Flannery is a Fool on Global Warming

Well... this is political, but also connected with the outdoors. mmmm.
Andrew Bolt writes on global warming madness, and environmentalist Tim Flannery making a complete fool of himself.

Flannery lied People died !
Well ... they will loose some of their standard of living and jobs, anyway, if oz persists in this ecological masturbation which will have absolutely zero effect on GW (which has not occured since 1998). Given India + china = more than 2 billion people and oz = 20 million.


How Flannery gets away with such flummery has been a mystery to me, but I blame in part our extraordinary groupthink (see this report). For instance, while 31,000 scientists were happy this week to sign a petition in the United States denying there was convincing evidence that man's gases caused catastrophic global warming, I can't think of more than a dozen in Australia who'd dare do the same.

And I can think of even fewer journalists who'd back them if they did. That's why Flannery is still treated as a hero of the ABC and The Age, despite a string of predictions that should have made him a laughing stock, not 2007 Australian of the Year.
Here's a condensed list.

Three years ago he warned global warming could leave Sydney's dam's dry by 2007. They are two thirds full.

Perth would be so devastated by drought that it would be a "ghost city" in decades. In fact, the city has just recorded its wettest April on record.

The ice caps would melt so fast that the seas would lap the roofs of "an eight-storey building". In fact, the United Nations' influential IPCC, itself accused of alarmism, says at worst the seas will rise this century by 59cm.

Hurricanes would become more frequent. In fact, the long-term trend of hurricanes and cyclones is highly disputed, as is any link to warming.

The hype pushing the global warming scare is the most sustained assault on reason in my lifetime. While Flannery remains a prophet, the rational should tremble, even before he starts firing sulphur into our sky,


See also Jules' extensive cut and paste, with graphs, facts, quotes from environmentalists and scientists who are skeptical or believe man-made GW is a sham:

Global warming or Global Wanking

What Islamic Terrorists Want

See my political blog to find out, as quoted by a Swedish Muslim in Sweden, what islam terrorists really want. click here.

Nature in Education and general Education ideas

I was at a camp near Woodford (where they hold an annual festival of music, arts etc), in the sunshine coast hinterland a few weeks ago.
Nicely setup, with minimal facilities on a large property with ridgelines and bush. Instructors stayed in our own tents and pupils stayed in tents provided by the company. The toilet block was very ecological - low water use by using canvas buckets hung above you in the showers, providing 3 minutes of continuous flow (or more if interrupted) of water. They were filled up from plastic buckets, filled with hot water from a boiler connected to a wood stove, lit up in the evening only.

The food we were served was catered, and excellent. Under a large awning, where students sat on logs. At night there was a large campfire, which was excellent (rare these days of puritanical NAt. Parks regulations, and centers with dorm. accommodation).
Also the stars were easily visible. One of the instructors - jarad, gave talks on the stars, and I learnt some new facts - eg that Alpha Centauri is one of the stars in the "pointers" for the Southern Cross. And that it is the closest star - 4 light yrs away.
I looked it up on wikipedia, and it is also reckoned via computer modelling to have a strong chance of "livable" planets in it's vicinity. Maybe humans will travel to it, maybe in the next century, via some new warp speed travel method ?

The activities were as standard - high ropes, low ropes, Team inititiatives, but all set in bushland, which was nice, plus there was raft-building on a small dam, and a bushwalk.

I picked up a very interesting book the owner had:

The author identified a phenomenon we all knew existed but couldn't quite articulate: nature-deficit disorder. Since its initial publication, his book Last Child in the Woods has created a national conversation about the disconnection between children and nature.

In this influential work about the staggering divide between children and the outdoors, child advocacy expert Richard Louv directly links the lack of nature in the lives of today's wired generation—he calls it nature-deficit—to some of the most disturbing childhood trends, such as the rises in obesity, attention disorders, and depression.

This brings to mind John Marsden’s new school in Victoria: candlebark, which has a huge area for kids to play in, where young children use power tools, take care of animals and plant vegetables:

In October 2006 an article in the Times Educational Supplement said "Many in Britain believe that childhood is in danger of being poisoned by a cocktail of junk food, electronic entertainment and high-pressure education..."

http://www.candlebark.info/

http://www.theage.com.au/news/education-news/the-school-that-john-built/2006/02/03/1138958909988.html

It reminded me of reading “Swallows and Amazons” – about kids playing with small sailing boats around the lake district (where I worked for a year). I was lucky enough to grow up on a houseboat, and see sunrises, ducks, swans, floods, change of seasons… and go on outdoor holidays every year in the caravan with my parents.

When I think of the culture of drugs, sex and violence that too many kids 11 yrs old onwards face these days, particularly in the UK and too much of Australia, I am quite saddened.
Looking at “swallows and amazons”, such hardened-before-their-time kids would be tempted to scoff, initially. But they might think of what it was too have been able to have carefree friendships, to play around in the wild unsupervised… and long for it.

The author goes into this subject, reporting that “stranger-danger” is massively overestimated, and leads to kids being kept away from nature a lot of the time. Certainly, danger to kids has gone up in the last few decades, but statistically not as much as one might think. [ I certainly believe that tougher laws (death penalty for murder ?) – would curtail this in a very short time. the UK is a prime example of the lost insouciance of a whole generation, so violent and nasty the urban env. Has become for adults and kids alike (see the article in my political blog on how a guy from Kent, UK moved to New Jersey , USA , citing it as more family-friendly). ]

Finland's Educational system - one of the world's best:

He also cites the Finnish education system, as producing the highest literacy and numeracy rates in the world …. With one of the lowest money expenditures per student in the western world. Despite this kind of evidence, govmts (such as the Rudd one in aus) keep on upping funding to schools, expecting that this will improve quality. US teachers now have one of the highest salaries in the US professional world, and quality has not improved….
Finland:

• Educational spending is a very modest US$5,000 per student per year.
• Class sizes often approach 30 (high).
• So long as schools stick to the core national curriculum, which lays out goals and subject areas, they are free to teach the way they want. They can choose their textbooks or ditch them altogether, teach indoors or outdoors, cluster children in small or large groups

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/04/education_in_fi.html

Finland topped a respected international survey last year, coming in first in literacy and placing in the top five in math and science. Ever since, educators from all over the world have thronged to this self-restrained country to deconstruct its school system -- ''educational pilgrims,'' the locals call them -- and, with luck, take home a sliver of wisdom.
''We are a little bit embarrassed about our success,'' said Simo Juva, a special government adviser to the Ministry of Education, summing up the typical reaction in Finland, where boasting over accomplishments does not come easily. Perhaps next year, he said, wishfully, Finland will place second or third.

NY Times article:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D03E3DE1238F93AA35757C0A9629C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

One thing that would improve quality would be pay rates based on performance… or better still, privatising education completely and issuing school vouchers which could be used by parents. The voucher system has actually been tried in some US states, with good results. Changing teachers from bureaucrats to motivated educators is quite a task though, with beaucoup resistance from those sitting comfortably on mediocre performances, backed by the massive Teacher Unions that exist in most parts of the world.
Thank God Woolworths, Dell computers and my Mobile phone company aren’t run by union workers…. It’s a recipe for sloth, overstaffing and “it’s not my problem, and I don’t care anyway how long you’ve been waiting”.
I think some teachers should be doing another job, but that quite a few (particularly the young ones not yet shackled to the system) would be surprised at the joy of teaching in a free and competitive environment, where they can try out new methods unshackled by education authorities, and be recognised financially if their methods succeed.

Anyway, back to Nature – schools in Finland also have a very strong outdoor education component… Which the author believes is one reason for their successes.

There’s certainly a lot of room for improvement in secondary ed. I reckon that at least 60 % of the time I spent at at school between 11 and 17 was a waste of time – it taught me nothing of value, or that I used in a practical way subsequently….

Schools shouldn't exist to give teachers jobs... they should exist to impart things that will help students succeed, manage life, be aware of their innate skills, and be able to work use them at work : literacy, numeracy, scientific knowledge, critical thinking, opening up new vistas and awaken the imagination (eg by reading the classics of literature), self-confidence via practical outdoor activities, and a knowledge of modern history (WWII, Communism etc) , of modern civilization and its fragility. Very few of these objectives are reached in schools today...

And an incredible amount of left-wing brainwashing /political content enters the curriculum un some schools these days. Not to mention post-modern nihilism which says that there is no such thing as Quality and thus states that Madonna and Bach are equivalent (I like Madonna's music, but I'm not quite so thick or University brainwashed as to deny the timelesss beauty, beautiful complexity and transcendent in-spired beauty in Bach's music). mmm... inspire comes from In-spirited: having the spirit in one.., ie being in contact with the transcendent order. Let's do a test and play Madonna and Bach to an Amazon tribesman or an Afghan kid who has never or hardly heard western music and see which one makes him wistful and entranced....

My comment to teachers: if you want to change the world: vote or join a political party (or if you have the guts, got to Irak and fight on the side of freedom, choice and democracy; or totalitarianism and nihilism, depending on which side you support), and leave your kids alone. They will have plenty of time to make up their own minds re politics when they have left high school and have experience in the real world.

Some ideas: Teaching geography by actually having kids orienteering in the bush, rather than memorising map symbols in a classroom. Would give real knowledge of what a map is, plus real practical knowledge, plus self-confidence and endurance.

Teaching English lit by having kids watch live plays by Shakespeare, or the more modern comical playrights. Then discussing, reading passages, having essays written etc.

Teaching basic anatomy, medecine and nutrition…. I didn’t even know where my small intestine was until last year…

Jules' New Political Blog

I have created a new blog, "Jules' Juicy Viewpoints", as I find I am doing rather a lot of opinion pieces in this blog, originally set up to report on my outdoor experiences...
It doesn't help that my cheap digital camera has stopped working . Also a lot of the camps I do are fairly unremarkable, compared to the Malaysian ones.

So I will be reporting on outdoor experiences, tourism, sport, maybe philosophy etc on this blog - trying to keep it apolitical , but there will be occasional crosslinks to the other blog - small snippets of opinion pieces, followed by a "click here" which will jump to the other blog.

You will be able to jump from one blog to the other via the links at the top right of the page.
"Jules' Outdoor blog" and "Jules' Political Blog" .

It feels more honest this way, as I don't want to force feed readers who just want to read up on my latest adventures to read political stuff the may have no interest in, or with which they disagree. I would be too much like the teachers who force feed their captive audience of kids in left-wing propaganda.... (greenism, social justice studies and other crap that displaces real learning, stunts critical thinking skills and results in massive illiteracy and innumeracy rates and almost zero knowledge of modern history) woops getting political again...

So if you're interested in fresh opinion and can take my Chef Ramsay-like no-holds-barred "this is bullshit" approach, read my opinion blog as well. otherwise don't.
Note also that I won't get into email jousting re politics - too time consuming. If you have something worth saying, post it in the comments section , as my brother Marcus has already one several occasions. I may or may not reply in the comments section. But I will leave up any comments, even :"that's a load of bollocks", so long as it doesn't get too obnoxious.
Try to be constructive and give hyperlinks to articles, or facts and figures, rather than merely smear, which is a habit of the left. I do believe in democracy and free speech (unlike many left-wingers, I notice - so I wont delete comments that contradict me, unlike lefty blogs like dailyKos which regularly censor comments out).

So enjoy.

Decreasing crime: the US model

Crime victim rates - International Crime Victims survey 2000

click on image to get large version.

Australia and the UK could do well to learn from the US in tackling crime. It's appalling in the UK, and not good in Aus either (allthough it seems to be more avoidable here, having lived in both countries). The idea that rising crime rates are unavoidable is bollocks (see New York as a case study).

click here to go to my other (political only) blog. And read about how places like NY are now much safer than European cities such as London (higher murder and assault rate).

a quote from a web article:

A British man I met in Colorado recently told me he used to live in Kent but he moved to the American state of New Jersey and will not go home because it is, as he put it, "a gentler environment for bringing the kids up."

Pacifism enables thugs

thuglist: Hitler, Stalin, Saddam, The current Chinese communist party, Hezbollah....
The Mafia, your neighbourhood thug.

A good article about the illusory nature of pacifism:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/04/imagine_a_free_tibet.html

extract:

To all those out there with the "Free Tibet!" stickers, here are a few facts that will help the world make sense:

• There will always be bad people.
• Bad people don't care about hurting good people. Appeals to shame, empathy and guilt don't work on them. That's why they're bad people.
• Bad people respond to force. They don't like it and will change their behavior to avoid it.
• Good people need to use force to stop the bad people from hurting other good people.
  It's not the same when a good person uses force to stop a bad person as when the bad person uses it to harm a good person.
• Not letting good people use force against bad people encourages more bad behavior.
• Good people using force against bad people should be encouraged. This will make the world a better place.

To all the pacifists out there who think guns are the problem, all the moral lightweights harping about the "cycle of violence", please remember:
Guns liberated Auschwitz and violence ended slavery. The world you "imagine" is not here on Earth but in the next life, and you're really gumming things up for the rest of us by confusing the two.

Free Tibet - Hell yes! But to whom do we send the weapons?

Misery in Rural China: The Emperor has no clothes

I just came across a very detailed account of the miseries of millions of chinese people, and the not-so-hot economy, by a real journalist: the Frenchman Guy Sorman.

I remember saying a month or so ago, that I had the feeling that the arrogant Chinese authorities would have their come-upance in the Olympics.
They have already had some due to the Tibet protests, and I have a feeling all will not be well during the Olympics, what with incredible smog levels and such.
China has the most polluted cities in the world… an atrocious human rights record, and massive poverty in the countryside. There are regularly riots against corrupt or abusive local officials in the countryside; the locking out of 100 000s of AIDS sufferers due to blood transfusions; the 3000 killed in Tianamen square in the 90s; the concentration camps in the north with Falun Gong members and others tortured horribly; the cracking down on Tibet protests in the 90s (led by the current Chinese leader), which involved torturing of nuns using electric shock and beatings…
Not to mention the forced mass forced abortions and murder of new-borns due to the one-child policy.
Systematic censorship of internet forums, allowing no criticism of the govmt ;attempted blocking of websites such as BBC and CNN; students put in prison for 10 yrs for the crime of posting an opinion on an internet forum; a huge array of radio jamming towers to stop foreign radios being listened to…

What a shit place…what a shit government.

Quite illuminating. It’s hard for us spoilt westerners to imagine a country where you need a permit to work in another state, and where you can’t send your kids to schools outside your district….

From the stories I read, corruption on a local scale is endemic, as are arbitrary beatings (sometimes to death) by local police, for offences such as not paying taxes. Reporters without borders and amnesty intl. Websites have hundreds of detailed and depressing accounts of such events.

Full article:

The Empire of Lies
by Guy Sorman
The twenty-first century will not belong to China:

http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_2_china.html


Extracts:

But China’s success is, at least in part, a mirage. True, 200 million of her subjects, fortunate to be working for an expanding global market, increasingly enjoy a middle-class standard of living. The remaining 1 billion, however, remain among the poorest and most exploited people in the world, lacking even minimal rights and public services. Popular discontent simmers, especially in the countryside, where it often flares into violent confrontation with Communist Party authorities. China’s economic “miracle” is rotting from within.

Riots against local authorities and such:

The government puts the number of what it calls these “illegal” or “mass” incidents—and they’re occurring in the industrial suburbs, too—at 60,000 a year, doubtless underreporting them. Some experts think that the true figure is upward of 150,000 a year, and increasing.
The uprisings are really mutinies, sporadic and unpremeditated. They express peasant families’ despair over the bleak future that awaits them and their children. Emigration from the countryside might be a way out, but it’s not easy to find a permanent job in the city. All kinds of permits are necessary, and the only way to get them is to bribe bureaucrats. The lot of the peasant migrant—and China now has 200 million of them—is to move from work site to work site, earning a pittance when payment is forthcoming at all. The migrants usually don’t receive permission to bring their families with them, and even if they could, obtaining accommodation and schooling for their children would be virtually impossible.
The Party’s primary concern is not improving the lives of the downtrodden; it seeks power more than it seeks social development. It expends extraordinary energy in suppressing Chinese freedoms—

(…)
The boy had gone, out of curiosity, to Tiananmen Square to watch pro-democracy student demonstrators seek a dialogue with the authorities. The world knows how Deng Xiaoping reacted: he ordered a massacre that cost 3,000 their lives, many of them barely adults. Ding Zilin was one of the few parents to recover the body of a child lost at Tiananmen. Most disappeared without a trace, their families never learning for sure whether they were dead or alive.

In 2004, the internationally esteemed economist sent a polite petition, signed by 100 fellow intellectuals, to the Chinese government, asking it to apologize for Tiananmen and thereby help bury the tragic past. He, too, lost his university position and wound up under house arrest.


Massive Aids infection due to contaminated blood:

having the blood, sans plasma but pooled with that of other donors, reinfused, absent HIV tests—a recipe for massive contamination. The AIDS sufferers of Henan are now dying in the hundreds of thousands, trapped in their impoverished villages with no one to care for them.
The government’s initial reaction was to deny any problem, isolate AIDS-affected areas, and let the sick die (a pattern that initially repeated itself when SARS broke out in the country).


Nazi-like forced abortions:

Villagers often told me that it wasn’t the local Party secretary whom they most hated but rather the family-planning agents. To ensure the proper implementation of China’s single-child policy (in some provinces, the limit is two children, if the first is a girl), the agents keep close watch on childbearing women, often subjecting them to horrific violence. In 2005, a family-planning squad targeted the city of Linyi and its surrounding rural area, in the Shandong Province, because the population had far exceeded the Party’s child quota. The agents kidnapped 17,000 women, forcing abortions on those who were pregnant—in some cases, immersing seven- to eight-month-old fetuses in boiling water—and sterilizing those who weren’t. The agents tortured the Linyi men until they revealed the hiding places of their daughters and wives.

Unemployement and mass inefficiency, nepotism

Many goods that China produces are worthless, Mao Yushi reminds me—especially those made by public companies. About 100,000 such Chinese enterprises continue to run in the old Maoist style, churning out substandard products because they’ve got to hit the targets that the Party sets and provide employment to those the Party cannot dismiss, not because they’re responding to any market demand. Most public-sector firms don’t even have real accounting procedures, so there’s no way of ascertaining profitability. “China is not a market economy,” Mao says bluntly.

The Party gives the banks lists of people to whom loans should go, and the rationale is frequently political or personal, not economic. Indeed, in many cases, banks are not to ask for repayment. That investment decisions obey political considerations and not the law of the market is the Chinese economy’s central flaw, responsible at least in part, Mao Yushi believes, for the large number of empty office buildings and infrequently used new airports and an unemployment rate likely closer to 20 percent than to the officially acknowledged 3.5 percent.

“Do you dare deny China’s success story, her social stability, economic growth, cultural renaissance, and international restraint?” Yan Yfan (a pseudonym) asks me, back in Paris. A scholar on the payroll of a Beijing foundation, an extension of the Party, he has the assignment to handle my case. I respond that political and religious oppression, censorship, entrenched rural poverty, family-planning excesses, and rampant corruption are just as real as economic growth in today’s China. “What you are saying is true, but affects only a minority yet to benefit from reforms,” he asserts.

Yet nothing guarantees that this so-called minority—1 billion people!—will integrate with modern China. It is just as possible that the “minority” will remain poor, since it has no say in determining its fate, even as Party members get richer. Yan Yfan underscores my fundamental error: “You don’t have any confidence in the Party’s ability to resolve the pertinent issues you have raised.” He’s right; I don’t.