Read this and weep (with laughter) Australia’s electricity and gas transmission industry is calling on the Turnbull government to implement a form of carbon trading in the national electricity market by 2022 and review the scope for economy-wide carbon pricing by 2027. Energy Networks Australia warns in a new report examining how to achieve zero... Continue Reading →
Director Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie originally conceived of The Usual Suspects as five felons meeting in a police line-up. Eventually, a powerful underworld figure responsible for their meeting was added to the plot. McQuarrie combined this plot with another idea of his based on the true story of John List, who murdered his... Continue Reading →
So, imma try to join dots between The Last of Sheila, Australian climate politics and Bobby de Niro as Louis Cypher, with a little Clarice Starling, 'Parker,' Gene Hackman and Julian Rathbone thrown in for good measure. It all starts with this, from my PhD thesis research - The incredible Lenore Taylor wrote a piece in... Continue Reading →
James Garner was a cool American actor. He had starred as ‘Maverick’ in a 1950s comedy-drama Western TV series. In the 1970s he was James Rockford, a private-eye (“two hundred dollars a day plus expenses”) in a genre-shifting TV show called ‘The Rockford Files’ (1). What the hell has this got to do with sustainability in... Continue Reading →
Professor Aleh Cherp, Central European University (Hungary) and University of Lund (Sweden) yesterday gave a seminar titled 'Connecting national energy transitions with changes in urban energy systems', at the University of Manchester. This below is mostly rough notes, and I may have mangled, so please don’t take as gospel. Mostly it’s an aide-memoire and ‘things... Continue Reading →
The very cool people at Beyond Zero Emissions, on 3CR (community radio in Melbourne) interviewed in November. Here's a link to their page about it. (it's cut and paste below) BZE radio talks to Marc Hudson: Marc is studying the strategic responses of the Australian coal industry to the challenge of climate change. He is... Continue Reading →
Guy Rundle is a dude, a mensch. Never met him, but his by-line is always an invitation to intelligent, incisive analysis with a fearsome background knowledge. This, from his Quarterly Essay on Clive Palmer, nails it, imho - But there is another, and more important, reason why the now sclerotic apparatus of Australian government is... Continue Reading →
Journalism eh? But what is to be done, at a systemic level? [Rob] Chalmers, although a Labor sympathiser, put all politicians through the ringer. He refused to socialise with them and was disdainful of the trend towards celebrity journalism and the insidious practice of reporters being 'on the drip' – getting stories from politicians and... Continue Reading →
Update: Mr Frydenberg has backflipped clumsily on a carbon price. Oops The soap opera that is the Australian Prime Ministership goes on. In the 32 years between December 1975 and November 2007 we had four prime ministers (Fraser, Hawke, Keating, Howard). In the five years between June 2010 and September 2015 we had five (Rudd,... Continue Reading →
Faster faster Faster is the master Break faster Eat eat eat The speed, the speed is all you’ll ever need to... No. Slow as you go. Slow food, slow violence. Slow down down Escape velocity. We cannot escape velocity, you , you yokel. You too vocal local yokel, lacking in veracity. True... Continue Reading →
