Ogilvie's Theatre

Madeline Ogilvie is now sitting as an independent.

The ridiculous theatre of her "announcement" via public relation firm FontPR aside (ignoring the fact they were pipped at the post by Emily Baker @ABC Hobart), watch for the following:

• Long rambling commentary appearing to weigh up difficult options, only to come to the conclusion that everything should remain as it currently is, no changes to legislation or anything. No call to action.
• A lot of time and energy put into very detailed proposals which are so far out there even she realises they can never happen.  Nobody will take them seriously or even bother responding but at least she can say she "did something".
• Much more theatre, mostly about herself. For example, regarding that announcement: "I’m so sorry, because I didn’t mean to upset anyone or make anybody feel locked out" she said. Ignoring the fact it's unlikely anybody felt left out or upset.

Expect not much excitement to happen with M.O. Apart from the tangentially related, such as FontPR claiming they're a media organisation.

Tasmania might become smoke free

An article in The Mercury prompted the usual responses about individual choice and banning sugar. The geniuses in this debate once again miss the point.

The problem is the risk vs benefit with smoking. The risks are very high and there are no benefits at all. Smoking actually takes some effort to get into, for no reward other than to feed the addiction. Even illegal substances have better CNS effects.

For mental stimulation, try caffeine instead. There are still risks but they aren't anywhere near the level of tobacco smoke.

Even if smoking was an individual choice, sometimes people need protecting from themselves. Do you wear a seatbelt when in a car? A helmet if you ride a bike? Or do you make an "individual choice" not to, despite the legal requirement?

Antarctica and Global Warming

A news item and an opinion piece by Dr Jan Lieser in The Mercury has generated some discussion . While the reasons why the Antarctic sea ice may be increasing may seem fairly straight forward, many commenters have cherry-picked this bit of information (including misreading a sentence about the ozone hole) and used it as proof that global warming does not exist.

This neatly fits with their ideology, but it doesn't fit with the facts. Dr Lieser even gets accused of making it up to secure funding.

The level of debate we have here in Hobart is not particularly high or informed so I do hope not too many outside the Mercury commenting circle actually read this.

By way of supporting evidence, some of those slandering Dr Lieser mention Steven Koonin's latest editorial for the Wall Street Journal (complete with Koonin's self-qualifying quote "My training as a computational physicist", which should work wonders for climate science).

Of course, the WSJ being a well known Murdoch publication, has some history on this topic.

Climate Science Watch published its own response.