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Hiroshima remembered – Greenpeace revisits the tragic legacy of nuclear testing
On August 6, 1945, the city of Hiroshima was destroyed by a single atomic bomb. Upon impact, thousands of people were instantly carbonised in a blast a thousand times hotter than the sun’s surface. Around 80,000 died instantly, while the final toll climbed to 250,000. On August 9, Nagasaki suffered a comparable fate. The 65th…
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“We discovered fishermen neck-deep in oil”
On Friday the 16th of July, two pipelines and an oil tank exploded in Dalian Liaoning province in China, spilling oil into the Bohai Gulf. An estimated 11,000 barrels of crude leaked into the ocean, creating an oil slick that has expanded about 100 square kilometers. A fire raged for 15 hours before it was…
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Will Julia learn from failed leaders on climate?
Failure to act on climate change claimed the political scalp of Kevin Rudd and John Howard before him. How Julia Gillard responds to the issue will play a crucial role in the success of her leadership. Regardless of what Tony Abbott may hope, climate change isn’t going away as a public issue. It will continue…
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Why are taxpayers paying for coal trains?
I had a cursory glance through the Queensland and New South Wales State budgets yesterday to see if there was anything interesting going on in terms of climate change. There wasn’t. New South Wales allocated around $21Million to leverage private sector investment for 6 new large scale renewable projects – but it hardly makes up for…
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The BP Deepwater Disaster: One Month On
Greenpeace oil specialist and marine biologist Paul Horsman recently visited the Mississippi Delta to see first-hand the oil that is beginning to wash onto the shores of this delicate coastal ecosystem. Greenpeace is calling for an end to oil exploration and an end to deep-water oil drilling, so that the industry is sent a clear…
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Can’t Take A Leak But A Coal Transfer Is OK
On Tuesday morning, stricken Chinese coal bulker, Shen Neng 1, arrived in the pristine wateres of Hervey Bay. The ship anchored in the great sandy marine park, a whale sanctuary on the edge of world heritage listed Fraser Island. On 5 April, Shen Neng 1 struck the Great Barrier Reef on Douglas Shoal, where it…
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NSW Gov’t Rejects Bickham Coal Mine
In what appears to be the first ever rejection of a new coal mine by the NSW Government, Premier Kristina Keneally has today rejected the proposed Bickham coal mine in the Upper Hunter Valley. This is a huge win for the local community, which has been campaigning to stop this mine for the past decade…
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How To Talk To Kids About Climate Change
I’ve been thinking a lot about kids and climate change lately. I’m not just wondering, as I often do, what they’ll think of our response to the crisis and what they’ll do when they are adults. I’ve actually been trying to work out how to explain climate change to them without scaring their little socks…
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Controversial Anvil Hill mine sold to Xstrata
Yesterday’s announcement that Centennial Coal, Australia’s largest independent coal company, has failed in its plan to develop one of the richest coal seams in NSW, is a huge victory for people concerned about climate change as well as concerned locals in the Hunter Valley. The proposed Anvil Hill coal mine has been faced with growing…
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Turnbull upstaged by climate victims
We’ve all had days like this. Everything seems fine, you’re working to plan and even hopeful of a 5pm finish when suddenly, someone throws a massive rock in your pond and all plans go completely astray. That’s what happened today, when we got a tip-off that Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull was on Bondi Beach with…