December, 2011

When the Murray Darling Basin Authority held a meeting in Griffith last Thursday, irrigators tried to replicate their stunt of burning copies of the plan in the street. Luckily, the good folk at the MDBA had planned for this contingency and waxed the report to a high ****** — neatly rendering the pages flame retardant. This serves as a good metaphor for the response of irrigators to the plan more broadly; a great deal of sound and fury, but ultimately self-defeating.

This speech was delivered last week by Finley High School principal Bernie Roebuck at the Murray Darling Basin Plan consultations in Deniliquin. It received a standing ovation from the 3000 people present — including federal water minister Tony Burke and Murray Darling Basin Authority head Craig Knowles. Burke later commented: “Everything at these meetings obviously [...]

Georgina Woods, director at the Climate Action Network Australia, writes: When I arrived home from the Durban Climate Conference, my mother rang me to ask what had happened, saying, “I’ve seen two different news reports tonight that had opposite interpretations. Is it good, or bad? I can’t tell.” In truth, the Durban meeting produced a set of [...]

Craig Knowles, chair of the Murray Darling Basin Authority, writes: Last week, we kicked off our first public meetings after the release of the draft basin plan. I say this because we have been consulting with communities, individuals and representative groups since February. The formal part of the public consultation started in St. George, Queensland and [...]

Traditionally, it’s always been a time of excess. For many of us Christmas is inherently about family, presents and, importantly, food. And all of this would not be such a bad thing, if so much of it didn’t go to waste.

Graham Readfearn writes: On November 24 in Melbourne, Professor Ian Plimer launched his new book which aims to spread doubt and uncertainty on the science of climate change.

Clancy Moore writes from Durban: As the Durban climate talks entered into overtime early on Sunday morning, many delegates were sleeping under tables or on desks or chairs, waking occasionally to the sound of people clapping a good speech from a negotiator. Negotiations seemed at a stand-off, with many countries unhappy with the proposal for [...]

Late-night negotiations at the climate talks in Durban resulted in 194 entities – including the European Union, the United States, China and India – agreeing to develop a global treaty by 2015, which will cut emissions by 2020. One of the most important lines to come out of Durban is that the future global plan will be “a protocol, a legal [...]

Clancy Moore writes: Reverend Tafue Lusama knows a thing or two about the urgency to tackle climate change. Living in Tuvalu, he has seen the climate changing over the last twenty years. Rising sea levels, storm surges and ocean acidification have had devastating impacts of people’s culture, livelihoods and ability to grow food. A few months [...]

The multi-million dollar consultant reports from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority are a far cry from useful in determining the impacts of the basin plan, says Stefanie Schulte from the NSW Irrigators Council.