Video: Coal 4 Breakfast

October, 2008

Watch at youtube. See related Nine News video story.

coal4breakfast.com.au

At Haystack on the Darling Downs, a mining development licence has been granted by the state government to the state government owned Tarong power to develop a mine on 13,000 hectares of prime agricultural country. This country is farmed in an environmentally sustainable way and has won national Landcare awards for the work done in the area to promote ecologically friendly farming practices.

In the last year alone the area taken up by this mining licence has produced enough wheat for 68 million loaves of bread, enough sorghum to feed 14 million chickens as well as thousands of tonnes of malting barley, edible chick peas and mung beans. In an era when food prices are rising, a United Nations report recently predicted that in the next 50 years the world will need to produce as much food as it has in the last 10,000 years! Can we really afford to destroy this land.

In 20 years when the windfall for the state coffers has ended and the world no longer wants coal, Australia will stand condemned on the world stage for its greedy rapacious ways and environmental vandalism. This iconic farmland and much more will no longer produce food! Will our children and society really think it was worth it?

Video: Coal Mines To Replace Farms in Australia

September 15, 2008

Watch at youtube. With the mining boom in full swing, mining coal seems more important than Growing food. Liverpool Plains in north-west NSW, and Felton on Queensland's Darling Downs.

See also:
savejerrysplains.com.au
friendsoffelton.blogspot.com
protectfelton.blogspot.com

Rudd's record immigration 'dangerous'

October 08, 2008
Andrew Bolt

EVEN on the day it was announced, the Rudd Government's plan to import a million extra people in just three years seemed stupid.

Now, as stock markets melt and shares shrivel, it's positively dangerous.

Question: ... Why does it plan in its first term to import the equivalent of the population of Adelaide when even Prime Minister Kevin Rudd concedes unemployment is about to climb?

Oh, sorry - you didn't know Rudd had so ramped up immigration?

Don't blame yourself. He never mentioned in his campaign launch last year that he had any such intention...

... most states have got out of the habit of laying on the essential infrastructure we need for ourselves, let alone for migrants as well.

These are now green times, so they hate building dams... So how are they going to offer land, water, power and transport to more than 500,000 permanent newcomers ...

But I said Rudd's plan was not just dumb but now dangerous.

Here's why. We may hate to admit it, but we today struggle to assimilate some groups of migrants as well as we once did -- especially those with poor skills and worse English. In NSW, for instance, Lebanese-born citizens are twice more likely as the rest of us to be jailed. In Melbourne, police battle ethnic gangs of African refugees...

HMS Ecological Titanic - Tim Murray

16 Sept 2008

... even the large immigrant communities were among the 73 per cent of voters who in 1991 said immigration levels were too high, or the 71 per cent in 1996 who held to this opinion. Again, Canadians have affected consistent opposition to immigration in the same proportions, but like Australians, have been presented with a solid parliamentary front in favour of a policy they detest...

Poet and author Mark O’Connor writes:

Thus instead of being ashamed that we have lost so many of our marsupial species, many Australians on the left seem more ashamed that we do not have flourishing Inuit or Bantu community in their particular city. Quite why it should be Australia’s duty to turn itself into a representative sample of the cultures of the earth is never explained. Instead, there are constant shouts that any reduction of immigration will lead us tumbling back into an abyss of “racism” and “boring monoculturalsim”. Thus Labor was able to disguise a right-wing policy of relentless growth as left-wing “tolerance”.

Hawke’s and Keating’s spin doctors even took advantage of the Anglo-Celtic guilt over having immigrated upon the Aboriginal tribes without their permission and violently displaced them. Somehow this became a further reason why high immigration, so long as it was no longer Anglo-Celtic, was essential - as if inviting in the rest of the world would legitimise it.

O’Connor forecasts that the Rudd Labor Government will continue on the traditional quest for economic growth, only addressing GHG issues if they do not compromise this goal. He compares Australia to “a cruise liner whose captain is required to sail in the direction chosen by a deck-steward whose priority is to keep the sun shining on the deckchairs in the saloon section, so that their occupants will order more drinks.”

The metaphor is an interesting one, for Canada too could be compared to a cruise liner. The HMS Ecological Titanic still robotically stopping to pick up more passengers as it ploughs forward towards the iceberg of over-population.

Cowra faces mining battle

Oct 1, 2008

The conflicting interests of miners and farmers are increasingly becoming an issue for many country towns, as wealthy mining companies buy up large tracts of land.

The area between Cowra and Grenfell in central-western New South Wales is traditional sheep, cattle and farming country.

But that is slowly changing as mining companies move in to dig up valuable metals.

Landholders near the Broula King gold mine south-west of Cowra are worried about the environmental impacts.

They claim the tailings dam for the mine is situated on a ridge above the Tyagong valley and creeks, which feed into the Murray Darling basin.

Farmer Harry Howard says Cowra residents are concerned they will be left with the environmental damage once the mine packs up and leaves.

"One of the problems is that it's quite a steep slope down towards Tyagong creek which flows into the Burragarong, so it's effectively in the Murray Darling system and the potential for acid mine drainage and cyanates leaching into the waterway are quite significant," he said.

"When the mine's gone in two years, we'll be left with this legacy forever."

Danny Withers lives 200 metres from the mine site.

He is worried about water drying up in his bore and the noise from the blasting.

He also says the mine has not offered to buy him out or compensate his family.

"We approached the mine manager and he said he was a miner not a real estate agent," he said...

Based on a report by Brigid Glanville for ABC Radio's AM

Videos: solar thermal power

Videos:

7:30 Report, David Mills Ausra
Going Green 2007 - Ausra
Another 7:30 report (video on the right)
Ausra Media Room - has a stack of videos
ACCIONA - Nevada Solar One video
Solar from 7:30 Report

Audio:

Radio National (30 minutes into program)

August 2008 - Worley Parsons is acting as a central broker for a range of companies to work up plans to build the world's biggest solar thermal power plant. They hope to have a definite plan by the end of the year.

The adverse effects of mining, QLD

4 September 2008
Patricia Julien

There are around eighty coal mines in the Bowen Basin with more to come at a time when scientists are telling us we face the loss of the Great Barrier Reef and the collapse of marine ecosystems due to acidification impacts if we continue to pump more CO2 into the atmosphere...

The regional development planning group I sit on to represent the environment keeps postponing meetings, because things keep changing so fast.

We have not met for many months. Community consultation on the mines and other developments has mostly deteriorated to a 'check the box' exercise. EPA is understaffed and under-resourced.

Central Queensland - or should I call it 'Coal Land' - has given much and received little back from this mineral exploitation. Enough is enough. Greed is not always good!

Ford to cut 350 more Victorian jobs

August 22, 2008

Ford workers have pleaded for governments to assist the ailing car industry after another 350 job losses were announced at the company's Victorian plants.

The job losses, sparked by a downturn in demand for the large six-cylinder models produced locally, will take effect in November at Ford's Geelong and Broadmeadows plants.

A disappointed Australian Manufacturing Workers Union said this would bring the number of job losses in Victoria's car industry over the past three years to 4,500.

The AMWU also said there had been 100,000 manufacturing jobs lost across Australia in the past 10 years.

Farmers' suicide rates double national average

Aug 19, 2008

... a study by the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention has found the rate of suicide among farm workers, including farm owners and employees aged between 15 and 65, is more than double than that of the rest of the population...

The study used data from the Queensland Suicide Register between 1990 and 2004.

Ms Hawgood says the study proves the problem of suicide in farming communities is real, and needs to be addressed...

In recent years, farmers - particularly in the eastern states - have had to contend with tough conditions, including drought...

But there others in the agricultural sector who think the problem is far more complex.

"Farmers and farm workers live in a very isolated position, they are both physically and socially isolated from others, so if their thinking is getting shifted and they are under this stress or they are suffering any mental health condition, it's not so readily picked up by others," ...

Seems the rural community got left behind by globalisation. Community Supported Agriculture?

Prince Charles warns GM crops risk disaster

12/08/2008

The mass development of genetically modified crops risks causing the world's worst environmental disaster, The Prince of Wales has warned.

In his most outspoken intervention on the issue of GM food, the Prince said that multi-national companies were conducting an experiment with nature which had gone "seriously wrong".

The Prince, in an exclusive interview with the Daily Telegraph, also expressed the fear that food would run out because of the damage being wreaked on the earth's soil by scientists' research.

If only he was so smart about Islam...

Audio: farmers up anti-mining pressure on NSW Govt

19 August , 2008 - ABC radio

A group of farmers is warning the New South Wales Government they will do everything they can to stop mining in their region.

The Chinese company, Shenhua Energy, has approval to explore for coal near Gunnedah on the Liverpool Plains in the north-west of the New South Wales.

Local farmers want an independent water catchment study done, as they claim mining will contaminate water aquifers that are used for stock and domestic use...

TIM DUDDY: The district will blockade every property in the entire district, if that's what it comes to. Until someone is prepared to listen to what we need to do, that is what we are going to have to do.

Environmental vandals. See also video documentary on NSW coal mining industry in Mudgee.

Generating power from waves

14/08/2008
Bush Telegraph, ABC Radio National

In the pursuit of green energy there's some good news out of Western Australia.

Perth based company Carnegie Corporation have just been granted a licence that will allow them to move to the next step in the development of wave energy technology.

This is technology that's been under development for almost a decade.

In this report: Mike Ottaviano, managing director of Carnegie Corporation

Youtube video: CETO Wave Power.

Catalyst interactive: Fire, Flood and Acid Mud

ABC TV, 1 May 2008

Fire, Flood and Acid Mud, a compelling special edition of Catalyst that brings a fresh perspective to highlighting the critical situation in the Murray-Darling and the need for urgent corrective action. The program, through four segments that take the viewer on a physical journey from headwaters to sea, provides a fascinating insight into the problems of this major river system.

More at CanDoBeter: Keep fighting for the Murray Darling in spite of our Government.

Beyond Reasonable Drought - photo exhibition

July to Oct 2008

Beyond Reasonable Drought is an Old Parliament House travelling exhibition in association with the MAP Group — Many Australian Photographers. It features images by some of Australia’s best photographers, documenting the impact of the drought on the land, people and psyche of rural and urban Australia.

Controversial GM map, VIC

Aug 12, 2008

The Victorian Government has urged people protesting against genetically modified crops to respect the farmers who grow them.

Protest group, Gene Ethics, has published a map of farms growing commercial GM canola crops and the names of the farmers on the internet.

Who needs or wants GM foods?

Rudd's 'breathtakingly inconsistent' immigration policy

August 4, 2008
Paul Sheehan

On November 14 last year, when Kevin Rudd launched Labor's election campaign, he mentioned at length the challenges of climate change and water shortages: "It is irresponsible for any national government of Australia to stand idly by while our major cities are threatened by the insecurity of water supply." While presenting a commendable shift away from John Howard's inertia on these issues, his policy is breathtakingly inconsistent. Not only did Rudd commit to a policy of building high-energy desalination plants for Australia's main cities, he has also committed Australia to record levels of immigration...

Rudd did not have the decency to mention immigration once in his 4300-word campaign launch. It is the most glaring inconsistency of his Government.

He probably got the idea from Howard who, whilst talking tough on boat people, presided over recorded levels of immigration.

Long and short of a trading scheme

July 28, 2008, Kenneth Davidson

A carbon tax at this level would require a change in lifestyles. Birrell and Healy say these changes would not be acceptable to the community and they argue that cutting immigration and stabilising the population would be the most politically acceptable option to achieve the 60/2050 target.

They point out that as the Productivity Commission has shown, there is only a tiny projected gain per capita income from immigration. Just because some business interests profit from population growth, for ordinary Australians it is per capita growth that matters.

Birrell and Healy say the business interests that have the most to lose from the emissions trading scheme will have an interest in stabilising population growth to minimise the tax on carbon.

Sick of the congestion? Time to talk about immigration

Michael Duffy, June 28, 2008

... Sydney is in a state of denial about population increase. We don't prepare for it adequately and seem constantly surprised that public services and infrastructure fail. When they do, we blame politicians, or climate change, or the greed of people (other people) for cars and houses and air conditioning. Anything but what is often the main cause, population growth.

This comes from births, migration from other parts of Australia, and immigration, but it's only the last category we have much control over...

Another reason immigration has been ignored is because to question it is to be seen as politically incorrect, even racist. This could why the environmental movement has largely ignored it, despite its central role in the problems the movement talks about all the time.

'... reducing immigration would be much easier'

July 26, 2008 , Michael Duffy

The politics of reducing energy use significantly ... will generally defeat any government, but reducing immigration would be much easier. And yet net immigration is running at 180,000 a year, at which rate the population will rise to 31.6 million in 2050. The implications of this for Australia's carbon footprint are enormous, yet almost never discussed.

Australians produce more greenhouse gases than any other nationality. Therefore on average, every immigrant, no matter where they come from, will increase their emissions by moving to Australia.

Birrell notes there is a "dissociation between government aspiration and action", and he's not wrong.

Letter to the editor: immigration and emissions

July 24, 2008

MONASH University social scientist Bob Birrell's observations (The Age, 23/7) are undeniable. Australia's immigration adds to both Australia's and global greenhouse gas emissions because people generally move from low per capita emitting countries to high per capita emitting countries — in this case Australia.

The Government is wasting its energy working in two opposing directions. It strenuously promotes economic and population growth while working on an economic strategy to mitigate the increased emissions of a growing volume of inherently carbon-emitting business activities.

A good federal government would try to direct this country towards sustainability by moderating migrant numbers (other than humanitarian and refugee intakes) and by concentrating on the long-term security of basic requirements for its citizens — food, water and shelter.

Jill Quirk, East Malvern