Climate Change is CLEARLY the reason for all our problems

Today 21st March .
The National Press Club ran a very inadequate panel discussion on a subject that deserves more of the same. Rural poverty and the real risks of food production substitution .  However the silly distraction that CC forced on the discussion meant that KEY political will questions were missed .  "The problem of exploitation of rural sector did not arise because of climate change.
Our leaders waste our time and taxes getting distracted from real drivers ." 

The agricultural experts on the panel seemed have no idea that these well intentioned discussions have been going on for eons , and do nothing to solve the bigger picture issues BECAUSE they are doing the same thing as those before -- they accept the nonsense that productivity is the problem . Do your homework guys or go home !( esop thoise of you that want conservation  to cut  more deeply )


CC and CT credibility is at an all time low.  Now the press must carry some of the blame . They broadcast just about anything that puts CC on the agenda . Key reporters like Duffy's last week on Cape Grim  suggest that " both droughts and floods are the result of CC" . Even if the sciences and geol record would  support him ( they don't) , he appears to many as if he is trying,  like the greens,  to have it both ways .
In Santayana's  terms, these are the times , (when the argument is being shored up by doubled up efforts,)    that the label of fanatical is to be expected .Certainly  the air is filled with a sense of that being the case . Who then is being the most fanatical here ?

CC and carbon tax now don't even target the whole carbon economy focusing now largely on coal . " Clean energy future " talk should focus on petrol , diesel and gas and biofuels to be credible.  The government is not credible on Carbon econmy and even the greens and independents seem unable to say so . The 1000's of pages to " make it work " beggars belief from even the least educated person in the country .

Interestingly the PM reckons that the opposition leaders is running a fear campaign .Fanatics love to use the fear tactic .  Is the truth then closer to " takes one to know one "

It's our job to worry

Whenever our wannabes have some doubts about their propensity to cry wolf  they comfort themselves in their panic driven moments by saying" its our job to worry" . Without Greenlabor they think "who else is going to look after the environment "  . "We can't trust farmers and we certainly can't trust those who represent industry"  all important questions .
But its not their job to worry. Its their job to get to the heart of the matter .

Professional scientists who specialize in risk don't worry - well not nearly as much as most others who find variability a threat to their 2 ledger driven lives .  . The best way to avoid unreasonable worry is To get advice that uncovers the risk manager and let him speak .
That is as long as your next term in office isn't dependant on YOU solving a problem ; A problem that you have beat up into something you can fix . A real catastrophe.

Economic perfection

 If I was reincarnated, I would vote for being in retailing. If heaven is a full plate every night,   16% will get you there . Roger Corbett , Former chairman of Woolworths appeared on the ABC brim full of the sort of confidence that shakes those of who struggle with trying to keep order in the real world .

The scary part was that both Mr Corbett and the interviewer were talking as though this market means was  God's gift to the world.( it maybe in part)  The temptation to think so narrowly about success is  strong because the road is straight and clear- a comfort zone; there is god and there is no other .
  In the big picture there are always constraints .

The confidence with which retailers retain economic stability is attractive to modellers and big picture eco people . The trouble is that politicains and wannabes seem to want to adopt trading as some sort of perfect model.   Grocers may know about intersecting J curves ( eg agricultural supply and demand) but they certainly don't need to worry about them ; 16% on everything is easy 

When politicians start thinking they can run the country like traders , they forget that we pay the bills . Woolworths works well because their key focus is on keeping the margin low and because the people only support them if they do. (The model for them is OK and infact very helpful for efficiency and effectiveness in some parts of business- its limits work as limits , make sense and keep good ( not perfect) order )
Governments who think they can buy the information they need, need to think again . What is the price of invisible cloth? . From the retailers point of  view , the customer is always right  and..  Why answer all your questions in one when you will pay me individually for each one in order ?  Believe me its much easier to subdivide a problem than to put it together again . Beside there is that 16% for each question The more questions the better for us.     The margin model doesn't fit  good governance cause margins in ecomia are all over the place in terms of reflecting value for money 

All around us , from the problems in the Eurozone to USA,  we have governments who have overspent on trading in information sources and simple efficiency seeking( very easy) . Goverenmnets must know the answers to soem of the questions they are asking . To some extent a government is only as good as the advice it's capable of giving itself . 

Missing the point about disasters

RE  Hundreds die under landslides in the Phillipines this week
Westerners rightly love to celebrate the advantages for the world of trade and free enterprise in communities, but many DO NOT see how, in quite rational ways , they are cultivating disaster .We (as prevention specialists) see it cause our leaders are sacking us and funding quick fix .
((Capitalism and free enterprise are generally productive for most countries and provide a means to an end . However the unproductive ( Weber s critical point ) and distorting  elements need to be balanced by good governance ))
SO the failure of many successful  westerners to see BOTH sides OF why the West has more or less mastered economic and ecological balance is a real bummer .To have balance we must have tension and with only the love of freedom WE have had no tension .
Many of my own baby boomers generation do not  sense the limits of their love of freedom ( current financial crisis may assist in changing this) .Their children are having children without the testosterone element present;Over 1/3 of our daughters are trying to bring up children without a male (This imbalance in families and communities creates not more freedom, but real disasters 
Distractedly too, many do not to see the very rational point of planning and the need for coercion on the basis of studied foresight . This childish one eyed worship of freedom now clouds the Wests view of disaster planning ( war landslides, flooding)
While its true that Departments still bear all the right names, the humpty dumpty of sound ecological ,and therefore finally economic,  planning is still broken ;
Emergencies are funded , therefore emergencies grow.Chresmatics is in control and Oikonomia is just a talking point and "the echo" to the main game of  "doing your own thing ".
The West (and its eastern roots  )once lived and grew as a resilience growing economic method - it stabilized because it practiced the tension ( even if it didn't understand it) between resource control ( basically place)resource understanding (age,training and experience)  and resource use freedom ( basically ideas)  

One of the critical distinctions needing to made by aid agencies in their dumb following of new trends (even now they are changing focus -- a huge reason to be more critical of them than most are) is the Western governments  long time control of land ownership and leasing .This land use planning focus was once the most prominent forms of coercion in humans  development of a rural resilience culture ( note the themes in the OT book of Ruth) Ask me for more here. The rush to reassert the clear overdominance of government in the last decades has caused the baby of regional planning to be thrown out with the bathwater.( in many areas where it really works)
Our own local governments have often lost sight of land use controls (U have to have a passion for pretension to promote it) and the neccesity for land leasee,  so its completely understandable that when we go overseas, we don't see the need for something that made us great : Restricting finance for land occupation .No cultural development can occur without it .
The thousands  of people who die under landslides each year should not be allowed to live where they live .
as in our own country TODAY,  governance is /governance models are weak and do not insist on restricting access to land . Bligh and Brumby appear to go into history without confession on this matter.You heard it first here and first on blogger.

The modern Wests love of freedom is a form of slow acting poison in poor rural communities? More here http://productionecologists.blogspot.com

Do I believe in capitalism ?

Yes provided it believes in supporting water treatment - purification . Clarity of its benefits and clarity of its limits.
As a production ecologist to the rural sector I say, remember what really works hidden inside the cooperating ecosystems inside us and around us (so much more efficient in energy use than we ever will be ) http://graceware.blogspot.com/

Compare our brilliant invention in capitalism which I have to say, a la Churchill ," works quite well amongst all those that have been tried ". 
BUT The unthinking acceptance of capiitalism ( rife now in government on both sides of politics) is making the rich richer and the poor poorer ......and suits those who love to play exploitative games and have the capital ( and the deterministic mindset) to back them. 


Capitalism is not balanced in the same way as a focus on mere competition is not balanced . A mere standard tax  on carbon for the poor is a much bigger burden to them than it is those with big cash flows .( not a feature of rural economy) http://govtisnotbusiness.blogspot.com/. 


We must, for those in rural areas esp ,who manage these sensitive ecosystems with more tools than an accountant has seen numbers , stop bundling economic and ecological issues into old wineskins of categories and take seriously the diversity of genuine physical and technological forces and worldviews which together shape sound sustainability.

The men in the picture --King Canute and his courtiers

As one great Boyer lecture series author ( John Passmore ) said . King Canute was an enormously effective leader. How then does he get this reputation as a bit of a dill  by taking his courtiers to the sea and showing them the waves .
He was clearly one of the those people we call conservationists and also had his commonwealth at heart  . He wanted to show them that nature however bountiful had limits and they were ,  like so many , inclined to ignore them . The sea for example had power we could not control.

He was also a commonwealth man - there for all the people not just the rich . Look  at all the land he ruled over .
His country was running out of lead to export . We will run out of iron and we will have less and less cheap oil . The point is while we need not run out completely our attitude is the problem ; a false sense of confidence is apparent in the audience of  what was a competent governing group .
Unlike our present leaders,  I don't think generalized taxing or the particular resource cost is the issue - its the lack of foresight and the uneccesary waste that blatant lack of planning and specific taxation generates for our children to have to pay for .

Waste dressed up as growth

In economic analysis, greed can easily hide inside consumption need. In our commonwealth there is always what we would like and what we need. When we have lots of money, it's also easy to pretend there is no difference between the 2 or even no such thing as limits. Greed and economic strength can together distort our view of consumption and basic economic needs. In what way should our governments try to manage galloping consumption and distorted access to our shared resources?

Economic sense as well

Lots of greens ideas are just that ---ideas - loose and dangerous if applied carelessly . If you want to study someone who studies the earth AND its economic principles,listen to Lester Brown and click on http://www.earth-policy.org/

Salinity - curse or cause ?

Peter andrews is the the inspiration for this blog .What issues do you have in your area ?