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When Carbon Reduction Schemes Resemble Fad Diets
Forget the Atkins diet, here’s the ultimate new, pain-free weight-loss formula: instead of actually eating less, pay somebody else to go on a diet for you. What a plan! Swap cake for carbon and you have a major part of the government’s current scheme to deal with climate change. Instead of cutting emissions at home,…
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Climate Action Dates for Your Diary
Michelle Hunt is one of our new interns working on public engagement. She’s been busy organising a series of public talks on climate change lined up for June and July. I started my internship with Greenpeace six weeks ago wanting to make a real difference by being proactive in the environmental movement. To be honest,…
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The Future of Energy is Now
I’m going to say it. Ready? Here it comes … Solar power is ready to replace coal-fired electricity! OK, so we’ve been claiming this for a while, but a report released from Greenpeace and the solar industry this week leaves no doubt that solar power is able to provide electricity just as well as coal.…
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Labor & Coalition vs Climate
First posted on Crikey’s Rooted blog It seems as though Malcolm Turnbull has finally managed to align the coalition on climate change at least enough for them to stop kicking own goals and bridge their credibility gap with the ALP. With the coalition and ALP now supporting the same conditional emissions reduction target, the public…
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Simply Polluting – Energy retailers under pressure over new coal
With everything we know about climate change, and the role that coal is playing, it would seem fairly obvious that Australia shouldn’t be building any new coal power stations. We’re a smart country, right? A couple of weeks ago, Coolimba Power called for public comment into an environmental review of their proposal to build a…
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Who won Australia’s Dirtiest Energy Retailer Award?
At 9am this morning, 14 Greenpeace activists arrived at the offices of Simply Energy in Melbourne to present them with the award of Australia’s Dirtiest Energy Retailer. “There has been some tough competition over the past 12 months,” said head judge and Greenpeace campaign director Steve Campbell, “but Simply Energy’s steadfast commitment to powering climate…
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Activists Blockade Australia’s Dirtiest Power Station
Seven Greenpeace activists have occupied one of the massive coal excavators at the Hazelwood Power station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley. Hazelwood is a polluting dinosaur built with 1950s technology . It is the dirtiest power station in the developed world and was supposed to be closed this year. If we are going to have any…
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Budget Aftermath: Part 2, "A Turning Tide"
It’s a day on from my initial report back on the budget and I’ve been trying to make sure I’m not getting carried away with the size of the renewable energy funding. After years of budgets being handed down that do the square root of not much for real climate solutions, I’m naturally inclined to…
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Budget Aftermath: Part 1, or "Hope!"
I’ve had quite a lot of time to contemplate tonight’s federal budget, having spent four hours in the Treasury lock-up with papers open to pages numbering into the 300s and a confused look on my face shouting: “WHAT? … HUH? … OK, so it’s $100 coming from this department, but only allocated after the first…
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Carbon Pollution Scheme Still = Fail
Following months of relentless criticism, the Government were forced last week to announce change to the proposed emissions trading scheme. Unsurprisingly, most business groups welcomed the changes while environmentalists, with a few notable exceptions, slammed it. The opposition continued to take their role literally despite the Government addressing virtually all of the concerns they had…
