Community activist blasts reckless plan to fill flood mitigation dam to capacity
Anna's plan to fill the dam - foolhardy
With SE Qld combined dams capacity over 40% and heavy rains predicted soon and in the next few months, there has been growing speculation as to whether recycled water, sourced from sewerage treatment plants will still be added to Wivenhoe Dam for domestic use.
To squash this speculation, Anna Bligh announced last week that unless Wivenhoe Dam was 100% full and it was physically impossible to add another drop, recycled water would still be pumped into the dam.
Anna Bligh is old enough to remember the devastation the 1974 flood wreaked on Brisbane and she should remember that Wivenhoe was built both for water storage and for flood mitigation purposes.
The SEQ Water website states:
"During a flood situation, the dam is designed to hold back a further 1.45 million megalitres , as well as its normal storage of capacity of 1.16 million megalitres.
"It is anticipated that, during a large flood similar in magnitude to that experienced in 1974, by using mitigation facility with the Wivenhoe Dam flood levels will be reduced downstream by an estimated 2 metres".
Filling Wivenhoe Dam as Anna Bligh wants to do with recycled water will put Brisbane and Ipswich at risk of severe flooding.
As with forced Fluoridation, Recycled Sewage Drinking water was also Anna Bligh’s idea. A Ministerial Statement put out by Premier Beattie 28 Jan 2007, cancelling the promised Referendum was that the " Deputy Premier " convinced him that recycled water was necessary.
"The data the Deputy Premier has presented to me upon my return indicates that it appears inevitable that we will have to rely on purified recycled water – it is no longer an option, we have no choice."
Common sense is called for, it is obvious that to be effective flood mitigation, Wivenhoe Dam should never be full, it is not meant to be full unless there is a flood. Using recycled sewage water for domestic use is unproven , it has huge potential for risk and t has never been done before, no-one on earth deliberately sources sewage water for a significant portion of their domestic supply.
Message authorised by Merilyn Haines
spokesperson for Queenslanders For Safe Water (www.qawf.org)
contact Mob 0418 777 112
Merilyn Haines will be standing as an independent candidate against Anna Bligh in her seat of South Brisbane at the next state elections.
Topic:
Cockburn residents defy Council bullying and threats of fines
In an effort to silence residents with difficult questions, Western Australia's Cockburn Council routinely limits question time and threatens residents who defy these limits with AU$1,000 fines. The Mayor, Stephen Lee, is now on extended leave after the Crime Commission had found him guilty of misconduct for having accepted an undeclared election campaign donation of AU$43,000 from the Singapore-controlled developer Australand, which wanted to build the controversial Port Coogee Marina.
See also: Postscript: Cockburn Councillors threaten to use ratepayer funds to sue residents, Appendix: Cockburn Community advertisement of 18 Nov 08
The article below, by Mary Jenkins secretary of the Spearwood Residents Association, who stood as an independent candidate in the recent state elections, appeared in the Cockburn Herald on or before 18 Nov 08.
The Cockburn Gazette, in its story, "Protestors Blasted" of 18 November, reported that 100 people with placards had protested at the council meeting and police had been called in to control the residents. The Mayor of Cockburn, Stephen Lee, is now on extended leave after the Crime Commission had found him guilty of misconduct for having accepted an undeclared election campaign donation of AU$43,000 from the Singapore-controlled developer Australand, which wanted to build the controversial Port Coogee Marina.
This article, by Mary Jenkins secretary of the Spearwood Residents Association, who stood as an independent candidate in the recent state elections, appeared in recently in a Western Australian newspaper.
I was secretary of the West Ward community Association in 1985. I always had good relationships with three mayors and the Commissioners who ran council in 1999. Things changed when Stephen Lee became mayor especially since his second term when he began to silence anyone who asked question he did not want to answer.
What infuriated people that attended council meetings in the last few years were how the public were treated with contempt and their questions dismissed. Who is to say that a different council would have done things much better and at considerably less cost to ratepayers? The complete cost has not yet been realised!
How many council general meetings have the people who gave unquestionably support to the mayor, attended? Anyone who attends council meetings regularly, because they are interested in community affairs and process, will be aware of the rapid decline. Councillors could have halted the decline if they had requested further question time at any meeting. They did not once over-rule mayor Lee. Hence the community reaction and threatened with $1,000 fine if they spoke up for further time to ask questions or demanded answers to new planning developments, is to be expected from a vibrant community.
As secretary of the Spearwood Community Association and a member of Concerned Citizens for Good Governance I would like to make it clear that the administration of our council is not the issue of conflict. The administrators are professional people doing a good job under difficult circumstances. They have always listened to and attended our Association meetings, unlike our ward councillors today.
Many of the people who object to the mayor and councillors process have lived in Cockburn for over 60 years. Some have also been councillors themselves and have never experienced what is happening today! Three of our X mayors are also disturbed at the present state of Cockburn Council.
In fact this is having economic consequences both inside and outside Cockburn. Cockburn is no longer considered a property positive place to live in the future according to the Real Estate editor of the Sunday Times (2 Nov 08). Cockburn did not even get a mention. Seems once again the investment and drive is North of the river! So is the transport system!
Could this be because Cockburn has always been a safe union faction ALP seat? Our local member Fran Logan has never lived in Cockburn. In fact the last two state ALP union faction members - Norm Marlbourgh and Bill Thomas - never lived here either! Not one of them ever spoke up for a good coastal train service that would develop Cockburn as a tourist place. Instead industry has been given a free hand to pollute the air we breathe. It is only since the community lobbied for deep sewerage that it is happening at last. Our ALP member and present council ignored this until a State election was imminent this year.
Spearwood Association endorsed the petition to the Minister and rejected Stephen Lee's 3 months leave on full pay at their October meeting. Who is to say 3 month will resolve Lee's problem, hardly likely given McCusker is about to resign and it took Julian Grill a year? What then? Another 3 months in January when there is no general council meeting? How long will this go on for we ask the Minister?
Many of the protesters are people who take an interest in local affairs and planning. They like living in Cockburn. They hope one day Cockburn will return to a democratic council where the community voice is listened to. The alternative is for WEST Ward to become part of Fremantle. Then a proper coastal development can take place without the conflict that exists today between both Fremantle and Cockburn councils. Traffic problems will not be ignored through the region, cycle ways and pedestrian paths will be restored on the coast as part of Fremantle tourism.
Whatever the future holds things will need to change from the present situation. The next council general meeting is on November 13th. Can we expect police on horseback, security with dogs and ten police and plain-clothes detectives present? Is this the way to run a local council meeting where most protesters are over 50, some as old at 80, and just doing what is their right in a democratic country? Come along and support people power.
Mary Jenkins 3 November 2008. Mary ran as an independent candidate in the September State election.
#LegalThreats" id="LegalThreats">Postscript: Cockburn Councillors threaten to use ratepayer funds to sue residents
The Cockburn Herald of Saturday 22 November reported in its story "Councillors legal threat against rowdy ratepayers":
"Acting Cockburn Mayor Kevin Allen wants to sue his constituents for being mean to him at recent council meetings.
"He says he is tired of having abuse hurled at him by rowdy members of Citizens for Good Governance and describes their comments as defamatory, appalling and childish.
"'They are not good people -- they are anarchists,' he said."
Councillor Allen said that he was seeking legal advice.
Councillor is acting Mayor whilst Mayor Stephen Lee is on fully paid leave whilst appealing against five counts of misconduct by the Crime and Corruption Commission for having accepted an undeclared AU$43,000 donation from Australand during the last Council election campaign.
Another Councillor Carol Reeves-Folkes said that she would also be seeking legal advice. She stated that she "will throw everything and everything at people who continue to disrupt the meeting," whilst Helen Atrill and Julie Baker felt that they hadn't been defamed and other councillors did not return calls.
The Cockburn Herald report continued:
"Citizens for Good Governance convener Robyn Scherr said her group had been unfairly targeted.
"'The Council is lashing out because they feel threatened,' she said.
"'We are still calling for the council to be sacked and if the minister can't sack the council, then he should resign.'"
#CockburnCommunityAdvertisment" id="CockburnCommunityAdvertisment">Appendix: Cockburn Community advertisement of 18 Nov 08
The following is the full text from the advertisement which appeared in the Cockburn City Herald of 18 Nov 08 together with some of the scanned image.
COCKBURN
COUNCIL
HAS FAILED
The community wanted Council to demand Mayor Stephen Lee to resign. They should have stripped the "Misconduct Mayor" of his exorbitant pay! But without debate, councillors quickly voted to use our money to give Mr Lee a paid holiday! By acting as a team in support of the disgraced Mayor they've condemned themselves as well.
$20,000 on PR spin
$20,000 for the Mayor's holiday
$20,000 more holidays in January?
Justice Delayed
Justice Denied!
WE NEED
YOUR HELP
TO TAKE BACK CONTROL
OF YOUR COUNCIL
Ausbuy buys into population debate
How Green Is This "Green" Party?
Oz Parliament: Bob Brown moves for sane population policy: See who voted for & against growth
This was only the first shot in the war on unsustainable growth.
Australians and the world now have on record where their so-called leaders stand on this question. The 'nay group' carries the names of the people Australians may hold responsible for thirst, starvation and slavery, if the future continues to unfold according to their plan to continue population growth.
S.A. Senator Minchin about-face
In passing I note that the elderly Liberal Senator Minchin, South Australia, failed to support this motion. Minchin made his maiden speech congratulating ex-NSW leader, Bob Carr, on his ostentatious (and curiously ineffective) stance against population growth.
Young South Australian Senators, Xenophon & Hanson-Young vote for the population motion
However, Independent, Nick Xenophon, did support the motion.
And so did the youngest member of Federal Parliament in Australia's history, Sarah Hanson-Young, also in South Australia.
Now South Australians have a real choice in the Federal Senate!
West Australian based Greens Rachel Siewert and Scott Ludlum also supported the motion.
And so did Christine Milne, who represents Tasmania in the Senate. (She is informed on peak oil and other energy issues and has some good discussions on her site.)
Pressure for growth comes mainly from the property & infrastructure development lobby
I have been studying this political problem of obdurate growthism and the pressure for growth from the infrastructure development lobby now for years. It is a threat to our democracy. I will be watching with great interest from now on. I can only urge those six senators who showed the ability to think for themselves and to strongly represent Australia's welfare not to give up. The mass media is pro-growth because it is really part of the corporate sector, so the senators won't derive benefit there for their courage. In fact the only source of support they may find is in the broad Australian population. The Greens seem to be the only ones attuned to the cries of warning from people in Australia who can see things getting so bad so quickly as we place more and more pressure on this fragile country's natural resources, wildlife and trees, democracy and social structure. It is good to see that they have managed to shake themselves loose from whatever was holding them back from confronting the issue of population in previous years.
Details below:
http://www.aph.gov.au/HANSARD/senate/dailys/ds131108.pdf
Senate Hansard November 13th 2008 p.3.
WHITE PAPER ON GLOBAL POPULATION
Senator BOB BROWN (Tasmania—Leader of the Australian Greens) (9.37 am)—I move:
That the Senate calls on the Government to develop a white paper on population during this period of government which takes into account:
(a) projections of a global population of between 9 to 10 billion people by 2050;
(b) the inability of the Earth to provide for 9 to 10 billion people if average resource consumption is to be at
current levels in Australia;
(c) climate change;
(d) Australia’s inability to host exponential population growth; and
(e) the wellbeing of future generations and life on Earth.
Question put.
The Senate divided. [9.41 am]
(The President—Senator the Hon. JJ Hogg)
Motion defeated 6 to 47
(The President—Senator the Hon. JJ Hogg)
Ayes………… 6
Noes………… 47
Majority……… 41
AYES
Brown, B.J.
Hanson-Young, S.C.
Ludlam, S.
Milne, C.
Siewert, R.
* Xenophon, N.
NOES
Adams, J. Bernardi, C.
Bilyk, C.L. Boswell, R.L.D.
Boyce, S. Brandis, G.H.
Brown, C.L. Cameron, D.N.
Cash, M.C. Colbeck, R.
Collins, J. Conroy, S.M.
Coonan, H.L. Cormann, M.H.P.
Crossin, P.M. Eggleston, A.
Farrell, D.E. Feeney, D.
Ferguson, A.B. Fielding, S.
Fierravanti-Wells, C. Fifield, M.P.
Fisher, M.J. Forshaw, M.G.
Furner, M.L. Hogg, J.J.
Humphries, G. Hurley, A.
Hutchins, S.P. Ludwig, J.W.
Lundy, K.A. Macdonald, I.
Marshall, G. McEwen, A.
McGauran, J.J.J. McLucas, J.E.
Minchin, N.H. Moore, C.
Nash, F. Parry, S. *
Polley, H. Pratt, L.C.
Stephens, U. Sterle, G.
Williams, J.R. Wong, P.
Wortley, D.
* denotes teller
Question negatived.
Rudd dodges hard questions at a Community cabinet
Story by Catherine Case:
With the Community Cabinet due to take place in the city of Launceston where I live, I thought what better opportunity to ask a question of the Prime Minister about the government's obsessive focus on economic growth and their apparent blindness to the realities of ecological limits? I also wanted to try and ascertain whether they had any long term plan whatsoever to deal with projected population growth in Australia. Would they even acknowledge it as an issue? No one in the mainstream media ever asks these questions, the paradigm of "perpetual growth" goes unchallenged. It seems so blindingly obvious to me that endless growth is an impossibility. Why isn't someone - anyone - in the government facing up to reality?
Launceston community cabinet
On Wednesday 5 November 2008, I attended the community cabinet at Launceston, where I got to ask a question I had prepared in front of 400 people. Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, looked at me with total disdain and completely avoided (and in the most patronizing way) answering my question, which was:
Relentless focus on growth
"For me one of the most disappointing aspects of the Labor government has been the relentless focus and almost obsession with "growing the economy". It's as if every member has sworn to repeat this mantra as often and as loudly as possible on every occasion, as we've already heard here tonight.
Isn't about time that we stopped pretending that mindlessly chasing unending economic growth is even remotely compatible with sustainability?
Population numbers
Because underlying this whole issue is the unspeakable and forbidden P word - POPULATION
The Australian Bureau of Statistics recently projected that Australia's population could increase to 42 million people in a little over 40 years with Melbourne and Sydney both reaching nearly 7 million people each.
Is that sensible, desirable or sustainable?
Australia is in bad shape already
Aren't we as a country already seriously struggling with water supply, energy independence, food production, depleted fisheries, overloaded infrastructure and severe environmental degradation?
When will the government show real leadership on this issue and start to address the elephant in the living room that is population?
When will the government take the brave step of articulating a national population policy - one that recognizes REALITY and dispenses with the cozy fantasy that is the economic mirage of never-ending population growth?
Will this government have the courage to articulate a policy that, as recommended in a recent CSIRO publication, aims to stabilize the population of Australia to 25-27 million people by 2050?
And if not, why not?"
Prime minister Rudd responds obliquely
First off Rudd said that he and his government wouldn't apologize for wanting every "able bodied" person to have employment… the importance of strong economy, jobs etc.
Then he rattled off something about buying back water entitlements. Some more guff about signing the Kyoto Protocol. Some other far-fetched rhetoric about "sustainable development".
He said how important it is for Australians to address climate change and how the government is doing just that.
The only thing that even got close to addressing the question was something about immigration rates and how the government adjusted those in accordance with economic conditions. And Rudd cursorily mentioned "natural" population increase as if the government had no hand in promoting and encouraging it and was powerless to do anything about it.
And even though I'd addressed the question to him and the Minister for the Environment, Peter Garrett, Rudd quickly pointed at the next person in the audience with their hand up and didn't pass the mike on to Peter Garrett, even though he did with all the other questions to various ministers.
He struck me as a shifty, slippery piece of work. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. But I would have liked to heard Garrett's response, and I hope to follow up on this.
General problems with conduct of the Community Forum
As well as the frustration of having the Prime Minister fudge my question, I found the way the community forum was conducted disappointing. At the beginning of the forum, which was already running about 20 minutes behind, after numerous welcomes and thank you's, everyone had to listen to Rudd for about another 15 minutes telling us about all the wonderful election promises that he has kept - in some detail mind you - and all the wonderful things still to come.
Yet the Prime Minister and his entourage were supposed to be there to listen to US! It was like an election speech, anyone would think the guy is still trying to get elected. Even his ministers were looking uncomfortable and bored. I let one of his advisors know in no uncertain terms that I thought it was rude and inappropriate that he went on so much. It was pretty obvious the whole thing is a PR exercise pure and simple.
By the way, I did get quite a bit of applause after my question, so lots of people were in agreement.
Follow-up with Peter Garrett
Peter Garrett just happened to be making an announcement right next to where I work yesterday. I was able to bail him up after he'd finished his official stuff and after he had spent some time placating pulp mill protesters with his reassuring words of how diligently he would be assessing the project against the extremely narrow commonwealth guidelines and how after all, It was Malcolm Turnbull who had approved it - not him! I had heard this before. At least he made the effort to go and talk to them which I have to give him credit for....
It was quite funny because the protesters have taken well known songs and changed the words to become pulp mill protest songs and halfway through Garrett's speech they started singing them very
loudly, practically drowning him out.
Anyway, I got round to saying to Garrett that I was the person who had asked the question the night before about population and that I had been disappointed that he didn't get a chance to answer it.
"Well," he said, "I'm in complete agreement with the Prime Minister."
Population was not a problem!! It was more important to address issues like environmental impacts and other things.
"But" I said, "Surely you have to take population into account, it's a major factor?" Did he really think that Australia having 42 million people was a good idea given the already existing environmental problems?
My recollection is that he said that he was not going to "talk numbers", that it was "not about the numbers". He reminded me that he had been President of the ACF for a number of years, arguing that this had acquainted him well about population as an issue, but it's not "the problem".
He disagreed with my "opinion" about population.
I said, "Well it's not just my 'opinion'; what about the CSIRO? They're recommending that this be addressed."
My impression was that he totally dismissed this point, and that he walked away from me, still pronouncing what sounded to me like platitudes about consumption, sustainable industries, etc etc.
Oh well....
My next thing is to fill in the form that they gave out at the forum and send it to him with some more specific questions. I want to see what he says when he has to put something in writing.
Chilliwack's water supply threatened by overdevelopment
The Elephant In The Room
Written by Norm Smith, Mayoral Candidate for the Save Chilliwack Citizens Alliance.
l have received phone calls and emails recently from residents who are questioning the validity of my position, stated on page one of the Save Chilliwack website, that we are facing a water crisis due to runaway growth, and my position that we cannot sustain our official community plan without depleting the Sardis-Vedder Aquifer.It is appropriate to issue a press release regarding the facts concerning our City's dwindling water supply, and the water crisis we are facing if Chilliwack continues with it's pro-growth "Official Comunity Plan".
I stand by these assertions, and I cite as evidence information published on the City of Chilliwack's official website.
The city admits "We are approaching our limit for water withdrawal from the Sardis-Vedder aquifer and will have to seek out new sources of water for the future. These new sources will be more expensive to develop and operate and will not be the same quality as the Sardis-Vedder aquifer."
www.chilliwack.com/main/page.cfm?id=1445
Elk Creek was generally viewed as our city's "backup water supply" but it is already being diverted to accomodate the vast commercial and residential development plans that have already started on our Eastern Hillsides.
It is now apparent that this unreliable source is going to be stressed out sooner rather than later. Elk Creek dries up in the summer and freezes up in the winter.
The city plans to divert the Sardis-Vedder Aquifer to accomodate the Eastern Hillside developers. This will be the straw that breaks the back of our aquifer and triggers the water crisis.
Reference: http://www.chilliwack.com/main/attachments/files/774/Appendix_B2.pdf (see 3.8)
This is a bad deal for Chiliwack residents because the cost of these massive water projects would be better spent on "quality of life infrastructure" such as a network of bicycle and pedestrian trails and an improved hybrid bus service. The whole mess is a direct result of Chilliwack's "pro-growth" strategy.
The whole situation is a huge tragedy, as our Sardis-Vedder aquifer has won several contests and won the best drinking water in Canada contest two years. It is rare to have a pristine water source that requires no chlorination. It should have been protected from overdevelopment, and we need to protect what is left.
The whole thing could probably have been prevented if City Hall had been promoting a "pro-infrastructure strategy" instead of a pro-growth strategy. The needs of Chilliwack residents must come ahead of the interests of developers.
The continued promotion of growth in our city is an unsustainable blueprint for disaster. We need to change direction.
Norm Smith
Mayoral Candidate and Co-founder
Save Chilliwack Citizens Alliance
savechilliwack.ca
Federal Government threatens Internet censorship
Too many unanswered questions on net censorship
Media Release by Scott Ludlum, Greens Senator for Western Australia, 11 November 2008
The Australian Greens have warned there are too many unanswered questions about the government's internet filtering plan, as the government calls for Internet Service Providers to participate in its trial.
"We still don't know how this filter would sift through the billions of websites on the internet in search of the 'unwanted' material referred to in question time today by Minister Conroy," said the Greens Communications Spokesperson, Senator Scott Ludlam.
Last month at Senate Estimates, Senator Ludlam queried the focus of the filter and in particular, whether similar schemes have been implemented overseas. The Senator queried the issue again today to establish why the Government had compared Australia's proposed mandatory system with a number of other countries where net filtering is not mandatory. Again the Minister failed to answer the question directly.
"Unfortunately, the Minister did not respond to my question. He still hasn't explained why the proposed mandatory filter is being compared to optional filters operating overseas. It's like comparing apples to oranges. It doesn't advance the debate in any way."
"The internet has not traditionally been the focus of censorship in democratic countries, and the online community has been tenacious in its pursuit of straight answers from the Minister. I'll be doing what I can to get those answers on the record so we know what we're dealing with," concluded Senator Ludlam.
For more information or media enquiries please call Robert Simms on 0417 174 302
Robert Simms
Media Adviser to
Senator Scott Ludlam
Australian Greens Senator for Western Australia
Sitting weeks: Tel: 02 6277 3467 | Fax: 02 6277 5821
S1.36, Parliament House, Canberra ACT 2600
Non-Sitting weeks: Tel: 02 6277 3566 | Fax: 02 6277 3185
SG111, Parliament House, Canberra ACT 2600
Mobile: 0417 174 302
See also: "Filtering out the fury: how government tried to gag web censor critics" in the SMH of 24 Oct 08, #more-217">"Filtering Pilot and ACMA Blacklist - Not just 'illegal' material" on Electronic Frontiers Australia on 15 Nov 08, "Net censorship plan backlash" in the Age of 11 Nov 08, YouTube broadcast of Senator Scott Ludlum questioning Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy about the planned censorship, "Winning the war against Internet censorship" by David Jackmanson on Online Opinion of 17 Nov 08, Online Opinion Forum "What's happening about the internet censor?" of 13 Nov 08, "Australia Joins China In Censoring The Internet" on TechCrunch of 30 Dec 07, www.scottludlam.org.au
Federation for American Immigration Reform : Illegal immigration costs Georgia US$1.6 billion annually
Federation for American Immigration Reform media release, 24 Oct 08
(Washington, D.C.) A new report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) demonstrates why Georgia has taken a lead in adopting state-based policies to control the costs of illegal immigration. According to the new study, "The Costs of Illegal Immigration to Georgians," the state currently spends about $1.6 billion a year to provide three basic services to illegal aliens and their dependents - K-12 education, public health care, and incarceration of criminals. These costs associated with the estimated 495,000 illegal aliens residing in the state amount to a $523 a year burden for every Georgia household headed by a native-born American.
K-12 education for the children of illegal aliens constitutes the largest share of Georgia's cost burden, finds the report. The annual price tag for schooling an estimated 64,100 children who are themselves illegal aliens, and an estimated 89,700 U.S.-born children of illegal aliens, runs to about $1.38 billion. Unreimbursed health care costs add an additional $210 million to the taxpayers' tab, while another $22.6 million is spent incarcerating illegal aliens who have committed other crimes in Georgia. All of these costs compound an already difficult fiscal situation, as state officials estimate a current budget shortfall of about $2 billion.
"At a time when governments at every level are struggling with huge deficits, slashing vital programs and services, and US-workers are losing their jobs, we see repeated examples of how illegal immigration is adding to already significant fiscal worries," said Dan Stein, president of FAIR. "As Georgia businesses have padded their profit margins in recent years by using illegal aliens to undercut American workers, the true costs for this low wage labor force have been passed along to the taxpayers."
In response to the spiraling costs associated with illegal immigration, Georgia adopted workable state-based enforcement policies in 2007, which have begun to have a positive impact. "Georgia provides a case study in how a state can respond effectively to crushing cost burdens associated with illegal immigration, and provides a model for other state governments," said Stein.
"The Costs of Illegal Immigration to Georgians" is the latest in a series of studies FAIR has produced examining the impact of illegal immigration on state governments and local taxpayers. "Until fairly recently, regions like the South had been largely unaffected by the phenomenon of mass illegal immigration. The findings of this report, that illegal immigration now costs Georgia $1.6 billion a year, is evidence that mass illegal immigration is truly a national problem that demands real enforcement solutions at the federal, state and local level," concluded Stein.
"The Costs of Illegal Immigration to Georgians" is available on FAIR's website, www.fairus.org as a pdf report (460K).
This media release has been distributed by Bill Ryerson of the Populatiion Media Center (www.populationmedia.org)
Contact: Jack Martin (202) 328-7004, jmartin [AT] fairus.org.
About FAIR
Founded in 1979, FAIR is the country's largest and oldest immigration reform group. With over 250,000 members nationwide, FAIR fights for immigration policies that serve national interests, not special interests. FAIR believes that immigration reform must enhance national security, improve the economy, protect jobs, preserve our environment, and establish a rule of law that is recognized and enforced.
Bob Dane
Press Secretary/Communications Director
Federation for American Immigration Reform
25 Massachusetts Avenue - Suite 300
Washington DC, 20001
Office 202-328-7004
Topic:
Vote for democracy in Victoria - start with this resident-group-candidate list for local government
Below is a list of people in the Planning Backlash network running for council. Lots more information at the Marvellous Melbourne site.
Note: Apparently someone out there doesn't like the tag, "activist" and has requested that I use "resident group member candidate". Tags are a problem, I agree. But you have to get a message over quickly in a headline. And we do need Activists - that is, people who think for themselves and start things going - to get over the terrible hurdles which have been placed in front of democracy and local empowerment and the right to self-government.
Election day is the last Saturday in November. Voting starts about the 10th November.
A number of councils now have postal voting only and the ballot papers are being sent out the 11 12 and 13 of November. They are due back by the last Saturday in November.
Candidates for council from groups in the Planning Backlash network
Bayside Council
Clifford Hayes currently a Councillor & P.B. Working Group member
Michael Norris Southern Ward (1) BlackRock & Sandringham
Darrell Reid Southern Ward (2)
Boroondara Council
Tony Michael Bellevue Ward Willsmere Park Kew,
www.fowpkb.org Friends of Willesmere Park and Kew Billabong
Justin McKernan Solway Ward Noise Abatement Action Group
For Booroondarra Council Elections there is also a new site with evaluations:http://brag.asn.au/bragmoodle10/course/view.php?id=2
Cardinia Council
Catherine Manning Port Ward
Casey Council
Lynette Keleher Casey City River Gum Ward
John Rickard Casey City Mayfield Ward
Corangamite Council (Port Campbell)
Marion Manifold Central Ward
Darebin Council
Darren Lewin-Hill Rucker Ward
www.lewin-hill.net/darebino8
Frankston Council
Glen Aitken North West Ward Currently a Councillor & P.B Working Group member
Jim Kerin North West Ward - Seaford, Frankston Nth, Karringal
Robert Thurley South West Ward
Glen Eira Council
Helen Whiteside currently a Councillor
Cheryl Forge Camden Ward
Kingston Council
Stephen Calvert-Smith Central Ward
Rosemary West Central Ward currently a Councillor
Caroline O’Donnell South Ward
Greg Alabaster North Ward currently a Councillor
Manningham Council
Rosa Miot Koonung Ward
Ivan Reid Koonung Ward www.bettermanningham.com
Warren Welsh Koonung Ward, currently a Councillor & P.B. Working Group member
Maribyrnong Council
Janis Rossiter Currently a Councillor & P.B.Working Group member
Melbourne City Council
Gary Morgan for Lord Mayor
Michael Kennedy for Deputy Lord Mayor
Michele Anderson
Jackie Watts
Margaret Wood
www.corba_melbourne.com
Mitchell Council
Brian Mahwinney Kilmore
Macedon Ranges
(See: www.mrra.asn.au for comprehensive ratings all candidates.)
Neil Manning
Brian Whitefield
www.mrra.asn.au
See also: "East Ward: Is Morabito The Missing Man?" of 16 Nov 08 - the Macedon Ranges Residents Association warns voters of one candidate's undeclared links with the sham residents' association, the MRRS, "Undermining local democracy: Macedon Ranges: Pork Barelling and other forms of Influence" of 17 Jul 08.
Monash Council
Matthew Billmann Oakleigh Ward
monashliveability.wordpress.com
Mornington Peninsula Council
Leigh Eustace Mt Eliza Ward
Peter Holloway Kangerong Ward
Nillumbik Council
Belinda Clarkson
Brian Murray Blue Lake Ward Greensborough
Port Phillip Council
Serge Thomann Catani Ward
David Carter Carlisle Ward
Anna Griffiths Junction Ward
Jane Touzeau Point Ormond Ward
Richard Roberts Sandridge Ward
Frank O’Connor Emerald Ward
www.unchainportphillip.com
Queenscliffe Council
Names coming - try looking them up at one of the activist election sites listed above.
Stonnington Council
Ken Davis East Ward
Mathew Knight East Ward
Werribee Council
John Menegazzo Iramoo Ward
Yarra Council
Amanda Stone Yarra City Langridge Ward
Ian Quick Yarra City Melba Ward - current President SOS
Why U.S. immigration reformers can still remain hopeful
Thirty years ago I was a wild and woolly graduate student at the University of British Columbia in Tim Murray's rain-drenched and green home province on Canada's west coast. Among the odds and ends taped to my office door on campus was a cartoonist's sketch. The sketch depicted a doomed mouse defiantly giving the finger to a screaming, demonical hawk in full dive, its deadly, gleaming talons extended and on the verge of both piercing and crushing the life out of the pugnacious rodent.
If not exactly "speaking truth to power," at least this was saying, "I know you're about to destroy me, but screw you anyway."
I was reminded of this cartoon as I read Tim's trenchant and grim post "Is It Game Over for Immigration Reformers in America?" It may well be that those of us toiling fruitlessly for decades to stop what author Lindsey Grant once called "the juggernaut" of U.S. and global population growth - before catastrophe or collapse intercedes - are like that little mouse. I'm inclined to agree, and yet persistent pessimist (realist?) that I am, even I have to admit that perhaps a thin sliver of hope remains; it may even be that this is not forlorn hope or mere grasping at straws.
Tim's analysis is that Barack Obama's win and the Democrats' consolidation of their control of both the House and Senate augur ill for immigration reduction and U.S. population stabilization efforts, and he's absolutely right. The first type of "immigration reform" this emboldened cabal will attempt is a revival of the amnesty proposal - supported by elites almost across the board - that failed in the Senate last year after a popular outcry by rank-and-file Americans across the land. Derided as a "shamnesty" by its opponents, and denied to be an amnesty at all by its proponents, this bill, if passed, would legalize the status of some 12-20 million illegal immigrants now estimated to already be in the USA.
The framers of the U.S. Constitution envisioned a system of checks and balances that would prevent hasty or ill-considered changes in federal government policy and direction. Usually, passing a law requires getting over more hurdles than a finalist in the 110-meter Olympic event. But many of these hurdles were swept away by November 4's political tidal wave, and the significantly strengthened Democratic control of both the executive (presidency) and the legislative (House and Senate) branches of government.
Tim, joined by many American political analysts, argues that inexorably growing Hispanic and other immigrant populations bolster a multicultural or pseudo-"progressive" consensus that because immigration is good, more (and more and more) immigration must be even better. (Earth First! founder Dave Foreman referred to this as "progressive cornucopianism," part of the left-wing variant of the widely shared delusion that there are no limits to growth. Right-wingers prefer greedy growth while left-wingers prefer feel-good growth. Both worship growth without limit and operate under the reining paradigm that denies the existence of ultimate limits to expanding human appropriation of the earth.)
One Hispanic commenter on CNN, a former high-ranking operative in the Democratic Party, claimed that in the largely conservative Rocky Mountain West, dominated by Republicans for years, big Democratic wins in New Mexico, Colorado, and elsewhere were made possible only by angry Hispanics registering and voting in droves because they were outraged by anti-illegal immigration crusaders Tom Tancredo (retiring Republican congressman from Colorado) and CNN commentator Lou Dobbs.
Reading Tim's post and similar observations also reminded me of what NumbersUSA founder Roy Beck and I wrote in our 2001 monograph Forsaking Fundamentals: The Environmental Establishment Abandons U.S. Population Stabilization. It is worth quoting at some length, because it anticipates the very dilemma we now face:
"Still another reason environmental groups didn't want to tackle immigration numbers to slow U.S. population growth may have been their fear of changing demographics. As the population of foreign-born Americans and their children rose ever higher, they became an increasingly powerful political bloc whom many environmental leaders feared could thwart environmentalist initiatives and legislation if they perceived environmental groups to be hostile to immigration.
"In 1970, immigrants comprised about 5 percent of the American population. By the late 1990s, that figure had risen to almost 10 percent and was still climbing rapidly with no sign of cresting - a predictable consequence of the four-fold increase in immigration levels over the past four decades. In certain key states - particularly California (25 percent), New York (18 percent), and Florida (15 percent) - and a number of influential cities, the percentage of foreign-born in the population was much higher still and was large enough to be the balance of power in some elections.
"The bloc of foreign-born Americans and their children in the late 1990s already was far larger than the bloc of black Americans. The Census Bureau showed that if Congress did not change immigration policy, the bloc of recent immigrants and their descendants would be more than a third of all Americans by the year 2050.
"A number of interests, ranging from private businesses to political parties to environmental groups, assumed that Congress will not change immigration policy and that this revolutionary demographic shift is virtually inevitable, a fait accompli. All positioned themselves to take advantage of the shift as best they could and to keep the shift from hurting them.
"In the case of businesses, this could mean reaching new rapidly growing markets by advertising in a foreign language. In the case of political parties, it meant nurturing immigrants as a source of donations, votes, and political power. And in the case of environmental groups, it could mean trying to avoid any issues that might cause this developing power in American politics to oppose environmentalist political goals.
"Particularly in California where the foreign born and their children already comprised more than a third of the population, Sierra Club leaders worried aloud not only that advocating U.S. population stabilization might lose immigrants, their friends, and family as supporters, but that sensitive political alliances with ethnic politicians could be jeopardized as well.
"Sam Shuchat, the executive director of the California League of Conservation Voters - an organization immersed in state politics - pleaded with the Sierra Club not to '...commit suicide over the immigration issue. This is something the environmental community cannot afford.'
"In this fearful way of thinking, advocacy of immigration reduction to stabilize the population and protect the environment could only be seen by immigrants already here as an attempt to prevent them from becoming a majority of the population in California during the next few years - and of the country later in the next century. Having their future power thus threatened by environmentalists, immigrants would insist that their elected officials vote against environmental protection measures, according to the demographic-fear scenario.
"Former Zero Population Growth president Judy Kunofsky, who also chaired the Sierra Club's Population Committee in the late 1980s...has logged a quarter-century of service and leadership within the environmental and population movements. Kunofsky recalled that some years back, a staffer for a Hispanic member of Congress from Southern California told a Sierra Club representative that the Congressman was outraged that the Club wanted to limit immigration.
"Later, various Latino citizens groups in Los Angeles threatened not to cooperate with the Club on air pollution issues if it were to actively oppose immigration. 'When you have ethnic spokesmen saying to environmentalists that "we won't work with you on clean air if you support immigration restriction," that is an admission that increasing their own numbers takes precedence over all other considerations and that environmental concerns are secondary.'
"Whether the commitment of immigrants toward the environment was that shallow or whether their desire - or ability - to be some sort of monolithic voting bloc was that strong remains undetermined. Public opinion polls would suggest that immigrants were not especially wedded to current immigration numbers and would not react as an angry group if the numbers were reduced back toward a more traditional American level. For years, polls showed immigrants generally agreeing with native-born Americans about reducing future immigration.
For years, polls showed immigrants generally agreeing with native-born Americans about reducing future immigration."UCLA astronomy professor and environmental activist Ben Zuckerman was among those in 1998 who dismissed the suggestion that immigrants would retaliate against immigration reduction by insisting that the natural environment of their new country be despoiled. He wrote that if the Sierra Club renewed its proscriptive commitment to U.S. population stabilization, 'political allies will continue to vote for sound environmental legislation when it is in the interests of their constituents - which is what they do now.' Yet even Zuckerman conceded that: "Politically, excessive immigration is very difficult to deal with because, in states with large immigrant populations, politicians are afraid to appear anti-immigrant, and in states with few immigrants, the national level of immigration is not a political issue."
"Whether the fear of immigrant retaliation was justified or not, if believed by environmental leaders, it could have greatly affected their decisions about pursuing U.S. population stabilization. Certainly there were some reasons for the environmental leaders to have adopted such a belief during the Sierra Club's referendum campaign. They heard from some self-appointed immigrant spokespersons who made the threat of retaliation. And Sierra leaders may have drawn similar conclusions from a contingent of California Democratic state-level politicians, many of them Latinos, who directly challenged the Club to defeat the immigration-reduction referendum. 'A position by the club to further limit immigration would be considered immigrant bashing by many elected officials of color with near-perfect environmental records,' Santos Gomez (an appointed member of the Club's National Population Committee) wrote in a newspaper op-ed piece. Pete Carrillo, president of the Mexican Heritage Corp. of Santa Clara County, Calif., told a reporter that if the Sierra Club returned to its policy calling for immigration reductions it would produce 'a gap as wide as the Pacific Ocean between the Sierra Club and the Mexican American Community.'
"Thus, intimidated environmental leaders may have chosen the logic of the executive director of California League of Conservation Voters: If immigrants did retaliate, that would be something 'the environmental community cannot afford.' It would not be a question of whether the environment could afford another doubling of the U.S. population but whether the environmental community could afford immigrant retaliation if environmentalists tried to stop the doubling. Protection of the environmental institutions may have been placed ahead of protection of the environment."
At the end of our 2001 monograph, Roy and I paid homage to the courage and consistency of the late, legendary environmental leaders David Brower and Gaylord Nelson. Brower was former executive director and board member of the Sierra Club, and founder of the League of Conservation Voters, Friends of the Earth, and Earth Island Institute. Among many other achievements, former Democratic Senator Gaylord Nelson and Wisconsin governor founded Earth Day in 1970 and worked as a counselor to the Wilderness Society from 1980 to his death in 2005. To the end of their long lives, both Brower and Nelson remained fiercely outspoken about the need to stop U.S. population growth and rein in immigration. They spoke out even in the face of growing queasiness and paralysis by other environmentalist elites who were understandably fearful of being pummeled and discredited as racist xenophobes by those demagogues ever willing to fling these charges (because they know they work). Nothing will stop a typical high-minded environmentalist in his or her tracks faster than the threat of being accused of "the greening of hate," however baseless the charge.
Roy and I also held out hope in 2001 that, "The growing grassroots concern of numerous rank-and-file environmentalists and ordinary Americans with the multiple problems unavoidably aggravated by overpopulation and overimmigration may yet overturn their leaders' stubborn denial of demographic and ecological realities." I'd be the first to admit that this has not yet happened, and perhaps never will, at least in time to make much of a difference.
Recently, I coauthored a study on immigration and U.S. greenhouse gas emissions with Steve Camarota for the Washington, DC-based thinktank the Center for Immigration Studies. We found that immigrants, on average, increase their per capita emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) four-fold when they move to the United States from their countries of origin. We also concluded that immigration, because it is expected to account directly and indirectly for about 80% of projected U.S. population growth to 2050, will also account for a comparable percentage of the projected increase in U.S. CO2 emissions under the business-as-usual scenario.
This stunning finding elicited a collective yawn of indifference from the American environmental establishment. To my knowledge, the big guns of this establishment were utterly silent. The Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, Audubon Society, National Wildlife Federation, Greenpeace, and others of their ilk - all of whom purport to want to save both nature and humanity across the country and the planet from the ravages of wanton human/industrial activity - all ignored this study. Instead, the only commentary our research generated was from mass immigration's ever-vigilant defense brigade, some of whom attacked it as "nutty" and another example of "the immigrant blame game," while accusing us of wanting not only to keep people out but keep them poor and pure.
Challenging the many manifestations of the growth paradigm that permeates modern industrial society has always been an uphill, perhaps even futile struggle. In spite of the perennial optimism and hope of people like Donella Meadows (lead author of 1972's The Limits to Growth and subsequent updates) or immigration reformer Roy Beck, in recent years, I sense a growing despondency and resignation that perhaps "overshoot and collapse" really is human civilization's unavoidable destiny. The best-selling 2005 book Collapse by Pulitzer Prize-winning Jared Diamond, Joseph Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies, William Catton's pioneering Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change, Debora MacKenzie's 2008 article "Why the demise of civilization may be inevitable," in New Scientist, and of course, the www.dieoff.org website founded by Jay Hanson all recount the terrific momentum of irrupting, irrationally exuberant human societies, in which voluntary, collective restraint and the ability to accept "living within limits" are utterly incomprehensible.
Here I can do no better than to quote the late Donella Meadows, in one of the last articles she penned for her syndicated newspaper column The Global Citizen, before her untimely death after a brief but hard-fought struggle with cerebral meningitis in 2001. In a column entitled "Polar Bears and Three-Year-Olds on Thin Ice," she wrote:
Some biologists are saying the polar bear is doomed.
A friend of mine, in response to this news, did the only appropriate thing. She burst out weeping. "What am I going to tell my three-year-old?" she sobbed. Any of us still in contact with our hearts and souls should be sobbing with her, especially when we consider that the same toxins that are in the bears are in the three-year-old. And that the three-year-old over her lifetime may witness collapsing ecosystems, north to south, until all creatures are threatened, especially top predators like polar bears and people.
Is there any way to end this column other than in gloom? Can I give my friend, you, myself any honest hope that our world will not fall apart? Does our only possible future consist of watching the disappearance of the polar bear, the whale, the tiger, the elephant, the redwood tree, the coral reef, while fearing for the three-year-old?
If we believe ... that we are fatally flawed, that the most greedy and short-sighted among us will always be permitted to rule, ... well, then yes, it's over.Heck, I don't know. There's only one thing I do know. If we believe that it's effectively over, that we are fatally flawed, that the most greedy and short-sighted among us will always be permitted to rule, that we can never constrain our consumption and destruction, that each of us is too small and helpless to do anything, that we should just give up and enjoy our SUVs while they last, well, then yes, it's over. That's the one way of believing and behaving that gives us a guaranteed outcome.Personally I don't believe that stuff at all. I don't see myself or the people around me as fatally flawed. Everyone I know wants polar bears and three-year-olds in our world. We are not helpless and there is nothing wrong with us except the strange belief that we are helpless and there's something wrong with us. All we need to do, for the bear and ourselves, is to stop letting that belief paralyze our minds, hearts, and souls.
Everyone I know wants polar bears and three-year-olds in our world. We are not helpless and there is nothing wrong with us except the strange belief that we are helpless and there's something wrong with us.
In other words, even on the much narrower question of reducing immigration to stop U.S. population growth and avert environmental disaster, although the outlook is grim, it is not hopeless. For one thing, there are cracks in the seeming monolith. Democrats and even ascendant Hispanics and other ethnic groups buoyed by rising immigration are not at all united in favor of open borders. At least before Hispanic politicians, certain Latino chauvinists, and others with a vested interest in an ever-larger Spanish-speaking population in the USA convinced many Hispanics that the pressure to crack down on immigration was little more than anti-Latino bigotry, many Latinos themselves believed that if immigration was a problem, it was because there was too much of it.
For example, in a 1996 Roper poll, 52 percent of Hispanics favored reducing immigration to 300,000 or fewer annually (from more than a million). The 1993 Latino National Political Survey, conducted by a research team from the University of Texas, and the largest poll ever conducted of this ethnic group in the United States to that date, found that 7 in 10 respondents thought there were too many immigrants (actually higher than the percentage of non-Hispanic whites or "Anglos" who did). A 1993 Hispanic USA Research Group poll found that three-quarters of Hispanics believed fewer immigrants should be admitted.
Out-of-control immigration actually led to the notorious "soccer [or futbol] war" between Honduras and El Salvador in 1969. For years, hundreds of thousands of unauthorized immigrants had been pouring across the border from heavily overpopulated El Salvador into neighboring Honduras. As one online account puts it:
The Honduran government and some private groups came increasingly to place blame for the nation's economic problems on the approximately 300,000 undocumented Salvadoran immigrants in Honduras.... Attacks were also launched in the media on the impact of Salvadoran immigrant labor on unemployment and wages on the Caribbean coast. By late May, Salvadorans began to stream out of Honduras back to an overpopulated El Salvador.
Tensions continued to mount during June 1969. The soccer teams of the two nations were engaged that month in a three-game elimination match as a preliminary to the World Cup. Disturbances broke out during the first game in Tegucigalpa, but the situation got considerably worse during the second match in San Salvador. Honduran fans were roughed up, the Honduran flag and national anthem were insulted, and the emotions of both nations became considerably agitated. Actions against Salvadoran residents in Honduras, including several vice consuls, became increasingly violent. An unknown number of Salvadorans were killed or brutalized, and tens of thousands began fleeing the country. The press of both nations contributed to a growing climate of near-hysteria, and on June 27, 1969, Honduras broke diplomatic relations with El Salvador.
Early on the morning of July 14, 1969, concerted military action began in what came to be known as the Soccer War.
- OnWar.com, Armed Conflict Events Data, at:
www.onwar.com/aced/data/sierra/soccer1969.htm
My point is just that even on the narrow question of immigration reform alone, although the immediate future is daunting, it's impossible to say how both the political climate and demographic trends may change in just a few years time. While I myself think long-term demographic projections are crucial to understanding the consequences of current and future assumed demographic parameters (birth rates, death rates, immigration and emigration rates), I recognize all too well the shortcomings of these same projections, because the underlying demographic variables are inherently unpredictable. Too many times projections from even the most reputable sources have proved utterly, laughably, wrong, because no demographer has a crystal ball; unfortunately, over the last decade or two, these projections have proved to be too conservative - that is, they have underestimated actual growth.
People like Roy Beck who know far more than I do about America's immigration politics are indeed concerned about what an Obama presidency and a stronger Democratic congress portend for immigration reform. But they are not ready to throw in the towel just yet, and some actually argue that Obama will be better, or at least not as bad, as McCain would have been.
The larger issue Tim raises, that of the struggle against the pervasive ethos of perpetual growth in population and consumption that surely doom the ecosphere and our prospects for environmental sustainability, remains as challenging as ever. Just ask the mouse in the cartoon.
By Leon Kolankiewicz, 14 Nov 08
Chickens of economic collapse on course - CSIRO
Reducing consumption key to a sustainable future
Based on then ground-breaking modelling, the forecasts of global ecological and economic collapse by mid-century contained in the controversial 1972 book; The Limits to Growth, are still `on-track' according to new CSIRO research, published on 11 November 2008.
The Limits to Growth modelled scenarios for the future global economy and environment and recommended far reaching changes to the way we live to avoid disaster.
In a paper published in the current edition of the international journal; Global Environmental Change, CSIRO physicist Dr Graham Turner compares forecasts from the book with global data from the past 30 years.
"The real-world data basically supports The Limits to Growth model," he says. "It shows that for the first 30 years of the model, the world has been tracking along the unsustainable trajectory of the book's business-as-usual scenario."
"The original modelling predicts that if we continue down that track and do not substantially reduce our consumption and increase technological progress, the global economy will collapse by the middle of this century.
"We've had the rare opportunity to evaluate the output of a global model against observed and independent data," says Dr Turner."The contemporary issues of peak oil, climate change, and food and water security, resonate strongly with the overshoot and collapse displayed in the business-as-usual scenario of The Limits to Growth."
This is the first time anyone has comprehensively tested the predictions of the first, and still one of the most comprehensive, global models linking the world economy to the environment.
"We've had the rare opportunity to evaluate the output of a global model against observed and independent data," says Dr Turner.
To date, the recommendations of The Limits to Growth, which included fundamental changes of policy and behaviour for sustainability, have not been implemented.
The The Limits to Growth documented the results of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study carried out by Meadows et al, who were commissioned by The Club of Rome to analyse the 'world problematique' using a computer model developed at MIT called World3.
TheThe Limits to Growth became the best selling environmental book in history, selling more than 30 million copies in 30 languages.
"In the years since 1972, The Limits to Growth has provoked much criticism but our research indicates that the main claims against the modelling are false," Dr Turner says.
CSIRO is investigating how Australia can address the challenges of economic, environmental and social sustainability facing communities across Australia.
Source: http://www.csiro.au/news/The-Limits-To-Growth.html Reference: 08/179
Armistice Day, 90 years on our rights are in jeopardy.
Nov 11th, 2008, Armistice Day, 90 years on and our rights are in jeopardy.
Queenslanders Against Water Fluoridation media release, 11 Nov 2008
It is now 90 years since Armistice Day, the day set aside to remember World War 1, the War to end all Wars.
Over 330,000 Australians enlisted in World War 1 and 61,000 died, a further 150,000 were injured.
In World War 2, there were another 39, 000 deaths and 39, 000 were also injured.
Australian men and women in other wars also laid down their lives to protect our country, our freedom and our way of life.
However, it now seems that these sacrifices were made in vain, because in Queensland with the present government we live in a dictatorship, where one person Anna Bligh, believes she can dictate to us that we shall be medicated through our water supply with fluoride chemicals and we shall have water that has been sourced from sewerage whether we like it or not.
Like fluoride, we have been fed millions of dollars of radio and Television advertising propaganda, with yet another propaganda campaign starting tonight.
We have been told that fluoride, a chemical waste product of Belgium and Japanese fertilizer industries is "natural" and that Queenslanders have the worse teeth in Australia, which is also untrue. Premier Bligh knows this, but still makes false claims.
We were also told that no Hospital or Industrial waste goes into sewerage, the future source of our water, yet now the government has been forced to admit that 12% of sewerage that will be sourced for human consumption is comprised of industrial waste.
The Health Department has been caught out changing tooth decay statistics, Premier Bligh has been made aware of this but apparently doesn't care.
However, as Premier Bligh was told by an angry gentleman at the Logan Q2 Forum in Oct, politicians who lie, get found out, then they get thrown out.
There is only so much arrogance the public will put up with. Roll on the State election!
Merilyn Haines - on behalf of all Queenslanders who want safe water.
Mob 0418 777 112
See also www.qawf.org.
What you can do: attend public meeting
Date: Saturday, 15th Nov, 2pm–5pm,at Ahimsa House, 26 Horan St, West End, Brisbane
Kangaroo Meat: Why it's Not Good Bush Tucker!
Editorial comment: Please continue discussion on "Kangaroo Meat - confessions of a serial wildlife killer" (see, also, #moved">below).
The kangaroo killing lobby portrays kangaroo meat eating as being romantic - a new gourmet taste sensation which helps the environment. In reality it is barbaric, potentially dangerous to health and environmentally irresponsible.
KANGAROO MEAT IS UNHEALTHY
Kangaroos are hung upside down with hooks through their hind legs for hours before being killed. This horrific suffering releases myopathy toxins. The bodies are driven around on a dusty unhygienic truck all night then placed in inadequately refrigerated ‘chillers’ for up to two weeks, leading to contamination with faeces, maggots, e.coli and more (see http://www.animal-lib.org.au/campaigns/kangaroo-campaign.htm).
Kangaroo meat can contain salmonella, staphylococcus and streptococcus. However no research into unusual parasites and pathogens such as nematodes that eat stomach and muscle tissue or Trichinella pseudospiralis has received government funding. Until public health risk assessments for known zoonoses have been carried out, the precautionary approach would be to take kangaroo meat off the market, since it is rarely adequately cooked.
Toxoplasmosis outbreaks related to kangaroo meat consumption are well known and have resulted in deaths and multiple illnesses. In 2008 three kangaroo processing plants closed down and Russia rejected imports due to e.coli contamination. Canada, among other countries, has banned the importation of kangaroo meat. Additionally, eating kangaroo meat can cause anaphylaxis (an allergic reaction) and also bowel cancer, as its iron content is twice that of beef (high dietary iron being a risk factor for bowel cancer).
Pets can die from eating kangaroo meat (pet mince) preserved with sulphur dioxide which can cause vitamin B deficiency. Dr Richard Malik, from Sydney University's Post Graduate Foundation in Veterinary Science, said pets affected by sulphur dioxide become wobbly on their legs, may develop a head tilt then progress to seizures, paralysis and death.
KANGAROO FARMS CANNOT REPLACE COWS, SHEEP
Kangaroos cannot be farmed. They cannot be herded or driven into yards or abattoirs because they get too stressed (capture myopathy) and the lactic acid builds up in their muscles causing the meat to go rancid and become inedible. Nor can they be transported live unless the appropriate techniques and medications are used.
Being slaughtered in the field presents health and financial problems. The farmer would need transportable chillers to send to the processors, plus the animals would need to be inspected in the field prior to slaughter to ensure the meat was healthy.
Kangaroos eat native vegetation (not wheat) and it would take many years to grow back native plants. They also need a lot of space to roam and cannot be confined in overcrowded areas. Kangaroo-proof fencing is very expensive (DPI recommends 12 wires alternately electrified, 2.13 metres high).
Then there is the question of ownership. Under the Constitution all wildlife is ‘owned’ by the Crown and therefore cannot be privately ‘owned,’ although farmers can own land and wildlife habitat. And even if they could be owned, tagging kangaroos would require expensive and risky tranquilisation. Branding them would kill many or cause myopathy, again making the meat inedible.
Kangaroos are small animals. An adult yields 6.9 kg of meat, only 3 kg of which would be human grade. Current annual kangaroo meat production is 57,000 tonnes compared to 1,7000,000 tonnes of beef. In order to produce enough meat to replace beef the entire kangaroo population would have to be killed hundreds of times over every year.
Kangaroos breed from 2-3 years of age and only produce one joey a year. Survival rate for joeys is low, especially during a drought. Sheep breed from 1 year of age and can produce twins. Joeys are dependent on their mothers for 14 months (sheep for only a few months) and so cannot be transported or sold as live young. Sheep produce meat, skin and wool - kangaroos produce only meat and skin. A 10 year old adult male red kangaroo weighing 60 kg can only produce 6 kg of prime cut meat. Lambs can be slaughtered at 3-6 months of age to produce 20 kg meat (Preuss, 1999) and a 2 year old cow can produce 200 kg of meat. Clearly kangaroo farming is not economically viable.
THE KANGAROO INDUSTRY IS UNSUSTAINABLE
The Department of the Environment talks about the ‘sustainable harvesting of renewable resources.’ However their figures show that in most of the states where kangaroos are hunted they are at ‘quasi-extinction’ levels, which, according to the Murray Darling Report, is defined as less than 5 kangaroos per square kilometre. Not only that, the kangaroo industry has killed off the biggest males leaving mainly juveniles. The average age of kangaroos shot is only 2-3 years i.e. barely at breeding age. In 2007 up to 80% of the kangaroos killed in NSW were females. All of these factors are a recipe for extinction. Why is the government failing to protect our wildlife?
According to government websites kangaroo populations have crashed up to 70% from 2001-2006, due mainly to the drought and unrelenting pressure from the kangaroo industry which continues to set unsustainably high quotas that are never met. In 2008 the quota is 3.7 million making this THE LARGEST SLAUGHTER OF LAND-BASED WILDLIFE ON THE PLANET.
We Australians should hang our heads in shame. At the rate we are killing kangaroos for meat and skins combined with the drought, bush fires, farmer kills, illegal killing, roadkill, habitat destruction for development, government ‘culling’ programs etc, it has been estimated that kangaroos could be extinct in the wild as soon as 2012 to 2020 (www.stopkangarookilling.org). Please sign the petition calling for a moratorium at www.gopetition.com/petitions/kangaroo-extinction.html
KANGAROO KILLING IS INHUMANE
We are assured that kangaroos are humanely killed according to ‘the code.’ However all the killing is performed from moving vehicles in the bush at night, unsupervised, by shooters whose proficiency is questionable. Many kangaroos are shot in the face or neck and left to die painfully of starvation and gangrene. Others are still conscious after being shot and while being disembowelled. The adult females that are killed often have an in-pouch joey and an at-foot joey. The in-pouch joey is either decapitated, stomped on or bashed to death against a tree or truck. The at-foot joey flees to die of starvation, hypothermia or predation. See this cruelty at www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcMkNYOBvW8 (Warning: graphic content, adults only).
WHY THE PUSH TO EAT ‘$KIPPY’??
It’s true that European farming of livestock has wreaked havoc on our environment. Livestock cause soil erosion and destroy soil ecosystems by compacting the soil with hard hooves, thereby causing deserts. They destroy forests and wildlife habitat because grazing land has to be continuously created. The methane and nitrous oxide from their belching/farting/manure (especially dairy cows) leads to the creation of massive amounts of greenhouse gas (more than the entire transport sector). Over half the water used for all purposes is required by the livestock industry. This is the worst drought in 100 years and water should be used for crops to feed people, not livestock. Cows poop 100 times more than people so their massive amounts of manure pollute water (ground and surface) and cause dead zones in the oceans. Since up to 80% of all grains in the world are used to fatten livestock instead of feeding hungry people, livestock farming contributes to world hunger. Therefore 20 million Australians eating cows and sheep is not sustainable or healthy for the planet. However eating kangaroos that do not produce methane or soil erosion, water pollution etc is NOT the solution! The solution to the environmental pollution caused by the livestock industry is staring us in the face. “NOTHING WILL BENEFIT HUMAN HEALTH OR INCREASE THE CHANCES FOR SURVIVAL ON EARTH AS WILL THE EVOLUTION TO A VEGETARIAN DIET.” ~ ALBERT EINSTEIN
A $200 million a year kangaroo industry is not going to shut down because people and pets are dying, Australia’s $85 billion tourist industry is being jeopardised or kangaroos are heading towards extinction. As long as there is money to be made and people to be paid off, this ugly business will continue. Read about the kangaroo industry at www.smuggled.com/vac.htm
Let’s support nature-based eco-tourism at http://www.rootourism.com.au
Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg! The kangaroo is the spirit of Australia, and is our great national icon.
As Steve Irwin so wisely said "It's embarrassing for Australia that we eat our own wildlife...I'm here to tell you it's just not right. Simply do not buy, eat or use kangaroo products."
If you don't want to see kangaroos go the way of the passenger pigeon in North America sign this extremely important petition and spread the word: http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/kangaroo-extinction.com
HELP US GET TO 10,000 SIGNATURES!
#moved" id="moved">Editorial comment: Please continue on "Kangaroo Meat - confessions of a serial wildlife killer"
(As also posted on the second comments page) I am closing the comments on this article,
Please continue the discussions underneath Tigerquoll's article "Kangaroo Meat - confessions of a serial wildlife killer" of 31 Mar 10.
I am closing the comments on this article, because the bug in the installed version drupal comment moduke (see below) makes continued discussion here unwieldy,
Apologies for incorrect links to comments
Also, my apologies for the bug in the software that creates the links on the main page to these comments.
Links to the second page of comments should be, as an example:
http://candobetter.org/node/908&page=1#comment-4447
... rather than:
The Inconvenient Truths of Chris Clugston: Selected Quotations from "Quantifying Overextension-America's Predicament"
According to the GFN global footprint analysis, should we choose to maintain our current population level of 304 million people, our average material living standard would fall to about half of our current level—approximating the living standards in Saudi Arabia and Israel today[26].
Alternatively, if we choose to maintain our current living standard, America could support a sustainable population of only 150 million people.
Should we choose to maintain our current population level of 304 million people, the RP global footprint analysis indicates that our sustainable average living standard would be less than 20% of our current level—approximating that of Azerbaijan and Chile today.[27]
If we choose to maintain our current living standard instead, America could sustainably support only 57 million people.
According to the Societal Overextension Analysis, should we choose to maintain our current population level of 304 million people, our sustainable average living standard would be approximately 3.5% of its current level—essentially that of Cambodia and Kyrgyzstan today[28].
If we choose instead to maintain our current living standard, America could support a sustainable population of only 10.7 million people.
The prevailing American perception[31] is that “our system is broken” and must therefore be “fixed”, or “rescued”, or “bailed out”… This perception is fundamentally inaccurate; as a result, the proposed prescription is fatally flawed.
As the preceding analysis clearly demonstrates, we are irreparably overextended—living hopelessly beyond our means, ecologically and economically[32]. Our resource utilization behavior, which enables our “system”—our American way of life—is detritovoric[33]; that is, we are systematically eliminating the very ecological resources and economic resources upon which our ever-increasing population and our historically unprecedented living standards depend.
The inescapable conclusion is that our American way of life is not sustainable—it cannot, therefore, be “fixed”; it must be displaced[34]. Desperate and futile attempts to perpetuate our existing lifestyle paradigm simply waste remaining, and increasingly scarce, time and resources.
Our only recourse is to transition voluntarily, beginning immediately, to a sustainable lifestyle paradigm, one in which we live within our means ecologically and economically—forever. Should we fail to do so, quickly, the consequences associated with our predicament will be horrific.
2050 will be “the new 1850”[35]—if we are lucky!
Finally, Chris Clugston concludes with an inconvenient truth taken from Richard Duncan’s “The Olduvai Theory: Sliding Towards a Post-Industrial Stone Age”:
“Industrial Civilization doesn't evolve. Rather, it rapidly consumes ‘the necessary physical prerequisites’ for its own existence. It's short-term, unsustainable.”
Questions. What are Canada’s “Inconvenient Truths” (or Australia’s, or Britain’s, or New Zealand’s etc.) Using Duncan’s description of industrial civilization, is Canada like a cannibal who consumes his own legs and will no longer walk much further? What would a Societal Overextension Analysis (SOA) reveal our carrying capacity to be (at given living standards) as opposed to the more limited Ecological Footprint analysis?
Chris Clugston's paper can be found at http://www.energybulletin.net/node/46892
Topic:
Public Meeting: "The Dark Side of Water Treatments by Queensland Government"
You are invited to attend the
Public meeting at West End, Brisbane on Nov 15th
The Dark Side of Water Treatments by Queensland Government
Date: Saturday, 15th November, 2008
Time: 2pm–5pm
Venue: Ahimsa house 26 HoranStreet, West End, Brisbane
Entry: Gold coin donation appreciated
Tea Included: Approx 3.30pm
The Issues: Recycled Water, Fluoridated Water
The Speakers:
1. Mr Snow Manners B.Econ., API (Toowoomba) (speaking at approx 2.15pm)
Snow is an economist and property valuer. He researched the issue of recycled water when it was proposed as a solution for Toowoomba. Snow coordinated the various opposition groups in Toowoomba which forced a poll and defeated the proposal. Two months after the poll he was elected to the Toowoomba City Council in a by-election and served the balance of the Council term as Chair of Strategy and Governance.
2. Dr. Andrew Harms, BDS ( speaking at approx 2.45pm )
Andrew is a dentist and Past President, Australian Dental Association, South Australia Branch. During a period of illness some years ago he changed his views drastically and is now an authority on fluoride toxicity.
3. Dr John Ryan (MB. BS. Qld)
John is a doctor, a Fellow and Former National Examiner of both Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and Australian College of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine. He has post graduate qualifications in Nutrition (M. Sc. Distinction, London), and Children’s Diseases (DCH Ireland). He was for five years a member of the Therapeutic Goods Advisory Committee on Complementary Medicines in Australia. He is a founding member of Professionals Against Water Fluoridation with 1800 professional members worldwide.
4. Mrs Merilyn Haines (B.App.Sc Med Lab Tech)
Merilyn is a medical scientist who has worked in most areas of pathology. She has a keen interest in social justice and applies these values to a heavy commitment in community and environmental projects. Merilyn is Chair and Founder of Queenslanders for Safe Water, Food and Air Inc and is a strong voice for those people who feel they have been harmed and neglected in the process of water fluoridation in Queensland. Merilyn had a family member harmed by Townsville’s fluoridated water, which sparked her interest and concern at the practice.
For further information, phone: Angus: 07 3254 4596 or Jeanie 0408 006 544
Web Site: www.qawf.org E-mail info[AT]qawf.org
Water fluoridation and the use of recycled sewage effluent are two of the most important health issues ever to face the people of Queensland. Hear from Professionals who have studied these issues over many years.
Is it game over for immigration reformers in America?
The writing clearly is on the wall. Nothing stands between us and a North American continent of 500 million people by the year 2050. Nothing except perhaps peak oil, peak soil, water shortages and a basic ecological meltdown. What brokers might euphemistically term as "buying opportunities" of which I'm sure even another K2 event would qualify. But short of those trifling road bumps to "progress", nothing else seems to offer much hope in stopping this juggernaut of mindless population growth. The corporate machine demands cheap labor and the rhetoric of cultural diversity offers the perfect smokescreen for its cold and mercenary motives.
Key minority groups and their hired guns have unwittingly become collaborators in this agenda to squeeze working and middle class Americans out of decent paying jobs and weigh down the environment of America beyond its carrying capacity. They rallied behind a candidate who received, by the end of August, some $389 million in donations from Wall Street corporations, much more than his opponent John McCain received, leader of the GOP, reputedly the party of plutocrats#main-fn1">1. A candidate who, while he exhibited so many obvious virtues not in McCain's possession, nevertheless did not demonstrate any ecological literacy concerning the country's tolerance of growth or the fact that five million American workers lost their jobs to out-sourcing and the kind of immigration policies that he supports.
The emerging power of the multicultural electoral coalition to turn the tide of American politics can best appreciated by looking at Hispanic voters. 10 million Latinos voted in the November 2008 Presidential election. 67% (6.7 million) voted for Obama. 40% of them, or 4 million Latino voters, were immigrants.
78% of immigrant Latin voters voted for Barrack Obama, a porous-borders candidate. That translates to 3.12 million votes.
3.12 million votes is but 2% of the votes cast in the 2008 election. Not much. But not chicken feed either. It certainly wouldn't have been in 2000. And the disposition of votes is what is critical. The Latino vote grew by 32% in just four years to 9% of the electorate, but that 9% is not spread like a pancake across America. It is concentrated in such a way as to have played a pivotal role in denying McCain 6 states.
If that isn't enough, Republicans have to look over their shoulders at the growing electoral force of Asian Americans, twice as many whom preferred the Democrats in 2008 in percentage terms as they did in 1992.
Is the ethnic immigrant voter like the aggressive door-to-door salesman? Once he gets his foot in the immigration door, that door can never be closed? What is the tipping point of political sycophancy? Once a solid 10%, 15% or perhaps 20% of ethnic voters demonstrate that they will vote en bloc as their orchestrators command, the other 80% of the electorate which is fragmented around other issues then just folds? The ethnic tail need not be long. Just solid and determined, and when it wags the Euro-American dog will roll over and perform tricks for it.
Thus what we will have is not a two party system but a one party state. Two growthist "big tent" rainbow coalition parties that embrace cultural and racial diversity, bravo, but not intellectual diversity--because they don't entertain the cognitively challenging concept of population stability or steady state economics.
Do multicultural lobbies play disproportionate and decisive roles in keeping the floodgates open in other countries? Australia? The United Kingdom? In Canada it has been said that ethnic voting blocs deliver two dozen seats, and that federal policy toward Israel or India for example is unduly governed by the sensibilities of expatriates living in those constituencies. Should this be the case then, it is no wonder that the policy of mass immigration should persist for decades in the face of adverse public opinion. For it is not public opinion that matters. But the opinion that is channeled through the ballot box and concentrated in strategic areas.
As time passes, more and more of these areas will become fortified with immigrants. In the United States, some 12% of the population are foreign born (officially), and in Canada, it is 18% and rising. For some the newcomers' culture and even their pigmentation is cause for alarm. What should be worrisome is the impact their numbers will have, and that of the children and grandchildren that they will issue from them. I could live with tortillas and Spanish-only. I couldn't live without an environment.
Tim Murray
Quadra Island, BC
9 Nov 08
See also: "An immigration policy bought and paid for?" of 24 Feb 08.
Footnotes
#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">1.#main-fn1-txt">↑ www.opensecrets.org All of Obama's Wall
Street donors and the amounts they gave can be found here. Quite enlightening.
Real change depends on stopping the Bailout profiteers
I received the following article in Naomi Klein's newsletter on Thursday 6 November immediately following Barack Obama's historic election victory. It has also been published on a number of places on the web including on Common Dreams and the "Huffington Post". The article argues that, in spite of many very worrying signs that Obama may be largely a captive of US corporate interests, there is still hope that his victory can lead to real change in US and world politics, provided that US grass roots activists, whether or not they actively supported Obama's campaign, remain focused and engaged. Notable and serious omissions from Klein's analysis including the issue of record high immigration (see "Why is Naomi Klein uncritical of mass immigration to the First World?" of 27 July 08) and the 9/11 Truth Movement's demands for a proper investigation into the 9/11 terrorist attack on the US. Nevertheless, the article remains insightful. - JS
Real Change Depends on Stopping the Bailout Profiteers
by Naomi Klein 6 November 2008
To understand the meaning of the U.S. election results, it is worth looking back to the moment when everything changed for the Obama campaign. It was, without question, the moment when the economic crisis hit Wall Street.
Up to that point, things weren't looking all that good for Barack Obama. The Democratic National Convention barely delivered a bump, while the appointment of Sarah Palin seemed to have shifted the momentum decisively over to John McCain.
Then, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac failed, followed by insurance giant AIG, then Lehman Brothers. It was in this moment of economic vertigo that Obama found a new language. With tremendous clarity, he turned his campaign into a referendum into the deregulation and trickle down policies that have dominated mainstream economic discourse since Ronald Reagan. He said his opponent represented more of the same while he stood for a new direction, one that would rebuild the economy from the ground up, rather than the top down. Obama stayed on this message for the rest of the campaign and, as we just saw, it worked.
The question is now whether Obama will have the courage to take the ideas that won him this election and turn them into policy. Or, alternately, whether he will use the financial crisis to rationalize a move to what pundits call "the middle" (if there is one thing this election has proved, it is that the real middle is far to the left of its previously advertised address). Predictably, Obama is already coming under enormous pressure to break his election promises, particularly those relating to raising taxes on the wealthy and imposing real environmental regulations on polluters. All day on the business networks, we hear that, in light of the economic crisis, corporations need lower taxes, and fewer regulations - in other words, more of the same.
The new president's only hope of resisting this campaign being waged by the elites is if the remarkable grassroots movement that carried him to victory can somehow stay energized, networked, mobilized - and most of all, critical. Now that the election has been won, this movement's new mission should be clear: loudly holding Obama to his campaign promises, and letting the Democrats know that there will be consequences for betrayal.
The first order of business - and one that cannot wait until inauguration - must be halting the robbery-in-progress known as the "economic bailout." I have spent the past month examining the loopholes and conflicts of interest embedded in the U.S. Treasury Department's plans. The results of that research can be found in a just published feature article in Rolling Stone, The Bailout Profiteers as well as my most recent Nation column, Bush's Final Pillage.
Both these pieces argue that the $700-billion "rescue plan" should be regarded as the Bush Administration's final heist. Not only does it transfer billions of dollars of public wealth into the hands of politically connected corporations (a Bush specialty), but it passes on such an enormous debt burden to the next administration that it will make real investments in green infrastructure and universal health care close to impossible. If this final looting is not stopped (and yes, there is still time), we can forget about Obama making good on the more progressive aspects of his campaign platform, let alone the hope that he will offer the country some kind of grand Green New Deal.
Readers of The Shock Doctrine know that terrible thefts have a habit of taking place during periods of dramatic political transition. When societies are changing quickly, the media and the people are naturally focused on big "P" politics - who gets the top appointments, what was said in the most recent speech. Meanwhile, safe from public scrutiny, far reaching pro-corporate policies are locked into place, dramatically restricting future possibilities for real change.
It's not too late to halt the robbery in progress, but it cannot wait until inauguration. Several great initiatives to shift the nature of the bailout are already underway, including bailoutmainstreet.com. I added my name to the "Call to Action: Time for a 21st Century Green America" and invite you to do the same.
Stopping the bailout profiteers is about more than money. It is about democracy. Specifically, it is about whether Americans will be able to afford the change they have just voted for so conclusively.
Naomi Klein is the author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, now out in paperback. To read all her latest writing visit www.naomiklein.org
South Australian tax payers set to bail-out Managed Investment Schemes
Fair Water Use (Australia) has been investigating the Critical Water Allocation (CWA) Scheme recently announced by the State Government of South Australia, in view of concerns raised about its consequences.
At first glance, this appears to be a laudable initiative whereby "viable irrigators of permanent horticultural plantings in the River Murray corridor" in South Australia may apply for Government assistance in providing these crops with the additional water that is required to ensure their survival through the current financial year. This will be enabled by Government-underwritten acquisition of "critical water" for the purpose.
Most South Australian tax-payers would have few objections to the use of public funds to provide bridging assistance for mature vineyards, orchards and groves which have supported farming communities for decades.
However, Fair Water Use has been informed that, under the terms of the CWA Scheme, "permanent plantings" are defined as any approved crop put in the soil prior to the 1st of July 2008. The Riverland Response Centre, which is coordinating the initiative, has also indicated that agribusiness companies operating Managed Investment Schemes in the area are able to apply for CWA assistance.
FWUA Coordinator, Dr Ian Douglas, stated this morning that, if this were indeed the case, he doubted whether the South Australian public would support their dollars being used to improve the profitability of the vast irrigated plantations established by MIS groups in the last few years.
Dr Douglas continued, "The majority of these corporate irrigators have deplorable environmental credentials and are plundering the land and the River Murray for short-term financial gain".
Concerns have also been raised in recent months about the increasing number of large-scale MIS plantations in the region, and their impact on the profitability of smaller, often family-owned, mature plantings.
As farmers applying for assistance under the CWA scheme must be able to prove "the longer-term viability of their businesses", there are valid concerns that an unintended consequence of this scheme will be the demise of many of these smaller, less profitable farms which have supported the Riverland for countless decades; whilst the monoculture moonscapes recently created by water-hungry MIS Schemes are allowed to flourish - to the detriment of the river system, its environment and the very communities the scheme is designed to support.
"These MIS companies actively invested in the water-market, frequently with the financial support of overseas speculators, in the midst of the worst drought on record. They do not deserve the support of South Australian tax-payers", Dr Douglas concluded.
Authorised by: Ginny Brown, Media Coordinator media [AT] fairwateruse.com.au +61 (0)414 914248
Fair Water Use (Australia) +61 (0)8 8398 0812
PO Box 384, Balhannah, South Australia 5242
www.fairwateruse.com.au
Topic:
Our Immigration Department should be closed
Reducing our immigration numbers is not enough. Our Immigration Department should be closed except to manage the intake of refugees and individual cases.
The "problem" of an ageing population is being used as a smoke-screen to artificially increase our numbers because it is "good for businesses". Any skills lacking should mean an adjustment to our education and training schemes. Businesses don't pay students' prohibitive HECS fees!
We will never meet our Kyoto obligations while we continually compensate for our "ageing population"! Our abysmal figures of biodiversity losses should sound warning bells that our environment is already heavily stressed. Even a strong economy will never be able to replace the "services" of our biodiversity.
We only have one planet, Earth! While our global population continues to increase, more natural resources are threatened. We live firstly in an environment, not an economy! Migration has given us an optimum population and it has been good for our prosperity. However, we have passed "sustainable" growth. Instead of bringing economic and livability benefits to our lifestyles, our over-population is causing greater stresses and expenses. Natural resources are finite. Will businesses be able to find a solution to climate change, irreversible ecological damage and a threatened ecosystem?
Our economy is dictating government decisions, aimed at continual economic growth through population growth. Other countries have healthy GDP figures without immigration. Our economy needs to be based on 21st century technology. Our grandchildren will be cursing us and singing "advance Australia bare" unless we stop our population growth.
Children in Epping tread where adults and politicians fear to go
What has happened to us that we have to get children to express our deepest values and concerns because we have been conditioned to repress them for political reasons?
(Pic:Gavin Jennings, Victorian Min Environment)
Part of an illustration by Frank P. Mahony from the famous Australian story, Dot and the Kangaroo by Ethel C Pedley, published in 1920.
Dot and the Kangaroo (see at nla.gov.au/nla.aus-f2688>), written in the early 20th century, is still a very popular book, because most people like the idea of being friends with wild animals, of living near the bush, of children being able to move freely and safely.
Order from http://chloeandjoey.com/Order.html
Unfortunately Australian and State governments are exceptions to this rule; most of our politicians really don't seem to care what happens to our wildlife, or citizens and their children. They are hypnotised by big business and big development, focused on trying to endlessly grow the economy, even though this is causing distress to people as well as wildlife. They are so engrossed in this recipe which they have been sold for political success, that they have lost their hearts.
The same thing is in danger of happening to the rest of the people in Australia.
Have you noticed how adult citizens in our society are persuaded to suppress feelings of disgust, anger and indignation at the horrific suffering human expansion causes to wildlife?
A sign that we adults truly feel that we are not allowed to express and to act upon our real feelings is that, more and more, we get children to do the expressing for us.
The Whittlesea Leader Newspaper, Victoria, has published a #When:00:52:22Z">story about the reaction of local children to the plight of yet more kangaroos displaced by yet another huge shopping centre.
To see the serious, pained, faces of children, burdened with a job which should never be theirs, but has fallen to them because they are not yet completely defeated, should bring our society to its senses and stop the ... um... senseless expansion.
But will it?
What does it take to stop senseless growth and cruel destruction of sentient wildlife?
Australian wildlife rescuers have devoted a site to trying to help the kangaroos in question at Mill Park, but so far the bloody mess continues on the roads as the shopping centre goes ahead.
Perhaps if children marched on parliament and stood in front of the bulldozers that daily destroy habitat, life and beauty, in favour of plastic and concrete money-traps called shopping centres, the madness might stop. Or would the government also turn its head there and look the other way if the machinery for shopping centres simply mowed children down in the same way it does kangaroos, wombats, parrots, possums, devils, wallabies, quolls, snakes and trees.
The children in question have sent letters to Environment Minister Gavin Jennings, begging him not to kill the stranded kangaroos.
Most students have asked for the kangaroos to be moved somewhere safe, because they fear the animals will be shot if they remain in their habitat, which is due to be built over.
Unfortunately you cannot stuff a mob of kangaroos into a high-rise apartment and order in food from a restaurant. Kangaroos actually require many square kilometers of habitat and connection with other roos in other places to survive and prosper. If a shopping centre is constructed on the area they live in, then somewhere similar will have to be found for them. Perhaps the children are not aware that shopping centres, roads and houses are being built all over the place, not just in Epping. So, finding a new home for kangaroos is going to be really hard, but it must be done. Moving them is also very difficult; they are not used to wheeled transport and wonder what on earth is going to happen to them and do themselves injuries trying to escape.
The solution is obviously to stop constructing shopping centres. Perhaps this is what the children should have asked the Government to do.
Here are the letters the children wrote:
I have seen a kangaroo hit by a car and I am not happy about it. Please save the kangaroos near Westfield by moving them somewhere.
Matthew, EppingI want you to put the kangaroos to live in the zoo. People do not look for signs and they do not pay attention to the signs and drive fast and kill kangaroos.
Casey, EppingI don't want the kangaroos to die near the shopping centre.
I am angry.
Please move them to a safe place.
Lucas, South MorangI am concerned about all of the kangaroos near the shopping centre with no habitat.
I am very angry about this.
I would like them relocated to a different area. There is a big, great, free and open area on Phillip Island.
I would like you to save the kangaroos in South Morang, struggling and fighting for food.
Casey, EppingI am very angry about the way they have built Westfield over the top of the kangaroos’ habitat.
I would love the kangaroos to be moved to another area that has no plans for building any shopping centres, cinemas etc.
How would you like it if you were a kangaroo and you were shot?
Lauren, EppingThe kangaroos near Westfield don’t look happy. Please send them to a big island or somewhere safe.
I would like an answer please.
Conor, EppingI am upset about the kangaroos because I am so angry about them being trapped.
If I was a kangaroo, I would want to stay in my habitat.
Please put the kangaroos somewhere safe.
Allen, EppingIf you were a kangaroo, would you like to be shot? That’s unfair to kangaroos and other animals. I want them moved to another area because they are getting stranded.
Yours sincerely (means I’m being honest).
Vincent, South MorangI am sad that kangaroos are dying.
If people laugh I say “what if you were a kangaroo”? Would you like to be shot? I would like the kangaroos to be safe.
Brendan, EppingI don't want kangaroos to die near Westfield.
I am sad. It is a good solution to relocate the kangaroos.
Shaizaad, EppingI feel really angry because kangaroos have been dying because people have been building on their habitat.
Dena, EppingI want the kangaroos in South Morang not to get shot by people. I want them relocated.
I am sad.
Brock, EppingI feel bad because you’re killing the kangaroos and I don’t want you to kill the kangaroos.
Please stop killing the kangaroos.
Stefan, EppingI am sad because I don’t want the kangaroos at Westfield.
I think we should put them somewhere safe.
Brooke, EppingThe kangaroos are dying because they have been hit by a car, guns, dogs and some animals.
I am angry.
Please put them in a better habitat.
Rachael, EppingI feel really angry and I think that should not be happening.
How would you like it if I came around destroying your home?
So please relocate them.
Makayla, EppingI saw a baby kangaroo on the road.
Please keep the kangaroos safe.
Jackson, AustraliaI feel really bad about what’s happening to the kangaroos near Westfield.
If you were one, would you like it?
Probably not. Please, do not shoot the kangaroos. Please, I want them to live a happy life.
Please relocate them somewhere else.
Shannon, EppingKeep the kangaroos safe and not shot.
Youssef, EppingI am sad because I’ve been watching the kangaroos being run over and I don’t like it.
It’s not fair. I want them moved somewhere else.
How would you feel if you were a kangaroo and you got shot?
I love kangaroos.
Lence, EppingI’m so angry about the kangaroos dying.
Please save the kangaroos in South Morang because if you were a kangaroo, would you like to be shot? I would think not. I would like you to send them somewhere else.
Tayla, EppingI’m very angry at the people who take the kangaroos’ home away.
Imagine if you were a kangaroo and you had no food and drinks?
Don’t forget about your children.
They might want to see the kangaroos.
I’m really angry and sad.
It feels like I’m going to cry.
I want you to save the kangaroos in the world and I want the kangaroos in South Morang saved.
Chloe, Epping
Brown Mountain Crisis: Rendezvous steps of Parliament, Spring Street Melbourne, 12 noon
How the nationalisation of metal recycling may save our electricity and communications infrastructure from destruction
The ABC Radio National Background Briefing program, "Metals, money and madness" (2 Nov 2008), discussed the growing problem of theft of metals, particularly copper, often entailing the vandalism of electrical, rail or telecommunications infrastructure or any readily accessible artifacts, such as public statues and bronze medallions on gravestones.
In the words of John Seabrook of the New Yorker magazine:
"Well, there is a kind of apocalyptic aspect to it -- I would say a 'Mad Max' aspect ... of metal theft, and not only in the States, but in Europe, too, in the sense that the very infrastructure is being torn out -- ripping up lines from railway yards, taking bronze statues out of parks ... and melting them down, bronze medallions on grave stones, storm drains -- anything made out of metal that you can get away with -- manhole covers ... In the Ukraine a whole suspension bridge was stolen, railroad tracks are stolen. ... Round the world it's a big problem."
Other instances of metal theft include:
- In Victoria, in October, a truck pulled up at a new housing estate. The cover over the Telstra underground cable housing was removed, the cable was lifted out and hooked onto the truck, and the truck drove off, dragging 300 metres of cable. Evidently, the people in the truck believed the cable was copper and had not realised that Telstra now used cables made of less valuable aluminium.
- In South Australia, theft of copper power lines resulted in 30,000 homes being blacked out.
- In South Africa, a special police unit, known as the "Copperheads", has been formed to combat the theft of metal.
- In the U.K. the copper conducting wire, necessary to power trains, is regularly stolen.
- In Serbia, about a year ago, a large part of a communications network was crippled through theft of copper cable.
- In the U.S. theft of copper gas piping caused a gas leak and a house to blow up.
- A sculpture with a scrap metal value of only AU$200 was stolen from outside an art Gallery in Penrith NSW recently. In the U.K. a sculpture by Henry Moore has vanished.
In the U.S. and South Africa, drugs such as crystal methamphetamine, also known as "ice", have been deliberately supplied to metal thieves in order to make them oblivious to the risks entailed, such as the removal of live high voltage copper electricity transmission lines.
Such crimes have been driven, in part, by a reduction in output from the world's copper mines. Scarcity has driven up the price of copper. Copper currently sells for US$4,000 per tonne, but not so long ago, shot up to around US$8,500 per tonne or US$8.50 per kilogram, because of strikes by miners in some of the world's major copper mines.
#GovtVsMarket" id="GovtVsMarket">Managing essential resources: The role of government vs the market
About three years ago, when I argued on an online discussion against our excessive consumption of natural resources, particularly petroleum, the #comment-38089">inevitable argument came back to me from neo-liberal ideologues, that 'price signals' would fix everything and that any government intervention would only make our predicament worse.
"Governments will only be able to 'guide' the market where they have more wisdom than the sum of the governed. It may happen one day, but it has not happened yet. ..."
...
"At the moment there is no substitute (for petroleum). 50 years ago there was no substitute for bakelite. Before telephony there was no substitute for hiring someone to deliver messages (other than walking them around yourself). ... There may be large reserves of oil as yet undetected. The point is that no one knows; so trying to run around as Chicken Little did is senseless. Make sure the price signals are allowed to get through and the problem will be solved."
It is hard to believe that a thinking mature adult could espouse such ideas, yet most public policy over the last two decades or so has been, and continues to be predicated on such simplistic rationales.
Today, the 'price signals' that we were promised would solve everything for us are, in many parts of the world, driving a new crime wave that has the potential to destroy the basic infrastructure needed to keep civilisation functioning.
This comprises only part of the whirlwind that was sown when we were 'persuaded' to allow our destiny to be decided two or three decades ago by 'price signals', rather than by our collective human intelligence, as expressed through our elected political representatives.
In 1974 Minerals Energy Minister Rex Connor attempted to borrow money by unconventional means in order to buy back Australia's energy and mineral wealth in order to make Australia energy-independent. It is a matter of historical record that this was subject to a beat-up by the hostile newsmedia. It became known as 'the Khemlani affair', and led to the downfall of the Whitlam Labor Government in 1975.
Afterwards, Liberal Party Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser started a process which led to breaking down of limits to foreign companies owning Australia's mineral wealth. This has led to the circumstances of today where most of our one-off endowment is in the hands of foreign companies and is being flogged off at an accelerated rate to overseas countries. Our own production of petroleum has passed its peak and we can expect to become ever more dependent upon increasingly expensive petroleum imports.
Of course, the neo-liberal ideologues still insist that Australia is better off because the Whitlam Government was restrained from intervening in our mineral wealth sector and thereby prevented from impairing the claimed efficiency of the free market for all those years.
Across the world, other governments, guided by the same dogma, similarly stood back, as mining and petroleum companies largely helped themselves to their countries' mineral resources and encouraged accelerated consumption of those resources for commercial reasons.
Now the supply of many metals, as well as fossil fuels, that were treated then as either infinite, or easily replaceable, is now dwindling and we are beginning to suffer the consequences.
#PublicCost" id="PublicCost">Public cost and private profit
Strong evidence supports a view that some metal recyclers actively encourage the theft of copper. In view of the disruption and the enormous cost of replacement and repair of infrastructure destroyed by copper thieves, can we afford to leave the management of supply and recycling of essential materials to the market?
At the moment, the scale of the problem may seem manageable, at least in Australia. This is because, for many potential thieves, the risk involved in stealing copper, despite the high prices, probably well outweighs the few hundred dollars to be gained. However, in coming times of increasing economic hardship and scarcity-driven increases in the costs of metals, the rewards may be much higher and the desperation so much greater.
If we leave supply and demand to the discretion of private operations, as now, we stand to see much of our infrastructure destroyed as a result of theft.
Greater regulation of the metal recycling business has been proposed to combat metal theft. One proposal for metal has been a "tag and hold" system, similar to what now operates in the U.S., where scrap metal is tagged and held for up to 28 days after it has been bought to provide an opportunity for anyone who may have had that metal stolen to come forward and identify it. A similar system is also applied to second hand goods dealers prevent theft.
However, Luke Parker, the Managing Director of metal recycler Sell and Parker, objected to greater regulation of the industry. He argued:
I don't think it's fair to blame the scrap industry for advertising the fact that we recycle scrap, much as I don't think it's fair to blame Cash Converters ... for stolen video recorders, or stolen jewellery. That's not really the case, We advertise that we pay cash for scrap so people will recycle it. By far the bulk of scrap that's recycled is legitimately sourced, and we need to tell our legitimate customers that we're paying for scrap. However, it's fair to say as well that just as we're advertising to our legitimate customers some of the non-desirables also see the advertisements and think, "Well, there's a good deal there; I can get some cash for scrap regardless of how they acquire the scrap." But I'd be hesitant to say that because we operate in a competitive market and we have to market the fact that we recycle and we pay for the metal, and we do pay a handsome price for it, that we are somehow to blame for it.
Whether or not the scrap industry as whole is to blame, there is clearly a problem which can only get worse over time. Background Briefing reported, "In Victoria 33 people have been charged with copper theft, 16 scrap metal yards investigated and just under 49 tonnes of stolen copper reclaimed."
Of the 'tag and hold' method", Luke Parker objected,
"... Tag and Hold works fine for a hock shop that's holding jewellery, or holding video recorders, they don't get many in, they don't take much space, they're all very unique. But everyone that's walked through our site ever discussing promoting tag and hold, once you actually get into a scrap metal yard, have a look at what happens, have a look at the volume of materials coming through, tag and hold just wouldn't work. It would destroy the economics of the industry, it would make it impractical to do a lot of recycling and for very, very little benefit."
#CaseForPublicOwnership" id="CaseForPublicOwnership">The case for a publicly owned metal recycling service
Indeed, regulation could be costly. Perhaps then, the solution may lie in completely removing any incentive for scrap metal dealers to accept stolen metals. In other words, make metal recycling a government responsibility that is to be performed as a public service and not for profit.
This suggestion would almost certainly be dismissed out of hand by this society's opinion moulders as 'socialism'.
However, should such an objection prevent us from making a democratic choice to adopt, as a society, what may prove to be the only measure likely to prevent the eventual destruction of our electrical and communications infrastructure, which, together with with petroleum-fueled internal combustion engines, virtually defines industrial civilisation?
Obviously the idea of nationalising the scrap metal recycling industry is fraught with a number of political, economic and moral difficulties. Two of these are:
- What do we do about those people who worked hard to build up businesses which put to good use material which would have otherwise been wasted?
- How might such useful businesses be preserved in some form?
- How can we guarantee that the recycling of metals can be operated efficiently and not become a burden to the taxpayer?
In regard to the first two questions, it would be appropriate for the Government to offer fair compensation, that is within its means, for taking over the businesses. It should also see to it that the owners, manager and current employees of those businesses are employed by the Government Metal Recycling Service in appropriate capacities with wages and working conditions that are at least commensurate with what they currently enjoy.
To address concerns that employment by the Government will automatically lead to feather-bedding, there should be reasonable work performance benchmarks for all employees, but these should allow work to be conducted at a civilised pace and preferably for considerably fewer hours than today's norm of 38-40.
The charter of the Government Metal Recycling Service should be to recycle as cheaply as possible for the taxpayer, the suppliers of scrap metals and the consumers. The charter should also specifically include proactive discouragement of the theft of metals. In any case, without the profit motive, the crude economic incentives for operators to accept stolen metals would not be present.
For the Government Metal Recycling Service to run as efficiently as possible, its processes should be totally transparent to the public, except where this might encroach unreasonably upon the personal privacy of employees. There should be almost no business secrets and no "commercial in confidence" clauses in any contracts signed with the Government Recycling Service.
If the full nationalisation of recycling is considered too politically difficult for the moment, there should however be no reason, other than the usual blanket objections of 'free market' ideologues, why we could not at least set up a such a service to operate alongside private recyclers, with greater regulation of the latter. If that should prove insufficient to prevent metal theft and the destruction of our infrastructure, then we should look again at full nationalisation at some time in the future.
See also: transcript of ABC Radio National Background Briefing program "Metals, money and madness" (2 Nov 08).
Topic:
How not to resolve the Murray-Darling crisis
Media release: 3rd November 2008
Not long ago it could be argued that the just-approved, multi-million dollar, riverside development at Mannum in South Australia's Murraylands would be a welcome initiative; the 570 new residential allotments and 150-berth houseboat marina providing a much-needed economic boost for that regional community.
However, that was in the good old bad old days. Now even the most unobservant Australian can see all too clearly the widespread effects of our overexploitation of the Murray-Darling river system.
Irrespective of all the talk, as a nation we are little closer to implementing a mechanism which will urgently address the underling non-drought causes of the widespread degradation of this nation's vital river system and heal the ecological wounds we have inflicted.
It bears remembering that, as you read this, the River Murray is not flowing to its mouth, vast areas of its natural wetland lie disconnected and in decay, some river communities are similarly unplugged from their water supply and several existing marinas in the Lower Lakes are largely high and dry. The river system, on which millions of Australians depend, is struggling - big time.
Far from validating the project, the confirmation by South Australian River Murray and Water Security Minister, Karlene Maywald, that the developers have sourced and purchased the 520 megalitres of water that they require for the project, merely demonstrates the grim outlook for water use in the Basin if free-marketeers continue to rule the roost: a future where water is provided to those who can pay the most for what is an essential natural resource, to the detriment of all other stakeholders, dependent communities and the environment.
Fair Water Use believes that now is certainly not the time for this project to proceed. Despite the developers' spin, any benefits it may provide will be more than offset by its impacts, and, as importantly, it sends entirely the wrong message interstate. The approval of such developments by the South Australian government will be viewed with justified cynicism in the light of simultaneous demands to inject more water into the Lower Murray and Lakes, to put an end to the inefficient use of water upstream and to reject a proposal to construct a marina at Mildura.
The already slim chances of a meaningful cooperative approach to the problem can only be hindered by the approval of the Mannum project. Until, as a nation, we have demonstrated our ability to address the failing health of the Murray urgently and effectively, the Mannum marina development is simply inappropriate and must be put on hold.
Such issues will continue to arise until a State of Emergency is declared and the Federal Government assumes immediate responsibility for implementing the suite of critical care measures that the Murray-Darling so desperately requires.
Contact: Ian Douglas
(National Coordinator)
+61 (0)416-022178
Authorised by: Ginny Brown
Media Coordinator
media[AT]fairwateruse.com.au
+61 (0)414 914248
Fair Water Use (Australia)
+61 (0)8 8398 0812
PO Box 384, Balhannah, South Australia 5242
www.fairwateruse.com.au
General MacArthur and His Island-Hopping Strategy: The EROEI for Internet duels with Growthist Fools is Negative
History buffs might recall the strategy employed by General MacArthur and the US Navy against the Japanese in the Pacific War. It was a clever one.
The Japanese were famous for their fanatic tenacity and their determination to fight and die to the last man in futile and suicidal attempts to impede the Americans in their march to conquer and occupy the Japanese homeland. The Japanese goal was to inflict such heavy casualties upon the Americans that America would give up and negotiate a peace more agreeable to the Japanese than unconditional surrender would surely be.
General MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz, however, sensibly realized that it was not necessary to challenge every single Japanese-held island and subdue it. Why not just leave them be, they reasoned? Why spend the time, and the blood, taking them? Why not just “leap frog” over them to more strategically important islands, and let the other less important ones die on the vine? This became known as “island hopping” and it proved cost-effective in lives and results.
I would suggest a similar strategy be employed by those in the movement who are addicted to debates with inveterate pig-headed cornucopians in their intellectual bunkers. Their obsolete paradigms are impregnable and cannot be breached by reason, and the only battering ram available is your head. So why press the issue? Why not cut your losses and get on with that book you are supposed to be writing or re-introduce yourself to your dog or something. Leapfrog over the lost causes and save your energy for the winnable battles.
If we are right, their ideas will “wither on the vine” and their convictions will die unrepentant, as Thomas Kuhn predicted they would. Reality and the passage of time never forces a dogmatist to recant his beliefs. On the contrary, like a 90 year old Japanese soldier still lost in the jungles of the Philippines, he will maintain that the war is still being fought and that Shintoism, er, Growthism, is a durably viable cosmology for the end of time.
Keep the right-handed out of Canada! A Politically Correct proposal to reduce immigration and its negative environmental impact
Since every reasoned argument that demonstrates the clear correlation between mass immigration and the ruinous environmental degradation of Canada is stymied by accusations of racism it is obvious that we, who oppose immigration, must also demonstrate our racial impartiality.
Therefore I propose that we discriminate against those who so far have escaped retribution . That one privileged group who have designed the world for the ergonomic inconvenience of the persecuted ten percent. I am speaking of the ruling class that comprises 90% of the global population, the right-handers, whom statistics show are favoured in so very many ways.
If by its immigrant selection process, Canada was to shut the door on them, and them only, it would not necessarily stop left handed people from any nationality, race, ethnicity or religion from applying for citizenship. It would just stop 90% of them. And that is a good start to population stabilization and eventually reduction.
What would a 90% reduction in the immigration intake have meant in 2007? Look at the numbers. The number of people who entered the country officially as immigrants (240,000). The number who were officially accepted (251,000). And the total number who came in as permanent immigrants, temporary Visa residents, students, and others. (453,000). Then reduce those totals by 90%, and see what impact that has on the annual output of Canada’s green house gasses (GHG) and the conversion of Ontario’s prime agricultural land into housing and commercial outlets. Remember that each Canadian on average emits 23 metric tonnes of Green House Gases. Here are the three angles from which immigration totals to Canada in 2007 may be viewed:
2007: Less 90% Saving in GHG emissions
453,000 total entrants 408,700 9,400,100 metric tonnes
251,000 accepted 225,900 5,195,700 metric tonnes
240,000 entered 216,000 4,968,000 metric tonnes
From any way you look at it, if the immigrants who were privileged with being right-handed all their lives had been turned away, Canada would have retarded the process of global warming by nearly 5 million metric tonnes of GHG ----or about four times as much as the immigrants would have emitted had they stayed home in their original countries.
Moreover, it is likely that the province of Ontario would have lost 54,000 fewer acres of prime farmland that year, since immigrant-driven population growth, not poor land-use planning, is the conspicuous culprit in the loss of Class 1 agrarian land in urban Canada. Losses have occurred at a consistent pace of 60,000 acres a year for a decade---a 90% cut in immigration would slow those losses considerably. And the 536 species at risk, who rely on the flora that border farmland to shelter them, would get a reprieve too.
I think it is imperative that we move quickly against the right-handers, before human rights advocates bring them under the umbrella of civil rights protection. Once they do that, then another cross-cultural, multi-racial group representing 90% of the global population will have to be singled out for exclusion. I would offer up my own ancestors (Irish-Icelanders), but there aren’t enough of them to make a difference. How about cat-lovers, people with hang-nails, chess players---I really don’t care. Any arbitrary criteria that would not be discriminatory in the traditionally odious ways but exclusionary in the broadest possible ways. A blanket moratorium on immigration would be best and simplest. But that is not a political possibility. Yet.
First and foremost, it is about getting the numbers down.
Property Council population-growth propaganda now a regular feature in Canberra Times
This article is by Mark O'Connor.
Once again the regular Canberra Times column by Catherine Carter (executive director of the property council of Australia (ACT)) is full of propaganda for population growth. It appears in the "Sunday Property" section of The Canberra Times. (2 November 2008).
Titled, "Population target must guide future", it rehearses 4 arguments:
1. "Firstly a small, sparsely distributed population carries extra costs for the economy and the environment...."
2. "We could achieve greater cost efficiencies if we increase the population in key areas...."
3. "Canberrans are entitled to housing and lifestyle choices... But the simple reality is that a bigger population creates a greater range of housing types and locations to choose from."
4. "Finally, land is one of the Territory's very few assets -- and its value rises with the potential amount of development it can hold. Taller buildings in some locations can mean additional sales revenue for the ACT government as well as increased rates and land tax revenues."
As well there is a pretence that we need a population "target to aim for", such as the Property Council recommends. (Carter nominated a target in a previous article, not in this one.) In reality of course, whatever the current population was, the Property Council would want more. Carter's columns are rarely of any use to the intending home buyer --they are simply arguments in favor of the interests of the real estate industry.
Perhaps people with concerns about overpopulation, overshooting of water and soil, destruction of biodiverse habitat, greenhouse impact of land-use intensification, homelessness and personal and national debts, and unstable banks, might make some representations to The Canberra Times about either labeling this column a paid advertisement, or providing a right of reply, in the form of a regular column, to people who don't favour growing Canberra's population.
(Mark O'Connor is the author, with Bill Lines, of Overloading Australia, Enviro Books, due out late 2008.)
Farmers occupy Qld Premier's office to save Darling Downs from coal mining
Media release : Friday 31st October 2008
Location : Anna Bligh's office, West End, Brisbane
Farmers occupy Qld Premier's office to save Darling Downs from coal mining
The Friends of Felton group today sat on the floor in the Premier's office to demand the Government introduce legislation to protect prime farmland from mining. The peaceful protest involved around 25 people#main-fn1">1.
Spokesman Rob McCreath said "The mining boom is out of control. Areas such as Felton, Jimbour, and Warra are the jewels in the crown of rural Queensland. The Premier must act now to protect our food bowl from destruction."
The group set up a mock lunch table on the pavement outside the office, with a plate of coal for the Premier's lunch, and a glass of polluted water.
The protesters shared their own picnic lunch with onlookers – a picnic made from fresh Darling Downs ingredients.
Media contact: Rob McCreath 0409 014219
www.friendsoffelton.blogspot.com
Postscript: The Courier Mail of the next day, Saturday 1 November 2008 completely failed to report protest in spite of this media release having been sent some time before 1:03PM. The business section included more stories about the claimed prosperity that coal mining will bring to the Darling Downs:
- "No-brainer for QGC to a accept BG bid" about a takeover bid for the Queensland Gas (Company(?)) by the British BG Group; and
- "All aboard for ... boom times in Cinchilla". The latter briefly acknowledges concerns of farmers about the extraction of Coal Seam Gas (CSG) but fails to mention the protest.
Appendix: The case against Coal Mining In Felton Valley
This has been adapted from a PDF leaflet from Friends Of Felton
The Development
Stage 1: A three year demonstration project involving the mining of 750,000 t/yr of coal and its processing into Di-methyl ether (DME), an alternative fuel, and gas for a power station.
Stage 2: Massive expansion of the mine to 12.8 million tonnes/yr.#main-fn2">2 Expansion of power station and petrochemical plant.
The mine's anticipated output of 12.8 million tonnes/yr would be greater than any existing Queensland coal mine!!
This is TWICE the size of the new Acland mine, near Oakey.
Key arguments against the development
- Destruction of an area of renowned natural beauty, encompassing areas of remnant vegetation, home to several officially recognised vulnerable and endangered species.
- Loss and degradation of prime agricultural land.
- CO2 emissions. The production of DME releases huge quantities of CO2. The developer has vague plans for the capture of this CO2, transport using a leak-prone disused oil pipeline, and storage underground in exhausted oil fields. This process is unproven and insecure. The capacity of the nominated oil field to cope with the volume of CO2 produced is doubtful.
- Drainage and contamination of underground aquifers, the lifeblood of our community.
- Pollution of Hodgson Creek, in the headwaters of the Murray- Darling river system.
- Increased flooding of upstream and surrounding farmland as a result of levee banks around mine and infrastructure.
The Friends of Felton are committed to opposing a coal mine at Felton for the following reasons:
- WRONG PLACE: Felton is a closely settled, sustain- able farming community located only 30 kilometres from Toowoomba – this special place should not be sacrificed for a coal mine and petro-chemical processing plant. A coal washing plant would be built next to Hodgson Creek, in the headwaters of the Murray-Darling, using salty water piped in from the Dalby gas fields – a recipe for disaster.
- TOO BIG: At full production the mine would take out 12.8 million tonnes of coal a year. This would make it one of the biggest coal mines in Queensland and the negative impact on the environment, the community and the region would be significant and unacceptable.
- WRONG PRODUCT: The proponents plan to convert the coal into di-methyl ether (or DME) which could be used as a substitute for diesel. Production of DME on-site would turn Felton into Australia's biggest single point source of pollution – similar to what has happened following development of a coal to oil industry in South Africa resulting in pollution which is visible from space. Moreover the conversion process is highly inefficient: at least 40% of the energy in coal would be wasted in the production of DME.
- WRONG RESPONSE TO DWINDLING FUEL SUPPLIES: At first glance, converting plentiful coal into scarce oil looks smart. But a lasting solution does not lie in trying to maintain oil production through innovation. The world can undo its vulnerability to shrinking oil supplies by consuming less. Oil efficiency will extend the life of known energy supplies by hundreds of years, ample time to develop renewable alternatives. Oil frugality is a shared responsibility and must start here and now.
- GLOBAL WARMING: CO2 emissions from this project will be significant. Coal miners want to make coal 'clean' by capturing and storing the carbon dioxide emitted when it is processed in leak-proof underground reservoirs. But the technology is a long way off. In fact commercial-scale CO2 sequestration is unlikely before 2030.
HOWEVER the mine will only go ahead if the government grants it an operating licence. If you agree with the position adopted by Friends of Felton please add your support by whatever means possible. The decision makers already know that not all mining proposals are acceptable. What they still need to be convinced about is the unacceptability of the one being proposed for Felton.
How can you help?
Become an active member of
FRIENDS OF FELTON
Phone: 07 4691 0195
Email: wingfielders [ AT ] bluemaxx.com.au
visit our website www.friendsoffelton.blogspot.com
Footnotes
#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">1. #main-fn1-txt">↑ The media release stated 20. I counted 25 protestors including myself - JS
#main-fn2" id="main-fn2">2. #main-fn2-txt">↑ Originally it was to have a capacity of 24 million tonnes/yr of 4 times the capacity of the new mine at Acland, but it was scaled back to 12.8 million tonnes/yr. They were to use water drained from acquifers to wash the coal, but they have since claimed that they can do without the use of water. Friends of Felton are skeptical that this will last.
See also: www.friendsoffelton.blogspot.com, YouTube broadcast of (Oct 2008(?)) "Coal Mines To Replace Farms in Australia", "Darling Downs community fights farmland for mine move" in Sunday Mail of 1 Nov 08 (Friday's protest not reported), "Coal vs cropping fight widens" in Stock and Land of 15 Oct 08, "Lone stand as coalminers poised to bulldoze Acland" in the Courier Mail of 18 Oct 08, "Darling Downs farmers vow to resist coal miners" in the Courier Mail of 5 Oct 08, "Qld farmers take on coal industry" in the Green Left Weekly of 25 Oct 08.
Topic:
What is behind those accusations of racism?
In the October 29th, 2008 edition of the News Times http://www.newtimesslo.com/news/1258/whats-behind-those-ads , Colin Rigley, using two proxies, takes a run at a commercial aired by the Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS). The critics he cites reprise the tired old “Greening of Hate” formula served up by the Carl Pope crew nearly a decade ago to squash efforts by the Sierra Club grass roots to restore sanity and tradition to America’s flagship environmental organization.
Once upon a time the “IPAT” equation was the foundation of environmental thinking in America (and elsewhere). It reasoned that environmental impact (I) equaled (P or population level) times (A affluence or per capita consumption if you like) times (T for technology).
But come the mid 80s, the “P” discreetly vanished from the equation, thus making nonsense out of a comprehensive understanding of environmental degradation. For what sense does it make if environmentalists only key on reducing overconsumption and ignore overpopulation, if they insist, for example, in cutting per capita energy consumption in half, while ignoring the fact that the population will double?
Why the population myopia? In a word, political correctness-- 70% of population growth is driven by immigration, and since the mid-80s, human rights has become the over-riding obsession---the I-word is an ugly taboo. But omelets cannot be made without cracking eggs. To be anti-immigration is not necessarily to be anti-immigrant. Any more than a restaurant owner who bars the door to more customers after his tables are all taken up is “anti-customer.”.
Mike Latner of Cal Poly states that immigrant-caused global-warming is an odd linkage, a logical fallacy and an unprecedented argument. Quite the opposite. In Australia the population increased 30% from 1990 to 2006 and its GHG emissions increased by exactly the same percentage during the same period. In the United States, the population increased 43% from 1970 to 2004 and its GHG emissions increased 43% during that same period. The correlation is clear, is it not? Yet Latner says, “the root problem is America’s CO2 emissions.” Which, I suppose, have nothing to do with the more than 302 million people living there. Can he name a single jurisdiction anywhere that has a growing population but has stopped its GHG emission growth?
Rigley’s article posed the question: “What’s behind the (CAPS) ads?” Some better questions would be supplementary follow-ups. Questions like: “Who’s behind the Sierra Club and what conditions did billionaire David Gelbaum set for his $100 million donation ?”
“What do we mean by ‘right wing’?
“Why is it that those who claim to be left-wing, liberal, or ‘progressive’, who support generous immigration, are on the same side as Microsoft and other huge computer corporations and Archer Midland and other agribusiness lobbies?”
“Why does the anti-immigration and supposedly ‘right-wing’ group ‘Americans for Better Immigration’ give Democratic Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont high marks for his opposition to chain migration, amnesty and visa abuse? “ Sanders, like the late Cesar Chavez, fights immigration because he sees it as a right wing agenda to vastly increase the pool of cheap labour to drive wages down.
The advocates of open immigration and runaway population growth question their motives. But what about the motives of those who question their motives? Should motives matter? Or shouldn’t just we worry about the facts? Probing people’s motivations is a job for hypnotists and psychiatrists. What is important is the logic of their arguments. It is irrelevant that I want mushrooms removed from grocery shelves because I hate them. What is relevant is whether I can advance sound empirical evidence that mushrooms offer no nutritional value and are a health hazard. If I can’t, it doesn’t matter if have toxic attitudes toward mushrooms, my arguments will die from exposure to fact.
Perhaps it is time to turn the tables on Southern Poverty Law and the critics of immigration reform and population stabilization movements like CAPS. Perhaps it is time to question their liberal McCarthyism, to question their motivations. Are they motivated by hate? Do they support porous borders and mass immigration because they hate the American working class? So much so that they stood by and watched it lose 5 million jobs under the Bush administration to outsourcing and displacement from the low-wage competition of immigrants who drive down the wages of Americans by 5.25% , according to Harvard’s Dr. George Borjas Do they hate agricultural self-sufficiency, American biodiversity and ecological sustainability?
Are their reflexive charges of xenophobia a cover for self-loathing and guilt?
The answers to these questions will always be speculative and not germane to the point that whether our intentions are malevolent or benevolent, what matters is not intentions or motivations but numbers. Numbers matter. Get CAPS off the psychiatrist’s couch and get out your calculator and make your computations. Number of people. Their per capita consumption. Then figure out what their habitat can tolerate and what the number of consumers consuming at what level of consumption can live there sustainably. Presto. There is your population policy, of which immigration policy is a key part.
Whether the Star Spangled Banner is eventually sung in Spanish or English is not so vitally important as that it is sung by substantially fewer Americans 50 years from now than are alive today.
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