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Life, Culture and Politics from BrisVegas
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I can has frist …?
Oui, oui.
I know there are still climate change deniers living in Perth, but their numbers are surely dwindling. Every year, several times a year, significant weather records are broken, and even the most statistically illiterate must be able to perceive the radical changes in weather patterns occurring. The South-Western corner of WA was long ago marked by climate models as one of the regions of our planet most likely -and most quickly- to be adversely affected by global warming, and so the records show. The region has recently suffered its driest-ever start to the year (pushing last year into second place) and while it’s recently made conditions perfect for picnics and other outdoor fun, we’re going to pay for it with lower crop yields, higher food prices and water restrictions next summer. While yesterday’s rain was infinitely welcome, the wind that carried it horizontally into my bonsai garden was intense and destructive -and many hundreds of houses suffered far worse than a few toppled pots and broken branches. The insurance companies are already squealing about the costs, and warning of a rise in premiums. What was it the Stern Report said about the cost of doing nothing to mitigate climate change?
Yup, one end of the continent’s regularly on fire, the other underwater. Nothing to worry about folks.
LeftE@4 “For flood and fire and famine” – As Dorothea MacKellar wrote 105 years ago – based on 20 years’ experience.
Any old Qlders from the Coast, or those from NSW’s Northern Rivers, will tell you, this was what the weather was like 1947-c1980s – most years, as archived flood maps & copies of The Courier Mail will show! In SEQ 1967, I remember the same areas’ flooding just about/every long-weekend (ruined the lot)! Areas that flooded this week are those which regularly flooded, not only in the 47-80s period, but in the 20s-early 30s, and during the late C19 – there’s a photo of a C19 one in today’s CM. In other words, the flooding’s typical of Queensland’s “wet cycles”, and sediment cores indicate that they were so well before the first white settlers arrived. The unfathomable problem is why, given that maps of flood-prone areas (and geological surveys) have been available at least since 1946, people buy/build in flood-prone / land-slip areas!
If we are back in a typical wet cycle, we’ll also be back to cooler weather (on average) – again, that’s a pattern: drought, hot & dry; wet cycle, cooler & wetter. But I don’t think we’re “back to the 47-early 80s pattern”. A comparison of the Federation & Millennium droughts would indicate that it’s more likely to be “Back to a variation of weather patterns of the early part of the century” – and most of Qld’s heat records belong to dry spells in the 1920s-1947.
If this week’s floods were “global Warming’s” fault, they’d be so unusual, we wouldn’t have 50 years of TV, 150 years of written (& many more of sedimentary) records. Far more worrying is the strong possibility that continued building on Q & N-NSW East Coast & hinterland flood-plains has effectively cancelled out the flood-mitigation potential of the areas’ dams. Imagine how much worse this week’s floods would have been if those dams had all been full, and water had poured over the spillways, down the rivers!
It amuses me no end that some who are willing to goon with this insult climate change deniers do so,with a similar vacuum of knowledge they claim about so called deniers.Weather cycles come in various ways to measure them,whilst models,or modellers of climate change claim some sort of uniqueness in extrapolating from mathematics into real future events weather, that still go over terrain,and maybe dusty areas of terrain.Wind turning trees into comparative Bonsai matters,has been noted by even National Parks Association people years ago,around the time Washpool near Grafton was in dispute.The tree crowns blowing off are a sign of aging forests,as the number and arrangements of boughs and branches can indicate much about age,weather and health.It was propositioned at that time in their Journal, by a writer that Australia needed reafforestation,because of this crown loss.For some time here I have noticed older trees getting more threadbare.The insistence on increasing warmer climes,maybe, because of this loss,and also because the Globe is getting cooler this more open crowns amongst older trees means what remains as ecological areas are more threatened..depending on the form of cooling,as measured by, the relationship or lack of sunspot activity.Either way support good Ecological practices and extend friendship to sawmillers and workers where significantly, they are seeing the same troublesome matter about forests,and the tree lines and where they are.The National Parks Association,have always copped a lot of shit,and I dont know what there position is on Climate change, I dont care,it has always had a little bit more guts to face up to reality, than those who love the put downs.I have been a thorn in the side of a number of industries,and purely because that sounds like uneducated ego,the contempt of people like me,will ensure one day,some people will be confronted totally by their opiniated nonsenses.It simply isn’t true,to deny climate change warming,and turning carbon dioxide into the enemy is not on… is totally a convoluted sense of personal predicament.I do not like what industry gets away with,including the coal mining interests.Honesty however requires me to say,I cannot accept global warming scenarios every time somebody mentions bonsai matters related to winds or they wont look at Antartica and see the ice growing again,and scream fairy pengiuns as birds down a coalmine.
Sorry to upset you, Phillip. I was actually referring to my *actual* bonsai.
Phillip,
Ice growing? I remember a short time ago when people were pointing to glaciers moving faster (growing??)…which turned out to be melting in the way that a melting ice cream flows over ones hand before in falls in a slushy schplook on new nikes.And there is the confusing melting of Antartic sea ice on one side of that continent while it piles up on the other.This piling up from my reading is shaping up to be a byproduct of the ozone hole (natural fluctuation no doubt),and just may point to the future solution of the global warming problem.Get rid of the ozone layer altogether,and that will bring on the next ice age,if only because no animal will be able to come out during the day, and this will reduce economic activity which in turn will reduce carbon emissions.There are just so many ways to confuse oneself with endless messy “facts”.
Phillip’s post emphasises a key (usually unacknowledged) point in the Climate Change debate: global climate has always been subject to fluctuations, some phenomenal (literally), resulting from meteor (etc) strikes, abnormal solar activity, abnormal volcanic activity (especially if a meteor strike alters position/ axial tilt/ polar position) most natural, very probably related to solar activity. Category 5 cyclones, prolonged droughts, huge floods, extension & contraction of glaciers and polar ice, and others, are as natural as geothermal activity (as scientific analysis shows), as are abnormally high or low temperatures; eg, How old were the Vic/ SA “hot day/ days in a row” records broken during the recent Black Saturday heat wave?
The critical difference lies between “normal” climate cycles and “abnormal” climate change. “Phenomenal difference” is a good way of describing “differences which can be attributed to abnormal short or long term events” – like (in addition to the above) atmospheric gases & particulates levels which can be attributed to significant increases/decreases in one or more of a variety of human activities: burning carbon, deforestation, increased decay of plant material (which may/may not have passed through animal gastro-intestinal systems, creating methane), as well as significant rises/ falls in other chemicals.
The critical problem is that, except for records of the last c250 years climate measurement, and other reliable (non-scientific) dated records of grounds freeze/ thaw, freezing of salt-water reaches of streams/ rivers, our only reliable (& non-contested) evidence is not only very recent, but belongs to a period when Europe is warming. Computer modeling depends on these records plus (contested) earlier evidence from written records, dendrochronology & polenology, core samples (ice, sediment etc) and other analyses. This evidence (contested & Non-contested) results in a considerable number of different computer-based models with considerably different outcomes. No one can say for certain which model & which outcomes are right; except that all reliable ones point to continued warming (at least some of it abnormal), although some consider “tipping points” out of normalcy: sudden climatic changes like the onset of Ice Ages, or the one c10,000 years ago, which ended the “hothouse” Mesolithic Age.
Attributing weather/other phenomena new to most Australians’ experience (Black Saturday heatwave, last week’s floods) especially if the attribution comes with political beat-up/ hysteria (tho many don’t want to acknowledge it, “Global Warming” is every bit as politically hysterical as the Menzies Era “Reds under the beds” or the more recent “War on Terror”) – or blaming meat-eaters for Global Warming (as in the “Save the planet, go vegetarian” green group -not the Oz party- ads that have been airing on SBS lately; ?”oddly coincidental” with a rush of “the planet’s more in trouble from rising methane levels than carbon burning” papers/ pronouncements) sadly does nothing to enhance the credibility of the climate change cause when, as most intelligent people agree, increasing atmospheric, soil & water pollution, massive deforestation etc are endangering the health of the planet and its inhabitants.
I have a question from one of my spammers on the Cast Iron Balcony which I thought I’d throw out to you at LP. If you can come up with an answer, he/he will be gratefulness, and can offer advice on how to cut darts in return.
DeeCee,
Much is made by some of natural climate fluctuations. Science does not deny that such fluctuations occur. In fact without science we would not know about such fluctuations. What is missed in the “natural variable climate” argument is that a) climate does vary naturally but over very long periods and b) it wipes out animal species and civilisations in the process.
This whole debate is about climate change caused by our activities and condensed into a very short period, having the same effect of wiping out species and our global civilisation. The only conflict in the positions is in time frames, impact, adaptability, responsibility, and future consequence. That is all.
This Wiki article is one of the most lucid & succinct on Extinction Events Definitions, frequency, causes and eras. That of our own (Holocene; post the last great climate change c10,000 years ago) era is discussed in Holocene extinction event, with (on another page) a Timeline of Extinctions; most of which are NOT due to climate change, but human intervention: hunting, land-clearing, mass burning. The Holocene article states:
IOW, climate is only one of a number of factors which have already produced a significant Miocene Extinction Event without CC’s help; note that the disappearance of megafauna (inc Australia’s) occurs well before 1800, due primarily (scientists believe) to homo sapiens’ use burning to herd animals – resultant wildfires and mass slaughter created a mass species-extinction combo.
Of more importance is the Ice Age Extinction Event: Quaternary extinction event. Neanderthal Man, who seems to have survived the Ice Age, also seems not to have survived long after its end. Currently a hotly contested Extinction Event, especially since DNA of a group found in N Spain showed Neanderthal-Cro-Magnon cross (“The sons of god went in unto the sons of man” perhaps? – we know events survive at least a decamillennium in myths) is Neanderthal Extinction (Hypotheses) BTW, this is a good comprehensive coverage, with extensive (& hyperlinked) references to full papers … which, in turn, lead to … Note: Our own species only became dominant during the global warming event following the last major Ice Age! And it turned from “nomadic hunter-gatherer” to “settled food-producer” during the apparently very swift onset of Global Cooling c10,000 years ago!
Extinction Events, sudden or slow, clear the way for new species which develop/ evolve from those who survived – “The fittest for the new environment” in Darwinian terms. If, as the most doomsayer of CC supporters claim, we’re about to see the “worst extinction event in 65m years” – which, BTW (see 1st hyperlink)
one assumes, in evolutionary terms, that only the fittest will survive to start vast quantities of new species, even genera – including (most probably) a better homonoid species than ourselves.
Did you find anything, DeeCee, on the extinction of assets. Lets be straight up about this. Everyone believes that they will survive,…until they don’t. But what is really of concern is loss of economic position. The economically wounded. Those who are killed in the accident are the lucky ones, it is the survivors who have to carry on regardless of their injuries who every one tries to not become. So as climate change shifts perceptions of property value, the economically wounded will be every where. And the very core of our commercial stability, shared risk (insurance), will start to unravel taking out lending stability in the process.
If we get hit with a meteor then we will have to cope with the consequences in the best possible way. But if we get hit with our own collective stupidity, that one is going to hurt, for a long time. The current economic crisis is but a scratch compared to what may happen if we fail to prepare properly for our climate future.
I know this is a Salon not a Condemn thread, but I am really fed up to the back teeth with Banks. For reasons too complicated to go into here, BankWest recently sold a property in which I had a share of the ownership, and thus had to distribute a proportion of the excess funds to me. They could only do that by deposit into a BankWest account or by bank cheque. They were unable for reasons they couldn’t explain transfer the funds into my Westpac account.
Now Westpac, on receiving said bank cheque – a cheque drawn on the Bank of Western Australia no less – wants three days before it will release the funds. The cheque has to be “cleared”.
FFS, these are the days of instantaneous electronic communications. But no, pieces of paper still need to be exchanged in a parking lot somewhere.
The treasurer says to change banks – but they are all as bad as each other. If it wasn’t for the need to have a mortgage to have a roof over my head, I’d keep my money under the mattress.
It’s about time the government stepped in and said – you want to be a bank and get the deposit guarantee then you will do such and such and not just ask them politely to play nice. Nothing else will put the customer back into bank Customer Service.
Speaking of survivors in a world ravaged by the effects of climate change…..this weekend I started re-reading Mara and Dann, by Doris Lessing.
I spent most of the weekend thinking too much about things I can’t change. Oh and the ethics of competing with an NGO that is subsidised by it’s membership, the private sector, as well as the government but in order to survive still uses volunteer labor do do the same work that I pay people wages/superannuation/etc to do. I managed to distract myself from that topic before my brain imploded.
Naaah, BilB @ 13. Biz/finance/economics & all that leave me cold, always have. I’m a lousy gambler: 13 years in RC schools, 6 decades of raffle tickets (1, ONE prize, a scarf!) and lottery tickets (only won 1 prize over $500 by not much& a couple, 2, c$100). Once won $128 on a pokie. Shares? My hard-saved-for SEQ shares, turned into (no notice, no chance of opting out) a 20 yr loan at par & very low interest (both well below market value) by that “great anti-socialist” Joh Bjelke Petersen; Sol Amigo bug#er#d my Telstra investments. Even my superannuation lost c 40% in tax & the early (?2003/4) crash of the A$ and interest rates hit rock bottom – at just a time when we had to face big medical bills for experimental surgery only partly covered by health Insurance & (because of the surgery) we’d contracted out renovations instead of our usual DIY.
As a friend once described herself, I’m definitely working class – the only money I’ll ever have is what I worked hard for. The only good investments I made were 2.5 extremely expensive full-fee degrees, most subjects as an external student (before Whitlam made unis free & I finished the 3rd), a great block of land in what was in a then almost unsaleable area, and a house, all but the shell of which was DIY. I came from a wonderful big (Huge, in fact), pro-learning, “went to freebees like ship launching/ art galleries, concerts in the park, bushwalking etc” multi-cultural, multi-religion (inc athiest/agnostic) “wiped out in the Depression & started again after WW II” financially poor family. We had heaps of very 2nd hand books de-accessioned from libraries (great for all those wet Bris Chrissy hols); holiday’s on long, el cheapo car- & tent-camping, touring, fossicking, caving, “yarning with Old Codgers”, mind-stretching holidays (while other kids went to Surfers or Sydney) in a huge ancient car over unsealed roads. I had great careers (pl), have a great marriage, a wonderful life (tho not good health), achieved all but one of my ambitions (strokes played havock with short-term memory, still do), travelled extensively on “starvation prices” & lowest of “cattle class” fares, and taught myself enough about what I love collecting to find (often) the one gem (literal & figurative) among the trash. So I can’t complain about my lousy gambling (gaming or investment) luck, when I’ve been so lucky in my personal life.
I understand “economically wounded” as few from the Boomer & later generations do, tho not as well as my older siblings (inc in-laws), who remember losing the car, home, furniture, and eating stale bread & dripping sandwiches. I also remember postwar refugees, many from bombed-out Europe, many from states being the Iron Curtain, some with tattooed numbers on their arms – I doubt any Aussie, other than Indigenous kids in remote, abusive communities, or refugees from Asia, Africa’s & central America’s war-torn countries – genuinely understand what “economically wounded” means. Most of the above picked themselves up from financial & personal wipe-out even my elder siblings claim they can’t comprehend – newer generations are still are doing so – built new lives in a new land, and repaid what most openly laud as a generous wonderful nation in the most enriching ways…. with very little help from taxpayers past the original trip & a few weeks in immigration huts – only in the last few decades has the government been so lavish, esp to the middle class.
If I had to choose which migrants would best show the courage, flair, industry and appreciation of their new homeland, I’d choose those gutsy ones who risk everything to cross many countries, face-off brigands, pirates & rip-off merchants, and finally sail here in barely-seaworthy boats – not unlike our earliest European settlers, and our post-war refugees! That’s the stuff the best of us have always been made of!
BTW: I think very few Australians are stupid. Telstra apart, most of them didn’t make risky investments, and their super funds will eventually recover. Nor do they fall for most beat-ups, hysteria, advertising gimmicks, gold bricks & political hyperbole etc. I doubt most survivors of car accidents would think getting killed was “lucky”; and I know several who had what others might term “horrific lives” (Quadraplægia & all that goes with it) but cherish every new day; ditto people I know crippled by MS, MND, Juv. rheumatoid arthritis, CP, AS (several of them relatives) and desperately fought cancer every mm of the way (ditto). Most of them back CC policies, but will continue to do so through established parties which refrain from gross hyperbole and aggressive, knee-jerk “I’ll abuse you & call you ‘dumb’, ‘stupid’ or a liar if you don’t agree with me” attitudes (greenies seem to be following the GOP & Libs by becoming very fond of this!) That’s not the sort of rational, scholarly approach I & many others spent so much time & money acquiring. It’s also the sort of one-eyed dictatorial behaviour that many Aussies’ ancestors came here to avoid.
PS: Sorry, I seem not to have turned off “strong” in the 3rd last para – I cut & pasted in ways the “Preview” function doesn’t show on my laptop.
[DeeCee, you typed "em" instead of "strong" - Brian]
Latest research, no surprises here!!!
http://www.gizmag.com/climate-change-odds/11767/
Note to Sol Trujillo: you weren’t ‘discriminted against’ because of your ‘Mexican origins’.
It was because you were an insufferable, arrogant wanker.
And a Yank.
Luego, chingone.