Nz- Friend Or Foe?
In a surprise speech to a Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles US President-Elect Barack Obama has thrown down the gauntlet to global leaders over climate change.
“Now’s the time to confront this challenge once and for all,” he says. “Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. Too often, Washington has failed to show leadership……that will change when I take office. My presidency will mark a new chapter in America’s leadership on climate change.”
He says all nations willing to fight climate change have an ally in the US.
Which begs the question: what is New Zealand to America, now we have a government that’s not even sure it believes in manmade climate change and has pledged to dismantle every single piece of New Zealand climate policy in its first two weeks in power?
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Isn’t Bill English on record as thinking that Obama’s a bit “soft”?
Yes, Mr English is on the record as advocating for a US President who’s ready “to pull the trigger”. Too right Bill. It’s time the world lined up climate change and fired.
Hi Greenpeace
I am not sure the issues are as simple as you portray them. Barack Obama has the talent to articulate in most inspiring way our roles as stewards of carbon flows and balances. So far he has failed to do this.
Indeed so far his most notable actions have been to actively promote and endorse the trillion-dollar taxpayer subsidies to the derivatives traders and auto industries.
Carbon trading is simply a component of this fatally flawed trading system. The trades of commodity and mortgage derivatives have no relationship with the sustainable use of the resource or of real wealth. Similarly the trade of carbon derivatives has no relationship with the carbon balances of our planet.
Carbon trading is simply another system for extracting wealth out of communities and funnelling it into the pockets of an extremely wealthy elite. Barack endorses carbon trading.
I congratulate the National Party for being prepared to stop and step off the psychopathic carbon trading treadmill. It is refreshing that National is allowing New Zealand again the sustaining potential and sanity of carbon taxes. A holistic valuation of carbon is critical if we are to successfully transition beyond the Cheap Mineral Oil/Gas Age and, unlike carbon trading, carbon taxes enables this possibility.
And as I say in my latest blog http://tinyurl.com/6pyeq3
I salute the Maori Party for opposing the ETS. I know many in the Green Party acknowledge our use of carbon taxes is the sustainable way to go. I suggest if the Green Party cannot use this opportunity to reject carbon trading then the Maori Party may well replace it as the party more exemplifying stewardship, equity and sovereignty.
The issue of denial is complex and my analysis suggests that Greenpeace, despite its member’s fine intentions, may well constitute one of New Zealand’s most significant obstacles to the development of strategies that enable us to make intelligent uses of our solar, electrical and carbon potentials. I humbly suggest that this possibility is worth reflecting on.
And if New Zealand can help prevent Barack Obama from stepping into the quicksands of carbon trading and we can illustrate how carbon taxes can generate wealth while conserving climate balances then we will have served humanity well.
http://www.bonusjoules.co.nz