So, when climate change burst onto the scene in 1988, I doubt too many hardcore environmentalists were surprised.(1) Carbon dioxide gets a few pages in the 1972 'Limits to Growth' book, which went through numerous printings. The earliest Australian book I have been able to find (so far!) is this - 'Environmental Boomerang', published in... Continue Reading →
Professor Kevin Anderson is what they call a mensch. For years he has been fearlessly reporting on what we are actually tipping into the open sewer we call our atmosphere. Not what we are promising to emit, or what we would like to believe we are emitting, but what is actually going up. He ties... Continue Reading →
Born on April 20, during its first three weeks People's Park was used by both university students and local residents, and local Telegraph Avenue merchants voiced their appreciation for the community's efforts to improve the neighborhood.[7][11] Objections to the expropriation of university property tended to be mild, even among school administrators. However, Governor Ronald Reagan... Continue Reading →
I went to a conference (see my critique here) that had some nuggets of gold. One of them was a short and engaging presentation by one Bill Dunn. There's a longer paper that I hope to link to, but for now, based on scribbled notes, here are those 8 reasons 1. The term is used... Continue Reading →
You'd think an academic conference - attended by people with the willingness to think and criticise, and a hunger for a transformed world – would be looking at the questions of what what went wrong, of how the 'revolutionary' fervour of “1968” gave us not the new Jerusalem, but the new Las Vegas. 'Neo-liberalism' (see... Continue Reading →
Did I ever mention I do a blog about climate history (with a bias to Australia and the US)? According to (my ability to search) Factiva, on this day in 1996 came the first mention (by name) of the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network, in an article called When green and gold don't mix The Australian... Continue Reading →
The Government's position was explained in a speech given by the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, in the lead up to the Kyoto Conference in 1997, in which he stated: A significant proportion of the Australian economy is currently geared toward the production of emission intensive products. As a result, the abatement costs in Australia are... Continue Reading →
UPDATE: See this EXCELLENT piece by Ian Dunlop on how the Australian elites have fundamentally failed us on climate change [minor corrections spotted by eagle-eyed people, and corrected] The Australian climate policy soap opera is a bit like the TV show Neighbours. It’s been going since the late 80s. It survived the departure of some... Continue Reading →
At the end of 2005, climate change was still a 'non-issue' for most Australian voters and politicians at the Federal level. Two years later the incumbent Coalition Government was swept from power in what has been called 'the first climate change election' (Rootes, 2008). This paper describes what happened, offers explanation as to why it... Continue Reading →
What's womjep? "Woman in jeopardy," in which our heroine is beset on all sides by untrustworthy men, and is (usually) saved by her own nous but also seen and unseen heroic men. [I think I may owe it to Christopher Buckley, in his awesome 'Thank You for Smoking'). The go-to example is the Julia Roberts... Continue Reading →
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