225 thoughts on “Monday Message Board”

  1. Well, I have to say CSIRO put together a great document demonstrating how our climate has changed: the deniers have gone apoplectic! It’s good to see science trying to get on the front foot again and correct the lies and distortions of the denial movement. Question is, how effective is this approach going to be?

  2. The PM is becoming too PC by half. When he speaks at new forum it seems he will now thank the prior indigenous inhabitants for their graciousness. Some might feel it sounds like someone who could be described as rhyming with banker. Increasingly I’m wondering how much of the PM is talk and not action. Sure we avoided recession but the Chinese also bought a lot of coal and iron ore from us and not other countries. The insulation scheme was his only serious venture into climate mitigation and that didn’t go so well. If an election must be held this year and the PM goes into continuous apology mode he might not get another chance.

  3. General question for everyone. What are your ‘morning coffee’ websites?

    I regularly check out:

    Quiggin
    An Onymous Lefty
    Deltoid
    The Automatic Earth
    The Oil Drum
    CanDoBetter…

    Where do others go?

  4. @Megan

    Good question!

    – Arts & Letters Daily is a great site, links to lots of quality essays.
    – JQ’s site
    – DeSmogBlog
    – Some pc-gaming blogs… (OK I have an addiction, but it’s under control I swear!)
    – BoingBoing

  5. @Megan
    Quiggin
    economistsview
    petermartin.blogspot.com/
    pipingshrike
    bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/
    johnkay.com/ (only updated weekly, but always read)
    deltoid
    Christopher Joye

  6. @Mike
    I have a serious podcast addiction, I’m not sure that is under control. There is now more interesting stuff available worldwide than there is time to listen to it and digest it

  7. @Michael

    In addition to Lambert’s blog, I usually manage to get to Larvatusprodeo and BNC and lately I’ve been checking out The Drum at the ABC. I take an occasional look at The Onion for laughs.

  8. @Fran Barlow
    I look at Larvatusprodeo too, but that’s a lunch or afternoon tea break site. The onion is a classic, and very occasionally scarily accurate.

  10. @Megan
    Quiggin, metafilter, daily kos… Lp now and then… Too busy for much else, there’s not enough hours in a day to stay on top of things. The web really is a procrastinators best friend/worst enemy

  11. Here (of course), MetaFilter, Larvatus Prodeo, Peter Martin, a general cruise through Crikey blogs, that’s about it most days. For more leisurely weekendy stuff, Green&Gold Rugby, Deltoid maybe, the Drum, Club Troppo, BLDGBLOG, some miniature painting sites.

    Getting reliable news is harder and harder to find. The Age is the best of a very bad lot nowadays. I tried to convert to the ABC but they’re mostly just a NEWSCorp rebroadcaster.

  13. Hermit: Where have you been for the last five years? Just about every official function starts with a mention of the traditional land owners – including such hotbeds of radicalism as Woollahra Council.

  14. It’s probably a bit too lengthy for Message Board, but I wonder if John could bring us up to speed on the benefits/negatives of privatisation? As an old leftist I was opposed to it originally but have tried to keep an open mind. It may be relevant,too, given the strife Anna Bligh is in over the issue, albeit it could be argued that her problems stem from reneging on her word.

    In Victoria it has been argued that private and commercial costs for power use have come down since privatisation, but as a consumer I have not noticed especially. All I see are desperate door-to-door salespeople every few weeks trying to convince me to swap utilities. I even wonder if it might be worth paying a bit more not to be bothered by them.

    I also wonder how much we might have lost in skills development with the carving up of transport and power utilities and the old Telecom, etc. All these seemed to have programs of producing more apprentices than were literally needed by themselves on the grounds that we needed those tradespeople. They had the fat to do this, whereas many businesses needed the skills but were too small and marginal to carry apprentices.

    I suppose you could extend the concern to the benefits of financial deregulation. In the old days superannuation was largely controlled by various government bodies, conservative insurers like the AMP and CML and so on. Investment was very cautious, but it was directed to local industry, ensuring some security and future for employees. It may be that capital needs to be quicker and more flexible than that but it then becomes a question of balancing return and risk. It is interesting that industry-based schemes seem to be gaining favour, and perhaps the market is starting to correct from the earlier higher-risk commissions-based schemes.

    In the light of action needed to head off the GFC it might be opportune to look at these matters.

  15. The insulation scheme was his only serious venture into climate mitigation and that didn’t go so well.

    Not very well as a media event. Rather well as a way of decreasing energy bills, of giving short term employment to low-skilled Aussies, of raising (introducing) safety standards to an unregulated industry.

  18. Since I don’t have official morning tea, lunch, or arvo breaks, I’ll take it to mean whenever I have a coffee; so, sites are:
    * the current one I’m commenting on, ie quiggin
    * Eli Rabbett’s web site
    * RealClimate once a week or so (SNR gets a bit low but often there are leads)
    * DeSmog
    * NYT
    * arXiv – for nerd math stuff; keeps me up to date on how to speak geek
    * Tamino’s web site
    * Skeptical Science
    * Very, very rarely CA or WTF (work it out), and generally only under sufferance.
    * Amazon for new books
    * The Third Edge for philosophy and other bits

    No doubt I’ve forgotten a couple.

    NB: I have the time to browse, since I’m on no one’s clock, and no, I’m not on Tax Payer’s Money (before anyone can jump in and say that).

  21. I forgot to mention above, but I have to recommend Scott Horton’s ‘No Comment’ at Harpers. It really is the most superb mix of politics, law, history and art, and the mind boggles that his blog is actually the product of a single person.

    Asia Times Online is another good semi-regular read, including the Letters to the Editor there.

    The Al Jazeera English news feed gives a better summary of world news than any Australian source.

    I hate to admit it, but Things Bogans Like is a guilty pleasure

  22. @wilful
    Ahh, so I’m not alone in thinking that ABC News Online is Regurgitator. It’s not even up to date news, often being just a rehash of a story already fairly played out on Sky News.

    BTW, The Chief Executive of CSIRO, Megan Clark, states in clear language that climate change is real…and human GHG emissions as a cause is beyond doubt.
    Interesting, given that her background is in mining geology, and she worked for BHP Billiton some time before joining CSIRO.

  23. without assessing the content of ABC online, the visual layout is impenetrable,
    its almost as if its designed to put people off and obscure information,
    quite incredible

  24. Something I’ve been looking forward to seeing is the Greens to move a motion calling on the Government to establish an independent National Inquiry into Australia’s Population to 2050.
    “Australia’s population should be determined by the capacity of our environment and our infrastructure,” said Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown.”Australia cannot support an increase in population to 35 million by 2050.”
    http://greensmps.org.au/content/media-release/set-population-infrastructure-environment-capacity-through-national-inquiry

    Did anyone see landline yesterday? What a hash the Rudd govt has made of the REC’s scheme. While Wong has now put forward measures to fix the mess, they wont come into effect until next year! Der!! This government clearly is captured by the fossil fuel industry.

    My morning sites are Quiggin, LP, Breakfast politics and the TV station sites. Lunch is NSW water info, GCC, TOD, Treehugger and Commsec. The Greens and Peter Martin are also visited daily.

  26. Sick of America, yes. Sick of the warmongering, the hypocrisy, the greed, the abuse of power. Feel free to add to this list.

  28. Michael :
    @Mike
    I have a serious podcast addiction, I’m not sure that is under control. There is now more interesting stuff available worldwide than there is time to listen to it and digest it

    So true, so many podacts so little time… personal favs on the iPod:

    – Point of inquiry
    – Skeptics guide to the universe
    – History of Rome
    – BBC History Magazine
    – Philosophy Bites
    – Philosophers Zone

    And sooooooo many more!

  29. TerjeP (say tay-a) :
    I notice that Andrew Bolt has an article up refering to John Quiggin as “ethically unconstrained”.
    http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/quiggin_complains_of_his_own_behaviour/
    I know I regretted the last time I pasted such a link on one blog about another but I figure in the name of balance I’d try it one more time.

    Meh, Bolt. More framing of the issue and cut and paste denial. Pass on further commenting on his gutter tactics.

  34. @TerjeP (say tay-a)
    Creepy behaviour Terje. You love JQs blog and post three for any one of anyone elses yet at every opportunity you want to have a dig at JQ….I really think you are a worm because lets face it…you prefer the tone of the discussions here than over with your libertarian denialist friends.
    A true hypocrite if ever there was one.

  36. Alice Says:

    …you prefer the tone of the discussions here than over with your libertarian denialist friends.

    I don’t think this is actually true. Terje seems to have become the god of the goldbug wierdoes over at Catallaxy. Even the denialists bow to Terje because of his goldbug wisdom.

    From a quick read through Terje’s posts at Catallaxy over the last month or two, he’s setting himself up at one of the leading libertarian liars.

  37. @SJ
    SJ
    He is practising that right here as well….shame…are there no drugs that can correct this malady (like long acting truth serums?)

    Ive got another interesting sitefor the list btw…its not really a blog (although there may be one there) but I love the name.
    “the post autistic economics society”. I had been subconsciously wondering whether economics had become autistic before I found this site. Clearly…quite a few students and others think so.

    http://www.paecon.net/

  38. Donald Oats – I see that the Atheist Conference made the lead story for the second section of the Oz today. They even reported the amounts that Christians have received for events whilst noticing that the atheists received no government assistance.

  39. @Jill Rush
    Streuth! I’m pleasantly surprised. Hope they also mentioned that it wasn’t all about bashing Christians – but some humour at the expense of religion was impossible to avoid, given the array of speakers at the conference. The Age today had one article which concentrated on Richard Dawkins, and while they quoted mainly the jibes he is legendary for, they did in fairness quote fully and with some explanation about his overall talk, which was titled something like “Gratitude for Evolution, And The Evolution of Gratitude”. The Age also had another article in which two academic writers basically blindly lobbed polemical rocks over the parapet, hoping to hit a target. At least that’s how it seemed to me – I didn’t notice much in the way of argument, more’s the pity. I actually wondered if either of them had turned up at the Atheism Convention, before writing their article.

    And on that other topic of the list of sites read: In the past I tried keeping up with some of the ahh more sceptical climate science sites, but I ended up with a bellyful of emptiness^fn1. I did the Lavoisier site, Icecap in the US (Bob Carter pops up), Jenny M.’s site – before the closure, Jo Nova’s site, and sundry others. If you are sceptical of the science as you currently understand it, the afore-mentioned sites won’t be a positive contribution, scientifically speaking. After reading/slogging through Plimer’s tome (and Lomborg’s before that), and the outright denier sites, my stamina for it declined to zero. Why bother if it is just one big slugfest without an outcome, without a plausible theory explaining why the GHGs emitted have failed to contribute to the apparent warming, and most importantly, without more than arm-waving to support said conjectures. Usually in the physical sciences a certain amount of reasoning is supported with mathematical reasoning using equations for conservation of momentum, energy, angular momentum and so on. But most sceptics can’t do that since they have rubbished every numerically solved quantitative model used. Kind of rules the modelling thing out for the sceptics.

  40. I was disappointed that the Atheism conference sold out so quickly.
    I read that silly article written by those two academics and as a result ended up looking at an extract from the Cambridge Companion to Atheism online via having looked at some stuff about Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi. His stuff is probably worth reading. Apparently he says in “Atheists: A Psychological Profile”, which a review (in the Companion) of the psychological data on atheists, that atheists tend to be more intelligent and better educated than believers; less authoritarian, less suggestible, less dogmatic, and less prejudiced than believers; and more tolerant of others, law-abiding, compassionate, and conscientious.” (Maybe subsidy worthy?)

    Sounds credible. Of course, even if correct, this doesn’t logically necessitate that the atheist position is right, but it certainly does not mean that it is wrong.

  41. @Freelander
    I talked with a reasonable cross-section of the attendees – almost a random sample, given the size of the crowd. My no doubt biased opinion is that they were a fairly reasonable slice of modern Australiana, and a few o/s individuals too. If there was a connecting thread I would venture that it is the following:
    * Most individuals there either did not believe in the existence of god(s) or supernatural beings of any sort, or at least thought the likelihood to be incredibly small, smaller than a gnat’s nosehair. In my case I prefer to state it by saying “I have a lack of belief in gods.”^fn1 The occasional agnostic and a couple of Christians popped up too.
    * As a consequence, gods in general, and Christian God in particular (since most of the attendees were from Christian communities, or at least had an early experience of Christianity as their inherited religion), aren’t really a part of their lives, and this leads to an interest in ethical behaviour and morality that is “untainted” by a religious premise.
    * Nearly all of the people I met had a fairly reasoned viewpoint. One person I met though, had gone through the full-on born-again Christian thing with Pentacosts, and eventually drifted away from it. He said something to the effect that the performance part started to feel a bit immature.
    * The people that mentioned it saw this life as the only life, so living this one well obviously took priority over living for the (mythical) after-life.
    * That’s about it for commonality. Pretty much everything else was diversity in abundance.

    fn1: My reason for saying it as “I have a lack of belief in gods” is because for me it isn’t exactly a question of “believing that there is no god”. Instead, I just reckon that while I can imagine all sorts of gods and supernatural beings, if there is just no corroborative evidence of the metaphorical footprints of a god or gods upon the planet, then imagination is not enough. Or perhaps to put it another way, I believe that the likelihood of the non-existence of god(s) is at least as high as the likelihood that my body will die at most in a few decades time.
    Everyone sane thinks that they will die eventually, although they clearly cannot prove it definitively to their own satisfaction- and still be around to know that they have proven it. What people actually do is observe that other people die, and the infer that the same applies to themselves. In fact, they may even come to a reasonable guess as to the oldest age they might live to. So, it is not necessary to “believe there are no gods”; rather, it is enough to treat a statement like “there are no gods” as being the equivalent of saying “I think that the likelihood of there being no gods is at least as strong as the likelihood of my death occurring within the next few decades.” I’m a bit tired so this might not read too coherently 😛

  42. @Donald Oats
    Oh, and I almost forgot the most important thing:
    * The vast majority seemed if not maniacally happy, at least pretty content.

    Not bad – until they burn in the firey pits of Hell bwaahahahaha! I just had to say that.

  43. I really think you are a worm

    Alice – at dinner parties it is customary not to refer to other guests as worms.

  44. The comments about Steve McIntyre (Climategate:The smoking gun) have given Quiggin international exposure.
    Unfortunately, it has been widely compared to the international exposure recently enjoyed by Graham Readfearn following his stunning performance at the recent debate in Brisbane.
    I am dismayed that someone claiming to be a professional academic, like the good professor, should show such a complete lack of common sense and awareness of common law.
    Like many expressing an opinion, I would be delighted if Mr. McIntyre used the full force of the law to deal with this slur.
    As it is, I doubt that he would do so as he at least has some personal and professional standards that he adheres to.
    Why is the alarmist faction so devoid of social skills and stoked with hatred? It says an awful lot about you.

  45. it has been widely compared to the international exposure recently enjoyed by Graham Readfearn

    Are you sure about that?

  46. Where does one begin the reading lesson for Quiggin.

    “By July 2009, CRU had advised McIntyre that climate data used in their work was available from the original sources, and that he should seek it from them.”

    Really? Does this man not read the dates on things and the contents:

    http://climateaudit.org/2009/07/24/cru-refuses-data-once-again/

    McIntyre requested data that had been sent to Webster. This request was
    made June 26th. CRU responded within their mandated 20 day window.
    On July 24th Mcintyre wrote the blog post and explains CRUs claim:
    the data CANNOT be shared because of confidentiality agreements.
    Further, since CRU did not indicate WHICH data was covered and which data
    was not, And since they claimed to have agreements which precluded the
    kind of release made to Webster, it makes sense to ask them for copies of the agreements.

    Our good professor must have read this blog, because he [mis]notes what followed:

    “24 July 2009: McIntyre organizes a spam FOI campaign against CRU, asking his supporters to send requests nominating five countries whose data they wanted of the form:

    I hereby make a EIR/FOI request in respect to any confidentiality agreements)restricting transmission of CRUTEM data to non-academics involing(sic) the following countries: [insert 5 or so countries that are different from ones already requested]

    (unsurprisingly, his supporters ignored the request to stick to new countries, and sent multiples of the same request)”

    Now, read that. In front of him he has the actual request. It’s a request for confidentiality AGREEMENTS, not data. AGREEMENTS. And why agreements?
    because the data was supposedly “confidential.” not public.

    Reading Comprehension: F.

    Now, What did CRU do with this MOUNTAIN of FOIA requests? They consolidated the requests into one request. They applied their 18 hour Rule. No more than 18 hours for a request. How do I know this? My request, went in with everyone elses. Except, I made it a little different. on purpose. I asked for something that took more than 18 hours, so they DENIED that portion of my request and cited their 18 hour rule.

    In the end, CRU complied with the 50 or so requests. How? Jones wrote a 1000 word essay.
    They posted 4-5 agreements. One of these agreements precluded release to anyone, including webster, including rutherford. So essentially they showed that Jones Violated confidentiality agreements. he did the same in 2002, again in 2005, and then with Webster.

  47. I’ll correct the post to fix this error. Maybe you can explain how this distinction makes a difference.

  48. The insinuation by the good professor that McIntyre was in some way privy…..is nonsense. It’s quite obvious the FSB and MI5 were the perpetrators of the CRU hack.

  49. Not to all .. El Gordo is the nym of a regular disinformationist on this issue at Deltoid …

    Contrary to El Gordo, McIntyre is not a professor of anything. Contrary to popular beleif, he is not even, properly speaking, a mathematician. His short bio (from wiki) reads as follows:

    McIntyre attended the University of Toronto Schools, a university-preparatory school in Toronto, finishing first in the national high school mathematics competition of 1965.[1] He went on to study mathematics at the University of Toronto and graduated with a bachelor of science degree in 1969. McIntyre then obtained a Commonwealth Scholarship to read philosophy, politics and economics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, graduating in 1971.[1][2] Although he was offered a graduate scholarship, McIntyre decided not to pursue studies in mathematical economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[1]

    McIntyre worked for 30 years in the mineral business,[1] the last part of these in the hard-rock mineral exploration as an officer or director of several public mineral exploration companies.[3] He has also been a policy analyst at both the governments of Ontario and of Canada.[4] He was the president and founder of Northwest Exploration Company Limited and a director of its parent company, Northwest Explorations Inc. When Northwest Explorations Inc. was taken over in 1998 by CGX Resources Inc. to form the oil and gas exploration company CGX Energy Inc., McIntyre ceased being a director. McIntyre was a strategic advisor for CGX in 2000 through 2003.[5]

    People should note that he was not a disinterested party when he took up the cudgels for the polluters.

  50. Christopher Polis :
    I’ll admit to being somewhat skeptical about the whole matter. It seemed to be a bit too much like the Y2K issue – something that diverts a lot of resources from real problems to deal with a possibly catastrophic scenario.

    Such as?

    So I started wandering around the web trying to find information on the topic. I found a very divided world. But heres the thing. One side appeared to be made up of people like me; intelligent, technically minded engineers, scientists and programmers trying to understand what was going on for themselves.

    Is this realistic? Do these lay people who may have “technical minds” have the requisite knowledge and resources to figure it out for themselves? How are their conclusions to be tested? Shouldn’t there be some process, perhaps the scientific method to verify their research. They could even publish it in a peer reviewed journal.

    Asking rational questions and trying to come up with answers, finding themselves frustrating short of being able to gather the information they needed to be able to do so.

    Have you tried? What data can’t you get? What attempts have you made? How many FOI requests have you filed that have been refused?

    See, technical people ‘know’ how the scientific process works. And what was revealed was not science at work, but manipulation, intimidation and self belief.

    The evidence on this point is contested. How much of the current science is tainted by “manipulation, intimidation and self belief”, please share your evidence.

    And I don’t extrapolate that to other scientific fields. I still expect that other areas are done properly. There was enough horror expressed by scientist out of field that other areas have basically not been tainted by the corruption revealed by climategate.

    Why not? Perhaps because it doesn’t suit your ideological position and it would make you look like a crank. How does climategate effect all the other institutions involved in climate research? Were is the evidence of mass collusion.

    People who support what is now ‘unclean’ science are now suspect.
    People who describe an entire field of science as ‘unclean’ based on isolated incidents are highly suspect.
    ’skeptics’.
    Time to move on to stage two of the grief process. Stop denying that climate science is now tainted beyond the point of inherent public belief. Get angry about it. Isolate the problem. Cleanse it from the field. Start afresh.

    You sound like a sophisticated concern troll. You start out with the classic identity testimonial about coming to the debate late and go on to make unfounded claims about the entire climate science field being suspect. The idea that ALL climate science should be suspended and go back and start from scratch is implausible and ridiculous. There is nothing stopping anyone from contributing to the science and publish their research whenever they so choose. Fundamental tenants can be challenged anytime if you can demonstrate results and have them replicated.

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