Stopping Trump’s “Climate Campaign”

Posted on November 18, 2016 by groundswellbasscoast

Trump is launching a concerted campaign to unleash the fossil fuel industry and to end all climate protection:

  • Withdrawing from and trashing the Paris Climate Agreement
  • Dismantling the Clean Power Plan
  • Ceasing all payments to the international Green Climate Fund
  • Appointing top climate denialist Myron Ebell to oversee the EPA demolition
  • Allowing the wholesale extraction of fossil fuel on federal lands
  • Approving the Keystone and Dakota Pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure
  • Bringing back coal and promoting “Drill Baby Drill”
  • Ending federally funded climate science and clean energy research

Essentially, Trump promises to destroy the climate and extinguish much of life on Earth!  America is rogue regime on climate…We can bring the information to the American public, if funding can be secured. The Climate Emergency Coalition will be one group that asks philanthropy to fund such a summit…A highly visible Climate Summit is necessary; without US public support, there is no chance of effective climate action or effective US internal opposition to Trump and the Republicans. Yet Americans are mostly unaware of the severity of the crisis, and of our continuing fossil fuels excesses. In our ignorance, we continue in our “seemingly entitled” consumption patterns, relentlessly burning up what little global carbon budget remains.

>more> ClimateEmergencyCoalition

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New Face of Republican Party. Bannon is Racism+Climate Denial Personified.

Posted on November 18, 2016 by groundswellbasscoast

Steve Bannon, soon to be perhaps the most powerful man in the White House, given Mr. Trump’s hands off, checked out management style, is the entire package rolled up into one fat, ugly, Neo-Nazi ball. “But all I know is one of the worst people on God’s green earth was just instituted as the chairman and CEO of the Trump campaign.”
– Dana Loesch – former co-worker with Steve Bannon

Trump has famously called climate change a hoax invented by the Chinese, but the man he has chosen as his chief White House strategist advances a far more elaborate conspiracy. Stephen Bannon has called government support of alternative energy “madness.” His conservative website, Breitbart News, relentlessly pursues the idea that global warming is an invention of activists, university researchers and renewable energy industry profiteers determined to assert global governance for their own gain.
“Pure scum” is how Breitbart News describes the alleged schemers, and the site suggested that the Vatican had been taken over by Marxists after Pope Francis urged the world to protect the environment and slow climate change. Bannon has cited a faked TIME magazine cover, purportedly from the 1970s, as evidence that scientists once thought the world was cooling…The site’s at times overtly racist, anti-Semitic and sexist content has prompted many to protest Trump’s selection of him for a key post, and one that does not require Senate confirmation. The outcry has come from civil rights advocates, top Democrats and even some Republicans.

>more> ClimateCrocks

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Warming wreaks havoc with ecosystems

Posted on November 15, 2016 by groundswellbasscoast

Shifts in global and regional temperatures have altered the genetic diversity of animal populations, skewed predator-prey relationships, shifted the timing of breeding and spawning behaviour, affected the numbers and age structures of animal communities, and even begun to alter the size and coloration of plants, birds and insects…“Disruptions scale from the gene to the ecosystem, and have documented consequences for people, including unpredictable fisheries and crop yields, loss of genetic diversity in wild crop varieties, and increasing impacts of pests and diseases,” the scientists warn.

“Temperature extremes are causing evolutionary adaption in many species, changing them genetically and physically. These responses include changes in tolerances to high temperatures, shifts in sex ratios, reduced body size, and migration of species.Some people didn’t expect this level of change for decades.”

>more> ClimateNewsNetwork

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France’s nuclear power base rocked by Safety fears

Posted on November 10, 2016 by groundswellbasscoast

France orders nuclear shutdowns to allow reactor safety checks after the discovery Nearly a third of France’s nuclear reactors have been shut down by industry regulators as revelations emerge about the supply of sub-standard parts.

As investigations into falsified documents and excess quantities of carbon in steel continue, more closures are expected…serious strain on finances of French nuclear giant EDF and causing electricity price rises across western Europe…It is also very bad news for the climate. France is reopening mothballed coal plants and burning more coal than it has for 32 years. Neighbours, including Germany, which normally take cheap nuclear power from the French, are also powering up old fossil fuel plants and exporting the electricity to France at premium prices. 

 Japan Casting & Forging Corporation (JCFC), also allegedly involved in falsifying quality control documents for parts supplied to reactors both at home and in France…One problem is too much carbon in steel components and containment vessels, which will make them brittle, carbon content well above specified safety limits, leading to fears… catastrophic failures in plants currently operating.. ..Second, related, problem is forged, falsified or incomplete quality control reports about the components themselves. Areva, the troubled French state-owned nuclear component manufacturer, is reviewing all 9,000 manufacturing records from its giant forge at Le Creusot dating back as far as 1943. This includes 6,000 parts made for nuclear reactors – some of them outside France.

>more> ClimateNewsNetwork

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Gas – goodbye in your home

Posted on November 8, 2016 by groundswellbasscoast

 

Many Australians are disconnecting their existing home from the gas grid or not connecting their new home to gas and saving hundreds of dollars a year in fixed supply charges alone.

The Alternative Technology Association (ATA) has produced two informative brochures to help people move away from gas.

The Goodbye Gas and Green Heating brochures explore how you can save money and help the environment by using efficient electric appliances instead of gas.

The Grattan Institute found that a large home in Melbourne can save $1024 a year by disconnecting from the gas grid. Research by University of Melbourne found Australians can save hundreds of millions of dollars each year by heating with the reverse-cycle air-conditioners they already have in their homes but have never thought to use for heating.

Victorians can save up to $658 a year by heating with reverse-cycle air-conditioners, while residents in Canberra can save up to $1733 a year.

 

>more> Alternative Technology Association

 

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Marrakech – Fossil fuel majors strut their stuff

Posted on November 7, 2016 by groundswellbasscoast

The oil industry is in damage limitation mode. On Friday 4 November Shell, BP and others launched investment fund…bulk of money for CCS (carbon capture and storage ), but – $1Bn over ten years – met with derision by environmental critics…Timing of latest initiative from the energy companies’ Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) is clearly designed to show “we’re doing our bit” on global warming…Exxon has no interest in OGCI and is opposed to their calls for carbon price…But Exxon is increasingly coming under fire from its own shareholders about an apparent lack of planning for climate change. On 28 October the Texans reported a 38% slump in 3 month profits – company’s 8th straight quarterly decline. 

>more> Climate News Network

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Dick Smith hopes electric air race will mark 1919 centenary

Posted on November 6, 2016 by groundswellbasscoast

The Great Air Race.Dick Smith proposes electric aircraft centenary event to commemorate The Great Air Race — six teams accepting challenge to become first to fly from UK to Darwin. Lured by a £10,000 prize offered by Australian prime minister Billy Hughes, Australian military aviators Ross and Keith Smith, who were brothers, together with mechanics Wally Shiers and Jim Bennett, took off from Hounslow near London on November 12, 1919.
Unfortunately current PM and Minister for Science and Industry Have declined support. Everything is contentious these days but there’s no doubt this event would be all about ideas, innovation, entrepreneurship, jobsongrowth….

>more> WeekEndAustralian

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Being sustainable in hereafter

Posted on November 6, 2016 by groundswellbasscoast

Or you might want to opt for a cremation alternative. There are a couple of kinds.  The body is dissolved in a stainless-steel vat using a solution of water and potassium hydroxide (similar to oven cleaner) for four hours at 93°C until it’s reduced to a skeleton. The bones are soft and get crushed and returned like ashes. The residual liquid contains no DNA, and the procedure has only 5 to 10 per cent of the energy cost of cremation. It’s available in Australia…Cremations put out 200 to 400 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions plus most coffins are built from chipboard or compressed timber so you’ve got all the glues and toxins putting toxic chemicals into the air. ..”And if the body has been embalmed you’ve got vaporised formaldehyde which is carcinogenic. With this process there is literally no pollution whatsoever.”

The process was originally discovered for disposing of diseased farm animals, particularly cattle.”The process was discovered when they were looking at a way to destroy mad cow disease, and cremation won’t do it,” he says.

ASHES TO ASHES: Aklaline hydrolysis dissolves the body into ash, using only 5 to 10 percent of the energy cost of cremation. Photo: BBC.
AQUAMATION: Aklaline hydrolysis dissolves the body into ash, using only 5 to 10 percent of the energy cost of cremation. Photo: BBC.

Note – not being morbid, triggered by headline  private sector cartel shenanigans “cost effective” to air freight to “cheaper” interstate crematoria

>more> ABC Gold Coast

>more> CSIRO/ECOS

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Bonney Upwelling and blue whales: annual visitors from the deep

Posted on November 5, 2016 by groundswellbasscoast
The blue whale is the largest animal to ever live on the planet.The blue whale is the largest animal
to ever live on the planet. Photo: MR1805

In celebration of an ocean tide that occurs but once a year, along a small stretch of Australia’s coast…The Bonney Upwelling, a sort of miracle beyond the end of the Great Ocean Road…Each year around end of Oct and beginning of Nov, cold water from great depths funnels through underwater canyons, welling up and spilling across the continental shelf clear to the shores of what is known as the Bonney coast between towns of Portland in south-west Victoria and Robe in south-east of South Australia…The upwelling of Antarctic water drops the surface temperature by several degrees and turns those waters frantic with life…The chill tide, packed with nutrients, hits the surface in a wild flourish of photosynthesis, microscopic phytoplankton exploding and feeding great clouds of krill…Fish swarm, seabirds wheel and dive, penguins and dolphins fly beneath the waves, crayfish scuttle and seals frolic…And all those billions of krill, tiny crustaceans, prove irresistible to the greatest creatures that have ever lived upon the the Earth: blue whales.

A single adult blue whale, so big its tongue can weigh as much as an elephant, its heart the size of a Volkswagen, eats three or four tonnes of krill every day off the Bonney coast during the upwelling.

Here is a rhythm that renders the restless doings of humans insignificant.

Note – here’s hoping the warm water layer continues to be breezed away, equally to balance upwelling, flow needs to be down at Antarctic, also a worry because of warmer and deeper surface water

>more> SydneyMorningHerald

>more> RedMap

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ABC axes Catalyst program, announces 17 one-hour documentaries

Posted on November 4, 2016 by groundswellbasscoast

All the familiar faces on the Catalyst, along with their producers, were told today that they were redundant…Management says it’ll replace the weekly half hour science magazine with seventeen one-hour documentaries a year to be presented by leading scientists.

Note – this is a sickening move, dismantling the best science communicators in the business, shows widely used run schools, new format with guest presenters might be good scientists but will never be as good communicators but pollies will still do nothing but pay lip service to STEM

>more> ABC_RN_PM

>more> mp3 Prof Simon Chapman anger at ABC

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