On Wednesday night, rugby league's battle royal, State of Origin, was the must-see theatre in Australian sport. Colloquially referred to as ''state against state, mate against mate'', the slug-fest took centre stage in living rooms around NSW and Queensland.
But rugby league was not the only game in town this week.
The chief executives of Australia's rival print media organisations, News Corp and Fairfax, were doing battle to sell their survival plans to local investors.
Strategy against strategy.
News Corp's new chief executive, Robert Thomson, was holding court at Sydney's Four Seasons Hotel on Wednesday, flanked by chairman Rupert Murdoch. 
Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood chose the historic Mint on the other side of town, to face the same gathering of suits on Thursday.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/media-rivals-facing-a-brave-new-world-20130607-2nvh2.html#ixzz2VbI9vVWV


The media is forgetting the most important issue of the day... CLIMATE CHANGE...

Carbon dioxide emissions rose 1.4 percent in 2012, IEA report says

Global emissions of carbon dioxide from energy use rose 1.4 percent to 31.6 gigatons in 2012, setting a record and putting the planet on course for temperature increases well above international climate goals, the International Energy Agency said in a report scheduled to be issued Monday.

The agency said continuing that pace could mean a temperature increase over pre-industrial times of as much as 5.3 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit), which IEA chief economist Fatih Birol warned “would be a disaster for all countries.”

“This puts us on a difficult and dangerous trajectory,” Birol said. “If we don’t do anything between now and 2020, it will be very difficult because there will be a lot of carbon already in the atmosphere and the energy infrastructure will be locked in.”

The energy sector accounts for more than two-thirds of greenhouse gas emissions, so “energy has a crucial role to play in tackling climate change,” the IEA said. Its report urged nations to take four steps, including aggressive energy-efficiency measures, by 2015 to keep alive any hope of limiting climate change to 2 degrees Celsius.

The United States was one of the few relatively bright spots in the report. Switches from coal to shale gas accounted for about half the nation’s 3.8 percent drop in energy-related emissions, which fell for the fourth time in the past five years, dipping to a level last seen in the 1990s. The other factors were a mild winter, declining demand for gasoline and diesel, and the increasing use of renewable energy.

Emissions also fell in Europe.

But they rose 3.8 percent in China. That was one of the slowest increases in the past decade, and half of 2011’s rate of increase. The level of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of electricity generation has fallen about 17 percent. But China remains the largest contributor of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, with about a quarter of global emissions.

Japan’s emissions jumped 5.8 percent as the country imported and burned large amounts of liquefied natural gas and coal to compensate for the loss of electricity production from nuclear plants that have been idle since a tsunami damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex.

Emissions also climbed in developing countries outside the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, especially in the oil-rich Middle East, where fuel prices are heavily subsidized.

“What I believe is that climate change is slipping down in the political agenda in many countries even though the scientific evidence about climate change continues to mount,” Birol said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/carbon-dioxide-emissions-rose-14-percent-in-2012-iea-report-says/2013/06/09/35d32bac-d123-11e2-8cbe-1bcbee06f8f8_print.html

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Unfortunately, 9 degrees Fahrenheit is quite optimistic... 9 degree Celsius is not out of the answer to the question by 2100... Though the present signs are for a more modest rise, the patterns from the past tell us that stepped rises of temperature can shoot up very quickly without warning... a rise of 9 degrees Celsius would only need an increase of 0.1 degree Celsius average per year or one degree per decade from now on — a small amount that is not out of range, if we consider the changes of past aeons.

What to Make of a Warming Plateau

As unlikely as this may sound, we have lucked out in recent years when it comes to global warming.

The rise in the surface temperature of earth has been markedly slower over the last 15 years than in the 20 years before that. And that lull in warming has occurred even as greenhouse gases have accumulated in the atmosphere at a record pace.

The slowdown is a bit of a mystery to climate scientists. True, the basic theory that predicts a warming of the planet in response to human emissions does not suggest that warming should be smooth and continuous. To the contrary, in a climate system still dominated by natural variability, there is every reason to think the warming will proceed in fits and starts.

But given how much is riding on the scientific forecast, the practitioners of climate science would like to understand exactly what is going on. They admit that they do not, even though some potential mechanisms of the slowdown have been suggested. The situation highlights important gaps in our knowledge of the climate system, some of which cannot be closed until we get better measurements from high in space and from deep in the ocean.

As you might imagine, those dismissive of climate-change concerns have made much of this warming plateau. They typically argue that “global warming stopped 15 years ago” or some similar statement, and then assert that this disproves the whole notion that greenhouse gases are causing warming.

Rarely do they mention that most of the warmest years in the historical record have occurred recently. Moreover, their claim depends on careful selection of the starting and ending points. The starting point is almost always 1998, a particularly warm year because of a strong El Niño weather pattern.

Somebody who wanted to sell you gold coins as an investment could make the same kind of argument about the futility of putting your retirement funds into the stock market. If he picked the start date and the end date carefully enough, the gold salesman could make it look like the stock market did not go up for a decade or longer.

But that does not really tell you what your retirement money is going to do in the market over 30 or 40 years. It does not even tell you how you would have done over the cherry-picked decade, which would have depended on exactly when you got in and out of the market.      

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/science/earth/what-to-make-of-a-climate-change-plateau.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=print 

Who's the ugliest in the beauty contest?

Keynes likened the stockmarket to a newpaper beauty contest. By that score, fossil fuel stocks could be about to turn into the ugliest beauty contestants on the market.

Years ago I read a book called "A Mathematician Plays the Stockmarket" by John Allen Paulos. It's a sterling read; I recommend it. In it, Paulos explains the complicated psychological calculations behind picking a good investment.

By this analysis, fossil fuel stocks could be about to turn into the ugliest beauty contestants in the paper.

American author and environmentalist Bill McKibben just spent a week touring Australia. In packed theatres and lecture-halls he told receptive audiences that their superannuation funds should not be invested in fossil fuel companies.

He teamed up with the Australian Youth Climate Coalition to ask universities to divest their holdings from fossil fuel companies. He applauded the branches of the Uniting Church that have already chosen to move their funds elsewhere. He congratulated Greens leader Christine Milne on raising the question of whether Australia's collective savings account - the Future Fund - should be invested in companies whose waste products harm our climate.

He described fossil fuel companies as "rogue". He said their success assures our planetary destruction and that they must be stopped by hitting them where it hurts: the bottom line.

To a standing ovation, he called on people to do whatever they were comfortable to make it happen - whether that involved a polite letter to their super fund, or blockades, arrests and civil disobedience.

Whether or not you agree with Bill McKibben, his campaign is something that should give all investors in fossil fuels pause for thought. And that's almost all of us, since only one superannuation fund pitches itself as coal-free.

Because it's not just a greenie author from the States taking this line. Financial heavyweight HSBC recently released a report identifying the level to which fossil fuel stocks are overvalued. Citi Group - hardly a radical green organisation - has issued a note to clients estimating the possible impact of fossil fuel devaluation on the ASX200.

The International Energy Agency warned of the possible loss of revenue for fossil fuel companies if climate action is taken. And Professor Lord Nicholas Stern of Brentford has lent his considerable support to the Carbon Tracker initiative and its "Unburnable Carbon" report (pdf).

So even if you struggle to believe that the collective force of Australia's environmentalists is enough to devalue fossil fuel stocks, you may consider whether financial analysts heed the wisdom of HSBC or Nick Stern.

Even if you personally believe that fossil fuels are a sound investment with potential for good returns, according to Keynes, you must consider whether this is "what average opinion expects the average opinion to be". The true value of the stocks is almost irrelevant; if everyone believes that everyone else believes that fossil fuels are a risky investment, then they become a risky investment.

In "A Mathematician Plays the Stockmarket" Paulos describes his love affair with WorldCom (remember them?). How he clung grimly to the hope that the scandals rocking the company would subside, and that its diving share-price would recover. The psychology of his denial takes up another whole section of the book.

The question for us all now, as we consider our pensions squirreled away in coal, oil and gas companies, is whether our love affair with these stocks is justified, or whether we are in denial about just how beautiful our favourite beauty contestant really is.

http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2013/06/13/3780344.htm

India looks set to overtake China as the world's most populous country from 2028, according to the United Nations.

At that point, both nations will number 1.45 billion people each. Subsequently India's population will continue to grow until the middle of the century, while China's slowly declines.

The UN also estimates that the current global population of 7.2 billion will reach 9.6 billion by 2050.

That is a faster rate of growth than previously estimated.

The population growth will be mainly in developing countries, particularly in Africa, the UN says.

The world's 49 least developed countries are projected to double in size from around 900 million people in 2013 to 1.8 billion in 2050, whereas the population of developed regions will remain largely unchanged.

The UN said the reason for the increase in its projection is largely new information on fertility levels in certain high birth rate countries.

Large developing countries, such as China, India and Brazil, have seen a rapid fall in the average number of children per woman, but in other nations, such as Nigeria, Niger, Ethiopia and Uganda, fertility levels remain high.

Nigeria's population is expected to exceed that of the US by the middle of the century, and could start to rival China's by 2100.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22907307

Four months ago, the big media proprietors were fighting proposed federal government press reforms, arguing that “the press” needs freedom if it is to defend the public interest. But these arguments were raised only to defend the media’s system of self-regulation.

What was absent then, and since, was any demonstration that Australia’s news media hold politicians morally accountable on the public issues that really do matter. The most pressing example is climate change.

The science is clear.

Over 97% of climate scientists and every major nationalscience academy agree that the planet is warming due to human activity. Leading public health organisations and prestigious peer-reviewed journals have recognised that ‘Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century‘.

In our previous articles, we focussed on the (un)ethical position of politicians who don’t accept the science of climate change, or won’t act on it. But what about the journalists who should be holding them to account?

You would think most journalists would be forensically questioning any politician who denied the science or failed to devise and support adequate policies to address this threat.

Unfortunately, very few, if any, of our mainstream journalists have ever really challenged climate-science-denying politicians.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/how-australias-old-media-sows-doubt-about-climate-change/

It is likely that most proper journalists would promote the concept of global warming. Two of the major problems here are that their media operator will ask for "balance' reports (with half rubbish — like on the ABC programs apart from brave personnel) and in the same breath will allow their powerful SPRUIKERS to speak and write elegant rubbish against the reality of global warming... With a much larger targeted influence on the audience, readers and viewers, these spruikers are a pox of journalism... Actually people like Alan Jones are proud to claim he's not a journalist...

There should be a concerted effort by all proper journalists to shoot down the silly quacks from the Andrew bolt, from the Devine and the other deceitful clods... DAILY and in large type headings...