Climate crisis

“Whether I look at manufacturing, or I look at the climate emergency, it’s our generations, the ones alive now, that have a responsibility," said Dave Kerin, a founder of the Earthworker Cooperative, explaining the driving force behind the group’s key project.

About 200 people met on June 28 on the steps of Parliament House in Victoria to oppose new coal projects in the state. Speakers spoke out against expanding the brown coal export industry, which would triple Victoria's contribution to greenhouse gas pollution. The star of the event was “billionaire” Twiggy Palmcock, representing “the forgotten voices of mining magnates”. He said all coal is good coal, and offered to dig coal mines in a bowl shape for the “Greenie farmers from Bacchus Marsh”.

About 100 people attended a midday protest on June 28 to oppose the export of coal from Victoria. The protest was organised by Quit Coal. Speakers denounced the horrendous damage Victoria's brown coal exports will do to the local environment and the global climate. After the rally, a section of the crowd marched to the offices of Exergen — the company that plans to export coal from Victoria. The activists occupied the CEO's office to protest the company's refusal to meet with local residents.

Beyond Zero Emissions released the statement below on June 26. * * * As part of the Clean Energy Future package, the Gillard government agreed to have the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) model what an Australian 100% renewable energy scenario for 2030 and 2050 would look like. Beyond Zero Emissions produced its plan for 100% renewable energy by 2020 two years ago in 2010, relying heavily on volunteer researchers.

The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development took place in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil over June 20-22. Known as Rio +20, it takes place 20 years after the first UN Earth summit in Rio in 1992 that was supposed to establish guidelines for sustainable development. Since then, the problems noted have drastically worsened. Environmental groups have slammed Rio +20 for failing to propose serious, drastic action needed to deal with a multitude of environmental crises the Earth is facing.

Before the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, that took place in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil over June 20-22, the Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities on Climate Change against REDD and for Life launched a declaration on June 15 opposing the summit's “solutions” to the environmental crisis.

As world leaders gather in Brazil for the Rio+20 summit to discuss the pressing environmental issues facing the world, academics, politicians, unionists, climate activists and local resident groups are preparing to meet and work out real proposals for how western Sydney can begin to tackle climate change. The Australian government’s Climate Commission report The Critical Decade found that rising temperatures in western Sydney will impact on everything from our water supply to mental health and crime levels.

Coal and gas developments proposed in Queensland are putting Australia's Great Barrier Reef at risk, says a report by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

Too Much Luck: The Mining Boom & Australia's Future By Paul Cleary Black Inc., 2011 156 pages, pb, $24.95 Paul Cleary’s book Too Much Luck: The Mining Boom and Australia's Future, published last year, raises important questions, and provides much useful information for answers. But the real elephant in the room, coal mining, is largely left untouched.

What would Australia look like if Tony Abbott became the next prime minister? The Liberal leader is an outspoken climate denier, a hardliner on locking out refugees, determined to crack down on union and workers’ rights and wants to extend racist and draconian attacks on Aboriginal rights. Yet polls have consistently shown Abbott and the Coalition far ahead of the Julia Gillard Labor government, whose pro-business policies and internal scandals have made it deeply unpopular.

Bimblebox is an 8000-hectare nature refuge in the Galilee Basin in central-west Queensland. It is an important site of biodiversity and is being used as a site for many long-term research projects in land management. It also lies in the path of what is planned to be Australia’s largest coalmine. Nine huge mines have been proposed for the Galilee Basin. Waratah Coal, owned by billionaire Clive Palmer, has an exploration permit over the entire Bimblebox refuge.

If Australia were a democracy and governments had no choice but to carry out the will of the majority, we’d be well on our way to a 100% renewable power grid. Recent polling organised by climate action groups around the country found that 94% of 12,000 people polled said they wanted big solar power stations built in Australia. And 93% of those polled said the government should invest public money to make that happen.