Australia’s Climate Change future- more important than politics
Under the Gillard government’s proposed carbon tax, the revenue will be recycled to ensure that 90 per cent of households will be no worse off and that compensation will be paid to the most trade-exposed industries.
The science is clear. And if countries such as China continue their massive drive to reduce their reliance on carbon-intensive industries, most of the new mines on which Australia’s present prosperity depends will become stranded assets within five years…
On climate change, it’s all-out war, September 26, 2011, The Age, Kenneth Davidson, The world continues to pour billions into fossil fuels. It makes no sense. AN OLD Chinese proverb points out the longest journey starts with the first step. The carbon tax now being debated in Australia may seem revolutionary, but mea
sured against the science it is microscopic compared with the steps that will be needed within the next few years to keep global warming within 2 degrees.
And even a warming of the planet by 2 degrees will be no picnic. Already, with the global temperature 0.8 degrees above the level before the Industrial Revolution, extreme weather involving drought, flooding rains and extreme heat and bushfires has adversely affected Australia’s economic growth and people’s lives. Worse, irrespective of what measures are taken now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, there is at least a further 0.6 degrees of warming in the pipeline as the existing build-up of greenhouse gases takes its toll on the climate.
Solar energy farm for Port Augusta, South Australia?
Port Augusta City Council has expressed interest in the plan and BZE will be running a presentation on the proposed project at the Cooinda Club on Saturday, October 29 beginning at 3.30pm; an event the community are encouraged to attend.
Push For Solar Farm In Port Augusta, Renewable Energy News, by Energy Matters, 26 Sept , Beyond Zero Emissions is lobbying for a solar thermal power plant to be constructed at Port Augusta in South Australia. If the initiative goes ahead, it will be the first facility of its kind in Australia.
While the idea goes back to last year, Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE) have ramped up their efforts recently given the possibility of Port Augusta’s Playford B power station facing closure or major modifications under a carbon tax scheme. Continue reading
Japan’s genpatsu shinsai syndrome, and the shameless nuclear “experts”
In the past, on television only scholars who are proponents of nuclear power have given commentary as “experts”. We listened to them telling their fantastic lies and offering their impossibly optimistic predictions, and as a result the people, having been given none of the facts, have gone on living as normal right up to the edge of the collapse. Now everything the “experts” told us has proved wrong, and the worst has happened. What is remarkable is that these people who failed to predict the genpatsu shinsai syndrome are shameless enough to put on their “expert” masks, reappear on television, and give their commentaries on the accident. The people responsible for the horror of this nuclear accident are the people who promoted nuclear power. The people in the TV stations who brought in this criminal gang and put them on the air day after day are equally responsible.
(Book: Newly translated into English) Japan’s Earthquake-Tsunami-Nuclear Disaster Syndrome: An Unprecedented Form of Catastrophe, Japan Focus 26 Sept 11, Hirose Takashi The seismologist Ishibashi Katsuhiko (presently Emeritus Professor at Kobe University) predicted that a nuclear power plant accident like the present one was possible, and issued warnings from the late ‘90s. People had been warning of the danger of earthquake-caused nuclear accidents since the 1970s, but Ishibashi, from the specialized standpoint of seismology, proposed a new concept, which he calledgenpatsu shinsai [Translator’s note: this expression literally means Nuclear-Power-Plant-Earthquake Disaster. As there is no English expression for this (the phenomenon itself is new) in this work we will render it as genpatsu shinsai syndrome.]. By this he meant a situation in which, as the damage from the earthquake widens, the situation is made doubly worse by nuclear radiation damage. It was in the hope of preventing this that he was issuing warnings. Continue reading
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 