Content:

Item 1: Unaffordable housing – the disparate impact on the poor.

Item 2: How others see us – Kiwi Fruit for America.

Item 3: Aliens Cause Global Warming

Item 4: The Australians take a stand on the "footprint".

Item 5: How we set our Environmental Standards.

Item 6: $100 a barrel oil? Don't Panic!

Entertainment 1: Vibrant Urbanism? Rail's no way in or to San Jose.

Entertainment 2: Photos of hairy and other radicals at Bali; all over thirty!

	Funding:  Even a Dollar Helps! 

ACTIVITIES

Activity 1: Prepared first draft of amendments to the RMA.

This was a major task and kept me busy over most of January. The draft will now 
be circulated to members of the forum for comment and further development. Along 
the way I discovered a truly useful resource which is worth passing on. While I 
have a copy of the Act it is a massive document. But our government web pages 
now contain a really useful version of the RMA (and other legislation) on line, 
specifically designed for use on the web. Go to:
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1991/0069/latest/DLM230265.html
This is an index page. Now, if you are interested in section 8, click on Treaty 
of Waitangi day and a new page will open with:

Treaty of Waitangi

     In achieving the purpose of this Act, all persons exercising functions and
      powers under it, in relation to managing the use, development, and
      protection of natural and physical resources, shall take into account the
      principles of the Treaty of Waitangi
      
And the miracle is that clicking on 'Treaty of Waitangi' now takes you to the 
whole Treaty document. Similarly, other sections have links to related sections 
so you can trace an issue right through the Act with a few clicks. You can also 
search each page or you can open the whole document and search the whole Act.
As is often the case, this made me much more efficient, but probably meant the 
task took longer because I was able to do so much more. The outcomes of 
"increased efficiency" are not self evident, as our Energy Efficiency and 
Conservation Authority has discovered. 

Activity 2: Preparing to attend major climate change conference in New York.

A few weeks ago I was invited to present a paper at a major international 
conference on climate change <http://www.heartland.org/NewYork08/program.cfm> in 
New York in early March.  It will be wonderful to meet so many famous names in 
the flesh. If you want to attend contact 
 This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
  .

 They have 300 hotel rooms booked in Times Square. 
I shall be presenting a paper on climage change policy impacts on urban 
development and transport etc.

Request for Further Proposals for the RMA Reform Bill

One idea which has come up as part of the reform is the need for an RMA 
Ombudsman to deal with abuses of power at the pre-hearing level. Many projects 
are killed off long before getting to a hearing and hence the abuses cannot be 
appealed. I have tried to get the audit office involved in blatant conflicts of 
interest and even corruption but they just sit on the sidelines and refuse to 
respond in any meaningful way. If the banking industry can have an ombudsman 
then surely the field of resource management deserves one too. Any useful case 
studies would be welcome.


ITEMS

Item One: Unaffordable housing – the disparate impact on the poor.

The Government has been embarrassed by the latest Demographia Survey 
<http://www.demographia.com/>  which reveals that our 'land of milk and honey' 
has the most unaffordable housing in the Anglo world. And so they should be. 

Thomas Sowell reminds us that the impact of unaffordable housing falls unevenly, 
as one would expect, and most severely on those whom Labour claims to represent. 
His essay "Green Disparate Impact" opens with:

It was front-page news on the January 14th issue of the San Francisco Chronicle 

that blacks by the tens of thousands have left the San Francisco Bay area since 

the 1990 census. Since my book "Applied Economics" analyzed this situation a few 

years ago, it was nice to see that the information has finally reached the San 

Francisco Chronicle, though they have yet to explain the politics and the 

economics behind the exodus. Unfortunately, this phenomenon is not peculiar to 

the San Francisco Bay Area and blacks are not the only group being forced out of 

upscale liberal communities in California. It is much the same story in Monterey 

and Los Angeles, for example. Skyrocketing housing prices are forcing out 

families with children, as well as blacks and other people with low or even 

moderate incomes. 

Read the whole essay here. 

Item Two: How others see us – Kiwi Fruit for America.

While our farmers continue to come under attack for being so successful in 
maintaining our standard of living by creating wealth while so many others are 
continually destroying it, outside observers look on our rural folk with awe and 
envy. Read one American's viewpoint here. 

Item Three: Aliens Cause Global Warming.

This heading would indicate that this Item belongs in the Entertainments 
section. But as Michael Crichton says in his opening paragraph:

My topic today sounds humorous but unfortunately I am serious. I am going to
argue that extraterrestrials lie behind global warming. Or to speak more
precisely, I will argue that a belief in extraterrestrials has paved the way, in
a progression of steps, to a belief in global warming. Charting this progression
of belief will be my task today. Let me say at once that I have no desire to
discourage anyone from believing in either extraterrestrials or global warming.
That would be quite impossible to do. Rather, I want to discuss the history of
several widely-publicized beliefs and to point to what I consider an emerging
crisis in the whole enterprise of science-namely the increasingly uneasy
relationship between hard science and public policy.

Crichton's fascinating essay

<http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speech-alienscauseglobalwarming.html>

 draws a connection between the modeling of extraterrestial life in the universe and the 
use of modeling in climate science. This cautionary tale should put us on alert 
to the pseudo science which is being used to develop policy in so many areas - 
such as premature deaths from open fires and vehicle exhausts, and rising seas, 
contaminated soils, and all manner of areas in which people seek to exercise 
power by generating a climate of fear. A useful mental exercise might be to 
write your own essay "Aliens cause XXX (insert your own fear)" 

Item Four: The Australians take a stand on the "footprint".

It has been plain to "Blind Freddie's Dog" that the whole business of offsetting 
carbon dioxide fooprints and trading in carbon dioxide credits will provide a 
million ways to shaft your neighbour – no one seems to be taking the issue 
seriously.
However, the Australian scamsters have obviously (and naturally) been quicker 
off the mark than most, forcing the Australian Competition and Consumer 
Commission to release an Issue Paper: The Trade Practices Act and carbon offset 
claims. (January 16 2008). 

This excellent paper fingers the opportunities for fraud and deception; the 
table of concerns on page 2 should be compulsory reading for all politicians.

However, we are unlikely to see such actions from our own Commerce Commission if 
only because the first response might be several actions against the Government 
and its numerous agencies.

Item Five: How we set our Environmental Standards.

All round the country, people with properties near the beach are suddenly 
finding that the Nanny State wants to protect their properties from the threats 
from storms, tsunami and rising seas. 
The excuse given for Councils being worried about events in 100 years' time is 
that they don't want to be sued for having issued a permit. The result is that 
many people are being told they cannot build, or cannot build without a host of 
conditions and management plans, or that they cannot add to the existing building.

These Councils do not seem to be interested in simply requiring that people 
carry their own insurance and  indemnify council against any future claims. 

And of course they never even think about "floating" houses.

One of the more reasonable documents about Managing Coastal Hazards 
 has een published by the Whakatane District Council and is worth reading as an 
introduction to the topic. While it is more balanced than many, it has decided 
to ignore tectonic plate movements because they are unpredictable – even though 
many trends are well documented.

Willem de Lange, of Waikato University was involved in the preparation and 
critiquing of the report, and has this to say:
At the time of the Ohope Spit High Court decision in the 1980s, sea level rise 
predictions ranged from 0.2 – 8.0 metres for this century. Many planners in the US and NZ were using 
1.0 m as a working value (The US National Research Council and Scientific 
Council on Ocean Research produced working papers based on these figures). I was 
involved in determining the sea level for the Ohope Spit development, which was 
on the inside of the harbour. As the nearby properties on the river flats had a 
500 mm flooding allowance, I suggested that it would be reasonable to extend 
this flood allowance into the estuary, and since this value was greater than the 
historical sea level rise, it would not be appropriate to add on extra.

As a result of the High Court decision, it became necessary to reassess the sea 
level rise component and explicitly add it in. After much discussion, the 
original 500 mm flood allowance used by planners, was renamed the "sea level 
rise component" and my original floor level elevations were retained.

The IPCC Second Assessment Report's sea level rise projections were 
substantially lower than the First Assessment Reports and other estimates by the 
National Science Foundation and others. They had a mid- point value of slightly 
less than 500 mm (490 mm). This was conveniently close to the 500 mm used for 
Ohope and was apparently picked up by planners elsewhere. It became incorporated 
into planning guidance materials and regional plans.

The IPCC Third Assessment Report  lowered sea level rise projections yet again. 
However, the upper limit for realistic scenarios was conveniently around 490 mm. 
At this stage engineering consultants started indicating that due to the 
precautionary approach it would be better to use this upper limit than the mid 
range value. This meant that established calculations did not have to be changed. 

Recently the IPCC Assessment Report 4 lowered sea level rise projections again 
(Delightfully obfuscated to mean it isn’t immediately obvious). This has a value 
of 500 mm as an extreme based on the least likely scenario and maximum possible 
ocean responses. After some undisclosed process, the Ministry for the 
Environment has decided that (as a precautionary approach?) the value of 500 mm 
should be used. How convenient for the planners ....

At no stage to my knowledge has there been a reasoned debate as to why we 
should use progressively less likely extremes for the basis of planning ...

Dr Willem de Lange
Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences
School of Science and Engineering
The University of Waikato

It's worth noting that the RMA makes no mention of "the precautionary 
principle", and this has been a deliberate decision. However, those who want to 
keep us away from the coastline and from the general pursuit of happiness keep 
trying to persuade the Courts that it should be there, or is there in some 
disguise. Like "rural character" this term is an invention of the bureaucracy.

Item Six: $100 a barrel oil? Don't Panic!

The daily newspapers continue to run stories about the economic impact of oil 
being around $100 a barrel.
There can be no doubt that high petrol prices impact on consumer spending and on 
confidence. However, such prices do not signal an end to civilisation as we know 
it. For a brief and well constructed explanation as to why we should not panic 
or be panicked go to this essay from Technology Central Station. 
<http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=010708C>

Entertainment One – Vibrant Urbanism? Rail's no way in or to San Jose.

Those of us who have met Benita Todd, Vice President of the Georgia Public 
Policy Foundation, and author of this essay on "vibrant urbanism" 
<http://www.gppf.org/article.asp?RT=&p=pub/Transportation/Transit/SanJose080111.htm> know 
full well that she has contributed more to vibrant urbanism than any  planner or 
bureaucrat we have ever met. I was in San Jose when she heard about the vibrancy 
of their light rail system from Commissioner Brady, but fortunately I had only 
taken the train to get to the dinner and accepted a ride in a car to get back. 

Entertainment Two – Photos of hairy and other radicals at Bali; all over thirty!

While I have written at length about Bali I have yet to present any "holiday 
pics". But the web provides many routes and if you go to this page you will 
find a report by Craig Rucker, 
<http://www.cfact.org/site/view_article.asp?idCategory=21&idarticle=1355> of 
CFACT (The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow) who was at Bali and one of our 
colleagues. Clicking on "VIEW IMAGES" will take you to a collection of nine 
photos, a few of which I took myself. To move through them move the cursor 
towards to top right hand corner of the first photo and a "next" box will 
appear. Behold, I am the semi-hairy radical right in the middle of the second 
photo, dressed up as a mad scientist, and helping hold up the famous banner.