Utopia, you are standing in it!

By Paul Homewood

The climate doomsday machine makes much more noise about warming-induced melting of Greenland’s ice sheet than Antarctica’s, even though the Greenland sheet holds only about 10% as much ice. That’s because the smaller Greenland ice sheet is melting at a faster rate and contributes more to sea level rise. But the melt rate is no faster today than it was 90 years ago and appears to have slowed over the last few years.

Full story here.

Below is the key graph, with Ralph’s comments:

I was tempted to head-up this belated MPS post “Je ne regrette rien”, as that – I regret nothing (about last year’s monetary policy) – was what Orr told yesterday’s press conference as he was getting rattled towards the end. He should regret quite a bit – notably the $5.7 billion of taxpayer losses on the LSAP, and the ongoing huge risks (neither were points he was willing to engage on, whether in the MPS, in the press conference, or at FEC this morning – indeed he actively played distraction). But that isn’t really where I want to focus my thoughts on the Monetary Policy Statement.

I thought the MPC should have raised the OCR by 50 points. The MPC disagreed, and moved by only 25 points. That is their choice of course, but – once again – I was struck by just how lacking and inadequate the supporting…

After a long wait, the Federal government has released the text of the Religious Discrimination Bill 2021 which is about to be introduced into the Parliament. There has been no general Federal law dealing with detrimental treatment of Australians on the basis of their religious faith and activities, and this is a welcome development, implementing a recommendation of the Ruddock Review which reported in 2018.

The government previously released two “Exposure Drafts” of the Bill (see some comments on those in previous posts, here, and here.) Having promised prior to the last election that he would advance this law, Prime Minister Morrison will now introduce it into the House of Representatives. If passed by the House, the Bill will then need to approved by the Senate, where it seems likely to be referred to (yet another) committee before being voted on there, probably sometime in the New Year.

Yesterday, in the Herald ($), I challenged Climate Change Minister James Shaw to explain how his Emissions Reduction Plan lowers emissions.

In this post, I want to head off what he is going to say. His lines are, frankly, not right. So let’s get that on the table and go through the argument before he says it.

Shaw’s plan is vast. It covers every sector of the economy. The government could regulator, tax or subsidise anything or everything in the name of reducing emissions.

Shaw’s plan is not going to reduce emissions.* The government has already placed a sinking lid on emissions with the ETS. It is widely accepted that cap-and-trade schemes neutralise other emissions policies. If the cap determines total emissions, policies under the cap do not.

This neutralising effect of an emissions cap is called “the waterbed effect”.

Here is how a cap-and-trade scheme…

Meredith’s big book (770 pages) does what it says on the tin and tells the history of every African country from the run-up to independence, i.e. starting in the mid-1950s, to the time of writing, i.e. about 2004, covering half a century of tumultuous history. It’s a vast subject but Meredith’s book is an easy and pleasurable read. He writes a wonderfully clear, expressive prose which effortlessly conveys a huge amount of information and profiles countries, leaders and events with deceptive ease.

The narrative is chock-a-block with facts and dates, central figures and key events, but a handful of general principles emerge all too clearly.

Imperialism’s mistakenly long-term view

The colonial powers thought they were in it for the very long haul. As the Second World War ended, most thought the colonies they ruled wouldn’t be ready for independence for centuries, certainly not till the end of the twentieth century…

Juan Carlos I (Spanish: Juan Carlos Alfonso Víctor María de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias, born January 5, 1938) is a member of the Spanish royal family who reigned as King of Spain from November 22, 1975 until his abdication on June 19, 2014. In Spain, since his abdication, Juan Carlos has usually been referred to as the Rey Emérito (“King Emeritus”).

Juan Carlos is the grandson of Alfonso XIII, the last king of Spain before the abolition of the monarchy in 1931 and the subsequent declaration of the Second Spanish Republic. Juan Carlos was born in Rome during his family’s exile. Francisco Franco took over the government of Spain after his victory in the Spanish Civil War in 1939, yet in 1947 Spain’s status as a monarchy was affirmed and a law was passed allowing Franco to choose his successor.

Juan Carlos’s father, Juan, was the third son of King…

“War is a business in which a lot of people watch a few people get killed
and are damn glad it wasn’t them.”

Just as important as exploring the particular qualities that constitute a successful leader, Herman Wouk’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece The Caine Mutiny examines the situations that inspire men to commit grave revolutionary acts –like the act of mutiny. Often compared to 1932’s Mutiny on the Bounty, The Caine Mutiny is a truly wonderful novel. Thus far in my quest to read the Pulitzer Prize-winners, I have been stuck in a string of novels offering mostly plotless portraits of struggling rural farmers, and so it was a delight for me to shift into a bit more levity with 1951’s The Caine Mutiny, a rare bestseller on top of being a Pulitzer Prize-winner. The tone is light, playful, almost satirical a la Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, even though…