Tag Archives: global warming

Reality has a science bias

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by Climate Change, Media • Tags: , , , , ,

We (when I say “we” I mean sentient beings) have long complained about the fake balance/false equivalence practices of modern journalism. You know, where the work of 100,000 scientists on climate change is represented by one scientist, blinking in the unaccustomed studio bright lights, debating, on apparently equal numerical terms, a lone nutter funded by energy companies, and with the experience of 100 tv debates behind him.

But it is much more insidious than that. “Science” in the media is presented as if it is just one of many stakeholders, pressure groups, lobbyists, special interests, arguing for”its” share with, say, big business, farmers, social services, schools, hospitals, small business, migrants, what have you.

But, as I saw someone remark on twitter “science is a verb not a noun”, and this remark helped me to consolidate what had merely been mulling. Science is not just another lobby group but the only way (the scientific method) we have of revealing reality. So the “debate”, if you like, is not between the interests of science and the interests of big business, but about how the latter match with the real world.

Similarly there is no such thing as “scientific opinion” and therefore it cannot be matched against the opinions of, say, a right-wing think tank using free market libertarian ideology to serve business interests. Facts are facts, and you can’t have your own even if you have paid handsomely for opinions.

So there you are. Wanna have a debate between, say, farmers, miners and developers about land use? Go for it, let them put their cases, their proposals, their predictions of outcomes. But then let’s see what the science actually says about the real world outside the bubble of get-rich-quick schemes which, of course, are completely sustainable.

Instead of a chair on which a single scientist sits, imagine the tv studio bathed, like cosmic background radiation bathes the universe, in the light of reality. And imagine the special interest wanna-be-richer guys shielding their eyes from the light as they try to argue against facts with opinions, to the derision of a live studio audience.

Now that’s balance.

A Thousand Ships

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by politics • Tags: , , , ,

The most significant woman in the World in the last 20 years was a very young White House Intern. No, not the best, or the brightest, or the most powerful, woman in the world, but the most significant, the one whose existence changed history the most.

Look powerful male leaders have always taken advantage of their power (that “powerful aphrodisiac” as Kissinger put it, and I guess he knew) to take advantage of young women. But there have also been many extramarital relationships for leaders apparently based on equality of personal power. Millions of both kinds over the centuries, including Kings (and two of the Queens) of England.

So why do I single out the Clinton-Lewinsky “relationship” [hard to think of word here] for special mention? Two reasons.

Going back through time many American presidents have had extra-marital relationships. Even in relatively recent times of course we have Kennedy (and in very different way perhaps Eisenhower, though before he became President) and perhaps Carter (though he seems not to have inhaled). None of the other recent presidents seem to have (and most seem very unlikely to have, but who knows the mysteries of human attraction?) as far as we know.

Recent British political leaders? Seems not. There was of course Profumo (but then I would say that, wouldn’t I?), though that’s about all.

And Australian leaders, senior politicians? Well, there was Hawke and D’Alpuget, and presumably Gorton and Gotto. Then there was Cairns and Morosi (did I imagine it being said recently that it was young John Howard, of all people, who discovered them in a broom cupboard or something?), and Evans and Kernot, and that’s about it to my knowledge.

But the thing about all those is that little or nothing was said about most of it in the Press at the time, no front page compromising photos, no salacious titbits read out by radio shock jocks. Nor great political capital made, presumably on the basis that those in the glass houses of as yet undiscovered indiscretions probably better pull the blinds down. Oh there was some “Nudge, Nudge, Wink, Wink” but then it was “Say no more” and that was that.

But with Bill Clinton it all changed and the political world would never be the same again. His “indiscretion” with young Monica Lewinsky was turned into a weapon to smash his Presidency, impeach him for heaven’s sake. Look, sure, it was inappropriate use of power in workplace, no question, bad behaviour. Should have been punished, and steps taken to look at the structures of the White House in terms of sexual harassment and how to prevent it. But the reaction was far out of proportion, and it seemed clear Ms Lewinsky was being used by powerful forces who hadn’t the slightest interest in sexual mores.

Soon made obvious by the trotting out of a whole lot of more mature and non-White House ladies, all apparently called Gennifer (having the same names may have made things confusing, or simpler, I guess), though my memory may be faulty, said to have had relations with Clinton. And on and on. So effectively that the business of government was badly impacted, paralysed, as lawyers and committees proliferated, and shock jocks pontificated. Which was of course the aim, the start of the new tactics by the Right in America to make it impossible for a Democratic President ever to effectively rule again, as Obama has now discovered.

You could argue that taking private lives from off-limits and into the Blitzkrieg Politics that Attwater and Rove introduced meant that nothing would ever again be unthinkable as a political tactic. Swiftboating, Birtherism, Filibustering, Sequestering, and just plain Racism all were legitimised in a sense when Monica’s red dress, and descriptions of Clinton’s genitals, were accepted as legitimate political discourse.

And it only got worse. Clinton was so politically damaged by the unprecedented all-out assault that in turn he was no use to, in fact counter-productive for, the Gore presidential candidacy. Instead of being able to build on his role in a succesful and productive presidency, and use the once very popular Clinton in the campaign, Gore was effectively forced to campaign by cutting loose from his history, his actual qualification for the top job. Ms Lewinsky’s red dress had stained Gore’s campaign, and the stain could not be removed. The result, as we know, was to end in the tears of the hanging chads (in itself another development o tactics in the absolute lust for power of the Right), and, incredibly, the election of the most foolish and incompetent man ever to hold the Presidency.

And the result of that, of course, was 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, the rise of terrrorism and the mad-brained “war on terror”, loss of political freedoms for Americans and others who copied them, trillions of dollars in unfunded expenditure compounded by tax cuts for the rich, deregulation of banks, the eventual virtual collapse of the world finances, and the continuing failure of American action on climate change as the world slowly melted.

So, a major shift in not just American history and society, but that of the whole world, a shift that has continued to resonate for twenty years, and goes on. And a big influence even on the fate of the actual planet we all live on. A thousand consequences launched, unexpectedly, at the first time a vivacious young lady walked into the Oval Office.

Helen of Troy? Pffft!

Although, wait a moment, wasn’t it actually Bill of Arkansas who launched the thousand war ships, Clinton himself who pulled the temple down?

Helen of Troy? Reinstated.

You’ll go riding on the horses

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by Climate Change, politics • Tags: , , , , ,

Next year the carousel (I grew up calling such things “merry go rounds”) in the heart of Canberra is 100 years old. It is a classic of its kind, lots of old-fashioned horses, with names, and two elephants, in which children, brave enough to go round and round, but unsure about the whole up and down thing, can sit, with or without parents.

But for the children on the horses, giddeyup, it also has the advantage that parents and grandparents, left bravely behind on the ground outside, can be comfortingly seen and waved to, still in exactly the same place (“don’t move”), on every circuit. “Hullo”….. “Hullo” ….. “Hullo” ….. However brave you are, or are not, it’s comforting to know cuddles are not far away if needed. And if you know that, then the ride can, should, must go on forever. “Not yet, don’t stop yet” you might hear as the operator shows sign of heading for the Off Switch, and he might, fearing unpopularity, let it go round just once more.

Reminds me of the inexplicable failure of governments to do anything significant to deal with the now obviously runaway climate change. There we all are, going round and round, being reassured by politicians that nothing need ever change, that we will go round and round, exactly the same way, forever.

And we keep calling, “Not yet, don’t stop yet!” if a politician even looks as if they might be heading for the Off Switch, even the Slow Down Switch, we scream in protest.

And so the Merry Go Round keeps going round, in spite of ominous rumblings from underneath, puffs of black smoke, the smell of hot oil, the happy music sounding increasingly like a dirge. No maintenance you see, and it can’t run forever. The Operator looks more and more anxious, but there is no denying the cries “Not yet, don’t stop yet!” And the politicians, unmoving, waving and smiling happily to the riders, ready to cuddle away any doubts. Don’t you worry about a thing little girl.

So round and round we go, merrily riding on the horses yeah yeah.

The Colour Purple

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by Climate Change, Media, politics • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Media Matters has analysed media coverage in the US media of climate change in recent years and found, in spite of record temperatures and droughts etc, that coverage was actually declining. Furthermore, even when climate change was mentioned, the vast majority of those interviewed were Republican climate change deniers, with actual climate scientists rarely if ever interviewed. I don’t know if a similar study has been done recently in Australia, although there are studies of the abysmal News Ltd newspapers coverage, but it is absolutely clear that similar, if not worse, statistics would apply. I’m looking here a one particular Australian case which probably has relevance everywhere.

The record high temperatures in Australia this week, followed by devastating bushfires, were an obvious “teachable moment” for the media to join the dots for the public. This is what climate scientists have been predicting, this is what happened, this is what the future holds. Instead there was again a studious silence. It was as if there was no such thing as climate change, as if (like the America drought last year) these things were happening by chance in some world in which nothing else had changed.

Here is a recent example from Australia’s national broadcaster the ABC. Some background. The “7.30 Report” is a relatively serious current affair program, immediately following the main evening news bulletin, and often expanding on the main stories from the news. On the 8 January, as temperatures soared and fires raged, a great deal of the News Bulletin was devoted to those events, and then the 7.30 Report devoted the whole program to them.

None of the news items mentioned climate change, nor did the 7.30 Report in its first half, to my increasing frustration and yelling at the tv set. Then came an interview with “Alasdair Hainsworth from the Bureau of Meteorology”. The presenter, Ben Knight, introduced the segment by noting temperature records, and then noting that the Bureau had been forced to add more colours, black and purple, to its temperature maps to cope with the new high records. Extraordinary, right, and the obvious time to have a discussion about climate change, and indeed Mr Knight began the interview with the question “why are we in this situation where Australia is breaking these temperature records?”

Yes, I thought, here comes a decent climate change discussion at last. But I was wrong. Whether by design, or because that was the way the meteorologist interpreted the question, we immediately moved into a routine that has become very familiar. The ABC (and other networks) when it asks about the cause of events, means only the proximate cause, not the ultimate one. By this means, turning climate discussions into discussions about weather, every time, it avoids every opportunity to talk climate change. And so it was yet again, Mr Hainsworh talking about the trapping of heat on the continent, lack of cloud and moisture, delay in monsoon season and so on. Now, fair enough, this seems to be Mr Hainsworth’s area of expertise (a manager, Assistant Director Services, a meteorologist involved in IT systems and so on, his team recently won an award for “Our Next Generation Forecast and Warning System was highly commended at the Comcover Awards for Excellence in Risk Management in March 2012. These awards recognise exceptional and inspiring leadership in the management of risks faced by Commonwealth Government agencies. The judging panel recognised that the system improved our ability to manage and inform the community about severe weather events, including severe thunderstorms and flash flooding. These events present a significant risk to the safety of the Australian community”). But that being the case, why was he asked to appear? Well, apparently because he is responsible for the area that had to put new colours on the map. OK, now we have an another opportunity to talk climate change.

And here we go, the conversation proceeding as follows:

“BEN KNIGHT: It’s always a difficult question but how much of an aberration is this or does this actually fit into this pattern we’ve seen over the past decades where it’s been progressively getting hotter and hotter?
ALASDAIR HAINSWORTH: Certainly I can comment that this has broken the record as the hottest period. We’ve had six days in a row where the national average maximum temperature has been in excess of 39 degrees. The previous record was four days and we’ve also seen the hottest average day in Australia which was Monday and perhaps it could have been broken again today, although it’s somewhat cooler in Tasmania today. So, that may not be the case. Certainly it’s almost unprecedented as far as records are concerned.
BEN KNIGHT: And you now have this really quite interesting situation where Australian temperature maps have actually had to change because previously they only went up to 50 degrees, we’re now seeing that you’ve got an extra couple of gradings in purple and black to show temperatures which go beyond 50 degrees and indeed on Sunday and Monday in parts of Australia are forecast to do just that?
ALASDAIR HAINSWORTH: Yes, that’s right. The charts previously did go above 50 degrees, our models certainly were picking temperatures above 50 degrees but they were, it was showing up as white and so we decided that we would alter the temperature scale to ensure it showed it properly and we’ve added the extra two gradations which take the temperatures up to between 52 and 54 degrees Celsius.
At this stage we’ve only seen the first gradation, which is between 50 and 52 populated but yeah, it’s certainly extraordinarily hot over South Australia and central Australia and unfortunately it does appear as though it’s going to, it’s set to continue.
BEN KNIGHT: Do you think we are seeing a new reality, a new paradigm?
ALASDAIR HAINSWORTH: Well, as far as the models are concerned then yes. We haven’t seen these temperatures before but by the same token our computer modelling is getting better, it’s getting more accurate, it’s getting higher resolution. So it could be a combination of these factors which in actual fact just means that it’s actually modelling these things better, that it may not necessarily mean that they haven’t happened before but it’s simply that we haven’t been able to model it before.”

Now I had to not only listen to this extraordinary exchange, but read it several times, to try to make sense of it. I think we have here not really a conspiracy of silence, as it were, but more a combination of circumstances resulting in the same outcome. Mr Hainsworth, I’m guessing, is there because the ABC researcher rang the BOM and said we want to do an interview about this heatwave and about the altering of the weather map parameters could you put us on to one of your people to interview please? And the BOM public relations person has said, oh, you want Mr Hainsworth, his area is responsible for the map. So there we are. Mr Hainsworth is there to talk about the map (and is in any case not a climatologist), Mr Knight is there to talk about record-breaking hot weather (although I am guessing he is also under some kind of ABC protocol that doesn’t let him use the phrase “climate change”).

So, potential cross-purposes established, we start this part of the interview. Mr Knight tries to ask whether this hot weather is the result of the changing climate (without using the term, instead going for the euphemism “past decades where it’s been progressively getting hotter and hotter”) or is some kind of “freak event” as it were. Mr Hainsworth is there to talk about hot weather events, and about his map which reports them, so he does. The map and nothing but the map.

Mr Knight, perhaps hoping that although he can’t mention climate change, perhaps he can get his interviewee to do so (again, I am guessing that an ABC protocol may specify this) tries again with a different euphemism. Are we, he asks “seeing a new reality, a new paradigm?” Knight (again I’m guessing) hears his own question as “come on Buddy, talk about climate change FFS, ‘new paradigm’, get it?”. Hainsworth, having been invited on to talk about his map, hears “how did you construct your wonderful new map on your computer, what were the computer paradigms?” and answers accordingly, yes indeed, our computers are bigger and better so the maps are getting better. Or perhaps I am being too kind.

Whatever, the outcome is that extraordinary weather, a clear prediction of climate science, and obvious further evidence that the planet is warming, are both apparently “discussed” in serious tv programs on the national public broadcaster without climate change ever being mentioned. Furthermore the guest manages (I think unintentionally) to suggest that all of this could be just some kind of computer modelling glitch and we aren’t really getting hotter at all. In any case, it’s all because of some odd combination of weather circumstances. (It’s worth noting that the Bureau of Meteorology has apparently issued a statement I can’t find that “Clearly the climate system is responding to the background warming trend”. Which is fine but too mild, and as far as I know was little reported if at all).

Now, if I were to complain to the ABC about this, I would be met with incredulity. “What are you talking about? We talked about the map and got the senior person from the BOM responsible for it to talk about it. What more do you want?” And, at one level, fair enough. But at another level, why not get a climate scientist on? Why not mention climate change by name even once in half an hour of news and current affairs tv?

The next day, by contrast, the media was full of the statements by Warren Truss, leader of the Right Wing National Party and future Deputy Prime Minister in a conservative government. No problems with euphemisms, or being cautious for Mr Truss. He announced that linking heatwaves and record temperatures and bushfires with climate change was “utterly simplistic”. He went on to say that “carbon dioxide emissions from bushfires over the past week would eclipse those from coal-fired power stations for decades. Indeed I guess there’ll be more CO2 emissions from these fires than there will be from coal-fired power stations for decades”. It hardly needs saying that Mr Truss has done no research in climate science, has done no postgraduate degree in the subject, and in fact has no undergraduate qualification of any kind. He began work as a farmer, then went into politics.

It also hardly needs saying that his CO2 from bushfires comment is mind-numbingly wrong. “bushfires this year have emitted an amount of CO2 equivalent to 2% of Australia’s annual emissions from coal-fired power. The current bushfires must burn an area of forest greater than Tasmania to generate CO2 emissions equivalent to a year of burning coal for electricity. And the current bushfires must burn an area of forest the size of New South Wales to generate CO2 emissions equivalent to a decade of burning coal for electricity.” In addition of course, the CO2 from bushfires will be reabsorbed as burnt trees regrow, so, unlike coal power stations, there is no net gain of CO2 from bushfires at all. Again, to my knowledge, there was no fact checking of Mr Truss on tv when he was interviewed, or subsequently. Certainly there was none, nor any contrary view in the News Ltd paper report I saw.

So Climate Change denialists, Right Wing politicians, are able to make any outrageous nonsense claim (Mr Truss also said “‘I’m told it’s minus one in Mt Wellington at the present time in Tasmania. Hobart’s expecting a maximum of 16. Australia’s climate, it’s changing, it’s changeable. We have hot times, we have cold times… “!) they like and it will be hyped up by the media (big headline in the Herald-Sun “Climate change link to heatwave, bushfires ‘utterly simplistic’, says Warren Truss”). Conversely, it seems, any situation in which the reality of climate change might by chance become obvious to the public is played down, or structured in such a way as to avoid the possibility of information transfer to public ears.

It has so far proved impossible to get past the media who are guarding the gate against any possibility of action on climate change. The time has come for more direct action, more big claims, like those of Truss but based on reality not fantasy. Aim to generate headlines in spite of the media. And every time you get a chance at an appearance on tv or anywhere else in the media, keep saying “climate change” over and over. The time for being shy, unobtrusive, in the climate change closet, is over, the time has come for purple prose to go with the new purple patches on the map.

Plus ca change, plus ca change

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by Climate Change, Environment • Tags: , , , , ,

* The more CO2 in the air the more coal, oil, gas we dig and drill.
*The more the oceans are ruined the more fish we catch.
*The more frequent and disastrous are marine oil spills the more rapid the development of offshore oil drilling.
*The more the forests are degraded the more clearing, logging, shooting, grazing we introduce.
*The more the Great Barrier Reef begins to collapse the more shipping we send through it.
*The more species head towards extinction, the more habitat destruction, hunting, poaching.
*The more concern about pests and weeds the more introductions of GMO.
*The less farmland available the more mining is approved in it.
*The more cancer rates rise the more carcinogenic chemicals we pump into our homes, air, food.
*As energy use strangles the planet more and more energy guzzling devices are invented and sold.
*The more the rivers dry up the more the irrigators take from them.
*The more fire damages the environment the more it is introduced into the environment.
*The more the world drowns in waste the more plastic crap is produced and wrapped in excessive packaging.
*The more obvious the dangers of nuclear power become the louder the cries for its greater use.
*The greater the need for environmental protection and regulation the faster the removal of existing protections.
*The clearer the coming planetary catastrophe the greater the refusal to accept the evidence for it.

It’s almost as if we were hell-bent on wrecking the joint.

Patchwork

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by Climate Change, politics • Tags: , , , ,

Here we are, back in the world of oncology. Two days of actual “hooked up to the beeping machine” treatment (over 8 hours total, they were taking it very very slowly and carefully because I had the adverse reaction last time), followed by a week or so of feeling like crap (mainly I think due to the bastard steroids), followed by slow recovery, trying to pick up the threads of normal life, as you get ready for the next beeping machine appointment. Which is where I am now.

Anyway, while that has been going on I have been taking my mind off it by watching “The Wire” on DVD. Been seeing glowing reviews of it for years of course, “Best tv series in the universe” and so on. Had reservations after the first series, but from the second one onwards it’s certainly right up there with Six Foot Under, Breaking Bad, Deadwood, Sopranos, West Wing (not to mention Angels over America, Boys from the Blackstuff, Brideshead Revisited, Carnivale, Edge of Darkness, Forbrydelsen, Forsyte Saga (original), Grass Roots, Hamish McBeth, Have gun will travel, Hill Street Blues, Jewel in the Crown, Northern Exposure, Pennies from Heaven, Sea Change, Singing Detective, Talking to a Stranger, The Bridge, This Life, and Twin Peaks in my all time top 25).

A couple of observations. First I don’t know if anything much has changed in Baltimore, but the city (and, allowing for poetic licence, I am assuming the series was not a million drug deals removed from reality) would have to appear on most people’s “Anti-Bucket-List” of places you would NEVER want to visit. It looks like the kind of hell to which all roads in the world of laissez faire capitalism and libertarianism lead. Followers of Grover Norquist should be sent to live in the slums of Baltimore for a year before being allowed to pontificate on government and the economy and taxes and regulation and free trade and all the rest of the neocon economic garbage.

Second I kept trying to think of a way of describing the overall structure of the series. Then I got it. They have created a giant tapestry from which many loose threads are hanging, with new ones being added all the time. The loose threads tantalise and tease you until suddenly one gets sewn into the backing and reveals itself as part of a pattern. Then another. And gradually the whole picture is slowly revealed. As I write there are still threads hanging and I don’t know what picture they will be part of. A remarkable creative achievement.

All a bit like an individual life itself really. As you go through your life some threads become incorporated into a pattern, new loose threads are added. They in turn eventually resolve into the picture of your life. Ultimately the story ends, the last threads in place, THAT’S what it was all about.

And a bit like what the newsreels used to call the “Passing Parade” of life on this warming planet. Everywhere it seemed, as I coped with my “Chemo Brain” (yes, a real thing with real biochemical causes), loose threads kept merging around the world, as they have for several thousand years since recorded history began.

Many loose threads (again as they have for several thousand years since recorded history began) in the Middle East. Israel back to killing Palestinians in big numbers. Then resisting the UN vote (this country established by a UN vote) attempts of Palestine to merely gain observer status in the UN. They have successful resisted this for years, but failed this time. And the very next day gained revenge by announcing another 3000 Israeli houses to be built on Palestinian land.

Elsewhere Syrians continued to massacre each other in big numbers while both sides claimed the moral high ground. In Egypt, to no-one’s surprise, an Islamist government, elected by the people, immediately set about turning itself into an Islamist dictatorship. When you have the one true religion on your side you sure don’t want that silly democracy stuff, do you?

In England Lord Leveson finished sewing his threads and concluded, as everyone knew, that there is a cancer at the heart of the British media, and it needs much more effective “self-regulation”. David Cameron, supporting for a year the need to do something, suddenly, within minutes of receiving a 2000 page report, decided that absolutely nothing needed to be done to rein in Rupert Murdoch, stop his minions unravelling the threads of people’s lives. as long as he was reliably pro Conservative.

In America the Republicans kept right on in their quest to smear Obama at every manufactured opportunity, pulling at old Birther threads, and adding new ones like Benghazi . And even newer ones like pretending that his victory, bigger than that of George Bush, somehow, unlike George, gave him no mandate, no legitimacy at all. And most recently to a thread attacking him for taking an occasional vacation, for unravelling the ragged sleeve of care of the Oval Office occupancy, in the pretence that no Republican President had ever taken a holiday, and that George Bush in fact hadn’t spent most of his presidency on holiday.

And in Australia the Opposition pretended to keep picking away at the twenty year old threads of the Prime MInister’s once brief legal career, pretending to find, in the most ordinary pieces of legal correspondence and action, and in the sleaziest of “witnesses” imported for the purpose by shock jocks, evidence of “criminality”, an accusation they were careful not to make outside parliamentary privilege, but which the media was happy to add its bully megaphone to day after day.

And on the biggest tapestry of all, the climate change threads kept revealing their grim picture as the ice caps and glaciers melted ever more quickly, storms created havoc and enormous cost, and droughts reduced food production in a grim foretaste of things to come for 7 billion people. It is now absolutely clear, if any had doubted, that Climate scientists and biologists, had in past restricted themselves to pale pastel threads, not wanting to be accused of alarmism, had muted their predictions to the cautious lower end, had even expressed optimism about this or that minor political development. Time now, they have realised, in the face of continued inaction, and ever rising CO2 emissions and temperature projections, to start using bright red threads, create a big bold warning sign. “Stop, environmental cliff ahead”.

Well there you are. Sorry not my usual tapestry of a post, more of a patchwork. Still, on reflection, a patchwork quilt of rags and patches is a better representation of most lives than a well organised tapestry. And indeed a better representation of the world.

Just fauxing

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by Climate Change, Environment, Media • Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Interesting article (“Martha Raddatz and the Faux Objectivity of Journalists“) by Glenn Greenwald following the Biden-Ryan VP Debate. “The highly questionable assumptions tacitly embedded in the questions Raddatz asked illustrate how this works, as does the questions she pointedly and predictably did not ask.” “That is what this faux journalistic neutrality, whether by design or otherwise, always achieves. It glorifies highly ideological claims that benefit a narrow elite class (the one that happens to own the largest media outlets which employ these journalists) by allowing that ideology to masquerade as journalistic fact.” Greenwald gives examples of the “Medicare going broke” and “Iran is the greatest national security threat to America” questions to illustrate his point.

I just saw a discussion on one of our tv networks about the effects of the “carbon tax” in Australia after “100 days” that is a slightly different example of the same thing. As these things go it wasn’t so bad. They had actually got an expert to talk about it instead of a politician or shock jock as they normally would. The questions were based on the “sky is falling in” scare campaign of the Liberals, and his answers were calm and measured. So what am I complaining about (never satisfied am I, even when they do the right thing, whinge whinge whinge?)?

Three things. The segment was advertised for an hour preceding with the words “Carbon Tax”, the term used throughout the segment except occasionally by the guest. Now “Carbon Tax” is the term the conservative politicians and shock jocks have been using for two years (alternating with “Great Big New Tax”) for two reasons. First to continue the lie that the Prime Minister had lied in saying she would not introduce a “Carbon Tax”, and second so they can scare the living bejeebus out of all the punters out there by pretending that they were going to be paying so much tax that the Apocalypse would be a walk in the park.

In fact the PM had gone on to say words to the effect “but I intend to put a price on carbon” and that’s exactly what she did. A carbon price isn’t a “carbon tax”. No one is paying extra tax. In fact because of the package of compensation measures almost everyone is better off. Instead of introducing a punitive tax to stop people using so much carbon-generated power, the government used the carrot of compensation so that if you began producing less CO2 you would do even better. To keep on using the term “carbon tax” is to keep selling the conservative meme.

Second, all of the questions, as I said above, were based on the dire warnings the conservatives have been running for two years – businesses ruined, towns wiped off map, pensioners dying in unheated rooms, lamb roasts costing $100 and so on. But still presenting them as questions on 14 October 2012 implies that they were indeed valid points to raise. Proved by the last 100 days to be wrong (although one of the hosts, whose politics are always worn on her sleeve, muttered that meat prices might have gone down but that was because of good seasons – still fighting the battle to the last), but who could have known that?

Well, you could have. You were told plenty of times. There was endless modelling to show the effects, but even without that a moment’s thought about the way the scheme was set up would have told you that all the conservative publicity stunts and deceptive parliamentary questions were as fake as the ones involving an antique shop and a pensioner’s electricity bill. That is “100 days” tells us nothing we couldn’t have known in advance if you hadn’t constantly legitimised the conservative campaign by merely reporting it as fact for the last two years.

And finally the Polar Bear in the room was never mentioned. The Arctic is melting at a frighteningly rapid rate, America has been frying, Barrier Reef in big trouble, and yet reducing greenhouse gases, the whole reason for putting a price on carbon was never mentioned. Nor has it been very often during the last couple of years in this context. So for the public the government has inexplicably introduced a “great big new tax”, apparently for no other reason than to ruin antique shops, wipe towns off map, and kill pensioners, because they are such nasty people. And still, today, the carbon price was discussed without this frightening context.

Australian journalism, like American journalism has a history in recent years of this kind of acceptance of what Lakoff calls conservative “framing”. Perhaps, to give them the benefit of the doubt, unknowingly, but I suspect often in full awareness of what they are doing.

Watch out for it.

Bound for Botany Bay

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by Climate Change, Environment • Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Ah, Xmas, mistletoe, Xmas trees, snow, hot roast dinners with Yorkshire pud, plum puddings with threepences in. Could be at Manor Farm with the Pickwick Club could we not? Except we’re not. We’re in Western Australia in the 1950s. The temperature outside is 40 degrees C, inside hotter as the wood-fired oven cooks the roast chicken and potatoes. The “snow” is artificial, powder sprinkled on a northern hemisphere pine. The assembled family are sweating with the heat. The children are demanding to go to the beach but being told to shoosh because it was Xmas. Ah yes, the Dickens Xmas, the Prince Albert Xmas, just one of the many inappropriate things exported from Britain to its former colony in the south seas.

It would have been better for the Australian environment if, on 26 January 1788, the ships rounding the Heads into Sydney Harbour, had contained not English, Irish, Scots and Welsh soldiers and convicts, but settlers from southern Africa, Middle East, western China, or Chile.

Thing is the British soldiers, convicts, and later free settlers all brought with them a great deal of cultural baggage. It wasn’t just that the seasonal greetings and celebrations of Xmas were taking part in a totally inappropriate environmental setting, so was everything else. The heavy clothing that was worn, the inappropriate housing that was built, also would have been better discarded on the London or Liverpool docks. Those things, like Xmas celebrations, didn’t matter much, apart from generations to come feeling discomfort, especially in Summer. They were retained, like the monarchy, long past their rational use-by dates as a way for strangers in a strange land to cling to their heritage.

But there was other cultural baggage, unrecognised for many years, which was much more important and damaging. They were coming from a small island country which had, in no particular order: plenty of water; managed forests of deciduous trees; deep soils; island climate with the added impact of the Gulf Stream; no catastrophic events, notably drought or fire; a fear of “wilderness”; the removal of any animals perceived as a threat; the presence of a number of species which had, it would turn out, enormous potential to become pests in a new environment.

People were coming to a country where those things were not true, the reverse in fact, but they would perceive it through eyes conditioned to the natural world of Britain. Just as they brought hot Xmas dinners and three-piece woollen suits, they also began stocking the country with British animals so they would feel at home, could continue hunting. In came (almost unbelievably) foxes, rabbits, hares, sparrows, starlings, blackbirds, most of which would go on to become pests that would damage the environment on a catastrophic scale. In came willows, poplars, pines, oaks, elms, to replace the despised native trees cut down and burnt. Anything un-Australian was prized.

They would clear land whose thin top soil was only being held there by vegetation; pump water from streams that were only seasonal, from rivers whose flow was very irregular; stock land at high rates according to what a really good season could support, as if the good times would never end; plant monoculture crops over huge areas; pretend that eucalypt forests could be “managed”, initially by cutting down trees, later by use of fire; hunt and wipe out thylacines, and so on. [Oddly perhaps, they didn't bring with them the one practice, hedgerows, which would have been a plus in Australia]. Farming practices that had evolved over thousands of years to suit British conditions, were applied indiscriminately to a continent that hadn’t evolved to cope with them. But people were comfortable with retained Britishness in land management as in everything else, and so forests were cleared, land was overgrazed, rivers and irrigation basins were drained, topsoil blew away, species became extinct.

Things have gradually changed. Hot roast dinners have mostly given way to backyard barbecues, or salads and seafood at the beach. Houses are better designed for climate extremes (and are beginning to incorporate energy-saving and solar panels to make use of the Australian sunshine). Still have suits and ties of course (in spite of the efforts of one state premier in the 70s to popularise light “safari suits” for business wear), and still have the monarchy, but hey, some things take time.

Land management change takes time too. Oh a lot has been learnt about dry land farming, preparing for droughts, stocking rates, crop and stock varieties, working thin soils, being more efficient with water and chemical use, and so on. There has been a big development of wind breaks, equivalent in a sense to the British hedgerow. On the other hand forests and woodlands are still being woodchipped or cleared at high rates, with massive outcries at any attempt to slow down let alone stop it; irrigation, including, astonishingly, for crops like cotton and rice, is still full steam ahead, again with massive reaction whenever there is a suggestion it might be reduced; killing of native species goes on as frequently as it ever did; people are still talking nonsense about using fire and “thinning” to “manage” forests; and many farmer’s organisations are still hotbeds of climate change denial (change that will decisively demonstrate that we are not living in Britain). A long way to go, and no time.

Time we became un-British (well, except for cricket of course).

Windmills of my mind

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by Climate Change • Tags: , , , , ,

I have written about it before because it was such a stunning symbolic action. When Reagan entered the White House in 1980 one of his very first acts was to remove some solar panels that Jimmy Carter had had installed. Carter had put them there, in a remarkably far-sighted action (for the time), to encourage the public to do the same. He also, in a much-mocked move, encouraged people to turn their thermostats down a degree or two and wear a cardigan inside. Some of this was in response to the continuing ability of OPEC to restrict oil supplies and push up prices whenever it felt like it, but in part it was Carter’s recognition that America needed to start reducing energy consumption. The solar panels were a symbol of that.

But Reagan wasn’t having a bar of it – get these horrible things off the roof and get them off now. Odd, on the face of it – I mean, ok, don’t put any up, Ronald, but if they are already there why not leave them there and save a little if cost of running White House?

Because Reagan had his own symbolism to push. America, he was saying, is built on oil and coal, and by god it’s going to stay that way. Furthermore, as the greatest country on Earth we will consume masses of energy if we want to, and we do, and nobody can stop us. It is our birthright. So, we’ll have no more of this nonsense about reducing energy consumption and switching to renewables, Mr President, tear those panels down.

Ironic, really, that this period, 1976-1980, marked what we now know was the beginning of the uptick in CO2 production and rising global temperatures. Neither Carter nor Reagan knew this (although if I remember correctly Reagan was briefed, “Houston we have a problem” a few years later), but this was precisely the time America, and others, needed to switch to renewables.

In Australia in 2008 the excuse of ignorance could no longer be used. The Rudd government, to its credit, had acted swiftly to stimulate the economy as the GFC tsunami rolled towards our shores. As a result Australia was the only western economy to come through the crisis undamaged.

One of the schemes introduced, killing, as it were, two birds with one batt, was a home insulation scheme. Conducted by private firms, households could get their homes insulated, then apply for a rebate. Turned out however there were shonky operators out there (who could have guessed?) and that the states were way behind in regulating this relatively new industry. So there were four very sad deaths among workers, and there were some house fires caused by poor installation procedures. But in both cases the incidence seems to have been less than usual (ie before the scheme). While the minister in charge was hammered by Opposition and media, it is clear in retrospect that there was little wrong with the scheme
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/04/23/peter-garrett-is-exonerated-nobody-cares/ and that with a million homes insulated, and the resulting lower energy use for individuals and the country, it had actually been a major success.

Regardless, it was attacked and attacked by both the Opposition and Murdoch Press, savagely and relentlessly. It was an attack far out of proportion to any supposed sins of omission or commission in the management of the scheme.

The reason I think is much like that of Reagan and the solar panels. It was an insulation scheme, and therefore implied that there was a problem (greenhouse gas emissions) and a solution was needed. The Opposition, climate change deniers to a man, and News Ltd, deniers from Rupert down, were angry that there was a response of any kind to a problem they refused to recognise. And, like Reagan, they saw Australia as being built on Coal’s back, and it being the god-given right of Australians to be, per head, the highest emitters of greenhouse gases in the world. One has the feeling that if the Opposition come to power they would like to personally rip the insulation out of the million homes.
 
Which brings us to windpower and the “Landscape Guardians”. This astroturf group has been established via right wing think tanks.
http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/environment/the-landscape-guardians-and-the-waubra-foundation/. It sets up fake little groups wherever windpower is planned. It has fake medical opinion about the reality of a “wind turbine syndrome”, apparently unique to Australia, and unique to people who aren’t receiving money for turbines on their own land but are neighbours of those who do. The fake medical opinion is based purely on anecdotes from people claiming sickness and has been disproved over and over again.

The group, being an apparently real “community group” with, like research, gets much media exposure as “independent opinion” including, shamefully, from our public broadcaster. They have succeeded in having the Victorian government imposing such extraordinary restrictions on windfarm location that few will be able to be built in that state anymore. They turn up at community information forums in NSW to distort the discussion, get residents frightened and angry with misinformation, and try as a result, to get projects delayed or blocked completely.

But why? Well one suggestion, in the link above, is that they are working with, on behalf of, coal miners in Victoria, to block the development of alternative energy sources. Probably some truth in this, these companies everywhere fund right wing think tanks to achieve this kind of result.

But with their spread into NSW, and probably elsewhere, I think the explanation must be more general. Windfarms, highly visible and effective, are both an actual and a symbolic response to climate change. They therefore, by their very existence, confirm the reality of climate change. And this, like the WH solar panels, can’t be allowed by the climate change deniers these groups are completely composed of.

This war, to get the world responding to global warming, is being fought on many fronts. Opposition to renewable energy is not one I’d have predicted 10 years ago, but here we are.

The War on Terra

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by Climate Change, Environment • Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

In these strange times we need, I think, a new paradigm, a new way of looking at the world, which can best come from new terminology, new phrases, new words. Change the language and you change the world, or, as George Lakoff famously almost put it “Think of an elephant” and as the other George famously put it “Mission almost accomplished”.

Let me point out the strangeness to you. Here we are, the year 2012. We are near the start of an unprecedented experiment – see how many people are left on the planet if you burn all the fossilised carbon under the earth and convert it into CO2. Or, if you prefer, just how hot can we make this mother? It is a brave endeavour, a courageous decision. I mean there probably are people in the universe who wouldn’t try this without a second equally livable planet nearby, just in case. But that’s never been the way of this particular branch of the ape family. “Live for today and let tomorrow take care of itself” has been the motto of the residents of this ancestral home.

So, here we are, planet in a pot on the stove, getting warmer, getting warmer, but is that enough for us? Hell NO! While the rest of us are busy burning as much carbon as we can in the shortest possible time (trying for a new record for “The Guiness Galactica Book of Records”) there are others hard at work in other directions. They have declared war on the planet and their mission is nearly accomplished.

But there is only so much whimsy a Polar can Bear. You get my drift. It has seemed, in the last fifty years, that the worse damage was done to the planet, the more people wanted to damage it. That instead of saying, “Oh, hang on, bit of a mess here, time we stopped the party, sent the guests home, and cleaned up the house before the Oldies get home” we have turned up the music, ordered more alcohol, and published the location of the party on the Australian Bikies Club Facebook Page.

Bulldozing and burning forests, polluting the seas, overfishing, coal fracking, oil drilling in Arctic, plastic waste, whaling, poisons, hunting, killing tigers and rhino for aphrodisiacs, killing elephants for ivory, chimps for meat, well the list is endless, feel free to add your own. And then the big one – climate change denial. We tend to see these actions as separate, each one to be fought by different groups of activists in different places. But just as the Global War on Terrorism brought together apparently disparate groups under one heading, so that authorities worldwide could more effectively cooperate and work together, so we need a new approach to planetary destruction by whatever means.

So I propose we call actions that damage the planet Terrarism, and that we declare a new Global War on Terrarism.

Any questions?