Garrett vows to roll sleeves up on climate change

From the ABC Online, Peter Garret, former Midnight Oil front-man prepares to take up the fight for climate change from a new perspective… He has certainly got the credentials, and the profile to make this issue one which may now impact on the next few elections.

Go Garret!!

[28] New Labor team: Mr Garrett says he is eager to hold the Govt to account on climate change. [File photo] (ABC TV)

Former Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett will join Labor’s new frontbench as the spokesman for climate change and the environment.

Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has announced the portfolio responsibilites of his new frontbench in Brisbane today, on the first day of his 10-day national tour.

Labor deputy leader Julia Gillard takes on industrial relations and Wayne Swan will continue as treasury spokesman, despite his support for former Labor leader Kim Beazley.

Mr Garrett says he is eager to join the frontbench and hold the Federal Government to account on climate change.

“Climate change represents one of the most significant and important issues that Australians must confront now and into the future,” he said.

“I want to work for leader Rudd to make sure that we roll up our sleeves and do the very best that we can, and I want to put the Howard Government on notice that it’s fiddling while Australia burns.”

Stanwell laments lost power station benefits

Well well well. are we serious about the environment? NO
The bottom dollar is all powerful.
Should it all be about economics, I know there needs to be a balance, as the money needs to come from somewhere, and increased power costs is a great way of hobbling economic development and growth… But…

ABC News Online

The Stanwell Corporation has expressed regret that the environmental benefits of a power station to be built near Rockhampton, in central Queensland, will be lost… [after] A feasibility study ..found that the $330 million project is not economically viable.

The future of the planned $1.4 billion coking plant nearby is still being assessed. Stanwell acting chief executive Gary Humphrys says the power station would have turned the waste heat of the coking plant into electricity. “And that goes to again our disappointment that the economics for us didn’t stack up,” he said. “Accepting the waste heat and converting that into electricity was certainly an environmentally sustainable and sensible thing to do … and yet the economics didn’t stack up.”

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Can you believe this?

Wonder if those who are so scared of the over-hyped anti-recycling establishment will even notice?

The answer is simply no. for some reason there is a large portion of the population who are willing to discount any and all science and evidence from ‘the esablishment’, but believe the whimsiest scaremongering from anyone who says any-thing MIGHT be dangerous.
The scariest thing is the tenuous links they draw to some ludicrous “examples” of why they MAY be right. The next person who compares the potential dangers of reverse osmosis filtration (molecular level) with the long term damage caused by supposedly safe products like Abspestos and Thalidomide, May feel the end of my walking stick..
Speaking of which, I am off to see the surgeon in just over 12 hours, so may be able to sit and walk soon. Then I promise to catch up on presenting some real evidence for some of my rambles…

From the ABC On line today…
The drought has taken a turn for the worst in the past four months.

The National Climate Centre (NCC) says the drought has intensified, especially during November, as a result of a severe lack of rain and hot temperatures.

Senior climatologist Grant Beard says conditions are now the worst they have been since the 2002 drought.

“The water supply situation is continuing to get more and more dire as we go on,” he said.

“The water supplies never really recovered after the 2002 drought.

“What we needed was a good wet year to replenish water supplies but we haven’t had that.”

Mr Beard says with hotter summer months to come, things could get even drier.

“The picture through a lot of the east of the country is of water supplies getting gradually drawn down more and more,” he said.

“This acute water deficits of rainfall, which have developed in the relative short terms this year, have made the conditions worse obviously.”

Resource firm hoping for uranium mine start.

But it’s not coal. It won’t be allowed to happen.

For some reason the establiched players always get their way, regardles of the common sence involved, or the envioronmental impact of carbon emmissions, or the…

Anyway I t will be shot down. But they don’t have any money for more doctors. One wonders sometimes!

From ABC Online

Resource firm hoping for uranium mine startA major resource company says a uranium mine could open in north-west Queensland as early as 2010.

Summit Resources hopes the federal Labor Party will relax its policy ban on new uranium mines at its national conference next April.

Managing director Allan Eggers told a mining conference in Mount Isa, the region’s uranium deposits could generate up to $4 billion worth of exports every three years.

“There’s been considerable support and discussion for the issue within the Labor Party … Kim Beazley, the current leader, has come out and said he will recommend dropping the policy on not approving new mines and [Queensland] Premier Beattie has stated quite clearly that he would support the development of new uranium mines here in Mount Isa should the federal policy change,” he said.
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