Prime Minister John Howard continues to parrot the Bush Administration’s policy of deception and misrepresentation by calling for a reduction of greenhouse-gas “intensity” 25 percent by 2030.

Greenhouse-gas “intensity” is the emissions per unit economic output. Multiply this quantity by the size of the economy and you get total greenhouse-gas emissions.

Greenhouse-gas “intensity” has declined all by itself as the world's economy has evolved from manufacturing (which takes a lot of energy) to services (which take less) – as the technology becomes more efficient.

Over the past few decades U.S. greenhouse-gas “intensity” has declined somewhere between 1 and 2 percent per year WITHOUT any government pro-active policies to reduce GHG emissions.

Based on historical data, the APEC target of decreasing our greenhouse-gas “intensity” by 25 percent over 23 years is essentially a do-nothing target. A decrease of this amount would occur naturally. And given such a modest decrease in "intensity" we can still expect emissions to continue to grow rapidly – therefore climate change will continue unabated.

It should be clear that APEC leaders are either not making any legitimate effort to head off the risk of climate change or have been hoodwinked yet again by the only two countries not to ratify ‘Kyoto’ and whose agenda is to undermine the UNFCCC process for a post-Kyoto agreement.

Howard’s APEC "spin" could well be the rabbit he wanted to salvage his election hopes. In terms of climate change, he is deceiving the public who do not know the difference between GHG “intensity” and GHG emissions.

The APEC summit was an expensive, oppressive fizzer. The outcome for global warming ended up being an agreement like an: "aspiration to aspire to organize an aspiring meeting" sometime in the future. This is just some of the 330 million dollar plus waste of security money, that the conference that fizzled to pain and disappointment.

What were the victories? Australia gets to sell uranium to India and Russia. Howard is proud of that. He would be. Expects us to believe that all is safe. PM Chamberlain in the 1930s would blush at this act of deception.

The walls of shame that surrounded Sydney were a blight in our lives, kangaroo proof for what exactly? Didn't work on a few comedians from the Chaser team. They were funny and made a good point. 330 million dollars later. And probably more indirect expenses.

The APEC demonstration showed that Sydneysiders were peaceful, of course, we usually are. The 10,000 odd crowd was well humored, decent folk, very few had any interest in the wall of shame at all.

The police got so bored that the crowd was so obedient, that they decided to stretch the Supreme Court Ruling that the demonstration was legal in certain areas. They are on video brutally attacking people well away from the forbidden zone, and locked everyone in Hyde Park. They assumed higher authority than the supreme court.

We will hear much much more about this stuff-up as Sydneysiders review exactly how oppressive this has all been. There will be retribution in the Federal election.

People have been writing to my YouTube site in from Chile, Poland and Israel, stating "we thought that Australia was a free country. We pitty you. That looks like a tyranny". The world can see the Government better than we can, and it all looks quite shabby to say the least!

Davsab...when you have an army which can take on China...let me know... we can zoom up there and TELL them to stip filthing up the planet :)

In the mean time... yours and others voices against it.. are just bleating powerless sheep, Sadly.

OOOps...there IS one more thing we can all do...

1/ Organize the same number of protesters which attended APEC and then.. plan a march on the CHINESE embassy/consulate..and guess what.. I WILL JOIN YOU.

2/ Organize blockades of Chinese containers at the docks.. I WILL JOIN YOU.

3/ PUBLICIZE the poor quality and SLAVE labor utilized to manufacture Chinese goods..and I'LL HELP.

Perhaps we don't need an army after all :)

BUT...why will you and others not do this ? aaah... probably for the same reason that a hard core leftoid commy woman attacked me a the IR laws protest in Melbourne when I held up a sign saying "BLAME CHINA..tax slavery at customs".

The left usually does not take issue with the 'hard' targets..they use the democratic freedoms we are privileged to enjoy to attack those who guarantee that freedom...like BUSH and HOWARD etc.

ROFL...great post, David.

This thread has obviously touched a chord with you BOAZ_David. You definitely have something to say but I fail to understand how your comments address the issues I made in my original post.

You say “In the mean time... yours and others voices against it.. are just bleating powerless sheep, Sadly.” David, can you please clarify what you think I am against, what do you mean by “it”?

Your retort tells me I have offended you, but I have difficulty to understand why? Can I ask you to read my original post again so we can have meaningful dialogue?

The issues should not be about “us/them”, “you/me”, “west/east”, “communism/fascism”, “Islam/Christianity”, etc. The main tenet of the thread is about addressing a global problem by global means – reducing GHG “intensity” as proposed by Howard at the behest of Bush is ‘piffling’ and will not do anything to curb GHG emissions.

Howard is to be commended for the astute politician that he is in showing the world he has brought the biggest GHG emitters together – that was always going to be the outcome. However, I contend that the outcome to address the real problems of global warming (climate change if you prefer) is a complete furphy based on green-house gas or energy “intensity”.

This was the thrust of my thread of which you may have misunderstood.

I will be off-line till about Tuesday next, I hope this thread will engender some robust discussion, on topic of course.

Cheers

davsab

I read you, however I must advise you of only some of the "official" figures for air pollutants documented on npi.gov.au:

ELECTRICITY SUPPLY

1998/99.......................................................2005/06

CO: 16,000,000 kgs.............................58,000,000 kgs

NOx: 280,000,000 kgs........................500,000,000 kgs

SO2: 430,000,000 kgs........................630,000,000 kgs

VOC: ....130,000 kgs................................3,200,000 kgs

IRON AND STEEL MANUFACTURING

1988/99.......................................................2005/06

CO: 42,000,000 kgs...........................570,000,000 kgs

METAL ORE

1988/99.......................................................2005/06

CO: 3,400,000 kgs...............................51,000,000 kgs

NOx: 10,000,000 kgs............................65,000,000 kgs

SO2: 45,000,000 kgs..........................250,000,000 kgs

VOC: 270,000 kgs...................................4,600,000 kgs

Mr Turnbull recently bragged to the nation over their accomplishment in reducing greenhouse gases though the 05/06 figures above have increased since 04/05.

Boaz, I'm disappointed in you. It appears your Christian charity does not extend to the need for a healthy environment, if only to improve air quality in a parochial sense.

Just because China pollutes, aborts every second child (due to their previous stuff-ups), and disregards the rights of human individuals, are you suggesting we adopt the same ideologies? Or should we be setting an example and cease being so nauseously sycophantic to our trading partners?

"It seems dangerous to ground a society on the value of trying to disadvantage others. That is exactly what market liberalism proposes, and the results are predictable. Since the entrepreneurs have no interests other than their own, they will not seek to protect others. When they benefit, they will seek to actively harm others - if they think they can get away with it."

Those words are indeed befitting of the ideological extremism which pervades the minds of those we chose to represent us at the APEC summit.

Apologies

Corrections required in last post. "Under Iron and Steel Manufacturing" and "Metal Ore":-

Should read 1998/99 - NOT 1988/99

The whole Global Warming caused by human activity debate at APEC was
a complete waste of time. They are simply unaware that the scientific
debate concensus is turning around 180 deg, pun intended !

Even the UK Wx Bureau is having second thoughts.
In any case there will not be enough oil,gas & coal available to cause
the projected IPCC rise in temperature, even if they were right.

They missed a golden opertunity to discuss a very much more important
subject, ie the Transition Protocol to alternative fuels.
Do a Google on it for Richard Hienberg and Colin Campbell.

We may get natural global warming that we can't do anything about but
we can certainly try to mitigate the coming energy problems if we start early enough,
although it may already be too late to make much difference.

Interesting numbers Dickie (and as they are large I have long preferred the conversion to metric tons, but that is no matter). Am well aware of your concerns about ‘pollution’ from other OLO threads and I agree with much of what you have to say, thanks for pointing to the NPI site.

Malcolm Turnbull is a successful businessman, and is learning to play the ‘spin game’ with aplomb, he has a good mentor in John Howard – but, would Rudd and Garret be any different? Politics is all about ‘spin’ so I believe the answers to our problems are ideological in nature. So, rather than the ‘us/them’ mentality (as expressed in some posts above) would it not be better to adopt a more centrist approach, particularly for big issues like global warming?

Bazz, I understand your reserve about scientists and the IPCC and would debate you about “the scientific debate consensus is turning around 180 deg” but I agree wholeheartedly with you on the subject of a transition protocol to alternative fuels.

Mitigating GHG is important, very important – and in tackling this, the world has an opportunity to ideologically shift to ‘sustainable development’ – we won’t get this from those with an agenda of ‘business as usual’ or those with a vested interest in traditional energy markets.

Boaz, are you out there? I am still interested in your response to my second post. The delay I have had is due to my travel to Europe and the UK, notwithstanding the change in time zone.

Cheers