Wholesale theft in the name of carbon
By Jo Nova
Imagine a third world nation was mired in corruption so deeply that the ruling class were able to stealthily steal the rights to vast acreage of private property from landowners without paying any compensation.
Imagine that one of the victims of this injustice had approached every court of the land and had not even had his case heard, even after more than 200 attempts. In desperation, and with no other avenue available, having officially “lost the farm”, he starts a hunger strike, which has now gone for 28 days unbroken, threatening to starve to death if he has to.
Welcome to Australia — right on track for Third World Status.
Get ready to be shocked. This is an moving example of why “policy by accident” is a dangerous way to govern. In this case, innocuous feel-good laws end up crushing upstanding citizens. Peter Spencer is still alive (though he may only have 12 – 20 days to go) but how many other farming men were put through the environmental-ringer, and drowned themselves in brandy, picked up a gun, or crashed the car into the only tree near the road? None of these deaths would be recorded as victims of bureaucracy.
Peter Spencer bought a farm south of Canberra in the early 1980’s. In the mid 1990’s new laws rolled into action that prevented land clearing. That meant, even though the land belonged to him, Peter could no longer clear the regrowth. Eighty percent of what he paid for was effectively confiscated. He received nothing in return and there was no way out. He couldn’t sell the property — who would buy a piece of land they have no right to use?
But Peter still had a mortgage to pay, and no way of earning the money to do it. Recently, his last legal avenue was exhausted, and the sherriff gained a warrant to take the farm off him. That was the final straw…
Peter Spencer has issued the Prime Minister of Australia with a letter of his demands. He wants a Royal Commission and compensation for all the farmers who have lost the right to use their land.
Compensation would cost billions. But Kevin Rudd’s “stimulus package” (spend-for-the-sake-of-spending), was 42 billion dollars big.
This is what happens when big government gets your money. It gives a “free” handout of $950 per tax-payer to randomly “stimulate the economy”, and uses the rest to build school halls, even in schools which already had a hall, or in schools which desperately needed a library.
…
Spencer points out that the land-grab by the Australian Government meant the nation met it’s Kyoto commitments, a target that would otherwise have been blown away. The carbon stored in confiscated land amounts to about $10.7 billion in carbon credits. Probably the total value lost (with interest) from the productive use of that land would be many times higher.
Read the rest of this tragic story here at Jo Nova’s website.
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Here’s the most important question: How does the Australian Government account for sequestered carbon when much of this land is prone to bushfires? Do they reset their Kyoto carbon sequestration tally for that land back to zero when all that carbon goes back into the atmosphere?
I’m reminded of this story, also from Australia, where even clearing land to save your home from imminent fire is met with fines and legal issues by the government:
“We’ve lost two people in my family because you dickheads won’t cut trees down…”
The whole carbon scheme is insane.
NOTE: I’ve made a change to the title, based on some commenters objection to the use of the word “retarded”. While some saw it in the context of “mental retardation”, that was not my intent. I was thinking of the use of the word in the context of retarding enterprise and freedom. They have certainly “retarded” the ability of people to use their land. I’ve changed the word to “restrictive”. I apologize if this offended anyone. It was a poor word to use. – Anthony
UPDATE: News just in this evening via WUWT commenter “helvio”: ABC Australia says the Mr. Spencer has ended the hunger strike. Details here
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“Welcome to Australia — right on track for Third World Status.”
No kidding. I’ve already read on several different IPCC and UN websites where they talk about a convergence of GDP’s. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that every other nation’s GDP isn’t going to rise up and equal ours (because our way of life is “unsustainable according to most environmentalists), rather our (and other Annex 1 countries) GDPs will be lowered until they converge at some point to the rising GDPs of the developing and LDCs.
Have an accidental fire. Possibly claim some compensation.
I remember the comments to this story in the original (?) publication. There were many AGW supporters saying that this man was letting down his family by doing this. It is ironic that a bunch of AGWers would support Hansen during his publicity stunt demonstrations, yet look the other way on a farmer robbed of his one resource to provide food for the world, and also his family. What effect on CO2 is grabbing this man’s farm supposed to have? A carbon sink? Hope you don’t have any food shortages in Australia any time soon, seems that would be a disaster for your politicians. I could go on about the idiocy of this, but remember, if it were Jim Hansen stopping the death trains, it would be admirable, if it is a farmer being squashed by his government, it is selfishness. X(
Time for a rebellion in Oz.
Kevin Rudd took office in December 2007. The previous PM, John Howard, took office in March 1996. Howard did not ratify Kyoto.
Hope this helps.
I’m no lawyer but I think he should have cleared the land anyway. The courts would have been forced to hear the case when they brought him up on charges. Hell of a choice to force upon your citizens.
I’m not sure this story can totally be put down to to climate change policy. There is a lot of back-story here that is not reflected in the post.
On a completely different topic, there is a new paper referenced on the Pielke site showing that land clearing at the right latitude reduces global warming http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/new-paper-climatic-impact-of-global-scale-deforestation-radiative-versus-nonradiative-processes-by-davin-and-de-noblet-ducoudre-2009/
The farm in question is at the right latitude to have a nett cooling effect from land clearing
This is not a beaurocracy…it’s a cleptocracy.
If you can’t put your assets to use as intended (i.e. farming for land), then your property rights have been abridged. This seems to be the ugly truth today.
What freedom is there if you can’t own and use assets? It’s the foundation of our society!
I hope the Aussie govt bends to Mr. Spencer. Western govts are beyond our control!
Ugh! My anger seems to be squelching my ability to express myself properly.
The poor bloke ought to stop – he’s made his point.
There are other ways to protest.
I sent an email to the PM reminding him of his country’s inglorious record of taking land it didn’t own, that the world is watching, and ended it with Lincoln’s great words:
Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of… this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves… The firey trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation…
It is a sad state of affairs and we can only pray for Mr. Spencer and wish him well .. that the outcome unfolds properly.
This is also related to political folly:
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/150858/Freeze-may-kill-60-000
How many will die directly because of Al Gore, “greedy scientists” (and their egos) and politicians who have been forced to being “green” by immoral environmentalists?
Blame the environmentalists for all of this. Criminals all.
A sad state of affairs indeed.
Clive
The issue begs the question, whether land left to its own devices is better than proper land steawrdship.
As for the fire issue, look up professor Rackham of Cambridge for the effect of fuel accumulation in the form of fire prone trees.
It’s really an Anti-Eco Agenda: Anti Economy. They intend to break the populations and cast them back into the Dark Ages. That’s what Cap & Trade would do, but they have many other Tools in the Box of Horrors.
To us, a tool is something we use to get work done.
To them, a tool is something used to operate on the masses to turn them into beasts of burden. Welcome to the new Age of Socialism. They have the greater rights, we have only the right to be used by them.
In this case, they shut his property down by hook & crook, then proceeded to wheedle it out from underneath him.
Where do the analogous issues start and stop? I own an excavation company that would be decimated by higher fuel prices resulting from a carbon tax or from outright emissions limits imposed by the EPA. Those additional costs or limits may very well cost me the business, over 100 employees their jobs, and our means to feed and shelter our families. The takeaway story here is that ALL government takings in the name of climate change are as immoral and unfounded as that perpetrated on the poor gentleman depicted in this article.
I love Rudd bashing as much as anyone but in my experience land clearing is a council (local government) regulation. On top of that as I pointed out earlier, John Howard who opposed Kyoto, was in Government in the mid-Nineties onward.
I see a lot of knee-jerk posturing on this site. Perhaps we should think before we react.
There is a story of possible injustice here, but it’s not the one being told.
Joannova has had this up a while. It is giving her 3,000 visits a day.
This is a simple example of tyranny. The government forces you to pay your debt on land but stole his right to make money off his land.
There is more to this story. The government won’t discuss this issue. Passive aggressive politicians are an epidemic.
We are getting more doses of this in America. Nature conservancy and the Sierra Club are now taking neighboring land owners to court and seeking liberal judges to dictate what land holders can and can’t do.
This Greenie weenie flu has even spread to Alaska.
Henry Galt (10:01:41) : “Have an accidental fire. Possibly claim some compensation.”
Choice A: Chance of jail for arson and losing land
Choice B: Certainty of starving to death and losing everything
“A” would seem to be a better choice, unless he’s not really serious about “B”.
This reminds me of a Supreme Court case here in the land of the “free”, i.e. Nollan v. California Coastal Comission, 1987.
http://www.answers.com/topic/nollan-v-california-coastal-commission
The court held that placing an unreasonable restriction on private property amounted to a “taking” of that property and couldn’t be done without compensation. The vote was 5-4; our liberties hang by a slender thread.
Not to be overly PC, but why “retarded”? Why not “corrupt”, “morally bankrupt”, “coercive”, “ridiculous”, or any number of accurate descriptive words?
Seeing the “retarded” in print is a bit off putting and weakens the argument, IMHO.
REPLY: perhaps, but I viewed in in the context of retarding enterprise and freedom, which is exactly what they are doing. -A
If this happened to me, I would make full use of my Second Amendment rights, long before I starved myself to death.
I wish him well, and hope the Govt comes to it’s senses, or suffers a bloody nose at the hands of the ordinary hard working people of Australia.
When Federal and Supreme Court judges, in essence, apologise for the ruling that they are bound by law to hand down and acknowledge that the Legislation is unfair and has the effect of Sterilizing a famers land…. Then you know that you Government is out of control… and that when they finally replace these Judges with ones that won’t apologize….. Then Australians will truly live under the tyranny of our political class.
I hope Peter Spencer sees that he has achieved a public reaction to his plight and ends his hunger strike.
John Hooper,
You posting is nothing but inuendo. If you have a point to make, I certainly don’t get it.
Last years bush fires were made worse because land owners were not allowed to clear their land and create fire breaks.
Also one of the reasons Australia has come out of the “depression” before anyone else is because they put the money where it was needed, in the tax payers hand through two rebates.
Unlike the uk who gave it all to the banks, the Aussies got it right!
Now if only they would repeal their age laws. The unfortunate truth is though that taxation is like an opiate to governments!
Mailman
John Hooper.
I apprecaiate your concern that some of us may write a few lines in a blog which may later be considered as an abuse of electrons, but had you thought that your own contribution could also be considered as a “knee-jerk reaction?
If you are an Aussie, perhaps you’d save our knee-reflexes, and post something of substance on what the REAL story is?
Who is counting how many of these trees are dying and decomposing or do they bury them to “trap” the co2 that has been absorbed by the tree?
The wild fire point is an excellent one!
I found out a “green taxi” company were I live that claimed to be carbon neutral was not in a similar way. They sponsored a business that planted trees, and claimed the trees offset their co2. When I did a little digging though, I found out the forest being planted were copiced i.e. every year the new growth was cut down as a crop. The crop was being used to make charcoal for thirdworld families to cook on! There was no sequestration of co2 going on! Similar kind of thing. Most trees in OZ and most of the native bush likes a good fire everynow and then to stimulate things, and its a common occurance.
At least in the UK when farmers were encouraged to set land aside they were subsidised making it attractive to the farmers. This is rediculous! The crown should have instead bough the land from, and they do in NZ