Tuesday, March 20, 2007

 

How Bush Administration spiked Climate Science


BREAKING NEWS Associated Press Monday March 19, 2007 10:01 PM

A White House official has admitted editing reports on global warming ``to align these communications with the administration's stated policy'' on climate change.

The House Government Reform Committee heard that the 181 changes made in three climate reports reflected a consistent attempt to emphasize the uncertainties surrounding the science of climate change and undercut the broad conclusions that man-made emissions are warming the earth.

Philip Cooney, an oil industry lobbyist appointed by President Bush as chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, left the White House to work at Exxon Mobil Corp. when his activities were made public in 2005.

The House Government Reform Committee heard James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of the country's leading climate scientists, reveal that the White House repeatedly tried to control what government scientists said about climate change. ``Interference with communications of science to the public has been greater during the current administration than at any time in my career,'' he said. In 2005 he was told he could not take part in an interview with National Public Radio on orders from senior NASA public affairs officials. Instead, three other NASA officials were offered for the interview. The press officer who gave the instruction, George Deutsch, told the committee he had simply been ``relaying'' the views of higher-ups at NASA.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., suggested that there is nothing wrong with government scientists being subject to some limits in what they say. ``You're speaking on federal paid time. Your employer happens to be the American taxpayer,'' Issa said. Hansen spoke for many when he retorted: ``It's not the American way. And it's not constitutional.''

 

Exhibit 4: The Howard Conspiracy Against An Australian Soil Carbon Market


The headline reads "CSIRO axes outspoken expert" (Canbera Times, 20 March 2007)

Dr Maarten Stapper has been dumped by the CSIRO, amid allegations he was bullied by management for criticising GM crops. He was the only government scientist studying soil carbon and his departure brigns that to an end.

The Stapper incident is the latest in the politicisation of the CSIRO and government funded science by the Howard Government. It mirrors the Bush Government's manipulation of official science to serve its ideological goals.

The chief of CSIRO's Plant Industry division, Dr Jeremy Burdon, asked about further research on increasing carbon uptake of soils, Dr Burdon replied, "We won't be doing any more of that."

Dr Stapper was researching carbon loss in soils, restoring soil fertility by improving soil microbiology and use of biological farming methods to improve wheat yields.

Insiders reveal he was "carpeted" by management after he was overheard explaining criticisms of some aspects of GM crops while mingling with audience members after a public forum.

Dr Stapper worked as an agronomist in Canada, the US and Iraq before joining CSIRO as a principal research scientist. He developed new irrigation scheduling programs and methods of calculating nitrogen in the soil before switching his focus to soil biology and health.

Dr Stapper says working in irrigated wheat paddocks made him aware " most problems start with the soil, and
thus solutions should commence there". He argued that the use of "fertilisers, pesticides and other synthetic chemicals to
address problems in agricultural production has been leading to poor soil health and resistance in insects, diseases and weeds".

Dr Burdon confirmed that Dr Stapper was the only CSIRO scientist working on organic and biological farming systems and the research program would end when he left. He said CSIRO did not consider biological and organic farming to be "a long-term
viable strategy" and Dr Stapper's research was "not an area the division feels it can support any more". The CSIRO is in the pocket of Monsanto and the GM companies, with the consent of the Howard government.

Monday, March 19, 2007

 

Donate today! Support the work of the Carbon Coalition

The work of the Carbon Coalition has been entirely voluntary for the past year. (SEE http://carboncoalitionoz.blogspot.com for out 12 month activity report.)

The Convenors have funded:

• lobbying,
• outreach,
• speaking engagements,
• website activity,
• blogging,
• research,
• overseas study tour,
• attending conferences to make contacts,
• appearing before official enquiries…

Please see the attached activity sheet. The time involved has grown to consume time previously devoted to income-producing activity. We can't go on this way. We need to professionalise the operation. Get serious or get out.

We believe the mission of the Coalition is too important to wind down at this important point.

We are on the point of creating the soil carbon market in Australia, We are enrolling landholders for trading.
But the challenges we have coming up include:

1. Being fobbed off with Federal Government Stewardship Payments instead of carbon credits. These are a poor substitute for three reasons: i. it puts you in the hands of the public servants; ii. They could never be as lucrative; iii. They represent handouts, not payments for produce. We believe the Howard Government is implacably opposed to soil carbon credits. (Leopards don’t change their spots.)
2. Missing out on offsets when on-farm emissions are measured/estimated and landholders are required to buy credits to offset CO2, methane, nitrous oxide etc.
3. Put an end to the myth about Australian soils and carbon.
4. Force the hand of the regulators (IPART) by forming markets.
5. Promote the notion of Carbon Farming among business as usual growers.
6. Maintain pressure for Australia to join Kyoto.
7. Protect landholders from exploitation by unsympathetic middlemen and opportunists.
8. Teaching landholders about the carbon trading markets.

We need your help…

We need your help to achieve the goals of the Coalition:

• Making the family farm more economically viable
• Strengthening rural communities
• Restoring the ecological health of farmland
• Reducing the extremes of Climate Change

What we need resources for…

• Website development
• Membership database system
• Publicity
• Management
• Lobbying
• Research
• Conferences
• Subscriptions
• Travel/Acc

There is so much more we can do… getting Members involved in our activities is FIRST AND FOREMOST… but it takes time and time is always short when you’re short of money.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

There are many ways you can help:

• You can send a cheque to the Carbon Coalition Against Global Warming C/- MB & AL Kiely, “Uamby”, Uamby Road, GOOLMA NSW 2852

• You will find a “Donate” button on the website (www.carboncoalition.com.au) and on the blogsites.

• You can buy Australian Farm Soil Credits from http://carbonfarmers.blogspot.com

• You can engage CarbonCreditedBrands by visiting http://carboncreditedhowto.blogspot.com

Your contribution is an investment in the greatest opportunity to solve the problems of declining land health, declining economic health, and declining personal health in agriculture.

Thank you for being part of this historic moment.


Michael, Louisa & Daniel Kiely
Convenors

PS. Please pass this email letter on to others you may know who would be interested.

NB. YOUR TAX DEDUCTION: While we cannot offer tax deductibility as a CHARITY, we can arrange a deduction for you by the following means: 1. You make your contribution. 2. The Coalition invoices you for CARBON ADVISORY SERVICES (which is a legitimate part of our activities) and your receipt can be used for deduction.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

 

Exhibit 3: The Howard Conspiracy Against An Australian Carbon Market

John Howard is a man of his word.

KEVIN RUDD: Does the Prime Minister recall his industry minister saying just six months ago: "I am a sceptic of the connection between emissions and climate change"? Does the Prime Minister support this statement?

Mr HOWARD: It is not only remarks made by people in this parliament. There is a farmer I know who is sceptical about that connection as well! But we can debate. Let me say to the Leader of the Opposition that the jury is still out on the degree of connection. - House of Representatives, 2.54pm 6.2.07

JOHN HOWARD: I was wrong to talk about climate change and drought when the question was about climate change and emissions. For the record, I do believe there is a connection between climate change and emissions. I do not really think the jury is out on that. - House of Representatives, 6.32pm, 6.2.07

"I made a mistake in the first day when I mistook a question about the link between global warming and greenhouse gases, climate change, sorry, and emissions, for a question between climate change and drought because that had been on everybody’s lips and okay, I made a mistake."- John Howard continuing on 3AW, 9.2.07

 

Exhibit 2: The Howard Conspiracy Against An Australian Carbon Market

The Howard Government's overnight conversion to carbon markets and price signals was too rapid. It strained credulity. Is there another sneaky Howard three card trick is on the table? Clinging to power, the Government is reengineering its image and policies on climate change before the federal election this year.

But documents obtained quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald reveal the Government had no intention of setting up a domestic carbon trading scheme as recently as October 2006. A note by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet on October 17 said "a national emissions trading scheme, in the absence of similar action globally, would not be in the nation's interest".

Confidential briefing notes written for the Industry Minister, Ian Macfarlane, in September were even stronger in their opposition to carbon trading, casting doubt on the ability of trading schemes to reduce emissions. "Australia does not see the need to impose an economy-wide system on carbon trading," the notes said. Weeks later Mr Howard signalled a dramatic shift in the Government's policy by announcing an emissions trading taskforce to investigate Australian participation in a future global scheme. In a discussion paper made public this month the taskforce found a global scheme was still far off and suggested a national carbon trading scheme, adding there was no time for complacency.

Mr Howard said a national carbon trading scheme could be introduced if there was "reasonable anticipation" of action on a global scale. Mr Macfarlane, formerly an opponent of carbon trading, now says he has an open mind.

The documents show the Government was so worried about the impact of the September visit by the former US vice-president Al Gore to promote his climate change film, An Inconvenient Truth, as to draft detailed points to promote the Government's initiatives on global warming and defend it from any criticism.

Given Howard's track record, he doesn't compromise on what he believes, even to win public support. He only appears to.

 

Another Howard Crony Outs Himself as a sceptic


In 2007 (March) Finance Minister, Nick Minchin, questioned the link between fossil fuels and greenhouse gas pollution.
He claimed, in a aletter to Clean Up Australia's Ian Kiernan, that "a number of eminent scientists remain in the 'sceptical' camp." Senator Minchin quotes columns written by the Canadian newspaper columnist Lawrence Solomon promoting the work of Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark whose research has proved to contain numerous calculation and methodological errors.
Senator Minchin also referred to a critique of the Stern report by retired James Cook University professor Bob Carter. 'Professor Carter, whose background is in marine geology, appears to have little, if any, standing in the Australian climate science community. He is on the research committee at the Institute of Public Affairs, a think tank that has received funding from oil and tobacco companies, and whose directors sit on the boards of companies in the fossil fuel sector,' says the Sydney Morning Herald.
A spokesman for Senator Minchin said: "The senator stands by his comments in that letter."
Professor Carter told the Herald yesterday the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had uncovered no evidence the warming of the planet was caused by human activity. He said the role of peer review in scientific literature was overstressed, and whether or not a scientist had been funded by the fossil fuel industry was irrelevant to the validity of research.
"I don't think it is the point whether or not you are paid by the coal or petroleum industry," said Professor Carter. "I will address the evidence."
Ex-Professor Carter has not published anything on the topic through the peer review process.
Nick Minchin is not alone in Howard's Cabinet. Senator Ian MacFarlane is also a self-professed sceptic.

 

Howard Minister "I am a sceptic"


The following conversation between Laurie Oakes and Commonwealth Industry Minister Ian McFarlane on Channel 9"'s Sunday program on 20/8/2006 led to this spectacular admission:

LAURIE OAKES: OK. Climate change, you are a climate change sceptic, aren't you?

IAN McFARLANE: Well I am a sceptic of the connection between emissions and climate change. No-one would deny that the world's climate is changing. We don't know exactly what the factors are that are driving that. There appears to be evidence connecting emissions to climate change. But whether or not that can be proved absolutely is not the issue. What we need to do, and everyone accepts that, and I am certainly dealing with that through my portfolio, we need to lower our emissions. I think the key issue is, though, Laurie, how do you do that? How do you actually achieve lower global emissions and we're very much committed to achieving that through low emissions technologies and a spread of energy sources? So the technical solution will in fact lower greenhouse gas emissions. As we have seen, Kyoto is failing to do that.

 

Exhibit 1: The Howard Conspiracy Against An Australian Carbon Market


The following conversation between Channel 9"s Laurie Oakes on 20/8/2006 reveals the earliest expression of the Howard strategy to talk about markets while being sure they never eventuate. Laurie is talking to Industry Minister Ian McFarlane.

LAURIE OAKES: You and the Prime Minister dumped on the states for proposed a carbon trading system. As a result of your dumping, I think, Peter Beattie then chickened out of it, but, how else except through an emissions trading scheme can price signals be used to cut emissions?

IAN McFARLANE: Well there are ways to get companies to adopt new technologies and not only did Peter Beattie pull out of it but so did Alan Carpenter so you have Western Australia and Queensland opting out of a what is a scheme that, by their own analysis and ABARE's analysis, will see a doubling in electricity prices and petrol prices over the next 30 odd years.

LAURIE OAKES: But, how else do you give a price signal?

IAN McFARLANE: Well, you don't necessarily need to give a price signal, you can say that it is up to the companies to ensure they're employing the latest technology in terms of emission reduction. That technology at this stage is still being proven. We're combining with the companies and they will invest more than $1 billion with the Australian Government to ensure that we pilot these technologies of lower emissions, but you've got to have the technologies in place before you can lower emissions globally and that's the challenge.

LAURIE OAKES: You say you don't need a price signal, even the Australian Coal Association says we're going to need a price signal, to compliment your cleaner coal program.

IAN McFARLANE: The Australian Coal Association actually withdrew that statement on the basis that they were taken out of context and their statement on Friday said they do not support that position but can I give you an example. The aluminium industry continues to lower its own emissions both in terms of Co2 but general emissions through their striving for efficiency and also the triple bottom line to satisfy the community that they are an industry that is sustainable in the long term. They've done that in Australia without a price signal.

LAURIE OAKES: But you're one out on this, the Australian Business Round Table earlier this year said there needed to be a pricing signal built in and it needed to be done sooner rather than later. The Reserve Bank board member, Professor Warwick McGibon says a carbon price signal is needed for the uptake of all low emissions technologies, I mean, the evidence is overwhelming?

IAN McFARLANE: There's certainly views that say that but they're not overwhelming views and the reality is, you cannot lower emissions until you have the technology to do it. Once you have the technology to do then there is a question about adoption and I'm confident, based on the track record of industry to date, that they will adopt the technology once it's available. The challenge at the moment over the next 10 years is to prove up the technology that produces zero emission coal fired electricity, that allows us to expand the renewable energy base into things like rot rocks, to look at options in terms of how we produce electricity by lowering emissions in a whole range of ways and that really is where the challenge is at the moment. The carbon trading schemes that are in place at the moment, including the one under Kyoto, are absolute failures and we've seen the carbon price in Europe move all over the place while at the same time the countries participating are actually going to miss their targets by miles. In fact, some of them will exceed Australia's growth in emissions, bearing in mind that our target was a growth of 8% from 1990 and we're one of the few countries at the moment who are on target to reach that.

LAURIE OAKES: Minister, even your Environment Minister has said the Government will have to investigate price signals coming from energy to deal with emissions.

IAN McFARLANE: Well, all I can say Laurie is that at the moment what we as a Government are focusing on, is making sure that we have the technology to reduce emissions.

LAURIE OAKES: But you're one out in saying....

IAN McFARLANE: I'm not one out actually, I have a strong band of supporters and it is the Government's position that we proceed down the track to use technology and the innovation and inventiveness of Australians in co-operation with other countries like America and Japan and China et cetera through the AP6 Network.

LAURIE OAKES: And price signals are not necessary?

IAN McFARLANE: Well, at this stage they're not.

LAURIE OAKES: Treasurer, Peter Costello, has said that.

IAN McFARLANE: I'm not sure that's exactly what Peter said, but the reality is that at the moment we need to develop that technology. We're doing that the Government is spending half a billion dollars in that area alone and companies will spend far in excess of that.

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