'Energy has to come from somewhere': Farmer would welcome gas drilling

Dairy farmer Simon Gleeson remembers the non-stop "noise pollution" the onshore gas well generated – an industrial rumble that was audible from inside his house 24 hours a day.

Farmer Simon Gleeson said he would be open to gas exploration on his land.

There were truck movements on his property at daytime, loud crashes of machinery and a tall tower that stood out in the skyline where the well had been drilled just 400 metres from his home.

But Mr Gleeson said he wouldn’t hesitate to say yes if someone came knocking on his front door again tomorrow asking to search for gas on his farmland.

“No one wants a hole drilled in their farm but we’re not the type of people that say ‘not in our backyard’ either; energy has got to come from somewhere,” Mr Gleeson said.

Victoria is preparing to open up more than 1300 kilometres of western Victorian coastal waters and coastline to offshore gas exploration in February, including the possibility of drilling for offshore gas from onshore.

Read the story by Adam Carey and Benjamin Priess from The Age -  “'Energy has to come from somewhere': Farmer would welcome gas drilling.”

Jakarta Is Sinking So Fast, It Could End Up Underwater

JAKARTA — Rasdiono remembers when the sea was a good distance from his doorstep, down a hill. Back then he opened the cramped, gaily painted bayside shack he named the Blessed Bodega, where he and his family sell catfish heads, spiced eggs and fried chicken.

A tsunami of human-made troubles in the Indonesian capital
poses an imminent threat to the city’s survival. And it has
 to deal with mounting threats from climate change.

It was strange, Rasdiono said. Year by year, the water crept closer. The hill gradually disappeared. Now the sea loomed high over the shop, just steps away, held back only by a leaky wall.

With climate change, the Java Sea is rising and weather here is becoming more extreme. Earlier this month another freakish storm briefly turned Jakarta’s streets into rivers and brought this vast area of nearly 30 million residents to a virtual halt.

Read The New York Times story by Michael Kimmelman - “Jakarta Is Sinking So Fast, It Could End Up Underwater.”

Conservationists losing fight to save Alaska wildlife refuge from drilling

Washington: Carl Portman remembers watching, heartbroken, from Anchorage in 2005 as a US Senate effort to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge lost by two votes.

Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski has supported drilling
 in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge throughout her
political career. Her vote may be decisive. 

Now, 12 years later, another effort to open up the reserve to oil and gas drilling is working its way through Congress. And this time, the political winds have shifted.

Portman, now a top official of a pro-drilling group, has seen oil revenue improve the schools, roads and hospitals in Alaska, his home state. He said he was cautiously optimistic about the drilling measure, which is included in a sweeping bill to overhaul the tax code. Environmental activists and their allies in Congress, on the other hand, are on the cusp of forever losing the decades-long political battle over the refuge.

Read Lisa Friedman’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Conservationists losing fight to save Alaska wildlife refuge from drilling.”