The anonymous editorialist at The Australian, and raging against harmony the latest routine ...

(Above: a cartoon featuring Mother Nature).

And now after that cartoon, a scientific discourse on Mother Nature in Mother Nature's inconvenient truths.

Mother Nature simply operates at a level of complexity that is, at this point, beyond the mastery of mere mortals (such as scientists) and the tools available to us.

Uh huh. Well at least, thanks to John Christy, University of Alabama, as published in The Australian back in 2007, we now know that Mother Nature aka Gaia is an entity and a scientific term of some weight.

Now to new perturbations in the world of Gaia as the anonymous editorialist at The Australian makes a pretty plea for rationality in this morning's anonymous editorial, headed Earth's daily woes prompt 'off the planet' theories.

Given the rag is the home for zealotry, bigotry, ideological ratbaggery and extremist denialism, replete with standard rants about the dangers of tertiary educated elites proud of their educated capacity for rational thinking, some might think this a tad hypocritical or contradictory.

And sadly the rag does fail the Mr Spock taste test at the first hurdle, by burbling "Life is precious and beautiful", followed by an epic bout of bipolar thinking "the simple fact it will come to an end for each of us is depressing enough."

But if this saunter into the wilder side of romantic Byronic thinking isn't bad enough, it gets worse as the anonymous editorialist waxes lyrical about the virtues of science:

Without the knowledge we have amassed over countless generations, we would live in fear of darkness, cower at a lunar eclipse lest it signal the end of the world or live much shorter lives, dying from preventable or treatable diseases. Science and knowledge have provided us with great advantages, yet some of us seem intent on abandoning that legacy in favour of New Age fatalism or Gaia and Mother Earth spiritualism.

Tastefully sidestepping around the corpse of religion, the anonymous editorialist likewise ignores the reprehensible war mongering nature of much of The Australian's coverage of science and technology, especially climate science.

If you're feeling nostalgic, and wanting a hefty dose of irrational paranoia, why not take a trip back to Graham Lloyd's Climate debate no place for hotheads, and reminisce about Chris Mitchell's desire to sue Julie Posetti and Clive Hamilton ....

Now that's the way to conduct a calm scientific debate ... by lawyers at ten paces ...

By the time poor old David McKnight got going by way of response in Sceptical writers skipped inconvenient truths he saw a dash of irrationality in the lizard Oz's offerings:

For many years The Australian has been unable to see climate issues except through a distorted ideological lens. For example, an editorial on January 14, 2006, argued that the environment movement was about "more theology than meteorology" and "[S]upport for Kyoto cloaks the green movement's real desire: to see capitalism stop succeeding".

Later, an editorial accused "deep green Luddites" of believing that "the only way to avert the coming apocalypse is to close down all the power plants, take all cars off the road and return to a pre-industrial Arcadia" (June 8, 2007). Lloyd's article last Saturday ignored these editorials.

He failed to mention that just before the 2007 federal election an editorial characterised an environmental approach in politics as wanting to "transform the nation into a wind-powered, mung bean-eating Arcadia" (October 27, 2007). This kind of unrestrained invective suggested the newspaper itself could be accused of hysteria and alarmism, a charge it regularly threw at those who disagreed with it.

Yep, irrational invective, alarmism and hysteria, that's the standard house style at The Australian, so it makes it all the more poignant to see the rag now issue a plea for calm, considered, rational debate. And yet, even as it issues a plea for rational debate, it can't resist a return to hysteria:

The climate hysteria has been propagated by scientists, educators and politicians who should know better.

Yes and rampant denialism has been encouraged by a rag (in a stable of rags) which should know better and which allegedly celebrates the virtues and benefits of science and knowledge.

You see, characterising opponents in a debate as hysterical is ... well, hysterical, with more than a hint of self-justifying paranoia.

It's a bit like the anon editorialist's other boast:

Since The Australian's first week, in 1964, we have run one of the world's first newspaper sections on information technology, demonstrating our commitment to technological progress.

Well yes, but just running a section doesn't demonstrate much, especially if said section is overwhelmed by a general tendency to ludditism.

Why, for example, has the rag over the years run error filled, bile and rage infected, distorted and malicious reports about the NBN? There's room for debate on the NBN, but when The Australian embarked on its crusade, driven as much by worries about its business model as any sane assessment of the benefits of fibre to the home, war mongering and hysterical, emotive and irrational crusading took over ...

Which brings me to the point where I snorted toast down my nose:

Australia needs to continue to look to knowledge, technology and sensible debate so that we can consider issues such as climate change properly.

What, look to climate scientists, who think much of what The Australian publishes is drivel?

Sensible debate? Of the mung bean munching tertiary elites married gays threat to civilisation kind?

It is of course dissembling of the worst kind, as The Australian's dog whistling has become a matter of some notoriety. As McKnight pointed out:

When the Howard government began to acknowledge that carbon emissions were linked to dangerous climate change, another regular columnist, Christopher Pearson, said he felt "bitter disappointment" about curbs on "what will turn out to be, in all probability, a perfectly harmless gas" (November 18, 2006).

Unsurprisingly, this column, as with many others from The Australian, was recycled on denialist websites around the world.

And Pearson continues on his merry denialist way, as in his latest Carbon tax wonder tonic proves tough sell, with his meandering through Marxist thinking, plausibility structures and paranoid conspiracy theories about a few climate scientists pulling a swift one.

Back to McKnight:

Lloyd reported that The Australian has defended the right of climate sceptics "to have a voice". This is curious. Does it defend the right of tobacco sceptics to have a voice? Of course not, for the simple reason that all intelligent people recognised long ago that such sceptics were fronts for the tobacco industry and that the medical science of smoking was settled.

Oh dear. Poor McKnight. He clearly hasn't heard that, as well as disputing climate change, Nick Minchin is a smoking sceptic:

"Senator Minchin wishes to record his dissent from the committee's statements that it believes cigarettes are addictive and that passive smoking causes a number of adverse health effects for non-smokers," the committee's minority report says. "Senator Minchin believes these claims (the harmful effects of passive smoking) are not yet conclusively proved. . . there is insufficient evidence to link passive smoking with a range of adverse health effects." (more here featuring Minchin quoting the Tobacco Institute of Australia)

But we digress:

On climate issues The Australian still gives voice to a global PR campaign largely originated by the oil and coal companies of the US. On this score genuinely sceptical journalism is missing in action. Instead, an ideological sympathy with climate sceptics has been concealed behind a fig leaf of supposed balance.

But what shines through in the attitude of the newspaper is its lack of intellectual and moral seriousness in dealing with the consequences of climate change. Climate issues are always taken as an opportunity for cheap shots about what The Australian calls "the Left" or "deep greens". This attitude stands in stark contrast to the deep seriousness of the newspaper's endlessly re-affirmed belief in free markets, competition and privatisation.

Indeed. You could call it the Nick Minchin factor, or perhaps the Minchin Identity, or the Minchin Supremacy or the Minchin Ultimatum.

The Australian is so feral that it even feigns shock and horror over this hideously emotive statement:

"Why don't we think of living (in) more harmony with nature?"

Now on the face of it, that's a relatively innocuous piety, a tad tricky for urban dwellers, but even there you can have a choice about how you live in harmony with nature. Do you step on the penny lizard lolling on the bricks in the noon day sun, or step past? Do you chop down every tree in the neighbourhood? Do you wage a war against the pesky birds making off with your grapes? Or do you attempt a little harmony?

And if the micro level works well enough, why not try a little macro harmony? Who knows, instead of brooding about doom and gloom, and getting depressed like a Dostoyevsky character about the way that life will end for all of us, a little harmony might work wonders ...

When even a word like 'harmony' - beloved of the Chinese leadership - gets berated as some kind of emotive irrationality, you do have to wonder about the psychopathology of the anonymous editorialist, determined to declare war on all such nonsense, which it seems, has reached a crescendo ...

Won't someone think of the children, driven mad by fear, with all this emotive talk of harmony?

Meanwhile, the child, the spawn of The Australian's line of thinking, Tony Abbott, is roaming the country saying the usual things, the last a typical dog whistle at a community forum in Perth:

Speaking at a community forum in Perth, Mr Abbott said: ''I don't think we can say that the science is settled here.

''There is no doubt that we should do our best to rest lightly on the planet and there is no doubt that we should do our best to emit as few waste products as possible, but, having said that, whether carbon dioxide is quite the environmental villain that some people make it out to be is not yet proven.

''We should take precautions against risks and threats, potential ones as well as actual ones, but I don't think we should assume that the highest environmental challenge, let alone the great moral social and political challenge of our time, is to reduce our emissions,'' Mr Abbott said in response to a question. (here).

Which of course makes utter nonsense of the coalition's plans to use direct action to lower emissions and reduce the impact of carbon. If only Abbott understood that the way forward might well involve him reducing his emissions ...

Which leads me to suggest, that in any quest for harmony, perhaps the best harmony we could wish for is a settled harmony in the mind of Tony Abbott.

The Australian did briefly note the fuss - Abbott backs climate change action, after yesterday saying science wasn't settled - yet today the anonymous editorialist is back berating the usual green/left/ABC harmonious types in the usual disharmonious way ...

So can we just take an editorial pen to the anonymous editorialist's line:

Science and knowledge have provided us with great advantages, yet some of us seem intent on abandoning that legacy in favour of New Age fatalism or Gaia and Mother Earth spiritualism.

Here we go:

Science and knowledge have provided us with great advantages, yet some of us seem intent on abandoning that legacy in favour of age old Catholic Cardinal Pell style fundamentalist climate change denialism, or contradictory 'dogwhistle the denialist' confusionism, or 'she'll be right and don't you worry your tiny noggin about that scepticism, not to mention 'let's muddy the waters as much as we can' newspaper yellow press gutter tactics ' involving print the controversy' crusadism ...

Oh okay crusadism isn't really a word, but I was pleased to see that it bobbed up in a work dedicated to existential therapy.

Now we already know that the anonymous editorialist suffers from an existential crisis - depressed at the way life is brief and fleeting - and the work describes three clinical forms of "existential sickness" (pervasive meaninglessness): crusadism, nihilism and vegetativeness.

Now there's a fair case that the anonymous editorialist conforms to the condition of crusadism: the individual engages compulsively in activities in response to a deep sense of purposelessness.

But could the pond have misdiagnosed, and the real issue is nihilism?

Nihilism is characterized by an active, pervasive proclivity to discredit activities purported by others to have meaning. The nihilist's energy and behaviour flow from despair; he or she seeks the angry pleasure involved in destruction .... (way too much more here)

Yep, that sounds like the despairing editorialist and The Australian's editorial policies ...

Now if you'd suggested that today we'd be doing a therapeutic analysis of the anonymous editorialist at The Australian, we'd have suggested you deserve a place in loon pond, but that's the joy of the pond. Every day a fresh and bracing rant, and every day the loonish response the loonish, hypocritical, contradictory rant deserves ...

And now, just so the anonymous editorialist doesn't feel so bad about the death we all face, we offer up a zen koan:

85. Time to Die

Ikkyu, the Zen master, was very clever even as a boy. His teacher had a precious teacup, a rare antique. Ikkyu happened to break this cup and was greatly perplexed. Hearing the footsteps of his teacher, he held the pieces of the cup behind him. When the master appeared, Ikkyu asked: "Why do people have to die?"

"This is natural," explained the older man. "Everything has to die and has just so long to live."

Ikkyu, producing the shattered cup, added: "It was time for your cup to die."

(more here, for those who want to share a moment with the gems that Japanese culture gave the world as Japan struggles with its terrible burden).

(Below: and now, because Tim Blair loves to make jokes about the extinction of the poley bear, a poley bear cartoon).