Saturday, December 20, 2008
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Queensland Climate Movement Summit
Summit Update
Exactly one month ago, the Queensland Climate Movement Summit was attended by more than 60 activists, thinkers and citizens, with some 30 organisations represented and 26 workshops conducted on building and strengthening the climate movement in Queensland.
To those of you who participated, the event was a success only due to your input and contribution. Many most humble thank-yous for your involvement.
But, of course, the Summit was just the beginning.
As promised, the proceedings from the Summit have been edited, and the Proceedings of the Inaugural Queensland Climate Movement Summit are now available online at:
- http://www.enoughhotair.com
- The proceedings can be downloaded from: http://www.enoughhotair.com/resources/
You'll notice that the summit proceedings are available in both a PDF and in a webpage format. We hope that through the website's comment and forum capabilities, the summit proceedings can become a living document of our evolving strategies and campaigns addressing the climate crisis in Queensland.
One of the desired action steps from the summit was the request for Six Degrees to establish a collaborative web-space, where we can share information, resources and news.
We hope that www.enoughhotair.com will provide us with that webspace - but it needs your input to make it so. Some of the ways that you can contribute are below:
- Read the workshop proceedings from some of the 26 workshops, discussions, forums and skillshares conducted on the day.
- Featured workshops include a history of direct action on coal, the St John's Wood Sustainability group's outreach strategy, a web-based collaboration review and the proposal for the Queensland Climate Safe Coalition. If you attended the workshop, and have further discussion points to add, don't hesitate to leave a comment at the bottom of the page.
- Download the summit proceedings from the resources section of the website. Other resources will be added here as they are recommended.
- Continue the summit discussions at the online forum on the summit webpage. We are trialling this feature of the site, subject to its popularity. The more you post, the more useful the online forum will be.
- Upload your materials from the discussion. Send your workshop notes, photos, recordings or musings from the summit by replying to this email address.
- Make further suggestions. If there's anything else you would like to see on the website, let us know by posting a message here.
Thanks once again for your participation in the Queensland Climate Movement Summit - it was a rich and powerful event. Looking forward to working with you in the coming months to build a resilient and effective climate movement across the state.
In solidarity and hope,
Clare, John, Brad and Shani
on behalf of
Six Degrees
- taking climate change personally -
Read More......
Act Now - Global Day of Climate Action December 6
December 2008
Friends of the Earth Europe's video asking the "Men in suits" to start making positive decisions that address the problem of climate change.
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Carbon crash hits Europe's emission trading scheme
November 06, 2008
From The Australian
This is why we should have a straight carbon tax or carbon rationing instead of relying on the ETS Market system which is just capitalism which has caused the problems in the first place.
A Carbon Tax is where a GST / VAT / .. type tax at some percent is applied calculated on the cost it will take to repair that Carbon that has been emmitted in manufacturing, transporting etc... the product in question. It would be calculated and not a plucked figure.
Carbon rationing is even better where we work out how much carbon per person we're allowed to emit to remain sustainable. It will involve some credit card type arrangement. If you use more than your allocation you can buy from someone who didn't use as much.
Both are politically difficult to implement in our current capitalist societies.
WHILE you were distracted by crashing banks and clashing US senators, you may have missed a small environmental earthquake.
The price of carbon has collapsed.
In only three months, life has become a lot cheaper for polluters. The financial cost of warming the planet has plummeted in Europe's emissions trading system (ETS) and the effectiveness of such a volatile market mechanism in curbing carbon is being questioned.
You may recall that the ETS is a mechanism to encourage businesses to reduce their carbon output. Europe's larger companies are allocated permits to emit CO2, and these allowances, called EUAs, can be traded on exchanges.
Companies that emit less CO2 than their allocation can sell EUAs for cash, but inefficient polluters must buy EUAs or face financial penalties.
The idea is that a shortfall in EUAs allocated by governments will cause the carbon price to rise, stimulating investment in carbon reduction.
It's a market solution to pollution, but this carbon market is showing a distressing tendency to behave like most financial markets -- hysterically. In July, the right to spew out one tonne of CO2 from a chimney would have cost a power generator E29.33, but yesterday it could be bought for only E18.25 ($34.14).
...
Read the article.
Read More......
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Walk Against Warming 2008 - 15th Nov
This event is happen around Australia on November 15 (except for Canberra's walk which is on Dec 6th). In Brisbane it will start at 12:30 in Queens Park (Corner of George and Elizabeth Streets) and we'll walk to Roma Street Parklands.
Find more information or for promotional posters or flyers see http://www.walkagainstwarming.org/ for all locations in Australia.
The below information is not so relevant now though we could still do with some Marshalls.
If you'd like to be part of the organising committee then please shoot over to the CAB_Team group at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/CAB_Team/ and click on Join.
We are meeting every Monday up until the day at:
- Monday 6th October and every Monday till 15/11, 6:00pm - 7:30pm
- QCC, Level 3 166 Ann Street, Brisbane City (Queensland, Australia).
Enter by the door on the right side of building. If it is locked, please call us on 3221 0188 and one of us will pop down.
Or take this as an invitation to join in the fun as we walk to highlight that climate change is a real problem and we need to change business as usual - keep coal in the ground and invest in renewables, efficiency measures and education.
Find photos of past WAWs in Brisbane at Tintuna's Environment photos collection. Read More......
Community-led Tarong coal action & media
Hi all,
Loads of media from yesterday - just a glimpse (I love how the media
keeps calling us "Power Protesters").
We made ABC, 10 and 9 evening news :-) I think we made it into local and regional print media (Kingaroy, Nanoonga, etc) - we're visiting the State Library today to find out.
Check out www.enoughhotair.com for photos, videos and more links (coming soon).
Australia:
Two Charged Over Power Station Protest - Channel 9 News (with photo)
http://news.www22.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=661871&rss=yes
Tarong Power Plant Protesters Arrested - Courier Mail
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,20797,24615621-952,00.html...
Protesters Arrested at Tarong - Brisbane Times
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/protesters-arrested-a...
Police Arrest Tarong Power Protesters - ABC
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/07/2413600.htm
'Peaceful' activists chained at power plant - News.com.au
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24615589-1248,00.html?from=publi...
International:
...an excellent article from the BengaliTimes - compliments of Reuters.
http://www.banglalive.com/news/NonLeadNewsDetail137_11_2008.asp
Climate Activists Disrupt Australian Power Plant - The Standard, Hong
Kong (Reuters Feed!)
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking_news_detail.asp?id=9228&icid=4...
3 Climate Protesters Chain themselves to Coal Equipment - News.uk.msn
http://news.uk.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=10751237
Syndicated at:
Sydney Morning Herald
http://news.smh.com.au/national/two-charged-over-power-station-protes...
The Mercury (Tasmania)
http://tools.themercury.com.au/stories/10008681-breaking-news.php
The West Australian
http://www.thewest.com.au/aapstory.aspx?StoryName=528523
The Age
http://news.theage.com.au/national/two-charged-over-power-station-pro...
Climate Ark
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=110000
Sunshine Coast Daily
http://www.thedaily.com.au/news/2008/nov/07/aap-protesters-chained-at...
--
Clare Towler
m: 0412 055 600
skp: clare_t
http://stepitupaustralia.wordpress.com
"If not now, when? If not here, where? If not us, who?"
www.enoughhotair.com
www.climatemovement.org.au
Friday, November 07, 2008
World's monetry system and how it leads to social and environmental collapse
These sites, the first being a video description, are about how the world's monetary system works and how it will inevitably lead to societal and environmental collapse, although we see that happening already. The Environmental impact isn't till about 1/2 hr (it goes for 47 minutes). The video spends a quarter of the time discussing solutions.
The Earth plus 5% is a text version that is a simpler explanation of the same concepts of money as debt.
Thanks To Kim Bax for sending me the video link and to Helen Scutts for sending me the text version.
Read More......
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Gary the Global Warming Goat
Its good to see someone can have some x-rated, tongue-in-cheek fun with global warming. Don't watch if you are offended by rude language!
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Step in to Step it Up on Climate Change!
In the first days of December, the Rudd Government will release the White Paper, outlining the Emissions Trading Scheme and emissions reduction targets for 2020 - the most important policy in contemporary Australia. I’m calling on you to do a similar action in your MP’s office in the first week of December – step in to your MP’s office and be part of stepping it up on climate change.
At our 'step in', five people went into Kevin Rudd’s office and asked to make an appointment with Rudd. I felt a bit nervous walking in, but having a group of us together made it a lot easier. After some discussion with a staff member and the office manager, we established that we weren’t going to get a meeting straight away. So we said, “That’s ok, we’ll wait” – and we sat down on the floor and pulled out our signs that we had prepared beforehand. With perfect timing, our other friends came around the corner with a banner that read ‘Great Barrier Reef – not negotiable’.
Soon, television crew from three different stations arrived. Our media spokesperson conducted a number of interviews while we continued to sit on the floor in the office. After two hours, the police hadn’t turned up. We felt we had succeeded in getting the media we wanted and decided to call it quits for the day… perhaps to return for a much longer sit-in in December!
I think the action was successful because we were really organised in advance. We’d had a couple of meetings before the day of the sit-in. On the day, we met up near Rudd’s office about an hour beforehand to go over what we wanted to do.
Another key part to the success of our action was having two excellent media people (one a media spokesperson and the other a media liaison) who sent our media release and made follow-up calls to key media outlets once we were in the office. They had practiced by roleplaying interviews and were feeling well-prepared before the action. Sending out a media release with high resolution photos was also important so media outlets that didn’t make it were still able to do stories with photos on the action.
You can see some of the media on our action here:
http://climateemergencyqueensland.blogspot.com/2008/09/climate-emergency-launch.html
It was great having supporters chanting and with colourful banners outside. They kept us entertained with chants of “Save our Reef, Mr Rudd, Garnaut’s targets are a dud!’ Their presence provided us with moral support for what we were doing.
I think the only problem we had on the day was when trains were suddenly cancelled – just before our train was due to head to Kevin Rudd’s office! We had to go and find a bus and we were running about half an hour late. Leaving plenty of time before the event was due to start definitely paid off for us!
I encourage you to do a similar action in your MP’s office in the first week of December. Now is the time to step in and step up community action on climate change!
To get you started, download the great information kit on how to do a Step In http://stepitupaustralia.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/step-in-to-step-it-up-on-climate-change.pdf
Next, get together with your climate action group or your friends and talk about what you would like your ‘Step In’ to be like. What will you do when you are there? What are the core messages you want to convey to your MP, to the public, and to media? What do people in your group need to feel prepared? Email hollycreenaune@gmail.com with any questions or for an experienced activist to visit your group to help you plan.
Then, a short time after the Federal Government releases their White Paper, step in to your MP’s office with a group of people from your community, and be part of stepping it up on climate change!
See the website for more information, tips and stories from a whole range of climate change groups who have ‘stepped in’ to their MP’s office already: http://stepitupaustralia.wordpress.com/ Get informed, inspired, and ready to STEP IN this December.
All the best in stepping in,
Emma Brindal
http://stepitupaustralia.wordpress.com/
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Chemical released by trees can help cool planet
October 31, 2008
From Climate Ark
Trees could be more important to the Earth's climate than previously thought, according to a new study that reveals forests help to block out the sun.
Scientists in the UK and Germany have discovered that trees release a chemical that thickens clouds above them, which reflects more sunlight and so cools the Earth. The research suggests that chopping down forests could accelerate global warming more than was thought, and that protecting existing trees could be one of the best ways to tackle the problem.
Dominick Spracklen, of the Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science at Leeds University, said: "We think this could have quite a significant effect. You can think of forests as climate air conditioners."
The scientists looked at chemicals called terpenes that are released from boreal forests across northern regions such as Canada, Scandinavia and Russia. The chemicals give pine forests their distinctive smell, but their function has puzzled experts for years. Some believe the trees release them to communicate, while others say they could offer protection from air pollution.
The team found the terpenes react in the air to form tiny particles called aerosols. The particles help turn water vapour in the atmosphere into clouds.
Spracklen said the team's computer models showed that the pine particles doubled the thickness of clouds some 1,000m above the forests, and would reflect an extra 5% sunlight back into space.
...
Read the article.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Electric car infrastructure just four years off
WITHIN four years, most Australians will be able to drive an electric car and recharge it at special plug-in points at home, the office or shopping centres.
The mass use of electric cars moved a giant step closer to reality today, with power company AGL and finance group Macquarie Capital signing an agreement with international group Better Place to provide infrastructure to support the environmentally friendly vehicles.
Under the agreement, Macquarie will raise $1 billion to build an electric-vehicle network in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, and AGL will power it with renewable energy.
...
Well I hope this is true. Let me see if I can find other references:
Yep, looks pretty convincing. I guess that isn't a hard one. Now that they spoke of "using renewable energy for fueling stations" (what does this mean) lets see if Coal fired power stations get closed. When that starts happening (and Coal exports reduce) then we're really cooking with gas (excuse the pun!).
There's no mention of the big energy companies. I wonder if they are somehow involved, will fight to the end to keep petroleum as a major source of road vehicles or will roll-over and let the change happen around them. I'm guessing its the first though it will be interesting to see how this one plays out.
Note that I haven't dug too deeply on this and leave it as a reader exercise. Wanna add in references as a comment (don't forget to wrap in an HTML Anchor tag so we can just click on it!.
Read the article.
Read More......
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Imagine paying someone to be a prick
Greenpeace anti-coal industry song / video. What a cack!
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Frookin' Bloody Dongheads - Carbon Sense Coalition
Monday, October 13, 2008
From Blogs News.com.au
Oh my god. I'm glad I saw this post (thanks to Emma Rose from the Fossil Fools Brisbane group I belong to).
Carbon Sense Coalition - What a fucking bunch of dickheads. Excuse the swearing and notice that I spared the world from it in the title :) But some things make me fucking mad and complete fucknuckles like these people take the cake. The lord teaches us to forgive those who sin and trespass against us. And I will. WHEN THEY ARE BURRIED UNDER A TONNE OF COAL I will! Wankers.
Read the blog article.
Hey, I'm back the next morning.
I launched into the blog post with many four letter words (that happens when the words Anna Bligh(t) and coal industry appear in the same sentance) and without spending more time assessing the information presented. Perhaps I was being unfair on the Carbon Sense Coalition.
From their manifest they say:
(members include) taxpayers concerned at the spiraling costs of subsidies for fixing non-problems in the carbon cycle or propping up inefficient alternatives to
carbon fuels.
Don't give me that shit. It is the fossil fuel industry that is being subsidised to the tune of 9 billion dollars in Australia alone.
(members include) farmers who know about the important role of plants, soil and carbon dioxide in naturally recycling carbon from the atmosphere to plants and back to our food chain.
What the frig has that got to do with it? That is a form of Greenwashing.
(members include) people with knowledge and understanding of the dominant influence of the sun, oceans, clouds, volcanoes and cycles in the solar system in affecting climate and weather on earth.
Aren't these the people that support renewable energy????. Greenwash / distraction comment.
(members include) people alarmed at the politicization of science and who want our young people to grow up in a world in which truth and science are valued.
That's not true since the science is quite solid. And what about the POLITICS THAT has been DISTORTED and Corrupted by the fossil fuel industry. Goverments don't wipe their bum unless the fossil fuel industry says so.
(members include) people concerned at the way this issue is being used to fill our children with fear and loathing and our adults with guilt and anger.
Again not true - complete absolute bullshit, and what about the children who are being poisoned by the pollution, runoff and waste from fossil fuel mining, production and consumption?.
I'm not going any further. It will just make me more frickin' angry.
These people are real wankers. They are wrong, deceitful and society should see them as the criminals they are and banish them to the salt mines. Read More......
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Queensland Climate Movement Summit
Queensland Climate Movement Summit
Saturday October 25th from 9am
Dutton Park State School Hall, Annerley Rd
About the Summit
Climateers, activists, thinkers and citizens from across the country are invited to participate in the inaugural Queensland Climate Movement Summit - one of the most exciting grassroots community convergences in Queensland of recent years. The Summit is hosted by Six Degrees, a campaign initiative of Friends of the Earth in Queensland.
The Summit is an opportunity for activists, thinkers and citizens to meet to discuss ideas, issues, opportunities, campaigns and strategies in response to the impacts of climate change. The overall aim is to encourage discussion and co-operation between groups and individuals who are working on (or interested in) climate change in order to strengthen and build a movement for change.
The summit will be open-space discussions and workshops.
Date: Saturday, October 25th, 9 am to 5 pm
Venue: Dutton Park State School Hall, Annerley Rd
RSVP to bradley.r.smith@gmail.com ph 0413280006 by 20th October.
For more information check out: www.climatemovement.org.au/groups/six-degrees
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Read the article.
Read More......
Friday, August 22, 2008
Earth Spirit Action
Video below.
Dear Friends, We met last year when I was up your way and gave a climate change presentation.
Thought you might enjoy this short video that I recently completed, Earth Spirit Action, that you can view on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6jCpChUxOw.
The film features Starhawk, Vandana Shiva, Ruth Rosenhek, John Seed and Matthew Fox speaking on Deep Ecology, Living Democracy and Revolution in Consciousness in a fast moving discussion of the type of change that needs to take place for a Sustainable Future. An inspirational and stimulating film including beautiful nature footage and a colourful array of global action shots. (16mins21secs).
Enjoy. :-)
for the Earth
Ruth
Read More......
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Environmental Cost of Shipping Groceries Around the World
April 26, 2008
From New York Times
...
Box Fresh Organics, a popular British brand, advertises that 85 percent of its vegetables come from the British Midlands. But in winter, in its standard basket, only the potatoes and carrots are from Britain. The grapes are South African, the fennel is from Spain and the squash is Italian.
Today’s retailers could not survive if they failed to offer such variety, Mr. Moorehouse, the British food consultant, said.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “we’ve educated our customers to expect cheap food, that they can go to the market to get whatever they want, whenever they want it. All year. 24/7.”
...
Read the article.
Read More......
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Breaking Queensland's Coal Addiction
I attended a fantastic talk given by Dr John MacKenzie of Friends Of the Earth. It outlined how criminal the Australian Queensland Labor Government is in their approach to climate change. They are tripling the state's coal production - mostly for exports. At the same time they have increased the royalties paid to them by 40%.
The CO2 Emissions from the burning of this coal will increase from 378 million tonnes to 848 million tonnes.
How can Australia (or the world) justify this when many climate scientists say we need to reduce our emisions by 90% - even the conservative 60% figure is unreachable given these growths.
Check out the presentation.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Forget carbon trading - we must go straight to renewable energy
July 22, 2008
From Sydney Morning Herald letters
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Reprinted in full in-case the letter disappears (due to age).
The confusion around emissions trading has served to disguise for too long that Australia needs a crash program to replace its national energy system and exchange coal and oil for renewable power. The longer this is postponed, the more difficult the ultimate effort will be, yet it is necessary for our survival and to help other countries make this revolutionary change.
Three-quarters of greenhouse gas emissions that are produced by human activities result from burning fossil fuels for power generation and transport, one-quarter from industrial agricultural practices, and another significant portion from cement production.
Yet instead of focusing on these practices and finding ways to replace and change them, the emissions trading scheme distributes the onus for fixing the problem across the entire economy - from large companies to, ultimately, every owner, operator and consumer.
The stated aim is to drive efficiency and reduce demand, and to make alternative energy production more competitive. Yet primary polluters are granted relief and exemptions from this scheme, and motorists are buffered from price rises.
Equally paradoxical is the reliance on a national and global system of fossil fuel and agricultural subsidies. None of this will help in stabilising the global climate, nor shield Australia's economy from the terminal oil shock that is upon us.
Instead, this myopic fixation on an incomprehensible carbon trading regime will mean the old combustion systems stay in place, and efficiency measures are slow to commence.
By focusing all the attention on pollution trading, the core emitters - coal and oil producers, refiners, electricity generators from coal, diesel and gas - shift the focus onto the consumers of dirty energy, which is all of us. The entire economy is hence held hostage: do something about climate change and everyone will suffer.
Let's call this bluff. Instead of wasting time with an impossibly complex and ultimately hopeless carbon trade regime, let us swiftly implement a 100 per cent renewable energy system, replace coal and oil with the country's abundant solar, bio-energy, wind and geothermal sources.
We can do this by using feed-in tariffs, production tariffs, structural adjustment support to retrain and re-employ workers in the outmoded high-carbon energy industries, direct investment in intelligent grids, efficiency standards and regulation - and negative-carbon soil and land cover management methods. We would make enormous savings and we just may have a chance to turn the corner in time.
Peter Droege Faculty of Engineering, University of Newcastle
Read the letter.
Read More......
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Al Gore: A Generational Challenge to Repower America (the world?)
July 2008
From WeCanSolveIt.org, USA Climate Action site.
This is Al Gore's speech intended to invigorate the current political climate in North America. A great quote is:
"We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's got to change.".
See the transcript of the speech and show support for Al Gore's challenge to move USA to 100% renewable enery within 10 years by signing the campaign. It can be found at WeCanSolveIt.org.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Protest Halts Coal Train for Six Hours
Sydney Morning Herald
Ben Cubby, Environment Reporter
July 14, 2008
THIRTY-SEVEN demonstrators were arrested after about 1000 people halted trains in Newcastle yesterday in a protest against the coal industry's role in climate change. Police invoked some special powers, not used in a public protest since the Cronulla riots of 2005, enabling them to search vehicles, although organisers maintained the protest was peaceful.
Three coal trains bound for Carrington Coal Terminal - one of the ports which make Newcastle the world's biggest export point - were halted for about six hours after about a dozen protesters chained themselves to carriages. Hundreds of others lined the fence as mounted police held them back from the rail line from 11am until about 2.30pm.
The delivery of about 20,000 tonnes of Hunter Valley coal destined for export was delayed, although the coal loaders did not stop filling ships.
"All rail movements were stopped because many protesters breached the perimeters and got on the trains," said Port Waratah spokesman, Matthew Watson.
The demonstration marked the third time in less than a fortnight that coal industry operations near Newcastle had been disrupted by protests against the industry's role in climate change.
The demonstration was part of an international movement of "camps for climate action", which are designed to give people concerned about global warming a role in national debate about cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
"We have a really slim window of opportunity to act on climate change, so we need to take action," said a spokeswoman for the protesters, George Woods. "The status quo is fuelling a climate disaster, and today was about highlighting the role Australian coal plays in that. It's affecting all of the world, not just here."
The 37 people arrested yesterday were charged with a variety of offences, including hindering police, resisting arrest and trespass. They are due to appear at Newcastle Local Court.
Demonstrators claimed some police were not displaying badges when they made arrests - which would contradict a pledge made by police during the APEC Summit in Sydney last year. This was denied by police.
"There is no comment, other than that all police were in uniform," a spokeswoman said.
The full Fairfax story is here...
Newcastle Herald Slide Show here...Engage Media Videos of climate action here...
Covered by Reuters (
Climate Indymedia coverage here...
Read More......
Monday, July 14, 2008
Garnaut's interim report on climate emission reduction mechanisms
Wed Jul 2, 2008
By David Spratt
From ABC News Australia
Ross Garnaut, the Rudd government's climate advisor, will this week deliver his interim report on climate emission reduction mechanisms, but the bigger policy questions will remain unanswered.
The report will outline proposals for a carbon emissions trading scheme, perhaps better described as a cap-and-auction scheme, in which the government sets a declining cap on carbon emissions, with permits to pollute allocated by way of auction.
...
Garnaut knows that climate science is demanding emissions reduction much faster than the government appears willing to contemplate, noting "the diabolical nature of the policy challenge", and the "widespread view, based on the science, that the risks of 'dangerous' climate change and the risk of abrupt climate change, are already at unacceptably high levels at this point".
In contrast to Garnaut's acute observations that the issue may be "too hard for rational policy-making in Australia" because "the vested interests surrounding it [are] too numerous and intense, the relevant time-frames too long", the government is caught in a policy fog, unable to find its way out of a bureaucratic framework that is now out of date. The Rudd government's current policy target of a 3-degree rise would destroy the Barrier Reef, the tropical rainforests, cause widespread desertification, a mass extinction, and a sea-level rise of perhaps 25 metres, amongst many impacts. Most worrying, the government seems unaware that this would be the consequence of a 3-degree target.
...
Read the article.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Free public transport
Free Public transport campaign from the Scottish Socialist Party
- Its time has come. I will dig around one day for figures to support that it will be cheaper for the community to have free public transport than not to due to the expense of congestion, pollution, road deaths, road works, property buy-outs for new roads etc..
Read More......
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Environment is secondary to private profits
May 22, 2008
From The AGE
Investing in renewable energy is being ignored to keep fossil fuels burning.
THE idea that coal-fired electricity generation can continue to be the major contributor to global electricity generation and the world can still restrict carbon dioxide emissions to a level constant with holding climate warming below 2 degrees is a fairytale, according to letter in the premier science journal Nature (published online, May 7, 2008).
Vaclav Smil, of the University of Manitoba, in Canada, makes a new point that is critical to the debate as it is being run by state and federal governments in Australia: "Carbon geosequestration is irresponsibly portrayed as an imminently useful large-scale option for solving the challenge. But to sequester just 25% of carbon dioxide emitted in 2005 by large stationary sources of the gas we would have to create a system whose annual throughput by volume would be slightly more than twice that of the world's crude-oil industry, an undertaking that would take many decades to accomplish."
And yet the Brumby and Rudd Governments persist in pouring money into geosequestration research at the expense of developing solar energy, among other renewable alternatives. Last month Premier John Brumby announced a $127 million package to develop "clean coal" including a $110 million fund to establish new large scale, pre-commercial carbon capture storage demonstration projects. These latest commitments will take Victoria's total clean coal investment to more than $244 million since 2002.
...
Read the article.
Australia Stuck in the coal age, when the solar century has already begun
Martin Ferguson let the cat out of the bag shortly after the Budget, when he said that carbon capture and storage would be "essential for the long-term sustainability of coal-fired power generation." With those words, he betrayed the fact that his Government prioritises the coal sector's profits over climate protection.
If that seems like a long bow to draw, look at the evidence that the Budget presents.
In the vital area of commercialisation of technologies, the myriad of renewable energy options that are ready to roll out now were allocated precisely zero for the coming year, with only $125 million in this term of Government. Next to that, the pipedream that is 'clean coal' received $35 million this year and $250 million this term.
When immediately called to task by the geothermal industry, which was, like many other renewable technology developers, calling for urgent commercialisation funding, the Government chose to make that sector an ad hoc $40 million grant, instead of shifting funding priorities. What's worse, instead of taking the $40 million from the coal sector's windfall, the Government took it out of the Energy Innovation Fund, money that had been earmarked for research into storage of solar energy.
...
Renewable energy has the potential to power our whole country with zero emissions within the near future, something coal cannot dream of. However, in terms of fast, cheap emissions reductions, nothing can beat energy efficiency. The Greens' proposal for a systemic infrastructure upgrade across Australia, to increase efficiency by 30 per cent or more across the economy, stands in stark contrast to the Government's piecemeal, tokenistic approach. A few tens of millions in rebates, grants and loans will cover a tiny percentage of homes, businesses and industry, while the cash-only offer fails to address the other well-known barriers to energy efficiency, such as lack of information and priority. Tackling energy efficiency provides a tremendous economic and social opportunity, let alone the climate benefits. Yet it was largely ignored by the Rudd Government.
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Read the article.
Read More......
Civilization's last chance
From LA Times
A few weeks ago, NASA's chief climatologist, James Hansen, submitted a paper to Science magazine with several coauthors. The abstract attached to it argued -- and I have never read stronger language in a scientific paper -- that "if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm."
Hansen cites six irreversible tipping points -- massive sea level rise and huge changes in rainfall patterns, among them -- that we'll pass if we don't get back down to 350 soon; and the first of them, judging by last summer's insane melt of Arctic ice, may already be behind us.
So it's a tough diagnosis. It's like the doctor telling you that your cholesterol is way too high and, if you don't bring it down right away, you're going to have a stroke. So you take the pill, you swear off the cheese, and, if you're lucky, you get back into the safety zone before the coronary. It's like watching the tachometer edge into the red zone and knowing that you need to take your foot off the gas before you hear that clunk up front.
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Hansen's words were well-chosen: "a planet similar to that on which civilization developed." People will doubtless survive on a non-350 planet, but those who do will be so preoccupied, coping with the endless unintended consequences of an overheated planet, that civilization may not.
Civilization is what grows up in the margins of leisure and security provided by a workable relationship with the natural world. That margin won't exist, at least not for long, as long as we remain on the wrong side of 350. That's the limit we face.
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Read the article.
World carbon dioxide levels highest for 650,000 years
From The Guardian (UK)
The figures, published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on its website, also confirm that carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than expected. The annual mean growth rate for 2007 was 2.14ppm - the fourth year in the last six to see an annual rise greater than 2ppm. From 1970 to 2000, the concentration rose by about 1.5ppm each year, but since 2000 the annual rise has leapt to an average 2.1ppm.
Scientists say the shift could indicate that the Earth is losing its natural ability to soak up billions of tonnes of CO2 each year. Climate models assume that about half our future emissions will be reabsorbed by forests and oceans, but the new figures confirm this may be too optimistic. If more of our carbon pollution stays in the atmosphere, it means emissions will have to be cut by more than is currently projected to prevent dangerous levels of global warming.
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Read the article.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Carbon capture and storage useless at preventing CO2 from Coal
19 April 2008
From New Scientist
Most coal today comes from opencast workings. Emissions, primarily of methane, CO2 and carbon monoxide, start as soon as the overburden above the coal seams is stripped away. Conservative estimates suggest that these gases alone account for about twice the emissions of the burning of the coal mined.
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Read the article.
Read More......
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Fossil Fools Day 2008 photos
Leading climate scientists warn that dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions must begin immediately to avoid catastrophic climatic shifts, yet most policy proposals consist primarily of goals that are decades off. Fossil Fools Day brought about creative, and often confrontational, actions reflecting this urgency. Activists demanded a rapid transition away from fossil fuels and toward the localization of energy, food, and economic systems for a just, sustainable future.
www.fossilfoolsdayofaction.org
In Brisbane, Australia, 40 people took to the streets marching from one Coal "Climate Criminal" Company to the next where speakers read a manifest of the crimes the company has committed. The companies were:
* Rio Tinto
* BHP
* XStrata
* BMA
* Peabody
* and the Queesland State Government for continueing to set policies encouraging these crimes.
More photos from our day at Flickr.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Some Pictures from Fossil Fools Day Brisbane
Not so much an April Fools joke...
Anna Bligh and the Clean Coal Cheer Squad.
The Clean Coal Cheer Squad with some CFMEU reps from the Coal Mining Division.
In the Brisbane Times here...
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Govt won't extend emissions cuts: Wong
From ABC News Australia
No this is right, despite the Federal Labor Party's commissioned report on how Australia should set its policies to tackle climate change, Penny Wong, the minister of Climate Change, has said that the party will NOT adopt one of the key recommendations. That is that Australia needs to play a lead role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by going beyond its stated target of a 60 per cent cut by 2050.
Labor expected an economists report from the Economist Garnaut, and instead they got the truth and it doesn't fit in with their economic policies. So they've decided to take less interest in what he says. The prior Australian Federal Government, the Liberals, were heavily criticised for their role in ignoring climate change. The Labor party got elected partly on the basis that they are going to do something about the problem. Labor didn't want to read in the report that to make the best of a bad situation, Australia needs to drastically change the way it operates. Garnaut's recommendations are supported.
Read on for more information.
Executive Director of the Australian Conservation Council Don Henry, says it accepts the need for deep carbon emission cuts.
"Here's a leading economist saying that we need strong targets, that we've got to get cracking and he's saying it's bad for our economy if we don't act and good for our economy if we do," he said.
"I mean this a really important call for the whole of the Australian community, business, government and all of us at home, that we've got to get cracking on climate change.
Greens leader Bob Brown says the Government had previously put a lot of emphasis on Professor Garnaut's research, but now appears to be backing away.
"Penny Wong has reduced Ross Garnaut to input," he said.
"There are huge vested interests at play here - the coal industry, the aluminium industry, the forest logging industry - and it's up to the Rudd Government to put this country ahead of those vested interests."
Read the story.
Read the story on Garnaut's report (Aust 'most vulnerable' to climate change: Garnaut).
Read the Climate Code Red Report on the state of global warming from David Spratt of Carbon Equity and Philip Sutton from Greenleap Strategic Institute. Very sobor reading. Here's the overview:
The extensive melting of Arctic sea-ice in the northern summer of 2007 starkly demonstrated that serious climate-change impacts are already happening, both more rapidly and at lower global temperature increases than projected. Human activity has already pushed the planet’s climate past several critical “tipping points”, including the initiation of major ice sheet loss.
The loss in summer of all eight million square kilometres of Arctic sea-ice now seems inevitable, and may occur as early as 2010, a century ahead of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projections. There is already enough carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere to initiate ice sheet disintegration in West Antarctica and Greenland and to ensure that sea levels will rise metres in coming decades.
The projected speed of change, with temperature increases greater than 0.3°C per decade and the consequent rapid shifting of climatic zones will, if maintained, likely result in most ecosystems failing to adapt, causing the extinction of many animal and plant species. The oceans will become more acidic, endangering much marine life.
The Earth’s passage into an era of dangerous climate change accelerates as each of these tipping points is passed. If this acceleration becomes too great, humanity will no longer have the power to reverse the processes we have set in motion.
We stand at a time where we still have the power to make a choice. Only by dealing with the full scale and urgency of the problem can we create a realistic path back to a safe-climate world. Targets should be chosen and actions taken that can actually solve the problem in a timely manner. A temperature cap of 2–2.4°C, as proposed within the United Nations framework, would take the planet’s climate beyond the temperature range of the last million years and into catastrophe.
The loss of the Arctic sea-ice unambiguously represents dangerous climate change. As the tipping point for this event was around two decades ago when temperatures were about 0.3°C lower than at present, we propose a long-term precautionary warming cap of 0.5°C and equilibrium atmospheric greenhouse gas level of not more than 320 parts per million (ppm) carbon dioxide.
The USA’s leading climate scientist, James Hansen, stated recently that we should set an atmospheric carbon dioxide target that is low enough to avoid “the point of no return”. To achieve this, he says, we must not only eliminate current greenhouse gas emissions but also remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and take urgent steps to “cool the planet”.
These scientific imperatives are incompatible with the “realities” of “politics as usual” and “business as usual”. Our conventional mode of politics is short-term, adversarial and incremental, fearful of deep, quick change and simply incapable of managing the transition at the necessary speed. The climate crisis will not respond to incremental modification of the business-as-usual model.
There is an urgent need to reconceive the issue we face as a sustainability emergency, that takes us beyond the politics of failure-inducing compromise. The feasibility of rapid transitions is well established historically. We now need to “think the unthinkable”, because the sustainability emergency is now not so much a radical idea as simply an indispensable course of action if we are to return to a safe-climate planet.
Read More......
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Environmental actions - water use and air conditioning
From a discussion on our mailing list (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Climate_Action_Brisbane/).
I would like to address all such concerns and raise them at a community, council, state, federal or international level politically. I always thought Climate Action Brisbane would become this inbetween organising Walk Against Warming. Here are some things I'd like to see addressed:
- Air Conditioning our cities - places like Queens Plaza in the Brisbane CBD have MASSIVE openings that release air conditioned air thus forcing the machinery to work harder and thus consume more energy. I would like to see petitioning done at such shopping centers and presented to Building Managers and Brisbane City Council. We'd need to get statistics for this to be effective.
- Mens toilets in public buildings, RSLs and Clubs etc... still set to auto-flush every couple minutes (for perhaps 24 hours a day). These should be changed to waterless urinals or at least have sensors installed.
- Air conditioners in the city that are more than a couple years old (on top of multi-story buildings) use megalitres of water a day. WHY does the QLD government want to build an unwanted, unnecessary, corrupt and expensive (financially, environmentally and with climate change) dam given that they haven't even tackled these easier to solve problems?
Read More......
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