Saturday, April 27, 2013

DAMOCRACY The Movie (English) - YouTube

DAMOCRACY The Movie (English) - YouTube:
DAMOCRACY: A documentary that debunks the myth of large-scale dams as clean energy and a solution to climate change. It records the priceless cultural and natural heritage the world would lose in the Amazon and Mesopotamia if two planned large-scale dams are built, Belo Monte dam in Brazil, and Ilisu dam in Turkey. DAMOCRACY is a story of resistance by the thousands of people who will be displaced, and a call to world to support their struggle. More info at http://www.damocracy.org




11 comments:

  1. The insane decision by Voelte,Ferguson and Barnett to "back the JV partners into a corner" will continue to hurt Woodside for some time.
    It is time wasted,money spent-no returns,bad publicity,lost trust,huge loss of face,reputations smashed,little good could be said of it as the community rifts and splits will not heal for a very long time.

    The distrust will flow over to other Kimberley projects as people remember,"look what happened to that mob that backed Woodside".

    For Coleman it was a nightmare of being locked into 3 tainted projects by his predecessor Voelte,Pluto built with no gas to expand.Sunrise with relations with Timor Leste trashed.And a hopeless plan for Browse at JPP that had him locked into the worst possible site for an LNG hub technically,environmentally,culturally,and heritage wise,no social license and only a corrupted vote rigged by the KLC to point to.

    Coleman has had to spend his first 2 years dealing with Voeltes mess and he still has Sunrise to go,and eventually a decision on the delayed Pluto expansion.

    Leviathan has a long way to go and there are a lot of arguments raging in Israel over how the gas should be used and developed.
    Myanmar are trying to change their government from one of systemic corruption to transparency and how foreign investors will come out of that is a guess at best.

    ...


    Rivals look to poach Woodside staff as company shifts growth focus


    RIVALS increasingly are targeting Woodside Petroleum as a source of new employees, with the company's recent decision to axe its $45 billion-plus James Price Point liquefied natural gas development and its new focus on dividends set to accelerate poaching in an already red-hot labour market.

    .

    The decision to abandon the original James Price Point plan for Browse has seen Santos pick up the project's lead development geologist, Richard Osbon, to head the company's geoscience team.

    .

    It's understood at this stage that Woodside is planning to redeploy as many people as possible from its Browse project teams across to its Leviathan gas project

    The project is still several years away from any development decision...There have also been concerns raised in Israel that Leviathan could encounter antitrust issues, given Woodside's partners in the project also own another major Israeli gas field.

    ...

    Mr Coleman said Woodside had some sales contracts from the Pluto and North West Shelf ventures that it operates in Australia coming up for renewal.

    ...

    Myanmar.....

    ...restoring the rule of law is an urgent task for the government and that the work needs to start with the basics such as training law draftsmen and instructing judges and civil servants on how to interpret, apply and implement the law fairly.

    .

    ...opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi last year: “Even the best investment law would be of no use if there were no courts independent and clean enough to administer those laws justly.”

    .

    ...Myanmar to pass first worker safety law.

    .

    ‘Will foreign investment alleviate poverty in Burma?’

    Worryingly, in the last two years land grabbing linked to foreign investment has led to an escalation in conflict in ethnic areas with Burmese troops implicated in serious human rights abuses.

    Burmese activists and the Burma Campaign Australia are calling on the Australian Government to introduce legislation that will require Australian oil, gas and mining companies to publish all payments they make to the Government in Burma. This will help ensure Burma’s leaders are held accountable

    The perception of corruption in Burma is very high, a perception that is well founded. In 2008, a study by the International Monetary Fund found that less than 1% of revenues from gas production made it into the national budget. With a major new gas development, the Shwe Gas Project – which is expected to earn the $29 billion in revenues over 30 years – due to come on stream this year, increasing the transparency of payments from extractive companies to the Burmese Government is of ever greater importance.

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  2. Indigenous rights are the best defence against Canada's resource rush

    .

    It's 2004, and Manuel is on a typical mission. Part of a line of distinguished Indigenous leaders from western Canada.
    Manuel is what you might call an economic hit-man for the right cause. A brilliant thinker trained in law

    Which is why he secured a meeting in New York with a top-ranking official at Standard & Poor's that issues Canada's top-notch AAA rating.

    This coveted credit rating is Manuel's target. His line of attack is to try to lift the veil on Canada's dirty business secret: that contrary to the myth that Indigenous peoples leech off the state, resources taken from their lands have in fact been subsidizing the Canadian economy. In their haste to get at that wealth, the government has been flouting their own laws... Canada has become very rich, and Indigenous peoples very poor.

    In other words, Canada owes big. According to economist Fred Lazar, First Nations in northern Ontario alone are owed $32 billion. Manuel's argument is that this unpaid debt – a massive liability of trillions of dollars carried by the Canadian state, which it has deliberately failed to report – should be recognized as a risk to the country's credit rating.

    .

    But here was the hitch: Standard & Poor's wouldn't acknowledge the debt, because the official didn't think Manuel and First Nations could ever collect it.

    "Who will able to enforce the debt? You and what army?"

    This was his brutal but illuminating admission: Indigenous peoples may have the law on their side, but they don't have the power.

    .

    The stakes could not be greater. The movement confronts a Conservative Canadian government aggressively pursuing $600 billion of resource development on or near Indigenous lands. That means the unbridled exploitation of huge hydrocarbon reserves, including the three-fold expansion of one of the world's most carbon-intensive projects, the Alberta tar sands. Living closest to these lands, Indigenous peoples are the best and last defence against this fossil fuel scramble.

    No surprise, then, about the government's basic approach toward First Nations: "removing obstacles to major economic development." Hence the movement's next stage – a call for defiance branded Sovereignty Summer – is to put more obstacles up. The assertion of constitutionally-protected Indigenous and treaty rights – backed up by direct action, legal challenges and massive support from Canadians – is exactly what can create chronic uncertainty for this corporate and government agenda.

    .

    Industry has taken notice. A recent report on mining dropped Canada out of the top spot for miners: "while Canadian jurisdictions remain competitive globally, uncertainties with Indigenous consultation and disputed land claims are growing concerns for some." And if the uncertainty is eventually tagged with a monetary sum, then Canada will, as Manuel warned Standard & Poor's, face a large and serious credit risk. Trying to ward off such a threat, the government is hoping to lock mainstream Indigenous leaders into endless negotiations

    But this bleak outlook intent on a final ransacking of the earth doesn't stand up to the vision the movement offers Canadians. Implementing Indigenous rights on the ground, starting with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, could tilt the balance of stewardship over a vast geography: giving Indigenous peoples much more control, and corporations much less... it is also our best chance to save entire territories from endless extraction and destruction. In no small way, the actions of Indigenous peoples – and the decision of Canadians to stand alongside them – will determine the fate of the planet.

    This new understanding is dawning on more Canadians.

    As Chief Allan Adam from the First Nation in the heart of the Alberta oil patch has suggested, it might be "a long, hot summer."


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  3. Australian minister: I never saw advice against coal port at Great Barrier Reef

    Campaigners say Tony Burke should have ruled out Fitzroy Terminal as soon as government received warnings


    Australia's environment minister said he never saw advice that a proposed coal port posed "extreme" risks – including threats to endangered turtles and a species of dolphin – at the Great Barrier Reef.

    Campaigners said Tony Burke should have ruled out the Fitzroy Terminal as soon as the government received the strongly worded warnings, rather than allow the company to undertake a lengthy environmental impact statement.

    But a spokeswoman said the minister had not seen the 2011 advice and the decision that the $1.2bn project should proceed to assessment was made by a delegate.

    Burke recently described the region where the proposed terminal would operate as "the front lawn of the Great Barrier Reef".

    The warning about the potential impact of the proposed project in the Fitzroy River delta south of Rockhampton was delivered to the federal environment department by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GRMPA), the body responsible for protecting and managing the world heritage-listed reef.

    In its August 2011 advice – released publicly after a freedom of information request by the GetUp! advocacy group – GRMPA said its preliminary risk assessment "has identified seven risks with an extreme consequence rating" due to the proposed project, including extreme consequences "on threatened and migratory species including three species of vulnerable and endangered turtles and the Australian snubfin dolphin."

    GRMPA concluded that the port had "the potential to have unacceptable and high risk impacts on the [Great Barrier Reef] and in particular the flatback turtle and snubfin dolphin populations".

    .

    Burke told Guardian Australia recently that the Fitzroy Terminal, proposed by The Mitchell Group, and a second nearby terminal proposed by mining giant Xstrata, were both in the kind of "relatively untouched and pristine" areas that Unesco's world heritage committee has said should not be subject to further development.

    .

    The Fitzroy Terminal is technically in an existing port area, but in the recent interview with Guardian Australia Burke said: "The area around Balaclava Island is in my view and based on the environmental evidence, relatively untouched and pristine. There are large and important areas of seagrass … it is effectively the front lawn of the Great Barrier Reef."

    ..

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  4. What we stand to lose from FLNG from Barnetts JPP obsession :

    After starting work on $175 billion in LNG terminals on land, developers are considering more than $80 billion in floating projects to keep Australia competitive with suppliers in North America and East Africa.

    ''A lot of people have been saying Australian LNG is now over, it's going to be priced out of the market by US LNG exports and competition from Canada and East Africa,'' said Citigroup analyst Mark Greenwood. ''In our view, we are going to see continued investment in Australia, just a different sort.''

    Advertisement

    The engineering challenges are massive. Shell's Prelude vessel, vying to be the first floating LNG facility in the world, will be as long as the Empire State Building and six times the weight of the largest aircraft carrier.

    Exxon proposes a vessel spanning 495 metres, or seven metres longer than the Shell plant.

    .

    Floating LNG may be almost 20 per cent cheaper than building a project on land for Woodside and its partners in the Browse project, including Shell. Using three offshore vessels to produce the gas would cost an estimated $35 billion, compared with a cost of $43 billion for a new development on land, John Hirjee, an analyst for Deutsche Bank, wrote in an April 12 report.

    That's a cost of $2.92 billion per million metric tonnes of output for a floating LNG project producing 12 million tonnes a year, compared with a $3.58 billion cost for a conventional plant.

    Of the 90 million tonnes a year of new projects that need to be approved globally in the next three years to satisfy LNG demand by the end of the decade, as much as a third may come from proposed floating LNG plants and expansions of onshore developments in Australia, he said.

    Australia's vast gas reserves and proximity to the largest import markets in Asia have put the nation in pole position to meet burgeoning demand in Japan, China and South Korea and become the world's biggest exporter within the decade.


    .........


    Australia's tourism set to top predictions

    Australia's tourism industry is on track to be worth $115 billion by 2020, $18 billion more than predicted, the nation's tourism board says.

    The nation has seen growth in both international and domestic tourists in the past three years despite the high Australian dollar.

    The industry was worth $69 billion in 2010 and was predicted to grow to $97 billion within a decade.

    However, the industry will surpass this prediction and is set to hit $115 billion, Tourism Australia boss Andrew McEvoy says.

    The organisation set a goal for the industry to be worth between $115 billion and $140 billion by 2020.

    "The good news is that after three good years we're on track to get to the bottom end of that," he told reporters at the Australian Tourism Exchange (ATE) in Sydney on Friday.

    According to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, Australia ranks 42nd for international tourist arrivals.

    "But we're number eight in the world for tourism receipts, that's spend by visitors in our country," Mr McEvoy said.

    "We are in many ways a boutique destination that will never win in volume but can win for yield."

    Last year 6.1 million international tourists flocked to Australia, up five per cent on the previous year.

    The number of Chinese visitors accounted for about a third of the growth, with 626,000 Chinese heading Down Under last year compared to 542,000 in 2011.

    By 2020 the Chinese tourism market is predicted to be worth $7.4 billion to $9 billion to the Australian economy.
    More than 1300 delegates from 500 Australian tourism operations and 700 international tourism wholesalers will attend the ATE from April 26-30.

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    Replies
    1. Of all the rotten luck.Here we are with Chinese tourism about to boom and the Shire and their useless developer mates have lost Chinatown!

      Why do we put up with these people?

      I hope they aren't planning to charge ratepayers to find Chinatown again - it's all at the bottom of the rubbish dump.

      That cost on top of the waste chasing the gas hub - a project not even approved.


      These people are costing us a fortune while destroying our town and community.

      Out with the lot of 'em NOW!!!

      Delete
  5. Hi Ho the rush is on.....


    April 26 (LNGJ) - The shale-gas boom in the US, opening the way for LNG exports, is illustrated by the US Energy Information Administration pointing to the fact that net imports of natural gas via pipeline from eastern Canada into the Northeast US this past winter averaged 1.06 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), less than half of the five-year average of 2.14 Bcf/d. Imports from eastern Canada into the US have been decreasing every year since 2007, the EIA stated. This also points to the need for Canada to get moving more urgently on its own LNG export plans, analysts said.

    ...


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  6. OK so there has to be a reason for all this.

    Are they deliberately ignoring these opportunities so as they can continue on with their dark plans to rip up the Kimberley?

    Anyone who really wanted to have a future with jobs in the Kimberley would be looking at this mornings headlines and thinking "a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush - let's get on with it and get everything we can out of FLNG and our worldwide tourism exposure from the "No Gas Campaign".Indigenous eco tourism is a major growth industry lets build on what we have.

    ...


    "Finance Minister Penny Wong says the nation has to deal with "a new economic reality".

    A $12 billion tax revenue hole.

    ..

    Mining construction boom to end this year

    "Really the mining sector has taken it right over the top. The decline in mining investment from here is the key reason why the overall engineering construction market is heading for decline."

    Mr Hart says future economic growth in Australia will hinge on a recovery in housing and non-resources investment.

    "There may be a gap between the engineering construction market not providing growth and getting growth in other parts of the economy," he said.

    ...

    Slowdown hits hopes for mining jobs

    According to figures from Mackie Employer Solutions, staff turnover at mining companies has fallen nearly 5 per cent over the past six months to 14.8 per cent annually - a figure not seen since the global financial crisis.

    ...

    Barnett flags tough Budget cuts

    Colin Barnett has foreshadowed cuts to services and programs in a later than usual August State Budget in "tougher" financial circumstances.

    Despite delivering Budgets in the midst of the global financial crisis during his first term, the Premier said: "I think this term of Government is certainly going to be tougher financially than the first term.

    "There are obvious reasons for that. Some of the heat has gone out of the mining industry. We continue to see a rapid deterioration in our share of the GST and we are constrained by our high level of debt."


    Opposition Leader Mark McGowan said any financial problems Mr Barnett had were of his own making through "massive" increases to recurrent spending and debt since the Liberal-National Government was elected in 2008.

    "He did inherit incredibly low levels of debt and he has blown it to record levels," Mr McGowan said.

    "When you say you want to wind up programs … I would hope they don't affect the most needy in the community."

    ...

    Farmers turn up heat on Barnett

    WA's main rural lobby group will turn up the heat on Colin Barnett over his $7.8 million farm aid package by targeting Liberal and WA Nationals backbenchers.

    ...


    Housing unaffordable for people on welfare: report

    Anglicare Australia has released a new report on rental affordability which finds it is becoming almost impossible for people on welfare to afford to rent a home.

    Anglicare surveyed more than 56,000 rental properties across the country.

    It found less than 1 per cent of those properties were affordable for people on government benefits

    Only 8.5 per cent of properties were affordable for families of four living on the dual minimum wage.

    Anglicare Australia executive director Kasy Chambers says the findings are alarming.

    ...

    Queensland considering closing some state schools, says John-Paul Langbroek


    THE Queensland government says it is considering closing state schools to save money, but hasn't yet determined how many.

    ........


    So are we going to be punished for the JPP hub falling over?

    Where are our business and political leaders now we have a real chance at something and not just some pie in the sky nonsense?

    Methinks we need new people to lead us in Broome and the West Kimberley or we will pay the price for letting these rorters keep their places.

    With a bit of investment even Derby could compete for a slice of the FLNG pie - but what's happening are they all giving up?





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    Replies
    1. And it could get a whole lot worse.
      Abbott and Hockey are getting ready for lots of budget cuts.

      GONSKI and the national disability insurance scheme for starters.

      They will quite likely use the 457 visas to undercut wages for Australians and to save on training."Make an otherwise unprofitable project viable".

      There are fears we are heading back into the drought cycle that we had before all the mega floods.

      The Great Barrier Reef was described by Bob Irwin this morning as "a war zone".

      We better get moving or all the old reasons why the Kimberley needs to be ripped up will be used all over again.

      Delete
  7. Greenhouse gas levels highest in 3m years

    Carbon dioxide concentrations in the Earth's atmosphere are on the cusp of reaching 400 parts per million for the first time in 3 million years.

    The daily CO2 level, measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, was 399.72 parts per million last Thursday, and a few hourly readings had risen to more than 400 parts per million.

    ''I wish it weren't true but it looks like the world is going to blow through the 400 ppm level without losing a beat,'' said Ralph Keeling, a geologist with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the US, which operates the Hawaiian observatory.

    .

    The last time CO2 reached the symbolic milestone of 400 parts per million in the atmosphere - in the Pliocene era - temperatures rose by between 3 and 4 degrees and sea levels were between five and 40 metres higher than today. Carbon dioxide levels have been rising steadily since constant measurements began at the Hawaiian observatory in 1958, when the level was about 317 parts per million.

    Levels of more than 400 parts per million have been recorded at a few polar monitoring stages in the past year but the Mauna Loa Observatory readings are considered the most definitive.

    The finding comes as Australia's Climate Commission was set to issue a new report into global action to reduce emissions.

    .

    The US and, particularly, China are starting to move into leadership positions on greenhouse gas reductions, the report, titled The Critical Decade: Global Action Building on Climate Change, says.

    The rise in coal use in China had slowed substantially and renewable energy had expanded on a massive scale, the report said. Wind power generation in China had increased almost 50-fold between 2005 and 2012, and new solar power capacity had risen by 75 per cent last year and was expected to triple by 2015.

    Australia had doubled its renewable energy capacity between 2001 and 2012 but was at some risk of being left behind by other nations, Climate Commission chief commissioner Tim Flannery said.

    "There are a lot of opportunities for Australia but the world is changing quickly and we need to be prepared,'' Professor Flannery said. ''We are the 15th largest emitter in the world, larger than 180 other countries. We are more influential than most of us think."

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  8. The Dark Side of Energy Independence

    JUST as the world was writing off America as a declining power, the country now finds itself on the cusp of realizing one of its longstanding goals: energy independence.

    A wave of new technologies has made it possible to extract oil and gas from shale rock formations, and the results have been astonishing. By some estimates, the United States is on track to overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil producer as early as 2017, start exporting more oil and gas than it imports by 2025, and achieve full energy self-sufficiency by 2030.

    American politicians in both parties have long dreamed of energy independence — not only for its potential economic benefits, but also because it could free the United States from the vicissitudes of the outside world.

    .

    But that is a fantasy. While the latest energy revolution will be a boon to America’s economy, it will in no way allow the United States to turn its back on the rest of the world.

    That’s because America’s oil and gas bonanza will drive down global energy prices, undercutting the foundations of petrostates everywhere. According to Francisco Blanch, the head of commodities research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, oil could fall to just $50 a barrel within the next two years, which could unleash unrest in regions crucial to American interests. Far from releasing the United States from the burden of global leadership, this process would force Washington to assume an even greater international role than it currently plays.

    .

    Consider Bahrain, which earns 70 percent of its revenues through petroleum production and refining. The small island monarchy has undergone deeply destabilizing protests since the start of the Arab Spring. A drop in global energy prices would hurt the already weak government, breathing new life into opposition forces.

    .

    Even more alarming is the prospect of instability in Saudi Arabia. In 2011, the Saudi royal family was able to head off an Arab Spring-style revolution because of its enormous oil revenues, doling out $130 billion in benefits to pacify the country’s younger and poorer inhabitants. Should lower oil prices make such patronage impossible in the future, the kingdom could face domestic unrest — making the country a far less reliable partner for America in fighting terrorism and countering Iran. Moreover, if Saudi Arabia has less of its own money to spend on regional security, Washington will have to make up for the shortfall.

    .

    Outside the Middle East, declining global energy prices could have equally destabilizing effects. Russia rode its way out of the post-Soviet doldrums on a wave of rising revenues from oil and natural gas sales. Today, roughly half the country’s 83 regions could not stay afloat without federal aid, which President Vladimir V. Putin has been able to supply generously thanks to huge oil profits.

    .

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  9. cont...

    As in the gulf monarchies, such transfers have allowed the government to neutralize political opposition. But discontent is still on the rise, as evidenced by the occasional protests that have shaken Moscow since 2011. Even a temporary drop in oil prices would constrain Mr. Putin’s ability to pay off his enemies: experts at the Russian School of Economics predict that the country’s oil wealth fund, a stash of petrodollars reserved for times of need, would be depleted if prices fell to $60 a barrel for just one year.

    .

    Many will argue that an energy-independent America could simply retreat into isolationism during such a period of turbulence. But American engagement abroad has never been purely about securing access to energy. The United States has benefited as much as any other country from the free exchange of goods, the safety of global sea lanes, the spread of democracy and the great-power stability that have characterized the entire post-World War II era. None of this could exist without the steadying hand of American power. Washington must make abundantly clear that it will continue to uphold this world order — irrespective of its own energy fortunes.

    Americans should cheer the energy revolution. It will do wonders for the American economy, and the democratic politics it could encourage in the Middle East and Russia may ultimately serve American interests. But in the meantime, Washington should expect a world far less stable than the one it is used to — and, in turn, prepare to adopt an even more outward-looking foreign policy.

    ..............


    SO THAT'S GREAT NEWS - FRACKING DELIVERS MORE POLLUTION - AND MORE WARS!

    WHY DON'T THEY SENSE IT'S ALL OVER?

    ReplyDelete