Right and wrong
Why climate science divides people along political lines.
By George Monbiot. Originally published in the Guardian, reproduced with the kind permission of the author
It was Australia’s second climate change election. Climate change deposed the former leaders of both main parties: Kevin Rudd (Labor) because his position was too weak, Malcolm Turnbull (Liberals) because his position was too strong. When Julia Gillard, the new Labor leader, also flunked the issue, many of her supporters defected to the Greens. Continue Reading »
Fiddling while the earth burns
By Richard Eckersley
No more ‘politics as usual’ should mean having enough courage to tackle the sickness of mindless consumption.
Nearly every decade from the 1970s has been declared a decade of reckoning, the time when we must deal decisively with looming national and global environmental crises. And as each decade passes, we postpone the deadline another 10 years. With the failure of the Copenhagen conference on climate change last year, the 2010s are now the critical decade of action.
Six-point plan to avert a global water crisis
The impending global water crisis can be averted if nations rethink how they use their water resources. This is the main message of the book Out of Water: From abundance to scarcity and how to solve the world’s water problems, published by FT Press.
Oil: what will it take?
What will it really take for us to start moving away from an oil-dependent economy? This 17-minute talk by Lisa Margonelli of the New America Foundation Energy Policy Initiative was recorded in June. Continue Reading »
Climate change lecture challenges deniers
Lies, damn lies and climate change deniers: What has caused recent global warming? a public lecture to be presented by Professor David Karoly.
Professor Karoly, from the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne, will discuss the two main conclusions from the 2007 fourth assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
For the full story go to CI’s Nature page
Downloads from Resurgence
The brilliant British magazine Resurgence offers free downloads to readers on items of interest.
Extracts from the November/December 2009 issue of Resurgence magazine feature articles on climate change, resilience and reforestation.
Extracts include: Continue Reading »
Where’s the renewable energy?
Members and supporters of Mount Alexander Sustainability Group (MASG) hit the streets in Castlemaine over the past few weeks to put renewable energy on the agenda.
Armed with a survey and clipboards, MASG volunteers asked over 200 residents what they’d like to see election candidates do about renewable energy. Continue Reading »
The Money Gusher
By George Monbiot, first published in the Guardian
The oil industry’s decommissioning costs will dwarf those of nuclear power. The money being made now should be put aside to meet them.
A bold step for a government?
Friends of the Earth say the Victorian Government has taken a bold step forward and substantially advanced the climate debate with the release of the final details of its White Paper on climate change.
“By announcing an unconditional target of 20% reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2020 against 2000 levels, the Brumby government is showing that it is possible to start achieving deep reductions” said Friends of the Earth (FoE) campaigns co-ordinator Cam Walker. Continue Reading »
Bike the earth
Bike the Earth is a two year expedition with a mission, which set off on Sunday, 18 July 2010 from Melbourne to Rio de Janeiro via Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane, Uluru and Cairns, Tokyo and London. Continue Reading »
Gaseous emissions – one path to the future
By Andrew McKenna
Gasification is not necessarily something you get after Jerusalem Artichoke soup, but it might just be the appropriate technology to fill a few gaps in the brave new energy mix of our future world. And a Castlemaine inventor has invented it – or reinvented it. While he’s not quite from Castlemaine, we won’t let the truth get in the way of a good story. There are quite likely some big things in the pipeline for this kind of gasification. Continue Reading »
Green machine: A salty solution for power generation
We’ve already tried to generate power from ocean waves and tides. Now engineers are trying to tap energy from another of the sea’s abundant resources: salt.
Click here for the full story
Book on climate change a first
The first book in Australia to examine the way in which rural and regional communities respond to climate change was launched yesterday by The Hon Damian Drum, MLC, Member for Northern Victoria Region and Chair of the Rural and Regional Parliamentary Committee.
Continue Reading »
Australians hungry for leadership on reducing pollution
The first poll on pollution and climate change since Julia Gillard took over as PM shows that both major parties have an opportunity to gain support from voters still waiting for concrete action on pollution and climate change.
The survey, part of Auspoll’s national omnibus of 1500 voters, found that:
The Billion Tree Campaign
“When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of hope”
- Wangari Maathai
Continue Reading »
Getting your wheels from the sun
The sun was peeping in and out, but late last week some of the kids at CSC got out with their solar cars. With last year’s state entries Troll, Chimera, The Nuke, Flying Coffin and Dodgy now in permanent retirement, it will be up to this year’s batch of Year 9 students at the school’s Junior Campus to invent newer, faster, solar cars to ensure them a berth at the Nationals, to be held in Perth later this year. Continue Reading »
And black is white
The Commonwealth Government claimed at the G20 meeting last weekend that Australia has no fossil fuel subsidies that would fall within the scope of the G20 agreement to phase out such subsidies.
Former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, committed at the G20 leaders’ meeting in Pittsburgh last September to prepare implementation plans and timelines for phasing out fossil fuel subsidies. The Australian Government has since worked to redefine fossil fuel subsidies so as to avoid any commitment to action at home. Continue Reading »
Sustainable Australia better than Big Australia
The Australian Conservation Foundation has welcomed Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s announcement that ecological sustainability, not the idea of a ‘Big Australia’, would be the focus of a national population policy.
“Bigger isn’t always better, so a focus on sustainability will be in Australia’s long-term best interest far more than an arbitrary preference for a large population,” said Chuck Berger, ACF’s Director of Strategic Ideas.
Global Warming Deniers and their proven Strategy of Doubt
by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway
