Archive for category Environment

The Importance of Being Intellectual

by Trevor McDonald on 31 March 2010
Categories: Environment, Sport | Tags: , , ,

The difference between the intellectual class warriors and average blokes like me is that I know I’m a genius. Intellectuals just think they are Intellectuals. Which brings me to my Topical Debate of the week: Intellectual Dioramas. The post-Millennium term “Intellectual Diorama” was just invented by me five minutes before I typed it.  And it’s a theory that I’ve been studying since then that I think applies to average smart thinkers like me who are able to put into reality what our brains are thinking when you don’t think they are working but they are. Like when you are on the Centrelink and you do cashies on the side.

The first Intellectual Diorama was invented by Jesus who made a model of his birth in a stable for show and tell: an existential look at the womb. Now, this is my Intellectual Diorama:

silver4

Oil Spill

This Intellectual Diorama presented itself to my brain during the time of the Exxon Valdez oil spill when I was watching Warrick Capper (a show pony for the Sydney Swans) take a magnificent mark against Carlton. It’s called “Oil Spill”. For those ‘Intellectuals’ who need further explanation of my Intellectual Diorama the tyre represents a bi-product of oil and the swan represents the birds that got covered in it and the wings represent the bird’s legs that Warrick Capper spread to spill his oil inside.

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Your ABC and climate change balance – a tale of two pricks

by David Bonnici on 11 March 2010
Categories: Environment, Media | Tags: , , , ,

In 1998, while living in London, my 18-month-old daughter wasn’t feeling well and came out in a strange rash. The local GP had no idea what she had and referred her to the Great Ormond Street Hospital, one of the world’s leading children’s clinics.

The doctors were unfamiliar with Sarah’s condition, but further investigation showed she had measles. The delayed diagnosis wasn’t due to any shortcomings in the National Health Service, but because a vaccine had all but wiped out the disease and none of the doctors, including experienced pediatricians, had actually seen it before. Luckily Sarah had that vaccination, as part of the Measles, Mumps, Rubella (MMR) injection, and while she showed the symptoms she never suffered the full effects, which could be deadly.

So why did my daughter get measles in a first-world city, two decades after a vaccination had all but eradicated it? The BBC’s policy of giving all issues and views equal measure regardless of their credibility had something to with it.

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Dickhead of the Year Award Already Won

by Trevor McDonald on 17 February 2010
Categories: Crime, Environment, Foreign matter, Media | Tags: , , , ,

Compare and Contrast:

1. Gob from the hit DVD show ‘Arrested Development’ decides to become the centre of attention and breaks into jail and gets locked up then let out. Gains notoriety by featuring on the cover of coveted magic magazine “Poof”. Everyone laughs.

2. ‘Captain Bathune’ formerly of the decapitated ‘Ady Gill’ decides to become the centre of attention and breaks into the Japo whaling ship to perform a ‘Citizens Arrest’ on the Caption of the ship. Gains no notoriety, no front page, is a prisoner for the at least the next 2 months with no soap-on-a-rope. Everyone laughs.

Being a topical debator who can weigh up the twos and fros of port and starboard in both sides in a debate I would like to ask some pertinant questions in the ionosphere of the Internet. One being who gives a flying fuck about the Ady Gill dickhead? Two being did he watch the famed Police Academy movie “Citizens on Patrol” too many times? And more importantly, where are the David Hicks fan club and Get Up when he needs them?

Now, this whaling business is all over the news channels. And the Japs are being harpooned in our media for killing a fish. So? When Wayne and I did a tour of Werribee zoo when we were kids we hadn’t been fed by Wayne’s step mum for a few days. We saw an antelope walking around with a wound in it’s side and a bit of blood. Wayne and I were following that antelope around with our tongues hanging out waiting for it to drop dead so we could bring something home to eat. Did Africa try to put a citizens arrest on us? But I digress sort of.

Now I’m glad this hilarious tale of Captain Buffoon hasn’t been followed too much in the media and the David Hicks fan club haven’t rallied demanding Buffoon’s release. I hope those Japs are serving threee square meals of rare endangered whale for breakfast, lunch and tea. Maybe he will be released looking as fat as David Hicks. Further in the excellent Herald Sun article it’s investigative journalist also notes that Captain Buffoon handed the Japo Captain a bill for a cool 3 million. Is this where I insert the imaginary typewriter joke? LOL.

To sum up this debate I will like to end with a quote from the article in question:

“[Buffoon] opened the door and walked into the wheelhouse… that’s the last we’ve heard from him” a save the whales home and away actor said.

As the internets would say; Sea Shepherd FAIL, Captain Buffoon FAIL, Ady Gill FAIL, Debt Collection FAIL and Whaling WIN!

This is Trevor signing off.

Trevor.

7 Comments

Back to the future

by David F on 10 December 2009
Categories: Environment, Politics | Tags: , ,

A common complaint of the Australian parliamentary game is that it’s merely a case of Tweedledum versus Tweedledee, a contest between two parties who largely resemble one another in both policies and methods. Certainly, this has been the case for federal politics in recent years – Rudd was at pains to present himself as a ‘fiscal conservative’, and emphasise his religiousity and populism (see his comments re: the Bill Henderson sage, for instance). On the other side, Brendan Nelson and Malcom Turnbull were ‘moderates’, who both were supposed to represent ‘generational change’. To this game, the Coalition has now said basta, electing Tony Abbott as leader. He in turn has elected a shadow cabinet comprised of rightist demagogues and old discards from the Howard era. The dust is yet to settle on this one, but I think there are a few things to be considered.

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Does you like pointless graphs to illustrate your point?

by Trevor McDonald on 3 December 2009
Categories: Environment, Media | Tags: , , ,

At the tafe Internets course I learnt that on the Google there is a function called Google trends. You type things in to see their relevance to other things and you can separate them by what is called a comma.

Behold the graphs I made below:

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Never mind Hockey, I have a Fielding feeling

by @FakeFielding on 2 December 2009
Categories: Environment, Politics | Tags: , , , , ,

This first appeared in Monday’s Crikey email and is on the Crikey website

__________

Let me tell you, weeks like last week don’t come along every week. Calling it extraordinary would be the understatement of the century, as even seasoned political observers would attest. For starters, this nation’s government considered a number of highly important issues and my speeches in the Senate were some of the most passionate, articulate and emotional presentations the Parliament has ever seen. They had everything: shouty voice, soft voice, pauses for effect, graphs as props, and moral appeals to right and wrong. I’m exhausted just thinking about them. One of my speeches was so powerful that I went to do it again for Susan and the staff back in the office but Susan yelled at me to get down off the desk.

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Her Genocidal Majesty

by Scott Bridges on 1 December 2009
Categories: Environment, Politics | Tags: , , , ,

I reproduce this Citizens Electoral Council press release that lobbed into my inbox this arvo (I subscribe to a lot of shit, okay?) without comment.

Citizens Electoral Council of Australia
Media Release 1st of December 2009

Queen flexes muscle to demand Copenhagen genocide treaty

Just as the climate change hoax is about to derail completely, Her Britannic Majesty herself, Queen Elizabeth II, whose family spawned the modern green genocide movement*, has pulled rank on the Commonwealth group of nations—her repackaged “Empah”—to demand they deliver a treaty at Copenhagen.

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In his balloon

by Molesworth on 29 November 2009
Categories: Environment, Politics, Science | Tags: , , , ,

While the Liberals are embroiled in a simply delicious leadership crisis as the tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorists try to hijack the party, it’s worth taking a look at this enlightening Tony Abbott interview on Lateline which took place not ten days ago:

TONY JONES: I hear what you’re saying about the earth having been hotter in different periods in its entire global history, but let me ask you this. Have you read the science that we’re talking about here – for example, have you read the IPCC’s report?

TONY ABBOTT: No, I don’t claim to have immersed myself deeply in all of these documents. I’m a politician. I have to rely on briefings – I have to rely on what I pick up through the secondary sources.

But look, I think I am as well versed on these matters as your average politician needs to be.

TONY JONES: But you have read Ian Plimer’s book.

TONY ABBOTT: I haven’t yet finished Ian Plimer’s book. I have started Ian Plimer’s book.

TONY JONES: But you have quoted it from time to time.

TONY ABBOTT: I’ve quoted a couple of passages, and I confess I’m probably more familiar with the book through people who’ve written about it than I am through having read it myself.

TONY JONES: What evidence do you have then for saying that the earth has cooled since the late 1990s.

TONY ABBOTT: Well, I am not setting myself up as the great expert here, but the Hadley Institute in Britain, which is apparently one of the most reputable of these measuring centres, according to press reports, has found that after heating up very significantly in the previous 25 years, there seems to have been a slight cooling, but at a high plateau I’ll accept that.

TONY JONES: That is Ian Plimer’s argument. So when you actually go…

TONY ABBOTT: This is the Hadley Centre – this is measurements.

TONY JONES: I’m about to tell you what the Hadley Centre actually says. When you go and look at what it says about global temperatures you’ll find that they say that the years 1998 to 2006 include the hottest, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth and the sixth hottest years in recorded history.

TONY ABBOTT: And the hottest one was at the beginning and the less hot ones have been since.

And it goes on. To summarise:

  • Tony Abbott has not read the IPCC report.
  • But he has read Heaven & Earth.
  • But he’s only started it.
  • But he’s capable of reciting whole passages of it at the drop of a hat even though he hasn’t read it.
  • This is because he’s familiar with the book having read people who have written about it.

This is why Andrew Bolt being the intellectual beacon of Liberals is a good thing.

Bring on the next election.

4 Comments

The ETS for Dummies

by David Bonnici on 24 November 2009
Categories: Environment, Politics | Tags: ,

What is the ETS?
ETS stands for Emissions Trading Scheme, which means that companies will have to pay for credits to create pollution.

Why?
To combat climate change caused by man-made carbon emissions. The idea is if companies have to pay to pollute they will pollute less; the climate will stop changing and baby polar bears will live to become big polar bears allowing them to scavenge through Alaskan rubbish tips.

But companies pollute because they make things or produce power. How will they be able to keep providing us with their important products and services?
This is the smart bit. They will pay the ETS and the government will give them the money back so they can continue what they’re doing to protect jobs and working families. At the same time they will pass the ETS costs to the consumer which means some polluting companies and industries will be better off under an ETS despite not actually reducing their carbon footprint.

That’s fucked!  
That’s your interpretation shithead, but at least the government will look like it’s doing something to stop climate change.

But will an ETS stop climate change? Surely once the Antarctic sheds millions of tons of ice and sea levels rise there’s not much we can do to stop it. It’s like trying to stop a freight train with a wet kipper.

You know, for a dummy you’re a smart-arsed little fucker! Listen, this isn’t about stopping climate change it’s about feeling good that we’re doing our best without having to actually give up anything that causes pollution. We’ll still use electricity and drive cars, but we’ll do it safe in the knowledge that it really gives conservatives the shits.

You’re a deranged lefty idiot. This isn’t about climate change at all, it’s about idealism.
Oh, do fuck off!

4 Comments

So some academics’ emails have been hacked …

by David F on 23 November 2009
Categories: Environment, Science | Tags: , , ,

… and a lot of conservatives and right-wing ‘libertarians’ are getting very excited. It seems a hacker has obtained the private email correspondence of researchers who were looking at AGW. The candid comments found therein (always quoted out of context by said conservatives/libertarians, of course) are supposedly further proof that claims about AGW are merely a hoax, and that the science is a scam.

From what I can see of the emails, they prove no such thing. What they do demonstrate, however, is that scientists, and science itself, are fallible, and subject to the vicissitudes of personality and politics (broadly speaking), just like every other aspect of life. To construct an entire conspiracy theory out of this decades-old fact is to therefore be clutching at straws.

None of this ought to be news for the conservatarians, or anybody else, for that matter, except the former have an irrational fear and hatred of all things that smell even vaguely pomo. Because of this, some fairly basic points, such as science being fallible, or occurring within a context that is full of contingencies, are likely to be new and unfamiliar, despite these points having been made, in different ways,  some time ago.

Indeed, Kuhn argued long ago that ‘more than one theoretical construction can always be placed upon a given collection data’, and that ‘personal and historical accident is always a formative ingredient of the beliefs espoused by a given scientific community at a given time’.

Note also that, whatever the purported sins of these AGW scientists from East Bumcrack, their scientific failings are utterly trivial when compared to the shenanigans of Big Pharma, for instance, about whom the conservatarians are entirely silent.

We can expect to see plenty more about this on the blogosphere. (Larvatus Prodeo has a thread here — the comments are interesting, though the post itself pulls its punches, IMHO). This is what constitutes a scientific scandal when an entire generation of computer-literate conservatarians have been getting their ’science’ from Andrew Bolt and Ann Coulter.

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