New Year's Eve, Redfern Style

*



Ah, Sydney. In the summertime it can be an easy place to like. Yet there have never been more reasons to leave.

The average morning speed on our main roads is half the 60 kmh speed limit. When you try to escape for the weekend, it can take an hour just to get to Hornsby, Sutherland or Springwood. A taxi from the airport to the Hills incurs more than $15 in tolls and fees, making the cost of anything at the airport seem reasonable.

The only metro we will see in the next 10 years is the well-dressed male sort, and there are more than enough of those already. And we will never agree on whose backyard is the best location for a second airport.

This month in the Cities of Opportunity index, Sydney ranked behind Sao Paulo for transport. I have been to Sao Paulo. It's like the set of Bladerunner; I loved it. But the traffic is so bad the rich take helicopters to lunch.

No other Australian city does parking police, snobs, violent drunks, ice addicts, road rage and tossers like Sydney. Even Oscar Humphries, the erstwhile Sydney tosser-turned Australian Spectator editor, now has the insight to say this to Good Weekend: "I couldn't have done what I'd done - got all these pieces written about me - anywhere but Sydney, because really I wasn't doing much at the time, I was just there. This is a city that devotes an inordinate amount of space to, you know, launches for hair curling irons."

The baby boomers created the seachange phenomenon, coined the phrase and made the TV series, but there is now an unprecedented confluence of factors tempting Generations X and Y to make one themselves.

In the front yards of Avoca and Mollymook and Blackheath there is a new must-have garden feature - the For Sale sign. Judging by the sea of placards, holiday homes are the first ballast being thrown overboard from the asset portfolios of nervous bankers and child-care entrepreneurs blown about by the economic storm. With the first home owner's grant doubled to $14,000 and topped up to $24,000 by the NSW Government for new-built houses, it can only be a matter of time before a seachange becomes quite seriously affordable. Even food and culture snobs are running out of excuses: drive from Sydney to Orange and you pass seven chef's hats, according to the Herald's 2008 Good Food Guide.

About 25,000 Sydneysiders leave each year, making Sydney's net migration to other states (mostly Queensland) more than 50 times that of Victoria. But most of them are still 40-and 50-somethings with families...

Joel Gibson.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/opinion/between-sea-and-country-air-city-exercises-its-pull/2008/12/21/1229794242349.html




There was absolutely no explanation for what had happened. Colin is back in hospital; on his last legs. More than a hundred miles away, he was helpless to help. The wild thoughts that had ballooned out across the dank, over-heated suburb, the fetid air, all their thought bubbles coalesced together in a marching charade. He had wanted out, it was true. The profound depression he had brought upon himself lifted; inspired by the network of dysfunctional, caring people. Oh how much he wanted them to go. Was it true he had been planted here; and then his own coding wiped to hide the trace. Those balloons were almost impossible to describe; flushing out across the cars; rising over the terrace roofs, enveloping the rats which still ran up and down the tree outside his bedroom window.

Four a.m. on the first day of the year; and everything he had ever worked for had vanished and he was cosseted in a ball of laughter; watching the police banked across the top of the block. They were two, sometimes three deep. Opposite, the police cars were stacked along the road edge, outside Redfern Police Station. He was shattered inside; so shattered he knew he could never recover, not now, not this time, not ever. The music was fantastic, these master musicians playing for the tiny audience of stragglers who had shown up for Brigette's party. Bridge, as we all called her, was skinny from the alcohol, bubbling from ecstasy, marked at the frontier. We sat on her balcony and smoked cigarettes. Not many people had come; and she was disappointed. All dressed up and nowhere to go. We didn't point it out. Where is everybody? The little band of three or four, organised especially for the party, played well enough to have caught the rapt attention of hundreds, packed in country halls, applauding, purposeful, part of this glorious life, glorious nation, glorious city.

Except there was nothing glorious about this place, not any more. The Public Order and Riot Squad police were there, as were the Tactical Response Group. We could see everything, too frightened to go and check it out in person. He could hear shouts, the sounds of smashing bottles. Every now and then the police would go in a wave down to the block,, down and back, advance retreat. This very spot had been the scene of some of the city's worst rioting, and the police were taking no chances, not this time, not on the first day of the year. It was good to write again. He had so wanted to record everything, to create something beautiful, to make a difference. Even here, on this balcony, as the minutes clicked towards five a.m. and the police readied themselves for another foray into the Block, the words cascaded through his head, urgent, lyrical, driven with desire. Alongside the police party goers gathered in drunken little knots outside the station, waiting for the trains to start up. They were young, full of excitement, sweaty from their party drugs, make up and hair falling every which way, flushed with expectation they would finally get their rocks off when their trains arrived and, droppped at their destinations in the barely dawn, fell through their doors and embraced; fulfilling the pornographic movies which ran in all their heads.

Far off the world was splintering. Terrorism and the flavour of the Middle East was in all their living rooms, flickering on screens. Everything was open to us now. He couldn't breathe deep enough, sigh long enough. He couldn't find someone to love, not enough to wipe away all that had happened, the final gasps of pain as he was beaten once again. Now an old man, homeless at the base of giant billboards, he couldn't even protest at their indifference. It was New Year's Eve. They had a right to party. That his own life had fallen apart was not their concern. He was laughing at Bridge, who was chasing Gersch down the steps. Gersch was one of the princes of dysfunction, intoxicating, intoxicated, as she recovered from Mick telling her to bugger off and get a younger man, have babies, be happy, go live in the burbs. Instead she found Gersch, and completely adored him, could run her hands across his flat working stomach and kiss every sweaty, lovely little hair as she wound up higher and kissed him on the lips; and now chased him down the stairs in a barely mock attempt at capture.

There was a shrill whistle. The police were gathering again. There are left wing governments at local, state and federal level. All of the talk is of tolerance and diversity, compassion towards those who are different. On the streets the police raise their truncheons and tower over the hopeless gang of beggars and street alcoholics who are the public face of The Block. They don white gloves as they search their belongings, for fear of contamination. The sniffer dogs spread fear. The sky lightens. They daren't go near.

At work next day; amidst the general round of press conferences, the feeding of the pack, the manipulation of reality, the creation of an entirely false public discourse, the city officials crowed about the wonderful success of the night; New Year's Eve and the fireworks display on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, world famous not just for visual spectacle itself, millions of dollars burning as colours cascaded down from the bridge and the bobbing boats on the harbour were lit with the reflected glow of the fireworks, the red, the white and the blue, the crowds gasping in awe and appreciation. But its geographical location; as one of the first major cities to begin celebrating the New Year, made it world famous, picked up and relayed in packages around the globe. The mayor, Clover Moore, batty left, always politically correct, hands off ignorant of the brutality of the police, the oppression of the dispossessed. On her watch, under her nose. We live in the greatest city in the world, she declared.

Only 70 people had been arrested for public disorder, resisting arrest, affray, hundreds of tonnes of garbage had already been cleared from the streets by the 10am press conference, the Opera House glowed in too bright colours and the harbour was more glistening, more depth in its colouring, than ever. But these things were minor. She praised the public for their good behaviour, the police for putting their lives on the line, garnering considerable overtime as they went. She applauded the handiwork of the event manager, the handsomely paid artistic designers, expressed the city's gratitude for their success.

What was happening in Redfern between four and five a.m., he asked.

Well I live in Redfern, and nothing was happening that I am aware of. I have not been briefed on any major disturbance.

It was as if the riot police, those battle lines foraying down into The Block, the drunken shouts, the broken bottles, the aborigines running for cover in the network of broken streets, it was as if none of it had ever happened.

Later, at a police press conference held at the headquarters of the Roads and Traffic Authority, he asked the same question; what was happening in Redfern between four and five a.m.?

The Acting Commissioner, her future well assured and well promoted, looked him directly in the eye, surprised by the question in the midst of all of the talk of the event's success.

There was a minor altercation between two people, she said.

He raised an eyebrow. It took dozens of police for that, the riot squad, the vans.

She repeated her answer, said that it was a standard response, the police responded in groups for their own safety. There had been no major incidents.

The gap between the official versions and the scenes on the street could hardly be more stark. Where were we heading, communist Russia?

A minor altercation between two people?

The Commissioner clearly did not want to dwell on the subject; nothing must mar the official success story, the seamless event, the happy city. She pointed to the next journalist; and answered their harmless question in full. He knew not to persist, to let the official version ride.

And so the newspapers, the radio, the television, all reported on the glowing success of the event. He wasn't going to fight this one. He wasn't going to single handedly tear away the veil of secrecy.

He thanked the Lord for the creation of such a beautiful world. A new life, a new day, he had survived. Deeply dysfunctional, deeply inspired, he retreated back into the comforting network of crazies, he shrugged off the depression which had eaten at him throughout 2008; and he shuddered, deep down, at the gaps in reality, the increasing government control, the layers of fascism, the Soviet style world being brought to their door, in this glittering place, this glittering harbour, the multiple reflections on the shiny water, amidst the wealthy yachts and bobbing dinghies. All was not well. All was turning into a lie.

Everyone Else Was A Fool

*



The Hunting of the Snark
Lewis Carroll
Fit the Seventh - The Banker's Fate

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share;
They charmed it with smiles and soap.
And the Banker, inspired with a courage so new
It was matter for general remark,
Rushed madly ahead and was lost to their view
In his zeal to discover the Snark

But while he was seeking with thimbles and care,
A Bandersnatch swiftly drew nigh
And grabbed at the Banker, who shrieked in despair,
For he knew it was useless to fly.

He offered large discount--he offered a check
(Drawn "to bearer") for seven-pounds-ten:
But the Bandersnatch merely extended its neck
And grabbed at the Banker again.

Without rest or pause--while those frumious jaws
Went savagely snapping around-
He skipped and he hopped, and he floundered and flopped,
Till fainting he fell to the ground.

The Bandersnatch fled as the others appeared
Led on by that fear-stricken yell:
And the Bellman remarked "It is just as I feared!"
And solemnly tolled on his bell.

He was black in the face, and they scarcely could trace
The least likeness to what he had been:
While so great was his fright that his waistcoat turned white-
A wonderful thing to be seen!

To the horror of all who were present that day.
He uprose in full evening dress,
And with senseless grimaces endeavored to say
What his tongue could no longer express.

Down he sank in a chair--ran his hands through his hair--
And chanted in mimsiest tones
Words whose utter inanity proved his insanity,
While he rattled a couple of bones.

"Leave him here to his fate--it is getting so late!"
The Bellman exclaimed in a fright.
"We have lost half the day. Any further delay,
And we sha'nt catch a Snark before night!"



He had been beyond exhaustion, in a place reserved only for the end of the working year, when nothing mattered, when he was truly exhausted. Shadows were frlickering across his soul. He was ashamed and discreet, hidden. He didn't want answers. He wanted comfort, perhaps the comfort of defeat. He wasn't sure of anything anymore. These curel echoes, these wasted days, this was all that was left of what had once been an heroic pioneer, striding out strongly along new paths, head held high. Now he waited in frustration for t he traffic to clear. He gazed in envy at handsome young men. He shuddered, and waited for another time.

At first he thought there would be renewed hope; just around the corner. Well, that wasn't the case. The darkness hadn't ended. He was without breath and without hope. The corrosion of his soul had crept across years, and was now complete. The vast darkness that had been his soul, that was gone. The hopes of a fresh start had been blinkered. Walk through the mirror into another life. Smile when there is no more to be done. Come willy nilly across the dark plains, and that will be our rescue. He didn't know the answer. Even to simple questions: Is global warming real or not?

These shadows, these orders from on high, they were taken breathlessly apart. He was callous, cold, shredded into the snarling dark; that was his relief. That these things were wrong. That he had made too many mistakes. That all along the road, in heaps by the side of the road, were other piles; things that could be of import. All these echoes passing through the mirrors; all these lightweight cruelties, all this that waited for the time to come. Those rotting piles of garbage were clearly visible.

It was the piles of garbage, all that was left from the prvious civilisation, that enabled him toi pour over the solutions to their problems; to find a way to survive. Their sneering smartness, their amorality, the utter arrogance of the Hooray Henrys, he had always wondered how it could be so. Why didn't they care? Why did they show no empathy for those who had fallen beneath them, for the masses starving in the square. They made stupid decisions and the world ground to a halt, the economy ceased to function. But they were alright, high in their tax payer funded castles; their glittering careers. Everyone else was a fool.

Couldn't they see the disaster they were inviting down upon the populace? Couldn't they see that they were wrecking the entire civilisation. Ten thousand people gather in Poland for a climate chnage conference. No one is happy. Tim Flannery, always Professor, emotes about the loss of great assets, The Great Barrier Reef. Others regard his predictions as absurd, but you never hear from him. A few blew the whistle. But no one heard. They were too caught up on their own stampede, towards righteousness, convinced of their own rightness, excited but comfortable in the midst of the pack.

These things were always strange, these turning points in history. No one listened. Sane voices were few. It astonished him how unreceptive the population was. He couldn't believe their bowed heads; their cowed faces. Well, not even cowed, just ignorant. The bigger concerns were of no concern. The rubbish that had become popular culture kept them entirely entertained; bread and circuses like civilisation had never seen before. More distractions, more frivolous wealth, more indoctrination. He had sighed, in his humble jobs, sent out secret messages to the world, and feared for the future. They hadn't listened, he should have known it would make no difference, and now he was in the middle of a giant garbage dump, foraging for his future family, with a baby on the way and the wreckage of the past all around him.






THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/12/02/will-the-un-chill-out-on-climate-change/

10,000 people from 86 countries have descended upon Poznan, Poland for yet-another United Nations meeting on climate change. This time, it’s the annual confab of the nations that signed the original U.N. climate treaty in Rio in 1992. That instrument gave rise to the infamous 1996 Kyoto Protocol on global warming, easily the greatest failure in the history of environmental diplomacy.

Kyoto was supposed to reduce global emissions of carbon dioxide below 1990 levels during the period 2008-2012. But since it was signed, the atmospheric concentration of this putative pollutant continued to rise, pretty much at the same rate it did before Kyoto. (Even if the world had lived up to the letter of the Kyoto law, it would have exerted an influence on global temperature that would have been too small to measure.)

The purpose of the Poznan meeting is to work out some type of framework that goes “Beyond Kyoto.” After completely failing in its first attempt to internationally limit carbon dioxide emissions, the U.N. will propose reductions far greater than those called for by Kyoto. Kyoto failed because it was too expensive, so anything “beyond” will cost much more.

The fact is that the world cannot afford any expensive climate policies now. Economic conditions are so bad that carbon dioxide emissions—the byproduct of our commerce—are likely going down because of the financial cold spell, not the climatic one. Indeed, a permanent economic ice-age would likely result from any mandated large cuts in emissions. If you’re liking your 401(k) today, you’ll love “Beyond Kyoto.”

Before proposing an even harsher treaty the U.N. ought to pay attention to its own climate science. It regularly publishes temperature histories from its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was formed in the late 1980s with the express charge of finding a scientific basis for a global climate treaty.

Since Kyoto, a very funny thing has happened to global temperatures: IPCC data clearly show that warming has stopped—even though its computer models said such a thing could not happen.

According to the IPCC, the world reached its high-temperature mark in 1998, thanks to a big “El Niño,” which is a temporary warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean that occurs once or twice a decade. El Niño years are usually followed by one or two relatively cold years, as occurred in 1999 and 2000. The cooling is, not surprisingly, called La Niña. No one knows what really causes these cycles but they have been going on sporadically for millennia.

Wait a minute. Starting an argument about global warming in 1998 is a bit unfair. After all, that’s starting off with a very hot temperature, followed by two relatively cool years.

Fine. Take those years out of the record and there’s still no statistically significant warming since 1997. When a scientist tells you that some trend is not “significant,” he or she is saying that it cannot mathematically be distinguished from no trend whatsoever.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15938.html

Climate change skeptics on Capitol Hill are quietly watching a growing accumulation of global cooling science and other findings that could signal that the science behind global warming may still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation.

While the new Obama administration promises aggressive, forward-thinking environmental policies, Weather Channel co-founder Joseph D’Aleo and other scientists are organizing lobbying efforts to take aim at the cap-and-trade bill that Democrats plan to unveil in January.

So far, members of Congress have not been keen to publicly back the global cooling theory. But both senators from Oklahoma, Republicans Tom Coburn and Jim Inhofe, have often expressed doubts about how much of a role man-made emissions play.

“We want the debate to be about science, not fear and hypocrisy. We hope next year’s wave of new politics means a return to science,” said Coburn aide John Hart. “It’s the old kind of politics that doesn’t consider any dissenting opinions.”

The global cooling lobby’s challenge is enormous. Next year could be the unfriendliest yet for climate skeptics. Already, House Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) has lost his gavel, in part because his peers felt he was less than serious about tackling global warming.

The National Academy of Sciences and most major scientific bodies agree that global warming is caused by man-made carbon emissions. But a small, growing number of scientists, including D’Aleo, are questioning how quickly the warming is happening and whether humans are actually the leading cause.

Armed with statistics from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climate Data Center, D’Aleo reported in the 2009 Old Farmer’s Almanac that the U.S. annual mean temperature has fluctuated for decades and has only risen 0.21 degrees since 1930 — which he says is caused by fluctuating solar activity levels and ocean temperatures, not carbon emissions.

Data from the same source shows that during five of the past seven decades, including this one, average U.S. temperatures have gone down. And the almanac predicted that the next year will see a period of cooling.

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/11/19/why-the-epa-should-find-against-endangerment/

November 19, 2008
Why the EPA should find against “Endangerment”
Filed under: Climate Politics —

Back in July, as a result of last year’s Supreme Court ruling on Massachusetts v. EPA, the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued an “Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking: Regulating Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act” and asked for public comment though November 28, 2008.

Aside from the massive bureaucracy that would be involved in trying to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, the EPA primarily needs to determine whether or not greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are endangering the public health or welfare. The underlying analysis to support/deny an endangerment finding is provided in the EPA’s Technical Support Document for Endangerment Analysis for Greenhouse Emissions under the Clean Air Act (Endangerment TSD) which attempts to serve as review of the state to the science concerning the “vulnerabilities, risks and impacts” of climate change, primarily within the United States.

However, the Endangerment TSD is largely a dated document which relies heavily on the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC’s AR4 was published in the spring of 2007, but to meet the deadline for inclusion in the AR4, scientific papers had to be published by late 2005/early 2006. So, in the rapidly evolving field of climate change, by grounding its TSD in the IPCC AR4 the EPA is largely relying on scientific findings that are, by late 2008, nearly 3 years out of date.

And a lot has happened in those intervening three years.

• Global temperatures have declined (Figure 1a)—extending the current run of time with a statistically robust lack of global temperature rise to eight years (Figure 1b), with some people arguing that it can be traced back for 12 years (Figure 1c).
The consensus on past, present and future Atlantic hurricane behavior has changed. Initially, it tilted towards the idea that anthropogenic global warming is leading to (and will lead to) to more frequent and intense storms. Now the consensus is much more neutral, arguing that future Atlantic tropical cyclones will be little different that those of the past (e.g. Knutson et al., 2008; Vecchi et al., 2008).

• The alarmist notion that warming temperatures will cause Greenland to rapidly shed its ice has been silenced by new results indicating little evidence for the operation of such processes (e.g., van de Wal et al., 2008; Joughin et al., 2008).

These three developments should greatly influence any assessment of “vulnerability, risk, and impacts” of climate change within the U.S. Therefore, the extensive portions of the EPA’s Endangerment TSD which are based upon the old science are no longer appropriate and need to be revised.

In other portions of the Endangerment TSD, the logic is faulty and leads to unsupportable and ill-informed conclusions. Such is the case with the “Human Health” and “Food Production and Agriculture” sections. The TSD authors do not adequately factor in changing populations and changing technologies in projecting harm to health and agriculture from a shifting climate.

But perhaps the most glaring problem of all with the EPA’s Endangerment TSD is the nearly complete disregard of observed trends in a wide array of measures which by and large show that despite decades of increasing anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (as detailed by the EPA) the U.S. population has triumphed over any changes in “vulnerabilities, risks, and impacts” that may have arisen (to the extent that any at all have actually occurred as the result of any human-induced climate changes).