Climate Change

Sep 26 2018

1

Yet Another Royal Commission

By Don Aitkin | ABC, Climate Change, Health, History, Indigenous, Media, Politics, Society | 15 Comments

The Prime Minister’s announcement that there is to be a Royal Commission into the Aged Care sector caught me a little by surprise. After all, as Mr Morrison (who also wears hats as Minister for Health and Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care) was careful to point out in his media release, there has already been a review into quality in aged care initiated by his predecessor Ken Wyatt. What follows is from the PM’s media release: We have already taken steps to improve the system [after the public outcry about the Oakden aged facility in South Australia]. In…

Sep 19 2018

1

The ‘Great Debate’ on Climate Science

By Don Aitkin | Books, Climate Change, Environment, History, Media, Politics, Religion, Research | 256 Comments

Some time ago Anthony Watts opened his website to what purported to be a ‘great debate’ on climate science, between William Happer, emeritus professor of physics at Princeton and very recently an adviser to President Trump (Professor Happer and I have corresponded from time to time), and David Karoly, a professor at Melbourne University who has been involved in a number of IPCC reports. I had a particular interest in this debate, because I had debated Professor Karoly myself, some years ago. Apart from saying that there was a lot in what I said that he would agree with, Professor…

Sep 12 2018

1

On Faith

By Don Aitkin | Books, Climate Change, History, Media, Politics, Religion | 54 Comments

I have never met Cardinal George Pell, nor heard him speak save in television grabs, but I have read a number of his essays, and each of them seemed to be lucid, clearly expressed and sensible — the latter not in every respect, because I do not always agree with him, but logical and forceful in the way his argument is put forward. If you don’t agree with him, you have to be able to argue against him. That is not easy. In the most recent issue of Quadrant Cardinal Pell reviews a book about the situation of the Christian Church…

Aug 15 2018

0

Perhaps the worst policy botch ever

By Don Aitkin | Climate Change, Environment, History, Media, Politics, Religion, Research, Society | 169 Comments

There is one over-arching imperative about the National Energy Guarantee: there must be agreement. The Prime Minister says so. The Leader of the Opposition says so. The media say so. The reason is quite clear. Once there is agreement the energy issue can be put aside for a while, and people can get on with other business. Unfortunately the issue itself won’t go away. It has nothing to do with Tony Abbott. The NEG has an utterly fundamental flaw, in that its two elements are incompatible. You cannot both produce lower, cheaper and more reliable electricity and gas, while at…

Aug 08 2018

0

Waste Not, Water Not

By Don Aitkin | ABC, Books, Climate Change, Education, Environment, History, Media, Politics, Society | 13 Comments

First, a note about my capacity to deal with comments. The treatment I am on causes fatigue, and means also that everything else I do that might once have taken ten minutes now takes twenty. So I’m progressing slowly with responses to comments, and also writing a new piece every few days, not to mention completing a new book. I seem to slip behind everywhere. Where I think I ought to comment I’ll do so in time. Waste The ABC seems to be hammering me, and all other viewers and listeners, about its ‘war on waste’. The last episode was…

Jun 15 2018

0

At least, a real debate on climate change (I hope)

By Don Aitkin | Climate Change, Environment, History, Media, Politics, Religion, Research | 139 Comments

Slowly the Western world is facing up to the real possibility that the catastrophe that was supposed to lie in wait for us, as a result of our use of fossil fuels, might have been over-egged, and that climate change may not even be accessible to human action, let alone caused by it. Germany is having trouble with its push to make alternative sources the core of its electricity production. China has stopped subsidizing solar panels. A newly elected provincial government in Ontario is set to wipe out carbon-pricing rules. The UK has seen two weeks of nil power from…

Jun 03 2018

0

The June Off-Topic Thread

By Don Aitkin | Climate Change, History, Other, Politics, Research, Society | 57 Comments

(1) I’ll start this one with a reference to a new paper and a flashback to one of my own essays. The IPCC developed a concept for its last report called ‘Representative Concentration Pathways’ (RCP), which are scenarios about what might happen given certain assumptions about the control of carbon dioxide. The scariest of these is RCP 8.5, which is, not coincidentally, the most favoured pathway if you are an alarmist writer. I wrote about it here. RCP 8.5 is not, as often claimed, a ‘business as usual’ scenario, but a highly unlikely scenario requiring people like businessmen to behave…

May 23 2018

0

The unfolding saga of Peter Ridd

By Don Aitkin | Climate Change, Education, Environment, History, Media, Politics, Research, Society | 61 Comments

I have written a couple of times about Peter Ridd, here and here. Professor Ridd, a well-published academic whose fields of research include coastal oceanography, reef systems and peer review, has been for ten years the Head of the School of Physics at James Cook University (JCU). When he drew attention to what he saw as exaggerations in the way fellow academics at his university were describing the condition of the Great Barrier Reef he was ‘disciplined’ by JCU, told that he was being uncollegial, and that if he did it again he would be charged with serious misconduct. He subsequently…

May 16 2018

0

Three cheers for Pollyanna

By Don Aitkin | Books, Climate Change, Economy, Education, Environment, Health, History, Media, Politics, Society | 85 Comments

One commenter to my last essay thought that I had ‘a Pollyanna view of the world’. I didn’t think it was a compliment, but it gave me the focus for another essay, which follows naturally from the last two. What has been most interesting in the Comments to these two essays about progress has been the determination on the part of some readers to continue to see the world as bad, dangerous, awful, unequal, unfair, what you will, in the face of good global data that don’t say the opposite, exactly, but make the point that for the great majority out…

May 02 2018

0

Why aren’t more people ‘factful’?

By Don Aitkin | Books, Climate Change, Education, Environment, Health, History, Media, Politics, Research, Society | 68 Comments

I have written about the Swedish medico and educator Hans Rosling before, and have greatly enjoyed his TED talks, especially this one. He and his son and daughter have produced a book, Factfulness. Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World — and Why Things Are Better Than You Think. I had learned from the inside back cover that he has died, and that his book is a kind of summary of his world-view, and his earnest hope that people will become more optimistic about the future. They should, because his story, based mostly on data produced by agencies of the UN…