Kyoto Takes the Shape of the Dodo

Whimpering Into Irrelevance

And now, some good news!  Well, so far, so good, in any event.  The New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme and its Kyoto commitments are going the way of the dodo: that is, the way of extinction.

Our readers will be aware that we have never suffered the slightest inclination to accept the "science" of global warming or anthropocentric climate change.  For the record, we do accept the reality of climate change.  The Medieval Warm Period was real.  The arctic ice-cap has shrunk almost to non-existence in the past.  But by definition historical warming periods cannot have been caused by global GDP growth and carbon emissions, which back then they were much, much lower than they are now.  Greenland is so named because of the explosion of green grass and farming that occurred there in the Medieval Warm Period of the fifteenth century.  

Moreover anyone with an ounce of critical faculties will remain profoundly sceptical of a "science" consisting of computer models projecting climate conditions hundreds of years into the future based upon hypothetical inputs which have more assumptions baked into them than chocolate chips in the proverbial cookie.

All in all, parking the New Zealand ETS on the side and suspending our involvement in Kyoto II is a good thing.  Here is where New Zealand is now at, as reported in the NZ Herald:

Prime Minister John Key has defended the Government's decision not to sign on for the second stage of the Kyoto Protocol, saying the country is playing its part in combating climate change. . . .


The Prime Minister said he wanted to see a change to some of the rules that governed Kyoto, especially around land use. "We are a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of world emissions ... New Zealand needs to play its part, it is playing its part, it's already part of the emissions trading scheme and we've made quite a lot of other changes - we are there doing things about climate change. But I think we never wanted to be a world leader in climate change."

Mr Key said he needed to make sure climate change measures were not being prioritised over everything else.  "And I think we've got that balance about right."

We would prefer a clean break and a repealing of all rules, regulations and legislation entailing an attempt to manage "climate change".  But at least we have got the scabrous monstrosity down to a size where it will do little substantial damage.  It will just be one more piece of naive idealistic baggage we have to drag around with us for another couple of decades--a dead weight, but manageable.

The moral of the saga remains: when men overreach in an attempt to be as gods they will be humbled by the Almighty.  "Do homage to the Son, lest he become angry, and you perish in the way.  For His wrath may soon be kindled.  How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!" (Psalm 2: 12).

We are thankful that the climate change inanity has ended for the moment, not with an explosive bang, but a whimper.