Month: May 2018

One sign carried by these protestors outside Josh Frydenberg’s Camberwell electorate office last night said ‘Honk if you agree’. There was a lot of honking.

The first business of government is to keep citizens safe, we are repeatedly told by the Minister for Home Affairs, Qld ex-walloper Peter Dud One. Peter, listen to the evidence given to the Senate inquiry regarding the ‘existential security risk’ to Australia posed by climate change. Why then are you spending your time brutalising legitimate asylum-seekers instead of working on effective climate change policy?

What happens to small towns whose water becomes big business for bottled brands? On so many levels, there’re issues here. Bottled water is the triumph of marketing over common sense, management of groundwater is so hit and miss, availability of water declines as climate impacts hit – where is the public interest being protected here?

The world wants air conditioning that could warm the world. Positive feedback, within the context of systems, is not our friend. We need negative feedback, where the response decreases the stimulus, or we’ll be locked into ever-increasing use of air conditioners that cause ever increasing temperatures requiring the ever-increasing use of air conditioners. Of course we could give up our use of fossil fuels that are underlying the whole issue – how about that?

Of Australia’s largest carbon emitters, 8 of the top 10 are coal- fired power stations, of the other 2, 1 is a coal miner, the other an oil and gas company. Now, where is that carbon price, Malcolm?

Waddya mean Australia’s emissions rise for third consecutive year? We’ve spent around a billion dollars on the Coal-ition’s Emissions Reduction Fund. Could it be that this was a stupid idea?

The very successful Tesla battery in SA is just the first commercial level battery in the country. For around $9,600, you can have a domestic Tesla system installed and local companies such as Magefekt are now in the battery-manufacturing game too. The transition is well and truly on.

Making Enviro News No sign of Maelor’s email today with his listing of articles from the country’s print media. Here’s a great list service to be going on with. https://www.makingenvironews.com/ …

Why the need for speed with reference to transport priorities is the wrong question. Why don’t we learn from the innumerable examples of the futility of freeways in solving transport problems? So – to the question posed. Answer, so politicians have big things to announce, so they can see ‘big yellow things push dirt around’ (direct quote from Barnaby) and so they’ll have ribbons to cut.

That the budget could have the adjective ‘good’ attached to it is sarcasm on the part of Ross Gittin’s Italian economist friend Rosie Scenario. There is precious little for the environment and nothing for climate change. This is clearly a fail from the Coal – ition.