According to The Age, John Howard told a meeting of government MPs not to be âmesmerisedâ? by the Stern report. Nationals MP De-Anne Kelly didn’t need the warning â sheâs obviously immune to mesmeric influences.
De-Anne had no trouble staying on the PM’s message â more or less â telling reporters that Australia should look to technology, not economics, for solutions to the problems of global warming. And she backs her position up with a well known historical precedent:
“It’s technology that provides an answer for the future, not an economic answer that taxes, slices, dices and removes opportunities for young people.”
At the turn of the century, economists in the United States predicted horse drawn carriages would lead to the country being covered in horse “you-know-what”, she said.
“This was a topic of great debate. They were going to tax horses; they were going to remove horses from the city and, of course, along came Henry Ford,” Ms Kelly said.
So, the scientific community is telling him he’s environmentally irresponsible, and now the former world bank chief economist tells he’s being economically irresonsible. Avoid a 5% annual drop in GDP for a 1% outlay. But no, Ratty knows better!
WHats wrong with the Austrlian media? Everything Howard says on the topic is an outright deception. China and India have signed Kyoto. Australia isnt meeting its greenhouse target (which was a massive increase in any case) – its going way over. We get busted, and reckong the UN figures are “dodgy”! It wont cost jobs to clean up our act – it will create them (and this regrettable increase in employment will cost some polluting mates of Howard some serious dough). The economic case for inaction is pure bunkum, and its over. No one takes it seriously, except the press gallery.
We dont need to replace coal to sereiousy reduce emissions. We need to reduce our coal dependence by some 20% for now, and yes, wind and solar can manage that, easy.
My guess is Howard’s fixing himself to become the “denial” point for public anxiety on this issue, so they can wish it away with another Ratty victory, on his empty, dangerous, mendacious reassurances that all will be ok. (either that, it his refusal to admit he’s wrong just trumped his acuter political instincts)
So, come on Beazer. Greens are on the left, and Howard’s clearly picked the right flank. How about driving a decent package down the middle? Hmm? Excite us with hope! Do something ya bastard!
âThis was a topic of great debate. They were going to tax horses; they were going to remove horses from the city and, of course, along came Henry Ford,â?
…and so all the horses moved to Canberra and joined the Liberal Party.
damn…I was going to try to be funny by saying that in Canberra rather than horse shit, they have been having a bullshit crisis for a few years…but I think CK might have been funnier.
ooohhh…Christine Keeler = CK = Cheryl Kernot…is it you Chezza?
What? along came Mr Ford with a shovel?
Horseshit, indeed.
I would like to point out to rebut the stupidity of Nationals MP De-Anne Kelly, is that automobility (the mobility enabled by the automobile) is presmised on the existance of a system, one which is underwritten by massive government subsidies. This is called the system of automobility. Ford did not make the system of automobility in the US or anywhere else for that matter. It happened in two stages, mass-consumption of the automobile was part of the first stage of the system’s gradual emergence. (The second stage involved the great post-war US freeway project funded by the US Federal government.) Ford’s car represented the enigmatic desire to escape social and physical immobility, and which literally mobilised an entire nation.
Oh, and as the below demonstrates, it was not the desire for personal automobility or FOrd’s ability to capitalise upon this desire that transformed city streets; it was transformed from the horse-based system of mobility into one organised around automobility via the electric streetcar. This has a very precise evolution, for example the logistical networks of resourcing for streetcar mobility and the automobile are very different to that of providing the necessary resources for the horse.
The below is from James J. Flink’s iconic text _The Car Culture_ (1975), p 34-35.
—– —– —–
In New York City alone at the turn of the century, horses deposited an estimated 2.5 million pounds of manure and 60,000 gallons of urine on the streets every day. Traffic was often clogged by the carcasses of overworked dray horses who dropped in their tracks during summer heat waves or were destroyed after stumbling on slippery pavements and breaking their legs. On the average, New York City removed about 15,000 dead horses from its streets each year. A 1908 estimate that tried to take all factors into account concluded that the cost of not banning the horse from New York City was approximately $100 million a year. Urban sanitation departments were not only expensive but typically inefficient and graft- and corruption-ridden. As prize political plums for the ward bosses, sanitation departments were staffed by “old and indigent men,” “prisoners who don’t like to work,” and “persons on relief” Arguing for the displacement of the horse by the electric trolley, United States Commissioner of Labor Carroll D. Wright pointed out in 1892 that, in addition to the expense of horses, “the vitiation of the air by the presence of so many animals is alone a sufficient reason for their removal, while the clogged condition of the streets impedes business, and involves the safety of life and limb.”
After its introduction in the late 1880s, the electric trolley rapidly displaced horses on streetcar lines. It was sanitary, not subject to organic malfunctions and faster than the horse. But an urban transportation system based on the electric trolley involved huge expenditures for rails, overhead wires, and tunnels or elevated platforms. Freight still had to be moved by horse-drawn trucks, and passengers had to get from the trolley stop to their ultimate destinations by horse, bicycle, or foot. The electric trolley was less flexible than the horse, and if a single trolley got stalled on the tracks, the normal flow of traffic was halted. The expense of an urban rail transportation system meant that it was practical only in areas of high-density population, thus stifling suburban development because it was not feasible to extend facilities out to the sparsely settled outskirts of the city. As construction costs mounted during the 1890s, it began to become apparent even in large cities that building adequate mass-transit rail systems was an insurmountable task.
The motor vehicle offered an attractive alternative. It was facilely assumed that the cost of improving city streets for antiseptic automobile traffic would be negligible. Further, it was anticipated that urban traffic congestion and parking problems would disappear because automobiles were more flexible than streetcars running on fixed rails, and they took up only half the space of horse-drawn vehicles. According to an 1896 article in Scientific American, for example, “the existence of a double line of cars moving on a fixed track and claiming the right of way over other vehicles is a hindrance to traffic and is itself delayed.” If these rails were removed, the street asphalted from curb to curb, and the streetcars replaced by motor vehicles that could pass one another at will, “the whole volume of traffic would move with less interruption than at present, and the cars themselves would make faster time.”" The idea of asphalt pavement, too slippery for horses, was obviously predicated on a horseless city, with streets free from accumulated excreta and the carcasses of dead animals. From the perspective of American values there was the bonus that dependence upon private passenger cars for mass transit promised to place the burden of the costs of an urban transportation system squarely on the shoulders of the individual.
Ratty’s rhetorical discovery of 2006.
“Australians/Liberals/right-thinking human beings shouldn’t be [insert utterly absurd past participle here] about [insert public policy that Ratty doesn't want to talk about here].”
Question for Ratty: what is it ok to be mesmerised by?
Sensible answer: Nothing.
Killing response: “So Ratty, what s the appropriate level of concern, between your previous denial and your hypothesised mesmerisation?”
Bottom line: C’mon media, for once do your job!
Steve, while Ms Kernot may have appeared in that well known feature fillum “Sherrie Does Gareth”, I can assure you I am not she.
Wow, so technology (ie. non-existent Thorium Reactors and non-existent Geo-sequestration probably @ $40-60 per tonne CO2) is the answer, eh.
Blow me down.
The mining industry really will run this country into the ground.
The way this is running here, I’ve seriously had enough of this government. Oil for food rorts coming out of their ear holes, an ill-conceived war, pointless mandatory detention and now throwing a pointless hurdle in front of the future business prospects for my generation.
ps. Good point about the difference between ‘invention’ and ‘innovation’, Glen.
I’d expect some fluency in Schumpeter from Coalition members.
Well, De-Anne, if it turns out that the non carbon-emitting model T turns up, the carbon charging regime will fall into disuse and we can all go back to sleep.
But it simply impossible for the government’s favourite solution to greenhouse – geosequestration – to be cheaper than releasing into the atmosphere. A smokestack is all but free. Extracting, liquifying, and pumping it to a sequestration site is not.
You’re an optimistic person, dk.au!
De-Anne Kelly certainly seems to be an expert in horse you-know-what. As a Canberran I can only say that I wish the rest of the country would stop sending these people here.
But now that Henry Ford has given us the machine with which we can all contribute our share of pollution, I can’t help wondering what she thinks is going to replace it. Maybe the clean horse?
Here’s an insight into the thinking of Ratty’s coal mining mates, taken from a community consultative meeting of a Hunter Valley coal mine recently. Management were asked about blast fumes. ‘It was noted that the fumes coming off blasts are not dangerous when dispersed into the atmosphere
– only dangerous when dispersed into confined spaces’. A tax on confined spaces -like the atmosphere – could turn their heads around.
Yes, De-Anne, technology has been great. The only problem is that you don’t know what technological developments will happen in the next X years. That’s the problem.
About thorium reactors – my nonexpert understanding of this is that India is going to use thorium reactors in a big way in the coming decades, and they have huge stores of thorium. Anyone know anything more about this? If true, it’s one form of energy from nuclear fission that could be excellent, especially as the waste is apparently radioactive for circa 50 years (so I’ve read).
Does anybody remember when:
The ABC had a show where David Suzuki was on a panel of experts with an invited audience and Suzuki and others had pointed out the facts of the approaching crisis but some turkey from the audience [the bearded bloke from the Inst.For Public Affairs whose name escapes me] made essentially the same pont as our beloved leaders and Suzuki just looked at him and said….
“You sir, are a fool”
And the audience cheered.
From this link, the waste of a thorium reactor is dangerously radioactive for about 500 years.
Fact: there are behaviours that we can and should change, asap. Environmentally friendly building codes, public transport, domestic/local rather than large-grid use of solar power for water heating and photovoltaic power generation. Since the hip pocket nerve appears to be the most sensitive in most Aussies, applying financial rewards and benefits, i.e. economic pressure, is exactly the way to get things moving. NB: “economics” is derived from the Ancient Greek for “housekeeping”. We should always remember that.
Fact: extant technology can already help. Don’t hold your breath for homegrown new technology to appear and save us, though. The Howard government has been starving or cancelling renewable energy programs for a decade, in support of their big commercial mates. A decade or two of well-funded, untramelled basic scientific research by securely employed, high-morale scientists could well have produced a few commercialisable surprises by now. Instead, those people have either had to work on something else, or have left the country, and any new technology will have to be bought in expensively and late from somewhere else. I get sick of scientifically illiterate politicians on both sides claiming that technology will solve our problems, while making it almost impossible for Australian scientists and technologists to evolve those solutions here.
De-Anne Kelly is an expert in being the Fall Person for Howard when he wants something Really Stupid to be said by one of his stooges. Remember her slandering 43 elder statespersons as “doddering daiquiri diplomats“?
Howard is still managing to look pretty stupid himself, though. Dismissing the Stern report as “pure speculation” as reported in today’s Canberra Times? Just dense. Absolutely dense.
The wilful refusal to learn, to perceive reality, and to display leadership shown by Howard in his response are staggering. Why the heck isn’t he being shredded everywhere in the media over this? Even Beazley found the Rodent an attackable target yesterday, although his censure and and emergency debate motions were of course shot down by the majority vote of a bunch of cowardly, ignorant, time-serving followers of the Howard Party Line.
The admonition not to be “mesmerised” by the Stern Report was fun, though. I am still waiting for media warnings that people should not be mesmerised by Prime Ministers who claim they can magically keep down interest rates, whose foreign policy is dictated by a foreign power and whose domestic policies are dictated by religious nuts, racists and a small coterie of big business people.
Then there is the $ 60 million that has out of the woodwork for alternative energy research by “coincidence”, according to the less-than-ingenuous Ian Macfarlane. This looks like a great start until you realise that it appears to be a short-term sop for quick commercialisation of small projects, that half of it goes to the coal industry, and compare it with the $90 million that has just been announced for installation of a Howard-approved religious indoctrinator in every school. We can still see where the real priorities are.
It would be nice if this display of arrogant idiocy and non-leadership helped to get Howard and his waste-of-parliamentary-space drones back looking for jobs, where they belong, but I guess that pigs are more likely to fly…
Bought the Oz today for the Aust. Lit. Review, laughed out loud when I read the headline: “Now we can start debating climate change”. The whole front section of the paper reads like chained spirits released, who can now talk about climate change without being communists or freaks or otherwise Not News Limited Material.
This is not to say the paper has completely changed. Speaking of horsesh*t, Alrechtsen is invoking the great philosopher Elton John in her jihad against Islam.
At least the Torygraph had a promising headline consistent with Murdoch’s memo – PM fiddles while world burns
“made essentially the same pont as our beloved leaders and Suzuki just looked at him and saidâ¦.
âYou sir, are a foolâ?
And the audience cheered.
Yep, about sums up the reaction if some dares dispute the the chicken littles and the santimious left.
Yes Andrew E, I found Shazza-D’s piece most enlightening:
“NICHOLAS Stern has redefined the climate change debate in Australia overnight. What was a simplistic, superficial and single-issue argument has developed a sudden and deep complexity.”
As if by magic. Yo.
It is with some despair that I have been following the debate about greenhouse gases and the use of coal as an energy source here in Oz. Why are Australia so keen to use the most polluting of all energy sources? I’m not just talking about the carbon dioxide emission that coal power plants release but also the amount of heavy metals that are released in bottom ash and fly ash. Considering the average trace elements generally found in coal we have on average in Australian coal (in parts per million): 1.26 As, 0.042 Hg, 6.8 Pb, 3.5 Th, and 1.3 U.
Since Australia use 100 M t (Million metric tonnes) of coal every year this means that the Australian coal industry *annually* release into the environment:
126 tonnes of arsenic, 4.2 tonnes of mercury, 680 tonnes lead, 350 tones of thorium and 130 tonnes of uranium.
And this is something that the government and the opposition think is a good idea to continue with?! People are scared to believe that the use of nuclear power has horrible consequences since there is a *risk* that a *possible* leak *may* release a few tonnes of uranium into the biosphere. That the coal industry release over 100 tonnes of uranium into the biosphere every year (!) is not mentioned.
This ash is not stored in safe areas. It is used in landfills, as component of concrete etc. And people are wondering why there are radon found in a lot of Australian houses?
Wake up.
Lasse, we use it because, if you don’t take into account the cost of those pollutants, digging up coal and burning it on the spot gives us some of the world’s cheapest electricity.
The trouble with deaths caused by air pollution is that the connection between the pollution and the death is not obvious. Particularly now that the worst excesses of the 19th century smogs have been cleared up in the developed world, the only way you can reveal the death toll is with statistical analysis.
Thanks for that quote Glen, it was very interesting.
Lasse – that’s very interesting.
Robert Merkel.
The problem is (as you say) that the real cost isn’t obvious initially. And the answer to the looming energy crisis is not to start making more electricity but instead to use what we have more efficiently. Take a simple example. A standard house in Scandinavia use less than 40% of the energy that a standard Australian house use for heating. And this is in a climate with an average yearly temperature of between 8 C (south) or 1 C (north). Isn’t it obvious that we can save an awful lot of electricity simply by building houses that doesn’t use as much energy?
If we had all Australian houses built to the same standard as houses in northern Europe we could cut the energy needed for heating (and cooling) them with at least 50%. That is a lot of electricity! And what would the consequences be? Well according to the theory of supply and demand the price for electricity would have to be dropped as the supply now would far outstrip demand. This could be done with a simple law stating that all buildings would have to use the (already) known technologies for energy saving. New buildings would have to be build according to these energy saving standards. and old buildings would have to be gradually transformed to follow them.
What is stopping this? Well the government have long been in bed with the building industry and the latter have no interest in changing the tradition of building crappy houses and making big profits by using substandard building techniques. So I doubt the interest exists for politicians and bureaucrats to change the building code.
After all, since the technology is already known and proven and is easy to implement (as shown in many countries on the world) this would not generate a photo opportunity. And media cover is so important for the next generation … (of politicians….)
Improving the efficient use of energy could dramatically help – at a very general level, having more efficient processes could decrease costs to business and decrease environmental impacts – great!
“So, the scientific community is telling him he’s environmentally irresponsible, and now the former world bank chief economist tells he’s being economically irresonsible. Avoid a 5% annual drop in GDP for a 1% outlay. But no, Ratty knows better!”
The science points against catastrophic warming.
You aren’t interested in the science lefty.
You ought not pretend to be.
Or I could be wrong.
Instead of “Show Me The Money”
Its Show me the science.
SHOW ME THE SCIENCE.
Thats something the enviro-nazis never do.
They hate science. They aren’t interested in the science. The science appalls them because it seldom comes down on their side.
And it certainly doesn’t come down on the side of worrying about catastrophic warming.
So Lefty.
SHOW ME THE SCIENCE!
“âNICHOLAS Stern has redefined the climate change debate in Australia overnight. What was a simplistic, superficial and single-issue argument has developed a sudden and deep complexity.â?
Thats just ridiculous. His report was just a summary of the weight of bullshit momentum that is out there. It introduced nothing new but an even more ridiculous set of economic claims.
SHOW ME THE SCIENCE!!!
“From this link, the waste of a thorium reactor is dangerously radioactive for about 500 years.”
Why do you say DANGEROUSLY.
How high is the radiation that you expect? And where is the evidence that the level of radiation that reaches the public and the employees is dangerous.
And actually the idea is just to keep re-working this alleged waste. Its not waste at all. It can be reworked using breeder reactors that Jimmy Carter outlawed domestically in the US.
This alleged waste is really precious stuff that we ought to monopolise while people everywhere are still stuck on stupid.
If we don’t have a use for it right away we will find its value in the future.