According to Christopher Monckton in yesterday’s National Press Club debate with Richard Dennis the carbon tax is the wrong solution to a nonproblem. I got a bit bored with them both. Who do you think ‘won’ the debate?
Opinion
Live Export is a Sore on the Face of Australia: A Note from Animal Activist Jenny
“THE live export trade is always going to be a running sore on the face of this country. It will never be made humane. Some 500 000 animals have died horrific deaths on the ships alone. 100 000 were burnt to death at sea. Hundreds of cattle have been crushed on rolling ships in rough seas, or maimed. It does not take much imagination to know the misery for maimed animals to be somehow gotten out of the hold of a ship.”
Jenny posted this comment at this blog yesterday under the note from Scot Braithwaite [1], she continues…
“PERHAPS readers would like to read the experience of the stockman who reported on the Kalymnian Espress to see what happens to cattle caught in rough seas on a moving ship.
Thousands more cattle have died of heat stress. Sheep die from failure to thrive on the long voyages and thousands have died of heat stress on arrival.
[Read more…] about Live Export is a Sore on the Face of Australia: A Note from Animal Activist Jenny
Agroforestry out of Carbon Tax Smells like Snake Oil
SOMEONE needs to tell the Prime Minister that global warming and agroforestry are yesterdays failed fads.
According to an ongoing media study by Max Boykoff and Maria Mansfield interest in anthropogenic global warming is on the wane.[1] It is difficult to see the situation turning around unless there is a climate catastrophe of some sort that can be blamed on carbon dioxide emissions.
Indeed issues come and go, and anthropogenic climate change is likely to be one of those issues that are eventually forgotten; a fad that passes with the passing of time.
In Europe and the US, legislative initiatives are being shelves, yet the Australian government seems determined to push on with its carbon tax.
As part of a package of sweeteners to accompany the new carbon tax to be announced tomorrow by the Australian Prime Minister, farmers are likely to be encouraged to invest in carbon sequestration schemes in particular to plant trees and store carbon in the soil. [2]
Investing in soil carbon makes good sense, but investing in agroforestry… Such schemes were pushed hard a decade or so ago with lots of promise and lots of subsidises but many have already ended with financial ruin.
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[1] http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/media_coverage/
[2] http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/business/sa-business-journal/riverland-unearths-carbon-pilot-plan/story-e6fredel-1226070406388
Asking Difficult Questions of the Environmental Establishment
Hi Jennifer,
As you probably know, we have been annoying lots of people by daring to practice journalism and ask difficult questions of the environmental establishment. We’ve rounded up for you some of the highlights of the last few months.
The third installment of our Hypocrites series – with a look at Prince Charles’s eco-Hypocrisy as he jet sets across the world telling us to live with less – attracted a lot of publicity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhpNJAKq7dE&utm_source=NOT+EVIL+ALL+CONTACTS&utm_campaign=cb79456fee-Josh+Fox+Q+%26+A+E-blast+3&utm_medium=email
The UK Independent reported on it overseas, and closer to home, it was picked up by blogs and media including the The Washington Post and Fox News.
Then, Phelim questioned Josh Fox on the accuracy of his Oscar-nominated documentary Gasland, that claims drilling for gas with fracking method makes tap water flammable. Fox, who admitted leaving out facts, he deemed “not relevant”, got so upset about us posting online a video from the Q&A, that he got his lawyers to pull it down, first from YouTube, then from Vimeo. We don’t like inaccurate documentaries and dislike censorship even more, so we created our own website to host the video, where people can see what this environmental filmmaker was trying to hide from them.
http://fightgaslandcensorship.com/?utm_source=NOT+EVIL+ALL+CONTACTS&utm_campaign=cb79456fee-Josh+Fox+Q+%26+A+E-blast+3&utm_medium=email
[Read more…] about Asking Difficult Questions of the Environmental Establishment
Polish Scepticism Tempers Alarmist EU Agenda
“ON June 22, Poland opposed all the other EU countries to block the conclusions of the EU environmental ministers council. Were it not for Poland’s opposition, the council would have adopted stricter carbon emission targets, endorsing the commission’s 2050 Roadmap calling for a 40 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2030, a 60 percent cut by 2040 and a 80 percent cut by 2050, compared to 1990 levels.
“Just days before, Brussels audiences were shocked to hear a statement from the EU budget commissioner, Poland’s Janusz Lewandowski, who declared to national media: ‘We already have overambitious agreements on CO2 emission reduction. There is a notion that the thesis that coal energy is the main cause of global warming is highly questionable. Moreover, more and more often there is a question mark put over the whole [issue of] global warming as such.’
“Such reactions were not unpredictable for Poles: inside the largest of the new member states, scepticism towards climate change science and defiance of the EU climate and energy package has predominated in governmental and mainstream media discourses for months…
Read more here: http://euobserver.com/9/32570
Coal-friendly Poland: a bad climate leader for the EU by Kuba Gogolewski, June 30, 2011
Via Benny Peiser
Yarra’s prize makes mockery of Murray-Darling ‘crisis’: Danny O’Brien
THE short-listing of Melbourne’s Yarra River for the International Riverprize, billed as the “world’s most prestigious environmental prize”, just goes to highlight how farcical the debate over river health has become.
The National Irrigators’ Council said while the Yarra is being lauded as among the world’s best, the Murray-Darling Basin – which has more water available for environmental flows – is said to be in “crisis” and need of “saving”.
“For all the hand-wringing over the health of the Murray-Darling, it’s salient to remember that it has 58 per cent of flows available to the environment[1], while the Yarra has only 57 per cent,[2]” said NIC CEO Danny O’Brien.
“Yet management of the Yarra is now short-listed for an award while irrigators and their communities are facing the prospect of massive withdrawals of water for consumptive purposes in the Murray Darling. How can this be?”
[Read more…] about Yarra’s prize makes mockery of Murray-Darling ‘crisis’: Danny O’Brien
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.