Greenhouse Myths and politicians

Twenty years from now we Australians will be getting 0.3 percent of our energy from solar power. Says who?

 Says the Government.

But they don’t say it out loud because the Greens might hear. Instead they talk about our bright green, renewable energy future and all the jobs that will be created as we “switch over” to “clean” energy.

Such energy myths have destroyed the world’s ability to make any credible attempt to deal with climate change.

We Australians have pledged to reduce our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by five percent of 2000 levels by 2020. Both major parties agree on this goal – yet it will not be met. Australia has no chance of reducing its GHG emissions at all in the next nine years.

If the Government seriously pursued this goal, we the people, would turf them out of office.

The only way we will meet this commitment is by buying credits from overseas. We will find a way to buy licences to continue business as usual.

Again, this is another fact you will not hear the Government – or the Opposition – saying out loud.

The Gillard Government has announced (ever so quietly) that we will be getting 13 percent of our electricity from wind and solar in 20 years – one percent of this will be solar.

But haven’t we got bi-partisan agreement on sourcing 20 percent of our electricity from renewables in just nine years time? Yes we have.  But this is just more myth and spin.

As the current Government, like those before it, make clear – if you ask quietly – wind and solar, geothermal, wave energy, these are all extras on the renewable energy set and will be for the foreseeable future. The stars are wood and hydro dams – but, again, don’t say that out loud or the Greens might hear and there will be hell to pay.

The Government’s carbon tax is, sadly, dead. It has drowned in this sea of myth and spin. The only question for Julia Gillard is how to get back to what Kevin Rudd has led us to believe was her original position without getting the blame.  If she cans the tax the Greens will throw a tantrum and her fragile Government will collapse.

However, if she lets the Greens have a big input into drafting the legislation it will become political poison for the other independents who will vote it down in the House. She will get away Scot free and will be able to claim the high moral ground going into the next election. Brilliant politics!

But, once again, a sad day for the future of the planet and our attempts to tackle climate change.

So let’s kill a few more persistent myths in the hope we can apply CPR to this “CPRS” and get the tax over the line.

Myth: Corporations are the “Big Polluters” and the tax will make them pay.

 Fact: We are the big polluters – we the “working families”.

Corporations have been working hard to become more energy efficient since the oil shocks of the ‘70s. That’s when there was a step change energy costs and so reducing their energy consumption has meant big bucks for big business.

The carbon tax is not designed to make big corporations pay – it’s designed to make us pay more for our energy in the hope we will use less. Any corporate costs will be passed on to us, the consumers, one way or another – just like the GST.

Making us more energy efficient will achieve a great deal more than our solar pipe dreams.

For example, if we can improve the efficiency of our car fleet by just one percent, that would be equivalent in terms of GHG reductions to our entire national solar power generation.

Running our cars with the right air pressure in our tyres would improve the fleet by about 3 percent. Improving our driving habits – that is less speeding and accelerating – can deliver improvements anywhere up to 33 percent.

Myth: The carbon tax will lead to a revolution in renewable energy.

Fact: The Government says that all renewable energy will account for only 8 per cent of Australia’s energy consumption in 20 years time. The other 92 percent will still be fossil fuels.

The tax will, however, tilt the scales back in favour of the planet so that over the next 100 years or so, we will improve the impact of our growing energy use a little sooner than might otherwise be the case.

We journalists, politicians, economists and academics will never produce the solutions to our energy challenges – these will have to come from our engineers and scientists.

The best we can do is work towards creating the political and fiscal environment that will support and assist our engineers and scientists. For starters we can certainly encourage more of our youth into the maths-science stream.  We desperately need more engineers – as opposed to more models and rock stars.

Now is the time to start getting real about this climate challenge.

The Pope Blesses Rubber Dingers

The Pope's recent comments regarding the use of condoms must have prompted an almighty Alleluia! from all those who own shares in condom-making companies (I hope someone checked for any pre-announcement plunges on such stocks from the Vatican Bank).
At  last the Catholic Church is moving into the 18th Century. This is just another step towards ridding ourselves of all the stupid edicts in this world centered around sex and obsession.

There are about six billion of us on earth right now. We’re all individuals with varying views, attributes, hopes, wants, needs, expectations, flaws and talents.

Yes, we come in two varieties, those with a penis and those with a womb -- tackle in or tackle out.

Just to be absolutely clear, those with the gear hanging in space are male, and those with the gear tucked away are female.

Women can do things that men can't – give birth, breast feed, collect shoes, have multiple orgasms.

Men can do things that women can't – piss up a wall, write their name in the snow.

Throughout history there has been continuing debate about how men are better at this and women are better at that. You know the stuff – men are more physical, men can read maps, men are stronger, men can run faster blah, blah, blah. But in reality we are all individuals with varying abilities and talents.

Remember, I’m a man, yet Florence Griffith Joyner would have no trouble whatsoever in thrashing me over a hundred metres, even if I had an eighty-metre headstart.

The majority of this “better than” bullshit has traditionally come from men, because let’s face it guys, it’s really just pissing up a wall.

Should women be allowed to be priests. This, and pretty much any gender-based argument, is phallic bullshit.

Unless the job description specifically includes tasks that require the use of genitals, or a womb, there is no place for gender arguments in the 21st Century. Therefore, unless the priesthood involves some secret rituals, like pissing up walls or inseminating altar boys, there is no reason to even discuss whether or not women should be allowed in.

I use this priesthood issue, but it is not an exception. It empitomises the millions of fallacies that handicap humanity. Just look at how much time, energy and emotional angst goes into this question even today. And for that matter all the similar bullshit questions of the past – should women, be allow to vote, get equal pay, should slavery be banned, is apartheid OK, should blacks get the same rights as whites, is the earth flat or round, should we allow same-sex marriage. We could fill libraries with the reams of these, at-the-time all-important fallacies, not to mention the physical and emotional energy, the suffering and pain, that has been wasted on them. There is one vital ingredient common to all such debates, and that’s ignorance.

For example, let’s examine this ridiculous “why priests must have a dick” argument.  Like so many fallacies wasting our time today, it relies on a misunderstanding of scripture. It’s an argument perpetuated by people who assume that old books are closer to the truth than today’s writings. The older the book, the more important its messages, so ancient scripture must therefore be venerated.

Whereas I say if the printing press had pre-dated Christ, we would have a very different sense of Christianity today. We would have a much greater understanding of how people thought and how they communicated at the time. We would have a plethora of books espousing all kinds of pluralist views. We would have critical reviews of the books of the day, including the Old and the New Testament.

We would understand what Jesus really meant when he said, “This is my body”.

 “This is my body” is bullshit. Beautiful bullshit, certainly, just like Ich bin ein Berliner.

We know Kennedy was not a Berliner because of mass media. Therefore we understand what he really meant.

Could you imagine if the Bible was published today. Would it outsell Harry Potter? I doubt it.

Although the Bible has many authors over many years, imagine – as many Bible “experts” still do – if it was written by one person. How would it stand up to peer review? How would the author go, for example, facing media questions?

“So Mr God, are you expecting us to believe that Mary was a virgin? And if so, what exactly did she and Joseph do on their wedding night?”

“If she gave birth to your son, doesn’t that mean you must have committed adultery, that is, broken one of your own commandments as referred to earlier in the book? What exactly do you mean when you say you did not have sex with that woman – Mary?”

“What terrible sin did Joseph commit to deserve a wife who doesn’t put out?”

“If the marriage was not consummated doesn’t that mean it’s annulled?”

“If you are in all living creatures, doesn’t that make you personally responsible for everything that goes wrong in the world?”

The Bible is littered with contradictions from cover to cover – and remember the Old Testament is fundamentally the Koran and the Tora.

But they are only contradictions if you take the text literally. The fact is the Bible was never written to be taken literally – it’s beautiful bullshit from cover to cover.

Scholars today understand a great deal about these documents and the people who wrote and edited them. But this information is unfortunately more ignored than understood by those with a vested interest in forming their own interpretations of scriptures.

It’s these ignorant views that form the basis for most conflict and debate about things religious. That’s the Cuckoo's Egg.

Churches are often far more preoccupied with their own preservation than their purpose.

Why is Australia still waiting for a fast, reliable train?

It’s a sad fact that if you live long enough you will eventually get cancer. And that, I’m afraid, is what has happened to Australia’s railway systems. We have entered the 21^st Century with a 19^th Century rail system.

Everything about our railways from our rolling stock to the way we treat our passengers is Dickensian. The system has cancer and it’s dying.

Meanwhile rail travel in the rest of the world is enjoying a renaissance, with fast trains competing with airlines for inter-city passengers. They can be faster, they are much more energy efficient and they reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

I’m sitting on a Victorian regional inter-city train listening to the all too familiar barking rage of the conductor blasting a passenger for being late and not having time to buy a ticket at the station. The conductor can sell tickets on the train, but he doesn’t like doing it. Like Basil Fawlty, he is angry because the passengers won’t get their lives organised to suit his agenda.

The “customer service” woman at head-office is totally on side. “Oh I know, we really wish they wouldn’t talk to customers like that. There is absolutely no reason they can’t sell tickets on the train – they have the facilities. It’s just some of them are lazy – it tends to be the ones who live in the city.”

She leaves the impression that this problem is as old as time and there’s not much she can do about it, because it is and she can’t. It’s an infection that has spread into the bones of our rail system. It dates back to the 1800s, the heyday of rail travel when there wasn’t much else. Rail travel was a privilege – but not anymore.

The same sanctimonious conductor who was blasting the passenger for his poor punctuality is now on the PA delivering the ritual, canard apology on behalf of the railway. Today it’s because, even though we have arrived at our destination only 10 minutes late, it will probably be at least another 10 minutes before we will be able to get off the train. You see someone has parked another train in our spot.

It’s the same the next day – different conductor, same apology, same excuse. The fact that most of the 14 platforms are empty at our brand-new metropolitan station doesn’t seem relevant. To allow us off on “another” platform would require a change in “procedure”, some lateral thinking, a morsel of concern.

Day three, same outcome only this time the excuse has changed – it’s that old reliable “signal fault”. You see the fault, the problem, the reason and, therefore, all the responsibility for this terrible recurring situation lies with “the signal”. If only those damned signals would get their act together.

For every awful conductor, ticket seller, ticket inspector on the railways there is one who is polite, courteous, helpful and extremely efficient. Sadly they are swimming against a tide of institutionalised incompetence and inconsistency and a culture of apathy.

To all those Australians who like to brag about how we “punch above our weight” on the world stage, I say take at look at our railways.

My thoughts drift back to a particularly pleasing risotto I had with a fine glass of woody Chardonnay in an exquisite restaurant in France almost 10 years ago – and bear in mind I’m a risotto purist. In this restaurant the waiting service was impeccable, the table decorations were pleasant, the wine list, although a tad limited, nevertheless included only quality. But what really made this meal special was the view. You see, the restaurant was on Eurostar, travelling through the green fields of France at around 300kmh on its way from Paris to London.

Eurostar today can cover the journey carbon-neutral in a little over two hours, even though for safety reasons it has to slow right down to the speed of the fastest trains in Australia as it travels under the waves of the English Channel.

In Australia we consider 160kmh wow-speed for a train. But in the real world 160kmh was considered fast for steam trains 100 years ago.

Today world-class trains are getting close to the 600kmh mark.

China, which remember is still a developing country, is rolling out fast train lines like spaghetti. It already has the longest fast-train network in the world.

You can now go 968km from Wuhan to Guangzhou in three hours. That’s around the same distance as Melbourne to Sydney, a journey that takes our ambitiously named XPT (Express Passenger Train) over 11 hours.

Shanghai’s 30.5km airport link – that’s around the distance of Melbourne to Tullamarine or Manly to Mascot – takes seven minutes and 20 seconds, with a top speed of 431kmh.

Oh we have tried to join the 20^th Century.

Back in the ‘80s some of Australia’s leading companies – BHP, Elders IXL, Kumagai Gumi, and TNT – got together on a bold plan to build a fast-train network linking Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane. When all the sums were done, the investors considered it a goer provided they could get some tax concessions from the Government.

When this was put to the Government, the answer was “computer says no”.

In 2008 a world-class fast train service was proposed for Melbourne’s metropolitan area, running from Geelong right around to Frankston. But once again the answer from government was “computer says no.”

Victoria now has a new Transport Minister, Martin Pakula. After his swearing in January he said: "The public of Victoria expect a public transport minister who’s going to get in, roll his sleeves up, and work as hard as I plan to work, to do everything I can to improve the system as much as possible."

Those in their salad days might take this as a message of hope. But experienced punters will recognise it as the traditional call of the new minister. It’s not so much a statement as a noise they make just before leaning back in their chair and putting their feet up on the desk.

The cure for our rail cancer is simple, brutal, but costless to the community.

All we need to do is bundle up our railways – infrastructure, rails, rolling stock and real estate – and give it to Richard Branson. Just imagine what Virgin Rail would look like in 10 years time. For starters it would have staff who would, to quote from V/Line’s Customer Commandments, “provide friendly personal service and the information I need to make my journey enjoyable”.

So that would mean the end of the historic Barking Conductor Corps. They’d just have to retire and go home to kick their dogs and watch TV.

Valē Peadar (Peter) Joseph McDonnell, 1930-2010

Eulogy delivered by his eldest child, Stephen, at St Jude’s, Langwarrin, Australia, April 9, 2010

Some of us are dreamers, we have a fantastic, creative imagination and can believe anything is possible. Dad was an engineer, they’re the ones who turn dreams into reality.

He didn’t have an artistic bone in his body. He dealt in algorithms,

disciplined planning, correct procedures. But at the age of 22 he fell in love with Nadia Cooperman, a dreamer straight from cloud nine.

They were married in London in December 1954 and the magic-carpet ride began.

Dad provided the stability that gave mum the freedom to indulge her imagination.

Peadar (Peter to most) Joseph McDonnell was born in Leenane, Ireland, in October 1930, the 5th of Captain Peadar and Tilly McDonnell’s eight children. The family later moved and settled in nearby Galway, where Dad served out much of his youth and schooling. He continued on to Galway University where he studied Civil Engineering.

He was also mad about sports – Gaelic football, hurling, rugby and rowing; He was selected for the Schoolboy fifteen to represent Connaught against Leinster in the Rugby Interprovincial one year. He also represented Galway Uni in the All Ireland Rowing Championships.

Like his mother and father before him, Dad was a devoted Catholic and in his diary at this time, every entry starts with ‘I went to Mass’.

After graduating he worked in England for the British construction company Wimpy and Co. and the Crown Agents office, seconded from the British Government.

However, adventure and travel was in Dad’s veins. Before long he and his young wife headed off to a life of adventure in Nigeria where the first of his 10 children was born – that would be me. When my sister Katie confronted Dad one day on why he went to Nigeria of all places rather than the more genteel Kenya with its established community of expatriates, he replied: “I fronted up at the civil service office for overseas postings and said you can send me anywhere.”

When an engineer constructs an all-weather road to an otherwise remote community they change the fortunes of the people in that community forever.

With his slide rule and theodolite, and of course his cinecamera, Dad built many roads and bridges connecting communities in Nigeria. These were primitive times, remote from the modern world. There was no ready-mix concrete to call on, nor a phone book of tradesmen to lend a hand. Concrete for piles and struts was mixed and moulded on site using teams of local labourers with improvised facilities. It's a task

that required exceptional innovation and ingenuity. As did the task of raising a young family in a primitive, tropical country, rife with exotic diseases and increasing political turmoil.

Two more children later, Mum and Dad finally left Nigeria just before the British colonial rulers did the same. Another short two-child retreat in England and Ireland our now, family of five children with one on the way, set our sights down under.

Dad must have wondered what he was thinking when he brought his young family to the wilds of the Pearcedale bush surrounded by wildlife and sword grass. There were many failures and triumphs in those early years, like the orchard he planted where the family home now stands, or the failure to catch a wallaby he had by the tail – an event watched repeatedly with much mirth on many a family movie night, or the failure to burn the sword grass, or even the failure to keep our horses fenced

in, none of which deterred Dad. But then there was the triumph of building a limestone house and successfully raising a family of 10 kids. A family I knew Dad was very proud of.

Many would agree that mum ruled the roost but Dad always had

the final word.

Dad continued his career providing utilities for the community. First it was water with the State Rivers and Water Supply and then it was homes for those who needed them most with the Victorian Housing Commission.

As I mentioned, Dad was deeply religious and caring and gave much to the community and asked for nothing in return – unless you happened to be eating some chocolate around him.

He was always a very active member of his parish. When St Marys Primary School needed some new classrooms Dad did the drawings and supervised the building work. When Hastings Parish needed a church, Hall for Pearcedale Dad once again did the drawings and plans and helped in the building work. You can always tell Dad's churches, they're the ones that look like they were designed by an engineer.

Dad was one of the founding members of the St Vincent De Paul Society here at St Judes attending regular meetings to help out the needy and the poor of the Parish.

There is no question that Dad touched the lives of so many people in Africa, England, Ireland and Australia through his work. And there is no doubt that most of them would not be aware of who he is or what he has done. He never talked about his work or himself. We had to do quite a bit of research so we could tell you what he actually did at work all these years.

He was not one of those married to his career – he was married to Mum and his family. At home with his kids, that's where Dad really lived.

He was a very quiet, gentle and caring man, but never-the-less there was a side to Dad that would surprise many. For example, his adventurous, fearless spirit.

It must have come as a great shock to Mum when he took on the gruelling Murray River Marathon with some of his sons. Ironic that by the same river I was playing Nigerian rhythms on Congo drums at the Down to Earth Festival. Or the time he agreed to accompany Rory on a flight in a light plane to Queensland and back. Rory had just got his pilot's licence and was keen to give it a try. Or the time he went hunting razorbacks on the banks of the Lachlan River. Not with guns – with dogs and knives.

Dad was never a horseman, but his daredevil spirit compelled him to occasionally saunter out to one of the children on a horse declaring it was his turn. On one such occasion, at the age of 55 the spirited horse took off and dumped our poor Dad, leaving him with a punctured lung, six broken ribs and a broken collarbone. He never got on a horse again.

His strength and belief in standing up for what was right came out in unusual ways.

Like the time Mum opened an antique shop in Frankston when Joanne, her youngest, started school. With no allocated parking space and surrounded by two-hour parking zones, Mum had a constant barrage of parking fines which she would occasionally appease with a cheque. Fed up, she went to the police station and demanded all outstanding fines which she would pay, and did. When, in the next few weeks another summons came for some fines they had missed, Dad said “Enough”. He would go to jail rather than pay another cent. Off he went with his book under his arm to the Dandenong lock up. Mum was in the shop that day. She rang home to see what was needed. Jackie answered: “We need milk and bread – and Dad’s in jail”.

Around 1975 when I was working in the city, dad suggested we both do a public speaking course the Knights of the Southern Cross were running, to help me overcome my fear of public speaking.

Dad introduced us to current affairs and British comedy. News and AM in the morning on the way to school, PM in the evening then This Day Tonight, Monday Conference, Point of View with Bob Santamaria and the comedies, At Last the 1948 Show, The Frost Report, Monty Python and others.

Another surprising side of Dad was his eclectic taste in literature – He was never without a book but also read his Catechism, The Catholic Advocate, The Nation Review, National Times, and how can we forget, Harry Potter. In recent years, no book was safe. When visiting his children, he would take any book he happened to find handy. Often frustrating when he disappeared with the book you had nearly finished.

Dad’s legacies to his children and grandchildren are many. Like his father before him, he always had a camera and we have home movies going back to the early days in Africa. He was always a playful tease, delighting those around him with the ‘whiskers kiss’, 'Gee Up a Guppolin', his constant urge to tickle, and tease, particularly the dreaded ‘horse-bite knee tickle’.

Many of you that knew Dad realised that his mind was deteriorating over the past few years and deteriorating rather exponentially. Even though he knew us all and his cherished grandchildren, 32 in all, this period has been punctuated by some rather comic and bizarre behaviour, too numerous to mention here. But when family members would continually lose their keys only to find them clutched firmly in dads right hand after a frantic search we really started to worry.

Dad never had a bad word for anyone. He had a genuine love for everybody he met and he had the ability to make everyone feel special and welcome.

Barrister John Styring captured this perfectly in a tribute he sent to Sally. He wrote:

"I have the fondest memory of Peter sitting in a comfortable chair in your log cabin just across from the open fire, cradling a baby, and smiling at me with a look of utter contentment. There was great noise and movement in the cabin, but for Peter, it was just him, the baby, and by his smile, me."

His Grandson Oscar – also grandson of his best friend in Galway, Mossy Power – said it all when asked by his father “Do you want to be a doctor like me when you grow up”, he answered: "When I grow up I want to be just like Grandpa."

We all miss you so terribly, Dad.

We can measure our way to 'la dolce vita'

From the 27^th to the 30^th of this month (October) global experts will gather in Busan, Korea, for the OECD World Forum. Although this event has much greater potential for influencing the future of the world than the Copenhagen Conference on climate change, it has been all but ignored by the world’s media.

Every key player and informed commentator knows that at best Copenhagen will result in a lot of politicians making well-meaning promises they can’t keep – just like Kyoto.

Busan, on the other hand, is about getting results. It’s about the “Global Project on ‘Measuring the Progress of Societies’- hosted by the OECD and run in collaboration with other international and regional partners - it seeks to become the world wide reference point for those who wish to measure, and assess the progress of their societies”.

It’s a cause that has been embraced by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to his credit.

But his initiative has largely been treated with ridicule by the media. Knowing the media as I do, this is not surprising. What is been attempted at Busan is way outside the popular media’s vocabulary.

Our journalists are far-more at home with the finger-pointing, accusations, arguments and emotional rhetoric generated by climate change. This sells papers. Results-driven constructive initiatives like the OECD’s Global Project, or the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, just don’t have anything to offer the media. They lack the strong emotions the media needs to attract customers like you and me.

Tracking effective measurements is one of the most powerful means of bringing about change. I once asked an engineer how he had achieved such remarkable results in improving the energy efficiency and reducing the greenhouse emissions from his industrial plant. He said it was just a result of measuring and tracking theses parameters of our business. “Once we established benchmarks and then tracked our progress as part of our everyday business, the plant operators starting finding all sorts of ways to reduce energy waste,” he said.

This is what the OECD, as well as credible organisations around the world, have been doing for years. But they will never achieve their full potential until they are adopted by the mainstream media.

We do it for anything to do with money, such as share markets, GDP, consumer sentiment, but if it does not relate directly to money we ignore it.

The media goes into a frenzy whenever interest rates move. Here in Australia, particularly since the last election, we saw all sorts of claims and accusations about which party, Liberal Coalition, or Labor, were best at keeping interest rates low.

But do interest rates really present a credible measure of a government’s worth? The merits of debating levels of interest rates under Liberal or Labor leadership is so spurious given the impact of international factors on Australia’s economy.

And anyway, Governments are not just elected to steer the economy – we are a society not just an economy.

According to pioneering sociologist Emile Durkheim, it’s another issue floating around in the public debate lately that is a much more accurate measure of the health of a society than money – it’s suicide.

Durkheim believed that the only true way to gain empirical evidence of our society’s health and wellbeing was by counting how many of us decide to check-out early.

So how do our historic Liberal and Labor Governments go on suicide rates?

According to the World Health Organisation, it’s the Liberals who hold the record for suicide rates in Australia. But not just any Liberal Government, it’s the Liberal Party’s icon, Sir Robert Menzies. He managed to increase the suicide rate by an astounding 37.6 percent to almost 15 per 100,000 people – an all-time record – in a decade and a half of Government.

Most remarkably he managed to increase women’s suicide rate into unprecedented double figures by the mid-‘60s.

Between 1950 and 1965 our female suicide rate went from 4.7 per 100,000 to 10.8, climaxing with an astonishing 42.6 percent increase in the first five years of the swinging ‘60s.

What could have happened to create such a dramatic spike? Looking at the statistics from a high altitude you could not miss the fact that this was a period of tremendous social change in the role of women. This was the epicentre of women’s liberation as they burned their bras and came out of the kitchen and into the workforce.

Does this mean that many of our mums and daughters chose to put their heads in the oven rather than leave the confines of the kitchen?

A quick look through Wikipedia reveals that in January 1961 The Pill went on sale in Australia, April 1964 saw Melbourne woman Judy Hanrahan appointed as the first female teller in the Bank of NSW since the War. In the same month Menzies refused to ratify the International Labor Organisation convention on equal pay for women.

As our suicide rates neared their peak, Donald Horne published The Lucky Country. But then, coincidentally after Sydney’s Philip St Theatre staged its famous comedy revue, A Cup Of Tea, A Bex and A Good Lie Down, the tide turned. Menzies handed the reins over to Harold Holt and female suicide rates began to decline. However, it wasn’t until 2003, with John Howard as PM, that they returned to their 1950 rate of 4.7.

There is no question that according to Durkheim’s measure, the Age of Aquarius, peace and free love was not a happy time. As our society lifted her skirts and let down her hair, and the beautiful people indulged in drugs and sex and rock and roll, women in the English-speaking world were killing themselves in record numbers. But it has to be said that the UK and US rate for women never came close to our double figures.

Our rate for men, on the other hand, lives in double figures.

The title for achieving the highest suicide rate for men goes to Labor icon Bob Hawke. In 1990 it hit an unprecedented 20.7 per 100,000. This was just as the country was heading into Treasurer Keating’s “recession we had to have”.

Durkheim’s mission over a century ago was to find uncompromised data to measure and study social trends, because our intuition is often very misleading.

For example, we like to think of ourselves as “the greatest little country on earth” – land of beautiful beaches, sunshine and “she’ll be right mate”. So then how come, according to the OECD, our suicide rate is nearly twice that of those “whinging”,” whining” Poms?

Sociology has come a long way since Durkheim’s day. We now have a wide range of sophisticated measures such as Cantril-ladder-type questionnaires to test how we’re doing as a society. But, as I said earlier, for some reason we choose to ignore them unless they are linked to money.

Experts agree that suicide rates and the epidemic of depression that has been sweeping the post-war industrial world seems to be linked to breakdowns in social cohesion. In short, it has to do with the “ME” generation. Anything we can do to turn our “ME” upside down to make a “WE” society will improve our outlook and reduce our suicides.

In the past communities grew around a cathedral, synagogue, temple or a mosque. Today we worship the bourse. Our daily news outlets report on the Dow Jones Index, the FTSE, the Nasdaq, the Hang Seng, the Nikkei, the All Ordinaries, the S&P, CPI, GDP, the dollar etc, etc, etc.

As Robert Kennedy said in 1968 – ironically, as American women were killing themselves in record numbers – we measure “everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile”. Three months later he was shot dead.

So the 3^rd OECD World Forum on “Statistics, Knowledge and Policy” (October 27-30) will feature its Global Project on "Measuring the Progress of Societies". Although it has been embraced by President Sarkozy who is developing a measurement template “for every interested country or group of countries” for now it looks like the world media’s attention is elsewhere.

However, the success or failure of these initiatives – and therefore our success or failure in achieving our goals including tackling climate change – will depend on the media.

So come-on editors and producers, step away for the sheep and start making real progress.

Here is a sample of some of the human-factor measures you can choose from. They are all tried and tested.

• The Gallup World View
• World Happiness Database
• OECD Measuring the Progress of Societies
• Community Indicators Victoria
• World Bank Development Indicators

This is only a few and each of these have links to many more.

If we are serious about winning the "War on Terror", if we are serious about building a better world for our children and grandchildren, then we will measure the things that matter most and we will report the results along with the weather, the stock market trends and the value of the dollar in our newspapers and on the evening news.

A Peony’s Progress

The year I was born a fellow traveller, or Sputnik to use the Russian word, also began this journey.

I was whisked off to Africa in my first few months on Earth, while Sputnik was launched into orbit.

As I sprouted I began to wonder what I would be when I grew up.

Would I be like my father, or would I be Daniel Boone.

Once I thought I would win Wimbledon, when I got around to it. But that didn’t happen.

I tried being a navvy, but I fell into a pile of newspapers.

So I thought I was a journalist. While this seemed okay, it just wasn’t quite there.

But finally my bud burst and Sputnik delivered the truth.

When he headed towards the stars, he kindled a flame of insecurity over in America.

As a result the United States formed the Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA, in order to regain the lead in the rocket race. ARPA created the technology that later led to the Internet, so that John Brockman could launch a website on its Edge to introduce me to Katinka Matson who had a mirror in which I could see my true self at last – I’m a peony.

Journalists Are Being Taken For Fools Over Energy

Something is missing from the Rudd Government’s energy policies – energy.

We have a lot of theories, plans, committees, voluminous reports, good intentions and ambitious targets, but we don’t have a credible plan for supplying the energy we will need in coming years to maintain our economy.

The fault here lies not just with the Government, but with us in the media.

We in the media have to take responsibility for the fact that, when it comes to energy, the public’s perception has become totally detached from reality. Our politicians, in order to remain popular, have been forced to present two faces – one for mainstream journalists and the public and the other for the energy industry.

When speaking to the former they present beads and trinkets – or more accurately, propellers and mirrors. Yet when speaking to the energy industry they are at pains to demonstrate that they haven’t lost the ball.

Take for example the mixed messaging coming out Canberra on renewable energy. The public’s perception of renewable energy is essentially wind, solar and biofuels – energy that is widely believed to be clean, green, available and the way of the future.

However, this is not the reality. To quote the Government’s own energy experts at ABARE: “Australian production of renewable energy is dominated by bagasse (sugar cane waste), wood and wood waste, and hydroelectricity, which combined accounted for 86 per cent of renewable energy production in 2006-07. Wind, solar and biofuels (which include landfill and sewage gas) accounted for the remainder of Australia’s renewable energy production.”

Few people outside the energy industry will hear government spokespeople explaining that we get most of our renewable energy from damming rivers and burning forests.

Whenever politicians – Labour, Coalition, or Greens – talk about renewable energy, they love to highlight solar. That’s the one we all love. That’s the one we really want to be the answer. “We should use the sun's power to stop blackouts, instead of causing them,” thundered The Age’s editorial during last summer’s heatwave (2 February 2009).

But sadly today’s solar technology suffers from fundamental flaws in terms of cost, scale and reliability. The only solar energy running in urban areas anywhere in the world is there because it’s subsidised – governments are paying for it because the people want it.

The Rudd Government’s energy experts again: “Most solar energy is used for residential water heating and this represents less than 1 per cent of final energy consumption in the residential sector.”

We are facing a major crisis in providing for our future energy needs, while our politicians engage in feckless arguments about targets and schemes. Kevin Rudd is driving energy policy merrily towards a tree like Mr Magoo. The Greens are angry because he’s not going fast enough while the media commentators just bark at the tyres.

We really need journalists to shine a light on what’s really happening. But in order for that to happen we journalists must first stop being advocates. When it comes to complex technical issues like energy we don’t have the answers – we are the communicators. Our readers, viewers, listeners rely on us to break down the complex technical information and translate it into simple concepts that they can understand.

Right now the debate is dominated by the beliefs and opinions of politicians, academics, economists, scientists, financial market analysts, industry leaders, and journalists. Each brings important input into the deliberations. However, they are all essentially theorists. We are hearing very little from the pragmatists – the engineers.

It’s the absence of engineers from the debate that has resulted in our energy policies failing to take the curve on the way towards tackling climate change.

Scientists have done an excellent job in identifying where we have to get to. But our political leaders have designed a path forward without adequate input from the engineers. Yet it’s our engineers who will have to do the heavy lifting in getting us there.

Our current energy policies are based on wishes, and dreams, assumptions and beliefs. But the fact is, no matter how strong your mandate, no matter how large your majority, no matter how well-meaning your intentions, you can’t legislate to change the laws of thermodynamics.

The Governments has introduced legislation increasing the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET) and it has bipartisan support. However, the Greens don’t think it goes far enough.

So let’s do the maths.

The legislation says we will get 20 per cent of our electricity from renewable energy by 2020. The Government’s forecast says we will need 1258 petajoules (PJ) of electricity per year by 2020, bearing in mind that one petajoule is the energy equivalent of 29 million litres of petrol.

At 20 percent, that means we will require 251.6 PJ of renewable power generation in about 10 years time. We currently deliver about 92 PJ – 63 PJ of which is hydro-electricity.

Hydro’s growth is limited, in fact it has been decreasing, which is not surprising given the state of our water supplies in the hydro areas.

But let’s put it down for the projected 68 PJ the Government says we will get by 2020. That leaves 183.6 PJ to come. There are new technologies on the horizon, wave, geothermal and hot-rocks, but they are, to quote Minister Penny Wong, “yet to be developed”.

According to the Government’s forecasts wind will increase by 1 PJ to 16 PJ in 2020, biomass (that’s wood) will almost double to 15 PJ and biogas (gas from tips and landfills) will rise to 7 PJ. So that leaves 145.6 PJ of renewable energy we will have to find to meet our MRET target.

What about solar?

We have all, no doubt, heard about Australia’s ambitious plan to lead the world into a solar future. We have the much-heralded plan to build the world’s largest and most efficient photovoltaic power plant in Victoria. If we succeed, this one plant will provide more than twice the amount of solar electricity we get from all the solar panels and plants currently installed across the nation. That will reduce our 145.6 PJ target by 1 PJ. So if we throw in our current solar industry we can call it an even 144 PJ we will still require.

In the May Budget, the Rudd Government announced its ambitious $1.6 billion Solar Flagship Program. “The Solar Flagship Program is expected to comprise up to four solar power stations operating within the energy market, with a total capacity of 1000MW.”

If they succeed, and remember they need private investment to take the total to over $4 billion, they will add an amazing 6.6 PJ.

So on the Government’s own figures and forecasts we are currently 138 PJ short on meeting its MRET target. This shortfall would require 138 more of the “world’s biggest” solar photovoltaic plants, and at current costs that would be more than $55 billion. Or perhaps we could find somewhere to put an extra 2484 square kilometres of wind-turbines.

Major energy infrastructure projects can typically take 10 years from concept to completion so we need to be starting this right now to deliver the energy in 2020.

Never forget that this 138 PJ shortfall is just to meet our MRET target. We are not talking about finding an alternative to fossil fuels here. These numbers assume that we meet all our energy efficiency targets and that fossil fuels can increase their annual output by 225 PJ.

These foolish targets lead to absurd consequences like Australia and America exporting wood to Europe (WSJ, July 8) to burn in coal-fired power plants in order to meet the EU’s absurd 20 percent renewable quota.

So as our politicians are out there bragging about their targets, where are all the journalists asking them to explain where the energy is going to come from? Are they, for example, planning on burning down more forests? Or perhaps they want to revisit the Gordon-Franklin hydro scheme now that we have Bass Link tying Tasmania’s electricity to the mainland.

Far from grilling the Government on these basic fundamentals, we have many intelligent, rational journalists, academics and politicians seriously suggesting that we should extend this shortfall by replacing coal-fired generation with renewable energy.

Just for the record, that would make the missing 138 PJ grow to 988 PJ.

To give you some idea of the complexities of the energy industry, let’s look at the aluminium industry. Our wind turbines and the towers they sit on are made from aluminium. If we wanted to power only our aluminium smelters from wind it would require more than 2000 square kilometres of wind turbines. That’s the equivalent of a wind-farm one kilometre wide stretching from Melbourne out way beyond Brisbane.

To attempt this, of course, would create a significant increase in demand for aluminium, which in turn would require more power and therefore more wind turbines etc, etc, etc.

This is why we really need to draw more engineers into this debate. They are the ones trained to deal with these practicalities. Engineers tend to be more doers than talkers, which probably explains why so few of them go into politics.

However, 2009 is the 90^th Anniversary of the Australian Institute of Engineers and maybe we can make this the year we started to change all that.

If we are going to make any serious progress in the global challenge of meeting the world’s energy needs while tackling climate change we are going to have to hear more from our engineers. And we in the media are going to have to resist the urge to advocate and go back to asking the fundamental questions.