Environment

Non-profit climate research group Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE) has slammed global engineering company WorleyParsons, saying the firm has suppressed a damning report into the emissions produced by coal seam gas (CSG) mining.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard's arguments in favour of uranium sales to India are dangerous and dishonest. She fails to even acknowledge the crucial problem – India's refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). The NPT is the main international nuclear treaty and is routinely described by Australian political leaders as the "cornerstone" of the non-proliferation system. The NPT has its flaws, not least the failure of the nuclear weapons states to take their disarmament obligations seriously, but that is no reason to junk the treaty or to disregard it.

The Northern Inland Council for the Environment and The Wilderness Society Newcastle released the statement below on November 14. * * * Environment groups have responded to news that the NSW government plans to stop a single coal seam gas pilot production well on the Liverpool Plains with calls for a far more extensive moratorium.

The role of notorious Malaysian-owned logging company Rimbunan Hijau (RH) is in the spotlight after Greenpeace activists blockaded one of its ships in Papua New Guinea on October 24. Greenpeace was supporting about 200 local landowners from West Pomio, in New Britain, who were protesting against what they say was illegal logging by RH, AAP said on October 24. Forty-thousand hectares of land was leased to RH — operating under a front company called Gilford — for 99 years for a palm oil plantation, without the consent of all landowners.

Not many things would get the Returned and Services League and died-in-the-wool greenies climbing into bed together; have a mother-and-daughter being frisked by police on the same day, nor cause the arrest of an 83-year-old retired high school English teacher. But the 14 Ficusmicrocarpa var. Hillii, commonly known as Hill Figs, planted in memory of World War I soldiers in Newcastle have.

Just four days after about 10,000 people circled the White House to protest a proposed 2700-kilometre tar sands oil pipeline from Canada to Texas, the Obama government announced it will postpone a decision on whether it will go ahead until 2013. Radical author and activist Naomi Klein addressed an October 10 public meeting at New York’s New School University, where she spoke about the Keystone XL pipeline.

People concerned about coal seam gas (CSG) will deliver a petition signed by more than 15,000 NSW residents to Premier Barry O'Farrell on November 22. The NSW-wide petition, initiated by Stop CSG Illawarra, calls for an immediate moratorium on all CSG projects, a Royal commission into the full impacts of CSG and an immediate ban on fracking. Stop CSG Illawarra member Chris Williams said: "Premier O'Farrell has pledged that any petition with over 10,000 signatures will trigger a debate in parliament.

Friends of the Earth released the statement below on November 9. * * * Protesters halted dredging in Gladstone harbour today, when Friends of the Earth campaigner Derec Davies locked on to a Gladstone port corporation dredge. Davies was part of a protest organised by Friends of the Earth with the support of local people. He unfurled a banner on the dredge, which read “Save the reef, halt dredging” and chained himself to the dredge at approximately 9:30am in the morning, after being ferried in by a fast-travelling Zodiac inflatable speedboat.

Climate action group Rising Tide Newcastle has released a website that spoofs the NSW Minerals Council’s new advertising campaign, which claims the state’s mining companies are “world class”. Rising Tide’s parody uses a similar layout and design to the NSW Minerals Council website, but points to the industry’s poor track record in the areas of environment, community, economy, health and innovation.

Let me start by introducing you to the Palestinian people and give you a brief background to the conflict.

Green Left Weekly’s Jonathon Rutherford spoke to Australian environmentalist and author Ted Trainer about capitalism, affluence, the limits to growth and how we can move to a better society. * * * Today most environmentalists, including most on the left, think that the main barrier preventing a smooth transition to renewables is political, not technical. Against this powerful belief you have argued that consumer-capitalist society cannot be sustained by renewables alone. Can you briefly explain why?

Experts hired to probe an earthquake near Blackpool left their paymaster red-faced today when they ruled that its controversial "fracking" for shale gas was the most likely cause. An independent report commissioned by energy firm Cuadrilla into possible links between drilling at its Preese Hall-1 well in Lancashire and tremors which hit the region earlier this year found that it was "highly probable" drlling was to blame. The report's release coincides with a protest on November 2 that stopped work at the Cuadrilla site near Southport.