I have a new favourite phrase: ‘It’s not rocket surgery.’

I also enjoyed this comedy sketch by British comedians, Mitchell and Webb, even though I could see the punchline a mile away.

‘What’s ‘quadrophbia’ mean?’ my dad asked.

‘What?’ I said.

‘Quadrophobia,’ he repeated. ‘Q-U-A-D-R-O-phobia.’

‘Huh? Fear of the number four?’

‘That’s Cantonese people,’ mum exclaimed. ‘Cantonese people are scared of the number 4.’

‘Yes! Yes, you’re right!’ My dad and I immediately knew what she meant.

Cantonese people will do everything they can to avoid the number four in house numbers, number plates, phone number and birthdays. In places like Hong Kong, Box Hill and Richmond (mini Hong Kongs in Melbourne), you’ll find that flats go from 3 to 3a, then 5. Buildings don’t have floors 4 or 44. All this quadrophobia is because in Cantonese, the number four (shi) sounds like ‘death’.

‘I’m going to look it up,’ I said.

I found two definitions for quadrophobia. Urban Dictionary says that it’s an irrational fear of things that come in fours, then give an example of someone who didn’t want to see a band with four musicians. The Wall Street Journal says that companies are quadrophobic because the number 4 only appears 8.5% of the time in quarterly earnings figures, instead of the expected 10%. It turns out that companies are rounding 4s down.

Stanford University study on the rounding of numbers in quarterly earnings statements

No mention of the widespread quadrophobia of Cantonese people. I like mum’s explanation best.

And now we’ve coined a new term — Octophilia, also a widespread Cantonese condition.

I’ve been reading some analysis of COP16 and the best one (hard headed and fair) I found is here — http://www.climateactiontracker.org/briefing_paper_cancun.pdf

Take home messages below.

UN process has been saved

Everyone just seems thoroughly relieved that there have been a set of agreements (the Cancun Agreements) coming out of this summit. If this hadn’t happened, the the credibility of the UN process would have been destroyed for good. So even though the outcomes aren’t fantastic, there is still a framework for working through the issues.

The only country that didn’t sign up to the Cancun Agreements was Bolivia. In fact, they’re pretty upset that the Cancun Agreements still allow runaway change in climate.

The 12-16 billion tonne gap — 3.2°C warming

One of the great things about the agreement is that everyone agreed that we need to limit warming to 2 degrees C, and that the pledges added up to (optimistically) 3.2°C warming. That is, we need to find a way to cut greenhouse gases by another 12+ billion tonnes.

At least now we all agree on the scale of the problem.

The pledges are interesting

Countries have come up with their own pledges so it’s not surprising that they are all from different baselines (e.g. 1990 or 2005) or business as usual trajectories (i.e. what would have happened if we didn’t put reduction strategies in place) and in different units (CO₂e or CO₂e per GDP). This makes it quite difficult to add up all the pledges to see how it’s all going to go.

One big barrier removed…

At Copenhagen, China and the US were at loggerheads because China was resisting a reporting and verification (auditing) process. Both China and India have now gracefully conceded and the US is delighted.

It also a breakthrough that everyone agrees that all nations (developed and developing) will need to sign up to targets.

And another barrier still here — US Congress

So even if a miracle occurs and a new treaty is put up at South Africa, it not quite conceivable that the US Congress (Republican controlled) will let the US sign the treaty. Once again, we might have to go without the US.

More

There are bits and pieces of other interesting questions — Why are they letting countries use greenhouse gas allowances that should expire in 2012? Will countries like Russia be allowed to increase greenhouse gas emissions because the economic downturn means they are already under target? Will this agreement force the Australian government to implement their conditional 25% reduction target instead of the current unconditional 5% target?

To conclude, a summary of the main agreements.

From http://www.thefifthestate.com.au/archives/19060

• For the first time an anchoring under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change of the pledges made by developed and developing countries in the Copenhagen Accord. This is important because it provides an agreed pathway to achieve major emissions cuts. This is the first time that all major emitters have agreed to report to the world community their commitments and efforts to reduce carbon pollution in their own economies
• The establishment of a new Green Climate Fund to help developing countries deal with climate change
• A mechanism that will deliver economic opportunities for developing countries to reduce emissions that result from deforestation – one of the largest sources of global emissions
• New rules to ensure that all countries will be able to see what each other is doing to tackle climate change
• Agreement to provide strong and practical support for vulnerable developing countries to manage unavoidable climate impacts
• Establishment of a mechanism that will help promulgate clean energy technology around the world

There are (at least) two types of report readers in the world.

1. People who want to follow you as you work through to the answer
2. People who want to know the answer straight away

This causes much frustration in report writing because each type of reader thinks, ‘Obviously, you need to give me the “so what” first’, or ‘Obviously, your report doesn’t make sense unless you build it up from strong foundations’.

Type 1 people

• Scientists and anyone with Dr in their name
• Public servants

Type 2 people

• Lawyers
• Architects
• Chiefs

I used to write Type 1 reports. Then one project involving lots of lawyers turned me into a Type 2 report writer. This has worked well for me recently, as I’ve been working with architects and urban designers.

Right now, though, I am now turning a Type 2 report into a Type 1 report because the client is a scientist plus a public servant. Sadly, we actually want Type 2 people to read this report but can’t say no to the Type 1 client body.

(There is a halfway house on this — long executive summaries. But it’s not a perfect solution.)

My London workmates gave me a great present from Muji: London in a Box.

I’ve now set up the London skyline on my desk in Melbourne.

London city scape in my office

Here is a close up of a few pieces (from the Muji website).

London in a Box from Muji

Muji also sell New York in a Box (soooo iconic), Italy in a Box (the whole country? Surely Rome has enough landmarks?), Germany in a Box (heh, I wonder if they include a big broken wall), Paris in a Box (I don’t think the Eiffel Tower is much good), and Edo in a Box (very delicate cityscape).

Man, I love these wooden toys. By the way, this is not a paid advertorial for Muji.

I work near the Victorian State Parliament House. Here it is looking all grand and neat on Spring Street.

Parliament House of Victoria, Spring Street

And here is the secret backside view I get of Parliament House from our office lunch room, which is on the 18th floor.

Back of Parliament House, Victoria

It’s messy at the back, isn’t it? You can see the temporary cladding, scaffolding, ladders, pipework… Parliament House on Spring Street is like a facade on a movie set.

Look! My cactus flower opened! What a stupendous pink.

My manager Rob was working late. He told me that the flower closes when the sun comes down. It’s open again when I arrive in the morning.

Flowering office cactus

Stupendous!

Close up of cactus flower

I’ve been out of the office for four days. When I came in this morning, this is what I saw.

Joan's office cactus

I’ve now taken my cactus plants and put it near the office window so that they can get more sunlight at this most critical time.