Month: August 2020

Whether the name ‘pyrocene’ catches on, there’s plenty of examples of fires rampant around the globe. From Siberia’s conflagrations, California’s wildfires and Queensland’s very early start to the 20/21 fire season, we are burning – and presumably not what the Pentecostal PM meant when he said he’d ‘burn’ for us. He and his fellow fossil fools are engaging in geoengineering now with their support for carbon-based fuels.https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-27/as-wildfires-rage-the-pyrocene-age-is-upon-us?srnd=citylab

Here’re 160 years of mismanagement laid bare, with overtones of the frontiers wars, water theft and biodiversity in trouble. We’ve a fair idea of how it came to this, but little idea of the structures and processes within a politically-riven community to make our way out of it. But here is an idea, and on at least the water and biodiversity issues, we could turn to the science.https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/aug/30/murray-darling-mismanagement-floods-water-theft-and-burke-and-willss-camels

Where to start today? Is it the gutting of environmental protections under Three S Susan that’s of most concern? How about Angus Fantastic and his CEFC funding gas? Or Adani’s …

This project is on the table while Nev Power, the Pentecostal PM’s hand-picked National COVID19 Commission chair and resource industry shill, is advising on a gas-led recovery and ‘Three S Sussan’ is watering down federal environmental regulations.https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-28/agl-floating-gas-mornington-peninsula-environmental-impact/12603832

I saw a recent tweet I’m paraphrase as ‘with new temperature records being set, don’t think of this as the hottest year for a hundred years but the coolest year …

A salient lesson Australia has learnt from the pandemic is that being led by the science has provided the most effective way to combat the virus. It’s time the government took a similar approach to climate policy.https://www.theage.com.au/national/environmental-doubts-over-natural-gas-cannot-be-ignored-20200824-p55omm.html

With all of the doom and gloom abroad – Californian fire emergency declaration, Siberian conflagration and Greenland ice loss and political chicanery and gas opportunism at home – there’d be an excuse for not rocking backwards and forwards in fœtalposition under the doona. But why would you when you read of wonderful news such as the expansion of Night parrot populations. Us birders are very happy.https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6891542/elusive-night-parrot-seen-in-western-australia/?cs=14231

Our pollies work on the principle that repetition makes ideas stick. But perhaps it’s only a one-way thing – from them to us and not vice versa. Many economists and …

There’re examples of Australia being dudded almost everywhere we look, Howard gave away our gas for not only no reward but, through later LNP policy, for prices that whack us. Then there’s Morrison putting his mate from the gas industry in charge of return from the pandemic and golly gee, he recommends a gas-led recovery. Home-builder is building no homes, the Arts support program hasn’t any guidelines yet and the tertiary sector is abandoned. Clever country we ain’t!https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6887070/australia-is-about-to-get-ripped-off-by-the-gas-industry-and-its-not-the-first-time/?cs=14246

An economist who makes sense is not an oxymoron, as Richard Denniss shows in this article. We need the ‘front to fall off’ neo-liberalism a bit faster than it is. Contrast COVID19 cases in ‘red-tape burdened’ state-run aged care centres versus the private for-profit centres and see where neo-liberalism takes us.https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/20/the-spread-of-coronavirus-is-not-the-fault-of-individuals-but-a-result-of-neoliberalism