Jun 16 2017
Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement has been condemned by a surprisingly united chorus of political and corporate elites. The mainstream media narrative is that the world was progressing toward solving climate change, and now only Trump is standing in the way. But this narrative doesn’t make sense. Why are the …
Sep 14 2015
As I write this, it looks like Malcolm Turnbull may replace Tony Abbott as Australian Prime Minister tonight. (Update: Turnbull is now PM!) Abbott has spent his two years in government doing everything he can to dismantle every climate change policy, and most recently was caught on tape joking about rising sea levels with Immigration …
Feb 18 2015
If you’re Australian and you haven’t been living under a rock, you’ll know PM Tony Abbott narrowly survived a leadership spill motion in the Liberal party room last week. Most commentators agree we haven’t heard the end of this. The apparent leading candidate is Malcolm Turnbull. It’s also possible Abbott could be challenged by Julie …
Feb 02 2015
It was advertised as the speech that would turn around his government’s plummeting popularity. Government backbencher Andrew Laming said it would be “bigger than Ben-Hur”. But Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s National Press Club address today was underwhelming compared to even my expectations. He didn’t really say much that was new. The future he outlined …
Aug 22 2014
My household recently switched energy companies. The main reason was that the one we left, Energy Australia, has been lobbying to sabotage the federal Renewable Energy Target (RET). When an employee asked us why we were leaving we told them so, to which they innocently responded that Energy Australia is a leader in renewable energy …
May 24 2014
This is the final part of a series arguing against the Abbott government’s first budget. Part 1 summarizes the overall unfairness and debunks the justification offered for this agenda. Part 2 examines how the budget affects climate, environment, fossil fuel subsidies, business, and science. Part 3 examines how it affects the federation, education, and health. …
May 02 2014
This week Australia’s Liberal/National Coalition government has made two bombshell announcements that reveal their election-winning campaign was a con trick. Firstly, Prime Minister Tony Abbott revealed that his government is considering a GREAT BIG NEW TAX to help repay the national debt. The “debt levy” would be set at 1% for income earners between $80,000 …
Apr 06 2014
Last night I watched the ABC TV coverage of the Western Australian re-election count. It was an interesting result. With 68.7% of the vote counted, the governing Liberal/National Coalition won 36.8% (a swing of -7.5%), Labor 21.8% (-4.8%), Greens 15.9% (+6.4%), Palmer United 12.5% (+7.5%), and others 13.0% (-1.6%). In other words, there were significant …
Jan 25 2014
These two videos go a long way toward explaining why the Australian Labor Party won the 2007 election and lost in 2013. They show how Labor changed the way it framed climate change. In 2007 they correctly identified it as the most important issue of our time: By 2012 (when Labor were already in an …
Precarious Climate