Social Science and Society

Which bank under heavy fire

For now same sex marriage takes centre stage, but journalists and pollies have taken time out to unload on the Commonwealth Bank, forgetting that their own esteem in public eyes hovers around that of used-car salespersons. Also most have never organised anything bigger than a booze-up in a brewery, so the chances of them understanding how large businesses work is close to zero.

We’ll have to wait for the court case to find out what really happened, but there have been a couple of articles in the AFR, and an ABC TV interview with the chair of the board, Catherine Livingstone, so here is my best estimate as to what happened. Continue reading Which bank under heavy fire →

Climate Action, Climate Policy & Planning

Coal-fired power trade-off for new clean energy target

2 Comments

That is as reported by Simon Benson in The Australian:

    The Turnbull government is expected to take its revised energy policy to the Coalition partyroom early next month with a plan to make a significant investment in cleaner coal-fired power as a counterbalance to also adopting a clean energy target.

    The Australian has learned that Malcolm Turnbull and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg are working on a compromise deal on coal that would allow them to quell internal resistance to a CET.

Continue reading Coal-fired power trade-off for new clean energy target →

Politics & Government, Technology

Pressing the reset button on the NBN

3 Comments

Would that they were.

Paul Budde has urged the government to press the reset button on the NBN, as short-term and longer-term faults and complaints affect up to a third of connected customers and large numbers of premises are being put in the too hard basket for connection.

One man was without a phone or internet for four months, and only got relief after media involvement. Then he got relief by being reconnected to the legacy service he had left, which is against the rules. Continue reading Pressing the reset button on the NBN →

Climate Action, Climate Policy & Planning

Renewables make gas out of date, but coal not done yet

14 Comments

It’s the kind of article we expect in RenewEconomy, but this one by Angela Macdonald Smith is in the Australian Financial Review – Future for gas to be cut short by batteries and renewables:

    The conventional wisdom that gas will play an increasingly significant role in electricity supply as the market switches more towards renewables to back up that intermittent supply source, has largely gone out the window.

    Now it’s a discussion of how much an opportunity gas has before it gets squeezed out of the mainstream generation market by solar/wind and storage – not on carbon emissions grounds, but on costs.

Continue reading Renewables make gas out of date, but coal not done yet →

Climate Action, Climate Change & Sustainability, Climate Science

Can we get to 350ppm?

4 Comments

Quiggin says, yes we can.

I can’t comment on his blog, because the Askimet software has got me marked as a pest, and my comments go straight to spam. There is no facility for telling Askimet I’m OK, so there it is, I’m as good as banned. So I’ll make my comments here, which are in any case longer than is form for comments there.

I’d have to say I agree with Fran Bailey’s comment, the analysis seems entirely too optimistic. Continue reading Can we get to 350ppm? →

Climate Action, Climate Change & Sustainability, Politics & Government, Social Science and Society

AER, ACCC and the ABC join the fray on Qld electricity prices

8 Comments

In last Tuesday’s post It’s gas, not renewables, pushing up electricity prices the federal Minister Josh Frydenberg attacked the Queensland government through it’s state-owned generators for “gaming the system”, which, he said gave Queensland the nation’s most expensive electricity, costing jobs. In that post Queensland’s electricity was shown to be low compared to those of the other eastern mainland states, in recent years and in recent months the lowest.

The state has now been attacked by the AER (Australian Energy Regulator) and by the ACCC. At the end of it all, Steve Austin, the host of Mornings on Brisbane’s local ABC, sank the boot in. So what to make of it all? Continue reading AER, ACCC and the ABC join the fray on Qld electricity prices →

Politics & Government, Sundries

Saturday salon 22/7

18 Comments

1. Turnbull’s Kim Jong-un moment

One of two big stories this week, from the SMH, Peter Dutton to head merged ASIO, AFP and Border Force super security department. However, Paula Matthewson at The New Daily captured the spirit of the thing by focussing on the optics in Hilarious and menacing at the same time: Turnbull’s Kim Jong-un moment. When Abbott made a national security announcement, this is what we got:

Continue reading Saturday salon 22/7 →

Climate Action, Climate Policy & Planning, Politics & Government, Sundries

It’s gas, not renewables, pushing up electricity prices

5 Comments

There has been a war about electricity prices reflected in front page headlines. For example:

Continue reading It’s gas, not renewables, pushing up electricity prices →

Life

Power cripples your brain

23 Comments

The old saying that power corrupts has been verified by science. Not only that, it does your head in, as it were, cripples your brain and cuts you off from reality. Jerry Useem tells the story in Power Causes Brain Damage.

Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at UC Berkeley, conducted years of lab and field experiments.

    Subjects under the influence of power, he found in studies spanning two decades, acted as if they had suffered a traumatic brain injury—becoming more impulsive, less risk-aware, and, crucially, less adept at seeing things from other people’s point of view.

Continue reading Power cripples your brain →

Climate change, sustainability, plus sundry other stuff