(Cross posted from What the people want)
Yesterday The Australian and The Courier Mail ran polls from Newspoll and Galaxy which said the Liberals would lose seats if they rejected Malcolm Turnbull’s position on an ETS. They claimed this on the basis of the public’s view of global warming. This commentary was unsupportable on the basis of the polling.
Today The Sunday Mail has published polling by Glaxy which shows the public disagreeing with Turnbull’s position. How are the polls to be reconciled?
Well, they aren’t. The first set of polls never said what they were reported as saying, and neither poll really says anything about how many seats the government might win.
Yesterday’s Galaxy poll was loaded and didn’t address the central question. It asked “The Federal Opposition has agreed a deal with the Rudd Government to pass the Carbon Pollution Reduction scheme. Do you approve or disapprove of the opposition doing this deal?” 56% approved.
But the central issue is not whether the coalition should have “agreed a deal” but whether passing the legislation before Copenhagen is necessary. Someone hearing that question could easily interpret it as a request to confirm that it is OK for oppositions to do deals with governments. Hearing it this way you would have to say “Yes”.
It is difficult to work out what the Newspoll question was, but the assertion that 63 percent of urban Liberals accept the government’s bill is at odds with previous Newspoll results from July. So I’d assume two different questions. A movement of that degree in the period is simply not credible. Which means Newspoll said something different too.
Today’s Galaxy asked the right question. The Opposition’s position, such as can be ascertained, is that the bill ought to be put off until after Copenhagen, and the question was “Do you think Australia should delay the introduction of an ETS until after a global arrangement is reached at the Copenhagen summit.” So, not only is it on point, but it avoids the government’s propaganda phrase of Carbon Pollution Reduction.
The newspaper wisely avoids speculation as to what the seat loss might be. You simply can’t tell from the result on a single issue. It could be a policy area that changes few, if any, votes. Or it might be that the election is framed on entirely different grounds when it occurs. It is quite possible that it could be a referendum on the competence of the Rudd government, in which case rushing to impose a whole new layer of government taxation may well be judged on its execution rather than its intended effect, and found wanting.
Our own polling says that opinion leaders are almost equally divded on the issue of the ETS and against implementing it straight away. The polls that ask the right questions tend to confirm that.
November 30, 2009 | Graham
Does today’s poll on ETS contradict yesterday’s?
November 29, 2009 | Ronda Jambe
I’ll eat my money – or my hat
Clive James has gone on the radio as a climate change sceptic, yet he is not a scientist. He is too clever by half, to my mind. And as we progress painfully to Copenhagen, the silly billies in the Liberal Party are also hell bent on not taking action. The ETS should fail, but because it is useless and rewards polluters, but I’m sure you know that already.
Lucky Clive, he will never have to scratch for a meal, and hopefully neither you or I will either.
But this weekend I’ve been preparing a talk about food security and climate change, pulling together all the tidbits of information that have come my way in the past few months on this topic. The listeners will be investors, and as it happens I also spoke to a financial advisor last week. The advice is always consistent: diversify, put money into super/the stock market, and ride out any bumps. But I just can’t bring myself to trust in any managed, balanced, hedged or other fund that works on the assumption that the market always goes up, in the longer term.
And the more I think, research (well, in a randomised sort of way) or scheme, the more I come back to food security and what the advisor called stocks of necessity. That is food, shelter, health, education, but of these, really food and shelter are the least escapable.
If the Indians are investing in farms in Ethiopia (which apaparently has some beautifully fertile land, too bad about the government) and the Chinese investments in Madigascan farms toppled that government, well, surely a tiny investor like myself should also have a bit of land and a few fruit trees to barter with. The Economist last week said global food prices went up 9.8% last year, with the possibility of another surge similar to 2007. Some basic food commodities are trading at their highest levels in 30 years.
If my convictions are so strong, then that’s where my money should be: in my mouth. And the list of imperilled protein sources and risks to cereal crops, not to mention the honey bee collapses are enough to make anyone a bit nervous. Food prices already seem to be getting higher, and I read that Australia exports 2/3 of what it produces. Rice and wheat stocks are down, population’s up. We all like to eat, some of us take it for granted. It’s really a miracle of civilisation that we have done so well, in the rich world at least.
In the 19th century an American Indian chief made the famous quote: ‘someday the white man will learn that you can’t eat money’.
Well, if push comes to shove, maybe I can eat mine. Either that or my hat, and with that I hang up my gauntlet.
November 22, 2009 | Ronda Jambe
Sign up for the Green Dragoons
Sydney is planning an urban farm. They haven’t decided where yet, but it will happen. And it will have more than just plants, as not all of us are vegetarian. Like Al Gore, I’ve cut way back on my meat, but for different reasons. Vegetarian spouse and laziness basically.
But let’s talk turkey. Or at least chickens. Of course we need urban farms, complete with poultry. This isn’t just a flash in the pan petting and weeding pen we’re talking about: it is an essentail part of the shift towards a more resilient and self-reliant culture. (Do those two words come from a similar source, like ecology and economics?) In any case we need lots of resilience, and that means lots of Silly Ants, people who pitch in and form the new systems we will need.
The not so silly ants in London, Chicago and Melbourne have set up similar urban farms. Old apartment buildings in the former East Germany have been razed to create 100m by 100m urban food plots, and Cuba has pockets everywhere in the cities, as well as country farms. Even New York now has its HIgh Line, a park built on an abandoned elevated train track, I will make sure I see it next time I’m there. Maybe by then it will be covered in grapevines, lovingly tendered by batallions of Silly Ants. Kept in line, gently, by the Green Dragoons.
They’ll be coming to a suburb near you. Sydney’s urban farm will have community composting facilities. It’s embarassing how happy that makes me. Brown is one of my favourite colours.
In Canberra there is a waiting list for all the organic garden plots, but the ACT government hasn’t realised yet that they need an urban farm, something the Greens are hopefully agitating about. There is still an individualist approach, which misses out on the economies of scale that a full cooperative could bring. Don’t they realise there are hordes of Silly Ants out there, who are probably crazy enough to weed other peoples’ gardens. (Remember, all gardeners commit herbicide routinely.)
These troops and their leaders will, of course, form the basis of the new economy. The one that runs on a triple bottom line, and measures it. The new aggregators will keep all the old stuff moving around, via community databases, highly personalised and very affordable transport, and flexible payment arrangements (barter/broker/borrow/build/bank are just some of the possibilities). Moving away from a Thing economy towards a Do economy. More services, calmer inputs, more restructuring, reusing, refusing.
Costa Rica has its feria in many towns, selling all sorts of fresh food and meat. Grown by lots of Silly Ants. They don’t know they are showing us the future, they’re too busy. Even on steep hills, buses there offer cheap travel around the countryside. Other models exist, and if combined with smart business and delivery approaches, well, what would you bet on? Mine is on community entrepreneurs. It’s already happening in Canberra, with groups like SEE-Change.
We are at least taking some small steps. This dual compost bin, for example, delicately constructed by My Man, was probably the first ever in a public service building in Canberra. It lasted a day, not much of a breakthrough, but it had to be installed somewhere else:
It’s been a great week. Even spouse seems to be improving and might come home soon. It was gratifying to hear Kelvin Thompson getting good coverage for mentioning population issues. Tim Flannery has long advised a national look at population, and he’s heading up a new taskforce. And now, an urban farm in Sydney. Maybe Copenhagen will also provide a breakthrough.
Somethings got to give. Even my yard has reached a crisis: our neighbor saw a snake in his yard. I don’t like everything that’s brown. The catchers said they hang around compost. And there I was, crawling barefoot among the thick layers of leaves by the compost near the back fence. Maybe three years of autumn leaves is too many with so little rain to break it down. Help! Call in the Silly Ants!
I’d love to tell you about my composting toilets, things everyone should know to become a Silly Ant, but I think it’s time to shut the door on this rotten topic.
November 15, 2009 | Ronda Jambe
Sisyphus@home
Gardening is not a hobby for those seeking ROIs, or rent, or even a full larder. ‘Wouldn’t want to live off what I grow’ is my grateful mantra. Grateful because real farmers grow my food, and a real supermarket puts the cornucopia at my fingertips. Almonds? Any day of the week. Ditto the fruit, veg, cheese. No serious gardener takes any of that for granted. And some, like the fellow in England who colonises new places for veggies, touch the world with their passion for all the fruits of the soil. Is his name Bounty?
There is much to be done, always. The bad things are reliable, the good bits a blessing. The skies open, they shut, the sun burns, the insects feast. I struggle, determined to at least maintain the once-gorgeous garden that first lured us to this house. But that was just before the Canberra bushfires, and then the tougher water restrictions came in. The luxurious sprinkler system could no longer be used, and watering 1600 m2 of lush foliage became a real challenge in the prolonged (indefinite?) dry. The lawns were abandoned, they can fend for themselves.
All aspects of gardening are endless. Rake up the leaves, and a week later they reappear. Pull some weeds out of one bed, and they pop up in the next. And things evolve, move around, change places. You have to keep at it, all year round, or pay the price of neglect.
After a false start with individual drippers we were persuaded to adopt the brown hose solution. People in less hydronically (?) challenged climes might fnd it difficult to imagine that water has to be so carefully targetted to avoid waste. The idea is the hose has little holes with one-way valves that keep dirt from clogging it. They form a tear-shaped wet area beneath the surface, goes the theory, that provides moisture directly to the roots.
They went in 3 years ago, and then the soil was mulched by the tonne. Now the soil needs building, so a fresh load of soil needs to be distributed. For a small fee, 10m3 of top soil was dumped in the drive way. With spouse in hospital and limping, the uber frau gets into it on weekends, early before the heat sets in.
After a couple of months, little had moved. Things were colonising it, bad things. I briefly considered just planting the dam hill with veggies, but the esthetics weren’t right. So it will be shifted. But before the dirt can go on the garden beds, the hose has to be liberated from the mulch which now has lots of roots. Also, someone must crawl around under all the plants and patrol the edges, to search for and destroy any signs of ivy or wisteria. Gardeners are more secretive than the Masons; they never admit that at least half of gardening is about killing things.
As Queen of my block and section, I exercise power of life or death over most of the plants. Others, like the ivy, I wage regular raids on. And so, having decreed them undesirable in my kingdom, I have been executing by the hundreds ‘things that want to be trees’ as I generically call them. Each one makes a tiny popping sound as I pull them out by the roots. It’s quite satisfying, as not much survives that treatment. I hope it hurts and they tell their mates to stay away from the merciless green godess. I know they will be back, but so will I, as this exercise repeats with the seasons.
In some places I have to dig the hose out from under the mulch. Only when the hoses are lifted and their metal hoops loosened or set aside, can dirt throwing begin.
Some of the hoops get lost, probably to become part of the archelogical record. They are also very valuable for making bike racks, as I recently discovered.
Between the heat, the ill spouse and my back that can only take about 4 barrows at a go, it is looking like a long summer. I am not the sort who courts blisters, so there will be no heroics. There has to be time to enjoy the ladies’ bonnets.
And of course, every day my motivation is reinforced. For some a carrot is better than a stick. For others, a lettuce or 200 will do as well. Every day I bring a bagful to work, or the neighbors. I want them to find it habit-forming, and soon we’ll all be exchanging home grown goodies in states resembling ecstacy. For a real Bachanale, maybe the plums one fellow promised in return will be fermented. That’s my vision for the new public service, but I don’t dare tell Kevin.
Spouse will hopefully get better soon. Meanwhile, there will be more trekking to the hospital, more trips with the wheelbarrow, more looking at the sky and willing it to rain.
November 15, 2009 | Graham
NASA proves dad right – the moon’s not made of green cheese
Back in the early 60s my dad was chief engineer on ships in the Arctic Ocean servicing the Direct Early Warning (DEW) line which was a series of radars meant to give the US warning of ICBMs coming from Russia. This was very much Cold War time, although the chicken littles of the world should note that even though the war was cold the climate was hot enough for the Arctic Ocean to be navigable.
Dad would be gone for 9 months at a time, but he made up for his absence by composing a series of short fairy tales for my sister and me about the magical creatures that in those pre-global warming days still lived in the Arctic.
No doubt prompted by spy satellites he told us of the problems that the force for good in the north “Old Fiery Eyes” – the sun – keeping the evil denizens in check, especially during the long Artctic winter. His solution was to put an ice mirror in the sky – the moon – so that he could at least keep an eye on things.
This was a problem for the witches, so Old Mother Slipper Slopper, Denizen-in-Chief, devised a plan to cover the mirror with a large curtain. However the plan was foiled by a clever little sprite who added a shrinking potion to the cauldron of black dye meant to make the cloth impenetrable to light.
So every month would see the witches inch up over the moon with their blanket, only to find it wasn’t quite large enough, so then they would come down again to have another try, in the meantime allowing Mr Fiery eyes dominance of the night sky.
I always thought this was just a charming story, but now NASA appears to have proven dad right – there is ice on the moon!
It was a little strange having a dad who had done something so unusual, and an early lesson in cognitive dissonance. Dad used to be a big favourite at church functions with his slides of massive icebergs and photos of him swimming in the Arctic Ocean next to fur-clad Eskimos.
But just as now, when preconceptions were challenged, Australians were prone to believe what they wanted to, rather than the guy with the photographic evidence. So it was that my sister’s grade one teacher refused to believe that Eskimos in the Northwest Territories didn’t live in igloos anymore, but in pre-fabricated huts. It said they did in a book somewhere, and no amount of documentary evidence was going to prove otherwise.
One can see the same credulity playing itself out today in terms of what we believe about Arctic ice melt, and the endangered status of polar bears.
So who’s going to believe that the moon really has large stores of water?
November 14, 2009 | Graham
“Climate Change Risks to Australia’s Coast” appears to breach PM’s guidelines on global warming.
Recently Kevin Rudd made a speech to the Lowy Institute where he labelled anyone who disputed the “scientific consensus” on global warming as driven by vested interests or anti-scientific. Where is the “consensus” to be found? Well if it is something that you can appeal to as a coherent body of thought, it can only befound in the IPCC reports.
So how does Rudd explain the release of a government report today – “Climate Change Risks to Australia’s Coast” – which appears to contradict the IPCC view of the world?
I can’t give you a link to the report – it’s not up on the minister’s website yet, which doesn’t demonstrate the best attitude on her part to open and transparent government. But it has been used to generate some lurid headlines and a claim by Penny Wong that “the report shows that climate change is real.”
I’ll chance my arm without seeing the document because a few things seem obvious from the news reports. I doubt whether this report has any new science in it at all. It appears to be an exercise in picking a sea level rise and seeing what areas would be affected by it.
Why do I think this? Well the sea level rise of 1.1 metres is anywhere up to hundreds of percent outside the IPCC projections which have a range of roughly 18 to 59 centimetres of increase until the end of the century.
The report then appears to turbocharge this by referring to an anticipated increase in extreme weather events, even though this again is not borne out in the IPCC report which at worst expects some mild increase in cyclones and hurricanes.
So there is no justification in the “consensus” that I am aware of for the extreme conclusions of the report.
Which leads to the conclusion that the report is not about science at all, but about politics. It is an attempt to scare a significant proportion of the population on the basis of highly unlikely projections.
So given the PM’s concern about people who do not respect the “consensus” what is he going to do about his errant environment minister who has ben responsible for a report which uses it’s own idiosyncratic projections to cause emotional trauma to hundreds of thousands of Australians who by its calculations live close enough to the sea to be in peril?
November 11, 2009 | Graham
My minute’s silence
This is a Rememberance Day post with a German theme.
Reader Fay Helwig of Das Helwig Haus B&B has planted a beautiful field of poppies which comes into bloom just in time for Remberance Day – the Rememberance Field.
The field will feature on Channel 9 between 6:30 and 7:00 tonight. Or you could always get a closer look by booking to stay overnight at the Haus.
My mother is also likely to be thinking of Rememberance Day today. She served in the air force in WWII, but only last week my sister and her family were in Bavaria in the cemetery where Mum’s brother Graham is buried after being shot down over Germany in 1943.
Mum was in records in Melbourne at the time and there was concern to ensure that she didn’t inadvertently see the record of her brother’s death.
Apparently the records were kept on some sort of punch card system.
Technology has certainly changed. We were able to visit the cemetery with Bronwyn, Terry and their kids via a laptop, a wireless internet connection and skype.
*Added 12/11/09. Armistice Day around the world had a German theme too. Angela Merkel travelled to Paris, the first German President to attend a service in France on Rememberance Day.
November 07, 2009 | Graham
Point of view
The Australian is generally skeptical of climate change and the ABC relatively accepting. So what would each choose to report from one set of tidal measurements?
According to The Australian’s headline “Science is in on climate change sea-level rise: 1.7mm “. But the ABC’s headline reads “WA sea level rises doubling world average” and the article goes on to say that sea levels in WA are rising more than 3mm per year.
So what is going on?
Well The Australian has chosen to report the rate of change in Port Kembla, south of Sydney, while the ABC is obviously on the other side of the continent. The result? In a sense both of them are wrong.
Australian sea levels change for two reasons. One is that the sea rises as a result of thermal expansion (mostly) and melt from land ice (minimally). The other is that land height changes. What appears to be happening with Australia is that the continent is listing into the Indian Ocean with the height of the land being depressed in the west and elevated in the east.
However, the interesting thing is that irrespective of which side of the continent you are on the sea level rise is at the lowest end of the IPCC projections and a figure pretty similar to the 20th century average. in the case of Port Kembla, or around the average for the period since 1993 for W.A.
So the facts appear to be saying that there is no appreciable acceleration of global warming based on Australian sea level rises. Once you adjust for the tilt the average should be under that for the last 16 years, and just a little over that for the last century. Why couldn’t someone have reported that?