Wednesday 30 April 2014

UNESCO sets reef deadline for federal govt

UNESCO sets reef deadline for federal govt

  • null
    Great Barrier Reef. (File: AAP)






UNESCO says federal approval of dumping dredge spoil in the Great
Barrier Reef Marine Park may lead to its being listed as a World
Heritage Site in Danger.



Source

AAP
UPDATED 19 MINS AGO



The United Nations has called on the federal government to
reconsider its approval of dumping dredge spoil in the Great Barrier
Reef Marine Park.



If not, the Great Barrier Reef could be listed as a World Heritage Site in Danger.


The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) sent draft recommendations on the reef to the World Heritage
Committee on Wednesday night.



UNESCO is concerned a strategic assessment of the reef hasn't been completed despite recent approvals of coastal developments.


The body criticised the approval of the Abbot Point port expansion,
which involves dumping three million tonnes of dredge spoil in the Great
Barrier Reef Marine Park.



UNESCO said the federal government didn't properly assess alternatives to the dumping.


The body has asked the government to provide a new report proving
that dumping is least damaging option and will not damage the reef's
value to the World Heritage Committee.



"With a view to considering, in the case of confirmation of the
ascertained or potential danger to its Outstanding Universal Value, the
possible inscription of the property on the List of World Heritage in
Danger," UNESCO said in a statement.



The report is due by February 1, 2015.


Comment has been sought from the federal and Queensland governments.


World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) spokesman Richard Leck said it
was the first time the UN body had commented on the dredging decision.



"UNESCO'S concern is shared by thousands of Australians and hundreds of leading scientists," he said in a statement.


"We call on the federal government to ban dumping of dredge spoil in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area."


The Australian Marine Conservation Society said it was clear the
Queensland and federal governments weren't moving quickly enough to
protect the reef.



Tuesday 29 April 2014

The Biggest Threat to the Great Barrier Reef is . . . Ice Cream?

The Biggest Threat to the Great Barrier Reef is . . . Ice Cream?

The Biggest Threat to the Great Barrier Reef is . . . Ice Cream?

Ben and JerryOn the political front, things have been rather ridiculous in Queensland for some time now, but as Kate O’Callaghan writes, it’s just got even more ridiculous.


The Queensland Environment Minister Andrew Powell yesterday urged
Australians to boycott the much loved American ice cream company, Ben
& Jerry’s. What is this lunacy, you ask? What possibly could these
old, smiling purveyors of frozen goodness have done to become the focus
of such political vitriol? Well, they like the reef. They like it a lot.



Ben & Jerry’s recently teamed up with WWF (the World Wildlife
Fund) to raise awareness of the threats facing the Great Barrier Reef,
particularly from industrial projects being approved by the current government. Together, they embarked on an Australia-wide free ice cream tour urging fans to “Scoop Ice Cream, Not The Reef”.
The company has a history of championing social and environmental
causes, so this is hardly surprising. They have previously protested
against oil drilling in the Arctic, support mandatory GMO labelling, and
promote the use of Fair Trade ingredients.



Minister Powell lashed out at the company for their anti-dredging,
pro-conservation stance on the reef. Powell argued that Ben &
Jerry’s is damaging the reputation of our national treasure,
jeopardising jobs and the tourist industry which is so crucial to the
Queensland economy. This is interesting, given that these are the exact
same arguments conservationists and opposition groups are using against the government’s development plans. According to Powell, “another company has signed up to the campaign of lies and deceit that’s been propagated by WWF”,and
he’s not happy about it, warning that parent company Unilever will be
getting a strongly worded letter very soon. Despite the political
controversy, Ben and Jerry’s Australian spokesman stood by their
position on the reef stating that “dredging and dumping  . . . threatens the health of one of Australia’s most iconic treasures”.



Ben and Jerry 2One
has to laugh at the Liberals promoting a secondary boycott against Ben
& Jerry’s, given that they’ve been chomping at the bit to ban environmental secondary boycotts
since they came into power. It seems that boycotts are fine, as long as
the targets are not the Liberal Party’s mining and logging mates.



The government is clearly feeling the heat of the global spotlight on
the reef and their environmental record. Along with the Ben &
Jerry’s campaign, the poor health of the reef was also the focus of
Earth Hour 2014. In June, UNESCO will release their report on the Heritage Status of the reef which may be downgraded to ‘In Danger’.
The government is also fighting multiple lawsuits against the proposed
dredging projects at Abbot Point, ushering in a new era of conservation
though legal means.



With such international attention, the government and fossil fuel
industry are using increasingly desperate measures to defend their
actions. Mining Australia’s failed ‘Australians For Coal’ campaign
became the focus of online ridicule
and the ice cream boycott is sure to meet the same fate. The Queensland
Government’s ‘Reef Facts’ website has been deemed a misleading “political document” by scientists and are sure to contain similar misinformation.



If the government and mining industry are trying to gain public
support for fossil fuels, they are in desperate need of new PR people.
Their anti-reef/anti-ice cream stance is alarming. Saving the reef and
ice cream versus coal and environmental destruction? Tough call . . .



This article was first published on Kates’s blog and reproduced with permission.


Thursday 24 April 2014

11 ways Tony Abbott is ruining Australia and threatening the whole world

11 ways Tony Abbott is ruining Australia and threatening the whole world



11 ways Tony Abbott is ruining Australia and threatening the whole world

 





Abbot has been compared to former US President George W. Bush. That's beginning to look unfair to Bush.























Tony Abbott, opposition leader of Australia's
Liberal Party since 2009, assumed office as Prime Minister on September
18, 2013. Since then, he has done Australia and the world a great many
disservices in a very short amount of time.



From his rolling back of green initiatives and his disregard
for climate change to his hardline stance against asylum-seekers and
promotion of social conservatism, it sometimes feels like Abbott is
taking Australia back into the dark ages (he suggested bringing back knighthoods, if it's a literal example you want). And his dangerous approach to the environment threatens to take the world with him.



Here are the 11 worst things that Tony Abbott has done in his short tenure, beginning with the worst-of-the-worst: his policies on energy, climate change, and the environment.






1) He plans to allow logging in some national forests



(BAY ISMOYO/AFP/Getty Images)


In a March 2014 speech to workers and executives in the
timber industry, Abbott called loggers "the ultimate conservationists" —
a statement that couldn't possibly make any less sense — and he pledged
to open up protected forests to logging while preventing other forests from receiving new protection.



"We don't support, as a government and as a Coalition,
further lockouts of our forests," Abbott said. "We have quite enough
National Parks, we have quite enough locked up forests already. In fact,
in an important respect, we have too much locked up forest."



Abbott promised to create a Forest Advisory Council and he's
asked UNESCO to remove 74,000 hectares of forest in Tasmania from its
list of world heritage sites.



"I salute you as people who love the natural world," he said
during his speech, "as people who love what Mother Nature gives us and
who want to husband it for the long-term best interests of humanity."







2) He abolished the Climate Commission and is defunding the Australian Renewable Energy Agency



(WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty Images)


Then Prime Minister Julia Gillard established the
independent Climate Commission in 2011 to "provide reliable and
authoritative" information about global climate change. Abbott shut it down.
According to his environment minister, Greg Hunt, the closure was part
of "plans to streamline government processes and avoid duplication of
services."



Abbott can't reasonably shutter every environment-focused agency, but he can certainly cut their funding. He's targeted
the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) for major reductions to
its $3 billion budget. There will be a $435 million cut, and an addition
$370 million will be deferred for a decade.







3) He has promised to repeal carbon and mining taxes



(Lukas Coch-Pool/Getty Images)


Abbott calls the taxes, which are designed to curb fossil fuel emissions, "green tape" that hurts investment, industry, entrepreneurs, business, the future, etc., etc., etc.






4) He's allowing coal companies to dredge and dump soil for a port near the Great Barrier Reef



Great Barrier Reef as seen from space (Staff/AFP/Getty Images)


Abbott's administration, via the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, approved
a permit that will allow for the construction of a coal port by
dredging 3 million cubic meters of soil and dumping it 15 miles from the
reef. Further investment in coal energy is plenty dangerous on its own
without messing with one of the world's greatest natural wonders.



Strangely, the permit approval came one day after the
administration reported to UESCO that the reef, which is a world
heritage site, was experiencing "a serious decline in hard coral cover."







5) He's murdering sharks



Protestors show their support
during a shark-culling policy protest at Cottesloe Beach on February 1,
2014 in Perth, Australia (Paul Kane/Getty Images)



Citing the effects of shark attacks on tourism, Western Australia asked
the Abbott administration to exempt the region from a federal law
banning shark culling. The cull included Great Whites, which are
endangered.



The Humane Society called the decision "a complete disgrace"
and thousands of Australians protested, but Abbott was basically like:








6) He's taken climate change off the G20 agenda for 2014



Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey
speaks to the media at the close of the G20 Finance Ministers and
Central Bank Governors meetings on February 23, 2014 (Lisa Maree
Williams/Getty Images)



Abbott's domestic environmental policies have obvious
implications for the world's climate, but his anti-environment influence
has extended beyond domestic politics.



In November 2014, Brisbane, Australia will host the G20
summit, an annual meeting of heads-of-state and finance ministers from
the world's largest economies. As the host nation, Australia has some
control over the agenda. The world, and Europe in particular, was
shocked when Abbott decided
to take climate change off the docket even though it was on the agenda
at the most recent G20 summits in France, Mexico, and Russia.



Abbott explained that he didn't want the agenda "cluttered" by topics that weren't directly related to growing economies.






7) He's defunding scientific research



(Gary Ramage/Getty Images)


The Abbott administration is planning large cuts
to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization
(CSIRO), the country's main agency for scientific research. The cut
could be as large as 20 percent of the present annual budget of $750
million.



Immunologist and Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty called the cuts "a sure way of accelerating our transition to a Third-World economy."


Read more: Australia's war on science






8) He's failing when it comes to immigration and asylum



Asylum seekers from Iran,
Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan were heading for Christmas island, and
were turned back by Australian Navy according to Indonesian authorities
(Bustomi/AFP/Getty Images)



Every year, thousands of immigrants seek asylum in
Australia. They board ships from Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and
Myanmar, hoping to reach Australia's Christmas Island, which is just 220
miles off the southern coast of Indonesia.



Abbott's campaign promise on asylum and immigration was simple and callous: "stop the boats."


Two months after taking office, he launched a program called "Operation Sovereign Borders," which focuses on stopping boats
before they reach Australian waters and escorting them back to their
point of origin. Often, that job goes to the Australian navy, a decision
that has caused controversy because other sovereign nations don't like
when navies enter their own sovereign borders.



Asylum-seekers that make it to Australia need to sign a code of behavior. Some asylum-seekers are held at remote detention facilities on other islands."


At the end of March, Abbott celebrated
100 days without a boat successfully reaching Australian land. He did
not celebrate the revelation that an asylum-seeker had been killed on
Manus Island, allegedly by two Australian security contractors.







9) He opposes his sister's gay marriage



(RIE ISHII/AFP/Getty Images)


Abbott opposes abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and
same-sex marriage. State and territory governments have recently passed
or are considering laws that legalize same-sex marriage, and he has mounted swift opposition.
When the Australian Capital Territory legalized same-sex marriage in
late 2013, the Abbott administration sought to invalidate the law in
federal court. In December, the High Court ruled that Australia's
Federal Marriage Act voided the territory's law.



Abbott's sister is gay and when she and her partner married, Abbott said he would "do the right thing" and attend the nuptials but did not support their marriage.






10) He ended Australia's UN opposition to the building of new Israel settlements



(TORU YAMANAKA/AFP/Getty Images)


Approximately 160 United Nations member nations agree that
Israel should stop building settlements in occupied Palestine. Australia
once joined those countries. No longer.
Australia and eight other countries abstained from voting on a UN
resolution that called for the "prevention of all acts of violence,
destruction, harassment and provocation by Israeli settlers, especially
against Palestinian civilians and their properties." Australia also
abstained from a resolution calling on Israel, as an occupying nation,
to comply with the 1949 Geneva Conventions. (The US voted against.)



Australia's former foreign affairs minister, Bob Carr, called the new policy "a shame, in the deepest sense."






11) He supports constitutional monarchy and has restored honorific titles



(Jason Reed/Pool/Getty Images) )


Okay, so this one isn't on par with climate denial, but it's a little weird. For the first time since 1983, Australians can receive the titles of "knight" and "dame." Really?

Mark Butler :: COALITION'S CAUCUS OF CLIMATE DENIERS

Mark Butler :: COALITION'S CAUCUS OF CLIMATE DENIERS

COALITION'S CAUCUS OF CLIMATE DENIERS

Date:  24 April 2014



What’s the collective noun for a group of climate deniers? Coalition Caucus.

Liberal
Member for Dawson George Christensen has today spilled the beans on the
Coalition’s real view on climate change, saying “a number” of Liberals
disagree that climate change is real.

Mr Christensen also backed the
views of Tony Abbott’s chief business adviser, Maurice Newman, who this
week disagreed with 97 per cent of the world’s scientists, 
telling the ABC that there is no evidence of man-made climate change or any climate change at all.



The Age revealed today that
Tony Abbott’s Commission of Audit hasn’t even considered the
Coalition’s Direct Action policy saying, “The Commission of Audit
couldn’t really look at it because we didn’t have a policy to look at.”



The fact that the Commission of
Audit hasn’t assessed the Liberals Direct Action policy speaks volumes
about what a sham of a policy this really is. 



Direct Action will pay big polluters to pollute, and cost Australian taxpayers more – talk about twisted priorities.


Australia can’t afford to do nothing on pollution – but that’s exactly what Tony Abbott is doing.


The Abbott Government has the
wrong priorities and is not taking any meaningful action against climate
change. In Tony Abbott’s own words - climate change is "absolute crap".



Australia needs an effective system in place to reduce pollution and address climate change.






Mark Butler :: DIRECT ACTION A $2.6 BILLION DUD

Mark Butler :: DIRECT ACTION A $2.6 BILLION DUD

DIRECT ACTION A $2.6 BILLION DUD

Date:  24 April 2014


The Abbott Government has
cynically released its so called Emissions Reduction White Paper on the
eve of a long weekend in a desperate attempt to hide the lack of detail
and commitment to tackling climate change, Shadow Environment Minister
Mark Butler said.



More than four years in the making,
the White Paper has revealed what economists and scientists have long
suspected – that the centrepiece of the Abbott Government’s Direct
Action plan is nothing more than smoke and mirrors, and yet more
unanswered questions around how the scheme will operate.



“Cynically announced the afternoon
before the Anzac Day long weekend, there is no detail, no leadership, no
concrete commitment, no incentives for polluters to change their
behaviour, and no certainty for our future,” Mr Butler said.



With a price tag of $2.55 billion at a
time when the Government is telling pensioners they are costing too
much, they will pay polluters to keep polluting without any clear plan
on how it will reduce emissions by 5 per cent by 2020.



“This a policy con that isn’t about
long-term behavioural change. This is a one-off deal offering taxpayer
dollars with no incentive for long term change.



“This week, we’ve seen a so-called
budget emergency requiring cuts to pensions and health, yet Tony Abbott
can find an extra $2.6 billion to pump into a dud policy that no one
says will work – talk about twisted priorities.”



The ERF offers no funding certainty beyond four years – grossly inadequate if it is to attract any major abatement projects.


“Greg Hunt says that ‘additional
funding will be considered in future budgets’ – these are hardly words
of certainty, or of a government of ‘no surprises’.  This is policy
fraud – an expensive con that will do nothing to tackle climate change.”



“Despite constantly bleating that
Labor’s policy hasn’t worked, Greg Hunt today said that a recent report
showed that Labor’s policy is set to exceed emissions reductions beyond
our Kyoto target.



“Greg Hunt’s response is to do less and take Australia backwards, with no plan for reducing emissions beyond 2020.


“Under Labor Australia was a world
leader on tackling climate change. Under Direct Action we will fall
behind and fail to act in the interest of future generations.”



Significant details that were absent
in the White Paper – unacceptable for a policy that Mr Abbott took to
the 2010 election and which has already been the subject of a Green
Paper:



  • Penalties that would apply to
    over-polluters: Mr Hunt said he’ll wait and see if industry
    over-pollutes and then there “may be cause for discussion or activity”.
    This is a cop out that confirms what the Coalition’s policy is all about
    – paying big polluters to keep polluting.
  • Still no detail on the Abbott
    Government’s so-called “safeguard mechanism”: Mr Hunt confirmed today
    that he will think about that between now and 2015.
  • Contracts allocated under the
    ERF will typically be for a five year period, according to the White
    Paper: It doesn’t explain how he would do that on a 4-year funding base.
  • Crediting periods under the ERF are stated between 3-15 years: Yet the only financial commitment is for four years.
  • Mr Hunt couldn’t explain how Australia could meet its target without applying a cap on pollution.
  • Mr Hunt couldn’t explain why
    business would participate when there are insufficient incentives and no
    indication of what the benchmark auction price will be. 


Wednesday 23 April 2014

The Leard Forest Maules Creek coal mine ecological disaster

The Leard Forest Maules Creek coal mine ecological disaster



The Leard Forest Maules Creek coal mine ecological disaster

Lachlan Barker 24 April 2014, 12:30pm 0






The land set aside to offset the rare forest being
bulldozed for the Maules Creek coal mine in NSW has been shown to be
totally wrong, but Whitehaven Coal couldn’t care less.
Lachlan Barker reports.




NORTH-WEST OF TAMWORTH, in the rural belt of NSW, a David and Goliath battle is on.



Big Coal, represented by Whitehaven and Idimetsu Kosan, with the backing of The Minister for Making a Lot of Money out of Coal, Greg Hunt, are desperate to destroy a unique piece of ecology in the quest for coal profit.



Whitehaven’s Maules Creek coal mine is located within the Leard Forest and the Leard Forest is what the coal company seeks to destroy.



There are four mines in play: Maules Creek, Tarrawonga, Boggabri, and nearby Goonbri.



Local ecologist Phil Spark says that in the end the companies wish to bulldoze 3,400 hectares in and around Leard Forest to allow mining activities.



This is bad enough ‒ sheer destruction for profit ‒ but what’s worse, the “offset” for these mines is totally and utterly bogus.



Let's start with offsetting — what is it?



Offsetting is a procedure that anyone ‒ be it a company or private
landholder ‒ has to go through if they wish to destroy a piece of
ecology.




So if you wish, say, to build a new housing development and have to
bulldoze a 50 hectare stand of tree 'X', then to "offset" it, you will
have to find another 50 hectare stand of the same type of tree, and
preserve that.




And the law of offsetting is the nub of the furore over Leard Forest.



Within Leard Forest are the last large stands White Box Gum Grassy Woodland, in good order, on Earth.



Local ecologist Wendy Hawes described it to me as:



"… the last of the last.”




To do the bulldozing for Maules Creek, Whitehaven are required to find another 554 hectares of White Box Gum Grassy Woodland, in good order, and preserve that.



But, these days, with the amount of damage we have done to this
continent, finding a matching bit of ecosystem is becoming increasingly
difficult.




And in the case of Leard Forest — impossible.







Now just to clarify before the coal lobby get on the comment section and try to say I don't know what I'm talking about.



What we are arguing about is:



‘White Box Gum Grassy Woodland, in good order.’




There are tiny, smashed bits of White Box Gum Woodland around the
place, but none the size of Leard Forest and often not in good order.




The Grassy Box Woodland Conservation Management Network
did a study in 1999 and found that there scattered bits of this
woodland around the place — alongside roads and in cemeteries, for
example.




Thiele and Prober (2000) estimated that less than 0.1% of Grassy White Box Woodlands remains in a near-intact condition. 



Leard Forest is the bulk of that 0.1%.



And now the argument turns specifically to the offset chosen by Whitehaven Coal.



The offset selected is a chunk of land just north of Maules Creek, on the fringes of Mt Kaputar National Park.



And the trouble with it is: it's nothing ‒ nothing ‒ like a valid offset.



It's not even close.



What happened was Whitehaven, to follow the law, realized they needed an offset, so they sent a consultant named Dr David Robertson to find one.



Robertson went up to Kapatur and reported back that he had found them
a valid offset and they could proceed with their bulldozing.




However, when local ecologist Phil Spark went up and had a look, Robertson's "science" began to unravel big time.



Phil had grave doubts about the amount of White Box Gum Grassy Woodland, in good order, to be found on the offset land.



He contacted Wendy Hawes and they called in botanist, Dr John Hunter.



He went out and did a survey and found that the offset was ‒ at best ‒ 5% valid — as he told ABC's Background Briefing.



Not only that, but John Hunter also said to me that the offset site was so different from the original



“… it was chalk and cheese.”  




He added, that Whitehaven were "in dreamtime" if they thought this offset was valid.





Doubts over the offset site were reported back to Whitehaven.



Did Whitehaven stop, or even pause to consider?



No, they didn’t.



I then began a series of email contacts with Whitehaven Coal to discuss holding off bulldozing.



I sent this to the spokesperson for Whitehaven:



I'm doing an article on offsetting in general and Maules Creek in particular.



I was wondering this:



Since the offset area for Maules Creek has shown to contain no
White Box gum, and was, at best, a badly chosen sight, is Whitehaven
currently holding on any further clearing of forest around Maules Creek
mine, till a valid offset sight has been found?




The response:



Thanks for the inquiry. Your email contains an assertion which is contestable, at best.



Please outline for me the basis upon which you consider the offset is not valid, including any relevant scientific evidence.



I’d be happy to discuss this issue further when you are able to
produce credible supporting documentation to support your claims.





Hackles raised, I sent him this:



Quote from ABC's AM story:



‘Dr John Hunter is a botanist and vegetation mapper who
specialises in local critically endangered communities. He says his
report is preliminary, but on the basis of work so far, Dr Hunter says
95 per cent of the Whitehaven offset mapping is wrong.




JOHN HUNTER: I think there's at maximum 5 per cent of what they are saying is box gum woodland there.



DI MARTIN: So you're saying the maps are wrong?



JOHN HUNTER: The maps are patently wrong. They are just completely wrong.’




I went on:



I have much more, but shall we go with that?



If you consider John Hunter a credible source, then will Whitehaven

hold on any further clearing until valid offsets have been chosen?





Short answer: "No.”



The Spokesperson went on:



I would prefer if you simply said ‘the project is proceeding’.



Our offsets package does need to be independently verified (a
process that is still ongoing) but the project is proceeding in the
meantime.





I did try some more, but I think you, the reader, understand why this is so enraging.



While that hopeless mess of Stringybark on the fringes of Mt Kapatur National park is being ‘independently verified’, Whitehaven's bulldozers are continuing their work of blasting Leard Forest back to dust.



Wendy Hawes put it like this when I asked her if she was frustrated:



“The frustration for me is that the government agencies charged
with the protection of the environment and our biodiversity won't stop
the clearing while the offsets are being 'independently verified’.”





What’s more, when I checked into the ‘independent verification’, I discovered it was being done by one of Greg Hunt’s minions.



So we can guess how independent that’s going to be.



I might add the media rep specifically told me to refer to them as a
"spokesperson" for Whitehaven and not to refer to them by name.




We can also guess why.



If you were the voice of destruction and desolation, you'd want to keep your name out of it too, I have no doubt.



So at the end, what can you do from your computer screen?



Greenpeace are onto it, you can interact with them here.



The Mid North Coast Greens are likewise involved and can be found here.



Greens Senator Larissa Waters is also once more on the job as part of a Greens lead senate inquiry on offsetting; she can be contacted at senator.waters@aph.gov.au



You can also contact Whitehaven Coal and indicate your displeasure to them here.



A final note: the battle for Leard Forest is the tiny versus the mighty.



Whitehaven, backed by the Minister for Making a Lot of Money out of
Coal, Greg Hunt, are the obvious favourites to win and thereby be able
to destroy Leard Forest.




But having interacted with Wendy Hawes over the phone about this story, I quickly learned she is not a woman to be trifled with.



Can one woman and her small group of ecologists beat the might of the coal industry?



I am willing to bet she can.

The omniscient Maurice Newman

The omniscient Maurice Newman



The omniscient Maurice Newman

maurice-newman-headwareMaurice
Newman is the head of Tony Abbott’s Business Advisory Council, a group
established to meet three times a year with senior members of the
government and “help guide programmes and policies that are sympathetic
to the needs of both small and large businesses in Australia”.



The 75-year-old former stockbroker, banker and chair of the ABC and
the ASX, has apparently also become a self-appointed expert on climate
change regardless of the fact that he has absolutely no scientific
qualifications whatsoever.



In 2010, Christopher Monckton and James Hansen both toured Australia. Monckton
is a fruitcake with no scientific qualifications at all. He is paid by
people like Gina Rinehart to promote climate change denial. Hansen is an
American adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental
Sciences at Columbia University. He is best known for his research in
the field of climatology, his testimony on climate change to
congressional committees in 1988 that helped raise broad awareness of
global warming, and his advocacy of action to avoid dangerous climate
change.



Maurice Newman was the chairman of the ABC at the time. He believed
that climate sceptics and denialists didn’t get a run in the media.
Monckton was given extensive national coverage on television, radio and
online. Hansen did one interview with Philip Adams. Monckton was
discussed 161 times on the ABC while Hansen was only mentioned nine
times.



In an interview with the Australian in December last year Mr Newman
argued Australia had fallen “hostage to climate change madness”. He said
climate change policies have been a major factor in the collapse of
Australia’s manufacturing sector. He accused the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change of “dishonesty and deceit” as it focuses on
“exploiting the masses and extracting more money” in a climate crusade.



“The scientific delusion, the religion behind the climate
crusade, is crumbling. Global temperatures have gone nowhere for 17
years. Now, credible German scientists claim that ‘the global
temperature will drop until 2100 to a value corresponding to the little
ice age of 1870’.”

Firstly, to correct Mr Newman, the period known as the little ice age
ran from about 1645 to 1710 – 1870 was a later, lesser period of lower
temperatures.  Secondly, cherry-picking data from short time periods, or
using a very hot year as your base comparison, are sceptics’ tactics
that have been exposed and refuted.



He appears to be referencing the work of Horst-Joachim Lüdecke and
Carl-Otto Weiss, who say natural processes including solar activity are
driving climate change. They are members of an advisory board of the
European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) – a German group of
climate change skeptics that argues freedom, not the climate, is at
risk. The group lists Lord Christopher Monckton as one of their Advisory
Board members and they teamed up with the Heartland Institute to host a
combination conference in 2012.



The only way to blame the sun for the current rise in temperatures is
by cherry picking the data. This is done by showing only past periods
when sun and climate move together and ignoring the last 35 years when
the two are moving in opposite directions.



A comparison of sun and climate over the past 1150 years found
temperatures closely match solar activity (Usoskin 2005). However, after
1975, temperatures rose while solar activity showed little to no
long-term trend. This led the study to conclude, “…during these last 30
years the solar total irradiance, solar UV irradiance and cosmic ray
flux has not shown any significant secular trend, so that at least this
most recent warming episode must have another source.”



On Tuesday night, Mr Newman chose to share some more of his ‘wisdom’ with us when he said on Lateline that “there is no empirical evidence to show that man-made CO2, man-made emissions are adding to the temperature on earth”.


When Emma Alberici asked why he was so convinced that the IPCC, which
collates the science from 195 countries, 97% of climate scientists, and
nineteen academies of science across the world were wrong he said



“I just look at the evidence. There is no evidence. If
people can show there is a correlation between increasing CO2 and global
temperature, well then of course that’s something which we would pay
attention to. But when you look at the last 17.5 years where we’ve had a
multitude of climate models, and this was the basis on which this whole
so-called science rests, it’s on models, computer models. And those
models have been shown to be 98 per cent inaccurate.”

Contrary to Mr Newman’s assertion, there is a raft of evidence showing continued warming.  Satellite and surface measurements find less energy is escaping to space at CO2 absorption wavelengths. Ocean and surface temperature measurements find the planet continues to accumulate heat.


When pressed to answer the question “who is it that’s influencing you so that is so convincing you otherwise?” he said


“Roy Spencer, who’s carried out a thorough review of all
of the models and the empirical data which against both land-based and
satellite-based measuring. And they were found to be wrong.  There’s a
study that came out from NASA in the last few weeks which says that the
impact of CO2 on the upper atmosphere brings about a cloud and the
result of that is a bit like our own body temperature moderating as a
consequence of perspiring. So you get an albino effect which reflects
sunlight.”

Roy Spencer is a research scientist at the University of Alabama who
believes that the “theory of creation actually had a much better
scientific basis than the theory of evolution” because the DNA molecule
could not have happened “by chance”. He also told a US Senate Committee
that if he was placed in a debate, he would be able to offer more
scientific evidence “supporting that life was created” than an opponent
could offer that life had evolved.



There are two major questions in climate modeling -
can they accurately reproduce the past (hindcasting) and can they
successfully predict the future? Models have successfully reproduced
temperatures since 1900 globally, by land, in the air and the ocean but
are unable to predict recent warming without taking rising CO2 levels
into account. Noone has created a general circulation model that can
explain climate’s behaviour over the past century without CO2 warming.



In July 2011, a paper co-authored by Roy Spencer was published in the
journal Remote Sensing. His paper looked at a potential connection
between clouds and global warming. The paper received significant media
attention, and climate change skeptics claimed that it “blow[s] a gaping
hole in global warming alarmism.”



Within three days of the publication of Spencer & Braswell’s
paper, two climate scientists (Kevin Trenberth & John Fasullo)
repeated the analysis and showed that the IPCC models are in agreement
with the observations, so refuting Spencer’s claims.



Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist and Professor of Atmospheric
Sciences at Texas A&M University whose research subject areas are
atmospheric chemistry, climate change and climate change policy, said of
Spencer’s work



“[This] paper is not really intended for other
scientists, since they do not take Roy Spencer seriously anymore (he’s
been wrong too many times). Rather, he’s writing his papers for Fox
News, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, Congressional
staffers, and the blogs. These are his audience and the people for whom
this research is actually useful — in stopping policies to reduce GHG
emissions — which is what Roy wants.”

In response to the flawed peer review that allowed the publication of
the paper, the Editor-in-Chief of Remote Sensing stepped down. He had
this to say:



“After having become aware of the situation, and studying
the various pro and contra arguments, I agree with the critics of the
paper. Therefore, I would like to take the responsibility for this
editorial decision and, as a result, step down as Editor-in-Chief of the
journal Remote Sensing.



With this step I would also like to personally protest against how
the authors and like-minded climate sceptics have much exaggerated the
paper’s conclusions in public statements…”

Our Prime Minister is getting his climate change advice from an aging
stockbroker who gets his ‘scientific facts’ from some guy in Alabama
who doesn’t believe in evolution.  It shouldn’t be a surprise that Tony
has appointed executive chairman of Manufacturing Australia Dick
Warburton, another sceptic who does not believe that man-made emissions
are causing global warming, to head up the review of the Renewable
Energy Target.



We then hear that the Commission of Audit were unable to assess the
Coalition’s $3.2 billion Direct Action Plan because there is no plan
yet. Tony Shepherd said



“The Commission of Audit couldn’t really look at it
because we didn’t have a policy to look at. If they had a policy and it
was out there we would have had a look at it, but in the absence of any
detail we couldn’t.”

Clive Palmer declared this week that his Palmer United Party would
not back the “hopeless” policy and he threatened to reconsider his
position on the carbon and mining taxes if the government does not bring
direct action legislation to the Senate for debate.



All I can say is, more strength to your arm Clive. We’ll make you an environmentalist yet!

Friday 18 April 2014

What Do PM's Recent Comments mean to Aussies Considering Solar Power?

What Do PM's Recent Comments mean to Aussies Considering Solar Power?



What Do PM's Recent Energy "Signals" Mean to Aussies Considering Solar Power?


Prime Minister Tony Abbott is making renewable energy advocates more than a bit uneasy.


Regardless of how you come down on the renewable energy debate, the
implications are clear: the Abbott government is seriously considering
slashing Australia's renewable energy target.



Abbott believes Australia should be an 'affordable energy superpower'.


But traditional fossil fuel providers like Origin Energy and AGL are
finding it harder and harder to stay 'affordable' these days. You may
have noticed that in your recent utility bill if you're not a solar
power consumer.



And Abbott believes renewable energy targets are to blame.


"...We've got to accept though that in the changed circumstances of today the
renewable energy target is causing pretty significant price pressure in
the system and we ought to be an affordable energy superpower... 
"

Politics aside, this raises a question for any homeowner or small business owner considering a solar power installation...


If the Government Slashes the Renewable Energy Target How Much Will It Cost Me?


Around $3000, maybe much more.


Here's how...


To hit the renewable energy target, big energy producers like Origin have a couple of choices:


1. produce a certain amount of renewable energy or


2. buy 'certificates' from those who do.


When an average home owner installs a solar system, the government
gives that home owner certificates he or she can sell to these big
energy producers.



Of course, normally, the solar power installer will 'buy' these
certificates from the home owner (in the form of a discount off the
price of the system) and then sell them to the big energy producers
themselves.



But the bottom line is, that if the renewable energy target goes away, the market for the certificates goes away.


And for the average homeowner that could mean an increase in the price of a 5kW solar system of around $3000.00


What should the home owner or small business owner considering solar power do?


Get a 3 quotes for solar whilst the financial incentives are still available >>





For more information on solar power costs, incentives and plans, you might like...


Detailed description of how the RET and the STC incentive works


A Solar Power Cost Calculator that includes everything I can think of affecting a solar purchase...