By Jo Nova
Just enjoy for the moment the small victory of what’s happening in democratic New Zealand. The Guardian is apoplectic, so we know it must be good:
Rightwing NZ government accused of ‘war on nature’ as it takes axe to climate policies
The Guardian
The New Zealand government has been accused of waging a “war on nature” after it announced sweeping cuts to climate action projects, while making no significant new investments in environmental protection or climate crisis-related policy.
But absent from the budget documents was any meaningful new spending on the climate crisis. Instead, dozens of climate-related initiatives, including programmes in the Emissions Reductions Plan and funding for data and evidence specialists were subject to sweeping cuts.
Notice how the critics are all so vague. Their big fear, and worst threat, is some unfashionable place called “backwards”:
The Labour opposition called the budget a “catastrophe” that was “taking us backwards”.
For some reason the opposition did not say “Lord help us, The NZ government will warm the world!” Mostly because it sounds too stupid to lay the point of all these policies right out there. I mean, as if they can say that cancelling the Māori knowledge-based approaches to agricultural emissions will cause more floods in 2070?
And in the end a warmer world isn’t exactly scary to New Zealanders like Ebola, poverty or an armed invasion. Be afraid, you’ll get more beach weather!
The awful truth is that climate policies are just a fashion contest, so when they are taken away, the main downside is namecalling and a curse on your grandchildren. Like making witches angry or something?
Green party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick described the government as a “coalition of cowards” that was allowing the climate crisis to “rage on unchallenged” and whose attack on the climate would ripple through future generations. “The other day, government parties said, ‘drill, baby, drill,’ and today, they may as well have said, ‘burn, baby, burn’,” Swarbrick said…
Getting to the nitty gritty, this all sounds good. The new right leaning coalition has found good savings in troughing bureaucracies and flag waving green clubs. Amazing how fast these things breed:
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- $10million of funding has been scaled back for the Accelerator Wood Processing Growth Fund which supports wood processing capacity.
- MBIE’s Circular Economy and Bioeconomy Strategy work is being stopped ‘as it is considered a low-value programme when compared with other work on climate change.’
- $38 million is being cut from MBIE’s Energy portfolio programmes, including scaling down the Community Renewable Energy fund, and the Support for Energy Education in Communities Programme. It also includes discontinuing work on the Energy Emissions Reporting Scheme and cutting funding for small-scale distributed renewable energy and demand response systems.
- $10million is being cut from MBIE’s Just Transitions programme.
- Funding for the Climate Change Commission is being decreased by $15 million, including axing funding for the Commission’s agricultural emissions policy advisory function.
- The budget includes a $35million reduction in climate change programmes including reducing funding for:
- the Climate Change Development Fund
- Climate Resilience for Māori initiative
- Climate Change Chief Executives Board
- implementation of the Carbon Neutral Government Programme
- Climate Data Infrastructure
- Enabling a Scaled-up, High Quality Voluntary Carbon Market
- Cuts are being made to evidence and data functions, with less spending on consultants, external agencies, and specialists that supply evidence and data services ‘including updates to environmental standards, monitoring, reporting, policy work and science assurance.’
- Additionally, as was well signalled early by Government, the budget confirms the axing of the Clean vehicle discount, saving $10 million.
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The new government will instead toss more funds at “climate resilience” and “disaster response”, which means adapting to the climate they already have.
But there is so much further to go: $2.6 billion of climate initiatives will roll over from previous the Climate Emergency Response Fund (CERF) set up by the previous government. So there will still be money wasted on EV chargers, electric buses, emissions measurement schemes, and foreign aid to dictators. It will take years to unwind the climate grift.
And when the Coalition are asked what they are doing for the climate, they point to the “climate resilience” funds instead of calling it pagan witchcraft and asking for hard observable evidence that CO2 causes any problem at all. Have those UN committees ever been audited? Let’s set up a team to do that. I mean, if we care about the environment and the third world, we need climate models that work, right? No more of these unverified guesses.
Image by Ondřej Šponiar from Pixabay
NZ is almost unique in that methane from agricultural emissions is of more concern than CO2. Unique problems require unique solutions, and that opportunity may be lost.
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What about all the bubbling mud.
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Has anyone tried to stop the flow by throwing politicians in?
Asking for a friend.
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Definitely worth a try.
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Or Simon
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I lived in Rotorua for a year and a half. I filed reports to friends and family from “Rottenrua”.
But of course methane made by Mother Earth is harmless. Only that made by humans is naughty methane.
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A concern to who exactly. NZ could have millions more cows and the methane produced would still be a drop in the ocean compared to the Amazon rain forest, which is estimated to produce 8% of the world’s methane all on its own. Are we supposed to get rid of all the farting bison (produces 1.5 times more methane per head than yer average dairy cow), all the farting and pooing wildebeest? At the last estimate, NZ has 4.8 million dairy cows, so can you explain why the planet was not rampantly warming when North America had an estimated 60 million bison in the 1700’s, equivalent to 90 million dairy cows? The average dairy cow produces 98 kg of methane per year, so NZ dairy produces around 475,000 tonnes of methane per year. Not much compared to an estimated 8.8 million tonnes per year that would have come from the 60 million Bison. Dave Frame, author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a director of Victoria University’s Climate Change Research Institute, and is now a physics professor at the University of Canterbury. “Methane isn’t exactly the global warming bogeyman that many believe — at least not when compared to carbon emissions. While it is an incredibly potent greenhouse gas, its short lifespan means its impact on the climate is vastly different to CO2.”
Trees produce methane, so should we cut down the Amazon? Grazing wildlife produces an estimated 45 million tonnes per year(a fair bit more than the NZ dairy herd), significantly down on the amount that must have been produced when much larger herds roamed the plains of North America and Africa. So should we wipe out all the grazing animals in the world?
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Not to mention termites Bronco. The methane scare was originally raised back in the 90’s. But disappeared when it was pointed out that all the termites in the world produced just as much methane as the world’s ruminants. Australia’s termites alone probably produce more than NZ’s combined livestock methane total.
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Quite right Ross. How could I forget the termites? Industrious little critters and their gut bugs. Perhaps it is time to wipe out all the worlds insects as well. Come on boys, load up the elephant guns, the insecticide sprays and the chain saws. Its about time we dealt with all these pesky methane producers. Oh, wait, that means we also have to get rid of all the women as well. Latest research shows that they breath out more methane and nitrous oxide than us guys, so they have to go ‘cos they will warm the planet faster. Sorry girls, it was a good run whilst it lasted.
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Very silly Bronco, but I support your light side comment. Methane is a very minor contributor to the greenhouse gas issue compared to Co2 and very far less than water vapour. So relatively you can forget it.
In reality anything that will help warm our Earth is a bonus, not a problem, so the UN IPCC nutters have got the wrong end of the stick, we need as much warmth as we can get to stave off the slow slide into the next Ice Age minima we have been experiencing over the last 3000 years as the Antarctica cools forcing us into inevitable cold climate decline. The world needs to know we need more warmth and resultant CO2 to support all plant life and us hungry humans, that is the existential threat we face not the stupid anti scientific AGW issue mandated by the IPCC clique on behalf of those wanting a socialist world government! The new team in New Zealand are starting to face reality, good on them, I hope they represent a trend to rid us of the progressive idea of human caused climate change and all its socialist immoral underpinnings
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If you want to know more, read my new eBook on Amazon, Climate Science – A Sceptical Review. Why there is no Climate Crisis.
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Thanks Ross. As a long time member of the pest management industry here in Oz (and an employee for many years of the Flick family, who developed the first commercial termite control technology) I have been very aware for years of the part termites play in the warmer climates of the world in returning timber to the soil and in doing so producing vast quantities of methane. Although I have no data to support it, I would be pretty certain that termites in Australia produce significantly more methane than our domestic ruminants.
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Methane CH4 absorbs radiation at a wavelength of 8 micron ie no radiation from Earth’s surface. The gas is absorbed by plankton in the ocean and some vegetation eg fruit trees on land. It is a beneficial gas and has zero affect on the atmosphere. The idea about methane being bad came from it oxidising to CO2 and 2H2O but CH4 can not burn in the atmosphere because it needs an ignition temperature of about 600C and there needs to be enough of it to sustain combustion. Think of your barbecue you need to light the gas. One can open the valve on a gas bottle to empty it as long as you are in the open and keep a flame or source of heat away.U derground coal mines are workable as long as there is sufficient ventilation. I have inspected coal workings using safety lamps. And measuring methane levels with an instrument.
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Ah yes, but if we cut down the Amazon rainforest, we stop all that nasty methane and we make access to giant Lithium mines easier so we can use child slave labour to make short lifespan self-immolating and toxic EV’s so we can save the planet!
That’s how it works isn’t it? 😆
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I’ll wish them luck on getting rid of the cows in India
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Nice misdirection. 17% of Amazon’s methane emissions are due to burning and are likely anthropogenic. The rest is for wetlands and is fairly constant, until people start draining them.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00314-4
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Yup, 17% of 8% means man’s contribution is 1.36%. I would not deny that man has some contribution. Still means significant natural methane production from the Amazon (6.64%) and overall, still 8%. We still have to take in to account the other sources of forest methane (treethane). Trees produce methane as a by product of metabolism of the amino acid methionine https://www.mpg.de/8279621/methane-plants-methionine. Research from 2020 found low-lying subtropical Melaleuca forests in Australia emit methane at similar rates to trees in the Amazon. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345659970_Tree_stem_methane_emissions_from_subtropical_lowland_forest_Melaleuca_quinquenervia_regulated_by_local_and_seasonal_hydrology. It’s well known that cottonwood trees and brazil nut trees produce large amounts of methane to the point where you can set fire to it by tapping a hollow tube into the trunk. “Under the wettest conditions, we found that tree stems emitted the most methane, and accounted for the majority of the total wetland flux.” https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2023JG007679
Still means the Amazon is a major contributor and you ain’t too bad at misdirection yourself.
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Simon,
In the Amazon rainforest, surely there is no difference between methane from burning forest (done by nasty people) and methane from the natural decay of forest litter that has died. Maybe there are slower and faster paths from leaf to methane, but it is hard to see why methane from burning should be viewed as different to methane from natural death and decay.
Do you see what I mean? Geoff S
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The theoretical autoignition temperature of methane is 537 degrees C, so most tree burning should ignite it.
Perhaps the methane produced by burning is smouldering stumps and roots underground.
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And, again, termites and fungal rot play their part in the natural break down of fallen timbers.
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Simon, CH4 is an irrelevant gas as it is an insignificant absorber in the low energy part of the IR spectrum and the impact on the heat budget is negligible.
You keep showing to many here that you are just another parrot of a climate propaganda baloney.
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In North America, in 1800, there were 60 Million Bison. Each Bull at 2000 pounds, each sow at 1000 pounds, weight.
By 1900, there were less than 1,000 Bison, having been killed off to deny Native Indians their food supply.
There are currently 231,000 Bison in North America. Some 0.38% of the original herd size, essentially zero.
Given the herd size in NZ, I’d say that North America already cancelled out every bit of NZ 6 Million cattle emissions, by a factor of 10 to 1. So, USA did by 1900, 10 times what NZ could effect if it killed every cow in the country, 124 years ago. We live in the same atmosphere. With a lot fewer Bison and Native Indians in the USA.
Relevant goals matter. Irrelevant goals, not so much.
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“Relevant goals matter. Irrelevant goals, not so much.”
Irrelevant goals are very important to their peddlers – for varied reasons
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Usually cash……
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Adaptation and resilience is supported by the UN, a little extra methane is of no concern.
‘In simple terms, countries and communities need to develop adaptation solutions and implement actions to respond to current and future climate change impacts.’ (UNFCCC)
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What about the option of NOT spending the tax paid money?
Downsize the government.
Lower taxes.
Remove regulations.
Anybody in government not involved in essential services needs to be GONE. They simply have no reason for being employed. Better for them to stare out a window than do anything that directly damages tax paying citizens.
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Ensuring environmental and economic sustainability is an essential service.
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HVO is a good example of rational thinking, there is no need for targets.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/31/nsw-glencore-coalmine-open-plan-net-zero-emissions-targets
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The Guardian Australia was funded in part by Malcolm Turnbull. Malcolm Turnbull’s son Alex is a major player in renewables. When coal mines and power stations are extended they threaten renewables and son Alex. Therefore demonise coal and coal fired power in print. Thankfully only the seriously deluded and stupid buy the Guardian and probably even fewer read it.
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Simon,
NO!
Ensuring environmental sustainability is NOT an essential service.
Environmental sustainability is a natural process that is part of the normal, forever-time function of people in their stewardship of their assets, their surroundings. Surely all of us know innately that abuse of nature will return fewer benefits. It is up to each of us to avoid shitting the nest.
Your unfounded statement about essential service applies only in theory when, for greed or gain, some sticky-beak folk set themselves up to dictate their views of stewardship of nature. Bodies such as EPA. Nobody knows if EPA past effort has improved the environment or whether they have been no more than expensive lead in the saddles of quiet, capable achievers. The last few hundred years have shown huge improvements in the harmony of people with nature as the money needed for major change has been generated from their productive efforts. EPA does not generate remedial funds, it extorts funds from people doing productive work. It is an essential service only to those it employs to extort and regulate. Geoff S
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“Ensuring environmental and economic sustainability is an essential service.”
Says who?
Argumentum ad vericundiam.
You lose.
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Simon, -are you JoNova’s Ai entity to break the sense of an echo chamber here?
NZ has less than 6 million citizens, -less than many Chinese cities. Even if the Kiwis all lived on baked beans they’d still be irrelevant to anything.
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That is an incredibly selfish argument. NZ per capita CO2 emissions is 7.13 tonnes, China’s is 7.44, USA is 15.32, Australia is 17.15. We’re all in this together.
As for AI entities, Jo’s image of what she thinks New Zealand looks like is pretty artificial.
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Righto. So your best argument is that the eye candy might be AI?
Since CO2 is a net benefit to biology on Earth, the people of China owe the US and Australia for the free boost we give their crops. But we won’t charge them. We’re all in this together right?!
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‘NZ per capita …’
Window dressing and virtue signalling, China builds a new coal fired power station every other week without recrimination. The per capita argument is irrational.
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How about emissions per hectare, a more valid metric. If you have been suckered into believing the CO2 fraud, that is………
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The Planet is happy for the added CO2, why does that sadden you Simon as we live in a world where NO climate Emergency exists.
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“That is an incredibly selfish argument. ”
Got ad hominem?
You lose.
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Thanks for the reply Simon.
Back in ’82 I was an early adopter of the carbon dioxide warming idea before I’d given it serious thought. As a bleating conservationist I wanted evidence to support good stewardship of The Earth. My father suggested I find data to back up my contentions. Years later I discovered that he was using CO2 for cooling the reactors he was designing so he knew just about everything about the chemistry and absorption/emission physics of the gas. Clearly, CO2 is IR active in certain frequencies but we’re already close to maximum. All that can really happen is for the Optical Height for CO2 to move closer to the ground so I’m not being selfish because CO2%-age is simply a non-issue.
How much hydro-carbon do we have left in the crust ? That’s another issue and by 2050 we’ll be running into conflict over competitive access to the valuable resource. Already the British Isles have nearly exhausted their local oil and have placed themselves in a compromised situation as regards access to Soviet gas. These are real and progressively worsening problems and by generating a spurious “carbon dioxide tax” at least we may have some spare cash to fund alternative solutions.
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Aha, the old per capita furphy! Can’t find the complete annihilation of the environment from a small Pacific pocket of essentially uninhabited land mass, so let’s play the per capita game which is decades old!
Interestingly you don’t compare what you THINK will happen against the saintly work produced under Ardern.
Personally the NZ budget is a template for future conservative governments in Australia with one immediate change; cut the funding to the advertising, media releases and education departments to start with, then as NZ has done, defund the quangos!
Oh and mate, post a list to the actual differences to the environment the Ardern NZ made. Not green funding, the bottom line.
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The science does not care about per capita. You are confusing politics with science.
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I am much in favour of a war on nature. All the good things in life come a bout by keeping nature at bay.
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The planet and ‘Mother Nature’ are not fragile; we are, trying to make a living against heavy odds.
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Au contraire. This is a breath of fresh air from across the ditch.
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Do you actually work for a living Simon? Serious question.
Perhaps you are one of these Climate Consultants , with both feet in some Ministry of the Environment trough.
You seem to be fearful. Loss of employment prospects?
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There is no “unique problem”.
Methane plays an utterly trivial role in the atmosphere. It’s at 2 ppm but water vapour averages about 12,500 ppm and largely competes for infrared radiation across the same wavelength band as methane.
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So, Jacinderella really has;
_ left the building.
Great.
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Keith we call that witch Jabcinder
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The horse has left the stable.
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Dinosaur Dentures??
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The Jabaconda or Jabcinda The Mindless is yet another ‘eKaren’ bureaucratic clone in the form of Julie Inman Grant et al. (Kate Hannah in NZ) https://counterspinmedia.com/blog/the-disinformation-project-nzs-covert-ministry-of-truth/. They’re all over the place, mindless and fragile infestations that appear to bolster the rigid, brittle carapace of the globalist neo-Marxist technofascist “ideology,” but in reality are incapable of anything remotely useful other than widening the gulf between the credulous and the incredible and emitting “toxic pollutants,” whether intellectual or gastrointestinal.
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It’s nice to wake up to good news for a change, thanks Jo for this cheerful story.
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Who would have thought that lefty NZ would show us the way back to Climate sanity!
Hooray!
How much money could we save by cancelling all the climate subsidies?
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Billions!! If only BoBowen and his non-leader would take note! Instead of fretting about what the NZ Government will think about a few gang bangers being given a Red Card take a leaf out of their saving money book!
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Even now, Rishi Sunak could win in a landslide by following the NZ line. But he’s too spineless and in love with his own voice to do it. Sometimes I really really do want to be wrong.
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The problem for the Brits is that having voted Labor in they are there for 5 years. Judging by the damage done in the US by Biden in three years and Albo in Australia in 2 years the Brits are in for a terrible time because they are already damaged by the Conservatives.
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Labour
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It’s just a case of a smaller economy running out of ‘Other peoples money quicker’
New Zealand is in fact the smallest economy in the developed world, by a fair margin.
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New Zealand was once part of New South Wales until 3 May 1841 when it became a colony in its own right.
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New Zealand was once part of Gondwanaland too – thankfully we’ve moved on from both attachments /s.
Besides, we’re basically seabed goop that’s been squeezed up and flipped over a few times then boiled, frozen, twisted, buried under hot ash – or cold snow, take your pick. No wonder we haven’t had time to grow big & strong: too busy adapting to the shaky ground under our feet.
Yet we are the jumping-off point to Antarctica & the South Pole: all those BILLIONS of northern hemisphere ‘climate refugees’ seeking solace & safety on the Great Frozen Continent (GFC) will have to pass through our doors. Winston Peters and Shane Jones (NZ First MPs) could make a fortune clipping the fretters’ tickets as they pass through Christchurch airport’s departure lounge: ‘Have an ice day!’
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A small economy with a decreasing natural population. At <1.6 children per child-bearing age woman the future looks difficult. By 2040 we could be seeing a serious depopulation of the already sparsely inhabited islands.
In by-gone eras people celebrated a child reaching 21 cos it was an achievement amid famine, disease, wars and accidents but perhaps people will celebrate child birthday anniversaries cos they realise how just fortunate they are to actually have children.
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Peter C – NZ is hardly leading the way. Our new PM is an ardent supporter of Net Zero. It appears that all that is being done is reducing the fat in the system.
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yes, here lays the truth. Thank you.
It points out that NZ is so badly affected by climate lunacy, they can cut off the slack by still sticking to mission.
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It seems the natives and the watermelons are fretting so they are apparently doing well.
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So unfair that professional climate hoaxers could be defunded.
sarc.
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Of course the Labor and Greens loonies in Australia really want to destroy our environment by choosing TOXIC W & S and then installing thousands of KLMs of new towers and wires to connect to cities and towns, because W & S are very isolated and dilute.
Destroying our environments on land and sea is their crazy plan and yet wind’s capacity factor is about 30% and Solar’s CP is just 15%, so we know they couldn’t care less about our beautiful country and destroying our environment is their number one priority.
The cost of this lunacy is horrendous and wasting TRILLIONs of $ for zero change to temperature or climate etc doesn’t matter and every 15 to 20 years we have to bury their toxic mess and repeat this environmental disaster again and again.
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How do you pronounce “Chlöe”? Chlowee? Clawee? Boondoggler?
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Again we should use the true co2 emissions data to prove our case and Australia emits about 1% and NZ 0.1% and of course we could cancel all our co2 emissions today and the change to temperature and climate would be SFA. And even Dr Finkel had to agree when he truthfully answered the QLD Senator’s important question, under oath.
Meanwhile the NON OECD countries’ co2 emissions have increased by 14 + BILLION tonnes per year since 1990 and the OECD countries are the same per year as they were in 1990. Think about it?
So who wants to volunteer to travel to China, India, Asia etc and demand that they cut their booming co2 emissions? Dr Modi and President Xi have already told us to bugger off and come back after 2050 or 2060.
These are very simple kindergarten sums, so why don’t our so called leaders and so called scientists, MSM etc tell the truth about OECD and NON OECD co2 emissions?
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Love your use of the technical term “SFA” Neville.
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Yes Ross and I’m such a decent bloke that the full quote is actually “Sweet Fanny Adams” , but I’m sure if you knew me you’d understand. SARC.
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Another day, another climate change lie exposed…
‘Global Warming Is a Hoax’: Bombshell New Study in Nature Reveals Antarctic Ice Is Expanding
A new study in journal Nature reveals that the ice in Antarctic is actually expanding, proving that the man-made global warming narrative is all based on fraudulent data.
’85 years of glacier growth & stability in East Antarctica’, the study states. ‘Ice-sheet wide mass balance estimates start[ed] in late 1970s…have exhibited either an overall mass gain or been relative unchanged’
Currently, the earliest ice-sheet wide mass balance estimates start in the late 1970s and since then all the sub-regions examined in this study have exhibited either an overall mass gain or been relative unchanged.
Regardless of potential climatic changes, our results indicate that the glacier in Kemp and Mac Robertson Land and along Ingrid Christensen Coast, have accumulated mass during the past 85 years which inevitably have mitigated parts of the more recent mass loss from the marine basins in East Antarctica and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). This positive accumulation trend and positive mass balance is anticipated to persist as snowfall is expected to increase over the entire EAIS in the next century54,55, and ice sheet modeling studies project positive mass balance estimates in all three sub-regions across all future RCP scenarios56. Lastly, we determine frontal changes of 21 glaciers from 1937 to 2023. From the 85 years of observations, we find two distinct regional patterns; one of constant glacier surface elevations and one of ice thickening.
https://www.climatedepot.com/2024/05/31/antarctic-ice-expanding-new-study-in-journal-nature-reveals-85-years-of-glacier-growth-stability-in-east-antarctica/
But, but…a big ice shelf fell off. It must be our fault. Why else would it happen? 😆
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In 1996 global CO2 emissions from energy were 22,583 million tonnes per annum. This inceased to 34,374.1 by 2022 or an increase of 52.2%
Meanwhile temperatures in Antarctica have been falling since 1996.
https://www.antarctica.gov.au/news/2023/cool-change-for-west-antarctica/
So a 52% increase in CO2 emissions falled to prevent an decrease in temperatures in Antarctica – Please Explain.
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“But, but…a big ice shelf fell off. It must be our fault. Why else would it happen?”😆
Too much ice.
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Under cooling climate conditions, landfast ice can often remain through the summer, persisting for years or even decades, until the surrounding glaciers slowly push it out of the way, forming a true ice shelf.
Along protected coastlines, the resulting ice shelves can survive for thousands of years, supported by the rock of peninsulas and islands. Ice shelves grow when they gain ice from land and occasionally shrink when icebergs calve off their edges. This give-and-take maintains a kind of dynamic stability if climate conditions are relatively stable.
Together, an ice shelf and the glaciers feeding it can form a stable system, with the forces of outflow and back pressure nearly balanced.
https://nsidc.org/learn/parts-cryosphere/ice-shelves/science-ice-shelves
So calving is a natural cycle and normal in a stable climate eh…😁
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Reality Check
Australia contributes 1.1% of CO2 {aka Plant Food} emissions from energy while New Zealaand {aka Kiwiland} contributes only 0.1% or one tenth of what Australia does.
Over the last decade Global CO2 emissions from energy increased from 32,676 to 34374 million tonnes of CO2 and increase of 1679 mt per annum (5.2%).
New Zealand reduced its CO2 emissions from energy from 35.1 to 30.6 mt or a reduction of 4.5 mt per annum
Australia reduced its CO2 emissions from 395.6 to 376.3 mt – a reduction of 19.3 mt per annum.
Meanwhile, China increased its CO2 emissions from 9,214.1 to 10,550.2 an increase of 1,336 mt per annum.
So China’s increase in CO2 emission from energy was 297 times NZ’s reduction.
In the whole scheme of things Australia’s CO2 emissions are irrelevant and NZ’ are even more so.
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Australian CO2 emissions are absorbed by our vegetation and land surface –
There is a 1992 paper by Gifford in Aust J of Botany on a CSIRO www page –
Also note satellite evidence of how Oz is “greening” over last 20 or 30 years – look up Prof Myeni @ Uni of Boston
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Ian Plimer claims the same.
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Dr Gifford of CSIRO published in 1992 “Implications of the globally increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration and temperature for the Australian terrestrial carbon budget – integration using a simple model.”
Australian Journal of Botany 40, 527-543.
http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/BT9920527.htm
Saying about the Australian landmass – “The present modelled rate of net sequestration is of a similar magnitude to CO2 emissions from continental fossil fuel burning and land clearing combined.”
So – the Australian landmass absorbs our carbon emissions.
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Again Lomborg tries to tell us the truth and he lists the mind boggling benefits from fossil fuels and here’s a quote and the link. This is from The Financial Post- 31st of May 2024.
https://financialpost.com/opinion/science-doesnt-tell-fighting-climate-change-costs
“The story told by activist politicians and climate campaigners suggests there is nothing but benefit to ending fossil fuels — and a hellscape if nothing is done. But the reality is that life has improved dramatically in recent centuries largely because of the immense increase in available energy that has come mostly from fossil fuels. Life spans have more than doubled, hunger has dramatically declined and incomes have increased ten-fold”.
“Although the impact of climate change is likely negative it is typically enormously exaggerated. We constantly hear about extreme weather such as droughts, storms, floods and fires —although even the UN Climate Panel finds that, for most of these things, evidence of their worsening cannot yet be documented. But much more importantly, a richer world is much more resilient and hence much less affected by extreme weather. The data show that climate-related deaths from droughts, storms, floods and fires have declined by more than 97 per cent over the last century — from nearly 500,000 a year 100 years ago to fewer than 15,000 in the 2020s.”
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BTW I honestly think the sub heading of Lomborg’s article is the truth and these evil elites really want billions of people to die. Here’s his quote.
Bjorn Lomborg: ‘The science’ doesn’t tell us what fighting climate change costs
“If we ‘just stopped’ using fossil fuels billions of people would die. We need to balance the benefit of reducing emissions against its cost”
Author of the article:Bjorn Lomborg, Special to Financial Post
Published May 31, 2024 • Last updated 14 hours ago.
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And since its costs are high and benefits nil….??
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Cost Benefit ratio: High Cost divided by Nil Benefit = infinity. Or, zero value.
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Per capita the reduction is 99.4%
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Reading the list of departments there, it all sounds like an episode of The Games.
I loved the episode where the 2iC was giving a job to his mate and the boss (John Clarke) said,
“and what do you do?”
“I consult”
“yes and consult in what?
…looks of confusion…
“consulting”
something like that. It is endemic to humans to fatten the bureaucracy. My wife is a social worker and it is just astonishing the waste that goes on in that place. All these things are just a huge rort.
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Imagine how wealthy Australia would be without the fattened bureaucracy and the institutionalised socialism.
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When Australia was in fact the “Lucky Country”
Between 1870 and 1890 Australian incomes per capita were 40 percent or more above those in the
United States. About half this gap is attributable to Australia’s higher labor input per capita, and half to
its higher labor productivity.
It has been all downhill since Federation.
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and what happened around federation? The Australian Labor Party.
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I am reminded of the Churchill quote: Now this is not the end . It is not even the beginning of the end . But it is , perhaps, the end of the beginning . Instead of “virtue signalling ” they are “reality signalling” . It may be sinking in that they cannot afford the climate boondoggle . 33.8 billion reasons to stop (deficit).
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A better Churchill quote:
As for the man himself, he was well known for his love for cigars, food and drink, and in particular, champagne and brandy:
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That is a good one. lol
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But have they cut funding for the “Land rights for gay whales” program?
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No – they have expanded it to cover lesbian, bisexual and transexual whales.
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https://climatechangedispatch.com/vermont-passes-law-forcing-energy-companies-to-pay-damages-for-extreme-weather/ I think we have reached peak stupid
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So, now that we have seen a reduction in extreme weather events, how much should taxpayers pay to energy companies? /sarc
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greg – “I think we have reached peak stupid”
But the universe keeps producing bigger and better idiots.
I am unsure why they gravitate to politics.
But … no, peak stupid may be some way off – in the UK at least, as we expect Ed Milliband to be made Minister in charge of Energy.
Poor sap thinks Net Zero for Electricity generation can be reached by 2030.
And the poor sap doesn’t even mention batteries.
Let alone their Trillion Pound cost …
Peak stupid – still a long way to go.
I buy candles.
Auto
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Interesting to have a look at OWI Data life expectancy link again and Oceania didn’t suffer a down tick after the Covid virus hit.
But this starts in 1770 and global life expectancy then was about 28.5 years and population under 1 billion.
Then 32 years by 1900, population about 1.6 billion.
Then 46.5 years in 1950, population 2.5 billion.
Then 71 years by 2021, population 7.8 billion.
The data tells us Humans had fully evolved larger brains about 300,000 years ago, but very small numbers and every group were living brutal short lives and a hunter gatherer existence.
After the Holocene Humans started to live in small groups and eventually started to use plants and animals and soon farms and small villages.
But life expectancy remained very short for 99.9% of the last 300 K years. After the start of the Industrial Revolution using coal (or final 0.1% of our existence) in the UK we’ve seen a boom in life expectancy and at least 10 times increase in global GDP and wealth. Will we really be stupid enough to try to change to TOXIC W & S and destroy our environments forever or will we wake up before it’s too late? Who knows?
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy
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BTW here’s the OWI Data active map for life expectancy and just hold your mouse on the country to see the latest life expectancy.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?tab=map
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Hard borders.
Covid simply wasn’t around to change life expectancy.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/australia/
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Not to mention education and medical advances, standard of living etc 🙂
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32 years by 1900, population about 1.6 billion.
71 years by 2021, population 7.8 billion.
Consider then that 39/71 of the 7.8 billion are people who would otherwise be dead.
So the population would be compared to 1900 32/71*7.8 = 3.5billion if life expectancy was still 32 years.
The bulk are alive thanks to advances in medical science and hygiene and food supply, a lot with the 40% increase in CO2 for crop yield. And even those have new lenses, new teeth, fixed broken bones and almost no cholera. The major diseases like tuberculosis are still rampant only where there is total poverty.
So while people like the Club of Rome were really concerned rapid population growth, more than half is due to length of life and quality of life from fossil fuels. And the increased food supply. In 1800 most people worked in manual labour or farming. Now 98% do not lift a shovel.
It takes a real pessimist to turn this around and blame fossil fuel for Global Warming which on the whole is a great thing and far, far better than global cooling, mass starvation and plummeting liveability at most latitudes. Too bad it’s not man made or really we would be looking to ramp it up. Who really wants to live in snow and ice?
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And as for British Colonialism, when the British arrived in India the life expectancy was 24 years. What have the British done for us? So 3/4 of the 1.4billion is simply due to people living longer lives. Survival rates not birth rates.
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“But absent from the budget documents was any meaningful new spending on the climate crisis”
I find it amazing that people throw out ideas like there is a ‘climate crisis’ as if it is real.
This language never ends. Phrases made up and repeated. Just a quick list..
climate crisis
climate emergency
climate change
climate action
climate resiliience
(toxic) emissions
emission reductions
evidence specialists
knowledge based approaches
The science of
The warming
polluting gases
Clean energy
Renewables
Zero emissions
Non-renewable fuel crisis
Filthiest (coal)
and a huge set of ridiculous unproven claims from the UN, CSIRO, Green parties
Renewables are now cheaper in most countries,
and generate three times more jobs than fossil fuels.
Cheapest form of electricity
Technology, capacity and funds for renewable energy transition exist
Fossil-fuel subsidies are one of the biggest financial barriers hampering the world’s shift to renewable energy.
The subsidies are of windmills and solar and batteries. Never of fossil fuels. These are taxed to death, directly and indirectly through green certificates/carbon credits/excise. By even the CSIRO costing, Snowy II a lossy battery would build two or three nuclear power plants which actually generate power.
It is really hard to read any article on the subject without one of these outrageously wrong statements being the basic premise.
What crisis? What emergency? What change? Where?
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I have never heard or read an actual scientific debate on any of these statements. And the core idea that humans control CO2 has never been proven and is demonstrably wrong. CO2 is controlled by the vast oceans and does not vary more than 1% anywhere on earth. How is that possible?
Yes, it has drifted up a very slow 50% in 250 years, 0.2% a year, compared with the explosive 3500% increase in fossil fuel the last 100 years. There is demonstrably only 3% of fossil fuel CO2 in the air.
The emergency is one of fake science. And shameless, endless public indoctrination. It all started with the UN in 1988. Now we have boiling oceans. Who believes that for a second?
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“and generate three times more jobs than fossil fuels.”
I’m still looking for the workers carpark at one of these windmill factories, no sign yet..
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So when are likely to suffer the NZ climate refugees arriving to fight our drips for more Oz taxpayer dollars in Canberra?
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Allocate generous subsidies for climate refugees – and they will come.
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“Allocate generous subsidies for climate refugees –”
Surely ozzies are not that silly?
Shirley?
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Dive right into todays talks at the Reject the WHO demonstration in Geneva.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MV4UtVVvQ3o
You may need to scroll a little to catch the spirit of it from this livestream recording.
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This is what can happen when the Libertarian party Act is a junior party. It would help if the Australian Libertarian party was strong enough here to form some sort of coalition with the Liberals. Unfortunately we face the real prospect of Greens and Teals helping Labor to have a minority government a genuine nightmare. Greens and Teals are not supporters of the environment but the exact opposite wreaking havoc on natural habitats and wildlife in the name of their pagan climate gods.
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What it took to achieve this in Godzone was a bringing about of the recognition that the two major parties were essentially the same .
Having done that , we had to persuade loyalists to swallow a dead rat .
Some didn’t want ACT because of their compulsory vaccine stance ; others didn’t want NZ First because of personal dislike of the current leader.
Buy everyone wanted to be rid of Labour without giving National a majority.
In the end , common sense prevailed , and people voted strategically, and we got the result that was needed.
Now it’s your turn, and Pauline Hanson is part of the answer.
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New Zealand has many public serpents who need eliminating. 6 monthly Warrant of Fitness for your car (may have been relevant when the NZ car fleet consisted of clapped out 1950’s Morrises and Austins) FFS.
If you buy a Motorhome it needs a Certificate of Habitation. Also the only country I know of to adopt the US aviation rules and stuff it up beyond comprehension.
Good things NZ has produced include my lovely wife who became an Australian Citizen in 2018 after 42 years of living here. She’s still not sure it was a good idea but prevents falling between the cracks of governmental systems.
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“and generate three times more jobs than fossil fuels.”
Have any of these dopey mongrels ever figured out that extra jerbs are in fact costs which increase the cost of the energy produced?
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As interest rates rise, all the luxury beliefs become unaffordable…
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It would be great to have a party put forward a manifesto to cut government spending in our upcoming UK election….
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This act hurts Mother Nature in the worst possible place – her wallet.
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Good start by the NZ government. But it does not go far enough.
Cutting spending is one thing, axing entire ‘climate change’ departments, bureaucracies, commissions etc etc is what is required.
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