On my way to Randwick this morning.

Climate Change

The Opposition Leader has delivered his first policy on Climate Change. The full text is, surprisingly, unavailable on the web as yet, so any comment will have to wait. Reaction has, however, been swift with derision from Labor governments and this ‘Analysis’ in SMH. Cubby successfully hides any analysis with the the overused cliché. My comments are in italics.

Ben Cubby, “Combative Abbott turns green message on its head”, SMH, 15 January 2010, http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/combative-abbott-turns-green-message-on-its-head-20100114-ma8b.html

TONY ABBOTT’S plan to mobilise a ”green army” and seek battle with the Federal Government over climate change has the ring of a death-or-glory mission: brave, bold and with a minimal chance of success. Abbott knows if he loses he may well be among the casualties.
In what I have read on-line and on paper, missed any hint of ‘battle’, ‘ring of a death-or-glory mission’ and ‘Abbott knows…among the casualties’ .Analysis or hyperbole?

But some clever tactics are evident in the speech he gave at the Sydney Institute last night. It is a pitch to what he perceives as a sensible, middle-ground environmentalism that is more concerned with preserving parks and planting suburban nature strips than transforming the economy to run on renewable energy.
The ‘pitch’ as I read it in Abbott’s summary (SMH, http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/protecting-the-planet-needs-to-begin-in-our-backyard-20100114-ma09.html) is about mobilizing Australians to re-green the country which does include ‘suburban nature strips’ and to get the rivers flowing.

It relegates climate change and environmental politics to a second-order issue, a view many people familiar with the four terms of the Howard government will be comfortable with. Abbott is betting his credentials on the theory that most people don’t think climate change requires serious action.
I detect a different thread; I doubt Cubby’s view that, “…most people don’t think climate change requires serious action. My colleagues and acquaintances are deeply concerned, a group includes a broad selection of Australians. Many of them are actively cutting their carbon footprint (at some expense).

Yet the world’s most relevant science academies and its best researchers are convinced climate change is a vast and urgent problem.
Clearly Cubby is a prisoner of his ideology to be repeating this discredited dogma – the debate became overheated recently as doubt regarding the analyses and data collection increased.

The Coalition is now way out on a limb, sharing the trembling branch with some US Republicans, Canadian Conservatives and Saudi Arabian princes. And Abbott’s speech would have received the stamp of approval of Coalition climate sceptics.
Analysis? One definition is, ‘the separating of any material or abstract entity into its constituent elements. These two sentences represent the SMH’s intellect; little wonder I increasingly glance only at the headlines.

He acknowledges that ”many scientists think” that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a good idea, but does not follow through the logic that this admission entails. Human-induced climate change is a binary issue: it’s either happening or it’s not. If it’s not, why bother reducing emissions at all? If it is, there’s little point in half-serious solutions. Abbott’s new take on environment is an attempt to straddle this divide, simultaneously dog-whistling to climate sceptics while foreshadowing ”direct action” to reduce emissions. There is no mention of tackling the source of emissions and no hint that the appeasement of heavy-polluting industry will end.
‘Dog-whistling’ – “Dog-whistle politics… is a term for a type of political campaigning or speechmaking which employs coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has a different or more specific meaning for a targeted subgroup of the audience.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics). I must be outside the ‘targeted subgroup’

His speech perpetuates the fiction that Australia is in danger of leading the world in climate change action. In fact, Europe has a well-established emissions trading scheme that has little or no impact on jobs and wealth.
I understand that the Cap and Trade policy in place in the UK has driven up electricity prices and power utilities profits and is heavily resented.

But Abbott is on safer ground with his criticism of the Federal Government’s lack of effective action on climate change. The speech is an attempt to present Abbott as a plain speaker, and an antidote to the ”rhetorical overkill” of Kevin Rudd. The public can expect to hear more about Abbott’s practical, hands-on, tree-planting persona in coming weeks.

This ‘analysis’ is a collection smart-arse clichés, hyperbole and inaccuracies. Despite my instincts, I detect a whiff of leadership from the Right, which is refreshing after the hysterical diatribe recently issued in the names of Wong and Garrett.

Today’s Podcasts

“The end of fish”, RearVision, 13 January 2010, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/rearvision/stories/2010/2767858.htm

We seem to have eaten all the fish in the sea. We caught them because we could; we had the means to do it, with technology that made it physically possible and economically viable.  First broadcast 22nd July 2009. Rear Vision explores the role played by technology in the disappearance of wild fish and looks at some of the reasons why attempts to control it have had limited success.

I bought three Sea Mullet last week, the first fish we have bought for months, principally due to ‘the end of fish’. And they were delicious. On attempting to find out the sustainability of this very cheap fish I discovered http://www.nicechoice.org.au/ which lists Sea Mullet. A useful resource which I understand is no longer maintained due to lack of funds.