Utopia, you are standing in it!

For the IPCC Third Assessment Report (“TAR”) I was appointed Expert Reviewer.

To the IPCC I sent our report “Atmospheric CO2 and global warming: a critical review” by Jaworowski, Z., Segalstad, T.V. & Hisdal, V., published by Norsk Polarinstitutt [The Norwegian Polar Institute], 76 pp. [first edition 1991; second edition 1992].

To the IPCC we also sent our peer-reviewed paper “Do glaciers tell a true atmospheric CO₂ story?” by Jaworowski, Z., Segalstad, T.V. & Ono, N. (1992), published in the top international environmental scientific journal “Science of the Total Environment”, Vol. 114, pp. 227 – 284.

None of these two papers were considered by the IPCC, and neither of the numerous comments which I submitted. I got the impression that the TAR draft was supposed to be final, and that the expert reviewers were there to simply give support to the report…

One of the favourite smoke-and-mirrors lines pulled by the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers is that wind power lowers power prices.

Among the ‘tiny’ little omissions in that pitch are that:

1) they’re only ever talking about spot prices when the wind is blowing; and

2) they skate over the massive subsidies that get tacked on top of the price paid by retailers for the power delivered; and

3) they run a mile from the unnecessary cost of base-load plants holding additional ‘spinning reserve’ and the insane and otherwise unnecessary cost of running highly inefficient Open Cycle Gas Turbines, that are critical to keep a grid up and running when wind power output collapses on a total and totally unpredictable basis.

That little trick lasts about as long as it takes Joe the Power Punter to open his power bill; because all of the above is helpfully collected in…

James Delingpole is a bestselling British author and blogger who helped expose the Climategate scandal back in 2009. Reason.tv caught up with Delingpole in Los Angeles recently to learn more about his entertaining and provocative new book Watermelons: The Green Movement’s True Colors.

At its very roots, argues Delingpole, climate change is an ideological battle, not a scientific one. In other words, it’s green on the outside and red on the inside. At the end of the day, according to Delingpole, the watermelons of the modern environmental movement do not want to save the world. They want to rule it.

One photo of an emaciated puppy was enough to spark outrage on the part of animal rights protesters in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania the other day. According to ABC affiliate WHTM, local animal rights protesters took to the streets to call for the state to not only ban unlicensed dog breeding facilities (aka puppy mills) and strengthen animal cruelty laws. It was reported that almost 80 citations were issued in Pennsylvania resulting from a state law passed in 2015. But that’s not enough for Lancaster County protesters.

As I have pointed out before, the truth is the puppy mills cause is one of the ways animal rights groups seek to outlaw domestic animal ownership. Groups like PETA allege the practice of selling animals bred in large or small scale animal breeding facilities is cruel and inhumane. However, what the real goal of such efforts is to shut down breeders. They…

New Zealand Herald political commentator John Armstrong was dispensing advice to the Labour Party on privatisation issues in his column last Saturday (June 11).

First, he wrote:

Labour needs to make merry hell with the foreign ownership bogie – perhaps to a point bordering on xenophobia.

What sort of responsible economic journalism is that?  I dealt with the foreign ownership ‘bogie’ in TAP # 7.  First, selling shares in SOEs to foreigners does not increase net claims on the New Zealand economy.  Second, for a given current account balance, restricting foreign ownership of SOEs is likely to mean higher foreign ownership of other companies.  Does that make any sense?  Third, FDI in SOEs may bring the same benefits as FDI generally: why, on economic grounds, would you want to apply different rules to SOEs?

Mr Armstrong goes on to write:

Labour knows it must also win the pivotal argument surrounding the permanent loss to…

Earlier this week, we covered Labour’s disappointing response to our report on zero-percent student loans. Other comment round the traps:

Stephen Joyce defended National’s continued support for the policy National more sensibly opposed while in opposition:

He says the issue is about trade-offs and the government has it about right.

“There’s those on the left that want to give students more stuff and those on the right who want them to pay more for stuff. Our view is that the settings are about right and have broad public support.

“There’s a significant subsidy of tertiary students in New Zealand and it reflects about 80 per cent of tertiary costs, which is quite high given there’s a lot of private benefit from it, but there’s a broad public consensus that government should make a contribution,” he said.

The Herald noted that our report has an ally in the Child Poverty Action…