Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Vulcan on January 23, 2006, 04:27:49 PM
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NZ is ranked as the leader in environmental performance, yet the Kyoto protocol will cost us billions,even if we're doing everything right. If this doesn't damn the Kyoto Protocol as the ugly lovechild of greenie lesbians I don't know what else to say:
NZ leads the world in environmental performance - study
24 January 2006
By HEATHER TYLER
An international report rating New Zealand as leading the world in environmental performance vindicates the Government's directions, Environment Minister David Benson-Pope said yesterday.
Mr Benson-Pope was commenting on the 2006 Environmental Environment Index, a pilot nation-by-nation study jointly produced by Yale and Columbia Universities.
The study showed that just six nations - led by New Zealand, followed by five from Northern Europe - have achieved 85 per cent or better success in meeting critical environment goals ranging from low ozone levels, to clean drinking water, low greenhouse gas emissions and sustainable fisheries.
"I'm delighted to see the report because it would appear to vindicate the directions we're taking," he told NZPA.
"That's not to say we've gone far enough or that we've got everything right. We're on the right track.
"This is a bit of a tick for environmentalists and parties that have put the environment high on their priorities."
Mr Benson-Pope said he was particularly pleased, as a former minister of fisheries, to see sustainable fisheries identified as one of the areas where New Zealand was performing very well.
The New York Times released details of the 2006 report, due to be formally issued during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, later this week.
The pilot study has been reviewed by specialists in the United States and internationally.
The United States was 28th overall, behind most of Western Europe, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Costa Rica and Chile, but ahead of South Korea and Russia.
Using a new variant of the methodology the two universities have applied in their Environmental Sustainability Index, produced in four previous years, the study was intended to focus more attention on how various governments have played the environmental hands they have been dealt, the Times said.
In the 2005 report, Finland, Norway, Uruguay, Sweden, Iceland and Canada occupied the top six spots, with Australia 13th and New Zealand rated 14th.
Mr Benson-Pope said the issue of clean water was clearly one of the big issues for the world and New Zealand society in the next few years and for decades to come.
"In many ways the identified categories (in the report) do help us focus on where the real pressures are.
"New Zealand has a historical reputation for making environmental issues of high importance, and the report may encourage other countries to come here and see what we're doing," he said.
"I'm delighted with the result."
However, there was no room for complacency. New Zealand still had lots of issues concerning the purity of its water, Mr Benson-Pope said.
The bottom half of the rankings in the 2006 report is largely filled with the countries of Africa and Central and South Asia.
Pakistan and India both ranked among the 20 lowest-scoring countries, with overall success ratios of 41.1 and 47.7, respectively.
The Times quoted Daniel Esty, director of the Yale Centre for Environmental Law and Policy and an author of the report, as saying the report was also designed as a tool to help monitor progress on the environmental issues included among the Millennium Development goals adopted by 189 nations at the United Nations Millennium Summit.
Britain, which ranked 65th on last year's sustainability index, came in fifth in the new study, among the 133 nations measured.
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what about all the methane gas your sheep emit?
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Originally posted by john9001
what about all the methane gas your sheep emit?
They do their best every day to plug that source of emissions. :D
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Originally posted by GtoRA2
They do their best every day to plug that source of emissions. :D
:rofl :aok
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Sounds like they have subcaliber plugs then.
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The United States was 28th overall
Woo Hoo! We're No. 28!
28 of 133 nations, we are in the top quarter, we must have made the playoffs.
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I think the top 75% get to go to the playoffs, don't they? Or is that only in the NBA?
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Originally posted by Toad
I think the top 75% get to go to the playoffs, don't they? Or is that only in the NBA?
Well, at least you made something in top 30 in the world which actually includes other countries ;)
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There's OTHER COUNTRIES?
ah...yer joshin' us.
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gee, i wonder how we'd rank on the list of enviormentaly friendly nations with nukes, a carrier navy and world-wide force projection capability?
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Originally posted by Hangtime
gee, i wonder how we'd rank on the list of enviormentaly friendly nations with nukes, a carrier navy and world-wide force projection capability?
Yeah but the chinese own you... or is that the japanese, or is it split these days?
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Ever heard that old joke about loans?
"Owe the bank $100,000 and they own your butt.
Owe the bank $1,000,000,000 and you own THEIR butt."
;)
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Serves the bank right for being dumb enough to give out $1 billion in loans.
-SW
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Originally posted by Vulcan
Yeah but the chinese own you... or is that the japanese, or is it split these days?
They bought you guys first. ;)
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Originally posted by Hangtime
They bought you guys first. ;)
Come on Hang, we both know they bought the sheep. No one wants Anzacs. They are not house broken.
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whence goeth the sheep, goeth the Anzacs.
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Originally posted by Hangtime
whence goeth the sheep, goeth the Anzacs.
They have this new stuff you rub on the sheep’s neck that keeps the Anzacs away.
They call it Sheepvantage, and the Anzacs consider it a weapon of mass deprivation, but it keeps the sheep pest free!