Category: Environmentalism
Last Monday night I had the disturbing experience of being present at a public meeting called by Nick Smith (Minister for Climate Change Issues) to discuss New Zealand's 2020 emissions target.It was one of 9 public meetings and 5 invited meetings arranged by the Ministry for the Environment to get public feedback on what New Zealand should do towards a 2020 emissions target.
Last week a controversial review of Labour’s 2004 foreshore and seabed legislation was published. It recommended that the Act be repealed so that Maori can take up their customary rights to the foreshore and seabed – or be compensated for them.
The DoC estate is the place where our land goes to die; proclaims a billboard north of Roxburgh.
Earlier this month a briefing paper for US government officials and environmental leaders on ways to “re-frame” the global warming debate in order to build stronger public support for climate change legislation, found its way into the hands of the New York Times.[1] Re-framing is a technique used by politicians to make radical ideas more palatable to the public by replacing controversial expressions with language that evokes empathy, cooperation, and a sense of interconnectedness.[2] The concept is largely based on the work of George Lakoff, Professor of Linguistics at Berkley University and well known adviser to the environmental movement, who believes that if you control the language of a debate then you control the way that people think.
Zombie science, defn: Science that is dead but will not lie down. It keeps twitching and lumbering around so that (from a distance, and with your eyes half-closed) zombie science looks much like the real thing. But in fact the zombie has no life of its own; it is animated and moved only by the incessant pumping of funds. - Dr Bruce M. Charlton.[1]
The 2009 International Climate Change Conference, hosted by the Chicago-based free market think tank the Heartland Institute, was held in New York last week. It drew together over 700 attendees including world-leading climate scientists, legislators, researchers, policy-makers, and media representatives in order to share new research and fresh insights into the climate change controversy.[1]
New Zealand is now emerging from nine years of creeping socialism. During those nine years, we have been told that the state knows best how to run our lives - and our country. Whether it is what we eat, how we bring up our children, or what sort of light bulbs we can use in our homes, laws have been developed to control our behaviour.
With the closing days of the colourful US Presidential race upon us, New Zealand’s 2008 general election campaign has, in comparison, been particularly dull.
In an op-ed in a Polish weekly I commented recently on a remarkable decrease of global temperature in 2008, and over the past decade. Not surprisingly the op-ed evoked a strong reaction from Polish co-workers of IPCC, denying the existence of cooling. Surprising, however, was that the criticism dwelled upon a “global climatic conspiracy”, and “colossal international plot”. I did not use these words nor even hinted at such an idea. The idea was probably apparent from the data and facts I presented, showing weaknesses of the man-made global warming hypothesis. Without irrational political or ideological factors, it is really difficult to understand why so many people believe in human causation of the Modern Warm Period, which was never plausibly proved by scientific evidence. Some of these factors I will discuss here.
If the pundits are right, we could have an election within eight weeks. All around the country, halls which are traditionally used for polling booths have been booked for October 18th. With some public opinion polls showing that the gap between National and Labour is narrowing and tax cuts due on October 1st, many believe that Labour will be anxious to capitalise on the “feel-good” factor that tax cuts will generate.
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