Finkel review: a bluffer's guide for those who haven't read it

So much does Tony Abbott dislike the Finkel review of the electricity market that he hasn't read it. On Monday, three full days after it was released, he branded its key recommendation a "magic pudding" and a "tax on coal" while conceding that he had been guided by "reports of the report" rather than the report itself.

Illustration John Shakespeare 

I understand where he is coming from. Who wants to wade through 200 pages of a report they won't like?

But I'd feel better about it if I thought that at least some of the 20 or so other backbenchers who spoke out against the Finkel Report at the Coalition party room meeting on Tuesday had taken the time to read it.

I fear that most haven't, and I reckon you probably won't as well.

Read Peter Martin’s comment in today’s Melbourne Age - “Finkel review: a bluffer's guide for those who haven't read it."

Simple question seems impossible to answer

Economics editor, Peter Martin, asks in The Age today a simple question that apparently has a complex and elusive answer.

He wants to know why some of us refuse to believe the world is getting hotter, even though the evidence is right there in black and white.

The opinion piece in today’s Age: “Climate change: Why some of us won't believe it's getting hotter” reflects Martin’s puzzlement even though the year just ended was one of the hottest on record. In NSW it was the absolute hottest, in Victoria the second-hottest, and in Australia the third hottest.

Melbourne Cup illustrates Adam Smith's 'invisible hand'

Global greenhouse gas emissions tumbled during the 2008/9 global financial crisis.

It was Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” at work.

With the global economy heading measurably backwards, our consumptive habits took a pummelling, our use of energy dropped and our emission slowed noticeably.

Smith, an 18^th Century Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneer of political economy discussed the “invisible hand” in his 1776 book: “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”.

And the work of the invisible hand was seen to be again at work during the running of the recent Melbourne Cup.

Writing on the Melbourne Age, the economics editor, Peter Martin, discussed an interesting, but not surprising climate change lesson arising from the Melbourne Cup.

His story: “Power down: What the Melbourne Cup can teach us about fighting climate change” helps us understand what it is we need to do to counter climarte change – use less energy.

Times are changing, but still we rush toward the abyss

Things are changing, and not just our climate.

Until recently our national media rarely carried a story about climate change, but now it’s referenced nearly every day.

Sadly however, although the media, some of it at least, appears to understand the gravity of what it is we have done to our climate, the people who really matter (our government) are leading charge as we rush toward the abyss.

Economic editor with the Melbourne Age, Peter Martin, has written today lamenting the fact that many of us sleepwalking towards catastrophe.

His comment piece: “Policy’s too hard basket” says that it is time for the Coalition to wake up in climate change and turn the ship around before it is too late.

This is too important to quibble

Peter Martin.

Peter Martin discussed the Abbott-led Coalition Government’s Direct Action plan in today Business Day section in the Melbourne Age.

In a comment piece headed: “Is direct action on carbon no action?”, the economics correspondent did what economists love to do, discuss numbers.

He considered different ideas of how to approach the control of carbon emissions, but then, in the final analysis, Martin said, “Some goals are too important to quibble over the means of achieving them”.