WHOOP! My second stand-alone article on the excellent reneweconomy site... South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill was in a pugnacious mood at the launch of Climate Wars, the new book by Labor’s shadow climate minister Mark Butler, and let fly at the ‘rightwing f***wits’ (his words) that were keen to use any event to attack renewables. Butler’s book... Continue Reading →
When – not if, but when – I reread James Bradley’s wonderful set of linked short stories, ‘Clade,’ I will be on the lookout for two things; his references to the seasons, and his imagery of flight (in every sense). These short stories, which follow one family from about now, through roughly beyond the middle... Continue Reading →
AMEEF was established in October 1991, as the Ecologically Sustainable Development Process was peaking. One of the first things they did was a listing of all articles environmental, with a lovely cover. Ten years later, it was still going (but would be shut down a bit later). I stumbled across its magazine, Groundwork, recently. Not... Continue Reading →
So, by 1995/6 the whole idea that you might be able to 'green' the Australian Labor Party had kinda fallen apart. The 1993 election had ignored the issues (with Keating particularly aggressive, blah blah true believers blah blah), and despite Environment Minister John Faulkner's best efforts, the proposed carbon tax/levy in 1994/95 died an ignominious... Continue Reading →
Right-winger sometimes try to 'catch out' Noam Chomsky by saying 'well, you critique the mainstream media saying it helps manufacture consent, but you at the same time rely on journalistic accounts to put together your arguments. Are you a hypocrite or what?' (I paraphrase). Chomsky replies that there are many hard-working and diligent journalists who... Continue Reading →
from facebook - here, originally. "This bit of humor was written in April 1988 and appeared in the January 1989 issue of The Physics Teacher. William DeBuvitz was a physics professor at Middlesex County College in Edison, New Jersey (USA). He retired in June of 2000." 'The heaviest element known to science was recently discovered by... Continue Reading →
Thursday 6 Around the park five times Two hours at microfiche tracking down crucial newspaper articles for the carbon tax 1994/1995 story. Dead useful, developed a couple of new tricks of how to get the info v. quickly Good meeting with a research librarian, who was super helpful, and put me onto an academic I... Continue Reading →
So, Monday night I got the parentals, both former hacks, to proof read an article about the interesting comments of a renewables engineer. They did this with aplomb, and I sent the thing off. Tuesday 4th Walked around the park again (5 laps, this time with three logs in the backpack) and then got on... Continue Reading →
A rather interesting event today, high above the mean streets of Adelaide. What place might “technology” (we will come back to the scare quotes) have in helping Adelaide (and South Australia more generally) cope with the slings and arrows of deindustrialisation and globalisation? The event was organised by the Dunstan Foundation (named for the last... Continue Reading →
So, went to an activist meeting that was dominated by a small core of people. Afterwards they were heard agreeing that it was an excellent meeting. And you have to wonder, what were their criteria. I think these. "I got to speak a lot/display my virtue and or intelligence/be the centre of attention" (see also... Continue Reading →
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