Monthly Archives: December 2009

Thursday

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Uluru, Central Australia

Uluru, Central Australia

According to the Anangu traditional landowners of Uluru, the world was once a featureless place. None of the places we know existed until creator beings, in the forms of people, plants and animals, traveled widely across the land. Then, in a process of creation and destruction, they formed the landscape as we know it today. Anangu land is still inhabited by the spirits of dozens of these ancestral creator beings which are referred to as Tjukuritja or Waparitja.”

One account has Uluru built up during the creation period by two boys who played in the mud after rain. When they had finished their game they travelled south to Wiput. Another tells of serpent beings who waged many wars around Uluru, scarring the rock. A third tells of two tribes of ancestral spirits who were invited to a feast, but were distracted by the beautiful Sleepy Lizard Women and did not show up. In response, the angry hosts sang evil into a mud sculpture that came to life as the dingo. There followed a great battle, which ended in the deaths of the leaders of both tribes. The earth itself rose up in grief at the bloodshed, becoming Uluru. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uluru

Climate Change

I have just searched this weblog for ‘Climate change’ and recent postings show substantial confusion. When I read back over these comments and quotes, I can see a lobbying pattern emerging where the participants are:

Climate Change caused by CO2 emissions
  • Science activists
  • Green activists
  • Politicians
  • Coal activists
  • The esoteric – Lovelock
  • Affected industry spokespeople – insurance
CO2 Skeptics
  • Science activists
  • Politicians
  • The esoteric – Sunspots
  • Affected industry spokespeople  — resource extraction, electricity generation, et al.
  • The public

It would be foolish to attempt any predictions for the 2010 so I will continue watching and accumulating information that may eventually clarify the debate.

This article caught my attention:

“John Prescott defends China’s role at Copenhagen climate summit”, guardian.com.uk, 28 December, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/28/john-prescott-defends-china-copenhagen

John Prescott has defended China’s role in the climate change summit, saying the blame for its flawed outcome must lie with the United States and Barack Obama. The former deputy prime minister helped negotiate the Kyoto protocol in 1997, and was in Copenhagen acting as an informal bridge between the Chinese delegation and others.

In a letter to the Guardian, Prescott criticises the US climate change special envoy, Todd Stern, who “said at Copenhagen emissions weren’t about ‘morality or politics’, they were ‘just maths’, with China projected to emit 60% more CO2 than the US by 2030″.

… Prescott claims that Stern’s arguments “ignored the more transparent measure of pollution per capita, which shows the US emits 20 tonnes per person every year, compared to China’s six tonnes, whilst America’s GDP per person is almost eight times greater than the Chinese”. He also attacks President Barack Obama for suggesting there had been a period of “two decades of talking and no action. That might have been true in America, which refused to sign up to Kyoto, but not in the case of China or Europe, who followed a lot of that protocol’s policies. … Prescott is climate change convenor for the Council of Europe, with the role of exploring how to keep the talks on the road.

According to the lengthy defence of China’s actions, European nations repeatedly tried to impose secret drafts, unscheduled meetings and a hidden agenda on China and other developing nations.

Social Media

James Harkin, “Going Tweet and saying nothing”, SMH, 31 December, http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/going-tweet-and-saying-nothing-20091230-ljtm.html

Far from delivering a ”wisdom of crowds”, social networking sites create only a deafening banality, writes James Harkin.

In 2003, in an elaborate joke on New York’s media-savvy, empty-headed hipsters, a journalist called Bill Wasik sent around an anonymous email suggesting that they congregate at a department store at the same time and stare at a rug. The event was an enormous success, and became the world’s first documented example of a ”flash mob”. By the end of the decade, however, the joke was on all of us. Faced with any kind of group activity, our first response is: do any of them know how to use Twitter?

How did we get here? In the past decade, ideas about how society works have been treated to a glamorous new outing. It all began in 2000 with the publication of Malcolm Gladwell’s beautifully crafted bestseller The Tipping Point. Gladwell argued that, given the right kind of push, ideas or products can suddenly gain traction and pass around from person to person like a virus. In its wake came a slew of new thinking about how information and ideas cascade around the place and gather momentum. Then there was the influential idea that we can raise ourselves to a kind of collective intelligence – the so-called ”wisdom of crowds” – by arriving at our decisions independently and punching our best guesses into a computer.

Most of these new ideas took their cue from the time we’ve been spending online. In an age of rapid change in the way we’re communicating, that’s hardly surprising. It helped that many of these new ideas-entrepreneurs made excellent writers and talkers, capable of expressing their theories with more flair and less pomposity than the traditional homme serieux (Comment: Google has let me down – I cannot get a translation for this phrase). It would be churlish not to admit that there was something in their ideas, too. Online is a fantastically efficient way of sending a message out, and taking a pop at established industry authorities.

But the hard part is to find a message worth sending – it’s not good enough, as the internet gurus do, just to blow hard about the joys of a new medium. A succession of breathless internet evangelists have told weird and wonderful stories about young people who were using Facebook and Twitter to organise a whole new kind of politics. From Iran to Moldova, it was claimed, a new generation of activists had armed themselves with Twitter and were using it to fight political repression. ”You cannot have Rwanda again,” argued Gordon Brown in June, referring to the ”Twitter revolution” in Iran. ”This week’s events in Iran are a reminder of the way that people are using new technology to come together in new ways to make their views known.”

It all turned out to be wildly overcooked. Among activists and dissidents, Twitter and other social networking sites were useful in getting messages out of the country, but they turned out to be just as handy for the authorities who were trying to track them down. In any case, since only a tiny number of Iranians use Twitter – a mere 0.027 per cent, according to a forthcoming report from the British Council – it was never going to be much use in organising demonstrations.

I access Facebook several times a day, more in wonderment at the postings than for seeking the goings-on of ‘friends’. Here are some of my ‘friends’ postings:

  • SPA reunion lunch tomm. (Dec. 31) at Clay Oven, Green Park, New Delhi @ 2PM. Everyone’s welcome – please spread the message and join us :)
  • xxxxxx was tagged in a photo.
  • xxxxxx and yyyyyy are now friends.
  • My friend xxxxxx & yyyyyy have a baby girl .All ar well.
  • xxxxxx and yyyyyy are now friends (these two people have been in a rich partnership so becoming ’friends’ is a revelation).
  • xxxxxx Going to Perth shortly. Looks like another beautiful sunny day ahead (I have no idea how I became friends with this person).
  • xxxxxx must…discipline myself…write…WRITE!!! WRITE!!!!!!!!!!!!.
  • xxxxxx Just finished his … film treatment…last minute much!!?
    • yyyyyy  YAY YOU. Hey I’m editing mine this week…you never told me what you thought of the script

Methinks it may be time to look further into this new English that is developing.

Today’s Podcast

Unfortunately no longer downloadable but the transcript is available. I have often labeled Ramona Koval as an ill-disciplined blabber-mouth but her choice of guests over this holiday period has been exceptional; to the point where I need to relax my commentary.

“In conversation with Richard Holloway”, TheBookShow, 21 December, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2009/2570367.htm

Richard Holloway is the controversial former bishop of Edinburgh and author of 25 books. In 2000 he resigned as bishop of Edinburgh in the Scottish Episcopal Church and now describes himself as a ‘Christian agnostic’. He was Gresham Professor of Divinity in the City of London and remains a Fellow of the Royal Society. Now in his mid-70s, Richard Holloway has written on morality and religion for many newspapers in Britain and is a mainstay on BBC Radio Scotland and BBC TV.

His many, many books include On Forgiveness (2002), Looking in the Distance (2004), Godless Morality (1999) and Doubts and Loves (2001). His latest book is Between the Monster and the Saint. Ramona Koval interviewed Richard Holloway at the Sydney Writer’s Festival.

Wednesday

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Gosses Bluff, Central Australia

Gosses Bluff is an impact crater in Central of Australia, about 175 km west of Alice Springs. It was formed by the impact of an asteroid or comet approximately 142 million years ago. The original crater rim has been estimated at about 22 km in diameter, but this has been eroded away. The 5 km diameter, 150 m high crater-like feature, now exposed, is interpreted as the eroded relic of the crater’s central uplift.

The site is known as Tnorala to the Western Arrernte Aboriginal people, and is a sacred place. It is now located in the Tnorala Conservation Reserve. A Western Arrernte story attributes its origins to a cosmic impact: in the Dreaming, a group of celestial women were dancing as stars in the Milky Way. One of the women grew tired and placed her baby in a wooden basket. As the women continued dancing, the basket fell and plunged into the earth. The baby fell to the earth and forced the rocks upward, forming the circular mountain range. The baby’s parents, the evening and morning star (Venus), continue to search for their baby. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gosses_Bluff_crater

Further Thoughts on the USA

Yesterday, the review of Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue prompted some thinking about the USA. This continues today.

For five weeks in 2004, we tootled through Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah and had a wonderful and educational time. Beginning in Las Vegas, which was overwhelmingly amazing, we visited 30 National Parks and Monuments marveling at the vistas, the art, the craft and the super camping conditions. We also saw poverty and modern tribalism in the Indian reservations and discovered that Americans can talk but principally about themselves. This was at the beginning of the Iraq invasion and the wave of patriotism manifested in flags in front yards, on cars and Harley Davidsons, and the TV coverage was an experience. This exuberance has long vanished but it is an indicator of the naivety of US people.

This war and the invasion of Afghanistan, the sub-prime mortgage blow-out, the extraordinary bonuses, the incredible deficit; contributions that will I think, lead to the permanent sinking of the USA. Then there are the social discrepancies.

The minimum wage

Santa Fe has the highest minimum wage at $9.92 per hour as of January 1, 2009. Kansas for many years had the lowest state approved minimum wage, set at $2.65 per hour (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._minimum_wages). Our minimum wage is $14.31 per hour but casual work rates are $20 per hour.

Health insurance

How can this society accept 35 million uninsured people receiving sub-standard health care? Why does it cost $35,000 to have a baby? Why so much litigation concerning mal-practice? This morning I listened to Edward Albee talk of his play The Death of Bessie Smith (1959) who died from injuries in a car accident and was turned away from the hospital because she was black.

Australian taxpayers contribute 1.5 per cent of their taxable income to Medicare. To obtain extra insurance covering private hospitalization, dental, optical and other refunds, we pay a total of $170 a month (for the two of us) to a private insurer. Last year I had a melanoma cut out of my back, didn’t pay any additional fee and received a letter of thanks from the hospital for using their service.

Fundamentalism

We have our ‘fundamentalists’ and evangelicals but they pale beside the Jimmy Swaggert model that comfortably combines televangelism, money-gathering and adultery. And then there are the Waco, Texas massacres and the polygamous Mormons. We may have these weirdoes in Australia but they are well hidden.

Debt

Gross Debt is the national debt plus intra-governmental debt obligations or debt held by trust funds like the Social Security Trust Fund. Types of securities sold by the federal government include, but are not limited to, Treasury Bills, Notes, Bonds, TIPS, and United States Savings Bonds. This is now $10 trillion. Of this the Peoples Republic of China own more than $2 trillion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt),

I can’t get an accurate debt for Australia but it appears to be about $80 billion.

Extraordinary intellects

On the positive we witness extraordinary cleverness. Above I mentioned Edward Albee; sharp at 81 and writing still. A remarkable collection of thinkers, artists, writers, academics and entrepreneurs. We have ours but not in the same numbers.

Conclusion

There are many similarities between the USA and Australia; the rawness mixing with the sophistication, the landscapes, but it is the magnitude of the grossness in the USA that is prefacing the decline of a society. Is it the ‘Decline and Fall Of the USA Empire’?

Today’s Podcast

“Edward Albee”. ArtWorks, 20 December, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/artworks/stories/2009/2712866.htm

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? remains the best known of all the plays Edward Albee has written, but there are 30 more of them and he’s still going. Now 81 years old, he has received many awards, including the three Pulitzer prizes for drama and numerous Tony Awards. Edward Albee has just been in Australia, where he had a conversation with actor and writer Jonathan Biggins at the Sydney Theatre.

Tuesday

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Mount Sondar, Central Australia

Mt Sondar, Central Australia.

Living under the flight path

Emirates A380

Notes from Xanadu

Cook-book

Posting to the weblog has been intermittent over the Christmas period. First came the excellent Colleen McCullough and yesterday, I worked on the cook-book. More recipes added and then sorted into menu types –- Starters, Soups and Frittatas, Lamb, Vegetables are some examples –- and bought a large new folder for better storage.

It has now got to the stage where I need to back-up and store off-site as I begin the test cooking. And the text requires much editing to conform to the style I have established. Received the ‘thumbs down’ on over-use of fish sauce in one vegetable dish so have added a cautionary note.

The garden

Several days of steady, light rain have done wonders to the garden. The basil and tomatoes have put on a great spurt. And we need to clear out one of the fish ponds which has been overgrown with papyrus and wisteria. Later today? Striped marsh frogs tok tokking away and also heard one in a neighbouring street this morning when walking the pooches – – perhaps one of ours migrating?

Climate Change

Another article by Michael Asten continues to strengthen the search for wider causes of global warming and climate change than the focus on CO2. As usual, quoted selectively.

Michael Asten, “More evidence CO2 not culprit”, The Australian, 29 December, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/more-evidence-co2-not-culprit/story-e6frg6zo-1225814230258

THE Copenhagen climate change summit closed two weeks ago in confusion, disagreement and, for some, disillusionment. When the political process shows such a lack of unanimity, it is pertinent to ask whether the science behind the politics is as settled as some participants maintain. Earlier this month (The Australian, December 9) I commented on recently published results showing huge swings in atmospheric carbon dioxide, both up and down, at a time of global cooling 33.6 million years ago.

Paul Pearson and co-authors in a letter (The Weekend Australian, December 11) took exception to my use of their data and claimed I misrepresented their research, a claim I reject since I quoted their data (the veracity of which they do not contest) but offered an alternative hypothesis, namely that the present global warming theory (which was not the subject of their study) is inconsistent with the CO2-temperature variations of a past age.

Some senior scientists, who are adherents of orthodox global warming theory, do not like authors publishing data that can be used to argue against orthodoxy, a point made by unrelated authors with startling clarity in the Climategate leaked emails from the University of East Anglia. In the scientific method, however, re-examination of data and formulation of alternative hypotheses is the essence of scientific debate. In any case, the debate on the link between atmospheric CO2 and global temperature will continue since it is not dependent on a single result.

… we have two geological examples and two satellite data studies pointing towards a lesser role of CO2 in global warming. This argument does not discount the reality of global warming during the past century or the potential consequences should it continue at the same rate, but it does suggest we need a broader framework in considering our response. The Copenhagen summit exposed intense political differences in proposals to manage global warming. Scientists are also not unanimous in claiming to understand the complex processes driving climate change and, more important, scientific studies do not unambiguously point to a single solution. Copenhagen will indeed prove to be a historic meeting if it ushers in more open-minded debate.

Review

This review fostered further thinking about the USA. Finally, some sort of health care legislation has been passed by both chambers but what a shambles it is. From the country that promotes itself endlessly, a review of the legislation leaves me wondering, ‘what can they be thinking’? How can it be that it costs $US35,000 to have a baby. Perhaps the answer lies in something I read from Peter Singer –- the legislature is corrupted by lobbyist funding and to get the finance for their re-election Congress and Senate members have to toe the lobbyists’ line. I sense that we are witnessing the decline of the USA and selective quotes from this review give my feeling substance.

Jonathan Raban, “Sarah and Her Tribe”, New York Review of Books, 14 Januaty, 2010, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23532

  • Going Rogue: An American Life by Sarah Palin, Harper, 413 pp., $28.99
  • Sarah from Alaska: The Sudden Rise and Brutal Education of a New Conservative Superstar, by Scott Conroy and Shushannah Walshe, PublicAffairs, 301 pp., $26.95

There’s a moment of near rapture in the video of Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech at the Republican convention in St. Paul on September 3, 2008. It begins in the eleventh minute, after her Westbrook Pegler quote (“We grow good people in our small towns…”) and before her “lipstick” quip about hockey moms and pit bulls. Following a nervous start, she is now entirely at ease in front of the biggest crowd of her speaking life, and riding high on the chants of “Sarah!” “USA!” and “Drill, baby, drill!” Her smile looks ecstatic, as she allows herself a snuffling chuckle at the acerbity of her own wit, then shows off her repertoire of little nods of self-approbation, complicit left-eye winks from behind her glasses, and lips smugly pursed to signal that an unanswerable point has just been made. When the camera cuts to the crowd, face after face is a joyful mirror image of Palin’s own, as if transfigured by a shared triumph.

Her nasal voice, pitched in the upper register, with the upsy-downsy, singsong delivery of a kindergarten teacher, became, rather improbably, a great electoral asset. Her diction and accent were shaped more by class than region, and spiced with faux-genteel cuss words like “dang,” “heck,” “darn,” “geez,” “bullcrap,” and “bass-ackwards.” It was a voice unspoiled by overmuch formal education and boldly unafraid of truisms and clichés; a perfect foil for Obama’s polished law-school eloquence.

Going Rogue is stuffed with dubious quotations from Famous Authors, among them one often attributed, but never reliably sourced, to Pascal: “the God-shaped vacuum in every human heart.” Unfortunately, there does seem to be a Palin-shaped vacuum in the heart of the American electorate, and it’s not hard to see why. After the ritual brandishing of the flag and her shout-outs to her fellow Christian fundamentalists, Palin’s core message is, as it always has been, about fiscal policy.

Palin’s general economic theory, so snugly adapted to Twitter’s 140- character limit, carries great weight. At a time when everyone should be clipping coupons, tightening belts, and buying generic peanut butter, Obama (Columbia and Harvard), Larry Summers (MIT and Harvard), Tim Geithner (Dartmouth and Johns Hopkins), and Peter Orszag (Princeton and London School of Economics) are out on a spending spree that is “baffling,” “nonsensical,” and “obscene.” But then what did we expect of the East Coast elites?

Against their transparent profligacy should be set the record of Sarah Palin (University of Idaho, School of Journalism and Mass Media). She made Wasilla hum, while putting an end to personal property taxes. … She not only makes economics perfectly comprehensible at the level of the kitchen table, she makes it work brilliantly in practice.

She’s much more deeply in touch with her followers than Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee, or any other recent candidate who’s tried to court the same constituency. (Admittedly, they also lacked her flirty sex appeal.) She has the knack of turning public debate sulfurous with a phrase, as she did last summer with her remark that Democrats want “death panels” in their health plan. She is a catalyst around whom the Tea Party movement is growing alarmingly in size and strength,

Having hoisted her banner of Commonsense Conservatism, and campaigned across the country by Lear jet and tour bus to promote Going Rogue, she’s unlikely to assuage her compulsion to be a winner merely by selling more books than anyone else during 2009′s holiday season.

A search on Google for ‘Tea Party’ brought up http://teapartypatriots.org/Default.aspx where ‘Taxed to Death’ is the theme and http://taxdayteaparty.com/ which is going to storm the Senate.

Today’s Podcast

A highly witty discussion on heaven.

“Stairway to Heaven”, The Spirit of Things, 27 December, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/spiritofthings/stories/2009/2777507.htm

Stairways, ladders, tunnels or rainbows: the way to heaven has been imagined since the beginning of time, and for some who’ve nearly died it’s been experienced. But for others, heaven isn’t a place so much as a state of mind or a state of soul. St John’s Anglican Church in East Malvern, Melbourne, is the venue for a discussion on heaven with guests, the Rev Dr Roger Ferlo of Virginia Theological Seminary, Indigenous writer Lillian Holt, and Senior Rabbi of Melbourne’s Temple Beth Israel, Fred Morgan

Christmas Day

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Contemplating the ducks -- Sydney Park

Christmas Lights

Christmas

Christmas and Climate

Several day’s late due to a riveting Colleen McCullough, (2009), Too Many Murders, Harper Collins in my Santa Sack – just too good to put down and attend to daily matters such as weblog, dogs, garden, the outside world. The rain was a useful excuse to remain reading until my eyes failed.

We began the birth-celebration at Sydney Park at 07:00 with some family and dogs. Such a great place: the rejuvenation of a rubbish tip into a super and very popular parkscape. And then on to Duncan and Alison’s for a celebratory lunch – a pleasant day.

On Christmas Eve we went to Double Bay for an evening with Kathy and Ken and friends; a splendid time with the fresh southerly sharpening the night. Bringing realism to our enjoyment Ken sent me this comment:

World population 6.2B – (4.2B live in Asia Pacific Region and over 1B people have no electricity – sun and dung)

  • 80 per cent of the world population live on less then $US10 per day
  • 20 per cent of world population have 75 per cent of the wealth
  • It follows that the 80 per cent poor have the other 25 per cent of “wealth” and these are the people who will “save” the world from global warming?

Almost 25 per cent of world population has crap water supply – 2/3 of these people are amongst the poorest on the globe and earn less than $2 per day with 1/3 on less than $1 per day – and these are the people who will “save” the world from global warming?

The Aviation Industry is one of the few global Industries to set ambitious carbon reduction targets. The industry aims to have carbon neutral growth by 2020. This means that the effects of expansion of aviation will be offset by carbon reduction strategies. Consider this in the context of growing economies and perhaps 2 or 3 per cent a year move into the air travel affordability bracket? Three per cent of 4.2B in our area is a big number of aircraft. Between now and 2020 the industry aims for 1.5 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions year on year.

And from “List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions per capita”, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita,  which supports Ken’s observations.

Region

Annual tonnes CO2 emissions per person
Qatar

56
USA

19
Australia

18
Denmark

9
New Zealand

7
China

4
India

1
Chad

0

Post-Copenhagen, blame for a non-binding treaty has been laid upon China, India, Sudan and Tuvulu which in view of the above table is quite unfair. These people deserve water, elctricity, longevity and the pleasures we take for granted..

Today’s Podcast

Maintaining the ‘we need to do our part’ theme in reducing pollution is this:

“Not cheap, just frugal!”, FutureTense, 24 December, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/futuretense/stories/2009/2719979.htm

Consumerism could prove a difficult habit to break, but there are those who have already started to change their approach to life. The frugality movement has been with us for some time. So given all the economic woe that’s befallen us, could this be the movement’s time in the sun?

Thursday

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Butterfly in the Buddlea

This was taken in April 2004. The current blooms are wispy white with the purple yet to arrive

Riding the Rails

Ugly railways

Why are our railways so ugly? Would more people be tempted to use CityRail if the views were not so full of rubbish?

Climate Change – Where are we?

Copenhagen is over. I thought the most useless activity was Greenpeace people climbing light poles. Or was it the press complaining of being locked out in the cold for 8 hours while the activists caused some security problem?

This email sparked more thinking about where we are in the climate change ‘debate’.

“The Copenhagen backlash begins”, Foreign Policy Review Daily email, 22 December.

Top Story: Just days after countries agreed to a face-saving agreement at the U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen, accusations have begun to fly about who was responsible for the disappointing conference. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva criticized the United States for failing to commit for emissions reductions. South African negotiators, who participated in the drafting of the final agreement, nonetheless attacked it as “not acceptable.”

E.U. environment ministers will meet today to discuss how to proceed in the wake of the Copenhagen “disaster.” Writing in the Guardian on Sunday, British climate secretary Ed Miliband accused China of having “hijacked” the proceedings for its own goals. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman responded that Miliband’s accusations were just a way “to shirk responsibilities that should be assumed towards developing countries.”

At least one minister seemed happy with how the talks turned out. Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh told parliament that India had been able to resist international pressure to agree to binding emissions cuts. The markets were less upbeat with carbon prices plunging on the European exchange on Monday.

There is no clarity.

I thought this morning as I walked the dogs and listened to how 37 per cent of Copenhagen’s commuters travel by bicycle, I would attempt a summary of the current situation. But on reading the daily press, snippets of news on the internet and listening to some podcasts I remain perplexed. The attacks are increasingly irrational, the reports increasingly data-free and the analyses more infrequent. The situation is beginning to present the scenario for the arrival of a climate-change Messiah: somewhat akin to Germany in the 1930s, China in the 1940s, Russia in the 1920s.

On the 22 December I selectively quoted Barry Cohen’s interview with a philosopher (which Cohen tended to diminish). If an accomplished philosopher is unable to unravel the twisted threads, what hope have we lay people. Hence my concern that climate-change fascism may be lurking in the wings.

Tuesday

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Elaeocarpus reticulatus (Blueberry Ash) at Hyams Beach

Elaeocarpus reticulatus (Blueberry Ash) at Hyams Beach

Riding the Rails

Carlton Station

Climate Change

Some comments extracted from this article:

Barry Cohen, “Abbott taps into a climate of confusion”, The Australian, 22 December, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/abbott-taps-into-a-climate-of-confusion/story-e6frg6zo-1225812552415

More and more people were starting to ask questions because they didn’t understand the issues. They were confused because, while most elite scientific opinion supported human-induced global warming and climate change, some disagreed. Those who asked questions were called climate change sceptics or, worse, deniers. Most, however, were “don’t knowers” who resented being sneered at and patronised by those who had no more qualification to pass judgment on the issue than they did. After my last column, when I confessed I was a “don’t knower”, an old friend called and admitted he was of the same view.

I asked, “Do you know what ETS means?” “Only vaguely,” he replied. “And cap and trade?” “Not a clue.” “How about CPRS [the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme]?” “Zilch.” He added, “For a long time I read everything about global warming and climate change, but as the government wasn’t adequately explaining the problem, I stopped reading.”

Now fervent believers in climate change will write off such comments as those of an ignoramus but the gentleman referred to is anything but. He is a professor at one of Australia’s leading universities; true, a professor of philosophy, but I can assure readers he is of above average intelligence, well informed and active on a range of political issues. If the professor has given up trying to understand what the debate is all about it’s not surprising there are many like him.

Technical Note

WordPress 2.9 is now functioning – see my sidebar page “WordPress and Open Source”

Today’s Podcast

“Animal rights”, The Law Report, 22 December, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lawreport/stories/2009/2764558.htm

Our attitude to animals is contradictory. Many of us share our homes with pets, yet most of us eat meat. The law at least is consistent: animals are property, nothing more.

But US lawyers are trying to push the envelope through the courts: guardians have been appointed for animals and the best interests of the pet considered in family law disputes.

Meanwhile, in Spain the parliament wants to grant legal personhood to primates.

Monday

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Note that with the WordPress’s unbelievably sloppy 2.9 upgrade , much of this blog is unreachable until I sort out the mess.
Chained to the locomotive

Chained to the locomotive

Time for action.

Time for action.

Two photos today from the Rising Tide blockade at Newcastle yesterday. The original jpeg’s from the Rising Tide website are excellent, highlighting the sophistication these groups bring to their events (see my comments on Climate Camp, except that the WordPress 2.9 upgrade stuff up stops any checking backwards).

Riding the Rails

Train Repairs at Clyde

Climate Change – Coal

An interesting event in Newcastle yesterday contrasts with ‘pussy’ Greenpeace in Denmark.

“23 arrested after coal train protest”, ABCNews, 20 December, http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/20/2776876.htm

The group says their action has been prompted by what they say is the failure of the Copenhagen climate talks. (Rising Tide)

More than 20 people have been arrested after climate change protesters blocked rail lines leading to Australia’s biggest coal export facility. Forty members of the Rising Tide group this morning chained themselves to the rail line at the Kooragang coal terminal in Newcastle as part of a protest against the Copenhagen climate agreement.

The protesters, including an 86-year-old man, also chained themselves to an 8,000-tonne coal train outside the port.  Police managed to remove the last protester after a six-hour standoff. The 23 people arrested were later charged with a total of 45 rail safety offences. They will appear in Newcastle Local Court next month.

“We’re here today protesting the failure of the UN climate talks in Copenhagen, that we believe the rich world wrecked any chance of getting any good agreement out of,” said Rising Tide spokesman, Steve Phillips.

“Copenhagen failure sparks coal terminal blockade”, Rising Tide Australia, 20 December, http://www.risingtide.org.au/

Updates:

4:30pm: The Kooragang rail line has just reopened, 7.5 hours after the blockade began

3:00pm: Police have removed the final protester blockading a coal rail bridge in Newcastle, Australia, more than six hours after protesters shut down the coal delivery line into the world’s biggest coal port.

12:00pm: Police have made their first arrests at a dramatic coal train blockade on a bridge in Newcastle – the world’s biggest coal port.

Three hours into the blockade, police have arrested ten people who were sitting on the rail bridge and refusing to move. Protesters expect the blockade to last for the remainder of the day and perhaps into the night, with a further 15 people still blocking the bridge in difficult to remove positions.

Activists shut down the rail line at 9am this morning to protest the failure of the UN climate talks in Copenhagen to produce a just, effective, and legally binding treaty.

9am, Sunday 20th December 2009, Newcastle Australia: Forty climate activists have closed down the rail line into the world’s biggest coal port this morning, protesting the failure of the UN climate talks in Copenhagen to produce a just, effective, and legally binding treaty.

Twenty five of the diverse group – aged from 19 to 86 years and including a Buddhist priest, and an elected local councillor – are occupying a rail bridge in Newcastle, Australia, and refusing to leave. They have hung large banners reading “Greed wrecked Copenhagen: Now it’s up to us all”, and “You could have done something great.”

And in Copenhagen:

Frank Furedi, “Much ado about nothing in Denmark”, The Australian, 21 December, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/much-ado-about-nothing-in-denmark/story-e6frg6zo-1225812230751

The role of the protesters may be confined to that of extras, but they add colour and drama to the spectacle. They were even given permission to protest inside the Bella Centre and their ability to bring the proceedings to standstill helped to inject dramatic tension into an otherwise tedious event.

The protesters take their activities very seriously. A communique by Greenpeace informs the world that while heads of state were dining, “Greenpeace volunteers were out on the streets of Copenhagen, climbing lampposts (my emphasis) to carry our theme of the day: politicians talk, leaders act”.

In this comic drama, climbing lampposts is presented as an initiative that is morally superior to the diplomatic negotiations. The organisers of this spectacle appear to agree, which is why lamppost climbers are treated as if they are the voice of the people, whose job it is to keep the proceedings real. Outwardly, world leaders defer to their moral authority. That is what British Prime Minister Gordon Brown means when he praises protesters for propelling world leaders.

Sunday

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An ant home on the way to Uluru

An ant home on the way to Uluru

Riding the Rails

Ashfield Station

Technical Note

WordPress released their Ver. 2.9 yesterday and after upgrading all I had was a blank screen. Checking the WordPress Installation forum, several dozen users were having difficulties. I ended up moving the current, upgraded but stuffed blog and installing Ver. 2.8.5 (2.8.6 wouldn’t unzip) and gradually moving image and sound and plugin directories into the rolled back installation. I still have no Pages, Comments or Posting Calendar but will eventually sort this out.

Unbelievable that such shoddy programming could be released.

Today’s Podcast

An interesting ‘climate change’ viewpoint.

“Nicholas Stern’s blueprint for a safer planet”, The Book Show, 8 December, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2009/2764746.htm

He is the author of the Stern Review, a 700-page report released in October 2006 and commissioned by the British government which looks at the effect of global warming on the world economy.

Saturday

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On our way to Uluru

On our way to Uluru

Riding the Rails

An Intercity at Homebush

A bus driver’s strike yesterday caused considerable inconvenience (and much CO2 emission). Instead of using train and bus to travel to Waverley for an inspection, I spent much time in very slow moving traffic, all of us spewing out exhaust gas. In the news leading up to the strike, I missed any mention of how this strike contributes to global warming but read how both sides were the personification of compromise; it was all the other side’s bloody-mindedness.

Climate Change – Questioning the Science

I do not doubt that we are experiencing a period of climate change but I question the science. Taking a long-term view, climate change is a cyclical event; taking a short-term view, I cannot determine if the sea level is rising or falling, if temperatures are rising or falling or whether CO2 is the contributing emission, from the information presented in the many sources available. In discussing this with Ken Cameron, he mentioned that:

Climate change as religion looks to me like a mixture of science as a religion, which Mary Midgely writes about so well, and environmentalism as a religion, which has at least a 300-year history.  The media coverage of Copenhagen is reaching a crescendo of much ado about nothing. But I do look forward to quality writing about what happened. (E. Cameron, 17 December, email.)

This prompted me to check out Mary Midgley and in the following selective quotes, she describes my knowledge dilemma.

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary”, The Guardian, 13 January 2001, http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/jan/13/philosophy

… human life [is] like an enormous, ill-lit aquarium which we never see fully from above, but only through various small windows unevenly distributed around it. Scientific windows – like historical ones – are just one important set among these. Fish and other strange creatures constantly swim away from particular windows… reappearing where different lighting can make them hard to recognise. Long experience, along with constant dashing around between windows, does give us a good deal of skill in tracking them. But if we refuse to put together the data from different widows, then we can be in real trouble.

… distance from academic proprieties comes out in her friendship and admiration for James Lovelock, the originator of the Gaia hypothesis. “She’s so right about science. It is becoming fragmented to such an extent that the average scientist is now a specialist who knows no more outside his specialty than the average layman; and somebody needed to say that.”

But although she often professes to be talking about science, she does draw an equivalence between scientism [applying scientific method inappropriately] and science.

Midgley feels that modern scientists, though they have realised what the urgent problems of the human race are, still talk as if science, or simply increasing knowledge, could solve them. But “If there is one thing that we know from the long and hard experience of the human race, it is that what is wrong is not simple.”

My consideration of Lovelock was posted on 1 December when, through the reasoning of Tim Flannery, I changed my opinion of both Lovelock and Flannery.

Midgley’s logic is in contrast to that of Bill McKibben and other climate change ‘gurus’ and I am moving more to the view we are being shilled by the ‘climate change leads to doom’ priesthood .

See the Wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Midgley and  Midgley, M (2002), Beast and Man, http://books.google.com.au/books?id=g2gu7pRXEPYC&dq=mary+midgley&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=pRSMVJsd2B&sig=ntBDtTIrbTBpPP0nzq0zUncetoU&hl=en&ei=1r0pS-buFo-gkQX25bz4CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBEQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=&f=false which has a readable text and enough to prompt a deeper reading of the actual book.

And then we have this

“Scientists ‘crying wolf’ over coral”, The Australian, 19 December, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/scientists-crying-wolf-over-coral/story-e6frg6nf-1225811910634

A SENIOR marine researcher has accused Australian scientists of “crying wolf” over the threat of climate change to the Great Barrier Reef, exposing deep division about its vulnerability.

Today’s Website

A fine interactive graphic but it doesn’t say much too me.

“A Journey Through Climate History”, ABC Science, http://www.abc.net.au/innovation/environment/cc_timeline.html

Friday

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Mt Cockburn, Central Australia

Mt Cockburn, Central Australia

Riding the Rails

Redfern Carriage and Locomotive Workshops

My father was a carriage builder in these workshops in the early 1930s.

Climate Change

A reward of maintaining this weblog is learning  about climate change, rising sea levels, coal, gas, deforestation, drought, genetic modification, food-miles and more; but I read much that tests my credibility. One example is the rising ‘climate change’ star, Bill McKibben who conforms to the ‘religious’ aspect discussed by Freeman Dyson (see 7 December post).

Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben’s Wikipedia page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_McKibben. (I have inserted my comments into his text.)

William Ernest “Bill” McKibben (born 1960) is an American environmentalist and writer who frequently writes about global warming and alternative energy and advocates for more localized economies. Beginning in the summer of 2006, he led the organization of the largest demonstrations against global warming in American history. McKibben is active in the Methodist Church, and his writing is sometimes spiritual in nature. Al Gore wrote in 2007 that “when I was serving in the Senate, Bill McKibben’s descriptions of the planetary impacts… made such an impression on me that it led, among other things, to my receiving the honorific title ‘Ozone Man’ from the first President Bush.” (This is nonsense – what are ‘planetary impacts”?)

McKibben grew up in suburban Lexington, Massachusetts. As an undergraduate at Harvard University (unable to determine what degree), he was president of the Harvard Crimson newspaper (1). Immediately after college he joined the The New Yorker as a staff writer and wrote much of the Talk of the Town column from 1982 to early 1987. He quit the magazine when its longtime editor William Shawn was forced out of his job (some background here would be useful), and soon moved to the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York.

He currently resides with his wife, writer Sue Halpern and his daughter, Sophie, who was born in 1993, in Ripton, Vermont. He is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College, where he also directs the Middlebury Fellowships in Environmental Journalism (the same as he has written on his website – little environmental substance but includes his many books). He is also a fellow at the Post Carbon Institute (a self-congratulating vehicle promoting doom and carbon tarts).

Awards

McKibben has been awarded both a Guggenheim Fellowship (1993) and a Lyndhurst Fellowship (unable to get any information on this other than several links to go back to Bill). He won a Lannan Literary Award for nonfiction writing in 2000 (verifiable and an award of significance). He has honorary degrees from Sterling College, Green Mountain College, Unity College, the State University of New York, Colgate University, and Lebanon Valley College (linked to the Methodist church but no mention of what degrees).

This is reprinted from http://www.postcarbon.org/blog-post/41961-thank-you-together-we-made

“Thank you – together, we made history”, Posted Oct 25, 2009 by Bill McKibben

Today in New York was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. As I stood in Times Square and watched images flood in from every corner of the world on the big screens, I finally saw what a climate movement looked like — and it looked diverse and creative and beautiful. Please head to www.350.org and spend a few minutes watching the pictures. We need you to feel the strength of this movement, and to see how creative and committed this movement is, all across the planet. It was so sweet to watch the day move around the globe, with thousands upon thousands of pictures appearing, sometimes a dozen a minute! There were photos of climbers high on the glaciers of Switzerland holding 350 banners, of bicycle parades from Copenhagen to San Francisco, of organizers in Papua New Guinea beating their church gong 350 times while churches in Barcelona rang their bells 350 times. Photos of activists protesting coal plants and celebrating wind farms, of students in 350 shirts repairing their flooded homes in Manila, and of thousands of people marching in the streets of Bogota and Kathmandu. Photos of people from different races and classes, religions and nationalities, coming together around a simple and powerful number to save our planet. Thousands took to the streets in Addis Ababa and Mexico City; we had huge parades in places like Togo and Seattle. You were by far the biggest news story on Google, on CNN, on the front pages of newspapers around the planet. And these pictures were seen around the world, in newspapers from Beijing to Boston, on TV stations from New Delhi to New York, and on blogs, social networks, and websites across the internet. Together, we’ve shown the world that a global climate movement is possible and set a bold new agenda for the upcoming United Nations Climate Meetings in Copenhagen this December. The 350 target is the new bottom line for climate action and world leaders must now meet that target. We thought we would be tired after many sleepless nights planning this day, but in fact we’re more energized than ever. We’re preparing to deliver the photos and messages from your events to every national delegation to the United Nations on Monday, and planning to hand the photos to high-level ministers at upcoming climate negotiations in Barcelona and Copenhagen. So if you haven’t uploaded your best pictures from the event yet, please do so right away by sending us an e-mail to photos@350.org with your photos attached, with your City, Country as the subject and the body as the action description. Thank you more than we can possibly say. We’ll (of course) be asking you to do lots more in the weeks ahead — but today, lean back, relax, look through pictures at 350.org, and savor your accomplishment. You were part of what many journalists called “the most widespread day of political action the world has ever seen.” (My emphasis). Together with millions around the world, you made a real difference already — get ready to make much more in the days, weeks and months to come. With hope, Bill McKibben and the whole 350.org Team

As an avid print and internet press reader, how did I miss this ‘sweet’ event?

(1) http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2007/6/4/william-e-mckibben-a-commentator-on/