Only in Australia can you trade online in Copenhagen Climate Change Conference Loopholes!

As the developed world walked out of the UN Climate Change Conference (and back in again five hours or so later) over the greenwash proposed by First World heavies and allegations of planned abandonment of the legally binding Kyoto Protocol, things really looked bad all round........
But never fear those super greenhouse gas emitting Aussies are here!

* Only in Australia would humour manifest itself so blackly, with an invitation from the Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets (CEEM) at the University of New South Wales to trade in Loopholes on The Copenhagen Prediction Market (COPPM) with beaut live graphs of trading market fluctuations available and prizes at the end:
New market on loopholes launched!
Recent heated debate shows that reduction targets can only be truly interpreted if one takes into account the magnitude of loopholes. Therefore, a new market on loopholes is now open for trading.
At the COPPM, you trade on the outcomes of the Copenhagen Climate Conference (Conference of Parties, COP15).

No real money is used in trading. Instead, Participants trade with Experimental dollars (E$). The three participants who accumulate the largest final portfolio values (final value of shares plus experimental dollar holdings) on each question will be awarded a prize. On behalf of the winners, Baker & McKenzie will offset, using Gold Standard Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs), personal emissions equivalent to twelve months, four months and two months for the first, second and third prize respectively. Calculations will be based upon the world annual average per capita emissions. Winners will receive a certificate which states the offset amount (tonnes of CO2e cancelled).

Upon enrolment, you will be given an experimental cash position of E$5000 and 50 "market bundles". You can invest this experimental money in shares which represent the possible outcomes of the Conference. Only the shares that corresponds to the true outcome of the Conference pay out.

* A more sober look at what is happening in Copenhagen can be found at Climate Action Tracker with its detailed information on pledges by individual countries, including Australia's inadequate response:
With only five days to go before a Head of Government Agreement on climate change at Copenhagen, even the best emission reductions proposal are only half way to the limits in 2020 that would keep global average temperature rise below 2°C or 1.5°C as called for by 100 countries. The updated assessment by the "Climate Action Tracker" of the emission commitments and pledges put forward by industrialized and developing countries for the Copenhagen climate negotiations shows that the world is headed for a global warming of 3.5°C by 2100. Carbon dioxide concentrations are projected to be over 650 ppm, with total GHG concentrations close to 800 ppm CO2 equivalent. From these numbers, there is at least a one in four chance of exceeding a warming of 4°C.
This "Climate Action Tracker" is an independent science-based assessment, which tracks the emission commitments and actions of countries. The website provides an up-to-date assessment of individual national pledges to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Florence Nightingale had feet of clay and nothing much has changed in nursing since then if Calvary Mater is any indictation

By the time I was in my teens it had become apparent that historical figures were not always as presented in popular history tomes considered suitable for high school students.

A case in point is Florence Nightingale, whose admirable drive to establish the nursing profession also hid an individual with almost as many prejudices and erroneous preconceptions as the average person walking the streets of London in Victorian England.

Nothing much has changed over time. The nursing profession is still quick to judge and slow to examine its own assumptions, if hospital patients I have spoken with over the years are to be believed when they complained of the degree of 'labelling' they experienced.

The latest example of this to come to light is this effort by a nurse who should have known better than to mention werewolves at all when being interviewed by The Sydney Morning Herald last Sunday:

There were 91 emergency patients rated as having violent and acute behavioural disturbance at the Calvary Mater Newcastle hospital from August 2008 to July 2009.
Leonie Calver, a clinical research nurse in toxicology, said almost a quarter of the cases (23 per cent) occurred on a night of full moon and this was double the number for other lunar phases.
The patients all had to be sedated and physically restrained to protect themselves and others.
"Some of these patients attacked the staff like animals - biting, spitting and scratching," Ms Calver said.
"One might compare them with the werewolves of the past, who are said to have also appeared during the full moon."
Ms Calver said werewolf mythology included reports of people rubbing "magic ointment" onto their skin or inhaling vapours to induce the shirt-rending transformation from man to beast.
The main ingredients were belladonna and nightshade, she said, both substances that could produce delirium, hallucinations and delusion of bodily metamorphosis.
Ms Calver said it appeared the "modern-day werewolf" preferred alcohol or illicit drugs, as more than 60 per cent of the patients reviewed in the study were under the influence.
"We don't know if its more fun to use drugs and alcohol under a full moon or if their behavioural disturbance is directly influenced by the moon," she said.
"Our findings support the premise that individuals with violent and acute behavioural disturbance are more likely to present to the emergency department during...full moon."

Calvary Mater Hospital should have looked at two things which may have influenced the raw data producing these so-called findings.
One - a full moon means more light in the landscape, which in turn means that vulnerable homeless people have less shadowed urban public space in which to conceal themselves from the predators in our society, so stress levels for some of these marginalised individuals may be higher during this time as a reaction to perceived increased threat levels rather than to a bigger moon in the sky.
Two - full moon during 10 out of the 12 months covered by this particular study fell on or within seven days of at least one type of fortnightly Centrelink payment, which meant that many individuals with long-term substance abuse problems were more likely to have had the cash to purchase alcohol and/or street drugs during a full moon. Those with serious levels of abuse and those self-medicating due to psychiatric disability are also perhaps more likely to turn up at a hospital A&E during the acute intoxication phase.

Not exactly the moon-influenced scenario favoured by the werewolf-loving Catholic hospital in Newcastle, which so foolishly sought a bit of easy publicity for a very limited study which could almost be called bureaucratic time wasting if one was inclined to be unkind.

Less mythology and more empathy required there.

The Big Dry continues and basically we're stuft for another year

Eighty percent of New South Wales is in drought once more as The Big Dry threatens to continue its relentless ten-year roll on into another decade of unreliable rainfall across the state and the rest of Australia.
El Nino predictions mean that water security may get quite desperate, for many on the land and in country towns already under pressure, before May 2010 hopefully brings an easing of this weather pattern.
While the big metropolitian areas across Australia may again have to severely ration water consumption.
Our national food bowl, the Murray-Darling Basin, will fail if this long dry continues.
Here's what NSW looked like at the end of November according to NSW Dept of Primary Industries:



















And here are four Bureau of Meteorology maps to show just how stuft we are as 2009 ends:



Click maps
to enlarge

The Not Evil Just Wrong! team are at it again

The anti-global warming Not Evil Just Wrong team are presently at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen busily trying to live up to their brag You helped us make history! Now help us redefine it!

According to one Standford University view at Fiat Lux:

Professor Stephen Schneider, leader of the Stanford delegation to COP 15 and co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 with the IPCC, was yesterday verbally assaulted by an Irish documentary filmmaker at the UN event in Copenhagen.....
The culprit is one Phelim McAleer, a little-known Irish filmmaker who recently completed "Not Evil, Just Wrong" a feature-length documentary attacking the environmental movement. Judging from the man's tremendously disrespectful behavior, one could easily distinguish that he views environmentalists with disdain, contrary to what his restrained film title might suggest....
With McAleer apparently intent on pursuing his harassment of Schneider, a security guard escorted the irate Irishman away from the professor upon completion of the Q&A.

Alternatively the Not Evil Just Wrong team over at Jennifer Marohasy's blog:
"A Stanford Professor has used United Nation security officers to silence a journalist asking him "inconvenient questions" during a press briefing at the climate change conference in Copenhagen.
"Professor Stephen Schneider's assistant requested armed UN security officers who held film maker Phelim McAleer, ordered him to stop filming and prevented further questioning after the press conference where the Stanford academic was launching a book…

The Huffington Post reported:

Nobel laureate, renowned climate scientist and good friend of former US vice-president Al Gore, Dr. Stephen Schneider, was verbally attacked today during a press conference at the United Nations Climate Talks in Copenhagen.
Dr. Schneider, an outspoken proponent of climate legislation, was announcing his latest book, "Science as a Contact Sport: Inside the Battle to Save Earth's Climate , " when an unidentified man jumped on stage and began to intensely interrogate Schneider. The man became angry after Schneider addressed the leak email controversy from The University of East Anglia's world renowned Climate Research Unit. He repeatedly shouted, "do you approve of deleting data, Dr. Schneider? Do you approve of deleting data?" The man then accused the professor of attempting to censor the press.

As these particular climate change denialists have a recent history of being very loose with the truth, I know who I'm inclined to believe when it comes to what actually happened at this press conference.