DON AITKIN

Oct 24 2018

1

From Tribal to What?

By Don Aitkin | Books, Education, History, Language, Media, Politics, Society | 170 Comments

This essay has been in my mind for some time, though writing it has been prompted by reading a book review in October’s Quadrant. The review was by James C. Bennett, and the book,Shadows of Empires: the Anglosphere in British Politics, was written by Michael Kenny and Nick Pearce. I’ll return to both in due course. Human beings started in families who formed groups, which I here label ‘tribes’, both for protection and for mutual support in other ways. The tribes met other tribes, and in time competed with each other for land and other resources. About twelve thousand years ago…

Oct 17 2018

1

An important essay by Richard Lindzen

By Don Aitkin | Books, Climate Change, Economy, Environment, History, Media, Politics, Religion, Research | 166 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

1

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…

Oct 03 2018

1

At last, some humour

By Don Aitkin | Other | 6 Comments

A minor setback put me into hospital for five days, and that means I needed to find something from the archives, and the first thing that came out was a recent dry observation. I now forget where it came from, but it’s worth a chuckle or two: (I) Neologisms One of my favourite columnists, David Astle (who loves to play with words), came up with some names to replace Democracy (people rule) …. here are a few for you to chuckle over and perhaps recognise. Replacements for Democracy….. Narcissocracy Uncumbent – the leader who suddenly isn’t (Malcolm) Adhocracy – unstructured…

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…

Sep 05 2018

1

Thoughts on our present discontents

By Don Aitkin | Other | 50 Comments

It was a bit of a shock for me finally to see the TV news and hear the words ‘Prime Minister Morrison’. Yes, I knew it had happened, but some days had passed, and here I was back in the land of the living. What else had happened? Much is still unclear. ‘Envoy’ positions for Mr Abbott and My Joyce may keep them quiet and out of harm’s way. They may also heal some of the hurt. I don’t know, and I doubt that anyone else does either. Are we going to have an early election? My sources say No,…

Aug 30 2018

0

Rimsky-Korsakov

By Don Aitkin | ABC, Books, History, Music, Society | 15 Comments

A week ago I found it hard to deal with pain, and went to hospital, which fixed things up pretty well after three days. Those three days included the implosion of the Turnbull Government, and all that followed, about most of which I was quite unaware, and when I did know, cared less. Recovery from the pain episode is continuing, and I decided I would write again about something that has been part of my life since I was about eighteen, Western classical music, and in this instance, the life and music of Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. Why him? Well, not so…

Aug 22 2018

0

Electric vehicles again

By Don Aitkin | Other | 62 Comments

In the week since I last wrote the NEG has been replaced by the leadership issue as the principal topic of political discussion in our country. The search for agreement that I wrote about has failed. There is none. What we have is a reversal of aspects of the Prime Minister’s proclaimed policy, and a challenge to Mr Turnbull’s leadership by Minister Peter Dutton, which failed by a few votes. Every day there is a new story. I said that sooner or later someone would have to face the reality of the energy problem. No one has said anything about…