A: No, we are opposed to pollution.

Pollution is the transfer of unusual or harmful matter or energy to another person’s property without their consent. Thus I should not allow smoke, ash particles, industrial effluent, noise, noxious gases, bad smells or light from my property to annoy anyone else unless we have negotiated an agreement.

Burning of carbon fuels has been part of the natural cycle of the earth since the first plant was set on fire by the first lightning strike. All the products of burning natural carbon fuels are easily and beneficially absorbed by the atmosphere, dissolved by rain and go to fertilise the soil.

However there are some emissions that are annoying or dangerous in concentrated amounts, for example nitrous oxide, hydrogen chloride, sulphur dioxide. And others such as soot and ash that are not so dangerous, but visible and annoying. Bush fires produce all of these, but usually not in troublesome amounts.

Burning coal or oil in power stations can produce continual pollution in a small area, so modern clean plants remove almost everything from the emissions except water vapour and carbon dioxide, which are disseminated into the atmosphere via a tall stack. These two are normal beneficial atmospheric gases not pollutants. Taking them out of the emissions would be a silly and very expensive exercise for no benefit.

There is now a special magazine called “Carbon Capture Journal” devoted to carbon capture pipe dreams.

But despite all the hype, there still isn’t any commercial scale power plant (1000 MW) operating anywhere in the world that captures and stores CO2.

There are gas and oil rigs that pump it back down into reservoirs, there one small 200 MW pilot/demonstration generator in Germany that captures the CO2 and then trucks the CO2 halfway across Germany to an injection point (but is it a real commercially viable plant anyway – or just a heavily subsidized exercise in PR?).

All a big fronted farce designed to gather lots of Government funding (our tax money!!)

JB, NSW, Australia

Dear Carbon Sense,

I had a spare moment, and for some reason it was spent pondering Climate Change.

Suddenly, like a bolt of lightening… bells and whistles went off… I’m onto something.

I need support, and confidently believe you will jump on board to back me with the following research into Climate Change.

I am preparing my own submission to examine a subject that has not been appraised: “The Damage Climate Change will make to Fashion (including associated industries)”. I will not be investigating the inconsequential slaughter of innocent wildlife within fashion, as this may well prejudice the findings. In fact, the fashion industry is saving these poor creatures from the scientifically proven Climatical catastrophe we mere humans are facing.

There appears to be a vital call for extensive funding before it is too late, as the Paris, Rome, New York and London Fashion industries will disintegrate due to predicted continuing seasonal uncertainties brought about by Climate Change. The complete loss of winter, spring, autumn and summer fashion releases together with the gala events accompanying these seasonal releases will bring about a Global Economic Collapse, causing millions to become unemployed. This widespread calamity will bring to an end the Asian, Mexican and African sweat-shops, forcing hundreds of thousands, if not millions of starving, emaciated, suffering humans to become Global Refugees, as they can not ALL survive by manufacturing only shorts, T-shirts and thongs (flip-flops) as the unprecedented rising temperature continues upwards.

We MUST act immediately to prevent the future misery that will be enforced on our daughters and their daughters… and their daughters… and in some cases our sons; sons who will never experience the understanding and self gratification of this season’s ‘new dress’, or the ‘new shoes, or the new Armani Jeans, watch or cologne.

We can NOT stand by and turn our backs on this forthcoming, predestined, inevitable tragedy. WE MUST ACT NOW!!

I wish to embark on this research with a round-the-globe trip to establish how Climate Change is having an effect on the natural physical and biological form of bikini-clad, young ladies’ nipples, and what affect, if any, the proliferation of Global Warming, due to anthropogenic CO2 escalation, will have on their natural rise and fall.

I am presently working on a couple of models… however due to privacy laws and the small matter of a restraining order, I can not advise you of their names at this time.

Are you interested in assisting in this research and how much funding do you think we will require?

All donations will be accepted and not accounted for.

Your future children saving friend,

Rick Gore-Flannery (changed name by dead pole so people would believe me)

Extreme conservation policies are sterilising so much of Australia’s resources that it is becoming a threat to our national security.

Most wars are about land and resources.

In the colonial era, aggressive Europeans swarmed into Africa, the Americas and Australia attracted by underused land, minerals and timber. More recently, Hitler invaded Eastern Europe and Russia in the search for “living space” and access to Black Sea oil and Japan went to war attracted by the resources of South East Asia and Australia.

Australia is the odd man of Asia – a huge land mass with a small population.

Our populous and rapidly developing northern neighbours need the primary products that Australia has in abundance – food, fibres, minerals and energy. So they note with disbelief the way in which Australia is sterilising these valuable resources.

More: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/resources-and-security.pdf [PDF, 47KB]

The Queensland State Government has announced a plan to create a new category of restricted land called “Strategic Cropping Land” which bans mining or development. This could blight 4% of Queensland, representing an area more than twice the size of Holland and including many areas likely to contain the mineral and energy resources for tomorrow.

Farmers should not celebrate this cynical move by an anti-farming state government to pepper Queensland with more restrictions on their land titles.
(more…)

You may have heard of Peter Spencer, the desperate Australian farmer who went on a hunger strike to draw attention to the fact that government bans on clearing vegetation had stolen his assets and destroyed his business. Peter is just one of many Australian farm families reduced to desperation and even suicide by seizure or sterilisation of their land to satisfy the voracious green god.

The most massive injustice occurred a couple of years ago, when, as a sacrifice to the Kyoto god, the federal government conspired with state governments to ban vegetation clearing on all property, even freehold. This was done in an underhand way to allow the government to seize carbon credits from landowners without paying compensation.

Many well meaning people, while not happy with the tactics and the refusal to pay compensation for property seized or devalued, think that there will be some environmental or climate benefits to come from all this.

Generally there are none.

Even if extraction of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere was a good idea (and it isn’t), no tree can keep extracting it on a long term basis. Every living thing (including trees, grass, cows and humans) borrows carbon from the environment as it grow, stops extracting it at maturity, and hands the valuable carbon back to the environment when it dies and the body rots. Net life time extraction equals ZERO. It is absolute scientific nonsense to believe that trees can have a long term effect on so called greenhouse gases. Like everything politicians touch, short term appearances and secret agendas are preferred to long term reality.

Banning the clearing of scrub regrowth in our grasslands is also a backward step environmentally. Everyone can see and understand tree forests, but no one appreciates the grass forests beneath their feet. Natural fires created our grasslands long before humans occupied Australia. They are valuable environmental landscapes far more important to humans than the stupid carbon credit forests and eucalypt weeds now invading them. With closer settlement and excessive areas locked up by governments, fires no longer protect our grasslands and landowners must use machinery to maintain their grass. Preventing this is like telling a market gardener he is not allowed to chip weeds invading his vegetable patch. Every landowner tries to guard the long term value of his land. No one has a monopoly on knowledge on how to do it. Some properties may need more trees, some less – if more trees are a benefit, landowners will grow them without coercion.

Does anyone seriously believe that a few green politicians and activists can devise one dictatorial land plan for every property from Longreach to Wagga and then use legal bludgeons, land confiscation and a desk bound bureaucracy to enforce the co-operation of landowners?

The Senate is currently carrying out an enquiry into some aspects of this massive land mismanagement. It is a bigger scandal than the home insulation scheme, and few politicians are free of blame. The Senate will be surprised at the injustices that will be revealed by this enquiry.

The Carbon Sense Coalition has (in some haste) made a Submission to this enquiry. We urge you to read it and print it out for friends. See it at:

http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/grasses-trees-climate-food.pdf

Even if you don’t read it, open it and look at the pictures.

We must not let them sweep all this under the table again. We need your help to get this short note to every landowner, every media outlet and every politician. Please help us spread it around.

And remember to tell everyone “Grass is also Green”.

Media Release
21st March 2010

Can’t see the Grass for the Trees?

The Carbon Sense Coalition today called on the Australian Parliament to repeal the vegetation clearing bans before Australia’s productive grasslands are lost to woody weeds.

The Chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, said that the Kyoto bans were introduced deviously by state governments acting as stooges for the federal government to deprive landowners of potential carbon credits without paying compensation.

“Now they are creating a growing public liability as trees invade ancestral grasslands.

“Every continent in the world had vast native grasslands, often treeless, kept free of trees by lightning fires, and supporting huge populations of herbivores and their dependent predators. The treeless Prairies supported bison and antelope; the Pampas supported deer and camelids; the Veldts supported wildebeest, zebra and antelopes; and Australia’s grasslands supported kangaroos and emus.

“Trees and grasses are in continual competition for soil space and access to solar energy. Old journals, diaries, sketches and photos can attest the fact that there are now more trees in Australian grasslands than there were 100 years ago. Some properties can document the substantial tree invasion even since the first aerial photos were taken in the 1950’s. This invasion has accelerated since governments started meddling in vegetation control.

“Human settlers, both black and white, have learned that fires were essential to re-invigorate the grasslands and control their invasion by trees. But with closer settlement, there are reduced opportunities to use fires to control trees and landowners must use machinery to protect their grass.

“White settlement in Australia has brought two major changes to vegetation. Firstly, in the forests and scrubs along the coast, timber getters and small selectors cleared the fertile soil for crops and farms. Human development and infrastructure ensure that these forests seldom recovered. Secondly, scrubby regrowth and trees have invaded much of the grassland and open forest.

“If governments want to turn back the vegetation clock, they should be removing towns, roads, railways, schools, orchards, housing developments, cultivation and market gardens from the once forested coastal areas to allow coastal forests to re-establish. But this would lose too many votes, so they advocate accelerated destruction of our ancient grasslands. Their hope is that this will gain more votes from tree huggers than will be lost from grass farmers, where there are few votes to lose.

“Today the grasslands support domesticated grazing animals and farms of cultivated grasses and legumes that are essential food sources for humans. Invasion of Australia’s grasslands by eucalypt weeds is destroying our ability to produce food, which will show up in the cities as rising food prices and declining jobs.

“These bans can have no long term effect on greenhouse gases. They will reduce food production and slash property values. They are cynical exercises in vote buying and international grandstanding which should be immediately abandoned.”

“If action is not taken we will soon reach a state where we can’t see the grass for the trees.”

For a fuller discussion of “Grasses, Trees, Climate and Food” see:

http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/grasses-trees-climate-food.pdf

Disclosure: Viv Forbes and his wife own and live on a freehold sheep and cattle grazing property at Rosevale in Queensland. The tree population on this property has increased greatly during their occupation. The property is affected by vegetation management plans prepared without any consultation with the owners.

By Cliff Ollier, 2009.

I was lucky enough to be invited to the “Climate Challenge” conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. The aim of this small two-day conference was to throw a challenge to the science of the main Copenhagen conference. We had a few experts who presented their views and evidence.

Niklas Morner, world expert on sea level, showed that sea levels are not rising at an alarming rate anywhere, including the Maldives and Tuvalu.
(more…)

It was the year 1799, during the “Dalton Minimum” when the sun was quiet that George Frederick Bollinger led a group of early pioneers from North Carolina to establish early settlements in Missouri. They hoped to cross their largest obstacle, the Mississippi River, on the ice, frozen solid in mid-winter.

The pioneers and their wagon train moved westward a few miles each day, making and breaking camp each night, fording the small streams and floating across the larger ones on rafts which they made from the nearby trees, following roads that were barely trails through forests and valleys.

They arrived on the east bank of the Mississippi River opposite St. Genevieve in late December, pitched camp and explored potential river crossings. St. Genevieve is located about a 100 miles downstream from St. Louis. Winter had come early and the Mississippi river was already covered with ice. It was bitterly cold. They determined the ice was not yet thick enough to support a crossing of ox-carts and covered wagons. Daily the thickness of the ice was measured and then on Dec. 31, a chopped hole in the ice indicated thickness well over two feet. They tested the ice by making a few trips across on foot and horseback. The believed the ice was thick enough to support a loaded wagon.

As a test, a wagon was selected to be driven across with no one riding and the driver would walk ahead watching the ice and leading his team. The trip across and back to camp was made without the ice cracking and preparations were made for an early crossing New Year’s Day.

The next morning final preparations were made to break camp and all supplies were loaded. The weather remained bitter cold with dark skies overhead and light snow falling, but the decision had been made to cross and there was no turning back. The group was devout German Reformed Protestants and they gathered together in the early cold gray dawn to seek guidance from their God for a safe crossing.

The cracking of whips like pistol shots rang out over the heads of the oxen to coax them out onto the ice; the crossing had began. All that were able, walked to lighten the loaded wagons, keeping a safe distance from the wagons, which were also spaced far apart to lessen the danger of breaking the ice. The crossing was made successfully with no mishaps, except extremely cold hands and feet.

The townsfolk of St. Genevieve had built a large fire to welcome and warm these new settlers. Safely across the Mississippi, they were relieved of their crossing fears and enjoyed the local hospitality. They exchanged news from the East for information of what they might expect ahead. Needed supplies were purchased and even the weather abated a little as the sun broke through the clouds. They settled along the Whitewater River where the soil was rich.

We are transitioning into Solar Cycle (SC) 24 and the sun has become fairly quiet. During most of the last century (SC 16-23) the sun has been in a Grand Maxima. As a result the Earth has experienced warming. But with SC 24 the sun is again changing states. From the peak year 1998, the lower Troposphere temperatures globally have already fallen around 1/2 degree Celsius. This is despite the fact that during that same time period, atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen 5% from 367 ppm to 386 ppm. Several solar scientist are predicting the sun will slide into a “Dalton Minimum” event in SC 25, about a decade from now. If that happens, the Earth will experience some bitterly cold winters for several decades.

The winters may once again resemble the winters 200 years ago during the time of the early pioneers. Imagine for a minute the west fork of the White River near Bloomfield freezing into a block of ice two feet thick.

James A. Marusek
Bloomfield USA

First published Greene County Daily Word, 19 Mar 2009.

http://gcdailyworld.com/story/1510388.html

By Will Happer

Albert Einstein would almost certainly have been a global warming skeptic if he were alive today. Many distinguished, contemporary scientists are skeptics too.

We are lucky that Einstein left a rich legacy of pithy quotes that reveal how he would probably relate to today’s cult of global warming alarmists.

Take the oft repeated propaganda that 97 percent of scientists support global-warming alarmism.

Quite aside from the falseness of the claim, Einstein would have remembered the famous attack on himself, “A Hundred Scientists Against Einstein,” published in Germany in 1931. His response was, “If I were wrong, one would have been enough.”

His view of groupthink was summarized in another comment: “In order to be a member of a flock of sheep, one must, above all, be a sheep oneself!” (more…)

The Green-ants said “You can’t burn coal” – so we sent our coal to China. Then our factories and our smelters closed and followed the coal to China.

The Green-ants said “You can’t eat beef” – so we sent our beef to China. Then burger chains and canneries closed and followed the beef to China.

The Green-ants said “Protect the trees” – so our grasslands went to weeds. Then China’s wool cheques disappeared and graziers went on welfare.

The Green-ants said “Don’t mention nukes” – so we shipped those fuels to China. Then Chinese power costs fell while ours just kept on soaring.

The Green-ants said “You can’t frack gas” – so we sent our drills to China. Then geologists and engineers were fired and followed the rigs to China.

Then blackouts came and jobs got scarce, so our kids chased jobs in China.

Today we import what we need and our cash is shipped to China.

And now we sit in flickering light, dreaming of times when factories and smelters flourished, work was honoured, explorers and builders were heroes, miners and farmers paid the nation’s bills, electricity was cheap and reliable, and to produce things was no crime.

It’s time we sent all of our Green-ants to China – there should be lots of work for them there.

Here is the green plan:
https://greens.org.au/policies/climate-change-and-energy

Viv Forbes

PDF version: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/drain-the-swamp.pdf [PDF, 370 KB]