The exact causes of climate change remain a mystery to science. Many researchers link recent global warming to changes in the sun. Others remain skeptical, claiming that the sun varies only very slowly, over periods of millions of years. They say that no hard evidence exists for a solar effect on recent climate changes.Read more here.
Read here.The country music singer says the Federal Government is re-branding drought as climate change and farmers are not getting the support they need to survive.
"Our Prime Minister said he was going to support working families," he said.
"Well some of the hardest working families that I know are farming families and the level of assistance they get it pitiful.
Yup. Form a committee, hold a summit. Plan. Plan. Plan.Peter Kenny, who is also the chairman of a Government review into the social impacts of the drought, says the review should address the farmers' concerns.
"There's no doubt people are distressed and when we hear the stories of what might happen as a result of climate change we'd have to be careful that people don't become completely demoralised," he said.
"Having said that we've got to plan for the future."
A VICTORIAN police officer taking photographs of exotic plants on Papua New Guinea's Kokoda Track has discovered what is thought to be the remains of a World War II pilot.
The officer captured the moss-covered skeleton of what could prove to be an airman lost during heavy fighting nearly 70 years ago, hanging from metal cabling on a tree.
More here. 28/8/08 2:40pm
Update: Picture on Brisbane ABC Drive site.
Update II: More news about this discovery.
"Australia is not an island...."ABC played it thismorning but I didn't catch where it was or where I can find it.
(O'BRIEN)Kevin Rudd if we can start with the economy. There's an expectation growing that next week's national account figures will show at best an economy growing at snail's pace, at worst negative growth for the first time in eight years. Has the Reserve Bank gone too far in using high interest rates to curb inflation?
KEVIN RUDD, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: Both through the Budget forecasts and through the RBA's forecasts we have seen projections ahead of a slowing of the economy for some time.
Australia is not an island. We are going through difficult global economic times, and six of the seven largest industrial economies around the world have now registered either zero or negative growth.
On the question you directly go to, which is the interest rates regime put in by the Reserve Bank, bottom line is this - they have responded to high inflation by Australian historical standards, the highest inflation in 16 years, which is what we inherited at the end of last year.
And what we are seeing through as the wash through of 10 interest rate rises in a row under the Liberals, and frankly you gotta have a plan to respond to this, and our practical plan of action is to see the economy through in the long term, and that means making some tough decisions to do that.
Hey! Are ABC journos out on strike in sympathy with Fairfax? (Check out the date of the programme!)TonightThursday, 24 July
Tonight, on Q&A expect the fur to fly with controversial journalist and author John Pilger on the panel. He is joined by Minister for Small Business, Craig Emerson, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Sharman Stone, Political Editor for the Sydney Morning Herald, Peter Hartcher and Opinion Editor for The Australian, Rebecca Weisser
He theorises (and he is a physics minor from Berkeley) that blundering boffinry bosses at the LHC's controls might catapult the entire Earth through a rent in the very fabric of reality into another and more hostile universe; perhaps one in which basic processes essential to life - for instance brewing - couldn't work, or where peckish man-eating dinosaurs ruled. Alternatively, meddling atom-smasher chiefs might inadvertently compact the Earth and human race down to the size of a pea - using a black hole, duh - rashly turn the planet and perhaps the entire galaxy into soup*, or unleash a runaway plague of magnetic monopoles.I'm sure wronwright has something to do with it.
Calling for greater investment on the "supply side" of the economy - infrastructure, skills and workforce participation - the BCA said the Howard government had collected $87 billion in windfall revenues in the past five years but had spent all but $2 billion on tax cuts and other benefits.
In linguistic terms "food miles" now joins "carbon footprint" in giving us all a little something extra to worry about.
The Food Connect Project is based upon the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model where a number of families (subscribers) pay and provide a stable market for a number of farmers who are growing genuine food.
On the drive back to Brisbane from the Lockyer Valley, be sure to stop at one of the large fruit barns well stocked with fresh, local produce.I find this hilarious. The large fruit barns source a lot of their produce from the Rocklea Markets, Brisbane's main fruit and vegie markets, where produce from all over Australia is sold.
YOU would do it too if you were him. That's Gold Coast Mayor Ron Clarke's excuse for illegally parking over two restricted car parks on Sunday.I think the council should throw the book at him.
His distinctive white Toyota Prius with the GC001 number plate was snapped by an outraged resident outside the Southport Central building on Scarborough Street at 9am on Sunday.
The local man who took the photo said the mayor's car was parked over a loading bay and a 'strictly no parking' space.
"It seems like there is one rule for them and another for us," he said.
"Southport is one of the most heavily watched parking locations on the Gold Coast and I think he should cop a fine like anyone else."
“With all of this negative publicity about our town we were trying to think of ways to lift the image of Mount Isa,” organiser Lisa Hurst said.May I suggest that the negative publicity was beaten up by the MSM and fools like those on the morning programmes on the free to air networks and the stupid overreaction by the dumb women (and men) in Mt Isa.
The Carbon Sense Coalition today accused governments and media of spreading myths on the ability of “renewables” to supply Australia’s future electricity.
The Chairman of “Carbon Sense” Mr Viv Forbes said there was no chance that wind, solar, hydro and geothermal could supply 20% of Australia’s electricity by 2020 without massive increases in electricity costs and severe damage to Australia’s industry and standard of living. “The belief that we can go further and eliminate coal from our energy supply is a dangerous delusion.”
Saudi Arabian girl, 8, seeks divorceRead more here.
A Saudi Arabian court is to rule next month on the divorce of an eight-year-old girl from a man in his fifties.
Last Updated: 6:46PM BST 24 Aug 2008
The girl, who still does not know she is married, lives with her parents in the town of Unayzah, 135 miles north of the capital Riyadh. The marriage had been arranged in secret by her father.
She is preparing to start the new year at primary school in the town, which is located in the conservative Najd region of the country - the spiritual homeland of the Islamist Wahhabi movement that has long dominated the kingdom.
According to the Arabic-language newspaper Al-Watan, which reported the case, the divorce suit has been filed by the girl's mother.
Her relatives have contacted human rights groups in the kingdom to try to arrange legal help to annul the marriage.
Mufti has spoken against itMore on that here.
Nourah Al-Khereiji I Arab News
THE grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, in recent press statements, has rightly warned parents against marrying their young daughters to men who are older than them by 50 and 60 years or more. He described such practices as an indication of lack of conscience on the part of the parents. He also said such marriages will not protect the chastity of the girls and may drive them toward sinful acts. The mufti stressed that the young girl will be living in agony while her parents enjoy the comforts her dowry can buy them.
I cannot agree more with the mufti. He is right in his warning about the consequences of such marriages which may lead the young girls to adultery to satisfy their sexual urges which old men cannot satisfy. To escape marital violence or unhappiness and the coldness of their elderly husbands, the young wives may also resort to drugs.
Calls for end to Saudi child marriagesMore on that here.
By DONNA ABU-NASR – Aug 5, 2008
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — An 11-year-old boy gave out invitations to his classmates for a big event his family was planning this summer — and it wasn't his birthday party.
It was his wedding to a 10-year-old cousin.
Muhammad al-Rashidi's marriage was eventually put on hold, his father said, after pressure from the governor of the northern province of Hail, who considered the elementary school student too young to marry.
Thousands of farmers, he writes, face ruin because their water has been cut off to guarantee supplies to the Olympics in Beijing, and officials are now trying to cover up a grotesque scandal of blunders, lies and repression.An Olympic analysis at onlineopinion.
BUSINESS has put the Rudd Goverment on notice: it needs to revise its emissions trading strategy to avert a crisis for corporate balance sheets and the nation's economic health. Climate change, the dream political issue for Kevin Rudd at the 2007 election, has been transformed into a political and policy nightmare.
Make no mistake, the Rudd Government is now trapped by its pledge to proceed with an emissions trading scheme by 2010, before most of the rest of the world and, in particular, ahead of most of our trading partners. It faces a dilemma with no escape: it must either alienate the green lobby and climate-change believers to whom it has pandered, or proceed without sufficient support from corporate Australia in the teeth of warnings about corporate financial risk.
The second option is unthinkable. The entire point of emissions trading is not to combat greenhouse gases, it is to establish a reduction trajectory at minimum harm to Australia's economy and competitiveness.
Read more of Paul Kelly's* column here.
*Editor of The Australian.