The game is up. It’s time to dump the ETS.
Kevin Campbell, ACT New Zealand Associate Spokesperson for Climate Change

Friday, 28 May 2009

Kevin Campbell, ACT party associate spokesperson on Climate Change, says it’s time for the National party to show some spine and come clean about the ETS.

“John Key must accept the patently obvious, that the science surrounding climate change is as settled and credible as climate review panel chair Peter Dunne’s hairdo,” says Campbell.

“At a cost of $2-3,000 per year per family plus the loss of over 20,000 jobs per annum, the economic cost to the New Zealand taxpayer is far too high, for no atmospheric benefit. As the rest of the world backs off carbon trading at breakneck speed the introduction of such a scheme in NZ would be electoral suicide.

“The Green’s and Labour can bleat all they like about carbon dioxide and global warming being the greatest threat to mankind, but that claim is pure fantasy and they know it, the truth is that carbon is not a pollutant and never has been. Nor has the planet displayed any attempts to warm up during the last decade, in spite of rising carbon dioxide levels. The game is up.

“Methane belching from farm animals may cause up to half of NZ greenhouse gas emissions but National has not told the New Zealand public the full story, that the soil and grass of our pastures also absorb at least that amount in carbon dioxide.

“This means that while US grass farmers are rewarded with carbon credits they can sell, for being efficient carbon sinks, our farmers, who are the most efficient, face the prospect of taxation for the very same thing. None of this uncertainty helps economic confidence or promotes investment.

“Heads should roll at NIWA, starting with Dr. David Wratt, our head climate scientist responsible for ensuring the public is kept informed and up-to-date on climate and weather issues. Wratt has promoted the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change policy line relentlessly, even though there has been growing scientific evidence and data to the contrary for several years.

“Time and again environmental alarmists have bombarded our media, with article after article, of blatantly inaccurate global warming scaremongering, orchestrated with only one aim in mind, to create the impression that the scientific world is a united majority, that man made climate change is real and catastrophic without drastic human intervention. Fortunately, the opposite is true.

“Even if the planet warms up a degree or two by 2100, which is as unlikely as Russell Norman becoming our next prime minister, it would accelerate plant growth, helping grow crops for the starving millions in undeveloped countries. People die while the Greens promote their selfish production of inedible crops for bio fuel production which will do nothing for the environment.

“Of course it’s right and good to be clean and green, to preserve the environment and our ecosystem, to make sure that we leave the planet in as good a condition as we found it, but that does not include deceiving or manipulating the general public for political gain.

“National is on notice, they introduce an emissions trading scheme at their peril.”

ENDS

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