Rather, it comes from the nonmaterial. Closeness to family and friends. A job and hobbies you love. A community that nurtures… well, community. Feeling vibrant. Enjoying nature. Living simply. And above all else, the one thing consistently found across time and cultures to deliver pure joy: serving others.

So doesn’t it make sense not just to organize one’s own life around those practices and principles, but to organize our government around them as well? Of course it makes sense. So why don’t we? Why do we blindly insist instead on the hot pursuit of more stuff and wealth? Because we have been blind. Blind to the beauty and benefits of focusing on any alternative.

To be sure, countless people already live lives of solidarity, simplicity and sharing, lives dedicated to the service of people and planet. That’s why the studies have reached the same conclusion: because they interviewed these folks. We know them too. They’re all around us. The fine, humble, great samaritans we spend time with and run across all the time.

In case you haven’t heard by now, there’s one country that decided long ago to focus on true happiness as the organizing principle behind its corporate and government policies. Bhutan may be small and remote, but its story is starting to resonate far and wide. It is now the subject of conferences and videos, like this one shared yesterday by +Faith Attaguile and +Alexander Deliyannis. Changing from Gross National Product to Gross National Happiness is a long-term process. The experiment in Bhutan has not been without obstacles. But there are tremendous lessons there for all of us in every other country.

The first is that it is possible. We can make the switch. For the sake of the planet, many of us argue that we have no choice. We either move swiftly to a GNH model — there are several being debated in multiple forums — or we perish.

And if you think about it, there’s no persuasive reason not to do it. It’s awesome! To focus on happiness? Why wouldn’t we want to do that? There’s an obsessive fear in most places about leaving behind the aspiration to wealth, as if we’re going to be worse off, when in fact we’re as bad off as we are, and at risk of losing the planet that sustains us, precisely because we’re focused on GNP and personal wealth accumulation. It’s completely insane.

Do the research and you’ll find, as I have, that the pursuit of real happiness produces more than sufficient comfort and convenience. There’s no need to sacrifice the technology and medicines that come from great capital investments, which is another common fear. The profit motive will still be there to pursue those ventures. Nor will or can this happen forcibly by repressive government imposition. This is based on free choice and mutual persuasion. We simply have to become convinced that this is THE way to go. As a people. As a global society.

Check it out. Look into it. Don’t stop at this video, as great as it is. Google initiatives like The Story of Stuff Project, the Center for the New American Dream, the Center for the Advancement of a Steady State Economy, the Post Carbon Institute, Worldwatch Institute, Post Growth Institute, Tellus Institute, New Economy Institute and Foundation, Earth Economics, and the UN initiative on the GNH and other such indices.

The volume of work being done on this is amazing, clearly the most important pursuit of all (part, indeed, of the bigger spiritual pursuit, since this is at the heart of the service paradigm we’re called on to adopt by all the great spiritual and religious traditions).

Dive in and discover what we’re really in this for.

The photo portrays our Earth a bit differently from what we are used to. The rust color that dominates the photo is not desert; it's actually vegetation from forests. The vegetation has been turned into this orange colour because the camera on the weather satellite combines data from three visible and one infrared wavelengths of light.

Check out a zoomable version of the image here.

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It is simpler to look at the problem first and then further discuss the initiative. So what exactly is the issue in hand?

The problem

There has been a lot of media hype about cutting the carbon over recent years. But what exactly does this mean? Who should be cutting the carbon? Why should we be cutting the carbon? What carbon?

What they mean by ‘carbon cutting’, is cutting the carbon output from our businesses and homes. When you burn a fossil fuel, you produce Carbon Dioxide (CO2). CO2 is a waste product and has been linked to global warming—a temperature increase of our planet. There can be devastating results if this issue continues to be ignored by the general public.

The government plans to cut CO2 emissions by 34% between 1990 and 2020, and the Green Deal initiative is the newest attempt to reach the public and make them aware of the problem.

How it works

There is not much required from your part. All you will have to do is approach a Green Deal certified installer. They will carry out an assessment of your property and report on the potential improvements. Energy savings must be greater than the costs of improvements so you can pay back the Green Deal loan. It really is that simple.

Costs and the “Golden Rule”

The major worry for property owners, as always, is the cost of all of this. The people behind the Green Deal have created the process in a way that protects property owners from paying back more than they can afford. The “Golden Rule” states that the energy savings a property makes in a 25 year period must be equal to, or more than the cost of implementing the changes in the first place. This ensures that the property owner is not paying back more to partake in the Green Deal than they are saving on their energy bills.

Although it is difficult to predict energy costs in the future, Green Deal tries its best to ensure financial protection for property owners. Remember, the goal of the Green Deal is not to make money; it is to cut the UK’s carbon emissions.

So what’s happening now?

The current issue is awareness. Although the process seems fairly simple, the difficult task is to get people on board. Reaching the government’s planned carbon cut of 34% by 2020 will mean that over 14 million homes will need to be involved in the Green Deal.

What home and business owners are wary of is the actual savings. This is because the Green Deal will use the difference in the reduced energy bills as a payback method from property owners. Other barriers that may put people off the Green Deal, include the fact that many property owners simply can’t be bothered. This ‘hassle factor’ is said to be one of the reasons why people have never taken up the government’s home improvement schemes, even when they were 100% free. Concerns have been raised that the Green Deal is too difficult to understand for many British families. For this reason it is widely agreed that the Green Deal’s success lies in the hands of the small, qualified providers that will be at the forefront of the scheme. Reputation and trust will underpin the Green Deal, but only if the government get it right from the very beginning.

Regardless of money or economic status, the UK has a global responsibility to reduce its carbon footprint – the Green Deal is not the first attempt at revamping the country, and something tells me that it won’t be the last.

A new study by Richard York of the University of Oregon shows that it isn’t that simple. Rather than displacing fossil fuels, green energy sources have proven to be mostly additive.

“Do alternative energy sources displace fossil fuels?” published last month in Nature Climate Change, discusses what happened when alternative energy sources were introduced in countries around the world, over the past fifty years.

Contrary to the accepted wisdom that new green energy replaces fossil-fuel use, York found that on average each unit of energy use from non-fossil-fuel sources displaced less than a quarter of a unit of energy use from fossil-fuel sources.

The picture is worse with electricity, where each new unit generated from green sources displaced less than one-tenth of a unit of fossil-fuel-generated electricity.

York writes:

“Based on all of the results presented above, the answer to the question presented in the title of this paper – do alternative energy sources displace fossil fuels? – is yes, but only very modestly. The common assumption that the expansion of production of alternative energy will suppress fossil-fuel energy production in equal proportion is clearly wrong.”

Why don’t the new sources replace the old? York identifies two key reasons: the inertia of a huge existing fossil-fuel infrastructure, and the power and influence of the coal and oil corporations.

“The failure of non-fossil energy sources to displace fossil ones is probably in part attributable to the established energy system where there is a lock-in to using fossil fuels as the base energy source because of their long-standing prevalence and existing infrastructure and to the political and economic power of the fossil-fuel industry.”

In other words, eliminating fossil-fuel as an energy source is at least as much a social and political problem as a technical one.

“Of course all societies need energy. So, obviously, if societies are to stop using fossil fuels they must have other energy sources. However, the results from the analyses presented here indicate that the shift away from fossil fuel does not happen inevitably with the expansion of non-fossil-fuel sources, or at least in the political and economic contexts that have been dominant over the past fifty years around the world….

“The most effective strategy for curbing carbon emissions is likely to be one that aims to not only develop non-fossil energy sources, but also to find ways to alter political and economic contexts so that fossil-fuel energy is more easily displaced and to curtail the growth in energy consumption as much as possible.

“A general implication of these findings is that polices aimed at addressing global climate change should not focus principally on developing technological fixes, but should also take into account human behaviour in the context of political, economic and social systems.”

The evidence shows that simply introducing green energy isn’t enough: the introduction must be accompanied by “explicit policies aimed at reducing carbon emissions.”

The article is published in a scientific journal, where political and social conclusions can only be expressed in muted form. But Richard York’s research and conclusions reinforce the argument that he and his co-authors (John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark) made more explicitly in their recent book, The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Planet.

“We are confronting the question of a terminal crisis, threatening most life on the planet, civilization, and the very existence of future generations. … attempts to solve this through technological fixes, market magic, and the idea of a ‘sustainable capitalism’ are mere forms of ecological denial, since they ignore the inherent destructiveness of the current system of unsustainable development – capitalism.”

Mélenchon’s wants to introduce a 100% fat-cat tax, where the french state will be able to confiscate any earnings over £300,000. He also wants a return to full pensions for everyone from the age of 60, a 20% increase in the minimum wage, a cap on maximum salaries and the nationalisation of big energy companies. Mélenchon claims that his political party, the Left Front, is built around the concept of ecological planning. Something which he says can’t be found in any program of the traditional left. According to the Guardian, Mélenchon is seen as “the great hope for a banker-bashing revolution that will transform the face of Europe and reinvent leftwing politics.”

Why don’t you devote more time to ecology in your campaign?

Jean-Luc Mélenchon: Ecology occupies a place for us that it has never found in any program of the traditional left. Check: the economic program of the Left Front is built around the concept of ecological planning. There is an intuition of communism which is verified by political ecology, namely that there is a common good of humanity. If we consider only what is good for us, we will include corporatisms, but if we think about what is good for everyone, we will have a chance to get hold of an effective solution. This is what lies at the foundation of the Republic: the common good, that which is good for all. So political ecology is the reforming paradigm of communism, of socialism, and of humanist universalism. We carry its ideas because we are the voice of the social class which, by its material conditions of existence, has no particular interest other than the public interest.

You announce a referendum on nuclear power; what is the strategy of the Left Front?

Jean-Luc Melenchon: First, get out of carbon energies, which are the source of the greenhouse effect and of the climate bifurcation which will soon run its disastrous course. I realize that this is a huge technical challenge but we are human: nothing is beyond our reach, nothing can stop us! The human mind is capable of solving all problems, so it is a source of optimism and enthusiasm. Then comes the question of nuclear energy, of great importance, which poses a security problem and is thought-provoking for everyone. The issue is that of hazard assessment. That is why we favor a referendum. Anyone who thinks we should discuss this can vote for the Left Front. Finally, we can develop abundant alternative energy sources, such as the movements of the sea and geothermal processes in the Earth. With geothermal power, we produce more heat than we know how to use. What do we do with the rest? We can organize district heating, greenhouses for growing vegetables and fruits that grow out of season, and so we will no longer need to bring these from the ends of the earth. It can help us grow strawberries in Moselle in winter … It’s a double ecological gain. But to achieve this, we must create competence in many domains; we need engineers, architects, plants, etc.

How do you count on renationalizing the privatized companies?

Jean-Luc Mélenchon: Why should we do this? Because, since privatization, prices of electricity have soared (nearly 30% increase). However, we prefer to lower consumer prices by lowering energy prices rather than wages. We are therefore looking to establish a public economic pole[the word "pole" is commonly used to describe a government-established center of activity to produce certain goods or to control some activity in the pubic interest.] in order to remove from the market what can not reasonably be conceived of as a property dependent upon the law of supply and demand.

In practice, we can propose a vote on nationalization. We can also convoke the representatives of the State on the boards of directors of privatized companies (EDF, GDF Suez …) and give them instructions: this year you do not distribute dividends. Not the next year, nor the year after that, either. That is to say that during the five years of office there will be no dividends. What happens normally? Those who have private money in there are gone. Because they have invested money not by ideology or because they are interested in energy, but because it pays. So they go, and prices fall: this is a good time to nationalize. That’s how I take it. But I have other tricks up my sleeve …

Ecological planning? Why?

Jean-Luc Melenchon defines environmental planning as a “shift in demand according to our needs.” According to the program of the Front de gauche, this policy “will clarify the policies and public investment necessary to launch an ecological transition and promote sustainable human development. It will be creative of employment and a factor of social equality.” It will be based on “an ecological plan debated and voted in Parliament, together with a financial planning law.” “The purpose is ecological, the method is the planning: the organization and preparation, the introduction of long-term thinking, where finance favors the short term.”

Mélenchon was interviewed by student journalists who volunteered to produce a section of the daily french Humanite newspaper. The interview has been translated by Henry Crapo and reviewed by Bill Scoble. Only parts of the interview has been published here on Green Blog. You can read the full interview here.

At the end of March, The Age On-line reported that the Baillieu Liberal Party-National Party Coalition Government of Victoria, Australia, had decoded to scrap Victoria’s plan to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 20% by 2020:

“A plan to cut Victoria’s greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent over the next decade is set to be dumped by the Baillieu government on the basis that it would merely lighten the load imposed on other states. An independent review of the state’s key climate change laws, to be released today, has found ‘‘no compelling case’’ to keep the target following the introduction of the Commonwealth’s minimum target to cut emissions by 5 per cent, to be mainly achieved through Labor’s carbon tax.”

The Age kindly published my following comments on the article. The pro-coal, pro-gas, anti-environment Brumby Labor Government thoroughly deserved to be kicked out but its successor the pro-coal, pro-gas, anti-environment Baillieu Coalition Government is even worse and deserves the same fate even more so under the fundamental voter strategy of “Punish the incompetent incumbent”.

The anti-environment Baillieu (Fail you) Government:

1. allowed cattle into the Alpine National Park,
2. sabotaged Victoria’s wind and solar energy industries,
3. backs logging of Victoria’s native forests (the best forest carbon sinks in the world),
4. is promoting massive expansion of exploitation of Victoria’s 430 billion tonnes of brown coal (complete combustion would yield 520 billion tonnes of CO2 or 87% of the global terminal budget of 600 billion tonnes of CO2 that can be emitted before zero emissions in 2050),
5. backs and subsidizes expansion of dirty gas and dirty coal burning for power,
6. now scraps a “20% off greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution by 2020″ target, and
7. ignores the shocking reality that Victoria is among the worst annual per capita GHG polluters in the world.”

In 2009 the WBGU which advises the German Government on climate change estimated that for a 75% chance of avoiding a disastrous 2C temperature rise (EU policy) the World must emit no more than 600 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) between 2010 and zero emissions in 2050. Australia’s domestic plus exported greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution is so high that it had already used up its “fair share” of this terminal GHG pollution budget by mid-2011 and is now stealing the entitlement of all other countries, including impoverished and global warming threatened countries like Somalia and Bangladesh (see “Shocking analysis by country of years left to zero emissions” and “2011 Climate Change Course’).

Victoria, like the rest of Australia, is committed to remorselessly increasing GHG pollution despite the fact that Victoria is the dirtiest state in one of the worst GHG polluting countries in the World. Thus “annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution” in units of “tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year” (2005-2008 data) is 0.9 (Bangladesh), 0.9 (Pakistan), 2.2 (India), less than 3 (many African and Island countries), 3.2 (the Developing World), 5.5 (China), 6.7 (the World), 11 (Europe), 16 (the Developed World), 27 (the US) and 30 (Australia; or 64 in 2010 if Australia’s huge Exported CO2 pollution is included).

Noting that the world population is expected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050 (UN Population Division) , it is estimated that the world is facing a worsening Climate Genocide involving deaths of 10 billion people this century, this including roughly twice the present population of particular mainly non-European groups, specifically 6 billion under-5 year old infants, 3 billion Muslims in a terminal Muslim Holocaust, 2 billion Indians, 1.3 billion non-Arab Africans, 0.5 billion Bengalis, 0.3 billion Pakistanis and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis. (see Climate Genocide).

What can decent people do? Decent people must (a) inform everyone they can and (b) urge international action to force climate criminal, climate racist Australia to get to zero emissions. Such actions might include, sanctions, boycotts, green tariffs, sporting boycotts, International Court of Justice litigations and International Criminal Court prosecutions.

Reshared post from +Alex Diaz

Do you have a green circle

So many of you have joined since the last time I shared this circle that I think it's about time to reshare it. If you don't have a green circle of your own, feel free to adopt this one and keep adding people of like mind to it. If you think you should be in it, please let us know so we can all add you.

Unfortunately, G+ doesn't let us share more than 500 at a time, and this circle is considerably bigger, so many of you were left out, and there's no way to know who it was without going one by one, which I lack the time to do right now.

Still, the share serves a high purpose, so here it is.

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China led all countries in annual wind power gains for the third straight year, installing a jaw-dropping 18,000 megawatts for a total wind capacity of 63,000 megawatts. This country’s rise to the top of the world rankings has been swift: after doubling its wind capacity each year from 2005 to 2009, China surpassed the United States in 2010.

China’s ambitious Wind Base program will help ensure a widening lead for some years to come. Across the wind-rich northern provinces, wind mega-complexes of between 10,000 and 38,000 megawatts each are now under construction. By 2020, these “wind bases” will approach 140,000 megawatts of total installed capacity — more than the entire world had at the close of 2008.

As impressive as China’s achievements have been thus far, such rapid growth in capacity has created significant challenges. Badly needed electric grid and transmission upgrades in remote areas lag well behind wind farm completions, meaning that many turbines stand idle. This, combined with growing concerns over the safety and performance of hastily built wind farms, has led regulators to cap the allowed new wind capacity at 15,000–20,000 megawatts per year and to make improved project quality and grid access a priority.

For more data see earth-policy.org.

Now trailing well behind China, the United States installed 6,800 megawatts of wind generating capacity in 2011. The U.S. wind fleet now totals nearly 47,000 megawatts across 38 states, enough to meet the electricity demand of more than 10 million homes. Another 10,000 megawatts could be on the way in 2012. The outlook for 2013 is not as upbeat, however. If an important tax credit expires at the end of 2012, as scheduled, the industry fears a precipitous drop in new wind capacity. This would put thousands of jobs at risk in what has been a welcome success story in U.S. manufacturing.

Texas, now with 10,400 megawatts installed, has been atop the U.S. wind leaderboard since 2006. Next in line is Iowa, with 4,300 megawatts. In share of electricity generated from wind, Iowa and South Dakota lead at 20 percent each. Texas, home to 25 million people, gets 8 percent of its electricity from wind farms.

As in China, some of the best U.S. wind resources are located in remote areas and require new or upgraded transmission lines to move electricity to population centers. Many long-distance high-voltage transmission projects are under development across the United States to help address this, including four projects proposed by Clean Line Energy Partners in the Midwest, South, and West that would transport more than 17,000 megawatts of renewably generated electricity. Clean Line’s “Grain Belt Express,” for example, would allow wind-rich Kansas to export renewable electricity eastward to Missouri, Illinois, and beyond.

With close to 100,000 megawatts of wind capacity, Europe leads all regions of the world. The 9,600 megawatts of wind installed in the European Union (EU) in 2011 accounted for more than 20 percent of the bloc’s new electricity generating capacity. (Solar power provided most of the rest.) Since 2000, the EU has added a net 84,000 megawatts of wind while reducing coal and nuclear power capacity by a net 10,000 and 14,000 megawatts, respectively.

Denmark gets over a quarter of its electricity from wind, more than any other country. The government has pledged to reach 50 percent by 2020. Spain — ranking fourth in the world behind Germany in total wind capacity — gets more than 10 percent of its electricity from wind, as do Portugal and Ireland. In Germany, where wind covers 8 percent of national electricity use, four northern states each boast impressive wind power shares of more than 40 percent.

Less-mature wind markets in the EU are beginning to gain momentum. Belgium just surpassed 1,000 megawatts installed and is expected to double that capacity by the end of 2012. And Romania, which grew from only 14 megawatts in 2009 to 980 megawatts in 2011, could add another 850 megawatts in 2012.

India, whose Suzlon has become one of the world’s leading wind turbine manufacturers, installed 3,000 megawatts of wind in 2011. It remains fifth in the world wind rankings, with 16,100 megawatts total, a figure the government hopes to double within five years. Eighteen of India’s 28 states encourage wind energy development through feed-in tariffs. Widely used in Europe, these policy mechanisms require utilities to pay a premium for electricity generated with renewable energy.

Neighboring Pakistan, which just introduced a national feed-in tariff, looks to add over 1,500 megawatts to its existing 6 megawatts by 2013. Much of this expansion is slated for Sindh province, home to the country’s largest city, Karachi. Overall, Pakistan’s wind capacity potential comes in at 350,000 megawatts — enough to meet its electricity needs 10 times over.

Countries in Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East are also taking advantage of their wind resources. Brazil, which leads the way in the rapidly expanding Latin American market, reached 1,500 megawatts of total wind capacity in 2011, a 63 percent increase over 2010. Wind projects representing another 7,000 megawatts already have customers contracted to purchase their electricity once they go online. In sub-Saharan Africa, the long-awaited 300-megawatt Lake Turkana wind farm is set to break ground in northwestern Kenya in April 2012. Ethiopia brought its first wind farm online in 2011, and both Nigeria and Mauritania are poised to do the same in early 2012. And in the Middle East, Turkey has grown from 20 megawatts of wind in 2005 to 1,800 megawatts in 2011, and it has five times that amount in the pipeline.

The vast majority of wind turbines operating today are on land, but offshore wind development is ramping up. Now totaling more than 4,000 megawatts, almost all of it in Europe, offshore wind generating capacity has grown fivefold since 2006. More than half of the total belongs to the United Kingdom, whose 380-megawatt Greater Gabbard offshore park is already the world’s largest. It will exceed 500 megawatts when complete. The European Wind Energy Association expects the region’s offshore generating capacity to reach 150,000 megawatts by 2030 — covering 14 percent of projected EU electricity demand.

The only operational offshore wind farms outside Europe are in Asia. China has installed more than 200 megawatts offshore since 2010, and Japan has built 25 megawatts since 2004. Ambitious near-term goals, if realized, will sharply accelerate offshore expansion: China aims for 5,000 megawatts by 2015 and South Korea plans to have 2,500 megawatts by 2019.

A frequent argument against renewable sources of electricity is that they are much too expensive to compete with nuclear or fossil fuel power plants. In the most suitable locations on land, however, wind is already often cost-competitive. Analysts at Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimate that as wind costs continue to fall, even the average wind farm will be competitive by 2016.

Global wind power capacity is projected to at least double between 2011 and 2016, as mature players build on a sizable base and as more countries enter the market. The race is on to shift from finite and costly fossil fuels to renewables swiftly enough to avoid the disastrous consequences of runaway climate change. With its long list of attractive attributes — widespread and abundant, quick to scale, climate-benign, and zero fuel cost — wind power is driving the transition to a new energy economy.

By J. Matthew Roney – Data and additional resources can be found at earth-policy.org.

Total U.S. meat consumption peaked in 2007 at 55 billion pounds and has fallen each year since. In 2012, consumption is expected to drop to 52 billion pounds, the lowest level in more than a decade.

After years of increasing consumption, Americans began cutting back on beef in the 1970s as health and cost concerns about red meat pushed people toward poultry. Falling from the 1976 peak of 91 pounds, beef eating per person is projected to sink to 52 pounds in 2012, a –43-percent drop off the high. The national beef cattle herd is now smaller than it has been in any year since 1962. The record heat and drought that desiccated grazing lands and curtailed hay production in the Southern Plains in 2011 has led to further culling of herds as well as a mass movement of cattle from drought-ridden Texas to Nebraska.

Poultry, once a rarity on American dinner tables, made a meteoric rise after World War II as industrial production systems took over from small farm flocks. Until 1940, Americans consumed less than a pound of poultry per person each month. By 1990, they were eating more than a pound each week. Intake of poultry first surpassed beef in the mid-1990s and then surged ahead, only recently beginning to falter. If 2012 forecasts play out, consumption will be down to 70 pounds per person, more than 5 percent below the 2006 peak.

U.S. pork consumption has varied less dramatically across the decades, but it, too, has recently trended downward. Annual pork intake per person hit its all-time high of 54 pounds per person in 1944; 2012 consumption is projected at 44 pounds, 19 percent lower.

Higher prices combined with a weak economy have led people to put less meat in their grocery carts. Corn, the primary livestock feed, has been in high demand by fuel ethanol producers (spurred by government usage mandates), and stocks have been tight. As corn prices have increased, so has the cost of producing meat, milk, and eggs.

Cultural factors have come into play as well; attitudes about meat are changing. Rather than considering meat requisite at every dinner or an indication of wealth, many people are deliberately choosing to eat less meat than before, often citing concerns about health, the environment, and the ethics of industrial meat production. Given livestock’s large climate and resource footprints, “peak meat” is good news.

For related graphs see page 2:

1. Among PM Gillard’s first acts in June 2010, after the Coup that removed the very popularly elected PM Kevin Rudd, was to approve export of dried brown coal from Victoria to Asia that is expected to generate 59 million tonnes of CO2 annually by 2020.

2. In Australian Federal politics the Liberal Party-National Party Coalition Opposition and the Labor Government (aka the Lib-Labs) have the same official climate change policy of a derisory 5% off Australia’s 2000 domestic GHG pollution by 2020 and unlimited GHG pollution through coal and gas exports. The Labs differ from the Libs in how they will attempt to achieve this appalling outcome. Thus the Coalition has a Direct Action policy involving biochar, re-afforestation and subsidies for a transition to lower GHG pollution. In stark contrast, Labor under PM Julia Gillard has actually no intention of even achieving this derisory 5% reduction in GHG pollution in 2020 relative to that in 2000. Labor has legislated a Carbon Tax-Emissions Trading Scheme that as shown by Treasury analysis (see its 2011 report “Strong Growth, Low Pollution“) will mean that Australia’s domestic GHG pollution in 2020 will be 1.1 times bigger than that in 2000 rather than 5% smaller.

3. Success in “tackling climate change” is surely measured in terms of GHG pollution reduction but Australia’s Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution was 1,077 Mt CO2-e (CO2 equivalent) in 2000 and is expected under Labor policy to reach about 1,799 Mt CO2-e annually by 2020 (a 1.7-fold increase) and 4,490 Mt CO2-e annually in 2050 (a 4.2-fold increase) (see “2011 Climate Change Course”) .

4. It can be estimated that the domestic plus exported GHG pollution by Australia between 2010 and 2050 will total 100 billion tonnes CO2-e, 17% of the World’s terminal CO2 pollution budget of 600 billion tonnes CO2 as adjudged by the WBGU that advises the German Government on climate change. Thus Australia with currently about 22 million x 100/7,000 million = 0.3% of the World’s population will produce 17% of the last 600 billion tonnes of CO2 pollution permitted for the whole World between now and zero emissions in 2050. Australia is assuming a right to pollute (100 millions tonnes /22 million people)/(500 million tonnes /6,978 million people) = 63 times more per capita than other human beings over the next 40 years.

5. Labor’s plan essentially ignores Agriculture whereas World Bank analysts have recently estimated that Livestock alone contributes over 5!% of global man-made GHG pollution, which in turn they estimate to be about 50% bigger than hitherto thought (see Robert Goodland and Jeff Anfang. “Livestock and climate change. What if the key actors in climate change are … cows, pigs and chickens?”). The Carbon Tax is mostly a futile cycle of taxing major polluters and then returning most of the receipts to consumers to pay for elevated prices for power, goods and services. The ETS approach has been empirically unsuccessful, is disastrously counterproductive and is inherently fraudulent because the Australian Government will dishonestly issue licences for Australians to pollute the one common atmosphere of all countries on Earth. Labor’s dishonest, spin-driven Carbon Tax-ETS- Ignore Agriculture (CTETSIA) policy is a disastrous scheme for actual climate change inaction while pretending to do the opposite.

6. PM Gillard repeatedly talks of “160 million tonnes” of CO2-e to be saved in 2020. However Treasury modelling has found, and Labor has confirmed, that this will largely come from international purchase of Carbon Credits from tropical Third Word topical countries.

7. Under Labor policy Queensland coal exports will rise from 156 million tonnes in 2011 to 944 million tonnes in 2020 (see “Australian, Canadian & US oil & gas threaten Mankind, Barrier Reef & Biosphere“).

8. Under Labor policy, Queensland coal shipping will increase from 1,722 ships in 2011 to 10,150 in 2020, this increased traffic and port dredging endangering the World Heritage Great Barrier Reef. (see Greenpeace report entitled “Boom Goes the Reef. Australia’s coal export boom and the industrialisation of the Great Barrier Reef”, March 2012).

9. Several weeks ago Gillard Labor renewed its commitment of $100 million towards the proposed, dirty, coal-fired HRL power station in Victoria.

10. Under Gillard Labor coal exports are increasing at 2.4% annually and Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) exports at 9% annually.

11. Gillard Labor’s last climate change betrayal has been to abolish the solar hot water subsidy, a retrograde move that is set to wipe out the green solar hot water industry.

12. Gillard Labor declares that “gas is clean” or “gas is cleaner” and believes that its Carbon Tax-ETS strategy will hasten a coal burning to gas burning transition. This ignores the latest science that says that gas burning for power can be much dirtier GHG-wise than coal burning. In short, methane is the major component of natural gas, leaks (3.3% US average, 7.9% if derived from hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” for coal seam gas) and is 105 times worse than CO2 as a GHG on a 20 year time scale with aerosol impacts considered (see “Improved Attribution of Climate Forcing to Emissions”). With existing plants in Victoria, Australia, 3.3% leakage means that gas burning is just as dirty greenhouse gas (GHG)-wise as burning coal but at 7.9% systemic leakage the GHG pollution from gas burning will be twice that from burning coal (see “Gas is not clean energy“).

13. Gillard Labor is supporting the huge roll-out of Coal Seam Gas (CSG) in Eastern Australia that is set to despoil landscapes, salinize and otherwise pollute agricultural land , deplete and pollute aquifers, increase GHG pollution through systemic gas leakage and add to Australia’s already huge and disproportionate GHG pollution.

14. In 2009 the German Advisory Council on Climate Change (WBGU) determined that for a 75% chance of avoiding a 2 degree C temperature rise, the World must pollute less than 600 billion tonnes of CO2 between 2010 and essentially zero emissions in 2050. Unfortunately, Australia (through disproportionately huge annual fossil fuel burning and exports) had already used up its “fair share” of this terminal greenhouse gas (GHG) budget by mid-2011 and it now stealing the entitlement of impoverished nations such as Somalia and Bangladesh (see “Shocking analysis by country of years left to zero emissions“).

15. Greens leader Dr Bob Brown is in dispute with PM Julia Gillard over her backsliding over an agreement on logging of Tasmanian forests: “”She signed off on the 7th of August (2011) that there would be an immediate halt to the destruction of the high-conservation value forests of Tasmania. When she keeps up her word on that matter – her signed public word on that matter – we’ll be having meetings with her.” (see The Australian). The South East Australian Eucalyptus regnans forests are the best forest carbon sinks in the world (see “Re-evaluation of forest biomass carbon stocks and lessons from the world’s most carbon-dense forests”).

16. Ultimately one must judge a government on how well it has been prepared to “tackle climate change” by the annual GHG pollution during its administration. Labor came to power at the end of 2007 when Australia’s domestic plus exported GHG pollution was about 1,363 million tonnes CO2-e and will face the electorate in 2013 when, after 6 years, it will be about 1,497 million tonnes CO2-e, or roughly 10% bigger than under the conservative Liberal Government back in 2007. Labor will have had 6 years to “tackle climate change”, is facing utter failure and should be kicked out following the principle “punish the incompetent incumbent”.

PM Julia Gilard’s broken pre-election pledge that “There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead”, her pre-Coup pledges of loyalty to PM Kevin Rudd, her backsliding on promised poker machine gambling reforms, and her recent assertion that stories of an offer to get former NSW Premier Bob Carr as a Senator and Foreign Minister were “completely untrue” are the least of the incorrect assertions of PM Julia Gillard. To paraphrase the title of a song from the Broadway musical “Paint Your Wagon” (1951), “They call the wind Ju-liar”.

Utterly betrayed, pro-environment Labor voters will vote 1 Green and put Labor last until it reverts to decent Labor values, not the least of which is being truthful.