Will Western Australia take climate change seriously, or just pander to fossil fuel lobby?
You’d think that Western Australia would now go all out for renewable energy. You’d think that Western Australia would now renounce all projects for water intensive uranium mining.
But it seems that the W.A. government will still be fiddling around, pandering to the fossil fuel and uranium industry, while their State burns.
WA’s south-west ‘drying out’ fast, Daniel Mercer, The West Australian, March 14, 2012, Two of Australia’s foremost scientific agencies have warned that south-west WA is warming and drying faster than anywhere in the country and will be increasingly prone to drought.
After a record eighth heatwave in Perth this summer, the Weather Bureau and CSIRO will today release the latest biennial snapshot of climate trends in Australia. The report backs up earlier conclusions that Australia’s land and sea temperatures are rising and rainfall is shifting from southern latitudes to the country’s centre and north.
It said average temperatures were expected to increase 0.6C to 1.5C by 2030 and 1.0C to 5.0C by 2070, with particularly harsh effects on south-west WA, including Perth. The report suggested the area would have long-term reductions in rainfall and more years like 2010 – the driest ever.
Rising greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the rising acidification of Australia’s oceans were noted in the report, which said it was “90 per cent likely” the trends were because of man-made global warming…… http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/wa/13159615/was-south-west-drying-out-fast/
Premier Baillieu out of step with voters, on climate chnage
Voters call for action on climate change, The Age, Adam Morton March 9, 2012 AS THE Baillieu government prepares to reveal the future of Victoria’s climate change laws, a poll has found two-thirds of Coalition voters think the state has a responsibility to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The Essential Media poll of 1009 Victorians, commissioned by conservation group Environment Victoria, found 76 per cent believed the state government should cut emissions and not leave it to the federal government to take action through a carbon tax or other steps.
Among Coalition voters, 66 per cent said the state had a responsibility to cut emissions.
Victorians want the state government to act despite belief in climate
change being split between those who think that it is caused by human
activity (47 per cent) and those who think it is either due to natural
variation or not happening at all (44 per cent).
The poll comes as the state government is due to this month release a
review of the Climate Change Act introduced by the previous Labor government, which includes a target of cutting Victoria’s emissions by 20 per cent this decade.
The Baillieu government has wound back some clean energy programs and fuelled expectations the target could be reduced or scrapped.
Other findings from the poll conducted in December and January were:
■ Just 22 per cent of voters consider wind farm laws that give households right of veto over turbines within two kilometres of their house fair. Fifty per cent said the laws were not fair. ■ A majority said they wanted fewer coal-fired power plants (63 per cent) and more renewable energy (78 per cent) and energy efficiency (82 per cent). : http://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/voters-call-for-action-on-climate-change-20120308-1un7y.html#ixzz1ofcfEu4I
Climate change severely affecting Torres Strait islands
A SINKING FEELING IN THE TORRES STRAIT, ABC Radio National, Hagar Cohen.4 March 2012, There are six islands in the Torres Strait facing inundation from tidal flooding. The encroaching sea is slowly washing away everything from building foundations to ancestral graves, and mosquitoes are thriving. One island has had its worst malaria outbreak in 50 years. There is a temporary solution—building seawalls—but the federal and state governments are showing little interest in paying for that, and in the meantime these island communities have a sinking feeling that relocation may be the only option left for them.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/2012-03-04/3857272
Climate denialist campaigner joins Gina Rinehart’s boards
Plimer does very nicely from the mining industry which has set him up for a very comfortable retirement. He is a director of mining companies Ivanhoe Australia, Silver City Minerals and the UK-listed Kefi Minerals, , and is chairman of TNT Mines. He is reputed to earn more than $350,000 in director’s fees and shares — a lot more than he receives from the University of Adelaide where his fellow academics have written him off as a joke. . http://www.independentaustralia.net/2011/politics/plimer-and-howard-ape-creationists/
Gina brings climate sceptic on board, BY: ANDREW BURRELL The Australian February 02, 2012 GINA Rinehart’s crusade against the Gillard government’s carbon tax has gathered steam with the appointment of one of Australia’s most prominent climate-change sceptics, Ian Plimer, to the boards of two of her key companies.
Professor Plimer, of the University of Adelaide, has served as an informal adviser to Mrs Rinehart and spoke at an event she organised for world business leaders in Perth last year.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/carbon-plan/gina-brings-climate-sceptic-on-board/story-fn99tjf2-1226260017472
Time to expose the money that funds Australia’s climate denialist think tanks
“The public should know who is funding climate denial so they can properly judge the information put out by organisations like the Global Warming Policy Foundation,”
“In Australia, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) is a leading source of climate disinformation, yet it retreats into secrecy whenever it is asked about the source of its funding. Environment groups are upfront about their funding, yet denialists claim privacy.”
The first available set of public accounts shows the foundation, which has declared Australia as one of its areas of operation to UK authorities, received £494,625 in donations in its first year.
Bid to out the money behind the voice against climate change, SMH Graham Readfearn January 27, 2012 – A British journalist’s court bid to unmask the financial backers of a group of climate change sceptics is being used to raise questions about how think-tanks are funded in Australia and whether they deserve tax exemptions.
The UK’s Charity Commission, which regulates charities in the UK, is being asked to release a document that would show the start-up funders of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, chaired by former UK chancellor Lord Nigel Lawson.
Launched in November 2009, the foundation has consistently challenged the mainstream scientific view that human emissions of greenhouse gases represent a significant risk to the planet and societies.
Later today, freelance journalist Brendan Montague will appeal to the UK’s Information Rights Tribunal for the release of a bank statement provided to the Charity Commission by Lord Lawson, which Mr Montague believes will identify the source of a $50,000 seed donation.
The case has raised the issue of how think-tanks engaged in public policy debates are funded and whether potential conflicts of interest should be declared. None are required by law to publicly disclose their funders. Continue reading
The case for Australia’s carbon tax now stronger than ever
The arguments of big polluters against a price on pollution and the CEFC are evaporating…… Remember when we couldn’t act because the US and China had no price on pollution? China has just announced its carbon tax will begin in 2015, while many US states (including California, an economy about 30 per cent larger than Australia’s) are establishing their own prices on pollution.
Slacking off on climate is just not cricket, IAN LOWE, ABC Environment, 23 JAN 2012 “….. we should be wary of short memories and predictions of doom when it comes to Australia’s price on pollution, which comes into force on 1 July this year. As the legislation was passed in October last year, we were subjected to big polluters’ predictions of apocalypse……
The risk we now face is that, in the wake of a ‘win’ in the form of the Clean Energy Future package, Australia will take its eye off the ball, even though the need to focus on a long-term goal remains crucial.
Now is the time to begin moving to a cleaner, healthier economy.
The price on pollution and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation will open up job opportunities in a range of new and existing industries. Research by the Australian Conservation Foundation and the ACTU in 2010 showed that shifting Australia to a cleaner economy will create 3.7 million new jobs across the country by 2030. Continue reading
Australia should welcome climate change refugees from the Pacific islands
Australia is the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, per head of population. The consequences of global warming already mean extreme climate events here in Australia.
But low-lying Pacific islands pay the greatest price of global warming – the complete loss of their homeland. Yet these Pacific islanders are among the least causers of greenhouse gas emissions.
It’s a staggering injustice. Already, Australia has a reputation for treating asylum seekers like criminals. We had better shape up to responsibilities, and not become a global pariah – Australia should welcome climate change refugees from the Pacific. – Christina Macpherson
Maldives warns of climate refugees, The Age, Ben Doherty, January 7, 2012 THE president of what could be the first country in the world lost to rising sea levels has urged Australia to prepare for a wave of climate refugees. Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed’s government is considering Australia as a new home if the archipelago disappears into the ocean.
”I think it’s really quite necessary for Australians and for every rich country to understand that this is unlike any other thing that’s happened before,” Mr Nasheed told The Saturday Age.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts a sea level rise of up to 59 centimetres over the next century, a level that would inundate most of the Maldives’ inhabited atolls. Low-lying Pacific island nations, such as Kiribati and Tuvalu, would also face being flooded…..
Fourteen islands in the Maldives have already been abandoned because of massive erosion by the sea. Mr Nasheed described Australia’s decision to adopt a carbon tax from 2012 as a ”brave move forward”.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/maldives-warns-of-climate-refugees-20120106-1poog.html#ixzz1ioGSk6q0
Ian Plimer and co. manufacturing doubt on Climate Change?
Could their real agenda be in manufacturing doubt rather than the search for scientific truth?
If so, it wouldn’t be a first, as Naomi Oreskes points out in her recent book Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming.
Cherry-picking contrarian geologists tend to obscure scientific truth, THE AUSTRALIAN, BY:MIKE SANDIFORD December 31, 2011 GINA Rinehart notoriously claims she has never met a geologist who believes “adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will have any significant effect on climate”.
To listen to prominent “contrarian” geologists such as Ian Plimer, you might imagine she never could. But, despite the bluster, our contrarian geologists are out of kilter with their own community and seem deeply confused about the way the greenhouse effect – by adding more CO2 to the atmosphere, for example – has shaped both the past and the present.
All geology students learn of the importance of the greenhouse effect. It’s simply impossible to understand the geological record without it……. Continue reading
Climate denialist adopts creationist tactics to “educate” children
Plimer does very nicely from the mining industry which has set him up for a very comfortable retirement. He is a director of mining companies Ivanhoe Australia, Silver City Minerals and the UK-listed Kefi Minerals, , and is chairman of TNT Mines. He is reputed to earn more than $350,000 in director’s fees and shares — a lot more than he receives from the University of Adelaide where his fellow academics have written him off as a joke. He is also closely in cahoots with Australia’s richest miner, and individual, Gina Rinehart.
The launch of the book is funded by the notorious “cash for comment” right-wing skeptic group, the Institute of Public Affairs. . The IPA is run by ultra-right Liberals and funded by organisations which include BHP Billiton, Western Mining, Caltex, Esso Australia (subsidiary of Exxon), Shell, Woodside Petroleum, News Ltd, Philip Morris, British American Tobacco, to name a few. Rio Tinto was a sponsor.
Plimer and Howard ape creationists, Independent Australia, 14 Dec 11, http://www.independentaustralia.net/2011/politics/plimer-and-howard-ape-creationists/ The mining lobby, with a helping hand from long-time chief climate change action roadblock, former Prime Minister John Howard, has taken a leaf out of the creationists playbook and is now trying to inculcate children with their unscientific nonsense. Environment editor
Sandi Keane reports. Oh my goodness, what next? The mining lobby, desperate to stop any regulation on Co2 and having failed to convert the grownups to climate skepticism, are now taking aim at our children! Climate skeptic, Ian Plimer, has really lost it this time. His new book is called “How to Get Expelled from School”, and it targets school children and teachers. According to Plimer:
“…these children are being fed environmental propaganda and these children are too young to be fed ideology.”
Does the book’s name ring a bell? The anti-scientific film entitled “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” was trotted by those crazies, the creationists, in the U.S. to try to stop the teaching of Darwin’s theory of evolution in American schools. Continue reading
Promoting renewable energy is the way to save the climate change debate
The heavy polluting industres know they cannot easily shift basic values, so they have undermined solar and wind at the next level of understanding, around jobs, prices and the electricity industry. In reaction to the statement, ‘Investing in renewable energy is good for the economy by creating jobs,’ 80 per cent were in agreement, and only 10 per cent in disagreement.After two years of campaigning for coal and against renewables, energy-intensive and heavy-polluting industry, along with certain media outlets and Opposition leader Tony Abbott, have done barely any damage to the perceived value of renewables as an industry.
Cleaning up the climate debate, Climate Spectator , 8 Dec 2011, Dan Cass A recent poll confirms what I have come to believe after watching the global warming issue for 20 years; renewable energy is the only way to save the debate about saving the planet. If the UN wants to make progress in the climate negotiations and closer to home, if Julia Gillard wants to win the next election, then the debate should be couched in terms of the tangible benefits of today’s solar and wind technologies.A poll by Essential Research, conducted during Australia’s recent carbon price negotiations, shows overwhelming public support for investment in solar and wind, and that this support might just win the politics of a carbon price.
detractors. Solar and wind have been politicised and companies need to step in and vigorously defend their interests. Continue reading
Australia joins international community in climate action, and credibility for Durban conference
CLIMATE POLICY We’ve Got Climate Cred – Now What? New Matilda, 29 Nov 2011 With clean energy laws passed, Australian reps can speak with credibility about international climate policy. Sophie Trevitt reports on expectations about the UN climate talks in Durban
This month, the Clean Energy Bills passed through the Senate and were enacted into law. Australia took its first step towards preventing dangerous climate change — joining almost 100 other major economies that have implemented accountable policies to reduce carbon pollution.
Now, Australia stands alongside nearly 200 countries in Durban, South Africa, for the United Nations Climate Conference 2011. Australian representatives can for the first time speak with some credibility in this international forum, having implemented a domestic policy that provides a framework for reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
The International Energy Commission has recently released research which suggests that if our consumption of fossil fuels is not drastically and immediately reduced, we will face runaway climate change within five years. That means more extreme weather events like Cyclone Yasi, bushfires and extreme heat waves for Australia — and it means many of the Pacific Islands will become uninhabitable.
With some progress made in Cancun last year, the question hanging above Durban is how much and how fast substantive progress can be made. Negotiations this year are expected to shift away from the symbolic rhetoric that has characterised previous conferences; and hopes remain high that strong cooperative action will be instigated…..
Australia has good reason to celebrate enacting our first climate laws. The Climate Talks in Durban present an opportunity for Australia to catch up with the rest of the world before it is too late. We’ve taken the first step at home. Now we need to join with the international community and pledge to dramatically cut our emissions by at least 15 per cent; investing in the renewable alternatives available in Australia as one of the sunniest and windiest countries in the world. http://newmatilda.com/2011/11/29/weve-got-durban-cred-now-what
Australia – get ready for a summer of climate denialist lies!
Christopher Monckton the Lord of Mendacity, Independent Australia 27 Nov 11 Lord Christopher Monckton has deliberately and systematically lied and dissembled to mislead the public on climate change, says Associate Professor John Abraham. This summer, the people of Australia will yet again be treated to a circus tour. It will make light of one of the most pressing problems facing this planet.That problem, climate change, will not go away even though an orchestrated group of contrarians wishes it would. The most outspoken leader of this troupe is Christopher Monckton, a person with excellent credentials in speaking but no credentials in real science (he has not published a single peer-reviewed paper on any scientific topic).
Christopher Monckton presents himself as a fair and accurate interpreter of the science, but a careful examination of his views shows that he is anything but fair and accurate. He was most recently seen comparing Ross Garnaut, the Australian government’s climate change adviser (and author for this series) to a Nazi.
Real scientists have never taken Mr. Monckton seriously. This hasn’t stopped him from traveling the world, presenting his views on science to anyone who will listen….. We have a serious problem facing us. In order to make wise and informed decisions, we need accurate information.
Only with good information can we decide which pathway offers us the cheapest and most effective means to deal with climate change. This is why CSIRO recently dropped sponsorship from an Australian conference at which Monckton will be speaking later this month. It’s also why Monckton was dumped from a private school networking event on the Gold Coast.
When people like Christopher Monckton misrepresent science, with an obvious agenda to delay action, they make our decisions more difficult and more expensive. Instead of making light of the issue of climate change, instead of vilifying people who are genuinely concerned, instead of presenting inaccurate science, we should find ways to work together in a civil manner to collectively choose a path forward…. http://www.independentaustralia.net/2011/environment/christopher-monckton-the-lord-of-mendacity/
Malcolm Turnbull makes a strong case against Climate Change Denialists, and Koch brothers
THEY’RE LIKE SMOKERS: Malcolm Turnbull turns on climate change sceptics, Perth Now November 06, 2011 Turnbull highlights new study by climate sceptics It still found the planet was 1C warmer than in 1950s FORMER Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull has compared climate change sceptics with people who refuse to admit smoking causes lung cancer.
Mr Turnbull, who lost the Liberal leadership almost two years ago when he backed Labor’s old 
emissions trading scheme, has seized on a US study showing global temperatures are rising….. In his attack on climate-change deniers, Mr Turnbull highlighted a study of the world’s surface temperatures by Richard Muller, which was partially bankrolled by a foundation connected to global warming deniers.
But despite drawing funding from industrialist brothers David and Charles Koch, the study by the University of Berkeley
in California, still found the Earth was 1C warmer than in the 1950s. “One of the big financiers of the anti-climate change movement is a family called Koch, K-O-C-H, and they put a lot of money into these climate sceptic organisations and they’ve got big interest in fossil fuels,” Mr Turnbull told the Seven Network on Sunday.
Mr Turnbull said the backers of the study “presumably” hoped to demonstrate climate science was not reliable, and used the results to criticise people who continually question global warming. “They’re like the guy who gets told by his doctor to stop smoking, lose weight and decides not to do that,” he said. “He met a mate down the pub who said his Uncle Ernie had lived ’til 95 but he smoked a packet every day. It’s ridiculous.”….
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/special-features/theyre-like-smokers-malcolm-turnbull-turns-on-climate-change-sceptics/story-e6frg19l-1226186990042
Running out of time to act on global warming – not that Martin Ferguson cares
Five years to act on climate: report The Age , Tom Arup and David Wroe November 11, 2011THE world has just five years to make ”urgent and radical policy changes” or lock in dangerous climate change, the world’s leading energy agency has warned, sparking a debate about whether Australia should shift to gas or renewable energy.
The 2011 World Energy Outlook – released by the International Energy Agency late on Wednesday night – finds the world is on track to build enough fossil-fuel power stations, energy-intensive factories and buildings by 2017 to close the door on keeping climate change to a safe level…… The outlook says coal consumption needs to peak well before 2020 if the world wants to halt global warming at a 2 degrees rise, which scientists say is needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
If energy and climate policies currently proposed by all world governments – including Australia’s carbon tax – are put in place, temperatures will rise by 3.5 degrees. If the world remains on its current path of growth in fossil fuels global temperatures will rise by 6 degrees, the outlook says.
Agency chief economist Fatih Birol said if by 2017 there is not a start to major new clean infrastructure investments ”the door to 2 degrees will be closed”. ”I am very worried,” he said, ”if we don’t change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum. The door will be closed forever.”
The outlook comes as nations prepare to converge on the South African city of Durban later this month for the next round of global climate change negotiations, but there is almost no expectation significant progress on a global pact will be made.
The agency’s report says emissions from existing fossil-fuel power plants, factories and buildings have already locked in 80 per cent of the emissions allowed by 2035 to keep carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to 450 parts per million, the maximum possible to keep temperature rises to 2 degrees. The other 20 per cent will be eaten up by 2017 on current development trends the outlook says.
Greens deputy leader Christine Milne told The Age the report showed that there was no longer time to use gas – which is a cleaner-burning fuel than coal – as a stepping stone to renewable energy such as wind, solar and geothermal. ”[The outlook] is basically saying to the investment community, ‘You are going to be gambling on how long gas has got as any kind of transitional fuel’.”
Australia would need to make deeper cuts to keep to a 450ppm target, which would restrict the number of permits under the carbon-pricing scheme and make emissions more expensive.
However, Mr Ferguson told The Age: ”The flexibility of gas-fired technology and the fact it is the cleanest fossil fuel make it an attractive investment option.” In addition to gas, the message I am getting firsthand out of China and India … is that coal-fired power will increase and Australia is well placed to supply coal to fuel their growing economies.”… http://www.theage.com.au/national/five-years-to-act-on-climate-report-20111110-1n9he.html#ixzz1dRh1PZbd
Facts on Australia’s new climate change legislation
How the package will roll out , SMH, November 8, 201
Factbox on how the climate package will roll out:
• Carbon emissions tax for the 500 biggest polluters starts on July 1, 2012.
• Tax moves to an emissions trading scheme in 2015.
• Tax will not apply to agricultural emissions or light on-road vehicles.
• Electricity generation, stationary energy, some business transport, waste, industrial processes and fugitive emissions will be covered by the initial tax.
• Average households will see a $9.90 weekly cost rise.
• Average households will receive assistance of $10.10 weekly.
• Free carbon permits will be given to the most emissions-intensive and trade-exposed industries.
• The government wants to cut pollution by 80 per cent by 2050.
(Source: Federal Government)
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/how-the-package-will-roll-out-20111108-1n4rn.html
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