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December 20, 2004
Xmas cheer
You could say that Australia's energy policy is a black hole.
It is a bit of a stalemate in terms of energy independence, security and sustainability. For the right, writing in The Australian Financial Review, energy policy is all about the coal industry and protecting the energy intensive industries. It claims that limiting greenhouse gas emissions is so costly that it will wreck the economy; that wind power is a confidence trick; and that renewable energy is an industry that loses millions of dollars.
Meanwhile, the aspirational suburban project homes---McMansions--- continue to be built on little blocks of land in suburban wastelands with little public amenities and a reliance on private transport. The McMansions have little energy or water efficiency, have little insulation and rely on airconditioners in the winter and summer that depend on the electricity generated by coal-fired power stations. The environmental impact of fossil fuels is ignored.
The right in the media thunders that urban design and planning strangles the market, threatens jobs, and takes away people's choice. And the green activists, nay, zealots go round threatening other people's livelihoods in order to make themselves feel good or enhance their social lives.
The failure to align the market with environmental policy is the reason why Australia's energy policy is a blackhole.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at December 20, 2004 09:43 AM
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Comments
I think you are being way too kind.
Posted by: BigBob at December 20, 2004 10:24 AM
BigBob
tis Xmas you know.
I was going to add something about the right's diagnosis of what has gone with western culture.I was going to say something along thse lines:
The West has replaced faith with reason and so wrecked its culture.
Reason is the root of the problem. Modern humanism stands on nothing. We now stand amidst ruins. Without God there is only death.
To recover from the nihilistic disaster wrought by the wreckers of modernity we need to restore the authority of the Christianity.
The only place to stand is unreasoning faith in the heart of darkness.
Then I though better of it. Tis Xmas.
Posted by: Gary Sauer-Thompson at December 20, 2004 11:00 AM
I still haven't figured out why faith and reason are meant to be mutually exclusive.
Perhaps a question for a greater mind than my own.
Anyway, Merry Christmas to you, and everybody else - faithfull or faithless, reasoning or not!
Posted by: BigBob at December 20, 2004 06:45 PM
The enlightenment made them mutually exlusive way back in the 17th century.
It defined reason as theoretical natural science (physics) that gave us truth about how nature worked as so opposed to the falsehoods, myths and superstitions of religion.
Posted by: Gary Sauer-Thompson at December 21, 2004 09:52 PM