Comments on: Costa skeptical?

By: Tony of South Yarra

Tony of South Yarra — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 03:35:43 +0000

We ‘denialists’ of course prefer our frogs not to jump, just so we may continue to enjoy our secret pleasure - Frog Soup.

By: david tiley

david tiley — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 03:12:41 +0000

Funny stuff, water. It moves around on the wind. Here we are back with the low rent chop logic of the denialists incapable of imagining a complete system, let alone understand the idea that extra energy disrupts existing systems in unpredictable ways.

Put the frog in the pot. Add water. Apply heat. Frog eventually notices that the liquid is bubbling away in all kinds of unpredictable ways. Of course, one very simple thing is happening - the frog is boiling. The argument is about the state of the water. No matter what the answer, the smart frog jumps.

By: chrisl

chrisl — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 22:49:43 +0000

BigBob: Please explain in your “wetter is drier world” where does the extra water evaporated go?
Easy steps (in Flannery speak)
1. It “could” get significantly warmer
2. Evaporation rates “could” rise markedly
3. Evaporated water “could” just disappear altogether!

By: mG

mG — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 20:20:35 +0000

I remember voting in my first NSW election (2003?) and knowing virtually nothing about NSW politics (or politics in general.) Nonetheless, something still moved me to exclude 1 politician from my grab-bag of Labor/Green senate selections. That man was Michael Costa. I have not regretted my decision.

By: enkew

enkew — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 19:30:30 +0000

“They create division, panic and fear so thay they can rustle up a few naive people to vote for them at election time.” Surely stating policy out aloud is against the rules.

By: steve at the pub

steve at the pub — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 17:54:38 +0000

Before I read this thread I knew only two things about Costa.

He is very unforgettable, that is, see him once, and you will recognise him anywhere, even 20 years later in a dark alley in Kazakhstan, and:

He changed the name from the “NSW Police Service” to the “NSW Police Force”, a move which I backed to hilt, pity he stopped there.

Now I know a third thing about him.

Anybody who thinks Flannery is a dickhead can’t be all that bad.

By: BigBob

BigBob — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 17:12:57 +0000

Tony of South Yarra,

Flannery is completely correct, we could get more rain and still have a drier continent.

This is not necessarily due to more rain in some areas, less in others either.

There are two elements that come together to determine how dry a location is.

Precipitation and Evaporation.

In a significantly warmer world, evaporation rates will increase markedly. Soils will be drier. More water will be needed to fill the soil water profile. Everywhere water is exposed to the atmosphere will experience faster evaporation. Hence, more rain doesn’t neccesarily mean a wetter continent.

By: melaleuca

melaleuca — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 14:45:08 +0000

With all due respect, Tony, that is a wank. We all plan for contingencies that “could” occur. Anyone who doesn’t is rightly dismissed as a tosser. This is why you no doubt have insurance on your South Yarra digs.

By: Tony of South Yarra

Tony of South Yarra — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 14:32:44 +0000

Methinks you are telling pork pies. Flannery said “could�? not “would�?.

The use of words and phrases in this way is discussed in the book ‘Crimes Against Logic’:

The cost of making statements immune from error by the use of these weasel words—’could be’, ‘believed to be’ and the like—is that they are thereby rendered empty. Insofar as we take these words seriously, the statement no longer tells us anything informative.

By: tim

tim — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 14:13:53 +0000

Flannery also warned that Brisbane and Adelaide could run out of water by year’s end. At the time of his warning, both cities had enough water to last until the end of 2007; Brisbane, in fact, had enough to last until October 2008.

By: chrisl

chrisl — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 13:45:51 +0000

melaleuca : Here’s a prediction …. Sydney’s water supply”could” reach 70% by the end of the year(currently 53%)

By: melaleuca

melaleuca — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 13:31:27 +0000

ChrisL says:

“The point of Costa’s head kicking was that Flannery said that Sydney would run out of water within 2 years. ”

Methinks you are telling pork pies. Flannery said “could” not “would”.

By: David

David — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 12:48:27 +0000

No Costa is far too obnoxious and unpopular to have lasted in Howard’s government. Yes, far more obnoxious and unpopular than even Downer and Ruddock. The Howard government is a pretty smooth, popularity machine most the time.

By: Adam Gall

Adam Gall — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 12:38:32 +0000

“i thought costa was a federal liberal minister, sure speaks like one”

Both federal and NSW governments have been in power for too long and are showing some of the worse excesses that can come about through that kind of stability. I’ve felt looking at the ministers at both levels, that they become more like caricatures of themselves as time passes.

An aside: I would perhaps give Howard more credit though, because Iemma is Premier-by-default.

“His crudity is amazing. Climate changes, he says, like a half-baked dialectician.”

Costa’s rhetoric reminds me of a passage from Michel Serres, where he depicts two warriors wrestling as they sink deeper and deeper into the mud.

By: vee

vee — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 12:00:52 +0000

So it rained in a few part of the states and maybe a few parts of the country. Does he think the drought’s over? What about the rest of the State? Or the rest of the country?

By: Fiasco da Gama

Fiasco da Gama — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 11:53:24 +0000

Jinmaro, if you want to understand Michael Costa by reading, you should check out Warhurst and Parkin’s The Machine and Graham Freudenberg’s Cause For Power. Both are essential reading to understand him and the Party which (in Shane Maloney’s immortal words) next to the worker, loves itself best.
Of course, as Amused noted, a re-reading of Permanent Revolution would probably be a good idea too. You’re quite right, A.—no Maoist deviation in Costa’s background.

By: jinmaro

jinmaro — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 11:41:22 +0000

I’ve spent the day reading (for the first time) The Latham Diaries and The Culture of Forgetting by Robert Manne. We live in a very strange country. Both books speak volumes about the political and cultural realities which today have produced to name just one outcome, the current NSW Labor Treasurer Michael Costa.

By: paul walter

paul walter — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 11:27:45 +0000

chrisl, your corrective is welcome and correct.
Nonetheless, it does seem the right factions have gained a fearful hold on the ALP over the last fifteen years.
I rate it has happening since Beddall got the nod in front of Faulkner as to open slather on logging and woodchipping back in 94-95.
Social policy and environment have been on the receiving end across politics since the rise of the neoliberal push, and now the likes of Costa, Lennon, and so forth have isolated progressives in the ALP the same way that the Rightist libs got rid of or isolated their social liberals ( eg Brogden, Valder ).

By: jinmaro

jinmaro — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 11:00:55 +0000

if the Chinese burn our coal then it is they not us who are producing greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, they $ will make us rich.

By: jinmaro

jinmaro — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 10:57:57 +0000

No, Costa is a coarse, crude climate change denier. I read the dispatches from Parliament on this. They pop up in my email box though I often rather they didn’t.

His crudity is amazing. Climate changes, he says, like a half-baked dialectician. And the economy is key. If the Chinese It will make us rich. You can see the ill-understood concepts being regurgitated and rotely used. Who cares about the rest of the world? It is almost funny, if it weren’t so serious.