What do we as Australians really want?

In the Australian yesterday, there is a wonderfully sensible article about the long-term problems Australia will face if its governments succumb to the pressure of outer-suburban communties to reduce what is already a very low level of fuel excise.

Henry Thornton's is absolutely correct that poor public transport is what makes less cheap petrol such a hot issue for people in the outer suburbs of Australian cities, and that rational economics, even when (as for him) building roads is considered acceptable, would not have petrol so cheap as it is in Australia today because roads, as he sees it, could be better and more effective with less cheap petrol. Populist forces, however, argue for an end to fuel excise and public subsidies to rail and bus services.

Such removal of subsidies would mean no public transport services would exists outside school peaks because a purely free market could never make passenger rail profitable at present levels of road capacity, and with freer housing development the possibility will fall further as more land far from present infrastructure is developed.The problem is that a city with no public transport whatsoever will inevitably create extreme demand for road space that will only grow if supply is increased to deal with congestion. Moreover, there is the problem of huge debts from road maintenance costs, which fall greatly when usage falls.
Australians must ask themselves whether they want a society like 1960s America, where a Commodore or Falcon was a small car ("compact") and mileage averaged around 20 litres per 100 kilometres. I still have vivid recollections of my father's descrption of American cars of the 1960s with their soft suspension and extremely light steering that is perfect for the overtly sensitive and emotional culture of outer-suburban Australia but in terms of design has held up very badly even amongst cars of that era. If we had ecologically fair petrol prices, Australia would undoubtedly be a place much better adapted to an environment that for all its monopoly on major inorganic resources, is uniquely poor in the organic ones that sustain human life.

A few thoughts on this semester's work

Being unable to do work because of lack of feedback from my group members is rather frustrating for me, especially as I have never been able to work outside study sessions.

Despite all that, I have done very well with my crucial librarianship course this semester, and my work every Wednesday with Alexander at the Australian Institute of Film has been very good. Alexander says my most essential need is to learn a wider range of skills than I have since March, but I do not see this as a serious problem. Most of my time has been spent downloading film images, but Alexander wants me to learn how to sort the huge number of file clippings in his cramped library into folders based on either actor or film or subject. The fileing cabinets for each type are listed in a very unusual manner because there is no single room in the library with enough space for a collection much smaller than your average suburban public library - thus I must move through public-accessible areas to go from one job to another. Anther skill I have been asked to learn involved the use of DB Text - which I have studied but never mastered in earlier courses.

Is this a trace of sense at last?

After the consistent cuts in petrol excise and the refusal to end all investment in roads, whilst I was cycling to work today I read an article by Tim Colebatch about the Federal Budget.

Colebatch told me - and the experience I have garnered over recent years about the true nature of the Australian electorate that is the opposite of what Sandra Bloodworth or Tess Lee Ack wish it was and told me it was in Socialist Alternative and Socialist Worker for many years - that I should not expect real improvements to environmental standards. That made me very sceptical and pessimistic, and the inability to find evidence of any cancellations of road projects or a hint of ending the ridiculous concessional tax on aviation fuel is proof I should remain that way.

However, after having seen the real prices of thirsty luxury cars fall by over fifty percent since 1988, the government is deciding to raise the tax on luxury cars from 25 to 33 percent. Given that expensive luxury cars are generally not needed by most people - even large families - this is the first common sense we have seen since the days of Hewson’s plan via abolition of excise and the now-implemented Green Services Tax to give a country that should have the world's least cheap petrol the cheapest anywhere.

I sincerely hope people will see the luxury car tax hike as a rational decision and be willing to demand much more even if it will hurt them financially. the threats to Australia's climate unless atmospheric carbon dioxide can by cut to pre-industrial levels are too dire to think of.

Is this the way of the future?

In a recent Age article, American Christians are described as praying at the pump for cheaper petrol. I know what they really wish is for governments to remove what they see as illegitimate excise taxes on petrol. I equally well know that this viewpoint that petrol should be tax-free is held by the majority of the coming generation of Australians - almost all raised in very traditional religious families.

So, what I suggest is that people are aware that prayers for completely tax-free fuel (which would now cost around $0.90 a litre) will come very soon to outer suburban Australia. Even more if predictions that the Budget being released now will make petrol a little less cheap through the removal of tax exemptions on condensates.

"Mosque of Global Warming"??

One thing that strikes me about the more extreme sceptics of global warming is how they seem to take so much of their utterly imaginary and ridiculous "liturgies" of their so-called "Church of Global Warming" from Islam.

For instance, saying "Praise be to Algore" is exactly like "Praise Be to Allah" of the Exordium or opening chapter of the Qur'an, and they even borrow from Christian Churches whom most sceptics are devout members of.

The use of "Algore" or "AlGore" might be interpreted as meaning "the gore" and fits with the way climate sceptics use the phrase "Goreacle" as if Al Gore is viewed by people who believe global warming is manmade (which evidence of past Victorian lake levels compared to present complete drying shows conclusively) as a god rather than as a hero for his research into a critically important topic.

Another aspect of the way greenhouse sceptics view global warming advocates in a way exactly akin to Muslims can be seen with the symbol for the so-called "Church of Global Warming" The crescent and star suggests in a silly way how global warming believers are supposed to want to run people's lives in the way Muslim clerics do. Even if in Australia alone restrictions of a punitive nature might be necessary to deal with real or potential ecological devastation, even scientists called "alarmist loons" by sceptics actually do not believe in abolishing freedom or democracy like Islamic activists do.

All in all, knowing these people I wonder why sceptics don't speak of a "Mosque of Global Warming". Calling it a "Mosque" would fit much better with the way these people:

- speak of Islam as a cult (à la Srđa Trifković) and do the same with global warming
- see believers in global warming as ignoring a huge amount of evidence (which is actually phoney evidence without exception) because of devotion to people like Al Gore and consequent indoctrination like in mosque schools with the Qur'an
- see both Islam and global warming as threats to core values of Western, Christian civilisation
- see both as religions competing with Christianity for human souls

The absurd "rituals" spoken of by greenhouse sceptics really should be further ammunition to support the reality of man-made global warming, and it's a pity nobody has though to use them as such.