Last year 162 people met an untimely death when AisAsia Flight QZ8501 disappeared off radar and vanished into the Java sea. As is the case with all air crashes, huge sums of money were expended on debris recovery and air crash investigators pieced together tiny fragments to recreate the situation that led to the crash. Quite plainly, these people died because of pilot error.
It is the circumstances that this investigation revealed that must worry airline passengers. Never have the aircraft built today been safer and both AirBus and Boeing go to great lengths to duplicate systems so that performance failure is rare. Modern aircraft are fully capable of flying themselves and in most cases the pilots are supervising the auto-pilot rather than actually flying the plane themselves.
A litany of air crashes has revealed a tendency for today's pilots to think of themselves more as engineers than pilots and when a problem arises their first consideration is to try and adjust the computer to alleviate the discrepancy rather than take control of the aircraft. Often, this allows other unintended consequences to dictate the final outcome.
In the Java sea crash, the way ahead encountered savage thunderstorms which the pilots sought to avoid and a small maintenance problem was brought to their attention by a warning signal generated by the computer. A constant warning buzzer can be irritating and the pilots decided to silence it by the time honoured method of pulling the circuit breaker. Unfortunately, on that circuit this cessation also switched off the auto pilot, causing the aircraft to climb and lose speed and diluting the air flow over the wings because of the thin air at a very high altitude. This caused the plane - to stall.
Recovering from a stall used to be the basic of pilot training, but today's aircraft are so sophisticated that it receives little attention in the extensive regimen undertaken in training simulators. In several recent crashes it has been evident that the pilots have completely missed the signals that indicate a stall and the aircraft has simply fallen out of the sky when a basic recovery manoeuver would have returned it to normal flight.
It is comforting to know that the pilots of the aircraft in which we fly have impressive hours of flying on their flight records, but in today's skies most of those hours are spent literally sitting in the pilot's seat and watching over what the computer is doing flying the plane. The actual "hand on " experience is probably limited to a few seconds on the controls during the landing procedure.
There is also an increasing chance of combat between the thinking programmed into the computer's memory bank and what the human mind decides as the answer to problem solving. Some years ago an air crash happened when a pilot was asked to fly the plane low and slow at an air show to show it to the crowds lining the runway. To do this, he lowered the undercarriage and set the flaps for a low speed pass - but the computer thought he was about to land - and cut the engine power to make this happen. The pilot realised the danger and rammed the throttles to full power - but it takes jet engines several seconds to spool up - and that time factor resulted in the crash. It seems that a safety factor designed to prevent what the computer sees as human error on the pilot's part contrasts with considered pilot action taken to achieve an unusual result. Two minds trying to fly the one aircraft delivered a fatal result !
It seems evident that there is a need for constant reevaluation of training by more time spent "hands on " in the flight simulators to range over all the possible eventualities that can occur, and to instill the response of manually taking control rather than trying to refigure the computer when a problem arises. That is the reason that those in the pilot's seat have command bars on their shoulders - and the responsibility to see that the journey ends safely !
Saturday, 5 December 2015
Friday, 4 December 2015
The " Family Home " Question !
It was inevitable that the question of pensions and the family home would collide with explosive force when balancing the budget became an issue. The meteoric rise in house prices has seen the median Sydney price approach the million dollar mark and all homes are exempt from the means test when pension eligibility is assessed. Pensions cost a $44 billion impact on the Federal budget.
A Productivity report has suggested that if home ownership was included in the means test and just fifteen percent of pensioners sold their home they would not need a government pension - and the Treasury would gain a saving of $6 billion annually. The Treasurer was quick to respond that this was not on his agenda.
Home ownership has long been the crux between socialism and capitalism. Socialist dogma insists that the state should house it's poorest citizens. Capitalism insists that the common good is served when people strive to gain assets by ingenuity and sheer hard work. In Australia, this is probably the most visible class divide. Families sacrifice a portion of their income to pay off a mortgage and own their home while another big section of the population pays rent for their entire lives.
In many countries - including America and Britain - the interest paid on a home mortgage is a tax deduction against income earned, but that does not apply in Australia. Ideally, thirty percent of a breadwinners income should serve as the mortgage payment, but we are now seeing more than double that committed in the race to get on the ownership ladder. When the mortgage is finally settled, most people look at their home asset as the dividend they will bequeath to their children when they die. Even a suggestion of interfering with that notion will bring a massive backlash.
As usual, this debate is skewed by extremes. There are instances where people are drawing the full pension because they have carefully arranged their other assets to comply with the means test - and they are living in a multi-million mansion in one of the best suburbs. On the other end of the scale, perhaps a person who has had life long low paid employment and now exists on the pension and relies for shelter on public housing accommodation.
The forgotten factor seems to be "median " when house prices get a mention. That is when the highest and the lowest sale prices are lumped together and then divided by the numbers applicable. Many houses in the less salubrious suburbs of Sydney sell for far less that that magic "medium " price quoted and the price in most country towns is ever more way short of that figure, and yet these homes are the prime asset of families who have struggled and sacrificed to gain ownership. The thought of forcing a sale to get the pension is abhorrent to most people.
It also ignores the question of where are these owners expected to live - if they sell and fund their own pension ? We are making strenuous efforts to help the elderly stay in their own homes to avoid the costs of subsidized retirement villages and nursing homes. Aged accommodation is in short supply and the very people in the cross hairs of this "family home " debate are the very people who would be vulnerable if their living arrangements were disrupted.
There are certainly gains to be made by an intelligent approach to downsizing - to allow the elderly to make full size family homes available for young families by way of relief from stamp duty at such changeovers, and allowing any profit balance accrued to be quarantined in the pension means test. Whether this can be accomplished will depend on whether it can be made available on a voluntary basis with measurable benefits retained for those making the change. Any attempt to force it on people by diktat will be bitterly resisted !
A Productivity report has suggested that if home ownership was included in the means test and just fifteen percent of pensioners sold their home they would not need a government pension - and the Treasury would gain a saving of $6 billion annually. The Treasurer was quick to respond that this was not on his agenda.
Home ownership has long been the crux between socialism and capitalism. Socialist dogma insists that the state should house it's poorest citizens. Capitalism insists that the common good is served when people strive to gain assets by ingenuity and sheer hard work. In Australia, this is probably the most visible class divide. Families sacrifice a portion of their income to pay off a mortgage and own their home while another big section of the population pays rent for their entire lives.
In many countries - including America and Britain - the interest paid on a home mortgage is a tax deduction against income earned, but that does not apply in Australia. Ideally, thirty percent of a breadwinners income should serve as the mortgage payment, but we are now seeing more than double that committed in the race to get on the ownership ladder. When the mortgage is finally settled, most people look at their home asset as the dividend they will bequeath to their children when they die. Even a suggestion of interfering with that notion will bring a massive backlash.
As usual, this debate is skewed by extremes. There are instances where people are drawing the full pension because they have carefully arranged their other assets to comply with the means test - and they are living in a multi-million mansion in one of the best suburbs. On the other end of the scale, perhaps a person who has had life long low paid employment and now exists on the pension and relies for shelter on public housing accommodation.
The forgotten factor seems to be "median " when house prices get a mention. That is when the highest and the lowest sale prices are lumped together and then divided by the numbers applicable. Many houses in the less salubrious suburbs of Sydney sell for far less that that magic "medium " price quoted and the price in most country towns is ever more way short of that figure, and yet these homes are the prime asset of families who have struggled and sacrificed to gain ownership. The thought of forcing a sale to get the pension is abhorrent to most people.
It also ignores the question of where are these owners expected to live - if they sell and fund their own pension ? We are making strenuous efforts to help the elderly stay in their own homes to avoid the costs of subsidized retirement villages and nursing homes. Aged accommodation is in short supply and the very people in the cross hairs of this "family home " debate are the very people who would be vulnerable if their living arrangements were disrupted.
There are certainly gains to be made by an intelligent approach to downsizing - to allow the elderly to make full size family homes available for young families by way of relief from stamp duty at such changeovers, and allowing any profit balance accrued to be quarantined in the pension means test. Whether this can be accomplished will depend on whether it can be made available on a voluntary basis with measurable benefits retained for those making the change. Any attempt to force it on people by diktat will be bitterly resisted !
Thursday, 3 December 2015
Our " Trial by Jury " System !
On July 18, 2009 Australia was shocked when newsagent Min Lin, his wife Lily, their two sons Henry and Terry and Lily's sister Irene were found brutally bashed to death in their beds. It was a brutal crime and for two years the police patiently investigated without making an arrest. Then the Lin's brother in law, Robert Xie was arrested and for the past four years has been held in prison on remand.
This week he faced a judge and jury for his third trial for these murders and that trial lasted an agonising nine months - and came to nothing. The jury deliberated and could not reach consensus on a verdict and were repeatedly given more time. Eventually the judge agreed to accept a majority verdict, requiring eleven of the twelve jurors opinions to be decisive, but again the jury foreperson reported that they were hopelessly deadlocked - and the trial was abandoned. Immediately the DPP announced that it would seek a new trial next year.
Two of the previous trials were similarly abandoned because in one instance the judge became ill and in the second new and explosive evidence emerged after the trial was in progress. It seems that the police case against Robert Xie is very circumstantial and there is a claim that two years after the murder the investigators found a tiny blood spot in Robert Xie's garage that linked him to the crime - and this is disputed by some blood analyst experts. Obviously, the evidence presented in this latest trial was insufficient to convince all twelve jurors to bring in even a majority verdict.
It is possible that when this new trial commences next year there may be a move to dispense with a jury and seek a verdict entirely on the summation of a judge, but that would require agreement from both the DPP and the accused, and that is unlikely. Given the nine months duration of this trial it seems likely that new proceedings may run for a similar term.
Now a new factor has emerged. The silk who has been defending Robert Xie at all his previous trials has announced that he will not be appearing for the defence when he is tried again next year. It seems to be a matter of money. The best legal minds charge hundreds of dollars an hour for their services and Robert Xie is a man of modest means. He has expended his capital and no longer has the funds to pay for the level of legal advice this high profile case deserves, and the DPP will obviously front their finest legal team in search of a conviction.
The law requires that an accused is entitled to a defender and where necessary this is provided from the public purse, but it would be a scandal if this new trial commenced with the accused fronted by a newly minted legal person fresh out of lawyer's school and entirely lacking the experience to do battle with seasoned lawyers the DPP will engage. That is precisely where those seeking a legal career start their working life - as lowly paid employees staffing the public defenders pool while they gain court experience.
Win, lose or draw, this has been a disaster for Robert Xie. His face has adorned newspapers for years and no doubt many of the public have reached a decision based on what they have read about this case. He has spent the past four years as a prisoner locked in a gaol cell and he has liquidated his assets to fund his defence. If this new trial delivers a guilty verdict he will probably spend the rest of his life in the Supermax, but if he is innocent this will have been a ghastly experience that leaves him with the suspicion of guilt, penniless and with little to look forward to in the way of future prospects.
There is the expectation that justice will be served - quickly and impartially. Sheer "happenance " has dogged these trials and they have now devolved into a public spectacle not unlike the contests between gladiators and lions in the coliseum that served for public entertainment in the days of the Roman empire.
In all fairness the public needs to shell out and pickup the tab for the level of defence fielded at earlier trials. Otherwise it would seem that a conviction is purely an avaricious DPP enlisting poverty as the means of burnishing it's credentials as a victor. The fact that this latest jury could not reach consensus after over a week of deliberation surely indicates that the case is not a laid down misere !
This week he faced a judge and jury for his third trial for these murders and that trial lasted an agonising nine months - and came to nothing. The jury deliberated and could not reach consensus on a verdict and were repeatedly given more time. Eventually the judge agreed to accept a majority verdict, requiring eleven of the twelve jurors opinions to be decisive, but again the jury foreperson reported that they were hopelessly deadlocked - and the trial was abandoned. Immediately the DPP announced that it would seek a new trial next year.
Two of the previous trials were similarly abandoned because in one instance the judge became ill and in the second new and explosive evidence emerged after the trial was in progress. It seems that the police case against Robert Xie is very circumstantial and there is a claim that two years after the murder the investigators found a tiny blood spot in Robert Xie's garage that linked him to the crime - and this is disputed by some blood analyst experts. Obviously, the evidence presented in this latest trial was insufficient to convince all twelve jurors to bring in even a majority verdict.
It is possible that when this new trial commences next year there may be a move to dispense with a jury and seek a verdict entirely on the summation of a judge, but that would require agreement from both the DPP and the accused, and that is unlikely. Given the nine months duration of this trial it seems likely that new proceedings may run for a similar term.
Now a new factor has emerged. The silk who has been defending Robert Xie at all his previous trials has announced that he will not be appearing for the defence when he is tried again next year. It seems to be a matter of money. The best legal minds charge hundreds of dollars an hour for their services and Robert Xie is a man of modest means. He has expended his capital and no longer has the funds to pay for the level of legal advice this high profile case deserves, and the DPP will obviously front their finest legal team in search of a conviction.
The law requires that an accused is entitled to a defender and where necessary this is provided from the public purse, but it would be a scandal if this new trial commenced with the accused fronted by a newly minted legal person fresh out of lawyer's school and entirely lacking the experience to do battle with seasoned lawyers the DPP will engage. That is precisely where those seeking a legal career start their working life - as lowly paid employees staffing the public defenders pool while they gain court experience.
Win, lose or draw, this has been a disaster for Robert Xie. His face has adorned newspapers for years and no doubt many of the public have reached a decision based on what they have read about this case. He has spent the past four years as a prisoner locked in a gaol cell and he has liquidated his assets to fund his defence. If this new trial delivers a guilty verdict he will probably spend the rest of his life in the Supermax, but if he is innocent this will have been a ghastly experience that leaves him with the suspicion of guilt, penniless and with little to look forward to in the way of future prospects.
There is the expectation that justice will be served - quickly and impartially. Sheer "happenance " has dogged these trials and they have now devolved into a public spectacle not unlike the contests between gladiators and lions in the coliseum that served for public entertainment in the days of the Roman empire.
In all fairness the public needs to shell out and pickup the tab for the level of defence fielded at earlier trials. Otherwise it would seem that a conviction is purely an avaricious DPP enlisting poverty as the means of burnishing it's credentials as a victor. The fact that this latest jury could not reach consensus after over a week of deliberation surely indicates that the case is not a laid down misere !
Wednesday, 2 December 2015
" Understanding " Drug Use !
This weekend past a twenty-five year old pharmacist met an untimely death at the Stereosonic music festival when she ingested what was sold as an "Ecstacy " drug. This was an intelligent woman who had studied and become a registered chemist with the exacting task of making up the prescriptions our doctors prescribe to treat illness. It seems ironic that she fell victim to a substance of unknown origin, probably manufactured in an illicit backyard somewhere by a totally unqualified "cook " - and sold for profit without any concern for the harm it may cause.
Drug use is ever on the rise. On this same weekend the police carried out a drug blitz in the Albury/Queanbeyan area and of 856 drivers checked, 152 tested positive and were arrested. Police comment that the rate of drug detection now is about one in ten compared to one in three hundred where alcohol is involved, and the death rate from road crashes reflects this accordingly.
For many decades the official attitude has been "war on drugs "! That is war on all drugs without much distinction on the individual risks each class of drugs delivers, and with little understanding of why logically sane people indulge in such a risky - and entirely voluntarily - self harm !
The usual contention is because drugs are addictive, and that is certainly true of opioids and the ever
growing use of "Crack " Cocaine, but Marijuana and what is termed "Ecstacy " are typically "social " drugs used to enhance the dopamine sensations of the party scene. They are used in exactly the same way many people imbibe alcohol - with the intention of getting "High " !
That raises an interesting ethical question. Alcohol is a perfectly legal drug with age restrictions on users. Why do we differentiate and declare that getting "high "on booze is tolerated but any form of similar stimulation delivered in chemical form can land you in prison ? It seems logical that if a liquor store can sell you alcohol then a pharmacy should be able to dispense an "Ecstacy " type substance, manufactured under hygenic and sustainable strength standards - to deliver a predictable outcome when taken.
The problem is that drugs sold on the party scene are produced by unqualified people from a wild mix of ingredients and they are bought by desperate party goers because there is no legal equivalent. Sometimes the mix is deadly when combined with alcohol or other drugs because the strength is unknown - and varies widely from batch to batch. Regulating this area of the drug scene would not only save lives, it would put a serious dent in the illegal drug market.
Some countries have legalised Marijuana and here in Australia small quantities usually bring just a "caution " from the police, but there is no option other than the illegal trade when people enjoying music and dance events go looking for an Ecstacy type stimulant. The drug trade meets demand, despite police with sniffer dogs manning event entrances and undercover cops circulating in the crowd. The profits are huge - and the king pins of the drug trade grow insanely rich !
Unfortunately, the anti drug propaganda war has hardened public opinion against a change of tactics. The politicians are hesitant to introduce new policies and so the deaths will continue to mount. There is no problem with drug supply on the streets of this country and no prospect of change, nomatter what tactics the police use to interrupt supply.
The only answer to the Ecstacy problem is a legal product of predictable quality and strength. Users may still overdose by taking multiple tablets, but at least that outcome is entirely in their own hands and outcomes are predictable !
Drug use is ever on the rise. On this same weekend the police carried out a drug blitz in the Albury/Queanbeyan area and of 856 drivers checked, 152 tested positive and were arrested. Police comment that the rate of drug detection now is about one in ten compared to one in three hundred where alcohol is involved, and the death rate from road crashes reflects this accordingly.
For many decades the official attitude has been "war on drugs "! That is war on all drugs without much distinction on the individual risks each class of drugs delivers, and with little understanding of why logically sane people indulge in such a risky - and entirely voluntarily - self harm !
The usual contention is because drugs are addictive, and that is certainly true of opioids and the ever
growing use of "Crack " Cocaine, but Marijuana and what is termed "Ecstacy " are typically "social " drugs used to enhance the dopamine sensations of the party scene. They are used in exactly the same way many people imbibe alcohol - with the intention of getting "High " !
That raises an interesting ethical question. Alcohol is a perfectly legal drug with age restrictions on users. Why do we differentiate and declare that getting "high "on booze is tolerated but any form of similar stimulation delivered in chemical form can land you in prison ? It seems logical that if a liquor store can sell you alcohol then a pharmacy should be able to dispense an "Ecstacy " type substance, manufactured under hygenic and sustainable strength standards - to deliver a predictable outcome when taken.
The problem is that drugs sold on the party scene are produced by unqualified people from a wild mix of ingredients and they are bought by desperate party goers because there is no legal equivalent. Sometimes the mix is deadly when combined with alcohol or other drugs because the strength is unknown - and varies widely from batch to batch. Regulating this area of the drug scene would not only save lives, it would put a serious dent in the illegal drug market.
Some countries have legalised Marijuana and here in Australia small quantities usually bring just a "caution " from the police, but there is no option other than the illegal trade when people enjoying music and dance events go looking for an Ecstacy type stimulant. The drug trade meets demand, despite police with sniffer dogs manning event entrances and undercover cops circulating in the crowd. The profits are huge - and the king pins of the drug trade grow insanely rich !
Unfortunately, the anti drug propaganda war has hardened public opinion against a change of tactics. The politicians are hesitant to introduce new policies and so the deaths will continue to mount. There is no problem with drug supply on the streets of this country and no prospect of change, nomatter what tactics the police use to interrupt supply.
The only answer to the Ecstacy problem is a legal product of predictable quality and strength. Users may still overdose by taking multiple tablets, but at least that outcome is entirely in their own hands and outcomes are predictable !
Tuesday, 1 December 2015
The Opal Card !
Sydney's "Opal Card " method of paying for public transport fares is about to celebrate it's third anniversary and from January 1 the old paper ticket system will finally cease. For over a decade the previous state government wasted millions trying to construct a similar venture - which ended in abject failure. The success of Opal can be directly attributed to the planning ability of then Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian, who is now the state Treasurer.
Introduction of the card was on a "slow and steady " basis. First, the rail network and when that was complete it's extension to the bus fleet, and there have been hic cups along the way. The Opal card requires bus riders to "tap on "and "tap off " to record the length of their journey and the consequent fare. Passengers who either forgot to tap off - or who encountered a faulty meter terminal - were charged the entire route journey and had to maker application for a refund. The fact that passengers can disembark via the rear door exacerbated that problem.
The system for topping up the balance on Opal cards received criticism. Initially, this was not available at rail stations and commuters needed to make their payments at the newsagency network, which in many cases was far removed from station proximity. Facilities were eventually provided at stations, but at present this is only available at 102 of the 311 stations that serve the Sydney rail system.
The government is keen to coerce passengers to adopt the automatic top up method which ensures that a minimum balance is held in their Opal account by direct injection from their bank account. This is the required system that serves the toll road system, and without that a motorist can not obtain the necessary "reader " to automatically debit tolls. Shortage of top up points was probably a deliberate ploy to enhance the use of the automatic system.
Opal is now accepted at most non government private bus networks. It is a simple matter for the computer system to record where Opal is used and what charge to apply for the journey length at the rate the operator charges, and automatically credit that fare to the private operators account. It's use now extends far outside the Sydney basin and includes both Wollongong and Newcastle and most country districts. It has become the universal method of paying transport fares.
Negotiations are under way to extend Opal to the taxi network. That would have the advantage of not requiring drivers to have change of a fifty dollar note and thus reducing the chance of robbery and the fare would need a positive response to the card when booking the journey, eliminating the " Do a runner " problem of unpaid fares at destination end. It would also serve to identify the passenger in the event of assault on the driver or damage to the cab.
The last remaining conundrum for Opal organizers is to dove tail mixed journeys to achieve a common fare, and at present this has not been achieved. Where a passenger travels a typical twenty-five kilometre journey involving several buses and the fare totals $ 4.70, that same journey involving an interchange of bus and train will cost $ 7.70.
It seems that the problem is identifying the intended start and end of what to the passenger is an intended journey when this will not be abundantly clear to the computer managing the system. No doubt something that the boffins will eventually solve !
Introduction of the card was on a "slow and steady " basis. First, the rail network and when that was complete it's extension to the bus fleet, and there have been hic cups along the way. The Opal card requires bus riders to "tap on "and "tap off " to record the length of their journey and the consequent fare. Passengers who either forgot to tap off - or who encountered a faulty meter terminal - were charged the entire route journey and had to maker application for a refund. The fact that passengers can disembark via the rear door exacerbated that problem.
The system for topping up the balance on Opal cards received criticism. Initially, this was not available at rail stations and commuters needed to make their payments at the newsagency network, which in many cases was far removed from station proximity. Facilities were eventually provided at stations, but at present this is only available at 102 of the 311 stations that serve the Sydney rail system.
The government is keen to coerce passengers to adopt the automatic top up method which ensures that a minimum balance is held in their Opal account by direct injection from their bank account. This is the required system that serves the toll road system, and without that a motorist can not obtain the necessary "reader " to automatically debit tolls. Shortage of top up points was probably a deliberate ploy to enhance the use of the automatic system.
Opal is now accepted at most non government private bus networks. It is a simple matter for the computer system to record where Opal is used and what charge to apply for the journey length at the rate the operator charges, and automatically credit that fare to the private operators account. It's use now extends far outside the Sydney basin and includes both Wollongong and Newcastle and most country districts. It has become the universal method of paying transport fares.
Negotiations are under way to extend Opal to the taxi network. That would have the advantage of not requiring drivers to have change of a fifty dollar note and thus reducing the chance of robbery and the fare would need a positive response to the card when booking the journey, eliminating the " Do a runner " problem of unpaid fares at destination end. It would also serve to identify the passenger in the event of assault on the driver or damage to the cab.
The last remaining conundrum for Opal organizers is to dove tail mixed journeys to achieve a common fare, and at present this has not been achieved. Where a passenger travels a typical twenty-five kilometre journey involving several buses and the fare totals $ 4.70, that same journey involving an interchange of bus and train will cost $ 7.70.
It seems that the problem is identifying the intended start and end of what to the passenger is an intended journey when this will not be abundantly clear to the computer managing the system. No doubt something that the boffins will eventually solve !
Monday, 30 November 2015
Global Warming ?
The Global warming question stirs a mixed reaction in Australian minds, but even those who deny it is a risk to the planet concede that we are experiencing weather change. The ice at the north pole is retreating, we are getting more severe storms and temperatures continue to break records. Whether this is a natural phenomenon or - as scientists contend - the direct result of increasing the amount of carbon dioxide ( Co2 ) in the air we breathe is where battle lines are drawn.
It really all started in 1781 when James Watt invented the steam engine - and set off the industrial revolution. From that point factory chimneys sprouted and discharged smoke and the manufacturing age began. The horse gave way to the internal combustion engine and the catalyst for the world we know today - electricity - required the burning of fossil fuels for it's generation.
For a long time, planet earth's defences could cope with the Co2 generated because the tree cover allowed photosynthesis to convert carbon dioxide to oxygen and that other great carbon sink - the oceans - soaked up the excess. By the 1980's the amount of carbon in the air had reached 350 parts per million - and today it is greater than 400. If we continue to burn fossil fuels, astronomical future levels are probable.
The problem is that this industrial revolution was not evenly spread. Europe, America, Australia and Canada grew rich while India, China and most of Asia remained poor and agrarian. Now those countries are moving into the industrial age the Co2 output is pushing the world temperature above a 2 degree rise and causing the oceans to become acidic.
We have had world conferences to try and bring Co2 under control. Kyoto in 1997 produced suggested guide lines but lacked any form of enforcement, and Copenhagen in 2009 was a complete disaster. The countries trying to catchup refused to curb their use of fossil fuels and the repercussions in the rich world were too awful to contemplate. The conference ended with a meaningless promise to give the issue further thought.
Very powerful interests surround coal - oil - and gas, the three main components that are generating Co2. Huge amounts of money are invested in the mining companies that extract this resource and it is the life blood of industry generally. The natural outcome was for industry to fund denial propaganda and this has resulted in eminent scientists on both sides of the argument creating doubt in the minds of the public.
Much in the way the tobacco industry managed for years to obscure the dangers of smoking by challenging the validity of health warnings, global warming has suffered a similar fate. At the same time, rational science is telling us the awful price we will have to pay if we seriously expect to hold global warming to just two degrees above industrial levels.
We would probably have to revert to a carbon tax and the damage that would do to industry profits and dislocation. Wind and solar are touted as the answer to electricity generation, but they can not guarantee a reliable base load and some nuclear power generation would need to replace coal and gas to make this possible. Electric cars - or possibly a hydrogen module - would be needed to quickly replace the internal combustion engine - and that's suitability for use in the heavy trucking industry is doubtful.
The big problem is that there will be a heavy financial cost to each and every Australian if we do bite the bullet and do what is necessary to stabilize the carbon content. Australia mines and exports coal, oil and gas and we would need to retract from our way of earning a living. The cost of change would be heavy and carry a bigger tax burden and we would no longer be the "lucky country " in the eyes of the world. Our wealth - and that includes where our superannuation and investment funds are invested - are in the very products that product this harmful Co2.
Once again the world will meet - this time in Paris - to try and resolve the global warming question. Once again the implacable forces that underpin fossil fuels will combine with the industries that profits from their use to prevent any sort of binding United Nations protocol with teeth from coming into effect.
It is so easy to put off firm decisions when it is the existing people of this planet who will only suffer the marginal effects of global warming. We are a selfish lot ! We will probably adopt some marginally improved outcomes, but by doing little we will flick pass the misery on to future generations !
It really all started in 1781 when James Watt invented the steam engine - and set off the industrial revolution. From that point factory chimneys sprouted and discharged smoke and the manufacturing age began. The horse gave way to the internal combustion engine and the catalyst for the world we know today - electricity - required the burning of fossil fuels for it's generation.
For a long time, planet earth's defences could cope with the Co2 generated because the tree cover allowed photosynthesis to convert carbon dioxide to oxygen and that other great carbon sink - the oceans - soaked up the excess. By the 1980's the amount of carbon in the air had reached 350 parts per million - and today it is greater than 400. If we continue to burn fossil fuels, astronomical future levels are probable.
The problem is that this industrial revolution was not evenly spread. Europe, America, Australia and Canada grew rich while India, China and most of Asia remained poor and agrarian. Now those countries are moving into the industrial age the Co2 output is pushing the world temperature above a 2 degree rise and causing the oceans to become acidic.
We have had world conferences to try and bring Co2 under control. Kyoto in 1997 produced suggested guide lines but lacked any form of enforcement, and Copenhagen in 2009 was a complete disaster. The countries trying to catchup refused to curb their use of fossil fuels and the repercussions in the rich world were too awful to contemplate. The conference ended with a meaningless promise to give the issue further thought.
Very powerful interests surround coal - oil - and gas, the three main components that are generating Co2. Huge amounts of money are invested in the mining companies that extract this resource and it is the life blood of industry generally. The natural outcome was for industry to fund denial propaganda and this has resulted in eminent scientists on both sides of the argument creating doubt in the minds of the public.
Much in the way the tobacco industry managed for years to obscure the dangers of smoking by challenging the validity of health warnings, global warming has suffered a similar fate. At the same time, rational science is telling us the awful price we will have to pay if we seriously expect to hold global warming to just two degrees above industrial levels.
We would probably have to revert to a carbon tax and the damage that would do to industry profits and dislocation. Wind and solar are touted as the answer to electricity generation, but they can not guarantee a reliable base load and some nuclear power generation would need to replace coal and gas to make this possible. Electric cars - or possibly a hydrogen module - would be needed to quickly replace the internal combustion engine - and that's suitability for use in the heavy trucking industry is doubtful.
The big problem is that there will be a heavy financial cost to each and every Australian if we do bite the bullet and do what is necessary to stabilize the carbon content. Australia mines and exports coal, oil and gas and we would need to retract from our way of earning a living. The cost of change would be heavy and carry a bigger tax burden and we would no longer be the "lucky country " in the eyes of the world. Our wealth - and that includes where our superannuation and investment funds are invested - are in the very products that product this harmful Co2.
Once again the world will meet - this time in Paris - to try and resolve the global warming question. Once again the implacable forces that underpin fossil fuels will combine with the industries that profits from their use to prevent any sort of binding United Nations protocol with teeth from coming into effect.
It is so easy to put off firm decisions when it is the existing people of this planet who will only suffer the marginal effects of global warming. We are a selfish lot ! We will probably adopt some marginally improved outcomes, but by doing little we will flick pass the misery on to future generations !
Sunday, 29 November 2015
Death Spiral !
In an ever changing world old technology gets the flick and that is exactly what is happening to the daily letter delivery service. We are about to see a whopping forty cent increase in the price of a postage stamp - and delivery to the average home letterbox take another two days.
The reason for sticking a stamp on an envelope and mailing a letter is in a death spiral and the post office system is now making calamitous losses on mail deliveries, only mitigated by increases in parcel deliveries as Online shopping gains momentum.
The move to a one dollar postage stamp will only increase the appeal of paperless billing and the use of email for communications, and it will probably see the end of print magazines such as The Economist and Time, etc. Mailing rate increases will drive up subscription prices and there is little point in news magazines if they take a huge time lag behind the news services instantly available on Smartphone screens. The electronic version of these magazines is now in the ascendancy.
A likely casualty will eventually be the delivery of a letter anywhere on this vast Australian continent for a common posting rate. That applies in few other instances and it was only possible when the sheer volume brought economy of scale - and that familiar postman with his mailbag was a common sight on every Australian street. Today, the biggest mail volume goes to post office boxes in the centre of each state's capital city. Personal letters flow becomes ever fewer.
We are fast heading towards the post office morphing into a courier service. It is certainly successfully competing with the field of companies in the parcel delivery business and who charge for their services on the basis of the size and weight of the delivery item - and the distance to where delivery will take place. Eventually, this principle must apply to each letter. Exactly the same costs apply to having the service in place to convey an item from one place to another - and costs vary only by size and distance.
The big question waiting to be answered is exactly what happens to the vast post office network that covers every Australian city, suburb, town and village ? A long time ago each post office was clearly a government instrumentality but today the average local post office is in private hands and is probably simply a counter is a newsagency or a corner store. The fact remains, it serves as the focal point of a distribution network that covers the Commonwealth - and that has few parallels.
Even tiny little post offices are busy places with a steady stream of customers using them to pay bills - and recently they added the ability to dispense money from the range of any of the big four Australian banks. In the past, this was limited to just the Commonwealth bank, but it seems that commerce is waking up to the universality that this vast network has to represent many forms of business on the widest possible scale.
There is every chance that the post office network may become the focal point of access and take advantage of one of the weaknesses of the computer age - the inability of many people to fully comprehend a transaction sitting at a keyboard terminal. Many who are quite literate in using a computer, would prefer to have their questions answered by a human being who attends to their needs by doing the actual input processing.
There is a welcome opportunity for post offices to become a source of knowledge and the access point for a whole host of government and commercial services - with it's unique spread of outlets that encompass this entire country. There is simply nothing else that delivers such a commercial opportunity !
The reason for sticking a stamp on an envelope and mailing a letter is in a death spiral and the post office system is now making calamitous losses on mail deliveries, only mitigated by increases in parcel deliveries as Online shopping gains momentum.
The move to a one dollar postage stamp will only increase the appeal of paperless billing and the use of email for communications, and it will probably see the end of print magazines such as The Economist and Time, etc. Mailing rate increases will drive up subscription prices and there is little point in news magazines if they take a huge time lag behind the news services instantly available on Smartphone screens. The electronic version of these magazines is now in the ascendancy.
A likely casualty will eventually be the delivery of a letter anywhere on this vast Australian continent for a common posting rate. That applies in few other instances and it was only possible when the sheer volume brought economy of scale - and that familiar postman with his mailbag was a common sight on every Australian street. Today, the biggest mail volume goes to post office boxes in the centre of each state's capital city. Personal letters flow becomes ever fewer.
We are fast heading towards the post office morphing into a courier service. It is certainly successfully competing with the field of companies in the parcel delivery business and who charge for their services on the basis of the size and weight of the delivery item - and the distance to where delivery will take place. Eventually, this principle must apply to each letter. Exactly the same costs apply to having the service in place to convey an item from one place to another - and costs vary only by size and distance.
The big question waiting to be answered is exactly what happens to the vast post office network that covers every Australian city, suburb, town and village ? A long time ago each post office was clearly a government instrumentality but today the average local post office is in private hands and is probably simply a counter is a newsagency or a corner store. The fact remains, it serves as the focal point of a distribution network that covers the Commonwealth - and that has few parallels.
Even tiny little post offices are busy places with a steady stream of customers using them to pay bills - and recently they added the ability to dispense money from the range of any of the big four Australian banks. In the past, this was limited to just the Commonwealth bank, but it seems that commerce is waking up to the universality that this vast network has to represent many forms of business on the widest possible scale.
There is every chance that the post office network may become the focal point of access and take advantage of one of the weaknesses of the computer age - the inability of many people to fully comprehend a transaction sitting at a keyboard terminal. Many who are quite literate in using a computer, would prefer to have their questions answered by a human being who attends to their needs by doing the actual input processing.
There is a welcome opportunity for post offices to become a source of knowledge and the access point for a whole host of government and commercial services - with it's unique spread of outlets that encompass this entire country. There is simply nothing else that delivers such a commercial opportunity !
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