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.
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 @ur momisugly 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!