Political rant
Since I've gotten into another political s**tfight, here's where I stand on such issues in case anyone's interested:
- Climate change is real, it's here, and it's happening now. There may be a lot of noise in the press saying "oh but wait some climate scientists think it's not all bad" and "there's this guy in Milwaukee who reckons that it's all caused by radiation from the planet neptune and it will go away when neptune moves further from the sun", there are actually ZERO published and peer reviewed articles in formal scientific journals that prove that human activity is not a prime actor in the process of climate change. Sure, the scientific debate rages on about extents and percentages ("I have some evidence that the global sea level rise by 2050 will actually be 4% smaller than the report produced by that other guy") but the overwhelming consensus in the scientific community is that human activity cause climate change. If someone has told you otherwise, then they are misleading you. If you believe human activity does not cause climate change in the face of overwhemling evidence to the contrary then there is nothing I can do about that, but if you claim to others that you have proof that human activity does not cause climate change and you do not have the scientific evidence, proof, knowledge, and understanding to back up that claim then you are a danger to the continued survival of the planet and need to be dealt with as such.
- Yes, I'm an environmentalist in case you hadn't spotted that. If you use the terms "loopy greenies" or "nutbags from the green movement" (Sarah Palin's epithet I believe) around me then you can expect a lot of complicated questions that will need detailed and accurate answers.
- Anthropogenic climate change is only one indicator that too many people on this planet are having too much of a destructive effect. Not just on the climate, but on food and water resources, fossil fuel reserves and energy resources generally, and so on. We can't keep expanding this planet's population forever and we have to accept at some point we need to contract it. There is a lot of research that needs to be done on what a sustainable population for the planet is but I suspect it's closer to 3 billion or even 1 billion than the 6.8 billion that we have now. What happens when we have 10 billion people and we discover that due to climate change, limited fuel and energy resources (no diesel left to run the tractors), and perhaps some incident such as a massive and wide-reaching drought, flood, or pest issue, that we hav the food to feed only 1 billion? Who gets the job of saying "you live, you die"? Population strategy, on a global scale, is needed.
- The planet is adaptable. Provided we bring the climate under control, then we probably have 200 years or more before we need a stable population. There is no need for panic. However, if we pass the tipping points on climate change then the entire issue may very well be decided for us as many of our coastal cities and food production areas go under water.
- Despite the overwhelming opinion in society that greens are entirely left wing, I'm neither left wing nor right wing. I think that Peter Costello did a reasonably good job of managing the economy in the first few terms of the Howard government and I voted Liberal twice during that time (OK, Liberal once, conservative independent once). I did view John Howard as a bit of a liability to himself however and was quite glad to see him thrown down.
- Workchoices, in any form or under any name, needed to be disposed of and must never return. The introduction of workchoices had me return to the ALP voting fold very quickly when I saw its effect on my business. You would think that business owners supported workchoices? Not as such. Most Australian owned businesses are "small", and those small businesses employ a majority of the workforce. As a small business owner I regularly competed with large firms of overseas ownership and profit distribution -- very little of the profit from IBM, Oracle, etc, stays in Australia. These sort of companies can implement workchoices or workplace contracts and screw over their labour force, with little deleterious effect -- there are always replacements who will work under those circumstances. If I tried that, with a staff of 5, then my staff would quickly walk out and even losing 2 or 3 in the middle of a major project would be entirely destructive. So for this reason I believe that the ALP's industrial relations policy is the best one for this country for a good many years yet, and the Liberals must never be allowed to regain hold on government while they still have sitting members from that era who want to bring back any part of the Liberal's past IR policy.
- On the other hand, I am mildly, although not vehemently, anti-union. I believe that in the past the trade union movement has done great things for this country, but it is currently moribund, rife with corruption, and inclined to tactics that overstate the issues that are involved. I believe that Kevin Rudd was a better leader, long term, than Julia Gillard simply because he was not as heavily influenced by the union movement.
- I am not religious and I believe that religion and politics belong in different "jails" to steal an IT term. My main fear on Tony Abbott coming to power is that he is, without a doubt, unable to be restrained on certain personal religious issues that cross over into politics. Apart from his many degrading statements regarding women in the press, he has also been published on such issues as forcing the (christian) bible to be studied in schools (YES ALL SCHOOLS INCLUDING JEWISH AND MOSLEM ONES!), revoking access to abortion, etc. I have no idea why parts of the christian movement doubt the evidence and proof thrown up by climate change scientists, but he is also on record as saying that climate change science is "crap" and this viewpoint can be traced directly back to his christian roots. The sooner the Liberals get rid of him, the better.
- I don't particularly care about migration. The planet has a population problem. Australia's population problem is insignificant by comparison. We may as well let them all in.
- I am in favour of an emissions trading scheme, and again it needs to be global (although the implementation needs to be national). An ETS is probably the best short term way to trade our way out of high carbon pollution, and the way it works, basically, is like this: Farmer A grows a bunch of trees. That creates a carbon "credit" that he then sells to power station owner B. Power station owner B puts carbon into the atmosphere and so needs to buy these credits to take the carbon back. That costs money, so it makes B's power more expensive. Wind farm owner C doesn't need to buy carbon credits, and so C's power doesn't get more expensive, and becomes competitive with B's otherwise cheap power. Farmer A makes a nice little profit, electricity prices go up (which they have to do anyway) and the economy keeps turning.
- A carbon tax is a second best solution, although it's generally preferred by the deep green movement. Basically in the scenario above, the money paid by power station owner B goes to the government that then invests it in infrastructure that helps wind farm owner C and farmer A in some indirect way. It can also go towards projects such as restoring the Murray-Darling waterways, etc. It has the advantage of giving the government greater control over the direction of investment in environmental restoration and so appeals to a lot of people that way. I believe that the ETS is better because it brings in market forces directly.
- A "price on carbon" is a must have, and a starting point for either. Farmer A needs to know how much money he's going to make by planting his trees, power station owner B needs to know what his price on burning coal is going to be so that he can factor it in to customer contracts, and entrepreneur D needs to know precisely how competitive wind farm owner C's energy is going to be so that he can invest much money in that and also make a tidy little profit.
- A global ETS, with or without a carbon tax, is a very good thing. It means that farmer A can be in Ecuador or Brazil, while coal power station B is in China, and suddenly there's a big incentive to stop chopping rainforests down. Huge win for everyone (except B who can probably afford it anyway).
- Abolish state governments. NZ copes quite well without them and most of ours are moribund anyway.
- Abolish the senate. It's a waste of money. Bring in proportional or MMP voting into a single chamber and that will do the same job.
- Abolish the monarchy. Yes, I'm a republican and not just for Australia but for Great Britain as well. Australia will hopefully do the right thing and ditch the Saxe-Coburg-Gothe monarchy when the current head of the household calls it quits, but surely it's time for the Poms to do the same? It's rule by right of conquest, you know. Time to go.
- I am an "equalist" especially when it comes to equal pay, equal access to education, equal opportunity, for everyone. I'm not going to attempt to slur the feminists I know by pretending to be a feminist, because I'm not. It's one small part of the equation but not the whole puzzle -- we need to get access to better education and health out to the aboriginal community, the poor and disadvantaged in this country, and then out to places like the Pacific Islands, etc. The OLPC project is a worthwhile small part of that, support it as best as you are able. Education needs to be free and accessible to all up to undergradute level -- education is the single best way to break the poverty cycle, and free education is an investment in the future of the country and of the planet, not just the person.