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Apparently, some tigers can change their stripes -- especially if they have books to sell. One of our favorite climate villains, the Danish economist Bjørn Lomborg, has apparently warmed to the idea of climate change, and now says it's a problem on which the world ought to spend $100 billion annually.

Lomborg's forthcoming book, Smart Solutions to Climate Change, declares that global warming is "undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today." He examines eight methods to reduce or stop it, including wave, wind, solar and nuclear power, as well as geoengineering, and advocates a carbon emissions tax to finance investment. Read more »

Caipirinha - Brazil's national cocktail

Source: Wikipedia. Public domain photo

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In my article for The Drum on Monday, I observed:

What will be most interesting over the next few days and weeks will be whether the Australian commentary machine’s momentum finally switches – an actual event has occurred, but the minute by minute “analysis” powers on, and the perpetual tweeting favours noise over signal.

There’s still a lot of noise and not much signal, I think, because literally nothing much is happening (publicly).

Bernard Keane wrote a neat piece for Crikey today, which I’ve excerpted over the fold. He could have added that elements in the media are laying the foundations for a vicious campaign against The Greens, and the rural independents should they align with Labor on confidence and supply. Read more »

I found these answers to Leigh Sales’ questions by Rob Oakeshott on Lateline very interesting:

LEIGH SALES: Okay, on asylum seekers, particularly those who come by boat, what’s your view on offshore processing?

ROB OAKESHOTT: I’ve been very loud in my electorate that we are the moat people. The very fact people have to come here by boat says we’ve got a huge strategic advantage in dealing with this.

They’ve normally come through three or four countries where those countries don’t even know that people have passed through their borders. So I think we can manage this and manage it in a strategic sense. Our offshore processing is about $470 million a year of taxpayers’ money. Read more »