Australian Senate Chokes on Carbon Bill

Senator Stephen ‘Peaked in Pre-School’ Fielding truly is the pubic hair stuck in the throat of Australian democracy. Imposed on us by a Labor Party too control-hungry to preference Greens, he has probably cost the country $7B in compensation to heavily polluting industries – such as coal, electricity, and aluminium production – and ensured the creation and imposition of a weak, flawed, messy, and ineffective Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme – more accurately referred to by Greens Senator Rachel Siewert as the Coal Profits Retention Scheme.

Stephen Feel Ding underestimates his answer to the question, 'how stupid am I?'

Without Fielding, the timid and thumb-twiddling government could negotiate with a crossbench more likely made up of progressives with sufficient votes to secure a majority, rather than having to target a confused and even more visionless opposition, knowing that any possibility for a crossbench majority is stymied by the presence of Lord Effwit.

Speaking to the Senate just now about the proposed bundle of carbon legislation, Fielding has again emphasized his credentials as an engineer, and therefore a scientist in much the same way that an abattoir-worker might claim accreditation as a surgeon. He attributed the hysteria surrounding climate change to the brutal and self-interested ostracisation of all those brilliant scientists who argue that climate change has nothing to do with carbon, if it is even happening at all. Furthermore, he blamed that vicious piece of propaganda by Al Gore – The Innocent Truth. Oops. Duh.

At least Fielding called for sanity. We have been all carried away by this notion that exponential carbon emissions since 1995 are impacting global warming, when it hasn’t been increasingly hot every single year. After all, in Australia we have only had 8 of this country’s 10 hottest years since 2000, as have many countries around the planet.

But then again, Fielding is the only person in the Australian Parliament who realizes that Copenhagen is best pronounced as two words (Copen *pause 2 3 4* Hagen).

These idiots who think that lack of absolute proof is proof of absolute lack understand not even the slightest portion of the incredibly complex and ever-growing body of climate science. Even in the early ‘90s, scientists were clear in the fact that part of the model’s predictability must necessarily be its unpredictability. Idiot mouthpieces who triumphantly proclaim that the climate’s refusal to behave as uniformly predictably as Lego somehow disproves 2500 of the world’s leading climate scientists’ conservative predictions would perhaps better serve humanity as involuntary organ donors.

I’m looking at you, Fielding… Abetz… etc.

Then again, climate opportunist George Monbiot has chosen to expose the entire Global Warming Conspiracy today, so I should probably just shut up and enjoy the climatic mundanity.

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Peter Garrett speaks his mind

Germaine Greer gets it wrong on deadly Aussie bushfires

Got to admit that I quite enjoyed Germaine Greer’s overtly pragmatic epitaph for Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin. As a virulent pissing contest engulfed Australian and global semi-celebria, with each successive politician and MTV host proclaiming greater and greater love and admiration for a bloke that many thought of as a bit of a dickhead, albeit a freshly dead one, Greer was the sole voice stating the obvious, namely

What Irwin never seemed to understand was that animals need space. The one lesson any conservationist must labour to drive home is that habitat loss is the principal cause of species loss. There was no habitat, no matter how fragile or finely balanced, that Irwin hesitated to barge into, trumpeting his wonder and amazement to the skies. There was not an animal he was not prepared to manhandle. Every creature he brandished at the camera was in distress.

Which is why it is baffling that she should now display a brilliant lack of intelligence, proclaiming that the highly fatal and destructive bushfires still tormenting Victoria were caused by authorities failing to burn off and a lack of bush clearing.

The simple fact is that the Victorian authority supposedly responsible for forest management, the ironically named Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE), are all about support for unsustainable forest practices. They more or less prostitute their taxpayer-funded services to the woodchip industry, which does nothing but clear bush – old bush, new bush, sick bush, healthy bush.

The DSE are in fact such vigorous fans of the hazard reduction techniques known as back-burning that it is barely eight years since ‘controlled burns’ they were overseeing (supposedly) did what fires do in the face of 30-knot winds, destroying roughly a million hectares of native forest. As a result, logging lobbyists secured a commitment from the Victorian government, enabling them to access massive stands of ancient forest, to make up for the volume of wood no longer able to be cut down for the simple reason that it had been turned to charcoal.

Far from adding what is usually a dissenting and radical voice to this particular discussion, Greer is simply, and ignorantly, piping the same shrill chorus soon to be sung by all the usual idiot lobbyists like Barry Chipman and anybody from Timber Communities Australia, the Institute of Public Affairs, the Liberal and National Parties, etc. Namely – that this tragedy wouldn’t have happened if conservationists hadn’t interfered with sound forest management practices.

Obviously, bushfires wouldn’t happen if humans could fight back by cutting down every bloody tree and killing every bloody native animal – a far cry from Greer’s anti-Irwin argument. Bloody human-hating Greenies f%&$ed us all again, they proclaim.

But the simple fact is that nature and forests can quite perfectly manage themselves, if just left alone long enough to functionally exist. The remaining areas of Victoria’s old growth forest – concentrated in and arounf the Otways and East Gippsland – still retain enough moisture to function not only as massive biodiversity store-houses, but as difficult-to-ignite fire buffers. Less human intervention, through irresponsible land clearing and corporate logging, is the answer, not the problem.

Greer would do better to understand this before firing one off on such a mishandled issue. She has done herself, myriad species, and all natural environments, not to mention the dead and damaged, a massive disservice with this fresh strand of vomit.

Better she had shut her mouth rather than emit it.

Canadian Triathlete to swim Great Barrier Reef for Climate Change

An awesome eco-loony is planning to spend up to 5 months in a solar-powered shark cage swimming for 8 hours a day in order to complete the 2300km length of the Great Barrier Reef – the Earth’s largest living organism. It is his intention to donate money raised to Australian clubs and community centres for them to buy and install solar power on a massive scale.

It’s a great story and an inspiring idea – check out the full story here in Canadian media.

It’s just ashame that Rio Tinto and BHP will probably buy up all that good work as carbon offsets to increase their aluminium and coal output, thanks to the Federal Government’s utterly fecal 5% carbon pollution maintenance target.

Yet again, Australia sabotages climate negotiations

It is now almost impossible to believe that the first official act of the Rudd Labor Government was to sign Kyoto. Barely a year after that act, now reduced to almost empty symbolism, Kevin Rudd and his climate change and environment ministers – Penny Wong and Peter Garrett – must own responsibility for a complete surrender on Australia’s  carbon reduction. Against all economic, scientific, and even best  political advice, Australia has announced a target of 5% carbon emission reductions by 2020, with the possibility of aiming for 15% reductions if other nations work harder.

aahh DeAnima, you've done it again.

With this 5% target, Australia has very deliberately given a gift to cloistered anti-action interests the world over. Up until 2007, the argument by opponents of climate action was that to move without commitments from China, India and America would be unproductive and disadvantageous. Now, forced into action globally, major corporations and lobby groups will certainly resist credible targets of 20% or more by pointing to Australia.

Professor Ross Garnaut has consistently described climate change as one of the most diabolical policy problems possible. Australia, however, even after clear warnings about disappearance of water sources, destruction of the Great Barrier Reef, and economic impacts on crops and ecosystems has just created a similarly diabolical problem for the world. We have not just waved a white flag on massive biodiversity loss and global suffering. We have ensured that those who think nothing of worsening the situation will be well-armed at post-Kyoto negotiations in Copenhagen next year.

The only reason to create the possibility of a 15% target barely makes any sense. It does mean that the Rudd Government can aim to come through the financial crisis and their first election as incumbents before doing something that will upset corporate lobbyists. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t have that long. The major climate talks ate the end of next year will certainly be distorted by this inept move. And to think that any developed economy will try to move toward a 25% target in order to get Australia to aim for far less than that is simply narcissistic.

Disgusted. And angry. And ashamed. The most energy-resource rich nation on Earth has just thrown the planet in the ‘too hard’ basket.

News of the announcement here. Rudd’s immediate comments here.

Amazingly, business groups are already complaining that the target is too high!!!

The Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Peter Anderson says reducing emissions by 5 per cent will be difficult for the business community when it is also dealing with a financial crisis.

“There are transition costs involved, there is a need for investment in technology and all of that involves costs, particularly at a time when the focus of the business community is on trying to get through the storm that we have around us,” he said.

These greedy sociopathic pigs don’t grasp the fact that chemistry and ecology don’t stop because their Christmas bonus is a bit light. To think, the Rudd Government has copped out on climate change to keep people like this happy is to wonder when democracy became the tool of the few rather than the servant of the many.

A real bloody disgrace.

Australian media link Obama to Crack

The Sydney Morning Herald has reached a desperate new low today, and it is anybody’s guess why. This paper is on one hand trying to promote itself as cool and edgy, with colourful stroboscopic TV ads soundtracked by a theme plagiaristically close to Rage Against the Machine’s ‘I won’t do whatcha tell me!’ On the other hand, it also frequently runs conservative snootiness masquerading as irony and continues to question and even deny the very actual reality of devastating climate change.

So when they try to associate Barack Obama with crack cocaine is it because they think destructive drug references are edgy and cool (which they aren’t), or because their increasingly conservative editorial agenda finds something satisfying in making a racist slur against the new US President-elect?

What? Crack cocaine use is much more common amongst lower income brackets in America. Blacks in America are still more likely than white Americans to be economically disadvantaged. And American courts treat crack much more harshly than cocaine, which is generally used by people with a much higher disposable income.

Odds are that if you’re in America and your problem is crack, you’re black, and you’re going to get a harsher sentence than Wall Street when he gets caught with uncut Peruvian coming back from his Obama inauguration party. Statistically speaking.

The New York Times has been running this story for the past couple of days: Lose the Blackberry? Yes he can, maybe. It’s a very interesting article about how the US President is, in a way, locked in the watchtower. When Obama takes office on Jan. 20, he may well be denied his mobile phone and even email access because of laws relating to communications from the President of the United States.

Today (timely, as always) the Sydney Morning Herald is running exactly the same story, and the are attributing it to The New York Times. Except that they have changed the title to

Obama might have to kick his CrackBerry habit

and inexplicably altered the line

For years, like legions of other professionals, Mr. Obama has been all but addicted to his BlackBerry.

to instead read

For years, like legions of other on-the-move professionals, Mr Obama has been all but addicted to his BlackBerry – or CrackBerrys as they are sometimes called for exactly that reason..

As you can see, the sloppy Herald insert is evident by the appearance of two fullstops.

Now – and I’m just guessing here – writers in New York have seen a lot of the social problems and devastation of crack addiction across poorer areas of their city. They have seen that many black communities have been deeply affected by it in an almost cancerous manner. And they have seen a number of other American media outlets repeatedly tie black skin to crack addiction and drug abuse generally in a pervasive and decidedly racebaiting manner. So it would never even occur to them to use the term “Crackberry” in writing about anybody, let alone their President-elect.

The Sydney Morning Herald, on the other hand – just what the f#$% are they trying to say?

Aussie Captions Needed: Malcolm Turnbull…

.......................... ?

no prizes, plenty of reasons, pretty self-explanatory, and……GO!

one bloody good example from Glass Wall Observer that hassurprisingly little to do with penises:

Turnbull displays both his level of concern for “working families” and the extent to which his own living standards will be affected by any economic downturn.

Lovin’ it.

More!!

Now!!!!         8 )

Malcolm Turnbull’s ego shames Australia on the B.B.C.

Malcolm Turnbull tells.... um... does this even need a caption?

Malcolm Turnbull, leader of Australia’s well-deserving federal opposition has been banging on and on for nearly 2 weeks now about a joke about George Bush.

Firstly, Turnbull has taken on the role of playing wounded, feigning shock that anybody could consider the least competent American President in history an idiot. It’s a strange position for an allegedly intelligent man to take, especially given that his unending melodrama of the last fortnight would have made better sense coming from a 7-year old boy with wet underpants.

Secondly, Turnbull has been flouncing on for so long about how some joke about George Bush, allegedly made by Kevin Rudd, will so hurt our international standing, and so harm Australia’s international security clearance, and so upset the rest of the world, that now the media of the world have walked into the story thinking it’s actually a story and thereby treating it as such. So after two weeks of hard and useless work, Turnbull may well have achieved that of which he has endlessly accused Rudd.

Thanks to Lord Snot’s ceaseless self-serving dummy-spit, the BBC world service is now carrying this ill-informed article freshly posted by Reuters.

“[It was] an account so self-serving that it presented him as a diplomatic encyclopaedia, a font of all knowledge, and the president of the United States, the chief executive of our greatest ally, as a fool,” Mr Turnbull was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.

Aren’t parliamentary privilege and political power wonderful? You can be the gutless leading puppet of a rejected gaggle of climate change denying visionless racists focussed only on finding fault in everything that everybody who is actually doing anything puts forward, intent only on one day adding “Prime Minister of Australia” to your resume because it’s the one thing you haven’t been able to buy – yet – but if you spin the same irrelevant line long enough, the world will listen to your vacuous side of the story for, ooh, maybe fifteen minutes?

But that’s opposition isn’t it – so little to do, so much time.

Australian Federal Police raid journalist.

The Howard era is meant to be over in Australia, but either the Federal Police didn’t get that memo, or Kevin Rudd never bothered to send it.

The Canberra Times reports that Canberra press gallery journo Philip Dorling had his home and car searched this morning by AFP accompanied by computer experts. The trigger for their search was this story written by Dorling in June and containing supposedly confidential briefing materials regarding Australian deployment of spies in ally and trade partner nations.

From the Times article:

They seized a laptop, a computer hard drive, a mobile phone, documents and a copy of The Canberra Times from June 14, which were all taken back to AFP National Headquarters in Civic for examination.

The AFP raided Dorling’s home once before searching for the source of a leak in September 2000, when the journalist was working as a staffer for the then Labor foreign affairs spokesman, Laurie Brereton.

The editor of The Canberra Times, Peter Fray, said, “Phil Dorling was doing his job – the job of every journalist, and that is to reveal the truth”.

And Fairfax Media’s Corporate Affairs boss Bruce Wolpe said the company was “gravely concerned”.

“Fairfax Media is gravely concerned by this legal assault on one of our journalists for doing his job.

“A Federal police raid on the home of a journalist cuts to the heart of the operation of a free press, and is unacceptable.

“We have long advocated the need for shield legislation to protect the public’s right to know and today’s disturbing events show once again that enactment of a Federal shield law is imperative.”

The last time that police powers were used to seriously intimidate journalists in this way was in November 2004, when a request from John Howard’s office resulted in a raid on the home of Chris Graham, editor of the National Indigenous Times.

Obviously, Dorling has been doing his job. Obviously, the sort of abuses of power which Labor occasionally objected to in Opposition may now seem agreeable to them. Obviously, Wolpe raises a significant concern which may get further oxygen in the coming weeks – as one of the only developed countries without a Bill of Rights, the Australian government must legislatively move now – in a transparent manner – to ensure a free press. Although, obviously, they would much prefer a well-behaved press.

New Liberal Leader Malcolm Turnbull: shocking revelations…

NSW Greens storm council elections

>> jewel <<

From the ground up, a massive swing seems to have altered the face of local politics across New South Wales. NSW Greens pre-election had 58 councillors on 31 councils across New South Wales. With a lot of number crunching still to do and per centages to jiggle, it looks as though the Greens have picked up an extra 30 seats.

According to this article by Lisa Carty and Heath Gilmore, the most dramatic swings – up to 15% – to the Greens have occurred in the seats of Marrickville, Leichhardt, and Gosford. In an article looking more closely at the Sydney results, Carty and Gilmore speak with unsuccessful ALP mayoral candidate Meredith Burgmann.

Burgmann displays the same pigheaded inability to sread results that characterizes most doomed politicians, and their parties.

“As we expected, the turmoil in the Labor Party over the past 10 days has badly affected our result,” she said.

She also blamed Clover Moore’s war chest, but felt reassured from doorknocking.

“we got lots of evidence that the voters could distinguish between our team and the State Government.”

Here’s the answer that Meredith Burgmann SHOULD have given:

We have been the State Government for more than a decade. We have showed some real promise and helped to get the nation’s first carbon trading frameworks in place, and we can throw bloody big parties, even though since 2001 that has meant locking down the city, citizens, and sending stormtroopers through public parks. But we have really pissed away the last 4 years. Seriously, what have we done? No vision, no leadership.

This potentially awesome city, and we’ve turned it into an Americanized corporate ghetto, surrounded by horrifically expensive tunnels that nobody wants to use and that don’t actually do anything particularly useful. Oh yeah, and a big chunk of cash on desalination that’ll guarantee expensive and wasted water and electricity for generations to come.

Nobody trusts the State Labor Party in New South Wales. I mean, they want to – because the alternative is a government run by completely out-of-touch bank operators, lawyers, failed doctors and God lobbyists. But we haven’t delivered one decent long term project to the state since…. Anyway, the last 10 days has been nothing. If anything, Labor has a chance to win the state election in 2011 now that Iemma and Costa have been axed and Reba Meagher – that self-involved cow – has gone. But if we don’t get our shit together, pay attention to people in the real world – rather than in focus groups – and get rid of the stench of corporate whoredom, wasted taxes, and elitist greed… well, we might just end up being the reason why Kevin Rudd has to campaign for reelection in 2010 when he would probably rather get on with improving the country.

I mean, we’re fucking idiots really.

Oh, and of course, Liberal hogwart Barry O’Farrell got some comment in the media about the ALP being crap. Unfortunately, O’Farrell’s NSW Liberals have done the same thing as the Tasmanian Liberals. Namely, they make sure that they are consistently even more worthless than the sods in power, ensuring that there are never any improvements on what few ideas and proposals come out of state parliament, and also ensuring that the donkeys in power are never under significant to do any better.

But this started on a positive note, and that would be a good place to end – onya Greens!! Hopefully your ascendancy will continue to and through which ever state elections come next, then the federal, then NSW state. Oh my Buddha – federal senate elections in 2010. Please get rid of Steven Fielding and get hold of a clean balance of power.

>> tool <<

Steven Fielding is such a complete and utter knob. He is no more right wing than most Liberals but somehow he is far more annoying and a much bigger tool. I guess the fact that he only picked up about 2500 votes of his own in 2004 and yet he gets to hold all of Australia to ransom probably doesn’t help. And his head. His head really doesn’t help either.

Anyway – go Greens. Let’s get German. But without the Germans.

Scab Labor? How low will Morris Iemma go?

Let’s face it – the Australian Labor Party can do a lot better than it is doing. There is neither need nor reason for anybody to feel sentimental about committee-intensive hierarchies where Marxist farts call each other comrade as though doing so doesn’t paint “delete me” clearly on their forehead.

But, at the very least, Labor should show some concern for the minimal levels of wellbeing generally supported by worker solidarity. So what the hell does Morris Iemma stand for?

Obviously less than slightly left talkback DJ Mike Carlton. Carlton refused to submit his weekly column to Fairfax for their weekend edition of the Simply Moaning Herald because of strike action by journalists opposed to mass sackings. So he has been (at least for now) sacked.

What does Morris do? As strikebreaking scab labour, he exploits Fairfax’s need for wordage with yet another worthless diatribe about the wonderful benefits of delivering publicly built and owned utilities into private hands.

Because he runs what should be one of the most manageable states in Australia, but can’t think of any other way to screw more money out of the inhabitants.

Because he is a dick.

The kind of dick that has made an unelectable State Liberal Party look like the best thing that could now happen to New South Wales at the next election. And everybody seems to know this except for the New South Wales Labor Government.

Who didn’t even think to charge Parker Brothers $15 billion for the right to stick Sydney on a Global Monopoly board. Even though Morris was so proud. Of his Monopoly.

“Nowhere to be found”? Indeed.

Another treasury leak: previewing Peter Costello’s memoirs.

Riveting stuff.

“Listen John, I’m the Treasurer. I will wear the blame for rising inflation. I will be the one the public distrust. If I am going to be the future leader, this inane half-baked economic voodooism has to be killed and buried. You have f-cked up my chances of being PM now — you’re not going to f-ck my chances in the future!”

Read more here

Interestingly enough, the Latham Diaries were thoroughly worth reading as a piece of political history, regardless of which political ideology you might largely support. Will Costello’s be similar? Can’t say – but can say that if you’re going to read it, please don’t pay money for it. Visit your local library or get a promo copy.

Otherwise you’re putting food in Peter Costello’s mouth.

And that would be a mistake.

Unless that ‘food’ is a Brendan Nelson turd with broken glass and John Howard’s penis in it.

Obviously.

Emissions trading: Greens Senator Bob Brown takes aim at Cadbury…?

This just in from Bloomberg, one of the most useful American-based sources of international market-related news.

July 9 (Bloomberg) — Bob Brown, leader of the Australian Greens party that now holds the balance of power in the Senate, will push for the government to cut greenhouse gases by 90 percent by 2050.

The five Greens Senators will push for deeper emissions cuts and a tougher carob trading system, Brown said. The government has vowed to cut gases by 60 percent by 2050 and has not yet set short-term targets.

It’s not yet clear what climate science says about the impact of eating chocolate substitutes.

Michael Costa is an effing moron

Shortly I’ll be adding to the myriad of voices throwing in their quarter-of-a-cents-worth regarding the Garnaut Report (it’s a very enabling first step and has the makings of a much-needed springboard, imho), but in the meantime:

State Treasurer to the New South Wales Labor Government, Michael Costa, you are an effing moron. Now you are adding further weight to this argument by attacking the generally clear and excellent recommendations of the preliminary draft of the Garnaut Report on Australia and climate change.

You are one of the more prominent reasons why even tragic lefties now know in their hearts that the Iemma government has to be sacked. Four years of an unsteady, visionless, and ideologically sterile government with right-wing tendencies won’t be much of a breather, but it will be better than four more years of the brattish, self-congratulating, aggressive hypocrisy of the Australian Labor Party’s New South Wales outpost.

What electoral challenge has the NSW State Government had to face at any time since it was elected? Has anybody with even the charisma of a Barry Unsworth stood in opposition to you? The last election you weren’t even running against a human. The NSW COALition were so out-of-ideas that they ran a ginger kid against you – a frigging day walker!

Yet the NSW ALP is so disconnected from any sense of community values or cultural context that even recently they have cheered the visionary leadership of Morris Iemma and his victory in “the unwinnable election”.

Such a truly slippery handle on the facts can only exist in a political party that would employ Michael Costa while spouting humunculous geysers of barely credible froth about concern for the workers, for the people, for the future, for the children, for the state, etc. etc.

What is the problem with Australia in the eyes of Michael Costa? What is the problem with the state of New South Wales in the eyes of Michael Costa?

There are unions, who have the nerve to speak up for the interests of their members when it doesn’t suit Costa. There are citizens groups, NGOs, and – yes, them again – unions who he thinks must be stupid for expecting more from an elected government than they have any right to expect from privately held run-for-profit corporations…

Well, he may be right there.

But now, Michael Costa somehow thinks that he has greater political capital than the mob that gave Canberra an enema on November 24 last year. He thinks that the concern about climate change is nonsense. He would like to join the Liberal Party, where they have made a living out of misquoting people and then striking them down over the fact that things they never even said could have only come from stupid people.

Hmm… Right again.

For example, claims from some quarters that the Great Barrier Reef would be destroyed if Australia, which emits less than 2 per cent of global greenhouse gases, does not adopt an ETS are patent nonsense.

Chicken Little arguments are no substitute for getting right the important details on issues of far-reaching consequence, but Garnaut has said his detailed economic impact modelling won’t be available until August.

Costa has sided in today’s Australian with climate ignorance.

The state treasurer seems a bit behind the main game in thinking that anybody with more than half a brain thinks that local problems only come from locally emitted CO2.

He is publicly trying to undermine and reverse the federal ALP’s position, even though it is thus far one of hesitant progress. He has essentially rejected some of the most essential recommendations of the Garnaut Report – namely, Costa is calling for compensation for any and all big polluters, for further significant delays to action, for an ALP about face on the implied contract for social and environmental responsibility.

Costa will no doubt feel vindicated by the number of voices that will echo and support his proclamations this week. His wits as sharp as a ball, Costa may not see anything in the fact that his supporters will be conservatives, kneejerk ignorami, and vested interests such as the aluminium and coal industries, lobbyists for illegal international logging and their entirely partisan corporate consultancies – like Alan Oxley – and not to mention operators of those electrical utilities Costa’s constantly trying to offload for a song.

Not that there is any conflict of interest there. Not that he has any reason to make 19th century electrical facilities look like attractive investments. Not that this is exactly the same belligerent and dismissive type of abuse that he levelled at anyone thinking that essential things like electricity are best run for modest public profit, rather than massive private gain.

The one public service which Michael Costa seems to actually be performing is as a case study on what went wrong with a stale and incumbent state government, and of what to expect if the public just trusts politicians who claim to know best.

2020 targets, not 2050. No more delays. No rewards for inaction.

And no more Costa.

Please.

GetUp’s pulp mill poll carries warning for Australian future.

I’m not much for analysing polls, though I certainly admire the astuteness of those who are able to do so in meaningful ways. Citizen lobby group GetUp has just taken this poll looking at Australian attitudes to the ongoing clusterf&%k that is the Gunns would-be pulp mill project in Tasmania’s Tamar Valley.

GetUp! Poll
Conducted by Essential Research between the 10th – 15th June 2008
n=1019 adults 18+

Q: The recent resignation of the Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon and the decision by the ANZ Bank to withdraw its involvement from Gunns proposed pulp mill in Tasmania’s Tamar Valley has resulted in more debate on this issue. Do you personally support the building of the pulp mill or oppose the building of the pulp mill?

Support Oppose
TOTAL 39% 61%
Male 45 55
Female 34 66
ALP voter 35 65
Liberal/National voter 48 52
Green voter 21 79
Other/Independent voter 35 65
18-24 44 56
25-34 38 62
35-49 39 61
50+ 38 62

Interestingly, this survey result shows the opposite of what might be expected based on common assumptions about age and conservatism of attitudes. Namely, rather than 50+ year olds being more conservative in their politics and trusting of corporations than 18-24 year olds the opposite is true. 62% of over 50-year olds across Australia oppose the mill, while only 55% of the should-be more radical and more aware 18-24 crowd reject it.

To me, this says one thing very clearly. Basically, if you were aged from 6 to 12 years old when John Howard came to power, then your experience of Australia, governance, and social values has been retarded by having not been properly exposed to life in a country with a social conscience in your formative years.

State governments – in Tassie and New South Wales at the very least – have done nothing to balance this retardation. Just as there are hundreds of thousands of Australians who buy Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera albums, it seems that we’re also awash in young Liberals who know too little to know any better.

Which explains how turd blossoms like Christopher Pyne were spawned, even if it is impossible to explain why.

Tasmanian suicide bombing caught on home video.

Pauly RIP, did it for white skinned bogans everywhere.

Kevin Rudd labels all arguments for Iraq invasion as absolutely wrong.

Why is this speech being covered by British media but neglected by the Australian media? Did I miss something?

From the article in the UK Telegraph, dated June 2:

In an admission that will make uncomfortable reading in London and Washington, the Labour leader dismissed one-by-one the reasons used by his predecessor, John Howard, to join the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq five years ago.

“Have further terrorist attacks been prevented? No, they have not been, as the victims of the Madrid train bombing will attest,” Mr Rudd told parliament.

“Has any evidence of a link between weapons of mass destruction and the former Iraqi regime and terrorists been found? No.

“Have the actions of rogue states like Iran been moderated? No … Iran’s nuclear ambitions remain a fundamental challenge.

“After five years, has the humanitarian crisis in Iraq been removed? No it has not.”

Mr Rudd, whose campaign for election last November included a pledge to withdraw Australian combat forces from Iraq, said pre-war intelligence had been “abused” by the Howard government.

He said there had been a “failure to disclose to the Australian people the qualified nature of the intelligence – for example, the pre-war warning that an attack on Iraq would increase the terrorist threat, not decrease it”.

Goodbye, Lennon!

Double chins conspiracy?

Of course!!! It all makes so much sense now!!

Check out some of the other rapidly generated pictorial tributes flying around the interweb as Tasmania begins asking the question, “what do you do when you wake to find your asshole has gone?”

Tasmanian Bum Puppet Paul Lennon Finally Pisses Off

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!!!!

(by DJ Lobsterdust)

Woo Hoo!!!!! Paul Lennon has run out of scapegoat deputies and finally resigned as Premier of Tasmania. In what may be one of the only political moves he has ever made in the genuine interest of Tasmania’s populace and future generations, Big Red finally pulled the plug on his untenable losership blaming his 17% popularity rating and the needs of the party, rather than the fact that health claims about the vitamin content of Coco Pops are widely considered more credible than he is.

It will only be to make way for a slightly less oafish brand of corporate lackey douchebaggitora sociopathica, but bugger it – that’s something to get depressed about tomorrow and every day thereafter. For now, it’s time to pop corks and light whatever your preferred flavour of fat one might be.

Lovely bit from Tasmanian Times here – guessing their offices erupted into some sort of Bacchanalian orgy with in seconds of Big Fat Red finally making the announcement that TT had so long been anticipating. As they say,

The disaster of the pulp mill became more about the erosion of democracy and public trust than it was even about the environment. If it was the most glaring example of Paul Lennon’s contempt for proper governance and indifference to democratic process, he was here only following where Bacon had trod. At his ascension Lennon made much of his determination to fulfill Bacon’s vision for Tasmania. How could he know it also portended his own tragedy?

For he lacked Bacon’s charisma. Perhaps his greatest political failure was to be too honest about all that Bacon covered over with his undoubted public charm.

Lennon is now gone.

Even in the moment of final “Good Riddance”, the Mercury – “Tasmania’s leading source of frequently pro-government pap propped up by ad dollars” – has seen fit to run a blancmange of cut-and-pasted infobytes and ministerial quotes which more or less neglects to mention the curry-fart cloud of corruption and big-money-friendly bloody-mindedness hanging over the squinty eyed Big Red One for the last decade or so.

Nevertheless, at least the Mercury has chosen to mention on this fine day that Gunns are having some trouble getting the cash for their toxic planet-raping bog roll enabling Pulp Mill. Seems that ANZ are backing away from the project under the guise of credit concerns, rather than risking future industry dollars by bluntly opposing any project that might make the Exxon Valdez seem like a hiccough.

I don’t share the optimism of pundits who think that the departure of Lennon means a sure end to the pulp mill, nor do I think that ANZ’s unwillingness to fund the bastardry – even if this is officially confirmed in the fullness of time – is a guaranteed end to the world’s biggest, stupidest pulp mill. What is needed for 200 000 hectares of forest to rest easy is for John Gay to announce the project’s demise to the ASX, and for Peter Garrett to rescind any and all outstanding approvals related to the project. Given that Garrett just last week approved the construction of mill worker’s quarters, the gigantic forest-eater may yet have legs… ugly, gnarled, wart-infested, pus-dripping legs.

Read comments by the Tassie public here and here – seems most people are calling for a massive piss-up or a public holiday to properly acknowledge Lennon’s departure.

Brendan Nelson is a Coiffured Fuckdoodle

Any takers? Flamers? Trolls?

Didn’t think so.

Brendan Nelson finally gets something right!!

Brendan sez “I assure you, I’m going nowhere.”

No shit, you coiffured fuckdoodle.

Garrett’s Chile response to whaling claims by UK Independent

Following the welcome trend of reversing previous intransigence, the Australian Government has successfully floated a measure intended to heavily reduce, if not eliminate, Japan’s exploitation of “scientific research” as a justification for trying to kill close to one thousand whales annually.

During an international meeting at Heathrow during the first week of March, Australia found “a strong chord of support” for new Australian proposals to eliminate lethal research, according to a spokesperson for Environment Minister, Peter Garrett.

She rejected claims by the UK’s Independent that the meeting had somehow been secret, pointing out that it had received significant media coverage during the last week. She also flatly rejected the central claim of the article – that nations are moving to formalize approval of Japanese whaling – as selective quoting, misrepresentation, and a media beat-up.

Far from some sort of sinister new phase in negotiations, the central substance of the Independent’s claims regarding the nature of the meeting come from mentions made at the recent Heathrow meeting of a paper by the Pew Environmental Consultancy first tabled at a Tokyo meeting of the IWC in January.

She characterized the support for Australian proposals, voiced both formally and “at the margins” during the meeting, as a very pleasing result for both the Australian delegation and ongoing efforts to protect whales. Australia’s reforming proposals have now been accepted as formal items on the agenda of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) conference due to take place in Chile in June.

The measures would see concrete recovery plans established under the IWC. Supposedly scientific research would be subject to the IWC as a whole, rather than the standards determined appropriate by individual nations, as is currently the case with Japan’s program, sanctioned under their self-regulated JARPA II regime.

Tasmania – forest lies, lies, and more lies.

Tasmania – where blokes are blokes, and trees are nervous.

A state where everything is above board, but Royal Commissions – the highest level of independent inquiry into allegedly corrupt use of authority – are practically banned. Oh Tassie – thank goodness for you, the one place on Earth where destroying forest ecosystems defies physics, biology and chemistry to fight global warming. How? Buggered if I know, but some big blokes with beetroot-blood pressure and friends running chainsaws seem to have worked it out.

Barely a week ago, Paul Lennon – the spectacularly inept Premier of Tasmania and occasional dinner-buddy of Gunns’ CEO John Gay – made a baffling announcement. In response to Professor Ross Garnaut’s analysis of the climate change issues and options facing Australia, Lennon declared that once and for all it was time to get the facts straight about Tasmania’s forests.

This was baffling for two reasons.

Firstly, Lennon and his colleagues in government, industry, and small-minded lobby groups have spent decades arguing that old growth grows on trees and should therefore be woodchipped as quickly as possible lest it get out of control. This argument shifted in the ’90s toward the need for human-led forest management for the good of forests, because without humans, forests are incapable of cutting themselves down. The latest model is two-pronged – logging prevents bushfires (just like abortions prevent cancer) and clearing forests makes room to plant more trees and therefore fight climate change (yes, they are that stupid). In essence, these people have deemed themselves the source of all forest facts. By calling for someone intelligent and with no connection to forestry cash to disseminate facts, Lennon risked undoing decades of half-assed but ubiquitous propaganda.

Secondly, for any non-Greens member of Tasmanian parliament, let alone the bug-eyed, frothing, rabidly pro-Gunns Premier to call for a setting aside of nonsensical argument and the genuinely independent presentation of clear, firm, scientifically credible facts about the environmental impacts of logging is simply unheard of.

But today everything is back to normal. Thanks to our good progressive friends at GetUp, we can see Lennon’s message for what it was. Thanks largely to his timing, it was just another hot, steaming, cow chip of media distraction from a sociopathic Tasmanian bureaucrat. GetUp has just circulated the following release:

You may have missed it, but the Tasmanian Government last week unbelievably signed an agreement handing over Tasmania’s forests to the Gunns pulp mill for the next 20 years – in the very same week Professor Garnaut warned them of the dire climate change consequences facing us.

If we don’t act now, bulldozers will start clearing land for the mill that will contribute 2% of Australia’s greenhouse emissions – at a time when we’re being told we need to drastically cut our emissions. But unfortunately Australia’s forests were largely left out of Garnaut’s recent interim report.

We have only one opportunity to put them in the picture. A proper assessment in his impending Climate Change Report of our native forests’ climate change value may just sink the mill project. Click here now to sign the petition asking Professor Garnaut to examine the full climate impact of this mill madness and the logging of Tasmania’s native forests:

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/DontPulpOurClimate

There’s a real risk the Garnaut report won’t include a comprehensive assessment of native forests – despite new research finding the stopping of deforestation a “large, immediate and perishable opportunity”* to massively reduce emissions. Costing out the real value of native forests will not only prove Tasmania’s trees would be better left in the ground but make this teetering project financially unviable when Gunns realises they will have to pay for the carbon embedded in our forests.

Native forests are invaluable sources of carbon storage – and it costs nothing to leave them in the ground. But 80% of the 4.5 million tonnes of wood needed to supply the pulp mill each year will initially come from Tassie’s native forests – permanently destroying forests that can hold 10-20 times the amount of CO2 than plantations.

A proper assessment of their climate change value will undoubtedly make the arguments in favour of the mill, whose climate change impact has never even been assessed, untenable. Take action to protect nature’s lungs before the bulldozers move in:

http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/DontPulpOurClimate

Long story short, Lennon can dance naked down the main street of Hobart wearing wattle in his hair and singing about how he loves the freaky forest critters and their precious wooded homes because he has already pushed through the legislation guaranteeing that they will all be turned into dioxinated mulch.

What visionary leaders he, his state Labor Party, and their big-L small-minded ‘opposition’ are.

Many people may have missed it, but Kyoto in its current incarnation is the best hope for global climate action. Even supposedly progressive governments in supposedly first world countries still treat Kyoto as though it’s too hard, but it is riddled with perverse incentives.

For example, emissions from international shipping and air traffic are not included on anybody’s scorecard at the moment – even though these vapours are as damaging as those of any American cattle ranch or any Chinese coal plant. More directly, Kyoto rewards the cutting down of trees that were planted before the 1990s by recognizing the carbon uptake potential of new trees planted in their place – which means that governments have incentive to replace 600-year old eucalypts with water-intensive saplings.

Brilliant.

Add in the fact that Tasmania’s forest ecosystems are administered by people you wouldn’t trust to look after a goldfish, and all the big environmental research, studies, reports, and recommendations look less and less like progress, and more and more like good ways to feel proactive about doing less than nothing.

full video of Kevin Rudd’s speech and apology to the Stolen Generations

hat tip to gruffybear for getting these all in the one place.