Australia’s climate action schoolkids – more intelligent, better informed, than Australia’s government
“I think what’s striking in Matt Canavan’s comments is how demeaning he is about young people and what they actually know, and how he underestimates their understanding,”
“I heard students today at the rally talking about the IPCC report, talking about the 700 odd days until emissions can peak before we exceed 1.5 degrees.
“These are kids that actually understand the science in a way that I think most of parliamentarians don’t.”
Organiser Deanna Athanosos, who is in year 10, said Mr Morrison’s rhetoric towards the strike made her laugh.
“If you were doing your job properly, we wouldn’t be here,” she said.
Students strike for climate change protests, defying calls to stay in school ABC News Thousands of Australian students have defied calls by the Prime Minister to stay in school and instead marched on the nation’s capital cities, and some regional centres, demanding an end to political inertia on climate change.
Key points:
- Students called for politicians to act on climate change warnings
- Thousands of young people were inspired by 15-year-old Swedish pupil Greta Thunberg’s protest in Stockholm
- Resources Minister Matt Canavan criticised demonstrators for missing out on school
Protests were held in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Coffs Harbour, Bendigo and other cities, as students banded together to pressure the Morrison Government in the lead-up to a federal election.
“The politicians aren’t listening to us when we try to ask nicely for what we want and for what we need,” said Castlemaine student Harriet O’Shea Carre.
“So now we have to go to extreme lengths and miss out on school.”
It follows similar protests in Canberra and Hobart earlier this week, which have spurred on the junior activists……. Continue reading
Government Divides Hawker and Kimba Communities While Hiding Suitable Alternate Radioactive Waste Sites
28 NOVEMBER 2018, Centre Alliance Senator Rex Patrick today called on the Australian Government to reopen consideration of the 122,000 square kilometres of the Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA) as a location for a National Radioactive Waste Management Facility (NRWMF).
Documents released under FOI to Senator Patrick show the Department of Industry undertook analysis of a number of sites, including the WPA, as potential homes for a NRWMF. In a very shallow response to the Department of Industry, Defence dismissed the WPA for its “impracticability” and “intolerable risk”.
Defence’s analysis cannot be reconciled with the fact that Woomera Test Range is already serving as a radioactive waste storage site. CSIRO is storing 10,000 drums of low and intermediate level waste in a hangar at Evetts Field, 1.3 kilometres from the Woomera Range head, while Defence is storing 35 cubic metres of intermediate level waste in a bunker 5 kilometres down range. Both the CSIRO and Defence waste has been stored there for 24 years.
“Defence’s claims are disingenuous and are nimby in attitude,” said Rex.
“If storing radioactive waste in the WPA represents an intolerable risk, why has this considerable store of waste been allowed to stay there for 24 years?”
“It seems that Defence is never stronger in defending territory than when it comes to defending its own.”
At question time today Senator Patrick today revealed the existence of a 414 page report undertaken for the former Department of Education, Science and Training that examines locating a NRWMF inside and nearby the WPA. It recommends Evetts Field inside the WPA as a preferred location.
The 414 page report contradicts Defence’s shallow analysis and addresses all of Defence’s concerns, and more.
“How can the Government tell the deeply divided communities of Hawker and Kimba that there is absolutely nowhere within the more than 122,000 square kilometres of Woomera that would be suitable for a radioactive waste facility,” Rex asked.
“Noting Minister Payne’s apparent lack of knowledge of the Evetts field option in the Senate today, I will definitely be pursuing this further.”
The relevant FOI documents and reports can be found here.
Concerned citizens of Kimba petition the Senate to remove Kimba site from radioactive waste site shortlist
ENuFF South Australia No Nuclear Waste Dump Anywhere in South Australia
“Radioactive Waste
TO THE HONOURABLE PRESIDENT AND MEMBERS OF THE SENATE IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED.
This Petition of Concerned Citizens of Kimbo District, Eyre Peninsula. South Australia and Australia, draws the attention of the Senate that:
The petition of the undersigned concerned Citizens of Kimba District, Eyre Peninsula, South Australia, draws the attention of the Senate to our opposition to the siting of the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility on agricultural land in Kimba or South Australia, as currently proposed. We are particularly concerned about the risks this proposal presents to Kimba and Eyre Peninsula’s clean and green reputation, on which our export industries rely.
We therefore ask the House to:
Your petitioners ask the Senate work to remove both Kimba sites from the shortlist to host the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility, We request that the Federal Government undertake a proper process to seek the best possible site for disposal of all our Nation’s Waste, where it cannot impact on local agriculture, industry or community cohesion. We sincerely hope that this will allow the Kimba community to return to the harmonious, cooperative and civil community life that existed prior to the introduction of this proposal.
by Senator Hanson-Young (from 1039 citizens) (Petition No. 869)” Page 38 of the Hansard record.
://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/…/Senate_2018_11_27_6792.pdf…/pdf https://www.facebook.com/groups/1314655315214929/
Australia’s Resources Minister Matt Canavan scorns children who protest for climate action
A Deadshit Senator Says Students Striking Today Are Headed For The Dole Queue ,Pedestrian, Matt Canavan, the federal minister for resources, has a considered take on today’s student protests against climate change that currently remain on-going across major Australian cities. Unsurprisingly, it’s a piss-awful one.
Canavan, a Liberal senator representing Queensland which is currently being belted by catastrophic and unprecedented bushfires, took to 2GB earlier this morning to make his thoughts on the Strike 4 Climate Action protests, in which thousands upon thousands of school children are literally screaming at politicians like Matt Canavan, abundantly clear.
Chiefly, the big dumbass reckons that students who attend today’s protests are only going to learn one thing: How to join a dole queue………The Minister for Resources then followed that up by suggesting activism solves nothing and instead the students should be in school learning how to build mines and drill for gas which, again in his words, “is one of the most remarkable science exploits in the world.” Incredibly wild that he quite literally used the word “exploits” there……..https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/matt-canavan-looks-like-someone-rigged-a-blobfish-to-a-car-battery/
Western Australia set for a scorching summer
Perth cruises through dry, ‘benign’ November as BOM flags glimpse of hot summer to come, ABC 
News, By Irena Ceranic 30 Nov 18 As Queensland sweltered through heatwave conditions which fuelled catastrophic bushfires, and torrential rain flooded New South Wales, Perth cruised through a mild November, recording its driest in 61 years and coolest in a decade.
Key points:
- Perth’s spring rainfall totalled 78.4mm, compared to the average of 148.9mm
- The average temperature in Perth in November was a cooler-than-usual 25.3C
- The temperature in the city on Monday is forecast to soar to 36C
There were only two wet days in the month and between them, they delivered just 3.2 millimetres of rain to the Perth metro gauge — far less than the 23.2mm average — making it the driest November since 1957.
Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) spokesman Neil Bennett said the days were also cooler than usual, with an average of 25.3 degrees Celsius………
Get set for a summer scorcher
Perth had an unusually cool summer in 2017-18 and did not record a single day over 38C. But above-average temperatures are expected over much of WA this time around, according to the outlook for December to February from BOM.
“We don’t have a strong signal one way or the other for the rainfall, so that sort of suggests that we’re likely to see average rainfall for the next three months,” said Mr Bennett.
“Temperature-wise though, it does look as if the odds are favouring warmer-than-average temperatures.”
Perth will get a glimpse of what is to come on Monday, when the temperature is forecast to soar to 36C. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-30/perths-cool-benign-november-the-driest-in-more-than-six-decades/10571178
Schoolkids say -Climate change is the biggest threat to our futures, not striking from school
Climate change is the biggest threat to our futures, not striking from school https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/29/climate-change-is-the-biggest-threat-to-our-futures-not-striking-from-school Milou Albrecht, Harriet O’Shea Carre and Jean Hinchcliffe, 29 Nov 2018
We are walking out for a day to send the Australian government a message: you can no longer pretend we are not here. his month, hundreds of children are going on strike from school to demand urgent action on climate change. From rural Victoria to Townsville, we are walking out of school for a day or more to tell our politicians to listen to us and protect our futures.
We are Milou, Jean and Harriet and we are 14 years old.
Two of us – Milou and Harriet – live in rural Victoria. Throughout our lives, we’ve witnessed the impacts that drought, bushfires and extreme weather have on a community. We have been forced to evacuate when a bushfire came through our town. It was scary. But it is something that will happen more and more as climate change gets worse.
We feel frustrated and let down when we think about the climate crisis and our future. There is so much our politicians could be doing that they aren’t. It seems they are in denial. Our government is supposed to protect us, not destroy our chances of a safe future. Continue reading
World running out of time to combat climate change, warns meteorological organisation
Past four years hottest on record, data shows https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/29/four-years-hottest-record-climate-change Fiona HarveyEnvironment correspondent 29 Nov 2018
World running out of time to combat climate change, warns meteorological organisation Global temperatures have continued to rise in the past 10 months, with 2018 expected to be the fourth warmest year on record.
Average temperatures around the world so far this year were nearly 1C (1.8F) above pre-industrial levels. Extreme weather has affected all continents, while the melting of sea ice and glaciers and rises in sea levels continue. The past four years have been the hottest on record, and the 20 warmest have occurred in the past 22 years.
The warming trend is unmistakeable and shows we are running out of time to tackle climate change, according to the World Meteorological Organization, which on Thursday published its provisional statement on the State of the Climate in 2018. The WMO warned that, on current trends, warming could reach 3C to 5C by the end of this century. Continue reading
Climate Change is the World’s Worst Public Health Crisis – new report finds
A New Report Finds That Climate Change is the World’s Worst Public Health Crisis https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2018/11/climate-change-public-health-report/
Researchers forecast more disease and disaster as the planet warms.
The report, written by a team of international researchers, focuses on several climate-related impacts, including extreme heat and its effect on labor productivity and the spread of disease. In 2017, 153 billion hours of labor were lost due to heat—an increase of more than 62 billion hours since 2000. This correlates with a rise in exposure to heat waves and extreme weather events such as hurricanes and wildfires that have already made thousands of climate refugees and are expected to create millions more.
Many of those refugees, one of the report’s author notes, are American. In a press call on Tuesday, Renee Salas, a doctor of emergency medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and lead author of the Lancet Countdown US Brief, described a recent experience close to home. “I had a patient who came from Puerto Rico, came with bag of luggage, bag of medication she hasn’t taken in days. She was truly a climate refugee who was in my emergency department,” Salas said. “I can’t think of a population more at risk of health effects than a displaced individual.”
Even small changes in temperature and precipitation can result in large changes in the transmission of vector-borne and water-borne diseases, the report notes. In 2016, there were significant increases in the the capacity for insect-borne bacteria and viruses—especially those that cause dengue fever, cholera, and malaria—to be transmitted. (This finding was echoed in last week’s federal climate assessment, which found that climate change would “alter the geographic range and distribution of disease-carrying insects and pests” in the United States.)
Meanwhile, the world’s capacity to grow food also appears to be under threat. An examination of agricultural yields shows declines in every region; 30 countries produced less food in recent years.
The Lancet Countdown’s report does include cause for hope. More electric vehicles were on the road in a 2017 than ever before, and investment in renewable energy has significantly increased, while coal consumption continues to decline. China is responsible for many of these changes. It claims more than 40 percent of all electric cars sold, and it is leading in the installation of renewable energy sources.
Yet spending on climate change adaptation remains well below the amount outlined by the 2015 Paris Agreement, which President Donald Trump has announced the United States will not abide by. And only 3.8 percent of that spending is dedicated to human health. Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy, now the director of the Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment at Harvard University, says it is crucial to recognize the impacts of climate change on health. She describes visiting California in the midst of the recent wildfire that spread smoke across the state. “It was so clear to see people with masks on literally walking on the streets of San Francisco and downtown Palo Alto,” McCarthy says. “This didn’t look like the United States of America.”
Fine particulate matter—what the masks McCarthy saw Californians wearing are designed to filter out—accounted for nearly 3 million premature deaths in 2015, according to the report. Pollution has actually worsened in nearly three-quarters of the world’s cities since 2010. Road fuel use increased by 2 percent from 2013 to 2015, and cycling—a main alternative to driving in cities—made up less than 10 percent of commutes.
The report, which is aimed at health professionals, argues that they must do more to educate the public about climate change. The impacts of inaction, the report’s authors write, cannot be overstated. As McCarthy notes, “I don’t think people question a diagnosis from their physicians just because a president decides he might not believe in something. This is not about a belief system. This is about science and facts.”
With bushfires and floods, Australia now ranks in the top 10 world’s natural disaster counntries
Chart of the day: Bushfires, cyclones and floods put Australia in the world’s natural disaster top 10 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-30/natural-disaster-economic-impact-chart/10499688 By business reporter Stephen Letts The annual cycle of summer bushfires, cyclones and floods, all too evident this week, has pushed Australia into the global top 10 for economic damage caused by natural disasters.
The 2018 International Federation Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ World Disasters Reportfound Australia’s damage bill over the past decade came in at $37 billion (or $US27 billion).
That ranks us 10th in terms of the cost of natural disasters, but still a fair way behind the big three disaster zones: the US, China and Japan which together account for about two-thirds of the total financial cost the IFRC added up between 2008 and 2017.
Our Asia-Pacific region seems to be the most disaster-prone on the planet, being bit by around 40 per cent of the 335 disasters recorded worldwide in 2017 and suffered almost 60 per cent of disaster-related deaths.
The report notes that in a changing climate, small-scale weather disasters are becoming more frequent and more intense, and in many cases “exceed the coping capacities of households and of authorities”.
The IFRC’s definition of natural disasters includes storms, floods, earthquakes, volcanic activity and droughts, but not epidemics.
Research on Australia’s climate history
RETHINKING AUSTRALIA’S CLIMATE HISTORY https://www.adelaide.edu.au/news/news103762.html, 27 November 2018
Researchers at the University of Adelaide have found evidence of climate change that coincided with the first wave of European settlement of Australia, which effectively delivered a double-punch of drying and land clearance to the country.
The research, published in Quaternary Science Reviews, suggests that eastern Australia, including Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, was much drier after 1890 than the Little Ice Age period that preceded it. Continue reading
Queensland Premier sceptical that Adani coal mine will ever eventuate
We will believe it when we see it’: Palaszczuk on the Adani coal mine , Brisbane Times,By Felicity Caldwell, 30 November 2018 Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has expressed scepticism about Adani’s announcement that construction on its Carmichael coal mine would begin.
Adani Australia mining chief executive Lucas Dow on Thursday announced the scaled-back project would be “100 per cent financed” from within the Adani conglomerate.
Ms Palaszczuk said the announcement was “very different to what we have been seeing” and she wanted more details. “There is no taxpayers’ money going into the building of that railway line, they have to have agreements with Aurizon, we haven’t seen any of that evidence as of yet,” she told the ABC on Friday morning.
“And, of course, we will believe it when we see it.”
Ms Palaszczuk said the success of Adani’s project would depend on whether the company met its milestones. “We’ve got a lot of companies that come and say we’ve got finance to begin things and it doesn’t happen,” she said. “I will believe it when it starts happening.”
Adani was previously seeking a $1 billion taxpayer loan from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility to finance a 388-kilometre rail line needed to move its coal to port for export.
In September, Adani announced it would save $1.5 billion by scaling down the rail line. It will now build a shorter narrow gauge line to connect with Aurizon’s existing rail plans……….
Greens Senator Larissa Waters said there was still time to stop Adani’s Galilee Basin mine.
Greens MP Michael Berkman said Labor had issued the environmental approval and mining leases and set up a royalties deal. “We are so far beyond the point of being able to accept Labor’s ‘we’ll believe it when we see it’ kind of approach,” he said……….https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/queensland/we-will-believe-it-when-we-see-it-palaszczuk-on-the-adani-coal-mine-20181130-p50jcb.html
Noongar traditional owners challenge settlement that will extinguish native title
The ILUA extinguishes native title over the settlement area in exchange for a benefits package which includes depositing $50m a year over 12 years into the Noongar Boodja perpetual trust and transferring 320,000 hectares of freehold and leasehold land to that trust, to be developed and used by the Noongar community.
“It is not about money, it is about the land, and saving our land from mining,” Smith said. “If this deal goes through, the south-west will not be worth living in.”
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It is not about money’: Australia’s largest native title settlement challenged again, Guardian, Calla Wahlquist, 30 Nov 18
A group of Noongar traditional owners lodge application for judicial review Australia’s largest native title settlement is facing a second legal challenge from a group of traditional owners who say the process was unfair and did not represent the will of all 35,000 Noongar people. Continue reading |
1.This month
For international nuclear news go to https://nuclear-news.net/
FEDERAL. Inquiry into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia (Submissions close 16 September 2019 https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House/Environment_and_Energy/Nuclearenergy?fbclid=IwAR0Sw4LB2qdcxSI6U6l67lI7Mwz9IEWw7_0RIq3mtN-nfpkfBn4z2VkQGog
FEDERAL Submissions about the proposed National Radioactive Waste Management Facility in Kimba or the Flinders Ranges. The Standing Committee on Environment and Energy are accepting submissions to the ‘Inquiry into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia’ until 16 September 2019. Please write your own submission or use FOE’s online proforma.
AUSTRALIA’S LAWS PROHIBITING THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY
FEDERAL LAW prohibits
Nuclear actions are:
- establishing or significantly modifying a nuclear installation
- transporting spent nuclear fuel or radioactive waste products arising from reprocessing
- establishing or significantly modifying a facility for storing radioactive waste products arising from reprocessing
- mining or milling uranium ores, excluding operations for recovering mineral sands or rare earths
- establishing or significantly modifying a large-scale disposal facility for radioactive waste. A decision about whether a disposal facility is large scale will depend on factors including:
- the activity of the radioisotopes to be disposed of
- the half-life of the material
- the form of the radioisotopes
- the quantity of isotopes handled
- decommissioning or rehabilitating any facility or area in which an activity described above has been undertaken
- any other type of action set out in the EPBC Regulations.
STATE OF VICTORIA
PROHIBITION OF CERTAIN NUCLEAR ACTIVITIES
-
- 5 Prohibition against exploration etc. for uranium or thorium
- 6 Mining in the course of mining for minerals other than uranium or thorium etc. 7 Radiometric surveys etc. to be permissible
- 8 Prohibition against constructing or operating certain facilities
- 9 Prohibitions against possessing etc. nuclear material
- 10 Where two or more persons commit etc. an offence under the Act
- 11 No advances for exploring etc. for uranium or thorium
NEW SOUTH WALES
Uranium Mining and Nuclear Facilities (Prohibitions) Act 1986 No 194
a) to prohibit mining for uranium, and
(b) to prohibit the construction or operation of nuclear reactors and other facilities in the nuclear fuel cycle,
in order to protect the health, safety and welfare of the people of New South Wales and the environment in which they live.
STATE OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Nuclear Waste Storage Facility (Prohibition) Act 2000
8—Prohibition against construction or operation of nuclear waste storage facility
9—Prohibition against importation or transportation of nuclear waste for delivery to nuclear waste storage facility
13—No public money to be used to encourage or finance construction or operation of nuclear waste storage facility (this law is already being broken!)
14—Public inquiry into environmental and socio-economic impact of nuclear waste storage facility.
………any waste material that contains a radioactive substance and is derived from—
(i) the operations or decommissioning of—
(A) a nuclear reactor; or
(B) a nuclear weapons facility; or
(C) a radioisotope production facility; or
(D) a uranium enrichment plant; or
(ii) the testing, use or decommissioning of nuclear weapons; or
(iii) the conditioning or reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel;
nuclear waste storage facility means any installation for the storage or disposal of nuclear waste;
public authority has the same meaning as in the Environment Protection Act 1993;
radioactive substance means any substance that spontaneously emits ionizing radiation.
STATE OF QUEENSLAND.
Laws to protect Queenslanders from dangers of nuclear energy
Nuclear facilities, including power stations and radioactive waste dumps, are now banned in Queensland.
Nuclear facilities banned under the Act include:
·nuclear reactors (whether used to generate electricity or not);
·uranium conversion and enrichment plants;
·nuclear fuel fabrication plants;
·spent fuel processing plants; and
·facilities used to store or dispose of material associated with the nuclear fuel cycle e.g. radioactive waste material.
Exemptions under the legislation include facilities for the storage or disposal of waste material resulting from research or medical purposes, and the operation of a nuclear-powered vessel.
1 FEDERAL Submissions about the proposed National Radioactive Waste Management Facility in Kimba or the Flinders Ranges. The Standing Committee on Environment and Energy are accepting submissions to the ‘Inquiry into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia’ until 16 September 2019. Please write your own submission or use FOE’s online proforma.
2. FEDERAL. Inquiry into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia (Submissions close 16 September 2019 https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House/Environment_and_Energy/Nuclearenergy?fbclid=IwAR0Sw4LB2qdcxSI6U6l67lI7Mwz9IEWw7_0RIq3mtN-nfpkfBn4z2VkQGog
3, NEW SOUTH WALES. Uranium Mining and Nuclear Facilities (Prohibitions) Repeal Bill 2019 (Submissions close 18 October 2019)
4 .Inquiry to explore Victoria going nuclear
ALSO Sustainability of energy supply and resources in NSW (Submissions close 15 September 2019)
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/committees/inquiries/Pages/inquiry-details.aspx?pk=2542#tab-termsofreference
Australia has long rejected nuclear power, and it is banned in Federal and State laws. The nuclear lobby is out to first repeal those laws, and then to get the Australian government to commit to buying probably large numbers of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) . This could mean first importing plutonium and/or enriched uranium, as some reactor models, (thorium ones) require these to get the fission process started. That would, in effect, mean importing nuclear wastes.
There’s an all-too short period for people to send in Submissions to the 4 Parliamentary Inquiries now in progress.
You can be sure that the well-paid shills of the nuclear industry will already have sent in their glossy submissions. But let’s remember – these SMRs do not actually exist except as designs – they haven’t been tested. This would be a huge financial gamble by the tax-payer. And that’s just one of the drawbacks. For a few more, see //independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/seven-reasons-why-small-modular-nuclear-reactors-are-a-bad-idea-for-australia,13010
Inquiry to explore Victoria going nuclear
CN LIVE! Mark Davis Wikileaks Revelations
