Slightly off topic from your blog’s political angle, but I recently moved state and grabbed the opportunity to change energy providers. Doing a tiny bit of research I discovered there’s possibly only two energy providers in Australia who aren’t involved in coal seam gas and who either draw their power from renewables and / or are heavily committed to building infrastructure for renewables. They are Red Energy (owned by Snowy Hydro) and Momentum Energy (owned by Hydro Tasmania). I guess the point I’m aiming at is consumers like you and me can help drive the shift to renewables through the energy companies we choose to give our money to. I recommend a 100% GreenPower account with Red Energy if you can afford the extra little bit, as your money is directly contributing to new infrastructure. But if you’re cash strapped like me you can get a non accredited account with Momentum and at least your money isn’t going to one of the big giants like Origin or AGL who couldn’t give a toss about building renewables infrastructure (although they’d have us believe they do!)

The point being that where our government continue to let us down, we consumers can and must drive the change.

Also check out my blog at http://www.elizabethbold.com for more about fighting climate change at the consumer level if that’s something that interests you.

Also if anyone reading this knows of other renewable energy providers and ones which are actually investing in renewable energy infrastructure (and not involved in CSG) other than Red Energy and Momentum Energy please let me know.

One of the biggest problems with our Agricultual farming systems is due to all the soil carbon we have lost from our soils through inappropriate management and poor understanding of the ecological function of soil microbes. By increasing the carbon in the soil we are fixing part of our environmental issues.

Please give this indicative all the support you can, it is vital to regenerating our landscapes, supporting rural communities and families and helping to reduce CO2.

Please please correct this in future articles, the press is a very dangerous weapon and can be used to give the incorrect message which can set back vitally needed programs.

Very concerned Mum/farmer

The current Australian Overton window with regards to action on climate change sure is in the wrong place. It’s even wrong with respect to recent reports from conservative organizations such as the International Energy Agency and the World Bank. I’ll outline below a possible strategy for moving the window; I would be interested in your comments.

The strategy is to take a single line or thought and keep injecting it into as many discussions as possible in order to force the window to move to accommodate it. My suggestion for the line is the International Energy Agency’s advice (from their 2012 World Energy Outlook Executive Summary) that if we are to stay within the internationally agreed 2 deg C warming we must leave two thirds of known oil, gas and coal reserves in the ground. The idea can be used to criticise new oil gas and projects, to criticise new oil gas and coal exploration activities and/or to point out financial risks associated with all current oil, gas and coal projects and operations. The idea can also be used to criticise new road developments.

Australia is, of course a member of the International Energy Agency. The 2012 World Energy Outlook summary can be found at http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/English.pdf The relevant quotes are on page 3 of the Summary.

I agree that the political centre on an issue is moved by moving the edge in the desired direction. The opponents of climate action have used that tactic very successfully, at least in the English speaking world.