Charles sits silently with me as I muse about life

Charles Mackay’s timeless book, “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds” sits at the end of my desk as I muse about life.

Although silent in every sense, thoughts ignited by Mackay’s marvellous 19^th Century book repeat in my mind sometimes engineering doubt about those things I have spent more than a decade understanding.

That momentary doubt is just that, momentary; for as quick as that doubt arises, the unequivocal evidence of the damage we have caused extinguishes those mental interrogations.

However, I cannot escape the fear that I too might be caught up in a delusion such as that alluded to by Mackay except for the madness he refers to was just that, a madness driven by emotion and superstition, broadly and socially accepted at the time; they were cruel mental confusions, devoid of fact and reason.

Personal concerns about climate change have me frequently on the end of much finger wagging followed by the accusation of “You, environmentalists!” as if I am personally responsible for the ills of both Earth and humanity.

Being described as an “environmentalist” is not wrong, but decidedly unsettling.

Sometimes I correct people saying, “My unease, my first concern, is for the people of this planet and our fellow species and so the natural by-product of that is caring for and about the environment, and within that allowing people and all other life forms to thrive”.

My journey to becoming what might be termed a “climate activist” began, unknowingly when, as a teenager, I worked for the dark side. Yes, I spent about two years travelling the coasts of Australia and in New Guinea’s Gulf of Papua working with an oil survey company, setting off explosions, killing fish of all sizes and recording data that allowed geologists to determine the presence of what I now know is a destructive fossil fuel.

My sojourn from reporting ended when I returned to Echuca’s Riverine Herald, then the North Central News in St Arnaud and then, in the early eighties, I finally settled at this newspaper.

Life took a telling turn late nineties when a severe road accident forced me into early retirement and then after several years of recovery (it’s a salvage and repair job that never ends) the essence of reporting, curiosity, surfaced again the pursuit of answers took me, by chance to a free public lecture at the University of Melbourne.

Seeking social answers, the first free lecture I attended mentioned betterment of the community, but it was really about building resilience in communities wrestling with the impact of climate change.

That ignited my interest and so for more than a decade now the university’s free lectures have been something of a haunt for me as they provide a rare opportunity to hear from people from all parts of the world with the sharpest of minds; minds that have been applied to exploring and understanding what it is we have done, and are doing, to the slither of life giving gases that surround our planet.

The delusions Mackay alludes to can be found among those unable to suppress their superstitions and a longing for what was causing the suppression of reason and good sense killing off the revelatory thinking needed to respond to a rapidly unfolding new world.

An endless trail of rubbish around the city's streets

A common sight outside a local opportunity
 store and although that is distressing enough,
what is of real concern is the seemingly endless
 trail of rubbish left around the city's streets.

Radio National accompanies me on early morning walks around the environs of Shepparton.

At that time of the day, the ABC station transmits primarily news and information and the stories it tells can be uplifting, damn depressing, or simply interesting.

What is on the radio at that time matches pretty well the tenor of what I see and experience when walking around the inner-city and surrounding neighbourhoods.

Occasionally a motorist will stop at an intersection and wave me across while they wait, or a passing fellow walker will offer a cheerful “good morning” as they go by.

Those small, and seeming inconsequential moments, reaffirm your faith in humanity, but then just as quick as your spirit soars, it can come crashing down.

Rubbish is probably the most significant marker of human presence.

Blatant dumping of household rubbish and sometimes industrial waste is reported by this newspaper and other forms of media, but what rarely rates a mention is the likes of the trail of litter throughout the city’s streets and shared pathways.

That rubbish is incidental – a bottle here, a can there, a shoe, a cardboard box, junk mail blowing down the street, scraps falling our passing utes and trucks, clothing, plastic bags (they too are rubbish, but handy for carrying all the other detritus), used nappies, and on one occasion of used woman’s health product, which I had swooped on before realizing what it was.

Probably the most frustrating is the packaging from around something bought at a nearby store. That packaging is often torn open and simply thrown on the ground, often ignoring a nearby rubbish bin.

While that might be frustrating, it is the behaviour of those who seek a secluded spot for a quiet drink that is the most intriguing – many of course throw their cans and bottles carelessly away, but some go to great lengths to hide their empties or pack them neatly back in the box or bag in which they carried them.

Why, I wonder if they care so much to pack their empties back in the box or bag, or make an effort at hiding them and not take it to a rubbish bin?

And what does the sometimes apocalyptic-like news have to do with the litany of rubbish that fouls our city’s streets?

Well, that discarded piece of seemingly harmless rubbish is sort of “ground zero” in caring for your home, caring for your community, caring for your environment and caring for your fellows.

Walking the streets of Shepparton cleaning up after others, the thoughts of reporter John Vidal often crowd my thinking – he recently wrote: “We weep at the disappearance of endangered species but avert our eyes to the causes of Earth’s destruction”.

That said, and this being early 2017, let’s personally enact a New Year’s resolution; first, not to litter and second, pick up and properly dispose of any rubbish we see; making our hometown just a little cleaner and somewhat tidier.

Looking to an alternate universe through the sliding doors

A “sliding doors”-like experience revealed an alternate universe during two recent and significant Shepparton events to become the marrow around which this was formed.

Interestingly and confusingly, what was happening was clearly and obviously of this century, but equally clearly and obviously, the events were driven by and rooted in values that prevailed last century and so dominated prevalent thinking.

Strangely and even more puzzlingly, what was happening, measured by modern standards ticked all the contemporary boxes, but oddly the processes were rooted in what was, and seemed remote from what will be.

Adherence to the principle of dealing with things as they are, rather than how we would like them to be may well be a pragmatist’s view but it was not a philosophy that sat well with our forebears; those who shaped the Goulburn Valley as we know it today.

Had they not been adventurous in their thinking and reached beyond their grasp, the bounty we now enjoy would still be hidden from us, locked in reticent reflections.

About 160 people recently gathered in Shepparton’s McIntosh Centre for what was the “Goulburn Regional Assembly” – one of about 10 such gatherings initiated by the State Government throughout Victoria – in the hope that they would “set the future for the region”. The Shepparton event was for Murrindindi, Mitchell, Strathbogie, Greater Shepparton and Moria Local Government areas.

That was clearly an event of today, but it appeared largely locked in ideas from yesterday – here we were in our modern times; times that are in urgent need of disruptive ideas when most appeared to be favouring conservative notions beyond their use-by date.

Personally imagined was a world driven and sustained by disruptive, and maybe dangerous ideas but the sliding doors “thing” illustrated that instead of having fun and wrestling with new and innovative thinking, we are still flailing about in a collapsing universe, impeded by an incomplete and imperfect imagination.

It was Einstein who said something about the fallaciousness of attempting to resolve a problem with the thinking that created the trouble and who also noted that imagination was the most important of our faculties.

Those at the recent regional assembly agreed on priorities for action and although they had some merit they could have easily been from a century ago.

The sliding doors/alternate universe thing arose again with a strange immediacy at the more recent final meeting of the year of the City of Greater Shepparton Council.

Again, all the contemporary boxes of meeting process were ticked and despite the fact that on occasions the discussion was somewhat confused, all was in order except that once again the alternate universe flooded the scene, at least for me.

Goulburn Regional Partnership
 Chair David McKenzie.

A brief chat with Euroa’s Shirley Saywell at the recent McIntosh Centre assembly was illuminating when she said: “We know what needs to be done, so why don’t we just do it?”

Agreed Shirley, but sadly progress is not that simple for as you well know, it is littered with false starts, wrong turns, false hopes, the pervasive individualism that distorts the human experiment, and anarchical-like values that frequently pander to personal passions.

Our PM wants us to be agile and innovative, but of course, that is within his ideological framework.

A few agile and innovative ideas we should be considering are: working fewer hours; a universal basic income; shifting from a competitive to a cooperative economy; returning to and renewing democracy in that we choose our leaders through sortition; cutting the nation’s war/defence budget by at least two-thirds; investing richly in the public infrastructure; and understanding and preparing for energy poverty.

Being in hospital may well be dangerous, but ignoring climate change is even more dangerous

"Being admitted to hospital is equally dangerous as driving,” Peter Ryan recently told those at a U3A session in Shepparton.

The chairman of the Board of Directors at Goulburn Valley Health was discussing the $168.5 million redevelopments at the Shepparton institution when he mentioned the health threats implicit with a stay in hospital, not only Shepparton.

Coincidently, Chairman Ryan’s comments came about the same time the Melbourne-based Climate and Health Alliance (CAHA) had released its National Strategy for Climate Health and Wellbeing.

In a letter to the Health Minister Susan Ley, the CAHA said: “We write to you, as health and medical professionals, out of concern for the health and wellbeing

impacts that climate change is having on the Australian community and to encourage you to help lead the development of a national strategic response to the health impacts of climate change.”

Further, and almost serendipitously,  a recorded piece from the University of Melbourne’s public health specialist, Professor Mark Stevenson, appeared in my inbox.

He was discussing the need to prioritize physical well-being in our urban planning  to achieve better human health outcomes through emphasizing active transport modes like cycling and walking while discouraging dependence on cars.

Mr. Ryan told the U3A session that being personally an active cyclist he would ensure cycling facilities were prominent at the refurbished hospital reinforcing, unknowingly, the professor’s message.

The importance of the Shepparton-based GV Health to the city and the greater Goulburn Valley cannot be overstated, nor can its fragility because of the infrastructure on which it depends is more likely to fail when under pressure from rising temperatures.

The state’s power system can, and does fail, particularly when the heat soars, and to counter that the hospital has installed a diesel-powered electrical backup system.

Atmospheric scientist, Professor
David Karoly from
the University of Melbourne.

However, that system has its limitations and would not be equal to powering the hospital through several days with temperatures beyond 50 degrees Celsius.

Is that fanciful thinking? Well, not according to University of Melbourne atmospheric scientist, Professor David Karoly, who several months ago warned that a well prepared Shepparton needed to be ready for heatwaves of that magnitude.

And so while we need to embrace these planned changes and improvements to the city’s hospital, we also need to think seriously about what we can do personally and as a community to help abate those difficulties cited by Professor Karoly.

Yes, the climate is changing. Yes, it’s bringing changes to our weather system unhelpful to our health, personally and more generally. Yes, those changes are human-induced and there is is no comfort to be drawn from those who deny what is happening.

And yes, as Mr. Ryan says spending time in the hospital, any hospital, may well be inherently dangerous, but our failure to positively respond to climate change increases that danger by an incomprehensible factor.

Sheppartonians demonstrate generosity, acceptance, and kindness

Australians have long been generous hosts.

And the Goulburn Valley is unquestionably one of the better examples of that societal generosity, acceptance, and kindness.

It has not always been smooth sailing, however, but since the gold rush days, Shepparton and the greater Goulburn Valley has been the destination of many immigrants.

What brought them here then and still does today?

Well, many things, among them agricultural and commercial prospects, a perceived social cohesion and opportunities and, importantly, that chance to belong.

And if the City of Greater Shepparton can lay claim to anything, it has become a place in which people can “belong”; something that is probably the greatest of all human needs for it is important to feel as if we belong to something, someone or somewhere.

Modern Shepparton is a concoction of cultures and beyond the occasional minor disturbance, they all live comfortably together, each enriching the other as they willingly share and dip into hitherto unknown ways of living.

What is visible here in Shepparton leads only to a mystery as to why many people are uncomfortable with the idea of sharing their space with others whom they perceive as different from them.

Those who imagine themselves as “local” should be thrilled that others want to come here as it is clearly understood that people want to migrate to places where they see good resources such as healthcare, education, stability, order and a community ready to address environmental matters such as climate change.

Shepparton has traditionally been good all those matters with the exception of the latter, which has emerged as the most important and will stress all the former.

Just a fews days ago several people, among them GPs and other academics and a couple of “ordinary” people, gathered at the University of Melbourne’s Nossal Institute for Global Health to discuss “Climate change, conflict, and migration” not with the idea of reaching any conclusion, but to better understand the dynamic.

Greater Shepparton in north eastern
Victoria is home for many and the
destination for even more.

Discussion centred on a paper from a New York university suggesting that uncertainty about the future was one of the most crucial factors that can lead to violent conflict, and in some ways perceived insecurity is more critical than actual insecurity. The Goulburn Valley delivers that much sought after sense of security.

The paper said: “As such, even if in reality migrants do not pose a significant threat to political or economic power, the perceived risk may be enough to provoke conflict.”

Shepparton’s long history of being the preferred destination for people seeking to put down new roots has manifested a sense of tolerance and understanding that is credit to the wider community.

The New York paper says: “Climate change is one of the most significant threats that mankind will need to address in the coming decades, and the potential impacts of climate variability and change on migration and conflict will remain an important area of research and policy planning.”

The challenge for all of us here in the Goulburn Valley will be to deepen our tolerance and broaden our understanding as climate disruption worsens and subsequently the inflow of new people increases.

Turning to sortition to elect our representatives

Maybe we should draw names from a hat to decide who should represent us on the Greater Shepparton City Council?

And that “hat” would be big enough to hold the names of all the city’s ratepayers and from that would come the nine people who would be our city councillors.

The idea that we should use what is really a lottery to choose our city councillors would be as equally effective as voting for our preferred person.

Should you question or doubt such an idea, and you may well be correct, but often reason is worse than useless and sometimes the most rational choice is little more than a random stab in the dark.

Michael Schulson, an American freelance writer, who covers science, religion, technology, and ethics recently wrote in Aeon magazine about “sortition” saying that someone, somewhere, or something is always playing dice.

Sortition (the random choice for anything) is not new as it was practiced by the Athenians in ancient Greece to choose those in charge of governing committees; magistrates, a role they could not hold more than once in their life, putting paid to career politicians.

Of course, the field in those times had been narrowed somewhat as you needed to be a property owner and male, two things that would not and should not be among the criteria today.

Of course, sortation is alive and well in our society today and it brings with it responsibilities far in excess of whatever you might encounter as a city councillor – using what in effect is a lottery system we appoint people to juries and hand them the power to infringe on the life of another, even to the extent of sending them to gaol.

A cursory glance at history illustrates that even rational and reasoned choices can go horribly wrong; the values of some elected are often not what they seem, and because of their actions people can die and society can pay an alarming cost, both economically, structurally,  and emotionally.

Shifting to a dice-like decision-making process might seem objectionable to many, but surely anyone prepared to have an honest and objective look at what exists and brings people to power who are loaded with obligations to causes and ideologies that are frequently foreign to the common good, must admit that what we have is really oligarchy rather than democracy.

Sortition or election by lottery, would not be without its problems, but who could argue that what exists is problem-free.

Writing on the ABC’s The Drum, Ian Dunlop said: “What if all the stuff we complain about in regard to our politicians - that they are unrepresentative, that they are out of touch, that they are in the pocket of various vested interests, that all they are really interested in is getting re-elected - what if all those problems are actually a by-product of voting itself?”

He referred to Belgian historian, David Van Reybrouck, the founder of the G1000 Citizens' Summit, who doesn't want to get rid of voting altogether, but does want us to think about other ways of deciding who governs us.

Reybrouck, he wrote, wants to replace traditional democratic voting with a combination of voting and sortition. That is the drawing of lots.

And so rather than voting in October for whoever we want on the council, maybe we should just cast our lot in with luck – it’s simpler, cheaper, and in nearly all instances, more effective and doesn’t bring with it personal and ideological baggage.

Privacy is a perculiar, and archaic thing

Privacy is a peculiar thing and a longing for it is somewhat archaic and something of an ill-fit in this modern world.

In this quickly emerging connected world, the “internet of everything” through which most everything we do, from shopping, work, travel, and leisure, will be facilitated electronically, privacy will eventually be a disadvantage.

Privacy is subjective with some seeing it as the root of their wellbeing, while others at the extremes of the arc, care naught for what others know or care about them.

And so it is into this malaise of confusion about privacy that Australian Bureau of Statistics have waded, or it is plunged? with its first online census.

It seems that allowing people to complete the census online is not the issue rather that they must not only provide the usual census information but also add their name, age, and address.

The bureau has guaranteed security arguing it will separate those personal details immediately, “anonymizing” the information as it arrives.

However, it notes that the separated off identifying data will be used by the government to better understand the Australian population and so plan for its wants and needs.

Several years ago a CEO of a leading computer company said even then that privacy was a thing of the past and today it is being argued that if we want (and it is not going to be “want” for we will have no choice) to access what is being touted as the “new economy”, then the first thing to go will be our privacy.

Of course, what do we call “privacy” – my life is fairly public, but yet there is  a host of things in my life, about which people know nothing or little, and nor would they care or be interested, I suspect.

The Australian Privacy Foundation defends the right of individuals to control their personal information and to be free of excessive intrusions.

The Australian foundation is aligned with “Privacy International”, a body that investigates the secret world of government surveillance and exposes the companies enabling it.

Privacy as an idea painted by at least these two groups appears as a bulwark against conspiracies by government and corporations designed to entangle people and strip them of their rights.

History illustrates that both governments and corporations have invaded peoples’ privacy, and will again, but looked at objectively and considered in isolation, tomorrow’s census is not something to be feared, rather embraced.

Public is the antithesis of private, but if we are to avoid the travails of exponential population growth and the associated despoliation of our environment, then public must have priority and that probably needs compromises on perceived privacies.

History illustrates, interestingly, that many of the good things in life, including here in the Goulburn Valley, can be traced directly to public participation.