The Carbon Club/Book: 'You bastards sacked me.' (excerpt): SMH

The Carbon Club

How did environmental issues become so politicised? The people purge early in the Abbott government – beginning in 2013 with the "night of the short knives" – gives some clues.

By Marian Wilkinson
August 29, 2020

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"What surprised the scientists most was not their hasty sacking but how quickly the government obliterated their work. “The website that we’d spent a lot of time building was taken down with absolutely no justification as far as I could see,” says Flannery, the one-time principal research scientist at the Australian Museum and internationally renowned scientific author. “It was giving basic information that was being used by many, many people – teachers and others – just to gain a better understanding of what climate science was actually about.”

Corruption

The Climate Commission had been set up in 2011 by Julia Gillard’s Labor government as an independent source of information for the public to understand climate change and its impacts on Australia. But the commission and its members had been pilloried as “alarmist” by sceptical columnists in the Murdoch media and by radio shock jocks from the beginning. Flannery was expecting the commission to be disbanded, but the decision to kill its website hurt."

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We Want Climate Action Now

"Not long before this, the Liberal Party’s donor cash cow, the Cormack Foundation, which Morgan chaired, had stumped up another $300,000 for the Institute of Public Affairs. The conservative think tank’s latest publication, Climate Change: The Facts 2014, was soon in the works with essays from Australia’s best known climate sceptics, News Corp’s Andrew Bolt and former James Cook University professor Bob Carter, along with their international cohorts by now so familiar here: MIT’s Professor Richard Lindzen, Dr Pat Michaels from the US Cato Institute – a think tank co-founded by American billionaire Charles Koch – and the former UK chancellor Nigel Lawson.

Climate Justice

At the same time as Morgan’s attack, Lawson’s UK think tank, The Global Warming Policy Foundation, welcomed Abbott’s old mentor, John Howard, to deliver its annual lecture in London. The former Liberal prime minister used the opportunity to enthusiastically back Abbott’s plan to dismantle Labor’s climate policies in a speech he called “One Religion is Enough”."

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"By the end of Abbott’s first year in office, the PM had made it clear he didn’t believe most climate scientists, even those who worked for his government. But while his climate scepticism could shape policy in Canberra, it would soon put him in conflict with the most powerful leader in the world, US president Barack Obama.

This is an edited extract from Marian Wilkinson’s The Carbon Club (Allen & Unwin, $33), out Monday."


Related:   MAJOR PARTIES LEAVE BACKDOOR OPEN FOR DIRTY DONATIONS

Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government, carbon emissions, corrupting donations, Institute of Public Affairs IPA, Koch brothers, Murdoch media, political party donations from corporations, Professor Flannery

A record share of Australians say humans cause climate change: poll: SMH

More Australians than ever believe human activity is entirely or mainly responsible for climate change, new polling shows.

But only 13 per cent say the Morrison government is doing a good job tackling climate change.

A survey by social research firm Ipsos shows 46 per cent of Australians now agree climate change is “entirely or mainly” caused by human activity. That is the highest share since Ipsos began asking the question in an annual survey of Australians’ attitudes to climate change in 2010.

Read the Sydney Morning Herald article

Climate change impact on Australia

 

The (Australian) government thinks we’re idiots and is not serious about reducing emissions : The Guardian

Australia's gas comparative emissions 2016- Click to enlarge

"Tackling climate change is tough and Scott Morrison’s latest policy is an insult"

"This fund of $2bn over 10 years is not just a rebranding of Tony Abbot’s Direct Action, it is actually a diminishment of it. At $200m a year on average it is less than half the money a year that was spent on Direct Action – a policy that was so laughably bad that a government with any level of shame would quietly have dumped it and pretended it never happened.

Yet, here we are. Nine years after Lenore Taylor ripped apart 
 

Vote for my future climate

the Liberal party’s policy of reliance on “soil magic”, we have the prime minister still thinking such measures of carbon sequestration are worth pursuing and will achieve anything close to what is required."

Read the excellent, original The Guardian article 

Related: California votes to extend cap-and-trade climate law to 2030

#carbon emissions  #carbon   #Australia   #scottmorrison   #climate action   #2degreesC

NSW is most coal dependent Australian state

"We have such a long way to go! 

Doctors for the Environment Australia

Our government needs to listen to the wise voice of humanity, take the brakes off, move out of the Fossil Fuel Age and into a Healthy Planet, Healthy People future. They need to be yelling out "Bring it on" when it comes to Renewables, and they need to demand the new generation of Environmental Laws. Who dares wins!

Email Premier Berejiklian and Opposition Leader Michael Daley and
get them to get serious on clean energy and climate change @ https://www.nature.org.au/…/nsw-politicians-its-time-for-a…/

Take the Pledge to Protect our children and our future health from Climate Change @ https://notimeforgames.dea.org.au"

 #NSW #Morrison-McCormackgovernment #coalmining #coal, #health #climateaction

Australian Senate calls on Government to admit Paris failings

The Senate has backed the Australian Greens' motion calling on the Government to make a clear statement about its inaction on climate change.
"It is time for this anti-science Government to front up to the fact they are failing the nation and the planet," Greens environment spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young

said.

"Enough is enough. Scientists have made it very clear that we must reduce pollution and transition out of fossil fuels. If not, we will sink further and further into dangerous climate crisis. Australia has a responsibility to act for its citizens, environment and the planet. The Morrison Government is in denial and the Senate has called it out.

SMH: Logging deals are death warrants for native animals

 "Informed by no new research or effective assessment of the RFAs (Regional Forest Agreements) over the past 20 years – and despite no assessment of the impacts of climate change or climate-induced wildfires throughout the RFA forests – the Morrison government is locking in another 20 years of business as usual. It is unbelievable.

It will not even wait until the Senate inquiry into animal extinctions, which will hold a public hearing in Melbourne on Thursday, reports back with its recommendations.

RFAs have become death warrants for endangered native animals and governments seemingly want the slaughter to continue for another 20 years."

Read the SMH article

Stop the Climate Criminals says Adam Bandt Australian Government MP

Take Action

“This is coal. Do not be afraid. Do not be scared. It will not hurt you.” -- Scott Morrison, February 9, 2017.

At a time when the world is burning, the climate deniers in the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government are wrecking our climate and locking us into a future dependent on coal.

It wasn’t long ago that Scott Morrison, the new Prime Minister, brandished and then lovingly stroked a lump of coal, provided to him by his mates in the Minerals Council, on the floor of the House of Representatives. 

We need to kick this mob out. Add your name to our petition and help us kick out these climate criminals.

Information

 

Why is this important?

Coal will hurt you. In fact, it is hurting millions of people right around the world. Coal kills.

This year, in winter, bushfires have scorched this country. 100% of NSW is in drought. The Arctic Circle is on fire.

The Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government has given up on climate action. They've proven that they are incapable of enacting a coherent, effective climate policy.

The only option left for our planet is to KICK. THIS. MOB. OUT.

Join us.

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