Debunking five claims by climate science denier politician Malcolm Roberts
his views could now have relevance and importance – not because they are potentially true, but because they could influence the workings of parliament.
Debunking Malcolm Roberts: the case against a climate science denier
In his first speech to Parliament on Tuesday, Roberts made many false claims about climate change. He said that climate change was a “scam” and implied that it was some sort of conspiracy between all the major international research agencies. “ … there is no data proving human use of hydro-carbon fuels affects climate,” he said.
Most news outlets had stopped covering the views of climate science deniers in regular reporting. There is a clear scientific consensus that the world is warming and that human carbon emissions have caused it, so reporting the views of a few non-experts who push fanciful theories with no credible evidence is seen as “false balance”.
But journalists are in a different position when someone in an important office holds such views………
to avoid repeatedly having to debunk Roberts’ views, we have produced a handy reference list of his main arguments, as outlined on the ABC’s Q&A program on 15 August. This list may be updated if he introduces new elements to back his claims.: Continue reading
Extreme drought – climate change impacts in Amazon rainforest,
El Niño, global warming combine to cause extreme drought in Amazon rainforest, Science daily September 14, 2016 Source: Asociación RUVID
- Summary:
- The impact the current 2015/2016 El Niño is having in Amazonia has been revealed by new research. Areas of extreme drought and changes to their typical distribution in the region are among the most evident consequences.
- A study led by researchers at the Global Change Unit at the Universitat de València (UV) shows the impact the current 2015/2016 El Niño is having in Amazonia. Areas of extreme drought and changes to their typical distribution in the region are among the most evident consequences.
- The El Niño effect is part of a cycle of global heating and cooling associated with the changing temperatures of a band of ocean water in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific ocean. Repeating every three to five years, it is one of the main drivers of climate variability. Although its consequences are felt at the global level, its impact on tropical forests — particularly the Amazon rainforests — are considered particularly significant, since this ecosystem is considered one of the planet’s main carbon sinks……
- The study, by researchers at the Universitat de València and published in Scientific Reports, shows how the current El Niño event is associated with an unprecedented heating of Amazonia, reaching the highest temperature in the last forty years and, probably, the last century. Additionally, extreme drought has hit a much larger area of this region than usual and is distributed atypically, with extremely dry conditions in the northeast and unusual wetting in the southeast (something which occurred in 2009/2010, though to a lesser extent).
According to the UV scientists, this fact, not observed in the 1982/1983 and 1997/1998 events, implies that, the more the central equatorial Pacific is heated, the more marked the difference between and distribution of the wet zones and areas of extreme drought in the Amazon rainforest………https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160914090454.htm
Your Say: Comments on safety in importing nuclear wastes
Lachlan Childs 14 Sep 2016 We are not a rich country, we don’t have money to just throw in the air. A Nuclear waste dump would not only harm the environment, and radiate the land for future generations, but it would put the country into bankruptcy. The nuclear waste dump may in fact cost millions of dollars just to set up and manufacture. I understand that the government will then say “Oh! but if we go forward with the Nuclear Waste Dump, a total of $279 billion dollars with be made,” Yea but at the risk of thousands being affected by radiation and if the shipping makes a mistake which could possibly happen, Australia would become another wasteland.
Marisol Da Silva 12 Sept 16 People predicted the Fukushima accident could happen years before it did happen. Chernobyl had it’s disaster because of human error. Because, as humans we do get it wrong. Years after both of these major catastrophes it is still costing money to maintain, clean up, not to mention the health issues of the people and children left behind to live with nuclear devastation. To this date there has been no real solution on how to store nuclear waste. It has been proven that it costs way to to much to plan, build, maintain now and far into the future as this stuff is going to stick around for what is essentially a forever (far beyond several human lifespans and our imaginations into the future). With all the information out there on radiation sickness and the unpredictability of natural disasters occurring, how can anyone hold a straight face and claim nuclear waste, power, mining, bombs are safe? Because ultimately all these things are linked. If you feel you have forgotten then ask the children of Chernobyl and the former USSR, Fukushima, the Marshall Islands, the survivors of the atomic bomb, British Maralinga SA tests, the tribals in Jagugoda Jharkhand India, and the list goes on. We don’t learn. Why don’t we learn from their stories? Why do you think South Australia suddenly will solve what no one has solved? Do you think future children are ever going to thank you for even entertaining this idea? It is a shame that a few greedy people can ruin the earth for the rest of us. We can’t let this happen. We wont let this happen here.
Craig Gordon 01 Sep 2016 I have a question relating to sea transport and geology.
When I stopped at a “Know Nuclear” stand recently the person I spoke to mentioned that with 10km’s of the coast lost cargo would be retrievable.. but past that it wouldn’t be accessible/safe/whatever to bring the waste back to the surface.
She wasn’t quite sure how to answer my follow up question though.. (her expertise was physics, not geology).
My (limited) understanding is that unlike continental crust, which is stable, oceanic crust is constantly being subducted into the core of the earth into the mantle… I understand the rate of this is slow.. but I was wondering how that process might relate to any high level waste that was lost at sea?
http://nuclear.yoursay.sa.gov.au/get-invol…/statewide-survey
With careful planning, Kangaroo Island could be independent with renewable energy
A balanced local electricity supply solution and a transition to 100% renewable power could deliver a range of economic development and other benefits to the local community.
Kangaroo Island’s choice: a new cable to the mainland, or renewable power, The Conversation, Chris Dunstan September 16, 2016 South Australia’s iconic Kangaroo Island, the site of Australia’s first free settled colony, could pioneer a new age of renewable energy, according to our new research.
The first hardy settlers in 1836 had to decide whether to go it alone with a settlement on the island or revert to the mainland. Today, the 4,400 or so people who call the island home face a similarly stark choice: energy independence, or continued reliance on the mainland.
On one hand, the ageing existing cable could simply be replaced, at a cost of between A$22 million and A$50 million. This is the “preferred network option” proposed by the local electricity distribution network, SA Power Networks (SAPN).
On the other hand, SAPN is also currently considering an alternative mix of local wind, solar and biomass generation, complemented by diesel generation, battery storage and demand management. Continue reading
Your Say: Immoral and illegal for Jay Weatherill to spend taxpayer money to promote nuclear waste dump
Peter Lazic 12 Sep 2016 What consent does Jay Weatherill have to spend $600 million dollars of taxpayer money to plan a nuclear waste dump, when the proposed dump may never get approved. This and the money spent to date on the Royal Commission, the road show, now TV advertisements, etc, is obscene and immoral
Ed note : Especially as the SA Law says:
13—No public money to be used to encourage or finance construction or
operation of nuclear waste storage facility Nuclear Waste Storage Facility (Prohibition) Act 2000https://www.legislation.sa.gov.au/LZ/C/A/NUCLEAR%20WASTE%20STORAGE%20FACILITY%20(PROHIBITION)%20ACT%202000/CURRENT/2000.68.UN.PDF
http://nuclear.yoursay.sa.gov.au/get-invol…/statewide-survey
Australian company exporting lithium
Why mine lithium?
Lithium is essential for wind turbines, as well as for so many 21st Century 
technologies. However, it is another potentially toxic extractive industry. There’s so much of it dumped in discarded devices. Design should be the answer, so that lithium can be recycled.
MinRes beats Galaxy in lithium export race Jarrod Lucas – The West Australian on September 16, 2016 The first shipment of spodumene concentrate from the Mt Marion mine, 40km south-west of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, is set to depart Fremantle next month bound for lithium processing plants in China.
The product, the equivalent of about 6 per cent lithium, will be delivered to Mt Marion co-owners Ganfeng Lithium (43.1 per cent), which builds batteries out of Jiangxi province and recently branched out into manufacturing electric cars.
Mt Marion, jointly owned by Chris Ellison’s Mineral Resources (43.1 per cent), and Neometals (13.8 per cent), will beat Galaxy Resources to market after its first shipment via Esperance from the revamped Mt Cattlin mine near Ravensthorpe was delayed until December.
It comes as Mt Marion’s neighbours Maximus Resources yesterday trumpeted a “new lithium discovery” on the doorstep of the mine……..https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/32629967/lithium-set-for-export/#page1
Sea ice loss is affecting polar bears
Polar bears losing crucial sea ice: study, Guardian,14 Sept 16 Life-sustaining sea ice needed for hunting, resting and breeding is declining in all 19 regions of the Arctic inhabited by the species Polar bears are losing life-sustaining sea ice crucial for hunting, resting and breeding in all 19 regions of the Arctic they inhabit, a study warned on Wednesday.
As climate change pushes up Arctic temperatures, ice is melting earlier in spring and refreezing later in autumn, a team of researchers reported in the Cryosphere, a journal of the European Geosciences Union.
Satellite data revealed that the total number of ice-covered days across the 19 regions declined at a rate of seven to 19 days per decade from 1979 to 2014, the researchers said.
“Their dependence on sea ice means that climate warming poses the single most important threat to (polar bears’) persistence,” wrote the team……..
Scientists say the Arctic is warming at nearly double the global rate as a result of climate change fuelled by mankind’s burning of fossil fuels, a process that emits heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
With longer iceless periods, polar bears have to swim further and further to find solid ground.
Last year, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said the creatures could see their numbers dwindle by nearly a third by mid-century…….https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/14/polar-bears-losing-crucial-sea-ice-study-arctic
Nearly half of all Australians would consider switching banks, due to climate change concern
Switching banks: nearly half of all Australians would consider move over climate change
Poll findings released as prominent Australians call on big four to withdraw backing for fossil fuel industry, Guardian, Michael Slezak, 14 Sept 16, About half of all Australians would be likely to switch banks if they found out their bank was lending money to projects that contribute to climate change, according to polling commissioned by the financial activist group Market Forces.
The findings came as more than 100 prominent Australian individuals and organisations signed a letter demanding that the big four banks stop supporting projects that expand the fossil fuel industry. Among the signatories are JM Coetzee, Charlotte Wood, James Bradley, Missy Higgins, Peter Singer and Jack Mundey, as well as unions, religious orders and conservation groups.
Asked how important it was that their bank invest in companies and projects that don’t harm the environment and contribute to climate change, 74% of the poll’s respondents who were with the big four banks said it was at least “somewhat important”, according to the Essential Research poll of 1,017 people.
Forty-eight per cent of respondents said they would be more likely to switch banks if they learned their bank was lending to projects that harmed the environment or contributed to climate change.
When the researchers drilled down into specific types of projects, respondents appeared very concerned. Forty-seven per cent said they were likely to switch banks if they found out their bank was lending to coal and gas export projects in the Great Barrier Reef world heritage area. And 48% said they were likely to switch if they found out theirs was lending to coal seam gas projects near agricultural communities.
Respondents also overwhelmingly supported the big four banks’ decisions to support the goal to limit warming to “well below” 2C. But 65% of people agreed that given their support of that goal, the banks should no longer lend to projects that expand the fossil fuel industry.
In August Market Forces conducted research that found the big four banks had lent $5.6bn to fossil fuel projects and companies since they expressed support for the target.
In the open letter, released at the same time as the poll findings, the signatoreis outline a number of actions that the banks must commit to in light of their support for the Paris agreement goal……..https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/15/switching-banks-nearly-half-of-all-australians-would-consider-move-over-climate-change
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 