It’s here! Climate Change: The Facts 2017 will be launched tonight at a sold out event in Sydney. Buy your copy here to read chapters by Clive James, Bjørn Lomborg, Matt Ridley, Ian Plimer, Willie Soon, Peter Ridd, Roy Spencer and more.
For a sneak peak of what is in the book, listen to the IPA’s Dr Jennifer Marohasy with Alan Jones on 2GB on Wednesday, and read Clive James’ chapter here.
After you’ve bought the book you must read these two pieces by Matt Ridley: First, this magnificent 5,300 word speech from a fortnight ago on how much of what passes for capitalism these days is cronyism or corporatism. Then this article in The Times last week about how government attempts to force the electric car revolution are going to backfire.
Gillian Triggs’ time as Australian Human Rights Commission president came to an end this week, and she’s going down swinging. On Monday, Triggs and ABC radio host Jon Faine agreed that those who defended freedom of speech were guilty of an “obsessive indulgence“. Read what John Roskam said about this to The Australian here.
Last week we told you how a man in the US threatened to call the police on a girl running a lemonade stand. Police in London went further and fined a five year old girl £150 for selling lemonade. As the IPA explained in 2015, 11-year-old Chelsea-lee Devon from Bunbury in WA suffered the same fate when she dared to sell some lemon meringue pies.
At least the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well. After the Toronto City Council said it would cost up to $150,000 to build a new set of stairs for the public, one man did it for them for just $550. Of course, the city has since removed the steps.
On 22 August in Melbourne the Menzies Research Centre is hosting an unmissable event. The great John O’Sullivan, editor of Quadrant, speechwriter to Margaret Thatcher, and originator of ‘O’Sullivan’s Law‘, is delivering the John Howard Lecture for 2017: ‘Conservatism, Compromise and the Politics of Conviction’. The public can book here – and thanks to the generosity of the MRC, IPA members can attend for half price just by using the promotional code ‘IPA50’.
Article of the week:
Conrad Black on Tuesday in the National Review explains how “The Economist did not understand at all the intolerable failures for America” that Trump inherited, and why the once-prestigious magazine has fallen so far.
IPA Staff Pick:
Each week an IPA staff member shares what they have enjoyed recently. Today: John Roskam
This podcast a fortnight ago of Tom Switzer’s Radio National Between the Lines episode featuring his interview with Richard Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchanan is brilliant.
There’s a fantastic line in there about the difference between Nixon and Reagan – Nixon worried about what the New York Times and Washington Post thought of him – while Reagan worried about what Human Events and Commentary said about him. It confirmed what I’ve always thought about Nixon which was that he was a disastrous president a long time before Watergate.
Here’s what else the IPA said this week:
- John Roskam, The old alliance of Liberals and business has turned uneasy – The Australian Financial Review
- Andrew Bushnell, Ideological evasion – The Spectator Australia
- Bella d’Abrera, Eureka movement struck much more than gold – The Herald Sun
- Brett Hogan, A brown coal plan that’s worse than Finkel – The Spectator Australia
- Darcy Allen, Too much red tape could keep drones grounded – The Weekly Times
- Sinclair Davidson, Australia is not an unequal society – and the politics of envy hurt it – The Australian Financial Review
- Peter Gregory, Johannesburg’s libertarian mayor a cause for optimism – FreedomWatch
- James Bolt and Peter Gregory, Episode 20 with Scott Hargreaves, Georgina Downer and Naomi Jayawardane – The Young IPA Podcast (available on SoundCloud here)
