Environment

The Nature Conservation Council of NSW released the statement below on November 14. * * * Revelations about the high levels of methane leakage from the Tara Estate coal seam gasfield in Queensland cast serious doubts on claims the industry’s greenhouse impact is relatively benign, according to the Nature Conservation Council of NSW.

This article is republished from The Conversation. * * *

Burn it all. That is the plan in Australia’s new Energy White Paper.

Released yesterday by Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson, it talks about responding to climate change while planning the opposite.

The High Court of Malaysia lifted a two-month suspension on November 8 of a temporary operating licence granted to the Australian company Lynas Corporation to operate a controversial rare earths refinery near the city of Kuantan in Malaysia. Angry residents and environmental activists now plan to bring their objection to Australia when Lynas holds its shareholders' annual general meeting at the luxury Sofitel Hotel in Sydney on November 20. Eighteen activists will travel to Sydney to take part in the protest and speak to concerned Australians, politicians and the media.

Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa counts on a high level of support at home. But internationally, he has been criticed for policies on development, the environment and indigenous peoples.

The Infrastructure NSW chair, former Liberal premier Nick Greiner, delivered a vision for the state for the next 20 years on October 3. For the 4.5 million people living in Sydney, the State Infrastructure Strategy, titled First Things First, will mean more roads, more congestion and more transport frustration for years to come.

The statement below was released on November 5 by community groups that took part in a protest outside the NSW government’s Community Cabinet meeting in Tamworth. * * * Residents of north-west NSW have united in numbers outside the NSW Community Cabinet being held in Tamworth to expose the Barry O'Farrell government’s broken promises on protecting farmland, water catchments and sensitive environments from coal and gas mining.

Organisers of the Groundswell Gloucester conference released the statement below on October 29. * * * More than 100 delegates from coal and coal seam gas (CSG) affected communities across NSW have called “Groundswell Gloucester”, the inaugural NSW Coal and CSG Community Conference, a resounding success. Delegates represented groups from as far afield as the Northern Rivers, the Liverpool Plains, the Hunter Valley, metropolitan Sydney and the NSW Southern Highlands.

The Papua New Guinean government has been forced to reconsider a deep-sea mining project off the PNG coast due to community concerns over environmental destruction. About 24,000 people signed a petition against the Solwara 1 project in the Bismark Sea. The petition was handed to mining minister Byron Chan on October 23, said AAP. The project is run by Canadian company Nautilus Minerals and will mine for mostly copper and gold 1.6 kilometres under the seabed.

This episode focuses on feminism's resurgence and Venezuela's unfolding revolution. It includes activist news on Stop CSG protests, Global Noise protests, plus Carlo Sands on the European Union's Nobel Peace prize win, and a performance by 1000 eyes at Occupy.

The two-year negotiations between loggers and environmentalists, which many hoped would end the conflict over Tasmania’s forests, collapsed on October 27. The Wilderness Society, a key negotiator in the talks, blamed the collapse on the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania (FIAT), which represents logging companies such as Malaysian logging firm Ta Ann and, previously, Gunns Ltd.

Hurricane Sandy was the largest tropical storm to ever hit mainland United States. Its extent, power and the fact that it formed so late in the hurricane season so far north in the Atlantic ocean can only be understood in light of global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels. For many years, scientists have been warning that the rise in water temperature in the oceans would create more powerful storms, and that is what happened in the case of Hurricane Sandy.

Fallout From Fukushima By Richard Broinowski Scribe, 2012 273 pages , $27.95 (pb) The Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan last year was no accident, says Richard Broinowski in Fallout from Fukushima. Sitting a nuclear reactor on an “active geological fault line where two of the earth’s tectonic plates collide” was courting catastrophe from an earthquake and tsunami like the one that duly hit the Pacific in March last year.