Obama Administration Moves to Block Drilling in Parts of Alaska

Interior Department Plans to Designate Nearly 13 Million Acres in Refuge as Wilderness

The Obama administration is moving this week to designate areas of Alaska off limits to oil and natural gas drilling in its latest effort to bolster its environmental legacy.

The Interior Department announced on Sunday that it was proposing to preserve as wilderness nearly 13 million acres of land in the 19.8 million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, including 1.5 million acres of coastal plains that is believed to have rich oil and natural gas resources.

Later this week, the department also is slated to propose a draft offshore leasing plan that is expected to include more limits on future oil and gas production in Alaska.

The efforts are drawing a strong rebuke from congressional Republicans.  Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) vowed to fight the administration’s moves from her positions heading both the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the appropriations subcommittee responsible for funding the Interior Department.

“It’s clear this administration does not care about us, and sees us as nothing but a territory,” Ms. Murkowski said in a statement Sunday after speaking by phone with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell on Friday. “But we will not be run over like this. We will fight back with every resource at our disposal.”

While setting aside lands as wilderness requires congressional approval—something this administration is unlikely to get with both chambers controlled by Republicans—the proposed move puts the area into a state of de facto designation as wilderness and would prevent drilling, an Interior Department spokeswoman said.

Alaska’s oil and gas production has dropped nearly 75% since its peak in the 1980s. North Dakota surpassed Alaska two years ago as the nation’s second-largest oil producer, behind Texas.

The Interior Department is expected to block parts of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas off the coast of Alaska for oil and gas development as part of the offshore leasing plan it releases every five years, said Robert Dillon, a spokesman for Ms. Murkowski.

This proposal, to be presented this week, isn’t expected to affect current plans to drill in the region by Statoil , Shell Oil Co. and ConocoPhillips , though the long-term impacts are unclear, Mr. Dillon said.

According to the Interior Department, more than seven million acres of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge are listed as wilderness, which is the federal government’s highest designation of protection. Oil and gas drilling is prohibited in the refuge based on a law passed in 1980, and Sunday’s announcement would provide another layer of protection.

“Pristine, undisturbed, it supports caribou and polar bears, all matter of marine life, countless species of birds and fish,” President Barack Obama said in a video message Sunday. ”And for centuries it’s supported many Alaskan native communities, but it’s very fragile.”

Sunday’s announcement is the latest in a series of steps the Obama administration has taken in the last couple of months to protect the environment, address climate change and regulate the nation’s oil and natural gas industry, particularly in and around Alaska.

In another video message posted in December, Mr. Obama said he was indefinitely blocking any oil and gas drilling in Bristol Bay, in Southwestern Alaska. That announcement was relatively noncontroversial compared with the news this week. Companies aren’t currently drilling in the 32.5-million acre region and don’t have a lot of interest in doing so.

The Interior Department also is expected to propose in the coming weeks new drilling regulations tailored to the harsh weather conditions of the Arctic.

On a broader front, the Interior Department’s five-year plan is expected to offer a window into how supportive the Obama administration will be of new offshore drilling.

The last time the administration issued such a plan, the onshore boom of shale oil and natural gas hadn’t yet fully developed. Experts and lobbyists following the proposal say the administration could open up areas along the East Coast because policy makers from those states, such as Virginia, support such a move.

Also, earlier this month, the Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to regulate for the first time methane emissions from the oil and gas sector.

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Al Gore: Spend $90 Trillion To Ban Cars From Every Major City In The World

Former Vice President Al Gore and former Mexican President Felipe Calderon are pushing for $90 trillion in spending to ban cars from every major city in the world and make them more dense.

Gore and Calderon presented a report from the Global Commission on the Economy & Climate (GCEC) and argued that fighting global warming will require making cities more compact and wholly reliant on public transit. This is the only way to make sure urban areas don’t contribute to global warming, the two politicians argued.

Calderon and Gore argued that $90 trillion is going to be spent anyways in the coming decades upgrading cities around the world. They argue that it should be spent on making cities more climate friendly.

“The mistake we made in Mexico was to let cities develop however they want, and it’s a mess,” Calderon told Business Insider.

GCEC’s study says that “more compact, better-connected cities with strong mass transit systems will help policy-makers tackle these pressing challenges. Such cities are more productive, socially inclusive, resilient, cleaner, quieter and safer.”

The study says that 70 percent of the world’s energy-use and greenhouse-gas emissions come from cities. Reducing emissions from ever-growing urban areas will show “that the goals of economic growth and climate change can work together,” according to GCEC.

Calderon and Gore made their presentation at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland where, ironically (or maybe not, at this point), some 1,700 private jets — which use petroleum — were used to shuttle in conference participants and others to discuss global warming and other pressing global issues.

There was such a big influx of air traffic, reports Newsweek, that the Swiss military had to open an air base for the private jets to land. At last year’s meeting in Davos, some 200 helicopters were used to bring in conference-goers.

Gore also used the conference to announce a massive concert to raise awareness about global warming. He and pop star Pharrell Williams are calling it “Live Earth” and it will be staged in six cities across the globe — not exactly a small carbon footprint.

The concert is supposed to build up support for an international climate treaty ahead of the United Nations summit in Paris later this year. Pharrell says he wants to “have humanity harmonize all at once.”

“It is absolutely crucial that we build public will for an agreement,” Gore told World Economic Forum participants. “The purpose is to have a billion voices with one message, to demand climate action now.”

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The EPA's Newest Strategy to Sneakily Restrict Fracking, Drilling

Recently the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced major new regulations on the emissions of methane into the air from oil and gas production. It calls methane a “potent” pollutant and its new rules would require a 45 percent reduction by 2025 from 2012 levels. Most Americans support these new rules, according to polling from environmental groups. This isn’t surprising. Methane sounds like a dirty and dangerous pollutant and even deadly if leaked into water or the air.

However, methane is just another term for the main component of natural gas. Drillers have a powerful motive to stop leakage on their own, because they want to sell it, not spill it.

How much of a menace is methane from the oil and gas industry? The amount of leakage into the atmosphere is minuscule, says Dan Kish of the Energy Research Institute. “Cows emit more methane when they pass gas than the natural gas industry,” he notes. Look for the EPA to start regulating cattle.

Green groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund warn that emissions will increase through 2018 and have been claiming that drillers spew more methane into the atmosphere than ever before, that it is “84 times more potent” a pollutant than carbon dioxide, and new regulations are overdue.

Actually, these claims are blatantly false. Not only is methane nontoxic (propaganda notwithstanding), but methane emissions are way down over the last seven years without these new regulations. Furthermore, the reductions correspond with a major increase in oil and gas drilling and increased use of fracking technologies.

The EPA’s own data confirm this. From 2005 to 2012, methane emissions from natural gas systems have fallen by 15 percent while natural gas marketed production from drilling is up by more than 33 percent.

An analysis of EPA data from the energy analytic group Energy In Depth found that in virtually all of the major drilling locations, including the Marcellus Shale and the Permian Basin, emissions continued to fall in 2013, the last year for which solid data is available.

Let me say that again: More fracking has meant lower methane emissions. The methane alarm is a false alarm.

So why is the methane scare so elevated now by Big Green? One reason might be that almost all of the major air pollutants have declined markedly over the last several decades, so environmental groups need to invent new scare tactics to fill up their coffers.

The emissions of lead, sulfur and smog have all fallen by at least half since 1970. The air in major American cities such as Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Chicago are as clean as they’ve been in many decades. Big Green is running out of things to complain about.

A few years ago they decided that carbon dioxide was going to roast the world in heat. But carbon dioxide emissions, as President Obama recently acknowledged, have been falling in the United States and much more than anyone predicted. The U.S. has also reduced its carbon dioxide emissions more than any other nation, despite that we haven’t passed a carbon tax or enacted cap-and-trade policies.

I pointed out this inconvenient truth in recent testimony in one of Sen. Barbara Boxer’s last hearings as chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. I noted that, “The green protesters have it all wrong on fracking and horizontal drilling. These technologies greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make climate change, less, not more probable in the future.” Especially if one considers reducing greenhouse gas emissions a worthy goal, these new regulations are off-base. Still, the liberals on the panel changed the subject to methane emissions — the new bogeyman.

The hidden agenda here is to restrict shale oil and gas drilling, and fracking. This anti-fracking obsession is strange because even EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy acknowledged that natural gas is a clean substitute for coal and thus lowers greenhouse gases. The Obama administration’s regulatory assault on methane natural gas — at a time when the industry is already struggling with thin profit margins due to the collapse in the global petroleum price — will harm the environment, not save it.

The shale oil and gas revolution imperils the renewable energy industry. Over the last seven years, the price for natural gas has fallen to $4 per thousand cubic feet, down from $12 only a few years ago. Electric cars, solar paneling on rooftops, and windmills have taken a pounding as oil and gas prices have plummeted. Spending $75,000 for a Tesla may have made sense when the price of gas was nearly $4 a gallon, but at close to $2 a gallon in many markets, all of the alternative fads are financially gone with the wind.

The only way that liberal financier Tom Steyer of California can possibly prevent green energy projects from going the way of Solyndra is by pumping back up the price of gas at the pump. The new methane regulations, which may force oil and gas producers to purchase methane credits, are designed to achieve that goal.

Meanwhile, domestic drillers in Texas, Alaska and North Dakota are already starting to lay off workers as the world price of oil falls. The methane regulations — under the guise of averting climate change rather than addressing any direct adverse health effects — will be imposed on these American producers, but not OPEC, Iran or Russia. It’s a policy that empowers our enemies abroad, costs Americans jobs, raises gas prices, and has almost no impact on the quality of the air we breathe. The White House actions remind me of the classic line by Harry in “Dumb and Dumber”: “Just when I thought you couldn’t possibly be any dumber, you go and do something like this.”

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Methane deceptions

Deception, agenda and folly drive latest Obama EPA anti-hydrocarbon rules. Are farmers next?

Paul Driessen

First they came for the coal mining and power plant industry, and most people did not speak out because they didn’t rely on coal, accepted Environmental Protection Agency justifications at face value, or thought EPA’s war on coal would benefit them.

In fact, Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon gave the Sierra Club $26 million, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave the Club $50 million, to help it wage a Beyond Coal campaign. The Sierra Club later claimed its efforts forced 142 U.S. coal-fired power plants to close, raising electricity rates, threatening grid reliability, and costing thousands of jobs in dozens of states.

Mr. McClendon apparently figured eliminating coal from America’s energy mix would improve his natural gas business. The mayor likes renewable energy and detests fossil fuels, which he blames for climate change that he tried to finger for the damages “Superstorm” Sandy inflicted on his city.

Now the Obama EPA is coming after the natural gas industry. Hopefully many will speak out this time, before more costly rules kill more jobs and damage the health and welfare of more middle class Americans. The war on coal, after all, is really a war on fossil fuels and affordable energy, and an integral component of President Obama’s determination to “fundamentally transform” the United States.

Proposed EPA regulations would compel drilling and fracking companies to reduce methane (natural gas or CH4) emissions by 40-45% by 2025, compared to 2012. Companies would have to install technologies that monitor operations and prevent inadvertent leaks. The rules would apply only to new or modified sites, not existing operations. However, Big Green activist groups are already campaigning to have EPA expand the rule to cover existing gas wells, fracking operations, gas processing facilities and pipelines.

But companies already control their emissions, to avoid polluting the air, and because natural gas is a valuable resource that they would much rather sell than waste. That’s why EPA data show methane emissions falling 17% even as gas production increased by 37% between 1990 and 2014, and why natural gas operations employing hydraulic fracturing reduced their methane emissions by 73% from 2011 to 2013. The rules are costly and unnecessary, and would bring few benefits.

The Obama Administration thus justifies them by claiming they will help prevent “dangerous manmade climate change.” Methane, EPA says, has a warming effect 50 times greater than carbon dioxide. This assertion is wildly inflated, by as much as a factor of 100, Dr. Fred Singer says. Atmospheric water vapor already absorbs nearly all the infrared radiation (heat) that methane could, and the same radiation cannot be absorbed twice. The physics of Earth’s surface infrared emission spectrum are also important.

More importantly, to borrow a favorite Obama phrase, let me make one thing perfectly clear. There is no dangerous manmade climate change, now or on the horizon. There is no evidence that methane or carbon dioxide emissions have replaced the complex, powerful, interconnected natural forces that have driven warming, cooling, climate and weather fluctuations throughout Earth and human history. There is no evidence that recent extreme weather events are more frequent or severe than over the previous 100 years.

Indeed, planetary temperatures have not budged for more than 18 years, and we are amid the longest stretch since at least 1900 (more than nine years) without a Category 3-5 hurricane hitting the United States. If CO2 and CH4 are to be blamed for every temperature change or extreme weather event, then shouldn’t they also be credited for this lack of warming and deadly storms? But climate hype continues.

We are repeatedly told, “Climate change is real, and humans are partly to blame.” The statement is utterly meaningless. Earth’s climate fluctuates frequently, and human activities undoubtedly have some influences, at least on local (especially urban) temperatures. The question is, How much of an effect?  Are the temperature and other effects harmful or beneficial, especially when carbon dioxide’s enormous role in improved plant growth is factored in? Would slashing U.S. CO2 and CH4 emissions mean one iota of difference, when China, India and other countries are doing nothing to reduce their emissions?

Nevertheless, the latest NASA press release asserts that 2014 was “the hottest since the modern instrumental record began,” and again blames mankind’s carbon dioxide emissions. This deliberately deceptive, fear-inducing claim was quickly retracted, but not before it got extensive front-page coverage.

Let me make another fact perfectly clear. The alleged global temperature increase was 0.02 degrees C (0.04 degrees F). It is not even measurable by our most sensitive instruments. It is one-fifth the margin of error in these measurements. It ignores satellite data and is based on ground-level instruments that are contaminated by urban heat and cover less than 15% of Earth’s surface. Even NASA admitted it was only 38% confident of being correct – and 62% certain that it was wrong. Analyses by Dr. Tim Ball, Marc Morano, Anthony Watts and other experts provide more details eviscerating this bogus claim.

In the end, though, all these real-world facts are irrelevant. We are dealing with a catechism of climate cataclysm: near-religious zealotry by a scientific-industrial-government-activist alliance that has built a financial, political and regulatory empire. They are not about to renounce any claims of climate catastrophe, no matter how much actual evidence debunks their far-fetched computer model scenarios.

Their EPA-IPCC “science” is actively supported by most of the “mainstream media” and by the World Bank, universities, renewable energy companies and even some churches. They will never willingly surrender the political influence and billions of dollars that CAGW claims bring them. They won’t even admit that wind and solar facilities butcher birds and bats by the millions, scar landscapes, impair human health, cannot exist without coal and natural gas, and are probably our least sustainable energy option. They want gas prices to rise again, so that heavily subsidized renewable energy is competitive once more.

Meanwhile, polls reveal that regular, hard-working, middle-income Americans care most about terrorism, the economy, jobs, healthcare costs, education and job opportunities after graduation; climate change is always dead last on any list. Regular Europeans want to end the “energy poverty” that has killed countless jobs, and each winter kills thousands of elderly people who can no longer afford to eat their homes properly. The world’s poorest citizens want affordable electricity, higher living standards, and an end to the lung infections, severe diarrhea, malaria and other diseases of poverty that kill millions of children and parents year after year – largely because alarmists oppose nuclear, coal and gas-fired power plants.

But federal regulators, climate chaos “ethicists” and “progressives” who loudly profess they care deeply about the poor and middle classes – all ignore these realities. They focus on methane, because they view it as a clever way to inject federal oversight and control into an energy sector that had been largely free of such interference, because the fracking revolution has thus far taken place mostly on state and private lands governed effectively by state and local regulators. (Federal lands are mostly off limits.)

The proposed methane rules would generate more delays, paperwork, costs and job losses, to comply with more federal regulations that will bring no detectable benefits – and much harm, at a time when plunging oil and gas prices are forcing drillers to reduce operations and lay people off.

President Obama devoted 15 lines of his 2015 State of the Union speech to climate fables and propaganda. His goal is steadily greater control over our lives, livelihoods, living standards and liberties, with little or no transparency or accountability for regulators, pseudo-scientists or activists.

It won’t be long before EPA and Big Green come for farmers and ranchers – to curtail “climate-wrecking” methane emissions from cattle, pig and sheep flatulence and dung, and exert greater control over agricultural water, dust and carbon dioxide. By then, there may be no one left to speak out.

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Australia: Wild speculation masquerading as research

No regard for the facts  at all below

AUSTRALIA’s two biggest science and weather bodies, CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology have released new climate change data and information on how it will affect Australia.

“There is very high confidence that hot days will become more frequent and hotter,” CSIRO principal research scientist, Kevin Hennessy said.

“We also have very high confidence that sea levels will rise, oceans will become more acidic, and snow depths will decline.

“We expect that extreme rainfall events across the nation are likely to become more intense, even where annual-average rainfall is projected to decline.”

According to the CSIRO report, in Australia specifically, oceans will become much warmer and more acidic [Impossible.  It's one or the other]. Cyclones will decrease, but when they do occur they will be significantly fiercer and occur further south.  Droughts will become more intense and ‘severe’ bushfire ratings will become more common.

Water temperatures will also continue to rise, which means storms can suck up more moisture resulting in heavier rain and snow fall.

Dr Karl believes there are also two lesser-known phenomenons that we should all get our heads around because of their impact on the future: permafrost and arctic meltdown.

“Permafrost is defined as any ground that has been frozen for at least two years, with one quarter of all the land mass in the northern hemisphere being permafrost,” he says.

The problem with permafrost is that with temperatures rising and more permafrost thawing, enormous amounts of harmful [??] carbon contained within the ice are being released into the atmosphere. About 1.7 trillion tonnes of organic carbon, or four times the amount humans have dumped in modern times, could be released, says Dr Karl.

Since 1980, 80 per cent of the Arctic summer ice has been lost which is resulting in more extreme weather across the world and new areas for oil and gas companies to drill.

How will this affect us?  Homes will be destroyed, food will become more expensive and lives will be lost.

According to the National Climate Council, hundreds of thousands of coastal homes are at risk, with 80 per cent of the Victorian coast and 62 per cent of the Queensland coast at risk of being wiped out by 2100.

One of the hardest hit areas could be the Gold Coast, a massive tourist drawcard and an economy worth $1.5 billion per year.

With droughts intensified, farmers will struggle to grow crops, resulting in them losing their livelihoods. But on top of that, our food will become much more expensive, for everything from meat to Weet-Bix.

The government’s Australian Climate Change Program warns that an increased number of bushfire days could result in more homes and lives lost as they become harder to fight.

Dr Karl points out that in Australia, our biggest issue will come from heatwaves caused by rising temperatures.  “Heatwaves have killed more Australians than all other natural hazards combined,” he says.

“In the European heatwave of 2003, some 70,000 people died. The Russian heatwave of 2010 killed around 55,000 people.”

“Back in 1961, heatwaves with temperatures significantly above average covered 1 per cent of our planet’s land area. By 2010, this had risen to about 5 per cent. By 2020, it’s expected to rise to 10 per cent — and for 2040, to 20 per cent.”

What can we do about it?

“We have to move to a 100% renewable energy based country,” says Matthew Wright, the Executive Director of Zero Carbon Australia and 2010’s Young Environmentalist of the Year.

“We need more resilience on our buildings so they consume energy more efficiently and also move towards using electricity in its place.”

Our government also has more work to do. “We need to make sure governments put in legislation that make sure energy companies don’t block people from installing solar panels,” says Mr Wright.

“It’s also risky for the Australian people that our government has clearly steered towards an economy for coal producers.”

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British Greens are crazy Leftists

Drugs, brothels, al-Qaeda and the Beyonce tax: the Green Party plan for Britain

They are on the cusp of an electoral breakthrough - and an examination of Green Party policy reveals a extraordinary list of demands

Six months ago, they were on the very edges of British politics. Now, they are within touching distance of dictating terms to the future government.

A surge in support has seen the Green Party overtake the Liberal Democrats in the polls, with support at 11 per cent. Membership is now greater than Ukip's.

And, with hopes of winning three seats in the general election, Natalie Bennett believes her party will take part in a "confidence and supply" arrangement, propping up a fragile minority administration in exchange for key policies.

What might they demand?

The party is often dubbed the "Ukip of the left". But an examination of the party's core priorities - in a document called Policies for a Sustainable Society, set at the party's annual conference - reveals they are far more radical in their aims than Nigel Farage's outfit.

In the short term, a Green administration would impose a string of new taxes, ramp up public spending to unprecedented levels and decriminalise drugs, brothels and membership of terrorist groups.

In the long term, they want to fundamentally change life as we know it.

ZERO GROWTH ECONOMY

Critics call the party's adherents "watermelons" - green on the outside, deepest red on the inside.

It's not quite right. Karl Marx and his pupils championed economic growth and personal consumption: five year plans, tractor factories and fridges for all. The row, for them, was whether the planned economy was a stronger engine than the free market.

The Greens want something very different.  Caroline Lucas and colleagues regard economic growth as incompatible with protecting the planet and a fulfilling personal life.

While their rivals recognise more trade, more innovation, more competition and more globalisation as an engine for prosperity for everyone on the planet, the Greens argue it is nothing more than a race to the bottom that has made the poor poorer, the rich richer, and pillaged the environment.

The party's manifesto argues for zero, or even negative growth and falling levels of personal consumption. Britain would be in permanent recession; families would become materially poorer each year. After centuries of growing global connectivity, the Greens want to see greater national self-reliance.

Cottage industries, allotments and co-operatives are good. Banks, supermarkets, multi-national companies and resource extraction are very, very bad.

And while Labour and the Tories compete on job creation, the Greens argue that government policy should make paid work "less necessary", with people making their living from the home-based "informal economy".

THE CITIZENS' INCOME

The flagship policy is an unconditional, non-withdrawable income of £71 a week for everyone living in Britain "as a right of citizenship", regardless of wealth or whether they are seeking work.

Benefits and the tax-free personal allowance will be abolished, and top-ups given for people with children or disabilities, or to pay rent and mortgages. No-one will see a reduction in benefits, and most will see a substantial increase. Parents will be entitled to two years' paid leave from work.

The policy will enable people to "choose their own types and patterns of work", and will allow people to take up "personally satisfying and socially useful work".

It will cost somewhere between £240-280 billion a year - more than double the current health budget, and ten times the defence budget. Those costs will be off-set by some reduction to the welfare bill, through the replacement of jobseekers' allowance.

TAX ON PRESENTS

Under Green plans, inheritance tax - "to prevent the accumulation of wealth and power by a privileged class" - will no longer just tax the dead.

Under radical reforms, it will cover gifts made while the giver is still alive - raising the prospect of levies on cars, jewellery or furniture given by parents to their children. There will be exemptions for some large gifts, "such as those received on marriage".

There will be a threshold for the tax, with receipts calculated over five years - but the party does not set out at what point the levy kicks in. New, higher rates of income tax will be imposed.

GREEN TAXES

VAT will be abolished - and replaced with new levies based on how much environmental damage a product causes. New resource taxes would apply to wood, metal and minerals, and steeper levies imposed on cars.

Crucially, import taxes will be levied on goods brought to Britain reflecting the "ecological impact" of making them - with tariffs reintroduced for trade between Britain and the rest of Europe, ending the free trade bloc.

DRUGS AND BROTHELS

The trade and cultivation of cannabis will be decriminalised under Green policy, along with possession of Class A and B drugs for personal use. Anti-rave laws would be scrapped.

Higher taxes will be brought in on alcohol and tobacco, and a complete alcohol advertising ban imposed.

All elements of the sex industry will be decriminalised, and prostitutes could no longer be discriminated against in child custody cases.

The Greens also want to see "significantly reduced" levels of imprisonment, with jail only used when there is a "substantial risk of a further grave crime" or in cases where offences are so horrific that offenders would be at risk of vigilantes. Prisoners will be given the vote.

ETON MESS

Large schools will be broken up, to have no more than 700 pupils. SATS, early years tests and league tables will be abolished, and "creative" subjects given equal parity to the "academic".

Independent schools will lose their charitable status and pay corporation tax, while church schools will be stripped of taxpayer funding. Religious instruction will be banned in school hours.

Tuition fees will be abolished - but state research funding for universities will increase to reduce a reliance on "biased" commercial research.

THE BEYONCE TAX

Under cultural reforms, the Greens will explore a "a tax on superstar performances" to support "local cultural enterprises".

The BBC will be forced to show educational programming during prime time, giving it "equal precedence" to entertainment shows and not "ghettoised at inconvenient times".

Foreign companies will be stripped of newspapers and television shows if they control too much of the market. The "overall volume" of advertising on TV and newspapers will be controlled and cut, as part of a war on the "materialist and consumption driven culture which is not sustainable".

The England football, rugby and cricket teams would no longer play against countries where "normal, friendly, respectful or diplomatic relations are not possible." Football clubs would be owned by co-operatives and not traded on the stock markets.

DEATH OF DUTY FREE

The Greens will aim for all energy to be supplied from renewables, with wind the main source of power by 2030.

Under a new hierarchy for transport, pedestrians and bikes come first - and aeroplanes last.

Buses and trains will be electric by 2030, while taxes and regulations will be imposed to force people to buy smaller, lighter and less-powerful cars.

No more new airports or runways will be built, and existing ones nationalised. All new homes and businesses must by law provide bicycle parking. Helicopter travel would be regulated "more strictly". The sale of alcohol on planes and airports will be tightly restricted to prevent air-rage, and the air on inbound flights tested for disease.

Advertising of holiday flights will be controlled by law to halt the "promotion of a high-carbon lifestyle". New taxes would be imposed on carriers to reduce passenger numbers.

THE NHS TAX

Foundation hospitals and internal markets will be abolished, PFI abandoned and prescription charges abolished. A new NHS Tax will be introduced specifically to fund the health service.

Assisted dying will be legalised, and the law on abortion liberalised to allow nurses to carry it out. "Alternative" medicine will be promoted. Private healthcare will be more heavily taxed, with special levies on private hospitals that employ staff who were trained on the NHS.

It will be a criminal offence, with "significant fines", to stop a woman from breastfeeding in a restaurant or shop, and formula milk will be more tightly regulated.

In order to prevent "overpopulation" burdening the earth, the state will provide free condoms and fund research for new contraceptives.

VEGETARIANISM FOR ALL

A Green party would impose "research, education and economic measures" to drive a "transition from diets dominated by meat". Factory farming would be abolished, and the sale of fur criminalised and shooting banned. Whips and jumps would be banned from horse racing.

SIGN UP TO AL-QAEDA

International aid should be increased by nearly 50 per cent to one per cent of GDP under Green Policy.

Merely being a member of al-Qaeda, the IRA and other currently proscribed terrorist groups will no longer be a criminal offence under Green plans, and instead a Green Government should seek to "address desperate motivations that lie behind many atrocities labelled `terrorist'," the policy book states.

Terrorism, it adds, "is an extremely loaded term. Sometimes governments justify their own terrorist acts by labelling any groups that resist their monopoly of violence 'terrorist'."

Britain will leave NATO, end the special relationship with the US, and unilaterally abandon nuclear weapons. A standing army, navy and airforce is "unnecessary". Bases will be turned into nature reserves and the arms industry "converted" to producing windturbines.

OPEN DOORS

"Richer regions do not have the right to use migration controls to protect their privileges from others in the long term," the party's policy book states.

A Green Government will "progressively reduce" border controls, including an amnesty for illegal immigrants after five years.

Access to benefits, the right to vote and tax obligations will apply to everyone living on British soil, regardless of passport. The policy book states: "We will work to create a world of global inter-responsibility in which the concept of a 'British national' is irrelevant and outdated."

Political parties will be funded by the state, and the electoral system changed. The monarchy will be abolished.

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