Tony Abbot writes
, "Rudd's real test won't be how he handles consorting allegations. It will be explaining how it's possible to tear up workplace agreements and halve greenhouse gas emissions without sabotaging the economy." I am with Al Gore on this one, solving global warming is an opportunity to grow an economy.
The standard attack against global warming and the uncertainties of a complex interdependent system is to argue that it will cripple the economy to enact any policy to curb carbon emissions. It is a false choice.
I watched An Inconvenient Truth on the weekend. It didn't really tell me anything new, and the bits inbetween the powerpoint presentation were emotive and designed to tug at my heart strings, but it was presented well and in an empirical fashion with plenty of graphs and photographs.
The important part was in the conclusion. Gore attacked the problem in the standard American manner; it isn't a loss, it isn't a whipping from the environment so that we have to go back to our mud huts and fish by hand - to Gore it was an opportunity. It was a chance for America to take the lead in new technologies, new investment, new solutions, new industries and new ways of living.
It isn't, as Abbot suggests, going to kill the economy because we will find new technologies and new ways of supplying energy and being aware of our carbon production. I was at Home Depot a few weeks ago paying a premium for CLF lights bulbs which are %300 more expensive than the old inefficient light bulbs. Some company has worked out how to sell me a light bulb for four times the price I would normally pay? That is an economic opportunity if I ever saw it.
Same with all the other technologies that companies come up with. I will probably pay a premium for them. A few weeks ago my wife looked into buying green power - which we will probably pay more for than we would coal generated power.
I own iPods when I could buy a cheap run of the mill mp3 player which is indicative of consumer behaviour. It will be the same with the new technologies that come out to wean us off carbon based fuels. This will probably be the next spurt of economic growth as companies create disruptive technologies, that can be sold at a premium, and change whole markets.
It is an opportunity to grow jobs, technologies and the economy - it should be stated as such. Abbot is on the wrong tack here.
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
