Is Penny W(r)ong right?

• Wong says beaches could erode away | Herald Sun

  • AUSTRALIA'S most iconic beaches, including Sydney's Bondi and surfing mecca Bells beach, could erode away or recede by hundreds of meters over the coming century, the nation's Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said yesterday.

    But locals aren't so sure, The Australian reports.

  • In her opening address to the National Climate Change Forum in Adelaide yesterday, Wong made some alarming predictions for Australia's coast.
  • She urged people not to listen to critics using isolated errors in the UN climate change panel's report to undermine action, claiming the report had been subject to "breathless, scandalised claims" implying the world had been hoodwinked by scientists.

Greg's Comment::

Penny Wong is using the arrogant Kevin Rudd concept of, "If I say it, it must be right". It shows a return of the Howard politics of fear where there is no justification for such statements. Beach sand is a fluid medium that gets moved by the tides and storms and is redeposited in another place. Our coastline is constantly changing and will continue to do so.

She may be smart but she shows a complete and utter disregard for the intellectual competency of the Australian people in telling them not to listen to critics of what she has determined to be right.

We must take into account the critics of the ICCC and the ICCC itself which is about to undergo a restructuring because they have accepted the flaws in their own processes. When the world's leaders could not agree on ways to handle climate change in Copenhagen, it seems horribly unlikely that Australia's Penny Wong is the only person on earth to get it right. She has no right to be imposing her will on her fellow Australians

Greg's View of Todays News - 02/13/2009

• Ex-detective arrested over Hodson murders | theage.com.au

  Former drug squad detective Paul Dale was this morning arrested for the murders of police informer Terence Hodson and his wife Christine.
  
  Police from taskforce Petra arrested Dale at his Wangaratta service station around 9.30 am.

• Vandergulik gets nine years jail for killing husband - The Border Mail

  THE VICTORIAN woman who killed her husband two days after they married has been jailed for nine years. Patrick Plumbe, 60, was killed one day after making his new wife Margaret Vandergulik the sole beneficiary of his $1 million superannuation fund.

• Australia fires spark calls for climate action

  "Without a massive turnaround in policies, aside from the tragic loss of life and property, we will be asking firefighters to put themselves at an unacceptable risk," United Firefighters Union of Australia said in an open letter.

  • The firefighters union has now joined Green politicians and environmental activists in arguing that the deadly infernos are a climate change wake-up call to Australia.
    • The record heat on the day of the fires was a new event that can only be put down to Climate Change. In these circumstances, volunteer fire fighters mut not be asked to risk their lives.
      
      Even if the government recognises the Climate Change impact, there is nothing that can stop the explosions of buildings that occurred through fuel loads reaching their flash point. - post by gnaylor
    
    

• Canberra urged to increase pension age to 67 | The Courier-Mail

  In its submission to the Harmer pension review, the international investment and financial consultancy firm Mercer added its voice to calls for a gradual increase in Australia's pension age, starting in 2025.

  • Mr Knox said older Australians who remained in the workforce would be healthier and better off financially, while the cost burden on taxpayers of paying pensions for an ageing population would be reduced.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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• Whoever owns the fuel (guardian.co.uk)

Greg's View of Todays News - 02/10/2009

• 
  

• BBC NEWS | Vow to rebuild fire-hit Australia

  Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has vowed his country would rally after the worst bushfires in its history.
  
  Mr Rudd told MPs that areas devastated by bushfires would be rebuilt "brick by brick" and "school by school".

  tags: press

  • Mr Rudd promised damaged communities would be rebuilt, and there would no limit on federal spending.

    "We have deliberately made the decision to place no cap on the Commonwealth's contribution to the recovery and reconstruction effort," he said.
    

    Although it would take time and effort, he added, "we will rebuild each of these communities... until one day we can look back and say these towns have been reborn".
    

  • Mr Rudd promised damaged communities would be rebuilt, and there would no limit on federal spending.

    What a great country this is. No limit on Federal spending. We are fortunate that this tragedy has occurred at a time when the government is trying to stimulate the economy.
    
    • Those with mortgages have compulsory insurance which will replace those houses.
      The government will hoefully replace all infrastructure, including commercial infrastructure, that is needed for any community to exist. - post by gnaylor
    
    

• Climate change will bring more extreme weather, say experts | Herald Sun

  

  Commenting on the Victorian fires, climatologist Professor David Karoly told the ABC's Lateline program last night that hot temperatures in Melbourne on Saturday and in many parts of southeastern Australia were "unprecedented".

  • "What we are seeing now is that the chances of these sorts of extreme fire weather situations are occurring much more rapidly in the last ten years due to climate change."
  • "We definitely need to change our habits so that we can leave our children and our children's children with a better world to live in," he said on Lateline.
    • I have been sitting on the fence with the need to adapt to Climate Change ... until NOW!.
      The highest temperature EVER recorded in Victoris together with the most lives EVER lost to bushfires - on the same day - leaves no room for doubt. - post by gnaylor
  • Victorian Premier John Brumby said a royal commission would investigate every aspect of the Victorian bushfires, including the possibility of greater danger resulting from climate change.
    • The Royal Commission must investigate the new phenonomen of 'spontaneous combuation' where housed exploded from within and evaluate the right of a landowner to stay and protect his/her assets to give the CFA/Police the power to clear the area before the fire arrives - post by gnaylor

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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• How Global Warming May Be Fueling Australia's Fires

Howard is fiddling as our great rivers start trickling

Border Mail Editorial published 29 Dec 06

IN the midst of prosperity, Australians are becoming fearful people, made so by gloomy happenings around about.

The war on terror and the blunder in Iraq have been causes of this.

But we are becoming more fearful about threats to our way of life posed by climate change, drought and water shortage, than we are about terrorism.

To most of us terrorism is something over the horizon, something to be a bit alert about but not too alarmed— whereas the environmental problems have lately alarmed us greatly.

They rouse an issue, dozing in the background of Australian consciousness — whether European civilisation, with increasing consumption of natural resources by increasing numbers of people, can survive in greedy me-first prosperity in this idiosyncratic continent.

Our concerns about climate, drought and water (plus the linked issue of energy consumption) are exacerbated because our governments, particularly our reactive Federal Government, do not have a grip on the problem and are playing catch-up, using the habitual tactic of throwing money at drought relief and environmental palliatives and calling it a policy.

Two things particularly have propelled the environment into the front-rank of problems — the UK’s Stern report on climate change and the drought.

Stern argues that strong action now can limit the worst of climate change to 1 per cent of annual world GDP, but if we continue to procrastinate, the costs will equal the loss of 5 per cent of GDP each year, with great suffering for hundreds of millions of people as the world warms.

The drought and its attendant scarcity of water have been creeping up for years, but the spectacle of failed crops, forced stock sales, emptying reservoirs, tightening water restrictions and consequent rural poverty have dramatised the problem lately.

Thus a recent poll showed that nine in 10 Australians think warming is serious, and almost two-thirds are unhappy with the Government’s response and would pay more in taxes and charges to fix it.

Our Prime Minister is not constitutionally and philosophically well equipped to take charge of this rapidly-moving situation.

He is an incantation man — he develops little homilies to deal with major issues, and he uses these to take the edge off probing questions and pressing problems.

On climate change he rejects international action through the Kyoto protocol because China, India and the US are not involved, he thinks of himself as a practical man preferring practical measures and he seeks to set aside action that might harm coal exports (and jobs).

He dislikes compulsion, and distrusts international action; he has his head somewhere in the sand, because these problems cannot be solved solely by action within national boundaries.

It has been evident for many years that the Murray-Darling rivers are under stress and that the main culprits are two — the increasing demands upon a finite amount of water, and the inability of our rickety federal system to deal fairly and objectively with the matter.

Now, apparently, we have reached a stage where if next year is as bad as this one, Hume and Dartmouth could be puddles and the Murray a trickle — how unthinkable!

Australians have reason to be fearful — they realise instinctively that these issues require decisive action, a clear vision, and reasonable compromises that will hold firm.

And they see few signs that such an outcome may be anywhere at hand.

RCoW online Climate Change Survey

Our climate is changing. The Wangaratta Rural City Council is working as part of the North East Greenhouse Alliance to research how our region will be impacted and in what ways we need to respond to reduce the impacts on our community.

A vital part of this project is to involve a wide range of people from our community in discussions and feedback surveys. You can help our region by completing a short five minute online survey.

The survey is being undertaken by consultants, URS, on behalf of the North East Greenhouse Alliance.