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In recent debates around solutions to the climate crisis, several ideas hold the largest share of government support and media coverage. These include: green consumerism, carbon offsetting, carbon taxes, carbon trading, geo-engineering and carbon capture and storage. But do these “solutions” take, as their frame of reference, the full extent of the problem? Here are some reasons to be doubtful. Green consumerism is one variation of the argument whereby “your dollar is your vote”.
Once I ruled the Northern plains, my clan roamed free and wild, the lush Dakotas were my home, the gods were on my side. Every leafy shrub was mine, every blade of grass, every creature trembled when a herd of bison passed. My family has been slaughtered for food, for prize, for fun, of all the kings that roamed the earth I’m now the only one. Am I now a laughing stock? The object of your pity? A weakling of the prairies, while you prosper in the city? And who was it that killed my clan? Let’s set the record straight: that bastard son of Europe’s womb —
A dramatic stand-off between police and a group of squatters took place at the main campus of the University of Sydney on September 16. The squatters, who had been living at the abandoned St Michael’s College, staged a protest action during the eviction.
Cuba is a world leader in ecologically sustainable practices. It is the only country to have begun the large-scale transition from conventional farming, which is heavily dependent on fossil fuels, to a new agricultural paradigm known as low-input sustainable agriculture. Thriving urban organic farms feed and beautify Cuba’s cities, strengthen local communities and employ hundreds of thousands of people thanks to government support.
A vote on the Labor government’s harsh proposed changes to Australia’s migration laws was postponed until October 11, after parliament failed to vote on them on September 22. This followed a bizarre twist in the farcical refugee debate on September 19 when new laws were passed increasing refugee protection at the same time as the government pushed forward with its plans to expel refugees to Malaysia.
Australia introduced new rules on September 15 allowing people to nominate their gender as male, female or indeterminate on their passport. Sex reassignment surgery is no longer a precondition for nominating a passport gender different from the one on your birth certificate.
A group of refugee activists from the Refugee Advocacy Network and the Refugee Action Collective (Victoria) took on a very ambitious project a few years ago, which has culminated in the Just Like Us exhibition. The exhibition opened on August 26 — the 10th anniversary of the Tampa incident, when then-PM John Howard refused to allow the Norwegian ship Tampa to dock in Australia after it had rescued asylum seekers from a sinking boat.
On October 7, Rene Gonzalez will be released from a United States prison in Florida after serving a 15 year sentence. Gonzalez is one of the Cuban Five — five Cuban men jailed in the US for infiltrating right-wing anti-Cuban terrorist groups to defend the security of the Cuban people. The US government is now trying to stop Gonzalez’s immediate return to his homeland after his release. In the most cynical and mean-spirited fashion, a US court is extending his punishment by making him spend three years on probation in Florida.
More than 100 locals attended a public meeting in Forrest, in Victoria's Otway ranges on September 16 to show their concern about coal seam gas (CSG) exploration in the area. Two companies, CFT CBM Holdings and ECI International, have CSG exploration licences over large areas in the Otway Ranges.
More than 60 people assembled outside Blacktown Council on September 24 to protest plans to mine for coal-seam gas in Blacktown. Mining has already begun in the Blacktown area at Eastern Creek and threatens the integrity of the Prospect Reservoir, organisers said. Ben Hammond from the Blacktown Greens told the rally that Dart Energy was already mining coal-seam gas in Blacktown while AGL was seeking approval to mine also.
On September 21, death row prisoner in the state of Georgia, Troy Davis, was killed by lethal injection. His execution came despite a campaign from around the world in his defence, including by Amnesty International, and protests outside the prison where he was held and across the US. Last-minute legal appeals in the US Supreme Court failed to stop the execution. Davis was found guilty of the murder of police officer Mark MacPhail in 1989 and sentenced to death.
With climate change, humanity basically doesn’t get any second chances. For a recognisable climate to be preserved, net global greenhouse gas emissions need to peak within the next decade, then decline to zero by around mid-century. It’s a tight call, so we have to get things right first time. If we delay, the laws of physics will not be kind.