Vote 1 — responsible approach to climate change

The main question for me in the Australian Federal Election, with three weeks to go (thank god) is, "who now has the best climate change policy?" Of course the economy is important, but how can anyone not see that the economy is but a sub-system within a larger environment? A failing environment will ultimately cause a failing economy. Health, education — they are all up there for me — but they will nay amount to a hill-o-beans for our kids and grandkids, if we don't arrest the development of more extreme scenarios modelled in IPCC 4.

I predicted that this would be a green election, and thus it has turned out.

It's the 2020 emissions reductions targets, stupid.

John Howard has set targets for 2050, and so has Rudd. Only the Greens have set intermediary targets for 2020.

• reduce greenhouse emissions by 30% by 2020 (80% by 2050)

Life is a long game. I see a big future for the Greens with policies like that. Howard still hasn't got it. Labor lost my interest when they re-nuanced Garrett's declaration that Labor would not wait for China to sign the Kyoto Protocol before signing.

I have a lot of respect for Garrett, politically, and as the activist musician of yesteryear — it's his call to diverge from his stated principles and stick to Labor's changing party line — but they lose my confidence. I'm pleased that The Greens and Labor have agreed to swap preferences.

Vote 1 The Greens in the Senate

The ideal outcome for me would be to see Labor throw this deceitful government out, with the help of the Greens, who go on to secure the balance of power in the Senate. The preference swap is one step towards this. Don't know who I'll vote for in the house, but it won't be Barry O'Farrell, not that I will make a dent in Bradfield. Wish I still lived in Wentworth, what with all that barristerial battering of the current member. I do like Turnbull for the most part, though, he just picked the wrong party, and approved the wrong pulp-mill in the wrong way.

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Myth busted: Cheap-coal powered electoral-cycles

The Liberal Government budget 2007 has been described as clever politics, but we live in a time that demands clever policies based on sound climate science. Not the clever politics of election year electoral largess.

Admittedly, the government can afford the splurge; Costello has provided good economic management, and all credit to him. But John Howard still hasn't communicated that he understands that the economy is but a system within a bigger system, and one that is under chronic, unsustainable stress, exactly as a result of how we fuel the economy. Dave Sag captures my sentiments. :::[Carbon Planet Bog]

In a follow-up article Greenhouse gas program disappointing, the Sydney Morning Herald also reports:

The budget contained tax incentives for people who want to offset their greenhouse gas emissions by investing in purpose grown forests and confirmed speculation people would be able to receive an $8000 rebate towards the cost of installing rooftop solar hot water systems.

There was also $43 million for the CSIRO to set up a climate change adaptation centre and $50 million for a program to pay farmers for carrying out environmental programs on their land.

This money is chicken-feed compared to the investment really needed to avert disaster. Where are the serious funds for solar energy research? Where are the real incentives to get people out of their cars and onto bikes and footpaths? Where’s the money to promote localised food supplies and energy efficiency? How about a massive upgrade of the nations rail systems? Australia has a massive war-chest of cash and the government is pissing it away buying votes in a time of crisis. — DS

This budget communicates that, as far as the government is concerned, we are stuck with the consequences of coal, because coal makes for cheap electricity with which to power our cities, industry and lifestyles.

Well, no, actually. That begs the question of whether coal really is cheap. Coal isn't that cheap. In fact, it was revealed today that the government subsidises and supports coal fired power plants, some by more than what they return in profits. :::[SMH: Public purse props up fossil fuel industries]

Government support for the coal industry and coal-fired electricity is so generous that in some cases it has led to the construction of coal-fired power plants when other types of electricity generation would have been cheaper, the report by the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney has found.

Subsidies to fossil fuel energies, worth close to $10 billion, result in a serious market distortion, create an unfair disadvantage to renewable energy, and help increase greenhouse gas pollution, says the report, written by the institute's research principal, Chris Riedy, and commissioned by Greenpeace.

The report identified energy and transport subsidies in Australia during 2005-06 of between $9.3 billion and $10.1 billion. More than 96 per cent of that money flowed to fossil fuel production and consumption, with the remainder going to renewable energy and energy efficiency.

"This effectively creates an uneven playing field for renewable energy, making it much more difficult to respond to climate change in the energy and transport sectors," the report says. "Fossil fuel subsidies can increase greenhouse gas emissions because they reduce the price of fossil fuel energy, which encourages greater use of fossil fuels and higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions."

So, no, we are not stuck. The solution is simply stop the corporate-welfare, and let these electricity generation companies compete in the real world. One where the cost of carbon is picked up by the electricity companies now, not by our kid and grandkids. Myth busted.


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Tonight's Australian Government budget leaked to Greens

And they don't like it.

clipped from www.smh.com.au The Federal Government will spend nearly $20 billion over the next five years on environmental measures, according to the Australian Greens. The Greens claimed they have been leaked details of the budget in what would be a sensational breach of security of the tightly-held documents. According to a detailed document the Greens have received, $2.4 billion of the $10 billion water plan has been allocated over the next four years. This includes more than $900 million to buy back water licences and more than $1 billion to fund more efficient water infrastructure. The document also confirms that the solar rebate program would be extended for five years at a cost of about $150 million. The Greens said the Government spending figures show that the $4 billion would constitute less than half what the Government spends on "handouts" to the fossil fuel industry during a mining boom.

Planet to Earth. SOS.

The Greens are advertising: :::[SMH]

A new Australian Greens' advertising campaign on climate change will see the letters SOS loom over Australia's major cities for the next 30 days.

Billboards, depicting the international distress signal SOS with a satellite image of the earth as the middle letter, are part of the Greens' campaign ahead of this year's federal election.

Greens leader Bob Brown launched the campaign in Hobart on Thursday and warned the future of the planet was at stake.

"Prime Minister John Howard has failed Australia on climate change, the most important issue the nation faces," Senator Brown said.

"If we want to rescue the climate we have to rescue the Senate from coalition control and put more Greens MPs in the federal parliament."

Nice simple idea! A three letter headline - like "wow". You can't really get more to the point than that. Will it work?

Senator Brown also cited a Morgan Poll from late last year which found 48.1 per cent of Australians saw the Greens as the optimum party to govern climate change policy.

So I predict people like Andrew Bolt will jump on "Save our Souls" as proof that global warming is the new altar of the green religion. This will be a good sign the campaign is working.

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How do you tell Jesus you stuffed the climate?

At first glance it's hard to understand what the Exclusive Brethren religious sect has against the Greens political party? :::[SMH]

A MYSTERY Sydney businessman belonging to the Exclusive Bretheren sect spent $370,000 on advertisements and pamphlets during the 2004 federal election, according to the Australian Electoral Commission.

This finding follows a year-long investigation sparked by Senator Bob Brown into the funding of seven sets of advertisements and pamphlets in the last federal election. All attacked the Greens and called for the re-election of the Howard Government.

The Greens are interested in preserving the environment; I assume the Exclusive Brethren are across the Christian concept of Stewardship. The Greens are interested in social justice; I assume the Exclusive Brethren are also tuned into that key message of Jesus'.

So far they could seem natural allies. But a scroll down the NSW Greens policy page throws up a this clue: :::[The Greens NSW: Policies]

The Greens NSW Policy Summaries

Bushfires

Climate Change and Energy

Coal

Drugs and Harm Minimisation

Education

Electoral Funding, Donations & Disclosure

Firearms

Forests and Wilderness

Health

Housing

Indigenous Australians

Industrial Relations

Justice

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex

Marine Environment

Multiculturalism

Planning and Infrastructure

Public Ownership

Rural Land Use

Transport

Water (Rural and Agricultural)

Water (Urban)

Wetlands

For policies relating to Federal issues please go to the Australian Greens website.

I guess they just don't like anyone that's not heterosexual. Really, of all the issues to get you fired up enough to spend $370,000 to campaign against... someone's sexuality?

Why? There is very limited censure of homosexuality to interpret in the Old Testament, about as much as there is against eating shellfish or getting a tatoo. All three injunctions are found in Leviticus if my memory still serves. And there's bugger-all in the New Testament, so to speak. Ironically, if Judas hadn't kissed Jesus greatings in Gethsemane there would be no Exclusive Brethren in Australia today to secretly seek to outlaw same-sex kissing.

The Greens are the only party that seriously wants to fight climate change. Seventy percent of Australians seriously want to fight climate change.

If a Judas' kiss is to have implications on global warming in an Australian federal election 1,965 years later (how's that for chaos theory in action?) then let it not be motivated by homophobia, but by humanphilia. If Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice for mankind, then surely it is not much for his believers to sacrifice little behaviours that we know are debilitating for the future of mankind's climate-dependent survival? Compared to Jesus' trials before his death, how hard is it to incrementally change from broad-base fossil energy to broad-base renewable energy?

These guys hate gays so much that, according to Electoral Commission records, only three other organisations spent more than Willmac Enterprises (the aforementioned mystery Sydney business owed by the Exclusive Brethren sect member Mark William Mackenzie) to campaign on their own behalf during the 2004 elections. Willmac outspent the Wilderness Society, private health lobbyists, leading trade unions, the National Union of Students and even the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania.

They are sneaky too. The Funding and Disclosure Report Election 2004 shows that Willmac Enterprises have not lodged a third party return of electoral expenditure in relation to the 2004 election.

I have a message for Mark William Mackenzie and his brethren (in the unlikey case one of you have sneaked out to find a Internet terminal): Until doomesday, your After-Life is very much dependent on your After-You. What in heavens are you going to tell Jesus when he says, "Mate, what did you do to my planet? Judgement Day is not scheduled for yonks and now, because you cooked the climate, I'll have billions of refugees to resettle soon. It's going to take an eternity. Look around you, do you see another habitable planet? Quality liveable climate is not easy to make."?

You know, you only got the gig because my Father saw that it was good in the beginning?"

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Greens poised to win balance in Victorian election

GREENS leader Bob Brown is "cautiously optimistic" that his party will get the balance of power in Victoria's upper house.

A Galaxy Opinion poll forecast the Greens to win 12 per cent of the vote in today's state election, tipping Greens candidate Dr Richard DiNatale to take the lower house seat of Melbourne from Health Minister Bronwyn Pike.

In the 40 seat upper house the party may find the real power with opinion polls showing the likelihood of it winning between three and six seats. Enough to give it the balance of power. :::[News]

Andrew Bolt, of Melbourne, is asking, "please explain?". Time will soon tell whether Senator Brown explains right:

"Big issues like the drought, water supplies and climate change are at the forefront and people appreciate the Greens' role in tackling these issues."

Well he would say that - he's got the right to, he's leadhis party from the feral edge of Australian politics into the center, a long march in a few short years. Anyway, this is only the beginning of what I predict. :::[Australian politics starts to go green.]

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