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Category: Archive

Archived material from historical editions of The Generator

  • Downer offers Uranium to Russia

    Mr Downer says there is no danger of the uranium exports being used to support Russia’s military programs.

    "In the same way as we have nuclear safeguard agreements with other countries it would be a breach of international law if they were to try to do that," he said.

    "I don’t [think] Russia would want to become a rogue state and break international law, it would lead to a collapse with their relations with Australia and probably with an awful lot more countries."

    The Opposition’s foreign affairs spokesman Robert McClelland says Labor is open to the idea of the uranium deal with Russia.

    "Because they’re a party to the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty)" he said.

    "What I’m saying is, we can drive their commitment to do most things and specifically we can drive their commitment to disarmament.

    "The broader issues here is how the international community, and we as one of the world’s major uranium suppliers, start to reinvigorate the nuclear disarmament debate."

  • Greenhouse labelling proposed

    The current lack of information is frustrating consumers' desires to do the right thing and sheltering producers from the need to clean up their act. Most shoppers are not able to discriminate between products that required large amounts of water or massive greenhouse gas emissions and those that are better for the environment.
     
    There is little or no pressure on producers to minimise their emissions or water usage.
    Labelling laws would start the process of pushing producers to clean up their act.
     Combined with a carbon pricing regime to send a better price signal and regulations to drive up efficiency of water and energy use, NSW consumers could reduce the embodied water and greenhouse gases in their shopping trolleys and daily lives.
     
    "The Iemma government needs to get tough with industry and retailers. It needs to show leadership with other states and the Commonwealth and set the pace on helping households reduce their impact on the planet," Dr Kaye said.

  • Scientists deny global warming

    Some of the chief points of their refutation include:

  • Global warming is observed on other planets or moons, including Mars, Jupiter, Triton, Pluto, Neptune and others. Did man cause this?
  • That the so-called "overwhelming consensus" embodied in the IPCC report has nothing to do with science, nor does such a consensus even exist. It is in fact drawn from its "Summary for Policymakers" which was written by politicians, not by scientists, and its supposed "90% certainty" is backed up by nothing in the report, but is merely a "consensus opinion arrived at by IPCC bureaucrats"; and, in any case, so-called "democratic consensus" is entirely opposed to scientific method. "Consensus", for instance, once held that the earth was at the centre of the universe, and that it was flat.
  • That the "Stern Review" upon which the Committee based its majority report, was drafted by a man who "acknowledges that he had zero understanding of the issue less than one year before the Stern Review … It is staggering that someone with essentially no scientific knowledge on greenhouse effect, within less than one year, had acquired the scientific knowledge to state that the ‘scientific evidence is now overwhelming’."
  • "Indeed, if one paragraph clearly illustrates the one sided nature of this report," the dissenters say, "it is paragraph 5.59. Here, we have a captain of industry (Rupert Murdoch), who, by his own admission is not a scientist, quoted regarding his view on anthropogenic global warming and the need to take action", citing Murdoch’s claims that "climate change poses clear catastrophic threats."

    There is much more, on glaciers, rising sea levels, Australia’s rainfall patterns, etc., and the report is extensively footnoted. It may be accessed at:

    http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/scin/geosequestration/report/dissent.pdf

  • PM names electorate at possible nuclear reactor site

    "It’ll be decisions of commercial investment Mr Speaker and therefore whether they’re in the magnificent municipality of Randwick, or the shire of the Shoalhaven, or indeed anywhere else in the municipality of Waverly, the city of Ryde," he said.

    "Wherever you might go that will be a decision of commercial decision making – it won’t be a decision of the Government Mr Speaker."

    The Federal Opposition Member for Grayndler, Anthony Albanese, has challenged Mr Howard to list where the reactor could be built within the Bennelong electorate.

    "We know of course that nuclear reactors, because they consume 80 per cent more water than any other energy source, have to be located near water," he said

    "So the question is for the Prime Minister – where on the Lane Cove River will he put his nuclear reactor in the electorate of Bennelong?"

  • South Australia follows German model

    "South Australia already has around 46 per cent of the nation’s grid-connected solar panels and this feed-in scheme will play on the state’s existing strength," SA Premier Mike Rann said.

    "This scheme represents another step in keeping South Australia at the forefront of governments facing the challenge of climate change."

    Mr Rann also will launch the University of Adelaide’s new Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability today.

    Professor Barry Brook, the university’s new chair of climate change, will serve as director of the institute.

    It will drawn on a range of disciplines and be instrumental in establishing working relationships between government and industry in an effort to tackle climate change.

  • Federal policy chokes wind farms

    Source ABC.net.au

    The peak wind energy industry body says Australia’s climate change policies are threatening the viability of wind farms.

    Energy company AGL has abandoned plans for a 48-turbine wind farm in the South Gippsland community of Dollar.

    Auswind’s Chief Executive Dominique La Fontaine says many projects are under threat from Australia’s narrow approach to carbon trading.

    "There has to be deployment measures like increasing mandatory renewable energy targets or putting in place a clean energy target and then there has to be energy efficiency measures, they’re very important as well," she said.

    However Ms La Fontaine says areas of Victoria will still be considered for new developments.

    "Victoria has got excellent wind resources and the developers will be looking for places where they can maximise the benefit out of a wind farm development," she said.