Science, Media Balance and Debate

Radio National's Science show had an interesting report into BBC science broadcasting by Steve Jones. While I agree with most of the points he raised one thing I do disagree with is the need to continue vigorous discussion on science as it affects public policy, politics etc. Even if there are 1500 scientists who agree with a particular point of science, we do need to allow debate by the "non-believers" and proper skeptics. Quite often these debates illuminate the hysteria and self-serving approach of the anti-argument. The fact that the discussions are skillfully manipulated and debated at a level of hysteria should be fairly obvious to most listeners/viewers.
Or am I showing ignorance of how sophisticated these fear campaigns are and how many people do not have either the education, honesty or skill level to determine when they are being manipulated?
So how do we teach this to our youngsters? Or more pertinent in the days of the baby-boomers ageing, how do we teach this to your mothers, fathers & grandparents. And in today's "me society" how do we change the vested interest of big business and politics in our society.
Oh yes! Ask Andrew Wilkie, Adam Bandt, Bob Brown et al!

4 Corners "The Carbon War" and "At Home With Julia"

If you didn't watch this program on Monday night I suggest you do so
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2011/09/15/3318364.htm
or watch it on Youtube

At least the ABC has got the gumption to stand up and provide some much needed "balance" on the political hysteria surrounding the Climate War, Carbon Tax and our political system.
I noticed the vast majority of people on the show can be said to belong to the WASP older electorate demographic. When I ask younger people what they think, they want the whole debate over and done with and a price on carbon.
If we couldn't do it when the nation was doing so well then its disingenuous to put off the idea now that there may be some tough times ahead. After all the Stern report warned strongly that the cost of doing nothing is even higher. (1% now vs 20% later).
As far as I know most elections produce a Government who then proceeds to govern, not asking us to vote again for another 3-4 years, and certainly not asking us to vote on every big issue that comes up.
And most scientists I know (and I know several) will argue the science with far more accuracy than those climate deniers featured here.
BTW its also the same demographic that is outraged by "At Home With Julia" - Tim and Julia G characters under the flag, in her office, having a cuddle! Give us a break, have a bit of a laugh and remember your history- see Crikey's list of Badly Behaved Pollies to see our finest with feet of clay.
People in glass Houses etc etc
After all we are supposed to be able to laugh at ourselves!

Spring Sunshine

What do magpies, hay fever and sunshine have in common? They are all features of our wonderful Melbourne spring.
The Magpies have started nesting so I am getting swooped while hanging the washing on the line. Often we have windy days in spring and today is no exception. Unusually though the wind is very warm along with 27 degrees C temperature undoing all the good the recent La Nina rains have done.

The streets around me are resplendent in drifts of blossoms (hence some hay fever) and my garden is glowing with red Mesembryanthemum and brilliant white daisies. As the garden was getting overgrown, I have had several trees and bushes removed. So no more Diosma scents at the front door, no more bee laden Blue Pacific (Ceanothus), which was blown over a couple of years ago. Now the Chinese Pistachio is about to break out into new leaf as is the Persimmon tree. The Nashi Pear is the latest to bud and blossom.
And while the garden is framed in sunshine, light and colour, my solar array is humming away increasing its output of power to approx 4 kWh per day.


Here's to the Federal Government, finally debating the Carbon Tax legislation. Lets get something passed into law, as soon as possible, to try and place the energy reforms needed into some framework. We have seen how successful the current rebates have been and the consequent abrupt winding down of these schemes. Lets not lose the momentum, jobs and investment in clean energy by stopping the Carbon Tax.

Solar News -FiTs and Pricing

A couple of good news stories emerged this last week or so regarding home Photovoltaic (PV)  installations. The first story -" Solar Installations celebrate Grid Parity" was very interesting particularly as it followed closely on from the Victorian State Government announcement concerning a Transitional Feed in Tariff (FiT's) which will replace the Premium FiT many early adopters (like me) were lucky enough to get.
The goal of Grid Parity for solar was something I have been long awaiting, but am interested to hear that the Photovoltaic Association thinks we are attaining this so soon after the introduction of the recent set of incentives.
The second story by The Age reporter Paddy Manning showed over 418,000 households are generating more than 1.1 gigawatts of power from Photovoltaics. His comment "..there's mounting evidence FiTs are helping to reduce energy demand, defer infrastructure spending and lower overall electricity prices - contrary to the idea that paying some home owners an FiT increases prices for everybody else" This is good news indeed for those of us who felt investing money into home electricity generation was a sound investment.


It seems that contrary to the naysayers, FiT's and PV schemes are both helping to reduce power demand and reduce the cost of delivering these technologies to consumers, sufficently so to help make solar of similar price to electricity generated by coal stations and delivered to our houses via current power infrastructure.


My current electricity bill showed a small amount of electricity was fed back into the grid, even from a 1kWH system, 4 person home in cloudy, wintry Melbourne.

While changes to various FiT' schemes will reduce the incentives for more households to invest in rooftop PV, as well as probably the jobs available in these industries, we now have good evidence of the overall worth to both the economy and individuals. As often is the case, appropriate environmental ideas will provide sound  economies for households as well as the wider world.

10 Years on from 9/11

This week the media has been running daily stories on how the world has changed since the horrendous attacks on the World Trade Centre, Pentagon and other areas. I remember waking up that morning, turning on the radio while having the morning coffee and being transfixed by the news. Moving to the TV coverage gave access to the confronting views of the twin towers on fire and then, almost immediately (care of TV), collapsing in that enormous cloud of dust. I couldn't believe it - watching for hours.

So has my life changed since then? Not really as no one I know was involved. But I think our society has.

My "mad scientist" and I have been to the US since then and have endured patiently the extra security involved. On my family trip to California I was "tagged" as a Security target so spent the entire trip, from the moment of offering my tickets and bag to be checked in, to be searched, swabbed, and put in security areas. Las Vegas corralled myself and my teenager, put me through x-ray, swabbing, patting down and detailed property searches.
My scientist, on his trip shortly after 9/11, was searched 3 times before boarding the aeroplane.

But still the attacks continue. ASIO reports today that the organisation has tripled, and they are following more suspects than ever before. Most are radicals of one sort or another- not just islamic fundamentalists.

Islamic women using the traditional head-dress have been targeted and Islamic youth have often found Australia's intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq to be completely repugnant. Fear, violence and inability to solve these intractable problems in poor, war-torn countries has lead to mass refugee problems and violence in our lucky country as well as America. And those who should know better, use the fear of the stranger to implement extreme views and policies.

So does war solve anything? Not this one. I don't like my freedoms being restricted and I'm sure the poor refugees didn't like being raped, attacked and left to starve by their "governments". But it is a wake-up call for our self-complacent society, to really try and help people solve their own problems. without killing masses of them, if possible.