The website is back http://miningnsw.com.au/
sending up http://nswmining.com.au/
A satirical website created by climate action group Rising Tide Newcastle has twice been shut down this fortnight [late February] by powerful coal industry lobby group, the NSW Minerals Council.
The website was conceived as a response to the Minerals Council's 'Life. Brought to you by Mining' advertising campaign. The Minerals Council campaign, which argues that mining is inextricable from modern luxury, can be viewed at www.nswmining.com.au. Rising Tide members created a parody website at www.miningnsw.com.au in order to present the other side of the story and address the damage wrought by mining to the local and global environment and to the local community.
Hot on the heels of Beyond Zero Emissions campaigner Adrian Whitehead's call for Australia to produce Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles, Australian Workers Union National Secretary Bill Shorten submitted an op-ed piece to the Age newspaper in Melbourne.
At this stage Mr Shorten is calling for a 2 stage introduction of electric hybrid vehicle production to Australia. BZE campaigner Adrian Whitehead said, "We are really pleased that Mr Shorten is presenting a message that has the future of workers, Australia and the earth in mind. We at Beyond Zero Emissions will be working hard to educate politicians such as Mr Shorten on why we must move beyond current Hybrid technology to Plug-in technology."
Plug-in hybrids are getting drafted for government work.
State and local governments are launching programs to see if it's
possible to convert their hybrid cars and trucks into plug-in cars.
State and local governments are trying out hybrid electric-gas vehicles
that recharge from a wall socket for their car and bus fleets.
These programs may help move plug-ins from the world of car hobbyists
into the mainstream.
Plug-ins are like regular hybrids in that they have both electric and
gas motors. But they come with more battery packs, so the car can run
more on electricity than on gas. They can get about 100 miles to the
CARBON emissions are escaping into the earth's atmosphere at an unprecedented rate, an international group of scientists has warned.
In 2005, about 7.9 billion tonnes of carbon were released globally, according to figures published yesterday by the CSIRO. Scientist Mike Raupach, who also co-chairs the international Global Carbon Project, was surprised by his research results. "It shows recent efforts globally to reduce emissions have had little impact on emissions growth," he said.
The rate of emissions had grown by about 2.5 per cent each year since 2000, compared with less than 1 per cent growth each year in the 1990s.
Information, transcripts and podcats of our spots in the media have been moved to
http://beyondzeroemissions.org/media/ourmedia
Click here to get our new improved media releases.
http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics
And why do we do it? Not because we think an industry paid stooge is going to change his position. It's because other people might be listening to him, or reading his post on an internet forum. So let yourself be heard, in debunking the skeptics' myths!
Scientists have observed a slowing of the Gulf Stream that is part of the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt.
The Gulf stream keeps Western Europe 10 degrees warmer all year round. If the Gulf Stream stops (which it has done in the past). Ireland, Uk, France, the Mediteranean et al, are likely to share the climate of Sibera which is a simliair distance from the Equator.
To see an interactive guide visit.
An armada of about 100 icebergs was just a few hundred kilometers from South Iland last night, prompting warnings for shipping and raising the remote prospect of the first iceberg sighting from the mainland in decades.
The surprised Whenuapai-based crew of an Air Force Orion, on a routine southern patrol looking for illegal fishing, spotted the first of the icebergs about 260km south of Invercargill late yesterday morning.
The frigid flotilla was split into two groups of about 50 icebergs. One group stretched about 185km south, and the other was concentrated in a chunky, icy mass about 37km wide.
Snowy Hydro 'cannot meet minimum flow'
November 6, 2006 - 6:34AM
Snowy Hydro has warned it will not be able to meet its minimum flow down the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers.
The renewable-electricity provider has informed the NSW Irrigators Council flows into the system last month were half the level of the previous record low, The Australian reports.
"It really does require a major rethink of how the water that is available is allocated," council chief executive Doug Miell told the newspaper.
The warning comes after Prime Minister John Howard called an emergency summit for Tuesday with the premiers of NSW, Victoria and South Australia in response to new data showing flows into the Murray-Darling Basin this year have been the worst on record.
Average NSW temps may rise 6.4C by 2070
November 6, 2006 - 6:54AM
Average temperatures in New South Wales could soar by up to 6.4 degrees Celsius by 2070 unless action is taken to tackle climate change, new research shows.
The CSIRO study also warns annual rainfall in key farming areas could drop by 70 per cent in the next 64 years.
The NSW government, which commissioned the research, seized on the figures to attack Prime Minister John Howard's refusal to sign up for a national emissions trading scheme.
NSW Premier Morris Iemma said climate change was a real threat to the state's way of life.
See Victoria's open cut mines from a birds eye view using Google Earth.
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