If you want to reduce food miles, tax the food truck

I don't believe local food markets reduce the environmental burden of bringing food to our plate, although it may well be healthier and a good social outing. My back of the envelope calculations are that if there is less food to carry, the extra energy will be used bringing fertilizer for the local growers; extra fuel for the people who make a special trip to the food market etc. Infact, it really is impossible to tell whether it makes any difference, but it sure makes everybody feel better about it. Being pro-active doesn't require proof that it is making any difference. Contrast this to a simple carbon tax. Everyone gets punished or rewarded depending on how much they use/save. It is all proportional. Put the carbon tax high enough and the food markets will generate themselves if they really do reduce CO2 emmissions.

Does the carbon tax then give an overall burden on the economy? Not if there is no exemptions. The money that goes to the Government can be used for whatever purpose we feel necessary. If there are exemptions, the exempt will have more options and more incentive to consume carbon, and more of it available because the non-exempt are saving it for them.

The Answer - Smaller "NIMBY" footprint!!!

AHA. So what was the question? Why would a green-ly inclined Premier build a desalination plant in Sydney? The alternative of another dam involves incalculable number of "Not In My Back Yard" ers. The other answer is how the "culled" trees get treated. For general expansion of Sydney all trees are killed humanely (ie. chopped down quickly) and the animals which relied on those native trees could move on (a bit like the early settlers thought about aboriginals). With a dam being built, the imagination is that basically everything gets drowned - a slow and painful death.

This is also why Hydro-electric schemes get fought tooth and nail by environmentalists, despite the incredible number of carbon credits over a number of centuries of likely operation. Meanwhile, fossil fuel powered schemes just find an existing industrial complex to attach themselves to WITHOUT A SINGLE PROTESTER!
ACT LOCALLY - yeah right, as long as no big ugly dam, wind turbine, solar generation stack, farm etc. doesn't end up in my back yard!

When I lost Faith in all environmental activists

It was in third year University, at the refectory, watching a debate about a hydro-electric dam proposal somewhere in North Queensland. My primary interest was that because it was the World's most popular and effective type of renewable energy, we may turn the corner and have a bias towards these type of projects and away from coal and gas powered stations. I was sadly mistaken. The local environmental speakers pointed out that we should be reducing demand by using less electricity in the home by turning off lights etc. etc. and not building new power stations (oh yeah, and not needing them anyway). The scheme was shelved - Not one single hydro power project has been built in NQ. Several gas power stations have been built. Coal fired stations that had been out of commission for years were re-started. Meanwhile, electricity demand has increased steadily by about 8% per year. Since that time I would estimate our (NQ) CO2 emmissions have doubled. Meanwhile at the university, virgin wilderness surrounding it has been built on for new accommodation and general expansion. Surely the environmental activist movement could have picked a different project to pick their fight on. Environmental activists are still aiding fights against wind farms, tidal energy projects and the list goes on. Any project that is "big" and "new" is automatically seen as bad and fought tooth and nail - but the gradual but certain expansion of existing facilities is completely ignored.

Evil market-distorting subsidies come good - Exception that proves the rule

The amazing force for good that high petrol prices have shown to be, even made a previously insanely counterproductive Brazilian ethanol subsidy almost return a break even after all those years of being a junk bond investment. High petrol prices also help our sugar farmers, only due to the Brazilian swing production status which connects the two. The advent of carbon trading has made Uranium more financially desirable. It is time to make a global pollution emissions trading system. Radiation emissions/waste products trading for instance, should be trialled to counter the "carbon bias" of current environmental regimes. Nasty coercive regulation should be contrasted with "minimum necessary regulation" which is better than self-regulation or free for all. Flexible regulation involving trading of the "commons" resource is good if it can prevent the tragedy of the commons, which is what we should be fearing. Technologies that "can" save the world are useless if there is no individual incentive to research and apply them.




evildrclam says:Hooray for rising petrol prices! Rising petrol prices are a much better engine to drive the development of sustainable energy resources than nasty coercive regulation or evil market-distorting subsidies: rising prices focus pressure precisely where it is most needed, while government intervention spreads the burden with majestic impartiality over the just and the unjust alike...

'The rain it falleth on the just, and also on the unjust fellow;
But chiefly on the just, because, the unjust steals the just's umbrella.'

And, I am doing the responsible thing what you told me to, and reading the Skeptical Environmentalist. This means that sooner or later I will have to go to the trouble of constructing a great big post pointing out the errors in sites pointing out the errors in discussions of Bjorn's pointing out the errors in speeches of Al Gore's... Curses!

Is there really an alternative to price gouging?

The howls from people complaining about higher petrol prices around easter are getting very annoying. If there is an increased demand prices will go up. The alternatives may always involve either queues, rationing, or high and/or highly unpredictable public finance cost. The only exception is when there is supply side collusion where there are no obvious other supply/demand constraints. Why is there not an outcry with highly fluctuating fruit/vege prices? Is anyone complaining about the extremely high profits being made by some lucky banana farmers in Mareeba?

Live by the sword - go ahead

The US seems to have countered Iran's policy of "We're not building any nuclear bombs" with "Oh, we're not going to attack with nuclear bunker-buster bombs". Will the bad cop get results where the good cop of Europe etc. didn't? It is nice to have both cops fully operational for once. This is a real upping of the ante one way or another.

Invisible argument

So, the new IR laws went active over the last few weeks, to the howls of employee advocacy groups everywhere. Lo and behold, unemployment rates hit *30 YEAR LOWS*. Coincidence? I THINK NOT!! I cannot believe the pace at which competing businesses to mine switched from a policy of "import where possible" to "employ where possible", citing reduced fears of employing people. What is more important? Individual instances of employee disgruntlement (be it the number of them), or the number of people having jobs that want jobs. Nobody is counting the former, just blaming them on the laws, and the latter is finding new highs. Unemployment rate of 5% was laughed at just a few years ago. Latest statistics should be mindblowing if anybody was actually looking at them rather than saying - Statistics always lie - or something like that.

Does not play well with others :-(

I am struggling with a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) on my youngest boy Zac. We casually dismissed thoughts of him being autistic until his first week in Kindy. If he had have been born 40 days later than he had been, he wouldn't even be in kindy until next year. However, his behaviour in a group setting has stuck out as being the odd one out. Stuff like lying on his back facing the other way while everybody else dances to the wiggles music, climbing adventurously by himself while everybody else is doing an outside group activity. Reacting to instructions of a change in activity by screaming (loud). Talking in gestures and single words rather than sentences. We just thought he was a little bit behind and a little younger than the others, but the other evidence is starting to become a little compelling.
The thing that is frustrating me the most is that the diagnosis was rather forced on to us by what I can only describe as special education economics. Every diagnosis of ASD is a ticket for more funding for the Kindy, special education units, parents etc. If I could have helped it, I would have avoided the diagnosis because it does come with so many attachments, including possible stigma. However, denying the diagnosis would have denied him and us the best possible outcomes and supports. I am struggling with this whole concept. Ten years ago, there would have not been this kind of economic push for a diagnosis.

Devine's Intervention

This Sydney article - Enough whingeing by Miranda Devine has created quite a stir in NQ. It is basically an opinion piece based on a selective scan of articles which were themselves selective in looking for the few negative feelings out there. There is no whingeing going on at all. The quotes come from people at their lowest point having barely spared with their lives, but newly destitute. I hope Miranda catches a rare disease that could have been easily prevented with nutrients available only in avocadoes and bananas! That would be Devine Justice.

Contrast Hurricane Katrina with Cyclone Larry - discuss

Mayor of New Orleans "Hey mr President we need some help". Bush - "We've got a whole army with experience in Iraq and Afghanistan - they can come in overnight, guns blazing". Mayor - "aah, give me a few days". Bush - "What! To think about it". Mayor - "No - We'll need to wait until they REALLY get desparate so they'll take any help they can get"

Mayor of Innisfail - "Johnny, Pete, we need help". Howard - "Well, we've got this army unit in Townsville with experience in rebuilding East Timor, Banda Aceh and Kashmir. It costs just as much for them to do nothing, but they'd rather do something useful again." Mayor - "but you're always at the Games watching the Netball, who's going to lead the effort?". Premier Beattie - "Me - Or maybe I should look for someone better?"

Don't do it for yourself - do it for the children!

I know selfish interests may come into it. Wanting bananas to be available in the shop, have them at a reasonable price, and wanting to help Innisfail get back on its feet. But think of the hundreds of thousands of children in Australia that rely on the humble banana for sustenance! It is one of the few "fruits" in existence that have quantities of all necessary vitamins. By refusing imports we deny these children healthy meals for several months. I know we could ration them out or let prices skyrocket such that the desparate can still get the local product, pricing everyone else out of the market, but surely there is a better way. Banana growing families in the Phillippines (etc.) need to feed their children as well. Wouldn't it be better to buy their bananas at this stage rather than doling out aid?


THINK OF ALL THE CHILDREN - Free trade in bananas can help them all!

We need free trade in Bananas NOW!

Now that our entire Australian Cavendish banana crop is out of commission, can we buy Philippine bananas please?!!! I'm sure that in other years they'll be yearning for ours because of their own cyclone disasters. As Howard said to Bush's offer of money- we don't need the money but just make it as quick and easy as possible for us to buy the things we need. FREE TRADE RULES!

IS ANYONE LISTENING?

TRADE NOT AID!

Larry's coming over and he's bringing us a flood apparently

Looks like the cyclone is going to bring us here in Townsville the rain without much of the wind. I suspect flooding rain, cut roads, power outages, trees down. Should rival the flood of 98 (night of Noah floods) if the reading of the fabled cactus flowers (made a week ago incidentally) are anything to go by.

Dismal scientific world view

It was useful to my own self-analysis to compare a scientific world view to a religious world view. I tend to slip into an Economic world view often enough to confuse any philosophical argument. Economics is often labelled (even by economists) the "dismal science" in the sense that broad approximations have to be made with any model, and this leaves it open to the type of criticisms which just wouldn't fly with any other science. The more complex the model, the more useful it can be, but the less likely a lay person can understand it enough to agree with it. Thus people's concept of an economy in some circumstances, can be completely wrong because of the model used.

Thus the same concept I have for a world view. Religions as various models describe reality imperfectly but usefully. So what of my (non)belief in God? What, if not God is tracking the absolute morality which I believe exists regardless of people believing it exists? Well, an all-seeing God is useful but imperfect model therefore.

What I've been doing

I haven't posted for a while and it has been mainly other obsessions keeping me busy. Generally, my philosophy is to put this kind of thing in my sidebar and save the main area for philosophical discussions/wars. I'll get to that. I've been playing correspondence chess as a beta tester on ChesSos, which has been taking up most of my idle net time. I've been reading this book "America - the book" - a citizen's guide to democracy inaction - Very, very funny and also somewhat educational to someone who wasn't brought up on US history. I've also busied myself with worrying about work - to little avail. Even less work (or leisure for that matter) gets done until the object of worry gets improved.

Survival strategies

Evidence 1 :- A plant's seed whose pod can float in water for months, lies dormant for years until conditions that are just right precipitate germination. To a scientist, it is evidence of survival strategy. A plant can colonise a new area far away from its original base.

Evidence 2 :- A bacterium or other organism can withstand being frozen in a vacuum indefinitely until jolted back into life when it hits, say a planet. To a scientist this is irrelevant detail and doesn't indicate that certain bacteria have evolved this feature so they can go planet-hopping when major collisions happen.

Origins of life on Earth

I find this Economist article on the Origins of life a fair bit presumptuous. One critical assumption is that no frozen or otherwise DNA infected organisms existed amongst the rocks, dust and gases of the solar system to begin with. This leaves the problem of how DNA originated to some other environment much more conducive perhaps. The only other questions remains on how DNA spread to our solar system and otherwise around our galaxy. This I find more easily explainable than the hodgepodge of theories of how "breakout" happened. And again I see this background of subliminal thinking of having to move "up" from ooze to amino acids to proteins to RNA to DNA etc. as another ladder rather than a "bush". Other non-life chemicals formed will surely have an influence on the life there.

Just as I was talking about democracy and Islam

The Economist comes up with this article regarding democracy and Islam. Needless to say, I was just saying that.

The point is, I believe it much more likely that a "Pax Islam" will come about via the back door as a treaty between democratic Islamic based countries rather than the front door of Iran's theocracy taking the lead and other nearby countries making some kind of islamic (Warsaw like) pact to be part of an expanded theocracy.

Ha.. Ha.. - Hamas

Does the election of Hamas make a difference to peace prospects in Israel? My answer - No. What is happening in Syria and Iran is a lot more relevant as they still control the "spoiler" influence on Palestine. Israel and Palestine could be led by the dalai llama and it wouldn't make a difference. However, Palestine and Israel are part of this democratic pincer movement I have been theorising, that is isolating and surrounding Iran and Syria.

The battles to entrench democracy in the middle east is real "war" all the rest is bluff, bluster, isolated sacrifices, posturing, marginal threats and zealous journalism.

Deep in the Weeds

There has been blanket advertising on TV up here in Townsville of an emerging weed threat of Mimosa Pigra. I have realised that this weed has been gradually spreading around my "lawn" (more like a meadow, the way I maintain it) since late 1998. Presumably the seeds from these would have washed their way downstream towards the river. Asking around, this plant has been around Townsville in various patches for decades. I just wonder if we are already too late?


Mimosa flowers, normally pink - turned yellow by the highly alkaline clay soil in my front yard.
leaves before being touched
Touch-sensitive leaves now tucked away.










Note that these plants develop nasty thorns, and can grow into inpenetrable thickets metres high. They love our tropical climate, and have already laid claim to large swathes of the Northern Territory (more than NT's aboriginals :-)) In fact they should be renamed "Old man death"