Climate change, dog eating and female wage parity
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CRIKEY: In Rundle’s Friday drive-bys, (Friday 14 August Item 14), Guy Rundle wrote that Oscar Humphries had been sacked from his position as editor of The Spectator. That statement is untrue and has been removed from the story on the website. Humphries has not been sacked and has no intention of going anywhere in the near future. Crikey apologies for the error. First Dog on the Moon: A. Headcase (aka Jim Ivins) writes: Re. “First Dog on the Moon” (Friday, item 4). I wish to complain about First Dog’s “poorly formed opinion and self indulgent rambling disguised as badly drawn whimsy”. I notice that, yet again, your cartoonist has chosen to attack a soft target, this time in the form of Vietnamese peasants who are so poor they have to eat their pets. Well, at least this makes a change from the attacks on helpless Christians and right wing politicians. I mean, it’s not as if the Vietnamese are actually capable of defending themselves against a bunch of misguided foreigners. I demand to know why First Dog didn’t have a go at the Muslims or the Jews instead. After all, don’t they hang live sheep upside down before cutting their throats? Or is that how Black Pudding is made in the north of England? I’d look it up on Wikipedia but I was recently banned from that site, despite the many helpful additions I made to the entry on Steve Fielding. We’re so lucky to have him you know. Female wage parity: Kate Jackson writes: Re. “Stevens’ sunny-side-up optimism could bite him” (Friday, item 23). Glenn Dyer notes there were some “encouraging statistics on employment” in Crikey’s business section on Friday, however he misses the downside to the employment stats as picked up by Peter Martin in The Age, “Downturn hits female wage parity.” Martin says: Earnings figures for May put average female pay at $54,907, just 82 per cent of the $66,581 male average — the lowest proportion in 21 years. This is interesting when contrasted with historical figures. Professor Glenda Strachan of Griffith University notes in a story for the ABC back in Feb that, “Female wage rates and earnings as a percentage of male wage rates rose from 71 in 1966 to 92 in 1976 (weekly rate).” So women have gone from 92% in 1976 to 82% in 2009. So much for progress! The Australian Fair Pay Commission website also notes that, ‘In 2006, women earned 84% of the average weekly earnings of male employees, compared with 87% in 2004.” Still embarrassingly short of the 1976 figures. The Gods of Rock: Denis Goodwin writes: Re. “Vale Les Paul, symbol maker of rock” (Friday, item 16). Tim Dunlop surely loses credibility when he writes “Best guitarist: Page, Clapton, Beck, Blackmore, Howe? Someone else?”. I know he was writing about the sad news of the death of Les Paul and his personal preference for the Gibson over the Fender but that is no excuse to leave Jimi Hendrix of the list of best guitarists. Climate change: Moira Smith writes: Tamas Calderwood (Friday, comments) wrote: “3,600,000,000 — the number of years Earth has been warmer than it is today…” If I am correct in my interpretation of the “noughts” that is over three and a half billion years. Yes, the earth has been around a long time. And for much of that time life was what we’d today consider as “primitive” and even different, although interesting in its way. Sponges, for example. (And that was after a long long time.) I am informed that much more recent Quaternaty period (from 2.5 million years ago) is when human type beings began to develop. From that point of view, the three billion or so years previous are irrelevant. The climate was different then, different life forms developed and flourished. Except for one thing: the fossil fuels we burn with such alacrity today were laid down and sequestered before humanoids emerged, yet we’re now re-releasing them into the contemporary atmosphere for the first ever time. We’re potentially re-engineering the atmosphere into what it was BEFORE human life was possible. The latest observations from Antarctica and the Arctic indicate that something strange and worrying is happening. Glaciers are melting and disintegrating EVEN FASTER than the scientists had at first predicted. Does Tamas Calderwood have any children or grandchildren? Or is he one of the fortunate like me, who can say “après moi le deluge”? Nigel Brunel writes: Re. Tamas Calderwood (Friday, comments) on the numbers concerning climate change. You missed one number Tamas. Zero: the number of times I have given a toss about what Tamas Calderwood opines. Send your comments, corrections, clarifications and c*ck-ups to boss@crikey.com.au. Preference will be given to comments that are short and succinct: maximum length is 200 words (we reserve the right to edit comments for length). Please include your full name — we won’t publish comments anonymously unless there is a very good reason. |
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21 Comments
Nigel Brunel is very brave. I still remember vividly the time Tamas Calderwood slapped me around the ears with limp lettuce leaves when I innocently suggested that crikey.com only needed to print Tamas’ name, and I’d know precisely what he is going to state with such certainty.
Denis Goodwin correctly (in my opinion) points out that Hendrix would have to be at the top of any ‘best of’ list of rock guitarists. But what about B.B. King ? I think Clapton at least is on record as acknowledging how much King’s style influenced him and I reckon the same would be true of a number of the others if they were asked. While we’re at it, lets put Angus Young and Ry Cooder in the mix as well, along with Scotty Moore (someone had to be first).
Nigel and Wayne – I just don’t think your comments add much to the debate. For a polite, factual response take a look at Moira’s comment. See how this debating stuff works?
Moira – the point I was making was that for 80% of its existence Earth was warmer than it is today. We have no idea why. Yet today we attribute a few tenths of a degree warming (after the end of the little ice age) to human CO2 production. Also, CO2 has been many times higher in the past than its concentration today and this did not lead to runaway global warming (eg; it has been far higher during past ice ages).
Also, the Roman and Medieval warm periods were warmer than today. We don’t know why but we do know that the warmness didn’t lead to diaster. Quite the opposite. Warmer times have generally been more prosperous times for humanity.
I also dispute that the latest observations from Antarctica and the Arctic indicate something strange is happening. Antarctic ice area is at the highest level ever recorded and while summer ice levels in the Arctic were low in the past few years, this year they have recovered to normal levels. All this can be explained far better by natural variability rather than human CO2 production (which, by the way, is only 3% of total CO2 released every year).
Tamas Calderwood? Is that a pseudonym for Andrew Bolt, the comic dog. I’ve been on the planet for 65 years and I’d like my grandkids to do at least the same. Certainly climate change is happening but we don’t really know the causes. Nevertheless, it is madness to exacerbate the situation by continuing adding to the problem by pumping tonnes of extra CO2 into the atmosphere, not to mention billions of tonnes of pollutants. The deniers say that the amount of CO2 we produce is only a tiny fraction of the total amount - so what? That little bit extra just might be enough to tip the scales. The reality is that we don’t get a second chance with climate change - if we do nothing and the deniers are wrong, we’re stuffed. Try explaining that to your grand kids in 30 years time Tamas (and Andrew). Alex
Alex/Bakerboy - but what if humans don’t control the environment? What if CO2, which is 0.00038 of the atmosphere, is completely irrelevant in the broader climate system?
There is absolutely no empirical evidence to show CO2 is the dominant factor in the climate system. Yet we are about to destroy our energy industry and make us all poorer (to say nothing of the developing world) based on a crazy theory that humans can control the climate system.
This is apocalyptic nonsense of the worst kind. I haven’t seen anything remotely like this in Western Society before. We think we live in an age of science and rationalism yet the hysterical, end-of-the-world doom sayers have utterly captured our Political and Media classes.
The fact is that temperatures rose about 0.7C in the 20th century. Since we’ve had hyper-accurate satellites we know temperatures rose only 0.38C in 31 years. We know that temperatures haven’t budged (and in fact have cooled slightly) for 10 years. We know that the Oceans have cooled slightly since at least 2003.
How is all this a crisis? Where are the effects of this “crisis”?
The Roman and Medieval warm periods were warmer than today. Why didn’t the planet collapse back then? And what caused it to be warmer back then? Why do we assume that all natural factors are irrelevant in the climate system now and CO2 is the only factor that controls it?
Your plan to “save” the planet will do infinitely more damage than the tiny amount of warming we have seen in the past 150 years.
Tamas, I don’t know where your getting your information from, but I strongly suggest widening your reading. Maybe start with Wikipedia? The realclimate.org, and the IPCC home is worth a look. Most of your seemingly rhetorical questions have been answered at length by proper scientists.
I also love your reasoning that “this is apocalyptic nonsense of the worst kind”. You mean “this sounds so bad it can’t possibly be true”? I hope, for many reasons that you never get cancer. Bad things happen. Sometimes humans cause them. Remember the ozone hole? Acid Rain? Chernobyl?
Rather than ask “how is all this a crisis”, perhaps you’d be better off asking “how can I be sure this is not a crisis”? .38 degrees is the difference between -0.2 and +0.2 degrees, where water changes from ice to liquid. That means if the average happens everywhere (which it doesn’t but it’s productive to imagine that it did) anywhere that previously had ice now doesn’t. The Himilayas, Patagonia, Russia, sections of the arctic and antarctic, Australia’s ski fields, anywhere that previously had an average of -0.2 deg C, no longer has ice. How can you be soe sure there are no impacts from this?
Evan – I have read the IPCC summary reports, Wikipedia and I look at realclimate.org from time to time. You should take a look at climateaudit – dot – org and wattsupwiththat – dot – com, for a start.
You say that the observed 0.38C of warming in the past 30 years could change water from ice to liquid. Well, yes I suppose it could. But the average temperature of Earth is about 15C while the average temperature of Antarctica is around -50C. What will 0.38C of warming do to Antarctica again?
The temperature has risen by around 1.1C since the little ice age ended in 1850. 0.38C of that warming was in the past 30 years. In fact, that would be the past 60 years because it cooled from 1945 to 1975. Care to explain all the warming that took place from 1850 – 1945?
Why is the warming suddenly man made and not natural? Do you honestly believe that humans can control the climate system by turning a CO2 dial? Does that sound plausible to you? What about solar cycles, orbital wobbles, ocean currents, galactic cycles, volcanic activity, etc? What role do those factors play? Do we assume they are all perfectly stable so only the tiny increase in CO2 to 0.00038 of the atmosphere is responsible for recent warming?
Humans have survived – actually thrived - in warmer periods before. If the world is warming we need to adapt because it is human arrogance of the first order to assume that we can control it.
Wattsupwith that is an awful website. No references and no actual science. More of the same rhetorical questions you keep asking.
The reason I directed you to those sites is that I do not debate the science; merely try and inform people of the state of play. I’m not a climate scientist, and have no data to supply a theory that can be refuted.
You also totally missed my point about water from ide to liquid. Of course the average is 15 deg, but that doesn’t mean the whole Earth is! I’m trying to show you that there will be huge areas of land where this is critical. How on Earth can you do a thought experiment and decide that any temperature change is okay? There are so many inter-dependent systems at work; all of which governed by non-linear relationships that the outcomes are almost impossible to imagine without proper research.
To repeat the last paragraph; no I have no opinion of how warming took place from 1850-1945. But plenty of scientists do. They do science by publishing papers that are published after their methods and conclusions are checked by other people qualified to comment. I’m not one of those people. Same as I don’t have an opinion on the existence of the Higgs Boson, or the shape of DNA. You and I are simply not qualified to comment. The scientists that are almost overwhelmingly think that human emissions are changing the climate. It’s that simple. Be a doubting Thomas all you like, but your opinion is utterly worthless.
Nigel, responding to a letter indicates that you *do* give a toss.
Fixing female pay parity is easy. 1, sterilise all females after puberty, so child bearing won’t interupt their career. 2, introduce workplace conscription, forcing women to work in underground mining, dirty, dangerous work like, chemical factories, uranium mining, nuclear power with “homer”, 80 to 100 hours a week, nights, weekends, long distance commuting, jobs with more stress, responsibility, etc.
Do all this and then women can be equal to men.
Evan – Sorry, but that is a total cop-out. The key principles of the enlightenment (which I hope we still live by) are that rational discourse and personal judgment are superior to censorship of ideas and the invocation of authority.
Re-read your last post and explain to me why you cannot come up with your own opinion on this issue. What, you just can’t be bothered? So you out-source all thinking to the religious authority of the “climate science” brigade?
Like it or not I can in fact debate the science because I can think rationally. I can find scientific hypothesis either convincing or preposterous. We are all equipped to reason Evan.
I am a ‘doubting Thomas’ because I am utterly unconvinced by the global warming hypothesis. It doesn’t explain past climate changes (eg; 1850 – 1945) so I have no reason to accept its explanation of recent warming.
So don’t bother telling me I am not equipped to understand an issue because I don’t have a PhD in the applicable field. What a crock. Got a PhD in Politics? No? So are you allowed to have an opinion on politics?
No it’s not a cop out. It’s the way science works. It is not a matter of opinion and discourse; you really should stop getting your philosophy of science from MDivine.
My opinion is, like other science, that the only way to challenge scientific theory is with data and another theory. I haven’t got any data, nor do I have any scientific papers. I’ve read a lot of the alternate ‘opinions’ and they’re exactly that; just an opinion, not proper science. As an example Plimer’s book is a series of anecdotes with very few references and untold internal inconsistencies. Further, he is completely compromised in terms of his career and affiliations. The Heartland Institute, the principle ‘scientific’ body co-ordinating all of this have many detailed links with the oil and resources sector, and have also ‘proven’ that smoking is good for your health.
In comparison, the work of the scientists that have informed the IPCC has been going for 30 years or so, in many different countries, thousands of peer review articles and thousands of observations supporting the theory. So much so that people who actually have some experience in this area are no longer discussing ‘if’ but ‘how much’.
Your assertion that they can’t explain past climate changes is utterly wrong. Please do some more reading. I can’t be bothered finding references. I suspect some stubborness in your position.
The difference between politics and science is that politics is, and always will be a matter of opinion. Like religion it is confined to the areas of endeavour that can not be proven objectively. The politics surrounding this issue is confined to how and if we should respond. The matter of whether or not humans are changing the climate is not for debate; it has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt.
Sure you can have an opinion on this, but yours is wrong.
Evan - I have provided lots of “data” to back up my opinion. For example, why did it warm from 1850-1945? Why was it warmer in the medieval and Roman warm periods? We don’t really know. You can’t answer those questions. You can’t provide any “peer reviewed science” to explain them (or at least any that fits with your human driven theory), so you just ignore them. That’s just not good enough.
To explain the current warming we need to understand previous warming periods. To pretend that we now have a perfect understanding of the climate system is ridiculous.
I can point to many, many peer reviewed scientific opinions that challenge this theory that you say is proven “beyond reasonable doubt”. But I doubt you will consider them. What about Richard Lindzen, John Christy, Vincent Gray, Ian Clark, Lee Campbell, Robert Balling, Tim Ball, Jan Veizer, Patrick Moore, Chris de Fritas, William Kinnimonth, Richard Mackey, David Archibald, Bob Carter… and so on, and on, and on…
Are they all in the pay of big oil? Are all those eminent scientists idiots? Why don’t they believe in your “proven” theory?
The “science” behind global warming is a joke. I conclude this because I have read competing theories from the above scientists. My opinion may be worthless but you just outsource your opinion to the “smart guys” . So how much does that make your opinion worth?
Tamas, I am an agnostic regards climate change but whether or not the science is correct, we need to act to reduce consumption of fossil fuel. Oil is at or near peak production, coal may have 300 years reserve but the developing world is likely to reduce that dramatically if one looks at Oz mining projects alone. Natural gas projections wont last as long as coal.
There is nothing on the horizon to replace crude oil derivatives in many areas of modern life. (most transport, plastics, synthetic materials etc. etc etc.) Bottom line is that irrespective of climate change if there is an oil supply problem our present lifestyle would be totally doomed via warfare (probably nuclear) over who secures remaining supplies.
Consider this - our indigenous people have been on this continent for 30,000 years; since the industrial revolution (<200 years) we have arguably consumed half the fossil fuel our planet produced in millions of years. It’s a bit like smoking - most unlikely it’s good for the system!
Robert - thanks for your comment.
I don’t believe we have consumed most of our fossil fuels and that we will run out soon. I think we have barely scrathed the surface of this planet’s resources and besides, technology changes what we consider to be resources. Consider that 60 years ago Uranium would have been considered useless but now is an almost limitless energy supply. And they have been calling peak oil for decades yet known reserves just keep going up.
However, I do agree that we should diversify our energy sources. But doesn’t this call for investment in research and development rather than crippling industries that produce CO2?
In any case, an energy debate would be a good thing because it would show what a fraud solar and wind are. I’m all for buying less oil from all the dictators but let’s be sensible, invest in new technologies that actually work and stop trying to destroy our industry because of some weird idea that humans control the climate system via a CO2 dial.
I love the way Tamas that you’ve bought the whole right wing argument lock-stock and barrel. There’s no global warming, because 5 people have told me so, and everyone else is involved in a massive conspiracy or group think project. Besides which, I’m pretty sure we’ve got heaps of fossil fuel resources despite what everyone else says, and we should keep burning them as quickly as possible, because without consuming as much energy as possible our standard of living will not continue to rise. Further, we should keep using them because the renewable alternatives, which are all a left wing fraud, are too expensive, except nuclear, which is the only reliable way to supply cheap base load power, which our whole society is based on.
Is that a fair summary?
Evan – Yes, not a bad summary summary, except that there are thousands of highly qualified scientists who think global warming is nonsense plus millions of ordinary folk. And what, you don’t believe in cheap base load power? Why on earth not?
In 1830 Thomas Babington Macaulay asked “On what principle is it that, when we see nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us”?
The doomsayers have always been with us and they have always been wrong. How does it feel to be one of them?
Cheap base load power is a good thing, unless you’re of a type that would enjoy wearing a hair shirt. I’m not sure that fission is going to be all that cheap, but it fulfills a few criteria for short term needs til we can come up with something better. Burning oil when we need it for industry is a fairly crazy thing to do, IMO, and when we’ve pumped, literally, the last barrel its a bad time to start thinking about this.
The ‘5 people have told me so’ argument is a turnabout of the appeal to popularity fallacy, because most people believe or think a thing to be true doesn’t make it so.
You are right MeSi - I do give a toss - not about big egos trying to win p*ssing competitions but about the future generations to follow - we actually have an opportunity to re-engineer the planets energy sources and possibly be seen within history as one of the greatest generations that gave a toss about the future of the world.
My yawning tired-ness with Tamas and those on both side sof the debate is their unwillingness to think about the debate ona different level.
here are some commenst printed in Crikey a while back - tamas never replied though I now expect him to have a crack. (though I must say - I welcome people like Tamas being in an open debate)
You guys should wake up and smell the carbon. No ETS in its initial form will be perfect – in fact it will be far from perfect but at least it is a start. It’s a matter of getting it in place and revising as we go along – I’m convinced that version 1.10 will be radically different that 1.0. What’s happening presently is that you are all sitting around and arguing your own positions without caring for the planets position or the generations to come. If we don’t start to fix the problem now – we will be known as the selfish generation and be consigned to history as planet wreckers.
China & India should not be expected to cut massive amounts off their footprint to begin with – why should they? Our economies created this climate mess – we can’t accept China and India to pay for it. The best alternative is to implement an ETS which encourages development of green energy in developing countries.
Big polluters should not be allowed to be part of the argument – it’s nauseating listening to these behemoths – it’s like listening to real state agents telling us the property market is a buy – their agendas are too big. They have no soul and their agenda is always self-interest – they simply don’t care about the planet.
It’s now a case of “wake up white people” – unless we stop digging holes in the ground and burying everything that comes up out of it and start focussing on creating free energy sources then very soon Mother Erath will get rid of us.
Personally – I’m not sure if AGW is real but I am of the view that we are given so much free energy everyday and we ignore it – instead we choose to dig and chop and burn with reckless disregard. We are quite happy to pay money to oil producing countries that don’t even like us – yet we argue vehemently that changing to a renewable free source is beyond the pale - go figure.
I look at it quite simply:
1) Do nothing and climate change is fake – nothing happens
2) Do something and climate change is fake – we lose money
3) Do something and climate change is real – we possibly avert disaster
4) Do nothing and climate change is real – disaster
When I look at my young kids – point 4 is the only option.
Nigel, I’m skeptical about climate change, but it’s probably safer to do something to remedy it in case it is so. And I’d rather we save oil for industrial use, rather than energy. Which is leaving us with nuclear fission as a power source, IMO.
My take on climate chnage is quite simple - I don’t know and I don’t want to take the risk.
The world gets lots of free energy given to it everyday - yes - substantial investment would be required to capture and use the free energy but the payoff is endless.
Know this - when the world starts growing again - oil will be back over US$150 per barrel - we need to move to better energy sources now.
An ETS actually helps that happen