Climate Change Denialism in full swing in Australia
The climate change denialists may soon to be running the asylum Independent Australia, 19 July, 2012 Anyone who places stock in safeguarding the current and future climate (and for that matter anyone who doesn’t) should prepare themselves for the risk that very soon, climate science deniers, contrarians and sceptics will be running the show, writes Graham Readfearn.
ALL the polls suggest that a Liberal-led coalition will sweep to power at next year’s Federal election in Australia — the world’s biggest exporter of coal and on track to be the biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas. Current Liberal leader Tony Abbott, if we care to remember, once described climate change as “crap“. Views shared among Abbott’s parliamentary coalition ranks are that climate science is a “leftist fad” and a “work of fiction”.
The Liberal-National Party’s new Queensland Premier Campbell Newman and his environment minister Andrew Powell are currently presiding over a massive boom in coal and gas projects. Both have said they’re unable to accept the evidence of human-caused climate change, going against the scientific findings of the country’s main science agency the CSIRO and the country’s Bureau of Meteorology, plus every major science academy on the planet. Continue reading
Australia now poised for renewable energy investment
“There is no other industry that is growing at 40% a year,” “Many countries need to change their fuel capacity and replace it with clean energy, so there are a lot of possibilities in the renewable market. And it is so much quicker and easier to build renewable generation than conventional generation.”..
Australia risks missing out on green energy investment. Crikey, by Giles Parkinson of RenewEconomy 25 July 12 Australia has already been bypassed once by the world’s leading renewable energy developers, and risks doing so again if it makes more changes to its green energy policies, according to one of the world’s biggest energy groups.
The Australian clean energy market nearly became a wasteland after the Howard government refused to extend its hugely successful start to the country’s first Renewable Energy Target, causing many international and Australian companies to leave the country and manufacturing facilities to be closed.
There are concerns of a similar flight of interest, and capital, if the government makes changes to its 2020 Renewable Energy Target, which is expected to be the bedrock for some $20 billion of investment in wind energy and solar farms in the next eight years. Continue reading
USA keeps Australia in the dark on its plans for Julian Assange
US pushed to clarify Assange intentions, The Age, July 25, 2012, Dylan Welch THE West Australian Labor MP Melissa Parke has called on the US Attorney-General, Eric Holder, to make a categorical statement ruling out that America is seeking to extradite the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, to prosecute him for espionage.
Her call comes amid persisting public debate about whether the US has secretly convened a grand jury in Virginia with the purpose of prosecuting Mr Assange and others for a ”conspiracy to communicate or transmit national defence information”.
”In the light of the public information regarding a grand jury investigation, it would be helpful if the US Attorney-General would categorically state that the US has no intention of seeking the extradition of Julian Assange from Sweden,” Ms Parke told the Herald yesterday.
It was revealed in April last year a grand jury had been formed in Virginia with the likely aim of prosecuting people involved in the release of more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables in February 2010. A former US army intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, has been charged with the theft and is about to face trial.
There have been no other arrests, but the US government has served orders on Twitter seeking the records of three WikiLeaks supporters and subpoenaed several people to testify before the grand jury. : http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/us-pushed-to-clarify-assange-intentions-20120724-22nkr.html#ixzz21gRP6UgM
Solar energy with molten salt storage a good option for remote mining areas in Australia
Australia risks missing out on green energy investment Crikey, by Giles Parkinson of RenewEconomy 25 July 12“……..Acciona is also one of the leading companies in concentrated solar thermal — building plants boasting parabolic trough and solar tower technologies, and recently adding molten salt storage so that such plants can become “dispatchable” like gas-fired power station
He said even solar thermal CSP is also already operating at about $150/MWh in countries with good sun, such as South Africa and Australia, and Acciona argues that this should draw the attention of big miners such as BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, which are paying $300/MWh or more for diesel at remote mine sites.
“There’s got to be a shift in mindset from having a diesel generation plant they know well and which is relatively cheap to build, to shifting towards a highly technical generation source and perhaps outsourcing the management and ownership of that asset through a third party that knows how to operate that,” Thompson said.
Mateo says PV is heading towards $100/MWh and it was interesting to note that in some countries, financing had been offered by banks without subsidies from the government, and even without power purchase agreements. In Chile, for instance, the cost of energy is $100/MWh, which allows wind and solar PV, in some instances, to compete. Mateo said there could be opportunities to combine CSP installations with solar PV….. http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/07/24/australia-risks-missing-out-on-green-energy-investment/
Tiny attendance at Dr Helen Caldicott’s Roxby Down talk, as BHP Billiton films the meeting
BHPB felt the meeting enough of a threat they sent their own film crew -57 Films- to record the full event. Somewhat sheepish when Helen challenged them as to why working for BHPB.
Dr Caldicott was outraged at what she saw with the heavy hand of the SA cops, demanding full names and addresses from protestors leaving the camp, not only the driver. Data base for ‘troublemakers’ into the future for the cops?
David Bradbury 24 July 12, If you look at the numbers you’d be very disappointed with the fruits of
our labour and cost in taking Dr Helen Caldicott to Roxby. But some things are not messured by numbers alone. The seeds must be sown and you never know when the harvest will come. Or that you will be rewarded to see the harvest on yr time. You can only do yr bit with the best intregrity and listen to the voice of guidance that comes from Spirit.
Maximum number of miners and wives there:15. Three bubs. Continue reading
Australians learning to appreciate the importance of the carbon tax
Carbon tax dislike ‘can be turned around’, The Age, July 24, 2012 – Voter dislike of the carbon tax is a knee-jerk
response which could be turned around with more information, a new study by the Climate Institute has found.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has been battling to convince voters of the merits of a carbon tax since it was flagged in early 2011.
A Climate Institute study, released on Tuesday, showed only 28 per cent of voters supported the carbon tax, levied on the top polluters on July 1, with 52 per cent opposed and 20 per cent uncertain.
But when it was explained the tax revenue went to household assistance, business support and renewable energy the figure shifted to 47 per cent in favour, 29 per cent against and 24 per cent uncertain….. http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/carbon-tax-dislike-can-be-turned-around-20120724-22l5v.html
Danger for Australia, linked in with USA’s aggressive attitudes to China
Washington’s global ambitions exceed its power – and that spells trouble for Australia. WA Today, Hugh White, 24 July “….the problems facing America abroad are so intractable, and the measures needed to deal with them are so difficult, that neither side wants to talk about them. In this case we are seeing not consensus, but paralysis. Unfortunately, this second explanation is the right one.
That’s a big worry for Australia as well as for America, because our political leaders also share a deep consensus on foreign policy. Both Gillard and Abbott identify so closely with US positions that America’s foreign policy paralysis becomes ours too……..
The most important change in US foreign policy since 2008 has been the sudden recognition that China’s rise is for real, and that its challenge to US primacy in Asia must be taken seriously. Obama’s response has been to try to face down China by building a new strategic coalition – including Australia – to contain Beijing’s ambitions. He has resisted any idea of constructive accommodation with America’s largest trading partner. This seems a sure road to disaster…..
Obama has failed just as Bush did, and for the same reason. Even more than under Bush, America’s international reach under Obama exceeds its grasp. And now he has added a huge new goal of his own – to push back against China as its economy grows to overtake America’s……
Both Obama and Romney proclaim the same bold agenda for American leadership in the new century, and both assure the 
voters that this is possible because the US remains as powerful as ever, still able to mould the world to promote American interests and values……
Neither will acknowledge the limits within which a realistic and successful US foreign policy must work. So both prefer to say nothing. That holds the seeds of deep trouble for America, and for Australia.
http://www.watoday.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/americas-foreign-fantasy-20120723-22kh9.html#ixzz21ZCQS2pt
China’s anxiety about Abbott’s pro USA attitudes?
What, for example, should the Chinese make of a throwaway line in his 2009 conservative manifesto Battlelines, that, ”Although China is likely to become even stronger in the years ahead, this may not mean much change for Australia’s international relationships or foreign policy priorities.” This is the same rising China whose insatiable demand for resources has kept Australia afloat and is on track to become the world’s largest economy. The shift of power to Asia, centred on China, has prompted the Americans to deploy 60 per cent of its navy to the region – hardly something to be dismissed as not ”much change”…..
The view of Abbott the neo-con confronting ideological enemies won’t be helped by his choice of venue for a speech in Washington in the days before he goes to Beijing: the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation.
Does Abbott have a plan for managing China in a changing world? Illawarra Mercusry, Daniel Flitton, 24 July 12, PAUL Keating went to Beijing a few months ago, only to find himself at the receiving end of a lecture that is becoming all too familiar for Australian visitors to the Asian superpower.
The feelings of the Chinese people, he was told by a senior official, had been greatly hurt by the recent deployment
of 200 American marines to a base near Darwin…….
what sort of a perspective will Abbott bring to Australia’s international affairs? Continue reading
Protesting BHP’s Olympic Dam – its special privileges, water guzzling, uranium to Fukushima
Mythical lizard haunts Australian uranium extractors Infoshop News, July 22 2012 Anti-nuclear protesters camping at what they describe as “the gates of hell” — that is, on the edge of BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam uranium mine in the desert of South Australia — decided to play a game of cricket on Tuesday, July 17, in order to publicize their message: Uranium isn’t Australian.
“It’s just not cricket,” they chanted, “and that’s why we picket.”
by Peter Rugh Waging Nonviolence “…….There’s no room for nature’s business in the uranium business. That’s why BHP is digging into the belly of Kalta, the sleeping lizard who, according to aboriginal legend, lives under the rocks at Olympic Dam. BHP is sucking yellow uranium poison out of Kalta’s belly and feeding it to nuclear reactors around the world.
It already takes about 9 million gallons of water a day to wash all that poison down the throats of global markets — water sucked out at no cost to BHP from the region’s only reliable freshwater source, the Great Artesian Basin. But the Melbourne-based multinational plans to expand its mining operations at Olympic from an area of about 1,700 square miles to a terrain roughly eight times that size. The $30 billion expansion would make Olympic Dam at Roxby Downs the world’s largest open-pit mine.
An additional 53 gallons of water a day will be used up should mining at Olympic expand. The amount of diesel required to extract and transport BHP’s uranium would cause South Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions to skyrocket by 12 percent.
Olympic currently operates under the Roxby Downs Indenture Act of 1982, which granted BHP exemptions from laws covering native sovereignty, public disclosure, environmental impact and water preservation. The Indenture Act was amended in 2011 , when BHP began scouting out more land. Critics say the law is essentially a contract between BHP and the South Australian government for the corporation to do what it likes.
Meanwhile, the effects of BHP’s mining are felt far beyond the Outback. Approximately 4,400 tons of Australian uranium per year are used to feed aging reactors in the United States, which jeopardize the civilian population centers that they surround . A major portion of the stuff comes from BHP. The company is to Australia’s uranium industry what Nirvana was to grunge; they’ve cornered the market…..
Prior to the Fukushima disaster , Japan — after the United States and the European Union — was Australia’s third best uranium customer, importing nearly 2,700 tons a year. The uranium fuel pellets that melted down three reactor cores at Fukushima on March 11 of last year were from Olympic Dam.
Dr. Jim Green, an anti-nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia, accuses BHP of turning a blind eye to fraud and safety problems in Japan’s nuclear industry in the run-up to the meltdowns. Despite widespread documentation of data falsification and safety breaches, he says BHP continued to peddle its toxic product to the quake-prone nation in the run up to the Fukushima meltdowns…. http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20120722092133582
Lizard’s revenge: The South Australian government ignores its founding document
The uranium mine is in Kokotha country, but its impact crosses into Arabunna country to extract water for the mining. The Olympic mine expansion crosses the Mashers Faultline* itself, where there is a calculated risk of mining induced earthquakes of severe magnitude.
Lizard’s revenge: The South Australian government ignores its founding document, the Letters Patent from Britain, as though it never existed
Lismore, NSW, 18 July 2012 — The recent demonstrations against expansion of the BHP Roxby Downs uranium mine in South Australia, led by Arabunna Elder, Kevin Buzzacott, highlight how governments and mining companies ignore and completely override the sovereign rights and human rights of First Nations Peoples, writes sovereignty activist, Michael Anderson.
The last survivor of the four founders of the Aboriginal Embassy in Canberra writes: “The ongoing catastrophe of the Fukushima meltdown in Japan is fresh in our minds and the previous disaster of Chernobyl in the Ukraine still haunts us, but governments are ignoring the warnings and, instead, appear beholden to mining industry, in particular the uranium industry.”
Mr Anderson is the National Coordinator of the interim National Unity Government of the ‘Sovereign Union’, launched at the 40th anniversary of the embassy in January.
He charges that the South Australian government ignores its founding document, the Letters Patent from Britain, as though it never existed. Continue reading
Australia’s Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) – home of climate change denialism
Science denial tourism, sponsored by the IPA Want to a free trip
around Australia, all expenses paid? It’s easy, just publish a book
denying climate change (scientific credentials not required) then
contact the Institute of Public Affairs — they’ll take care
everything. Graham Readfearn from DeSmogBlog.com reports on the IPA —
Australia’s home of anti-science……
http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/environment/science-denial-tourism-sponsored-by-the-ipa/
Victoria’s outstanding potential for renewable energy is being neglected
Victoria missing out on renewable energy http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-23/victoria-missing-out-on-renewable-energy/4147502?section=vic July 23, 2012 Victoria is “blessed” with its renewable energy capacity: Tim Flannery. The Climate Commission says Victoria’s renewable energy resources are barely being tapped.
Chief climate commissioner Professor Tim Flannery says we are entering a new chapter of climate change and Victoria should be making a sharp shift to renewable energy such as wind and solar power. “Victoria has got fabulous wind resources, the envy of places like Europe and fantastic solar resources too,” Professor Flannery said. Continue reading
BHP will have a hard time depicting anti uranium protestors as useless bludgers
many of the group.. had taken leave without pay to travel to Roxby Downs to spread their message.
“There are other alternatives (to uranium for power) and I think an event like this can bring that more into discussion.”
We’re no bludgers, say mine protesters, Ben Hyde, The Advertiser July 20, 2012 THEY came from interstate and even overseas to protest against uranium mining, and some could be camped on the doorstep of BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam mine for another two weeks. The group of Lizard’s Revenge protesters, which peaked at about 400 activists last weekend, were an eclectic bunch, united in their anti-nuclear stance. Continue reading
Australia’s mental health problem about wind farms
There are two main anti-wind farm groups in Australia busily fomenting anxiety and opposition. One is the Waubra Foundation, a group of mainly wealthy individuals, none of whom live in or near the town of Waubra, near Ballarat. Several of them, NIMBY style, have opposed turbines near their own properties elsewhere. They are led by an unregistered doctor, Sarah Laurie, and a wealthy mining investor, Peter Mitchell who also has connections to the Landscape Guardians. Despite their name, the Guardians have never attempted to guard our landscape from over-zealous residential developers, open cut coal or coal seam gas mining. They only target wind farm developments. All three – Waubra, the Guardians and Mitchell’s mining investment company share a South Melbourne post office box.
Wind turbine syndrome: a classic ‘communicated’ disease , by Simon Chapman https://theconversation.edu.au/wind-turbine-syndrome-a-classic-communicated-disease-8318?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+20+July+2012&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+20+July+2012+CID_be7f8aff1000afd17cabaf558b629431&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Simon+Chapman+investigates At the beginning of this year I started collecting examples of health problems some people were attributing to wind turbine exposure. I had noticed a growing number of such claims on the internet and was curious about how many I could find. Within an hour or two I had found nearly 50 and today the number has grown to an astonishing 155.
I have worked in public health on three continents since the mid 1970s. In all this time, I have never encountered anything in the history of disease that is said to cause even a fraction of the list of problems I have collected.
The list of 155 problems includes “deaths, many deaths”, none of which have ever been brought to the attention of a coroner. It includes several types of cancer, and both losing weight and gaining weight. You name it. Haemorrhoids have not yet been named, but nothing would surprise me. Continue reading
At last, a comprehensive and rational assessment of Australia’s climate policy
Little by little: the benefits of Australian climate policy, The Conversation, Roger Jones, 20 July “…..For climate, any action to permanently reduce greenhouse gas emissions in one region spreads the benefits across the globe. A global effort requires many good neighbours amongst countries who may not know each other well or trust each other very much.
Australia’s efforts to do its bit as a good neighbour are being opposed by an increasingly shrill and irrational chorus that includes politicians, industry figures, academics and a sizeable proportion of Australia’s print media….. Is Australia going it alone? No. Limited trading or tax schemes exist in the US, Canada, the EU, and Japan, and are soon to start up in regions of China, India, and South Korea. The rest of the world will learn from us, as we have learned from the Europeans to keep a tight limit on emissions permits. Good carbon accounting was largely developed in Australia.
In the same way that we have exported Landcare for good environmental management and sports science for running marathons, we can export our know-how in managing the climate. Naked self-interest and ignorance are the two biggest barriers to achieving this. http://theconversation.edu.au/little-by-little-the-benefits-of-australian-climate-policy-8259
1 This month
Help Aunty Sue Protect Her Land and Sacred Sites From Destructive Rocket Testing.
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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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