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Keywords: Solar Panels

  • ENVIRONMENT

    Climate revolutionaries of East Africa

    • Paul O'Callaghan
    • 11 July 2017
    3 Comments

    The world's poor are bearing the brunt of global warming yet they have done the least to cause it. African countries have some of the lowest carbon emissions rates in the world, but their fields are drying up and their pastureland is vanishing. Still, all is not lost. If we want to find the answers to climate change, many of them exist within the communities already being impacted. These people understand the urgent threat posed by global warming and they are banding together to find solutions.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Racism and renewables in the developing world

    • Ketan Joshi
    • 06 April 2017
    1 Comment

    A 2015 cartoon by Bill Leak depicts an Indian family squatting, smashing solar panels to pieces. A woman chews on a shattered piece of glass, and a man attempts to smear mango chutney onto glistening shards. The initial reaction centred around the racist depictions of Indians. But it also represents a broader and worrisome attitude towards global energy politics, that assumes idiocy in developing countries, combined with a push to burden them with the dangerous wares of a dying industry.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Turnbull's coal pitch is a Trojan Horse for gas

    • Greg Foyster
    • 23 February 2017
    10 Comments

    Australia's most politically contentious rock is back in the limelight after Prime Minister Turnbull spruiked 'clean coal' power stations in early February, and Scott Morrison brought a lump of the stuff to parliament. It was a juvenile act, but an effective one: here we are again, still talking about coal weeks later, when the real energy policy battle is over gas. But that's how it goes - a pitch for a new coal-fired power station in Australia is actually a clever exercise in repositioning gas as a greener fuel.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Australian churches off the pace on clean energy switch

    • Thea Ormerod
    • 09 September 2016
    10 Comments

    With the grip of climate change tightening, few seem to understand the urgency of the crisis. This is why the announcement of over 3500 churches in the UK switching to clean power is so significant. At last, a solution presented by religious communities that matches the scale of the problem. They are providing the kind of leadership for the needed transition to an ecologically sustainable future. Unfortunately, one reason why it is so exciting is that we're nowhere near this in Australia.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Greg Hunt is the master of polluting the debate

    • Greg Foyster
    • 03 June 2016
    11 Comments

    All politicians and political parties select the statistics and 'frame' that best suits their position. But even among the slippery-tongued ranks of federal parliamentarians, Greg Hunt is in a league of his own. The frustrating thing is that proving him wrong is almost counterproductive. One of the main reasons for stalled action on climate change is the issue has become overly abstract. Debating technicalities with the Environment Minister just reinforces these ways of viewing climate change.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Five reasons the LNP's carbon scare campaign is doomed

    • Greg Foyster
    • 03 May 2016
    6 Comments

    It was as if Australian politics had regressed four years overnight. No sooner had Labor released its new climate change plan than the Coalition was resuscitating Tony Abbott's 'carbon tax' line. The Coalition's attempt to revive the defining debate of the 2013 federal election won't work. As other commentators have noted, Labor's plan has been carefully crafted to avoid the carbon tax sledge. More importantly, external factors have changed to make a scare campaign less potent.

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  • RELIGION

    Coal warriors targeting Pope Francis

    • Neil Ormerod
    • 15 July 2015
    29 Comments

    It is not surprising that The Australian should be leading the local pushback on the environmental encyclical Laudato Si'. What is surprising is that a Catholic priest - Fr James Grant - should be joining the chorus against the encyclical, initially in an IPA media release. His more recent contribution to The Australian is right out of the briefing notes supplied by the coal industry in its global public relations efforts to shore up its waning reputation. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Cold showers for unprincipled Labor

    • Zac Alstin
    • 06 March 2012
    15 Comments

    Labor must have anticipated the negative response to its axing of the solar hot water rebate scheme, yet it went ahead. Does this suggest determination, arrogance or desperation? One thing's for sure, the decision contributed to the impression this government has lost its way.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    O'Farrell makes a sham of government guarantees

    • Michael Mullins
    • 30 May 2011
    13 Comments

    Earlier this month, NSW premier Barry O'Farrell announced he would dishonour the guarantee made to those who signed up to the previous Labor Government's Solar Bonus Scheme. Undermining the 'sacred' bond of a guarantee can seriously damage the spirit of public trust.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Best of 2009: Sexy vegetarianism could save the world

    • Sarah McKenzie
    • 06 January 2010
    10 Comments

    Vegetarians are still seen as antagonistic and self-centred, as if they'd made a selfish decision purely to sabotage dinner parties. Vegetarians have been too polite, and too careful not to offend carnivores, for too long. November 2009

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  • RELIGION

    Marketing the Dalai Lama

    • Yannick Thoraval
    • 14 December 2009
    8 Comments

    When the Dalai Lama appeared, people flocked to the stage, mobile phone cameras in hand, so they too could own a piece of the Dalai Lama. As a measure of our cultural values, it is interesting to consider that the Dalai Lama has become a commodity.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Sexy vegetarianism could save the world

    • Sarah McKenzie
    • 09 November 2009
    26 Comments

    Vegetarians are still seen as antagonistic and self-centred, as if they'd made a selfish decision purely to sabotage dinner parties. Vegetarians have been too polite, and too careful not to offend carnivores, for too long.

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