Australian oil and gas lobbies spent up big, to discredit science of climate change
Australian oil and gas lobby spent millions advocating against climate action: report Tom Arup Environment editor, The Age April 12, 2016 Australia’s peak oil and gas industry lobby group spent almost $4 million last year trying to “obstruct” more ambitious climate change policy, according to British research group InfluenceMap.
It was part of an overall $150 million spent globally in 2015 by five major oil companies and lobby groups.
The Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA) represents the domestic oil and gas industry and counts among its 70 members giant companies such as Woodside, Shell Australia and Chevron Australia.
According to the analysis, InfluenceMap estimated that APPEA spent about $5.5 million on climate-related advocacy in 2015 though expenditure on staff, public campaigns, advertising and other external public relations.
InfluenceMap then made an assessment of the position, tone and transparency of this work. They determined about $3.9 million of it went towards what they described as “obstructive spending”.
InfluenceMap took its definition of advocacy from a 2013 United Nations report that included activities beyond direct approaches to government, such as advertising, public relations, political contributions and industry group memberships.
The report cited APPEA’s support for less-stringent emissions targets, lobbying to remove Australia’s renewable energy target and its argument that the Turnbull government’s greenhouse gas “safeguard mechanism” should apply only to emissions above business as usual levels, as examples of its opposition to climate policies.
The report also points to consultation, messaging and two publicity campaigns by APPEA “to put pressure on policy makers to support unrestricted conventional & unconventional oil and gas production”. …….
The negative climate advocacy by APPEA calculated by InfluenceMap is a tiny fraction of the estimates it has produced for other major oil players that are assessed in the report. It says ExxonMobil may have spent $35 million in 2015, while Shell may have spent $29 million.
Alongside APPEA, the report also looked at the spending of two United States industry bodies, the American Petroleum Institute and the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), finding negative climate advocacy spending of $85 million and $8 million respectively.
Charlotte Wood, campaigns director of anti-fossil fuels group 350.org Australia, said: “It is astounding that in the 21st century, when we know the scientific consequences of burning fossil fuels, that Australian oil and gas companies have still spent almost $4 million dollars to undermine consensus on climate change.”
Australian nuclear shill Ben Heard under fire from Canadian nuclear shill Patrick Moore
Climate Science Denier Patrick Moore Under Attack From Fellow Nuclear Energy Advocates, DESMOG, By Graham Readfearn • Thursday, April 7, 2016 Climate science 
denialist Patrick Moore is all about “consensus building.” We know this because it says so on his biography at the think tank Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
And so, fresh from delivering a coal-funded talk in Brussels where he told the audience to “celebrate CO2”, the Canadian has been out doing a bit of that “consensus building” in his own unique way.
In recent days, Moore has accused respected climate scientist Ken Caldeira of “fakery”, called him a “jerk” and then told a fellow nuclear power advocate to “GFY”.
The nuclear advocate in question was Australian energy and climate consultant Ben Heard, who had 
engaged Moore on social media. He’s written a blog about the exchange.
British environmentalist and author Mark Lynas, who is also pro-nuclear energy, weighed in too, describing Moore as “just a predictable right-wing anti-green contrarian”.
When DeSmog UK gave Moore the chance to respond to a story showing he had been paid by coal lobbyists to deliver a talk, his response was “bugger off”.
Who is Patrick Moore?
For those that don’t know, Patrick Moore is often described as a former senior member of Greenpeace, even though he left that organisation 30 years ago.
Since then, he has spent his time being an advocate for nuclear power, GM crops, forestry and, apparently, burning as much coal as you can get your hands on.
In a French television interview last year, Moore told a journalist that the pesticide glyphosate was not a carcinogen and was so safe, “you could drink a whole quart of it and it won’t hurt you”.
Moore was then immediately offered the chance to drink a glass by the interviewer, which he declined. “I’m not an idiot,” he said.
Moore is a long-time climate science denialist and claims, against all credible scientific institutions, that there is “no proof” that the extra CO2 in the atmosphere (about 40 per cent more than there was before the industrial revolution) is causing any global warming.
Acidification denial ……..http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/04/07/climate-science-denier-patrick-moore-under-attack-fellow-nuclear-energy-advocates
Traditional Owners take legal action on Adani’s Carmichael leases
Traditional Owners take legal action on Adani’s Carmichael leases;
release letter from QLD Mines Minister Lynham saying
no intention to issue leases until Federal Court challenge resolved
Wangan & Jagalingou (W&J) http://wanganjagalingou.com.au/challenge/
13 Apr 16:
“Wangan and Jagalingou (W&J) representatives today filed an interlocutory application in the 
Federal Court of Australia challenging the leases that have been issued for the Adani Carmichael coal mine, slated for their traditional homelands in Queensland’s Galilee Basin.
The Application will seek to have heard that the mining leases, announced by QLD mines minister Anthony Lynham on 3 April, with the imprimatur of Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, were not properly issued.
The QLD government issued the mine leases in the absence of the consent of the W&J people to Carmichael mine, and in the face of their three-time rejection of an Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) with Adani, most recently at an ILUA authorisation meeting on 19 March 2016. (Attached: W&J legal counsel’s letter notifying Minister Lynham and Premier Palaszczuk of rejection of ILUA).
In another new development, the W&J people have today released a October 2105 letter … “
Cover-up of radiation health damage among Fukushima evacuees
Nuclear Expert in Fukushima: People’s feet turned black for years because radiation so high — Every time I turned around I saw someone who had radiation damage — Hair falling out, caughing up blood, bodies covered with boils… Officials keeping doctors from telling truth… Public being brainwashed (VIDEO) http://enenews.com/nuclear-expert-fukushima-peoples-feet-turned-black-years-because-radiation-levels-high-every-time-turned-around-radiation-damage-hair-fell-bloody-noses-bodies-covered-boils-officials-covering-pu?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ENENews+%28Energy+News%29
CCTV, Apr 5, 2016 (emphasis added) — Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen: [During my recent trip to Japan] I met in one of the resettlement areas… The unofficial mayor of this group – a real dynamo of a woman – she experienced hair loss, bloody nose, speckles on her skin and the doctors told her it was stress and not to worry about it. That’s not stress. It was radiation damage. But again, that’s this inhumanity that I was experiencing… Every time I turned around, I saw people that definitely experienced radiation damage. We had one woman who ran from her house to evacuate carrying her dog. About a day after the accident, they realized that she needed to be evacuated. And so she runs barefoot to her car, gets in her car, drives to the resettlement community. She’s highly radioactive. They make her – especially her feet – they make her take her socks off and take showers, wash her down before they let her in. And her feet were black for three years from radiation damage. And that’s not being spoken about in any of the medical journals… [The government wants] to get these other nuclear plants up and running. And if the population is getting ill from radiation effects, it’s a lot harder. So they have… banded together with the medical community.
We had numerous doctors say that they were going to lose hospital privileges and things like that. And the people that are keeping track of deaths in Fukushima Prefecture aren’t publishing the data. So the entire government infrastructure, from the people in Tokyo to the underlings in the Prefecture, are all singing the same song: that this is stress, there’s no radiation. And it sure isn’t what I found, I’ll tell you… Were it not for the internet, they would have won. And I think the difference between the disaster at Fukushima and the disaster at Chernobyl and TMI is that now we have the internet. It still is an unlevel playing field. There’s still so much money on the other side of it that people are being brainwashed. Oh, that bloody nose you’ve had for the last 3 weeks is stress. So they are being brainwashed.
Fairewinds Japan Speaking Tour Series No. 3, Feb 24, 2016 – Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen: Today I went to a resettlement community… their unofficial mayor, the woman who sort of runs all the groups… she told us that after the disaster at Fukushima, her hair fell out, she got a bloody nose and her body was speckled with hives and boils and the doctor told her it was stress and she believes him. It was absolutely amazing.
Fairewinds Japan Speaking Tour Series No. 4, Mar 3, 2016 — Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen: The Japanese government’s position is when your hair falls out and your nose starts to bleed and you’re hacking up blood, that that’s all stress related… We had a woman back my first week that was there, the radiation levels were so high, her feet turned black for four years. And I was at the Hiroshima Museum and I saw the same thing. I saw pictures of the Hiroshima victims with their feet blackened from radiation. The government has done a very successful job of covering this up.
The Guardian, Apr 11, 2016: At first they thought it was just a fire, then the chickens started to turn black… Soviet authorities neglected to tell the people the extent of the danger they were in [from Chernobyl], for fear of causing mass panic, tell-tale symptoms soon followed. Dark marks appeared on the skin. The wattles of the local chickens turned from crimson to black.
ERA’s uranium mining at Ranger ends: ERA can afford rehabilitation of site
ERA to unveil strategy as Ranger mining ends BARRY FITZGERALD, RESOURCES EDITOR, THE AUSTRALIAN APRIL 12, 2016 MELBOURNE BARRY FITZGERALD HAS COVERED THE RESOURCES INDUSTRY FOR 30 YEARS. THE INAUGURAL WINNER OF THE DIGGERS & DEALERS MEDIA AWARD IN 2003, BARRY IS A COMMITTEE MEMBER OF THE MELBOURNE MINING CLUB, A NON-PROFIT ORGANISATION FORMED TO FOSTER INDUSTRY DEBATE.
Energy Resources of Australia is close to releasing the outcome of its strategic review into its future. The review was forced upon the company after Rio Tinto and Ranger’s traditional owners rejected its plan to extend the life of its uranium mining and processing operations inside Kakadu by developing the Ranger Deeps deposit.
Its pending release comes as ERA continues to narrow the gap between its cash balance and the $509 million needed to complete the rehabilitation of Ranger. At last report, ERA was holding cash of $433m and had no debt after adding $72m to its cash balance during 2015.
While mining operations have stopped, ERA continues to produce from stockpiled material, and has said previously it could possibly continue to do so until late 2020.
The rate of cash accumulation over the past five years suggests ERA could end up with cash surplus to the rehabilitation costs, raising the prospect of an eventual capital return to shareholders, depending on what plans for ERA’s future emerge from the strategic review. Continue reading
A solar world first for Perth: solar panels and battery storage on apartment buildings
Apartments set for solar world first https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/31335712/apartments-set-for-solar-world-first/ Daniel Mercer – The West Australian on April 13, 2016 Dozens of apartments will be able to use, store and trade power under a world-first trial of micro-grid technology to be unveiled in Perth’s south.
Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt will today announce the Commonwealth’s green energy fund ARENA has tipped $1 million into a micro-grid project in White Gum Valley.
The $3 million project will have solar panels and batteries installed across four separate apartment developments. It would be up to the strata companies managing the apartment buildings to on-sell the electricity to tenants, rather than State-owned power provider Synergy. The strata companies could sell the electricity cheaper than Synergy or at the same price, currently set at 25.7¢ for every unit of electricity sold. Homes owners and tenants would also be able to trade power to other apartments within the complex during the day and night.
Headed by Curtin University and backed by Western Power, LandCorp, the City of Fremantle and Balance Services Group, the project aims to establish a viable model for the uptake of solar panels on apartment buildings.
Demand for solar panels has exploded across Perth, with more than 170,000 homes installing the systems on their roofs. Apartments, which make up a third of Perth’s housing stock, have been much slower on the uptake.
Curtin University’s Jemma Green said that with battery systems rapidly becoming commercially viable, there was an unprecedented opportunity for apartments to get in on the act.
And she said the implications could be huge, with micro-grids such as White Gum Valley popping up everywhere and transforming the way electricity was generated, transported and sold.
“These kinds of innovations are not only making solar power a viable option for everyone, but potentially reflect the future of power utilities,” Ms Green said.
Vivienne Waller: Welcome To The Debate: Australia Joins World In 2 Degree Target
This month, the first ever agreement to combat global climate change will be signed at the UN headquarters in New York. …
Australia has agreed to join with the rest of the world to limit global warming to two degrees. Despite this, our Government is acting as though nothing has changed. A global agreement is only as valuable as the effect it actually has on what it sets out to change.
Unfortunately for Australia, the current government haven’t honoured the agreement in anything more than words. https://newmatilda.com/2016/04/10/welcome-debate-australia-joins-world-2-degree-target/
As CSIRO slashes jobs, water science in South Australia a big loser
Water science in South Australia could evaporate as CSIRO looks to slash 350 jobs across the country April 12, 2016 CLARE PEDDIE SCIENCE REPORTER The Advertiser SOUTH Australian water science at the CSIRO is in the firing line as the national research organisation prepares to cut 350 staff across the country in the next two years.
Staff in SA have been told job losses are inevitable with “reductions in headcount” at CSIRO Land and Water, which has 103 people at its Urrbrae base.
Other research areas could also be impacted………
Former CSIRO scientist Dr Peter Dillon said the anticipated job cuts were “economic nonsense”. He said 35 of 50 staff were set to go from the CSIRO’s urban water research area, while rural research was also thought to be on the chopping block.
“Just like building submarines, in research it takes years to develop world-leading teams and shutting down a productive area can’t be quickly reversed,” he said.
CSIRO Staff Association deputy president and Waite Campus staff representative Sonia Grocke said staff felt strongly about the fundamental change to the type of work the CSIRO had done on water, agriculture and the environment.
“We think the current round of cuts and particularly the areas of science that are being targeted will severely impact CSIRO’s ability to address major environmental events as they impact South Australia,” she said. “The Murray-Darling Basin is a good example of that.”…….http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/water-science-in-south-australia-could-evaporate-as-csiro-looks-to-slash-350-jobs-across-the-country/news-story/647fd6fdbfebfca28d4c683c4166336e
Wind power brings jobs boom, clean air, to American communities
The job growth in 2015 is primarily attributable to more wind project development and construction, requiring more than 38,000 employees.
Texas leads the nation with over 24,000 wind energy employees.
US wind power jobs hit record, up 20 percent in 2016 ‘Wind rush’ fuels hiring boom, delivers more consumer savings AWEA, DENVER, April 12, 2016 — American wind power supported a record 88,000 jobs at the start of 2016—an increase of 20 percent in a year—according to the U.S. Wind Industry Annual Market Report, Year Ending 2015, released today by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). Strong job growth coincided with wind ranking number one as America’s leading source of new generating capacity last year, outpacing solar and natural gas.
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper joined in the release at a Vestas wind turbine component factory near Denver, saying “In 2015, Colorado ranked fifth in the nation for wind power capacity additions. An investment in the wind power industry and in wind projects generates new jobs, economic development in rural counties and clean air benefits to all Coloradans.” Continue reading
America’s biggest ever clean power wind and transmission development
US Wind Energy Juggernaut: You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet (CT Exclusive Interview), Clean Technica, April 4th, 2016 by Tina Casey The American Wind Energy Association will release its much anticipated annual report on April 12, and the group’s CEO Tom Kiernan provided CleanTechnica with some advance insights during a one-on-one phone chat last week. Hint: it’s gonna be big.
Kiernan also discussed two recent major milestone developments in the US wind industry, one being the construction of the nation’s first ever offshore wind farm — which will finally open the floodgates to developing the immense Atlantic Coast wind resources — and the other involving the Energy Department in what will be the biggest ever renewable energy project in the US.
The 2015 American Wind Energy Association Report
US think tank ‘s pressure on Japan to persist with nuclear power
US Think Tank Urging Japan Keep Nuclear Funded By Japanese Govt & Nuclear Industry, Simply Info April 12th, 2016 | A report by The Intercept this week provided a missing piece of the puzzle from 2012 and Japan’s attempted nuclear exit. Back in 2012 then PM Noda established a policy for Japan to phase out nuclear power by 2030. This of course brought protest from Japan’s nuclear industry but more curiously brought protest by various parties claiming to represent the US. One of these was a series of eyebrow raising public statements by John Hamre who showed up in Japan weeks after the new policy was announced.
Hamre is the president of a Washington DC think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). While in Japan he made a series of claims about Japan’s need for nuclear power, the US stance on the issue and readily debunked claims about renewable energy. Hamre does not hold any authority to speak on behalf of the US but gave the impression he was sharing US official views on the issue. News reports described him as “a former deputy US defense secretary”. What was not known in 2012 was who bankrolled Hamre’s Japanese speaking tour or his opinions on the issue.
The Intercept’s new report on foreign government funding of TPP promotion within the US provides that missing piece. Hamre’s Center for Strategic and International Studies is heavily funded by the Japanese government and a long list of US and Japanese nuclear industry companies. The Intercept cites a 2014 investigative report by the New York Times that looked into foreign influence on DC think tanks and how that goes on to skew US policy, laws and spending. The New York Times investigation pressured the CSIS to publish their corporate and government donors list for the first time in 2014. The New York Times also explains that these lobbying activities on behalf of foreign governments masquerading as impartial scholarship are likely illegal in the US. The Foreign Agents Registration Act requires such arrangement to be disclosed to the US government………..http://www.fukuleaks.org/web/?p=15416
State of Ukrainian nuclear reactors an unrecognised danger, (but we’ll sell them uranium anyway)
Chernobyl nuclear disaster marks 30-year anniversary... ABC News By freelance correspondent Elle Hardy in the Ukrainian town of Pripyat, 12 Apr 16 “………Olexi Pasyuk, from environmental advocacy group Bankwatch, said neglect extends beyond the human tragedy of the disaster.
“Twelve out of 15 nuclear reactors in Ukraine will have passed their 30-year lifespan between 2010 and 2020 and the Government now has to extend them,” he said.
“The Government commissioned a paper which outlined all of the problems with their policy [of extending reactor life spans], so they dismissed the paper and had a new, more favourable one written.
“It’s a political issue — they don’t want to be seen to be buying gas from the Russians.”
Mr Usatenko sees a more sinister side to the ongoing regional tensions and conflict with Russia.
“The state of the Ukrainian nuclear power plants, thanks to government corruption, are considered by the Russian military as well-located nuclear bombs in enemy territory,” he said……..http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-12/chernobyl-nuclear-disaster-marks-30-years-with-extreme-tours/7317678
Japan’s Trans Pacific Partnership negotiator resigns amid bribery allegations
Japanese economy minister Akira Amari quits over bribery claims, BBC News, 28 January 2016 Japan’s Economy Minister Akira Amari has said he is resigning amid corruption allegations.
Mr Amari unexpectedly made the announcement at a press conference in Tokyo on Thursday.But he again denied personally receiving bribes from a construction company, as had been alleged by a Japanese magazine.
The development will be seen as a significant blow for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Mr Amari, who has been minister of state for economic and fiscal policy since late 2012, has been widely described as one of Mr Abe’s most trusted members of parliament. As Japan’s lead negotiator for the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, Mr Amari was expected to travel to New Zealand next week to sign the agreement.
He was also regarded as the architect of Abenomics – Mr Abe’s plan to pull the world’s third largest economy out of deflation. “This is possibly the biggest scandal the Abe administration has faced,” said the BBC’s Mariko Oi. “His resignation will probably raise even more questions over Mr Abe’s economic policies – or Abenomics,” our correspondent added.
“It may also raise further opposition within Japan to the TPP.”
Mr Amari will be replaced by Nobuteru Ishihara, formerly the country’s environment minister……
Mr Amari is the fourth member of Mr Abe’s cabinet to resign amid allegations of bribery, among other issues. Mr Abe has apologised for the latest resignation. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35427563
Paris climate deal to take effect earlier than expected
Paris Climate Deal Seen Taking Effect Two Years Ahead of Plan http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-11/paris-climate-deal-seen-taking-effect-two-years-ahead-of-plan AlexJFMorales April 12, 2016
-
Agreement will take effect when ratified by 55 nations -
`We will have a Paris agreement in effect by 2018′: Figueres
“You heard it here first: I think that we will have a Paris Agreement in effect by 2018,” Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said during a question-and-answer session after delivering a lecture Monday at Imperial College London.
The prediction suggests that countries may initiate efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions earlier than expected, and increases the chances of meeting the pact’s ultimate goal of limiting the increase in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since industrialization began.
“At some point the decision was made to remove that sentence,” Figueres said. That means the Paris deal will go into effect when it’s ratified by at least 55 nations representing at least 55 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, she said.Signing Ceremony Figueres said that at least 130 nations have pledged to sign the Paris Agreement at a ceremony at the United Nations in New York on April 22. That would eclipse the current record for the opening day of signing for a treaty of 119, held by the Law of the Sea, she said. Ten of those nations are also expected to ratify the deal at the same time.
Even so, she said the deal had come “10 years too late,” and that the world is now at “two minutes to midnight.”
Climate change – sea level rise has been underestimated
Ice melt studies say we underestimate sea level rise, Independent Australia Peter Boyer 11 April 2016, Are melting polar ice sheets as stable as we think, or have we missed something? If a couple of new ice studies are only partly right, we face massive disruption from sea level rise within decades.
SCIENTIFIC DEBATE about this has picked up in the wake of the March publication of two major research papers by scientists from the U.S., France, Germany and China.
A paper by James Hansen and 18 other climatologists in the open-access science journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, examined ancient climate change to assess how that compares with today’s melting of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.
It argues that during this century, ice sheet meltwater spreading over parts of the Southern Ocean and the North Atlantic will increase the temperature variation between these cooler parts and warming regions, resulting in more violent storms.
The meltwater layer also acts as a transparent lid on warming ocean waters undermining polar ice sheets sitting on bedrock below sea level. The paper’s startling prediction is that consequent disintegration could bring several metres of sea level rise within 150 years and possibly by 2070.
A paper published last week in the science journal Nature, also examining past rapid changes, looked at how the Antarctic ice sheet might react to warming of atmosphere as well as ocean, and reached similarly disturbing conclusions.
U.S. scientists Robert DeConto and David Pollard studied the puzzle of how the massive Antarctic ice sheet shed large amounts of ice over relatively short time-frames in prehistoric warming events.
Their modelling showed that if today’s high carbon emissions continue, warmer air would add to the impact of warming seas. Fracturing ice shelves and coastal cliffs would bring rapid ice loss and contribute ‘more than a metre of sea-level rise by 2100’………https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/ice-melt-studies-say-we-underestimate-sea-level-rise,8866
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 