Samuel's Blog

Earth Hour

Resounding success! A lovely bright house during Earth Hour. Photos coming later tonight.

Samuel

2 comments March 29th, 2008 at 09:09pm

Earth Hour’s cost to your appliances

Plenty of people think I’ve gone near-enough to completely mad with my post about turning on all of my lights during Earth Hour…somehow I don’t think the organisers would mind as it just proves that even people such as me who see almost no sense in the theory of anthropogenic global warming are thinking about Earth Hour and giving it more publicity.

Anyway, the reason for this post isn’t to try and convince people that I am sane, rather it is to show the perspective of Michael Carden, somebody who has spent an awful lot of time fixing broken electronic devices.

Most modern pieces of electronics make use of a switchmode power supply. Everything from TVs and DVD players, to computers and kitchen appliances are likely to have one, and in general they are a wonderful thing. Small, light, cheap and able to run from the mains power in most parts of the world without caring whether they’re plugged into 110, 115, 150, 230 or 240 volts. They (mostly) just work.
[..]
If you have this device plugged into power all the time, a small part of its switchmode power supply – the part responsible for kickstarting it from completely off – never gets used. And this part almost always contains a handful of tiny electrolytic capacitors that play no part in the running of the device until it’s disconnected from the power outlet, and then connected again. Then it’s their job to get the power supply started. These little beasties don’t like heat very much, but they usually live in a hot place (the switchmode power supply) and so as the months and years go by, the heat slowly kills them. They can die completely and you’ll never know. Unless you unplug the device or switch off the power outlet.

So I’m wondering what will happen if thousands or millions of people switch off everything at the power outlet all at once. I think that there’s an excellent chance that quite a lot of stuff won’t come back to life when the power goes back on.

Michael goes on to point out that the percentage will be quite low, but if you’ve never turned off the microwave, the DVD player or the cordless phone at the wall, so you really want to risk it?

My other thought on the subject is this. The electricity suppliers have their systems set up to expect a certain minimum load that never goes away. While I’m sure that their systems are designed to cope safely with the sudden loss of load when everyone switches off, I can’t help but wonder just when they tested this.

Hmmm, it’s one thing to be voluntarily without power for an hour, with a switch to turn it back on at any time a couple metres away, but if enough people take part in Earth Hour and something does go “bang” in the power grid, how many people are actually going to enjoy Earth Week?

Samuel

March 29th, 2008 at 02:29pm

Offsetting Earth Hour

I’ve been debating whether or not to post this. On the one hand I don’t want to give Earth Hour any more publicity than it already has, however on the other hand I would like to publicise my plan for that hour of climate-change-alarmism induced insanity, and then there’s the fact that I haven’t written much this week and need to write something.

Anybody who has been reading this blog for a while would know of my stance on climate change…basically I think it is almost entirely natural, and I see Earth Hour as a rather strange stunt. For those of you who don’t know, Earth Hour is an event where people are invited to turn off all of their lights for an hour in a bid to save energy (and theoretically cut down on the amount of greenhouse gases produced) and raise awareness of energy use and the theory of man-made global warming.

My plan for that hour (8pm to 9pm tomorrow) is to turn on all of my lights in an effort to offset the people who are turning off their lights. I may also decide to use other appliances such as the kettle or the washing machine during this hour…anything I wouldn’t normally use during that hour. I would like to invite you to join me, either turn on all of your lights or perhaps go for an unnecessary drive (with the price of petrol at the moment, that one could be a bit too expensive), or just use electricity that you wouldn’t normally use during that hour.

Update: Knowing that I wouldn’t be the only person with this idea, I did a Google search for “against earth hour” and found the blog of Samantha Burns who has this rather useful list of appliances that you could turn on during Earth Hour if you want to help offset the madness:

-all household lights
-air conditioner
-heater
-automobiles (your ride)
-automobile headlights
-washer
-dryer
-dishwasher
-stove/oven
-put on oven’s self-cleaning cycle
-microwave
-any/all kitchen appliances
-television
-dvd player
-game system
-stereo
-and any other electrical equipment you can think of

I’m struggling to think of more appliances…anybody have any suggestions?
End Update

The really good thing is that because most people (anecdotally at least) don’t have any more than a quarter of their household lights on at any given time, one household turning on their lights can offset at least four households turning off their lights.

I’m looking forward to turning on all of my lights, who wants to join me?

Samuel

9 comments March 28th, 2008 at 07:45pm

All Those Global Warmenings

If there is one thing I like more than people saying amusingly peculiar things, it’s people saying amusingly peculiar things in support of things I disagree with.

Take Wilfried Haeberli from the World Glacier Monitoring Service at the University of Zurich in Switzerland for example. Whilst talking about various glaciers “disappearing” due to global warming, he said “There are many canaries emerging in the climate change coal mine. The glaciers are perhaps among those making the most noise”.

As 2CC’s Mike Jeffreys pointed out this morning, Mr. Haeberli seems to be getting his metaphors mixed up. Canaries which emerge from a coal mine are a good thing, and melting ice doesn’t usually make much noise.

What I find particularly odd about the article is “The estimates, based on measuring the thickness of glacier ice, indicated an average loss of about 1.5 metres in 2006”, but it’s now March 2008, why don’t we have measurements from last year…does it really take fifteen months to calculate the average of the measurements taken during 2006, or are they just saving on carbon emissions by making their PR person swim across the oceans to each media outlet?

The other sentence of note in the article just makes the point that I’ve been trying to make for ages. “The thaw could disrupt everything from farming – millions of people in Asia depend on seasonal melt water from the Himalayas”. It’s quite simple…adapt. The world changes, we as the human race, just like every other animal and plant on this planet, have to adapt if we plan to continue to exist.

Moving on, and Jim Ball was talking about a book which sounds very interesting this morning. “Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years” by S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery is described by Jim as a book which “totally and forensically demolishes the entire global warming fraud and of course the fraudsters”.

It has recently been re-released as a paperback and I intend on buying a copy as it sounds like a good read. Jim links to a review by Jay Lehr, Ph.D. which I’ll quote in part. As much as I would like to quote it in full, there just isn’t enough room here for that.

With their new book, Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years, S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery skewer all the misinformation that has been used for so long in an attempt to convince society that mankind is the root cause of all global climate change.

The book is truly amazing! It meticulously supports, with hundreds of detailed, published references, the clear facts and conclusions that the Earth’s climate has been traveling a well-defined rollercoaster path of temperature change for at least 900,000 years.
[..]
In almost a point-by-point refutation of Al Gore’s unsupportable rant that “the debate is over; man is warming the Earth,” Singer and Avery explain technically but lucidly why nearly every cherry-picked fact in Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” is contradicted by science, which weighs heavily in favor of a very different truth: Man is in fact all but irrelevant to global climate, as the sun and its accompanying solar system rule.

Anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming has been the scare du jour of the collectivist environmental movement, socialist countries, and academic money launderers for nearly a decade now. Unlike the past Y2K scare, ozone elimination, and avian flu, efforts to combat global warming will have long-term, serious, negative impacts on the citizens of the world, whose quality of life, especially in the poorest nations, will be disastrously worsened.

It will not be possible to read Unstoppable Global Warming without being convinced a sham is being perpetrated on society. Even a 30-minute perusal of the text will impress the average unbrainwashed person that despite Gore’s beautiful pictures of heaving ice flows in both his movie and book, man is not the culprit behind climate change. Singer and Avery’s well-chosen book title alone should give the thinking person pause.

In the opening chapter, “Is Humanity Losing the Global Warming Debate?” Singer and Avery explain how the ratio of two isotopes of oxygen allows us to date the age in which air bubbles were trapped in ice, and that with almost a million years of ice cores we can readily tell that periodic warming of the Earth has occurred persistently almost every 1,500 years.

That obviously does not square with efforts to get us to reduce our use of cars, air conditioners, and fertilizer in order to reduce carbon in our atmosphere. Technological advances have increased our life expectancy by 30 years during the past century, but now we are being asked to give much of it up and return to organic farming, which was able to support only 1.5 billion people 100 years ago.

If we gave up high-yield farming, as many global warming alarmists desire, we would need to clear all the world’s forests to sustain our current food demands, and thus eliminate about half of the world’s wildlife.
[..]
Singer and Avery document the exhaustive data search they performed to confirm conclusively the existence of a 1,500-year warming cycle. They grappled with the 100,000-year elliptical cycle of the Earth’s orbit, the 41,000-year axial tilt cycle of the Earth, and the 23,000-year precessing or wobble cycle.

In addition to those cycles, they thoroughly document the most influential cycle of all: the 1,500-year solar cycle that drives most of the Earth’s climate cycle.

The authors shatter the greenhouse gas theory, making it clear humanity’s modest addition to the atmosphere’s small amount of carbon dioxide does not add up to a significant alteration in temperature.

In obliterating the Kyoto Protocol as a construct to change anything, the authors uncover a suppressed report from the federal government of Canada, which concluded that country’s expenditure of $500 million to reduce greenhouse gases was “largely wasted, producing neither a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions nor the development of new, cleaner technologies.”

The review goes on, but I think that’s enough for now.

Incidentally, there is a particular blog which links here, authored by a person who appears to be a believer in the theory of anthropogenic global warming (I assume that’s what they mean when they refer to global warming as a debacle). I haven’t named them or linked to them today, because I want to see if this post enough to prompt them to remove their link to me in a burst of frustration, or preferably register here and refute me.

Samuel

March 17th, 2008 at 11:17am

Carbon Tax

Good evening Clinton and Rachel,

A carbon tax of $500 per child per year for the third and subsequent child? Plus the removal of the baby bonus? I suppose the academic who came up with that one doesn't have children…

With the planet already showing signs of cooling, I can't wait until another few years have passed and all of these global warming alarmists have egg on their faces.

Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra

Update: I got the figures wrong…in reality they are much worse. $5000 per child at birth plus up to $800 per child per year thereafter. Professor Barry Walters appears to be proof that just because you’re a professor, you’re not necessarily sane. He might not be insane either, but he doesn’t seem to have thought this one through. Professor Walters, amongst the many other flaws in your proposal, you are forgetting the random nature of some births…why should parents be punished for having triplets? They didn’t plan on having triplets…I would have thought that of all people, you, Professor, as an obstetrician would understand that.End Update

December 11th, 2007 at 08:30pm

Yep, the nation’s water has been spiked

Either that or the door to the lunatic asylum have been left open and unguarded.

An academic says nations need to cut greenhouse pollution by 50 per cent by 2025 and 100 per cent by 2050 .. to avoid climatic disaster.

Climate change researcher IAN MCGREGOR says the kind of emissions cuts being discussed at the UN conference in Bali would not avert catastrophic climate change.

Mr MCGREGOR .. from Sydney’s University of Technology .. says the recent dramatic melting of ice in the Arctic shows the world’s in greater trouble than originally thought.

Somebody’s been paying a bit too much attention to Lachlan Connor’s policies.

First it’s the Melbourne taxi drivers wanting to be immune from demerit points, then New South Wales transport minister John Watkins informs everyone of his delusion that Morris Iemma can’t be run over by a bus because of the marvellous job he is doing as transport minister, then Western Australia’ Corrective Services Minister launchers her own branch of mathematics, and now this. Did somebody fly me to a different planet while I was sleeping?

Honestly, some days on this planet should just be skipped.

Samuel

1 comment December 7th, 2007 at 02:44pm

How Long Would It Take?

I have been thinking about our changing climate a bit this morning and a thought occurred to me. This is purely hypothetical, but just suppose that we, as a human race, were to stop producing “greenhouse gases” completely, and after we did so, they planet kept warming indefinitely. How many years would it take for the scientists who have been blaming human activity for climate change, to accept that humans were not responsible?

I would be willing to say that it wouldn’t happen in my lifetime.

I think the next thirty to fifty years would be spent blaming “all those years of human activity” for the continuing increase in temperatures. The following fifty years or so would probably be spent trying to find something else which was “continuing” the increase, although scientists would start to realise the situation wasn’t caused by human towards the end of this period.

I think it would take a bit over 100 years for the majority of the “humans are responsible” brigade to change their tune, but even then there would be those who would insist that humans caused an “irreversible change”.

As I said, this is entirely hypothetical, but it is worth thinking about. What do you think would happen amongst the scientific community in this hypothetical scenario?

Samuel

December 7th, 2007 at 08:25am

Editorial Echoes 18/11/2007 – Climate Change, The IPCC and The Election

Climate change hasn’t been a huge issue so far in the election campaign, but a new report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will bring the issue to the fore. Samuel examines the issues to see if the consensus of scientists predicting climate-change-induced-disaster really exists, and what effect climate change will have on the election.

[audio:https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/EditorialEchoes/011.mp3]
Download link

You are more than welcome to respond to anything you hear on the show by sending an email to echoes@samuelgordonstewart.com. Emails may be read and responded to on a future episode.

The episode can be played in the MP3 player above or by downloading the MP3 file. You can also subscribe to Editorial Echoes. The RSS Feed can be found at https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/EditorialEchoes/echoes.xml and you can subscribe through iTunes by clicking here.

The script follows.

Samuel

It looks like somehow I managed to get the date wrong in the script of this episode and didn’t notice.

Welcome to Editorial Echoes for November 15, 2007, I’m Samuel Gordon-Stewart.

Nine days between episodes…well that’s something that’s going to change. We’re now in the final week of the election campaign, and from now until the day after the election, there will be an episode of Editorial Echoes every morning.

Later this week we’ll catch up with a journalist who has been following the leaders around throughout the election campaign, and during the week I will be out and about conducting polling, with results on election day.

Incidentally, I’m also running an election poll on my blog at samuelgordonstewart.com and I’d be very interested to see you cast your vote in the poll. The more votes cast, the better!

Anyway, on with the show, and today I’d like to have a word with you about climate change. Climate change is something we have heard an awful lot about in recent times, but it hasn’t really been a huge issue so far in the campaign. In fact, the “who copied who” of climate change policies appeared to take up more time than the actual policies.

Climate change really hasn’t had anywhere near as much focus during this campaign as many would have expected, but that will probably change this week as the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, have released a report which, once again, paints an alarming picture of the climate change issue.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has been quoted as saying “Today the world’s scientists have spoken, clearly and in one voice”, but Mr. Moon, have they?

DemandDebate.com sent out a survey to 345 members of the IPCC and found something quite astounding. Less than 50% of the respondents said that an increase in global temperature of 1-degree Celsius is undesirable. Half of the respondents said that such a temperature increase is desirable, desirable for some but undesirable for others or too difficult to assess.

Only 14% said that the ideal climate was cooler than the present climate. Whilst Sixty-one percent said that there is no such thing as an ideal climate, and even more incredibly, only 20% said that human activity is the principal driver of climate change.

The survey found that the standard questions about humans and climate change tended to get responses which you would expect from an IPCC report, but once they started asking questions which didn’t quite seem to fit the usual script, the views varied wildly, and the cosensus disappeared.

And even scientists are questioning the consensus, the Petition Project for example has recorded signatures from 19,000 scientists questioning the scientific basis of climate alarmism, and other IPCC scientists have resigned due to their disagreements with other members of the panel, and yet still get their name on reports.

So, with this in mind, what does the latest report say?

Well an unpronounceable scientist and economist who heads up the IPCC summarised it by saying the world would have to reverse the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by 2015 to avert major problems.

“If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late” he said.

But hang on a minute, during the week the New South Wales government released a report showing that air pollution in Sydney has dropped by 30 per cent in the last fifteen years. The report went in to further detail by naming particular pollutants, including carbon monoxide emissions, which dropped by 34 per cent.

Now if Sydney has managed these reductions despite an increase in population, then it is probably fair to say that other cities have done the same, which means pollution is dropping, but climate change continues, which brings us back to the lesson of history, the lesson that climate change is natural, or at the very least, mostly natural.

When you consider that only forty years ago or so we had scientists warning us of an impending ice age, you have to wonder how much of the alarmism is real science, and how much of it is merely keeping these scientists in a job.

And when I consider that I’ve heard a handful of scientists this year claiming that they are starting to see a shift towards another phase of global cooling, I can only think that we will see a very large number of scientists with a fair amount of egg on their collective faces in the coming years.

Of course the most amusing thing about the IPCC report is that it is the precursor to a round of international climate change talks in Bali next month.

You would think that a group concerned about carbon emissions would want to hold their meetings in a location which would require the least amount of travel, which would surely mean somewhere in Europe, not an island nation almost as far away from the vast majority of nations as you can get…not to mention the amount of air conditioning they will have to use in Indonesia in December!

I suppose the question therefore is, how will the issue of climate change affect the election? Well there was a national protest about global warming last weekend, the so-called “walk against warming”, and it’s probably fair to say that the majority of people who see climate change and the supposed need to take action as the main issue which will decide their vote, would have attended the walk.

Cate Faehrmann from the Nature Conservation Council said estimates suggested as many as 150,000 people attended the rally nationally. 150,000, in a nation of 21 million, 141 thousand people. That’s 0.7 per cent. Naturally, this prompted one of Bob Brown’s amusing pronouncements. He told the Sydney march that the turnout proved the environment is a top priority ahead of the November 24 election.

Well Bob, if 0.7 per cent of the population have climate change as their clinching argument for their vote. That’s only enough to tip the balance in six electorates, half of which are Labor electorates anyway.
The electorates are Hindmarsh, held by Labor by 0.06 per cent
Kingston, held by Liberal by 0.07 per cent
Swan, held by Labor by 0.08 per cent
Macquarie, held by Labor by 0.47 per cent
Bonner, held by Liberal by 0.51 per cent and
Wakefield, held by Liberal by 0.67 per cent.

This 0.7 wasn’t just the climate change fanatics either, the numbers were inflated by other groups tagging along for the ride. For example, the Canberra march was joined by Resistance, the peculiar rent-a-mob socialist movement that seem to turn up to any protest they can find, and a bunch of anti-nuclear movements, which seems strange considering that nuclear power would help to curb carbon emissions.

So, 0.7 per cent, many of whom are so anti-liberal that they would vote against the coalition even if they could cure cancer, produce world peace and end hunger and poverty.

Will climate change have much effect on the outcome of the election? The answer is a very clear “no”.

This has been Editorial Echoes for November 15, 2007, if you have any thoughts or comments about any of this, email them to echoes@samuelgordonstewart.com

In the previous episode of Editorial Echoes I provided my Melbourne Cup tips…well as per usual I had a shocker, with my tips running 14th, 16th and 19th.

As I mentioned earlier, the weekly poll on my blog this week is an election poll to see who you will be voting for in the house of representatives. If you’d like to cast your vote, samuelgordonstewart.com is the place to go.

Last week’s question about compulsory voting saw 71% in favour of it. A result which is hardly surprising.

I’m Samuel Gordon-Stewart, I look forward to talking to you again tomorrow, and until then, tada.

2 comments November 18th, 2007 at 06:44am

Editorial Echoes 30/10/2007

Editorial Echoes is back, and as a treat (or possibly as a vent for me) there are five issues tackled in this episode, they are:

• Peter Garrett
• The Bali Nine’s attempt to get out of the death sentence, and Indonesia’s use of the death penalty on drug smugglers
• Craig William Wheatley’s sentence over the death of an 83-year old war veteran
• Sydney’s move to replace glasses with plastic cups in pubs and clubs
• And a brief look at GetUp.org.au’s advertising campaign urging people to vote against the coalition in the senate.

[audio:https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/EditorialEchoes/009.mp3]
Download link

You are more than welcome to respond to anything you hear on the show by sending an email to echoes@samuelgordonstewart.com. Emails may be read and responded to on a future episode.

The episode can be played in the MP3 player above or by downloading the MP3 file. You can also subscribe to Editorial Echoes. The RSS Feed can be found at https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/EditorialEchoes/echoes.xml and you can subscribe through iTunes by clicking here.

The script of the episode follows (it’s long, so it’s not going on the front page of the blog…none of the scripts will).

Samuel

Welcome to Editorial Echoes for October 30, 2007, I’m Samuel Gordon-Stewart.

This is the return of Editorial Echoes, a podcast containing my editorials on the issues of the day. Unlike last time, this won’t be a daily podcast, but it will be very regular. You can also respond to anything you hear on the show by sending an email to echoes@samuelgordonstewart.com, I may then read and reply to your email on a future show.

Today, simply because I have a lot of things on my mind, the show will cover many topics, but most days it will only be one or two topics.

To start off with, Peter Garrett, the mildly annoying ex-rock star who, for one reason or another, seems to be quite hamstrung in the Labor party. Sometimes I feel sorry for Peter, he has so much potential and has been a strong advocate for the environment, but seems to be almost silenced as a shadow minister in the Labor party.

Then, there are other times, like yesterday when he stood next to Kevin Rudd and made an announcement about funding to help farmers stop polluting the Great Barrier Reef. Peter made the rather odd statement that this would help with the reef’s recovery from, quote, “Climate change events”. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the shadow environment spokesman here, but I thought he had told us on many occasions that climate change would cause the temperature to rise, and the Great Barrier Reef, amongst other things, would be irreperably damaged…and what exactly is a climate change event? Has Mr. Garrett forgotten his own teachings and started believing in the great climate change monster that comes out once per week and shoots a bit of the reef? If so, wouldn’t it be better to spend money on catching the monster rather than unshooting the reef? In the short term at least…

And as for Labor’s peculiar (but somewhat welcome in my view) backflip on international emission agreements…poor old Peter, he should have joined the Greens, at least he would know where he stands with the Greens.

Moving on, and the Bali Nine have attempted and failed to challenge the constitutional ability of Indonesia to use the death penalty on drug smugglers. Technically speaking, the Bali Nine were correct, the constitution of Indonesia seems to only allow for the death penalty to be used on violent offenders.

The Bali Nine, however, were prevented from challenging the constitution on the grounds that they are not citizens of Indonesia. This, whilst a technicality, is brilliant. The Indonesian constitution needs to be ammended quickly to avoid a similar situations occurring with Indonesians, but for the moment, the Indonesian justice system has delivered a fantastic result.

It is my strong view that a justice system should make it appear that justice is being done, and have a think about this:

The Bali Nine were caught smuggling drugs, illegal drugs, potentially deadly illegal drugs, drugs which, if they didn’t kill people, had the power to easily ruin lives. Now, whilst the users of these drugs need to take some responsibility for themselves, it is important to note that these life recking drugs would not be available without the drug smugglers. Drug smugglers are evil low-life scum, they contribute heavily to the misery and suffering of hundreds and thousands of people, and I fully support Indonesia’s policy of giving them the death sentence.

Moving on to another case of “justice should appear to be done”, Craig William Wheatley was sentenced today for the death of an 83 year old war veteran. Mr. Wheatley has been convicted of pushing Robert Narramore in to the path of an oncoming car after having a drunken argument with another person. He was sentenced to a minimum jail term of two years, backdated to when he was taken in to custody. This means Mr. Wheatley could be out in September next year.

The maximum term is three years and nine months, which, if enforced, would see Wheatley released in June 2010.

Mr. Wheatley may not have intended to cause physical harm to Mr. Narramore…but the fact of the matter is he pushed an elderly man in to the path of oncoming traffic, despite the elderly man not having any part of the argument he was having. Forget the fact that Wheatley was drunk for a minute, that shouldn’t have any bearing on it, Wheatley’s actions killed Narramore, and two years is a ridiculous sentence for that.

June 2010 sounds like a good time for a release under a minimum sentence to me, but then again, I can’t see any reason for a difference between minimum and maximum terms on a manslaughter sentence. There was no malice involved, so there is no rehabilitation required. There should be a single sentence, and after reading the details of this case, I think the maximum sentence imposed should be THE sentence.

As an aside, in any case where rehabilitation of the offender is required, there should be a minimum sentence, with an indefinite maximum sentence so that the offender stays in for the minimum term regardless of anything else, and is then released once they have been rehabilitated…repeat offenders could then be given another sentence of the same type, and if that doesn’t help, then there is no room for them here, and the death sentence would be appropriate.

Another alcohol related subject. Sydney is looking at implementing plastic cups to deal with the growing number of “glassings” in pubs caused by incredibly intoxicated people. (And to think that a couple years ago I had never even heard of “glassing”). Admittedly plastic can do much less damage than glass, but it shouldn’t be underestimated…plastic packaging on an electric toothbrush nearly took my finger off last week, and really this measure, whilst helpful, is treating the method rather than the cause. A ban on alcohol would certainly solve the problem of intoxicated people causing trouble, but prohibition has never been palatable, so instead, I think we need a blood alcohol limit for the general population. We already have one for people in control of motor vehicles, so I can’t see any problem with having one for the general population, or at least the general population in public venues.

I don’t know what we would set the limit at…that’s not my area of expertise, that would really be up to a combination of medical and behavioural experts and law enforcement agencies. Enforcement shouldn’t be too hard, either require pubs to employ at least one person who is trained and authorised to run breath tests and kick people out, or get them a taxi home if they exceed the limit, or get the existing age enforcement people to do it. Preferably a combination of both.

People who reach the limit could then be sent home, or if they don’t co-operate, ferried to the nearest police station to sober out. It wouldn’t completely solve the problem of public violence, but it is a well known fact that drunk people contribute excessively to the problem, and placing a reasonable limit on alcohol that balances people’s right to drink responsibly, and everyone’s right to public safety, would go a very very long way toward solving the problem.

And just briefly as this episode has gone on for long enough already, the political activist group GetUp.org.au have launched an advertising campaign on television and radio urging people to vote for anyone other than the coalition in the senate, so as to remove the majority the coalition have there. GetUp claim that this is undemocratic and unfair. I’ll have more to say about this tomorrow, but for now I have this little thought for GetUp.

In order for the coalition to get a majority in the senate, the majority of voters have to vote for the coalition. So, if the majority of people vote for a particular party then, democratically, that party receive a majority. The senate in its current form may be one-sided, but as that’s the side the majority of people voted for, it is hardly undemocratic or unfair.

This has been Editorial Echoes for October 30, 2007, if you have any thoughts or comments about any of this, email them to echoes@samuelgordonstewart.com

And don’t forget the weekly poll on my blog, this week’s question is “If Australia must sign a climate change agreement, would you prefer Kyoto or a new agreement?”

To register your vote, simply visit samuelgordonstewart.com and enter your vote on the right hand side of the page. The votes will be presented at the end of the week.

I’m Samuel Gordon-Stewart, until next time, tada.

October 30th, 2007 at 11:48pm

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: Climate Agreements

The weekly poll returns:

2 comments October 29th, 2007 at 10:51am

Press Release: Federal Liberal and Labor Parties Should Admit They Don’t Believe Humans Responsible For Global Warming: Samuel Gordon-Stewart

Stored for archival purposes
Independent candidate for Fraser, Samuel Gordon-Stewart, says the approval of the Gunns’ Pulp Mill in Tasmania is proof the federal Liberal and Labor parties do not believe humans are responsible for climate change.

“Many environment groups have stated that the Gunns’ Pulp Mill will increase the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by an inordinate amount. New South Wales Greens senator Kerry Nettle stated on radio last night that the increase would be a whopping two per cent.” Mr. Gordon-Stewart said.

“The fact that both the federal Labor and federal Liberal parties have welcomed a pulp mill that will increase greenhouse emissions by this much is proof that they don’t believe humans are responsible for climate change.”

“This is a view I fully endorse, and I strongly encourage the federal Labor and federal Liberal parties to admit to it.”

“I also welcome the pulp mill. The federal chief scientist has set down some very sensible rules for the operation of the pulp mill, and I believe the mill is a good thing for Tasmania, and the nation as a whole.”

ENDS

Media Contact: Samuel Gordon-Stewart 0405 302 499

October 5th, 2007 at 03:50pm

Why is John Howard my preferred prime minister?

Some of you may remember James Scolland, a person who sent in a Letter To The Editor in June with a bunch of peculiar reasons why I shouldn’t have a website, or be allowed to have one.

Nearly three months later, James has sent in another email. I’m not going to publish it because it is just another pile of puerile nonsense (and not as amusing as the first one), however James did ask one sensible question. He read my post earlier today where I said that John Howard is currently my preferred prime minister, and he has asked me why this is the case.

There are a number of reasons why John Howard is my preferred prime minister, so I will just list some of the main ones.

WorkChoices is one of the reasons. I am quite happy with the AWA that I am on, and I like the idea of being able to directly negotiate things with my employer. The flexibility in my workplace seems to be quite beneficial to both me and my employer.
Despite Kevin Rudd’s assurances that he would not be controlled by the unions, I believe that he would be, especially considering the way the unions seem so happy to promote the Labor party.

I also have an issue with the way some unions promote themselves. During the recent Canberra timber mill fiasco, the federal government offered to help an ailing company and the state Labor governments got in the way…and yet the unions were more than happy to stand outside the mill with anti-federal government signs and propoganda, an act of indecency in my mind as it was the federal government that were helping them.

Also today I saw a plumber wearing a bumper sticker on his shirt. This sticker said “Plumbers Union: Our #### doesn’t stink” (I’ll let you work out the rhyme). This, to me at least, is a rather offensive way to advertise yourself, and I would find it difficult to support a party which is backed by that kind of ideology.

Another reason is climate change. I agree with the Labor party, the Greens and the others on that side of the fence…the Howard government is not serious about addressing climate change, despite their claims. This is a good thing as far as I’m concerned. It would be very difficult for me to willingly vote for a party which would be happy to ruin the economy and many other things under the guise of preventing something that I don’t believe we control or are changing. The fact that I think Peter Garrett is a fool has something to do with my opinion as well.

Another reason is the way Kevin Rudd’s media appearances come across as scripted. Obviously he doesn’t script his answers to interview questions, but he comes across as if he is providing a scripted answer…almost as if it doesn’t matter what the question is, his answer is golden in his mind and will suit you because he wants it to.

And I can hardly leave the local Labor government off my list. Their general incompetence and peculiar need for pointless statues does leave a bad taste in my mouth, and (whether fair or not) has a negative impact on their federal branch’s reputation.

That being said, Labor do have quite a few things going for them, and they appear to be very passionate and committed, whilst to the same extent there are a number of things I don’t like about the coalition, however for me, the coalition is a better choice at this point in time. This could change, and it has done a handful of times this year.

Hopefully this answers James’ question, and gives you all a slightly better understanding of my point of view.

Samuel

5 comments September 4th, 2007 at 03:19pm

Global Warming and Football

Good evening Gibbsy and Brandy,

To answer Brandy's question, no, human enduced global warming is not fair dinkum. The whole notion of humans being the primary reason for global warming is ludicrous…and as for the nut case who rang up earlier to suggest that we shouldn't have any night time football matches because it's warming the planet, how about we send him off to another planet, then this planet will be a lot cooler because he won't be spurting crazy hot air!

Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra

7 comments August 3rd, 2007 at 06:59pm

Warmer Autumn brings predictable climate change alarm from ABC News

Good morning Mike,

I don't know if you saw ABC Television News last night or not, but I saw one of their updates and was, unfortunately, not surprised by one of the stories.

They ran a story about autumn being warmer than usual. As far as I can tell it came from the following press release from the Bureau Of Meteorology http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/ho/20070601.shtml

The press release doesn't mention how much warmer it was, just that various places didn't have their usual cold temperatures, and a few were actually cooler than usual.

ABC News took a different angle…according to them the temperature was two degrees warmer than usual, and the cause? Climate change of course! Never mind that a two degree increase in temperatures as a result of climate change in the space of a few months would not only be unprecedented, but completely contradict the entire "carbon levels equal temperature" nonsense.

I'm just waiting for the end of winter when we all get told that it was a bit colder than usual, and it's all due to climate change. They will probably tell us some nonsense about how all that ice that melted because of global warming during summer and autumn made the water and therefore the entire southern hemisphere a bit colder during winter.

By the way, when you get a chance have a listen to the 3am news from 2UE…that silly story about some nutter from CommSec saying we should sell Australia Post to prevent climate change, then another person saying that the government needs to spell out their policy on selling Australia Post before the next election. Oddly enough, Senator Helen Coonan did that yesterday.

And today, apparently, is World Environment Day, which inevitably means yet another excuse for a bunch of nutty press releases from people who claim the Black Mountain will soon be under water (yes, somebody did suggest that to me the other day…I think they were joking, but knowing the way these things spread it will probably be the headline some time in the next year).

Have a great day!

Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart

2 comments June 5th, 2007 at 04:58am

Global Warming Debate

Good afternoon John,

You know that I like you so please don't take this the wrong way, but the idea you came up with a few minutes ago of having Tim Flannery in the studio taking calls about climate change under the guise of a reasoned and balanced debate is the stupidest thing I've heard all week, and I've some some remarkably dumb things this week.

You yourself said only a few minutes before that, Tim Flannery represents one side of the debate. I'm certainly not saying don't bring him in, but if you are going to have him taking calls, you also need somebody from the other side of the argument to do the same thing, preferably at the same time…you have other segments like that on a weekly basis and they work very well.

Have a good weekend!

Regards,
Samuel Gordon-Stewart
Canberra

4 comments June 1st, 2007 at 01:59pm