(We) can do better

Australia's contribution to runaway global warming through its accelerating rate of coal exports has been acknowledged in part by the Garnaut report. However, whether this will lead to a reduction, rather than an increase in exports is not yet clear.

On the 5th - Blue Wedges and others protest huge projected increase for port traffic;
On the 6th - Planning Backlash and 120+ city/country resident groups protest Brumby nightmare-Melbourne …

See also: www.bluewedges.org, www.climaterally.blogspot.com, www.marvellousmelbourne.org.

As we face the prospect of ecological meltdown due to the unprecedented demands of 6.5 billion humans on our diminishing natural resources, the United Nations assures us that the world can sustain 9.2 billion in 2050, after which it claims ‘demographic transition’ through rising living standards will lead to population stability and its eventual decline.

The Taverner Research poll released today showed that a massive 79% of the poll sample rejected Electricity privatisation. This confirms that NSW voters have not been fooled by the Iemma government's power sell-off rhetoric, according to Greens NSW MP John Kaye.

See also: SMH articles: Jittery Labor MPs get ready to dump Iemma of 29 Jun 08, Poll piles pressure on Iemma of 29 Jun 08, Poll adds to string of bad news for Iemma of 30 June 08.

We've all heard of the obstructionism of the Myanmar government towards humanitarian aid that should have been going to the victims of the Nargis cyclone, but what's the background to this that the mainstream press isn't reporting…

Word is that Melbourne is getting its 1 million more ten years early and that the Vic Government is in a panic because it has no idea how many permanent new guests have taken up its foolhardy invitations to come and stay. Who the hell is responsible?

The Internet enables consumers and farmers to sort through the claims and counter-claims about Genetically Modified (GM) foods in order to understand the threat they pose to our health and our control of our food supply.

Communication with Canada's flagship Environmental NGO is a one-way street. Questionairres are sent to you that they expect you to answer but they will not respond to any inquiries of yours, especially impertinent politically incorrect questions, which make them squirm.

Article was originally posted to Sinking LifeBoat.

The Growth Management Industry, consisting of planning departments and pink and green growthists who belief that growth can be rendered ecologically benign by being channelled or fenced behind boundaries speak of “smart” growth the way the Pentagon speaks of “smart” bombs. Surgically targetted away from collateral damage like greenbelts and parks. But Brishen Hoff in this letter to a Green Party member, proves that no matter where they are distributed, people impact the environment. Numbers matter.

Should Australia allow its agricultural soils to be destroyed because of economic pressures caused by our unsustainable booms in mining and real estate?

See also: Working the land - or not of 24 Jun 08 by Jenny Hume on Web Diary, Who owns your sewage? of 3 Jul 08 by Valerie Yule on Online Opinion, Last gasp for single desk marketing of Australian wheat of 17 Jun 08, Peak oil prices cause South Australian Farmers to call for 'fair market forces' of 10 Jun 08, Orwellian Waterworks: big-agribusiness and Victorian Gov of 27 May 08, Insight program's take on Labor Shortage of 17 Jun 08, A 10,000 year misunderstanding of 1 May 08 by Canadian soil microbiologist Peter Salonius, I will govern for all Victorians (caveat: but only if you are powerful and connected) of 26 Jun 08.

A history of pronatalist policy in Australia from 1945-2000 reveals the seeds of today's push for bigger families.

61K pdf file can be downloaded from here. For more information, click here.

The winner of a National Post contest to describe Canada “in six words or less.” was: ‘Canada – a home for the world’. Given the arrival of 10 million immigrants of diverse origins since the end of the Second World War, this motto is revealing of the new Canada. This is Canada perceived as a country with little underlying coherence in the sense of sustaining a primary national identity aside from being a desirable place to settle. This is Canada viewed as a home away from home for a range of peoples whose identities are rooted not in Canada but in countries and regions of origin.

Article originally published earlier on the web site of Immigration Watch Canada (www.immigrationwatchcanada.org) on 4 Jun 08.

Victorian ‘Labor’ Premier John Brumby attempts to dismiss groundswell community opposition to the theft of water from the Goulburn Valley on the grounds that no organisation deemed important by himself signed a newspaper advertisement against the North South Pipeline.

See also: www.plugthepipe.com

Days before Bill C-50 was approved, experts warned that Canadians must start taking a realistic look at the country's immigration policies.

This story was originally published in the Canadian foreign policy weekly magazine Embassy on 11 Jun 08.

Victorian State MP, Neale Burgess, warns public of Gavin Jennings anti-wildlife habitat Bill for voting today in Victorian Parliament

What you can do: Contact Johan Scheffer (johan.scheffer[at]parliament.vic.gov.au) and demand that the bill to be put to Parliament on Thu 26 June be amended to make Devilbend a nature conservation reserve. …

Sheila Newman writes that it is not so much the myth of the noble savage as the myth of the noble capitalist citizen.

Why has the Courier Mail in its editorial of 23 June advocated that the Rudd Government adopt Brendan Nelson's proposal to cut fuel excise even though such a measure would deny the Government millions in needed revenue and have negligible effect at the bowser in comparison to the demand-driven rise in the price of oil?

Alistair McConnachie, the head of the Glasgow based organization Sovereignty explains that in this article originally published in September of 2006 how the Left, driven by the ideology of "Equality" manipulates the lofty concept of solidarity to collude in destructive capitalism and ecological disaster.

The Original article is to be found here on the web-site sovereignty.org.uk.

“I am angered with the liberal/left's collusion with the neo-liberal agenda of open immigration, of its misuse of the hackneyed phrase "solidarity" to justify support for importing cheap migrant labour to crush the living standards of local workers and despoil our national environment and multiply the ecological footprint of the migrants themselves. But I am also frustrated by the blindness of the red neck wing of the American anti immigration movement that takes no responsibility for the factors which PUSH migrants out of their third world countries.”

See also: Closing our borders can't mean turning our backs of 25 Oct 07

Almost invariably reporting of Australia's acute housing unaffordability crisis does not inform the public of its causes, nor help it to arrive at a solution. The ABC's report No relief in sight for Brisbane's renters of 20 June 08 is no exception.

See also: Rent gouging threatens Brisbane inner city retail community of 8 Mar 08

On 17 June, the Senate carried a motion calling upon the Australian Government to immediately commence preparations for legal action to stop the slaughter of whales

See also: Sea Shepherd prepares to mount a major offensive against whaling of 12 Jun 08
A global map of human impact to the marine ecosystems of 15 Feb 08

What you can do: Donate to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Nearly all funds go to saving whales and other endangered marine species and little is spent on bureaucracy. Last whaling season the Sea Shepherd operated Steve Irwin prevented Japanese whalers from achieving 50% of their planned quota.

The Yungaba Action Group is resisting the plans by the Queensland Government and the Brisbane CIty Council to allow to the historic Yungaba migrant hostel to be turned by the Singapore owned Australand into a private gated residential complex. (Originally published on this site on 15 Jun 08.)

Coming up: Fund-raising river cruise stopping at Yungaba on August 23rd.
What you can do: Nominate Yungaba as a site worth retaining.

The Electrical Trade Union's threat to disaffiliate from the Labor Party in protest at its treatment by the Queensland and Federal Labor Government begs the question of how trade unions can ever hope to be adequately represented in Parliament.

See also: QLD Labor stung by protests, poll in the Brisbane Times of 21 June 08.

A rally to protest about the costs of growth to the community and the invasion of housing and infrastructure into high biodiversity areas of South East Queensland will take place outside the Labor Party Conference at the Convention Centre on the Gold Coast this Saturday, 21st June at 10:30am.

See also: Protest at Queensland State Labor Party conference to Save the Mary River

Canada's environment is paying a heavy price for our love affair with a myth. As long as natives are equipped with a halo, it will be impossible to attack them for the role they are playing as front men and bodyguards for the corporate rape of our boreal forests. They have been deifed by bogus anthropology, political opportunism and political correctness, which have all formed a coalition with corporate greed and media censorship.

A broadcast debate on the Canadian Broadcasting Commission between, on the one hand, Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and, on the other hand, Elizabeth May, now leader of Canada's Green Party showed two poles of North American environmentalism, one authentic and one counterfeit.

See also: Sea Shepherd appeals for Greenpeace's cooperation in fight against whale slaughter
Were "Intact Aboriginal Cultures" really good custodians? of 19 Jun 08.

The live export industry claims to have the highest standards in the world. Let's see how that stacks up.

God said, "Let species swarm like solutes in a colloid.
Let there be ten thousand species of plankton
and to eat them a thousand zooplankton...

Insight program shows limited perspective on problems surrounding labour supply in Australia.

See also : Transcript of Insight program of 17 Jun 08 Labour Pains