Agmates

This will be a true test for the Rudd Government. On the one hand you have a leading academic and RBA board member saying don’t rush into an ETS, while on the other you have former Rock Singer now Environment minister saying ‘bugger the economy’.

In an unprecedented move Reserve Bank of Australia board member and world renown authority on the economics of cliamate change Professor Warwick McKibben has called on the Rudd government to delay the start of Australia’s emissions Trading Scheme.

“Professor McKibbin [pictured] said today the Prime Minister should not act before Australia knows what commitments other countries will make to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at international talks in December 2009.

“There is no way that at Copenhagen there can be a firm commitment on abatement because the US administration, whoever it is, won’t have the people in place to negotiate a rules-based system,”

Hang on, the whole basis of the Treasury modelling was on the fact that there would be a global agreement reached at Copenhagen. Now just a week after the release of the modelling that premise looks shot.

The good professor is concerned about that a hastily implemented scheme will be out of kilter with the what the rest of the world does or does not decide to do.

But that does not worry Australia’s Environment minister Peter Garrett [pictured below] who once again has proven that he is off with the fairies.

“THE environment is bigger and more important than the economy, even in the midst of the worst financial crisis the world has seen for several decades.

Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett expressed that view to a meeting of prominent environmentalists in Melbourne last night, saying the economy was a “subset” of the environment.

Thats a conundrum, who should Kevin Rudd take his advice from on this one, the Rock Star or the Professor. Daaahhh, I wonder?

Have Your Say.

Australia is crashing through the front doors of the great Carbon Constrained global economy, only to find that those already occupying the space are bolting for the back door.

“EUROPEAN Union member states are ready to grant car makers a three-year delay until 2015 to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of their new vehicles in light of the global economic crisis, negotiators said at the weekend.

During a meeting of representatives of the 27 nations, “a consensus was reached” on pushing back the original 2012 deadline to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, a negotiator said.”

At this rate Kevin Rudd is right on track to demonstrate why Australia is not thought of as a world leader. What world leader worth his salt would introduce a policy that will punish his countries economy during the worst global financial crisis in living memory?

Perhaps only one who believes it will look good on his Secretary General of the UN job application.

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The hysteria about the impacts of climate change is building to a fever pitch as the doom sayers rachet up their rhetoric in a bid to urge the Rudd government to go for huge cuts in the Emissions Trading Scheme.

We will record the public figures predictions here so that some years down the track we can go back to them and ask them how their credibility is doing.

Todays doom sayer is Conservation Foundation’s Executive’s director Don Henry.

Henry quoting a new report which the Conservation Foundation have just released ‘Saving Australia’s Special Places’ is truly incredible.

According to Don Henry [pictured] , unless you support the government cutting Carbon Emissions by 60% in the next 40 years there will be no lawns, no barbcues, no wine, no food, no jobs, no snow, no Great Barrier Reef, no Kakadu, 88% of all our wildlife will be extinct, no holidays at the beach, and if you don’t die of heat your home will probably be burnt to the ground in wild bushfires.

You think I’m exaggerating - heres what he had to say -

• Not only will the lawn die off; so, too, will the great tradition of the Aussie barbecue.
• And thousands more people will also die:
• In Queensland, scientists predict 4000 more heat-related deaths each year
• Australia’s grape-growing areas will decline by 44% by the middle of the century, and grape quality will nose-dive.
• By the end of the century, the winter sports industry, which employs 17,000 people and adds $1.3 billion to the economy, will have disappeared as the snow simply fails to fall.
• $50 billion to 150 billion worth of houses, property, businesses, and public infrastructure are under threat from flooding due to sea level rises.
• The Kakadu wetlands are in danger of inundation by salt water, with a 59-centimetre sea level rise to hit about 90% of the national park and up to 88% of species in the bush facing extinction.
• Increasingly fierce and frequent bushfires will sweep areas that were hitherto immune.
• The Murray Darling Basin, will lose 92% of its agricultural production by the end of the century.
• The Great Barrier will be completely destroyed.
• Hundreds of thousands of tourism-related jobs, and $37 billion in exports from tourism could collapse, not to mention the damage to agriculture.

There was a time when people who made statements like Mr Henry’s were completely ignored or we just assumed they’d stop taking their medication.

But now in these crazy times they are leaders of major environmental groups and quoted in the mainstream media as experts.

Sssshhhheeeeessh.

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Former US president Bill Clinton admits that the US ‘free trade’ policy has forced millions of people in third world countries into poverty and starvation.

“Today’s global food crisis shows we all blew it, including me when I was president, by treating food crops as commodities instead of as a vital right of the world’s poor, Bill Clinton has told a UN gathering.

Clinton took aim at decades of international policymaking by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and others, encouraged by the US, that pressured Africans in particular into dropping government subsidies for fertiliser, improved seed and other farm inputs, in economic “structural adjustments” required to win northern aid. Africa’s food self-sufficiency subsequently declined and food imports rose.

“Food is not a commodity like others,” Clinton said. “We should go back to a policy of maximum food self-sufficiency. It is crazy for us to think we can develop countries around the world without increasing their ability to feed themselves.”

World-renowned environmental leader, food-sovereignty activist and author Dr Vandana Shiva agrees with Clinton and in this video takes aim at the IMF and World bank over the same issues.

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Just as the Rudd Labor government announces that it was pressing ahead with its Carbon Reduction Scheme two US Scientists have released a paper that contradicts the whole man made global warming theory.

Stunningly their research is from data collected by Australia’s own CSIRO.

Boston (MA) - Scientists at MIT have recorded a nearly simultaneous world-wide increase in methane levels. This is the first increase in ten years, and what baffles science is that this data contradicts theories stating man is the primary source of increase for this greenhouse gas.

According to the Man made Global warming theory thats not supposed to happen.

One thing does seem very clear, however; science is only beginning to get a handle on the big picture of global warming. Findings like these tell us it’s too early to know for sure if man’s impact is affecting things at the political cry of “alarming rates.”

We may simply be going through another natural cycle of warmer and colder times - one that’s been observed through a scientific analysis of the Earth to be naturally occuring for hundreds of thousands of years.

It is beyond comprehension that the Rudd Labor government is planning to plunge Australia into a Carbon Constrained future while current events and science is casting doubts over whether rising CO2 levels are actually causing climate change.

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Queensland Senator and Leader of the Nationals in the Senate Barnaby Joyce. From his desk Senator Joyce writes on the impacts of the Rudd Governments Emissions Trading Scheme on the State of Queensland:

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With Queensland’s largest export being coal, the Government’s planned emissions trading scheme is a direct hit to the State’s bottom line. The ramifications of the emissions trading scheme will be felt by the people of Queensland more than any other State.

Not quite what we expected from a Queensland Prime Minister.

This Government tax grab in the form of a “Carbon Pollution Reduction” plan will be a price mechanism to reduce the competitiveness of the coal and aluminium industries, followed by the agricultural industry in the not too distant future.

In the interim, the mountainous State Labor debt will continue to grow. Queensland will be facing a debt of AU$65 billion, when you consider the addition of an emissions trading scheme. Such a burden carries major ramifications for the State, from overlooked infrastructure to the collapse of public private partnerships.

When all is said and done, we will be able to say with confidence that the Labor Party has been the author of a complete economic fiasco for our State.

Mr Rudd’s catchphrase of “I’m from Queensland, I’m here to help” has proved prophetic for the people of Queensland. His belligerent persistence to chase an emissions trading scheme will be factored into the decisions of the international participants in our economy and the domestic aspirations of everybody from the commercial hub in Brisbane to the industrial hub of Townsville, to the export hub of Gladstone and flowing through to the domestic tourism industry in Cairns.

The economic development inspired by mining will be something for the history books.

The people of Queensland will be happy to know that in his earnest self-righteous endorsement of Queensland’s path to perdition, Mr Rudd’s epistle was based on economic conditions that are so far from the reality of where we are now, his oversight is nothing short of overwhelming.

Being the largest exporter of seaborne coal in the world, Queensland has more than 30 billion tonnes of identified resources of black coal in situ. In addition, the Sunshine State is one of the largest beef producers by region in the world and is one of the fastest growing value adders of bauxite in aluminium production.

Responsible for such a notable contribution to the Nation, Queensland has a great deal to lose at the hands of this imprudent plan. We have a whole new theory of economic decoupling, only this time we will see a separation between Queensland and prosperity.

END

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I don’t know? We have the Treasurer Wayne Swan standing up yesterday telling us if we don’t rush headlong into a Carbon Constrained economy that we are going to hell in a hand basket.

Here’s a chart of global atmospheric carbon concentrations . In 1979 global concentrations were 336 parts per million. Thirty years later they are approaching 386 parts per million. Thats a 50ppm increase in 30 years or 15%.

Below is a graph of Global temperatures for that same period 30 year period. As you can clearly see while Carbon concentration in the atmosphere is climbing rapidly, temperatures are have not shown anywhere near the same upward trend. The last 10 years since the El Nino induced spike of 1998 show the temps have dropped by 0.6 of a degree.

You tell me, if rising CO2 concentrates cause rising global temperatures - why isn’t it?

While this data is available to one and all, the Rudd government is going to lead us head long into a carbon constrained economy that at ‘best case’ scenario (that is if the rest of the world signs up and we can develop carbon capture) will see our Coal, Aluminum and Agriculture industries industries severely depleted.

But hey this is the same government that charged headlong into the bank guarantee without properly anticipating the consequences. They did this with advise from the Treasury who apparently could not anticipate the adverse consequences that surfaced just 3 days after the announcement of the guarantee.

Thats the same Treasury that released the ETS modelling yesterday, that said its just going to cost Australians $5-$7 a week to stop global warming.

Yes Right, clear as crystal isn’t it!

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If the Federal government were to adopt the recommendations of the Productivity Commission’s draft report into drought assistance for farmers and rural businesses will will see many rural communities decimated. Farmers will abandon some properties and small rural communities will become ghost towns.

Sensationally the report that reads like the work of the ‘grim reaper’ recommends that all current drought assistance being paid should be be scraped by June 2010 regardless of the season conditions that prevail between now and then.

Under the Commissions shock recommendations the only assistance available to farmers after 2010 will be income support (dole), which will be means tested, only available after any Farm Management Deposits have been used and only for a maximum 3 year period. Farmers will also have to go through a full review each 6 months to continue to receive assistance.

Small Businesses in Rural towns will receive nothing in the way of drought assistance.

The report recommends:

• Doing way completely with current interest rate subsidies by June 2010.
• Income support at the same level as the dole be would be only available to individual farming families for 3 years in any 7 year period.
• Income support to be reviewed every 6 months
• Income support only available to farmers with overall assets, (including the Family Home on the property) worth less than $3 million.
• No assistance will be available for rural businesses.
• The $150,000 farm exit grant to be scrapped from June 2009.
• Farm Management deposits to be retained, but should be drawn down first before farmers are eligible for any other assistance.

The reports recommendations reveal a bleak outlook for drought stricken farmers and rural communities.

Commenting on the report Acting Ag Minister Martin Ferguson guaranteed that existing rules of exceptional circumstance would not change for anybody currently receiving assistance.

The Commissions final report is due out in February 2009.

Since 2002 approximately 30,000 Australian farmers have received drought assistance totally over $1 billion dollars.

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Todays Music Video is inspired by Senator Ron Boswells article written on the Governments pledge to move ahead with the carbon pollution reduction scheme.

I hope the Doobie Brothers will forgive me for using their song “What a Fool Believes” as a political satire, but it and the film clip are perfect.

As you watch the Video, think about the fact that Senator Boswell and a ground swell of eminent people are saying pressing ahead with the carbon-tax is very foolish.

Then see the Guy in the Video as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd & the Girl as Climate Change Minister Penny Wong. Think about their blind, wild romance with the whole global warming thesis and their planned introduction of the ETS that is plunging Australia headlong into a carbon constrained economy - dreaming that if they lead the way and the rest of the world will follow.

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Agmates Video gallery

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A Tragic Romance: Kevin / Penny and saving the world.

The song lyrics are subtitled with My take on the Kevin / Penny / ETS Romance. See them below.

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The Federal Government released its Treasury modelling at lunch time today on the impacts of the Emissions Trading Scheme.

Nationals Queensland Senator Ron Boswell has read the report and now gives us his views of it:

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Treasury modelling released today relies exclusively on a non-existent global agreement and implementation of low emission policies.

The complex modelling is only useful if the rest of the world goes along with us on emissions policy.

If not, then the modelling is irrelevant and Australia faces an uncertain and much poorer future by giving up our comparative advantage in minerals, energy and agriculture.

Today’s Treasury modelling assumes:

‘The main policy intervention modelled is a cap and trade emissions trading scheme. This scheme is assumed to apply globally’ [Annex B].”

But there is no such scheme and no likelihood of one while the world deals with the financial crisis.

Some of the modelling assumes that Annex B countries will have an ETS up and running from 2010 (incl Australia, Canada, EU, former Soviet Union, Japan , US) with China and high-income developing countries from 2015, India and middle-income countries from 2020 and full global coverage from 2025.

This is simply not going to happen.

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