Some mothers do have ‘em!

There’s a pigeon nesting in the apple tree in my yard. The pigeon has already laid its eggs – two creamy pink ones. The apple tree hasn’t dropped it’s leaves yet – some are yellow, some are still green. It’s the 7th of July – the middle of winter.

Granted, both species are introduced, and the apple is some bastardised cross-breed grafted Frankenstein, each graft of which seems to bud, fruit and drop leaves at different times (which makes it very difficult to know when to prune it). But the image is pretty bizarre. I reckon the pigeon isn’t going to be happy when the rest of its cover is blown. Not that there are many predators in the suburbs.

Weird world.

 

CFMEU keeping the bastards honest.

CFMEU rejects carbon trading job claims – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Electrical Union (CFMEU) says the release of figures warning that emissions trading will cost thousands of jobs is part of a scare campaign.

The Minerals Council says emissions trading will cost 23,000 jobs in the next decade .

But the CFMEU’s Tony Maher says the Minerals Council is using the figures irresponsibly.

“Even on their own shonky report there’s a very significant growth in employment,” he said.

It’s nice, really nice, to see Tony Maher from the CFMEU being honest. The Minerals Council are spinning this for all it’s worth, even though they’re getting more than they asked for in the CPRS. The CFMEU has run spin campaigns with the Minerals Coucil before, but obviously they aren’t as conjoined as it previously seemed.

Also worth noting that on Stateline tonight (I’ll link to the transcript when it goes up), solar researchers are planning to start a PV cell manufacturing industry, which they estimate will provide 70 construction, and 120 jobs. They also estimated that such an industry could eventually end up providing 40,000 jobs (if I remember the figure correctly).

That’s what I call an offset.

 

Coal Train blockaded in Newcastle

FUCK YEAH!

http://www.climateimc.org/en/climate-actions/2007/11/19/coal-train-blockaded-newcastle

Rising Tide stopped a coal train this morning, in the world’s biggest coal port. They blocked the whole line to the Kooragang terminal, and that backed up the rest of the coal line, blocking the whole port.

Thanks to the Sandgate Rail Fly over, recently completed, the blockage didn’t affect the passenger line at all – I dunno, but I doubt that was an intended side-effect of the project.

News is being a bit slow, but it’s up there. The ABC is being even more fucked than usual.

At a close guess, considering the port currently exports 90 million tonnes of coal a year, then every hour that the blockade continues, about 10,000 tonnes of coal are stopped for being exported (postponed, but if we begin to wind down the coal export industry in the next few years, then it’s the same thing). That’s equal to about 27,000 tonnes of C02 and hour. Beat that. The train’s already been stopped there for two hours…

Brian Dale, from ARTC, said on ABC said RT was “incredibly stupid … because the trains cannot stop quickly..”. Seemed like the train stopped pretty quickly to me. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the dangers, and I’m 100% sure that the people who stopped the train were extremely careful, and followed the guidelines for doing so, which are freely available on the ARTC website

technorati: Coal, climate change, environment, activism, climate actions, direct action

 

Clean Coal

Aint.

The term’s been popping up a LOT lately, so I thought I’d give a few links to pages worth reading (there’s not much point me re-doing it, it’s already done so well)

Steve from Rising Tide Newcastle has written a clean coal fact sheet, with a lot of good stuff about carbon capture and storage. Check it out, and leave comments if you want.

There’s also a good piece on the HCEC website, showing that coal will probably run out before “clean coal” is even viable, at least in the Hunter.

There’s some good arguments at mindfully.org, by Vivian Stockman, from the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.

Of course, Greenpeace has a good shot at it too, with their myths and facts sheet.

There’s hundreds more out there. if you find any good ones, or ones that point out something that the above articles have missed, leave a comment with a link.

ned

 

Rising sea levels: Brought to you by mining

it’s true, this website told me so:
http://www.miningnsw.com.au

not that I didn’t take part in making that website. but that’s not the best bit. The best bit is that this website is actually a parody of a site set up by the NSW Minerals Council, as part of their “Life: brought to you by mining” re-education campaign (http://www.nswmining.com.au). And the NSW minerals council have already taken the site down twice in the last two weeks.

yep. the NSW Minerals Council is having us silenced. who’d have thunk it? surely the Minerals Council is a free-thinking, facts-only information dispenser! who would imagine that they’d stoop to propaganda, and THEN… then try to silence criticism by the community? surely they are friends with the community?

apparently not.

anyway, check out the site, and check the indymedia page, as it has all the details on the background and all that I can’t be bothered writing again:
http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/node/50223 (this is a copy of the RT press release)
The original is ofcourse, at the risingt tide website: http://www.risingtide.org.au/node/401 (also on the front page at the moment)

the SMH has covered it:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/
industry-closes-anticoal-website/2007/03/04/1172943275688.html

let me know what you think. I did all the design work, with some help for a couple of the images. tell me if you think I’ve imitated too closely the original site’s layout etc. I don’t think so. Infact, I’m quite offended that those the NSWMC is claiming MY work, which I easily spent over 30 hours on, as theirs. in fact it really pisses me off.

we’re looking for a barrister, who mightbe able to do the case pro bono if it gets to court (we’d love to pay,but all we can afford is costs/accomodation, that kind of thing). if you know anyone who’d been keen and has some experience in this field,
please let us know.

if you want to help us get this story out there, digg it: http://digg.com/environment/Mining_Lobby_Silencing_Community_Comment

cheers
ned

Notes:

this case deals with legislation brought in to comply with the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement. Remember when all those small-media people were up in arms about the FTA? well this is just one reason why.
The actual amendment is available here:
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/num_reg/car200412004n405376/index.html
(check out the schedule)

Fair Dealing Parody Information:
Fair Dealing Parody Fact Sheet (Attorney General’s Department)

this page is constantly being updated with new sites. nothing will be removed, but I apologise if it makes any comments seem illegitimate.

Happy Valley:

the same shit is happening in NZ, where the big state-owned mining company, Solid Energy, is sueing the Save Happy Valley mob, because they put out a political parody report claiming to be from Solid Energy. check it out!

• http://www.climateimc.org/?q=node/5423

Other media on this story:

– Mass Media:

• steve being masculine on the second article on the SMH site: http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/ green-group-seeks-afghan-refuge/2007/03/06/1172943416664.html
• the SMH article got printed in both the SMH (p.3) and the Newcastle Herald (p.15) on the monday (5-mar-07)
• the daily telegraph had an article (p.9, 6-mar-07)
• the Inquirer (Scotland!) – http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38024

– Law blogs:

• http://www.lawfont.com/2007/03/05/notice-and-takedown-australian-style/
• http://www.freedomtodiffer.com/freedom_to_differ/2007/03/i_received_two_.html

– Other blogs:

• http://machinegunkeyboard.com/?p=384
• http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2007/03/corporate-bullying-brought-to-you-by.html
• http://www.benoquist.com/2007/03/minerals-council-attempts-to-silence.html
• http://earthmums.org/node/32
• http://mickswebsite.blogspot.com/
• http://soulsphincter.blogspot.com/2007/03/parody-copyright-and-mining.html

– Other media:

• http://perth.indymedia.org/index.php?action=default&featureview=481
• http://www.nsw.greens.org.au/media-centre/news-releases/ coal-lobby-censors-climate-change-website/
• http://risingtide.org.uk/node/194
• http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php? title=NSW_SLAPPs/NSW_Minerals_Council_vs_Rising_Tide
• http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/05/1554213&from=rss (lots of comments!)
• http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/1177
• http://p2pnet.net/story/11533
• http://www.sydneypeakoil.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=4640

– Crossposts:

• (RTmedia): http://www.climateimc.org/?q=RT-mining-industry-silencing-dissent-march-07
• (RTmedia): http://annaaniston.blogsome.com/2007/03/06/mining-lobby-silences-dissent/
• (SMH): http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=70269
• (SMH): http://ratbaggy.blogspot.com/2007/03/industry-closes-anti-coal-website.html
• (SMH): http://www.cyberlawcentre.org/unlocking-ip/blog/ 2007/03/controversial-use-of-notice-and.html
• (SMH): http://mobias.tsd.net.au/index.php/archives/2007/03/05/148/
• (SMH): http://remotecontrolsociety.blogspot.com/ 2007/03/industry-closes-anti-coal-website.html
• (SMH): http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/030607ED.shtml

 

Boortz on the attack – with a plastic spoon

Luckily for me, I’d never heard of Neal Boortz up until the release of the IPCC’s Summary for Policy Makers, 2007. then in comments on an intro report on the SPM on realclimate ( http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/02/the-ipcc-fourth-assessment-summary-for-policy-makers/ ), a few people mentioned his latest attack: http://boortz.com/nuze/200702/02022007.html

have a read. it’s quite entertaining, even in it’s simplicity. I thought I’d take a look at it, and rebut some of the more interesting points. If you think I’ve missed an important one, let me know, I’ll have a go at it.

 

climate denial is not skepticism!

lets see. here are the relevant entries from Wiktionary (if you don’t agree with them, you can change them!):

skeptic – Noun – http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/skeptic

1. Someone undecided as to what is true.
2. Someone who habitually doubts accepted beliefs and claims presented by others, requiring strong evidence before accepting any belief or claim.

denier – Noun – http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/denial

1. Someone who denies something.

see, the obvious difference here is that a skeptic needs evidence before changing their mind. a denier simply doesn’t change their mind.

If you are an alcoholic, and I say “you’re addicted” your responses might be “I don’t think so, what makes you think that?” or “I don’t believe you, prove it to me”. that would be skepticism. It implies that you are open to debate, open to new information, and, importantly, open to changing your views, thoughts, and beliefs.

if, on the other hand, you simply said “no I’m not” without listening to the reasoning behind my statement, you would be in denial.

and that’s where the current “debate on climate change” lies, as it relates to whether it is happening or not (oh dear, I just thought of one of the most horrible puns ever: “climate change, weather it’s happening or not”). there are those who believe that it’s happening fast, those that believe it is happening slowly, and those that are in complete denial. there are no more climate change skeptics. if there are, it’s only because they haven’t had a chance to read all the evidence that’s available out there.

so if you’re still a little skeptical, have a bit more of a read. climate science sites such as http://www.realclimate.org, and http://www.ipcc.ch are a great place to start. If you come across someone claiming to be a climate skeptic, check their references. make sure they are up to date too, because as far as I know there has been no new evidence to contradict the climate change hypothesis (evidence, not proof) since Roy Spencer and John Christy re-adjusted their satellite datareading in late 2005 (exact date?) ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_temperature_measurements#The_satellite_temperature_record )

happy climate denier hunting!

 

Weekend holiday

Went on a weekend holiday
Flew from Sydney to Byron bay
the Flights are so cheap there’s no bloody way
that I was getting on a train

 

Re: Another brave soul speaks out against Gore (Giegengack)

posted in response to a forum topic using a Bob Giegengack biographical piece ( http://phillymag.com/articles/science_al_gore_is_a_greenhouse_gasbag ) in an attempt to discredit climate science

——————————–
‘”For most of Earth history,” he says, “the globe has been warmer than it has been for the last 200 years. It has only rarely been cooler.”‘

I like that… I mean, for most of earth’s history, it was a ball of semi-molten rock. no life. sounds like fun to me.

 

Why James Lewis is Probably a Bullshit artist

the post was made in response to a forum post using James Lewis’s article “Why Global Warming is Probably a Crock” on american thinker ( http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/01/why_global_warming_is_probably.html ) to discredit climate science.

— response part one—
there’s a serious flaw in the logic of that article:

see, that only works if you want to be 100% percent correct. the same logic says that with the same variable, they have a 60.5% chance of being right half the time, 47% of being right 3/4 of the time, and 77.7% chance of being right a quarter of the time.