Flying airplanes generates a lot of greenhouse gas emissions. So, according to the global warming doomsayers we should endeavor to fly less. Indeed according to a recent article at Grist.org the Bishop of London has proclaimed that it is a sin to fly on holidays.
British supermarket chain Tesco has extended the logic to food. That is it’s going to restrict the importation of air freighted goods by half and introduce a system of carbon counting labeling.
Al Gore should approve.
But farmers in Kenya who have developed produce to meet Tesco’s previous environmental requirements are not so sure.
“What is global warming?”, asks Samuel Mauthike, a small scale vegetable farmer in Kenya.
“Is it something caused by us in Africa?”
According to same story at BBC News, Kenyan Jane Ngige has commented, “One minute we are talking about fair trade and market compliance, the next this is less of an issue and the issue is lessening the carbon footprint of the developed world possibly by cutting markets in Africa”.
Ah, the fickle nature of modern environmentalism!
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Jane Ngige seems quite astute.
Everyone who watches the “fair trade” issue knows that it’s trade protectionism in disguise.
Everyone who watches the “anti-globalization” movement can see that it’s merely supporting trade cartels.
And if you look close enough, it’s old-style capitalism hand-in-hand with xenophobia and government bureaucracy, i.e., classic fascism.
If only a few more governments and a few more think tanks would show more leadership on global warming and help fast track emissions trading.
Then we could go for least cost abatement, not expensive and haphazard abatement such as this. Nature abhors a vacuum, and while there is a policy vacuum, its readily filled by this kind of action.
While think tanks like the IPA just sit back non-constructively saying no no no no no bad bad bad bad on anything to do with global warming, you contribute to this kind of policy mess by getting in the way of more effective but broader scope policy, and therefore need to accept some responsibility. More responsibility, less snarky criticism from the sidelines.
Support least cost, market based abatement and this kind of stuff will be less justified or required. Go on Jennifer. Be part of the solution, not just the peanut gallery. Help make the IPA a serious and pragmatic free-market think tank again, and not simply the noisy tabloid think tank it has become.
Even the Federal Government is listening to whacky green groups for its environment policy (hence the light bulb policy) because there is no legitimate and influential conservative voice on the issue.
Steve,
The debate on climate change is progressing on two levels. One level is the scientific one, where the jury is still well and truly out.
The second is the political/emotional one, where popular opinion in many western countries is now locked in.
There is a fundamental principle in problem solving and decision making, and that is that the problem must be accurately, honestly and clearly stated.
Many governments are being advised by their senior scientists that the global warming phenomenon is a myth, based purely on very simplistic mathematical models which cannot pass the basic tests of reliability and credibility. However, they are being pressured by popular opinion to take some action.
If you were the head of a government in this situation, what would you do? The actions proposed, to impose a carbon trading system, will significantly increase national production costs, and significantly impair cometitiveness in the global market. More jobs wil go offshore.
The last thing you want to do is to cripple your country’s economy. What would you do?
Here’s how great the carbon trading system is working:
Green Business News
Emission trading suffers as carbon prices plummet
http://green.itweek.co.uk/2007/02/emission_tradin.html
“A leading economist this week warned that the world’s two leading carbon trading schemes are failing to deliver the expected benefits due to a collapse in the price of carbon credits – and the situation is likely to get far worse before it gets better.
“Many politicians have identified carbon emissions trading schemes as the best means of tackling climate change, arguing that by putting a price on carbon emissions firms have a financial incentive to reduce their carbon footprint.
“However, speaking to an audience of academics and business leaders at this week’s Tyndall Centre conference on investments in low carbon technologies, Professor Catrinus Jepma of the University of Amsterdam warned that both the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme and the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism were in danger of failing with prices for the carbon credits used under both schemes predicted to reach just a few cents. …”
IF one were to assume for a second that AGW mitigation is required, then the best mitigation option, providing the market with the most control and lowest costs, is emissions trading.
Assessing where scientists, politicians, thinkers and the general public are up to on AGW is a matter of opinion. I disagree with you Dan.
I think your opinion is no longer practical or realistic. I think that the IPA’s and Jennifer’s positioning on AGW is no longer practical.
So long as the IPA stick to debating the science and arguing against the need for *any* action – a position which most people and governments have moved beyond now – they are marginalised from the implementation discussion – and have reduced influence over government policy.
The Government has decided it wants to act. If the IPA aren’t telling them anything that fits within that decision, then the IPA will be ignored.
If I were running the Australian Government, i wouldn’t hesitate to implement emissions trading now, with appropriate and temporary measures in place to protect hard hit export industries.
I would know that emissions trading is the best, and least cost way to reduce emissions, that it is probably inevitable, that i should implement it quickly so that Australia industry can get up to speed and be ahead of the game. And most importantly, I would know that i can control the impact on the economy by varying the targets and penalties and concessions.
If I was either a coward, under the undue sway of particular interest groups, or were unable to accept the reality of where momentum on AGW is currently at, then i would dither and remain undecided and uncommitted and change the subject so as not to lose votes. And i could then expect others to fill the policy vaccuum that i was leaving behind.
PS. I’m not saying that scientists shouldn’t continue researching, debating and discussing. They should. But i think there debate has progressed far enough that political action should not be standing still and remaining captive to that debate any longer. Its called risk management. Scientists do research, but politicians have to get their hands dirty in the day to day implementation of actual policy.
Woody, have a good read of that article and think about it.
Carbon trading itself isn’t flawed – the price mechanism is working as it should. Nobody needs to reduce emissions because the caps were set high, and consequently the carbon price has fallen, so only the cheapest of mitigation actions can be profitably implemented. Thats how a market is supposed to work. Its expected.
Given its the first phase of the scheme, i don’t think it is a disaster that hard targets were not set – the mechanisms have been put in place and shown to work without any extreme grief from early and hard targets. Comapnies have been able to learn how to navigate the carbon market.
In the second phase, and ongoing, no doubt the targets will be tightened and the price will go up. And European firms will have years more experience and acumen in traversing the carbon market than their australian peers.
If you want another source of carbon market commentary, this site is good
http://www.pointcarbon.com
its a subscriber only site, but you can get 30days free to check it out.
You can see a similar effect in the Australian renewable energy market. When the Oz Govt decided a few years ago not to extend the scheme, the targets were met and the price of renewable certificates plummeted from over $30 to about $10 because no more renewable energy was required by the market. Now that Victoria and NSW (Australian States) have both implemented their own targets, and now that public opinion on AGW is changing the price jumped in the last few months back up to almost $30.
Supply and demand.
I think Tesco is responding to a push from UK farmers, particularly the organic producers, for a “food miles” program. As Schiller said it is basically a pseudo trade barrier, with at least some logic behind it. Aimed at consumers to buy local and in season.
Often a product is highlighted that comes from Aust or Chile “fresh”(ie air freight)that is on the shelf cheaper than the local produce.
“where the jury is still well and truly out.”? Try telling that to the IPCC, which bases it’s research purely on science. (The emotion and politicing then start, when countries like the US and China don’t want to hear what the outcome is, and insist on modifying the findings).
As for “Ah, the fickle nature of modern environmentalism!”, I don’t recall any calls from the IPCC for this kind of action.
The fatal flaw in carbon trading theory is the fact that for a proper market to function it must incorporate a discounting mechanism for future emissions in the same way that the stock market and futures markets do.
So if a tonne of carbon emitted today has a price of, say $40 Aud, and the normal interest rate is about 7% per annum, then the price for an emission or credit due in ten years time will be only $20/tonne and only $10/tonne in 20 years.
But how will the market build in a return on a carbon credit, on a tonne of carbon sequestered in a forest this year, when it will be needed to offset an emission caused by harvesting the trees in 30 years time?
Should I sell it now and collect interest on the $40 for the next 30 years? Or do I keep it until I need it in 30 years? If the latter, then the credit is really only worth $5/tonne today to deliver $40 worth of value in 2037.
Yet all the spruikers of carbon trading seem to think that people will gladly pay full price today for a benefit they won’t get for another 30 years. It was always going to be a market for a synthetic, rather than real product. And that means it was always going to be very high risk.
I don’t know about Kenya, but in Zambia villagers used to create lots of charcoal by chitemene (slash and burn) cultivation. Some was used for cooking and heating (mpepo is a very cold winter wind), but much was left on the ground as the bush quickly regrew next rainy season, so pulling even more carbon out of the air.
Surely Africa should claim very large carbon credits for massive carbon sequestering by this means. The few tonnes of carbon given off in sending their vegies to Europe is chicken (nkuku) feed.
I should also point out that the PM, John Howard, does not believe the jury is out on Anthropogenic Global Warming any more, he publicly accepted it as fact.
SJT,
Regarding my comment about the fickle nature of modern environmentalism …
Are you suggesting that the IPCC defines “modern environmentalism”. I certainly wasn’t. 🙂
And what has John Howard got to do with anything? Since when was he knowledgeable on climate change or environmentalism?
Jen your last comment gets close to a fundamental problem – very few politicians or journalists have any training or qualfications in science, mathematics, statistics or even economics. This means they cannot comment knowledgeably on any aspect of the greenhouse issue (and a lot of other complex policy issues.) Let’s remember that the journalists were those kids at school whose main interest was reading and writng stories – even as professionals they still call their work “stories”…..
Ian Mott,
A term structure of carbon pricing will develop similar to the interest rate markets. If an emmitter buys a certificate from a forester then a price for each of 30 years will develop. of course the emitter may only want a certificate for say 3 years as he may speculate that certificates will be cheaper in 3 years time. This is where your friendly neighbourhood investment bank comes in. They will make a market in certificates for individual years. the price of each year will be set from supply and demand of which the present value from discounting will be assessed by each player.
In regards to John Howard, just sayin….
I don’t actually think it will make any difference at all, since it is really just an example of what he calls ‘gesture politics’. Still, at least he’s agreeing that AGW is real now, in public.
Very good point, Davey. Australia’s expertise in carbon accounting is probably well ahead of most of the world but the nature of the misreporting here is so great that the IPCC reporting for most of Africa and other third world locations must be close to pure fantasy.
Indeed, the number of countries concerned and the lack of mapping, past photographic records and ground truthing would make Africa the ideal environment for some serious climate spivery.
In fact, one must suspect that most data for those countries would probably be collected by NGO’s, by people on temporary postings, with limited local knowledge, and the ethics of Jabba the Hut.
If they have got away with ignoring regrowth in the Amazon for so long then we can be certain that they would ignore regrowth in Africa.
‘British supermarket chain Tesco has extended the logic to food. That is it’s going to restrict the importation of air freighted goods by half and introduce a system of carbon counting labeling.’ – Jennifer
I’ve checked and re-checked that statement and it doesn’t prevent Tesco from the importation of sea freighted goods…despite Thurkettle’s usual hypocritical rant about protectionism from the battlements of Castle USA…….
Indeed it is unfortunate that Jen overlooked this quote from that BBC article –
‘Tesco says its new measures have been misunderstood, that it will not reduce imports from Africa as the continent is one of the regions it has promised to protect.’ – BBC
Did someone on this blog once mention that statistically very few people actually use the links provided?…. :o)
I’m a novice on carbon trading (surprised, Luke?) but I do see information on it that makes me suspicious of its fariness and effectiveness. Relying on my memory, I think that Jen had a post maybe ten months ago on how countries are fudging their numbers on carbon emissions to meet goals. Well, knowing how much my new found information is appreciated, I am passing this along to you.
China, India Smile as West Overpays for Climate:
By Andy Mukherjee
“Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) — Governments in rich nations are spending billions of dollars to buy a clearer conscience over climate change. Are they getting their money’s worth?
“Michael Wara, formerly of Stanford University’s Program in Energy and Sustainable Development and now a lawyer at Holland & Knight LLP in San Francisco, made that point in a much-publicized article in the science journal Nature this month. (Payment for access)
“Countries that must purchase emission credits to atone for their higher-than-mandated production of carbon dioxide are paying a tiny group of chemical manufacturers in China and India massive sums to reduce industrial gases and methane, which are rather inexpensive to capture and destroy, Wara says.”
Link to rest of article:
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20670001&refer=columnist_mukherjee&sid=a6JuMPizIG6o
If Luke is one of those people that you get when you call tech support, then I think that we can surmise that his real name is Lokesh and that he likes the system that unfairly helps India.
Malcolm in response to Jen on Howard’s position on climate change said “very few politicians or journalists have any training or qualifications in science, mathematics, statistics or even economics” however we are seeing a spectacular takeover of Australia’s inland vast river system by Howard & co right now.
Since I started asking myself where Howard’s right hand man on the environment, Turnbull gets his advice from, it seems more obvious by the week they and the states are just focused on simplistic things like our current dam levels and their rate of change. Notice how the NSW premier signed up on the dot yesterday with out a fuss. That’s because about 98% of NSW was in drought a week or so back when the national water proposal was first mooted in the press.
I think Malcolm will find a lot of people don’t understand the nuts and bolts of a general recovery in water and everything else to do with the environment.
Let’s start on understanding carbon trading by putting myself in that position.
When Dave wrote about while thinking about Kenya “in Zambia villagers used to create lots of charcoal by chitemene (slash and burn) cultivation. Some was used for cooking and heating (mpepo is a very cold winter wind), but much was left on the ground as the bush quickly regrew next rainy season, so pulling even more carbon out of the air”, I wondered again about the whole burning question of forestry etc.
Are we kidding ourselves in this and other threads by imagining we are “creating” carbon by burning agricultural slash or anything else we can grow? Sure; I understand our “charcoal” is a long life substance after organic fiber conversion through partial burning but what about the sums and total relationships in big bushfires?
I certainly won’t ask a head of government or political advisor.
Some time ago after some right sizing we had to have my PS exec on the technical side went off to a dept that became the AGO. They too got remolded, probably over the issue of carbon evaluation about the time we went right into the value of land cover.
From experience, the public only gets the story ministers want you to hear. It’s the same for housing affordability, land release, forestry, transport, water and public health. Considering say tax in particular, it sure isn’t science.
The IPCC tables on emissions are about as good as it gets.
Slight problem Woody Woodpecker – am I advocating carbon trading? As usual you’ve done your simplistic moron neocon one size fits all.
Given all the rancour about rorting the biosphere carbon stuff we can simplify the situation and simply exclude it from any counting – so all happy now?
This is what Ian doesn’t get – FAIL to get an agreement, rort the aqreement and things get simplified and excluded. Don’t want to play – fine – don’t sign up then and don’t play.
Meanwhile the global atmosphere just looks on at the humans and simply integrates the CO2 radiative forcing effect. “Whatever you guys prefer” murmurs Gaia. 🙂
I had to look up “rort.” Do people actually use that word in conversation? http://www.freesearch.co.uk/dictionary/rort
Luke, I suspected that you supported the Kyoto protocol, the IPCC, and carbon trading based upon everything that you’ve written and your defense of big government telling everyone how to live.
Given that you formed your perceived denial in the form of a question rather than a statement, you essentially ducked the answer.
But, in viewing your last sentence, you simply affirmed what I suspected by using a little sarcasm. My comment would not be moronic to most people, so, I realized that your phrase was a personal jab for avoiding the issue. One would think that you would realize that we see through that after many years.
It suits me to let the global atmosphere truck along as it is. From everything that I’ve read from the experts, there isn’t much that we can do in decades that will make much of an impact, anyway. Let’s wait around and see if the global warming deists are right. If they are, then we can adapt. If they aren’t, look at all the money we’ve saved.
In the meantime, the longer we wait, the more grants willing scientists can get.
Yes Mate – Aussies are used to rorting systems – we simply watched the Poms and the Yanks.
Well if you’re happy to let the global atmosphere to truck along as it is, then you have no need to worry about carbon trading. That’s that.
Have I defended BIG government? You see Woody, yourself as a died in the wool necon, ticking EVERY box on the neocon’s guide to being more conservative, means you’re so far up your ideological pathway you can’t see any alternatives.
P.S. Pinxi sends hugs.
By Luke’s gonzo logic of sign up or miss out on carbon trading, I should make my teenage daughter ride off with the first “Hells Angel” that checks her out, “because she might miss out”.
Bollocks to both Luke.
All this crap about missing out is called, in marketing circles, a “withdrawal close”. That is , rush the buyer into taking the shoddy product before he sees anyone else. It is about 1.5 out of 10 on the skills test.
It is very simple, PhLukey. If there really is a carbon crisis then sooner or later someone will realise that one of the best and cheapest ways to absorb this stuff is through vegetation growth and long term storage of carbon products.
And if there really is a carbon crisis then all the people involved in the policy process have a statutory duty to remove impediments to the maximising of that carbon absorption and storage.
If the current situation of deliberately placed impediments continues for too long then I will have the perfect excuse when my forest goes up in flames. That is, “gee wiz, must be this global warming business”.
And it would not take too many other forest owners to start thinking like me (many are already way ahead) before the deliberate impeders get the desert landscape they deserve. And if you think all those darling post-1990 plantations will survive intact then you are even more naieve than I thought.
The longer all this BS continues the more apparent it becomes that even the greens don’t believe there is a real carbon crisis. If there is still time for stupid political games then there mustn’t be a crisis at all.
Nah Ian – you’ve missed your chance. You whinging hobby foresters are just too touchy, aggressive and irrational to deal with. You get nothing.
I recommend closing the whole biosphere carbon scam. It’s too difficult to monitor to your satisfaction and our ears are getting sore from your whining.
It’s much easier to deal with civilised serious business people on technological solutions like Xstrata than a disorganised rabble of banjo-twanging loonies.
Anyway the albedo and hydrology downsides which you’ve been banging on about are too much of a enviro hit. So light up your forests Ian and convert it into grassland. Stop posturing and threatening – get on with it. Unless of course you’re bluffing and talking utter crap.
Imagine Ian in charge of the northern NSW carbon reserve – something trivial happens that sends him over the edge and after a night of driving around throwing out matches we have no carbon stocks in the morning. Well gee that’s confidence building for the investors isn’t it.
How many in the property rights goof-ball movement now Ian – 6 or 8? Keep watering the hooch.
Off topic, but a picture that will bring tears to Luke….
http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070223/photos_pl_afp/39a1241bf4a0f5ba6ff2aec168df8b0a
Now now Luke, lets not get too touchy, aggressive or irrational, if you lost your property rights would you care? – you should.
The best examples of loss of property rights is the USSR, Cuba, N Korea and other crumbling countries. Perhaps these countries are acceptable to you, not many share your enthusiasm.
The problem with oceans, wilderness etc is that they are without property rights so noone looks after them. Governments are not property owners, their function is to govern and not be a landlord.
Luke ingenuously asks *How many in the property rights goof-ball movement *
Most of the western world, goofball
Oh yes an attempted diversion Roget – ho hum. You will note I said the property rights goof-ball movement (pyromaniacal branch understood) not your common individual’s property rights. You may upon investigation find some differences.
Tesco has for many years done what many businesses do, that is, they market themselves as being environmentally friendly. Their buying policies are determined by what the public will stand for. Green house a problem?……don’t purchse air freighted produce; game meat a problem?…..don’t purchase kangaroo meat. etc etc etc.
This “new” directive is soooo! consitant with many years of TESCO purchasing policy, why the surprise?
Homework for rog: an absence of property rights is NOT the same as a managed common property resource. Note there are a number of possibilities for assigning property rights. You blindly assume the obvious individualistic capitalist private property rights version without understanding the other possibilities or their benefits in different situations. You once argued for privatising australian beaches, why not go live in a gated yank community? Homework: go and get yourself some idea of the other property ownership models that can and have work well. I guarantee it won\’t change your fixed pea brain but at least you might start to make semi-informed arguments.
No need for me to do your homework pixie, there are already enough ghastly examples of *managed common property resource* to fill a history book ten times over, more of what you might call *market failure*
Failure to allow a free market.
Hey, why not go live in Cuba, you might get to live a life outside of Google.
Take your boy with you, he’s nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Now now Rog let’s not get too touchy, aggressive or irrational.
Homework grade: Fail.
gee, surprisingly, rog answered without showing any comprehension outside his narrow beliefs. Fascist property rights and selective market benefits for the few, yay!!
..or Zimbabwe, where people power has successfully overthrown the fascist colonials and now is looking to eat itself..
Anger mounts in Zimbabwe as crisis nears
By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press WriterFri Feb 23, 2:01 PM ET
Zimbabwe is reaching the end game, witnessing the last, desperate throes of a regime that has destroyed one of Africa’s few successful economies, plunged millions of people into grinding poverty and led to the deaths of tens of thousands from malnutrition and lack of medical care.
It may not happen Saturday, when President Robert Mugabe celebrates his 83rd birthday with cake and champagne at a $1.2 million party while hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans struggle to survive on bread and water.
And it probably won’t happen in the weeks leading up to April 18, the 27th anniversary of an end to racist white rule and Mugabe’s ascension to power.
But years of abuse and neglect are culminating in untenable crises.
“People’s anger is mounting,” said Zimbabwean political scientist John Makumbe. “They’re no longer afraid to go into the streets and I think the government is growing very afraid of what may happen.”
The world’s worst hyperinflation is spiraling out of control, bringing shortages of food, fuel, medication and electricity. Police have banned demonstrations in opposition strongholds in the capital, Harare, for three months. And criticism is mounting within Mugabe’s ruling party, which is divided over who will succeed him and when.
“Each and every individual on the upper echelons” is jockeying for his position, Mugabe complained in an interview on his actual birthday, Wednesday, broadcast over the country’s sole and state-owned television station.
But, he announced categorically: “There are no vacancies because I am still there.”
Mugabe blames sanctions, drought and former colonizer Britain for the collapse of an economy based on exports of a wealth of agricultural and mineral products.
Others blame land grabs over the past several years in which Mugabe encouraged blacks to violently force out most of the 5,000 white commercial farmers who owned 40 percent of all agricultural land and produced 75 percent of agricultural output.
White farmers had employed the country’s largest work force and their ejection led to the displacement of 300,000 families. The farms, most given to Mugabe relatives, allies and cronies, lie fallow today and Zimbabwe does not have the foreign currency to import food.
The World Bank estimates it would take more than 20 years for Zimbabwe’s economy to return to levels in 1980, when the country was considered the breadbasket of the region.
The ban on protests followed weekend clashes in which police fired tear gas and turned water cannon on opposition rallies. The opposition had planned to protest the high cost of living and Mugabe’s plan to extend his term to 2010.
Mugabe is “at war” with its people, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai declared this week.
The National Constitutional Assembly, a coalition of human rights, church and grass-roots organizations, issued a statement Friday criticizing the police action.
“It’s not a crime to defend oneself from an unlawful attack, and if need be (people) should protect themselves from a partisan, violent police force that aims at perpetuating dictatorship and increasing the suffering of the ordinary masses,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, people are finding it increasingly difficult just to survive.
The rate of hyperinflation — running at near 1,600 percent — that economists say soon will be represented by an upright line on a graph has the country in revolt. The number of Zimbabwe dollars that bought a three-bedroom house with a swimming pool and tennis court in 1990 will buy a brick today.
A lifetime public worker’s monthly pension can’t buy a loaf of bread. Charities have reported depression, suicide and malnutrition among retirees — including a type of vitamin deficiency affecting gums, bones and hair loss.
A hairdresser paid the minimum monthly wage of $30,000 Zimbabwe dollars said her bus fare to work cost more than her salary but she went anyway to get the tips from clients that keep her and her daughter alive.
The list of deserters on the walls of army barracks grows ever longer despite a 300 percent pay raise in January, which fell short of the military’s demand of a 1,000 percent increase. The police chief in Harare has said in a confidential memo that he fears his constables will riot.
Doctors and nurses have been on strike since December and the rest of the civil service is threatening to join them.
Makumbe, the political scientist, said an estimated 70,000 people have died this year because there are no drugs in hospitals and medical equipment like dialysis machines doesn’t work any more.
He said one 16-year-old boy who broke his collar bone falling out of a tree has lain at home in pain for days because his widowed mother does not have the million Zimbabwe dollars needed to have the bone set.
Bread disappeared off the shelves this week after the government increased the price of grain sold to millers by 10,000 percent but did not raise the controlled price for bread. Water shortages have caused a cholera epidemic that has killed dozens since November, medical officials said.
Children have been among the first to suffer, with one in four Zimbabwean children orphaned and more than 2 million at risk of starvation, the U.N. Children’s Fund said.
The government has tried to control inflation by printing money and setting the exchange rate. Last year, when half a dozen eggs cost more than a million Zimbabwe dollars and the poorest Zimbabweans were millionaires, the government simply knocked three zeros off the currency. The minimum monthly salary for a house cleaner went from $15 million to $15,000 Zimbabwe dollars. The official exchange rate is set at 250 Zimbabwe dollars to one U.S. dollar, but the real trading rate is 5,000 to one.
Some Zimbabweans are getting rich off the misery. Party and government officials with access to foreign currency buy it at the official rate and then resell it at the real rate, making a huge profit.
Yes Rog – utterly horrific – the US and Australia should be in there not in Iraq. The west could intervene but stands by wringing its hands.
But what are you saying – that standing in front of one of Mugabe’s motorcades holding your land title that they wouldn’t drive straight over you – come on. These guys are seriously bloody evil.
There’s also democracy, civility, peace, decency, respect, and rule of law that’s completely missing.
When wicked whites ruled, because only they were allowed to vote, the African slogan was “One man one vote”. Quite right too. Unfortunately, in many newly independent African countries, it became “One man, one vote, once”.
When property rights are surrendered to the state the individual loses all rights, including those rights to intellectual property; the rule of law protects property and when the state owns the property the law protects the state only.
Property rights forms the basis for all other rights.
Even the UN agrees, regarding human rights in Bulgaria
“The Committee considers that the laws enacted since November 1989, in particular, the Act on Political and Civil Rehabilitation of Persons Repressed During the Totalitarian Regime Because of their Origin, Political and Religious Persuasion, the Liability of State for Harm to Citizens Act, the Amnesty and Restoration of Confiscated Property Act, the Restoration of Property Rights over Nationalized Assets Act, the Act on Restoration of Property Rights over Certain Real Estate Procured by the State under the Territorial and Territorial Development Act, the Law on Restoration of Property Rights over Real Estate of Bulgarian Nationals who Applied for Travel to the Republic of Turkey and Other Countries Between May and September 1989, laid solid grounds for the development of a free and democratic society based on the rule of law. Legislation following thereafter has had further effects in that direction.”
So Luke, when you sneer at property rights you sneer at basic human rights.
All ideological simplistic bolsh Rog – when bad buggers take over and basic rights are denied you’re in trouble period ! It’s about guns and goons.
As I said stand in front of Mugabe’s motorcade waving your land title documents shouting out your philosophical position and see if they go round you.
You are in denial Luke, Mugabe is a Soviet communist and his land grabbing has been along marxist doctrine.
And you think a Land Titles Office would fix the situation – “Gee we were going to bulldoze your slum dwelling but given you’ve got a land title document we’ll just do the place next door” – yea sure. ? You’re going to take him to court are you? If you survive the drive to the court house that is.
So Pinxi where are these wonderful countries and economies where property rights do not exist…but good living standards coupled with human rights such as freedom of choice do?.
I am sure you can give examples of small communities where a ‘commune’ style of ownership can work. But come on get real…how do you propose we try and drag the 4 billion people living a subsistence or third world lifestyle into the 21st century?…or maybe you don t want them too because that means more co2 and more global warming and……? Pinxi did you really mean to put fascist and property rights together under the one banner as you did above? Your ‘pinkness’ is getting redder and redder! Come on, for someone who is obviously intelligent how can you be so foolish?
Luke you are right to say Mugabe is evil…. and that…. “There’s also democracy, civility, peace, decency, respect, and rule of law that’s completely missing”…dont those things seem to arise in countries with property rights? And all too frequently dissapear shortly after they are removed? Property rights are worthless if there is no rule of law/ or will to enforce them. Surely you don t think Rog would disagree with that?
Personally I can t see how anybody can take umbrage with what Rog has had to say!
You assume it’s by country toby. Reframe your question.
We share air, oceans, crust, atmosphere, ozone and greenhouse effect etc etc globally toby. Do you want to allocate individual property rights to them?
This is why I had to break up with Luke. He wanted me to relinquish my personal property and asset holding trusts but I spent a lifetime of investing wheeling & dealing & working 18 hour+ days and I’ll enjoy it. It’s mine it’s mine it’s mine!! I’ll direct it to social investments as I see fit. I’m outwardly pink but cut me and I bleed $100 bills.
You rotten bitch. I can’t believe you said that. Keep our personal stuff out of this. Yes its true I think property is a crap investment long term – I prefer to keep everything less locked down.
Don’t tell me you are actually John Perkins, Pinxi? (confessions of an economic hitman!)
Its funny how the best managed environments seem to be found in rich developed countries, where we can afford to care. Is that not as a result of individual property rights?
I do not want to allocate personal property rights to the “air, oceans, crust, atmosphere, ozone and greenhouse effect”.
Do not be surpised however if this happens so that we can be taxed for the air we breathe, the co2 we exhale, the water i catch in my water tank etc etc….and it will all be for our own good of course as we watch big brother take more and more control of our lives…..and it will be your socialist european friends who instigate it! Or maybe Al Gore’s democratic friends!
I think we need to be very careful where we allow possible solutions to AGW to take us. Don’t you?
Yes agree toby. But no, not a result of individual property rights alone but a result of an entire legacy of development and a range of contextual factors, with property rights being just one of many. I’ve argued FOR individual property rights in developing countries many times. BUt note that by themselves they are far from sufficient. You need development of a huge range of supporting institutions, independent and impartial judiciary, independent executive, free media, right to associate, personal righs and social codes of conduct as well, etc. Such development needs to be coordinated. It doesn’t spontaneously arise from deregulated markets or aid and lending conditional requirements for fiscal conservativism (ie no public development spending). Also important to note that not everything should be given personal property rights (as rog likes to argue – he even wants our beaches privatised).
Luke you dumb bugger you wanted me to invest in an eco retirement village in the scrub with 1 communal lightbulb, composting outhouses, weekly creek bathing when it ran, tree burials and a flatulence tax. The only thing locked down was your pocket protector on your unironed greasy shirt you knobbly recessive slob.
You’d still in that commune without me baby. Why don’t you tell them what you really think – 100% death taxes and zero inheritance. so everyone starts even.
Luke doesn’t respect property rights because he has no property. His net worth (aside from his statsuper) is probably less than his Visa credit limit, but he has ALL the answers.
And he is stupid enough to believe that “serious bad guys” were always that way. He cannot believe that the slimy Director General who devises regulations that are completely outside the protections of the subordinate legislation provisions, is the precursor to some “serious bad guys”.
When injustice becomes law, disobedience becomes duty. And frankly, Luke, if I were prone to pyromania, which I am not, I would not torch my own forest. No, I would torch a national park and any government plantation I could get a match into.
But the fact is that I don’t need to burn my own place if I wanted to get rid of it. All I need to do is let my existing firebreaks overgrow and make a habit of spending my summers at the beach. Everyone else does, must be the thing to do?
Thought so – he was just bluffing. What a fatuous windbag.
I mean really – just listen to youself Ian – the sheer pomposity of your position is hilarious – “When injustice becomes law, disobedience becomes duty.” Oh really – says who – the Lone Ranger ? Tonto ? or some bogan from drop-outs-ville NSW. Oh dear. Drop tiara and run around in circles.
Anyay which particular slimy DG with which particular legislation might you be referring?
Australian energy supply industry wants australia to implement its own emissions trading scheme – regardless of whether there is a global scheme. This is because there is certainty for business about the need for action on global warming, but *uncertainty* about what the government is doing. The government’s limp-wristed approach is harming investment.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200702/s1856598.htm
POWER INDUSTRY CALLS FOR NATIONAL CARBON TRADING
Australia’s power industry wants the Federal Government to bring in a national carbon emissions trading scheme.
The Energy Supply Association (ESA) says uncertainty about emissions policy could damage the economy more than a cost on carbon would.
A Prime Ministerial task group is currently considering a carbon trading scheme but the Government says it wants to be part of a global system.
ESA chief executive Brad Page says Australia should start its own scheme to provide certainty to industry.
“There are big investments to be made in the electricity and gas sectors over the next decade,” he said.
“We need a lot more clarity around greenhouse gas emission policy and to make rational investment decisions we need to be able to price greenhouse gas emissions and preferably trade them so we get least cost abatement.”
Mr Page says any cost on carbon introduced locally must be low so it does not damage industry.
“We’re not calling for an unfettered scheme where prices could rise uncontrollably,” he said.
“We need to make sure we get Australia on the right path towards dealing with greenhouse gas emissions but in a way that recognises you shouldn’t damage the economy while others aren’t also pricing these emissions.”
Luke, in reference to your criticism of Ian Mott, this is from the U.S. Declaration of Independence, written by a few guys who weren’t stupid:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…. …when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
It wasn’t the Lone Ranger or Tonto who wrote that, as you surmised, and it isn’t meant to be hilarious, as you stated.
As agreed by our founders in the U.S., the citizens have natural rights. We do not get them from the government. If the government ceases to protect our freedoms, then it is the duty of citizens to overthrow it.
I just thought that you would like to know of others who agree with Ian.
Yes Woody – well we don’t have that Yankee God-fearing stuff down here. And it would be good if you stopped running around the world forcing it down people’s necks. But if you feel like doing something worthwhile with the military – try Zimbabwe – no oil – but a deserving cause. Freedom from house levelling despots required.
Some also know “overthrowing govts” as treason or terrorism. Despite the right wing’s attempts to deprive us of more and more of our freedoms things seem to be going OK for most people at the moment. Descent into communism not predicted but keep your six-shooter handy in case the Lone Ranger or Tonto needs a hand.
What has all this to do with Tesco, carbon, and Kenyan vegies?
Luke, you forgot to directly mention Iraq this time. So that you understand that treason to you is freedom to others, consider the words of our patriot Patrick Henry about King George III and rights of Americans: “If this be treason, make the most of it.” And later, he said this that you won’t understand: “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” You simply hate western civilization, which the U.S. eptiomizes. To you, anything, especially global warming, should be used against capitalist and free nations. On the other hand, I enjoy freedom and appreciate the prices that others have paid so that I may have it.
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Davey Gam Esq., I agree that the topic got off course, but it seems to result from some who think that the government (representing themselves) can tell the rest of us how to live–which includes telling us that we may not dispute AGW and telling us what kind of light bulbs that we can purchase. Global warming has changed from being a scientific debate to being one about who has power.
Well you’ve certainly given lots of death & not much more liberty to to plenty of Iraqis. I’m sure they’re all so grateful. The US is both the best of and worst of times combined. But do I hate western civilisation ? Says who?
Luke, I’d say that you’re pathetic but instead it’s clear that nothing you say should be taken seriously.
Global warming is just another device for Europe to steal someone elses property, just like the tin pot empires of old Europe (who are all recovering imperialists). All those stately homes, statues, museums, galleries, opera houses – all built on the ill gotten gains of imperialism.
How else can they capture energy if not by stealth? This same hypocricy led to the mass immigration of Europeans to the New World, a chance for a better life.
Europe wants to regain the power they squandered which the US now has and the EU are green with envy.
Woody,
I agree. The best weapon against power seekers is ridicule.
“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?’ – Woody
Fine words, however not worth the paper they were written on; since those same… ahem.. ‘patriots’ then deliberately failed to abolish slavery upon achieving independance… to say nothing of pursueing a policy that amounted to genocide towards the First Nation tribes…
Not to mention that many of those ‘patriots’ (as major landowners) were actually loudly fulminating against British taxation; yet had not actually paid said taxes to the British government for its administration and military protection of British American colonies for years…..resulting in the need for more general taxes like that placed on tea to try to recoup the shortfall….
Perhaps Woody would like to entertain the readers with what happened to the level of American taxation after George Washington and his buddies liberated their fellow Americans (slaves and First Nation tribes not included) from the heavy yoke of George III’s ‘tyrannical’ taxes?……
American politicians have always been a bunch of hypocrites..If its the home of the free and the land of the brave how come most of the braves are living on reservations?…
How true when Woody says he appreciates ‘the prices that others have paid’.. However I very much doubt First Nation citizens feel the same way…..
Woody it’s clear that nothing you say should be taken seriously….
The best weapon against revisionist historians is ridicule…..
Thanks, Woody. It is actually the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence that is most illuminating. It lists the shortcommings of George III which, when I read out to Australian farmers, makes them realise that urban elected governments are doing much worse to them almost every day.
And when I explain to them that no farmer in any of the US farm states would tolerate having their lives run by the ill-informed voters of metropolitan Chicago or New York, they again realise what a shoddy second rate system they have had thrust upon them.
More importantly, few voters in Chicago would be so up themselves as to seriously believe they know what is best for farmers in the Dakotas. But here in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide, almost every one of the ignorant f@#$%& thinks no rural issue can be properly resolved without the divine intervention of morons who spend the best part of their day with their nose up a trucks muffler.
But Luke has to respond that way. As if I would reveal plans for civil disobedience on a blog. He is, after all, employed by some of the sleaziest persecutors, some who have driven their victims to suicide.
“driven victims to suicide” – bolsh !
“employed by sleazy persecutors” – nope !
I think someone wants a gerrymander. Easier just to export Ian to Nauru. Would be simpler and far less costly.
Just think of all theose bush kids down making a living in town. And same for Ian when it suits him. What a great hypocrite of the highest order. Just more capitalising of gains and socialising of losses.
‘a shoddy second rate system they have had thrust upon them.’ – Ian
Really Motty? so you claim democracy is a ‘shoddy second rate system’? That must explain your fondness for ranting on about using the Yakuza to deal with anyone who opposes international commercial whaling… You should run for political office in Sicily….Don Motti has a certain ring to it..