Brad's Blog

Thursday, April 01, 2010

Weekend in Melbourne... Happy Wedding Chey and Libby!

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Dear Senator Fielding...

Dear Senator Fielding,

I note your recent attendance at a conference of Climate Change skeptics in the USA and I complement you on your attempts to understand the arguments for and against humans-influenced climate change. However I would like to offer a perspective on the debate to which I don't believe you have yet been exposed.

As an engineer, I take a risk management view of these things, and it comes down to two basic things:

Impact of Risk
Likelihood of risk.

If a risk is of low likelihood, but high impact, then any engineer - whether running a mine site, factory or power station, will do all they can to reduce the chance of that risk happening.

What climate change comes down to is a matter of probability. Most scientists agree that the likelihood of climate change being caused by humans is high. However even if you personally believe the chance of this is low - let's say 25%, then given that the impact of climate change is massive, far reaching and devastating, I believe this likelihood still warrants urgent action by all governments internationally.

A few other notes,

Australia is not going it alone - we are trailing many countries with regards to our actions on climate change and need to catch up.
Even if we were going it alone, then that does not change the morality of the issue, and the fact that we need to take action, however small proportionally.
The argument that we don't need to take urgent action because we are only a small proportion of world emissions is childish - on a per capita basis, we are at the top of the list, and I use the example of other crime - the argument that 'everyone else is doing it' has no impact on the personal or local morality of any issue.

Senator, please consider my arguments. I trust you will respond appropriately to this issue and work with the government to come up with a good climate change policy and emissions trading scheme.

Kind Regards,

Brad Schultz

Sunday, March 22, 2009

More Dubai / Abu Dhabi Photos

A few more photos from my work trip... click HERE to go to the album in Picasa Web.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

I only blog when I travel...

I still can't say Dubai endears itself to me... It's so spread out that it needs lots of big roads to carry all of the traffic. To make room for the big roads, the city is quite spread out, which means it needs big roads to link it all up... you get the picture.

I managed to get up on top of the Hilton - best view of the city I've had so far. You can see Burj Dubai - tallest building in the world - back there somewhere, and down below in Dubai Creek, the old wooden Dhows which carry freight between here and Iran - they carry everything on their decks from cars to tvs. Everything the USA doesn't want imported into Iran.

The above is the entree to the Syrian meal I had last night. That bowl in the middle is Hommous (which I always get mixed up with Tabouli... if any of you can tell me why, that would be great).

Off to Abu Dhabi for the day tomorrow... bye all!

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Chin up old chap...

Travelling again for work... this time it's the UK, Dubai and Singapore - two weeks in total.

The highlight really would have to be running into Prince Charles after being in London only a couple of hours. He was laying a wreath at an Armistice Day ceremony. I couldn't stop smiling.

Managed to catch up with a couple of friends in between meetings. Had to buy an umbrella... act of purist optimism to have not brought one with me I suppose.