Guest Post by Ruth Bonnett
As early as 1969, writings by Ayn Rand – philosopher and novelist – sounded the alarm bells on the environmentalist movement and the potential impact on our society:
The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They are accepted by default.
– The Anti Industrial Revolution” – Ayn Rand
We are now living with the accepted slogans of “Global Warming”, “Climate Change”, “Global Climate Disruption” and “Climate Justice”, and the fitting of almost every weather observation into the increasingly broad hypothesis of “Anthropogenic Global Warming”. Forty years ago, these ideas were considered absurd, but were uncontested by the silent majority.
The Kyoto Protocol has come about due to the restriction of investigation into the cause of ‘climate change’ as human induced.
Ayn Rand described the restriction on technology as omniscience:
To restrict technology would require omniscience – a total knowledge of all the possible effects and consequences of a given development, for all of the potential innovators of the future. Short of such omniscience, restrictions mean an attempt to regulate the unknown, to limit the unborn and to set rules for the undiscovered, and more: an active mind will not function by permission; an inventor will not spend years of struggle dedicated to an excruciating work, if the fate of his work depends not on the criterion of demonstrable truth, but on the arbitrary decision of some authority.
The United Nations, via UNEP and the WMO have attempt to restrict technology by the constructed IPCC objective to ‘prove’ that human produced carbon dioxide is causing global warming. In so doing, the United Nations has demonstrated that they believe themselves to be omniscient – all knowing and all seeing.
I wonder if the IPCC have considered the consequence of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change – to Australian farmers?
Farmers in Australia have borne the significant financial burden of meeting Australia’s obligations under the Kyoto Protocol by the enforcement (by Tree Police) of Vegetation Control Legislation which gives us sufficient ‘carbon credits’ to meet those Kyoto ‘targets’.
A recent Senate Enquiry into Native Vegetation Laws, Greenhouse Gas Abatement and Climate Change Measures concluded that:
It is unreasonable that the burden of broad environmental objectives is borne by a small number of Australians. Where the current native vegetation laws have resulted in reduction of property value for landholders, this is unjust and it is inappropriate that this burden is borne by individual landholders. This situation should be addressed to better balance competing objectives, the cost burden of achieving these and to redress the current situation.
I have been lucky enough to meet and befriend some of the people belonging to this unlucky cohort (the ‘small number of Australians’ who bear this enormous financial burden.)
This cohort are the farmers and landholders who have had the value of the holdings reduced by an estimate $10.8 Billion to meet the United Nation’s expectations.
They are the farmers who are eighth generation, who live with and on the land, who give up precious family time to support others, who quietly weep at public meetings, who mourn the suicide of their mates, who live in fear so palpable that they do not dare speak to journalists, for fear of enraging the omniscient, the all powerful, the all seeing, the all knowing, the United Nations.
My Christmas message to farmers in Australia and around the world is this: I don’t intend to allow the recent Senate enquiry here to gather dust. I am an urban dweller who just happens to think that the ‘unsettled’ science and restriction of technology has brought about bad policy by way of the Kyoto Protocol and subsequent disastrous consequences for our farmers, their families and anyone who values sound science, property rights and our democratic freedom.
The overall goal being to eliminate industrial development so as to reduce the Earth’s population to the perfect number, often posited at something less than 500M by the Enviros. And a bit of racial selection would be desirable. White people have lived long enough. Particularly white men. Of course they do not intend to die. Their pampered lives are necessary to guide the rest of mankind. That is how people like Obama and his crowd think.
But it’s considered political genius to make a very small number of people the scapegoat for bad economic decisions by the government! That way most of the voters never notice anything much is going on, and if you can demonize the people you are scapegoating many will begin to believe they deserve it.
How long before Australian landowners will be forced to wear a yellow star to signify their official status?
The raise of the Climate Mafia
Europol arrests more than 100 in carbon trading fraud
http://notrickszone.com/2010/12/28/europol-arrests-more-than-100-in-carbon-trading-fraud/
This year the payback begins. Govt at every level must be forced to produce and publish the science they base their policy on. Laws brought into effect based on belief/deliberate misrepresentation of the science must be repealed. Politicians must answer the obvious, were you mistaken or dishonest? The precautionary principle shall be used as a club about the head of those who fall back upon it. What they are saying is obvious, “You people are too stupid, so we have to lie to you for your own good, so trust us”. My answer to the precautionary principle is that the person claiming its virtue, is obviously a thief who intends to steal from me in the near future and harm my family so it would be fair and reasonable to strangle them where we speak. Suddenly they want proof to substantiate my contention (I can’t imagine why).
I expect the hysteria to accelerate briefly this spring and then the running away and flinging useful idiots to the mob will grow exponentially.
The meme will be along this line, I believed the scientists/experts/media and never felt the need to check the details and I felt the matter so serious that drastic action was necessary. Like propaganda aimed at children, demonizing any who question the details,using the big lie technique at international levels, imposing legislation with no supporting science,forcing poisons into homes as a cure for a nonpoison(CFL).Bottom line our current leaders will reveal themselves as too guillible to govern and too dishonest and spineless to trust. I feel no mercy, this kind of idiocy must be punished for when the truly stupid rule we are all doomed, so it is up to the silent majority to ensure the alarmists are properly rewarded for the damage they have done to our society and economy. The magical thinking implict in govt driven alternative enery should be rewarded by sentencing the creators and profiteers of these schemes to make up the missing energy through their own efforts, either with a shovel or on a human hampster wheel. A wonderful fate for politicians in my book, this could be a real reinvention of the wheel. 2010 has been a great year for sanity but do not let up on the alarmist crowd, their motives are suspect and their deeds speak far louder than their words. While it is possible they are just classic liberals who suffer from the delusion they can live our lives better than we can,the result will be the same, an unelected self appointed power interfering with all other peoples business. As for the one world conspiracy ect, yes it could be but the same remedies apply. For 2011 how about a tax on dogooders of the alarmist nature? If its your alarm how about you use your resources to salve it? In other words you first, put up or shut up, could be the standard to hold people to.Happy New Year, bring on the congressional hearings.
But hey man, those “farmers and landholders” are squatters, crooks, they stole that land from the Aborigines. So they, like, got what they had coming to them, you dig man?
(And who here doesn’t think some individuals and groups are using that fine reasoning to not be too sympathetic to those poor bureaucratically-oppressed people?)
What was the restriction or law? It doesn’t say in the post.
It’s been more than a year since Climategate and I’m sick of the continuing warmist nonsense in the news.
I suggest that it would be useful to publish a weekly list of warmists and their organisations who have recently made the news, in descending order of the enormity of their idiotic statements. As they stop making idiotic statements they will gradually move down the list.
NSW to be kicked out next year. Qld soon after. Will will have ‘Joolya’ and her cohort quivering in fear for their political lives in Canberra? 😉
Let the Reckoning begin.
wws you just described what politicians and journalists’ demagoguery does every year to upper middle class the 25% who pays in Canada for 80% of the benefits enjoyed by the remaining 75%.
What was the restriction or law?
Background:
http://www.ipa.org.au/library/staley_WApropertyrights.pdf
Somewhat relevant, has a real world example:
http://myblakedawson.com/Templates/Publications/x_article_content_page.aspx?id=60455
Pamela Gray says:
December 28, 2010 at 1:01 pm
What was the restriction or law? It doesn’t say in the post.
Here is some information
It’s so fascinating to watch the restriction of something so commonplace (CO2) have the same effect that regulating alcohol in America had on the population. For those that haven’t read about the years of prohibition… it created organized crime. It’s like humanity never learns how to live, they just keep repeating the same mistakes.
H.L. Mencken:
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”
“As early as 1969, writings by Ayn Rand – philosopher and novelist – sounded the alarm bells on the environmentalist movement and the potential impact on our society:”
Ayn Rand may be a complete loon but she did get something right. It’s more of a counter-revolution than an anti-revolution. I would suggest reading the following for a more in depth analysis: http://www.ecofascism.com/article15.html
From the article: ” INTRO – Environmentalism is, among other things, an attack on science. This is not the first concerted campaign against science and reason. From the mid-18th to the early 19th century a social movement explicitly attacking science and reason dominated the intellectual culture of the European Continent. The Continental Counter-Enlightenment was forged during a ferocious Republican-Royalist conflict. This social movement was a reaction by the aristocracy to modernization. Their attack on science and reason was an effort to thwart any common-sense empirical policy discussion about feudalism, monarchism and clericalism which they admitted were irrational institutions. In the Continental Counter-Enlightenment’s clear and profound legacy one finds the roots of Fascism and Environmentalism. ”
And the beat goes on…
I used to be amazed by the church’s stance on the Galileo debate. How was it possible for the Church to take a position which wasn’t supported by the bible nor the evidence.
After the global warming fraud, I now realise that any organisation even one nominally “scientific” can develop a form of group think whereby the accept “status quo” can be far far more powerful than mere evidence or rational argument.
There’s no doubt that in a couple of decades time, if anyone even remembers global warming, it’ll be with the same humour that we remember the millennium bug, swine flu, nuclear winters, etc. etc. …. just an oddity of a previous generation.
But that doesn’t mean that whilst the warmist inquisition still pursues the folly of global warming that they will not burn a few innocent witches!
Pamela Gray, one of the pieces of legislation is the NSW Native Vegetation Act 2003. It is a big document. I have not read it but have suffered for it and lost a lot of money trying to deal with the consequences and shall have to lose more in the future. It basically means if there are native plants on your property then you are not supposed to touch them. You can control trees less than 10 years old. The legislation includes grasses. So if you have a paddock of grass that is predominantly native then you are not supposed to do anything to change it. This means you are not supposed to mow the grass. They will let you run stock on it, but not weed spray it or try to change species mix.
Also if you have not ploughed your paddock for 10 years you are not allowed to, unless you get a permit. If you ask for a permit they will ask that you put aside other land permanently (in other words give it to the government but continue to pay taxes for it) from farm use as a set off to allow you to plough your paddock. The above restrictions, if followed, make many properties unviable. In our grazing country the native grass re-grows quickly and runs so few stock as to make grazing financially unviable. Introduced improved pastures run high numbers of stock easily. Normal practice is to use multiple ways of controlling it such as burning (now restricted by legislation), mowing, spraying, ploughing and re-seeding as the seasons and budgets allow. We just had 10 years of drought coupled with extremely high fertilizer prices, it is not wise to plough and re-sow, for environmental and financial reasons. I have ploughed paddocks, when I think it inappropriate because the season may be too dry, to try to keep the land ploughed every 10 years. In other words I feel if I don’t plough I will loose my land. It is not suitable country to plough ALL of it every 10 years. Does this mean that by default all my farm should gradually be taken off me by the government?
By default the whole nutty collection of environmental laws passed by the government in recent decades make all farmers criminals. Normal farming practices have been made criminal activities. The government is not policing all these policies in all regions. BUT all that needs to happen is a neighbour who does not like you or a passing motorist or “greenie” to phone up and the enforcement officers will arrive. It is arbitrary, the law enforcement depends on the whim of local officials. It is totalitarian. Many farmers do not know or believe that the laws are as bad as they are because they have not seen their neighbours get in trouble – YET. Most of my neighbours cant wrap their heads around the idea that they are not allowed to plough their paddocks, in meetings they just say “That cant happen here” because the consequence is so enormous that they cant think about it. Normal folk are so busy just getting on with their lives that they cant do anything about it.
If you then say “Why don’t they do something” I would suggest you Google up Peter Spenser and his hunger strike up a 60 ft pole. We are fooled into thinking our government is less Totalitarian than say, China. Peter Spenser’s story shows that you have to be prepared to loose all your property ( I think he was living in the back of his car recently) and die to get five minutes in the media and zilch legal reform. The guy in front of the tank in Tienanmin Square at lest got media coverage. Our democratic governments are just better at fooling the population than the more military dictatorships. They really don’t care if we have meetings and wave a few posters about. The media have their own deal I don’t understand and if the Global Warming scam can be pulled off by media world wide what hope do Aussie farmers have of changing anything?
I didn’t mean for this to turn into a rant but how does one say what is happening without it sounding that way?
Thanks for your citation of Ayn Rand. In return one from Bertrand Russell:
– Bertrand Russell, in A History of Western Philosophy, 1945.
Sam, thank you for posting the youtube link.
Just a note – the reference to “Clearing” creates visions of big bulldozers smashing virgin forest trees but it is not just that.
“Clearing” also includes grasses so also includes John Doe riding around on a mower. While mowing a native grass paddock is unlikely to gain government attention at the moment it is also technically illegal. I am told there is a prosecution going on locally for a farmer who put spray on the “native grass” and was dobbed in by a greenie neighbour.
The landholders have been targeted as kulaks. Their extinction is part of established Socialist policy.
Fun fun, joy joy. More entertainment coming.
From Freehills, “a leading Australian-based international law firm” (source) (equivalent formatting conversion as needed):
Further down the page:
Lovely. Another system to further abuse farmers and landholders, to generate a mix of Kyoto-compatible and feel-good carbon credits, to be sold to a combination of bureaucratically-mandated business customers and theoretical “Positive PR-seeking” “Green Carbon-Neutral” customers.
Yup, that’s going to do wonders for the Australian economy. They’ll really bring in the investors now.
Which to me sounds like if a chunk of land is designated a “biological carbon store” then nothing can be done to the vegetation for a solid century. Gee, good thing it’s not needed to clear out underbrush and grasses to prevent devastating wildfires, right?
All this on the heels of the “positive outcomes at Cancun” as well. Wonderful.
BTW, to those who want to scream how it says “The government is progressing a voluntary carbon offset scheme…”, don’t display your naivety by doing so. Government is involved. First comes “voluntary”, which has its own definitions (“No one is forcing you to be a farmer, so if you don’t want to participate you just have to stop farming…”). When “voluntary” doesn’t work to government’s satisfaction, then government progresses to mandated. (Anyone else in the US remember voluntary seat belt use?)
And Australians let their government grab virtually all privately-held firearms during the bouts of anti-gun hysteria, so there goes the possibility of a popular uprising…
@ Sam Hall says:
December 28, 2010 at 1:33 pm
Re, your Joanne Nova video. I have a real problem with this and similar statements from the “semi-sceptic” contingent. They all seem to accept that “climate change” is a problem, and that we are just not approaching it in the right way, so the arguments tend to focus on who’s got the right plan for dealing with this “problem”.
I don’t see it as a problem. I see it as a manufactured issue for the sole purpose of instituting massive world-wide political and financial control and pursuing the Socialist/Progressive agenda of a One-World Omniscient and Omnipotent unelected ruling body. If push comes to shove, I will keep one bullet for myself. The rest will be distributed as needed.
I call it the Kyoto Death Treaty because it kills people, not only by terrible economic blunders, but also by turning science 180 degrees from the truth about the effects of temperatures and of carbon dioxide on living organisms. Warming and the gas of Life are both beneficial; the Kyoto Death Treaty is harmful to man and beast and jplants and endangered species.
Col Ely is correct in saying that the NSW government will go next year. Unfortunately its likely successor aren’t much better. These governments are being booted because of mismanagement and corrupt practices. AGW is not really on the political radar. There is no cause for celebration or complacency.
The innocent suffer the most when those imbued with spirit of reform inflict their religion on others.
The concept of allowing everyone to vote irrespective of knowledge of issues, ability to read or write, payment of taxes, service to country and so on, leads to the same end as dictatorship over the long haul. One of the old Greeks; Plato, Socrates or one of their contemporaries felt that benevolent dictatorship was the way to go. Of course, hereditary rule inevitably leads the an idiot offspring to cause all kinds of problems.
Jim G
At least with heredity rule sometimes you will get a good one and sometimes you will get a bad one.
With democracy run by political parties you are garanteed a selection process whereby only those who are totally self serving, amoral, and totally lacking in principles will make it to the top.
Jim G says:
“The concept of allowing everyone to vote irrespective of knowledge of issues, ability to read or write, payment of taxes, service to country and so on, leads to the same end as dictatorship over the long haul.”
In the original form of democracy in Athens, elections were considered undemocratic!!! This is such a shock to most people that they don’t believe it, but it is the truth. What Greeks valued above all else was random selection as we use to select juries (or we should use … but again the elite don’t like it).
As for the “uneducated masses not being allowed to vote” …. why do you think that the Greeks were considered to have the best education system in the ancient world? Think about it! As soon as the elite realise that any one of the numb skulls of the citizenry could … more like will … go on to the ruling “juries” that ran their country, don’t you imagine they suddenly have a very strong desire that those ordinary people they usually treat as canon fodder for the next war suddenly gain a very high priority for a good education!
And by good education, I don’t mean being fed rubbish propaganda like kids these days, but being able to discuss and argue politics and science in a meaningful way.
… but of course, the real reason we call our system “democracy” is so that the masses don’t realise that there is a political system where we aren’t all ruled by the political elite who have been so ruinous to us all.
Well as someone living in Englandistan, we have 300 extra deaths per day in December because the price of fuel has been artificially increased, these are mainly the old and vulnerable. So I suppose the ( unspeakable C**ts ) must be dancing in the the streets about now.
Irony of irony we also have dear George Monbiot in the Grauniad lamenting about big energy suppliers stealing from the poor. Boggle!
From Jim G on December 28, 2010 at 3:07 pm:
The government of China concurs. Indeed, if you examine what the ancient Greeks considered their “benevolent” treatment of their slaves…
🙂
Imagine how different things would be if it were the global oil companies who were pushing wind mills. There wouldn’t be one within a thousand miles of anywhere.
Just goes to show the power of the greenie movement.
This is just another example of goofy legislation affecting those who work and live in the country, which can be guaranteed whenever there is an urban leftie/loony/liberal ‘elite’ in power.
The latter love to crusade/legislate for something about which they have no understanding, as long as it sounds green and/or supposedly protects something, which doesn’t need protecting. Recent examples are dandelions in Ontario and foxes in Britain.
It is clear to these urban dwellers that farmers have no idea how to work and look after the land and that is why they urgently need the politicians’ guidance on these matters.
Climate change is no different, the less a politician understands about science, the more likely he, or she, is to support AGW, just because it sounds green and supposedly protects something.
John Van Krimpen.
I write this purely from an interest point of view.
Firstly, the green movement has been doing similar stuff through EP legislation for decades. So farmer moaning woe is me it’s only raining on me is emo self interest not that there is anything wrong with that, but building codes and manufacturing standards for Industry have been getting more and more onerous for more than two decades.
Secondly, farmer and grazing groups all Ag Allied industry, have been having a two bob sly bet, laying off looking for carbon dollars, for every ag industrialist bemoaning Kyoto, their whole representational system, including politicains has been laying off looking for carbon dollars. Please believe there is more than enough blame to share all round.
These are not unjust criticisms, on this blog NASA the Physics Guild and the Royal Society get much needed bumkicken, Banks and the big end of town similarly, but where do Ag guild and political reps get their bums needfully kicked playing both sides of the Paddock line.
Kyoto was over when Australia signed, so the issue was Australian legislation crept quietly into place, in decades previous.
For the those noble souls, who seek legally to counter this, one of the first properties I financed as a lending banker in 1994 was naked land ie native, grass and timber, I said to the farmer in case in point, get yer matches and chains out and stick rake going, get it into production and keep it there. Ag knew this stuff was coming. There is no such thing as money for nothing.
I had just come from sme business banking in 1994 where the EP stuff was already causing business havoc. People have been playing sand castles, moving their sand castles backwards for over two decades against the green creeping death by socialism I know about and most it pre CAGW rubbish. I used to read finance proposals from all over Brisbane and this EP stuff was red hot then and killing deals everywhere.
Having said all the above I have met Landowners who treat their land better than any suburban green activist. On properties the size of large cities.
And yes Alice, I am the one who challenged in science, saying as a skeptic onus for proof belongs to you Anti scientists in the CAGW, your models/projections don’t work.
I do believe I said that to one Gavin of NASA infamy.
For gods sake…. is it not obvious everything that David Archibald and DR Svensmark have said has come to pass in the last year. There vhas been a massive increase in middle cloud formation with consequent increased precipitation everywhere (where it usually rains/snows), lets check the data at the end of year…I hope that these persons will be honored with the real Nobel prize one day (including WUWT) for persisting. BTW back in Australia massively below average temps here in queensland its like winter! So is it global cooling or warming LOL.
OT
Ed Rollins on CNN just said, “The Snow is Too Dam High Party”, may be the next political party. I liked that. They were discussing The Rent is too dam high party. Anyway, that sounds like the fake party the WUWT community should start.
The Rent Is Too Damn High Party’s Jimmy McMillan at the NY Governor Debate
I completed reading “Atlas Shrugged” last week. I don’t know how I missed reading it all these years. It is an eye-opening philosophy. I now see looters and mouchers more clearly than ever before, although I have clearly seen them in the environmental movement for a long time. The AGW crowd are first tier looters who are filling their fat pockets at the expense of everyone in the world with no significant benefit.
It is really shameful that they have been allowed to get away with the corruption of science and loot the treasury.
I hear a lot of people here complaining about politics, and yes our leaders are idiots who inhabit an office that has also attracted idiots to the position because no smart person or even likely moral person would want the responsibility that comes with these jobs. So over 30-4o years we get garbage in our white house, our house, and all over the world as the bottom feeders and figurative vampires are drawn to positions of power like moths to a lightbulb.
The solution is easy, the tea party movement in the US for instance should be a stepping stone for the next step. Instead of a loose confederation that has a narrow intent such as the tea party, we really need to wake up and the smart people need to take the plunge and get into politics. Its a dog eat dog world, but the sooner we take responsibility for it, the better it will get.
I by no means am a tea partier or a member, but this does not mean this is a system that can not over-come the hurdles that are put out to discourage this. Choose good people to run for the smaller positions, and run them into the respective parties. In the US, infilitrate both parties with people who have a good head on their shoulders and slowly re-make politics into a true game where both parties are sane and logical.
Think this is impossible? Well most people thought the tea party was impossible to win, and although it did suffer its lumps, it did prove the true strength of genuine grass-roots movements and the power they can have.
It is not about protesting as much as getting a platform, an agenda and going from there. We need to cut the fat from each of our countries and truly strive for common sense and logic in our rulers. Kyoto is going down the drain, and as much as I agree it killed people and the people who got the countries into it on bad science should be held accountable for it, we need to move on as people and realize that the only person who can make a difference is yourself.
Remember JFK, “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” I agree with most of you, but simply wishing that government stops being stupid won’t happen until you run that gauntlet and get yourself involved. Win or lose, you put positions into the mainstream and they will have to be seen. As we saw from the global warming bologne, its up to the smarter people to take an interest in politics.
If you can’t get involved, simple letter writing can make a load of differences. I started writing to my representatives shortly after climate-gate and have been sending snail mail and emails almost weekly just to get the idea through that there are people who did not drink the kool-aid. Lots of people think it was the republicans we have to thank for cap and trade not going through. That is horse$*#&. If the democrats had not killed it themselves, we would have it today. Write letters to all of your representatives and get involved. I for one have seen a marked difference in the responses just over a year…and I bet if everyone started getting involved it would make even more of a difference.
I have sympathy for the Australian farmers, but they are not getting involved like they need to. The Government works differently, but the second you start getting letters from all sorts of concerned citizens, that is when politicians see their jobs being threatened. This is the kind of citizen/grassroots activism which works and its the only thing that us global warming sceptics have since the MSM + all political parties don’t care a dime for us. Get out there and make a difference.
I still got me two bob on the Sun. Biggest variable, the whole solar system rotates around the variable stat we know as the sun.
It’s up to boffin boyos to bring me money home. Oi oi oi.
When all the man hours of implementing the Kyoto Protocol are added up as well as the lost productive hours to the scheme; It will add up to thousands of lifetimes lost.
Here’s a fun Freudian slip: Dan Harris, on ABC’s Nightline (Wednesday, December 22), with the help of AGW alarmist Michael Oppenheimer, ridiculed videos of skeptics Piers Corbyn and Dr. Fred Singer.
Here is the quote that betrays the mind of the liberal / greenie:
HARRIS: Corbyn’s methods are, to say the least, unorthodox. He forecasts based on the magnetic connection between the sun and the earth.
orthodox –adjective
1. of, pertaining to, or conforming to the approved form of any doctrine, philosophy, ideology, etc.
2. of, pertaining to, or conforming to beliefs, attitudes, or modes of conduct that are generally approved.
3. customary or conventional, as a means or method; established.
4. sound or correct in opinion or doctrine, esp. theological or religious doctrine.
5. conforming to the Christian faith as represented in the creeds of the early church.
It’s the (choose one or more)
Church of Global Warming
Church of Climate Change
Church of Climate Dysfunction
Ben D. says: wrote
December 28, 2010 at 4:39 pm
I’m with you brother. I’ve been active since 2007 in many ways. I’m slowing down now but there are more people out there whom have awoken than you think. I like to think I have trained them well. If I skip a beat, I’m sure others will take up the slack.
PlainJane says:
December 28, 2010 at 2:15 pm
good post Jane – I have a farmer friend who cleared some land to grow grass seed that he sells to Dubai for their dairy industry.
A local greenie dobbed him in and he was fined $10,000 and he is not allowed to do anything on his property without permission from the land and environment department!! BTW nearly half of his land is plantation timber.
The local farmers are very very angry, they all attended the Peter Spenser meetings that went on around the country, they were ready to drive to Griffith to support their mates over the MDB BS if nothing was done. One day there’s going to be a huge backlash against the greens believe me.
the main problem in australia is where too laid back where letting the green leftys run over us, we will wake up when it is too late
Kyotoism only succeeded in enriching the UN bureaucrats and rich governments who succeeded in slamming various new environmental regulations and regulatory fees, new energy taxes, they created new bureaucracies and wined and dined in frequent global climate meetings.
Ruth Bonnet makes up
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palpable that they do not dare speak to journalists, for fear of enraging the omniscient, the all powerful, the all seeing, the all knowing, the United Nations.
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Ruth Bonnet the urbanite Ayn Rand junkie reckons that:
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Soil erosion is caused by the inability to clear regrowth.
————
Hmmm. So growing plants cause the land to be clear of plants???????
While I agree that farmers in Australia have been unfairly targeted by environmental legislation written by people who don’t know what they are talking about, the Ayn Rand approach would not be supported by the vast majority of them. Australian farmers have been advocates of agrarian socialism for more than 100 years – recipients of government largesse in many forms. Drought assistance, flood assistance, tax breaks, subsidies, publicly funded R&D, services (such as telecommunications, health and education) provided free or below cost and cross subsidised by city people, etc, etc.
As a PP said, they and their lobbyists are experts at playing both sides of the fence. They have always tried to capitalise their profits and socialise their losses. From what I hear, farmers in other parts of the world are not spotlessly pure in this regard either.
So, I do think the ‘get your thieving hands off my property’ crowd are being disingenuous, and if the cross subsidies and benefits were withdrawn the squeals from the broader farming community would be heard in the Antarctic.
The very reasonable complaints about the legislative burdens imposed by ideology driven ignoramuses would get a much more sympathetic hearing from the wider (and more numerous) community outside the agricultural sector if some advocates did not wrap it up in another form of extremism.
Sam Hall says:
December 28, 2010 at 1:33 pm
[ youtube video]
=============================================================
At the end of the video, in a plea for support, there was an absolutely frightening phrase: “our future is your future.”
For those of us in the U.S., I realized that their “present” is our very near “future” unless this AGW craziness is brought to a halt very quickly. I have never been politically active, but that is going to change.
The mother load of Australian Environmental Law:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/epabca1999588/
and, Agenda 21 in Australian Law:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/nepca1994432/sch1.html
johanna, the folks who would squeal would be the folks who buy cheap food at the super markets. If we were allowed to price out raw products according to market values and livable wages, all without subsidies, the price of food would rise considerably. You enjoy the price of food because of subsidies.
Were subsidies to be lifted I would be able to farm as I see fit, and price as I see fit. You would not find me whining one bit, but the folks at the check-out counter would be crying all the way home. There would be no money left over for buying wants anymore.
“Soil Erosion caused by inability to clear regrowth”
I don’t understand why clearing regrowth would prevent soil erosion.
Pamela Gray said:
Were subsidies to be lifted I would be able to farm as I see fit, and price as I see fit. You would not find me whining one bit, but the folks at the check-out counter would be crying all the way home. There would be no money left over for buying wants anymore.
——————————————————————————–
Not in Australia, Pamela. Most of our farm produce is exported.
Farmers selling into local markets typically get a price which is less than 50%, usually more like 25%, of the retail price. The largest cost components are off farm. But, your line is one that is frequently mined by rent seekers in the agricultural sector.
LazyTeenager says:
December 28, 2010 at 5:40 pm
Ruth Bonnet the urbanite Ayn Rand junkie reckons that:
————
Soil erosion is caused by the inability to clear regrowth.
————
Hmmm. So growing plants cause the land to be clear of plants???????
——————————————-
LazyTeenager. Ever been to the outback digger?
From the Australian Labor Party!
http://www.alp.org.au/agenda/more—policies/carbon-farming-initiative/
Lucrative? For those with connections to organized crime and/or the governments handing out the credits, sure. [Sorry, but there is still a (technical?) distinction between the two.]
Heh. “Lucrative” trading in credits for “filthy” carbon. Filthy lucre indeed.
Note: That wasn’t me, it was Labor on their website that left out the space between “new” and “Carbon.” Really gives you confidence in how well they’ll manage their carbon
dioxidemanagement scheme.[PS: I hope that link (attempted in two places) comes through with those two dashes in the address. Come on WordPress, don’t screw up both instances…]
“To restrict technology would require omniscience – a total knowledge of all the possible effects and consequences of a given development, for all of the potential innovators of the future. Short of such omniscience, restrictions mean an attempt to regulate the unknown, to limit the unborn and to set rules for the undiscovered, and more: an active mind will not function by permission; an inventor will not spend years of struggle dedicated to an excruciating work, if the fate of his work depends not on the criterion of demonstrable truth, but on the arbitrary decision of some authority.” Ayn Rand
That say’s it all does’nt it?
“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule” HL Mencken
So true
Hide the Decline has nailed it with the links! For more informed commentary from bloggers here, you need to peruse those links.
Pine forest country in Australia, has massive soil errosion. The trees themselves all but halt grasses growth.
The root system of the pine trees, coupled with less sunlight through some extremely thick areas prevents grasses from establishing, much less spreading.
Where country has been selectively cleared, pasture improvement (native and non native species) there is rapid growth, with robust plants holding the soil intact, and most certainly the reduction of soil erosion is evident.
This is not to say that timber lines, shade belts, wind breaks are not left – they are.
Where landowners are permitted on their own land – that they paid for – to manage portions of their property, there is huge success in erosion, massive biodiversity.
Where the government has taken away farmers private property rights, and implemented legislation – the government has killed the bio- diversity, and caused much damage by erosion.
I know – thats my properties picture up there!
[Snip – Victim of the PC brigade. ~ Evan]
This thing called agrarian socialism is a nonsense, all Industries fight for themselves. Every Industry looks for rent seeking of some sort. Each and everyone is looking for angles.
On standard of living issues, it’s just people standing up for some kind of standard of living equality in Australia, not agrarian socialism. Don’t confuse diesel rebate with drought subsidy. I consider diesel or fuel rebate probably fair. It is cost of input issue and real life issue. More than just landowners at play, lot of people. With heave reliance on transport and no npublic transport to mention. Life line issue.
Don’t compare rich cockies with brand new Toyoter taxis, with a lot of Industry just breaking even, on the average 5 years.
The people I met who were not getting Drought assistance were the best in the business going round. The other’s practices for what ever reasons and they are many not so good. Everyone has a pet peeve, when it comes down to income support.
I never did have a sufficient answer on drought assistance and some heavy weights asked me to consider. As for farm gate inequity, yer that exists. No matter how the super market chains play the farm angle in their cozy sales messages. An apple at 3 cents sold for 25 cents. Hmmm don’t take Albert Walkerstein to strain his brain, somethings wrong sonyer.
I used to make decisions on Drought assistance. It’s a bit more complicated than elite arguments on socialism and capitalism. Try 10 years of drought when the only input that matters water, just is not there. That is why they use drought in every Carbon con message.
So put down the daggers ladies. Before you have unintended consequences. We are a long way from a debate on the great Carbon con, or fight if yer like, [snip]
Me I am just looking at a Ponzi pyramid con.
LOL. Ayn Rand is to philosophy as Bill McKibben is to science.
Nice try, though.
Perhaps the Labor goverment could spread the pain of Kyoto more evenly throughout the general community by banning every third unionist from driving their cars, heating their houses or cooking their food.
@Lazy Teenager – I visited a cattle station – in areas where the regrowth had been left undisturbed, the regrowth eventually grows into trees, which block the sunlight and eventually kill the grass on the ground around the grown-up regrowth. Grass has a special fine root system which holds soil in place. Once the grass dies, the soil is free to flow whenever the rains come down. Soil erosion can be a serious problem, and from what I have seen with my own eyes, soil erosion can be caused by Vegetation Control Legislation which restricts a farmer from clearing regrowth.
Perhaps you could read the submissions made to the Senate Enquiry. Hundreds of farmers responded to the Enqiry.
http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/fapa_ctte/climate_change/submissions.htm
LazyTeenager said on December 28, 2010 at 5:40 pm:
Wow, with reading comprehension skills like that you’ll be sure to ace your SAT’s.
Haven’t you learned enough yet about the potential connections between agriculture and soil erosion? Here, consider this a primer, courtesy of Wikipedia.
—————
From Jeff Alberts on December 28, 2010 at 7:52 pm:
Depends on what regrew. There are many agricultural techniques to fight erosion, like land contouring and the planting of winter crops instead of leaving the land bare after the fall harvest. The regulations mentioned in the article, on paper, are to protect “Native Vegetation,” see here: Native Vegetation Council of South Australia.
“Native vegetation” may be a less-effective soil retainer compared to other available plant life. After harvest on cultivated land, you’d need something that grows and establishes a dense root system quickly, before the cold weather sets in. For plant life that can be there all year, on ground surrounding cultivated areas and elsewhere, other plants than “native vegetation” may be more suitable. Both cases may involve clearing away “native vegetation,” which could be regrowth on previously-cleared ground. Land contouring may definitely involve the clearing away of “native vegetation” that may or may not be regrowth, and may or may not involve land that was previously cleared.
I hope this explains how not clearing regrowth can possibly be a problem, even though what I mentioned may not exactly be what’s complained about above.
Note: I’m using quote marks for “native vegetation” to allow for expected eco-silliness involving species that did not evolve there (aren’t truly native) but somehow ended up in Australia, might have been declared different enough to be classified a unique Australian species (even when shown to be genetically identically to one native to somewhere else), and otherwise wound up being declared “native” in a logic-defying spate of “naturalist” “bio-diversity” nuttiness.
The “green” laws in AU were directly responsible for 173 deaths in February 2009 during the infamous Black Saturday fires. Landowners were prevented from clearing brush around their properties, fueling the disastrous fires. Some recommended reading:
http://westinstenv.org/sosf/2009/02/08/fuelish-in-the-land-of-oz/
http://westinstenv.org/sosf/2009/02/11/black-saturday-the-sequel/
http://westinstenv.org/sosf/2009/02/11/environmental-policies-kill-again/
http://westinstenv.org/sosf/2009/02/11/green-ideas-must-take-blame-for-deaths/
http://westinstenv.org/sosf/2009/02/11/prescribed-fire-hampered-by-aussie-greens/
http://westinstenv.org/sosf/2009/02/12/time-to-heed-the-warnings/
http://westinstenv.org/sosf/2009/02/13/policy-critics-predicted-inevitable-mega-fires/
http://westinstenv.org/sosf/2009/02/23/a-mournful-day/
http://westinstenv.org/sosf/2009/02/27/victoria-bushfires-stoked-by-green-vote/
johanna says:
December 28, 2010 at 5:47 pm
While I agree that farmers in Australia have been unfairly targeted by environmental legislation written by people who don’t know what they are talking about, the Ayn Rand approach would not be supported by the vast majority of them. Australian farmers have been advocates of agrarian socialism for more than 100 years – recipients of government largesse in many forms. Drought assistance, flood assistance, tax breaks, subsidies, publicly funded R&D, services (such as telecommunications, health and education) provided free or below cost and cross subsidised by city people, etc, etc.
As a PP said, they and their lobbyists are experts at playing both sides of the fence. They have always tried to capitalise their profits and socialise their losses. From what I hear, farmers in other parts of the world are not spotlessly pure in this regard either.
So, I do think the ‘get your thieving hands off my property’ crowd are being disingenuous, and if the cross subsidies and benefits were withdrawn the squeals from the broader farming community would be heard in the Antarctic.
The very reasonable complaints about the legislative burdens imposed by ideology driven ignoramuses would get a much more sympathetic hearing from the wider (and more numerous) community outside the agricultural sector if some advocates did not wrap it up in another form of extremism.
—————————————————————————————I am sorry, but where the hell do you get those ideas from?
Is it extreme to have your family told they will be burnt out in the middle of the night? Is it extreme to have helicopter fly over your children on horses, only to have your child dragged through a rocky creek side?
Is it extreme to be threatened by government employees that wield legislation as weapons at your family?
Oh, by the way – its all documented and eye witnesses!
I am one of the “Get your hands off my property” and never ever, received help! I am “screaming” for humanitarian rights – how about you?
I note that you tend to acknowledge a problem with the legislation, thats nice.
Further though Australia is in such a mess in needs to keep its money at home and look after Australians, then when it is in a much stronger financial position to maintain financial assistance abroad, then that is what should be done.
If that means helping to correct legislation, or subsidise business then that is what should be done to protect Australia’s interests first – till they become self sufficient again.
Kyoto means loss of rights – a bit like a “welcome to the party for total control of private property”.
Ayn Rand is part of the problem, not part of the solution. To see psuedo-intellectualism given such a prominent spot is unfortunate. Bury her in a dollar bill and move on, it is clear where her real concerns lie. Science can answer the absurdities that her position entails, but I’ll quote the Bible to show how long her position has been held in contempt, and in what company those who contempt it are.
Matthew 6:24
@Dave F: Ayn Rand used the dollar symbol as a ‘logo’ not for the love of money, but for the love of a free and unfettered market. I agree that the LOVE of money is the root of all evil, but money in and of itself is not evil. An fair and honest profit should be the result of an unhindered free market economy. I cite the case of the GFC, the direct result of too much Government interference in the banking business. Over to you. And thank you I had to pick up my Bible again just to find the Chapter and Verse.
Mike D. says:
December 28, 2010 at 10:36 pm
The “green” laws in AU were directly responsible for 173 deaths in February 2009 during the infamous Black Saturday fires. Landowners were prevented from clearing brush around their properties, fueling the disastrous fires …
————————————————————————-
Using people tragically killed in bushfires as pawns in this kind of discussion is pretty low. And, it is absurd to suggest that the laws were the only factor (although they didn’t help matters). Devastating bushfires have killed large numbers of people long before the laws came into effect. As someone who witnessed the 2005 fires near Canberra, I can assure you that a 30m high firestorm driven by hot winds leaps across cleared country in seconds.
Fighting Spirit said:
I am one of the “Get your hands off my property” and never ever, received help! I am “screaming” for humanitarian rights – how about you?
I note that you tend to acknowledge a problem with the legislation, thats nice.
Further though Australia is in such a mess in needs to keep its money at home and look after Australians, then when it is in a much stronger financial position to maintain financial assistance abroad, then that is what should be done.
If that means helping to correct legislation, or subsidise business then that is what should be done to protect Australia’s interests first – till they become self sufficient again.
——————————————————————————
Yep, get your hands off my property and subsidise business – that’s good old Aussie agrarian socialism in a nutshell. Oh, and we have never been ‘self sufficient’, and a good thing too – our standard of living would be much lower than it is now. I think you will find that rural exporters would be aghast at the idea of closing the borders. Or, do you expect other countries to accept our goods while we refuse to buy theirs?
I suggest we try to stick to the logic of the discussion – that AGW has been an excuse for all sorts of stupid and oppressive legislation. People in cities have also been forced to build houses a particular way, pay higher power prices etc because of this nonsense. Surely, that is the issue here.
Your right Johanna. wtf would i know… you’d make a good bureaucrat, can manipulate anything.
I wrote,
“I am one of the “Get your hands off my property” and never ever, received help! I am “screaming” for humanitarian rights – how about you?
I note that you tend to acknowledge a problem with the legislation, thats nice.
Further though Australia is in such a mess in needs to keep its money at home and look after Australians, then when it is in a much stronger financial position to maintain financial assistance abroad, then that is what should be done.
If that means helping to correct legislation, or subsidise business then that is what should be done to protect Australia’s interests first – till they become self sufficient again.
Kyoto means loss of rights – a bit like a “welcome to the party for total control of private property”.”
Yes “till they become self sufficient” – meaning the individual business’s – you know, recover from drought, floods fire – GFC . And change legislation eg Native Vegetation and give back property rights!
Um, who said anything about stopping import exports????
Do you mean this that I wrote,
“Further though Australia is in such a mess in needs to keep its money at home and look after Australians, then when it is in a much stronger financial position to maintain financial assistance abroad, then that is what should be done.
If that means helping to correct legislation, or subsidise business then that is what should be done to protect Australia’s interests first – till they become self sufficient again.
Kyoto means loss of rights – a bit like a “welcome to the party for total control of private property”.”
Let see..”stronger financial position to maintain financial assistance abroad, then that is what should be done.” you know, like giving millions to oh i dont know, Indonesia to develop their cattle industry? OR aid in general? But nothing about imports exports???!!!!
Is it just AGW you see as the problem, or is it a totally green driven bureaucracy – a green agenda out of control – but yet so much control over our law and lawmakers bow down to them that started many many decades ago, before AGW become “fashionable” ?
Mike D – spot on you are right re bush fires – oh, Native Veg laws, (Sorry Johanna- sticking to the article – do you like my pictures?)
well hell, now hows the govt gunna charge mother nature for clearing all the native plants in the floods were having right now?
tsk tsk, no one they can rip off it seems, …yet!
some CSIRO goon was on ABC radio in a sound bite saying that we will now have maybe? a decade of cold and wet but thats still due to warming dontcha know..
and to the above who think our farmers are subsidised?
no they arent, unlike the USA WE pay 50% TAX on our fuel, so the pittance the farmers get back still doesnt cover what the govt rips us off for.
and unlike europe and use they do NOT pay us not to plant, or pay subsidies to plant certain crops, ie the GM Corn/soy.
without those little or not so little payments it would be a losing plan to plant them.
look up Leon Ashby on youtube, he shows what GOOD land management did for his land, and the idiot govt banned his land saving methods. another smart and caring farmer off his land. or the brilliant Keyline water harvesting methods, well theyre now illegal, dams in a drought prone land, no not allowed! or Proven land and water reclamation by Peter Andrew natural sequence farming, also slammed by the green fools.
while farmers battle drought ,locusts, floods and manipulated markets, insane rip offs for PVR and GM and all the approved chem,controlling the silos and mandating what variety you will grow or they wont buy… the end sellers are doing fine while sucking the lifeblood of the farmers and their families. see the big 2!! monopoly buyers of produce doing very well indeed while the producers battle ever increasing stupidity rules and regs that make life harder and increase costs.
and fools like Burke in Vic and Redman in WA are assisting the demise.
Ayn Rand would have agreed with the AGW-hypothesis, elementary physics as it is. She would have disagreed with a number of ideas to counteract AGW. Which is an entirely different subject.
White House plans push Global Warming Policy, GOP vows fight back
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/28/white-house-plans-push-global-warming-policy-gop-vows-fight/
Really?
Not according to this article:
GOP set to wimp out on EPA
http://greenhellblog.com/2010/12/28/gop-all-set-to-wimp-out-on-epa/
It looks like the American Public is screwed by the Dems and the GOP.
A political establishment of TRAITORS.
Ayn Rand! Semi literate, sexual predator, author of two of the longest and worst novels ever written along with short tracts which showed her total inability to read and understand any philosophers. Why anyone would think of her as a philosopher? And we are supposed to extrapolate from this total kook’s view of life literature and philosophy to conclusions about environmentalism and global warming? Spare us!
“I hope this explains how not clearing regrowth can possibly be a problem, even though what I mentioned may not exactly be what’s complained about above.”
No I still don’t see it. Soil erosion and plant regrowth are completely natural processes. The explanations I’m seeing are that “trees are bad, grass is good.”
And someone mentioned erosion from leaving farmland unplanted. Well the photo doesn’t seem to represent farmland.
I can understand keeping brush growth clear of homes to prevent fires and fire damage, but this doesn’t seem to be the argument.
Global warming advocate methods are in opposition to their goals of redistribution of wealth from the first world to the third world. They are in opposition to industrial, mining and farming production and want to distribute the money from the very production they oppose to the third world.
They who have produced nothing see themselves as the gifted ones to determine the direction of mankind as though it is created in their image. If they have their way our lack of wealth will be.
I’m a bit perplexed by my critics above.
Foreign aid has nothing to do with AGW alarmism, and stupid laws that affect farmers. Suggesting that we should be ‘self sufficient’ and do whatever it takes, including subsidising business (paid for by whom?) has nothing to do with it either.
The bushfire management issue is by no means cut across left/right (or green) lines. Some people regarded as ‘left’ cite the use by Aboriginal people of regular burning to clear land and reduce the risk of catastrophic fires as a model we should follow.
In a country full of eucalypts, which explode in a big fire, a lot of it is academic once the fire is well underway.
Ayn Rand would never get more than 15% of the vote in a country area, if she was honest about abolishing all perks for the locals.
And, while many of the laws are unreasonable, old style conservationists do remember the devastation that was caused by overstocking and land clearance by farmers in the past. Like modern companies, they ripped out the profits and then walked away, leaving a wasteland of erosion and salinity. While modern farmers are much more sensible, the attitudes that shaped some of this legislation come from our history. It is just plain dishonest to deny that farming practices in the past (and we are talking about farms the size of a small European country here) were so bad that they were sitting ducks for the rising environmental movement.
A bit of perspective, and again, focus on AGW driven nonsense, is what is needed here.
RR Kampen says:
December 29, 2010 at 5:44 am
“Ayn Rand would have agreed with the AGW-hypothesis, elementary physics as it is. ”
And which bit of the AGW-hypothesis is elementary physics?
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
December 28, 2010 at 3:49 pm
From Jim G on December 28, 2010 at 3:07 pm:
One of the old Greeks; Plato, Socrates or one of their contemporaries felt that benevolent dictatorship was the way to go.
“The government of China concurs. Indeed, if you examine what the ancient Greeks considered their “benevolent” treatment of their slaves…
:-)”
Someone once said, “People get the government they deserve”. If you don’t fight back you don’t get much. In terms of fuctionality, though, the Chinese government is doing pretty well economically while we are not. They LOWERED taxes while we tried to raise them and actually have raised them if the obamacare goes into effect with all of its hidden taxes. Cap and Trade is just another tax that will redistribute income to those favored by the administration. And I would point out that the Chinese are now much more facist than communist in form with free enterprise and strong government controls at the same time. Benevolence is in the eye of the beholder and depends a great deal upon you frame of reference. Facism, when it is working, gets the trains running on time and the industrial output up while not allowing mistreatment of the working man. It worked that way in Itally long before the Third Reich got involved. Old Benito was well loved by the vast majority of non-communists right up to the end.
Bottom line, you get the government you deserve. Those who trade freedom for security get neither.
Capn Jack Walker says:
December 28, 2010 at 9:50 pm
[Snip – Victim of the PC brigade. ~ Evan]
Once we get rid of this global warming nonsense can we all make a start on getting rid of political bloody correctness?
Fortunately, eons ago, it was signed the World Protocol, which supersedes any other and where Nature has the ultimate control. Right now it has began to fix things up. It is like when one feels a bit bad, after holidays and decides to take a purgative…. 🙂
Or it is like a kind of Gaia’s Blog, where she has a moderators’ team: Earthquake, Storm, Blizzard, etc.
Jeff Alberts @ Dec 29, 2010 at 7:43am
“No I still don’t see it. Soil erosion and plant regrowth are completely natural processes. The explanations I’m seeing are that “trees are bad, grass is good.”
The situation where soil erosion due to clearing bans occurs not in cropping farmlands but in grazing once cemi open woodlands where due to regulation the property owner is unable to manage the natural processes of plant regrowth & soil erosion.
It is no by no means as simplitic as “seeing are that “trees are bad, grass is good.” There is an environmental problem in these landscapes called tree thickening whereby trees regrowing in thickets choke out grass & cause a loss of bio-diversity. Remember vegetation is not just trees but also grasses; the health of a landscape must not be measured by the increase by the most dominate feature (trees), but by the diversity of the many different spiecies of plant, animal & insect life.
The erosion is caused by trees unable to hold the soil together on their own without the help of an understory of grasses with their more extensive network of root system close to the surface of the soil.
Natural landscapes are complex & greatly varied; the complexity & the reality of these landscapes are beyond this short explanation.
Dear Johanna,
Your responses to my posting of articles about Black Saturday is rather egocentric IMHO. I wasn’t referring to your comments at all. But since you chose to take it all so personally, and politically I might add, can you please inform us about your expertise in bush fire science?
I am happy to inform you that the Western Institute for Study of the Environment has posted numerous scientific papers regarding fire in Australia. Among them is the following, written and posted prior to the February 2009 disasters
Roger Underwood, David Packham, and Phil Cheney. 2008. Bushfires, Prescribed Burning, and Global Warming. Bushfire Front Inc. Occasional Paper No 1, April 2008 [here]
http://westinstenv.org/ffsci/2009/04/02/bushfires-prescribed-burning-and-global-warming/
The victims of Black Saturday blame green laws, based on invalid pseudo-scientific assertions, that banned fuels management on private as well as public lands. Those bans were directly related to Kyoto. The Black Saturday fires were predicted and preventable, but Aussie greens imposed tragically stupid laws that led to mass deaths.
I’m sorry that you cannot see that, for whatever reasons. Try to comprehend the Big Picture for a change.
Reading all these posts, especially from you Aussies (God bless you all), I think that what is needed in remedying the injustices of the vegetation and other environmental laws that adversely affect farmers is a sense of perspective. How much do we need to promote an ideal of environmental “pristineness” and areas of unlimited vegetation as a priority over and above what we need our farmers to produce economically and well in order to feed the rest of us? I think the farm subsidy arguments miss this fundamental point. Attacking farmers for accepting farm subsidies assumes that they should automatically accept any and all government conditions in exchange. I think that misses the boat, even though I am also quite critical of our farm subsidy programs in the United States.
The real issue is how far do we go to protect environment in general, and not some fancy, abstract, and scientifically untrue notion of what our environment should be like. The post gives us a real world example of what logical extremes our leadership elites can take this to when they promote an ideal that is in fact fiction.
Mike D. says:
December 29, 2010 at 1:59 pm
“The victims of Black Saturday blame green laws, based on invalid pseudo-scientific assertions, that banned fuels management on private as well as public lands. Those bans were directly related to Kyoto. The Black Saturday fires were predicted and preventable, but Aussie greens imposed tragically stupid laws that led to mass deaths.”
Fires are predicted every year, and no matter what measures are taken they will never be preventable.
The laws were imposed by the Howard Government not the Greens. Hardly a product of the Socialist Urban Left, if such a thing actually exists.
Read this to get some detail on how they went about bludgeoning State Governments into submission.
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/fapa_ctte/climate_change/report/d01.htm
The current Government are reviewing the legislation and the Senate Committee has made some recommendations.
Recommendation 1
5.23 The committee recommends that COAG re-examine the native vegetation legislation and its 2006 recommendations with a view to establishing a balance between maximising agricultural production and best practice conservation.
Recommendation 2
5.24 The committee recommends that the Commonwealth initiate, through the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council, a national review to assess the impact of various native vegetation legislative and regulatory regimes, particularly those at the state level. In undertaking such a review, the following issues should be specifically addressed:
* the liability of landholders complying with native vegetation laws for the payment of rates or taxes for land that is not available for productive use;
* the right of landholders to manage competing environmental objectives over land where restrictions have been imposed, for example the management of noxious weeds and pests in protected native vegetation areas;
* the institution of inexpensive, accessible, timely and independent administrative appeals processes against decisions of enforcement agencies or officials regarding the granting of permits or institution of regulatory regimes over private land;
* the application of statewide regulations where there are distinct and notable variations in both the environmental conditions and objectives across regions within states;
* the burden of these laws on newer farming areas and communities as opposed to more established ones; and,
* the imposition of caveats by state authorities which prevent or restrict the existing use of land when converting title from leasehold to freehold.
5.25 Where the imposition or outcomes of respective native vegetation legislation impacts the provisions of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, the Commonwealth will be responsible then to investigate.
5.26 The committee recognises the need for action across all jurisdictions in relation to stewardship initiatives. Towards this objective, it appreciates that a shift in the approach away from regulation to that of stewardship implies reorienting the focus of the relationship between landholder, land and government.
5.27 Whilst evidence before the committee emphasised the need to dismantle the regulatory framework, the committee recognises that to work effectively, stewardship initiatives require extensive consultation and collaboration.
Recommendation 3
5.28 The committee recommends a review of best practice in relation to stewardship initiatives across the country with a view to re-orienting future regulatory activities.
You can read the whole thing here, and even the Greens have their say.
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/fapa_ctte/climate_change/report/index.htm
The “uncontested absurdity” of farmers wall to wall clearing, repeated ad nauseum, is now accepted urban folklore as has been demonstrated on this thread. That farmers lost $billions in equity is incontestable. The largest individual documented loss brought to Property Rights Australia’s notice is approximately $10million.
The activities of extreme environmental activists in the Qld State Govt bureaucracy operating to their own agendas almost without supervision amount to Sovereign Risk.
A legal academic, Ray Purdie, a Senior Research Fellow in Law and Deputy Director of the Centre for Law and the Environment at the University College London, recently published a 200 page report on his investigation of a world first in draconian environmental law-making in Qld. Evidence from satellite imagery without ground truthing is now permitted in prosecuting suspected clearing offences. Reversing the onus of proof has made this evidence almost incontestable.
The Qld Vegetation Acts are so draconian they make us pariahs amongst nations using our system of justice.
Property Rights Australia thanks Ruth Bonnett for giving some of the reasons people quietly weep at public gatherings. Anthony Watts on his recent Australian tour sat in on part of the PRA conference. His spontaneous reaction was, “If ever there was a reason for civil disobedience, this is it.”
From Jim G on December 29, 2010 at 10:35 am:
I’ve come to believe, in a rather non-politically correct fashion, that individuality has been largely bred out of certain Asian populations. There were many centuries, millenia, where conformity was a survival trait. Those wanting to express themselves as individuals came in two versions, those getting their heads chopped off and those involved in the chopping. Those in power were those wanting to be in power, with managerial competence not exactly a primary job requirement, ruling over a population of serfs expecting to be led. Even among those in charge there was a high degree of conformity, obedience to superiors.
Thus China being indefinitely stuck with strong authoritarian governments is not surprising, with the current Chinese government being yet another example of sheep control, keeping them fed and warm to the minimum required while using whatever measures are needed to keep the flock together, away from what might (in authority’s opinion) spook them. And as with sheep herd management, if they have to keep shearing the flock, with some falling to the butcher’s knife, so the masters have good food on their table, well, they’re okay with that.
Really, the average Chinese peasant still lives a life comparable to a foraging sheep wandering the hillsides. We send out many billions of dollars in foreign aid, public and private, to impoverished Africans and other nationalities who arguably have at least a marginally better standard of living. Humanitarian-wise, if it involved anywhere other than China, the charges of institutionalized slavery would be quite loud, with economic sanctions highly possible due to government complicity and participation. No wonder the Chinese government so fears the internet, and the better life elsewhere that it reveals. Heck, they even banned all English words and abbreviations from Chinese publications.
Europe had a large amount of serfdom, but also harsh conditions where individuality aided survival, with a promoting of tribal life (groups of cooperating individuals). Those who came and still come to the New World, the US, have strong streaks of individualism. China’s current economic might is basically built on slavery, their ability to manage sheep. They have tried to extend that control, with gambits involving buying debt (rather than caring for their people) and restricting rare earth exports. Much to their chagrin, they have discovered that elsewhere there is a different breed of human. When it comes down to it, we are revealed as not herds of sheep, but packs of wolves. We fight amongst ourselves for territory, food. We do not respond well to being contained to a certain area, or attempts to keep us from whatever prey we desire.
We are also smart wolves, and know what will happen when China switches from trying to manage us like sheep to controlling us as wolves. Did you notice the recent headlines on Drudge, how China is rushing the deployment of at least one aircraft carrier, and a carrier-destroying missile? Apparently someone thinks some more military might may soon be required…
There is absolutely no doubt that the Vegetation Laws in all states of Australia have disadvantaged landowners.
The Australian Government instituted Productivity Commission found in 2004 that private individuals were paying for public benefit.
A Senate Inquiry in 2010 into the Vegetation Laws found unequivocally in a bi-partisan report, that landowners had been disadvantaged by the laws.
Professor Suri Ratnapala of the University of Queensland has spoken and written of the erosion of property rights by the Vegetation Management Act 1999.
http://www.propertyrightsaustralia.org/speeches/suri-ratnapala
Dr. Bill Burrows of the Queensland Department of Primary Industries questioned the validity of the science on which the Vegetation management act was based and was harassed shamefully by the government.
http://www.propertyrightsaustralia.org/speeches/bill-burrows-pra-rally-2005/
Australia is the only country in the world to use satellite evidence in court and Queensland is the only state to use it in court without ground truthing. Reading satellite images is a complex and skilled operation, open to manipulation, the maps are notoriously inaccurate and it is NOT like looking at a photograph.
In the wake of challenges to the satellite mapping, amendments have been made to the legislation have been made so that challenges to expert witnesses are almost impossible and miscarriages of justice have occurred.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/environment/satellites/docs/Executive_Summary
I know it’s not that simplistic, but those seem to be the arguments. Yes, trees grow in thickets, it’s what many species do. And you have plants which love to grow under the canopy. Not all of the regrowth is going to be trees, as at least one person suggested.
Individual property owners who paid good money for their land, or who have invested a lifetime managing their land, have the greatest incentive to avoid soil erosion. No better “macro” solution will result than to let individual owners decide how best to manage – with grasses, native vegetation, contour farming, terraces, minimal or no till farming practices, plantations, etc.
Yes, there will be the odd idiot who manages atrociously. But I’d rather have that one making mistakes than Government mandating everyone to implement the exact same management practices, which will undoubtedly be mistakes for large portions of the land.
The bottom line is very simple. Australian farmers who own ‘fee simple’ (freehold) land also own 100% of the equity in that land along with the designated use (deposited plan) of agriculture and primary production.
These same farmers and landowners are not public servants managing any sort of national park or any other sort of ‘public area’ for the public or Government benefit; this is private land for the purposes of agriculture and livestock production and that is exactly what was ‘Conveyed’ to them when the land was originally sold from Crown or State ownership (in the beginning) with the exception of ‘Reservations’ (minerals) held back by the Crown or State.
If the Australian governments want or need Australian farmers to lock up their private land to honour an international agreement or for any other public purpose then all they need do is either ‘Purchase’ this land back, or ‘Pay’ compensation to the ‘Equitable Owner’ for the ‘Public’ benefit received.
In other words, instead of ‘Taking’ this land as has been the case so far, “PAY” for it under ‘Just Terms’, either in whole or in part. But on the other hand, I guess there is no honour amongst thieves.
johanna says: December 28, 2010 at 5:47 pm
johanna says: December 29, 2010 at 7:55 am
Interesting posts Johanna, thank you.
The satellite imaging doesn’t seem to extend as far as to illicit green crops, a far more lucrative market than our local farmers are able to deliver. And of course, per head of population, far more lucrative in the city population markets, where actual work output has NEVER been quantifiable.
Unless of course to complain that the steak [or salad] was not to your liking and the local government inspector, encouraged by the ease of 24 hour access to communication technology and safety in numbers, slaps a prosecution on the restaurant under bylaw of the state Public Health Act. A restaurant that advertises:- ‘local employment and we support and purchase fresh’ produce from our farmers? Which farmers might they be?
But then our Australian farmers and growers don’t get the buy backs (through government ‘subsidies’), the breadth of government welfarism and ‘health prevention’ programs to support the illicit markets and their users I expect. Perhaps because they are producers that have not had the access to technology that the consumers have had? Though god forbid the NBN monopoly.
These primary producers of illicits and users are a market unto themselves. Unlike the barley growers who support a beer market. And beer markets, like the wine markets are open to public scrutiny and shareholders. As are the growers. And they transparently compete in an open market.
So this market, which you have NOT mentioned, is under the radar so to speak. No accounting there for government subsidies and programs…….. to families that suffer. I doubt there is an Australian Bureau of Stats report that accounts for illicits in the household basket expenditure or income surveys. Or excessive use of water, but that would be for measuring agricultural output where the produce actually goes to feed children. Perhaps not, chemical laboratories in households are probably subsidised by local government schemes and state welfare programs. Oh, and free trade agreements at the wharves. And local volunteer groups that clean up unknown chemical spills in urban waterways.
But then farmers and growers, to have a place in the economy, as producers, truly feeding families and growing populations, and maintaining lands and seas as productive, is something you question?
I doubt the mining industry would have to answer the same of you. Or the government workforce.
Jeff Alberts says: Dec 29, 2010 at 6:51 pm
“Yes, trees grow in thickets, it’s what many species do. And you have plants which love to grow under the canopy. Not all of the regrowth is going to be trees, as at least one person suggested.”
The problem with statewide blanket legislation over natural systems is that that one size does not fit all the divisity of nature. This is compounded when sterotypical mindsets are developed that are divorced from the realities of natural systems that then influence the drafting of this legislation. Two of the major misconcetions are firstly the over emphasis of one lifeform (trees) as being important against all others and that trees must be in some sort of thick forest. Seconly that there exists a unchanging, pristene, people free, wilderness utopia to aspire to.
No Jeff, not all trees naturally grow in thickets; they do of course do in many places but in a significant land mass in the state of Queensland (Qld), Australia they don’t and this is one of the locations that this soil erosion occurs.
Qld is v roughly around two & half times the size of Texas, USA. If you drew lines on the map north/ south & divided the State into thirds, that middle third section is on the main consisted of open woodlands or savanas. Now Australia may be behind the USA by about 200 years in terms of European settlement but when the first Europeans arrived, this was no wilderness, but managed landscapes as aboriginal peoples were in this country many, many thousands of years.
No Jeff, across this particular vast area of Qld there are no plants that “love to grow under the canopy” that can hold the soil together in this circumstance of increasing unnatural thickets and yes in many places, not all, ultimately the only surviving regrowth is going to be trees.
Well said, “Hide the Decline”.
Governments in Australia of all persuasions have been “caught in receipt of stolen goods”. They must either pay just compensation or return the goods.
The level of their concern to make their theft lawful can be gauged by the huge legal teams gathered by governments to stymie Peter Spencer’s challenge in the New Year in the High Court to get the estimated $10.8billion “just compensation” for private Australian landowners.
johanna says
“Using people tragically killed in bushfires as pawns in this kind of discussion is pretty low.”
It is my experience that those who say such things usually put the environment before human life and would prefer the outside world not to know the seriousness of the consequences.
The bushfires written about by Mike D resulted in the greatest loss of life from a bushfire in the Western world in modern times. It was a non-accident waiting to happen as all the signs and warnings were there.
As an australian, where every action of man or beast is regulated to be as safe as possible I cannot believe that the extreme greens gained such a foothold that safety concerns have been ignored.
It behoves all of us to examine the science and experience behind the green claims and not just accept them as many have in the past.
johanna again
“old style conservationists do remember the devastation that was caused by overstocking and land clearance by farmers in the past. Like modern companies, they ripped out the profits and then walked away, leaving a wasteland of erosion and salinity. While modern farmers are much more sensible, the attitudes that shaped some of this legislation come from our history. It is just plain dishonest to deny that farming practices in the past (and we are talking about farms the size of a small European country here) were so bad that they were sitting ducks for the rising environmental movement”
This is a typical example of the lies, which if repeated often enough, become part of the folklore of the extreme greens.
Erosion and salinity are statistically irrelevent problems in most parts of Australia excluding some intensively farmed irrigation areas and they are certainly not the size of a small European country. They also did not walk away after ripping out the profits leaving a wasteland. The only reason a farmer walks off his property is because , due to a myriad of factors beyond his control he has a debt which he cannot repay.
The greatest stewards of good property management are the inter generational farms who all have a dream that their farm will be carried on by their families. This dream has been shattered by the lies such as those above which have become endemic in the demonisation of farmers by the green movement.
With the Greens in the balance of power in the Senate, surely their policies will be held to some scrutiny by the mainstream media. Oh, wait a minute. These journalists missed the train wreck that was Kevin Rudd. They missed climategate. They seem to be missing the ‘global warming’ that is falling steadily on the ground in the UK, Canada, USA and Europe. They missed the construct of Obama that has wrought so much damage to the democracy of the United States of America. What will they miss next? The clear and present danger that the Greens poise to our freedom, our livelihoods and our domestic human rights. Animals everywhere will be rejoicing. I wonder when the first of these glorious creatures will occupy a seat in our Senate?
Well said Fedup.
Total lies – enough of this deceitfulness. Government destroys by means of legislation, private property rights, land THEY do not own, Government destroys human lives with implementation of legislation that does not have any accountability resting with government, and kills the bio diversity that LANDOWNERS fight so hard to protect.
Thumbnail, like your post with the exception of, “I wonder when the first of these glorious creatures will occupy a seat in our Senate?” it wont happen (tic) because government is legislating certain death to creatures, by means of blatant disregard of the knowledge of the people of the land, and listening to some Greenies bs that has only read stuff in a book, or read manipulated selective data, – they have never lived generation after generation on the land, so how could they really understand this total destruction that they are advocating for…or is there another agenda yet to be revealed?
To Lazy Teenager: I’ll try and make this simple for you. You probably have never noticed because you are too lazy to mow your parents lawn but right at the back of your garden there will be a large tree putting a part of the garden in the shade. The grass will not grow there, partly because the tree takes a lot of the water and partly because there is no sunshine reaching the ground. if the garden is on a slope the soil will be removed when the heavy rains or wind comes along. Now imagine this in an area where there is even less rainfall and the trees take most of the water. The ground is bare.
Maybe your parents bought a large block of land years ago with the view to sub-dividing later on for houses, this will be your inheritance so you can afford to be a Lazy Teenager now because all will be given to you later. There will more than likely be trees on the property because you were too lazy to cut them down where you wanted the house to go. Unfortunately with Kyoto legislation you will not be allowed to remove any trees, you cannot use the land as you intended even though you own it. You will still have to keep it fenced and pay the rates but you cannot get the full benefit from the land. By the way there will not be any compensation offered as you are contributing to the “greater good of the people” Now imagine this on a greater scale (something the size of a farm for example).
Wake up now and see the bigger picture. The farmers are in a minority and they have been painted as evil by the Greenies.
Queensland wants to double the amount of land in it’s National Parks, they are not making any more land, where do you think the extra land will come from.
Where do these idiot* vegans expect food to be grown if they destroy all the farms?
*Which is what you end up as if you don’t get B vitamins from red meat!