“The Carbon Sense Coalition today accused the big farming lobby groups, government departments, politicians and Ministers representing agriculture of ignoring science and abandoning farmers to unjustified carbon taxation.
The chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, claimed that there was no justification whatsoever for including emissions from farm animals in any carbon emissions tax scheme.
“Every intelligent farmer can understand the carbon food cycle whereby every bit of carbon dioxide released by farm animals or plants into the atmosphere has previously been removed from the same atmosphere.”
“This simple process is surely not beyond the understanding of all the lobbyists, bureaucrats, researchers and media living off farmers?”
“In the farm sector carbon balance, apart from any fossil fuel used, it is a zero sum game, and all farm animals have zero net carbon emissions.”
“Grazing animals have not yet learned to live on coal or diesel fuel, and they cannot create carbon out of rocks, soil or water. Therefore they must extract it, via grasses and grains, from that marvellous gas of life in our atmosphere, carbon dioxide. All foods and organic matter represent carbon that has been sequestered by life processes into living matter. The carbon is simply recycled at zero cost.”
“Farm plants and animals are every bit as green as forests. Both farms and forests extract carbon from the air and store it in organic life forms until that organic matter is burnt or decays in the open air, thus returning their borrowed carbon to the atmospheric storehouse.”
“Why then do those who grow forests attract a carbon credit and but those who grow cattle and sheep cop a carbon tax?”
“Australia and New Zealand lead the world in harvesting solar energy and carbon dioxide to produce an abundance of clean green food. Why then are both the New Zealand and the Australian governments proposing to force farm animals into their emissions trading quagmire? And why are they subsidising the conversion of farmland producing food into forests producing nothing but carbon credits or crops producing ethanol motor fuel? What are future generations going to eat?”
Forbes claimed that farmers need to start agitating now or they risk being the only bunnies still paying carbon taxes.
“Motorists who vote and use petrol will escape the carbon tax by sleight of hand – petrol excise will in future be called “carbon tax”. Exporters will get an exemption to enable them to compete with more sensible regimes with no carbon taxes. Other protected species like working families in marginal electorates will get subsidies to cover carbon taxes on electricity bills. Truckies will blockade the roads if politicians add carbon tax to diesel prices. That leaves farmers as the only big group with so few votes and such incompetent leadership that they will pay the carbon tax.”
“Farmers have been abandoned by Ag Force, the Meat and Livestock Authority, CSIRO, the National Party, our “working families” Government and most of the similar organisations in New Zealand. It is not clear whether this is because of a lack of scientific logic or cowardice in the face of electoral hysteria on global warming.”
“But the politicians representing the treasured “working families” in the battling suburbs had better start taking notice of rising food prices or a more soundly based hysteria about the growing shortage of food will sweep emissions trading nonsense from the political landscape.”
Viv Forbes, BScApp, FAusIMM, FSIA
Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition
www.carbon-sense.com
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Just checked out a paddock that has not been grazed (by livestock) for a couple of years. The standing feed from two seasons ago has disappeared. Where did it go? Well, it was broken down by grazers – amimals, insects and microbes – who recycled the organic cabon back into the atmosphere, for plants to use all over again. Now these critters and crawlys also produce methane in their digestive processess (think whiteants) along with the O2 that, along with light, drives the carbon cycle.
Livestock cannot add or subtract from the organic carbon budget, and taxing their owners will not make one iota of difference to climate. But it will make a difference to food supplies.
If the case can be made for domestic livestock to be carbon taxed, then it be made for humans to have to buy carbon credits to offset their organic carbon consumption. What fun!
So what’s new? Farmers always get shafted.
“Will Rising Food Prices Reduce Poverty? (They Can, but They Won’t)”, Raj M. Desai, The Brookings Institution,
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2008/0619_food_prices_desai.aspx
“When potential [urban] losers know precisely how much they stand to lose, expect their voices to be the loudest. When those same potential losers also have a greater weight in their political system, expect governments to respond to their demands first.”
Spot on, Vic; and Helen also.
However such facts and reason really don’t count in the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ world of the warmaholic industry.
Remember that the AGW machine is backed by the equally loopy Green machine, whose dedicated aim is to have all farm animals removed from the planet.
History teaches us that all great civilations have perished from within. Why? Because power brings wealth, which brings affluence which in turn seems to bring stupidity, which eventually presses the self destruct button.
Well, we’re nearly there! Can the Ballot Box save us from the self destruct button?
While I can appreciate the sentiment, you guys believe your own b/s propaganda. A high school student could rive a truck through your pretension. The old in “agriculture in balance” ruse argument.
Land converted to cropping will show a massive drop in soil carbon content for about 30 years. Not to mention the trees that went up in smoke.
Nitrogen fertiliser volatilising out of the soil is a considerable source of emissions at 300X warming potential of CO2.
Energy cost of synthesising ammonia for fertiliser at vast temperature and pressures?
Ruminants (cattle and sheep) belching methane (not farting Schiller) at 25 times the warming potential of CO2 – depends on the quality of the feed they eat. Flogged grazing systems produce more.
X amount of methane bubbling up from irrigation schemes and dams
On the plus side – considerable amounts of CO2 being sunk into woodland thickening – that is if you like counting land degradation as a sink.
Albedo effect of land clearing – positive or negative? Bit of both.
But the “balanced” system is a Gaia-like myth. Dream on.
Carbon Sense is doing it’s bit of desperate advocacy as it knows full well what the agriculture GHG balance sheet looks like. It’s a big chunk of any inventory.
However – I’d point out that if you like to eat you’re implicitly involved in agriculture – so we all share the benefits and risks.
Sid might also learn from history that great civilisations also perished from crop failures and inability to adapt.
The ballot box won’t save you from reality mate.
And Schiller – no farmers don’t always get shafted – our farmers get many $100Ms in support and you guys in the US of A run subsidised agriculture. So don’t bung it on mate.
However some hardy souls in agriculture are having a serious go and deserve support. Going for a win win.
http://www.carbongrazing.com.au/default.asp?PageID=27&n=Carbon+Grazing+Home+page
Luke,
Your concerns for dirt and what farmers do with it is touching, but the fact is, people don’t eat dirt.
Whining about how some farmers succeed by taking welfare from the government only underscores the pitiful economic realities they otherwise would face.
In fact, you sound a lot like those urban ‘potential losers’ in the cited article.
Well you tell me where all the money goes Schiller – $100Ms ongoing. Billions in your case.
When the local panel beater or hardware store falls on hard times they go broke and it’s the end. No support. The end.
What makes you different to any other business.
You guys are about capitalising gains and socialising losses.
There is a bit more to it than that. When governments sold land to farmers, it was often on the condition that the farmer cleared the land to the fence line. And within a fixed time frame. The soldier settlement schemes were like this, all of the Brigalow scheme in central Quensland was like it also.
This meant firstly that only people with pockets deep enough to pay for the clearing could afford to buy in the first place, and many farmers wanted to keep some land under scrub, particularly along creek lines. Mostly these were turned down. This directive and condition for land clearing was based on best practice as promoted by the CSIRO, which was the best in the world at the time, together with the individual state departments of Primary Industries.
People I know wanted to keep 5,000 acres out of a total of 50,000 acres uncleared, and were refused. They persisted for a long time, and eventually a special act was passed by the Queensland government to let them keep their scrub. I have a letter from the Lands Dept of Queensland, dated 1991, warning a farmer in central Queensland that he had not cleared enough timber, and if he didn’t increase the rate of clearing, the department would revoke his title.
Once eucalypt is cleared, it regrows with a vengeance, and needs continuous management, or the land will become totally unproductive.
It seems to me that the idea that forests are carbon sinks, and the lungs of the world, is not right. When taken over a long period, a forest is carbon neutral, as trees die, fall down and rot, while being replaced by new trees.
Am I right?
Diversion tactics, Luke. Stick to the subject. It is the grazing enterprised targeted for carbon taxes, not the cropping enterprises.
The grazing paddock I was referring to is native pasture, but native or improved, it makes no difference. The carbon budget turns out pretty much same. Taxing graziers will not make one iota of difference to temperature. So why do it?
As for Farm lobby groups failing their constituents, in many cases they have, but often unintentionally. I have been part of this, and have seen how they have been marginalised or duped by agenda driven department or ministerial policy types.
Basically, oppose a policy, and the communications and political influence doors are shut. Agree to try to negotiate, and the organisation (or individual) is given a run around, false assurances to gain concessions, then betrayed, leaving them wrong-footed in the eyes of their members. Farmers have to spend a lot of hours producing; they have little energy or resources for politics. The people who dream up the ‘negotiation’ tricks are employed full time for this. I have experienced this at personal and organisation level.
“It is the grazing enterprised targeted for carbon taxes” – it is soley? Says who?
There’s a lot of flogged pastures out there Helen – with less soil carbon and more methane emissions from cattle. So the carbon budget is not the same I’m afraid !
Why should you be exempt for your emissions and the local panel beater not? More special case pleading?
Everyone has an exemption story if you listen. Everyone. So all in – or all out. It will probably be all out, so don’t worry.
Come on Helen – farmers are incredibly politically attuned – don’t pull my leg. And in receipt of endless concessions. You want more?
Pete – not necessarily – depends on the balance between clearing and regrowth, scrub encroachment and woodland thickening. Ruse arguments about balance abound.
If you look how much of the world has been cleared for agriculture – much of it has not grown back – ftp://ftp.iluci.org/LCLUC_APR2007/foley_lcluc_apr2007_presentation.pdf 20 megs but worth it. Maps of land under global agriculture.
People tend to judge others by themselves. Luke’s opinions of farmers and their motives is not surprising.
luke; you’re on a hiding to nothing with this one; Viv Forbes makes a pungent case that farmers deserve a carbon credit rather than a penalty;
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/the-green-cow.pdf
And our old friend, Roy Spencer, makes a splendid case for more CO2;
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MWJl0DMxYmUzYWNmZGZiMZNhNmExYTYyNDUzYmViZjQ=#more If this link doesn’t work, the article is called “More Carbon Dioxide Please in the National Review, 1/5/2008
Then there is the anti-Ruddiman thesis that human civilisation didn’t kick off until agriculture did, and agriculture didn’t kick off until the ice-age finished and CO2 was released in sufficient quantities; see Rowan F. Sage’s paper from 1995; “Was low atmospheric CO2 during the Pleistocene a limiting factor for the origin of agriculture?” This is a Blackwell Synergy paper which is currently being absorbed by Whiley, so it may not be available yet.
The best part of all this is that Miskolczi’s model of energy budget, which relies on -ve feedbacks, may enable extra amounts of CO2 to be neutralised by declines in Relative Humidity and for extra cyanobacteria to eat the extra CO2, increase clouds and play a part with reactive halogens in decreasing Ozone (per Hansen, Sato and Ruedy; Hansen and Nazarenko); but not before the extra CO2 gives a boost to plant growth generally as I’ll indicate in the next post.
Lomborg in chp. 10 of the Skeptical Environmentalist concludes that generally, the world’s forests are in healthy shape; something echoed here;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6143514.stm
No doubt deforestation is an issue, but it is a develpemental issue; when a society has reached a degree of agricultural and technological ascendancy then deforestation abates; from this we can conclude that India and China ahave reached that state but South America and tropical Asia and Africa haven’t; the answer there may be bio-fuels and corruption.
Getting back to the CO2 issue; consistent with Sage’s thesis is this;
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23681267-11949,00.html
Freeman Dyson also has an interesting take on the roles of agriculture and forests in climate regulation; which is, GM plants designed to take up more CO2, with a compensatory transpirational increase in H2O, thus setting off Miskolczi’s radiative equilibrium again.
Yes I agree Cohenite – Viv Forbes does make a “pungent case” as you say. Couldn’t agree more – it’s rubbish.
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/the-green-cow.pdf – wet lettuces have more impact Cohenite.
You don’t really want to argue this one do you?
Methane emissions, soil carbon rundown, feedlot finishing …
Miskolczi has been getting a bit of biffo I see. Wrong even on Kirchoff ! Where did I see that now … CA and also http://rabett.blogspot.com/ GIGO …. anyway – reckon he’s goooone !
As for Spencer – I see he’s now an ecophysiologist – no mention of FACE experiments; no mention of differential C3/C4 effects, no mention of CO2 and frosts … sheesh !
Dyson, Lomborg … gurgle ….
Hey Cohenite – you’re pretty good – I almost have to do some work to keep up …
luke; linking prof rabett is not an adequate response to Miskolczi and I will explain why; the big bugaloo that prof rabett and other AGW high-flyers think they have found with Miskolczi is Kirchoff’s Law, KL; but they have forgotten that KL is a Law to do with thermal equlibrium not radiative equilibrium; this is understandable because like all agitpropers, they have started to believe their own propoganda about the “Greenhouse” and average temp; Miskolczi does not contravene KL because, unlike the clunky apple models of IPCC, his model recognises -ve feedbacks which work as thermal factors independently of radiative equlibrium lags. How is that possible? Think reactive halogens, declining relative humidity, clouds and regional weather based on thermal transfer; how else to explain flat-lining temp when CO2 is increasing? Pretty soon, however, that CO2 may decline as well as KL produces another mechanism to achieve thermal equlibrium.
AGW can’t have it both ways; either the CO2, and GHG’s generally, create a mechanism to upset KL or they don’t (and I’m still waiting for some-one to explain the heating mechanism of CO2); if they do then KL must produce a mechanism to restore thermal equlibrium; recent studies show this is happening; it’s enough to make you believe in Gaia!
“Last year[2007] alone global levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the primary driver of global climate change, increased by 0.6 percent, or 19 billion tons. Additionally methane rose by 27 million tons after nearly a decade with little or no increase.” NOAA
so methane rose 27 million tonnes after a steady decade, if we muliply that by 25 times the effect of CO2(though it used to be 21 and then 23) and we get about 650 million tonnes CO2 equiv. Yet CO2 emissions moved 19 billion in that year, and presumably every year within the last decade. animals in agriculture the baddie? Give us a break.
Lets say the
“Everyone has an exemption story if you listen. Everyone. So all in – or all out. It will probably be all out, so don’t worry.”
If that’s you’re inclination, Luke, you better start making plans for option “B”. Show us how to give up the perks.
Aaannd of course you’ve never, ever been the recipient of a govt. subsidy or largesse. Home savings grant? Government bus down the next street? Fuel subsidy? Job? Etc. Etc.
Before we all have to resort to snot and dirt sandwiches maybe you’d could spend a bit of useful time researching the consequences of the Roman Empire outsourcing of food production and of the local farmers selling themselves into slavery to escape the vicious imposts of THEIR empire.
However, there is a tried and proven operator, a can do guy, out there, right now.
http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL29070524.html
Track record, no worries!
http://uk.reuters.com/article/africaCrisis/idUKL188566520080618
See you in the queue. We’ll talk about the good old days.
Luke is a fine example of the entrenched anti-farmer mentality that pervades public sector NRM. His kneejerk response is to deny any form of favourable consideration for the legitimate interests of farmers. So he drags up all the chestnuts on landuse change etc to justify his denial of what is a very simple issue to grasp.
A cane farmer is, rightly, not hit with an emission tax for the very good reason that the carbon that is harvested in his cane was sequestered by that cane, as it grew, over the previous year. His carbon is in a continuous cycle of emission and sequestration for as long as he remains a cane farmer.
And what Viv forbes has described is a continuous cycle of emission and sequestration based on other forms of grass. And instead of being cut with a harvester, grassland carbon is harvested by sheep and cattle. So the amount of carbon emitted by the livestock will be re-absorbed by the grassland next time it rains.
But in the minds of Luke and his band of departmental thugs and tightarses, they appear to believe that there is this vast resource of pre-1990 “old growth” grass carbon that is being exploited and lost forever by man and his animals. It is a turgid melange of green myth and projected bias where the actual facts of the matter mean nothing at all.
WJP – city businesses do not get bailed out. They go broke and that’s that. The end.
Your right wing mates and hard men on this blog have continually triumphed the role of the free market – so why not let it rip.
Or would you rather a more considerate discussion that’s a bit lefty?
Rojo – Enteric fermentation 10.6% of the 2006 Australian National Greenhouse Inventory.
Oh what a lovely little fairy story by Uncle Ian with added abuse.
The cane example – pity is a net emitter of NOx.
The grassland example – pity it’s a net emitter of CH4 and then topped up with more emissions from feedlot grain feeding.
So mythologise, squirm and spin all you like. You probably believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden too. How’s the list of corrupt grazing papers going shonky-tonks.
Complete bail-out, Luke. The cane may be a net emitter of NOx but in every determination of emission status, be it urban or rural, the principle must remain supreme that both debits and credits are taken into account. So if there is to be a tax on any of the emissions from grazing there must also be a credit for the sequestration from grass growing.
And if you and your scumbag departmental mates can’t comprehend this yet then you will when the issue gets to the courts, as it most certainly will once a tax is attached to the notion.
But off you went, frothing at the mouth with a whole litany of impacts that mostly took place prior to 1990. And conspicuously, you had no reluctance in trying to load up farmers with the costs of their pre-1990 actions while never daring to apply the same standard to urban businesses.
And then, of course, there is that little issue of you being so lacking in moral compass as to actively promote the taxing of food. You are so enmeshed in your ideology of landscape exclusion that, like your Trotskyite mentors, you will look the other way as millions are taxed and “administered” into starvation.
“City businesses do not get bailed out”
Are you sure about that Luke? How many tens of billions of whatever currency have Central Banks tipped into the system in an attempt to keep the Mega Banks gravy train slip sliding along? And don’t forget when a Central Bank injects liquiditity into the banking system it is in effect diluting the existing pot of loot already in circulation. This means gonzos, like you and me, are staring at cost of living inflation (a la food, fuel and interest rates etc.) coupled to asset deflation, which indubitably locksteps the former. So how does a 17% money supply increase sound in your street? Checked your super lately?
http://business.smh.com.au/after-the-binge-a-thumping-400b-hangover-20080630-2ziy.html
&
http://www.rba.gov.au/Statistics/financial_aggregates.html
And for the record:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/06/30/ccbis130.xml
&
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/06/27/cnbarclays127.xml&CMP=ILC-mostviewedbox
And here’s some numbers to get your head around as well, that being 160,000 Indian farmers have suicided since 1997.
http://www.kitco.com/ind/West/jun042008.html
Toodle Pop! I’m off to get burped at …………by a cow!
Debits and credits indeed is the issue ! You’re not in balance by a mile mate. Probably a bit hard for banjo connoisseurs to get their minds around. And now you’re gonna have to pay. With some extra for being a non-compliant for so long.
And it was YOU who doesn’t want 1990 in previous debates. I agree actually after listening to you. Good call – Let’s examine your sectoral emissions back to settlement. You’ve inspired me. Let’s see – millions of hectares or soil carbon gone poof, squadillions of kms of bush gone poof. Vast methane burping herds ruining the landscape unlike gentle methane minimising roos. Golly my calculator doesn’t have enough digits …
Mate you have to work off the massive subsidisation of your inefficient production systems for the next 300 years. I’m sick of paying your bills. And I haven’t eaten your Byron mutton either. Fancy selling Telstra to squander it on the likes of you. I think we need a bit of retrospective extra taxing for damages done to the environment. You’ve inspired me with your rhetoric. Surely we want a nice right wing free market (you taught me all this you know) – not some phoney agrarian socialist turnout – stuffing pillows with dollars in good years and crying poor in bad – sniffing around for a handout and another subsidy.
None of that lefty compassion stuff. You’ve taught us that there’s no room for sentiment Mottsa.
The sooner we get economically responsive, scientifically literate and ecologically amenable corporates to run our agriculture and get uncooperative dinosaurs like you out of the picture the better. Better for consumers, the taxpayer and the environment. Nothing personal but you’re past your use-by date mate – the dogs are pissing in your swag – time to go.
Hey BTW, how’s your list of papers going?
Interesting that you bring up the debit and credits angle, Ian. I was about to get into this.
Our Native Vegetation laws are based on the creation of statutory obligations on landowners to preserve their remaining native vegetation. As States are not obliged to help people meet their statutory obligations, compensation for either costs of compliance or for diminution of land values (cost) was unnecessary. Its called cost shifting, and has pandered nicely to those demanding environmental benefits without paying for them (taxpayers money), and politicians looking to be reelected by delivering freebies.
So do landholders get carbon credits for retention of native vegetation? No. The Commonwealth has legislated that carbon credits arising from legislative retention of native vegetation (and voluntary retention?) on private land to be Commonwealth property. To be counted in Australia’s carbon budget as carbon credits for the benefit of all Australians. Let’s call it credit transfer.
As I pointed out above, farm bodies (or farmers), who question the assumptions on which negotiations are based, do not get in the door. So in the carbon trading negotiations, questioning whether human emitted CO2 is dangerously warming the world is off the agenda. Also, questioning what is already law is off the table. Industry carbon credits for retained native vegetation will not be counted, as Luke so aggressively demonstrates.
I now know that all of the carbon debits Luke attributes to farmers and their practices will be on the negotiation table. It’s going to be one sided and brutal for Australian farmers.
In the end it will come down to politicians, and pleasing or appeasing voters. Companies who can directly cost shift carbon trading expensed to their customers will have the political leverage to negotiate a free pass. Farmers cannot pass on costs so easily, and because their carbon books have already been cooked, they will end up carrying disproportionate carbon trading load.
Luke claims that carbon trading has to be one in all in, and despairs of it ever coming about. I do not share Luke’s optimism. We will have carbon trading, etc, and it will selective. I cannot see that the politically expedient past treatment of Australian farmers is going to change anytime soon. Particularly if this treatment continues to be masked behind Luke’s style of blame / hate diatribe.
The CSIRO is bailing out of its traditional support for farmers. It has hung its flag on the AGW mast and carbon trading, and is closing down agricultural research stations across Australia. Actions speak.
I agree, Helen. That is why my fire pump will remain in 15 pieces for quite some time. It’s global warming you know, increases fire risk and before you know it the whole pain in the butt has gone up in smoke.
And I’ll just protect my key infrastructure, make a big pot of tea, and watch the show. But don’t hold your breath for the ACF and WWF volunteer firefighters to tear themselves away from the Maldives at such a time. What? There are no ACF/WWF volunteer firefighters? Well, who would have guessed?
And better not put your hard earned savings into a plantation scheme, or worse, a government joint venture. Because if we get shafted by the trading system they will be the first to go up and the last ember to be extinguished.
The green goons control just about everything, but they do not control the most potent weapon in a landowner’s arsenal, his capacity to quietly stop doing all the things he used to do to improve outcomes. We’ll see who needs who to maintain ecological values in a changing climate.
There was a time in our history when arsonists were regarded as folk heros in the face of injustice. I thought we were well past all that but it seems some folk want to take us back to climate serfdom.
Ian; you can’t take your bat home just because the other side is winning. Also it creates a bad impression for the kids, to see a sportsman retire unhurt.
Helen I agree on the issue of annexation of carbon in trees, seemingly well accepted by both sides of politics. Poorly executed and an ongoing source of angst. How is the High Court challenge going? Do we have an update?
On emissions – would be good if it were not so but I’m fairly sure you will find the systems we have discussed above are not in balance.
Helen – CSIRO having been moving away from agriculture for years – but not just to AGW – to high tech in general. Somewhat as rural industry R&D corps and corporate seed and chemical suppliers had filled the gap. Economic rationalism. Remember the CSIRO Division of Tropical Crops and Pastures – long gone. And all the wool staff laid on when the bottom fell out of wool.
All lamentable but driven by market rationalism. And remaining divisions have mainly morphed into resource and sustainability management outfits.
Despite Mott’s bitter condemnation of science, when he’s never done anything objective in his life, science is still working on the vexing issues of agricultural emissions on minimal funds.
e.g. ways of minimising NOx emission from application of nitrogenous fertilisers – a win win if application efficiency can be increased by prill forms. Nitrogen fertiliser is not cheap – why lose it?
Also work on methanogenesis inhibitors and the role of feed quality in methane production.
Lots of interest in soil carbon sequestration – but many problems in spatial diversity, measurement techniques etc.
Then work on carbon sequestration in phytoliths.
… support for carbon grazing – which sequesters more more carbon in healthier roots.
And very detailed work on measuring carbon in woodland thickening and enhanced methods of measuring that resource by microwave (radar) remote sensing and lidar (airborne laser profilers).
The decision to apply punitive taxes to agricultural production is not being made by natural resource scientists despite the disgraceful libelous venom that Mott sprays at will.
But it does raise the philosophical issue of why exemptions should be made. Hence my comments all all in? What’s the basis ? Strangely in suburbia polling seems to be showing support for a carbon tax on electricity but not on petrol ? Why? Coz it makes us feel better?
In any case – using bogus arguments like Viv Forbes is doing is not helping the case. A much more sophisticated approach is needed.
Viv does have a point though – why are the rural advocacy groups behaving in victim mode. Why is there not more support for anti-emission and agricultural sequestration research. It’s all being done on a shoe-string with so much potential to be realised.
All of which is is being further ruined I’d suggest by emotional outbursts from self-appointed industry firebrands like our little mate.
And wouldn’t it be a win-win if some of these ideas were more sustainable and made some more profit on the way.
So I’ve really had a gutful of Mott impuning the motives of urban dwellers who provide quite a bit of support for the bush both in taxes and good will – and ongoing mockery of a science base well motivated to assist.
And on the climate change front – resource managers are being asked to revisit water resource calculations. The task is inextricably linked with the best climate analysis which defines the parameters of system yield and operating risk. What do you suggest they do? Ignore the science from those CSIRO Divisions you all hate?
Yeah, right, Luke. Wholesale confiscation of carbon credits, systematic extinguishments of property rights, fraudulent misrepresentation of fact (eg that salinity is rampant when most Qld salinity is clearly mapped as remnant saline ecosystem), denial of presumption of innocence, persecution of dissenters by jack booted thugs, deliberate high level conspiracy to pervert key parliamentary principles, denial of legislative or regulatory impact assessment, and the list goes on.
All obscured by an urban media and condoned by the silence and indifference of a self absorbed urban public that seriously believes that rural folk lack “gratitude” for all the wonderful things they have done for us.
And some punk who’s net worth is less than his credit limit has ‘had enough’? Onyabike.
The onus is right on you to prove even half of that and furthermore that there is a vast science conspiracy. Would have thought there would be court cases galore if that were the case.
“Jack booted thugs” – so do you have a single picture of such persons “persecuting dissenters” or are you absolutely full of it. A single picture? A single instance?
“most Qld salinity is clearly mapped as remnant saline ecosystem)” – yea – where’s that?
And who are rural folk anyway – with more and more having jobs in town? Have you yourself been a permanent “rural citizen”? Or just leaching off the burbs when you need a top-up?
And how is that list of papers going. I see it’s taking quite a while 🙂
Jack booted thugs – refer to Ashley McKay case and many others.
Mapped Remnant saline ecosystem – Yelarbon Desert, almost half the state total.
And conspiracy – who could forget the so-called salinity hazard maps that recorded salinity as being a threat to farmland when the actual salt layer was 50 to 100 metres below the surface and requiring the addition of between 100 and 200 megalitres per hectare (in a drought) to lift it to the surface.
Conspiracy – Ask the Parliamentary Counsel what informal advice was given on how the forestry regulations could be reclassified as “not a regulation” so as to avoid regulatory impact assessment and his own obligations in respect of upholding parliamentary principles and legislative drafting standards.
Misconduct – Ask your own Director General whether he considers he had “a proper regard for the rights and interests of persons” when he gave a forest owners representative an ultimatum to either accept unscientific regulation by the non-regulations or be shut down altogether. Refer also, duress, unconscionable conduct, improper exercise of power, abuse of power.
You might be hoping the readers came down in the last shower, fella, but I certainly did not. Do you seriously think the body language of spivs does not give them away?
Well yes I agree about body language after seeing that Youtube video of yours.
Director General? Consultants don’t need such things mate. You’d know about the benefits of consulting I’m sure.
But anyway as I was asking:
“Jack booted thugs” – so do you have a single picture of such persons “persecuting dissenters” …. don’t think you do. Wouldn’t be exaggerating would you?
And still looking for the salinity map of Qld marked remnant saline ecosystem.
And still waiting for that list of papers. Suspect it’s not coming. Oh well.
Don’t try that side step. I refer you to an actual sequence of court cases that has resulted in legal action against DNRM officers for altering evidence and perjury and you try to negate it all on the basis that there is no photo of someone in jackboots.
And that is just the mild stuff. Would you like me to list the suicides that have a major government natural resource management element in them?
As I said before, get the RE map covering Yelarbon and then look up the official description of the big blob in the middle of the map, you clown.
“Consultants don’t have DG’s” indeed. What a slime-out.
No don’t you try that side step yourself you shonk. Ah – so you admit you are prone to exaggeration now – nobody was wearing jack boots. No thugs. You like to make shit up don’t you. I know by now mate – what a spiv you actually are yourself – a rhetorical bulldust artiste.
List the clearing cases and their outcomes by broad stats. I don’t know what the numbers are – but if you’re making the charge – where’s some basic information? You haven’t a clue I’ll bet.
List the suicides (to district and number will do) – or would this be another bit of Mottsa hyperbole? (see jack boots) Perhaps we might hear the stories of officers being threatened with firearms – your mates were they?
And I know about the Yelarbon salt patch – I drove through it just the other day – what has that patch got to do with the rest of Queensland. And surely you’re not quoting the EPA as source now – as the rest of the time you’re telling me they’re incompetent at species ID and wouldn’t know. But now you’re quoting them. So when you like the answer you’ll quote them – when you don’t they’re wrong. Would this be what we call “hypocrisy”.
And what does that patch have to do with the rest of Qld – if there is another map – where is it?
And how is that list of papers going – having trouble with accessing your personal library – or was that a bit of bluff like “jack booted thugs”.
You’re full of crap mate !
Like I first mentioned, Luke. Yelarbon represents almost 50% of the total area of saline land in Qld. And it is officially identified as a Remnant Ecosystem. That is, it is an ecosystem that was there prior to european settlement. And for the record, the total are remaining of this Remnant ecosystem is described as “more than 35% of original extent”.
So can you get your tiny brain around that, Luke? The area of the natural saline ecosystem is substantially less than its original extent.
This was clearly on public record, and certainly known by most of the departmental people with any input to the vegetation management process. Yet, no-one spoke up to correct the Premier and the Minister when they spoke both publicly and in parliament, describing land clearing as posing a serious threat to, and exacerbation of, the so-called ‘salinity menace’.
And that makes you either an accessory to a criminal conspiracy or a blatant excuser of it. So which which one ARE you, Luke?
And by the way, Luke, I’m off to the farm where we know for certain that there were next to zero Kangaroos prior to settlement due to the type of closed forest that was there. The previous owner was forced to clear that forest or lose his title and that compulsory clearing has now produced conditions that support a number of Kangaroos.
So by what moral authority gives the state the right to demand that we feed these roos that were never there before?
And while I’m away I will be doing the spade work for demolishing your precious roo stocking rate bull$hit.
And by the way, Luke, I’m off to the farm where we know for certain that there were next to zero Kangaroos prior to settlement due to the type of closed forest that was there. The previous owner was forced to clear that forest or lose his title and that compulsory clearing has now produced conditions that support a number of Kangaroos.
So by what moral authority gives the state the right to demand that we feed these roos that were never there before?
And while I’m away I will be doing the spade work for demolishing your precious roo stocking rate bull$hit.
He won’t read it – but for the record –
“And that makes you either an accessory to a criminal conspiracy or a blatant excuser of it.” – err neither !
I note none of your numerous assertions in the last few comments will be answered.
“So can you get your tiny brain around that, Luke? The area of the natural saline ecosystem is substantially less than its original extent.” well can you get your tiny bird-brain around that this is due to clearing of vegetation – not necessarily changes in salinity status.
No list of corrupt grazing papers either.
If you have to do spade work on macropod impacts tells me that you don’t have this material or have it well understood. As we all know !