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Monday, 28 July 2008

Comment: Coalition Opposition lurch to brown defies European re-insurance industry?
Mood:

sharp
Topic: aust govt

The Federal Coalition Opposition seem to be forgetting the soft power of the global reinsurance industry.

Swiss Re and Munich Re etc control trillion$ in assets worldwide as per this ABC Background Briefing show in 2005:

The Business of Climate Change Sunday 16 October 2005

And this industry sector knows that it's not worth writing re-insurance policies for the domestic insurance industry (think former HIH and every other insurance company here) for any country that does not have world class global warming policies.

The statistics on massive storm insurance losses makes this financial approach a business imperative for the global re-insurance industry. This is what a leading re-insurance sector representative said back in 2005 when climate change science was far more contentious and arguable:

"As head of the geo risks division at Munich Re, the world's largest insurer of insurance companies, Peter Hoeppe sizes up the threat of tropical cyclones, floods and tsunamis like a Las Vegas bookmaker tries to pick the winner of the Super Bowl.
And increasingly, Hoeppe's biggest worry is not when the fabled big one will shake California, or the next Hurricane Andrew will steamroll Florida.
It's global warming, which he believes is already costing the $US3trillion ($4trillion) insurance industry.
Worldwide disaster losses have been rising for the past half a century, even when inflation is factored in - and Munich Re asserts climate change is at least partly to blame.
Insured disaster losses last year totalled $US44 billion, the most expensive year yet for the industry, the German reinsurer says.
Overall disaster losses were $US114.5 billion, the second-highest total.
By contrast, disaster losses, adjusted to 2004 values, were about $US40 billion in 1980 and $US10.5 billion in 1951.
Worldwide disaster losses have been rising for the past half a century, even when inflation is factored in - and Munich Re asserts climate change is at least partly to blame.
Insured disaster losses last year totalled $US44 billion, the most expensive year yet for the industry, the German reinsurer says.
Overall disaster losses were $US114.5 billion, the second-highest total.
By contrast, disaster losses, adjusted to 2004 values, were about $US40 billion in 1980 and $US10.5 billion in 1951.
"Single events can never prove climate change. But like a stone in a mosaic, if you get enough of them, you begin to see a full picture," said Hoeppe, who leads a team of 25 meteorologists, hydrologists, geologists and economists that studies the global cost of calamity.
"We have seen dramatic increases in damage from weather events. Something is changing in the atmosphere. There is no other explanation."
Sceptics, including some climate scientists who believe in global warming, wonder whether some insurers are talking up the threat of climate change to raise rates. And most American insurers are more concerned about terrorism than the weather.
Nevertheless, although most insurers do not believe climate change is eroding their bottom line, many are growing concerned that it could in years to come if predictions prove correct and extreme weather becomes more common in a warmer world heated by greenhouse gases.
Last week, for example, the Association of British Insurers, a trade group representing about 400 companies, predicted the worldwide cost of major storms could rise by as much as two-thirds by 2080 because of global warming, raising average annual losses to $US27 billion by today's valuations."
in
Global warming costs us: reinsurer - Business - Business - smh.com.au reporting the Los Angeles Times 7 July 2005

Then see this in 2006:

28 August 2006 BBC NEWS | Business | Insurance firms weather the storm

Now look at this from July 2008 where this industry observer is suitably agnostic but the figures are ramping up the pressure to freeze out economies that don't co-operate in global action.

When storms turn political July 2008 With the prospect of high hurricane activity and pressure to keep rates low, reinsurers face a growing need to mitigate their risks, as Bob Ward explains. [from Global Reinsurance website]

We won't be able to hide under GW Bush's skirts for much longer either with both McCain and Obama supporting more action on climate change, not less.

In this sense Australia is not 'leading the world' with it's Emissions Trading Scheme (now Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme) but following the majority of the rest of the developed (read European) world.

By contrast GW Bush's USA economic disfunctionality is hardly a useful counter model to take our economic settings from.

If the Federal Coalition play chicken with the European controllers of the global (re) insurance industry and they withdraw re-insurance support to Australia the social and legal chaos that will follow will make the collapse of HIH look like a picnic:

14 January 2008 HIH founder free but pain lingers | NEWS.com.au
and here back at the start
HIH Insurance - 31/05/2001 - QWN - NSW Parliament

Unlike PM Malcolm Fraser's slogan of the 1982-83 election regarding "not waiting for the world" -

as per Insiders programme yesterday 28 July 2008 here
Last Update: Sunday 27 July 2008
This week on Insiders
Barrie and the panel discuss how the coalition will respond to the Government's plan to push forwards with emissions trading and whether internal divisions will undermine the effectiveness of the Opposition.
Watch: Real Lo | Real Hi | Win Lo | Win Hi

..... in reality Australia is playing catchup well behind the Europeans who control our insurance coverage. Given the shaky US economy and the election of a new US president later in 2008 means we must throw our lot in with Europe and so should the Coalition Opposition in Federal Parliament. To do otherwise is being highly irresponsible and putting the Australian economy at risk of a fatal brush with global political economic forces.

It would be nothing for Munich Re or Swiss Re to withdraw their re-insurance support for a distant 21 million population country and write our economy off. In fact they must be quite tempted to do so already given the active sabotage by the Howard Govt of Kyoto reforms. The Coalition Opposition should not tempt fate over the economic future of Australia by flirting with a super 'HIH collapse' scenario.

Posted by editor at 2:29 PM NZT

Updated: Monday, 28 July 2008 9:37 PM NZT

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Sunday, 27 July 2008

Sunday Political talkies: Coalition finally confess real climate policy after 13 years - do nothing
Mood:

chatty
Topic: aust govt

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 and/or video feeds go to web sites quoted including Riley Diary on 7. And note transcripts don’t really give you the image content value.

Media backgrounders

- Good Weekend on Marius Kloppers 45 – father died young, a common trait of high achievers – reminds of uni buddy – small perfectly formed, amoral, endlessly charming, 5 languages, driven by personal ambition – endlessly adapatable change capable man for the 21C. Good feature missed some tough questions – wife missing in action from story as are usual pics of kids. Security conscious guy. 6-8 coffees a day vegetarian. Alpha male, 2 years national service, part of Mandela’s transition year when it counted – that’s his saving grace. Accepts global warming as a reality for …. Adaptation.

- Good John Garnaut feature on BHP stalking Rio Tinto and Chinese Iron and Steel Association (CISA) – real heavy political economy analysis.

- Geof Dixon looking as old as the Qantas jet that blew a panel and took a 20K fall

- Alan Ramsey in Sydney Morning Herald - after several cracking articles natural resource issues - on Murray Darling policy/market failure, climate change and other federal government dodginess - get's punished perhaps 26 July 08 with a half sized column after (arguably) botching the stats on carbon dioxide emissions in his opening paragraph 8 days back (or so the rival Strewth column in The Oz asserted.) Ouch. Hang in there Big Al. A long view is appreciated here at least.

- Peter Lloyd everywhere. Talk about let himself down, but he can make his way back to self respect. Time starts now champ got to get to the bottom to go up.

- Right wing opinion writers Devine, Bolt, Tim Blair, Duffy all in neurosis over global warming policy reality.

- Saturday press flattering of Sunday 9, just glad it’s not them maybe, real sadness here, though won’t miss 7.30am starts.

- Australian Story has ‘red rag’ Premier Anna Bligh with ALP in pre emptive mode but will it work? – almost unsellable package by the looks, banana party has formed as LNP too.

-Michelle Grattan has the best take on Costello in Sun Herald today – giving comfort to Nelson over Turnbull, to hang tough on global warming. But does Costello really believe it or just being opportunistic to keep Turnbull parked? Parking Turnbull I would say, ready to move at any time over the next several months to October book release.

- Our piece on WYD/Costa/’Jane’about a vulnerable colleague shoved into the Kiloh Centre psych ward for a week and out of the way got some reaction (?) next day in the press with another ‘Jane’ turning up in The Oz, and police locking up an insane man who died of an ‘ulcer’. Maybe he really did.

- News Limited by name and nature – picture in due course of Saturday Telegraph of picfac with Bishop Fisher but conviction of paedophile priest relegated to obscure position in same press edition. That’s what sponsorship conflict of interest does to news values. Compare Adam Spencer breaking a story mid week on abc 702. Bravo the latter, boo the former.

- Good Weekend carries this public health advert at bottom right which is pretty hard hitting in our view, while the other 3 images show the grog, diet and healthy exercise messages bound to promote a neurotic public courtesy of ... you guessed it News Limited Sydney Sunday Telegraph:

9 Sunday 7.30 – 9.30 am

Proud but beaten by profit psychosis of corporate capitalism natural enemy of good journalism. Ellen looking strong – lighter Sunrise on 7 wins – as per cute underfed (!?) stand in on 9 for Usher, Allison Langdon, seen her in the pack before at Redfern - Carol Thomas memorial for her son TJ. Stalker survivor. Saturday press is flattering as it should for 27 year run.

Nice story for sound recordists on quiet place in national park.

Ross Greenwood – web technology research from Oz – strong story

Catchup on Obama US presidentials soft spoken Bruce Wolpe Fairfax – good Obama backer.

Main feature behind the razor wire on affect of children. Big and true story. Interesting choice of public interest for Sunday 9 machine on the way out. Bravo. Feature really drives the nail in to Howard/Ruddock policy of mandatory detention of children.

Virginnia Leong in story – met her once at Federal Court. Child Naomi has psychological troubles with growing and learning. Footage nails ex minister Ruddock on willful ignorance of expert reports. Dead bat doesn’t work for him. Basis of big comp deals here for Naomi etc need speech therapy.

Macdonalds crap advert in favour of Beijing Olympics sanitizing the brutal dictatorship there.

Laurie Oakes with ex journo federal MP Turnbull cracking question – what would he Kerry Packer have thought about show winding up? Very commercial guy due honour to appear 2^nd last show etc.

Onto ‘forensics’ – far too rushed on GW says MT, should wait for new US president, and Copenhagen UN conference (doesn’t ring true).

LO refers to fillerbustering – what is your policy? MT goes through the motions but says wait till 2012 waiting for a global agreement [Flaw is that never will be, has to be demonstrated, and forced with trade etc soft power.]

“John Howard wasn’t known for being too green, that’s for sure” suggests that the direction under Nelson etc. Costello heading the same way so no hope there for embrace of the age of transition.

MT talks up LNG [but govt has shifted on that already.] Says it will replace dirtier coal – but more likely just increase consumption, as unlimited demand.

Strong question re leadership implications of greenhouse policy? Turnbull looking isolated which is a pity.

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

10 Meet the Press: 8- 8-30 am

Lead in about Peter Costello in 2007. PB back in chair.

Tony Abbott – right spear carrier. Costello has backed anti greenhouse reform forces, underpins Nelson on leash. Abbott trying to hose down “idle speculation” thinks it’s good he is still there, good if he came back, his call.

Footage Rudd bipartisan call re climate change. Conservatives versus progressives – ie wedged?

TA counters on Govt dithering. Wrong on opposition can stall on their own policies – blatant spin.

Careful to stroke Rupert Murdoch as minimalist believer.

PB – 20 years since Rio even.

Merger up north – got their act together. Sigh of relief.

Panel is ACrabb Fairfax – looking GOOD. Tick tick tick, and I don’t mean the 60 Minutes clock either. Topic is intervention issue in NT. At least 5 years. Great question on non racial welfare quarantine. TA stands very firm, roll it out rest of Australia.

Andrew Probyn of West Australian, sounds smart, got a UK lint to him. TA says stunt re constitutional change for Indigenous.

Back on to global warming – TA takes populist line – “devil’s own job in front of him”. AC has head tilt – she’s gorgeous! Kerry Obrien style question – ironic to support JH over PC now supporting PC.

[does turn on global warming and TA anti ecology attitudes, get over it Tony, Peter Woof uni politics was 30 years ago for God sake].

2^nd half re alco pops etc. Nick Xenophon, new senator, cross bench. Vigorous guy, media tart with some serious messages. Water for Murray and no pokies – 2 trick horse? Serious issues – true. Claims an intellectual dimension which is fair enough. AC – South Oz background – small state type. Mmm.

Look out AC – rear view camera angle, no worries, watch the slouch correction!

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

Riley Diary 7, 8.35 am

Riley Diary today – seems not. Looking after the kids on holidays probably. Great footage for lighter moment.

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

Picture: John Belushi? Paul Keating? A cool banana,or pineapple perhaps. A spiv escaped from the local used car yard? The dusty old press pile produced this gem last week from the federal election 2007 - so recent yet so long ago.

Insiders 2: 9- 10am

Milne in beat up story – part time electorate office worker, party worker, obviously policy adviser type person. Gallery version of ambulance chasing.

Merger in Qld. Panel is Kerry Anne Walsh, Toohey, Milne.

Footage of Rudd on greenhouse. Hunt as shadow environment – talented guy, but looking isolated and neutered as per all Coalition environment ministers. Worst job in Opposition, even more than the leader?

Talks up “clean air issues”. Rudd soft on India and China, sounds good. Messed up clean sector, lng, cng and solar. Again talks a good game. Like Mal Turnbull on 9 refers to showdown meeting this week.

BC tests him out on Nelson policy shifts – Hunt talks a good game, should work for anyone else really – climate institute?

Bangs on, talks a smooth game, looks under pressure as he takes free kick against Defence Minister ramping the rhetoric reeling Iemma into dodgy NSW sinecurocracy. Guffaws from panel breaks the silence.

……………………………………..

Segue to everyperson segement. Small business folks. Talk about India and China be pressured. [Got it wrong though] Conservatives. Turnbull preferred as leader.

Chat about Hunt interview – want to be out while China and India stay out.

Great archival footage of Fraser slogan - not waiting for the world which flopped apparently. BC notes many in Coalition thinking better to wait in fact. [The problem for them is the developed world as in Europe is not waiting for us - The global insurance industry like Swiss Re and Munich Re will foreclose on our economy, withdraw insurance cover for lack of valid GHG policies and make the HIH collapse look like a legal picnic.]

[So the truth finally arises after 12 long years of Howard that Coalition were always ‘out’ as economic satellite of export market clients in Asia, and follow that music. Everything till then was a ruse and a sabotage inside the Kyoto tent.

So now we at least have Coalition honesty about party of skeptics. That’s true and that’s the rump on that side of the wedge for them. It’s an ALP and Green Party future for Australia and big business should jump in that direction now.]

Kelly soliloquy – Nelson is browner than Howard, frontal assault on Rudd strategy. [true – taking the xenophobic line]. Notes moderates have heartburn. Logic in political strategy but high risk, banking on new narrative about cost of living, significant opening voters blue collar workers, resource states, RARA land won’t buy. Great risk is Rudd will say party of skeptics, ALP in middle ground, try and deal with problem in economically responsible way.

Toohey refers to California and popular big Arnie [true but Australia more generally not like Californication populace].

Cost of electricity will still fall as share of household income. Chat about politics of populism coming back on Rudd re cost of living. Senate could save Rudd by rejecting the ETS.

Grab from MTP with TA – quite wrong to have policy before govt. Fair enough says panel – WRONG – Opposition can decide their own policy timing if they have real credibility. Wait and see is rubbish.

Strong comment by Toohey – Brit company wanted to mine coal seam gas with ETS of ALP. Swan footage against endless corporate welfare. Milne agrees this is Bob Brown point too.

Analysis of Costello leadership prospects.

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

Posted by editor at 12:28 PM NZT

Updated: Monday, 28 July 2008 9:39 PM NZT

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Saturday, 26 July 2008

Bumper crop of submissions for Coca Cola Bottled Water Case from Intervenor Diamond
Mood:

chatty
Topic: legal

Last Friday we submitted 97 paragraphs of honed, refined argument only exceeded by our grasp of the policy, legal nuance and contradictions of the whole sorry affair of over allocation of water licences at Peats Ridge, Mangrove Mountain. Well maybe. We wish as agent for intervenor Diamond.

The full text of the pro bono submissions document filed and served yesterday 25 July 2008 (in preparation for the callover on Tuesday morning 29th July 2008 at the Land & Environment Court of NSW) can be found here:

25 July 2008 Outline of submissions on Coca Cola legal appeal to delete 66ML/YR Trial at Peats Ridge

Previous postings on this topic can be found here:

Friday, 25 July 2008
Open letter of complaint to ACCC about Coca Cola Amatil deception on 'spring water' at Peats Ridge
Mood: sharp
Topic: legal
Friday, 18 July 2008
Coca Cola water bottling case: Letter to expert evidence "gatekeepers" re science of Sydney sandstone
Mood: a-ok
Topic: legal
Friday 18 July 2008 - Is this how Coca Cola pick and choose their expert evidence to destroy Peats Ridge Springs?
Mood: blue
Topic: legal
Tuesday, 15 July 2008
Coca Cola Water Bottling Case: Mystery Green Folder found with critical evidence for court expert Lane
Mood: a-ok
Topic: legal
Saturday, 5 July 2008
Coca Cola water bottling Case, Peats Ridge Springs: Objector gets a chance to be heard
Mood: chatty
Topic: legal
Friday, 4 July 2008
Coca Cola water bottling at Peats Ridge Springs Case: Decision today in Land Env Court on party joinder
Mood: chatty
Topic: legal
4 July 2008 - Coca Cola Amatil caught out breaching bulk export condition in trial at Peats Ridge Springs?
Mood: sharp
Friday, 27 June 2008
Coca Cola water bottling case: Draft short order of minutes for court consideration today
Mood: chatty
Topic: legal
Friday, 27 June 2008
Coca Cola water bottling case: Community Objector submissions to Justice Pain today 3 pm
Mood: chatty
Topic: legal
Tuesday 24 June 2008 - Does Coca Cola bottled water at Peats Ridge have a chook poo contamination problem in the future?
Mood: not sure
Topic: health
24 June 2008 Coca Cola's nominated, and court appointed expert 'blinks' twice on report deadline?
Friday, 13 June 2008
Environmental agitator seeks to join legal action against Coca Cola at Peats Ridge Springs, NSW
Mood: a-ok
Topic: nsw govt
1 June 2008 Coca Cola Amatil bottled water legals: Ratepayers force reversal by Gosford Council so far
1 June 2008 Objecter seeks to be heard in Coca Cola bottled water case after driest May on record
21 May 2008 Coca Cola in Environment Court on 6 June over Mangrove Mtn bottled water extraction

Posted by editor at 7:45 PM NZT

Updated: Saturday, 26 July 2008 8:38 PM NZT

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Friday, 25 July 2008

Open letter of complaint to ACCC about Coca Cola Amatil deception on 'spring water' at Peats Ridge
Mood:

sharp
Topic: legal

Dear ACCC Complaints officer

We write as agent for an intervenor Neville Diamond in the Land & Environment Court proceedings 10429 of 2005, current in 2008 called David Kettle Consulting [agent for Coca Cola Amatil] v Gosford City Council. Diamond was made an official Intervenor in judgement by Justice Nicola Pain on 4th July 2008, which is less than a full party, more than a bystander, actually limited participant in proceedings.

Our concern is that our legal and media research over the last several months has indicated the CCA subsidiary Peats Ridge Springs Pty Ltd which is its business signage, and trading name, and common name of its business location on Mangrove Mountain near Gosford, and has been at least for some years in advertising on their bottled water product, is NOT spring water. If we are right then this is a breach of section 52 of the Trade Practices Act and equivalent NSW fair trading legislation.

That is to say the company in court documents fully concede the water is pumped from multiple bores to source what used to be a spring fed creek up until the early 1990ies but which till then permanent waterway has been wrecked by over consumption.

The Australian Macquarie Dictionary Third Edition, defines a spring in this context as

"34. an issue of water from the earth, flowing away as a small stream or standing as a pool or small lake, or the place of such an issue: mineral springs"

The local food growing farmers and horticulturalists quite reasonably accuse the CCA/PRS of producing "bore water" as per minutes of a public meeting in 2006 not spring water as a result. In 2006 CCA was successful in litigation in getting permission to lower the local water table 5 metres deeper into the ground (in the drilling jargon from 10m to 15m from case collar). Their bore apparently reaches 70 metres into Peats Ridge/Mangrove Mountain.

The locals now describe the once permanent creek, once permanent groundwater dependent flora and wildlife "as a bare paddock".

Interestingly CCA on print out of their website earlier this year refer only to "Peats Ridge Water" as their product line. Refer http://www.ccamatil.com.au/australianProducts.asp

But they maintain on another webpage "Peats Ridge Springs, Peats Ridge (water bottling only)". This suggests to us the corporation is alive to the misdescription of product issue but continue to play in the grey legal area while they can, having destroyed the un named watercourse on their site. Refer http://www.ccamatil.com.au/bottledwater.asp

Could you please advise what documentary or other evidence you need to progress an official investigation into our complaint on tel. ...... or 0410 55883 ......

Please also see this weblink for images of misnamed "Peats Ridge Springs" water product/business get up etc.

http://www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/blog/index.blog/1829489/open-letter-of-complaint-to-accc-about-coca-cola-amatil-deception-on-spring-water-at-peats-ridge/

Yours truly

Tom McLoughlin, agent for intervenor Diamond.

Posted by editor at 7:52 AM NZT

Updated: Friday, 25 July 2008 2:06 PM NZT

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Thursday, 24 July 2008

Treasurer Costa should walk a mile in 'Jane's' shoes ... a week in the Kiloh Centre psych ward for WYD
Mood:

sharp
Topic: nsw govt

Treasurer Costa has taken the political cowards path - parading his child and wife on the front page of the Daily Telegraph. Just as the Pope did a baby picture in the face of abuse whistleblowers. Just as every political figure at risk has done leveraging the innocence of childhood for their own selfish career and ambitions out of the pages of a PR-A01 text book.

Far from courageously ventilating the issue of mental health and his "14 medications a day" Costa should face up to the scathing analysis of such documentaries as Enron: Smartest guys in the room free on Google video (as posted below ... again). The experience of power privatisation in California to corporate spivs was an economic, industrial, social and in the end political disaster. Smart people learn from history and so does the labour, social justice and green movement.

Costa should face up to the profound issues of dangerous climate change leavened with the equally diabolical Global Dimming phenomenon caused by China's huge particulate pollution burden on the atmosphere.

We say this as legal tutor to our environmental colleague 'Jane' who lives independently but suffers chronic schizoophrenia this last 20 years. We visited her after a week at Prince of Wales Kiloh Centre during the hoo haa around Catholic World Youth Day. The event that Costa threw our tax dollars away for at the expense of every retailer in the CBD. She looked well fed, stable, calm, subdued and profoundly bored.

Personally I have no doubt Jane was whisked off the street at Macro Wholefoods in Bondi Junction and admitted to Kiloh so those nice pilgrims wouldn't be annoyed by a vulnerable harmless confused local. It was looking pretty crowded in there too.

Jane rang us this week, the day after WYD finished, to say she had just been allowed home. As we fully expected too. Suddenly the police are back to the usual duties and generally invisible again as they were before WYD. And Jane can enjoy her lentil soup in peace in her own home and watch her own tv and read her art books and visit her local shops in peace.

No thanks to such as Michael Costa and his devout mates like Premier Iemma. Maybe poor Jane should convert from secular Jewry to Catholicism next time?

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

Saturday, 17 May 2008
NSW public energy heist?: Enron 'smartest guys' free 109 min film on Google Video
Mood: special
Topic: nsw govt
As indicated in this profound film, staff of Enron (a US $65 billion corporation, 7th largest in the USA, which went bankrupt in 24 days in 2002) were regarded as the "best and brightest" in business. This has an eerie ring to it echoing a phrase for those selected for the recent 2020 summit blessed by PM Rudd.
PM Rudd also as it happens has endorsed the public energy sell off plan of the NSW Premier Morris Iemma who is in China as we write presumably to further progress the $15 billion sale 'the best and brightest idea' he can come up with for future governance of NSW! Enjoy (!?) the film. We will.
When you've digested that "magic of the market" and "de-regulation", have a look at this 60 minutes plus BBC doco on Youtube of the history of the public relations industry based on the theories of psychoanalyst Freud. It's a cracker.
And if you are still up for it this chestnut, less than one minute:

Posted by editor at 9:34 AM NZT

Updated: Thursday, 24 July 2008 10:38 AM NZT

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Monday, 21 July 2008

Comment on 'diabolical' interplay of Global Warming and Dimming
Mood:

blue
Topic: aust govt

See this article above: It's the global warming skeptics last throw of the scientific dice really via such as Andrew Bolt-er as per Insiders abc tv yesterday:

Book release reignites Costello leadership speculation The panel discusses how any emissions trading scheme will affect the Australian economy and the release of Christine Jackman's book on Kevin Rudd's election campaign. [Webcast available via their front page here http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/]

That's not to say Andrew doesn't have half a point but just not the one he thinks he has: What you can't see in the article in The Australian is the riposte of honest earth mother type Annabel Crabb (God love her): That the rise in global temperatures - 10 hottest years on record in the last 13 years - has indeed plateaued but at a much higher level than is natural.

Which brings us to 3 weeks back when Sunday 9 via Adam Shand - no no intellectual fool either - threw the same skeptic dice. Shand's feature 29 June 08 (curiously missing from their web archive) referred to the flipping of summer and winter in 1815 or so as proof scientists are arrogant to think they have all the answers - the year as Senator Bob Brown pointed out same show that Krakatoa blew it's top and the dust sent the global seasonal pattern haywire. That is cold summer, hot winter in Europe. A one off in fact, not a failure of science or the triumph of uncertainty but of extreme nature:

Interview: Bob Brown
June 29, 2008
Watch our report
This week, Ellen Fanning talks to Senator Bob Brown of the Greens about the new role of the Greens in the Senate and the impact of climate change. more

Which brings us back even further to Jonathan Holmes and 4 Corners presentation via BBC Horizons programme here, about a year ago [actually 3 years plus] presenting the real and intriguing phenomenon of Global Dimming - err sorry, what's that? It's particulate air pollution on a huge scale usually via dirty industrialisation attracting water droplets and thus cloud cover which in turn reflects the sun's warming rays and thus artificially reduces global temperatures.

Apparently scientists clued into this Global Dimming when they discovered that compared to the 50ies and 60ies a whopping 10% less sunlight was hitting the ground due to particulate pollution in the modern world. That's not only weird but bound to have climatic consequences - and it does:

Four Corners - 21/03/2005: Global Dimming

So get this implication of less particulates - from cleaner industry - and thus clean air for clean lungs means higher temperatures in a greenhouse gas polluted atmosphere tending to push up that way already.

Conversely dirty air meaning more particulates means more lung cancer and more cloud cover etc and a dampening of temperatures.

This suggests for want of a better term - The Slow Krakatoa of the Chinese (and probably Indian) particulate air pollution phenomenon no doubt correlating to their economic boom of the last 10 years.

Only anecdotal too but we recall one westerner report of travelling in China an area of the State of Victoria and experiencing a blanket of smog like Sydney or Melbourne (on a bad day) for the whole massive area of land travelled. That's particulate industrial pollution year after year on a scale to influence neighbouring countries - another anecdotal report - and yes even global climate.

That's Global Dimming dampening upward global temperatures in what may well be a temporary reprieve from escalating Global Warming and dangerous climate change.

SAM micro news now fears we are facing Sophie's Choice: Choose your poison - Beijing style lung cancer rates with all the benefits of Dimming from those higher concentrations of particulates, or intensified cyclonic weather in southern latitudes (like Brisbane, Sydney etc), from cleaner yet still C02 (and other GHG) overburdened atmosphere.

And Global Dimming has another big impact - the particulates that form the water droplets that form the clouds - apparently they are smaller in size than your usual cloud forming droplets (or something like that). As a result apparently they tend to rain in different locations. According to the 4 Corners docoumentary this has led to failed rains in Africa resulting from particulate pollution in Europe and North America. Hard to credit sure, but that was the thesis and the science referencing was pretty strong in that show.

Here are some senior scientific voices from the BBC Horizons show:

PROF VEERABHADRAN RAMANATHAN: We saw ten times more particles in the polluted air mass north of the Maldives compared with what we saw south of the Maldives which was a pristine air mass.
NARRATOR: In the polluted air billions of man-made particles provided ten times as many sites around which water droplets could form. So polluted clouds contained many more water droplets, each one far smaller than it would be naturally. Many small droplets reflect more light than fewer big ones. So the polluted clouds were reflecting more light back into space, preventing the heat of the sun getting through. This was the cause of Global Dimming.
PROF VEERABHADRAN RAMANATHAN: Basically the Global Dimming we saw in the North Indian Ocean, it was contributed on the one hand by the particles themselves shielding the ocean from the sunlight, on the other hand making the clouds brighter. So this insidious soup, consisting of soot, sulphates, nitrates, ash and what have you, was having a double whammy on the Global Dimming.
NARRATOR: And when he looked at satellite images, Ramanathan found the same thing was happening all over the world. Over India. Over China, and extending into the Pacific. Over Western Europe... extending into Africa. Over the British Isles. But it was when scientists started to investigate the effects of Global Dimming that they made the most disturbing discovery of all. Those more reflective clouds could alter the pattern of the world's rainfall. With tragic consequences.
NEWS REPORT - MICHAEL BUERK VOICE OVER: Dawn, and as the sun breaks through the piercing chill of night on the plain outside Korum it lights up a biblical famine, now in the 20th Century. This place say workers here is the closest thing to hell on earth.
NARRATOR: The 1984 Ethiopian famine shocked the world. It was partly caused by a decade's long drought right across sub-Saharan Africa - a region known as the Sahel. For year after year the summer rains failed. At the time some scientists blamed overgrazing and poor land management. But now there's evidence that the real culprit was Global Dimming. The Sahel's lifeblood has always been a seasonal monsoon. For most of the year it is completely dry. But every summer, the heat of the sun warms the oceans north of the equator. This draws the rain belt that forms over the equator northwards, bringing rain to the Sahel. But for twenty years in the 1970s and 80s the tropical rain belt consistently failed to shift northwards - and the African monsoon failed. For climate scientists like Leon Rotstayn the disappearance of the rains had long been a puzzle. He could see that pollution from Europe and North America blew right across the Atlantic, but all the climate models suggested it should have little effect on the monsoon. But then Rotstayn decided to find out what would happen if he took the Maldive findings into account.
DR LEON ROTSTAYN (CSIRO Atmospheric Research): What we found in our model was that when we allowed the pollution from Europe and North America to affect the properties of the clouds in the northern hemisphere the clouds reflected more sunlight back to space and this cooled the oceans of the northern hemisphere. And to our surprise the result of this was that the tropical rain bands moved southwards tracking away from the more polluted northern hemisphere towards the southern hemisphere.
NARRATOR: Polluted clouds stopped the heat of the sun getting through. That heat was needed to draw the tropical rains northwards. So the life giving rain belt never made it to the Sahel.
DR LEON ROTSTAYN: So what our model is suggesting is that these droughts in the Sahel in the 1970s and the 1980s may have been caused by pollution from Europe and North America affecting the properties of the clouds and cooling the oceans of the northern hemisphere.
NARRATOR: Rotstayn has found a direct link between Global Dimming and the Sahel drought. If his model is correct, what came out of our exhaust pipes and power stations contributed to the deaths of a million people in Africa, and afflicted 50 million more. But this could be just of taste of what Global Dimming has in store.
PROF VEERABHADRAN RAMANATHAN: The Sahel is just one example of the monsoon system. Let me take you to anther part of the world. Asia, where the same monsoon brings rainfall to three point six billion people, roughly half the world's population. My main concern is this air pollution and the Global Dimming will also have a detrimental impact on this Asian monsoon. We are not talking about few millions of people we are talking about few billions of people.
NARRATOR: For Ramanathan the implications are clear.
PROF VEERABHADRAN RAMANATHAN: There is no choice here we have to cut down air pollution, if not eliminate it altogether.
From BBC Horizons Global Dimming documentary 2007

These global weather effects look grim folks, and the egotistical rivalry amongst high paid journalists doesn't seem to be helping things much either. What we need is more light less heat as the saying goes, pun intended.

Postscript #1

We wrote our comment above before absorbing John Garnaut's piece 2 days earlier about the huge particulate pollution in China :

19-20 July 2008 Light in the fog - World - smh.com.au

with this instructive graphic here:

John Garnaut doesn't quite get to grips with the science of Global Dimming but otherwise he is right that the particulate pollution in China is a Big Thing with global implications. Global Dimming explains more of the how and why this pollution feeds into climate instability.

Posted by editor at 8:38 AM NZT

Updated: Wednesday, 23 July 2008 1:03 PM NZT

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Sunday, 20 July 2008

Sunday political talkies: Beware the cult of masochism in Sydney today
Mood:

d'oh
Topic: aust govt

Picture: Notable Sydney press Saturday 19th July 2008 reprising the crucification of Jesus from the Bible on each page 1 as Pope Benedict visits to boost the Catholic franchise/cult. According to one religious view one must suffer to be holy like Him. As if Christ wants us to suffer little crucifications in pale imitation. Such a grim joyless perspective. Rather the truth is more likely that He suffered so that we might not. Isn't that every good parent's wish? In other words the opposite of masochism.

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.

“..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 and/or video feeds go to web sites quoted including Riley Diary on 7. And note transcripts don’t really give you the image content value.

Media backgrounders

* humbling article by Hamish McDonald is a cracker about East Timorese priest martyred with 25 others from Indonesian military:

Flawed truth and fatal consequences - World - smh.com.au
HILARIO MADEIRA was the sort of priest who makes you understand how the balance of the global Catholic congregation is shifting to the developing world,

Picture: Drug (legal) pushers News Corp and last months full page grog adverts in theSydney Daily and Sunday Telegraph, including today's papal reportage. They sure know how to get in the "spirit" of things like the SAM's editor's alcoholic grandfather, now dead journo/WW2 correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald. And father too of 9, we being no. 8. As a teetotal these days we can confidently say it's an Irish thing.

9 Sunday 7.30 – 9.30 am

Stephen Crittenden and Caritas guy Jack De Groot (!) on the Catholic WYD [notice George Negus at Dateline suggesting dishonest deletion of Catholic to one of the black bishops here.

Some tough question by Ellen about manipulation of youth to conservative side of the Church.

Ross Greenwood finance wrap up – spills the beans that Reserve Bank didn’t raise interest rates because 1 it would look political, and 2 backing a different horse.

Ellen balances up with some gush later with the news and sports guys after 8am “we love Benedict don’t we, nice middle European Gentleman”, [or the Vatican Rottweiler – which is the truth – almost certainly both – staying with the Opus Dei thugs]

East Timor story about medical volunteers – important, well timed story like Hamish McDonald approach yesterday in SMH.

Buy in feature about Christians run out of Baghdad. Grim spin on US war causing 4.5 million refugees.

…………..

Pre adbreak, great camera pause on Wong as still as the early morning, nearly 5 seconds two blinks but not a quiver or pause. She is one tough ….. pollie, [‘not that there is anything wrong with that’ (!).]

Laurie Oakes with Minister Penny Wong. Easy questions about Costello go or stay, save

Climate – Pope used as cover for bad news? Not top of mind she says.

Big tv advertising campaign asks, uses BNelson as cover to say YES. “Public information” campaign. Another GST, Work Choices [splurge] “hundreds of millions of dollars” – not says Wong.

What extent compensate households. Wong formulaic – no cost free, positioning for the future, economic prosperity, modeling, as a commitment, compensating, assisting. LO counters with own weasel word culture jam re aspirationals rather than just welfare cases – ‘very conscious about petrol prices’.

LO coy about offsets, 5 years ahead says Wong. Waves her right hand lowish for emphasis, that’s the tell she is begging for acceptance/emphasis amongst the inscrutable façade. [She should be known as Mogadon Wong for ability to put the audience to sleep with a serene sense of calm – as the floodwaters rage down the valley].

LO – no real difference between Howard, and Rudd policy – why waste a year, pursues the thesis of his excellent article yesterday in the Saturday Telegraph.

LO “just lifted the policy” – Wong agrees always building, claims more detail on household compo – goes on to say without demur that Coalition should cooperate [proving Lib-Lab Bib and Bub, a term invented for the 1993 election by The Wilderness Society’s Karenne Jurd and Peter Warrington to real effect. Keating hated them ever since and trashed Australia’s native forests like the barabaric thug that he is on the environment.

Missed the last tiny bit, out take on survey 45-55 says Pell should resign.

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

10 Meet the Press: 8- 8-30 am

Lead footage is Wong and Climate Change . Swan as Treasurer slumming it on Ch10 shows Govt is worried? Jackman as per ALP Govt porn in the Australian.

Press round up refers to Sunday Herald in Sydney.

Compere is Greg Turnbull. Double byelection. Vaile and Downer gone, Costello too?

[relates to The Oz front page lead about polling showing Costello was the threat to ALP in 2006, never got the chance.]

Climate Change – silly question by GT – worried about CC on their watch [it was how they got elected, leveraging such as Get UP after seed funding of same].

Better question from GT re entitled to be cynical. Swan says huge difference to Green Paper and BN budget reply speech. Then goes on to repeat Nelson line on price signal already.

GT sticks at it, good man, re undoing price signals in the broad, yet compensating broadly. Swan goes on re protecting “trade exposed sectors”.

What about Qantas $100M cost, job layoffs etc. Says international aviation is not included in the scheme (!).

Panel after 1^st adbreak Philip Clark 2GB, Jessica Irvine SMH.

Author Christine Jackman, spouse too of News Corp editor. This is really ALP porn in the sense of raking over their machine and personalities, mostly self referential, subjective and a priori. Insider, duchessed script. Has to be read down in that light.

There she is spruiking turned around the polls “in a year” and ‘it wasn’t luck but the man [Godfather of her child, none of this declared or even asked about by the ‘journalists’]. It’s all about getting future access by Jackman and News Corp etc to the new regime.

[which reminds AM’s editor better do my 3 years of tax because the obverse is also true, ATO owe me on low income anyway. 6-10K pa grovel good luck ATO!].

Blahs on about economic management – coalition walked away from that record – The Australian News Corp speak for Rudd should mimic their political economy biases too.

Flatters Rudd re detail man. Serves well in campaign not sure about in govt. All mates together smiling from the over paid over buffed Big Media.

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

Riley Diary 7, 8.35 am

Riley still on holidays by the looks. Filler with Matt Harding the jig man, seems to be a metaphor for global cooperation on climate change somehow from developed to undeveloped world – take action, be positive etc. Antidote for despair.com on 9 a few weeks back. Truth in both philosophies perhaps.

One caption in the video looked wrong. The Giant’s Causeway is in County Donegal in north west of the Republic of Eire/Ireland, which is not actually the North East UK territory of “Northern Ireland” (have to check this).

Cut to body language guy rubbing his nose!

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

Insiders 2: 9- 10am

Lead is Christine Milne accurate about compo priced the ETS out of existence for Polluters ‘get paid’.

Industry like Qantas use as cover to slash their jobs, using CC as cover for escalating price of petrol.

Cross to Emma Griffith. Dwells on sorry by Pope for abuse such as 2 children raped by catholic priest in Melbourne destroyed their lives. [As per SunHerald lead which indicates editorial news integrity, versus crap News Corp no declaration of financial conflict of interest.

Panel – Annabel Crabb new adventurous hairstyle. Nice. Rounds up press – ‘pee or get off the pot’ very child friendly. Can’t tell if she is hitched waving her right hand around.

Grab on Swan earlier today.

Bolt on panel too, as too Meglo. About Costello – flattering to stay. AC believes he has had other offers.

BC refers to potential of ‘one term government’

Interview with Mal Turnbull – looking a bit too early. “Scrutinise legislation with great care” earnest comments about complex affects on the economy in the national interest, have recognized the extent of the problem.

Very haughty born to rule tone, we should be making these grave decisions. Argues Rudd 2010 plucked opporutistically ‘hairy chested’ in the campaign. Implies too soon – panders himself to skeptics. Dwells on LNG – vital part of lower emissions future, as ALP agree in their platform. LNG no protection [talking about Woodside].

1,500 tonnes per $1M of revenue. Absurdity – the dirtier ones benefit, the cleaner ones penalized.

Those out of the system competitive disadvantage. Makes talk of “global problem”.

BN says wait until the rest of the world. MT says election policy was to support ETS but very carefully. Damaging LNG bad for environment [actually exaggerating a bit because it’s all increased production even at a lower rate via LNG, it’s lower emissions but still compounding dangerous climate threat just slower. At best a transition energy source.]

Vaile blah – right in the criminal AWB scandal with Anderson. [Notice Sunday Tele Milne story has wrong caption on McGauran, actually new Nat leader – name?]

TB goes on blah about reconciliation – grievously wronged by members of the church.

Everyperson with martial arts school young blokes – Asian guy a bit nervous does his talking with his body and skills. All muscle and bone these skinny guys. Cute cut to Bruce Lee. Compo “pointless” well said Asian Australian guy.

Missed a bit in the panel as the remote went dodgy again.

Panel is not convinced by 3 year review, which is really from 2010 so it’s 5 years to 2013.

Paul Kelly notes it’s a political fix, re-elect Rudd mechanism. Can’t be justified in light of the Garnaut report. Far more severe than GST on the economy. Greens will be very happy. Rudd targets are very, very modest. Says The Greens will go beserk [as opposed to News Corp being editorially objective as they travel with the Pope and don’t declare their financial interest?]

Meglo reckons about .9 inflation, $10-20 per week. Bolt declines. Rudd has dodged it. Fuelwatch writ large, carbon watch multi billion dollar scheme won’t reduce any emissions. What’s the point? Bolt is right – if it doesn’t work what’s the point?. AC uncomfortably cast as apologist for Rudd Govt re Howard delay. Is it a job application Anna? Let it go, they are not worth it. [not hitched, left hand, thorny rose suit nice]

Bolt – rest of the world will never be involved. Prof Jeremy Sachs says no one else will want to be involved because the ETS is so clumsy. India and China have their own Garnaut report and rejected it. Meglo says actually gambling on technology for fixes.

AC no problem with 100 legacy we go first, good woman. Bolt revisionist on the science. AC says misrepresenting. Bound to be right. Bolt speaks the Coalition book why they are he asserts revisionist on the science/policy too.

All plausible until the first southern latitude cyclone in Australia like Wilma or Tracey or Katrina. Bolt dogma multi billion scheme won’t achieve anything. [Bolt sadly is so wrong – the science is far more settled than he can bare to consider given his false direction his whole life. Eco dunces with massive financial conflict of interest.]

Bolt goes ad hominem shows he is losing/lost the credible science argument as money and privilege hit the wall.

Jackman thesis [alp porn!] – poll about Costello in 2006 could beat Beazley. Anyone but Beazley beats Howard, and beats Costello even more. But all speculative given Costello would have the PM reach, Bolt makes that point too. Laughts with AC about Costello as the world’s greatest hypothetical. Bolt claims father in law as co author will add substance to PC’s coming book.

Talking pictures mostly about climate and Pope visit.

End of show predictions - Schubert had a 3kg red headed brat, bravo. Can't recall Meglo's prediction. Bolt something about 'we were first/Turnbull ETS' really the best way to win the next election' [said with menace for the big polluters from total climate change skeptic].

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

Inside Business 2 10 am

Business fallout over price of petrol and climate change.

Dixon for Qantas – oil price over $100 makes airline difficult.

Banking and aviation and mobile phone – high oil and food and credit crunch is causing stagflation [growth low, inflation high? Not sure the defn].

Economy on collision course with carbon trading control on carbon pollution. Dixon again “quite severely affected”. No plan for jet fuel, but is for refineries and drivers. Compo soften affect.

Two experts Nick Rowley adviser to Tony Blair. Elaine Prior Citi Analyst. Quite reserved, uncertain, usually damages says AK. Affect power sector? Will require some fossil fuels be taken out, to get real cuts. Have to be closed down. Steel, cement, aviation, costs to come through too. Two tier stockmarket those with and without permits asks AK.

Nick Rowley worked with Nicholas Stern, 10yrs advises Carr, and Copenhagen Commission. Kinesis now. Long worthy green Paper. Still uncertain what affect.

1000 companies figure lacks credibility.

About 50% of EU economy is affected. “Strange” to refer 1000. AK then uses the figure anyway in a question. Asks and effectively answers – will this system drive down.

………………

Interview with Graeme Samuel head of ACCC – don’t need to pander to business, or have their support. Over the last 5 years business believe in compliance as very important. Quite tough now asks AK. Just experience and more confidence and assertiveness. What extent has it changed him or vice versa. Dovetailing he says.

Role of Chair – face of the ACCC, journos always try to personify. Supported prefaced by rigorous analysis. Transparency and rigour reviewing Parlt cee, court, media or tribunals will find the error.

ACCC role expanding water, gas, electricity, petrol and groceries. Doorman anecdote – my family is relying on you. Said straight to camera, and quite moving too.

Posted by editor at 10:15 AM NZT

Updated: Monday, 21 July 2008 11:43 AM NZT

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Friday, 18 July 2008

Coca Cola water bottling case: Letter to expert evidence "gatekeepers" re science of Sydney sandstone
Mood:

a-ok
Topic: legal

Picture: (above and below) Article on Livio Pace with whom Coca Cola Amatil happily did business. In the mid 90ies Gosford City Council Lawyers Donnellan & Co advised (we have the copies) that Pace illegally constructed a water bottling operation at Peats Ridge Springs - shed in the wrong location, bores allegedly too close to a waterway etc. The "springs" on the site have long gone and are accessed by bores as the complex sandstone aquifer plummets. By 2002 the water licences from the State Govt for Pace's controversial site were found to be for the wrong property (we have the govt letter admitting this) due to mere "administrative error". Whether for reasons of delay, poorly argued, insufficient scientific knowledge or otherwise the Pace operation was legally ratified by the Land & Environment Court by the late 90ies which has a discretion in such matters. According to one local Mr Pace, who is not adverse to making political donations (said to be $10K in one case), in true schoolboy 'cowboy' style, and with no concern for the once healthy waterway now drives a red Ferrari courtesy one presumes of the cash from Coca Cola for his water bottling business. Coca Cola of course has the famously red logo as above.

Sent: Friday, July 18, 2008 9:01 AM
Subject: Peats Ridge drilling records, Adj Prof Marshall model of multiple narrow aquifers for CAE Lane due 21 July 08

Dear solicitors for Gosford City Council (Robert), Coca Cola Amatil (Yvonne),
Re Coca Cola Water Bottling Plant at Peats Ridge 'Springs' application to LEC to delete 2 year trial clause
We refer to previous correspondence.
We submit the following web linked documents of the science of the Sydney Sandstone multiple complex aquifers for the Court Appointed Expert Lane, which as you can see we also submit by the same device into 'the court of public opinion' by the world wide web (27,000 readers per month on June 08 figures):

Friday, 18 July 2008
Is this how Coca Cola pick and choose their expert evidence to destroy Peats Ridge Springs?
Mood: blue
Topic: legal
We understand this is only 1 working day before the report is due 21st July 2008 which is of course why we requested an extension of the timetable by a week at the start of this week. We notice from the documents relating to the trigger case that then lawyer for Azzopardi, Nicholas Brunton was in direct correspondence to anthony.lane@laneconsulting.com.au but that in this proceedings Justice Pain has said GCC must be the "gatekeeper" and as agent for Diamond I will respect that comment of the court to forward material through GCC only.
We can honestly say this document only became known to us at the bottom of literally 2 feet of background documents last night 17th July 2008, as provided to us last Saturday by Mangrove Mountain District Community Group Inc. We note your view that an application to the court for slippage is a matter for us. Even so we do not seek to run the gauntlet of a costs order against us loaded up with the costs of the GCC and CCA expensive barristers and lawyers.
But we make the submission to you direct all the same as is our legal right. We note GCC solicitor has indicated that in theory they would not support or oppose such a request for extension for evidence for community evidence for CAE Lane while CCA have written to say they would oppose an extension. Hence our reluctance to test an extension under duress of costs of Coca Cola Amatil and its unlimited legal budget.
Even so we feel ethically obliged both to the court and the public interest to submit the drilling records of Mr Islet within the context of the thesis of such as adjunct professor Dr Brian Marshall as to the complex, narrow multiple aquifers of the Mangrove Mountain (and indeed Blue Mountains) geology known collectively as the Sydney Sandstone substrate.
Further we expect to file evidence in relation to two new consent conditions re ban on bulk export, and rehab of the water way, admissable at law given the wholistic structure of the court ordered consent condition clause 1 which includes the trial sub clause sought to be deleted by the Applicant Kettle as agent for Coca Cola Amatil.
Lastly in addition we are collating our information for a submission to the ACCC over what we view as a systemic misrepresentation of Peats Ridge 'Springs' product which is in fact bore water as best we understand and not spring water the business operation of Coca Cola Amatil there. We will rely on the ACCC's good officers to resolve that concern in the usual way.
Please do not hesitate to contact the writer on tel. 02-9558 9551 or 0410 558838. Thanking you for your attention.
Yours truly
Tom McLoughlin, agent for intervenor Diamond.
CC community stakeholders Mangrove Mountain District Community Group Inc, supporters

Media Release from Ian Cohen MLC

21st May 2008

NSW Government joins in Coca Cola greenwash

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.

Posted by editor at 11:16 AM NZT

Updated: Sunday, 20 July 2008 1:40 PM NZT

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Is this how Coca Cola pick and choose their expert evidence to destroy Peats Ridge Springs?
Mood:

blue
Topic: legal

Here is a letter from Alex Wagstaff, Director Corporate Affairs, Coca Cola Amatil (Aust) Pty Ltd to the local community group.

He says many of the right words but actually leans on their nominated expert from Melbourne Anthony Lane from 2006 litigation, who became the court appointed expert. Well and good so far for CCA but the CV for Mr Lane who is indeed very qualified is very heavy on contamination and pollution of groundwater. He does look light on for complex interplay of Sydney sandstone geology and multiple narrow underwater streams which lay people think of a "the aquifer" under Peats Ridge Springs. Is this why CCA pushed him forward?

As we will see from Sydney based experts and actual bore hole drilling results there is multiple narrow semi confined streams or channels which make up "the aquifer" which may be less productive the lower you go! In other words in sandstone the water table is not monolithic, it is more like swiss cheese. Hence the alarm of the local farmers over big constant extractions who have learned this reality over decades: That groundwater is more chancy than the experts and CCA have been saying.

But now the real Sydney based scientific expertise is catching up with both Mr Lane and Coca Cola Amatil.

We have been grovelling through a 2 foot pile of documents this last week and we may or may not miss our deadline for putting this scientific evidence into the court due to be filed and served (in Gosford!) today 18th July 2008. But we will make sure it's in the court of public opinion where CCA and Mr Lane and the Land & Environment Court in terms of procedural fairness, and Gosford Council, ultimately have to account to society and their own consciences. Not least in the age of extreme drought every 2 years as per recent CSIRO report as regards agricultural water supplies:

6th July 2008 Climate change fuelling drought - CSIRO | The Australian
7th July 2008 Welcome to a drought-stricken future | The Australian
6th July 2008 Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry - Transcript of press conference
Subject: Drought Report, Sydney

6th July 2008 Droughts of the future 'like a disaster novel' - National Rural ...

First the big talking letter of Wagstaff at CCA, and a preface: His subtext well understood by financial stakeholders in the region is to seek to get a metric on the other licensed (and no doubt unlicensed eg sand mine) water users on Peats Ridge/Mangrove Mountain, in order to shut them down or take over their allocation by hook or by crook. Because the truth is the whole district has been badly over allocated and this is the scandal the State Govt also wants to hide, not least sand miners as big water users. No wonder ex minister Koperberg called water licensing "diabolical". No wonder current water minister Rees who studied horticulture is taking an interest.

This is the critical context that has caused the "Water war" on Mangrove Mountain. Everyone meaning farmers, water bottlers, sandminers, council water authority, public servants, politicians, local media, all know in their heart the groundwater is over allocated not least for unlicensed use, and yet then DIPNR, now DWE (NSW Govt) allowed a selective major increase of license 26ML to 66ML/YR to one water user Coca Cola Amatil in 2005-6, who also just happens to be a big political donor, thankyou ex Minister Craig Knowles! This does actually smell. So over to Mr Wagstaff first:

Mr Wagstaff was responding to this heartfelt letter about staff layoffs, lost trees, decreased crop production in the hard drought conditions, which local pess and politicians were all wringing their hands over too:

So what about the science? Who has a real grip on the intricate water supply/groundwater system? The Sydney based experts shut out by the cost of the legal process, or the Melbourne based expert, and will the two synthesise to do justice to the community in 2008?

The locals were so exasperated after the 2005 litigation they tried to update Commissioner Moore after CCA got a provisional 2 year trial on the strength of their company expert Dr Beck. (It is Dr Beck who has been replaced by Mr Lane later by 2006.) As you will see from the advice of Dr Brian Marshall, and the drilling results below blow the thesis of a huge monolithic aquifer as big as the mountain itself, out of the .... pardon the pun.

Here is Adjunct Professor Marshall's description of the Sydney Sandstone complex aquifers in the same context in the Blue Mountains:

In early 2006 the Mangrove Mountain District Community Group make the same point as Marshall about the highly chancy and intricate sourcing of bore water in such underway streams known lazily as a monolith aquifer or water table. Only there's is from real life hard earned experience that frankly put some folks to shame treating the groundwater on Mangrove Mountain like a bathtub. It just isn't so.

Posted by editor at 8:41 AM NZT

Updated: Sunday, 20 July 2008 1:19 PM NZT

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Wednesday, 16 July 2008

CCS is inherently dangerous, threat to current oil-gas fields: Mobil Australia chief
Mood:

d'oh
Topic: globalWarming

Alan Kohler's Inside Business show last Sunday carried a useful feature on the serious credibility gap that big business has with carbon capture sequestration as one solution to potential dangerous climate change:

2020

Coal capture could be problematic

While coal capture technology has been highlighted as a potential means to reduce Australia's carbon-dioxide emissions, questions remain over how effective it will be. Transcript

These quotes in the story by Kohler are pretty alarming about the instability of so called CCS;

MARK NOLAN, CHAIRMAN EXXON MOBIL: Yes, the oil and gas industry has separated CO2 from methane for many years. ...
MARK NOLAN: Exxon Mobile has significant experience in carbon capture and storage. We've been one of the main players in the slighter experiment in the North Sea where for 10 years CO2 has been successfully separated from the gas field and reinjected in a saline aquifer underneath the field in Norway.
KATHY SWAN: Exxon Mobile Australia chairman Mark Nolan says so far 10 million tonnes of CO2 has been stored under the North Sea and studied to see if it stays put.
MARK NOLAN: You can reliably see where the CO2 is moving.
KATHY SWAN: Because of what's been learnt, Exxon Mobile says it doesn't support CO2 injections in its vast Gippsland base yen tenements.
MARK NOLAN: We believe that the injection into the saline aquifer beneath Bass Strait, that oil and gas could effectively be soured because the CO2 would bubble up into the oil and gas fields.
KATHY SWAN: Victoria's reliance on brown coal power stations in the La Trobe Valley has generators and the State Government eyeing off the Gippsland basin under Bass Strait as their best potential storage site. But there could be legal issues. Oil and gas companies like Exxon Mobile say they won't accept carbon being pumped into their acreages while they're still pumping oil and gas.
MARK NOLAN: So we view that post 2025, for example, when our fields are depleted, they would make good reservoir capture storage facilities but while we're producing there we do have some serious concerns.
REG NELSON, MD, BEACH PETROLEUM: I'm certainly not negating the use of environment close to emitters of CO2.
KATHY SWAN: But Reg Nelson, managing director of oil and gas explorer Beach Petroleum says the Moomba gas field in the Cooper basin is set to be tested as another potential storage site.
REG NELSON: Moomba, because it's in a remote area and therefore the population isn't a particular worry, because it has pipeline corridors, because it has depleted gas reservoirs that in my view are certainly capable of storing CO2 for millions of years.
KATHY SWAN: But the initial costs of transporting carbon dioxide anywhere let alone to Moomba's remote location will be prohibitive.
MARK NOLAN: We have a lot of experience in pipe lining and compressing gas but CO2 is a different gas. CO2 is more corrosive than normal hydro carbon gas. So there would be new facilities required and the costs would be extensive.

Back in April 2008 we reported these disturbing safety threats:

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 9:16 AM NZT

Updated: Wednesday, 16 July 2008 10:01 AM NZT

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