First is the evidence that work which the IPCC and its member governments have drawn on has been marred by professional deficiencies which have gone unacknowledged and unremedied. Second is the evidence that the influential expert advisory processes have been throughout, and continue to be, subject to chronic and pervasive bias.

From this assessment I draw a straightforward conclusion for policy. In a subject area where so much remains uncertain or unknown, today’s confident and far-reaching policy settings should not be taken as given. Policy should be evolutionary, not presumptive; and its evolution should be linked to a process of inquiry, review and advice which is more open, more balanced and more professionally watertight than is now the case.

This was the main message presented by David Henderson at a conference held on 22 April 2009 at the Said Business School, Oxford University. The subject of the conference was ‘Beyond Kyoto – Green Innovation and Enterprise in the 21st Century’.  

Climate Change Issues: A Dissenting Voice
By David Henderson
Introduction

When I received the invitation to take part in today’s proceedings, my first thought was that the organisers had made a mistake. Looking at the conference agenda, it seemed obvious that I would not fit in: I would appear as an outsider, an anomaly, a cross between a lone wolf and a black sheep. In thanking the organisers, I pointed this out.

However, it proved that the mistake was mine, not theirs: they actually wanted to ensure that a dissenting view, a non-subscribing voice, would be heard today. I am pleased to have this rare and unexpected opportunity; and in exploiting it, I shall take the whole of the seven minutes that have been suggested for me as my allotted time, starting now.

Presentation

My dissent from received opinion is wide-ranging, albeit not total: most of my fleece, though not all, is jet black. I question the stated aim of this conference, and the beliefs and presumptions that underlie it.

To begin with, and looking ahead to the next session, I dissent from the widely accepted view that businesses should now embrace the doctrine of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR, upper case) and pursue the goal of sustainable development..

I believe that business enterprises should indeed act responsibly, and that they should be seen to act responsibly. However, I do not believe that responsible corporate behaviour today should be identified with endorsing, and giving effect to, CSR. In a number of writings, I have argued against CSR on two grounds:
• first, that it rests on a view of the world that is seriously misleading; and
• second, that its general adoption by businesses would on balance do harm, possibly substantial harm.

‘But’, you could say to me, ‘CSR is not the main issue. Surely you don’t go so far as to question the accepted view that businesses today should play a leading part in creating a green, low-carbon economy?’  Actually, I do go so far: I do indeed question that accepted view.

In explaining why I take dissent to such lengths, I take as a point of departure a speech made last month by our Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, to a gathering which had much the same theme as this meeting: it was a Low Carbon Industrial Summit.

In his address Mr Miliband said:
‘the science says we need to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent to avoid the most catastrophic and irreversible effects of climate change’.
This assertion is not accurate. Like other high-level statements that I could quote, it presents as scientifically established fact what is in reality no more than a strongly held belief. Admittedly, that belief is shared by many scientists, some of whom may well have assisted in drafting Miliband’s speech and others of its kind. But it is not the case that the formidable emissions targets which the British and other governments have adopted or proposed, and the stated rationale for those targets, reflect agreed and conclusive scientific findings.

The climate system is one of extraordinary complexity, and its workings are far from being well understood. On many aspects and issues, as one would expect, there is a range, a spectrum, of expert views and beliefs. It is misleading to refer, as Miliband did, to ‘the science’, as though everything that matters was now finally agreed. His wording reflects views that are held across only a part of the scientific spectrum, a part which he treats, uncritically and misleadingly, as though it were the whole. In this he is not alone.

‘But’, you could now say to me, ‘granting, for the sake of argument only, that Miliband and others may be going rather too far, surely there is clear scientific evidence that human-induced global warming presents a serious problem which has to be dealt with. That is the reality which governments have recognised and responded to, and enlightened businesses – prudent businesses – should do the same’.

You could go further. You could add that evidence as to the reality of, and the threat posed by, human-induced global warming has emerged from a well established official expert advisory process, and in particular, within that process, from the series of massive Assessment Reports issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC).  You could go on to remind me that in 2007 the IPCC was a joint recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, and that its role and work have been commended by scientific academies across the world..

How do I respond to these arguments? To begin with, I agree that there exists what I call an official policy consensus. I also agree that this established policy consensus is largely based on the scientific advice which governments have commissioned and received over a period of some 20 years. Although I question the notion of a scientific consensus, I think one can speak here of prevailing scientific opinion which a non-scientist like me is not well placed to reject. However, this is not the whole story.

I believe that governments across the world are mishandling climate change issues. I question the content, the orientation, and in particular the basis and rationale, of current policies to curb emissions of (so-called) ‘greenhouse gases’.

As to the content of policy, the measures that have been put into effect too often take the costly form of what my friend Martin Wolf, in his FT column, has aptly termed ‘a host of interventionist gimmicks’. There is a strong case for relying wholly, or at any rate very largely, on a general price-based incentive in the form of a carbon tax or charge.

As to the orientation of current policies, it is too presumptive. Governments are taking too little account of the huge uncertainties that remain.  It is a hypothesis only, not an established fact, that the climate can be tuned and equilibrated by judicious control of emissions; and it is imprudent for governments and international agencies today to endorse ambitious programmes, and fix specific quantitative targets, which purport to cover decades or even centuries to come.

As to the basis of current policies, I have come to believe that the official expert advisory process, and the IPCC process within it, are seriously flawed. This in fact is my main distinctive message today.

Two related forms of evidence have brought me to this view. They represent findings on my part, not presuppositions.

First is the evidence that work which the IPCC and its member governments have drawn on has been marred by professional deficiencies which have gone unacknowledged and unremedied. Second is the evidence that the influential expert advisory processes have been throughout, and continue to be, subject to chronic and pervasive bias.

From this assessment I draw a straightforward conclusion for policy. In a subject area where so much remains uncertain or unknown, today’s confident and far-reaching policy settings should not be taken as given. Policy should be evolutionary, not presumptive; and its evolution should be linked to a process of inquiry, review and advice which is more open, more balanced and more professionally watertight than is now the case. Rather than asserting like Mr Miliband that ‘the science’ is ‘settled’, and building costly, radical and supposedly permanent action programmes on that unwarranted presumption, governments should take steps to ensure that they and their citizens are more fully and more objectively informed and advised.

***************

David Henderson was the chief economist at the OECD from 1984 to 1992.  In 1985 he gave the BBC Reith Lectures, which were published in the book Innocence and Design: The Influence of Economic Ideas on Policy (Blackwell, 1986).

The image is of Oxford University.

Dr Moran also notes that scientists at the conference did not agree on whether there is likely to be global  warming or cooling in the near future or on the key drivers of climate. 

The New York Heartland Conference of “Climate Realists”
By Alan Moran

OVER 700 people attended the second Heartland Conference on Global Warming in March 2009.  At least 100 of these were scientists of considerable prominence and, as Marc Moreno pointed out the crucial part of the IPCC report was signed by only 52 scientists, not all of whom were climate alarmists. 

Among the pantheon of experts and celebrities who addressed the meetings, none were more prominent than the first two speakers: Vaclav Klaus and Richard Lindzen.  Lindzen is Professor of Atmospheric Physics at MIT and probably the most renowned expert in the world in his field.  He reiterated the evidence that global warming was not and could not occur except on a scale that is a fraction of the UN forecasts.  And he argued that the temperature trend, having risen to 1945, fallen to 1968, risen again to 1995, was now falling. 

Klaus is the President of the Czech Republic and presently President of the EU.  On his inaugural address to the EU he emphasised a need for Brussels to seek less power centrally and divest more to the members.  This prompted a walk-out of 200 of the 700 MEPs.  He is a total skeptic about global warming, which he sees as being motivated by a scare campaign in which interested parties – functionaries, scientists, vendors of particular sorts of power plant – combined with green alarmists to introduce the agenda. 

He fears it may be unstoppable and related that he had discussed the matter with President Obama, who had never before heard the skeptic viewpoint but listened intensely.  Later Richard Lindzen discussed the experience of Professor Richard Epstein, a colleague of Obama’s at Chicago University.  Epstein said that he found Obama to be ever-ready to listen but had never known such readiness to lead to a change of mind!    Obama has on several occasions referred to the need to reduce CO2 emissions as among the most pressing issues.

President Obama has appointed several people to high office who are on record as favouring drastic measures to reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions.  Among these is John Holdren (a long time associate of the Club of Rome’s John Ehrlich) as Science Adviser, Stephen Chu as Secretary of Energy, and Carol Browner (former EPA head) as Energy Co-ordinator. 

Altogether there were some 40 papers delivered on the science and politics of climate change.  There is general agreement that some warming has taken place this last 100 years, albeit very much less than the amount that might be expected from the increase in atmospheric CO2 combined with the IPCC’s forecasts of the effect of this on temperatures. 

The scientists did not agree fully on the direction of future climate trends, and the causes of these trends.  Some placed greater emphasis on solar changes, others on oceanic current shifts; most agreed that CO2 increases played a part. 

All however, rejected the positive feedback effect from CO2 forcing which amplifies any theoretical effect of the increase in CO2 on temperatures.  The theoretical warming from a doubling of CO2 is relatively uncontroversial (0.5-0.7 degrees C with present atmospheric levels of CO2; less with future increases as the temperature effect is logrithmatically related to the increased CO2 ) but the feedback is said by the IPCC to result in an affect that increases this to 2-5 degrees C.  An important paper by William Kininmonth, former head of Australia’s National Climate Centre, demonstrated that major positive feedback is impossible.   Some papers, notably that of NASA’s Roy Spencer, produced evidence that the feedback is negative and might totally negate the CO2 effect. 

That might bring the rival explanations into accord.  The 0.5 degree C per century warming that has occurred this last 100 years is consistent with the theoretical level of warming that might occur with a doubling of CO2.  But it is also similar to the warming that has taken place on Mars, Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto.

John Sununu, a former New Hampshire Governor and prominent in the first President Bush’s administration (when he was instrumental in agreeing a vast expansion in funding for climate science) traced the long lineage of the green activists campaigning against economic growth.  Like many others he pointed out that it was temperature rises that drove the increase in CO2 in previous eras of warming (not CO2 which drove the temperature increases) and that there was no theoretical basis for arguing that an increase in CO2 would drive temperature.  Again like many others he pointed out that the rise in temperature in the first half of the 20th Century (when CO2 growth had not been significant), fall in the period till the late 1970s (when alarmist were concerned about global cooling) and rise to the mid 1990s has been followed by a falling trend since then.  

In the EU, MPE Roger Helmer pointed out the objective is for 20% of energy, which implies an unachievable 36% of electricity.  Benny Peiser however detected a softness in the EU, especially outside of the UK.  The present goal is a 15-30% reduction but this is on BAU levels.  Moreover Italy has forced through a measure requiring the EU to revisit all goals in eh event that there is to be no Copenhagen agreement. 

Klaus related data on public opinion regarding greenhouse, which showed support for action in the US to have fallen to 45% and in a recent Rasmussen poll it was rated as 20th out of 20 issues canvassed.  In Czeck Republic only 11% believe that mankind is responsible for global warming.  He also urged continued promotion of the truth about warming or lack of it but thought there was only a slender chance that the moves could be arrested in Europe as a result of the financial crisis and recession. 

Several speakers reviewed the goals of the reductions in CO2 which jurisdictions had mandated.  Californian congressman Tom Mclintock pointed to the absurdity of the state’s AB 32 which requires a 25% reduction and 10% ethanol in petrol (which would require one third of the state’s farmland).  The state has also banned all coal based electricity which is resulting in a near doubling of the contract price. 

Others pointed to the malevolent nature of cap-and-trade (most speakers thought a tax is the lesser of two evils, though acknowledged that if the EU had a tax it would be, say eu 30 rather than the eu 9 that presently prevails under the ETS).  Once introduced it is very difficult to remove since it creates vested interests and property rights. 

Professor Gabriel Calzada, addressed the disaster of wind power that Spain had experienced.  The present program has 10.2% of capacity 14,836 MW of wind and 3000 MW of solar.  Originally costed at eu85 million, the cost according to PWC eu15 billion.  Wind adds 90% to the market price and solar 460%.  Moreover this does not include the subsidy which is up to 50%, for capital installation.  Job creation which was estimated to be 50,000 is now 14,000 and falling.  Most jobs are in installation and therefore the program must increase exponentially if jobs are to grow.  It is estimated that each job has cost eu 500,000 pus the jobs destroyed as a result of the higher taxes/energy charges required to finance them. 

Spain has also seen business leakage.  There are documented cases of firms not proceeding as a result of not having an accredited GHG plan.  For example, one of the largest Spanish firms, stainless steel producer Acerinox, has moved two factories to the US and South Africa in response to the higher energy costs. 

The various papers will eventually be available on-line but in the interim, Professor Bob Carter, as well as presenting a key paper himself, operated a running synopsis of the sessions he attended.

This is at
https://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2009/03/bob-carter-at-heartland-2

***************

Alan Moran is an economist at the Melbourne-based Institute of Public Affairs.

According to Joe Kishore writing at The World Socialist Website:

“Manufacturing in the US is collapsing, with a key index falling to its lowest level in 20 years on Friday. Other figures released yesterday show a downturn in production throughout the world.

“The Institute for Supply Management reported that its key index, the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), fell to 32.4 in December from 36.2 in November.**

“Economists had expected a much slower decline to 35.4. It is the lowest reading of the index since June 1980. A figure below 50 indicates contraction in manufacturing…

“Meanwhile, the China Purchasing Managers Index rose slightly to 41.2, from a record low of 40.9 in November. However, the figure is still far below 50, signaling continued contraction in Chinese manufacturing as exports collapse.”

This must translate into fewer greenhouse gas emissions, but I haven’t seen any relevant calculations.   In particular, what will the global recession mean in terms of reduced carbon emissions?

Furthermore, if, as Freeman Dyson suggests, the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible, less “stuff” is good news.

********

**December 2008 Manufacturing ISM Report On Business http://www.ism.ws/ISMReport/MfgROB.cfm.

Click on the chart for a larger view.

“For all sorts of reasons a number of groups, of which Internet campaigners GetUp.org.au are one, are pretending that the Rudd Government’s proposed Emissions Trading Scheme is a minor 5 to15 percent adjustment to our way of life”.

“In fact, the government’s ETS will reduce the amount of energy available to every man; woman and child currently living in the country by an extraordinary 35 percent, absent the discovery and implementation of an unknown source of carbon free energy in the next ten years”.

Dr Marohasy said that this would be the equivalent of closing down all of Australia’s manufacturing and half its rural industries.

“Or thought of another way, it is the equivalent of closing 72% of our current power generation capacity (stationary power)”.

Dr Marohasy said that population growth masked the severity of the scheme.

“Our natural birth-rate plus immigration intake adds around 360,000 to the population every year, roughly the equivalent of another Brisbane every 5 years – 20 percent growth in 11 years – making 35% look like 15%”.

Dr Marohasy said that it was understandable that groups like GetUp that stand for nothing and are opposed to everything would want to downplay the severity of the government’s proposals.

“If GetUp has nothing to complain about they are out of business, so of course they want to portray the government’s decision in the ‘worst’ light”.

She said that the government also has a vested interest in downplaying the severity of their scheme.

“Kevin Rudd wants to convince Australians that it won’t hurt one little bit, so he’s happy for groups like GetUp to criticize him for being John Howard lite.

In fact, the proposed ETS will make Australians poorer; while it is richer, not poorer nations that are better able to protect their natural environment”.

********************************************

Sources:

http://www.climatechange.gov.au/inventory/enduse/pubs/vol1-summary.pdf

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/3101.0/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane

The Australian Environment Foundation (AEF) is a not-for-profit, membership-based environment organisation having no political affiliation.  The AEF is a different kind of environment group, caring for both Australia & Australians.  Many of our members are practical environmentalists – people who actively use and also care for the environment.  We accept that environmental protection and sustainable resource use are generally compatible. For more information about the AEF, visit www.aefweb.info

According to Environmental Scientist, Professor Syd Shea:

Biochar is a fine-grained, highly porous charcoal that helps soils retain nutrients and water. The carbon in biochar resists degradation and sequesters carbon in soils for hundreds to thousands of years, providing a potentially powerful tool for mitigating anthropogenic climate change. When the biochar is made from agricultural and plantation wastes that would otherwise decompose within a few years, emissions of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere are avoided and that carbon is permanently stored in the biochar.

The Rainbow Bee Eater team, named after a beautiful bird that lives in the regions where they work, has been working on biochar for several years. They are planning to implement a pilot scale operational biochar trial on a 23 thousand hectare wheat belt farm in Western Australia in 2009.

Project Rainbow Bee Eater, a consortium of farmers, scientists and engineers claims the Australian Government’s White Paper, which provides the policy framework for the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, has not recognized the potential for rapid, very large scale and permanent bio-sequestration of inorganic carbon because the policy document excludes biochar.

Professor Syd Shea, a member of the Rainbow Bee Eater team, said ““the science behind the use of biochar to increase soil productivity and to create a long term, safe carbon sink is well established.”

“Inorganic carbon, which is the major component of biochars made using modern charcoal making technologies, would remain in soils for hundreds to thousands of years.”

“The carbon accounting for biochar is simple and does not require complex soil sampling. The biochar is weighed before we add it to the soil and the content of the inorganic carbon is measured using a simple analysis the coal industry does every day called ‘proximate analysis’. Each tonne of inorganic carbon in the biochar locks up 3.67 tonnes of carbon dioxide”.

Professor Shea said, “The incorporation of charcoal (biochar) to increase soil productivity was carried out in the Amazon 2000 years ago. Research by many scientists around the world over the past two decades in a variety of climates and soils, with biochars made from a variety of feed stocks, has shown that biochar increases productivity in a large number of plant and tree crops.”

“Trials on the use of bio char to increase wheat productivity in the Western Australian wheat belt carried out in cooperation with the Western Australian Department of Agriculture and Food (DAFWA) have shown wheat crop yields in pot and field trials increasing by between 10 and 20 percent. Larger field trials in 2008, undertaken under the supervision of Dr. Stephen Davies from DAFWA, which have just been harvested, also demonstrated that bio char made from mallee eucalypts incorporated into wheat belt soils at high rates significantly increases wheat biomass compared to cultivated soil with no biochar.”

The Rainbow Bee Eater team agreed that further operational trials were essential to further develop the technology required for large-scale conversion of crop and plantation wastes into biochar and to confirm the economic viability of the process – but the science is not in doubt.

Ian Stanley, a Western Australian wheat farmer whose wheat crop this year will exceed 30,000 tonnes, said “I am confident it will be possible to integrate biochar production and incorporation into the existing farming systems, in part, because we will use existing harvesting and seeding systems with minor modifications”.

Peter Burgess, the leader of the Rainbow Bee Eater team, said “we have undertaken extensive reviews globally of a variety of technologies and processes that have the capacity to reduce large quantities of GHG emissions. Our modelling indicates that broad scale incorporation into soils of biochar produced from crop and plantation residues is very cost effective and is possible at a very large scale. Project Rainbow Bee Eater is designed to be integrated into existing farming systems, is regionally based, complements food production and, unlike many other large schemes that are proposed, could be implemented rapidly.”

Mr. Burgess said “we understand the complexities of the international carbon accounting system our Government faces but we believe the Rainbow Bee Eater system is no different in concept or outcome from Carbon Capture & Storage that was accepted by the White Paper. Biochar will store the carbon in the top few centimeters of soil, safely, at much lower cost and with other benefits to Australia.”

“If Rainbow Bee Eater receives credits for the carbon locked up in the biochar, we believe we will reduce Australia’s annual CO2e emissions by at least 20 million tonnes within a decade using existing waste biomass streams and purpose grown tree crops. That is nearly 4% of Australia’s current emissions. The longer term potential is much greater. Other by-products of this regionally based project include regional jobs, renewable energy and amelioration of soil and biodiversity degradation.

“Biochar made from crop and plantation waste could store carbon permanently in cleared areas of Australia like the WA wheat belt. It thus has the potential to achieve a large part of the Carbon Pollution Reduction our Government is targeting for 2020.

“Carbon credits for biochar are needed to unlock this potential.”

***************

Professor Syd Shea is an Environmental Scientist at the Notre Dame University in Freemantle, Western Australia.

I received the photograph of the Rainbow Bee Eater from Professor Syd Shea with the note:

This beautiful bird survives in some of the harshest environments in Australia. Its habitat overlaps most of the area that could provide large carbon capture and storage opportunities in Australia.  The photograph of this bird exploding from its nest is also a metaphor of the rapidity with which carbon capture and storage using biochar could make a major contribution to reducing carbon emissions while at the same time causing the reversal of environmental, social and economic decline of regional Australia.

In response to criticism that the target is too low, the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has said this is really equal to a 27 percent reduction in “carbon pollution” for each Australian from 2000 to 2020 or a 34 percent reduction for each Australian from 1990 because of population growth.  

I find it somewhat amusing that the government can get away with committing to something that won’t be achieved for 12 years – a few full parliamentary terms there – and something that can be explained away as just 5 percent or, as the audience changes, a significant 34 percent!

But what the average Australian would probably like to know is how much this economic intervention will push up prices, in particular the price of basics like the home electricity bill. 

Well, that probably depends too –   including on what the price of carbon ends up being traded at and that will depend on how the carbon market operates, how many speculators there are, and how the big banks manage to package up this complicated financial derivative.

Furthermore, according to the Minister for Climate Change, Penny Wong, speaking on 2GB this morning, many low income families and pensioners will be compensated for the additional cost of the trading scheme.   Indeed it was suggested by the host, Jason Morrison, that some will end up ahead from the government handouts associated with the introduction of the complicated financial intervention – the ETS.

Mr Morrison called the ETS, another tax, but one key difference between a trading scheme and a tax is that a tax could be relatively easily removed, but an ETS would be very difficult to unwind.

The bottom-line is that an ETS is complicated financial engineering that will increase prices and, even Professor Garnaut has explained, that by moving ahead of the rest of the world Australian business will be disadvantaged and Australian jobs will go offshore.  

The bottom-line is that an ETS will make Australians poorer while it is richer not poorer nations that are better able to protect their natural environment. 

The Australian Environment Foundation is developing an internet campaign to oppose the ETS.   Our new website is under construction: www.ListenToUs.org.au .  But you can already register at the site with an email address to get updates and make a financial investment in the campaign.

Perhaps now is the time to move away from the idea that the solution to “fighting climate change” lies with a cap on emissions – an idea that has been pushed so hard by the United Nations. 

Perhaps now is the time to consider alternatives?

On Thursday the ‘Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change’ launched a report* by London-based economist Julian Morris imploring governments to recognise that instead of capping emissions they should be looking to adapt to climate change and also provide incentives to develop lower-carbon technologies.

At the launch of the report, Professor Morris said, “A cap on emissions of carbon would do little to protect humanity against the threat of climate change but would drastically increase the threat of global economic catastrophe…   to agree to cap carbon emissions in the near term would be economic lunacy…  slowing economic growth and harming the ability of the poor to address the real problems they face every day, such as diseases, water scarcity and inadequate nutrition.”

Prof. Morris pointed out that only a few European governments are now pushing strongly for a new global cap and they are doing so because their own policies are causing economic pain. 

Economist Nonoy Oplas, echoing Professor Morris’ plea, wrote yesterday:  “It is true that there is climate change. The same way that people change, cars and mobile phones change, sports and culture change, cities and communities change, the world and its geography change. Sunspots and solar rays change, expansion or contraction of the universe change, and earthquake belts change. So do climate change. And there are dozens of different factors that contribute to climate change, not just humanity’s economic activities.  Instead of planning how to “stop” climate change, humanity’s energy and efforts would be better diverted to discussing how to adapt to climate change.”

************

*‘Which Policy to Address Climate Change?’ by Julian Morris, was published on Thursday, 11 December 2009, by the Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change ( www.csccc.info )

The report is available at http://www.csccc.info/reports/report_38.pdf

Julian Morris is a Visiting Professor at the University of Buckingham (www.buckingham.ac.uk) and Director of International Policy Network, a think tank in London (www.policynetwork.net)

1.  An ETS will not change the global temperature;

2.  Will force many clean and green Australian industries overseas; and

3.  Will make Australians poorer; while it is generally richer, not poorer nations that are better able to protect their natural environment. 

We have a fundraising target of A$30,000 and already we have already raised just over $11,000 from donations.  So we need another A$19,000.

The campaign website will be designed to help build a large online community; providing a place for action as well as information.  Those who log on will be able to source information quickly as well as find their local MP so they can send him/her a message.  

The website will be designed so that more than one campaign can be running at a time – and old campaigns can be archived.  The campaign opposing the ETS will be just the first.  The Australian Environment Foundation wants to be able to take a stand, and importantly help its members and supporters be heard, when decisions are being made against the weight of evidence.

So far donations have ranged from $25 to $2,000.   Please make a contribution.

If you can make a financial contribution, please go to our website and donate through the PayPal facility using your credit card. http://www.aefweb.info/ . 

If you prefer to use Internet banking: Australian Environment Foundation, BSB No:  013 308 Account No: 4978 00416. 

Alternatively, send a cheque to the Australian Environment Foundation, PO Box 274, Deakin West, ACT 2600.   

There is nothing honest or clever about the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme.  It is just another tax and more politics.

During separate meetings of foreign affairs and energy ministers in Brussels, the Italian government firmly restated its intention to obtain exemptions from the package for its energy-intensive industrial sectors such as paper, glass, steel and brick industries…

Under the draft package to be discussed by EU heads of state and government this week, energy-intensive industries will be asked, as of 2013, to gradually pay for the right to emit CO2.

But Italy, Germany and other Eastern European countries claim the rules, if applied too strictly, will force energy-intensive sectors to close down factories and move abroad, leading to job losses and rising CO2 emissions outside Europe (’carbon leakage’)…

The European Parliament will now be asekd to give its green light to the deal in a vote scheduled on 17 December.

According to Benny Peiser: I expect that the EU summit at the weekend will come up with a very similar fudge – as usual. I also expect that the green media and climate activists are likely to hail it as a ‘historic’ breakthrough – as usual. But let’s not beat around the bush: whatever the EU summit may or may not decide at the weekend, you can be absolutely sure that it will not be legally binding targets. This original plan has now been abandoned – full stop. Without binding targets, however, the EU will signal unambiguously that it is waiting for the rest of the world to move – before it will make *any* binding commitments. And that, we know, could take for ever.

CIS Research Fellow, Dr Oliver Marc Hartwich, suggested that doom and gloom headlines in magazines such as Time, The Economist and Der Spiegel foretelling the end of capitalism were no different from other irrational scare stories.  Dr Hartwich referred several times to examples of global scares from the book ‘Scared to Death’ by Christopher Booker and Richard North.   

I am not sure that I agree with Dr Hartwich – he went as far as to suggest that with the fear of a depression we wouldn’t be hearing so much about global warming because the media could generally only focus on one major scare at a time.  But I can definitely recommend the Booker and North expose of a long list of media scare stories beginning with the great salmonella scare of 1988-89.

The book is dedicated to “all those scientists and campaigners who, amid the madness of our age of ‘scares’, have kept a sense of proportion and fought for the truth to prevail.”     

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Scared to Death, From BSE to Global Warming: Why Scares are Costing Us the Earth by Christopher Booker and Richard North, published by Continuum UK, 2007. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scared-Death-Global-Warming-Costing/dp/0826486142