The good and the bad

While Trump enjoys golf, former president Jimmy Carter, aged 92, is building homes for the poor as reported by Charlotte Beale writing for the UK Independent, 2018/07/15. This is a very appropriate and apt item for an introduction to this subject, showing a great contrast between two US Presidents: one man conceited, greedy, self-interested, vulgar, coarse, almost unbelievably dishonest, a misogynist; and the other still doing his best to help people in his nineties. Self-respect or self-loathing How can a person who behaves as Trump does have any true self-respect? He obviously has a form of pride, or conceit, but surely deep down he must despise himself and know that he is a person who could only earn disrespect from truly respectable people.

The Good There are those who we remember for having done very good things (for example Michail Gorbachev) and those who seem to have simply been very good people (for example Nelson Mandela). Fred Hollows and Beat Richner certainly seem to have done far more good than the great majority of our fellow humans. Billionaire Bill Gates (with his wife Malinda) deserves a mention; over the last several decades he has been a leader in showing the huge amount of good that can be done with abundant money. And it's not just his money, but also his time that he has devoted to doing good. In mid February 2021 he had just released his book, 'How to avoid a Climate Disaster'. For a taste of this see Breakthrough Energy. I've listed many of the Australians who are doing what they can to get action on climate change on another page on this site. Among Australians billionaires Andrew (Twiggy) Forrest and Mike Cannon-Brookes are, along with their involvement in other commendable projects, early investors in a proposed $20 billion project to provide 20% of Singapore's electricity from a huge solar PV installation in the Tennant Creek area of Australia's Northern Territory via undersea cable. (See Sun Cable's web site about the project and Angela Macdonald-Smith's article in the Financial Review for Forrest and Cannon-Brooks' part in the project.) Forrest and Cannon-Brookes seem to be at the other end of the ethical spectrum to two other Australian billionaires, the despicable and greedy Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer (see below). Andrew Forrest is also, through Fortescue Metals, of which he is chairman and a major investor, pressing for billions of dollars of investment in green hydrogen which will displace fossil fuels and provide thousands of jobs. Among the good world-wide could be listed the Nine activists defending the Earth from violent assault; The Guardian, Jonathan Watts, 2018/07/21. I would certainly add Jane Goodall to this list. David Attenborough also deserves an honourable mention. Home Top Index Back in Australia, while both the Liberal-National Coalition and Labor can't see beyond the coal industry that is largely responsible for the progressive destruction of our planet several independent politicians have added refreshing honesty, good sense and high ethical standards to Australian politics. Perhaps the most outstanding of these at the time of writing is Andrew Wilkie, a long-standing member of the House of Representatives for a seat in Tasmania. Newer to politics are Zali Steggall, Helan Hains and Senator Rex Patrick. Others, who have come and gone (and may come again), are Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor. Of course the Australian Greens must be thanked for their unfaltering support for all things environmental.

The Bad The inexplicable decision Why would anyone choose to take actions that will cause them to be despised by future generations? Making such a decision is certainly well beyond my understanding. It would seem to me that to be remembered as someone who did all they could to make the world a better place is a far more sensible aim than amassing wealth in life, especially when that wealth is amassed by contemptible means. Dishonest media shock-jocks may be remembered with some fondness by the people they mislead (so long as those people remain mislead), but they will either not be remembered at all or be remembered as despicable by well informed people. And then there is the question of self respect; how could anyone take pride in being devious and dishonest?   This section added 2022/03/16 International criminals, some of the world's worst At this time how could I not add Vladimir Putin to the list? Due to his unjustified, inexcusable, murderous and barbaric invasion of Ukraine, by the time of writing, he was guilty of hundreds, possibly thousands of deaths. Home Top Index And on the other side of the world, Chinese dictator Xi Jinping was guilty of forcing his tyrannical rule on the people of Hong Kong, plainly very much against their will. He intends to do the same to the people of Taiwan, by military force if need be. I have mentioned Donald Trump above and at some length on another page. His potential for evil acts was limited by the American democratic system. Some stand-out criminal Australians   Morwell coal mine fire, February 2014 This coal mine fire burned in Morwell, in Victoria's Latrobe Valley, for over a month, producing a huge amount of air pollution. The Latrobe Valley, with its coal-fired power stations, is notorious for its air pollution at the best of times. Image credit 350.org Gina Rinehart Ms Rinehart is the wealthiest person in Australia. She could do enormous good works with her money. For example, a simple calculation shows that she could give $5,000 to each of the million poorest Australians without losing her position as the wealthiest person in the nation. Think, for a moment, how much relief such a gift would provide for these people; and this is just a very simple example of what she could do. Ms Rinehart does philanthropic work, but the amount of harm she does to the planet and future generations by trying to make people believe that anthropogenic climate change is not a fact far outweighs any good she does. She undermines climate action so that her coal-mining businesses can make even more money for her. Surely that is a recipe for self-contempt rather than self-respect. Ms Rinehart's coal exports have probably killed thousands of people from the air pollution resulting from the burning of that coal. Her work in casting doubt on climate science and anthropogenic climate change has probably done even more harm. In any reasonable assessment Ms Rinehart would have to be held to be one of the greatest criminals the world has ever known. Home Top Index See, for example: Gina Rinehart's $4.5m gift to climate sceptic think-tank, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA); Graham Readfearn writing for the Guardian, 2018/07/21. Gina Rinehart peddles climate denial to students in bizarre video rant Gina Rinehart: The billionaire climate change sceptic who wants a slice of Australia's media How one think tank poisoned Australia’s climate debate; about the Institute of Public Affairs. Ms Rinehart is one of the most generous funders of that despicable organisation. Clive Palmer Clive Palmer tries to undermine COVID-19 vaccination   Tilt at a Senate seat, January 2022 On or about 2022/01/19 Mr Palmer announced that he was going to aim at getting a Senate seat. I believe he announced that he was intending to spend even more money on his campaign than he spent at the previous federal election. I'm sure that with the huge amount of money he has at his disposal (most of it earned while killing thousands of people each year through his coal mining investments) he will have a good chance of achieving his goal.   Some facts about COVID-19 and vaccination in Australia By January 19th 2022 COVID-19 had killed 2,800 Australians, the AstraZeneca vaccine has led to the death of about six people. At the time 78% of Australians had been doubly vaccinated, 21% had received a booster shot. The disease is something like 10,000 times as likely to lead to death than is the vaccination. Quoting the TGA: "The most frequently reported suspected side effects associated with Comirnaty (Pfizer) and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines ... are commonly experienced with vaccines generally." Mr Palmer, like Ms Rinehart, is making millions out of the coal industry. He also bragged about keeping the shamefully corrupt and pro-fossil fuel Liberal/National coalition, under PM Scott Morrison in power at the last election, May 2019. He funded candidates in every electorate; none of them were elected, but preferences were directed to the Liberals and Nationals. In June 2021 Mr Palmer paid for radio advertisements (until they were stopped because of their misleading nature) and circulated millions of pamphlets trying to frighten people about COVID-19 vaccinations. Palmer's pamphlets implied that there were 210 deaths due to COVID vaccinations in Australia. It seems that the figure came from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). They had reported that 210 people had died after being vaccinated, not due to being vaccinated. Of course people are dying all the time due to a whole multitude of reasons. On 2021/06/24 I read the following on the TGA's web site: "To 13 June 2021, we received 303 reports of death following vaccination for COVID-19 vaccines." "For reports of death other than TTS [thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome; (blood clots)], our review of cases and analysis of reporting patterns does not suggest that the vaccine caused these deaths." By mid 2021 some 5.9 million Australians had received one vaccination. Given a mean life expectancy of about 80 years one would expect about 6,000 of these 5.9 million to die in an average month (and 1,400 in an average week), with or without a vaccination. While Palmer's statement may not have been a lie it was certainly quite misleading. (Was it intentionally misleading, or was it misleading simply because Mr Palmer stupidly didn't understand the statement from the TGA?) Ian Plimer Graham Readfearn wrote in RenewEconomy on 2019/02/06 about Ian Plimer's anti-climate rant in the notoriously anti-renewables, pro-coal, Murdoch-owned The Australian newspaper. Plimer was making the conspicuously dishonest claim that there was no consensus among climate scientists about climate change. Mr Readfearn pointed out the many errors in Mr Plimer's piece. Mr Plimer is a retired professor of mining geology, and as Mr Readfearn pointed out he: "sits on the board of several mining companies owned by Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart (who is herself a key funder of climate science denial efforts), including Queensland Coal Investments." Plainly, Mr Plimer is hardly a disinterested party in the 'climate debate' and, as a retired professor of mining geology has little standing in climate science. Note that there is no debate among climate scientists, the 'debate' is only in the imagination of the supporters of the fossil fuel industries, the popular media, and especially in the Murdoch media. I have had cause to write about Mr Plimer on a number of my pages. The reader could search my pages using the embedded search feature. Home Top Index Rupert Murdoch Rupert Murdoch, through his media empire, has done enormous harm to the fight to slow anthropogenic climate change and to democracy, especially in Australia. I would think that his mother, Elisabeth Murdoch, a notable philanthropist, would be thoroughly ashamed of her son, if she was still alive. Dishonest wind power opponents If the world is to avoid terrible damage from climate change, ocean acidification, ocean warming and sea level rise we must change from the burning of fossil fuels to renewable, sustainable energy such as wind and solar power. (Not only does the burning of fossil fuels cause the above problems, its air pollution kills millions of people world-wide each year.) It happens that I live in Mid-North South Australia, which has led Australia in the development of wind power. I have spent a great deal of time in debunking the lies of those who dishonestly (and generally selfishly) oppose wind farms. Australian Coalition governments   This section added 2019/06/08 The Australian Liberal/National Coalition governments from September 2013 to the time of writing have been not only shamefully pro-fossil fuels but also dishonestly and stridently opposed to the introduction of renewable energy. The Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments, particularly the first and last of these, betrayed all people of future generations. One of the worst of all the criminals in these governments was the shamelessly dishonest Energy Minister of the Morrison Government, Angus Taylor.