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Category: General news
Managing director of Ebono Institute and major sponsor of The Generator, Geoff Ebbs, is running against Kevin Rudd in the seat of Griffith at the next Federal election. By the expression on their faces in this candid shot it looks like a pretty dull campaign. Read on
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How scientists make the case
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The John James Newsletter 58
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The John James Newsletter 58
Inbox x John James
4:59 AM (3 hours ago) The John James Newsletter 58
2 May 2015Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a littleEdmund Burke
So many wonderful things! This is the best blog, not just in australia. but the world. The Russia-Iran nexus is very important and makes what else is happening in the region even more interesting and significant. Two fast-rising powers – Russia and Iran. Israel will have to look out. Keep it up, John
How much fossil fuel has been used in your lifetime?
How much fossil fuel has been extracted since you arrived at this page? Or since you were born? The numbers below highlight the staggering amount of oil, coal and gas we take out of the ground – and how quickly change is needed
Prince Charles on brink of ending all fossil fuel investments
Syria’s Nightmarish Narrative
With military and political help from Saudi Arabia and Israel, the possibility of an Al-Qaeda and/or IS victory in Syria is coming true, as the army retreats and as Obama remains indecisive.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41705.htm
Assad’s hold on power looks shakier than ever as rebels advance in Syria
Syria’s Revitalized Rebels Make Big Gains in Assad’s Heartland
The recent offensives in Idlib have been strikingly swift — thanks in large part to suicide bombers and American anti-tank TOW missiles. Regime forces have only held out for hours or a few days.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/28/syrias-revitalized-rebels-make-big-gains-in-assads-heartland/
Al Qaeda Is Beating the Islamic State
Get ready for the clash of caliphates.
Big Insurance Companies warning to Prepare For Climate Changehttp://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/04/21/3649244/insurance-climate-change-disaster-relief/
The number of volcanoes erupting now is greater than the 20th century’s YEARLY averageDuring the 20th century, there were a total of 3,542 volcanic eruptions, or 35 each year. There are 36 volcanoes erupting around the world right now. This is the trend. http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/the-number-of-volcanoes-erupting-right-now-is-greater-than-the-20th-centurys-yearly-average
‘We don’t buy panda products – so the Chinese should get their hands off our elephants’Poachers are slaughtering 25,000 elephants a year for their ivory tusks. The elephant will be extinct within the decade. http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/07/opinions/paula-kahumbu-china-ivory-elephants-extinction/index.html
How come we bomb ISIS thugs but finance the thugs of Ukrainian?Ukrainian Neo-Nazis Nail Rebel Fighter to Cross, Burn Him AliveUS-backed militants carry out brutal execution. Video shows Ukrainian neo-nazi militia carrying out an ISIS-style execution during which they nail a separatist rebel to a cross and then burn him alive.http://www.infowars.com/shock-video-ukrainian-neo-nazis-nail-rebel-fighter-to-cross-burn-him-alive/
Then and Now Photos That Show Dramatic Changes on EarthThe melting of the Northwestern Glacier in Alaska between 1940 and Aug. 4, 2005. http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/30-then-and-now-photos-climate-change-earth-melting-glaciers/45986679 andSeven surprising results from the reduction of Arctic Sea ice coverhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofaoiHYKtlc
The Great Transition by Lester BrownWind and solar costs are falling rapidly, making them competitive with fossil fuels in more and more markets. States and countries are getting double digit shares of their electricity from wind farms and solar panels are popping up on rooftops from California to Australia to Bangladesh. To give you a sense of just how quickly change is happening, the Institute has posted the first chapter of the book online.http://www.earth-policy.org/books/tgt/tgt_table_of_contents
Most reports assume that 2°C is an appropriate policy targetDavid Spratt’s “Recount: It’s time to ‘Do the math’ again” concludes that the evidence does not support this propositions.http://www.climatecodered.org/2015/04/its-time-to-do-math-again.html
In Nigeria, university degrees can lead to povertyWith over 20 million unemployed youth in Nigeria, young Nigerians are spending an increasing proportion of their twenties pursuing academic qualifications, rather than gaining work skills. They are doing this on the savings of households living on $2-4 per person a day — families who are scrimping and sacrificing so that one person can break out of these economic conditions and land a good job.http://www.thisisafricaonline.com/News/In-Nigeria-university-degrees-can-lead-to-povert
What it Means to Be ‘Liberal’ or ‘Conservative’ in ChinaLeftists enjoy greater popular support in lower-income, inland regions, compared to wealthier coastal provinces, whereas the opposite is true for liberals. There is a strong correlation between leftist beliefs and ‘cultural conservatism’ — defined as those who support “traditional, Confucian values”.http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/24/what-it-means-to-be-liberal-or-conservative-in-china/
Not Your Father’s National FrontMarine Le Pen has assembled the West’s largest, most successful anti-immigration and anti-globalist party, by playing down its racist roots.http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/not-your-fathers-national-front/
Laundering the Global Garment Industry’s Dirty BusinessTwo years after Bangladesh’s Rana Plaza disaster, a dense network of little-known agents and subcontractors is still getting in the way of better work conditions. The workers protest loudly and often for better conditions, blocking roads with burning tires near sprawling, dingy factories.http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/24/laundering-global-garment-industrys-dirty-business-rana-plaza-bangladesh-factories/
Hopes of vaccine for Parkinson’s sufferers Scientists believe that an abnormal protein may trigger the condition. It may be possible to prime a person’s immune system so it is ready to attack this protein as it passes through the body so it would not destroy the dopamine-manufacturing cells, where the disease inflicts its greatest damage.http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/25/parkinsons-disease-vaccine-research-protein?CMP=ema_565
Global forest watchInteractive maps that you can follow global deforestation year by yearhttp://www.globalforestwatch.org/
Unburnable Carbon: Why we need to leave fossil fuels in the groundPollution from Australia’s coal resources, particularly the enormous Galilee coal basin, could on its oen take us two-thirds of the way to a two degree rise in global temperature. http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/unburnable-carbon-why-we-need-to-leave-fossil-fuels-in-the-ground
India cancels licences of 8,975 NGOsIncluding Greenpeace as it was financing Indian NGOs which were filing writs. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/47072906.cms
Wind turbines are less effective and CO2 abatement cost is higher than commonly assumedIt is often assumed that effectiveness of wind energy is 100%, i.e., a MWh of wind energy displaces the emissions from a MWh of conventional energy. But it is usually much less.http://judithcurry.com/2015/04/27/wind-turbines-co2-savings-and-abatement-cost/#more-18516
Binge drinking in childhood can cause damage to brain for life“Long-term potentiation” permits a nerve cell, to pass an electrical or chemical signal to another cell. This helps a person acquire new information and remember. It is at its height when a person is young and able to absorb large amounts of new memory. http://rt.com/news/253745-binge-drinking-youth-brain/to John -
Brutality with impunity GET UP
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Inboxx Alycia – GetUp!
5:31 PM (2 hours ago)to me*Trigger warning: descriptions of sexual and physical assault and harassment*NEVILLE,
The Government is proposing new legislation that will give broad powers allowing detention centre guards to use force against asylum seekers. The Maintaining the Good Order of Immigration Detention Facilities Bill sounds well intentioned, but it will have dire implications for asylum seekers in our care.
We already witnessed the fatal consequences of excessive force being used against asylum seekers, when 23 year-old asylum seeker Reza Barati was beaten to death by detention centre guards in February last year.
We’ve also heard the disturbing allegations of guards on Nauru requesting to see women and children naked in exchange for granting them additional shower time,1 the appalling allegations services as clear evidence that guards are abusing their power. Now the Government is seeking to give them even more power, with less accountability.
Labor is yet to announce how they will vote on the bill, and their vote will be crucial to blocking it in the Senate.
Will you contact your Labor senator and call on them to vote against this dangerous bill?
Despite the mounting evidence of excessive and unreasonable force currently being used against people in detention, the Government’s bill will authorise guards to use force with far less oversight.
If passed, the bill will allow detention centre guards to use force against asylum seekers who are engaging in a protest – much like the recent protests on Manus Island where it was reported that people were beaten and thrown into solitary confinement.2 It will give guards the authority to cause grievous bodily harm to another person, so long as they “reasonably” believed it was necessary to prevent injury to another person, including themselves.
“these amendments to the Migration Act will, in effect, result in guards being authorised to beat asylum seekers in detention to death”
– the Hon Stephen Charles QC, former Victorian Supreme Court judge, 16 April 2015
Essentially, this bill will allow guards to beat asylum seekers with impunity.3
In about two week’s time the Senate Committee is expected to hand down their report on the bill, after which it’ll be put to a vote. While Shadow Immigration Minister Richard Marles has voiced concerns about the bill, Labor have not announced how they plan to vote.
Contact your Labor senator and let them know why they must reject this bill.
These powers are on par with, and in some instances broader than, the powers granted to federal police officers. Despite this, guards won’t be required to undergo the same rigorous training and background checks that police officers are subjected to. This will place the safety of asylum seekers at further risk, particularly children and people with mental health conditions.
Furthermore, if an asylum seeker wants to raise concerns about the use of excessive or reasonable force, they can have their concerns investigated by the Immigration Department – the department responsible for hiring and contracting detention centre guard, a conflict of interest that could deny justice to people in detention.4
We still have time to convince Labor to vote against this bill. Contact your Labor senator today: https://www.getup.org.au/force-bill
Yours in hope,
Alycia and the Getup team~ References ~
[1] Moss review: Immigration report finds no evidence charity staff encouraged Nauru detention centre refugees to self harm or manipulate abuse allegations, ABC News, 15 April 2015
[2] Manus Island: four asylum seekers placed in solitary confinement as tensions escalate, The Guardian, 28 January 2015
[3] Proposed powers allow guards ‘to beat asylum seekers in detention to death’, former judge says, ABC News, 17 April 2015
[4] Refugee Advice and Casework Service submission to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee inquiry into the Migration Amendment (Maintaining the Good Order of Immigration Detention Facilities) Bill 2015 (Cth) -
March 2015 Quarterly Activities Report Geodynamics
1 of 11ASX Announcement
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Geodynamics Announcements info@geodynamics.com.au via gmail.mcsv.net Unsubscribe
10:48 AM (4 minutes ago)to me
March 2015 Quarterly Activities Report
Geodynamics reports on the Company’s activities during the March 2015 quarter.
This is an auto-generated email alert. Please do not reply to this email. If you have any queries please contact us via info@geodynamics.com.au or click here to visit our website. We thank you for your interest in Geodynamics Limited.
COPYRIGHT 2013
GEODYNAMICS LIMITED
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Where we’re at Keep it in the ground The Guardian Com
1 of 36Where we’re at
Inboxx Alan Rusbridger <info@mail.theguardian.com> Unsubscribe
1:42 AM (7 hours ago)to meCan’t see this email? View in browser 
Dear NEVILLE, I’ve emailed you a few times recently asking for help with the Guardian’s Keep it in the Ground campaign, and want to take a moment to both thank you for your support and provide you an update on where we’re at.
The campaign team is currently hard at work producing the features we’ll launch later this week, addressed to the Gates Foundation. I’m headed to the Guardian’s office in New York, speaking to media about the campaign and following up on several Keep it in the Ground meetings, some of them confidential at the moment.
In the meantime, here are some highlights since the end of last week. I hope you’ll recognise that the campaign is growing momentum and support.
On Saturday we published a special edition of the Guardian featuring twenty-four moving letters written by readers to the Wellcome Trust. The letters are incredibly impressive and written by a wide range of people around the world. Do, please, read them and share them if you haven’t already. The letters inspired dozens of you to write your own this weekend. We’ll be sending them directly to Wellcome Trust board members this week.
Yesterday we reported that UK poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion and more than a dozen authors and judges honoured by the Wellcome book prize are calling on the Trust to divest from fossil fuels. Motion told the Guardian’s Head of Environment, Damian Carrington, “The Wellcome Trust does magnificent work in all sorts of ways, but its investment in fossil fuels contradicts many of its own policies. By divesting from fossil fuels it would show leadership in keeping with its reputation and ideals.” Three of the authors on this year’s shortlist of six for the prestigious prize have said they favour the trust divesting.
Our investigative reporting has also begun to bear fruit. By digging into fossil fuel company lobbying in Brussels, our Europe environment correspondent Arthur Neslen, discovered that Shell was apparently very successful at influencing the EU’s key energy and climate targets that were agreed by European governments last year. There is plenty more in that vein to come.
Newspapers, broadcasters and magazines across India, Europe and the US have been picking up on the campaign. There was a good piece of reporting in the Financial Times – ‘Prince Charles shuns fossil fuel investments’ – which includes the campaign and indicates the Guardian is in growing company:
“In the UK, divestment plans have been announced by the University of Glasgow, the British Medical Association, SOAS, University of London, and the publishers of The Guardian newspaper, which has launched its own anti- fossil fuel campaign: Keep it in the ground. Several other institutions and individuals have also decided to abandon such assets, the FT has learnt, including the heir to the throne. Prince Charles, a vocal climate action champion, does not comment publicly on his personal financial dealings. But sources at Buckingham Palace confirmed that ‘his private investments and his charitable foundation do not have any fossil fuel holdings’.
What next? As you’ve seen, we’ve devoted quite a bit of our time and attention of late to the Wellcome Trust. Starting later this week the campaign team will turn its focus to the Gates Foundation. If you’re one of the almost 1,000 members of the scientific community who has provided us with a statement of support, I can assure you that we’ll be in touch.
If you have any questions or concerns, please respond to this email or write to my team at keep.it@theguardian.com.
Very best wishes,
Alan Rusbridger, Editor in chief of the Guardian, and the team — Amanda, James, Emma, Mark, Sonia, Natalie, Damian, Fran, Felicity, Suzanne, Simon, Duncan, Terry, Jennifer, Adam, Nabeelah, Harry, Laura, Aron, Alex, Georgia, Karl, Dominic, Lilah, Damien, Wolfgang, Jo, Helen, James, Alice
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Tell Hunt to give Abbot Point the punt 350 org
Click here to enable desktop notifications for Gmail. Learn more HideMore1 of 9Tell Hunt to give Abbot Point the punt
Inboxx Josh Creaser – 350.org Australia josh.creaser@350.org.au via 350.org
8:04 PM (4 minutes ago)to meDear friend,
Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt is once again faced with the task of assessing the proposal for the Abbot Point coal port expansion and his Department is asking for comment on the process. It’s the simplest Government submission we’ve ever had to write:
“Dear Mr Hunt,
The last thing the world needs is new polluting coal from the Galilee Basin. The last thing our Great Barrier Reef needs is one of the world’s largest coal ports and hundreds of ships travelling through its precious waters each year. And the last thing our climate needs is massive new coal mines tipping the global carbon budget past the point of no return.
So it’s simple — we don’t need this approvals process. It’s a no-brainer. Give it the punt Minister Hunt!
Yours sincerely,
350.org Australia”
Join us today in telling Greg Hunt to give Abbot Point the punt!
And if that’s not enough — here are three more reasons why the approval documents should be shredded:
1. The fossil fuel industry is on the hunt…yet again
Our politicians have been licking their lips at the thought of new fossil fuel projects for too long. Their friends in the fossil fuel industry have been pulling the puppet strings for even longer!
The company behind Abbot Point — Indian mining giant Adani — is a foreign company with little prior experience in coal mining, let alone Australia’s largest ever mine that would see coal shipped through our Great Barrier Reef. The company has a terrible track record of environmental and social harm in India and is a known tax-avoider.
To think that Minister Hunt would let them anywhere near our precious Great Barrier Reef is outrageous! Tell him to throw out the approval papers.
2. We’ve already got one Abbot(t) setting us back on climate
Tony Abbott has already made Australia a global embarrassment on climate change — refusing to put the most important issue of our time on the G20 agenda, not showing up to international climate negotiations, declaring coal “good for humanity” and fossil fuel divestment “stupid”…the list goes on.
We simply can’t let our Government unleash another Abbot(t) — this one a massive coal port –on the Great Barrier Reef and the planet!
If Adani gets its way, Abbot Point would become one of the largest coal ports in the world. It was also recently ranked the third most controversial project in the world, of 1200 assessed, equal with an exploding Turkish mine.*
Join us in telling Hunt that it’s time to reject the Abbot(t)s.
3. They’re selling a lie
Adani’s stories of job creation and unbridled wealth for Queensland from these projects are false. For years they’ve told politicians and the media that Carmichael Mine will create 10,000 jobs. But just yesterday, in front of the courts, Adani’s expert witness said the real figure is actually less than 1500.
Adani has been lying to the public all along – already the project has lost 85% of the promised jobs!
These guys can’t be trusted. The solution is simple – give it the punt Minister Hunt.
Thanks for your ongoing support,
Josh for the 350.org Australia team
*Click here (p.6) to read the report ranking Abbot Point as the third most controversial project in the world.
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