Every time we play the Flying Pickets we get requests for more information about them. Here as a start to satisfy that curiosity is a live concert of their biggest hit, "Only You"
Category: Archive
Archived material from historical editions of The Generator
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Al Gore’s Own `Inconvenient Truth’
Gore’s home uses more than 20 times the national averageLast night, Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, but the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy.Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.“As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use,” said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson.In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006.Source: Tennessee Centre for Policy Research, Feb 26, 2007 -
Dirty facts behind the ‘clean coal’ pipedream
But what about the economic consequences of phasing out coal power generation?That’s a furphy too. Greens Senator Bob Brown recently noted just one example of the economic cost of our government’s one-eyed fixation on old technology: in 1989 Australia produced about the same number of solar electric panels as Japan. Now, Japan supplies 50% of world demand while we supply only one percent.
And to think we once had dreams of being ‘the clever country’.
PS The NSW Liberals appear to have lifted our solution of a solar thermal power station at Moree. However their allocated budget of $40 million would power only a small proportion of Sydney’s power needs. Still, it’s an example of how a principled minor party with good ideas can influence the major players.
Picture: A 1.3km long coal train near Mayfield in Newcastle heads towards the coal loader.
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Surveys show Aussies want climate change action
The vast majority of Australians want to tackle global warming, reports a survey by ABC News Online , 14/3/07.
An international poll conducted by the Lowy institute has found that 92 per cent of Australians "favour measures to combat global warming".
The poll surveyed almost 20,000 people in 17 countries, including the United States, Russia, South Korea and Indonesia.
While there was general agreement in 12 countries that "climate change was real", there were differences on how much should be spent to address it.
Almost 70 per cent of Australians believed that it was a "pressing problem" that needs to be addressed "even if it involved significant costs".
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U.S. bans climate change discussion
On Thursday, administration officials said the memos were written to ensure that U.S. representatives wouldn’t stray outside the agenda of meetings, which they said would be a violation of diplomatic protocol.
The restrictions are "consistent with staying with our commitment to the other countries to talk about only what’s on the agenda," H. Dale Hall, director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, said in a phone news briefing.
The memos came just months after the administration, under pressure from a suit brought by conservationists, announced that it would consider protecting the bears under the Endangered Species Act.
Although 20,000 to 25,000 of the big white bears remain, they are struggling as the ice sheets they use to hunt prey diminish in size and seasonal availability, scientists say.
Kieran Suckling of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental advocacy group, provided the memos to the P-I. He said they show that the administration is desperately trying to avoid being put on the spot about the big bears.
"The polar bear has created a 24/7 forum for the U.S. government to be grilled about what its position is on global warming, and it’s really put the Bush administration in a tight, tight corner," said Suckling, whose group sued over the animals. "It’s crazy to say, ‘The polar bear is endangered but we’re not going to do anything about global warming.’
"They realize that message is so counterintuitive it cannot be delivered by anyone but the most seasoned hack available."
The memos concern trips to be made by Janet Hohn, who is scheduled to accompany a delegation to Norway led by Julia Gourley of the State Department at a meeting on conserving Arctic animals and plants; and Craig Perham, a biologist attending a meeting in Russia about how to minimize dangerous interactions between humans and polar bears.
Tina Kreisher, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, parent of the Fish and Wildlife Service, said the policy did not prohibit Hohn from talking about climate change "over a beer" but indicated that climate was "not the subject of the agenda."
The other employee, Perham, specializes in polar bears. He was invited by the World Wildlife Fund to help advise villagers along the Siberian coast on avoiding encounters with the bears, according to Margaret Williams, director of the WWF’s Bering Sea Program.
In recent years the bears have been seen in unusual locations, such as near native villages. Some scientists speculate this is related to the changes in their natural hunting patterns because of the ice melting.
In 2006, after a marauding bear killed a 15-year-old girl, Siberian groups reached out to Russian scientists and the World Wildlife Fund for help, Williams said.
She asked the Fish and Wildlife Service to take Perham along to coastal villages less than 250 miles from Alaska to offer his expertise.
A memo on Feb. 26 said Perham "understands the administration’s position on climate change, polar bears and sea ice and will not be speaking on or responding to those issues."
Hall, the Fish and Wildlife Service director, said in an interview Thursday that "these memoranda could have been better worded" but that requiring strict adherence to a set agenda had "been a longstanding practice."
Asked for the formal agenda of the Russia meetings, Williams of the World Wildlife Fund said no such document had been negotiated.
"There was," she said "an invitation letter from us to the Fish and Wildlife Service. It always talked about human-bear interactions."
Top-down control of government scientists’ discussions of climate change became controversial last year, after appointees at NASA kept journalists from interviewing climate scientists and discouraged news releases on global warming.
Other instances in which the administration has recently restricted scientists from discussing climate change include:
- In June, a high-ranking official in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration admitted in a letter to Sens. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, that the agency "inappropriately" denied a journalist’s request to interview James Hansen, an outspoken scientist who heads NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
- In September, news accounts revealed that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had suppressed an internal agency e-mail intended to summarize scientists’ consensus on evidence of a link between hurricanes and climate change.
- In December, two scientists from NOAA said they were forbidden to use the term "climate change" or to mention Kyoto, the Japanese city where the current international treaty on global warming was negotiated.
P-I reporters Robert McClure and Lisa Stiffler contributed to this report, which includes information from The New York Times.
