Belle and Sebastian are a band I can always turn to when I’m feeling down. Their songs are chirpy and uplifting.
A very quirky video follows.
The bonus this week is my favourite Belle and Sebastian song, If She Wants Me. Unfortunately, it wasn’t released as a single so no video clip (recurring theme here…) so I’ve linked a fan-made one (not quite the full song, but close enough). Enjoy!
“That’s so depressing,” my sister remarked when she saw I was reading this. Gee thanks, I thought. On the Beach is set in Melbourne in the 60s amongst a post-World War III environment of impending nuclear doom. Due to no fault of Australia, cobalt-based bombs have wiped out everywhere north of Australia and the cloud of destruction is slowly but surely drifting south.
We follow the lives of five people: the captain of an American nuclear submarine, an Australian navy officer posted to the submarine, his wife, their alcoholic friend and a CSIRO scientific officer also posted on the submarine. The seagoing members in the book are sent on journeys to work out how far the radiation is spreading and to look for signs of life up north.
What surprised me was the calm resignation that pretty much all the characters exhibit, despite knowing that all life is sure to end in just a few months time. They go on with planning for the future years down the track (planting gardens, ploughing fields, etc.) which at first I thought was crazy but then it dawned on me: even if you knew when you were going to die, keeping busy is the only thing that would prevent you from curling up in the corner in the foetal position.
The other linked concept here is the difference between knowing when you’re going to die and it being a surprise. All the characters have an approximate date for Melbourne’s demise and its interesting to see the way the community as a whole handles the situation.
So overall, I didn’t find it depressing (a little bit sad, yes). The dignity with which the characters face their inevitable doom was inspiring. A good classic Australian (I think Shute was British but we’ll claim it anyway) book.
So you may have heard, Al Gore has shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. My first reaction is the title of this post. I’m staggered that the comittee couldn’t find someone more befitting of the intention of the award.
Firstly, let me lay my cards on the table. I believe that:
* Climate change is real (because scientists tell me it is and they know more about it than me).
* Climate change is at least partially to blame on humans (because scientists tell me it is and they know more about it than me).
* The effects of climate change and the impact that it will have on the world is only theoretical. As a consequence, scientists can only guess as to what the impact will be, and how long until it happens. The Earth is a complex ecosystem that is incredibly difficult to model. You can’t know for certain what the temperature will be in a weeks time so I struggle to believe that anyone could possibly predict with any confidence what the sea levels, mean temperature or any other observable climatic measure will be in the future (they’re still working on what the temperature is going to be one week from now). You’ll note that next to the two prior points I’ve said that basically because its the job of climate scientists to study it then if they can all (or mostly) agree on a fact then that’s good enough for me. I am yet to see any agreement on specific effects of climate change apart from very hand-wavy, vague and obvious notions.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s look at what the charter of the prize entails.
“to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”.
Gore’s shared award was for his
efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.
This probably not a good week for a UK High Court judge to find that “nine statements in the film were not supported by mainstream scientific consensus”. One of the claims was found to be “distinctly alarmist”. Overall, the judge’s comments are unlikely to matter. Gore ’sold’ climate change to the world and he did it well.
Indications of changes in the earth’s future climate must be treated with the utmost seriousness, and with the precautionary principle uppermost in our minds. Extensive climate changes may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind. They may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the earth’s resources. Such changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world’s most vulnerable countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states.
Count the instances of the word ‘may’ in the above quote. Nobody knows what is going to happen due to climate change. It may all be a fizzer even if we do nothing. As I’ve said, scientists can’t agree on the magnitude of the impact and how that impact will affect the Earth in 100 years time.
The Peace Prize is notable amongst the Nobel prizes because it is often awarded to people soon after their achievement. Scientific Nobel prizes (e.g. Physics, Chemistry) are awarded many years after the initial work (Einstein waited 16 years). I don’t have a problem with this lack of delay. However, when we don’t know if climate change will produce wars of attrition, I would suggest we wait for the science to settle. Once again, let me be clear: I’m not disputing the existence of climate change or its cause, but rather the unknown amplitude of its impact and the way in which people like Gore extrapolate the worst possible scenarios and then tweak them a little bit more. Gore may have achieved in the past few years a great advancement for humankind and averted many wars and saved millions of lives, but it’s way too early to make that call.
So what are we left with? All I can see is that the committee wanted to make a political statement. Something along the lines of “hey, climate change is important”. Sure it is (and thanks for getting on the bandwagon), but it’s not the most important problem facing humanity. At this point I’ve put in a video of a TED talk from Bjorn Lomborg. In it he uses an economic value model to assess what exactly are the most important problems to solve. Here’s a spoiler: if every country signed Kyoto it would reduce the effect of climate change in such a way that instead of someone in Bangladesh getting flooded in 2100 they would get flooded in 2106. It would also cost $150 billion. But hey, climate change is sexy and HIV/AIDS isn’t.
I’m fully aware that I can’t just whinge about it and not put forward an alternative, so if not Gore, then whom? According to one betting guide some of the other favourites included Irene Sendler and Martti Ahtisaari. Sendler is estimated to have saved 2,500 Jewish children during the Holocaust. Ahtisaari has had a distinguished diplomatic career and recently negotiated a peace treaty in the Indonesian territory of Aceh. Both seem good to me.
So I really wanted to post Nursery Rhyme which is one of my favourite songs ever but apparently it didn’t come out as a single (and neither did my second favourite UNKLE song Lonely Soul) so no video……blah. While looking on YouTube for the aforementioned song I saw Be There which I never even knew existed (it doesn’t appear on any of UNKLEs three albums). It features Ian Brown (The Stone Roses) on vocals.
As a bonus, Rabbit in your Headlights (featuring Thom Yorke for Radiohead) and Eye for an Eye (which is apparently a critique on globalisation, although I had no idea until I watched the video.)
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