The Saddest Longing, On The Saddest Day

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It isn't to laud each and every nuance of the old Fairfax to suggest one of the first things you learned on joining the SMH of that era was that it simply wasn't a newspaper in the accepted sense. You didn't, in real terms, file a story for the then SMH. What you did, in effect, was contribute - every now and then - a feeble little brick to assist in the construction of a daily monument, an edifice, a symbol, a spire, a megalith. It was a construction regarded internally (and taken externally, for granted) as part of Sydney's fabric. like The Town Hall, Parliament House, the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House or the Mitchell Library.

The place had a kind of protocol that covered everything. There were established procedures. They were so established they'd become exaggeratedly important. If you wanted a Fairfax car and a staff driver to convey you to an assignment, for example, there were certain forms that first had to be filled in. It was the same to get a photographer. There were channels through which it was mandatory to pass. The SMH back then would much have preferred you to miss the story than leave the building (then in inner-Sydney Ultimo) without having completed the appropriate paperwork. You could sometimes walk the corridors and not hear a sound. You wouldn't have been all that astonished had Richard Plantaganet clunked into the gents, unbuckling his armour. Everyone had his or her appointed place. It was frequently as though the building was actually one huge public library that had been frozen in time. It's possible only William Shakespeare can do it proper justice. As Shakespeare once lovingly wrote about somewhere else, the pre-sharemarket Fairfax was "as a moat defensive to a house against the envy of less happier lands". An announcement that 5 per cent of the workforce would have to go would have triggered speechlessness, heart attacks, apoplexy, utter incredulity. It would have been fantastic and apocalyptic. It would have been the end of the work, a world in which the resignation of a copy-taker or news desk secretary was sufficient to generate weeks of gossip and comment.

Errol Simper







Oh how could the shadows stalk so fast, how could his resolute head be so severely battered, how could these betrayals run so deep? They were caught on the side of the road, shivering, the kangaroos in their last twitches. Often he would make the flight out to western NSW, the kept boy, out servicing the graziers. But nothing was that simple. He simply got too pissed all the time, and the ancient land prickled behind his eyes and the flash cars ran into posts and the police pulled him over and he could barely come up with any explanation as to why he was driving such expensive cars at such a young age. The apartments overlooked Sydney. He made good. They always wanted to rescue him. He was very rescuable.

Sadness could have creaked through his bones, but it didn't, swamped by the alcohol, and increasingly, the drugs. He lay shivering on the couches of barely acknowledged friends, withdrawing, the shocking volumes of amphetamines had already burnt his wiring. His head smashed against a wall. He woke up in the gutter, the bottle next to him. He should be at home with his mother, the voice said. He always looked young for his age. He romanticised the whole thing, when he could lift his head, it was something to be, something to say you had been, a rent boy, when out of the dreary savagery of his birth place, out of the brutality of the suburbs, he had finally escaped.

The demonic rustling of the trees continued to chase him through the inner-city streets. He was never at peace. The vacuum cleaner. He would swallow anything. He didn't care what the affect was, as long as it took him further from himself. All was lost, lost, when he had walked along the beach and waited to die, and his name ricocheted out of the waves in acid shock, and everything came together and fell apart and he felt like a million people all at once, deserted by his guardian angel. Nothing was safe. All was at peril. Everything was high risk. He prayed and searched and drank still more heavily, and that little gang of miscreants provided him with the first real friends he had ever had, certainly for a long time.

He had fled school, cringing with embarrassment, even though he had been one of their top students. He went into the office and told them he was leaving, and they didn't even bother to ask why. A public school. He left that shattered monument, and didn't wake up for years to come. That no one cared was drilled deeply into his psyche. That those closest to you would only turn and beat you, hurt you, inflict pain with belts and sarcasm and whiplash put downs, that he knew as much as he knew anything. No one could survive this infernal torment. No one could last.

The first suicide attempt rose out of the constant pain, the vicious beatings, the insane brutalities that were layered down upon him, and the conviction that there was no escape, that he was born defective and would always fail, that suffering and pain, the welts across his legs and along his back, were all that life would offer. This contemptuous, casual cruelty would never end. The weeping skies, the sad sighs of the ocean, the brick concrete colours of that beach side suburb tormenting his own dysfunction, he truly thought there was no way out.

And then came that first drink, a cherry brandy and lemonade secreted out of a club, and the world united and he felt united for the very first time, not just a scattering of multiple voices and multiple despairs, but a single, whole, ordinary, normal person. How delightful it was. Where have you been all my life, he thought, and immediately tried to scam another drink. And finally, went stumbling on the vast stretch of sand that led down to the eternal sea, sick with the alcohol and thoroughly delighted. He had felt normal for the first time in his life.

He returned to school with a copy of Lady Chatterly's Lover, and briefly was notorious, or infamous, as his copy was passed around and the sex scenes read by all the other students, at a time when the book had only just come off the banned list and no one else had had the nerve to acquire a copy. He was seeking, seeking oblivion, and even this moment when he was no longer pilloried, no longer the strange boy being bullied in the school yard, even that passed briefly when he decided to leave within days of his sixteenth birthday, when they could no longer stop him, no longer send private detectives after him, no longer beat him into submission.

Life had a way of balancing out the karma. His youngest half brother, also the subject of beatings, but nothing like what he had undergone, suicided, and the pain and social embarrassment this brought more than balanced the ledger, if there was such a thing. See, it was the same story, he even looked like you, his step mother said at the grave side, flashing the photograph of her son she was clutching to her breast in the saddest longing, on the saddest day.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/comments/0,22023,24298533-661,00.html

ELECTRICITY prices will jump by 40 per cent by 2020 under economist Ross Garnaut's greenhouse target, it was revealed today.

Professor Garnaut has recommended the nation cut emissions by 10 per cent in 12 years' time in a report released today.

While a 40 per cent increase would be a "big hit" for households, revenue from emissions trading could compensate for that.

Petrol would rise by five cents a litre in 2010 if it was included in the trading scheme as he recommends.

However, even with these measures Professor Garnaut says Australia is a special case and should reduce its emissions by less than every other developed country.

The reason is a high level of immigration, which he says means Australia cannot realistically cut emissions as much as other wealthy nations.

And Professor Garnaut thinks Australia should soften its target to a 5 per cent cut, based on 2000 levels, if an international climate pact is not forged.

The 10 per cent target will be a disappointment to the environmental lobby, which has called for a cut of up to 40 per cent.

But it will allay the concerns of business that emissions trading, which is due to start in 2010, will cost profits and jobs.

The 2020 target will be a crucial factor in determining how much households and businesses will pay under emissions trading.

The Federal Government has yet to set a 2020 target.

If the Rudd government and all its cohorts continue with their plan to inflict this madness on the Australian people , they , along with " the would be president Gore " and totally mad scientists who are helping to perpetuate this folly around the world , all deserve to be hung for treason.......society as will know it will never be the same again.... Sadly these losers have NO intention of acknowledging that God created the world and it's doing what it has done since time immemorial...........EVOLVING and CHANGING......

Posted by: maggie of south coast 10:22am September 06, 2008

Sorry your dreaming there is no chance anything can be avoided ,its impossible to control the weather and impossible to predict it ,they are the facts guys so forget the properganda,its been that way since the earth formed,its way out of your sphere of understanding reality.And the reality is ifyou cannot even predict te cold weather we are having now how can you predict future weather in your models ?you cannot.

Posted by: truthman 8:52am September 06, 2008

It's all a smokescreen.....Think Climate...Think Tax...it's all about nothing else but tax, tax, tax.....come on, that's all Labor ever thinks about!

Wonder if James of Sydney can be the first to provide real "evidence" of climate change. I guess not because he resorts to the same tactics as all the global warming cult members - insults. No-one has ever shown that CO2 is a pollutant - it's all a load of nonsense to raise cash for governments and green industry.

Posted by: Max of Melbourne 4:23am September 06, 2008

This has got to be the biggest tax rort in a hundred years plus. Now being foisted on people through the use of hysteria and dodgy propaganda. I only wish I had got onto this little earner - fortunately 'cult worship' is not my thing. I tip my hat to you Al Gore, your franchising skills are remarkable..

Posted by: BJ of Melbourne 9:01pm September 05, 2008

did no one see the smog in beijing during the olympics - without the support of China and other major world polluters the difference Australia makes wont even be measurable on a global scale. But hey lets bump up the prices and lose our jobs so we (or maybe just bob brown and his green friends which includes symbolic kev and co) feel better, don't think so kev

Posted by: Tahli 8:26pm September 05, 2008

http://www.benzworld.org/forums/off-topic/1396321-uk-environment-minister-calls-global-warming.html

The Environment Minister Sammy Wilson has angered green campaigners by describing their view on climate change as a "hysterical psuedo-religion".

In an article in the News Letter, Mr Wilson said he believed it occurred naturally and was not man-made.

"Resources should be used to adapt to the consequences of climate change, rather than King Canute-style vainly trying to stop it," said the minister.

Peter Doran of the Green Party said it was a "deeply irresponsible message."

Mr Wilson said he refused to "blindly accept" the need to make significant changes to the economy to stop climate change.

"The tactic used by the "green gang" is to label anyone who dares disagree with their view of climate change as some kind of nutcase who denies scientific fact," he said.

The minister said he accepted climate change can occur, but does not believe the cause has been identified.

"Reasoned debate must replace the scaremongering of the green climate alarmists."

John Woods of Friends of the Earth said Mr Wilson was "like a cigarette salesman denying that smoking causes cancer".

"Ironically, if we listen to him Northern Ireland will suffer economically as we are left behind by smarter regions who are embracing the low carbon economy of the future."

http://co2sceptics.com/news.php?id=1396

Stephen Wilde has been a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society since 1968. The first five articles from Mr Wilde were received with a great deal of interest throughout the Co2 Sceptic community.

In Stephen Wilde’s sixth and exclusive article for CO2Sceptics.Com he considers that the IPCC have failed to carry out any risk analysis for the potential for global cooling instead of global warming and that a repeat of the Little Ice Age a mere 400 years ago would cause mass starvation worldwide.

The Death Blow to AGW by Stephen Wilde

The influence of the sun has been discounted in the climate models as a contributor to the warming observed between 1975 and 1998. Those who support the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), now known as anthropogenic climate change so that recent cooling can be included in their scenario, always deny that the sun has anything to do with recent global temperature movements.

The reason given is that Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) varied so little over that period that it cannot explain the warming that was observed. I don’t yet accept that TSI tells the whole story because it is ill defined and speculative as regards it’s representation of all the different ways the sun could affect the Earth via the entire available range of physical processes.

Despite the limitations of TSI as an indicator of solar influence I think there are conclusions we can draw from the records we do have. Oddly, I have not seen them discussed properly anywhere else, especially not by AGW enthusiasts.

The information that we need and which is critical to the whole global warming debate is some idea of the level of TSI at which the Earth switches from net warming to net cooling. It will be hard to identify because, as I have mentioned in my other articles, the filtering of the solar signal through the various oceanic cycles is neither rapid nor straightforward.

In fact that point of transition will itself vary over time depending on whether, at any given moment, the oceanic cycles are working against or in support of the TSI changes. Similarly the speed of response will vary for the same reasons.

I really do not see how any climate model can operate meaningfully without that fundamental piece of information.

Clearly the ‘elephant’ is missing from the room.

Finally, in view of the widespread concerns about the involvement of CO2 I should emphasise that if solar energy is the primary driver of global temperature then the only consequence of a stronger greenhouse effect is going to be a slight upward movement of the prevailing temperature throughout the natural warming and cooling cycles.

Because of the logarithmic decline in the greenhouse warming effect of increased amounts of CO2 there is never going to be enough greenhouse effect from any amount of increased CO2 to overturn the primary solar driver or the regular movements from warming to cooling and back again.

The only ‘tipping point’ we need be concerned with is the level of global temperature at which warming switches to cooling and vice versa. Due to the much greater threat from natural cooling the higher we can lift the global temperature at that tipping point the better. On balance we need more CO2 rather than less.

The band of TSI in which the switch from warming to cooling and back again is a variation of less than 4 Watts per square metre of heat arriving at the Earth’s surface.

In view of the size and volatility of the sun we can be boiled or frozen at any time whatever we do. The only reason the sun seems stable enough for us to live with it is that in relation to astronomic timescales our whole existence as a species is but a flash of light in darkness.

The whole of modern civilisation has been made possible by a period of solar stability within a band of less than 4 Watts per square metre. It will not be a result of anything we do if solar changes suddenly go outside that band. On a balance of probability it is more likely that the TSI will soon drop back from the recent unusual highs but remaining within the band of 4 Watts per square metre. It would need the arrival of the next ice age to go significantly below 1363 but even a reduction down to 1365 from present levels could introduce a dangerous level of cooling depending on where the tipping point currently lies.

A period several decades of reduced solar activity will quickly need more emissions producing activity to SAVE the planet yet nonetheless the populations of most living species will be decimated. At present population levels a repeat of the Little Ice Age a mere 400 years ago will cause mass starvation worldwide. Does anyone really think that the CO2 we produce is effective enough to reduce that risk to zero when we have plenty of astronomic evidence of an imminent reduction in solar activity?

And, moreover, the real world temperature movements are currently a good fit with the solar driver theory both as regards the warming spell, the subsequent stall and the recent turn downwards.

Plus:


Technical summary of the Fourth Assessment Report, TS.1 Introduction, page 21, quote, "There is still an incomplete physical understanding of many components of the climate system and their role in climate change. Key uncertainties include aspects of the roles played by clouds, the cryosphere, the oceans, land use and couplings between climate and biogeochemical cycles"
>
Now one doesn't need a PhD. or to trawl through thousands of pages of thousands of peer reviewed papers to raise this issue. How can one arrive at a level of certainty exceeding 90% about any aspect of the Earth's climate whilst attributing a value of zero to all the main (and obvious) factors namely the sun, the oceans, evaporation and condensation, clouds and atmospheric convection. Indeed I would have thought that in view of the importance of such omissions the level of certainty would be zero (or even negative if that were possible). Astoundingly all the main influences on average global temperatures have been completely ignored in favour of one single tiny factor namely any enhancement of greenhouse effect from anthropogenic CO2. Then they go on to list a string of positive feedbacks leading to alleged disaster whilst ignoring a whole string of negative feedbacks that could render their scenario impossible. My previous articles mention those negative feedbacks in more detail.

The significance of the TSI point is that it reintroduces solar influence as a factor and probably the main factor in the late 20th Century warming. AGW proponents have usually accepted the warming of the early 20th Century as solar induced so why not the warming of the late 20th Century? If anything the late 20th Century phase of enhanced solar activity was greater than that seen during the earlier 20th Century phase.

My Hot Water Bottle Effect shows how any apparently minor changes in solar activity can be supplemented or offset to match the observed changes in global temperature trend during the latter half of the 20th Century. Warming proponents often say there is no mechanism whereby small changes in solar activity can be scaled up to the apparently large changes in atmospheric temperature. I believe that my Hot Water Bottle Effect provides just such a mechanism.

The oceanic mechanism emphasising or offsetting solar variation firmly places the burden of proof back on to those who say that such warming as was observed was human induced to establish exactly how big or small any anthropogenic component was in relation to the undoubted (and previously ignored) combined solar and oceanic influence. Frankly, we do not have the techniques to do more than guess and who would believe them now anyway? The damage they may have done to the scientific establishment is incalculable.

The more I think about this the more apt the title of my earlier article seems to have been but it is going to take a while for the implications to sink in more widely and for a proper assessment to be made. The IPCC summary is deeply flawed as a scientific document and as I have explained in other recent articles it appears impossible for increased levels of atmospheric CO2 at the puny levels caused by mankind to affect the characteristics of the atmosphere enough to significantly enhance the greenhouse effect and even if it could do so then any such effect would be quickly neutralised by the primary solar/oceanic driver and the oceans acting in conjunction with evaporation, condensation and atmospheric convection (which includes clouds and rain).

The alarmists are half aware of the potential negative influence of convection, clouds, evaporation, condensation and rainfall because they say that a warmer Earth will have more and/or bigger storms. They can't have it both ways. Those very storms represent the cooling effect of those negative processes. The bigger the storms we get the less warming we can get. There is a separate issue as to how far warming alone does give rise to more and bigger storms but that is not relevant here. I merely point out an example of the incompleteness and inconsistency of alarmist theory.
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By Stephen wilde,
U.K. Private Client Solicitor and lifelong Weather and Climate enthusiast.
Joined Royal Meteorological Society 1971.