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.

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

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.

Sea Shepherd catch whalers in Australian Antarctic waters.

Sea Shepherd have just reported their first encounter of the “season”, locating a Japanese harpoon boat inside Australian waters off Antarctica. Obviously, some people will take the notion of ‘Australian waters’ off Antarctica to task. The economic exclusion zones off Antarctica are recognized by a relatively small number of nations, but they are also well established and well known to Japan, whose whaling fleet has been deemed to have a legal case to answer in Australia for killing whales there previously.

Will Peter Garrett break into his holidays (which began in November 2007) to register his official concern with the Japanese government, or, more strongly still, will he ask them to order their government-sponsored whaling fleet to stop breaking Australian law? Or, even strongerer (!? yeah, sure) will he go with the plan that he announced when he was simply trying to win votes and send Australian naval vessels to intercept returning whaling vessels and board them for the purpose of documenting evidence of their illegal whaling activities.

Time will tell, but don’t hold your breath. At most, it’s likely that he will aim to deliver 5% of a rebuff by 2020, with the possibility of demanding 15% of an apology if whales can be heard dying from marginal electorates.

From Sea Shepherd

Captain Paul Watson
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ship Steve Irwin now has the entire Japanese whaling fleet on the run.

At 2345 G.M.T. the Steve Irwin intercepted the Japanese harpoon vessel Yusshin Maru #2 inside the Australian Antarctic Economic Exclusion Zone at 64°26 South and 132° 40’ East.

The encounter took place in dense fog and in dangerous ice conditions. The Steve Irwin launched a Delta boat with a crew to attack the Yusshin Maru #2 with rotten butter bombs. Unfortunately the wind increased to fifty knots with blizzard conditions. Captain Paul Watson called the small boat crew back for safety reasons when they were halfway to their target some three miles away.

The Yusshin Maru #2 then headed due North to lead the Steve Irwin away from the whaling fleet. The decoy did not work. The Steve Irwin is now in pursuit of the whaling fleet.

They have ceased whaling operations and they are now running from the Sea Shepherd crew.

The Yusshin Maru #2 was the same vessel that the Steve Irwin crew boarded in January 2007. This year the crew observed that the Yusshin Maru #2 has set up large netting to be run along the side of the ship to prevent boarding parties from going over the side. When the whalers realized that the Steve Irwin was onto them, they immediately ran on deck to deploy the netting.

“It looks like Whale Wars, season #2 is officially underway.” Said Captain Paul Watson. “We’ve got them on the run. They are not in the Ross Sea where they said they would be. They are in Australian waters. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is officially calling on Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith to order the Japanese fleet to comply with the orders of the Australian Federal Court and to cease and desist from killing to whales in Australian waters.”

Captain Paul Watson
Master – The Steve Irwin
Master – The Farley Mowat
Founder and President of the
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
http://www.Seashepherd.org

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.

Juicy behind the scenes rumours from US election

Sorry for the sleazy title, but if you’ve got such a problem with it, how did you end up here?

Turns out that Newsweak (NOT a typo) has been running a little project via its journalists, gathering anything not-fit-for-print or off-the-record pre-election to release post-election.

Genii.

Although it’s quite hilarious to read that Sarah Palin couldn’t grasp that Africa is a “continent” rather than a “country”, the eye-catching bit of awesomeness is a comment from Obama, in which he (rightly) derides the debate stage show.

When he was preparing for the Democratic primary debates, Obama was recorded saying, “I don’t consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, ‘You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.’ So when Brian Williams is asking me about what’s a personal thing that you’ve done [that’s green], and I say, you know, ‘Well, I planted a bunch of trees.’ And he says, ‘I’m talking about personal.’ What I’m thinking in my head is, ‘Well, the truth is, Brian, we can’t solve global warming because I f—ing changed light bulbs in my house. It’s because of something collective’.“

Apart from it being reassuring to know that Obama uses the F word, how on-the-money is that assessment of feelgood new age greenness. Lovin’ it. Gobama!

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.

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.

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.

G8 agree climate goal: almost nothing better than absolutely nothing?

News has just come in from Japan that leaders of the G8 have agreed in broad terms to aim for a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

At last year’s summit in Germany they agreed to seriously consider a plan to cut greenhouse emissions by 50 per cent by the middle of this century.

Today they have agreed to that goal as a shared vision, and to press other nations to also adopt the target.

Is this a good thing?

Do the biggest emitters, and therefore biggest contributors to global warming, deserve a pat on the back for agreeing to think about the possibility of making their massive future profits in a marginally less sociopathic manner?

No. No they don’t.

If Saddam Hussein had used a radioactive isotope to kill thousands of Kurds slowly over several years rather than quickly with highly toxic nerve agents, would he have been applauded for this infinitely more humane and sensible course of action?

Not bloody likely.

Not to mention that the US and UK have already covered the Middle East with long-lasting radioactive isotopes and would likely not care for the competition.

But I digress.

If in the ’80s, everybody had agreed that CFCs and HFCs were causing the growing hole in the ozone layer, and that said hole posed a doomsday risk to this planet’s viability for sustaining life, but that doing something real about it would be too hard and it would instead be better to hold protracted and unproductive talkfests while increasing production of CFCs and HFCs, would the media have cheered global leaders for their sensible and measured approach?

Would said leaders have been allowed to publicly gloat and pat themselves and each other on the back for their resolute inaction?

Last year at about this time, noteworthy journalist, academic, and author George Monbiot wrote damningly in his trademark evidence-based way about the nearsightedness of the British Government’s 2050 60 per cent target. Everything points to the need for much more drastic 80, 90, and perhaps even 100% targets.

Clarifying writing of this sort is, even now, unfortunately rare. Not for lack of people producing objectively spine-chilling forecasts, but for the simple fact that the real news never makes it to the front page. If it is even published at all, it is lost amongst the shrill idiocy of the Tim Blairs, Michael Costas, and Lord Moncktons who somehow satisfy the desire to sell papers much more than they satisfy any need to educate the public or illuminate truth.

Still, wrote Monbiot at the time:

A good source tells me that the British government is well aware that its target for cutting carbon emissions – 60% by 2050 – is too little, too late, but that it will go no further for one reason: it fears losing the support of the Confederation of British Industry. Why this body is allowed to keep holding a gun to our heads has never been explained, but Gordon Brown has just appointed Digby Jones, its former director-general, as a minister in the department responsible for energy policy. I don’t remember voting for him. There could be no clearer signal that the public interest is being drowned by corporate power.

Sound familiar? Maybe even universally applicable?

And in his latest article, Monbiot considers a newly proposed model for a global emission taxation scheme that might be profoundly more simple than national models currently under discussion:

This would not be the first time that business was rescued by the measures it most stoutly resists: there’s a long history of corporate lobbying against the kind of government spending that eventually saves the corporate economy.

Do we want to save it, even if we can? It is hard to see how the current global growth rate of 3.7% a year (which means the global economy doubles every 19 years) could be sustained(11), even if the whole thing were powered by the wind and the sun. But that is a question for another column and perhaps another time, when the current economic panic has abated. For now we have to find a means of saving us from ourselves.

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.

Exxon crude oil $US45.45: US Supreme Court ruling

In a landmark ruling, the US Supreme Court today slashed the damages bill against Exxon for the 11 million gallons of oil their drunken captain poured into a pristine Alaskan ecosystem just 20 years ago. Deciding that “the people” – as in of the, by the, and for the – of the original jury were brain damaged for originally awarding $5 billion in punitive damages against the company, Justice David Souter today pissed mightily in the faces of victimized communities, environments, and species for generations to come.

He found that Exxon should only have to pay $500 million in punitive damages, seeing as the company had already paid $507 million in damages to directly compensate communities of Prince William Sound for economic losses.

$500 million totals about $15 000 for each of the 33 000 claimants, and 4 days worth of Exxon’s profits last year,

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.

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.

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.