Author: Neville

From: GetUp!

Sent: Monday, April 08, 2013 6:30 PM

Subject: Arrogant and brazen: the right-wing lays out their plan for Australia

It was the most exclusive of events: a $500 minimum per head gala fundraising dinner last week for a right-wing think tank. Tony Abbott, Gina Rinehart and Rupert Murdoch took turns sharing the stage. Andrew Bolt was MC. Tony praised his fellow key-note speakers, especially Rupert, and promised the crowd a “big yes” to many of the think tank’s list of 75 policies to radically transform Australia.

So what, exactly, is on this mob’s wish list?
•Public broadcasting – gone. The ABC to be broken up and sold off, SBS to be fully privatised.
•Corporations to be allowed to make secret payments to political parties.
•Medicare gone for most Australians.
•A return to WorkChoices, just by another name.
•The clean energy fund and the renewable energy target – scrapped.
•Funding for sport and arts – including the Australian Institute of Sport – axed. Same for science, with the CSIRO to be privatised.

It goes on. Never before has the extreme conservative agenda been laid out so clearly, but as they get more arrogant and brazen, our movement has the opportunity to do something we can’t count on the other parties to do alone: fight back, effectively.

Click here to become a core supporter of GetUp’s pepole-powered election campaign, and help stop this radical conservative vision of Australia in its tracks.

www.getup.org.au/core-membership

GetUp members can change elections. We’ve done it before, twice in fact. And we know how to do it on tight budgets, with a small team of staff and an amazing community of volunteers. The more core supporters we can count on to fund our election efforts now and into the incredibly important months ahead and the more empowered we’ll be to go big.

Big like in 2010 when we overturned the Orwellian ‘Electoral Integrity Act’ in the High Court, and allowed 169,000 young Australians the chance to vote. Or in 2007, when we helped end a decade of Howard government rule, once it became clear we couldn’t trust government with the issues we cared about.

Through it all, the fundamental truths haven’t changed: you don’t have to have Rupert or Gina’s wallet to make a difference and make your voice heard. With GetUp, when we all get together and chip in what we can, it adds up to a lot.

www.getup.org.au/core-membership

Together, we can target ads that cut through, expose the truth, mobilise a grassroots network that spans every electorate in the country and reclaim our public debate from the voices of narrow-self interest and greed. We know that most Australians, including conservative-leaning voters, don’t want to see Medicare wound back, the ABC abolished, help for families scrapped and our environment handed over to Big Mining and run away climate change. Most of us take tremendous pride in Australia’s ethos of equality and a fair go — and believe that fair taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilised, prosperous nation, instead of a third-world Banana Republic.

Fortunately, the conservatives aren’t the only ones with an agenda for our future. While their elite right-wing donors were busy bidding on the chance to visit Fox news headquarters in America or go behind the scenes of Andrew Bolt’s show, ordinary Australians have been gathering in living rooms, cafes, libraries and pubs around the country to talk about what matters to us this election. Our top priorities are taking shape, and the two visions for our nation couldn’t be more different:
1.Climate change: expand renewable energy, keep a price on carbon and cut massive public subsidies to fossil fuels.
2.A humane policy on refugees and asylum seekers.
3.More funding for education and a high quality education system.
4.A progressive tax system and effective mining tax.
5.Stopping the expansion of the coal seam gas industry.

Our vision is worth fighting for, and we can change this election if we try. The last thing we want is to look back and think, ‘we could have done more.’ Become a core supporter, and join thousands of other Australians refusing to give up, and deciding to GetUp. www.getup.org.au/core-membership

Thank you, always, for all that you do,
The GetUp team

PS: You can read the full text of the think tank’s list of policies to “radically reform Australia”, verbatim, on our webpage here: www.getup.org.au/core-membership

PPS: Your donation now will make a huge and lasting difference to the election and beyond. Last election, GetUp members:
•Won a High Court case that put 169,000 disenfranchised voters on the roll — so many new enrolments that in 11 electorates, those voters determined the result.
•Raised over 4 million dollars to run national TV and print ads, becoming one of the biggest political media buyers in the country and reclaiming the airwaves from vested interests like Clubs Australia and the Minerals Council.
•Volunteered on the ground in our tens of thousands, speaking directly with our neighbours through doorknocking, local events, and handing out election scorecards.
•Helped keep climate action on the agenda, fought for a fair go for aslyum seekers, and won over 2 billion dollars in commitments for mental health care.

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GetUp is an independent, not-for-profit community campaigning group. We use new technology to empower Australians to have their say on important national issues. We receive no political party or government funding, and every campaign we run is entirely supported by voluntary donations. If you’d like to contribute to help fund GetUp’s work, please donate now! If you have trouble with any links in this email, please go directly to www.getup.org.au. To unsubscribe from GetUp, please click here. Authorised by Sam Mclean, Level 2, 104 Commonwealth Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010.

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More charges laid against former HSU boss

AAPUpdated April 9, 2013, 10:29 am

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Further charges have been laid against former Health Services Union boss Michael Williamson, a Sydney court has heard.

Williamson was charged on Tuesday with one count of cheating or defrauding as a director and one count of money laundering, bringing the total number of offences against the former union boss to 50.
The 59-year-old was not required to appear during a brief mention at the Downing Centre Local Court on Tuesday where his lawyer Vivian Evans had earlier foreshadowed that the charges would be laid.

Turnbull unveils Coalition’s broadband plan

By science and technology correspondent Jake Sturmer, ABCUpdated April 9, 2013, 9:33 am

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The Coalition has released the details of its alternative National Broadband Network plan, proposing a cheaper, but ultimately slower internet service.

The Opposition’s communication spokesman Malcolm Turnbull says the network will cost $20.4 billion and be completed in 2019 – two years ahead of Labor’s plan.

“We obviously don’t have access to all of NBN Co’s books but we’ve made very conservative assumptions, both about our plans and [NBN Co’s],” Mr Turnbull told AM.

Labor’s NBN is expected to be completed in 2021 and cost $37.4 billion.

But the Opposition believes the NBN could cost more than $90 billion, a figure rejected by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy.

On Twitter, the chair of the parliamentary committee investigating the NBN also dismissed the number.

If todays Daily Telegraph was true on NBN costing $90 billion, the INDEPENDENT Treasury/Finance boffins would have it on-budget.They don’t.

— Robert Oakeshott MP (@OakeyMP)

The difference between the two policies comes down to just a few letters – FttP or FttN.

Fibre to the premises

NBN Co is implementing a fibre to the premises (FttP) network.

The company is aiming to provide a fast, high-capacity fibre-optic broadband network that is available to 93 per cent of homes and businesses in Australia.

The remaining 7 per cent would be connected via fixed wireless and satellite.

At the moment, the maximum speed over the fibre network is 100 megabits per second, but NBN Co says speeds of one gigabit per second will be available.

That means you could download a one gigabyte movie in about 8 seconds.

Fibre to the node

In contrast, the Coalition has long advocated for a fibre to the node (FttN) network, a system which relies upon the existing copper network and theoretically has peak speeds of around 100 megabits per second.

It could be rolled out faster, but means fibre would not run past every home and would be subject to degradation similar to existing ADSL broadband connections.

Internet speeds would drop the further you are from the exchange/node.

In his interview with AM, Mr Turnbull said the goal was to ensure all Australians had access to at least 25 megabits per second.

“[25 megabits per second] will enable anybody in residential situations to do everything they want to do or need to do in terms of applications and services, and is six times faster than the average speed people are getting right now,” he said.

In , NBN Co chief Mike Quigley conceded the capital costs of the Coalition’s FttN plan could be more than 20 per cent cheaper.

“[But it would] be a more expensive network to maintain over the long term because you’re using much more sophisticated… technology to try and get the very best performance you can out of that copper which is an ageing asset,” Mr Quigley said.

Telecoms analyst/journalist Richard Chirgwin has to Labor’s FttP down the track would be $21 billion.

People could connect their homes directly to the fibre network under the Opposition’s plans, but Mr Turnbull has estimated it would cost thousands of dollars.

“The sort of person that would want to do that would be the very rare example on a residential area of somebody that has a very high bandwidth-demanding business, [like] an architect or a software designer,” he said.

Recent troubles for the NBN

The NBN has been hit by a series of setbacks lately.

Last week the competition watchdog ordered NBN Co to.

Last month NBN Co revealed it would .

Meanwhile a by up to 10 years and cost anywhere between 50 to 100 per cent more than before.

It ties in with News Limited reports of Coalition analysis claiming the network would cost up to $90 billion – a figure that .

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy says the Opposition has not produced any evidence to support the claim.

Industry reaction

Many big internet service providers have thrown their support behind Labor’s plan.

The Coalition has indicated it will do a cost-benefit analysis of both systems if it wins government.

iiNet says it is confident it would show Labor’s FttP system to be superior.

The company’s chief regulatory officer unimpeded irrespective of whether the Coalition wins.

“That cost-benefit analysis ought to look at what the benefits are not just in terms of say simple performance but on the outcomes, improved outcomes for education, improved outcomes for health,” Mr Dalby said.
“It seems to me that common sense will prevail and we could see a… continuation with a change of shareholder in effect but with the plan continuing as it is.”

Air Pollution Stunts Coral Growth

Apr. 7, 2013 — A new study has found that pollution from fine particles in the air — mainly the result of burning coal or volcanic eruptions — can shade corals from sunlight and cool the surrounding water resulting in reduced growth rates.

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Although coral reefs grow under the sea it seems that they have been responding to changes in the concentration of particulate pollution in the atmosphere, according to a paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience bya team of climate scientists and coral ecologists from the UK, Australia and Panama. Corals are colonies of simple animal cells but most rely on photosynthetic algae for their energy and nutrients.

Lead author Lester Kwiatkowski, a PhD student from Mathematics at the University of Exeter, said: “Coral reefs are the most diverse of all ocean ecosystems with up to 25% of ocean species depending on them for food and shelter. They are believed to be vulnerable to climate change and ocean acidification, but ours is the first study to show a clear link between coral growth and the concentration of particulate pollution in the atmosphere.”

Dr Paul Halloran of the Met Office Hadley Centre explained: “Particulate pollution or ‘aerosols’ reflect incoming sunlight and make clouds brighter. This can reduce the light available for coral photosynthesis, as well as the temperature of surrounding waters. Together these factors are shown to slow down coral growth.”

The authors used a combination of records retrieved from within the coral skeletons, observations from ships, climate model simulations and statistical modelling. Their analysis shows that coral growth rates in the Caribbean were affected by volcanic aerosol emissions in the early 20th century and by aerosol emissions caused by humans in the later 20th century.

The researchers hope that this work will lead to a better understanding of how coral growth may change in the future, taking into account not just future carbon dioxide levels, but also localised sources of aerosols such as industry or farming.

Professor Peter Mumby of the University of Queensland put the study in the context of global environmental change: “Our study suggests that coral ecosystems are likely to be sensitive to not only the future global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration but also the regional aerosol emissions associated with industrialisation and decarbonisation.”

The study was financially supported by a NERC grant, the University of Exeter and the EU FORCE project.

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New Emissions Standards Would Fuel Shift from Coal to Natural Gas

Apr. 5, 2013 — The cost of complying with tougher EPA air-quality standards could spur an increased shift away from coal and toward natural gas for electricity generation, according to a new Duke University study.

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The stricter regulations on sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, nitrogen oxide and mercury may make nearly two-thirds of the nation’s coal-fired power plants as expensive to run as plants powered by natural gas, the study finds.

“Because of the cost of upgrading plants to meet the EPA’s pending emissions regulations and its stricter enforcement of current regulations, natural gas plants would become cost-competitive with a majority of coal plants — even if natural gas becomes more than four times as expensive as coal,” said Lincoln F. Pratson, a professor of earth and ocean sciences at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment.

“This is a much higher fraction of economic vulnerability than has previously been reported,” said Pratson, an expert on carbon capture and storage, energy resources and energy systems.

To conduct the study, he and his team assessed the cost of electricity generation at plants producing 95 percent of the nation’s coal-fired electricity and 70 percent of its natural gas-powered electricity. The researchers estimated costs for both types of plants over a wide range of fuel prices and under both existing and pending emissions standards.

Under current standards and at current fuel prices, 9 percent of U.S. coal-fired plants are more costly to run than a median-cost natural gas plant, they found. Even a modest jump in gas prices could erase this advantage. “If the ratio of natural gas-to-coal prices rises to 1.8 from its recent level of around 1.5, coal plants would again become the dominant least-cost generation option,” Pratson said.

However, with tougher emissions standards the EPA would enact and enforce, another 56 percent of U.S. coal plants would become as costly to run as natural gas plants. The regulations would make 65 percent of coal plants nationwide as expensive as natural gas, even if gas prices rise significantly.

“Most natural gas plants typically produce only one emission — nitrogen oxide — that is in excess of the proposed new EPA thresholds, but many coal plants may exceed all of the thresholds, making it more expensive for them to come into compliance,” Pratson said. “This has spurred legal and political debates over whether the pending regulations unfairly disadvantage the U.S. coal industry.”

The study takes no sides in the debate, he stressed. “We neither argue for nor against continued use of coal power. Our goal is to present an objective analysis of the economic sensitivity of both types of plants to fuel price fluctuations and the potential cost of emission-control upgrades.”

Monthly emissions from the U.S. electricity sector have fallen to 1990s levels in recent years, helping to reduce total U.S. carbon dioxide emissions to their lowest levels since 1992. This CO2 decline is largely due to greater use of natural gas power plants in place of coal plants, a shift made possible by lower natural gas prices from the recent surge in domestic shale gas production.

Whether or not the shift to natural gas picks up speed and continues will depend on more than just whether the proposed EPA standards are enacted, Pratson noted. A transition to natural gas for electricity generation will require the construction of a much larger network of pipelines and other infrastructure to transport and store the gas, assuring power plants of a reliable supply.

The net effect of the shift to natural gas on global carbon dioxide emissions remains uncertain, Pratson said, since coal that is not consumed in the United States is already finding its way to other countries in Europe and Asia.

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Lyrid Meteor Shower Peaks On April 22 2013

April 7, 2013 Nathan

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The Lyrid meteor shower will be peaking this year on April 22, 2013. The annual meteor shower typically puts on a good show, averaging about 10-20 meteors an hour, but sometimes featuring “surges” of activity that peak as high as 100 meteors an hour. The Lyrids also tend to produce rather bright meteors with long highly visible trails. All in all it’s worth getting out to see them if you can make the time.

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The meteors will appear to be generally originating from the Northeastern portion of the sky, in the constellation Lyra. This year, the moon (waxing gibbous at the time) will be setting rather late, so it’ll be best to watch for them then. They tend to peak towards the early morning hours anyways, so it works out well. For those in the US, that’ll be sometime between 3:45AM and 4:30ish, the further north the later. But even if that’s too late or you, you should still be able to catch some of the meteors earlier in the night, though the Moon’s light may obscure them somewhat. And of course the rest of the year features a great many spectacular meteor showers, see: Meteor Showers 2013 Dates And Times

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The Lyrids occasionally produce fireballs so that is also something to watch out for. And on occasion, in the somewhat recent past, they have put on truly incredible shows, as a result of the Earth passing through a particularly dense patch of dust. During the 1803 meteor shower, the Lyrids peaked at more than 700 meteors an hour as seen from Richmond, Virginia. Huge bursts of activity like the 1803 shower are referred to as meteor storms.

For those that are planning to watch this years Lyrid meteor shower here are some basic tips: Get comfortable. A nice reclining chair, some warm clothes and blankets, and some hot cocoa or coffee, go a long way towards making the experience enjoyable. The further away from cuty lights that you can get, the better. And you’ll need to give your eyes some time to adjust to the dark in order to see the meteors easily and in high numbers, so keep your bright mobile devices turned off or with the screen dimmed really low.

For those interested in knowing what exactly meteor showers are, here’s Wikipedia with more:

“A meteor shower is the result of an interaction between a planet, such as Earth, and streams of debris from a comet. Comets can produce debris by water vapor drag, as demonstrated by Fred Whipple in 1951, and by breakup. Whipple envisioned comets as ‘dirty snowballs,’ made up of rock embedded in ice, orbiting the Sun. The ‘ice’ may be water, methane, ammonia, or other volatiles, alone or in combination. The ‘rock’ may vary in size from that of a dust mote to that of a small boulder. Dust mote sized solids are orders of magnitude more common than those the size of sand grains, which, in turn, are similarly more common than those the size of pebbles, and so on. When the ice warms and sublimates, the vapor can drag along dust, sand, and pebbles.”

“Each time a comet swings by the Sun in its orbit, some of its ice vaporizes and a certain amount of meteoroids will be shed. The meteoroids spread out along the entire orbit of the comet to form a meteoroid stream, also known as a ‘dust trail’ (as opposed to a comet’s ‘dust tail’ caused by the very small particles that are quickly blown away by solar radiation pressure).”

Comet ISON, predicted to be the “comet of the century” later this year, is also likely to cause a meteor shower when we pass through its debris trail sometime in mid-January .

The Lyrids themselves are theorized to have originated from comet Thatcher, a comet which follows a 416-year orbit almost perpendicular to the plane of the solar system.

Image Credits: Lyra via Wikimedia Commons; Meteors via Flickr CC

Read more at http://planetsave.com/2013/04/07/lyrid-meteor-shower-peaks-on-april-22-2013/#6lkvHUrv0Th2wM1g.99