ABC Television - ABC1 - Catalyst - 8:00pm Thursday, October 04 2012

ABC Television - ABC1 - Catalyst - 8:00pm Thursday, October 04 2012: Catalyst - Series 13, Episode 19
Series Synopsis

Australia's premier science investigation series.


Tracking Australia's dinosaurs in the Kimberley, Diagnosing Mental Illness; Making computer games feel real; Sizing up our DNA?

Kimberley Dinosaurs

Written in the sandstone, along the rocky platforms of the pristine Dampier Peninsula north of Broome, is a dinosaur story from 130 million years ago. Here, palaeontologists have recorded the track types of more than sixteen different dinosaurs including the biggest to ever walk the earth. The tracks are also culturally significant in that they are woven into the Aboriginal songlines and creation stories. Mark Horstman witnesses the discovery of the biggest dinosaur footprint ever found and reports on the threat to the security of the dinosaur tracks posed by a massive industrial development.

Protest on a pole locks out Woodside staff (video) GWN7 - Yahoo!7

Protest on a pole locks out Woodside staff (video) GWN7 - Yahoo!7

Traditional Owners at protest site this morning.

Woodside employees locked out

2nd October 2012

• Aerial protest locks Woodside out of their Broome Office • Protest in response to Woodside attempting to gain DIA permissions to enter the culturally important sand dunes at James Price Point • Woodside placed on notice by Broome community – more protests to come No gas campaigners have today locked Woodside Petroleum staff out of their Broome offices, with Broome community member George Bishop suspended 8 metres of the ground on a pole connected by ropes to the office entrances. Any attempt to remove the rope and unblock the doors will drop the pole, and Mr Bishop, to the ground. The action comes in response to Woodside’s furthering their campaign to gain access in to the culturally important sand dunes at James Price Point. The dunes contain numerous Indigenous heritage sites, including burial grounds. It was revealed last Wednesday that Woodside’s access to the dunes will be discussed by the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Committee (ACMC) in their next meeting, with the ACMC making a recommendation on whether work should proceed to the Minister for Indigenous Affairs. “The community here has no confidence in the Barnett Government’s ability to make a decision based on anything other than their desire to force through the gas hub at James Price Point.” Said Nik Wevers of the Broome Community No Gas Campaign “We’ve seen a corruption of process within government with conflicts of interest in the EPA, and within the last month it has come to light that government and Woodside have colluded to suppress information about the cultural significance of the area” “Scores of people have been arrested keeping Woodside out of Country and the people of Broome have always said that Woodside going in to the dunes will be when the direct action campaign really flares up. I have spoken to large numbers of people who have said that they are ‘saving’ their arrest for Woodside’s attempt to enter the dunes.” “Today we’re putting Woodside on notice – they must stay out of the dunes or they will face the full force of the Broome community” concluded Wevers For images or more information, please contact Frances Myles on 0450 498 344.

Catalyst: Next on Catalyst - ABC TV Science

Catalyst: Next on Catalyst - ABC TV Science:
(04/10/2012)

Dinotracks_Kimberley Dinosaurs

Kimberley Dinosaurs

Mark Horstman hunts for dinosaurs in the Kimberley to see fossil footprints never revealed before. But just as science begins to appreciate their significance, the integrity of these diverse trackways are threatened by a massive industrial development. NEW SCIENTIST - Crecaceous Coastline 4 August 2012 No 2876

IF YOU stand on the clifftop at James Price Point in Western Australia and look out over the rocky foreshore, you will see a landscape that has been practically undisturbed since the early Cretaceous. The sandstone is pockmarked by oval pools 1.5 metres long - the fossilised footprints of herds of giant dinosaurs. The 130-million-year-old footprints are dotted down 200 kilometres of shoreline on the Dampier peninsula. But palaeontologists say the small section found at James Price Point is particularly significant, and are dismayed that this is precisely where one of the world's largest plants for liquefied natural gas is to be built. Last month, Western Australia's Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) recommended that the state's environment minister approve a project to build a 25-square-kilometre facility on James Price Point to liquefy and export gas from the offshore Browse basin (see map above).

Concert for the Kimberley | Fed Square

Concert for the Kimberley | Fed Square

Published on Sep 27, 2012 by Paul Bell Natures Organics teams up with Save the Kimberley to help raise awareness of the campaign against the industrialisation of the Kimberley.

Gas refineries do blow up.

Around 10:45 (local time) on September 18, there was a loud explosion in the refinery TAMPS (belonging to Petroleos Mexicanos-PEMEX), located in the southwest of the city of Reynosa, in the state Tamaulipas, Mexico. 26 workers have died as a result of the virulent explosion and subsequent fire that devastated part of the plant. Another 46 employees were injured in varying degrees.

Let us hope the days of the cargo cult are over

Let us hope the days of the cargo cult are over:
The story of Gunns is a parable of corporate hubris. You can, as they did, corrupt the polity, cow the media, poison public life and seek to persecute those who disagree with you. You can rape the land, exterminate protected species, exploit your workers and you can even poison your neighbours. But the naked pursuit of greed at all costs will in the end destroy your public legitimacy and thus ensure your doom. Gunns was a rogue corporation and its death was a chronicle long ago foretold. The sadness is in the legacy they leave to Tasmania—the immense damage to its people, its wildlands, and its economy.

Dred the Dredging

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3593812.htm

Gladstone has been an industrial port for several decades now. And there's evidence from other ports in the world that marine life can get sick if the heavy metals and mud are stirred up from the sea floor of harbours like this. So here's the question - could all the dredging that's going on here to expand the port cause disease in fish and crabs?

One one side of Port Curtis, a deeper channel is being dug for six new terminals to load giant ships with coal seam gas. The dredged mud is pumped behind a bund wall to reclaim more than 200 hectares of land for the Gladstone Ports Corporation. The rest of the mud is dumped outside the harbour, into the Coral Sea. Fish veterinarian, Dr Matt Landos believes marine life is being contaminated.

Dredge volumes proposed at James Price Point had to be revised from 21 million cubic metres to 34 million cubic metres of material, with dredging activities estimated to be an ongoing battle for years because some of the largest tides in the world are experienced at James Price Point.

The Premier called it an unremarkable piece of coastline.

Mr Barnett said "the James Price Point site was "literally a pinprick"  in the Kimberley, on land that
wasn't spectacular coastline.

COLIN BARNETT: "It’s a it’s a pretty piece of, ah, beach, but when I use the word unremarkable, uh, I’m making the point that this is not the spectacular Kimberley coast that you see in picture postcards". 

Gas hub appeals reviewer wraps up meetings - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Gas hub appeals reviewer wraps up meetings - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation):

"The dredging program was a concern. The impact on marine fauna had a significant level of concern," he said.

"I suppose the thing that concerns me as much as anything is the vine thickets that will be impacted by the development. They were all significant concerns with the appellants."

Dr Green says the Broome meetings made him aware of issues and information he was not previously aware of.

Woodside Petroleum Limited : Western Australian Government Confines Browse Gas Processing To James Price Point | 4-Traders

Woodside Petroleum Limited : Western Australian Government Confines Browse Gas Processing To James Price Point | 4-Traders:

The site, north of Broome, faces opposition from environmental groups and some traditional land owners, while some analysts have suggested it would be cheaper to pipe gas from the offshore Browse fields hundreds of kilometres south to existing processing facilities at Karratha.

"Legislation to ensure the Browse LNG Precinct is the only site for processing Browse Basin gas on the Kimberley coast was today introduced into State Parliament," the Western Australian Government said in a statement.

The Bill Number is 308 and was introduced and first and second read in today.

               

The purpose of the Bill is to ratify, and authorise the implementation of, an agreement between the State, the Native Title Party (for and on behalf of the Native Title Claim Group in relation to the Native Title Claim), as each is defined in the agreement, and the Kimberley Land Council Aboriginal Corporation, relating to the establishment of a liquefied natural gas precinct in the vicinity of James Price Point in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, and for incidental and other purposes. If it is a State Agreement then the content of the agreement cannot be amended or even broadly debated as all we will be dealing with is agreeing in both houses to the agreement.

Get excited people! This will be one awesome gig to protect the Kimberley.

"Concert for the Kimberley" featuring two of Australia's most celebrated musical icons – John Butler Trio and Clare Bowditch will perform at a free open-air concert in Melbourne’s Federation Square on Friday, October 5, from 6pm to 9pm.

With messages from Missy Higgins and an address from Bob Brown, this is shaping up to

be a night to remember. Spread the word! Tell your friends! See you there!

The concert will also be broadcast live around the world at www.concertforthekimberley.com.au

"Concert for the Kimberley"
Who: John Butler Trio and Clare Bowditch
Where: Federation Square, Melbourne
When: Friday, October 5, 6-9pm
How much: FREE (donations welcome for the Protect the Kimberley campaign)

Carmen Lawrence on the social cost of mining - Sunday Extra - ABC Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Carmen Lawrence on the social cost of mining - Sunday Extra - ABC Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Around 60 per cent of Australian mining takes place on or next to Aboriginal land.

That can be a source of economic benefit and employment for Aboriginal people, but mining can also bring calamitous destruction of land and heritage.

We asked Carmen Lawrence how we can balance a resources-led economy with respect for the world's most ancient living culture?

I have the great privilege of chairing the Heritage Council, so I’m learning as I go, but I think it’s clear that we’re often asking Aboriginal people to trade off their heritage for economic benefits and employment, often benefits that they should enjoy without having to destroy their own heritage, and I think that’s what’s happened in the Kimberley around the gas hub.  But, you know, at the base, we really don’t fully understand, I think, the significance.  We should, because Aboriginal people have been telling us for long enough that this really matters to them, that they don’t divide their lives up into little bits and pieces, that these are all interconnected, the language, the law, the place, it’s connected with their traditional owners, their ancestors, but with, you know, contemporary livelihoods and senses of themselves.  And it’s no accident, I think, that people who seek to destroy cultures, destroy heritage first and foremost.  I’m not saying now, that that’s systematically intended, but it certainly was part of the original story of indigenous disposition and the stolen generation, that was an explicit attempt to remove culture from Aboriginal people".

"

The Dinosaurs of Broome 22 27 Australian Age of Dinosaurs Jan 2012

Massive gas projects hang all hopes on price

Massive gas projects hang all hopes on price:
PUBLISHED: 17 Sep 2012 18:08:06 | UPDATED: 18 Sep 2012 00:01:37
LNG projects on Curtis Island, near Gladstone in Queensland, are expected to come online in 2015.

Alexandra Cain

Three liquefied natural gas plants are under construction in Queensland to meet expected high demand from Asia. It is hoped they will profit from an increase in the gas price. The costs of extraction are expected to increase as thousands of wells are drilled. There is a lull in the negotiation of long-term contracts.

This is the REALITY of an LNG Greenfield ...

Do you want this at James Price Point?

The once lovely Curtis Island on the barrier reef. And this is just the start. Hello gas station pumping our gas to China. Bye bye pristine waters from run off and pollution from passing ships, bye bye dugongs, wildlife and fragile coral ecosystems from dredging and silty sludge for miles up the coast. This is so disgraceful. I'm so bloody angry.

Amanda Shoebridge's Photo

 WRITE TODAY: to the Joint Venture Partners, letters, email address, postal address, all found here at the link: https://www.facebook.com/notes/protect-the-kimberley/campaign-target-5-joint-venture-partners-email-today-/487196287966270

 

Doubt aired over Indigenous heritage laws - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Doubt aired over Indigenous heritage laws - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation): The chairman of the National Native Title Council, Nolan Hunter, says that sends a clear message about where native title land stands in the mining sector.

"If there is a legislative framework that requires protection of Aboriginal heritage sites and it isn't enforced, what is the signal that sends about what people may hope to expect from getting proper heritage protection?" he said.

"It just means that the priority or the undervaluing of heritage in Western Australia is of a lesser interest compared to the broader interests of the community and ... it's not very appropriate given the State Government is currently reviewing the Aboriginal Heritage Act."

Project X @ woodside compound at James Price Point

 Project X @ woodside compound at James Price Point

For more pictures follow the link

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Premier says mining will sustain the economy - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 Barnett said "My state has been variously described as a dig it up, ship it out economy. Not true. The scale, the technology and the science that goes into mining is world leading, absolutely world leading.

"Other people think that we're just China's quarry, no, that's not true, and others think we're just bogans and billionaires. Well, if we are, we know what we're doing, just leave us alone."