Misplaced Concreteness

Good better best

2012-01-30T14:57:00.000-08:00

never let it rest ...so said the stamp on Furphy's tanks (Shepparton Victoria Australia) An innovator ,producer and economist of merit - he knew the fire of real life and worked with it .The dynamic forces of supply demand and disaster.
How about all those who seek economic perfection , who see the demise of marxist driven moves as confirmation that the market knows best.
Economic perfection (click here) is a popular view amongst the wealthy , but does it stand up to the big picture of a world with limits?

Between Wilderness and Garden

2011-12-08T15:28:00.000-08:00

Thinking people everywhere are right to identify humanities widespread failure to look after the place of wild things in our world. Men have taken over the territory of others without thinking of anybody but themsleves - let alone the wild things that might also have their home there.
Is the problem then just the West's alone ( we seem to be the most critical of what has happened in both spaces ). Western critics have been the first to notice and the first to retreat from the idea of dominion because the job has not been done well . But i do not accept that to dismiss humanities engagement in restoring/maintaining a balance between wild place and cultivated space is right either .We can and should often be up against each other as true neighbours. We should be agreeing to some sort of fence, not ignoring the need for one. We no longer need more land to feed ourselves ( did we ever?). The very failure of human beings to both see and to care for this issue of reasonable territory is complex, but only human beings can really improve the situation - and they can do a lot to do that .

As always , how we define our terms is critical to developing a discussion that takes us somewhere. There are probably many ways to define the above 2 terms, and the places in between .
Because the Biblical tradition sets the scene for the West so strongly , I am going to try to limit myself to 2 commonly used terms in there ( lots of variation even so for eg "when is a wilderness a wasteland ") I am also just interested here in relation to the place question . I am assumming therefore that the major issue is not size or content, but that the right space should exist for each .( first base only but its a good start!) The reason I am doing that is because the place/space question it seems to me is the critical foundation for maintaining and improving our respect for the world around us.
While the content of these terms varies across the natural land systems of the world ( and there is much to be said for defining them in that context whether grasslands , tundra , Mediterranean Tropical , temperate woodland or forest ) I think the argumnets from the historic Mediterranean experince apply across the board in many ways .
Lets' assume ( whether its right of not) that humans have enough intelligence to innately know that full exploitation of their environment is counter productive . Why then do some individual and cultures go close to doing just that?

There is an argument that men taking over the territory of others is in recognition that they have infact reached /passed a level of unsustainable occupation in the territory they currently occupy . I am here to challenge that both as a very poor response and excuse, and as an unsustainable answer . Whatever reality is in the imperative argument , its a desperate one and not the only one . Acceptance of space limits is a important skill for retaining and developing resilience and prosperity in all areas of life .

Fortunately for us now in 2011, the above argument looks shallow . The earth can feed itself and Japan wouldn't have gained much by occupying the territory they sought to control in WW2. Somehow the earth works best when understood as an ecosystem of separate organisms with their own spaces than as a large organisation with a large territory.
We can't evidently do justice to these complex matters here, except for me to say that no modern human community should assume that it can't both feed itself and look after the wild spaces in its neighbourhood . Respect for space is critical and effective and governments need to reinforce this small scale approach and not undermine it as they sometimes do .( trade and energy resource concerns add to but do not justify ignoring the constraints of governments with their first obligation to the rural/ food production sector)

The intellectual excuses used to undermine our respect for each other's spaces are the subject of another blog .

The Accountancy Ascendancy

2011-12-07T18:37:00.000-08:00

AN Whitehead knew the problem we are talking about here was coming - he stated so nearly 100 years ago .
It was in his area of interest ( maths ) as it was also Bertrand Russell's. The point is ----in some of the more challenging professions mere stats leads to more stupidity than it is worth .
WE all know ( those of us who have to justify with endless columns of statistics ) that all the numbers don't always make sense . The focus on the qualitative has left out the qualilitative somehow .Sure we scientists love "Excel", but its only a tool and quality product means tools ( incl graphs) should only be used by qualified tradesman.( scientist using the method in a fixed and defined area )

There is a rat in the woodpile and few there will be that find it( mere accountants haven't got a hope )- despite the smell being thoroughly obnoxious right across the western world. The dummies in charge think growth is in numbers when all the time its in quality of service - something that often defies the collection categories.
The ignorance of human nature here too is appalling - as if the desire by management to get small numbers will not build small increases in and of the desire ( at a cost to some other quality measure considerations) .

My suggestion : Too many years of basic maths means we have a management class who know nothing else? The stultification of society by the two column ledger brigade "The Accountancy Ascendancy" A great mathematician , Whitehead, saw the dumbing down dilemma ( real world problems often have at least 10 columns in the ledgers )coming but no one could understand what he was saying ?
Thank God , The Creator is not only a great programmer, but he knows how to hook up which wires to which connections and not trip anyone up in the process.

Too much information

2011-11-29T20:18:00.000-08:00

Its all in the brief mate . If you make it too simple ,thinking people walk away , and if you ask for everything ,people will only stay if they have a lifetime available to listen to YOU .
Tony Burke must be wondering what he's got to do to get the discussion back on track about the Murray Darling . He needs to look no further than Europe - paid public servants who expand agendas instead of expounding on the short one.
Never trust someone whose ideas don't stand still . Tony Burke won't ask Wong because she's mooved on to solving ecocrises of another kind.
The point is , there is an air of esoteric around - "we can do this ". Sorry, but the truth is when you don't KNOW enough , you know neither the problem FIRST or the solution still way down the track somewhere. You write rotten briefs . Good for roving consultants , but as clear as only invisible clothes can be.
No sorry mate, without knowledge you can have a budget as big the USA's and still blow it finding out things.
Tony Burke must be wondering what he's got to do to get the discussion back on track about the Murray Darling - after all we all agree, "its ALL a mess" isn't it ? .
Well NO ..sorry we don't agree about that . Its not ALL anything . Its SOMETHING We agree that , for one thing its " flows - just from time to time" and "just in relation to the channel involved" or "whether the States should prevent people taking water at very specific times " :
As always, the polys set too wide a brief and get too general an answer. In attempting to solve everything they solve nothing .
Burke can't win on this either unless he sets the brief in believable terms - eg . what infact is an environmental flow and when should they occur , and how big ? . Not in numbers but in terms a diversion officer or instrumentality can understand .The States used to know and its only with a revival in them that the Feds will have a place to go ( Its also naked stuff to stand around in a stiff breeze " in charge ....but with no one to blame" )
Credible improvement is best managed by supporting diversion inspectors, not paper legislators and GRAND PLANS .With a few principles to hand, its PEOPLE ( not PLANS) who know enough to effect change .
In Heaven and on earth , we have angels , In Canberra they believe they can do it all themselves

The scourge of education in Australia

2011-10-31T04:45:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it takes some strong words from people on the edge to unsettle the comfort zone of PCpredjudice in the soft centre . Opera man Richard Gill on qanda tonight ".standardized testing is the great scourge of education in Australia".
Who promotes this simplicity ? Narrow focused People who think by subdividing the subject they have mastered it unfortunately this seems to be all the major parties who have lost sight of greed management and envy and think only the market knows what its doing .If our leaders think they are just treading water for industry , perhaps they should resign and go back to myopia where problem solving is indeed easier.. Real human power and greater knowledge only comes if you believe in it.
Gill is very welcome on qanda because he knows his limits - great artists and scientists don't assume they know "the answers" unlike many of those who can't see the simple false presumptions of the program.

The shifting sands of consensus talk

2011-10-05T16:42:00.000-07:00

Other blogs of mine in recent times reflect on the increasing occupation of positions of high office by children or trusting souls who move where angels fear to tread . My faith knows no such territory either here on earth or in families . Such places are pure fiction supported only by the plethora of smoothed over television equivalents of fantasy that try to tell us what we don't want to hear -- we are not all friends and we don't all like what we do to each other
To try pack them in under the rafters is to risk certaing an almighty explosion - in real life .

The high cost of promoting good behaviour

2011-10-04T20:22:00.000-07:00

So pleased to hear Productivity Commissioner Gary Banks talk at the Tax summit yesterday about the loose thinking that is promoted as the only true gospel for motivation - taxes and incentives ."He's calling for the right way and the right extent".
The whole idea is outta control because nearly all poly's now worship at the Church of market mechanisms ( where Government mustn't do anything, and price control is the only option)
The bureaucracies just love the idea of developing budgets for behavioural control .( not their own unfortunately )
I wonder when the hypocrisy of believing in yourself , and not believing in yourself, will hit home .

Some previous blogs where I have called for SPECIFIC PLACE AND TIMING as one who used to administer incentives and concessions are
http://designwithnature.blogspot.com/2011/06/whatever-happened-to-appropriate.html#links

Lost causes

2011-08-13T04:28:00.000-07:00

The riots in England last week thankfully raises a bit of interest in causes .Like our engagement in a car crash we are suddenly transported to another world where we are more interested in our car speed excesses than we normally are;Ignoring real causes is a real risk in the best of times.
Normally we can make excuses and blame someone some distance away.At home its harder to get away with blaming another. Doesn't stop us trying,eh!
A lack of personal responsibility is in there and a big cause but....... no we are not allowed to make anyone feel guilty .so we go looking for secondary causes .
When things are going well or when ongoing problems go unreported (eg loss of good teachers from schools) we can be tempted to assume things are going ok for the world that nurtured feeds and clothes us .
Max Hastings and Peter Hitchens pointed summary of causes won't be welcomed by many, but the limp fisted list in BBC list of ten highlights that if a problem is coming for Austraila we will still be arguing/ researching it when it hits us.

Scaremongering - a phenomenon that is far too common

2011-07-15T18:30:00.000-07:00

When you accuse others of scaremongering and you move beyond the key question ,you need to check yourself first ; the growing audience of skeptics out here ,hears all this emotion and goes " takes one to know one?'

Thinking people need to show much more respect for science that they do. When you or I weigh in to " mere observation " arguments , we must be very careful - you need to test things properly .

Flannery has done the cause of sound science great harm by talking about water shortages , islands flooding and so on -all things clearly outside of his expertise and his practical grasp of physics and science in practice. I'll say it again . Q&A (ABCTV) in its current form, will go down in history as entertainment and tokenism to science . At least Ellul and Whitehead would agree with me - though it seems not many others - I can handle that .
Time perhaps if you have a bit of skeptic still left in you, to ask a few scientists YOU KNOW (who know something about physics ) what THEY think about testable and settled science and how well we do it TODAY.

It totally out of order to add MORE and BIGGER storms, droughts and floods to a discussion that is even unclear regarding something as ephemeral as a simple rise in air temperature .
Basic physics and geology tell us that when we have ice ages ----we have less rain - not more . This "more floods "scenario came forward when we pointed out to dills like Flannery that global warming could be expected to result in more rain,(more clouds) not less . As for droughts - we know the practical stuff well enough to know we didn't need a desal plant -didn't stop another set of dills determined to deal dumbly with their fears and make our children pay money for nothin .

Follow the wannabes if you want , but don't be surprised if their fears are due to blatant ignorance or predjudice or both .

To be effective - start at the beginning -Seeds (post on hold)

2011-05-08T20:48:00.000-07:00

Cleaning up our rivers by controlling our people

2011-05-02T06:48:00.000-07:00

Getting some perspective on the environment
Tonights qanda may have illustrated why qanda makes so much noise, but provides so little satisfaction . Intelligent people everywhere, but the ambition of the program is all wrong ; its quickfix - scientists know that simple solutions to complex problems are usually wrong , but do the public ? The environment is not simple; let alone the human element on it .
In a move which seemed to me to symbolise the failure to put sound science competency before technology of action, the correct plea by the university man to get researchers back in the bush seems to be ignored by Windsor. We've all seen wasted science effort ( so why does Tony mention the Cmas?)the point is - don't throw science out because you are impatient or cynical .
Windsor's hope appears to be in technology, not science . That confusion and focus makes him likely to be a member of popular politics - -but it puts the possibility of sound science policies for resolution, health and reasonableness in environment on hold ( How dare they talk of localism when the only brand they are interested in is one size fits all solutions ; illustrated by overpromoted NBN etc) - export of sound science on rural development to asia and china and the 3rd world is back on the back burner while we try vainly to clean up our rivers with nets and filters .Good science practice is prevention focused - much more efficient than always talking about problems !

Worry warriors need a reality check

2011-03-14T15:54:00.000-07:00

The unecessary negative effect of misapplied worry by non scientists and a desperate media is something readers should resist. Ignorance driven stuff by the noisy and nosy reduces our children's faith in science and technology and therefore our ability to manage risk and build real resilience .

Its wrong too when people who are not practical try to speak for those that are .A sound knowledge of chemistry and geology will limit the extent to which you worry about real disasters and work towards preventing another.

Time to get serious about poverty and property politics

2011-03-06T19:03:00.000-08:00

Pressures on people who try to live off the land are some of the most destabilizing influences in our world .The problem is that such strongly degraded land systems are still far too common and they need not be .
My plea here is to abandon the traditional defence of left and right on the issue of property politics and recognise there is a way forward for rural communities ( particularly those in Asia and Africa who are still overly vulnerable to unecessary pressure on land ) that can be advanced by observers in the West . That is, its specific technical and objective but its , to warn , you very resistant to the technological fix mentality that characterises recent generation failure.
After watching my generation meddle in weighty matters of environment and agriculture, its clearly time to offer a more objective view of how to help precarious agriculture communities become more sustainable and settled . Huge Agricultural and Environment political interests compete for public attention BUT do not work in each others best interests .The earth deserves better than the current cul de sac extremes of exploitation or enshrining. Current fashion is to offer societies self correction, but this is not objective and creates only more failure down the track .
I am aware as a long term practitioner in science of capability evaluation that there is great value in the practice of objective land science being used at a government level because some coercion and more objective vision is necessary for sustainable developments anywhere in planet earth - and for its sake

What's stopping the west from doing more about poverty problems in the east ? ( My point here is that we can't blame the Taliban for the problem because they are too close to it .The problem I have as a highly experienced and effective environmental risk management specialist is that so much aid and technology offered to the poor is STILL inappropriate and mistargeted.

The reason why my generation has done so little to reduce poverty in rural areas is simply because prejudice, patronising and poor objectivity have driven our efforts .
Once we understand and accept our need for place and space we can help others find something sustainable for themselves. Ask me if you want to know more . Lots of citations .
The government I worked for for 33 years has now lost sight of how to be positively engaged in this matter and only an independent research review , to my mind , could revive it . I had one of the best jobs in the world and it would be great if even a few people could continue work in this area.

Moving targets for Carbon action speak of sham

2011-03-02T04:36:00.000-08:00

Lomborg has reminded Australians this week that MOST actions taken by other governments have not worked ( Danish windmills predicted to reduce the onset of a unhappy concentration target by ...... 7minutes ) and that a carbon tax will not solve the problem of direction and have great externalities ( pricing carbon to reduce the use of it , Like Brumby has done in Victoria for water , is a shallow and pathetic piece of interference in an eco system they clearly do not understand )
Best of all , he has pointed to the ONLY reasonable consensus issue here - that we want to encourage research into alternative energy sources . Too many unthinking wannabes see CO2 fears as the way to motivate this change. Julia blames the opposition for running a fear campaign - not convincing : takes one to know one ?

Why do we let polys talk science and not scientists

2010-10-31T19:42:00.000-07:00

The prominent public issues of the NBN , the Murray darling irrigation , river health and Carbon sequestration are public issues of controversy and concern resolved only by sound science,-- not by more public football by polys. Whose living in dream land here? Why are our public discourses about science and technology so often mediated by people who are not scientists . Infact these spokesmen for science are men and women who historically are not known for representing much truth at all . What blinds our so called investigative media that they run this blatant irrationality on our TV screens each week .QANDA and Insights chose their guests and give polys the platform Why?Why? why? Are the media so poorly educated they don't know how to get answers, and from whom ?
I know the answer, but do you ? And more importantly for the clever country , does the scientific community who are increasingly been abused and alienated ( quoting what scientists say instead of quoting the scientists should rightly be seen as a form of patronising, especially when these polys tell only one side of the story ).
By not being treated with the respect that a dominant panel of experts would give , the media demean the authority of those who make Science their career . Where will Australian Science be if we let this pathetic hypocrisy continue? Why do the media keep asking the wrong people ? Ellul spelt the reason out like some others as early as the 1920's.
I thought Qanda was typically unbalanced here but last week I saw Jenny Brockie make the same mistake on SBS .( over telecommunication issue ) If you want to avoid the waste of time that was SBS last week , get scientists to talk on the science of copper , airwaves and optic fibre. Only when the media let scientists speak freely will the medai be worth listening to about the truth .

Survey shows ...

2010-10-24T02:31:00.000-07:00

The ABC are fond , like many in the media, of using " surveys" . Tonight was a classic. ABC news kept running a non news, non science story that " most people wanted someone ......to do something about the Murray Darling" . Same stupid question and answer as some have been doing for such subjects as "Climate change" or "reducing violence" or " poor teachers in schools" ( Never the students problem notice ).
If there was a half decent scientist and supercynic amongst them they would be saying "beware of those who use surveys to say what they want the people to say" . Our often excellent ABC needs to weed out susscience reporters if its going to compete with the BBC and blogs who do respect sound science principles in practice .
The only poll that matters long term in science is the one that gets the item into "boring" - Few science issues need hot air to establish themselves in consensus territory . They just go there naturally if they are more than hype and spin .Scientific American has just acknowledged there are plenty of scientists who either don't accept AGW or the quickfix response agendas promoted by the wannabes .
Surveys would show that ABCTV are not presenting science at all well BECAUSE they let polys tell us what science says. Why do so many ABC media think polys know what they are talking about ( QANDA is a blatantly typical example ) - a mystery and faith of grand proportions -
Maybe journos like people like themselves - good at spin . All the hype in the world won't keep the ABC from slipping behind in the news stakes if it continues to confuse commentary with reporting. How seriously do the media think we take all their talk about someone else's more competent talking ? .

New public funded panic agencies

2010-09-16T17:08:00.000-07:00

Nowhere is the complete waste from MC more evident than in the scaremongered actions driven by governments.; those irrational fears that were often in the background where they belong, develop somehow ( often through SMD) into growth areas - dominating as the new often does , over reality and balance considerations, finally settling in the public mind where its now so hard to shift .
Thoughtful citizens know that the truth is not in the hands who live in concrete and steel but who should provide advice on the complex matters of the environment.
Whose to say what the truth is ? Scientists of course ( we agree completely there - applied and experienced scientists)
This does include those with a piece of paper and a passion who are promoted to lead the risk management institutions our dumb polys are creating to deal with risk . Such moves are totally unsustainable so their culture remains one of " fear at home - fear out there" . The taxpayers live with that great cost and distraction of public funded panic agencies for the moment.
Polys, to their own damnation , exploit the panic risk in the cities to drive agendas that in reality require great precision and care in someone else's backyard .With risk management advice, once the fire is lit, its hard ,if not impossible to put the blaze out. The potential for blatant hypocrisy and projection too , should be evident to all who think deeper than the reactionaries who try to govern us .
Take the panic over water and the quick fix of Labor creating water . Take the ignorant stupidity of Tim Holding who talked today on 3AW about "weaning us off dams' ( patronising is a common consequence of going to SMD). We would be better off with dams in the total risk and cost stakes , but he doesn't know that .History will prove him to be what he is - ignorant of the total picture.
As Craig Langdon has now revealed . the normal stupidity of polys is no longer mediated by the honesty of scientists in their control;They don't know and they don't admit they don't know .
( For the inexperienced risk managers now in charge , when a risk arrives you don't speak objectiely of its coming and going , of how to prevent it or any of that important focus ----you play it up to survive )
If I was a poly of any colour I wouldn't worry about the ignorance in the public mind but those whose advice can't simply be relied on.

Climatology - given priority status by the panic merchants

2010-09-14T17:03:00.000-07:00

The excessive panic in the month of August in Victoria in 2010 over water flow on soils is largely an expression of the public minds preoccupation with only one area of science. Paradoxically the term is anachronistic referencing to historical trands rather than the study of the present and the processes (weather and hydrology ) . The public think they are thinking ahead when they are clearly hooked on a idea of what "works "( they love technology not science) .
There are lots of other areas of science which provide much quicker and sounder access to predictive modelling on some of these matters than the kindergarten focus of monitoring that dominates Government vision lessness in many of these matters .
I won't list the areas of more relevant science that would be more useful because the silly ministers who run this country will be off destabilizing the bureau with their latest and greatest half baked ideas which grow new shoots and just as quickly cut them off . The wannabes want to be ahead of the game and do all the talking, instead of those who should be speaking.

Our wannabes talk like they are scientists, displacing those who are

2010-08-10T20:12:00.000-07:00

It was refreshing to hear this week close to the election that some of the major party differences in policy, say on telecommunications , were coming from scientists, and not from politicians locked into their own ideas of what works.

How much optical fibre how much copper , how much air transmission how much subsidy to areas the " competitors would never go .

As an applied scientist, it’s very hard to watch some on the edge wannabes blundering through a list of wonderful sounding ideas when they clearly have no idea of how to implement them. It’s not a joke when we haven’t even got science and technology properly on the menu at our schools.

Believe me, The Greens hypocritical , reactive and unbelievable talk of a mentoring program this week goes down very, very poorly amongst those of us who have taught science and technology , and what really works, for decades in our own backyards ! I

If your kids, as scientists, ever got to work for some of these wannabes, would they get a word in edgeways ?

Researching the Health of Australians- whose the biggest donkey here ?

2010-05-19T18:07:00.000-07:00

RE : Fines for those who don't cooperate with a survey
The theme of this blog is, in short, that the greatest evil to sound science is done in the name of the best intention - research that tells us nothing more than we already know, or could deduce from existing opportunities. Perhaps a subclause to this site could be that the greatest evil is done in the name of presumptions about our good intentions .( The Post modern innocents)
( Why is all this nanny stuff happening? Another question HERE and HERE )

Governments have convinced themselves they care .......when the only thing that works is when people care ! Worse , they don't understand the human condition because they assume that lecturing us actually works ( When will the Libs wake up and call it not just "political advertising" but" pathetic parent advertising"or ADDs advertising (Authors Dumb/dopey Disorder) - do they not have children?
How many people will admit how often they do the wrong thing with food ? Typically they are going to spend millions on trying to identify the problem - multiply by....if they ever find out HOW to treat it !

Videos around Mackas would give more cost effective data than these grand ambitions of our leaders to know more about us - extracting valuable information from questionaires is a typical warning signal for MC risk
I'd fine people for only half filling forms out, rather than for not filling them out . You know what election voting is like . Less than half the donkeys are ever rounded up ,
What do you think ?

New Scientist magazine

2010-03-25T16:27:00.000-07:00

Like Flannery, the magazine is popular , but is popularity part of the solution to the brain drain , or part of the problem . Is NS popular amongst the sort of scientists we need to mentor to lead this country to a intellegence led future? What do scientists want more of ? Are NS readers more interested in the results of science ( technology ) than science itself . Be serious because  if you want to talk science progress properly we do want to get distracted by silly superficial stuff.

A few years ago the magazine was unashamedly defending  "PC scientists say " stuff with long features on correct green house gas controls .  But such drama ran short news about the volcanoes and particulate matter and what they were doing to lower temperatures .
NS is , let me put it bluntly , more interested in speculating on the shiny popular and new , than what comes out of the old and boring buildings which really should the only place to give the magazine something to talk about .

Many of us have stopped subscribing; stopped being annoyed by its woosiness , its constant promotion of the new, its failure to take science seriously( the controversial , the cool and the evidence based ) .
NS is particularly annoying because it feeds the lie that it is "a science magazine " - for scientists .  We know that popular sciencepromotion is promoting the drip feed that is draining sound reseach and practice in our culture ( good science is often too " boring "to the NS audience )
On the evidence : If Australians were serious about science, and NS about science , they might pay them enough to able to afford the cars that are sold in new scientist?

Science gurus?- Tim Flannery

2010-03-25T15:37:00.000-07:00

A lot can be learned from those who dance the tune the pipers are playing .
The ABC need to do a poll of experienced practical scientists ( the ones we want to grow more of) and see what they think of this man's attempts to represent them ! I know he's "popular", but maybe thats part of the problem? (Take his popular but highly suspect preoocupation with the population problem that plays up to popular predjudice and uses the sort of simplistic ecological analogies that give complex symbotic science a bad name . )
The carelessness that often characterizes Tims talks is more symbolic of our times than Jones in the MPC stakes .. He seems so busy trying to move us somewhere quickly that he is happy to employ any technical sub scientific( short circuits) means to move us there . He uses and confuses science and technology in a way which is unfortunately all too common in our culture . I Just read another wandering feast by one by Lawrence Money which teels us little new about Tim ( except that his passion began as a childish one) but allows him to wander across every other scientist's territory with the applom characteristic of emperors . The Biologists with philosophical bent , in particular, are serial offenders here . I wonder why?
Typical of many MPC's he's more focused on the goal than he is on the means he uses to get there .
Typical of many MPC's he's promoting short term gain, long term pain .
Sustainable solutions, once discovered, don't need to be propped up .
They may need , going on the evidence all around us , protection from whiteanting by fearmongers and mere number , fact and fad crunchers who wannabe in the media .

Science gurus? - Barry Jones

2010-03-25T15:35:00.001-07:00

A lot can be learned from those who dance the tune the pipers are playing .
The ABC should be worried that after decades and decades of rhetoric about their promotion of science in our culture, they still promote this classic myopic guru of the school of mere descripton as someone who symbolizies the future of science . Whitehead would be turning in his grave.

Do I need to say more. Misplaced concreteness.

Where do we start ?

2010-03-25T15:34:00.000-07:00

My reason for starting this tribute to AN Whitehead is the sinking ship of sustainability research that has been the terrible toy of politics, and their suspect new vehicles of governance and research, for at least 15 years .
It is absolutely no cooincidence/or surprise that the Australian Federal Goverenmnet have this last week stopped funding Land and Water Division because the whole focus of environmental research has lost its way .
The drip feeders ( like CMA,s and CRC' and water authorities and local government) in their youthful ignorance and arrogance have been complicit in misplaced concreteness in a grand way thats ground on ground credibility to a halt ; printing maps of problems and things they are monitoring BUT that they themselves aren't addressing .
Not that the States and other drip feeders who have allowed this to happen division are soley responsible . Cabinets own priorities in this area are all over the place symbolizing in turn by their desperation to "do something "( like putting bats in roofs)
The roof bat fiasco will seem like a mere belfrey problem when Australians discover their govts at both state and federal level have been wasting water money in way which beats anything anyone has been doing in their backyards during our dry years( My estimate will be in the hundreds each year for every household - to do what ? allow our polys to build water infrastructure that only goes rusty -you heard it first on blogger )
What can the thinking person do to relieve the pain ?
I could go on - Here is a few more . Its now up to you to tell us about your area of research and practice that has been undermined by the quickfixers .Be part of the solution - sustainability science