Steven Chu, US secretary for energy. Photograph: Ben Margot/AP
I have just been watching the tragic sight of a fallen giant flailing around on its back like a beetle, desperately trying to turn itself over.
The occasion was a speech by the US secretary of energy, Steven Chu. He is, of course, a Nobel physicist, brilliant, modest, likeable, a delightful contrast to the thugs employed by the previous administration. But his speech was, in the true sense of the word, pathetic: it moved me to pity.
admin /14 December, 2009
Australia accused of cooking carbon books
By Gregg Borschmann for Radio National – exclusive
Posted 3 hours 45 minutes ago
Updated 1 hour 36 minutes ago
The dramatic increase has mainly been caused by rising emissions from bushfires and drought. (User submitted: Jules Haddock/John Druery)
The Australian Government has been accused of accounting fraud in the reporting of its carbon emissions.
By ignoring a massive rise in polluting gases from the agricultural and forestry industries, Australia has managed to make its overall emissions seem much lower than they actually are.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, Australia is allowed to increase carbon emissions by 8 per cent compared to 1990 levels.
But figures supplied to the United Nations earlier this year show that between 1990 and 2007, Australia’s real carbon emissions actually rose by 82 per cent.
