CRIKEY: Yesterday Crikey ran a tip on Carbon Planet engaging in suspect deals in Papua New Guinea. Crikey accepts these claims are unsubstantiated and false.  Nupan Trading is entirely independent of Carbon Planet and  we apologise for the suggestion that Carbon Planet has engaged in misleading claims. We are happy to set the record straight and apologise unreservedly for any damage caused to the parties involved.

Debt:

Sean Hosking writes: David lodge’s Barnaby Joyce-esque anti-debt argument (yesterday, comments) is replete with most of the discredited neo-liberal shibboleths we’ve come to know and loath in previous years — the kind of arguments that have left us with second rate public hospitals, schools, social services and basic infrastructure.

It’s all there: surplus fetishism, governments are incompetent, central planning is bad, taxation and spending is just “churn” blah blah blah. There was also a wistful acknowledgement of the Howard and Costello “surplus culture”.

Funnily enough all those glorious surplus years, the thrill of Costello ‘s budget night oratory and the exalted editorials in the Oz citing “sound fiscal management” really didn’t do it for me when faced with sitting in gridlocked traffic or waiting an extra couple of hours in a public hospital emergency room. There must be something wrong with me.

According to David debt is bad, as simple as that. He seemingly has no understanding of the utility of debt as a means of generating economic activity and longer term growth, its cyclical nature,  or any kind of discernment of the different grades and kinds of debt.

Somebody at least should tell him there’s a difference between manageable debt in pursuit of productive national goals and the kind of debt verging on insolvency that characterizes the US at the moment.

John Carmody writes: Re. “Joyce reveals Coalition debt debacle — will heads roll?” (yesterday, item 1). Glenn Dyer made a passing reference to possible defaults by Greece in his article in yesterday’s edition of Crikey.  The rest of the article was sound but in that comment about Greece he missed an important point.

Dyer wrote:

We can pay our way. There is rising concern that the likes of Greece might have trouble doing so on a continuing basis. That’s why there’s a tinge of default about these countries, and not about Australia.

To the extent that Australian government debt — relatively small as it as (and essentially consistent as it has been since the immediate post-World War II years) — is in the form of Government bonds (as I’m advised is, essentially, the case) then it is in Australian dollars. This makes it clear that repayment is, a fortiori, not a problem for our government.

By contrast, the Greek government — being part not only of the EU but of the “Euro Union” — cannot control the currency because it is not “its own”: it is Euros, not drachmas and others determine the value of the Є, not the Greek authorities.

This important point — doubtless well beyond the intellectual capacity of Senator Joyce — is insufficiently emphasised.

Terrorists:

Jackie French writes: Could we just stop using the word “terrorist”? It’s making heroes out of murderers,  and promoting paranoia instead of policing. Those found guilty of terrorism charges are presumably guilty of intent to murder, grievous bodily harm, illegal possession of firearms, intent to promote racial hatred and possibly a dozen more crimes.

Name those specific crimes, instead of using an emotive umbrella.

For the record, I was once held by  ETA. Calling them our “captors” helped us  deal with the situation. Calling them “terrorists” would simply have been a counterproductive  term of abuse.

Climate change:

Tamas Calderwood writes: It’s interesting that Matt Andrews (yesterday, comments) talks about the “big picture” and the importance of statistical significance in global temperatures.  He says we need to observe at least 16 years of data, and preferably 20-30 to determine an underlying trend. Good idea.

Phil “hide the decline” Jones (head of the CRU) also pointed out to the BBC that the warming spurts from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were all “similar and not statistically significantly different from each other”. Between those periods temperatures plateaued or declined — just as they are now.

So human carbon emissions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were a fraction of today’s but the rate of warming hasn’t changed a jot according to Dr Jones.  How does that fit with the apocalypse scenarios being peddled?  Could it mean the 0.7C of global warming over the past 150 years is natural?

Matt Saxon writes: Re. Greg Williams (yesterday, comments) and his “interesting video clip”. Just what sort of legitimate debate involves one of the participants setting the background, is apparently moderated by someone who publicly supports one side of the argument, and, finally the where the other participant is almost equally unqualified to take part in the debate (computer scientist?!?).

I don’t know what video that guy was watching but it only underlines the fact that Monckton is a “googly-eyed, climate-change-sceptic nutter”.