Today we saw the appalling revelation in the Age newspaper that Exergen (the company that wants to start up a brown coal export industry in Victoria while the world tries to forge an international agreement to cut greenhouse pollution) paid for Premier John Brumby’s time just before a crucial cabinet meeting was held to decide […]
As if you needed more evidence that the climate’s on thin ice. In Antarctica, an ice bridge that was holding the vast Wilkins Ice Shelf to the continent has collapsed. It’s likely Wilkins will soon follow.
The ice bridge has been retreating since the late 1990s. In 1950, it was almost 100km wide but, just before […]
As Australian government delegates do nothing in Poznan, our unsupported renewables industry starts to close down back home. Last night, ABC-TV’s 7.30 Report program revealed that hundreds of Australian wind industry employees are about to be sacked, thanks to government inaction on renewables target promises. And there’s a bitter irony. In the same town as […]
It’s a balmy Saturday morning on the Esperanza and the sea is as calm as a lake. We are sliding past rugged southern Queensland islands and every so often a pod of whales breaches within a hundred metres of the ship. There’s a momentary illusion that all is well in the world.
However, as we near […]
An editorial in the Newcastle Herald yesterday suggested that demonstrations like Greenpeace’s action at Eraring last week and the Camp for Climate Action which kicked off in Newcastle today merely “state the obvious”, because “most Australians now appear to accept the inevitability of industrial and lifestyle change”. This is music to the ears of those […]
Someone should explain to Michael Costa that the point of an emissions trading scheme is to reduce greenhouse pollution. It’s not a PR exercise so that it looks like we’re doing something about climate change. Because in the meantime, as Professor Ross Garnaut pointed out in his draft report on Friday, increased temperatures will wipe […]
Do Australians know that their taxes are being used to subsidise companies that cause climate change?
Ratifying Kyoto is the first step forward after 11 years of inaction on climate change under John Howard, but the real test for Rudd when he returns from Bali will be how to break Australia’s addiction to coal.
Next year’s budget […]
Munmorah, NSW Central Coast, Thursday 8am 15 November 2007: I’m just touching base from the roof of Munmorah coal fired power station, where my fellow climbers have painted the message ‘Coal Kills’. And that’s exactly why we’re up here – because coal kills. It’s killing our planet, it’s killing our economy and it’s killing our […]
One of the most toxic effects of a decade of climate skepticism and Greenie-bashing from the Howard Government has been the impact on the media. Journalists tell stories of pressure from Ministerial advisors and the ‘Greenhouse Mafia’ in industry when they debunk nuclear power, clean coal or talk about the most worrying climate impacts.