via Hungry Beast (click through to watch the vide of the short segment from the program)
The Koch Brother are super-rich global warming sceptcis. Which would all be fine, except for the names and fronts they seem to hide behind. The Koch’s are a case study in faking it on a massive scale.
A corker of an article in today’s Crikey from Bearnard Keane on the dismal state of politics in Australia. He starts off with…
Yes, this election is rubbish, and it represents the lowest point in policy debate since, probably, 1980.
Yes it’s boring, and visionless, and run by two parties that are entirely risk-averse and who have turned their backs on so much achieved by previous generations of leaders. Parties for whom a key campaign strategy is to explain to voters that they have no intention of carrying out reforms they have long insisted were crucial.
But bad luck – it’s your fault. Politicians, and the media, and the business community all share responsibility for this dire state of affairs, but it’s voters themselves who have ultimately brought this about.
Read the entire article on the Crikey website: This is all your fault.
Update: I should have probably posted earlier about the equally if not more worthy of note piece by Grogs Gamut on the media in this election: waste and mismanagement – the media.
The Climate Institute have updated their Pollute-O-Meter that attempts to project the emissions that will arise from the policies of the Liberals, Labor and Greens.
An interestingly timed feature on Bob Brown by Michael Gordon in The Age: Coming in from the wilderness. Worth a read. Quite a positive piece. It concludes with a focus on current events…
Brown agrees, and insists the Greens will work constructively with whoever wins the election to achieve good results and advance an agenda that includes introducing a carbon tax, better funding for mental health, a national dental scheme and a permanent solution for forest protection. Brown says he has worked with Julia Gillard on industrial relations and youth issues and found her ”matter-of-fact, plain-speaking and does what she says she will do”, but he isn’t expecting too much to change.
”Everybody with a progressive bone in their body raised a glass at the news of our first female prime minister, but that’s where that ends,” he says. ”Politically it doesn’t change the dynamic at all. There’s no way that we’re going to get a green Gillard government any more than a green Rudd government or a green Howard government. That’s why we’re here.”
From The Economist…
Yarra Climate Action Now has a youtube video up on their efforts at ‘Political Rebranding’ of Brumby Government Minister Dick Wynne.
The action currently takes place every Wednesday from 5.30 to 6.30 at 112 Smith Street in Collingwood
Info on recent media coverage can be found on the YCAN Blog.
An entertaining ‘open source’ parody website taking a tilt at the UK Conservative leader David Cameron: Airbrushed for Change
Sample below…
The Greens have put forward an interim (two year) carbon tax proposal in place of the CPRS (apparently based on a suggestion by Garnaut). Seems like this proposal ma do a reasonable job of buying some time to work towards a better long term proposal (hopefully improving rather than further worsening the targets, compensation, offsets, other dodginess). Not sure Fielding would every support it though (perhaps one Lib senator may). Rudd has said he’ll consider it, as you’d expect – need to see how strong the disconnect between words and action is (a force that is usually strong with this one!)
Update: Christine Milne in The Australian – Interim carbon price preferable to time-wasting political stunt
Andrew Crook in Crikey on a particularly daft outcome of Victoria’s liquor licensing laws: Brumby falling on his sword over liquor laws
The controversial one-size-fits-all approach to Victoria’s liquor licensing laws is again under fire after a Queen Victoria Market wine shop was classified as a “high risk” in the same league as a 1,000-capacity South Melbourne superclub.
Managing Director Brendan Beattie told Crikey he has been saddled with an extra $11,697.60 in fees this year, which were due to be paid on 1 January. Beattie applied for an exemption, but because he employs over 5 full-time staff, the request was slapped down in a tersely worded letter from controversial liquor licensing chief Sue Maclellan.
The controversial changes to the Liquor Licensing Act, based on a contested report by a group of external consultants, have already claimed one scalp with yesterday’s forced closure of The Tote amid a $60,000 doubling in compulsory security costs.
In an emailed statement compiled by her advisers, Maclellan said Swords Wines was able to apply for a reduction in trading hours, which would see a “significant reduction in fees”. However, Swords told Crikey they were required by market management to align their opening hours with other stores on the premises.
Jon Stewart nails the Democratic Party’s failure du jour on the Daily Show.
The Republicans are playing chess and the Democrats are in the nurse’s office because, once again, they glued their balls to their thighs.
Full segment video below.
Andrew Sullivan highlights reporting that seems otherwise ignored in the US media at the moment: The Deaths At “Camp No”
As usual, the foreign press cover the new and powerful evidence that the Bush administration was using torture methods so severe they killed prisoners in Gitmo as late as 2006 – and then covered it up with claims of a triple-simultaneous-suicide. Here’s the Guardian. And the Telegraph. And theIndependent. Here’s the Irish Times. And the Canadian Press. But the US papers?
Victorian Public Transport Minister Lynne Kosky has resigned from politics, citing family health issues. More at The Age and The Herald Sun
Update: And now also an article from Paul Mees: Kosky was a transport apologist, not a reformer
Update II: A more detailed article from Clay Lucas in The Age: End of the line
The federal government seems to be wandering away from commitments to political funding reform. Royce Millar in The Age: No reform for political funding
THE Rudd Government has abandoned its promise of a new, cleaner system of political funding before the next election, prompting Opposition claims it has caved in to union pressure.
The Age understands that broad agreement had been reached between the major and minor parties, including the Greens, about the need for key reforms, including controls on donations to political parties and campaign expenditure, regulation of third parties such as lobby groups and unions, and increased public funding for elections.
Victorian Labor wants to protect its income from both unions and corporations and is keen to ensure revenue continues to flow from controversial but successful fund-raising arm, Progressive Business, particularly as it faces both state and federal elections this year.
Google to reconsider their role in China, starting with a move to remove censorship from search results on google.cn, whilst contemplating the possibility of complete cessation of Google operations in China. Per the Official Google Blog: A new approach to China
Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.
Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties.
We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech. In the last two decades, China’s economic reform programs and its citizens’ entrepreneurial flair have lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese people out of poverty. Indeed, this great nation is at the heart of much economic progress and development in the world today.
We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all.
Seems that the tone is beginning to be set for the next election. No surprises really. Paul Austin at The Age: Labor MPs take aim at Greens
Labor member for Albert Park, Martin Foley, has sent his constituents a pamphlet condemning the Greens for voting with the Liberals, Nationals and Family First against the Rudd Government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) before Christmas.
Greens leader Bob Brown is unapologetic about his party’s decision to vote against the Rudd scheme, saying it set emission reduction targets “way too low” to fix the climate crisis and offered $16 billion in compensation to polluters.
Labor Treasurer John Lenders, has widened the attack, telling The Age: “People are starting to realise that the Greens are now a wheeling-dealing political party and they are voting against what they say they believe in.”
But Ms Hartland hit back last night, saying Labor refused to negotiate with the Greens on legislation, “and then, they often get shocked when we vote against a bill”.
An interesting piece by Joshua Kucera at Slate: Where Russia Meets China
IRKUTSK, Russia—When you’re the leader of a fringe political group, a cafe called “I’m Waiting for a UFO” may not be the best place to take a visiting journalist. But it’s possible that alien abduction is more likely than what Mikheil Kulekhov is working for: Siberian independence.
Kulekhov claims solidarity with other secessionist movements, which, he says, are everywhere in Russia. But at least for now, Russia is heading in the opposite direction. Regional governors used to be elected by local voters, but in 2004, then-President Vladimir Putin changed the law and decided to appoint the governors directly, greatly increasing the Kremlin’s authority over Russia’s far-flung regions. This would become a running theme throughout my trip: how distant Moscow rules Siberia imperiously, with little regard for the wishes of the people here. The word colony came up again and again in conversation.
Back in the mainstream western media again. I expect relatively active coverage from Andrew Sullivan, once again. Also, Al Giordano at The Field.
Before I leave, let me also briefly address the events that have taken place over the last few days in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States joins with the international community in strongly condemning the violent and unjust suppression of innocent Iranian citizens, which has apparently resulted in detentions, injuries, and even death.
For months, the Iranian people have sought nothing more than to exercise their universal rights. Each time they have done so, they have been met with the iron fist of brutality, even on solemn occasions and holy days. And each time that has happened, the world has watched with deep admiration for the courage and the conviction of the Iranian people who are part of Iran’s great and enduring civilization.
What’s taking place within Iran is not about the United States or any other country. It’s about the Iranian people and their aspirations for justice and a better life for themselves. And the decision of Iran’s leaders to govern through fear and tyranny will not succeed in making those aspirations go away.
As I said in Oslo, it’s telling when governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation.
Along with all free nations, the United States stands with those who seek their universal rights. We call upon the Iranian government to abide by the international obligations that it has to respect the rights of its own people.
We call for the immediate release of all who have been unjustly detained within Iran. We will continue to bear witness to the extraordinary events that are taking place there. And I’m confident that history will be on the side of those who seek justice.
An interesting (and if true, rather depressing) perspective on what went on at Copenhagen from Mark Lynas at The Guardian: How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room
Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful “deal” so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.
Copenhagen was much worse than just another bad deal, because it illustrated a profound shift in global geopolitics. This is fast becoming China’s century, yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is not only not a priority, but is viewed as a hindrance to the new superpower’s freedom of action. I left Copenhagen more despondent than I have felt in a long time. After all the hope and all the hype, the mobilisation of thousands, a wave of optimism crashed against the rock of global power politics, fell back, and drained away.
Update: A valuable counterpoint is provided by Alex Pasternack at Treehugger: Why Blaming China for Copenhagen Won’t Help the Climate
China’s role at Copenhagen reminds us of the key issue dividing the developing and developed world: while it hurtles towards a clean tech economy, China, like other high-emitting developing nations, is laser-focused on its “right to develop.” And it expects the developed world to do much more to prevent climate change. Rightly so.
Ultimately, it was President Obama who seemed to keep talks alive. “I don’t want to mess around with this anymore, I want to just talk with Premier Wen,” he reportedly told a member of his staff as talks seemed to be devolving into an Upstairs-Downstairs farce (see also the President’s own account, from an interview with News Hour, at Dot Earth). Obama’s relationships with world leaders and his determination to get them to agree to something not only prevented back-tracking but kept intact some measure of good will. We need as much of that as possible as we continue trying to forge a climate agreement.
So what did Obama bring to Copenhagen? He offered cuts of 3-4% from 1990 levels (part of an average 11-19% overall reduction by other developed nations) by 2020. In fact, entering Copenhagen, no country seemed prepared to do anything near what scientists say is adequate to help combat climate change (cuts of 40% by 2020).
That makes the question of whether China held Copenhagen hostage moot. There was little to hold hostage, and no ransom to be won.
Ultimately, I left Copenhagen without bitterness or blame, but a head-numbing sense of confusion and conundrum. From the pile of debris left behind, I took these lessons:
- The world treated COP15 like a trade treaty, not a peace treaty.
- However powerful China may now be — or however powerful people wish to perceive it –the most powerful actor on the climate stage is the United States, led by President Obama.
- The fragile sense of trust exposed in the aftermath of Copenhagen cuts both ways.
- The leaders of the developing world have a lot to do. The developed world has to do more.
From a while back, but an underappreciated piece of brilliance from Bernard Keane at Crikey: Take your CPRS and shove it.
I don’t know about you (no, really, I don’t) but I’m utterly over the CPRS debate. It’s been a long road since early last year, when Penny Wong blithely called the Garnaut Review “one input” into the Government’s consideration, in effect spilling the beans, or giving the game away, or belling the cat, or whatever cliché takes your fancy. I’m now sick of emissions trading. Sick of Wong’s tedious droning, of Kevin Rudd’s sanctimony, of the Coalition climate denialists who make a virtue out of their own intellectual and emotional disabilities.
Let us hope that decades hence, the descendants of our current MPs — I mean their political descendants, not their actual kids, assuming the major parties don’t adopt preselection by hereditary right — will not have to stand up in the Great Hall and apologise for it. Apologise to the people who died of dengue fever or in bushfires, apologise to the families of the elderly who succumbed to heatwaves. Apologise to the tourism employees who lost their jobs when our great reefs died. Apologise to the farmers forced off the land as the Murray-Darling dried up. Sorry, dried up even more.
I won’t copy it all here, but ’tis brilliant, so just go and read it!
Missed blogging this when it came out. A classic from Bernard Keane in Crikey: Bernard Keane’s guide to writing to Ministers.
Let me explain some facts about writing to ministers, drawn from my sordid, blood-soaked and adventure-filled time as a public servant.
But if you can’t have any impact on policy, you can have an impact on the level of resources used to answer your letter.
So if you want to consume as much of the Department of Broadband’s time as possible, here’s what to do. There’s not much you can do to avoid receiving a standard reply. But you don’t have to confine your missive to net filtering. Throw in some other topics.
Throw in something on Australia Post. Ask about something obscure. They may not have standard words at all and someone will have to actually prepare a proper reply.
You see, once your letter stops being a standard rant about filtering and requires actual work, the amount of time taken to prepare a response can snowball dramatically.
And be pleasant. Apart from anything else, if there’s too much abuse in a letter, it gets thrown out (quite rightly). But these are decent, hard-working bureaucrats and regardless of what you think of Stephen Conroy, they deserve civility and respect.
There is so much around the interwebs in response to the end of the Copenhagen Summit (COP15) that it is a bit overwhelming to blog about. Those things of interest that I can still recall/find follow…
Yarra Climate Action Now Copenhagen Analysis
Crikey – Copenhagen coming to a close: the end’s a scary place to start
Mostly it’s too hard to find the words to describe how I feel about climate change. This is even more so here in Copenhagen. Yesterday at a talk by George Monbiot he pointed out that climate change is too benign to describe what’s happening to the world … it’s like describing an invasion as “unexpected visitors”. To be young and alive today is to witness our earth breaking and see our “leaders” demonstrate a spectacular failure of leadership. As Alex Steffen wrote, “to be young and aware today is to see your elders as cannibals with golf clubs”.
CPD – The Road from Copenhagen | Thinking Points
Larvatus Prodeo – After Copenhagen
Climate Action Centre – A Climate Con – Analysis of the “Copenhagen Accord”
John Quiggin – Glass Half Full Department
Crikey – Copenhagen’s nasty negotiations (Clive Hamilton)
One of the lessons we Australians learned was that the American supremacism that underpinned the foreign policy approach of the neo-cons was not a Bush thing. Nor was it a Republican thing. It is an American thing, and the Democrats are just as likely to treat the rest of the world as a bunch of pissants as their GOP rivals. Stern proved this as Copenhagen. With the election of Barack Obama, no new era dawned in America.
But if all of this is too bleak, there was one spark of light. At a business fair in Copenhagen last week, Steven Chu, the US Energy Secretary, gave a Powerpoint presentation, one he had obviously given many times before.
He talked solely about technological possibilities, detailing the opportunities now opening up and the torrents of federal money being poured into the new energy industries. At the most senior levels, especially in the department of energy, the techno-geeks have taken over from the friends of the fossil fuel industry, and it is plain that, whatever happens to climate legislation in the US Congress or international treaties at Copenhagen, Obama appointees are going to use whatever levers they can to bring about a technological transformation in the eight years they have at the helm.
Crikey – Copenhagen: one, big, brutal reality check (Matthew Knott)
Copenhagen has offered the world a brutal reality check on the difficult road ahead in stopping runaway climate change. Perhaps, more than hope, that’s what we really needed anyway.
Survival Treaty / Suicide Pact speech by the President of the Maldives. Hopefully someone is listening. Full text follows…
Mr McKibben, fellow environmentalists, ladies and gentlemen,
Four years ago myself, and many fellow activists, sat in solitary confinement in Maldivian prison cells. We sat in those jail cells not because we had committed any wrong. We sat in those cells because we had deliberately broken the unjust laws of dictatorship. We had spoken out for a cause in which we believed. That cause was freedom and democracy.
There were times, sitting in that prison, when I felt more alone than you can imagine. There were times when I started to believe the doubters, who said the Maldives would never become free. Sometimes it felt like the doubters were right. The dictatorship had the guns, bombs and tanks. We had no weapons other than the power of our words, and the moral clarity of our cause. Many democracy activists like us had vanished, forgotten by history, their struggle a failure.
But, in spite of the odds, we refused to give up hope.We refused to listen to the voices of doubt and discouragement. We refused to be swayed by those who could not see that change was on the way. And we were right to stand up for what we believed.
We won our battle for democracy in the Maldives. I stand before you today as the first democratically elected President in the history of my country.
The path to democracy in the Maldives was not straight-forward. It was bumpy and full of turns. But we were determined that no matter how difficult the terrain, we would reach the end of the road. And we succeeded in our cause.
Four years later and a continent away, we meet here to confront another seemingly impossible task. We are here to save our planet from the silent, patient and invisible enemy that is climate change.
And just as there were doubters in the Maldives, so there are doubters in Copenhagen. There are those who tell us that solving climate change is impossible. There are those who tell us taking radical action is too difficult. There are those who tell us to give up hope.
Well, I am here to tell you that we refuse to give up hope. We refuse to be quiet.We refuse to believe that a better world isn’t possible.
I have three words to say to the doubters and deniers. Three words with which to win this battle. Just three words are all I need. You may already have heard them. Three – Five – Oh. Three – Five – Oh.
Three – Five – Oh, saves the coral reefs. Three – Five – Oh, keeps the Arctic frozen. Three – Five – Oh, ensures my country survives. Three – Five – Oh, makes a better world possible.
I am here to tell you that down the road in the Bella Center the Maldives team is fighting to keep Three – Five – Oh in the negotiating text.
They need all the help they can get from you. Please keep supporting them.
And the good news is that we are now part of a growing bloc of nations, all committed to keeping Three – Five – Oh as the central guiding goal of our global survival plan.
These nations need your help and support too.
I am not a scientist, but I know that one of the laws of physics, is that you cannot negotiate with the laws of physics. Three – Five – Oh is a law of atmospheric physics. You cannot cut a deal with Mother Nature. And we don’t intend to try.
This is why, in March, the Maldives announced plans to become the first carbon neutral country in the world. We intend to become carbon neutral in ten years. We will switch from oil to 100% renewable energy. And we will offset aviation pollution, until a way can be found to decarbonise air transport too.
For us, going carbon neutral is not just the right thing to do. We believe it is also in our economic self-interest. Countries that have the foresight to green their economies today, will be the winners of tomorrow. These pioneering countries will free themselves from the unpredictable price of foreign oil. They will capitalize on the new, green economy of the future. And they will enhance their moral standing, giving them greater political influence on the world stage. In the Maldives, we have relinquished our claim to high-carbon growth.
After all, it is not carbon we want, but development. It is not coal we want, but electricity. It is not oil we want, but transport. Low-carbon technologies now exist, to deliver all the goods and services we need. Let us make the goal of using them.
Let us make the goal of reaching that all-important number: three – five – oh.
We believe that if the Maldives can become carbon neutral; richer, larger countries can follow. But if there is one thing I know about politicians, it’s that they won’t act until their electorates act first. This is where you come in.
History shows us the power of peaceful protest. From the civil rights movement, to Gandhi’s Quit India campaign; non-violent protest can create change. Protest worked in the struggle for democracy in the Maldives. And on 24 October, we saw how protests across the world put Three – Five – Oh firmly on the Copenhagen agenda.
My message to you is to continue the protests. Continue after Copenhagen. Continue despite the odds. And eventually, together, we will reach that crucial number: Three – five – oh.
In all political agreements, you have to be prepared to negotiate. You have to be prepared to compromise; to give and take. That is the nature of politics. But physics isn’t politics. On climate change, there are things on which we cannot negotiate. There are scientific bottom lines that we have to respect. We know what the laws of physics say. And I think you know too.
The most important number in the world. The most important number you’ll ever hear. The most important number you’ll ever say. These three words: Three – five – oh. (Three – five – oh) (Three – five – oh)
Kenneth Davidson in The Age on Public Private Partnerships: Flawed figures condemn our descendants to needless debt
OVER the past month, using information available from official sources, I have shown that just three infrastructure projects – the Children’s and Women’s hospitals and the Wonthaggi desalination plant – will cost Victorians (either as taxpayers or water users) an extra $8.3 billion over the next 25 to 30 years because they will be financed as public-private partnerships rather than by government borrowings.
Premier John Brumby is an unabashed enthusiast for what the Government calls ”Partnerships Victoria” – the ”warm and wet” name given to the flawed policy that got Victoria into this mess. His modus operandi is to shut down serious political debate about policies that threaten his pet projects.
He is helped by Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu running a pathetic law and order campaign in a desperate attempt to save his job when he has a potential political, fiscal and environmental scandal which he could ignite, providing he shows some leadership.
An interesting post by Patrick Appel at The Daily Dish on the limits of character w.r.t. perspectives on US Presidents.
Profiles of managed personalities –actors, athletes, politicians – are often of little worth because that Person Of Note is actively crafting a branded identity. They are working against the intent of the profile. No persona is more managed than that of the President.
There are symbolic moments where Obama can act unilaterally, but major actions rely on the consultation of experts, the collection of information, and weeks of debate at lower levels of the executive. This system has been constructed by Obama, his advisers, previous occupants of the White House, and Congress. It’s not as sexy or as emotionally charged as defending or attacking the character of the President. But thinking of the executive as a bundle of conflicting personalities and incentives funneled through the authority of one man is truer to reality than pretending the President is sitting in a room with a red phone and barking out orders based solely upon the swinging needle of his internal compass.
An article at Crikey by Clive Hamilton on lessons learnt from running in Higgins.
Although the unique circumstances made forecasting the Higgins by-election result difficult, the Greens’ psephologist was in no doubt that a 35% primary vote was the best the Greens could expect. And on the day that was the outcome.
On a two-party preferred basis, before election day 68.8% of pre-poll and 76.5% of postal votes went to the Liberal candidate. On election day, the Liberal vote fell to 57.6%.
The political ramifications of the Liberal party’s capture by climate deniers will play out over a long period. The party room, and the party membership, is now dominated by paleo-conservatives whose hatred of environmentalism has induced them to jettison 300 years of faith in science.