April, 2010

The pressing question climate campaigners are asking themselves is: where do we go now that politics have failed us miserably?

Prime Minister Rudd today took leadership. He grabbed an issue by the horns, took on powerful and hugely cashed-up lobby groups and a non-cooperative opposition, and announced a policy which, though popular with some, will seriously piss off a not insignificant number of Labor voters. In announcing the plain packaging and price hike for cigarettes, [...]

The problem with performing a political backflip of such spectacularly high degrees of difficulty as Kevin Rudd shakily negotiated today is the haunting rhetoric which can come back to bite you in the ass. In dumping Labor’s commitment to introduce an emissions trading scheme (ETS) this term, various media reports have pinned Rudd to comments [...]

The CPRS got a major slap-down today by a think tank closely aligned with the Rudd government. The Grattan Institute’s board includes Terry Moran, recruited by Rudd to be head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and Rudd’s friend Glyn Davis among others. But that didn’t stop it delivering a stinging report that [...]

In an interesting development for both the climate change debate and the future of investigative journalism, Mother Jones, The Atlantic, Center for Investigative Reporting, Grist, Slate, Wired, and PBS’ public affairs show Need To Know have joined forces to create a new project called The Climate Desk: … a journalistic collaboration dedicated to exploring the [...]

Has the passage of health reform brought the climate change bill back to life?

Malcolm Turnbull will be sorely missed by the Liberal Party. I fear that, without him, the Liberals will be stuck for longer than they otherwise might have been in the far right and anti-environmental groove John Howard created for them. But while remembering and mourning Malcolm and eulogising his commitment to climate action, let’s remember [...]