Reasons to be unhappy

Here at Opinion Dominion your blogger generally likes to talk up optimism for the future. But this attempt to look at all empty-ish glasses as in fact being half full has taken a savage beating over the last few weeks, and it's hard not to disagree with Time magazine that it is looking like a dispiriting end to a particularly uninspiring decade. Cases in point:

* An outbreak of aggressive stupidity Part 1: climate change skepticism has never been known for its sense of calm, dispassionate reason, but with the release of the CRU emails, they've just gone bat-sh*t crazy, following their own echo-chamber memes over the edge of the cliff of sanity. It's remarkable how few on the blogosphere drive this: I would guess that Watts up With That, Roger Pielke Snr, Steve McIntyre and Andrew Bolt probably account for about the dispersal of about 90% of all "skeptic" memes.

Bolt in particular shows no interest in counter arguments, although as I have acknowledged before, Watts will sometimes post something that runs counter to a skeptical line. McIntyre seems to have made one half reasonable point in his skepticism career, and has continued to dwell on it for years, as if uncertainty as to accuracy of tree ring proxies really had created a crisis for the whole of climate science. His view of his own self importance seems remarkably over-inflated.

It's not the claimed "skepticism" per se of the followers of these views which is so aggravating; it's the seeing of conspiracies, the "it's always been a hoax", the outright deceptive nature of much of their sloganeering that is driving me to distraction. Any post in a blog headed sarcastically "hide the decline" shows the person is a non-serious partisan player, and makes me want to reach for my pistol. (And no doubt that last comment will be claimed by a 'skeptic' as showing that I am a violence-threatenting fascist out to gun down non-believers.)

These same people take the same shrug shoulders approach to ocean acidification, so there is no point in trying to argue with them that there is fact a matter of at least equal significance as to why CO2 should be reduced. (And my official position remains that acidification alone is enough to take urgent action. An actual drop in global temperatures over the next decade would not change that.)

* An outbreak of aggressive stupidity Part 2: The Coalition parties in Australia have been taken over by the do-nothing climate change "skeptics."

Tony Abbott, a smart enough guy who nearly everyone has liked for his forthrightness as a Minister, saw right-wing skepticism (especially amongst rural folk, who were presumably already glued onto the Nationals anyway) as an opportunity to grab a leadership that he probably figured was never going to evolve naturally towards him.

I predict he will pay for this disingenuous opportunism. I'll certainly not be voting for a party in such complete disarray on such an important issue, and for a leader who has surrounded himself with a deeply unimpressive shadow cabinet.

* The Right in America goes off the deep end: I don't agree with everything Charles Johnson says about how the Right has gone wrong in the United States, and even suspect that he may be unfairly criticising or misrepresenting some figures. But still, overall, it's hard to disagree that the Republicans have been taken over by anti-science "skeptics," have few people left who argue with reason and clarity, and it is indeed a worry that the very strange Glenn Beck is taken seriously by a significant number of people.

It's hard to see from where a plausible Republican Presidential candidate is next going to emerge.

* Even those who are "right" are wrong, Part 1: Just because I think the Republicans are in complete disarray doesn't mean I am particularly impressed with the other side of politics in America. I always thought Obama was over-hyped, as if the ability to deliver a platitudinous speech in a deep voice was all it needed to lead America out of its funk. Well, it's hard to see how I was wrong. He's likely to be unable to convince Americans of the need for serious money to be raised and spent on clean energy; I suspect he will cause NASA to flounder for another 20 years; it seems that he has been unable to get through serious health reform. (That the right wing equates access to reasonable health care for everyone as too much "socialism" is one of the sillier features of the Republicans today. You really get the feeling Republicans just need to travel more.)

* Even those who are right are wrong, Part 2: To deal with a problem you have to first acknowledge it exists. Hence my anger at the skeptics/deniers. But, even if you get over the hurdle, there is still little evidence that those nations that do take climate change seriously can think of anything beyond emissions trading schemes as a "solution".

I reckon the carbon tax proponents simply left their run too late.

I actually wonder whether it's worth worrying about precise targets at all: we simply want governments to raise money for massive investment in research and deployment of clean energy and to just get on with it. It seems the simplest way of doing that is to impose a carbon tax.

Economists have a fear of governments picking favourites, and would prefer to let the market work out the best combination of solutions. But at times when serious and urgent action is needed, nations don't let that happen. It's a bit like the heads of industry telling the generals how they should run a war that it is expected to take 30 years to play out.

I strongly suspect that Bjorn Lomborg is right on this point.

Of course, the Labor Party in Australia has its head in the sand on nuclear power too, which is another reason to grind one's teeth.

* Is Copenhagen worth anything at all at the end of the day? The Wall Street Journal seems to editorially be about the only paper in the world that promotes climate change skepticism. However, they might have a point in this article, which argues that even the most optimistic agreement that seems politically possible is not going to help keep CO2 within the levels needed.
I suppose I should be skeptical of anything the WSJ runs on AGW, and I note that the article seems to be based on continued extremely high economic growth in China. Still, it seems a worry.

* It's been stiflingly hot in Brisbane. The last couple of weeks have been hot and breath-sappingly humid to a degree I am sure is unusual even for Brisbane in early December. There have also been few storms to provide evening relief. It is starting to remind me of the summer of 1998, but we will have to wait and see.

* Why can't directors I don't like fail? This has been a disappointing year for my hopes that Tarantino might have made a career ending film. Instead, we get violence with no redeeming moral context being praised as entertainment again.

Now, James Cameron, who appears to be a complete and utter real-life jerk from all reports, has apparently made a successful CGI heavy film at a time I thought just about everyone was getting sick of CGI, and starting to get leery of 3D too. (It certainly makes going to the cinema a much more expensive exercise.)

Obviously, karma has been proved again as an implausible theory.

* I didn't even like last Saturday's episode of Mythbusters. This is the one where they spent time on looking at the movie inspired myth that putting a person's head into liquid nitrogen for a short time will freeze it enough to make it shatter on a bench top. The movie in question is (apparently) Jason 10, which I presume is another example of the Hollywood slasher/horror/sadism genre which has developed in the last decade and is purely about how to raise the bar in imagining gruesome ways to die.

This was not, in my books, a "myth" worthy of attention, and was far too gruesome a topic for a show with a large following amongst smart kids. I hope they got some criticism for it.

In fact, I am starting to worry that they are running out of myths to deal with. I'll have to put my mind to suggesting some.


OK, that's it for now. For my next post, I will attempt to revert to reasons to be happy.