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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Victorian Govt destroying Old Growth

stump of a Brown Mt. tree logged in November 2008 and carbon dated at over 500 years old

Great opinion piece in today’s copy of The Age out of Melbourne. Worthwhile reading for anybody interested in biodiversity in Australia, old growth forests, or climate politics.

In a Government report based on threatened species studies at Brown Mountain conducted earlier this year, it is stated that ”neither DSE or VicForests routinely undertake pre-logging coupe surveys”.

Most of their information on threatened species comes from reports dating back to the early ’80s. This was at a time when we only just started to learn about species such as the long-footed potoroo and when management plans for endangered species simply did not exist.

Experts in their field produced these older reports, but the research areas were so large, and resources so limited, that many forests were not even surveyed. Brown Mountain is one of the areas that fell through the cracks.

Along with other forests at Ada River, Yalmy River, the upper Bonang catchment and the Bungywarr forests, the ecological values of these old-growth forests have simply never been documented.

Environment East Gippsland are taking VicForests – the corporate arm of logging regulation in Victoria – to court to try to force protection, rather than mere ‘consideration’ for endangered species and unique forests on Brown Mountain threatened by unnecessary logging.

In a Government report based on threatened species studies at Brown Mountain conducted earlier this year, it is stated that ”neither DSE or VicForests routinely undertake pre-logging coupe surveys”.

Most of their information on threatened species comes from reports dating back to the early ’80s. This was at a time when we only just started to learn about species such as the long-footed potoroo and when management plans for endangered species simply did not exist.

Experts in their field produced these older reports, but the research areas were so large, and resources so limited, that many forests were not even surveyed. Brown Mountain is one of the areas that fell through the cracks.

Along with other forests at Ada River, Yalmy River, the upper Bonang catchment and the Bungywarr forests, the ecological values of these old-growth forests have simply never been documented.

Bugger the Pulp Mill, Sponsor an Idiot!

That’s right! In an age of easy vehicle access and painfully unreliable but ultimately half-assed public transport, who the f$%# needs to run anywhere?

Then again, who needs air to breathe, water to live, or biodiversity to flourish?

Answer? You.

Which is a good reason to spare some plastic pocket change for the good folks at Tasmanians Against The Pulp Mill V3.0. If you sponsor this running doofus in the Sydney Marathon Sydney Marathon Sydney Marathon this weekend (September 20) then all your hard-earned wisely-donated $$$$ will go straight to very effective direct actions in Tasmania, carried out by clever and determined locals against a shabby state government and an even shabbier bunch of forest-f$#%ers.

For latest updates, see the sexy new-look Tassie Times. Now, what are you waiting for? Get emailing and get donating!! And thanks, eh?

WORLD LEADERS SIGN PACT TO AVERT CLIMATE DISASTER

June 18, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TOP HEADLINE: WORLD LEADERS SIGN PACT TO AVERT CLIMATE DISASTER
Newspaper Ignites Hope, Announces “Civil Disobedience Database”

* Civil-disobedience database: http://BeyondTalk.net
* PDF of printed newspaper: http://iht.greenpeace.org/todays-paper/
– Online version: http://www.iht-se.com/
* Video: http://iht.greenpeace.org/video/ (coming soon)
In a front-page ad in today’s International Herald Tribune, the leaders of the European Union thank the European public for having engaged in months of civil disobedience leading up to the Copenhagen climate conference that will be held this December.

“It was only thanks to your massive pressure over the past six months that we could so dramatically shift our climate-change policies…. To those who were arrested, we
thank you.”

There was only one catch: the paper was fake.

Looking exactly like the real thing, but dated December 19th, 2009, a million copies of the fake paper were distributed worldwide by thousands of volunteers in order to show what could be achieved at the Copenhagen climate conference that is scheduled for Dec. 7-18, 2009.

At the moment, the conference is aiming for much more modest cuts, dismissed by leading climate scientists as too little, too late to stave off runaway processes that will lead to millions or even billions of casualties.

The paper describes in detail a powerful (and entirely possible) new treaty to bring carbon levels down below 350 parts per million – the
level climate scientists say we need to achieve to avoid climate catastrophe.

One article describes how a website, http://BeyondTalk.net, mobilized thousands of people to put their bodies on the line to
confront climate change policies – ever since way back in June, 2009.

Although the newspaper is a fake (its production and launch were coordinated by Greenpeace), the website is real. Beyondtalk.net is part of a growing network of websites calling for direct action on climate change, building on statements made in recent months by noted political
figures.

For example, in September Nobel laureate Al Gore asserted that “we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to
prevent the construction of new coal plants.”

Leading American environmentalist Bill McKibben was enthusiastic about the newspaper’s message and the methods BeyondTalk.net calls for.

“We need a political solution grounded in reality – grounded in physics and chemistry. That will only come if we can muster a wide variety of political tactics, including civil disobedience.”

“Non-violent civil disobedience has been at the forefront of almost every successful campaign for change,” said Andy Bichlbaum of The Yes
Men, who helped write and edit the newspaper and are furnishing the technology for BeyondTalk.net. “Especially in America, and especially today, we need to push our leaders hard to stand up to industry lobbyists and make the sorts of changes we need.”

“Roosevelt would never have been able to push through the New Deal if people hadn’t taken to the streets, occupied factories, and demanded
it,” noted newspaper writer/editor and University of California professor Lawrence Bogad.

“Segregation, British rule in India, and apartheid wouldn’t have ended without a lot of people being creatively uncooperative – even if that meant getting arrested. Nonviolent civil
disobedience is the bread and butter of progress.”

The fake newspaper also has an ad for “Action Offsets,” whereby those who aren’t willing to risk arrest can help those who are.

A HOPEFUL NEWS PANDEMIC?

Today’s fake International Herald Tribune is part of a rash of recent publications which mimic prominent newspapers. Last November, a fake edition of the New York Times announced that the Iraq War was over. A few days earlier, a hoax USA Today featured the US presidential election result: “Capitalism Wins at the Polls: Anarchy Brewing in the Streets.”
And this April 1st, a spoof edition of Germany’s Zeit newspaper triumphantly announced the end of “casino capitalism” and the abolition
of poor-country debt.

The rash of fakes is likely to continue. “People are going to keep finding ways to get the word out about common-sense solutions those in
power say are impossible,” said Kelli Anderson, one of the designers of the fake International Herald Tribune and co-designer (with Daniel
Dunnam) of BeyondTalk.net.

“We already know what we need to do about climate change,” said Agnes de Rooij of Greenpeace International. “It’s a no-brainer. Reduce carbon emissions, or put the survival of billions of people at risk. If the political will isn’t there now, it’s our duty to inspire it.”

* CONTACT:
– The Yes Men, mailto:press@theyesmen.org
– Mark Breddy (Greenpeace), mailto:mark.breddy@greenpeace.org,
(+32) (0)2 2741 903, (+32) (0)496 15 62 29 (mob.)
– Lawrence Bogad, mailto:l.m.bogad@gmail.com,
+1-212 300 7943

Peter Garrett speaks his mind

Victorian Bushliars

February 7, 2009. Black Saturday. The Victorian firestorm that left thousands homeless and hundreds dead.

Only Pentecostal Danny Nalliah, pastor of Catch The Fire Ministries, had the good sense to look past all the enraged finger-pointing and publicly blame Victoria’s frivolous abortion laws. The comparably visionary Miranda Devine, writing from her comfortable Sydney mansion, preached that filthy murdering greenies with their climate agenda owe the families of the dead a personal apology.

Max Rheese, head of the pro-GMO/logging/nuclear, anti-climate-science, Don Burke-fronted Gunns-donation-receiving corporate think-tank Australian Environment Foundation wrote for Online Opinion to blame public land managers and governments. Although he conceded that the only reason they ignored awesome forest science established in 1939 (yes, really) was because of pressure from latte-sipping inner-city greens.

Even Germaine Greer – usually worthwhile and at worst amusing – announced to a dinner attended by the Queen that a lack of burning and clearing by Australian authorities, albeit in ignorance of blackfella wisdom, is to blame. Similarly astute observations can be found all over The Australian’s letters pages.

And even Fran Bailey, MP for the bulk of Victoria’s worst affected areas, is pushing an argument adored by nearly every woodchipping lobbyist and climate skeptic every time Australia burns.

It amounts to a claim that protecting areas managed as National Parks, limiting logging of native forests, and giving ecosystems a chance to function at all naturally is to guarantee fiery tragedy and ensure that fire crews can’t gain access when it occurs.

Basically, ‘man with bulldozer, chainsaw, and woodchip license knows best’.

But writing to the Environment East Gippsland newsgroup, one Victorian forest activist noted that “apart from Bunyip, I cannot think of any major fire this season that hasn’t been in a plantation or other heavily managed forestry area.”

According to his observations and initial reports, all fires – bar one – started in plantations, logging coupes, grasslands, and farms. Namely, areas already decimated and dehydrated by the very practices prescribed by the ignorant, remote, and spin-driven parasites happy to exploit yet another fatal catastrophe.

But at least this tragedy will finally move Australia to really act on climate change…

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.

Wayne Swan spreads the green b.s. thickly

Of course it’s not just Wayne. Kevin Rudd will have disciplined all of his ministers to sing from the same hymn sheet, and it’s a shame that Labor lacks the spine needed to produce, let alone tolerate, vocally dissenting backbenchers. They might listen to arguments made within the party, because the only other people they are listening to are utter knobs like Heather Ridout, Peter Hendy, and anybody with a mining company or aluminium smelter.

Mr Swan said the minimum 5 per cent target announced on Monday “struck the right balance”, adding that it would equate to a 34 per cent reduction in per capita emissions by 2020.

“If we were to achieve a 15 per cent reduction in that timeframe, that would be a 41 per cent reduction in per capita terms,” Mr Swan told ABC Radio on Tuesday.

So this is the T-r-e-a-s-u-r-e-r using m-a-t-h. Scarey, huh? The federal government is very happy with this particular set of numbers because it makes the absence of commitment somehow sound like firm action. But think about it – 5% equals a 34% reduction, yet 15% only equals a 41% reduction.

Somebody’s been taking lessons in logic from Julie Bishop.

Climate Doom is already here.

Massive extinctions warned about by academics over the last decade seem set to start within the next. Updated science since the diplomatically framed IPCC reports of this year and last indicate that the planet has already begun processes that are almost too grand to halt, let alone reverse.

The escalating scale of human emissions could not have come at a worse time, as scientists have discovered that the Earth’s forests and oceans could be losing their ability to soak up carbon pollution. Most climate projections assume that about half of all carbon emissions are reabsorbed in these natural sinks.

Computer models predict that this effect will weaken as the world warms, and a string of recent studies suggests this is happening already.

The Southern Ocean’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide has weakened by about 15% a decade since 1981, while in the North Atlantic, scientists at the University of East Anglia also found a dramatic decline in the CO2 sink between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s.

A separate study published this year showed the ability of forests to soak up anthropogenic carbon dioxide – that caused by human activity – was weakening, because the changing length of the seasons alters the time when trees switch from being a sink of carbon to a source.

Soils could also be giving up their carbon stores: evidence emerged in 2005 that a vast expanse of western Siberia was undergoing an unprecedented thaw.

The region, the largest frozen peat bog in the world, had begun to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago. Scientists believe the bog could begin to release billions of tonnes of methane locked up in the soils, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The World Meteorological Organisation recently reported the largest annual rise of methane levels in the atmosphere for a decade.

Which means you can take your 5% carbon reduction and your 2 degrees of manageable warming and stick them up your arse. We’re headed to a place that will make Children of Men look like comedy.

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.

Michael Duffy is a moron; why does Fairfax pay him?

It is strange that Fairfax, the publisher of Sydney Morning Herald, puts out a far better paper in Melbourne – The Age – than they do in Sydney. It could perhaps be because the Sydney editor is a nonce. But that doesn’t explain why the hell Fairfax employ a conservative editor in what continually tries to be a progressive society. Perhaps they would rather we resist that impulse.

Or they think we are idiots, which would explain why they keep on their stable of narcissistic pundits-of-no-merit. Like Miranda Devine. Like Gerard Henderson (could somebody pleeeease tell him that John Howard is gone already). Like Michael Duffy.

Duffy is like a tumour that masquerades as a boil. His bio is hilarious – he relaunched his image at the Herald lately by presenting himself as aged cool like a turd with chocolate sprinkles, making special efforts to emphasize that he has been on the dole, AND played in bands. I would bet Madonna’s left nut that they were horrible pieces of shit who largely played or ripped off other people’s songs that sucked way before they even lost all relevance.. Because this feels like the kind of guy that Duffy is, and it’s exactly the way that he manages information. He’s like some second rate Christopher Pyne trying to present as a first rate Shaun Micallef, thereby coming across quite a bit like a skid mark from Peter Costello’s underpants but without the charisma.

In the tradition of ripping off shit that need never have been exuded in the first place, skunkjunk has just run an op ed in the Herald Truly inconvenient truths about climate change being ignored. Wow! Genius! Who would have ever thought to use the title of an increasingly old movie ironically in pursuit of climate change denial? Never. Seen. That. Done. A. Million. Times. Already.

And what a piece of crap it is.

Someone else who’s looked closely at scientific journals (although not specifically those dealing with climate science) is epidemiologist John Ioannidis of the Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. He reached the surprising conclusion that most published research findings are proved false within five years of their publication. (Lest he be dismissed as some eccentric, I note that the Economist recently said Ioannidis has made his case “quite convincingly”.)

So, one of Duffy’s convincing sources reads magazines that aren’t anything to do with climate science, and has found inconsistencies in those non-climate findings which a non-climate magazine has apparently once agreed add up to some kind of non-climate argument, and therefore climate change is bogus? I’m so convinced, I must read further.

New Liberal Leader Malcolm Turnbull: shocking revelations…

Climate Change – we’re f@$%ed… and we’ve killed Santa

For the first time in recorded human history, the North Pole is an island - courtesy of climate change.

Quoting Auslan Cramb from article reposted here at Tassie Times

THE NORTH POLE has become an island for the first time in human history as climate change has made it possible to circumnavigate the Arctic ice cap. The historic development was revealed by satellite images taken last week showing that both the north-west and north-east passages have been opened by melting ice. Prof Mark Serreze, a sea ice specialist at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in the US said the images suggested the Arctic may have entered a “death spiral” caused by global warming.

Now, before you let some idiot journalist, politician, or economist screw this piece of understanding up for you, try this analogy  on for size: the planet is a track, the global climate is its engine, this amounts to a cracked engine block. So don’t expect the motor to explode right away, don’t feel calmed just because the world doesn’t end by Friday. But do expect some ugly noises, reductions in power, and increased bumpiness very soon. Pre-2010 soon.

New climate group to drive Australian policy change

In early March Sydney University’s Faculty of Law launched a new multidisciplinary initiative – the Climate Law & Policy Group.

In line with recent developments – the UK’s Stern Report in 2006, reevaluation of the Kyoto Protocol during 2007 and Australia’s current review process under Professor Ross Garnaut – the initiative aims to fill critical voids within current thinking and activity, both locally and internationally.

Key organisers Professor Gillian Triggs, Dean of Law at Sydney University, and Dr. Rosemary Lyster, an internationally respected teacher and practitioner of environmental law, spoke briefly of the new group’s reason for existence.

They identified the need to transverse various branches of law – administrative, environmental, international, trade, migration, taxation, corporate, criminal and public health – in making way for the emerging field of climate law and preparing legal infrastructure for an all-embracing response to the growing challenge of climate change.

With Australia’s emission trading scheme due to launch in 2010 and with Kyoto having so far failed to adequately engage developing countries, this first-of-its-kind initiative will work with individuals and governments to develop research projects and policy.

Keynote speaker John Connor, CEO of the Climate Institute, addressed the lawyers, academics, NGOs, Justices and students who came to hear his insider’s account of last year’s Bali negotiations and their implications for Australia. Though unsurprisingly absent, environmental barrister extraordinaire, Chris McGrath, did receive an honourable mention as the legal frontiersman keeping the Australian government falling over its legislative toes.

Connor signalled that there are powerful undercurrents building within global negotiations. Developed nations may yet group together to go beyond currently tentative Kyoto targets to cut their carbon emissions by between 25 and 40 per cent by 2020. He identified 2020 as the proving ground, the year by which bold initiatives must be taken and, if successful, replicated on a grand scale.

He said China and South Africa were leading the negotiations to build bridges with the developed world, while Australia is crossing a bridge of her own. The American position of controlled stalling has been rejected, traded for the quantum leap of the Garnaut Review and its broader consideration of the national interest in responding to climate change.

The way forward mapped out by these pragmatists seems to be a multi-layered paradigm shift already set in motion, from changes taking place in local planning laws and research financing to regional partnerships and global transparency and accountability.

The Climate Law & Policy Group’s first conference will be held on August 8.

 

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.

Whaling: Peter Garrett’s most convenient problem looks like this…

The Australian government has just released these pictures of Japanese whaling in the waters of the Australian Whales Sanctuary off Antarctica. The federal opposition are opportunising the moment by proclaiming their intention to create a global whale utopia, through their Environmental Orifice, Greg Hunt. Of course, while in government the Liberals’ greatest contribution to whaling was to legally block all efforts to stop it, but that was weeks ago. Tossers.

Speaking of tossers, the land-loving chief of Japan’s Whale Kill Inc. has hit back by denying that the two whales in the picture aren’t related and that this is just Australian propaganda. Off course this is the same guy who claimed that Sea Shepherds‘ accusations that their crew members were tied to a pole aboard the Yushin Maru 2 were lies and Sea Shepherd propaganda… even as photos proving the accusations were fired around the world.

The Labor Party, and specifically the Attorney-General, have really moved in a (perhaps too) measured but dynamic manner on this issue. They removed legal blockages, allowing Humane Society International to test the matter of Japanese whaling in the Australian Antarctic Whale Sanctuary in Federal Court. Without this commitment from the government, HSI could not have succeeded, as they now have.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has forged ahead in discussions with Japan and under a siege of sorts from media as a result of the new paradigm, under which Australia is actively, rather than just conveniently, challenging and threatening Japan’s farcical, but vicious, ‘scientific whaling‘ program.

Of course, without the involvement of Sea Shepherd, and even Greenpeace, the government’s ‘effort’ in Antarctica would merely have meant three more weeks of photos like the one above, rather than whales actually having their endangered lives protected. Because the government’s greatest input at the moment seems to be all about getting out of everyone elses’ way.

Forest campaign against Garrett may have teeth…

Just pilfered this sassy new bulletin from the ever-lovely Tasmanian Times. It comes fresh from the keyboard of Karl Stevens:

‘Peter Garrett needs a comb as much as Tasmania needs a pulp mill’.

This is a new campaign targeting Environment Minister Peter Garrett …

PEOPLE are asked to send a plastic hair comb or a picture of a hair comb, with or without an anti-pulpmill message to Environment Minister Garrett.

Nothing abusive or insulting please.

The aim of this campaign is to draw attention to Garrett’s refusal to acknowledge the proposed pulp mill and the clearing of native forest in Tasmania as a critical environmental issue.

There are the 2 addresses for people to post to:
Peter Garrett
Suit MG40
Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600

Peter Garrett
PO Box 249
Maroubra NSW 2035

If you happen to be combing the internet from overseas, just stick ‘Australia’ in before the postcode.

Merry Christ mess.

So this is Christmas, and what have you done?

Another year o-ver, a noo one jus’ begu-u-un.

Nice work Band Aid. Let’s just ignore the crucified elephant in the room. Baby Jesus. Christians are about to perform a global Mexican Wave of celebration in the name of unlikely child birth – and that’s cool. But spare a thought for the Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Atheists, Agnostics, Godless Cocksucking Republicans, and French President Monsieur Blahlahblah Sarkozy, aka Godless Shiteating French Piss Monkey. It’s at this time of year that they/we/I realize that I/we/they just don’t have a creation myth that stands up to the one dictated from Vatican City.

So powerful is this creation myth that even though Pope Benedict Whateverth is clearly the evil emperor from Star Wars, he is still believed by over a billion people to be the left hand of God on Earth. Obviously, God’s right hand has no idea what his/her left hand is doing. That’s understandable. If you’re meant to simultaneously exist at all points of the known and unknown universe, your hands are likely quite far apart. Distance between good movies featuring Ben Affleck far apart. And then some.

Any organisation that is against birth control and in favour of human domination of the planet as some kind of divine right, all things given, really should be getting scratched CDs and used undies from Santa this Xmas is all I’m saying. And what’s with “Xmas”? Total commercialisation somehow hasn’t taken the Christ sufficiently out of the concept, so somebody decided to take the Christ out of the whole word?

Personally, I agree with many people who think that Jesus was an amazing tuned in cat whose words and actions have been censored, twisted, and exploited in an agenda-driven manner that is in no small part responsible for the suffering and death of hundreds of millions of people throughout the ages.

Funny how some people who can believe in virgin birth and life after death have such a problem accepting the basics of photosynthesis; the deaths and suffering of the Inquisition and the Crusades will likely pale into insignificance beside the upheaval and misery directly attributable to global warming within the next century. Where’s the church on this? Down the back, competing with governments and corporations to be the last to speak or, more importantly, act decisively.

The story of Eden is in so many ways a parable for our daily lives, but for this: we have eaten the apple of knowledge and rather than being evicted from the garden we have stayed behind to fill it with oil-poison, toxic-filth, genetic modification, ebola and napalm.

Of course some think that the snake, the serpent, a creature which feeds on the sun and moves on the earth, is a symbol of nature. And that nature, therefore, must be treated as evil. Which might explain a lot –  not just of what has happened, but what is happening and what is to come.

Oh yeah. Merry Christmas.

America The Stupid: prejudge this outcome.

WHAT THE F#$K??!!!!! The United States effort to again derail climate change negotiations utterly defies any possibility of undamaged brain tissue.

Here are the two mantras for the little piggy cumsacks of the US delegation at the UN’s Bali conference.

– Including any detail regarding emission reduction targets for the wealthiest emitters of greenhouse gases is unacceptable, because it would be “to prejudge the outcome“.

– “All options are on the table”

Now you may remember “all options are on the table” from such diplomatic triumphs as the overturning of the Geneva Convention, the invasion of Iraq, the hastened descent of the US into a complete police state, the 2008 aerial bombardment of Iran, climate change denial, and going down on Laura Bush. Obviously, the policy needs rewriting.

US delegations should instead declare that “all options are on crack“. That would at least be plausible.

But as for this new line of razor-edged anal beads, that committing to the minimum level of response necessary to marginally reduce the acceleration of global warming would be “to prejudge the outcome” of negotiations…. How goddamned brain damaged are you Nazi-bait bucket-c&%ted fist-whores in the Bush Administration that come up with this shit?

“Prejudge the outcome”? Is this the antithesis of “preemptive defence”? Which is itself analogous to “let’s rape and pillage that country before they get a chance to look at us funny”.

Preemptive defence – a nonsensical doctrine dreamed up by balding middle-aged neofascists who sniffed their mother’s panty-drawer hard enough to produce a lavender-infused psychotic aneurysm – is the military equivalent of stabbing cancer patients to death with a stick to reduce their risk of dying from a stroke.

Now the same genii who came up with this piece of diplomatic HIV have sent their new big gun to the review of Kyoto. Wouldn’t setting binding targets of at least 25% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 be a step toward producing, rather than ‘prejudging’ the outcome?

It doesn’t even make fucking sense. Look at it: “we don’t want to prejudge the outcome”? From the same fucking stupid assholes who brought the English language “embolden”, “enhanced interrogation techniques”, “they hate our freedom” and “flip-flopper”.

“Oh America, you look so hot in the red glow of this simmering planet tonight. The way the blood drips thickly from your clenched, trembling fist just gets me so… oohhhhh. And the sweat steaming off your chest, just caught in shards of moonlight, as you pause briefly to breathe… panting heavily from the exertion of kicking in the doors, faces, and genitals of a Columbian mountain village… Spit runs down your stubbly man-chin and your eye squint hard against the barrage of piss the world rains down upon you, but you raise your face up and bask in the spray as if it’s the winner’s-podium champagne. Oh God, America, I tremble with excitement as you loudly shit your pants, scoop a handful of the brown stain into your twisted mouth and proclaim it to be milk chocolate. Oh America, I just want to pull out one of your ribs and beat your stupid, fat, fucking skull with it until you promise to liberate me! Liberate me America! Feed me a big, nutritious bowl of your piss-champagne shit-chocolate acid-junk AIDS-blood Liberty!!”

“Sorry baby, not tonight.”

“Why America? Oh why? Why? Why not here? Why not now? Why not yet?”

“Because, baby, that would be to prejudge the outcome”. 

Senator Christine Milne’s view of the Bali Climate Change Conference

Bali Choices – a review of the Bali Climate Change negotiations by Senator Christine Milne, as of Tuesday December 11th

There was genuine excitement and warm good will in Bali last week when the new Australian Government announced its decision to ratify the Kyoto Protocol immediately and rejoin the global effort to tackle climate change.

But good will turned to suspicion when Prime Minister Rudd unceremoniously stomped on the Australia delegation for daring to align Australia with the goal of cutting rich country emissions by 25-40% by 2020, the minimum that the climate science requires. The delegation told the conference that Australia accepts that target range, and the rest of the world understood that to mean that Australia was agreeing to negotiate using those figures as a starting point. Rudd’s public rebuke, saying his Government would not commit to any 2020 targets until the Garnaut Review is completed, was worrying.

Prime Minister Rudd’s welcome in Bali will be conditional on his immediate clarification of Australia position on 2020 targets. He cannot hide behind the Garnaut report here.

Australia‘s positioning in the next 2 years’ negotiations will depend on convincing the world now that Australia is genuine. Mr Rudd has to decide whether his election represents a genuine change or whether we are continuing the spoiler role of the last decade.

Perceptions here have not been helped by the fact that the Australian delegation remains overloaded with vested interests from the coal, aluminium and logging industries, the CFMEU, and public servant negotiators still steeped in the attitude of the former PM. It is an ominous sign that the Ambassador for the Environment, Jan Adams, believes that the 25-40% target will never be agreed to here in Bali, when the fact that it is in the Chair’s Draft of the Bali Mandate indicates there is significant support for it.

But the biggest problem is Australia’s hypocrisy on logging and deforestation.

There is a big push from around the world to find a way to include the protection of forests in the post 2012 climate treaty. This ‘reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation’ (REDD) work would have a clear benefit for the countries of the Amazon, African and Pacific forests. But it would also have a significant impact on Australia, since ‘degradation’ makes it clear that logging substantially reduces the amount of carbon stored in a forest.

The definition of degradation is critical and there will be intense efforts to water down any resolution. The National Association of Forest Industries have already flown in reinforcements, attempting to undermine any agreement on REDD which would destroy their propaganda that the ‘management’ of native forests in Australia is carbon positive.

With exquisite timing, on the day that bulldozers went into the Styx Valley in Tasmania to clear-fell ancient forests holding 1400 tonnes of carbon per hectare, Peter Garrett stood in front of a banner here saying “Save Wildlife. Reduce Carbon Emissions” and talked about biodiversity benefits of saving forests. He was talking about the Indonesian orang-utan, not the Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle.

It is tragically clear that there is still no political will to act on the clear and urgent climate science. Whilst every country is happy to talk the talk, the negotiations in Bali reflect the 19^th century view that national sovereignty overrides global responsibility and selfish short-termism rules the day.

I welcome the Chair’s Draft including a 25-40% reduction by 2020 from rich countries and an explicit statement of urgency that global emissions must peak and begin to be reduced in 10-15 years. But the lack of political will is evident in the fact that these figures are in the preamble, and not the text of the draft decision.

Given the uncertainty about whether Bali will produce a roadmap with significant, science-based targets, Kevin Rudd’s role here is critical. He can either lead with the EU or he can stall with Canada, Japan and the USA. Rudd’s actions here will have long-lasting implications which the world will look back on as it reflects on progress in 2012.

Senator Christine Milne

Australian Greens Climate Change Spokesperson

Vice President of IUCN, the World Conservation Union

Another unappealing Australian forestry decision

A crucial, complex, and under-reported court battle for Australian forests and endangered species came to a head in late November, as three judges of the Federal Court overturned a decision which had previously seen Greens Senator Bob Brown triumph over the state government of Tasmania, Forestry Tasmania, and the federal government.

Brown has been in court for the last two years, fighting to establish an important understanding of Australian environmental law by arguing about the way it should apply to endangered species in Tasmania’s Wielangta Forest.

The major piece of environmental legislation in this country – the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBCA) – has, in practice, been excluded from all forests governed by Regional Forest Agreements (RFA) between the state and federal governments. In essence, this means that any forest being logged with state approval is exempt from the protections of this particular law.

Brown’s argument – previously upheld in December of 2006 – was that the EPBCA was only excluded because the RFA was meant to confer federal responsibilities for species protection to the state authorities, by virtue of the RFA. Where these responsibilities were not honoured in practice, Brown argued, the RFA was invalidated and endangered species provisions of the EPBCA must therefore be applied.

While the appeal judges seemed to agree that logging in Wielangta has a significant and unacceptable impact on endangered species, they overturned the key finding of last year’s decision, supporting instead the conclusion that areas of logging are exempt from protection other than that deemed necessary by departments of forestry under agreement with state and federal governments.

“It’s a case of the law intends to protect endangered wildlife but if Canberra and Hobart ignore logging which endangers their existence, they can,” Senator Brown said.

“I will ask both Prime Minister Rudd and Peter Garrett to put the Howard years of indifference behind and insist these habitats be protected as the law intends,” said Brown. “I have also asked my barristers to weigh up the obvious grounds for an appeal to the High Court – this nation’s natural heritage depends on us taking action.”

Bob Gordon, Managing Director of Forestry Tasmania took a different view of the decision’s significance.

“Propaganda put out by extreme elements in the anti-forestry movement claimed we were somehow acting outside the law,” said Gordon. “This has been an expensive, emotionally draining and time consuming exercise – but it has been worth it. There is now no doubt that our forest operations are legal.”

Of course, there is still doubt. Unlike Forestry Tasmania and the two governments they are joined by, Brown has not had the benefit of departmental budgets or tax moneys to fight his battle – a battle which is not yet over.

 

The Story of Stuff!!!!!

You’ve got to give it to Counterpunch – when it’s good, it’s really, really good. This article by Robert Weissman just sent me headlong into a whole world of fresh juicy goodness.

Annie, who is a former colleague and good friend, casually mentions at the start of The Story of Stuff that she spent 10 years traveling the world to explore how stuff is made and discarded. This doesn’t begin to explain her first-hand experience. There aren’t many people who race from international airports to visit trash dumps. Annie does. In travels to three dozen countries, she has visited garbage dumps, infiltrated toxic factories, worked with ragpickers and received death threats for her investigative work. Her understanding of the externalized violence of the corporate consumer economy comes from direct observation and experience.

You may remember the wonderful piece of animated activism, The Meatrix. If you don’t, do check it out – highly worthy. Anyway, Free Range Studios – who produced The Meatrix – have now produced The Story of Stuff which basically maps out consumption culture from the mining of minerals to the incineration of consumables.

This bit of video is just a promo – for a download of the full piece, head to the SoS website, or drop by their blog and watch it grow.

Voyeurs, Gunns and Money.

As I said here a few days ago, there will be some bits of interest going up here shortly for filing under forests, environmental law, and Tasmania. Although I’m essentially an opinionated prick who reads a bit, I try not to let a good rant get in the way of most facts – and the fact is that the overturning of the Wielangta decision, which had previously seen Bob Brown’s interpretation of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act upheld by the Federal Court, means the battle for forests and ancient land-based ecosystems in Australia is on a much more demanding uphill slog than it was a week ago. More on that later.

Speaking of things Green – it may be that media aren’t interested until there’s a bunch of hard facts on the ground (yeah, right), but the Senate counting is not yet complete and will likely not be finished for another week. Counting in at least two states is still so close that it may be decided by the final handful of votes yet to be tallied. This is significant, because it means the difference between the crossbench power bloc in the Senate being composed of 7 Greens, or 6 Greens and a centre left independent, or 5 Greens and a centre left independent and a whatever from Family First, aka Neoconservative Demonspawn. So fingers still crossed. The less right wing influence on legislation for at least the next few years, the better.

And now to the point of this post. Gunns are now negotiating in Tasmania to secure an area for accomodation for up to 800 construction workers and a worker’s town to be built near the proposed location of the pulp mill. But they haven’t yet bought the actual site for the pulp mill itself. Here’s hoping that it all comes undone. Either way, a friend just sent me the link for this new website: The Gunns Investor Information Service.

It has a bunch of interesting and relevant information such as:

3) Gunns business is highly exposed to subsidy reductions:-

• For each hectare of plantation established by Gunns, they receive over $3,000 of taxpayer money via MIS. To increase their plantation estate, Gunns needs more land. The mill seems to need a minimum of 400,000 ha of plantation, an increase of 200,000 ha from current levels. That growth would represent further federal subsidies of $640 million. If that scheme is stopped (and there are many farming and community groups fighting it), then plantation estate increases would be curtailed. That would cap inputs and lower income significantly.
• Road and bridge repairs are conducted at ratepayer expense. The weight of modern log trucks creates disproportionate damage and total cost relief for this item has been estimated at about $20 million per year across Tasmania. Councils are already crying poor, how long before this subsidy comes under serious question?
• Plantation trees consume a lot of water (reported as averaging 2 Ml/ha/yr more than agriculture) for which plantation operators do not pay. Tasmania is in drought status right now, rainfall has been diminishing for 10 years and reservoirs are at record lows. Pressure from farmers and communities down catchment could easily change government policy on water charges for trees. The 400 Gl currently calculated for Gunns plantation, at $100 Ml, represents $40 million dollars of foregone State revenue per year.
• Additional subsidies in the forms of cash payments and cost relief have also been made available to Gunns (e.g. forest agreements etc) to the value of over $300 million in the last 3 years.

So go check it out, and feel free to let any of your elected representatives know if, for example, you have never actually voted for Gunns and are therefore curious why they seem to be running a state of Australia.

Oh, the picture up the top? It’s part of a new outdoor installation in Bethlehem by Banksy, near the wall dividing Israel from Palestine. Bird of Peace in a bulletproof vest on a gunshot-riddled wall facing an Israeli guard tower? Magic. It’s nothing to do with any of this and that’s perhaps why it’s there. Go to Santa’s Ghetto and check out the art show and fundraiser which this cutting work is part of.

 

GDP – a Growing Destructive Problem

 Here’s an excerpt from a piece by George Monbiot which I just read at Celsias. Celsias, by the way, is one of the best global warming-focussed websites I know of and I’d welcome suggestions for any that you think are as useful. It’s certainly an excellent resource for following Bali-related developments as efforts mount to create Kyoto+.

Point being – remember that riddle from when you were little about how a frog is in the middle of a pond. On the first jump, the frog gets halfway to the edge, and on each successive jump the frog goes half as far as the jump before. How many jumps until the frog reaches the edge of the pond?

Well guess who’s the frog now?

Underlying the immediate problem is a much greater one. In a lecture to the Royal Academy of Engineering in May, Professor Rod Smith of Imperial College explained that a growth rate of 3% means economic activity doubles in 23 years(24). At 10% it takes just 7 years. This we knew. But Smith takes it further. With a series of equations he shows that “each successive doubling period consumes as much resource as all the previous doubling periods combined.” In other words, if our economy grows at 3% between now and 2030, we will consume in that period economic resources equivalent to all those we have consumed since humans first stood on two legs. Then, between 2030 and 2053, we must double our total consumption again. Reading that paper I realised for the first time what we are up against.

 – read the article in full –