Contents:

Activity 1: Off to Wellington to present paper to Law and Economics Association 
of NZ

Activity 2:   Preparing to give paper at American Dream Coaliton conference in 
Houston

Activity 3:  Two new projects.

Items:

Item 1: Challenging the Restrictions on Coastal Development.
Item 2: Recent NBR Columns.
Item 3: What the Green Belt is doing to English Housing.
Item 4: Don't forget the Bob Carter Lecture on Climate Change on Friday Night, 18th April.

Entertainment:How governments create new jobs.

Funding: Even a Dollar Helps! 



ACTIVITIES

Activity 1: Off to Wellington to present paper to Law and Economics Association of NZ.

On this Monday and Tuesday the Centre is giving a paper to the Law and Economics 
Association seminar on "How to get out of this mess." While much of the 
presentation will deal with the present Law the focus will be on the world wide 
attitudes and beliefs and pseudo-science which underpins so much land use 
planning and Smart Growth in particular.

Activity 2: Preparing papers for the Houston Conference.

The Centre is also preparing a presentation to the American Dream Coalition 
conference at Houston in May. The Centre's presentation will further develop the 
theme of "Why Planners Love Global Warming" first presented at the Heartland 
Institute Conference in New York, by further strengthening the evidence of the 
connection between climate alarmism and the present international financial 
crisis. (see foreword)
Demographia are beginning to collect the statistical evidence for the 
connection between the "biggest bubbles" and the "climate alarmist states" such 
as California. Houston has no Smart Growth and is not a Climate Alarmist state 
and hence has had hardly any problems with sub-prime lending. A foreclosed 
property in California can cost the lenders $200,000 while a foreclosure in 
Houston may cost only $20,000.
Hence the costs vary state by state dramatically and climate panic correlates to 
big losses.

There are two important points to make.

The first is the obvious one that climate alarmism is already costing the world 
economy trillions of dollars.
However, a second line of argument, which the Centre has been developing with 
Prof David Henderson, former Chief Economist of the OECD, is that Sir Nicolas 
Stern failed to foresee this "climate change related economic cost" in his 
famous report. He also totally failed to foresee the impact of bio-fuels on 
world food prices.

The Stern Report concluded that the cost of present and urgent action would be 
less than the cost of future economic impacts of a warmer world. David Henderson 
and I suspect that including these two costs of present action (and especially 
if we use normal discount rates – although it would be tactically nice if we did 
not have to) would overturn Stern's conclusion.

We would then make the point that if Stern could not predict these unexpected 
outcomes, which have occurred within the first year of his hundred year 
forecasts, then why should anyone trust any of his conclusions?

 

Activity 3: Forecasting Audit.

Over the last few months the Centre has been working with Kesten Green, 
exploring means of monitoring and auditing the process whereby scientific 
information is turned into policy. Kesten Green is an expert in this field. He 
spoke at the Heartland Conference and is based in Monash University, Melbourne, 
but is currently working in New Zealand.

We have developed a project which will cost US$65,000 and have so far raised 
US$15,000 from a local sponsor. The Centre is not seeking the additional funding 
needed to fund the international contributions to the project.
"Stuff" reports on Kesten's submission to the Select Committee on the Emissions 
Trading Scheme at:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4472519a7693.html

ITEMS

Item One: Challenging the Restrictions on Coastal Development.

Many of you are being frustrated by changes to District Plans, based on 
directions from the Ministry for the Environment, coupled with the New 
Puritanism which seems rampant in so many councils, which are making it 
virtually impossible for New Zealanders to enjoy their traditional place by the 
beach – based on the threat of inundation from sea level rise.
A highly respected New Zealand scientist has come to your aid with this 
submission to the Whakatane District Council.
The Report is called "Ohope – Safe from the Sea" and is by David Kear, former 
Director of the New Zealand Geological Survey, and former Director General of 
the DSIR.
He is quite cross.
Read this "no holds barred" report at:

http://www.whakatane.govt.nz/Documents//districtplan/variation6/Dr%20Kears%20Article.pdf

Item Two: Recent NBR Columns

Go to: http://www.fcpp.org/images/publications/326GreatToComeHome.pdf

This is not the column on "Global Warming Cancelled" which has already been 
distributed and can now be read on many sites including the excellent Denis 
Dutton web page: Climate Debate Daily which attempts to put up the pros and 
cons of the climate debate, and which the Times of London has already named as 
one of the top five eco-news sites on the Internet.

Go to: http://climatedebatedaily.com 

And click on: /"We now not only know that the IPCC forecasts of atmospheric 
global warming were wrong, but we are also beginning to understand why they were 
wrong ...//continue »"/ 
<http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=21153&cid=39&cname=NBR>

The Centre particularly enjoys a "disclaimer" which Denis has prepared for 
attaching to this or some other page, to deal with all the legal problems 
arising round blogs and web pages. He suggests:

Legal notice: Opinions expressed in this communication strictly represent those
of the sender, the University of Canterbury, and the Government of New Zealand.
The University of Canterbury of and the New Zealand Government alone are
responsible for any errors of fact or defamatory insinuations it contains. If
you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy
this email in any way or in any format, digital, analogue, or paper and
number-two pencil.
You are also legally obligated under Section 6.72 of the Hague Convention of the
International Criminal Court to destroy the
hard drive on which this email was downloaded and to turn yourself in to the
authorities.

Item Three: What the Green Belt is doing to English Housing.

In a splendid piece of reporting, UK journalist James Heartfield, uses a story 
about Gypsies camping on a site next to a Government Minister to attack the 
Town and Country Planning Act, with well directed barbs such as:

The only answer to the housing shortage is to abolish planning permission by 
repealing the Town and Country Planning Act. Some people say there is nothing 
wrong in principle with the Green Belt, it is just how it has been applied. In 
fact, the Green Belt has been applied in just the way it was intended: as 
effectively a toffs’ barricade against the great unwashed. By the same token, I 
guess there is nothing wrong with immigration laws, too, if only they were not 
designed to bar immigrants.

For the full story go to:  
<http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/earticle/4957>_http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/earticle/4957_

Item Four: Don't Forget the Bob Carter Lecture on Global Warming.

Contact:      Bryan Leyland  Phone +64 9 940 7047  

email: 
 This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
 

The Centre strongly recommends this lecture and we presume the dinner will be 
excellent too.