Maldives stunt just lies on climate change

President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives created a widely reported publicity seeking moment on Saturday with images of him and his Cabinet holding an underwater meeting. The whole story was to highlight the alleged threat climate change would bring to the country he leads.

The report on CNN said:

Maldives is grappling with the very likely possibility that it will go under water if the current pace of climate change keeps raising sea levels. The Maldives is an archipelago of almost 1,200 coral islands south-southwest of India. Most of it lies just 4.9 feet (1.5 meters) above sea level.

The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change has forecast a rise in sea levels of at least 7.1 inches (18 cm) by the end of the century.

So take away 7.1 inches from 4.9 feet and you have, more than 4 feet left. The stunt was a grotesque hyperbole.

Christopher Brooker in the Sunday Telegraph notes that the President of the Maldives was sent an open letter from Dr Nils-Axel Morner, the former head of the international Inqua Commission on Sea Level Change. It says "that his commission had visited the Maldives six times in the years since 2000, and that he himself had led three month-long investigations in every part of the coral archipelago. Their exhaustive studies had shown that from 1790 to 1970 sea-levels round the islands had averaged 20 centimetres higher than today; that the level, having fallen, has since remained stable; and that there is not the slightest sign of any rise. The most cautious forecast based on proper science (rather than computer model guesswork) shows that any rise in the next 100 years will be "small to negligible"."

So it is a monumental fraud to scare the world into thinking the Maldives will be swamped.

Furthermore, Dr Morner has sought to reassure the people of the Maldives, but its government isn't interested:

Professor Morner offered to explain his team's findings on the local TV station, to reassure viewers that their homes were not about to disappear underwater as they had been told. The government refused to allow his film to be shown. Egged on by climate alarmists, successive Maldivan leaders since the 1980s have pleaded for vast sums of international aid to save them from rising sea levels.

Brooker concludes rightly:

"If President Nasheed really believed his own propaganda, he would of course immediately ban all flights into his country and turn off the lights in all its hotels. But since this would put an end to the international tourism which is almost his country's only source of income, he would rather carry on staging his publicity stunts, while holding out the begging bowl which he hopes gullible world leaders such as Gordon Brown will soon fill with large quantities of Western taxpayers' cash."

Nasheed is a fraudster, perpetuating his fraud to whoever will listen, enjoying the tourism from environmentalists that it generates ("last chance to visit Maldives") and with the begging bowl out ("it's not our fault, but come fly to see us").

Of course the Guardian swallowed it like the true believers they are claiming the Maldives would be the first nation submerged.

Do the Greens care what the public want?

No. The Greens want to use force.

Russel Norman is complaining that Foodstuffs will restore free plastic bags in the South Island because of "customer feedback".

Russel. Are you saying if people want a plastic bag, and a private company is prepared to pay to supply them, they shouldn't get it?

The only part of the issue regarding plastic bags is rubbish disposal. Privatise that, ensure people pay for rubbish collection and then that cost is internalised. Let's face it, New Zealand does not lack landfill space, but if recycling can be profitable then so be it.

However, the Greens want less plastic bags, and they'll make you pay the government (not the provider) for them, and the money will be used to....

Because, you see, you shouldn't want plastic bags - you're a bad person for wanting them - so you should be punished for doing so.

By contrast, in the UK, some supermarkets charges for them, some don't. Many people bring their own bags because they support less use of plastic bags.

How was this achieved?

Persuasion.

It would be nice if Russel Norman and the Green Party believed a little more in convincing people of the merits of their arguments, and accepting, that when some people disagree, it doesn't give a good reason to use force.

Fun Police: #1 BOGOF

You might not know what BOGOF means - it is Buy One Get One Free in the UK.

Great, you may say. Effectively half price for two items, particularly welcome for families or for goods that can be frozen or readily stored. I have used BOGOF many times, for everything from yoghurt to chips to chocolate to fresh fruit.

Oh no, say the food police, it encourages you to buy more than you otherwise would, making you fat and unhealthy, and that costs taxpayers. So the wagging finger of the "do as we say" crowd want it to end. I can just imagine Sue Kedgley jumping on this in a moment, insisting that for "unhealthy food" 2 for 1 is just morally wrong. Others say it encourages "food waste" as people buy 2 for 1 and don't use 2, so throw it away. Oh the outrage, maybe there are kids in Africa who'd love what is being thrown away?

Sarah Vine in the Times takes on such people saying:

One of the great follies of our age is that there are a lot of people who abhor the idea of affordable food. They think that poor people are fat because the food that they eat is too cheap and too plentiful. If everyone paid a bit more and ate a bit less, they reason, we’d all be a lot healther and happier.

They are the people who prefer to go to shops which harp on about the quality of their products, and who think local shops (you know the ones that are overpriced with a poor range, until a supermarket comes near) are just a glorious example of what is great. The most successful supermarkets are most loathed, as she says

Of the supe(r)markets, Tesco is the one most commonly despised by the hug-your-cow-before-you-put-a- bullet-through-its-head snobs. Quite why this should be is not clear, as Tesco sells exactly the same produce as its rivals.

Sadly Tesco is succumbing to the Stasi like attitude so many have of giving a damn about what other people buy or eat.

If you don't like a BOGOF deal then don't buy it. Some people love it, some people don't, it is a way of managing inventory through price and gives consumers a great deal if they need more than one. If people waste food, it is their money, the food biodegrades, it isn't your business.

It's just sad this culture of control is now so ingrained with government than the private sector succumbs to lobbying by people who want to control what people buy, because they think they know better than others.

I'd just tell them to BOGOF, sanctimonious little petty fascists as they are.

Who really wants to be car free?

The Duke of Wellington famously loathed railways because he said it would "only encourage the common people to move about needlessly". Sam Kazman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute notes the comment by Prince Charles, himself the owner of six vehicles, on a similar vein. He believed one should be "elevating the pedestrian above the car". I like underpasses too, but he didn't mean that. He certainly didn't mean it for himself.

What is always missing from the anti-car language of the environmentalist movement (and a more peculiar "public transport religion") is the value people attach to having a car. It is so often portrayed as "car addiction" or "car dependent", but the counterfactual put forward, a fanciful notion that everyone was "better off" without cars doesn't bear close examination.

Put it this way. If you live in a modern new world city, consider the locations of jobs you can access with public transport conveniently, and those you can drive to within a reasonable time. The liberating influence of the car is dismissed by the doomsayers, as is the trend of those in China and India seeking to buy cars - as if it is some whim of the ephemeral.

"Living car-free may be fine for many people during some phases of their lives, and it may be fine for some people for all of their lives, but it’s no way for most of us to live — regardless of what Prince Charles and his fellow aristocrats may think" says Sam, and he's right.

A true hero for the world passes away

I had heard of Norman Borlaug only a couple of times before, not enough of course, and so his passing should come with the sort of news coverage that now gets given to vapid celebrities and simpleton politicians.

I am guessing if you still don't know who he is, you could boil it down to this:

He used his mind, and his passion for solving problems, to save lives on a grand scale. He did it through science

More than politicians, more than bureaucrats, more than the environmentalists or the so called peace activists, he saved hundreds of millions of lives, mostly in developing countries. More than he did, or he did, or this organisation or that organisation.

As the Daily Telegraph obituary today says:

"Perhaps more than anyone else, he was responsible for the fact that throughout the postwar era, except in sub-Saharan Africa, global food production has expanded faster than the human population, averting the mass starvations that were once widely predicted.

But Borlaug’s “Green Revolution” was not “green” in the modern sense. High yields demanded artificial fertiliser, chemical pesticides and new soil technology. As a result of this he was vilified by many in the environmental movement in the securely affluent West, some of whom argued that higher food production sustains more people and thus poses a threat to the natural environment."

You see he is a hero in India, where he banished mass famine to history, by developing "dwarf wheat" which was hardy and high yield:

"By 1968 Pakistan was self-sufficient in wheat production; India followed a few years later. Since the 1960s, food production in both countries has outpaced the rate of population growth and, in the mid 1980s, India even became a net exporter. In 1968, the administrator for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) wrote in his annual report that the phenomenal improvement in food production in the subcontinent looked like "a Green Revolution" – which was how it came to be known. "

He did the same in China, but in Africa he faced opposition. Why?

" Notwithstanding the fact that Borlaug's initial efforts in a few African nations yielded the same rapid increases in food production as did his efforts on the Indian subcontinent, environmental lobbyists persuaded Borlaug's backers in the Ford Foundation and the World Bank to back off from most African agriculture projects."

Yes, you see those people, those very groups who claim to give so much of a damn about the air, the water, the environment, don't give damn all about people. The new religion of our times - environmentalism would be put up against the science, the productivity and how Borlaug could save lives - and the earth worshippers would win.

That is why the Greens or Greenpeace, or other supercilious anti-reason worshippers of the planet over humanity wont cheer him on. No. A man of science, not a man of superstition treated appallingly because he didn't fit into the trend. He damned subsidies for agriculture in developed countries whilst obesity was the growing problem.

However, he did get much recognition. The American Medal of Freedom in 1977 and umpteen honorary doctorates, he was known in his field, and well known in some countries, if not the fickle ephemeral image worshipping developed world. Many more people are alive today because of him. Perhaps, that is why the environmental movement are cold towards him?

Not PC has done a superb post about Borlaug whose death I heard of from the BBC World Service - which gave an extended report on his achievements. Something I gather the NZ media, so dismissive of the blogosphere, couldn't. However, I am sure if virtually all NZ reporters and journalists were asked who he was, they wouldn't know.

So it's worth saying now how I share PC's disgust, that TVNZ does not have anything about him on its "news" website, neither does the NZ Herald or Stuff. TV3 did of course, to its credit.

So just think next time the mainstream media (bar TV3) criticise the blogosphere for not being "real journalism", ask yourself how many of these onanistic "copy a government press release" monkeys can hold down a sustainable debate on anything of substance that doesn't involve celebrity gossip, political scuttlebutt or sport?

UPDATE: WSJ has one of the best statements yet on Borlaug

"Today, famines—whether in Zimbabwe, Darfur or North Korea—are politically induced events, not true natural disasters.

In later life, Borlaug was criticized by self-described "greens" whose hostility to technology put them athwart the revolution he had set in motion. Borlaug fired back, warning in these pages that fear-mongering by environmental extremists against synthetic pesticides, inorganic fertilizers and genetically modified foods would again put millions at risk of starvation while damaging the very biodiversity those extremists claimed to protect. In saving so many, Borlaug showed that a genuine green movement doesn't pit man against the Earth, but rather applies human intelligence to exploit the Earth's resources to improve life for everyone."

Ask yourself whether those that call themselves Green are of the former or latter category in that sentence.

National's big motorway through private property

The NZ Transport Agency is going ahead with the scaled down tunnel option for the Waterview connection motorway - the last stage of the Western Ring Route in Auckland. It is important to note that funding has NOT been approved for construction yet. What has been done is that the route has been decided, and so the road will proceed, once funding is approved, whether or not the property owners agree.

Now I agreed with Steven Joyce pulling the plug on the Helen Clark Commemorative Goldway, which was sheer pork barrel politics of the worst kind - putting one section of a motorway underground because it went through the then Prime Minister's electorate, when all of the rest of the route is at surface.

I also fisked a lot of nonsense from some other blogs about the project. It never had funding agreed before under the last government, and the land was NOT designated for the route.

So what's left?

In principle I agree a motorway ought to be built, one day, to connect the southwestern motorway (SH20) to the northwestern motorway (SH16). However, under two conditions:

1. It should be built respecting private property rights. Yes it was foolish for Auckland councils to abolish designations for building a motorway between Mt Roskill and SH16 nearly 40 years ago, but local property owners shouldn't bear the burden of this. If properties can be bought to build it then so be it, but those who don't wish to sell should not be forced to. Frankly given the enormous construction costs of the motorway, it may simply be a matter of being more flexible about the exact route, or offering more. $88.2 million has been approved to undertake property purchases. Hopefully that will all be achieved voluntarily. It is wrong otherwise.

2. It should be built when it is worth doing. How do you measure that? Well, without a commercially run network it is difficult. As a single tolled project it wont stack up, because the Auckland City Council has untolled roads in parallel that it uses ratepayers money to partially pay for. So a private builder faces unfair public sector competition. So I'd argue that either enough money is generated from the future fuel tax and road user charges consumed using the road, to pay for it, or it generates enough savings in time, vehicle operating costs for the users (and those on roads they once used) to make it an economically efficient project (using standard NZTA benefit/cost analysis). At the moment, it isn't worth doing.

The Mt. Roskill extension has just recently opened, and there are no reports that there are big queues between it and SH16. The Manukau extension remains under construction, as does the duplicate Mangere Bridge. Similarly the Hobsonville deviation of SH18 (last section of the Upper Harbour Motorway) is under construction. Until they are all complete, it is difficult to determine if such a hugely expensive motorway is worth building yet, with the bureaucratically based road funding system that exists. Certainly the "supercity" will not help.

$3.4 million in final investigation funding has been approved and is effectively what officials are spending now to get the route designated and go through the RMA. However, full construction funding approval is still a little off. The National Land Transport Programme shows that $22.7 million will "probably" be approved to spend on detailed design in the next two years, with $42.4 million "probably" approved for pre-construction site work for 2010/11 before the full project can proceed. The full construction cost is put at $976.3 million, to start in 2011/2012, just in time for a general election.

Assuming, of course, the property owners let it be, the RMA doesn't hold it up and the costs don't blow out of control. One thing we can sure of, the Greens will oppose it, because they think we wont need new roads when oil "runs out".

If the Greens just handed out condoms

it would apparently be far more effective per dollar spent to reduce CO2 emissions than the current panoply of subsidise what we like (solar energy, wind power, railways) and ban or tax what we hate (aviation, road transport, coal fired power stations) policies that the Greens and their friends embrace with such enthusiasm, so says the London School of Economics according to the Daily Telegraph.

"Every £4 spent on family planning over the next four decades would reduce global CO2 emissions by more than a ton, whereas a minimum of £19 would have to be spent on low-carbon technologies to achieve the same result, the research says"...."If these basic family planning needs were met, 34 gigatons (billion tonnes) of CO2 would be saved – equivalent to nearly 6 times the annual emissions of the US and almost 60 times the UK’s annual total"

In other words, address contraception and it will address the CO2 concerns that many have.

By contrast, of course, the Greens embrace subsidising breeding through the welfare state. So while they continue their adolescent approach to policy (car bad, train good, gas powered electricity bad, solar energy good), wouldn't everyone be a lot happier if the Greens, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth (not people) etc raised money to pay for targeted contraception campaigns globally? Meanwhile, if they stopped supporting welfare programmes that reward breeding, it might help a little too? Consistent with freedom and reducing CO2 emissions.

Yes it would upset the Catholic Church, but you wouldn't be forced to use contraception, like you shouldn't be forced to breed.

However, I'm talking about people who believe in a certain catastrophe convincing people to act to reduce the risk - not about initiating force. I think that confuses far too many in the environmental movement (which is, perhaps, why my comments on Frogblog get moderated now?).

Whose tree?

Well it is still not yours, this doesn't make your property YOUR property.

However, at least we know where Labour stands on this. Thieving pricks. The Nats may be gutless wonders for only rolling the law back a notch, but Lynne Pillay and Silent T have shown themselves to be pilfering petty little busybodies. They'll be wanting half your income and to tell you how your kids should be educated next, what to eat and... um

If you like the tree on someone else's property, it's simple. Attempt to persuade the owner to do what YOU want with it OR buy it.

No need to resort to violence.

More importantly, no right to resort to violence.

However, for most politicians using violence is part of what they embrace isn't it?

Jeanette's economic illiteracy

Unsurprisingly, the Green Party doesn't understand why the government has abandoned setting minimum fuel efficiency standards for imported vehicles. Quite simply, it would be counterproductive.

Such standards will restrict new and used vehicle imports - that puts up the price of buying a car. So people with existing old less efficient cars would pay up to $1,500 more if such fuel efficiency standards existed than if not. So it is better to just let people pay the market price, then they are more likely to get more efficient vehicles.

This goes way over the head of Jeanette Fitzsimons who clearly thinks "if we regulate so people can only buy fuel efficient cars, they will". Not thinking that reducing the supply of a good puts up the price. It isn't the EU Jeanette, this isn't a huge market and in fact New Zealand remains so poor that a large number of imported vehicles are secondhand.

So take it slowly Jeanette:
1. There is pretty much a free market today for vehicle imports. This means demand and supply are at equilibrium keeping pressure on prices.
2. Imported vehicles are typically newer and more fuel efficient than the ones they replace.
3. Restricting the imports to only vehicles of a certain standard bans certain ones from entering the market, restricting the ability of some to buy a replacement vehicle (which while not meeting your standard is bound to be an improvement). So such people keep older vehicles for longer.
4. The remaining vehicles imported face demand but less supply, so retailers can put the price up.

The analysis demonstrated your policy was wrong.

High speed rail not environmentally friendly

It's curious that the government backed private company that runs Britain's rail infrastructure - Network Rail - is promoting an extremely grand plan to make taxpayers pay for a high speed rail line from London to Edinburgh. £34 billion is the cost of a line from London to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh. It would cut travel time from London to Edinburgh by rail to 2 hours 9 minutes.

See according to the Guardian, a consultancy report 2 years ago said there would be similar CO2 emissions from building and operating a high speed railway between London and Manchester as there would be to fly the route. The difference being that aviation on the route needs no subsidy. It would be better to improve capacity on the existing line through removing bottlenecks and improved signalling.

So the environmental advantages are at best dubious, and the economic costs are enormous. A massive transfer from taxpayers to business users of trains.

If there is congestion on the current rail network, that simply means fares are too low at busy times, so they should be raised so overcrowding can be reduced and revenue raised to put in extra capacity as it is needed. New lines when existing lines have ample capacity most of the day are unlikely to be particularly a good choice.

Of course the fetish for the moment is that flying is evil, as is driving, despite people continuing to choose those options. The truth is flying is largely a commercially run private business. Road transport involves privately provided vehicles paying excessive taxes to use roads managed bureaucratically. Railways involve a mix of commercial and subsidised services on subsidised tracks. Maybe of the highways were privatised, and charged commercial tolls reflecting demand, the excuses to subsidise railways would start to evaporate?

Don't give to Tearfund

Because it wastes your money hiring an intellectual minnow called Sara Shaw. She works for Tearfund (a Christian poverty relief charity) as "Policy Officer - Climate Change". I am sure that its money could be better spent hiring someone who can actually do some serious work in the developing world, rather than lead statist political causes.

She recently wrote this nonsense criticising the New Zealand Government's policy on climate change:

"Poor people, already being hit hard by climate change, have once again been disappointed by another developed country taking a weak and self-interested approach"

Hit hard by climate change how? No evidence, just part of the zeitgeist promoted by Shaw that climate change is happening, real and the poor are suffering because of it. Secondly, she claims to speak on behalf of poor people. Funny that, not being one herself, or even a member of parliament for any country. Thirdly, she criticises taking a "self interested approach", which of course poor people never do - they are always willing to sacrifice their lives for the greater good.

This follows from her earlier banality and economic illiteracy in promoting the faith based idea that by penalising "non-Green industries" and subsidising "Green ones", everyone wins. Not a shred of evidence or economics, just faith.

She presumably thinks she does great work to "save the world" and "help the poor", when she isn't doing a concrete piece of positive work in developing countries, for education, health or to improve infrastructure.

If she really gave a damn she'd be pushing for the European Union to abolish its Common Agricultural Policy, eliminate agricultural export subsidies, eliminate barriers to importation of agricultural products into the EU, and abolish domestic subsidies. That would make an enormous difference to farmers in developing countries, but no - she worries about climate change - a distraction from doing real good for people who are impoverished. She could campaign loudly and vigorously for good governance, the end to the corrupt kleptocracies that plague Africa and don't protect private property rights or have independent judiciaries.

However no, Shaw would much rather finger point, pontificate and preach, blaming the developed countries, and suffer the poor, ever patronaged, people in the developing world. She is chasing the ever illusion, the idea that destroying wealth creating industries will help the poor, and taking money from those who create wealth and give it to those who don't helps them too. There are undoubtedly charities that help impoverished people without being distracted by Green politics and agendas of economic illiteracy, big government and finger pointing rather than evidence.

Tearfund isn't one of them.

Go on, take real action on global warming

Frogblog is quoting a survey saying "a majority of kiwis support taking real action to combat global warming". Fine, who is stopping them? The survey the Greens are quoting lists a whole host of "measures", which I don't have a problem with, if they involve people making their own choices or they are about getting the hell out of the way of making choices. So let's go through them, nice to get rid of the euphemisms and describe what they really are

"More incentives for households to improve energy efficiency" means forcing other people to pay others to save money by being more efficient. Oh please. How about letting electricity operate at market prices, by privatising it, and not really caring where prices go as a result?

"Incentives for businesses developing renewable energy projects (like wind, solar, wave, geothermal, hydro power)" means forcing other people to pay for businesses in the renewable energy sector that the state identifies. Another option could be to zero tax any companies primarily engaging in that sector, but that starts to become complicated, better to just reduce the burden of tax on business overall.

"Lower vehicle registration fees for fuel efficient and low-emission vehicles" means reducing money to spend on road safety promotion and Police enforcement of traffic laws. Though the main part of registration fees primarily pay ACC (which would be better off just being open to competition and choice), and also pay for road safety promotion and Police enforcement of traffic laws. So do the Greens want less spent on road safety, or money transferred from roads? Yeah you've figured it out already.

"A cash incentive to encourage replacement of energy inefficient home appliances with energy efficient ones" means forcing you to pay for people to buy new appliances. Nice, could always just cut GST on them instead, or just cut taxes overall so people can better afford them. Guess it doesn't matter if the reason people don't buy them is it is cheaper to buy others and spend the difference on something more important right?

"Financial incentives to purchase fuel efficient, low emission vehicles" making you pay for other people to buy new cars!! When was the last time you bought a brand new car? Yep very Green. Could always just cut GST on them too.

"Incentives for landowners to plant more carbon sink forests" making you pay for landowners to plant trees. Yep. Own land do you? Nope no money for you.

"New Government investment funds to help quickly commercialise new lower-emission technology invented in New Zealand" making you pay for "businesses" that aren't profitable in the hope they are. How's your business doing? Yep maybe they'd all like a company tax cut?

"Lower road user charges for diesel vehicles using lower-emission bio fuels" less money for roads because I haven't noticed the type of fuel trucks and buses use reducing the wear and tear they impose.

"A Government information programme to advise businesses and households about climate change policies and ways to help manage it" forcing you to pay to be told what to do by the government. Is it polite to call it propaganda?

"Increasing goods transportation by rail and coastal shipping" how? What's stopping those who want to, doing it now? Oh yes, it often costs more. So is this about forcing you to pay for goods to be shipped at higher than cost? Where is the evidence this will make a difference?

"Increased spending on research to produce technology to help reduce emissions" force you to pay for more research. Be more polite to ask.

"Subsidies for farmers to use fertilisers which inhibit the release of nitrogen, lowering emissions and improving water quality" force you to subsidise farms. Fertiliser subsidies went in the 1980s, and this would hurt arguing for less subsidies in agriculture at the WTO, but the Greens don't care about exports soo...

"Assistance to sell New Zealand emissions reduction technology to other countries" subsidises for marketing to countries? So governments then? So are businesses that incompetent that they need to force others to pay for their marketing?

"Replacing road user tax with a lower vehicle licensing levy for light diesel vehicles, including cars" This doesn't even make sense. So light diesel vehicles should have their road use subsidised so they pay an annual fee instead of according to usage? Buy a diesel and use it as much as you like - very Green??

"Allowing forest owners to cut their trees and replant substitute carbon-sink forests on other marginal land without incurring any emissions penalty" Yes!! DON'T do anything that penalises behaviour that can reduce CO2 emissions. That can't be hard.

"Higher road user charges for vehicles which are not fuel and emissions efficient," oh so making a windfall profit from such vehicles, to spend on what? More roads? Didn't think so. Oh to subsidise the other ones for the costs they impose. Any evidence this would work?

"Higher road user charges for diesel vehicles which do not use lower-emission bio fuels" ditto

Bar one, it is all about making you pay more to prop up unprofitable businesses or to pay people to do something that likely benefits them financially (reducing energy use).

Here are four better ideas:

1. People who believe "more should be done" to prevent climate change should do it themselves. Turn off the lights, drive less and do all this without tax or regulation. Live the ascetic low carbon footprint lifestyle, and you can tell others to do so as well, but don't force them.

2. Stop getting in the way of low CO2 business activities. Nuclear power is an obvious one (which may go nowhere but still), but also cutting taxes and regulatory barriers to establishing any such businesses.

3. Stop subsidising business activities that emit CO2. Buses would be a start, since the majority of bus users don't have access to a car, you might find they walk or cycle, or travel less.

4. Get government out of activities that emit CO2. Privately owned energy and transport companies wont tolerate unprofitable activities or poor rates of return, so wont subsidise prices or run poorly used services. Coal mining is the other obvious one, farming too. This also includes roads, which governments stubbornly underprice at peak times, and overprice in areas where roads are cheap to maintain (e.g. Canterbury).

So would the Greens support getting the hell out of the way of more environmentally friendly businesses, and stop subsidising sectors that produce emissions, stop owning businesses that produce emissions?

Prince of Wales hypocrisy continues

It's not really news that Prince Charles is a Royal hypocrite on environmental matters.

So his latest antics say it all - according to the Mail on Sunday he decided to embark on a five day tour of Europe to promote environmental issues. He, with an entourage of 11 are flying to Rome, Venice and Berlin. For a man who is "so concerned" about climate change, you might think he'd avoid flying all over the place.

To top it off, he has a chartered a plane for the trip instead of booking commercial flights. Apparently 52.95 tons of carbon will be emitted by his trip, "nearly five times the average person's 11-ton footprint for an entire year".

Really, it does demonstrate how clearly having this man as a head of state is ridiculous. Of course he does a wonderful service is discrediting almost everything he says by his own actions.

David Farrar gets it but...

Yes on Kiwiblog he posts about "The Stalinist Wellington City Council" because WCC does not want new town centres and shopping malls to compete with existing shopping districts.

He is decidedly libertarian saying "So the Council has decided Kilbirnie and Miramar can get big shops, but Rongotai and Seatoun can not? I’ve got a better solution - let every business decide where they want to be located, and let the public decide if they will shop there."

Yes exactly David of course.

Now in the comments he gets some flack for saying Stalinist, given WCC doesn't run gulags, suppress free speech or have gun toting secret Police. Of course it is a hyperbole, but it is one with a core underlying point. Stalinists were central planners, those who thought they knew what was best for everybody and everything, and believed human beings could be moulded according to what was best for them, nor for their surroundings to be moulded into what human beings wanted.

That you see is the problem - planners want people to fit a plan, not for plans to fit people.

The comments are well worth a read, with Owen McShane, PhilBest and Paul Walker making perhaps the best.

Take this from Owen:

"Stalinist planning is planning from the top down based on the notion that central planners have superiour skills and knowledge and have the authority to direct and control the economy and of course the use of land. Stalinist planning refuses to acknowledge the efficiency of market led allocation of resources and the resulting spontaneous order..

We used to have a Town and Country Planning Act which gave councils the authority to direct and control the use of land and to manage the local economy. The RMA was supposed to have reversed this Stalinist approach by removing that authority and replacing it with the mandate to focus on adverse effects on the environment. Of course the central planners did not like this at all and soon persuaded the courts that you could not manage environmental effects without directing and controlling the use of land.

Climate change alarmism has now provided all the excuses they need."

The market "failures" are actually government failures to use the market, roads being the classic example.

Now what I'd like to know is why David persists with the National Party when it seems to positively embrace this in the RMA, and is doing nothing to change it, whilst promoting a mega-city that will enable Auckland to do one "Stalinist" plan for the whole region?

Why is Libertarianz now the only party that is fighting is?

Exploit the earth or die

It's today! The Greens will hate it, because it runs counter to the philosophy so many have had rammed down them for the last two decades - that the best way nature can be is left alone.

Capitalism magazine says:

Capitalism is the only social system that recognizes and protects each individual's right to act in accordance with his basic means of living: the judgment of his mind. Environmentalism, of course, does not and cannot advocate capitalism, because if people are free to act on their judgment, they will strive to produce and prosper; they will transform the raw materials of nature onto the requirements of human life; they will exploit the Earth and live.

Environmentalism rejects the basic moral premise of capitalism—the idea that people should be free to act on their judgment—because it rejects a more fundamental idea on which capitalism rests: the idea that the requirements of human life constitute the standard of moral value. While the standard of value underlying capitalism is human life (meaning, that which is necessary for human beings to live and prosper), the standard of value underlying environmentalism is nature untouched by man.

Oh and it doesn't mean polluted air, water and the end to parks, forests and lakes. It means recognising that human beings survive by using the earth. It means acknowledging that people worldwide survive by exploiting the earth and applying their minds to it.

(Hat Tip: Not PC)

CO2 is a pollutant? well...

With CO2 deemed by the US Environmental Protection Agency as a health risk, (despite plants thriving on it), the most committed environmentalists can have only a complete response.

If you're a true environmentalist, stop emitting this pollutant- now. All those who believe CO2 is a pollutant should take immediate steps to cease emissions, cutting down on them by not driving is hardly enough. Of course, the obvious step isn't enough, you need to ensure the breakdown of your remains is addressed too - jumping into a volcano will do the trick. The last CO2 emitted, but it will be less than you emit in a day.

You know what you have to do. That 450 litres a day of CO2 you emit is simply immoral - and those of you environmentalists who made little polluting beings, shame!

By the way you also produce methane, 21 times the impact of CO2, you can address that at the same time.

(Hat Tip: Tim Blair)

Greens don't get the idea of choice

Foodstuffs' decision to charge for plastic bags at its New World, Four Square and South Island Pak 'n' Save is being hailed by the Greens.

It is, of course, a clever move to boost the firm's environmental credentials, whilst making a comfortable profit on bags that cost a fraction of that to buy (even if some money is donated to "environmental causes"). It's been widely done in the UK, and customers seem to have started taking their own bags, while supermarkets can charge for a marginal cost input.

However, the Greens don't get it. Foodstuffs' is doing this as a commercial decision, it believes its customers will pay, and use less bags as a result - and it will be a winner, and presumably there will be less plastic bags used (which is the goal of the Greens, although the environmental impact is negligible).

It is done by free will, choice, voluntary agreement, option, conscious decision.

So what do the Greens say?

Forget choice, you can stick that up where a bag isn't comfortable, the Greens don't just encourage others to do the same. They don't even encourage the public to use Foodstuffs' supermarkets and bring their own bags.

No.

Green Co-Leader Russel Norman says "What we need now is for the Government to back up Foodstuffs' good initiative by introducing mandatory product stewardship for plastic bags".

So we need the "government" to force people to do it, even though it has been proven that you can convince people to do it. Russel gets out the truncheon of state force. State violence needed when people do something by choice.

WHY don't they get it?

Russel says "we don't want the good guys to be disadvantaged by other companies freeloading or refusing to do something about their bags." What? HOW is Foodstuffs disadvantaged when it is making money out of deterring what you don't like? If you WANT it to do well, go SHOP there, encourage people to shop there.

Then he contradicts himself again "They are also easy to do something about, and the public is overwhelmingly behind bold moves to reduce plastic bag use. Foodstuffs' move is an important recognition of this."

So why do you need to force people if they want to reduce plastic bag use? Foodstuffs will be successful, and others will follow.

Or maybe, just maybe you don't believe what you say. Maybe you think most people don't care, will want free plastic bags, and it will fail - which is why you want to force them.

In which case be honest - you want plastic bags taxed or banned regardless of what people think, because the Greens are wedded to statism, to authoritarian bullying - to nanny state regulating, taxing and pushing people around to fit your world view.

According to the Greens, if people really want something, you have to force them to do it.

The party of non violence? Ha!

Nick Smith the Green Party's Cabinet Minister in drag

What a f'ing surprise! Nick Smith - the man John Key should have relegated to the back benches, and who I called on Nelson voters to reject in favour of Maryan Street, is calling for a new bizarre tax - this time on plastic bags according to the Dominion Post.

Hello??!! Nick, if you want to be in the Green Party, join it.

A 5c tax on every plastic bag is allegedly based on the "polluter pays" principle. Paying for what though? This is when the advocates shut up.

Smith says "We are a country of just four-million people, we use over a billion bags a year, and to me that's excessive". Oh sorry Dear Leader Nick, we are using them too much, like bad little children wanting to carry our shopping in multiple bags, then using them for rubbish disposal. We ARE naughty, go on tell us off.

The proposed tax would raise revenue to go back to supermarkets. Odd indeed. Especially since some shops already charge for bags, like Pak n Save in the North Island. So there IS choice. Nick doesn't like that though, as any good Green MP he believes in using force - force is good.

The supermarket sector prefers a voluntary approach, but is gutlessly supporting the proposal if the government mandates it (presuming glad the government wants to impose a tax to give money to supermarkets).

The same report says they comprise only 0.2% of waste but don't biodegrade. The appropriate response is "so what", largely because as long as people pay for landfill use (which many do not because councils subsidise them), then it is irrelevant. You see, that is the only issue.

So my solution is far more direct. Landfills should be privatised. All councils should be required to put landfills into profit-oriented Council Controlled Organisations, and to privatise them. That would mean everyone has to pay for rubbish collection and disposal, at market prices. Then, polluters would be paying, because as long as you pay for what you throw away, and it goes somewhere that does not leach onto neighbouring land, then who cares?

Unless, of course, you worship the ideology that throwing away anything is bad.

Earth hour's onanistic vileness

Oh yes, the sheeple in the relatively free rich world (and even the relatively unfree middle income world like China) will have a jolly ol' time switching off our lights for an hour. Makes you feel better a bit of enforced poverty doesn't it?

All cities in North Korea will be joining in, like they do every day for a while, at random hours in fact. Most people there would be amazed that there is the Hour of Power in counter protest. If only North Koreans could choose.

Tim Blair has an excellent commentary about how this silly little protest is going. He says the fact the Soccerroos are participating is proof soccer is gay.

However I'll leave my final comment to the Competitive Enterprise Institute

"we are pointing out what Earth Hour truly is about: it isn’t pro-earth, it is anti-man and anti-innovation. So, on March 28th, CEI plans to continue “voting” for humanity by enjoying the fruits of man’s mind. "

I'm doing so tonight as well.

UPDATE 1: The Ayn Rand Institute describes it as "The lights of our cities and monuments are a symbol of human achievement, of what mankind has accomplished in rising from the cave to the skyscraper. Earth Hour presents the disturbing spectacle of people celebrating those lights being extinguished. Its call for people to renounce energy and to rejoice at darkened skyscrapers makes its real meaning unmistakably clear: Earth Hour symbolizes the renunciation of industrial civilization."

"Green" council policies saw death and destruction

A report in The Age in Melbourne claims that local authorities contributed to the seriousness of bushfires, by refusing permission for residents to cut down trees on their properties.

“Warwick Spooner — whose mother Marilyn and brother Damien perished along with their home in the Strathewen blaze — criticised the Nillumbik council for the limitations it placed on residents wanting the council's help or permission to clean up around their properties in preparation for the bushfire season. "We've lost two people in my family because you dickheads won't cut trees down," he said. “We wanted trees cut down on the side of the road … and you can't even cut the grass for God's sake."

Yes, so private property rights are ignored, so trees survive – to burn and destroy homes and kill people.

“Another resident said she had asked the council four times to tend to out-of-control growth on public land near her home, but her pleas had been ignored.”

After all, council’s know how to look after public land don’t they?

So the envirovangelists, after claiming it was the fault of CO2 emitters, actually exacerbated the situation by their tree worshipping. Don’t expect them to admit they were wrong though. Don't expect the so called friends of social justice to encourage the remaining residents to sue the council for negligence - except perhaps for not protecting the trees at all costs.