I call it the weird stance of Tim Groser. Groser publically does his nuts off a a small Pacific Nation, Tuvalu, daring to speak out against government policy. Shame on Groser as a former diplomat.

and just how are we going to get Africa to cough up for all their wild animals farting?
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/12/global_warming_is_in_deep_manu.html

or is there another reason for Copenhagen?
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/putting_our_economy_in_the_hands_of_chavez_fans

Of course, if (like it has happened before in other contexts) the very corporate interests who recieve funding through a global pool that also stand to benefit from the discoveries made decide to hyper-inflate the price of such products beyond the affordability of farmers in NZ (let alone elsewhere), then I think taxpayers here are going to feel ripped off.

And, if you are opposed to the public purse being used to to fund social welfare in principle, then you are a hypocrite to support such corporate welfare.

so, have fun at the sychophantic orgy in praise of bribery and “he who must be trusted” Tim Groser.

So GE grass then ?

Could be natural selection, testing to see what works best in the bovine gut. It will presumably be a balance between nutrition and growth promotion, and emission reduction. It’s possible that modern pastures are not ideal for the bovine digestive system.

Not quite true. If you for some reason you stumble over to frogblog, you will see that some in the “green” Party were not too happy about it either. Granted, the “green” MP’s have not expressed outrage, but I would beat a fair whack of money that they would not have seen the funny side of it, unfortunately the camera never shows a shot of them.

So GE grass then ? Perhaps if we spliced the grass genes with a methane consuming microbe we could get grass that gleans up it’s own methane during digestion. Tough luck if it makes the meat carcinogenic and it takes 10 years to figure that out.

Perhaps the historically higher CO2 levels than we have now were caused by prevalence of large belching and farting dinosaurs just waiting to turn into oil for us.

So New Zealand has achieved around the only positive announcement from Copenhagen, with an initiative that pleases both ETS sceptical businesses and the Greens. So who does that leave?

Taxpayers paying for it.

Pete I agree its possible esp in genetic engineering although in most other areas we are at the top and the only way is down. Most productivity gains offered by other alliance partners would come from factory farming IP which IMO we don’t want or need.

One of the worries is that we rely on a free-range point-of-difference in the global market. No doubt factory farming will rapidly become more efficient than free-range at combating manbearpig because of the opportunities for air-purification in confined spaces.

Will we be forced to adopt that unnatural method to preserve our markets?

Re IP, we could as easily gain from others as lose our own, and that could lead to better production and less waste so there is plenty of upside potential as well.

Get with the program.

The side-benefit is an interesting light show, each and every day and night. Mark II might involve a storage device and cow roller-skates, with a training kit so the cows learn to self-propel into the milking shed. That’s a productivity improvement as well.

All of those disciplines interplay with respect to emissions and a bit from here and a bit from there could add up to some technology going East, for free, with negative consequences.

In addition, we’ve apparently stepped up to lead this thing according to the news reports and that means if true its incumbent on us to put some rapid runs on the board with this alliance and that probably means giving the rest of the alliance something valuable that they don’t yet have, for free.

Elements of caution need to be exercised lest we naively trade away our world advantage. And let’s not forget, proprietorial IP is not respected at all in most parts of the world esp in our soon-to-be largest market: China.

And finally, let’s also not forget that in reality, AGW is in fact complete and utter bollocks and the only rational reason for doing this is because we depend on trade and the rest of the world is temporarily obsessed with this insanity. At the moment it looks like this insanity will become a way of life because unfortunately the population of useful idiots far outweighs those of us who remain sane. However that situation might change at some point – who knows – and it would be sad, wouldn’t it, if we’d given away our world advantage for the sake of compliance with some momentary temporary global fixation.

Of course, we have a habit of doing this, c.f. nuclear-free, so it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve shot ourselves in the foot in return for nothing except a nice warm fuzzy feeling in our bellies.

for a Luddite

I didn’t think I was anti technology. I’m all for this agricultural initiative by the green Groser, it is a major opportunity for NZ agricultural science and also flow-on business opportunities, plus possible reductions in carbon costs. Seems like a smart direction.

Others here seem to want to sabotage the science, I think Ned’s label could be more appropriate for them.

As a result our small country came to be known as being important for the folowing reasons: lesbian marriage, Chronic Bakruptcy, the Fart tax (Sorry, Bovine Methane Emmisiions tax), paralysis, watermelons, gay MP’s and of course, DL herself (the world’s first lesbian PM?), to say nothing of corruption, lying, and forgery (but hey, that’s the socialsit way isn’t it?)

And, before I forget, ‘Sheeples’!!

Based on these precedents, lovingly cultivated for the last nine years or so, Mr Chauvel’s comments are perfectly reasonable (and probably written by DL herself), and should not be unexpected.

I just wonder what other brilliant ideas he (sorry, she – DL is still pulling the strings after all) will eminate from this MP: no doubt they will be very, very, very interesting.

I can hardly wait.

BTW: A Lawyer as an MP in a Labour (workers) party? Me thinks a contradiction – no?

Surely, he can lecture us in feminism, homosexuality in the Middle Ages, advanced Knitting and crochet; but climate and weather issues?

Chauvel is a perfect example of what is wrong with the socialist Labour Party. A tosser out of his depth, a shameless liar making absurd statements on topics he knows nothing about.