you want facts with that?

time travel to the review for real, a month or so later

I was going to review The Bolt Report, News Limited Columnist Andrew Bolt's new television program on the Ten Television Network.

That was before the news broke that the Australian National University in Canberra had increased security at facilities where its climate scientists are working after receiving many death threats aimed at the scientists and their families.

If Andrew Bolt didn't exist we would need to invent him. The News Limited political commentator has for many years been a lightning rod for Australians with dissenting social and political opinions, and his columns are widely read, and commented upon, from a broad spectrum of political perspectives.

Bolt has an opinion on almost everything, and if you don't like those, he has plenty more. Bolt waves what Frank Hardy used to call the finger of scorn at public policies and political figures, a single-digit bullshit detector working overtime.

But today, just as I sit to write a review of the four episodes of his television program I watched, Bolt writes

Global warmists are terrified of debate. No warming activist or Labor minister has agreed to come on The Bolt Report to discuss their claims. Almost no global warming scientists here will agree to debate sceptical ones.

When he appeared on the Bolt Report's first episode Federal Opposition and Liberal Party Leader Tony Abbot wasn't asked a single question about climate change, even though he is (in Boltspeak) a "warmist". "I believe", Abbot told anyone who would listen earlier this year, "that climate change is real and that human activity is at least partly responsible for it". Australia's alternative leader has, in fact, budgeted to take twelve billion dollars from government expenditure for programs to mitigate climate change over four years, a fairly activist putting-yer-money-where-yer-mouth-is political position. The Bolt Report's host might have questioned Abbot's wisdom, given a golden opportunity to, for Andrew Bolt is on the record as believing Global Warming is a great fraud perpetrated by scheming scientists and green enterprises grasping for wads of government money like the twelve billion dollars Tony Abbott proposes to hand out.

The Bolt Report is driven by belief. In a comment on the Victorian State Government's decision to make Welcome To Country Ceremonies optional, where they were obligatory under the previous Labour Government's protocols for state-sponsored events, its host asserts "These welcome events seem very traditional, but were in fact invented by popular Actor and TV presenter Ernie Dingo, and my next guest, distinguished didgeridoo player and artist, Doctor Richard Walley."

"Well, you don't invent welcome to country, the welcome to country has been here for thousands of years amongst Aboriginal peoples themselves", Walley replied.

There followed some banter about us being all Australians, and the whole welcome to country, and Aboriginal thing in general, being so divisive.

"Whatever happens to Aboriginals affects Australia. Whatever happens to Australia affects Aboriginals", Walley observes dryly.

"Well, thank you very much for coming on the show to put your point of view, I don't agree with it but I'm glad you are here to say it", the host wraps up.

Well, hang on. Point of view? Was it a matter of fact that the Welcome To Country events "were in fact invented by Ernie Dingo and Richard Walley", in the host's words?

It seems to me that The Bolt Report suffers from post-modernity's great melancholia of uncertainty. Bolt's other media ventures find their audience in a generation swept aside by mighty change, multiculturalism and workplace restructuring, with little left to sustain them beyond belief and shrinking pensions. Uncertainty resonates with the 55-64 demo displaced and made redundant by rationalization and globalization.

But is it fair to assert that someone made something up, and to then disagree with a matter of fact that he did not on the basis that the fact contradicts a belief?

Until the news of death threats to the academics at the ANU and their families I would have said, unreservedly, yes. Let everyone have their say. And encouragingly, Australians are turning to opinion-driven media to find a voice. The Bolt Report's capital city averages are around the same as for many opinion-driven programs on the Community TV stations around the nation.

Now I read reports that Australian media regulator, the Communications and Media Authority, has begun an investigation into a Sydney radio station's coverage of the climate change debate with a degree of trepidation. The last time they did that, Australian commentators were revealed to have been taking money to talk about stuff they didn't believe in as if they did.

So I'm going to reserve judgement on The Bolt Report, for now. It is just possible that I'm old fashioned enough to be entertained by facts alone, and don't need them filtered through a bunch of beliefs, no matter how entertaining, or off-the-wall.

The Bolt Report is on television Channel 10, Sundays at 10 AM. I watched episodes 1 to 4.

A load of old rubbish!

The Select Committee on the Scrutiny of New Taxes (set up by the Australian Government) is looking into Carbon Tax pricing mechanisms and so far has received 36 submissions. This doesn't appear to be a huge amount given the outrage by individuals for or against the proposed carbon reduction scheme. Maybe it's just easier for some to write a slogan on a piece of board and turn up to shout in a protest?

And talking about pollution, Bruce Guthrie's article Bright lights, filthy city in the Age this morning whinges about people discarding fast-food containers, drink bottles, cigarette butts and packs as well as ATM slips onto Melbourne streets. And whose being blamed? Goths, homeless people and scantily clad late-night revellers...it's pretty clear we're not talking about Collins Street bankers or Spring Street apartment dwellers, he said. There are 300,000 visitors to Melbourne on the weekends and they can't all be bogans (his word, not mine).

If the City of Melbourne is concerned about the amount of rubbish discarded on city streets on Friday and Saturday nights and with men urinating in doorways, maybe they should consider using some of the $170 million dollars they receive every year in rates from businesses and individuals to install more rubbish bins and public toilets. They publicize the fact that they have 28 public toilets (and intend to build 5 more by June 2011), but I really don't know where they are, the only ones I'm aware of (that is not one of those disgusting underground ones that no one in their right mind would visit) is around the corner from the Town Hall in Collins Street and those at Federation Square and Queen Vic Centre.

If Council wants Melbourne to be perceived as a locale brimming with life and activity that attracts overseas visitors then diversity of population has to be part of the attraction and that means the inclusion of  'desirables' as well as 'undesirables'. We live in a society that equates having a good time with drinking alcohol and I don't think that attitude is going to change anytime soon. Carbon Tax? Maybe the government should consider a Fun Tax?

Stranger in a stranger land

The only time I was ever involved with a blog before this one was when a robot I made blogged its way through a modest exhibition in a Melbourne gallery for a couple of weeks in 2002. Sure I read posts since they were plain 'ol newsgroup messages, before mainstream media discovered the internet. And I still prefer message boards to, say, Facebook, for always-on internet coms. But for me, until the first post on Anything But Human, blogging was an undiscovered country.

Any traveller on an alien shore will be at first consumed by the struggle to orient, to familiarize and unfold and unpack the baggage. And after by the complexities of navigating unfamiliar space and finding some sense of place, and belonging, under an alien sky. Not that I'm thinking the landscape is much better defined now than it was for me three months ago.

I seem to have written three times as many posts as I posted. I don't know how usual that is. Some of the unposted seem skeletal, others are way overweight. Still more have wandered far from the point, and others have no point at all. Or any that I can see now. And I was wondering why, in a mediaspace that seems so entwined in consciousness-streaming, I wasn't that comfortable joining in?

I guess for me there will always be more writing than posting. Because if there is something to say it is worth saying well. Because otherwise, what is the point?

I spent a couple of weeks cruising blog posts about Australia's climate change debate. It seems a fairly robust one, if not a pub brawl, and I'm not that comfortable joining in. But when the media is chastised for presenting the debate in full I have to call shenanigans.

The Age/SMH reported Professor Ross Garnaut's concern that there had been a decline in public acceptance of the mainstream science, and it is all the media's fault.

In a flawed attempt at balance, journalists present the views and prognosis put forward by numerous experts working within mainstream, peer-reviewed science, and then weigh them equally against the opinions of a handful of outliers whose views are generally not supported by published evidence.

''That's a very strange sort of balance,'' remarked Garnaut. ''It's a balance of words, and not a balance of scientific authority.''

Anyone can tell a story, but presenting a story from multiple points of view requires heavy lifting, and I'm pleased our media is up for it. And Garnaut's complaint reminds me of the baggage I bought to the undiscovered country of the blog. Although balance is a heavy load, it isn't excess baggage. Balance is fundamental to best practice reportage, and if the Professor can't make headway then maybe the message, or its herald, rather than the messenger, is to blame. After all, if an independent media can't report a debate in full, it isn't independent any more.

Carbon Tax + Carbon Price Mechanism announced

So, I wake up this morning and after opening The Age newspaper on line I'm confronted again with Mr Abbot's take on why Labor lost in the recent NSW election. Look, if the sun fell out of the sky, Abbot would blame it on Labor's proposed Carbon Tax.

Cartoon by Cathy Wilcox. http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/photogallery/opinion/cartoons/cathy-wilcox-20090909-fhd6.html?selectedImage=2

I'm beginning to believe (laughing out loud to myself, or LOLTM if you prefer) that the carbon tax has become the new evil, which is such a blessing since I tire of smokers being the scape-goat for all the ills of the world.  But perhaps there's a link here. We just hate the idea of dirt, any dirt, anything that makes us feel dirty. And our carbon footprint, virtually invisible, conjures up ideas that we are leaving some utterly filthy mark on what might otherwise be perceived as a clean surface. So, each of us, whatever the size of our foot, step gently now, our carbon footprint clearly labeled on our bills, and our conscious effort to understand the impact of each of our  activities etched clearly in our minds. Apparently using my computer generates about 100g of CO2 per hour. The horror of it all!  How could this be so, it appears such a clean machine. And on that subject (well, not really, but it's something I just thought about) what is this obsession with 'white' teeth, 'whiter than white' washing, 'skin whitening', 'white' bathroom surfaces, cleaning, cleaning. Is it a matter of 'cleanliness is next to godliness'?

I'm still trying to wrap my head around how reducing CO2 emissions in Australia is going to change overall world emissions. China and America are the main culprits, producing roughly 19% each of the world total, whereas Australia only produces 1.47% (reference: World Resources Institute).

Regardless, the broad architecture of the carbon price mechanism as outlined by the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee for Australia is now available.
The Multi-Party Climate Change Committee comprises: Chair: The Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Deputy Chair: Wayne Swan, Deputy Prime Minister and Greg Combet, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. Co-Deputy Chair: Australian Greens Senator Christine Milne. Member: Mr Tony Windsor. Independent Experts:  Professor Ross Garnaut, Professor Will Steffen, Mr Rod Sims and Ms Patricia Faulkner. Members of the public and interested parties who wish to provide input on the carbon price mechanism approach should contact: MPCCC@climatechange.gov.au, or write to: The Multi-Party Climate Change Committee Secretariat, GPO Box 854, Canberra ACT 2601. Australia.

Climate Change Forum Geelong 2011 - very few questions answered!

I watched most, if not all of the Climate Change Forum chaired by Professor Tim Flannery in Geelong yesterday (telecast on the ABC) and I can tell you, I'm none the wiser. Although it was stated that 90% of climate scientists agreed with the notion of global warming, climate change skeptics were often the one's given the most media attention. Are they? I've rarely seen a climate change expert referred to in the Australian media, however there is a list of them on Wikipedia if anyone is interested.

Experts at the forum suggested that 'real' climate change experts were either too busy undertaking their research, or too frustrated with having to defend their position to actually want to front up to the media to explain their side of the argument. I still think that we need to know what the skeptics are saying, even if, as one member of the forum said 'It's difficult to understand the science, if you are not a scientist'. If that's so, and I've no doubt it is, then perhaps scientists have a responsibility to explain science to members of the general public in a language that is accessible and understandable to them. No wonder people are up in arms about a carbon tax and confused about the whole issue. Is the planet warming or cooling who knows?!

One of the questions posed to the panel surrounded the fact that it may not be anthropogenic sources, but the ocean that contributes most to CO2 concentration. After what may only be called a protracted response the panel member agreed that ocean warming did contribute greatly to CO2 emission, however it was a feed-back loop: ocean warming = CO2 and more CO2 leads to more ocean warming. Nobody put the El Nina and El Nino phenomenon into the equation. One of the members did admit that he was a member of a group that was in ongoing discussions about whether global warming was a natural occurrence NOT caused by non-anthropogenic intervention. Roy Spencer, PhD, climatologist, author and former NASA scientist addresses the issue of ocean and COs and provides some interesting models on his website.

If it is discovered that global warming has more to do with non-anthropogenic events, then perhaps, as suggested, we should do something to assist nature so that she can get on with what she does. In the 70s the depletion of the ozone and subsequent banning of harmful chlorofluorocarbons resulted in healing of the ozone layer, which should be largely restored by mid century.

Another audience member suggested that deforestation in Australia contributed to CO2, since it contributes to warming through loss of cooling affect of trees and he asked the panel what Australia was doing to combat this. The answer given was more about international trends, rather than local and the panel member suggested that villagers in countries such as Thailand, Borneo, Indonesian etc who garner a living from deforestation should be compensated for loss of income if this source is removed from them. Fact is that Australia, along with 50 other countries is playing a leading role in international efforts to reduce deforestation, which causes approximately 18 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Partial answers are just NOT good enough! When a panel member, who is supposed to be an expert responds to the question: 'What happens when the earth has a 5 degree warming.' With a 'it's too scary to think about', rather than giving an expert answer, then what hope have we of gaining any information?

My own research on the Internet this morning reveals that total warming in the past century is 0.8C or 1.4 F, and although Most of the scientists believed that global warming was occurring and appropriate policy action should be taken, but there was wide disagreement about the likely effects on society and almost all agreed that the predictive ability of currently existing models was limited.

Fact is, no one knows or can accurately predict how long it will take for the planet to warm up to such an extent that it will create dangerous weather situations, and given that natural occurrences such as tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, drought, flooding as well as anthropogenic events, such as war, human greed, plundering of earth's natural resources already occurs on a regular basis and devastate humanity beyond belief, it's no wonder that most don't have the mind space to worry about global warming that may happen one day - according to scientists.
Having said all of this, one of the most interesting documents I've found to date is from the Council of Europe, Steering Committee for Human Rights, which addresses at length issues surrounding global warming, but even it states:

it is virtually impossible to disentangle the complex causal relationship linking historical greenhouse gas emissions of a particular country with a specific climate change-related effect, let alone with the range of direct and indirect implications for human rights, and  global warming is often only one of several contributing factors to climate change related effects, such as hurricanes, environmental degradation and water shortage.

Julia Gillard's Carbon Tax - My concerns

I have a question to ask after reading Julia Gillard's article Reject the climate change extremists in the Age newspaper today. My question is directed towards Gillard's statement: Consumers, too, have a choice. As the cost of higher emission goods becomes higher relative to lower emission goods, they can either reduce their usage or switch to a low-emission alternative.

How would low income consumers be able to afford to install a solar energy unit on their roof or replace energy hungry electric heaters already installed in the property they rent, with cheaper gas appliances, if they don't own the place where they live? Sometimes they can't even install energy saver light bulbs because in order to do so the owner would have to replace existing light fittings. Getting a landlord to replace old shower heads in favor of  ones that release less water can be a trial in itself. If owners of such properties converted to energy/water saving devises they would increase rents and so the burden of transferring to low-emission alternatives would be borne by those who are  the least able to afford it! My solution is that the government provide funds to landlords so that they can make desirable, greener alterations to premises without having to pass costs onto consumers.This is one way that those on a low-income could make savings on their bills.

Given that Ms Gillard knows the language business understands...is...of profit and expenses, then she must understand that all the way along the line, from the food that we buy, the water and energy we consume and the places we live in, people who live on low-incomes will bear the brunt of this carbon tax because of a trickle-down effect in which owners and suppliers pass on expenses they don't wish to pay for! Why can't the government place a price cap on rentals and other goods and services?

I would like to know how the government is going to  help those on lower incomes with the impacts of a price on carbon...and protect the most vulnerable members of our society - the low-income families, workers and pensioners? Organic foods, low-toxicity and chemical free cleaning products generally cost more  and I doubt whether those on a low income would choose to go down this greener, cleaner path, when the purchase of non-organic food is already straining their budgets, however allocating more in their pension may assist them in offsetting increasing food, rental and utility costs.

Given that people receiving age pensions will double over the next decade, the government needs to consider the impact of a carbon-tax on these people who will be over 65 as well as those living off disability support and unemployment benefits.

If Gillard's concern is to protect the vulnerable, as well as protect the environment then we are going to have to ask her the hard questions and she better be prepared to come up with the answers. (An abbreviated version of this post was also posted under 'comments' after Julia Gillard's article this morning).
And, just one more comment. I just bet that all those people who were prattling on about 'climate change' and what we should do about it (and I was not one of them) are probably the first to whinge about a carbon tax because it will hit their hip pocket!

Carbon tax in the context of economic history

Whether or not you believe in climate change, we all have to admit that reducing carbon dioxide emissions has got to be better for optimum health of ourselves and our planet. Agriculture, industry  and vehicles all add to CO2 emissions and air pollutants and so the government's proposed 'carbon tax' may encourage big polluters to think about utilizing Low Emissions Technologies including wave power, solar power and wind power.
The address by the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, The Hon Greg Combet, delivered to Westpac on 8 March this year makes some interesting points, namely:

Climate change needs to be understood in the context of economic history...carbon emissions need to have a price...A carbon price will create the incentive for large emitters to reduce pollution, and stimulate investment in low emissions technologies and processes. It will provide greater certainty for business investment...A market mechanism encourages ingenuity and innovation because it does not prescribe or regulate any particular form of response. Hence a market mechanism encourages innovation through the everyday decisions of investors and businesses. These changes across the whole economy are what will drive the move to a low carbon pollution future.

Combet further outlines every dollar raised by the carbon price will be dedicated to supporting households with any price impacts, supporting businesses through the transition to a clean energy economy and tackling climate change.

He concludes: Pricing carbon is a vital and significant economic reform. It will change the way we invest, produce and consume. It will cut pollution and herald the beginning of a clean energy future. It requires sound long term policy based on rationale principles and an understanding of how economics works.

The government has recently called for submissions for the Low Emissions Technology Demonstration Fund and is at present funding five projects under the program. The (LETDF) assists Australian firms commercialize world-leading low emissions technologies. The objective of the LETDF was to demonstrate the commercial potential of new energy technologies or processes or the application of overseas technologies or processes to Australian circumstances to deliver long-term large-scale greenhouse gas emission reductions, through: the demonstration of the commercial potential of new energy technologies or processes and application of overseas technologies or processes to Australian circumstances. 
Jill Duggan, a European Union climate export is surprised that Australian's are against a carbon tax and states in an article in Business Spectator on 8 March 2011 that since the beginning of 2005 there are 30 countries in Europe that have had a carbon price. Of course, this shouldn't be the reason why Australia should impose a carbon tax, but all of this information is worth considering.