Everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, and never mind what's actually going on right here, right now ...

(Above: First Dog breaks the rule about mentioning climate science back in 2012, and sets the tone for the day - boundless unceasing undying energiser bunny fuelled optimism! Click to enlarge, or find more First Dog here).


Ever mindful of the firm instructions of our minister for gulags, the pond has determined that henceforth it will only refer to illegal ragamuffin, scallywag, ne'er do well, thoroughly ruffian rascals when it contemplates damned furriners determined to imitate the British navy and invade Oz's fair shores ...

So the readings of the day, and what a bizarre, motley, ill-sorted bunch of offerings they are.

Generally grumpy Paul Sheehan seizes on a by-election in the NSW electorate of Miranda (somewhere down south where you can also find dragons) to soundly box premier Barry O'Farrell around the ears.

Doing this to his own kind is so stressful that he also gives the greenies a good thumping - as if somehow bushfires mean people should have voted green - and celebrates the Christian Democrats for bunging on a jolly good show.

It's all beyond the valley of the predictable, but parochial masochists with Fairfax hits to waste can trot off to Voters didn't like the stench so got rid of it.

Others will be more delighted - stop that slavering - at the chance of hard-hitting Amanda Vanstone demanding that Tony Abbott do something about this sense of entitlement that bedevils politicians.

Yes, it's the "oh pretty please, won't you do something, ever so little and we'll all be ever so pleased" school of commentariat writing, as you can discover in Make some allowances for common sense.

Tony Abbott is right to say that if there is any doubt, the money should be repaid. Perhaps he could have added that if there is any doubt, don't claim. He is also right to not make this a burning issue, because it isn't. There have been mistakes, errors of judgment - call them what you will - but they are not the norm. 

Yes, call them what you will, but please, please never call them fraudulent, corrupt, devious, or involving deliberate deceit.

As for a dynamic response by the Abbott?

He could, however, have made it clear that the door was always open for any sensible reforms.

Indeed. The door is open, and never mind that as PM he's supposed to know where the door knob is, so he could open same and do a little knob polishing and sensible reforms ... instead of racing off to fight fires Putin style.

Did Einsenhower always plan his strategies by heading off to the front line? (No, see here)

Not to worry, the rest is a trip down memory lane with Vanstone, though surprisingly she doesn't say a single word about her epic junket to Italy, instead saving her disapproval for books:

The publication of all claims in a readily accessible format may have limited the purchases of Guinness World Records and other books. Quite when the generous allowance for book purchases came in, I am unsure, but it should go.

She also thinks a partner accompanying a trip to Cairns for meetings on remote health delivery would be out, but is strangely silent on whether a trip to Cairns to discuss real estate is in any way problematic. You know, a mistake, an error of judgment, call it and Peter Slipper what you will ...

Never mind, salivating readers can look forward this afternoon to yet another Vanstone outing on their ABC.

These days she keeps making a joke out of Brendan O'Neill's breezy advice that we didn't need bees for pollination - a little hand pollinating would do the job - but the real joke is that she keeps the jokester turning up to provide serial comedy routines, and he obliges with a lot of hand pollinating...

Speaking of serial jokesters, the reptiles at the lizard Oz are also on song.

You see there's been a lot of "sssh, don't mention climate change" doing the rounds in recent days, but all the same, and despite the very best endeavours of the ssshters (sometimes spelled shysters) climate science keeps on rearing its ugly head.

What to do?

Well the reptiles have a pacifier they love to stick in their mouth - it's guaranteed to quiet babies and put climate science back on an even keel.

Here's the pacifier:

Now thanks to Greg Hunt on RN this morning we learn that discussing climate science at this time is disgraceful opportunism and unfeeling politicisation of the issue, and so we guess the reptiles at the lizard Oz must be judged guilty as charged for their wretched Lomborgian opportunism, especially given the header Since 1900, everything is better, even the climate, and the way the reptiles have decided to stick the piece outside the paywall.

On the other hand, since Lomborg published the piece back on October 16th for free under the even more silly, fundie Christian styled header A Better World is Here, maybe the reptiles finally had an attack of the guilts, and decided to abandon the attempt to charge for something Lomborg himself thinks should be given away ...

Lomborg himself gives all the signs of being a deluded narcissist of the first water, as you can guess from the headers, which are in the school of "everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds".

It immediately reminded the pond of that wonderful work by Voltaire, Candide, and happily someone has provided a wiki, here, with just the right quote:

Master Pangloss taught the metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology. He could prove admirably that there is no effect without a cause, and in this best of all possible worlds the baron's castle was the most magnificent of all castles, and my lady the best of all possible baronesses. 
"It is demonstrable," said he, "that things cannot be otherwise than they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end. Observe, for instance, the nose is formed for spectacles; therefore we wear spectacles. The legs are visibly designed for stockings; accordingly we wear stockings. Stones were made to be hewn and to construct castles; therefore my lord has a magnificent castle; for the greatest baron in the province ought to be the best lodged. Swine were intended to be eaten; therefore we eat pork all year round. And they who assert that everything is right, do not express themselves correctly; they should say that everything is best." 
.... these remarks of Pangloss, which are a parody of the philosophy of Gottfried Leibniz, are often quoted in summarized form as Dans ce meilleur des mondes possibles, tout est au mieux. ("In this best of all possible worlds, everything is for the best." Variant: "All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.") (you can find the original French at the wiki)

Of course those with a taste for singing nuns will seek comfort from Tom Springfield's song for The Seekers which contains the immortal lyrics:

There's a new world somewhere
They call The Promised Land
And I'll be there some day
If you will hold my hand
It's a long, long journey
So stay by my side
When I walk through the storm
You'll be my guide
A Better World is Here.

Or some such thing. The pond might have disremembered the lyrics ...

Anyway, the takeaway message is that - never mind a couple of world wars - things are getting better in every way.

Oh dear, that brings back memories of Émile Coué de la Châtaigneraie

The application of his mantra-like conscious autosuggestion, "Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better" (French: Tous les jours à tous points de vue je vais de mieux en mieux) is called Couéism or the Coué method. Some American newspapers quoted it differently, "Day by day, in every way, I'm getting better and better." The Coué method centered on a routine repetition of this particular expression according to a specified ritual -- preferably as much as twenty times a day, and especially at the beginning and at the end of each day. (wiki more here).

Sorry, where were we? Oh yes, everything is getting better and better day by day.

It turns out that climate change is a real plus. A major benefit, a major asset. Clearly the Bolters of the world, who don't think it's happening, have missed out on a major opportunity.

Seize the moment Bolter! Man was never intended to become an oyster. (Theodore Roosevelt)

It will probably come as a big surprise that climate change is expected to be mostly an increasing net benefit - rising to about 1.5 per cent of GDP per year - in the period from 1900 to 2025. This is because global warming has mixed effects; for moderate warming, the benefits prevail. For Australia, the model shows that this is true through to 2050.

Oh yes, it's boondoggle time, and we can make out like bandits and have a jolly good time, with moderate warming preventing all those cold deaths that bedevil poor devils in Melbourne and Tasmania, and the heat still not up to the job of outdoing killer Melbourne cold. You see, lives are just a balancing item in the ledger:

... moderate warming prevents more cold deaths than the number of extra heat deaths it causes. It also reduces demand for heating more than it increases the costs of cooling, implying a gain of about 0.4 per cent of GDP. 

And so on and so forth, but then, bummer dude:

On the other hand, warming increases water stress, costing about 0.2 per cent of GDP, and negatively affects ecosystems like wetlands, at a cost of about 0.1 per cent. As temperatures rise, however, the costs will rise and the benefits will decline, leading to a dramatic reduction in net benefits. After 2070, global warming will become a net cost to the world, justifying cost-effective climate action now and in the decades to come.

Now what gets the pond most in all this is the way the Bolter and others routinely demonise people for using models and statistics carelessly, yet here's Lomborg flinging around speculations in relation to climate change that stretch to 2070 under the umbrella of a guileless optimism, and nobody bothers to ping the lad, and the reptiles at the lizard Oz faithfully reproduce his thoughts ...

Sure, he kicks the problem, and the can, down the road to 2070 - though maybe we should do a little now - not too much mind - but he does it by conflating third and first and developing country issues, and pretending that the world can be lumped together and averaged out - why he sounds like a world government black helicopter man from the UN - look out Menzies House - and then he produces with a flourish an outrageously meaningless set of generalisations.

It's a hodge podge of data dragged together like a bower bird to say that everything is getting better in every way. And it's simple minded and reductionist:

This success has many parents. The Gates Foundation and the GAVI Alliance have spent more than $US2.5 billion and promised another $US10bn for vaccines. Efforts by the Rotary Club, the World Health Organisation and others have reduced polio by 99 per cent worldwide since 1979.
In economic terms, the cost of poor health at the outset of the 20th century was an astounding 32 per cent of global GDP. Today, it is down to about 11 per cent, and by 2050 it will be half that.

Generalisations flow thick and fast:

While the optimists are not entirely right (loss of biodiversity in the 20th century probably cost about 1 per cent of GDP a year, with some places losing much more), the overall picture is clear. 

Well no, it's not actually clear. Biodiversity and species extinction are not simply or easily measured as 1% of GDP. The pond, for example, values the loss of polar bears much more highly than the loss of a few chattering, blathering Lomborgs. But do go on:

Most of the topics in the scorecard show improvements of 5 to 20 per cent of GDP. And the overall trend is even clearer. Global problems have declined dramatically relative to the resources available to tackle them. Of course, this does not mean that there are no more problems. 
Although much smaller, problems in health, education, malnutrition, air pollution, gender inequality and trade remain large. 

Uh huh. There are small problems which remain large, and perhaps in due course large problems, which will undoubtedly become much smaller.

But realists should now embrace the view that the world is doing much better. Moreover, the scorecard shows us where the substantial challenges remain for a better 2050. We should guide our future attention not on the basis of the scariest stories or loudest pressure groups, but on objective assessments of where we can do the most good.

Which is to say, in best Joh Bjelke-Petersen tones, oh goodness me, no, don't you worry about that, don't you worry about climate science at all, everything is for the best, and we just have to do what's good and all will be well ... and so on and so forth.

And never mind that when predictions are made about the future - H. G. Wells springs to mind - the one thing that is guaranteed is that the future will bite the person making the predictions on the bum. Especially if they're on the wide ranging level of a Chance the Gardener:

President "Bobby": Mr. Gardner, do you agree with Ben, or do you think that we can stimulate growth through temporary incentives? 
[Long pause] 
Chance the Gardener: As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden. 
President "Bobby": In the garden. 
Chance the Gardener: Yes. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again. 
President "Bobby": Spring and summer. 
Chance the Gardener: Yes. President "Bobby": Then fall and winter. 
Chance the Gardener: Yes. 
Benjamin Rand: I think what our insightful young friend is saying is that we welcome the inevitable seasons of nature, but we're upset by the seasons of our economy. 
Chance the Gardener: Yes! There will be growth in the spring! 
Benjamin Rand: Hmm!  
Chance the Gardener: Hmm! President "Bobby": Hm. Well, Mr. Gardner, I must admit that is one of the most refreshing and optimistic statements I've heard in a very, very long time. 
[Benjamin Rand applauds] 
President "Bobby": I admire your good, solid sense. That's precisely what we lack on Capitol Hill.

It's hard to work out what's more astonishing.

Lomborg's assumption - presumption - that the curve will just keep heading up to the land of everything good, or the reptiles at the lizard Oz publishing this sort of tosh ...even allowing that it brings to mind Voltaire and Peter Sellers, and so in a perverse way, it provides a most excellent start to the week ...