Young Ghosts by an old country Cenotaph
It is November 11 again. My eldest son is just 9 weeks shy of his 19th birthday. He is the only one in the family line to carry the name of his Great Grandfather who went off to the western front at the same age. So please forgive me. When I think about the dreadful sacrifices made by almost every farming family I can only ask if we are still worthy of the rights and liberties that were protected at such a cost.
I think about the rights that have already been taken without so much as a single bloody nose, or even a hurled egg or tomato. I wonder if those boys are still watching us now. I wonder what they would think about the people who claim to represent us but who give up so meekly and then pose for the camera, doing all they can to provide our persecutors with the veneer of good governance their voters still expect of them.
I wonder why it is that those who have had so little of life can give so much. And why those of us who have had so much of life will pay so little to hang on to what has already been paid for in full.
I still can't get over what an incredible bond of trust and belief in the inherent worth of their own community there must have been for parents to let their kids go into something like that. If Rudd & Wong, Bligh & Beattie, Carr and all the rest are the litmus paper of the nation we have become then, I'm sorry to say it, but these people are not worth the death of one good man, let alone 65,000, and just as many in continuous care some 3 decades later.
I was the last Cadet Officer of my school Cadet Unit before Whitlam shut it down in 1973, so I missed the draft by 2 years. But there was never any doubt as to where my duty lay. This was no mistake on my part, nor any moral fall from grace, as the left would have history record. You see, I was the son of a farmer who also rented land to other, poorer, farmers. And there were these people who knew nothing about farming who had consistently chosen to shoot folks like me and my family, without trial, every time they had the chance. And it was solidarity with people just like us that reinforced the need to fight murderers at their own place, not our's. Just as we now fight murderers in their own place today.
When I got to Uni I found that there were people with academic tenure who were quite capable of justifying my arbitrary dispossession and execution on the grounds of some illdefined "greater good". The students who were taught by those academics have reinvented themselves and now run our state and federal governments. And it is with the profoundest regret that it has come to the point where I could break both my son's legs before I would let them risk their lives for these leaders and the nation that elected them.
We all need to examine our consciences and ask if we have done enough to look those young ghosts in the eye as we pass them by at all those little country Cenotaphs. It is no good remembering them on just 2 days of the year while squandering their inheritance for the rest of it.
Labels: liberties, property rights
posted by Ian Mott @ 10:32 am
6 comments
6 Comments:
Being a climate sceptic seems to run counter to the sacrifices that out soldiers made in WW1 and WW2. Those sacrifices were made to give their families and future generations a chance for a better life. There was no guarantee that the future would be better after their sacrifices but just a better chance that it would be.
The Climate Change debate is similar. There is no guarantee that the world will be better off with reduced greenhouse gases just the high probability that it will be.
There is an additional consideration which also makes me 100% certain that actions need to be taken that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That consideration is that sustainability. Ultimately, over time, the world must live within its resources. That cannot be denied. The actions to reduce global warming also increase sustainability.
Another way of looking at it is if the world economy was 100% sustainable by definition there would be no net greenhouse gas emissions as everything including CO2 is recycled. To that end I am researching into a way to generate electricity from farm waste. That can only be achieved if higher electricity charges are made for renewable energies. Not much; AUD 0.12 is enough but without the higher tariff it will not happen. As you live in northern NSW you should also be aware of the NSW Sugar co-generation using sugar cane bagasse and leaves. According to your current position as a sceptic NSW Sugar project should not exist and better to produce the electricity from coal. As it is less sustainable and likely to be taking an advantage for current generations and the probable or even possible expense of future generations I find you position is the opposite of the sacrifices your grandfather and his generation made.
Wizard, if you knew anything about soldiers, and Australian soldiers in particular, you would know that they develop a keen radar for, and a very low tolerance of, bull$hit. They would recognise climate alarmists as nothing more than the latest variation of the spiv. They also came from families with very long memories so claims that any current drought is in any way different to previous ones would be laughed out of town. They also undestood, more than anyone else, the nature of risk and probability and they would be absolutely disgusted at the way the IPCC has not bothered to attach realistic, verifiable probabilities to their climate predictions. They would also be disgusted by the demonisation of doubters and those seeking basic due diligence as "deniers".
Ian,
Stick to the facts. Your diatribe is the real BS. IPCC have presented their arguments in a scientific manner but somehow you think that your non factual diatribe is superior. Gimme a break. I guess you are still smoking as well.
Wow, and Wizard seriously believes the IPCC has acted in a "scientific manner". Like the way they assumed, in SRES A1F1 scenario that all of africa, all of latin america, all the middle east and all the folks of poorer asia will 1) double thir population by 2050 and 2) then go on to enjoy a GDP per capita of US$68,000 by 2100, and 3) have CO2 emissions to match. Thgis was the only way they could produce a scare story with 800ppm CO2. And they fed it into the climate muddles as a 100% certainty when all but the severely deluded would put the odds of that outcome at 10,000 to 1 or more. And no-one from the IPCC or CSIRO has been able to explain how the Bangladeshis might achieve that level of development by 2100 when the rest of the climate shonks are claiming the whole country will be under water by 2035. And Wizard has the gall to suggest that it is the climate retards who stick to the facts.
Where are your facts?
I will be glad to hear them. So far zero.
If Wizard was even partially up to speed he would know that the IPCC's own SRES scenarios can be found at http://sres.ciesin.org/final_data.html
On the front page he should go down the left column to the 5th scenario, called A1F!, and then go over to the 5th column, marked ALM (for Africa, Latin America & Middle East) at far right and click on either the html or the Excel version . When he opens it he can look at line 4, the population projections and observe the 1541 million estimate for 2000 which grows to 3068 million by 2060and drops slightly to 2766 million by 2100.
When he goes to line 6, GDP, we find a total GDP of US$ 2.8 Trillion at 2000, rising to $188.7 trillion by 2100. Divide this $188,700 billion by 2.766 billion people and we get an average GDP of $68,221 per capita.
This, in a context of a doubling of population in already overpopulated nations like Egypt, Ethipia, Somalia, Nigeria and the Congo, is worse than fantasy, it is absolute rubbish.
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