Taxing your Lifestyle

It never ceases to amaze what United Nations officials using public money can come up with.

At a recent seminar United Nations Under-Secretary-General Dr Anna Tibaijuka told a public gathering in Auckland last week the world could not tackle climate change and other environmental issues without redesigning city living.

The answer unsurprisingly, given the source, is a tax on your lifestyle.
Dr Tibaijuka who is the executive director of UN-HABITAT, the arm of the UN charged with promoting socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities stated:

“Maybe there is a case for putting up a tax and those who live in the suburbs have to pay it."

Why is it that UN officials living at the public’s expense in Manhattan penthouses always to know what is best for everybody else?

Fatty, You're Warming the Earth!

Fat people require more fuel to transport them and the food they eat, and the problem will worsen as the population literally swells in size, a team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine says.

See full story: UK Reuters

Inner City Zones Use More Energy

We are reminded, repeatedly, by urban planners, environmentalists and most recently by the Royal Commission enquiring into Auckland governance that cities with greater density use less energy.

To quote from the Royal Commission Report:

“Dense cities use less energy per person than the more dispersed model. For these reasons, the MUL is a key policy and the consequent control of land use will require significant enforcement efforts.”

So imagine the shock and confusion when a green lobby group publishes research that shows the it is the dense inner city zones, not suburbia that unleash more green house gases.

Snow, Snow everywhere

After being warned by global warming alarmists that the ski fields would struggle to provide enough snow for skiing it now appears that there have been record snowfalls this winter. There is so much of the whitestuff in fact that the devices used to measure the depth of snow have proven to be inadequate.

Could it be that the hype surrounding anthropogenic global warming is just that – hype?

However, I suspect that the increased snowfall will be cited as another example of anthropogenic global warming. It is after all a non-falsifiable hypothesis for those who believe.

32,000 deniers

Question: How many scientists does it take to establish that a consensus does not exist on global warming? The quest to establish that the science is not settled on climate change began before most people had even heard of global warming.

32,000 deniers - FP Comment:

The Little Train That Could

Here we are at the bottom of the world, emitting less than 0.2 per cent of the world's GHG striving to be a leader in stopping AGW if it exists. A recent report by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, an independent consulting firm, estimated the the government's emmision bill will result in 22,000 job losses and a drop in GDP by $4.6 billion or to put it in more personal terms that represents a $3,000 cut in each household income.

Why are we subjecting ourselves to this? Why do we want to be leaders on this? Maybe "Dear Leader" wants to work for the UN when this country spits her out later this year. A hell of a thing to have on her CV - I mutilated the NZ economy to "save the planet!

Watch the web for climate change truths - Telegraph

A notable story of recent months should have been the evidence pouring in from all sides to cast doubts on the idea that the world is inexorably heating up. The proponents of man-made global warming have become so rattled by how the forecasts of their computer models are being contradicted by the data that some are rushing to modify the thesis.

Watch the web for climate change truths - Telegraph

Environmentalists' Wild Predictions

At the first Earth Day celebration, in 1969, environmentalist Nigel Calder warned, "The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind." C.C. Wallen of the World Meteorological Organization said, "The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed." In 1968, Professor Paul Ehrlich, Vice President Gore's hero and mentor, predicted there would be a major food shortage in the U.S. and "in the 1970s ... hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death." Ehrlich forecasted that 65 million Americans would die of starvation between 1980 and 1989, and by 1999 the U.S. population would have declined to 22.6 million. Ehrlich's predictions about England were gloomier: "If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000."

Townhall.com::Environmentalists' Wild Predictions::By Walter E. Williams

Global Warming on Hold

Today’s UK Telegraph reports: “Global warming will stop until at least 2015 because of natural variations in the climate, scientists have said. Researchers studying long-term changes in sea temperatures said they now expect a "lull" for up to a decade while natural variations in climate cancel out the increases caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions. The average temperature of the sea around Europe and North America is expected to cool slightly over the decade while the tropical Pacific remains unchanged. This would mean that the 0.3°C global average temperature rise which has been predicted for the next decade by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may not happen, according to the paper published in the scientific journal Nature.”
This significant new study adds to a growing body of peer-reviewed literature and other scientific analysis challenging former Vice President Al Gore and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC). MIT Climate Scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen’s March 2008 analysis found the Earth has had “no statistically significant warming since 1995.”- LINK.
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/03/11/a-note-from-richard-lindzen-on-statistically-significant-warming/
Australian paleoclimate scientist Dr. Bob Carter also noted in 2007 that “ the accepted global average temperature statistics used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that no ground-based warming has occurred since 1998.” Carter explained that the “temperature stasis has occurred despite an increase over the same period of 15 parts per million (or 4 per cent) in atmospheric CO2.” (LINK)
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,21920043-27197,00.html
In August 2007, the UK Met Office, Britain's version of our National Weather Service, conceded that global warming had stopped as well. Both the Nature and UK Met Office analysis predict a continuation of global warming in future years. [Note: Hyping yet more unproven computer models of the future in response to inconvenient evidence based data is the primary tool of the promoters of man-made climate doom.]
Today’s new study in Nature essentially finds that global warming will have stopped for nearly 20 years. (1998 until 2015) According to the UK Telegraph article: “Writing in Nature, the scientists said: ‘Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic [manmade] warming.’”
The UK Telegraph article by reporter Charles Clover noted the significant deficiencies in UN climate models: “The IPCC currently does not include in its models actual records of such events as the strength of the Gulf Stream and the El Nino cyclical warming event in the Pacific, which are known to have been behind the warmest year ever recorded in 1998.”
The evidence based data showing the Earth’s failure to continue warming has confounded the promoters of man-made climate fear. The American people have consistently rejected climate alarm as a Gallup Poll released on Earth Day 2008 shows the American public’s concern about man-made global warming is unchanged from 1989. Gore's $300 million dollar campaign to promote climate fear is attempting to convince American's that they face a climate "crisis" despite the new accumulating scientific evidence.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=5CEAEDB7-802A-23AD-4BFE-9E32747616F9
This new study in Nature further reveals a “tipping point” for the promoters of climate alarm. 2007 and now 2008 have challenged man-made climate fear as new peer-reviewed studies continue to debunk rising CO2 fears. A U.S. Senate minority report reveals over 400 scientists dissented from man-made climate fears, and more and more scientists continue to declare themselves skeptical of a man-made climate “crisis” in 2008.

Climate Change - has it been cancelled?

View Professor Bob Carter on Shine TV explaining why New Zealanders should oppose the Emissions Trading Scheme Bill now being debated by a Parliamentary Select Committee: For YouTube LINK

Climate facts to warm to by Owen McShane

Climate Change still with us but Global Warming Cancelled - or

Being in the Hottest Spot at the Right Time

Unlike so many of the hapless victims on TVOne’s daily Crimewatch – (also known as TVOne News) I have recently been lucky enough to be in two right places at the right time.

In December, last year, at the UN conference in Bali, I heard Viscount Monckton present a paper prepared by himself, the Australian Dr David Evans, and our own Dr Vincent Gray (who were at Bali too) which showed that while the IPCC models predict that greenhouse gases would produce an extensive “hot spot” in the upper troposphere over the tropics the satellite measurements show no such hotspots have appeared.

Monckton and Evans found that a large part of this discrepancy is the result of some basic errors in the IPCC’s assessment of the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. When they applied their revised factor to the effect of greenhouse gases the temperature rise was about a third of that predicted by the IPCC.

So by late last year we not only knew IPCC forecasts of atmospheric global warming were wrong; we were beginning to understand why they are wrong.

The key issue in this debate is whether anthropogenic greenhouse gases or natural solar activities, are the prime drivers of climate change. A closely related argument is whether or not the climate is highly sensitive to carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. Put together, these uncertainties raise doubts as to whether the IPCC models can accurately forecast the climate over the long term. If they cannot, then we have to wonder how much damage we should risk doing to the world’s economies in attempts to manage the possibly adverse effects of these “predictions”.

The findings that the predicted “tropical hotspots” do not exist are important because the IPCC models assume these “hotspots” will be formed by increased evaporation from warmer oceans leading to the accumulations of higher concentrations of water vapour in the upper atmosphere, and thereby generating a positive feedback which reinforces the small amount of warming which can be caused by CO₂ alone.

Atmospheric scientists generally agree that as carbon dioxide levels increase there is a law of “diminishing returns” – or more properly “diminishing effects” – and that ongoing increases in CO2 concentration do not generate proportional increases in temperature. The common analogy is painting over window glass. The first layers of paint cut out lots of light but subsequent layers have diminishing impact.

So, you might be asking, why the panic? Why does Al Gore talk about temperatures spiraling out of control, causing mass extinctions and catastrophic rises in sea-level, and all his other disastrous outcomes when there is no evidence to support it?

The alarmists argue that increased CO₂ leads to more water vapour – the main greenhouse gas and this water vapour provides positive feedback and hence makes the overall climate highly sensitive to small increases in the concentration of CO₂. Consequently, the IPCC argues that while carbon dioxide may well “run out of puff” the consequent evaporation of water vapour provides the positive feedback loop which will make anthropogenic global warming reach dangerous levels.

This assumption that water vapour provides positive feedback lies behind the famous “tipping point” which nourishes Al Gore’s dreams of destruction, and indeed all those calls for action now – “before it is too late!” However, no climate models predict such a “tipping point”.

However, while the absence of hot spots has refuted one important aspect of the IPCC models we lack a mechanism which fully explains these supposed outcomes. Hence the IPCC, and its supporters, have been able to ignore this “refutation”.

So by the end of last year, we were in a similar situation to the 19th Century astronomers who had figured out that the Sun could not be “burning” its fuel – or it would have turned to ashes long ago – but could not explain where the ongoing energy was coming from. Then along came Einstein and E=mc².

Similarly, the climate skeptics have had to explain why the hotspots are not where they should be – not just challenge the theory with their observations.

This is why I felt so lucky to be in the right place at the right time when I heard Roy Spencer speak at the New York conference in March of this year. At first I thought this was just another paper setting out observations against the forecasts, further confirming Evan’s earlier work. But as the argument unfolded I realized that Roy Spencer was drawing on observations and measurements from the new Aqua satellites to explain the mechanism behind this anomaly between model forecasts and observation. You may have heard that the IPCC models cannot predict clouds and rain with any accuracy. Their models assume that the water vapour goes up to the troposphere and hangs around to cook us all in a greenhouse future.

However, there is a mechanism at work, which washes out the water-vapour (as it were) and returns it to the oceans, along with the extra CO₂ and thus turns the added water vapour into a NEGATIVE feedback mechanism.

The newly discovered mechanism is a combination of clouds and rain! (Spencer’s mechanism adds to the mechanism earlier identified by Prof Lindzen called the Iris effect.)

The IPCC models assumed that the water vapour formed clouds at high altitudes which lead to further warming. The Aqua satellite observations and Spencer’s analysis show that the water vapour actually forms clouds at low altitudes which lead to cooling.

Furthermore, Spencer shows that the extra rain which falls from these clouds cools the underlying oceans providing a second negative feedback to negate the CO₂ warming. (see image.)

This has struck the alarmists like a thunderbolt, especially as the lead author of the IPCC chapter on feedback has written to Roy Spencer agreeing that he is right!

There goes the alarmist neighbourhood!

The climate is not highly sensitive to CO₂ warming because the water vapour is a damper against the warming effect of CO₂.

That is why history is full of Ice Ages – where other effects, such as increased reflection from the ice cover, do provide positive feedback – while we do not hear about Heat Ages. The Medieval Warm Period for example is known for being benignly warm – not dangerously hot.

We live on a benign planet – except when it occasionally gets damned cold.

While I have done my best to simplify these developments they remain highly technical and many people distrust their own ability to assess competing scientific claims. However, in this case the “tipping point theories” are based on models which do not include the effects of rain and clouds.
The new NASA Aqua Satellite is the first satellite to actually measure the effects of clouds and rainfall. Spencer’s interpretation of the new data now means that our models now include the effects of rain and clouds and thus make all previous models and forecasts obsolete. Would anyone trust long-term forecasts of farm production which were hopeless at forecasting rainfall?

The implications of these breakthroughs in measurement and understanding are dramatic to say the least. The responses will be fun to watch.

A Cool Look at Global Warming Speech to the NZ Business Round Table by The Rt. Hon. Lord Lawson

In October 1989, Nigel Lawson, the longest-serving Chancellor of the Exchequer since the First World War, resigned after a very public row with the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.

For ten years he had been one of the Government's chief policy makers, and for most of that time a key member of the Cabinet.

Lord Lawson served as Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1983 and 1989 under Margaret Thatcher, prior to this he served as Secretary of State for Energy between 1981 and 1983 and Financial Secretary to the Treasury between 1979 and 1981.

He has been a Member of the House of Lords since 1992

NZCPR guest

Williamson Right to Query Global Warming

Well, it seems my local PM, Maurice Williamson (National) has committed the most heinous crime known to the Labour Party and TV One. The crime he is charged with is not being a global warming alarmist. What I like about Williamson he researches issues and is not afraid to speak his mind. He doesn’t follow the common herd led by an idle media which has never looked at both sides of the climate change debate.

Williamson is smart enough to know that earth’s climate has always changed and informed enough to doubt anthropogenic global warming.

Oh, and one more thing there has been no global warming since 1998.

Claims senior Nat MPs deny climate change | POLITICS | NEWS | tvnz.co.nz

Another Global Warming Scam

The great thing about being green is that it allows you to get away with the most outrageous scams. Air New Zealand is the latest to understand this and you can now off set the carbon foot print you leave when flying on the national carrier by buying into a carbon offset scam .. oops sorry scheme!

It doesn’t work anywhere in the world, but hell, Kiwis will buy into, because like Kermit we love being green or is that being scammed.

And what will our brave little green airline do with the indulgences that are paid to it. My guess is that they’ll say thanks and go to lunch!

Freedom, not climate, is at risk

The author Michael Crichton stated it clearly: “the greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda”. I feel the same way, because global warming hysteria has become a prime example of the truth versus propaganda problem. It requires courage to oppose the “established” truth, although a lot of people – including top-class scientists – see the issue of climate change entirely differently. They protest against the arrogance of those who advocate the global warming hypothesis and relate it to human activities.


FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment - Freedom, not climate, is at risk

Cold Water on "Global Warming"

"It has almost become something of a joke when some “global warming” conference has to be cancelled because of a snowstorm or bitterly cold weather.

But stampedes and hysteria are no joke - and creating stampedes and hysteria has become a major activity of those hyping a global-warming “crisis.”

They mobilize like-minded people from a variety of occupations, call them all “scientists” and then claim that “all” the experts agree on a global-warming crisis.

Their biggest argument is that there is no argument.

A whole cottage industry has sprung up among people who get grants, government agencies who get appropriations, politicians who get publicity, and the perpetually indignant who get something new to be indignant about. It gives teachers something to talk about in school instead of teaching."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/29/opinion/main3893146.shtml