Talk back radio Australia extreme activism in schools

“I often wonder how did Australia come to be so climate-cucked in the first place?”

How or weather? No, you’re right, the history of the debate has cucked us over Down Here. I have few explanations and fewer excuses.

We do have a deep inferiority complex, our so-called ‘cultural cringe,’ which has turned our tertiary sector into a desperate, grovellingly grateful Salon des Refuses for the Steffens and Stephans who were too mentally mediocre even for the US climate academy.

OTOH I suspect we punch above our division for skeptics per capita, with heavyweights like Jo Nova, the late John Daly, Warwick Hughes, ….

Meanwhile our Prime Minister had the audacity to suggest that, its being a school day, school kids should probably be in school. After his foreseeable crucifixion I wrote this to the Sydney Morning Herald, forlornly. Probably should have used fewer threatening words like ‘adiabatic.’ For entertainment purposes only—yes, I know the language makes too many concessions to climate ignorance.

___________

Dear Sir,

I may not believe in the science, but I’ll defend to the death the right of semi-educated teenagers to skip Maths, History and Science in order to raise much-needed awareness of their opinions about adiabatic lapse rates, black-body radiation physics, proxy validity in paleoclimate reconstructions, and the myriad other domains of knowledge required for forming a scientifically-literate position on global warming.

More power to them. If I were young and naïve enough to mistake an IPCC report for a scientific paper, I’d also feel an ethical responsibility to decry government inaction on behalf of the planet I was about to inherit.

If the PM wants to blame someone, he should confine his criticism to the education system. It’s an open secret that teachers of everything from English to Religious Studies use An Inconvenient Truth as an electronic babysitter. Teaching is the hardest and most underappreciated profession in the world, but if you’re struggling to come up with a lesson plan, how about devoting a couple of hours to critical thinking and skepticism?

Yours faithfully,

The BBC World Service also interviewed one of these kids, showing how the media has hidden control of the news agenda, and gives the craved-for publicity to favoured causes. LBC radio in the UK also gave a platform to a few hundred climate protestors who have been closing bridges recently.

The common sense conservative viewpoint is seldom heard, we do seem to be heading back to religious fundamentalism, where “green” is the new state-supported religion.

Let’s hope lots of parents took the opportunity to send their kids to school instead, and explain to them why.

Clearly these brainwashed children haven’t been taught anything of Australia’s weather history by their teacher preachers. Harsh unpredictable weather has been the norm here at least since European settlement and likely long before that, a current example – many farmers and rural residents in southern Queensland, NSW and Northern Victoria are currently suffering the effects of severe drought. Droughts, floods and bushfires are perennial problems for Australian farmers and rural people in our land of “droughts and flooding rains”.

When Charles Sturt discovered the Darling River in Feb 1829 the region was in the grip of a drought that had reduced the river to a series of pools, some too salty to drink because of inflow from brine springs. The modern day picture linked below shows the Darling River during drought, much as Charles Sturt would have seen it 189 years ago.
http://tinypic.com/r/24g3d4n/9

The Sydney Morning Herald of 9 November, 1865, P.6 carried an article, reproduced below, expressing the obvious concern at the time about a widespread, severe drought.
Link to newspaper article http://tiny.cc/hqgg1y
The author wasn’t to know it at the time but the drought he/she was commenting on would extend until 1868.

“A THREE YEARS’ DROUGHT.
(From the Australasian, November 3.)
It is now becoming a serious question with us whether we are entering on the second summer of such a period of drought or not. These have occurred more than once since the first settlement of Australia, although few Victorians have had the opportunity of learning what they are, for there has not been one for about a quarter of a century. The extremes of climate to which New Holland is subject are to be judged of from the fact that one explorer declared the great interior to be a vast sea, without any limits apparent to him after several days’ travel along its shores, and there is no reason to doubt that he truly described what he saw, even though another explorer and his party almost perished for want of water in an arid desert where once this supposed sea was. Such were the very opposite experiences of Oxley and Sturt, and such are the extremes of climates in what are now included in the settled parts of Australia. A late explorer, McKinlay, had difficulty in escaping from floods and a wide expanse of water in this same desert interior, thus proving that the story of its having been before covered with water was not altogether fabulous, as many were beginning to think ; so we may well suppose that these extremes of wet and drought are not yet at an end. It is only, perhaps, within the tropics that falls of rain capable of effecting such a change are to be looked for; but in the interior, dry weather to a certainty predominates, and we are quite within the influence of it. Round the south coast, and to a certain extent back from the sea, no absolute drought is to be feared; but the plains north of the coast-range are all more or less subject to this, and over a great portion of the Darling country and the plains north of the Murray there was not a drop of rain for three years during the time of the last great drought. Only a few cattle and horses were then in the tract of country we speak of, so the effects then were not very serious, but the drought, though not so absolute, extended in full force over the greater part of New South Wales, causing loss enough there, and raising agricultural produce of all sorts to such prices as cannot be contemplated without dismay, now that the number of people to be fed has increased so enormously. The number of persons engaged in raising food has, of course, increased in proportion; but, unfortunately, these will be all converted into consumers instead of producers, in those parts of the country visited by the drought, for no amount of work of an ordinary kind can prevail against it. We have always been inclined to flatter ourselves that this small territory of ours is so happily situated as to be free from the extreme vicissitudes of climate which are traditionary in New South Wales, but last year gave some idea of the mischief one dry season can do, with the runs pretty fully stocked, and the farmers wedded to a shortsighted, thriftless system; and how will it be if that was only the first of three?
Should such really be the ordeal through which these colonies have once again to pass, the prospect before us is a sad one. Already are the consequences of a want of rain becoming ruinous in many parts of New South Wales and South Australia. In this last named colony, the tracts of country farthest away from the sea, taken up and occupied with profit during a succession of wet seasons, have had to be abandoned with the loss of nearly all the stock once upon them, now that the winter has passed over without rain; and throughout a great extent of New South Wales, cattle, sheep, and horses are dying, for want of a sufficiency of either feed or water, and hundreds of small settlers, dependent partly on tillage and, partly on stock, are barely able to find food for themselves, and altogether unable to pay their debts. If such is the case with the small settlers after one dry winter and summer, only too many of the large settlers in badly watered parts of the country will be in like circumstances after the second dry summer, which to all appearance has now commenced. Deep wells may hold out, but dams will be useless without rain to fill the tanks and reservoirs; and how many millions of sheep and thousands of cattle are now dependent on these alone for water through out the level plains of the interior? Many of such sources of supply failed last summer, and have remained dry, and how many more will not have utterly failed before six months are over? Then, as for grass, there will be absolutely none at all on those plains which have for several years past furnished so much of the meat we eat, and the wool we export, unless there should be such rains as we have no right to expect over a tract of country which has before been unvisited by a single shower for three years together. And even on this side of the Murray things promise to be little better away from the ranges. Only too many of the stockowners had no increase last year, owing to the low condition of their stock, which, speaking generally, has had no chance of picking up during the winter and spring, and will, therefore, succumb early to a second period of semi-starvation. Thus if one dry season prevented an increase, a second will cause a rapid decrease, not, unfortunately, to be guarded against by any means available now.
The decline at present in the value of fat stock is only too commonly hailed as the passing away of a temporary pressure; but this may quite as well be taken as an omen of worse evils to come. The settlers are only too well aware of the state of their own stock and of the country at large, not to know that meat must be very much higher a few months hence than it is now, and thus only sell what they have fat in despair of being able to wait for these better prices. So scarce is feed on most runs, even this early in the year, that those animals which are marketable must be got out of the way of those which are not, as the only hope of keeping these last alive. Then as each day elapses after shearing, there will be less chance of fat stock finding even the most moderate picking beside the roads on their way to market, for many and many a flock of sheep will be sent on its travels this summer to avoid the calamity of absolute starvation at home. No, the temporary over-supply must not be taken as a hopeful sign, but rather the contrary—as a compulsory waste of resources. And when this ceases, it is hard to foresee what the price of meat may not rise to, for no one can tell where enough is to come from. The few runs that will retain their fattening properties can only furnish a tenth of what will be required for the consumption of the towns, and even if store sheep are to be obtained for these there will be few store cattle forthcoming, for the Monaroo Plains and other great tracts of breeding country in New South Wales bid fair to be almost entirely cleared of stock by starvation and disease combined. Pork must be our last resource, and as the harvest will be light, there will be little grain for the pigs, except at a high price. Then, fresh butter will be a greater luxury than ever, dear as it was last year, and the supply of salt butter will depend entirely on importations from Europe. A light harvest means a short supply of breadstuffs, as well as little grain to spare for feeding purposes, and this will be followed by a poor yield of potatoes and other roots, and of vegetables and fruit. Thus the second year of the drought will leave us without enough of any of the chief articles of food, and with diminished powers to purchase. Breadstuff and grain may be imported, and so may butter and cheese, in sufficient quantity; but vegetables and fruit, cannot, nor can fresh meat, to an extent that will, enable the poorer classes to continue anything like their present consumption of it. We will again be reduced to the condition brought about by the first great influx of gold-seekers, without a sufficiency of wholesome food, but dependent on the damaged grain and flour, the salt meat and two-year old Cork butter, wherewith importers may deem fit to furnish us; and this, too, without the money the new arrivals brought with them, and the gold they so quickly raised to purchase what was needed. Then the evil brought its own cure, but a drought will not only produce like bad results, but will do this by destroying the actual sources of our national income and wealth at the same time. It will render meat scarce by killing off our flocks and herds, and bread scarce, by drawing up the soil to a state of aridity. It will diminish the yield of gold, and in every way reduce the amount of employment offered. It will bring us dear food, compulsory idleness, and low wages, and all this without one single countervailing advantage. Such is the dismal picture of what a second year of drought must bring in its train, if it runs its course without the providential intervention of such rains as we have now no right to calculate on or expect. To a third year of suffering and impoverishment we may or may not have to look forward, but with even the second thus imminent, it seems strange that so few of either our public men or private individuals appear to be alive to our danger. The weather cannot be changed at command; clouds dropping rain and plenty over the face of the earth cannot be made to rise from the sea just when we need them. But such resources as we have may be husbanded far more carefully than they are; and until all fears of a three-years’ drought have passed away no public or private undertaking of any importance should be entered on without due deference to the evils possibly, nay, most probably, impending.”

A pity they didn’t understand back then what our child activists do today about “climate change”, if only they had they would have been able to control the weather and stop those terrible droughts simply by closing down their coal fired power stations and swapping their fossil fueled SUV’s for electric cars.

[this was a weird one in the original format so I’m allowing this, but normally just post a link, and if you’re going to post so much text, please use paragraphs~mod]