I’ve been on holidays over Easter, and am now going completely offgrid for the rest of the week. So, no posting. Commenters, please observe extra courtesy while I’m away.
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John Quiggin 
We can do ANYTHING we want … for a whole week …
Memo to self: “Behave Iko”.
Although politically I can’t agree with much Prof. Quiggin believes in, I bear witness he has had some tough times for saying things as he sees them.
He deserves recognition for that.
I hope the following link may bring some inspiration:
http://anticap.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/economist-of-the-day-69/
Now that Tony Abbott intends to put Tim Flannery on the dole queue I wonder what happens to the Climate Change Authority? Pr Q is on the board. Perhaps climate scientists could retrain as nannies to so we’d need fewer of them (nannies that is) under s.457 visas.
It lends credence to the view Direct Action on climate will fade into No Action.
It can’t happen soon enough.
Some say Tim Flannery is just as relevant to the climate change debate in Australia as Al Gore is to the US. In other words not very.
I’d say when Flannery is shown the door the CCA will be next. I wonder if continued funding of the BoM and the Academy of Science will require them to pull their heads in.
@TerjeP
Why’s that?
@TerjeP
You seem used to stating controversial opinions without any rational basis, as if any and every potential reader on a political blog, where people explicitly come to debate, already shares your views.
Is it something you do frequently?
Lance – it’s not a controversial opinion. And it’s not without a rational basis. However if people disagree, and think it worthy of discussion, then reasoning can be supplied. The essence of it is that Tim Flannery is a taxpayer funded lobbiest and taxpayer funded lobbiests should all be axed. He also makes silly predictions and pronouncements. Like his assertion that the rains will never again fill our dams.
Iko bites his tongue.
@TerjeP
TerjeP, have you read the transcript of the interview your quoting? It was on landline in 2007, you can Google it. If you think it provides a rational basis for claiming that he “asserted that the rains will never again fill our dams” I look forward to hearing it. Otherwise I look forward to a retraction.
Here is the link Nathan:-
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s1844398.htm
Not only does he assert that rains will never again fill our dams he also pins the drought on global warming in spite of expert advice at the time that the drought may have nothing to do with global warming.
Oh yes he says “if that trend continues”. However he certainly wasn’t suggesting that the trend continuing was some sort of 50/50 deal. His words over a long period of time were designed to provide a view that the drought was some new fixture we would have to live with and that it was a result of global warming. He is a sweet talking charlatan. He was also wrong. The trend didn’t continue.
As Tony Abbott suggested on the radio it is not as if we won’t hear the opinion of Tim Flannery if we stop giving him taxpayers money. He’ll still be free to tell us all what he thinks and no doubt he will.
TerjeP :
“He is a sweet talking charlatan.”
No, Terje, people like you who babble on incessantly about the gaiety of the Gold Standard without a coherent and intelligent argument year in year out are much more worthy of the charlatan label. Everybody in public life makes the odd silly statement, including Tony Rabbit, but you do it almost every time you touch a keyboard. And I mean that in a very courteous way š
@TerjeP
I’ll take the second part of your comment as the answer to my question (and paraphrase you): “Because he is a lobbyist.”
If that is so, what is he lobbying for? What interests, external to the public interest, does he represent and what is it they want him to achieve on their behalf through the lobbying?
Flannery is an excellent writer and a conservationist with sensible instincts. He is trying to persuade people to care for the world we live in. I’d certainly prefer Flannery to those foolish people on the right who see an insistence on seeking good environmental standards as a leftwing conspiracy to expand the role of government and whose social consciousness and awareness is restricted to defending private property rights. He is good value and a decent person.
State governments took the Millenium drought seriously enough to build billion dollar desalination plants in every state. It wasn’t only Flannery who got rainfall forecasts wrong.
Geothermal power and wind power companies. He used his public paid position to promoting Geodynamics whilst being a shareholder. Geodymanics also received $90 million as a government handout. And just in the news today we have Flannery ridiculing people that suffer from the noise pollution from wind turbines.
Any govt appointed climate czar who says low carbon Technology X is good or that low carbon Technology Y is bad has exceeded their remit. I find on googling that Flannery has criticised coal exports but way back in 2007. Nary a word while wearing the official robes. As for desalination it seems likely to get a good workout in a 2013 in WA, SA and Vic with reduced hydro in Tas and inland NSW.
@TerjeP
Which Terje parses as follows:
At moments like these, I do wonder whether Terje’s hostility to state policy is constraining his ability to read simple English, or he is simply being deceptive.
The passage read in context does not amount to saying that rains will never again fill our dams. Flannery specifies southern Australia, which is clearly an impact of climate change. He also speaks of winter rains rather than the monsoonal rains that filled the sources of the Darling. For reasons that are obvious, winter rain is far more useful to farmers than summer rain. This is a point Flannery makes in his books.
Now I’m not a huge fan of Flannery. I regard him at times as careless in his language in an area where deniers love to cherrypick, but this particular troll is just another of those Zombie memes.
This is going to be a long thread.
Fran beat me to it because I was carefully reading the transcript Terje linked to.
Terje, do you accept that nowhere in that transcript does Flannery say “never”?
When you quote someone, you have to use their exact words if you are to avoid accusations of inaccuracy or dishonesty.
Like others here, I don’t particularly give a fig about Flannery one way or the other, but I take intellectual honesty very seriously in discussions about serious stuff like climate change and policy.
I love Tim Flannery. He has written several brilliantly thought provoking books like the Future Eaters; climbed mountains and swum rivers to document the mammals of New Guinea; discovered fossils; and developed and popularised theories that apply to the flora of the Americas as well as Australia. While Flannery was doing all this, Terje was busy refining his much ignored and ultimately worthless theories on the gold standard, to the amusement of many netizens š
@TerjeP
Other people seem to be making the point fairly convincingly so I’ll be brief. I have read the interview, in detail, because this bare faced lie regarding Flannery has been floating around the internet even since Bolt fabricated it a few years ago. Anyone who want’s to read the quote will see that “..assert that rains will never again fill our dams..” is a total distortion. More to the point, you yourself admit that he includes the all important caveat “if the trend continues” which means what Flannery actually said is logically mutually exclusive with the extreme “never again” claim you ascribed to him.
Of course the lie has “Bolt”-ed around the world before the truth has even put its running shoes on.
Rupert Murdoch’s Piers Ackerman is also now justifiably famous for lying about a ‘quote’: “unless we announce disasters, no one will listen”.
He attributed that quote not to any old hippy but to Sir John Houghton’s writing in a published book. But of course it wasn’t true. It was never written in the book. Murdoch’s stooge lied.
Lying is OK for some people. In fact for far too many people today it is essential to the way they fund their day to day living. Not their Ferraris, their bread and butter and rent and mortgage.
We have become a society based almost entirely on dishonesty.
@TerjeP
Can you support this statement of fact with a link:
It’s just that it doesn’t appear to be true.
As an aside, it seems you get a lot of your ideas from Murdoch’s well known liars. That isn’t defamatory, I’m talking about people who have written things that are not only untrue but which those people could not possibly have reasonably thought to be true when they wrote them.
Leaving aside the fact that several of the people who worked for Murdoch at News of The World when they were hacking phones on an industrial scale (including those of a murdered child) are now working for him in Australia, at what point should we reject an entire corporation and all of its entities because it is simply repugnant to civilised society?
This isn’t just aimed at Terje, I’m serious: How much of this is too much?
Flannery is OK (I’ve read his books, articles and seen his video). He is a pioneer and a disruptive element and is upsetting to those that don’t like change. His opponents invariably resort to fraudulent means to establish their case.
Flannery on wind turbine noise:-
http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/article/2013/03/28/564865_latest-news.html
I understand Flannery is on the payroll of two companies in the wind energy business.
I’ve read one of his books (The Weather Makers) and watched some of his TV appearances and read the occasional article by him.
You may have read Flannery Terje, but you possibly don’t have the intellectual capacity to understand him. It seems to me to be like a screwdriver (that is you) trying to understand the complexity of a cordless drill.
Stick to Blot; his views are on your cognitive level and the fact that you are a classic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect will not be so obvious.
@TerjeP
You are keen on the ad hominem here but short on arguing that Flannery’s reamrks are not fair comment. Clearly, when the cause suits you, anecdata (in this case some unnamed “nurse” who says she’s seen people suffering ill-effects from wind turbines) suffices.
I find it amusing how often people who are inveterate naysayers (self-described ‘sceptics’) on hard science in this part of policy are entirely credulous when claims against the science suit them. Any little straw will serve.
You embarrass yourself when you post like this Terje.
I’m not attacking the science. I’m attacking the position and the individual that occupies it.
Screwdrivers understand cordless drills about as well as they understand anything. This seems a rather tortured metaphor.
@TerjeP
That is interesting. Apart from the fact that it isn’t from “today”, I see it is yet another Murdoch source.
There is nothing in there showing Flannery ridiculing sick people.
My observations about intellectual honesty apply here too.
This thread is giving me lots of laughs. I’m not taking anything seriously until our host is back.
@Megan
Quite right Megan. A member of the audience took a bit of a swing — “sick with envy” but Flannery acknowledged that some people might well be feeling anxious about it. The idea that Flannery was ‘ridiculing’ such folk is probably based on the latest post doing the rightwing rounds using the word “derided” and which also contain the references to Flannery’s apparent role on the Sustainability Advisory Boards of Tata and Siemens*. This is clearly where Terje’s grasp of the issue comes from.
*It’s not clear whether this role is an honorary or a paid position. Given that Tata and Siemens are competitors, it’s hard to imagine that Flannery could be paid by both.
I think Flannery was already seen by the general public as too partisan to make it worthwhile putting him on the Climate Commission. But that said, I have come to the view that some of his claims are now just routinely dealt with in a dishonest way by Bolt and the likes of Catallaxy. I posted this in a comments thread at Catallaxy about a year ago, but I think it worth repeating:
I do tire of the dishonest, out of full context, quoting of Flanneryās ārain wonāt fill the damsā answer from Lateline in 2007. Here it is in full:
SALLY SARA: What will it mean for Australian farmers if the predictions of climate change are correct and little is done to stop it? What will that mean for a farmer?
PROFESSOR TIM FLANNERY: Weāre already seeing the initial impacts and they include a decline in the winter rainfall zone across southern Australia, which is clearly an impact of climate change, but also a decrease in run-off. Although weāre getting say a 20 per cent decrease in rainfall in some areas of Australia, thatās translating to a 60 per cent decrease in the run-off into the dams and rivers. Thatās because the soil is warmer because of global warming and the plants are under more stress and therefore using more moisture. So even the rain that falls isnāt actually going to fill our dams and our river systems, and thatās a real worry for the people in the bush. If that trend continues then I think weāre going to have serious problems, particularly for irrigation.
The question was being asked at the height of the drought. His answer is qualified by talking about āinitial impactsā and later by āif that trend continuesā.
The reference to āthe rain that fallsā can at the very worst, be described as ambiguous. In context, however, I think it is extremely unlikely that you can fairly say he was arguing that floods and heavy rain would never happen again. It is contextually extremely likely that it was referring to the ānormalā levels of rain that would formerly fill a dam easily will not in the future do the job so readily. This is not a remarkable comment for much of Australia, given what the science is suggesting under AGW and climate change.
The dishonesty comes from Andrew Bolt continually only quoting the line
So even the rain that falls isnāt actually going to fill our dams and our river systems
as if there was no doubt at all as to what that means.
As for his warnings of cities running out of water: Brisbane got down to about 15% level, even with years of stringent water saving measures in place, trees and gardens dying all over the place, and with no certainty as to how far down you could really continue using the water. (Would it be usable water at 5%, say?)
This indeed was too close for comfort for a metropolitan area of over a million people.
Terje appears to be refering, with a straight face, to “Wind Turbine Syndrome”.
A fake malady invented by interests connected to mining, the Liberal Party and the IPA and spouted loudly by an unregistered GP mentioned in the article he linked to:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Waubra_Foundation
Seriously.
I see Fran made a similar comment to mine up-thread. Sorry I had missed that…
Terje, your linked article says:
“A University of Sydney study released this month concluded wind farm-associated health problems were “communicated” diseases of a psychogenic origin, based on non-physical causes such as fear and anxiety.”
How did Flannery get it wrong?
@Mel
Anemomenophobia?
@TerjeP
“Iām not attacking the science. Iām attacking the position and the individual that occupies it.”
In other words it’s all personal.
Terje, being a glibertarian, has an unfortunate predisposition to inellectual dishonesty (which, to his credit, he occassionally resists) and is, of course, not to be taken too seriously.
oh well turgid strikes again.
give an inch and lose your boundaries.
why oh why is the benefit of the doubt afforded?
yes i know JQ you said,you said.
but
compared to the rationalising extenuations and brazenly dishonest self serving rationalisations of sufferers of inappropriate high self esteem syndrome
and because condescending smarm gives me the pip
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/04/03/just-when-you-thought-libertarians-couldnt-get-more-revolting/
@Megan
It looks like several clever and learned people have expended much effort addressing an unfounded, “troll-like” comment by one less than clever or learned person.
But in doing so they have displayed their learning and illuminated the topic at hand.
Peccatum adae (Blessed sin of Adam), I say!
@TerjeP
Oh well, that’s different. Not better, but different. Oh wait … it’s what most deniers do? So it’s still unoriginal.
It’s also much easier than attacking the science. It’s hard to hate science but one can hate people and their positions. You don’t have to think. You just have to feel. If you do enough of that, then stuff like reasoning and evidence and salience can seem like such a waste of time.
I suppose that’s why you like your brand of libertarianism so much. You don’t need any thinking — just feelings.
Out of the generosity of my heart, I’m going to recommend a theme song for your creed:
Looking back at Bernay’s “Propaganda” (1928) I was struck by a reference to a 1926 report about the Zionist project.
Dr. Henry S. Pritchett basically said it would all end in tears:
Unsurprisingly, he was villified and pilloried for such outrageous views by the 1926 MSM and the “Lobby”.
Plus ca change, or something?
http://archive.jta.org/article/1926/11/30/2760931/carnegie-endowment-for-international-peace-publishes-unfavorable-report-on-palestine-prospects-for-jewish-national-home
Megan, certain things happened between 1926 and 1947 that rendered Dr. Pratchett’s concerns somewhat moot, including that the Jews experienced a considerably greater misfortune than the one referred to in the third paragraph of the quote. The most relevant question now in relation to Israel-Palestine is: what in practice is the most feasible and just way forward from the current situation, not whether we can rewind and rerun 20th century history.
@Paul Norton
Indeed. However unahppy one is at how things turned out, to try and return the land to its jurisdictional condition in 1947 would be neither technically nor politically feasible and would involve great harm to people who were not party to the wrongs following partition. What needs to happen is a settlement in which all of the people of the occupied territories (and I expressly include Israel in this) feel part of governance, and as if their life chances are as good as anyone else’s.
In a world much closer to the ideal than the one we have, there would be something like a Secular Republic of Israel and Palestine covering all the territories and allowing for common social provision, respect and inclusion of all language and religious communities and so forth.
I suspect that in practice this is not something likely to occur in the short to medium term. A transitional arrangement in which the boundaries are returned to what they were prior to the 1967 war, in which illegal settlements are either removed or surrendered and East Jerusalem becomes a capital for the Palestinians and all living Palestinians get “right of return” with compensation for lost property seems a reasonable basis for beginning a return to peaceable cohabitation.
I enjoyed reading the above text where Bolts ‘never full dams’ lie came from .
I’ve been laid up with injury so I missed the opportunity to jump on our (Liberal) Melbourne lord mayors car last night at the IPA 70th birhtday bash . He was the one (watching from the balcony )who sent the lads in blue to sweep the city square clean of 99% protesters here a day or two before the queens visit .
Mr Bolt was the MC for the night – I havent heard yet what was said inside . The IPA stooge on local ABC radio here this morning wouldnt give any hint of Gina or Ruperts oritory contributions when pressed .
@sunshine
They had a fundraiser auction. These were the prizes:
* Special behind the scenes audience with Andrew Bolt
* Special behind the scenes visit to Fox “news”
* Special private visit for four to the Reagan ranch
* Private morning tea with Howard, Abbott, Albrechtsen and Alan Jones
http://t.co/1sdtyZYfpm
Dunno, but if you read back on JQ’s “The IPA: Less scruples than Billy Hughes” posting, and mix in a bit of imagination, then I don’t think you’d be far off the mark.