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May 25, 2010 8:42am by David Farrar

General Debate 25 May 2010

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General Debate

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jinpy

# RightNow at 11:59 am

“That’s the reality of ETS and cap and trade schemes. Shut down the world for 41 years to prevent 1 degree of warming.”

well I’m glad we’ve got that sorted out… I mean come on RightNow, you’re not being fair. Your burden of proof for AGW is enormous — all the scientists that support it in the world are not enough, yet your burden of proof against AGW can be one guy pulling a number out of his arse in a debate! Hardly a rational skeptic approach is it?
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May 25, 2010 12:48pm
Kris K

mattyroo 12:23 pm,

Fred Dagg at his best: http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/05/20/2905304.htm

Absolutely classic John Clarke.
About sums up the Western global economy.

The last bit about the US being able to bail out Europe becasue it is owned by China is, sadly, likely pretty close to the truth.

“Laughing while you sink”, indeed.
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May 25, 2010 12:49pm
tom hunter

mattyroo

You beat me to it. I first saw that the other night via the comments section of a US blog-site. Word of Clarke’s genius could spread wider than Down Under!
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May 25, 2010 12:49pm
tom hunter

I tried to make a point about AGW and ‘reality’ the other night with this comment:

The current atmospheric CO2 concentration level is 387ppm.

If we could cut global CO2 emissions to those of the late 1950’s (and note that the world’s economy is three times larger now), and if we held them at those levels for the next 7-8 decades the CO2 concentration in the year 2100 would be – about 450ppm.

What I got in response was a comment to the effect that 450ppm was indeed achievable and would do good.

Obtuse is too weak a word for the stupidity of such a response.
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May 25, 2010 12:56pm
dime

The bass player from slipknot found dead in a hotel.

Paul Gray, 38. Leaves behind a pregnant wife.
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May 25, 2010 12:56pm
big bruv

Dime

Who the hell are slipknot?
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May 25, 2010 1:05pm
krazykiwi

tom hunter – though you might like this (on the ‘obtuse’ spectrum)

Obama to promise emissions equal to Victorian Era, or modern-day yak farmers

At the international climate meetings in Copenhagen next month, Mr. Obama will tell the delegates that the United States intends to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions “in the range of” 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050, officials said.”

Here’s how George Will addresses it: “Barack Obama, understanding the histrionics required in climate-change debates, promises that U.S. emissions in 2050 will be 83 percent below 2005 levels. If so, 2050 emissions will equal those in 1910, when there were 92 million Americans. But there will be 420 million Americans in 2050, so Obama’s promise means that per capita emissions then will be about what they were in 1875

In order back up George’s assertion, we need a two data points: Carbon emissions per capita in 2005, and the same data for 1875. Seems simple enough.

The 2005 data is 19.54 metric tons per capita for the United States.
Our Target: 19.54 * (1-0.83) = 3.3218

Now let’s find a present-day comparison. The closest country to this goal, coming in at 3.44, is Mongolia. So Obama wants us to have the carbon footprint of yak farmers. How interesting
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May 25, 2010 1:09pm
jinpy

Tom,

What’s wrong with 450 ppm? It sounds a lot better than 1000 ppm.
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May 25, 2010 1:11pm
krazykiwi

bruv – A slipknot is what a hangman uses. The heavy metal band Slipknot’s latest album is entitled “All Hope Is Gone”. Go figure.
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May 25, 2010 1:13pm
dime

bruv – next time i’m down for a coffee ill introduce you to the soothing sounds of slipknot 🙂

you might like one of their power ballads “people = shit”
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May 25, 2010 1:14pm
redeye

A victory for freedom.

“Bail conditions have been relaxed for the owner and staff members of a national indoor gardening chain charged with supplying equipment and advice to cannabis growers.

Last month, police raided Switched On Gardener branches throughout New Zealand, as well as other gardening stores, after a two-year undercover investigation codenamed Operation Lime.

Charges were laid against directors and staff at the 16 stores, which were allowed to keep trading as long as they followed strict bail conditions requested by police.

The court order required every customer to hand over identification and give their phone number, address and date of birth.

One judge, Peter Rollo of the Tauranga District Court, refused to impose the bail condition, describing the police submission as excessive and an unnecessary intrusion into the personal affairs of the public.

In Whangarei, justice of the peace Ryan Bruce also refused to impose the bail condition, despite police prosecutor Sergeant Graham Ford submitting that the Bail Act gave courts powers to impose conditions to ensure defendants did not reoffend on bail.

Judge David Harvey in the Auckland District Court has now removed that bail condition for Switched on Gardener franchise owner Mike Quinlan, which has a flow-on effect for all those charged as part of Operation Lime.

Quinlan could not be reached yesterday. He previously indicated he would appeal against the bail conditions because a “little old grandma” coming in “for a bag of potting mix” did not deserve to be interrogated.

While the bail conditions for Quinlan now mean customers no longer have to show ID, Crown prosecutor Ross Burns yesterday confirmed that Judge Harvey’s decision had been appealed to the High Court.

Last month, police said Operation Lime would “break the cornerstone of the illicit cannabis cultivation industry”.

Undercover officers allegedly bought equipment, were given advice on how to grow cannabis, and even bought cannabis and other drugs over the counter.”
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May 25, 2010 1:20pm
Manolo

“.. next time i’m down for a coffee ill introduce you to the soothing sounds of slipknot”

Rather not. A bullet in the head is much better than any caterwauling that passes as “music” these days 🙂
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May 25, 2010 1:21pm
Kris K

Manolo 1:21 pm,

“.. next time i’m down for a coffee ill introduce you to the soothing sounds of slipknot”

Rather not. A bullet in the head is much better than any caterwauling that passes as “music” these days

Mind you, they tell me ‘the hangman’s noose’ is about as effective as a bullet to the head …
“All Hope Is Gone”, indeed.
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May 25, 2010 1:48pm
RightNow

jinpy, that comment had little to do with the burden of proof (whether CAGW is real or not) – that figure is to do with the proposed responses to CAGW.
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May 25, 2010 1:50pm
francis

Stories at the time the Ozone Hole became a crisis indicated it had been opened by humans. Now it appears it was worsened, not caused. But the trend stats are interesting. http://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/
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May 25, 2010 1:51pm
jinpy

RN,

good point, i was off tangent… regardless, the figure on the effectiveness of the response requires proof, who’s to say its correct?
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May 25, 2010 2:11pm
big bruv

I see that Trev the muss is suggesting that there is a ministerial resignation in the wind.

I can only hope that it is Nick Smith.
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May 25, 2010 2:16pm
tom hunter

What’s wrong with 450 ppm?

Oh god! As another commentator pointed out, that’s a separate debate from the science of AGW – but I put mine in as a way of trying to move beyond the “my scientist” vs. “your scientist” argument.

But even then you appear to miss the point. jinpy, I don’t (yet) put you in the same class as some other commentators here but really, do I have to spell it out?

Okay – the only way we could achieve that 450ppm would be in fantasy land. Nobody – not even the Green advocates – are going to be willing to crush their lifestyles to the extent required. The very point is that it is not achievable. It’s like the Obama statement, hot air and nothing more. Any regulatory approach on this issue is going to fail, even in looking at past similar regulatory efforts that were successful – notably SO2 reductions in the US, which used a trading scheme pushed by the dreaded supporters of big business in the day and opposed by the believers in regulations.

That approach will not work when the ‘pollutant’ we’re talking about is not some small by-product resulting from the inefficiency of the primary process or the purity of its inputs but the core by-product that arises from the fundamental process of combusting fossil fuels.

Let’s be clear, I want to see cool-looking electric cars (with electric wheel motors, onboard AI navigation and steering, fuel cells etc) sitting in every garage. I want to see SSPS’s beaming down power from orbit and/or fusion reactors pouring energy into the grid (yes, yes, I’m well aware of that fantastical aspect too).

In short, I want to see a high-tech future that is not based on burning fossil fuels – and that’s just because I think the feedstock will be immensely more valuable to us in the future for all sorts of things beyond being burnt in IC engines.

But we’re not going to get there as fast as we could if we find the resources that could have been devoted to developing those futures being dumped into fattening the existing industries – which is exactly what’s going to happen with our current producers of fossil fuels if we keep using the price stick.

Increasing prices can move people away from products. But like everything else economic it only works within certain boundaries. Push beyond the bound and it begins to fail, or even become counterproductive. Look at smoking; massive price increases have not been sufficient, they’ve had to be combined with some fairly brutal intrusions by the state – and even now it could simply produce a black market that means the problem is not solved. If you think tobacco is a product with ineleastic demand wait till you try weaning modern civilisation off fossil fuels faster than cost-effective alternatives can spread.

It simply cannot be done that way. Price incentives work when there is a reasonable cost alternative. That is not the case here, so I think the resources wasted on those increased energy costs would be better spent on developing the new technologies – and no, I have no confidence that any government enriched by the tax rake-off will do better in the R&D.

Moreover, those diverted resources (really diverted wealth), will make us poorer and less able to cope with the adaptation we will need to deploy anyway (assuming you accept the degree of causative links and impact). The warmists are calculating that the resources diverted to “green” energies and processes, via state efforts and incentivised private sector development, will have effects that more than compensate humanity for the forgone wealth. In other words, they’re betting that the reduced CO2 levels and the resulting reduced impact on the world will be ‘better’ than diverting the wealth to adaptation and developing new energy sources (and no, I don’t count wind and solar as ‘new’).

But that’s not an equation that anybody can figure. It never has been, and so I think we would do better to look to the past 200 years of human development and let it roll, with our energy costs actually kept as low as possible. Certainly you can argue that such reduced costs will result in increased consumption – but industrial, democratic capitalism has shown time and again that its relentless drive for increased efficiencies is the best, long-term, driver of adaptive and new technologies.

The new technologies will come in the same manner as in the past (and are coming): slow, steady, incremental improvements that look like nothing in the short-term but that compound rapidly. But even they cannot come faster than their real cost/performance vis-a-vis current technologies.

It’s the same old story; try to artificially screw with the measure of real costs (e.g. ‘real’ meaning what people will pay for them) and you’re likely to get exactly what you don’t want. In this case a poorer world that is less able to cope and paradoxically less able to replace CO2 producing energy sources.

In one sense the warmists should already see this in action: Kyoto is an attempt to screw the price signals about the cost of energy – and the result has been a system that people have rejected, both locally and internationally. That’s viewed as geo-political power politics or the control of capitalist elites (apparently the many millionaires and billionaires who back this nonsense aren’t able to influence their peers) and so forth – but even those factors could not work were it not for the basic refusal of ordinary people to jump ahead of the cost curve on any product or service they use.

Business people who come up with fantabulous new ideas often get smashed by this reality – academics, bureaucrats and governments do not.
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May 25, 2010 2:17pm
tom hunter

….the figure on the effectiveness of the response requires proof, who’s to say its correct

Fair point in that what I first put up could be taken as merely an assertion. But actually the numbers are fairly simple to run. You can easily find estimates of industrial CO2 production (gigatonnes per year) for the last few decades, and in this case the extrapolation merely assumes the same thing that AGW does – that there is no time-based change in feedback mechanisms.

So it’s a straight-forward calculation.

The real point is how likely you think it is that we can drive CO2 output levels back to those of 50 years ago and then keep them at those levels for another 7-8 decades – and please tell me that you’re not one of the “zero-growth” brigade – that’s an even bigger fantasy.
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May 25, 2010 2:29pm
Manolo

A pertinent question asked by Crusader Rabbit: “Does Key have any personal financial interest in any carbon trading company?”
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May 25, 2010 2:46pm
philu

lockwood smith has just told ministers to stop lying…(tolley being the most recent…but not the only…example..

..and key is being stalked on conflict-of-interest issues…

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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May 25, 2010 2:55pm
krazykiwi

Manolo – I too have asked that many times, most recently here.

I’d be interested to learn if Key’s personal wealth would be impacted by carbon trading. He was a substantial shareholder in Merrill Lynch, and after an all-stock takeover by Bank of America would have become a substantial private investor in BoA. Bank of America announced a $US20 billion investment in ‘Green Technologies’, including carbon trading. Extract:-

Carbon Emissions Trading: The bank will launch the capability to trade
carbon emissions credits in order to enable clients to achieve carbon
emission neutrality through existing and emerging market mechanisms.

So it’s rather a long bow, but nevertheless it’s possible that Key would benefit from active, profitable carbon market, just as Gore and Pachauri are currently benefiting. A simple declaration from Key would sort that out.
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May 25, 2010 2:58pm
RightNow

Well that sure would be funny if Key was hoist on a carbon petard
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May 25, 2010 3:01pm
Viking2

Well Annette did try and warn us all he was a slippery dude. Ha.
Hey I wonder if Helen has quietly aquired some shares as well?
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May 25, 2010 3:06pm
Viking2

tom hunter

The real point is how likely you think it is that we can drive CO2 output levels back to those of 50 years ago and then keep them at those levels for another 7-8 decades – and please tell me that you’re not one of the “zero-growth” brigade – that’s an even bigger fantasy.

its easy Tom. just stick it to the taxpayer and give it to the forrestors. See above.
Viking2 (1736) Says:
May 25th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
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May 25, 2010 3:09pm
Yvette

“… carbon petard.”

“The word petard comes from the Middle French peter, to break wind, from pet expulsion of intestinal gas, from Latin peditum, from neuter of peditus, past participle of pedere, to break wind; akin to Greek bdein to break wind. (Merriam-Webster) Petard remains a French word meaning a firecracker today (in French slang, it means a handgun, or a joint).
The word remains in modern usage in the phrase hoist with one’s own petard, which means “to be harmed by one’s own plan to harm someone else” or “to fall into one’s own trap”, literally implying that one could be lifted up (hoist, or blown upward) by one’s own bomb.”

See? – the expression has connotations of emissions in itself – nice.
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May 25, 2010 3:13pm
RightNow

hee hee hee, his fart tax will be his downfall…
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May 25, 2010 3:17pm
MikeNZ

side show bob (2421) Says:
May 25th, 2010 at 10:32 am

“It’s only $3 a week”…

I agree, yeah right at first and the 2nd year?
and all based on faulty science by frauds.

National should be sacked but who do we vote for?

ACT of course! 🙂
come on over to the dark side…..

Give your party vote to ACT next time, you know it makes sense.
besides you can give National, Labour, Greens, Maori, Mr Sensible a smack at election time.
Now that’s worthwhile.
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May 25, 2010 3:28pm
philu

act-ite/rand-ite-cult…latest polls….

..1.5%..

(toast..!..)

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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May 25, 2010 3:33pm
Hurf Durf

Speaking of warmists, reposting this from yesterday’s GD:

Lisa Jameson, also from Plane Stupid, added: ‘This isn’t just about airport expansion or rising carbon emissions.

‘This is about challenging an economic system based on the absurdity of infinite growth on a planet of finite resources, a system which prioritises bailouts for the banks and then makes us pay for it in public service cuts.

‘Capitalism is the cause of the problem, climate change is just a symptom.’

This is the caring, sharing, Gaia lovers we all already know. Just a matter of time before the general public twig on as well.
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May 25, 2010 3:42pm
Rex Widerstrom

redeye notes:

A victory for freedom.

“Bail conditions have been relaxed for the owner and staff members of a national indoor gardening chain charged with supplying equipment and advice to cannabis growers.

A victory indeed. Perhaps other JPs and Magistrates will take note of the fact that they’re not there to rubber stamp ridiculous bail conditions asked for by police prosecutors.

The latest I heard was that someone released on bail be “prohibited from using the internet”. At least that one woke up a sleepy Saturday morning cleaning-up-the-drunk-and-disorderlies session as the Magistrate lost it, pointing out to Mr Plod that internet terminals were to be had for $2 a time in net cafes and shopping malls, for free in libraries and nowadays on many makes of mobile phone and asking how the police proposed to enforce such a ban.

Although appropriate, even prohibitions from contact with complainants are really only made for the sake of form – there’s no way of enforcing them before the fact.

Police should accept that bail is no more nor less than a contract in which the accused agrees to pay a fine should they not appear in court as ordered… it’s not an opportunity for them to meddle in the lives of everyone they’ve arrested.
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May 25, 2010 3:50pm
RightNow

Oh dear, poor Unite is having trouble with getting their HQ expanded. They really need to win the BA strike so their members can chip in a bit extra to help I reckon.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1280651/Unite-union-facing-opposition-plans-expand-100m-headquarters.html
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May 25, 2010 4:42pm
DJP6-25

While I am not ususlly an admirer of the Listener, I do read Jane Cliftons colum every week while I’m here in NZ. This weeks one was a superb evisceration of Jim IL Sung. Read it. You’ll like it.

cheers

David Prosser
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May 25, 2010 5:15pm
Repton

hee hee hee, his fart tax will be his downfall…

Unfortunately, we don’t have a “fart tax”. Labour proposed one, but National whipped up outrage to squash it, culminating in their tractor-on-parliament-steps stunt. So we’ve got an ETS instead. A shame; AFAIK both ACT and the Greens prefer a carbon tax, but oh well.
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May 25, 2010 5:15pm
philu

this is about you lot…

http://whoar.co.nz/2010/party-of-no-how-republicans-and-the-right-have-tried-to-thwart-all-social-progress/

(this is about america…but is most definitly a template of how the key/national government operate in this country…

c.f..the demonising of minorities/the weakest….)

“…As much as they may grumble, there is a legitimate reason why the Republicans have been labeled the “Party of No.”

For decades, the party’s kneejerk stance has been to oppose any legislation or policy involving social, economic or political progress.

You name it, the right has opposed it: …

…civil rights, school desegregation, women’s rights, labor organizing, the minimum wage, social security, LGBT rights, welfare, immigrant rights, public education, reproductive rights, Medicare, Medicaid.

And through the years the right invoked hysterical rhetoric in opposition …

… predicting that implementing any such policies would result in the end-of-family-free-enterprise-God-America on the one hand …

… and the imposition of atheism-socialism-Nazism on the other.

Republicans are obstructionist for one simple reason: it’s a winning strategy.

Opposing progressive policies allows the right to actualize the ideals that both motivate and define their base.

Rightist ideologies are not without sophistication ..

… but right-wing politicians and media figures boil them down to a crude Manichean dualism to mobilize supporters based on group difference:…

… good versus evil, us versus them.

By demonizing and scapegoating politically marginal groups, the right is able to define “real Americans,” who are good …

… versus those defined as parasites, illegitimate and internal threats ..who are evil…”

(yoo -hoo…!..farrar…!…gonna roll out yr ‘pretend’ solo-mum again anytime soon..?

..y’know…!..like last time..

..you could have her writing again about laughing at her neighbors going off to work..

..while she sat on the lawn..drinking beer ..and waiting for the pizza to arrive…

..eh..?

that really was a ‘high-point’/moment in the history of kiwiblog..

eh..?

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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May 25, 2010 5:21pm
Bevan

Philu, I think I have just discovered something.

The last few weeks I have been getting these annoying little headaches every single day, yet today I have only just had one come on in the last two minutes – and I clicked, your post at 5:21pm was the first of yours I had read for the day – and my headache came on while I was trying to read your post!

Your posts give people headaches – I think you should have to type a public health warning at the start of your posts.
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May 25, 2010 5:37pm
philu

i do…i have a dot-alert…

only the blind could miss it..eh..?

just let yr eyes slide down….eh..?

phil(whoar.co,nz)
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May 25, 2010 5:45pm
jinpy

# Tom Hunter/Right Now — running a few avatars I see, hope I’m not debating with a lobby group 😉

Well you’ve raised a number of thought provoking ideas and I’m not going to say they’re wrong or misguided. My knowledge on the topic is fairly scant and I don’t know the details of trading schemes etc. to know whether I agree with them or think that another approach is better. My background is scientific and from what I have seen, disregarding the mass conspiracy theory, is that AGW is real and of concern for socio-political reasons, food production, population displacement etc. But as I see it, your argument is not that AGW is not real, but that it may not be a big deal and that current attempts to remedy it are flawed.

By my understanding, you are saying that a climate trading scheme won’t work because the price [dis]incentive scheme will become skewed as a result of the lack of any reasonable cost alternative to fossil fuels. There will be costs and no benefits. Chiefly, no cost-competitive, carbon-friendly energy alternative to oil exists and we should bide our time till we discover it and then implement it.

Well, that all sounds sensible to me, I agree, the global trading scheme as you’ve presented it could be flawed and ineffective. But I also think it’s important to try to limit CO2 production in case it leads to catastrophic events (even if local) and ultimately to develop a more sustainable economy in terms of the environment, and price seems an obvious way to do this. E.g. if carbon sequesterization becomes feasible in the medium term, then industry could actually limit C02 production, but the only incentive to invest in this technology would be some tax on carbon output. As a basic example, there would be a disincentive to drive enormous cars. My arguments may seem naive, but the cost of oil is currently artifically low IMO, and while it is our lifeblood we could at least create some incentives to limit our use of it. This may lower economic growth in the transition period but we don’t have to overdo it. I mean there are inefficiencies throughout any economy related to energy use, from energy transmission, insulation, housing design, individuals commuting, etc. By spending on alternative systems (some could already be implemented) in the short term we could save on energy costs in the long term, and there needs to be some mechanism to make it meaningful to do so–increased energy costs would be one reason. If a tax was fed into R&D, then we could move faster towards making other savings in energy use (such as more high-tech power transmission). Or we could push the nature of our consumerism away from actual things to computer-mediated entertainments and services. Or we could make airline travel a bit more expensive, is that really the end of the world, considering it’s only in recent times that it has been so cheap?

In short, I think we should start to consider the environment in our economic calculations. You’re saying wait till later, better technology etc., but I say why not start now to change the playing field and see what effect it has. Most people seem to say you can’t mess with economic growth or you’re fucked, but if this stays our motto forever, we will never have any reason to change and we really will doom ourselves. Big business has historically used all sorts of aids (i.e. military intervention, oppression, gross neglect of environmental impact) to keep costs down and we’ve probably all benefited in terms of our ability to consume, but there are actually other ways to live than just to consume.

(I appreciate you’ve thought about this a lot more than me, and my ideas perhaps haven’t impressed, but status quo is too much of a cop out IMO. If we change attitudes, we won’t necessarily be wedded so much to the idea of constant economic growth as societies only concern. I mean we’re already better off than our parent’s generation, how many toys, nice bottles of wine, and holidays overseas do we need…?)
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May 25, 2010 5:51pm
Hurf Durf

Bevan, it’s obviously braille so the blind can be subjected to the same amount of misery as the rest of us.
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May 25, 2010 5:53pm
MikeNZ

http://sourcesandmethods.blogspot.com/2010/04/whole-of-cyberthreat-in-single-tweet.html

fun stuff for a non geek
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May 25, 2010 5:53pm
Viking2

‘Three strikes’ bill passes

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3736396/Three-strikes-bill-passes
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May 25, 2010 6:12pm
philu

step well back from the blog..!..jinpy..!

..abuse is about to rain down upon you…

any deviation..even slight..from the ‘message’..

..will not be tolerated…

as you will soon find out…

phil(whoar.co.nz)
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May 25, 2010 6:12pm
Viking2

This is a serious issue guys. Those that do these things have now decided for all our sakes that;

OK to call lollies ‘Eskimos’

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3736415/OK-to-call-lollies-Eskimos

Where does our money get wasted. Well there’s a bloody good start.
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May 25, 2010 6:19pm
Viking2

Oh dear Mr plod is pissed off again. What is it with these wankers.?

Blogger breaks suppression order – again

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/3736270/Blogger-breaks-suppression-order-again
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May 25, 2010 6:23pm
Viking2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA&feature=player_embedded
enjoy
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May 25, 2010 7:22pm
Viking2

ACT leader suggests ETS scheme threatens supply and confidence deal with National
Posted in News Updated Tuesday, May 25, 2010 – 5:27pm, Bernard Hickey

Rodney Hide suggests ETS may threaten coalition govt

ACT leader Rodney Hide suggested in parliament today that ACT could question its current Supply and Confidence coalition agreement with the ruling National Party if National pushes ahead with implementing the Emissions Trading Scheme on July 1. (Updated with Hide saying a withdrawal is not planned)

Here is the full Hansard record of the exchange in parliament between Hide and Prime Minister John Key. Judge for yourself, but Hide seems to be a bit cute with the question line. He seems to be applying some pressure without quite pulling the trigger. Hide later said ACT had no intention of leaving the agreement, but this exchange suggests tensions between ACT and the government over the ETS.

Hon RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: Has he received any reports regarding the comment attributed by the New Zealand Herald to National MP Shane Ardern that “Mr Hide could stop the ETS if he wished by reconsidering his party’s confidence and supply agreement with National”; and what is his view of the ETS and the confidence and supply arrangement?

Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) : I am aware of the comments. My view of the emissions trading scheme is that strikes a good balance between our economic opportunities and our environmental responsibilities. My view of the confidence and supply arrangement with the ACT Party is that it forms the basis of a very positive and healthy relationship. I thank the ACT Party for its contribution in our stable and balanced Government, and, in particular, I thank the Minister for the great work he has done in reforming Auckland.

Hon Rodney Hide: Does he share ACT’s concern that the entire net gain from tax cuts for the 550,000 households earning between $40,000 and $85,000, shown to be 0.4 percent of their income on page 9, in the Minister’s Executive Summary, in the Budget, is eaten up by the 0.4 percent extra cost of the emissions trading scheme, as shown on page 65, in the Economic and Fiscal Update—that is, that what Bill English has given back, Nick Smith has taken away for over a million middle-income New Zealanders?

Hon JOHN KEY: No, because the estimates I have are that the emissions trading scheme will cost the average household around $3 a week, and the tax cut for someone on $50,000, even if they consume the lot, net of GST, is about $14 to $15 a week.

Hon Rodney Hide: Is the Prime Minister, therefore, saying that the figures contained on page 9 in the Minister’s Executive Summary and on page 65 in the Economic and Fiscal Update, showing, respectively, the extra income for middle-income households earning between $40,000 and $85,000 and the extra costs of the emissions trading scheme are wrong?

Hon JOHN KEY: No; but the answer is that one is a measure of the CPI, and one is a measure of their general income

http://www.interest.co.nz/news/act-leader-suggests-ets-scheme-threatens-supply-and-confidence-deal-national
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May 25, 2010 7:44pm
RightNow

jinpy, first I do only post under this name, and you have my word on that. I don’t believe I know tom hunter although clearly we share similar views on certain subjects.
I really don’t think the question matters about whether CO2 is causing warming. Assuming it is then the proposed schemes that seem most likely to be implemented will simply move things around, particularly money, power and emissions.
On a global level China would be the big manufacturing winners. Some African dictators would get a bit of a windfall too, and there will be quite a few new multi-millionaires in the inner circles of governments and corporations, including big oil – they’ve seen it coming and run a few dogs in the race to hedge.

In NZ, being a net payer (i.e. loser) I might expect value for money, and if this ETS is an insurance policy against climate change (does the rest of the world pay into it too, or will our policy only ensure NZ is protected?) then as a consumer what guarantees to I have that the product is fit for the purpose?

FYI, my opinion today on AGW: I think it might warm a degree or two over the next couple of hundred years, and not only will it be generally beneficial for life on earth, it will also fluctuate in 60 year cycles. It was hotter in 1938 than 1998, it will be interesting to see what the peak around 2058 will be. It’s also my opinion that we didn’t have millions of years of evolution of life on earth without the planet being able to stabilise it’s system. For example, CO2 causes vegetation to flourish, and vegetation soaks up CO2. Also warming increases cloud cover, which in turn has a cooling effect.

Even if the precautionary principle is applied, the responses are the wrong precautions – not least because the precautionary principle demands cost efficient measures, not profligate scams.
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May 25, 2010 8:03pm

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