The Climate Controversy

The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.
- Bertrand Russell

This quotation captures the essence in the climate-change debate. On the one side are the climate change supporters with a scientific consensus to back their position who advocate punitive taxes and societal change from our high-carbon emitting condition to a future world free of carbon emissions. On the other side are climate-change sceptics who deny that carbon emission, primarily from burning fossil fuels, are responsible and that if there is climate change any human contribution is swamped by natural variation.

Scepticism is good in all things cerebral, by the way, especially where science is concerned. It is unreasonable for scientists take a dogmatic position because this is contrary to the scientific method which demands an open-minded approach to investigation and discovery. The problem with the climate debate is that one side seems to be pushing an extreme position with inadequate data and uncertain modelling - certainly nothing of the kind sustained by physicists and engineers - and the other side is similarly empty handed, lacking any hard evidence for their position of maintaining the status quo.

The problem I have with this state of affairs personally is that at this point the debate breaks down completely instead of reasoning and rationality taking over. It is okay for the man-made climate change advocates to have their opinion and equally valid for the sceptics to have their opposing view because it is important the scientific debate continue until it is resolved. What's more important is that policy is shaped by rational thinking instead of emotional decision making.

Risk management is an exercise we all undertake in our daily lives; directors and managers of companies for their members, shareholders and other stakeholders; politicians for all of us. There are serious trade-offs to be made between fossil fuel, renewable or nuclear power; cap-and-trade versus carbon tax; subsidise change or feed the starving; grain, meat or bio-fuel; temperature rise versus deaths due to cold; and so on.

Policy making must be properly informed for effective decision making by our political leaders. The problem for the climate-change advocates is the longer the status quo stays the stronger is the position of the sceptics and outright deniers that significant climate change is occurring at all. If there isn't any climate change or it is of natural rather than human origin then doing nothing will have the same outcome as doing anything at all.

Right or wrong?

There is no greater importance in all the world like knowing you are right and that the wave of the world is wrong, yet the wave crashes upon you.
- Norman Mailer

Pliny the Elder

Gaius or Caius Plinius Secundus (AD 23 – August 25, 79), better known as Pliny the Elder, was an ancient author, naturalist or natural philosopher and naval and military commander of some importance who wrote Naturalis Historia.

He is known for his saying

"True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written; in writing what deserves to be read".

(From Wikipedia.)

Reason

He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
- Sir William Drummond

Live free of terror

The terror wrought upon Israeli citizens by rockets fired by Palestinian militants into Israel is matched by their callous and illegal disregard for their own people by launching those rockets from within civilian areas. Hiding behind civilians is a war crime perpetrated by Hamas and the ensuing civilian casualties should be counted among those caused by Hamas, not tallied onto the total of the defending side. (Photo from The Australian.)

Not free as in free beer, or free as in free speech, every sane person, including the citizens of democratic Israel, seeks to live free from terror. The terror of rockets raining down on Israeli citizens has sparked little mention in the media over the past few years since the democratic nation finally quit Gaza and the West Bank in 2005, at the same time unilaterally withdrawing all Jewish settlements.

The calls for an end to occupation are moot since there has not been an occupation of the territories captured by Israel in the defensive Yom Kippur and Six Day wars (in 1973 and 1967) since 2005. The call of war crimes against Israel acting in self defence is misplaced since Hamas violates all of the accepted international rules of combat set by the Geneva convention. If anything, the Israeli government has been remiss in its responsibility to act against the threat to its own citizens posed by the continuing rocket barrage.

Arafat rejected the offer of a Palestinian state of Gaza, West Bank and Jerusalem, turning yet again to the intifada and terror attacks, including suicide bombings. This was a disappointing end to the processes set in train by the 1993 Oslo Accords, that would have led to the creation of an independent Palestinian state had Arafat not rejected Israel's offer in 2000.

This article eloquently explains why after WW2, in the shadow of concentration camps at Belsen and elsewhere, Israel has become so important to Jews, and that:

Again and again - again and again - the Palestinians have been offered a nation state in a divided Palestine. And again and again they have turned down the offer, for it has always been more important to drive out the Jews than to have a Palestinian state.

When you are faced with well meaning supporters of the Palestinian movement towards self determination who oppose Israel's right to self defence, ask these questions:

• Do you understand that territory gained in a defensive war can be held by the victor to dissuade aggressors from war mongering?
• Notwithstanding this, are you aware that Gaza was turned over to Palestinian control in 2005?
• Why do you think that Hamas continues to pursue a path of terror?
• Are you aware of antisemitism against Jews over the centuries?
• Are you aware know of Arab support for the Nazis during WW2?
• Have you heard the Arab calls for genocide of the Zionists? Even before the creation of the state of Israel and in its aftermath during the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948, 1967 and 1973.
• Why did the aggressor and losing side in each case gain the sympathies of the world instead of having to sue for peace?

The Palestinian people should elect a capable leadership who rather than calling for the destruction of the state of Israel instead wants to build the welfare of the Palestinian people in a free state of their own. All sane and right-minded people of the world must encourage such a course of action towards peace and prosperity for the Palestinians in place of indifference towards their plight.

Simultaneously, we must stop the abysmal and tacit support for terrorism against Israel by ceasing to reward, in one-sided media reports and by misplaced public statements, the illegal terror war being waged by Hamas. Let everyone live in peace and allow Israelis to live free of terror.