Bush leads fight against climate change, Clark following fast
President Bush proclaimed yesterday that the U.S. is “in the lead” in the fight against climate change.
Now, look, I understand stereotypes are hard to defeat. People get an image planted in their head, and sometimes it causes them not to listen to the facts. But America is in the lead when it comes to energy independence; we’re in the lead when it comes to new technologies; we’re in the lead when it comes to global climate change — and we’ll stay that way.”
Normally I’d be lining up with other environmentalists to express some combination of outrage, hysterical laughter and bemusement at this comment. But then I thought how, closer to home, we have a leader saying things like this:
How to act effectively is a major focus for the Labour-led Government.
We believe that it is in New Zealand’s interest to be at the forefront of those developing a comprehensive response to climate change…
Taking the moral low-ground has never been the New Zealand way. We like to be leaders.
Shame about the slew of reports showing our carbon emissions getting 25% worse rather than better between 1990 and 2005. This week’s World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Report ranks NZ 95th in the world for carbon emissions.
March 7th, 2008 at 8:04 am
President Bush said: …we’re in the lead when it comes to global climate change — and we’ll stay that way.
Well for once he’s telling the truth! The US is in the lead when it comes to causing global climate change, and despite China’s best efforts, Bush is determined that US policy will keep it in the lead.
March 7th, 2008 at 8:35 am
Nope. Bush was telling the truth.
You just have no idea what he was talking about but it’s right under your nose, even currently on your websight.. Sorry, it’s a tough world.
March 7th, 2008 at 8:52 am
I did read the full speech, even.
Biofuels are not the answer. They are only a small part of the answer, to the extent they can be manufactured from waste. But growing soy beans and corn for fuel rather than food is just plain dumb. Bush even goes close to admitting this in his speech, at the same time as advocating doing it.
March 7th, 2008 at 9:22 am
I understand agriculture (i.e. animals) is reposnsible for 50%, or thereabouts, of our emissions.
How could we cut that level without killing the golden goose? How would New Zealand pay its way?
March 7th, 2008 at 9:23 am
There is an important difference between the statements made by Clark and Bush. Bushs is a statement of fact (we are the world leaders), Clarks is a statement of desire (we want to be world leaders). Its easier to see that Bush is wrong, but harder for Clark. Certainly the fact that NZ isn’t currently a world leader doesn’t undermine it (the opposite in fact, if we were a world leader that would make her statement nonsensical).
I’m surprised that the Greens are upset about her desire to improve our climate change performance, perhaps you don’t agree with the policies, or think they are insufficient, but the quote is simply about the desire, which you surely agree with.
March 7th, 2008 at 10:00 am
# BeShakey Says:
March 7th, 2008 at 9:23 am
“There is an important difference between the statements made by Clark and Bush. Bushs is a statement of fact (we are the world leaders), Clarks is a statement of desire (we want to be world leaders). Its easier to see that Bush is wrong, but harder for Clark.”
Her government’s policies over the last eight years show no sign of being influenced by any such desire, so I have to conclude that she’s lying about the desire.
March 7th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
not so much lying as constrained by political realities.
March 7th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
The reality of the entrenched money in the old economy of borrow to consume at all costs. As opposed to the ‘new world’ opportunity of ‘closing the loops’ and using everything to it’s best efficiency. Funny but I see more profit in the latter. Us Kiwis could and should be the leaders of the pack. Greens should be emphasizing the opportunities staring us in the face not the costs.
March 7th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
>>Greens should be emphasizing the opportunities staring us in the face not >>the costs.
Given the world wants food, and food prices are skyrocketing, I see no sense in us constraining our food production.
I agree with the sentiment in another thread - the Greens are going to need to come up with figures, not religious rhetoric, in order to be taken seriously.
What are these opportunities worth to us, and what are the costs?
March 7th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
And the cost of continuing in top gear, pedal to the metal, toward the cliff?
March 7th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
>>And the cost of continuing in top gear, pedal to the metal, toward the cliff?
About 0.038%.
March 7th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Kahikatea - given that the statement was made recently, her record before the statement isn’t really relevant (it’s like pointing out to someone that says they want to learn french that they aren’t telling the truth because they didn’t take any lessons before deciding they wanted to learn).
March 8th, 2008 at 12:56 am
USA is very much leading in creating the technology to fight climate change, even with bush in charge mainly due to the fact that the corporations realise there is BIG money. As for Helen she talks and takes the middle-ground.
As for animals producing methane, this is because they are feed a BAD diet, by just feeding them garlic reduces gas by 50%, this is not high technology but a real today fix for our future problems much like biochar.
March 8th, 2008 at 2:28 am
“Taking the moral low-ground has never been the New Zealand way.” But it has been the Labour way under MMP. Difficult to prove in relation to water pollution or glabal warming because MfE have never presented a Strategy to 2010 discussion document identifying and quantifying the steps that could be taken. If there had been such a document we would have something to benchmark Labour’s performance.
Fortunately such a document was produced by the National Road Safety Committee in 2000 and benchmarking Labour’s performance against it leads to the conclusion that Labour has deliberately chosen not to reduce the road toll to the Road Safety Strategy 2010’s target of no more than 300 deaths in 2010. The NRSC’s basic proposal was either increase enforcement/education funding by $60 million a year (for ever) or increase engineering funding by $360 million a year (for 10 years). While Labour happily increased spending on enforcement and education by the amount recommended by the NRSC they chose to ignore the requirement that spending road safety engineering not be reduced. They did this deliberately because the price of petrol went through the roof in 1999/2000 so a petrol tax increase was politically unpopular but they had a confidence agreement with the Greens that they politically couldn’t afford to breach too blatantly. So they simply took money away from road safety to fund the commitment. What is more important - saving lives or saving Labour? A no brainer in politics. Then when they did get brave enough to increase the petrol tax it wasn’t because of an attack of consciounse. Oh no. Banksie was building his Mayoral campaign around solving Auckland’s congestion. To head him off at the pass Labour suddenly had to be seen as the cowboy in the white hat riding to Auckland’s rescue. The result was spending on highway engineering fell so drasticly that it is costing 100 lives a year compared with the NRSC’s proposal. Not the fault of the Green’s or Banksie. When the press started sniffing around the story the Minister of Transport blamed the NRSC for not staying on top of the problem.
Taking the moral low-ground while claiming the moral high-ground is the MMP Labour way.
In fact, they’re probably ecstatic every time the here claims of “speeding tickets are just revenue raising”. It’s very easy to imply that people making that claim are denying that bad crashes are caused by bad drivers and therefore must be bad drivers themselves. The winner in politics is the one who can control the debate so keeping the road safety debate focussed on bad drivers is essential for Labour. Letting bad roads have equal billing with bad drivers is dangerous for Labour. Which is why the NRSC has been forced to used a high deniability strategy to try and get road safety onto the media radar in election year. Notice how there is only one logo on the KiwiRAP website. The usual logos found on road safety or highway material are notable by their abscence. The NRSC member agencies are mentioned only as suppliers of information, or so it seems at first glance. But pay close attention to the actual wording. Did the AA provide anything other than their logo and web server?
Now, I wouldn’t call Helen or her cabinet mass murderers but there are several hundred families who might if they knew more than they are being told.
March 8th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Frankly, I am appalled that anyone would try to compare Helen Clark to George Bush. The two have nothing in common.
One of them has overseen a political system based on corruption and patronage for eight years; has interfered in other countries’ affairs; has made a series of disastrous decisions that have seriously harmed their country’s economy; has attacked religious minorities; and has an inflated opinion of their place on the world stage.
The other is the President of the United States of America.
March 9th, 2008 at 2:23 am
if you want to be in the forefront of the so called race to zero emission point why don’t we import the geet machine here enmass? just add a lil crude oil and away you go, it’s exhaust is oxygen amazing lil generator
March 9th, 2008 at 4:31 am
Geet sounds great, should make them here instead of importing them.
Where does it say exhaust is oxygen? 90% less greenhouse gas with a 80% water or some such.
Sounds like Bush and his big oil buddies are doing a number on inventor, read http://www.geetfriends.net/
Wonder why garages don’t offer to install these devices? Has anyone got one on their vehicle?
March 9th, 2008 at 10:41 am
sorry buddy your right i remembered it off hand from an old doco i got called “Race to zero point energy” very informative.
kind of makes you wonder why our own government even the greenies with all their resources never ever came across this guy or the other small time inventors on the doco?
do you think helen wants us to join some freaky asian union?
March 9th, 2008 at 11:26 am
peter garrett and australia are fast moving back into the go slow on climate change policy and action camp.
its fossil fools day on april 1 - so get thinking of some great pranks and so on…
The International Rising Tide network and its allies are calling for a day of action against the fossil fuel industry on April 1st 2008 FOSSIL FOOLS DAY!
Roll up, roll up! The climate circus is in town. Confronted with melting ice caps, unprecedented species extinction, droughts and extreme weather, climate change threatens our very survival. The fools at the head of the fossil fuel empire continue to plunder the earth, with the governments as willing court jesters at their side…..
http://www.fossilfoolsday.org/
March 9th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
GEET ?
If this is what you are relying on to save us, then in the words of the great Mogambo, “we’re all freakin’ doomed” .
http://www.phact.org/e/dennis27.htm
Try to remember, repeat after me
“There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch”.
respectfully
BJ
March 9th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
too bad for that hopeful shot in the dark. i’ve sat with friends discussing it ages ago and one thing we all agreed on was why was it being sold like a bowflex machine you got any up todate sites on the geet? i’ve been trying to find something concrete on mohenjodaro, i keep finding sites that allure to evidence but nothing real, iwonder if the tube will evolve into a place where you can place your inventions and have it tested by the common guy and have the techies pull it apart aswel just like the revision three guys are doing in their series or should be doing.
so it’s gonna still come down to the common guy stuck with a piece of useless junk in a few years time. In the doco the car wasn’t the main subject but the lil generator was
too bad
hey bj you’re ex stateside what do you think of the Amero? is it real? is the US dollar slated for replacement? if so what would it do to us and our fledgling move towards environmental reclaimation?
March 9th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
two years ago i tried telling friends not to buy commodores or falcons or pajeros instead they laughed and went out and bought the big units not understanding why suddenly holden had dropped their flagship down price range, i told them to go and buy alil 1.1 nissan march since it will do the same with less than the big cruisers they laughed since it was more of an image thing than sense, three of them have parked themup not even bothering to try to sell them
another friend of mine posed a question to me recently (hes a network cable installer) hates thew job ,he said for every new building i’ve worked on how many rack systems i’ve seen go in i said “depends on the le vels and design but averaging typical twin rack with ac cooling for the towers
then i got his drift for every building multileveled averaging five levels with twin server rack systems and ac you get quite alot of output some i’ve been in have 30 racks, just think of the move that the average guy is heading today with his home server unit say in 6 years one lil pc goin 24/7 every second to third house in every street i’m sure the output would be lower due to newer processor tech meaning less power consumption but it dose’nt take much to see it won’t be enough if the trend towards having a homey takes off
March 9th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
No Amero in the foreseeable future. There will be no acceptance by the US until the US itself is in tatters. I don’t think it can happen. The resistance is too great and the “reserve currency” ideal is still being pursued. See me in 50 years…. maybe.
BJ
March 9th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Nothing more recent on the Geet… sorry.
BJ
March 9th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
BeShakey said: given that the statement was made recently, her record before the statement isn’t really relevant
I think it is relevant. Why would you trust the Labour Party (who have recently come to this position, and have no policy programme to implement, and want the taxpayer to subsidising the economic costs of greenhouse gas emissions from the dairy industry for many years to come).
The Green Party has been a consistent advocateof carbon neutrality for many years, and has the policies to achive it, requiring all sectors to pay for the economic cost of their emissions.
So why trust the newbies on the block, who have no policy that will achieve their purported aspitations?
March 10th, 2008 at 2:36 am
Dana, Nissan and Bosch seem to have leapfrogged GEET and gone straight to Nanosecond Microwave Induced Low-Temperature Plasma Ignition.
http://dana.mediaroom.com/index.php/press_releases/2008
http://www.itepsa.com/Detail.bok?no=1575
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6918366-description.html
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/27/4392531/04392 536.pdf?isnumber=4392531&arnumber=4392536
March 10th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
ok so what the deal dudes you mean i have to park up the v8 turn offa all the lights then what
March 11th, 2008 at 5:08 am
peterquixote, Then what? Take a cold shower, of course.
March 11th, 2008 at 7:14 am
That’d be a point for Kevyn …. ROTFL.