Breathe in, take a deep breath, slowly breathe out, and feel yourself sinking deeper. Another breath, and you are even deeper into that hole of personal debt that so many of us share….opps! that was the spiel for a different story. While Australians now, we are told, owe more than the national GDP, few are meditating on that. Just keep buying, enjoy life, that is the national cricket approach, as opposed to a more ant-like thrift.
But that is not the deep, collaborative breathing I had in mind to tell you about. To breathe together is what con-spirare means, and it needn’t be the Al Queda sort that has landed a misguided Nigerian in prison recently. We can conspire in life-affirming and fun ways, as we are creatures of the pack, the tribe, the troop and the class.
We will be breathing together as we dig, weed and grunt out new paths to food supplies and security. In the past I hadn’t read enough of Paul Sheridan in the Sydney Morning Herald to form an opinion, but today he writes like one of my kin. Welcome aboard, Paul, let us take a deep breath together and exhale in unision while uttering the phrase: declining food security.
For that’s what he has discovered, and I’m delighted to see food security and population mentioned in the same breath (or at least column).
Because while we happily eat more than we should (there is probably a word that means burping together) the fundamentals for our fair land are being challenged on several fronts. Broken record that I am, I’ll mention climate change first, to get that out of the way. While climate change will have impacts on our soils, irrigation, plant pests, etc, it is far from the only factor that is starting to influence our food security. I think about these things partly because my own efforts at growing food show me how hard it is, although I have my moments:
Defined as availability, accessibility, quality and affordability, food security involves the total value chain, and of course also includes sustainability. Food miles and the cost of oil are relevant, as is the potential for a revitalised Ord River scheme to become our breadbasket. I’d throw in food variety, too, for good measure.
In another direction, the fact that we now export about 70% of the food produced in Australia sends foreboding messages: should push come to shove, who will farmers sell to, the few hundred million rich customers in Asia, or their own countrymen?
Sheridan points out that we also import a lot of food, and the labelling laws allow very generous impressions of what is ‘Australian’, creating distortions in how we think about food.
Over processing and packaging also have negative externalities, such as contributing to inefficiency and obesity. (I supposed you could think of obesity as energy and food inefficiency, it sure ain’t useful.)
Sheridan even points to the coming urban farm for Sydney, maybe he’s a born again hippy. But the reality is chooks and veggies, fruit and home made meals, even if they are delivered via sophisticated catering systems to different homes, are all part of what will become a greener and healthier food economy. I have long yearned for e-meals, with a data-base of local caterers that deliver to me. Better than take-aways, more humble and more affordable.
When the word about local food and food security hits the mainstream columnists, that is good news. So thank you, Mr Sheridan, for being alert. And top of the holidays to all.
December 28, 2009 | Ronda Jambe
Tis the season to conspire
December 20, 2009 | Ronda Jambe
The Copenhagen movie was boring, better luck with the sequel
It played out more or less as predicted. Lots of hot air, lots of divisions along usual lines: rich vs poor, the US and China staring each other down, then pretending to be moving together. And a result that we are supposed to be content with, as it is ‘just a first step’. That would be ok if we had another 50 years to dawdle, but mass extinctions, partly driven by climate change, are happening now. How many equally bad sequels must we endure?
But Tim Flannery says it’s been a good outcome, and he was on the spot. A bit of tension is necessary for the next installment, along with a suspension of disbelief. The only overriding impression that will remain in my head is the collosal arrogance of the chatter about the level of warming to set as a safe limit. The developing nations want 1.5, the rich nations say, nah, we can handle 2 degrees C. Even engaging in that sort of discussion was a tactical mistake for the developing nations, but there are diplomatic protocols that encourage lies. It’s like saying you are in control of what kind of cancer you get. As night follows day, hubris is laughing in the curtains. This assertion of control just diverts public attention from the reality of parts per million and the danger of tipping points. What precautionary principle?
But the sceptics and deniers haven’t blinked, and one can only wonder exactly what kinds of evidence would persuade them that climate change is indeed well underway and will affect their lives dramatically. No point in trotting out the analyses of the costs of climate change already. Dr Andrew Glikson has compiled those, he has done enough work in the climate change area to come to Jennifer M’s notice, I’ll leave it to them to argue over aerosols.
My concern is with leadership, and the future. Having endured yet another illustration of the lack thereof in the public sector, and in a state of near depression over the desolate dryness of the Canberra landscape, an article by Umair Haque caught my attention. He has something to do with the Harvard Business Review, and is on my latest list of straight talkers. Anything for a flicker of hope.
Haque distinguishes between leaders and builders. He says the commonplace leaders, including Obama, play the game, juggle their support, and end up just propping up 20th century organisations and institutions. They don’t build new ones. Contrast with builders like Mandela, or Yunus, of the Gareem Bank, who didn’t just critique financing, he built a new model.
Haque points out how the massive 20th century institutions are no longer fit to take us to the future. In time they will undergo the ‘creative destruction’ needed to break the impasse that exists in so many areas of our increasinly dysfunctional modern world. Haque is worth reading for this insight alone, but his pieces (I am no longer sure what the difference is between a blog and an article, if anyone knows, set me straight, but that sort of distinction is rather old too) offer a fresh viewpoint.
On Macca this morning a rural caller was thankful for 40mm of rain, ‘the best Christmas present ever’. I wonder how many in the dusty outback are so sure that long term climate change is impossible? In my bones I feel Canberra’s beauty fading, unlikely to recover in my lifetime. Will the last pollie to finish talking about how all this will be managed with so little pain for anyone please turn out the lights? And for heaven’s sake, change the film to something more credible. Inglorious basterds maybe, now that was a hoot.
Unfortunately the sequel is also predictable, and the denouement: that’s when the floods and mass extinctions impoverish us all, rich and poor. Like Berlusconi, the bad guys get a punch in the nose. I’ve read the script.
December 15, 2009 | Graham
Bolivians see dark fairy tale at Copenhagen?
I’ve revised this post. Looks like my reservations were well-founded (see original post below). The Bolivian media release on which the original post was based is a hoax. While the media contact might be listed as “Nicholas Buxton” which is the name of a high profile Anglican-priest-in-training in England, the email reverts to Doyle Canning, who works for Smartmeme whose slogan is “Changing the story”. Indeed.
As their website explains “Organizing – at the heart of it – has always been about building relationships through telling our stories. What smartMeme is doing is upgrading methods for the information age, and cutting through the clutter of the modern media climate with clear calls for justice that spread as viral memes. Cool!” Worked here, although perhaps not in the way that they intended.
This is my original post:
“The Little Mermaid may be the sculptural icon of Copenhagen, reminding the world that fairty tale writer Hans Christian Andersen is Denmark’s most durable cultural export, but the Bolivians appear to have turned to an even darker fairy story to describe current events there.
This media release arrived in my intray this morning, and it was too good not to share. I’m not entirely sure that it’s genuine, but in keeping with the fairy tale theme, it ought to be.
PRESS RELEASE
Bolivia compares Copenhagen negotiation process to the Matrix
Copenhagen, 14 December 2009 – In response to news that a select group of countries have been dining together to fix a deal for Copenhagen’s climate talks, and following the decision of the Presidency to hold informal consultations without any democratic and participative process for deciding representation, Pablo Solon, Bolivian ambassador to UN said the following:
“We are asking for a transparent democratic and inclusive process. It seems negotiators are living in the Matrix, while the real negotiation is taking place in the ‘Green room,’ in small stealth dinners with selective guests.”
“The presidency of the UNFCCC says that its informal consultations will be based on regional participation, but have not indicated how these will be chosen. They are creating an undemocratic parallel process where they can pick and choose only some countries.”
“It seems the only ones who have taken the “red pill” and are aware of the reality are those who marched in the streets on Saturday, who have denounced the rich countries for trying to stitch a deal that will undermine their obligation to tackle this urgent climate crisis.”
For more information or to arrange interviews, please contact:
Nick Buxton – Email nicholasbuxton@gmail.com or ring +45 26619010
How apposite, especially as the global warming panic is based on computer models of the way that the world ought to work, even though they’ve shown no skill in the past in predicting how it would work!”
December 14, 2009 | Graham
Climate Change Chutzpah
You’ve got to give Kevin Hennessey writing in today’s Courier Mail an award for climate change chutzpah.
He says:
Without the peer-review system, publication of research findings would be arbitrary, and possibly influenced by personal, social or political agendas.
Seriously?
The hack of the HadCru computers demonstrates just how much peer-review has been hijacked by “personal, social and political agendas”, but we didn’t need Climategate to tell us this. The Wegman Committee of Inquiry which put the last rites on the “Hockey Stick” graph pointed out that the peer review system, at least in so far as it touched paleo-climate reconstructions, was a case of mates reviewing mates, and that the mates didn’t actually know much.
In this day of Web 2.0 and open information architectures, the idea of “peer review” is as quaint as a gentleman’s club. It’s about time that the science community embraced transparency and allowed a proper debate on ideas, not one limited by “chaps” who determine who may or may not be “clubbable”.
Many of the great scientific ideas that govern our age were not subject to peer review. No-one demanded that Newton submit his ideas to peer review, or Galileo. They didn’t really have such a thing either when Darwin published his first paper on evolution.
The idea that only “scientists” defined as someone with a science degree rather than someone with relative intelligence or expertise, have the right to discuss scientific ideas is anti-science, as is the idea that only ideas that are peer reviewed have relevance.
The only people who advance these arguments are those who are being not scientific, but political. Which should lead us to ask what is Mr Hennessey’s “political agenda”.
December 13, 2009 | Ronda Jambe
We all need a saint – but choose carefully
It didn’t take long for some of the facts about the new Premier of NSW to surface. The fourth estate did their homework, and sure enough an article in the Sydney Morning Herald (by a woman, details torn out but now lost in the swirl of paper and electronic info that swamps me daily, and I’m not going to check the cat tray liner).
Keneally, or KKK as the columist called her, apparently approved just about every development application that came her way, including questionable projects and lots for new coal licences and the expansion of the Newcastle coal handling facilities. Should’t those have been joint planning, development and environmental decisions? In any case, that’s the sort of approach that won’t move us to a green economy. So Kristina may be cute, but she ain’t no saint. But you, wise readers, knew that already. 80% of NSW is in drought, and divine intervention is unlikely.
I keep hoping to find real leaders, and so far, Big Al is one who has held my respect. Ralph Nader is another, but can you see him getting the nod from Rome? Our home grown Sister Mary McKillop seems set to become a saint, but forgive me if I see that as a sop to the feeble minded. Which brings me to Richard Dawkins, George Monbiot and Jared Diamond as maybe not candidates for sainthood, but at least worthy of sincere appreciation. I have a vision of Big Al on Green Island, a towering, thoughtful figure, (although this was really a mystery man on Dunk Is):
More than can be said about Rudderless or Stanhopeless in the ACT.
Yesterday was the Walk Against Warming. I rode there on my bike, braving the main road on a Saturday morning with little traffic. I attend these things mostly to show support for the real saints in my canon – the organisers, young and old, who give so much energy to nonviolent education and protest.
And it is a good place to meet old friends, chat and plan to get together. One retired Labor stalwart still volunteers at the Big House. Canberra is good like that, and in the evening I found out that the young girls at the pre-Christmas barbie had been there holding a banner. Sweet 11 year olds, by time they are their parents age, about 50, the CO2 could hit 500 or more parts per million. We’re at about 380 now, and glib goals of 450 will ensure their lives will be impoverished in many ways.
If they could see what their world will offer without emergency action, and what might be gone forever, maybe they wouldn’t be so happy. I hope their families take them to see the Great Barrier Reef soon.
And I hope Keneally’s kids hold her accountable, that might mean more to her than the big boys that back her. I don’t like the vision of an embittered generation of middle aged people wandering in the ruins of Sydney’s foreshores, overgrown and decaying like Queensland’s Paronella Park, with no saints in sight:
December 07, 2009 | Graham
CEOs looking to hire
(Cross posted from What the people want).
According to a media release from the CEO Institute:
Queensland seems to have weathered the worst of the global financial crisis, with 77% of CEOs having positive views on the economy and 60% saying they were likely to hire in the next six months, according to the inaugural CEO Financial Index.
I’m sure that’s right because we did the survey. You can download the report by clicking here.
The release continues:
The CEO Financial Index is a commissioned quarterly survey of The CEO Institute’s Queensland members (the CEOs and leaders of the state’s largest private and public companies and professional firms). The Index will track expectations for the future of business and the economy. *
Sue Forrester, CEO of The CEO Institute (Qld), said major Queensland businesses were emerging from the GFC with a more focused view of their activities. Their major concerns were for the government to continue to support the economy, for consumers and other businesses to remain confident and for banks to become more liberal in their lending policies.
“While there is a more positive sentiment out there, there is also caution – the survey shows that as a result of measures taken during the down-turn, it appears CEOs will ensure profitability recovers first before there is a significant increase in investment in capital or people,†Ms Forrester said.
“The Index figure is driven by a very positive rating for the direction in which the economy is heading, with 77% of respondents seeing it as heading in the right direction, and only 10% viewing it negatively.
“Their reaction to this favourable view of the economy is to hire staff, with 60% saying they are likely to hire and 25% saying they are unlikely to hire.
“Intentions in terms of capital investment are evenly balanced, with 44% likely to invest and 43% likely to maintain current levels. The net result is that almost half the business leaders (49%) expected an increase in profit, compared to 34% who didn’t,†she said.
Ms Forrester said respondents indicated the biggest impact on their business in the next 6 months would be government spending (16%), performance of the resources industry (13%) and business confidence (11%).
Other concerns were interest rates, exchange rates and the price of commodities.
CEOs said the biggest impact on their business in the past 6 months had been business confidence (15%), the banking and finance sector (13%), the government (10%) and government spending (8%).
“The main concerns for the past six months include a lack of consumer and confidence as a result of the global financial crisis, which was often seen as unwarranted,†Ms Forrester said.
She said CEOs indicated that the most important lessons they had learned from coping with the global financial crisis were: to get the basics right (15%), to be flexible (13%) and securing finance (11%).
Direct quotes from Queensland CEOs participating in the survey:
1. “Property development in Queensland has almost come to a complete stop, as a result of capital not being available and the state government’s planning policies.â€
2. “…banks are being very unrealistic about their funding approach.â€
3. “I learned how to hunt again. The boom period for 10 years up to 2008 meant gaining business was relatively simple and you could be selective in what business you took on. This led to laziness and complacency. The GFC saw an immediate drop in business and a tightening of budgets. This forced me to rethink our strategy and focus on aggressively seeking out new business with an absolute focus on closing every opportunity. As we come out of the crisis this is providing us with growth opportunities.â€
* The CEO Financial Index is conducted online for The CEO Institute by polling company Internet Thinking. The Index is derived from surveying respondents’ predictions for the next half-year in four different business areas – economy, employment, investment and profitability. Movements over time will show how the leaders of significant businesses in Queensland view the economy. It will also be possible to track the Index against growth in the economy and other factors.
The initial CEO Financial Index rating is 30. More than 60 business leaders responded to the initial survey.
About The CEO Institute
Established in 1992 as a peer-to-peer membership organisation for chief executives and with offices in Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney and Adelaide, The CEO Institute has become Australia’s premier network of business leaders. The CEO Institute provides a peer-learning forum for CEOs and senior executives to meet regularly and share insights and exchange views on the business issues that matter. www.ceo.com.au
December 06, 2009 | Ronda Jambe
She’s no Sarah Palin – but is she transformative?
When I first heard about Kristina Keneally as Premier of NSW, the compaison seemed unavoidable: attractive, 40-ish, religious, conservative, dedicated mother, and although relatively inexperienced, suddenly shot to high attention in a role of great importance by mighty powerbrokers.
But having now read a bit about her and spoken to a Green leftie friend from NSW Labor, it looks like those superficial demographics and circumstances are all they have in common.
I was told she ‘gets’ climate change and is involved with Green issues. The papers tell me she and her husband both came to politics through their religious and social justice convictions, not the other way around.
So let’s all give her the benefit of the doubt, while placing the bar pretty high. Of course, NSW politics is so low that any move towards earning the people’s trust, as she hopes to do, will be welcome. But therein lies the challenge.
At every scale I see leaders who have failed the ‘tranformative’ test. That means to break through and actually help society and government move in new directions. Getting the old directions a bit tidier, a bit less rent-seeking or a bit fewer political donations isn’t good enough. It’ s like an unfit person standing up to change channels on the TV and calling it exercise – pretense.
Obama has failed the transformative test. The fine print on his health reforms show that it is a step backwards, as it will obscure the deeper problems. And as for the military-industrial complex, well, how many troops would you like with that surge?
At the tiny scale of the ACT, the Greens, with the balance of power, have also failed the test. They are playing with the margins, moving gently and politely towards a few pecks at sustainability. The big money projects continue: the duplication of a ridiculous road and an aboretum in a city that has less and less rain every season.
And Shh! don’t anybody mention population limits, it’s just not PC.
One can’t help but wish Keneally well, and hope that she has the guts and the guidance to get some real change happening. In 15 months, when NSW hold an election, she might then have a hope of prolonging what has become a bad ad for the ALP. Managing the electricity privitisation to encourage renewables and not let prices rise too much, if it’s too late to stop it, would be a good start. In the meantime, I send her this bouquet:
December 05, 2009 | Graham
Abbott to get boost from byelections
#Higgins and #Bradfield will give Abbott a positive boost in his leadership and should significantly change the terms of the AGW debate.
There has been a number of byelections caused by the Opposition since they lost office in 2007. Mayo and Lyne were both similar to this one in that the ALP did not contest. In both those seats there was a large protest vote against the Coalition which resulted in one of those seats – Lyne – being lost.
The media expected the Liberal Party to do badly in these byelections, with some justification given the leadership mess, and the presupposition that an anti-ETS position was at odds with the electorate. (If you want to know what the electorate really thought click here.)
That the Liberal Party actually had a swing towards it after preferences means that the media will have to write it up as a good result, given their previous expectation and reporting.
This means a number of things.
- The Liberals will be more comfortable with Abbott, so it should make it easier for him to assert his leadership in the short-term
- The media can’t dimiss Abbott as being out of the mainstream and unelectable
- AGW and the ETS will be subjected to closer scrutiny as it is now obvious that a large number of electors do not automatically regard them as reasons to vote for the government
That in Higgins the Greens ran high profile global warming hysteric Clive Hamilton who has argued democracy is not up to the challenge of dealing with global warming reinforces that last point. Perhaps now we will see some Australian coverage of the fraud that has been exposed amongst some of the paleo-climatologists working out of the Hadley Climate Research Unit and their international peers with data records deliberately manipulated to show exaggerated late 20th Century warming.
Abbott’s elevation was based almost entirely on the ETS issue, so any change in the terms of debate will help him. It will also probably harden his line on it.
These results make it less lkely that the government will call a double dissolution. They demonstrate that a good result is not a foregone conclusion, and that the Greens are not necessarily going to do well.
But paradoxically the result makes Abbott’s task harder because in the public’s mind it will make him a more serious contender for PM. That means electors will be watching him more closely and demanding more of him. So while it helps his authority in the short-term, it puts him under more pressure in the longer term.
Note: I am not suggesting that Abbott will win the next election, as some on FB appear to think I am. I still expect Labor to win the next federal election which has been my consistent position since the last election. (Added 6:48 a.m. December 6, 2009)
December 01, 2009 | Graham
OLO is here for the next day or so
On Line Opinion will be publishing on this blog for the next day or so. We have a severe problem with our server which we are attending to. Ambit Gambit is on a different server and provides most of the same comment facilities available on OLO. So to honour our commitments to our authors, particularly given the turmoil in federal politics, we will put the articles up here on a temporary basis. When OLO is restored to good health the articles will be reposted there.
Thanks for your support and feel free to email me if you want to ask any questions.
Update: 1/12/09 Well Andrew our server admin managed to get OLO up and running again on the server. We appear to have a problem with our raid, so he’s bypassed that. As a result he says that the site is not too stable. We are going to move to a new and better server. Apologies. The original problem was our service providers and I’m not sure whether it caused this one, or whether this happened concidentally.