Australian political parties’ policies on Climate Change
Where the major parties stand on clean energy and climate REneweconomy, By Giles Parkinson 31 January 2013 The official party platforms have not yet been unveiled for the September 14 poll – and may not be until after the “official” campaign period begins on August 12. Still, it’s pretty clear where the three main parties stand, so we’ve outlined the principal issues.
CLIMATE CHANGE, IS IT REAL?
Coalition: Abbott is still haunted by his remark describing the science underpinning climate change as “crap”, and in his written campaign speech on Monday said nothing to suggest he has changed his mind. Quite the opposite, actually. Party policy still has no mention of “climate change” or the threat it poses, rather talk of “cleaning up the environment” via direct action to reduce carbon emissions and “a 15,000-strong Green Army charged with the clean-up and conservation of our environment – so that we can all enjoy a cleaner environment and a more sustainable future without the impost of the carbon tax.”
Abbott is also surrounded by climate denialists in own party, and on his Business Advisory Council, which is to be chaired by Maurice Newman, who also happens to be a vocal anti-wind energy campaigner. Joe Hockey has vowed to dismantle the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency.
Labor: Yes. Federal climate change minister Greg Combet has repeatedly said that “the debate over whether climate change is real was decided long ago,” while the PM told the National Press Club on Wednesday that “climate change is not a future proposition. We are living through climate change.”
Greens: Yes, and they are the only party to propose policies that truly reflect the science.
CARBON PRICE…
RENEWABLE ENERGY TARGET…..
EMISSIONS REDUCTION TARGET….
SOLAR:….
CARBON FARMING INITIATIVE….. http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/where-the-parties-stand-on-clean-energyclimate-82709
UV radiation and potentially fatal lip cancer
In Australia there are an estimated 900 cases of lip cancer diagnosed
each year, with 20 deaths. This type of cancer is known to be more
common in men than women.
Be smart under the sun
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/lifestyle/a/-/article/16027587/be-smart-under-the-sun/
PETA RASDIEN, The West Australian January 30, 2013 A lifetime spent in
the sun – 42 years as a pool builder – came back to haunt Arnold
Vervenne. Now the 56-year-old is hoping his run-in with lip cancer
will serve as a timely warning for others. Continue reading
Thorium nuclear reactors – Australia’s nuclear lobby’s latest con job
the mere idea of these lovely little reactors needing plutonium or enriched uranium suggests the wisdom of Australia having uranium enrichment, nuclear power and nuclear reprocessing . And heck, why not a radioactive waste facility – to take in plutonium and other radioactive waste from other countries – as the start of another lucrative industry? Use it to facilitate the thorium reactors that will be dotted around the country. To seriously consider thorium nuclear energy in Australia means a foot in the door for the whole nuclear fuel cycle here.
Don’t believe thorium nuclear reactor hype, Independent Austtralia 28 Jan 13, Thorium reactors are the latest big thing in nuclear spin. Noel Wauchope says: don’t believe the hype.
The explanation becomes clearer, when you consider that the nuclear industry has sunk $billions into new (uranium or plutonium fuelled) large nuclear technologies, as well as into lobbying governments and media. Would big corporations like Hitachi, EDF Westinghouse, Toshiba, Areva, Rosatom be willing, or indeed able, to withdraw from the giant international operations that they already have underway? Would they, could they, tolerate a mass uptake of the new thorium nuclear reactors — which is what would be needed, to make the thorium market economical?…. Continue reading
Tony Abbott’s climate policies – straight from USA’s Koch brothers and Tea Party
In Australia, those [climate change action] mechanisms have been set in motion – albeit a little too slowly – through the carbon price, the renewable energy target, and the Clean Energy Finance Corp (CEFC) and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
Abbott, though, is determined to throw this transition into reverse.
The whole policy is, of course, absolute nonsense, as even Malcolm Turnbull has revealed on several occasions. It’s a policy designed by vested interests – to sweep away as many environmental checks and balances and initiatives at state and federal level to allow certain organisations to maximise short term profits.
Abbott locks in with Tea Party and a green army http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/abbott-locks-in-with-tea-party-and-a-green-army-67668 By Giles Parkinson 28 January 2013 This is going to be a very long year. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has kicked off the political calendar with a sort of mini-election launch in the western suburbs of Sydney. Some media types billed it as a presidential-style event, but the most striking and worrying similarity to the last US election campaign was not Abbott’s shirt sleeves nor his soapbox, but his grim determination to hang on to Tea Party politics and policies on climate and clean energy.
“Isn’t it bizarre that this government thinks that somehow raising the price of electricity is going to clean up our environment, stop bushfires, stop floods, stop droughts?” Abbott said in his speech. “Just think of how much hotter it might have been the other day but for the carbon tax!”
Borrowed straight from the handbook of Fox News in the US, Alan Jones, and News Ltd bloggers such as Andrew Bolt and Tim Blair. Abbott seems grimly determined to ignore the science in the search of cheap trick.
Of course a carbon imposed six months ago won’t knock 0.5C off Sydney’s record of 45.6 in early January – any more than paying utilities to close coal-fired generation would under the Coalition’s plans would.
As the science explains, the climate impacts we are feeling now are the result of man-made emissions built up over decades. And as President Obama explained in his inauguration speech last week, the action we take now will influence our legacy for future generations. It is worth repeating those words. “We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Continue reading
Australia in UN: opportunity to return to principle on nuclear disarmament, and negotiations with Iran
despite the window of opportunity that Australia has open to it as chair of a number of relevant committees on the UN Security Council, Carr’s recent statements are devoid of any talk of global disarmament, or of a just dialogue between Iran, Israel and the West. The Australian government instead seems intent on reforging the policy bonds of the “Coalition of the Willing” which proved so morally, politically and economically disastrous in 2003.
Julia Gillard must not continue to take Australia further down the path of moral decay in the area of non-proliferation and disarmament as I’ve elsewhere argued she has done. Now on the Security Council, Australia must use its role to push for what Prime Minster Gillard herself promised 
in the candidate brochure:
… a lead role in advancing disarmament and non-proliferation efforts and continuing our longstanding efforts to promote respect for international law.
The decay of Australia’s nuclear ethic, Aljazeera, NAJ Taylor, 26 Jan 13, Australia must use its new position in the UN Security Council to push for conciliation with Iran. Within three days of Australia taking the chair of the UN Security Council committees overseeing “Iran’s WMD proliferation activities”, Foreign Minister Bob Carr announced that Australia is to adopt severe economic sanctions against Iran that are “broadly aligned” with those already actioned by the US, Britain and European Union.
Thursday’s announcement is bitterly disappointing, for it draws to the fore a deep moral inconsistency in Australia’s recent nuclear dealings.
Simply put, Iran is alleged to have an active nuclear weapons programme, despite it having undertaken a number of international obligations – including the primary instrument of the nuclear regime, the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Continue reading
Paladin uranium company’s losses: cuts staff in Malawi, Namibia and Australia
According to KYJD Publicist Stevenson Simusokwe, PAL had promised the
people of Karonga a referral hospital, good road network in the district
and free water.
But from the retrenchment statement, dated January 24 2013, PAL says it
has been operating at a loss and further adds that circumstances beyond
its control have led to the decision to trim down its staff not only at
Kayerekera but also at its Langer Heinrich Mine in Namibia and at the
company’s head office in Australia.
The company has been able to remain in operation only due
to continued financial support provided by the parent company, Paladin
Energy Limited.
Paladin to cut Malawi staff at Kayerekera mine by 18 percent 25
January 2013 The Maravi Post, by PIUS NYONDO
MZUZU–-Paladin Africa Limited (PAL) says it will reduce the number of
employee at its Kayerekera Mine (KM) in Malawi’s border district of
Karonga in response to economic hardships caused by dwindling uranium
prices on the global market, MaraPost has learnt. Continue reading
ERA’s uranium plan: Ranger 3 Deeps deposit beneath Pit 3 – could they diddle the Aborigines?
Christina Macpherson 25 Jan 13, It all looks good, that the Mirrar Aboriginal people people have at last got a fairer deal with ERA concerning their long struggle, first against, uranium mining at the Ranger site, and then to get a better deal.
The senior traditional owner of the Mirarr clan, the very highly respected Ms Yvonne Margarula, has welcomed the agreements.
These agreements do not include ERA’s new project , underground mining at Ranger 3 Deeps deposit beneath Pit 3.
This situation needs careful watching. Is the new agreement part of a softening up process by the uranium mining company, as they plan to get acquiescence from the Aboriginal people for the this next project.
It has been done before – that uranium miners have chosen to mine underground, in order to avoid the responsibility of native title issues on the surface. When they do a big shaft entry, they expand underground without involving the native title holders. a big shaft entry, they expand underground without involving the native title holders. They have been able to convince the Aboriginal owners that “the crown owns the minerals”.
ERA has recently been dealing with 30 years accumulation of radioactive waste water, at Ranger.
ERA could be a bit desperate – as recent economic history has not been kind to them In 2012 “From a share price of $18.22 in May 2009, the stock lost more than 90 per cent of its value to be languishing at $1.15 earlier this year, with the company’s future being seriously questioned. …. The goal of turning ERA into an underground miner won’t come to fruition before late 2015, and there will be myriad environmental, indigenous, government and company approvals to satisfy before then. ” http://www.smh.com.au/business/kakadus-miner-for-all-seasons-20120427-1xqg2.html#ixzz1tNGNVJGh
Mirrar Aboriginal agreement on Ranger uranium mine does not include new underground mine
Ranger uranium mine agreement updated, Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation, 25 Jan 13,
The Mirarr traditional Aboriginal owners of the Ranger uranium mine area welcome the
settlement today of the long-running renegotiation of the 1978 Ranger mining agreement.
The execution today of a number of agreements and associated correspondence between
the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation (GAC), the Australian Government, miner Energy
Resources of Australia (ERA) and the Northern Land Council signals the formal conclusion of
a 14-year process of renegotiation.
Importantly, the agreements cover existing operations on the Ranger Project Area. They do
not deal with future mining beyond the existing Ranger Authority or underground mining at
the so-called Ranger 3 Deeps deposit beneath Pit 3.
The senior traditional owner of the Mirarr clan, Ms Yvonne Margarula, welcomed the end of
negotiations about the original Ranger mine. “We Mirarr are happy that today, after so long,
we have a fairer agreement for mining at Ranger,” she said. “My father never agreed to
Ranger. Our right to stop the mine was taken away by the government. It is good that after all
these years we have a better agreement for Mirarr. This will help all Bininj [Aboriginal people]
in the region.” Continue reading
Solar photovoltaic plant for Mildura region, in Victoria
Green light for solar farm near Koorlong http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-24/green-light-for-solar-farm-near-koorlong/4481736
Jan 24, 2013 A planning application has been approved for another solar farm in north-west Victoria.The Mildura council has given German company Belectric the nod to build a five-megawatt photovoltaic plant near Koorlong.
A similar project, Solar Systems’ 1.5-megawatt station, is also being built at Carwarp.
The Mildura Development Corporation’s Anne Mansell says it is an important project for the region.
“This is classed as medium scale, five megawatts is classed as medium scale,” she said.
“It’s still quite significant for the area, one thing I would add, it certainly complements the solar systems development at Carwarp and it shows we’re developing into a solar hub in this region.”
Mining enthusiast new candidate for Katter’s Australia Party
Katter candidate throws hat in ring: mining, Aborigines on Australia Party agenda Central Western Daily 25 Jan 13 BRIAN Cain was officially endorsed as the Calare candidate for Katter’s Australia Party on Wednesday, with Aboriginal equality and improving the image of mining high on his agenda…… Mr Cain spoke about how the Greens had tarnished the image of the mining industry and he wanted to give the industry a public relations facelift in the eyes of Calare constituents….. Mr Cain worked in the mining industry for 40 years. ….. Mr Cain wants Aboriginal people to have more involvement, particularly in mining.
He said 98 per cent of people employed by the mining industry in Australia’s north were Aboriginal, yet only 2 per cent of people employed in the south were Aboriginal….. http://www.centralwesterndaily.com.au/story/1256428/katter-candidate-throws-hat-in-ring-mining-aborigines-on-australia-party-agenda/?cs=103
Australia a major contributor of greenhouse gases, with coal exports
Australia, Coal And The Point Of No Return http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3562 25 Jan 13, A new report states if planned expansion of coal exports from Australia proceeds, the nation will be one of the biggest global contributors to catastrophic climate change.
We’ve mentioned in the past Australia being a Typhoid Mary of coal and late last year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicted Australia will soon be the world’s biggest coal exporter again.
The Greenpeace report, ‘The Point of No Return’, says Australia is the second biggest offender in a list of 14 mega coal projects in the pipeline that will help it regain its filthy crown. In re-assuming the throne; a massive price will be paid by all.
“In 2020, the emissions from the 14 projects showcased in this report – if they were all to go ahead – would raise global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels by 20% and keep the world on a path towards 5°C to 6°C of warming.”
By 2025, Australian coal exports could increase to 408 million tonnes a year above 2011 levels, pushing associated carbon emissions up by 1,200 million tonnes annually once the coal is burned.
“By then, the CO2 emissions caused by Australian coal exports would be three times as large as the emissions from Australia’s entire domestic energy use,” says the report.
To avoid the point of no return, the report references the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2011; which states building of new fossil fuel infrastructure needs to stop within five years. Greenpeace says given this, it is “placing the planned dirty energy projects in direct conflict with a liveable climate.”
It doesn’t have to be this way says the group.
“If the governments supporting the projects in this report help push the world past the point of no return, the great irony will be that the resulting climate chaos was preventable.”
Greenpeace says clean and safe renewable energy, combined with energy efficiency, can bring us back from the brink. Far from being pie-in-the-sky; the progress made just in the last decade is testimony to what could be achieved with a focus on renewables as the centrepiece of the world’s energy future. The 60-page Point Of No Return report can be viewed in full here (PDF).
A UK soldier recalls radiation exposure in Christmas Island nuclear bomb tests
The with holding of evidence -Dave Whyte. http://nuclearhistory.wordpress.com/2013/01/23/the-with-holding-of-evidence-dave-whyte/ <dave.whyte@blueyonder.co.uk I doubt if we will ever be permitted to have a cytogenetic blood analysis carried out as the Authorities know what the results would be. Everything they do has a delaying action in the hope we will all be dead before they are forced to admit the truth. What irks me, is the fact all Servicemen were loyal to Queen and Country but loyalty has not been reciprocated by our respective Government’s.
It was the Ministry of Defence that kept informing me I should put in for a War Pension if I considered my medical problems were caused by nuclear testing. When I did apply they acknowledged my stomach problems were caused due to service and awarded me a 0% pension: They also admitted the Lymphadenopathy and again awarded a 0% pension; For my claim of infertility and other ailments I was informed I did not receive sufficient radiation to cause my ailments.
I have now added Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) citing the stress involved in attempting to obtain information on the levels of radiation received including the fact that It took the Ministry of Defence over five years to supply me with information on the levels of radiation at ground zero after Pennant and Burgee after denying it existed. They are still refusing to divulge the levels of ‘Beta’ radiation at ground zero after detonation of the bombs, or the radiation levels at our living quarters in the forward area.
There were around 200 of us living at ‘B’ site (I have attached a map) which was situated 3 miles from the atomic bomb ground zero and 6 miles from the point of detonation of the hydrogen bombs Flagpole and Halliard. I saw members of the AWRE regularly checking the area for radiation (they were wearing protective clothing at the early stages). My attempts have failed to get a copy of the logs showing the levels of radiation. I should add, we were never given protective clothing or respirators we went around in shorts and flip-flops.
I believe this was the forerunner to Operation Lighthouse which was cancelled due to the moratorium. The tests were held in quick succession as proposed for Lighthouse: Pennant atomic bomb 22 August, Flagpole hydrogen bomb 2 September, Halliard hydrogen bomb 11 September and Burgee atomic bomb 23 September 1958. I have proof that the forward area was radioactive for nine days after Pennant and six days after Burgee. The authorities are denying there was any radiation in the forward area after the two hydrogen bombs!
I have attached a photograph showing the condition of our living quarters after Pennant.
It is only now I realise there must have been radioactive particles blown into our bedding and other belongings which we could have inhaled or ingested whilst sleeping.
I hope some of this may be of interest.
Why should Aborigines be expected to celebrate Australia Day?
A national day of shame January 24, 2013 The Age, Peter Gebhardt Australia Day stands as a reminder of massacres. Why should Aborigines celebrate it? “….What might an Aboriginal person say of Australia Day? Why should the Aborigines celebrate that day? It was the day that marked the theft of a land (terra nullius), the day that marked the theft and abduction of a people, of a culture, the day that initiated the pathways to the Stolen Children and, to our ultimate shame, the deaths in custody. It is a day that stands as a reminder of massacres. The wind-stench of bodies burned in bonfires hangs heavy upon the nation’s conscience and in the clouds.
This is not some John Howard ”black armband” view of history, rather a white man’s whitewash. You can shuttle history, but you cannot shuttle facts. It would be a great Australia Day if it faced honesty, historical facts, abandonment, hypocrisy, shelved superiority and embarked upon an exercise of spiritual empathy rather than religious hubris.
Let’s meditate upon this quotation from an editorial in The Argus newspaper on March 17, 1856. I wonder what Howard and Keith Windschuttle would make of this?
”We never listened to a discussion in the Legislative Council which more strongly stirred within us the sentiments of a bitter indignation, than that which took place upon the sum placed on the estimates for the Aborigines. We have long held the opinion that as a people we are guilty of the basest meanness and dishonesty in our treatment of this unhappy race. And that impression was most vividly freshened by the scene we refer to – by the contemptible sum which the present occupants of this colony award to its original possessors [and] by the indecent levity by which the whole discussion on the subject was characterised. These poor wretches have evidently few enough friends. It is only fair to devote an hour to the pleading of their cause.
”It would seem that never does the white man … appear in a more thoroughly despicable light, than in his dealings with his less civilised brother. He takes possession of the land as a matter of course. He alters water-courses, drives off game, fences, clears, and cultivates, tears open the very bowels of the earth, and walks away with uncounted wealth, while the original occupant of the soil, not only looks helplessly on, but sinks, contaminated by the new vices, and wasted by imported diseases, into premature extermination. And we – a Christian people – God-fearing, magnanimous, intelligent race – with a history to look back to, and a character to support – stand quietly by, and do not feel the disgracefulness and sin of such a position!…… ”We assert that under present circumstances this country has been shamelessly stolen from the blacks…. We, the people of this colony, occupy in this instance, the position of cheats and swindlers, and we do not deserve that the land should prosper with us, which has been so dishonestly come by.”
In the light of the news about Australia’s seat at the United Nations, it is sanguine to recollect what John Pilger said in his article ”Fighting for justice when your skin’s black” in The Age on October 4, 2012: ”No country since apartheid South Africa has been more condemned by the UN for its racism than Australia.”
Another reminder about ultra violet radiation and skin cancer
Sunscreen, skin cancer and the Australian summer, The Conversation, 23 Jan 13, With the long, hot Australian summer comes the imperative to manage the country’s enormous skin cancer risk.Along with the growing raw numbers (11,545 skin cancer cases diagnosed in 2009) and rates of melanoma, the numbers of non-melanoma skin cancers (NMSC) are going off the charts. Men are disproportionately affected, with one in 14 blokes diagnosed with melanoma before the age of 85, compared with one in 23 women.
Two months ago the Medical Journal of Australia reported the total number of NMSC treatments increased from 412,493 in 1997 to 767,347 in 2010, and the authors estimated the number of treatments would increase to 938,991 by 2015.
The costs estimate – which I understand doesn’t include the patient’s out-of-pocket expenses – was over half a billion dollars in 2010. This is an enormous health burden unique to Australia and our friends across the Tasman…..
The Nambour study conducted in South East Queensland in the early 1990s found the use of sunscreen (then the old SPF15+) reduced the risk of squamous cell carcinomas (the second most common non-melanoma skin cancer) by 12% andmelanoma by about half.
So, as we get closer to seeing SPF50+ sunscreen land on the shelves of our local shops remember the famous all-encompassing 1998 life advice speech of disputed origins“Wear sunscreen” – and heed the advice. It’s still a good tip.
Here are a few other simple sunscreen tips:
- Sunscreen shouldn’t be used as the first and last defence against the sun. Don’t forget the other “S”s – Slip on a Shirt, Slap on a Hat, Seek some shade and Slide on your sunnies….. http://theconversation.edu.au/sunscreen-skin-cancer-and-the-australian-summer-11633
Ms Nova Peris-Kneebone – an Aboriginal puppet and show pony for the Australian government?
Michael Anderson condemns Peris-Kneebone “steamrolling” Dubbo, central NSW, 23 January 2013 – A prominent Aboriginal sovereignty campaigner has condemned Prime Minister Gillard’s choice of former athlete, Nova Peris-Kneebone, for the Northern Territory Senate seat.
“I do not have confidence in her ability to stand up for and fight the hard fight that is coming our way,” writes Michael Ghillar Anderson in a media release.
“Ms Peris-Kneebone is only being used as a public relations exercise for Labor.
“After all, what role has Ms Nova Peris-Kneebone played in fighting the hard political fights that we are currently involved in?
“Ms Nova Peris-Kneebone has not been involved in major political processes, rallies or otherwise. She has been missing in political action all the time,” Mr Anderson writes.
Mr Anderson is the last survivor of the four young Black Power men who founded the Aboriginal embassy in Canberra 41 years ago and now speaks for the Sovereign Union of First Nations Peoples set up at its 40th anniversary last January 26th.
“The question that has to be asked of Ms Nova Peris-Kneebone is, if she is going to be involved in politics at this level, is she going to be a Julia Gillard puppet with little to no power or opinion, but instead, fall in line with Julia Gillard’s personal and political ambitions?
“The other horror will be that Ms Nova Peris-Kneebone will be put up and used as a show pony for the Labor party at an international level,” the media release says.
“I appeal to Ms Nova Peris-Kneebone to rethink this offer so as to ensure that she is not a puppet of Julia Gillard’s Labor party, otherwise we need her to come out and simply say that just because she is Aboriginal she is not our voice.
“She is the voice of the Labor party and their policies. She cannot argue that she has an Aboriginal mandate to speak for what our people want.
“I condemn Julia Gillard’s action of steamrolling Ms Nova Peris-Kneebone into the Northern Territory Senate seat.”
Mr Anderson’s release in full: Continue reading
1 This month.
20 September –National Day of Action in Melbourne on the International Day of Peace
Help Aunty Sue Protect Her Land and Sacred Sites From Destructive Rocket Testing.
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Australians deserve the truth
about
AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
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