Mood:  don't ask

We tuned into this question of censorship/editing discretion in a report in The Australian Media section today, by Errol Simper:

29 May 2008 Last dispatch fuels conspiracy

The hot story of concern apparently ran in The Age on 10 May 2008, but not in The Sydney Morning Herald which is noteworthy. Then when you read the dramatic nature of the story you begin to wonder how very significant the omission was because it sure looks like news written by a 5 year veteran. Here is the lead in to the big feature:

Wars between worlds

Ed O'Loughlin, Gaza and Sderot
May 10, 2008

As Ed O'Loughlin's five years as Middle East correspondent come to  an end, he reflects on his time covering one of the world's most intractable conflicts.

THE car was still burning when we came upon the scene. A bullet-proof plate from a flak jacket lay near the wreckage, its plastic layers peeled open like the pages of a book. My "fixer" recognised the silver Pajero at once, and he hurried over to a colleague to find out what had happened. When he came back he looked almost puzzled. "It's Fadel," he said. "He's dead!" And he started to weep for his friend.

In fact four were already dead, men and boys, and two more were to die of their wounds a few days later. But 23-year-old Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana was the one who made headlines.

Hundreds of innocent people die in Gaza every year — far more than we bother writing about in the West. But footage from Shana's camera revealed that he had actually filmed an Israeli tank firing the shell that killed him, as he stood in his clearly marked press flak jacket, by his clearly marked press vehicle.

A second tank shell, fired several minutes after the first, sprayed would-be rescuers with a second cloud of three-centimetre "flechette" steel darts, killing 19-year-old Khalil Dogmoush and injuring several others, including freelance photographer Ashraf Abu Amra.

We didn't know all of this at the time, as we stood by the wreckage of Shana's vehicle. All we knew was that a press vehicle had been targeted minutes earlier, that we were standing beside that vehicle, fully exposed to a hillside where Israeli tanks were operating, and that an Israeli drone was whining overhead.

And we knew from long experience that, whatever had happened, the Israeli Defence Force would deny responsibility. This it duly did, claiming that its troops had fired only at armed militants who had attacked them at close range.

I have covered quite a few stories like this over the past 5½ years, in Gaza and elsewhere. Since the present uprising began in 2000, close to 5000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli action, according to figures from the Israeli rights group B'tselem. Slightly more than 1000 Israelis were killed by Palestinians. In the first three months of this year, 11 Palestinians died for every Israeli civilian.

Eman al-Hams was a 13-year-old schoolgirl who was machine-gunned to death at point blank range by an Israeli officer, who admitted the act on army radio. The officer was subsequently acquitted, promoted and decorated. Asma al-Mughair, 16, and her brother Ahmed, 13, were both shot in the head on the roof of their home in Rafah, which was in the sights of an Israeli sniper's nest, only 100 metres away. Seven members of the Ghaliya family were blown to bits while picnicking on a Gaza beach which Israeli artillery was shelling.

But if you Google any of the above names you will quickly learn — from armchair bloggers and Israeli Government spokespeople — that all of these stories are false, elaborate hoaxes concocted by anti-Semitic journalists to smear the state of Israel. Little wonder, then, that Israeli talkback was generally of the opinion that Fadel Shana got what he deserved.

And you can't help asking yourself, as you stand exposed on a roadway stained with blood and gristle and carbonised rubber, with a killer robot circling overhead, what would they say if it was you who'd been hit? For the average Middle East correspondent this is not a difficult question to answer. As a character remarked in the BBC political satire The Thick of It, looking up your own name on the internet is like opening the door to "a room full of people who are trying to throw shit at you". Fortunately, the job gives one a thick skin. But the Israeli Defence Force's culture of denial and impunity, repeatedly condemned by Israeli and foreign rights groups, does nothing for your confidence when you have reason to fear that someone you can't see is studying you on a computer screen, or through a gun sight.

The story that had brought Fadel Shana to central Gaza that day, April 16, was the killing of three militants and six civilians in Israeli air strikes against the border hamlet of Johara A'diq, close to where three Israeli soldiers had died in a militant ambush earlier that morning.

[full story in The Age here]

The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies are annoyed with ABC Media Watch for not having their voice in on the controversy over why no SMH feature. We know the JBD feel annoyed because Simper refers to the JBD protesting their innocence of any undue or specific pressure to censor O'Loughlin. See the Media Watch story here where the JBD are reported in standard lobbying mode back in 2006. Even so it looks a bit like a pre emptive buckle by the SMH if anything rather than direct influence, and the protests of non interference by the JBD just adds to that view. We think the Herald wimped out, and Media Watch probably should have given the JBD some more say in their story.

We make the general comment too that the intractable grievance and violence in the Middle East is a moral and political whirlpool that sucks in otherwise agnostic and peace loving observers across the world, even Sydney town. One must take care not to be infected with the madness of hatred and indeed injustice there.

Here for the record is the text of the JBD letter which  we requested earlier today, and note our own contribution to censorship by deleting the names of personalities better to concentrate on the issues:

Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2008 2:45 PM

Subject: NSW Jewish Board of Deputies

May 22, 2008 

 Dear [Media Watch]

I am writing to express disappointment at the fact that, in airing this week's segment on Ed O'Loughlin and the non-appearance of his farewell article in the Sydney Morning Herald, you chose not to include any comment from the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies.

This is despite the fact that the point of the segment was the allegation that undue pressure had been applied to the Sydney Morning Herald by the Jewish community, with an inference that we had a hand in the non-appearance of Mr O'Loughlin's article. The inference is untrue. We did not know about, and made no representation to the Sydney Morning Herald about, Mr O'Loughlin's article.

Furthermore, your reporter, .... was informed by me that we did not know about the article. Yet Media Watch aired an inference which you knew had been denied - as is the fact - and chose not to air that fact.

We do not resile from our criticism of Mr O'Loughlin's reporting as lacking in balance and context. Nor do we resile from bringing to the attention of the Sydney Morning Herald the offensiveness of drawing a comparison between the Warsaw Ghetto and Gaza, which was the subject of a 2003 Press Council ruling indicating that such a comparison is unacceptable, yet which was expressed in a letter printed in the Sydney Morning Herald earlier this year. I am sure you would appreciate the offence of such a comparison to the Jewish community, in particular to Holocaust survivors, and that it is a matter which the Board of Deputies was justified in taking up.

I was surprised that Media Watch failed to include our side of the story - given the programme's rigorous approach to the presentation of media stories, and that presenting the other side of the story is a fundamental of journalistic practice.

The ABC Code of Practice requires "that every reasonable effort must be made to ensure that the content of news and current affairs programs is accurate, impartial and balanced".

By not airing any comment from the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies on your programme, the allegations against us were left unchallenged, which meant that the segment lacked balance.

Please would you read this letter in full on air next week.

Yours sincerely

[NSW Jewish Board of Deputies]

We talk about the aparthied legal reality in Israel/Palestine in an earlier post about nuke whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu (pictured above, released on conditions after a long stretch in gaol. Gaza may not be anywhere near the Warsaw Ghetto but it is still a big worry for all those same critics of the old (assuredly pro Nazi) South African regime infamous for black white aparthied.

21 May 2008 Nuke weapons road block to a one state solution for Palestine/Israel?
Mood:  sad
Topic: peace

Posted by editor at 5:29 PM NZT

Updated: Thursday, 29 May 2008 7:18 PM NZT

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Mood:  not sure

These two images were taken earlier today. The car looks registered with a good 10 months to run. So why the council ranger notice directly over the driver's windscreen? A mistake, a joke, a racket? It's a mystery:

Posted by editor at 5:00 PM NZT

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Mood:  not sure

Who is telling the truth, who is playing with statistics? And notice the 10 extra oil fields also referred to in bold which this expert says never proceeded.

Time will tell in this hot debate but here in the meantime is the story from The Independent:

 Oil: A global crisis

The Iraq War means oil costs three times more than it should, says a leading expert. How are our lives going to change as we struggle to cope with the $200 barrel? Geoffrey Lean reports

Sunday, 25 May 2008

The invasion of Iraq by Britain and the US has trebled the price of oil, according to a leading expert, costing the world a staggering $6 trillion in higher energy prices alone.

The oil economist Dr Mamdouh Salameh, who advises both the World Bank and the UN Industrial Development Organisation (Unido) [bold added], told The Independent on Sunday that the price of oil would now be no more than $40 a barrel, less than a third of the record $135 a barrel reached last week, if it had not been for the Iraq war.

He spoke after oil prices set a new record on 13 consecutive days over the past two weeks. They have now multiplied sixfold since 2002, compared with the fourfold increase of the 1973 and 1974 "oil shock" that ended the world's long postwar boom.

Goldman Sachs predicted last week that the price could rise to an unprecedented $200 a barrel over the next year, and the world is coming to terms with the idea that the age of cheap oil has ended, with far-reaching repercussions on their activities.

Dr Salameh, director of the UK-based Oil Market Consultancy Service, and an authority on Iraq's oil, said it is the only one of the world's biggest producing countries with enough reserves substantially to increase its flow.

Production in eight of the others – the US, Canada, Iran, Indonesia, Russia, Britain, Norway and Mexico – has peaked, he says, while China and Saudia Arabia, the remaining two, are nearing the point at of decline. Before the war, Saddam Hussein's regime pumped some 3.5 million barrels of oil a day, but this had now fallen to just two million barrels.

Dr Salameh told the all-party parliamentary group on peak oil last month that Iraq had offered the United States a deal, three years before the war, that would have opened up 10 new giant oil fields on "generous" terms in return for the lifting of sanctions. "This would certainly have prevented the steep rise of the oil price," he said. "But the US had a different idea. It planned to occupy Iraq and annex its oil." [bold added]

Chris Skrebowski, the editor of Petroleum Review, said: "There are many ifs in the world oil market. This is a very big one, but there are others. If there had been a civil war in Iraq, even less oil would have been produced."

David Strahan: What happens next? The expert's view

At just under 86 million barrels per day, global oil production has, essentially, stagnated since 2005, despite soaring demand, suggesting that production has already reached its geological limits, or "peak oil".

Recession in the West may not provide relief on prices. There is increasing demand from countries such as China, Russia and the Opec countries, whose consumers are cushioned against rising prices by heavy subsidies. The future could unfold in a number of ways:

Oil price collapses

Fuel subsidies could suddenly be scrapped, dousing demand. Cost pressures have forced Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan to cut them, but China is hardly strapped for cash. Opec producers are under no pressure to abolish subsidies; as the oil price rises they get richer. Prospect: very unlikely.

Peace could break out in Iraq, the long-disputed oil law agreed, and international oil companies start work on the world's largest collection of untapped oil fields. Prospect: vanishingly unlikely.

Oil price stabilises or moderates

Deep recession in the West might cut oil consumption enough to offset growth in the developing world and Opec, or even engulf them too, softening prices. Prospect: unlikely in the short term.

Oil price soars

Russian oil output has gone into decline; Saudi Arabia has shelved plans to expand production capacity, and advisers to the Nigerian government predict its output will fall by 30 per cent by 2015. More news like this, expect oil at $200 a barrel. Prospect: likely.

Big oil producers will increasingly divert exports for home consumption. Opec, Russian and Mexican exports expected to fall, pushing oil to $200 by 2012. Prospect: highly likely.

The writer is author of 'The Last Oil Shock', John Murray, lastoilshock.com

Peak oil

After 150 years of growth, the oil age is beginning to come to an end. "Peak oil" is the common term for when production stops increasing and starts to decline. At that point what have been ever-expanding and cheap supplies of the resource on which all modern economies depend become scarcer and more expensive, with potentially devastating consequences.

Pessimists believe that production has passed its peak. Optimists say it may be 20 years or so away – which would give us some time to prepare – but are now muted. Last week the hitherto optimistic International Energy Agency admitted that it may have overestimated future capacity. Chris Skrebowski, editor of 'Petroleum Review' and once an optimist himself, believes that the world is now in "the foothills of peak oil". Prices may ease a bit over the next few years, but then the real crunch will come. The price then? "Pick a number!"

Travel

Oil provides 95 per cent of the energy used in transport, so this will be hit hard and soon. People are likely to go on using their cars, but airlines are expected to be the first to suffer. On Thursday, British Airways' chief executive Willie Walsh declared that the era of cheap flights was over, suggesting that those environmentalists who have made them their main target for combating climate change may have been wasting their breath.

At least three carriers have already gone bust this year. Last week, American Airlines said it was cutting routes, laying off staff, and charging US passengers $15 to check in a bag because of a $3bn rise in its fuel bills. Even Michael O'Leary, chief executive of Ryanair, says the oil price is "really hurting". On Thursday, Credit Suisse analysts said his company would slip into the red if oil prices rose just a little more, to $140 a barrel.

Cars

The world's biggest oil well, it is said, lies beneath Detroit. US vehicles get an average of only 25 miles per gallon. Dramatically improving this would do more to ease the oil crunch than any likely new discovery. But new measures recently approved by Congress would increase the average only to the 35mpg already being achieved by China. Europe does better, if not well enough, at 44mpg.

Rising fuel prices are already beginning to drive change. Sales of 4x4s are plummeting in both the US and Britain, and those of hybrids – which do 60mpg are soaring. As the price climbs further, manufacturers will unlock long-prepared plans for much more efficient vehicles. "Plug-in" hybrids, charged up with electricity overnight, save another 45 per cent in petrol consumption. Further down the line is the "hypercar" – made of tough, light plastic – which could cross the US on a single tankful.

Houses

All new houses in Britain will have to be zero carbon – burning no fossil fuels such as oil – by 2016, the Government announced, and housebuilders are struggling to meet the target. At present the standard can be reached only at great expense, but the industry is confident of bringing the cost down as mass production kicks in. It is even more important to adapt existing homes.

The key step is to super-insulate the house to make it as energy-efficient as possible – and only then to provide renewable energy sources. Solar water heaters, ground source heat pumps and boilers powered by wood pellets are favourites. Rooftop windmills do not work well enough yet. Photovoltaic panels, which get electricity from the sun, are expensive but their price should come down. Britain has lagged behind other countries. Soaring energy prices should shake things up.

Shopping

Effectively, almost everything is partially made of oil, and so is going to get more expensive. About 10 calories of oil are burned to produce each calorie of food in the US, and farming a single cow and getting it to market uses as much as driving from New York to Los Angeles. Some 630g of fuel is used to produce every gram of microchips.

The cult of local, seasonal produce will enter the mainstream, as everyone learns about food miles and a modern-day Dig for Victory grips gardeners – bad news for the farm workers overseas who provide 95 per cent of our fruit and half our vegetables. Trips to out-of-town supermarkets will seem extravagant, heralding a high street renaissance and a new surge in online grocery shopping, and soon we'll all be eating our own potatoes.

Third World

Poor countries and their peoples will be hit by a devastating double whammy as both their fuel and food prices increase. Last year, when oil cost only about half as much, countries from Nepal to Nicaragua were hit by fuel shortages. At least 25 of the 44 sub-Saharan nations are facing crippling electricity shortages.

As oil is used in agriculture, its increased cost will also drive up the price of food, making more and more people go hungry. Worse, expensive petrol is bound to increase the drive towards biofuels made from maize and other crops, which then brings the world's poorest people into competition with affluent motorists for grain – a contest they cannot win. Just one fill-up of a 4x4's tank with ethanol uses enough grain to feed one person for a year.

Emerging economies

China and India and other developing countries will help to drive up demand for oil and compete for scarce supplies. This has already helped to raise prices: demand for oil from Western countries has actually fallen over the past two years, but the emerging economies have more than made up the slack. And they have the money to do so.

Chinese and Indian consumers have so far been insulated from the effects of the price increase by heavy government subsidies, and their industrial revolutions and rapid growth are largely fuelled by oil. There is little sign that the growth in demand will slacken These countries are also likely to follow the time-honoured Western tradition of making deals with oil-exporting countries – and backing unpleasant regimes – to try to secure supplies.

Conflict

Last week. the embattled Gordon Brown – "incredibly focused" on oil, according to his spin-doctors – began playing the blame game. "It is a scandal," he said, "that 40 per cent of the oil is controlled by Opec and that their decisions can restrict the supply of oil to the rest of the world."

Someone should tell him that he should be blaming geology – or God – and that, as oil production peaks, Opec countries simply will not be able to pump more. But he is not alone; four US senators warned Saudi Arabia that if it did not step up the flow, the US might withdraw its military support.

There will be much more of this as supplies tighten. Three years ago, a US army report predicted oil would soon peak, and security risks increase. Expect oil wars. But, of course, we have already had one – in Iraq.>

Archie Bland

Posted by editor at 8:05 PM NZT

Updated: Tuesday, 27 May 2008 8:37 PM NZT

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Mood:  caffeinated

Picture: Lifted off Sydney Morning Herald main opinion page 2007.

Author’s general introductory note (skip this bit if you know this regular weekly column):

This is not a well packaged story. It’s a contemporaneous traverse of the Sunday television free to air political talkies indicating the agenda of Establishment interests: Better to know ones rivals and allies  in Big Politics and Big Media.

Indeed it’s the tv version monitoring task similar to what Nelson Mandela refers to here in his book Long Walk to Freedom (1994, Abacus) written in Robben Island prison (where he was meant to die like other African resister chiefs of history in the 19C), at page 208

“..newspapers are only a shadow of reality; their information is important to a freedom fighter not because it reveals the truth, but because it discloses the biases and perceptions of both those who produce the paper and those who read it.”

Just substitute ‘Sunday tv political talkie shows’ for "newspapers" in the quote above.

For actual transcripts go to web sites quoted below except with Riley Diary on 7. And note transcripts don’t really give you the image content value.

Media backgrounders

 - as predicted here on SAM the ‘perfect storm’ of factors relating to the Henson art exhibition have coalesced into several daily cycles of media scrutiny

[abc 7.45 am news didn’t run with cricket coverage instead? True coverage Australia v West Indies in WI]

9 Sunday 7.30 – 9.30 am

- backgrounder on McCain age question, humour to respond.

- tax tip

- petrol price rise political panic. Nelson getting traction

Feature on Liberal Party to come.

Feature story about cross cultural dance. Bangarra. Looks really impressive. Page brothers creative force. One of 3 died in 2002. Fantastic archival footage.

Liberal Party feature at 8.25 missed the start – Kroger/Victoria Baillieu. Peter Van Onselen is running the story.

Caught about 70% of it. Upshot is ‘reforms under way’, Howard is strongly involved to alarm of such as Christopher Pyne in the provinces (South Australia) but Hockey makes it clear he is involved. Gerard Henderson refers to ‘if he was in the party room’. Abbott reflects the democracy principle to bring the people with you. Julie Bishop is uncreconstructed from flushed WA lassiez faire mining economy boom re work choices and “fraud” ALP, lost the media battle she claims. Thesis is Party was states based needs a federal structure with orders implemented down from the top. Returning to autocratic hierarchy default position?

Hockey impressive on future interest in leadership, but not ready, not now.

Laurie Oakes with Jenny Macklin re indigenous issues. The problem is to find all the great things in indigenous community and promote them, as a resource, as a success, as a matter of pride. Like Bangarra. So their problems are no different to every other section of society has good and bad.

Art child protection controversy. Sexualisation of children is wrong. Children are being bombarded. Govt do anything? Avoided the question re art gallery. [Grattan has serious column in Fairfax too.]

http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/default.asp

 Picture: Archive of John Howard as PM 9th May 2007 which may have been when Peter Costello gave his "masterclass" budget speech, one photo in a series of snaps (see more below) off the web datacast of federal parliament suggesting to us Howard was a bit cranky, the better the speech by Costello sounded?

10 Meet the Press:  8- 8-30 am

Lead in re Liberals Turnbull and Minchin grab, press cover of Downer planning to stay. AWB inquiry planned again.

Minchin is talent – says he’s been talking to Downer last night, hasn’t made up his mind claims Minhin despite front pager. Hard man looks quite amused like it’s fun politicking like when it was back in govt enjoying the fleeting relevance. Footage of Downer ‘steely determination’, Minchin contradicts, very chuffed but grabs for petrol pricing against govt as a life raft in the interview. Bonge brings it back, footage Abbott with heir apparent is Mal Turnbull. Minchin stands off. Another story as Joe Hockey as leader. PB it's coming out of the Party?

Minch blames press gallery. Rising prices, interests, petrol, gallery should get a life. Bonge IS the gallery too, and put’s it back on Lib Party. Damning footage of Nelson and Turnbull hedging

Annabel Crabb (Fairfax, Sydney) and Mark Kenning Adelaide Advertiser (News)…..The Gallery! With AC facing up. Sure enough first question about medicare levy, senate will oppose. Serious policy debate after 15 mintues of the show – incentives to stay in private insurance versus capping Minch says is ideological.

Mark Kenny, extent of tax blocking in senate, medicare levy, alcopops ‘idiotic’, looking at car tax. Not voting against appropriation measures. Revenue measures. Quite a hard man is Minch and AC is not really quite up to the adversarialism.

Q&A is a little clunky. Petrol tax issue – Minchin talked to Greg Hunt – denies truth of press reportage Courier in Qld. Kenny get’s to it about control of the legacy of who succeeds, blocking by refusing to retire. “power broker” Minch smiles sheepishly. This is funny. Self criticizes for being impertinent.

Out take is Bill Leake theme of pythonesque wounds but self inflicted. Loss of limbs. Gruesome.

Sharon Burrow of the ACTU – strong woman and speaker, adverts about work rights, miners want uncapped hours. The game is still on. Rudd deliver on promises but also in parliament.

AC refers formal Labour Advisory Council in ALP rules to meet twice  year including later this month says Burrow. But this is separate conversation.  Discussion over shareholders maximum rights over executive salary. AC has a cute smile for the out take. Warmed up after a slowish start.

Meet The Press - Watch Political Video Online - Channel TEN.

Riley Diary 7, 8.35 am

High standard, clashed with Onselan on 9 same topic re Liberal leadership, and ‘love’ between leaders and deputies. Lots of Motown and 80ies soundtracks. Great footage. Strong analysis. One of the best but very big competition on 9 so missed a lot.

http://www.seven.com.au/sunrise/weekend

Insiders 2: 9- 10am

Intro about disjunct of Rudd promoting “entitlement” and closing door on hand outs regarding petrol prices. Unsustainable approach.

Swan rating compared to Turnbull after budget, missed the comparison presume it went up a lot.

Press round up re David Marr on

Talent is Joe Hockey in the kick off building on 10 MTP re Minchin questioned by Annabel Crabb. Footage of colleague and Minch (a laughing grinch). Talk about restructuring, still hold economic credentials. Ad hominem attacks on Swan. Populist discredit? Sticks to 5c promise. Always be cheaper under coalition as recurring rhetoric – does have traction but bad policy, and cynical low road politics in climate change world. [ALP looking at environment fro gst component on petrol.] Talk about pensioners etc and medicare surcharge, “deadly politics”.

Hockey uses big words like cascading and articulates quite well for a big chumpy guy. Obviously growing in his professional persona. Behind every great man ….

Moral panic over alcopops tax, versus moral panic over binge drinking. 2am lockouts discussion. [people hard wired to sleep at night … stick with that I reckon, 24 hr economy is a sick society].

Every person segment family with personal trainer, great coalition budget from a Labor Govt. Ouch. Left out renewable energy. Attractive jelly fish line, missed it. Damn. Reference to ‘done everything we can do’ – yeah, attractive jelly fish.

Akerman ramps up oil out of Iraq at same level as before the war started.

Big discussion on immigration policy issues re social harmony coming back refers to Doug Cameron speech, Howard’s huge increase “success” Left agrees with conservatives claims Marr, but not sure about that. It’s not the left of ALP against immigration. It’s the redneck right as opposed to the pro business/growth right of the ALP.  The left are pro refugee, pro sustainability, workers rights and conditions not be sabotaged by desperate underclass manipulated by $80M p.a. Macquarie Bank executives like Moss, [or Fairfax real estate/advertising businesses only concerned about their $150K pa cut?]

[missed a section]

Zaetta smear debate, press problem going big naming her in false story, or as Akerman claims Defense Dept and therefore ALP minister is the problem her name in defense documents? – says to me it was a clumsy News Ltd attempt to attack an ALP minister after Ernies book about sexism on ABC tv news last week (re Sydney Writers Festival attacking conservative establishment). Zaetta as collateral damage in moral posturing by powerful institutions? We think so.

Henson art show framed as debate what is pornography, but this is false convenient frame by big media – it’s about follow up to Orkopoulos predation of children, and how he got away with culture of secrecy for so long. Akerman leans into this aspect re Patrick Power gaoled in case of child porn still supported by powerful figures. What is this culture of tolerance for exploiting children? Issues of child protection. Marr talks about the law on this that Henson work is not porn – not a practicing lawyer though qualified before in top law firm Allens (corrupt sharks?) so others give deference. Porn is likely in the eye of the beholder, even if not the intent of the image creator. [Issues of reckless or negligence if not criminality?]

Talking pictures – phallic Nelson, David Rowe classic again. Cartoonists ‘can’t shoot bambi’ re Nelson. etc

Home page is http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/

Posted by editor at 12:13 PM NZT

Updated: Sunday, 25 May 2008 12:45 PM NZT

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Mood:  lyrical

Story

We should be flattered. Like the 'freak' full forward Gary Ablett, famous at Geelong Aussie Rules for being a marked man, too successful at his work of kicking goals, so we felt undue special attention. I was one of several taking photos at "A Simple Life" session at the Sydney Writers Festival yesterday, including one professional with a long range lense as long and fat as our Aussie Rules thighs, right hand aisle then left hand aisle standing up visible to all. "You're the only one I saw" marshall said in high motivation. Mmm. Who was I really talking to here? The Marshall or the proverbial labor luvvies, editor Marnie Cordell implicitly embraced in her introduction referring to "dark days of Howard" ?! Does this make it a twilight?

I said "you have your lawyers contact my lawyers [me]" and "I am a guest of New Matilda" [which was true]. At this point a silent quiver of uncertainty furrowed the brow of our charming ruthless officious marshall ... and I was away out of the suffocating ambush of my free speech, in the state of ALP.

The ironies were piling up. Equal measures of anxiety, sadness, mystery here about perceptions of clumsy censorship in my own centre left green milieu. 

Indeed it had been one of those strange days, involving cut phone lines mid conversation talking about web security issues with a client tackling Coca Cola Amatil whose own email is playing up, dead air air on pesky phone calls (marketers?), crashing of the Marrickville phone exchange at 10am 23 May 08 , suspicous rail officer, bag checks at supermarket.

What is this? When did I get the kick me sign? Does one inherently look subversive? One begins to see why Gary tragically turned to drugs to escape 'the unwanted attention'. Flattering then just simply intrusive and bizzare.

This is one of the photographs above yesterday we were ordered to delete by a marshall at a session hosted by New Matilda called A Simple Life. We refused point blank as any self respecting blogger would, not least for the empty chair on the stage ... at the same Writers Festival event (self awareness anyone?) and ACIJ advert on festival newspaper promoting, get this, "INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM". Well to be fair we are not a real 'journalist' whatever that is. More like a judicious critic of the sector and new media indy practitioner.

Picture: The empty chair at far left symbolic of censored, imprisoned writers. Like this blogger sought to be censored same session. Tsk tsk.

Picture: It's a toaster real estate (as below) kind of political economy in Sydney, obscuring truth and beauty, so it seems.

Picture: The Green Party's amusing annual Bad Developer Awards' "Golden Toaster".

Posted by editor at 9:09 AM NZT

Updated: Saturday, 24 May 2008 10:47 AM NZT

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Mood:  incredulous

The collapse of a $2 billion carbon sequestration project off Western Australia revealed last week tells the story:

WA’s $2b clean coal project ditched 19th May 2008, 9:00 WST
The Federal Government’s silver bullet for dealing with climate change — the underground storage of greenhouse pollution — has been dealt a blow with the collapse in WA of a $2 billion trial of the technology.

The clean coal experiment run by the resources giants Rio Tinto and BP was ditched after it was found that deep-sea storage beds off Perth would not hold the tonnes of carbon dioxide the companies wanted to bury.

And notice this from 19 May too [bold added]:

Subject: [Greens-Media] Carbon storage liability issues will destroy 'cleancoal' pipedream even faster than technology failures

Hobart, Monday 19 May 2008  Australian Greens climate change
spokesperson, Senator Christine Milne, today called Martin Ferguson's
draft legislation for carbon storage a clear demonstration of the many
problems still bedevilling the proposed technology.

Senator Milne said, "This draft legislation perfectly demonstrates the
Pandora's box of liability issues facing carbon capture and storage that
can never be satisfactorily resolved.

"Aside from the tremendous remaining questions about whether the
technology will even work, the liability issue may ensure that so-called
'clean coal' projects never get off the ground. Coal corporations will
not commit to storing tens of millions of tonnes of CO2 unless they are
guaranteed that the governments will carry their liability in
perpetuity, and no one government can bind future governments to ensure
that will be the case.

"You would have thought that, after Ok Tedi and so many other examples
in recent years, no government would readily facilitate companies
walking away from their long-term pollution liabilities. But this draft
legislation, released deliberately on a Saturday to avoid scrutiny,
appears to do exactly that by passing perpetual liability for carbon
leakage into public hands if the Minister issues a site closing
certificate.

"It is wrong to transfer the risk of worse climate change from carbon
leakage onto taxpayers and future generations. Working families care
about the world their children inherit and the costs that are imposed
upon them.

"The minister and industry are on notice that future governments will
not bound by this one. A future minister might care about the atmosphere
more than the coal industry and simply refuse to sign closing
certificates, ensuring that corporations continue to carry the
liability.

"I fully expect the coal corporations to launch a huge lobbying effort
to amend the draft to require the minister to issue a closing
certificate once certain conditions have been met. That has, after all,
long been the tactic of the nuclear industry around the world.

"The liability issues clearly demonstrate the folly of further
developing an industry which generates an enormous and highly dangerous
waste stream. Rather than spending billions on working out how to store
the waste and billions more on perpetual monitoring, surely it would be
better not to generate the waste at all and move to truly clean
alternatives.

"A myriad of renewable energy technologies provide that alternative and
are ready to do the job now. Every dollar we spend on coal is a missed
opportunity which will further undermine Australia's competitive
advantage. Ministers Ferguson, Wong and Garrett are desperately trying
to perpetuate the coal age when the solar century has already started.

"Martin Ferguson revealed the government's true priorities, in saying
that making geosequestration work is vital to the long term
sustainability of the coal industry. The Government should fund
technologies that promote the long term sustainability of the planet,
not the coal industry."

 And this referencing Greenpeace:

Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 2:51 PM

Subject: [Greens-Media] Greenpeace carbon capture report exposes 'falsehope' of govt and industry

Greenpeace carbon capture report exposes 'false hope' of govt and
industry

Hobart, Monday 5 May 2008  Australian Greens climate change
spokesperson, Senator Christine Milne, today welcomed Greenpeace
International's comprehensive report into carbon capture and storage,
and said that the report confirms our view that we must act now to
reduce emissions fast with the renewable energy and efficiency
technologies which do exist.

Senator Milne said "We cannot further delay action on climate change, or
continue to divert valuable budget dollars, because a hypothetical
alternative future solution might allow us to keep using coal.

"The urgency of climate change is such that we must act now to reduce
emissions fast, using the technologies that are ready and available now,
such as energy efficiency, solar thermal, wind and many others.

"Prime Minister Rudd must now jettison any plans to spend public dollars
on coal company research which is increasingly exposed as a sham. The
coal companies can spend their own money on whatever they like, but
leaders on climate change should focus on reducing emissions now.

"Today's report from Greenpeace sets out clearly and with detailed
references all the key problems with carbon capture and storage from
coal, showing that it is far from the reality that its advocates claim,
that there are very real risks of leakage, particularly given the scale
of storage that would be needed, and that it would negate the cost
advantage that coal currently claims.

"The analysis presented in this report is far from unique and cannot be
taken as simply the view of environmentalists. More and more industry
representatives are expressing concern that carbon capture and storage
technologies are not living up to the hopes of recent years, and the
techno-fix for coal is slipping further into the future and higher up
the cost ladder.

"The pipe-dream of 'clean coal' is already being outcompeted by
renewables around the world, even though the playing field is skewed
heavily in its favour through subsidies and the benefits of existing
coal infrastructure. Despite years of effort, progress is simply not
being made in demonstrating that it is viable, let alone competitive.

"If we made the decision now to prioritise cutting emissions and
invested in the technologies which can do so now, renewables and
efficiency would do the job and coal with carbon capture would be
obsolete before it was even ready to come online."

The Greenpeace report, false Hope: Why carbon capture and storage won't
save the climate, is available for download at www.greenpeace.org/ccs

It's timely to repeat our report from 4 April 2008 (as below) given the front page story in The Australian today. Friday, 4 April 2008

Energy Minister Ferguson gambling on safety of CO2 carbon capture after Norway report?
Mood:  blue
Topic: globalWarming

We were intrigued by crikey.com.au item 12 yesterday relating to an area called Nirranda close to where we grew up in Warrnambool , SW Victoria:

This story at crikey.com.au set set us on a flurry of web based research

http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20080403-Tall-tales-from-the-carbon-crypt.html?display=thankyou#comments

Tall tales from the carbon crypt

Thursday, 3 April 2008

Ben Sandilands writes:

Federal Energy Minister Martin Ferguson and his Victorian peer Peter Batchelor seemed oblivious yesterday to their brush with geological time.

They pretended to open the valve on a pipeline which is as of this morning sending 100,000 tonnes of dense CO2 into a carbon crypt under farmlands east of Warrnambool where it will remain trapped beneath a layer of impervious rock for as long as Australia is recognisable as a continent.

For tens of millions of years. But maybe not.

There are quirky things about carbon sequestration, which is seen as a key to clean coal technologies, that seem to have escaped notice on a momentous occasion that makes more usual political photo opportunities like bridge openings seem ephemeral in comparison.

The wind storm that wrecked parts of SE Australia actually broke the power supply to the pumps that force the supercritical or fluid-like mass of CO2 into its prison, but the photo opportunity proceeded.

The sequestration demonstration is important for the coal and oil lobbies, and very annoying for some environmentalists, because if it works, it could underpin processes that could eliminate most of the man made greenhouse gas emissions that are derived from fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas.

But this is where the recent comments of Professor Will Steffen at the ANU put the risks and possible rewards of carbon crypts in sharp focus. Steffen says mankind is creating a new geological epoch which might be called the Anthropocene because of the mass extinctions of species of plants and animals associated with the acceleration of human impacts on the planet.

In a his co-authored paper Steffen says carbon sequestration would not only mitigate global warming but reduce the acidification of the oceans caused by their being overwhelmed by dissolved carbon which other researchers say is damaging the marine food chain.

But Steffen and his colleagues also point to the possibility than in the deep future, tens of thousands of years from now, a world that has long mastered clean energy may be confronted by the cyclical onset of the next ice age.

Our distant descendants might well, they suggest, liberate the sequestered carbon to quickly warm the atmosphere and thwart the serious consequences for agriculture, and civilisations, of a planet that turns very cold as the seas retreat and the ice caps advance.

All of which raises the thought that the wind-swept site of the southern Otway carbon crypt could be visited in a far distant time by tomb raiders trying to save themselves from global cooling not warming.

Until or beyond it is forced by geological forces into which will put 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Send your tips to boss@crikey.com.au, submit them anonymously here or SMS tips and photos to 0427 TIP OFF.

An amusing smart alecy story and hope they don't mind repeating it in full here. Only there are life and death issues at hand if our research has any weight since last night. We posted most of it on their website comments section.

Here is the local rose tinted Warrnambool Standard report of yesterday 3rd April 08:

Carbon plant leads the way 

9:52AM | A REVOLUTIONARY technique to combat climate change is happening in a Nirranda paddock. [more]

The federal govt website references an IPCC report of Sept 2005 - which given the fast changing area of science and interest is like the stone age really and totally outdated surely? See the quote in bold near the bottom of this page from that IPCC special report, resolving very little in terms of danger: At

http://www.environment.gov.au/settlements/industry/ccs/index.html

listing such as these documents.

• Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage - Fact sheet
• Carbon Capture and Storage - Report to the Australian Greenhouse Office on Property Rights and Associated Liability Issues
• IPCC Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage (Sept 2005)

This last authoritative IPCC report states:

""Summary for policy makers" at p12-14 - "A sudden and large release of CO2 would pose immediate dangers to human life and health, if there were exposure to concentrations of CO2 greater than 7–10% by volume in air. ...High fluxes in conjunction with stable atmospheric conditions could lead to local high CO2 concentrations in the air that could harm animals or people. Pressure build-up caused by CO2 injection could trigger small seismic events. While there is limited experience with geological storage, closely related industrial experience and scientific knowledge could serve as a basis for appropriate risk management, including remediation. The effectiveness of the available risk management methods still needs to be demonstrated for use with CO2 storage." [bold added]

More searching led us to the Norway Petroleum Safety Authority report for 2007-08:

http://www.ptil.no/NR/rdonlyres/0A5F69C6-097D-4B6C-9898-38B4628A1A0B/16828/SAFETY20079.pdf

Quite worrying actually. And then this semi retraction at

 http://www.ptil.no/English/Helse+miljo+og+sikkerhet/HMS-aktuelt/8_coto_budskap_.htm  

which has all the hallmarks of Big Govt and Industry leaning on the safety cop on the beat in Norway to turn a blind eye:

This is not some theoretical issue: Check this commentary on Daily Kos way back in November 2006:

In 1986, at a place called Lake Nyos in Cameroon, 1800 people and 3500 animals were killed in a matter of minutes when the lake suddenly, for reasons still not entirely understood, released 1.6 million tons of stored carbon dioxide.   The death toll wasn’t greater because the area was sparsely populated.   BP plans to sequester 4 million tons a year, meaning that in just 4 years of operations they will put 10 times as much carbon dioxide beneath Carson, California as was released at Nyos.   In contrast to the rural communities around Nyos, Carson, California – where I lived for about 6 months back in the 1970’s – has 90,000 people.   The adjacent community of Torrance has 120,000 and Lomita has 20,000.   Moreover the area is crisscrossed by important earthquake faults, including the Crenshaw fault that runs almost directly down the center Crenshaw Blvd where there are lots of refineries.   Further, the entire area, including many parking lots of commercial facilities is chock full of oil wells, many of which I would imagine stopped functioning long ago, and many of which are probably forgotten.

Draw your own inferences.

Notice this report also:

"Cost, safety fears threaten climate change remedy", 18 Sep 2007 - Reuters

with this quote:

"SAFETY Legal barriers are another brake on actual burial of CO2 in Europe. Later this year Brussels will propose tweaks to existing water and waste rules, with 2010 slated as the earliest likely date for those changes to come into force. "Industry might feel it's a gamble, they're going to have a nagging doubt until the law's in place," said the EC's Taylor. And then there are safety fears. In sufficient quantities CO2 suffocates people, simply by crowding out an adequate supply of oxygen. A small worry is that if it escaped from underground or from a pipeline, the heavy, odourless gas may collect in a deep valley pocket, for example. "People could walk into this cloud of CO2, not realise it, and be asphyxiated by it," said Julia Race, an expert in pipeline engineering at Britain's Newcastle University. "A number of issues, technical and others, urgently need addressing," she said.

The local Green Party were all over this U turn away from the carbon geological sequestration technology by the W Bush regime earlier this year too:

Collapse of US clean coal facility another blow to NSW privatisation
 
Media Release: 5 February 2008
 
The decision by the US government to abandon the FutureGen carbon capture and storage project undermines yet another argument for privatisation of the NSW electricity industry, according to Greens NSW MP John Kaye.
 
Dr Kaye said: "A major component of NSW Treasurer Costa's $15 billion privatisation was a massive private sector investment in carbon reduction technologies, which is increasingly looking like the impossible dream.
 
"The Iemma government justifies the environmental risks of long term leasing of the state-owned generators and the sale of the retailers by arguing that it would encourage investment in clean coal technologies to reduce carbon emissions.
 
"The collapse of the world's largest clean coal project makes a mockery of Treasurer Costa's attempted green washing of privatisation.
 
"The Iemma government's sell-off scheme relied on ensuring that the private sector would invest between $3 to $4 billion in retrofitting the state's existing power stations with carbon capture and storage and would pony up the additional money to build new base load generation with low carbon technologies.
 
"The Bush administration has just delivered a body blow to carbon capture and storage.
 
"By pulling their $2 billion investment out of the FutureGen project in Illinois, the US administration has delivered a massive vote of no confidence in clean coal and consequently in Michael Costa's electricity privatisation deal.
 
"The electricity industry in NSW is responsible for 57 million tonnes of CO2 each year.
 
"It makes no sense to hand over 35% of the state's greenhouse gas emissions to private owners when carbon reduction technologies are increasingly looking farcical," Dr Kaye said.
 

For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455

  

    State Energy Minister Peter Batchelor (left), his federal counterpart Martin Ferguson and CO2CRC chief executive Peter Cooke at yesterday's carbon plant launch.080402JL02 Picture: JARED LYNCH

.......................

Postscript #1

We notice this press release from Senator Milne (Greens):

Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2008 11:10 AM

Otways carbon storage pointless PR, bad Budget decision

Hobart, Wednesday 2 April 2008  Australian Greens climate change
spokesperson, Senator Christine Milne, today called on the Rudd
Government to stop paying polluters by subsidising projects such as the
Otways carbon storage project being opened today.

Senator Milne said "The Otways project is yet another attempt to
demonstrate the safety of carbon storage while bypassing the really
difficult aspect of proving that carbon can be effectively and
affordably captured at coal fired power stations.

"The storage of CO2 stripped from natural gas that will be done at the
Otways is tiny in comparison to similar projects that are already being
done overseas and will add little to our understanding of whether carbon
can indeed be stored permanently and nothing to our understanding of
whether significant carbon capture is possible.

"Years after being first proposed as Australia's carbon solution, there
has still been no pilot plant demonstration of capture technology. Like
cold fusion and 'Generation 4' nuclear power, carbon capture is always
just over the horizon, while renewable energy technologies move ahead in
leaps and bounds, even without the tremendous government support.

 "The leader of the Otways project, Peter Cook, has admitted that this
technology will always be too expensive to retrofit onto existing old
power stations and new infrastructure will need to be built. If that is
the case, surely we should leapfrog straight into the renewable energy
technologies which don't create pollution in the first place.
 
"The Otways project is government-funded PR for the coal sector and
would be a perfect place to start for a government looking to find
Budget cuts.

"Instead of paying polluters to keep being able to justify their
existence, the Government should use its first Budget to shift funding
away from coal, oil and roads across to renewable energy, energy
efficiency and public transport."

Ferguson out of line on coal, uranium

Martin Ferguson, Minister for Resources and Energy, is undermining any
credibility the Rudd Government has on climate change, Senator Milne
warned, and must be pulled into line.

Senator Milne said, "While the Prime Ministerial cat is away, the mice
will play, and Martin Ferguson is taking the opportunity to raise his
environmentally destructive flag once again.

"Martin Ferguson's vision that we can run our car fleet on liquidised
coal is undoubtedly playing a key role in his proud support of the
Otways project. He is fast-tracking funding to this horrendously
polluting transport fuel while his Rudd Government colleagues talk up
their commitment to climate action.

"Ferguson has also taken the opportunity of Prime Minister Rudd's
overseas trip to resurrect the Howard Government's Uranium Industry
Framework, pushing the boundaries on an issue that has already
threatened to split the ALP. Mr Rudd must pull him into line."

Contact: Tim Hollo on 0437 587 562

Notes:

* The Otways project will attempt to store some 100,000 tonnes of
CO2 stripped from natural gas over the course of 18 months.
* In comparison, a similar project in Algeria being undertaken by
BP is storing around 1,000,000 tonnes each year.
* The other major storage projects, Sleipner and Snohvit in
Norway, also involve storing CO2 stripped from natural gas.
* There is no project anywhere in the world storing CO2 stripped
from coal at power stations.

* The dreams of effective geosequestration were dealt a
significant blow earlier this year when plans for the world's first
integrated carbon capture and storage project, FutureGen in the USA,
were put on hold due to being well over budget and behind schedule. The
Australian Government had invested in FutureGen.
* The ZeroGen project in Queensland, Australia's pin up for
demonstrating carbon capture, is still several years from commissioning.

* There are a raft of major issues with liability for potential
leakage that are yet to be worked through. With an issue that will
require permanent storage, will companies or governments bear the
long-term liability?

* Even at best estimates, geosequestration could only capture
70-90% of emissions from coal fired power stations.
* This means that geosequestration cannot provide a long-term
solution for the complete decarbonisation that is necessary in the
coming decades. It can only provide a very expensive and risky
short-term option.


Tim Hollo
Media and Communications Adviser
Senator Christine Milne
+61 (0)2 6277 3063
+61 (0) 437 587 562
www.christinemilne.org.au

Posted by editor at 12:02 PM NZT

Updated: Friday, 23 May 2008 12:57 PM NZT

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Mood:  accident prone

Today the Big Media have indeed gone big exposing a controversial art show:  Apparently the Sydney Morning Herald ran a smallish report yesterday in the wake of Ork's demise noting the photographic exihibition featured some naked adolescents. But today it's a really big front page Daily Telegraph story as well, day time tv, radio, the works.

It all reminds us of Clive Hamilton's crusade against sexualised children in retail advertising, leading to legal threats against him for inflammatory accusations. The legal threats have been withdrawn recently.

By incredible coincidence the usually (but not always) family friendly SBS Inspector Rex ran a drama script just last night about the tough subject of child kidnap and porn. The script writers did it very well and understated too getting the social problem across to the viewers with a child actor similar to the infamous UK Maddie kidnaping and probably murder which hit the global media. (To be honest we switched over for a while realising what a grim subject matter it was, too stressful.) The show had a happy ending appropriate to an 8-8.30pm time slot.

So what is innocent artistic representation as distinct from exploitation/predatory? We leave that to others to battle over at least for now.

What we want to comment about is the perfect storm of surrounding political context:

- Ork the ex MP's conviction and sentencing yesterday on the heinous charge of child sex/predation, former NSW Aboriginal Affairs Minister

- Linda Burney MP, as acting NSW Arts Minister (?) accused of travel rorts to Cannes, former Aboriginal Affairs bureaucrat and pollie now in seat of Canterbury close ally of Iemma in neighbouring seat

- sectors of Aboriginal society have the scourge of child molestation as a high profile tough problem to deal with in remote or isolated communities in a cycle of poverty.

- the mature audience for Bill Henson's photo show in East Sydney involving naked adolescent images tends to include so called (at least as a stereotype) 'Labor Luvvie' segment of the arts crowd which Burney/Sartor etc guard jealously as a constituency

- this arts constituency are largely gathered right now at the Sydney Writers Festival not so far away in The Rocks/Millers Point venue, and will be all a twitter about high level conceptual debates over what is art.

- indeed the ABC are running features about great and good writers from the writers festival, not least the tv news 2 nights back on The Ernies book sledging various public and media figures over sexism to women. This is an agenda likely to court revenge tactics in the big media. (We couldn't resist publishing about the Ernies' authors' mixed record on other matters of public/political morals.)

- As if to tempt fate, or rather bait ALP sympathetic 'arty farty' crowd at the Writer's Festival (eg Yvette Andrews/Meredith Burgmann authors of the The Ernies, Bob Carr and Maxine McKew tomorrow), the Daily Telegraph then ran a story front page about an entertainer accused of slutty behaviour entertaining the troops (as Bob Hope really did do with very different spin because he was a man?). Apparently it's all a right wing defence fantasy about the shapely woman who denies the trash talk completely. Didn't happen. Too much sun on the soldier boys perhaps.

Which all brings us back to the attack on arty nakedness albeit in highly expert techniques at the Bill Henson show. The technical expertise is no resolution of the moral controversy (eg recall Leni Riefenstahl's NAZI awesome propaganda films were quite morally bankrupt). Immense craft and talent is not a moral free pass.

It's not just about art folks. It's about right and wrong, and political context. All these threads twist and combine in a multi-faceted tsunami of big media interest likely to saturate the next several media cycles.And maybe that's just bad luck for those involved.

PM Rudd has bought into the issue too already in the last hour on daytime tv. Looking very much like a leader getting ahead of the curve ball. Bring on the sunshine and fresh air. A culture of openness and not just over child protection issues, for all politics (eg FoI) would be good.

Posted by editor at 10:34 AM NZT

Updated: Friday, 23 May 2008 9:46 PM NZT

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Mood:  sharp

We were instructed as a public interest lawyer last week by Jane Azzopardi, a local land holder at Mangrove Mountain, regarding what she regards as irregularities in decision making over Coca Cola bottling plant.

By a genuine coincidence Ian Cohen MP (Green Party) has issued this today, and notwithstanding the technical glitch by way of correction, Coca Cola have some big questions to answer (see further below):

Media Release from Ian Cohen MLC                                      
                                        21st May 2008
 
CORRECTION:
 
NSW Government joins in Coca Cola greenwash
 
Please note the corrections in paragraph 2 of this release. Coca Cola
Amatil are drawing on the aquifer at Mangrove Mountain, however the
company state that the percentage of the resource they are directly
responsible for extracting is 1 – 2% of the total water allocation.
Please note also that Coca Cola’s bottling ratio for water production
is 1.3 litres of water to make 1 finished litre of bottled water. Our
initial release claimed incorrectly that Coca Cola use 2.4 litres in the
bottling process to produce 1 litre of water. The 2.4 litre figure cited
in our original release refers to an analysis of the consumption of
bottled water over the product’s life, conducted by National Campaign
Coordinator for the Boomerang Alliance, Dave West. This figure refers to
water consumed in the packaging, production and disposal of the
product.
 
The Minister for Emergency Services and Water - Nathan Rees – has
taken time out of his schedule to visit Coca Cola - a major donor - and
present them with a 5-star rating for water management.
 
“It’s quite ironic that Coca Cola have been given recognition for
water efficiency at one of their plants in Sydney yesterday. An analysis
of the consumption of bottled water over the product’s life, reveals
that at least 2.4 litres of water is used for every litre of bottled
water consumed,” said Upper House Greens MP Ian Cohen. 

 “The Department of Environment and Climate Change – of which Nathan
Rees was temporarily the Minister for – banned bottled water use
within their department at the end of last year citing the environmental
costs of production, transportation, refrigeration and disposal.
 
“DECC calculated that about 200ml of oil is used to produce each
litre bottle of water, including in the plastic, transportation and
refrigeration. More than 60,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions enter
the atmosphere each year from the consumption of 250 million litres of
bottled water in Australia – equivalent to the emissions from 13,000
cars.
 
“Clean Up Australia claim that 2.7 million tonnes of plastic are used
to bottle water around the world annually and that Australians buy
118,000 tonnes of plastic drink bottles a year but only recycle 35 per
cent of them. Thanks in part to Coca Cola’s ongoing opposition to
Container Deposit Legislation, the remaining 76,700 tonnes either goes
to landfill or ends up as litter.
 
“Dave West from the Boomerang Alliance says that drinking tap water
instead of bottled for just one year, will produce 75% less waste,
consume 85% less energy and will reduce water consumption by 58%.
 
Ian Cohen recently called for a moratorium on all political donations
from beverage companies, particularly whilst a national review of the
viability of a container deposit scheme is underway. Coca Cola have
donated over $900,000 to the ALP over the last nine years.
 
“Voluntary waste management schemes have consistently failed to
achieve targets for recycling and resource recovery. It’s time for
container deposit legislation,” said Mr Cohen.
 
Further Information: Ian Cohen: 0409 989 466 or Nic Clyde on 0417 742 754

Minister Nathan Rees, NSW Government

...................

Our instructions are that Gosford Council are contesting giant corporation Coca Cola's right to permanent approval of 66 Megalitres of water a year on the basis that the company has not undertaken a court ordered 2 year trial by Commissioner Tim Moore, at that level of extraction intensity. CC have instead only extracted 37 Megalitres (on average) which sort of defeats the purpose of the trial base line data and monitoring plan of the Land & Environment Court.

As we understand it CC and Gosford Council have already drafted development consent conditions for the full 66 Megalitre water extraction without having really done the trial set out by the court.

That's a bit sly to our ear. It's suggestive CC don't want a real trial at full extraction rates because they know they will never get full approval at that rate with true baseline data for that intensity. Indeed we are told by a local that after 2 months of pumping at a rate of some 66 Megalitres the water table plummeted below the 7 metre cap to 10 metres hence the company backed off, but now it's game on.

We have learned that Peter Campbell a semi retired local business man and critic of Coca Cola and the process in Gosford Council planning section side stepping the Court regime has spoken on 2GB Sydney radio yesterday for about 15 minutes about this state of affairs as a member of Mangrove Mountain District Community Group. 

Especially the perceived inconsistency of Minister Rees's green friendly endorsement of CC in light of the concerns over an insufficient trial potentially impacting the livelihood of other agricultural business people in the Mangrove Mountain area.

What on earth is actually going on here Sally? Exploiting the temporary upswing in coastal rainfall before La Nino drought conditions bites again to avoid strict conditions from the Land & Environment Court? Say it isn't so Sally.

Loane ... Coke's new spin doctor in chief.
Photo: Fiona-Lee Quimby

Recent media on related topics here:

7.30 Report - 19/09/2005: Stoush brewing over spring water

23-24.2.08 Message on a bottle labelled as greenwash - Environment - smh.com.au

23.2.08 Return to sender, or many unhappy returns? Sydney Morning Herald

24.4.07 Disaster in a bottle - Environment - smh.com.au

18.4.08 www.smh.com.au - Bottle refund inquiry but no plastic bag deal

23.4.08 Everest of containers must stop, Cr Ingrid Strewe Mayor of Waverley in Wentworth Courier  p36

22.3.08 Hard to swallow misleading criticism of bottled water industry ... Letters , SMH

25.3.08 Bottled water: the new social poison? Julian Lee, Marketing Reporter, p1 Sydney Morning Herald

19.8.07 The real cost of bottled water - National - theage.com.au By Jason Koutsoukis

23 Feb 2008 Water way to earn the big bucks, 2 page feature Sydney Daily Telegraph

Posted by editor at 5:15 PM NZT

Updated: Thursday, 22 May 2008 11:39 AM NZT

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Mood:  don't ask

The Big Media are as the tag implies going big on a protest against kangaroo culling in Canberra. We lived there 1983 - 1990 including lots of bushwalking in the relevant area. It's mostly a set up drawing the animal protection lobby into action and anxiety and then dumping on them as per this set of articles:

20 May 08 p1 picture story 'Little joey stuck in middle of slaughter'

20 May 08 A dead roo or two - who cares? | The Daily Telegraph

We don't want to say much about the heartfelt protests of animals rights and/or welfare people in Canberra. It's their argument for their local politics to resolve. Even if it is federal owned land run by a national organisation.

Why is it only a local issue you say? Because some 3 to 5 million kangaroos are 'culled' every year by the kangaroo pet food and skins industry, variable depending on drought conditions. Endorsed by every govt of both major parties state and federal. In other words the biggest wildlife slaughter on the planet is hardly affected either way by what happens in Canberra's suburban bush:

The 2005 Commercial Kangaroo harvest quota

In December 2004, the Australian Minister for Environment and Heritage, Senator Ian Campbell, approved commercial kangaroo harvesting quotas for 2005 totalling around 3.9 million. This is a decrease of 0.5 million animals from the quota approved in 2004. This decrease in quota is related to the drop in kangaroo populations associated with widespread drought in eastern Australia over recent years.

The 2005 quota represents about 16 per cent (between 14 per cent and 20 per cent) of estimated populations of the four kangaroo species that are commercially harvested. The scientific community and State management agencies consider that annual harvest levels in the order of 15 per cent of the populations for Grey kangaroos and Wallaroos, and 20 per cent of Red kangaroo populations are sustainable.

Eastern Australia has undergone severe drought in recent years and, because the primary driver of kangaroo populations is rainfall, kangaroo numbers in eastern Australia have declined as a result. Populations of some species in NSW and QLD have declined by nearly 30% per cent between the 2003 and 2004 surveys, Populations of other species in NSW and QLD and all species in South Australia have increased (between 1% and 33%). In Western Australia populations of Red kangaroos have declined slightly, while Western Grey kangaroos have increased.

 

We have written about this before with some very serious concerns about health in a less controlled wild compared to agri meat production system, and also genetic impact on targeting of alpha males. We understand for instance that the legendary Big Red Kangaroo is practically non existent, with critters barely a few years old ever surviving until the inevitable bullet:

 Friday, 18 May 2007 The tricky kangaroo meat debate - next course
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: health

Monday, 14 May 2007

Lethal hydatid in kangaroo offal/meat via dog vector is a real worry to us, but not for industry group
Mood:  blue
Topic: ecology

 

This level and pattern of shooting has got to be bad for the genetic health of species until the inevitable climate, disease or other impact threatens a whole population. That's our evolutionary ecology degree coming through.

And here is another ecological aspect. If there is a local overpopulation problem from the kangaroos say from artificial water sources and lack of natural predators then a solution which might set a few people back on their heels is ... reintroduce natural predators. There are some major public safety implications of wild dingos in Canberra, but as this ABC documentary makes very clear with fascinating insight

Strange Days On Planet Earth - Predators, 8:35pm Tuesday, 15 Jan 2008 

with wolves and deer in Yellowstone National Park, general ecological health depends on the presence of top order predators. Nature is full of pain and death like that. All power to the vegetarians amongst us reducing greenhous impacts in their diet, but it remains the case nature is not vegetarian.

Posted by editor at 4:02 PM NZT

Updated: Wednesday, 21 May 2008 4:38 PM NZT

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Mood:  a-ok

It's not that Brendan Nelson as Opposition Leader is not doing his best, it simply appears Turnbull is better.

Albrechtsen in the The Australian lends her voice from the loyal Liberal side to a change. This speech to a packed audience will only add to the feeling. Smart high achieving wife Lucy Turnbull is there, and the high level press are set to thinking. The Q&A section will be pretty hot.

And we notice Turnbull has no problem with reading where needed to give a long speech. Pretty normal that. It shows real preparation like PM Rudd.

Meanwhile over at Planet ALP local press carries the amusing graphic of Minister Albanese with infrastructure 'toy box' while everyone knows this is no game, with $5 billion truck tunnels and cancer causing ventilation stacks (a message Treasurer Wayne Swan as a survivor surely understands) slated for AA's own seat of Grayndler:

1 May 2007 $5b secret road under Sydney | The Daily Telegraph

Posted by editor at 2:50 PM NZT

Updated: Wednesday, 21 May 2008 6:46 PM NZT

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