Brilliant analysis! Well said! It is this kind of detailed and insightful commentary that Grist readers have come to depend on for these many months. Don't ask any questions, don't fiddle with any details -- just accept David Robert's position as the one true truth and you will be better off. Why are we even bothering anymore??

We are currently witnessing an all out brawl among Australian politicians over climate change in the lead up to our federal election. Howard has no credibility on the issue, having spent the last decade denying that it is a problem. But given past experience it is not unlikely that he will manage to win anyway. He is running the line that:

'OK, you the Australian people want something done about this climate change thingy - alright I'll fix it - trust me - but I won't give you targets or anything that irresponsible until after the election - and don't be foolish and vote for the opposition - if climate change is a bad as you think it is, then you need me at the helm to deal with it by keeping the economy steaming ahead with my fiscal conservatism - oh and by the way, this means we'll need to build lots of nuclear power stations, and export loads more Uranium - cutting back CO2 is gonna hurt - but I'll make it hurt less than those other clowns - they'd ruin us all with their environmental extremism.'

To get a real idea of what is going on in Australian politics environment-wise, read the news items in the Environment section of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) website.

Or better yet, search the audio downloads of the Phillip Adams' Late Night Live radio show for relevant discussions of either greenhouse or Howard.

In fact, just listen to LNL from now on and you'll get a better understanding of what is going on in the World than is possible from any other single source.

On the other side of the coin, the Australian company Geodynamics is about to tap into a Geothermal source that has the potential to supply all Australia's power requirements for the next millennium at a price competitive with coal, so I suspect that the prime minister's opinion is about to become irrelevant with regard greenhouse in the domestic economy.

But it doesn't matter: either way, it means that Australia and the US are the only developed nations holding out on global action, and it's shameful. We burden the rest of the world with our pollution then complain when they expect us to clean it up.


---- ---- ---- Go Greener, Australia - you know you want to.

'picoallen' puts these words in Howard's mouth,

... this means we'll need to build lots of nuclear power stations, and export loads more Uranium - cutting back CO2 is gonna hurt ...

but the point of nuclear power stations is that cutting back CO2 with them does not hurt, so the implied connection is a petrodollar lie. Maybe it is one Howard would tell, but I suspect  the ventriloquist in this case.

--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
Oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes

OK, those of little rhythmic imagination can delete the "And" in line 4, and stress the "wise" unnaturally.  IMHO, it works fine as is, and the metric irregularities add to the piece's energy.  Certainly there is nothing here that can be called "wrongness."

To be sure, the way I pronounce English, "Australia," "dahlia" and "failure" most certainly do not rhyme.  And I am not at all sure that anyone in the English-speaking world pronounces them so that they rhyme.  But that is the fun of it, imagining how someone else somewhere in Her Majesty's Commonwealth just might say these curious words, in a way that vaguely suggests that they rhyme.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

in S Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and many parts of the UK, they do. Rhyme.

Whiskerfish

I believe you, you know, it is just a bit hard for my imagination to catch up.  Actually, as I pronounce them, the "tral" of "Australia" and the "fail" of "failure rhyme perfectly.  But the "dahl" of "dahlia" sounds like "doll," as in "Guys and Dolls," and "Hello, Dolly!"

Also, there is the bit about the final "ure" of "failure."  Like most people here in NA, as well as certain people in Western England, I pronounce that "r" clearly.  But sure, I know, there are lots of people, even here, who allow it to slip away.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.