08:00-11:00 Monthly Bushcare – Gertrude Petty Place Bushcare – Mt Gravatt
08:00 Bushcare Working Bee – Crosby Road Bushcare – Albion
14:00-17:00 – Bushcare Working Bee – Arnwood Place – annerley
07:30-09:30 – Ekibin Creek Bushcare – Cnr Gaza Rd & Bapaume Rd, Holland Park West
07:30 GEMS and GAP bushcare working bee! – St Lucia Golf Links Carawa st
08:00-11:00 – Nursery Working Bee – N4C Norman Creek Catchment, 66 Baron St, Greenslopes
Activists from legal, communications, mutual aid and class mobilisation backgrounds met to discuss ways that they might be stronger together at a Community Day for Climate at Brisbane’s Northey Street City Farm organised by XR Meanjin.
A revolting murder. A war between exploitation for profit and land management. Deep insight into the Australian psyche. A small town divided between environmental values of koala habitat and the riches offered by industrial agribusiness. A determined environment officer is killed in cold-blood by a self righteous land developer. How does a community heal such an ugly rift? How does a film maker deal with the divide?
Hear Geoff interview director Gregory Miller, in the Cage. Kate Holden’s new book A Winter Road has caused us to refresh this story.
An Update for July 2021 – The ABC has interviewed author Kate Holden about the incident in her new book The Winter Road
Writing in this week’s Pearls and Irritations, Peter Sainsbury points out that the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projections regarding climate change assume continual economic growth as fundamental to their projection. Their modelling offsets this with unprecedented technical change, such as green hydrogen and green steel and new, negative emissions technologies. Europe’s Fit for 55 zero-emissions plan, also predicates economic growth, decoupled from environmental harm. Sébastien Wälti of the Swiss National Bank and other degrowth researchers point out that the vast sums of money spent on emissions reduction technologies over the last two decades have had very little impact on emissions. Reducing consumption and population rather than inventing new technologies.
Sources:
https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/whp/ev/2013/00000022/00000001/art00006
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-38807-6_15
Europe will spend 30% of its total budget on reducing emissions by 50% in the next decade as part of its plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is an essential part of that, putting a carbon price on imports from countries like Australia that do nothing to reduce their own carbon emissions. Economists have joined environmentalists in celebrating the plan as creating a level playing field. “Anyone can get an exemption to the CBAM if they have an equivalent [carbon price] at home,” said energy economist, Sir Dieter Helm. China has criticised the CBAM but, at the same time, is introducing the world’s largest carbon trading scheme. The USA and Canadian governments have proposed similar schemes.
Sources:
A submission to the Parliamentary Enquiry into the funding of fossil fuel exports shows that one trillion dollars, or 37% of Australian’s superannuation funds, is managed by members of the Responsible Investment Association of Australia, the RIAA, and so is unavailable for investment in fossil fuels, logging and other environmentally harmful activities. The RIAA submission says that 2 out of 3 Australians do not want their investments being used for environmental harm.
The Inquiry into the prudential regulation of investment in Australia’s export industries was set up by resources minister Keith Pitt in February, to collect evidence that environmental activism is harming Australia’s economy by damaging exports of coal and gas. When Parliament approved the enquiry he said,
“It is of great concern to me that a legitimate industry like coal mining, which makes a significant contribution to the national economy and employs thousands of Australians, is being held back by what can only be described as corporate activism.”
Resources Minister Keith Pitt
Last week, Minister Pitt addressed the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association conference in Perth last Wednesday to attack activist groups such as Greepeace. He urged petroleum companies to make submissions to the inquiry to prevent activism that “ignores the fact that resources development in Australia is carried out safely and responsibly and that Australia’s economy was built off the back of the resources sector”.
The terms of the inquiry are to inquire into:
The domestic and foreign investment opportunities and challenges for Australia’s export industries and their associated businesses, arising from changes in prudential standards and practices across banking, insurance and superannuation institutions, in addition to publicly-listed companies, with particular reference to:
The next hearing is on July 27 but submissions have already closed. Use these links to review submissions to the inquiry and the submission by the Responsible Investments Association of Australia.