Mark Hertsgaard in The Nation:
They say that everyone who finally gets it about climate change has an “Oh, shit” moment–an instant when the full scientific implications become clear and they suddenly realize what a horrifically dangerous situation humanity has created for itself.
It’s especially alarming when people who, ahem, know their shit, speak about their own [...]
So, what is the goal of legislative climate action?
Is it about trading emissions permits? Is it about technology policy? Surely it’s not about arguing over who can support polluters more! Is it even about reducing emissions, then?
While you can mount arguments for all of these, fundamentally, in my opinion, the goal is none of these.
Fundamentally, [...]
There’s a lot of burn-out in the climate movement right now. A lot of tired people, a lot of grumpy people. I know – I am one!
I can completely understand why – we’ve had a year of not only hard campaigning, but also a particularly distressing one. Dashed hopes aren’t easy to [...]
The Senate today passed a Greens motion demanding that the Government require Treasury to model the 40% cuts below 1990 levels that we know are necessary.
But, within an hour, Minister Wong had thumbed her nose at the Senate and the planet, telling CE Daily that the Government “had already undertaken the largest economic modelling exercise [...]
In recent weeks, there has been a welcome shift in focus in the Australian climate politics debate onto the global stage. It goes without saying that, unless the world moves decisively as a community of nations, we have not a snowball’s chance in hell of avoiding climate catastrophe.
But the mainstream Australian discussion of the Copenhagen [...]
I’m sure you’ve all heard about the Government’s changes to the emissions trading scheme announced yesterday. At first glance, extending the upper limit to 25% is positive – and it’s due to the hard work of the climate movement and millions of Australians who have exterted pressure on Rudd. But the other things he announced [...]
A new meme is being pushed by people close to Labor to help force through the CPRS. Just as the failure of the Republic referendum knocked that issue off the agenda for a decade or more, the story goes, so if the CPRS fails in the Senate will we have lost our chance to do [...]
After he embarrassed her government last week by saying the CPRS may be so bad that it should be taken out the back and shot (well, not quite),it seems that Minister Wong has excised Professor Garnaut entirely from her vocabulary.
In a speech to the Lowy Institute today (not yet on her website, but will be [...]
Anyone else troubled by the PM’s statement overnight that the GFC makes it more difficult to reach a strong climate agreement at Copenhagen?
He’s done it very carefully, of course. The usual Ruddsterness of saying effectively ‘oh, I don’t think it’s a problem, but everyone else does, so don’t blame me if it doesn’t work out [...]
Watching one of Australia’s leading fossil-fuel rent-seekers, APPEA’s Belinda Robinson, speaking at the National Press Club today, I was reminded of another of the key reasons why a weak emissions trading scheme is worse than useless.
Robinson put forward the view that we should be investing many tens of billions of dollars in replacing, or at [...]
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