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MONDAY’S tax cut announcement by the Coalition means the election campaign is off to a good start. Economic policy has been moved to the top of the political agenda, as it should be.

At the end of the first Kyoto commitment period in 2012, New Zealanders will owe about NZ$4.2 billion – or about NZ$1000 per person. So, in a nutshell, the main effect of Kyoto will be for New Zealand taxpayers to subsidise bad economic policies by politicians in the former Soviet Union. Does Kevin Rudd have similar plans for Australia? History suggests Labor has a strong record of reducing greenhouse emissions. The only prime minister who has managed to do it was Paul Keating in the early 1990s, when he engineered “the recession we had to have” and our emissions levels plummeted. Perhaps this is exactly what Rudd has in mind.

Read the entire article entitled ‘Committing to Kyoto would come at cost’

A Russian scientist claims global warming can be just a temporary inconvenience, since climatic changes show their natural fluctuating patterns and depend on our Sun’s activity level. A Research fellow of the Arctic and Antarctic research and science centre suggests the phenomenon, widely known as global warming, is not more than a natural variation.

The rest of the translated article is here.

The original Russian article is here.

Anyone who speaks Russian should be able to find out his name.

Thanks to Marc Morano for the links.

Listening to the Speech from the Throne Tuesday, one could be forgiven for thinking that the Conservatives were copying Stephane Dion’s leadership campaign tactics of 13 months ago. In Dion’s case, he took his climate change phraseology essentially verbatim from a David Suzuki report. In the case of the Harper government, they appear to have lifted most of their assertions from a wider selection of environmental groups, but the messages are equally unfounded nonethe-less.

First, the government tells us that “Threats to our environment are a clear and present danger that now confronts governments around the world.”

“Clear and present danger” is a popular phrase used by environmental activists when speaking about climate change, Al Gore-trained Desiree McGraw of Montreal and Ralph Torrie, whose company produces greenhouse gas emissions software, being typical examples.

Read the rest of Tom Harris’s article in the Canada Free Press entitled ‘Now is the time to listen to climate scientists, not activists.’

Washington Post Blog:

Last Friday, shortly after Vice President Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on global warming, we posted an item on a recently concluded court case in Britain that questioned some of the facts in his movie, An Inconvenient Truth. We are now giving Gore’s spokeswoman, Kalee Kreider, the opportunity to respond to the criticisms of the British judge. Kreider also serves as Gore’s environmental adviser.

The Gore response

With a column titled “Fact Checker,” it is difficult not to lose the forest for the trees. First and foremost, An Inconvenient Truth presented thousands and thousands of facts. We stand by our initial statement. We were gratified that a UK High Court judge, a layperson with a full docket, found the film worthy enough to be shown in British schools. A generation of schoolchildren will become more educated about global warming and what can be done to solve the climate crisis.

A number of other broader points need to be addressed from the Fact Checker’s last two postings:

Read all about it here.

World Climate Report’s take is entitled ‘Sensational.’

Thanks to Marc Morano for the links.