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Just now to jamesman
jamesman
It is not the liberal left that is the problem. It is the far right xenophobia, coupled with neoliberalism and climate skeptism that are ruining the world as we know it.
You could not be more wrong there used to be a dichotomy between the left and the right but now the political divide is between the authoritarians and the libertarians and some of the worst authoritarians are in fact the so called progressives who have thus far dominated the social media and who have been more than ready to dogpile any one who challenges their ideas or who refuses to endorse their orthodoxies. The reason that Trump is likely to win the US election is that the very people the authoritarian progressives have tries to silence are rising up and saying that they will not be ignored any more. The mane calling and attempts to shame people by calling dissenter xenophobes bigots or racists simply no longer works as populists like Milo are leading a a new surge of political engagement by people who have previously just looked the other way.
The progressive left have been trying for a generation to undermine the notion of the nation state and in the light of many wars between nations that had a certain logic to it but the problem comes form their rather loopy idea that all nations are equal in their social virtues and that all cultures are the same with maybe only some superficial differences. The cold hard light of political reality demonstrates that this is at best naive nonsense. There is simply no equivalence between a religiously motivated repressive totalitarian state and a mature secular western democracy. To denounce anyone who points this out as a “xenophobe” as progressives so often do is the height of stupidity. It also shows how weak “progressiveness” has become.
Finally we come to the issue of “climate change” which has largely been driven by the former communists who moved into environmental causes after the collapse of communism in the eighties, to them this cause is just another vehicle through which they hope to acquire global hegemony. and its a mechanism that many now pay lip service too but few really believe. Its also a mask for the real global problem of over population. But we are on the cusp of a rather radical solution to that which I expect to be some sort of global pandemic that will devastate the their third world in particular , I use to think it would be HIV/aids but now I think that it will be something more mundane that will piggy back on the growing resistance of Bactria to antibiotics, either way expect to see Africa, south east Asia the middle east and South America severely affected much more than the first world because well ordered societies will be better able to respond to such challenges than those which are corrupt and chaotic. The black death reduced some populations by 2/3 in the middle ages but we may see an even higher death toll because any modern pandemic will spread far quicker thanks to global air travel.
Any way I digress the point is that there is value in having the discrete entity called a nation where the people have more in common that they have that is different, the progressive idea of a borderless world has been a total disaster that has seen previously stable and cohesive societies import cohorts of people who have no desire to assimilate into the indigenous culture instead they have formed ghettos that give provide the breeding ground for nihilism and hatred for the host culture. Calling that out is simply entirely valid self defense rather than “xenophobia” and we will see more of it as the “progressives” are shown more and more to be in reality “regressive” and that their ideology is profoundly illiberal as a consequence.
Cheers Comrades
Guardian comments 16-6-2016
uptherecrazies
For anyone without blinkers on the transition is already happening and it is being lead by a globalised market keen to continue making profits.
Yeah but most of that is hype led by spivs
There are no profits to be made on an exhausted planet too toxic to carry a consuming population.
To paraphrase a well worn adage, reports of the planet’s death are both premature and over sold
VenetianBlind
The unavoidable truth here is that the only way that humanity will stop using fossil fuels is when alternative technologies actually do the same job both cheaper and better
Renewable would be cheaper than coal fired energy where I live but the locals reject it because they read this sort of thing. The main problem is mindset, not costs. The costs for, again where I live, insurance for eg has skyrocketed. The cost of no action will hurt Australia far more than renewables. Already started.
Until there is a viable and cost effective way to store energy form “renewables” there will be no alternative to coal for our electricity. Your claim that its all about the mindset is utter nonsense as is the cost of “no action” claim you make here.
For a thing to be a crime it actually has to be against the law, using fossil fuels is simply not against any law, ergo its no crime
No matter how many time the Guardian publishes stories like this one we all know that the chances of this happening are so low that continued calls for such things are utterly pointless. What this article boils down to is a rather futile example of climate virtue signalling. The unavoidable truth here is that the only way that humanity will stop using fossil fuels is when alternative technologies actually do the same job both cheaper and better. Until then no amount of whining is going to make the slightest bit of difference.
SimonEsposito
I should say that I accept the bipartisan policy, even to the point of believing that this government’s ONE achievement in its whole three years was Scott Morrison’s management of the boat turnback policy.
They have had other policy successes
Specifically that, though. The management of Manus and Nauru, and the failure to achieve honorable resettlement outside Australia, is a stain on the national character.
Those in detention there have been given a rather perverse incentive to keep playing “blink” with the government by open borders activist who give them false hope that they may eventually be allowed to come into the Australian mainland that is why they don’t do the sensible thing and accept any resettlement option offered to them.The key to the policy was that Manus and Nauru and Christmas Island should
serve a short-term purpose – offshore processing. There seems to have been no interest in the most difficult part, regaining the trust of the countries that we have to partner with to resettle the legitimate refugees (and that includes Malaysia, Canada, and New Zealand). Abbott and now Turnbull and Dutton (and Joyce) can’t shut up with their offensive and reckless comments long enough to give Julie Bishop any clear air. (And was she ever even interested?) Bribing small countries, as Jeff Sparrow shows in this article, is not an honorable solution (nor a solution of any kind).
Yadda yadda yadda teh fact that the number of the detained cohort has not been increasing, so once this cohort have been encouraged to either accept what can be offered by way of resettlement or reparation the problem will be solved because there are no more boat people coming to replace them.
It’s probably reached the stage where any foreign minister who could pull it off would merit a Nobel prize or something (or the prime-ministership). But I can’t see it happening without the reset of a change of government.
Nah if the Labor party get back into office the problem would be quickly made worse because the people smugglers know how weak they are on this issue, especially if the ALP dog is being wagged by a Green tail as it was under the Rudd Gillard Rudd years.
The amount of private debt may well be some what illusory because it is bound to include the debt that those like yours truly carry each month because we pay for everything on our credit cards and then pay it off in full before the due date at the end of the month.
cookie2255
Fact – The Coalition will spend less on hospitals!!!! Education, NBN, Climate Change and anything that really matters to everyday people.
Its not the amount of money that is spent that matters as much as how big the bang for the buck spent is and on that the ALP record is utterly woeful. On top of that the ALP is simply running up too much debt on their “spendometer”
Walsunda
Religious zeal combined with hatred is a most pernicious thing.
Agreed, which is why I constantly question the apologia for Islam that so many from the left engage in .
The recently deported visiting British cleric shared your views re not hating homosexual people but still claimed it was OK to put them to death for displaying their sexuality.
I share NO views with that man I simply do not believe that there is anything “wrong” with being homosexual He believes that it is Hiram and that its “compassionate” to kill gay people.
As you said “The religious zeal displayed by Warministas is greater than I have seen from many Born Again Christians”, I don’t even know what a Warminista is or what their relevance is to a discussion on science.
Don’t feign ignorance Wal, you are better than that! I’m sure that you realize that “Warminista” is a sarcastic way of describing a climate change true believer that also includes a hat tip to the association with Marxism.
I met a born again Christian about this time of year over ten years ago while while walking to the bus about 4.00 pm. I was feeling very happy as I was on my way to collect second prize in a pub trivial pursuit competition – free food and drink for a nights viewing of the State of Origin.
We talked as we walked up the hill about my work and the joy of preventing disease. He told me I’d go to heaven as I boarded the bus at the end of one of those beautiful Brisbane “winter” days. I told him we were already there.
Agree with you about this place being “heaven” its a bit cold here on my mountain today but I’m sure that a hearty breakfast will easily make that endurable.
In response to photographofgeorge
photographofgeorge
I suggest you update your reading to the works and opinions of right wing politicians like George Christiensen and Cory Bernardi just to see how much animosity is reflected towards homosexual people even from our politicians.
I suppose you are one of those who think that opposing Gay marriage as the guys you cite above do means that they hate homosexuals. It doesn’t
If not in direct quotes, but in actions as well. Both Christians too. Homosexuals still face brutality in this country and it is frequently not from Muslims.
Really when was the last example of anyone in Australia killing anyone because they are gay? Heck we don’t even have the bashings of gay men (just because of their sexuality) that were common when I was a young man. You are delusional if you think that our attitude to homosexuals is as murderous as it is in places like Iran or any other Muslim country.
For your information the Catholic Church does not condone homosexual acts either, nor do many other religious organisations.
So what? They certainly don’t condone killing them either unlike so many Muslims do.
The point I make is that because a person like Manteen is said to be a Muslim, yet with no apparent links to ISIS, he should not be used to tar all Muslims with the same brush.
To become a Muslim all any one has to do is make the declaration of faith and I’m sure that all it takes to join ISIS is to declare your allegiance, Manteen has done both.
I directed someone to a page in the Guardian that tells another story beyond the Trump-style, Pauline Hanson-style interpretation. There have been frequent mass killings with automatic weapons in the US, none of which involved Muslims in the least.
I will give you one minor concession here by accepting that most of these nutters do have various motives for the things that they do. But I simply will not accept your implication that we should ignore the religious motives that are clear from this man’s actions
The main problem seems to be the easy access and availability with little scrutiny to military grade weapons that can cause enormous damage.
No that is nonsense, admittedly the USA has been awash with guns for the last century however as with Paris and Belgium it is the ideology of Islam that has obviously motivated both the targets and the timing of this atrocity.
But even then, Timothy McVeigh the ‘Oklahoma bomber’ for example, a decorated soldier returning from the first Gulf War, was responsible for the much greater amount of death: 168 people and over 600 injured.
Yep and I bet you would have been right up there objecting to his well deserved execution
He used a massive ammonium nitrate bomb not even bothering with a gun.
Something he would not be able to do today
Now silently considered a terrorist, you won’t see his case be used to tar all Christians with the same brush even though he was a Roman Catholic. We do not also blame Batman and all Batman fans for the gunning down of the audience in a movie theatre in the US because James Holmes saw himself as the Joker, to the point of making himself up to resemble the character in a motion picture.
Yadda yadda yadda
Most of these people including Manteen had mental health problems on a grand scale.
You see its only you who is suggesting that “all Muslims” are the problem I am questioning the ideology that motivates the Jihadists, I am citing the unrelenting misogyny of that ideology and its overt and unapologetic homophobia and no amount of your false equivalence with other far more benign religions is going to make the ideology of Islam less pernicious
In response to photographofgeorge
To go on about the guy being homosexual does not negate the fact that he both swore allegiance to ISIS and he was a a Muslim. Heaven in a hand basket what do you lefties have so much trouble simply admitting that Islam is the single most homophobic religion on the planet?
When polled about 80% of Muslims say that homosexuality should be against the law and that 11 Muslim countir4es have a death penalty for homosexuality.
In fact the most recent reports suggests that he was full of self loathing because he was a homosexual Muslim.
In response to Petunia Winegum
Sadly Petunia I need to work on being less of a socialist just a bit harder
31 points LNP, 11 Labor, and shame to say 5 fro the greens
The problem with this survey is that it has too few questions
WombatsRamble
To be more accurate, I’d say “there’d be no more deaths then there are currently
with prescription drugs”.
Which is still quite a bit, as there’s always going to be people who think “one makes me feel better. If I take five of them I’ll feel five times better, no matter what my script says”. Instead they stop breathing
Actually I would say that the problem is is really more about peopel taking various drugs at the same time and there being serious issues as a conse
BJWard
In fact the name Ward is on my birth certificate and so are the initials BJ. I’m widely known by those initials. Having had an unfortunate past experience from broadcasting my first name in another forum, I’ve refrained from doing so in this one.
And I bet that you have been ribbed about calling yourself “BJ” many times in the past” and some friendly ribbing was all I was intending with may comment. Because you have to admit that your screen name does bring to mind a hospital room for those unfortunate blokes who could not convince their lovers to be careful with their teeth.
To the rest, I’ll just say that we have probably already spent more on Turnbull’s 60th-rate lash-up than the original proposal would have cost. Not that the cost argument holds water, really. The taxpayer wasn’t going to be asked to pay for it.
I’m pretty sure that you are wrong about that. And who do you think has both put up the money and more importantly wears the financial risks of this project? The good old Aussie Tax payer that’s who.
BJWard
Can’t resist the ad hominem, can you? It is my name, however.
I very much doubt that the name “BJWard” appears on your birth certificate, thta said I only mentioned it because your screen-name does have some amusing allusions some of which are a little but unfortunate.
Why should the government have to make a “business case” for building vital infrastructure?
Because its too much money to work on some sort of vague hope that it will be affordable for the nation.
It’s self-evident, I would have thought, that if you’re going to build infrastructure, you do it using the most effective available materials and methods.
History teaches us that every time a government buys into a form of technology it ends up being superseded by something else. My brother has wireless internet in his small town that is pretty good and it suggets to me that wireless may well be Bette than fiber to the home
In the case of a modern communications system, that is by using fibre to the premises.
maybe . maybe not
What you are obliquely advocating, however, is the 21st century equivalent of the proposal to make all Australia’s telephone lines out of iron wire, because it was cheaper. Certain politicians 100 years or so actually tried to make that case, but were overruled by the more farsighted. Pity we didn’t have a few more such visionary people around to put Mr. Abbott back in his box when he first advocated the destruction of this project.
No what I’m saying is those who want Champagne and caviar are being unrealistic ion the expectations for a country the size of our own when its population is a s small as it is.
No my unfortunately named friend. It was Labor who promised everyone a champagne and caviar NBN when they could not make the business case even for the MacDonald’s version.
The thing is I already have a car powered by the Toyota engine form the same period BP and it serves me quite well. Which is kinda may point . Just ebciuase something is an old design don’t kid yourself that it can’t do the job just as well as a “modern” product.
Oh how can your forget who over promised and under delivered on the NBN in the first instance?
The 120 Y was and remains a damn good car with nice simple engine that almost literally runs forever, If the NBN can achieve that sort of sterling service it will serve us well enough,
Its not stupid at all to redirect said money to help the reef, what else would it be spent on?
And Labor’s scheme would have given us a worse result and bankrupted the country in the process, You may need fast internet to announce your bowel movements via social media But grown ups know that not everyone wants a Champagne and caviar NBN we will do quite well enough on a meat and potatoes version that we get sooner.
RonJB
Apparently even you don’t read what you wrote.
whay do you think that?
Or you prefer going straight to abusive comments, when you know you’ve been called out on your usual bullsh!t. I do hope you’re getting a good wage for all the partisan crap you write.
No my friend, what I do here I do for a love of the truth and a desire to bring light into this darkness…
Mark Harrison
Well considering we are talking about networking, well yes; it is, you know, kind of important to have some idea what you are talking about before offering an opinion.
I do have some idea as it happens
While wireless may well be an option for a micro-village (a pub, post office, garage and two houses) anyone with any-freaking-idea-whatsoever knows that this technology does not scale.
Well the town my brother lives in has quite few more than that, even though it does not even have a pub and the service is a great improvement over the satellite service they had before.
Seriously, go back to making whirligigs!
Actually at present I’m making foot-bikes
Walsunda
Most Australians live in the coastal strip between Melbourne and Brisbane.
That still does not make any difference to the problem of distance
Walsunda
“Labor have always thought with suburban minds”.
Though living in Queensland you are unaware that the world’s first Labor Party formed in Barcaldine in the state’s central west. Some foreigners never seem to integrate.
I have actually been there Wal sat under the famous tree and all, even so they stopped having any rural sensibilities at least 70 years ago.
Australia is the most suburban society in the world at present as rural and far western areas shed population for reasons to do with restructuring of the rural economy and despite increased urban lifestyle in the major population centres.
Sure I understand that, much of it was due to mechanization
So most people live in the suburbs and in a democracy elections are decided by most people or the majority. You need to get used to democracy now you live here.
I am more than used to democracy and I have been voting for as long as I have been legally entitled to do so.
RonJB
But by your own logic, it is wasteful to built phone lines, electricity lines and roads in this spread out wide brown land as well.
You must have failed basic geography and economics.
Mark Harrison
Tell that to my neighbor who can’t even get ADSL The problem is not service to the cities its service to the rural parts of the country\
Actually, you’re wrong there too (shocking, I know). Many suburban (even inner city suburbs) cannot get ADSL connections either. Or if they can, ADSL1 only. Greenslopes in Brisbane is but one example I know of.
My guess would be that there has been a pause on creating new adsl capability with the expectation that the NBN would be rolled out instead. More to the point if you live in Greenslopes you will still get the better broadband before any one in the country simply because they get more customers for the service per dollar invested. I’d also expect that with Labor’s shambolic record on the NBN before they lost office in 2013 that things would be worse had they continued to control the project.
As for rural areas, the copper infrastructure will be so degraded, the only realistic options would be fibre or replacing copper to put in a node. It is just too absurd to contemplate but that is what the NBN police in LNP central have dictated you will have.
On the contrary my brother lives in a small Queensland country town and what they have just had turned on is a town wide wireless service that gives him extremely good internet that is fast and offers substantial band width. This is clearly a technology that works and is more cost effective tech than running fiber to every house in that town.
If getting a reasonable NBN solution is important to you, voting conservative is voting against your interests.
The thing that you don’t seem to appreciate is that for lots of people having a Rolls Royce internet is a nice idea and something that they would want but they also understand (in a way that you tech obsessed latte sippers don’t) that the internet is not the be all and end all or something that will decide our vote. Both sides make grand promises for the NBN but the Coalition have a small edge on their ability to deliver.
Mark Harrison
as a maker of various things
“Maker” of what? Whirligigs? You obviously have no idea about networking from your comments.
I haven’t made any Whirligigs recently but if that was what you wanted I could do it. That said though you are mistaken in thinking that “networking” is the be all and end all of the modern world.
Mark Harrison
You do not understand the technology, at all.
On the contrary, as a maker of various things I understand it rather well.
aquaPura
A Ford, no problem, a model T Ford definitely.
The model T is was and remains a great example of providing adequate and affordable way of getting around the place. Frankly if the NBN under the coalitions can do as well then it will be a good day for the country.
In response to Gregory Shearman
Tell that to my neighbor who can’t even get ADSL The problem is not service to the cities its service to the rural parts of the country and we rural dwellers will be better off under the coalition scheme because we will get an improved service sooner than we would under Labor’s Rolls Royce fantasy that would always be just a little bit out of reach.
parsivalmontde
Wrong there buddy. I live in outer Melbourne. No where near the inner city.
Yet you tell us that you can get fiber to you home and you are still whining? Mate you may live in the outer burbs but you still don’t understand geography at all!
See my response to Hotspringer
Bet that you have never got out of your latte sipping inner city ghetto in all of your short life.
Hotspringer
New Zealand could do it, but even their right wingers aren’t as stupid as ours.
New Zealand has a Land area of 268,021 km² but Austrlaia has 7.692 million km² so which do you think would be easier to hook up to an NBN?
Come on you must be able to do the very simple calculations here.
Labor have always though with suburban minds and as such they simply have NEVER truly understood just how spread out the Australian people are over the wide brown land . I live on the fringes of the Brisbane area and there has never been any likely hood that I will be able to get a better broadband service and my neighbor can’t even get the ADSL service I enjoy because there are not enough “ports” at the exchange. NBN???? not likely for years here and its not hard to understand why, my road has only one house other than my own and that means that just the cost of running Labor FTTH would never be recovered by the subscription even if my neighbor and I both wanted the highest possible speed from the top plan, but most people who have been using the net fro a while settle for something less that the highest speed an the biggest bandwidth which means less revenue that Labor has ever modeled. The bottom line here is that we are a continent of what? 23million people? and if we were all closely packed like countries physically smaller with the same population the Labor scheme might just be possible but that is not us so all of those dreaming of the promised Rolls Royce solution maybe you need to have a more realistic aspiration for something in the Ford line up instead.
Follow the Link Wal I posted that comment there because the original thread was closed down.
Walsunda
“Because the biggest emitters like China and India” (for the moment ignoring the second biggest emitter) “are expected to increase their emissions rather than reduce them over the next few years and if there is any meaningful reductions then its going to take many decades to makes it happen”.
Just because something will take many decades to happen doesn’t mean you should not set out to do it. Especially when the outcome is so advantageous.
You are of course ignoring the dire warnings that unless the global emissions are drastically reduced immediately then things like the GBR are doomed. So don’t you see the gap between what you imply is the best case scenario (above) and what you have been told is necessary to “save the planet”????”doesn’t your liturgy tell us that we have to be reducing” net CO2 “emissions like yesterday?”
I have no liturgy. Because of your religious delusions by proxy syndrome you are projecting your religious delusions onto me a practical scientist who is sufficiently in touch with reality to know we can’t do anything about yesterday except learn from it and that what is important from this point in time on is what we do now and in the decades to come.
You certainly do have a liturgy and you also know I was being sarcastic about doing it “yesterday” to point out the urgency in your own emissions reduction mantra”It is simply not going to happen as your claimed cure says it must happen if we are to avert climate disaster?”
By it do you mean global net CO2 emissions reduction? What do you mean by my claimed cure? Do you mean curing global warming caused by the increase in global net CO2 emissions
by reducing net CO2 emissions? But if that’s the case you’re saying that reducing global net CO2 emissions is simply not going to happen as my claimed cure of reducing global net emissions says it must happen if we are to avert climate disaster, which doesn’t make sense.
I’ll lay it out in easy to understand steps:
AGW theory tells us that we have to reduce CO2 emissions
Global emissions are expected to continue to rise without any global reduction expected in the foreseeable future
Advocates like you keep saying that we are all doomed unless Australia on its own decides to reduce its statistically insignificant contributing to global emissions.
I say that the probability that there will be enough reduction in global emissions at any time time in the next thirty years (at least) to have any effect on the climate is so low as to be unmeasurable. therefore anything we do to reduce our emissions is at best an act piety and faith because there will never be any positive consequences for our action no matter how extensive it may be in our national terms.
Walsunda
“Unless that” (every person does their own experiments to independently verify every scientific discovery which would present time management problems) “is the case then you have to be basing your acceptance of ” (what science finds out) “on some sort of belief, faith even , in the work of others.”
You’re creating a false dichotomy for yourself here. Let us look at the terms you use and how they apply to this situation and the situation within religions.
No dichotomy at all as far as I’m concerned.
Belief has two meanings.
The first is an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof. We know through experience that the work of others exists so we have proof of its existence. So belief in the work of others does not fit this meaning of the word belief.
Wal with the greatest of respect you don’t get exactly how these essentially philosophical questions work. You simply can not argue as you do in in the bold above that we can know something “from experience” without acknowledging that such “knowledge” is in fact one belief and you expectation that something is proven is another. Your knowledge or understanding of any thing in the universe is built on, in the first instance, our senses through which we perceive the universe, and secondly through the intellectual constrictions through which we try to understand the world we inhabit and as we can not do every basic observation and experiment we accept the claims of others who have done the experiments and who have made the observations and mostly we do so without replicating those observations and experiments. That my friend requires an act of faith.
Secondly belief means trust, faith or confidence in someone or something. When I order a new shirt on line I trust that it be delivered. This trust is based on experience that the work of the courier exists and is true in finding my front door. Trust is probably a better word in this context as it avoids the semantic confusion that you are demonstrating.
But what do you trust those in the AGW industry above other voices about the climate? They have not actually delivered anything as substantive as the shirts in your example above, all they have delivered is a great deal of dodgy predictions and much doom-saying.
Faith also has two meanings.
The first is complete trust or confidence in someone or something. My trust in the online sales system and the delivery bloke is probably not complete but so far experience has shown that it works.
And you also have an almost unshakable faith in the talk of the AGW doomsayers even though their delivery record is a great deal less impressive than online shirt salesmen.
The second meaning of faith is defined as a strong belief in the doctrines of a religion. You can’t use this definition of belief to establish that the belief signifies religion without falling into a circular logic trap.
Utter rubbish!
Faith is simply a strong belief in something that can not be proven and as the AGW proposition can not actually be proven it can only be claimed and that means that to believe in AGW you have to rely on your belief in the arguments made for it and have faith that is proponents are correct.
So your contention that acceptance of what science discovers based on belief and/or faith in the work of others means that trusting the work of others based on experience is a form of religion is both as ridiculous as it sounds and is based on semantic confusion on your part.
No semantic confusion at all on my side here Wal, That said the religious zeal expressed by so many Warministas is greater than I have seen from many Born Again Christians .To communicate meaning other than rhetoric you need to concentrate closely on the meanings of the words you use. I do understand why this may be difficult for you.
Walsunda
Note when I talked about reducing net CO2 emissions above, I was not talking about just Australia reducing our net CO2 emissions. If we (all the people in the world) all reduce our net CO2 emissions with such measures as a price on net carbon emissions plus many other effective measures, we can in time make a difference to the concentration of atmospheric CO2 and and slow its current rate of increase in the more immediate future.
“the cure simply cannot work because at a global level it cannot be made to happen.”
Why not?
Because the biggest players like China and India are expected to increase their emissions rather than reduce them over the next few years and if there is to be any meaningful global reductions then its going to take many decades to make it happen if it happens at all and doesn’t your liturgy tell us that we have to be reducing emissions like yesterday? It is simply not going to happen as your claimed cure says that it must happen if we are to avert climate disaster.
Walsunda
When I say that “No religion is involved in the reality of the current global warming”; you say ” On the contrary if you look at how religion is defined it is very easy to fit the belief in AGW” (anthropogenic global warming) “into said definition”. However as anthropogenic global warming is a reality their is no belief involved. As the belief you are talking about does not exist you are talking about nothing. I can’t discuss something which does not exist with you. All your talk about belief is meaningless as science is based on evidence not belief.
So are you telling to me that you and every other person who has taken the AGW proposition on board as a truth has personally made the empirical measurements and done the necessary experiments to substantiate the AG#W theory? Unless that is the case then you have to be basing your acceptance on some sort of belief, faith even, in the work of others.
“I ask again what do you think we” (the people of Australia) “can do about it” (global warming due to net carbon dioxide emissions) “and please don’t say ‘reduce’ (net carbon dioxide) ’emissions’ ”.
Why when the problem has been caused by net carbon dioxide emissions do you plea with me not to say reduce net carbon dioxide emissions?
“because even if we” (the people of Australia) “were to become the worlds greatest” (carbon dioxide) “emissions reducers on a per capita basis it would not be enough”.
It would not be enough to do what?
According to the AGW liturgy the entire planet needs to make VERY big reductions in CO2 emissions and as such reducing our less than two percent of global emissions, even to zero is never going to be enough to make any kind of difference, it certainly will not be enough to avert the disaster predicted by your Profits
What profits are you talking about when you say “according to your profits would it?”
They are the spokes people for the AGW industry who profit form its millinarian predictions.
Walsunda
Note: Iain has religious delusions.
The only religious delusion in play here is your denial that for so many who espouse the AGW orthodoxy do so because it is their religion.
Walsunda
People have survived in Barrier Reef waters for up to 36 hours after their boat sank though the attentions of Tiger sharks did pose a problem. They were luckier in this regard than the Titanic passengers.
36 hours is hardly that long and as long has you have fresh water you could survive that long quite easily.
The pragmatic and practical way to ameliorate and in the long run solve the current greenhouse warming is by reducing net CO2 as Australia achieved when it had a price on carbon. As with the practical management any problem all factors contributing to the problem must be address. It is most unpragmatic and impractical to ignore the major cause. You have to be level headed and realistic about these things.
You are simply kidding yourself if you think that IS putting a” price on carbon ” is going to save the reef. We could go to zero emissions tomorrow and it won’t make the slightest bit of difference to the global level of CO2. What you claim as the cure simply can not work because at a global level it can not be made to happen.
Walsunda
Firstly I responded to your last missive at my blog
No religion involved in the reality of the current global warming and the contribution everyone makes to the net CO2 emission that cause it. Australians contribute like everyone else and on a per capita basis contribute more than the most, hence have a responsibility to to take effective and pragmatic measures to reduce their net carbon.
On the contrary if you look to how religion is defined it is very easy to fit the belief in AGW into said definition:
religion
rɪˈlɪdʒ(ə)n/
noun
noun: religionthe belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.
“ideas about the relationship between science and religion”
synonyms: faith, belief, divinity, worship, creed, teaching, doctrine, theology; More
sect, cult, religious group, faith community, church, denomination, body, following, persuasion, affiliation
“the right to freedom of religion”
a particular system of faith and worship.
plural noun: religions
“the world’s great religions”
a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion.
“consumerism is the new religion”
The definintions in bold all fit the AGW belief quite well especially when you add in the rather common “the end is nigh” doom-saying.
The Queensland state governments in the last seven years have run programs to protect the water quality of the southern two thirds of the reef from agricultural runoff and are planning further expansion of these regulations.
Well that is a good thing right?
These would have had little effect on the northern one third of the reef where the worst of this year’s bleaching occurred as there is not a great deal of agriculture north of Mossman.
So what could be done that night have any measurable effect within our lifetimes?
Even in the southern two thirds of the reef global warming and climate change; in the form of higher sea surface temperatures, greater extremes between drought and flood, plus increased incidence of extreme El Nino events; has a far greater effect on the reef both directly as well as exacerbating the runoff pollution problems. Ignoring the major problem is far from pragmatic.
I ask again just what do you thing we can do about it and please don’t say “reduce emissions” because even if we were to become the worlds greatest emissions reducers on a per capita basis it wouldn’t not be enough according to your Profits now would it?
kantonysen
What we are seeing now is what denier Agencies such as Heartlands, ALEC and IPA
have achieved. Stuffing up many coral reefs around Earth, creating temperatures difficult to withstand, causing damage to Earth’s air conditioner … the cryosphere.
They have achieved these matters; and more, by holding up adaptive and mitigation responses.
That is ridiculousness incarnate! Those on your side of the argument have out spent all of those institutions by many orders of magnitude so don’t blame skepotics because your fellow Warministas have proven to be utterly impotent at getting their ideas the intellectual hegemony you desire.
Scientists from ExxnMobil anticipated climate change in the 1970s; yet, ExxonMobil financed denier groups. There is a paper trail showing what scientists were saying, and a paper trail indicating ExxonMobil was resourcing denier groups. Fact.
If an idea is both good and true then it will withstand any counter argument that your ideology is still contested says that its arguments are not as strong as you might try to claim
ExxonMobil is being investigated by a number of Attorney Generals at present. Investigations had begun with the Attorney General of New York State. Fact.
So what?
A number of US papers have commented on this, as has the Union of Concerned Scientists.
So what?
RicardoK
Straw man, Iain.
No its simply the factual truth
Awesome water quality didn’t help the northern GBR this year.
The reason to focus on Water quality is not ever going to change the high water temperatures however it is the aspect of the problem that we can clearly make a difference to
The southern GBR was saved by a fluke pulse of cold, turbid water associated with ex-cyclone Winston.
So lets hear what you would suggest that we do to solve the problem, Just make sure that what you suggest can actuality make a measurable difference because the usual whining about our coal mining is no answer.
This policy is repainting the deckchairs on the Titanic.
Actually, to go with your Titanic metaphor its more like providing a few more lifeboats that will help save some of the passengers.
RicardoK
the government clearly has a most pragmatic approach to this problem, unlike you worshipers of the Green religion. We can have a real effect on water quality issues but even if we were to shut down our entire economy we can have no effect on global emissions, in fact Air travel produces more emissions than we do globally so grounding all jet aircraft globally would do a lot more for the global equation that this country ever could.
LorrieBelling
Why do liberal commentators always use juvenile language “spendometer” are we in primary school Ian?
Because Bill Shorten used the term himself and its actually such a gift to those opposed to Labor
Restoring all the savage cuts made by LNP is an honourable thing to do and is coming out of the $50 billion that Labor will not be spending on Corporate Tax Cuts to business which is not a priority at this point in time.
How precisely is it honorable to spend money that they do not have and to have absolutely no plan to pay off the national credit cards?
GrumpyOldDog
Where’s the money for those subs and corporate tax cuts coming from?
Not the issue here
And where does the money come to pay for negative gearing, middle class welfare, subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, running the Border Protection Force and the offshore gulags.
None of which is at issue here
If I hear one more time that inane comment about ‘where is the money coming from’ I will press the Report button. You guys have absolutely no idea about anything.
Citing Labor’s Shortencommings is not agianst the community standards here
You are a complete waste of space, oxygen, water, food and time!
None of which is the issue here either, just think mine might be the very vote that tips the balance against Labor….
Doncharles
No from Turnbull’s $50 Billion magic pudding!
I believe that this is worth repeating again:The thing about that magic figure is that even if we take labor at its word those so revenues largely occur outside the forward estimates but labor’s spend occurs almost immediately within the forward estimates! Labor have done a good job of deception with this claim and you have totally fallen for it!
Doncharles
No from Turnbull’s $50 Billion magic pudding!
I believe that this is worth repeating:The thing about that magic figure is that even if we take labor at its word those so revenues largely occur outside the forward estimates but labor’s spend occurs almost immediately within the forward estimates! Labor have done a good job of deception with this claim and you have totally fallen for it!
In response to mallorywasfirst
mallorywasfirst
It’s coming from the 50billion pay rise the LNP has promised their corporate buddies.
The thing about that magic figure is that even if we take labor at its word those so revenues largely occur outside the forward estimates but labor’s spend occurs almost immediately within the forward estimates! Labor have done a good job of deception with this claim and you have totally fallen for it!
Where is the money coming from again? Oh that”s right its straight onto the “spendometer”
That is the classic bait and switch nonsense Labor supporters are famous for, because surely you would have to admit that in the end we do not have a bottomless wallet to pay for labor’s promises here and if that tax cut was cancelled Labor would still not have enough money to pay for all of their promises wracked up on Shorten’s spendometer now would we?
Ozponerised
Rubbish. Priorities.
Sure, but how about you give some priority to the truth rather than ALP propaganda?
In your quest to endorse the Labor party you ignore the sad but true fact that health spending is very much a “how long is a piece of string issue” where even if we were to spend the entirety of our GDP on health there would still be calls for more money. We simply have to live within our means in our health spending just as we do in every other aspect of government expenditure. Because if we don’t our economy will collapse and then there will be NOTHING to keep the health system afloat.
You are talking utter rubbish about the proposed tax cuts for business, beside the fact that they start off far more modestly in the forward estimates than your block capitals suggest. In your quest to endorse the Labor party you ignore the sad but true fact that health spending is very much a “how long is a piece of string issue” where even if we were to spend the entirety of our GDP on health there would still be calls for more money. We simply have to live within our means in our health spending just as we do in every other aspect of government expenditure. Because if we don’t our economy will collapse and then there will be NOTHING to keep the health system afloat.
Bring out your dead
While the Jihadists may claim to be working for Allah I tend to think that Ebola is gift from Gaia and really it was to some extent inevitable that such a pandemic would arise now that the human population has grown so much .
n the worst-case scenario, Liberia and Sierra Leone could have 21,000 cases of Ebola by September 30 and 1.4 million cases by January 20 if the disease keeps spreading, without effective methods to contain it. These figures take into account the fact that many cases go undetected, and estimate that there are actually 2.5 times as many as reported.
[…]At least one aid group working in Liberia is already shifting its focus to teaching people about home care and providing materials to help. Ken Isaacs, a vice president of the aid group Samaritan’s Purse, said, “I believe inevitably this is going to move into people’s houses, and the notion of home-based care has to play a more prominent role.” He said there could be 100,000 or more cases by the end of 2014.
“Where are they going to go?” Isaacs asked. “It’s too late. Nobody’s going to build 100,000 beds.”
Though providing home-care kits may seem like a pragmatic approach, some public health authorities said they were no substitute for beds in isolation or containment wards.
But Frieden said that home care had been used to help stamp out smallpox in Africa during the 1960s. The caregivers were often people who had survived smallpox themselves and were immune to it. Some experts have suggested that Ebola survivors might also be employed to care for the sick.
A woman suspected of being infected with Ebola is assisted by health workers to an ambulance for treatment in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Photo: The New York Times
The cycling lycra we’ve all been waiting for
(by SockPuppet ~ a Libraryatarian blogger)
Click to enlarge if you must – warning it looks more like real muff in the small image
I cannot believe what all the fuss is over these brave Colombian girls wearing lycra that looks like a bare midriff gone way south – all the way past Brazil if ya get me drift:
A flesh-coloured kit that makes a Colombian women’s cycling team look naked below the waist has been described as unacceptable by the sport’s governing body.
Photographs of the Bogota Humana team were taken at the Tour of Tuscany, showing the six women wearing red and yellow kit with flesh-coloured material immediately above and below the waist.
After the pictures went viral on social media, International Cycling Union (UCI) president Brian Cookson wrote on Twitter: “To the many who have raised the issue of a certain women’s team kit, we are on the case.
“It is unacceptable by any standards of decency.”
Among leading riders criticising the outfits was the Welsh former Commonwealth, Olympic and world road race champion Nicole Cooke.
“This has turned the sport into a joke,” she said.
“Girls stand up for yourselves – say no.”
What a bunch of spoilt sports.
Let the girls show their fake lycra muff if they want to.
They obviously did.
Yeah I think maybe they should “stand up” too by saying “up yours Nicole” and show their real muff – don’t you?
Go the whole hog girls and cut out the middle bit for real.
Just do it. Please.
It would do wonders for the sport.
A war that is unavoidable and sadly necessary
Tony Abbott: the operation could take ‘many months’. Photograph: Julian Smith/AAP
Australia will send a military force to the United Arab Emirates to contribute to the US campaign of airstrikes against Islamic State (Isis) militants in Iraq.
In response to a formal request from the US for specific Australian defence force (ADF) capabilities, the prime minister, Tony Abbott, said Australia would supply 600 personnel – made up of 400 from the air force and 200 from the military, including special forces – along with equipment to the coalition force against the Isis movement.
Up to eight Royal Australian Air Force F/A18F Super Hornets combat aircraft, a Wedgetail surveillance aircraft, and a tanker and transport aircraft will be sent to the United Arab Emirates.
“In addition, the Australian Defence Force will prepare a special operations task Group as military advisers that could assist Iraqi and other security forces that are taking the fight to the [Isis] terrorists,” said Abbott. Military advice would also be provided to Kurdish Peshmerga forces in northern Iraq.
ADF personnel will be based in the US headquarters “to ensure close coordination” with the US and to support planning and logistics.
“We are not deploying combat troops but contributing to international efforts to prevent the humanitarian crisis from deepening,” said Abbott.
For once its possible to praise Bill Shorten for something because the on this occasion the opposition is sticking with the long standing tradition of solidarity with the government when our troops are deployed into harms way. In fact with the exception of the far left Greens who have been predictably tacitly defending the IS Islamofachist killers in the northern part of Iraq there is an almost universal feeling in this country that going to war to stop the atrocities committed in the name of Allah. With the brutal murder of a British aid worker fresh in our minds who could possibly think that there is any other choice but to go into northern Iraq and Syria with all guns blazing?
I rather firmly of the opinion that a predominately air based campaign will be more successful on this occasion than it was in the previous forays into Iraq. I think this for a couple of reasons. Firstly the current crop of Jihadis have very little willing support from the people in the territory they nominally control. This has to be a natural consequence of their brutality and continuing war crimes. Without some support from the population for their aims and methodology then all they have is fear from the people who currently live under their rule. While that is a good motivator for population compliance its not going to help them much in terms of defending the territory that currently occupy. Secondly the local geography of dry desert mostly flat territory provides little cover and that means that vehicles and men on the move are hard to hide form air surveillance and more importantly air strikes. If its moving and holds armed men then it can be taken out form the air.
I think that we can be pretty sure that the Kurds in the north will not tend towards the excesses of war that will alienate the Sunis who we want on our side n this war but I am far less confident of the Shia militias who may well be inclined to take some sort of revenge on the Suni population if they are perceived to be at all sympathetic to the IS Jihadis, this issue was front and center in the weekend news reporting out of Iraq on the ABC.
One thing that I don’t expect though is that there will be many IS Jihadists taken prisoner. Fanatics can not be trusted to be honorable nor is it to be expected that they will surrender when their situation is hopeless. Rule 303 is also likely to be applied by the ground forces that mop up as well. If many of them are taken prisoner its likely that bleeding hearts like the loopy Greens will want to see them tried by one court or another. While that may suit the namby-pamby Greens I just don’t think that you want to give too many of these scumbags the venue to further promote their hateful ideology.
Its of course too early to predict the result of this war but I don’t share the pessimism of dyed in the wool extreme lefties who are already wishing for failure here. Frankly failure is not an option because we have to excise the cancer from he middle east if any of us are to sleep well in our beds into the future the death cult has to be, well, killed as quickly and completely as we can do it. Fortunately there seems to be a quite broad range of nations who are willing to join into this sadly necessary task.
Cheers Comrades
If it moves and it has armed Jihadists in it blow it up even if they have hostages as Human shields which, sadly, is likely to be the case
Foretelling the future and negating the wrath of the Gods
The thing is that as there are now many thousands of people who have studied science enough to have “qualifications” it has become a very “broad church” that has elements that can support and endorse almost any proposition. Add to that the fact that there are many millions of people who are reasonably scientifically literate and an Internet to allow anyone to engage in the previously closed shop and you have the foundations for science becoming the new secular religion of the modern world.
No more perfect example of the making science a religion exists than the branch of science that deals with our climate and trying to predict the way that it may change into the future. Because “climate science” is utterly immune to any testing by the foundational tenet of science, the scientific method, So instead of being able to test the theory of AGW (which we can’t do because we don’t have a spare planet earth to experiment on) we the public are fed a constant stream of faith statements and dire predictions all of which are based upon some rather convoluted reasoning built upon a great deal of assumption, a little bit of (incomplete) data and huge amounts of confirmation bias, The proponents of this theory have take on a priest like role and many of their congregation argue about what they imagine will happen with the certainty of the religious zealot.
the simple truth is always going to be that we won’t know what the future of the climate will be until it actually happens and we are going to have to adapt to any changes if and when they come. We can try to anticipate change and spend a great deal of effort and treasure in the process but what if those anticipations are based on a wrong call? That was the underlying point of Newman’s piece in the Australian. As a “clever country” we have to be able to jump which ever way we have to to survive and prosper into the future. The planet is littered with edifices to failed millenarian thinking, the temples and monuments meant to placate the gods that did not avert the expected end of humanity lets not fall into the same trap of wasted effort just because the priests of the new warming religion wear white coats and use computers instead of tearing the beating hearts out the chests of human sacrifices on the altars of their faith.
Cheers Comrades
the only certainty in life is that we will all eventually die
Clive and the not so happy ending
I am actually sorry that I was MIA for last night’s QandA but I had an engagement with my son to play a game for the evening. However Palmer is certainly proving what a clown he is. What a shameless fool who sadly has the money (or access to funds) to make manifest some wild and crazy schemes the latest of which is his bonkers climate change conference where he plans to invite a whole swag of former world leaders to his dinosaur park for an utterly pointless chat fest. I am of course only guessing but I doubt that anyone with any real gravitas will attend but what is the bet that Clive’s new Bestie Al Gore is getting this stupid conference as payment for Clive’s road to Damascus conversion to the Green religion a few weeks ago? Palmer is as predictable as the plot of a $2 porno.
that said What Comrade Yale has to say as the post script to his post can not be seen as anything but the most amusing satire.
AND ANOTHER THING: One thing the Fairfax press is prepared to cover this morning is the plan by Palmer to establish his own national news publication; pitched as a “newspaper competitor” to Rupert Murdoch, Palmer has registered (or is in the process of doing so) the names The Australasian Times, The Australian Times, and Australian News.
There always seems to be a high-profile target wherever these “initiatives” by Palmer is concerned; not merely content to attempt to destroy a Prime Minister and a Premier, it now appears Palmer fancies himself to knock the most powerful media proprietor in the Western world down a few pegs as well.
Given the way he has conducted his political activities to date and what seems to be his conviction that the rest of us share his obsession with himself, it will be fascinating to see what passes as Palmer’s version of “unbiased news” — if this latest hare-brained scheme ever amounts to anything.
My guess is that even if it gets off the ground, it will find very limited favour with the news-consuming public; having spent 20 years in and around media companies and having acquired a firm grasp of what is involved in running them, my guess is that such an enterprise will haemorrhage money from Palmer’s fortune for as long as he is silly enough to persist with it.
Should it ever come to pass, Murdoch will be laughing — literally — all the way to the bank.
Not only will Murdoch be laughing but so too will the many washed up ex Fairfax journalists who will undoubtedly be lining up to sell their souls, and arses to Palmer for a few pieces of silver, even if the arse in question is pock marked with anti TB injections.
Palmer is a Joke who has worn out our ability to laugh at him these days its just a tired sigh from me at any of his antics but one thing is certain and that is we can be sure that the only thing that Palmer is interested in is having his ego massaged continually by making himself the center of every possible issue in Australian politics. Sadly we may have to put up with his pulsating blubber for some time to come because the happy ending that the public dream of won’t come soon enough and in the mean time we have to endure something that is almost too horrible to countenance no matter what side of politics you lay on.
Cheers Comrades
Is the future a skate on thicker ice?
I found this piece in the Oz due to an Irate Warminista on twitter:
This is utterly idiotic http://t.co/Nz4nfhQklf That this person is an Abbott advisor speaks volumes. Newman is unstable at best.
— Evan Keith Beaver (@evcricket) August 13, 2014
So naturally I checked out the link only to find a quite interesting argument suggesting that the evidence supports the notion that its variation in solar activity that drives climate change rather than changes in the composition of the atmosphere:
Yet during the past 20 years the US alone has poured about $US80 billion into climate change research on the presumption that humans are the primary cause. The effect has been to largely preordain scientific conclusions. It set in train a virtuous cycle where the more scientists pointed to human causes, the more governments funded their research.
At the same time, like primitive civilisations offering up sacrifices to appease the gods, many governments, including Australia’s former Labor government, used the biased research to pursue “green” gesture politics. This has inflicted serious damage on economies and diminished the West’s standing and effectiveness in world affairs.
University of Pennsylvania professor of psychology Philip Tetlock explains: “When journal reviewers, editors and funding agencies feel the same way about a course, they are less likely to detect and correct potential logical or methodological bias.” How true. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its acolytes pay scant attention to any science, however strong the empirical evidence, that may relegate human causes to a lesser status.
This mindset sought to bury the results of Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark’s experiments using the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. For the first time in controlled conditions, Svensmark’s hypothesis that the sun alters the climate by influencing cosmic ray influx and cloud formation was validated. The head of CERN, which runs the laboratory, obviously afraid of how this heretical conclusion would be received within the global warming establishment, urged caution be used in interpreting the results “in this highly political area of climate change debate”. And the media obliged.
But Svensmark is not alone. For example, Russian scientists at the Pulkovo Observatory are convinced the world is in for a cooling period that will last for 200-250 years. Respected Norwegian solar physicist Pal Brekke warns temperatures may actually fall for the next 50 years. Leading British climate scientist Mike Lockwood, of Reading University, found 24 occasions in the past 10,000 years when the sun was declining as it is now, but could find none where the decline was as fast. He says a return of the Dalton Minimum (1790-1830), which included “the year without summer”, is “more likely than not”. In their book The Neglected Sun , Sebastian Luning and Fritz Varenholt think that temperatures could be two-tenths of a degree Celsius cooler by 2030 because of a predicted anaemic sun. They say it would mean “warming getting postponed far into the future”.
If the world does indeed move into a cooling period, its citizens are ill-prepared. After the 2008 financial crisis, most economies are still struggling to recover. Cheap electricity in a colder climate will be critical, yet distorted price signals caused by renewable energy policies are driving out reliable baseload generators. Attracting fresh investment will be difficult, expensive and slow.
Only time will tell, but it is fanciful to believe that it will be business as usual in a colder global climate. A war-weary world’s response to recent events in the Middle East, Russia’s excursion into the Crimea and Ukraine and China’s annexation of air space over Japan’s Senkaku/Daioyu Islands has so far been muted. It is interesting to contemplate how the West would handle the geopolitical and humanitarian challenges brought on by a colder climate’s shorter growing seasons and likely food shortages. Abundance is conducive to peace. However, a scenario where nations are desperately competing for available energy and food will bring unpredictable threats, far more testing than anything we have seen in recent history.
I don’t know if this line of argument is correct but it does suggest that when it comes to addressing any future change in our climate that we would be better served by not assuming that the climate is going to be hotter into the future if it were to swing the other way though what would it mean for this country? I don’t think that we would have too much trouble in terms of our agriculture but we may have to change what we grow where. In terms of our energy sources we are quite well placed because we do have extensive reserves of fossil fuels but on the downside much of our housing stock in the northern parts of the country are not well suited to the cold. The thing is though no matter which way the climate may change we have to be prepared to cut our coats according to the cloth and the most important thing that will enable us to do that is flexible minds that are good at problem solving. The trouble with so many AGW true believers is that they are utterly inflexible in their thinking and they feel very threatened even by the possibility that their profits may be wrong so how do you think that they would go in a cold future rather than a hot one?
Cheers Comrades
Is the future a skate on thicker ice?
Iain Hall's SANDPIT 
