World-famous physics professor, Al Bartlett, takes Australia's Climate Change Minister Penny Wong's figures apart on climate change emissions and population numbers, showing that Ms Wong is wrong. "To accommodate the projected population growth AND to reduce overall annual emissions by 60% would require an annual rate of decrease of per capita emissions of polluting greenhouse gases of 3.543 percent per year over the next forty years. The per capita annual emissions would have to be cut in half every 19.6 years!" Bartlett also says that at its present rate of growth, Australia’s population will double by 2050."

Both the NSW and Australian Government have upgraded Cumberland Plain Woodland from Endangered to Critically Endangered. You would assume any development that proposed to clear over 200 ha of critically endangered bushland would be struggling to get approval. We can assume nothing these days in Australia. Here is another focus where Australians need to unite to help each other get back democracy and protect fauna and flora from the growth lobby. The community has fought to save this area for nearly 20 years.See also related articles.

One of the most important principles internationally when referring to greenhouse gas reduction schemes it that the polluter pays. This means that national targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions should be based on the historical contribution of each nation to global emissions. It is obvious that Australia's population growth policies have a enormous impact on our greenhouse gas emissions.

Heavy rain triggered the slides and swept away roads, leaving the tourists stuck in Aguas Calientes, a small town near the Inca ruins. Peru has the most tropical glaciers in Latin America and has already lost 20 percent of the 2,600 kms of glaciers running through its central and southern Andes in the past 30 years. By the end of the 21st century, the tropical Andes may experience a massive warming on the order of 4.5–5 °C.
(photos courtesy of Wikimedia commons)

Click image for film. This is a short film that all politicians and economists and most religious people should see. It is about economics and exponential growth. It is funny and really short.

The 2009 Copenhagen Conference “took note” of an 'Accord'.

Well, what a hell of an expensive note taking exercise that was!

The full cost of the Copenhagen Conference should be disclosed including all return flights, accommodation, livestock killed and A4 paper printed off, etc. Given that green house gases are their specialty, the conference hosts (the UN) should also disclose the total tonnage of greenhouse gas emissions of this latest Conference of the Parties (COP15). This then must become the decadent standard never to be exceeded in future.

See also: "A climate con: Analysis of the 'Copenhagen Accord' of 21 Dec 09.

Penny Wong has started a trend in dieting in Canada, of all places. They call it, "Smart Gluttony". Using Penny Wong's approach to growing population and production whilst simultaneously reducing carbon gas emissions, Tim Murray expects to lose weight by eating more ice-cream, even though his doctor has predicted that his weight will increase by 65% just if he continues with his current one tub a day.

Copenhagen was a deadline without a plan.

Too many issues, too many causes, too many delegates, too much reading, too many options and yet forced to deliver a global consensus solution in just 2 weeks!

Why was a Viking speed expectation imposed on such complex and polarising issues? Participants must have spent the first week just reading the plethora of reports and getting acquainted with the issues and with one another.
Plundering of foreign lands may have taken just 2 weeks, but to reach consensus on complex global negotiation between 192 countries with differing priorities in 2 weeks?

Australia presently exports about 260Mt of coal each year, or about 30% of the world’s total coal export trade. Coal is the dirtiest of all fossil fuels. When burned, it produces emissions that contribute to global warming, create acid rain and pollute water. The Government will spend $2.4 billion over nine years developing two to four commercial scale carbon capture projects.

What will become labelled the '2009 Copenhagen Conference' has indeed proven yet to be 'another overhyped talkfest in a series of duds!'

Copenhagen's much hyped COP15 was all navel gazing on communications consultants' hype. Like Copenhagen tourism, I bet the consultants pocketed nicely!

Copenhagen was doomed to fail simply on the basis of unresolved perceived mistrust between the haves and the have nots and the sea-level nations being side-lined.

And Copenhagen of all places..what a detached comfortable venue!

The author responds to news of some so-called 'Green groups' preventing discussion of population numbers as a factor in carbon emissions. "Women should have the right not to have children. But they have no right, in the context of overshoot, to have as many children as they or their husbands want. The “right to choose” cannot be the right to abuse. Even the most jealously guarded right must be measured against equally fundamental rights, most especially the right of our species, and others, to live."

Australia is one of the world's biggest CO2 emitters per capita, but has only pledged to cut its emissions by five per cent from 2000 levels by 2020. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded that the Great Barrier Reef could be "functionally extinct" within decades, with deadly coral bleaching likely to be an annual occurrence by 2030.

The “exploding kangaroo population” in Thargomindah Queensland, apparently, is because Russia has banned the sale of roo meat.  It sounds like the kangaroo industry pushing their own agenda! The media has reported stupid things like a a woman who was too scared to hang her washing out because of the kangaroo coming close to the town, implying very strongly that they are creating a safety problem as well!

With just six weeks until the 2009 Kobenhavn Climate Conference, the global community has not much time to review and assess the failures of well-intentioned multilateral undertakings, commitments and promises at such global talkfests of living memory.

Sweden has had taxes on carbon emissions since 1991 but claims to have an economic growth rate of 40%.
At the same time it has not allowed its population to become outsized and guarantees its citizens housing and income.
It has a multi-party democracy.
Compare these qualities of life and environment and characteristics of the economy in Sweden with Australia's winner-take-all cannabalistic economy and politically forced population growth in a media-plutocracy.

Be part of the 350 Big Picture! Be part of a human chain to focus on climate change and the role forests play in protecting the planet.

The CSIRO recently released their Home Energy Saving Handbook – How to save energy, save money and reduce your carbon footprint. According to Victorian Liberal MP John Vogels, the CSIRO should apologise to meat and livestock farmers for stating what is scientifically clear - that a move towards a plant-based diet is not only a way to limit greenhouse gas emissions and environmental destruction, but also a route to a healthier diet.

Andrew Robb, Federal Opposition member for Goldstein is the latest amongst a series of Australian politicians to announce a battle with mental depression. Quark believes that this may have something to do with a cognitive dissonance between political policies and reality and looks at the example of carbon emissions policy. See also Letter to Australian Climate Minister Penny Wong re her claims about delinking growth from emissions

When the ABC put to her that a population trending to grow by 65% to a level of 35m people by 2035 was contradictory to a target of reducing Australian carbon emissions by 60% in the same time period, Penny Wong replied, incredibly, that we have to 'delink our levels of carbon pollution from economic growth and population growth, not try to reduce population. She did not say whether we would do this by using magic or religion, but a morbid fascination with my own survival, not to say scientific curiosity, has prompted me to write to her and ask for details. See also: "Depression forces MP Andrew Robb from the frontbench"

Article about Brown Mountain on the Anarchist media net says that the logging of Brown Mountain will be done by public servants who would be otherwise deployed in our poorly tended ecosystems if they were not sent off to log. However EEG disagrees on this point. See related important corrections to original article in comments below it inside. They also make interesting reading.

The Brumby government has, even before the results of the bushfire commission, jumped in and passed draconian legislation with less than one day's notice, which allows unprecedented clearing of bushlands and gardens, on the pretext that it will prevent fires. The removal of vegetation is the primary factor connected with warming of the earth and loss of rainfall. It not only releases huge amounts of carbon gases from the organisms in the soil as they die, but it removes shade, decreases humidity, dries out the earth and affects winds and rainfall, including rainfall inland. This law is ecologically insane and very very stupid. Victorians should be frightened by the ignorance of their government and they should also be suspicious of its motives, since it is virtually a commercial property development corporation in its own right, thus an advocate of moonscaping. Website - http://livingwiththebush.org/dp/

Lindsay Tanner knocks the Greens for disagreeing with Labor and failing to “build coalitions with others who have different views”. Lindsay says this helps prevent any action occurring. But if you know Labor, ‘action’ means more of the same: more population growth, more debt and more deals with the big polluters – property development and infrastructure expansion.

(Eastern Quoll Black extinct in the mainland but still in Tasmania photo Wikipedia Commons)
Australia has the worst record of extinctions of any country having exterminated one third of its wildlife in just 200 years. The climate is a crucial factor in determining where animals and plants live and reproduce, and the types of ecosystems they form. Climate change spells disaster for the world's plants and animals, many of which are already suffering from a loss of habitat, pollution and over-exploitation.

This is what we are used to reading about Borneo and the Amazon. Now we can read it about Victoria. In fact, it is happening all over the world. Bad governments are simply going ahead doing awful things in a place near by. What makes you think your government is any different? Are you watching them? Are you helping to protect your forests?

"There is no reasonable prospect that Australia will reduce its total level of greenhouse emissions, while our population grows by 1 million every four years, as is presently the case. Population stabilisation must be part of the plan to contain greenhouse emissions, not merely for Australia, but for the rest of the world as well." See also: more by Kelvin Thomson Interview at 10.30 ACT time Radio 2UE.

HELLLPPPP!
The news just in is that the Brown Mountain decision will be made in a week or so and the loggers will go in immediately afterwards! Brumby is not planning to protect it! Be there Tomorrow at 10.30am on the steps of Parliament House Victoria. We want everyone who can come along - young and old. The more old growth we cut down the more drying of the land, reduced rainfall, increased temperatures and risk of more and hotter bushfires. Bushfires dominate in managed and thinned forest, not in old growth! Logging Brown Forest will cause more bad bushfires in Victoria. Campervan, 4WDS and cars needed. Contact 0413927044

click here for film
Biologist Willie Smits has found a way to re-grow clearcut rainforest in Borneo, save and house local orangutans, reverse climate change, stop forest fires and give sustainable income and justice to the locals. It all started because he rescued a baby orangatang from a rubbish heap...
We could do the same thing in Australia on all our degraded land. Only our government is stopping us.

Most people would probably doubt that we could organize satisfactory communities without vast state bureaucracies and corporations. The achievements of the Spanish Anarchist workers collectives in the 1930s show what miracles ordinary people can do. We are entering severe scarcity where centralised and globalised systems will fail to provide for us and we will have to develop highly localized economies.

"Everything that makes our city the great place to live, work and raise a family, is potentially under threat if population growth and urban sprawl continue at the current rate. We must implement a strategy to control population growth, urban expansion and development. Our way of life, open spaces and infrastructure cannot be sacrificed on the altar of ever expanding population. We have a responsibility to secure our city’s future through thorough, thoughtful and detailed planning. This planning should not include an expanding Melbourne waistline." (Kelvin Thomson MP, Federal Member for Wills, "Five Million is too many: Securing the Social and Environmental Future of Melbourne: Submission to the Urban Growth Boundary Review, July 2009)

Not once during the 96 minute presentation, An Inconvenient Truth, did Al Gore mention livestock and our diets as a cause of global warming, or suggest any form of solution or alternatives. The twin "elephants in the room", livestock production and population growth, are avoided by Al Gore and by many environmental and climate change groups.