Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Become a Founding Friend of the Climate Council today!


Late edition: see below.


The Climate Commission was shut down and the Climate Council has opened for business.




The twitter account @climatecouncil had such a rush of followers it was automatically suspended!  Hopefully it will be back on Twitter soon.



1. What is the Climate Council?

The Climate Council is a non-profit independent organisation which aims to provide clear, independent advice to the Australian community. We are fiercely independent and apolitical.

2. Why is it important?


Information: information is the currency of democracy, and Australians deserve to have independent information on the state of our climate. Similarly, emergency services, health professionals, local government and journalists need accurate information about a changing climate.

Action: already this year has been one of the earliest starts to the Australian bushfire season. Last summer was the hottest on record, breaking over 120 extreme weather records. This is the critical decade for tackling climate change and reducing our emissions. But we can’t tackle climate change without a well-informed public – and that’s where we come in. Our expert reports help journalists and the public, with timely, expert, and independent information about climate change and its effects on our economy, environment, security, and health.

3. Who is involved?


The Councillors: All the former Climate Commissioners are supporting the initiative with or without Government funding. We’re volunteering our time to get this set up. (Sou: The Commissioners were Professor Tim Flannery, Mr Roger Beale AO, Mr Gerry Heuston, Professor Veena Sahajwalla and Professor Will Steffen.)

The Public: over the last week, we’ve been flooded with people offering encouragement, support, and even donations to keep us going. They come from all political persuasions – they have one thing in common: they know that independent information so important in our democracy.

The Experts: we’ve worked with Australia’s leading experts in emergency services, climate science, health, and defence. Many of them have spoken out in the last week, to call for us to keep going. They know that climate change has real implications now for our health, our security, our food, and for extreme weather. They value the information we provide and they want us to continue, and to continue working with us.

4. How will it make a difference?


We’ll continue to provide journalists and the public with authoritative independent reports, starting with next week’s international climate science update. This will be accompanied by a range of communications materials relevant to different audiences, videos, infographics, fact sheets, and other resources. Similarly we will continue to provide information to the community directly through speeches, community forums and briefings.

The info-graphic below accompanied the Climate Commission’s Angry Summer report illustrating the wide-ranging number of records that were broken over the last Australian summer. (Click to enlarge)

Australia's Angry Summer

5. How do you plan to cover operating costs?

We have already had some seed funding, and we’re seeking funding from the public. If you’d like to help please visit our donate page.

Become a founding friend of the Climate Council and donate to help get it going.


Late edition:

4:00 pm Tuesday 24 September 2013
The ABC seems to be doing its bit.  I logged onto the home page of their main website and this is what was displayed.  It is unusual for the ABC to give top prominence to climate matters. (Click image to enlarge.)


29 comments:

  1. signed up and donated this morning,

    left a comment on greg hunt's facebook,

    ReplyDelete
  2. Professor Flannery says the commissioners will continue their work through a new community-funded Climate Council.

    “We are raising money Obama-style in small donations online from the public, from ordinary Australians – although in my view they are extraordinary Australians,” he said.

    The council began accepting donations at midnight and Professor Flannery says so far more than 1,000 people have given the Council more than $35,000

    up from $7000 at 7AM

    ReplyDelete
  3. Shall sign on immediately after work!

    Don't underestimate how reactionary Abbott and co. are going to be. This bunch of feral Dunning-Krugerites are already frothing at the prospect of 'cutting the Green Tape'. (That video is cute, but none of this is funny.)

    In short, this is going to be more like a GOP / Tea Party Government than an Australian conservative government, and they'll be making full use of Klein's 'Shock Doctrine' despite the absence of any plausible economic pretext (e.g a recession - but don't be surprised if they manage to create one!)

    What I think these preening, arrogant philistines don't realize is just how much push back they'll be generating, and how many will begin to take measures into their own hands, as in the Climate Council. We'll see how a government that has alienated all but a tiny, ultra-reactionary minority of the national intelligentsia fares...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Based on the current count in the Senate the Coalition has 39 friendly senators and the Labor/Green group 37:

    http://archive.is/cF67z

    On this basis the price on carbon will be repealed without a double dissolution.


    Bernard J.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. that is in July 2014 I take it?

      Delete
    2. Also BJ the price of support for removal from some of those micro party senators will be too high

      Palmers united party senator in Tas wants to keep carbon price,
      QLD PUP party senator will want refunds for everything paid to date to sign on
      Who knows what Xenophon will do? has indicated that he will back the removal only if the legislation contains a better plan, DAP is not regarded as a better plan, I think that he is in favor of a Hansen type reduction scheme.

      Delete
    3. Wiki seems to have jumped the gun

      http://vtr.aec.gov.au/SenateResultsMenu-17496.htm

      Delete
    4. Does the AEC website have a summary of the party representation in the Senate? I can't find it. They are a good source for info on the House of Reps but the Senate leaves something to be desired.

      Could be just my own incompetence.

      Delete
    5. If the Tassie PUP really holds to her guns (boom-tish) she certainly could be a spanner in Abbott's works. I'm assuming that Xenophon will walk in the light, and the ASP (if actually in) should, but it would require one or two others to push it over the line.

      I'm really keen to see a double dissolution, so I hope that the numbers are there. It could be the last chance for Australia to salvage its international reputation - and more importantly its part in doing something substantial to mitigate against the warming resulting from fossil carbon emissions.


      Bernard J.

      Delete
    6. You're not incompetent Sou. The AEC's federal summary of the Senate status sucks.


      Bernard J.

      Delete
    7. Yeah, the AEC apparently hands out the responsibility for 'explaining' Senate results to the work-experience kid with Aspergers...

      Delete
  5. Donations now at $160,000, hoping for $500,000 by week end

    hunt removed my comment and link, was up for about three hours,

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 'Hunt removed comment'...of course. He's on the record saying he wants to see both sides of the debate represented in public discourse, but since he's a member of the Liberal Party he's not obliged to be consistent. Or capable.

      Delete
    2. "both sides of the debate" would tell me that he has been lying about accepting the science, I told him as much and linked to the climate council site

      see Sou comment above


      Delete
    3. Did you take a screenshot or archive it John?


      Bernard J.

      Delete
  6. The ABC has decided to give climate matters more prominence than usual, with two of the top three headlines on its home page. I've posted a snapshot and links up in the main article.

    ReplyDelete
  7. The AEC will only put up the Senate preferences distribution after it has been done

    still very tight in tas

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2013/

    ReplyDelete
  8. Antony Green blog

    http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/

    ReplyDelete
  9. Could this be something for a fundraiser or petition by Avaaz, to be send to all their Australian members?

    https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/start_a_petition/?source=splh

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thanks for the links everyone.

    From reading Antony Green's blog the reason they don't put up the Senate count is because they enter the votes into the computer and then only after all votes are entered can they do the split of preferences - at least when the vote is tight, like it is in some states.

    ReplyDelete
  11. PUP picked up the 6th Tasmanian Senate seat.

    Interesting times.


    Bernard J.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For those unsure what this means, Jackie Lambie has said that she won't vote to repeal a carbon tax:

      http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2013/s3844029.htm

      I'm not sure how firm she is on this subject, as she is rabidly anti-green, but she may be a target for an appeal to reason and scientific evidence rather than to Abbott's ideological pogrom against anything that contradicts his biblical world view.

      She also has her boss Clive Palmer to contend with, whose source of wealth is rather challenged by a carbon price...


      Bernard J.

      Delete
    2. Palmer's source of wealth is probably not the main problem the LNP will have if Palmer gets elected. It's his unpredictability.

      Do you think the PUP will survive if he doesn't get elected? He might lose interest, or the members of his party might lose interest in him and defect or turn independent.

      Delete
    3. Jackie has rethought her position and will now vote to drop the carbon price

      ah a person of principles

      Delete
    4. Not even a working day in the seat and she's LIED about her position on a carbon price!

      The only people more immoral than these hypocrites are the numpties who didn't have the perspicacity in the first place to understand what they were voting for.

      Poor fellow my country.


      Bernard J.

      Delete
  12. Well that was pretty inevitable. Bernards link suggests she didn't even know how the price was formulated, given that she refers to a desirable level of 3 or 4 percent (percent of what???)

    FrankD

    ReplyDelete

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