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November 25, 2009 8:00am by David Farrar

General Debate 25 November 2009

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Chthoniid

I suppose the appearance of the GD means that DPF has escaped from Ankara.
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November 25, 2009 8:02am
dad4justice

A Maori walked into WINZ, marched straight up to the counter and said ‘Hi, I’m looking for a job’.
The man behind the counter replied ‘Your timing is amazing.We’ve just got one in from a very wealthy man who wants a chauffeur/bodyguard for his nymphomaniac twin daughters.
You’ll have to drive around in a big black Mercedes and wear the uniform provided.
The hours are a bit long but the meals are provided. You also have to escort the young ladies on their overseas holidays. The salary package is $200,000 a year’.
The Maori said ‘You’re bullshitting me!’
The man behind the counter said ‘Well you started it!’
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November 25, 2009 8:07am
Rufus

Not nice D4J.
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November 25, 2009 8:12am
dimmocrazy

For those who haven’t caught on yet, and who want to get in 5 minutes what the New Zealand public is not allowed to know: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evx9D19gmtE&feature=player_embedded
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November 25, 2009 8:14am
Whafe

Are win a state of something that resembles brown steamy stuff?

With the whole Hone racist behaviour and John Key pretty much ignoring it.

The Mowree party as whole just taking it lightly and basically accepting and agreeing with Hone’s disgusting comments

And now John Key pretty much letting this whole ETS scheme, which is BS through legislation….

John Key, I have been very accepting of the fact you have changed your mind set, have accepted this as the global economic situation has dictated things, but you my friend of late are loosing myself as a voter, and am sure a great many more National voters… I am merely a hard working Kiwi, whom came back from overseas, which cost me financially to basically just a very aesthetically pleasing country. Well my friend, a country needs far more these days than to just be aesthetically pleasing……

Start listening to the people, it was the people after all whom put you in power!
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November 25, 2009 8:14am
dad4justice

“Not nice D4J.”

I don’t like being called a white mother fucker by a politician and a Prime Minister who does nothing about the depraved words from a shit stirring idiot.
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November 25, 2009 8:22am
Puzzled in Ekatahuna

http://davidbain.counterspin.co.nz/ – interesting, and can Karam shut it down as is suggested today?
If you follow this link please return to kiwiblog
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November 25, 2009 8:24am
NOt1tocommentoften

D4j – I thought you said you weren’t racist the other day? Appears you are.
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November 25, 2009 8:24am
Pete George

I think those celebrating the CRU email release like it was a win in Lotto with Powerball are a bit premature. It is more like winning a Strike bonus line for next week.
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November 25, 2009 8:25am
Pita

Do we live in some parrallel universe…the CRU emails could possibly expose be one of the greatest frauds ever and our MSM are completely ignoring it? WTF?
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November 25, 2009 8:25am
Swiftman the infidel

As a *former* National voter I am disgusted with John Key.

Helen KKKlarKKK was right ‘You can’t trust John Key’.
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November 25, 2009 8:26am
Pete George

Start listening to the people, it was the people after all whom put you in power!

Should some of the other politicians learn from the Maori Party model? Have hui and keep meeting with the people to gauge what they want?
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November 25, 2009 8:28am
Pita

So Phil Goff believes that the polluters should pay the cost under the ETS not the taxpayer…I won’t even bother to explain, as I’ve lost the will to live!
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November 25, 2009 8:29am
Murray

It would have been funny if Billy T had said it Rufus.
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November 25, 2009 8:30am
Swiftman the infidel

dimmocrazy – thank you

It’s a must see

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evx9D19gmtE&feature=player_embedded
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November 25, 2009 8:33am
Murray

Pita Phill Goff has NO issue with the ammount of money we’re going to be hit up for, hes just bitching about who gets it first. By labeling our farm industry as “polluters” he’s shown he’s happy to just smear one sector that never votes for him in the hope it will make the others like him.

The reality is that if we want to eat we WILL get the bill. Does he really think that our farmers are sittting on 110 billion dollars? Costs get passed on to the consumer. Eating isn’t a luxury… unless you’re Kate Moss.

We’re getting the bill people, is your desire to feel rightous worth $92,000?
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November 25, 2009 8:35am
Luc Hansen

Still waiting for Ian Wishart to address Argument No 3

Ian?

Anyone else here an Intelligent Design adherent?

Be my guest.
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November 25, 2009 8:35am
david

Does anyone else think that the release of alarming information about climate change and resource consumption has just cranked up a couple of notches and every statement has a comment embedded attributing it to carbon, greenhouse gases or manmade Global Warming. It seems liked Plan B has gone into gear. (or am I being a bit too charitable by thinking that this is all being manipulated somewhere?

In just the last 24 hours we have been told that the earth is now consuming 2.5 planets worth of resources to keep mankind alive and well, the East Antarctic Ice sheet is going to raise sea levels by about 5 metre and AGW is responsible for all the “extreme weather events” on the planet.

Is this a response to the challenge coming out of the emails from Anglia? A sort of “If you challenge my small lies I’ll trot out some REALLY REALLY big ones to frighten you and that’ll shut you up”?
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November 25, 2009 8:38am
cha

dimmocrazy, Dream Ticket: Palin/Beck

Some of the comments are pure gold, better reading than the article itself.
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November 25, 2009 8:39am
getstaffed

david – I’ve noticed the same thing. Plan B indeed.
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November 25, 2009 8:40am
Puzzled in Ekatahuna

“Should some of the other politicians learn from the Maori Party model? Have hui and keep meeting with the people to gauge what they want?”

Titiwhai, on Radio Live both yesterday morning and in the JT Willie talkback afternoon, says they haven’t consulted. See what she tells Hone to do.
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November 25, 2009 8:41am
F E Smith

Two interesting articles from The Times today:

British Police may be arresting people simply to get DNA samples, with up to 75% of black British young men on the database.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6929017.ece

and is this what we will see with bulk funding of legal aid, as Minister of Justice Power wants to bring in? Note as well that in the last 8 years the numbers of solicitors undertaking legal aid in Britain has almost halved.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article6929839.ece
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November 25, 2009 8:41am
Murray

Ian Wishart answers to you now does he Luc?
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November 25, 2009 8:41am
getstaffed

Stuff yells: “Big rise in kids being raised on benefits”

which is naterally interpreted as an in increase, ie not a good thing.

Later in the story it says: It shows the number of children reliant on a benefit recipient has fallen since 2000 but is likely to rise in the near future

So what’s the truth? Perhaps stuff are playing the climate scientists ‘trick’ and using different period start/end dates to show a trend. Or perhaps they’re just being alarmist. Or both.
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November 25, 2009 8:45am
Pete George

David, getstaffed, don’t you think it is more likely just Plan C(openhagen) – this was always likely to be to focal point for pro and anti information and propaganda. Expect more over the next couple of weeks.
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November 25, 2009 8:47am
Owen McShane

This is a Man bites Dog story surely:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/23/monbiot-issues-an-unprecedented-apology/#more-13129
Extract:

Even George Monbiot, one of the fiercest media propagandists of the warming faith, admits he should have been more sceptical and says the science now needs to be rechecked:

“It’s no use pretending that this isn’t a major blow. The emails extracted by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia could scarcely be more damaging. I am now convinced that they are genuine, and I’m dismayed and deeply shaken by them.

Yes, the messages were obtained illegally. Yes, all of us say things in emails that would be excruciating if made public. Yes, some of the comments have been taken out of context. But there are some messages that require no spin to make them look bad. There appears to be evidence here of attempts to prevent scientific data from being released, and even to destroy material that was subject to a freedom of information request.
Worse still, some of the emails suggest efforts to prevent the publication of work by climate sceptics, or to keep it out of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I believe that the head of the unit, Phil Jones, should now resign. Some of the data discussed in the emails should be re-analysed.”

Sure, Monbiot claims the fudging of what he extremely optimistically puts as just “three or four” scientists doesn’t knock over the whole global warming edifice, yet…

If even Monbiot, an extremist, can say that much, why cannot the Liberals say far more? And will now the legion of warmist journalists in our own media dare say as Monbiot has so belatedly:

I apologise. I was too trusting of some of those who provided the evidence I championed. I would have been a better journalist if I had investigated their claims more closely.
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November 25, 2009 8:50am
Colonel Masters

Do we live in some parrallel universe…the CRU emails could possibly expose be one of the greatest frauds ever and our MSM are completely ignoring it? WTF?

But, Pita, they are not ignoring it… they are actively running a counter programme of global warming related stories this week, for example the one last night about the disintegrating Antarctic ice shelf, complete with 12 year old reporter standing ankle-deep in Otago Harbour claiming that it will be up to her waist if we do not watch out!
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November 25, 2009 8:50am
Andrew W

“When a brigade of Greenpeace activists stormed a nuclear power plant on the shores of the North Sea a few years ago, scrawling “danger” on its reactor, Tindale was their commander. Then head of the group’s British office, he remembers, he stood outside the plant just east of London telling TV crews all the reasons “why nuclear power was evil.” ”

“It really is a question about the greater evil — nuclear waste or climate change,” Tindale said. “But there is no contest anymore. Climate change is the bigger threat, and nuclear is part of the answer.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34121998/ns/world_news-washington_post/
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November 25, 2009 8:51am
big bruv

FFS!

It is not even 9.00am and the angry racist D4J is at again.

D4J is using Harawira’s outburst to express his own blatantly racist opinions, it is no coincidence that he lives in Christchurch.
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November 25, 2009 8:53am
big bruv

F E Smith

Good morning;

“British Police may be arresting people simply to get DNA samples”

I fail to see anything wrong with that, IMHO we should have our DNA on a police database.
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November 25, 2009 8:54am
Pete George

Climate change sceptics have seized on the combative, conspiratorial tone of some the correspondence as evidence of a plot among academics to mask the truth about global temperature changes.

But the scientific establishment remains united in the view that the documents reveal no smoking gun to manipulate data, and point out that the figures produced by the unit tally with two other major international studies.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/conservation/6642790/Climate-change-emails-plot-or-damp-squib.html

Some of one group’s methods have been discredited a bit, but as with the vast majority of climate data their results are still are in line with other studies.
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November 25, 2009 8:55am
dad4justice

Oh look it’s big blouse in with another attack. Time will fix you girlyman. You are wrong again I am not angry nor a racist but that does not matter to a coward like you eh blouse. You are a disgrace to kiwi’s, how about that meeting? Haha yeah right. Have a good day backstabbing me just like yesterday and the day before that. What a fruit cake fill of venom.
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November 25, 2009 8:56am
big bruv

D4J

Pointing out that you are a racist idiot is hardly an ‘attack’, it is a statement of fact.
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November 25, 2009 8:59am
dad4justice

You are scum big blouse. How about a meeting? Your opinion of me cannot be allowed to go unchecked as I am sick of your nasty rhetoric towards me. Fairs fair, say it to my face? Your beef is sickening.
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November 25, 2009 9:00am
andrei

Have you ever read animal farm Pete George?

You’ld be one of the sheep there is no doubt about that at all
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November 25, 2009 9:05am
Inventory2

@ dad4j and big bruv – can you guys take your beef outside and sort it out? This is the third day of name calling and counter-accusations, and frankly, it all gets a bit repetitive 🙂
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November 25, 2009 9:07am
Andrew W

Whereas you’re one of the sheep here andrei, while PG doesn’t go along with this flock.
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November 25, 2009 9:08am
getstaffed

bruv / D4J – can I respectfully ask that you guys take it elsewhere. Neither of you is going to win blogosphere-points carrying on like this.

edit: IV2 – great minds 🙂
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November 25, 2009 9:10am
llew

Fairs fair, say it to my face?

Why don’t you go & tell that joke to Hone Harawira’s face? Might as well break the news you don’t like being called a white mofo. I’m sure you’ll both have a robust debate.
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November 25, 2009 9:11am
Chthoniid

@ dad4j and big bruv – can you guys take your beef outside and sort it out? This is the third day of name calling and counter-accusations, and frankly, it all gets a bit repetitive

Aaah … I think I’ll be giving the GD a wide berth today.
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November 25, 2009 9:12am
NOt1tocommentoften

But getstaffed – you must admit that D4J’s rants are just so nuts that there is some humour in them. These rants and tirades against our hell bent judiciary are all he ever offers. Let him vent a little more…
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November 25, 2009 9:13am
LC

DNA on Police database? No, it’s just the slippery path to all fingerprints, retinal scans, then electronic surveilence, etc etc.
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November 25, 2009 9:14am
Pete George

I don’t think so Andrei, I’m prepared to question both sides of the argument. It just happens that one side seems to keep saying they are completely right while the other side admits to a lot of uncertainties and possibilities/probabilities, which is more in line with scientific process. The evangelical naysayers only want to listen to their own sermons, they are more like ostriches.
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November 25, 2009 9:14am
andrei

The reason why i posted that Pete was this

Some of one group’s methods have been discredited a bit, but as with the vast majority of climate data their results are still are in line with other studies.

What other studies? That is a hollow talking point.

Understand this

The claims over the past few years have been

(1) the planet is undergoing unprecedented warming over the past century

(2) the consensus of scientists is that CO2 released by humans is the cause

This scandal cuts to the quick of both these claims because we now have proof the historical record has been fudged to make the past both cooler and more stable than it really was

and

the proof of the shutting out of scientists who tried to publish papers contradicting the first point.

Now a serious question why are the emissions of a dairy cow more harmful to the planet than those of a hippopotamus or a blue whale?
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November 25, 2009 9:24am
big bruv

Let me get this right.

Many of you are rightly outraged at the racist comment of John Harawira, yet these same people are prepared to overlook D4J’s racist outburst and his call for a race war.

If you are one of these people then please take your faux outrage and shove it where the sun does not shine, you have no right at all to get all hot under he collar about Harawira when you let what D4J has to say slide.

Racism cuts both ways guys.
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November 25, 2009 9:24am
philu

y’know all that ‘reds under the bed’/white-supremicist stuff from the likes of redbaiter/d4j..and the rest..?

did you know it is all to do with their personal sexual insecurities..?

that those attitudes are ‘welded to sex’..?

(who knew..?..)

http://whoar.co.nz/2009/white-supremacyanxiety-anticommunism-and-sex/

“..It must have been about the time that Barack Obama was being born or toddling around that I got my first, alarming introduction to the white man’s idea of Africa.

As I remember it, I was sitting in my grandmother’s parlor, watching TV while she bustled about the kitchen.

The images are fractured now: beating drums, a blood oath, white people sleeping in an isolated farmhouse and large, gleaming African men on a rampage with machetes, closing in, in high-contrast black and white; letters scrawled across the screen in a classic scare font, “Mau Mau!”

Maybe this was 1959, when British colonial forces in Kenya finally crushed the seven-year peasant revolt through a counterinsurgency campaign of murder, mutilation, torture, concentration camps and mass public hangings.

Or maybe it was 1963, when the Africans of Kenya secured their independence.

And maybe a television programmer somewhere thought that the 1955 grind-house shockumentary Mau-Mau, narrated by a proper newsman, Chet Huntley, was good enough to excerpt in a proper news broadcast years later ..

.. or even to run as entertainment on a slow afternoon, censoring out the naked black women and half-naked white women on the edge of ravishment ..

.. the filmmakers’ whole reason for calculating they could make money off such a flick in the first place.

These shards of memory came to mind when I saw the image of Obama as Witch Doctor, which Dr. David McKalip, a right-wing Florida neurosurgeon, forwarded to a listserv of tea-party zealots a few months ago.

Liberal bloggers who had made a cottage industry out of caricaturing George W. Bush were predictably appalled ..

.. but the unknown graphic artist and McKalip did the country a perverse favor.

More than all the words on the subject spilled so far, this lone image banishes the nonsense of postracial America ..

.. and reminds us of the sturdy foundation blocks upon which racial America in the modern period has rested:..

.. white supremacy/anxiety, anticommunism and sex.

The image is a pastiche.

Obama’s head is grafted onto a picture of a man wearing nothing but bead necklaces and a loincloth, his legs spread wide, his long, thick fingers grasping a stick in front of him.

There’s a bone through his nose and a confection of feathers and flowers on his head.

The picture evokes the world of National Geographic that once gave children a guiltless excuse to indulge their curiosity in the flesh.

Under the witch doctor picture is the slogan “Obama Care,” with the red, white and blue campaign symbol serving as the O and a sickle and hammer as the C.

The statement McKalip and his cohort were making is thus a political pastiche as well: ..

.. Obama is foreign, strange, not “natural born”; half-naked, he is a figure of danger, seductive perhaps for his exoticism, his magic–the promise of cures–but ultimately loathsome ..

.. at once clownish, somehow thrilling to confront but also frightening ..

.. certainly not someone a white man would want to leave alone with his daughter…

.. and a communist to boot.

It’s demented, but not in the way commonly suggested when liberals laugh off the birthers, their fellow travelers in Congress and those now trying to breathe life into the rattling bones of anticommunism as “crazies.”

What seems to be a hodgepodge of interests is all of a piece, following a familiar logic ..

.. welded to sex; ..

.. its mouthpieces merely had to come up with a diverting language..”

phil(whoar.co.nz)

that makes it easier for us to ‘understand’ them..eh..?

even to feel some sympathy/sorrow for them..?

(poor luvvies..!

nightmares about rampaging black men..and all that
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November 25, 2009 9:32am
Andrew W

BB, while what you call the “race war” comment yesterday was over the line, I think most people are prepared to accept that there is a place for race based humour, I’d laugh at a good joke that targeted pakeha stereotypes.
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November 25, 2009 9:35am
Inventory2

big bruv – dad4j’s outburst the other night was indeed racist, and you called him on it – quite rightly IMHO. You’ve now both made your positions clear – you think dad4j is a “racist idiot”, and he wants to deal to you. I doubt that either of you is going to back down, so can’t you just agree to disagree?
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November 25, 2009 9:38am
Brian Smaller

Articles like that wsay more about the writer than about the people they are trying to comment on. I think it is called projection, or something like that.
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November 25, 2009 9:39am
tom hunter

Bruv

If Honi was merely a commentator on a blog, I’d call him on his racism the one time and then leave it at that.

As it is, Honi is an MP, and one with quite a significant public profile and followers, and there is a cold-blooded rationality to what he says – at least in it’s intended purpose. People who support and oppose his words take them seriously: his words simply carry more weight than those of D4J.

And there’s always RIP, which is why I’ve not had to follow this thread within a thread.
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November 25, 2009 9:40am
Pete George

Now a serious question why are the emissions of a dairy cow more harmful to the planet than those of a hippopotamus or a blue whale?

I have never considered that before. Apart from the fact that we breed and farm a lot more cows (on land cleared of forest) than we do the hippopotamus or a blue whale. And hippopotamus and blue whale numbers have reduced substantially. Maybe they are a part of natures balance. Maybe they don’t fart as much methane. Maybe some of their emissions are sequestered by the water they are in.

I’m actually uncertain about the cow problem, don’t know enough about it. I would have thought that grass growing balances cow farting but I have heard that the conversion to methane, which is worse as a greenhouse gas than CO2, is a major reason.

Maybe possums are worse than blue whales and we should increase the 1080 drops. But that will reduce bovine TB so more cows will survive, maybe it’s not such a good idea.
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November 25, 2009 9:40am
bearhunter

Race-based humour will always be with us. But like all humour aimed at a particular target group, it tends to be taken too far by some: http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/3094997/Redheads-assaulted-in-Facebook-stunt
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November 25, 2009 9:40am
Brian Smaller

Pete George – I believe that the buffalo hunters in 19th C America were actually enlightened environmentalists. Imagine how bad the planet would have been if there were another 70 million buffalo farting.
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November 25, 2009 9:49am
david

Pete,
Perhaps we should declare cows to be a pest, legislate some protection against their eradication and then merrily exclude them from the ETS. Shame also that sheep numbers hit a record low about the same time as the emissions baseline was drawn.

The real nonsense is that for some reason a Brahman bull in India is different from a Bison Bison in North America is different from a Holstein Friesan in New Zealand is different from a gnu in Africa is different from a Holstein Friesan in Holland is different from ……..
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November 25, 2009 9:55am
Pete George

Ha, yes Brian, and the Maori should get carbon credits for the moa? Pol Pot, Stalin? No, better not go there.

David, in India they sequester cow emissions by plastering their walls with dung, here we just flush it down the nearest stream.
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November 25, 2009 9:57am
Andrew W

I wouldn’t use the RIP thingy, it sounds like a system people can use to insulate themselves not just from dross comments, but also from opinions and facts that don’t suit them.
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November 25, 2009 9:57am
david

@Andrei 9:24am
re: The Blue Whale conundrum.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fishy smell of the farts (Omega3 anyone?)
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November 25, 2009 9:58am
unaha-closp

Bearhunter

Is it true that all redhead jokes originated after comedians reversed the first 3 letters of “ginger” for effect?
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November 25, 2009 10:00am
tom hunter

Andrew – given the commentary over the last couple of days I think you’ll find it’s being primarily targeted at philu, mainly because he uses so much screen space to say so very little, and say it nastily.

D4J is at least short – but not sweet.
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November 25, 2009 10:00am
andrei

I have never considered that before. Apart from the fact that we breed and farm a lot more cows (on land cleared of forest) than we do the hippopotamus or a blue whale. And hippopotamus and blue whale numbers have reduced substantially. Maybe they are a part of natures balance. Maybe they don’t fart as much methane. Maybe some of their emissions are sequestered by the water they are in.

(1) Did you know Pete that there is more forest in both Europe and North America today than there was is 1900 – do you realize that this is a function of the wealth that technology and the use of fossil fuels brings and that deforestation is something that occurs in poor societies.

I’m actually uncertain about the cow problem, don’t know enough about it. I would have thought that grass growing balances cow farting but I have heard that the conversion to methane, which is worse as a greenhouse gas than CO2, is a major reason.

(2) Did you know that the original name for methane was marsh gas because of the volumes emitted by swamps – enough at times to spontaneously combust giving rise to the will o’ the wisp. It is almost certain that New Zealand’s wetlands emit far more methane (by many orders of magnitude) than New Zealand’s dairy herds. I cannot quantify this because of course nobody is interested in giving me or anybody else grant money to try and quantify natural methane emitters.

On the other hand grant money has been given to try and quantify that emitted from dairy herds.

Why do you suppose that is?

If methane is truly the environmental threat the screechers say it is it matters not one wit whether is comes from a swamp or the arse of a dairy cow to the planet.

Couldn’t we reduce atmospheric methane by draining wetlands? Yes we could.

Do you get a sense of how utterly stupid this whole thing ETS thing is?
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November 25, 2009 10:04am
Andrew W

Just checking to see if I was on the RIP list 🙂
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November 25, 2009 10:04am
david

Pete, is that how the saying “Holy shit batman” got coined?
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November 25, 2009 10:05am
tom hunter

Since poor old Cha is still heavily into mockery of right-wingers – Sarah Palin in particular – I’m sure that the following will be appreciated.

It seems that somebody at the wonderfully progressive magazine Slate, posted up an excerpt from Palin’s book on their reader forum, The Fray:

“The apartment was small, with slanting floors and irregular heat and a buzzer downstairs that didn’t work, so that visitors had to call ahead from a pay phone at the corner gas station, where a black Doberman the size of a wolf paced through the night in vigilant patrol, its jaws clamped around an empty beer bottle.”

As Cha would say, the responses are Comedy Gold. Some choice bits:

Wow! That wouldn’t make it through freshman English class, and I mean high school, not college. What’s the sentence about anyway? The apartment? The gas station? The Doberman? How about sticking with one complete thought before going on to three more? Just goes to show that some people should stick with politics and give up any presumptions of being a writer.
…….
“That sentence by Sarah Palin could be entered into the annual Bulwer-Lytton bad writing contest. It could have a chance at winning a (sic) honorable mention, at any rate.
…….
That’s great, all it needed was the lead-in “It was a dark and stormy night.” Great stuff!

You get the picture -abusive, disdainful, sneering, mocking, “Cha-rish”

The whole thing rather comes to a grinding halt when it is revealed that the sentence actually comes from the first paragraph of Dreams From My Father, by Barack Obama.

Well, actually it does not come to a halt – they actually keep going!!!
Truly – parody and satire are redundant nowadays.
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November 25, 2009 10:21am
Chthoniid

Re: wild animals versus cows. The answer is simply that because nobody knows how to calculate to GHG emissions of wild animals, they’re not counted. That means say, the increasing number of white-deer in the US as a consequence of less predation (not enough wolves/big cats) is not counted towards global emissions.

Methane is a curious GHG because its effect is more intense than CO2, but it does not persist in the atmosphere for very long. Ruminants tend to produce more methane than other animals btw. (I just have to find me a cheap source of crocodile meat in NZ).

Re: the RIP thingy. I try to read everybody’s contributions when I can, and occasionally post responses to a wide cross-section of posters. I think it is important to realise that a lot more people read KB than comment on it. (These viewpoints are more varied than might be divined by just reading what’s on the surface). The exception is one frequent poster whose posts I tend not to read, and RIP appears to be a good tool in just side-stepping that problem. I believe that most people using RIP are very selective as to who they ignore, hence are not using it as a general filter of unpalatable facts and opinions.
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November 25, 2009 10:22am
llew

1) Did you know Pete that there is more forest in both Europe and North America today than there was is 1900

(2) Did you know that the original name for methane was marsh gas because of the volumes emitted by swamps – enough at times to spontaneously combust giving rise to the will o’ the wisp. It is almost certain that New Zealand’s wetlands emit far more methane (by many orders of magnitude) than New Zealand’s dairy herds.

Interesting – can we have some sources for that please?

On the other hand grant money has been given to try and quantify that emitted from dairy herds.

Couldn’t we reduce atmospheric methane by draining wetlands? Yes we could.

And yes we do. I’d quite like to see some figures for how much wetland remains & how much methane it produces compared to dairying.
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November 25, 2009 10:23am
Lance

I thought the consensus was Nicky Hager was a scum sucking bottom dweller for using hacked emails from Don Brash?
But now it’s all o.k. to do so if it gives ammo to fight AGM.

Using hacked emails (maybe out of context) is wrong IMHO and is a slipper slope on which to mount an argument.
Or do we have no standards anymore?
Is the paradigm set by the loony left now acceptable to the mainstream?
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November 25, 2009 10:27am
andrei

Interesting – can we have some sources for that please?

Sure – its buried in the UN report – Global Environment Outlook 4

Available on-line here

Warning this is a very large document
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November 25, 2009 10:32am
Pete George

A good indicator.

Methane (CH4) is emitted from a variety of both human-related (anthropogenic) and natural sources. Human-related activities include fossil fuel production, animal husbandry (enteric fermentation in livestock and manure management), rice cultivation, biomass burning, and waste management. These activities release significant quantities of methane to the atmosphere. It is estimated that more than 60 percent of global methane emissions are related to human-related activities. Natural sources of methane include wetlands, gas hydrates, permafrost, termites, oceans, freshwater bodies, non-wetland soils, and other sources such as wildfires.

http://www.epa.gov/methane/sources.html
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November 25, 2009 10:33am
menace

dad4justce.

you racist piece of shit.
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November 25, 2009 10:33am
Pete George

Agriculture contributes half of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions and is the major source of methane (88%) and nitrous oxide (96%).

http://www.maf.govt.nz/climatechange/slm/grants/research/2007-08/2008-33-summary.htm

So not surprisingly research is being funded.
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November 25, 2009 10:37am
KiwiGreg

Note in Kyoto-land, only the farmed cows emit “greenhouse gases”. All those cows lounging around in India dont.
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November 25, 2009 10:38am
bearhunter

# unaha-closp (622) Vote: Add rating 0 Subtract rating 0 Says:
November 25th, 2009 at 10:00 am

Bearhunter

Is it true that all redhead jokes originated after comedians reversed the first 3 letters of “ginger” for effect?

No idea, although it has occurred to me before how strange it is that two of the most popular derogatory epithets are anagrams of each other.
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November 25, 2009 10:40am
philu

this is getting interesting..

http://whoar.co.nz/2009/maori-party-revolt-threatens-ets/

“..An 11th hour revolt within the Maori Party is threatening to torpedo the Emissions Trading Scheme deal with the Key Government.

Even if the revolt does not succeed – Environment Minister Nick Smith is hoping to secure passage of the bill this afternoon –

– the damage to the relationship between the Maori Party and the Government could be irreparable.

The Maori Party’s national council, 26 senior representatives that make up the party’s ruling body, will hold an urgent telephone conference this afternoon or evening.

Some of them, though it is unclear whether it is a majority, want the party’s MPs to scuttle the deal with the Government.

The Parliamentary caucus had not consulted some members of the party’s ruling body.

“Even though there is a signed deal on the table between the Maori Party and National, the third and final vote is yet to be taken,” a senior party source said..

“The Maori Party membership are becoming increasingly aware of the huge debt that our people are going to have to pay ..

.. despite all the window dressing going on by the leadership about deals struck with Iwi..

.. and the $4 per week being saved with cheaper petrol and electricity prices for two years.

“That figure fails in comparison with a 40 year debt of anything between $110 and $220 billion.

“Many Maori Party supporters are threatening to leave the party ..

.. as the real issues behind this legislation are becoming known by the wider public.

“Our people are gutted that their opinion has not even been sought by the caucus, let alone listened to.

“This legislation could spell the end of the Party –

– the caucus have two days to regain the support of members.”

But the Government is hoping the third reading speech – the final step before a bill is put to a final vote –

– will happen in the House of Representatives this afternoon.”

(there would seem to be hope this tawdry deal will be scuttled..)

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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November 25, 2009 10:40am
grumpyoldhori

dad4j there is often a price to pay for idiotic racism, one idiot in Christchurch of middle age thought it was good form to call my wife a nigger lover after I had left her outside the shops.
He was bloody lucky it was my younger lad who grabbed him by the throat giving my wife time to intercede and who my younger lad will still listen to.

If it had been me or my older lad he would have had the shit beaten out of him for good reason
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November 25, 2009 10:42am
Chicken Little

Reposted from the ets thread –

The Wegman Report highlights a group of 42 scientists (including all the main players at CRU) who “peer reviewed” each others work, collaborated on various projects and looked after each others backs. I’m fairly sure all of the have been “lead authors” for IPCC reports.

This is not 4 or 5 scientists who have had a bad light cast on them. Those 42 must have their claims investigated. Anyone who worked with those 42 needs to have their claims investigated. Do you see how big this could be? All their data must be investigated. The methodologies they used need to be held up to independent peer review?

It’s becoming obvious that CRU’s master data set was a complete mess and that when they tried to recreate stuff they had done in the past and couldn’t make it work they made stuff up or ‘massaged’ other data to get the same result.

These people need to be subjected to a rigorous investigation into their methods and data now.

————————————————————————————————————–

India has around 283,000,000 cows – how many in NZ?
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November 25, 2009 10:43am
grumpyoldhori

Oh dear, oh dear, should the US go back to having education tests for voting ? look at this video and decide.
Liberals, clear a space, you may hurt yourself while rolling on the floor with laughter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKKKgua7wQk
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November 25, 2009 10:47am
MT_Tinman

So how much “greenhouse” gas is created by farting, belching, coughing, breathing people?
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November 25, 2009 10:49am
Whafe

chicken little – not sure about the cow number on NZ farms, but there is a HUGE number in the BeeHive
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November 25, 2009 10:59am
Chthoniid

Respiration and decomposition produce CO2 as a natural event.

Generally though,these physiological processes won’t generate emissions in the same order of magnitude as modern lifestyles.

The emissions problem is that rather a lot of ‘carbon’ has been stored as fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) and a lot has been stored as forests. We have a giant atmospheric experiment running whereby lots of that stored carbon has been abruptly released into the atmosphere. This is going to cause CO2 levels to overshoot historical levels. Despite the fact that I do not agree with Al Gore or Greenpeace, I can’t see that we can assume that this overshoot will be a good thing.

In comparison, farming isn’t a process whereby stored carbon is released. It’s a cycle where GHG are released and reabsorbed back into the same system. This isn’t a matter of science or the like, this is a policy issue. Should burning fossil fuels be treated the same way as grazing cows? Why are we treating current carbon-cycles as the same ‘problem’ as releasing stored carbon?
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November 25, 2009 11:06am
Repton

Maori Party Revolt threatens ETS

“The question needs to be asked, do we want to be remembered as a party that gave future generations a horrendous debt, or do we want to be known as a party that took a principled stand against a terrible scheme?” the party source said.

It’s wrong of me, but I can’t help taking a certain amount of enjoyment out of watching this fiasco..

(next on the agenda: will Big Bruv and cohorts stand up in support of the Maori Party?)
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November 25, 2009 11:08am
pentwig

Don’t go there Tinman

Greenies are already discussing population control and limiting couples the right to bear offspring.

Search Frogblog archives!!
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November 25, 2009 11:09am
Pete George

Fair enough Chthoniid. Shouldn’t we be more concerned about the release of stored methane in thawing permafrost areas?
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November 25, 2009 11:10am
Ryan Sproull

Fair enough Chthoniid. Shouldn’t we be more concerned about the release of stored methane in thawing permafrost areas?

Any chance we could just light a match?
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November 25, 2009 11:13am
getstaffed

Repton – If someone you detest saves you from being flattened by a bus would you complain? As much as I detest the racial-based policies of the Maori party, if they do something right and halt the ETS then I’ll be 1st in line to offer my thanks.
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November 25, 2009 11:17am
Pete George

A good call from Family First:

Media undermining anti-violence message

Family First is calling for higher standards concerning violent and sexual content in the media, as a first step towards tackling family violence.

However, Family First says the anti-violence message contained in campaigns such as “It’s not OK” is being undermined by violence in the media, a lax approach to pornography and the sexualisation of children in marketing which are normalising unacceptable behaviour.

Director Bob McCoskrie says the use of violence against women as the punch line in comedies such as Family Guy and American Dad also trivialises the seriousness of the issue.

But it is a public attitude as much as anything.

It’s White Ribbon Day, which is aiming to raise awareness of men’s violence against women. Worth supporting.
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November 25, 2009 11:22am
Ryan Sproull

Pete,

Did you not laugh at the domestic-violence scene in Family Guy?
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November 25, 2009 11:37am
Pete George

I don’t ever watch Family Guy, don’t like it. I doubt I would have laughed at family violence. I don’t see it as a joking matter. Too many people end up crying. If they survive.
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November 25, 2009 11:42am
KiwiGreg

@ Chthonniid “In comparison, farming isn’t a process whereby stored carbon is released. It’s a cycle where GHG are released and reabsorbed back into the same system. This isn’t a matter of science or the like, this is a policy issue. Should burning fossil fuels be treated the same way as grazing cows? Why are we treating current carbon-cycles as the same ‘problem’ as releasing stored carbon?”

I asked the same question. I’m told that, although in carbon terms its clearly a closed loop (grass absorbs CO2, cows eat grass and emit), the “problem” is the cow emissions are really bad “greenhouse gases”, methane benig 7x (or some number) worse than CO2.
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November 25, 2009 11:46am
KiwiGreg

Of course NZ accounts for something like 3% of global dairy production (and declining) and none of the major producers (India, China, US) are signatories to Kyoto but that shouldnt stop us bulleting our dairy industry.
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November 25, 2009 11:50am
Chicken Little

‘Believer’ or ‘Denier’

If you are truly interested in what these guys were doing and the integrity of the information we were using to not only pass our own ETS, but also that which has been used to justify Kyoto and Hoaxenhagen (yup, I haven’t called it a hoax before but this file just shows fraud on an unbelievable scale). HARRY_READ_ME is going to become the most famous computer file of all time.

Read it and weep
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November 25, 2009 11:54am
Lance

Ignoramus question here
Methane is a complex molecule with high energy bonds right?
Therefore won’t it happily break up under UV bombardment?

If it didn’t wouldn’t there be ridiculously high levels of the stuff in our atmosphere from millennia of natural build up from farting dinosaurs and such… just waiting for one almighty boom?
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November 25, 2009 11:55am
dad4justice

Just to put this racism accusation against me in perspective. I have a father from Zimbabwe staying with me and he expressed outrage that a politician in New Zealand would use the WMF smear, because he said he would expect to hear that from his President back in his sad homeland.
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November 25, 2009 11:55am
Chthoniid

CH4 has an estimated 58x the ‘warming potential’ of CO2 but an atmospheric life of 10 years, not 120.
Fwiw, N20 is even worse with estimates of warming factor (206x CO2) and atmospheric life of 150.

But I’m not an atmospheric scientist so don’t hold me to the figures 😉

I think the methane issue becomes a problem because we are only looking at the end-point of this cycle. If we are looking at the whole chain- where the source is, what its used for, where it ends up, then it’s not so clear. I haven’t been convinced that burning fossil fuels is the equivalent problem of pastoral farming.
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November 25, 2009 11:57am
side show bob

What is it with lefty dropkicks and cow farts. Can some climate change religious zealot please explain to a simple dairy farmer why a cow in NZ must be taxed but a cow in the US or India is not counted as producing gas emissions that contribute to climate change. It is said that over 50% of our emissions come from agriculture and so we must be made to pay. 28% of the US greenhouse gases come from agriculture but these are deemed irrelevant. If cow farts don’t count in any other country in the world then why should they count here. I believe we have been sold out by our self serving governments, both the stinking socialists and the National socialists, because it’s the only way they could steal real money when all other avenues of revenue generation were drying up. I have lost any faith I once had in NZ politicians , they are wankers of the highest order.

PhilU I pray the shit hits the fan and the National traitors get dealt to.
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November 25, 2009 12:03pm
stephen

This out of the BLUE:

The European Dairy Management Committee last week decided to reduce the level of export subsidy refunds on butter and butter oil to zero. This means that export refunds for all dairy products are now set at zero.

http://www.ausfoodnews.com.au/2009/11/23/end-of-european-dairy-export-subsidies-welcomed-by-government.html

It only mentions butter, but seems to mean ‘all dairy’ for some reason.
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November 25, 2009 12:07pm
Luc Hansen

The IPCC have released today report The Copenhagen Diagnosis. The report is a summary of the science, the projections and the recommended actions to avoid the worst case scenarios, all of which are already in the public domain.

Real Climate have kindly summarised the main points and provided a discussion forum. Real Climate do not claim independence as three of their members took part in writing the report.

It would be great to see Kiwiblog posters actually engage with the scientists involved with the report and openly express any scientific disagreement with the science presented in the report.

It’s a one stop shop for all with concerns who can string together sentences with valid science, but without ad hominem rants, and enter into genuine debate with specialists.

It would also be great if DPF started a separate thread on this report. Posters who communicated with Real Climate could post the interaction in this thread to save us sifting through what will undoubtedly become a huge forum.

I would suggest it’s a good opportunity for real names only to be used. And it’s a good opportunity for DPF to change the tone of the debate, at least on this site.

I look forward to you support.
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November 25, 2009 12:09pm
Lance

I have a serious problem with agricultural emissions being a threat, I really do.
I can see that burning lots of coal is bad as I have seen the appalling results of acid rain and pollution it causes.
Enormously powerful private cars are pumping out huge amounts of crap into the air we breathe from non renewable energy sources, especially around urban centres.. and it sucks.

But cows and sheep.. seriously, this is a joke right? The methane from each animal must be a small % of the gas emitted or it would kill them. Haven’t noticed any spontaneously combusting balls of fire running around the paddocks recently.

I suspect this is a ploy by the really really really big polluters to take the heat off themselves. New Zealand, now that’s a bloody easy target… oh look everyone, it’s them, it’s their fault. Evil wicked kiwis, how dare you ruin our atmosphere… bastards.
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November 25, 2009 12:12pm
Chthoniid

@Lance

Gases released into the atmosphere either get reabsorbed back or broken up. It takes time. Hence, we like to describe things as cycles.

The theory is by digging up and drilling for lots of stored carbon, and by suddenly deciding that tropical rainforests look better flattened, we’ve released billions of carbon (and related gases) into the atmosphere. Hence, the cycle is being abruptly ‘front-loaded’ with the new emissions. So, while we wait for this stuff to be reabsorbed back into sinks and forests, we will ‘overshoot’ historical atmospheric conditions. Nobody is exactly sure what the overshoot will mean, but its enough to make a lot of people nervous.
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November 25, 2009 12:14pm
Repton

@side show bob:

Can some climate change religious zealot please explain to a simple dairy farmer why a cow in NZ must be taxed but a cow in the US or India is not counted as producing gas emissions that contribute to climate change.

In a “climate change religious zealot’s” ideal world, the US and India would be signatories to Kyoto (or something similar). In that world, cows anywhere would be the same, and it would be up to the countries to decide how to manage it. e.g. the US could decide not to include dairy farms in its ETS, which would mean the US Government would have to buy carbon credits on the international market to cover the shortfall (either that, or make bigger cuts elsewhere to balance it out).

@Luc: DPF won’t read that, so if you want him to do anything, you need to send him an email.
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November 25, 2009 12:21pm
getstaffed

I would suggest it’s a good opportunity for real names only to be used

Some do this.

Others prefer to remain anonymous.

But someone here claims to be posting under their own name, while hiding behind a pseudonym and abuses others who do choose anonymity.
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November 25, 2009 12:25pm

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