Global warming a hoax? No, the hoax claim is a hoax…

Interesting.

See Global warming a hoax? No, the hoax claim is a hoax. Rush Limbaugh fell for it, though, as did several others who profess to be skeptical of global warming.

I live in one of the most beautiful places on Earth…

Or so we tell people. That’s Fort Denison, in the early days of the colony a punishment island nicknamed “Pinchgut” and then in the 1850s the fort was built to defend Sydney Harbour against a Russian invasion. Something to do with the Crimean War, I think.

Well no Russians came.

But today Fort Denison really is under siege: Fort Denison to be protected against rising sea.

The historic Fort Denison in Sydney Harbour will be restored to improve the structural base of the fort, which is is being eroded as a result of changing sea levels.

The New South Wales Government is investing $1.5 million to replace the sandstone blocks around the base of the fort.

Restoration work will begin next week and will take up to 12 months to complete.

New South Wales Minister for Environment Phil Koperberg says the restoration work will ensure future generations can visit the heritage-listed site.

“It is structurally sound but unless some work is done now, then ultimately given the weight of the fortification, which is over 150 years old, then ultimately these lower block of sandstone will give way as a result of constant erosion,” he said.

“This work is designed to prevent that from happening.

“It [the work] won’t change the look because what the work that will be carried out comprises is the replacement of those huge sandstone blocks which are at the very base of the fortification and most exposed to salt and wave action and rising water levels.”

Climate change sinks embattled troglodytes

Poor Tim Blair. Poor Miranda. Increasingly they look like flat earthists geocentrists* in a post-Galileo world.

See the report Hot, parched and sinking – apocalypse Sydney in today’s Herald, but even more importantly go to Climate change in Australia: “Climate Change in Australia was developed by CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology in partnership with the Australian Greenhouse Office through the Australian Climate Change Science Program.”

Vital reading

1. The Herald series on migrant workers continues to unearth disturbing stories: A lonely death among the pines and Calls for action to save foreign employees. Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews adopts the legalistic Mary Poppins position: “the workers could freely complain about their employment conditions.” That is making several assumptions about the actual power such workers have culturally, socially and linguistically, and is ignoring on-the-ground factors such as access to such mechanisms and isolation.

2. There is a real stoush happening in Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s electorate over the Gunns pulp mill project in the Tamar Valley in Tasmania. Opposition spokesman Peter Garrett is also in the frame. You may read the article that inspired Geoffrey Cousins to take on the Tasmanian Government, the Howard Government, and the Rudd Opposition at The Monthly: scroll down to Richard Flanagan’s “Out of Control” (May 2007) — and stay on that site to read some other articles while you are there. I am so glad The Monthly now gives free access to some of their excellent essays.

3. Through an ad on The Monthly site I went to High & Dry — that is a generous extract from the book — by Guy Pearse.

At last: a right-wing blog that doesn’t make me want to curl up and die…

Most right-wing blogs I read are simply execrable, cheer-leading, in the main, for the pooling of bigotry and stereotypes, and for some of the more lamentably self-satisfied trends in society, a word many of them would reject. This is especially true of US right-wing blogs, but Australia has its share, some of them sadly only too popular — or should that be populist?

So with great pleasure I introduce (courtesy of WordPress and its what’s hot links) a European blog of considerable merit, which is not to say I endorse absolutely everything on it. It is, however, a blog to be savoured. Click to visit.

 

It isn’t just their good taste in templates either. 😉 Here are two entries that I have enjoyed so far:

• Science and Islam
• Global-Warming Deniers: $

The truth about denial

I commend The Bulletin/Newsweek for The truth about denial.

…Since the late 1980s, this well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change. Through advertisements, op-eds, lobbying and media attention, greenhouse doubters (they hate being called deniers) argued first that the world is not warming; measurements indicating otherwise are flawed, they said. Then they claimed that any warming is natural, not caused by human activities. Now they contend that the looming warming will be minuscule and harmless. “They patterned what they did after the tobacco industry,” says former senator Tim Wirth, who spearheaded environmental issues as an under secretary of State in the Clinton administration. “Both figured, sow enough doubt, call the science uncertain and in dispute. That’s had a huge impact on both the public and Congress.”