Thank God for that queer species from overseas we like to call an 'expert'. It's the only thing that can guarantee the media's interest. Take for instance the Bain trial where UK 'experts' are taking their fair share of column space, because God forbid we should listen to our own.
It's a very Kiwi way of looking at things. So, let's hope the visit last week from the US Hudson Institute of global food issues director Dennis Avery, might wake the Government up to the lunacy that is carbon taxes.
That a National Government is even considering continuing on down that path is a real betrayal to the nation's farmers who have always supported them.
Avery is an expert on global warming and subscribes to the theory that the world is in a perpetual warming, cooling down cycle.
No matter what your own thoughts are on global warming it is important to understand that a consensus has not been reached by the 'experts' on if it is real or not. And if they can't reach an agreement, why the heck are we still jumping on this emission bandwagon that will devastate our economy.
Avery was blunt and he sure needed to be.
"Do not let them send you out of business. Don't go quietly. Not only will [a carbon tax] kill you, it will kill the entire economy of New Zealand," he warned, saying that as the world birth rate rose, so too would demand for products New Zealand specialises in, particularly high-value foods like lamb, beef, cheese and non-fat dried milk.
However, an emissions tax was likely to render New Zealand uncompetitive in the market.
"New Zealand has wonderful grassland, but guess who else has wonderful grassland? Countries like Argentina, who have more grassland than New Zealand and aren't carrying a carbon yoke around their necks, will be the beneficiary. What is New Zealand going to use to buy its imports if it is not selling lamb and beef? You don't make anything else."
Mr Avery went on to say he didn't have a time line for how quickly New Zealand would destroy its economic base through use of a carbon tax, but "things in this world happen a lot faster than they used to".
However, an emissions tax was likely to render New Zealand uncompetitive in the market.
"New Zealand has wonderful grassland, but guess who else has wonderful grassland? Countries like Argentina, who have more grassland than New Zealand and aren't carrying a carbon yoke around their necks, will be the beneficiary. What is New Zealand going to use to buy its imports if it is not selling lamb and beef? You don't make anything else."
Mr Avery went on to say he didn't have a time line for how quickly New Zealand would destroy its economic base through use of a carbon tax, but "things in this world happen a lot faster than they used to".
Principles are all very fine, except for when they might cripple your country. Like Obama's comedown on subsidies to US dairy farmers, sometimes you have to know when to quit having 'fine moral ideals' and have to face up to the hard truth. Now is that time for this Government.
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"sometimes you have to know when to quit having 'fine moral ideals' and have to face up to the hard truth. Now is that time for this Government."
Cough. Ahem. Yes, this Government does seem to be struggling with the idea of "morals", judging by the number of ethics scandals they're current embroiled in.
I guess they already took your advice.
But, um. I'm trying hard to understand your position here, and failing. See, where I was brought up (in church), the word "moral" meant "something you do NOT because it's EASY but because it's RIGHT". It didn't mean a vague and fluffy sort of personal preference to be dropped at the first sign of it actually meaning something.
And I was taught that allegiance to what is true, right and moral ALWAYS goes ahead of vague concepts like "country". Otherwise, we have no grounds to criticise any country or culture which makes war unjustly on another, or does any number of other things we think are wrong.
"My country, right or wrong!" is a rousing battle cry, but it doesn't stop your country from actually *being* wrong, nor does it protect you from suffering the damage of what being wrong means.
We should be cutting carbon emissions because if we don't, we destroy the Earth. It's that simple.
Not just because of CO2, but because carbon emission is correlated with a whole lot of wasteful and environmentally dangerous practices which the whole world MUST get past if we are to survive.
1. Intensive industrial agriculture uses far more oil, water and energy to feed the same number of people as does sensible organic soil management. It pollutes our water supplies (and you know NZ's rivers aren't nearly as clean as they should be) and puts us all at health risk from disease and abuse of antibiotics.
2. Dirty heavy industry and cars consume resources from the biosphere and don't put anything back except toxic wastes. You can't eat concrete and steel.
3. Deforestation is a big contributor to carbon loss to the atmosphere, and we should all trying to preserve trees, because they stop us from dying.
4. The same for the oceans: dead zones from agricultural and industrial runoff are causing depletion of algae and plankton. That's bad news for us all too if we want to continue breathing oxygen.
5. Constant economic growth, if that growth takes the form of increased consumption of finite resources, is a recipe for planetary disaster.
You're proudly supporting practices that put us all at risk, and you're justifying that with 'because of my country'? But New Zealand will suffer too, if we destroy our biosphere. In fact we'll suffer first. For example, the Central Plains Water project in Canterbury will put Canterbury people at risk if it depletes our aquifers and pollutes our waterways.
Carbon tax is a way of using the free market to reward those ethical farmers and manufacturers who look beyond the short-term pressures of the marketplace and take a long view, investing back into the environment that God gave us. You can't get much more sensible than that.
This video explains a (big) problem with Dennis Avery's view on climate change: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0HGFSUx2a
This video explains a (big) problem with Dennis Avery's view on climate change.
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