Global warming - the cost of doing nothing



From Pollyics Stream at yfrog.com via North Coast Voices



Slim's Pickens: BOM V GOD and another somewhat well-known Queensland tool

In follow-up to his earlier comment, regular contributor, Slim writes:

Staying with the parliamentary performance theme could provide some revelations about the fading career of one who is far less "representative"; a line you may recall in relation to 'swill' and Keating.
John Quiggin has been amused by events during recent Senate Estimates hearings: Perhaps I am more saddened by the discovery of another parliamentary tool, but the religious tool nearly made it all worthwhile.

"The idea that the Bureau of Meteorology is part of a global conspiracy to destroy Australia’s economy impose communist world government (or in some more prosaic versions, to increase itsfunding[1]) sounds like the basis of a bad comedy sketch. But, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, this claim is put forward, in apparent seriousness, by numerous anti-science advocates in Australia (Andrew Bolt, Jennifer Marohasy, and Warwick Hughes are leading examples) and implicily accepted by many others....

Back in October last year, the Senate’s Environment and Communications Legislation Committee agreed to table a letter from Cardinal Pell which quoted heavily from Heaven and Earth to claim there were “good reasons for doubting that carbon dioxide causes warmer temperatures”.

The Director of the Bureau of Meteorology Dr Greg Ayers has now responded at an estimates hearing, demolishing Plimer’s bogus claims and pointing to numerous scathing reviews of his trashy and dishonest book. Ayers is great value, but the real fun in reading the Hansard transcript comes from the frantic attempts of Senators MacDonald and Boswell to stop him talking...

It’s great to see the Bureau taking a leading role in the defence of science. Sadly, some of those who should be speaking out, most notably the Australian Academy of Science, have been missing in action. ...

It’s also amusing to see leading figures on the political right like Pell, McDonald and Boswell expose themselves as gullible fools, along with most of the rightwing commentariat. While not everyone on the right thinks this way (as witness Turnbull’s near-victory over Abbott a year or so ago), the number willing to raise their voices in defence of science remains tiny.

Footnote1. Advocates of the conspiracy theory tend to shift between global communist and grant-grubbing theories, in a manner reminiscent of the (possibly apocryphal) Tasmanian politician who promised voters that, if they supported Federation they would build a glorious new nation under the Southern Cross and get higher prices for their apples."

Quiggin's description of Senator Ian Macdonald as a leading figure of the political right is laughable, of course. But what is hilarious is the Hansard Report between pages 104 and 109.

Cheers, Slim

See also Tim Lambert and Graham Readfearn

How to be right and oh so wrong

While Barney Joyce and his sidekick the Mad Monk were predictably the first to try and exploit the devastation from the Qld floods, I was surprised to see Bob Brown having a go yesterday:

Coal miners to blame for Queensland floods, says Australian Greens leader Bob Brown

He might be right, but his timing is all wrong - a dumb move that will cost the Greens in Qld

UPDATE:  I have removed the link to the Murdoch story to deny them the few extra click-throughs they might get.  Instead check-out Pure Poison's analysis of the story.

I still reckon that Brown should have stayed quiet for a few more days (except for expressions of grief and support).  It strikes me that the floods will either finally get Queenslanders really wanting action on global warming or it will get them blaming the Greens and the environmental movement for the whole disaster. 

He needs to play it VERY carefully as the politics of this are quite delicate - which of course is why Martin Ferguson released this spray in response (a Murdoch link I'm afraid)

Are you a Planet killer?

I just love the work of John Sherffius

Stuffed!

Population debates, migration debates and sustainability debates (and the race card)

Following the release of the Treasury's Intergenerational Report, there has been growing ‘debate’ (or is that hype) in the mainstream media about the prospect of Australia's population reaching 35 million by 2050.

The hype (and the effectiveness of playing the race card that he learnt so well under Howard) is what no doubt prompted the Mad Monk to hint at a policy to cut our 'out-of-control' migration intake in response.
 
The hype and the Monk’s play is also what no doubt prompted Rudd to announce the appointment of a Minister for Population and the development of a population strategy.

Neither party seem to be willing to touch the hard issues:

• The impact of the $1.4 billion annual baby bonus on the Australian birth rate
• Australia’s true migration picture.  See: Rubbery figures on migrant flood by Peter McDonald in The Age
• What is an environmentally sustainable population for the country? See Sustainable Population Australia
• Our place in the world community and what it means for our population growth and responsibilities.

As Malcolm McIntosh, Tapan Sarker and Rose Boyd argue their excellent piece Australia's population challenge in the ABC’s The Drum:

“Population is fundamentally a human rights and environmental rights issue but there seem to be few, if any, politicians willing to accept the leadership baton and step forward.”

Quite so

How will the climate change deniers explain this away?

New Moore Island in the Sunderbans has been completely submerged, said oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta. Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols, he said.

'What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming,' said Hazra."  Source

The Bulletin's owner on Climate Change

Great article at Rolling Stone on Rupert (owner of The Bully) Murdoch's  hypocracy on Climate Change:

The Disinformer.  Rupert Murdoch, CEO, News Corporation

I strongly recommend you read about all 17 polluters and deniers in The Climate Killers piece by Tim Dickinson of which this is part (I find the piece on Warren Buffett really scary because of his proven ability to read the future of the markets), along with Jeff Goodell's article "As the World Burns" about how Big Oil and Big Coal mounted aggressive lobbying campaigns to block progress on global warming.

Climate change: the snake oil salesmen of capitalism battle it out

Call me an old lefty but I liked this analysis on En Passant and, in particular, this line:

The irony here is that the ALP is proposing a market based solution while the Opposition is championing a state interventionist approach.

Neither will work. Greenhouse gas emissions are systemic to capitalism.

Voters are worried about the impacts of climate change. That’s why both parties give the impression of action without addressing the fundamental problem – the relationship between profit and pollution.

Be warned though, the post gets a little over-the-top towards the end - even for an old lefty

The party line just doesn’t add up

I was good to see Dr Douglas Goudie from JCU raising the issue of a rail service linking the Northern Beaches and the CBD in today’s Bulletin.
The argument for rail over road makes heaps of sense to me – on environmental and (long term) cost efficiency grounds. Dr. Doug’s proposition to use the existing main line through the Northern Beaches as a first stage towards light rail makes even more sense.

But Craig Wallace’s response and that of the Transport Minister’s office seemed to miss the point. Sticking a loco and a few carriages on the existing line to service morning and afternoon commuters simply cannot be as expensive a building more road lanes and running busses into town.

You also have to wonder how comprehensive the Government’s cost effectiveness analysis was and over what timeframe it was projected. In particular, does it take into account the impact of peak oil or the future cost of carbon emissions? My guess is not.

Pseudo-statistical arsehattery

Possum has an excellent post exposing how the Andrew Bolts' of the world use of "pseudo-statistical arsehattery that gets passed off as evidence" to support their denial of global warming here

An observation about Copenhagen

News yesterday that Group of 77 developing countries had walked out of the Copenhagen negotiations as part of their tactic to force a fair and real outcome, made me think - Outside of the history of organised labour, I really can't remember another instance where the poor have had real power in a negotiation with the rich.

The next few days will be fascinating

The war for the future

From "The Fire this Time: Copenhagen and the War for the Future" by Alex Steffen in WorldChanging.com:

And this is what most older observers seem to refuse to understand: The world looks dramatically different if the year 2050 is one you’re likely to be alive to see. To younger people, Copenhagen isn’t some do-gooder meeting; it’s the first major battle in a war for the future.

Their future. I’m in my middle years, in between the two groups, yet even I can see that this war is about to get a lot more heated—far more heated than anything we’ve seen in half a century. To younger people, this isn’t just policy, it’s personal.

To be young and aware today is to see your elders burning our civilization down around our ears. To hear scientists tell us we’re in the final countdown, with the risk of runaway climate change (along with the ecosystem collapses and horrific human suffering it will bring) mounting with every day we run business as usual. To hear nearly a chorus of credible voices—from doctors and scientists to retired generals and former bankers— warning that to lose this fight is to lose everything that makes our world livable and gives the future hope.

You wouldn’t think a war could start over such simple ideas.

To be young and aware is to see old people—from the U.S. Senate to Wall Street, from newspaper editorial desks to corporate boardrooms—stalling action on every front, spouting platitudes about “balance,” committing themselves wholeheartedly to actions to be undertaken long after they’ve retired and died. To be told that the world’s scientists are participating in a giant hoax; to be chided for not understanding how the real world works; to be warned that doing the right thing will bankrupt us; to be told that not wanting to melt the ice caps and circle the equator in deserts makes you too radical to take seriously.

To be young and aware is to know you’re being lied to; to know that a bright green future is possible; to know that we can reimagine the world, rebuild our cities, redesign our lives, retool our factories, distribute innovation and creativity and all live in a world that is not only better than the alternative, but much better than the world we have now.

To be young and aware is to suspect that, in the end, the debate about climate action isn’t about substance, but about rich old men trying to squeeze every last dollar, euro, and yen from their investments in outdated industries. It is to agree with the environmentalist Paul Hawken that we have an economy that steals the future, sells it in the present, and calls it GDP. It is to begin to see your elders as cannibals with golf clubs.

Myself, I worry: not that the young grow radical—hell, if I were 10 years younger, I’d be on the barricades myself—but that they grow despondent. Because what the world needs now, more than ever, is what the young have always given most: their optimism.

So if nothing else happens in Copenhagen, I pray that all of us who have years and a voice and a conscience will say at least this to the world’s youth: Your fight is ours, too. Don’t give up

It brings a tear to the eye of an old radical yoof.

God, Climate Change and those emails

I've often wondered about the relative silence of religions' power structures in the Global Warming debate and about how those who have a literal belief in the creation fable and the omnipotence of their god could ever reconcile that belief with the reality that man could so fundamentally threaten their god's creation.

Today comes the explanation. In an excellent piece, The holy war on climate change, Paul Coglan at The Punch details the role of a range of ultra-conservative Christian groups in the email and phone "campaign" that (we are told) deluged opposition MPs offices in the lead-up to the right-wing take-over of the Parliamentary Party and the accession of the Mad Monk to their leadership.

Within the article, is this quote from The Shakers, a Christian Ethics Group with links to Catch the Fire Ministries and (would you believe) the National Civic Council, which explains it all:

We cannot ‘save’ the planet. Only God can. This world will not be wiped out until Christ returns.

So it’s ok folks - we don't have to do anything!  Scary.

Surely this is no better than a jihadist’s rational for mass murder?

Peter Lindsay and that fridge

My earlier prediction that the Prince of Herbert, Peter Lindsay, would be looking for a smaller fridge after supporting Malcolm Turmoil in the recent successful takeover of the parliamentary Liberal by the ultra conservatives is looking more certain every day.

Shadow Parliamentary Secretary and junior ministry positions are one of the prizes that the Mad Monk can use to reward his supporters in his recent one-point win over Turmoil. To enable him to do so, he will quietly drop Turmoil supporters from the ranks of junior ministers and Parl Secs, including The Prince, and replace them with his own.

That’s how the game is played.
The Prince will be left with a smaller fridge, a smaller postal and staffing allowance and with a party manifesto devoid of a free market solution to reducing emissions. He will have to sell a no-ETS, no pollution pricing or taxing policy while knowing full well that we can’t achieve the necessary changes to behaviour or the economy without them. And there’s every chance he’ll have to sell a nuclear energy policy to boot.

But then, he effectively admitted in today’s Oz what the next election is about for the Libs - shoring-up their core conservative (resistant to change) constituency.

"Abbott will be able to bring them back into the tent," Mr Lindsay said of the Nationals yesterday. "That will stop the political bleeding that's happened in Queensland, and we will better work together."

The problem for Peter is that, on a -0.4% margin, he has to keep that core rusted-on constituency while winning the middle ground – no wonder he needs a hug.

Perhaps he should look at getting an esky rather than a smaller fridge.

I told you Fielding was mad!

From Spillwatch at Pollytics

Fielding tried to gate crash the remnants of the Turnbull presser, wanting a Royal Commission into the science of climate change chaired by Ross Garnaut and Ian Plimer. Most of the press left, some chuckling. (via.. well, the whole press gallery on twitter).

See earlier post here.

More recommended reading in strange times

My weekend blogg of interesting reading was getting a bit full. Tome for a new post which I'll keep adding to during the day

• Plausible maybe, fascinating to ponder - definitely:  The Punch, live blogging the politics of the day reports:  9.09am: David Speers of Sky News says on Twitter: Interesting theory doing Liberal rounds: Turnbull loses, quits, creates new party targeting around 25 marginal Liberal seats!

What others are saying about Peter Lindsay

From The Punch - live blogging of Question Time today just after the Prince of Herbert got chucked out:

And no, I'm not Zeta - I had to leave the exchange early.

I would however add the following to Zeta's list:

Nov 26, 2009: while the biggest new story in the nation for the last week or so has been climate change, the ETS and the Liberal leadership, on the day the future of Yalulu has been called into question, and on the day Terminal Turnbull's hold on the party of Peter is completely falling apart, the Prince of Herbert's only public utterance is to welcome the Government's (yes, that's the Labor Government's) decision to spend a further $80 million on Lavarack

WEIRD hey?

Will Peter be rewarded with a larger fridge?

I presume from Tony Raggatt’s update to the Oz’s story from yesterday about the ETS and the Yabulu Refinery, that Peter Lindsay supported the ETS in Tuesday’s joint party room bun-fight.

Judging by a grab I saw on Sky News yesterday when the Prince of Herbert pointedly came out of the room to announce that “Someone should give Tuckey a needle” and then turn on his heels to return to the fray, he certainly voted against the West Australians’ spill motion.

But then, Peter has always known which is of the bread his butter is on. The big question now is whether Terminal Turnbull will reward him with a promotion to a junior Ministry and the bigger fridge and postal allowance that goes with it.

The Bulletin - the no news paper

You have to worry about those punters who rely on The Bulletin for their news. There is not one story in today’s 56 page edition about the week’s biggest story in the Nation – the proposed CPRS-ETS and the federal opposition’s implosion over the issue.

And certainly no mention or questioning of:

• where the Prince of Herbert, Peter Lindsay stands on the ETS,
• the future of Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership, 
• the effects of yesterday's ETS deal on families and in particular low-income families
• the future of Yabulu under the ETS (see the 1/2 page article on page 5 of The Oz - no link availabe), or
• the very scary new evidence of the escalating effects of global warming.

There is however front-page outrage about year 12 school leavers receiving a drink cooler as a parting gift – clearly the most important issue facing North Queenslanders.

What a rag!