Science, being somewhat based on facts, has never really gotten on with politics or religion, which get on with each other famously due to their more human nature friendly facts-optional approaches.

 

The trouble is that the overwhelming majority of people who actually know what they’re talking about on this topic (ie climate scientists, do sit down Senator Minchin) are telling a story that people don’t want to hear, and the natural human response to this annoying category of facts is similar to that of a person who loudly insists that red wine contains healthy antioxidants whilst busily cracking open their third bottle for the morning.

The wishful thinkers have it right in one respect, the inconvenient truth about science is that by definition, “the science” is never really in. The guiding principle of scientists is a rather perverse striving to prove themselves wrong, and in this particular case I for one hope they do. But they haven’t yet, and it seems unlikely that they will.

Probably time to crack open another bottle.

A4 print $66 [wp_cart:tonyhokeypokey_print_A4:price:66.00:end]

A3 print $88 [wp_cart:tonyhokeypokey_print_A3:price:88.00:end]
[show_wp_shopping_cart]

 

There’s a bit of a kerfuffle about who said what to Wayne and when about WA going the gouge on mining royalties.

Sorry, but if you need to be warned that placing yourself in a direct line between a state premier and a bucket of money is a bad idea, you probably shouldn’t even be in charge of the loose change in your pockets. Rookie mistake.

It seems The Wilderness Society has finally worked out that “peace in Tasmania’s forests” is code for taxpayers propping up the forestry industry (again) so that it can be business as usual with the added bonus of the pulp mill. The only real surprise is that it’s taken them this long.

Looks like the state and federal governments are going to actually have to do their jobs and try and sort something out, which on their respective track records does not look terribly promising.

Apparently the PM is going to be making a mighty effort to get out and sell us the budget this week on the grounds that there has been less dancing in the streets than expected.

The budget strikes me as mostly reasonable. It’s kind of nice that there’s at least some sort of idea that perhaps households on $150,000 a year shouldn’t be mucking about with Centrelink on the grounds that, well, they just shouldn’t be needing to, and we’ll see how the tough-love getting people back to work thing goes over time. It seems potentially a bit mean, but Australians do seem to like to see the underdog getting a good kicking these days.

Top marks for finally slinging some money to mental health, rather poorer marks for slinging more money at godbotherers in state schools, and the whole pissing contest about who’s going to get us back into surplus fastest no matter how much services get buggered up is pretty embarrassing, but that’s either the fault of the media, the politicians, the general public or some combination depending on which one/s you aren’t. Getting back to surplus involves digging stuff up and selling it to China, so it’s not like we’re really in that big a hurry because we do have boundless plains to dig up, though I hope some people are kicking themselves for squibbing the mining super profits tax which would have sped things up marvellously. You know who you are.

Like I said, the budget seems mostly reasonable in the half-arsed, mildly disappointing sort of way we all knew it would, and Tony Abbott’s constant shrieking about pretty much everything all the time is starting to grate a bit, so rather than try and compete with that and hard-sell everybody something they’re buying whether they like it or not, Julia’s probably better off just getting on with the job in a dignified working kind or way and trying something a bit more ambitious next time around, hung parliament willing. I have a sneaking suspicion that people are more bored with the bullshitting than anything else.

If she really wants to do a stunt, a quick plank on the budget papers would get her on the news, it’s cheap, quick and most likely quite good for toning the abs.

I’m going to display my slacker Gen X credentials right here and say that sometimes it makes sense to think conservatively and sometimes it’s more sensible to think progressively in much the same way that a hammer is excellent at banging in a nail, but is relatively poor for, say, soldering a circuit board.

In the case of something as fundamental as the climate of the planet, I’m pretty damn conservative on the grounds that under the current conditions, our species is (to borrow a word from one of our species’ most evolved members) “winning”.

The trouble with winning is that you can become a bit of a victim of your success, and there are quite a lot of winners around these days, coming up on 7 billion (and we’re not talking Barnaby billions here). Having all these winners about can change the rules of the game if you’re not very careful and when you’re all set up for kicking goals and the goalposts get moved on you, a great deal of unpleasantness can ensue.

Considering the evidence presented, I’m pretty certain climate change is a real problem and that, all political bullshit aside for just a second, we really need to get ourselves off the fossil fuels ASAP. If you disagree but are still functional enough to google it, feel free to google it, otherwise, well done on reading this far on your own.