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IN PRAISE OF INCONVENIENCE

September 25, 2016UncategorizedMichael Rowan

For Michael Raupach, 1950 – 2015. Climate scientist, inventor, humanitarian and
musician. A true friend of the future.

The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something
else, and never for its own sake. Bertrand Russell, In Praise of Idleness.

 

When a friend of mine took a new job in a CBD office tower, I thought she would
soon be telling me how many seconds she was shaving off the time it took her to
climb the stairs to her floor. A fitness fanatic, she had the body of marathon
runner.

Instead she told me how fast the lift was, and how much it cost to park her car
in the multistorey facility adjacent to her office tower. I had expected her to
park on the city fringe for free, and enjoy the brisk twenty-minute walk through
the parklands morning and evening. She explained that the lift and car park
saved the time she needed to get to the gym after work. Continue reading In
Praise of Inconvenience →

One comment so far


HOW HAVE GULLIBILISTS GOT THE EAR OF GOVERNMENT ON CLIMATE CHANGE?

October 10, 2014Climate Change, Economic Growth, Environment, Future Prosperity,
ScienceMichael Rowan

I have recently returned from a brief overseas trip, visiting Berlin and
Beijing. I arrive home with a very uneasy feeling.

Memories of the trip are fresh in my mind, most of all the science. The guest
across the dinner party table in Berlin who turned out to be the CEO of a
science park – home to 1,000 companies, 15,000 employees and an annual turnover
of 1.6bn Euros. The bullet train from Beijing to Tianjin; all (but two)
motorised two wheelers seen in Beijing being electric powered; and Beijing
hosting the inaugural Formula E race – Formula I with electric race cars. (It
goes next to Malaysia, and on to South America, the US, Monte Carlo, Germany and
the UK. No race in Australia is planned.)

Back home, I watch Australia’s Chief Scientist, the current Boyer lecturer, the
2012 Young Australian of the Year and two Nobel Prize winners on Q&A. They field
questions which mostly circle around the lack of respect and support for science
from our current government, most sharply in relation to climate change. The
Chief Scientist frankly admits he was offended by comments about imminent global
cooling made by the Prime Minister’s Business Advisor. They all look embattled.
Continue reading How have gullibilists got the ear of government on climate
change? →

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DOES AUSTRALIA HAVE A FREE PRESS?

April 23, 2014Climate Change, Environment, Freedom of the Press, Media,
PhilosophyMichael Rowan

Does Australia have a free press?

In my earlier post on growth and sustainability I argued that our press must
give as much attention to scientific information about the state of the world as
it now gives to financial information about the state of the market. It is hard
to see how that will happen unless we have a free press. That leaves us with a
problem.

Freedom of the press is an issue that has been unusually prominent in Australia
in recent months – taking ‘the press’ to encompass all public media. But most of
the discussion has focused on the wrong questions and has failed to notice that
whether Australia has a free press is a question that can be answered
empirically; and regrettably the facts demonstrate that, taken as a whole, we do
not have a free press. Continue reading Does Australia have a free press? →

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WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT GROWTH. (AND WE NEED TO DO THE SUMS AS WELL.)

February 27, 2014Climate Change, Economic Growth, Environment, Future
Prosperity, Philosophy, Science, SustainabilityMichael Rowan

We need to talk about growth. (And we need to do the sums as well.)

In my opinion, the greatest scandal of philosophy is that, while all around us
the world of nature perishes – and not just the world of nature alone –
philosophers continue to talk,sometimes cleverly and sometimes not, about the
question of whether the world exists.             Karl Popper, Two Faces of
Common Sense

1. Why should we talk about growth?

Growth is a big issue, and getting bigger all the time, but not one that yet
generates serious discussion in the community. Nor has it been the subject of
mainstream political critique. That economic growth is good is a view
unchallenged by any major political party in Australia, with the exception of
the Greens – and more than anything else it is their questioning of growth that
has seen the major parties condemn the Greens as a fringe political movement.

No doubt there are deep philosophical – or at least ideological – reasons for
this, but the problem might also be explained by our simple failure to
understand the mathematics of growth. Continue reading We need to talk about
growth. (And we need to do the sums as well.) →

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CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENCE: WILL PRIME MINISTER ABBOTT BE GUIDED BY GALILEO OR THE
POPE?

October 10, 2013Climate Change, Environment, Philosophy, ScienceMichael Rowan

When Galileo put forward the idea that the earth is not the centre of the
universe he was subject to persecution by the church. His science was ridiculed
as an affront to God and rejected as inconsistent with the received wisdom from
Aristotle and the Bible.

Bertrand Russell said Galileo ‘began the long fight between science and dogma’,
which eventually led to mainstream thinkers and politicians, at least in the
liberal democracies, accepting the authority of science to adjudicate what
counts as knowledge of the world.

Very recently, however, dogma is fighting back with renewed energy, particularly
against the science of global warming. Continue reading Climate change science:
will Prime Minister Abbott be guided by Galileo or the Pope? →

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CLIMATE CHANGE, SCIENCE AND CRICKET

October 7, 2013Climate Change, Science, WeatherMichael Rowan

 

Commentators on recent articles on climate change in this journal have argued
that the scientific study of climate change is useless and/or untrustworthy.
Useless because all we should and do care about is the weather, and it is not
possible to attribute any particular weather event, no matter how unusual, to
climate change. Untrustworthy because the basis for identifying what counts as
the accepted science is expert peer review and this process is corrupt or
unreliable.

So far as I can recall these are recent claims. The relationship between weather
and climate used to be thought straightforward, and peer reviewed publication
followed by peer reviewed criticism was accepted as the basis of progress in
science. But now both have become hot issues.

Happily light can be shed on these hot issues by considering the comparable
relationships and processes in other less politically charged fields of human
endeavour. Indeed, cricket can teach us much of what we need to know about these
matters. Continue reading Climate Change, Science and Cricket →

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ABOUT THIS SITE

The theme of the site is the environment, and in particular how we might be able
to maintain both an environment and an economy which meets our needs without
compromising the possibilities for future generations to enjoy a situation which
we would consider as good as our own. While acknowledging natural processes of
change which might threaten any local environment or species, I want to
investigate how we might reach a situation where the actions of people now or in
the near future do not disadvantage any person or member of another species
existing a very long time into the future, relative to persons or members of
that species existing today.

While I doubt that technological fixes alone will be able to achieve the aim of
our living in a way that future humans will thank us for, I am particularly
interested in ensuring that we assess options for the future in a way that
respects the science on which they are based, rather than rehearse the scripts
of ideological positions formed in the realities of the past. A secondary theme
of the site is thus the defence of science from ideological attack.

Site Maintained by Michael Rowan
About Me


GOT A CASE TO ARGUE?

Persuade Me welcomes contributions from others which are relevant to the theme
of the site. Contributions which are critical of my position are as welcome as
those which are generally supportive: better to learn from others than be left
to learn from one's own mistakes. Contributors should make a genuine attempt to
persuade readers who would not be expected to share their view from the outset.
That means submissions should be based on evidence readers can consider for
themselves, they should set out an easily followed argument for the conclusion,
and they should be written in as clear and simple a way as possible. Preaching
to the choir does not change anyone's mind; obfuscation is not profundity; and
these matters are serious, requiring hard thinking and the willingness to accept
views we previously rejected! Articles consistent with these aims will be
published on the same terms as comments. Please note that articles on this site
are published under a Creative Commons licence. Others may republish provided
that the author and original site of publication are acknowledged, and the
material is not altered or presented in a way that distorts the case as argued
here.





RECENT POSTS

 * In Praise of Inconvenience
 * How have gullibilists got the ear of government on climate change?
 * Does Australia have a free press?
 * We need to talk about growth. (And we need to do the sums as well.)
 * Climate change science: will Prime Minister Abbott be guided by Galileo or
   the Pope?


RECENT COMMENTS

 * Letter to New Zealand Members of Parliament. – SCIENCE and EMPATHY on We need
   to talk about growth. (And we need to do the sums as well.)
 * Bachelor of Management of Business in Telecommunication and Informatics
   Telkom University on How have gullibilists got the ear of government on
   climate change?
 * Bachelor of Management of Business in Telecommunication and Informatics
   Telkom University on We need to talk about growth. (And we need to do the
   sums as well.)
 * Robin Capper on How have gullibilists got the ear of government on climate
   change?
 * Chinatownsoccerclub.Tumblr.com on Climate change science: will Prime Minister
   Abbott be guided by Galileo or the Pope?

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