Mandatory food composting in San Francisco – why not here?

Will our Oz councils, particularly the inner city ones, introduce a composting bin as well as the standard general garbage and recycling bin, and thus follow the lead of San Francisco? (Hat tip New York Times 2009-06-11)

Recidivist small residences and businesses get a $100 fine for putting the wrong thing in the wrong bin, and multi-residence buildings and larger businesses cop it sweeter at $1000.

Did Senator Fielding pass calculus?

Senator Fielding, on ABC’s "The Insiders" (2009-06-14) displayed his selective requirements for evidence, and flawed logic today that makes me wonder how he passed calculus 101 on his way to he engineering degree, a qualification he prates about when saying he wants evidence about anthrogenicity of climate change.

Let’s imagine the following scenario, using basic physics and Fielding’s logic:

Imagine you are in a car, and see it heading for a cliff.  You apply the brakes, and Fielding, in the passenger seat, says "We are still moving closer to the cliff even though you are applying the brakes.  Therefore applying the brakes is pointless.  Why not try the accelerator?"

He states he is worried about the economic impact of climate change action, so let’s do an equivalent bit of Fielding logic in basic finance:

"I’ve paid $10 on my mortgage this month, and the amount owed went up!"

Ouch! A great submission on CPRS Mark 2

Tim Kelly’s submission to the Carbon Polluter Rewards Scam Mark 2 Senate inquiry (see my earlier posts on the new inquiry and a review of many of the submissions to the original inquiry) is a beauty, and I wonder if it is the first to shove a pop culture (well, latte-sipping ABC watcher pop culture) reference in the face of the politicians, most of whom deserve it.

Climate policy prospects and politeness

The success or failure of politics in the face of climate change can be guessed at by visiting any major railway station, and observe not the quality of the infrastructure, but the actions of people.

In Australia, at least, it doesn’t look good.

Greens and Libs in love-fest

You don’t often see a love-in between the Liberal/National coalition, the Greens and independents with the ALP left out in the cold, do you?  Yet this happened with the following preamble to the minority section of the report (2008-05-08) from the Senate Inquiry into the Water Amendment (Saving the Goulburn and Murray Rivers) Bill 2008.

All non-Government Senators participating in this inquiry, representing the Liberal and National Parties, the Australian Greens and Senator Nick Xenophon, share a strong consensus that:

Unlike the Carbon Pollution Reward Scheme, where Greens and Coalition both disagreed with Labor for exactly opposite reasons, the Greens and the Coalition were singing from the same song sheet.

The bill was put up by SA Liberal Senator Birmingham, in an attempt to protect the water in the Murray-Goulburn basin by outlawing new extractions for use outside the basin, (including the hated Brumby "North-South"/"Sugarloaf" pipeline) and received overwhelming support in submissions.

The committee ALP majority report boils down to "All the way with Brumby – because he is such a trustworthy guy – so the bill should be rejected".

The minority report detailed the public call for the bill to be passed (ahem, look at the first member of the public they quote on p19), and made three excellent recommendations:

Proof climate destroyers love Australia

Big Carbon and the politicians who receive their bounteous donations obviously love Australia, and would probably want the following as our national anthem:

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.

Climate destruction policy seems to mesh well with love of a hot country with extreme weather events.

Undemocratic double-dipping

Double-dipping in chocolate is good.

Double-dipping in the pockets of taxpayers to pay for carbon emissions reductions isn’t.

The double-dipping comes from taxpayers funding Big Carbon (through giveaway credits) and then expecting individual taxpayers to fund further lowering of emissions permits – which still won’t reach the minimal carbon pollution reduction targets scientists say are necessary.

Other questions:

• Given per-unit power prices are expected to increase (probably more than you can control with energy efficiency), where will the spare cash come from for individuals to fund the Carbon Trust?
• What about the millions of Australians who rent and cannot install energy-saving gizmos?  Note there is no incentive for landlords.
• If you’ve been a good little home-owner, installed all the energy-efficient gizmos already, especially if you are almost off-grid, it’s pretty hard to find further savings (you are probably still paying off the gizmos).

Complete Pisshead Reduction Scheme

The government has completed an inquiry into the draft legislation for the CPRS (Complete Pisshead Reduction Scheme).

In a statement released today Penny Wrong lauded the scheme as the best way forward to decrease the harm from alcohol-fueled violence, relying on bidding between consumers for the rights to drink alcohol, despite many submissions to the inquiry that a simple alcohol tax would be easier to manage, more effective, and that the government’s targets were too little, too late.

Pliny, Gibbon and Voltaire on History

Two books I really enjoy are "Naturalis Historia" by Pliny the Elder and Edward Gibbon’s magisterial "Decline and Fall…" (although it gets too depressing soon after Justinian).

Both seem to have a similar view of what gets turned into "History" (although that by Herodotos doesn’t deserve such criticism):

Because of a curious disease of the human mind, it pleases us to enshrine in history records of bloodshed and slaughter, so that those ignorant of the facts of the world may become acquainted with the crimes of mankind.

- Pliny the Elder

Antoninus diffused order and tranquility over the greatest part of the earth. His reign is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.

- Gibbon, in praise of the Antonines (except Commodus!)

Climate Policy Submissions: Why no count of form-letters?

There is something slightly disturbing about the way submissions to the Senate Climate Policy Committee are being published.

As soon as I scanned the List of Submissions published so far (my pathetic and piecemeal one, rushed and incomplete because of my daughter’s car accident, isn’t up yet), I noticed Submission 57, which is a catchall for a whole lot of form letters.

Consider "Submission 5", which includes a sample, a 7-page list of submitters and a 2-page list of submitters of slightly-modified versions, and then look at Submission 57 which has no list, and not even a count of correspondents.

Consider CPRS Submissions number 2

which enumerates the correspondents and gives the sample.

Surely those looking after the submissions list page for Climate Policy should be able to give a running total for submission 57 if they can’t provide the list of those making submissions.

Even more seriously, why can’t the submissions list page have a quick breakdown of positions, like the one I wrote in my post on the Saving the Goulburn and Murray Rivers Bill Inquiry?

Anyway, I wish I had the time to do a breakdown of the Climate Policy submissions… but hopefully someone over at The LP open thread on this subject will do it.

When is a country like a suicide-bomber?

Are nations (and individuals) that emit way more than their share of CO₂ comparable to suicide bombers?

Consider… such nations are knowingly destroying themselves and everyone else.

OK, ok, it’s a slower explosion… with destruction following more along the lines of a dirty bomb (the bomb that keeps on killing until you clean the atmosphere).

So, how do the guilty states themselves treat would-be suicide bombers?  Take them out before the bomb goes off?

Either we and our mates get down from being the highest per-capita greenhouse emitters on the planet, or we’ll simply be asking for those nations with lower per-capita emissions, especially if they are threatened by climate change, to consider us a target and forcibly cut our emissions to their levels.

I wonder what the Maldives and Tuvalu would do if they had intercontinental nuclear weapons.

Reminder – Climate submissions by Wed

If you have a look at the Submissions to the CPRS inquiry, you’ll see two things that are important for the wider-ranging Climate Policy Inquiry that closes 2009-04-08:

• The popular opinion "on the street" was not reflected by the spectrum of submissions, which had over-representation by those groups wanting watered-down responses (even none!) to the climate problem
• Form-letters are "discounted" by being lumped together as a single submission.

So, before bitching about government inaction, get cracking, and spend the same amount of time as you would putting comments or posts on blogs about climate policy, and write a quick email to climate.sen@aph.gov.au .

It only has to be a paragraph or two, and can even be in the plain text body of the message – no attachments required!  You don’t need to include your address, but you should include which state you live in.

If the government climate policy is worth complaining about, and politicians can point to a high proportion of climate-skeptics and climate-inactionists in the submissions list, we are screwed, and you’ll only have yourselves to blame.

Overview of Carbon Polluter Rewards Scheme submissions

This is a quick review of the public submissions on the CPRS bills, and a reminder that you only have little more than a week (2009-04-08) to get your general climate policy submissions into the Senate Climate Policy Committee.  Email your thoughts to climate.sen@aph.gov.au.

Anyway, on to the review of those submissions published on the Carbon Pollution Rewards Reduction Scheme: (and mine is here).

I’ve summarized the submissions, with a few sample snippets (both for good and ill – DES MOORE’S MAKES MY BLOOD BOIL).

Only two weeks to record your voice on Climate Policy in the Senate

The Senate Select Committee on Climate Policy Inquiry, which is quite wide ranging, is open for public submissions until 2009-04-08.

It’s a very short inquiry, and much wider than the CPRS inquiry (see my initial discussion of both inquiries here.

Given the gazillions of words written on climate issues and what governments should do about them, most unhappy with the responses regardless of the party in power, most obviously more in tune with the scientific consensus, then is it too much to expect most bloggers on these issues to send in a comment to the Committee, even if they merely cut and paste from their extant blog posts?

Remember, a whole lot of submissions that look like they are clones of each other get "rolled into one" by the parliamentary staffers (who typically give one example and say "lots of form-letters"), and therefore these aren’t as compelling a reflection of opinion than one that is more individual, both to senators, and to people looking at a long list of submissions.

Perhaps I should do a big search for Australian blogs and climate comments… and publish a name-and-shame for the hypocritical gormless types?

What is the chance that Marohasey and her fellow travellers will be galvanized into action?  Don’t let minority voices drown out the majority view!

GET OFF YOUR BACKSIDES FOR GOODNESS SAKE!

My CPRS Submission is in

You’ve only got until the close-of-business tomorrow (2009-03-25) to get your submission in on the Carbon Polluter Rewards Scheme.  I got mine in today.

As you can see from the submission list form letters are squashed together… and are labelled as such, discounting somewhat the impression they will make on senators.

It’s worth reading Josh Gan’s submission, there are only 16 published so far (and many from self-serving types who pay only lip-service to the problem of climate change) if you get a chance before sending your own submission to economics.sen@aph.gov.au – it need only be a paragraph or two outlining what you think really needs attention with the CPRS legislation – probably on the free rewards permits to polluters.

I’ll put mine up here ASAP.  Feel free to comment here if you’ve done the right thing!