typing is not activism….

The 2007 Gas & Oil Exposition (GO Expo) was rocked today by the forward-looking keynote address delivered by Shepard Wolffe - spokesman for George Bush’s key advisory, the National Petreoleum Council, and mouthpiece for its Chief, former ExxonMobil CEO, Lee Raymond. Wolffe was accompanied by current Exxon rep Florian Osenberg.

It was expected that Wolffe would announce the long-awaited, though undoubtedly industry-biased and ignorantly conservative, findings of the US Department of Energy commisioned study into climate change and possible impacts on energy policy. Over 300 ‘oil men’, some with ovaries, were in attendance for the highly anticipated keynote address by Wolffe.

He initially made lengthy reference to the liquification of coal and the strip mining of Canada’s oil sands - two highly pollutive practices set to form the cornerstone of US energy policy for decades to come. Attendees were caught off guard when Wolffe acknowledged the environmental disaster such practices would ensure.

Yet he turned these concerns on their head. By combining the threat of peak oil and the opportunities of climate disaster, the new energy source proposed by Exxon and the NPC offers a real and viable solution.

Wolffe insisted that industry will be able to “keep the fuel flowing”. As human fatalities of climate disaster mount, industry is adapting with a revolutionary market-driven solution.

Like Soylent Green, it’s made of people. But it’s not food - it’s oil!

“We need something like whales, but infinitely more abundant,” explained Wolffe before describing the technology used to generate the new Exxon oil product, Vivoleum.

“Vivoleum works in perfect synergy with the continued expansion of fossil fuel production,” noted Exxon rep, Osenberg. “With more fossil fuels comes a greater chance of disaster, but that means more feedstock for Vivoleum. Fuel will continue to flow for those of us left.”

The audience celebrated the dawn of a pragmatic new energy future, joining Wolffe and Osenberg in lighting candles infused with the new power source. This commemorative batch of Vivoleum had been sourced from an Exxon janitor who died after cleaning up a toxic oil spill. When a video was played of the janitor declaring that his dying wish was to be made into candles, the crowd was visibly shaken.

GO Expo organizer, Simon Mellor, physically forced Osenberg from the stage at this point. Unable to accept what he was hearing, he called for the aid of security guards in herding the Exxon rep toward a side exit.

“We’ve got to get ready,” protested Wolffe, as his colleague was dragged from the room. “Fossil fuel development like that of my company is increasing the chances of catastrophic climate change, which could lead to massive calamities, causing migration and conflicts that would likely disable the pipelines and oil wells. Without oil we could no longer produce or transport food, and most of humanity would starve. That would be a tragedy, but at least all those bodies could be turned into fuel for the rest of us.”

“We’re not talking about killing anyone,” he added emphatically. “We’re talking about using them after nature has done the hard work. After all, 150,000 people already die from climate-change related effects every year. That’s only going to go up - maybe way, way up. Will it all go to waste? That would be cruel.”

Acting on a hunch that Wolffe and Osenberg may indeed be Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno of The Yes Men, Mellor held the ‘imposters‘ until the Calgary Police service arrived. Officers determined that the men had committed no serious infraction and had them duly released…like so many billion tonnes of carbon dioxide by an industry that knows it is killing the planet but is more concerned about massive short term profit.

more news as it breaks here

MORE CAPTIONS WELCOME……

Scoopit!

YAAAARGH!!

You may have heard of these thingies called ‘Carnivals’. However you may associate that word - be it with food-poisoning or scarey clowns - it is worth remembering that the original Carnival was a day of regional inversion where fool became king, vice versa, etc. etc.

That said, the Fifth Carnival of Australia happens here from next Wednesday. Already some very cool and interesting oddities with strong opinions have been received. If you would like to contribute, please do so here. For inspiration (or just a better idea of what the hell i be talkin’ aboot) check out Carnival 4 at Megan B’s always illuminating (though not necessarily bright-n-cheerful) Imaginif webatarium.

Megan B has kept this fortnightly carnival alive and growing, creating opportunities for more Australian bloggers and writers to get their bits on to people’s screens. There’s definitely imagination, talent, and insight aplenty out there Orstrayleeyar - you just have to send some in!!!

Get writing (whatever you want, more or less) and check back soon.

Recent rumblings from Tasmania have revealed a chasm of accountability and due process so vast you could push a $2 billion pulp mill through it. This chasm will soon hit the federal election radar, forcing at least one major party to abandon their current strategy of issue neutralization.

The main powers have taken three relatively complicit positions. Tasmania’s Labor government has chosen NAP – ‘not any problem’. Even as the Liberal opposition unsuccessfully support calls for an ICAC, they endorse the project – as does former Liberal Premier and Gunns’ director Robin Gray. Federal Minister for Environment and Water, Malcolm Turnbull, is invoking NMP – ‘not my problem’, and the federal ALP have decided NOPE – ‘not our problem either’.

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Will hopefully post full version (about 40% longer) here in the next day or so. But for now please visit New Matilda, grab yourself a free 4 week subscription (or a very affordable year-long one) and check out the story that’s been eating me for the last 6 weeks. Am absolutely stoked that Matthew Newton has allowed the use of his beautiful Weld Angel for the article.

From the page:

The situation is still extremely volatile. On 2 May, Les Baker, General Manager of the Gunns Pulp Mill Project, let slip on a Christian website that ANZ will be securing finance for the mill. There is speculation that this would conflict with ANZ’s obligations as a signatory to the Equator Principles. And on 17 May, the Wilderness Society (TWS) launched a Federal Court action against Turnbull and Gunns. Led by a highly experienced legal team, TWS’s challenge alleges Governmental bias, abrogation of due process, and seeks delay of the current process until its legality can be determined.

Hell yes!! Kevin Rudd has today announced that if the ALP is elected later this year, Australian naval vessels will be used to intercept the Japanese whaling fleet in Australian waters. This will be a massive step forward. Not only did he state that the Howard government has been ineffective, but also announced that it may be time for Australia to get active outside the International Whaling Commission process in order to end the fiasco of ’scientific whaling’. Read the rest of this entry »

these are cropped from photos i’ve taken of some of the stencils around Sydney’s walls and pavements. Something about dogshit, tanks, and Donald Rumsfeld seems right…not sure quite what though…

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Will be posting own material again soon, but British author-journalist-activist George Monbiot has just posted this piece and it’s too important to ignore. Please visit the article for yourself, but in part it clearly explains why the aim of preventing more than 2°C of warming is overtly political and efforts to achieve this “goal” are based on wrong targets and outdated science. Read the rest of this entry »

That question mark isn’t skeptical - it’s a WTF. Lo at Braless Living has put together a pretty amazing article.

I think the first part was written fast and angry, but the detail - supported by some strong links from the years preceding Hurricane Katrina - is that the danger of that day, which ironically woke a lot of people to the future prognosese (?!) of climate change, was well-detailed in advance. The intriguing argument made is that what oil companies, especially Shell, had been doing off the coast and below sea level had far more to do with thousands of deaths and the destruction of a city than what their product had been doing to the climate. Read the rest of this entry »

WOW!!!! Sexy title, huh?

Here’s a list of recommended online news sources I recently put together for a zine. IMHO, it’s worthwhile, but certainly not comprehensive. Check some of these out for yourself and see what you think. The question is - what are your preferred corners of the web for alternative/progressive/radical/actual news, commentary and analysis? Please bomb the comments with your own suggestions. Read the rest of this entry »

Scorcher: the dirty politics of climate change by Clive Hamilton
Published by Black Inc. Books
Released May, 2007

Scorcher could have easily been titled A Staggeringly Large Amount of Very Inconvenient Truths. But that would misrepresent its focus. It would also suggest a rehashing of what is known. The book’s core message is not that climate change is happening, or even how Australia still lags the world in accepting and responding to it.

The message, and the detail, is that Australians have been methodically and deliberately misled, that our government has purposefully sabotaged global action in the name of private interests, and that even now we are being blatantly lied to. Read the rest of this entry »

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

As an ‘alternative health’ practitioner - trained, qualified, and practising in shiatsu - cancer in all its manifestations is one of the most confronting dis-eases I have ever had to work with. Although I can only imagine how it feels for family members or, moreso, the patient, I have lost friends to leukemia at very young ages, and sufferers have shared their stories with me in ways that are generous, brave, and heartbreaking.

It angers me to see people promising cures, whether from natural sources or laboratory wizardry. Many seem to be fantastic sounding, but on deeper inspection also happen to be money spinners.

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Yes, it’s official - Aussie PM John Howard’s Integrity is “no item”. While somebody almost managed to sell New Zealand on eBay and other people have sold everything from their virginity and kidneys to their lives, eBay had to remove the JHI from its listings. Because you can’t buy what isn’t there.

Seller’s Item Description:

You are bidding on an original 1950’s mind set. Genuine period flaws make this a truly unique item. While the internal mechanism (not in photo) is damaged it still spins at full speed. The veneer is in splendid condition. You will be disappointed or your money back.

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An international campaign against Canadian cyanide giant, Barrick Gold, has kicked up a notch today. Corpwatch has just launched a new global report, Barrick’s Dirty Secrets: Communities Respond to Gold Mining’s Impacts Worldwide, in honour of the occasion.

Barrick is a mega-corp which still plans to extract dirty gold from near the headwaters of an agriculture-dependent valley in Chile. But don’t worry, it’s safe. They’re just going to ‘move’ three glaciers to do it. Yes, they are rabid sociopaths.

The report details activites which span the globe and in many cases displace and damage traditional communities and sacred sites.

Of interest to Australian readers wanting to think global and act local, it details -

how Barrick threatens the water sources in water scarce areas in Chile, Argentina, Australia, and Nevada. In New South Wales, Australia, Barrick’s mine is licensed to use 17 million liters on water per day. Meanwhile, that region is experiencing their worst drought in the last hundred years.

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Sydney’s May Day is on May 6 (WTF?) from 11 a.m. in Hyde Park. Does this mean that Christmas will be December 30 and NYE January 5th? Again…WTF? We’re so hardcore we protest a week after everybody else?Go here for the Wombles’ take on May Day 2007, here for Melbourne Indymedia, and here for a great rundown from Portland IMC of May Days 2001 - 2007 with ongoing updates after the police violence just experienced in LA and elsewhere globally. Blog Green also has good May Day linkage going on. Read the rest of this entry »

OMG - isn’t it amazing what the rest of the world thinks, when compared to what the government tells us they think?!?! Firstly, for Australians, how refreshing is it to read about an environment minister that actually cares about the environment (fingers crossed we’ll have one soon) and secondly how good is it to read an article about dealing with climate change that hasn’t been written as though there’s an option?

The Germans are choosing 3 billion Euros of action now in preference to 130 billion Euros worth of consequence by 2050, and they’re also edging well away from nuclear expansion. Does this sound like, gee, I don’t know, the complete opposite of John Howard’s plan? As in - doing something intelligent and productive as opposed to something stupid and destructive?

Read the article here, Read the rest of this entry »

The following is a communication from Dr Warwick Raverty on April 19, just after the Tasmanian Govt announced the appointment of SWECO (which is apparently an imaginative shortening of ‘Swedish Company’) as independent consultant for assessment of the Tamar pulp mill proposal. Simon Bevilacqua has just run an interview with Dr. Raverty about pulp mill emissions, and a more lengthy recounting of the RPDC experience in Europe may be of interest to TT readers.

As you’re all aware by now, Dr Raverty is very appreciative of those CSIRO colleagues who continue to support his right to speak freely as an individual, and he is speaking entirely on his own behalf and not in his capacity as a CSIRO employee. Will be getting more articles to you all soon from informational places further along the current track (promise) but hope you find this useful for now. The words that follow hereafter are entirely Dr. Raverty’s: Read the rest of this entry »

pilfered from the ever-awesome Mr. Fish at Harpers

More fresh pieces to come, but in the meantime it’s good to know that Dr Raverty isn’t screaming in a vacuum. Apart from the trusty Tassie Times, his detailing of intimidation has showed up on national radar at the ABC. Keith Windschuttle mustn’t be trying hard enough. Read the rest of this entry »

Click here or on the pic to check out Imaginif’s special ANZAC Day collection of writings from the Australian blogosphere. Her site is worth a very good look, with a focus on making the protection of children not just a social but a corporate responsibility.

It is a brain cramper to recall that only about 7 years ago some politicians in Australia tried to legislate for a corporate code of ethics. It would have seen companies found to have acted abhorrently overseas held accountable in Australia. The Bill was more or less laughed out of Parliament. Why? Because it would have been too difficult to punish companies for unethical conduct on foreign shores when there is no such law to compel ethical practices within Australia.

For all the patriotic and God-invoking twoddle that will pour today from politicians and media, it is worth remembering that at the heart of it the day is about remembering people who have both sacrificed and been sacrificed in the name of causes both worthy and dubious.

Robert Manne has written an excellent piece on ANZAC as a foundational myth. Australia celebrates ANZAC as the forging of a national identity, while largely denying a very real genocide. As young Australians were thrown into a hell at Gallipoli, modern Turkey was being born from the blood of a million Armenians. A genocidal origin their self-identity also largely and aggressively rejects. Two national identities born in the same moment on opposite sides of the world but with striking similarities with which neither has yet come to terms.

click on the pic to read Henry Rollins‘ answers to 15 different readers’ questions about politics.

Example

HR: The most messed-up political systems are the ones supported by those who say their system is the fairest and the best, to the point where they feel the need to spread that system to other countries without asking said countries what they think. These are the ones who seem to have no problem ignoring the hypocrisy and shortcomings of their system, but demand that others use it anyway. It’s like only selling damaged goods to people, then robbing them of the cost if they don’t want to buy the product. If you dare to point out the parts of the product that could be improved upon, you are told that you hate the product. That is pretty messed-up.

…this is the “did you eat the last cookie?” face…

Silencing Dissent is an appropriately red, incendiary book detailing how the Howard Government is undermining democracy and playing by its own rules.

To learn more, I spoke with Dr Clive Hamilton, co-writer and executive director of the Australia Institute. In 2004, Hamilton and co-editor Sarah Maddison had researched nearly 300 NGOs representing concerns across Australia. While 9 per cent said the Federal Government encouraged public debate, 90 per cent felt funding cuts were a threat to dissenting individuals and organizations.

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“…my New Zealand General Manager told me in a one-on-one meeting, acting as judge, jury and executioner, that this publication of ‘confidential CSIRO information’ contravenes my terms of employment and as a consequence I am to be removed from my current position of Sustainability Coordinator for the pulp and paper section of Ensis, consigned to a ‘back room’ and that my file is to be marked ‘Never to be Promoted’…”

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A verbatim transcript of the first 12 minutes of a two hour interview conducted with Dr Warwick Raverty follows this introduction. Significantly, we spoke on the very day that Steve Kons announced SWECO PIC as the independent consultant chosen to assess the pulp mill proposal for the Tamar Valley and accordingly advise the Tasmanian Government.

More of this far-reaching discussion will be brought to you in the coming week, but the intention of this interview was to prepare for an article due out shortly. Having spoken with Tasmanian Time’s Lindsay Tuffin, to whom I’m sure many southerners are grateful for a kick-arse genuinely independent media source in Tassie (especially in times like these), here comes that part of the discussion which focused on the appointment of SWECO.

Pertinent to this interview, Dr Raverty is speaking on his own behalf, and his opinions and comments have nothing to do with his role in the CSIRO, or in the Joint venture Ensis, to which he is presently seconded. Notwithstanding this fact, in the course of our discussion he expressed sincere and strong appreciation for senior staff at the CSIRO who, while neither implicitly supporting nor condemning his views, have both supported and maintained his right to speak publicly on his own behalf despite pressures they themselves might be experiencing. Dr Raverty had 20 years experience in the kraft pulping and paper industry before joining CSIRO in 2000.

In further clarification on a genuinely unrelated matter, Dr Raverty would like to expressly withdraw any suggestion that Gunns will be storing vast quantities of chlorine on site which, if gasified, would kill everything in a fifteen kilometer radius. He has now been assured by Les Baker, representing Gunns, that all such potentially hazardous chemicals will be used in the mill as they are produced. Baker insists that they will not be stored in massive quantities on site as Raverty previously thought. Raverty maintains that this misunderstanding would not have occurred had all information about the operation of the mill been provided by Gunns in a clear and timely manner in the course of the now defunct RPDC panel’s assessment of the proposal’s detail.

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