Memo to Prince Charles: CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is plant food

LONDON, ENGLAND – JULY 08: HRH Prince Charles, Prince of Wales laughs as he is taken on a tour of St Pancras Almshouses on July 8, 2009 in London, England. The Prince of Wales, patron of The Almshouse Association, presented the. Patron’s Awards and met residents and community leaders to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Almshouses. Getty Images

It’s probably very much in the Prince’s interests that we should all be rendered so poor that we can’t even afford to run our cars any more.

Telegraph | Jul 9, 2009

By James Delingpole

For those of us who still believe in logic, reason, empiricism, rationality, commonsense, economy reality and our inalienable right not to have trillions and trillions of our pounds, euros and dollars flushed down to the toilet to no purpose whatsoever, listening to the Prince of Wales’s pronouncements on “man made global warming” is becoming an increasingly trying experience.

In the Spectator today, I interview an Australian geology professor called Ian Plimer whose brilliant new book – Heaven And Earth – is rightly being hailed as the one that is going to nail once and for all the crazy myth that man’s contribution to “climate change” is remotely significant, let alone something we should worry about or waste money trying to stop.

As Professor Plimer observes with characteristic Aussie bluntness: “CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is plant food.”

Yet so many of the ruinously expensive policies being formulated on our behalf by everyone from Barack Obama to EU president (and former Maoist) Jose Manuel Barroso to Ed Miliband to (God help us) David Cameron’s Conservatives are based on the scientifically groundless urban myth that human generated CO2 (quite minuscule, anyway, compared with the quantities of greenhouse gases volcanoes belch or even cows fart) is the most dangerous substance on earth.

Prince Charles is fond of telling us that we only have 100 months left to save the earth. (Apparently down to 96 now, or so he claimed in his recent Dimbleby lecture). But I’d say the time we have left to save the world is quite significantly less than that. Not from the perfectly natural process of climate change, of course, but the far far greater threat of climate change alarmism.

Unless those of us with more than half a brain cell unite and act soon, the earth is going to fall prey to  the most destructive, expensive, suicidally pointless taxation and regulation and protectionism in global economic history. We simply cannot afford any longer to allow the likes of the Prince Of Wales, Al Gore, NASA activist James Hansen, Lord Stern and their amen corner in the mainstream media to go on pushing their ludicrous scare story unchallenged.

Right now, out there in the real world, are numerous genuine ecological challenges that urgently need addressing: the decline of fish (thanks European Union fisheries policy!); pollution; diminishing water tables; deforestation; overpopulation; and the great eco-disaster that are bio-fuels. The Quixotic quest to arrest “climate change” – something that has been happening for 4,567 million years regardless of man’s input – is a silly and expensive distraction.

What’s particularly galling about the most outspoken supporters of climate change taxation and regulation is that many of them either are rich enough not to be affected by it or – worse – stand to make vast fortunes as a result of it.

The Prince of Wales is a case in point. When you’re on a salary of £18 million, as he is, you’re probably not going to be bothered overmuch by tiny details such as your gas and electricity bills doubling because of green taxes on carbon emissions. You’re not even going to mind, that much, that if Barack Obama’s new $7.4 trillion cap and trade tax on carbon emissions is introduced the global economic recovery is going to be set by a generation. Indeed, it’s probably very much in the Prince’s interests that we should all be rendered so poor that we can’t even afford to run our cars any more. It will leave Britain’s roads free for Charlie to pootle about as freely as he wishes in his bio-ethanol-powered Aston Martin.

Poop! Poop!

Green Hypocrisy by the Royal family

Prince Charles recorded the most expensive travel bill in history

Private Jet Daily | Jun 30, 2009

Prince Charles recorded the most expensive travel bill in the history of royal accounts with two private jet trips.

In behalf of the Foreign Commonwealth Office, he went to the Far East last autumn and visited South America last May. The trips cost British tax payers £694,081 and £698,890, respectively.

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On both trips, the royal family member was accused of “green hypocrisy” as visits were supposed to highlight environmental issues and global warming.

In 2008, the Queen and her extended family spent £6.5million worth of travel expenses. The statistic indicated a £300,000 increase on the previous 12 months. The expensive bill includes travel in private jets, helicopters, and the Royal Train.

One of the most expensive travel bills was recorded by the Duke of Gloucester, who travelled with his wife to the South Pacific to attend the coronation of King Tupou V of Tonga.

The trip, which cost £140,000, included scheduled flights in Australia and a private jet trip from paradise isle.

Aides insist that Tonga is a Commonwealth county, making it essential for one of the queen’s representatives to attend.

Another expensive trip came from the Duke of York, who is now dubbed by reporters as “Air Miles Andy.” He represented the Queen as a UK Special Ambassador for Trade and Industry to the Baltic States, Mongolia, and China last October. His trips accumulated a total cost of £149,430.

However, Prince Charles topped the list for expensive trips with over £2million spent on trips at home and abroad.

Energy bills ‘too low’ to combat climate change says Royal Society

Royal Society report says current government policy is not enough to pay for green technology

Guardian | Jun 29, 2009

by Alok Jha

Consumers will need to pay more for energy if the UK is to have any chance of developing the technologies needed to tackle climate change, according to a group of leading scientists and engineers.

In a Royal Society study to be published today, the experts said that the government must put research into alternatives to fossil fuel much higher among its priorities, and argued that current policy in the area was “half-hearted”.

“We have adapted to an energy price which is unrealistically low if we’re going to try and preserve the environment,” John Shepherd, a climate scientist at Southampton University and co-author of the report said. “We have to allow the economy to adapt to higher energy prices through carbon prices and that will then make things like renewables and nuclear more economic, as carbon-based alternatives become more expensive.”

Shepherd admitted higher energy costs would be a hard sell to the public, but said it was not unthinkable. Part of the revenue could be generated by a carbon tax that took the place of VAT, so that the cost of an item took into account the energy and carbon footprint of a product. This would allow people to make appropriate decisions on their spending, and also raise cash for research into alternatives.

“Our research expenditure on non-fossil energy sources is 0.2% of what we spend on energy itself,” said Shepherd. “Multiplying that by 10 would be a very sensible thing to do. We’re spending less than 1% on probably the biggest problem we’ve faced in many decades.”

He said that the priority should be to decarbonise the UK’s electricity supply. Measures such as the government’s recent support for electric cars, he said, would be of no use unless the electricity they used came from carbon-free sources.

Though the creation of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) was a good move, Shepherd said: “We’ve had a lot of good talk but we still have remarkably little in the way of action.”

He cited the recent DECC proposals on carbon capture and storage (CCS) as an example. The department plans to legislate that any new coal-fired power station must demonstrate CCS on a proportion of its output. Once the technology is proven, a judgment made by the EnvironmentAgency around 2020, power plants would have five years to scale up to full CCS.

Shepherd said the proposals were not bold enough. “Really, it needs to be ‘no new coal unless you have 90% emissions reductions by 2020′. That is achievable and, if that were a clear signal, industry would get on and do it. It’s taken a long time for that signal to come through and now that it has, it’s a half-hearted message.”

A spokesperson for DECC argued that its proposed regulatory measures were “the most environmentally ambitious in the world, and would see any new coal power stations capturing at least 20-25% of their carbon emissions from day one”.

Ed Miliband, energy and climate change secretary, said that a white paper due next month will lay out how Britain will source its energy for the coming decades.

“This white paper will be the first time we’ve set out our vision of an energy mix in the context of carbon budgets and climate change targets. We have identified ways to tackle the challenges – we will need a mix of renewables, clean fossil fuels and nuclear and we’re already making world-leading progress in those areas. It’s a transition plan, a once in a generation statement of how the UK will make the historic and permanent move to a low-carbon economy with emissions cut by at least 80% in the middle of the century.”

The Royal Society report will argue that energy policy has been too fragmented and short-term in its outlook, with a tendency to hunt for silver-bullet solutions to climate change. “That really isn’t the case. What we need is a portfolio of solutions, horses for courses,” said Shepherd.

Obama budget allocates $130 billion for 2 wars

AP | May 7, 2009

By PAULINE JELINEK

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s proposed defense budget includes $130 billion for the nation’s two wars, a figure that may not be enough.

And his Democratic allies in Congress are threatening to set conditions that must be met before that money is handed out.

Obama sent to Congress on Thursday details of his proposed $664 billion Pentagon spending plan for the budget year starting in October. It includes $534 billion for base defense programs and $130 billion for overseas operations, including the wars he’s ramping down in Iraq and ramping up in Afghanistan.

The budget aims to cover what the Defense Department needs “to fight the wars we are in today and the scenarios we are most likely to face in the years ahead, while at the same time providing a hedge against other risks and contingencies,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in a statement released in Washington as he traveled in Afghanistan.

The $130 billion for overseas missions included $65 billion for Afghanistan and $61 billion for Iraq — the first time spending for the seven-year-old Afghan campaign has surpassed the one in Iraq.

“This request is where you’re going to first see the swing of not only dollars or resources but … capability from the Iraqi theater into the Afghanistan theater,” Navy Vice Adm. Steve Stanley, director of force structure for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference.

A Pentagon summary of the budget request said the war spending proposal “is intended to fund all currently known requirements for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the entire fiscal year.”

But it hedged by also saying the plan is the “administration’s best estimate of needs at this time.”

Although officials hope not to have to go back to Congress for more, “the administration reserves the right to seek additional funds in the event that there are significant changes in the security situation” or in the number of troops needed in either of the wars, it said.

Under pressure from Congress to develop ways to measure progress in Afghanistan, officials have said the administration is readying benchmarks to gauge security, governance and economic development there. The effort comes as lawmakers warn that Congress may try to condition budget approval for the Afghanistan war on whether improvements are being made on a number of fronts.

Lawmakers frustrated with the Bush administration adopted their own set of measures to judge progress in the Iraq war, leading some to suggest that they would do the same for Afghanistan unless the Obama administration acts promptly to set its own.

The benchmarks are expected to measure levels of violence, improvements in the Afghan security forces, counternarcotics efforts, agricultural programs, economic development and services for the Afghan people.

Global warming law could cost British taxpayers £20,000 per family

Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband admits the cost of laws aimed at tackling global warming has soared to £404billion

Laws aimed at tackling global warming could cost every family in Britain a staggering £20,000 – double the original forecast.

Daily Mail | May 5, 2009

By Ian Drury

Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband admitted the bill for introducing legislation to cut greenhouse gases had soared from £205billion to £404billion between now and 2050.

But in figures quietly released to Parliament, the Cabinet minister claimed the benefits to the UK would be more than £1trillion – a tenfold increase on the £110billion predicted last year.

Last night Mr Miliband was accused of entering ‘Alice in Wonderland territory’ with the figures in an attempt to stifle concern about the price of bringing in the Climate Change Act.

Senior Tory MP Peter Lilley said Mr Miliband ‘heavily massaged’ the statistics to ‘remove embarrassment’ that the laws represented poor value for money.

But ministers insist the costs of not acting on climate change would be higher than the price of acting now.

Under the Climate Change Act, the Government is committed to cut carbon emissions, blamed for global warming, by 80 per cent before 2050.

Originally the Government wanted to cut emissions by 60 per cent, with maximum costs of £205billion and benefits of £110billion. But the figure rose to 80 per cent after a threatened backbench revolt last year.

The extra cost was only revealed after the Bill became law in November. Four months later Mr Miliband slipped out revised figures in the House of Commons Library to avoid scrutiny, say critics.

They show the cost, which the Government says represents the predicted difference between the economy with and without carbon-constraining measures, had soared to a worst-case scenario of £404billion – in the region of £20,000.

Mr Lilley, a former Trade Secretary, said he accepted a reduction in global warming would cost a lot. But in a letter to Mr Miliband he said: ‘When it comes to your revised estimates of the benefits we enter Alice in Wonderland territory.’

Mr Miliband said the benefits had risen because a global deal on tackling carbon emissions was more likely because Britain had passed the Climate Change Act. He denied the figures were framed to produce a convenient answer.

Axelrod suggests ‘Tea Party’ movement is ‘unhealthy’

CNN | Apr 19, 2009

by CNN Political Producer Peter Hamby

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Senior White House adviser David Axelrod on Sunday suggested the “Tea Party” movement is an “unhealthy” reaction to the tough economic climate facing the country.

Axelrod was asked on CBS’s “Face the Nation” about the “spreading and very public disaffection” with the president’s fiscal policies seen at the “Tea Party” rallies around the country last week.

“I think any time you have severe economic conditions there is always an element of disaffection that can mutate into something that’s unhealthy,” Axelrod said.

Axelrod appeared to backtrack when pressed on whether the movement is unhealthy.

“Well, this is a country where we value our liberties and our ability to express ourselves, and so far these are expressions,” he said.

“The thing that bewilders me is that this president just cut taxes for 95 percent of the American people,” Axelrod argued. “I think the tea bags should be directed elsewhere because he certainly understands the burden that people face.”

Democratic strategist James Carville disagreed with Axelrod on CNN’s “State of the Union” when John King asked him if it’s unhealthy for “an American to go out and hold a sign and say ‘I think my taxes are too high.’”

Carville said, “No.” He called the Tea Party movement “harmless and damaging to Republicans.”

On CBS, Axelrod also responded to Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s recent insinuation that his state could secede from the union in response to government overreach under President Obama.

“I don’t think that really warrants a serious response,” Axelrod said. “I don’t think most Texans were all that enthused by the governor’s suggestion.”

Green pressure growing for flatulence tax

Scotsman | Mar 24, 2009

By Dan Buglass

THE UK government and the devolved administrations must avoid the temptation to introduce a “flatulence tax” on cows and other farm livestock, according to Struan Stevenson, a Scottish Conservative MEP who takes a keen interest in farming and rural affairs. The very notion may seem decidedly obtuse to practical farmers, but it is under consideration in both the Irish Republic and Denmark.

Stevenson said: “According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), livestock are responsible for around 18 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions around the world. A cow can emit up to four tonnes of methane each year in burps and flatulence, compared to 2.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide from an average car.

“This has led environmental fundamentalists in Ireland and Denmark to demand a flatulence tax as a means of combating global warming and avoiding stiff penalties from the European Commission under the EU’s emissions trading scheme.”

It has been suggested that there should be a tax of as much as £75 on each and every cow. However, there is considerable scientific research being conducted – some of which is based in Scotland – aimed at reducing emissions both through genetics and improved feeding regimes. The odds are that there will be no levy on the livestock industry in the immediate future, but Stevenson remains concerned.

He said: “Any tax would be a catastrophic mistake. Green taxes like these would kill off our dairy and beef industries and hand a gift to our direct competitors in Latin America and other countries outside the EU. At a time when less and less British food is being sold in our supermarkets, this would be the final straw.”

Stevenson has repeatedly argued that far more attention should be devoted to “food miles”. The UK is now less than 70 per cent self-sufficient in food and is increasingly reliant on imports from a wide range of countries. It would make much more sense, he contends, to increase domestic production than depend on supplies from countries where production standards fall below what is permissible within Europe.

Britain’s Big Brother police use spy cameras to catch drivers eating, drinking coffee

Little Brother is watching you: One of the police Smart cars with tall camera mast

Big Brother row as police force starts using Google camera cars to fine wayward drivers

The Big Brother vehicles will merely be another cash cow for the Government and a further ‘tax’ on hard-pressed motorists.

Daily Mail | Apr 6, 2009

By Jaya Narain

Police are taking a leaf out of Google’s book with their latest weapon in the war on motorists.

They are using cars with spy cameras on a mast. Drivers talking on their mobile phones, eating, applying make-up or otherwise driving illegally will be pictured.

And as the telescopic cameras can zoom in from some distance, the first inkling that they have been snapped could be when a £60 fine lands on the doorstep.

Police say the new cars – similar to those used by Google to map town and city streets – will help reduce road deaths. But motorists say the Big Brother vehicles will merely be another cash cow for the Government and a further ‘tax’ on hard-pressed motorists.

The Treasury already rakes in more than £105million in fines each year from speed cameras and driving-offence fixed penalties.

Two Smart cars are pioneering the scheme in Greater Manchester, where distracted motorists are said to have caused more than 400 accidents in the past two years, killing or seriously injuring 25 victims.

Drivers who are caught using their mobiles will be sent a £60 fine and will have three penalty points on their licence.

Those caught on camera without a seatbelt or driving erratically while eating will be fined £30.

Anyone who refuses to accept a fine – which will go into Treasury coffers – could be hauled before the courts.

Karen Delaney from DriveSafe, the road safety group behind the latest scheme, said: ‘Many vehicles are now better equipped than offices or homes, with the latest technology in satellite navigation, telecommunications and state-of-the-art music systems all to hand.

‘Add in other distractions such as complex dashboard instrumentation, a hot cup of coffee and a conversation with other vehicle occupants, and it is no wonder that some drivers are not paying attention.’

She added: ‘The Smart enforcement vehicles are fully police liveried and working in areas where our data analysis has identified a high occurrence of “driver distraction” collisions and where officers have regularly observed offences being committed.’

Nigel Humphries, from the Association of British Drivers, said: ‘This is a total infringement. They might as well put something in cars to test what drivers are thinking – to see if they are concentrating on the road or thinking about something else.

‘Apart from that it’s going to be counter-productive. There’s no excuse for not having police officers watching the road to look out for motorists who are driving erratically.’

Peter Roberts, from the Drivers’ Alliance, said: ‘People shouldn’t be using mobile phones when they are driving in the car, especially handheld ones. But I am not comfortable with spy cameras which can see into your car and see what you are doing.

‘The old-fashioned type of policing where coppers are sitting by the side of the road watching people go past to see if they are using a mobile is a far better way of doing things.’

Obama budget deficit seen at record $1.845 trillion

AFP | Mar 20, 2009

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US budget deficit could hit 1.845 trillion dollars this year under the budget proposed by President Barack Obama, quadrupling the 2008 record shortfall, a new forecast showed Friday.

The Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan agency of Congress, said its latest budget deficit estimate for fiscal 2009, which ends on September 30, would amount to 13.1 percent of the country’s entire economic output.

Since its early January estimate of a 1.2-trillion-dollar gap, the CBO said, the enactment of stimulus legislation such as the 787-billion-dollar stimulus plan and other measures to revive the economy, and other factors had added more than 400 billion dollars to deficit projections for 2009 and 2010.

The new projections were based on a sweeping 3.55-trillion-dollar multi-year budget proposed by President Barack Obama’s administration to Congress in February.

Obama has acknowledged the size of his budget’s 1.752-billion-dollar deficit in 2009 would require “some hard choices” on spending priorities.

The White House said the new CBO forecasts would not trim the Democratic president’s objectives or thwart his plan to halve the shortfall by 2013.

“None of the numbers today changed the president’s either objectives or his ability to achieve that deficit reduction,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Republicans grabbed the ammunition to push back against Obama’s massive budget package that teams tax cuts and heavy spending.

“It’s worse than even the most pessimistic predictions for this budget,” said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.

The CBO estimate of red ink would dwarf the nation’s record 2008 fiscal budget deficit of 459 billion dollars, which amounted to a relatively tiny 3.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

“The shortfall in the nation’s output relative to its potential is comparable with what occurred during the recession of 1981 and 1982 and will persist for significantly longer — making the current recession the most severe since World War II,” the CBO said.

The CBO estimated that for the current fiscal year, spending would soar 34 percent from the past year, to 4.004 trillion dollars, and revenues would plunge 15 percent, to 2.159 billion.

The deficit would remain high in the 2010 fiscal year, at 1.379 billion dollars, before falling below the trillion-dollar mark in 2011, to 970 billion dollars.

Deficits then would shrink to about 2.0 percent of GDP by 2012 and remain in that region through 2019, it said.

The CBO warned that its current forecast, particularly for the near term, was subject to an unusual degree of uncertainty.

“The possibility that financial markets might not stabilize represents a major source of downside risk to the forecast,” it said.

If current policies remained the same, the deficit would total almost 1.7 trillion dollars, or 11.9 percent of gross domestic product this year and 1.1 trillion, or 7.9 percent of GDP next year, “the largest deficits as a share of GDP since 1945.”

The CBO calendar-year projections on key economic indicators were less optimistic than those that underpin the Obama budget.

The CBO forecast GDP will contract at an annual rate of 3.0 percent in calendar year 2009 before rebounding to 2.9 percent growth in 2010 and 4.0 percent growth in 2011.

Obama’s budget is based on a much smaller 1.2 percent contraction this year, and growth of 3.2 percent and 4.0 percent in the two subsequent years, respectively.

The CBO see unemployment accelerating from an average 8.8 percent this year to 9.0 percent in 2010, then easing to 7.7 percent in 2010.

That compares with the White House unemployment forecasts of 8.1 percent, 7.9 percent and 7.1 percent, respectively.

White House budget boss Peter Orszag downplayed the forecast discrepancies as a normal part of the budget evaluation process with Congress.

“No one had ever had an expectation that they would just take our budget,” he said in a conference call.

Real cost of EU bureaucracy ten times higher than previously admitted

The real cost of EU membership for British taxpayers is ten times higher than figures quoted by the European Commission suggest, it has been claimed.

Telegraph | Mar 18, 2009

Real cost of EU is ten times higher than EC figures show, Taxpayers’ Alliance says

By Martin Banks in Brussels

According to the Taxpayers’ Alliance, EU membership costs every Briton £2,000 per year, compared with the £220 quoted by the EU.

The UK-based lobby group says that, annually, the total cost of British membership of the 27-member club is £118 billion.

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This contrasts sharply with Commission statistics which show that in 2007, the most recent year for which figures are available, Britain’s net contribution to the EU totalled some £3.8 billion.

The Taxpayers’ Alliance bases its figures on what it considers the “real, underestimated and hidden” costs of EU membership.

These include Britain’s direct contributions to the EU, the cost to UK business of complying with and administering EU regulations, EU administration costs and also higher food prices, said to result from implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy and Common Fisheries Policy.

The claims are made in a new Taxpayers’ Alliance booklet, entitled “The Great European Rip-Off.”

Its co-author, Matthew Elliott, the organisation’s CEO, said: “The book tries to find a total cost of the EU but does not suggest that it is all waste or that it could be eliminated overnight.

“However, an estimate of the total cost provides an important guide to the burden placed on member countries’ economies and their citizens due to EU membership.”

The Commission said it uses “totally” different data based solely on Britain’s direct contributions to the EU. A spokesman said that in 2007 Britain’s net contribution to the EU was 4.1 billion euros (£3.8 billion), or 0.21 per cent of the country’s GNI.

“Whatever anyone else says, we stick by these figures,” she said.