Yarra Climate Action Now!

Professor Clive Hamilton's absolutely brilliant five-part series of articles (originally published on the ABC website) is a clear-headed and searing exposé of climate change denial and the people and motivations behind it.

This is highly recommended reading.

A brief overview of each article is below, together with a link to the full piece. A warning - the comments after the articles quite clearly confirm (in Prof. Hamilton's words) "that denial is only nominally about the science and really about ideology and cultural identity", and that they are an angry and aggressive bunch with lots of time on their hands!

Part 1 - Bullying, lies, and the rise of right-wing climate denial
Details the cyber-bullying that scientists, journalists and others endure when they speak publicly on climate science.


Part 2 - Who is orchestrating the cyber-bullying?
Looks at the major blogs and news outlets, such as The Australian, that drive climate change denialism.

Also describes the driving factors behind climate change denial and exposes it for what it is, an extremist political movement that has nothing to do with science or scepticism.

"...becoming a denialist does not follow from carefully weighing up the evidence (that is, true scepticism) but from associating oneself with a cultural outlook, taking on an identity defined in opposition to a caricature of those who support action on climate change. It is the energy in this wider movement that has seen climate denialism morphing into a new form of political extremism."


Part 3 - Think tanks, oil money and black ops
Looks at who are the major think tanks behind climate change denial, who is funding them and what their motivations are.


Part 4 - Manufacturing a scientific scandal
Outlines the process by which climate change deniers manufacture scientific scandals with the support of a lazy or biased media without any evidence. This article also provides an update of where the science is really at.

This is a quote from the article talking about the CRU email "scandal" after scientist emails were hacked last year:

"Although sceptics have been gnawing away at the credibility of climate science for years, over the last five months they have made enormous leaps owing to the hacking of emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and the discovery of a number of alleged mistakes in the benchmark reports of the IPCC.

"While the "revelations" have been milked for all they are worth, and a lot more, the science remains rock solid. If instead of cherry-picking two or three that lend themselves to spin, you read the 1000 or so emails that were posted on a Russian server the picture that emerges is one of an enormously dedicated group of men and women doing their best to carry out research of the highest quality.

"If there were a conspiracy among scientists to manipulate the truth, you would expect the evidence to be there in spades in these private emails. But it's not. Instead they show scientists working their backsides off to do good science, with email exchanges stopping briefly on Christmas Eve to be resumed on Boxing Day, with apologies to colleagues for taking time out to have surgery or get married, all with a sub-text of worry about the implications of their work for the future of humanity."


Part 5 - Who's defending science?
Contains a list of lies about climate science that The Australian newspaper has published in recent times and the techniques it uses to further its political aims.

Climate solutions research group Beyond Zero Emissions has just released a preview executive summary to their Zero Carbon Australia 2020 electricity (Stationary Energy) plan.

The Zero Carbon Australia 2020 (ZCA2020) Stationary Energy Plan is a detailed, costed blueprint demonstrating how Australia can reach zero emissions electricity by 2020 using proven, existing, commercialised technology.

The report concludes that there are no technological impediments to transforming Australia’s stationary energy sector to zero emissions over the next ten years. The costs of transformation are adequately offset by savings made from shifting away from the business as usual scenario.

No resource constraints have been identified. With adequate societal and political commitment and regulatory support, the goal of an efficient and competitive zero-emissions stationary energy sector is well within Australia’s reach.

Have a read of the 6 page executive summary and be inspired. Let's get on with it!

The new mantra of the Rudd Government is that Australia will do "no more and no less" than the rest of the world on the climate crisis (even if that means we head into catastrophic, runaway climate change?).

However it seems we can't even reach that most mediocre of goals. A recent assessment by the German NGO German Watch of the world's 57 most polluting nations put Australia fourth last, or 57th out of 60 (the top three spots were left blank due to no country deserving them). Maybe Rudd's new mantra should be "we will do no more and no less than Kazakhstan".

For the full report, click here.

YCAN's re-branding sessions outside the office of Richard Wynne, Labor member for Richmond are catching people's attention. See coverage below from the Melbourne Leader and Melbourne Times.

Please get in touch to help with the campaign to get Victoria out of coal and into renewable energy: yarracan -at- gmail.com, or drop in to a re-branding session for a chat, every Wednesday, 5.30-6.30pm, 112 Smith St, Collingwood.

Originally published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 3 Feb.

Renewable energy is the fastest growing power source in the world, and already generates baseload electricity on the scale of utilities. Large solar thermal plants with heat storage can dispatch power around the clock every day of the week regardless of whether the sun is shining, and make handsome profits during demand peaks.

Wind power is being installed on scales that dwarf Australian grid requirements. These and other clean energy technologies are replacing coal on modern grids. While Australia continues to throw money at 19th-century technologies, Spain, China, the US and others are charging ahead with zero-emissions power generation, and creating export markets.

Spain consumes about as much electricity as Australia, though its population is about twice as large. Like Australia, Spain is blessed with strong, consistent sunshine, and it uses this attribute to ensure energy security. Already it has built 24-hour baseload solar plants, using molten salt to store heat which is then used to create steam and turn turbines. It started with Andasol 1, a 50MW plant, and has now completed two similar projects. More than 1,800MW of projects are under construction and the government has just approved another 2,440MW for their feed-in tariff scheme for construction over the next three years.

The Gemasolar project is the shining light of the Spanish boom in baseload solar power. This solar thermal plant has created 1500 jobs and will operate at 60 to 100 per cent of maximum turbine output for up to 90 per cent of hours each year. Very low maintenance shutdown requirements allow this efficiency, far greater than coal-fired power generators in NSW. When the turbine is idle, heat is bled off the ''cold'' 290-degree salt storage tank to keep the turbine seals warm, allowing fast starting - as seen in the best hydro and gas plants. This capacity for baseload and fast-start ''dispatchable'' power generation places the Gemasolar plant among the highest-value electricity plants, a fact not lost on investors.

This solar generation capacity is in addition to Spanish wind power. Wind turbines supply 11 per cent of Spain's electricity demand, and this will more than double to 25 per cent by 2020. Another 6000MW of wind power is approved for installation in the next three years. That is just shy of three plants the size of the Bayswater power station near Muswellbrook, with all the jobs but no emissions.

Spain is phasing out coal and nuclear, and the companies that built the nuclear plants have re-tooled to build solar thermal plants with heat storage. These companies did not want to own the nuclear plants they built, but they have set up investment vehicles to own solar thermal plants.

Compared to the 10 years it takes to get a nuclear plant up and running, solar thermal plants with 24-hour baseload capacity have construction times as short as nine months, so such projects are not exposed to the same political, industrial and financial risks as nuclear plants. Envisaging a lucrative market for their solar infrastructure and expertise, the Spanish anticipate a healthy return on any subsidies for these technologies.

To read on, click here.