Guidebooks v the field: the case of female fairywrens

In the numerous guidebooks to Australian birds, I have always felt they are clear enough to allow quite easy identification of quite similar species after one reads carefully.

The classic case of this is the female Petroica species, which are identified largely by whether or not there is white in the tail or wing:

1. Petroica rodinogaster has no white in the wing or tail
2. Petroica rosea has white in the tail but not the wing
3. Petroica phoenica has white in both the tail and wing
4. Female Petroica boodang has a faintly scarlet patch on her breast, like the blue of female Malurus amabilis.
5. Female Petroica goodenovii has a distinct red patch above her bill

When I had a look at the other female Malurus from a total of four guidebooks to birds of Australia, it seems as if one can generally identify the superficially similar dull-brown female (“jenny”) fairywrens by looking closely:

1. Female Malurus melanocephalus and Malurus leucopterus are pale in colour,  yellowish-grey with no eye-ring. They can be distinguished because:
   • leucopterus has (a very pale) blue in the tail
   • melanocephalus has no blue in that tail
2. Female Malurus lamberti and Malurus elegans are a greyish-blue above and have a dark greyish-blue tail. They can be distinguished because:
   • lamberti has an orange-chestnut-coloured bill
   • elegans has a black bill like male fairywrens
3. Female Malurus pulcherrimus has duller greyish-blue upperparts, a bright blue tail and dark brown bill, lores and eye-ring of the same colour with no faintly white eye-ring.
4. Female Malurus coronatus has a grey-blue head with a black bill and a deep chestnut patch next to that bill
5. Female Malurus cyaneus and Malurus splendens are entirely brown with no bluish tinge, with a chestnut bill and lore. They can be distinguishedbecause:
   • cyaneus has a basically brown tail like Malurus melanocephalus
   • splendens has a blue tail, similar in colour to Malurus melanocephalus and Malurus leucopterus.

Female Purple-Crowned Fairywren (Malurus coronatus)

However, what these pictures show is that the recognition features that are show clearly in most guidebooks are of little field use in the heathlands where fairywrens are found. Most especially, the difference in colour between Malurus leucopterus and the other fairywren species found in Western Australia is not actually of that much value: if you look, the Malurus leucopterus appears equally grey vis-à-vis the other fairywrens. Also, the greyish-blue upperparts seen in Malurus elegans, pulcherrimus and lamberti from the guidebooks do not appear any different from the brown colour of splendens (which indeed is just as grey)! The easist to grasp from this is in fact female lamberti, because the bill and lores are so different in colour, though not to the same extent as in female Malurus coronatus, which is very distinctive with its faint purple cap, chestnut cheek and black bill.

The pictures shown for species found near Perth, and those at BirdLife (‘Fifty Shades of Brown’) are actually clearer in the field than guidebooks, or at least those guidebooks where fairywrens are not shown in real habitat. In fact, these pictures make one treat guidebooks with caution, though I have known to do this for some time despite their great value.

The shrinkage problem for the Enriched World

This morning, there is an interesting article about an emerging and natural problem for an “industrial” Enriched World: that of urban shrinkage due to lowest-low fertility and/or large-scale out-migration.

These problems are inherent in a postindustrial Enriched World (at least practically) due to the combination of:

1. extreme comparative disadvantage in non-mobile resources (agriculture, mining, forestry)
2. limited flat land supply for maintaining replacement-level fertility
3. high taxes demanded by the working classes since their formation and eventually enforced on governments after World War II further reduce the money available to form families
4. inherent (at least in practice) large welfare states further reduce the incentives for women to have children

Despite this, there has generally been very little discussion of how the real Enriched (and Tropical) World will actually respond to urban shrinkage from lowest-low fertility or limited job opportunities.

In this context, although I was not able to read the full article, ‘How does(n’t) Urban Shrinkage get onto the Agenda? Experiences from Leipzig, Liverpool, Genoa and Bytom’ is a fascinating article to look at. It considers four European cities that in recent years have lost large proportions of their populations to these features and argues that policymakers do not take this into account.

However, I have not seen evidence of different attitudes by the real “policymakers” of the Enriched World – the working and welfare-recipient classes.

Urban shrinkage is no doubt easily accepted by locals who feel they can gain more space without losing the personal luxury items that are not obtainable in the more sparsely populated Australian suburbs where music listening and reading habits are comparatively exceedingly standardised.  The extremely materialistic character of welfare recipients will make them think population shrinkage is a good thing, because fewer people could theoretically spread the same wealth more widely.

However, each Enriched nation’s product of least comparative disadvantage does not remain such permanently. This is in severe contrast to Australia, Africa and Arabia where comparative advantage remains in the same specialisation – primary products – at all stages of development. It is difficult to see whether Enriched World governments will forever be able to cope with tax revenue loss from either departing industrial corporations or fewer working people. Personal luxury items which serve to define each individual in Enriched World cities are unlikely to provide the tax base people in these cities generally desire, and Enriched World politicians have enough dilemmas trying to maintain profitability and reduce debts without becoming vulnerable to an overthrow from the highly politicised – though outwardly peaceful – masses on which they depend. These masses fear that if regulations were dismantled and taxes reduced, they would lose job security, because secondary and especially tertiary industries are much more mobile than those sectors where Enriched World comparative disadvantage is greatest – agriculture and mining. This is made worse by their desire to spend so much on their favourite specialised consumer goods, rather than save for difficult periods.

Declining populations in many Enriched World cities have little hope to improve allocation of land, partly because the decline will mean more and more single-person households, but also because demand for high living standard will make people reluctant to ease development laws to permit more efficient use of land. In their book The Poverty of Nations: A Sustainable Solution, Barry Asmus and Wayne Grudem say:

“Just as environmental policies that are too lax [as in Australia and Africa today] allow for the careless destruction of the environment, so environmental policies that are too strict [as throughout Eurasia and the Americas today] prohibit wise use of the environment, as these restrictions also hinder economic growth”

These strict laws create problems for development of the large areas of steep land in Europe which surround cities built on tiny areas of flat land. If they were removed, it would be interesting to see if this steep land would be able to be used for anything other than recreation or wildlife habitat?? Most free-market urban planners (e.g. Wendell Cox) say nothing about whether urban housing can be built economically on slopes too steep to farm: if they can, there is, even allowing for erosion and other hazards, potential for dealing with the land shortage the Enriched World faces in a small way at least. Then, if the land shortage can be eased, so might lowest-low fertility, unaffordable welfare states, and a radically “selfist” culture – changes whose benefits I have noted before.

A special Christmas

This past few days have been wonderful for me inasmuch as my mother and brother have been together with me for the first time in four years. My brother during this period has lived in Singapore, Frankfurt am Main and Norman, Oklahoma working at various universities in subjects such as Asian Studies.

My brother had been home for ten days – after I had a terrible lockout which cost me $165 to get a locksmith and tired me out severely in a manner that is not good when the hot weather is coming – before Mummy came home and she said – rightly – that I was not nearly enthusiastic enough about seeing her return from Xī‘ān, but I forgave her for this swiftly.

I was very, very late in getting Mummy the bike, but experience buying my own bike a couple of months ago compensated for this delay quite well and consequently I was able to make a good decision. Once I had decided,  I called Mummy who was very excited, and even more so yesterday when I bought the bicycle home for her to see – though minus lock and helmet, which my brother bought soon after as we settled at home.

This is my mother’s new bicycle. It is the most expensive gift I have ever bought at $850 including helmet, panniers and lock, but it is one I had promised Mummy before Christmas and though about for a long time.

Today, we had a lovely Christmas dimmer – stuffed chicken, pork, beans and roast potato, along with a potato salad. I previously disliked potato salad, but seriously enjoyed this one totally. then there was a rally good Christmas cake and ice cream, which is very bad for my mass which has ballooned to over 130 kilograms or 20 stone on the old scale, but has made me feel much more “full” than I have in past years.

Comapred to recent Christmases, most of which have been spent in Singapore’s awful climate, this is the best I have had for a long time and Mummy talked at dinner about memories of which I – despite having a very good memory for most things – could not recall a thing about.

How Australia’s suburbs became a refuge from militant libertinism

The fact that during the Bush Senior Era Australia’s suburbs developed into a refuge from the militant atheism, radical individualism and radical egalitarianism that uniformly rule the Enriched World and most of the Tropical World is something that has grown obvious to me as I read and reflect upon what goes on globally today.

Still, seeing exactly how this happened and how long the political ultraconservatism of Australia’s suburbs has been a defining feature thereof is something quite independent of understanding why they became what they are.

Two articles I found studying The West Australian as part of a Wikipedia project I began in August to document WAFL seasons from as far back as possible provide more clues on this critical question than I had ever found before.

The earlier, ‘Penalise polluters, say Libs’, written in 1974 (I do not remember the precise date) is extremely revealing. Written to my ignorance by State Liberal divisions and severely criticised by Environment Minister “Moss” Cass, it said that – at a time when there might have been some opportunity to actually stop the severe environmental damage caused by Australia’s transport policies to Western Australia’s climate – that the government should cooperate with the States to conserve Australia’s resources, invest in beautification and foster public awareness of these problems.

Despite the fact that the policy of the Coalition was far more dreadful even in 1974 than I thought on first read, if it’s local branches were pushing for something less bad, it suggests that Australia’s masses might have been more concerned about their environmental impacts than they are now. Whether this reflects greater observation of ecological problems from tariff-supported local manufacturing or less concern about high interest rates, unemployment and housing unaffordability is not perfectly clear. My thesis is that, owing to the nineteenth-century rail systems still serving the current mortgage belt, they were not isolated from academic cultures as they are today and this may be a significant factor in mere demand for better environmental policy bilaterally.

The later article, ‘Most reject special land rights: survey’, dates from the twelfth of July, 1993 and a change in the perspectives of the majority of suburban Australians is clearly evident. The fact that “96 percent said Australia should develop its natural resources and minerals”, irrespective of the uniquely high environmental costs history has shown to be inherent in doing so, clearly shows that at this time, after punk, metal and rap had almost washed clean the values of the Enriched World, suburban Australia had become  a kind of cloister from “the world” – the extremely present-oriented and hedonistic music that swept over the Enriched World during my childhood. Natural growth of suburbs beyond a public transport system that extensive road construction rendered unprofitable isolated them from outsiders’ view, as seen in a Melbourne tourist guide which said clearly and calmly

“generally, there isn’t much that will attract you to the suburbs”.

Whilst a large number of people certainly found the values of the Boomers’ Enriched World highly reasonable, just, logical and sustainable, another potentially even larger number found them exceedingly difficult from an emotional perspective. The focus on science rather than people, the tendency to look at the abstract rather than practical and the consequent lack of usefulness of what many academics (myself included!) did at university, is something these people do no want.

They are quite different from my 1990s-era image of “working-class ‘Tories’” who swept Jeff Kennett to power in 1992 and 1996, being not macho and aggressive and loving motor racing and other violent entertainment. They are actually very selfless, charitable and the principle audience for the pop and country music that dominated stations like 3MP and the BAY back in the 1990s. Their dependence on low taxes and interest rates makes it very tough for them in the land- and lithophile-depleted Enriched World, where housing space is unaffordable for all but but the very rich and is severely restricted owing to powerful feeling of class envy towards that group.

This “community culture”, concerned with economics and the community rather than abstract ideas, made its home during the 1980s and 1990s in suburban Australia, and made its presence felt in Australian politics in two “waves” – the first in the 1990s and the second as I write.

A rare meal together with my brother

Although my mother has been in Xī‘ān over the past week, there has been the surprise of seeing my brother for the first time in a long while as a result of him working in Oklahoma and wishing to gain a prestigious job in Oslo. It has been wonderful to see my brother, though he still is extremely busy and the familiar tendency to sleep all morning is still apparent, although he says it is jet lag and that he has to get up every day to do much more serious work than I have ever had to.

As a result, though to my benefit after having to spend a whopping $165 to get back into the house after locking myself out through wrongly taking Mummy’s car keys without realising that she had taken away her own house key! it was terribly tiring for someone who was getting back into a better rhythm before this event, and it still effects me today even as I plan for a lot of Wikipedia work with very limited funds.

However, this Saturday, with the weather in Melbourne becoming much worse than its been (read “hotter” for “worse” if you do not believe me), I decided I should cook dinner for Jonathan for once and I was surprised at how much of a success I made of cooking some terribly old vegetables into a chicken stew. Jonathan really liked it - and in fact he helped whist I bought some new chicken stock so the stew could actually be made. I have a rare picture of it which I will show to see what you think:

Why Australia must be “sued into sutainability”

The elimination of the woefully inadequate carbon tax by the Abbott Government is depressing. Knowing as much as I do about the extremely low productivity, age and infertility of the Australian continent those with serious ecological knowledge would hope for better.

Nonetheless, is there a point in crying over something scientists can do nothing about??

The answer is no - we must look to alternative causes to see why Australia lags further and further behind the rest of the world in greenhouse emissions reductions, when its infertile soils, hot climate and high species diversity suggest firmly it needs to be moving further and further ahead. It is pointless arguing the toss: Australia will move away from sustainability as the rest of the world moves toward it.

This map, taken from the FAO site “http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/nr/images/resources/images/Maps/geonetwork/terrslope.png”, shows just why Australia has such a poor sustainability record: it has little incentive to be efficient with land and energy use due to its continuous and abundant very flat land.

The map above is based on the FAO’s map of median terrain slope, with the modification of cutting off cryospheric land as if it was above about 9˚ slope. Although my rendition is not perfect, it is striking how vast the areas of extremely low slope are in most of Australia, and how even the relatively steep areas of the east coast, the Kimberley and central Australian ranges are not highly “dissected”. The vast supply of continuous flat land northwest from the Main Divide is rivalled - and barely - only in the Amazon and Sahara under climates equally or more inhospitable, and there the flat land is far more broken and less economic for farming or housing.

This is why “feeling” types, strongly interested in other people and deep romantic relationships, are attracted to Australia’s suburbs, whereas “thinking” types who are interested in things and ideas more than people gravitate to Eurasia and the Americas, where dense populations and lack of space allow for intensive discussions but little room for nurturing families.

Countering the natural tendency for exploitation in Australia and conservation in the northern and western hemispheres requires a completely different line of attack.

The most likely method is to demonstrate why Australia is responsible for global warming even though its emissions are not yet a large proportion of the global total (though they certainly will be in the future). Per capita emissions, especially given the relative ecological energy consumption of Australian vis-à-vis Enriched World ecosystems, are enough reason to give Australia an exceptional responsibility for man-made global warming.

With time the power of the Enriched World to demand Australia pay its fair (large) share for the costs of man-made global warming abroad will decline. This makes the Kyōtō Protocol more of a failure than its sceptics think, and makes a complete rethink of policies all the more urgent. If Australia was made to pay or sued for demonstrable damages, it would completely alter its ultraconservative, pro-mining and pro-freeway politics at a stroke. The effect would be immense compared to the changes made of late in Eurasia and the Americas!

Why people compain about the weather - reversing the popular myth

I have for a long time thought it odd that people in places blessed with comfortably cool climates - even if they are gloomier than could be desired - complain so much about the weather. England and Seattle are the most prominent places where people are supposed to complain a lot about the weather, but Europe throughout is known for this type of talk. One person on the web whom I will not name says:

“if your country has better weather than England you’re not allowed to complain about it”

This statement is based on the assumption that most of the world has much better weather than England. Whilst this a common perspective, I would dearly wish people to think about it logically. England does have a rather gloomy climate with a large number of rainy days, but it does not have:

1. extreme winds and heavy rainfall as is found in the tropical cyclone belts of Australia, Asia and the Caribbean
2. extremely uncomfortable and even dangerous humidity as occurs in the summer or year-round in southern and eastern Asia, eastern North America, eastern South America, West Africa and most of Australia
3. unpredictable and extreme droughts and resultant dust storms and stock losses as found in Australia and southern and Eastern Africa
• nor does England have the huge flood flows that occur in wet years in Australia, where the Burdekin River, with a VMAD of around 330m³/s, can reach a flow equal to that of the Congo.
4. extremely hot and dry weather with dangerous sun conditions, as found in the hot deserts on the eastern side of subtropical anticyclones
5. extremely heavy snowfalls as found in northeastern North America and northern Japan
6. extremely cold conditions as found in northern North America, Siberia, Manchuria, Mongolia, Central Asia and Antarctica

If one factors in all these conditions, it becomes apparent that the vast majority of planet Earth as we know it must have worse weather than England!

More than that, some of those other places known for complaint about the weather, such as Seattle, also have unusually clement weather with mild summers and damp, cool winters. Seattle is quite a bit sunnier than England at about 5.2 hours of sun per day, and is very dry and sunny in the summer with 10 hours of sunshine and only 17mm of rainfall in July: in fact Seattle’s longest rainless spell is over fifty days, quite a bit longer than here in Melbourne.

What this clearly implies is that people in England complain about the weather so much because they are, relatively speaking, spoiled by having it so good compared to most of the world. As I see it, between 80 and 90 percent of the world must have worse weather than England. When the weather becomes a little uncomfortable or what they do not wish for, Europeans are easily upset, in contrast to Asia, Africa and most of Australia or the Americas where people accept dreadful weather very willingly as they acclimatise to it and tolerate it. It certainly takes a lot to cope with an average annual top of 36˚C as in Wyndham, or with -20˚C winters and humid 25˚C summers as in Harbin, but those used to them will see them in ways that make them less awful then they are. For instance, the extreme seasonal contrasts of Manchuria - which can be life different planets in summer and winter - no doubt becomes extremely interesting to those who live there, as would the extreme fluctuations of drought and flooding cyclones in the Pilbara.

With this sort of variety, horrible climates become something other than subjects of complaint, whereas comfortable climates generally cannot be thus transformed.

NME’s Top 500: A “repeat” of ‘Rolling Stone’ in 2003

Today, in the Bailleau Library, I had a look at “best albums” lists on a special scholarly site and saw that British magazine New Musical Express had only a few months ago written their own “Top 500”. The identity of its top album, which I have seen strongly praised and aggressively criticised (citing the Warlock Pinchers “Morrissey Rides a ****Horse” in the latter case), was enough to make me have a look, and here is the full list, with albums I own highlighted in pink.

#	Album	Artist	Harrington’s List	Keenan’s List
1	The Queen Is Dead	The Smiths	N	Y
2	Revolver	The Beatles	N	N(Y)
3	Hunky Dory	David Bowie	N(Y)	N
4	Is This It	The Strokes	N	N
5	The Velvet Underground and Nico	The Velvet Underground	Y	Y
6	Different Class	Pulp	N	N
7	The Stone Roses	The Stone Roses	N	N
8	Doolittle	Pixies	N	N
9	The Beatles	The Beatles	N	Y
10	Definitely Maybe	Oasis	N	N
11	Nevermind	Nirvana	N(Y)	N
12	Horses	Patti Smith	Y	N(Y)
13	Funeral	Arcade Fire
14	Low	David Bowie	N(Y)	N
15	Let England Shake	PJ Harvey	N	N
16	Closer	Joy Division	Y	N
17	It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back	Public Enemy	Y	N(Y)
18	Loveless	My Bloody Valentine	N	N
19	Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not	Arctic Monkeys
20	OK Computer	Radiohead	N	N
21	My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy	Kanye West
22	Parklife	Blur	N	N
23	The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars	David Bowie	N(Y)	N
24	Exile on Main Street	The Rolling Stones	N(Y)	N(Y)
25	What’s Going On	Marvin Gaye	N	N
26	Pet Sounds	The Beach Boys	Y	N(Y)
27	Screamadelica	Primal Scream	N	N
28	Back to Black	Amy Winehouse
29	Marquee Moon	Television	Y	N(Y)
30	Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)	Wu-Tang Clan	N	N
31	Dog Man Star	Suede	N	N
32	Paul’s Boutique	Beastie Boys	N	N
33	Modern Life Is Rubbish	Blur	N	N
34	Abbey Road	The Beatles	N	N(Y)
35	In Utero	Nirvana	N(Y)	N
36	Blood on the Tracks	Bob Dylan	N	N(Y)
37	Forever Changes	Love	Y	N
38	Never Mind the Bollocks… Here’s the Sex Pistols	Sex Pistols	Y	N
39	London Calling	The Clash	N(Y)	N
40	Unknown Pleasure	Joy Division	N(Y)	N
41	Daydream Nation	Sonic Youth	Y	N(Y)
42	Innervisions	Stevie Wonder	N	N
43	Rubber Soul	The Beatles	N	N(Y)
44	The Holy Bible	Manic Street Preachers	N	N
45	Parallel Lines	Blondie	N	N
46	Debut	Björk	N	N
47	Strangeways, Here We Come	The Smiths	N	N(Y)
48	Hounds of Love	Kate Bush	N	Y
49	Sound of Silver	LCD Soundsystem
50	Dusty in Memphis	Dusty Springfield	N	Y
51	Rumours	Fleetwood Mac	N	N
52	Let It Bleed	The Rolling Stones	N(Y)	N(Y)
53	Station to Station	David Bowie	N(Y)	N
54	Remain in Light	Talking Heads	N	N
55	Sticky Fingers	The Rolling Stones	N(Y)	N(Y)
56	After the Gold Rush	Neil Young	N(Y)	N(Y)
57	The Man Machine	Kraftwerk	N	N
58	Surfer Rosa	Pixies	N	N
59	In Rainbows	Radiohead	N	N
60	Blue Lines	Massive Attack	N	N
61	The Clash	The Clash	Y	N
62	Blonde on Blonde	Bob Dylan	N	N(Y)
63	Blue	Joni Mitchell	N	N
64	Highway 61 Revisited	Bob Dylan	N	N(Y)
65	Automatic For the People	R.E.M.	N	N(Y)
66	The Bends	Radiohead	N	N
67	(What’s the Story) Morning Glory	Oasis	N	N
68	Astral Weeks	Van Morrison	N	Y
69	Murmur	R.E.M.	N	N(Y)
70	Up the Bracket	The Libertines	N	N
71	Harvest	Neil Young	N(Y)	N(Y)
72	Transformer	Lou Reed	N	N(Y)
73	Bringing It All Back Home	Bob Dylan	N	N(Y)
74	Illmatic	Nas	N	N
75	Dookie	Green Day	N	N
76	Discovery	Daft Punk	N	N
77	White Blood Cells	The White Stripes
78	Suede	Suede	N	N
79	Kind of Blue	Miles Davis	N(Y)	Y
80	Raw Power	Iggy and the Stooges	N(Y)	N(Y)
81	Trans-Europe Express	Kraftwerk	N	N
82	Tapestry	Carole King	N	N
83	The Band	The Band	N	N(Y)
84	Live Through This	Hole	N	N
85	Born to Run	Bruce Springsteen	N	N(Y)
86	Grace	Jeff Buckley	N	N
87	Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band	The Beatles	N	N(Y)
88	For Your Pleasure	Roxy Music	N(Y)	N
89	The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill	Lauryn Hill	N	N
90	A Grand Don’t Come For Free	The Streets
91	Purple Rain	Prince and the Revolution	N	N
92	Radiator	Super Furry Animals	N	N
93	Songs for the Deaf	Queens of the Stone Age	N	N
94	Beggars Banquet	The Rolling Stones	Y	N(Y)
95	Spirit of Eden	Talk Talk	N	N
96	Fear of a Black Planet	Public Enemy	N(Y)	Y
97	The Smiths	The Smiths	N	N(Y)
98	In the Aeroplane Over the Sea	Neutral Milk Hotel	N	N
99	The Libertines	The Libertines	N	N
100	Hatful of Hollow	The Smiths	N	N(Y)
101	Computer World	Kraftwerk	N	N
102	The Soft Bulletin	The Flaming Lips	N	N
103	Electric Ladyland	The Jimi Hendrix Experience	N(Y)	N(Y)
104	Funhouse	The Stooges	Y	Y
105	Rain Dogs	Tom Waits	N	N
106	IV	Led Zeppelin	N	Y
107	Rage Against the Machine	Rage Against the Machine	N	N
108	Pinkerton	Weezer	N	N
109	Darkness on the Edge of Town	Bruce Springsteen	N	N(Y)
110	Liege and Lief	Fairport Convention	N	Y
111	Dare	The Human League	N	N
112	Liquid Swords	GZA
113	If You’re Feeling Sinister	Belle and Sebastian	N	Y
114	Kid A	Radiohead	N	N
115	Bandwagonesque	Teenage Fanclub	N	N
116	Elephant	The White Stripes	N	N
117	The Lexicon of Love	ABC	N	N
118	Searching for the Young Soul Rebels	Dexys Midnight Runners	N	N
119	His‘N’Hers	Pulp	N	N
120	3 Feet High and Rising	De La Soul	N	N
121	Selected Ambient Works 85-92	Aphex Twin	N	N
122	Technique	New Order	N	N
123	13	Blur	N	N
124	Graceland	Paul Simon	N	N
125	Live at the Apollo	James Brown	N	Y
126	Ill Communication	Beastie Boys	N	N
127	Ramones	Ramones	Y	Y
128	Urban Hymns	The Verve	N	N
129	On the Beach	Neil Young	N(Y)	N(Y)
130	Turn on the Bright Lights	Interpol
131	Thriller	Michael Jackson	N	N
132	Dark Side of the Moon	Pink Floyd	N	N
133	John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band	John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band	N	N
134	Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea	PJ Harvey	N	N
135	The Marshall Mathers LP	Eminem	N	N
136	Fever to Tell	Yeah Yeah Yeahs	N	N
137	Blur	Blur	N	N
138	Illinois	Sufjan Stevens
139	Disintegration	The Cure	N	N
140	Bryter Layter	Nick Drake	N	N
141	Natty Dread	Bob Marley and the Wailers	N	N
142	Histoire de Melody Nelson	Serge Gainsbourg	N	N
143	Desire	Bob Dylan	N	N(Y)
144	Are You Experienced	The Jimi Hendrix Experience	Y	N(Y)
145	Odessey and Oracle	The Zombies	N	Y
146	Relationship of Command	At the Drive-In
147	Channel Orange	Frank Ocean
148	Nebraska	Bruce Springsteen	N	Y
149	Either/Or	Elliot Smith	N	N
150	Original Pirate Material	The Streets
151	Dry	PJ Harvey	N	N
152	Deserter’s Songs	Mercury Rev	N	N
153	The La’s	The La’s	N	N
154	To Bring You My Love	PJ Harvey	N	N
155	Music for the Jilted Generation	The Prodigy	N	N
156	Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space	Spiritualized	N	N
157	Psychocandy	The Jesus and Mary Chain	N	N
158	Two Dancers	Wild Beasts
159	Entertainment!	Gang of Four	N	N
160	XTRMTR	Primal Scream	N	N
161	The Suburbs	Arcade Fire
162	The Boxer	The National
163	Neu ‘75!	Neu!	N	Y
164	At Folsom Prison	Johnny Cash	N	N(Y)
165	Let Love In	Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds	N	N(Y)
166	This is Hardcore	Pulp	N	N
167	Lady Soul	Aretha Franklin	N	N
168	Dummy	Portishead	N	N
169	Don’t Stand Me Down	Dexys Midnight Runners	N	N
170	Siamese Dream	Smashing Pumpkins	N	N
171	Fear of Music	Talking Heads	N	N
172	Songs in the Key of Life	Stevie Wonder	N	N
173	III	Led Zeppelin	N	N(Y)
174	I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning	Bright Eyes
175	Young Americans	David Bowie	N(Y)	N
176	Want One	Rufus Wainwright	N	N
177	Young Team	Mogwai	N	N
178	The Coral	The Coral
179	Miss E…So Addictive	Missy Elliott	N	N
180	Germ Free Adolescents	X-Ray Spex	N	N
181	Music Has the Right to Children	Boards of Canada	N	N
182	Everything Must Go	Manic Street Preachers	N	N
183	Speakerboxxx/The Love Below	OutKast	N	N
184	Kala	MIA
185	Paid in Full	Eric B and Rakim	N	N
186	The Blueprint	Jay-Z	N	N
187	Isn’t Anything	My Bloody Valentine	N	N
188	A Love Supreme	John Coltrane	N(Y)	Y
189	A Wizard, A True Star	Todd Rundgren	N	N
190	Piper at the Gates of Dawn	Pink Floyd	N	N
191	Elastica	Elastica	N	N
192	Franz Ferdinand	Franz Ferdinand	N	N
193	Gold	Ryan Adams	N	N
194	Appetite for Destruction	Guns‘N’Roses	N	N
195	A Hard Day’s Night	The Beatles	N	N(Y)
196	Rattus Norvegicus	The Stranglers	N	N
197	Back in Black	AC/DC	N(Y)	Y
198	Sign of the Times	Prince	N	N
199	Giant Steps	The Boo Radleys
200	Last Splash	The Breeders	N	N
201	Hex Enduction Hour	The Fall	N	N
202	Maxinquaye	Tricky	N	N
203	Teen Dream	Beach House
204	Bad	Michael Jackson	N	N
205	Straight Outta Compton	NWA	N	Y
206	Slanted and Enchanted	Pavement	N	N
207	Pearl	Janis Joplin	N	N
208	Risque	Chic	N	N
209	The Kick Inside	Kate Bush	N	N(Y)
210	69 Love Songs	The Magnetic Fields	N	N
211	Nightclubbing	Grace Jones	N	N
212	Youth and Young Manhood	Kings of Leon
213	One Nation under a Groove	Funkadelic	N(Y)	N(Y)
214	Moon Safari	Air	N	N
215	Mezzanine	Massive Attack	N	N
216	Power, Corrruption and Lies	New Order	N	N
217	Lust for Life	Iggy Pop	N	N
218	Primary Colours	The Horrors
219	All Mod Cons	The Jam	N	N
220	Alligator	The National
221	Broken English	Marianne Faithful	N	N
222	Fever Ray	Fever Ray
223	Neon Bible	Arcade Fire
224	Heaven Up Here	Echo and the Bunnymen	N	N
225	Electric Warrior	T. Rex	N	N
226	The Doors	The Doors	N	N
227	Imagine	John Lennon	N	N
228	Brighten the Corners	Pavement	N	N
229	Metal Box	Public Image Ltd	N	N
230	Aladdin Sane	David Bowie	N(Y)	N
231	The Chronic	Dr. Dre	N	N
232	Songs of Leonard Cohen	Leonard Cohen	N	N(Y)
233	Down in Albion	Babyshambles
234	Behaviour	Pet Shop Boys	N	N
235	Murder Ballads	Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds	N	N(Y)
236	Suicide	Suicide	N	Y
237	The xx	The xx
238	Show Your Bones	Yeah Yeah Yeahs
239	Boy in Da Corner	Dizzee Rascal
240	New Boots and Panties!!	Ian Dury	N	N
241	Ray of Light	Madonna
242	Off the Wall	Michael Jackson	N	N
243	The Hissing of Summer Lawns	Joni Mitchell	N	N
244	Smother	Wild Beasts
245	Fuzzy Logic	Super Furry Animals
246	MTV Unplugged in New York	Nirvana	N(Y)	N
247	Glasvegas	Glasvegas
248	The Slim Shady LP	Eminem	N	N
249	The Fat of the Land	Prodigy	N	N
250	Weezer	Weezer	N	N
251	Surf’s Up	The Beach Boys	N(Y)	Y
252	Visions	Grimes
253	Exile on Main Street	Pussy Galore
254	Meat is Murder	The Smiths	N	N(Y)
255	The English Riviera	Metronomy
256	This Year’s Model	Elvis Costello and the Attractions	Y	N
257	The Boatman’s Call	Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds	N	Y
258	Five Leaves Left	Nick Drake	N	N
259	Yo! Bum Rush the Show	Public Enemy	N(Y)	N(Y)
260	The Specials	The Specials	N	N
261	Live!	Bob Marley and the Wailers	N	N
262	Criminal Minded	Boogie Down Productions	N	N
263	I Speak Because I Can	Laura Marling
264	Please Please Me	The Beatles	N	N(Y)
265	Celebrity Skin	Hole	N	N
266	A Rush of Blood to the Head	Coldplay
267	Stupidity	Dr. Feelgood	N	N
268	Todd	Todd Rundgren	N	N
269	Skying	The Horrors	N	N
270	The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society	The Kinks	N	Y
271	Loaded	The Velvet Underground	N(Y)	N(Y)
272	Parachutes	Coldplay
273	The College Dropout	Kanye West
274	Green	R.E.M.	N	Y
275	Quadrophenia	The Who	N(Y)	N(Y)
276	Ocean Rain	Echo and the Bunnymen	N	N
277	Reading, Writing and Arithmetic	The Sundays	N	N
278	Cut	The Slits	N	N
279	Trout Mask Replica	Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band	Y	Y
280	Drukqs	Aphex Twin	N	N
281	My Aim is True	Elvis Costello	N(Y)	N
282	Grand Prix	Teenage Fanclub	N	N
283	Roxy Music	Roxy Music	Y	N
284	13 Songs	Fugazi	N	N
285	Midnight Love	Marvin Gaye	N	N
286	Dust	Screaming Trees	N	N
287	Reign in Blood	Slayer	N	N
288	Music of My Mind	Stevie Wonder	N	N
289	The Modern Lovers	The Modern Lovers	Y	N
290	Expecting to Fly	The Bluetones
291	Younger than Yesterday	The Byrds	N(Y)	N(Y)
292	The New Fellas	The Cribs
293	High Land, Hard Rain	Aztec Camera	N	N
294	Myths of the Near Future	Klaxons
295	Doggystyle	Snoop Doggy Dogg	N	N
296	Let’s Dance	David Bowie	N(Y)	N
297	Ege Bamyasi	Can	Y	N(Y)
298	Malcom McLaren	Malcolm McLaren	N	N
299	16 Lovers Lane	The Go-Betweens	N	N
300	The Who By Numbers	The Who	N(Y)	N(Y)
301	World of Echo	Arthur Russell	N	N
302	Homework	Daft Punk	N	N
303	Mingus Ah Um	Charles Mingus	N(Y)	N(Y)
304	UFOrb	The Orb	N	N
305	Every Picture Tells a Story	Rod Stewart	N	N
306	The Freewheeling Bob Dylan	Bob Dylan	N	N(Y)
307	Midnight Vultures	Beck	N	N
308	It’s a Shame About Ray	Lemonheads	N	N
309	Metallica	Metallica	N	N
310	Countdown to Ecstasy	Steely Dan	N(Y)	N
311	Guerilla	Super Furry Animals		N
312	Treasure	Cocteau Twins	N	N
313	Frank’s Wild Years	Tom Waits	N	N
314	Spiderland	Slint	N	N
315	Cheap Thrills	Big Brother and the Holding Company	N	N
316	Imperial Bedroom	Elvis Costello and the Attractions	N(Y)	N
317	Grievous Angel	Gram Parsons	N	N
318	OG Original Gangster	Ice-T	N	N
319	Who’s Next	The Who	N(Y)	N(Y)
320	Swordfishtrombones	Tom Waits	N	N
321	Lost Souls	Doves
322	This is Happening	LCD Soundsystem
323	Bitches Brew	Miles Davis	N(Y)	N(Y)
324	Life’s Rich Pageant	R.E.M.	N	N(Y)
325	Sea Change	Beck	N	N
326	I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One	Yo La Tengo	N	N
327	Mutations	Beck	N	N
328	Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots	The Flaming Lips	N	N
329	Heroes	David Bowie	N(Y)	N
330	Third	Portishead
331	Kick out the Jams	MC5	N(Y)	N(Y)
332	HMS Fable	Shack
333	Band on the Run	Paul McCartney and Wings	N	N
334	Since I Left You	The Avalanches
335	…Like Clockwork	Queens of the Stone Age	N	N
336	Raw Like Sushi	Neneh Cherry	N	N
337	The Grey Album	Danger Mouse
338	Ready to Die	Notorious BIG	N	N
339	Ten	Pearl Jam	N	N
340	We Are Family	Sister Sledge	N	N
341	Closing Time	Tom Waits	N	N
342	Lazer Guided Melodies	Spritualized	N	N
343	John Wesley Harding	Bob Dylan	N	N(Y)
344	Beautiful Freak	Eels	N	N
345	Punch the Clock	Elvis Costello	N(Y)	N
346	Low Life	New Order	N	N
347	Dirty	Sonic Youth	N(Y)	N(Y)
348	Whitney	Whitney Houston	N	N
349	An Awesome Wave	Alt-J
350	BRMC	Black Rebel Motorcycle Club	N	N
351	Sweetheart of the Rodeo	The Byrds	N(Y)	N(Y)
352	White Light/White Heat	The Velvet Underground	Y	N(Y)
353	Mclusky Do Dallas	Mclusky
354	Hot Buttered Soul	Isaac Hayes	Y	N
355	New York Dolls	New York Dolls	Y	N
356	Bossanova	Pixies	N	N
357	Copper Blue	Sugar	N	N
358	Rock Bottom	Robert Wyatt	N	N
359	We’re Only in It for the Money	The Mothers of Invention	N(Y)	N
360	Room on Fire	The Strokes
361	A Nod is as Good as a Wink	The Faces	N	N
362	Hello Nasty	Beastie Boys	N	N
363	Damaged	Black Flag	Y	N
364	For Emma, Forever Ago	Bon Iver
365	Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegatables	Dead Kennedys	N	N
366	Songs of Love and Hate	Leonard Cohen	N	Y
367	Nights Out	Metronomy
368	Hail to the Thief	Radiohead
369	Strange Mercy	St. Vincent
370	Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever	The Cribs
371	Odelay	Beck	N	N
372	Atomizer	Big Black	N	N
373	There’s No Place Like America Today	Curtis Mayfield	N	N
374	In the Wee Small Hours	Frank Sinatra	N	N
375	Vauxhall and I	Morrissey	N	N
376	Live at the Harlem Square Club	Sam Cooke	N	N
377	Stormcock	Roy Harper	N	N
378	Pink Flag	Wire	Y	N
379	The Boy with the Arab Strap	Belle and Sebastian	N	N(Y)
380	Silent Alarm	Bloc Party	N	N
381	Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)	David Bowie	Y	N
382	Bridge over Troubled Water	Simon and Garfunkel	N	N
383	Someone To Drive You Home	The Long Blondes
384	Elvis Presley	Elvis Presley	Y	Y
385	Get Behind Me Satan	The White Stripes
386	Revival	Gillian Welch	N	N
387	Combat Rock	The Clash	N(Y)	N
388	Happy Sad	Tim Buckley	N(Y)	N(Y)
389	Le Tigre	Le Tigre	N	N
390	A Northern Soul	The Verve	N	N
391	Burial	Burial
392	Beauty and the Beat	Edan
393	Dirty Mind	Prince	N	N
394	Chairs Missing	Wire	N(Y)	N
395	De Stijl	The White Stripes	N	N
396	L.A.M.F.	Heartbreakers	Y	N
397	Reasonable Doubt	Jay-Z	N	N
398	Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere	Neil Young	N(Y)	N(Y)
399	The Lyre of Orpheus/Abattoir Blues	Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds	N	N(Y)
400	This Nation’s Saving Grace	The Fall	N	N
401	20 Jazz Funk Greats	Throbbing Gristle	N	N(Y)
402	Twenty One	Mystery Jets
403	Vespertine	Björk	N	N
404	No Other	Gene Clark	N	N
405	Otis Blue	Otis Redding	N	N
406	Rated R	Queens of the Stone Age	N	N
407	Going Blank Again	Ride	N	N
408	Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain	Pavement	N	N
409	Tago Mago	Can	N(Y)	N(Y)
410	Antics	Interpol	N	N
411	Madvillainy	Madvillain
412	Endtroducing…	DJ Shadow	N	N
413	Pills N Thrills and Bellyaches	Happy Mondays	N	N
414	Dig Your Own Hole	The Chemical Brothers	N	N
415	Chet Baker Sings	Chet Baker
416	Merriweather Post Pavillion	Animal Collective
417	1977	Ash	N	N
418	Electro-Shock Blues	Eels
419	Let It Come Down	Spiritualized	N	N
420	People’s Instinctive Travels…	A Tribe Called Quest	N	N
421	Radio City	Big Star	Y	N(Y)
422	Too-Rye-Ay	Dexys Midnight Runners	N	N
423	Live at Leeds	The Who	N(Y)	N(Y)
424	The Joshua Tree	U2	N	N
425	Nancy and Lee	Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood	N	N
426	Goo	Sonic Youth	N(Y)	N(Y)
427	Here Come the Warm Jets	Brian Eno	N	N(Y)
428	Born in the USA	Bruce Springsteen	N	N(Y)
429	Bleed America	Jimmy Eat World
430	Scott 4	Scott Walker	N	N(Y)
431	Badmotorfinger	Soundgarden	N	N
432	Tindersticks	Tindersticks	N	N
433	2001	Dr. Dre	N	N
434	Steve McQueen	Prefab Sprout	N	N
435	Easter	Patti Smith	N(Y)	N(Y)
436	Mirrored	Battles
437	Dear Science	TV on the Radio
438	Aha Shake Heartbreak	Kings of Leon
439	The Futureheads	The Futureheads	N	N
440	Life’s a Riot with Spy vs. Spy	Billy Bragg	N	N
441	Arrival	ABBA	N	N
442	Al Green is Love	Al Green	N	N
443	Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle	Bill Callahan
444	Violator	Depeche Mode	N	N
445	Tusk	Fleetwood Mac	N	N
446	The Warning	Hot Chip
447	Diamond Dogs	David Bowie	N(Y)	N
448	Sci-Fi Lullabies	Suede	N	N
449	AM	Arctic Monkeys
450	Rid of Me	PJ Harvey	N	N
451	Third/Sister Lovers	Big Star	N(Y)	Y
452	The B-52s	The B-52s	N	N
453	The House of Love	The House of Love	N	N
454	The Writing on the Wall	Destiny’s Child	N	N
455	Vampire Weekend	Vampire Weekend
456	September of My Years	Frank Sinatra	N	N
457	Black Cherry	Goldfrapp
458	Yankee Hotel Foxtrot	Wilco	N	N
459	The Black Album	Jay-Z	N	N
460	Bleach	Nirvana	Y	N
461	Generation Terrorists	Manic Street Preachers	N	N
462	Master of Puppets	Metallica	N	N
463	Pod	The Breeders	N	N
464	Because of the Times	Kings of Leon
465	High Violet	The National
466	The W	Wu-Tang Clan	N	N
467	The Idiot	Iggy Pop	N	N
468	Chutes Too Narrow	The Shins	N	N
469	Holland	The Beach Boys	N(Y)	N(Y)
470	Graduation	Kanye West
471	Oracular Spectacular	MGMT
472	Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness	Smashing Pumpkins	N	N
473	A Storm in Heaven	The Verve	N	N
474	Tarot Sport	Fuck Buttons	N	N
475	Smoke Ring for My Halo	Kurt Vile
476	Foo Fighters	Foo Fighters	N	N
477	Crystal Castles	Crystal Castles
478	Trouble Will Find Me	The National
479	The Real Ramona	Throwing Muses	N	N
480	I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You	Aretha Franklin	N	N
481	Smile	Brian Wilson
482	Lady in Satin	Billie Holiday		N
483	Blood and Chocolate	Elvis Costello and the Attractions	N	N
484	The River	Bruce Springsteen	N	N(Y)
485	Good Kid, M.A.A.D City	Kendrick Lamar
486	Homogenic	Björk	N	N
487	Sound Affects	The Jam	N	N
488	I’m Your Man	Leonard Cohen	N	N(Y)
489	George Best	The Wedding Present	N	N
490	Back in the USA	MC5	Y	Y
491	Actually	Pet Shop Boys	N	N
492	Hidden	These New Puritans
493	Blood	This Mortal Coil	N	N
494	The Head on the Door	The Cure	N	N
495	Hot Fuss	The Killers
496	Album	Girls
497	Random Access Memories	Daft Punk
498	Berlin	Lou Reed	N	N(Y)
499	Star	Belly	N	N
500	Stankonia	OutKast	N	N

What struck me when I compared this list with Joe S. Harrington’s from 2001 on Blastitude and the Rolling Stone list from 2003 is that the number of albums from Harrington’s list in this New Musical Express list is only one less than in Rolling Stone’s list (I haven’t checked agreement).

What this suggests to me is that New Musical Express, regarded in the past as less of a promoter of “popular” rock than Rolling Stone or Spin, is today no different from them. Writers like “janitor-x” have said that such magazines should ignore music that does not resemble 1960s music, like 1980s Metallica, Slayer, the Dead Kennedys and Black Flag, but this is hardly in evidence.

More than this, and probably more than with the Rolling Stone list, there is little consistency of any sort in the New Musical Express list, noted from when the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was at #87 instead of being at #1.

The treatment of the most famous “popular” singers and bands since the “punk revolution” is not consistent either: if Whitney Houston gets one album, should not all the popular “easy listening” singers since then do so??

More than that, those who have studied music for as long as I have – which dates back to my discovery of Harrington’s list by an accident on Google in 2001 – are so aware of the large number of omitted artists that I have decided to compile a list below of twenty omitted artists from the writings of Harrington, David Keenan and Piero Scaruffi. Whilst I am in no way certain that these are the twenty most deserving omitted artists, they would certainly change the list quite dramatically if added.

A Representative Album by Twenty Artists Recommended by Two or More of Scaruffi, Harrington and/or Keenan and not on NME list
Album	Artist	Notes
Free Jazz	Ornette Coleman	Aside from Davis, Coltrane and Mingus, these three were the giants of avant-garde and free jazz during the period it was the underground music
Spiritual Unity	Albert Ayler
Atlantis	Sun Ra
The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter	The Incredible String Band	Either adored or hated by most; NME omission understandable given the magazine’s history as a promoter of punk music.
Live Dead	The Grateful Dead
Easter Everywhere	Thirteenth Floor Elevators
The Parable of Arable Land	The Red Krayola	Regarded by some as more experimental and eccentric than Beefheart; have heard but cannot agree fully.
In the Court of the Crimson King	King Crimson	Regarded frequently as the first and best progressive rock album; though progressive rock is generally disliked at NME.
The Marble Index	Nico
Master of Reality	Black Sabbath	Originally reviled, latterly revered and amazingly ignored by NME.
Faust IV	Faust
Tyranny and Mutation	Blue Öyster Cult	Arguable the first pop metal band, often ignored by critics.
The Dictators Go Girl Crazy	The Dictators
Wild Gift	X	Critically revered post-punk band
Ace of Spades	Motörhead	Cited as the precursor to Metallica by that band, yet ignored by NME and many others.
Minor Threat	Minor Threat
Double Nickels on the Dime	The Minutemen	Among most critically beloved bands of 1980s, but never dented Billboard Top 200
Charmed Life	Half Japanese
Twin Infinitives	Royal Trux	Acclaimed avant-garde band of 1990s
Slow, Deep and Hard	Type O Negative	Frontman Pete Steele died in 2010; band known for its gothic metal style with humorous but dark themes

Insulting as a child, but with hindsight funny

A few days ago, without seeing it in the post, I saw that my mother had found a letter to me from Front Porch Republic:

It amazed me that the writers mistook me for a woman with “Dear Ms. Benney”!

As a boy, I was often called a “girl” and many children at PEGS said loudly “Julien’s sex is a female” and that insulted me enough that I said “My sex is a male”/“My sex is a male” and the teasing boy replied “fe” when I said it. I felt that whoever was teasing me really needed severe punishment so they would never, ever think of doing it again; however none of my schools did a thing to stop kids teasing me, to the point that I felt physical fighting was the only way I could hurt them enough, although I knew myself as much weaker than the bullies.

With age, I feel as though it’s not nearly so insulting to be called a female as it seemed in the manly world of Bush Senior Era youth, brought up on bands like AC/DC or Guns’n’Roses who (implicitly) had an ideal of a world without women. This world, which approximates what the masses in the Enriched World want today, clearly is not sustainable given the large government debts universal in Eurasia, the Americas and New Zealand and the absence of natural resources with which to pay for them. Being depicted as feminine and soft is in that sense inherently countercultural in the Enriched World, and for this reason I have not responded to what Front Porch Republic did as I would have in school.

‘Time’ is right

Today, Time is coming to a conclusion that I have done for a long time, although I do so in a very different manner from conventional wisdom. The magazine cites data from the science journal Nature that does a though experiment in which people were asked to invest money into a “climate account” whereby of they gave half their money to climate change advertisements, they were considered successful and were given more money.

What Time found, not to their own surprise, was that

“the more delayed the payout was, the less likely the experimental groups would put enough money away to meet the goal to stop climate change”

This certainly suggests people, even in those nations with the best environmental record (which corresponds practically perfectly to nations with least need therefor) are not willing to accept the short-term costs necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In countries like Australia and Southern Africa, such is obvious: dealing with climate change has serious costs for ordinary families:

1. higher housing costs are an inevitable result of a rigid target for a carbon-neutral Australia
2. privacy loss from having to make every journey on a crowded or semi-crowded bus instead of the privacy of a 4x4
3. not having the choice to use the cheapest, but most polluting forms of energy or even of building materials for housing
4. having to pay higher taxes to completely reverse eighty-five years of car-based transport policies
5. having to revegetate farmland to return carbon dioxide to the atmosphere would mean higher food prices owing to the exceptional comparative advantage Australia has in agriculture (despite its extreme un-sustainability)

One might think the sacrifices required in energy- and land-poor nations of Eurasia, North and South America, New Zealand and most small islands would be much less. This, however, is misleading.

In the scheme of combatting climate change, the role of these nations (where in a free market energy consumption is restricted by the necessity for high-density and low-energy development) is not to develop renewable energy, but to enforce its development on Australia and Southern Africa. These latter nations have much higher per-capita greenhouse gas emissions, yet exceptionally fragile ecosystems due to their exceedingly ancient soils and low rainfall. It is extremely plausible that transition to a carbon-neutral economy in Eurasia and the Americas will be offset completely by increased Australian and South African emissions, and the environmental cost will be unquestionably greater than the same emissions from the Enriched World.

The job of the Enriched and Tropical Worlds is to stop the Unenriched World from exporting carbon emissions and pollution. Doing this will mean recognising how the Unenriched World, with its mineral wealth and comparative advantage in agriculture, has in the long term an unrivalled ability to pay for these costs – not to mention responsibility. Doing this will take away a large proportion of already-stressed government budgets from the Enriched and Tropical Worlds, which would mean:

1. much less if any public welfare
2. lower wages without wage regulations (which cost money)
3. few or no goods from the Unenriched World (as it has to clean up its act on greenhouse emissions)
4. more expensive finished goods as the Unenriched World’s raw materials are less available
5. harder work for many people without welfare

However, a concerted plan to attack the source of the global climate crisis – the “Deep South” of Australia, Southern Africa and perhaps the Middle Eastern oil states – is the only way out. The absence of natural internal regulations in the Unenriched World means external regulation by demanding that external costs be paid 100 percent is the only way long-term global improvement can be made.

An unexpected shock from the cheap and nasty land

Although I had worried from my trip to Braeside described in an earlier post from a couple of weeks ago, the last three days have been traumatic beyond my belief.

The fact that I had carried my bike up a creek whose cleanliness I always doubted was a worry to me from the time I found the exit to Boundary Road. I was worried that the mechanisms had dirt but cleaned only the panniers (which were so dirty I had to clean them fully twice for improvement) and rode the bike as it was for some time. However, after a while noise in the rear wheel became so bad as to worry me severely, so that a week ago, thinking it was merely loss of lubricant, I decided to lubricate it to see if the noise would go. From the time I sprayed the oil, I knew something was wrong, but I never suspected just how bad. On Sunday, I decided I would take the bike to BSC Bikes to see what was wrong. I thought it would be a minor repair, but at first I found it would have to be new ball bearings on the pedal which would cost ninety dollars, then an oil change in the rear gear system for sixty dollars.

When I came in on Wednesday with clean panniers, I was expecting a finished bike but suffered one of the rudest shocks of my life. I was told that the rear gear system had rusted beyond repair, and on my request I was shown how badly it was damaged. I was amazed to still see the water in the gear train three weeks afterwards! I was told that there was an option of an eight-speed replacement wheel could be installed because the original seven-speed one was out of stock for four hundred and thirty dollars. I hesitated about accepting because the braking mechanism worried me: it involved pushing back to brake rather than the handle brake on my previous bikes. Consequently, I spoke to my mother about and looked for a new bicycle, though I live in fear I will make a similar mistake again and ruin bicycle after bicycle.

Two days spent - at least in the afternoons - in bike stores have clouded the problem even more. Even a little experience with a back-pedalling brake did not allieviate my fears at a time when I am desperate to have a bike at a cheap cost. It is a pity that I cannot either test it thoroughly to be sure it can work on my present bike, and a bike shop further south down Brunswick Street was really stern that there is no way I could make the necessary test at any store, and that a rental so I could have a bike whilst waiting the three months BSC Bikes had said a replacement gear train would take is virtually impossible. Moreover, I have no wish to live three months without a bike although I could save thousands of dollars compared to a new bike, which is almost certain to develop the same problems. The trouble is that Australia has such poor service that one often does not know when the item will come, whereas I imagine in Eurasia and the Americas this “three-month” wait would be so fast the replacement geartrain would have come to me today if it had been ordered on Wednesday!

Although I have found a few possible bikes at the upper end of my price limit, I am still worried about spending the money and realise decent service would eliminate the need. More than that, proper warranty I have always dreamed would ensure immediate replacement even when - as in this case - the damage is one hundred percent my own fault for never servicing the bike. Still, maybe even routine service would be in the long term far cheaper than the “shoestring” maintenance policy I have stuck to over the past two years! On the other hand, I always imagine superlative quality would ensure that this damage could be withstood with perfect ease, as well as that Australia’s apolitical, ultraconservative populace ensures shoddy quality is the order of every day.

Two fallacious plans

Over the past week, I found a plan that set about what is required to “halve” global greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050, comparing a number of scenarios for various regions of the globe. Today, I found another, more critical plan that aimed to achieve the same goal regarding the aversion of global warming.

Of the two, the first is greatly more detailed and easier to commend because it focuses on a wider range of nations than the second, which only discusses China, India, the United States and Russia. However, the reality is that those nations are an extremely limited threat compared to Australia, for reasons I will tabulate below:

Country	Area of non-cryospheric land under 11˚ slope	Population	Density	CO2 emissions per capita	Median virgin soil available P	Median coastal animal plankton density	Species richness (vascular plants)	Species endemism (plants and vertebrates)
China	700,000 km2	1,200,000,000	1,714	7,200 kg	0.015%	1,000 mgm-3	31,000	25%
India	2,200,000 km2	1,050,000,000	477.5	1,610 kg	0.0075%	750 mgm-3	20,000	30%
USA	2,000,000 km2	300,000,000	150.0	14,000 kg	0.0075%	500 mgm-3	18,000	10%
Russia	2,000,000 km2	131,000,000	65.5	9,000 kg	0.01%	750 mgm-3	10,000	under 5%
Australia	7,400,000 km2	22,000,000	2.9	28,000 kg	0.0003%	75 mgm-3	15,000	80%
Note: All values are approximate but should give reason to propose radically different requisite ecological standards for Australia

The table above should demonstrate very clearly the problems with a focus on China, Russia, India and the United States.

Firstly, their supply of land relative to population is small (Russia) to tiny (China), which creates incentives for efficiency in land use. Efficiency in land use via high-density development encourages low emissions, as when road space becomes expensive public transport becomes more viable economically.

Secondly, this limited supply of land allows  a free market to effectively conserve resources, since most land in China, Russia, India and the United States is too steep or too icy for farming or housing. This creates a natural system of conservation reserves without government interference. It is potentially superior to government-based systems, since governments may have a short-term focus on extracting resources from wildlife areas (e.g. timber, animal products) that a private owner would not.

Thirdly, the very high fertility of their soils and oceans means environmental destruction is repairable, because soil replenishment is continuous and vegetation grows relatively rapidly.

In Australia, by comparison, the last soil replenishment was 300 million years ago, so that when Australia’s fragile soil structure is altered by cropping it cannot replace itself. Australia’s vegetation also grows slowly on soils with negligible concentrations of P and chalcophile nutrients. Nonetheless, the uniquely abundant land supply in Australia encourages exactly those land uses causing soil loss. Even with low yields, Australia’s supply of land is such that mechanised farmers can make profits unattainable with more dense populations. As input level increases, the ratio of Unenriched to Enriched World yield increases, multiplying the latter’s economic disadvantage. The next step in a free market – not taken for political reasons – would be for  the Enriched World to wholly abandon agriculture and have farmland converted to housing. This would logically further expand “non-renewable” farmland in Australia and Africa, with unproven but probably severe consequences because of the inherent unsuitability of their soils for exotic crops.

For both economic and political reasons, there is no incentive in Australia for energy-efficiency. Rather, the incentive is to find the lowest-cost living possible. This tends to be exceedingly backward in energy-efficient practices. Examples are frequent use of 4x4s, expansion of coal-fired power, and extremely poor housing insulation leading to very high use of energy-guzzling air conditioners.

Lastly, of course is fertility and population growth. Whereas Russia, China and India are affected by lowest-low fertility, Australia has near-replacement fertility and Liberal policies are likely to increase it, especially if they “take the plunge” with welfare cuts that in the Enriched World would have them overthrown by revolution.

For all these reasons, along with the results of September’s election, focusing only on the four “major” emitters undoubtedly constitutes a “do-nothing” policy. Australia must be a central part of every greenhouse negotiation and singled out for its extremely high per capita emissions before any hope of progress exists.