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Patsy's avatar

Thanks John. And there's the reliable mystery again - a harsh, unwelcome truth, but the writing's so well aimed and makes so many complicated things cohere, that I feel better and more hopeful for reading it. Surely facing up to what's happening is the start of doing of our best to deal with it. X

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Jim KABLE's avatar

JB: Blunt and stark - and Lord Turner - come on, AA - listen to the Greens and the TEAL cross-benchers - up your targets - and then make them happen. Outlaw big coal/big mining export lobbyists. Fund and nationalise if it helps - all the solar and wind power developers in Australia - no foreign shareholders - all for the nation!

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Rob Keniger's avatar

I'm not looking forward to Summer.

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Jim KABLE's avatar

I would say that since my early 40s (three decades back) that I have never looked forward to summer. I've endured summers in Japan of 100% humidity (or as close to as) - no rain on the horizon at - flooded rice fields providing the feed to that - and the only relief from finding places with aircon [or evening rooftop "Beer Gardens" - a feature copied from the Germans - and one of the only delights of those summers - ice cold beers, etc.; summers in the UK where though not as bad as now - yet friends and relatives always moved their dining out into the gardens - because houses were heat traps - and no aircon (because why would you for a week or two of heatbox conditions - "mustn't grumblism" the coping mechanism) and back here - where I found the only place to live was within 500m of the coast - those cooling southerly afternoon breezes sweeping the heat from house and permitting sleep. (Ours is NOT an aircon house - but I'm beginning to wonder as my wife and I age whether that will be a thing we can keep eschewing.) Thanks, Rob - you speak for me and many of us who are not big-miner lobbyists and fossil fuel shareholders!

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Jim KABLE's avatar

Twice I've tried to edit an addition to my memories of those energy sapping Japanese summers by reminding myself that evening rooftop "Beer Gardens" were a true respite - with friends - ice-cold beers - the sun at least sunk below the horizon and high enough for mosquitoes etc to be absent - an idea copied from the Germans at some distant past time!

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John Birmingham's avatar

Sounds great, Jim I'm jealous.

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Jim KABLE's avatar

You'd have loved it, John - research opportunity or not - for the equivalent of around $40 dollars - around two-two-and-a-half hours of eat and drink all you can! probably still low 30s Celsius - but cares and worries with this afterwork/week-end relaxation. All good-natured - tables around - others otherwise unknown. One evening I got caught up in a bit of back and forth with chaps at a neighbouring table who could easily have been rugby league front-row forwards - but were most likely a local yakuza unit - or a travelling unit - all summer festival sideshow workers. I think there was a tattoo or two peeping from beneath sleeveless T-shirts... My group was a mixed bunch of husbands & wives mostly Japanese - teachers - colleagues and spouses. A time of golden memories.

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John Birmingham's avatar

Did they have all their fingers?

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Jim KABLE's avatar

Trust you to think of that - I think it was what alerted one of my companions to the fact that they were, indeed, yakuza. Some time later at the local Shintō shrine - of which I had been made an honorary parishioner - the priest introduced me to a couple engaged in assisting in the preparations for a forthcoming autumn festival. He had a little finger shortened - and told me - at the priest's prompting to let me know - that he had been involved in a yakuza organisation - but had left it - I think his wife was an important reason for his courage in stepping away. How it had been effected I was not certain and did not like to ask - somewhere I have a photo of them...a lovely pair. There were sectors of the late night night-life even in that city which were largely controlled by such criminal organisations. At a time when I was walking (to control my weight) late at night after returning home from my teaching (in the city centre) I would walk (at a rate of knots, of course - not a stroll) a circuit of around four kms - and down through one of the old streets covered over to become a kind of arcade - at the depressed shops-closed-up end - I noted men - one or two - standing, idly I thought, at intersection crossings - it was a pedestrian mall - but crossed by traffic roadways - and finally (naïve me) I realised that it was truly the seedier end of town - though never any approaches from the men - my age (?) and purposeful walking manner (Oh, here he comes again!) said I was not hoping for the kind of action they were touting. But on a sociological front - such matters/experiences were endlessly fascinating!

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Michael Barnes's avatar

"my Twitter feed, but they’ve been busy this week with birthing parenthood..." HEY I resemble that remark, I just sent a scathing SCATHING email to services Australia about this issue and you know what I meant it to sting. I confess after this weeks news about the heatwave I have been watching and rewatching that scene from The Hunger Games - Mockingjay "You can torture us and bomb and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that?" One of the cameras follows where I point to the planes burning on the roof of a warehouse across from us. "Fire is catching!" I am shouting now, determined he will not miss a word of it, "And if we burn, you burn with us!”

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Doug Steley's avatar

The deniers are still denying

As a volunteer firefighter in Australian bushfires I have seen people watching the approaching flames while we scream at them to "LEAVE NOW !!!! GET OUT!!!!"

They just stare in shock and disbelief, this cannot be happening to them in their quiet safe comfortable life, they are frozen and just say "We will wait and see what happens"

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Jonathon Troy's avatar

The ALP won't be worrying about the teal independents. There is already a group on their heels and that is the Greens. Personally I wonder how the Northern Hemisphere will adapt to Australian like summers. If you feel like watching denial in practice lower your standards and watch the GBN people talking to a meteorologist.

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Rob Keniger's avatar

I was in Paris about 20 years ago and it was 36 degrees and incredibly humid. It was truly awful, nothing is built for it. We walked for ages trying to find somewhere, anywhere, with air conditioning, and eventually landed up in the bar of the Virgin Megastore on the Champs-Élysées, which was like a bloody oasis. I can't even begin to imagine what 40 degrees is like.

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David Inchley's avatar

And if the ground's not cold, everything is gonna burn

We'll all take turns

I'll get mine too

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halwes's avatar

It's Australians that need to stop pretending. Not just politicians. My guess is that, if Australians were to be told what effect the cessation of Australia's second biggest export would have on their standard of living, they would scream blue murder. We're dumb and greedy and generally couldn't give a fuck about anyone else especially future generations. Why else would we send iron ore to China and buy shit steel back off them and think we're clever? High iron ore prices translate into high steel prices. Where's the gain in that?

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The dude abides's avatar

Grow a set Albo and leave it in the ground..

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