'Climate Change’ Ranks Dead Last in United Nations' Own Survey

 Delegates from 190 nations attending the United Nations’ summit
in Lima, Peru this week are pushing for “net zero emissions” and “full decarbonization by 2050” to battle climate change.

But more than seven million people who responded to a recent U.N. global survey ranked climate concerns at the very bottom of their priorities.

“A good education” topped the 16-item priority list in all demographic and geographic categories, followed by “better healthcare,” “better job opportunities,” and “an honest and responsive government.”

Most survey respondents put “action taken on climate change” in last place, indicating widespread skepticism of the U.N.’s claims that the Earth faces irreversible and catastrophic damage from rising temperatures if carbon dioxide emissions are not completely eliminated over the next three and a half decades.

That skepticism can be traced in part to satellite and weather balloon data showing no global warming for the past 18 years, as well as the obvious disconnect between global warming alarmists’ rhetoric and their actions.

For example, U.N. delegates who flew to Lima in jet-fueled airliners are calling for the total elimination of fossil fuels, but the vast majority of them would not ride a bicycle less than six miles to the conference venue to reduce their own carbon footprints.

“Peruvian Environment Minister [Manuel] Pulgar-Vidal asked for a bicycle parking lot. He got it, but only about 40 people use it daily,” according to the Associated Press. Instead, most of the 11,000 delegates rely on cars and buses to get to sessions of the 20th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

And despite its stated goal to eliminate all carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 by ending the use of fossil fuels, the Lima conference is “expected to have the biggest carbon footprint of any U.N. climate meeting measured to date,” adding more than 50,000 metric tons of CO2 to the Earth’s atmosphere, the AP reports.

But that won’t stop U.N. delegates from trying to impose expensive and draconian carbon reductions on everybody else, warned Chris Dawson, CEO of the Lord Monckton Foundation.

“The UN bureaucrats and fellow travelers are afraid that the actual lack of global warming for 18 years and the ‘hottest year ever’ contradiction can’t hold out until Paris” next year, he said. That's when the UN is expected to replace the expired 1997 Kyoto Protocol with a binding treaty on climate change that incorporates any draft agreements made in Lima.

Dawson predicts that the Lima conference will come up with some sort of hybrid agreement that will enable President Obama, who has already made a $3 billion pledge to the U.N.’s Green Climate Fund, to “side-step [the] U.S. Congress.” Under the Constitution, Congress must ratify any treaties signed by the president.

“This Agreement will reflect the terms of his US China Climate Agreement and all countries, including Australia, will be under huge pressure to sign, perhaps even as early as now, in Lima,” Dawson warns.

In July, Australia became “the world’s first developed nation to repeal carbon tax laws that put a price on greenhouse-gas emissions,” the Wall Street Journal reported. Prime Minister Tony Abbott won a landslide victory after giving Australian voters his “pledge in blood” to repeal the carbon tax, which he called “a $9 billion handbrake” on the world’s 12th largest economy.

Although Abbott originally said his government would not contribute to the Green Energy Fund, he reversed his stance. On Monday, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop announced that Australia would kick in $200 million to the fund over the next four years.

At the U.N.’s 2009 climate conference in Copenhagen, industrialized countries like the U.S., which are already spending $25 billion a year on climate change, committed to spending another $100 billion per year by 2020 to help poorer, undeveloped nations adapt to climate change. Bangladeshi climate scientist Saleemul Huq characterized the fund as “reparations from polluters”.

However, only about a tenth of the $100 billion, which U.N. chief spokeswoman Christiana Figueres called “a very, very small sum,” has been actually pledged so far.

And that $100 billion figure, which was developed by the World Bank, is “a significant underestimate,” said Achim Steiner, director of the U.N.’s Environment Programme (UNEP). The revised figure is now $250 billion to $500 billion per year by 2050.

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Climate Catastrophe

By John Stossel
 
People argue about whether the “consensus” of scientists is that we face disaster because of global warming. Instead of debating whether man’s greenhouse gasses will raise temperatures, we should argue about how we gauge disasters.

If you take most environmentalists and climate scientists at their word, the Earth heated up about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit over the past century, not much more than it heated up the century before that. Warming may increase, but no one can be certain of that.

Let’s agree for the sake of argument that this recent warming was partly caused by humanity. Let’s also agree that there are some negative effects, including more frequent coastal flooding or longer droughts.

If we agree that those are costs, shouldn’t we also look at the benefits? Much of modern civilization owes its existence to our use of the fossil fuels that produce the greenhouse gasses.

I don’t see that civilization as misfortune. I wish climate alarmists would weigh its accomplishments against the relatively small downsides of climate change. One of industry’s biggest accomplishments is creating a world where far fewer of us are likely to die because of weather.

Alex Epstein’s book “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels” documents the rapidly shrinking number of human beings killed by storms, floods and other climate events thanks largely to ever-growing industry, fueled mainly by oil, natural gas and coal.

On my show this week, he argues that if we compare conditions a century ago to conditions last year, we shouldn’t obsess about how much carbon dioxide is in the air – or whether earth is warming – we should look at how much safer life became.

In 2013, “Climate-related deaths were at a record low – in supposedly the worst climate in history – under 30,000,” says Epstein. In 1931, bad weather killed 3 million people.

You can argue that we get some things wrong as a civilization, but thanks to our use of fossil fuels, we get something very right.

Epstein points out that humanity owes its current ability to survive harsh winters, arid deserts and other naturally dangerous environments to the same fuels that activists now condemn: “We have the luxury of being able to absorb a certain amount of climate-related damage so we can live in all of these cool places.”

His argument is unusual because environmentalists spread the idea that, without human interference, the planet is perfect.

But by what standard?

“If you went to someone 300 years ago and asked them, do you have a perfect climate?” they would think you were crazy, says Epstein. “They were terrified of climate, because climate doesn’t give you the resources that you need. It doesn’t give you water when you need it. It doesn’t give you the temperature when you need it.”

It was once common to say that humans change their environment. That shouldn’t offend people today, says Epstein. We should be thrilled that humans “create technology to master climate. … That’s why so few people today die from climate.”

Epstein correctly says that instead of talking about “climate change” – of which there will always be some, with or without human influence – we should focus on “climate catastrophe,” weather that actually kills people. Those catastrophes, measured in lost lives, are getting rarer.

Most of the changes humans make to our environment are desirable changes that help us live longer and more comfortably. “The dogma that man is ruining the planet rather than improving it is a religion, a source of prestige and a career for too many people.”

If we regard nature as pristine and think it must never be altered, we will have big problems. We will die young and lead miserable, difficult lives.

I think of industry as something that is mostly very good for us, with a few minor side effects that aren’t. Fossil fuels are a little like antibiotics, says Epstein. It’s good to draw attention to minor side effects, but it would be crazy to abandon all treatment because of them.

Fossil fuels are no catastrophe. They contribute to health and a better life.

SOURCE


 


Welcome to the O-zone, where economic development is a zero-sum game

Late in the day on Thanksgiving eve, when no one was paying attention, the Obama administration released its Unified Agenda — a regulatory roadmap of thousands of regulations being finalized in 2015. Within the bundle of more than 3000 regulations is a rule on ozone that President Obama himself, in 2011, “put on ice” in an effort to reduce “regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover.” Regarding the 2011 decision that shocked environmental groups, the New York Times (NYT) recently stated: “At the time, Mr. Obama said the regulation would impose too severe a burden on industry and local governments at a time of economic distress.”

So, why has the rule that the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) calls: “the most expensive ever imposed on industry in America,” come back? First, Obama isn’t facing an election — which, while the White House denied it, most believe to be the reason for the 2011 about-face. More importantly, however, is the fact that following the 2011 decision that struck down the proposed ozone rule, environmental groups sued the Obama administration. The resulting court order required the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to release the proposed rule by December 1, with finalization by October 2015.

Once again, environmental groups — who, on September 21, came out of the closet and revealed that their true intention is system change (“capitalism is the disease, socialism is the cure”) — are in charge of America’s energy, and, therefore, economic policy. They have systematically chipped away America’s sources of economic strength: cost-effective energy. And we’ve let them.

What they are doing is reminiscent of the classic poem, attributed to pastor Martin Niemöller, which is quoted at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

First, they came after coal. It was at a time when natural gas was cheap and touted as the “bridge fuel” to the future. No one much spoke out. Some in the natural gas business even encouraged the war on coal, as it benefitted them. When I first heard that then-Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McLendon gave the Sierra Club $25 million to fight coal (it is reported that the Sierra Club turned down an additional $30 million), I remember yelling at the TV. “You fool!” I shouted. “You will be next!”

Within months, the Sierra Club launched its “Beyond Natural Gas” campaign that claims: “Increasing reliance on natural gas displaces the market for clean energy and harms human health and the environment in places where production occurs.” A headline on the Beyond Natural Gas webpage states that natural gas is: “Dirty, dangerous, and run amok.” Shortly thereafter, McLendon “agreed to retire.”

The oil industry didn’t make much noise about the Sierra Club campaign — after all natural gas prices were low and oil, high. While environmental groups generally oppose all fossil fuels, the oil industry has been hurt the least. Jobs in the oil sector of the energy industry have continued as the lone bright spot in the economy and increased U.S. production has cut our reliance on Middle Eastern crude to the lowest levels in three decades. Even as recently as November 5, President Obama bragged about decreased dependence on imported oil.

While the Obama administration hasn’t been vocally anti-oil, it has not made development easy. The permitting process for a new well on federal lands takes twice as long as it did previously. Environmental groups, with whom Obama is philosophically aligned, have continued to push for tighter regulations on hydraulic fracturing — even an outright ban (which would virtually shut down America’s new energy abundance). The Democrat-controlled New York state has already acquiesced to environmentalists’ demands.

Now, they are coming for oil-and-gas development and manufacturing through the just-announced 626-page ozone regulation, which will require states to dramatically reduce ozone emissions from the current 75 parts per billion (ppb) to a range of 65 to 70ppb—though environmental groups want a 60ppb standard which may be the final rule. While a 5-15ppb reduction doesn’t sound like much, it is important to realize that many areas of the U.S. are already out of compliance — including most of California — with the 75ppb level. The new regulations will mean that, depending on the final rule, 76-96 percent of the country — including some national parks where the natural background levels are 65-67ppb — will be out of compliance.

According to Howard Feldman, the American Petroleum Institute’s director of regulatory and scientific affairs, “earlier EPA analyses acknowledge the technology needed to achieve more stringent standards doesn’t exist.” Likewise, a NAM report, titled “Potential Economic Impacts of a Stricter Ozone Standard,” states that a majority of new reductions would have to come from “unknown controls.”

Ozone is an odorless gas that is not directly emitted into the air but is created by chemical reactions between nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOC) — which occur naturally but are also produced from the burning of fossil fuels and are released in the process of drilling for oil and natural gas. For example, even before the new proposed levels were announced, Colorado’s Front Range region is out of compliance with the current rules, “driven largely by emissions from fossil fuel processing.” A report in the Colorado Independent states: “The increase in ozone violations is primarily due to emissions from oil and gas drilling.” Electric utilities and chemical solvents are also sources of NOx and VOC.

“To meet the new standards,” the National Journal says: “states will have to form plans that will limit emissions of ozone-forming pollutants from two major sources: stationary sources such as power plants and factories, and transportation” — which will reduce energy intensive economic activity. The NYT reports: “The ozone rules are expected to force the owners of power plants and factories to install expensive technology to clean pollutants from their smoke stacks” — which will raise costs to families and business. Under the current rule, ozone levels, according to the EPA, have fallen in the U.S. 33 percent since 1980 and 18 percent since 2000.

The American Legislative Exchange Council explains the impact of the new ozone proposal this way: “Virtually every state’s ability to develop industry would be seriously jeopardized because emissions from each new stationary source would have to be ‘offset’ with emissions reductions elsewhere in the nonattainment area. In practice, this means that industrial development becomes a zero-sum game, whereby every new business requires the closure of existing business.”

No wonder NAM’s response is antagonistic: “Manufacturing in the United States is making a comeback,” Jay Timmons, CEO and President, said in a press release. “We’re reducing emissions at the same time, but tightening the current ozone standard to near unachievable levels would serve as a self-inflicted wound to the U.S. economy at the worst possible time. This rule would undermine our work to expand manufacturing in the United States, making it almost impossible to increase operations, create new jobs or keep pace internationally.”

Despite the negative economic impact of the expensive rule — with figures ranging from $19 billion to $270 billion — environmental groups believe Obama will follow through this time because, as National Journal states: “the rule fits with the rest of Obama’s climate change agenda and they’d expect it to move forward even on the tighter end.” The Sierra Club’s Washington representative on smog pollution, Terry McGuire, believes: “The administration is emboldened to do that.”

While environmental groups and the Obama administration maybe feel “emboldened,” more regulation — especially that which “would impose too severe a burden on industry and local governments” — is not what the American people want or need.

“The president said his policies were on the ballot, and the American people spoke up against them,” said incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). “It’s time for more listening, and less job-destroying red tape. Easing the burden already created by EPA regulations will continue to be a priority for me in the new Congress.”

“Republicans,” according to National Journal, “have vowed to target the ozone standard as a part of their early energy agenda.”

Current Minority Leader of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator Vitter (R-LA) and incoming Chairman, Senator Inhofe (R-OK) called the rule: “one of the most devastating regulations in a series of over-reaching regulatory actions.” In response to the November 26 announcement, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy promised: “The House will conduct aggressive oversight and use the proper legislative approach to continue to promote cleaning the air we breathe while ensuring our communities are not burdened with unrealistic regulations.”

With the Obama administration willing to sacrifice jobs and economic development for some perceived environmental legacy, it is time for unions to abandon the historic allegiance to the Democrat Party and realize that it is the Republicans who advocate for policies that protect the jobs in construction, manufacturing, mining, and energy — all well-paying positions that are often filled by union members.

It is time for capitalist, free-marketers to speak out.

It is time for trade unionists to speak out.

It is time for families, workers, and businesses to speak out.

It is time for the all of the energy producers — coal, natural gas, and oil — to speak out with one voice.

Because, if we don’t, there will be no one left to speak for us.

SOURCE




Superbug threat to human race ‘more certain’ than climate change – inquiry chief

Economist investigating threat of return to medical ‘dark ages’ predicts 10 million a year could die within a generation

The threat to the human race from deadly new disease strains resistant to drugs is “more certain” than that from climate change, the head of a new review set up by David Cameron into the crisis has insisted.

Up to 10 million people a year could die as a result of superbugs and drug resistant strains of diseases such as malaria within a generation unless urgent action is taken, according to projections calculated by a team led by Jim O’Neill, the City economist.

Yet despite widespread agreement among scientists about the scale of the threat the public is largely unaware, he warned.

The inquiry was set up earlier this year to search urgently for solutions to a problem Mr Cameron said threatened to cast the world "back into the dark ages of medicine".

In an initial assessment Mr O’Neill set out a Doomsday scenario, warning that without concerted global action to find new treatments and dramatically reduce overprescribing 300 million people could die in the next 35 years from currently treatable conditions.

According to projections, using modelling designed by economists at KPMG and RAND, by 2050 so-called Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) could claim a similar number of lives every year as cancer, cholera, diabetes, measles, tetanus, diarrheal conditions and all the road traffic accidents in the world combined.

The massive loss of life could wipe out around £64 trillion of global productivity in the next 35 years – the equivalent of the entire GDP of the UK every year for a generation, it found.

But Mr O’Neill insisted that the estimates are likely to be conservative and the financial impact could be twice as much when the cost of new, more complicated procedures for routine operations such as hip replacements and caesarean sections are taken into account

Mr O’Neill said he had consulted closely with Lord Stern, the President of the Royal Academy who carried out a landmark investigation into the threat from climate change for Tony Blair, about parallels between the two threats and possible responses.

But he added that, despite the vastly higher public profile of climate change in comparison with drug resistance, there is greater consensus about the danger to humanity from the latter.

“It feels to me, from the scientific knowledge, that there is more certainty about this being a problem,” he said.

“Now I’m somebody that is very sympathetic to the climate change case … but, with the kind of debate that goes on and data, it feels to me that there is more certainty about this becoming a problem over a reasonably short time period.

He added: “In some ways to try and solve is a little bit like climate change, because we are talking about the problem getting a lot bigger in the future than it is today and what we are presuming … that the cost of stopping the problem is significantly lower than the cost of not stopping it.

Over the next year and a half the inquiry will assess possible solutions to the situation as the basis for a future international agreement.

Lord Stern said: “Wise policy looks ahead and tries to manage risks, particularly the big ones.

“There can be no doubt now that Antimicrobial Resistance is one of the biggest we – all of us – face.”

The inquiry’s initial estimates suggest that while the crisis will affect rich and poor countries alike the developing world will bear the brunt.

It estimates that in India alone two million people a year could die as a result of drug resistance by 2050 and another million in China. That in turn would have a dramatic impact on the world economy.

In Nigeria, one in four of all deaths by 2050 could be a result of AMR, according to the projections while in Indonesia 300,000 could die, primarily from new resistant strains of malaria.

SOURCE





UK: Ministers accused of trying to ‘buy off’ local discontent on wind farms

Landscape campaigners have described the latest Government moves to help communities obtain financial benefits from wind farms as a guide to bribery.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has set out new standards for wind energy schemes to work with local communities.

The guidance, written by the industry body Regen South West, focuses on how communities can best obtain and use cash funds of up to £5,000 per megawatt (MW).

Opponents of turbines say windfalls under the new rules – worth £1.1 million over the life cycle of a large project up for decision in Cornwall later this month – are simply designed to “buy off” local discontent.

Campaign group Cornwall Protect said the only way the Government can achieve its renewable energy targets is to “extend the gravy train beyond developers and landowners to communities”.

Spokesman Danny Mageean said there was a danger that so-called community leaders may be keen to win “brownie points” even if they live “at the other end of the village”.

“I live five hundred metres from a 77-metre turbine so I know the problems, and I don’t think giving our parish council a few thousand would compensate for the devaluing of our property and the noise,” he added.

Ministers unveiled a raft of measures last year in response to growing anger in the rural Conservative heartlands at turbines and solar farms.

The new guidance was billed as giving more protection to the landscape and a stronger voice to locals who opposed unpopular renewable energy schemes.

In addition, the recommended community benefit package in England was increased fivefold from £1,000 per MW of installed capacity to £5,000 per MW.

DECC has published the guidance on how wind schemes should work with communities, calling for partnerships between the two.

It gives examples of different ways in which funds and other investments by developers have been used by local groups, from the provision of care services to mountain bike trails.

The guidance is expected to be followed shortly be a community “right to invest” in new renewable energy projects that will also apply to solar schemes.

Jodie Giles, communities project manager at Regen South West, authors of the document, said “We are delighted that more communities are getting involved with sustainable energy, and in particular onshore wind projects – one of the most efficient and cost effective renewables technologies available.”

Examples of how benefits have been used will soon be recorded on DECC’s new community benefits register for England.

This month, a decision will be made on plans for one of the biggest wind farms in the region – 11 turbines producing 25MW at Week St Mary in Cornwall.

Developers Good Energy are proposing a fund of £2,000 per MW, totalling more than £44,000 a year for the life of the project, available to people living within three miles of the plant.

A local electricity tariff scheme is also proposed, offering discount for locals living within the three-mile radius who sign up to receive electricity from the scheme.

The firm is also exploring the possibility of the community owning one of the turbines.

Bob Barfoot, a member of the CPRE in Devon and a planning expert who has helped prepare a report from the group Communities Against Rural Exploitation (CARE) for the planning meeting on October 23, said community benefits cannot be taken into account by councillors.

He says this point has been made by a number of planning inspectors in recent appeals, including a decision this June to uphold the refusal of a 77-metre turbine at Ladock.

In dismissing the appeal, planning inspector Paul Jackson said plans to generate about a third of the parish’s annual electricity demand were “a laudable aim”

“However, as planning permission for the scheme was refused on landscape and visual amenity grounds, which remain the main concerns, it is unclear how the intended community benefits could make it acceptable,” he added.

Environment campaigner Jeremy Varcoe, of North Cornwall, said it was wrong to lavish cash on the girl guides rather than affected locals.

“What’s so unfair is the money goes to people not affected – rather than those whose lives are blighted by the turbines – it is little more than a bribe to the local parish or town council,” he added.

“It is a dishonest device to buy off the increasing resentment among people who are against these developments. Strictly speaking community benefits are not a material planning consideration but there is no doubt that the promise of large amounts of money has affected the decision of committees and council case officers.”

SOURCE





Tide turns on sea-level alarmists in Australia

AUSTRALIA is lucky to possess the high-quality, 128-year-long tide gauge record from Fort Denison (Sydney Harbour), which since 1886 indicates a long-term rate of sea-level rise of 0.65mm a year, or 6.5cm [2.5 inches] a century.

Lucky, because 60-year-long oceanographic atmospheric oscillations mean a true long-term measurement of sea-level rise can be made only when such a record is available.

Similarly low rates of local sea-level rise have been measured at other tide gauges along the east coast. National Tidal Centre records reveal variations between about 5cm and 16cm/century in rates of relative rise. The differ­ences between individual tide gauges mostly represent slightly differing rates of subsidence of the land at each site, and differing time periods.

For example, measurements at Sydney between 2005 and 2014 show the tide gauge site is sinking at a rate of 0.49mm/yr, leaving just 0.16mm/yr of the overall relative rise as representing global sea-level change. Indeed, the rate of rise at Fort Denison, and globally, has been decreasing for the past 50 years.

Despite this high-quality and unalarming data, it is surprising that some east coast councils have implemented coastal planning regulations based on the computer projections of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. For instance, a recent consultancy report for the Shoalhaven and Eurobodalla shire councils, informed by IPCC computer model projections, advised those councils to plan using a rate of rise of 3.3mm/yr, four times the rate at Fort Denison.

The numbers were in part based on experimental estimates of sea-level change provided by satellite altimetry measurements. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which launches the satellite platforms, says these estimates contain errors larger than the sea-level signal claimed and proposes spending more than $US100 million on launching a new GRASP satellite to rectify the matter.

Mindful of these facts, on October 28, Shoalhaven Shire Council rejected advice to use the IPCC’s most extreme emissions Scenario 8.5, applying the still highly precautionary Scenario 6.0, and using their nearest long tide gauge record (Fort Denison) to set future planning policy. The council specifically ruled out the future use of satellite or model-generated sea-level estimates until their accuracy is guaranteed.

In mid-2010, the Eurobodalla council, south of Shoalhaven, introduced a unique interim sea level rise policy that shackled more than a quarter of all properties in the shire to restrictive development controls. Predictably, there was an immediate shire-wide decline in property values.

Figures from RP Data property information specialists show that between 2011 and 2014, Eurobodalla property values suffered a 5.3 per cent loss in value compared with increases of 4.9 per cent and 7.3 per cent for neighbouring coastal shires that didn’t have equivalent restrictive sea-level policies. In the worst cases, individual properties have lost up to 52 per cent of their market value.

In three years, individual Eurobodalla properties lost about $40,000 in value. With 22,000 properties in the shire, this represents a capital loss of $880m at a rate of $293m a year. This steady loss of rateable value means householders will face higher rate increases.

If similar policies were implemented along the entire east coast there would be annual property capital losses of billions of dollars.

So it is not surprising that NSW and Queensland governments are reconsidering their coastal management policies.

Queensland Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney recently notified Moreton Bay Regional Council of his intention to direct it to amend its draft planning scheme “to remove any assumption about a theoretical projected sea level rise due to climate change from all and any provisions of the scheme”. Seeney said his intention was to use a statewide coastal mapping scheme “that will remove the ‘one size fits all’ approach that incorporates a mandatory 0.8m addition to historical data”.

At last, a responsible government has recognised that global average sea-level change is no more relevant to coastal management than average global temperatures are to the design of residential heating and cooling systems — local weather and local sea-level change is what matters.

Satellite measurements and computer model projections are not accurate enough for shire planning. As the NSW Chief Scientist has said, coastal policy needs to be informed by the best available factual measurements.

And as Seeney said: “All mandatory elements of the (planning) scheme must reflect only proven historical data when dealing with coastal hazards such as storm tide inundation and erosion control areas.” Similar policies need to be espoused by all state governments and councils.

Sea-level alarmism has passed high tide and is at last declining. With luck, empirical sanity will soon prevail over modelling.

SOURCE

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