In Australia at the moment there has been some discussion on the introduction of a Carbon Tax, or the taxation on Carbon Polluters (C02 emitters). In these times where pollution is even more an issue than it was 40 years ago, when US scientists began the enormous research behind Global Warming, and later Climate Change. In any sensible society it is presumed that a tax on polluters would make sense. An incentive to the polluters is that you get credits for cleaning up your systems and investing in renewable clean technologies. Again, this does make some reasonable sense. You create the pollution, you clean it up - find ways of reducing the pollution and you get rewarded.
Australia is a strange place today, especially when it comes to Global Warming and the issue of Climate Change. The opposition party does not believe climate change is a reality, in fact the leader of the opposition, The Australian Liberal Party/Coalition has, several times, claimed that 'climate change is crap'. This may be the view of Mr Tony Abbott but it is a hard view to sell the younger generation who are seeing disaster after disaster on the climatic scale. And future predictions are not ones children today want to think about. The younger generations do have a sense of fear, but it isn't the one being sold by politics, it is the one where they wonder will they have food and shelter in the future because of their parents, or the adults wastefulness. This is quite hard to explain to a 12 year old, and I pity parents who have to try and explain why we won't do anything to help our planet to even younger children.
There are claim that climate change is not real, but no matter how many times any one says this they still cannot deny pollution is real and something needs to be done to bring the big polluters to task. Australia’s energy producers have been encouraged for many years to fix their end of the pollution cycle, and they have even taken government money to do so, but they have made no progress and in a way simply turn their backs on the whole issue; very much in the same way the tobacco industry forced people into litigation before it admitted its product caused cancer - that took 30 years. Australia is faced with it own cancer, the one that is degrading our air and environment; will Australia have to litigate polluters before anything is done?
What will this Carbon Tax do if introduced? At this stage this isn't known, as the policy is still being formulated and it is open for any and every one to share their opinions about how and when such a tax should be used and applied. There is much fear mongering exasperating itself through media networks and opposition politicians, who want to force the whole issue without proper discussion, and without any input from the Australian people and industry itself. The fear in Australia is driven by a few well known facts that will come into play with the Carbon Tax.
1) Energy supply will rise, because energy companies will try and offset their commitment as much as possible. This reaction is also a drive to block the Carbon Tax. Create a deep sense of financial fear in the population and stop anything being done at all; and the polluters will continue on as nothing had changed. This is not a good reason to not have a Carbon Tax. To view it another way; someone comes to you and says, if you buy my product I will not steal your car. In this instance, if you make us clean up the pollution we will make you pay. This is a clear threat that in many other circumstances may cause legal eyebrows to be raised. Food and services will also rise slightly, how slightly will be determined on the certificate costs for carbon, but early estimates based on sketchy evidence says something like a cost of living rise across the board of about $350 to $650 a year. This could equate to $15 a week on average. But that said; negotiations are underway in the creation of support structures to help with this price rise, so the rise maybe reduced to as little $5 a week. It has to be said that until a proper policy is released that all panic and speculation is wasted energy and time as you cannot argue against something that has not been through the formation process yet. Yes, indeed write down concerns and what you may like to see included or excluded and send to the Prime Minister's office. This is only a discussion phase, nothing more.
(sub note:)
Because of the effect the tax would have directly of big business and the corporate sector there has quite noticeably been a fear campaign launched by the Opposition Party and the media and Energy sector. This must be put into some kind of perspective and naturally it is wise to understand what is driving the fear. The media, though Rupert Murdoch are having some of their corporate interests threatened by the NBN and are reacting badly to this, they are also major contributors to the Australian Liberal Party, and Rupert Murdoch is also an anti-climate change sceptic. The energy sector and mining sector will be hit with taxes and naturally have the money to fight against this Carbon Tax, but these two sectors are also major contributors to The Australian Liberal Party - you only need find party contribution declarations from the last election. How much this information and how much influence it plays with the current position of the Liberals is unknown, but it does help to explain at least some part of the vehement attacks on the government over the NBN and the Carbon Tax.
2) This is not a tax on working Australians or those who are unemployed or on a pension; this is a tax on possibly 1000 of Australia's big polluters, who do receive government money now to stop their pollution. Yes, and the Prime Minister has stated this many times, over and over, there will be some price increases, and they have been shown above, but rebates will be designed to help people adjust to the new reform. The only ones who will really feel the tax will be the big polluters, and naturally they will do next to anything to ensure this reform does not go through - so expect to see mining company style advertising against the tax, and an increase in the Liberal Parties attacks on climate change. This will happen. When the wealthy are threatened, they will spend millions once again to tell us how poor they are. Anyone remember this year’s 10 Billion dollar snub to Australians by BHP. Because the opposition blocked the mining tax, the so called poor mining company only made 10 billion in profit on the first quarter. You will see the same claims, supported by the Liberals come at you once again. Already, editorials, radio programs, TV spots are on the war path, even the Insiders are claiming the failures of the government. Australia entire media network is owned by the same people this tax will effect – the more they start to shout the closer you need to question the motives. The mining tax was under the same attack from all sides - $ The poor got their 10 Billion and then thanked the Liberals for their hard work. This minority government is claimed to be woeful and inefficient, yet 80 pieces of legislation have been passed through parliament under the minority rule - this is the sign of a well-functioning government. So, when faced with the truth of how the minority government is doing you find it does not add up with what the media are saying - far from it. Big Money is unhappy, and it is making itself heard. It is making all the Carbon Tax discussion sound like you are going to be taxed, the big money is threatening Australians and it is using a political party to do its bidding. How do you confront this, how do you satisfy yourself that what is happening or could happen is right for the country and for the future? It is hard, and it will get even harder, but it is simply wise to sit back and let all the shouting carry on until the actual policy is released for public debate. You will be surprised it is not the evil twin sister of Golem but a well thought out policy that we need to adopt. You need to ask this major question. Why don’t the Liberals and Big polluters want the policy to even be formed for debate? Why are they attacking something they don’t even understand yet? What is it that is really being threatened here?
This is a link made by a 15 year old girl, my daughter, and she cannot vote, neither can her friends. This goes for all young teenagers in Australia; they are relying on us to do something, to stop the selfish arguing and stop the decay of our country.
The Carbon Tax isn't a new invention of the Australian government, and nor will it see Australia taking some kind of first or unique step in the world. Over 30 other countries, including China and India have incorporated a system like this into their industries - so the claims Australian jobs will be lost overseas or industry will be moved off shore are false and misleading. There will be no place for dirty Australian industry to move to; it will have to clean up here, because doing it here will be harder than say China where the regulations and taxes are even greater than what is going to come into Australia.
Do you believe in climate change and global warming? It doesn't matter and it hasn't mattered since about 1982 - the world and Australia has to do something about its local pollution output and it has to be done now, because even if we start now and continue to change every day into the future it could be 1000 years until some good comes from it. If we sit back and say ‘1000 years, who cares’, then you are condemning the world to 10 000 years of suffering, death and devastation. Does that sound dramatic? Wait until September and add up how dramatic things have been thus far; it isn't going to get better quickly.
Carbon Tax is coming, it will affect all Australians in some way, and it will affect us for many, many years to come, that is clear; if all settles down, then it is not a hard thing to remove a tax - it has been done many times in the past, but like the man who decided to wait to see the flood coming before believing in the flood, you will drown, and possible take the lot of us with you.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
My Mother Said it's a Hoax
In the early days of global warming, in the days when media services were independent entities all competing for the best and latest news, I was told that problems with the world were all made up by the government just so they could tax us. Global Warming was just to scare us into only buying Australian cars and to pay for dumping rubbish at the dump, which has always been free. The local hand burger places all used Styrofoam packets and every house had a chimney which discharged black smoke in winter and which always played havoc with my asthma.
Nearly 40 years later some of those early pollution years have changed, but not by much. Hand burgers now come wrapped in paper, but the burgers come from cows raised on farms where once stood rain forests, cars have been improved to burn fuel cleaner and use less (well in Australia and Brazil at least), houses mainly use gas heating and access to land-fills is restricted and we are required to recycle. These changes have mostly come on the individual and the individual pays for their waste and their pollution.
But 40 years later nothing has changed when it comes to major global warming, and now climate change. Instead of only 70% of the world's forest being cut down, we now have 95% gone. Instead of clean energy production Australia still uses dirty coal power. In 40 years since knowing about the problems with our environment the conditions and situations have only been made worse, not better.
I have read reports about climate change being a natural process and that it isn't man made. Well, I am no scientist but in ecosystems I know the predominance of forest influences weather patterns over a region, the help keep the air clean and influence cloud formations for rain. 95% of our forest have been cut down. Forests influence weather patterns. Am I the only to notice this obvious, though not very scientific point?
40 years after learning about global warming big polluting industry has increased its production and use of natural resources, the increase so great that some resources will become too expensive to mine and use in less than 100 years - an no oil is not one of those resources, it will just become too expensive to use by anyone who is not part of the wealthy elite. Because of the lack of positive action against global weather and environmental issues several billion Africans will die by the end of the 21st century. They are now suffering extreme drought, many have few resources to exploit and even fewer people on the continent have a government to assist them. What has this to do with climate change? This is the indirect effect of allowing the world's polluters and resource users to continue with their environmentally pollutive ways. Because of climate change affecting more and more of the planet the concept of supplying aid to the African continent will have to be stopped. Flooding, drought and severe weather events across Europe, the Asia Pacific and the USA will keep donating nations too busy with their own problems to help anyone else.
All this will happen while the mega corporations continue to post 10 billion dollar profit quarters, and continue to pump gaseous waste into the air and metals into the water.
40 years after that shrug from my parents I find myself having to explain to my children just why little has been done to rectify or fix some of these pollution problems? My daughter made this video, with a little help from me simply giving one message based on the current situation in Australia.
While it is true climate change is actually a natural occurrence, what the hair splitting skeptics are not taking into account is that we have had most of the global changes happen in less than a century and several thousand years ahead of natural occurrences. Also, and this is what annoys me about the skeptics, a climate change is supposed to take roughly 500 to 1000 years and in the ice caps this change will take a slow 10 000 years. We are seeing it in less than 100.
We cannot stop the process, it was too late for this in 1967 and beyond our grasp in 1982; all times when we knew what was going on and still argued it wasn't real. So easily we believed in not doing anything, so easy was it to do nothing at all and just wait. The same do nothing and just wait attitude today.
What can we do if the climate change process is a runaway? We do what we should have done in the 1960s, we change out technologies, move to cleaner systems and a more environmentally and economically stable energy producing state. Why? The damage has been done. Because doing this NOW will be the difference between 500 years of planetary hardship and several thousand years of hardship, and this will be hardship. In another 100 years the big corporation would be running down, they would have polluted everyone, including governments and will be the only one who can afford anything above a cup of rice and some brown vegetables.
Perhaps that is extreme, but it needs for only two or three conditions to change rapidly and that is what will happen; so, just how do we claw back some of the environment for future generations. This isn't going to be easy, as the mining companies, the oil companies and the coal producing companies (along with their energy producing stations) are deeply entrenched in the economy of every country. Every time you threaten their wealth they threaten to raise prices and punish people. Every time you threaten the livelihood of people so rich they are beyond any known laws they will threaten governments with advertising campaigns to have them thrown out of government. So, to stand up against polluters of the world and even of Australia takes some pretty tough resolve and unlike the Australians of the 30s, 40s and 50s, there is very little resolve left - the general option across this once grand nation is indeed to sit back and watch.
After 40 years is it possible that Australia has lost in the great fight for the salvation of its own environment, has it simply given up and said, 'I don't care'? There has been a possibility put before the Australian people and that possibility is to apply a tax to the polluters themselves; make them pay for the clean-up, make them pay for the switch to cleaner energy production and make them pay to change their wasteful ways. It is put before the people, but even before it even gets into reasonable discussion such a plan against BIG business is being called a tax on Australians by the opposition party (Which must be reported - they received 22.8 million dollars from the polluting companies during the last election – while the government got 1,1 million from the unions – in itself an interesting point). The company Rio Tinto claims it is a tax on the poor and as such they will put up their prices. The first act of the wealthy when said wealth is threatened. You make us clean up our mess and we will punish you.
In 40 years I have seen a country that would not back down from a fight to one that accepts the threats of corporations rather than face them down and make them clean up our air and water. When did Australia become like this, or was it always there and the first signs were in fact in my parent’s poignant shrug and claim global warming was a hoax?
People has said the government has finally found a way to tax the air we breathe; well have you tasted the air you breathe lately; you are already paying the polluters for the air you breathe and what they are pumping out at the power stations and factories would kill you a thousand times over. So, what is the choice here, pay cheaply for poisonous air, or pay a little extra to get cleaner air? Pay a little extra so the fish in our rivers don't just end up with heavy metal poisoning as in some regions of the country.
The Carbon Tax proposed by the Australian government is a tax on the Australian polluters and a drive mechanism to make then reduce emissions and it a harder way encourage them to rethink their technologies. The government has to take a harder line now, because even with the many millions of dollars in incentives already paid to these polluters they have not changed anything, and some could argue they have only increased emissions. Who are you going to trust and who are you going to support - the companies holding the gun to your head with the threat of higher prices, or the government that wants them to pay their fair dues.
I will not shug to my daughter; I will not shrug away her future.
Nearly 40 years later some of those early pollution years have changed, but not by much. Hand burgers now come wrapped in paper, but the burgers come from cows raised on farms where once stood rain forests, cars have been improved to burn fuel cleaner and use less (well in Australia and Brazil at least), houses mainly use gas heating and access to land-fills is restricted and we are required to recycle. These changes have mostly come on the individual and the individual pays for their waste and their pollution.
But 40 years later nothing has changed when it comes to major global warming, and now climate change. Instead of only 70% of the world's forest being cut down, we now have 95% gone. Instead of clean energy production Australia still uses dirty coal power. In 40 years since knowing about the problems with our environment the conditions and situations have only been made worse, not better.
I have read reports about climate change being a natural process and that it isn't man made. Well, I am no scientist but in ecosystems I know the predominance of forest influences weather patterns over a region, the help keep the air clean and influence cloud formations for rain. 95% of our forest have been cut down. Forests influence weather patterns. Am I the only to notice this obvious, though not very scientific point?
40 years after learning about global warming big polluting industry has increased its production and use of natural resources, the increase so great that some resources will become too expensive to mine and use in less than 100 years - an no oil is not one of those resources, it will just become too expensive to use by anyone who is not part of the wealthy elite. Because of the lack of positive action against global weather and environmental issues several billion Africans will die by the end of the 21st century. They are now suffering extreme drought, many have few resources to exploit and even fewer people on the continent have a government to assist them. What has this to do with climate change? This is the indirect effect of allowing the world's polluters and resource users to continue with their environmentally pollutive ways. Because of climate change affecting more and more of the planet the concept of supplying aid to the African continent will have to be stopped. Flooding, drought and severe weather events across Europe, the Asia Pacific and the USA will keep donating nations too busy with their own problems to help anyone else.
All this will happen while the mega corporations continue to post 10 billion dollar profit quarters, and continue to pump gaseous waste into the air and metals into the water.
40 years after that shrug from my parents I find myself having to explain to my children just why little has been done to rectify or fix some of these pollution problems? My daughter made this video, with a little help from me simply giving one message based on the current situation in Australia.
While it is true climate change is actually a natural occurrence, what the hair splitting skeptics are not taking into account is that we have had most of the global changes happen in less than a century and several thousand years ahead of natural occurrences. Also, and this is what annoys me about the skeptics, a climate change is supposed to take roughly 500 to 1000 years and in the ice caps this change will take a slow 10 000 years. We are seeing it in less than 100.
We cannot stop the process, it was too late for this in 1967 and beyond our grasp in 1982; all times when we knew what was going on and still argued it wasn't real. So easily we believed in not doing anything, so easy was it to do nothing at all and just wait. The same do nothing and just wait attitude today.
What can we do if the climate change process is a runaway? We do what we should have done in the 1960s, we change out technologies, move to cleaner systems and a more environmentally and economically stable energy producing state. Why? The damage has been done. Because doing this NOW will be the difference between 500 years of planetary hardship and several thousand years of hardship, and this will be hardship. In another 100 years the big corporation would be running down, they would have polluted everyone, including governments and will be the only one who can afford anything above a cup of rice and some brown vegetables.
Perhaps that is extreme, but it needs for only two or three conditions to change rapidly and that is what will happen; so, just how do we claw back some of the environment for future generations. This isn't going to be easy, as the mining companies, the oil companies and the coal producing companies (along with their energy producing stations) are deeply entrenched in the economy of every country. Every time you threaten their wealth they threaten to raise prices and punish people. Every time you threaten the livelihood of people so rich they are beyond any known laws they will threaten governments with advertising campaigns to have them thrown out of government. So, to stand up against polluters of the world and even of Australia takes some pretty tough resolve and unlike the Australians of the 30s, 40s and 50s, there is very little resolve left - the general option across this once grand nation is indeed to sit back and watch.
After 40 years is it possible that Australia has lost in the great fight for the salvation of its own environment, has it simply given up and said, 'I don't care'? There has been a possibility put before the Australian people and that possibility is to apply a tax to the polluters themselves; make them pay for the clean-up, make them pay for the switch to cleaner energy production and make them pay to change their wasteful ways. It is put before the people, but even before it even gets into reasonable discussion such a plan against BIG business is being called a tax on Australians by the opposition party (Which must be reported - they received 22.8 million dollars from the polluting companies during the last election – while the government got 1,1 million from the unions – in itself an interesting point). The company Rio Tinto claims it is a tax on the poor and as such they will put up their prices. The first act of the wealthy when said wealth is threatened. You make us clean up our mess and we will punish you.
In 40 years I have seen a country that would not back down from a fight to one that accepts the threats of corporations rather than face them down and make them clean up our air and water. When did Australia become like this, or was it always there and the first signs were in fact in my parent’s poignant shrug and claim global warming was a hoax?
People has said the government has finally found a way to tax the air we breathe; well have you tasted the air you breathe lately; you are already paying the polluters for the air you breathe and what they are pumping out at the power stations and factories would kill you a thousand times over. So, what is the choice here, pay cheaply for poisonous air, or pay a little extra to get cleaner air? Pay a little extra so the fish in our rivers don't just end up with heavy metal poisoning as in some regions of the country.
The Carbon Tax proposed by the Australian government is a tax on the Australian polluters and a drive mechanism to make then reduce emissions and it a harder way encourage them to rethink their technologies. The government has to take a harder line now, because even with the many millions of dollars in incentives already paid to these polluters they have not changed anything, and some could argue they have only increased emissions. Who are you going to trust and who are you going to support - the companies holding the gun to your head with the threat of higher prices, or the government that wants them to pay their fair dues.
I will not shug to my daughter; I will not shrug away her future.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Will Australians Be Stupid
In the 1950s and 1960s the idea of Global Warming was first brought to light, and the research of the day was published in a book 'A Moment in the Sun' in 1969/70, it makes for compelling and sometimes difficult reading when you consider the ramification it suggested over forty years ago.
In this modern age, given the tens of thousands of reports written on the state of the environment and the overwhelming evidence that pollution is causing global changes, be it in climate or is social and community living, it comes as quite a surprise that a minority believe the destruction of the planet is a conspiracy theory. It may be wise to view such stances in a cautious manner. The list of scientists backing such a stand is around 1500 across the globe, while the list of scientist siding with the need to deal with environmental issues is closer to 80 000. These figures are estimates as they alter quickly depending on which energy corporation is funding research into climate change.
A comparison to this issue of climate change and global warming will also take the reader back forty years, and this issue had to do with cigarette smoking. For every scientific paper pointing at smoking causing cancer a scientist would stand up and claim it did not. This needs to be noted with scientists in the climate change issue as well. In a quick look at some climate change skeptic experts you will also find the same scientists who went on record as saying smoking did not cause cancer. This seriously brings into question objectivity. One leading skeptic, whose research was sponsored by Philip Morris - Tabacco Company - says his evidence is not influenced by his sponsor. Considering the stance on smoking and cancer, this claim can be comfortably questioned.
The real question around climate change and global warming is not whether man created it or not, though this does seem to be the murkiness skeptics want to draw over the general public's eyes - a distraction method used by every advertising executive ever born - but how we need deal with the future of our slowly crumbling environment.
This small video made in 1992 shows how frusted thios were and how the modern generation of children feel exactly the same way - they have tired of the excuses and tired of the bickering made by wealthy scientists with personal agendas. Yet still we do nothing, still we ignore everything. This girl at 2:04 stops being a child.
Emissions Trading Schemes and Carbon Taxes have been used throughout Europe for the last ten years to great effect. The acid rains of Germany have all but vanished since the cleaning up of its energy production and the forcing of its energy producing power stations to improve and replace high pollution power sources. Opposition to this system have come from the USA, but this can be expected, as most of its energy sector is owned by the very people making public policy; with this knowledge in the open it is hoped the cloudy nature, or the polluted figures and counter positions as shown by the USA find some clarity. It is difficult to follow the lead of a nation like America when the polluters themselves are dictating environmental policy - many can see how such a position can never work.
Australia is now looking at the Carbon Tax system, a system where polluters, in order to save money, will have to change their existing generation technologies to cleaner and more efficient technologies. As expected there is resistance from the corporate sector to any challenge to their commanding market base, but what isn't understood is why the current opposition government is opposed to taxing dirty energy production. Even in an interview the leader of the opposition party said, he would impose no tax and enforce no reduction in greenhouse gases on power generation companies.
The conversation is very clear here.It must be noted here that this same leader did, in a meeting with country people claim quite adamantly 'Climate Change is a Load of Crap'. This in itself rang some alarm bells in people, but for some reason it was under played by media in the country, and on observation the whole opposition stance against cleaning up energy production is mostly ignored.
What will this tax on pollution producing industry mean to Australians? In the short term there will be some price increase in power as the big companies offset their new costs, but they will only be able to offset so much before they are forced to comply with clean energy standards. Already new, clean energy systems are being constructed and in time a shift in power supplies will happen. The current Australian government, seeing how polluters will shift their costs onto users of energy, will subsidize energy supply in their own way to lessen the impact of this shift on energy production. This allows Australians to benefit from this new direction while feeling less of the cost burden and impact.
It would seem, in view of the positive step in the right direction when it comes to reducing pollution that the Australian people would finally see some action on what has been something being called for the last decade.
According to the opposition party and the NEWS media, who it seems are not promoting clean energy - thus the question has to be raised, and there suddenly appears an answer to why media reporting is supporting the skeptics position when it comes to climate change and the need to act against pollution in general, and why the media also seem to be supporting the opposition scare campaign against taxing big business. Rupert Murdoch is a skeptic, he is also, through his papers, a supporter of the opposition Liberal/National party, the same party opposing action on climate change and a move to a cleaner energy producing future.
Though it is a frustrating turn of events, like the smoking lobbies forty year campaign, it might need an actual court ruling to get even the basics done in fighting pollution. In Australia the opposition party is rallying people to march on parliaments around the country to protest against taxing polluters of air and water. Quite an incredulous prospect and one that is akin to what has happened in the USA of late, where laws are under consideration to allow people to shoot abortion performing doctors. The position in Australia is equally nonsensical.
Australians are being angered up to stand against clean energy production; they will march to stand against clean air and clean water. This march being organized by the opposition party in Australia is, in a way, a march against parliament to prove the country is stupid and it will be reported this way around the world. Japan, Germany, France and Scandinavian countries will be quick to have headlines reading 'Stupid Australians Opt for Dirty Air'
In a way, it could be argued Australia will get what it deserves, and what it deserves is not very good at all. The opposition government when it comes to environmental issues has denied there are issues to face. The opposition leader even said there is compelling evidence that says, maybe there is something to look in to -- all the evidence available in the world looking at environmental issues and he manages a maybe. Maybe Australia needs to hit rock bottom, pollute itself to the brink and let people just die so it can come to some understanding of the people's and the corporate control over those people, foolishness.
There exists an opportunity for Australia to break away from its dirty air policies, to escape the control of the current energy providers and their threat to punish the people if they are made to clean up their act - Australians must face the small fact that what the energy sector is doing, with the help of the opposition party, is extorting a negative result on the Carbon Tax. View it this way. ‘If you make us clean up the air, if you make us stop polluting water and the land, we are going to punish you.’
Are Australians really going to accept that position as it is currently being presented? Are Australians really going to mark on parliament demanding their air remains polluted? Are Australians really that easily lead by the desires of corporate power?
If you must march, march for the final step against the big polluters of this country, march to say yes to a tax on pollution; the alternative will mean a poor and sad future for the children to come after who will ask this simple question over and over and over.
Why didn't you do something?
In this modern age, given the tens of thousands of reports written on the state of the environment and the overwhelming evidence that pollution is causing global changes, be it in climate or is social and community living, it comes as quite a surprise that a minority believe the destruction of the planet is a conspiracy theory. It may be wise to view such stances in a cautious manner. The list of scientists backing such a stand is around 1500 across the globe, while the list of scientist siding with the need to deal with environmental issues is closer to 80 000. These figures are estimates as they alter quickly depending on which energy corporation is funding research into climate change.
A comparison to this issue of climate change and global warming will also take the reader back forty years, and this issue had to do with cigarette smoking. For every scientific paper pointing at smoking causing cancer a scientist would stand up and claim it did not. This needs to be noted with scientists in the climate change issue as well. In a quick look at some climate change skeptic experts you will also find the same scientists who went on record as saying smoking did not cause cancer. This seriously brings into question objectivity. One leading skeptic, whose research was sponsored by Philip Morris - Tabacco Company - says his evidence is not influenced by his sponsor. Considering the stance on smoking and cancer, this claim can be comfortably questioned.
The real question around climate change and global warming is not whether man created it or not, though this does seem to be the murkiness skeptics want to draw over the general public's eyes - a distraction method used by every advertising executive ever born - but how we need deal with the future of our slowly crumbling environment.
This small video made in 1992 shows how frusted thios were and how the modern generation of children feel exactly the same way - they have tired of the excuses and tired of the bickering made by wealthy scientists with personal agendas. Yet still we do nothing, still we ignore everything. This girl at 2:04 stops being a child.
Emissions Trading Schemes and Carbon Taxes have been used throughout Europe for the last ten years to great effect. The acid rains of Germany have all but vanished since the cleaning up of its energy production and the forcing of its energy producing power stations to improve and replace high pollution power sources. Opposition to this system have come from the USA, but this can be expected, as most of its energy sector is owned by the very people making public policy; with this knowledge in the open it is hoped the cloudy nature, or the polluted figures and counter positions as shown by the USA find some clarity. It is difficult to follow the lead of a nation like America when the polluters themselves are dictating environmental policy - many can see how such a position can never work.
Australia is now looking at the Carbon Tax system, a system where polluters, in order to save money, will have to change their existing generation technologies to cleaner and more efficient technologies. As expected there is resistance from the corporate sector to any challenge to their commanding market base, but what isn't understood is why the current opposition government is opposed to taxing dirty energy production. Even in an interview the leader of the opposition party said, he would impose no tax and enforce no reduction in greenhouse gases on power generation companies.
The conversation is very clear here.It must be noted here that this same leader did, in a meeting with country people claim quite adamantly 'Climate Change is a Load of Crap'. This in itself rang some alarm bells in people, but for some reason it was under played by media in the country, and on observation the whole opposition stance against cleaning up energy production is mostly ignored.
What will this tax on pollution producing industry mean to Australians? In the short term there will be some price increase in power as the big companies offset their new costs, but they will only be able to offset so much before they are forced to comply with clean energy standards. Already new, clean energy systems are being constructed and in time a shift in power supplies will happen. The current Australian government, seeing how polluters will shift their costs onto users of energy, will subsidize energy supply in their own way to lessen the impact of this shift on energy production. This allows Australians to benefit from this new direction while feeling less of the cost burden and impact.
It would seem, in view of the positive step in the right direction when it comes to reducing pollution that the Australian people would finally see some action on what has been something being called for the last decade.
According to the opposition party and the NEWS media, who it seems are not promoting clean energy - thus the question has to be raised, and there suddenly appears an answer to why media reporting is supporting the skeptics position when it comes to climate change and the need to act against pollution in general, and why the media also seem to be supporting the opposition scare campaign against taxing big business. Rupert Murdoch is a skeptic, he is also, through his papers, a supporter of the opposition Liberal/National party, the same party opposing action on climate change and a move to a cleaner energy producing future.
Though it is a frustrating turn of events, like the smoking lobbies forty year campaign, it might need an actual court ruling to get even the basics done in fighting pollution. In Australia the opposition party is rallying people to march on parliaments around the country to protest against taxing polluters of air and water. Quite an incredulous prospect and one that is akin to what has happened in the USA of late, where laws are under consideration to allow people to shoot abortion performing doctors. The position in Australia is equally nonsensical.
Australians are being angered up to stand against clean energy production; they will march to stand against clean air and clean water. This march being organized by the opposition party in Australia is, in a way, a march against parliament to prove the country is stupid and it will be reported this way around the world. Japan, Germany, France and Scandinavian countries will be quick to have headlines reading 'Stupid Australians Opt for Dirty Air'
In a way, it could be argued Australia will get what it deserves, and what it deserves is not very good at all. The opposition government when it comes to environmental issues has denied there are issues to face. The opposition leader even said there is compelling evidence that says, maybe there is something to look in to -- all the evidence available in the world looking at environmental issues and he manages a maybe. Maybe Australia needs to hit rock bottom, pollute itself to the brink and let people just die so it can come to some understanding of the people's and the corporate control over those people, foolishness.
There exists an opportunity for Australia to break away from its dirty air policies, to escape the control of the current energy providers and their threat to punish the people if they are made to clean up their act - Australians must face the small fact that what the energy sector is doing, with the help of the opposition party, is extorting a negative result on the Carbon Tax. View it this way. ‘If you make us clean up the air, if you make us stop polluting water and the land, we are going to punish you.’
Are Australians really going to accept that position as it is currently being presented? Are Australians really going to mark on parliament demanding their air remains polluted? Are Australians really that easily lead by the desires of corporate power?
If you must march, march for the final step against the big polluters of this country, march to say yes to a tax on pollution; the alternative will mean a poor and sad future for the children to come after who will ask this simple question over and over and over.
Why didn't you do something?
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Presentation - Don't Sell Your Work
It may be an unusual concept to many writers, especially those new to the field or for some who have been in the field for a long time with no or little success, but you do not sell your work, you allow the work you have written and submitted to an editor, agent or publisher to sell itself. If you must explain what you mean by phrases and ideas, if you must first lay down ground work in order to get the reader to understand what you are delivering then you need to seriously consider reworking the submission, because by the sounds of it, the work isn't ready.
To get the most out of your work you have to develop a critical mind, one that has spent a lot of time deconstructing and reconstructing your work. If you create a story, or a concept for a novel it is wise to consider how many variations of this one story you can create, how many differences you can add and subtract to get to the final conclusion. This goes for lineal and abstract stories, it goes for all genres, all styles and all the weird and wonderful variations in between. No story you write today is set in concrete, at any time you can turn it back into dust and start again.
NEVER, EVER - tell a reader how they are supposed to read your work, or how they are supposed to understand the concepts involved, to do so tells the experienced reader you know very little about the industry and perhaps even very little about what it means to be a writer, period.
Many writers believe they are infallible when it comes to their words, they are the best and only judge of what is good, bad or indifferent. Note, all writers journey through this, but very, very few actually get to the other end - the majority stop when they feel they are the best and only judge and what they write is perfect. It comes down to what you want to be as a writer, do you want to explore and journey through everything with editors, publishers or readers, or do you aim to become a writer that simply tells readers and others what to read and to like it or lump it. This latter position is quite common amongst the writers of today. Is it a good position to be in? Does this mean you need to be in this position to express your confidence in your own work? Interestingly, confidence has nothing to do with sticking to your guns over an editorial decision - though many might argue this.
Confidence in your work comes from the ability to make change and knowing you are not only able to flex and bend with your mind and materials, but you are able to do it at ease and with expert precision. The lazy confidence is the unalterable position, the’ I am right and you are wrong’ position, and many an editor will have more than a few hundred stories about managing writer egos over this very issue.
In the presentation of your work allow it to sell on its own strengths and weaknesses and allow yourself the luxury of flexibility and exploration within the possibilities presented to you via outside sources. If you, the author, display a confidence that even comes close to resembling dogged thinking and rigid positions many editors just won't work with you, they don't have the time or resources to deal with someone who has worked themselves into a position of possible righteousness.
This may all sound rather harsh and extreme but if you the writer can get over yourself, get over the preciousness of your work and attitude, you will become a good writer - if you are able to listen, learn, adjust and accept different views (not all will be right for you, but search the reason behind the view before dismissing it) then you will become a great writer.
How does the writer of this blog treat his own work -
As a novelist I have completely deconstructed novels to make them better than what I thought was already good - I listened to some commentary, and though I disagreed with it, I followed it, as it was made for a reason. The eventual outcome was my novel Uttuku -- I did what I had to, I adjusted and manipulated things to get a different outcome, and thus a superior novel.
All my published work has had some editorial input and I have made those alterations and been confident in my ability to be flexible in this way. People want to work with me, even when they get a story that might have some issues; they know I can make the alteration quickly, efficiently and without complaint. This is perhaps why I have a little more success than some.
The message is, yes, feel confident about your work, feel excited about your writing and your materials, but don't try to sell it through your open enthusiasm, the work must speak for itself at all times.
Right, get back to it, edit and rethink what you wrote yesterday, rework what you think is brilliant and make it better. The day you stop learning and growing as a writer is the day you should just give it away.
To get the most out of your work you have to develop a critical mind, one that has spent a lot of time deconstructing and reconstructing your work. If you create a story, or a concept for a novel it is wise to consider how many variations of this one story you can create, how many differences you can add and subtract to get to the final conclusion. This goes for lineal and abstract stories, it goes for all genres, all styles and all the weird and wonderful variations in between. No story you write today is set in concrete, at any time you can turn it back into dust and start again.
NEVER, EVER - tell a reader how they are supposed to read your work, or how they are supposed to understand the concepts involved, to do so tells the experienced reader you know very little about the industry and perhaps even very little about what it means to be a writer, period.
Many writers believe they are infallible when it comes to their words, they are the best and only judge of what is good, bad or indifferent. Note, all writers journey through this, but very, very few actually get to the other end - the majority stop when they feel they are the best and only judge and what they write is perfect. It comes down to what you want to be as a writer, do you want to explore and journey through everything with editors, publishers or readers, or do you aim to become a writer that simply tells readers and others what to read and to like it or lump it. This latter position is quite common amongst the writers of today. Is it a good position to be in? Does this mean you need to be in this position to express your confidence in your own work? Interestingly, confidence has nothing to do with sticking to your guns over an editorial decision - though many might argue this.
Confidence in your work comes from the ability to make change and knowing you are not only able to flex and bend with your mind and materials, but you are able to do it at ease and with expert precision. The lazy confidence is the unalterable position, the’ I am right and you are wrong’ position, and many an editor will have more than a few hundred stories about managing writer egos over this very issue.
In the presentation of your work allow it to sell on its own strengths and weaknesses and allow yourself the luxury of flexibility and exploration within the possibilities presented to you via outside sources. If you, the author, display a confidence that even comes close to resembling dogged thinking and rigid positions many editors just won't work with you, they don't have the time or resources to deal with someone who has worked themselves into a position of possible righteousness.
This may all sound rather harsh and extreme but if you the writer can get over yourself, get over the preciousness of your work and attitude, you will become a good writer - if you are able to listen, learn, adjust and accept different views (not all will be right for you, but search the reason behind the view before dismissing it) then you will become a great writer.
How does the writer of this blog treat his own work -
As a novelist I have completely deconstructed novels to make them better than what I thought was already good - I listened to some commentary, and though I disagreed with it, I followed it, as it was made for a reason. The eventual outcome was my novel Uttuku -- I did what I had to, I adjusted and manipulated things to get a different outcome, and thus a superior novel.
All my published work has had some editorial input and I have made those alterations and been confident in my ability to be flexible in this way. People want to work with me, even when they get a story that might have some issues; they know I can make the alteration quickly, efficiently and without complaint. This is perhaps why I have a little more success than some.
The message is, yes, feel confident about your work, feel excited about your writing and your materials, but don't try to sell it through your open enthusiasm, the work must speak for itself at all times.
Right, get back to it, edit and rethink what you wrote yesterday, rework what you think is brilliant and make it better. The day you stop learning and growing as a writer is the day you should just give it away.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Getting the Process Right
There are a lot of websites, free advice services and paid advice services all giving expert advice on how to submit everything from short stories, articles and novels to publishers; some of this is good but most of it is not so helpful.
Here is one key element most seem to go light on; or no mention at all. The publisher, no matter what some tell you or even feel experienced to tell you, do not actually care about you and your book, story or article. This is not a shock to some, and then there are others who will stand up and say this isn’t so -'my publisher is wonderful'. This is where things have to be considered carefully and in context. If you have no publishing record, if you do not already have a book deal in place and are selling copies of your latest novel, you do not actually exist and will not exist until some, if not all of these things are achieved. Is that being overly harsh? perhaps, but ask any first time author in short or long how many professional editors have called them for a chat, or to shoot the breeze? How many new writers have ever rang a publishing house or magazine and actually spoken to an editor? I would say very few, if any.
I am not saying editors don't care about what they do, on the contrary, they care very much, but they do not have to time to nurture someone new and unprofitable through the whole writing/submission/publication process; so you have to learn all of this second hand and even anecdotally.
How important is your work to the editor? It has no importance at all until they see it making money, or in short stories, if they will please the readership, only then does the work take on any real value and the editor starts the first suggestions of even caring who you are. New writers biggest mistakes come when trying to treat editors as long lost friends; this doesn't work very well unless you have a vibrant and engaging personality to back up this approach. Let's face it, writers, in a general sense, are not the most vibrant of people.
Am I making all this sound grim? Have there been some readers already fly of the handle and scream rubbish? They will, and so to will some established writers, who sadly have forgotten how difficult it really can be. There is something to be said to always present the positive, bubbly and encouraging front, but when the rubber hits the road (oh the cliché) most of the bubbly effervescence vanished in a cloud of stinking soot.
Right, prepare yourself with the idea the industry doesn't care. Instead of then going to 'why bother then?' you move to this position and the one all new writers need to move to. 'I will make them care', 'I will make them see me by becoming the best I can.'
Use this one truism of publishing to fire you up to achieve and know, when you do start selling stories, or even novels that you are quite privileged and in that thought never forget how tough it was to make someone care about you, or more to the point to get someone to see there was profit to be made in caring for you and your work.
When you are popular editors love you, do anything for you, call you just to say hi, but until that day comes you do need to slug it out in obscurity. Don't make the mistake of thinking you have made it and no longer need direction; that has brought down more writers than the plague.
So, how do you submit work to publishers and editors, or even literary agents? First you find their guidelines and find out exactly how they want their submissions and you follow these directions to the letter - you are not different and you are not special. If you fail in your first submission then look at your work again, examine areas that could be improved; the writer who simply flood the market with their very first version of a work is ignorant and even deserves to be ignored. The idea is to send something out, work on something new and if rejection comes, which is more likely, you examine the materials and make those improvements. Don't expect and editor to tell you what is wrong, it rarely happens, and if by chance one does make a suggestion then I say you'd better damn well listen up.
There is a great deal of professional talk about how long to wait, when to nudge and publisher or magazine and how to cross examine them to get what you want. Let me remind you of the first thing I mentioned. They don't care about you, and will not care unless there is profit to be made. So, you send and forget and move on. If your writing world is focused on one work then your focus is misdirected. You need to have multiples working for you, different stories; different submission targets all working together to create one break. You put the eggs in one basket (another cliché) then you will most certainly remain in the same spot you started out in ten years ago.
Why listen to me on this subject? Am I an expert? Do I have credentials to splash around?
If you have to ask this before you need to follow basic instructions then don't let me stop you moving through the maze of publishing nightmares. Now, I am sure there are plenty of experts in the world that will sell you their knowledge.
Your task is to make the editor care and in that caring you will find success.
Here is one key element most seem to go light on; or no mention at all. The publisher, no matter what some tell you or even feel experienced to tell you, do not actually care about you and your book, story or article. This is not a shock to some, and then there are others who will stand up and say this isn’t so -'my publisher is wonderful'. This is where things have to be considered carefully and in context. If you have no publishing record, if you do not already have a book deal in place and are selling copies of your latest novel, you do not actually exist and will not exist until some, if not all of these things are achieved. Is that being overly harsh? perhaps, but ask any first time author in short or long how many professional editors have called them for a chat, or to shoot the breeze? How many new writers have ever rang a publishing house or magazine and actually spoken to an editor? I would say very few, if any.
I am not saying editors don't care about what they do, on the contrary, they care very much, but they do not have to time to nurture someone new and unprofitable through the whole writing/submission/publication process; so you have to learn all of this second hand and even anecdotally.
How important is your work to the editor? It has no importance at all until they see it making money, or in short stories, if they will please the readership, only then does the work take on any real value and the editor starts the first suggestions of even caring who you are. New writers biggest mistakes come when trying to treat editors as long lost friends; this doesn't work very well unless you have a vibrant and engaging personality to back up this approach. Let's face it, writers, in a general sense, are not the most vibrant of people.
Am I making all this sound grim? Have there been some readers already fly of the handle and scream rubbish? They will, and so to will some established writers, who sadly have forgotten how difficult it really can be. There is something to be said to always present the positive, bubbly and encouraging front, but when the rubber hits the road (oh the cliché) most of the bubbly effervescence vanished in a cloud of stinking soot.
Right, prepare yourself with the idea the industry doesn't care. Instead of then going to 'why bother then?' you move to this position and the one all new writers need to move to. 'I will make them care', 'I will make them see me by becoming the best I can.'
Use this one truism of publishing to fire you up to achieve and know, when you do start selling stories, or even novels that you are quite privileged and in that thought never forget how tough it was to make someone care about you, or more to the point to get someone to see there was profit to be made in caring for you and your work.
When you are popular editors love you, do anything for you, call you just to say hi, but until that day comes you do need to slug it out in obscurity. Don't make the mistake of thinking you have made it and no longer need direction; that has brought down more writers than the plague.
So, how do you submit work to publishers and editors, or even literary agents? First you find their guidelines and find out exactly how they want their submissions and you follow these directions to the letter - you are not different and you are not special. If you fail in your first submission then look at your work again, examine areas that could be improved; the writer who simply flood the market with their very first version of a work is ignorant and even deserves to be ignored. The idea is to send something out, work on something new and if rejection comes, which is more likely, you examine the materials and make those improvements. Don't expect and editor to tell you what is wrong, it rarely happens, and if by chance one does make a suggestion then I say you'd better damn well listen up.
There is a great deal of professional talk about how long to wait, when to nudge and publisher or magazine and how to cross examine them to get what you want. Let me remind you of the first thing I mentioned. They don't care about you, and will not care unless there is profit to be made. So, you send and forget and move on. If your writing world is focused on one work then your focus is misdirected. You need to have multiples working for you, different stories; different submission targets all working together to create one break. You put the eggs in one basket (another cliché) then you will most certainly remain in the same spot you started out in ten years ago.
Why listen to me on this subject? Am I an expert? Do I have credentials to splash around?
If you have to ask this before you need to follow basic instructions then don't let me stop you moving through the maze of publishing nightmares. Now, I am sure there are plenty of experts in the world that will sell you their knowledge.
Your task is to make the editor care and in that caring you will find success.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Win an iPod
WIN AN iPOD 8Gb. Purchase a copy of Uttuku from Amazon.com (Book or Kindle) and submit your reciept number to my message box, at author@altair-australia.com. Winner annouced March 1 2011. Please share this with your friends.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Yesterday for Today
Why look back in time when we have so much to look forward to in the future?
In the examination of the past it is becoming clearer that the future might not be the bright shining beacon futurologists of visionaries are branding and selling the people of Earth. Some are now asking, have we actually travelled this road before? It might even be suggested that technology is simply masking civilization and its slow decay, a slow narrowing of though through exclusivity based on pointed knowledge.
It is possible. Knowledge of some kind went into the construction of a deliberately buried structure at Gobekli Tepe around 12 000BC. Here a civilization which predates the time when archaeologists say civilizations existed, broke away from hunter-gatherer living to set down something so amazing that it has all thrown into question all visions of the past. The builder people were building well before the concepts of henges went through Europe. A builder and thinker civilization existed in Neolithic times; a time many modern thinkers consider primitive and far removed from today.
While Gobekli throws up some tricky questions, it is perhaps the Thorbourough henge in North Yorkshire that suggests the greatest example of knowledge and lost knowledge. Here there is a construction on a massive scale with an accuracy undeniably sophisticated - and sadly still denied by those who believe maths and complex calculations and use of the stars belongs to the great thinkers of a much later age. 5-6000 years ago a civilization was realising its potential and was creating structures that would, even today, take some thinking.
For some reason the builders faded away and only the constructions have managed to survive the scourge of time. So, has this knowledge been lost forever? No, not at all. The knowledge used to create place like Gobkli, Stonehenge or Thorbourough has already been rediscovered and it was considered very modern thinking when it was used again in the Renasance period across Europe. In fact some very early Neolithic sites exist across France, so many of these old knowledge could have been passed down through groups in dribs and drabs; enough to keep thinkers of the new age thinking, testing and discovering.
What can be suggested is that during the thousands of years after the construction of such buildings the knowledge ownership narrowed and possibly continued to narrow to only a few wizened priest/builders knew all there was to know, but had become so exclusive ta]hat fewer and fewer new converts came to learn these ways. It would have only taken illness or more likely a fight or uprising against these priest type people to eliminate the knowledge completely. Instead of a widespread knowledge base it was very narrow, and like the Egyptian builders who took their secrets with them, the knowledge was lost.
In today's world, where knowledge is everywhere it is becoming quite obvious that it would on take a century to lose all known knowledge we share today. With the advent of the digital world, and the fragile nature of digital media, all known knowledge could be lost with just the flick of a switch, or the multiple crash of hard drives. Information stored in digital formats thirty years ago are unreadable unless you use equally antiquated devices - which are even more fragile.
Like the Neolithic knowledge loss modern knowledge is poised on a pin head, granted a big pin head, but its access is restrictive and become more and more exclusive as media ownership buys up known knowledge for sale. When will it become too expensive to make knowledge available? An, when, like the civilizations of 12 000 BC or 6000 BC the exclusive owners fade away, just how much will be lost and how much will the world have to relearn?
In the examination of the past it is becoming clearer that the future might not be the bright shining beacon futurologists of visionaries are branding and selling the people of Earth. Some are now asking, have we actually travelled this road before? It might even be suggested that technology is simply masking civilization and its slow decay, a slow narrowing of though through exclusivity based on pointed knowledge.
It is possible. Knowledge of some kind went into the construction of a deliberately buried structure at Gobekli Tepe around 12 000BC. Here a civilization which predates the time when archaeologists say civilizations existed, broke away from hunter-gatherer living to set down something so amazing that it has all thrown into question all visions of the past. The builder people were building well before the concepts of henges went through Europe. A builder and thinker civilization existed in Neolithic times; a time many modern thinkers consider primitive and far removed from today.
While Gobekli throws up some tricky questions, it is perhaps the Thorbourough henge in North Yorkshire that suggests the greatest example of knowledge and lost knowledge. Here there is a construction on a massive scale with an accuracy undeniably sophisticated - and sadly still denied by those who believe maths and complex calculations and use of the stars belongs to the great thinkers of a much later age. 5-6000 years ago a civilization was realising its potential and was creating structures that would, even today, take some thinking.
For some reason the builders faded away and only the constructions have managed to survive the scourge of time. So, has this knowledge been lost forever? No, not at all. The knowledge used to create place like Gobkli, Stonehenge or Thorbourough has already been rediscovered and it was considered very modern thinking when it was used again in the Renasance period across Europe. In fact some very early Neolithic sites exist across France, so many of these old knowledge could have been passed down through groups in dribs and drabs; enough to keep thinkers of the new age thinking, testing and discovering.
What can be suggested is that during the thousands of years after the construction of such buildings the knowledge ownership narrowed and possibly continued to narrow to only a few wizened priest/builders knew all there was to know, but had become so exclusive ta]hat fewer and fewer new converts came to learn these ways. It would have only taken illness or more likely a fight or uprising against these priest type people to eliminate the knowledge completely. Instead of a widespread knowledge base it was very narrow, and like the Egyptian builders who took their secrets with them, the knowledge was lost.
In today's world, where knowledge is everywhere it is becoming quite obvious that it would on take a century to lose all known knowledge we share today. With the advent of the digital world, and the fragile nature of digital media, all known knowledge could be lost with just the flick of a switch, or the multiple crash of hard drives. Information stored in digital formats thirty years ago are unreadable unless you use equally antiquated devices - which are even more fragile.
Like the Neolithic knowledge loss modern knowledge is poised on a pin head, granted a big pin head, but its access is restrictive and become more and more exclusive as media ownership buys up known knowledge for sale. When will it become too expensive to make knowledge available? An, when, like the civilizations of 12 000 BC or 6000 BC the exclusive owners fade away, just how much will be lost and how much will the world have to relearn?
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