Agriculture permanently exempt from ETS

15 November, 2009 by

This is a huge backflip for the government. Agricultural emissions were to have been included in the ETS from 2015, but it is now being reported that such emissions will be permanently exempt, with farmers no longer being required to buy permits.

The Coalition has been calling for the exemption – and the Government’s surprise move dramatically raises the stakes for Mr Turnbull to close a deal with Climate Change Minister Penny Wong to pass the ETS in the next two weeks of Parliament.

Yet sections of the Opposition Leader’s Liberal Party and the Nationals are likely to remain opposed to any such deal regardless, leaving Mr Turnbull’s authority in shreds.

The surprise concession by the Government will be announced by Senator Wong today ahead of the resumption of Parliament this week.

The initiative will also isolate the Nationals, who have been using the inclusion of agriculture in the proposed scheme by 2015 to spearhead its opposition to the package.

Senator Wong’s announcement is likely to get backing for the scheme from key Nationals constituencies such as the National Farmers Federation, which has been lobbying heavily for such a decision.

In another concession, Senator Wong will also announce the Government will develop plans to give farmers carbon credits for any efforts to capture and store carbon as part of their farm practices.

If the Opposition reject the ETS now, having obtained significant concessions from the government, it will be even easier for the government to claim the moral high ground, and accuse the opposition of being climate change deniers. Which is, of course, why the opposition should never have been negotiating on this awful legislation in the first place…

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Slaughter buffalo, eat your dog… all to save the planet

1 November, 2009 by

45 minutes at gas mark 7.

45 minutes at gas mark 7.

The lunatic fringe is in full voice at the moment, advocating all kinds of idiotic schemes to “save the planet from climate change”. Last week it was a pair of New Zealand “scientists” who had calculated that your pet dog has a larger carbon footprint than a Toyota Landcruiser. Their book is charmingly entitled “Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living“, and was all unquestioningly reported by the global media, including our own Fairfax:

The couple from Wellington’s Victoria University measured the carbon emissions of popular pets, taking into consideration what and how much the animal eats and the land needed to create that food.

The shock verdict was that owners of large dogs are as much in the dog box on environmental sustainability as owners of the oft-criticised four-wheel drive.

“A lot of people worry about having SUVs but they don’t worry about having Alsatians and what we are saying is, well, maybe you should be because the environmental impact … is comparable,” Brenda Vale said. (source)

Then today we read of another wackademic proposing that 150,000 feral buffalo be culled in order to reduce emissions:

Charles Darwin University’s Professor Stephen Garnett says an individual buffalo emits the equivalent of about a tonne of carbon dioxide each year.

He says feral animals release around 4 per cent of the Northern Territory’s annual greenhouse gas emissions.

Professor Garnett says outstation communities should be paid to cull feral buffaloes to fight climate change.

“There’s many places where you can’t run a buffalo ranching operation,” he said.

“There’s potential for reducing those numbers as a greenhouse gas mitigation measure.

“Each adult buffalo produces the equivalent of about a tonne of carbon dioxide each year and they live quite a long time. So that is a reasonable amount of carbon dioxide they are producing.” (source)

Where will this all end? Clearly the 6 billion humans belching and farting 24/7 must have a pretty big carbon footprint as well. When are we going to start culling them? We’ll leave the last word to Robert Vale:

Robert Vale told New Scientist magazine that we need to consider pet sharing: think the theatre cat or the temple dog.

And if you must have your own you should enjoy it for both its companionship and its flesh.

He recommends hens, which partly compensate for their eco-footprint by providing eggs, as well as pigs, or even rabbits, “provided you eat them”.

Fido and chips all round, then…

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