Business, investor, environment, research and social groups have formed an unprecedented alliance to establish common ground on which the climate debate can be conducted, as the Abbott government finalises the position it will take to Paris climate talks later in the year.
The Australian Industry Group, the Business Council of Australia, Investor Group on Climate Change, the Australian Aluminium Council and the Energy Supply Association of Australia have joined forces with the Australian Conservation Foundation, WWF Australia, the Australian Council of Social Service and the Australian Council of Trade Unions to set down some basic markers on climate policy which they hope will allow for future political consensus on the issue.
Tony Abbott’s announcement that Australia will send more troops to Iraq was made in front of no fewer than eight flags, bringing the flag-count-in-announcement index to an all-time high.
The Abbott Government has crossed a line by setting up an inquiry to interfere directly in the editorial processes of the ABC. That is the true obscenity of the Zaky Mallah Q&A affair. Continue reading Abbott calls for heads to roll at the ABC→
…without drastic cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions–more drastic than any being discussed ahead of the critical climate meeting in Paris later this year—a rise of 20 metres will soon be unavoidable.
The French company that owns the Hazelwood brown coal generator in Victoria – the dirtiest power station in Australia – has issued a “call to arms against coal.” Continue reading Climate clippings 144→
The full title of Pope Francis’s encyclical is Encyclical Letter Laudati Si’ of the Holy Father Francis on Care for our Common Home. In the first of 246 paragraphs he quotes a beautiful canticle, from Saint Francis of Assisi:
“Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs”.
Then in paragraph two:
This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she “groans in travail” (Rom 8:22).
Mark forecast that participating in the program The Killing Season would diminish both Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd. He was right – Gillard more than Rudd.
Anthony Albanese was also right when he said that you shouldn’t change a first term prime minister on the basis of a newspaper story and again when he said that on that night the Labor Party killed two prime ministers. Continue reading The Killing Season continues→
The Oz headlines Bill Shorten in its Newspoll report, and not in a good way. 54% are dissatisfied with his performance, only two less than Tony Abbott. But surprisingly 34% now think Abbott is doing a good job, compared to only 28% for Shorten. This gives Shorto a net satisfaction rating of -26 to Abbott’s -22. Continue reading Poll stuff 17/6: Lowy Institute edition→
Climate change, sustainability, plus sundry other stuff
