Update on energy policy October 6 2016
While many of the countries who signed on to the Paris Accord on limiting global warming have already ratified the Agreement which is the first step to actually reducing their own emissions our Lucky Country has not. It will be interesting to see what if anything is done.
Direct Action, as we know from the utterances of Malcolm, "is a fig leaf" behind which Australia emerges as the worst polluter, per capita, of all countries while continuing in the pretence that action is urgently being implemented.
The per capita figures assumes that we have to account for the coal we dig up, transport and send overseas to be burnt in electricity production in China and India both of whom have signalled a slowing down of demand as they move to renewables.
I have noted most of this before and apologise for restating what to many will be obvious.
Increasingly action is happening at the household level People are growing their own food in communal gardens, verandas and yards as well as common land such as schools, parks and city squares. It may not make much of a dent in the massive problem that we are facing but it does make for a more committed citizenry. The film Demain shows much of the citizen actions throughout the EU, India, China, the US and Africa. Highly recommended.
What is to come is the breaking down of industrial farming and mono-cultivation that is adding to our loss of top soil at an alarming rate. Organic farming that is done in combination with companion planting and crop rotation will begin to revive the land that we have been taking for granted as if it was a limitless resource.
Looking further ahead if we are competing with farm animals for our very lives we may have to consider modifying or changing our diets. Vegetarian and vegan diets are not only planet friendly they are so because of the massive carbon foot print in the business as usual food chain. So eat food locally grown, in season and organic.
I listened to a BBC podcast today about coffee. Very good but, toward the end of the program they pointed out that with climate change new pests and diseases are beginning to infect coffee plantations around the world. Most of the best coffee beans derive from two single seed exports from Ethiopia. The first was to Yemen and beyond there to Western Europe. What has appeared in the last two or three years are diseases such as leaf rust which attacks the coffee trees and destroys their leaves which in turn destroys their nutrition uptake ability, Enjoy that coffee while you can. Of course there is always the choice to drink Robusta beans which as the name implies is a hardier plant that doesn't require the sort of environments that Arabica does, is bitter and forms the basis for Starbucks product which no self respecting coffee drinker would touch.
It is very clear that our political classes are not listening or are constrained from taking meaningful action by vested interests. What to do if you have Barnaby Joyce as the Deputy PM, leader of your Coalition (or Coal-ition) partner or the hugely gross (in all senses of the word) figure of George Christiansen on your flank?
Malcolm came to be PM by ousting the awful Tony Abbott on a promise to be more collegiate within his party and to take the time to explain to the Australian people in an intelligent dialogue what needs to be done. He was talking about the economy then but has since done about face on so many things that were important to him in the past – we can only hope and trust and work for him being sent back to the opposition benches as soon as possible. What could be more important to the economy and indeed to life itself than seriously tackling climate change. To start with crippling the CSIRO does not send the right signal.
In the rush to a globalised economy the thought of tariffs and trade barriers doesn't seem feasible but in an ever changing world the very same global bodies who seek to break down barriers may in an environment where the very real threats to our lives caused by a changing climate will sanction the big national polluters with trade barriers that will further isolate the country that has seen itself as the food bowl for a hungry world.
Apart from the citizen proactive things we can and increasingly are doing we need to organise so that our MPs realise that we are not just there for a few months before an election and then apathetic until the next one but that we are also very much involved and have too much at stake to risk that our Parliaments will do the right thing without being pushed very hard by we, the people.
One action that should be considered is a High Court challenge to the government for failing the nation on this vital question as well as looking at the possibility of criminal charges against the blockers who maintain that the opinion that global warming is not man made or worse that it is a socialist plot. Well might we scoff at them but scoffing will not save our planet our our futures.
In the past week we have seen tornadoes rip through South Australia which turned their electric supply towers into bits of broken Lego and disrupting a great deal of the state's electricity. Our Prime Miniature was quick to blame renewables which he must have known were not the cause. If the power was coming from sun, wind or indeed brown coal it made no difference if the towers and lines used to deliver it were strewn across the State. As one pundit pointed out when the tornado Yasi hit Queensland not one tower came down in stronger winds. They went on to wonder that perhaps the now visible concrete supports were too flimsy and if they had been built since the power business was privatised.
I heard class dunce Barnaby ranting today about the South Australian disaster. “OK,” he said “the problem was caused by bad weather but why did it take so long to get the current flowing again?” the old technique of if you are caught out lying once then move the lie upstream. Barnaby might be an obvious figure of fun but look at the damage he can do and does. The tornadoes blow themselves out as they move on but BJ goes on and on.
I am pleased to say that Victoria's premier, Daniel Andrews, was quick to describe Malcolm's utterances as “arrant nonsense”. It will be of great interest if there are economic reprisals from Canberra as there was with the Abbott government over roads and infrastructure funding. Sadly the effects are being felt in the investment community where investors are starting to get nervous about the lack of government commitment to renewables. Turnbull's comments were a discussion warmer for the upcoming fed-states pow wow on energy. Love your work Malcolm.
All this begs the question what is the role of government? To me there are natural monopolies that benefit from government ownership and oversight. Telephony is one of these. If the Government hadn't privatised Telstra the NBN rollout would be finished long ago. If the power companies hadn't been sold off we would have 100% renewables as well as a smart grid and jobs for the retrained coal mining workforce. Water, roads, airports and harbours all have the need of strong oversight even if the operations are leased to private corporations.
An open letter to Josh Frydenberg July 20 2016
An open letter to Mr Josh Frydenberg
I wrote to you some months ago and suggested then that you were using your well developed debating skills in the Parliament in the matter of climate change and mitigation to argue a position you knew wasn't sound.
I now know that I was in error and that you either believed then that climate change was not anything that we need to worry about or you were prepared to say the things you said in spite of the facts.
Now you are a spruiker for coal mining and coal burning in spite of the massive drop in world coal prices and the clear desire of the voters of Australia to move as quickly as possible to renewal energy which in the long run would be cheaper, job creating and clean.
I had a look at your web site to see how you see yourself. Some of your quotes are extracted below followed by my responses.
“How would I like to see the future unfold? I want to see an Australia that is safe and secure.
I want to see an Australia where the only relevant consideration is the content of a person’s character.
I want to see an Australia where families are valued and encouraged.
I want to see an Australia where each citizen has the opportunity to be the best that they can be.”
Like you I am a child of Holocaust survivors. My father passed away ten years ago and my mother will be 91 in a couple of weeks. They arrived in Australia penniless but with a huge amount of energy to make a new life in a country that welcomed them and where there were opportunities for these New Australians.
My mother has two children, six grandchildren and five great grandchildren a fact that seemed impossible from the forests of Belarus where she survived the war as a partisan. The difficulty I have with your statement quoted above is that on any fair reading it would include the welcome of asylum seekers rather than the cruel policy your government has. I have a close friend who came as a boat person fleeing Vietnam. He was ten years old but his family were welcomed by Malcolm Fraser and the government of the day. Today he heads up an IT com pany and has and is making a contribution to this country. If his family were attempting the same thing today the would end up on Nauru or Manus with no hope or future.
One of the lies that Dutton and Morrison and many on your side tell is that we are now punching above our weight in taking refugees when the truth is that on a per capita basis we rank sixty seventh. Another terrible lie.
Well you can lie to the people some of the time but eventually you will be found to be what is plain to many of us. A disgrace to the office to which you have been entrusted. May you go with Bronwyn Bishop noisily into the night.
While your party looks back to Howard as the great leader the Chilcott report suggests he is a war criminal. And as you celebrate the great fiscal returns of the Howard Costello regime it is now evident that they in fact brought us the structural deficit we are now struggling with.
As the son of an eminent medico it is disappointing to see you spruik for greed rather than listen to the science. Now you have replaced the liar-in-chief Greg Hunt maybe you can do better than "coal is good for humanity."
I wrote to you some months ago and suggested then that you were using your well developed debating skills in the Parliament in the matter of climate change and mitigation to argue a position you knew wasn't sound.
I now know that I was in error and that you either believed then that climate change was not anything that we need to worry about or you were prepared to say the things you said in spite of the facts.
Now you are a spruiker for coal mining and coal burning in spite of the massive drop in world coal prices and the clear desire of the voters of Australia to move as quickly as possible to renewal energy which in the long run would be cheaper, job creating and clean.
I had a look at your web site to see how you see yourself. Some of your quotes are extracted below followed by my responses.
“How would I like to see the future unfold? I want to see an Australia that is safe and secure.
I want to see an Australia where the only relevant consideration is the content of a person’s character.
I want to see an Australia where families are valued and encouraged.
I want to see an Australia where each citizen has the opportunity to be the best that they can be.”
Like you I am a child of Holocaust survivors. My father passed away ten years ago and my mother will be 91 in a couple of weeks. They arrived in Australia penniless but with a huge amount of energy to make a new life in a country that welcomed them and where there were opportunities for these New Australians.
My mother has two children, six grandchildren and five great grandchildren a fact that seemed impossible from the forests of Belarus where she survived the war as a partisan. The difficulty I have with your statement quoted above is that on any fair reading it would include the welcome of asylum seekers rather than the cruel policy your government has. I have a close friend who came as a boat person fleeing Vietnam. He was ten years old but his family were welcomed by Malcolm Fraser and the government of the day. Today he heads up an IT com pany and has and is making a contribution to this country. If his family were attempting the same thing today the would end up on Nauru or Manus with no hope or future.
One of the lies that Dutton and Morrison and many on your side tell is that we are now punching above our weight in taking refugees when the truth is that on a per capita basis we rank sixty seventh. Another terrible lie.
Well you can lie to the people some of the time but eventually you will be found to be what is plain to many of us. A disgrace to the office to which you have been entrusted. May you go with Bronwyn Bishop noisily into the night.
While your party looks back to Howard as the great leader the Chilcott report suggests he is a war criminal. And as you celebrate the great fiscal returns of the Howard Costello regime it is now evident that they in fact brought us the structural deficit we are now struggling with.
As the son of an eminent medico it is disappointing to see you spruik for greed rather than listen to the science. Now you have replaced the liar-in-chief Greg Hunt maybe you can do better than "coal is good for humanity."
Ken Burns at Stanford graduation day - posted 10th of July 2016
Thanks to cousin David Ritvo for this link to a youtube of Ken Burns giving the graduation day address at Stanford University. It was a joy to watch. Treat yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AjDHzEBPc0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AjDHzEBPc0
Trust me .....June 9, 2016
Trust
An overused and rarely understood word that many throw about as if it meant a single thing.
Trust me I'm a politician. Our boy Malcolm stands in front of the cameras and microphones and with his multi million dollar smile says this election is all about trust. We can't trust Labor with the finances of this country but you know you can trust us.”
I have spoken lately with Labor voters who repeat the same thing as if it is true. They ignore the facts that are in plain view. This government are going into debt as fast as they can all the time blaming the former government for the current problem. As if there was no global financial crisis that the then Labor government successfully avoided and then managed to hand the LNP one of the best performed economies in the OECD.
Now they talk about budget repair as if they are the only ones with the knowledge to achieve it. If the facts are scrutinised in a methodical way it was Howard-Costello who blew the windfall of the mining boom in election stunts and giveaways while cutting the Commonwealth's revenue base that would create the structural problems underlying the economy today. Now Howard is touring the country in support of LNP candidates who need his help. This is going backwards.
I am not as pessimistic as some of my friends who can't see a change of government ahead. I think that at the least there will be a hung Parliament with whoever takes power having to deal with the Greens and Independents including Xenophon. Palmer is finished and I seriously doubt whether Hanson will get up. I would love to see the end of Abetz, Joyce and Pyne. But then there is Cormann, Bernardi and the rest of the uglies. You can only hope but it will be good to see them on the Opposition benches if they do manage to slither in.
Pyne and Brough of course are part of a Federal police inquiry that will hopefully report during this election cycle but imagine a finding afterwards if they did slither in. Jamie Briggs groped one of his staff who is now running against him. Howard is supporting for Briggs which tells you a lot about both of them. Turnbull remains captive to the right wing of his party and even while touring the flood devastated east coast can't bring himself to mention climate change.
On a more immediate front the idea of trust is also overused until it becomes meaningless. 'Trust me I'm adopted' is an old play on 'trust me I'm a doctor' but somehow everybody is looking after number one in a Darwinian way as it needs to be. The human ape has to protect and project their DNA into the future. Nobody trusts or rewards altruism, it has to be an end in itself. Do good things because you see the need for them to be done rather than do good and expect to be rewarded outside yourself. It is a very old Jewish tradition that if you give financial help you should do it anonymously rather than for profile. The act of kindness can be innate rather than self serving. In Richard Dawkins' seminal book The Selfish Gene he points to lots of research that shows cooperation is a better survival strategy than competition and this seems self evident.
Back to the political arena for a moment. The LNP is the party of the law of the jungle and the ALP seeks to moderate that idea with the concept of public goods which a generation after Reagan and Thatcher is a concept openly derided in Parliament and in the press. And what has happened to our news outlets? Increasingly the printed mastheads are decreasing in circulation and recently all the majors put out a Chinese government propaganda supplement, a sign of their demise as we the readers look online for trusted sources of news like the Guardian, the Conversation and the citizen journalism that is taking the place of the old journalism which has clearly had it's day.
An overused and rarely understood word that many throw about as if it meant a single thing.
Trust me I'm a politician. Our boy Malcolm stands in front of the cameras and microphones and with his multi million dollar smile says this election is all about trust. We can't trust Labor with the finances of this country but you know you can trust us.”
I have spoken lately with Labor voters who repeat the same thing as if it is true. They ignore the facts that are in plain view. This government are going into debt as fast as they can all the time blaming the former government for the current problem. As if there was no global financial crisis that the then Labor government successfully avoided and then managed to hand the LNP one of the best performed economies in the OECD.
Now they talk about budget repair as if they are the only ones with the knowledge to achieve it. If the facts are scrutinised in a methodical way it was Howard-Costello who blew the windfall of the mining boom in election stunts and giveaways while cutting the Commonwealth's revenue base that would create the structural problems underlying the economy today. Now Howard is touring the country in support of LNP candidates who need his help. This is going backwards.
I am not as pessimistic as some of my friends who can't see a change of government ahead. I think that at the least there will be a hung Parliament with whoever takes power having to deal with the Greens and Independents including Xenophon. Palmer is finished and I seriously doubt whether Hanson will get up. I would love to see the end of Abetz, Joyce and Pyne. But then there is Cormann, Bernardi and the rest of the uglies. You can only hope but it will be good to see them on the Opposition benches if they do manage to slither in.
Pyne and Brough of course are part of a Federal police inquiry that will hopefully report during this election cycle but imagine a finding afterwards if they did slither in. Jamie Briggs groped one of his staff who is now running against him. Howard is supporting for Briggs which tells you a lot about both of them. Turnbull remains captive to the right wing of his party and even while touring the flood devastated east coast can't bring himself to mention climate change.
On a more immediate front the idea of trust is also overused until it becomes meaningless. 'Trust me I'm adopted' is an old play on 'trust me I'm a doctor' but somehow everybody is looking after number one in a Darwinian way as it needs to be. The human ape has to protect and project their DNA into the future. Nobody trusts or rewards altruism, it has to be an end in itself. Do good things because you see the need for them to be done rather than do good and expect to be rewarded outside yourself. It is a very old Jewish tradition that if you give financial help you should do it anonymously rather than for profile. The act of kindness can be innate rather than self serving. In Richard Dawkins' seminal book The Selfish Gene he points to lots of research that shows cooperation is a better survival strategy than competition and this seems self evident.
Back to the political arena for a moment. The LNP is the party of the law of the jungle and the ALP seeks to moderate that idea with the concept of public goods which a generation after Reagan and Thatcher is a concept openly derided in Parliament and in the press. And what has happened to our news outlets? Increasingly the printed mastheads are decreasing in circulation and recently all the majors put out a Chinese government propaganda supplement, a sign of their demise as we the readers look online for trusted sources of news like the Guardian, the Conversation and the citizen journalism that is taking the place of the old journalism which has clearly had it's day.
4th of May 2016 still a sad time
It has been quite some time since I posted. In that time we have moved out of our Mary St. home and are waiting for the next iteration.
While it has been two months nothing seems to have changed politically from a policy point of view and Morrison has brought down his first budget which has, for him, the advantage of not being informed by Joe Hockey. Unfortunately it is still being driven by the Abbott agenda which the right wing faction insists on keeping to. So no mention of climate change which must be so obvious to boy wonder Malcolm that it amazes me to see him, Costello like, smiling and baby kissing and pretending there isn't a problem.
We have just had the warmest four months since records were kept and the storms, fires and freak tides are there for all to see and experience. While Turnbull promised a mature conversation with the Australian people he has been notably missing in action in this most important issue on which so much else he will talk about endlessly, at the click of a microphone, while we are being slowly boiled to death. The frogs will rise up though - let's hope not too late. So much for mature.
The Panama Papers meanwhile provide a window into the shadow world of the corporations and individuals for whom paying tax is an option so by foreshadowing a gradual drop in the corporate rate there is a dubious assumption that a lower rate is more attractive than zero. Having gutted the capabilities of the ATO and ATSIC in previous budgets we can't expect much to come from their enforcement and discovery efforts even if the Panama Papers gives them a shopping list of names and addresses.
Of course Panama is just one of many jurisdictions where conduits to hidden money and accounts are found. So Wikileaks and Snowden still have much public good to do for us.
Back to Turnbull - what price does integrity and honesty come at. We know it's not just money because he and Lucy are rolling in it. No the real deal for Malcolm now is his life long desire to exercise power at the highest level. The irony is having grabbed the apple he now realises it has thirty worms in it who will throw him off a cliff if he ever mentions the c word. No not that one - climate.
It's good to see the Labor Party now outing him on his knowing wrecking of the NBN and hopefully they can use social media, tv advertising and other ways to get the word out as it is being totally avoided by the MurdFax papers and their associated TV and pay outlets.
I keep wondering how short term profits are more appealing than the enormous opportunities of the new economy. Do the fat cats not have families? When the seas rise up, and the forests burn and the cyclones sweep through there might be a place to hide like the SS dug caves in Silesia but not for very long. Starvation and thirst are coming to all.
Greg Hunt meanwhile crows about his achievements which in 1984 speak means that he has wrecked to environment to appease his ambitions. I have registered to vote in Flinders, his electorate. Just maybe he will be turfed out.
And now on the 8th March 2016
It beggars belief really unless the all too human trait of hope and belief in a future that can be better still informs your views. A couple of nights ago three of us went to the Trades Hall in Victoria St and in a very small room behind the bookshop saw Naomi Klein's film "Everything Must Change" based on her book with the same title. Roaming the globe she showed us just how bad things have become and how the policy makers are failing to do what is necessary to fix the immense problems facing planet earth. Her call is for people power to address the real issues and to bypass governments and corporations who will eventually follow.
The strange thing that I can't fathom is that most of the people who are in power have families who will not be any better off when the waters rise and the tornadoes and cyclones hit. They may be slightly better off when the food and water wars start for a little while but there is no guarantee of that either. Having access to survival supplies must make you a target in a time of extreme need.
Klein remains optimistic as does another commentator and writer, Mark Shapiro. I hope they are right. I am basically optimistic in general but having tracked this for the last twenty years and seen the massive effort and money going into denial leaves me open mouthed and panting.
After Paris one could have been optimistic but then seeing the buffoon Hunt getting an award from a nation of fossil fuel pushers as the Best Environment Minister in the world it seems like business as usual Down Under. Turnbull (or Turncoat) has disavowed none of the Abbott era policies and it is widely said that he is held hostage by a significant right wing flank in the parliamentary party who believe that climate change is a left wing hoax. Presumably these people have families too. Is there enough money, power and or prestige for now to throw it all away when the inevitable happens? Democracy allow for different views but survival depends on seeing the train before you step into its path.
Kevin Rudd called it the biggest moral issue of our time and when faced with the problem of not getting it through the Senate, with the Greens voting against it, jettisoned the action he had planned as if it didn't matter anymore. Which leads us to Ms Klein's point. The people have to take this on. Make the changes in your own lives. Consume less. Recycle more. Buy green power or generate it yourself. Question your utility suppliers, ask AGL why when they are trumpeting their green credentials they doubled their emissions in one year last year. Shop organic and local. Don't buy imported food or drink. Yes tap water is fine.
Have a good look at your wardrobe and swap or donate those things you don't wear any more but are still hanging on to.
This one is not for everyone but if you can do it become a vegan or at least don't eat processed meat. Ask where your fish comes from and buy organic. Eat meat twice a week. Grow what you can.
For a very long time we behaved like we had limitless resources and all we had to do was kill, pick, dig and burn to keep our lives improving. We don't, we never did. Nothing is infinite or without end. We are at the pointy end now and need to take responsibility for where we are now and for where we are going. It is easy pickings to see that North Korea is a threat to world peace. It is equally blindingly obvious that we are in for a very rough ride if we constantly deny reality or partition it in our minds as a problem for other peoples in other places. Right now in Miami and down the east coast of the USA people are being flooded in their homes and highways. Their pollies are in denial like ours (except Obama) and nothing is being done.
Climate change is not a political problem - it is a problem of survival. We all need to act, not tomorrow but now. We need to network with our communities and take on this immense problem because if we don't it will take us.
The strange thing that I can't fathom is that most of the people who are in power have families who will not be any better off when the waters rise and the tornadoes and cyclones hit. They may be slightly better off when the food and water wars start for a little while but there is no guarantee of that either. Having access to survival supplies must make you a target in a time of extreme need.
Klein remains optimistic as does another commentator and writer, Mark Shapiro. I hope they are right. I am basically optimistic in general but having tracked this for the last twenty years and seen the massive effort and money going into denial leaves me open mouthed and panting.
After Paris one could have been optimistic but then seeing the buffoon Hunt getting an award from a nation of fossil fuel pushers as the Best Environment Minister in the world it seems like business as usual Down Under. Turnbull (or Turncoat) has disavowed none of the Abbott era policies and it is widely said that he is held hostage by a significant right wing flank in the parliamentary party who believe that climate change is a left wing hoax. Presumably these people have families too. Is there enough money, power and or prestige for now to throw it all away when the inevitable happens? Democracy allow for different views but survival depends on seeing the train before you step into its path.
Kevin Rudd called it the biggest moral issue of our time and when faced with the problem of not getting it through the Senate, with the Greens voting against it, jettisoned the action he had planned as if it didn't matter anymore. Which leads us to Ms Klein's point. The people have to take this on. Make the changes in your own lives. Consume less. Recycle more. Buy green power or generate it yourself. Question your utility suppliers, ask AGL why when they are trumpeting their green credentials they doubled their emissions in one year last year. Shop organic and local. Don't buy imported food or drink. Yes tap water is fine.
Have a good look at your wardrobe and swap or donate those things you don't wear any more but are still hanging on to.
This one is not for everyone but if you can do it become a vegan or at least don't eat processed meat. Ask where your fish comes from and buy organic. Eat meat twice a week. Grow what you can.
For a very long time we behaved like we had limitless resources and all we had to do was kill, pick, dig and burn to keep our lives improving. We don't, we never did. Nothing is infinite or without end. We are at the pointy end now and need to take responsibility for where we are now and for where we are going. It is easy pickings to see that North Korea is a threat to world peace. It is equally blindingly obvious that we are in for a very rough ride if we constantly deny reality or partition it in our minds as a problem for other peoples in other places. Right now in Miami and down the east coast of the USA people are being flooded in their homes and highways. Their pollies are in denial like ours (except Obama) and nothing is being done.
Climate change is not a political problem - it is a problem of survival. We all need to act, not tomorrow but now. We need to network with our communities and take on this immense problem because if we don't it will take us.
After the pause
ucA lot seems to have happened in the outside world and I haven't made a comment here.
Malcolm seems to have charmed the pants off everybody except those commentators who have a memory and research skills. On entitlement he needs to be added to the list below. Apparently in private, if he doesn't get his own way, there is a temper tantrum which is nuclear and the fallout is toxic.
I'm sure there is research going on as to how he got to where he is but let's wait until it comes out.
More importantly Turnbull is hamstrung by his own political history having been tossed out from the leadership once before for supporting a very modest carbon trading measure he has learnt that it doesn't keep the support of his detractors on the right in his party. Add to this the promise by Abbott to not destabilise the government (translation - do everything you can to get the glittering prize back) it makes for Malcolm living in interesting times to which we are all invited as passive recipients of bad policy and inaction on the pressing issues of our time.
So - the evil Greg Hunt has approved every mega coal mine seconds after he is asked with not even a nod to the environmental worms in the basket and the new "inclusive" age of Turncoat looks like Abbott with a sweeter smile. Don't be fooled for a second.
On the Labor side it is my view that whatever the truth about Bill Shorten's past it would be a great gesture for him to stand aside for the clarity would give the political debate with the danger that it hands an undeserved victory to the Libs.
Hearing the idiotic Barn any Joyce traducing the WHO for finally saying what we all know about processed meats and red meat just adds to a picture of business as usual and don't scare the horses.
Malcolm seems to have charmed the pants off everybody except those commentators who have a memory and research skills. On entitlement he needs to be added to the list below. Apparently in private, if he doesn't get his own way, there is a temper tantrum which is nuclear and the fallout is toxic.
I'm sure there is research going on as to how he got to where he is but let's wait until it comes out.
More importantly Turnbull is hamstrung by his own political history having been tossed out from the leadership once before for supporting a very modest carbon trading measure he has learnt that it doesn't keep the support of his detractors on the right in his party. Add to this the promise by Abbott to not destabilise the government (translation - do everything you can to get the glittering prize back) it makes for Malcolm living in interesting times to which we are all invited as passive recipients of bad policy and inaction on the pressing issues of our time.
So - the evil Greg Hunt has approved every mega coal mine seconds after he is asked with not even a nod to the environmental worms in the basket and the new "inclusive" age of Turncoat looks like Abbott with a sweeter smile. Don't be fooled for a second.
On the Labor side it is my view that whatever the truth about Bill Shorten's past it would be a great gesture for him to stand aside for the clarity would give the political debate with the danger that it hands an undeserved victory to the Libs.
Hearing the idiotic Barn any Joyce traducing the WHO for finally saying what we all know about processed meats and red meat just adds to a picture of business as usual and don't scare the horses.
Entitlement
Remember Joe Hockey? It's only an era away but he of the fat cigar and the angry smirk advised us that he was bringing the age of entitlement to an end. It is hard to know exactly what he meant particularly when he advanced into the area of lifters and leaners. One thing is for sure he didn't see the overturn of One Term Tony and his, missed it by that much, entitlement to a Prime Minister's pension for life disappearing over the horizon of public cheers.
In the more mundane world where the rest of us live entitlements can mean sick and holiday pay, super contributions and other employment packages as well as safety net provisions to look after the vulnerable. These have been increasingly under attack as the union movement has been continuously pared back by governments that demonise them and portray them as corrupt. There have been instances of union corruption as there has been corruption in every walk of life but it is always the union that gets kicked and highlighted and almost never the employers who have an equal amount to answer to in individual cases. This should not be a simplistic case of goodies and baddies but one of upholding existing laws.
In my own working life I never felt anything but incredibly privileged and lucky to be constantly in work although it never felt like work to me. I was able to do what I loved and felt passionate about and to got paid as well!!
For twenty five years I was able to pretty much work on the things I wanted to work on. The first thing I didn't really want to work on was fighting the cancer that hit me in 1997 but there was no choice and rather than worry and complain I had to concentrate on a positive outcome and get everything negative out of my frame.
A year later when asked if anything had changed in my life as a result of the big C my immediate response was “No, back to normal” and of course in time I realised that that wasn't true at all. The next big life event when I was hit by a car in 2003 and spent some time in an induced coma and five months in hospital the recovery period was much longer. As I recovered again my instant response about change was “no, her I am” but increasingly that was shorthand for “I'm alive” and indeed much had changed. Not the least of these changes was the end of my full on work life and the need to refocus my time between initially getting used to the new me and my new life and the speed at which I had become a non person after the years of work and public life.
I could look in the mirror and say, “Didn't you used to be Bob Weis” and that meant something. It was a bit like the film colleague who saw me at a Producer's Conference and stammered, “Bob. Great to see you, I thought you were …” (dead?)
So back to entitlements. Joe and Tone have gone. Tony said he was not going to background or undermine so we could be sure he was and he has. Joe seems to have taken his entitlements and gone off to greener pastures and don't we all think it's a good deal? “Poor people don't drive? To buy a house in Sydney all you need is a good job.”
For the teachers and nurses and the armies of essential workers who have been chronically underpaid and their entitlements threatened we need to keep on fighting the good fight so that they don’t get lost in the language wars. Do you want an ambulance to turn up when you need one? Of course you do. Pay the people properly for doing a high stress important job. Do you want a trained and caring nurse to look after your loved ones? Do you want to arrive safely when you take public transport? These are or should be rhetorical questions. It is a sign of the times we are living in that they need to be asked and answered now.
Is it an 'entitlement' to be paid fairly? Not in the Hockey sense. Remember Joe? It is good that he's gone but we do have to remember him and his ilk and we do have to defend decency.
In the more mundane world where the rest of us live entitlements can mean sick and holiday pay, super contributions and other employment packages as well as safety net provisions to look after the vulnerable. These have been increasingly under attack as the union movement has been continuously pared back by governments that demonise them and portray them as corrupt. There have been instances of union corruption as there has been corruption in every walk of life but it is always the union that gets kicked and highlighted and almost never the employers who have an equal amount to answer to in individual cases. This should not be a simplistic case of goodies and baddies but one of upholding existing laws.
In my own working life I never felt anything but incredibly privileged and lucky to be constantly in work although it never felt like work to me. I was able to do what I loved and felt passionate about and to got paid as well!!
For twenty five years I was able to pretty much work on the things I wanted to work on. The first thing I didn't really want to work on was fighting the cancer that hit me in 1997 but there was no choice and rather than worry and complain I had to concentrate on a positive outcome and get everything negative out of my frame.
A year later when asked if anything had changed in my life as a result of the big C my immediate response was “No, back to normal” and of course in time I realised that that wasn't true at all. The next big life event when I was hit by a car in 2003 and spent some time in an induced coma and five months in hospital the recovery period was much longer. As I recovered again my instant response about change was “no, her I am” but increasingly that was shorthand for “I'm alive” and indeed much had changed. Not the least of these changes was the end of my full on work life and the need to refocus my time between initially getting used to the new me and my new life and the speed at which I had become a non person after the years of work and public life.
I could look in the mirror and say, “Didn't you used to be Bob Weis” and that meant something. It was a bit like the film colleague who saw me at a Producer's Conference and stammered, “Bob. Great to see you, I thought you were …” (dead?)
So back to entitlements. Joe and Tone have gone. Tony said he was not going to background or undermine so we could be sure he was and he has. Joe seems to have taken his entitlements and gone off to greener pastures and don't we all think it's a good deal? “Poor people don't drive? To buy a house in Sydney all you need is a good job.”
For the teachers and nurses and the armies of essential workers who have been chronically underpaid and their entitlements threatened we need to keep on fighting the good fight so that they don’t get lost in the language wars. Do you want an ambulance to turn up when you need one? Of course you do. Pay the people properly for doing a high stress important job. Do you want a trained and caring nurse to look after your loved ones? Do you want to arrive safely when you take public transport? These are or should be rhetorical questions. It is a sign of the times we are living in that they need to be asked and answered now.
Is it an 'entitlement' to be paid fairly? Not in the Hockey sense. Remember Joe? It is good that he's gone but we do have to remember him and his ilk and we do have to defend decency.
Reading
Reading or just read with texts to come. Oliver Sacks, On The Move, A Life, Jenny Diski. The Sixties, Yuval Noah Harrari, Sapiens and in journals episodic journals of their demise or a death diary.
Some important data
"Did you know that it takes two calories of fossil fuel to produce one calorie of energy from soya beans? That doesn’t sound like a very good deal until you learn that it takes fifty-four calories of fossil fuel to produce one calorie of energy from beef." Healthy Eating Healthy World J Morris Hicks
That's before you package it, transport it, refrigerate it, buy it and take it home. It isn't cooked yet.
That's before you package it, transport it, refrigerate it, buy it and take it home. It isn't cooked yet.
And where to go
Following my post on becoming vegan here is a practical tip whether you can commit to being vegan or if you just want a great night out.
Smith and Daughters is on Brunswick St Fitzroy and in the words of a non-vegan friend who went with me last night, "this is fine dining at its best".
Their info sheet can be seen here.
Chef Shannon Martinez came from cooking on the Sea Shepard and although not a vegan has brought considerable skills to this enterprise. Her partner, Mo Wyse is both a vegan and like all the people at their tw establishments, Smith and Deli on Moor St, genuinely friendly and helpful. We got there for a 6:30 booking and the place was full by the time our first course arrived. There is none of the virtuous feel of brown rice and dry beans about the food and if you are not motivated by the knock on effects of the meals you eat but just interested in taste and the good feeling you have after a satisfying and nutritious meal this is top of my list.
Las Vegan on Smith St, Loving Hut on Victoria St and Vegelicious on Carlyle St are also very good as are the two Shakahari locations and Monk Bhodi Dharma.
Eat well and enjoy. You don't have to give up taste, variety or fine dining to be vegan.
Smith and Daughters is on Brunswick St Fitzroy and in the words of a non-vegan friend who went with me last night, "this is fine dining at its best".
Their info sheet can be seen here.
Chef Shannon Martinez came from cooking on the Sea Shepard and although not a vegan has brought considerable skills to this enterprise. Her partner, Mo Wyse is both a vegan and like all the people at their tw establishments, Smith and Deli on Moor St, genuinely friendly and helpful. We got there for a 6:30 booking and the place was full by the time our first course arrived. There is none of the virtuous feel of brown rice and dry beans about the food and if you are not motivated by the knock on effects of the meals you eat but just interested in taste and the good feeling you have after a satisfying and nutritious meal this is top of my list.
Las Vegan on Smith St, Loving Hut on Victoria St and Vegelicious on Carlyle St are also very good as are the two Shakahari locations and Monk Bhodi Dharma.
Eat well and enjoy. You don't have to give up taste, variety or fine dining to be vegan.
Tread Lightly
The path to becoming a vegan was reasonably straightforward but like much else in life all sorts of issues arose that weren't exactly obvious at the time or were in the background and became more important as I began the practice and went from exploring the new shopping, growing and cooking regime to thinking about the impacts personally, locally and globally.
From a personal point of view it started after my treatment for cancer in 1997 and the effects of the toxic radiation I had every day for eight weeks. During that time it was almost impossible to swallow food and I began to lose weight rapidly to the point that the medicos were saying if I kept up the weight loss rate I would be fed through a nasal tube. Sounds disgusting but with the laceration of my throat from the effects of the radiation I can see why they thought it might be necessary. In the end I didn't have to go through the force feeding. I ended up losing fifty five pounds in three months.
During the recovery phase when I was able to swallow solids again I just couldn't stand the smell or taste of meat. I had not had dairy since being weaned anyway but did have the odd milk chocolate or dairy based ice-cream. I didn't put the weight on again and took up gym and cycling. I started to get quite fit.
Then after having a near death experience on a bike in 2003 and spending five months in hospital I got back to a vigorous routine of swimming and gym on a regular basis. One day my gym instructor mentioned a book, The China Study reviewed below. It was very persuasive and written scientifically with masses of data and analysis of that data. I questioned some medicos I knew including the surgeon who had treated my cancer and they all said they knew and agreed with the analysis BUT could not get people to go along or even do it themselves.
I saw the film Forks Over Knives which took the argument even further with the author of the China Study and a surgeon he didn't know coming to the san conclusion from different points of view. One in the operating theatre and the other in the lab. The other persuasive thing about the film was seeing actual patients being treated for a range of health issues with diet and exercise. It was inspiring and I have shown that film to thirty or more people in the last three years.
My doctor does a blood test annually to keep an eye on my vital statistics. Cholesterol down. Blood sugar down. In fact all the indicators have gone to the lower end of the healthy range. My blood pressure sits at around 110 over 65. So far so good.
At the same time I started to think about the greenhouse effects of the food I ate. Organic food might cost a little more but when you stop shopping to fill the fridge and cupboards and eat before stocking up again it is actually cheaper to eat an organic plant based diet than it is to eat meat and dairy. The amount of food wasted in the rich Western countries is really shocking.
That economy of eating organic is on a household basis but when you start to question the food miles in what you buy and buy locally produced food there is another huge economic effect that is planet wide in its reach, namely the carbon cost of not doing it this way. As Mark Bittman, the food writer for the NY Times graphically explains in a TED talk if you laid out the farm animals slaughtered for food in the US annually head to tail they would form a line stretching to the moon and back. The environmental costs are vast not to mention the food equity issues. Replace the existing farm land with organic plant crops and we could feed the whole planet as well as revegetate vast amounts of land. Our earth is a limited resource but we are spending it like it isn't.
After a while I started to think about the ethical questions in relation to the animals too. Who or what gives us the right to farm, kill and eat other living things? Why not your neighbour or a boat person? Sound ridiculous? Think about it from the slaughtered point of view rather than the killer's for a moment. I don't want to get into emotive arguments although it is easy to see parallels in my own family history. Let's just leave it at think about it and maybe cut your meat and dairy to two to three meals a week and see how you feel.
I keep getting asked when the subject comes up "but don't you miss not having ..." I can honestly say I have never missed or felt regret about not eating animal products and I can now not imagine wanting to.
From a personal point of view it started after my treatment for cancer in 1997 and the effects of the toxic radiation I had every day for eight weeks. During that time it was almost impossible to swallow food and I began to lose weight rapidly to the point that the medicos were saying if I kept up the weight loss rate I would be fed through a nasal tube. Sounds disgusting but with the laceration of my throat from the effects of the radiation I can see why they thought it might be necessary. In the end I didn't have to go through the force feeding. I ended up losing fifty five pounds in three months.
During the recovery phase when I was able to swallow solids again I just couldn't stand the smell or taste of meat. I had not had dairy since being weaned anyway but did have the odd milk chocolate or dairy based ice-cream. I didn't put the weight on again and took up gym and cycling. I started to get quite fit.
Then after having a near death experience on a bike in 2003 and spending five months in hospital I got back to a vigorous routine of swimming and gym on a regular basis. One day my gym instructor mentioned a book, The China Study reviewed below. It was very persuasive and written scientifically with masses of data and analysis of that data. I questioned some medicos I knew including the surgeon who had treated my cancer and they all said they knew and agreed with the analysis BUT could not get people to go along or even do it themselves.
I saw the film Forks Over Knives which took the argument even further with the author of the China Study and a surgeon he didn't know coming to the san conclusion from different points of view. One in the operating theatre and the other in the lab. The other persuasive thing about the film was seeing actual patients being treated for a range of health issues with diet and exercise. It was inspiring and I have shown that film to thirty or more people in the last three years.
My doctor does a blood test annually to keep an eye on my vital statistics. Cholesterol down. Blood sugar down. In fact all the indicators have gone to the lower end of the healthy range. My blood pressure sits at around 110 over 65. So far so good.
At the same time I started to think about the greenhouse effects of the food I ate. Organic food might cost a little more but when you stop shopping to fill the fridge and cupboards and eat before stocking up again it is actually cheaper to eat an organic plant based diet than it is to eat meat and dairy. The amount of food wasted in the rich Western countries is really shocking.
That economy of eating organic is on a household basis but when you start to question the food miles in what you buy and buy locally produced food there is another huge economic effect that is planet wide in its reach, namely the carbon cost of not doing it this way. As Mark Bittman, the food writer for the NY Times graphically explains in a TED talk if you laid out the farm animals slaughtered for food in the US annually head to tail they would form a line stretching to the moon and back. The environmental costs are vast not to mention the food equity issues. Replace the existing farm land with organic plant crops and we could feed the whole planet as well as revegetate vast amounts of land. Our earth is a limited resource but we are spending it like it isn't.
After a while I started to think about the ethical questions in relation to the animals too. Who or what gives us the right to farm, kill and eat other living things? Why not your neighbour or a boat person? Sound ridiculous? Think about it from the slaughtered point of view rather than the killer's for a moment. I don't want to get into emotive arguments although it is easy to see parallels in my own family history. Let's just leave it at think about it and maybe cut your meat and dairy to two to three meals a week and see how you feel.
I keep getting asked when the subject comes up "but don't you miss not having ..." I can honestly say I have never missed or felt regret about not eating animal products and I can now not imagine wanting to.
From todays The Conversation
Gillian Triggs has been subjected to sustained attacks from government MPs and The Australian newspaper in recent times. AAP/Lukas Coch
It is an ugly spectacle when a newspaper aligns itself with the executive government in an attempt to hound from office someone who can otherwise be removed only by the Governor-General. This is what The Australian is doing, in concert with Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Attorney-General George Brandis, to Australian Human Rights Commission President Gillian Triggs.
It is the latest in a series of campaigns the newspaper has waged against those in public life with whom it disagrees or against whom it has a grievance.
However, these campaigns have usually had the advancement of The Australian’s own self-interest or the settling of personal scores as their originating motivation.
For example, it was aggrieved by its treatment at the hands of former Victoria Police chief commissioner Simon Overland. To settle the score, The Australian waged a sustained campaign for his removal. In the end, Overland resigned in messy political circumstances to which The Australian made a contribution by giving the then-Victorian Coalition government the strength of the newspaper’s convictions.
More recently, The Australian waged a similar campaign against the then-chair of the Australian Press Council, Julian Disney, whose reforms to stiffen the effectiveness of the council the newspaper opposed. Disney served out his full term, which came to an end this month, but the campaign diverted energy and resources from the reform effort.
However, in Triggs' case, the originating motivation looks different. This time the motive appears to be purely ideological. The campaign is clearly designed to play into the political process in a way that is closely aligned with the political interests and strategy of the executive government.
The contours of this strategy can be discerned from a statement by Brandis, reported in The Australian on Wednesday. Brandis is reported as saying that:
… anger within the government intensified amid “very savage attacks” on Professor Triggs from MPs including the Prime Minister and “strongly expressed” criticism in the media, including in The Australian.
It might well have read “principally The Australian”.
Neat, isn’t it? Your media allies lend their platforms to help you advance your political objectives, and their coverage is then cited as a ground for legitimising those objectives.
In our democracy, the media are meant to act as the “fourth estate” – the institution that holds to account the other three. It is a betrayal of this function to become enmeshed with the executive’s political strategy, as The Australian has done in the Triggs case.
It is, of course, a matter of degrees. Clearly, the Coalition government and The Australian have a shared conservative ideology. It is well within their rights to share it. They are both affronted by what they say is anti-government partisanship on Triggs' part, as they are obviously entitled to be.
However, the point where shared ideology, shared political interests and shared opinions shade into betrayal of fourth-estate independence is difficult to define with precision. Some markers might be these:
To what extent and with what prominence does the newspaper publish material that is contrary to the shared political interest? For instance, what attention was paid, and with what prominence, to the offer of an alternative job said by Triggs to have been made to her in circumstances that suggested to her that it was an attempt to procure her resignation? This is a serious matter and it has been referred by shadow attorney-general Mark Drefyus to the Australian Federal Police for investigation.
What spectrum of opinion has been represented in the newspaper’s opinion pages on this matter?
What has been the tone of the news reportage?
To what extent is there evidence of interplay between government MPs and the newspaper in the way the story has developed? For instance, how much of the coverage is based on government backgrounding of the newspaper?
So far, there is scant evidence of this last factor. But on the remaining three we can make some observations. The issue of a possible inducement received a very low level of attention; the spectrum of opinion has been all against Triggs; and the tone of reporting has been unmistakably hostile to her, as have the headlines.
If it was just a one-off case, The Australian’s conduct would perhaps not merit such attention, but it is part of a pattern that ill-serves the public interest. There is a due process for removing statutory office-holders. The grounds for removing a member of the Human Rights Commission are confined to misbehaviour or physical or mental incapacity. Nothing Triggs has done has triggered that process.
Triggs may have lost the confidence of Abbott and Brandis, but that is not a ground for removing her. As The Australian itself has said, she is on political trial and Abbott has delivered his verdict. In doing so, he spoke of a “stitch-up”.
But if there is a stitch-up going on here, it is what the government and The Australian are joined in doing to Triggs.
Full circle - sadly
When I began this blog site I reviewed a book called Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Orestes and Erik M Conway. They have now published The Collapse of Western Civilization a sci-fi novel written from the point of view of 2093 and examining the failure of humans (us) to deal with climate change and the way we selfishly stuck to our unsustainable lives until 80% of the population were wiped out.
The book is thin, the ideas in it are enormous. Orestes is a historian and Conway a scientist. In their earlier Merchants book they looked at the way that vested interests plotted against science to throw doubt over the discoveries of the links between smoking and cancer, the use of CFC's and the hole in the ozone layer and the human actives causing climate change.
The book was given to me today by my friend Fred Mendelsohn. He is a scientist and a concerned citizen. He and I have been together to talks at Melbourne University where very informed and brilliant scientists have spoken with a great deal of research and understanding about the mess we are in. After each of these I commented to Fred that these excellent events were the convincing talking to the convinced and that scientists needed to find out how to get to everybody bypassing the politicians and media owners who either don't or won't get it.
Oreskes and Conway write about this syndrome persuasively. They coin "human adaptive optimism" which presupposes that whatever lurks just beyond the horizon to threaten us our human inventiveness will fix it and we will continue to live in a paradise on earth. Like the Klein book (see below) they not only sound a warning trumpet but do so from the point of view of writing after the disasters have happened.
Our species has the ability to understand what is happening at the same time as ignore what is happening. These two skills will collide and for many of us in a future that is not distant but imminent.
"Mass migration of undernourished and dehydrated individuals, coupled with explosive increases in insect populations, led to widespread outbreaks of typhus, cholera, dengue fever, yellow fever, and viral and retroviral agents never before seen."
Just glancing down at the open letter below this parrot crows about getting rid of the price on carbon as if that is a rational triumph over voodoo instead of a disastrous backwards step into self-destruction.
The climate refugees that the writers foresee are on the move already. The book draws maps of Manhattan, Bangladesh and Europe from 2093 and after the big ice sheets are no more. This would be sobering reading if enough people could be bothered and if it wasn't countered by the deep pockets of the Merchants of Doubt who have short term profits in mind and will do anything to protect them even at their expense of their own inevitable demise.
The book is thin, the ideas in it are enormous. Orestes is a historian and Conway a scientist. In their earlier Merchants book they looked at the way that vested interests plotted against science to throw doubt over the discoveries of the links between smoking and cancer, the use of CFC's and the hole in the ozone layer and the human actives causing climate change.
The book was given to me today by my friend Fred Mendelsohn. He is a scientist and a concerned citizen. He and I have been together to talks at Melbourne University where very informed and brilliant scientists have spoken with a great deal of research and understanding about the mess we are in. After each of these I commented to Fred that these excellent events were the convincing talking to the convinced and that scientists needed to find out how to get to everybody bypassing the politicians and media owners who either don't or won't get it.
Oreskes and Conway write about this syndrome persuasively. They coin "human adaptive optimism" which presupposes that whatever lurks just beyond the horizon to threaten us our human inventiveness will fix it and we will continue to live in a paradise on earth. Like the Klein book (see below) they not only sound a warning trumpet but do so from the point of view of writing after the disasters have happened.
Our species has the ability to understand what is happening at the same time as ignore what is happening. These two skills will collide and for many of us in a future that is not distant but imminent.
"Mass migration of undernourished and dehydrated individuals, coupled with explosive increases in insect populations, led to widespread outbreaks of typhus, cholera, dengue fever, yellow fever, and viral and retroviral agents never before seen."
Just glancing down at the open letter below this parrot crows about getting rid of the price on carbon as if that is a rational triumph over voodoo instead of a disastrous backwards step into self-destruction.
The climate refugees that the writers foresee are on the move already. The book draws maps of Manhattan, Bangladesh and Europe from 2093 and after the big ice sheets are no more. This would be sobering reading if enough people could be bothered and if it wasn't countered by the deep pockets of the Merchants of Doubt who have short term profits in mind and will do anything to protect them even at their expense of their own inevitable demise.
An open letter to Josh Frydenberg
Today I sent an open letter to Josh Frydenberg via his web site. I don't expect him to read it or answer but someone in his office will flick through it. the text follows.
Dear Mr. Frydenberg
I have had the opportunity to hear your contributions to our Parliament on more than once now and today was the most recent.
Listening to you speak I realise what a polished debater you are speaking in a clear voice and without the reflexive Abbott repetition. You also come across as a man of learning - I realise that you are an Oxford trained Rhodes scholar but clearly all Rhodes scholars are not equal.
The issue for me is that Parliament to have value and the trust of the people should not be just about debating skill and team blood sports. Your contribution on the state of debt left to you by the ALP contained inaccuracies, errors, historical fictions and for a man with your skills and erudition what can only be described as lies.
If debt is such a terrible thing why do all the ASX listed companies have debt on their balance sheet?
Why was Wayne Swan awarded the best Treasurer in the world by an international; and arm's length body?
Why did your party in opposition vote against stimulus on every occasion and talk down the Australian economy?
Why is consumer confidence at an all time low when interest rates are similarly low?
Why do you treat us as mugs while not addressing these issues?
The voters are not stupid. The tidal waves of Victoria, Queensland and soon NSW are coming to you. what will you say then?
Your campaign of prolonged negativity worked in the short term but it is no way to govern a country.
I assume you know all this but like your partner Greg Hunt knowing that you are lying to the Australian people and supporting damaging policies is worse than doing it with belief. You will be judged on your record and there are no safe seats anymore.
This will be an open letter which I will publish on my web site because I believe in transparency in public debate and I will also not lie to further self interest.
You bring shame on your parents.
Dear Mr. Frydenberg
I have had the opportunity to hear your contributions to our Parliament on more than once now and today was the most recent.
Listening to you speak I realise what a polished debater you are speaking in a clear voice and without the reflexive Abbott repetition. You also come across as a man of learning - I realise that you are an Oxford trained Rhodes scholar but clearly all Rhodes scholars are not equal.
The issue for me is that Parliament to have value and the trust of the people should not be just about debating skill and team blood sports. Your contribution on the state of debt left to you by the ALP contained inaccuracies, errors, historical fictions and for a man with your skills and erudition what can only be described as lies.
If debt is such a terrible thing why do all the ASX listed companies have debt on their balance sheet?
Why was Wayne Swan awarded the best Treasurer in the world by an international; and arm's length body?
Why did your party in opposition vote against stimulus on every occasion and talk down the Australian economy?
Why is consumer confidence at an all time low when interest rates are similarly low?
Why do you treat us as mugs while not addressing these issues?
The voters are not stupid. The tidal waves of Victoria, Queensland and soon NSW are coming to you. what will you say then?
Your campaign of prolonged negativity worked in the short term but it is no way to govern a country.
I assume you know all this but like your partner Greg Hunt knowing that you are lying to the Australian people and supporting damaging policies is worse than doing it with belief. You will be judged on your record and there are no safe seats anymore.
This will be an open letter which I will publish on my web site because I believe in transparency in public debate and I will also not lie to further self interest.
You bring shame on your parents.
Hiatus
It has been a while since I had the notion to post anything here but in the gap a lot has been happening. It is clear from the elections in Victoria and now Queensland that the climate, long ignored by the political classes is getting bigger than them and that we, the voters, don't want to be patted on the head and given tax breaks we want to part of a national and state conversation which would include climate, education, health and the welfare of all Australians.
We also urgently need to address the refugee issue and the heartless treatment of those fleeing persecution to get here. We have a responsibility to do the right thing. It will be good for them, it will be good for us in both economic and cultural terms. C'mon!!
We also urgently need to address the refugee issue and the heartless treatment of those fleeing persecution to get here. We have a responsibility to do the right thing. It will be good for them, it will be good for us in both economic and cultural terms. C'mon!!
The future car
Last week I had the extreme pleasure of test driving the new Tesla S the about to be released all electric sedan car made by Telsa in the US. Not only is it a pleasure to drive it also has no petrol motor, no radiator, no exhaust pipe and it has zero carbon emissions while having a 0-100 speed of 4,.4 seconds and a driving range with a full battery of 500 km.
Tesla cars was started by Paypal inventor Elon Musk who approached the design and manufacture of the car with an IT mindset and not bringing with him the baggage of the internal combustion engine. He is currently building a 5 billion dollar facility to manufacture batteries so that the unit cost of batteries will be cheaper. Tesla will have a series of super charger stops between Melbourne and Sydney - they will be able to do a full charge in forty minutes or a half charge in twenty. You can also charge at home or anywhere there is a powerpoint. Three phase is faster but overnight charging at home is ok too. Use green power and cut out coal. Win win.
For a virtual test drive go to teslamotors.com and try it out.
Tesla cars was started by Paypal inventor Elon Musk who approached the design and manufacture of the car with an IT mindset and not bringing with him the baggage of the internal combustion engine. He is currently building a 5 billion dollar facility to manufacture batteries so that the unit cost of batteries will be cheaper. Tesla will have a series of super charger stops between Melbourne and Sydney - they will be able to do a full charge in forty minutes or a half charge in twenty. You can also charge at home or anywhere there is a powerpoint. Three phase is faster but overnight charging at home is ok too. Use green power and cut out coal. Win win.
For a virtual test drive go to teslamotors.com and try it out.
Another path
While I have been writing about the issue of global warming and its effects I haven't written about something we can all do that will have an enormous effect on our own carbon footprint. Try having meatless or animal product free meals a couple of days a wee. I have been a vegan fort about two years and the benefited to me personally include; health, no cruelty to animals and a decrease in my own carbon footprint.
If the reasons above are not enough to give up consuming animals or animal products there is also the economy of being a vegan. It may cost more to be an organic vegan and take more diligence to not eat food that has transport milked embedded in it but once you make the change you will feel better in yourself and you will stop contributing to the carbon pollution of this planet.
In intensive farming that is the Western model, the massive use of chemicals employed deplete the soil of nutrients and decrease the nutrition available to the end user as well as introducing toxins into the food chain.
Much of this is in "The China Study" and the film, "Forks Over Knives", both mentioned below.
So whatever your motivational starting point is it is a win win to become and remain a vegan
If the reasons above are not enough to give up consuming animals or animal products there is also the economy of being a vegan. It may cost more to be an organic vegan and take more diligence to not eat food that has transport milked embedded in it but once you make the change you will feel better in yourself and you will stop contributing to the carbon pollution of this planet.
In intensive farming that is the Western model, the massive use of chemicals employed deplete the soil of nutrients and decrease the nutrition available to the end user as well as introducing toxins into the food chain.
Much of this is in "The China Study" and the film, "Forks Over Knives", both mentioned below.
So whatever your motivational starting point is it is a win win to become and remain a vegan
Readings update
I mentioned Naomi Klein's book, "Everything must Change: Capitalism v The Climate" below and what a pleaure it was to read. Not entirely because Klein does not dodge the issues coming from the gobal warming crisis we find ourselves in but the writing and the development of her arguments make for enjoyable reading.
Klein is Canadian and she begins the book with a retelling of the attack on Canada at the WTO that effectively closed down it's solar panel manufacturing industry. With the death of that industry and the expansion of the Alberta tar fields and the massive increase in tracking Canada is, in the words of our own Prime Miniature, open for business.
Klein has been attacked on the right and the left for her describing the crisis as one driven by capitalism. We all know that socialism/communism lost the ideology wars and how dare she fault capitalism? Read the book.
A huge amount of research has been done for this book and she has anticipated the merchants of doubt and the paid nay sayers well. There is a trailer here http://www.naomiklein.org/main
My friends in Coorabell (Kate and Phillip) alerted me to our mutual mate's book "Carbon Shock" by Mark Shapiro. Another work diligently researched for five years it is also a description of what is happening around the world to deal with, or not to deal with, global warming. Mark is an award winning author, journalist, teacher and all round good citizen. I read his book in one sitting (on my iPad) and will reread it because it was such a good read that I now feel I might have missed something in the way I got through it.
Mark points to what some countries are doing and how global warming is already affecting our lives. In any case buy the book. download it to your device but read it.
A book I read in it's paper form was "J" by Howard Jacobson who won the Man Booker prize with his previous novel "The Finkler Question" and the cover of J announced that it was long listed for the most recent Man prize. By the time I was reading it it had been short listed for the prize. Richard Flanagan eventually won and as I haven't yet read his book I can only comment that it must be a very good book indeed because Howard's book is even more impressive than Finkler which I also liked.
Set in a unspecified near future in which an unspoken catastrophic recently past event has occurred which nobody can or will mention other than in a highly coded way. The book charts the love of two people who find lose and find each other again but in the course of finding and losing they also find out something about themselves and the shocking events that happened. Much of the story is grounded in what we know (or should) and much of it has the edgy humour that Howard is celebrated for.
I must admit to a tear and feeling gutted at the book's end an d as I never read reviews before reading the book myself I won't spoil this one for you by rehearsing the story. Suffice to say that in one sitting the three books mentioned here will be worth the price of admission and your time in immersion.
Happy reading.
Klein is Canadian and she begins the book with a retelling of the attack on Canada at the WTO that effectively closed down it's solar panel manufacturing industry. With the death of that industry and the expansion of the Alberta tar fields and the massive increase in tracking Canada is, in the words of our own Prime Miniature, open for business.
Klein has been attacked on the right and the left for her describing the crisis as one driven by capitalism. We all know that socialism/communism lost the ideology wars and how dare she fault capitalism? Read the book.
A huge amount of research has been done for this book and she has anticipated the merchants of doubt and the paid nay sayers well. There is a trailer here http://www.naomiklein.org/main
My friends in Coorabell (Kate and Phillip) alerted me to our mutual mate's book "Carbon Shock" by Mark Shapiro. Another work diligently researched for five years it is also a description of what is happening around the world to deal with, or not to deal with, global warming. Mark is an award winning author, journalist, teacher and all round good citizen. I read his book in one sitting (on my iPad) and will reread it because it was such a good read that I now feel I might have missed something in the way I got through it.
Mark points to what some countries are doing and how global warming is already affecting our lives. In any case buy the book. download it to your device but read it.
A book I read in it's paper form was "J" by Howard Jacobson who won the Man Booker prize with his previous novel "The Finkler Question" and the cover of J announced that it was long listed for the most recent Man prize. By the time I was reading it it had been short listed for the prize. Richard Flanagan eventually won and as I haven't yet read his book I can only comment that it must be a very good book indeed because Howard's book is even more impressive than Finkler which I also liked.
Set in a unspecified near future in which an unspoken catastrophic recently past event has occurred which nobody can or will mention other than in a highly coded way. The book charts the love of two people who find lose and find each other again but in the course of finding and losing they also find out something about themselves and the shocking events that happened. Much of the story is grounded in what we know (or should) and much of it has the edgy humour that Howard is celebrated for.
I must admit to a tear and feeling gutted at the book's end an d as I never read reviews before reading the book myself I won't spoil this one for you by rehearsing the story. Suffice to say that in one sitting the three books mentioned here will be worth the price of admission and your time in immersion.
Happy reading.
Bookshelf Update (Again)
I thought I had done the update mentioned below but now it is operational. As soon as I have finished Naomi Klein's book I will write something on it. For now all I can say is that I am loving reading it and wish I had written it.
On a different level I am also enjoying Howard Jacobson's new novel J which is now short listed for the Man prize. More later again and sorry for the stuff up.
Finally I have rediscovered an old friend, Richard Flantz and will put up some of his poetry and writing on matters to do with Israel/Palestine and other. Richard has lived in Israel and has children there. His wife Nitza is Israeli born More later.
I have just done an update to my Bookshelf and provided a direct click through on the menu bar above. This is not a definitive list of books read so far since the blog began but most of the Ipad stored books. Have a tral through and if you want to add a list of your own or a review of any of these or other books send it to me at bob@weisfilms.com and I will upload it/them.
For irritation
I listen to Parliament for information, debate humour and irritation. It is mainly irritation now having been through rage, disbelief, sadness and back to irritation. We now have the Howard tried and tested wrapping the flag around our fears and pretending to protect us from all the nasty Muslims who would do us harm at the same time as pretending to take climate change/global warming seriously while snubbing the rest of the world.
Imagine the following scenario much of which is already happening.
Coal prices bottom out as more counties move to renewables. Our vast coal reserves become too expensive to dig up.
We get left behind in the new clean global energy economy.
If the Rockefeller family, the founders of Standard oil, feel that now is the time to divest in favour of investment in green energy do you take the sovereign risk of saying "they don't know" and disagree with thousands of climate scientists worldwide (including your own) and keep spruiking cheap coal? The price per watt of coal generated power is now more expensive than solar or/and wind.
So it is not science or economics unless it is the economics of favouring your paymaster - but that would be too cynical to do or to surmise.
Imagine the following scenario much of which is already happening.
Coal prices bottom out as more counties move to renewables. Our vast coal reserves become too expensive to dig up.
We get left behind in the new clean global energy economy.
If the Rockefeller family, the founders of Standard oil, feel that now is the time to divest in favour of investment in green energy do you take the sovereign risk of saying "they don't know" and disagree with thousands of climate scientists worldwide (including your own) and keep spruiking cheap coal? The price per watt of coal generated power is now more expensive than solar or/and wind.
So it is not science or economics unless it is the economics of favouring your paymaster - but that would be too cynical to do or to surmise.
Confused and sad
As noted below I have been holding off writing about Gaza until I felt more of the facts had been reported - not in the mainstream press of course or most of the electronic media.
The situation is tragic and unforgivable with two warring sides who really don't seem to be interested in peace or coexistence regardless of the posturing or the overt statements made.
Netenyahu has never really signed up for a Palestinian state and has used the Hamas ascendancy as an excuse for more attacks on the Palestinian people. He is driven further in this by the fractious nature of Israeli politics with the far right and religious parties pushing for a larger expanded Israel.
On the other side whether driven by Hamas or not there has been a steady flow of rockets from Gaza into Israel for years now and they have recently demonstrated that there is no safe place in Israel with houses and other buildings being hit by rockets from Gaza. The apologists say that not much damage has occurred in Israel and that the accuracy of the Palestinian weapons is poor. On the other hand if someone intends to bomb our house in St Kilda and misses so badly that they kill someone in Carlton do I feel relieved or do I want our forces to do something to stop such events?
How long did it take to find out that the UN school where poor innocents were sheltering was a hiding place for a weapons cache
had been warned well in advance to vacate as an attack would occur
had children present as human shields whose bodies could be displayed to an outraged media after the attack
This is a tragic and deadly game with awful consequences for all players and worse for the non-players who happen to live there. I don't see a finish to this apart from some ugly escalations. What will be the outcome of dirty nuclear materials getting into extremist hands? It doesn't bare thinking of but somebody has to factor such contingencies in.
The situation is tragic and unforgivable with two warring sides who really don't seem to be interested in peace or coexistence regardless of the posturing or the overt statements made.
Netenyahu has never really signed up for a Palestinian state and has used the Hamas ascendancy as an excuse for more attacks on the Palestinian people. He is driven further in this by the fractious nature of Israeli politics with the far right and religious parties pushing for a larger expanded Israel.
On the other side whether driven by Hamas or not there has been a steady flow of rockets from Gaza into Israel for years now and they have recently demonstrated that there is no safe place in Israel with houses and other buildings being hit by rockets from Gaza. The apologists say that not much damage has occurred in Israel and that the accuracy of the Palestinian weapons is poor. On the other hand if someone intends to bomb our house in St Kilda and misses so badly that they kill someone in Carlton do I feel relieved or do I want our forces to do something to stop such events?
How long did it take to find out that the UN school where poor innocents were sheltering was a hiding place for a weapons cache
had been warned well in advance to vacate as an attack would occur
had children present as human shields whose bodies could be displayed to an outraged media after the attack
This is a tragic and deadly game with awful consequences for all players and worse for the non-players who happen to live there. I don't see a finish to this apart from some ugly escalations. What will be the outcome of dirty nuclear materials getting into extremist hands? It doesn't bare thinking of but somebody has to factor such contingencies in.
Blogging
Watching an LRB podcast with four credentialed UK and Irish writers and critics who all felt that blogging was a necessary thing to do (apart from Colm Toibn who asked the audience to show him how his mobile phone worked) naturally set me to thinking why I do this and to what if any effect.
Am I writing to myself, expressing some necessary emotion which only I read? I know this question is rhetorical because weebly tracks page visits but doesn't identify the visitors, so every time I put something new up the visitation graph spikes for a few days and from comments that people make on email or Facebook I realize who some of those readers might be. It would be nice to know more of you and you can leave a comment by going to the About Us button above.
Apart from the people I imagine do read these scribblings I have been suprised by the occasional reader in a foreign land who I don't know checking in and leaving a note.
There is a point to this exercise though - a kind of prelude to something more structured and extensive. You know!!
Meanwhile I am storing away the bits of knitting to make a whole suit with. My disgust with the status quo in politics and in particular the total disregard for science in favour of short term political gain is real and palpable. I would hope that it won't be necessary to continue with however. When the rubber hits the road - but wait a minute there is rubber all over the road as we crash from incident to incident and don't join the dots. Blind Freddy is running for PM next time around on the platform that he can see better than the incumbent. Anyone can.
OK in an hour 24 of you have logged on.
Am I writing to myself, expressing some necessary emotion which only I read? I know this question is rhetorical because weebly tracks page visits but doesn't identify the visitors, so every time I put something new up the visitation graph spikes for a few days and from comments that people make on email or Facebook I realize who some of those readers might be. It would be nice to know more of you and you can leave a comment by going to the About Us button above.
Apart from the people I imagine do read these scribblings I have been suprised by the occasional reader in a foreign land who I don't know checking in and leaving a note.
There is a point to this exercise though - a kind of prelude to something more structured and extensive. You know!!
Meanwhile I am storing away the bits of knitting to make a whole suit with. My disgust with the status quo in politics and in particular the total disregard for science in favour of short term political gain is real and palpable. I would hope that it won't be necessary to continue with however. When the rubber hits the road - but wait a minute there is rubber all over the road as we crash from incident to incident and don't join the dots. Blind Freddy is running for PM next time around on the platform that he can see better than the incumbent. Anyone can.
OK in an hour 24 of you have logged on.
Doing the work
There seems no need to keep on writing about the madness of the government approaches to the problems of global warming when they provide so much invaluable commentary themselves. It doesn't even bear repeating. A glance at Facebook or reading the foreign press will give you the idea. It's just sad that we are living through a time when our own media won't engage with either telling the truth or holding the bastards to account.
With a different attitude it gets to be comedy anyway. My consolation is that the present lunacy has energized the citizenry to take it upon themselves to act and that for the elections about to happen here and across the country we have the most motivated voters for some time and the most effective anti-incumbent activists I've ever seen. With Abbott, Hockey, Pyne and Hunt (and the rest of the LNP sheep) working tirelessly to bring this government down it really is a no-brainer. The good Dr Napthine is showing the way in Victoria and Campbell Newman not far behind in the Sunshine State.
It is the great thing about living in a democratic country. Don't like them? Get rid of them sand you can and we will.
With a different attitude it gets to be comedy anyway. My consolation is that the present lunacy has energized the citizenry to take it upon themselves to act and that for the elections about to happen here and across the country we have the most motivated voters for some time and the most effective anti-incumbent activists I've ever seen. With Abbott, Hockey, Pyne and Hunt (and the rest of the LNP sheep) working tirelessly to bring this government down it really is a no-brainer. The good Dr Napthine is showing the way in Victoria and Campbell Newman not far behind in the Sunshine State.
It is the great thing about living in a democratic country. Don't like them? Get rid of them sand you can and we will.
Pause to reflect
It has been a while and a necessary time to try to process recent events. I have not written anything about Israel/Palestine while reading a lot and trying to make sense of the unspeakable.
Next time.
Meanwhile over the last two nights i went to two inspirational talks. he first by Professor David Karole at the Beyond Zero Emissions group at Melbourne University was a clear eyed but passionate presentation on the state of science on global warming from a distinguished scientist in the field and a member of the IPPC. It was not good news as the figures are in for 2013 and they once again exceed the forecasts of the IPPC which are always couched in terms that leave room for doubt especially if that is your trade.
As the packed room was filled with BZE participants and supporters it was very much a case of preaching to the converted.
What it left me apart from admiration for the speaker was the question - why am I one of the youngest in the room and how can we spread this message across the country in the face of the misinformation from our (so-called) news media and the craven political class that pretend to lead us while selling themselves to the highest bidding miners?
We have the means to bypass the traditional media and build an information base to get to a huge number of people all of him are or will be voters.
Tonight I saw the inspirational Bob Brown doing a Wheeler Centre talk about his book "Optimism" which given all he has seen and experienced is a very cheery title for a dark time. Essentially what he says is that even though we have temporary glitches like the present Abbott government the very fact of their lies and treachery encourage citizen actions and the longer term action of voting them out and reversing the disaster of climate denial.
This, Bob says, reflects a global trend to a global democracy and that his optimism leads him to the view that the interests of the planet and the great majorities will triumph over the interests of the military industrial complex of the few.
Hallelujah. From your lips, Bob, to God's ear (substitute your atheist preferences here).
No we don't want Clive and Gina being subsidised to destroy our planet. That has got to be a no brainer.
The problem is that One term Tonee and his paymasters have a one liner for everything that when tested by fact is fond wanting but who is actually testing? Our de facto Opposition is Get Up which is citizen based. There I saw the figures on actual numbers employed by mining in Australa versus the numbers employed in the relatively new renewal energy segments. Already thee are three times the number in just a few years and that would have grown without the wrecking ball of Abbott/Hunt.
So what now? We the citizens being played as fools hav to take the lead and make the changes we can. watch this space for some exciting initiatives in the pipeline and yes you can participate and add to the dream.
Next time.
Meanwhile over the last two nights i went to two inspirational talks. he first by Professor David Karole at the Beyond Zero Emissions group at Melbourne University was a clear eyed but passionate presentation on the state of science on global warming from a distinguished scientist in the field and a member of the IPPC. It was not good news as the figures are in for 2013 and they once again exceed the forecasts of the IPPC which are always couched in terms that leave room for doubt especially if that is your trade.
As the packed room was filled with BZE participants and supporters it was very much a case of preaching to the converted.
What it left me apart from admiration for the speaker was the question - why am I one of the youngest in the room and how can we spread this message across the country in the face of the misinformation from our (so-called) news media and the craven political class that pretend to lead us while selling themselves to the highest bidding miners?
We have the means to bypass the traditional media and build an information base to get to a huge number of people all of him are or will be voters.
Tonight I saw the inspirational Bob Brown doing a Wheeler Centre talk about his book "Optimism" which given all he has seen and experienced is a very cheery title for a dark time. Essentially what he says is that even though we have temporary glitches like the present Abbott government the very fact of their lies and treachery encourage citizen actions and the longer term action of voting them out and reversing the disaster of climate denial.
This, Bob says, reflects a global trend to a global democracy and that his optimism leads him to the view that the interests of the planet and the great majorities will triumph over the interests of the military industrial complex of the few.
Hallelujah. From your lips, Bob, to God's ear (substitute your atheist preferences here).
No we don't want Clive and Gina being subsidised to destroy our planet. That has got to be a no brainer.
The problem is that One term Tonee and his paymasters have a one liner for everything that when tested by fact is fond wanting but who is actually testing? Our de facto Opposition is Get Up which is citizen based. There I saw the figures on actual numbers employed by mining in Australa versus the numbers employed in the relatively new renewal energy segments. Already thee are three times the number in just a few years and that would have grown without the wrecking ball of Abbott/Hunt.
So what now? We the citizens being played as fools hav to take the lead and make the changes we can. watch this space for some exciting initiatives in the pipeline and yes you can participate and add to the dream.
Leopards and spots
There must be a limit to how bad this mob can get but no each day plumbs new depths. We became the first country in the world to get rid of measures to abate our carbon footprint while bragging about bringing massive new coal mines on line.
Then there was the budget that ripped a huge amount from the 99% to reward the 1% for their contribution in global warming. If ever there as a visual cue for that it has go to be Clive Palmer the obese and charmless fool who says one thing to do the opposite and is using his numbers in parliament to enrich himself.
Then there is the first rate hypocrite Smoking Joe the excuse for a Treasurer snarling at anyone who might question his actions and a bevy of members and ministers who by the very sound of their voice will make me reach for the off button. I could list them but what's the point? I think I'll have to choose another activity for daily irritation, listening to Parliament is becoming a health hazard.
Then there was the budget that ripped a huge amount from the 99% to reward the 1% for their contribution in global warming. If ever there as a visual cue for that it has go to be Clive Palmer the obese and charmless fool who says one thing to do the opposite and is using his numbers in parliament to enrich himself.
Then there is the first rate hypocrite Smoking Joe the excuse for a Treasurer snarling at anyone who might question his actions and a bevy of members and ministers who by the very sound of their voice will make me reach for the off button. I could list them but what's the point? I think I'll have to choose another activity for daily irritation, listening to Parliament is becoming a health hazard.
Silence is not always golden
Reading some essays by Moshe and Tess Lang on trauma transmission and the second and third generation of holocaust survivors demonstrates to me the often corrosive effects of silence in matters where the non verbalisation of traumas past, often for worthy reasons, amplifies and expands the traumas that are being avoided.
On a far more trivial level I have found it impossible to write about the goings on of our pretend government until today when I heard the Minister for Telling Lies about the Environment, compound the problems by telling huge lies about the carbon trading scheme that the previous government had introduced.
No Greg the sky did not and is not falling in.
No Greg the cost of living rise attributable to it is negligible/ And even though you deny it it has made a significant contribution to the abatement of carbon by the electrical generators who have been lobbying hard to get rid of it and the other associated measures.
I read just yesterday of power generating co-ops in the US where rather than try and make a difference from your roof groups of citizens get together to install serious solar and wind hardware and then push they to the grid. Why not here?
Greg would probably find a way to make it illegal but he'll be a feather duster before too long.
On a far more trivial level I have found it impossible to write about the goings on of our pretend government until today when I heard the Minister for Telling Lies about the Environment, compound the problems by telling huge lies about the carbon trading scheme that the previous government had introduced.
No Greg the sky did not and is not falling in.
No Greg the cost of living rise attributable to it is negligible/ And even though you deny it it has made a significant contribution to the abatement of carbon by the electrical generators who have been lobbying hard to get rid of it and the other associated measures.
I read just yesterday of power generating co-ops in the US where rather than try and make a difference from your roof groups of citizens get together to install serious solar and wind hardware and then push they to the grid. Why not here?
Greg would probably find a way to make it illegal but he'll be a feather duster before too long.
Some serious discussion about climate change
iDEA Conference Report 2014
March 2014 saw four hundred doctors, and medical students from all over Australia come together for the iDEA14 conference, Australia’s national climate change and health conference, run by Doctors For The Environment Australia (DEA), to address the health impacts of fossil fuels and anthropogenic climate change.
iDEA14 was sold out, with the largest turn out in the conference’s history, and held at The Spot, the University of Melbourne’s new certified 5 Star “Green Star” building, built with a focus on sustainability and energy efficiency. The professional and environmentally conscious nature of the venue, as well as the delicious vegan food provided, aptly reflected the values of the conference.
Through an incredibly impressive line-up of eminent speakers, experts in their respective fields of science, health, economics and politics, iDEA14 offered a spectacular opportunity to gain the latest, evidence-based data regarding climate change and its widespread health and psychosocial implications, and the required actions.
The enthusiasm, passion and engagement of the delegates reflected the profound concern mounting in the medical community about the health impacts of climate change and the subsequent urgent need for climate action, as advised by international scientific authorities.
A key message resonated at the conference. Climate change is already and will increasingly be a profound threat to human health. The research is as terrifying as it is abundant, clearly documenting, quantifying and analysing the health impacts currently being seen in Australia and across the globe.
Professor Kingsley Faulkner opened the conference by placing the context of climate change in Australia and the world for our generation, “All generations have their challenges – ours is environmental. Australia can lead the world in this area like we have done with tobacco control. However, currently we are falling behind drastically.” Distinguished speakers throughout the conference reiterated the message, that climate change is the critical issue facing our world and our health, and, “it has never been more important to act”.
SCIENCE UPDATE
Professor David Griggs and Professor Tim Flannery provided the latest international science updates on climate change. Scientists report that human-induced climate change is “unequivocal”. Carbon dioxide levels are now at an unprecedented high in the atmosphere, from the last 600,000 years, and most significantly have increased at an unprecedented speed. Delegates learnt we are on track for increasing global temperatures >2 degrees, resulting in catastrophic impacts. In the first 13 years of this century as a world we have used 40% of the carbon dioxide emissions that scientists have deemed safe to use in first 50 years of this century. Professor Flannery highlighted that we are currently tracking the worst-case scenario for how the world will be at 2050.
Professor Griggs demonstrated the stark, sobering human relevance of the scientific data and projections by presenting a graph which showed our lifespan in contrast to carbon dioxide emissions and current impacts, followed by the climate change predicted for the next generation, our children, followed by the state of the world predicted with our current use of fossil fuels, which our hypothetical grandchildren will be faced with.
HEALTH UPDATE
Professor Tim Flannery ran through current and future projected climate change impacts. Excuses for inadequate action in Australia ring increasingly hollow as Australia is already facing pertinent threats of health from climate change, through increasing intensity and frequency of heatwaves, fires, lethal floods, compromised water supplies, severe mental health burden through loss of livelihood with the droughts, worsened air quality as a result of fossil fuel burning and fires, and only 50% of the Great Barrier Reef surviving the onslaught of coral bleaching. Our wettest December on record in 2010 saw 78% of Queensland declared a disaster zone. This summer 156 weather records broke in Australia, with heatwaves occurring earlier and for longer duration, with a steep rise in mortality and stress on the healthcare system. Professor Flannery also warned of the silent killer for Australia – sea level rise, of which a certain amount is becoming built in and inevitable with a certain amount of warming.
Associate Professor Linda Selvey expanded these impacts to encompass the wider world. The severity of the current extensive, indiscriminate, global health impacts of climate change proved shocking, heightening the frustration of many at the current lack of meaningful action of climate change from the current Australian government.
We have witnessed the horrors of the recent typhoon in the Philippines, blizzards in the northern hemisphere, wave surges across the British coast, rising sea levels in the Pacific Islands encroaching on people’s homes and lives, Bangladesh’s water table rising affecting water supplies and worsened air quality with pollution causing 1/4 million premature deaths and being driving cause of birth defects in China.
Associate Professor Selvey also demonstrated how food and water security, fundamental to health in any corner of the globe, are already being compromised as a result of climate change. August 2010’s massive flood in Pakistan covered one third of the area of Pakistan, affecting 20 million people. Poor subsidence farmers were most affected, with 40% of livestock killed and widespread crop destruction, leaving 7.8 million people vulnerable to food insecurity. The following year in 2011 saw more flooding with 73% of crops in affected areas destroyed. The country was left destitute and without a chance to recover from the initial flood atrocities.
In addition, one billion people don't currently have access to safe drinking water. This issue is being compounded by climate change, which impacts water availability and quality, hygiene and water borne diseases. January to June 2011 saw global drought hit the northern hemisphere, with the water cycle disrupted due to rising temperatures and prominent water sources such as the Himalayan water sources becoming increasingly dryer, increasing the risk of crop failure and ecological collapse. Diminishing arable lands in Africa are also worsening existing malnutrition, famine and poverty.
Food and water insecurity have the potential to lead to civil unrest and mass migration, an enormous cause of security concerns. In addition, environmental refugees are predicted to be in the millions, due to extreme weather events encroaching on the liveability of various corners of the world. With no UN convention for their rights, issues of justice and international unrest become prominent.
Dr Kate Charlesworth described climate change as a “regressive problem”, whereby those that contribute the least to greenhouse gas emissions, and with the least resources to adapt to the consequences, such as children, the elderly and socially disadvantaged, are often affected first and the hardest, further widening health inequalities and social injustices. Professor Fiona Stanley spoke about the impacts on children’s health, a cause for deep concern.
Associate Professor Selvey provided a timely reminder of our belonging to the wider world – a diverse, global community, connected by the same atmosphere and intrinsically interconnected climactic system. Associate Professor Selvey’s broad and compassionate talk highlighted the importance of recognising the impact of our actions here in Australia on the rest of the world, as we remain the second largest exporter of coal globally. Professor Selvey described Australia’s current inaction on climate change reflects a “lost sense of ourselves as global citizens”, as we fail our fellow human beings in countries already being severely and repeatedly affected by climate change, to which fossil fuels are the predominant driver. Echoed also by Dr Kate Charlesworth, acting on climate change by transitioning away from fossil fuels is therefore a justice issue, responding to the needs of humanity, now and increasingly into the future.
CURRENT SITUATION IN AUSTRALIA
Professor Ross Garnaut outlined Australia has missed a lot of early deadlines for strong global action on climate change. China and the United States have agreed to work together for a strong outcome at the next UN meeting in 2015, whilst Australia continues to “move backwards”. As the largest emitter of carbon dioxide per capita, and second largest exporter of coal in the world, Australia has a global responsibility to take climate action seriously and start transforming our economy away to renewable energy technologies. Currently however we are facing a crisis point. Mark Ogge explained that this is an incredible moment in history. Australia is ironically looking to expand the fossil fuel industry in Australia, at the juxtaposition of abundant, evidence-based data urging urgent action on climate change and a transition away from fossil fuels as fast as possible given the already apparent dreadful, unprecedented global impacts of climate change. Australia’s recent approvals of gas fields and coalmines, such as at Maules Creek in NSW, in light of the latest health evidence, remains a source of absolute disbelief, and appears to disregard and undermine the health of Australians and our fellow humans overseas.
A great analogy was provided at the conference. If a doctor were to make decisions without complying the latest evidence base and scientific consensus, they are liable for malpractice and legal ramifications. Such negligence, as displayed by our Government’s deliberate expansion of the fossil fuel industry in Australia, in the realm of profound local as well as global implications (given that our atmosphere is a global phenomenon) is hard to comprehend and must be contested.
During the Political Q&A all three major parties demonstrated awareness of the scientific consensus about climate change and the importance of action. However the stark contrast between parties became apparent when discussing what action they deemed to be required to address this global crisis. The Honourable Greg Hunt made no mention of renewable energy and opted to focus on carbon sequestration and “cleaning up coal”, in spite of the lack of scientific rigor of these techniques. In contrast, The Honourable Mark Butler and Richard Di Natalie explained the need for renewable energy, a cleaner transport system and ambitious targets in carbon emissions reduction.
ACTION REQUIRED
Professor David Griggs emphasised, “It is not a political statement that we need to do more; it’s a scientific statement.” A clear message resounded, “The atmosphere is agnostic about how we reduce greenhouse gas emissions, what matters is the magnitude of this reduction.”
A clear direction emerged from the conference. Urgent, effective action on climate change is paramount to protect the health of our current and future populations and renewable energy is a viable, sustainable solution in Australia, from an economic and a short and long-term health perspective.
According to scientists, to secure a safe and healthy future, this is the critical decade. Professor Tim Flannery utilised a medical analogy of the golden hour concept of stroke therapy. It is paramount that Australia and the world rapidly reduces greenhouse gas emissions this decade, otherwise it will be very difficult to mitigate the damage caused. Phil Harrington echoed this critical issue, “Every year of delay (in climate action) means the trajectory we have to follow gets harder”.
The economic and scientific consensus at iDEA14 was that Australia must rapidly phase out the use of fossil fuels, and switch to renewable energy, with inspiration and successful models available from around the world, such as New Zealand, Spain and Portugal with over 70% of their energy produced by renewable resources, and Scotland recently announcing a target for 100% renewable energy by 2020!
Phil Harrington explained a realistic goal for Australia is to reduce emissions by 90% by 2050. It would impose some costs, but these are low, particularly in comparison to the immense costs of climate-change related damage and destruction, such as in 2009 in Queensland when August received over 37 degree temperatures, which destroyed Queensland wheat and cost wheat growers 160 million dollars. A renewable economy would create jobs, ultimately save money from mitigating climate damage and reposition our failing industries of the new technologies of clean energy and exporting these expertise to the world. Phil Harrington provided the stark reality, “An honest assessment of climate risks would lead any responsible government to treat climate change as a matter of highest national priority.”
Mark Ogge outlined that renewable energy sources are a big part of the solution to climate change. “We are lucky we know the cause – the diagnosis has been made – and we are able to deal with it with renewable energy solutions as the treatment – not just theoretical but commercially competitive and ready to be pulled off the shelf and used! This is our lifeline and thread of hope.” This however also adds to the tragedy when such tangible, necessary action is delayed and denied. Economically renewable energy is also very competitive, even with fossil fuels, with huge cost reductions and wind energy now cheaper to build than fossil fuels in Australia, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Australians are rapidly adopting renewable energy with 1.2 million households having solar PV installed. Political leadership is now required to support large scale renewables in Australia. With the most solar radiation of any continent on Earth, and the current technology, renewable energy in solar thermal and wind could provide 100% of Australia’s power by 2030, according to AEMO (Australian Energy Marketing Operator), with electricity costing consumers the same as fossil fuels at that time under business as usual.
However without adequate support of the emerging renewables industry in Australia, as currently is occurring with the government’s attempt to dismantle and repeal these laws, the renewable technological advances will be shelved. To all of our detriment.
Policy is vital in driving a reduction in emissions, with more ambitious reduction targets required in Australia, given the effectiveness of the climate policies put in place with minimal cost to Australians, as outlined by Professor Ross Garnaut, esteemed international economist. Given that the heart of the problem is fossil fuel burning, the need for a price on carbon, strong policy to support renewables, such as the renewable energy target and ambitious targets to reduce fossil fuel emissions were echoed, as introduced in 2012 in the Clean Energy Bill, which effectively reduced emissions at a negative cost, unlike predicted by opponents. The policies “caused a reversal of a powerful upward trend in emissions, for the first time after many decades of rapid rising”, at reasonable cost, “an achievement of historical importance!” The renewable energy target also created 18 billion dollars for the industry and 30,000 jobs and was the most successful emission reduction scheme.
Phil Harrington gave a refreshing stance. “The economy is for serving us, not destroying the planet we rely on for life.”
Charlie Wood, from 350.org led by the inspiration Bill McKibben, provided information regarding the divestment movement, another strategic opportunity to combat the political deadlock that the fossil fuel industry currently assert, as was effectively utilised in the fight against the South Africa apartheid and tobacco industry. Divestment plays a crucial role in removing the social licence of the industry, and ensuring we, and our trusted public institutions and banks, are not unknowingly funding climate change, given that the big four banks have loaned 19 billion dollars to fossil fuel projects since 2008. We are thus in a powerful position to affect change, and can help others be part of that positive change. As well as morally, prudent investors are realising the compelling economic risk posed by stranded assets, of which there are 22 trillion dollars worth, and by screening out fossil fuel companies on the stock exchange, there has been shown to be no added risk to one’s portfolio.
ROLE AS DOCTORS
How does this urgent need for actions fit into our scope and work as medical students and doctors? “Climate change will affect, in profoundly adverse ways, some of the most fundamental determinants of health… we need champions throughout the world who will work to put protecting human health at the centre of the climate change agenda” – Margaret Chan, Director, World Health Organisation
Given the immense health impacts of climate change, and the fact that the consequences of ineffective, insufficient action on climate change on health will be overwhelmingly negative regarding health and burden on the heath care system, doctors and medical students have both the opportunity and responsibility to advocate for protecting the health of our current and future generations from the profound risks our present climate change trajectory poses.
Doctors also have the potential to be highly effective advocates as seen with doctors leading the way with tobacco reform.
The importance of framing and understanding climate change as a health issue was clear at iDEA14, to ensure ‘climate change’ is not only publically associated with abstract, complex atmospheric concepts, but that its inextricable link with human health is made apparent.
Successful, tangible examples of sustainable healthcare were provided by Dr Kate Charlesworth and Dr Forbes McGain, Dr Sally Forrest provided guidance regarding avenues and opportunities to develop the skills and incorporate a passion for environmental advocacy in health, given the critical importance of a healthy environment in attaining and maintaining health. Professor Rob Moodie provided tools and avenues for having our voice heard, with the key message of persistence in this skewed debate, and Professor Kerry Arabena provided an energising, fresh perspective, provoking thought and reflection surrounding how we define ill-health and health, to expand this view to incorporate ecosystems, given that the environment is integral in human health and wellbeing. “Human health must be put in this context” of the environment, our life source. Although the central role of the environment in health seems intuitive i.e. that the environment is our source of water and oxygen, it appears to be overlooked as we continue to exploit it.
Dr Kate Charlesworth highlighted the tremendous opportunity for health co-benefits of transitioning a renewable economy. Dr Charlesworth explained the importance of seeing action on climate change part of our responsibility and mandate as health professionals. Collectively we can be a voice for the voiceless and an authority in the field of health impacts of climate change. Dr Charlesworth also inspired the delegates to remain positive, and help others to be able to envisage the solution of a sustainable world and the synergy that provides.
iDEA14 provided skill building, to facilitate the crucially required action and advocacy, through the pre-conference workshops, which introduced delegates to theories of change presented by the Australian Youth Climate Coalition and public engagement strategies presented by Beyond Zero Emissions, and practical workshops regarding the power of story, strategies to transition to a just and sustainable world and how to effectively communicate climate change and health issues to other health professionals.
The conference fostered discussion and broad thinking through question time featuring an anonymous text number to pose questions to the speaker. This, along with the break times, an entertaining social event and science-related comedy function, and break-out sessions on the final afternoon, allowed the delegates to meet active, like-minded people from across the country and strategise and plan actions for the upcoming year.
We can transform climate change from the greatest health challenge, which transcends international boundaries and will affect everyone in varying degrees, to the biggest health opportunity, through the co-benefits of sustainability as well as preventing or mitigating dangerous, unadaptable climate change.
Kate Lardner, medical student and this esteemed conference’s convenor, closed the conference with the importance of teamwork in being able to overcome such an enormous, global struggle such as is climate change. The poignant quote provided by Dr Eugenie Kayak, “The future is not somewhere we are going, it’s something we are creating” – Ian Lowe, reflected the hope that still exists in spite of the frightening current trajectory we face.
iDEA14 encouraged and facilitated the medical community’s deep concern at the gravity of the climate change crisis to be transformed to motivation and skills to help re-shape the future direction of humanity to a sustainable, healthy and just society and world.
Putin and Abbott
Abbott complained about the ABC news not supporting the local team and that puts me in mind of which media does see it's role as an arm of and mouthpiece for the government of the day. Well the ex-USSR comes to mind and the efforts that the KGB trained Putin come to mind as well as every non-demoratic regime in history and the likes of Murdoch and Conrad Black. The ABC will probably be punished in the phoney war and the phoney budget but unlike these examples from the past and present day Russia we get to toss them out in a couple of years. The question is, after how much damage? Suddenly realising the personal hits he is taking with the leaked budget measures he has come out today to say - for the next electoral cycle. As if!!
Yes there are structural issues with an ageing population and the transition to a new green and sustainable economy but these were being addressed before Abbott, Hunt and Hockey got into their Goebbels mode of opposing everything and finding electoral advantage in passing off huge lies as some kind of policy awareness.
Getup are running a Save the ABC campaign and I assume the Government will ignore it as they don't see their voters as ABC viewers but they might be in for some surprises. What an irony that the bible bashing Abbott and Morrison were delivered a rebuke by church leaders on Good Friday. No comment.
No comment either from Peta Credlin the puppet master for this pathetic PM. Read Pinochio Minor
Yes there are structural issues with an ageing population and the transition to a new green and sustainable economy but these were being addressed before Abbott, Hunt and Hockey got into their Goebbels mode of opposing everything and finding electoral advantage in passing off huge lies as some kind of policy awareness.
Getup are running a Save the ABC campaign and I assume the Government will ignore it as they don't see their voters as ABC viewers but they might be in for some surprises. What an irony that the bible bashing Abbott and Morrison were delivered a rebuke by church leaders on Good Friday. No comment.
No comment either from Peta Credlin the puppet master for this pathetic PM. Read Pinochio Minor
New from Matt
America Here We Come…
Matt Zurbo
I was in a newsagent today. Saw an Asian man wearing an Irish polo top serving and African immigrant in a totally safe neighbourhood. In a totally safe country. Damn, how lucky are we!? Then I read the news.
The past is the past. We’re going forward, to America. We’ve lost. From here on in it’s shrivelled souls.
A survey was done on the weekend. It seems 52% of us agree to some charge for healthcare. That’s a small thing. $6 a visit, but a massive thing, a foot in the door for a two tier everything. A shift in attitude.
A bitterness.
“Why should I pay for some bludger’s health issues?”
We’re sucks. Sucks to authority. To what we’re told. We’re comfortable in our money, in the meanness the papers are telling us to feel. In being American.
“What’s in it for me” doesn’t work, you idiots! Look at them! It fails. It fails the workers. It fails the poor. It fails the average, the diverse, those of special needs. It fails the sick. It fails yourselves.
There is always someone richer and more spiteful and better at “What’s in it for me?” than you. That’s how they’re rich. Their big secret. They get you fighting their battles for them.
Like the mining magnates. How the Holly Hell did that happen? We, as a nation of “battlers” chopped off a leader’s head because he dared tell fat fucks like Gina and Clive “Hey, that’s our soil. Go forth and conquer, but pay tax like everybody else.”
“Ohh!” we squealed.
“Ahhh!”
“Hey! Don’t you upset our bosses! Slurp, slurp.”
But they’re screwing you! Some of this money is yours! It should be going to you. To build schools and better health care and roads and childcare and shit you need.
“Shh. SHH! They might hear you! What’s a bigger picture? Fuck everybody else. I’ve got mine.”
Gradually, we’ve lost the lot. Out telly, language, fashion and culture are all drifting towards America, or already have. The one thing we truly retained was the thing that founded us, that this country was built on, what made us unique. What made us strong:
A fair go for all.
A FAIR GO FOR ALL, damn it!
We were tougher than them. We could handle such an ideal. We were more laconic, had far better values. Morals. Weren’t scared of “Socialist threat” bullshit. We were Aussies. We saw through bullshit like clear water.
It’s laughable. All the right wing shock-jocks and politicians and yobs love saying what is and isn’t “Un-Australian” and are obsessed with wrapping themselves in the flag, like a Yank would do, yet I never, even hear any of them hollering our national tattoo:
A Fair Go For All.
It’s an old saying, as are ya bloody drongo and she’ll be right mate, and other things that have never belonged in the American vernacular.
Now, like caring for refugees and voting for parties not faces, and being sceptical of media, and believing in affordable education for all, and thinking beyond what’s in it for me, the foot is in the door on universal healthcare. There’s a thin crack that we all know will never seel again, that will just grow and grow.
And, years down the line, when people are dying because they can’t afford health costs, and others are living in constant pain, we will piss and moan about the price of it all and blame big business and government and the poor and that bludger who doesn’t deserve your hard earned tax dollar, but not ourselves.
“Things are so tight! What, with no loading fees, or overtime, or holiday pay, and increased costs of education and childcare and healthcare. I can’t afford to help you too! What’s in it for me? Why’s everything turning to shit?! WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME!?”
I still remember when Kim had the election in the bag, then the Tampa landed on our shores. Johnny took the lessons he learned from Pauline and made her irrelevant. Put her bumbling, embarrassing child’s hate into a smooth politician’s mouth and nurtured that side of us all. A day before the poll I saw an old man being interviewed on the telly.
“I know he’s probably lying about the children overboard,” the fella said, “but I think he’ll do better with my interest rates than the other mob.”
What’s in it for me, versus a fair go for all.
And thus we become American. And thus we fall.
Matt Zurbo
I was in a newsagent today. Saw an Asian man wearing an Irish polo top serving and African immigrant in a totally safe neighbourhood. In a totally safe country. Damn, how lucky are we!? Then I read the news.
The past is the past. We’re going forward, to America. We’ve lost. From here on in it’s shrivelled souls.
A survey was done on the weekend. It seems 52% of us agree to some charge for healthcare. That’s a small thing. $6 a visit, but a massive thing, a foot in the door for a two tier everything. A shift in attitude.
A bitterness.
“Why should I pay for some bludger’s health issues?”
We’re sucks. Sucks to authority. To what we’re told. We’re comfortable in our money, in the meanness the papers are telling us to feel. In being American.
“What’s in it for me” doesn’t work, you idiots! Look at them! It fails. It fails the workers. It fails the poor. It fails the average, the diverse, those of special needs. It fails the sick. It fails yourselves.
There is always someone richer and more spiteful and better at “What’s in it for me?” than you. That’s how they’re rich. Their big secret. They get you fighting their battles for them.
Like the mining magnates. How the Holly Hell did that happen? We, as a nation of “battlers” chopped off a leader’s head because he dared tell fat fucks like Gina and Clive “Hey, that’s our soil. Go forth and conquer, but pay tax like everybody else.”
“Ohh!” we squealed.
“Ahhh!”
“Hey! Don’t you upset our bosses! Slurp, slurp.”
But they’re screwing you! Some of this money is yours! It should be going to you. To build schools and better health care and roads and childcare and shit you need.
“Shh. SHH! They might hear you! What’s a bigger picture? Fuck everybody else. I’ve got mine.”
Gradually, we’ve lost the lot. Out telly, language, fashion and culture are all drifting towards America, or already have. The one thing we truly retained was the thing that founded us, that this country was built on, what made us unique. What made us strong:
A fair go for all.
A FAIR GO FOR ALL, damn it!
We were tougher than them. We could handle such an ideal. We were more laconic, had far better values. Morals. Weren’t scared of “Socialist threat” bullshit. We were Aussies. We saw through bullshit like clear water.
It’s laughable. All the right wing shock-jocks and politicians and yobs love saying what is and isn’t “Un-Australian” and are obsessed with wrapping themselves in the flag, like a Yank would do, yet I never, even hear any of them hollering our national tattoo:
A Fair Go For All.
It’s an old saying, as are ya bloody drongo and she’ll be right mate, and other things that have never belonged in the American vernacular.
Now, like caring for refugees and voting for parties not faces, and being sceptical of media, and believing in affordable education for all, and thinking beyond what’s in it for me, the foot is in the door on universal healthcare. There’s a thin crack that we all know will never seel again, that will just grow and grow.
And, years down the line, when people are dying because they can’t afford health costs, and others are living in constant pain, we will piss and moan about the price of it all and blame big business and government and the poor and that bludger who doesn’t deserve your hard earned tax dollar, but not ourselves.
“Things are so tight! What, with no loading fees, or overtime, or holiday pay, and increased costs of education and childcare and healthcare. I can’t afford to help you too! What’s in it for me? Why’s everything turning to shit?! WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME!?”
I still remember when Kim had the election in the bag, then the Tampa landed on our shores. Johnny took the lessons he learned from Pauline and made her irrelevant. Put her bumbling, embarrassing child’s hate into a smooth politician’s mouth and nurtured that side of us all. A day before the poll I saw an old man being interviewed on the telly.
“I know he’s probably lying about the children overboard,” the fella said, “but I think he’ll do better with my interest rates than the other mob.”
What’s in it for me, versus a fair go for all.
And thus we become American. And thus we fall.
Greg Hunt at Melbourne University
At a recent climate change discussion at Melbourne University the Minister gave a knowledgable paper describing the progress of climate change and the attendant risks. Given that he personally introduced the two big set pieces for the pretence of a government to scrap carbon trading and to scrap the mining tax AND closed our marine parks and let the loggers into old growth forests AND gave Clie Palmer the right to destroy the Great Barrier Reef with the development of the biggest open cut coal mine in the world and the construction of a deep water port near the reef it makes his overall contribution not just wrong headed but evil.
As my friend pointed out he should be tried at the Hague for crimes against humanity.
The man's personal short term ambitions are without bottom. And they have nothing to do with the science.
Let's hope he is around to see the outcomes of his scheming and planning, but not in Parliament.
Kick them out while we are still allowed to vote.
As my friend pointed out he should be tried at the Hague for crimes against humanity.
The man's personal short term ambitions are without bottom. And they have nothing to do with the science.
Let's hope he is around to see the outcomes of his scheming and planning, but not in Parliament.
Kick them out while we are still allowed to vote.
Matty Zurbo I know how you feel
Matt just sent the following in and I know what he means.
America Here We Come…
Matt Zurbo
I was in a newsagent today. Saw an Asian man wearing an Irish polo top serving and African immigrant in a totally safe neighbourhood. In a totally safe country. Damn, how lucky are we!? Then I read the news.
The past is the past. We’re going forward, to America. We’ve lost. From here on in it’s shrivelled souls.
A survey was done on the weekend. It seems 52% of us agree to some charge for healthcare. That’s a small thing. $6 a visit, but a massive thing, a foot in the door for a two tier everything. A shift in attitude.
A bitterness.
“Why should I pay for some bludger’s health issues?”
We’re sucks. Sucks to authority. To what we’re told. We’re comfortable in our money, in the meanness the papers are telling us to feel. In being American.
“What’s in it for me” doesn’t work, you idiots! Look at them! It fails. It fails the workers. It fails the poor. It fails the average, the diverse, those of special needs. It fails the sick. It fails yourselves.
There is always someone richer and more spiteful and better at “What’s in it for me?” than you. That’s how they’re rich. Their big secret. They get you fighting their battles for them.
Like the mining magnates. How the Holly Hell did that happen? We, as a nation of “battlers” chopped off a leader’s head because he dared tell fat fucks like Gina and Clive “Hey, that’s our soil. Go forth and conquer, but pay tax like everybody else.”
“Ohh!” we squealed.
“Ahhh!”
“Hey! Don’t you upset our bosses! Slurp, slurp.”
But they’re screwing you! Some of this money is yours! It should be going to you. To build schools and better health care and roads and childcare and shit you need.
“Shh. SHH! They might hear you! What’s a bigger picture? Fuck everybody else. I’ve got mine.”
Gradually, we’ve lost the lot. Out telly, language, fashion and culture are all drifting towards America, or already have. The one thing we truly retained was the thing that founded us, that this country was built on, what made us unique. What made us strong:
A fair go for all.
A FAIR GO FOR ALL, damn it!
We were tougher than them. We could handle such an ideal. We were more laconic, had far better values. Morals. Weren’t scared of “Socialist threat” bullshit. We were Aussies. We saw through bullshit like clear water.
It’s laughable. All the right wing shock-jocks and politicians and yobs love saying what is and isn’t “Un-Australian” and are obsessed with wrapping themselves in the flag, like a Yank would do, yet I never, even hear any of them hollering our national tattoo:
A Fair Go For All.
It’s an old saying, as are ya bloody drongo and she’ll be right mate, and other things that have never belonged in the American vernacular.
Now, like caring for refugees and voting for parties not faces, and being sceptical of media, and believing in affordable education for all, and thinking beyond what’s in it for me, the foot is in the door on universal healthcare. There’s a thin crack that we all know will never seal again, that will just grow and grow.
And, years down the line, when people are dying because they can’t afford health costs, and others are living in constant pain, we will piss and moan about the price of it all and blame big business and government and the poor and that bludger who doesn’t deserve your hard earned tax dollar, but not ourselves.
“Things are so tight! What, with no loading fees, or overtime, or holiday pay, and increased costs of education and childcare and healthcare. I can’t afford to help you too! What’s in it for me? Why’s everything turning to shit?! WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME!?”
I still remember when Kim had the election in the bag, then the Tampa landed on our shores. Johnny took the lessons he learned from Pauline and made her irrelevant. Put her bumbling, embarrassing child’s hate into a smooth politician’s mouth and nurtured that side of us all. A day before the poll I saw an old man being interviewed on the telly.
“I know he’s probably lying about the children overboard,” the fella said, “but I think he’ll do better with my interest rates than the other mob.”
What’s in it for me, versus a fair go for all.
And thus we become American. And thus we fall.
America Here We Come…
Matt Zurbo
I was in a newsagent today. Saw an Asian man wearing an Irish polo top serving and African immigrant in a totally safe neighbourhood. In a totally safe country. Damn, how lucky are we!? Then I read the news.
The past is the past. We’re going forward, to America. We’ve lost. From here on in it’s shrivelled souls.
A survey was done on the weekend. It seems 52% of us agree to some charge for healthcare. That’s a small thing. $6 a visit, but a massive thing, a foot in the door for a two tier everything. A shift in attitude.
A bitterness.
“Why should I pay for some bludger’s health issues?”
We’re sucks. Sucks to authority. To what we’re told. We’re comfortable in our money, in the meanness the papers are telling us to feel. In being American.
“What’s in it for me” doesn’t work, you idiots! Look at them! It fails. It fails the workers. It fails the poor. It fails the average, the diverse, those of special needs. It fails the sick. It fails yourselves.
There is always someone richer and more spiteful and better at “What’s in it for me?” than you. That’s how they’re rich. Their big secret. They get you fighting their battles for them.
Like the mining magnates. How the Holly Hell did that happen? We, as a nation of “battlers” chopped off a leader’s head because he dared tell fat fucks like Gina and Clive “Hey, that’s our soil. Go forth and conquer, but pay tax like everybody else.”
“Ohh!” we squealed.
“Ahhh!”
“Hey! Don’t you upset our bosses! Slurp, slurp.”
But they’re screwing you! Some of this money is yours! It should be going to you. To build schools and better health care and roads and childcare and shit you need.
“Shh. SHH! They might hear you! What’s a bigger picture? Fuck everybody else. I’ve got mine.”
Gradually, we’ve lost the lot. Out telly, language, fashion and culture are all drifting towards America, or already have. The one thing we truly retained was the thing that founded us, that this country was built on, what made us unique. What made us strong:
A fair go for all.
A FAIR GO FOR ALL, damn it!
We were tougher than them. We could handle such an ideal. We were more laconic, had far better values. Morals. Weren’t scared of “Socialist threat” bullshit. We were Aussies. We saw through bullshit like clear water.
It’s laughable. All the right wing shock-jocks and politicians and yobs love saying what is and isn’t “Un-Australian” and are obsessed with wrapping themselves in the flag, like a Yank would do, yet I never, even hear any of them hollering our national tattoo:
A Fair Go For All.
It’s an old saying, as are ya bloody drongo and she’ll be right mate, and other things that have never belonged in the American vernacular.
Now, like caring for refugees and voting for parties not faces, and being sceptical of media, and believing in affordable education for all, and thinking beyond what’s in it for me, the foot is in the door on universal healthcare. There’s a thin crack that we all know will never seal again, that will just grow and grow.
And, years down the line, when people are dying because they can’t afford health costs, and others are living in constant pain, we will piss and moan about the price of it all and blame big business and government and the poor and that bludger who doesn’t deserve your hard earned tax dollar, but not ourselves.
“Things are so tight! What, with no loading fees, or overtime, or holiday pay, and increased costs of education and childcare and healthcare. I can’t afford to help you too! What’s in it for me? Why’s everything turning to shit?! WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME!?”
I still remember when Kim had the election in the bag, then the Tampa landed on our shores. Johnny took the lessons he learned from Pauline and made her irrelevant. Put her bumbling, embarrassing child’s hate into a smooth politician’s mouth and nurtured that side of us all. A day before the poll I saw an old man being interviewed on the telly.
“I know he’s probably lying about the children overboard,” the fella said, “but I think he’ll do better with my interest rates than the other mob.”
What’s in it for me, versus a fair go for all.
And thus we become American. And thus we fall.
I read it online
Newmatildas actually called Greg Hunt a liar in an online editorial yesterday and, well, hooray. To see it going out to thousands who agree anyway is a start. We need to increase the momentum and let the Labor Party know we are not satisfied with their stalled renewal process and that they still need to make themselves relevant to the twenty first century and that the business as usual framework won't do.
Meanwhile we need to be able to allow people to see that not only Hunt but the whole perfidious crew are liars and scoundrels and that they are making political capital out of our futures which in their figuring is too far away to mean that their effective disinformation and lying campaigns should be abandoned.
The polls seem to be telling a different story and the actions of so many governments around the world are pointing the other way.
Listen to our Parliament but keep the Panadeine near. If that doesn't make you ill then nothing will.
The pure nonsense spoken day after day by the Lib-Nats would be laughable if they were still in Opposition. Let's hasten their journey to the Opposition benches.
Meanwhile we need to be able to allow people to see that not only Hunt but the whole perfidious crew are liars and scoundrels and that they are making political capital out of our futures which in their figuring is too far away to mean that their effective disinformation and lying campaigns should be abandoned.
The polls seem to be telling a different story and the actions of so many governments around the world are pointing the other way.
Listen to our Parliament but keep the Panadeine near. If that doesn't make you ill then nothing will.
The pure nonsense spoken day after day by the Lib-Nats would be laughable if they were still in Opposition. Let's hasten their journey to the Opposition benches.
Irritation
i don't know what you do for irritation. My daily source is flipping through the Age, listening to News24, or walking past the Australian or indeed any of the murdoch rubbish.
Tidbits gleaned today - a global warming denier going to head a task force to look at our weather issues. Murdoch gets a huge payout from the ATO. Abbott refutes (?) that extreme weather events in Australia have anything to do with global warming.
John Kerry is sounding an alarm about climate change but falling on deaf ears here.
So what is to be done? Hope that times will change? A little passive but what can John and Betty Citizen do in this massively orchestrated campaign that unites the media, politicians, mining companies with a population that has been played for fools.
Look at The Guardian comments site and then the same on The Conversation, both infiltrated by trolls. At least the Conversation now now has a comments editor looking to weed out the professional disruptors and my hope is that the Guardian will too.
I stopped reading the comments on both these sites when the same patterns emerged.
Better news soon or am I just being optimistic in the face of the worst government in living memory?
Tidbits gleaned today - a global warming denier going to head a task force to look at our weather issues. Murdoch gets a huge payout from the ATO. Abbott refutes (?) that extreme weather events in Australia have anything to do with global warming.
John Kerry is sounding an alarm about climate change but falling on deaf ears here.
So what is to be done? Hope that times will change? A little passive but what can John and Betty Citizen do in this massively orchestrated campaign that unites the media, politicians, mining companies with a population that has been played for fools.
Look at The Guardian comments site and then the same on The Conversation, both infiltrated by trolls. At least the Conversation now now has a comments editor looking to weed out the professional disruptors and my hope is that the Guardian will too.
I stopped reading the comments on both these sites when the same patterns emerged.
Better news soon or am I just being optimistic in the face of the worst government in living memory?
Matt Zurbo tells
Tells are important. The sweetest things. They go to the very core of what matters, without breaking the world.
A person that looks you in the eye when they greet you.
A date who comes to your place for dinner and offers to help.
Someone who dodges their shout.
A person who, when walking with you, commands your dog.
A baffled, crooked grin.
Someone who asks if they should go outside your place to smoke, someone who asks if they have to go outside to smoke.
Tells.
Even babies have them, so do animals. Sometimes, often, a country does. Take their collective stance on boat people, for example. The attitude, or lack of, with which they sing their anthem. The way their sports people celebrate.
Sometimes a State has them.
I was raised in Victoria, but in my adopted home, Tassie, we still call each other ‘cob’. How good is that?! Not the American “Guys” or “Buddy”. Fuck, I hate ‘Bud”!. But something Aussie, laconic. Cob can’t be puffed up.
With seasonal work, and writing gigs, I have to take the ferry back to my motherland, the mainland, each summer. The ground crew in Melbourne sorta get shitty, about everything. They grunt. They’re over it, and you.
One time, I when I parked my ute in the boat, I stepped in some dog shit, left by a fellow traveller’s pet. I asked a car marshal bloke if I could use the hose beside him to wash it off. He looked at me as if I was an alien, was humourless. Talking to/helping me wasn’t a part of his job! I just grabbed the hose.
In Tassie, once, I was running late. Last to arrive. One of the customs people asked me to pull-up to the waste bins and empty the fuel from by chainsaw canister. While I was doing so she asked about my dog, who was poking her head over the tray.
“Half husky, half Sha Pie,” I told her.
“What a corker,” she crooned, giving it a scratch.
One-by-one the other customs people finished and made their way over to admire my dog.
“She’s a ripper,” a big bloke smiled. “I had a lab a bit like that.”
“Come everywhere with you, does she?” another customs lady asked, also giving it a scratch.
“Um,” I looked at the boat, as it fired it’s engines up.
The first lady glanced over her shoulder. Travellers, industry, staff, our Highway 1 on water, ready to roll.
“Eh, don’t worry, it can’t leave without our nod,” she said. “Tell me, what does your pooch eat…”
The handful of us talked a bit more.
The man who flags the cars into their proper lanes walked by, about 20 meters off, towards a small cabin, throwing his reflector vest in, job done.
“Just follow the fence line down. Look for the big floating thing, Cob,” he said as he passed. “By the way, grouse dog.”
Tells.
I should move to Melb, really. Everything about my vocation is so much harder from Tassie. At times, to stay verges on career knee-capping. But, for now, home is still where my heart is.
A person that looks you in the eye when they greet you.
A date who comes to your place for dinner and offers to help.
Someone who dodges their shout.
A person who, when walking with you, commands your dog.
A baffled, crooked grin.
Someone who asks if they should go outside your place to smoke, someone who asks if they have to go outside to smoke.
Tells.
Even babies have them, so do animals. Sometimes, often, a country does. Take their collective stance on boat people, for example. The attitude, or lack of, with which they sing their anthem. The way their sports people celebrate.
Sometimes a State has them.
I was raised in Victoria, but in my adopted home, Tassie, we still call each other ‘cob’. How good is that?! Not the American “Guys” or “Buddy”. Fuck, I hate ‘Bud”!. But something Aussie, laconic. Cob can’t be puffed up.
With seasonal work, and writing gigs, I have to take the ferry back to my motherland, the mainland, each summer. The ground crew in Melbourne sorta get shitty, about everything. They grunt. They’re over it, and you.
One time, I when I parked my ute in the boat, I stepped in some dog shit, left by a fellow traveller’s pet. I asked a car marshal bloke if I could use the hose beside him to wash it off. He looked at me as if I was an alien, was humourless. Talking to/helping me wasn’t a part of his job! I just grabbed the hose.
In Tassie, once, I was running late. Last to arrive. One of the customs people asked me to pull-up to the waste bins and empty the fuel from by chainsaw canister. While I was doing so she asked about my dog, who was poking her head over the tray.
“Half husky, half Sha Pie,” I told her.
“What a corker,” she crooned, giving it a scratch.
One-by-one the other customs people finished and made their way over to admire my dog.
“She’s a ripper,” a big bloke smiled. “I had a lab a bit like that.”
“Come everywhere with you, does she?” another customs lady asked, also giving it a scratch.
“Um,” I looked at the boat, as it fired it’s engines up.
The first lady glanced over her shoulder. Travellers, industry, staff, our Highway 1 on water, ready to roll.
“Eh, don’t worry, it can’t leave without our nod,” she said. “Tell me, what does your pooch eat…”
The handful of us talked a bit more.
The man who flags the cars into their proper lanes walked by, about 20 meters off, towards a small cabin, throwing his reflector vest in, job done.
“Just follow the fence line down. Look for the big floating thing, Cob,” he said as he passed. “By the way, grouse dog.”
Tells.
I should move to Melb, really. Everything about my vocation is so much harder from Tassie. At times, to stay verges on career knee-capping. But, for now, home is still where my heart is.
Time out
I haven't blogged for a while as I try to take in the torrent of abuse that we as citizens of Australia have to deal with on a daily basis. For a lot of people it is easier to just ignore the goings on from Canberra, Brisbane, Melbourne and the other capitals while their near futures and their long term futures are diminished to vanishing point.
We are out of step now with the rest of the world in so many ways. Not that I advocate me too-ism but on issues like climate change, border security, the economy it just seems more and more pain without that pain being directed for a favourable outcome.
I read recently that George Osborne's budget measures in the UK had been a brilliant success. When I checked the source for this claim it turned out to be in a Murdoch publication so I checked with a web search and when I finally got some hard data it turned out that if you were in the top 1% on the UK you were now doing better but education, health, housing, income support for the unemployed and any measure of social policy ha been stripped away laving the middle and working classes significantly worse off and the economy still in decline.
So this brings us to the current crisis in information. Where does it come from? Whose interest does it serve and is there a way to find out what is actually happening without the distorting filter of vested interests? Some of these sadly are now rhetorical questions.
IU spoke to an ex-government minister about this problem and he nodded and said "blog".
The frustration of being in Government and not having fair or balanced reporting was the usual for the former Labor government.
Now we get what is basically cheer leading with the occasional piece in The Age that questions what is being done and said. But not nearly enough holding them to account.
We are out of step now with the rest of the world in so many ways. Not that I advocate me too-ism but on issues like climate change, border security, the economy it just seems more and more pain without that pain being directed for a favourable outcome.
I read recently that George Osborne's budget measures in the UK had been a brilliant success. When I checked the source for this claim it turned out to be in a Murdoch publication so I checked with a web search and when I finally got some hard data it turned out that if you were in the top 1% on the UK you were now doing better but education, health, housing, income support for the unemployed and any measure of social policy ha been stripped away laving the middle and working classes significantly worse off and the economy still in decline.
So this brings us to the current crisis in information. Where does it come from? Whose interest does it serve and is there a way to find out what is actually happening without the distorting filter of vested interests? Some of these sadly are now rhetorical questions.
IU spoke to an ex-government minister about this problem and he nodded and said "blog".
The frustration of being in Government and not having fair or balanced reporting was the usual for the former Labor government.
Now we get what is basically cheer leading with the occasional piece in The Age that questions what is being done and said. But not nearly enough holding them to account.
Alan Pears AM in The Conversation February 1, 2014
Direct action vs carbon pricing: we can have it all
AUTHORDISCLOSURE STATEMENTAlan Pears AM Alan Pears has carried out consulting work for many sustainable energy organisations and provides policy advice to a variety of organisations. At present he has no paid roles for such organisations. He is an honorary adviser to the Energy Efficiency Council, Climate Alliance and Alternative Technology Association.
Provides funding as a Strategic Partner of The Conversation.
rmit.edu.au
Why we need bothWe need a carbon price based on certificate trading for several reasons.
It sends a signal to both emitters and investors that they need to cut emissions, starting today. The price rises if there is insufficient action, and declines if action is effective. And there is the potential to profit from trading. All of that makes emitters more likely to innovate and bring down the cost of reducing emissions.
The revenue from a carbon price provides funds to support additional cuts and help those affected by the price to adapt. Because a price brings in revenue, funds don’t have to be dragged from other government activities.
We need effective direct action because carbon pricing is a relatively crude and imperfect incentive. A carbon price can be undermined by non-financial barriers and market imperfections. Weak carbon caps lead to low carbon prices that do not reflect true long-term costs of climate change.
Businesses and households also tend to put more value on money they have now than money they have in the future. That means future carbon costs are not necessarily powerful motivators when compared with other factors.
In the electricity industry, profits increase with higher sales, so a carbon price will encourage action that reduces emissions per unit of electricity sold, such as renewable energy, but not actions that reduce sales. Energy companies won’t encourage energy efficiency, the most cost-effective abatement option, because it cuts their profits.
A carbon price does increase the prices consumers pay for fossil fuel sourced energy, but it is a small increase in a small part (1-5%) of most business and household costs. If we want consumers and businesses to improve their energy efficiency, or set up distributed energy generation such as solar panels, direct action can help.
Direct action can be applied to activities that cannot be included in a carbon trading scheme. We have already seen this approach under the Carbon Farming Initiative, which encourages sequestration by rewarding those who act.
A better world needs a more flexible approach. AAP Arno Burgi
The problems of a badly designed system
The carbon trading mechanism as developed in Australia, and in use elsewhere, undermines voluntary abatement by state and local government, businesses and households. Unless the cap is tightened or permits are removed from the market in response to such actions, these well-intentioned entities and individuals are simply freeing more space within the cap for other emitters to emit more.
But as many economists have pointed out, direct action can be ineffective and potentially expensive. Many oppose the government’s version of it, not direct action per se.
They argue the government’s proposed approach reverses the widely accepted “polluter pays” policy to “pay the polluter”. It fails to focus on fossil fuels (responsible for three-quarters of Australia’s emissions plus exports), is inequitable, unworkable, limited by the available budget, may encourage inflation and manipulation of abatement cost, and is difficult to quantify. This increases uncertainty and ramps up the potential for political games.
The reality is that poorly designed and implemented pricing mechanisms and direct action can both be inefficient and ineffective. But well-designed versions of both can be efficient and effective. A combination of these may be most effective.
We already have examples of a range of direct action abatement programs, as well as experience of pricing mechanisms. We can learn from this experience.
A blend that worksAustralia’s appliance energy efficiency programs are reducing emissions by close to 10 million tonnes per annum at a cost of -A$56/tonne of CO2 avoided. The Energy Efficiency Opportunities industry program is saving millions of tonnes of emissions at approximately -A$95/tonne avoided.
Building energy regulation is delivering millions of tonnes of cost-effective abatement while also improving health, cutting peak electricity demand (and cost) and creating net additional jobs. So cost-effective direct action options exist.
Some abatement measures also save energy, reduce the costs of peak electricity demand, save water, improve equity or improve soil quality and rebuild habitat. Others improve health.
Energy efficiency measures in business can improve product quality, staff productivity, innovation and saleable output while reducing capital costs.
If we look at strategies used in other areas, for example smoking and road safety, we see a combination of pricing, regulation and strong education and support programs to influence decisions and behaviour.
Regulation is not always crude and inefficient. It can increase investment certainty, capture economies of scale and drive innovation. Pricing schemes are not always economically efficient, for example where demand is inflexible or a scheme is poorly designed. Financial incentives do not always motivate.
And there are many other policy tools available, such as supporting innovation, education and training, information programs, government example and removing existing subsidies that encourage higher emissions.
It is truly a pity that efforts to limit climate change have fallen into such a conflict-ridden, political and simplistic debate.
AUTHORDISCLOSURE STATEMENTAlan Pears AM Alan Pears has carried out consulting work for many sustainable energy organisations and provides policy advice to a variety of organisations. At present he has no paid roles for such organisations. He is an honorary adviser to the Energy Efficiency Council, Climate Alliance and Alternative Technology Association.
Provides funding as a Strategic Partner of The Conversation.
rmit.edu.au
- Reducing emissions will work better if we’re not so stuck in our abatement ways. Power plant image from shutterstock.comWe should not be debating a choice between direct action and carbon pricing: we need both, but with credible, well-designed mechanisms.
Why we need bothWe need a carbon price based on certificate trading for several reasons.
It sends a signal to both emitters and investors that they need to cut emissions, starting today. The price rises if there is insufficient action, and declines if action is effective. And there is the potential to profit from trading. All of that makes emitters more likely to innovate and bring down the cost of reducing emissions.
The revenue from a carbon price provides funds to support additional cuts and help those affected by the price to adapt. Because a price brings in revenue, funds don’t have to be dragged from other government activities.
We need effective direct action because carbon pricing is a relatively crude and imperfect incentive. A carbon price can be undermined by non-financial barriers and market imperfections. Weak carbon caps lead to low carbon prices that do not reflect true long-term costs of climate change.
Businesses and households also tend to put more value on money they have now than money they have in the future. That means future carbon costs are not necessarily powerful motivators when compared with other factors.
In the electricity industry, profits increase with higher sales, so a carbon price will encourage action that reduces emissions per unit of electricity sold, such as renewable energy, but not actions that reduce sales. Energy companies won’t encourage energy efficiency, the most cost-effective abatement option, because it cuts their profits.
A carbon price does increase the prices consumers pay for fossil fuel sourced energy, but it is a small increase in a small part (1-5%) of most business and household costs. If we want consumers and businesses to improve their energy efficiency, or set up distributed energy generation such as solar panels, direct action can help.
Direct action can be applied to activities that cannot be included in a carbon trading scheme. We have already seen this approach under the Carbon Farming Initiative, which encourages sequestration by rewarding those who act.
A better world needs a more flexible approach. AAP Arno Burgi
The problems of a badly designed system
The carbon trading mechanism as developed in Australia, and in use elsewhere, undermines voluntary abatement by state and local government, businesses and households. Unless the cap is tightened or permits are removed from the market in response to such actions, these well-intentioned entities and individuals are simply freeing more space within the cap for other emitters to emit more.
But as many economists have pointed out, direct action can be ineffective and potentially expensive. Many oppose the government’s version of it, not direct action per se.
They argue the government’s proposed approach reverses the widely accepted “polluter pays” policy to “pay the polluter”. It fails to focus on fossil fuels (responsible for three-quarters of Australia’s emissions plus exports), is inequitable, unworkable, limited by the available budget, may encourage inflation and manipulation of abatement cost, and is difficult to quantify. This increases uncertainty and ramps up the potential for political games.
The reality is that poorly designed and implemented pricing mechanisms and direct action can both be inefficient and ineffective. But well-designed versions of both can be efficient and effective. A combination of these may be most effective.
We already have examples of a range of direct action abatement programs, as well as experience of pricing mechanisms. We can learn from this experience.
A blend that worksAustralia’s appliance energy efficiency programs are reducing emissions by close to 10 million tonnes per annum at a cost of -A$56/tonne of CO2 avoided. The Energy Efficiency Opportunities industry program is saving millions of tonnes of emissions at approximately -A$95/tonne avoided.
Building energy regulation is delivering millions of tonnes of cost-effective abatement while also improving health, cutting peak electricity demand (and cost) and creating net additional jobs. So cost-effective direct action options exist.
Some abatement measures also save energy, reduce the costs of peak electricity demand, save water, improve equity or improve soil quality and rebuild habitat. Others improve health.
Energy efficiency measures in business can improve product quality, staff productivity, innovation and saleable output while reducing capital costs.
If we look at strategies used in other areas, for example smoking and road safety, we see a combination of pricing, regulation and strong education and support programs to influence decisions and behaviour.
Regulation is not always crude and inefficient. It can increase investment certainty, capture economies of scale and drive innovation. Pricing schemes are not always economically efficient, for example where demand is inflexible or a scheme is poorly designed. Financial incentives do not always motivate.
And there are many other policy tools available, such as supporting innovation, education and training, information programs, government example and removing existing subsidies that encourage higher emissions.
It is truly a pity that efforts to limit climate change have fallen into such a conflict-ridden, political and simplistic debate.
Australia Day thoughts from Matt Zurbo
Oi
It’s Australia Day. All my mates are down in the Golconda valley, at Hamish’s, surrounded by bush, swimming in his pool, getting drunk, being young and in love with this country and life. I’m envious of them, of anyone who is lucky enough to live in this wide, diverse land.
I can’t face them though. The pack of racist drongos. I mean, it’s not that simple. They’re my mates, they have so many good points. I love them. But shitte…
Everything they’re doing is so American, and the don’t realize it. They tell me, time and again, in humour, in earnestness, in passing, what is and isn’t un-Australian. Dare I say it, un-Australian is the single most un-Australian expression ever. It’s so American. I though we were more laconic, better than that?
“Whatever blows your hair back.”
“She’ll be right mate.”
When did they Arian Sons and Daughters brigade hijack my country and decide what I can or can’t be?
“Love it or leave it,” their t-shirts bellow, with a sneer. I never knew clothing could do those things until now. That’s also as American as it gets. It’s the haves screaming “What’s in it for me!” Telling us “Screw the boat people. We’ve won, now fuck off!”
I’ve seen redneck Americans saying that sort of shit my whole life. Giving off that arrogance, being bullies, all up-tight and agro. Celebrating their country with a nasty spit at your feet.
My mates, the country over, will right now be waving red, white and blue rags. “The British flag at night,” Wearing them as capes, hats, pants, stuffing them down their jocks.
More American shit.
I though we were rebels, children of convicts and the world? That we hated authority? That we did our own thing – barbie, .booze, root, red wine, whatever – to hell with officialdom. That we were comfortable with who and what we were. That we didn’t have to shout. That nothing was above us except the open sky.
My mates, they’ll all be saying douche and alleyway, and hey guys, and calling my ute a fucking truck. If they’re angry they’ll give me the bird and tell me their pissed.
Australia Day can mean anything, I reckon. A party! Pride. Invasion Day, for sure, absolutely. Shame Day if you care for refugees and believe in human rights. It can mean nothing at all. Another day off work, another day of work, or another excuse to get pissed, as in drunk.
It can mean trying to get laid.
In any family you go through periods of loving and loathing your kin. If you hate the way a country is going, don’t leave. Stay and change it back again. Or help shape it into something new.
My Australia is both so close and so far. I love it for what it was, is andcould be. And am at times furious with it in equal turn. But that’s how we change, how we grow.
Anyways, can’t put it off forever. I’m out the door now, to be local and swim and be surrounded by youth and beauty and pink and burnt red skin. To be one of the haves. My friends aren’t so bad, for Americans.
On this day, above all others, I miss my country, even though I’m living in it, and remain determined to win it back one day.
To make it a place we don’t blame the have-nots, but, rather, pull themup.
It’s Australia Day. All my mates are down in the Golconda valley, at Hamish’s, surrounded by bush, swimming in his pool, getting drunk, being young and in love with this country and life. I’m envious of them, of anyone who is lucky enough to live in this wide, diverse land.
I can’t face them though. The pack of racist drongos. I mean, it’s not that simple. They’re my mates, they have so many good points. I love them. But shitte…
Everything they’re doing is so American, and the don’t realize it. They tell me, time and again, in humour, in earnestness, in passing, what is and isn’t un-Australian. Dare I say it, un-Australian is the single most un-Australian expression ever. It’s so American. I though we were more laconic, better than that?
“Whatever blows your hair back.”
“She’ll be right mate.”
When did they Arian Sons and Daughters brigade hijack my country and decide what I can or can’t be?
“Love it or leave it,” their t-shirts bellow, with a sneer. I never knew clothing could do those things until now. That’s also as American as it gets. It’s the haves screaming “What’s in it for me!” Telling us “Screw the boat people. We’ve won, now fuck off!”
I’ve seen redneck Americans saying that sort of shit my whole life. Giving off that arrogance, being bullies, all up-tight and agro. Celebrating their country with a nasty spit at your feet.
My mates, the country over, will right now be waving red, white and blue rags. “The British flag at night,” Wearing them as capes, hats, pants, stuffing them down their jocks.
More American shit.
I though we were rebels, children of convicts and the world? That we hated authority? That we did our own thing – barbie, .booze, root, red wine, whatever – to hell with officialdom. That we were comfortable with who and what we were. That we didn’t have to shout. That nothing was above us except the open sky.
My mates, they’ll all be saying douche and alleyway, and hey guys, and calling my ute a fucking truck. If they’re angry they’ll give me the bird and tell me their pissed.
Australia Day can mean anything, I reckon. A party! Pride. Invasion Day, for sure, absolutely. Shame Day if you care for refugees and believe in human rights. It can mean nothing at all. Another day off work, another day of work, or another excuse to get pissed, as in drunk.
It can mean trying to get laid.
In any family you go through periods of loving and loathing your kin. If you hate the way a country is going, don’t leave. Stay and change it back again. Or help shape it into something new.
My Australia is both so close and so far. I love it for what it was, is andcould be. And am at times furious with it in equal turn. But that’s how we change, how we grow.
Anyways, can’t put it off forever. I’m out the door now, to be local and swim and be surrounded by youth and beauty and pink and burnt red skin. To be one of the haves. My friends aren’t so bad, for Americans.
On this day, above all others, I miss my country, even though I’m living in it, and remain determined to win it back one day.
To make it a place we don’t blame the have-nots, but, rather, pull themup.
Just in from Matt Zurbo
Here’s an unpopular opinion: we’re too damn comfortable. Not all of us. Who’d want to be an Aboriginal in outback Australia? A single mum? And so on... But on the whole, as a nation? Bleh. It’s really going to fuck up our future.
This well-offness. This content.
Don’t get me wrong, in bitching and moaning, as a nation, we’re No.1! 1st World problems? We got ‘em by the truckload!
My download speed is shit.
The louts left a mess in the park!
My neighbour’s a Liberal.
My neighbour’s a Labour.
My God! How long does it take to get to work?
Spiders are icky!
There was a bush fire, who’s to blame, blame, blame?!
But we have a real problem. Kids are staying at home until their 27! This may seem like a giggle, and it sorta is. It may seem like a rant, and shit, I give them out like a clown does ham. But it may seem like bitterness and it isn’t.
It’s a passionate cry.
My dot town is full of 26 year old boys who have never had to grow up. They drink like 16 year olds trying too hard to be men, fight like it, talk like it, blow their money like it, then call their mums to pick them up because they’ve all lost their licence.
That’s the giggle part.
I’m blessed, between my bush and city trades, with a cross-mix of iGeneration friends. Oodles, from all walks. And ask them, time and again, politely, with genuine curiosity, why stay at home? My gen couldn’t wait to leave the nest, to prove themselves. Pride was worth a lot. Rebellion. “I am my own man!” we’d cry, storming out the door. Stupid kids. In hindsight, I’m surprised we could hear ourselves over the echo of our parents yelling the same thing 30 years before.
But, yes, we rebelled, we forged our own paths. And when we fell, often Mum and Dad were there. And, whether they were or not, we were tempered.
The iGen tell me, time and again:
It’s easier.
Why leave?
It’s cheaper.
By staying at home I can afford to go to Europe/Asia/India/America.
I can afford to study, then go to Europe/Asia/Idia/America.
It sets, I suspect, a bad pattern, such shallow goals. Of not questioning, of not rippling. Of adopting your parents years-tempered content with day-to-day routine. Of having their lack of desire or energy to rock the boat. Of need for change. I mean, you’re under the same roof as them, you have to get along.
That’s the shit part.
This comfort, it denies youth genuine stories. Travel is great entertainment, but it is shallow. Music festivals are a goddamn blast! I still love them! But most bigger ones are well choreographed, tightly organised events. They have as much adventure, spontaneity, originality as watching Rage on tv. Sorry.
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
It’s true. Travel? So what? DO something! BUILD something! FIGHT for something! I just don’t care how wasted you got in India, or how cool the other backpackers in Europe were.
And Triple J, the voice of youth, is about as rebellious, original, subversive as warm chicken soup. Like the festivals, like the travel, it appeases.
Like all of these things, the structure is sound. The platform is there. But it’s all soft. All pre-programed. None of it is spontaneous, like being on your own at 18 is. None of it is adventurous. None of it involves real work, or challenging the way things are. Or the sweat, scary uncertainty of not knowing where your life might next lead. Long term, or short term, these things tip you on your head, and make you see the world in new ways. And help you re-evaluate your morals, if not check if they’re there. They help you be honest and real, rather than spout from safety zones. They make you individuals.
Every generation should challenge the way things are.
Every one.
I know the irony is I sound like the previous generation by saying this. That the iGeneration’s rebellion was in staying home, was found in the comfort of status-quos. But a society that doesn’t change, doesn’t grow. It’s like a body with blood that won’t flow.
Quick, while they’re young! Youth should shake at pillars, try to reinvent worlds!
Make things better, if only by making them different. There’s no mass market for this generation’s rebellious authors, or movie makers, or musicians, or even politicians. Why rock the boat? We’re well fed until approaching our thirties. Well distracted, then we slip, easy, numbly, into our own home and not being young anymore.
The still air of it, the lack of rollercoaster, is denying us character, and spiritually dooming us to banality and the superficial social conscious of clicking ‘like’ on Facebook for our pet social causes.
Nothing will change. Spiritually, morally, creatively. Well, at least until the nation’s money runs dry.
Then we’ll hear whining like we never have before.
This well-offness. This content.
Don’t get me wrong, in bitching and moaning, as a nation, we’re No.1! 1st World problems? We got ‘em by the truckload!
My download speed is shit.
The louts left a mess in the park!
My neighbour’s a Liberal.
My neighbour’s a Labour.
My God! How long does it take to get to work?
Spiders are icky!
There was a bush fire, who’s to blame, blame, blame?!
But we have a real problem. Kids are staying at home until their 27! This may seem like a giggle, and it sorta is. It may seem like a rant, and shit, I give them out like a clown does ham. But it may seem like bitterness and it isn’t.
It’s a passionate cry.
My dot town is full of 26 year old boys who have never had to grow up. They drink like 16 year olds trying too hard to be men, fight like it, talk like it, blow their money like it, then call their mums to pick them up because they’ve all lost their licence.
That’s the giggle part.
I’m blessed, between my bush and city trades, with a cross-mix of iGeneration friends. Oodles, from all walks. And ask them, time and again, politely, with genuine curiosity, why stay at home? My gen couldn’t wait to leave the nest, to prove themselves. Pride was worth a lot. Rebellion. “I am my own man!” we’d cry, storming out the door. Stupid kids. In hindsight, I’m surprised we could hear ourselves over the echo of our parents yelling the same thing 30 years before.
But, yes, we rebelled, we forged our own paths. And when we fell, often Mum and Dad were there. And, whether they were or not, we were tempered.
The iGen tell me, time and again:
It’s easier.
Why leave?
It’s cheaper.
By staying at home I can afford to go to Europe/Asia/India/America.
I can afford to study, then go to Europe/Asia/Idia/America.
It sets, I suspect, a bad pattern, such shallow goals. Of not questioning, of not rippling. Of adopting your parents years-tempered content with day-to-day routine. Of having their lack of desire or energy to rock the boat. Of need for change. I mean, you’re under the same roof as them, you have to get along.
That’s the shit part.
This comfort, it denies youth genuine stories. Travel is great entertainment, but it is shallow. Music festivals are a goddamn blast! I still love them! But most bigger ones are well choreographed, tightly organised events. They have as much adventure, spontaneity, originality as watching Rage on tv. Sorry.
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
It’s true. Travel? So what? DO something! BUILD something! FIGHT for something! I just don’t care how wasted you got in India, or how cool the other backpackers in Europe were.
And Triple J, the voice of youth, is about as rebellious, original, subversive as warm chicken soup. Like the festivals, like the travel, it appeases.
Like all of these things, the structure is sound. The platform is there. But it’s all soft. All pre-programed. None of it is spontaneous, like being on your own at 18 is. None of it is adventurous. None of it involves real work, or challenging the way things are. Or the sweat, scary uncertainty of not knowing where your life might next lead. Long term, or short term, these things tip you on your head, and make you see the world in new ways. And help you re-evaluate your morals, if not check if they’re there. They help you be honest and real, rather than spout from safety zones. They make you individuals.
Every generation should challenge the way things are.
Every one.
I know the irony is I sound like the previous generation by saying this. That the iGeneration’s rebellion was in staying home, was found in the comfort of status-quos. But a society that doesn’t change, doesn’t grow. It’s like a body with blood that won’t flow.
Quick, while they’re young! Youth should shake at pillars, try to reinvent worlds!
Make things better, if only by making them different. There’s no mass market for this generation’s rebellious authors, or movie makers, or musicians, or even politicians. Why rock the boat? We’re well fed until approaching our thirties. Well distracted, then we slip, easy, numbly, into our own home and not being young anymore.
The still air of it, the lack of rollercoaster, is denying us character, and spiritually dooming us to banality and the superficial social conscious of clicking ‘like’ on Facebook for our pet social causes.
Nothing will change. Spiritually, morally, creatively. Well, at least until the nation’s money runs dry.
Then we’ll hear whining like we never have before.
Get your news (from Jakarta)
The Age today had a front page story about the recent towing the boats back incidence(s) to Indonesian waters. It turns out that one of the boats was intercepted near Darwin (that's legally in Australia) and towed back over six days. There were reports of ill treatment of some of the refugees but this was dusted off by Australia's official spokesman who then declined to give any details.
So the Prime Miniature and the disgusting Morrison lied about NOT turning the boats back to the Indonesians who are very pissed off about this and rate actively discussing this in their Parliament (yes we used to have one too but it got towed to Indonesia).
It seems that the PM has a different story for every audience and our compliant media doesn't report it.
We have direct action to combat global warming which is actually crap. The odious Minister for Telling Lies About the Environment, Greg Hunt, and his truth-challenged boss have one story for metal and coal workers, another for the Parliament but should be outed on the basis of their legislative program which has put a wrecking ball through all climate initiatives.
Remember the days when he sang from Opposition "not until China does". well dimwit the Chinese are way ahead of us with three carbon trading markets in full operation NOW.
We remain the ONLY country in the world to legislate AGAINST carbon abatement and to reward the big polluters.
So the Prime Miniature and the disgusting Morrison lied about NOT turning the boats back to the Indonesians who are very pissed off about this and rate actively discussing this in their Parliament (yes we used to have one too but it got towed to Indonesia).
It seems that the PM has a different story for every audience and our compliant media doesn't report it.
We have direct action to combat global warming which is actually crap. The odious Minister for Telling Lies About the Environment, Greg Hunt, and his truth-challenged boss have one story for metal and coal workers, another for the Parliament but should be outed on the basis of their legislative program which has put a wrecking ball through all climate initiatives.
Remember the days when he sang from Opposition "not until China does". well dimwit the Chinese are way ahead of us with three carbon trading markets in full operation NOW.
We remain the ONLY country in the world to legislate AGAINST carbon abatement and to reward the big polluters.
Social news
Chatting with a friend yesterday while he bemoaned the lack of reporting in our "newspapers" any mention of important news or questioning of the Party line (read LNP).
In my view the traditional print press has already gone the way of the dinosaur and we get our news from sources we trust which is increasingly electronic and fem people we know or can at least get a feeling for.
Online only pubs like The Conversation or The Guardian (Australian edition for local news) have content that is just not available in print. The Conversation has a disclosure statement with every piece that indicates who pays the writer and if they have a conflict of interests.
Both publications have a comment stream open to any registered (free) user and both have suffered from trolling and need to get their comments in order so that genuinely interested parties with a contribution to make can do so without being trolled out of space or feeling the need to engage with pointless and destructive argument.
In any case we need to recognise that times have changed and if we want news that has integrity we won't get it from traditional sources.
In my view the traditional print press has already gone the way of the dinosaur and we get our news from sources we trust which is increasingly electronic and fem people we know or can at least get a feeling for.
Online only pubs like The Conversation or The Guardian (Australian edition for local news) have content that is just not available in print. The Conversation has a disclosure statement with every piece that indicates who pays the writer and if they have a conflict of interests.
Both publications have a comment stream open to any registered (free) user and both have suffered from trolling and need to get their comments in order so that genuinely interested parties with a contribution to make can do so without being trolled out of space or feeling the need to engage with pointless and destructive argument.
In any case we need to recognise that times have changed and if we want news that has integrity we won't get it from traditional sources.
Deja two-three-four
See below on Newman - now we have the extremely offensive Cori Bernardi publishing a book that once again attacks women's right to control their bodies, all children born out of the "Christian model" including IVF, surrogacy and single parenting. Sounds bizarre? No doubt sincerely held views but so out of step with Modern Australia. He also has a go at Muslims but let's not assume he is an outsider or just doing this offensive stuff as a mere backbencher. None of these views are a long way from his boss, the Prime Miniature and look like kite flying for a more savage blow to the multi-cultural Australia where tolerance and welcoming of difference have been the norm.
While our newspapers have been reporting the hottest year since record were kept (2013) our PM has his nose so firmly planted where the sun doesn't shine he says "not true I don't see it". How long?
While our newspapers have been reporting the hottest year since record were kept (2013) our PM has his nose so firmly planted where the sun doesn't shine he says "not true I don't see it". How long?
A senior advisor
Well well. After trying his best to destroy the credibility of the ABC when he was the Chair, insisting they buy ang screen a film that denied global warming this dangerous fool, a senior advisor to the Prime Court Jester, is now informing the Government and the Australia people that the IPCC is corrupt and the climate change "lobby" is a money making venture by a criminal gang.
If this wasn't all happening it would be a laugh but the continuing move to make Australia backward is actually gathering pace. Newman was appointed a Special Advisor by the generally clueless Abbott based on his solid Conservative credentials. I'd love to hear what he is good at.
He has advice to give on working arrangements too. He looks back fondly to Work Choice and he will no doubt have advice on how to reimplement it with a different name this avoiding, in his tiny mind, the problem of the smell associated with it last time.
Let's get this lot as far away as possible from the governments of this country before more damage is done.
If this wasn't all happening it would be a laugh but the continuing move to make Australia backward is actually gathering pace. Newman was appointed a Special Advisor by the generally clueless Abbott based on his solid Conservative credentials. I'd love to hear what he is good at.
He has advice to give on working arrangements too. He looks back fondly to Work Choice and he will no doubt have advice on how to reimplement it with a different name this avoiding, in his tiny mind, the problem of the smell associated with it last time.
Let's get this lot as far away as possible from the governments of this country before more damage is done.
Holiday Season
Here we go into the silly season of bubbles and cheer. It might also be a time for reflection.
For Australians, hopefully, it will be a time to think - what have we done. Here is a short list:
The planet's most vulnerable people the global refugees are now untouchables and unmentionables.
Climate change policy has been reversed while China, Brazil, the US and all of Europe have measures in place. The Shanghai carbon exchange opened with a huge day of trading.
Our lowest paid workers got their super removed while Clive Palmer got mega dollars to open the biggest greenhouse gas emitting coal mining and distribution centre in the world.
Greg 'Minister for telling lies' Hunt closed the marine parks by press release on a weekend. He continues to do damage even though he knows what he is doing; that is more evil than his puppet-master who has no idea what he is doing.
The ABC and SBS are in danger of being sold off to please Rupert, the ultimate puppet-master.
Joe Hockey confects all sorts of outrage while going further into the debt he once derided. But it's not his fault. He doesn't have a clue how it works. Like Abbott he knew how to snarl, bark and bite but don't get him into the area of policy.
Confused about the NBN? You should be as the lies they told prior to the election are catching up here too.
It's all a sorry state of affairs but as Matt has argued below one that we needed to realise how well we were doing. As usual it is the most vulnerable that will pay while the top 2% of wealth owners will get richer and fatter and eat up more of our atmosphere. Their wealth belongs to us but they paid Abbott and co to convince us that taxes for mining, in place in most mining territories in the world, would be VERY BAD for us.
For Australians, hopefully, it will be a time to think - what have we done. Here is a short list:
The planet's most vulnerable people the global refugees are now untouchables and unmentionables.
Climate change policy has been reversed while China, Brazil, the US and all of Europe have measures in place. The Shanghai carbon exchange opened with a huge day of trading.
Our lowest paid workers got their super removed while Clive Palmer got mega dollars to open the biggest greenhouse gas emitting coal mining and distribution centre in the world.
Greg 'Minister for telling lies' Hunt closed the marine parks by press release on a weekend. He continues to do damage even though he knows what he is doing; that is more evil than his puppet-master who has no idea what he is doing.
The ABC and SBS are in danger of being sold off to please Rupert, the ultimate puppet-master.
Joe Hockey confects all sorts of outrage while going further into the debt he once derided. But it's not his fault. He doesn't have a clue how it works. Like Abbott he knew how to snarl, bark and bite but don't get him into the area of policy.
Confused about the NBN? You should be as the lies they told prior to the election are catching up here too.
It's all a sorry state of affairs but as Matt has argued below one that we needed to realise how well we were doing. As usual it is the most vulnerable that will pay while the top 2% of wealth owners will get richer and fatter and eat up more of our atmosphere. Their wealth belongs to us but they paid Abbott and co to convince us that taxes for mining, in place in most mining territories in the world, would be VERY BAD for us.
New from Matt Zurbo
People baffle me.
We dance around such simple topics, tear our hearts out over what doesn’t mate, waste our rage on so much not worthy of it.
Why doesn’t anyone talk about love?
Girls do. But, mostly, that’s girl love. Why don’t we, as woman and men?
I hear the word used a lot when discussing gay rights. I’m not gay, know bugger all
gay people, but when they talk about marriage I get jealous, because they always talk about love.
That’s the joy of hurdles. They make things hard. A hurdle means you aren’t marrying for convenience, or because everybody else is, or because your family expect it of you, or you don’t want to be left behind. The hurdles mean you’re marrying for love, damn it!
Love!
How come there are no columns on it in the papers? Or it never gets mentioned in the news? In the news couples ‘confirm’ and are ‘seen together’ and ‘become items’ and sometimes ‘tie the knot.’ These things aren’t enough.
Give me your heart, stapled to your bloody sleeve, and I’ll give you a Woman, and I’ll give you a Man!
I’m a man’s man. Nothing to brag about. I work in the bush and play footy and drink and fight at the swinger’s arms. Fucking oath! No apologies or bragging involved. But I’m man enough to say I’m not in love, and it breaks my heart.
When my marriage didn’t work, everybody said “At least you never had kids”
I tell them they’re fools. I tell them we loved each other, but couldn’t be together. That the kids would have been born from and given, by both of us, no matter what, love. Maybe there practical people don’t understand love?
Then there was the Christian Baptist I was engaged to. There was a hurdle. It HAD
to be love. She was always scared shitless of ending in a loveless marriage, like her
parents, bound by religion that forbids divorce, yet, two weeks before the big day, she
left me for her God. And is no doubt married to someone of her faith now.
I hope, but doubt it’s love.
Love’s dangers are also its joy. Somewhere along the line it will break you. It will leave you defeated, wanting to die, but that is such a good thing. In hurt you feel. In feeling you’re alive.
“And he hung up and he sobbed, he howled at he world, but from somewhere deep inside he was glorious that such rich, deep emotion was better than nothing at all.”
It hurts not having love, but it can’t be faked, or rushed. If you’ve been in love,
you know that. So you search, or I do, and explore, and go insane yearning for its embrace. To be lost in its flowing hair. And each day I don’t find it, the weight increases a little, the screw further turns. But that’s okay. Love isn’t the main thing, the yearning is. The want, the fire.
Love would be heaven, yet only when I stop yearning shall I die.
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Listening to our Parliament
Further to Matt's contribution below I heard "debate" in the Senate yesterday while driving home from Balnarring. We are being told that black is white and white is black on a daily basis from the lying and rapacious crowd currently in power. Even the Newspoll puts them behind currently and that's before they have done some of the more extreme things they have promised their paymasters (the coal and other mining companies).
While the rest of the world takes on the cigarette and tobacco companies we are the only country in the world to have repealed carbon abatement laws.
Not content with that the "government" is trying to get rid of those bodies that were attracting investment into renewables and doing it at no cost to the taxpayer. Free market economics? The appalling Greg Hunt can't hide behind ignorance of the truth - Greg read your thesis and maybe you will remember. In any case in this democracy we can make our displeasure know to him at the ballot box. That boyish cheesy grin won't help him then.
While the rest of the world takes on the cigarette and tobacco companies we are the only country in the world to have repealed carbon abatement laws.
Not content with that the "government" is trying to get rid of those bodies that were attracting investment into renewables and doing it at no cost to the taxpayer. Free market economics? The appalling Greg Hunt can't hide behind ignorance of the truth - Greg read your thesis and maybe you will remember. In any case in this democracy we can make our displeasure know to him at the ballot box. That boyish cheesy grin won't help him then.
I'm sick of this and I'm not going to take it anymore
Matt Zurbo
I’m a rare breed. Right now, I’m listening to Parliament. Not many people do. It’s one of those odd sports I partake in, information before opinion. Even if I don’t like it. The information, or the sport - petty people lying at and badgering each other. Self-serving grandstanding, blatant manipulations – of truths, of facts, of the press and people.
It fires me up. Agreeing or disagreeing, it helps sharpen my opinions. Thirty minutes usually does me. An hour, tops. After that I get too angry.
If I had my way, I’d inject everybody in the room, lower and upper house, square between the eyes with truth serum, ditch the Dorothys and give the Speaker a gun for interjectors. That’s the worst of it. The constant, petty yammering from the other side. The total lack of respect. Give good, get good, why should I then offer them any of mine?
Of this batch, one thing’s becoming clear - the latest mob in power are lying, almost about everything, and was always going to, because they always were to begin with. And everybody knows it. And everybody knew.
Just like they knew children were not really being thrown overboard on the Tamper. Just like they knew there weren’t really any weapons of mass destruction. That’s what gets me.
They knew. The people. Us.
I don’t blame Tony Abbott, we knew what we were getting. Sleazy little men and woman will always strive for power. It’s our job to listen or not. It’s our role to elect or dismiss them.
Everybody knew Gillard and Swan ran one of the best economies in the world, but they hated Julia. Yes, the Press told them too, in the most disgusting, irresponsible, undemocratic ways. But very few people were swayed by the Press. All it did was let them voice their spite. It backed-up already existing prejudices. It never told them to hate, it said “It’s okay that you hate.”
When John Howard first came to power I loathed him and the backward path to racist, self-centered 50s ideology he was dragging us down to. Then he got elected again, then again. By the forth time I stopped blaming him. I blamed us. All of us. He wasn’t forcing us into such a world view, he was reflecting what we are. His face was reflecting us.
We ARE a racist country.
We WOULD rather eject a popular Prime Minster for daring to take on filthy rich miners in the name of working class people. We LOVE those vile, greedy magnates ahead of our own. We ARE subservient.
I’m talking about responsibility. Responsibility and leadership.
As a nation, Abbott is all our fault.
Popular opinion is petty, fickle. We’re children. If it was left to the public we would have voted against the vote for women, indigenous citizenship, against entering WW1, America would never have freed the slaves, we never would have modernised our economy or forged ties with Asia. We would still be living under White Australia. But each of these times, there came a time. There came a leader.
As a nation, we have not had a leader for the longest time, not since Paul Keating, because we keep demanding politicians. As a nation, we know it. If someone dares to lead, like Rudd did on the mining issue, we knee-cap them. Until we create the room and platform, the ear, for another leader, morally, spiritually, we’ll keep spiralling downward, to the bottom of the barrel.
I don’t blame Tony. He’s our fault. Just another little man. What we need is some grass roots leadership.
It fires me up. Agreeing or disagreeing, it helps sharpen my opinions. Thirty minutes usually does me. An hour, tops. After that I get too angry.
If I had my way, I’d inject everybody in the room, lower and upper house, square between the eyes with truth serum, ditch the Dorothys and give the Speaker a gun for interjectors. That’s the worst of it. The constant, petty yammering from the other side. The total lack of respect. Give good, get good, why should I then offer them any of mine?
Of this batch, one thing’s becoming clear - the latest mob in power are lying, almost about everything, and was always going to, because they always were to begin with. And everybody knows it. And everybody knew.
Just like they knew children were not really being thrown overboard on the Tamper. Just like they knew there weren’t really any weapons of mass destruction. That’s what gets me.
They knew. The people. Us.
I don’t blame Tony Abbott, we knew what we were getting. Sleazy little men and woman will always strive for power. It’s our job to listen or not. It’s our role to elect or dismiss them.
Everybody knew Gillard and Swan ran one of the best economies in the world, but they hated Julia. Yes, the Press told them too, in the most disgusting, irresponsible, undemocratic ways. But very few people were swayed by the Press. All it did was let them voice their spite. It backed-up already existing prejudices. It never told them to hate, it said “It’s okay that you hate.”
When John Howard first came to power I loathed him and the backward path to racist, self-centered 50s ideology he was dragging us down to. Then he got elected again, then again. By the forth time I stopped blaming him. I blamed us. All of us. He wasn’t forcing us into such a world view, he was reflecting what we are. His face was reflecting us.
We ARE a racist country.
We WOULD rather eject a popular Prime Minster for daring to take on filthy rich miners in the name of working class people. We LOVE those vile, greedy magnates ahead of our own. We ARE subservient.
I’m talking about responsibility. Responsibility and leadership.
As a nation, Abbott is all our fault.
Popular opinion is petty, fickle. We’re children. If it was left to the public we would have voted against the vote for women, indigenous citizenship, against entering WW1, America would never have freed the slaves, we never would have modernised our economy or forged ties with Asia. We would still be living under White Australia. But each of these times, there came a time. There came a leader.
As a nation, we have not had a leader for the longest time, not since Paul Keating, because we keep demanding politicians. As a nation, we know it. If someone dares to lead, like Rudd did on the mining issue, we knee-cap them. Until we create the room and platform, the ear, for another leader, morally, spiritually, we’ll keep spiralling downward, to the bottom of the barrel.
I don’t blame Tony. He’s our fault. Just another little man. What we need is some grass roots leadership.
Just in from Matt Zurbo
I Love Stories of Grit.
I love stories of grit. Nobody would play Bob Marley's music when he started. It wasn't traditional enough. No worries. He brought a Mr Whippy van, and drove around the suburbs of Jamaica, playing his tunes on its tinny speaker. When kids ran up to buy an ice-cream, he'd sell them a record.
Rex Hunt, the ex-AFL player, used to stand in the outer commentating games to himself. Everyone thought he was mad. Once he was good enough, though, he recorded it. And made a career as a media personality.
Silvester Stalone, far from my favourite movie identity, an unemployed, struggling film extra, was offered $1,000,000 for his Rocky script. He declined, and asked for a share in the profits instead.
I once met a woman in fashion, an expensive industry, who started with nothing. She tabletop danced for years to raise money. Wore the lowest of our society to make things of beauty. She now has an international label.
Leo Burnett is a multi-national advertising company, miles from me and my world. Go into any of their foyers, anywhere in the world, and you'll find a bowl of apples, the company logo, on the reception desk. I'm told the company's founder started the business at the hight of the Great Depression. People told him "Apple logo? You'll be selling them on a corner for a living within a month." He replied: "No, I'll be giving them away." The man's long gone now, but I ate one of those apples once. It tasted sweet.
Nicky Winmar was a Champion indigenous AFL player, who grew up several hundred kms south of Perth. While all the other kids were out kicking the footy or fishing, he would be flooding his clay back yard until it was a slippery mud heap so he could practice his wet weather skills and make it in the big league one day.
Raymond Carver, the famous American writer, had five kids, so did all his writing between 11pm and 5am. Who knows what he did for sleep?
Cypher was a great little Si-Fi film. The man who wrote, starred, scored, edited and directed it did so on a budget of $7,000. Not wanting it to look cheap (it doesn't), he then spent over two years in post production, patiently making it perfect. I own a copy, and sometimes watch it just for that.
I used to work all day in the factory, go home to write, pick up my girlfriend from her waitressing job around 10-11 pm, spend time with her, then, when she was asleep, slide back out of bed and write more, usually until about 3-5am. Then off to the factory again. This doesn't make me special. There are thousands of us, hundreds of thousands of us, the world over. But when I do stuff like that, it's not a choice. It's done without thought. Something I am. And, when I'm working and I can hear the silence, my world not spinning, the lack of noise pubs and sport and bush work provide, it's good to remind myself of these stories. To turn it all into a victory.
This is the the success. The trying. The doing these things that we are.
I love stories of grit. Nobody would play Bob Marley's music when he started. It wasn't traditional enough. No worries. He brought a Mr Whippy van, and drove around the suburbs of Jamaica, playing his tunes on its tinny speaker. When kids ran up to buy an ice-cream, he'd sell them a record.
Rex Hunt, the ex-AFL player, used to stand in the outer commentating games to himself. Everyone thought he was mad. Once he was good enough, though, he recorded it. And made a career as a media personality.
Silvester Stalone, far from my favourite movie identity, an unemployed, struggling film extra, was offered $1,000,000 for his Rocky script. He declined, and asked for a share in the profits instead.
I once met a woman in fashion, an expensive industry, who started with nothing. She tabletop danced for years to raise money. Wore the lowest of our society to make things of beauty. She now has an international label.
Leo Burnett is a multi-national advertising company, miles from me and my world. Go into any of their foyers, anywhere in the world, and you'll find a bowl of apples, the company logo, on the reception desk. I'm told the company's founder started the business at the hight of the Great Depression. People told him "Apple logo? You'll be selling them on a corner for a living within a month." He replied: "No, I'll be giving them away." The man's long gone now, but I ate one of those apples once. It tasted sweet.
Nicky Winmar was a Champion indigenous AFL player, who grew up several hundred kms south of Perth. While all the other kids were out kicking the footy or fishing, he would be flooding his clay back yard until it was a slippery mud heap so he could practice his wet weather skills and make it in the big league one day.
Raymond Carver, the famous American writer, had five kids, so did all his writing between 11pm and 5am. Who knows what he did for sleep?
Cypher was a great little Si-Fi film. The man who wrote, starred, scored, edited and directed it did so on a budget of $7,000. Not wanting it to look cheap (it doesn't), he then spent over two years in post production, patiently making it perfect. I own a copy, and sometimes watch it just for that.
I used to work all day in the factory, go home to write, pick up my girlfriend from her waitressing job around 10-11 pm, spend time with her, then, when she was asleep, slide back out of bed and write more, usually until about 3-5am. Then off to the factory again. This doesn't make me special. There are thousands of us, hundreds of thousands of us, the world over. But when I do stuff like that, it's not a choice. It's done without thought. Something I am. And, when I'm working and I can hear the silence, my world not spinning, the lack of noise pubs and sport and bush work provide, it's good to remind myself of these stories. To turn it all into a victory.
This is the the success. The trying. The doing these things that we are.
Broken promises
Some people are surprised and some outraged by Christopher Pyne promising one thing two days before the election and now reversing himself and the government on education funding. Well the old saying about leopards and spots applies in this case to attack dogs and their masters. While Tony Abbott was masterful in his negativity and nay saying he has no policies and certainly is not interested in funding and opportunity equity. The little yapper is just doing what he has always done but now he is a Minister and it hurts all of us who care.
Abbott has more in jokers in his deck. The youthful and charming (not) Greg Hunt pretends not to know the science of climate change. His thesis at University was on the subject and I wish he's read it instead of yapping and jumping to get the pound of flesh his master is dangling in front of him. Ou children and grandchildren will pay his price. We are now.
Abbott has more in jokers in his deck. The youthful and charming (not) Greg Hunt pretends not to know the science of climate change. His thesis at University was on the subject and I wish he's read it instead of yapping and jumping to get the pound of flesh his master is dangling in front of him. Ou children and grandchildren will pay his price. We are now.
Today - a letter to the New York Times
To the Editor:
Re “Growing Clamor About Inequities of Climate Crisis” (front page, Nov. 17):
In recent years, after other extreme weather events like Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest storms ever recorded, scientists are always asked, “Has climate change caused this?” And the answer is generally some variation of “perhaps, but we can’t be certain.” The right answer, but the wrong question.
In a medical emergency, no physician ever waits for absolute proof of diagnosis before starting treatment, for to do so is to run the risk that the patient will become seriously, and perhaps irreversibly, ill, and may die. The greater the emergency, the more physicians rely on an accumulated body of evidence, on recognized patterns of disease.
While we depend on scientists to help us understand the causes and effects of climate change, it is a tragic, fundamental mistake to expect them, before we decide to act, to prove that each extreme weather event is a result of our greenhouse gas emissions. We must learn from the practice of medicine to recognize the accumulating signs and symptoms of climate change as it unfolds before our eyes, and to act before it is too late.
ERIC CHIVIAN
Boston, Nov. 19, 2013
The writer, a physician, is the founder and former director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard University.
From Larry Nordell in Montana
While we are going backwards here and the awful Greg Hunt in the service of the even more dreadful Tony Abbott think that their turinig back the clock on climate change has some validity check out this piece pointed to by cousin Larry from the New York Times. You see Greg and Tony this is not a fight between the political parties for power - it is an urgent call to action for all of us.
Yesterday but not in the newspapers
Yesterday between twenty five and thirty thousand people of all ages gathered in Treasury Gardens to express their dismay over the changes to the arrangements on carbon pricing. Not that you would know about this from reading one of our increasingly irrelevant print media - the Age had the (Age sponsored) fun run on their front cover and the Murdoch rubbish had a small item about a small crowd in Sydney braving the rain to demonstrate their support.
Tim Flannery, Adam Bandt and Greg Butler spoke - the evil Greg Hunt was invited but declined to appear. The attack dog Pyne just moments ago gagged debate in the House on the issue. This is the democracy we now have and deserve having elected this mob.
I don't know personally anybody ho admits to voting for them but I wouldn't.
It still is a terrible indictment of our media when no mention is made of something so important and made much of all around the country by so many.
STOP buying or reading their propaganda. Don't give them the oxygen. Let's work together to make them just an aberration, a footnote in our history
Tim Flannery, Adam Bandt and Greg Butler spoke - the evil Greg Hunt was invited but declined to appear. The attack dog Pyne just moments ago gagged debate in the House on the issue. This is the democracy we now have and deserve having elected this mob.
I don't know personally anybody ho admits to voting for them but I wouldn't.
It still is a terrible indictment of our media when no mention is made of something so important and made much of all around the country by so many.
STOP buying or reading their propaganda. Don't give them the oxygen. Let's work together to make them just an aberration, a footnote in our history
New from Matt Zurbo
IN LOVE AND HOPELESSNESS: The Life and Death of The PErculator.
I dunno. I think I need some comedy today. I think a lot of us do.
A lifetime ago I didn’t have a CD or record player. I worked hard in the bush and put every cent I have towards writing, so owned nothing. I guess I was hopeless. Once a week I’d drive over the ranges to do a show on “Old Duff” radio at an inland town. Every town has one. A station up a rickety stairwell, above a sports store, that’s a place for the lost, the fuddled and awkward, and lovers of music - usually show tunes!
There was no way, in the logging community I lived, I was doing it straight, or even as me, so I invented The Perculator. A bloated, gravely-voiced obnocious ex-wrestler with a love heart sewn onto his chest. I even wore the mask in the studio some times. Each week, for two hours, there would be chaos! Myself, my sidekick Laurie, a dominatrix, a guest comedian, our Human of the Week, a band, their instruments, and randoms we’d pulled in off the street, all crammed into a bathroom-sized booth, and fed two slabs off beer brought by me to get everybody in the mood.
The Humans of the Week were my favourite. Outsiders, underdogs, hanging tough. The Cross Dresser from Altona. (anyone can do it in St.Kilda). The Mystery Poet, who wrote onto low tide sand banks. People you wanted to hug for loneliness and awkwardness, we worshiped and laughed with for two hours.
The show was loud, triple-x crude, and, above all, about unrestrained, stapled to your sleeve love.
It cost me half my wage each week in time off work and fuel and beers. God it was fun! Felt righteous! Sent me broke!
The Perculator Show developed a small, passionate cult following. The radio station’s signal range was so poor people would drive for two hours through rain on a dead Tuesday night, just to be a part of it, or simply watch, because they couldn’t hear. A 60 year old rabbit farmer joined our ranks of the flawed. The Apollo Bay police, a source of relentless ridicule, either loved or hated it, and, I guess, me. One rang in while the Perculator was lampooning the hell out of them. We made him our Human of the Week. With only twenty people able to pick it up on radio, cassets of the show travelled from car to car throughout the region, got burned to cds.
There was only one way to go from there. The Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Which, indeed, was where the comedy started.
It sounds good, doesn’t it? THE MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL COMEDY FESTIVAL! Hugsie, Stephen Fry, Jimmy Carr, the biggest, the best. What a feather in the Perculator’s cap!
In reality, pay $400 entry fee, and your given a crummy little festival show bag and you’re in! Sight unseen. Cough up. Thank you! You’re on.
Bugger standards! Very democratic, I thought.
Next, was to get the street press to review your show. Beat and Inpress. The voice of the people, from the pubs and sticky carpets!
“Sorry, cash for editorial,” they told me.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“No reviews unless you pay for an ad.”
“Okay,” I told them, “but I’ll write my own reviews then.”
“What do we care? Sure.”
I did one under the name Rudi Zassoff, which they didn’t pick up on, and another under Jo King, just for the cheese of it. The reviews were both corkers, by the way. Said the show was tops!
Next, was the big press gathering arranged by the festival organisers. All the comedians and all of the country’s major press would be there. Well, all the $400 dollar comedians. The awkward magicians, and aspiring students, and dabbling office workers and me, in my orange, bloated wrestler’s costume and mask. I think I had a tap-dancing go-go dancer with me. Not sure where I got her from.
We were all lined up against the wall. The print photographers and news camera operators lines up opposite, and whoosh! They sort of hummed along in their line formation past us, crab walking. Each camera lingered on you for about two seconds as it passed.
No time for humanity, or hopelessness. I could hear catch frazes being shouted as the congo-line of press approached me, repeated time and again for each camera, staring with the magicians, “Ta-DAH!” “Ta-DAH!” Ta-DAH!” Then a squirilly redhead: “SundaysattheRoyalOakHotel!” “SundaysattheRoyalOakHotel!” By the time they were five acts along it was a wall of noise. Sort of like one of those lops songs, maybe Row-Row Your Boat, on speed. I watched the press passing in their line, and wanted to yell, “Remember the Alamony!” (a double pun) and attack them.
I even played the game for the first five or six, thrusting my fist out, bellowing “I invented the Proctologist’s Elbow!” Then I saw, on the level behind our firing squad wall, a busload of 13 year old Japanese schoolgirls, here on some cultural exchange. I pushed through the comedians and cameras, and scaled the wall, or, the Perculator did. Then, tongue out, hands gripping, making gurgling gimmy, gimmy noises, I chased them all as they ran and squealed and every camera went zoom!
Later, three under each arm, they rubbed my belly and giggled while, from behind the mask, I let my tongue rim and gave baffled, happy eyes. The Perculator made every news spot. More than Barry Humphries. Peter Hitchener called Perko Australia’s latest sex symbol.
We finished with the tap-dancing go-go dancer giving me some S&M treatment on the feet of Bourke and Wills, which closed out 9’s bulletin.
The stage show would be different to the radio show, I figured. Even more chaotic! I roped in strangers, pulled favours, put myself two years in dept, worked long days in the bush to pay for it all, constantly doing the six hour round trip to the city, got the most hopeless, the biggest fools, those most needing to be saved, to frame two hours of new comedy every night, pushing as many of them on stage at once as possible. I wanted humour, humanity, anarchy. I wanted to GIVE! Give anyone who came EVERYTHING!
Now for the opening night! Press night! I was an unknown act in the back of a nightclub that never had comedy. Without reviews, Agile, Mobile and Hostile: The Perculator’s Cultural Freak Show, was rooted.
So here’s what happened:
As said: Comedy.
I had concus The themes were hopelessness and humanity. We celebrated our and everybody’s weaknesses. Whenever I pressed the wrong button, which was often, rather than be awkward bout it, we’d cheer and skull. Dead air, radio taboo, as we got more drunk, fed itself, becoming a brilliant, scary, funny thing. The squeaky DJ’s chair became the Perculator’s rusted up knee. On the topics of sex, sensuality and sexuality The Perculator interviewed a parking meter attendant and a country football umpire. Each week we did plays. Twenty people we pulled off the street, put a script in the hand of, and got to read in unison, were the voice of the Israel Army, and The Perculator a war-torn, bedraggled Palestinian mother, in What Part of Get Out of My Home Don’t You Understand? Each week I/the Perculator tried to get a famous hypocrite to sue me. I’d slander them on air, send them a tape of the show. If we liked a song, I would loop it, again and again, until the band knew it and played along - everybody in the booth crashing and bashing and singing and jumping up and down.
sion from work in the bush that day. The main band were half way through their intro song when an Italian man came on stage and told them if they didn’t move their panno from his restaurant it would be towed. They dropped their instruments mid song, running to beat the tow truck, leaving me stumbling onto the stage, costume half on.
The tap behind dancing go-go dancers (I now had two of them), decided the acoustics were better on the floor, so danced in the shadows to the left of the stage where no-one could see them, rather than around the band. The junkie harp player who was meant to break up the comedy routines got his $50 after the first tune and disappeared to get a hit. Both the guest comedians didn’t show. My technician and sidekick, Laurie’s Colossomy Bag, was vital for the show. Vital! He gave the Perculator someone to bounce off, to make his lines sound like quick-witted banter. Gave it that natural, unforced sway. Laurie had a head cold and decided to set the sound levels (band way too loud, comedy barely audible), then go to the back of the venue and sleep until the show was over. My human of the week, the cross dresser from Altona, decided he didn’t want to offend anyone, so came dressed as a man. The Dominatrix cracked the shits and wouldn’t answer any questions, the band decided to sit at the back and drink beers, so when they were meant to punch-in after a segment, they finished their stubbies and strolled to the stage in awkward silence.
Um, what else?
Oh, the venue owner double booked us with an open mike night. The only crowd we had was a bunch of impatient musicians, including a mandolin player, air guitarist, a heavy metal duo, truck load of folk singers, and a dude who attaches electroids to his skull and plays it like the drums, and his parents, all tweaking and tuning-up in the background, getting shitty because the bloke in the orange wrestler’s costume was going way over his ‘allotted’ ten minutes.
I had to fight them off between skits. It got heated. Later, I found out not one reviewer came to the show, anyway.
I begged, borrowed and stole, literally, and went on with the four week run. Twelve shows. Bands fell away, and were replaced by other bands, I lost the go-go dancers, hecklers shat me. I was eating one meal a day, broke, living in my car, bouncing, sleepless, between bush coops and city.
But the show had three highlights.
1… I got a wailing grunge band to open one night, sight unseen. They were so loud and raw, people poured out like milk from a bottle. By the time I got on stage, the only person there was my best mate, sitting on his own, in the middle of the room, blinking, grinning, trying to look like a crowd for me.
The Perculator threw his arms out wide, twelve odds and bods in his night’s show waiting to join him on stage. An audience of one.
“You put on a show about being a hopeless loser, and what happens…?” he gurgled, then wisely nodded his head. “Success! Success….”
The bar staff laughed themselves stupid. We went ahead. A few people trickled back in. It was the best show yet.
2… One night, the Human of the Week didn’t show. Improvising, a comedian either side of me, my groin shrivelled up from stage-fright, I stared undressing, explaining the philosophy of the Human of the Week, about celebrating weaknesses, and the importance of putting your money where your mouth is, then dropped my pants, lowered the mike, and interviewed my shrivelled dick.
Both comedians bolted. I was left alone, on stage, mask on, costume around my ankles, microphone on my helmet, feeling like a total goose.
As was the Perculator’s way, I asked it some funny questions about chiselling the clothes off a Barbara Streisland statue, as well as some personal, and humanising ones.
3… Most people didn’t get it. Not any of it. “I don’t want to think, just laugh,” one of the bar staff complained. But no matter how small the ‘crowd’ – twelve people, five, ten, three – after every damn show, there would be at least one person who would come up and literally hug the Perculator and thank him and give ratbag’s smirks and say words like ‘halaluja’.
People who got it.
That saw through some of the stuff I can’t even mention here and to the fact Perko was asking people to be brave.
A handful of hugs for two years work, and debt that would see me into the next three. That was enough.
Each show, the Perculator got a little better. It’s hard to remember two hours of new comedy every night, but he loosened up, got confident, improvised, with a crowd that small, repeated a few of the better routines as if they were new. By the end, everybody who was there are the start had bailed. The show was like the old car that only had one original bit, the sump bolt, everything else, everybody else, was patchwork new. I used the very last of my coin to employ a technician to press play on the camera I’d set up.
There were enough highlights. I could splice something good together. Take Perko and his cultural freak show on the road. Or into other mediums he could bluster into and be hopeless at.
Finally, on the last night, we nailed it! There was a crowd, some of them coming for a second time in a week. They laughed their guts out from start to finish, all two hours. Solid laughs, full of great weight. They were so happy, when the band played the show out, they all danced. We got drunk, shared the longneck from the “Jeniffer Kyte, Johnny Diesel Beer Bottle Incident” with them. All that labour, sweat, and degradation, all the humiliation, all worth it, nailed on our very, very last shot! Snake eyes with our last roll of the dice!
The technician came up to me, I was still dressed as Perko, dancing away. He took his $50 and said: “Listen mate. Your show, balls up! I’m with you! All the way! All the way! I forgot to press play on the recorder, but. We didn’t get the show. But I’m with you, man! The Perculator’s so balls up!”
That broke me.
It broke Perko.
Which wasn’t the end of the earth. I hadn’t written a thing beyond comedy in two years. But shit…!
Perko sorta faded after that, yet kept bobbing up like a ghost in the machine. He had a semi popular song recorded about him by a rocking indi band, the Monaros, and appeared on the cover of one of their CDs. He introduced a few rock acts. Abused the full-house, roughest pub in Warrnambool, before fighting the drummer and throwing up on the bouncer as he was being asked to leave.
He even got turned into a children’s book character. (Ssh!). My Dad’s a Wrestler, illustrated by the mind-numbingly talented Dean Gorission – the artists behind the Emmy-winning I Got A Rocket! (based on another one of our kids books).
Perko even had a cartoon pitch mocked up, vagely built around the kids book, but no-one optioned it.
I have a tv pilot worked out, line-for-line, every bit as stupid as the radio show and the live stuff. All filmed on the stupidly cheap, quality be damned, like a good bad punk song! Throw in the single about him as the show’s tune, and some graphics, he could invade the internet with snippets, lines and routines from a show nobody can find because it doesn’t exist.
Well, that’s the idea.
The Perculator hasn’t been seen for a few years now, even though I still write for him. His mask is lost. Meanwhile, life speeds up and up.
In beautiful irony, Perko, (and his ragtag gang), died as he lived. As he preached, as he celebrated. At the hands of a technician paid somebody’s last $50 to simply press play.
In love and hopelessness.
I will be forever indebted to The Perculator. I miss him, very much. Painfully, sometimes. I hope he returns someday. He had hugely important things to say.
More absurdity
That superannuated and self confident ex PM of Australia, John Howard, has been lecturing the British, straight out of the Merchants of Doubt handbook. It seems yhat even though he went to the 2007 election with a carbon trading scheme this was because of pressure from the electorate and no because he believed in it. Now he can reveal that Tonee Abbot won the last election in part because of his fervent denial of global warming. Let's hope that those two rats are the first to drown when the seas rise.
To add to the irritation I saw Smokin' Joe Hockey on 7:30 report last night looking confident and friendly as he insisted that with repeal of the carbon pricing mechanism there would be an instant 9% drop in electricity prices. If that were to happen it might point to a massive conspiracy between electricity generator/distributors and the then opposition. The electricity crowd meanwhile came out publicly and said it was more complicated then the repeal issue and it would take some time o flow through.
Minister for telling lies and the Environment the awful and light weight Greg Hunt appears on tv every night seeming reasonable and unburdened by the facts about anything and smiles into camera and reassures us that the green lobby "lies" are jut that, so don't you worry your pretty little head about it.
To add to the irritation I saw Smokin' Joe Hockey on 7:30 report last night looking confident and friendly as he insisted that with repeal of the carbon pricing mechanism there would be an instant 9% drop in electricity prices. If that were to happen it might point to a massive conspiracy between electricity generator/distributors and the then opposition. The electricity crowd meanwhile came out publicly and said it was more complicated then the repeal issue and it would take some time o flow through.
Minister for telling lies and the Environment the awful and light weight Greg Hunt appears on tv every night seeming reasonable and unburdened by the facts about anything and smiles into camera and reassures us that the green lobby "lies" are jut that, so don't you worry your pretty little head about it.
Sense and Sensibility
David Suzuki was a light breeze that offered relief from the relentless bad news when appearing on Q&A last night. Even the normally odious Tony Jones almost behaved well. With an audience that included some prominent climate deniers the @show@ reminded me of the awful shift that has occurred from current affairs and news as investigations and reporting of facts to what we now have where anybodies loony views carry weight particularly if they also bring ratings. News is entertainment.
Then on Lateline there was the Liberal Minister for the Environment, the softly spoken terribly reasonable liar Greg Hunt, who pretended to not be concerned about the Climate Commission's announcement that even though thios joke government had wound it up that they would continue their work anyway. Take that Greg and Tonee. You thought it would be simple to get rid of the people who told all of us what is really going on. Good on you Tim Flannery and your mob.
Suzuki said on Lateling @get off your arses and work for the next two and ah= half years to get rid of this mob@ meaning the government. Do we have to wait that long?
Then on Lateline there was the Liberal Minister for the Environment, the softly spoken terribly reasonable liar Greg Hunt, who pretended to not be concerned about the Climate Commission's announcement that even though thios joke government had wound it up that they would continue their work anyway. Take that Greg and Tonee. You thought it would be simple to get rid of the people who told all of us what is really going on. Good on you Tim Flannery and your mob.
Suzuki said on Lateling @get off your arses and work for the next two and ah= half years to get rid of this mob@ meaning the government. Do we have to wait that long?
The Joke
No not Milan Kundera's early novel about communism in hi
s home country of Czechoslovakia country but yesterday Tony Abbott after three years of poisonous politics and venomous character assassinations told us that he would respect everybody and expect the same. Who does he think he is kidding? Does he really believe that we have no memory and will wash the slate clean so that he can rape and pillage without a murmur? I don't think so.
Meanwhile it was interesting to hear Mark Latham interviewed today suggesting Mark Dreyfus as the new leader of the Parliamentary ALP. Not owned by anybody, honest, bright and capable, he is my choice as well. Now that Rudd has quit let us not have a business as usual choice of Shorten or Albanese but a complete break with the politics of yesterday.
s home country of Czechoslovakia country but yesterday Tony Abbott after three years of poisonous politics and venomous character assassinations told us that he would respect everybody and expect the same. Who does he think he is kidding? Does he really believe that we have no memory and will wash the slate clean so that he can rape and pillage without a murmur? I don't think so.
Meanwhile it was interesting to hear Mark Latham interviewed today suggesting Mark Dreyfus as the new leader of the Parliamentary ALP. Not owned by anybody, honest, bright and capable, he is my choice as well. Now that Rudd has quit let us not have a business as usual choice of Shorten or Albanese but a complete break with the politics of yesterday.
Borrowed Time
Don Clarke was born in Liverpool, England. He currently resides in NW England with his partner and laptop and various children and animals, and can often be found teaching computer literacy to the youth of Cheshire. Apart from his sci-fi novel Borrowed Time, he has self-published three music CDs with his band Yangtze, has recorded music for compilation CDs and BBC radio live sessions, and has self-published Pebbles, a book of poetry and lyrics. Mabinogion, his game of Welsh mythology, is self-published via the Gamecrafter in the USA.
His recently published book "Borrowed Time" was an engrossing read, all 384 pages of it. It is a scifi adventure thriller with a bit of a game feel but don't let this capsule description put you off. It has a social consciousness and a strong emotional analysis and empathy of its characters but it is also a ripping yarn and a great read.
You can get a copy from amazonuk - happy reading.
His recently published book "Borrowed Time" was an engrossing read, all 384 pages of it. It is a scifi adventure thriller with a bit of a game feel but don't let this capsule description put you off. It has a social consciousness and a strong emotional analysis and empathy of its characters but it is also a ripping yarn and a great read.
You can get a copy from amazonuk - happy reading.
Too little too late
in today's Fairfax press there is an article from Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglts about how the Rudd-Gillard governments got the economy right and thus avoided financial and human disaster in Australia while most of the rest of the OECD did not. He also writes that the LNP policies will lead to dire results if they are carried out by Abbott and Hockey.
Do these people read? Or care or are their blinkers too big?
Do these people read? Or care or are their blinkers too big?
Reality bites
As I slowly get used to the departure of Julia Gillard and some of her formidable team the notion that we will have an Abbott led government is making it's way up my spine and into my cerebellum. And it hurts.
What are the positives?
Dangerously running on "trust me" it won't take three years not to trust the whole crew.
Meanwhile Rudd may have ;lost his seat and the ALP will have the time to reorganize it's base and constitution to make itself more transparent, accessible and open to all comers that sign on to the Labor platform.
All this has been in reports and recommendations to the Caucus over the years and was rehearsed in the report that John Faulkener did. Time on.
Groups like Getup are focused n making sure that the LNP don't hold majorities in both houses and therefore making it impossible for them to repeal the swags of Ms Gillard's nation building over the past six years.
It will also make it harder for an inexperienced, arrogant lot to ignore the advice of Treasury and take a wrecking ball to the best managed economy in the world.
At the same time the contracts for the NBN will be costly to get out of as will the repealing of the clean energy targets and fund.
Who are these people and how have they (appeared) to get some much support from our voters? Obviously having the daily support of 70% of our print media helps. Add in the almost universal absence of journalists in all media that ask tough but informed questions and you begin to see the difficulty that the Gillard-led government had in getting it's message heard.
So we may be faced with a number of issues for the next three years. Reform of the only reforming party, a campaign to undermine the Murdoch Press and to hold the rest of the media to account in the way they say (and don't) hold the politicians to account.
And finally take back to citizen's the power to deal with the important issues even when the pollies won't.
We should look to the courts as a way of keeping them honest but more than this we should initiate more of our own direct action campaigns issue by issue.
While the global warming deniers saddle up there are people working directly with industry to make their processes more efficient and save them money at the same time as reducing their carbon footprint.
On a local level more people are growing their own food and joining buying co-ops that deliver locally grown, in-season, organic food.
I am surprised by the number of people I know that have embraced a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle over the last twelve months. I am now a vegan and it has given me lower body weight, more strength and stamina and I sleep better.
What are the positives?
Dangerously running on "trust me" it won't take three years not to trust the whole crew.
Meanwhile Rudd may have ;lost his seat and the ALP will have the time to reorganize it's base and constitution to make itself more transparent, accessible and open to all comers that sign on to the Labor platform.
All this has been in reports and recommendations to the Caucus over the years and was rehearsed in the report that John Faulkener did. Time on.
Groups like Getup are focused n making sure that the LNP don't hold majorities in both houses and therefore making it impossible for them to repeal the swags of Ms Gillard's nation building over the past six years.
It will also make it harder for an inexperienced, arrogant lot to ignore the advice of Treasury and take a wrecking ball to the best managed economy in the world.
At the same time the contracts for the NBN will be costly to get out of as will the repealing of the clean energy targets and fund.
Who are these people and how have they (appeared) to get some much support from our voters? Obviously having the daily support of 70% of our print media helps. Add in the almost universal absence of journalists in all media that ask tough but informed questions and you begin to see the difficulty that the Gillard-led government had in getting it's message heard.
So we may be faced with a number of issues for the next three years. Reform of the only reforming party, a campaign to undermine the Murdoch Press and to hold the rest of the media to account in the way they say (and don't) hold the politicians to account.
And finally take back to citizen's the power to deal with the important issues even when the pollies won't.
We should look to the courts as a way of keeping them honest but more than this we should initiate more of our own direct action campaigns issue by issue.
While the global warming deniers saddle up there are people working directly with industry to make their processes more efficient and save them money at the same time as reducing their carbon footprint.
On a local level more people are growing their own food and joining buying co-ops that deliver locally grown, in-season, organic food.
I am surprised by the number of people I know that have embraced a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle over the last twelve months. I am now a vegan and it has given me lower body weight, more strength and stamina and I sleep better.
An open letter to the aspirants
Dear Kevin
just so there is no doubt, which is a condition you would favour, tell us once and for all time that you or anybody associated with you, didn't leak or feed to the Press anything about Julia Gillard or the government she led and to put it totally in the past perhaps as a sign of good faith allow all journalists to state that they did/didn't have you as a source.
Dear Tony
there has been much speculation about dirty tricks in relation to Peter Slipper (Mal Brough) and Craig Thomson. Can you say that nobody on your side of politics had a hand in the development of these stories or indeed planted false information for political gain as a judge noted in the Slipper case.
Looking forward to your answers
#
just so there is no doubt, which is a condition you would favour, tell us once and for all time that you or anybody associated with you, didn't leak or feed to the Press anything about Julia Gillard or the government she led and to put it totally in the past perhaps as a sign of good faith allow all journalists to state that they did/didn't have you as a source.
Dear Tony
there has been much speculation about dirty tricks in relation to Peter Slipper (Mal Brough) and Craig Thomson. Can you say that nobody on your side of politics had a hand in the development of these stories or indeed planted false information for political gain as a judge noted in the Slipper case.
Looking forward to your answers
#
Leaders' Debate?
We were fooled into thinking there was a leaders' debate on last night but what we got were two cardboard cutouts of two obvious and painful liars pretending, not very well, that they were who and what they said they were.
We Australians deserve a lot better than that - and up until recently we had it. Julia Gillard and her very dedicated and talented team governing for all Australians and not for their own egos.
Sighj.
Election in September and I am going away in October for family matters but it will also be a huge relief to get away from the onslaught of lies and fairy floss.
COME BACK JULIA. Please.
We Australians deserve a lot better than that - and up until recently we had it. Julia Gillard and her very dedicated and talented team governing for all Australians and not for their own egos.
Sighj.
Election in September and I am going away in October for family matters but it will also be a huge relief to get away from the onslaught of lies and fairy floss.
COME BACK JULIA. Please.
The work continues
While the political pygmies strut their stuff the building of a green energy future continues as this report on the Moree solar farm reports.
From Matt Zurbo
Matt writes as below - he is an author and has his own blog. He has published many books and has done a lot of work on re-vegetation of sites that were going to desert..
Hi Bob, often read when I have a minute. Where as i agree with most everything you say, I don't know how you do it. It would make me too bitter. The bigger picture is we get the pollies we want, and the press give us the stories we want to hear. I no longer blame the pollies or the media. I blame us. We don't want leaders. We want to be lead.
The reason politics is so bitter and petty right now is that as soon as politicians started paying too much attention to the opinion polls, we were doomed. It put us in charge.
Take the abolition of slavery, it was an unpopular move, but the leaders at the time lead. Now look at boat people. Everybody knows the lies are lies. The pollies are like parents pandering to the spoilt child. Our moral compas is like that of a spoilt child.
I remember, as a kid, getting a cross line, and hearing two Italian mummas speaking in Italian to each other. I shouted "Speak English, wog!" My mum asked me why I was shouting. When I told her, she told me: "Don't be so small. If you had to move to Italy to save us from poverty, even if you loived Italy, would you speak Italian to your old Aussie mates, or English? Would you ever miss your old home?"
I felt shame, and knew what was right. She was prepared to be unpopular with me if I dissagreed. Because she was the boss. Because she cared. Because there were more important things that sucking up to my lowest, base opinions. My easy hate.
To get that vote, today, politicians would suck up to that child. It breaks my heart.
Mahatma Gandhi said: "The most effective form of protest is to lead by example."
I try to do this, succeed sometimes, fail others. But, big picture, have no answers.
Thanks for your blog. Its energy, positive nature, and conviction. I should be such a force for good in this world.
Hi Bob, often read when I have a minute. Where as i agree with most everything you say, I don't know how you do it. It would make me too bitter. The bigger picture is we get the pollies we want, and the press give us the stories we want to hear. I no longer blame the pollies or the media. I blame us. We don't want leaders. We want to be lead.
The reason politics is so bitter and petty right now is that as soon as politicians started paying too much attention to the opinion polls, we were doomed. It put us in charge.
Take the abolition of slavery, it was an unpopular move, but the leaders at the time lead. Now look at boat people. Everybody knows the lies are lies. The pollies are like parents pandering to the spoilt child. Our moral compas is like that of a spoilt child.
I remember, as a kid, getting a cross line, and hearing two Italian mummas speaking in Italian to each other. I shouted "Speak English, wog!" My mum asked me why I was shouting. When I told her, she told me: "Don't be so small. If you had to move to Italy to save us from poverty, even if you loived Italy, would you speak Italian to your old Aussie mates, or English? Would you ever miss your old home?"
I felt shame, and knew what was right. She was prepared to be unpopular with me if I dissagreed. Because she was the boss. Because she cared. Because there were more important things that sucking up to my lowest, base opinions. My easy hate.
To get that vote, today, politicians would suck up to that child. It breaks my heart.
Mahatma Gandhi said: "The most effective form of protest is to lead by example."
I try to do this, succeed sometimes, fail others. But, big picture, have no answers.
Thanks for your blog. Its energy, positive nature, and conviction. I should be such a force for good in this world.
Attention deficit
Peter Reith must be doing it hard - well at least for an ex-Howard Minister who is no longer in the limelight.
He has the gall to appear on the SBS program "Go Back to Where You Came From" and feign surprise at the horrendous situations in war torn countries - meanwhile ex-Rose Tattoo rock and roller Angry Anderson, is angry about desperate people who are in fear of their lives and want a safe place for their families daring to come here. He is in training to be a future Peter Reith and run for the Liberals and send the bastards all back.
When Catherine Deveney asks Reith how he could have done what he did in the Tampa affair he shrugs and basically says "Shit happens" rather than taking responsibility for his actions.
Meanwhile, walking home from the letterbox today i came across three people at the local cafe discussing the cruel new Labor policy and the disgusting race to the bottom of the major political parties. Note with my vote Kevin/Tony they agreed.
As soon as we admit that everybody who came to this country after 1788 was an illegal immigrant and that we stole the land that was inhabited by an ancient culture AND that many post second world war migrants have made a huge contribution to Australia's culture, economy and status in the world we can begin to deal with the issues of now.
Immigrants want to contribute and work hard to establish their families in a new land. Welcome them.
Fix the problems of our indigenous brothers and sisters and don't pretend it will be easy or quick.
Finally use your voice on whichever platform to let your MP and Senator know that they are not speaking or voting for you and you will not vote for them until you see change.
He has the gall to appear on the SBS program "Go Back to Where You Came From" and feign surprise at the horrendous situations in war torn countries - meanwhile ex-Rose Tattoo rock and roller Angry Anderson, is angry about desperate people who are in fear of their lives and want a safe place for their families daring to come here. He is in training to be a future Peter Reith and run for the Liberals and send the bastards all back.
When Catherine Deveney asks Reith how he could have done what he did in the Tampa affair he shrugs and basically says "Shit happens" rather than taking responsibility for his actions.
Meanwhile, walking home from the letterbox today i came across three people at the local cafe discussing the cruel new Labor policy and the disgusting race to the bottom of the major political parties. Note with my vote Kevin/Tony they agreed.
As soon as we admit that everybody who came to this country after 1788 was an illegal immigrant and that we stole the land that was inhabited by an ancient culture AND that many post second world war migrants have made a huge contribution to Australia's culture, economy and status in the world we can begin to deal with the issues of now.
Immigrants want to contribute and work hard to establish their families in a new land. Welcome them.
Fix the problems of our indigenous brothers and sisters and don't pretend it will be easy or quick.
Finally use your voice on whichever platform to let your MP and Senator know that they are not speaking or voting for you and you will not vote for them until you see change.
A choice
As the pollies are fond of saying we will have the only election that really matters soon where we get, in our increasingly American style presidential elections, not a choice between two different parties with carefully considered electoral platforms, but two presidential styled figures who are playing fast and loose with the truth and unconcerned with the human costs.
For the past three years we have watched Abbott smiling and glad handing around the country predicting gloom and doom from the very sensible legislation put through a minority government.
Now we have the return of the super-sized ego Kevin 07 who after three years of working covertly for the fall of a Labor PM, leaking to his mates in the press, and constantly undermining an elected government without having the courage to own his actions now playing the worst sort of politics and using the most vulnerable people as his pawns to play a game of dirty chess.
Yes it is back to the future. "I am just going to play with his head" he said about John Howard and he did. Now he's playing with Tony's head but the stake he is using is our conscience and mine is not up for sale.
So how to vote come the election? Nothing will convince me to vote Liberal and a vote for the Greens is a vote for Labor in my electorate so what to do? The choice is between two parties led by two nasty obvious liars who will do anything and say anything to get into the Lodge.
For the past three years we have watched Abbott smiling and glad handing around the country predicting gloom and doom from the very sensible legislation put through a minority government.
Now we have the return of the super-sized ego Kevin 07 who after three years of working covertly for the fall of a Labor PM, leaking to his mates in the press, and constantly undermining an elected government without having the courage to own his actions now playing the worst sort of politics and using the most vulnerable people as his pawns to play a game of dirty chess.
Yes it is back to the future. "I am just going to play with his head" he said about John Howard and he did. Now he's playing with Tony's head but the stake he is using is our conscience and mine is not up for sale.
So how to vote come the election? Nothing will convince me to vote Liberal and a vote for the Greens is a vote for Labor in my electorate so what to do? The choice is between two parties led by two nasty obvious liars who will do anything and say anything to get into the Lodge.
A bit of perspective
For a much more balanced and intelligent piece on the role of the media in bringing down a PM read this piece in the Conversation by Dennis Muller who has been an Age person and used to work with Irving Saulwick on the Saulwick polls. Isn't it amazing how the media that were baying for the downfall of Julia Gillard and wanting to replace her with St Kevin suddenly have pieces about her great legacy and how dysfunctional he was and possibly still is.
Meanwhile for something much more uplifting and sane Google for President Obama's climate change speech at Georgetown University. Direct, factual and impassioned. "we don't have time for the flat earthers"
Meanwhile for something much more uplifting and sane Google for President Obama's climate change speech at Georgetown University. Direct, factual and impassioned. "we don't have time for the flat earthers"
A week is a long time ...
So much has happened in such a short time politically speaking with a back to Kevin07 while we are assured that he has learnt his lessons and will be a more collegiate leader this time around. Time will tell. If all that comes out of this mess is that some Labor seats are saved from the landslide many were expecting then will it have been worth it? Not for me.
I read an ex Age scribe in the Conversation today continuing to heap vitriol on Ms Gillard - where has Mr Carney been hiding and who does he think he is fooling? As I have written o n numerous occasions Julia Gillard was one of the best PMs seen in this country post WWII and I thank her for all she achieved and managed under very difficult circumstances. Even if she had control of both Houses the achievements would have been outstanding and memorable.
Now it is up to each and every on of us to make sure the landmark achievements of her time at the head of government are not filtered off and discarded.
Getup have a campaign going on the issue of carbon pricing and letting the MP's and Senators know where we stand.
Unlike what we read in our media, the fact is that the majority of Australians want carbon to be priced and want our government to have a policy that addresses climate change. It is up to us to make sure that our reps know this and know that it will inform the way we vote and act.
Rudd dropped carbon trading last time around and in two speeches extolling the contributions that Ms Gillard made didn't mention the passage of either the carbon pricing or the minerals and resources rental tax. This made me uneasy. Come on Kevin - if you want to stay there get it right and soon.
I read an ex Age scribe in the Conversation today continuing to heap vitriol on Ms Gillard - where has Mr Carney been hiding and who does he think he is fooling? As I have written o n numerous occasions Julia Gillard was one of the best PMs seen in this country post WWII and I thank her for all she achieved and managed under very difficult circumstances. Even if she had control of both Houses the achievements would have been outstanding and memorable.
Now it is up to each and every on of us to make sure the landmark achievements of her time at the head of government are not filtered off and discarded.
Getup have a campaign going on the issue of carbon pricing and letting the MP's and Senators know where we stand.
Unlike what we read in our media, the fact is that the majority of Australians want carbon to be priced and want our government to have a policy that addresses climate change. It is up to us to make sure that our reps know this and know that it will inform the way we vote and act.
Rudd dropped carbon trading last time around and in two speeches extolling the contributions that Ms Gillard made didn't mention the passage of either the carbon pricing or the minerals and resources rental tax. This made me uneasy. Come on Kevin - if you want to stay there get it right and soon.
GUT WRENCHING
Something I thought was impossible has just happened. Kevin Rudd, the evil schemer, has just toppled Julia Gillard for leadership of the Federal ALP. I can understand why MPs nervous about the coming election swapped sides but do they imagine for a moment that the leopard has changed his spots or that being part of a historically important Julia Gillard led government was worth tossing in at the prospect of losing power?
Apparently so.
I am not going to sit back and judge from this distance. I am tremendously proud of Ms Gillard and and what she has achieved in difficult circumstances with the Murdoch press printing and disseminating hateful lies about her on a day and night basis. Even so I am now waiting to see what happens next.
A lot of the present Cabinet have gone on the public record about Rudd and his falseness and the impossibility of working with him. Presumably Swan will step down as deputy but rather than worry about the detail of a dying party we now have the prospect of a term at least of the mad monk gloating from Canberra with his insistence on failed ideas and looking after the big end of town while letting the rest of us sink or swim.
Today will go down as a sad sad day. Mark it down 26th of June 2013, a day where Darwinian politics triumphed and decency was cast aside.
Apparently so.
I am not going to sit back and judge from this distance. I am tremendously proud of Ms Gillard and and what she has achieved in difficult circumstances with the Murdoch press printing and disseminating hateful lies about her on a day and night basis. Even so I am now waiting to see what happens next.
A lot of the present Cabinet have gone on the public record about Rudd and his falseness and the impossibility of working with him. Presumably Swan will step down as deputy but rather than worry about the detail of a dying party we now have the prospect of a term at least of the mad monk gloating from Canberra with his insistence on failed ideas and looking after the big end of town while letting the rest of us sink or swim.
Today will go down as a sad sad day. Mark it down 26th of June 2013, a day where Darwinian politics triumphed and decency was cast aside.
Sharing not owning
Janet again on sharing here - if you have a car that sits parked for 20 or more hours a day or a holiday house that you go to for three weeks a year or ,,,,,
Is coffee good for us?
Our intrepid reporter Janet Clarke Bell sent in this report from the New York Times. Have a coffee and enjoy the read.
My conflict of interest
I need to say here that I am a Director of the Electric Vehicle Corporation which makes electric cars in Chewton, Victoria. Please look at evcorporation.com.au for more and better information.
The cars are built from ex-fleet cars so there is 0 greenhouse in the construction, they are locally built and they have some interesting and important features.
Ross Blade is the CEO and Chief Designer and he has delivered in excess of fifty cars since starting the business in 2002.
The idea is now to significantly ramp up production and particularly with a new model coming on-stream.
So look at the web site and if it prompts any questions or discussion please let me know.
The cars are built from ex-fleet cars so there is 0 greenhouse in the construction, they are locally built and they have some interesting and important features.
Ross Blade is the CEO and Chief Designer and he has delivered in excess of fifty cars since starting the business in 2002.
The idea is now to significantly ramp up production and particularly with a new model coming on-stream.
So look at the web site and if it prompts any questions or discussion please let me know.
99 days to go
When I speak with mates it seems that most everybody has decided that a Rabbot government is inevitable.. Listening to Kevin Rudd the other day was heartening at least, but the government gets no traction for their unprecedented legislative program or for pulling Australia out of a certain recession/depression.
Meanwhile our media guides (even the ABC) allow the conservatives to keep going weith their constant negativity without a thought to a policy idea or a fact while the government members are not asked anything that might enlighten a viewer or listener.
So will we get the government we deserve?
There is still time for the truth to trump the awful lies we are being fed.
Meanwhile our media guides (even the ABC) allow the conservatives to keep going weith their constant negativity without a thought to a policy idea or a fact while the government members are not asked anything that might enlighten a viewer or listener.
So will we get the government we deserve?
There is still time for the truth to trump the awful lies we are being fed.
As time goes by
When I started this site the aim was to write about books and to share opinions with readers and writers. With the advent of reality I have found myself writing more, and reading more, about the issue of the day, month and year; what we are doing to our planet and what the planet is doing to adjust.
The most curious response comes from those who willfully deny the reality that confronts all of us. And why?
There are those, and many of them, who have just bought into the paid for denial put out by the many credible looking but not credible on close examination like the buffoon Monckton and our very own Professors Carter and Plymer neither of whom have relevant expertise.
Ranged against these truly evil men are the 99% of climate scientists who are in heated agreement (pun intended) that what is obvious from all the scientific data is that the globe is warming faster than was thought by the IPCC even a few years ago and that we are now beyond tipping point and into the phase of coping strategies.
In the case of the cynical political Right these are made up again of the don't get it (Joyce, Bernardi) and the short term opportunists (Abbot, Hockey).
As there are now protocols following the various examples of war time atrocities in the 20th Century will we see an equivalent in the 21st Century for the crime of climate denial? Because that is what pretending that we are not on the edge of an abyss amounts to. And if you have political power or desire it then it is incumbent on you to be direct, honest and not self-serving (in the short term) to enable solutions.
In the real world much is changing without governments and to a degree with governments. Residents and businesses are cutting their demand for electricity and changing the ways they do things like the lighting they employ and generally being more aware of their carbon footprints. Interestingly as the demand for electricity goes down the price goes up so what we are seeing is the paradox of less demand and more price gouging which in Australia is more fuel for the liars to blame carbon pricing as the driver for these increases. How much damage will need to be done to our lives, environment and being before some sense is brought to bear on this question?
Our media must carry as big a responsibility as our nakedly ambitious and stupid politicians. Print, radio and TV push the line that there is an active debate with two sides - is climate change real? The perpetrators of this idea of "news" as entertainment should be the first in the dock or at least at the same time as the pollies.
Then there are the self interested big polluters who not only don't care about the rest of us but also don't care for their own children and grandchildren. They want to own the Titanic but not travel on it. Sorry guys, not possible.
The most curious response comes from those who willfully deny the reality that confronts all of us. And why?
There are those, and many of them, who have just bought into the paid for denial put out by the many credible looking but not credible on close examination like the buffoon Monckton and our very own Professors Carter and Plymer neither of whom have relevant expertise.
Ranged against these truly evil men are the 99% of climate scientists who are in heated agreement (pun intended) that what is obvious from all the scientific data is that the globe is warming faster than was thought by the IPCC even a few years ago and that we are now beyond tipping point and into the phase of coping strategies.
In the case of the cynical political Right these are made up again of the don't get it (Joyce, Bernardi) and the short term opportunists (Abbot, Hockey).
As there are now protocols following the various examples of war time atrocities in the 20th Century will we see an equivalent in the 21st Century for the crime of climate denial? Because that is what pretending that we are not on the edge of an abyss amounts to. And if you have political power or desire it then it is incumbent on you to be direct, honest and not self-serving (in the short term) to enable solutions.
In the real world much is changing without governments and to a degree with governments. Residents and businesses are cutting their demand for electricity and changing the ways they do things like the lighting they employ and generally being more aware of their carbon footprints. Interestingly as the demand for electricity goes down the price goes up so what we are seeing is the paradox of less demand and more price gouging which in Australia is more fuel for the liars to blame carbon pricing as the driver for these increases. How much damage will need to be done to our lives, environment and being before some sense is brought to bear on this question?
Our media must carry as big a responsibility as our nakedly ambitious and stupid politicians. Print, radio and TV push the line that there is an active debate with two sides - is climate change real? The perpetrators of this idea of "news" as entertainment should be the first in the dock or at least at the same time as the pollies.
Then there are the self interested big polluters who not only don't care about the rest of us but also don't care for their own children and grandchildren. They want to own the Titanic but not travel on it. Sorry guys, not possible.
Strange days
Everybody is expecting an Abbot victory in September and the media have already anointed him - the old saying that a week is a long time in politics should remind us all that only in places like Fiji can be taken for given.
With the media going LibNat full time and full tilt it is up to us in the electronic media to show some balance.
Elections are rarely lost in the part of the cycle we are in.
Australia's economic indicators are among st the best in the world with unemployment low.
The historically high dollar has hurt exports and the decline in mining revenues are factors but not ones that are credited by any of the chattering class.
Meanwhile we have had one of the most productive governments in recent history with a slew of legislative and policy triumphs against a background of negativity, sleaze and possible corruption. The Slipper matter has a long way to go but has already implicated Mal Brough and it would be a massive act of will to not see Pyne and Abbott in the equation.
While the government had delivered social programs like the dental and disability schemes, environmental programs like the mining resources tax and the carbon trading arrangements they have been opposed by not just a negative opposition but one that willfully spreads disinformation and mis-truths that are eagerly reported by a slavish press without comment or demurral. "Australia is going it alone" when in fact 5 billion people live in jurisdictions with carbon trading and the US would if President Obama could get it through the Republican House.
What is lost in all of this is a discussion that is informed by science. Science that informs us of what is happening in the real world and not what can be spun from the offerings of vested interests or paid mouthpieces of the fossil fuel industry. Our media likes to debate the issue as if there are two sides with valid claims. News and information as entertainment not as a report on reality.
The reality I find beyond the pale is one I hope will not come to pass. An Abbott government with all the destruction he promises in public let alone what he says he will do behind closed doors in promises to his wealthy mates.
There is still time - a week can be a long time.
With the media going LibNat full time and full tilt it is up to us in the electronic media to show some balance.
Elections are rarely lost in the part of the cycle we are in.
Australia's economic indicators are among st the best in the world with unemployment low.
The historically high dollar has hurt exports and the decline in mining revenues are factors but not ones that are credited by any of the chattering class.
Meanwhile we have had one of the most productive governments in recent history with a slew of legislative and policy triumphs against a background of negativity, sleaze and possible corruption. The Slipper matter has a long way to go but has already implicated Mal Brough and it would be a massive act of will to not see Pyne and Abbott in the equation.
While the government had delivered social programs like the dental and disability schemes, environmental programs like the mining resources tax and the carbon trading arrangements they have been opposed by not just a negative opposition but one that willfully spreads disinformation and mis-truths that are eagerly reported by a slavish press without comment or demurral. "Australia is going it alone" when in fact 5 billion people live in jurisdictions with carbon trading and the US would if President Obama could get it through the Republican House.
What is lost in all of this is a discussion that is informed by science. Science that informs us of what is happening in the real world and not what can be spun from the offerings of vested interests or paid mouthpieces of the fossil fuel industry. Our media likes to debate the issue as if there are two sides with valid claims. News and information as entertainment not as a report on reality.
The reality I find beyond the pale is one I hope will not come to pass. An Abbott government with all the destruction he promises in public let alone what he says he will do behind closed doors in promises to his wealthy mates.
There is still time - a week can be a long time.
We are not going to take it anymore - and we are angry
David Ritvo has sent the following text from Gabrielle Gifford the US senator who survived after being shot in the head by a gunman. David is a practicing psychiatrist in San Francisco and is angry that no action is being taken to curb the free flow of guns in the US.
He is right to be and most of us in the rest of the world don't get either.
A Senate in the Gun Lobby's Grip
By Gabrielle Giffords
SENATORS say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets. The fear that those children who survived the massacre must feel every time they remember their teachers stacking them into closets and bathrooms, whispering that they loved them, so that love would be the last thing the students heard if the gunman found them.
On Wednesday, a minority of senators gave into fear and blocked common-sense legislation that would have made it harder for criminals and people with dangerous mental illnesses to get hold of deadly firearms -- a bill that could prevent future tragedies like those in Newtown, Conn., Aurora, Colo., Blacksburg, Va., and too many communities to count.
Some of the senators who voted against the background-check amendments have met with grieving parents whose children were murdered at Sandy Hook, in Newtown. Some of the senators who voted no have also looked into my eyes as I talked about my experience being shot in the head at point-blank range in suburban Tucson two years ago, and expressed sympathy for the 18 other people shot besides me, 6 of whom died. These senators have heard from their constituents -- who polls show overwhelmingly favored expanding background checks. And still these senators decided to do nothing. Shame on them.
I watch TV and read the papers like everyone else. We know what we're going to hear: vague platitudes like "tough vote" and "complicated issue." I was elected six times to represent southern Arizona, in the State Legislature and then in Congress. I know what a complicated issue is; I know what it feels like to take a tough vote. This was neither. These senators made their decision based on political fear and on cold calculations about the money of special interests like the National Rifle Association, which in the last election cycle spent around $25 million on contributions, lobbying and outside spending. Speaking is physically difficult for me. But my feelings are clear: I'm furious. I will not rest until we have righted the wrong these senators have done, and until we have changed our laws so we can look parents in the face and say: We are trying to keep your children safe. We cannot allow the status quo -- desperately protected by the gun lobby so that they can make more money by spreading fear and misinformation -- to go on.
I am asking every reasonable American to help me tell the truth about the cowardice these senators demonstrated. I am asking for mothers to stop these lawmakers at the grocery store and tell them: You've lost my vote. I am asking activists to unsubscribe from these senators' e-mail lists and to stop giving them money. I'm asking citizens to go to their offices and say: You've disappointed me, and there will be consequences.
People have told me that I'm courageous, but I have seen greater courage. Gabe Zimmerman, my friend and staff member in whose honor we dedicated a room in the United States Capitol this week, saw me shot in the head and saw the shooter turn his gunfire on others. Gabe ran toward me as I lay bleeding. Toward gunfire. And then the gunman shot him, and then Gabe died. His body lay on the pavement in front of the Safeway for hours.
I have thought a lot about why Gabe ran toward me when he could have run away. Service was part of his life, but it was also his job. The senators who voted against background checks for online and gun-show sales, and those who voted against checks to screen out would-be gun buyers with mental illness, failed to do their job.
They looked at these most benign and practical of solutions, offered by moderates from each party, and then they looked over their shoulder at the powerful, shadowy gun lobby -- and brought shame on themselves and our government itself by choosing to do nothing.
They will try to hide their decision behind grand talk, behind willfully false accounts of what the bill might have done -- trust me, I know how politicians talk when they want to distract you -- but their decision was based on a misplaced sense of self-interest. I say misplaced, because to preserve their dignity and their legacy, they should have heeded the voices of their constituents. They should have honored the legacy of the thousands of victims of gun violence and their families, who have begged for action, not because it would bring their loved ones back, but so that others might be spared their agony.
This defeat is only the latest chapter of what I've always known would be a long, hard haul. Our democracy's history is littered with names we neither remember nor celebrate -- people who stood in the way of progress while protecting the powerful. On Wednesday, a number of senators voted to join that list.
Mark my words: if we cannot make our communities safer with the Congress we have now, we will use every means available to make sure we have a different Congress, one that puts communities' interests ahead of the gun lobby's. To do nothing while others are in danger is not the American way.
He is right to be and most of us in the rest of the world don't get either.
A Senate in the Gun Lobby's Grip
By Gabrielle Giffords
SENATORS say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets. The fear that those children who survived the massacre must feel every time they remember their teachers stacking them into closets and bathrooms, whispering that they loved them, so that love would be the last thing the students heard if the gunman found them.
On Wednesday, a minority of senators gave into fear and blocked common-sense legislation that would have made it harder for criminals and people with dangerous mental illnesses to get hold of deadly firearms -- a bill that could prevent future tragedies like those in Newtown, Conn., Aurora, Colo., Blacksburg, Va., and too many communities to count.
Some of the senators who voted against the background-check amendments have met with grieving parents whose children were murdered at Sandy Hook, in Newtown. Some of the senators who voted no have also looked into my eyes as I talked about my experience being shot in the head at point-blank range in suburban Tucson two years ago, and expressed sympathy for the 18 other people shot besides me, 6 of whom died. These senators have heard from their constituents -- who polls show overwhelmingly favored expanding background checks. And still these senators decided to do nothing. Shame on them.
I watch TV and read the papers like everyone else. We know what we're going to hear: vague platitudes like "tough vote" and "complicated issue." I was elected six times to represent southern Arizona, in the State Legislature and then in Congress. I know what a complicated issue is; I know what it feels like to take a tough vote. This was neither. These senators made their decision based on political fear and on cold calculations about the money of special interests like the National Rifle Association, which in the last election cycle spent around $25 million on contributions, lobbying and outside spending. Speaking is physically difficult for me. But my feelings are clear: I'm furious. I will not rest until we have righted the wrong these senators have done, and until we have changed our laws so we can look parents in the face and say: We are trying to keep your children safe. We cannot allow the status quo -- desperately protected by the gun lobby so that they can make more money by spreading fear and misinformation -- to go on.
I am asking every reasonable American to help me tell the truth about the cowardice these senators demonstrated. I am asking for mothers to stop these lawmakers at the grocery store and tell them: You've lost my vote. I am asking activists to unsubscribe from these senators' e-mail lists and to stop giving them money. I'm asking citizens to go to their offices and say: You've disappointed me, and there will be consequences.
People have told me that I'm courageous, but I have seen greater courage. Gabe Zimmerman, my friend and staff member in whose honor we dedicated a room in the United States Capitol this week, saw me shot in the head and saw the shooter turn his gunfire on others. Gabe ran toward me as I lay bleeding. Toward gunfire. And then the gunman shot him, and then Gabe died. His body lay on the pavement in front of the Safeway for hours.
I have thought a lot about why Gabe ran toward me when he could have run away. Service was part of his life, but it was also his job. The senators who voted against background checks for online and gun-show sales, and those who voted against checks to screen out would-be gun buyers with mental illness, failed to do their job.
They looked at these most benign and practical of solutions, offered by moderates from each party, and then they looked over their shoulder at the powerful, shadowy gun lobby -- and brought shame on themselves and our government itself by choosing to do nothing.
They will try to hide their decision behind grand talk, behind willfully false accounts of what the bill might have done -- trust me, I know how politicians talk when they want to distract you -- but their decision was based on a misplaced sense of self-interest. I say misplaced, because to preserve their dignity and their legacy, they should have heeded the voices of their constituents. They should have honored the legacy of the thousands of victims of gun violence and their families, who have begged for action, not because it would bring their loved ones back, but so that others might be spared their agony.
This defeat is only the latest chapter of what I've always known would be a long, hard haul. Our democracy's history is littered with names we neither remember nor celebrate -- people who stood in the way of progress while protecting the powerful. On Wednesday, a number of senators voted to join that list.
Mark my words: if we cannot make our communities safer with the Congress we have now, we will use every means available to make sure we have a different Congress, one that puts communities' interests ahead of the gun lobby's. To do nothing while others are in danger is not the American way.
Pink batts, wink, wink
We all know about the pink batt scandal don't we? A government putting up a ridiculous program at massive cost to put silly PINK (OMG) batts in people's roofs. What a blatant waste of cash at the tax payer's expense and further evidence (if it were Needed) to show up the incompetence of the Labor Government. This is at least the conventional wisdom repeated over and over by the baying hounds of the right and unquestioned by a supine and grovelling Press.
The real story is very very different. As part of the stimulus package that helped Australia keep jobs, drive the economy and make an environmental difference, the government gave subsidies to households to insulate them and thus make warmer (in winter) and cooler (in summer) environments thus allowing them to use less energy for the same result. I have yet to see any figures that show the outcomes. The idea was sound and a great deal of insulation went in
Some unscrupulous installers took advantage of the ready funds and used untrained personnel to do (in a very minute number of cases) a shoddy job that resulted in some fires and even the death of installers.
These practises were and are unacceptable and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
HOWEVER equating bad behaviour with a bad scheme is like saying that a government that builds roads should be held to account for bad driving on those roads and be responsible for the deaths and accidents that happen there.
Every murderer in state prisons went to school and so the schools should be closed down immediately.
The easy sound bite has replaced civilised debate and discourse. It is easier and more memorable to insult, deride and slander than to really engage in debate with knowledge and research.
I witnessed a doctor interviewing a patient today and while she was thorough and patient she didn't have access to all the patient records she needed to do her ob properly. She rang the GP who had referred the patient but that part of the practice was closed already. With the NBN and a national medical register all would have been accessible in a moment instead of the now multiple visits, letters and phone calls and the delay in treatment.
Mr Abbott assures us that with HIS plan for broadband we will (most of us living in big cities) be able to watch four different HD TV programs at the same time in a family home. Malcolm Turnbull., singing from the same song sheet, was smart enough to know that there is more to broadband than watching TV.
Wait and see what the impact is on what used to be called programming.
Yes, it's a long time to September; long enough for the Pretender to be exposed countless times and for Australians to learn who is looking after the store.
The real story is very very different. As part of the stimulus package that helped Australia keep jobs, drive the economy and make an environmental difference, the government gave subsidies to households to insulate them and thus make warmer (in winter) and cooler (in summer) environments thus allowing them to use less energy for the same result. I have yet to see any figures that show the outcomes. The idea was sound and a great deal of insulation went in
Some unscrupulous installers took advantage of the ready funds and used untrained personnel to do (in a very minute number of cases) a shoddy job that resulted in some fires and even the death of installers.
These practises were and are unacceptable and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
HOWEVER equating bad behaviour with a bad scheme is like saying that a government that builds roads should be held to account for bad driving on those roads and be responsible for the deaths and accidents that happen there.
Every murderer in state prisons went to school and so the schools should be closed down immediately.
The easy sound bite has replaced civilised debate and discourse. It is easier and more memorable to insult, deride and slander than to really engage in debate with knowledge and research.
I witnessed a doctor interviewing a patient today and while she was thorough and patient she didn't have access to all the patient records she needed to do her ob properly. She rang the GP who had referred the patient but that part of the practice was closed already. With the NBN and a national medical register all would have been accessible in a moment instead of the now multiple visits, letters and phone calls and the delay in treatment.
Mr Abbott assures us that with HIS plan for broadband we will (most of us living in big cities) be able to watch four different HD TV programs at the same time in a family home. Malcolm Turnbull., singing from the same song sheet, was smart enough to know that there is more to broadband than watching TV.
Wait and see what the impact is on what used to be called programming.
Yes, it's a long time to September; long enough for the Pretender to be exposed countless times and for Australians to learn who is looking after the store.
The politics of local councils and their zero carbon footprints games
Here is a letter (or eletter sent by the local(St Kilda), involved and concerned Helen and Jack Halliday to the Women's Environmental Network on the success of two Councils in meeting their (modest) energy efficiency targets contrasted with our very own non-transparent, down right opaque City of Port Philip, which continues in it's own tradition of treating it's rate payers and inhabitants as mushrooms.
Read on
Dear WEN Colleagues,
I'm attaching an announcement from Moreland Council that they've become the third Australian Council to become carbon neutral.
This certification applies to the Council's own emissions, ie, from street lighting, Council buildings and infrastructure, Council fleet, waste etc, (called corporate emissions) .
At the same time the City of Yarra has similarly been certified as carbon neutral.
These two councils are two of only three in Australia which have achieved this milestone.
There are a number of important lessons in this for Port Phillip.
Moreland Council has achieved its target of zero Council (corporate) emissions by 2012 .To achieve this goal it created the Moreland Energy Foundation with initial funding in 2000. Since then both Council and Foundation have worked purposefully towards a program of achieving corporate carbon neutrality. A stepped program of annual reductions was developed some 7 or 8 years ago, accompanied by rigorous annual evaluation of measures taken. The Foundation has also worked with surrounding Councils to cooperatively develop programs for carbon reduction.
The City of Yarra has achieved its target of zero Council (corporate) emissions by 2012. To assist in achieving its goal it created its own Energy Foundation 2 years ago, with initial annual funding of $350,000. Its model is slightly different, with Council staff working on reducing Council's own emissions while the Foundation is focusssed primarily on communityemissions, (ie, residential, commercial and industrial) with a target of achieving carbon neutrality by 2020, excluding the transport sector. A new program for community engagement has just been initiated by the Foundation.
The CoPP has set a 2020 target date for Council emissions to become carbon neutral. It is difficult to obtain information on Council's progress in reducing emissions for a number of reasons.
Towards Zero: http://www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/default/ATT_1_-_TZ_Progress_Report_Yr4_Final_130312.pdf
Council Inventory and Methodology, Draft Greenhouse Plan, Appendix B:http://www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/default/GAP_Appendices_B_v1.pdf
Council Plan 2009-2013 (Year 3), April to June 2012 Quarterly Report:http://www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/Report_3_-_Attachment_1.pdf
Read on
Dear WEN Colleagues,
I'm attaching an announcement from Moreland Council that they've become the third Australian Council to become carbon neutral.
This certification applies to the Council's own emissions, ie, from street lighting, Council buildings and infrastructure, Council fleet, waste etc, (called corporate emissions) .
At the same time the City of Yarra has similarly been certified as carbon neutral.
These two councils are two of only three in Australia which have achieved this milestone.
There are a number of important lessons in this for Port Phillip.
Moreland Council has achieved its target of zero Council (corporate) emissions by 2012 .To achieve this goal it created the Moreland Energy Foundation with initial funding in 2000. Since then both Council and Foundation have worked purposefully towards a program of achieving corporate carbon neutrality. A stepped program of annual reductions was developed some 7 or 8 years ago, accompanied by rigorous annual evaluation of measures taken. The Foundation has also worked with surrounding Councils to cooperatively develop programs for carbon reduction.
The City of Yarra has achieved its target of zero Council (corporate) emissions by 2012. To assist in achieving its goal it created its own Energy Foundation 2 years ago, with initial annual funding of $350,000. Its model is slightly different, with Council staff working on reducing Council's own emissions while the Foundation is focusssed primarily on communityemissions, (ie, residential, commercial and industrial) with a target of achieving carbon neutrality by 2020, excluding the transport sector. A new program for community engagement has just been initiated by the Foundation.
The CoPP has set a 2020 target date for Council emissions to become carbon neutral. It is difficult to obtain information on Council's progress in reducing emissions for a number of reasons.
- The publicly available information provided by the CoPP is too brief to be useful for comparative purposes, lacks baseline figures and can be contradictory due to assumptions being made but not expressed.. For instance, the Toward Zero report for Year 4 (2010/2011), presented in February this year, showed emissions at 10,360 tonnes (p4). The Quarterly Report on the Council Plan (April - June 2012), presented at the Council meeting of October 23rd this year, records emissions at 12,397 tonnes (p8) - an apparent increase of 2,000 tonnes.
- The CoPP does not provide accessible information on the amount of Green Power purchased, so it's hard to know whether published figures refer to gross or net emission levels ( ie after Green Power purchases). The most accurate figure for gross emissions suggests they've been at a constant level of about 15,000 tonnes annually until 2010/11, which was the first year in which the Council realised a reduction in emissions without Green Power or other offsets of about 6% (see the Toward Zero report, p8). This figure is consistent with Towards Zero reports since the programs inception.
- The most effective single action which can be taken by Councils is to expedite the street lighting conversion program to low energy lighting (street lighting accounts for 47% of CoPP's corporate emissions). Whilst this process can be complex and expensive, all Councils with effective programs give priority to this area, with successful Councils such as Yarra having upgraded over 95% of lighting in the municipality. The CoPP does not have readily available information on its public lighting strategy and the limited information available indicates that it is proposing to achieve a 30%" improvement" in public lighting of 30% over 2010 levels by 2020.(p9, Appendix B, Council Inventory and Methodology, Draft Greenhouse Plan).
- Effective action requires the dedicated action of an independent Energy Foundation. There are many advantages in having an organization at one step removed from Council, in terms of critical input to Council's operations, the capacity to better engage with the community, and access to more diverse funding sources.The development of a Port Phillip Energy Foundation was advocated by members of the SECRC.
- The CoPPs 2020 timetable needs to be revised and to include year by year benchmarks. Toward Zero was adopted in 2007 with a 13 year target for zero net emissions. The Greenouse Action Plan under this program is replete with references to 'Action Plans' and "Action Frameworks', but no annual targets have been set, and as can be seen from the reports quoted above, there is little or no transparency about where Council is going in this area from year to year.
- Immediate action should be taken to join a greenhouse alliance (most Melbourne Councils are in active partnership with neighbouring Councils)..The CoPP has recently been invited to join the Northern Alliance for Greenhouse Action. The municipalities of Melbourne, Moreland and Yarra are part of the Alliance and there would be advantages in Port Phillip becoming a member, in terms of access to more technical expertise, program design, and hopefully some stimulus to accelerate the pace of program implementation in Port Phillip.
Towards Zero: http://www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/default/ATT_1_-_TZ_Progress_Report_Yr4_Final_130312.pdf
Council Inventory and Methodology, Draft Greenhouse Plan, Appendix B:http://www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/default/GAP_Appendices_B_v1.pdf
Council Plan 2009-2013 (Year 3), April to June 2012 Quarterly Report:http://www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/Report_3_-_Attachment_1.pdf
Energy and it's variables
And friends close
At dinner the other night our good buudy Lynne Edwards sais "I am going to send you a link to something worth watching". Here it is and it is amazing.
Friends afar
Sometimes it takes a friend a long way away to point out something close to our home. Janet Clarke Bell in Calgary pointed me to this article appearing in this week's New Yorker about the Hancock clan and the history of the world's richest woman and the local gal Gina (now Rhinehart) As always with Janet it is a good tip. Read it here. It was also sent by Larry Nordell in Montana
Cliche
A cliché describes a self-evident truth that becomes overused and then loses its descriptive power and thus needs to be reformed in language.
There is still the odd favourite.
"You get the face you deserve", is one; look at Christine Nixon, Simon Overland and Peter Ryan. Ask yourself who has been telling the truth all along, who is a twisted, sandbagging liar and who you would like to share your dinner table with.There has been so much written and speculated about this but just look at the faces with no other input.
Obvious isn't it?
On the international stage there is Dick Nixon, Joseph Stalin and Ghandi. Keeps working.
Back here we have Pyne/Abbot.
Deserve?
There is still the odd favourite.
"You get the face you deserve", is one; look at Christine Nixon, Simon Overland and Peter Ryan. Ask yourself who has been telling the truth all along, who is a twisted, sandbagging liar and who you would like to share your dinner table with.There has been so much written and speculated about this but just look at the faces with no other input.
Obvious isn't it?
On the international stage there is Dick Nixon, Joseph Stalin and Ghandi. Keeps working.
Back here we have Pyne/Abbot.
Deserve?
Reality check
At dinner last night with, amongst others, two eminent medical scientists and practitioners. We are not able to deal with the biggest issue of this or any day, says one, referring to global warming. It is not in human nature to respond properly or in time, he went on. Sadly no-one at the table disagreed with that proposition but we all read and respect the science.
A general discussion ensued about religion being a problem and a major contributor to the culture of denial and optimism in the face of reality with Joe opining that monotheism is to blame for entrenching the idea of the only god with his chosen people to the exclusion of all other people and definitely any other group who felt that they had a special relationship to their god.
History is littered with the bodies of the people who fell in the pursuit of such notions.
We are looking dangerously like we are about to elect a government led by a man captured by a religious hierarchy that is about to be put through a royal commission for its past and present crimes.
Watch this space.
A general discussion ensued about religion being a problem and a major contributor to the culture of denial and optimism in the face of reality with Joe opining that monotheism is to blame for entrenching the idea of the only god with his chosen people to the exclusion of all other people and definitely any other group who felt that they had a special relationship to their god.
History is littered with the bodies of the people who fell in the pursuit of such notions.
We are looking dangerously like we are about to elect a government led by a man captured by a religious hierarchy that is about to be put through a royal commission for its past and present crimes.
Watch this space.
60's
The cliche says "if you remember the 60's you probably weren't there". Now that the 60's generation are in their 60's it takes on a new meaning. In my case I have a better long term memory than ever before and my short term memory which was absent for a year has been rebuilding itself so in some ways I've been able to see the workings of memory up close and personal.
A few times recently I've come across people I knew over 40 years ago and got a quizzical look when I greeted them by name. Funerals seem a likely place to reconnect to long lost friends and acquaintances.
That is something else that increases with age. It is not so bad when going to a funeral of someone who has had a full and rich life. But ....
Over the last half dozen years I have reconnected with friends from decades ago, some as long as 50 years and school days. In most cases this has been a pleasant encounter and catching up on the intervening years has in some cases been very surprising.
As in some of the posts below memory is fungible. We remember what we need to from a very subjective point of view so that by any empirical measure our 'memories' are fiction with the clothing of fact - or faction.
Which bring me to fiction - what is it? In the political sphere it is the daily 'debate' which fills our airwaves and newspapers and pretends to be a reflection of what is happening in the real world.
On the other hand the fact that we quote Shakespeare, Dickens, Checkov, Tolstoy, Dostoevesky, Roth, Jacobson and other 'fiction' writers to illustrate some truth of our lives indicates something of the truth embedded in fiction.Meanwhile the stories we tell ourselves about our own experiences and circles have a fictional element that is informed by our own needs and desires.
A few times recently I've come across people I knew over 40 years ago and got a quizzical look when I greeted them by name. Funerals seem a likely place to reconnect to long lost friends and acquaintances.
That is something else that increases with age. It is not so bad when going to a funeral of someone who has had a full and rich life. But ....
Over the last half dozen years I have reconnected with friends from decades ago, some as long as 50 years and school days. In most cases this has been a pleasant encounter and catching up on the intervening years has in some cases been very surprising.
As in some of the posts below memory is fungible. We remember what we need to from a very subjective point of view so that by any empirical measure our 'memories' are fiction with the clothing of fact - or faction.
Which bring me to fiction - what is it? In the political sphere it is the daily 'debate' which fills our airwaves and newspapers and pretends to be a reflection of what is happening in the real world.
On the other hand the fact that we quote Shakespeare, Dickens, Checkov, Tolstoy, Dostoevesky, Roth, Jacobson and other 'fiction' writers to illustrate some truth of our lives indicates something of the truth embedded in fiction.Meanwhile the stories we tell ourselves about our own experiences and circles have a fictional element that is informed by our own needs and desires.
Synchronicity
After writing that last post I read Oliver Sachs Hallucinations and then a piece by him in the New York Review of Books on memory and how that might work. Sachs recounts an experiment in which a psychologist implants a "memory" and then tells the subject it is false only to be confronted with a denial of the falsehood and a strong affirmation that the 'memory' is real.
In the light
The previous post leads me to further musings from who is Lance really? to who are you really and then to who am I, really? For many of us we are who we think we see reflected in the faces of others. Not many of us have a self image made entirely alone. But how accurate is the image we see or how accurately do we read what we see or think what we are seeing. Take this to as many iterations that you can keep track of and the task doesn't get any easier.
I have had a different sense of myself at different stages of my life (as you would expect) but the latest iteration can also marvel at the naivety of the previous in not being able to see what was now obvious. Some might put this down to the aging process, after all the consciousness of a three month old child is going to be different to that child as a sixteen, thirty six and sixty six year old. Growth is not a linear progression but rather takes the shapes of spurts and plateaus and sometimes mimics sleep. Hind sight can inform or reinvent or just explain in your own terms and through your own filter set.
The famous experiment with six policemen ("expert observers"?) seeing the same sequence of events and then asked to recall what they saw moments later produced six different descriptions none of which accurately described what happened. Good luck in court.
Reality then is, as Einstein said, is relative. It's knowing relative to what and when that the trick lies.
The older I get the more I realise how little I know. There are probably good Darwinian reasons for this, some of them fairly obvious. It is not a great starting point to doing anything to be consumed with doubt.
I have had a different sense of myself at different stages of my life (as you would expect) but the latest iteration can also marvel at the naivety of the previous in not being able to see what was now obvious. Some might put this down to the aging process, after all the consciousness of a three month old child is going to be different to that child as a sixteen, thirty six and sixty six year old. Growth is not a linear progression but rather takes the shapes of spurts and plateaus and sometimes mimics sleep. Hind sight can inform or reinvent or just explain in your own terms and through your own filter set.
The famous experiment with six policemen ("expert observers"?) seeing the same sequence of events and then asked to recall what they saw moments later produced six different descriptions none of which accurately described what happened. Good luck in court.
Reality then is, as Einstein said, is relative. It's knowing relative to what and when that the trick lies.
The older I get the more I realise how little I know. There are probably good Darwinian reasons for this, some of them fairly obvious. It is not a great starting point to doing anything to be consumed with doubt.
Lanced!
In 1997 I had cancer and after radiation was weak and had lost over 20 kilos in three months. A good friend introduced me the gym trainer at Olympia Gymnasium, Paul Johnson, where I still train. Then I began regular cycling with the St Kilda bunch three times or even four times a week. Hearing some of the Lance Armstrong story I bought and read his book "It's Not About the Bike" in which he details his illness, the awful treatments and the long recovery process.
A year or so later I joined a tour group, on bikes led by Phil Anderson (an Australian cyclist), following the Tour de France every day. We would ride the course early in the morning and then take up vantage points to watch the race finish.
We were in Paris to see Lance take the podium and the Yellow Jersey.
The idea that he took drugs to help him win seemed ridiculous. As he said in his books after the poison of chemotherapy he was never going to put anything harmful into himself.
Oh how the mighty have fallen. One way of looking at it is to say - if everybody was taking drugs then in that level playing field Lance was the best. Hmmm.
Cadel on the other hand could have won three Tours by now if the field was level.
A year or so later I joined a tour group, on bikes led by Phil Anderson (an Australian cyclist), following the Tour de France every day. We would ride the course early in the morning and then take up vantage points to watch the race finish.
We were in Paris to see Lance take the podium and the Yellow Jersey.
The idea that he took drugs to help him win seemed ridiculous. As he said in his books after the poison of chemotherapy he was never going to put anything harmful into himself.
Oh how the mighty have fallen. One way of looking at it is to say - if everybody was taking drugs then in that level playing field Lance was the best. Hmmm.
Cadel on the other hand could have won three Tours by now if the field was level.
Chandra Simon's site
Thank Phyllis and David Ritvo for this link to Chandra's site She is a film maker and a passionate advocate for the environment and a great example of what is coming from that generation.
Give yourself a new year present
For a little while I've been meaning to write about James Button's book Speechless which I devoured in two bites.
First some housekeeping . I read it on my Ipad after downloading the epub file from the Melbourne University Press site. (you can do it too.
And the book? I will try and stay away from clichéd superlatives but forgive the lapses.
This is a book in three parts. A memoir about John Button the man, his life and work.
A year writing speeches for Kevin Rudd and
part of that year discovering the public service and what it is and what it isn't.
Finally it is a meditation on a son's love of his elusive and impossible to grasp dad.
The biographical material on John Button the man is clear eyed and unsentimental but clearly loving and engaged. The John Button I knew slightly comes to life in these pages in all his complexity and even his smiling eyes and direct approach are clear and alive. As a father myself, as is James now, I would be blessed to have such writing about my life. Not that I am comparing my life to John's.
Occasionally I would run into John at the MCG where he went to see his beloved Geelong. I would be there to support the Magpies and he would twinkle a greeting as he went to his seat. I feel after reading the book I have a better picture of the man, his struggles and his private demons and angels.
As to the James with Kevin, this is not a kiss and tell book but the picture of working for a driven and boundary-less man is compelling.
After this stint James is inducted into a unit under Terry Moran, head of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the person responsible for recruiting James in the first place to Canberra. Here comes the insider view of working for the public service and the dispelling of all the cliched views of this fine body of dedicated public servants who work hard to give good advice while staying in the background of public debate the whole time being excoriated for wasting money, being a waste of money and time. Campbell Newman is cutting through them, Ted Is getting rid of them and Abbott promises to. We will be all the poorer. Can you imagine Joe Hockey making economic policy by himself? A truly frighting thought.
By books end James comes back to his dad and to Melbourne where his family are to be a more present dad. John spent years away in Canberra and in the rough and tumble of the political life, while achieving a great deal for his fellow Australians, James spent a year away and came back to write a book that we all should read.
First some housekeeping . I read it on my Ipad after downloading the epub file from the Melbourne University Press site. (you can do it too.
And the book? I will try and stay away from clichéd superlatives but forgive the lapses.
This is a book in three parts. A memoir about John Button the man, his life and work.
A year writing speeches for Kevin Rudd and
part of that year discovering the public service and what it is and what it isn't.
Finally it is a meditation on a son's love of his elusive and impossible to grasp dad.
The biographical material on John Button the man is clear eyed and unsentimental but clearly loving and engaged. The John Button I knew slightly comes to life in these pages in all his complexity and even his smiling eyes and direct approach are clear and alive. As a father myself, as is James now, I would be blessed to have such writing about my life. Not that I am comparing my life to John's.
Occasionally I would run into John at the MCG where he went to see his beloved Geelong. I would be there to support the Magpies and he would twinkle a greeting as he went to his seat. I feel after reading the book I have a better picture of the man, his struggles and his private demons and angels.
As to the James with Kevin, this is not a kiss and tell book but the picture of working for a driven and boundary-less man is compelling.
After this stint James is inducted into a unit under Terry Moran, head of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the person responsible for recruiting James in the first place to Canberra. Here comes the insider view of working for the public service and the dispelling of all the cliched views of this fine body of dedicated public servants who work hard to give good advice while staying in the background of public debate the whole time being excoriated for wasting money, being a waste of money and time. Campbell Newman is cutting through them, Ted Is getting rid of them and Abbott promises to. We will be all the poorer. Can you imagine Joe Hockey making economic policy by himself? A truly frighting thought.
By books end James comes back to his dad and to Melbourne where his family are to be a more present dad. John spent years away in Canberra and in the rough and tumble of the political life, while achieving a great deal for his fellow Australians, James spent a year away and came back to write a book that we all should read.
Judge excoriates Ashby and Brough
The official story from the courts is that Mal Brough together with others in the LNP conspired with Ashby to bring down the Speaker Peter Slipper and used the courts and the media to further their aims. In an attempt to salvage her own very tarnished reputation on this affair and to protect her poster boy Tony, the increasingly desperate Michelle Grattan reports this news in today's Age as a partial victory for Slipper although in the terms of the case nothing could be further from the truth.
Fantasy script from the opposition immigration shadow minister
Scott Morrison has been for some time unhappy with his leader outstripping him as the most vile public figure so he has upped the ante with his remarks about Iranian refugees on Nauru forcing others to self harm as a form of protest.
You can imagine the scenario here *as it was made up by Morrison feel free to imagine what you will:
"Hey you!!"
"Me?"
"Yeah, you. Start hurting yourself and do it for real or we will hurt you"
See? Makes sense doesn't it? Morrison, who is fluent in Farsi overheard this conversation and was able to reproduce it to a waiting Australian Press. Mr Murdoch would be proud.
In the same way that Mr. Abbot has been found out by the electorate as a serial liar Morrison is due to be on the scrap heap of history.
In the meantime we have to look at his confected outrage on our news reports on a deadeningly regular basis.
The price of democracy I suppose but when does this mob start giving value for money?
You can imagine the scenario here *as it was made up by Morrison feel free to imagine what you will:
"Hey you!!"
"Me?"
"Yeah, you. Start hurting yourself and do it for real or we will hurt you"
See? Makes sense doesn't it? Morrison, who is fluent in Farsi overheard this conversation and was able to reproduce it to a waiting Australian Press. Mr Murdoch would be proud.
In the same way that Mr. Abbot has been found out by the electorate as a serial liar Morrison is due to be on the scrap heap of history.
In the meantime we have to look at his confected outrage on our news reports on a deadeningly regular basis.
The price of democracy I suppose but when does this mob start giving value for money?
In Shanghai
Writing from Shanghai this week and how different this city is since I first came here almost twenty years ago. Unrecognisable really with the high rise buildings replacing the mostly single story ones and the elevated roadways jammed with cars that took over from the rivers of bicycles that were everywhere.
Shopping is a mainstream event for locals and visitors alike with the increasing globalisation of the look, feel and names of the shops. While we have got used to the idea that much of what we buy is made in China many of the global producers now have a presence here and have been building that for years.
VW for instance started with a smallish business making taxis and now there are a lot of different VW models on the road.
Today we went to a French supermarket, then lunched in a traditional Chinese cafe but everything was on offer depending where you looked.
What is evident from the outside looking in is the rapid increase in sophistication, understanding of the global pressures and a better handle on the recent (last fifty years) past.
Even more than this on a policy level while the carbon deniers smugly say that they want to see China sign up to Kyoto before they agree the Chinese are putting the rubber on the road and are building gigantic capacity of solar and wind without missing a beat.
In some ways it is an advantage of a command economy while the so-called democracies are tied up in the false debate about the evident, demonstrable and obvious facts of what is a global crisis. Short-termism, political opportunism and the idea of a dollar today versus energy and global security for tomorrow should be a no brainer but we are faced with no-brains in top jobs.
Shopping is a mainstream event for locals and visitors alike with the increasing globalisation of the look, feel and names of the shops. While we have got used to the idea that much of what we buy is made in China many of the global producers now have a presence here and have been building that for years.
VW for instance started with a smallish business making taxis and now there are a lot of different VW models on the road.
Today we went to a French supermarket, then lunched in a traditional Chinese cafe but everything was on offer depending where you looked.
What is evident from the outside looking in is the rapid increase in sophistication, understanding of the global pressures and a better handle on the recent (last fifty years) past.
Even more than this on a policy level while the carbon deniers smugly say that they want to see China sign up to Kyoto before they agree the Chinese are putting the rubber on the road and are building gigantic capacity of solar and wind without missing a beat.
In some ways it is an advantage of a command economy while the so-called democracies are tied up in the false debate about the evident, demonstrable and obvious facts of what is a global crisis. Short-termism, political opportunism and the idea of a dollar today versus energy and global security for tomorrow should be a no brainer but we are faced with no-brains in top jobs.
Race to the bottom
With the relentless propaganda coming from the Coalition on refugees ("they are not refugees but asylum seekers") the Government has lost its nerve and been sucked into a grubby race to the bottom. One of the really good things Rudd did was to more fairly to address this question. We have taken a very small percentage of the refugees fleeing persecution and death from some of the nastiest regimes in the world where we have sent our young men and women to "teach them democracy" at the same time as denying our own responsibilities here and demonstrating to ourselves how two-faced and short sighted we can be. The Greens are the only ones who speak out on this issue. Thankfully we do have them.
Rockets
The arguments are interminable, the press self righteous and extraordinarily one sided.
If you frame the argument differently the responses is different and immediate.
If an aggrieved party exploded a rocket with a war head in the Melbourne CBD (replace with your own locale) what would an appropriate response be? A diplomatic shrug? A look of annoyance or a military response?
We all know what it would be - remember 9-11, the IRA and many, many more?
Not apparently in the case of Israel and the Gaza terror. Not one rocket but several a day for years. During this time the hardware is getting more sophisticated due to deliveries from Iran.
So what is the appropriate response? Do we count the number of rockets fired or is it a game of counting dead bodies? How many rocket attacks on your child's school would make you demand that your government act now?
It is only a matter of time before the Gaza militants have a nuclear device and the capability to deliver it to Jerusalem and/or Tel Aviv. That is a scenario I don't want to hear about or spend too much time in contemplation of.
No wonder the rumours of a pre-emptive strike of Iran by the USA/Israel are so rife.
Something must be done.
It's not easy to sit at the table with people who believe in martyrdom and cosmic rewards for acts of insanity.
If you frame the argument differently the responses is different and immediate.
If an aggrieved party exploded a rocket with a war head in the Melbourne CBD (replace with your own locale) what would an appropriate response be? A diplomatic shrug? A look of annoyance or a military response?
We all know what it would be - remember 9-11, the IRA and many, many more?
Not apparently in the case of Israel and the Gaza terror. Not one rocket but several a day for years. During this time the hardware is getting more sophisticated due to deliveries from Iran.
So what is the appropriate response? Do we count the number of rockets fired or is it a game of counting dead bodies? How many rocket attacks on your child's school would make you demand that your government act now?
It is only a matter of time before the Gaza militants have a nuclear device and the capability to deliver it to Jerusalem and/or Tel Aviv. That is a scenario I don't want to hear about or spend too much time in contemplation of.
No wonder the rumours of a pre-emptive strike of Iran by the USA/Israel are so rife.
Something must be done.
It's not easy to sit at the table with people who believe in martyrdom and cosmic rewards for acts of insanity.
9/11
So it is now 11 years since the world changed - so how are we doing?
After the disastrous Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld regime we have had 4 years of relative calm with Barak Obama mending some of the damage but also struggling with the massive financial fallout of the various adventures that the Bushites took the world on. Even against this background and the wrecking ball that calls itself The Tea Party President Obama has managed to steer a course that has seen a mild recovery in jobs, manufacturing and the domestic economy.
As he said in his acceptance speech, there is still a long way to go.
China is so tied to the US economy that it has to do something to help to stimulate it. Which is happening.
Now there needs to be a shift in the way that politics is done where real world problems look for real world solutions and the wreckers are put out of our misery.
Ms Julia is on a similar trajectory here and will get back in the next election. Talent tells against constant negativity. While much mileage was made predicting that the sky was going to fall in on July 1 this year we are heading for the New Year with the sky intact and global warming an issue that most people now believe needs urgent action.
You can lie to the people all the time, some will believe you all the time, some will believe you some of the time and some of us always thought you were lying. Go the way of Romney and disappear.
After the disastrous Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld regime we have had 4 years of relative calm with Barak Obama mending some of the damage but also struggling with the massive financial fallout of the various adventures that the Bushites took the world on. Even against this background and the wrecking ball that calls itself The Tea Party President Obama has managed to steer a course that has seen a mild recovery in jobs, manufacturing and the domestic economy.
As he said in his acceptance speech, there is still a long way to go.
China is so tied to the US economy that it has to do something to help to stimulate it. Which is happening.
Now there needs to be a shift in the way that politics is done where real world problems look for real world solutions and the wreckers are put out of our misery.
Ms Julia is on a similar trajectory here and will get back in the next election. Talent tells against constant negativity. While much mileage was made predicting that the sky was going to fall in on July 1 this year we are heading for the New Year with the sky intact and global warming an issue that most people now believe needs urgent action.
You can lie to the people all the time, some will believe you all the time, some will believe you some of the time and some of us always thought you were lying. Go the way of Romney and disappear.
Obama four more years
With the dust settling on this historic victory for Barak Obama the biggest single takeout lesson for me is that you can't buy an election and that even with the huge funds available to Romney and the right wing ideologues of the Republican party the American people were just not up for being bought.
This is not to say that a lot of people didn't work very hard to deliver this result for America but that they were not driven by the desire to make their 1% richer and more powerful than they already are and at the expense of the rest.
We have globally seen the diminution of the idea that government can do something good - be by the people and for the people. Civil society works on the basis of shared rights and responsibilities. We agree that everybody drives on the same side of the road and according to rules that allow for traffic that is predictable and safe. We also agree with the power of the state to regulate thi activity and apprehend those who don't stick to the rules.
Governments that stay out of defence, security, education and public infrastructure are not being governmental. Yes we need checks and balances to make sure we don't live in a state where land rezoning comes with a brown paper bag of cash handed over to a gatekeeper secretly in return for a favour at law but in a transparent, open fair system these transgressions can be sorted out. The drive to get government out of civil life is a contradiction in terms and should be tackled head on.
If there is too much red tape in a particular area of activity lets look at the whole process and decide.
There was a time when conservative was a label for a party or person who didn't believe in rapid change where things were working ok but gradual evolutionary change that wouldn't cause a great deal of disruption to society. That agenda was hijacked a long time ago, or not so long in our lifetime terms, to mean radical, root and branch turning everything upside down that could be equated with the status quo and that did not benefit the robber barons and the wannabees.
It is enough. The people of the US have spoken. Health care is good for everyone and the idea that a family can be bankrupted for the need to pay for one of them to have the health care and procedures we all expect and get in the rest of the world is frankly shocking..
You've come a long, long way America and please keep going.
Over in Australia as I have gone about my daily tasks the most unlikely range of people grin and talk about how happy they are that Obama is President and Romnesia is ....what?
This is not to say that a lot of people didn't work very hard to deliver this result for America but that they were not driven by the desire to make their 1% richer and more powerful than they already are and at the expense of the rest.
We have globally seen the diminution of the idea that government can do something good - be by the people and for the people. Civil society works on the basis of shared rights and responsibilities. We agree that everybody drives on the same side of the road and according to rules that allow for traffic that is predictable and safe. We also agree with the power of the state to regulate thi activity and apprehend those who don't stick to the rules.
Governments that stay out of defence, security, education and public infrastructure are not being governmental. Yes we need checks and balances to make sure we don't live in a state where land rezoning comes with a brown paper bag of cash handed over to a gatekeeper secretly in return for a favour at law but in a transparent, open fair system these transgressions can be sorted out. The drive to get government out of civil life is a contradiction in terms and should be tackled head on.
If there is too much red tape in a particular area of activity lets look at the whole process and decide.
There was a time when conservative was a label for a party or person who didn't believe in rapid change where things were working ok but gradual evolutionary change that wouldn't cause a great deal of disruption to society. That agenda was hijacked a long time ago, or not so long in our lifetime terms, to mean radical, root and branch turning everything upside down that could be equated with the status quo and that did not benefit the robber barons and the wannabees.
It is enough. The people of the US have spoken. Health care is good for everyone and the idea that a family can be bankrupted for the need to pay for one of them to have the health care and procedures we all expect and get in the rest of the world is frankly shocking..
You've come a long, long way America and please keep going.
Over in Australia as I have gone about my daily tasks the most unlikely range of people grin and talk about how happy they are that Obama is President and Romnesia is ....what?
Wake up Australia
Peter Christoff, Associate Professor at Melbourne University, presents the case for Australia winding back coal exports in this chilling piece in The Conversation. What he points out is that while our position globally as a greenhouse gas emitter is bad enough, when we add in the amount of greenhouse that we are exporting via our coal exports we become the international heavyweight of climate vandals and with our big export markets implementing their own solutions and turning their backs on coal the planning for a phasing out of coal, not being done by us now, will be taken out of our hands.
While 'Sandy' is fresh in our minds what madness is it that sees Queensland, itself struggling with reconstruction after their floods, developing huge new coal fields and building coal shipping terminals King Canute Newman blithely looks to the short term game and with a time horizon of two to three years doesn't show any interest in anything more nuanced. There is nothing nuanced about climate tragedies but The Merchants of Doubt have figured out a long time ago how that game is played.
While 'Sandy' is fresh in our minds what madness is it that sees Queensland, itself struggling with reconstruction after their floods, developing huge new coal fields and building coal shipping terminals King Canute Newman blithely looks to the short term game and with a time horizon of two to three years doesn't show any interest in anything more nuanced. There is nothing nuanced about climate tragedies but The Merchants of Doubt have figured out a long time ago how that game is played.
Janet Clarke Bell points to more misogny
Hi,
I saw this and thought you should see it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/23/julia-gillard-misogynist-sexism-baby
J
I saw this and thought you should see it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/23/julia-gillard-misogynist-sexism-baby
J
Presidential
The 1st presidential debate in Colorado showed up some of the key issues in public life today. Apparently the viewers in the USA turned off in very large numbers a couple of minutes into the ninety minute event.
I watched it all including some commentary that felt Romney had outscored the President but that didn't take into account all that he has publicly and privately said and done. If anything I saw Tony Abbott prepared, as Tony Windsor famously revealed in Parliament , "to say or do anything to get elected" but most of us know in the case of both men that electing them to the h
The PM's grief
The decency of the Australian people has come to the front and centre again as Julia mourns the passing of her father. We can all relate to her loss and understand something of what it means.
The condemnation directed at the shock jock that used a Young Liberal function to make a crude and unjustified remark on this event has been rightly condemned by most of us. Not convincingly from the Abbott/Pyne attack dogs though but we've come to expect a complete lack of decency from them.
As to the (so-called) radio and media personality he is now expressing shock and dismay at the remarks directed at him some of which I've seen but none of them as extreme as the one's he quotes - I don't doubt that there have been some intemperate remarks made and I don't think that in a civil society we should encourage them.
Having said that neither do I think that Jones in his many years of broadcasting has been civil, a supporter of the truth or a good citizen. He has made his trademark the denial of self evident truth in the name of a populism that has been crude, self serving and in the service of those he wishes to ingratiate himself with. And he has managed to enrich himself along the way.
If all this noise, including the Murdoch scanda, leads to a better public discussion then some good will have come from what has so far been a sorry and grubby business - sadly though it will probably lead to more of the same with a gloss of self righteous justification on the top.
The condemnation directed at the shock jock that used a Young Liberal function to make a crude and unjustified remark on this event has been rightly condemned by most of us. Not convincingly from the Abbott/Pyne attack dogs though but we've come to expect a complete lack of decency from them.
As to the (so-called) radio and media personality he is now expressing shock and dismay at the remarks directed at him some of which I've seen but none of them as extreme as the one's he quotes - I don't doubt that there have been some intemperate remarks made and I don't think that in a civil society we should encourage them.
Having said that neither do I think that Jones in his many years of broadcasting has been civil, a supporter of the truth or a good citizen. He has made his trademark the denial of self evident truth in the name of a populism that has been crude, self serving and in the service of those he wishes to ingratiate himself with. And he has managed to enrich himself along the way.
If all this noise, including the Murdoch scanda, leads to a better public discussion then some good will have come from what has so far been a sorry and grubby business - sadly though it will probably lead to more of the same with a gloss of self righteous justification on the top.
Just in from Mark Schapiro
Greetings friends, colleagues and people interested in climate change,
A series of stories I've been developing over the past couple of months are coming out this week on how climate change is taking its toll on one of California's largest industries--growing food. From the vast fields of fruits and nuts in the Central Valley to the waterways of the Sacramento delta, California farmers are being hit by a trifecta of converging forces linked to climate change: volatile weather, diminishing water, increasing salt in the fields. Yields are predicted to decline at current rates of warming. Crop insurance payouts are rising significantly due to climate change related factors.
As many of you know, this story is based on a chapter of my book-in-progress, which is being written as we speak.
On television: watch our documentary HEAT & HARVEST on Friday, September 28, on KQED, a coproduction between the Center for Investigative Reporting and KQED. (With special thanks also to Serene Fang, master producer of the tv doc). And if you miss it on Friday, its airing again on Monday at 7:30.
And in print: a series for CIR/California Watch is appearing this week in a string of state newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle, Fresno Bee, Modesto Bee and others. And of course, if you miss the stories in their conventional form, they will all be housed on the web, including the print stories in their entirety, at:
http://cironline.org/heatandharvest
And if you're inclined toward the morning radio, I will be appearing with Craig Miller, KQED's climate correspondent, on KQED's talk show FORUM, at 9 am on September 28th.
Pardon the mass email.
Hope you enjoy, and/or find it illuminating.
yours, Mark
A series of stories I've been developing over the past couple of months are coming out this week on how climate change is taking its toll on one of California's largest industries--growing food. From the vast fields of fruits and nuts in the Central Valley to the waterways of the Sacramento delta, California farmers are being hit by a trifecta of converging forces linked to climate change: volatile weather, diminishing water, increasing salt in the fields. Yields are predicted to decline at current rates of warming. Crop insurance payouts are rising significantly due to climate change related factors.
As many of you know, this story is based on a chapter of my book-in-progress, which is being written as we speak.
On television: watch our documentary HEAT & HARVEST on Friday, September 28, on KQED, a coproduction between the Center for Investigative Reporting and KQED. (With special thanks also to Serene Fang, master producer of the tv doc). And if you miss it on Friday, its airing again on Monday at 7:30.
And in print: a series for CIR/California Watch is appearing this week in a string of state newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle, Fresno Bee, Modesto Bee and others. And of course, if you miss the stories in their conventional form, they will all be housed on the web, including the print stories in their entirety, at:
http://cironline.org/heatandharvest
And if you're inclined toward the morning radio, I will be appearing with Craig Miller, KQED's climate correspondent, on KQED's talk show FORUM, at 9 am on September 28th.
Pardon the mass email.
Hope you enjoy, and/or find it illuminating.
yours, Mark
Foot and mouth
It's been a while since I've been moved to add to this site, a combination of factors but not because of a lack of interest in matters political or environmental.
In what started as a bit of a down period for me in the power watching and seeing the drift to the right in the US and here the last week has been a big uplift.
First there was the secret recording of Mitt Romney at a private, close-doored Republican fund raiser for (very) wealthy donors where he was heard to say he had no interest in the 47% of low income earners who weren't going to vote for him anyway.
When Mother Jones put the video up on their web site it became the biggest traffic driver they had ever had but also it showed Romney in a light he was not keen to see made public.
On analysis it turned out that a lot of the people he dismissed as Obama voters are in fact seniors who vote Republican or did.
Then there was our very own Tony who in his trademark negative way criticized our Julia for choosing NYC and the UN over more important business, namely going to Indonesia to meet their President. Sorry Tony he's in NYC too.
For once our mass media reported this gaffe and even the dear old tired Age ran with a story about Tony shooting himself in the foot, the one he had in his mouth. Now there's an image.
You might ask, "As it has been obvious to us from the beginning that the man will say anything, do anything and it doesn't matter if it is true or not" to him why now? Even that ardent admirer of Tony's, Michelle Grattan, seems to have seen this latest gaffe as too much too often, too stupid, too reckless.
Now as the ALP stocks are rising as people realise that the crap they are being fed ("global warming is crap", TA) is just that and the sky hasn't fallen in on July 1, maybe there is some substance to Greg Combet telling us about the deal with the EU on carbon trading, that the majority of the world is moving to some form of trading or market mechanism for carbon abatement and even (in the Coalition vocab) China and India are moving swiftly to take measures to decrease their carbon footprint.
California too has measures afoot.
So while continuing to lie to the Parliament and the Australian electorate on these issues they are being found out.
For me, not a moment too soon.
As for the US race it looks like Romney has shot himself and although the obscene amounts of cash at his disposal from the likes of the awful Koch brothers, resource billionaires who were the funding drivers behind the Tea Party it looks like the American voters will not be bought off by a massive tv campaign that insults their intelligence and bypasses democratic values in the name of more buck for the few. Ironically the US is looking more and more like the USSR where a few billionaires feel that there money deserves a louder voice (and a bigger vote) than everybody else.
I have been encouraged by the anger of some emails from David Ritvo and Janet Bell on their side of the argument and too many to mention in good old Oz although the frequent discussion with Bernard Rechter continues to underline the point. Thanks to Janet for the link to Mel and Carl being interviewed by Jerry Seinfeld.
Many think that the Coalition will dump Tony as his disapproval rating skyrockets but who is there to replace him. Malcolm Turnbull looks logical but we are not dealing with a logical crew. After all we are talking about a Party in coalition with a mob that has Barnarby Joyce as their leader. Go figure.
I mentioned the fear discussion below and the two books. I have almost finished the Landzmann book which only gets better as it gets to the end. The Jacobson book has given me a lot to think about and I commend it in advance of sharing my thoughts on it.
In what started as a bit of a down period for me in the power watching and seeing the drift to the right in the US and here the last week has been a big uplift.
First there was the secret recording of Mitt Romney at a private, close-doored Republican fund raiser for (very) wealthy donors where he was heard to say he had no interest in the 47% of low income earners who weren't going to vote for him anyway.
When Mother Jones put the video up on their web site it became the biggest traffic driver they had ever had but also it showed Romney in a light he was not keen to see made public.
On analysis it turned out that a lot of the people he dismissed as Obama voters are in fact seniors who vote Republican or did.
Then there was our very own Tony who in his trademark negative way criticized our Julia for choosing NYC and the UN over more important business, namely going to Indonesia to meet their President. Sorry Tony he's in NYC too.
For once our mass media reported this gaffe and even the dear old tired Age ran with a story about Tony shooting himself in the foot, the one he had in his mouth. Now there's an image.
You might ask, "As it has been obvious to us from the beginning that the man will say anything, do anything and it doesn't matter if it is true or not" to him why now? Even that ardent admirer of Tony's, Michelle Grattan, seems to have seen this latest gaffe as too much too often, too stupid, too reckless.
Now as the ALP stocks are rising as people realise that the crap they are being fed ("global warming is crap", TA) is just that and the sky hasn't fallen in on July 1, maybe there is some substance to Greg Combet telling us about the deal with the EU on carbon trading, that the majority of the world is moving to some form of trading or market mechanism for carbon abatement and even (in the Coalition vocab) China and India are moving swiftly to take measures to decrease their carbon footprint.
California too has measures afoot.
So while continuing to lie to the Parliament and the Australian electorate on these issues they are being found out.
For me, not a moment too soon.
As for the US race it looks like Romney has shot himself and although the obscene amounts of cash at his disposal from the likes of the awful Koch brothers, resource billionaires who were the funding drivers behind the Tea Party it looks like the American voters will not be bought off by a massive tv campaign that insults their intelligence and bypasses democratic values in the name of more buck for the few. Ironically the US is looking more and more like the USSR where a few billionaires feel that there money deserves a louder voice (and a bigger vote) than everybody else.
I have been encouraged by the anger of some emails from David Ritvo and Janet Bell on their side of the argument and too many to mention in good old Oz although the frequent discussion with Bernard Rechter continues to underline the point. Thanks to Janet for the link to Mel and Carl being interviewed by Jerry Seinfeld.
Many think that the Coalition will dump Tony as his disapproval rating skyrockets but who is there to replace him. Malcolm Turnbull looks logical but we are not dealing with a logical crew. After all we are talking about a Party in coalition with a mob that has Barnarby Joyce as their leader. Go figure.
I mentioned the fear discussion below and the two books. I have almost finished the Landzmann book which only gets better as it gets to the end. The Jacobson book has given me a lot to think about and I commend it in advance of sharing my thoughts on it.
FEAR
Carl Reiner asked the 2000 year old man, aka Mel Brooks, what the favourite form of transport was 2000 years ago. "Fear" replied Brooks. You heard a lion roar behind you and you ran a mile in under 4 minutes.
Two books that reinforce this in very different styles are:
Howard Jacobson's first novel after winning the Man Booker prize, Zoo Time and Claude Lanzmann's autobiography The Patagonian Hare; two books in very different modes but with much in common in their source materials. Both will be reviewed elsewhere on this site
Here is a reader review of the Landzmann book from the Amazon page.
"When I began to read this book and found that it had been dictated to a friend who typed it directly into a computer, I anticipated that it might be unstructured and difficult to read: but, on the contrary, the book is highly readable, vivid and fluent. The translation by Frank Wynne (checked by the author) is superb; the English language is beautiful, almost poetic at times: "I remember two brothers... in the holy city of Safed in Galilee, two tall, thin men with blank faces, as silent as the shimmering stone of the steps on which they sat for hours in the sun without saying a word... These silent men were truly Israeli 'of old stock', they carried their country, its ancient and recent history, in their bones, their blood. Compared to them, I was an elf, I carried no weight...".
This memoir is a remarkable, masterly and very moving account of the life of a Jewish writer and later a film-maker born in 1925, who lived in Paris through the great cultural and political changes of our time. He was a friend of Sartre and partner for many years of Simone de Beauvoir and these friendships are wonderfully and sympathetically described. He is a man of huge energy and passionate friendships, especially for women, who are an important part of the story of his life. You will lose count of the women he loved, but surely never forget the hilarious episode in North Korea, where he fell for a nurse sent to give him injections of vitamin B12. This encounter is so vividly described and funny and yet at the same time touching. Indeed, the book is shot through with poignant episodes, reaching an incredible climax in the heartrending account of his filming for his 9-hour film 'Shoah' Shoah 4-DVD Set. Many times in the book one is moved deeply by the empathy and tenderness shown by this highly intellectual man. Don't be put off by the back cover which cites three newspapers calling the book 'Masterpiece' for it most certainly is a major masterpiece. Read it, and see for yourself! Surely, it will become a classic of our time."
Two books that reinforce this in very different styles are:
Howard Jacobson's first novel after winning the Man Booker prize, Zoo Time and Claude Lanzmann's autobiography The Patagonian Hare; two books in very different modes but with much in common in their source materials. Both will be reviewed elsewhere on this site
Here is a reader review of the Landzmann book from the Amazon page.
"When I began to read this book and found that it had been dictated to a friend who typed it directly into a computer, I anticipated that it might be unstructured and difficult to read: but, on the contrary, the book is highly readable, vivid and fluent. The translation by Frank Wynne (checked by the author) is superb; the English language is beautiful, almost poetic at times: "I remember two brothers... in the holy city of Safed in Galilee, two tall, thin men with blank faces, as silent as the shimmering stone of the steps on which they sat for hours in the sun without saying a word... These silent men were truly Israeli 'of old stock', they carried their country, its ancient and recent history, in their bones, their blood. Compared to them, I was an elf, I carried no weight...".
This memoir is a remarkable, masterly and very moving account of the life of a Jewish writer and later a film-maker born in 1925, who lived in Paris through the great cultural and political changes of our time. He was a friend of Sartre and partner for many years of Simone de Beauvoir and these friendships are wonderfully and sympathetically described. He is a man of huge energy and passionate friendships, especially for women, who are an important part of the story of his life. You will lose count of the women he loved, but surely never forget the hilarious episode in North Korea, where he fell for a nurse sent to give him injections of vitamin B12. This encounter is so vividly described and funny and yet at the same time touching. Indeed, the book is shot through with poignant episodes, reaching an incredible climax in the heartrending account of his filming for his 9-hour film 'Shoah' Shoah 4-DVD Set. Many times in the book one is moved deeply by the empathy and tenderness shown by this highly intellectual man. Don't be put off by the back cover which cites three newspapers calling the book 'Masterpiece' for it most certainly is a major masterpiece. Read it, and see for yourself! Surely, it will become a classic of our time."
Janet Clarke Bell
Janet points to things. Such as this podcast and this article on the keystone pipeline from Esquire. enjoy the read and listen, Janet has always something worth pointing at.
Don Clarke's first contribution
Bookshelf begun
I've made a start on the Bookshelf page. Click on BOOKSHELF in the menu bar above and browse my list and/or send your own list based on books by your reading spot or nearby and share them with our readers.
Send your list to bob@weisfilms.com and I'll put them on the site. Useful information is the format you are reading in.
Send your list to bob@weisfilms.com and I'll put them on the site. Useful information is the format you are reading in.
Travel broadens
My old university buddy Philip Frazer, a man of many parts , interviews Jim Hightower from Texas about some of the issues of US policy and politics. If you were in need of some insight and entertainment on these issues do yourself a favour and click here to watch the Youtube.
As we travelled around San Francisco and then on to NYC we met lots of old mates and relatives who found the goings on in the political circus beyond comprehension. The overwhelming feeling was that the rad-Republicans had over-reached and in so doing were dealing themselves out of the White House again and were more prepared to destroy the economy than do anything Obama put up. Sound familiar? Rabbit?
As we travelled around San Francisco and then on to NYC we met lots of old mates and relatives who found the goings on in the political circus beyond comprehension. The overwhelming feeling was that the rad-Republicans had over-reached and in so doing were dealing themselves out of the White House again and were more prepared to destroy the economy than do anything Obama put up. Sound familiar? Rabbit?
Clive Hamilton on science under siege
Clive Hamilton has written a very sensible piece in The Conversation about the difficulties scientists are having in getting their voices heard. See it here In the discussion that follows you will find the usual trotted out by the Merchants of Doubt and their followers so if you are signed in add your piece to the discussion.
While The Conversation wants to be open to all views and not edit the plainly wrong it has had a worrying number of "climate skeptics" joining into the discussions of late albeit with some reasonably muscular responses.
While The Conversation wants to be open to all views and not edit the plainly wrong it has had a worrying number of "climate skeptics" joining into the discussions of late albeit with some reasonably muscular responses.
Bill Clinton on the Presidential race and money
David Ritvo sent this link from NPR, well worth a look. Romney and his suitability for office. On another issue have a look at how Clinton appears, he went on the China Study diet for Chelsea's wedding andd he looks twenty years younger!!
New York Review of Books on Dial M for Murdoch
An excellent piece on this book with a more general discussion - well worth the read.- see here for the link. The Leveson Inquiry is running daily and threatens to bring down Murdoch in the US as well. Catch it on the net - there is a daily live video feed as well as transcripts. If you need to see lying on an industrial scale watch this. Ms Brooks was very confident, almost flirtatious but was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice days later. She laughed and protested her innocence. As you would.
Enough of the lies
It is getting harder and harder to read a newspaper these days what with the Murdoch self interest and now the Gina Riley Fairfax rubbish. No wonder print is dying.
Take the so-called Craig Thomson affair. Fanned by a power hungry crypto fascist in Parliament who the electorate know nothing about really, the FACTS are irrelevant as long as the spin required gets his result. His major domo (Pyne) has to be one of the most odious seen in the job if you don't count Heffernan, and many don't.
So, natural justice? Fair go? Trial by media? I once thought Michelle Grattan was a good journalist but sadly that was thirty years ago. She now seems to have fallen in love with the image in the lake. What is strictly opinion is fed to us as factual reporting. Gina has the Press we deserve!!
Reading the chat on the Conversation is disheartening too until others who were disgusted by the kangaroo court chipped in. Do I know anything more about this sorry affair? No. But I will not be judge and executioner where I have no role. We have institutions to look after these matters, let them do it.
Meanwhile we should tell the heir of B A Santamaria and Mannix that we are not in 1950's Australia and in any case we can't wander about the country saying what we know to be untrue for personal gain while letting the country down into the bargain.
Julia and her government has done a great job in a minority gvt on a number of fronts while all the while being dogged by these intellectual midgets with outsized egos and deep pockets. The talent on the front bench clearly outweighs the opposition. Listening to Joe talk economics would be good for a laugh if he wasn't taken seriously by people who either share his ignorance of the dark science or feel they can use it for their own ends.
It has been a sad time for democratic process and for our democracy generally.
Shame Abbot shame. I was just listening to Abbot/Pyne frothing their daily motion to suspend standing orders. This is a daily ritual that takes the place of policy debate because they just don't have ant that they are prepared to go public with. And where they do the details are so vague, the underpinning assumptions are often wrong and the work that has gone into them is that of the headline catch rather than the hard yards of policy development in the interests of all Australians.
Take the so-called Craig Thomson affair. Fanned by a power hungry crypto fascist in Parliament who the electorate know nothing about really, the FACTS are irrelevant as long as the spin required gets his result. His major domo (Pyne) has to be one of the most odious seen in the job if you don't count Heffernan, and many don't.
So, natural justice? Fair go? Trial by media? I once thought Michelle Grattan was a good journalist but sadly that was thirty years ago. She now seems to have fallen in love with the image in the lake. What is strictly opinion is fed to us as factual reporting. Gina has the Press we deserve!!
Reading the chat on the Conversation is disheartening too until others who were disgusted by the kangaroo court chipped in. Do I know anything more about this sorry affair? No. But I will not be judge and executioner where I have no role. We have institutions to look after these matters, let them do it.
Meanwhile we should tell the heir of B A Santamaria and Mannix that we are not in 1950's Australia and in any case we can't wander about the country saying what we know to be untrue for personal gain while letting the country down into the bargain.
Julia and her government has done a great job in a minority gvt on a number of fronts while all the while being dogged by these intellectual midgets with outsized egos and deep pockets. The talent on the front bench clearly outweighs the opposition. Listening to Joe talk economics would be good for a laugh if he wasn't taken seriously by people who either share his ignorance of the dark science or feel they can use it for their own ends.
It has been a sad time for democratic process and for our democracy generally.
Shame Abbot shame. I was just listening to Abbot/Pyne frothing their daily motion to suspend standing orders. This is a daily ritual that takes the place of policy debate because they just don't have ant that they are prepared to go public with. And where they do the details are so vague, the underpinning assumptions are often wrong and the work that has gone into them is that of the headline catch rather than the hard yards of policy development in the interests of all Australians.
Just in case you were believing the lie told often and loudly that we are doing it alone.
Global action to tackle the climate crisis has taken another important step forwards with South Korea’s legislation overnight to establish an emissions trading scheme similar to Australia’s, the Greens said today.
“When a developing country manufacturing powerhouse like South Korea embraces emissions trading because it respects the climate science, it’s time for the naysayers in Australia to take a good long look at themselves,” Australian Greens Leader, Senator Christine Milne, said.
“South Korea’s scheme is similar to ours and its international target is about equivalent to 15% cuts from Australia.
“We need to give the space to our independent expert Climate Change Authority to look at moves by South Korea and others, as well as the latest science, in its work to recommend what Australia’s carbon budgets should be.
“That’s why our emissions trading scheme starts with a fixed price, leaving three years for the Climate Change Authority to do its work before we adopt full trading.
“Accelerating global warming is a very real threat to our quality of life, to our economy and to the environment which sustains us. Many of our neighbours are taking ever more serious action to address it. This is not a political game to toss aside if the going gets tough.
“There is no real move to weaken the scheme, but the government should join the Greens in lifting our ambition and talking to the community and business about why tackling the climate crisis is so important and what great opportunities for jobs, investment and innovation come from doing so.”
Science from The New Yorker
Janet Clarke Bell sent this in, well worth a read about some of the geo-engineering "options" to avert climate change catastrophe.
More nastiness from Big M
There seem to be too many coincidences in public life.
Remember when Bill Heffernan tried, under Parliamentary privilege, to suggest that Justice Michael Kirby had improperly used his Commonwealth car. All lies but under the Howard brand. Zoom forward to the utegate affair with Eric Abetz waving an email that was eventually proved a forgery. That was reported in the M publication the Daily Telegraph by Russel Lewis who surprise surprise broke the Peter Slipper allegations which are the subject of a Federal Court affidavit pertaining to matters that occurred when Abetz was government leader in the Senate (2003) and thus would have some knowledge of. The more things change!!
Remember when Bill Heffernan tried, under Parliamentary privilege, to suggest that Justice Michael Kirby had improperly used his Commonwealth car. All lies but under the Howard brand. Zoom forward to the utegate affair with Eric Abetz waving an email that was eventually proved a forgery. That was reported in the M publication the Daily Telegraph by Russel Lewis who surprise surprise broke the Peter Slipper allegations which are the subject of a Federal Court affidavit pertaining to matters that occurred when Abetz was government leader in the Senate (2003) and thus would have some knowledge of. The more things change!!
At last a book that tells it like is to the Sun King
If you thought you knew what was happening with the scandal in the UK about News International's phone hacking then hang on for a wild and gob-smacking ride. Not only was the lone "bad apple" or rogue reporter story a lie but phone hacking turned out to be the tip of a large and nasty iceberg destined in due coarse to bury Rupert his loyal and slippery son and heir James and the whole network of corrupt and corrupting people on his payroll both officially and illegally including police in the Met in London, public servants, politicians, people working for telcos; the list goes on and on and on.
Tom Watson is a Labor MP who had been a junior Minister in the Blair government who was (wrongly) accused by News that he was plotting against Blair. He went to the backbench and sought to find out more of what was really going on.
In the intervening years he became a Minister under Brown and decided to go to the back bench again rather than bring more heat from the Press on the government. Cameron was elected with the help of the Murdochs and he (Cameron) appointed Andy Coulson as a senior media advisor even though there were allegations that Coulson had been involved in some shady dealings.
Over the next couple of years Watson continued to dig the dirt on Murdoch. His own life was tipped upside down. Publicly News of the World called him "a tub of lard" and privately hacked his phones, put him, under surveillance and broke into his house. His marriage broke up but the dogged Watson wouldn't give up.
Even Ed Milliband, the Labor leader, was tardy in joining his co-MP until things became a lot hotter for Murdoch and his pal Cameron. Watson and Hickman take us through every stage and every revelation in this meticulously laid out book.
From the general public's (voter's) point of view there was little interest until the story broke of the hacking of a family's voicemails where the daughter Milly Dowler had been murdered. Public revulsion suddenly drove advertisers to leave News of the World and Murdoch quickly closed it, all the while expressing his regret and insisting on no wrong doing on his part. Many will remember him fronting the Parliamentary Inquiry in Westminster with the now legendary "this is the most humble day of my life" Whoever wrote that for him might have pointed out that it is not strictly correct English but what followed was another series of arrogant and controlled but nasty assertions buried in a covering of lies. More real humility will be called for as his Empire crumbles or is stripped from him.
The bigger question that must be answered in at least the USA, the UK and Australia is how was he allowed to get so much power, influence and be able to blur the line between his own financial self-interest and the law?
Google Watson and the Murdochs; you will get a treasure trove or filth trove. The Guardian site is worth a look too.
I have not read a Murdoch publication for a very long time except for aggravation. This book should be top of the list for all interested in democracy and the ease with which it can be suborned.
I read Dial M for Murdoch on my Ipad.
Tom Watson is a Labor MP who had been a junior Minister in the Blair government who was (wrongly) accused by News that he was plotting against Blair. He went to the backbench and sought to find out more of what was really going on.
In the intervening years he became a Minister under Brown and decided to go to the back bench again rather than bring more heat from the Press on the government. Cameron was elected with the help of the Murdochs and he (Cameron) appointed Andy Coulson as a senior media advisor even though there were allegations that Coulson had been involved in some shady dealings.
Over the next couple of years Watson continued to dig the dirt on Murdoch. His own life was tipped upside down. Publicly News of the World called him "a tub of lard" and privately hacked his phones, put him, under surveillance and broke into his house. His marriage broke up but the dogged Watson wouldn't give up.
Even Ed Milliband, the Labor leader, was tardy in joining his co-MP until things became a lot hotter for Murdoch and his pal Cameron. Watson and Hickman take us through every stage and every revelation in this meticulously laid out book.
From the general public's (voter's) point of view there was little interest until the story broke of the hacking of a family's voicemails where the daughter Milly Dowler had been murdered. Public revulsion suddenly drove advertisers to leave News of the World and Murdoch quickly closed it, all the while expressing his regret and insisting on no wrong doing on his part. Many will remember him fronting the Parliamentary Inquiry in Westminster with the now legendary "this is the most humble day of my life" Whoever wrote that for him might have pointed out that it is not strictly correct English but what followed was another series of arrogant and controlled but nasty assertions buried in a covering of lies. More real humility will be called for as his Empire crumbles or is stripped from him.
The bigger question that must be answered in at least the USA, the UK and Australia is how was he allowed to get so much power, influence and be able to blur the line between his own financial self-interest and the law?
Google Watson and the Murdochs; you will get a treasure trove or filth trove. The Guardian site is worth a look too.
I have not read a Murdoch publication for a very long time except for aggravation. This book should be top of the list for all interested in democracy and the ease with which it can be suborned.
I read Dial M for Murdoch on my Ipad.
Debate or Roman Circus
Personally I can't bear to watch things like the ABC's Q and A program which purports to air serious issues of public interest in a combative spirit with a hand picked and committed audience.
Into this mix put George Pell and Richard Dawkins; on the one hand a powerful church leader and influential person on the other a distinguished scholar and public intellectual as well as author of numerous books explaining science and evolution to a non scientific audience. Dawkins was by the and of it exasperated and bemused as a pro-Pell section of the audience laughed at the most everyday things he said and sat there adoringly while Pell uttered obviously wrong statements about science. As a friend pointed out it was a Catholic priest who first proposed the idea of the Big Bang.
This was a mismatch of David and Goliath proportion and to what effect? If you are in Pell's camp you could see the horns on Dawkins' head. If you were listening to what was being said you might well have wondered why a man so distanced from reality was in the same space as an eminent scholar who has been patiently explaining some very complex ideas for a long time.
But this is really symptomatic of our media now.
While the Murdoch Empire staggers profitably around the globe our (and particularly his) media outlets are busy distorting reality to such a point that if you read it in a newspaper you can be confident it probably isn't true. The electronic media ditto. Some of the people I used to listen to or read seem to be much more interested in their numbers now than what they report.
What to do then? The net provides some relief from the constant unfiltered barrage of self-interested garbage. But the net is full of rumour, invective, slander and hot air too. Some sites are worth going to.
My regular read is The Conversation which is, in the main, intelligent, informed and not paid for by hidden third parties. (see the Links page above). every now and then opinion is expressed that makes me wonder but the community of academics quickly put matters right[ it is after all a Conversation and it has to be a broad tent with room for all "informed" views.
The Age has joined the Australian as great for the bottom layer of no dig gardens or other recycling purposes. Maybe it is a distorted memory of a youthful view but it seemed like a good paper once. Let Gina and Clive have it now, its rotten anyway.
Into this mix put George Pell and Richard Dawkins; on the one hand a powerful church leader and influential person on the other a distinguished scholar and public intellectual as well as author of numerous books explaining science and evolution to a non scientific audience. Dawkins was by the and of it exasperated and bemused as a pro-Pell section of the audience laughed at the most everyday things he said and sat there adoringly while Pell uttered obviously wrong statements about science. As a friend pointed out it was a Catholic priest who first proposed the idea of the Big Bang.
This was a mismatch of David and Goliath proportion and to what effect? If you are in Pell's camp you could see the horns on Dawkins' head. If you were listening to what was being said you might well have wondered why a man so distanced from reality was in the same space as an eminent scholar who has been patiently explaining some very complex ideas for a long time.
But this is really symptomatic of our media now.
While the Murdoch Empire staggers profitably around the globe our (and particularly his) media outlets are busy distorting reality to such a point that if you read it in a newspaper you can be confident it probably isn't true. The electronic media ditto. Some of the people I used to listen to or read seem to be much more interested in their numbers now than what they report.
What to do then? The net provides some relief from the constant unfiltered barrage of self-interested garbage. But the net is full of rumour, invective, slander and hot air too. Some sites are worth going to.
My regular read is The Conversation which is, in the main, intelligent, informed and not paid for by hidden third parties. (see the Links page above). every now and then opinion is expressed that makes me wonder but the community of academics quickly put matters right[ it is after all a Conversation and it has to be a broad tent with room for all "informed" views.
The Age has joined the Australian as great for the bottom layer of no dig gardens or other recycling purposes. Maybe it is a distorted memory of a youthful view but it seemed like a good paper once. Let Gina and Clive have it now, its rotten anyway.
Art by Barbara Weis from Jerusalem
Believe what fits for your world view
On the way to the gym today I hear on the news that
a) a US based investment bank has rated Australian mining companies as the best mining investments in the world and this is post mining tax. A recent newspaper report showed that by international standards our mining tax is modest.
b) the UN Refugee Council has shown figures that indicate the number of boats coming to Australia has dropped in 2011 and that as a percentage of asylum seeker movements globally our percentage per capita of arrivals and intended arrivals is abnormally low.
I pointed this out to a bloke at the gym who sees facts as comments by supporters in a footy match and he duly trotted out the lies that are daily retailed by his favoured side with no regard to the facts.
And some of them think it is just a game.
This theme has been returning while I listen to the 24 hour 'news'. Opinion given as fact, idiocy given oxygen and made newsworthy. The dadaists said that art is anything you show in a gallery and now news is anything you put to air in a news program regardless of it's veracity, value as news or relevance to what is actually going on outside of the game being played.
If you read what our scientists are telling us for instance you are alarmed by what is happening to the globe and what an emergency we all face and yet we are as a group confused by the noise of special vested interests disguised as valid opinion.
The absurdity of post-modernist cant as boiled down in our academies gives equal weight to all views and discounts 'official' science as the view of the power elites. Ask a flat-earther what they believe when they get on an aeroplane or an intercontinental boat.
Gravity is not a matter of opinion.
a) a US based investment bank has rated Australian mining companies as the best mining investments in the world and this is post mining tax. A recent newspaper report showed that by international standards our mining tax is modest.
b) the UN Refugee Council has shown figures that indicate the number of boats coming to Australia has dropped in 2011 and that as a percentage of asylum seeker movements globally our percentage per capita of arrivals and intended arrivals is abnormally low.
I pointed this out to a bloke at the gym who sees facts as comments by supporters in a footy match and he duly trotted out the lies that are daily retailed by his favoured side with no regard to the facts.
And some of them think it is just a game.
This theme has been returning while I listen to the 24 hour 'news'. Opinion given as fact, idiocy given oxygen and made newsworthy. The dadaists said that art is anything you show in a gallery and now news is anything you put to air in a news program regardless of it's veracity, value as news or relevance to what is actually going on outside of the game being played.
If you read what our scientists are telling us for instance you are alarmed by what is happening to the globe and what an emergency we all face and yet we are as a group confused by the noise of special vested interests disguised as valid opinion.
The absurdity of post-modernist cant as boiled down in our academies gives equal weight to all views and discounts 'official' science as the view of the power elites. Ask a flat-earther what they believe when they get on an aeroplane or an intercontinental boat.
Gravity is not a matter of opinion.
A week is a long time
So the (so-called) Baillieu Government in a step backwards scaled back the previous Brumby target for carbon reduction in the state from 20% by 2020 to 5%. At the same time I was pointed at a piece in The Conversation by our friend Janet Clarke Bell by a scientist she met which should be required reading by anyone in a decision making place.
"CLEARING UP THE CLIMATE DEBATE: CSIRO’s James Risbey explains why it’s not “alarmist” to describe the threat of climate change to the public and how the climate system will respond to half measures.
With many issues to be considered in setting a climate policy one can end up wondering what the role of climate science is in all this.
After all, climate science doesn’t tell us what to do. It doesn’t tell us whether to have a carbon price or where it should be set. Those decisions ultimately involve a range of normative and deliberative issues which are beyond the scope of climatology."
Read it here and weep. The tipping point is at hand.
On the positive side Beyond Zero Emissions, a network of scientists fanning out around the globe from Melbourne University have put together a fully costed transition to renewables budget, timetable, and discussion of options that is downloadable either as a summary or a complete report. No prizes for guessing who won't read or download it. Canutes will drown too!
"CLEARING UP THE CLIMATE DEBATE: CSIRO’s James Risbey explains why it’s not “alarmist” to describe the threat of climate change to the public and how the climate system will respond to half measures.
With many issues to be considered in setting a climate policy one can end up wondering what the role of climate science is in all this.
After all, climate science doesn’t tell us what to do. It doesn’t tell us whether to have a carbon price or where it should be set. Those decisions ultimately involve a range of normative and deliberative issues which are beyond the scope of climatology."
Read it here and weep. The tipping point is at hand.
On the positive side Beyond Zero Emissions, a network of scientists fanning out around the globe from Melbourne University have put together a fully costed transition to renewables budget, timetable, and discussion of options that is downloadable either as a summary or a complete report. No prizes for guessing who won't read or download it. Canutes will drown too!
Breakthrough in fuel cell technology - price lower as a result
Professor Doug MacFarlane
"The Head of the School of Chemistry in the Faculty of Science at Monash University is Professor Doug MacFarlane. His current area of research, published in the August 2008 edition of the Journal, ‘Science’, focuses on the design of a novel fuel cell with an air electrode. This fuel cell outlasts the platinum cell and is as effective, more economical, and is more easily sourced.
His work has been conducted in the Australian Centre for Electromaterials Science (ACES), an Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence, for which Professor MacFarlane is the chief investigator. The breakthrough, where expensive platinum in the fuel cell is replaced by the cheaper but just as efficient air-electrode, will have a huge impact on the next generation of hybrid cars.
Monash’s Dr Bjorn Winther-Jensen invented a technique whereby a conductive plastic layer can be deposited on the Goretex membrane from which the air-electrode is constructed. This highly conductive plastic acts as the electrode and the catalyst in the fuel cell. The new design fuel cell has undergone rigorous testing for periods up to 1500 hours. There is no sign of deterioration or wear and tear. The tests also confirmed that O2 conversion rates are comparable with platinum–catalysed electrodes of the same geometry.
“The reliance of traditional fuel cells on platinum was making the concept of using them in everyday passenger cars increasingly improbable because of its high cost and scarcity. Current annual production of platinum would be sufficient for only three million 100kW vehicles; that is, one-fifth of the current annual production globally. The cost of the platinum component of current fuel cells for a small car with a 100kW engine has become substantially greater than the total cost of an entire 100kW gasoline engine.”
One of Professor MacFarlane’s collaborators, the ACES Director Professor Maria Forsyth, enlarges on this. She confirms it is significant that the electrodes are not poisoned by carbon monoxide the way platinum is. Professor MacFarlane believes that the discovery is possibly the most important development in fuel cell technology in the last 20 years."
From the Monash University site.
Professor MacFalane generously gave us an hour of his time to talk us through some possibilities of the hydrogen energy future. The importan
Rod Bishop slideshow from the Kimberley
So what is going on?
I was chatting with a friend last night and a mutual friend was mentioned. "Oh X is getting more and more Conservative with his Age". "Yes but Ms X is even more so". It's interesting when views pop out in unexpected places and ways.
I see strange criticisms of Wayne Swan from people who say knowingly and meaningfully that "he is a hopeless Treasurer without a clue." Now if International and unconnected bodies with some demonstrated expertise declare that he is the globe's best Treasurer and Australia avoids the major economic problems that the rest of the developed world has been going through and there has been an improvement in the standard of living for most Australians doesn't that mean anything? Every strategy enacted by this Government to shield Australia from the ravages of the GFC was loudly and roundly rejected by the do-nothing, she'll-be-right-mate midgets on the Opposition benches.
As a friend commented to me, "the technique made famous by Goebells is now part of the playbook of the Coalition. Tell a lie often enough and it becomes the conventional wisdom. Where is our Fifth Estate in all this? With the 24 hour news cycle we now have a graphic report of every fire with no analysis on how it started or why. Politicians can look straight at the camera and lie with a smile without intervention from a journalist or even a different oint of view from another party.
"Climate change is crap", "we don't need to do anything about the so-called Global Financial Crisis" and so on.
In times of War we have had Unity Governments. Sadly not now.
Wayne has been out there talking about the unequal access to the media lately and what he has been saying is obvious to all observers of the media landscape.
Federal Court judge Ray Finkelsteins thoughtful review of the media gets savaged by people like Clive Palmer in full page ads that only go to prove Wayne's point. The outrage stirred and AGREED WITH that Finkelstein is suggesting a Soviet style regime doesn't square with the facts of his recommendations. To have an independent umpire, funded from the Budget doesn't mean whichever way you try and spin it Government control. It replaces the cosy ineffective voluntary system we have now of a Press Council overseeing, well themselves, with an arms length body that will, if it ever happens, be charged to be fair to all sides.
The idea that you can have a reasonable discussion without gross exaggeration, invective, character assassination and plain old lies is becoming an adolescent fantasy and pipe dream.
When an Immigration Department official comes out with a reasoned commentary on a divisive debate with some facts learned over years of trying to implement various Government policies he gets little media space, invective and innuendo thrown on him by the mad monk and once again the so-called debate goes to the lowest common denominator that the inappropriately called Liberal Party can throw at it. Whatever happens desperate human beings are used as political fodder by both sides and the outcome for the people is dire.
For the refugees it is pitiful but what few realise on the other side is that for the lucky ones like us it is dehumanising and makes us less and less than we could and should be.
Australia is a country of refugees and transported peoples living in a land stolen from the first peoples here and we demonise each wave of newcomers until the next wave and then it goes on.
My family came as refugees in 1949. I have good friends who came as refugees more recently. It should not be so hard to give a welcome to people who have risked all to come to a land of plenty in need of people.
When global warming effects are more fully felt the march of populations looking for a safe home will dramatically increase. Open your hearts.
I see strange criticisms of Wayne Swan from people who say knowingly and meaningfully that "he is a hopeless Treasurer without a clue." Now if International and unconnected bodies with some demonstrated expertise declare that he is the globe's best Treasurer and Australia avoids the major economic problems that the rest of the developed world has been going through and there has been an improvement in the standard of living for most Australians doesn't that mean anything? Every strategy enacted by this Government to shield Australia from the ravages of the GFC was loudly and roundly rejected by the do-nothing, she'll-be-right-mate midgets on the Opposition benches.
As a friend commented to me, "the technique made famous by Goebells is now part of the playbook of the Coalition. Tell a lie often enough and it becomes the conventional wisdom. Where is our Fifth Estate in all this? With the 24 hour news cycle we now have a graphic report of every fire with no analysis on how it started or why. Politicians can look straight at the camera and lie with a smile without intervention from a journalist or even a different oint of view from another party.
"Climate change is crap", "we don't need to do anything about the so-called Global Financial Crisis" and so on.
In times of War we have had Unity Governments. Sadly not now.
Wayne has been out there talking about the unequal access to the media lately and what he has been saying is obvious to all observers of the media landscape.
Federal Court judge Ray Finkelsteins thoughtful review of the media gets savaged by people like Clive Palmer in full page ads that only go to prove Wayne's point. The outrage stirred and AGREED WITH that Finkelstein is suggesting a Soviet style regime doesn't square with the facts of his recommendations. To have an independent umpire, funded from the Budget doesn't mean whichever way you try and spin it Government control. It replaces the cosy ineffective voluntary system we have now of a Press Council overseeing, well themselves, with an arms length body that will, if it ever happens, be charged to be fair to all sides.
The idea that you can have a reasonable discussion without gross exaggeration, invective, character assassination and plain old lies is becoming an adolescent fantasy and pipe dream.
When an Immigration Department official comes out with a reasoned commentary on a divisive debate with some facts learned over years of trying to implement various Government policies he gets little media space, invective and innuendo thrown on him by the mad monk and once again the so-called debate goes to the lowest common denominator that the inappropriately called Liberal Party can throw at it. Whatever happens desperate human beings are used as political fodder by both sides and the outcome for the people is dire.
For the refugees it is pitiful but what few realise on the other side is that for the lucky ones like us it is dehumanising and makes us less and less than we could and should be.
Australia is a country of refugees and transported peoples living in a land stolen from the first peoples here and we demonise each wave of newcomers until the next wave and then it goes on.
My family came as refugees in 1949. I have good friends who came as refugees more recently. It should not be so hard to give a welcome to people who have risked all to come to a land of plenty in need of people.
When global warming effects are more fully felt the march of populations looking for a safe home will dramatically increase. Open your hearts.
Leave Julia alone while she gets on with it
The print and electronic media have to see themselves as the main game. Mark Abib resigns and gives good reasons for going and the headlines and editorials are all about the shock and awe of the real meaning behind his departure. Kevin Rudd is defeated in a historic ballot by a historic margin and says he will now work for party unity. This gets reported as a new stage in his strategy to upend Gillard.
Read James Button to get a more balanced and nuanced view and remember the newspapers are selling drama, conflict and deceit. They are not interested in what is true. As one radio person said to me recently "Oh you think you know the truth?" Well no but what has become clear is that if you read it in the Murdoch press or increasingly the Age it probably isn't.
Read James Button to get a more balanced and nuanced view and remember the newspapers are selling drama, conflict and deceit. They are not interested in what is true. As one radio person said to me recently "Oh you think you know the truth?" Well no but what has become clear is that if you read it in the Murdoch press or increasingly the Age it probably isn't.
Larry Nordell, from Montana, points us to more about big business paying to discredit science
From the Guardian another piece on the perversions of science and research in the pursuits of money.
Deb Hart from the courts update
In case you haven't heard yet, we thought you would appreciate learning about VCAT's HRL decision asap.
As we aim to unite community voices as quickly and effectively as we can, we encourage you to post your thoughts on Environment Victoria's HRL decision response page http://www.facebook.com/environmentvictoria
In terms of where to now, all objectors are considering their options and we will keep you posted.
With thanks for your support,
Deborah, on behalf of the LIVE committee
29 March 2012
This is just one battle in our fight against coal
LIVE is deeply disappointed with VCAT’s ruling in favour of HRL’s proposed new 600MW coal fired electricity generator in Victoria’s La Trobe Valley.
“As every legitimate science agency in the world is calling for drastic cuts to greenhouse gas pollution, we are devastated that a project that would add hundreds of millions of tonnes of global warming gases to our atmosphere over decades to come could win legal support in a so called advanced state like Victoria” said Deborah Hart, Founder and Safe Climate campaigner for LIVE*.
During the VCAT hearing evidence was presented to demonstrate that HRL’s plant would not be ‘best practice’ electricity generation and that a myriad of safer, cleaner energy solutions are available and affordable.
“By every measure, whether it be human health, a safe environment or new, sustainable jobs, HRL’s project will fail Victorians.”
In making its decision VCAT overturned the Environment Protection Authority’s approval of a permit for only half of the plant’s capacity (300MW), along with what meagre environment restrictions had been applied to the project.
Big questions remain around the social and economic viability of HRL’s unpopular project, and who will ultimately bear the costs of the new coal plant.
“Having sat through 22 hearing days and read the transcripts, we can tell you that there was evidence presented that HRL’s project is not economically feasible, even with the $150 million of taxpayers money promised by the state and federal governments. Yet, as we all know, according to mainstream science, the real damage from this plant will be borne by the community now and in the future as we experience further extreme weather events.”
“If this project goes ahead, the community’s interests will be sacrificed in favour of a corporation seeking to profit from a project that will have enormous short and long term impacts on all of us.”
LIVE acknowledges Environment Victoria and our highly dedicated legal team for their extraordinary support throughout this long and complicated legal challenge.
CONTACT: Deborah Hart, Founder, LIVE, www.live.org.au
0458 44 77 02 or deborah.hart@live.org.au
After 22 hearing days, the community’s legal challenge to HRL’s proposed new brown coal plant concluded this week. This case was particularly important for being the first time that Victoria’s environmental laws (not just stated principles and broken election promises!) were applied to a major proposal that will emit significant amounts of greenhouse gases, in the context of climate change.It goes without saying that running a case against a government agency and a well-resourced company is a significant challenge. We submitted that Dual Gas did not provide enough information to show that their project was economically viable or that it would displace dirtier brown coal fire power stations. And, having watched the hearing and read the transcripts, we can tell you that there was evidence presented that the Dual Gas plant would not be economically feasible.
Doctors for the Environment argued a strong case centered on the air pollutants that HRL’s plant would generate. The Doctors presented evidence showing that cumulative emissions from coal power stations can have serious health impacts on members of the community.
In order to demonstrate the social and economic impacts that the HRL plant would have on all Victorians, Martin Shield (an individual objector) sought to demonstrate the many ways in which climate change impacts from the plant would affect him personally. Shield earned the respect of all parties for the intelligent, measured way in which he represented his case.
With Environment Victoria leading the case, and on behalf of LIVE, the Environment Defenders Office, along with a committed team of pro bono barristers, ran what I believe was the best case that could have been brought at this time.
Our case relied on evidence that the Environment Protection Authority has approved a permit for a project (300Mw) that is inconsistent with:
- the principles of the Environment Protection Act, with specific reference to the State Environment Protection Policy;
- the broader government policy framework (including the Climate Change Act 2011), the stated aim of which is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and
- the obligation under the law to demonstrate best practice in the management of emissions.
We are not likely to hear the Tribunal’s final decision before the end of March at the earliest. In the meantime, the Federal government has extended HRL’s period to meet the conditions of its $100 million grant (to complement its $50 million from the State government) until 30 June 2012. You may have heard that, on the eve of the hearing’s conclusion, Michael Danby MP, the local member for Melbourne Ports where LIVE is based, addressed Parliament to defend the government’s decision to give HRL more time. (see our press release here).
Indeed it’s been an eye-opening, time warping adventure. On behalf of LIVE, an enormous thanks goes to our tireless friends at Environment Victoria, our wonderful legal team, the great Doctors for the Environment, and the amazing Martin Shield. Credit must also go to the three Tribunal members who patiently presided over this long and complicated case. Finally, we’ve also very much appreciated the encouraging well wishes from so many of you, stay tuned!
Fingers crossed everybody!
Deborah Hart
PS: For those of you who live in the City of Port Phillip, and particularly those who live in ELWOOD, and were affected by the floods a year ago, LIVE will be hosting an ELWOOD FLOODS FORUM on Monday 26 March. Preliminary details are here. . . http://www.live.org.au/elwood.
Climate denial and the USofA
Just received from two sources here in Oz, Karina Veal points to http://www.stthomas.edu and from Larry Nordell in Montana, a New York Times report into secret funding of so-called think tanks. And just in case you thought this was just an American disease have a look at the Conversation piece undressing the IPA. There is no question that there is money to be made from telling lies. And pretensions to power. Ask the mad monk.
Ebooks, ereaders and sources and more
It would be great if someone could write a guide for the perplexed on ereaders, ebook sources and the different platforms out there. Send contributions to bob@weisfilms.com for publication. There is news everyday on the topic so once we have a basic spine we can add to it. Pan McMillan have just announced an eBook library.
Our book circle is and will be a growing site designed to reflect your passions and interests with your reading contributing and enriching the site.
Look around, make a comment or write your own things. Send a link, a picture, a video or an audio file. For now send contributions to bob@weisfilms.com and I'll publish. Also get update alerts by following tweets @weis_bob |
Chris Mardon has been a scientist with the CSIRO, an author and an informed commentator on Environmental matters. He is a scientific advisor to the Greens.
Chris Mardon on another approach to being GreenIt has been revealed in the journal Nature that oil's tipping point has definitely been passed. I don't have a subscription with that journal, but I have found some information about the article from the University of Washington, where one of the authors (Professor James Murray) works:
Attached is an enlarged version of the graphs in that article so that you can see what they are talking about. The Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) has been saying for years that the global production of conventional crude oil peaked in 2005. Now we have the proof. As you can see from the graphs, oil prices have become highly volatile since 2004, reaching a massive peak in mid-2008. This volatility was no doubt enhanced by the hedge funds, but the sudden change in the price elasticity from 2004 is obvious. This reflects the fact that global production had levelled out. Total oil production has increased somewhat as the production of new marginal sources of hydrocarbons has boosted supply somewhat, but the potential for growth in the total supply is limited because all of the new sources are more expensive than conventional crude oil and the oil price feeds back into the cost of new production infrastructure. The attached figure from "The End of Growth" by Richard Heinberg shows three graphs, the first of which is from the IEA. It shows that production from currently producing oil fields is now on the point of permanent decline. New fields yet to be developed or yet to be discovered may allow the continuation of production close to the peak level for some time to come, but there is no scope for growth, and some people consider even these estimates to be very optimistic. There is some scope for temporary growth from natural gas condensate (a light liquid hydrocarbon unsuitable for heavier petroleum products such as diesel fuel, jet fuel, shipping fuels or lubricants) and unconventional oil such as deepwater oil, heavy oil and tar sands), but it is highly capital intensive (which means that it contains substantial embedded energy), and it takes more direct energy to produce. e.g. Venezuelan heavy oil cannot be pumped out of the ground, so steam is blown down the well and an oil/water emulsion is pumped out. This emulsion is quite stable, but it is not suitable as a fuel, so the Chinese are taking tanker loads of this emulsion back to China for further processing. Similarly, the oil from tar sands is not directly suitable for refinery feedstock, so it too needs some further processing first. Even the extraction of the oil from tar sands requires large amounts of natural gas and water, so its production is also energy-intensive and expensive, not to mention very damaging to the environment. As you can see from the lower graphs in the attached figure, world oil discoveries have been in decline since the 1960s, and the marginal cost of oil from new oil fields is rising. There was a sharp drop in oil prices in 2009 as a result of the GFC, but prices have since risen again. The cost of unconventional oil is particularly expensive because the capital costs and energy used to extract them is much higher. The high oil costs are feeding back into the construction costs of new infrastructure and they are making other sources of energy such as coal and LNG more expensive as well. The upshot of all this is that the Energy Return On Energy Invested (EROEI) for new sources of oil is dropping rapidly and approaching the point of diminishing returns (EROEI = 1 means that no net energy is produced, so energy is just converted from one form to another). Shale oil, oil from coal and tar sands are all close to that figure. That means that in terms of the net benefit to the economy, these marginal sources of energy are not very useful, and the Energy Profit Ratio (EPR) that Brian Fleay likes to use (cf. EROEI) is already worse than some forms of renewable energy. We only use them because our industrial and transport systems are built to take conventional oil. Gina Rinehart - media game changerSee what The Convesration says about this latest assault on our Press and how it operates or how it might operate with Rupert and Gina calling the shots. As if media concentration in the shadow of the Dirty Digger wasn't bad enough, here come Gina and Clive to add some glamour to a fairly fusty field. (sarcasm)
And remember SBS and the ABC are still under all sorts of threat from those who would occupy the Government benches so stay vigilant. Science?
Interested in the so called science debates or the phoney culture wars? Have a look at these two pieces from Deb Hart and Bob Weis.
For a discussion from The Conversation on the way the media is reporting global warming click here. If you feel like many do that the ABC has dropped the ball when covering climate change (or not) check out this excellent Background Briefing program. If you see text in red, that is underlined it will take you to the page referred to. |
I'm a journalist, sub-editor, writer
and human experiment in progress
and human experiment in progress
From Ken Haley
The Hall of Uselessness: Collected Essays. Simon Leys. Published by Black Inc. 2011. 453 pp. $49.95 (hardback)
Arguably. Christopher Hitchens. Published by Allen & Unwin. 2011. 789 pp. $33 (paperback)
"I'm a journalist, sub-editor, writer
and human experiment in progress"
Ken has written a book, Europe @ 2.4 km/h, and you can contact him at
(kjhaley@bigpond.com)
With the leisure that a couple of weeks in New Zealand facing no commitments and an open beach provides, I found myself reading much more – and much more pleasurably – than I ever can at home. For this journey I'd saved two weighty tomes that everyday preoccupations would have only prevented me getting my teeth into: Christopher Hitchens' ultimate challenge, Arguably, and Simon Leys' latest blockbuster, The Hall of Uselessness.
Both authors are more alike than each would ever have wanted to admit, I suspect. Each is a master of the polemic – I refuse to say “was” even though Hitchens' avowed atheism militates against doing so: his prose, we can all agree, is immortal even if his body has taken his soul with it – and neither could write a sentence that was boring or less than craftsmanlike.
Take this, plucked fresh at this very moment and at random, from Leys' latest: “The literal meaning of qi is 'breath' or 'energy' (etymologivally, the written character designates the steam produced by rice being cooked).” (p. 298) Then this, also fresh and unpremeditated (on my part) from Hitchens':
“... the blocking of shipbuilding orders for the Confederate fleet, and other such actions, were to some degree orchestrated by the founders of the communist movement – not the sort of thing that is taught in school when Abraham Lincoln is the patriotic subject. Marx and Friedrich Engels hugely admired Lincoln and felt that just as Russia was the great arsenal of backwardness, reaction and superstition, the United States was the land of potential freedom and equality.” (p. 574)
What I admire most about Hitchens is the breadth of his interests, his polymathic approach to all subjects under the Sun. What I admire most about Leys are the precision of his mind and the depth of his knowledge, the classical formalism of his essays and his uncanny ability to deploy the belle phrase, even more than the bon mot.
To example the depth of knowledge which, as a Christian believer, is unsurprisingly at its most profound in matters theological, I give you an illuminating footnote (No. 3 on p. 284) in which the reader learns that the earliest images of the Cross were discovered among anti-Christian graffiti and that it was another thousand years before medieval artists dared to represent the dead Christ hanging from it.
This is not to say that Leys doesn't range far and wide as well. After reading these two gentlemen, and recalling from one of Hitchens's obituarists just last month the observation (which will not strike any of his dedicated readers as a revelation) that he had a prodigious and photographic memory, it is clear that the ability to recall an anecdote or odd fact at will is a gift they share.
Leys brings to light a wonderful publishing story of George Orwell, at the last possible moment, sending in a final correction that altered one of the critical accounts in Animal Farm. In the climactic scene where the farm's windmill is blown up, Orwell had written “all the animals including Napoleon flung themselves on their faces”. The scrupulously fair writer amended this to “all the animals except Napoleon ...” Why? In his own words, “I just thought the alteration would be fair to Stalin as he did stay in Moscow during the German advance.”
Hitchens' compendium is also bestrewn with such gems – sometimes consisting of nothing more than highwire artistry with words, such as his recitation of a Hugo Chavez rant against the credibility of US reports that Osama bin Laden had been behind the attacks of 9/11, which he couples with some other far-fetched claim by the Venezuelan supremo, building up to this statement, which made me laugh out loud in wonder: “Chavez, in other words, is very close to the climactic moment when he will announce that he is a poached egg and that he requires a very large piece of buttered toast so that he can lie down and take a soothing nap.”
Here it's worth interpolating that my facial muscles would have got the same workover if I hadn't been aware that when he wrote that he was in the early stages of the battle against oesophageal cancer that went on to kill him – but that his continuing to write, on such timely topics at the Arab Spring and US politics' ebb and flow, right up till the final months of his life only makes me esteem him all the more.
Then there are the factoids one would be unlikely to have gleaned elsewhere, such as that Stephen Hawking was born on the 300th anniversary of Galileo's death.
In literature's Elysian fields, Leys is also a successful fossicker of valuable nuggets. He discovers a wonderful quote by Andre Gide that amounts to an apologia for his own reputation as a yes man, one who appeared atavistically averse to argumentation. Gide confided to a friend: “Beware. I am made of rubber. I agree with everything as much as possible; and I would go to the very edge of insincerity – yet make no mistake: once alone, I revert to my original shape.”
Both writers are such fine stylists that the one time they famously clash – over Mother Teresa, of all people – they produce a high-tensile conversation as reverberative in its way as the opening chords of Beethoven's Fifth.
Leys' account, under the title An Empire of Ugliness, takes up 11 pages of his book; you can search Hitchens' book, and index, in vain for a mention of Leys or the nun he called a thief and a fraud. That is not to be held against him, mind you: Arguably is a book of essays, 107 of them – of which I think fully one-fifth are top-drawer stuff. His denunciation of Mother Teresa, like his much more convincing hatchet job on Henry Kissinger, was published in book form.
The Canberra academic and Belgian-born sinologist, indeed, indulges himself in scholarly glee, pace his indignation, in calling the book a “little piece of solid waste”, which is entirely in order for such a Turd World subject, I might add, and even manages – this is his genius, I think – to make a serious refutation against the gravest of charges with a light and sparkling pen.
To Hitchens' ridicule of a right-wing Christian from Nashville, Tennessee, who is reported as having found a likeness of Mother Teresa appearing in the cinnamon bun he had ordered for breakfast, Leys did not pretend to be shocked which would only have risked having himself labelled humourless. He points out – in a letter written to The Book Circle's rightly recommended New York Review of Books, in which a review of Hitchens' book had appeared – that people who share the nun's faith are not likely to find her face in cinnamon buns and, even if they did, would probably have a good laugh about it.
In making this point, Leys (the nom de plume of Pierre Ryckmans) shows a remarkable ability to distance himself from his own moral outrage and, far from weakening the impression of disgust he clearly felt for Hitchens' attack on the elderly nun, this polymorphous approach strengthened the appeal of the essay as a whole.
Since they both cannot be right on the question of Mother Teresa's goodness or badness, readers of the two accounts – and Leys is Orwellian in doing Hitchens the justice of citing his statements on the subject, as given in his book, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (which title Leys predictably finds offensive) – will find themselves siding with one or the other. (Unless they believe the question is one for God to decide, but it's perfectly understandable why Hitchens couldn't take that position!)
For me, the interplay between the two is a more important exercise by far. In the end, whatever subject these two titans take on – be it Mother Teresa or (let's go sampling again) art collecting, anti-Semitism and the survival mechanisms of Zhou Enlai (to pick three of Leys' subjects), or a defence of the Iraq invasion, a paean to Rebecca West or a most unexpected tribute to Iranian mosque architecture (to pick three of Hitchens') – I couldn't imagine a better way to pass those January days than with these two quarrelsome companions at my side.
and human experiment in progress"
Ken has written a book, Europe @ 2.4 km/h, and you can contact him at
(kjhaley@bigpond.com)
With the leisure that a couple of weeks in New Zealand facing no commitments and an open beach provides, I found myself reading much more – and much more pleasurably – than I ever can at home. For this journey I'd saved two weighty tomes that everyday preoccupations would have only prevented me getting my teeth into: Christopher Hitchens' ultimate challenge, Arguably, and Simon Leys' latest blockbuster, The Hall of Uselessness.
Both authors are more alike than each would ever have wanted to admit, I suspect. Each is a master of the polemic – I refuse to say “was” even though Hitchens' avowed atheism militates against doing so: his prose, we can all agree, is immortal even if his body has taken his soul with it – and neither could write a sentence that was boring or less than craftsmanlike.
Take this, plucked fresh at this very moment and at random, from Leys' latest: “The literal meaning of qi is 'breath' or 'energy' (etymologivally, the written character designates the steam produced by rice being cooked).” (p. 298) Then this, also fresh and unpremeditated (on my part) from Hitchens':
“... the blocking of shipbuilding orders for the Confederate fleet, and other such actions, were to some degree orchestrated by the founders of the communist movement – not the sort of thing that is taught in school when Abraham Lincoln is the patriotic subject. Marx and Friedrich Engels hugely admired Lincoln and felt that just as Russia was the great arsenal of backwardness, reaction and superstition, the United States was the land of potential freedom and equality.” (p. 574)
What I admire most about Hitchens is the breadth of his interests, his polymathic approach to all subjects under the Sun. What I admire most about Leys are the precision of his mind and the depth of his knowledge, the classical formalism of his essays and his uncanny ability to deploy the belle phrase, even more than the bon mot.
To example the depth of knowledge which, as a Christian believer, is unsurprisingly at its most profound in matters theological, I give you an illuminating footnote (No. 3 on p. 284) in which the reader learns that the earliest images of the Cross were discovered among anti-Christian graffiti and that it was another thousand years before medieval artists dared to represent the dead Christ hanging from it.
This is not to say that Leys doesn't range far and wide as well. After reading these two gentlemen, and recalling from one of Hitchens's obituarists just last month the observation (which will not strike any of his dedicated readers as a revelation) that he had a prodigious and photographic memory, it is clear that the ability to recall an anecdote or odd fact at will is a gift they share.
Leys brings to light a wonderful publishing story of George Orwell, at the last possible moment, sending in a final correction that altered one of the critical accounts in Animal Farm. In the climactic scene where the farm's windmill is blown up, Orwell had written “all the animals including Napoleon flung themselves on their faces”. The scrupulously fair writer amended this to “all the animals except Napoleon ...” Why? In his own words, “I just thought the alteration would be fair to Stalin as he did stay in Moscow during the German advance.”
Hitchens' compendium is also bestrewn with such gems – sometimes consisting of nothing more than highwire artistry with words, such as his recitation of a Hugo Chavez rant against the credibility of US reports that Osama bin Laden had been behind the attacks of 9/11, which he couples with some other far-fetched claim by the Venezuelan supremo, building up to this statement, which made me laugh out loud in wonder: “Chavez, in other words, is very close to the climactic moment when he will announce that he is a poached egg and that he requires a very large piece of buttered toast so that he can lie down and take a soothing nap.”
Here it's worth interpolating that my facial muscles would have got the same workover if I hadn't been aware that when he wrote that he was in the early stages of the battle against oesophageal cancer that went on to kill him – but that his continuing to write, on such timely topics at the Arab Spring and US politics' ebb and flow, right up till the final months of his life only makes me esteem him all the more.
Then there are the factoids one would be unlikely to have gleaned elsewhere, such as that Stephen Hawking was born on the 300th anniversary of Galileo's death.
In literature's Elysian fields, Leys is also a successful fossicker of valuable nuggets. He discovers a wonderful quote by Andre Gide that amounts to an apologia for his own reputation as a yes man, one who appeared atavistically averse to argumentation. Gide confided to a friend: “Beware. I am made of rubber. I agree with everything as much as possible; and I would go to the very edge of insincerity – yet make no mistake: once alone, I revert to my original shape.”
Both writers are such fine stylists that the one time they famously clash – over Mother Teresa, of all people – they produce a high-tensile conversation as reverberative in its way as the opening chords of Beethoven's Fifth.
Leys' account, under the title An Empire of Ugliness, takes up 11 pages of his book; you can search Hitchens' book, and index, in vain for a mention of Leys or the nun he called a thief and a fraud. That is not to be held against him, mind you: Arguably is a book of essays, 107 of them – of which I think fully one-fifth are top-drawer stuff. His denunciation of Mother Teresa, like his much more convincing hatchet job on Henry Kissinger, was published in book form.
The Canberra academic and Belgian-born sinologist, indeed, indulges himself in scholarly glee, pace his indignation, in calling the book a “little piece of solid waste”, which is entirely in order for such a Turd World subject, I might add, and even manages – this is his genius, I think – to make a serious refutation against the gravest of charges with a light and sparkling pen.
To Hitchens' ridicule of a right-wing Christian from Nashville, Tennessee, who is reported as having found a likeness of Mother Teresa appearing in the cinnamon bun he had ordered for breakfast, Leys did not pretend to be shocked which would only have risked having himself labelled humourless. He points out – in a letter written to The Book Circle's rightly recommended New York Review of Books, in which a review of Hitchens' book had appeared – that people who share the nun's faith are not likely to find her face in cinnamon buns and, even if they did, would probably have a good laugh about it.
In making this point, Leys (the nom de plume of Pierre Ryckmans) shows a remarkable ability to distance himself from his own moral outrage and, far from weakening the impression of disgust he clearly felt for Hitchens' attack on the elderly nun, this polymorphous approach strengthened the appeal of the essay as a whole.
Since they both cannot be right on the question of Mother Teresa's goodness or badness, readers of the two accounts – and Leys is Orwellian in doing Hitchens the justice of citing his statements on the subject, as given in his book, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (which title Leys predictably finds offensive) – will find themselves siding with one or the other. (Unless they believe the question is one for God to decide, but it's perfectly understandable why Hitchens couldn't take that position!)
For me, the interplay between the two is a more important exercise by far. In the end, whatever subject these two titans take on – be it Mother Teresa or (let's go sampling again) art collecting, anti-Semitism and the survival mechanisms of Zhou Enlai (to pick three of Leys' subjects), or a defence of the Iraq invasion, a paean to Rebecca West or a most unexpected tribute to Iranian mosque architecture (to pick three of Hitchens') – I couldn't imagine a better way to pass those January days than with these two quarrelsome companions at my side.
A hot hot summer
As the mercury climbs and the citizens slowly drift back to work the political silly season continues unabated. What passes for commentary in our media is slanted to the sensational and has no test of truth or honesty. One opinion is as good as another particularly if it comes with a smartly packaged quotable one liner. The endless chatter on the so-called climate change debate has everything apart from facts, scientific heft and a realism about the urgency.
This is not my opinion. I am not a scientist. It is what the scientists are telling us. Not all scientists for sure but 99% of them. Australia has two prominent exceptions neither of whom have expertise in the field. Ian Plymer is a geologist and a mining company board member who has made obfuscation and misinformation his business, and a healthy business it turns out to be. There is a lovely youtube of him "debating" George Monbiot - I say debating in inverted commas because ... well look it up.
The Jewish community decided unilaterally not to debate David Irving. The Holocaust was real, did happen and many of us have to deal with issues from it daily. Why pretend it is a legitimate subject for debate with two sides to the argument? Ask the President of Iran but who really wants to talk to him.
This is not my opinion. I am not a scientist. It is what the scientists are telling us. Not all scientists for sure but 99% of them. Australia has two prominent exceptions neither of whom have expertise in the field. Ian Plymer is a geologist and a mining company board member who has made obfuscation and misinformation his business, and a healthy business it turns out to be. There is a lovely youtube of him "debating" George Monbiot - I say debating in inverted commas because ... well look it up.
The Jewish community decided unilaterally not to debate David Irving. The Holocaust was real, did happen and many of us have to deal with issues from it daily. Why pretend it is a legitimate subject for debate with two sides to the argument? Ask the President of Iran but who really wants to talk to him.
Holiday season
It's that time of year again where everybody has a list. To see the New York Times list of the best 100 reads of 2011 see here.
Just in from Deb Hart
Our new national identity, do we dig it?The other evening I was at a meeting organized by the Quit Coal Collective. (ad break: these people are second to none direct action activists). Naturally, exchanging information about mining projects popping up left, right and centre, in our precious places and our critical food bowels, overwhelming our land, threatening our water supplies and so on was exhausting and deeply depressing.
There was a reflective moment when we questioned our country’s national identity. For more than a century Australians lived off the sheep’s back but we’ve largely replaced that with transnational corporations (read: most shareholders are not Australian) digging up and taking away swaths of our country. How do we really feel about being a quarry, and leading exporter of climate change?
We think of ourselves as people of the land, as down to earth and resilient. Given that our iconic Great Barrier Reef is hanging on by just the skin of its teeth, experts say that it could be lost any year now, perhaps our new national identity will be forced on us sooner than we think.
Well, we have solutions that could be adopted immediately. Right now our new Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) is accepting submissions and the 100% Renewable Energy campaign has a quick, simple and creative solution to make a submission (see my submission below). The only catch is that you also have to be quick about it because submissions close on 8 December.
Tell the CEFC that we want Australia to be a hub for renewable energy in the southern hemisphere. Tell them that we are tired of witnessing the fruits of our cutting edge renewable energy R&D leave our shores to be commercialised overseas. Tell them to use their new powers to protect our climate, create clean local jobs, ensure a safe and secure energy future and embrace a new national identity that we can be proud of.
With thanks and best wishes,
Deborah on behalf of LIVE
PS Our legal challenge to the EPA’s approval of a new coal fired power station has been adjourned until 6 Feb, stay tuned. See http://www.live.org.au/component/content/article/59-events/399-brown-coal-in-court
PPS please let others know about this important submission opportunity
There was a reflective moment when we questioned our country’s national identity. For more than a century Australians lived off the sheep’s back but we’ve largely replaced that with transnational corporations (read: most shareholders are not Australian) digging up and taking away swaths of our country. How do we really feel about being a quarry, and leading exporter of climate change?
We think of ourselves as people of the land, as down to earth and resilient. Given that our iconic Great Barrier Reef is hanging on by just the skin of its teeth, experts say that it could be lost any year now, perhaps our new national identity will be forced on us sooner than we think.
Well, we have solutions that could be adopted immediately. Right now our new Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) is accepting submissions and the 100% Renewable Energy campaign has a quick, simple and creative solution to make a submission (see my submission below). The only catch is that you also have to be quick about it because submissions close on 8 December.
Tell the CEFC that we want Australia to be a hub for renewable energy in the southern hemisphere. Tell them that we are tired of witnessing the fruits of our cutting edge renewable energy R&D leave our shores to be commercialised overseas. Tell them to use their new powers to protect our climate, create clean local jobs, ensure a safe and secure energy future and embrace a new national identity that we can be proud of.
With thanks and best wishes,
Deborah on behalf of LIVE
PS Our legal challenge to the EPA’s approval of a new coal fired power station has been adjourned until 6 Feb, stay tuned. See http://www.live.org.au/component/content/article/59-events/399-brown-coal-in-court
PPS please let others know about this important submission opportunity