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Espy Log: The Cook Islands
It’s been a busy week for crew on Greenpeace ship, the Esperanza (the Espy). It’s currently touring the Pacific to help send a message to world leaders about climate change impacts in the region. Aboard the ship is Emily, who’s sent us this report on what they’ve been doing. Greetings from a finally sunny, but…
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Trouble In Paradise
I am lucky enough to find myself in what is often described as Paradise: the Cook Islands in the South Pacific. As we prepare for Greenpeace’s largest ship, the Esperanza, to arrive – organising meetings, speaking to the Government, local environment groups and people active on climate change – I find myself overwhelmed by the beauty…
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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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US moral authority & soft power in the era of climate change
Robert D. McCallum, Jr., Ambassador of the USA to Australia, was asked on ABC Breakfast yesterday how he felt about his country’s declining moral authority.
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Sydney Uni Summer School Asks: Is Coal Like War?
Today was a blast from the past, when I presented a session of the University of Sydney summer school’s program on peace and the environment. They were a mixed bunch of post-grads from various continents and walks of life, including a Canadian Greenpeace activist who had tried to stop the berthing of a US nuclear…
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Knicker-gate : Obama White House laundry scandal!
That’s the Fox News headline we can expect if US environmental campaigners get their way. A hilarious petition has been launched, to get the White House of President-elect Barack Obama to use a clothes line instead of a dryer. The idea comes from a group I’ve never heard of before, called Project Laundry List*. The…
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Greenpeace Esperanza begins Energy [R]evolution tour
Signing the Kyoto Protocol was an important symbolic step for the new government – much like saying sorry. In fact, it opened the door for Kevin Rudd to be a global leader on climate change, if he’s prepared to step up to the task. But to do that will require so much more than setting…
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The Clean Coal Myth Gets A Helping Hand
In case it has slipped anyone’s minds, let me recap why the environment movement campaigns on climate change. We have a few years left to get emissions falling dramatically and in Australia, we need to be looking at at least 40% reductions below 1990 levels by the year 2020. This is if we want to…
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Why choosing coal is like choosing betamax (what's betamax?)
I’m writing this blog on a wireless connection. The entire Bali Conference Centre is “unwired”, including meeting rooms and cafes, and it’s extremely handy. As I’m writing this, I’m remembering one of my first trips to Bali 10 years ago, and how far communications technology has come in that decade. And I’m reflecting on how…