the 50,000 seat Sydney Cricket Ground, a place steeped in history that usually offers the viewer an experience worth the effort.

Unfortunately, due to the coronavirus restrictions, the two teams were playing in a stadium that was totally empty.  It was a charade but it also quickly became unwatchable irrespective of who was winning at the time.

I quickly switched channels to the Super Rugby game in Hamilton where there were about 10,000 loyal fans in attendance. The difference in atmosphere for anyone who couldn't be there in person was remarkable and the difference was the crowds reaction to the closeness of the scores. You could sense the tenseness.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 8.03.20

Saturday March 14, 2020

News:
Mayors Commit To A Greater Regional Approach
All Mayors, most Deputy Mayors and Chief Executives across the Horizons region spent two days discussing and workshopping a range of topics.

Manawatū Mayor Helen Worboys said there was also a clear commitment regionally to improve iwi partnerships.

GWPF Newsletter: Europe's Green Suicide

Eleven Million Jobs At Risk From EU Green Deal, Trade Unions Warn

In this newsletter:

1) Europe’s Green Suicide: Eleven Million Jobs At Risk From EU Green Deal, Trade Unions Warn

EurActiv, 10 March 2020

2) EU’s Carbon Border Levy Faces Long Delay As Germany Fears U.S. Retaliation
Financial Times, 9 March 2020

Bob Edlin: Here’s your chance to let Parliament know what you think of its curbs on Henry VIII (and other) powers

We were about to pack up the office PC and spend the rest of the weekend relaxing when we were alerted to an exercise in Parliamentary scrutiny which .. Well, the word “arcane” sprang to mind.  But perhaps this reflects badly on our need to brush up on some aspects of the legislative process.

The news is that the Regulations Review Committee has called for submissions on an inquiry into parliamentary scrutiny of confirmable instruments.

Do we hear whoops of approval among our readers? Or are you asking: Confirmable instruments?   What are they?

Those of you steeped in the art of parliamentary law-making won’t need to read the report produced by the Regulations Review Committee which contains the answer.

The report explains that Parliament – the supreme law maker – has full power to make laws.

Frank Newman: Keep calm, and think of Tāne Mahuta

The Governor of the Reserve Bank is suggesting people remain calm in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic. He said the NZ economy is in a "wonderful starting position" to face a "horrible situation".

For me, the Governor's "Don't panic" message has a tinge of Lance Corporal Jack Jones from Dad's Amy about it.

Its times like this when one appreciates the conventional, bland, vanilla type of bank governor that were his predecessors - the type who has a low profile and only says something when they have something worthwhile to say. The result was those words carried a certain amount of gravitas.

Curt Levey: Climate Change Lawsuits Collapsing Like Dominoes

Climate change activists went to court in California recently trying to halt a long losing streak in their quest to punish energy companies for aiding and abetting the world’s consumption of fossil fuels.

A handful of California cities — big consumers of fossil fuels themselves — asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to reverse the predictable  dismissal of their public nuisance lawsuit seeking to pin the entire blame for global warming on five energy producers: BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell.

The cities hope to soak the companies for billions of dollars of damages, which they claim they’ll use to build sea walls, better sewer systems and the like in anticipation of rising seas and extreme weather that might result from climate change.

But no plaintiff has ever succeeded in bringing a public nuisance lawsuit based on climate change.

GWPF Newsletter: Coronavirus May Neutralise Climate Hysteria For Now As Pandemic Threat Looms

Climate Change Lawsuits Collapsing Like Dominoes

In this newsletter:

1) Coronavirus May Neutralise Climate Hysteria For Now As Pandemic Threat Looms
AFP, 8 March 2020

2) Tories' £100 Billion Climate Crisis Infrastructure Plan Delayed
The Mirror, 6 March 2020

Viv Forbes: The Carbon Capture Con

Carbon-capture-and-storage “(CCS)” tops the list of silly schemes “to reduce man-made global warming”. The idea is to capture carbon dioxide from power stations and cement plants, separate it, compress it, pump it long distances and force it underground, hoping it will never escape.

Smart engineers with unlimited money could do all this. But only green zealots would support the sacrifice of billions of dollars and scads of energy to bury this harmless, invisible, life-supporting gas in the hope of appeasing the global warming gods.

NZCPR Weekly: Labour's Dependency Trap

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

This week we look into how the Labour-led Government is deepening the dependency trap, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Clive Bibby explains why the Government’s free school lunch programme is socialism by stealth, and our poll asks whether you support Labour’s policy of taxpayer funded free school lunches.

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

Breaking Views Update: Week of 1.03.20

Saturday March 7, 2020

News:
Medicinal cannabis hui: Māori seeking licences criticise high fees
The stigma around cannabis and the high licensing costs are barriers to getting whānau, hapū and iwi into the industry, say Māori applying for medicinal cannabis licenses.

A cultivation license is upwards of $8000 - which does not include the cost of setting up the operation

GWPF Newsletter: Legal Gaps And US Elections May Turn COP26 Into Damp Squib

The Political Storm Over Green Targets Will Be Even Bigger Than Brexit

In this newsletter:

1) Legal Gaps And US Elections May Turn COP26 Into Damp Squib
GWPF & Climate Home News, 5 March 2020
 
2) Greta Thunberg Accuses EU Of Climate Betrayal
The Times, 5 March 2020

GWPF Newsletter: UK Govt Punishes Voters As Its Costly Climate Policies Drive Up Electricity Bills

UK Energy Prices are Plunging, But Users are Facing Rate Hikes

In this newsletter:

1) UK Govt Punishes Voters As Costly Climate Policies Drive Up Electricity Bills
Bloomberg 4 March 2020
 
2) With The Economy On The Brink, UK Government Prioritises Its Climate Agenda
Financial Times, 4 March 2020

Rodney Clifton: An Uprising in Canada

Ten years ago, Douglas Bland, a retired lieutenant-colonel from the Canadian Forces and the Chair of Defense Studies at Queen’s University, wrote Uprising: A Novel. 

In this 500-page work of “fiction,” Bland outlines how militant Indigenous warriors and their allies could, in the tradition of Louis Riel, hold Canada up for ransom, stopping rail traffic, blocking highways, disrupting government offices, and even bombing hydro towers north of Winnipeg.

Karl du Fresne: A mixed week for freedom of speech

It’s been an interesting few days for anyone with an interest in free speech. There's been one positive development, one negative and one inconclusive.

First came the surprise announcement last Friday that Sir Robert Jones was abandoning his defamation case against film maker Renae Maihi.

To recap: Jones wrote a self-evidently satirical column for National Business Review* in which he suggested that Waitangi Day should be replaced with Maori Gratitude Day.

“I have in mind a public holiday where Maori bring us breakfast in bed or weed our gardens, wash and polish our cars and so on out of gratitude for existing,” he wrote.

Barend Vlaardingerbroek: The bibliolatrous religious political right

The religious right is not the formidable political force in NZ that it is in the US, but it’s there lurking in the shadows and occasionally rears its head, such as when an election is coming up. 

We had the Christian Coalition in the 1990s and, more recently, the Destiny Party. I don’t know about you, but I found the latter positively scary – theocracies and me don’t get on. I gather they’re now back as Vision NZ. Not that they would ever gain a majority, but imagine a party like that holding the balance of power in parliament.

Matt Ridley: We all need to change how we live our lives to fight this generation of pandemics

In the 19th century Ignaz Semmelweis was vilified and ostracised when he tried to make doctors wash their hands after doing autopsies on women who had died from childbirth fever before going straight upstairs to deliver more babies. We have come a long way since then in public health, but we can go much further still.

The Covid-19 coronavirus must change the way we behave – whether it kills millions or not. The vulnerability to pandemic-panic of world stock markets, the tourism industry, international sport and global trade, even before there is an actual pandemic, tells us that global society, for all its medical know-how, is vulnerable.

NZCPR Weekly: COVID-19

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

This week we look into what is known about the COVID-19 virus, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Dr Matt Ridley explains why bats are the source of so many human diseases, and our poll asks whether you believe there is now too much hysteria around the new virus.

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

Dr John O’Leary: A deadly uniformity

Toward the end of last year, I went to an academic conference. I’ve attended quite a few in the past – they’re one way of keeping up with the latest thinking in one’s subject, especially valuable for independent writer/researchers like me who work largely alone, only occasionally dipping into the academic milieu. Generally, I’ve enjoyed these conferences, though they are perhaps more fun in retrospect, or at least after one has given one’s paper, when one can relax. But this one left me depressed.

Don’t get me wrong. It was a nice enough conference. The organisers had gone to some trouble to make attendees feel welcome. There were thoughtfully arranged extra-conference activities, and an elegant dinner, complete with a piper and a man in a kilt telling jokes between the main course and dessert.

Anthony Watts: Twitter Hits No Substitute for Science in Understanding Climate

The headline of a recent story on CNBC claimed, “Scientists Are Using Twitter to Measure the Impact of Climate Change.” I did a double-take and checked the calendar to make sure this was not April Fools’ Day, thinking this had to be some sort of a joke.

Sadly, it was not.

Incredibly, scientists are basing claims of a climate crisis on the number of people tweeting about climate events—a very bad sign for science, indeed.