Neil deGrasse Tyson Has A Sobering Reminder For You This Earth Day

Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson took a moment on Earth Day to remind those calling for the planet’s “saving” to revise their message.

The author, podcast host and director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Museum of Natural History tweeted the advice on Sunday.

Read the Huffington Post story - “Neil deGrasse Tyson Has A Sobering Reminder For You This Earth Day.”

How a small town reclaimed its grid and sparked a community revolution

Martin Rühl never imagined this fight would define the rest of his life. Not for a moment did he reckon it would become so epic in length, in scale, in consequences. He just thought his speck of a town should run its own electricity supply.

Wolfhagen, a somnolent town whose biggest previous claim to
fame was that one of the Brothers Grimm had  swtayed there.

A modest proposal, but in the Germany of 2003 it was highly unusual. Gerhard Schröder was still chancellor and, although a social democrat, was pushing through more privatisations of public assets than any other leader in German history. This was in a Europe that had learned from Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan to stop worrying and start loving the private sector. Now here, swimming against history’s current, was one orderly, slightly anxious engineer.

Read the story by Aditya Chakrabortty on The Guardian - “How a small town reclaimed its grid and sparked a community revolution.”

A lump of coal - metaphor for a wretched year for Malcolm Turnbull

The moment that summed up the political year 2017 for me came in the first sitting week when treasurer Scott Morrison marched into parliament brandishing a lump of coal.

 ‘The marriage equality vote was a step forward for the nation,
but the process was expensive and needlessly divisive, the
May federal budget was rightly portrayed as Labor-lite, while
 a bank royal commission has been imposed on a reluctant government’

“This is coal – don’t be afraid, don’t be scared”, the treasurer cried out maniacally, before passing it along his front bench where Barnaby Joyce proceeded to fondle it like Gollum his precious ring.

The coal stunt was a none-too-subtle attempt to shift the focus of energy policy away from the imperative of transitioning to a renewable future by opening a new wave of investment in fossil fuels.

The premeditated stunt locked the Coalition in behind a coal lobby that had been running a coordinated campaign to besmirch renewables since an extreme weather event had led to blackouts in South Australia in late 2016.

The lump of coal act was also the final surrender by a prime minister who had built a public persona around his determination to take meaningful action on climate change.

Read the opinion piece by Peter Lewis on The Guardian - “A lump of coal - metaphor for a wretched year for Malcolm Turnbull.”

We Don’t Think of Californians as Climate Refugees Yet, But We Should

Let’s play with a word and an idea. “Hegemony” means the dominance of one political group over all others. That, at this moment, is the Republican brand. President Donald J. Trump, a Republican Senate, a Republican House, and a conservative, if not Republican, court system that will judge the law and Constitution for years to come. Hegemony.

But that word has been corrupted. Once the Greek word, “hegemon,” meant to lead. But the root word “heg” in English later became to seek, or better, to “sack,” as in ransack.

So hegemony is a fine word to describe the Trump era. The goal is to ransack (instead of lead). Ransack the government. Or at least the idea of government.

Read Mark Trahant’s story on Yes! Magazine - “We Don’t Think of Californians as Climate Refugees Yet, But We Should.”

Behind closed doors at the energy briefing: a rocky start to Turnbull's energy pitch

There was a moment of stunned silence at a hastily arranged teleconference of energy ministers on Tuesday evening, just hours after the government's long-awaited electricity scheme had been released.

Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg and Prime Minister
 Malcolm Turnbull with energy regulators at Tuesday's
press conference. 

Some of those present at the meeting – described as "testy" by several participants – had requested more detail on the plan. All they had received were two briefing papers – 12 pages in total – and a media release.

But Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg told the ministers, "You all have everything I have". 

"There was a startling lack of detail and information," Queensland's Labor Energy Minister Mark Bailey said. "That's a small amount [of detail] for such an important issue.”

Read Peter Hannam’s story in The Sydney Morning Herald - “Behind closed doors at the energy briefing: a rocky start to Turnbull's energy pitch.”