Photo Damian Kelly
ACTION OF THE DAY
A MAJOR national bank has been forced to remove more than 100 misleading out of order signs from its ATMs after being targeted by anti-coal activists.
A MAJOR national bank has been forced to remove more than 100 misleading out of order signs from its ATMs after being targeted by anti-coal activists.
A score of ANZ Banking Group machines sprawled across six capital cities were plastered with "out of order" signs on Sunday after campaigners launched their latest bid to draw attention to the bank's funding of the coal industry.
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Europe has failed to learn the lessons from many environmental and health disasters like Chernobyl, leaded petrol and DDT insecticides, and is now ignoring warnings about bee deaths, GM food and nanotechnology, according to an 800-page report by the European Environment Agency.
ReplyDeleteThousands of lives could have been saved and extensive damage to ecosystems avoided if the "precautionary principle" had been applied on the basis of early warnings, say the authors of the 2013 Late Lessons from Early warnings report published on Wednesday.
They accuse industry of working to corrupt or undermine regulation by spinning and manipulating research and applying pressure on governments for financial benefit. "[It has] deliberately recruited reputable scientists, media experts and politicians to call on if their products were linked to possible hazards. Manufacturing doubt, disregarding scientific evidence of risks and claiming over-regulation appear to be a deliberate strategy for some industry groups and think tanks to undermine precautionary decision-making."
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Climate change has shrunk Andean glaciers between 30 and 50% since the 1970s and could melt many of them away altogether in coming years, according to a study published on Tuesday in the journal Cryosphere.
Andean glaciers, a vital source of fresh water for tens of millions of South Americans, are retreating at their fastest rates in more than 300 years, according to the most comprehensive review of Andean ice loss so far.
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Jeffrey Sachs, Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Advisor to the United Nations Secretary‐General on the Millennium Development Goals, gave one of the strongest presentations of the first-ever Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week and the 6th Annual World Future Energy Summit
...natural gas is clean, it is cleaner than coal, but it is absolutely not clean enough to divert us from a trajectory of grave damage on the environment — let’s be clear about that. We use rhetoric, which lulls us to complacency, to say that natural gas is a clean energy source. It is not a low-carbon energy source. It’s low-carbon only in comparison to coal. But it is high-carbon in comparison to what our climate can take.”
“Using gas is like smoking a ‘light’ cigarette. It may contain slightly less harmful substances, but it will still kill you.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court refused on Tuesday to consider reducing the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to set air quality standards, leaving intact a tough new limit on sulfur dioxide emissions in a victory for the Obama administration.
ReplyDeleteWithout comment, the court decided not to hear an appeal by Grupo Mexico SAB's Asarco LLC unit of a lower court ruling that upholds a 2010 EPA rule limiting sulfur dioxide in the air to 75 parts per billion over one hour.
Short-term exposure to sulfur dioxide has been linked to respiratory problems
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The Canadian provincial government of British Columbia said its impending LNG export boom puts the province in the same situation as the European country of Norway 40 years ago when it first made its huge North Sea oil and gas discoveries.
BC Minister Bill Bennett made that comparison when he said the final regulatory paths had been cleared for the Kitimat LNG project being developed by US energy companies Apache Corp. and Chevron Corp. on land belonging to the Haisla First Nation native tribe at Bish Cove on the Pacific coast.
"The opportunity for BC really is on the same scale as for example, Norway, when they discovered they had off-shore oil and gas discoveries, and Alberta when they discovered they had oil and could ship it to the US," Bennett said.
Bennett said the Kitimat LNG project, the first of six proposed for the West Coast, will open up BC's massive shale-gas reserves in the inland northeast of the province to be transported by new pipelines to the coast.
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Inpex Corp. of Japan awarded the front-end engineering and design contract for the Abadi Floating LNG project in the Arafura Sea in Indonesian waters to two groups in a competition for the full engineering, procurement and construction contract.
On top of the multi billion barrels of oil find in Iraq a few days ago,we now have this in South Australia :
ReplyDeleteSouth Australia could be set to become the nation's next resource boom state with claims it's sitting on more than $20 trillion of untapped oil.
An independent report, released by Brisbane company Linc Energy, estimates there could be more than 230 billion barrels of oil in the area surrounding Coober Pedy.
If proven to be true, the company says it has the potential to turn Australia from an oil importer to an oil exporter.
Linc Energy says it has hired Barkclays bank to find an investment partner to take the project to the next stage.
South Australia's Mineral and Resource Development minister has welcomed the report and says there are some exciting times ahead for the state.
(soon everyone will be an oil exporter)
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Now any sane person,by now,would be scratching their head and thinking,"OK,we have more oil than we could ever need,BUT how the hell do we burn it all?"
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Only good thing in this is if the oil price drops Woodside wont have that to prop up their bad decisions.
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A 14-year battle to renegotiate the original agreement for the Ranger Uranium Mine - surrounded by Kakadu National Park - has been settled.
ReplyDeleteThe new agreement will see Energy Resources of Australia pay increased mining royalties and form a sustainability trust for the Mirrar people.
The executive officer of the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation, Justin O'Brien, says it is a new era of good relations with ERA.
However, he says the Mirrar have missed out on years of appropriate compensation.
"It's a bitter sweet moment for the traditional owners," he said.
Senior traditional owner Yvonne Margarula says the new deal is much fairer.
"Today we happy all Mirrar, but a long time with my father," she said.
"He didn't agree with that mine because they pushed it to go through."
The renegotiated agreement does not apply to ERA's proposed underground mine at Ranger.
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The State Government says it still does not know how many projects are vulnerable to legal challenge because of mistakes made acquiring land.
Late last year, the Government was forced to restart the compulsory acquisition of land north of Broome for the Browse LNG project because the correct process had not been followed.
It was then revealed the same problem, a failure to notify the Native Title Tribunal of the Government intention to take the land, had been made on acquisitions dating back to the 1990's.
The Minister for Lands and Regional Development, Brendon Grylls, says it is taking longer than he had hoped to work out what the implications could be.
"There's an enormous amount of work being done on this," he said.
"We still work on a paper-based system in the department, so essentially this is people going to the back of the warehouse and getting the box out, so it's taking longer than I hoped."
The Opposition Leader Mark McGowan says the Minister needs to ensure the issue is resolved quickly.
"Well this is incompetence by Brendon Grylls at the highest level," he said.
"All I'd say to Mr Grylls is, get on top of your portfolio. Make sure you dot your i's and cross your t's because people across the State need certainty."
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Will this effect the Ord scheme?
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