Compulsory viewing

Took advantage of half-price day and the Oscar victory to go and see "The Hurt Locker". I had suspected this was an important film and it is.

In my opinion compulsory viewing for anyone who thinks they need to join the armed forces, or when we are thinking about invading another country.

My mind went back to the seminal film Full Metal Jacket, but I thought this was much more important than that. Or maybe our world has degenerated between Vietnam and Iraq. Interesting too that Vietnam films were made 20 yeard after that war ended, while Iraq fils are made while war is going on.

Its premise is that war/violence is a drug. And it makes a good case. Its addictive and mind-altering nature is quite alarming, but believable. Too-believable at times.

And amidst all that there is the awful sense of the incredible waste.

On using one's brain

I notice there are stories in the press in recent days suggesting that the great northern freeze is the start of 30 years of cold weather, global cooling, the environment readjusting itself...and so on.

While this sort of 'analysis' makes for easy reading in the popular press, it has about it the sort of simplistic critique that rather compounds the problem more than helps us understand it.

It's a sort of "what goes up must come down" type of theory.

Some climate-change sceptics have been espousing this for some time...the argument being that the earth has done this for ever and has always moved to correct itself.

What this overlooks is any qualitative analysis of what these 'corrections' might involve, or what the cost might be to world as a whole. Is a correction which involves the permanent disappearance of 35 species of birds, 456 species of tropical fish, the loss of plant life, the permanent changing of land and water structure, Ok because it is part of natural balance?

Some obviously think so.

If we use our brains, we would move to minimise damage. We would not use fluctuations, or even 'corrections' to justify our rapacious attitude towards the environment.

If we used our brains, while we would see that there is plenty of political point-scoring to be done, nationally and internationally...that it is that attitude that has got us into this poosition in the first place.

A bit of an unstructured wander over the subject........I'm sorry ...but maybe you take the point.

Peter Garrett- a bit sad

I guess there will be many who will note the irony of Peter Garrett approving the latest SA uranium mine.
Wednesday's editorial in The Advertiser patronisingly suggests that he has grown up!
It still begs all sorts of questions. (which I have suggested in various blog entries ever since he succumbed to political ambition).
I don't really think that we have had proper debate about nuclear energy in this country.
We sidestep the question of whether we can sell our uranium to almost all comers whilst claiming some sort of moral high ground in not looking seriously at whether or not we should be moving in that direction ourselves.
This is not to say that we do not have a similar dilemma with coal. Victims, like everyone else, of global warming ourselves we don't seem to be able to extricate ourselves from our exploitation of coal. Either for export or our own use. These things of course are not straightforward, and can't be done overnight.
I am open to being convinced that safe nuclear energy might be the way to go. But to be convinced we need to have robust and very public discussion. I don't think we are having or have had it.
People like Garrett who have capitulated looks as though they have given in to political expediency (and maybe for good reason). This only makes them look foolish because the reasoning does not seem to have been aired. I suspect Garrett has done better than that, but he is havign trouble getting the message out.

Lest we forget!

One of the delightful things I have been doing in the last few weeks is mentoring a year 7 student in aspects of English language for an hour or so each week.
He is working on a poetry project and has decided to look at war.
In talking to him about it, and what some of the themes are, it is interesting to note that in a naive sort of way he understands the futility of young people being sent off to fight political battles in which they have little or no direct interest. And that people get caught up in such fracas as 'collateral damage' to other men's (usually men) decisions.
If the First and Second wars and those following have taught us nothing else, hopefully there will be a lasting reminder...as there should be on this 90th Anniversary of the Armistice ...that war is not a solution.

The price of petrol war

As we watch the price of petrol escalate we should not forget that this is also the price of war.

A war which, as ever, old men decided would happen despite the protestations of their nations. A war which would be paid for not by the rich and powerful but by the sons and daughters of those who protested.

Such foolishness, such waste!

Waving not drowning

The current heat wave (see here)has everyone here in SA gathered around the TV weather every evening, only to feel a wave of deflation pass over them when the week long forecast is shown and gives a range of temperatures from 37-40.

This has now gone on for 8 days and we have a full week (at least) ahead of us. While I have blogged before about how this is not something out of the blue, but at least within the range of our South Australian experience (remember those long February-March school days back in the 60s, those hot old Uni orientation weeks in the un-airconditioned St Mark's College, and at least one very hot week at Goolwa when we used to go down to the beach at the dead of night because it was the only cool place) nevertheless it is a bit of a worry.

I feel as though the  struggle with the garden at Port Elliot is at least as significant as the advance of the Kalahari...will we simply have desert there in 5 years. I don't think so, maybe there was always going to be a stuggle to creat garden on a sand dune! I have realised in the last few weeks that the native bushland parts of that garden are actually looking quite good. And, oh, the smell of eucalyptus and native bushland when the temperature soars! What else might we expect?

It would be nice for this to end soon, we took a quarter off the front lawn by covering it with gravel on Saturday....should have done it a long time ago, Tilly takes it in her stride but it wears her down. And each day you meet at least two people who have not slept well.

It is a heat wave. But weare waving not drowning.

New Year

There will be those who will think that the scorching temperatures are indicative of global warming!
I am not a denier, but they are not (on their own) evidence per se! It was wonderful to wander around at midnight last night and watch the fireworks in the wramth of the hot evening.
Here at Port Eliott, today, it was not 40 it was 25! 80 kms away from Adelaide (where it was 40) and 10-15 degrees cooler! Beautiful.
It would of course be ludicrous to suggest that Adelaide is in the grips of global warming and Port Elliott is not! We need to appreciate that global warming is a long-term and not a short term (year to year) trend. If average temperatures have gone up by 2, 3 or 10 degrees in 50 years time then there will indeed have been a trend, but this does not happen statistically from year to year.
As I think back through our post Christmas holidays over the last two decades they have (if anything) been cooler than the late 60s and 70s. So let's not be silly!
Meanwhile we have really appreciated the 4 minute timer for the shower which seems to have worked for all. Now water! That is a real and immediate problem!!
Happy New Year. Watch the water!

Final Solution

My less-left wing brother in law (well actually he's less left wing than Alexander Downer if that places him on the political spectrum for you) quite rightly remarks that nuclear energy presents the Green movement with something of a dilemma.
While it is being offered as a "green solution", an alternative to the CO2 emitting processes which seem likely to destroy (have destroyed) all sorts of things about our planet that we have taken for granted. There is clearly a problem with the side-effects of nuclear energy and the disposal of waste. I am generally persuaded that Australia being geologically and politically stable can be a good 'dumping ground'. But no one really wants a dumping ground in their backyard if they don't have to have it.
The real dilemma is the thousands of years it requires for this stuff to be stored before it can be reprocessed ( by my reading it doesn't ever become safe again) and the exponentially increasing quantities of waste that will develop if we give ourselves to this form of power production.
Much as I hate to agree with my less left-wing b-i-l,he is right. There is a dilemma.
It was not helped by hearing a current affairs host today in discussing this issue say "We are a long way from the final solution on this issue". Final solution indeed, she is usually a lot more careful with her language.

Global cooling

Wednesday     Shower or two.                         Min 11    Max 17
Thursday      Fine. Morning cloud.                   Min 13    Max 20
Friday        Fine. Mostly sunny.                    Min 10    Max 24
Saturday      Fine. Mostly sunny.                    Min 14    Max 30
Sunday        Fine. Mostly sunny.                    Min 15    Max 33
Monday        Hot. Late change.                      Min 17    Max 36

One of the things that I was taught to do at University (but I'm not very good at) was to look at statistical information properly, and to draw appropriate conclusions not (just) the ones that I wanted to.
Now, I'm generally a believer with regard to climate change. But during these bitterly cold days of late I have not heard one person suggest that this cold snap is heralding a new age of 'global cooling'....but you can bet that on Saturday we will hear once again from misreaders of statistics (like the weather forecast for the next few day above) about global warming!
So (far be it from me to suggest too often) little Johnny is right when he says that global warming is not going to happen tomorrow, and we need to be measured in our approach and response (here). But I cannot buy the argument that therefore we should do nothing until the "big players" (the US and China) get their acts together. Nor am I convinced thjat Howard really believes that, if he did then Australia would never do anything abotu anything.
I say we should do what we can, as soon as we can. Anything less is stupid.
Any way rug up and enjoy the day!!!