politics

We'd better use it wisely:

• http://www.lithgowmercury.com.au/news/local/news/general/action-launched-against-mt-piper/1849954.aspx
• http://www.lithgowmercury.com.au/news/local/news/general/activist-court-action-challenges-power-station-expansion-concept/1849961.aspx

Yeah, that's me.

If you needed any more proof that Frank Sartor is scum, try this:
https://www.npansw.org.au/website/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=657&Itemid=495

Labor are trying to open up National parks for developments. What more can be said?

Of the three announced national carbon targets I've heard of lately, two are arithmetically worse than Kyoto targets, and one is technically worse. The latter is Australia's target, already discussed here.

The others are the recent US announcement, and the recent China announcement.

The US announcement was for a 17% cut, which sounds a bit better than the Kyoto US commitment (or non-commitment, as it turned out) of 7%. But it's not really better, because it's on 2005 levels, where as Kyoto was based on 1990. Read more »

This is in response to a discussion about population control and climate change on an e-list I'm on. In particular, it's in response to a line by a mate, Jono:

it's not the number of people that is important, but rather the power of the argument. Population control arguments need to be challenged wherever they occur, because they turn the climate movement into a war against human rights rather than for human rights.

Terry Pratchett notes in one of his discworld books that politics is fundamentally about the running of the city. Politics - from Aristotle's ta politika "affairs of state,", from the Ancient Greek polis - the city state. Read more »

CFMEU rejects carbon trading job claims - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Electrical Union (CFMEU) says the release of figures warning that emissions trading will cost thousands of jobs is part of a scare campaign.

I don't usually like spruiking for the corporate media, but channel 7 is doing something good with their Sunrise solar panel petition. I don't make any comment on the rest of what channel 7 does - I usually avoid it like the plague.

But they're right, a means test on the solar rebate scheme is bloody stupid. There are lots of people out there who want solar panels, but for the rebate, you have to have the money upfront. Not many people on a median wage (~$25,000/annum) have thousands of dollars just lying around. Read more »

After months of wondering why Americans are always complaining about petrol prices, I finally figured out why.

This might seem obvious to some, but the solution everyone seems to come up with seems pretty stupid to me. Read more »

I just read "A Short History of Progress", by Ronald Wright(1). Pretty gloomy, if you need any impetus to become either an activist, or completely depressed, this is it. Wright maps the rise an fall of numerous civilisations, and points out that our current technological and social trajectories are pretty similar really. The only real difference between us and the romans, outside of size of the supporting ecosystem, is that we've got evidence of collapse happening before. Read more »

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIrPHp0fydk&hl=en]

Video to promote Climate Camp Australia.

This video was made with Kdenlive. I have to say, I'd never enjoyed using a program that crashes every 5 minutes (including system crashes) before using Kdenlive. It's easy to use, and intuitive. Can't wait for version 1.0.