A legal win for Adani, against climate activist Ben Pennings
Adani granted injunction to stop activist Ben Pennings using ‘confidential material’ABC 11 Sept 20, Mining giant Adani has been granted an injunction ordering an activist to stop using “confidential material” it claims is frustrating the development of its mine and rail network in the Galilee Basin.
Key points:
- The legal action is against Brisbane activist Ben Pennings
- Mr Pennings is accused of demanding contractors to cease working with Adani
- Justice Martin found the “Stop Adani” movement had caused at least three contractors to withdraw
Adani launched legal action in the Supreme Court in Brisbane against activist Ben Pennings, claiming he had continually demanded contractors who had agreements with the mining company to terminate or withdraw from negotiations.
Adani also argued Mr Pennings would encourage others to provide confidential information to an ongoing campaign —The Galilee Blockade — concerning plans and operations at the site.
Today’s order comes after Adani twice failed to secure a search order to seize evidence from Mr Penning’s home.
Activist accused of ‘intimidation and conspiracy’
Outside court, Mr Pennings said he would respect the court’s injunction but was “very concerned” about ongoing civil action in which Adani accused Mr Pennings of a “breach of confidence, inducing breach of contract, intimidation and conspiracy”.
“I have a family at home, kids, a kid with a disability,” Mr Pennings said.
“If Adani is successful with their civil action, I’ll have to sell my house, and that’s really difficult for my family, but Adani seem determined to hurt me.
“I don’t believe I should have to sell my suburban family home in Aspley to make an Indian multi-billionaire even richer.
“The ‘Stop Adani’ movement is massive. I’m just one passionate person. They really can’t sue all of us.”………. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-11/adani-granted-court-injunction-ben-pennings-galilee-basin/12654486
Global population slowdown – good news for the planet’s ecology
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The best news of 2020? Humanity may never hit the 10 billion mark
MongaBay by Jeremy Hance on 10 September 2020
While watching 2020 unfold has been like watching someone set themself on fire with a bucket of bacon grease and a firecracker, one morning I stumbled on something that made me smile, and then jump for joy: A new study found that the global human population might peak at just under 10 billion people in the 2060s before tapering off to 8.8 billion by 2100. What miracle could achieve such a slowdown in human reproduction after a century of smack-yourself-in-the-face runaway growth? It’s not war, or nuclear holocaust, or plague (COVID-19, as tragic as its mishandling has been by certain governments, will do little to slow down population growth). It’s two things, both wonderfully non-violent: women’s education, and access to birth control. The new findings, published in the medical journal The Lancet, differ from other population forecasts, most importantly by the United Nations Development Programme (UNPD) and the Wittgenstein Centre, by predicting that the global population will peak sooner than expected and fall quicker than anticipated (though still, by 2100, the Earth would house more humans than the 7.8 billion of us here today). This was good news. No, no, this was freaking great news. Because if this research — which made some clever shifts in how it analyzed the data and predicted the future — could be believed, it could mean that Planet Earth, in all its ecological glory, might just survive our current devastating onslaught and begin to recover in the coming centuries. Assuming we, of course, actually deal with climate change. A big assumption. However, no one else seemed to see it that way. Coverage of the paper’s findings looked more like Munch’s “The Scream.” Perhaps the most ridiculous of these articles came from the BBC, which spent about 1,000 words freaking out over the idea that the human population won’t go on growing forever and societies might have to … adapt. Oh, no! Humans have never had to do that. There is only a single mention of the environment in the BBC article………. Will there be economic challenges? Sure. But I’d hazard the challenges posed by an aging population are going to be far easier to solve than those posed by a total breakdown of Earth’s ecological limits, something we’re already dangerously close to. When it comes to an older population, we already have potential solutions and examples to soften the impact, such as automation, robotics, policy shifts, new ideas like universal basic income, and evolving views around economics. Maybe we don’t have to play the neoliberal capitalism game forever? Maybe we could increase funding for the care of the elderly instead of giving billionaires tax cuts or spending trillions on the military?…… While the research clearly bemoans the challenges of a world where women have fewer children, the alternative is quite simply ludicrous. Is the human population — already tearing the seams of our planetary ecological limits — supposed to just go on growing forever? Perhaps 10 billion humans just isn’t enough and we should aim for 20, 40, why not 100 billion people? How to feed, house and clothe us all? Oh, no worries, by then I’m sure we’ll have terraformed Mars — easily done on a planet we have never set foot on — and invented light-speed travel to bounce around the galaxy. Ha! Let’s get back to reality: if we can’t even take care of the planet that cradles us, what chance do we have of making good on others? The only alternative to endless population growth is population decline. And the only alternative to wrecking our Earth is treating it differently. And this, of course, highlights the problem with our obsession with GDP and never-ending economic growth. As has been pointed out by many conservationists (originally by the economist Kenneth Boulding in the 1960s), “Anyone who believes in indefinite growth…on a physically finite planet, is either mad or an economist.” ……. humans will be fine — if we avoid ecological catastrophe and total climate breakdown. And a slowing population allows us to have a bit of a better chance on both of those. I say “a bit” because human population is just one part of the equation. The other is consumption. We might miss the worst of the predicted population growth, but we still have to rein in our material consumption.
Just don’t tell the economists that. Meanwhile, I’ll celebrate a little. Our incredible, nonviolent revolution of contraceptives, birth control, women’s rights, and education for girls might just prevent our species from destroying the world. Citation: Vollset, S. E., Goren, E., Yuan, C., Cao, J., Smith, A. E., Hsiao, T., … Murray, C. J. (2020). Fertility, mortality, migration, and population scenarios for 195 countries and territories from 2017 to 2100: A forecasting analysis for the Global Burden of Disease study. The Lancet. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(20)30677-2 https://news.mongabay.com/2020/09/the-best-news-of-2020-humanity-may-never-hit-the-10-billion-mark/
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How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled
These commercials carried a distinct message: Plastic is special, and the consumer should recycle it.
It may have sounded like an environmentalist’s message, but the ads were paid for by the plastics industry, made up of companies like Exxon, Chevron, Dow, DuPont and their lobbying and trade organizations in Washington.
The oil industry makes more than $400 billion a year making plastic, and as demand for oil for cars and trucks declines, the industry is telling shareholders that future profits will increasinglycome from plastic.
an industry that didn’t want recycling to work. Because if the job is to sell as much oil as you possibly can, any amount of recycled plastic is competition.
Analysts now expect plastic production to triple by 2050.
How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled, NPR, LAURA SULLIVAN,– 11 Sept 20 Laura Leebrick, a manager at Rogue Disposal & Recycling in southern Oregon, is standing on the end of its landfill watching an avalanche of plastic trash pour out of a semitrailer: containers, bags, packaging, strawberry containers, yogurt cups.
None of this plastic will be turned into new plastic things. All of it is buried.
“To me that felt like it was a betrayal of the public trust,” she said. “I had been lying to people … unwittingly.”
Rogue, like most recycling companies, had been sending plastic trash to China, but when China shut its doors two years ago, Leebrick scoured the U.S. for buyers. She could find only someone who wanted white milk jugs. She sends the soda bottles to the state.
But when Leebrick tried to tell people the truth about burying all the other plastic, she says people didn’t want to hear it.
“I remember the first meeting where I actually told a city council that it was costing more to recycle than it was to dispose of the same material as garbage,” she says, “and it was like heresy had been spoken in the room: You’re lying. This is gold. We take the time to clean it, take the labels off, separate it and put it here. It’s gold. This is valuable.”
But it’s not valuable, and it never has been. And what’s more, the makers of plastic — the nation’s largest oil and gas companies — have known this all along, even as they spent millions of dollars telling the American public the opposite.
“If the public thinks that recycling is working, then they are not going to be as concerned about the environment,” Larry Thomas, former president of the Society of the Plastics Industry, known today as the Plastics Industry Association and one of the industry’s most powerful trade groups in Washington, D.C., told NPR………. Continue reading
September 11 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “Should People Be Prevented From Living In Fire And Flood Prone Areas?” • A recent survey by Bo MacInnis and Jon Krosnick on behalf of Resources For The Future finds there is broad public support for doing something about natural disasters. According to the New York Times, 57% of those surveyed support making […]
September 11 Energy News — geoharvey
From cottage industry to $7bn powerhouse: How Australian solar grew 100-fold in a decade — RenewEconomy
In just ten years, the Australian solar business went from a fledgling industry, to fundamentally reshaping the way Australia uses energy. The post From cottage industry to $7bn powerhouse: How Australian solar grew 100-fold in a decade appeared first on RenewEconomy.
From cottage industry to $7bn powerhouse: How Australian solar grew 100-fold in a decade — RenewEconomy
Windfall: The dirty politics of Australia’s biggest blackout — RenewEconomy
The story that emerged in wake of South Australia’s system black stuck like dried baby cereal to Australia’s political and media landscape, and it has remained there since. The post Windfall: The dirty politics of Australia’s biggest blackout appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Windfall: The dirty politics of Australia’s biggest blackout — RenewEconomy
South Australia’s biggest solar farm finally moves to full production — RenewEconomy
The Bungala 2 solar farm – long delayed by “technical issues” is now generating at or near full capacity and about to complete its commissioning process. The post South Australia’s biggest solar farm finally moves to full production appeared first on RenewEconomy.
South Australia’s biggest solar farm finally moves to full production — RenewEconomy
Wildlife Decline Continues — GarryRogers Nature Conservation
“The Living Planet Index tracked 20,811 populations of 4,392 vertebrate species and it recorded a 68 percent decline between 1970 and 2016. Over-consumption by humans is primarily to blame, particularly deforestation and agricultural expansion–Niall McCarthy, Data Journalist.
Wildlife Decline Continues — GarryRogers Nature Conservation
1.This month
For international nuclear news go to https://nuclear-news.net
Please come along to this webinar discussing the Fukushima disaster which is an ongoing disaster that Japan is still pretending to the world is under control.
9 March – WEBINAR.
7 pm Eastern time AAEDT
6.30 pm Central rime South Australia
6 pm. Weatern Australia
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26 Feb – 24 April The Image is not Nothing (Concrete Archives) is a group exhibition that explores the ways in which acts of nuclear trauma, Indigenous genocide and cultural erasure have been memorialised by artists and others. It comes as the result of research by curators Lisa Radford and Yhonnie Scarce whose fieldwork has encompassed sites of significance including Auschwitz, Chernobyl, Fukushima, Hiroshima, Maralinga, New York, Wounded Knee and former Yugoslavia.
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Submissions to the Senate Committee Inquiry into National Radioactive Management Amendment Bill. 2020. Go to our summaries of significant submissions, conveniently listed in alphabetical order at Kimba waste dump submissions or see all submissions listed at Read the Submissions
