This speech by David McKnight, co-author of Big Coal, was given at the BCCAN AGM on October 21, 2013. When I was invited to speak here some time ago, I did not expect to stop off at a friends house which was nearly burned down in a bushfire. But that’s what I ended up doing.…
By Jim Lavis Burned into the memory of long time Bathurstians is the sight, the sound and the smell of a steam train. I wish to use that as a metaphor to describe how I see the current situation in our society concerning climate change. Imagine a steam train – it’s a passenger train. It…
What does CPRSTAXETS stand for? Climate policy. And the future of our climate policy is as complex as the acronyms accruing in its wake. But you’d have to expect complexity when you’re dealing with such an all-encompassing issue. After all, this is about how we live; the impact that has on our planet; and how…
Australia is playing a major role in pouring out cheap fossil fuels to the world and as a result we are responsible for more than our share of climate change. We are the largest coal exporter in the world. Australia’s mining barons are investing heavily to double the amount of coal we export and at…
By Tracy Sorensen When I was a small child, Dad told me about the Bluebird, the fastest car in the world. In 1964, driver Donald Campbell broke the land speed record when his sleek bright blue car zipped across Lake Eyre at 403.10 miles per hour (or 648.73 kilometres per hour). Donald Campbell died in…
Climate change has become one of the dirtiest phrases around which probably explains why reaching the grim climate milestone of 400ppm carbon dioxide has barely rated a mention this week. No-one wants to know bad news! (Although that didn’t save us from this week’s Budget.) So if you’re thinking, ever so reluctantly, the shock jocks…
By Tracey Carpenter “The massive expansion of coal mining and export planned in Australia, and praised by Labor and Liberal politicians, is enough to take the planet beyond the point of no return on global warming if it were to go ahead.” That is the message that Bill McKibben, award-winning author, co-founder of 350.org, delivers…
By Tracey Carpenter It’s a ‘hoary old chestnut’ of a claim still bandied about from either ignorance or malice that climate science is ‘unclear’, or ‘bad science’. How much clearer does it get than this? The University of Queensland study which examined over 12,000 peer-reviewed climate science articles published over the last two decades and…
By Cameron Love Current atmospheric CO2 concentration is almost at 400 parts per million, we’re burning fossil fuels at a rate which is emitting a further 30 gigatons a year and it’s increasing at 3 per cent annually. The Carbon Tracker Initiative reports there’s a further 2,795 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions in reserves representing…
Australia’s Coal expansion threatens the whole planet “The massive expansion of coal mining and export planned in Australia, and praised by Labor and Liberal politicians, is enough to take the planet beyond the point of no return on global warming if it were to go ahead.” That is the message that Bill McKibben, award-winning author,…