‘Simply no more excuses’: Malcolm Turnbull and other angry Australians slam PM Scott Morrison on climate change policy

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has called upon Australia to act against climate change, saying there are “simply no more excuses”.

Malcolm Turnbull says Scott Morrison has "simply no more excuses".

“How much of our country has to burn, how many lives have to be lost, homes destroyed before we resolve as a nation to act on climate change?” Mr Turnbull wrote in an op-ed for The Guardian, published this morning.

“There are simply no more excuses. We cannot allow political prejudice and vested interests to hold us up any longer,” he said in the article.

“The election is won, and the fires have surely demonstrated that an integrated climate and energy policy is vital.

“The world must, and I believe will, stop burning coal if we are to avoid the worst consequences of global warming. And the sooner the better.

Read the story from news.com by Alex Turner-Cohen - “‘Simply no more excuses’: Malcolm Turnbull and other angry Australians slam PM Scott Morrison on climate change policy.”

Power prices: Australia has a gold-plated electricity grid that consumers can't afford

The Australian energy system stands as a monument to vested interests.

It is a system controlled by owners who are protected from market forces and state governments content to milk consumers for all they're worth and more — because the rules allow it.

The value of the Australian power grid is
not that short of that of the US,
and that is a big problem.

"The operators have spent a lot of money on building their networks to potentially provide excessive reliability," Craig Memery from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre says.

"That system has been bigger and more costly and, on top of that, the interest rate that is applied over the long term to that investment which consumers pay has been particularly high.”

Two-thirds of the grid operators' income comes from earnings guaranteed by the regulator linked to the value of their networks.

Read the ABC News story by Phillip Lasker - “Power prices: Australia has a gold-plated electricity grid that consumers can't afford.”

Peter Doherty: why Australia needs to march for science

Peter Doherty.

(The following article is adapted from a speech to be delivered at the Melbourne March for Science on Saturday 22 April, 2017)

The mission posted on the March for Science international website states:

“The March for Science champions robustly funded and publicly communicated science as a pillar of human freedom and prosperity. We unite as a diverse, nonpartisan group to call for science that upholds the common good and for political leaders and policy makers to enact evidence based policies in the public interest. The March for Science is a celebration of science.”

March for Science events will be held
across the world on April 22 2017.

To me, it seems the reason concerned people across the planet are marching today is that, at least for the major players in the English-speaking world, there are major threats to the global culture of science.

Why? A clear understanding of what is happening with, for example, the atmosphere, oceans and climate creates irreconcilable problems for powerful vested interests, particularly in the fossil fuel and coastal real estate sectors.

Read Peter Doherty’s story on The Conversation - “Peter Doherty: why Australia needs to march for science.”