Keywords: Carbon Emissions
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ENVIRONMENT
- Neil Ormerod
- 04 November 2013
47 Comments
With the publication of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Los Angeles Times made the bold decision to no longer publish letters from climate change denialists saying climate change is a matter of fact, not opinion. While this might seem like a small victory, the more substantial issue on the horizon is the global campaign for divestment in the fossil fuel industry. As it gains momentum and fossil fuel companies will be forced to reassess the value of their assets.
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AUSTRALIA
- Ray Cassin
- 09 September 2013
20 Comments
The Economist's leader writer and other international international observers including Joseph Stiglitz judged that, by most objective measures, Labor's achievements should be preferred to the Coalition's offerings. The big picture went unacknowledged in Australia's dismal, dispiriting election campaign.
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AUSTRALIA
- Fatima Measham
- 16 August 2013
15 Comments
Hot-button topics such as economic management and asylum seekers are best seen from a wide lens, yet we seem determined to keep the rest of the world out of the frame. It is a sea-girt mentality that our politicians don't care to take apart because it is too hard to convince the average voter that there are in fact other people on the planet. Such denialism will inevitably leave us ill-prepared for significant challenges.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Greg Foyster
- 30 July 2013
29 Comments
With the release of some frightening reports over the last 12 months, those who deny the scientific consensus on climate change will have to expand their list of 'alarmists' to include some unlikely suspects — the World Bank, PricewaterhouseCoopers and the International Energy Agency. When accountancy firms start sounding like environmental campaigners, the future looks very alarming indeed.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 22 July 2013
11 Comments
The salary packaging and car manufacturing industries resented not being consulted about changes to fringe benefits tax rules. But as treasurer Chris Bowen said when he shrugged off the criticism: 'This is a matter of the integrity of the tax system.' A tax system that makes compromises with sectional interests is by definition corrupt and turning its back on the common good that it has been set up to serve.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 01 July 2013
22 Comments
Kevin Rudd told colleagues during the week that he would not 'lurch to the left' on asylum seekers. Foreign minister Bob Carr was on message when he said there's been a change and most boat arrivals are now economic migrants rather than genuine asylum seekers. He is boldly asserting that the Rudd Government's moral credentials are intact by framing boat arrivals as a law and order matter and not a moral issue.
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AUSTRALIA
Can Rudd fare any better? He is a formidable campaigner and consistently rates well above either Abbott or Gillard when poll respondents are asked who is their preferred prime minister. What is more, Labor has a success story to tell about the economy, which the Government thus far has failed to sell. Rudd tells this story without illusions.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 06 May 2013
13 Comments
'Never see a need without doing something about it' is the principle that guided Australia's first saint Mary MacKillop. This is also what drives successful politicians, and the NDIS is a good but rare example of this. Unfortunately few political leaders are able to see a real need and successfully legislate to do something about it.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Paul Collins
- 04 February 2013
38 Comments
Foreign Minister Bob Carr has said that, coming from Australia where climate change denial 'fills the air', he finds it significant that world leaders see climate change as the world's most important concern, even more than the economy. Recent extreme weather events, including the floods in Queensland, are symptoms of long-term climate change.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Paul Collins
- 14 December 2012
15 Comments
Kiribati, situated in the central Pacific Ocean and home to 101,998 people — more than half of them Catholic — will be the first country to be drowned by global warming. While we wring our hands and climate sceptics pretend there is no problem, on Kiribati people are already in the midst of a climate change disaster.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Lyn Bender
- 13 December 2012
21 Comments
The Doha climate talks have come and gone, and it is all business as usual. Actually, it is full steam ahead with coal, despite dire warnings from the World Bank that if we don't turn down the heat we face clear threats to our great god, The Economy. While denial and despair are tempting options at this point, there are healthier ways to respond.
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AUSTRALIA
- Dustin Halse
- 24 July 2012
28 Comments
New South Wales ALP General Secretary Sam Dastyari called the Greens 'extremists not unlike One Nation'. Paul Howes, the Australian Workers' Union National Secretary, denounced them as a 'fringe' party with 'extremist agendas'. But who better represents mainstream Australian values — the Greens or the ALP?
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