Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items

Morrison says NSW minister “doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Does Morrison? — RenewEconomy

Morrison misrepresents federal emissions targets and renewables investment while trying to chastise NSW energy minister Matt Kean over climate. The post Morrison says NSW minister “doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Does Morrison? appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Morrison says NSW minister “doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Does Morrison? — RenewEconomy

January 20, 2020 Posted by | climate change - global warming, politics | Leave a comment

Fire fighter’s anger at Scott Morrison, over climate change

cartoon – Reproduced with permission from Mark David and Independent Australia.

The Firefighter Whose Denunciation of Australia’s Prime Minister Made Him a Folk Hero New Yorker, By Amanda Schaffer, January 18, 2020 

Until a few days ago, Paul Parker was a volunteer firefighter in Nelligen, a small village on the coast of New South Wales, in Australia—an area that has been devastated by the bushfires currently sweeping the country. A week ago, Parker was defending homes in his community against a spreading inferno. The sky was red and burnt orange, he said. Embers were everywhere. Flames shot as high as forty feet. “I’ve fought a few bushfires in my time, but nothing like that,” Parker told me. “It’s the worst I’ve ever experienced.”
……In Parker’s community, and elsewhere, the crisis has provoked intense anger toward Morrison, who was on vacation in Hawaii when two firefighters died in December. Morrison returned to Australia, but his response to the wildfires has been widely condemned as slow and ineffective.

Since September, millions of acres of land have burned, thousands of people have lost their homes and businesses, and at least twenty-eight have perished.

Morrison’s history of skepticism toward climate change and the government’s record of inaction have infuriated Australians who understand that record-breaking heat and dryness, symptomatic of a warming planet, are fuelling the crisis. On Sunday, Morrison announced an inquiry into the country’s fire response, nodding to the role of climate change but failing to support policies to decrease fossil-fuel use or promote renewable energy……

“Then the wind changed, so the flames were fully involved across the road, and we had to drive the truck through the fire front to get ourselves out. We were driving to stop the fire from going into the village, and we saw a TV-news team down on one of the access roads. It just was a boiling point for me. I said, ‘Are you from the media? Tell the Prime Minister to go and get fucked, from Nelligen. . . . We really enjoy doing this shit.’ 

“A couple of weeks earlier, the Prime Minister commented that Rural Fire Service members enjoy going out and fighting fires. He’s just got no understanding of what it’s all about. We don’t enjoy fighting bushfires and saving people’s homes. We do it because we have to. He’s got no understanding of what real people in Australia go through. And he doesn’t care anyway. Any real man would never have left the country while his country was in turmoil…….

“Climate change is also a real thing. It’s not something that can be fixed overnight, and the government’s got to make a stand at some stage. Scott Morrison doesn’t even believe in climate change. I don’t think he even considers that we are going through climate change……. https://www.newyorker.com/news/as-told-to/the-firefighter-whose-denunciation-of-australias-prime-minister-made-him-a-folk-hero

January 20, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, politics | Leave a comment

Liberal Party misinformation on climate change

Notorious climate denier Craig Kelly at it again,  Independent Australia, By Steve Bishop | 19 January 2020, Official figures reveal the Liberals’ foremost climate change denying MP, Craig Kelly, resorted to lies and misinformation to dispute factual evidence in his presentation to a Sky News program.Kelly and other MPs such as George Christensen, have helped sabotage the Federal Government’s climate change policy to a point where it is viewed as the worst in the world.

Just examine the absurd whoppers Kelly told in claiming most of the U.S.’s hottest years on record had occurred in the 1930s.

He used these lies to justify an even bigger lie:  Here’s a transcript of Kelly’s snake-oil claims:

……… The United States’ climate records are kept by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

I have searched the records, which go back to 1895, and can find no statistics to support Kelly’s claims.

The only set of figures which bear any resemblance to Kelly’s fake news are for one-off freak temperature extremes in each state……….

All Australians should be concerned by Kelly’s lies because he has the personal backing of Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who intervened before the last election to ensure the climate change denier was selected as the candidate for Hughes.

This gives Kelly credibility with the ridiculous right of the party when coal-loving Morrison, as PM, has to appeal to a broad church….. https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/notorious-climate-denier-craig-kelly-at-it-again,13501

January 20, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, politics | Leave a comment

Australia led the world in climate action, in 2012 with the Gillard Labor government

Who to Blame for Australia’s Bullshit Approach to Climate Change  https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/dygvjy/who-to-blame-for-australia-coal-mining-lobbyists-fires-bushfires-bullshit-approach-to-climate-change  

Look these coal lobbyists in the eye. Remember their names. By Royce Kurmelovs, 16 January 2020, 

As the smoke begins to clear on 10.3 million hectares of charred earth, many Australians have started asking questions. The largest natural disaster in the country’s history has left over two dozen people dead; over a billion native animals dead or dying, along with tens of thousands of livestock; and some species pushed to the point of extinction.

Now people are asking: “why?”

The answer, for many, is that we’ve begun a long and unnerving slide into a world of supercharged weather. The CO2 humanity had been pumping into the atmosphere for decades is now affecting our seasons in precisely all the ways we were warned. For Australia, that means hotter summers with less rainfall, which is exactly what 2019 delivered.

Australia just sweltered through its hottest year on record with temperatures averaging 1.52C above the 1961—1990 average, according to data from the Bureau of Meteorology. This came after an unprecedented period of drought across much of the country’s east, which unsurprisingly led to widespread fires.

But even if the science is clear, the reality seems lost on those who hold the country’s highest political offices. When confronted with the suggestion his government was not acting in a meaningful way on climate change, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has simply said he “did not accept that” and insisted, like his Minister for Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor, that Australia has been “doing its part”.

he truth is that Australia is the fourth largest coal producer in the world, and has relied on tricky accounting practices to book progress toward reducing its carbon emissions while actually doing the bare minimum.

Because of this, Australia was recently rated 57th on a list of countries for its handling of climate change—placing it just slightly above Iran with its oil-dependent national economy.

And yet just eight years ago, Australia was leading the world on climate change action. In 2012 we’d achieved what many pundits believed was a political impossibility. Australia had levied a tax on carbon that forced an almost immediate drop in the country’s CO2 emissions. That was until a new conservative government took power and repealed the carbon tax a short two years later.

January 20, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, politics | Leave a comment

PM under pressure as Coalition changes tune on climate change

PM under pressure as Coalition changes tune on climate change , Daily Telegraph , 19 Jan 2020

Prime Minister Scott Morrison could be facing a cabinet revolt on climate change with the horror bushfire season sparking new calls for action from his own top-ranking MPs…. (subscribers only)

January 20, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, politics | Leave a comment

Scott Morrison probably intransigent on climate policy

If the bushfires won’t force climate policy change, we need to circumvent Scott Morrison. Guardian,  Lenore Taylor  The cabal of Coalition denialists calling the shots are still impervious to facts. But it’s not yet time to despair @lenoretaylor, Fri 17 Jan 202  It’s time to face a dreadful truth. If this bushfire crisis, this nation-wide trauma, can’t loosen the denialists’ grip on Coalition climate policy, then maybe nothing will.

That would mean everyone sifting through Scott Morrison’s verbiage for signs that he might really be intending to change direction is searching in vain, because he’s just trying to talk himself out of political trouble.

It would mean everyone patiently pointing out that the prime minister could quite easily “evolve” his current policies into something that actually reduced Australia’s greenhouse emissions could save their breath, because that isn’t the kind of evolution he is considering.

And it would mean there’s no point reprising the facts, that Australia’s emissions are flatlining, not falling, that we could seize an economic advantage in a low-carbon world and at the same time help the globe avoid the all too obvious costs of inaction. The Coalition cabal who apparently still call the shots thinks climate science is “voodoo”. They’re impervious to facts. They are already threatening, via anonymous quotes to the Australian, to “blow the place up”. Again. Just like they’ve been blowing up national climate action for more than a decade.

And as this week’s Guardian Essential poll showed, despite the widespread sense that the fires are a tipping point, despite global outrage at the self-defeating stupidity of our policies, despite the world’s largest fund manager ditching thermal coal, despite the wave of grief and anger from around the world – even from James Murdoch – it’s still not clear that Australian public opinion will force this government to change.

Sure, Morrison’s mishandling of this crisis has cost him. His overall approval ratings have dived but his numbers have held fairly steady in his base. The strategists – who always pay more heed to those numbers than to other benchmarks, like, say, a country in ashes – no doubt believe that, with enough confusing obfuscation about “meeting and beating” targets, enough revising of the figures, enough serious practical efforts to help burnt-out communities, and just enough rhetoric conceding the reality of global heating, all will be well in time, without promising to do anything about it. All will be well for the poll numbers that is. Not for the nation.

This is not, repeat not, an argument for abandoning the arguments in favour of climate action. It is not a counsel to cop out in despair. …………

Maybe, under the current political pressure, something will give. But we’ve been fooled before and there’s no time to be fooled again. So that means it’s time to think of ways around the federal Coalition’s intransigence, because those deniers will never be swayed, and we can’t allow them to dictate our future. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/17/if-the-bushfires-wont-force-climate-policy-change-we-need-to-circumvent-scott-morrison

January 18, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, politics | Leave a comment

Australian Nuclear Technology and Science Organisation, (ANSTO), jumps on the bushfire propaganda bandwagon

Today, 15 January, there was a ’round table” meeting, (I think in Canberra) of “top scientists” on the urgent need to develop new bushfire adaptation and mitigation techniques.

And guess who’s at the top of the list in these TOP SCIENTISTS ON CLIMATE CHANGE. Why, none other than The Australian Nuclear Technology and Science Organisation, (ANSTO)

Of course, ANSTO is prominent in promoting the lie that nuclear power is the solution to climate change. They’ve put in submissions to parliamentary inquiries, You can bet that they’ve got one in now, to the Victorian Inquiry (submissions close 28 February.) One must admire the timing of the nuclear lobby’s manipulations, and the speed with which they are jumping on the bushfire-fix bandwagon.

January 15, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, Christina reviews, climate change - global warming, politics | Leave a comment

Coalition right wing unhappy, as moderate Liberals seize on PM Morrison’s comments about cutting emissions.

Coalition MPs split over Scott Morrison’s apparent shift on climate policy, Moderate Liberals seize on PM’s comments to argue the government will do more to cut emissions but conservatives push back, Guardian  Sarah Martin 13 Jan 2020 Chief political correspondent   Moderate Liberals have seized on Scott Morrison’s apparent shift on climate change policy to argue the government will do more to cut emissions, as some conservatives push back against any “symbolism” that could damage the economy.

In a sign of the challenge facing the prime minister as he seeks to “evolve” climate change policy, government MPs have split over the prime minister’s comments on the weekend that the Coalition wanted to reduce emissions “even further” than current commitments.

While saying Australia’s 2030 emission reduction targets remain government policy, Morrison said he wanted to do “better” and would only rely on the use of carryover credits from the Kyoto protocol if needed.

Australia is the only country relying on carryover credits to meet its Paris 2030 target of 26% to 28% of 2005 levels by 2030, which critics say do not represent the cuts required to limit global warming to as close to 1.5C as possible.

Katie Allen, the Liberal MP for the Victorian seat of Higgins, welcomed Morrison’s remarks, telling her constituents that she would be a “strong voice” in the party room for stronger action on climate change…….

The self-styled modern Liberal MP Tim Wilson also endorsed Morrison’s comments, saying the commitment at the last election to “cut emissions, but not jobs” was a baseline for action.

“The prime minister has rightly identified there’ll be more evolution of policy to cut emissions, but not jobs, and I look forward to contributing to that important evolution,” Wilson told Guardian Australia.

Dave Sharma, the MP for Malcolm Turnbull’s former seat of Wentworth, said he was “pleased to hear” Morrison’s comments on the importance of responding to climate change and promoted the government’s plan to “continue to evolve our policies with a view to reducing our emissions further”…..

But as moderates welcomed the shift, conservative MPs were warning against a change in policy.

The Queensland Nationals MP Llew O’Brien told the Courier Mail that if Australia went beyond its current commitments, it would be “pure symbolism at the expense of the economy”.

The former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce also issued a thinly veiled warning that the government risked a backlash in the bush if it moved to ramp up emission reduction targets……..

The divide comes as Morrison insists the role of climate change is “not in dispute” within his ranks, despite several MPs denying the role of a warmer planet as an underlying cause of the severe bushfire season.

The Nationals MP George Christensen was the latest to promote his view that climate change was not a factor, telling his supporters on Facebook that climate change is not “a bogey man who can go around lighting bushfires”…..


The Liberal MP Craig Kelly last week caused a storm of controversy
 after appearing on UK television to argue that there was “no link” between climate change and Australia’s drought.

Following the appearance, Morrison told his MPs that backbenchers should not do any international media interviews. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/13/coalition-mps-split-over-scott-morrisons-apparent-shift-on-climate-policy

January 14, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, politics | Leave a comment

Australia can have zero emissions and still profit from minerals, says Ross Garnaut

January 14, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, energy, politics | Leave a comment

When traditional Aboriginal owners are included in the vote, support for Kimba nuclear waste dump drops to 43%

Kim Mavromatis   Fight To Stop A Nuclear Waste Dump In South Australia
KIMBA AND BARNGARLA SEPARATE VOTE COMBINED : “YES” 43.75% .
Scomo’s Fed Govnt Radioactive Nuclear Waste Dumps process excluded Barngarla traditional owners from the Kimba ballot – so Barngarla organized their own independent vote and this is the combined Broad Community Support Yes Vote %.
Barngarla traditional owners and Kimba Farmers Speak out – watch these short films :
“Barngarla Speak Out” : vimeo.com/382855709
“SAVE SA Farmland – Kimba, Eyre Peninsula” : vimeo.com/381938156

January 13, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, Federal nuclear waste dump, politics | Leave a comment

Dramatic drop in P.M. Scott Morrison’s popularity, over his climate stance

January 13, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, politics | Leave a comment

Thousands protest in Sydney and other cities, against govt inaction on climate change

Sydney CBD climate protest attracts over 30,000 people, SMH, By Janek Drevikovsky and Matt Bungard, January 10, 2020 — More than 30,000 protesters brushed off hot and humid conditions to voice their displeasure at the federal government’s handling of the bushfire crisis and its attitude towards climate change.The event in Sydney’s CBD was set up a few weeks ago by Uni Students for Climate Justice, in conjunction with Extinction Rebellion…….

Protesters chanted, “Hey hey, ho ho ScoMo has got to go” as speakers climbed Town Hall’s side steps, and later moved on to “The liar from the shire, the country is on fire”.

Izzy Raj-Seppings, 13, waited to address the crowd.

She was given a move-on order by police while protesting outside Kirribilli House last September. Her hope is that Friday’s protest will create change……….

Protests also took place in other Australian capital cities. https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/sydney-cbd-climate-protest-attracts-thousands-20200110-p53qhq.html?promote_channel=edmail&mbnr=MTM2NDAwMjM&eid=email:nnn-13omn655-ret_newsl-membereng:nnn-04%2F11%2F2013-news_pm-dom-news-nnn-smh-u&campaign_code=13INO009&et_bid=292

January 11, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, politics | Leave a comment

The $billions cost of Australia’s climate disasters

Australia’s bushfires to cost billions as climate risks rise  Climate Home News 07/01/2020,  Australian government announces national bushfire recovery fund, as cost of natural disasters expected to rise in coming years, By Chloé Farand

Bushfires ravaging Australia are expected to cost billions of dollars in recovery efforts and the nation’s bills for tackling natural disasters risk soaring in coming decades with worsening climate change.

Record-breaking temperatures and severe droughts have fuelled the fires which have burnt millions of hectares across the country. At least 24 people and hundreds of thousands of animals have been killed.

Data from the Australian government Bureau of Meteorology shows December’s mean temperature was 3.21C warmer than the average for the month. Ed Hawkins, a professor of climate science at the University of Reading, said the country’s mean December temperature had warmed about 1.4 times faster than the global annual average temperature over the past century.

But pro-coal Prime Minister Scott Morrison has denied the link between climate change and the unprecedented intensity of bushfires across the country, describing it as “misconstrued”.

……… A 2017 analysis by Deloitte Access Economics found natural disasters cost Australia $9bn per year on average. The report found the cost could reach $27bn per year by 2050.“A modest levy on fossil fuel producers would help to shift the economic burden of these disasters from regular Australians to the coal and gas companies that are fuelling the climate crisis,” said Australia Institute’s deputy director Ebony Bennett.

The costs of wildfires is difficult to estimate due to the indirect costs such as the destruction of wildlife and the environment, damage to public health and harm to tourism.

Swiss Re, one of the world’s largest insurance companies, found direct economic losses only represent a fraction of the true economic impact, which can span years.

Across the world, the economic cost of wildfire has increased in recent decades. In 2017, direct economic losses from wildfires amounted to $21bn worldwide – up from $6bn in 2016, according to Swiss Re

……… A 2017 analysis by Deloitte Access Economics found natural disasters cost Australia $9bn per year on average. The report found the cost could reach $27bn per year by 2050.“A modest levy on fossil fuel producers would help to shift the economic burden of these disasters from regular Australians to the coal and gas companies that are fuelling the climate crisis,” said Australia Institute’s deputy director Ebony Bennett.

The costs of wildfires is difficult to estimate due to the indirect costs such as the destruction of wildlife and the environment, damage to public health and harm to tourism.

Swiss Re, one of the world’s largest insurance companies, found direct economic losses only represent a fraction of the true economic impact, which can span years.

Across the world, the economic cost of wildfire has increased in recent decades. In 2017, direct economic losses from wildfires amounted to $21bn worldwide – up from $6bn in 2016, according to Swiss Re.  https://www.climatechangenews.com/2020/01/07/australias-bushfires-cost-billions-climate-risks-rise/

January 10, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, politics | Leave a comment

Independent Australia on the Coalition’s toxic denial of climate change

The Coalition’s toxic denial of climate change is destroying us, Independent Australia, By Lyn Bender | 10 January 2020 It was our government’s denial of climate change that has brought so much destruction upon our country, writes Lyn Bender.

AS AUSTRALIA MOURNS enormous losses and experiences the dread and terror of this ferocious summer, the culture of denial attempts to assert itself in this new landscape. The professional denialists continue to promote their toxic climate lies.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is their klutz villain who seeks to deceive, as the climate reveals its fury.

Perhaps this is the time that we may at last defeat toxic denial. …..

Scott Morrison does not seem to accept the science of the times. If he understands the science, then his response to our climate crisis is homicidal.

Morrison wants to continue to consummate his love affair with coal, even though it means the destruction of our nation and the planet.

In May 2019, enough voters were in denial of the urgency of climate change to facilitate the election of a climate-denying government. Morrison showed us what he was made of when he fondled a lump of coal in the House of Representatives. It had been lacquered into cleanliness.

“Don’t be afraid, don’t be scared,” he mocked. “This is coal,” Morrison bellowed. He laughed as his sycophantic frontbenchers handled the gleaming black lump with glee.

Optimism is not the same as pretending in the face of evidence to the contrary that all will be well. That kind of optimism exists in the realm of charlatans or fools.

Morrison had a Happy New Year’s Eve party and photoshoot with the cricket team. “Life, as usual, continues” was the message. As people died, houses burned, ecosystems and millions of native animals are incinerated, the Prime Minister was having his summer of beach and cricket. It was like a crass tourism promotion.

This is the bizarre game that the denialist team has been playing for many years. As the planet hotted up and the science grew more insistent of our need to act, the denial team was in full throat. As the birds were silenced, the usual suspects became more shrill in their squawking.

There are too many to name but here are a few of those seated at the have-a-sham table:

The Government is staffed by saboteurs of climate action. Angus Taylor, the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reductions, has voiced opposition to the U.N. climate processes.  Australia, along with Brazil and Saudi Arabia, pushed for a very disappointing outcome at the recent Climate Summit at Madrid. Angus’s performance was slammed by climate scientist Will Steffen. Former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce is awaiting divine intervention for the drought, rather than government intervention. As the former Drought Envoy, Joyce failed to produce a single report.   https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the-coalitions-toxic-denial-of-climate-change-is-destroying-us,13477

January 10, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, politics | Leave a comment

Climate change Australia, and the bizarre state of our national political conversation

it apparently isn’t OK to simply say that clearly the climate has changed (even to say that without saying because it’s due to, you know, climate change). 

It’s hard not to listen to these interviews [with Scott Morrison]  though, and get the sense that he is rattling off an alibi; that he remains on the defensive.

January 10, 2020 Posted by | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, politics | Leave a comment