There was some chagrin recently when Tim mentioned in comments on Saabs United that he was thinking of buying a BMW. How could someone so dedicated ever consider another brand? Some people expressed surprise, others disappointment. My advice: build a bridge and get over it. People everywhere are capable of loving a brand, remaining fully invested in that brand while buying something else.
How do I know this? I’ve done it myself.
Let me tell you a few things about running a website like Saabs United that you probably already know. For starters, it’s a heck of a lot of fun. It’s all-encompassing and it’s exhausting. I used to average around six-to-eight entries a day at the busiest times and three or four entries a day over the longer term. I used to monitor every comment in real time during waking hours and I had to manage any flare-ups in the community on the fly. I learned something new nearly every day and met some amazing people who were totally, absolutely dedicated to the brand.
There are a few things about running a site like SU that you may not realise, however. I won’t speak for Tim, or Till, or any of the other guys at SU, but this is definitely something that happened to me.
When I was running SU and Trollhattan Saab, the whole notion of chasing, writing and explaining the story became as important as the cars. I started the site(s) because I loved Saabs and I wanted to write about them. It was a 50/50 situation divided between the cars and the writing process. As you get deeper and deeper into it, the process does tend to take over. You’re still a car guy, but it changes the more you get into it. The more you learn, the more you want to learn – about ALL cars. About technology. About driving. About classics.
The other thing about doing a ‘job’ like SU is that when it’s over, when you’ve given it 110% and the stories stop (through no fault of your own), then if you’re a car guy there’s little choice but to take your car interest elsewhere. For a Saab person, there’ll most likely always be a Saab in the garage or a strong interest in Saab cars. For a car person – note the subtle difference – other interests will develop.
I loved Saabs. I love cars in general but I loved Saabs the most. That’s why I owned them and why I chose to write about them. But that doesn’t rule out any interest in other brands. That’s as true for me as it is for you, as it is for Tim and anyone else involved with SU. Remember that while I was right in the middle of my SU/TS experience, I bought three Saabs as well as two Alfa Romeos and a Mazda MX-5. Just because something is your primary interest doesn’t mean it’s your sole interest.
While I was associated with Saab I dealt with a designer who drove a Porsche 928, a PR guy with a 911, a USA staffer with a Ferrari, a Swede with a stunning Alfa Romeo SZ and of course, the former Saab USA public relations chief, Jan-Willem Vester, had an award-winning Porsche 911. All of these guys loved Saab and gave decades of their lives to work for, and support, the brand.
For me, my interest is in cars and back then, I had a focus on Saabs. My focus has shifted now, but there will always be a passion for Saabs and Trollhattan. We own a Saab 9000 Aero at the moment and I think that’ll be the second-last Saab we buy. The last Saab I plan on buying is the Sonett III I’ll import from the US one day in the future.
For Tim? Knowing him and his connection to Trollhattan just a little, I’m sure there will always be a connection and I’d be surprised if there’s not at least one Saab in his garage for a long time to come. Tim builds good cars and I’m sure he’ll want to preserve at least one Saab in his life, maybe more.
He’s given plenty to the cause, so don’t begrudge him (or anyone else) the expansion of their horizons. It’s a big wide automotive world out there and there’s room to invest yourself in more than one brand.
Some people will only own Saabs for the rest of their lives and more power to them. Some people will cherish what they see as being the Saab classics and will keep one or more of those. More power to them. Some people will lose interest all together. More power to them, too.
I’m always amazed at the number of people who include terrible, poorly lit and poorly composed photos in advertisements for cars they’re trying to sell. If you’re selling your car and trying to coax someone into spending thousands of dollars – or maybe tens of thousands of dollars – surely you can make a bit of an effort to present the car in a way that’s actually going to make the person want to see more?
This is a no, despite the effort the lady might have gone to:
You’re selling a 1984 Porsche 928 S!! It’s one of the most desirable years for a pre-S4 928 and you go and put the car in the shadows with a woman next to it? Are you trying to sell your car or your girlfriend?
This is a no. Get some even light so you get an even shot. An interior shot from 8 feet away is meaningless.
Wait a minute……
Instead of showing you examples of bad photography, why not just show you the photos from someone who’s done a fantastic job presenting their car in the best light?
Truth be told, I’m doing this post partly because I wanted a reason to save these photos and present them on the website. They’re that good. But I’m also a firm believer that good photos take only a little extra effort but provide a huge boost to an online car ad.
The following example is from an Ebay ad selling a Volvo P1800. What the seller has done is wait for the right time of day for the right light, and they’ve shot the car in settings that show it off nicely. They let you see the details you need to see and they’ve conveyed a spirit befitting the car’s design and presence.
These guys are obviously pros, with access to a good camera and specilised settings such as the turntable. But it doesn’t take that much effort and/or equipment to get good quality photos in your local area.
A big THANKYOU to all who participated in sharing the contents of your garage. It was great to see the variety of vehicles and the extent of people’s collections.
I think we might have to do this again in the future, but perhaps in a more organised way.
Anyway, thanks a bunch. It was a lot of fun.
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968 Update
Let’s start at home…..
My 968 ClubSport is in the shop right now, getting the some uprated suspension parts fitted – the famed Porsche M030 option. I ordered all the M030 suspension components except for the front dampers as my car already has coilovers in the front. So we’ve got sway bars front and rear, dampers and springs on the rear as well as all the associated bushes, etc.
That’s good news in itself.
The even better news is that the bloke who’s doing the work is outstanding!! I’m so pleased to have found someone who knows this model of car and is so friendly and happy to pass on his knowledge.
He called me today because I asked him to adjust the ride height on the car (it was riding too low at the rear). We thought this adjustment would involve manipulation of the torsion beam at the back. Nino fitted the new rear suspension and that alone raised the rear of the car so he wanted me to come in and see it. Adjusting the torsion bar was going to involve days of work, which equates to a LOT of $$$ and he wanted to avoid this cost unless I really wanted it done.
I called in there today and the car looks great. We took it for a quick spin and it feels great, too. Nino has to do some final tightening-up of various bits and the car will be ready to go. I’ll pick it up on Friday – and I can’t wait!!
Don’t you love it when you find a mechanic that knows your car and looks after you? I couldn’t be happier.
And for any Tasmanian Porsche owners reading this, you probably already know who I’m talking about. It’s Bocchino Motors in Albert Road, Moonah.
It’s been about five years since Old GM morphed into the sinewy paragon of corporate efficiency known as New GM. While I don’t really weep for the axed nameplates — a brand is 10 percent history and 90 percent marketing artifice — there are a few specific vehicles from Saab, Saturn, and Hummer that I’m really starting to miss. And, as the Chevrolet SS née Pontiac G8 proves, New GM can revive a dead car if it feels like it. Join me, then, in my petition to resurrect three machines that deserve to ride again…….
……Saab 9-3 Turbo X SportCombi. Raise your hand if you like the idea of a 280-hp, turbocharged, all-wheel-drive wagon with a manual transmission and rear-axle torque vectoring. That mouthful of car-nerd nirvana describes the late 2008–2009 Saab 9-3 Turbo X SportCombi, a sharp-handling hatch that proved Saab could build a competitive car, just in time for Saab to build nothing at all.
See, that’s some very clever wordsmithing towards the end there, but I think Ezra’s missing the point.
Solution: Bring the Turbo X back as a Chevy, with cloth seats and a ,000 sticker, to battle the Ford Focus ST. In the company’s final years, the Saab badge was desperately slapped on other GM vehicles. Poetic justice demands that the badge engineering go in the other direction one final time.
There’s nothing that’s either poetic or just about this proposal.
Justice is where someone pulls the plug on GM just when it’s developing good models (which means that it’ll never happen). Justice is GM falling on its sword as Saab rises like a ……..a …… Phoenix to take its rightful place as the manufacturer of very pleasant and occasionally racy Swedemobiles. Justice is Bob Lutz working as a bathroom attendant in the mens room at Saab’s offices in Trollhattan (and those mens rooms weren’t shiny, new and fresh-smelling, I can assure you).
Justice might be blind, but I’ve got 20/20 vision and I know damn well who sucked the life out of our favourite Swede.
So yeah, bring the Turbo X back, but bring it back with a griffin proudly emblazoned down the side of the car with a FUGM93 plate on the front. Put some monster truck wheels on it and crush a fleet of Cadillacs right before parking it in front of the Ren-Cen and inflating a giant middle finger out of the sunroof.
To paraphrase the taunting Frenchmen from Monty Python’s Holy Grail – the Saab world farts in GM’s general direction!!
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Saab – part 2
I’m not sure what’s more sad: that the Swedish debt collectors are now moving in on NEVS, or that few news outlets or people really seem surprised, let alone care.
I guess this is why NEVS employed a “say nothing” PR strategy. But the lack of interest when the fit’s hitting the shan is symbolic of what they’ll face if they ever get out of this mess and start building cars again.
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Murray Walker
When I get a spare hour, I’m going to sit down and watch this documentary on the greatest voice in Formula 1 history – Murray Walker.
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Le Mans
When I get another spare hour, I’m going to really drink in this amazing post from FlatSixes.com, which details their trip to the 24 hours of Le Mans.
A great story with outstanding pictures, too.
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Porsche 914
It’s articles like this that are going to keep pushing up the price of cars like the Porsche 914.
In all, Ray Nadda of Allendale, Michigan, figures he’s had 97 or 98 different cars over the years – British cars, Italian cars, American cars, you name it – and he’s sold every single one of them. Every one of them, that is, except for the 1974 Porsche 914 2.0 that he’s now owned for 26 years.
“A couple times over the years I thought about selling it, but this is the one car I can’t ever bring myself to get rid of,” he said. “Living in Michigan, I have to put it away every winter, but when I get it out of the garage again, it’s like having a brand new car every spring.”
You used to be able to pick up a 914 for under $10,000 here in Australia a few years ago. Now they’re starting at minimum $15K and only seem to go up from there.
I think my mate Mats, in Sweden, did well picking one up when he did. It’s mid-restoration right now and is going to be a cracking car when he’s finished.
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Unknown Lamborghini
I’m not the type to delve into every offering by every carmaker. As large as my cranium is, there’s only so much room in there and I’m too busy enjoying the cars I know to search too long and hard for ones I don’t know.
But it’s always a pleasant surprise to see a car you don’t know from a brand that you do know.
UPDATE! – Everything works better with photos. If you’d like me to include a photo with your comment then send a picture to swade99-at-gmail-dot-com and I’ll weave some magic and include the pic(s) with your comment.
Check out some of your fellow reader’s rides in comments below. Outstanding!!!
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When I posted my question a few days ago – What’s your ideal 4-car garage? – I was rather amazed at the number of people who already have a very nice collection going.
So my question for today – how many cars have you already got in your ‘garage’? I use the term ‘garage’ but of course, the car(s) don’t have to reside indoors. My wife and I have three between us, for example – the Saab 9000 Aero, the 968 and the Brumby – but only the 968 is properly garaged.
I guess the main criterion is that it’s a car you care about. For our place:
The 968 is self explanatory.
The Saab 9000 Aero has been a source of some frustration and it doesn’t get looked after like it should, but it IS a Saab I wanted to own for a long time and it does seem to be running pretty smoothly (even with some frustrating malfunctions)
Some wouldn’t care about a Subaru Brumby, but then they’re probably not a Brumby owner. These humble little utes steal your heart. Mine’s going to get a little pampering soon.
So…. census time.
How many have you got and if you feeling like sharing a little info (makes, models, favourite bits) then please feel free.
Today was the first Sunday of the month and after a few months away on family visits, it was great for me to get back to Classics By The Beach.
And what a day! We had some terrible weather in Hobart last week, but it’s almost as if the weather gods were trying to get the bad stuff out of the way early so that Sunday would be perfect. And it was. In fact, the conditions were so good that today was quite possibly the biggest attendance I’ve seen at Classics.
You know things are busy when you can’t get parking for your Ferrari! There was a Lamborghini Uracco parked in an overflow car park, too.
I’ve got a mega-gallery on site for you today, with a few special cars to show in slightly more detail.
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Fords!
The Classic Ford Car Club was present today with a nice collection of Mustangs, 60’s and 70’s Falcons and very nice singular examples of both the Cortina and Escort.
That’s 400hp of Bling!
Click to enlarge.
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Jensen
Apologies are in order….
The hood and hatch were both up when I was chatting with Nigel, the owner of this Jensen Interceptor, and I forgot to go back and get photos of the exterior before he left. All of which creates the perfect excuse to catch up with him again and maybe accompany him on a drive to a nice photogenic spot 🙂
The Interceptor’s been in Nigel’s family since his Dad bought it in the late 1980’s. After a lot of recent work, the car was finally re-registered for use on the road just last week and Nigel plans to drive it as often as he can. Lucky he’s got the one with the small, economical engine – at just 6.3 litres 🙂
Inside is like a 1970’s gentleman’s club but without the funky colours or the shagpile carpeting. It’s pure comfort in classic black. The only repair considered necessary is one of the seams in the black leather driver’s seat. The rest of the inside has a genuine 40-something-year-old patina that’s just fantastic.
More to come on this one. Count on it.
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De Tomaso Pantera
I can’t get enough of this 70’s supercar. It’s in such amazing condition. I followed it from two cars distance on the road to Classics this morning and the sound, even at a staid 50 km/h, was just magic.
I only took a few photos today because there was so many cars to see, but I tried to capture a few details. Again, the promise of things to come.
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Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider Veloce
I hope I’ve got the naming right on this one.
I’ve photographed this Spider before, but the conditions and space are never quite right to capture the true beauty of this car. The car is owned by the same guy who has the amazing Riley I photographed earlier this year. Yes, he has superb taste in cars 🙂
As with the aforementioned Riley, the beauty is in the minutiae. The flowing Pininfarina curves are just sumptuous and everywhere you look there’s a pleasant little detail waiting to delight you. Nobody does this stuff quite like the Italians.
And by the way….
I learned today that you can tell a genuine Veloce by the little air channel in the right-side grille (body coloured). It funnels air directly up to the carbies. Many try to fabricate this on their ‘Normale’ models but few get the finish of the genuine article.
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Special BMW’s
There were a pair of very, very nice BMW’s there today.
The first was a black JPS edition E21 323i. A genuine article, with all the right badging on the wheels, interior and C-pillar. The second was a beautiful orange BMW 2002 ’roundie’, which I’ve photographed before.
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Fiat X1/9
I have a real crush on the Fiat X1/9 at the moment. People keep telling me that they’re somewhat underpowered but I refuse to believe it because they look absolutely flawless. How could you not love this?
X1/9’s are still quite affordable, but where they ranged from around $2,000 to $8,000 a year or so ago, the price has crept up a little lately and they’re starting around $5,000 and going up to double that amount. You’ll probably pay even more for a Bertone-built model.
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VW Flat Tray
Do you ever get the feeling that old Volkswagens have transcended themselves? Think about it. This company made millions and millions of funny-looking cars that were little more than simple, robust transportation machines bought by millions of people. But they were so robust that they formed the centrepiece of a billion road-trip memories and they were so simple that they were easy to customise. These simple, some might say inelegant machines, are now incredibly cool and can be worth much more than a car built in such massive numbers could reasonably expect to be.
Which leads me to this VW, which I have to assume is a customised Type II Flatbed. It rates an 11 on the funky scale. Just check out the flappy windshields 🙂
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Austin-Healey Sprite
We see a few AH’s at Classics but very few Sprites. They’re a delight to photograph and from why my friend Ken tells me, even more fun to drive.
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The rest
Alfas, Rolls Royce, MG.. even a Buick 8 with the interior-of-the-day – they’re all here.
There were SO MANY cars here today. I got to Sandy Bay in my 968 around 9:30am and cars were still rolling up at around 11am. I think a lot of people made late decisions to come down when they saw how good the conditions were.
Another outstanding Classics made great by the cars and the people who brought them along.
We’ve been house-hunting recently. Not for an ideal 4-car garage. Just for a house, but hey…..
We thought we’d found a good one, too. If we’d gone ahead and bought it, this would have been my garage/workshop 🙂
That would have been nice. Sadly, for various reasons, it just didn’t turn out to be the place for us.
All that leads me to today’s question – what real-world vehicles would you put in your ideal 4-car garage?
I include “real-world” there deliberately. I think I’ll eventually be able to fill up the space with four cars that are genuinely interesting for me, but that will involve a restricted budget. This is not an exercise in “what would I buy if I won the lottery?” I’m trying to be more realistic than that.
My current thinking – which is always subject to change – is that it’d be great to have a car from each the following countries:
Germany
Italy
France
Sweden
I’ve already got my German car, even though I may have to sell it to help finance the build. Hopefully not. If that has to happen, though, I’d try to pick another P-car up one day.
Italian? I’ve been yearning to add a Lancia Fulvia to my life and hopefully one day that will happen. A variety of Alfa’s (with most of them being very affordable) could more than fit the bill until then.
French? This is the most marginal of the possibilities, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a DS? And there’s always the RenaultSport offering.
Swedish? There are many, many possibilities and I’m not limiting my interest to things made in Trollhattan. My goal remains to get a Sonett at home one day, but a Volvo P1800 or even an Amazon would be great, too.
——
Writing this down makes me realise that four car spaces is nice, but six would be better 🙂 . I sold my Mazda MX-5 a few years ago knowing that I’d underdone my MX-5 experience. And it’d be nice to have a sporty convertible and do a real custom job.
And where to put the Jag? And does all this mean I have to sell the Brumby??!!
Darn it. We always need room for more, don’t we?
So…….
If you have 4 spaces (and you haven’t had 4 spaces before), how would you fill those spaces? Realistic options, please, though if your realistic options mirror the “what would I buy if I won the lottery?” scenario, then more power to ya!
I participated in a development session today and one of the ‘tools’ we were exposed to was the philosophy of personal responsibility by way of the following:
E + R = O.
Event + Reaction = Outcome.
That is, when something happens, it’s how you react to that event that is a decisive factor in the outcome from that event.
In general, this is a philosophy that I agree with. My Dad passed away when I was 15 years old and I remember consciously thinking at the time (long before I’d heard of the Chicken Soup guy responsible for today’s teachings) that Dad’s passing wasn’t going to be a defining factor in my life. Dad was probably the most influential person in my life at that point and while his death was something for me to mourn, it wasn’t mine to carry.
There are numerous situations where it’s perfectly appropriate to apply the E + R = O philosophy. In fact, it’s a handy tool to apply to most things that happen in day-to-day life and quite a few of the extraordinary things, too.
As we explored this theory a little more, however, I started to disagree.
(I’m like that sometimes and I have to say that it hasn’t served me well. It’s in my nature, however. If I see a hole in something and I feel it’s important enough, then I poke at it. And poke I did.)
As we applied this theory to various scenarios (and the theory’s subsequent parts, which I won’t go into here) it came across to me as a kind of veneer. Like a bright, happy wallpaper.
“OK, this person’s treating me poorly but the outcome of this situation isn’t up to them, it’s up to me.”
That might work once or twice in a situation that’s unlikely to reoccur. Like a chance encounter with an idiot at a bus stop, for instance. You won’t see that person again and there’s no need to let him/her ruin your day. Sometimes it’s better to just ignore it and move on. I get that. But what about those situations you face nearly every day/week/month that you don’t think are right? How is it right to just put up your happy wallpaper and pretend they don’t get you down?
Accepting that you can control every outcome by way of your reactions to an event is to accept responsibility for every outcome you’re involved in. And accepting responsibility for every outcome you’re involved in means that others aren’t responsible for their actions anymore. Our convenor today said that worrying about something you couldn’t necessarily influence was a sure-fire way to an ulcer, and I can see her logic. But surely taking responsibility for crappy situations that are repeatedly thrust upon you isn’t any better for your physical or emotional wellbeing.
If someone’s consistently being an asshat, is it your responsibility to control the outcome of their behaviour (as it effects you), or does there come a time when it’s their responsibility to maybe stop being an asshat? Sure, there are things you can do to mitigate such asshattery but when all is said and done, surely they need to know that their asshattic behaviour is having a detrimental effect on you and maybe the lives of those around them, too?
Isn’t that the other side of personal responsibility? And shouldn’t we have enough mutual respect to be able to talk about it without somebody feeling like a dweeb because they had to bring it up?
The cars and the expected selling prices before the auction were as follows:
Porsche 924 ‘Turbo’ – est $5,500
Volvo P1800 Coupe – est $12,000
Citroen ID 19 – est $17,500
Alfa Romeo Spider – est $12,000
Fiat 500 Garidiniera Wagon – est $17,500
Citroen Light 15 Sedan – est $20,000
Rover Mini Cooper ’40′ – est $17,500
Jaguar Mk II – est $29,000
Porsche 928S – est $12,500
Porsche 911SC Cabriolet – est $37,500 (I think, didn’t write it down)
Renault-Alpine A110 – est $105,000
That’s an estimated total of $286,000 plus the same again to buy some land a shed to house them.
—
The auction was held earlier this week. So how much did the fleet sell for in the real world? And how accurate were Shannons’ estimates?
Note: the estimate I originally quoted was the mid-point, or median, of the estimated range they provided. I’ve put in this median figure, along with the top level of the range, in order to compare the final price achieved.
So let’s take a look.
Shannons Winter Classic Car Auction 2014
CAR
MEDIAN ESTIMATE
UPPER RANGE ESTIMATE
SALE PRICE
Porsche 924
$5,500
$7,000
$4,750
Volvo P1800 Coupe
$12,000
$12,000
$10,500
Citroen ID 19
$17,500
$20,000
$17,000
Alfa Romeo Spider
$12,000
$14,000
$20,000
Fiat 500 Garidiniera Wagon
$17,500
$20,000
$22,000
Citroen Light 15 Sedan
$20,000
$25,000
$25,700
Rover Mini Cooper ’40′
$17,500
$20,000
$20,500
Jaguar Mk II
$29,000
$32,000
$34,000
Porsche 928S
$12,500
$15,000
$17,500
Porsche 911SC Cabriolet
$37,500
$40,000
$42,500
Alpine A110
$105,000
$120,000
$110,000
Total
$324,450
——
It turns out Shannons are pretty good with their range estimates, from a seller’s point of view, at least. All cars reached the bottom figure in the estimated range and most of these cars exceeded the top level of the range.
The biggest outlier is the Alfa Spider, a whole $6,000 over the top estimated price. It must have been in better condition than they thought (either that, or you had a couple of bidders that really wanted this car).
It’s a nice little study in confidence levels for future auctions.
Now, to start saving those dollars for the next time there’s a huge collection of cars that I actually want to buy!
One day there’ll be a Fulvia at one of these auctions…..
It’s that time of year again. For a few years now – dating right back to the Saabs United days – I’ve been supporting Jim Coggeshall in his bid to raise funds for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Mass.
Readers of SU and Swadeology have been gracious contributors to this cause in the past and I hope you can be again this year. And for the record, I’m not asking you to do anything I wouldn’t do myself. I’ve already kicked in $250 this year. I lost my Dad to cancer in 1985 and have seen numerous family and friends touched by this disease since. This is a great cause.
I’ll let Jim tell the story because he’s invested in this. He’s relied on these guys to save his life more than once, the most recent time being within the last 12 months.
For the past three years I have participated in the Pan Massachusetts Challenge, a 200 mile cycling fund raiser for Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Bicycling long distance is an accomplishment in and of itself. But real glory comes from channeling that physical, mental and emotional energy into a goal greater than athletic achievement.
I’ve always had my Saab friends covering my back as I try to fulfill that goal.
Four years ago I was told I had testicular cancer. In the following two years I was treated several times for skin cancer. Last fall I had surgery for aggressive prostate cancer. Thanks to the lifesaving work done at the Dana-Farber I’ll be participating in my fourth PMC in two weeks. And I’m so happy to say I’ll be doing it cancer free for the first time ever!
Last year the PMC organizers set a goal of raising $37 million dollars thru rider sponsorship. We reached that mark and blasted right past it with an extra million. The PMC never rests on their laurels and we riders are tasked with raising $40 million in 2014. Got to say, that’s not bad for some folks out for a weekend bike ride! We are in fact the world’s largest single event medical fund raising event. Best of all, 100% of the money pledged to a rider goes directly to the Dana-Farber. Since 2007 the event overhead has been covered by additional corporate underwriters and a rider entry fee. To do my part I pledged a personal commitment to raise $7,000 which will bring my four year total to over $32,000.
It’s a tall order so I hope I can count on you to help me. My friends in the Saab community have been a significant source of support. I have received thousands of dollars in pledges from you, often from people I have never physically met. I’m pleading for your continued support to help others have the same positive result I have been blessed to have. With every mile we pedal, Pan Massachusetts Challenge riders bring cancer researchers closer to a cure, but it’s just idle work without your support.
To entice donations from the Saab community I will be raffling off a set of very hard to find commemorative logo pins. This is a $125 value – if you can find a set!
Every $10 donated gets you one chance to win. Donate and double your chances. Donate $99 (get it?) and I’ll call it an even 10 chances! Just mention Saab in your donation comment.
I can all but guarantee that not a single person reading this has been unaffected by cancer, be it themselves, a family member, or close friend. It is a disease that takes a tremendous toll on not only the sufferer, but on all those close to them. Cancer is not cured by sharing somebody’s pretty colored ribbon post on Facebook or by throwing loose change in a jar. Cancer research is serious business and it takes serious money. Does it work? I’m what the PMC calls a “Living Proof” rider. Last year there were 500 other cancer survivors among the 5,500 riders. I’d call that a success. How wonderful it would be if we could give more people an optimistic prognosis. I truly think that together we can.
In closing I’ll recap what I say every year (although the list unfortunately seems to keep getting longer):
In order to fight cancer:
I gave my left nut.
Had chemo poison pumped through my veins.
Had 12 “radiation rides” in a CAT Scan machine and 18 chest X-Rays.
Had skin sliced/peeled from my face, not once but twice. Note: Wear sunscreen!
Had a biopsy spear gun shoved up my butt. Take 12 shots and win a prize!
Had an MRI of the prostate taken, from the inside. Hint: It involved a balloon I never saw.
Had my prostate surgically removed by a six armed robot named Da Vinci.
Just had another operation to put things the robot bumped back into place.
I rode a bicycle 200 miles, three times, raising nearly $25,000. And I’m doing it again – cancer free!
What can you do? How about a pledge at the link below:
Today, the Australian parliament repealed the country’s carbon reduction legislation. It has effectively left our country with no pollution reduction policy and we are the first country in the world to go from having a price on carbon pollution, to having no price on carbon pollution.
Our government campaigned hard on this for some time. They successfully prosecuted the false argument that our carbon tax was hurting Australian business and that it was ineffective in tackling the issue that it was designed for. That neither is actually true – emissions are actually down and the economy has kept growing – didn’t stop them from winning the argument. The whole discussion went from one based on facts to one based on a lowest-common-denominator argument that denigrated a populace.
The argument went something like this: people will fear losing a few dollars from their pocket in the short term more than they’ll fear something they can’t immediately see, something that will effect them in the long term. The hip pocket always rules.
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Delayed Preface
Forgive me.
I should have prefaced this article by saying that if you don’t believe that human action is having a marked effect on the environment, if you don’t believe in human-influenced climate change, then this article probably isn’t for you.
The legitimacy of any action on climate change turns on whether people believe that an issue actually exists. I do. And I no longer have the time or the patience to discuss the pros and cons with sceptics. Others do and I admire their patience. As far as I’m concerned, however, the science is settled.
Cue the John Oliver video, which you can feel free to watch if you don’t agree (slight language warning):
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The Carbon Tax
The policy that’s just been disposed of was dubbed The Carbon Tax. Back in the 2010 election campaign, our former Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, said that there would be no carbon tax under a government she leads. When that government ended up relying on the Greens for support, the carbon tax they insisted on was a direct contradiction of Gillard’s pledge. That breach, along with the hung parliament itself, proved terminal to Gillard’s tenure as PM.
The carbon tax put a fixed price on carbon emissions. Like most taxes, it has a dual purpose of influencing behaviour towards a desired goal and raising some money (to be directed towards other projects that help meet the goal).
The carbon tax should have been a cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme. That was the original plan but the former government wimped out in 2009, only to return in 2010 with a carbon tax that was toxic from the get-go. The intentions were good and the tax actually worked to a large degree, but that’s of little consolation now.
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Direct (In)Action
Our new conservative government repealed the carbon tax laws today. Their plan to help tackle climate change and meet Australia’s emissions reduction goal is called Direct Action.
In short, they have a bucket of money that they’re going to offer as an incentive for companies that voluntarily reduce their polluting. It’s a reverse-auction style of fund, so companies will bid for the money but there’s no compulsion for them to do so because there’s no longer a cap on emissions. There’s merely a desire to reduce overall emissions by 5% by 2020, which is now seen variously as a very modest goal by the standards of Australia’s major trading partners and as quite inadequate by the environmental lobby.
Direct Action has been rightly described as an environmental figleaf, a token gesture to cover up the embarrassing lack of real action on climate change by this government.
In fact, I’m surprised that hardline conservatives are accepting the Direct Action plan at all. If the overarching desire of the conservative is fiscal prudence and getting Australia’s budget on track, then the spending of a couple of billion dollars on something that no-one except Tony Abbott believes will work (and the depth of his belief is the dictionary definition of ‘questionable’) then that’s pouring $2billion or so down the drain. We’ve all seen plenty of outrage about the carbon tax. I haven’t seen any outrage about that.
And how about the fact that the government has gone from charging polluters to charging the general population? No outrage from the lower taxes! crowd there, either. I guess as long as your side appears to be winning, they can do whatever they like.
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Other Cuts
Our conservative government, along with abolishing the carbon tax, has sought to dismantle the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, a body set up to finance ‘green loans’ to companies embarking on clean energy projects. The CEFC makes money for the government (fact), provides greater access to clean energy (fact) as well as jobs in the energy sectors of the future (fact). It seems logical to keep it, but they want to shut it down.
They’ve appointed a self-confessed climate sceptic to oversee a review of Australia’s Renewable Energy Target. It’ll be no surprise when that’s wound back.
We have no science portfolio at the federal level. This is the first time Australia’s had no Minister for Science since the 1930’s. And funding to Australia’s major science body, the CSIRO, has been cut by over $100million.
The Climate Commission was closed almost immediately upon the Coalition’s election last year. This body’s task was to provide meaningful, authoritative and publicly digestible information about climate change. The main identity from the Climate Commission, Tim Flannery, has since founded the Climate Council through public donation, a funding model that I’m sure is a constant source of pleasure to conservatives everywhere.
In all, the recent Coalition budget slashed proposed spending on climate research and clean energy from more than $5billion to just $500 million over the next 4 years.
And despite all that, our Prime Minister stood in front of TV cameras today and said “We are a conservationist government” with a straight face.
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The Future of Climate Change in Australia
Today, Australia went from being a leader in climate change action to falling more than a decade behind the rest of the world. In just one day.
Climate change is not going to go away as an issue in this country. First, it has science on its side. There’s a old saying down here (and in other parts of the world) about not letting facts get in the way of a good story. But facts should, and will, prevail. Especially on an issue as important as this.
Australia is experiencing more and more in the way of extreme weather activity. We’ve always had bushfires and we’ve always had storms. It’s the intensity, frequency and ferocity of these occurrences that’s increasing. Climate change plays a part in this; as the countryside gets drier the fires get more intense and as the seas get warmer, the storms get more fierce. The people who don’t believe the modelling on climate change will eventually see the evidence for themselves. Hopefully for them, it’ll be on television rather than in person.
The window is slowly closing on mankind’s ability to take meaningful action. Australia is now at least 10 years behind on joining a meaningful global effort and our Liberal-National coalition, who are more intent on staying in power than they are on making a positive difference for all Australians, will ride the opposition and their carbon tax pony as far into the ground as possible. In fact, Christopher Pyne (aka the most annoying man in Australia) said as much today, saying during question time that the government was going to hang the carbon tax around the Labor Party’s neck like a stinking carcass.
There’s your playing field. It’s set.
Officially, the government actually believes in the doctrine of man-made climate change. Despite our Prime Minister being (in)famous for saying that the science behind climate change was absolute crap. And despite the government’s policies not supporting any real belief in the science. And despite them demonising anyone who’s policies advocate meaningful action. But officially, they do believe.
Welcome to Australia.
I felt compelled to write something about this today. I realise it’s not much, though. It contributes nothing new to the debate and has no new insight. I just wanted to get it off my chest. For the absolute best article on this subject I’ve seen today, read Lenore Taylor’s editorial at The Guardian. It sums up Australia’s dilemma beautifully.
