Could we please dispell the myth that biofuels are being pushed by environmentalists. For the most part environmentalists are well aware of the risk of rises in the price of food, brought about through competition for crop material from the energy sector - particulary from corn.
Economics writer Ross Gittins discusses the arguments against a narrow focus on GDP growth as a marker of progress in today’s Sydney Morning Herald.
Drawing mainly upon comments from unorthodox economist Clive Hamilton, the article goes on to quote the current leaders of Australia’s and the UK’s conservative parties, who appear to have some sympathy for such a position (although Brendan Nelson’s sentiments have likely changed with time).
We’ve come a long way. Can the mania for growth be reigned in?
Ross Gittins
Read the rest here.
Attacks on the right to be judged by one’s peers are steadily mounting in NSW, as the government introduces changes to the Jury Act. This follows recent amendments changing the need for unanimous decisions - 11/12 is apparently near enough according to the NSW government. I’m reminded once again of the aphorism- “better to let ten guilty men walk free than to imprison one innocent man”.
From the ABC news online:
Judges “should be able to dismiss individual jurors”
New South Wales Cabinet has approved changes to the Jury Act to give judges the discretion to dismiss an individual juror without aborting a whole trial.
NSW Attorney-General John Hatzistergos says he wants to stop entire trials being aborted to the detriment of all, because of the actions of an individual juror.
Mr Hatzistergos says he does not believe the changes will disadvantage defendants.
“If for example the act of misconduct or the act of wrong empanelment has in some way contaminated the entire jury than the judge will have the discretion to be able to act accordingly,” he said.
“But we want to ensure that the jury system is able to be preserved and in particular that unnecessary abortions of jury trials can be avoided.”
But New South Wales shadow attorney-general Greg Smith says the Government has only acted on four out of 70 recommendations made by the Law Reform Commission.
He says lifting jurors’ fees should be a top priority.
“The fees paid to jurors are inadequate,” he said.
“They’re falling behind the average weekly earnings and I think that’s leading to many people that should be serving on jurors seeking exemption because they can’t afford it.
“Trials are getting longer.”
This year has been declared by the United Nations as the International Year of Languages. There is an increasing recognition, across the globe, of the importance of language and culture, particularly to Indigenous peoples. These issues have become even more pressing given the hastening extinction of languages and cultures under what we call “globalisation”.
Sadly, not all of us in Australia appreciate the benefits of language and cultural distinctiveness to one’s sense of identity and worldview.
A case in point is Helen Hughes’ recent work with the CIS on Indigenous education in the Northern Territory. Helen’s opinion piece on the ABC web site upset me greatly. Here are some extracts with my responses in blue text.
Critical of “separate Aboriginal curriculums”.
So a child in the Torres Strait must learn the same as a child in Hobart. No room for local culture, geography, customs, history etc. Appalling. (Not to be pedantic, but Helen should know the plural form is “curricula”.)
“Many of the men and women who actually stand in front of the class in Aboriginal schools have so little training that they are not…even articulate in English.”
There are some schools who have non-Indigenous teachers present English as a foreign langauge or in a bilingual context. In this setting, the Indigenous teacher’s English ability is pretty much irrelevant.
“…most children graduating from Aboriginal primary schools were unable to manage the work in mainstream high schools.”
And most children from mainstream primary schools would be unable to handle the work in Indigenous language high schools (not that there are many).
“Three generations of welfare dependence, poor education, and public housing have led to family and community dysfunction, so that teenage pregnancies, alcoholism, drug addiction, and crowded housing often undermine school attendance.”
Many of the communities with stronger language and culture e.g. Yolngu of Arnhem Land and Badulgal of Torres Strait are far more functional and have stronger family ties than those where cultural dispossession is well advanced e.g. Redfern, Alice Springs. Plenty of the more traditional communities have complete alcohol bans that are self-imposed.
“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children deserve and must have the same school facilities, curriculums, and teaching as other Australian children so that they may choose how and where to live.”
If they do not inherit the gift of language and culture from their parents, then they will not have the choice of living in their own distinctive societies. Place and belonging are central to Indigenous questions of identity and coercing them away to boarding schools (as Helen suggests) is not exactly offering choice of where to live.
“If mainstream schooling is not deemed to be viable in very small communities, arrangements will have to be made to board children or assist their parents to move so that they can attend school.”
See previous comment. Geez, I think history has seen enough of “moving them on” policies.
“All remote schools should be twinned with mainstream schools so that exchanges of students, teachers, and parents can expose substandard conditions and enable Australians to learn at first hand how their taxes are being spent.”
Mainstreaming is another word for assimilation. It is deeply immoral and will lead to cultural annihilation. Helen Hughes and the CIS are to be condemned for this brutal vision of a possible future. Let us hope she does not have the ear of our prime minister.
Further comment at linguistic blog Transient Languages & Cultures.
Mainstream approaches to global environmental crises tend to suggest that we can have our cake and eat it too. That is, we can continue to “grow” economic activity while saving the planet. For some time, advocates of this approach have suggested that we “de-link” economic growth and increased carbon emissions. Nobody knows if this is possible. Certainly there are no examples of countries maintaining economic growth without increased material consumption or carbon emissions. What if this approach is misguided?Could it be that endless increases in human consumption and population are not compatible with maintaining the Earth’s basic ecological functions.
Fortunately, there are fringe groups of academics exploring models of decreased consumption that might not lead to joblessness and poverty. The European Society of Ecological Economics is hosting the first international ”De-growth conference”. Check it out here.
From the Canberra times, I recently learnt of the sums of money that might be raised by Australia’s planned carbon trading scheme. Unbelievably (but predictably), business is asking for some special treatment.
Carbon trading to reap billions
By Andrew Fraser Political Correspondent
Cutting greenhouse-gas emissions is set to reap a bonanza of up to $20billion for Commonwealth coffers.In a policy brief out today, the Climate Institute says that, based on economic modelling, an emissions-trading system could yield a dividend of between $7 billion and $20 billion for the nation’s revenue in as few as 12 years.
It comes on the same day as the lead government adviser on climate change, Professor Ross Garnaut, brings out his second discussion paper and as the Australian Industry Group’s budget submission calls for a $3 billion tax break for business to deal with the Government’s climate-change policies.
later..
The Australian Industry Group Budget submission says the Government should phase in a reduction in company tax to 25 per cent from 30 per cent by 2010 to help business adjust to climate change.Chief executive Heather Ridout said, “Australian business wants to be part of a global solution to the threats posed by climate change and supports progress on giving shape to a domestic Emissions Trading Scheme.”
However, the scheme will leave many businesses and their employees in trade-exposed industries operating at a disadvantage relative to competitors abroad and it will require a massive investment effort by the business community as products and processes are re-evaluated and re-engineered.”
But Helen, the thing is, heavily polluting industries don’t need to be propped up, with their money returned in the form of subsidies or tax breaks. They need,….well,….to be hunted down and submerged in an icy stream until the last bubbles of life leave their grey-blue, motionless lips. Simple really.
I’m particularly enamoured of the devious (if clumsy) euphemism: “trade-exposed industries operating at a disadvantage relative to competitors abroad”. One could imagine she might be talking about the sale in land mines or narcotics with such a clever phrase. Remember, inflicting some discomfort on carbon emitters isn’t a problem - its the whole bloody point!
Anything that slows industries’ conversion to renewable energy generation and utilisation as well as sustainable production, is wasting precious time that this particular planet can ill afford.
I’ve found ‘away’.
I’ve mentioned before that David Suzuki’s phrase ” there is no ‘AWAY’ !” has stuck with me over the decades (as in ‘I threw it away‘). Well.. he’s wrong. I’ve finally found ‘away’. It’s a place in the Pacific Ocean where frightening quantities of plastic detritus circulate, and will probably continue to do so well after our bones turn to dust.
Plastic contamination in the world’s oceans is worse than previously imagined and no amount of technology can clean it up, according to Charles Moore. The oceanographer returned February 23 from a five-week odyssey in the Pacific Ocean with samples showing 48 parts plastic for every part of plankton…
Read the rest over at CNET green tech.
I was struck by the powerful message of Jeremy Rifkin while watching extra material on “the Corporation” DVD.
Here’s a nice slice:
What is culture? It’s all the activities you and I engage in that are not commercial and not government. Church, secular, fraternal, sports, arts, civic. It’s where we have deep play. It’s where we have reciprocal relationships. It’s where we explore our humanity. It’s where we revel in each other for the sheer joy of being a human being, and where we explore our relationship to our fellow creatures in the earth we live in. Culture is where we explore deep play. And create intrinsic value. The human story.
Commerce is where we create deep work and utility. In the real world, we live by deep play and deep work. We live by intrinsic and utility values.
The key question is which comes first? The community or the corporation and commerce? What I would argue, and it’s common sense, is that communities precede commerce, and therefore corporations are not the central organising principle of
our life, but they’re an augment. And should only be an essential augment but not sufficient to define who we are.So, what we need to do is bring back the culture. The problem is that civil society, the culture, the community, has been marginalized and colonised by either corporations or governments. In fact, we call the culture “the third sector” in public policy. As if commerce is the first sector,
government’s the second sector, and then where we live our lives and create our stories is the third sector. And think of the language we use. This is a total colonialised institution. In Canada and Europe, you call organisations in the civil society “non-governmental organizations”. Meaning, not government, but dependant on. Totally colonised. In the U.S., we call these organisations in the culture “non-profit”. Not corporate, but dependant on the commercial arena.We need to decolonise the civil society, re-embolden it, bring back cultural diversity, understand that the human story is the center of our identity. Then, we can put the corporation in its proper role. We can put the market and the networks in their proper role. Their role is to create utility. But utility is not the end of human existence, it’s simply an augment to human culture. And if we can begin to reestablish culture as the center where people’s power is, then there’s a role for corporations. And there’s a role for government. But those roles are to be attended to, not dominant over the place where people have their story told and where they live out their community values.
At least, that should be the headline.
But rather, it is “Police still to question Sea Shepherd activists“
I would have thought that Sea Shepherd deserved an award from the Australian Federal Police, given that they are doing their job for them. That is - policing the Great Southern Whale Sanctuary against illegal Japanese whaling.
Funny old world we live in.
Use soft words and hard arguments