By 2020 Australia will be making a major contribution to a comprehensive global response to climate change, including working with our partners on clean energy. Australia will have dramatically reduced our emissions, and communities, regions and business will be actively assisted to adopt the unavoidable consequences of climate change.

Environmental considerations will be fully integrated into economic decision making in Australia, at the household, business and government levels. We will have resilient and innovative water systems that reduce our dependency on climate-sensitive water resources in our towns and cities.

A robust emissions trading system and a suite of complementary measures will be driving a low carbon revolution with Government taking the lead working in partnership with business and the community. Climate and sustainability policy will also incorporate the needs of disadvantaged and low-income Australians. A new dialogue will have been established with our indigenous peoples on our response to climate change, water and sustainability challenges. . . read more

He gave us in An Inconvenient Truth a melee of graphs based on sound scientific data; the affect of which was amazing in bringing the issue of climate change to the homes and cinemas of the middle-classes. 

However in a worrying change of tone, Al Gore stated yesterday in a speech in Copenhagen that:

''Reason based analysis has thus far proved of limited value in motivating action''

Now this may be true but the alternative- to rely on emotion and fear- plays right into the hands of deniers who claim the climate change movement is one built on unlikely doomsday prophecies. 

The risk is also enormous when you consider what has happened to the climategate emails. Those much analysed documents seemed to show a similar reasoning by renowned scientists who were frustrated by inaction so they used their credibility, and reputations to fuzz the numbers. 

Now it may have been a throw away comment, but I really hope that Al Gore- still the climate change movement's most prominent face- stays patient and prudent.  . . read more

By Sean Maguire

From your grey-to-change citizen of ambivalence, to your hug a tree hippie- the last few weeks have been depressing for Australian environmentalists of every hue.

Last night with the release of Rudd's third Budget their concerns seem amplified.

The CPRS has been shelved till 2012, $238 million has been cut from the Department of Climate Change and local projects such as Landcare have lost millions from their budgets. 

So as pundits praise Rudd's prudency and restraint remember that he's pushing back the changes that will soon be inevitable and making them all the more impossible to achieve.

I urge you to reconsider your position vis-a-vis the controversial proposal to create a Gas Hub at James Price point in the Kimberly, particularly in view of the recent incidents of serious off-shore disasters in the Timor Sea and the American Gulf coast.

I recently watched a snippet on YouTube by local elder and law man Joseph Roe, who is one of the many people opposed to this ill thought-out project that could well cause untold environmental damage to the area, and it brought tears to my eyes.

It seems to me, Mr Barnett, that the thinly veiled threat to compulsorily purchase the land (which I understand belongs to the local Aboriginal people under a "Land Rights" grant) smacks of hypocrisy!

I don't know whether either of you have a family home or estate, going back with several generations of history. If you did, try to imagine how you would feel if your Aboriginal gardener dug up some ancient Nungar bones, and was able to prove it was a sacred site, and was allowed to compulsorily purchase your home (probably for far less than it was worth) and demolish it - and your history into the bargain?

As for you, "Silent" Peter - do you remember a song you were proud to sing with the Oils called "Warakurna"?

Words used like "it's their land, let's give it back" would appear in retrospect to be so much hot air!

C'mon, both of you!

It's time to "Stand up! Stand up and be counted!".

The safety of this pristine environment, and its whale breeding ground has to be worth more than money....? 

Michael Stewart  . . read more

Tomorrow I'm heading to Cop 16 in Cancun with the hope that something can be achieved against climate change. Although the world media has shown almost complete indifference (as opposed to Copenhagen), it isn't unreasonable to think that with lowered expectations and a meeting outside the media's glare, something might be achieved. 

Let's just hope that the world of diplomacy which has been unearthed by WikiLeaks is less self-centered and duplicitous than they currently appear.   . . read more

Without a single day of talks, the vast majority of pundits have already set the bar of expectations so low that it seems we should be popping the champagne if the most anodyne of political agreements is reached.

Not to fall into the trap of optimism, but shouldn't we be a little bit hopeful and a little bit proud of the victories this fight has already won?

For instance, there cannot be a single sane leader on this planet who can realistically ignore this issue.

Yes, so far most of the world's responses have bordered on the tokenistic, but the sheer awareness and the fear of backlash, is a sign that the movers and shakers are getting scared.

Not to exaggerate but there could also be a dangerous connotation to this wide-spread cynicism-that connotation being that the most modest of successes will cause surprise and a spark of hope amongst a grey and apathetic public.

Sort of takes the heat off government leaders who thought they'd have to thrash it out in debates and eventually return to their countries exhausted, treaty in hand proclaiming that the problem was finally solved.

Instead, with the contour-less global media poised with their fingers quivering over keyboards (and the letters that spell 'failure'), an undue amount of column inches will be written for the promised funds for developing nations, as renewable technolgies are extolled and the great demon coal is exorcised. 

My point?

Well we really have to keep our collective critical thinking cap on, because this about to become a no-holds barred grudge match where everything will be too little, too late, too much, too weak etc.

Just don't be too pessimistic because fatalism never fixed anything.   . . read more

You might remember Lord Monckton, he was the climate change denier that was seemingly everywhere around the the Copenhagen climate change conference; spouting off talk about how a global agreement would destory US sovereignty and that global warming was a myth. Not surprisingly he was picked up by conservative news programs all over the world as his peerage and 'scientific' credentials gave him a weight that other deniers failed to match. . . read more

Since the days of Alexander the Great, binge drinking has been a very popular past time - leading to him apparently killing a friend and burning down Persepolis while drunk.

Those are some Great shoes to fill.

Yet, governments, schools and the media have repeatedly tried to teach us of binge drinking's dangers. 

Dartmouth University has taken the lead, instigating a new nationwide policy to curb heavy drinking by their students.

Pour me another glass.

Binge drinking is defined as "the consumption of five or more drinks in a row by men — or four or more drinks in a row by women — at least once in the previous 2 weeks. Heavy binge drinking includes three or more such episodes in 2 weeks."

Seems I don't know anyone who isn't a heavy binge drinker.

Do you think this definition should be changed or should we change people's attitudes? Or should you follow HPD's no fools guide to drinking a lot but not dying?  . . read more