Brendan Nelson is right that Australia shouldn’t adopt an emissions trading scheme unless China and India do, but it is a brave political move. He has to sell a proposition from opposition that John Howard couldn’t sell from government.
The proposition is quite simple. With less than 2% of world emissions, Australia can do little to halt global warming by curbing emissions. In fact, even if it became completely carbon neutral world emissions would decline by much less than the 1.4% that we contribute to world emissions because carbon intensive industries would migrate overseas rather than cease emitting.
Greenhouse gas emissions will be driven by China and India, so if they do nothing, even though we do all we can, global warming will still occur, and given migration of industries, probably no more slowly than it is occurring at the moment. Abatement in isolation is not the right strategy.
The correct strategy is to keep the economy as strong as possible so that adaptation can be more easily afforded, and only abate when it will achieve something.
It is argued that unless we abate, we are in no position to persuade China and India that they should. That is only a good argument if you think that they are persuadable. I think they are persuadable, but only on the basis of empirical observatoin. Australia and other rich countries are no more likely to persuade them to be “virtuous” than my neighbour to convince me to change my ways by entering the seminary. But if I have a heart attack, I’ll start my reformation tomorrow.
That doesn’t mean that we should continue to emit CO2 at the same levels as we do now. CO2 emissions are often projected by the IPCC as a straight-line product of growth in GDP. This is an oversimplification. High growth doesn’t need to be as carbon intensive as it has been in the past. Not only is more of what we consume intangible, but we can produce industrial goods with less energy if we have to. Using scarce and expensive resources as efficiently as possible is always a good idea.
We will run out of affordable fossil fuel one day, and another of the consequences of a richer economy is that some of the riches can be devoted to developing alternative energy sources. This doesn’t require an elaborate ETS system. The increase in the cost of fossil fuel due to short supply provides a good enough price signal without having to invent a new brokerage and taxation system.
Nelson’s problem is that while this might all be very logical, electors buy political promises largely on emotion. As I am seeing increasingly in my online polling, most have bought the global warming argument, and while they don’t want to pay higher prices for energy, they don’t want to admit to themselves that the obverse of that would be modifying the global warming creed.
Politically Nelson might be better-off being opportunistic and just addressing the increase in effective taxation as and when it affects specific costs, leaving the mantra alone.
July 29, 2008 | Graham
Nelson’s right, but can he prosecute the adaptation case?
July 27, 2008 | Ronda Jambe
Feed me facts
Perhaps my tree-hugging and soppy yearning for simpler times with fewer threats isn’t striking the right chord. It may be more useful to present facts, research, documentation and links to the good, the bad, and the scary environmental news. As a true Libran (some of you may be agnostic as to whether God exists, I am still wondering if the stars can guide, or compel) see-sawing is second nature.
Over the years, I have seen many news websites adopt the pattern used by OLO: a title, a brief para or sentence, and a link to the whole item. It works for us impetuous scanners. One of my favourites is Science News Daily, http://www.sciencedaily.com/, and some of the information below comes from them.
The important thing is that for each really desperate bit of news about the environment, there is one that is equally optimistic. The can induce a sort of environmental schizophrenia, a bi-polarity of hope and despair. In the middle lies action, maybe salvation. Does it matter, when the timer is clicking towards the final ‘beep’ when the ticker turns off? For whom the light blinks…All this is a bit too philosophical, and this started out as a promise to just give facts. My 84 year old mother’s recent hospitalisation and subsequent semi-invalid status prompts reflection.
But here is some recent news, they are watching us overseas:
Drought threatens water supply of more than a million Australians
in the UK Telegraph
Australian economy under threat as climate change bites
Businessgreen.com
Melbourne ‘should drink Tasmanian water’ The Age July 20, 2008
This is Family First Senator Steve Fielding’s idea.
EATING LESS MEAT AND JUNK FOOD COULD CUT FOSSIL ENERGY FUEL USE ALMOST IN HALF
An estimated 19 percent of total energy used in the USA is taken up in the production and supply of food. It is mportant that ways of reducing this significant fuel consumption in the US food system are found. Researchers
now set out strategies which could potentially cut fossil energy fuel use by as much as 50 percent.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080723094838.htm
The Wilderness Society has helped to fund research at the ANU on the importance of temperate forests as carbon stores. This means our natural forests, which could be counted in our National Carbon Accounting System. Disturbed and plantation forests aren’t the same.
A very recent Herald-Nielsen poll found 77% of Australians want carbon reductions, regardless of what other countries are doing. and 68% are willing to pay more to achieve this. This is not a one-off finding, it is recurrent. Does this mean pollies who resist are fueling the democratic deficit?
BETTER THAN POWER GRID: NEW MICROGRID NETWORK PROPOSED FOR MORE DEPENDABLE, CHEAPER POWER
A researcher has proposed a microgrid-based power plant with its own local power sources and independent control as a more dependable, efficient, and cost effective system than traditional telecom power systems. Microgrids would also be a quick and inexpensive way to include renewable energy sources for both existing and
developing systems.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080722152609.htm
Bob Birrell, at the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash Uni, said last week that even a 50% cut i n our emissions won’t achieve our national targets, because our population is heading for 30m by about 2050. As migrants arrive, their carbon emissions go up. So we shouldn’t kid ourselves that an emissions trading scheme, even if brought forward against that donkey Brendan Nelson’s protests, will go anywhere near to ‘fixing’ things.
GREATEST VALUE OF FORESTS IS SUSTAINABLE WATER SUPPLY
The forests of the future may need to be managed as much for a sustainable supply of clean water as any other goal, researchers say in a new federal report — but even so, forest resources will offer no “quick fix” to the
insatiable, often conflicting demands for this precious resource.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080714162600.htm
A German colleague is developing a Wiki about this:
SOLAR COOLING BECOMES A NEW AIR-CONDITIONING SYSTEM
Scientists have developed an environmentally friendly cooling technology that does not harm the ozone layer. This is achieved by using solar energy and therefore reducing the use of greenhouse gases.
— full story > http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080714151427.htm
MASSIVE GREENHOUSE GASES MAY BE RELEASED AS DESTRUCTION, DRYING OF WORLD WETLANDS WORSEN
There is growing concern among environmental scientists that evaporation and ongoing destruction of world wetlands, which hold a volume of carbon similar to that in the atmosphere today, could cause them to exhale
billows of greenhouse gases. Warming world temperatures are speeding both rates of decomposition of trapped organic material and evaporation, while threatening critical sources of wetlands recharge.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080720150209.htm
Finally, the ACT Government listed a $1 billion light rail system linking Civic to the airport, Parliamentary Triangle and major town centres, as one of the major infrastructure projects it wants funded under the $20 billion Building Australia Fund. At the same time, they have announced they will spend an additional $80m to duplicate the loathsome Gungahlin Drive Extension, as it has some bottlenecks. It is a horror to travel on, confusing and ugly, but then I don’t live in Gungahlin, where bad planning and inadequate public transport left so many out on a limb for travel to other parts of town, where all the jobs are.
To me, holding out the hand for money to build light rail, while extending a freeway at a time when the oil is clearly going to keep going up in price, and public tranport use is lower than ever, is truly schizo. But you may disagree, and I encourage you to set me straight.
July 25, 2008 | Graham
So who owns the Liberal National Party?
It’s a difficult process to get the right to own a URL with the extension .org.au. You have to be able to demonstrate that you have a sufficient connection with the URL to be entitled to use it. That generally means having a company or trading name that is close.
So how did the National Party of Australia Queensland Central Council get the right to this website: http://www.lnp.org.au/?
Some may talk about democracy, but it appears that no matter what is decided tomorrow by the Nationals, and whatever proportion of Liberals turns-up, and irrespective of whether it is acceptable to the federal Liberal Party, the new party is going to happen, and it is owned by the Nats.
The site is nothing if not ambitious, promising, along with “Features news, events, current topics, contact information and links” a “New Queensland”.
July 25, 2008 | Graham
Not even fit for opposition
Last night the Liberal Party hurtled further down the path first taken when Don Lane and Brian Austin defected to the National Party after the 1983 election with the party splintered, and the epicentre of the quake somewhere around Clayfield. The Party effectively rejected the plan to merge the National and Liberal Parties into a division of the Liberal Party by deferring the constitution convention to facilitate it due to be held this weekend. See the CM here, Australian here and you’ll have to wait for The Brisbane Times because they apparently stopped filing at 4:10 pm yesterday.
The current dispute doesn’t reflect well on any of the participants. Mal Brough was elected on a platform of cleaning out the Liberal Party organisation and negotiating a fair amalgamation. He’s done neither. Disgruntled Liberals point to the fact that the incompetent Geoff Greene remains Liberal Party State Director, and that sitting members in the merged entity are guaranteed preselection until somewhere next decade, as proof of this.
On the other side the National Party look like they wanted to crash this Party all along. The Liberals have given them juust about everything that they want, so how could the sticking point be a Liberal being the inaugural president of the merged entity? The Nationals (when they respond) apparently argue that it would be undemocratic not to elect the inaugural President, in which case, why protect all sitting members from preselection?And why reject Mal Brough as that president? Afterall, he is one of the few politicians in Queensland with political capital available to spend.
One of the major problems in the negotiations is the tendency of the National Party to see it through the prism of state politics and to assume that the federal Liberal party is a handy, but largely irrelevant, part of the scheme. In fact, as the merged entity involves folding the National Party into the Liberal Party, the federal Libs are in fact crucial to it occurring at all. You can’t therefore treat the Liberals federal president as a supernumerary.
There is a tendency for the media to portray the Liberal Party’s internal decisions as reflecting “pro” and “anti” merger factions, when it is nothing of the sort. Most people in the Liberal Party want a merger, but not just on any terms, and they demonstrated that by overwhelmingly electing Brough as President. The 26 to 21 vote on the party’s state council is not as close as sentiment in the party. The council is biased towards the Santoro faction because of their disproportionate control of some of the smaller Federal Electorate Councils.
In fact, the amalgamation issue in the Liberal Party has little to do with amalgamation and everything to do with factional politics. Santoro was resolutely opposed to the amalgamation until he realised he could use it as a weapon against his enemies. He even campaigned against Brough when he first announced his intention to run for president because he was pro-amalgamation! Now Santoro is its biggest supporter and bags Brough because he is alleged to be part of the Tucker faction and anti-amalgamation.
That McIver and Springborg appear to be happy to play along with Santoro underlines the fact that from their point of view this was never about a merger but about a backdoor listing for the damaged political assets of the current National Party.
The result is that unless the National Party comes to its senses Anna Bligh should easily be re-elected. She is in desperate trouble as her appearance on Australian Story proves (and see our latest “What the people want” analysis here), but the problem for Queensland voters is that if they want to punish her they have to elect a mob who aren’t even good enough for Opposition. And now they look likely to have the problem of not one, but two mobs to choose from!
July 22, 2008 | Graham
Christianity as a protector of the secular society
That Christianity, and Judaism, demand a secular, or at least dualist society where church and state are separate, was the theme of Father Robert Sirico at the CIS’s Acton Lecture last night. (The CIS doesn’t have a transcript or speech notes up, but you can get a flavour of his speech from this op-ed in The Australian).
I didn’t find much to disagree with, although he did gloss over the period of time between the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire and the Reformation where the church was as often as not part of the state apparatus. To underline this, Sirico is a minister of a Church which actually runs a civil state, Vatican City, and Bishop Rob Forsythe, who gave the vote of thanks is a minister of a Church whose head is the Queen of England, and whose bishops are members of the British Parliament. The religious state still has its survivors in Christianity. I should also probably note that what we term “equity” came out of ecclesiastical courts in the Middle Ages, and so has something in common with Sharia law.
So to make his argument properly I think Sirico needed to distinguish between institutional Christianity and what I call authentic Christianity. Authentic Christianity is about non-material matters, and while it does have an interest in the state is principally interested in the person, and has very little to say about the state, although a lot to say about how a Christian should interact with the state.
The speech seemed to be timed to coincide with World Youth Day, which was what brought Sirico to Australia, and while much of the WYD commentary was obssessed with how many people were spectating or participating, I think it is also worth considering the proposition that authentic Christianity does best when Christian worship is, if not a minority pursuit, certainly not an institutionalised social cultural ritual.
When the speech is available, Sirico made some interesting remarks about traditions of liberalism within the Catholic Church, as well as the limits of clerical authority and expertise. I’ve often wondered how exigesis of the gospels, where parables so often draw on concepts of peasant economics, stray so quickly, and erroneously, into collectivist diatribe. Sirico, who is a classical liberal, had some historical context for the widespread economic illiteracy of Christian ministers.
July 20, 2008 | Graham
Pascal’s wager and Sunday truths
One of the most commonplace arguments in support of action on global warming is a variant on Pascal’s wager. Pascal’s wager is the proposition that one ought to believe in God, because the detriment in not believing is so immeasurably larger than the cost of believing that one would be foolish not to take out insurance.
The adaptation of this to global warming is that the potential consequences of doing nothing are so horrendous that it makes sense to do something, just in case.
It is not one of Pascal’s better ideas, and one that most people would instinctively reject. Let’s do a thought experiment. How many of those advancing this as a reason for taking whatever their preferred action is on global warming actually believe in God? I’m not sure, but if they don’t believe in God, then you can discount their sincerity in advancing this argument. If it applies, it must apply in all comparable circumstances, and as this is the circumstance in which it was first advanced, it must be a comparable one.
But inconsistency is not the only argument against it. Pascal’s wager condenses all the possibilities down to a binary situation. There either is a God, or there is not, and there is only one God. As Don Aitken points out it is not that simple. As there are various claimants to the true God, then one would have to believe in all of them to have adequate protection, but a number of their truth claims are exclusive, so you can’t believe in all of them simultaneously without violating the basis on which some of them must exist.
The same problem exists with global warming where a number of claims of likley outcomes are made, only one of which can be true, and the identity of this outcome can only be assessed by us now on the basis of probabilities, which must include in the calculations the prospect that it is better to do nothing, and can’t proceed on a binary basis.
That’s not how the debate proceeds. Instead, proponents of action dream-up worst case scenarios and then demand action because of what might happen if action doesn’t occur, even though the probability of what they are advocating occurring is certainly lower than the probability of a real hell existing, and still lower than the business as usual situation delivering a superior outcome.
This is just another guise for the “precautionary principle” which works on the basis of trying to avoid one potentially bad outcome without anlaysing the prospects that other less bad outcomes will actually be more likely to occur.
It is also the basis for Ian Lowe’s bizarre proposition that we need a “sustainability science” where instead of the scientific method (which he brands as the “traditional” scientific method) which works on the basis of testing hypotheses via experimentation, we should assume a particular outcome and work backwards from that.
He dresses it up to sound respectable:
So we have to accept that our engagement with complex natural systems can’t be based on the old model for rational objective science. The traditional sequential steps will have to become parallel functions of social learning, and they’ll also have to incorporate the elements of action, adaptive management, and policy as experiment. Sustainability science needs to employ new methods, perhaps semi-quantitative modelling of qualitative data and case studies, or inverse approaches that work backwards from undesirable consequences to identify pathways that avoid those outcomes. Scientists and practitioners have to work together to produce trustworthy knowledge that combines scientific excellence with social relevance.
but it is in fact anything but science, and anything but respectable
In fact, it is the obverse of the coin-flip of Pascal’s wager. Just as Pascal’s wager dresses up religion in the language of probability, “sustainability” science dresses up religion in the language of science.
July 20, 2008 | Ronda Jambe
Portraits in Pixels
It’s cold in Canberra, much is afoot, much of it boring. But it’s raining, and that’s always good news. I’ve just dropped a dear friend off at the airport, knowing we probably won’t see each other for maybe 5 months. During that time we will both be overseas, and the world is full of surprises.
I’ve just read that the Iraq war is costing $12B per month, and you can bet that those costs don’t stay at home. As with the sub-prime mess, the phrase to remember is: capitalising gains, socialising losses.
But today all I have to share is some pixels, portraits of people I love. No names, just faces. A point in time. I hope you enjoy them.
A wanderer…where is he going?
The delight of a friend in a hammock, swinging above the sea:
A true Odalisque, but perhaps Matisse wouldn’t appreciate the comparison:
A troubadour, full of life and music:
A teacher, and a traveller:
Finally, a lost soul:
July 12, 2008 | Graham
…not to shine in use…
When I came to Australia as a five year old there were a few continuities in my life apart from the language. One of those was Alistair Cooke and his “Letter from America”. It was broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, I think on a Sunday afternoon. The ABC broadcast it as well, just after Sunday lunch.
Another more tenuous one was John Cargher‘s program, “Singers of Renown” as well as his “Music for Pleasure”. I remember hearing the latter at my Grandmother’s place on Sunday afternoons, while the former often issued eccentrically from our radio in the beach house at Currumbin, over the sound of surf and wind. In Canada I was often left at the table to reluctantly chew over my junket after everyone else had finished, while opera, broadcast from the New York “Met”, was on the radio on a Saturday afternoon. In this new country people still liked to listen to men and women bellowing to soaring music.
Another continuity was my dad.
Alistair Cooke died some four years ago, aged 96, and working until one month before he died, after 58 years of “letters”.
John Carger died a little over two months ago, but he eerily lingered on the airwaves as the ABC filled his time slot post mortem with a repeat of his “Singers of Renown Encore” series, introduced by Julie Copeland. He hosted 42 years of “Singers of Renown” and was 89 when he died, working until the end.
Dad also lingered, somewhat bizarrely. Mum didn’t receive his ashes back from the undertaker until some time after he died. He wanted them scattered at Currumbin Beach, but the problem was how to get all the family together to give the scattering sufficient gravitas.
Last Sunday he would have been 96, if he hadn’t died two and a bit years ago at 93, and he worked at something every day of his life right until the end. So the whole family, minus dad, gathered at Currumbin and we sprinkled him on the sea at the front of Flat Rock, washing the last speck out of the box with sea foam. Afterwards I went for a quick memorial dip – Dad was always in the surf, even the year that he died, when we spent some time at Burleigh, and he got rolled by big waves, but still got up.
So my continuities are now discontinuities (not that I need continuities between Canada and Australia anymore) except for one thing. The will to endure was strong in all of them, and that’s a lesson that I take forward in life.
Friends of mine, even younger than me, and I am only 50, talk of retirement. I find that an alien concept. Marx believed that a person was defined by the work that they do, and in this he was right. Cease to work, and you lose your definition and start to fade.
Conservation and sustainability are catch-cries of our times, but there is nothing more wasteful, and self-indulgent, than sidelining our best when their productive careers are perhaps no more than two-thirds complete because of an outmoded idea of planned obsolescence or some hippy happy concept that having paid your dues somewhere in your 50s or 60s you are now free to be a child again. What a waste of human capital, human potential. What a blight on human happiness.
Dylan Thomas had it right. We should “rage, rage, against the dying of the light”. I’m sure John Cargher could have found an aria for it, and if he had we could have played it loudly over the speakers on one of the cars as we tipped Dad back into the elements.
The “Youngs” after the ceremony. Back row Terry O’Connor, Rebel O’Connor, Bronwyn Young, Wolfram O’Connor, Helene Young, Graham Wade. Front row Graham Young, Andrew Young, Marie Young, Harley Huesch (Young), Elizabeth Young, Sophia Young.
July 12, 2008 | Ronda Jambe
I do not like thee, Cardinal Pell
I do not like thee, Cardinal Pell
The reason why, you know full well.
And please believe the words I tell:
If there were one, you’d rot in hell.
Snap, snap! Time for all those leaders of the church, of all denominations, to call for the removal of this odious man.
Haven’t we all heard quite enough, over many years, about the cover-ups, the abuse, the concealment, the hypocrisy?
Why would anyone in their right mind have any interest whatsoever in an institution that condones the sort of slithery sidewise machinations we have seen in the past week? I am not interested in additional details, as I consider it too boring. It seems he knew about allegations against a priest, upheld them for one complainant the same day he denied knowing about them to another.
Could we all please move on? If I had a choice, there would be no funds going to Ratzinger and his circus either.
And why do people still assume that one needs religion to behave decently? I was talking to my mother about Bill Gates philanthropy. She said ‘It’s a very Christian thing to do.’ I said no, it’s a good, human thing to do. Christians don’t have a monopoly on good behaviour. She agreed, being an agnostic.
I believe religion grew out of the need to need to articulate and reinforce common rules of behaviour to ensure survival. Fine. It also grew, originally, at a time when there were no distinctions between natural science, religion, or philosophy. And maybe magic. Certainly psychology hadn’t shown up yet to tell us how humans behave in groups, and how wonderful it can be to seize control over one’s less perceptive and more gullible fellows. In short, power is a talent – some have it, others just go baaa!
The limited reading I have done in this area supports this hypothesis. But some of my best friends are religious, that’s how open minded I am. Very, don’t you think? And I sometimes visit a church for its historic or artistic merits. The music is, well, heavenly. But to seek out men in creative headgear to tell me how to live my life and take my money, well, really, I’m not interested.
The Catholic church is losing believers, at least in the US. Boston was rocked by scandals, and donations are falling. In Africa, perhaps the priesthood is still seen as a career path, along the lines of Le rouge et le Noir, Stendahl’s novel of early 19th century France, and the hypocrisy and corruption of the Catholic Church. Plus ca change….
July 12, 2008 | Graham
Al Gore – coming to an opera house near you
If Peter Combe could turn Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, that founding myth of the Australian conservation movement (perhaps second only to The Magic Pudding) into an opera, why shouldn’t the Italians turn An Inconvenient Truth, the founding myth of Warming Hysteria, into one?
Which is apparently what they are doing.
It may or may not be called Verità Inconveniente, but this spoof letter from the composer Giorgio Battistelli, to Al Gore (Algorino) published in the New York Times is amusing, particularly if, like me, you’re suffering a sense of delayed grief that you can no longer get your fix of glorious arias from John Carger’s “Singers of Renown”.
Just a teaser:
Perhaps, as you complain, Petroleo does exude a certain glamour in his patter song promising magic lanterns and horseless carriages and flying machines. But when he seduces the chief Minemaiden, the music darkens with a menacing crescendo as they embrace, singing “Combustione! Combustione!†There is no mistaking the unholiness of their union, nor its catastrophic consequence once their daughter Carbonia is born.
Of course there is the obligatory swipe at Gore for “inventing” the Internet, and his massive carbon footprint. Left a grin on my face. And it’s recyclable, because you can read it a second time as a commentary on the ridiculous plots that form the basis of most libretti.