On September 28 we had the first anniversary of the dirty big storm the brought down the power pylons in South Australia causing a state-wide blackout, as the Heywood interconnector exceeded capacity and tripped.
Now the state want an apology from the PM. Energy minister Tom Koutsantonis: Continue reading Climate clippings 116
The Adani board has given the nod to the $16.5 billion Carmichael projects which would generate 10,000 direct and indirect jobs, with pre-construction works starting in the September quarter of 2017.
Yet there are some cautionary voices:
Continue reading Adani – a mirage that will dissolve into mist?
When he was here in April, Bill McKibben spelt it out for us:
“I saw [him]in Paris going on and on about his great, deep personal commitment to all of this, and how this was his most pressing personal thing you could ever imagine,” McKibben says. And then Hunt signed off on Adani’s Carmichael Mine, which would be the biggest mine in the Galilee Basin, and the entire Southern Hemisphere.
As far as McKibben’s concerned, “You don’t get to do both of those things.”
There’s been a fair bit of economic gloom lately, not shared by respected economics commentator Ross Gittins. When he got his knees back under his desk (look for the January 29 entry) he declared our economic prospects to be in pretty good shape. He reckons if you think you can learn anything from the nightly news, you’re a fool. Media organisations look for new ways of making us feel bad. Continue reading Saturday salon 6/2
The Australian Conservation Foundation has initiated a new legal challenge to Adani’s huge Carmichael coal mine proposal.
In what it has called a “historic, landmark case”, the ACF argues that Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt failed to consider whether the impact of burning coal and climate pollution would be inconsistent with Australia’s international obligations to protect the Great Barrier Reef. Continue reading Adani’s Carmichael coal mine faces new legal challenge
It’s happening, he says, through the action of consumers and industry.
The Abbott Government’s 2030 emissions target aims to put us at the back of the pack internationally, and the Government will do next to nothing to achieve the target. Continue reading Climate clippings 150
An open thread where, at your leisure, you can discuss anything you like, well, within reason and the Comments Policy. Include here news and views, plus any notable personal experiences from the week and the weekend.
For climate topics please use the most recent Climate clippings.
The gentleman in the image is Voltaire, who for a time graced the court of Frederick II of Prussia, known as Frederick the Great. King Fred loved to talk about the universe and everything at the end of a day’s work. He also used the salons of Berlin to get feedback in the development of public policy.
Fred would only talk in French; he regarded German as barbaric. Here we’ll use English.
The thread will be a stoush-free zone. The Comments Policy says:
The aim [of this site] is to provide a venue for people to contribute and to engage in a civil and respectful manner.
Here are a few bits and pieces that came to my attention last week.
1. Scientists at Large Hadron Collider hope to make contact with parallel universe
The LHC is being fired up again after two years down time when it was refurbished and enhanced. In their first experiment they hope:
a completely new universe will be revealed – rewriting not only the physics books but the philosophy books too. It is even possible that gravity from our own universe may ‘leak’ into this parallel universe, scientists at the LHC say.
As mentioned at Mark’s Facebook, if they want a parallel universe a plane ticket to Australia might be cheaper.
2. Crazy polls
Either opinion is swinging wildly or the pollsters have lost it.
Two weeks ago there was a significant crossover of Newspoll and Morgan. Now they’ve crossed back again.
Morgan has a 2.5% swing to to ALP, putting them on 56/44 TPP.
Newspoll has a 4% swing the other way to leave Labor barely ahead on 51-49.
Essential has a 2% swing to Labor this week to leave it comfortably ahead on 54-46. Essential’s weekly poll has been reasonably steady over a four-week period.
3. ‘Supertide’ at Mont Saint-Michel
They call it the tide of the century, but it actually happens every 18 years. Mont Saint-Michel is a tidal island off the coast of Lower Normandy. Acessible by a causeway at low tide, the tide comes in at the speed of a galloping horse. Mont Saint-Michel receives over three million visitors each year.
4. Native title threatens Adani’s Carmichael mine
Adani’s Carmichael mine in the Galilee Basin is planned to mine 60,000 tonnes of coal per year, creating 10,000 direct and indirect jobs. Adrian Burragubba as spokesman for the Wangan and Jagalingou Family Council says that under native title they do not approve of mining in any shape or form and no amount of money will change their mind.
We’re concerned that it will devastate the land beyond repair.
It will destroy the waterways and our totemic animals and beings that are on that land and our ancestor dreaming stories and those things that are associated with our culture and heritage.
And it will also destroy it beyond repair to the point where we’ll be displaced forever from that land as the original custodians of that land.
It seems that the native title claim substantially overlaps with another native title claim lodged by the Bidjara people. If the claim cannot be settled between the groups then the Federal Court will test the matter at trial.
