Tony, you have succinctly voiced my own feelings held for many years about the use of nuclear energy for power generation. It is something we must do without not just for our own sakes but for future generations who follow us. If nothing else good comes out of Fukushima at least it has yet again demonstrated to the world the cost to human life and our planet when accidents occur at nuclear facilities. Sadly I fear that there will always be those that put profit and convenience ahead of our concerns and more nuclear facilities will be built using the excuse that we now know better, our designs will be far safer, it could not happen here, etc.
Having visited Japan many times in my working life I can only trust that you and my Japanese friends met over those years will come through this dark cloud and once again see the sun rising over your beautiful country.
Comments
Real facts about nuclear power
Subject was: Real Facts
Ed. The author of the following comment has supplied a very out-of-date resource. The simple explanation he or she refers us to was last updated on 14 March, with a comment that radiation levels were increasing but it was not known to what level. Here is the unhelpful comment I am criticising:
Stop scaremongering and read some real facts.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/13/fukushima-simple-explanation/
The out-of-date article, referred to above is: Fukushima Nuclear Accident – a simple and accurate explanation posted on 13 Mar 11. The opening paragraph of that article is:
Along with reliable sources such as the IAEA and WNN updates, there is an incredible amount of misinformation and hyperbole flying around the internet and media right now about the Fukushima nuclear reactor situation. In the BNC post Discussion Thread – Japanese nuclear reactors and the 11 March 2011 earthquake (and in the many comments that attend the top post), a lot of technical detail is provided, as well as regular updates. But what about a layman’s summary? How do most people get a grasp on what is happening, why, and what the consequences will be?
- Ed
Can you tell me which reactor, please?
In your article, you said:
"After the reactor properly shut down due to the earthquake, the tsunami caused flooding in the power backup and ruined the diesel generators preventing powering the cooling pumps."
I assume you are talking about the accident at Fukushima No.1 Power Station on March 11.
If you look at my article Japan Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster you will see that my information says the reactor(s) did not shut down properly and that the backup diesel power source ran only for a short time due to lack of fuel. However, four reactors are involved (although reactor 4 was down for maintenance) so perhaps you are right with regard to one of the reactors, but which one. Is it possible for you to tell me which reactor you were referring to and the source of your information. I'd be very happy to know about that.
Also, I encourage you to read my article and comment if you would like to do so. Thank you.
words are not enough
Tony, what can one say? It is a tragedy beyond tragedies, but I do not need to tell you that as you are living it, living in amongst the horror, the fear, the bravery, the despair and are seeing it first hand. Not as we on TV, or in the newspapers. We hear of the truly amazing stories of the communities working together to try and make life a little more tolerable, our hearts go out to you, and we hope you get through this and return home safely, but no doubt you will stay to help, may your God be with you in this time of great need.
Thanks for your comment, Brad.
Yes, indeed. TEPCO has already said that Fukushima No.1 Power Station will never run again, but its unclear whether they include reactors 5 & 6 in that. And where is the president of TEPCO? I don't think we've seen him in the newspapers or on TV since the earthquake. Of course, they are going to try to avoid responsibility for this and carry on as 'normal'. I am saying (in this article) 'no, this is the end!' But are you thinking of staying where you are now??
I want to say to anyone who's reading that Brad and his family live about halfway between where I am and the Fukushima No.1 Power Station, so their situation is far worse than ours!
Collapse of complex societies
Dave,
Yes, I agree, the future is not going to be pretty and there is no plan B.
What you say about fuel shortages and lack of goods in supermarkets is very similar to what we have been experiencing here in Japan in since the March 11 earthquake, and on top of that we're sitting in the middle of a nuclear disaster. The *present* isn't very pretty. The crash is happening now.
I have put up an article today. Japan Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster
I mention this article of tim's here and invite everyone to take the first step towards the society of the future by saying 'no to nuclear power'. (Since Australia mines uranium you are not off the hook.) To see my rationale, kindly read the article. If you have a comment or a word of support, I hope you will leave a comment/message. Thanks!
Even that is not grim enough
I agree with Tim nearly all the way, but I have to say that while the logic of reducing P is correct, it is politically too difficult as well. Even authoritarian China, who is further down this road than any other country, hasn't also eased up on A and T, so they cannot be said to recognise I=PAT either.
When I read "Limits to Growth" back in 1971, I naively thought it would have a big impact - it didn't, apart from being denigrated by the Growth Lobby.
When I read "Abandon Affluence" by Ted Trainer in 1985, it changed my life and my lifestyle, and I hoped that my example would be infectious, but I still cannot see anyone else adopting my relatively simple lifestyle. And, of course, the brutal truth is my lifestyle is only possible while it is embedded within a rich, hi-tech society.
I was part of the formation of the Australian Greens in 1989, and worked hard to get these political ideas into the mainstream. But eventually I ran into a brick wall with Senator Christine Milne, who is committed to selling a positive future to the voters, and refuses to recognise that the energy needed for the rebuilding our entire electricity generating infrastructure, transport and metal-smelting industries is not going to be available when Peak Oil and Peak Coal start to bite. So after 19 years of effort, I had to resign from the Greens.
(I would have had to resign anyway after I saw Bob Brown throwing his support behind the Libyan no-fly zone the other day. WTF !)
I was part of Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population in the 90s and learned the hard way how that is like beating your head against a brick wall. Non-interference with family size is even written into the International Declaration of Human Rights, so I cannot see any progress being made in the short time we have left before Peak Oil drives the inevitable decline of industrial society.
The future is not going to be pretty. There is no Plan B. I comfort myself with the thought that the forests and the wildlife will heave a big sigh of relief when the bulldozers and the chainsaws fall silent. Some societies in out of the way places may not even notice this collapse, as they don't use petrol, and have never even made a telephone call, let alone had a broadband internet connection.
The collapse, when it happens, will come very quickly for all the reasons laid out in Tainter's "Collapse of Complex Societies". Most likely a shortage of petrol and diesel will prevent adequate maintenance and repair of the electricity infrastructure, which will lead to the collapse of the telephone, internet, water and sewerage services. Banks will close due to lack of electrical security systems and EFTPOS, and cash will disappear into cash registers leaving people with nothing to spend in the shops, which will be mostly empty anyway due to the lack of diesel for transport.
I have witnessed this happen on a small scale twice since moving to Mission Beach. The recovery was only possible due to an extraordinary effort from outside. What will happen when there is no 'outside' to help us?
There will be protests in the streets - "More food ! Cheaper fuel ! More jobs !", they will cry. No doubt there will be leaders who will claim that they can provide what is demanded, but it is impossible. We have massively overshot Sustainability, and now we have to meet the grisly consequences.
Why haven't they sarcophagized the reactors?
Why haven't they sarcophagized the reactors? Are they hoping to rehabilitate and reuse them?
It is interesting that TEPCO apologized a couple days ago for accidentally exposing three of their workers to highly radioactive water.
Why haven't they apologized for poisoning one of the most beautiful prefectures in Japan? Is it because to apologize would be to admit responsibility? Are they angling to claim that the entire nuclear accident was an act of God?
Organic Farmers: Appeal to Decomission All Nuclear Reactors
Thanks Tony, a very good write-up of extraordinary events. I am worried about the farmers in the region. I visited Ibaraki Prefecture with a team from UK Soil Association earlier in March and we saw some beautiful farms. They must be going through extreme hardships right now.
Here is an appeal from Japan Organic Agriculture Association:
Urgent Appeal to Decommission All Nuclear Reactors
We have gathered here in Echizen City, Fukui Prefecture, Japan to hold the 39th Annual Rally and General Meeting of the Japanese Organic Agriculture Association with “Organic agriculture for sustaining life” as our theme.
We regard organic farming as the basic principle of life.
However, it has become painfully clear that nuclear power generation is the direct opposite of the basic principle of life. Nuclear power and all living things, including human life, cannot coexist. Thus we hereby appeal for the immediate discontinuation of nuclear power development and the decommissioning of all nuclear power plants.
Adopted at the General Meeting on March 13, 2011
Japan Organic Agriculture Association (NPO)
Please read more over at Urgenci.net:
http://www.urgenci.net/page.php?niveau=2&id=Helping%20our%20Japanese%20f...
Who cares for the forest?
Sheila,
Yes, but as generally happens when you get close to problems, the situation becomes more complex. There is a forestry agency in Japan that is supposed to oversee Japan's forests. They publish a white paper each year, but they seem to do little more than state the situation (which is some help). They are hampered by basically two problems I think. 1) Of course money with which to implement projects (affected by the perceptions of politicians and the people who vote for them), and 2) the forest ownership situation - I was surprised to note when I did the above survey of the city in which I live that the forests are a patchwork of public and private ownership. The public ownership is also split into three or four different types - national, regional, local... The publicly-owned forests, of course, should be cared for by the 'owners', but the means and institutions for helping private owners maintain their forests do not seem to be there. This is because, I think, as Stew pointed out, the forests should be making money - it should be, and was, well worth your while to keep your forests healthy for the profit you could make from them, but that was lost when timber was liberalized in the early 60s. We need to go back there, of course - the forests could provide huge amounts of employment, as Stew hints, but now there are vested interests that would not like to do that. When it becomes difficult to import timber and fossil fuels, of course, the attentions will be turned the other way.
Martin Bryant
Cover up, cover up, cover up. This case stinks!!! I've read so much on this case and the more I read the more ill I feel. Whoever killed those innocent people in 1996 walks amongst us. More Australians need to know what really happened that terrible day. And stop blaming it on a mentally disabled person.
Why no "No Fly zone" over Toronto?
If Ghadaffi's alleged brutality against opponents is justification for the US and NATO imposing a "No Fly Zone" against the Libyan Government, then why won't they impose a similar "No Fly Zone" against the Canadian Government for its brutal suppression of protestors against the financial wreckers at the G20 Summit in Toronto?
View BrassCheckTV video No fly zone...over Toronto? at http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/1062.html .
Libya: Largest Military Undertaking since the Invasion of Iraq
Libya: Largest Military Undertaking since the Invasion of Iraq. Towards a Protracted Military Operation by Michael Chossudovsky of Global Research 20 Mar 2011 :
Outright lies by the international media: Bombs and missiles are presented as an instrument of peace and democratization...
This is not a humanitarian operation. The war on Libya opens up a new regional war theater.
There are three distinct war theaters in the Middle East Central Asian region. Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq.
What is unfolding is a fourth US-NATO War Theater in North Africa, with the risk of escalation.
These four war theaters are functionally related, they are part of an integrated US-NATO military agenda. ...
LIBYA-When historical memory is erased - In the square the banners of King Idris wave by Manlio Dinucci also of globalresearch.ca 28 Feb 11 :
Benghazi captured, the rebels have lowered the green flag of the Republic of Libya, hoisting in its place the red, black and green banner with crescent and star: the flag of the monarchy of King Idris. The same flag was hoisted by protesters (including those of the Partito democratico and the Rifondazione comunista) on the gate of the Libyan embassy in Rome, raising the cry: "Here's the flag of democratic Libya, that of King Idris." It was a symbolic act, rich in history and burning current events....
Great analogies and there is hope!
The car on the long journey carrying back and front seat passengers and the golf game are both great analogies!
With regard to the need for hope in facing our situation, when I realised the connection of population growth to the use of fossil fuels, I felt enormous relief and hope that there would be an end to run away human population growth and of ultimately salvaging some of Earth's environment post peak human population- that it would mitigate the end result of run away population growth. Others may find dwindling fossil fuel frightening and confronting. What for me was information that brought hope, for others is a disaster in the wings. Of course it is both and the reality of our future of shortages now heralded from time to time with minor interruptions to the world as we know it such as the global financial crisis, water restrictions, expensive bananas or petrol, is just a foretaste.
The notion of population growth which seems to be popularly absorbed "Classic Demographic Transition Theory" is that human populations move in a "demographic transition" from lives "nasty, brutish and short" with high birth and death rates, through a drop in death rates and huge overpopulation, to the final stage where birth rates decline and settle into a pattern of low birth and death rates balancing one another in a stable pattern. This notion is actually quite pessimistic as, if true it would doom all populations to misery and overpopulation before reaching a post industrial modern state. Less well known models, actual theories of human population are much more hopeful and make more sense. For example the "Comprehensive Demographic Transition Theory",( see Global Population Speak Out website), Virginia Abernethy's "Fertility Opportunity Theory", and the multi-disciplinary work of Sheila Newman, population sociologist on land use planning and incest avoidance, are in fact much more hopeful, make sense and are compatible with one another .They are thoughtful, observable scientifically based. Why are they not widely known? Why do most people seem to understand human population growth in terms of the dismal theory that is not true? We need to throw some light on this subject, to help people regain control. Real knowledge far from causing people to shrink from it in this case would be hopeful and (forgive the term) empowering. (Sheila Newman recently published "The Urge to disperse" ideas from which were first presented at a meeting of Sustainable Population Australia in Victoria last year and this week detailed in a lecture to 3rd year environmental economics students at R.M.I.T. University, Melbourne)
24 hour vigil at NMIT Eden Park to stop roo culling
Protesters vow to 'physically intervene' to stop roo cull at Eden Park of 23 Mar 11 by Shannon Deery of the Herald Sun
There is an article, linked to above, and a chance to add your opinions.
More than 100 wildlife warriors have launched a round-the-clock crusade against a mass kangaroo cull on a property north of Melbourne. The activists have vowed to "physically intervene" to stop the cull and have set-up camp at the 320ha Northern Lodge farm and horse stud at Eden Park, 40km north of Melbourne. They have vowed to remain on site 24 hours a day until a permit to cull the eastern grey kangaroos is revoked.
The DSE is run by shooters and red-neck thugs who are a law unto themselves. NMIT should be holding high ideals and teach about conservation, "green" agriculture and the benefits of ecology. Kangaroos are natural pasture managers. While the NMIT have livestock and horses, they cannot claim that kangaroos are "damaging pasture" when this is what livestock do. The DSE are impervious to public opinion, the local Council and local residents. Their flimsy claims of damage done by the kangaroos does not sound genuine. Considering that they came and destroyed bushland to install their institute, they can't claim to be environmentally "friendly" themselves. Do they expect wildlife not to be part of the local bushland they destroyed?
Fight for sustainability cannot be won on only one front
Tim wrote:
Living 'smaller', increasing technological efficiency and achieving equality would make but a trivial and short-lived impact on overshoot. To suggest otherwise reflects a serious lack of perspective and scale.
Tim, none of the measures I proposed to eliminate much of the waste by humankind need rocket science to implement (and few of the others, which I have yet to mention, do). Most of them could be brought into effect by simple changes of law that most would understand and support in any democratic society. I fail to see how the impact of reducing so much waste imposed upon humankind by the "free market" system could be 'trivial'.
The fact remains that the world is supporting 7 billion humans now and, short of there being a global war, which would be unlikely not to involve the use nuclear weapons (from which we can thank JFK amongst others for having saved us in the past) or new genocidal dictators in the mould of Stalin, Hitler or Pol Pot rising to power, the world can and must support 7 billion people or not much less than that number for at least a few decades to come. Now surely, Tim, you don't wan't to see global human population reduced by those means? Of course it would be faster than more natural means, but, I think the cost that would be borne by our global life support system would be less if human's population reduction were achieved naturally, even if not quite as quickly.
Obviously our global life support system can't support anywhere near 7 billion people in the long term, but until numbers are reduced to truly sustainable numbers, we have to find ways to reduce the harmful impact of all those people by as much as we possibly can.
Also, by showing up how the same selfish elites, who are now trying to increase our global popuation, also favour such scandalous waste in so many areas of human activity, we stand a far greater chance of removing, through political action, the harmful control they now exert over our destinies.
This will be made more likely when we show ordinary people how, in order to increase their own bottom lines, they willingly decrease, by an amount vastly greater than what they, themselves, gain, the bottom line in natural capital of this and future generations of humankind.
If we choose to fight for sustainability only on the front of population size, then it seems to me that our chances of winning the fight, even on that front alone, are not increased, but, in fact, reduced.
Not only in France
Not only in France. Soaring power and food prices are set to increase pressure on interest rates, as the Australian Bureau of Statistics changes the way it calculates inflation.
As reported in The Australian, ABS data reveal that food prices now make up 16.4 per cent of the CPI -- a 1 per cent increase since 2005,
The Canadian food giant McCains foods decided to reduce the farmers pay to $26.50 less per tonne, which means they will receive $273.50 per tonne.
Grower representative Ross Dimond said this was not enough to survive on and many farmers were concerned for the future of the industry.
Independent MP Bob Katter addressed the protest from the back of a ute and said all Australians concerned about food security should get behind the Ballarat growers and boycott the Canadian-owned McCain's.
Rising world food prices threaten democracies in poor countries, causing riots and civil conflict and widening the gap between rich and poor, a study by the International Monetary Fund found. Half the income of an emerging market worker is spent on food and energy. Little is being said about the invisible "elephant in the room" - Population growth!
The world cannot adequately feed 7 billion so how will it feed 37 billion as predicted there will be in 100 years time.
A vote for the Stable Population Party will mean that Australia can continue to export much needed food to the Middle East, rather than consuming it all here because of an economy that demands a 'big Australia'.
Food prices to rise 15-20% with oil costs
Food producers in France have announced that food will go up 15-20% right now due to the rise in cost of oil.
The public need more local control over food production in Australia because exactly the same price rises will occur here (plus the increases due to floods.)
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
since last year CIC website
since last year CIC website is help after bringing more Haiti's national in Canada I understand distaer happened in Haiti is not good for anyone but what about Chili and Japan they both are suffering from same situitation why CIC loves Haiti so much?
Its unfair immigration Policy because some politician belongs to Haiti. It feels like Canadian politics is also corrupts.
Reverse discrimination
If it was an ethnic or racial group being vilified for their type of house, or for "rattling around" inside it, there would be an outcry of racism, xenophobia and discrimination. However, because the attack is on middle class mainstream Australian widows, they are open for ridicule and derision. They have a right to live in their homes, the homes of their families, their memories, and enjoy the amenities previous generations took for granted. Why should the builders and developers manipulate guilt for their own purposes?
To say that Melbourne is low density is good as it allows liveability, parklands, backyards, gardens, trees, pets and nature strips. Having a "brick veneer" with all the trappings of 1960s icons such as Hills Hoist etc is reverse discrimination - it is saying that they should be made available for the pool of young migrants coming into to Victoria from overseas who will add more to the economy are preferred. Older widows from traditional Australian backgrounds should thus move on and make way for "progress".
Fragmenting our society, and replacing original Australians with "diversity", helps the breakdown of democratic debate, cohesive communities, and allows government-supported groups to push unpopular agendas onto a more compliant and "fresh" public.
Sustainability should not be fought for on only one front
Tim wrote:
That, [David Attenborough] said, was a cause for optimism---we can make that kind of effort again to shift to a sustainable economy, an industrial economy that operates within limits. But where will this economy find enough non-renewable resources to maintain it? Can we run any kind of industrial economy indefinitely?
Whilst there can be no kind of industrial economy that can last indefinitely, I think given the earth's considerable remaining stock of non-renewable natural resources, if we dramatically change the way society is run, then I think there is hope that we may be able to sustain the kind of industrial production which produces truly useful artifacts, such as computers, telecommunications, sewing machines, railway systems, solar energy panels, spades, rakes, wheelbarrows and bicycles, for a little longer.
Whilst we can't hope for a sustainable future without population stability, we could still progress a long way towards the goal of sustainability by reducing humankind's wasteful consumption of non-renewable natural resources.
We must at least remove economic incentives which increase profitability for product manufacturers and retailers, but at the expense of reducing by more than is necessary the natural capital owned, or which should be owned, by human society as a whole as well as future generations. Better still, such practices should be criminalised, if at all possible. Practices, which which we should aim to minimise, include:
- Built-in obsolescence
- Manufacturing tools, items of machinery and other items with similar parts that are non-standard.
At the very least, it should be illegal to manufacture and sell anything, which can't make use of screws, washers, nuts and batteries and electricity outlets with standard sizes and specifications. If this had been done decades ago, the amount of fill in rubbish tips today would be vastly less and our remaining stocks of metals, fossil fuels and other natural capital would be much greater. Items that typically become useless after two or three years, either because they are designed to break down or because it is not possible to replace a missing part, could instead easily have useful lives of at least many decades before they are consigned to the tip. Given that humankind still has considerable remaining stocks of natural capital, it would not be too late even now to adopt such measures to seriously reduce their waste.
We could also vastly reduce the need for so many people to travel as far as they do and as often as they do by better town planning. Why can't governments insist that work locations, shops, schools, entertainment venues and other amenities be put near where people live?
Where people still have to travel a lot, there are many ways in which it is possible to reduce the cost of transport. If a taxi could be driven without a license plate, the prices of which have been driven up to the order of over AU$300,000 by speculative trading (see WA TAXI CAB (Perth) Premium Taxi Plate $315,000 on 24 Mar 11), fares would be low enough to make taxis a more affordable means of transport to many who now own cars as well as allow taxi drivers to earn a decent living in a civilised working week and not have to work in the slave-like conditions that most Australian taxi drivers now work under.
It is excessively hard for people to obtain motorcycle licenses. If motorcycle licenses could be obtained more easily, particularly by people prepared to ride low-powered motorcycles or no-peds, then the number of cars on our roads and the natural capital consumed in their manufactured and use could be dramatically reduced.
Even if we are unable to achieve the goal of population stability and reduction quite as soon as we would wish, adopting measures such as I described above can surely still increase the likelihood of human civilisation becoming sustainable before it strikes catastrophe.
Of course, I am not saying for a minute that we not take every opportunity to argue for population stability, but the fight for sustainability has to be fought on every possible front. If we make less advance than we would wish on one front then at least an advance on another front can only buy us more time.
The article, Questions That Continue To Bedevil Me of 24 Mar 11 by Tim, may be in response to this comment. In the teaser, he has written, "The fight for sustainability cannot be a war fought on all fronts, but a single-minded determination to remove the first stumbling block to solving all other problems."
Empathy for the animals
In all honesty my empathy and sympathy goes to the suffering of animals; for wild animals in Africa- rhinoceros being killed for their horns, gorillas being killed for meat, elephants in India competing with humans for crops and coming off second best, the young polar bear who was born in a zoo in Germany, lived 4 sad years having been rejected by his mother as a baby and then mysteriously dying very prematurely, the poor labrador dog I read about in the newspaper today who died because her stupid owner locked her in the Prius with the windows closed. I have empathy for all the ducks being shot right now during the current utterly unnecessary duck season in Victoria, for the poor kangaroos that get tangled up in the endless expansion of Melbourne's suburbs and eventually die from lack of habitat or get killed on the new roads, for dolphins and turtles caught in fishing nets and drowning and lastly for the farm animals confined and regimented in the interests of feeding humans. I've got no shortage of empathy for all of them.
Bernard Salt and Boroondara
Bernard Salt's message in his talk on February 12th at the Boroondara Community summit , Hawthorn Town Hall was crystal clear: it would be great and in fact would a community service if empty nesters and widows in the municipality would sell up and leave their homes to make them available for younger people who could avail themselves of the local amenity, especially schools.
The strategy appears to be to target ordinary home owners in a campaign to get a lot of movement of property. The technique used in the talk was to illustrate the idea using the iconic "brick veneer" and the repeated image was of a widow "rattling around" in it. "Brick veneers", essential to the lexicon and repertoire of humorist and entertainer Barry Humphries are ordinary houses mostly built in the 1950 and 1960s that everyone used to be able to aspire to but their $ value especially if they are within striking distance of any amenity or service has made them expensive. This is because of the intense competition for housing especially in established Melbourne suburbs due to massive population growth. Salt's focus on the "brick veneer" is a bit like tax- you need to target the masses to get the maximum result. The "brick veneer" rather than the architect designed or historic Edwardian or Victorian homes are symbolic of and house ordinary Australians. An idea illustrated with a visual image -"widows rattling around in brick veneers" is apt to be repeated and get into the vernacular. Eventually those who put out this propaganda don't have to do much more work on the idea on behalf of those they represent. The people themselves, receptive to what they are told take it up as a truism. This is what happened with the suburban backyard. About 20 years ago opinion articles in the main newspapers appeared, moralising about how Australians need to live more compactly and relinquish their love affair with the backyard. A backyard is a very ordinary image. Lots of people had them or aspired to have one complete with "Hills Hoist" (an umbrella shaped outdoor clothes line installation). I noticed soon after the articles appeared in the newspapers that people would parrot this as part of their social exchanges! It became the thing to say at dinner parties after people had exhausted the tedious topic of house prices. To them, somehow, it didn't quite mean they themselves had to move on immediately, but someone else could! This is, in fact, the real "NIMBY", when you unthinkingly latch onto an odious idea and embrace it on behalf of other people.
Women are a powerful grass-roots force
Thanks, Sheila, for affirming the role of women in movements and politics. They are a force to be reckoned with.
Women are often the backbone of societies, yet tend to remain secondary as mainstream leaders. Their power and contributions are often overlooked. This could be due to remnant patriarchal attitudes and the fact that women have the greatest responsibility for raising children and domestic duties. The committees I've been on
, mainly not for profit organisations, have mainly been made up of committed and effective women.
Women in churches may be in the minority in ministerial or clerical roles, but they certainly do the bulk of the volunteer work and provide important roles in lay leadership, committees, public outreach, charity support, in the support of Christian education and fund raising.
Women tend to be able to be better at networking and communicating. This gives organisations involving women a greater vision, and ability to nurture and connect.
The bulk of wildlife/animal activists groups tend to be women, from my experience, and their empathy for other creatures seems to attract them to having a voice for those who don't have voices of their own.
Women brought civilization to Colonial Australia, and a sense of belonging. They equally have built up our nation, and have had a major part in our history. Rather than "farmers' wives" they were, and still are, primary producers of food and fibre.
The smoke-screen of democracy in Australia means that women with compassion and strong leadership skills are often overlooked in the mainstream political arena. We have some women leaders like Anna Bligh, Kristina Keneally and Julia Gillard. However, whether they represent the majority of women voters, and women's concerns, is another thing.
Women as activists, as unpaid political and community leaders, on boards and committees, is maybe where they feel they are more effective, and can do so in their own time frames.
Without generalising too far, maybe men are more comfortable in the hierarchical structures of formal government. Maybe they are more prepared to abandon scruples for party room cohesion and political solidarity. This could mean suppressing personal concerns and conflicts in support for party policies, even if they are not in the best interests of families, or the voting public.
Women, on the other hand, possibly are more effective at a grass-roots level. Maybe they aren't as comfortable with roles that compromise their primary beliefs and democratic principles. This is the area where altruism is a pre-requisite, at the level of public concerns. Their voices reflect common concerns of ordinary people, who speak up against the powerful with vested interests in financial, economic advancements that may not be in public interests. People who are not paid to hold views and implement policies are free from constraints and obligations. Thus women activists are able to be a powerful force in shaping public opinion.
Certainly women with family concerns with the welfare of their offspring would be and should be concerned with the negative impacts of the growth lobby. This is an area where the next generation are pushed into housing and job stresses. We are seeing now the victims of growth agendas that means conditions are becoming more hostile to families, with rising household debt, mortgage stress, high density housing, homelessness, higher education costs, and disregard for environmental concerns. Humanity not only needs a safe climate for future generations, but the same conditions and privileges that previous generations had are not being passed onto future generations. Maximising our population size now denies future generations the opportunities and resources they need. So much greed, selfishness and myopia needs to be reined in by vocal women.
Strong social order
Francis, thanks for your info and analysis. Despite living here for over 35 years I had never before seen the statistic about Zai-Nichi Koreans and crime. I will check it - not that I doubt you, but it does seem, as you say, unreal.
Although I am not living in one of the serious disaster zones, the area where I live, northern Ibaraki Pref., has been quite badly affected. I totally concur with what you say about the lack of looting, whinging and panic. People here have been wonderful, polite, cooperative and helpful!
But, it has been that same strong social order that has allowed nuclear power to be introduced into this country, despite the obvious problems I have stated in the comment above, and will probably keep it going for years in the future unless a way can be found to harness current public opinion against nuclear power.
Kindly take a look at this article:
http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/reports/Days_before_quake_plant_operato...
Totally outrageous! But I have not yet seen it in the media in Japan!! Strong (undemocratic) social order also has its significant downsides.
Immigration in Japan
I tend to see Japan as a large system of Pacific Islanders, a very old and resilient tribal community, albeit injured by overpopulation.
With regard to immigration, Japan has rules like most traditional Pacific Island communities, where immigration must be agreed to by the community and tends to occur through marriage or adoption in an individual way.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
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Crime in Japan
Japan's economy is teetering, thousands are dead, many more are missing, presumed dead, and millions are homeless, without water or electricity. However, they have shown an admirable stoicism and dignity that has had the world agape with admiration. There is no looting, no whinging, very little panic, if any, and no demands for some mythical "them" to fix it. it is the result of a strong social order that comes from having 127 million people crammed into a small island with few natural resources, and living on a fault line.
Japan generally has a low rate of crime. However, there is an increased incidence of drink spiking at bars and other entertainment venues, often resulting in credit card theft and assault. According to the SmartTraveller website, there is sporadic incidents of bag snatching and pickpocketing of foreigners in crowded shopping areas, on trains and at airports have occurred. Credit card and ATM fraud can occur in Japan.
The inheritance of centuries of rigorous self-centredness and control, of enormous pressure to conform, combined with a fierce belief in cultural superiority result in a society that accepts the suppression of the individual for the greater good to an extent that communist regimes could only dream of and never achieve. They have a strong belief in themselves.
Japan is a very racially homogenous society, where immigration is frowned upon and genetic purity is seen as a good thing. And with the birthrate slowed, they’re moving towards an era where a full half of the population will be over 65.
Ninety-five per cent of Japan's debt is owned by its citizens, not foreign hedge funds. Financially, the government has more room to manoeuvre than might seem apparent. Japan makes it difficult for foreigners to live and work in the country. They are resisting immigration.
It's a country where a government works for the people, and the people are ALL invested emotionally, psychologically and financially in their society, looting is far less likely to occur.
Aside from Japanese, they have a group of Koreans living in Japan that goes by Zai-Nichi. They consist less than 1% of the population in Japan; however, Zai-Nichi Koreans account for 90% of rape and robbery in Japan. Remarkably, less than 1% being responsible for 90% of crimes—the number sounds so astounding that it sounds unreal, but police statistics prove that this is a reality.
Japanese authorities do not allow foreigners to change their immigration status from visa-waiver status to work status while in Japan. Japanese immigration officers may deny you entry if you appear to have no visible means of support.
Previously, crimes perpetrated by foreigners tended to be of the “hit and run” variety, committed during short-term stays in Japan and followed with the criminal fleeing the country. However, in recent years, cases of global foreign criminal organizations targeting Japan, and the formation of criminal groups in Japan made up of foreigners from many countries, have been conspicuous — a trend dubbed “the globalization of crime.” The news reports don’t seem to be mentioning an overall increase in the number or rate of crimes committed by foreigners. It's no wonder they don't want immigration and "diversity" to disrupt their close social cohesion and strong identity. The costs of immigration-driven population growth would mean their cohesion would break down.
How irresponsible - reply from Sheila N
Where have I encouraged people to make vigilante attacks? I cannot find a basis for your accusation, Andrew.
I agree with Voltaire's statement and that the fundamental tenet of democracy is the expression of free opinion, but another fundamental tenet is that government take heed of that opinion. Unfortunately we live in a system where the mainstream media, like the pulpits of old, chooses whose point of view it publishes and its choices are not guided by democracy, but profit and status and this media also dictates the governments we get.
Andrew McLeod is entitled to make his comment but we are entitled to educate the public on how Mr Salt lives when Mr Salt makes his living from telling the public how they should live, to their disadvantage.
Bernard Salt has, like the late Richard Pratt, with the blessing of the public and private commercial media consistently marketed against people having gardens and houses and preserving their way of life, yet he himself has that way of life. The fact that he has a house in Camberwell (the kind of leafy suburb he has frequently deprecated) shows this dramatically.
He is a citizen with huge influence, but most citizens have no influence because the mainstream media magnifies the voice of big business. This commercial mediatised star-system that anoints corporates with authority is eroding our democracy and one of the by-products is rising cost of living, falling small business profit margins, loss of affordable housing, ammenity and security. Candobetter tries to change this. The hugeness of our populations has favoured the evolution of a kind of feudal top-down management of the rest of us and has removed the natural democratic ability to look in the eye a person who proposes to inflict unwanted change on a community. Salt is a public figure like a politician. Politicians have to publish their addresses, as responsible members of the community in one of the few democratic rules remaining in our system.
I have justified publishing a picture of Salt's house by the relevance of that information to democratic concerns about living standards and democracy directly related to what he was advocating in the article in the Herald Sun. I also think that the public should be able to easily contact a person who has such influence over their well-being to seek dialogue on an equal basis. I have not, however, provided information that would permit them to do that, as much as I think it would also be relevant at this stage.
After discussion, in order to show good faith, I have also removed the name of the street from the picture.
James Sinnamon was particularly keen to show that candobetter.net supports such an action to show good faith.
Please excuse length and repetition in this response. I have a sore throat and there were a lot of comments of a similar nature requiring responses.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
Disaster in Japan and disaster management activities
Andrew McLeod wrote:
"Having spent most of my life in post disaster recovery and reconstruction I find the insinuation distasteful. If you doubt that at least check out my profile: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_MacLeod".
Whilst I cannot comment on Andrew's personal contributions to overseas disaster management because I do not know their details, the industry of disaster recovery and reconstruction have been soundly criticised by Naomi Klein in Shock Doctrine. Overseas charity organisations have also been roundly condemned by a number of books, including, Graham Hancock, Lords of Poverty, Michael Maren, The Road to Hell, among others. In my own life I have saved lives and performed heroic actions for no financial reward, and beyond the call of duty, but I don't believe I have marketed myself as a hero or to defend my own actions and politics on this basis. In my opinion that would put a price on actions performed as a citizen and capitalise financially and politically on the social trust that is essential to community function. It is hard for me to admire prominent people whose good works or association with good works also enhances their political credibility or to endorse a process whereby a corporatised media creates, endorses or assists financial profit from such behaviour. It reminds me of the practice of politicians and product brands to seek association with winning sports champions. Over the years I have become suspicious of such public behaviour; so much of it is about branding. A very good example of this branding was the late Richard Pratt's marketing of himself as some kind of hero because he was the child of refugees always struck me as cowardly opportunism. He was a well-educated and privileged man who abused his good fortune, in my opinion. His large private estate struck me as particularly indecent, tasteless and contemptuous, when he constantly marketed lower living standards and quality of life for other people. The state and the mass media amplified his opportunism in a shameless process to try to make the public support high immigration by massaging the erroneous idea that most immigrants are refugees. In this, ultimately, they made the public unduly suspicious of refugees and asylum seekers. I was disgusted at how public figures associated with him at the Melbourne Population Summit and at the fact that he received at times consultant salaries from both State and Federal governments whilst he made money from changing public policy in processes which did not effectively include the public.
The privatisation of AID is problematic. It has become another industry. Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine exposes the industry of Disaster Aid in a manner which the industry has never been able to deal with. You might say that it also exposes corrupt governments. Yes, it does. And it exposes the impact of globalisation on democracy. It is another argument for relocalisation of everything and that small is beautiful.
Capitalism and globalism have created a situation where individuals with a lot of money, and corporations, are able to create attractive public profiles which are then used to influence perception via the amplification of newsmedia, creating giant personalities. Our democratic system thereby suffers.
Andrew, you may have remarkable qualities and truly be a hero in some of your walks of life, but you are a public figure with actions that impact on many people and democracy calls for public figures to justify their actions and impacts to the public.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
CfM re pop growth - response from Sheila N
[Sheila Newman's comments are in italics.]
Committee for Melbourne on Population growth
On March 21st, 2011 Andrew MacLeod (not verified) says:
Subject was: Population growth
The Committee for Melbourne is not planning for increasing growth. We are planning for slowing growth not expanding growth. Here are the facts:
• The recent spike of population growth is 2.2%
• The State government and opposition both support 1.7%
• The 50 year average is 1.65%
• The Federal politicians are talking 1.5%.
CfM is not promoting growth. But we do guess where our population will be and plan our infrastructure for that population so that we remain economically, socially and environmentally sustainable.
In my opinion your objectives fail at the first hurdle to be economically, or socially or environmentally sustainable. Even the State of the Environment Report Victoria, whilst failing to stop the government's dangerous social and built engineering activities, shows that further population growth and development drives massive damage to our natural and artificial environment. Your Committee is not a product of democracy and seems to reflect only elite and economic opinion, which heads of charities etc appear to fall in line with.
You may not have thought of this or have wanted it. I don't know, but that is what you seem to be in charge of.
We believe that the greatest threat is unplanned future sprawl and congestion. To plan for the future and avoid sprawl and congestion you need a best guess at where population will be.... it may not be where you WANT it to be, but you need to guess where it will PROBABLY be.
Candobetter.net is a website for reform in democracy, environment, population, land use planning and energy policy and we believe that the greatest threat is politically engineered population growth. We want to avoid the problems of more sprawl and congestion, planned or not. We know that the drivers of this sprawl and congestion and much of the 'planning' for it are private profit by the growth lobby.
We estimate a 1.4% growth 1.4% growth – slower than all of the above rates - ie CfM is estimating SLOWER growth.
Yet we get abuse.
I think you are getting pretty mild criticism, which you are well able to respond to. I think that the public however feel that they are being massively abused by the processes of unwanted and politically engineered population growth and overdevelopment; that they have no public voice and no established political process to force democracy on the government and its contractors; that the mainstream media are part of the problem, and that anyone who supports or facilitates these processes is not on their side.
Ask yourself is it good for democracy to abuse those who do not hold EXACTLY the same opinion as you do?
The Committee for Melbourne's view is supportive of radical social engineering through forced population growth in Australia. So there is no question of failure to tolerate views not EXACTLY in agreement. The question is of massive discordance and of candobetter representing public protest against effective oppression, suppression and coercion, in my view.
The issue here is democracy. We don't have an effective one. With both major parties, and even the so-called Greens, supporting population growth against community wishes, and a corrupt media-system picking and choosing which parties they support and discouraging independents, the community has no effective voice.
If the Committee for Melbourne were really representing Melbourne, it would be protesting against this undemocratic population growth.
What it looks like to me is that the Committee for Melbourne is falling in line with the Growth Lobby by treating demographic trends as if they were demographic forecasts. They are then being published by the ABC, and the Murdoch and Fairfax media as if they were managing an inevitable and disasterous process. The only thing that could possibly become inevitable and disasterous is the failure to respond to community demands to halt the artificial stimulation of population growth. In this I believe that the Committee for Melbourne is derelict (or would be if its function were to represent public wishes) and its name thus appears ironic.
We get labelled as ‘big growth big business’ even when a lot of our members are not for profit community groups, educational institutions and the like.
Here again I will refer to my thesis, The Growth Lobby and its Absence, Chapter 6, which shows the role of such groups and public institutions in the land speculation which led to massive bank crashes in the 1890s. It is very unfortunate, in my opinion, that charities, churches, schools and universities, invest in property rather than put their funds into providing shelter for the poor, because their investments fuel the speculative cycle and the charities etc become part of the problem that they purport to solve.
High costs of land and built property are the major driver of high costs of doing business and our poor competitiveness on the global market where we are obliged to compete with countries with much lower land and housing costs due to their saner and more democratic land-use planning and development systems with lesser population growth. Only large corporations (usually owning many landed assets) benefit from this aberrant system. Ordinary people and small business (including agriculture) go broke due to erosion of their margin. For charities and not for profit groups to support such a system is, in my view, for them to support poverty. If they are sincere, they should pull out of any group that in any way supports this system.
If, however, they are putting pressure on the Committee to stop supporting this corrupt process, then good on them.
We actually are starting to find that your site likes to hear only from people who agree entirely with everyone else, as disagreement is abused and howled down. (Please see my comment here. - Ed.)
I agree with James Sinnamon's comment, which is that we have published all your comments; there is actually nothing fettering your opinion, but we will also publish arguments against what you say. Our site represents democratic views which are suppressed or ignored by mainstream media and government and which are not adequately represented through our parliamentary system. I have to say that James Sinnamon is so democratic that he sometimes makes me angry. He has permitted people to abuse me and he has encouraged debates when I would have, left to myself, prevented them from continuing. James Sinnamon is the strong moral force that makes this site such a good and popular one, for any imperfections, even if I do not always agree with him. I must add also that the mainstream media is so unrepresentative that candobetter.net had to be invented.
Many on your site have labelled me a ‘big business fat cat’. Why make personal attacks when one look at my profile shows that this is far from the truth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_MacLeod. Since when is an aid worker a fat cat?
I have already dealt with the question of the investments of charities. With regard to aid workers, there is a lot of literature that is critical of them and of the role of aid organisations. I think I will address this question elsewhere.
I am interested in debate, if people are interested in hearing a diversity of views. I am happy to meet anywhere anytime if people are interested in genuine dialogue.
I will consider this invitation. We will look into possible venues and options. In the mean time, however, this is a debate already and I thank you for entering it.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
Mary Drost and Commitee for Melbourne
[Comments in italics are by Sheila Newman.]
On March 21st, 2011 Andrew MacLeod (not verified) says:
The Herald Sun misquoted - and Mary knows this.
What the Committee for Melbourne suggested was Stamp Duty relief and tax cuts for the elderly. We never suggested forcing people out of home - never.
What really disappoints me is the day of the article I wrote directly to Mary. I told her that the article was not accurate. But rather than pass on to people that the article was inaccurate she went on to stoke the fear. That is unfair and unreasonable.
This is what I wrote to Mary is below so you can all see.
Surely it would have been more appropriate to have written to the Herald Sun if you felt misrepresented? Feel free to publish a copy of any complaint you send them on these pages.
When my grandmother wanted to move to a care facility (I stress when SHE wanted to use her right of free choice), one of the things that frightened her was stamp duty. Why, she asked, did she have to pay the government $150,000 in tax just to move from her house to and aged facility. She was worried about her finances lasting her life... and why should so much be given to the government.
It is sad that anyone should have to sacrifice their home and the inheritance of their children in order to receive medical or nursing or custodial care. In other cultures this would be seen as a direct attack on citizens' rights to shelter, such as those provided by the French civil code, and their rights to humane treatment and medical, nursing or social assistance, which, off-hand, I am not sure whether or not the civil code provides for, but which are certainly provided for politically. That, I believe, is the real issue here. Elderly people should not be shunted into a special expensive system as if they were lesser citizens than the rest of us when they need health care. On the question of dependency and the aged and a better way to handle this 'issue', please see this article: http://candobetter.net/node/1967
I agree with her.
Nowhere did we say or imply people should be forced to move and for Mary to spread that message when she knew it was untrue is the hight of fearmongery..
In my opinion exploitation by the growth lobby of the 'issue' of an aging population is fearmongery and Mary Drost is only standing up to it. She is not a paid executive but is performing a public service. In that function she belongs to a group of courageous Melbourne women, some of whom I have written about here: Anti-Growth Lobby: Women in politics: why don't more participate - or do they? (Melbourne, Australia) People are right to be afraid of any changes to policy on their right to shelter and to defend their homes in a system where Australian built and undeveloped property has been thrown open to almost anyone in the world able to compete on the global market with superior currency. This is undermining our access to affordable shelter and it is undermining our democracy by placing some people and businesses in a position to affect public policy beyond the ability of our deficient democratic system to represent its citizens' interests and voices.
The policy we suggested is the one which is working well in Canberra is about providing choice and removing the fear that my grandmother had. See: http://www.revenue.act.gov.au/home_buyer_assistance/pensioner_duty_conce... .
If people want to stay in their house that is fine. But if people want to downsize (as many chose to do) it is a community benefit - so why should we slug them tax?
Many people would dispute the statement that downsizing is a public benefit. Some important arguments are loss of trees and their social and environmental benefits; difficulty in reorientation for elderly people who do fine in their old environment, but cannot manage to recognise new places effectively; loss of social contacts; reduction of social diversity; loss of normal local political contact. There is also, of course, the problem of excessive use of fuel and building materials in constructing new buildings and roads (greenhouse gas production is huge in the housing industry as is draw-down on petroleum reserves). Increase in development intensity places pressure on housing prices and on good-neighbourliness by making money more important than shelter. Development intensity also drives up the costs of rates and services and lowers the standard of ammenity. Infills literally form wedges in natural social and political organisation at the local level. The private property development system in Australia, America, Canada and Britain has created an elite cast of professional beneficiaries who are able to fund peak bodies to amplify their interests and their access to government, a process which has eroded democracy. Artificial management of the built environment over and above the heads of those who live in it is also an abrogation of democracy. My article criticises a view of society as cohorts to be organised by remote corporate style management, supported by corporate media, in the absence of effective democratic representation.
It is the first time ever that I know of that someone has proposed a tax cut and people have said 'no let me pay tax'...
Well fine, we take it off the agenda. Think on that when you pay the stamp duty if you chose to move. We would have had this policy up if not for you Mary.
Policies like this should be carefully investigated in a truly democratic process, like all policies affecting shelter, food and other basic rights. Unfortunately organisations representing or allied with the commercial property development sector have gained political power without democratic representation of citizens. I am glad that Mary Drost is providing a voice for the community and for elderly people especially, who, we note, have contacted her and thanked her. With regard to stamp duty, we have previously observed on this site that the Victorian government is excessively dependent on stamp duty and that this is a driver of inappropriate and unwanted population and development growth. Unfortunately property industry advocates, when they reduce government charges, usually find a way to divert that money to themselves. An example of such diversion of public money is where the introduction of housing subsidies in an inflated market only serves to drive prices up further and is a case where taxpayers are forced to subsidise hated population growth and property development. It is a sign of a corrupt system which needs to be replaced. In Europe there is healthy low-priced public competition in development and construction which keeps the price of private development and construction down. That is what we need here. We need to reduce private property development to a fringe industry and introduce rights to housing as rights of citizens. I have gone into this in Chapter 7 of my thesis, The Growth Lobby and its Absence, which is available here: http://adt.lib.swin.edu.au/public/adt-VSWT20060710.144805/index.html. This thesis contains three literature reviews: environmental, land-use planning and population and it compares two different political systems and their effect on population policy and response in this to the first oil shock. It also contains a history of the growth lobby (Chapter 6) in Australia, from early times. Andrew, you may appreciate more where I am coming from if you have a look at this.
----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew MacLeod
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2011 6:20 PM
Subject: downsizing
Hi Mary,
I hope you are well.
I just thought I’d drop you a quick note to clarify the impression in the newspaper. The Committee has never suggested, and never would suggest, that people should be forced from their homes.
What we have said however is that we believe we should examine stamp duty relief to encourage those choosing or thinking of choosing to downsize.
Humans don't understand the dynamics of growth
Albert A. Bartlett is Professor Emeritus in Nuclear Physics at University of Colorado at Boulder. "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." - Prof. Al Bartlett.
A population growth of "only" 1.4% seems very small. However, it means, at this rate of population growth, a DOUBLING of numbers every 50 years!
While our States keep accommodating this growth, with people flooding in from interstate and overseas, the growth will continue. The Federal government makes political decisions on population growth through immigration numbers, and by encouraging babies with the "baby bonus". The States then must bear the burden and ask for corresponding funding.
Doubling our population in 50 years is a tremendous ask, and the environmental, social and economic costs are excessive. The infrastructure required means burdening taxpayers and rate-payers with the costs of growth - when it is contrary to our interests. It's a Ponzi scheme that promises wealth and prosperity, but in reality shuffles wealth out of the hands of normal families and individuals into the hands of the elite and privileged.
While the State continues to accommodate growth, through "planning" urban sprawl and high density living, it means that growth will continue. We need to have an insurance, a buffer, against such growth and stop accommodating it. There needs to be qualifications of residency to buy property in Victoria.
As for the Committee of Melbourne being "not for profit", this may be so. However, the members certainly are interested in everything else but "not for profit"! They are taking advantage of politically decided growth by accommodating it. Planning would be actually possible with population stability, but instead is being made into an excessive task.
Limits to growth can't be ignored for economic gain
When a country has gone from being the world's largest creditor to the world's largest debtor in only 20 years it can no longer afford to re-build. (as above)
Assuming that the "solution" to Japan's economic decline is continuing to grow the population is based on ideology and and economic theories. Economics is an ideology, a theoretical system of supply and demand, a method of enabling societies to live and have their lifestyles supported. Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Ideas and social sciences are infinite by default and have no limitations. They exist in theories and in mathematical/functional models. However the real world, the world of finite resources, has parameters, boundaries, and people have muiti-dimensional needs and aims that may not coincide with economic growth agendas.
A nation, our planet as a whole, has finite resources, and each nation has particular natural and topographical limitations. To continue to add more people, despite inadequate food supplies, inhabitable land areas, inhospitable terrain, declining fish stocks, climate change, energy needs, and simply lack of space would be reckless and misanthropic.
Economic ideals of growth should not transcend human welfare, liveability, long term survival, and exacerbate ecological overshoot - as we are already in! People are more than economic units to be exploited, confined and imported for growth. People shouldn't be bred like battery hens or factory pigs. (and these creatures shouldn't either).
The tragic recent earthquake and tsunami are examples of limits to growth. We can't assume that our planet is static. It isn't, and is changing. Monolithic man-made structures, forcing people to live in unstable and unsafe areas, would exacerbate tragic outcomes and limit recovery. The need for nuclear power is due to excessive power needs.
The Economy should be our servant, not our Master. Economics exists to support human lives, not so humans can support economic growth - as economists seem to think! Economic growth has become an aim rather than a tool, to our detriment.
Japan may be the first highly industrial nation to actually be on the route to sustainability. Once their population balances to one of stability, where births equal deaths, they can live comfortably within their environmental and resource limits. They don't have to rebuilt to their previous economic outputs. Until then, economic decline may be a cost they have to endure. They need to rebuild their society, their economy, on a sustainable level - without the easiest, "dumbed-down" way, of perpetual population growth - which means sacrificing long term sustainability, lifestyles and basic survival for short-term economic gains.
Committee for Melbourne on Population growth
Subject was: Population growth
The Committee for Melbourne is not planning for increasing growth. We are planning for slowing growth not expanding growth. Here are the facts:
• The recent spike of population growth is 2.2%
• The State government and opposition both support 1.7%
• The 50 year average is 1.65%
• The Federal politicians are talking 1.5%.
CfM is not promoting growth. But we do guess where our population will be and plan our infrastructure for that population so that we remain economically, socially and environmentally sustainable.
We believe that the greatest threat is unplanned future sprawl and congestion. To plan for the future and avoid sprawl and congestion you need a best guess at where population will be.... it may not be where you WANT it to be, but you need to guess where it will PROBABLY be.
We estimate a 1.4% growth – slower than all of the above rates - ie CfM is estimating SLOWER growth.
Yet we get abuse.
Ask yourself is it good for democracy to abuse those who do not hold EXACTLY the same opinion as you do?
We get labelled as ‘big growth big business’ even when a lot of our members are not for profit community groups, educational institutions and the like.
We actually are starting to find that your site likes to hear only from people who agree entirely with everyone else, as disagreement is abused and howled down. (Please see my comment here. - Ed.)
Many on your site have labelled me a ‘big business fat cat’. Why make personal attacks when one look at my profile shows that this is far from the truth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_MacLeod. Since when is an aid worker a fat cat?
I am interested in debate, if people are interested in hearing a diversity of views. I am happy to meet anywhere anytime if people are interested in genuine dialogue.
how irresponsible
For those of you who lament the lack of quality debate remember the old saying "i may not agree with what you say but I will fight to the death for you to have the right to say it'?
the fundamental tenant of democracy is to allow the expression of free opinion.
And here you are publishing a private persons private address and encouraging people to make vigilante attacks?
Shame on you.
Mary - that is unfair
The Herald Sun misquoted - and Mary knows this.
What the Committee for Melbourne suggested was Stamp Duty relief and tax cuts for the elderly. We never suggested forcing people out of home - never.
What really disappoints me is the day of the article I wrote directly to Mary. I told her that the article was not accurate. But rather than pass on to people that the article was inaccurate she went on to stoke the fear. That is unfair and unreasonable.
This is what I wrote to Mary is below so you can all see.
When my grandmother wanted to move to a care facility (I stress when SHE wanted to use her right of free choice), one of the things that frightened her was stamp duty. Why, she asked, did she have to pay the government $150,000 in tax just to move from her house to and aged facility. She was worried about her finances lasting her life... and why should so much be given to the government.
I agree with her.
Nowhere did we say or imply people should be forced to move and for Mary to spread that message when she knew it was untrue is the hight of fearmongery..
The policy we suggested is the one which is working well in Canberra is about providing choice and removing the fear that my grandmother had. See: http://www.revenue.act.gov.au/home_buyer_assistance/pensioner_duty_conce... .
If people want to stay in their house that is fine. But if people want to downsize (as many chose to do) it is a community benefit - so why should we slug them tax?
It is the first time ever that I know of that someone has proposed a tax cut and people have said 'no let me pay tax'...
Well fine, we take it off the agenda. Think on that when you pay the stamp duty if you chose to move. We would have had this policy up if not for you Mary.
----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew MacLeod
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2011 6:20 PM
Subject: downsizing
Hi Mary,
I hope you are well.
I just thought I’d drop you a quick note to clarify the impression in the newspaper. The Committee has never suggested, and never would suggest, that people should be forced from their homes.
What we have said however is that we believe we should examine stamp duty relief to encourage those choosing or thinking of choosing to downsize.
UNQUOTE
Disaster in Japan
The comment I made was about the financial state not to push an ideological agenda.
Having spent most of my life in post disaster recovery and reconstruction I find the insinuation distasteful. If you doubt that at least check out my profile: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_MacLeod
When a country has gone from being the world's largest creditor to the world's largest debtor in only 20 years, it can no longer afford to re-build. That was the point I made.
On a bigger issue: many people in Australia lament the lack of quality debate in our politics.
If you are disappointed ask yourself this: Does howling down and abusing people just because they disagree with you an encourager of debate?
Andrew
Editorial comment: I am not aware of any post that could fairly be labelled 'abusive'. If Andrew were to cite an example here or by e-mail, I can take it up with the person whom Andrew MacLeod feels abused by.
One apparent error in Andrew MacLeod's contribution is his claim that people who disagree with Sheila Newman's views, who would like to contribute to this discussion, are being "howl[ed] down". The fact that he has submitted this and quite a few more contributions today and that all have been published in full, on top of all that he has contributed before today surely means that Andrew MacLeod, at least, has not been "howl[ed] down." If Andrew MacLeod knows of anyone else who has felt too "howl[ed] down by the tone of this discussion to contribute, then he is welcome to let me know about it. He could even post whatever contributions he knows of, which our "howling down" has prevented others from contributing themselves, should they wish him to.
Invasion of Libya is a big Distraction
the un security council has been quick to agree to the invasion of libya to “protect its citizens”. now it condemns what it calls illegal abuses in bahrain where sunni muslim rulers have launched a brutal crackdown against shiite protesters.
iran has now complained to the united nations and asked neighbours to join it in urging saudi arabia to withdraw forces from bahrain.
Do you think the un will do anything at all about this request to protect bahrain's pro-democracy shiite people against the invasion by saudis and the assaults from its own government?
NO. because the invasion of libya is to provide a distraction from what is happening in bahrain.
the usa (and the un) will continue protect their compliant rulers in saudi arabia and bahrain. there is still too much oil coming from the saudis, and arms sales to them are extremely profitable for the usa - e.g. biggest-ever sale of american arms took place several months ago to the saudis. bahrain also hosts the headquarters of the us 5th fleet.
pro-american saudi arabia and bahrain also provide a buffer to iran, which lies just across the vital straits of hormuz. 20% of world oil supplies pass through this chokepoint.
i agree with others and suspect that this is why the usa is controlling the assault on libya (while pretending not to), and the crackdown on bahrain's revolution, as reported in the wall street journal.
if you want to find out more, here are some websites:-
http://www.examiner.com/geopolitics-in-national/u-s-led-coalition-tomahawks-libya-photos-videos
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/20-0
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/21/3168866.htm?section=justin
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/21/3168866.htm?section=justin
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/03/2011316131230188238.html (about saudi pilots being trained in the usa)
Editor's comment: Thank you for your comments on the response by the US to the claimed repression of a supposedly popular uprising in one country (Libya) which is glaringly inconsistent with its response to the bloody repression of another popular uprising against the corrupt autocratic rulers of Bahrain. Unfortunately, we at candobetter have not been unable to give as much covrage as we would like to unfolding world events, the consequences of which very likely will affect us profoundly even in countries as geographically remote from the turmoil as Australia. (One suggestion, though: could you use UPPER Case Letters a bit more in future comments? I tried to fix the lack of uppercase letters in your text, but lost the corrected text and didn't have time to try again.)
Disaster management and the population of Japan
I am Tony Boys, the Antony Boys mentioned in Sheila Newman's article. Firstly, I would like to say that I'm a little glad not to be in Sendai as that area was hit by the earthquake+tsunami (hereafter E+T) rather harder than where I am, which is Hitachi Omiya City, Ibaraki Prefecture, about 120km north of Tokyo and close to the Pacific coastline. However, we're about 120km southwestish from the Fukushima No.1 Power Station. This is causing us huge anxiety as it is still not clear (March 21, 0850 JST) whether the four reactors still having problems will be brought under control.
Otherwise I fully concur with what Sheila says in her article. It is quite obvious that Andrew MacLeod is using the disaster(s) in Japan to push his own ideological agenda, something that most people would find rather offensive, I think, given the current circumstances in Japan.
The population of Japan is a complex subject. I'll try to keep it short. Basically, we have the notion that a larger population would somehow have mitigated the consequences of the E+T and nuclear disasters (or would have made them less serious, or would have made recovery easier, quicker, and so on). I totally disagree and would argue as follows.
1) Flat land suitable for housing and other construction is in short supply in Japan. (Roughly 67% of the land area is forested mountains.) Naturally, this has meant that large areas of land historically thought to be unsuitable for construction have been developed over about the last 100 years or so. This is generally soft/moist land near the sea, lakes and rivers, traditionally used for paddy fields or simply left alone as marshland for common use. Most Japanese people are quite aware of the phenomenon of liquefaction that occurs in association with earthquakes and will avoid building on this kind of land. (The recent earthquake in Christchurch, NZ, is also a very good example of this problem.) Population pressures, though, have made it necessary to do so.
This same population pressure on the land has also resulted in more construction on flatlands near the sea, the scenes of most of the horrific disasters in the overall current Japanese E+T disaster. "Tsunami" is, after all, a Japanese word. Everyone here knows that quakes are likely to be followed by tsunamis. We have one fairly big tsunami alert each year or so. People who build and live near the sea, especially along the coast where the really serious disasters have occurred this time, know that they are in danger at all times. This current E+T is reckoned to have been the largest since about 850AD, but it happened! Why do they live or have their businesses there? Basically and simplistically, because there's nowhere else convenient to build. (Fishing infrastructure is an exception, I'll agree.) So would a smaller or a larger population be better?
2) This is the tricky one. Not hard to write a book on this one, so I'll try to restrain myself. How come a country where 50 million people might be the limit for a 'sustainable' lifestyle now has a population of 127 million (and falling very, very slowly)? In the Edo Period, as mentioned in Sheila's article, the population was stable at just over 30 million, but this was after a sharp rise that had resulted in extensive deforestation had effectively capped population growth. Serious famines occurred during this time. Following the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japan opened up to the world and trade in food and other commodities became possible. Food (etc.) availability was no longer the limiting factor for population, and Japan joined the race for 'national wealth and military power.' I'm talking about history, not ideology. My mother-in-law's generation (my wife is Japanese, and her mother is now 77) had 8-10 siblings, this being encouraged by the government as, cynically, 'cannon fodder'. The result has been Japan's 20th century history of war, defeat and the only country to be bombed by the atomic bomb, post-war revival and economic growth and development. History. I don't know if Japan ever had the 'choice' to industrialize or not, but given the circumstances of the 20th century it was probably the only realistic path. Of course, this can be debated, as can the ideological aspects of Japan's development path. What we have ended up with is a situation in which a country very poor in mineral resources has become a highly industrialized and populous country where the people (generally) enjoy a high standard of living. So, in a sense, naturally, they would 'want' to have nuclear power. (The history of nuclear power in Japan is fraught with the usual problems of democratic processes being completely ridden roughshod over by those in power who saw a chance to make bundles of money from nuclear power stations, but this - though closely connected with the ongoing nuclear disaster - is not the place to pursue this discussion...)
So with the information we have in 1) about earthquakes, tsunamis and places in Japan that are considered dangerous, was it really a 'good idea' for Japan to be building dozens of nuclear reactors along its coastline (where all the reactors are situated). Not really. Lots of serious accidents waiting to happen, and this time they did! So what does this have to do with a smaller or larger population? Hypothetically, Japan could have chosen a different development path - one that kept the population within the limits defined by availability of farmland and other basic resources, I estimate about 50 million, and at that level, and with foresight and intelligence, would not have required nuclear power. Hence, any large E+T occurrence could not result in a nuclear disaster. Economic development + (or is it "=") population growth leads to social and infrastructure complexities that become harder and harder to control. In some countries this might be OK. But I hope you can see that for Japan this is very dangerous.
Final comment to Andrew MacLeod: A relatively younger population, or a relatively more skilled population (through immigration ,etc.) may have beneficial economic or recovery effects (normally and) in times of disaster. In the case of Japan, and I suspect quite a few other countries, local conditions make this marginal at best and possibly downright dangerous, as shown above. For Japan, where the history of migrant workers shows that this can only ever be a short-term policy (very, very few people settle down here as I have), this is really not a practical option. What would be better, in terms of disaster avoidance, would be a smaller population which did not have to build residences etc. on marginally safe land and which did not require the huge amounts of electrical power that make nuclear power stations appear to be a 'necessity.' As far as Japan is concerned, these long-term aspects are far more important than short-sighted statements about the age structure or skill-level boosted by increasing the population through immigration.
Committee for Melbourne CEO wants to debate and discuss
Subject was: a little inaccurate.
I thought you skewed my interview in a populist way. Happy, in the name of dialogue and discussion, to debate or talk with you about this any where anytime if you want to step from behind the safety of a screen into the real world.
See also: comment of 22 Feb 2011, Committee of Melbourne on call for Pratt & Murdoch to downsize, also by Andrew MacLeod. - Editor
Australia needs to stop being complacent about food security
Senator Ludwig said he was still assessing the call for increased research funds for agriculture and food production. Ironically, the Productivity Commission recommendation to halve funding over the coming decade. Food is not as important as the "god" of economy, obviously. He emphasised imports were largely highly processed foods, beverages and processed fruit and vegetables.
According to a report in The Australian, we now import more than a third of our fruit supply and almost 20 per cent of our vegetables, amid warnings of increasing threats to future food supply from population and land-use pressures.
With a global population blowout, decline in fertilizers, peak oil and declining arable land - not to mention water supplies - securing food for Australia should be a top government priority. Growing food should be more important than growing our economy.
Norman Borlaug was called the father of the green revolution. The green revolution was the development of new strains of crops that could feed more people with the same amount of land.
It is estimated that the green revolution feeds an extra billion people with a billion acres less land, thereby saving a billion lives and a billion acres of forest and non-farmed lands.
He won the 1970 Nobel peace prize, the Congressional Gold Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom as well as Padma Vibhusan India's second highest civilian honor.
"In my Nobel lecture," Borlaug says, "I suggested we had until the year 2000 to tame the population monster, and then food shortages would take us under. Now I believe we have a little longer". That "little longer" is coming up fast, and our 40 years of reprieve is nearing it's end.
He said: "So future food-production increases will have to come from higher yields. And though I have no doubt yields will keep going up, whether they can go up enough to feed the population monster is another matter."
Growcom chief executive Alex Livingstone said Australians should snap out of their "complacency", warning that food imports could be threatened by the burgeoning world population. Mr Livingston said fruit and vegetable imports could dry up as the world population rocketed to nine billion by 2050.
"The (Australian horticulture) industry is not going to collapse tomorrow," Mr Livingston said.
"But the long term trend of doing nothing means the implications are severe."
We cannot continue to rely on food imports due to global demands increasing due to population blowout, and warnings ignored by Borlaug.
The Malthusian Trap is the theory that, as population growth is ahead of agricultural growth, there must be a stage at which the food supply is inadequate for feeding the population. There must be a point at which it cannot become any more efficient and cause some degree of famine, not to mention the deforestation, soil erosion and pollution that would be caused when we start to quite literally scrape the barrel.
It remains to be seen if a GM Revolution will put Malthus’ theory to bed once and for all, but like any advancements, there are costs that may be too risky to take.
Japanese Bhuddist monk's comments on disaster
"I opened the door and looked outside. I knew immediately there was something wrong. The temple here has many candles. I took them to my neighbours to save them from spending the night in darkness. That was all I could do.
The problem is that we rely totally on electricity. Nothing can be done without it. Everything stops without it. That is why he had to have nuclear power.
There is a need to think differently.
Anyone can recognise misery and bad luck, but happiness is something that one only recognises when one has lost it."
Japanese Bhuddist monk interviewed on 1300h French News 18 March 2010.
Duck shooting protester shot in the face
An anti-duck shooting protester was shot in the face hours after the opening of the season.
She is in a stable condition in hospital at Horsham. Shooters as young as 12 are allowed to have licences to kill. With rising crime in Victoria and random attacks on people, including the elderly, how is this "sport" ethically allowed?
Please vote to stop it:
Poll is in Herald Sun story Duck protester shot of 19 Mar 2011. Currently (at 3:50PM, Vic time) those opposed to duck shooting (561 or 53.9%) outnumber those in favour of this cruel sport (467 or 46.51%), so please don't delay adding your vote against duck hunting to ensure that this public rebuke of duck shooting is made as strong as it can be made.
Scavengers are useful
Nature is wholesome and a complete web of life, and even the unsavory bits have their use. The better word would have been "opportunistic" - of using the natural disaster as a platform to promote ongoing population growth in Japan - and here in Australia.
According to Wikipedia:
Opportunism is sometimes also defined as the ability to capitalize on the mistakes of others: to utilize opportunities created by the errors, weaknesses or distractions of opponents to one's own advantage. In a war situation or crisis, this may be regarded as justifiable, but in a civilized situation it may be regarded as unprincipled.
Even Vultures are often misunderstood and vilified, but they have an important part in maintaining the health and beauty of our environment. There are some perverse species advantages of large numbers, but there are also great costs to other species, the environment, and of the monolithic structures of cities that lack flexibility to escape dangers and recover too.
Clive Hamilton, Mandatory Internet Filtering & Silencing Dissent
In her recent comment to Sheila's article on Andrew McLeod, Vivienne Ortega cited Clive Hamilton's book of 2010, Requiem for a Species (currently described in a brief article at the top of www.clivehamilton.net.au, which is not perma-linked).
Unfortunately, whatever value there is in Requiem for a Species and other writing by Hamilton (and I have found a lot) I also find it necessary to remind others of an an unsavoury fact about Clive Hamilton. He has published on the ABC arguments in favour of the imposition of Mandatory Internet Filtering on the specious grounds that he claims it is necessary to prevent access to Child Pornography or access by minors to hard-core pornography. To be sure, he writes towards the end of the article "I have deliberately not considered the question of whether it is feasible to effectively filter extreme and violent pornography on the internet." That was somewhat a relief. Nevertheless, it is of great concern to me that Hamilton has not since done anything to bring about the "community debate on the question of whether we should do it before we consider the question of whether we can do it."
As my article How to end the sexual exploitation of women and children without giving up our freedoms of 22 Apr 2010 points out, Mandatory Internet Filtering will, if anything, make the fight against Child Pornography and, indeed, all forms of evil (not least of all, high immigration) harder and not easier. It will certainly not prevent those, with power, influence and wealth, from being able to access Child Pornography using encrypted Internet connections. Why anyone who opposes high population growth, would want to give so much power to precisely the same people who are imposing high population growth is beyond me. And why the co-editor, with Sarah Maddison, of Silencing Dissent of 2007 would not be loudly raising the alarm about such a threat to our freedom is an even greater mystery.
But aren't scavengers useful in the web of life?
Vivienne, don't you think that likening a scavenger to someone who would have us believe that the near nuclear disasters in Japan reinforces and does not undermine his case for higher population is most unkind to the scavenger which, at least, performs a valuable service in the web of life?
Scavengers
A scavenger is any animal that feeds on decaying organic matter, esp on refuse. They prey on carrion, and avoid getting sick themselves. The disaster in Japan is being used by Andrew Macleod to push his own agenda, and frighten the people of Australia. Any disaster would be magnified with more people! Surely Haiti's example is enough to show that higher populations are a killer, and any disturbance is even worse with overpopulation.
Our planet is not stable, but dying. There have been any number of urgent scientific reports in recent years emphasising just how dire the future looks and how little time we have left to act. But around the world only a few have truly faced up to the facts about global warming.
Requiem for a Species by author Clive Hamilton is the story of a battle within us between the forces that should have caused us to protect the earth, like our capacity to reason and our connection to nature, and our greed, materialism and alienation from nature, which, in the end, have won out.
Clive Hamilton, Dick Smith and Mark O'Connor and all the rest will keep hammering the government on the cautionary science of climate change, declining arable land and resources knowing perfectly well they'll be ignored because the vested interests of both Liberal and Labor and their myopic aims for electoral and economic "success" rather than long-term survival. Earth is not just about supporting the human race. Other species also contribute and have a right to exist without being exterminated for human expansions.
Japan has one of the highest average life expectancies in the world, and the aging of the population is proceeding at a rapid rate.
In the words of renowned British scholar Thomas Robert Malthus, The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Despite the "green" revolution, this is quite true even today. Japan currently imports sixty percent of the food it consumes. With its limited amount of arable land, one can only imagine the level of dependency a larger population in Japan would have. With dependency comes vulnerability, and Japan would be first hit in the event of a global food shortage. More population would exacerbate the problem.
Japan already has some of the most congested and largest cities in the world. What would happen if this population were to swell? Pollution would increase, and the logistics of supply and demand would become worse.
Sachs last year revealed that Japan’s GDP would be increased by a full 15 percent if 80 percent (currently at 60 percent) of all women in Japan held some sort of a job. Such a boost in both workforce size and GDP would be welcomed in a country currently grappling with an aging, shrinking workforce. Older people should be encouraged to continue to work - even part time - so that their knowledge and skills utilized.
Human resources need to be invested in and optimized. Overpopulation creates short-term economic benefits, but long-term pain and suffering.
Japan's emergency is primarily a human disaster and environmental one, not an "economic" one as Andrew Macleod says. Japan is highly skilled and educated, and they don't need foreigners for their economy. They may have a high trade deficit, but they are on the way to a sustainable nation.
Is it shameful that he is exploiting this natural disaster for his own ends - more immigration and "skills" in Australia for more property development and business customers. Victoria's trade deficit is woeful and not helped by population boosting!
The Economy is a system to support our lives, an ideology, that can grow perpetually and infinitely in theory, but not our planet, our resources, our ecosystems.
Good news from Tony Burke - Ag minister
"I wanted to let you know that today I have made the decision to give the Victorian Government 15 business days – until April 8 – to refer its current grazing actions for Federal assessment or I will force a referral. That’s the shortest time frame I can give under Federal environmental law."
"That means that by April 8 the cattle must be out of the Alpine National Park."
"It will also ensure that the Victorian Government’s actions will be subject to full scrutiny as part of a proper Federal environmental assessment process."
"The level of information provided so far by the Victorian Government is clearly inadequate."
"And as I continue to make absolutely clear, there is no place for cattle in a National Park."
A copy of my announcement will be available shortly on my website
Politicians can't manage human priorities - only the economy
Tony Abbott believe that climate change is "crap". Julia Gillard denounced a "big Australia" when she first became our Prime Minister, and now she is hiding behind Tony Burke and his so-called sustainable population portfolio. She has removed herself from what she said. Most of our politicians are environmentally/climate science illiterate. We can't expect them to make policies for long-range food security, global environmental threats and resource scarcity. The economy is the only agenda they are capable of comprehending, and it's growth.
The environment and climate change impacts are considered secondary, or lower, than the economy and its need for growth! Economies can be scaled up as they are theories, ideologies and human-constructed processes, but not our finite environmental resources, and human needs for food, fibre, water and shelter - not to mention dignity and living standards!
Nuclear threat to fertility
Japan's population growth decline, and their refusal to import immigrants to keep their population "young", may mean they are on the way to a sustainable nation. However, the nuclear threat could mean that some may become sterile. About 350,000 males would be temporarily sterile, 100,000 women would stop menstruating, and 100,000 children would be born with cognitive deficiencies. There would be thousands of spontaneous abortions and more than 300,000 later cancers.
There is no obvious effect on a human being who has absorbed less than 250 millisievert. Over this level, males also become infertile. If a person survives over 3000 millisieverts, If a person survives over 3000 millisievers, he or she becomes sterile or acquires cataract. Exposure to radiation has also been linked to miscarriage and infertility in both men and women.
The more significant the radiation, the greater the risk of cancer, also radiation exposure has been associated with miscarriage as well as infertility in both males and females.
In Western societies, there will be a short-term emphasis on “green” energy technologies, the realities will soon surface that these approaches in no way could substitute for the constant, high energy loads which could have been delivered by nuclear power. Our political leaders want big population, big investments in Australia, and big energy-absorbing exports.
The big mining barons, pushing for uranium exports, will be liable loss of lives and illnesses if the push for "safe" nuclear continues. We will have a sustainable population eventually, but uranium should not do it for us!
Comprehensive demographic transition model
Interesting in the presentation on Global Population Speak Out (link above) that after all those millennia of "progress" that humans manage to get back to the happy situation where they have low birth rates and low death rates resulting in a stable population as in the hunter gatherer stage. Was the progress worth those awful times of high death rates in the intermediate phase? The model certainly is not consistent with the cliche of life for primitive people being nasty brutish and short, either.
Baillieu government allows the shooting of native waterbirds
Victoria's native duck shooting season begins very soon. Why this travesty, this shame? Why are there no ethical regulations to protect native ducks? Researchers doing bird counts, not killing birds, must comply with "ethical" standards to protect them. However, hypocritically, they are allowed to be pelted with shots, and even strangled under the label of "natural" and "organic" food. They are allowed to be pelted with shots for recreation!
Where are the ethics of this decision? This blood sport is dangerous, cruel and unwelcome in Victoria, except for a few red-necks with rifles.
Our government has time to call it off and do the RIGHT thing. Other states have banned recreational shooting- except Tasmania and South Australia. Why is Victoria so behind?
Native waterbirds are coming back to breed and have many challenges ahead after a long drought. They should be allowed to do as Nature allows them.
With cattle in our Alpine parks, duck shooting in wetlands, pressure from the rural sector to allow a commercial kangaroo industry, Victoria is becoming a 19th backwater.
Economic growth - the big consumer
Grattan Institute economist Saul Eslake said 84 per cent of Victoria's economic growth over the past five years had come from population growth, compared with 71 per cent for Australia as a whole, an unsustainable situation that would require higher productivity from Victoria's workers to reverse.
http://news.domain.com.au/domain/real-estate-news/no-we-are-full-sign-for-melbourne-20110307-1bjv3.html
The strength of the Victorian economy is at risk because it relies on the ''unstable foundations'' of population growth and Melbourne's construction boom, according to a sobering pre-election analysis.
A new Monash University study finds population growth - mainly from overseas migration - had masked ''grim'' economic realities including the doubling of Victoria's international trade deficit to more than $35 billion.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/state-election-2010/states-boom-on-shaky-ground-20101027-173w0.html
So, our economic momentum is already firm and set, and our economic evolution means that we must continue to grow, grow and grow until we can expand no more. If this means over-riding native species' habitat, wholesale ripping apart of fertile lands, digging up resources for exports, and arable soils, if it satisfies the consuming addition of our economic model of growth, it is inevitable.
Plague of humans and the coming decline
In an essay on ‘The Principles of Population’ in 1798, Thomas Malthus, a British scholar and cleric, proposed that reproduction operated on an exponential basis and agricultural production increased on a linear scale, so the final outcome of plague growth was guaranteed to be overpopulation of people, followed by mass starvation and population collapse.
Admit it, we've become plague. And that will be corrected sooner or later. Nature's forces are stronger than Economic ones, and more permanent. We will have a sustainable population eventually, and those deaths will come to befall on those who denied the importance of keeping numbers in balance.
Those benefiting from the plague growth will be held responsible for that genocide.
Our proliferation is driving species to extinction. Like racists and sexists, specists have no intuitive moral compass; guiding them to protect the natural environment.
The stage after growth is decline. Any debate that touches upon human reproduction is invariably hi-jacked by demographers, sociologists, politicians, economists, and media commentators—people who see it only in
cultural or economic terms.
Since all the biological evidence indicates that our fecundity and culture
of growth is genetic, we cannot then avoid the conclusion that our exponential growth during the first six decades of last century was a symptom of a species in plague mode.
A plague event is initially characterised by exponential growth which then peaks, and finally collapses, due to disease, starvation and dysfunctional behaviour. This auto-collapse syndrome is common among animals such as rabbits, rodents, reindeer and humans. Easter Island in the 17th and 18th centuries offers a human example. We are a typical species nearing the peak of a typical ‘plague’ episode.
This explosive growth is usually followed by equally abrupt population collapse.
Our Australian government is currently asset-stripping our continent via mining, logging, land clearing, intensive monoculture, irrigation, livestock over-stocking, population growth, urban expansion, industrial and agricultural pollution and excessive consumption. "Sustainable" policies have been thrown out the allegorical "window".
The continent’s coastal waters and marine resources are in similar decline due to pollution, invasive species and overfishing.
Meanwhile, Australia’s impoverished soils and empty rivers will ensure that any deterioration in the global climate will impact savagely on this once reliable supplier of food and fibre.
Australia, the world’s driest inhabited continent, is about to become a canary in the mine as an example for the rest of the world to avoid.
We are being eviscerated
Many people are hoarse from speaking out, and writing, but the message doesn't have any effect on those in power. We are being disemboweled by politicians due to their support of population boosters. Their short-term agendas rely on popular spending and growth, and their sponsors who give political donations.
New, more comprehensive, scientific Demographic Transition Model
Subject was (due to subject length on this Drupal installation): New, more comprehensive, science-driven Demographic Transition M
Dear Colleagues:
As humanity's most luminous beacon of truth, science provides us with a last best hope for the survival of life as we know it on Earth. We must make certain that scientific evidence is never downplayed, distorted and denied by religious dogma, politics or ideological idiocy.
Let us not fail for another year to acknowledge extant research of human population dynamics. The willful refusal of many, too many experts to assume their responsibilities to science and perform their duties to humanity could be one of the most colossal mistakes in human history. Such woefully inadequate behavior, as is evident in an incredible conspiracy of silence among experts, will soon enough be replaced with truthful expressions by those in possession of clear vision, adequate foresight, intellectual honesty and moral courage.
Hopefully leading thinkers and researchers will not continue suppressing scientific evidence of human population dynamics and instead heed the words of Nobel Laureate Sir John Sulston regarding the emerging and converging, human-driven global challenges that loom ominously before humankind in our time, “we’ve got to make sure that population is recognized.... as a multiplier of many others. We’ve got to make sure that population really does peak out when we hope it will.”
Sir John goes on, “what we want to do is to see the issue of population in the open, dispassionately discussed.... and then we’ll see where it goes.”
In what is admittedly a feeble effort to help John Sulston fulfill his charge to examine all available scientific evidence regarding human population dynamics, please give careful consideration to the following presentation and then take time to rigorously scrutinize the not yet overthrown science from Russell Hopfenberg and David Pimentel regarding human population dynamics and human overpopulation.
http://www.panearth.org/GPSO.htm
Please accept this invitation to discern the best available science of human population dynamics and human overpopulation; discover the facts; deliberate; draw logical conclusions; and disseminate the knowledge widely.
Thank you,
Steve Salmony
Tony Burke fails to renew emergency heritage listing to Tarkine
Unlike many places in the world the Tarkine remains as a hidden treasure and a forgotten wilderness. This expanse of uninterrupted 477,000 hectares of Tarkine wilderness holds ancient relics both plants and animals dating back millennia, and unique habitats not found anywhere else.
Home to numerous threatened or endangered plant and animal species and with almost no introduced predators, the Tarkine has long held a special significance for Indigenous communities, said to have inhabited the area up to 10,000 years ago.
Peter Garrett gave the Tarkine wilderness a one-year emergency listing, which Mr Burke let expire. Since then he has let a British mining company test drill in the area. A leaked report suggested he ignored recommendations from the Australian Heritage Council to have the wilderness area included on the heritage list.
Mr Burke's department had approved a plan by a subsidiary of British miner Beacon Hill Resources to drill 48 holes in the area's magnesite karst -- a landscape of fissures, caves, caverns, sinkholes and underground streams -- found by the report to be "globally rare" and fragile.
Shree Minerals applied to Mr Burke's department on February 16 for environmental approval for a magnetite and hematite mine in the same area. Venture Minerals is also known to be looking to develop a tin, tungsten and magnetite deposit.
Andrew MacIntosh from the environmental law department at the Australian National University says the timing of the announcement is "somewhat curious", in reference to Mr Burke also announcing the environmental approval for a Gunns pulp mill project.
There will be a period of "community consultation" to decide whether to re-instate the Tarkine it's Australian Heritage Listing status. He said The Australian Heritage Council has stated very clearly that the wilderness values of the Tarkine have to be considered as a whole.
So putting a mine in the Tarkine area affects the wilderness values associated with the whole region.
"Community consultation" is a euphemism for asking for public submissions, to get the appropriate ticks, and then do what you were going to do anyway! Environmental, heritage values, indigenous sites, ancient forests, public values, endangered animals, tourism and sacred places of great intrinsic worth are no longer necessarily safe from market forces and the resources boom.
As the Minister FOR the Environment, Tony Burke should show some integrity and vote against commercial exploits, and ensure the Tarkine's long-term protection, not the contrary.
Public meeting: Cattle don't belong in national parks
Public meeting: cattle don't belong in parks
Also, see Victorian National Parks Association web-site for details of public meeting
Due to unforeseen circumstances the date and venue for the public meeting ‘Cattle don’t belong in national parks’ has changed.
The meeting will now take place at the Box Hill Town Hall on Wednesday, 6 April 2011.
(Please arrive 6.30pm for a 7pm start.)
The meeting is being held to discuss the Victorian Government's decision to allow cattle grazing in the Alpine National Park.
Speakers will include environment groups, politicians and others.
Please forward this email on to anyone you think might be interested in attending this important community event.
nuisance dogs and their owners
Editorial comment: The following was originally posted as a comment to the article What recourse do victims of nuisance dog barking have? of 18 Jul 11. As a bug in the earlier version of Drupal, from which this site is built, prevents links to pages, other than the first comment page from working, I have reposted the comment here.
These dogs are everywhere in Manitou spgs, Co., (Not sure whether this is a place or what? - Ed) where k 9s are respected more than people. Since Manitou doesn't subscribe to the aspca, it's a real battle to impress upon code enforcement that noise is an issue. As a retired individual and a combat vet. I truly appreciate my silence. But when the code officer doesn't live in town and is a dog owner, well you're really pushin' chain. Basically in my humble opinion it's a real matter of consideration by the dog owner, if they don't give a crap about your life, etc, then why shouldn't I use every legal effort to make that owners life as miserable as they make mine. I know that sounded petty but I'm open to alternatives. One of these owners happens to be deaf, doesn't know noise from silence. But the village puts up with such, and since I seem to be the only one complaining ( my auditory abilities are better than normal ) I'm the odd ball. This doesn't preclude a valid complaint, but when you're one against the whole village of dog owners, you may as well have leprosy. I can only hope that some these inconsiderate owners, someday get the annoyance of their lives by some screaming red headed triplets. I like animals, I have raised children, dogs, and can shoe a horse, all the time in doing so there was never a complaint by others to me to manage my animals. Inconsiderate, this is the bottom line for those with animals that cause this nuisance.
Hotels and restaurants in national parks
Just about any development in a national park is over development. In fact the more accessible you make any place to humans the less interesting it becomes. Wilson's Promontory in Victoria. Australia when I was a child used to have minimum facilities and deliberately so in order to limit the number of people visiting at any particular time. The place was for the wild life and a few people at a time. What was enjoyable about going there was NOT seeing buildings and crowds of people. We have so little in the way of national parks surely tourists who are after hotels and restaurants can go elsewhere. leave the national parks to the wildlife and the tourists who are self sufficient and resourceful enough not to these comforts laid on. Let the other tourists do a day trip with a a packet of sandwiches and experience something which may actually be new to them. They can then lay their heads on 5 star pillows in a nearby town or city.
Is TXU Aust a new name for TRU ENERGY
Dear Rev Fred Nile
In yesterdays wednesday 9/3 business pages of The Australian,
there was a story about the imminent bankruptcy of TXU - Texas Energy USA.
Loaded up with debt, and having its cash stolen by the usual wall st criminals.
ref. film The Inside Job; ref: book Griftopia.
The connection that worries me is that to my knowledge TXU Aust changed its name to TRU ENERGY amd recently bought gen trader rights, and half the retail electricity and gas sector in NSW. You chaired an enquiry into those shonky deals.
Maybe TRU ENERGY Aust has other solvent shareholders, dont know.
A news ltd journo told me they plan to go public IPO later this year.
If TXU - TRU ENERGY goes bankrupt, what chaos will this cause to consumers in NSW?
How could the ALP sell huge assets to a tottering (overseas owned) company?
Would you be able to raise this issue during the NSW Election campaign.?
David Hughes
Victoria's national parks to be commercialised
Not only "cow paddocks" but national parks may be opened up to developers!
This is especially to encourage tourists from India and China, who expect to enjoy our Victorian National parks in style!
The state government's efficiency watchdog has bluntly warned that tourism across Victoria will stagnate unless current ''slow and cumbersome'' laws preventing private development in national parks are dumped. The "slow and cumbersome" laws are meant, by default, to protect our natural assets from such developments! They are not commercial assets but land for conservation, ecological values, flora and fauna, and those wanting to enjoy the bush.
Parks may open to developers The Age
Apparently "restrictions" were holding back investment and limiting the state's ability to attract international visitors. These "restrictions" are to protect our environmental assets from such developments. International visitors need to learn to tread respectfully and softly on fragile environments. They are sacred places and we are the hosts. Visitors need to obey our laws and respect our territories.
We already have native waterbirds being shot at for recreation, cattle in our Alpine areas causing environmental trashing, thousands of native animals "controlled" each year, and now possible commercialization of Victoria's National parks.
We are seeing tacky high rise developments in our cities to cater for foreign students, and our universities have already been outsourced as businesses resources for Indian and Chinese students - and a short-cut for PR - and now to add insult to injury, our iconic and prized national parks are to be modified to cater for tourist comfort.
According to our Federal government:
The National Reserve System is Australia's network of protected areas, conserving examples of our natural landscapes and native plants and animals for future generations. Based on a scientific framework, it is the nation's natural safety net against our biggest environmental challenges.
The reserve system includes more than 9,300 protected areas covering nearly 13 per cent of the country. It is made up Commonwealth, state and territory reserves, Indigenous lands and protected areas run by non-profit conservation organisations, through to ecosystems protected by farmers on their private working properties.
How do developments such as hotels and stadiums help fulfill these aims?
When do the owners, the people of Victoria, get a say in how things are run? It would defile the very for the existence of national parks. The big problem is that Victoria has the biggest proportion of privately owned land in Australia! We are being sold off!
Greens Party stops environmentalists becoming effective
This article rightly shows that because of their effective support for high immigration, the Greens can't be considered a serious political party in favor of the environment.
However, I think the most critical factor about how the existence of the Greens adversely affects democracy and serves Australia's ruling elites has been overlooked.
In the 19 years since the Greens were formed in 1992, they have succeeded in drawing out of many thousands of well-meaning environmentalists money and energy that could have been put to far better use.
Given that the two major political parties, Labor on the one hand and the Liberal/National coalition on the other, have poor to abysmal records in government and that this has been shown conclusively again and again, it is inconceivable that after 19 years, the decent alternative that the Greens claim to be could not have at least steadily and consistently increased its electoral support. By now such a party should be in government either in their own right or in coalition, in many parts of Australia. At the very least, such a party should have a substantial presence in all Parliaments.
With a few rare exceptions, like the 2010 Federal elections and the 2010 Tasmanian state elections the electoral performance of the Greens has been, at best, mediocre and usually poor.
If the 'anti-war' Greens could not have performed well in 2004, then when could they ever have?
The outcome of the 2004 elections were particularly harmful to Australia, not to mention the rest of the world, and could have been avoided. In 2003 the Howard Government participated in the illegal invasion of Iraq, using a pretext shown to have been a deliberate lie.[1] At the 2004 elections, Howard did not even have to pay the slightest electoral price for his actions and was re-elected with effectively an outright majority in the Senate. The campaign by the Greens, supposedly leaders of the anti-war movement, in those elections did not stop the Liberal/National majority from gainining an outright Senate majority, where the proportional quota voting system should have made that easily achievable.
At the recently concluded 2010 Victorian state elections, the Greens won no lower house seats and were again unable even to stop the Liberal/National party from winning an outright majority in the upper house.
The outright majority that the Liberal/Nationals have gained has taken away from Victorians any recourse in Parliament against the Liberal/National Coalition Government until the next state elections in 2014, should it choose to govern in a way which is as harmful to ordinary Victorians as they have in the past.
I don't believe that the Greens would perform as poorly as they nearly always do unless it actually suited the purposes of those in control of the Greens not to wield any effective influence in Parliament.
If they were to hold the balance of power or even were to form Government, then their supporters would rightly expect them to do something for their benefit.
This would mean that the Greens would either have to act against the powerful vested interests they claim to be against or be shown up as the frauds that I believe most of them to be.
As they have never gained enough representation in any Parliament, they have been able to avoid being put to the test. (Of course, they now have the balance of power in Tasmania with 5 of the 25 the seats. This will be worth following closely. Hopefully, just possibly, the Tasmanian Greens may show themselves to be an exception to this sad pattern.)
Footnotes
1. As shown in the recent movie Fair Game or in the YouTube broadcast of testimony by CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson before the US Senate (also embedded in this comment), upon which Fair Game was based, the pretext given by The U.S. government and the Australian government for the invasion of Iraq was a lie. That lie was that Iraq had a secret nuclear weapons program, which it intended to use on other countries. In Australia, the largest demonstrations since the Vietnam, War were held against the threatened invasion. In defiance of public opinion, Howard proceeded with Australia's participation in the invasion of Iraq. As the Greens were part of the leadership of the anti-war movement, they should at least have gained massively, but didn't. If they could not gain in those circumstances, then how could they ever expect to?
See also Valerie Plame Wilson interviewed by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show on 30 October 2007, Wikipedia and Sixty Minutes.
Privatization a disaster for carbon tax
Privatization of water is a disaster for Melbourne. Water is a birthright, a basic of life. Mr Holding said PPPs provided the best value for money to the taxpayer, but he provided no evidence of this and figures needed to do so are confidential. Mr Brumby warned that our water cost would double with the desalination plant.
Privatization is also at odds with the reality that the private entities view the responsible management of water as secondary to their prime aims - unfettered infrastructure development and consumption-based profiteering. We are obliqued to pay the cartel for the Wonthaggi desalination plant whether we want it, or need it. Mr Brumby has left a $24 billion debt for the public to pay!
70% of our water is used for agriculture. Private organisations won't be interested in environmental concerns, but commercial returns.
Julia Gillard's carbon tax wouldn't be so bad if she wasn't at the same time intent on ongoing and contradictory population growth. Her popularity rating is now as low as Kevin Rudd's was when she deposed him. His "big Australia" gaffe should surely be a lesson for her to learn from?
If State governments hadn't gone ahead and privatised gas and electricity, then their commercial interests would not be such an impediment to directly investing in renewable energy sources. These companies have to be cajoled and persuaded by market forces through the carbon tax to, maybe, invest in renewable energy. Private companies are interested in profits and growth, not the public or the long-term impacts of climate change.
Our State governments are thus not free to directly invest in renewable energy, and this indirect carbon tax, and the compensation for the public, is so roundabout, and full of contradictions, that's it's doubtful the public can really see anything to gain from it, or that it will really have any impacts on mitigating climate change.
It's just another complicated and expensive tax that will blow out family budgets even further. We should be directly paying for renewable energy sources, not relying on possible market forces to do it.
Private ownership reduces local control and public rights.
Our AFP are now agents for Tokyo police
The anti-whaling group's two main ships, the Bob Barker and the Steve Irwin, arrived in Hobart on Sunday.
For the third year running, AFP officers searched the anti-whaling vessels.
Japan sometimes asks our Australian government for "help", such as to not let Sea Shepherd ships leave any of our ports! Clearly, our whispered protests of being an "anti-whaling" nation have not been heard, even after all these years of diplomatic pressure!
The Japanese government has complained about the Sea Shepherd ships getting in the way of commerce and industry, according to Senator Brown. Isn't this contradictory to their so-called "scientific research" on whales?
An AFP spokesperson said that Sea Shepherd's activities in the Southern Ocean would be investigated.
As an "anti-whaling" nation, why would the AFP be perusing legal grounds against the anti-whaling group, Sea Shepherd, on Japan's behalf? Our AFP is not paid by the government of Japan, as far as we know, so why should they be doing the work of Tokyo by "investigating" the law enforcers?
The AFP executed search warrants for the SSCS vessels. What did they hope to find? According to Senator Bob Brown: "The good police are doing the work of Tokyo".
Clearly Sea Shepherd's success has brought shame and embarrassment to our government. All their tough talk of stopping Japan's whale slaughter is shown to be nothing but shallow assurances with no substance.
Sea Shepherd are the real heroes, not criminals to be investigated.
Sydney Morning Herald: Sea Shepherd sails into more controversy
Will NATO use civil war as excuse for invasion?
My efforts to understand the causes of what has been going on in the Arab countries of North Africa and the middle east have not been helped by the reporting by the mainstream newsmedia, or, for that matter, even much of the supposedly 'left-wing' newsmedia. They refuse to make known to their readers, proven facts of recent history, most disturbingly, that the pretext for the current "American War on Terror" including the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, is a lie[1]. So, should it be any surprise that their reporting of these upheavals makes little sense? A far more informative article is one written by Fidel Castro Ruiz, the retired former President of Cuba, whose nation has defied threats of invasion from its powerful northern neighbour since 1959. The article, published by the Canadian service Global Research, is NATO’s Inevitable War: The Flood of Lies regarding Libya. One can only hope that the course of events does not bear out Castro's pessimism. Castro's warning of nuclear war in Fidel Castro Warns of Imminent Nuclear War; Admiral Mullen Threatens Iran; US-Israel Vs. Iran-Hezbollah Confrontation of August 2010 has, most thankfully, not come to pass. However, humankind has only averted nuclear war in past decades due to no less than 2 enormous strokes of good luck, the first being that from 1961 until 1963, President Kennedy three times prevented the US military-industrial complex, against which former President Eisenhower warned, from launching global nuclear war. Sadly, Kennedy was murdered by the military-industrial complex for this (another fact that the media, including most of the supposed 'left' refuse to make clearly understood by their readers). The second stroke of luck is that former Vietnam War fighter pilot Lieutenant Colonel Robert Bowman publicly campaigned against plans by the administration of US President Reagan to launch global nuclear war in the 1980's. His incredible story can be heard in his interview by Australia's John Bursill here. The mp3 file of the interview, linked to from that page is here.
Another most helpful article is, of course, BAHRAIN - National General Strike - Demand for Representative Democracy in an immigrant overloaded state published here on candobetter.
Footnotes
1. The lie is, of course, that Islamist extremists based in Afghanistan, launched the attacks of September 11 on the Word Trade Centre and the Pentagon. If it is true, then how is it, that after a ten year military occupation of Afghanistan, not one person with a proven link to 9/11 has been captured? To learn the truth about 9/11 that none of the mainstream newsmedia, including the ABC, or the supposed 'left' newsmedia, including Green Left and Direct Action from Australia will publish, please visit the sites 911truth.org, ae911truth.org, 911blogger.com and sites liked to from them or read articles on this site concerned with that issue.
Macabre experiments on kangaroos
It is horrifying and disgusting that a scientific licence has been issued by DECCW NSW Wildlife Licensing and Management Unit NSW to Wollongong University to retain kangaroos in a cage 1 metre x 1.3 meters x 1.7 metres for up to 9 months to ascertain the amount of methane gas expelled by the kangaroos.
Apparently they requested 15 kangaroos to be tested but the licence has been approved for 6 animals to start with. The kangaroo will be obtained from excess "stock" from wildlife parks, and they will be euthanased when experiments/ research is finished. Wildlife have a rightful place on our land, and are not "stock" and nor are they "excess". What sort of macabre experiment is this? What could the results be used for to benefit the animals? It would only be detrimental to them, and the individual animals being experimented on.
Kangaroos and wildlife will never replace livestock. To reduce methane emissions, we need to reduce meat consumption.
What a terrible way for a animal to have its life ended when it was used in a commercial way. This is not science but research to support commercial use of kangaroos and it is no different from Japan's bogus "research" on whales that was really commercial interests. No wonder Australia could do nothing for the whales, with so much embedded hypocrisy at such high levels.
Kangaroos suffer incredibly from stress myopathy, and this means they become vulnerable to diseases. The methane emissions could be quite different under these unnatural conditions.
Some have been informed the University may also be looking at doing the same experiments on wombats as well.
Where are the ethics of such research? Confining, manipulating these range-land grazing animals for dubious purposes. They will be isolated from their mob, their territory, and suffer terribly. The end is misery and death for these captive animals.
Please come on board and work together to stop this now !
For more information please view the petition
Cattle in the high country - vote
For those who want to send a message to the Coalition (who take notice of the readers of the Weekly Times) on whether cattle should be kicked out of the Alpine National park – please
go here and vote YES.
http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au
So far it’s 60% of voters who want the cattle kept up there. Editorial comment: As of 1:20PM on Saturday 5 March, the vote is 51% in favour of removing cattle from the National Park and only 49% in favour of keeping them in the park.
Milk is good for you
You have been lied to about butter
by: Paul Fassa,
Butter has been maligned as unhealthy for decades. Fortunately, the Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF) disagrees. The WAPF was started decades ago by Weston Price, DDS. He and his wife traveled to isolated locations and examined the diets of peoples free from civilization's degenerative diseases.
Others have discovered the truth about butter and disagree with butter's bad rap as well. It's healthier for you than all the substitutes designed to replace butter, which actually damage your health. Butter is better.
Why the Negative PR Campaign Succeeded
Diet fads promoted aspartame as well as margarine as healthy choices. The overweight and even not so slim were manipulated into diets with only weight loss in mind . That popular movement had its foundation in medical misinformation, based mostly on saturated fat nonsense. That nonsense was compounded by the cholesterol scare.
Abstaining from the saturated fats was promoted as a healthy choice. Butter, coconut oil, and palm oil were all given bad press. The doctors, uneducated of real nutritional health science, went right along. Yet all three of those saturated fats are actually health promoting.
This trend was accelerated by corporate greed in the processed food industry. They could righteously insert those cheaper trans fatty liquid oils in packaged goods or sell them as healthy cooking oils. And now it turns out that those oils cause long term health damage, including obesity, cardiovascular problems, diabetes, and even cancer.
As early as the 1950s, Johanna Budwig criticized the trans fatty toxic oils that were taking over the market place. She said the cooking oil industry censured her for that. She is renowned in natural healing circles as the creator of the cancer curing Budwig Diet, which includes pure flax seed oil and cottage cheese, both high in fats.
But her biggest contribution to nutritional science was her groundbreaking research categorizing different types of fats. This was uncharted territory until she did that research in Germany. So she knew what she was talking about when she trashed trans fats.
Why Butter is Better
There are three levels of butter: The ideal is butter made from the raw milk grass fed, healthy cows. Second best and more accessible is organic butter from the pasteurized milk of grass fed cows not injected with antibiotics or rBGH. Then there is the mainstream commercial stuff. Even this last contaminated version of butter is better for you than margarine .
The low fat diet is actually not healthy for most. And the heart disease hype associated with cholesterol has been exaggerated to the point of being considered a myth. A 1991 Medical Research Council study determined that men eating butter had half the heart disease risk as men eating margarine! Natural fats can be converted to carbohydrates as needed.
Cholesterol is necessary for healthy nerves, including the brain, and the gastrointestinal tract. Butter from grass fed cows is actually rich in minerals. It also contains a lot of vitamins A, D and K2, which help prevent osteoporosis and arthritis. The short and medium chain fatty acids and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) in butter help prevent cancerous tumors.
Glycosphingolipids in butter fat offer protection against gastrointestinal infections. These are not all of the healthy aspects of butter. You'll find more in the sources below.
The Folly of Fake Fats
Much of the overall worsening health from dietary sources includes trans fatty acids in margarine and hydrolyzed heat processed unsaturated oils offered as health substitutes over the past five or so decades. It comes back to real versus synthetic foods. Keep it simple: Nature knows best.
Sources for more information include:
Why Butter is Better
articles.mercola.com/sites/a...
Weston A Price Foundation pdf - Butter is Better
www.westonaprice.org/images/...
Know Your Fats
westonaprice.org/know-your-fats.html
Sources for healthy dairy products
www.realmilk.com/where.html
News and information on raw milk and dairy products
www.realmilk.com
The Truth About Saturated Fats
articles.mercola.com/sites/a...
Budwig research and cancer cure part 1
www.naturalnews.com/027452_c...
Simple solution
"Data from the Census is used by parliamentarians and religious leaders to sway politics and social policy in favour of complying with religious tenets and ecclesiastical notions". The Census is about statistics and demographics and is not political. The solution for atheists and skeptics is simply to put "no religion" in this question box. Surely it is the job of politicians, idealistically, to represent the needs and opinions of the people of Australia. Whether that happens in reality is debatable. Governments need to be secular, and neutral, but this does not mean people are not spiritual beings, or are all non-religious. It is still quite a valid, but optional, question to ask.
Bandicoot nails it
Bandicoot nailed it. Visiting a city is not the same as living there. Pity that Bandicoot is not running the authoritive rating agency that would incorporate the views of people actually trying to make a living in these cities. Having the Economist determine a city's livability is like having Marie Antionette rate soup kitchens. BTW, plaudits to Sheila Newman for supplying the appropriate illustrations and photo. Her input is always give a new dimension to an argument.
Want a Vancouver drug crime anecdote? Try this. While away overseas for 8 months, my roomate "Rob" bought speciality car parts for his Lotus Super 7 parked in my garage. The parts were shipped if four large boxes or crates to Vancouver International Airport, where they awaited Rob's return to Canada. When he arrived, he signed for them, and they were delivered to my back yard, 20 miles from the airport. As I was sleeping that hot afternoon, Rob did not want to disturb me so he left them there for the duration of the day. When I awoke an hour later, I found them in my basement, and thought nothing of it. I left the house and returned at 8:30 pm to find the boxes opened and the front door wide open. I closed it believing that Rob had come and gone again, but forget to shut the door. I also noticed that the window to his bedroom was open, with the latch broken. The following day, he thanked me for bringing the boxes in and opening them. When I told him that I had no part in it, we checked the boxes and found all the parts still in them. We could not understand why anyone would pry open the window--in full view of the street---walk into a room strewn with cash, cameras and electronics, ignore them, go downstairs, open the door, carry in four heavy boxes, open them up, and take nothing. But the RCMP connected the dots. The thieves followed Rob home, and when he left, they were desperate enough to walk the through the house, and carry in the boxes, which they knew had drugs of great value placed in them in England during packaging. The police explained that the Vancouver drug gangs are international in scope, knew of their shipment, and had the patience to wait months for Rob's return to Vancouver, and follow him home. And all of this happened in a medium upscale neighbourhood. Considering the value of the haul, it is a very good thing that the thieves did not wake me up, or I would not be writing this story now. In other words, for me, Vancouver would suddenly have become "un" livable.
A few essential "details" not mentioned in the assessment
According to their web page, The Economist Intelligence Unit is the world's leading resource for economic and business research, forecasting and analysis. Like The Economist, we are independent of all governing bodies and corporations, leaving us free to deliver accurate and impartial business intelligence.
This sounds like the Committee of Melbourne, the KMPG or any of the "not for profit" groups pushing for developments and growth.
Vancouver (Canada) sits at the top of the Economist Intelligence Unit's Global Liveability Ranking , a position that can only have been cemented by the successful hosting of the 2010 winter Olympics and Paralympics, which provided a boost to the infrastructure, and culture and environment categories. Those of us who actually live there and know the place chortled. (see article below).
This would have created enormous benefits for investors and property developers.
In another survey, Vienna again was named as the ‘best’ city in the world, with the Austrian capital’s perennial Swiss rivals, Zurich and Geneva, following close behind. Overall, German-speaking cities occupy six places in the top ten in 2010 Quality of Living Survey by
Mercer Consulting. Vancouver remained equal 4th with Auckland.
A rating of relative comfort for 30 indicators is assigned across five broad categories: stability; healthcare; culture and environment; education; and infrastructure. The survey gives an overall rating of 0-100, where 1 is intolerable and 100 is ideal. It doesn't mention housing affordability, lifestyles, crime, accessibility to parklands and green wedges, congestion, utility prices, or the rating of those living there!
The rating of "ideal" is surely subjective without community input, and without considering the above essential "details", and heritage values.
Another article, dated 1 Mar 11, by Brian Hutchison of the National Post says that Vancouver is the world's most liveable city, if you ignore the drugs and crime!
Visiting a city is not the same as living there. A city without unity, community, a common heritage and "heart" is cold and functional only.
Religious labels
Every term at primary school I was obliged to fill in a form stating my father's occupation, my address and my religion. The problem was that I wasn't sure which category I fitted into. I tried a variety of Christian denominations- rotating 4 I knew of several times or put down whatever sounded good on the day.The teachers never asked me why my religion kept changing ! One day after yet another form filling school day I half seriously upbraided my father for having left me in the ignominious position of not knowing my category. He replied that if I wanted a label then I could go and get one any time I wanted and I could have any one I wanted. I was free to choose! Having been given this carte blanche, I was no longer interested since the appeal of a label to me was that it was something one was given,not what one chose. I declined and from that moment,overcame any desire for a religious label. I wonder what I have missed out on by not belonging to a religious tribe,nor following mysterious learned rituals nor experiencing the immediate acceptance when a signal heralding religious allegiance is immediately understood by a stranger.
Singapore migration agency's 'comment'
Subject was: Truly it is a good example.
Truly it is a good example of how circumstances can force people to move from their place and position. I wonder if we can ever be secure that we will not be affected by our economic situation. Looking at it in another way, this event may present a new life, a new beginning and new opportunities in themselves.
Editorial Comment: This 'comment' demonstrates no comprehension, whatsoever, of the content of this article, which is highly critical of the global mass immigration rort of which, no doubt, nTRUST (Singapore) PTE (sic) LTD is a part. It's web-site, http://ntrust.com.sg is here, but be warned, particularly if your computer runs on the Micro$oft operating system, which is more vulnerable to viruses than are other operating systems, that the Web of Trust (www.mywot.com) warns, "This site has a poor reputation". It has poor trustworthiness, very poor vendor reliability and very poor privacy.
Older people are not a threat
Since when do our lifestyles and living arrangements get dictated to us by the Economy that purportedly "needs" population growth to remain viable and healthy?
This is putting the cart before the horse! The economy should be our servant, to provide us the facilities to buy, sell, work and provide an income, not to determine our fates at our own detriment.
An economy that relies on perpetual population growth is NOT sustainable, and our suburbs are not resources for property developers. Our population growth is a political choice, and even older people like their gardens, back yards and amenities.
Older people are not an economic threat. On the contrary, an ageing population is a sign of high living standards, health care and prosperity.
Being subservient to what our Economy demands is the wrong way round. It is meant to serve us and protect our livelihoods.
An ageing population brings stability and maturity, and older people often care for children and families and do volunteer work.
Those promoting growth usually have self-serving interests in growth. It is younger people who consume more resources and funding than older people. All people age one year every year. We don't have "use-by-dates", and people are not shelf items in a store to be discarded and replaced by fresher products.
(Unsolicited advertisment for) Solar Energy Queensland
Editorial comment: We have decided to approve this one 'comment' (of roughly 10 'comments' posted
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Animals matter little in Queensland - or anywhere
According to Queensland RSPCA, there is not evidence of the dogs "starving". In their natural state, they would sometimes be skinny. However, why would puppies by dying of starvation, as shown in the documentary? Nature can be cruel, and it is normal for species to die sometimes. However, humans have altered the landscape and caused extinctions and species numbers to drop considerably. Also, it is a tourist area. Humans living on an island would need to import their food. People eating junk food in front of very hungry dingoes would expect to be confronted.
This callous attitude to wildlife is typical of Queensland, trying to market kangaroo meat to China, and exterminating koalas to extinction for property developers.
Jenny Parkhust has been persecuted as a whistleblower. The Park rangers should be ensuring the (endangered) dingoes have sufficient food. Any pet owner, livestock owner, or zoo manager would be fined for such cruelty. Such is the power of our government's justice. Wildlife are just incidental, of little importance. Tourist dollars, and the possibility that "savage" dingoes would make their numbers decline, is the main focus of the commercial national park.
Dingbats
I also saw the program and was most upset at the treatment and attitude towards the dingoes. It seemed the dingoes had been friends with the Fraser Island Aborigines who in all likelihood fed them which is a frequent relationship and transaction between dog and human throughout history. Sounds as though that relationship should be restored.Any creature who is hungry is driven to find food. (Someone I know told me she would eat her own grandmother if she were hungry enough.) The dog who nipped the child in the red outfit was also most likely hungry but the incident was discussed as though the behavior was vicious. In fact A hungry dog would do anything in order to eat and would not be telling itself it should postpone nibbling until something which was actually on the menu came along. The fact that the authorities took the draconian action they did after a child was killed shows that they were not "managing" the situation well at all prior to this. Hungry or starving dogs +unwary unsupervised children= recipe for disaster.
Starving dingoes "culled" and dying in Fraser Island
I am horrified by the program on Australia Story (28/2) and disgusted that dingoes in Fraser Island are being starved and denied food. They are trapped in a land mass and being allowed to die, and become extinct. How can they just be shot by park rangers? Wildlife advocate and photographer Jennifer Parkhust was fined $40,000 and given a suspended jail sentence for guess what ? - feeding starving dingoes. This is a heinous crime in wildlife-hating and corrupt Queensland.
Why is it a crime to feed them? Why allow them to starve?
We know the present government hates wildlife, and Anna Bligh is trying to export kangaroo meat, and koalas are being sent on the extinction trial due to property developments and mass land clearing.
Obviously the Island is to be used totally for tourism $$ and/or developments, and the dingoes are an impediment to "progress". The fine and persecution of Jennifer Parkhurst is evidence of corruption and State sanctioned cruelty.
Why should they be denied food? They are native animals, are endangered, and help bring in tourists and their dollars.
Humans living on island would find survival hard without imported food. Their natural food sources are limited and they need to have it supplemented.
Of course, dingoes will attack tourists if they are starving. Any animal would. They have a right to exist, and if there existence must be supplemented by food, they so it should be. Normally, before dingoes became a "pest" because of livestock they had the whole of Australia to roam and exist.
The hatred and vilification of wildlife in Australia, especially in Queensland, is rife. This case needs to be investigated and assurances given that the dingoes are safe from these Park rangers who should be acting on behalf of the animals, not for the humans trespassing on their territory while they go hungry. Either keep people away from most of the Island, or out altogether, and give priority to the dingoes.
It is ludicrous that someone can be a criminal for feeding starving animals. Any human with empathy for other living creatures would do the same thing. If this happened to cattle, sheep, dogs or cats there would be RSPCA prosecutions. Why the distinction?
According to the RSPCA Fraser Island is recognised as home to one of the purest strains of dingoes in Australia. The dingoes are a protected native species on the Island as the majority of the island is a national park even though they are a declared pest elsewhere in Queensland. Fraser Island is also a significant tourist destination and the dingoes are part of that attraction.
However, in certain parts of the island human/dingo interactions have led to significant problems such as dingoes displaying aggressive behaviours towards humans.
These problems came to a head in April 2001 when a young boy tragically died following a dingo attack. This incidence confirmed the risk dingoes pose to humans and led to the Queensland Government rethinking their approach to dingo management on the island. The immediate response was a cull of the dingoes followed by the development of the Fraser Island Dingo Management Strategy (FIDMS) 2001.
However, I don't agree with killing the dingoes to protect humans who come into the island. Fraser Island is wildlife territory, and it is the onus of people and parents of children to take full responsibility. Dingoes are native to Australia, and we can't go an killing rampages because of human stupidity no matter how tragic.
There should be some safe areas for people and families to go, fenced off from dingoes. They should not be allowed to starve.
Immigration Department - skills migration justification
Department of Immigration and Citizenship:
"Australia's immigration programs are targeted at meeting specific social and economic objectives. In particular, the skilled migration program is designed to deliver skilled workers to critical parts of the economy such as the healthcare, mining, and information technology sectors, where and when they are needed, where these skills cannot be met locally".
Despite international students being lured here to study at our, presumably, top class educational institutions such as universities and colleges, we ourselves must admit that there are better resources for studying in the above skills overseas in developing countries. We are sourcing skills from countries such as India and Bangladesh. Can anyone else see the contradiction?
"Skills Australia projects that we will have 9.3 million job openings in Australia over the next 15 years. Around 4.4 million of these jobs will arise due to workers leaving the workforce as the baby boom generation begins to retire. While the education and training of Australian workers is the government's first priority, immigration will play an important role in plugging these skill gaps. Immigration will also help address the substantial fiscal pressures that an ageing population will incur, including the increased demand for government services and rising health costs."
Surely when the baby boomer generation retires, it should create wonderful opportunities for Australians to exercise their skills and be given opportunities here in Australia. The "skill gaps" should NOT exist if our education sector was funded adequately. "Fiscal pressures" of an ageing population? Surely it is young people who are more a drain on the economy, on health care and infrastructure? Our ageing population is a sign of success and stability, not a "pressure" or a drain. Replacing older people by young immigrants will create a demographic pyramid. Our baby boomer numbers were created initially by mass immigration in the 1950s and 60s, and by the post war number of births. How can sustainability be created by repeating the same thing now, with converging global threats of climate change, peak oil, and global meltdowns.
"The goal of the strategy is to improve the wellbeing of current and future generations of Australians through more effective recognition and management of the impacts of population changes, including size, composition and location."
Nothing mentioned of the environment, the energy crisis, our sprawling cities, diseconomies of scale and more importantly, that most people in Australia do not want a "big Australia'!
It seems that our government is now running a big firm, a company, a brand name, an Economy, rather than a sovereign nation for the benefit of citizens. We are being considered as employees, as resources rather than an integral part of our nation.
Limits of science
This is another website with anthropocentric ramblings of denialists without ethics. Science or any human endeavor without ethics and morality is dangerous and totally irrelevant to an orderly world of laws and consequences.
Judging from the escalation in scientific knowledge, we could say that science has no limits. However, research becomes more expensive as problems accelerate and become more complicated, and the time required to study them increases disproportionately, and with it cost.
As human impacts on the environment are accelerating, so do our problems. The environment is multi-dimensional and is shaped by millions of creatures interacting in a mysterious way. It's a science hard to un-fathom. Changes in such systems cause unanticipated side effects. Very little attention had been paid to the environmental consequences of economic growth.
According to Dalai Lama, "...although materialistic knowledge in the form of science and technology has contributed enormously to human welfare, it is not capable of creating lasting happiness. In America, for example, where technological development is perhaps more advanced than in any other country, there is still a great deal of mental suffering. This is because materialistic knowledge can only provide a type of happiness that is dependent upon physical conditions. It cannot provide happiness that springs from inner development independent of external factors".
We all need checks and balances to ensure that our thirst for knowledge does not outstrip our degree of ethical formation. Humanity has learnt the painful lesson of conducting science without ethics.
Raspail's Vision Will Unfold Before Our Eyes
Raispal's vision is unfolding before our eyes. All of us, in every affluent country with a social safety net, will be overwhelmed, but not so much by the sheer volume of incoming migrants, but by the 5th columnists at our backs who shape public opinion and cultivate an attitude of defeatism and guilt. I am speaking of the Puppet Intelligentsia and the nest of cultural relativists in universities, political parties and the media who will press us to open the floodgates in the name of compassion and moral responsibility. Unless we deal with them
our lifeboat will be swamped. The Greens, the environmental establishment, the trade union bureaucrats who line their guts with members' dues, and the mainstream political parties must be identified for what they are. The enemies of nature, of sustainability and of the indigenous poor, middle and working classes. There can be no fellowship with them.
They aim to take us down. We haven't much time.
Tim
Editorial comment: I can see that we have much to lose, if we allow fruitless compassion that cannot, to any worthwhile degree, hope to improve the lot of all the hundreds of millions of those most at threat from the coming ecological crisis, but I also think we stand to lose a lot if we allow ourselves to give in to those are seemingly on the opposite end of the political spectrum to the Puppet Intelligentsia, about whom Tim rightly complains, that is those who are waging immoral wars against the Middle East and Central Asia. It is striking that so few of the bleeding heart Puppet Intelligentia have spoken the truth about the lies that have been used as pretexts for those wars, that is the lie of Iraqi WMDs as exposed so eloquently and vividly in the movie Fair Game of late 2010, and the even bigger lie of 9/11
The Puppet Intelligentsia want us to adopt measures that can only harm the poorest members of our own community in a futile attempt to improve the lot of those most threatened by the coming global ecological crisis.
It's striking how the most dedicated and effective fighters against war and international injustice are also the most outspoken against high immigration and for the rights of the poorest of their own country. One of history's most renowned opponents of war, population growth (as you, yourself have noted, Tim) and high immigration is, of course, the late Reverend Dr Martin Luther King. His views on the cause of opposing immigration, which is even less “politically correct” then supporting birth control, can be seen from the following:
Unfortunately, studies have overemphasized the problem of the Negro male ego and almost entirely ignored the most serious element -- Negro migration. During the past half century Negroes have migrated on a massive scale, transplanting millions from rural communities to crammed urban ghettoes. In their migration, as with all migrants, they carried with them the folkways of the countryside into an inhospitable city slum. The size of family that may have been appropriate and tolerable on a manually cultivated farm was carried over to the jammed streets of the ghetto. In all respects Negroes were atomized, neglected and discriminated against.
If King were alive today, I don’t believe he would be any less contemptuous of the Puppet Intelligentsia, than you are, Tim
Funeral Rights/Rites of Australian Prisoners vs Refugees'
In the debate about refugee funerals, no one has yet discussed the morality of a government granting rights and privileges to undocumented aliens far in excess of what is granted to citizens.
In October 2001, I was being held in Silverwater Prison Sydney, on remand, on federal (ACCC) charges. When my mother died in Perth, I was refused permission to leave NSW to attend her funeral. I believe all states and territories have similar rules in not allowing prisoners to attend interstate funerals.
Had the funeral been in NSW, I would have been obliged to pay my own transport costs. As well I would have had to pay the transport and accommodation costs ot two guards. I saw how this substantial cost prevented aboriginal prisoners attending funerals in Bourke or Brokern Hill from Sydney.
Now a precedent has been set, I would support the commonwealth funding funeral visit costs for all Australian prisoners. Especially across state borders, under section 92 of our constitution.
David Hughes
* The ACCC case can be found on their website, putting "HUGHES" in their search box.
CIA Agent shooting Pakistanis deserves Pakistani Justice
CIA Agent Ray Davis shooting Pakistanis deserves Pakistani Justice
[Ed. This comment was originally placed as an article, but we have published it as a comment due to its length.]
When will the United States and Israel learn that sending their respective military cloak and dagger agents to criminal missions in foreign countries is not part of liberty and justice.
May US CIA agent Ray Davis receive proper Pakistani justice, according to Pakistani law.
If he is found guilty and summarily executed, so be it a lesson for US spying.
How else is the Pentagon to change its terrorism behaviour?
John Marlowe
Thanks for the analysis of spiked
Great analysis, Scott, and beautiful writing, as usual. I will read this article again and think on your take on the various twisted perspectives. I have never read spiked, but, from reading your article, they sound almost like a burlesque of the self-contradictory purported values that make up US 'democracy' - really capitalism. So that, anything that makes money for the rich becomes excusable and anything that stands in the way of this becomes mad and dangerous.
Could spiked-online be a prop for vested interests?
It's hard to be sure what to make of this web-site.
The vested interests served by most mainstream media and how that is served by the way they choose to misreport news and mis-analyse current events are easy to work out, but whose interests are served by spiked-online and how are they served by spiked-online's bizarre and contradictory reporting of world events, if as you say Scott, "they make every attempt to alienate the reader of almost every persuasion"? Surely, there has to be a group of persistent spiked-online readers, who would form a category that would not be alienated by the articles. If not, then spiked-online would surely not have any influence that would concern us.
My guess is that its intended readership is of people who are opposed to forms of injustice and who would be potentially likely to do what they could to oppose the selfish vested interests in control of our societies.
Spiked-online’s likely purpose is to appear to offer such readers a hard-hitting and clear-headed, although unconventional and seemingly novel, understanding of what is wrong and what can be done about it, whilst, in fact, feeding them ideas which do anything but clarify their thinking and motivate them to take effective action.
So it doesn’t matter that much if the message of some of spiked-online's articles can't be shown to serve powerful vested interests as most in the mainstream media can be.
An example of what appears to be a stance by spiked-online against injustice is its support for the uprisings sweeping the middle east against the clearly corrupt and despotic rulers such as in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia for example in “Overdue end to the old world order”.
Of course there is little in that article that any democratic-minded progressive person could disagree with. Much of the regions problems can rightly be blamed on past meddling by the US and other imperialist powers in the region. However, spiked-online’s idiotic anti-Malthusianism prevents it from addressing the underlying problems of resource depletion and overpopulation faced by these regions and proposing solutions that can end the social turmoil.
In my own experience many supposed grass-roots political organisations, led by the most seemingly radical, revolutionary and Marxist types have, in fact, acted as props for the unjust systems they claim to oppose, by causing people of good will to waste their energies unproductively.
An example which comes to my mind is the Australian campaign against the threatened invasion of Iraq in 2003. Although it held demonstrations larger than any since the demonstrations of the Vietnam Moratorium movement, it completely failed to prevent that war or even to cause the Howard Government to pay any price at the subsequent 2004 elections for its deceit of the Australian public in order to and facilitate an illegal invasion of Iraq and war crimes.
That we were lied to by the Australian and US governments has been proven beyond doubt by, for example the movie Fair Game of 2010 and many times before that.
The fate of most other grass roots protest movements against war or for the environment or social justice Australia have been little different recent decades almost certainly because they have been misled by the same sorts of groups which misled the movement in protest against the war against Iraq in 2003. Spiked-online is no doubt run by similar types.
What I am reading: "War Without Frontiers" by Bernd Greiner
This book has been translated from the German in 2009 by Anne Wyburd. It was first published in Germany in 2007 as Kriege ohne fronten: Die USA in Vietnam. The promotion on the back page which caught my interest in the local Robinson's bookshop is:
To this day, the My Lai massacre has remained the most shocking episode of the Vietnam War. Yet this infamous incident was not an exception or an aberration. Based on extensive research and unprecedented access to US Army archives, and tracing the responsibility for these atrocities all the way up to the white House and the Pentagon, War Without Fronts reveals the true extent of war crimes committed by American troops in Vietnam and ho a war to win hearts and minds soon became a war against civilians.
No attention was even given to the My Lai massacre until a year and a half afterwards, according to the introduction (p 4). It continues:
In principle the accredited journalists in South Vietnam could easily have done so. Soldiers from various units circulated the story for months; Radio Hanoi repeatedly broadcast corroboratory reports; some reporters admitted later to having known about it. However, the majority of reporters had, according to Peter Braestrup of the Washington Post. 'subscribed to herd journalism'.
An honourable exception to this was Seymour Hersh, whose story of the My Lai massacre was printed in 36 newspapers on 13 May 1969. However, Hersh's more recent work stands in stark contrast to his service to journalistic truth in 1969. His book The Dark Side of Camelot of 1997 which seeks to falsely blame President Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy for escalating the Vietnam War, when they both tried to end it. For trying to end the war, and in JFK's case, stopping nuclear war on three occasions, they were both murdered by the US military industrial complex against which former President Eisenhower warned. To what other figure in all history can humankind be so indebted as to the Kennedy brothers? So, what kind of journalist would attempt to diminish their standing as Hersh has done?
Hersh's treatment of the Kennedy Brother's are answered in, amongst other works, Oliver Stone's magnificent movie JFK, James Douglass's "JFK and the Unspeakable - Why he died and why it matters" of 2008 and David Talbot's "Brothers".
I am also currently reading "Brothers" by David Talbot, (but my reading has been interrupted by a friend's reading at my urging.) This book firmly commends the legacy of the Kennedy Brothers. However it also fully discloses all significant facts of the Kennedy's records in public life, including many which don't seem, at face value, to be to their credit. The views of the Kennedy's harshest critics are also presented in "Brothers". So it is possible to find the Kennedys dislikable and unprincipled on some pages of the book. In fact, books as harshly critical of the Kennedys as The Dark Side of Camelot could have been easily written by just using selected material from Brothers. However, all critics of the Kennedys are answered and all apparently unprincipled actions of the brothers are explained in the context of the American political system which was loaded against people of good intentions ever being able to win and hold onto high office in the US. Because Talbot has looked at the record of the Kennedy brothers from every possible side, I find this book takes an unusual amount of effort to read, but it is also immensely rewarding and well worth the trouble.
Brothers firmly and unambiguously endorses the Kennedys as two of the bravest and most well-meaning people to have ever entered US public life and is damning of those in the establishment newsmedia and those supposed 'left-wing' and 'bleeding heart' intellectuals who have helped conceal the truth about the Kennedys and their murders. In spite of his heroism back in 1969, Seymour Hersh is amongst those intellectuals, and is specifically dealt with by Talbot.
War Without Frontiers - The USA in Vietnam costs AU$27.95 and should be available in many Australian bookshops. Brothers and JFK and the Unspeakable are still easy to order on-line, but may not be in stock on the shelves of most Australian bookshops.
See also: Why won't the "left" thank JFK for preventing nuclear war?.
Turmoil in Arab North Africa
The turmoil in northern Africa could soon trigger a global migration crisis. 5,000 Tunisians have attempted to migrate to Italy and are waiting for Italy to decide what to do. 300,000 Libyans might try to flee to Italy after a collapse of the Gaddafi regime. The people of these growing and disrupted societies look to migration as their solution. Europe's immigrants come overwhelmingly from the Middle East and North Africa, and they are overwhelmingly Muslims.
They usually congregate at the bottom of the labour force and often turn to crime or political extremism. Europe's generous welfare social security offers the low-skilled an attractive alternative to work. The Chancellor of Germany, the Prime Minister of Britain and the President of France have all described their societies' experience of recent immigration - called "multiculturalism" - as a failure.
The World Bank reports that its global food price index rose by 15 percent between October 2010 and January 2011. Fluctuating food prices contribute to "food insecurity, poverty, hunger and political instability." Price instability can lead to systemic economic instability. Frustration with high food prices is among the underlying causes of the unrest in the Middle East and North Africa. In view of acute shortages of water in Africa, Middle East, Asia and elsewhere, the future wars could be fought over water. High prices for food are adding millions to the number who go to bed hungry each night in the Middle East.
Oil prices have jumped, which means food prices will soon follow. Egypt's population is up from 20 million in 1950 to 80 million. This means that 80 million net new jobs are required over the next 15 years just to keep pace with the population growth.
Oil-rich countries are acquiring land in poor and under-developed countries. Is this a sustainable way to go in food security? Globalisation has given us the illusion that our planet is bigger than it is.
Deconstructing the dangerous dogma of denial
Here is a letter recently sent to the UK's 'Times' by an acknowledged expert in Middle Eastern affairs :
While Western powers must, and by all appearances do, welcome the prospect of better governance in Egypt, they would be wise to plan their policies towards that country and the rest of the Islamic world on the likelihood of continued turmoil there.
I have watched with anxiety over several decades how populations have constantly outstripped the effects of economic growth in those states that do not benefit from relatively vast hydrocarbon resources,and this will not change soon.
Egypt's population was estimated at 22 million in 1950.Today, it is about 85 million, with perhaps 10 million more settled abroad. No mode of government could have fulfilled the aspirations of so many young people.
According to the best surveys we have, a third of Egyptians are under 15 years of age, while 60% are under 30. Their total number is expected to reach 120 million by the middle of this century. Furthermore, expectations are unrealistically high-and democracy does not thrive alongside rage.
There are so many parallels between Egypt's revolution and that of Iran in 1979.If you take into account the already dire scarcity of fresh water and arable land in Egypt, the future seems even more bleak. (Emphasis added - Editor)
Hazhir Temourian, London.
Finally, it could be said, perhaps, that reproduction is a form of consumption since all humans consume the earth's resources. Therefore, to promote absolute freedom in the matter of reproductive choice is irresponsible, since the infrastructure-both natural and constructed-is breaking under the strain of ever-increasing numbers.
I think that feminists should visit the website of the Centre for Biological Diversity (http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/).
Feminist denial
One of the best, most closely-argued essays written as a challenge to feminist dogma;congratulations to Madeline.
I note that Betsy Hartmann has recently written that the 'population explosion is over' : I would beg to differ and I say this as someone who believes that men and women are equal -(and who lives in the overcrowded UK, where the birth rate is now at its highest level for many years).
Human rights should be placed in a context of environmental justice and public health should be extended to embrace environmental health.
As to the Middle East: in the aftermath of the Tunisian uprising, Italy found itself having to manage an influx of several thousand young men, fleeing unemployment and poverty.
Latest forecasts from Libya suggest that as many as 300,000 may flee across the Mediterranean within weeks.
And Egypt has the largest population of all.
Evidence that unrest is due to food and water shortages
Poverty, repression, decades of injustice and mass unemployment have all been cited as causes of the political convulsions in the Middle East and north Africa these last weeks. Rivers are few, water demand is increasing as populations grow, underground reserves are shrinking and nearly all depend on imported staple foods that are now trading at record prices. In just 25 years, Egypt’s population has risen by nearly two-thirds, from 50 million in 1985 to around 83 million today, with an average age of 24. Many governments are suffering from demographic stress, unable to cope with the steady shrinkage in cropland and fresh water supply per person or to build schools fast enough for the swelling ranks of children.
Most ecologists and many geographers argue that there are already too many people on Earth and that it is the steady growth in human numbers that threatens to bring our food/population treadmill experience to a bad ending. We will ultimately have a sustainable population, but until then there will be inevitable suffering.
Martin Hutchinson, one of the few financial writers who understands something about population issues, wrote recently, in a piece called “The Blight of Population Growth,” (Feb. 7, 2011):
Both the rioters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and the Western commentators on those riots have missed a vitally important component of Egypt’s miseries: its excessive and rapidly rising population.
The monster of population growth and unsustainable numbers of people are often ignored.
The Arab world accounts for 6.3 percent of the world’s population but only 1.4 percent of its renewable fresh water. From 1965 to 1997, population growth drove demand for agricultural development, leading to a doubling of land under irrigation. Demographic expansion in these countries is set to dramatically worsen their predicament.
Hunger and thirst are powerful drivers -- not only of migration, but of revolutions as well. Climate change leads directly to water and food shortages in already unstable regions, and can lead to violence and unrest. The International Organization for Migration reported today that it has already driven an estimated 24 million people from their homes--a number, they warned, that could rise to as high a billion people by 2050.
Water-starved Middle Eastern and other countries snap up leases on African land to improve their own food security and thus threatened the survival of already struggling communities.
Vultures
The Property Council of Australia are no better than scavengers, vultures, manipulating our society's vilification of older people as burdens, due to the problem of our "ageing population".
They have just as much right to enjoy leafy suburbs as younger families without feeling under pressure, or guilt.
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2009/tle500-20090104-03.html
Humans as livestock. Human society is a farm, with the ruling class as the farmers and the rest of us as cattle. The "non productive" ones are culled as being not in the interests of farmers' economic necessities.
Christchurch
On a brief visit to Christchurch about 2 years ago I noticed in the suburbs the attractive modest low slung bungalows with front and back gardens. Since the earthquake a few days ago, the sewerage system throughout the city has broken down- I suppose it is only as strong as its weakest link and I'm sure there is massive damage in many places . In a televised interview with the deputy mayor last night she made this situation explicit and was asking citizens to dig holes in which to bury their toilet waste. Relevance to Melbourne? A significant earthquake is unlikely in Melbourne but only last month after continued heavy rain the Melbourne sewerage system was under so much stress that its contents were released into the local waterways and made its way to our bay swimming beaches. Had the water authority not done this, sewage would have backed up and been returned through people's bathrooms. Furthermore raw sewage was seen on the grass of a local park near where I live having burst through the lid covering the system. High density high rise living leaves no flexibility when systems are under stress. At the very least a backyard enables some way for people to process waste in an emergency.
Growth is not linked to wealth
The conventional economic wisdom is that: "Simply put, if we want to live in a First World society, with all its benefits, we need more taxpayers to fund it."
Economists accept that the stability of developed countries depends on continual economic growth and consumption. However this is clearly not possible on a planet with finite resources. Many contemporary governments believe employment and wealth are created by continuous economic growth and consumption and that these are fundamental to electoral success. Political lifetimes are short, and so is political accountability. Short-term benefits are the key to short-term "successful" policies.
The fundamental problem with this ethos of continual growth and consumption is that it ignores the biological principle that all living systems will grow until limited by the constraints of food and resources. No natural species or natural communities can continually grow! Humans aren't an exception.
In a study: Relationship between Growth and Prosperity in 100 Largest U.S. Metropolitan Areas by Eben Fodor December 2010, the annual population growth rate of each metro area from 2000 to 2009 is used to compare economic well-being in terms of per capita income, unemployment rate, and poverty rate. The study found that faster growth rates are associated with lower incomes, greater income declines, and higher poverty rates.
The 25 slowest-growing metro areas outperformed the 25 fastest growing in every category and averaged $8,455 more in per capita personal income in 2009. The findings raise questions about the efficacy of conventional urban planning and economic development strategies that pursue growth of metro areas to advance the economic welfare of the general public.
Scandinavian countries have small, stable populations. They don't use their mineral wealth for day-to-day expenses: Norway saved its oil bounty, of which roughly half the profits went to the government and was put into their equivalent of a 'future fund'. They are wealthy countries that defy the expansionist mantra we hear so much in Australia.
A stable population would allow a more measured and sustainable use of resources and processes, and thus our future can be planned and so can sustainability.
On the contrary to Make Poverty History, we need to Make Wealth History. Under our current system, there are disastrous job losses whenever the economy goes into recession. It’s an inherently unstable system that is guaranteed to deliver a jobs cull every ten to twelve years, until it eventually runs out of steam altogether. The transition may be rocky, but a steady state should be much more stable in the longer term.
Problems and coercion due to growth
Your points are well made, James. Without forced population growth, we Australians would have very few problems. We can blame those who have brought in policies to induce growth for all the coercive situations we suffer. One of the useful things that candobetter.net does is to try to identify exactly who is responsible by name. As Tim Murray wrote today in Undeserved Connotations----The Ugly C-Word In The Population Debate,
"Are we not constrained, or coerced, by many things in life that lie outside the dictates of government? Are we not constrained or coerced by resource shortages, traffic congestion, poor air quality, expensive housing and all the environmental baggage of overpopulation? Has not the sum total of private procreative decisions presently deemed to be the province of sacred and inalienable ‘human’ rights proven to be more coercive than the most draconian of any government’s birth control laws?"
We must restrain reproductive instincts for sake of all species
I would suggest that we might use 'constraint in the service of restraint' ; in other words, that we become mature enough- (what a hope!)-to accept constraints on our reproductive instincts in order to restrain our growing impact upon the earth and its dwindling resources.(My Collins Thesaurus has some good synonyms .)
As to the feminists : I would say that we should advance beyond the notion of reproductive rights and consider the notion of environmental duties and responsibilities and consider the 'rights' of our fellow creatures-who are losing the race.
Finally, as Asimov foresaw, overcrowding will do for any comfortable and complacent notions of individual liberty : (this is why I find SpikedOnline so irresponsible ; Brendan O'Neill constantly calls for unchecked population growth in the name of libertarianism and freedom of choice).
Wendy
Editorial comment: Thanks, Wendy. It's troubling that any supposedly intelligent person would argue against population control, the only rational choice on offer to humankind at the start of the 21st century. It's good to know who, out there, espouses such insanity. Anyone wishing to see why SpikedOnline causes Wendy so much concern, should look at this blog entry, Down with these Malthusian MPs of 6 Jan 2009 by Tim Black and not Brendan O'Neill. It's teaser is:
A proposal to cap the UK population at 70million shows how mainstream miserabilist population control has become
An article by Brendan O'Neill of 9 Jul 2009 is: Who’s afraid of billions of people? It's teaser is:
In the run-up to the UN’s World Population Day, spiked argues against all attempts to cajole, coerce or convince people into having fewer kids.
A more up-to-date article by Brendan O'Neill of 14 Jun 2010 is: The rise and rise of the Champagne Malthusians It's teaser, apparently intended to be tongue-in-cheek, is:
spiked’s editor joined the population-control lobby in a posh church in London as they quaffed ‘luxury’ drinks and fretted about overbreeding.
New push for multiculturalism
After Kevin Rudd's "big Australia" gaffe that saw his popularity plummet, surely Gillard's multicultural revival is about appealing to the ethnic vote?
The British Prime Minister David Cameron has identified segregation and separatism as key issues behind the threat of Islamic extremism and called for a "shared national identity".
Huge increases in immigration in Britain over the past decade were a deliberate attempt to engineer more multiculturalism, and "rub the Right's nose in diversity", a former Government adviser said.
It's time for multiculturalism in Australia to be replaced by "integration" and "unity". We meed a strong surge of patriotism for our wonderful country, and forge a strong Australian identity.
We don't need a revival of multiculturalism. We have already proved that we are diverse and tolerant. This is just another drive to support ongoing mass immigration.
The labeling of Australia as a deeply racist nation, and the need for more support for it, is social coercion and silencing. "Racism" has become the pariah, the ultimate attack on humanitarian ideals, against the holiness of globalisation and world-government citizenship. This is despite the threat of climate change, natural disasters, food shortages, increasing social disruption in the world, increasing crime and the energy crisis over the horizon.
Offending the "god of growth" is the ultimate blasphemy, a "crime" against the new world order.
A new push to enhance multiculturalism in Australia, to avoid Europe's failure, is to replace "skills shortages' and "ageing population" as the next population myth?
Social coercion is a very powerful, manipulating and silencing tool to allow our leaders to proceed with their own agendas, and silence debate.
Addiction to growth a vicious cycle
Infrastructure shortages are hampering the growth of New South Wales, claimed Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell at the Property Council of Australia's (NSW) Great Growth Debate, held last year in Sydney.
O'Farrell said “..it’s easy to use population growth and migration as the cause for Sydney’s infrastructure woes. I would go so far as to say it’s dangerous, when it’s the State Government that has failed to deliver proper infrastructure that communities deserve and need.”
It's the people who vote who need to pay the costs of infrastructure, and public pockets are not a limitless resource.
At the same time, the argument is that we need population growth to grow our economy, to provide the taxpayer base needed to fund our ageing population and to sustain the manufacturing and service industries that our country should have. Simply put, if we want to live in a First World society, with all its benefits, we need more taxpayers to fund it.
We end up with a cyclic, unending argument. We need infrastructure, so we need more immigration to provide the taxes, and inevitably we end up with more "shortages" of infrastructure that in turn means we need more population to pay for it, and the skills to build it all! With all this growth, we end up with more "ageing population" and thus need more young immigrants to compensate.
We are trapped in a myopic cycle of growth, shortages, a need for funds, thus add a few more people, ageing numbers increase, more infrastructure needed and more people! It's a vicious, misanthropic cycle of decline and artificial revival that will lead to a depletion of natural resources that won't end until the growth-lobby and government elite come out of their ivory towers and face the real, and finite, planet.
Editorial comment: Thanks for this insightful response to my comment, Enne K. Still, I think it needs to be pointed out that the "vicious cycle" is largely an illusion conjured up by politicians, the Growth Lobby and the newsmedia to further their own selfish ends at the expense of the majority of people and future generations. Any Government, with the will to serve ordinary people and not wealthy vested interests and which was prepared to apply itself diligently, could break this cycle over a short period of time.
Dysphemisms
Excellent article, Tim. Your point about China plus 400 million more people was very well made. I had to look up the word, “dysphemisms” to see if you had invented it or if it already existed. I was a bit disappointed to see that you were not the actual inventor.
The accident had to happen...and to create the alternative..