Desmogblog on election climate politics

Australia had it's green election ten months ago, and the new government signed the Kyoto Protocol as their first act . They transformed us from pariah to trier in one stroke, and today we had the Garnaut report released, recommending 10% emissions reductions by 2020, or 25% in the event of a workable international consensus at Copenhagen.So that's one of the big three per-capita emitters on

Oreskes outs Nierenberg

Story so far: Ronald Regan does not like the first three climate science reports provided by the government's elite scientific advisory group, the Jasons. But he like the fourth. It was synthesised by Bill Nierenberg, a Jason who had worked on the Manhattan project.So bringing us into the now, to history in the making, is Naomi Oreskes, of 'consensus' fame as she dissects how Bill Nierenberg

Life's Good and Do No Evil to power low-carbon grid

clipped from www.worldwatch.orgThe recently announced alliance between technology giants General Electric and Google may provide the lobbying arsenal necessary for the U.S. to overhaul an outdated electric grid widely considered as a barricade to a low-carbon future. The collaboration brings together two industry

Woah there Putin, woah, easy boy

Michael Tobias explores Sarah Palin's ability to portray foreign leaders in animal terms, and her appreciation of geography. Palin:"it's very important when you consider even national security issueswith Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of theUnited States of America, where, where do they go? It's Alaska. It'sjust right over the border."...Tobias: But if Putin were to

Summer will be an erratic El Nino and La Nina sandwich

clipped from www.smh.com.auAfter the coldest winter in a decade, weather experts are warning Sydney to expect an erratic summer.Veteran weatherman and director of Weatherwatch Don White said people should expect the mercury to soar and sink this year, with temperatures in the Pacific Ocean indicating that the

Global warming — bad guys found at last

The science on global warming is so clear that it's hard to understand why the public doesn't push the politicians to pass the laws necessary for our preservation.But, as a species we do not respond to changes on a geological time-scale, even those as rapid as our anthropocene. We can intellectualise the threat of climate change, but it takes a visceral threat, say - a bushfire, to move us into

Sarah "Shapeshifter" Palin's climate change change

From this audio of a long letter of a disgruntled Alaskan, who claims to know Sarah Palin — minus lipstick — we learn that she does not believe that man-made global warming is shrinking the habitat of polar bears. Ergo, legislation protecting their habitat — from oil extraction — should be overturned.That's from before she was thrust into the public spotlight (and into dissonance with McCain's