Climate Change

Oct 28 2020

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Meanwhile, back at climate change…

By Don Aitkin | Climate Change, Politics | 124 Comments

I keep seeing suggestions that now we know how to deal with Covid-19 (do we?) it’s time to deal with the biggest threat of all, climate change. Greenpeace and other climate-action voices are arguing, for example, that since New Zealand’s Jacinta Ardern no longer needs populist support to govern, there are no more excuses for inaction on climate change in that nation. The same source alleges that New Zealand’s agricultural sector is its main source of greenhouse gas emissions (GGE), ‘as large sheep and cattle herds belch methane…’ I’ve visited the land of the long white cloud many times, but…

Mar 01 2019

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Oh dear, elections are approaching

By Don Aitkin | Climate Change, Economy, Environment, History, Politics, Society | 20 Comments

For weeks now there have been short election ads urging viewers to vote for a new party, Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party. The really old ones amongst us, that is, people older than me, will remember another UAP which flourished in the interwar years in part because of a Labor split. But there have been no ads from the majors. It hardly matters, since the nightly news telecasts have abundant image and text about the coming election and the daily promises made by the leaders. But I guess we’ll see a proper Labor or Coalition ad once there is an…

Feb 12 2019

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Climate change: has anything actually changed?

By Don Aitkin | ABC, Books, Climate Change, Environment, History, Media, Politics | 437 Comments

For some time now my only exposure to the world has been through five minutes of radio news on Classic FM, plus some TV news at 6 pm (how much I get is affected by our dinner time at this nursing home). But, bit by bit, I’ve been hearing and seeing more. The coming elections in Australia and NSW have rather passed me by, though I have become more impressed than I once was by the Prime Minister’s capacity to speak cogently and apparently without notes. The issue that has grabbed me most, especially in the last few weeks, has…

Oct 17 2018

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An important essay by Richard Lindzen

By Don Aitkin | Books, Climate Change, Economy, Environment, History, Media, Politics, Religion, Research | 168 Comments

I am an admirer of Richard Lindzen, an American physicist whose field is the dynamics of the atmosphere-ocean circulation. In this area he is probably without peer, and it gives him a strong position from which to talk about climate change. He is the most prominent critic of the orthodox, IPCCC view of global warming. He recently gave a speech in London for the Global Warming Policy Foundation. It is too long to simply republish here, but what I have done is to edit it down by about two thirds. He started his lecture with a quote from a famous…

Oct 11 2018

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Two new reports on climate change

By Don Aitkin | ABC, Books, Climate Change, Environment, History, Media, Politics, Religion, Research, Society | 78 Comments

Two reports bearing on climate change have been published in the last few days. The first is from the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and is full of forebodings about the future of the planet. This one is a Special Report on the implications of global warming above 1.5 degrees C. There are more of these special reports to come. The basic point or take-home message seems to be that limiting warming to 1.5 C is better for everyone than allowing warming to grow to 2.0C. No matter that both the 1.5C and 2.0C ‘boundaries’ seem to have been pulled…

Sep 26 2018

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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…