“The whole purpose of farming is to convert carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into useful products.”

Vincent Gray
New Zealand

“The chirping of birds outside my windows before the sun rises is consistent with the idea that chirping causes the sun to rise”.

John McLean

“First gather the facts; then you can distort them at your leisure.”

Mark Twain

Q: How many climate scientists does it take to change a light bulb?

A: None. There’s a consensus that it’s going to change, so they’ve decided to keep us in the dark.

“Well, the thing is we’re dealing with an incomplete understanding of the
way the earth’s system works…”

“When we come to the last few years, where we haven’t seen a continuation
of that warming trend, we don’t understand all of the factors that
create earth’s climate, so there are some things we don’t understand,
that’s what the scientists were emailing each other about, you know, we
just don’t understand the way the whole system works, and we’re trying
to find out.”

“These people work with models, computer modelling, when the computer
modelling and the real world data disagrees you’ve got a very
interesting problem, that’s when science really gets engaged. What Kevin
Trenberth, one of the most respected climate scientists in the world, is
saying is, ‘Guys, we have to get on our horses and find out what we
don’t know about the system, we have to actually understand why the
cooling is occurring, because the current modelling doesn’t reflect it.'”

“…sure for the last few years we have gone through a slight cooling
trend…”

Tim Flannery, ABC Lateline 23 Nov 2009
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2751390.htm

“A free society releases the energies and abilities of people to pursue their own objectives. It prevents some people from arbitrarily suppressing others. It does not prevent some people from achieving positions of privilege, but so long as freedom is maintained, it prevents those positions of privilege from becoming institutionalized; they are subject to continued attack by other able, ambitious people. Freedom means diversity but also mobility. It preserves the opportunity for today’s disadvantaged to become tomorrow’s privileged and, in the process, enables everyone, from top to bottom, to enjoy a fuller and richer life”.

Milton Friedman in his great book “Free to Choose”. (Dr Friedman got a Nobel Prize back in the day when they meant something)

“In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.”

Galileo Galilei, contrarian astronomer.

“Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.”

Laurence J. Peter, US educator & writer (1919 – 1988)

“The farming sector will still pay more for inputs such as fertilizer,electricity,fuel and transport and because they have always been price takers you can guarantee ETS charges levied on food processors will end up being paid by the farmer.

“Exempting agriculture is like being thrown from a 10th floor window instead of a 20th floor window – the result is the same.”

Senator John Williams, Senator for NSW, Nov 2009.

“No leader in history led by consensus – all great leaders lead by conviction”.

Margaret Thatcher