AMA BLASTED OVER POSITION STATEMENT ON WIND FARMS & HEALTH

Dr Bruce Rapley, Principal Consultant in Acoustics and Human Health with Atkinson & Rapley Consulting Ltd is one of many people who have written to the Australian Medical Association about their appalling position statement (see post below) on wind farms and health.

“Firstly, line one is a statement regarding the economics of wind turbines which has no place in a statement regarding potential health effects. It is not within your organisation’s professional competence to comment on economic matters and to do so raises questions regarding your credibility and apparent bias.”  Dr Rapley has much more to say which can be read here.

AMA DESCENDS INTO WIND INDUSTRY ADVOCACY

In the established tradition of some self-serving individuals in the medical profession supporting the tobacco and asbestos industries for decades, the Australian Medical Association appears to have thrown caution to the wind in the release in March of their position statement on wind farms and health.

From the opening sentence the position statement reads like a publicity blurb for the wind industry shamelessly extolling how wind energy is an “inexpensive and effective means of energy production” when the empirical evidence demonstrates otherwise.  Furthermore the AMA statement is as brazen as wind industry hype in its certainty that there are no adverse health impacts from wind farm noise. Read more.

MEDICAL COUNCIL SAYS MORE RESEARCH ON WIND FARMS NEEDED

The National Health & Medical Research Council has finally published its long awaited Draft Information Paper: Evidence on Wind Farms and Human Health.

This paper follows years of campaigning for medical and acoustical studies by individuals and groups concerned about health impacts from wind turbine operation. Large multi-national and Australian energy companies, along with global turbine manufacturer Vestas have consistently rubbished claims of adverse health impacts.

Max Rheese writing at OnLine Opinion found that wind turbine noise was not directly measured at participant's homes in any of the studies reviewed by the NHMRC.  Could this possibly mean that the primary location where most of those affected by wind turbine noise and where they suffer the worst effects was not subjected to any on-site noise measurement? You bet.

ENVIRONMENTALISM HAS BECOME A RELIGION

So says environmental scientist James Lovelock originator of the Gaia theory.  Talking about the environmental movement, Lovelock says: "It’s become a religion, and religions don’t worry too much about facts."

What a sad indictment on much of the environmental movement that Lovelock and a growing number of other commentators see the need to point out that many environmentalists have embraced belief and ideology while scorning facts and evidence that do not support their beliefs.

Perhaps this accounts for the fact that less than five per cent of the population actively embrace environmentalism or maybe it’s because the public can see through today’s elitist moralising advocates and ‘big environmentalism’s’ embrace of greenwashing.

THE POVERTY OF RENEWABLES

Professor Bjorn Lomborg of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre and author of The Skeptical Environmentalistwrites of the effects of government climate change policies on people.

“The burden of these policies falls overwhelmingly on the world’s poor, because the rich can easily pay more for their energy. I am often taken aback by well-meaning and economically comfortable environmentalists who cavalierly suggest that gasoline prices should be doubled or electricity exclusively sourced from high-cost green sources.”

WILL FOREST LOCK-UPS AFFECT THE TASMANIAN ELECTION?

As Tasmanians vote in the election on Saturday it seems one of the issues that is going to influence a change of vote for many electors is how forestry and environmental issues have been managed in recent years, if managed is the right word.

Further large extensions to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area were proposed by the Gillard government last year to add to the already highest proportion of World Heritage Area (WHA) in any jurisdiction globally.

Is it just a coincidence that employment in the forest sector continues to decline in a state desperate for job creation while a further 172,000 hectares of forest is proposed to be permanently reserved asks Max Rheese in an article at OnLine Opinion.

PM HAILS FORESTRY WORKERS AS CONSERVATIONISTS

At a ForestWorks dinner in Canberra in early March the Prime Minister in an unequivocal manner told those attending "the nation's forestry workers were not "environmental bandits", as some would argue, but actually "the ultimate conservationists".

In a recasting of the false narrative built up over many years in the media who have generally swallowed hook, line and sinker the environmental alarmism attached to the most renewable resource use, the prime minister made clear he supported the world best practise Australian forest industry.

As The Australian editorialised "Those who work in primary industries - agriculture, forestry and fisheries - have the long-term sustainability of these industries front of mind. Without renewable primary industries, their jobs are at risk. The workers understand this better than anyone."

ELECTRICITY PRICES SKYROCKET IN LARGEST WIND POWER STATES.

Who'd have thunk it!  The totally unremarkable fact now dawning on many people is that electricity bills are highest in countries and states that have the largest amount of wind power in their grids.

What is remarkable is that it has taken so long for this reality to bite when the world-wide practise of electricity consumers being forced to subsidise expensive wind power has been established for over a decade.

South Australia, Denmark, Germany and a string of U.S states that have high levels of wind power unsurprisingly also have the world's highest electricity bills as is highlighted by James Taylor in this article  at Forbes.

CLAIM OF 97% SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS ON CLIMATE ABSURD

Amazingly journalists are still being hoodwinked into printing the absurd claim that 97% of climate scientists agree that anthropogenic emissions are the major cause of climate change.

The flawed paper by John Cook has been debunked so many times it is hard to imagine an informed journalist or politician referencing the 97% consensus claim while keeping a straight face.

A major peer-reviewed paper by four senior researchers has exposed grave errors in an earlier paper in a new and unknown journal that had claimed a 97.1% scientific consensus that Man had caused at least half the 0.7 Cº global warming since 1950.

The new paper by the leading climatologist Dr David Legates and his colleagues, published in the respected Science and Education journal, now in its 21st year of publication, reveals that Cook had not considered whether scientists and their published papers had said climate change was “dangerous”.

The consensus Cook considered was the standard definition: that Man had caused most post-1950 warming. Even on this weaker definition the true consensus among published scientific papers is now demonstrated to be not 97.1%, as Cook had claimed, but only 0.3%.

Only 41 out of the 11,944 published climate papers Cook examined explicitly stated that Man caused most of the warming since 1950. Cook himself had flagged just 64 papers as explicitly supporting that consensus, but 23 of the 64 had not in fact supported it.

WHAT DO ALCOA, FORD, GMH & TOYOTA HAVE IN COMMON?

They all employ a lot of people and use a lot of electricity.  And they all now pay significant carbon taxes.  Except for Alcoa they all pay 60 per cent more for electricity than they did five years ago (along with householders who are also subsidising Alcoa’s cheap electricity).
The other major feature in common is that they are all shutting down – but only in Australia!

Preceding Alcoa’s bad news by just a week is the release of the report documenting the effects of the carbon tax over the preceding year.  The carbon tax relieved Australian businesses of $7 billion (they probably didn’t really need it and would only have wasted it on creating jobs) while reducing emissions by a miniscule 0.3 per cent.

In addition, the extra imposts of the Renewable Energy Target on electricity charges means households and businesses have contributed close to $10 billion via the carbon tax and RET in the last year for no documented or measurable change in global temperature.

Given this whole exercise is supposed to be about the environment: why can no-one tell the people the expected fall in global temperature from the bipartisan target of 5 per cent reduction in emissions by 2020?  Is it because they don’t know or is it a secret?

The carbon tax and RET ‘cure’ is worse than the supposed problem, especially as global temperature has not risen for 17 years.

RET REVIEW ANNOUNCED BY GOVT

A major review into the impact of clean energy on retail power prices is expected to clear the way for the Government to make significant changes to the Renewable Energy Target (RET).

The study of the RET announced on February 17th will be headed by former Reserve Bank board member Dick Warburton and will report back to the Government by the middle of the year.

AEF does not support the RET and its distortion of the electricity market through government mandate, nor the artificially high electricity prices as a result.  AEF welcomes the review of the scheme and the need to abolish the target.

CARBON TAX COST WORSE THAN WARNINGS

Many commentators ridiculed the ‘scare campaign’ against the carbon tax prior to the election saying the effect of the tax would be minimal on costs and substantial on reducing emissions.

National greenhouse accounts released last week show carbon emissions fell just 0.3 per cent in the year to September 2013 for a carbon tax cost of $7 billion.

Age reporter Bianca Hall revisited some of the firms visited by then opposition leader Tony Abbott in his campaign against the carbon tax.

Tony Abbott had visited Sydney brick manufacturer Brickworks Ltd, which trades as Austral Bricks, in September 2011. He predicted the business would lose $2 million a year because of the carbon tax.

But things have been much worse than that, says managing director Lindsay Partridge, a Liberal Party member. ''The real cost to the business has been somewhere between $8 million and $10 million a year,'' he says. Partridge maintains that in 40 years in business, 2012-13 was the worst year, with costs up by about 3 per cent, he estimates.

As AEF said at the start of our campaign against the carbon tax: it would increase costs, send jobs overseas and do nothing for the environment.

JAY WEATHERILL CONTINUES TO PUT COST SAVING BEFORE ‘SAVING’ THE LOWER LAKES

S.A Premier Jay Weatherill was very vocal during the Murray Darling Basin planning process accusing upstream states of disadvantaging S.A’s people and environment.

The man-made Lower Lakes at the end of the Murray Darling system were a central issue with the Premier refusing to consider removing the 7.6 kilometres of sea dykes that hold back the Southern Ocean keeping the lakes artificially freshwater rather than naturally estuarine, thus requiring very large amounts of river water from the Murray to keep the lakes full.

What has gone virtually unnoticed is that S.A continues to plunder the Murray River for Adelaide’s water rather than fully utilise the recently completed desalination plant that delivers dearer water.

Premier Weatherill wants upstream communities who live in the basin catchment to give up food producing water allocations to bolster Adelaide’s water supply because it is cheaper for Adelaide residents, who do not even live in the MD basin.  And we thought he was concerned about the environment of the Lower Lakes!

CONGRESS ACTS ON WIND WELFARE SUBSIDIES

As Australian wind industry lobbyists wring their hands over the federal government’s upcoming review of the Renewable Energy Target which drives the consumer funded subsidies of wind and solar energy making electricity twice as expensive in Australia as the U.S, the U.S congress allowed the Production Tax Credits (similar effect to Australian renewable energy certificates) for the wind industry to expire on December 31st.

The Chicago Tribune editorialised on the subject in early January pulling no punches with its view the subsidies abolishment was overdue saying “Today wind generation is a comparatively expensive proposition that, whenever its tax subsidy temporarily has vanished, has seen the new construction of wind farms all but vanish too. These welfare payments to the industry have incentivized private investors to sink money into wind projects that, without the federal freebie, they're eager (and probably smart) to avoid.

Like its cousins, the ethanol and solar industries, the wind lobby basks in political correctness and political favoritism: Big Wind, too, has grown comfortable in its dependence on federal and state governments that decide which energy industries will be winners or losers — discrimination enforced by squeezing taxpayers or rigging regulations.”

CORAL REEFS MAKE DRAMATIC COME-BACK

In a stunning example of the natural world’s remarkable ability to bounce back from ecological decline, the coral reefs surrounding Little Cayman Island in the Caribbean Sea—all but written off as dead by some marine scientists a decade ago—are rapidly regaining their health. 

Bleaching, blamed by global warming activists on warmer ocean water, and the spread of infectious disease, took a heavy toll on the reefs around the turn of the century. From 1999 to 2004, live coral cover declined by more than 40 per cent. But a 13-year study conducted by the University of Florida and Caribbean researchers and released in November 2013 found the amount of live coral on the reefs, the density of young colonies critical to the reefs’ future health, and the overall size of corals have returned to 1999 levels.

WHY A GROWING NUMBER OF PEOPLE DISBELIEVE THE IPCC

Garth Paltridge, a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, emeritus professor at the University of Tasmania and formerly chief research scientist with the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research queries the certainty of dangerous global warming as expressed by the latest IPCC report.

“All of the above is background to one of the great mysteries of the climate change issue. Virtually all the scientists directly involved in climate prediction are aware of the enormous problems and uncertainties still associated with their product. How then is it that those of them involved in the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) can put their hands on their hearts and maintain there is a 95 per cent probability that human emissions of carbon dioxide have caused most of the global warming that has occurred over the last several decades?”

MOUNTAIN PYGMY-POSSUM RECOVERY A WINNER

Susan Lawler, Head of Department, Department of Environmental Management & Ecology at La Trobe University writes at The Conversation website:

The good news just keeps on coming for the mountain pygmy-possum population at Mt. Buller. A recent article in Wildlife Australia by Ian Mansergh, Dean Heinze, Andrew Weeks and Louise Perrin as well as my own communication with Dean Heinze confirms that the introduction of males from Mt. Hotham has rescued this population from almost certain extinction.

LOTS OF WIND POWER=BIG POWER BILLS

The two European countries with the largest amount of wind power, Denmark and Germany, have the highest electricity bills.  South Australia has the largest percentage of its grid devoted to wind power generation out of all Australian states and has the highest electricity charges.

Denmark produces up to 19 per cent of its electricity from wind power, but exports much of that to Scandinavian countries as much of it is produced at night when not needed.  Denmark has not closed a single coal-fired electricity power station.  Germany is in the process of building 23 new coal-fired power stations to meet demand since closing some nuclear power plants after Fukushima, while importing nuclear generated electricity from France and the Czech Republic to cover the shortfall from closing its own nuclear plants.

Professor Larry Bell warns Americans to learn the bitter lesson from Europe from over-investment in wind power.   The U.K. Telegraph has also reported on Germany's energy woes:

To pay for this green adventure, surcharges on electricity for households have increased by 47pc, or €15bn, in the past year alone. German consumers already pay the highest electricity prices in Europe; before long, the average three-person household will spend around €90 a month for electricity, almost twice as much as in 2000. Currently, more than 300,000 German households a year are seeing their power shut off because of unpaid bills.

THE PARTY IS OVER FOR THE IPCC AND CARBONCRATS

AEF member Jo Nova comments on the January 15th opinion article in The Australian authored by former chairman of the ABC and the ASX, Maurice Newman.

"The debate is gaining nuance: instead of scientists and deniers, there the public starts to see the argument is about shades of grey. The real debate has never been about whether greenhouse gases were real, instead it’s about how much global warming will happen. The cheating tactic of pretending the conflict was about something that nearly everyone agrees upon is like a ticking bomb for alarmists. The fuse has been lit."

The day before, editor of The Spectator,  Tom Switzer wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald of the increasingly difficult time those supporting the theory of dangerous man-made global warming are going to have in maintaining the façade of credibility for their argument.

"Meanwhile, 2013 marked the 15th year of flat-lined global surface temperatures, despite record levels of carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere since 1998. And as the US shale "fracking" revolution shows, the most efficient way to cut emissions is not via command-and-control regulation but by allowing private drillers to expand natural gas production.

Of course, the environmental doomsayers remain apocalyptic. You try going on the ABC's Q&A and raise doubts about global-warming alarmism. You will still see the inner-city studio audience treating you not merely with hostility but with open-mouthed incredulity.

The climate-change Cassandras are increasingly marginalised here and abroad."

FINALLY...A FEDERAL HEALTH STUDY INTO WIND FARMS

After long-running advocacy from AEF, Landscape Guardians and numerous rural communities the Coalition government has announced a study, as recommended by the senate inquiry into wind farms in 2011, into the adverse health impacts from wind turbine operation.

As reported in The Australian: The controversy over wind farms is set to flare again with the Abbott government preparing to commission fresh research on the impact the giant turbines have on nearby residents.

The National Health and Medical Research Council - which only three years ago found no evidence of adverse health effects, but a need for ongoing study - has again been tasked with responding to community concerns and will soon make a targeted call for new research.

Almost a year before its election victory, the Coalition seized on the disquiet over wind farms and promised to examine the renewable energy projects more carefully should it win government, if not through NHMRC research then through a specially appointed independent panel.

WHO HOLDS THE IPCC TO ACCOUNT?

Expert IPCC reviewer John McLean in this article in The Age queries IPCC process and the level of scrutiny it is subject to.

“Journalists are supposed to be sceptical about all claims on all matters but that scepticism is usually absent when dealing with climate issues. Whatever the cause, journalists appear unwilling to question claims, unwilling to ask for the data so they might verify the findings and unwilling to follow-up predictions to see if they were correct. The silence on all these matters tacitly and falsely implies that the IPCC's view is correct and it's an authority on all climate issues.”

WIND FARM NOISE: A GOVT COVER-UP

Journalist with the U.K. Telegraph James Delingpole highlights an article which outlines widespread serious community dissent with wind farm noise in the U.K. eerily similar to the Australian experience.

 "Do wind farms really create a noise nuisance? Can they disturb the sleep of people living close by? Do they cause longer-term ill health? It depends who you talk to. The Government Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) denies a problem exists."

CARBON TAX A 'DEAD WEIGHT' SAYS ENERGY CHIEF; 'A CON' SAYS HUNT

In a blunt assessment of the carbon tax Origin Energy CEO Grant King says it is a dead weight on the economy.

Mr King said that in the first full year of the operation of the carbon tax, emissions in the electricity sector fell by 13 million tonnes. But of this, five million tonnes was basically attributable to lower industrial production and consumers using less power, four million tonnes was attributable to a greater use of hydroelectricity due to higher rainfall, and four million tonnes was attributable to production problems at the Yallourn brown-coal power station in Victoria. "When we look at the first practical year . . . we can see very little evidence that the current carbon pricing scheme has caused reductions in emissions in the energy sector," he said.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt said the figures showed the carbon tax "is a complete con".

However, Peter Hannam from The Age reports: The carbon tax is succeeding in cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the parts of the economy where it applies, Labor and the Greens say, as they vow to resist Abbott government plans to scrap the key climate change policy.

Figures due out later this week from the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory will show emissions for the year to June - the first year of the carbon tax - fell just 300,000 to 545.9 million tonnes, the government said.

The government estimates the carbon tax bill is $8 billion, implying it cost about $26,700 per tonne of emissions abated.

The questions AEF have are: How much emissions reduction did we get for $8 billion over and above reduced demand for electricity? And could that considerable amount of money have been usefully employed elsewhere?

ENVIRONMENTALISTS MUST LEARN FROM HISTORY

The climate is changing, therefore surely that must be a catastrophe?
Warming is becoming a major problem. "A change in our climate," writes one deservedly famous American naturalist, "is taking place very sensibly." Snowfall, he notes, has become "less frequent and less deep." Rivers that once "seldom failed to freeze over in the course of the winter, scarcely ever do so now".

HISTORY SHOULD INFORM FIRE MANAGEMENT

AEF members Vic Jurskis and Roger Underwood argue in this article in the Journal of Fire Ecology that a paucity of low intensity, cool burning not only puts people at risk but biodiversity as well.

"The view of a thickly wooded Australian landscape shaped by infrequent and intense wildfires is unsustainable for two reasons. Firstly, it is totally inconsistent with historical records of Aboriginal fire regimes and vegetation; secondly, it ignores the widespread woody thickening that occurred after Aboriginal culture was disrupted and frequent mild fires no longer maintained the Australian landscape."

WHAT'S IN PLAY WHEN BIG OIL LOBBIES AGAINST COAL?

Jo Nova looks behind the veil at what Royal Dutch Shell are really up to when they ask the World Bank not to fund new coal-fired generators.

"Well, well, well. When Big-Oil fund skeptics, they’re evil polluters. When Big-Oil pay green lobbyists, they’re just being good citizens (see the ads, right?). Naturally Royal Dutch Shell are concerned about the environment, families, rare marsupials and what not. They wouldn’t just be green for the profit would they… oh, wait. Shell is one of the six gas “super majors” and all gas providers profit when coal is unfashionable. In terms of resources, Shell is now more of a gas company than an oil company.

Big-Gas loves wind turbines. Wind farms are fickle and coal power can’t ramp up and down quickly to fill in the gaps, but the more expensive gas can. No wonder Shell are lobbying actively against coal, and for wind."

ONE RELIGION IS ENOUGH SAYS JOHN HOWARD

Global warming activists are as misguided as they are alarmist said John Howard in his address to the Global Warming Policy Foundation in the U.K. in early November.

CLIMATE CHANGE AUTHORITY REPORT “SHEER DRIVEL” SAYS McCRANN

The Climate Change Authority's 177 pages of sheer drivel, released today, as disconnected from reality as an abandoned wind farm is from the grid, comes close to ranking as the high-water mark of the insanity that has engulfed our supposed intellectual and policymaking elites says Terry McCrann writing in the Herald Sun.

WIND FARM LANDHOLDERS DO GET SICK

Much is made of the fact that landholders who host wind farm turbines, and in doing so get well compensated, do not appear to suffer the same ill health as nearby landholders who do not receive any financial reward.

Almost without exception landholders are required to sign a legally binding ‘gag’ clause which prevents them saying anything detrimental about wind turbines or the agreements they have entered into.

David Mortimer is one such landholder in S.A. who is also suffering debilitating health impacts from wind turbine operation.  Such is his despair and anger over the deceit promulgated by the wind industry that he hasspoken to broadcaster Alan Jones of his experiences.

BUSHFIRES: STATES, COUNCILS & GREENS LETTING US DOWN

2 GB's Michael McLaren speaks with Roger Underwood, AEF member and Chairman of The Bushfire Front, who explains why we need a national approach to bushfire control and why global warming is not to blame.

BENEFITS OF CLIMATE CHANGE YOU NEVER HEAR ABOUT

Matt Ridley writes in The Spectator what many in the media don’t want to talk about – the benefits of some global warming.

“Climate change has done more good than harm so far and is likely to continue doing so for most of this century. This is not some barmy, right-wing fantasy; it is the consensus of expert opinion. Yet almost nobody seems to know this”.

 Meanwhile at The Australian Professor Bjorn Lomborg also highlights net benefits from the current small changes to climate.

“It will probably come as a big surprise that climate change is expected to be mostly an increasing net benefit - rising to about 1.5 per cent of GDP per year - in the period from 1900 to 2025. This is because global warming has mixed effects; for moderate warming, the benefits prevail. For Australia, the model shows that this is true through to 2050”.

HAPPY WANDERERS RETURN TO NATIONAL PARK WITH HELP FROM GRAZING SHEEP

In a victory for commonsense Parks Victoria, to its credit and in defiance of naysayers, uses grazing livestock in Terrick Terrick National Park to improve habitat for the Plains Wanderer.

THE GREAT CLIMATE FICTION

An illuminating article in The Australian by Greg Sheridan looks at the reality of carbon dioxide pricing schemes around the world rather than the disagreeable political rhetoric that has been used to justify the Carbon Tax in Australia.

“The U.N. Framework on Climate Change has 195 members. Only 34 of those use anything resembling an emissions trading scheme.  Of those, 27 are in the EU scheme.  In its first five years it tended to raise about $500 million a year (from a population of 500 million) whereas our carbon tax raised $9 billion a year (from a population of 23 million).  So all of Europe combined imposed a cost on itself of one-18th of the cost Australia imposed on itself”.

“The carbon tax and the ETS are based on a complete misrepresentation of what other countries are doing.  Australians have never voted for either an ETS or a carbon tax and unless the world changes radically, are unlikely to do so in the future”.

And all for no demonstrated environmental benefit!

OPPONENTS OF THIRD WORLD GM CROPS ARE 'WICKED', SAYS UK ENVIRONMENT SECRETARY

Environmental groups fighting against the use of GM crops in Africa and Asia are “wicked” and potentially condemning millions of people to a premature death, the U.K.Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson, says today.

In the strongest attack yet on the anti-GM lobby Mr Paterson told The Independent that NGOs such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth that oppose GM technology were “casting a dark shadow over attempts to feed the world”.

THE BURNING INEQUITY OF THE SOLAR BONUS SCHEME

Robert Macdonald writes at the Brisbane Courier Mail about renewable energy subsidies: “Beware of governments bearing subsidies because if you're not getting any of what's on offer, then you're definitely paying for someone else who is…..The problem is that the money being paid to all those virtuous households with solar power is coming straight out of the pockets of the state's other, non-solar-power users by way of higher electricity bills”.

And what is the result of this inequity?  The number of small businesses having their power cut off and disputing accounts has surged as companies struggle to pay their bills.
Latest figures from the Queensland Competition Authority show that small business disconnections around the state rose by 28 per cent over the past year to 1985.

RARE POSSUM A PAWN IN FOREST ACTIVIST'S GAME

Vic. Government takes action to protect Leadbeater’s possum

For years, conservationists have wanted to shut down Victoria's timber harvesting industry. Now they are relying on the charm of an endangered animal to further their cause.

A common theme of the campaign to save Leadbeater's possum has been an unwarranted insistence that timber production is primarily responsible for its decline while ignoring the real danger – bushfire.

But now the Victorian government is acting to secure the possum’s future.

95% CERTAINTY CAN BE WRONG

The IPCC released the summary of its fifth assessment report on September 27th and much is made of the fact they predict with 95% certainty that human CO2 emissions are having a significant effect on climate.

Commentators endlessly parrot their colleagues about the ‘consensus’ on climate change as though this carried some scientific weight (how unscientific).  However they should take a deep breath, look at the observational data which does not support the theory of man-made global warming and remember Australian Professors Marshall and Warren who stared down the medical establishment world-wide that ridiculed their hypothesis on the causes of stomach ulcers.

After receiving their Nobel Prizes in 2005 it was conceded their science was in fact correct and that the consensus of the medical establishment was wrong.

THE TRUE COST OF CLIMATE POLICIES

Topher Field presents his 50:1 Project through this lively video which highlights the true cost of climate policies.  He proves the point with regards to the costs of ‘stopping’ climate change: the insurance premium costs more than the supposed insurance payout.

23,000 WIND TURBINES STOPS ZERO DEGREES OF WARMING

Jo Nova at her website comments on an article by Steve Goreham of the Climate Science Coalition of America about the slippery slope that Germany now finds itself after embracing wind energy.

“The Big-Green-Government in Germany decreed that everyone had to pay a lot more for the holy electrons from wind and solar (those electrons have good intentions, after all). Thus and verily (and partly thanks to the angel of inflation), the poor sods in German houses now pay twice as much for electrons as they did in the year 2000. (In USD, it was about 18.5c per kWh then and 35c now.) Meanwhile the intermittent supply from renewables plays havoc with the wholesale electricity price, gas finds it hard to compete, and Germany is building more coal plants.

The best case scenario, if the IPCC is right, is that this pain-in-the-pocket will reduce global temperatures by 0.002C about 90 years from now”.

NO WARMING FOR 16 YEARS SAYS FORMER HEAD OF NATIONAL CLIMATE CENTRE

William Kininmonth consulting climatologist and former head of the Australian National Climate Centre isinterviewed by 2GB’s Chris Smith on a new report launched this week which questions many of the alarmist predictions made by the IPCC.  The IPCC is yet to explain the 16 year pause in global temperatures despite rising levels of human carbon dioxide emissions. 

ANTI SCIENCE ENVIRONMENTALISTS STRIKE AGAIN

Greenpeace has again destroyed a genetically modified trial crop of 'golden rice' in the Philippines.  In a contemptuous display of disregard for science, the law and anyone who does not conform to their worldview about 400 'environmental vandals' trampled the crop.

Former Australian Chief Scientist, Dr Jim Peacock said the campaign by Greenpeace against genetically modified crops is outrageous.

CLIMATE SCIENTIST DR JOHN CHRISTY SAYS THE CLIMATE REFUSES TO AGREE WITH ALARMISTS

Dr John Christy is a distinguished professor of atmospheric science, and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and a former lead author of the IPCC. He was appointed Alabama's state climatologist in 2000. For his development of a global temperature data set from satellites he was awarded NASA's Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, and the American Meteorological Society's "Special Award." In 2002, Christy was elected Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.

In this interview with Luke Grant on radio 2GB Dr Christy speaks of the backpedalling by the IPCC in its upcoming AR5 report over previous exaggerated claims about global temperature .

'LOCKING UP FORESTS' NOT HELPFUL IN PROVIDING CARBON DIOXIDE SINKS

A study published in Nature Climate Change contradicts the conventional wisdom that forests locked up and left alone will offer the best model for soaking up carbon dioxide emissions.  As with bushfire mitigation the best model for the environment is active management of forests.

THE ULTIMATE COST OF AUSTRALIA'S "CARBON" POLICIES

Peter Lang adds up the numbers from the Treasury and leading economic commentators, and finds that decisions the Australian Government has made will cost the equivalent of about $17,000 for every man, woman and child if paid in a lump sum now, or $58,000 if paid bit by bit over the next 37 years to 2050. And that’s just for the ETS, not for the RET and other measures.

In this article Lang outlines the cost to Australian families for what numerous scientists have said will be a change in global temperature of between 1/1000th and 1 ten thousandth of a degree between now and 2050.

EUROPE PULLS THE PLUG ON ITS GREEN ENERGY FUTURE

Dr Benny Peiser writing in The Weekend Australian about Europes energy woes highlights the path Australia should abandon before it is too late.

"As country after country abandons, curtails or reneges on once-generous support for renewable energy, Europe is beginning to realise that its green energy strategy is dying on the vine. Green dreams are giving way to hard economic realities".  Read more here.

WIND COMPANY APOLOGISES FOR SCREECHING TURBINES

The operator of a wind farm in Cape Bridgewater, in south-west Victoria has issued a dramatic apology after residents spent nearly a year complaining about high-pitched screeching coming from the turbines.

PROF. BOB CARTER AND THE ARGUMENTS OF FEAR

Professor Bob Carter is interviewed by Chris Smith on radio 2GB about climate change and takes questions from listeners.  Professor Carter also addresses the issue of protection for the GBR and some of the fallacies promoted that have become part of the populist narrative.

DO MARINE PARKS PROTECT THE GREAT BARRIER REEF AND OCEANS?

Emeritus professor Bob Kearney questions the efficacy of protection of the GBR and marine reserves in an article at The Conversation following the recent declarations by the government of huge new protected areas.

As AEF has been saying for years regarding terrestial and marine parks, it is the quality of management, rather than simply drawing lines on a map and restricting access.

SHOPPING FOR FISH? WHY THERE IS A CATCH

Indeed there is a catch, but no-one is talking about it, having swallowed the false narrative dished up by many environment groups hook, line and sinker.

Paula Goodyer writing in The Age tells how she goes shopping for seafood, while keeping in mind the need for ethical choices and sustainability.  It is all good advice, but it is what she does not say about seafood offered for sale in Australia that everyone needs to know.

Such as over 70 per cent of seafood consumed in Australia is imported and much of that is from overfished and poorly regulated fisheries.  Meanwhile the Australian government is preparing to exclude Australian fishermen from millions of kilometres of Australian fisheries in new marine reserves that will only unnecessarily compound problems with global fish stocks.

Marine biologist Dr Walter Starck highlights the problems with this approach in a report prepared for AEF.

Real progress on marine conservation means discussing facts and evidence, not feel good fallacies that are constantly served up to the Australian public.

TAXING AIR - New book on the facts & fallacies of global warming

In this accessible and beautifully produced full colour book The Age's brilliant political cartoonist John Spooner and leading environmental scientist and founding AEF member, Professor Bob Carter combine with colleagues to answer a series of critical and highly controversial questions about the politics and science of climate change.

Could it be that the emperor has no clothes?

But is it possible that instead the so-called consensus science around global warming - produced by lavishly funded research institutes, and with its own international political
lobby organization, the United Nations IPCC - is wrong?

Are human industrial carbon dioxide emissions causing dangerous global warming? If so, then climate change would indeed represent one of the great moral challenges of our time.

To find out more and order the book go to  www.taxingair.com 

UPDATE:  Matt Ridley in The Australian looks at some of the problems currently facing 'climate alarmists' and praises Professor Carter's new book.

PARLIAMENT HOUSE SPEECH ON THE FOLLY OF THE RET

Liberal federal member for Tangney in W.A., Dr Dennis Jensen gave a speech in parliament on June 17th about wind power and the Renewable Energy Target ahead of a rally of ordinary citizens at parliament the following day protesting for action on the RET scheme.

"The reality of renewables at present is that they do not stack up, and the various RET schemes should be dropped until such time as they become economically competitive.

We have seen the ludicrous proposition put forward by the wind industry that wind power reduces overall costs to the market.

This is based on disingenuous use of data whereby a massive oversupply, when wind is blowing, leading to the price going down, but relative undersupply, when wind is not blowing, to significantly increase prices".  Read the full speech.

TOP ABBOTT BUSINESS ADVISER WANTS RENEWABLES TARGET SCRAPPED

The chairman of Tony Abbott’s proposed business advisory council, Maurice Newman, has called for the renewable energy target (RET) to be scrapped because he believes the scientific evidence for global warming and the economic case for renewable energy no longer stack up.

Newman, the former chairman of the ABC and the ASX, said persisting with government subsidies for renewable energy represented a “crime against the people” because higher energy costs hit poorer households the hardest and there was no longer any logical reason to have them.

AEF members and others rallied in Canberra on June 18th urging the Coalition to end the RET in its current form.  Read more.

CAN WE DO BETTER WITH OUR NATIONAL PARKS?

The conventional wisdom is that more and more national parks is a good thing.  But good for what?  There is little evidence that national parks are better at protecting biodiversity than adjacent state forest. 

In fact in numerous cases environmental values have declined since areas were gazetted parks and managed under a "one-size-fits-all approach". Should undisturbed high country montane forest parks be managed under the same regime as outback mallee and saltbush parks that were former pastoral holdings? That is what we do.

Different environments require different management styles, but we do not see different approaches to national park management.  The authors of this article question whether we our fixed approach is appropriate.

SCEPTICS PUT HEAT ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate change sceptics outnumber believers, according to an OECD study that shows how the debate has sharply divided Australians writes David Uren in The Australian.

The study into household attitudes towards the environment shows Australians are more sceptical than any of the other 10 nations examined, with the exception of The Netherlands.

It shows 45 per cent of Australians think environmental dangers are exaggerated and are reluctant to pay for government environmental policies.

In contrast, 42 per cent of Australians believe the environmental challenges are real and think the government should take action, which they are prepared to pay for even if the amount is not matched by other nations.

ABC LACKS BALANCE IN CLIMATE COVERAGE

There’s no doubt that ABC has a problem when it comes to fair and balanced reporting on the issue of climate change. Around this time last year the ABC gave two prominent Australian climate researchers almost carte blanche access to its radio, TV and online networks to spruik a paper they had written that claimed recent temperatures in Australia were the warmest in a 1000 years.

As Marc Hendrickx points out in an article in The Australian on June 5th when the paper was withdrawn by the authors because of serious errors no coverage was given to this new development by the ABC.

GOVT. LOSES ANGLER SUPPORT OVER MARINE PARKS

THE Australian Recreational Fishing Foundation (ARFF) representing the key national and state recreational fishing organisations announced that the Federal Government has lost support of Australia’s recreational fishing community on their Marine Park Policy.

MP DEFENDS DR SARAH LAURIE AGAINST 'OUTRAGEOUS AND DEFAMATORY ALLEGATIONS'

Federal parliamentarian Alby Schultz delivered a scathing speech in parliament exposing those he believed were involved in "a significant orchestrated attempt to assassinate her [Dr Sarah Laurie]outstanding reputation and undeniable credibility is underway, assisted and promoted through left-aligned media outlets".

"This is a campaign strongly suspected of being led by the non-medically accredited Professor Simon Chapman of the University of Sydney" said Mr Schultz in his speech on May 30th 2013.  Text of full speech here or watch a video of the speech here.

Dr Laurie is one of many rural residents who have been vilified for speaking out against the inappropriate siting of giant wind turbines that have affected the health of a significant minority of nearby residents through generation of excessive audible noise and low frequency sound.

It has been said there is no weaker intellectual position than one that relies on personally attacking your opponents, rather than addressing their arguments. 

GREEN POLICIES POWERING EVEN FASTER RISES IN ELECTRICITY BILLS

The head of one of the nation's largest electricity retailers says the "green part" of a typical electricity bill has surged from 2 per cent to 14 per cent over the past five years.  For larger users renewable energy accounted for 30 per cent of their bills said Grant King of Origin Energy.

As the renewables share of the electricity market increases through government mandate bills will rise even faster. 

While bills continue to rise the Clean Energy Regulator refuses to make publicly available the results of audits.  If renewable energy is contributing in a meaningful way to emissions reductions why is the data not made available?

CLEAN ENERGY REGULATOR STARTS DOING ITS JOB AFTER PUBLIC SCRUTINY

Wind farm operators are being forced to substantiate that they comply with noise guidelines to obtain Renewable Energy Certificates after the Clean Energy Regulator belatedly reacted to proposed legislation tabled in the Senate.

The new requirements have been imposed while long-running community campaigns against excessive noise from wind farms continue to gain support.

FIRE POWER AND THE AUSTRALIAN FEAR OF FIRE

Tim Lee from ABC Landline interviewed author Bill Gammage on May 26th 2013 about his award winning bookThe Biggest Estate on Earth which describes how the Australian landscape was managed was managed with fire by Aboriginals long before Europeans arrived.  Professor Gammage observes the European fear of fire compared with the mastery of fire by indigenous people.

NSW PUBLIC LAND MANAGEMENT INQUIRY

The NSW Upper House Inquiry into the management of public land in NSW has now released its final reportwith 12 recommendations.   Chief amongst these is the recommendation for an independent, full-scale and comprehensive assessment of the management of all public land in NSW.

The committee heard of widespread community concern that declaring new national parks had become politicised with scant regard for the impacts on rural communities or whether positive environmental outcomes were actually achieved.  AEF recommended moving away from the 'one-size-fits-all' approach to management of parks in its submission. 

FORCING COMPANIES TO CARRY OUT BIODIVERSITY SURVEYS CAN BACKFIRE SAY EXPERTS

Forcing timber, mining and plantation companies to carry out costly, time-consuming and for-the-most-part incomplete biodiversity surveys on their holdings could drive away those genuinely committed to conservation, while allowing less scrupulous commercial ventures to fly under the radar, a new study by the Center for International Forestry Research suggests in this article in Forest News.

IRRATIONAL OPPOSITION TO GM CROPS BY GREENPEACE

Dr Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, but no longer a member rails against the stance taken in opposing GM crops at his website: Greenpeace has openly and aggressively spread misinformation about Golden Rice since it was first invented and has continued to do so at every opportunity. They claim that there are better ways to alleviate vitamin A deficiency, such as vitamin pills and “home gardening”. Yet Greenpeace is doing nothing to implement alternative programs for the millions of victims, claiming the cause of vitamin A deficiency is “poverty”. Read more.

TRUE NATURE: REVISING IDEAS ON WHAT IS PRISTINE & WILD

Are there any pristine ecosystems out there? The evidence is growing that our ideas about virgin nature are often faulty. In fact, the lush rainforest or wind-blown moorland we think is natural may be a human creation, with alien creatures from distant lands living beside native species. Realizing this will change our ideas about how ecosystems work and how we should do conservation.  Fred Pearce explores the question in this article atOnline Opinion.

IT'S OK TO LINK CLIMATE DENIAL TO PEDOPHILIA ABC TELLS EX-CHAIRMAN

It seems there is some sort of disconnect in the ABC as debate rages yet once again on the coverage of climate science and political issues by the national broadcaster. 

It seems from our experience that ABC regional radio coverage is generally fair, balanced and informative for the most part.  This conflicts with coverage on ABC TV and radio in capital cities, which on many occassions hardly seems balanced or prepared to offer a diversity of views.

Whether this is because staff living in regional areas are more attuned to the views and interests of their communities than their capital city counterparts is difficult to determine, but there is certainly a city/ country divide in attitudes and presentation.

Former ABC chairman Maurice Newman appears to have only encountered one variant in his direct dealings with ABC staff as was widely reported when he addressed a staff meeting as chairman, asserting there was a culture of 'groupthink' within the organisation.

This week an opinion article by Newman in The Australian prompted more analysis of the issue, all started again by the distasteful commentary on the ABC Science Show.

NEW GOVT. REPORT SHOWS 'NO-TAKE' ZONES IN MARINE PARKS ARE UNNECESSARY

The release of a government report showed that more than 90 per cent of fish stocks are sustainable was used to argue that last month's gazetting of a string of marine parks around the country was unnecessary.  Read more and link to the report here.

IS A 'NO-DAMS' POLICY WORTH $28 BILLION?

Ask any Melburnian who has just received their latest water bill and is now paying hundreds of dollars a yearfor a desal plant that is going to be mothballed after commissioning is complete in a month or so.

The world's largest desal plant was given the go-ahead by the then Victorian Labor government panicked into action with the realisation that Melbourne could run out of water ahead of the 2010 state election.  This was a result of years of adherence to a green driven 'no-dams' policy supported by some Victorians.  They now have28 years of high water bills to reflect on whether this policy was worth the environmental benefit [?] of no new dams.

While not denying that desal plants can be useful in providing water security as a last priority behind broad-scale recycling, new dams and stormwater retention, the poor policy framework that overlooked serious consideration of these options first will cost Victoria dearly.

Imagine if $3 billion had been spent on a new dam and the other $25 billion had been committed to fixing real environmental problems.

 FACTS BLOW WIND MYTHS AWAY

Recently in two probing articles, The Australian environment editor Graham Lloyd drew back the curtain exposing the fallacious myths perpetrated by those who believe wind power will save the planet and who will say anything to advance what has become a noble cause.

Many acolytes for wind power perhaps are an exemplar of warriors for a noble cause, absolved from ethical behaviour, where the end justifies the means in prosecuting a righteous case for the greater good – disregarding those whose rights are trampled in the process.  AEF executive director, Max Rheese examines these myths in an article at Online Opinion.

On the same day 2GB's Alan Jones interviewed Senator Chris Back on the Wind Power Scam.  Senator Back is a member of the senate committee inquiring into draft legislation proposing to curb excessive noise from wind farms.  Committee senators were very concerned that wind industry witnesses were very resistant to publically releasing noise data, which they claimed, do not produce any adverse health impacts.

WIND FARMS LOSING SOCIAL LICENCE SAYS ENERGY AUSTRALIA

Enforcing the Renewable Energy Target via a massive expansion of giant wind turbines will polarise the community according to leading energy companies.

Adverse health impacts, excessive noise and increased electricity prices because of costly renewables aretesting the limits of community tolerance. 

Some industry sources say that wind turbine construction would have to triple from present levels to meet the current targets. 

Origin Energy reveal that the community backlash over wind farms has surpassed opposition to coal-seam gas mining.

The Climate Change Authority have refused to consider adjusting the current RET despite evidence showing with falling energy demand the target is likely to be exceeded by 25% with a further consequent upward pressure on electricity prices.

Wind farms 'worse than aircraft noise'.   Wind farm noise does harm health and sleep say scientists

RALLY AT PARLIAMENT HOUSE TO SUPPORT WIND FARM NOISE BILL

Residents from three states, AEF members, the Flyers Creek Wind Turbine Awareness Group and the Boorowa Landscape Guardians rallied at Parliament House Canberra on November 13th to demand support from all political parties for the bill initiated by Senators Madigan and Xenophon to curb excessive wind farm noise. Read more.    See media release.

 Earlier in the morning Alan Jones interviewed wind turbine host David Mortimer from S.A., Annie Gardner a landholder next to the Macarthur wind farm and acoustician Steven Cooper on excessive wind farm noise and its impacts.

Read the AEF submission to the Senate Inquiry on the legislation to limit excessive wind farm noise.

IS THE USE OF SECONDARY BOYCOTTS OR MARKETPLACE BULLYING ETHICAL?

Or does the end justify the means?  By adopting a 'noble cause' attitude some environmentalists seem to believe they are absolved from ethical behaviour.

Mark Poynter looks at tactics in recent forestry and marine campaigns in this article at Online Opinion.

HURRICANE SANDY NOT DUE TO GLOBAL WARMING & THE CLIMATE COMMISSION IS WRONG TO SAY SO

The Climate Commission was pretty quick of the mark with a media release on November 4th attributing climate change as a major factor in the destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy as it swept through the north east of the U.S.

However, climatologist and AEF founding member Professor Bob Carter and William Kininmonth former head of the National Climate Centre in an article published in The Age point to the conclusions of climate experts at NOAA.

"As has already been stressed by senior scientist Martin Hoerling from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and many other scientists, no evidence exists for any influence of global warming, let alone human-caused warming, on the intensity of hurricane Sandy".

President of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Ian Lowe thinks Carter and Kininmonth will "sooner or later have to accept the science" as he does.

That would be the same science that shows there has been no increase in hurricane landfall in the U.S., no global increase in temperature for 15 years, no increase in global ocean temperature since the Argo buoy network was deployed in 2003 and two years of increased rainfall in Australia.

All these things are self-evident while no-one disputes that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are rising.  It is becoming more and more evident to those who accept the evidence instead of the ideology that the theory of catastrophic man-made global warming is unproven and without basis.

SAVE THE WHALES, FORGET THE CHILDREN

Say what you will about Greenpeace says Henry Miller in the Wall Street Journal, the organization has always had a flair for publicity. From its early days of dodging harpoons and Japanese whalers in outboard motor boats, it has used media savvy and an aptitude for political theater to become a $360 million-plus per year behemoth with offices in more than 40 countries.

But what few members of the public know is that Greenpeace isn't just about saving whales and other appealing sea creatures. Its PR machine is now spearheading an effort to deny millions of children in the poorest nations the essential nutrients they need to stave off blindness and death.

BUSHFIRE FRONT CHAIRMAN SAYS W.A. FACING RISKY FIRE SEASON

AEF member Roger Underwood who is chairman of the think-tank Bushfire Front talks of the accumulation of heavy fire fuel loads and the risks facing West Australians this summer in this interview with ABC radio.

DEATH KNELL FOR WIND FARMS: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH SAYS U.K. MINISTER

Speaking to the U.K. Telegraph Minister John Hayes said that we can “no longer have wind turbines imposed on communities” and added that it “seems extraordinary” they have allowed to spread so much throughout the country.

So much for claims other countries are happy with wind farms.

ANOTHER COUNCIL REJECTS WIND FARM APPLICATION

Mitchell Shire Council this week unanimously rejected an application for a 16 turbine wind farm by Infigen Energy south east of Seymour in Central Victoria.  This was the first application since new planning rules prohibiting wind farms within 2km of residences took effect.

This follows on from the recent rejection by Goyder Council in South Australia for the Stony Gap wind farm.

An analysis of wind farm noise data by acoustician Steven Cooper presented at the 2012 AEF Conference lends weight to the decision by both councils to reject the applications on the basis of potential adverse health impacts.  See media release

S.A. HAS MORAL RIGHT TO MORE MURRAY WATER?

The Adelaide Advertiser editorialises that S.A. always had a strong moral argument for more water for the Murray River. 

Given that most of that water is for Adelaide, which is not even in the Murray Darling basin, and Premier Weatherill has mothballed the desalination plant in favour of cheaper river water at the expense of the environment, the strong moral argument seems a bit thin.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT NOW EFFECTIVELY CONTROLS AUSTRALIA'S FUTURE...

So says Nick Cater of The Australian in an article titled Big Wilderness's veto on development.  In a story that reflects the theme of several of the presentations at our annual conference, Cater details how many of the 'Big Wilderness' groups have lost their way pandering to populism to secure funding and support.

It is a sad indictment of the policy process that outcomes are determined by social media and the loudest voices, rather than science or evidence.

WORLD FOOD DAY, THE NATIONAL FOOD PLAN, GREEN TAPE AND EXTORTION

The Greens in Australia are still opposed to GM food despite decades of consumption by humans with no recorded ill effect and prominent overseas environmentalists recanting their opposition to GM technology. 

Campaigns by environmental groups for changes to Native Vegetation laws to restrict clearing of native regrowth have produced perverse outcomes with virtual monocultures of ‘woody weeds’ in large parts of NSW and Queensland that has disrupted cropping and grazing production.

Now some groups are now attempting to coerce beef producers into a certification scheme that has beenlabelled as extortion.

Meanwhile Tim Andrews explores some of the obstacles to food production resulting from green tape in an article at Online Opinion  while David Leyonhjelm looks at the possibilities of a northern food bowl in an article in Stock and Land.

AEF campaigned for the successful adoption of GM technology as an environmentally positive outcome.  When are we going to see some positive initiatives from other environmental groups that actually enhance the environment without putting obstacles in the way of food production and security?

AWARD WINNING AUTHOR TO SPEAK AT AEF CONFERENCE

Professor Bill Gammage author of The Biggest Estate on Earth winner of the Prime Minister's 2012 Literary Award for Australian history, Winner, 2012 Queensland Literary Awards (History Book Award) and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award will speak on his book at the 2012 AEF conference.

A fascinating account of aboriginal land management through the use of fire Gammage's book has many lessons for land managers and challenges the preconceived notions of Australian 'wilderness'.

IS THE TEMPERATURE OR THE TEMPERATURE RECORD RISING?

Dr David Stockwell has authored a paper with the above title on which he will be presenting at the 2012 AEF conference on October 20.  The paper is the topic of a guest post by Dr Stockwell at the Watts Up With That website and looks at the adjustments made in temperature datasets and the influence this has on temperature trends.

FUNDING THE DEMISE OF THE BARRIER REEF?

Marine biologist Dr Walter Starck asks what has been the result of the huge taxpayer funding to the GBR experts if their latest report is right.

The core claim of the report is that the reef has lost half of its coral in the past 27 years and that “Without significant changes to the rates of disturbance and coral growth, coral cover in the central and southern regions of the GBR is likely to decline to 5–10% by 2022.”

If this is true, the implications for future research and management are profound.

It means that the current condition of the GBR is essentially no better than that of the heavily exploited and effectively unmanaged reefs of the Caribbean or SE Asia. It means all the money and effort that has gone into management and research has been an abject failure. It means that the promised “resilience” to environmental impacts that was the major justification for greatly expanded green zones and sundry other stringent and costly restrictions on productive usage have achieved nothing, and that the vaunted resilience has been just another theoretical academic fantasy.

It means that the claims of having the best managed reefs in the world have been only a self-serving delusion. It means that all the past assertions of successful management have been untrue and the research supposedly supporting it has been either grossly incompetent or a deliberate misrepresentation.

If the 'experts' were wrong about that why should we believe their latest report is right?

IS ENDING TIMBER HARVESTING IN VICTORIA THE RIGHT THING TO DO?

Institute of Foresters Australia member Mark Poynter in an article at Quadrant Online points out some groups seem opposed to the very idea of any timber harvesting continuing in Victoria.  Would this be a balanced outcome for the environment and the people of Victoria? 

And is importing even more timber to fulfill our needs from countries with less rigorous regulation really ethical?

"With only around 9% of Victoria’s State forests still being managed for long-term timber production, and the annually harvested area dropping to around 5,000 hectares (or around 0.0008 of the state’s public forest area), activist campaigns against the native hardwood industry could have been expected to decline. Instead they have intensified, particularly in Victoria’s Central Highlands".

RENEWABLE ENERGY TARGET BLOWING IN THE WIND

The Australian editorialises about the operation of the Renewable Energy Target and the current review of the scheme, reflecting the concerns of many regarding the costs imposed by the RET. 

The biggest question still remains unanswered - what are the actual, verified emissions reductions from the scheme?  No one knows.  This was confirmed by a spokesman for the Climate Change Minister in the media this week who said emissions reductions were ascertained from "modelling by external consultants or in-house calculations by the Department".

The scheme has been operating for a decade and has cost consumers billions of dollars via increases to their electricity bills, but there is no evidential basis to demonstrate the key objective of emissions reductions is being achieved.

ENVIRONMENT MINISTER TRASHES LAST VESTIGE OF CREDIBILITY

Evidenced-based environmental policy is the mantra of many (including AEF), but that is dumped more often than not for politics.  Environment Minister Tony Burke’s decision this week to override his own reasoning of last week, the previous decision of the Fisheries Minister and reject the government’s own experts from the Australian Fishing Management Authority to ban the trawler Abel Tasman (formerly the Margiris) is a new low in political expediency. 

As Lenore Taylor says in the Sydney Morning Herald, “You can't say you base your decision-making on science and then not base your decision-making on science.  Otherwise, one might conclude that policy making was being driven by the fear of public campaigns by groups like Greenpeace and Get Up!

Governments should always be mindful of public opinion. But evidence-based policy making is evidence-based policy making. And a wave of public opinion should not outweigh a clear scientific consensus”.

Or as The Australian editorialises “A week later, it was not the risk to species that had energised the minister into further action, but the political risk of a backbench revolt fanned by a campaign from radical political and green groups”.  Indeed.

THE RET COSTS A LOT AND DISTORTS THE MARKET BUT DOES NOT DELIVER EMISSIONS REDUCTIONS!

Graham Lloyd, environment editor with The Australian reports on a devastating analysis of the Renewable Energy Target driven wind energy expansion and the non-existent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

"Analysis shows that despite receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from green energy schemes driven by the renewable energy target, Victoria's wind-farm developments have saved virtually zero carbon dioxide emissions in the state.

A forensic examination of publicly available power-supply data shows Victoria's carbon-intensive brown-coal power stations do not reduce the amount of coal they burn when wind power is available to the grid".

Engineer Hamish Cumming who undertook the two year analysis says in an ABC radio interview surplus energy is wasted to make room for intermittent supplies from wind.  His findings have been confirmed by Victoria's coal-fired electricity producers and by independent energy analysts who say it is more efficient to keep a brown-coal power-station running than turn it down and then back up.

Lloyd postulates "the bottom line surely must be whether any carbon emissions actually are being saved". 

No, the bottom line is how much money can the wind industry get via taxpayer funded renewable energy certificates for providing no environmental benefit and how long will the government allow the scam to continue.

Very similar conclusions have been reached this month in a study in The Netherlands.

UPDATE:  Read the email Hamish Cumming sent to the Clean Energy Council asking them to refute his analysis after they disputed it on radio.

GERMANY'S NEW ENERGY POLICY - 23 NEW COAL FIRED POWER PLANTS

With Germany's many wind farms only producing a disapointing 16% of name-plate capacity and renewable energy costs rising rapidly, the Environment Minister has approved 23 new coal power plants.  This month a 2200MW coal power plant was opened to underpin electricity security.

Physicist Dr Kelvin Kemm explores an issue unreported in the Australian media as debate in Australia intensifies over the costs and benefits of the Renewable Energy Target. 

NEWS BRIEFS

Hopes of slashing emissions blowing in the wind   The Australian Sept 1 2012

Wind farm concerns to be aired     Seymour Telegraph August 22 2012

Councils condemn Red Gum National Parks  ABC August 2 2012

Abbott outlines carbon tax battle plan         The LandJuly 62012

Marine Park plan creates blue divide         The Cairns Post June 15 2012

Green tape threatens vision of food superpower   ABC The Drum June 72012

Reef threatened by do-gooding, not fishing   The Australian June 42012

Fun fishing is dead in the water         The Daily Telegraph May 25 2012

Carbon tax pointless, says miner        The Australian May 12 2012

Call to stop Marine Parks                   ABC Rural May 1 2012

Sea Change: Tim Winton's view from the deep   OnLine Opinion April 30

Taxpayers should not gamble on renewables   The Australian April 19 2012

The Murray Mouth Controversy       ABC Radio National 26 March 2012

Media Watch shocked by scientist    Herald Sun 19 March 2012

MDBP has science wrong: AEF        Stock Journal 29 February 2012

Water must mix in the Lower Lakes  Adelaide Advertiser 25 February 2012

Basin Meeting in Swan Hill             Weekly Times 23 February 2012

Coral Sea reserve a sell-out to foreign green groups  The Australian 30 Jan 2012

When spin meets research  Ballarat Courier 21 January 2012

CSIRO wind farm report unbalanced  Weekly Times19 January 2012

Enviro groups welcome wind farm planning change 1 September 2011

Sea will save the Murray mouth  The Australian 27 August 2011

ABC Counterpoint interview with Max Rheese on wind farm concerns

WHO PROFITS FROM THE CARBON TAX AND RET?

Much is made of vested interests in the discussion on climate science and the taxing of one of life's essential elements - carbon dioxide, with fingers pointed at Big Oil, Big Coal etc, but not much is heard in regards to Big Energy. Jo Nova at her website decided to look at one of the biggest.

Global energy giant GE lobbied for the introduction of the Carbon Tax and took out full page advertisements spruiking their wind turbines. It was clearly in their best commercial interests for a carbon tax to go ahead and GE were entitled to lobby for their own interests.

Their market however is mandated by government fiat and the Renewable Energy Target is subsidised by Australian taxpayers with inflated electricity bills funded by householders. And that is clearly not in the interests of Australian consumers.

Large Australian energy company boss Origin Energy's Grant King said the target, also known as the RET, will be the main driver of electricity price rises by 2020 because it locks in increasing reliance on more expensive sources of electricity, such as solar panels and wind turbines.

We now have a Carbon Tax, a Renewable Energy Target and the $10B Clean Energy Fund to reduce emissions by 5% and help produce 'cheap' renewable energy.

We actually have real environmental problems we could be throwing our billions at.

CLIMATE COMMISSION NOT 'FAIR DINKUM' ABOUT ACTION

The Climate Commission report released today is another example of the Commission not being fair dinkum about the supposed catastrophic effects of man-made global warming said the Australian Environment Foundation in a media release.

The report ignores proven technologies for reducing emissions while embracing marginal solutions.

The Climate Commission at the release of its last report put forward solar and wind energy as the centrepiece of the nation's energy mix as a means of combating climate change.  Last week ex Greenpeace founder,Dr Patrick Moore described the "vision of a world run on wind and solar is a green dream that is actually a green fantasy that is rapidly turning into a green nightmare" [see the article below]. 

EX-GREENPEACE FOUNDER SHARES HIS VIEW ON THE DIRECTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT MOVEMENT

Dr Patrick Moore, former president of Greenpeace expands on his views in this second interview with The Washington Times [see first interview in an earlier post below].  AEF and Dr Moore agree on most things environmental these days, while we disagree with Greenpeace on most of their views of the environment, as now does he.

Moore: "Today Greenpeace's efforts are largely counter-productive and parasitical on political agendas such as trade disputes. Their vision of a world run on wind and solar energy is a green dream that is actually a green fantasy that is rapidly turning into a green nightmare for ratepayers in the countries that have provided exorbitant subsidies for these technologies which don't even work most of the time, and then they claim nuclear energy is too expensive".

Some are discomfited that AEF rails against the anti-science, anti-evidence and counter-productive views of some in the environment movement, which gives environmentalism a bad name.  This implies we should stay silent or give tacit approval to patently absurd ideologies simply because they are put forward by 'environmentalists' - sorry, we won't.

See more on the rally and petition against the closure of the Coral Sea here

MYOPIC GOVT. VIEW OF ELECTRICITY PRICE RISES

It appears the federal government has just discovered electricity prices are rising with calls to state governments to rein in price rises.  While network charges are a significant portion of the increases, presumably we will see returned benefits from upgrading essential infrastructure.

Benefits owing to increases from the Carbon Tax are proving much harder to justify along with the increases due to the Renewable Energy Target, both imposed by the federal government.

According to the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal these schemes impose substantial costs on the average consumer.

Origin Energy chief Grant King has warned the 20 per cent renewable energy target could add more to power bills than the carbon tax by 2020.

Driving up electricity prices to 'stop' global warming is bad policy that is of no benefit to the environment.

The U.K. is also paying the price of green politics.

HOW SCIENTIFIC IDEAS BECOME FASHIONABLE

Scientists are meant to know the difference between fact and fiction and as a first check of the reliability of a source of information they will often ask if it has been “peer-reviewed”. Peer-review means that research findings are conducted and presented to a standard that other scientists working within that field consider acceptable writes Jennifer Marohasy at her blogsite.

But is peer-review 'the' benchmark for scientific discussion?

MORE WIND TURBINES SHUT DOWN AND OTHERS DON'T EVEN GET TO START UP

Tablelands Regional Council in Queensland is the latest council to take action against industrial wind turbines due to concerns over excessive noise.  The council is seeking an order from the Planning and Environment Court for the shutdown of turbines until the operator can demonstrate their compliance with noise standards following complaints from residents.

In early August the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the developer of The Sisters 12 turbine wind farm in south west Victoria.  The first appeal hearing was told the application should be rejected on noise concerns alone.

Meanwhile in South Australia Goyder council has refused a permit for a 41 turbine project due to concerns over adverse health impacts.  Talkback callers to ABC radio were pleased with the decision. 

The wind farm scam is coming to an end.

JUNKING EMPTY GREEN SYMBOLISM

The Australian editorialises on Wild Rivers legislation: Queensland Premier Campbell Newman's move to scrap the state's stifling wild river preservation laws is a win for common sense. The laws, which were introduced under former Labor premier Peter Beattie and extended under Anna Bligh, forced impoverished Cape York indigenous communities to foot the bill for Labor appeasing city-based Greens and picking up their preferences.

NEW PAPER CONFIRMS GROSS INACCURACIES IN U.S. TEMPERATURE RECORD

A paper released on July 29th by Anthony Watts et al confirms the bias long suspected in the U.S. long-term temperature record.  The findings show that half of the alleged rising temperature trend is artificial.

Removing the bias from the records reveals a very unalarming trend in U.S. temperatures over an extended period.

VALE  ALEXANDER HAMILTON STUART

AEF members mourn the sudden passing of chairman, Alex Stuart on July 23rd 2012.  Alex was a staunch defender of AEF's values and a great believer that environmental policy should be based on facts and evidence.

Alex's life and his many contributions was celebrated by hundreds of his friends in Sydney on July 30th.

PREVENT BUSHFIRE THE ABORIGINAL WAY

Author of the Biggest Estate on Earth, Bill Gammage in this interview with ABC radio calls for a fresh look at the way we manage land and fire.

In his book Gammage examines in detail the way Aboriginals managed the land through fire for multiple purposes over thousands of years.

CLIMATE COMMISSION REPORTS RELY ON FAULTY DATA

The Climate Commission report, The Critical Decade – Victorian climate impacts and opportunities, released yesterday [July 23rd] contains no new scientific information and continues to rely on inaccurate, discredited Bureau of Meteorology temperature datasets and faulty computer modelling.

A recent review of the BoM historical temperature record found more than a thousand errors in the data, which impose a distorted warming trend in the Australian average temperature record.  See media release

CAMPAIGN FOR MORE MARINE PROTECTED AREAS HAS NO MERIT

The proposals for additional vast Marine Protected Areas in Australian waters to protect marine biodiversity are a solution in search of a problem.

The federal environment minister Tony Burke has announced proposals for huge additional Marine Protected Areas in four regions around Australia.  The largest is the Coral Sea MPA encompassing one million square kilometres.

Mr Burke describes the Coral Sea as the 'jewel in the crown' of protected areas and we agree it is a 'jewel', but it did not attain that status through government protection.  Nature made and maintained the Coral Sea and without any documented threat to marine biodiversity we could expend our resources addressing real environmental threats elsewhere.

No merit, No reason, No benefit, No good. 

Read more at the Campaigns Page.

NEW REPORT ON FISHERIES & MARINE PROTECTED AREAS

May 23rd 2012

The AEF today released the report ‘Australia’s Unappreciated and Maligned Fisheries’ written by marine biologist Dr Walter Starck.  This report details a compelling account of mismanagement, over-regulation and declining yields from healthy fisheries.  Read more here.

GOVT. AVOIDS WIND FARM ADVERSE HEALTH SCRUTINY

 On June 28th a motion introduced into the senate calling on the federal government to note that the 2011 Senate Inquiry chaired by Greens Senator Rachel Siewert into the impact of wind farms made recommendations calling for studies, “as a matter of priority”, on the effects of wind farms on human health.

Also that after 12 months the government has not acted on those recommendations, nor responded to the motion passed by the senate in March 2012 calling for action on the recommendations.

The June motion requested the government comply with: orders that there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Minister for Health, no later than noon on Tuesday, 14 August 2012, information detailing the actions being taken by the Government to act on the recommendations calling for studies on the effects of wind farms on human health.

Greens senators, as well as Labor senators who sat on the inquiry, voted to defeat the motion. 

Why is it that the parties of ‘social justice’ are so averse to inquiring into the adverse health effects from wind farms?

UPDATE: Canadian government votes to support a health study into wind farms

WIND FARM SUPPORTERS DRIVEN FROM THEIR HOMES BY WIND TURBINE NOISE

Professor of Public Health Simon Chapman says it is amazing that wind turbine hosts do not get sick from turbines when nearby landholders who do not receive any payment do get sick from turbine noise.  He should read host contracts with 'gag clauses' that prevent hosts from speaking out or better still he could talk with turbine host David Mortimer who has been driven from his home.  "Many years ago Mr Mortimer and his wife signed a confidentiality agreement to receive thousands of dollars annually for two Lake Bonney wind turbines on their farm."

Or Carl and Samantha Stepnell and dozens of others in the same position, such as former wind farm supporterAndreas Marciniack.

And many say it is amazing all these problems are being aired in Australia when wind farms have been operating for two decades overseas with little complaint.  A statement worth investigating, except it is not true, hundreds of communities in numerous countries have the same concerns as Australians.

Senate inquiry recommendations to the federal government to urgently undertake medical and acoustical studies gather dust as angst in rural communties grows. 

Victorian Planning Minister Matthew Guy has received an independent acoustician's report showing a wind farm is not compliant with government guidelines.  Minister Guy recently wrote to the Stepnells saying he would shut down any non-compliant wind farms.

LAZY HEALTH DEPARTMENT MUST ACT ON WIND FARM NOISE

The Victorian Chief Health Officer must immediately initiate a Health Impact Assessment of affected residents following the completion of an independent peer-reviewed acousticians report demonstrating the Waubra wind farm is not compliant with government noise guidelines.

What many have been saying about the noise effects of wind farms for years is today revealed as truth AEF said in a media release.

TAKING MARINE PROTECTION TOO FAR

Australia leads the world in marine protected area with more area set aside for conservation than the rest of the world combined, but proposals to double this protection are going too far, turning the notion of sustainability on its head. Read more

WIDELY TOUTED 'WARMING' PAPER DISAPPEARS WITHOUT A TRACE

University of Melbourne climate scientist Dr Joelle Gergis was lead author of a widely publiscised paper detailing warming temperatures using tree ring data that was published online at the Journal of Climate.  It wasreported in The Age that the paper had been removed from the journal website after mistakes were found in the paper, despite having been peer-reviewed.

Canadian climate realist Steve McIntyre [of Hockey Stick slayer fame] identified what appeared to be errors in the study and started asking inconvenient questions.

The Gergis paper apparently attracted funding of $300,000, took three years to produce and only withstood three weeks of scrutiny.

LIBERALS & LABOR SLAM 'OBNOXIOUS' GETUP! ADVERT

Wayne Swan and his Queensland counterpart yesterday set aside their differences to slam an advertisement in the Asian press by GetUp! and Greenpeace warning against investing in Australian resources projects.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer said the ad in yesterday's Asian Financial Times targeting Queensland's $6.2 billion Alpha Coal project was "deplorable" and should be condemned.

 THE GREAT BARRIER REEF - PERFECT ONE DAY, PERISHING THE NEXT

The conclusions of the UNESCO draft report on development adjacent to the GBR contradict studies by the World Resource Institute, a study which was supported by WWF, NOAA,NASA and many other research organisations. 

The recent WRI report says the GBR is one of the least threatened reef systems in the world and in excellent condition.  Links to the WRI study in our media release.

ADVERSE HEALTH IMPACTS FROM WIND TURBINES "REAL"

2GB's Alan Jones talks with Environment Editor from The Australian Graham Lloyd about his experiences interviewing people who live near wind farms.  Listen here.

PREVENT BUSHFIRE THE ABORIGINAL WAY

Aboriginal use of fire to manage the land is the key to modern bushfire management says Bill Gammage, adjunct professor at the Australian National University. In his extensively researched book The Biggest Estate on Earth he sets out the case that Aboriginal people managed the land with fire.

Listen to Gammage interviewed by ABC Radio.

ENVIRONMENTALISM AND THE DECLINE OF THE WEST

Most of the leading Western Nations are now experiencing ageing populations, declining industries, chronic trade imbalances, bloated government, punitive taxation, high levels of personal debt, unsustainable government deficits and a rapidly metastasizing regulatory regime that is an increasing impediment to any productive activity.

Although all these issues have inflicted great suffering and socio-economic damage, probably none have resulted in such ongoing, widespread and ever increasing detriment as has environmentalism writes Dr Walter Starck in an article at Quadrant Online.

SCIENCE SAVING THE SPECIES...AGAIN

ONE of the country's rarest mammals and Victoria's faunal emblem will be the subject of a captive breeding program - the first major breeding and release program for Leadbeater's possums - as scientists intervene to build up the wild population and establish an insurance population in captivity.

THE SORRY LESSONS OF GREEN POWER SUBSIDIES

Ontario residents are coming to grips with the realities of previous decisions by provincial governments that are now evident on their power bills.

UNION, GREENS AND LIBERALS IN BUNFIGHT OVER TASMANIA'S FUTURE

Green flak for Paul Howes.

The Greens have dismissed comments by Australian Workers Union secretary Paul Howes that the state's future depends on standing up to the environmental movement.

THE UNSUPPORTABLE CASE FOR CORAL SEA MARINE PARK 'NO-TAKE' ZONES

Sea Change: Tim Wintons view from the deep.

Accomplished author and Western Australian resident Tim Winton has written a personal and evocative essay, ‘Sea Change’, in Good Weekend magazine on April 14th ‘for all Australians who want a better future for our common underwater heritage’ according to WWF who have posted the article on their website. Winton is a patron of the Australian Marine Conservation Society and undoubtedly loves the sea.

The article, while rich in personal experiences with the sea, is devoid of evidence that would support a case for massive new Marine Protected Areas, which the federal Environment Minister Tony Burke is currently considering and being urged along by Winton.

Advocating for change to environmental policy must be supported by facts and evidence says AEF executive director Max Rheese in this article published at OnLine Opinion.

SUPPORT THE RATIONAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS

Become an AEF member and make an investment in good environment policy today!

Download a membership form or donate via the PayPal buttons on the left.

SCIENTISTS STEP IN TO SAVE MOUNTAIN PYGMY POSSUMS

Mt Buller’s Mountain Pygmy-possums have had some rare good news following the success of an emergency action to save the isolated population from extinction caused by declining genetic diversity.

BATTLE OF THE CORAL SEA

The expected announcement by federal environment minister Tony Burke to create a 1 million square kilometre Marine Protected Area in the Coral Sea as a 'no-take' zone thereby banning all fishing would be environmentally irresponsible says AEF.

A cursory examination of publicly available data clearly shows Australian fishery harvest is the most environmentally friendly in the world with harvests of less than 1% of recognised sustainable yields from the world's largest per capita fishery.

There is no demonstrated environmental need to close the Coral Sea. Australia needs to increase its sustainable harvest of seafood to remove the burden Australian consumers are placing on heavily exploited overseas fisheries.  70% of seafood consumed in Australia is imported from fisheries that do not have the same standard of environmental management as Australia.

ABC Landline reported on the effects of these proposals, which will have perverse environmental outcomes.  See media release.

WWF CRUSADING ON SUSTAINABLE BEEF

A LEAKED document authored by a senior operative of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) shows the anti-farmer organisation is on a green crusade to establish new "sustainable beef standards" on producers Australia-wide.

FARMERS CONSERVATION EFFORTS ACKNOWLEDGED

FARMERS have been vital workers to help protect one of the Colac district’s most threatened animals.

The rare Corangamite water skink, lives in an area north-west of Colac between Lake Colac and Lake Bolac.  Farmers and environment officers have worked together to protect the skinks and their habitat.

AUSTRALIA'S CONSERVATION FARMING REVOLUTION

The misconception of Australian agriculture being inefficient and unsustainable is deeply concerning for me. Images of dusty ploughed fields and dying sheep and trees are misleading. On the contrary, if there was an Olympics for conservation agriculture Australian farmers would win gold! says the CSIRO's principal research scientist, John Kirkegaard.

And does this agricultural progress compliment or conflict with the Australian Roundtable on Sustainable Beef?

A DANGEROUS METHOD

Former chairman of the ABC, Maurice Newman writing in The Spectator says the people are smarter than their leaders with regard to climate change policy and no amount of bullying by politicians or others will convince them the science is settled.

This perhaps explains the latest Nielsen Poll showing only 36% of Australians support a tax on the essential trace element gas, carbon dioxide.

POLAR BEAR NUMBERS CONFOUND DOOMSAYERS

The debate about climate change and its impact on polar bears has intensified with the release of a survey that shows the bear population in a key part of northern Canada is far larger than many scientists thought, and might be growing.  The new data does not conform to previous predictions of decline in numbers.

VESTED INTERESTS DRIVE CLIMATE CHANGE DEBATE

Professors Bob Carter, Stewart Franks, Dr David Evans and former head of the National Climate Centre, William Kininmonth provide a critique of recent climate change discussion in the public arena.

"It is clear that current Australian public policies regarding dangerous climate change, sea-level rise and other climate hazards are based upon inadequate scientific advice, are shackled to the vagaries of inadequate computer model projections and are not remotely cost-effective. There is therefore an urgent need for climate hazard to be assessed and reconsidered by experienced scientists who are independent of the present climate agency cabal."

Further analysis here

CLEAN ENERGY FUND A $10B BOONDOGGLE

Oliver Marc Hartwich from the Centre for Independent Studies said on the 7.30 Report April 2nd "The Clean Energy Finance Corporation is a complete waste of money because it will not cut emissions by a single gram of carbon dioxide."

Richard Denniss from the Australia Institute said "While the taxpayer's putting up the $13 billion on the table, it's not actually gonna result in an increase in the amount of renewable energy."

AEF says the Clean Energy Fund is an extraordinarily expensive taxpayer funded slush fund that will not deliver any significant environmental benefit.

This comes a few days after outgoing Future Fund chairman David Murray said the carbon tax is the "worst piece of economic reform I have seen in my life."

Hartwich examines the Clean Energy Fund in detail in this report.

Good outcomes cannot be delivered by bad policy.

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS REVEALS WIND FARMS ARE 'WORSE THAN A MISTAKE'

One of the UK's leading energy and environment economists warns that wind power is an extraordinarily expensive and inefficient way of reducing CO2 emissions. In fact, there is a significant risk that annual CO2 emissions could be greater as a result of Britain's flawed wind policies when compared with the option of investing in efficient and flexible gas combined cycle plants.

Dr Gordon Hughes is a Professor of Economics at the University of Edinburgh. He was a senior adviser on energy and environmental policy at the World Bank until 2001.  His analysis is published here.

According to Connie Hedegaard, the European Union’s commissioner for climate action, “People should believe that [wind power] is very, very cheap.”

In fact, this is a highly problematic claim says Professor Bjorn Lomborg. While wind energy is cheaper than other, more ineffective renewables, such as solar, tidal, and ethanol, it is nowhere near competitive. If it were, we wouldn’t have to keep spending significant sums to subsidize it.  Indeed.

MEDIA WATCH'S "CONSENSUS SCIENCE" - DON'T MENTION THE FACTS

We are in withchhunt territory here writes Andrew Bolt at his blog.  It seems Media Watch take exception to AEF's name.

ABC MEDIA WATCH TELLS AUSTRALIA ABOUT THE JUNK SCIENCE THAT UNDERPINS WATER POLICY

And for this we thank Media Watch. 

AEF however are most grateful to the many people who donated online via our website after the show had finished.  We appreciate your support for a balanced view on environmental public policy.

For those who missed the program, Media Watch on March 19th featured a segment on the report recently released by AEF on the false narrative that the Murray River’s terminal Lower Lakes have a freshwater history.

Presenter Jonathon Holmes correctly points out the report and AEF state that current policy for maintaining the Lower Lakes as an artificial man-made freshwater system is based on junk science.

He also points out that the information he is using is all on the public record, which is also correct as AEF listed our sponsors on our website, directly provided full and timely responses to all questions posed by Media Watch and clearly stated our objectives in advocating for changes in public policy on our website.  Read more about the program and who supports the science in the report.

AEF’s view of the ‘exposé’ by ABC Media Watch.

Find out more about the Rivers Need Estuaries campaign here

Support a rational voice for the environment - Donate today!

Pick a PayPal donation tab on the left to support the Rivers Need Estuaries campaign or AEF's other work on environment policy.

MURRAY DARLING BASIN PLAN BASED ON JUNK SCIENCE SAYS NEW REPORT

A report released today by the Australian Environment Foundation undermines the claim by the South Australian government that the Murray River’s terminal Lower Lakes have a freshwater history, a key plank of their demand for an additional 4,000 gigalitres of water under the Murray Darling Basin water reform plan. Read more on our Campaigns page.

THE RAMBUNCTIOUS GARDEN OFFERS A DIFFERENT VIEW

Emma Marris argues convincingly in her new book Rambunctious Garden that we are fore-going much in our quest for pristine environments.

"A paradigm shift is roiling the environmental world. For decades people have unquestioningly accepted the idea that our goal is to preserve nature in its pristine, pre-human state. But many scientists have come to see this as an outdated dream that thwarts bold new plans to save the environment and prevents us from having a fuller relationship with nature. Humans have changed the landscapes they inhabit since prehistory."

RESEARCH HEALTH EFFECTS OF WIND TURBINE NOISE SAY MEDICAL EXPERTS

An article in the British Medical Journal has called for robust, independent research into the health effects of existing wind farms saying such research is long overdue.

The expertise of the authors in sleep disorders is widely acknowledged and they are unequivocal about the need for research into adverse health effects of wind turbines.

Which puts them completely at odds with Professor Simon Chapman of the University of Sydney, who is often proclaimed as a public health expert, but who has no training in sleep disorders or expertise in acoustics.  Professor Chapman has been rubbishing claims of health effects from wind turbines and is dismissive of the need for health studies to address this growing problem.

This calls into question why a professor of public health, with no expertise in the subject matter would be so opposed to medical research and health studies to protect the health of the public.

It also casts serious doubt on the efficacy of the soon-to-be implemented NSW draft guidelines for wind farms in protecting residents of rural communities from adverse health impacts of inappropriately sited wind turbines.

See media release     See AEF's submission to the NSW guidelines for wind farms.

GOVT FUNDS GREEN GROUPS THE TREASURER IS RAILING AGAINST!

Three green groups named in last week's leaked proposal to undermine the multi-billion-dollar coal industry have received a total of close to $750,000 in funding from the Department of Climate Change, an industry analysis obtained by The Australian shows.

THE COUNTRY RUNS ON COAL, BUT ACTIVISTS 'ARE LIVING IN FANTASYLAND'

Proposals by activist groups Greenpeace and CoalSwarm to disrupt and delay coal projects were attacked by the federal government.

Trade Minister Craig Emerson has warned an immediate switch to renewable energy would result in a global depression and has branded a group of anti-coal activists as "delusional".  The secret plan by environmental groups to raise $6M to fund the plan was leaked to the media.

CLEAN ENERGY FUND WRITTEN OFF AS $10B 'TOTAL WASTE'

THE $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation is "likely to be a complete waste of money" and have no impact on Australia's carbon emissions, according to a new research paper from the Centre for Independent Studies reported on in The Australian.

The author, Oliver Hartwich, writes that "the CEFC will have zero effect on emissions" once Labor's carbon tax becomes an emissions trading scheme in 2015.

NO-GO SCAREMONGERS 'FISHING FOR FUNDS'

Photo: Colin Murty The Australian

Relentless anti-fishing campaigns have misled consumers about the good health of Australian fish stocks, a leading US marine scientist said yesterday.

Ray Hilborn is a hired gun for a fishing industry feeling the heat from demands for no-go marine parks and consumer advice scorecards that show which fish not to eat. He is also an acknowledged world expert on global fish stocks. And when it comes to catching fish and what's good for the plate, Dr Hilborn and environmental groups such as Australian Marine Conservatory are oceans apart.

Dr Hilborn, professor of Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences at the Univiersity of Washington published a reportwhich questions the basis for expanding Marine Protected Areas in Australian waters.

"The perception of the majority of Australians of the sustainability of Australian seafood is not aligned with reality. Public perception has been distorted, primarily by numerous NGOs and others who benefit from projecting apprehension in seafood consumers. These NGOs are out of touch with recent global developments and in denial of fisheries management outcomes in Australia. Their distortion of reality has been based on misrepresentation of overseas examples of inadequate fisheries management to falsely claim gloom and doom for Australia’s fisheries and their impacts. The resulting anti-fishing rhetoric has falsely demonized fishing and led to ill-directed calls for more restrictions, particularly in areas that are closed to fishing and then called ‘protected’."

POOR WANT CLIMATE POLICIES THAT WORK

Max Rheese reviews and comments on an insightful article in The Quarterly Essay written by Dr Andrew Charlton, economic adviser to former Prime Minister Rudd on the failure of climate policies globally. 

"The enviropolitical green agenda of rich countries to reduce energy consumption by raising the price of fossil fuels and forcing a false choice between progress or the planet is fatally flawed, while the consequences of efforts so far on global climate policy risk condemning the poor to continuing poverty."   Read more at Online Opinion.

WIND TURBINES INCREASE CO2 EMISSIONS

As more real world data becomes available globally on the actual operations of wind turbines it has become clear the wind industry claims of signifcant emissions reductions; claims derived from 'models', are false.

Emissions reductions were the raison d'etre for wind farms.  Why else would you support generating electricity that is two to three times more expensive than other means?  Electricity engineers have been pointing out this fact of insignificant reductions for years, now we have the data that proves it.

PUBLIC MEETING LEADS TO SUCCESSFUL SENATE MOTION ON WIND FARM HEALTH IMPACTS

A meeting near Ballarat on February 2nd hosted by Senator John Madigan and attended by 200 people heard from approximately 22 local residents opposed to the inappropriate siting of large wind turbines.  The opposition to wind turbines was primarily due to the residents experiencing adverse health impacts.

Following the meeting Senator Madigan tabled a motion in the senate on February 8th calling on the federal government to implement the recommendations of the recent senate inquiry into the impacts of wind farms in rural areas.  The motion was passed with the support of independents, Greens and Coalition senators.

AEF calls on the government to respect the wishes of the senate and the people by immediately implementing the inquiry recommendations.

A frequent rejoiner from supporters of wind farms goes along the lines of 'there are thousands of wind turbines overseas and there are no problems with them'.  This argument has been debunked many times with some of the opposition overseas illustrated here in this article in the U.K. Telegraph.

PRESENTATION AT THE SYDNEY INSTITUTE ON THE MURRAY ESTUARY

Dr Jennifer Marohasy gave a lecture at the Sydney Institute in mid-February that encompassed the history and management of the Lower Lakes followed by numerous questions from the audience.  The management of the Lower Lakes using the barrages [sea dykes] is of course hotly contested with the MDBA, AEF and CSIRO, amongst others, putting forward different scientific reports to inform the debate.  Considered analysis of scientific reports on such a complex subject is considered good form. 

It was therefore extraordinary to hear an MDBA official at senates estimates committee hearings on February 14th reply to the question "If a peer-reviewed scientific report was available that demonstrated the predominant history of the Lower Lakes was estuarine, would this change the MDBA views on the management of the Lower Lakes as fresh water system."  His reply "probably not." 

AGAINST THE WIND

Maurice Newman, former chair of the Australian Securities Exchange and until recently the ABC, writing in The Spectator magazine and The Australian says "The pursuit of clean energy has relegated ordinary people to the status of collateral damage." 

"Even before they threatened my property, I was opposed to wind farms. They fail on all counts. They are grossly inefficient, extremely expensive, socially inequitable, a danger to human health, environmentally harmful, divisive for communities, a blot on the landscape, and don’t even achieve the purpose for which they were designed, namely the reliable generation of electricity and the reduction of CO2 emissions."

That's what AEF has been saying all along!

The Australian environment reporter Graham Lloyd wrote about the impacts of wind farms in this feature article.

CSIRO REPORT ON WIND FARMS 'NOT CREDIBLE'

The Australian Environment Foundation today slammed the CSIRO report released this week ‘Exploring community acceptance of rural wind farms in Australia’ as not befitting the premier national scientific research organisation.  Read the media release

AEF critique of the report.    Recently retired ABC board chairman, Maurice Newman criticises wind farms in The Australian, saying "these things are not properly researched."  And the Ballarat Courier, which has given wide coverage to the wind farm issue as it affects central Victoria, has picked up on many of the same points as raised in AEF's critique of the CSIRO report in this editorial, When spin meets research. 

WIND POWER IS EXPENSIVE AND INEFFICIENT IN REDUCING CO2 EMISSIONS

A study in the Netherlands found that turning back-up gas power stations on and off to cover spells when there is little wind actually produces more carbon than a steady supply of energy from an efficient modern gas station.

The research is cited in a new report by the Civitas think tank which warns that Britain is in danger of producing more carbon dioxide (CO2) than necessary if the grid relies too much on wind. The same effect applies in Australia.

The Wind Farm Scam is an informative book on "the extraordinary series of illusions on which this new political infatuation with wind energy was based".  Written by former Reader in Ecology at the University of Wales and co-editor of the international Journal of Ecology, Dr John Etherington.

WWF RECOGNISES FARMERS CONTRIBUTION

Dermot O'Gorman, CEO of WWF Australia rightly recognises the role of the farming community in an article at the ABC The Drum website.  Perhaps now is also a good time for WWF to recognise that the 'environmental' regulations for native vegetation, in NSW and Queensland in particular, are having perverse environmental outcomes through bans on properly managing regrowth of native 'woody weeds'.

YOU CAN CALL THESE PEOPLE LIARS, ANTI-WIND CRAZIES, NIMBYS OR HYPOCHONDRIACS – BUT YOU’D BE WRONG.

Lilli Green and Preston Ribnick from Cape Cod, Massachusetts in the United States interviewed people in New Zealand and Australia about their experiences and their research relating to wind farm operations.  They undertook this project because of proposals to locate wind farms in their community in Massachusetts and to gain a better understanding of the issues.

If you have not experienced first-hand the harrowing stories of people affected by wind farms watch the videoand draw your own conclusions.      
University scientists, acousticians, energy consultants and ordinary people tell of their experiences.

In a Canadian newspaper article Dr Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace blasts the wind industry saying it "destroys more jobs than it creates, and causes energy prices to climb for all users."

THE AGE REPORTS ON THE SEA LEVEL WOES OF THE MALDIVES

The Age newspaper published a feature article on Saturday January 7th, followed by an editorial on Monday 9th, on the threats allegedly posed to the Maldives from rising sea levels, which were attiributed to climate change. 

Nowhere in the article or the editorial was there any acknowledgment of the substantial body of scientific evidence showing the Maldives to be subsiding on its own coral foundations.

No attributions to scientific studies were made nor any interview conducted with Dr Nils-Axel Morner, doyen of sea level experts who led an international research project to the Maldives to investigate the very issue the article reported on.  Dr Morner found no evidence to substantiate the claims.

Never let the facts get in the way of a good emotive story - or pass up the chance to blame an issue on climate change.

REGENT HONEYEATER PROJECT ON TRACK FOR SUCCESS

Amateur botanist Ray Thomas has overseen an on-going project [17 years so far] to restore habitat for the nationally endangered Regent Honeyeater on previously cleared farmland north of Benalla in north east Victoria.

Thousands of volunteers encouraged by Ray over the years have restored 463 sites using nearly 489,000 native tree seedlings with the aim of providing box ironbark forest with suitable understorey for the Regent Honeyeater and other uncommon local species.

The project's success is testament to Ray's vision and the co-operation of nearly all local landholders supported by many volunteers. 

THE BIGGEST ESTATE ON EARTH

Historian Bill Gammage has written a well-researched and referenced book on the careful management of the Australian landscape prior to 1788.  The book explodes the myth that pre-settlement Australia was an untamed wilderness revealing the complex, country-wide systems of land management used by Aboriginal people.  Author Roger Franklin has more to say on the book in this article at The Spectator.  Listen to the interview of author Bill Gammage on Counterpoint

DISCONNECT WITH ENVIRONMENTAL REALITY IN THE MD BASIN

Professor Richard Kingsford of the University of NSW speaking on the ABC AM program seems amazed that waterbird numbers have made such an astounding recovery since the end of the drought.  Professor Kingsford has previously decried the “chronic over-extraction of water” in the MD Basin which he says led to a long-term decline in water bird numbers.  The professor is not alone in pointing to ‘environmental catastrophes’ occurring because of a lack of water, with many others pointing to the decline of red gum forests and wetlands – these are the myths that persist despite the facts showing otherwise.

What seems to have escaped mention in the populist narrative that “human water use is destroying the Basin” is that we live in a country of drought and flooding rains.  When we have drought the environment will suffer along with farmers and communities.  Farmers are allocated little if any water in droughts and yet the dams built for irrigation continue to supply water for the environment throughout the worst droughts.  The Murray River no longer runs dry during drought as it used to.

Those calling for radical change in water use should be upfront and acknowledge the wetlands, birdlife and red gum forests are now recovering very nicely through the hand of nature – as they have always done. 

The simplistic notion of returning more than the 1400 gigalitres of water already returned to the environment over the last decade obscures the real problem of mismanagement of the artificial freshwater Lower Lakes and Murray estuary.

WARMING DENIALISM IS IN THE POLITICAL EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

Professor Bob Carter, author of Climate: The Counter Consensus takes on Professor Robert Manne at the Crikey website. 

Says Manne "For several decades I have engaged in ideological disputes".  "And therein lies the problem,"according to Carter, "for ideology is the business of politics whereas global warming is the business of science."

A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE ON W.A FIRES AND FIRE MANAGEMENT

"Western Australia is actually 20 years ahead of the rest of the country when it comes to fire management,"says the former deputy director of the Australian Counter Disaster College at the Department of Defence, David Packham. "The West Australians have been heavily researching bushfires for more than half a century and, while they have had many fires over the years, the lack of fatalities on any grand scale tells the story."

NO RESOLUTION TO MD WATER WOES WITHOUT AMENDING THE WATER ACT

The Water Act of Federal Parliament passed in 2007 was in response to a poorly researched media campaign waged by environmentalists that the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) was being badly managed, over regulated and as a result aquatic habitat and “the environment” were suffering. Sensationalist claims of “dying rivers, dead and dying species, water shortage and plundering inefficient irrigators,” abounded and were accepted as truth says water consultant Ron Pike at Quadrant Online.

Water expert and professor at Harvard University, John Briscoe says in his submission to the senate inquiry into the Water Act "My conclusion is stark. I believe that the Water Act of 2007 was founded on a political deception and that that original sin is responsible for most of the detour on which Australian water management now finds itself.

I also believe that Australia cannot find its way in water management if this Act is the guide."

PEER-REVIEWED STUDIES ON SEA LEVEL OBVIOUSLY NOT ALARMING ENOUGH

A former senior researcher in the NSW department of Climate Change, Doug Lord, said in The Australian two papers he co-authored with colleagues and was due to present at conferences were suppressed because they suggested sea-levels on the east coast are rising at only one 10th of the rate estimated by the federal government, based on data from the IPCC.  His conclusions are supported by the work of renowned sea level expert, Dr Nils-Axel Morner.

WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE: A GUIDE TO THE MD BASIN

Author Kate Jennings spoke to all sides of the argument for this article in The Monthly.  "The demonising of farmers has been insidious in the last decade but reached a crescendo this last year when the Murray Darling Basin Authority’s Guide to the Proposed Basin Plan was released. It was a plan which proposed cutting water in amounts that would’ve, if not outright killed irrigation areas and their towns, at the very least caused them to atrophy. A plan assembled without consultation with farmers and scientists from the areas in question."

MD BASIN PLAN FAILS TO ADDRESS KEY ISSUES

The long-awaited revised draft plan for the Murray Darling Basin was released on November 28th 2011 and was met with disappointment from all stakeholders.  The draft plan failed to address three key issues, two of which have the potential to deliver the water savings the MDBA is seeking.

• End the preoccupation with maintaining the artificial man-made freshwater system in the Lower Lakes by returning the lakes to a natural estuarine system by removing the barrages.  This alone would save 800 gigalitres of freshwater evaporation every year.

• Use the funds already set aside for infrastructure upgrades.  Infrastructure upgrades increase the size of ‘the cake’, delivering extra water for the environment and productive use.  Money spent on water buy-backs does not add to the efficiency of the basin.

• Amend the Water Act of 2007 to reflect the balanced outcomes the community expects and deserves.  Failure to do so will see aggrieved stakeholders challenge the objectives of the final basin plan in court.

Shepparton mayor Geoff Dobson articulates the concerns of many communities across the basin.  Given that farmers manage the majority of land within the basin, having unviable landholders is not a long-term option for gaining the best environmental outcomes. 

CLOUDS OF UNCERTAINTY IN MURRAY WATER BUYBACK PLAN

How much more healthy can a river or forest be?" asks Louise Burge, AEF member, local farmer and mother-of-three turned irrigation campaigner. "Just look how naturally this red gum forest and its wetlands have come back after the drought and you can't help but ask what these additional environmental flows are trying to achieve."  Riverina community leaders are already talking about "preparing for war" over the hefty water buyback plan in this article in The Australian.

CARBON TAX BITES BEFORE INTRODUCTION

AEF's long held view that a tax on carbon dioxide would cost jobs for no environmental gain appears vindicated with the news that a company has shelved a $1 billion expansion because of the tax.  The government however, says the company does not understand the tax.

NEW BOOK SHOWS THE IPPC IS IN BED WITH THE GREEN LOBBY

Canadian investigative reporter, Donna Laframboise spent two years researching the 2007 IPCC report.  She found that graduate students were lead authors, hundreds of references were to non peer-reviewed material and that dozens of authors had direct links with climate activist lobby groups.  Read more on the IPPC's activist 'experts'.

See media release and author interview video

AEF's PROFESSORS CARTER & RIDD ON THE BOLT REPORT

AEF members Professors Peter Ridd and Bob Carter along with Emeritus Professor Garth Paltridge appeared in a panel session on The Bolt Report to answer the big four questions on climate change.

AEF SUBMISSION TO THE INQUIRY ON OUR CLEAN ENERGY FUTURE

Having a clean energy future is highly desirable, but taxing carbon dioxide is not the way to efficiently achieve this goal.  Read the AEF submission to the inquiry here.

RENEWABLES HAVE A PLACE, BUT COAL IS KING

Ockham’s Razor on ABC Radio National gives airplay to a dissenting view on coal by Melbourne industrial engineer, Graham Palmer.   Listen here

MYTH AND THE MURRAY

http://www.mythandthemurray.org/blog/ 
A website dedicated to discussion on Murray Darling environment issues

TASMANIA’S FORESTS: PUSHING A GREENS DEAL ONTO UNWILLING LOCALS

Institute of Foresters Australia member, Mark Poynter writing at OnLine Opinion outlines a viewpoint of the much-vaunted forestry agreement that is rarely reported in the mainland media – many Tasmanians do not support it.

NEGLECTED TRUTHS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Marine biologist Dr Walter Starck has written a brilliant, clear summary of many of the basic issues in the climate debate that are overlooked or ignored by many.  If more in the media had taken a leaf out of Dr Starck’s book, applied some critical thinking to the anomalies in the debate and more analysis, rather than advocacy, the debate on ‘how we stop global warming’ would have finished years ago.  Article at Quadrant Online. 

GREATEST MORAL CHALLENGE, NOW JUST ECONOMIC REFORM

Legislation to introduce a tax on carbon dioxide emissions will be introduced into the federal parliament in mid September to fulfil a pledge by the government to tackle our greatest moral challenge – the alleged catastrophic threat to the global environment.  However, nowadays ministers rarely mention the benefits to the environment from the implementation of a tax on carbon dioxide, but talk of the tax as an economic reform.

The sales pitch for this deeply unpopular tax may have changed, but AEF’s rationale for our opposition to the original ETS and now the carbon tax has not.  Back in early 2009 we said an ETS:

1. Will not change global temperatures; 
2. Will force Australian jobs overseas; and
3. Will make Australians poorer; while it is richer, not poorer nations that are better able to protect their natural environment. 

Nothing has changed except the desperate sales pitch of those who want to impose ‘economic reform’.

THIS IS OFF THE RECORD – THE CLIMATE MOVEMENT SHREDS LAST TRACE OF INTEGRITY TO STAY INSIDE THE TENT

“Gillard’s plan shows beyond doubt that the only carbon price Australia will adopt is one that largely defeats the purpose of a carbon price” says Research Fellow and author, Guy Pearse in this article in The Monthly.

TOP 5 MYTHS ABOUT GENETIC MODIFICATION

Chief Research Scientist for Plant Science at CSIRO, Richard Richards outlines just some of the many benefits to the environment from GM crops in this article.

TURBINES BLOWN AWAY BY WINDS OF CHANGE

At least three proposed wind farms have been dumped or thrown into limbo over the past three months, as the Victorian government's tough new guidelines cause projects that have been years in the making to topple over says Pia Akerman in The Australian (August 30, 2011). 

The Waubra Foundation, who investigate adverse health effects of wind turbines distributed this informationrelating to recent events.

HEALTH PROBLEMS NEAR NEW HEPBURN WIND FARM

A local doctor has spoken out publicly for the first time after treating patients for symptoms associated with living near wind turbines.

Dr Andja Mitric-Andjic, who practises in Daylesford Victoria, said she had treated at least two local patients for sleep deprivation, and spoken with others living near the Hepburn wind farm.

Another doctor, practising in Ballarat, also spoke about the health issues associated with industrial wind turbines.

The NSW premier is also not keen on wind farms. 

AMERICAN NGO TAKES ON THE STATE OF COLORADO

The American Tradition Institute whose motto is ‘Restoring science, accountability and liberty to the environmental policy debate’ is taking legal action against the State of Colorado over the proliferation of wind farms and renewable energy targets.  Sort of what AEF has been saying all along.

HOW TAX DOLLARS ARE HELPING TO FUND GREEN AGENDAS

Picture: Andrew Brownhill Source: The Australian

When accosted by a giant, benign-looking koala on a city street, rattling a tin and seeking a donation for the Wilderness Society, you may slap a few of your hard-earned dollars into the fake marsupial paw to help the environment. Or you may walk on by, keeping your money, because you believe the Wilderness Society has become an extreme-left, anti-development organisation.

Chris Kenny from The Australian queries whether government funding of environment groups receives adequate scrutiny in this article while Noel Pearson, director of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership knows all about backroom deals. 

THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GREEN INTENTIONS

If you thought pink batts were a poorly implemented, badly designed, money-wasting, deadly green disaster, you ain’t seen nothing yet.  Try wind turbines says Miranda Devine in this article in the Daily Telegraph.

INDUSTRIAL WIND FARM PROPOSALS UNSETTLE COMMUNITIES NEAR YASS

New proposals for large wind farms for the Rugby-Boorowa district near Yass in southern NSW have initiated a community meeting, which was held at Boorowa on March 14th to inform local residents and proceed with the establishment of the Boorowa Landscape Guardian group.  Two new wind farm proposals totalling 190 turbines up to 150 metres tall spread over 65 properties encompassing approximately 35 kilometres of the Yass valley have been proposed.   

The proposed wind farms would add to the existing wind farms at Crookwell north-east of Yass and a proposal for another large facility at Collector, east of Yass.

A lack of information on the proposed wind farms saw local residents organise a public meeting which was addressed by AEF executive director Max Rheese, Waubra Foundation medical director, Dr Sarah Laurie, district resident Dr Dave Burraston, Friends of Collector organiser, Tony Hodgson, local MP, Katrina Hodgkinson and solicitor Aaron Cornish.  Scott Evans from Wind Prospects, one of the proponents, addressed the meeting and took questions from concerned residents.  Suzlon, the other company involved in proposing a facility in the local area attended the meeting, but declined to speak or take questions.

Much valuable information was conveyed to the 140 residents at the meeting covering issues such as the need for large taxpayer subsidies for wind farms, decommissioning and contractual liabilities for hosting landowners, adverse health effects, job prospects, possible economic opportunities and division within local communities over wind farm establishment.

More meetings are planned after incorporation of the local Landscape Guardians group. 

Rugby-Boorowa wind farm concerns  Wind farms divide community

RUMBLING FROM TURBINES PUT WIND UP SLEEP DEPRIVED LOCALS

While the Senate holds an inquiry into the social and health effects of wind farms The Australian highlights the ongoing real life disruption to thousands of Australians who live near large industrial wind farms and suffer the consequences. 

TURBINES DECLARED A NASTY NEIGHBOUR AS SECRET BUYOUT IS REVEALED

Victorians who have endured health problems from a nearby wind farm have been gagged from talking in return for the sale of their land.

Spanish multinational energy company Acciona has been quietly buying farms adjacent to its site at Waubra, near Ballarat, as an increasing number of residents in the tight-knit community complain of the ill effects of living near turbines.

SCIENCE FOR SALE

Oceans are trashed with non-biodegradable plastics often fatal to sea life; tropical forests are burned or cleared; critical species habitat is destroyed; and life-forms potentially crucial to medical science are extinguished. But the politically correct of the West, lowering the priority of immediate matters, maintain blind loyalty to a longer-term hypothesis: anthropogenic global warming says Australian Environment Foundation chairman, Alex Stuart in this article at Quadrant Online.

AEF Chair Alex Stuart says carbon not worth a plug nickel

Politicians and theoreticians say carbon must be priced so the market can efficiently sort out the problem of CO2-induced climate change. But markets have already spoken and they don’t like what they see: collectively, they don’t think atmospheric CO2 costs society much, if anything at all. (See the rest of the article at On Line Opinion)

LIMITS OF CLIMATE MODELS

Scientific adviser and AEF board member, Professor Peter Ridd’s address to the AEF annual conference was published at Online Opinion on December 17th pointing out the flaws in relying on computer climate models to predict future climate accurately. Article at Online Opinion

THE FORESTS AGREEMENT TO END ALL FORESTY DISAGREEMENT?

Dr Simon Grove, a qualified forester, queries whether the proposed forestry agreement in Tasmania will be good for the environment in a well argued article.

Article at Online Opinion 

Leading Environmental Campaigners Now Support AEF Stance on GM and Nuclear

Leading environmental campaigners in the U.K. have overturned decades long ideological opposition to nuclear energy and genetically modified crops in favour of support to help curb global warming.

AEF does not support their reasons for changing their views, but give them credit for doing so.  AEF was the ONLY environment group in Australia to support the introduction of GM crops and support the need for an informed debate on whether Australia should or should not adopt nuclear energy.

For this we have been vilified and denigrated by other environment groups blinkered by their ideological view in the face of damning scientific evidence, despite GM crops being adopted in most of Australia. 

Well now we have also been vindicated.

"Environmentalists did harm by being ignorant and ideological and unwilling to change their mind based on actual evidence. As a result we have done harm and I regret it."

See article in the U.K Telegraph

Also see Environmental groups should admit mistakes

Wind Farm Review Needed 

As protests against wind farms continue to mount in rural communities over health issues, questions arise about any of the alleged benefits of wind power.

“The premise underpinning the pursuit of renewable energy through wind power, at any cost, needs urgent review before we move from the current 266 turbines in Victoria to the planned total of 1228, as well as massive planned expansion in South Australia and NSW” says AEF executive director, Max Rheese in this article at Quadrant Online

See also:

Landscape degradation for little benefit

AEF media release on wind farm protest 

LISTEN TO US CAMPAIGN SUCCESS

AEF’s first campaign on our campaign website, to oppose the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme, has achieved a significant milestone in the deferral of the legislation until 2013.

The recognition that this legislation did not have the support of the people no doubt was the reality that led to this historic backdown.  This is all the more significant given that AEF was almost alone in its opposition to this poor policy in early 2009 when big business, trade unions, many politicians, media and trade associations supported the legislation in some format.

In the end poor policy – for all the rhetoric – is still poor policy and should be condemned.

Thank You to all who supported the campaign to this point. 

Don Burke receives Australia Day Honor

Former AEF Chairman, Don Burke was awarded an OAM in the Australia Day Honors List.  The award was given for services to conservation, the environment and the media.

The board and members of AEF warmly congratulate our fellow member and hard working chairman on this recognition of his services to the community.

SENATE HAS VOTED IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST

December 2, 2009

The Australian Environment Foundation applauds the senate vote against the legislation to introduce a flawed emissions trading scheme that will have no measurable benefit to the environment.

“This costly scheme is nothing more than a tax on energy that will make Australians poorer” said Alex Stuart, chairman of the AEF.

See AEF Media Release

AEF speaks out on global warming in The Australian

An advertisement was placed in The Australian on Tuesday June 9th to draw attention to the campaign opposed tothe introduction of an Emissions Tradinng Scheme. 

The background theme for the advertisement were all the ridiculous claims attributed to global warming listed at John Brignell's Numberwatch website.

WARREN BUFFETT: 'WIND FARMS DON'T MAKE SENSE WITHOUT THE TAX CREDIT'

Billionaire Warren Buffett would do anything to lower the tax rate of his company Berkshire Hathaway, including building unprofitable wind turbines to get federal government tax credits.

“I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s tax rate,” Buffett told an audiencein Omaha, Nebraska this weekend. “For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”

The rent-seekers in Australia taking billions of dollars in subsidies funded by electricity consumers via higher power bills are not nearly as honest as Buffett!

GREEN THUGGERY IS HOLDING AGRIBUSINESS TO RANSOM.

AEF director and former ambassador to GATT (the predecessor to the World Trade Organisation) Alan Oxleywriting in The Australian highlights how multi-national environment groups seek to control the supply chains of primary industries.

“Tony Abbott came to office with commitments to cut green and red tape and push against unproductive and growth-sapping green policies. Yet activist groups such as Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) pay no regard. They are running campaigns to tie up Australian farmers with more green tape. The declared aim is to save the environment: the real aim is to control farming.”

THIS BOOK IS NOT FOR GREENS!

Greens may have started as genuine environmentalists. Much of the green movement has now morphed into an unelected extremist political pressure group accountable to no one, much to the continuing embarrassment of AEF, its members and all genuine environmentalists.

Greens create problems, many of which are concocted, and provide no solutions because in the main they are driven by ideology, ignoring facts and evidence that does not suit their cause.

This book by Professor Ian Plimer examines green policies in the light of established knowledge and shows that they are unrealistic.  The book can be ordered here.

STINGING CRITIQUE OF WIND FARM HEALTH REVIEW DEMANDS ACTION BY THE HEALTH MINISTER

In March 2014 the National Health & Medical Research Council released its review of the scientific literaturerelating to wind turbine operations and adverse health impacts along with a draft Information Paper for public consultation.

While the NHMRC stated “There is no reliable or consistent evidence that wind farms directly cause adverse health effects in humans” they also made clear “The body of evidence relating to wind farms and health is small and poor quality”. This evidence was reported as insufficient and sub-standard.

No doubt to its enduring embarrassment the NHMRC and the Health Minister Peter Dutton have received a stinging critique of the review process by Dr Michael Crawford where he observes “gross defects” in the NHMRC process.

Dr Crawford states “The problems in the report are so pervasive as to cast serious doubt on the adequacy of the working of the associated Reference Group and those involved in the review”.

The federal government’s stated commitment to medical and acoustical studies to determine if wind turbine operations cause adverse health impacts demand that Minister Dutton direct the NHMRC to immediately undertake a review that this time complies with their terms of reference. 

AUDIT OF CSIRO & BOM CLIMATE DATA REQUIRED

The Australian government relies on the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology for advice on global warming.  The BOM in particularly relies in large part on its historical temperature dataset, but has no confidence in its own dataset prior to 1910.

On March 26th Dennis Jensen, the Member for Tangney, spoke in the Australian Parliament about how the Australian Bureau of Meteorology plays “fast and loose” with critical temperature data.

Dr Jensen emphasises the problem with the Bureau claiming unreliable temperature data for Australia prior to 1910, while supporting and contributing to a United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) global temperature data base from 1850 including for Australia.

The government needs to set in place an independent agency to audit all science on which it relies on in the formulation of policy.

THE PRESSING NEED FOR AN INDEPENDENT SCIENTIFIC COMMISSION

Continuing controversy over climate change, the true state of health of the Great Barrier Reef and water use in the Murray Darling Basin, just to name a few issues, rely on the undertaking and interpretation of science to distil the facts of an alleged environmental threat.  This is as it should be.

Many billions of dollars in taxpayer funds are expended on addressing just the three environmental issues mentioned dwarfing the very considerable sums spent on the scientific research that called for action.  But who checks the science?

Of the issues mentioned, almost exclusively the science and advice provided to government is provided by government agencies with no independent scientific audit, a role that used to be played by the Australian Science, Technology and Engineering Council until it was discontinued in 1997.

AEF calls for the re-establishment of a science engineering public audit agency equivalent to the Productivity Commission as a check on the blatant politicisation that now negatively affects all environmental decisions as they relate to both public and private development proposals.

AEF director Professor Peter Ridd wrote in this 2011 article of the need for such a body “We need an organisation the role of which is not to directly try to determine the truth but just to make the best case against the conventional wisdom. I will call this organisation the Scientific Challengers Office (SCO) for want of a better name. The organisation should run its own journal and have significant resources to fund external scientists or to employ its own. It must be government funded and possibly a statutory authority to minimise political interference.”

ARE ACADEMICS ABOVE THE LAW?

Marine biologist Professor Walter Starck in this article looks at the declining integrity of science and how this has affected the public perception of issues such as the health of the Great Barrier Reef.

“Science has traditionally enjoyed a high level of public trust, and the corruption of scientific integrity has been especially harmful.  The problem has not been uniform across the sciences but is especially notable in the area of environmental studies. An observer could well conclude that it all began several decades ago, when researchers found that the probability for approval of research grants could be significantly increased if relevance to an environmental threat was suggested.  This might seem innocent, but once money is received on such basis, what starts as a suggestion soon becomes necessary to defend as ‘fact’.”

HOW IS THE NATIVE FISH STRATEGY GOING?

As part of the environmental rehabilitation of the Murray Darling Basin a Native Fish Strategy was adopted in 2003 and ran through until 2013.  It was stated at the time that native fish numbers were only at 10 per cent of pre-European levels.  According to the Australian River Restoration Centre a decade later, native fish populations are in decline and not more than the 2003 population.

So after ten years and millions of dollars, how is the strategy going?  One of the most abundant species in the Murray’s Lower Lakes prior to the construction of the sea dykes that separate Lake Alexandrina from the Southern Ocean was the mulloway.  The mulloway was the centre of a thriving fishing industry in the Lower Lakes which collapsed with the construction of the sea dykes, which turned a near pristine estuarine environment into an artificial freshwater lake.

The mulloway is not even mentioned in the Native Fish Strategy that seeks to restore fish populations to 60 per cent of their pre-European numbers.

Dr Jennifer Marohasy and Professor John Abbot published a critique of the Native Fish Strategy which suggests many of the challenges are known, but not acted upon.

FACTS DEMAND CHANGE TO TASMANIAN WORLD HERITAGE NOMINATION

A report released on March 12th 2014 by the Australian Environment Foundation demonstrates that the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area ‘minor boundary’ nomination by the Gillard government is deeply flawed and should be amended as proposed by the Abbott government.

The key issue highlighted in the report is that the current nomination includes timber harvesting coupes and plantations abusing the integrity of the World Heritage Area (WHA) “outstanding universal value” criteria thereby undermining continued public support. Read the media release

WHAT VESTAS KNEW ABOUT TURBINE NOISE AND WHEN THEY KNEW IT

AEF executive director Max Rheese documents in this article published at OnLine Opinion how the wind industry knew a decade ago that wind turbine noise has an impact on some people and safer buffer zones are required.

“This is a story about the wind industry and turbine manufacturer, Vestas and the global campaign to counter dissent about the adverse impacts caused by their product to an often ignored minority of people living in rural communities worldwide.

It is also about the useful idiots co-opted to help sell its message.  A term used for those who are seen to unwittingly support an objectionable cause which they naïvely believe to be a force for good.”

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AUSTRALIAN NOT AS CONCERNED WITH CLIMATE AS ACTIVISTS

Peter Hannam reported in The Age on February 6th that: “Australians rank climate change well down on their list of concerns, even though most believe temperatures where they live will rise, according to an annualsurvey of attitudes by the CSIRO.On a list of 16 issues ranging from health and cost of living to terrorism and drug problems, climate change came in at just 14th.

Even among environmental issues, the climate ranked only seventh out of eight concerns, behind household waste and above only salinity.”

Despite all the hype, alarm and scaremongering particularly over the last decade by climate activists, the IPCC and some scientists the survey shows only 47% of Australians believe in human induced climate change down from 50% in the first CSIRO survey in 2011.  A different survey in 2009 just a fortnight before the Copenhagen debacle found that 67% of Australians believed that climate change was because of human activity.

This rapid fall in the belief of dangerous anthropogenic global warming makes the statement by the lead author of the latest CSIRO survey Dr Zoe Leviston rather interesting: “Effective action on adapting to climate change needs to be based on current and reliable information about what Australians think about climate change.”  Really?

If next year’s survey reveals that only 40% of Australians think climate change is significantly human induced do we stop wasting millions on dubious programs?  Or would that level of belief need to fall to 35% or 30%?  
How about the idea that policy and action (costing billions) be based on empirical evidence rather than the discredited projections of computer models? 

$7 BILLION CARBON TAX REDUCES CO2 BY 0.03% TO COOL US BY ZERO DEGREES

The Australian reported that National greenhouse accounts to be released today show carbon emissions fell just 0.3 per cent in the year to September 2013. This was despite the carbon tax raising $7 billion over the period.

Jo Nova at her website did not think much of the outcome: Australia has one of the most aggressive carbon reduction schemes in the world. If it achieved anything at all, it was an accident. Sucking $7billion out of the economy may have helped reduced CO2, not through people using “clean” energy, but because it lowered Australia’s GDP. Businesses gave up trying to produce useful things, and spent more time filling in bits of paper.

THE CLIMATE SPECTATOR TAKEN TO TASK FOR BLOWING HOT AIR ON WIND

Herald Sun business editor Terry McCrann is embarrassed about one of the News Ltd websites The Climate Spectator.

McCrann takes the editor Tristan Edis to task for his interpretation of the meagre contribution of S.A and Victorian wind farms to the record demand for electricity during the January heatwave in southern Australia.

"The evidence is clear, unambiguous and undeniable. Except of course to deniers like Hanson-Young and Tristan Edis of the - embarrassingly, also our - Climate Spectator website.

When you need more power to keep the lights on, to keep industry working, to, at its most basic, keep people alive, the answer is most certainly NOT blowing in the wind.

When we needed more power last week, wind went missing in action. This truth is captured in the graphs."

WIND AND SOLAR CANT HANDLE THE HEAT

Heatwave failure stirs debate on cost of the RET reported the Australian Financial Review after a series of hot days during the week:

"More than $2 billion of subsidised investment in over 2 million rooftop solar systems contributed less than 5 per cent of peak power demand in Victoria and South Australia during the worst of this week's heatwave.

A lack of wind in South Australia during the extreme heat on Wednesday meant the state's wind farms did almost nothing to stop wholesale power prices surging past $13,000 a megawatt hour, several hundred times normal prices.

The inability of wind and solar to meet demand during the heatwave in southern Australia has fuelled debate over whether the cost of renewable energy is outweighing the benefit ahead of a review of the government's 2020 renewable energy target."

Meanwhile The Australian reported: "When electricity demand peaked at the height of this week's heatwave in southern Australia, the total power output from the fleet of wind farms across Victoria and South Australia was almost zero."

The report also highlighted previous false assertions by the wind industry that widely dispersed wind farms would compensate for any intermittent erratic output from individual wind farms during calm conditions.  This assertion is contrary to the experience of Victoria and South Australia last week.

It is also contrary to the conclusions of a paper published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Energy & Environment by electrical engineer Paul Miskelly and physicist Dr Tom Quirk published - wait for it - three years ago!

The vigorous denials of the wind industry rebutting many issues of their flawed industry such as: non-compliance with noise regulations, adverse health impacts, very expensive consumer subsidies and little or no reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are shown to be false as the evidence and real-life experience accumulates.

One by one the false denials are crushed by reality.

Wind turbines wilting under the weight of evidence

IPCC AR5 WEAKENS THE CASE FOR AGW

Evidence reported by the IPCC Assessment Report 5 weakens the case for anthropogenic factors dominating climate change in the 20th and early 21st centuries says Professor Judith Curry.

The IPCC assessment reports have expressed increasingly confident consensus views of the importance of anthropogenic influence on the global climate over the past 60 years.

This increase in confidence in the main conclusions in the AR5 Summary for Policymakers seems unwarranted based on the text, figures and analyses in the main Working Group 1 Report, and also in comparison with the conclusions from the AR4.  Several key elements of the report point to a weakening of the case for attributing the warming of human influences:

• Lack of warming since 1998 and growing discrepancies with climate model projections
• Evidence of decreased climate sensitivity to increases in CO2
• Evidence that sea level rise in 1920-1950 is of the same magnitude as in 1993-2012
• Increasing Antarctic sea ice extent
• Low confidence in attributing extreme weather events to anthropogenic global warming

Judith Curry is Professor and Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology and recently served on the National Academies Climate Research Committee and the Space Studies Board, and the NOAA Climate Working Group and hosts the website Climate Etc.

SENATOR SLAMS WIND INDUSTRY NON-COMPLIANCE

On December 10th Senator John Madigan gave a speech in the Senate of his experiences with the wind industry, Victorian planning authorities and the Clean Energy Regulator.

“Tonight I put on record some excerpts from those FOI documents, because this story is not just about Waubra [wind farm] breaching its planning permit conditions; it is about a culture of noncompliance arising from systemic regulatory failure that impacts every wind farm in Victoria.

The authors of this story are the wind farm companies, the Victorian Planning Minister and his department, the Commonwealth's Clean Energy
Regulator, local councils and others in the regulatory community who are not paying attention. This story involves the pain and suffering of little people living in rural Australia, environmental damage, fraud on a grand scale, deception, lies and concealment.”

U.N. WAR ON COAL THREATENING ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRESS IN WORLD'S DESPERATE REGIONS

Canadian investigative journalist Donna Laframboise questions the actions of the U.N in its campaign against coal.

"Far too many people believe there’s no downside to fighting global warming. I continually meet smart, well-spoken individuals who absolutely refuse to think critically about climate policy. Their reasoning is that, even if global warming doesn’t turn out to be disastrous, these measures are good for the environment anyway.

But that is frequently not the case. Moreover, beneath the surface of many green initiatives we find the toxic (perhaps murderous is a better word) belief that a pristine environment is more important than human well-being."

TASMANIA WORLD HERITAGE LISTING COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE

The AEF today supported the federal government's resolve to rescind the ill-advised World Heritage Listing of Tasmanian forests which are part of the current 'peace deal' process.  Read more

THE ANSWER TO BURNING QUESTIONS

AEF member Roger Underwood reviews two important books on the value of fuel reduction as a fire management tool.

"Two important books have come my way recently. One, The Biggest Estate on Earth by Bill Gammage, is destined to become a classic in Australian literature, let alone bushfire literature. The other is Burning Issues by Mark Adams and Peter Attiwill, a concise, but comprehensive outline of the science underlying fuel reduction burning in Australia. Alongside Stephen Pyne's earlier classic (Burning Bush), well-read copies of all three of these volumes should be on the bookshelf of every land manager in Australia, and should be compulsory study for undergraduates in all of the natural sciences."

WATER IS REPLACING CLIMATE CHANGE AS THE NEXT U.N. ENVIRONMENTAL SCARE

Canadian Dr Tim Ball in this article at the Watts Up With That website highlights what he sees as the focus of the U.N. Environmental Program as the hysteria over 'dangerous' anthropogenic global warming loses its political shine.

Once a problem is falsely established, control is not far behind. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) needs a replacement for the climate change scare. It must be a natural global resource, little understood by most so they can easily mislead transcend national boundaries and quickly raise passions and concerns. The target, water, is already in play.

CABINET REJECTS 'SOCIALISM MASQUERADING AS ENVIRONMENTALISM

Federal cabinet has ruled that Australia will not sign up to any new contributions, taxes or charges at the Warsaw climate change summit.

This come as part of a significant toughening of its stance as it plans to move within days to repeal the carbon tax and other wasteful green schemes.

Cabinet ministers have decided to reject any measures of "socialism masquerading as environmentalism" after meeting last week to consider a submission on the position the government would take to the Warsaw conference.

Canada has supported the Australian decision not to contribute to the U.N. green climate fund which seeks $100 billion from developed countries.

TOP U.S CLIMATE SCIENTISTS SUPPORT NUCLEAR POWER

AEF has been saying for years it is time for Australia to, at the very least, have a mature, rational discussion about nuclear energy.  Prominent environmentalists Mark Lynas in the U.K, Stewart Brand in the U.S and Patrick Moore in Canada have previously recanted their opposition to nuclear energy.

An open letter to environmentalists and world leaders from climate scientists says wind and solar power are not enough to diminish carbon emissions.

CLIMATE MODELS - WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT

Observations Now Inconsistent with Climate Model Predictions for 25 (going on 35) Years say Paul Knappenberger and Patrick Michaels in this article at the Watts Up With That websiste.

Question: How long will the fantasy that climate models are reliable indicators of the earth’s climate evolution persist in face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary?

Answer: Probably for as long as there is a crusade against fossil fuels.

LONG BOW TO DRAW BLAMING BUSHFIRES ON MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING

John McLean is the author of three peer-reviewed papers on climate and was an expert reviewer for the IPCC's latest climate report and writes in The Canberra Times that natural forces can account for the severity of recent fires and fires in the past.

BUSHFIRE CLIMATE CHANGE FURPHY DISTRACTS ATTENTION FROM FAILURE TO REDUCE FUEL LOADS

The IPCC says in its latest report that the global temperature has risen 0.8C since 1880 - less than one degree in 133 years.  Everyone knows that south east Australia has suffered dozens of large damaging bushfires since the 1851 Black Thursday devastation in Victoria, many of those occurring decades before any appreciable rise in emissions of carbon dioxide.  And yet numerous commentators have sought to link this benign rise in temperature with the bushfires occurring in NSW.

Many of these commentators disingenuously seek to distract attention away from the lack of prescribed burning, which they oppose, to instead promote climate change alarm, which they support.

If the IPCC had any specific evidence of a link between climate change and bushfires we would be hearing all about it, given that we aren’t, enough said.
Decades of bushfire research demonstrate the primary determinant of fire intensity, apart from weather on a particular day in a fire emergency, is fuel load.

Award winning author Professor Bill Gammage documents this in his book The Biggest Estate on Earth.   

NSW should heed the lesson learned after Black Saturday and stop tinkering with fuel reduction and triple their program as Victoria is now implementing to reduce risk and fire intensity.

BY OPPOSING GOLDEN RICE, GREENPEACE DEFIES ITS OWN VALUES – AND HARMS CHILDREN  

According to the World Health Organization, Vitamin A deficiency is a public health problem in more than half of all countries, especially in Africa and South-East Asia, hitting hardest young children and pregnant women in low-income countries.

…An estimated 250 000 to 500 000 vitamin A-deficient children become blind every year, half of them dying within 12 months of losing their sight.

Former co-founder of Greenpeace Patrick Moore explains in this article that impoverished people in impoverished nations often “eat little more than a cup of rice each day” and stand to benefit enormously from the introduction of Vitamin A rich GM Golden Rice.  These endeavours however are opposed by a “heartless” Greenpeace campaign against GM technology.

Professor Sharon Beder also gives Greenpeace a serve in an article headed ‘Green Warriors to Greenwashers’saying “The philosophy that Greenpeace espouses today contrasts markedly with positions that it took in the early 1990s”.

If this is what the Greenpeace version of environmentalism looks like – ideological opposition to life saving improvements in food production and promoting corporate greenwashing – we will pass.

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BUSHFIRE LESSONS NOT LEARNED

A report on the catastrophic Tasmania bushfires of January 2013 has shown the Tasmanian governmentignored warnings of the need for greatly increased fuel reduction burning programs to better manage bushfires. 

This replicates the warnings from rural communities in Victoria in the decades leading up to the Black Saturday fires of 2009 for such a program to be urgently adopted.  Sadly this was only agreed to after the loss of 173 lives on Black Saturday.

NSW residents in fire affected areas are also not happy with the government’s prescribed burning program, nor are local councils. 

Other states should reap the benefits of the lessons learned in Victoria in 2009 that public land needs active fire management BEFORE devastating bushfires.

WIND FARMS DO AFFECT PROPERTY VALUES

Matthew Cranston writes in the Australian Financial Review about the long-held concerns of many rural communities about land values when wind farms come to town.
“Rural landholders across Australia may face a disappearing pool of buyers and plummeting values of up to 60 per cent because of neighbouring wind farms, a new, independent report has established”.

WILL STALLED CLIMATE CHANGE FINALLY TAKE THE WIND OUT OF FAILED ENERGY POLICIES?

Larry Bell writes at the Forbes website of the growing disenchantment with the IPCC process from former lead authors.

"Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, a socialist and one of the fathers of Germany’s environmental movement, is now one of many adamant IPCC report critics.

Dr. Vahrenholt’s lack of trust in the IPCC’s objectivity and veracity first took root when he became an expert reviewer for their 2011 report on renewable energy and discovered numerous errors. When he pointed out the inaccuracies to IPCC, their officials simply brushed them aside. Stunned by this, he asked himself “Is this the way they approached climate assessment reports?” Then, after digging into the IPCC’s climate report, he was horrified to discover that his suspicions were true".

15 YEAR PAUSE SOLVED! THE OCEANS ATE OUR GLOBAL WARMING

Remember when climate change used to be called global warming which then became dangerous global warming?  It appears it is not so dangerous anymore as it has all been swallowed by the deep ocean. 

So goes the explanation in a disingenuous effort to address the 15 year pause in global temperatures in theIPCC press release at the launch of the AR5 report.  But we can’t be sure because we have no way of measuring this:

"The heat is still coming in, but it appears to have gone into the deep ocean and, frustratingly, we do not have the instruments to measure there," said Professor Ted Shepherd of Reading University. "Global warming has certainly not gone away."

So the IPCC think the ‘warming’ of the last 15 years that has not been observed is in the deep ocean, can’t prove it, but hey it’s got to be somewhere. 
This constitutes some of the “hilarious incoherence” of the latest report according to Professor Richard Lindzen (see post below).

SURELY THE IPCC PROCESS IS STILL NOT TAKEN SERIOUSLY?

Incredible as it seems many journalists still take the IPCC process seriously, as is evidenced by the breathless media coverage of likely catastrophic future climate disasters since the release of the fifth assessment report on September 27th.

However the IPCC process and integrity is so damaged by the continuing litany of errors and alarmist advocacy that any self-respecting journalist should pause for thought. 

• Insignificant global temperature rise for 15 years according to the U.K. Met Office which directly contradicts the alarmist global warming theory from undisputed increasing CO2 levels.
• Greenpeace and WWF activists as IPCC expert reviewers.
• The Climategate debacle as analysed by Dr John Costella.
• The embarrassing false claims about Himalayan glaciers.
• IPCC claims of agreement on climate change between thousands of scientists reduced to just seven reviewers by John McLean.
• The infamous Hockey Stick graph trumpeted by the IPCC in their third assessment report to show catastrophic warming was exposed as a fraud by Canadian statisticians McIntyre and McKitrick.

We could go on and on, but you get the picture.

IPCC report ‘hilarious incoherence’ says Lindzen

MIT Climate Scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen told Climate Depot on September 27, 2013:
I think that the latest IPCC report has truly sunk to level of hilarious incoherence.  They are proclaiming increased confidence in their models as the discrepancies between their models and observations increase.

Their excuse for the absence of warming over the past 17 years is that the heat is hiding in the deep ocean.  However, this is simply an admission that the models fail to simulate the exchanges of heat between the surface layers and the deeper oceans.

Climate Change: This Is Not Science Its - Mumbo Jumbo

Lord Nigel Lawson, Margaret Thatcher’s former Chancellor writes in the U.K. Sunday Telegraph:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which published on Friday the first instalment of its latest report, is a deeply discredited organisation. Presenting itself as the voice of science on this important issue, it is a politically motivated pressure group that brings the good name of science into disrepute.

Its previous report, in 2007, was so grotesquely flawed that the leading scientific body in the United States, the InterAcademy Council, decided that an investigation was warranted. The IAC duly reported in 2010, and concluded that there were “significant shortcomings in each major step of [the] IPCC’s assessment process”, and that “significant improvements” were needed. It also chastised the IPCC for claiming to have “high confidence in some statements for which there is little evidence”.

Since then, little seems to have changed, and the latest report is flawed like its predecessor.

ABC Q&A DOES US ALL A FAVOUR

Q&A by providing a solo platform to David Suzuki on September 23rd, and to their credit, inviting questioners critical of Suzuki’s views on climate change, GM technology and the Great Barrier Reef laid bare Suzuki’s complete lack of credibility as an informed commentator.

Watch the show to see the first questioner unwittingly expose Suzuki’s complete lack of knowledge of the IPCC datasets used to measure global temperature.

He cast aspersions on “there may be a climate sceptic from the University of Alabama” when the provenance of the datasets was explained to him, apparently without knowing their author is former IPCC lead author Dr John Christy.  Suzuki did no better trying to explain his opposition to GM technology.

Update:  Media Watch takes the cane to Suzuki

As Media Watch host Paul Barry notes when exposing (3.15 minute mark) David Suzuki's grasp of even the basic facts of the climate debate "Even his supporters must have been disappointed".  Barry also notes that Professor Bob Carter had a 'dream' run when interviewed by 2GB's Alan Jones.  That may be so, but Barry failed to mention that Suzuki had a 'dream' run on numerous other ABC and Fairfax media outlets during his visit without a challenging question put to him.

At least Professor Carter knows what he is talking about whereas as Barry points out, Suzuki does not have a clue.

CLIMATE COMMISSION GONE AT LAST!

Environment minister Greg Hunt has today advised Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery his position and the Commission is redundant.  The Climate Change Authority is also to be abolished, while the Clean Energy Finance Corporation has been instructed not to advance any more loans prior to its own demise.

The Climate Commission has added no value to the debate on climate change producing a series of alarmist reports much of which have been thoroughly discredited.

Sara Phillips from the environment portal of the ABC website is however aggrieved that Commissioner Flannery is out of a job.  She says “Former Chief Commissioner, Tim Flannery, is Australia's Al Gore in that he is the figure most loathed and pilloried by the people who are not convinced of the climate science”.  Comparing someone to Al Gore is not much of a compliment.

Sara is apparently unaware that the reputation of Al Gore’s popular film An Inconvenient Truth has beentrashed by no less than the British High Court, which found the film contained 9 serious errors of fact.  The court found these errors so distorting that it ruled the errors must be made known before viewing by children in U.K. schools.

Gore and Flannery should have stuck to their knitting because as climate advocates they have got more wrong than they have got right, at great cost to the public and for no benefit to the environment.  The same can be said about the Climate Commission and the Climate Change Authority.

NEW REPORT CONFIRMS LEAKED IPCC FINDINGS

The independent Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) released its Summary for Policymakers of the physical science of climate change in Chicago on September 28th 2013 confirming global temperature is rising at half the rate previously thought by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Leaked reports from the draft IPCC Fifth Assessment Report due for release on September 27th also make the embarrassing concession that the world has been warming since 1951 at only 0.12C per decade, contrary to computer climate model predictions.

“Most notably, we found the IPCC has exaggerated the amount of warming likely to occur if the concentration of atmospheric CO2 were to double, and such warming as occurs is likely to be modest and cause no net harm to the global environment or to human wellbeing” said the former head of the Australian National Climate Centre and chapter author, William Kininmonth.

Mr Kininmonth and AEF director Professor Bob Carter were just two of dozens of scientist authors and reviewers who contributed to the report.

A full list of contributors and the NIPCC Summary for Policymakers can be read here.  AEF's media release can be seen here.

The IPCC is due to meet in Stockholm on September 23rd to finalise its Summary of the Fifth Assessment Report.  The AEF calls on the Australian government delegation to insist the IPCC recognise the 15-year pause in global temperature rise renders meaningless the claims that human emissions of carbon dioxide will result in catastrophic global warming.

GLOBAL WARMING IS JUST HALF OF WHAT WE SAID: LEAKED IPCC REPORT

In what amounts to an incredible retreat from previous dire forecasts the IPCC now admits that natural climate variability is significant, the rate and magnitude of climate change is not significant and climate computer models are worthless in predicting future climate change with any accuracy.

According to the U.K. Mail on Sunday reporter David Rose on September 14th “A leaked copy of the world’s most authoritative climate study reveals scientific forecasts of imminent doom were drastically wrong.

The Mail on Sunday has obtained the final draft of a report to be published later this month by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the ultimate watchdog whose massive, six-yearly ‘assessments’ are accepted by environmentalists, politicians and experts as the gospel of climate science.

They are cited worldwide to justify swingeing fossil fuel taxes and subsidies for ‘renewable’ energy.

Yet the leaked report makes the extraordinary concession that the world has been warming at only just over half the rate claimed by the IPCC in its last assessment, published in 2007.

Back then, it said that the planet was warming at a rate of 0.2C every decade – a figure it claimed was in line with the forecasts made by computer climate models. 
But the new report says the true figure since 1951 has been only 0.12C per decade – a rate far below even the lowest computer prediction”.

MORE ON THE LEAKED IPCC REPORT:

Dialing back the alarm on climate change

Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist  in the Wall Street Journal on September 13th: 
 
"I have had a glimpse of the key prediction at the heart of the document. The big news is that, for the first time since these reports started coming out in 1990, the new one dials back the alarm. It states that the temperature rise we can expect as a result of man-made emissions of carbon dioxide is lower than the IPPC thought in 2007".

AND MORE FROM PROFESSOR JUDITH CURRY:

Prominent U.S. climate scientist, Professor Judith Curry said of the leaked IPCC report.“What interests me the most about the AR5 report is how the IPCC is changing its positions and statements relative to the previous AR4 report…

“My main point is this.  If there are substantial changes in a conclusion in the AR5 relative to a confident conclusion in the AR4, then the confidence level should not increase and should probably drop, since the science clearly is not settled and is in a state of flux.  While there has been a reduction in either the magnitude of the change or in a confidence level in some of the supporting findings, these changes do not seem to have influenced the main conclusion on climate change attribution:
It is extremely likely that human influence on climate caused more than half of the increase in global average surface temperature from 1951-2010.

The ‘extremely likely’ represents an increase in confidence from the ‘very likely’ of the AR4.  An increase in confidence in the attribution statement, in view of the recent pause and the lower confidence level in some of the supporting findings [in the IPCC draft AR5 report], is incomprehensible to me”.

AND MORE FROM PROFESSOR BOB CARTER:

AEF member Bob Carter is interviewed by Chris Smith on radio 2GB about the leaked IPCC draft AR5 report.  As Professor Carter points out that now "even the IPCC is finally having to admit that none of their alarmist assertions are actually true".

ONE JOURNEY FROM GREENS PARTY SUPPORTER TO CLIMATE SCEPTIC

AEF member Jo Nova is interviewed by Topher about her journey from Greens Party supporter and fundraiser to climate sceptic. When challenged to articulate the evidence supporting her then belief in dangerous global warming Jo’s journey began.  This very informative interview highlights the value of empirical evidence over the consensus view.

GERMANY SCALING BACK SUBSIDIES FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY

Economic reality is trumping green ideology as Germany's electricity prices rise to be the second dearest in Europe. 

Ecologically and economically viable renewable energy is supported by the majority of people - green pipe dreams that drive populist politics and energy poverty for low-income families cannot be supported.

MULLOWAY, NOT CARP, BELONG IN THE MURRAY RIVER ESTUARY

The 7.6 km of man-made sea dykes that separate the Southern Ocean from the Murray River to produce an artificial freshwater environment not only harm upstream communities and environments, but produce perverse outcomes locally as demonstrated by Jennifer Marohasy in this article at Online Opinion. 

HOW ABOUT AN ENERGY DEBATE, GREEN WARTS AND ALL?

Former CEO of two national energy associations, Keith Orchison AM challenges those supporting large-scale adoption of heavily subsidised renewable energy to at least debate the issue with the facts.

"Federal ministers Mark Butler (environment) and Gary Gray (resources and energy), announcing “the largest solar power station in the southern hemisphere”, shared with us the fact that it will need to cover an area four times the size of Sydney’s CBD to provide enough electricity for a town the size of Tamworth.

"Which begs the question, how big a space filled with solar arrays would you need to energise a city the size of Sydney?"

FORECASTS TELL YOU LITTLE ABOUT THE FUTURE & A LOT ABOUT THE FORECASTER

Author of the Age of Global Warming - The History, Rupert Darwall looks at the record of the British Met Office and global warming forecasts in this recent article.

"The Met Office’s record of obstruction and denial should give pause to even the firmest believer in global warming and illustrates the profound incompatibility of state science (which climate science has become) and the real thing. ‘We should listen to the scientists — and we should believe them,’ said Ed Davey, the Climate Secretary, earlier this year. Yet his department has officially sanctioned the anti-scientific practice of withholding data.

The climate secretary has denounced sceptics and other non-believers as ‘crackpots’ — an attack conforming to a key feature of what the philosopher Karl Popper defined as pseudoscience. Genuine science invites refutation; pseudoscience tries to silence dissent".

400 COMPLAINTS SHUT DOWN 2 WIND TURBINES

The Fairhaven, Massachusetts Board of Health voted to shut down the town’s two wind turbines each night between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. after dozens of residents filed more than 400 complaints against the turbines. Testing showed the turbines exceeded state noise regulations and the noise limitations specified in their operating permits.

Imagine the concerns some communities would have with wind energy projects that have 50, 100 or 150 operating wind turbines if some of those were inappropriately sited.

SCOTLAND NOT HAPPY WITH WIND ENERGY EITHER!

Much is made of the widespread opposition in Australia to wind energy with critics often falsely claiming there is little community opposition overseas, despite there being well over 500 groups internationally fighting against further expansion of wind energy.

Unsurprisingly many of the issues are the same as highlighted by the Scottish Wild Land Group:“While the UK and Scottish Governments are spending vast sums of money on their renewable energy strategies, reductions in CO2 emissions have been negligible or entirely absent”.

ANTI-GM ATTITUDES ARE HARMING THE HUNGRY

Environmentalists' opposition to GM is akin to green cultural imperialism says Nicolle Flint in an article in The Age.  Flint's article was in response to a speech from the CEO of GrainCorp Alison Watkins who blasted the ''emotional response'' of critics of genetically modified crops, arguing that their use is essential if farm yields are to rise to feed a growing global population.

We couldn't agree more.  The science and evidence is clear that GM technology is beneficial for the environment and increasing food production.

U.K. environmentalist and former anti-GM campaigner Mark Lynas recanted his opposition to GM technology, as did U.S. activist Stewart Brand.  Australian environment groups who still cling to outdated ideology and Luddite views on GM technology should join the rest of us in the 21st century. 

CEFC: MORALLY NEGLIGENT USE OF TAXPAYER FUNDS

Illustration: Eric Lobbecke. Source: The Australian

The $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation swung into action on July 1 to invest taxpayer funds in promoting renewable energy and has already committed hundreds of millions of dollars to several projects.

Nothing we have seen yet allays our concerns that this is just another mechanism to assist in transferring wealth from electricity consumers to large energy companies for no environmental benefit.

Economist Professor Henry Ergas in The Australian highlights those concerns in this article:
“Good on the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the $10 billion fund established by Labor's climate change package. Other government efforts at picking winners end up shafting taxpayers. The CEFC is doing so from the start”.

THE RATIONALE FOR WIND POWER WON'T FLY

Dr Jay Lehr looks at wind energy in the United States:
“The promise that wind and solar power could replace conventional electricity production never really made sense. It's known to everybody in the industry that a wind turbine will generate electricity 30% of the time—but it's impossible to predict when that time will be. A true believer might be willing to do without electricity when the wind is not blowing, but most people will not. And so, during the 30% of the time the blades are spinning, conventional power plants are also spinning on low, waiting to operate during the other 70% of the time”.  Read more here.

GOVTS. CONTINUE TO FAIL COMMUNITIES OVER WIND FARM DEVELOPMENTS

This week Hydro Tasmania announced it would proceed with a feasibility study for its proposed 200 turbine wind energy project on King Island.

This week also marks two years since the senate inquiry’s unanimous recommendations for health studies on the impacts of wind turbine operations on communities were handed to the federal government without any progress on any of the recommendations.

Some state governments and the federal government continue to put communities at risk by ignoring a comprehensive senate inquiry report from 2011 recommending urgent health and acoustical studies prior to developing more wind energy facilities.  Read more.

RALLY CALLS FOR RENEWABLES TO PAY THEIR OWN WAY

MC for the rally Alan Jones AO            Senator Chris Back spoke strongly on                                                 the adverse impacts of high cost renewables.

A recurring theme at the June 18 Canberra rally against overly generous subsidies for renewable energy under the Renewable Energy Target scheme was for the abolition of taxpayer subsidies.  Several speakers at the rally pointed to the inescapable economic fact that multi-national energy companies are receiving billions of dollars in subsidies to produce very expensive electricity that is impacting households and industry.

Coalition politicians who spoke at the rally committed to a review of the RET subsidies if elected in September.

Across town at the pro-renewable rally organised by GetUp!, nobody mentioned the $6.5 billion in subsidies paid over the last decade by Australian households to large energy companies or the energy poverty  inflicted on 3.5 million households.

RENEWABLE ENERGY SUBSIDIES THE FOCUS OF CANBERRA RALLY – ‘FORGET THE RET IDEOLOGY’

Outspoken Liberal MPs plan to defy publicly the official party line by attending a rally at Parliament House, widening the rift in Coalition ranks over renewable energy targets.

Growing community and industry concern over inequitable costs and subsidies will be the centre of attention at a rally in front of Parliament House Canberra on Tuesday June 18th.

Dozens of rural communities in four states will be represented at the rally which will have an impressive line-up of speakers. 

Politicians are only now apparently starting to hear the frustrations of people saddled with steeply rising electricity bills backed up by the calls of business to address uncompetitive power costs.

“Politicians on all sides have spoken out in support of the MRET largely because they believe the public supports renewable power. But this is the sort of lazy, populist, green-washing exercise that is the enemy of good policy” said The Australian in an editorial last year.

“Wind and sunlight may be free but, as electricity consumers are discovering, the price of harnessing their power is exorbitant given present technology. This is why the call by Labor's former chief whip Joel Fitzgibbon for the Gillard government to cut or even abolish the renewable energy target makes sense”.

“Forget the ideology” of the renewable energy target said Fitzgibbon.  Stop wasting taxpayer funds on feel-good green schemes and spend the money on serious environmental issues.

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NO PROGRESS TO SHOW FOR TEN YEARS OF THE NATIVE FISH STRATEGY

Dr Jennifer Marohasy writes at her website of the current Native Fish Strategy: "Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on fishways, resnagging, riparian revegetation, not to mention the billions for water buyback, all recommendations of the Native Fish Strategy for the Murray Darling Basin 2003-2013. Those who implemented the program, however, claim no progress, in particular that numbers of Murray cod are still in decline".

Much like the management of national parks, it is uncritically assumed that if money and regulation are thrown at environmental challenges the environment will prosper.  History and evidence demonstrates otherwise.

 WASHING MACHINES AS AN AGENT OF CHANGE

Washing machines could change the world

SOLAR ENERGY NOT SO SUNNY FOR POOR, BUT ENVIRONMENT GROUPS DON’T CARE

Where is the outrage from social justice campaigners, such as Friends of the Earth, that claim to work “for environmental and social justice” over the penalising of lower income families that are forced to subsidise rich and middle class households who adopt solar power.

Numerous media reports over the last week are highlighting an Energy Supply Association of Australia reportwhich points out the inequities faced by lower income earners that are costing $1billion a year.

Not that this is new to the solar industry which has survived on a series of subsidies and handouts supported by electricity consumers and taxpayers.  What is amazing is the hypocrisy of groups that allow their ideology for expensive subsidised renewable energy to impose unwanted costs on those who can least afford it.  One Victorian environment group that campaigns for solar uptake says “Today in Victoria those living in poverty are far more likely to be living in poor quality housing and under risk of ‘utilities stress’ - i.e. being unable to afford to heat or cool their homes”. 

We agree and continuing to support solar with subsidies to achieve environmental campaign goals at the expense of society’s less well-off is immoral.

THE HIDDEN COST OF SOLAR POWER AND WHO PAYS

Solar panels are costing those without them more than $1 billion a year.

New research by the Energy Supply Association of Australia reveals that the one million households with solar panels are avoiding network charges of $340 million a year - and rising.  Read more here or read the ESAA paper here.

CLIMATE CHANGE GETS THE HEAVE-HO IN THE BUDGET

Professor Don Aitken could not find action on climate in the federal budget as he writes at Online Opinion: As has become usual, much of the news in the Budget had already been offered up as teasers and stories over the weekend and Monday, but I hadn't found anything much there about 'climate change'. And the Treasurer didn't say a lot about it. No longer are we hearing glowing accounts of how investing in new technologies will lead to a 'green-jobs' revolution. Read more

TASMANIAN FOREST DEAL SELLS OUT PEOPLE & THE ENVIRONMENT

Institute of Foresters Australia member, Mark Poynter examines the recent forest agreement in Tasmania inthis article at Quadrant Online.

Few in the forestry sector can philosophically endorse an outcome largely forced by orchestrated campaigns of misinformation to intimidate and blackmail markets to an extent that the timber industry, already reeling from an unfavourable business climate, has been forced to allow its critics and enemies to determine the future of its resource base. By agreeing to allow the ENGO’s to draw-up the location and extent of new national parks supposedly encompassing ‘high conservation value forests’, the industry’s negotiators sanctioned an eco-activists’ nirvana.

PRESSURE ON COALITION AS COMPANY PAYS $15,000 FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY

The federal coalition faces grassroots pressure to revise its position on the Renewable Energy Target as the cost of the RET and other green schemes force up the cost of electricity.

Urangan Fisheries in Queensland is facing an extra $15,000 in charges added to their electricity bill just from the RET and probably up to $50,000 including all green schemes and the carbon tax, director Nicky Schulz said in a letter to the Opposition Leader.

Mr Schulz’s call for changes to the RET echo statements made by Labor’s Chief Whip Joel Fitzgibbon recently to the federal government to “forget the ideology” and cut the RET target to give relief to electricity consumers.

NT CROCODILE RECOVERY DEMANDS BETTER MANAGEMENT

The ongoing revival of saltwater crocodiles in the Northern Territory demonstrates how management has succeeded and failed on the same issue within the space of four decades.

Crocodile numbers were precipitously low in 1971 as a result of poor management of hunting.  Now many would argue they are too high as a result of management that has not adapted to a strong recovery.

Adjunct professor Grahame Webb argues that widespread culling is not the answer.  It does seem though that adaptive management might not be a bad idea.

What keeps crocodiles under control? Bigger crocodiles!  Photo: Grahame Webb

'MUDDIED WATERS' DOCUMENTARY HIGHLIGHTS THE FLAWS OF THE MDBA PLAN

A 43 minute documentary screened on national television on December 9th 2012 highlights the many flaws of the MDBA plan tabled in parliament recently.

The plan's wilful avoidance of the effect of the 7.6km of sea-dykes that separate the Southern Ocean from the Lower Lakes precluding a return to the natural estuarine environment is an unforgivable omission.  See morehere.

THE FIVE STAGES OF CLIMATE GRIEF

The Kyoto Protocol died in Copenhagen in December 2009. Why, then, are climate change officials, including our own, meeting a third time since then and, instead of finalising burial arrangements, still talking about extending Kyoto to tackle climate change?

The answer is simple: the international community of climate change officials is going through the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance writes Alan Oxley in the Australian Financial Review. 

Australia's financial grief however will continue to compound as we 'lead' the world in pricing carbon dioxide emissions, which continue to rise, while the global temperature stubbornly refuses to do the same. 

IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT....OR JUST MORE CLIMATE ALARMISM?

Ben Cubby, environmental reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald ramped up alarmist reporting in this articleon the release of a CSIRO report on the latest global greenhouse gas emissions.

"THE world is on track to see "an unrecognisable planet" that is between 4 and 6 degrees hotter by the end of this century, according to new data on greenhouse gas emissions".

Sarah Clarke from ABC News did the same with several broadcasts on the same subject.  Perhaps Clarke has fallen victim to groupthink, unable to report on issues from a balanced perspective?  Hayden Cooper from the ABC 7.30 Report gets in on the act as well, presenting a six minute report without an alternate view.

None of the reports mention falling global temperatures as reported a couple of weeks ago by the U.K. Met Office.  None of the reports mention the fifteen year plateauing of global temperatures despite rising greenhouse gas emissions, a fact that directly challenges the alarmist 'projections' being reported on.

It is amusing to watch poker-faced Climate Change Minister Combet and Professor Matthew England warning of impending climate disaster from 'projected' rising temperature that conflicts with the observational data on global temperatures.

What is not so amusing is that none of the reports seek the views of anyone who may provide a different perspective other than supporting 'the end of the world' alarmism.  It is little wonder that community scepticism of alarmist 'projections' and reporting continues to rise faster than global temperatures.

CLIMATE COMMISSION SAYS RENEWABLES COULD POWER THE COUNTRY!

More hyperbole from the Climate Commission in their latest report suggesting the whole economy could be powered by renewables.  Attractive as that might be as an idea to some, the statement raises false expectations in many and bears no resemblance to the realities of what we can and cannot achieve with renewables.

Look at the present supply and demand in this graph from the National Energy Market.  The red line indicates electricity demand, the blue line indicates what is currently supplied by renewables.

Anton Lang in a post at Jo Nova's website notes how the total demand average is between 22,000 and 28,000MW. Wind power from those 25 new plants generates as much as 650MW (the blue line). That’s 2.6%. This is from a total Nameplate Capacity of 2072MW being generated from those 25 Wind Plants which are made up of 985 huge towers.

GOVT. TO HELP BANKERS CLIP THE TICKET ON CARBON PRICING! 

And we thought the carbon tax was about the environment. 

Remember that?  Back when former Prime Minister Rudd was trying to introduce the ETS, this whole scheme was supposed to be about saving the planet and the environment by taxing carbon dioxide.

In a frank statement during a speech to the Business Council of Australia on November 15th, Prime Minister Gillard makes it clear the government is here to help bankers "get their share" of the action. 

"International carbon markets will cover billions of consumers this decade.  Ask the bankers at your table whether they want Australia to clip that ticket.  We’re going to help them get their share.

So that’s the work of coming years, that’s what preoccupies my thoughts as I think through the agenda for this country".

At least the pretense of 'saving the planet' is gone, it is now all about helping bankers clip the carbon tax ticket.

Read the full text of the Prime Minister's speech here    

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 NATIONALS SENATOR BACKS LABOR'S FITZGIBBON ON ABOLISHING THE RET

Nationals senator Ron Boswell has supported the comments made by Government Whip, Joel Fitzgibbon calling for the Renewable Energy Target to be reconsidered.

Boswell highlighted an industrial user whose latest electricity bill of $244,000 contained a $32,500 component for the RET and a $45,000 carbon price charge.  

The National Farmers Federation, Business Council of Australia and the Aust Chamber of Commerce and Industry have also called for the RET to be abolished or substantially modified pointing to a Productivity Commission report which says with a carbon tax in place the RET is redundant.   

GOVT. WHIP TELLS LABOR TO FORGET RET "IDEOLOGY"

Government Whip Joel Fitzgibbon attacked the Climate Change Authoritiy's draft recommendations to leave the Renewable Energy Target largely unchanged, saying the target should be cut to give households relief from rising electricity prices.

Mr Fitzgibbon's comments echo those of the Aust Chamber of Commerce & Industry submission to the recent Senate inquiry on electricity prices which said "Greenhouse mitigation policies are entirely at the policy discretion of government and are unambiguously designed to make electricity charges higher than they otherwise would be.

"The Productivity Commission has noted that with an effective emissions trading scheme in place and
assuming international action, an explicit target for renewable energy would not only fail to achieve
any additional carbon abatement, but would also most likely lead to higher electricity prices".

Carbon tax + RET = Big power bills for no extra benefit.

In fact, a big green mistake.

REVIEW OF 2 IMPORTANT BOOKS ON FIRE & LAND MANAGEMENT

AEF member Roger Underwood reviews two recent books that explore the history and practices of fire and land management.

"Two important books have come my way recently. One, The Biggest Estate on Earth by Bill Gammage, is destined to become a classic in Australian literature, let alone bushfire literature. The other is Burning Issuesby Mark Adams and Peter Attiwill, a concise, but comprehensive outline of the science underlying fuel reduction burning in Australia. Alongside Stephen Pyne’s earlier classic (The Burning Bush), well-read copies of all three of these volumes should be on the bookshelf of every land manager in Australia, and should be compulsory study for undergraduates in all of the natural sciences".

2012 ANNUAL CONFERENCE A RIPPER!

Members and speakers from every state and territory except the Northern Territory gathered at Rydges World Square Hotel in the centre of Sydney on Saturday October 20th for the start of the AEF Annual Conference.

Lively and informative presentations began with former diplomat and international trade adviser, Alan Oxley who spoke on greens and sustainable development. Read more on the conference. 

Some conference papers here

Dr David Evans addresses the 2012 Conference

BURN FOR A BETTER NATURAL BALANCE SAYS HISTORIAN

Professor Bill Gammage putting the final touches to a speech to be delivered at the AEF annual conference told Stuart Rintoul of The Australian that the landscape needs to be burned back to a better natural balance for the best environmental outcomes.  This subject is covered in detail in his award winning and widely acclaimed bookThe Biggest Estate on Earth.

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SCARE TACTICS TARNISH SCIENTIFIC DEBATE

Campaigners on important but complex issues, annoyed by the leghth of time required for public deliberations, often react by exaggerating their claims, hoping to force a single solution to the forefront of public debate.  But however well intentioned, scaring the public into a predetermined solution often backfires: when people eventually realise that they have been misled, they lose confidence and interest says the Skeptical Environmentalist Professor Bjorn Lomborg.

OBJECTORS SECURE A FUTURE FOR COAL INEUROPE

Opposition to shale gas exploration in Europe and nuclear energy in Germany has delivered a massive boost to to coal-fired generators with the new German Environment Minister approving 23 new coal power stations.

While many point to Germany's 'success' with renewables they overlook the inevitable consequences now becoming apparent.

Meanwhile the U.S. wind industry laments the doubts over further tax credits as the unviable energy sector starts job lay-offs.

IS IT TRUE WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT WIND FARMS?

Only Australians get sick from wind farms

Along with Americans, Canadians, Kiwis, British, Dutch….

Communities overseas do not complain

An oft repeated claim that is belied by over 500 community groups world-wide opposed to inappropriately sited wind farms.

Funny how we don’t hear of turbine hosts getting sick

Most times you won’t either because they are bound by legally binding gag clauses preventing them speaking out, but some have anyway.  Gag clauses are denied by wind farm supporters, but confirmed by Slater & Gordon solicitors.    Read what else wind energy companies do not want you to know.

IS W.A. BIODIVERSITY DECLINING OR STABLE?

AEF member Roger Underwood examines the data to determine whether statements of catastrophic decline in W.A. biodiversity align with the facts.

HALLETT 3 WIND FARM SUCCUMBS TO COURT ACTION

Energy retailer AGL has ended more than three years of community-led litigation over the proposed development of its $180 million Hallett 3 (Mt Bryan) wind farm by shelving its approved plans for the site.

AGL received planning approval from the Regional Council of Goyder in 2009, but residents have been opposing it in the Environment, Resources and Development (ERD) Court.

Wind turbines and public health

This short video updates the issue of adverse health impacts from wind turbine operation.

GREENPEACE CO-FOUNDER, PATRICK MOORE ON THE EVOLUTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT MOVEMENT

Dr Patrick Moore, co-founder and ex president of Greenpeace shared his views of the current state of environmentalism in an interview with The Washington Times.

"By around the mid-1980s, when I left Greenpeace, the public had accepted most of the reasonable things we had been fighting for: stop the bomb, save the whales, stop toxic waste dumping into the earth, water, and air.

"Some, like myself, realized the job of creating mass awareness of the importance of the environment had been accomplished and it was time to move on from confrontation to sustainable development, seeking solutions. But others seemed bent on lifelong confrontation, "up against the man" "smash capitalism", "join the world-wide struggle against globalization" (I actually saw this on a cardboard sign at a demo).

"In order to remain confrontational as society adopted all the reasonable demands, it was necessary for these anti-establishment lifers to adopt ever more extreme positions, eventually abandoning science and logic altogether in zero-tolerance policies".

Moore goes on to say "So I conclude that in balance, ideology is the enemy of the people and the environment".

And this is the tragedy of modern environmentalism - promotion of ideology over facts and empirical evidence.

THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE OF ABORIGINAL AND GREEN POLITICS

ABC Radio in the Kimberley report that The Greens and their supporters face a moral dilemma in the Kimberley where environmental concerns are in conflict with Aboriginal self-determination.

Aboriginal elder, Rita Augustine pens a letter to Bob Brown 'We are not museum pieces'.

Meanwhile Labor MPs are not too sure what they support. 

GREENS PARTY ATTEMPTS TO SILENCE PLANET ARK

Instead of accepting that other parts of the environmental movement might have different views to the Greens Party, Christine Milne this week on the ABC 7.30 Report attempted to discredit and exclude Planet Ark from the debate on the sustainability of timber harvesting.  Alan Oxley writing in The Australian has some facts about the two forestry certification schemes in operation.

BIOFUELS STILL DISTORTING WORLD FOOD SUPPLY

The world isrunning short of corn. That is the message being delivered by the market, where on Thursday prices pushed above $8 a bushel for the first time. The biggest potential for a reduction in corn demand comes from the ethanol industry, which is using roughly 5bn bushels of corn, or nearly 40 per cent of the US corn crop, each year to make fuel for cars and animal feed.

Is there any value in ethanol other than that produced from waste products?

RENEWABLE ENERGY TARGET UNDER PRESSURE

The Australian editorialises that the support of both major political parties for the current renewable energy target of 20 per cent by 2020 is a sign that economically rational energy policy is not the forte of either the Gillard government or the opposition. 

The Australian Financial Review also rails against costly green power.  Continuation of the target in its present form will cause headaches for the government and the opposition.  Read more

ACTIVIST SCIENTISTS CRYING WOLF ON CORAL BLEACHING & CLIMATE CHANGE

THE propaganda from our Great Barrier Reef scientists at the 12th International Coral Reef Symposium is relentless.

According to Janice Lough, Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), the rate of change from anthropogenic global warming is unprecedented and is already having a catastrophic impact on the Great Barrier Reef.

Not so, according to Dr Jennifer Marohasy at her website where she has some facts.

GLOBAL WARMING: SECOND THOUGHTS OF AN ENVIRONMENTALIST

Professor Fritz Varenholt, regarded as one of the leading lights of the German environmental movement writes in the U.K. Telegraph: Scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are quite certain: by using fossil fuels man is currently destroying the climate and our future. We have one last chance, we are told: quickly renounce modern industrial society – painfully but for a good cause.

For many years, I was an active supporter of the IPCC and its CO2 theory. Recent experience with the UN's climate panel, however, forced me to reassess my position. In February 2010, I was invited as a reviewer for the IPCC report on renewable energy. I realised that the drafting of the report was done in anything but a scientific manner.

POOR POLICY COMES HOME TO ROOST

When the original Emissions Trading Scheme was announced in 2008 to almost universal expression of support, the AEF opposed it publicly and started a campaign to ensure its defeat in the parliament.

AEF objected to the policies of the Liberal, Labor and Greens parties which supported the ETS at that time.  We objected on the grounds the ETS was poor policy that would not benefit the environment, would send Australian jobs overseas and be a large cost to the economy.

AEF had few friends in the debate on climate science or our focus of adaptation to climate change, rather than mitigation, whether that was to warmer or cooler global temperatures.  It is fair to say at that point in the nascent debate, AEF was well aware it was out of step with public opinion.

In July 2008, with Kevin Rudd in power, 67 per cent supported an emissions trading scheme for Australia, and 77 per cent said Australians should reduce emissions regardless of what other countries did. 

AEF holds the same position today, but public opinion has changed dramatically as voters desert the carbon tax with support falling a further 4 per cent to 33 per cent.

It is now fair to say that all of the environment movement, with the exception of AEF, is out of step with public opinion.

HIGH COST AND NIL EFFECT: THAT'S OUR CARBON TAX

Greg Sheridan from The Australian has been asking around about our new carbon tax. "The government and its countless mostly paid, carbon spruikers would have you believe that the Australian carbon tax is in line with most international practice.

Here is the sharp reality check.  Nowhere in the world, in any significant jurisdiction, is any carbon tax or market-based mechanism having a significant economic or environmental impact."

"The truth is, as the Productivity Commission concluded, no economyanywhere in the world is doing anything like the Australian carbon tax with a pricie of $23 a tonne."

"In other words, we are imposing a cost on our economy unlike that imposed by any other government."

Sounds a lot like what we have been saying since 2008!

CARBON TAX HOAX BEGINS

The most expensive and useless public policy since Federation, the carbon tax, has now been imposed on all Australians in the name of saving the environment said the Australian Environment Foundation today in amedia release.

WIND FARMS NOT COMPLYING WITH PLANNING & HEALTH LAWS

• It has already been established in several courts and tribunal hearings that wind turbine operation can cause health impacts in some people, it is the degree of those impacts that is not known.  Denial of health impacts on a significant minority segment of the population is no longer credible or acceptable.
• People are abandoning homes adjacent to wind farms.
• A S.A. Supreme Court found wind farms were exceeding permitted noise levels in a case brought several months ago by long-suffering residents.
• The 2011 Senate Inquiry recommendations for medical and acoustical studies have not been implemented despite all stakeholders including the wind industry agreeing there should be studies.
• The Victorian Chief Health Officer has advised cash strapped rural councils they are responsible for wind farm monitoring and compliance after councils sought the Health department’s help following multiple complaints of adverse health impacts.  The Chief Health Officer also refused their request for the department to undertake a Health Impact Assessment to determine the degree of impact from wind turbines.
• Freedom of Information documents show the NSW Health department officials warned ministers there was no evidence of adverse health impacts despite the department not undertaking any health studies to investigate the claims. 

Read more on our campaign to see proper investigation and regulation of the wind industry.

NSW draft wind farm approval guidelines must be amended.  See media release.

Independent Wind Survey

Please consider completing the survey at this link.

Detailed information about the survey can be found here.

AEF LAUNCHES 'RIVERS NEED ESTUARIES' CAMPAIGN FOR THE MURRAY

December 16th 2011
AEF today launched the ‘Rivers Need Estuaries’ campaign to have the current MDBA draft plan completely revised to prioritise restoring the Murray River estuary.

“There is a real need to restore the health of the Murray’s estuary by returning the artificial man-made freshwater Lower Lakes to a natural estuarine system” said biologist and AEF member Dr Jennifer Marohasy.

“For too long we have tried to prop up this unnatural freshwater system through the system of barrages that have destroyed a once flourishing natural estuary, wasting precious water from the entire Murray Darling basin.

The peer-reviewed scientific literature [1], unlike many recent government reports, recognises that the barrages have destroyed the estuary.”  Read more on the Campaigns page.

CONGRESS EXPOSES GREEN JOBS

Congressional hearings get to the bottom of the growth in green jobs.  Just reclassify almost any existing job!

SCIENTISTS DISCOVER EARLY SOURCE OF EL NINO

Tell-tale signs that an El Niño climate event is looming are detectable up to 18 months beforehand, scientists have found, nine months earlier than current models can predict.

Early warning of these events, which usually bring dry, hot conditions to much of Australia, would be welcome news for the country's farmers, fire fighters and weather forecasters says Stephen Pincock from ABC Science.

PRIVATE CONSERVATION PROJECTS LEAVE GOVT PROJECTS FOR DEAD

Atticus Fleming CEO of the Australian Wildlife Conservancy knows a thing or to about conserving endangered wildlife.  Fleming says governments must reassess their roles in wildlife conservation. They need to consider reversing a trend in ecological management and put monitoring and control staff back into remote areas or funding private conservation bodies to manage wildlife.

PROPERTY RIGHTS REMOVED FOR THE 'GREATER GOOD', BUT NO COMPENSATION!

The continuing saga of Native Vegetation Laws where the property rights of individuals are diminished for the 'greater good' to address reduced native vegetation may appeal to those who argued for their introduction. 

However the satisfaction of saving native trees wholly at the expense of landholders apparently does not extend to compensating them for their efforts on behalf of the community.  David Leyonhjelm writes in The Land of this atrocious injustice inflicted upon a minority in the community for the greater good.

 GM CROPS SHRINKING FARMING'S PESTICIDE FOOTPRINT

Professor Richard Roush and Dr David Tribe from the University of Melbourne say there is a lot to feel good about the way modern agriculture is shaping up to the big environmental challenges of the present.

 LOWY INSTITUTE POLL SHOWS MAJORITY OPPOSITION TO A CARBON TAX

The 8th annual Lowy Institute poll of Australian attitudes to a range of issues includes a poll on climate change and the Carbon Tax.

The results show a remarkable change in the attitudes of the public to global warming scaremongering since 2007.

"The 63% of Australians who say they are against the legislation were presented with three statements and asked ‘whether you agree or disagree it is a reason why you personally are against the legislation’. Half the population (52%) oppose the legislation and agree it ‘it will result in job losses’. Thirty-eight per cent say ‘it is not necessary to act before other countries’."

LATEST MDBA PLAN A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY

The latest MDBA plan released this week is an embarrassing waste of time and money when communities are looking for a plan for the future said the AEF in a media release today.

The revised plan continues with the flawed premise that the Authority can find enough fresh water in the basin to keep an estuarine coastal lagoon at the end of the Murray River fresh for most of the time.  Read more.

WIND FARM SCAM A HUGE COVER-UP

Journalist James Delingpole from the U.K. Telegraph is currently on a speaking tour of Australia and in today'sAustralian newspaper writes of how inspired he was by an April 21 article by The Australian's environment editor Graham Lloyd, Where Eagles Dare Not Fly.

"It took great courage for Lloyd to write up his expose of the tremendous damage being caused by a wind farm to a small community in Waterloo, north of Adelaide.

"Inspired by Lloyd's article, I went to investigate and was heartbroken by what I found. Until you've seen what it can do to people, it's easy to dismiss wind turbine syndrome as a hypochondriac's charter or an urban myth.

"Even more shocking than this, though, were my discoveries about the finance arrangements and behaviour of the wind farm companies. What we have here, I believe, is the biggest and most outrageous public affairs scandal of the 21st century."

WIND SPIN: BLOWING HOLES IN INDUSTRY'S DENIAL OF HEALTH IMPACTS

Wind farm health impacts evident in many U.S. states.

A video compilation of the personal effects of wind turbines on families in California.

STEWART BRAND: 4 ENVIRONMENTAL HERESIES

The man who helped usher in the environmental movement in the 1960s and '70s has been rethinking his positions on cities, nuclear power, genetic modification and geo-engineering.

While not in complete agreement with some of his conclusions on climate, Stewart Brand is to be applauded for saying "I want to move my fellow environmentalists in the direction of not being ideologically driven, but evidence driven." Hear, hear!

Brand is not the only leading environmentalist to eschew long-held positions in favour of facts and evidence.

MARINE PARK SCALES BACK FISHING

AN unwritten agreement and self-regulation has long governed the commercial arrangements at Osprey Reef, an underwater paradise about 200 nautical miles north of Cairns in the Coral Sea writes Graham Lloyd in The Australian.

But will a marine park in the pristine Coral Sea improve environmental outcomes, or increase fishing pressure on unregulated overseas fisheries?

SALT-TOLERANT WHEAT VARIETY DISCOVERY TO TACKLE FOOD SHORTAGES

Australian scientists have crossed a modern wheat variety with a wild ancestral cousin to produce a high-yielding salt-tolerant plant that will help tackle world food shortages due to soil salinity writes Deborah Smith, science editor with the Sydney Morning Herald.

 BILLIONS BLOWN AWAY ON WIND POWER

Governments are squandering billions of dollars on "uneconomic" wind farms, according to a landmark study that undermines the case for Labor's huge renewable energy subsidies says David Crowe in The Australian.  Matt Ridley writing in The Spectator says it is just as bad in the U.K. but at least the government there isstarting to wake up.

RENEWABLES ARE OK...IF THE NUMBERS ADD UP

As this article by Professor Bjorn Lomborg shows, much of the time, no matter how you slice and dice it many renewable energy schemes just don't add up.

"One of the world’s biggest green-energy public-policy experiments is coming to a bitter end in Germany, with important lessons for policymakers elsewhere."

PRIME MINISTER ATTACKS GREEN CAMPAIGNS

The Prime Minister says some environmental groups have waged an irresponsible and inaccurate campaign against the Tasmanian timber company Ta Ann.

Environment minister Tony Burke thinks some environment groups behaviour has been "appalling".

Indeed, some could say many environment groups give the environmental movement a bad name.

CLIMATE MODELS FLAWED SAYS EXPERT

In a paper released today [Feb 2nd], former Australian Greenhouse Office carbon modeller Dr David Evans says the predictions of climate models do not conform to the observed data collected by NASA satellites, radiosondes, and the Argo ocean buoy network.

“We show, in terms understandable by the lay-person, that all the major predictions of the climate models used to determine government policies, such as the carbon tax, are now wrong. The data and the models are now incompatible.” said Dr Evans.  Read the media release.

AEF CALLS ON VIC. HEALTH MINISTER TO ACT

AEF has recently written to the Health Minister David Davis with a series of questions requesting his response to the senate inquiry recommendations for studies into the adverse health impacts of wind farms. The Waubra Foundation is also alarmed at the inaction as complaints continue to arise overseas and from Victorian doctors.

It's not only health issues of concern, others say "despite billions in taxpayer subsidies pumped into the so-called “green-energy” industry, almost 15,000 windmills — maybe more — have been left to rot across America."

ENVIRONMENTAL CREDIBILITY TRASHED FROM WITHIN - AGAIN

Not a grain of truth in sneaky Greenpeace tactics says journalist Malcolm Farr.  A few weeks ago Greenpeace turned its “greenmail” forces on national franchise chain Bakers Delight, telling customers they soon would be eating bread made from genetically modified wheat. 

There was no justification for the claim, and no thorough examination of the merits or otherwise of GM crops.

Meanwhile a paper company is reviewing the future of its $20 million plant in western Sydney after "intimidation" from environmental group Greenpeace cost it major supermarket orders.

MURRAY DARLING PLAN BASED ON MEANINGLESS AVERAGES

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan can’t deliver anything tangible and meaningful for communities, industry or the environment while its water sharing plans are based on averages.

Averages are a meaningless concept in the real world given the highly variable nature of Australian rainfallwrites Dr Jennifer Marohasy in an article published in The Land.

PRINCE PHILIP LAMENTS "USELESS" WIND FARMS

In a robust discussion with a director of an energy firm, Prince Philip described wind farms as "absolutely useless" and "a disgrace".  The U.K. Telegraph said the Prince's comments were supported by an increasing number of groups opposed to wind farms.  This opposition to wind farms has spread to Denmark, often held up as the poster boy of success.  The Danish government has banned any further on-shore wind farms because as the size of turbines grow, so do the complaints about noise and health effects.

The hidden costs and the farce of the 'Danish success' with wind energy are exposed in this peer-reviewed study of the false claims of economic and jobs value of wind energy.

Energy companies however, will have more to worry about in Australia than the Prince's strong opposition to the previously unquestioned acceptance of the 'fairy tale' that is wind energy.  

As we head into another summer, one energy company operating in Victoria has been ordered to pay out millions of dollars in damages and another is facing a class action from fires allegedly caused by its assets.

Not wind turbine fires...yet.  But the growing incidence of turbine fires [graphic photos in PowerPoint] in Australia, the inability to extinguish because of the turbine height and the big payouts will concern energy companies and nearby residents alike.

 
Towards a New Environmentalism (open criticism, midcourse correction, and scholarship needed)

AEF has had plenty to say about the lack of integrity and hypocrisy from large sections of the environment movement (see nearly any article below), so we find it interesting and informative to analyse the views of others.  Steve Hayward from the American Enterprise Institute muses over the dissent from within the environment movement.

THE CRUMBLING EDIFICE OF THE IPCC

On Line Opinion published an article by AEF executive director Max Rheese that highlights the systemic flaws and omissions in the IPCC process.

 "The truly frightening thing about Laframboise's book is that it clearly demonstrates the lack of integrity in the scientific report that is the primary foundation of policy decisions by the Australian government on climate change."

NOISE OF WIND FARM OVER THE LIMIT SAYS SUPREME COURT

Residents opposed to Stage 3 of the Hallett Hill wind farm in South Australia have had a win in the Supreme Court.

The case now will go back to the Environment, Resources and Development Court, in light of new evidence showing unacceptable levels of noise from Hallett Hill Stage 2.

WIND FARM SILENCE DEAFENING

The Senate inquiry into wind farms impact on peoples health made multiple recommendations for health studies and research.  Meanwhile rural residents continue to abandon their homes adjacent to wind farmswrites Max Rheese.

UPDATE:  People may be supportive of wind farms, but surveys show that 93% wouldn't want to live near one.

GUNN'S PULP MILL APPROVAL 'INEVITABLE' SAYS MAYNE

Business media commentator, Stephen Mayne writing at Crikey says the long planned and debated Bell Bay mill is needed for Tasmania.  Recently, author of Saving Australia's Forests And Its Implications, Mark Poynter lamented the Green's vision pushed onto unwilling locals while other commentators say Tasmania needs to do much more to attract investment, because at the moment, the state relies on Federal Government handouts for almost two thirds of its income.

SHOULD THE TAXPAYER FUND THE GOVT'S "SAY YES" MEN?

It was revealed in senate estimates hearings that $3 million of taxpayer funds were distributed to green groups who "have backed Labor's package to fight off the Opposition's campaign against the policy."

It is certainly a very dubious method of selling poor public policy.

GREAT BARRIER REEF 'RESEARCH' - A LITANY OF FALSE CLAIMS

For ten years the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has been campaigning to ‘Save the Great Barrier Reef’.
The WWF campaign is an example of prejudice against industry and pesticides and also how alarmism is increasingly favoured over evidence resulting in junk science says Dr Jennifer Marohasy.

IT'S TIME TO TELL YOUR MP's - NO CARBON TAX!

We all helped to defeat the Emissions Trading Scheme legislation in 2009 by direct contact with our members of parliament.  A huge deluge of emails and calls to MP’s changed political thinking and the tide of events.  The ‘inevitable’ ETS was consigned to the political dustbin.
It’s time to take action again.  Tell members of parliament a carbon tax:
1.  Will not change global temperatures; 
2.  Will force Australian jobs overseas; and
3.  Will make Australians poorer; while it is richer, not poorer nations that are better able to protect their natural environment.                                    
Use this email list to send a personal message to all federal MP’s. 

BARGAIN BROKEN BY DIFFERING AGENDAS?

Wayne Bergman, former head of the Kimberley Land Council laments changing agendas that threaten indigenous progress in rising from poverty.

SEA WILL SAVE THE MURRAY MOUTH

Later this year the government will release a plan that is supposed to place the Murray-Darling on a sustainable environmental footing, and already $10 billion has been set aside for the plan's implementation. But if the guide released last year gives any indication of what to expect, then it will do nothing to restore that part of the system most affected by agriculture and most in need of saving: the Lower Lakes and Murray mouth, once the Murray River's estuary writes Dr Jennifer Marohasy in The Australian (August 27, 2011).

AN INCONVENIENT FALLACY

Professor Bob Carter writing in The Sydney Morning Herald (26 June 2011) nominates the key issues the government will have to communicate in selling its climate change action plan.  This is all the more important with the latest annual Lowy Institute poll showing only 41% of Australians now support action on climate.

SENATE REPORT ON WIND FARMS CALLS FOR URGENT HEALTH STUDY

The long awaited Senate report on the impacts of rural wind farms was tabled on June 23rd with clear recommendations for government to undertake medical studies into adverse health effects of wind farms. This followed the release earlier in the week of a Danish study confirming that large modern wind turbines are increasing the amount of low frequency noise at adjoining properties. Both reports vindicated the campaign by AEF and others to address the serious concerns of many people in rural communities over wind farm establishment. See media release and 7.30 Report.

 FREE FLOWING ESTUARY VITAL TO HEALTHY RIVER

I am a Murray-Darling Basin food and fibre producer, and I'm very aware of how much water our operations use. My company, Twynam Agricultural Group, also invests in research and development constantly to improve water-use efficiency so we can produce more food and fibre with less water.

Read full article at The Australian

WIND POLICY FAILURES

The attitude within government and the bureaucracy to wind farm complaints has been characterised succinctly, with adversely affected persons within rural communities explicitly referred to as political “road kill”.

This article by AEF executive director Max Rheese explores some of the issues before the current Senate inquiry into wind farms. 

AEF DEBATES ACF ON MURRAY DARLING WATER

Dr Jennifer Marohasy from AEF debated Dr Arlene Harris-Buchan from the Australian Conservation Foundation in Brisbane recently.  

“The problem for the Murray, for its estuary is not agriculture. It is politics and the barrages. During the prolonged recent drought the South Australian government sacrificed the lakes to make a political point.

Let’s be honest, the Australian Conservation Foundation have clearly chosen to ignore the plight of the Congolli, the Mulloway, and other estuarine species and to campaign against Australian agriculture when they should, especially during the recent drought, have been campaigning for the removal, or at least opening of the barrages.”

BLOWING AWAY MONEY

Wind and alternative energy activists confronted with evidence that clean and green power is little more than a vastly expensive way to not save carbon, may start talking about the jobs to be generated by our adoption of green power in all its forms says journalist Mark Lawson in this article at Quadrant Online.

Also see The reality of wind turbines in California.

MAROHASY SLAMS GREENPEACE ON ANTI-GM CAMPAIGN

Jennifer Marohasy, a respected biologist and Adjunct Research Fellow in the Centre for Plant and Water Science at CQ University, says Greenpeace campaigning on genetically modified crops has successfully and significantly reduced the competitiveness of Australian canola growers and achieved little else.

In this article in The Land newspaper she says the Greenpeace is waging a fear campaign against GM technology and technological innovation.

INQUIRY ON WIND FARMS

A massive flood of submissions have arrived at the Senate committee secretariat in the last few weeks over the divisive issue of wind farms and their impacts on rural communities. The AEF submission can be viewedhere. The committee will begin public hearings on March 25th.

The Australian published this article on the impact of wind farms on Rosemary Quinn of South Australia on March 5th 2010.

TOPHER’S UNPOPULAR VIEW OF MD BASIN WATER DEBACLE

Topher’s critical and incisive view of water issues is worth a look for a good overview.

GOVERNMENT MUST ACT

It is the ultimate in hypocrisy for the Commonwealth government to be insisting farmers give back water under a new planning scheme to save the environment, while continuing to pocket millions from water wasted by Snowy Hydro for derivative trading on the electricity market says Jennifer Marohasy in this article at Quadrant Online. 

WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T MENTION THE DAMS!

Recent floods in Queensland and widespread rainfall in eastern Australia has prompted commentary on the need for debate over whether more dams should be built or existing dams extended, if possible.

Some commentators not only did not see value in more dams, but could not see any value in contesting the ‘conventional wisdom’ that dams are not good for the environment.  In short, despite the public furore over management of the Murray Darling basin, the recent long drought and extraordinary drought breaking rains, many do not want to have an informed debate on this most basic form of water management.

Self described leftist, Barry York published this article  in The Australian decrying the Greens, capitalism and the lack of debate on dams.  Let’s at least give thought to the merit of his call for a debate on dams.

FURTHER INVESTIGATION OF RIVERINA FLOODS REVEALS MORE

The Whole Truth: Water Deliberately Dumped Into Flooded Area

SNOWY Hydro chief executive, Terry Charlton, recently confirmed that water was dumped into the already flooded Murray-Darling Basin, but said the authority had little choice (The Australian, December 15, 2010, page 7).  A real time operational diagram, however, tells a very different story.   Full article at Quadrant Online 

 WATER ACT WASTES WATER

Both sides of federal politics are championing the Water Act as a response to problems in the Murray-Darling Basin but what is happening at the present moment illustrates just how wrong this response is. Every valley in the Basin is in flood, some for the third and fourth time in twelve months, and most dams are overflowing. But what is happening with water management? asks Ron Pike at   Quadrant Online  

Bureaucratic Flood Damage?

Snowy Hydro tops up floods with environmental flow says Dr Jennifer Marohasy

While residents of Wagga Wagga scrambled to save their belongings from rising flood waters there was a rumour circulating that the crisis was exacerbated by bureaucratic incompetence, in particular that Snowy Hydro was releasing environmental flow water into the already flooded Murrumbidgee River.

Full article at Quadrant Online

Also see AEF media release of 14 December 2010:

Snowy Hydro Wants Changes to Licence Provisions to Avoid Exacerbating Flooding

TRUTH IN OBSERVATION

Quadrant Online published an article by AEF chairman, Alex Stuart

On 1 November, the widely-respected Earth System Science Centre at the University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH) published its satellite-derived average temperature of the lower atmosphere for October. The smoothed running average for October was level with the 1998 figure – showing that for the past 12 years, there’s been no global warming. Yet in those same years carbon dioxide in the air rose by 6%. So what’s going on? Either the warming influence of man-made CO2 has been offset by unspecified cooling – or the man-made global warming theory must be questioned.

View article here        

THE FOLLY OF TILTING AT WINDMILLS

And as the wind farm footprint grows, so do questions about cost, reliability, health effects and the methods being used by wind-tower spruikers to propagate what has become a modern-day wind rush.

ABC chairman Maurice Newman, who owns a property at Crookwell in NSW that will soon be impacted by wind farms favours the analogy that wind turbines will turn out to be for power generation what the zeppelin was for air transportation: it looked promising but was not the answer.

Newman holds a view common in Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and almost everywhere in the world that wind turbines are being installed: that this is an expensive, unsightly and sub-optimal means of generating power

The Great Wind Rush     Waterfront warrior sails against the wind

The folly of tilting at windmills     

THE CASE OF IRISH OAK TREE RINGS

Dr John Abbot and Dr Jennifer Marohasy have published the following paper which looks at the reliability of tree ring data as temperature proxies.

"Accessing environmental information relating to climate change: the case of Irish oaks tree rings".Environmental Law and Management 2010 Volume 22, Issue 4, 172-181.

A summary of the paper can be viewed here        

Community Meeting Unanimous in Opposition to Wind Farm Proposal

110 local residents gathered at the Tooborac Hall, near Seymour in central Victoria on Sunday October 31st to hear proposals to establish a large wind farm in the local area.

The meeting was organised by local group the Granite Boulders Landscape Guardians with speakers from that group, the Australian Landscape Guardians and the Australian Environment Foundation.

The audience having heard the proposed wind farm would impact on scores of existing residences and farms via loss of amenity, decreasing land values and adverse impacts on health through low frequency sound were amazed to hear the costly power produced by this wind farm would be subsidised by them and all other Victorians through their electricity bills for insignificant to zero reductions in CO2 reductions.

A resolution at the conclusion of the meeting directed to the company responsible, Transfield and the Victorian government reiterating community opposition to the proposal was passed unanimously.

See AEF media release

Conference Report

Senator Cory Bernardi opens AEF Conference

The AEF 5th Annual Conference was held on the weekend of October 16th and 17th in Brisbane in front of an enthusiastic audience of members and non-members who travelled from around the country to hear some excellent presentations.  Conference papers can be found here.

Water plan will decimate Murrumbidgee frogs

Dr Jennifer Marohasy and Ron Pike highlight overlooked benefits to the environment from farming habitats in this article at On Line Opinion.

Rice growers along the Murrumbidgee River are likely to be among the hardest hit if the federal government proceeds with its new water sharing plan. If the region loses 45 per cent of its current allocation as proposed by the Murray Darling Basin Authority, an unintended consequence will be a dramatic decline in the populations of over a dozen species of frog. These frogs have benefited from water being pooled in upper catchment areas for rice production; if the plan goes ahead more water will end up going down to South Australia and over the barrages into the Southern Ocean, to the detriment of flood plain wildlife. On Line Opinion article

Will Real Evidence or Realpolitik Drive Change in the Murray Darling Basin?

The MDBA Basin Guide released on October 8th 2010 is set against the imperative of obtaining more water for the environment.  The report calls for a minimum of 3000 gigalitres [GL] to be recovered for environmental flows, while we have been told repeatedly since at least 2003 that the expert scientific conclusions were 1500 GL were required to restore environmental well-being to the Basin.

Several curiosities appear in the Basin Guide relating to environmental matters with little substantiation via evidence or reference to data.

The decline of emblematic river red gum forests is referred to, citing varying degrees of decline in different areas, with the inference this is wholly attributable to a decline in available water.  Recent investigations in both NSW and Victoria prior to national park declarations showed the forests in best condition were thoseactively managed by local communities and the forest in the worst condition was contained in the national park estate, both subject to the same water regime. 

Similarly, claims were made about the large decline of waterbirds in the basin since 1983 with graphs supplied by Dr Richard Kingsford from the UNSW used to illustrate the point.  This graph using Dr Kingsford’s own data from 2003 paints a different picture of waterbird abundance in one of Australia’s prime breeding sites.  While there are reasonable grounds to study Dr Kingsford’s point that unseasonal flooding of wetlands could be detrimental to the food chain and birdlife, there is little to suggest that mandating 3000 GL to the environment to see an extra 2000GL flow out through the mouth of the Murray is a good outcome.
    
This idea of maintaining an artificial environment in the Lower Lakes through the use of barrages is all the more questionable when one reads the statements attributed to the MBDA CEO, Rob Freeman on the release of the Basin Guide, when he said “''If the Coorong, Lower Lakes and Murray mouth were chosen as a priority in this particular example, then insufficient water will be available in the median-to-wet years to meet targets at floodplain sites like Barmah-Millewa forest.''   Poor management decisions taking precedence over good environmental outcomes is realpolitiks in motion.

(See also AEF media release of 14 October 2010.)

The Murray: a fresh perspective

Jennifer Marohasy, September 19, 2010

The release of a new Murray Darling Basin plan on October 8, 2010, is likely to reignite debate over how best to solve the problems of the Murray River. It will further pit some environmentalists and some South Australians against upstream irrigators as a debate over how to fix the two very large freshwater lakes at the very bottom of the Murray River rages.  Article at Quadrant Online.        

Anglican report backs Pearson on Wild Rivers legislation

Noel Pearson has long railed against the Queensland government Wild Rivers legislation and has been criticised for doing so by its proponents, Anna Bligh’s government and the Wilderness Society.  However last week the Anglican church released its detailed study into the legislation and backs Pearson.  “The Anglican report represents the most comprehensive, objective and rigorous analysis of the Wild Rivers legislation and its effect on Aboriginal communities and landowners.”   Article in The Australian (October 02, 2010)

Gunns to cease harvesting native forests

Forester Mark Poynter writes of the never ending campaign against native forest harvesting in Tasmania that has seen timber giant Gunns announce its ending of public forest harvesting.  

The lack of integrity in the campaign to cease completely the sustainable harvesting of native forests provides no balance between protecting the environment and wise resource use to provide products demanded by society.  The madness of driving out world’s best practice forestry operations to import increasing amounts of illegally harvested timber from overseas beggars belief.

Article at Online Opinion

Environmental activism kills millions: The cost of banning DDT

“3 Billion and Counting is a new documentary film on the awful human cost of banning DDT. The film’s producer, medical doctor Rutledge Taylor, circled the tropical world, finding that malaria has claimed some three billion human lives throughout history—and the toll of needless deaths is continuing to mount by perhaps 1.5 million per year. Moreover, it permanently debilitates millions more.” says Dennis Avery in this article at the Science & Public Policy Institute website.

Denmark’s Green Energy Revolution runs out of puff

Andrew Gilligan from the U.K. Telegraph writes of the growing community backlash against wind farms and their limitations in this article. “To green campaigners, it is windfarm heaven, generating a claimed fifth of its power from wind and praised by British ministers as the model to follow. But amid a growing public backlash, Denmark, the world's most windfarm-intensive country, is turning against the turbines.

Last month, unnoticed in the UK, Denmark's giant state-owned power company, Dong Energy, announced that it would abandon future onshore wind farms in the country. "Every time we were building onshore, the public reacts in a negative way and we had a lot of criticism from neighbours," said a spokesman for the company.”

WIND FARMS BLOW ILL WIND FOR LOCAL COMMUNITIES

The North American experience of the establishment of wind farms has been challenging for local communities, energy consumers and those waiting for reductions in CO2 emissions. Power bills have risen, quality of life for local communities has fallen – all without any real reduction in emissions. This video from Canada tells a compelling story.
 

THE GREAT RENEWABLE ENERGY RORT

Kathy Russell from the Australian Landscape Guardians writes a compelling article on the need for a rigorous analysis of the alleged benefits of more wind farms.

Government has accepted, without due diligence, proposals put forward by vested interests that disadvantage the people with higher energy costs and little or no benefit for the environment. 

The moral high ground taken by those in government and those initially in favour of turbines is that they are doing their bit for the environment – the data shows otherwise.

Why is anyone of sound mind supporting Renewable Energy Targets?

Article at Quadrant Online

RENEWABLE ENERGY – WHAT IT WILL REALLY COST

With the deferment of the Australian emissions trading scheme until at least 2013 renewable energy companies and advocates for a greater mandating of renewable energy use in Australia are ramping up their efforts to commit Australia to a changed energy mix.

This appears at face value to be a plausible policy path, if one were committed to the concept of reducing reliance on fossil fuels, until the economics and practicalities are subjected to scrutiny.

The proposal to mandate an increasing amount of Australian energy use to renewables is poor policy on the same scale as the failed emissions trading scheme and deserves the same scrutiny.

The following link is a paper prepared last month that examines the question in the American context; it is very comparable to the Australian discussion and experience.  This link is to the U.S Energy Information Administration data referred to in the paper.

Only because it happens so infrequently, this link to a journalist’s mea culpa on wind farms is included.  The original story relates to a big wind farm proposal for Massachusetts for which the stated cost of implementation tripled during the investigation process and wind energy costs blew out to four times the cost of conventional electricity. 
 

AEF SUPPORTS VEGETATION LAW OVERHAUL

6 May 2010

The Australian Environment Foundation today backed the Senate Inquiry into Native Vegetation Laws recommendation to establish a “balance between maximising agricultural production and best practice conservation.” See media release

SCIENCE ON SOLID GROUND WITH GM FOOD

The Chief Scientist of Food Standards of Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ), Dr Paul Brent responds to criticisms of the regulatory approval process for GM food on ABC Bush Telegraph April 28th.

“It’s getting to the point where those people who object to GM foods have failed miserably to show any credible data that GM foods are unsafe”.  Listen to the interview

Greenies use 'wilder nullius' to get their way in Cape York

Richie Ahmat, chairman of the Cape York Land Council
The Australian April 19, 2010

THE confrontation between the Aboriginal traditional owners of Cape York Peninsula and The Wilderness Society in relation to Queensland's Wild River laws is fundamental. If it is not resolved fairly and soon, it will be the beginning of a long war that our people will never abandon until justice is restored. (more)

Abbott's bill would reverse the injustice of Wild Rivers laws

Noel Pearson, 3 April 2010

THE Senate's legal and constitutional affairs committee this week started its inquiry into Tony Abbott's private member's bill, which seeks to override the Queensland government's Wild Rivers Act 2005. (More in The Australian.

We need a new paradigm for national parks

Max Rheese, 25 March 2010

The ever increasing expansion of the national parks estate across the country continues to provide fertile ground for conflict between users of public land, rural communities, environment groups and governments.(more)

ABC Beat Up

March 15, 2010

The ABC’s Australian Story episode entitled “Something in the Water”, which attacks Tasmania's plantation forestry and aquaculture industries, is biased and misleading according to forester Mark Poynter. See his article at On Line Opinion.

Dump Emissions Trading Scheme Now

09, February 2010

“The declining credibility of the UN’s science on climate should send a signal to the Rudd government that it’s time to fundamentally reconsider its approach to climate policy” said Alex Stuart, chairman of the Australian Environment Foundation. See AEF media release.

Environmentalists have crossed the Rubicon

Max Rheese
21 December 2009

Environmental advocacy in Australia is increasingly producing perverse environmental outcomes that are changing the way we live, largely as a result of political decisions for electoral gain. (more)

When are we going to wake up?

by Walter Starck

November 23, 2009

Six degrees and rising: I’ll call your 2 degrees and raise it to 6

The past few months has been a frustrating time for the climate change industry. Earlier in the year they were on a roll and it looked like a global treaty agreement at Copenhagen in December was a done deal. The heady scent of unprecedented power and money was palpable. Everyone on the bandwagon, activists, bureaucrats, researchers and entrepreneurs, were in high anticipation. But, as Copenhagen approached, unwelcome reality began to intrude on the dream. (more at Quadrant.)

Logging disputes at the mercy of public opinion

October 7, 2009

Disputes over logging are often hijacked by sentiment instead of facts, says Mark Poynter from the Institute of Foresters of Australia. See Age article.

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Green Black Alliance Fractures in Sunshine State

September 17, 2009

Cape York Aboriginal Communities have decided to take on legal advice on Anna Bligh's Wild Rivers legislation. Aboriginal elders fear the legislation, to be enacted at the bidding of the Wilderness Society, will prevent Aboriginal communities from utilising their traditional lands.

See Wiki lawyers take on rivers battle. 

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Whistle stop tour on Climate and ETS

Thursday 13 August 2009

Acting AEF chairman, Alex Stuart and several members attended a presentation in Sydney last night at which about 50 people were present along with SBS.  The presentation was given by Professor Bob Carter and Dr Jay Lehr, science director of the Heartland Institute in the U.S.

Bob Carter, Jay Lehr and Max Rheese have done a whistle stop tour of Melbourne, Perth, Sydney and Brisbane over the last week to talk to as many audiences as possible ahead of the senate vote today and bring media attention to the issue of the ETS and how the government is dealing with climate change.

Bob Carter did a side trip to Canberra yesterday to brief parliamentarians at the invitation of Senator Steve Fielding. (See press report.) 

The tour, run by the Australian Climate Science Coalition, has received quite good coverage from ABC Lateline, ABC radio, Sky News, Brisbane Courier Mail.

Real heat generated by vested interests by Dr Lehr was published in the Brisbane Courier Mail.

The defeat of the ETS legislation in the senate today has given the forces of reason 3 more months to encourage debate on the issue - so the more support for the online petition at ListenToUs the better.   

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Forester and AEF member Mark Poynter in On Line Opinion reports on how scientists with close connections to the Wilderness Society have coordinated their research with a campaign to remove the timber industry from Australian forests.

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At talks presented in Bendigo, Shepparton and Albury, AEF member Professor Bob Carter gets the message across that Australia has nothing to gain but a lot to lose from the Emissions Trading Scheme. See regional press reports hereand here.

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Lessons not yet learned: a bushfire tragedy

Apart from the terrible human and animal suffering from the continuing bushfire crisis in Victoria, the tragedy of this event is the failure of public land managers to heed lessons already learned from past holocausts. More

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An unsustainable future - Dr Tom Quirk

"Policy for reducing carbon dioxide emissions now appears to be double-barrelled with a target for renewable sources for electricity generation with government subsidies and a carbon tax in the form of an emissions trading scheme. Neither approach appears to be realistic, possible or even plausible." Read the rest of the article at On Line Opinion.

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The Victorian Government's plans for the Murray River forests increase fire risks says AEF Executive Director Max Rheese. See The Australian (13-2-2009).

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"Bushfire management: where to from here" On Line Opinion article by Roger Underwood (AEF member)

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Australia Lacks Capacity to Meet Carbon Reduction Targets. AEF media release

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Declaring four new national parks in northern Victoria is not the way to protect the Murray and its associated red gum forests according to Mark Poynter, a member of the Institute of Foresters of Australia and the AEF. See his article in the The Age of January 2: As red gum forests turn green.

Max Rheese makes a similar point in a letter in The Australian of January 4.

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GetUp’s global warming television ads are dishonest and inaccurate See AEF Media Release.

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This editorial in The Australian on Dec 17th 2008 highlights how badly the Fourth Estate have let the Australian public down “….naive, prone to hyperbole on environmental issues, ideologically blinkered and lacking logic and analysis skills”

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Friends of the Reef not worried about global warming

"THE Greens reckon the Great Barrier Reef is a casualty of Labor's lower-than-expected emissions reduction target, but for those who work among the corals, forecasts aren't so bleak." The Australian Dec 17th 2008.

Miranda Devine in the Sydney Morning Herald writes about the address that Professor Bob Carter will give at the AEF Annual Conference in Canberra on October 11th. This will be one of three presentations on climate science at the conference.  Read what she had to say: Act hastily, roo the scare tactics.

Also see Bob Carter's article, "Knock knock: Where is the evidence for dangerous human-caused global warming?" in Economic Analysis and Policy.

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"If everyone switched to organic farming, we couldn't support the earth's current population - maybe half." - Nina V. Fedoroff .  According to the New York Times, Ms Fedoroff is an Advocate for Science because of her views that science supports the introduction of GM foods.  Read the interview here.

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Green Threat to Reason is an article on Andrew Bolt’s Herald Sun blog about AEF member Professor Ian Plimer’s recent speech in Brisbane about the new religion of environmentalism.  It can be viewed here

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"If everyone switched to organic farming, we couldn't support the earth's current population - maybe half." - Nina V. Fedoroff .  According to the New York Times, Ms Fedoroff is an Advocate for Science because of her views that science supports the introduction of GM foods.  Read the interview here.

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The 2008 Conference was filled with informative presentations on contemporary issues. For an update on the conference, look here.

The 2009 Conference will be held in Perth during September.

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Here is a paper with some interesting things to say on why people adopt and hold on to wrong ideas.
 
'Ignorance is Contagious, the importance of critical thinking in environmental management', presented by Dr Ian Woodward at a recent Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand seminar in Tasmania.

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Mark Poynter writes at On Line Opinion on the reasons behind the rise of blog sites and community dissatisfaction over the media coverage of environmental issues, in particular the Rivers and Red Gum Environment Alliance campaign to see the introduction of community friendly public land classifications.  Read the article here

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AEF director Jennifer Marohasy had a feature article published by the Weekend Australian on August 23rd presenting some facts on salinity levels, rainfall and temperature.  The article dispels many of the popular myths that abound on these subjects.  To see the graphs which support the article go to Case of the warm and fuzzy.