Morrison a 'bad dad' for denigrating young climate protesters

Scott Morrison failed an entire generation last week. He dismissed the 300,000 young people and their parents who filled our city streets in the School Strike 4 Climate, as lacking “context and perspective”.

Steve Biddulph.

It was an outrageously insensitive response, and if young Australians were anxious before, they will be doubly so now. They are the most science literate generation in history, and the science says this is the most dangerous time our world has ever faced. But the leaders of the nation think everything is fine.

I was out among those young people. They are the generation raised while I was this country’s leading voice on child-rearing, and I was so proud of them it brought me to tears. They struck me as the mature ones in the whole picture, their speeches were wonderful, their manner dignified and their demands (no new coal, cutting exports and fair treatment of workers) were moderate and thoughtful. They were the prefects, sports kids, and the thoughtful nerdy ones who get their facts right. And their parents and grandparents were supporting them.

And here is the thing - many of their placards referenced Scott Morrison in person, as the one they were asking desperately to help. In response, Morrison accused them of being stooges for the unspecified aims of others. That’s hugely disrespectful, and it doesn’t begin to understand the nature of teenagers, which is in every generation to ask awkward questions we really need to answer.

Read the opinion piece by Steve Biddulph from The Sydney Morning Herald - “Morrison a 'bad dad' for denigrating young climate protesters.”

Fighting for the bight

“There’s magic there”: the Great Australian
 Bight from the Bunda Cliffs.

Two months ago, I had never heard the phrase “Fight for the Bight.” Now I seem to see it everywhere. Last week, as I walked past a shop near my home on the Bellarine Peninsula in Victoria, there it was again on a poster in the window: Fight for the Bight.

The fight is about natural gas extraction in the Great Australian Bight. For several years, oil companies, including BP and Chevron, have signalled interest in drilling under the bight to confirm the existence of untold mineral riches. Equinor, a Norwegian oil and gas company, plans to begin exploratory drilling by 2021, pending final permission from the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority, or NOPSEMA, a statutory Commonwealth agency.

Read the Inside Story by Seumas Spark - “Fighting for the bight.”

‘It’s like hell here’: Australia bakes as record temperatures nudge 50C

It was 48.9C last Tuesday in Port Augusta, South Australia, an old harbour city that now harvests solar power. Michelle Coles, the owner of the local cinema, took off her shoes at night to test the concrete before letting the dogs out. “People tend to stay at home,” she said. “They don’t walk around when it’s like this.”

 A sign warns bathers of the extreme heat on Bondi Beach, in Sydney, Australia.

It’s easy to see why: in the middle of the day it takes seconds to blister a dog’s paw or child’s foot. In Mildura, in northern Victoria, last week gardeners burned their hands when they picked up their tools, which had been left in the sun at 46C. Fish were dying in the rivers.

Almost every day last week a new heat record was broken in Australia. They spread out, unrelenting, across the country, with records broken for all kinds of reasons – as if the statistics were finding an infinite series of ways to say that it was hot.

Read the story from The Guardian by Naaman Zhou - “‘It’s like hell here’: Australia bakes as record temperatures nudge 50C.”

Solar concerns aired

Drama around four solar farm applications in Greater Shepparton was heard in Victoria’s upper house for a second time last week, where an Opposition MP asked whether communities were being disadvantaged by the proposals being ‘‘test cases’’.

A planning panel hearing into four solar proposals for the Greater Shepparton area had its final day yesterday.

State Member for northern Victoria, Liuke O'Sullivan.

Across five sitting days, it heard from landholders, objectors, water authorities, planning experts, Greater Shepparton City Council and the solar developers.

In Parliament on Wednesday, State Member for Northern Victoria Luke O’Sullivan asked Agriculture Minister Jaala Pulford whether Agriculture Victoria would have meaningful input into the development of guidelines to protect high-value irrigated agricultural land.

He also asked what involvement Agriculture Victoria had in the development of guidelines to date.

Ms Pulford said the state’s planning minister was leading the work and that Agriculture Victoria was being consulted in the development of the guidelines.

In a separate question to Ms Pulford, Mr O’Sullivan said the solar developments were ‘‘causing angst among communities in the Goulburn Valley’’, and asked ‘‘what is the government’s policy in relation to the protection of high-value agricultural land from solar developments?’’

‘‘The farming communities of Tatura, Lemnos, Congupna and Tallygaroopna are concerned that they could lose more than 500 hectares of irrigated land because they are the test case and their matters are to be decided by the government prior to the development of the guidelines,’’ Mr O’Sullivan said.

‘‘What actions is the government taking to ensure the farming communities of Tatura, Lemnos, Congupna and Tallygaroopna are not being treated unfairly simply because they are one of the first communities to deal with this issue?’’.

The minister took the question on notice and said she would ‘‘pass it to the minister in the other place’’.

The panel had previously been urged by several submitters on the need for a clear set of guidelines around solar farm proposals to be developed.

The proceedings follow Planning Minister Richard Wynne’s office calling in the four proposals after the council had requested their outcome be determined by the minister’s office; an outcome the council had welcomed as ‘’sensible’’.

The panel is also set to be providing advice to the energy minister about how future solar farm applications will be assessed in Victoria, the News understands.

The applications constitute hundreds of millions of dollars in development costs and the projects are estimated to produce hundreds of megawatts of power.

But there are concerns about the best use of prime agricultural land and fears large-scale solar farms could have an impact on nearby farming practices.

Following recommendations being handed down by the panel, the minister can approve, reject or green light the permits, with conditions attached.

Story from the Shepparton News - “Solar concerns aired.”

AGL’s plan to replace Liddell is cheaper and cleaner than keeping it open

The Commonwealth government called last week for AGL Energy to consider selling its Liddell power station to rival Alinta.

AGL has promised to replace the power generated
 by Liddell with a mix of other sources.

Federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg has raised concerns that the scheduled 2022 shutdown of Liddell will affect New South Wales’ energy reliability. It’s suggested the sale would provide a way to keep the ageing power station open past the end of its normal 50-year operating life.

However, AGL responded to government concerns in December 2017 by releasing a replacement plan. Liddell’s theoretical maximum output is 1,800 megawatts (MW), but the firm capacity – the power that can be relied upon at peak time – is 1,000 MW. AGL is confident this can be replaced by a mix of improved efficiency, renewables and demand response.

Read the piece on The Conversation by a Senior Research Consultant from Sydney’s University of Technology, Kriti Nagrath -  “AGL’s plan to replace Liddell is cheaper and cleaner than keeping it open.”

'Katrina brain': New Orleans looks to Houston, and sees itself

New Orleans: Several of Nance Harding's clients were acting oddly last week. Harding, a psychotherapist in New Orleans, noticed that some were quick to cry, others were irritable and easily startled; some were drinking more heavily than usual.

Fuel oil mixed with floodwaters near the collapsed
12th Street levee during Hurricane Katrina in
New Orleans, September 1, 2005. 

These were clients who had gone through Hurricane Katrina 12 years ago, and she was picking up the signals of a localised form of post-traumatic stress syndrome - or, as she calls it, "Katrina brain”.

It is a condition, she said, that ramps up each June with the return of hurricane season and spikes with the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina on August 29. And this year, there is Hurricane Harvey.

Harding said she finds it easy to recognise the symptoms because "I have it", though not from Hurricane Katrina. She was nine years old and living in Galveston, Texas, when Hurricane Carla hit in September 1961. "I've walked in water up to my chest," she said.

Read the story in today's Melbourne Age by Campbell Robertson and John Schwartz - “'Katrina brain': New Orleans looks to Houston, and sees itself.”