Environment

  • Australian atomic massacre still ignored

    Nearly 60 years have passed since Totem 1, a British nuclear test in the Australian desert, was recklessly conducted in unfavourable meteorological conditions. Nuclear testing of any sort, even in the most “controlled” of circumstances, is inherently abusive, a crime against the environment and humanity for countless generations to come. Yet the effects of Totem 1 were particularly bad, even by the warped standards of the era.

  • Activists meet to build movement for safe climate

    About 400 activists from across Australia converged on Sydney over June 21-23 for Australia’s Climate Action Summit 2013. As the science of climate change becomes ever more alarming, and as the refusal of business and political elites to act becomes ever more glaring, the activists met to share ideas and strategies to build a strong movement for a safe climate.

  • Greek gov't splits over broadcaster closure

    Democratic Left pulled its ministers out of Greece's ruling coalition cabinet on June 21 after talks to resume state television broadcasts collapsed. MPs from the party, which makes up the third part of the ruling coalition, were angered by the abrupt shutdown of broadcaster ERT on June 11 and met to decide whether to continue backing Prime Minister Antonis Samaras.

  • Sit-in against mining giants at parliament house

    About 120 landowners from NSW and Queensland staged a sit-in at Parliament House in Canberra on June 20 to protest the federal government approval process for mining projects. It follows the Liberal and Labor parties voting down legal changes to give farmers the right to say “no” to mining on their land, despite a new opinion poll that shows 86% of people support giving landowners the right to refuse access to miners.

  • Unions oppose Keystone pipeline

    AS PRESIDENT Obama weighs whether to give the Keystone XL pipeline his approval, climate scientists have warned that the volume of greenhouse gases released by the pipeline could push the planet over a climate tipping point.

  • New book slams those playing God with climate

    Earthmasters: Playing God With The Climate Clive Hamilton Allen & Unwin, 2013 247 pages, $24.99 (pb) “Never let a good crisis go to waste,” seems to be the philosophy, says Clive Hamilton in Earthmasters, of the fossil fuel companies, the World Bank and the billionaire “techno-entrepreneurs” like Bill Gates and Richard Branson who are funding research into geo-engineering schemes for “large-scale intervention in the climate system designed to counter global warming”.

  • Britain: Fracking threat must be opposed

    To listen to its advocates, there is little shale gas won’t do: bring down energy prices, cut carbon emissions, support renewables and bring us out of recession. The “climate-sceptic” Global Warming Policy Foundation even claimed that “because of shale gas, wealth and health will be distributed more equitably over the planet”. Add to this newspaper stories with misunderstood numbers saying that there is enough shale gas to heat British homes for 1500 years and you can see why some people are getting excited.

  • Coal pollution cover-up in Newcastle

    The Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) and Brisbane-based consultant Katestone have come under fire for releasing a report, on coal train dust in the Hunter Valley, that appeared to have been doctored. The ARTC is a federal-owned corporation and leases rail track from the NSW government. It is in charge of most rail track other than dedicated inner city passenger rail corridors, including rail tracks that deal mainly in freight and commodity haulage.

  • NT landowners battle for a healthy river

    Representatives from the Environment Centre NT (ECNT) and the Amateur Fishermen’s Association of the NT (AFANT) travelled to Mataranka on June 13 to host a public meeting about water allocations in the region. The Country Liberal Party government has made changes to the allocation process, which threatens the Roper River region’s environment, as well as pastoral and Indigenous interests.

  • Power privatisation blocks climate action

    Markets are neither free nor efficient, and they are bad for the environment. Market choice is not cheap. While that may sound like a timeless left-wing credo, it's also a simple assessment of Australia's 20 years of privatisation and market-oriented restructure of electricity supply. Outside small left-wing dissident circles (from Keynesians to Marxists), operating the power industry according to market principles has become an unquestioned and unspoken assumption.