Hello Russell, On 3/24/18, Russell Coker <russell@coker.com.au> wrote:

On Friday, 23 March 2018 12:45:46 PM AEDT Mark Trickett via luv-talk wrote:

...

thoughtful intellectual who happens to sound "Left Wing". It is good to hear someone from the nominal "Right" trying to think, but I wish they would actually think things through. They accuse the "Left" of being ideological, when they are actually so ideological as to make the "Left" look pragmatic

The left side of politics is based on science and the left is mostly pragmatic. There are some people who believe in homeopathy etc on the left, but they are a minority.

There are some ideologically blinkered folks on the left who do not listen to the evidence. All of us have trouble with evidence that runs counter to our beliefs, some will reconsider, some reject.

No-one has time to properly research the science on every issue, so to some extent everyone has to trust experts in most fields other than the one they study. As an aside I reject the idea that "appeal to authority" is always a logical fallacy.

The problem is in appealing to an authority, as to whether they are an appropriate authority in that field. A real understanding of the physical realities, and an interest in learning is a valuable basis for critical decisions as to whom to believe.

Simplified scientific conclusions become ideology. For example cutting down old-growth forests is regarded has been shown to be bad for climate change, bad for the local ecology, and also bad for tourism (so it's usually not good economically). So left wing people are generally against such logging, while left wing parties have a fairly pragmatic approach (cutting down trees that cause danger for people, cutting fire breaks, etc) there are followers who oppose cutting trees in any situation.

Trees are a renewable resource, but the current clear felling is a short sighted stupidity. A longer growing cycle can yield much better returns on both economic and ecological grounds, along with selective logging. I gather that the current growth cycle for Pinus Radiata is 30 years, and it produces mainly poles, not merchantable lumber for building. If we were to consider a 100 year to maturity cycle, that would imply being able to harvest one tree in a hundred each year with selective logging, from an established forest. However that fails to account for losses from seedlings that die before maturity, and leaving some older trees past maturity as habitat, and that a more realistic maturity time is 250 years for good timber. That is how things were considered before the chainsaw and modern heavy machinery. it was a long term sustainable activity. Then we develop the capacity to clearfell large acreages, and make large short term profits, and wipe out a lot of habitat and biodiversity. Then we say that we cannot put a price on that, so it is worthless. That is the economics of money. Economics does not need to have such a narrow focus, it can encompass the study of the resource flows in an environment, which are plentiful, and which are the limiting factors, without any mention of money. We need people who take the longer perspective, and wider and deeper, in government. The current crop, especially on the Coalition side, and particularly the likes of Cory Banardi, are failing their duty of care, which the law will not enforce. Regards, Mark Trickett