June, 2011

For the last few weeks The Conversation, a new site linking academics with journalism, has done a great job of working through the climate science myths in a series called Clearing up the Climate Debate. This is the final post from that series, but we suggest checking out all the other posts if you haven’t [...]

Land devoted to farming continues to decline, with 52% of Australia’s total land area now devoted to agriculture, a 4% decrease in the two years since 2007-08, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The science culture war started by tobacco, nuclear and fossil fuel industries took a curious twist this afternoon, with the release of a Senate report into so-called ‘turbine sickness’. This inquiry was initiated by Family First’s Steve Fielding and is his last hurrah in the Australian Senate.

Victoria’s 2011 duck shooting season finished on Monday. By allowing a twelve week season this year, the Baillieu government unnecessarily risked the future of our vital wetlands regions.

A document that outlines 14,000 conversations about climate change from across the nation says that the majority of Australians want a stronger emphasis on renewable energy, leadership on climate issues and support businesses being held responsible for their pollution. The 100% Renewable Energy group — an amalgamation of 110 different Australian climate action groups — [...]

Kathy Yannarakis, Victorian beef farmer and blogger at Farm Hub, writes: I’d like to make clear from the outset that my family’s beef farm is in Victoria, and so the current controversy around the live export trade to Indonesia, sparked by the recent Four Corners report, does not have a direct nor immediate impact on our farm [...]

Another day, another rent-seeking whinge from the richest companies in the country.  Yesterday the Australian Coal Association(ACA) released more ‘independent economic analysis’ that said just how hard done by they would be under a carbon tax. It was a pre-emptive strike before the much awaited Productivity Commission report, due today, that analyses the effective carbon [...]

The Windsor Inquiry into the Murray-Darling Basin Plan handed down its results last week, calling for greater community engagement in creating the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. But the government has already dismissed one key aspect of the inquiry and researchers are questioning the inquiry’s anti-buyback and pro-community engagement stance as the best way to establish a [...]

Graham Readfearn writes: Climate scientists have long been the target for abuse and so the latest revelations that researchers have been on the receiving end of death threats won’t surprise many people engaged in the issue. From current and past experience of speaking with climate scientists, I know many have been receiving threatening and abusive [...]