Non political and impressive panel to oversee Australia’s climate action and renewable energy targets
High-power panel to put emissions on target June 22, 2012 THE Gillard government has named its ”Reserve Bank for climate change” – as coined by Tony Mohr of the Australian Conservation Foundation – a high-powered panel, including hard-headed industry representatives, that will help set Australia’s greenhouse gas and renewable energy targets.
The Climate Change Authority will include industry heavyweight John Marlay, widely seen as a more conservative voice on the panel, and Reserve Bank board member Heather Ridout, who in her previous job as head of the Australian Industry Group was critical of elements of the carbon tax. The panel, announced yesterday, will also include respected climate
scientist David Karoly, former economics bureaucrat Lynne Williams, left-leaning economist Clive Hamilton, AustralianSuper chairwoman Elana Rubin and leading economist John Quiggin….. The authority will be chaired by former Treasury secretary and Reserve Bank governor Bernie Fraser.
The authority members will constitute the most powerful independent advisers on the carbon pricing scheme, recommending greenhouse gas emissions targets to the government….. Greens leader Christine Milne said the panel would ”depoliticise the fraught process” of setting targets. http://www.smh.com.au/environment/highpower-panel-to-put-emissions-on-target-20120621-20qtt.html#ixzz1yYez2G63.
Australia’s Institute of Public Affairs promotes climate denialist lies to schoolchildren
what might it mean that Plimer’s views are rejected outright by 97-98% of climate scientists and major scientific organisations across the world? Might his extreme and nastily expressed views have something to do with vested interests – given that he is the interim chairman of one mining company and director of at least one other – in the context of a looming carbon tax?
Teaching critical thinking in this context would also look at the concept and role of peer review and relevant credentials when deciding on the worth of conflicting statements.
How the IPA feeds kids lies about climate change, Independent Australia, 12 June 12, The Institute of Public Affairs, a lobby group funded by big business, miners and the tobacco industry, is sending schools misleading and inaccurate books about climate change. Frances Quinn from the UNE reports. Two recently published books suggest that the public – and school children in particular – are being fed lies about environmental issues such as climate change. The books – “How to Get Expelled from School: A guide to climate change for pupils, parents & punters” by Ian Plimer and “Little Green Lies: An expose of twelve environmental myths” by Jeff Bennett – clearly demonstrate how important it is to have a scientifically literate Australia.
The distorted and selectively reported science in these books highlights some of the challenges that Australian teachers face in teaching science, and how important it is that they are supported in this task.
The Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency (DCCEE) has condemned Plimer’s book as misleading and inaccurate. However the free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) is apparently sending copies of Plimer’s misleading fringe book to Australian schools. The Executive Director of the IPA John Roskam is, incidentally, on the editorial board of the publishing house of these two books.
Plimer’s book tells school students that they are being “conned” and “fed propaganda” if their teacher “waffles” on about issues such as human-induced global warming, sea level rise and the IPCC. He deplores this as “environmental activism”. This is despite the overwhelming evidence for human induced climate change accepted by a vast range of climate scientists and scientific organisations. Continue reading
Carbon Capture and Storage – a failed dream
”It was never going to be viable,” Greens leader Senator Christine … the fact is it is not going to work … it’s too expensive, it’s last century and we don’t need it because we have got renewables … Why would you stick with the horse and buggy era when you can move on?”
Australia will not be able to use carbon capture and storage as planned. That means it will need to rework the assumptions underpinning its crucial carbon tax reform – among them the role of coal-fired electricity generation in Australia, the cost of emission reductions, and the idea that we can be part of a global effort to limit global warming while continuing to export
billions of dollars worth of coal.
Climate strategy up in smoke, The Age, Lenore Taylor, June 16, 2012 IT WAS the technology that was going to help underpin the nation’s climate change strategy. In 2009, the then prime minister, Kevin Rudd, pledged to ”lead the world” in carbon capture and storage technology, which traps carbon dioxide emissions, permanently storing them deep underground.
The Rudd and Gillard governments allocated almost $2.5 billion to push the idea, which would be used to ”clean up” coal-fired power stations in Australia and in the countries to which we will export $44 billion worth of coal this year.
But so far there is almost nothing to show for their effort. Instead, the fledgling technology is struggling. Continue reading
Queensland’s government in the service of fossil fuel industries
Premier Newman can do climate denial, REneweconomy , By Graham Readfearn 6 June 2012
Just in case anyone was in any doubt, Queensland Premier Campbell Newman reminded Australia earlier this week that his state was most certainly “in the coal business” and that protecting the Great Barrier Reef wouldn’t come before fossil fuel exports.
But as well as being “in the coal business”, it appears that Premier Newman and his environment minister Andrew Powell are taking their first steps into the business of climate science denial.
Minister Powell repeated a statement he had made to ABC’s Radio National that he was not convinced that humans were having an impact on climate change, a position which immediately puts him at odds with every national scientific academy in the world, the advice from his own chief scientist and the position of the CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and the United Nations.
While Minister Powell made a point of saying that the environment should be protected (what else could the environment minister say, after all) his boss, Premier Campbell Newman, decided his minister’s view on climate change was “refreshing“. I’d choose a different word……
Hinting that we should be waiting until we’re 100 per cent sure what will happen before we take firm action, is a bit like saying you’re happy to drive your car at double the speed limits because no-one can say for sure that you’ll definitely crash. And while everyone has heard the stories of a grandparent who smoked 50 cigarettes a day and lived until they were 90, most people acknowledge that smoking massively increases your chances of dying of cancer.
Perhaps the Premier’s statements are instead an attempt to offset his own cognitive dissonance – the sick feeling that you get inside when you try and hold two conflicting positions simultaneously……. The then Lord Mayor [ Campbell Newman in 2009] even launched the Green Heart City Smart scheme, with its ubiquitous “I [green heart] Brisbane” catchphrase and branding.
It seems now though, that Mr Newman’s heart is conflicted with coal and climate science denial. http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/premier-newman-can-do-climate-denial-97405
A climate-friendly urban renewal
Barangaroo will have big impact but no footprint SMH, June 3, 2012 IT IS the biggest urban renewal project since the Olympic site was built at Homebush Bay, but Barangaroo is also likely to be the greenest.
The Barangaroo Delivery Authority’s goal is to make the precinct the first of its size in the world to be ”climate positive”. That means the site will generate more renewable energy than it uses, it will recycle and export more water than it uses and recycle more waste than it generates.
The Green Building Council of Australia expects the $6 billion Lend Lease development will be the benchmark by which similar projects could be measured in the future…… It will generate enough solar energy to serve the public areas of the site. There will be a recycled water service and a waste recycling service. Only recycled water will be used for flushing toilets, irrigation and fire sprinklers.
Conventional cars will be discouraged with electric car power stations in the car parks, walking and cycling networks through the precinct and strong public transport links…….. http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/barangaroo-will-have-big-impact-but-no-footprint-20120602-1zohp.html#ixzz1wr0vpgxT
Revolutionary new Australian project studies runaway climate change
Australian Project Simulates Runaway Climate Change Climate Central : May 19th, 2012 By Oliver Milman, The Guardian An Australian university has embarked upon an ambitious project — hailed as the first of its kind in the world — to simulate how the environment would cope with runaway climate change.
The decade-long study, at the University of Western Sydney’s Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment , will subject Australian bushland to heightened CO2 levels and altered rainfall patterns consistent with a “business as usual” global increase in greenhouse gases. Continue reading
Further evidence that greenhouse gas emissions are warming the Australian region
“Our study revealed that recent warming in a 1,000-year context is highly unusual and cannot be explained by natural factors alone, suggesting a strong influence of human-caused climate change in the Australasian region,”
1,000 years of climate data confirms Australia’s warming http://phys.org/news/2012-05-years-climate-australia.html May 17, 2012 By Alvin Stone In the first study of its kind in Australasia, scientists used 27 natural climate records to create the first large-scale temperature reconstruction for the region over the past 1,000 years. The study led by researchers at the University of Melbourne, used a range of natural indicators including tree rings, corals and ice cores to study Australasian temperatures over the past millennium. They then compared these with climate model simulations. Continue reading
Australian government and scientists refute climate denial propaganda to kids
The document appeared on the department’s website last Wednesday — along with a list of other trusted sources on climate science, including the CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology, the latest Australian Academy of Science report and the latest review from the Climate Commission.
Dept of Climate Change rebuts Plimer’s book for sceptic kids Crikey, by Amber Jamieson, 8 May 12 The Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency have confirmed that the decision to commission and publish a document called Accurate Answers to Professor Plimer’s 101 Climate Change Science Questions was made in reaction to outrage from teachers and scientists about Ian Plimer’s climate sceptic book aimed at children. Continue reading
Slow journey to new Kyoto climate action Protocol
the next high-level climate summit to start [ in Doha] in November.
U.N. climate negotiators will gather on May 14-25 in Bonn, Germany, to resume talks on issues including the length and stringency of Kyoto 2 targets and the accounting of emissions from forestry.
Over 35 so-called industrialized nations pledged to sign up to a second Kyoto target at U.N. climate talks in Durban last year. The new deal will legally bind those countries to cut emissions from 2013 until either 2017 or 2020.
Australia, NZ Delay Decision On Signing Kyoto 2 03-May-12 LONDON Planet Ark, Marton Kruppa
Australia and New Zealand have missed a deadline to set post-2012 emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol, with both governments saying they will decide whether to continue to be legally bound to cut emissions of seven greenhouse gases later this year.
Countries intending to sign up to a second round of targets under the 1997 treaty were scheduled to notify the U.N. by Tuesday. But Australia and New Zealand, both of which plan to launch emissions trading schemes and have been tipped to take on fresh legal targets from 2013, failed to meet that deadline.
The EU and several other nations have already indicated they will set a post-2012 legally-binding target, but Canada, Russia and Japan, three big emitters with current Kyoto goals, have said they will not. Australia said it will make a decision only after U.N. parties agree on how long the second Kyoto period would last and how many surplus Kyoto permits can be transferred from the first phase. Continue reading
“Balance” in the media: the ABC gives anti-science a national platform
ABC’s latest climate change doco another PR victory for doubters Crikey, by Clive Hamilton 27 April12, The strategy of doubt-mongering has been highly effective for climate deniers at exploiting the media’s practice of presenting “two sides” to controversial issues. The media have an ethical commitment to provide “balance” and stories are more interesting if there is a conflict to report, whether that conflict is real or manufactured. Which is why ABC TV’s I Can Change Your Mind … About Climate Change is yet another victory for climate denial ..
.. If there were a real debate among scientists, then the climate deniers would be publishing their counter-evidence in the professional scientific journals. But they are not, because they do not have evidence that will stand up to scrutiny.
So they set out to do something else, to create the impression in the public mind that there is a serious debate among scientists about global warming. To do so they must shift the terrain away from the scientific journals and into the popular media, where they do not have to face the scrutiny of experts.
It’s certain that when asked last year to participate in the program, Minchin grabbed the chance with two hands. His denialist comrades have been patting him on the back ever since…..
Scholars such as Naomi Oreskes have exposed the tactics of the climate deniers with a mass of documentary evidence.
Yet the ABC persists with the charade of “providing balance”. Some news organisations abroad have decided they will no longer fall for the doubt-mongering ruse. Professional pride now prevents editors and journalists from being manipulated by the denial machine.
The BBC would not air a program such as this. In the United States, National Public Radio has revised its ethics handbook. “Our goal,” it states, “is not … to produce stories that create the appearance of balance, but to seek the truth.”
When it reports on questions such as climate science its aim is not the spurious fairness of presenting “both sides”; instead NPR commits itself to be “fair to the truth”. “To be fair to the truth.” Once we simply expected that of the national broadcaster. This latest program tells us that the truth no longer carries so much weight at the ABC, not when it comes to climate science. http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/04/26/hamilton-abcs-latest-climate-change-doco-another-pr-victory-for-doubters/
Australia’s carbon emissions down: renewable energy played a part
RENEWABLE energy has helped Australia to cut carbon emissions
http://www.power-eng.com/news/2012/04/26/renewable-energy-has-helped-australia-to.html 04/26/2012 RENEWABLE energy has helped Australia to cut its total carbon emissions for the second year running, according to figures published in the Australian National Greenhouse Accounts, a quarterly update of Australia’s national greenhouse gas inventory, which is published by the federal government’s Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. Continue reading
Electricity price rise from carbon tax – less than expected
Carbon tax to raise electricity prices less than expected http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/business/consumers/carbon-tax-impact-on-electricity-prices-less-than-expected/ 19 April, 2012 12:01 am The effect of the carbon price on retail electricity will be lower than predicted and vary considerably by region, a new University of Queensland study has projected.
The most accurate estimate to date for the impact of the carbon price on retail electricity prices reveals the burden will vary considerably, depending on a household’s location.
Tasmanians, with a relatively low carbon footprint, are set to gain significantly from the carbon price once tax and pension changes are factored in, while Queenslanders – heavily dependent on coal to generate electricity – will wear the biggest increase in power prices, according to economic models run on “supercomputers” at The University of Queensland. Continue reading
Australia’s generous compensation to citizens, as it brings in the carbon tax
One million Queenslanders to receive extra welfare payments to offset rising costs fuelled by carbon tax by: Steven Scott The Courier-Mail April 14, 2012 “…..New data from the tax office and welfare agencies reveals just under one million Queenslanders will receive some form of extra welfare payments to help offset rising costs fuelled by the carbon tax.
Almost 1.6 million Queenslanders who are likely to earn less than $80,000 next year will get a tax cut. About 1.3 million of those will receive a cut of more than $300 a year. About 121,000 more Queenslanders are likely to pay no income tax next year when the tax-free threshold is tripled as part of the carbon tax compensation package.
As Labor braces for a backlash to the carbon tax, which will take effect on July 1, the Government will roll out increases to pensions with initial lump sums in May and June…. About 675,000 Queensland pensioners will get an extra $338 a year if they are single and up to $510 a year if they are a couple, while 45,000 of the state’s self-funded retirees will get an extra $380 a year.
More than 350,000 families will enjoy boosts to payments, including up to $110 extra a year for each child for families on Family Tax Benefit A and up to $60 a year for those on Family Tax Benefit B…
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/one-million-queenslanders-to-receive-extra-welfare-payments-to-offset-rising-costs-fuelled-by-carbon-tax/story-e6freoof-
Australia’s carbon tax benefits will kick in in May 2012
Carbon tax’s family dividends http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2012/04/14/318411_tasmania-news.html
DAVID KILLICK | April 14, 2012 HUNDREDS of thousands of Tasmanians will shortly benefit from increased welfare payments and tax cuts under the Federal Government’s new carbon tax regime. Increases in family payments, pensions and benefits will start with lump-sum payments next month, followed by benefit rises which take effect in the new year.
Tax cuts also kick in on July 1 and 14,000 Tasmanians will no longer have to pay tax at all, thanks to a tripling of the tax-free threshold. More than 100,000 Tasmanian pensioners will receive up to $510 a year more in benefits, 44,000 families will get $110 per child and self-funded retirees will be $380 a year better off. Around 17,000 jobseekers will be paid another $218 for singles and $390 for couples, the state’s 8500 single parents will receive $234
more a year and 7500 students will be $218 a year better off. And 179,000 Tasmanians on less than $80,000 a year will receive tax cuts. Continue reading
Murdoch press ‘informs’ public opinion on climate change
negative articles about the proposed carbon emissions tax in Murdoch’s newspapers outweighed positive ones
82 percent to 18 percent.
AUDIO How Murdoch’s Aussie Papers Cover Climate Change, NPR News by DAVID 
FOLKENFLIK April 6, 2012 “…..[journalist Wendy] Bacon delved into her own harvest: the results of a case study about how the country’s newspapers handled a pressing and contentious issue.
Bacon, a professor of journalism at the University of Technology in Sydney, commissioned researchers and graduate students to examine six months’ worth of every article, feature piece, editorial and columns in 10 leading Australian papers on a proposal by the governing Labor Party to tax carbon emissions.
“What our study showed is that the majority of Australians are not getting a balanced or diverse view on a policy which was designed — at least in a small way — to tackle this problem,” Bacon said.
Seven of the 10 papers studied were part of News Corp.’s Australian newspaper arm, News Limited. The overwhelming majority of newspapers sold in the country are owned by Rupert Murdoch’s company. With such dominance of the press, the Murdoch papers draw careful scrutiny of how they cover sensitive issues. Continue reading
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