Hey Pericles,

“That's what I mean by easy to say, hard to do. Give me an example anywhere of a corporation, business or farmer whose major goal is to be environmentally neutral. Just one”

Try Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp for starters

http://www.newscorp.com/news/news_335.html

There are many others.

Like I said, I tentatively agree with you on the “easy to say, hard to do” – but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. If good ol Rup is optimistic, that must tell us something.

Zealotry Col? A frenzied control freak? You cut me deep Col. You cut me deep.

I can't speak for others who have concerns about global warming, but I'm pretty sure I'm neither a zealot nor a control freak. However, I am furious at how this issue has been hijacked by the political opportunists, of which I think Durkin's documentary and Alex's article are good examples.

My feeling is that there's plenty of evidence we have a problem. In science (as I'm sure you know) nothing is ever one-hundred percent certain, so often it becomes a matter of risk management. The same sorts of issues crop up again and again. Lead in petrol, CFCs, smoking etc, etc. I don't understand the detail of why these things are bad, but enough intelligent people of good will who have done the research have said that they are bad so on balance I accept it.

Ultimately, you have to make a decision. Who do you trust? The climate scientists who have been researching this area for more than half a century or opportunistic cranks like Martin Durkin?

Looks like we are never going to get rid of the snipiing and name-calling in our OLO, but as an ancient who had to bring up a family in the bush, and now still well in touch with the grandkids, and already growing up great-grandkids always have in my mind what my now departed wife used to say to our nippers when they used bad language in the homestead.

'Leave the swearing out in the paddock where it belongs, but not in the home'.

But sometimes wonder which is the worst, sniping and slating other groups as we do so much with our commentaries, or straight our cursing.

As one who in the last 14 years has been taking groups in philosophical topics in the local U3A, might say that though we have certainly pulled global policies and such to pieces, we have taken care not to slate personally people from groups closer to home, meaning in Australia.

Still, there is that saying if you can't stand the heat get out of the political kitchen - which I guess our OLO more represents, Parliamentary politics - though which really has a poor reputation in socio-political problem solving.

Really wish we could do a lot better. Cheers - BB

Talk about the ABC bias swindle - what about the swindle perpetuated by our illustrious leaders?

http://www.highanddry.com.au/extract.cfm

or if you can watch/listen to the webcast or even read the transcript

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/business/items/200707/s1977550.htm

Talk about socio-political problem solving - stuff like this blows it all out of the water.

Rupert, eh davsab?

Spot the difference between the press release you pointed out:

http://www.newscorp.com/news/news_335.html

dated May 9th 2007, and this presentation

http://www.newscorp.com/investor/download/DeutscheBank2007/sld001.htm

made at a conference on 4th June 2007.

Let's review this in the light of "a corporation... whose major goal is to be environmentally neutral"

The key phrases dotted throughout the presentation are "poised to be another record year... higher licence fees... viewership growth... international expansion... subscriber growth... monetization of rapid page view growth... advertising gains... rising rates... margin expansion... increase monetization... protect franchise... maintain momentum... maintain ratings dominance... continue to grow..."

Exactly what you would expect.

But, not a single word in all twenty slides about "becoming carbon neutral". Hardly "a major goal", I would suggest.

I expect that the bulk of the Murdoch push to carbon neutrality will be achieved through various carbon offset arrangements...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/48e334ce-f355-11db-9845-000b5df10621.html

This one's a .pdf entitled "Climate Fraud and Carbon Colonialism: The New Trade in Greenhouse Gases". Makes fascinating reading.

http://www.tni.org/archives/bachram/cns.pdf

"Companies such as Future Forests sell branded carbon offset products to promote so-called CarbonNeutralTM living... The allure of offset culture is understandable. Corporations, ever conscious of cost and image, seek quick-fix solutions that do not require radical changes to fundamental business practice."

And you have gotta love this one!

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/03/070306-warming-credits.html

As I said in my first post on this topic, I readily admit that I may come across as a cynical old pessimist. But I've been around on this planet for a few decades, and to me, Rupie's press release is just a carefully calculated piece of PR.

Apart from anything else, he has sufficient leverage in the markets he is in to pass the entire cost of the exercise onto us. We will be directly paying to allow Rupert to bathe in the warm glow of environmental righteousness.

Last week, I'd have told my lad to get into derivatives. Yesterday, hedge funds. Today it would be Carbon Offset Trading.

By the time he has finished Uni... who knows what the next fad will be?