Climate Change and Media Reporting

Good on you Media Watch!. Last night Jonathan Holmes provided a succinct and interesting take on the bias against factual reporting of Climate Change in the commercial media. He clearly laid out the bias of these radio stations and showed their lack of balance, factual veracity and general bad reporting of the topic.
I have issues with inviting many skeptics on such shows, mainly because the short time period on radio reporting cannot give even the modest amount of data needed to understand the topic (unless of course you have read multiple books, journals and other in-depth publications). Its all emotion and poor reasoning.

My scientist family generally has the ability to seek beyond the 3 min sound-bite in search of factual information. ABC The Drum also reported on bias in programs on the ABC on Climate Change last year and its take on the problem was interesting also. But as they said - "But if I were running a science show on the ABC, I might well feel that what should guide me is the science, not shifts in popular opinion"

Yes the weather is changing and so is the climate. One you can see if you look out the window (weather), the other is a long-term, mathematical construct with huge variables and specific regional variations.
I can understand radio talk back hosts not being very good with numbers as per this statement(and I quote from Media Watch)
Alan Jones: Nature produces nearly all of the carbon dioxide in the air. Human beings produce point 001 percent of the carbon dioxide in the air...— 2GB Sydney, The Alan Jones Breakfast Show, 15th March, 2011

That's one of Australia's highest rating radio hosts with a very odd figure. The fact is that almost 30% of the carbon dioxide in the air is there because of human activity in the past two hundred years - and that's thirty thousand times more than Alan Jones's point 001%"

But isn't that why we have calculators and the people able to use them??
Please a bit of humility. But I forget again - after all who's paying these people??
Follow the money!

Satellite images of Tsunami Damage

Following my previous post on why the earth is causing these large quake, I saw Dr Kerry Sieh from the Earth Observatory in Singapore discussing his research into the Asian region on ABC TV Program 7:30 special. It seems from his research that more large earthquakes are expected due to the continual movement of the Pacific (and other) plates. I quote" So the 2004 earthquake began a sequence that is now continuing through the Chilean earthquake of last year to the earthquake recently in Japan. We don't know yet whether that's going to be the end of it or whether in fact this extraordinarily robust sequence of great earthquakes will continue."
It's not called the Ring of Fire for nothing.
Sobering reading/watching.
Youtube videos of the Japanese Tsunami damage is also very sobering



Scary reading but we have to live our life to the full without unduly worrying about these uncontrollable events. At the same time hoping our regulations, governments, disaster planner and wealth can ameliorate any disasters that may yet happen.

What is the earth doing?

Anno ruinosa (catastrophic year) is how I would name this year of 2011. Only three months in and we have watched scenes of such heart wrenching destruction on our TV screens.
Queensland floods & cyclone, Victorian floods, Christchurch earthquake and now the horrendous Japanese earthquake and devastating tsunami.
The Japanese must rightly feel relieved that their building standards enabled Tokyo to survive the extreme 8.9 richter scale earthquake but would be devastated by the following tsunami and how it smashed so many lives and places to bits.
And now the nuclear incidents! As if they don't have enough to deal with.
Both New Zealand and Japan are on the Pacific plate which is subducting under other plates. Both places are part of the "Pacific ring of fire" which expects to have earthquakes and volcanos. But is it unusual to have such destructive effects as we have seen or just bad luck that both places are being affected?
Lets hope the rest of the year settles down and people can start rebuilding their shattered lives. My thoughts are with the Japanese people in their search and recovery efforts.

Carbon Tax Hysteria

Now that Federal Parliament is back the absolute hysteria surrounding the proposed Carbon Tax is so aggravating. I expect our elected representatives to debate the issues, using facts and appropriate language.
Comparing Julia Gillard to Muammar Gaddafi is disgusting.
Creating hysteria around the basis of a tax on Carbon before the extent and price of Carbon is established is also  hysterical.
I don't like taxes, mainly because I don't earn a large salary and can only off-set a few $$ of income in my tax return.  But I also believe that the community of people in Australia need to pay taxes towards developing services and infrastructure used by all.
I like driving on good roads, I like having National and State Parks, I like Libraries (local & state taxes), I like knowing that there is some safety net for those poor people who can't get jobs and don't have housing. I think companies should pay tax.
I don't like pollution and having grown up in the period where the chemical industry has produced a range of environmentally damaging chemicals (DDT etc) I am well aware that industry, by itself, will only reduce pollution when it's forced to.
So lets have a Carbon Tax. If it enables us to invest in jobs and new low-carbon technology, then lets get going before the rest of the world leaves us behind again. This is what happened with the silicon-chip/computer industry and now the solar cell manufacturing industry.
We managed to have a GST and did you see what happened with that Great Big New Tax! We survived. So long as the very poorest are cared for appropriately under the tax regime, then lets price in the cost of pollution to our very core production systems.
Perhaps getting a new large screen TV might not be the best use of your money, perhaps then investing in power generation capacity or dare I mention it, insulation might seem more worthwhile.
But cut out the hysteria, inappropriate comparisons and irrational arguments.
Try this Crikey blog on facts, polls and opinions.