Related Links

When the tsunami hit – @julieposetti Location of that extraordinary #Japan #Tsunami video RT @gumb Kesennuma-shi, Miyagi-ken. Co-ords: 38.9089, 141.5698 #
Japan earthquake: Footage of moment tsunami hit
Before and after
Japan’s Nuclear Crisis: Lessons for the U.S.
All right, it’s time to stop the Fukushima hysteria. – this story was written before one incident turned to another
U.S. Detects Radiation 60 Miles From Stricken Plant
Hundreds flee in Japan after Shinmoedake volcano begins spewing ash, boulders

The results for Wide Bay-Burnett (my area in Queensland) confirm decades of personal observation, demonstrating the existence of significantly more racism than the state or national averages with US racial target of choice, Muslims at the top of the polls, a trend which is consistent from region to state to nation. Queenslanders are more prejudiced toward Aboriginal folks than Asians, a trend which is reversed in my region by a whisker. There are more equal opportunity haters in my neck of the woods it seems as there’s a scant couple of percent between the antipathy toward Indigenous folks, Asians and Jews.

However, it doesn’t matter which shade of bigotry folks project, their carbon footprint is more related with their faith and participation or lack thereof in the modern idolatry of consumerism and its theoretical underpinnings in economic irrationalism.

Concerned about the carbon tax and its effect on your much abused budget? Are you not incensed you have voluntarily adopted a simpler less consumerist lifestyle for years and you will now be punished further by price rises because of the irresponsible behaviour of the rest of the wretches with whom you share these colonial shores? Gillard’s vaunted “educative” spanking effect from the carbon tax on consumer habits may be short-lived and very quickly, the population will resume its profligate ways, as with the GST, another notable government tax grab. We need a broader vision, with a widet more-effective brush, and not the the faux “Billy Tea Party” offered by Cory Bernardi, one must quickly add.

Here’s an idea to substitute for the carbon tax which would have a multiplier effect elsewhere, by encouraging holiday makers to less polluting relaxation.

End the cruise ship industry now – it is an anachronism which mainly benefits a tiny fraction of the population, the ruling elite. If Australia closed down all cruise ship industries, a good proportion of our carbon tax would be paid in advance. Noone would be screaming except rich boaties, cruise ship companies,.gluttonous tourists and their class allies, the politicians whom they pamper with campaign donations and dinners at yacht. Who *really needs* to go on a cruise ffs … end the cruise shipping industry now, do the planet and everyone but the rich and/or stupid and their enablers a favour. For those who simply must have a ‘cruise’, the ships can be permanently based ashore where waste can be disposed of properly and fuel impact removed. My favourite whiners against my stellar idea thus far are self-labelled greenies who have taken Alaskan cruises so they can say they’ve seen the result of the Exxxon Valdez oil spill disaster. These folks must do better. There’s plenty of room for productive extension also, by cutting back on defence force ship size and number, and on commercial shipping generally. At the very least, tightening of pollution regulations across the oceans would contribute greatly to the reduction of the human carbon AND pollution footprints.

For more positive climate change impact, consider this simple two pronged approach: (1) Lower the population by removing incentives for breeding by ensuring adequate pensions and care for aged folks, and (2) Educate women since educated women choose to breed less overall, “except for women who pursue the most advanced degrees. . Women with professional degrees and Ph.D.’s are slightly more likely to have had children than their counterparts with just master’s or bachelor’s degrees”.

Now, for some other climate saving ideas which anyone except the completely decrepit, lazy or unimaginative middle class twit can implement:

Climate savers #1 : Instead of *driving* to gym or sports club in your big shiny 4WD, walk or take a train; form a neighbourhood walking group

Climate savers #2 : Eat less, you corpulent middle class wankers

Climate savers #3: Don’t overbreed, it only viralises your existent pollution and ignorant consumerist mindset

Climate savers #4: If you really must breed, instead of buying little Georgina a puppy or the latest Nintendo, buy her a pet rock.

Climate savers #5: Instead of burning fossil fuels, burn politicians in a non-polluting furnace. Or use as mulch for your garden.

Climate savers #6: If there are no politicians left to feed the non-polluting furnace, throw in the farting cows. Consider drilling down the pollutant gas-producing food chain.

Climate savers #7: Surprise the husband and kids! experience the unexpected and stay HOME for the holidays. Talking with each other makes a novel, relaxing change so for added benefit, send your iPads, iPods and iPhones television, computers, wiis and xboxes on a holiday to a friend’s shed and/or for a jaunt through Australia Post snail mail so you are not tempted.

Climate savers #8: Instead of planning your next boastful debt to be for a below ground pool, plant a rainforest in your backyard.

Climate savers #9: Learn from 40,000 years of indigenous habitation of Australia – your white colonial consumerism and capitalism are unsustainable, planet and people unfriendly. Contrary to questionable popular beliefs, humans are more likely to survive as a species if they cooperate and live within the garden in balance rather than attempting to dominate and subdue it for the benefit of an insatiable ruling elite. Don’t vote against your own interests. The elite are relying on the fact that you have done this in the past.

Climate savers #10: Economic rationalism is irrational. Never trust a smiling politician or any other member of the ruling elite and if they are telling you to do something it is quite often something which they will not do themselves. Insist any politician or pundit who asks you to change your habits by going without something, practise what they preach and demonstrate how to do it themselves first. You might also remind them that carrots taste much better than sticks and are healthier for you and the planet too.

Related Links

Shipping pollution more than a drop in the ocean

A US scientific study is pointing the finger at the global shipping industry as a major contributor to climate change.

The study has found that the one hundred thousand commercial ships which travel the world’s oceans emit almost half as much particle pollution as the world’s 600 million cars.

The findings have been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

And the lead author is calling for an improvement in the quality of shipping fuels.

In the past, ships running under flags of convenience have been exposed in reports like the Ships of Shame inquiry as being unsafe for crews and polluting the ocean.

Now scientists have put a figure on exactly how much air pollution is emitted by the world’s shipping fleet.

US-based scientist Daniel Lack, who works for a US government agency called the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has found every year commercial ships emit 1 million kilograms of particle pollution into the air.

Cruise Ships

The cruise ship industry is largely a North American phenomenon, and more than 80 percent of the approximately seven million passengers traveling are North Americans. The cruise ship market has expanded slightly in the Mediterranean and very slightly in the Far East. In Europe there are a large number of smaller passenger vessel services operating in the domestic or car ferry markets, but these vessels tend to provide transportation rather than entertainment and tourism.

Given their lucrative ties to the United States market, it is hardly surprising that the major cruise lines all maintain their principal offices in the United States. For example, Norwegian Cruise Line Ltd. has its corporate headquarters in Miami and employs approximately 1200 personnel throughout the United States. Carnival Corporation, the largest cruise line company in the world, has several offices in the US, as well as personnel and properties scattered throughout the country. Carnival owns twelve cruise brands, including Carnival Cruise Lines, Holland America Line, Princess Cruises, and Windstar Cruises, all of which operate in North America. Royal Caribbean has its principal executive office in Miami.

The cruise line industry will exhibit strong growth throughout the next two decades. The average annual growth of the industry has been almost eight percent since 1980, and with the world fleet of 230 cruise ships operating at 90 percent capacity, there are no signs of this growth slowing. North America is the largest market, and surveys indicate that 56 percent of Americans want to take cruises, while only 11 percent have done so. The number of cruise line passengers worldwide is projected to triple to 15 million by 2020, according to one industry expert.

Experiencing the stupidity of high density high consumption human living on the high seas – New York on the waves!

When she launches in 2010, Allure of the Seas will share the title of the world’s largest and most revolutionary cruise ship with sister-ship Oasis of the Seas. An architectural marvel at sea, Allure of the Seas will span 16 decks, encompass 220,000 gross registered tons (GRT), carry 5,400 guests at double occupancy, and feature 2,700 staterooms. Allure of the Seas, and Oasis of the Seas, will be homeported at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Allure of the Seas will tout the cruise line’s new neighborhood concept of seven distinct themed areas, which will offer guests of every age the widest array of onboard vacation experiences that cater to their personal styles, preferences or moods. Guests will enjoy lush and tropical grounds open to the sky in Central Park, located in the center of the ship and spanning more than the length of a football field. Central Park will be lined with boutiques and specialty restaurants, ranging from casual to fine dining, and introduce balcony staterooms rising five decks above the storefronts and overlooking the park – one of a few new categories of onboard accommodations made possible by the ship’s revolutionary design.

For a quick digression, here’s what happened when bigots took flight against Muslims in Orange County, California, recently.

Glenn Greenwald comments on the growing fascist antipathy toward Muslims in the US.

Palestine / Israel Links

Palestine Conference in Sydney : 14-15 May 2011 : Australian civil society & Palestinian freedom
Support BDS in Marrickville – sign the letter of support for Marrickville Council by emailing; you can read the letter here
Facing up to Jewish nationalism and racist violence
Rattling the Cage: Tips for information warriors
Sign petition to ask TIAA-CREF to stop investing in companies that profit from the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Why Is Israel Aid Exempt? – Rosenberg blames it on AIPAC, omits Christian zionists and MIC
Danby and Marrickville Preferences
Action Alert-Pizza Hut – boycott Pizza Hut until either a) they close their restaurants in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories; b) Israel ends its occupation of Palestinian territory.
Is entertaining dictators worse than normalizing apartheid?

Why not call out Beyonce, Usher, Mariah Carey, and so many other artists, all of whom have performed in Israel, a state which practices a form of apartheid worse than anything the South African apartheid government had ever done? In 1973, the United Nations General Assembly defined the crime of Apartheid as “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.” As Israel’s official policy privileges Jewish nationals over non-Jewish citizens, creating de facto and de jure discrimination against the indigenous Palestinian people, it is hard to dispute that this supposed “democracy” is in reality an apartheid state.

Those who shill for orientalists & imperialist moles are tarred with the same brush. For more info on specifics, see ikhras.com
Hamas to present new reconciliation plan
Israel to Sue Bedouin Residents of Demolished Village for Demolition Costs
Defending Palestinian Children’s Human Rights and What You Can Do About It!
The struggle for al-Araqib is the struggle for Palestine
Piqued Israeli hasbaroids outclassed by Palestinian poetic genius @Remroum truth at #Israel #Apartheid Week
Court indicts J’lem teen for manslaughter

Jewish stabber not charged with murder. Other teens involved in murder of Arab man to stand trial for aggravated assault, obstruction of justice. Father of victim: ‘My son brutally murdered for speaking Arabic’

Israel prepares for major military operations

Libya Links

Gaddafi fights to regain control
The definition of hypocrisy
The Neocon Plans for Libya (including visits from Muriawec!)
LSE director Sir Howard Davies resigns over Libya links
Translated video: Libyan sister raises morale!
U.S. Inserts ICC Exemption into U.N. Libya Measure

Egypt Links

Egypt in Movement

Wikileaks Links

Gillard attacks media for ‘myths’ over Assange
British magazine: Assange says Jewish conspiracy trying to discredit WikiLeaks
Julian Assange and the big picture John Kampfner:

When urged at the start of January by Assange’s publisher to help him write his memoirs I said I was ready to assist, but only if I had strong editorial input and that no subject was off-limits. This, I was told, was not acceptable. Roughly at the same time our organisation started asking questions about Israel Shamir, a man accused of Holocaust denial and of being a close associate of Belarus’s autocratic leader Alexander Lukashenko. Index is one of the founders of the Belarus Committee. Despite repeated but polite requests to WikiLeaks, our team was stonewalled, so we went public with our concerns.

Assange’s reported conspiracy remarks to Private Eye magazine about me and senior figures in the Guardian do not help his cause. With so many genuine adversaries, why seek more? His approach has reinforced a view that whistleblowing is the preserve of irresponsible eccentrics – playing into the hands of malign forces in the US seeking to prosecute him for “terrorism” or under the espionage act.

Thanks in large part to WikiLeaks, no matter how hard the authorities try, it will be impossible in future to prevent conscientious whistleblowers from passing on material that seeks to cast a light on the actions of the powerful – information that might otherwise remain secret. Due to the published documents, people around the world – notably in the Middle East and north Africa – have a better sense of what others thought of their autocratic leaders. All this is the positive legacy. The rest is soap opera or, dare I say it, Tinseltown.

Other Links

This Is Just the Start - classically reprehensible, stupid column by zioimperialism’s flagship sycophant Thomas Friedman, but then read This is just the start and it never fucking ends which explicates the Friedman drivel
Growing anti-Muslim hatred in the U.S.
US Rendition and Torture: A New Front for Accountability Opens Up in Djibouti

In our drenched little paradise, we have plenty of supplies to survive weeks of isolation if necessary and are situated well above the creek below. With luck, the power will stay on!

My father did the first comprehensive scientific Australian study based on all available historic rainfall measurements. I asked him many years ago whether anthropogenic effects were more dominant than solar cycles. He refused to give a definitive answer. Theodor Landscheidt predicted solar and climate cycles of 36 years give or take a bit. It’s now 37 years since the 1974 Brisbane deluge. In his last paper, Landscheidt also predicted a new little Ice Age, with the Gleissberg minimum occurring around 2030.

We need not wait until 2030 to see whether the forecast of the next deep Gleissberg minimum is correct. A declining trend in solar activity and global temperature should become manifest long before the deepest point in the development. The current 11-year sunspot cycle 23 with its considerably weaker activity seems to be a first indication of the new trend, especially as it was predicted on the basis of solar motion cycles two decades ago. As to temperature, only El Nino periods should interrupt the downward trend, but even El Ninos should become less frequent and strong. The outcome of this further long-range climate forecast solely based on solar activity may be considered to be a touchstone of the IPCC’s hypothesis of man-made global warming.

Of course, if humans don’t change their habits now, the resultant combined heating from solar and anthropogenic effects after 2030 might turn out to be catastrophic.

During natural crises like these, one can’t help but think of Dorothea MacKellar’s iconic settler colonial poem, which I’ve always detested.

My Country
by Dorothea McKellar
(1885–1968)

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins.
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies -
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me!

The stark white ring-barked forests,
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops,
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us
We see the cattle die –
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land –
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand –
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

How much richer are the words of Oogderoo Noonuccal (Kath Walker)

Municipal Gum

Gumtree in the city street,
Hard bitumen around your feet,
Rather you should be
In the cool world of leafy forest halls
And wild bird calls
Here you seems to me
Like that poor cart-horse
Castrated, broken, a thing wronged,
Strapped and buckled, its hell prolonged,
Whose hung head and listless mien express
Its hopelessness.
Municipal gum, it is dolorous
To see you thus
Set in your black grass of bitumen—
O fellow citizen,
What have they done to us?

And my own contribution:

Leave the Land Alone

We share this land of timeless dreams,
mysteries of tree and bone,
tribal journeys of dance and song
symbols painted on stone.
Songlines of the indigenes,
they used to call it home,
broken by colonial greed
the land had never known.

We poison lakes and dam up streams,
this land that is our home,
quarry the hills and cut down trees,
don’t know how to leave it alone.
Why do we break this fragile land
and bring it to its knees?
Our eyes are blind with dollar signs,
so much that we should see.

Do you fear the force of machinery
and big money lying?
it’s hard to live guilt-free
when the country’s dying,
All that’s part of you and me
laid waste by greed and scheming,
don’t you know we’ve taken enough,
Let the land lie dreaming.

Jinjirrie

Below are some links for people who are in flood prone areas near Brisbane – please seek high ground in advance because the floods have not yet peaked and may be higher than 1974. Look after your neighbours and keep safe.

Weather Links

1974 Brisbane Floods [.pdf]
Brisbane Suburbs 1974 Flood maps
@QPSmedia: If you are outside of Australia and need urgent flood information, please contact +61 7 3055 6200 #thebigwet #qldfloods #
Queensland Floods – Floods resource site
Donate to the flood relief appeal

New images: Flooding around Ipswich Update 3.55pm
Happy birthday, mum, I love you. I’ll come help clean up as soon as I can get through
Follow the Sun to the Landscheidt Minimum
New Little Ice Age Instead of Global Warming?
SOLAR ACTIVITY: A DOMINANT FACTOR IN CLIMATE DYNAMICS
Theodor Landscheidt
Landscheidt Cycles Research

Today’s Palestine / Israel Links

Richard Falk: Israel’s Violence Against Separation Wall Protests: Along the Road of STATE TERRORISM
Why it will be said one day that anti-Zionists had a better grasp on 20th C history than Uri Avnery or Tom Friedman
Palestinians in Gaza face health crisis
What happens when Arab money gets too close to the Jewish cause?
ZOABI: There can be no coexistence with a racist consensus
Jonathan Pollak : Shameful imprisonment : Non-violent demonstration is not merely the right of every citizen, but also the duty of everyone who wishes to fight against wrong.
In Defence of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu
Fox News, Glenn Beck & The Jews

Today’s Wikileaks Links

Wikileaks Calls for Sarah Palin’s Arrest
U.S. Twitter Subpoena Is Harassment, Lawyer Says
Twitter’s Response to WikiLeaks Subpoena Should Be the Industry Standard
WikiLeaks might move to Switzerland
PROVISIONAL SKELETON ARGUMENT ON BEHALF OF MR. ASSANGE
US Embassy: Iceland Wikileaks Probe Legal
WikiLeaks: Julian Assange ‘faces execution or Guantánamo detention’

Other Links

Obama Does Something Bloodthirsty Enough to Please the Psychos
Exclusive: Loughner Friend Explains Alleged Gunman’s Grudge Against Giffords – lucid dreaming, a story with a character named Angel
Our permanent culture of political violence
Remember John Lewis’ Warning About Violent Talk?
Tunisia: the brink of revolution

One of my favourite contemporary thinkers, Slavoj Zizek, expounds on apocalypse via capitalist degeneracy.

The downside about being declared the messiah is that they generally come to a sticky end

‘CIA response to Assange assassination FOI on Scribd.com:

This is a final response to your 11 October FOI Act request for all copies of all records current or previous plans to assassinate Julian Assange. The CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of records responsive to your request. The fact of the existence or non-existence of requested records is currently and properly classified and is protected from disclosure. Therefore your request is denied.’

Related Links

Good Manners in the Age of WikiLeaks

Palestine / Israel Links

Ask your government to speak up against Adnan’s expulsion from the only home he has and against the demolitions in Silwan.
Statement in Support of Targeted Activists : Al Shabaka
Hamas leader expects more aid convoys to come to Gaza
Guest Media Alert – Tilting Towards Israel – Journalist Jonathan Cook Reveals The Bias In ‘Balance’ On Israel-Palestine
PLO Report Documents Palestinian Deaths, Home Demolitions and Settlement Expansion in 2010
Shin Bet: Disclosing number of detainees who haven’t seen lawyer compromises security
Israeli forces raid Madaa during children’s classes, director Jawad Siyam arrested
Two Israeli airstrikes target Gaza
Gaza Youth : Don’t distort our speech!
Another activist arrested; intimidation of leftists on the rise
Leftists: Probe against us ‘McCarthyism’ : Yisrael Beiteinu’s motion to probe funding of left-wing rights groups expected to pass Wednesday.
WikiLeaks: Israel aimed to keep Gaza economy on brink of collapse
The Director of Silwan Community Center, Jawad Siyam, arrested

Wikileaks Links

Anonymous starts declaring war on countries
WikiLeaks’ Most Terrifying Revelation: Just How Much Our Government Lies to Us
Why Journalists Aren’t Standing Up for WikiLeaks
Blogging WikiLeaks News & Views, for Day 38

US memo: Iranian hard-liners blocked nuke deal
Clucky business: Wikileaks : Argentinian CG thanks KFC for addicting Chinese to chicken wings 09SHANGHAI170
Is Wikileaks more dangerous than the alternative?
Proof the Wikileaks University of Melbourne Post Office Box is operational

Other Links

How the Kremlin Harnesses the Internet
No Value in Any Influenza Vaccine: Cochrane Collaboration Study
Business: your handy guide to railing against the internet
44 Journalists Killed in 2010/Motive Confirmed

Warning – profanity contained in the above vid is prolific, but well in keeping with the subject matter.

If anyone was in doubt about the idiocy of Repubes and the correctness of John Stuart Mill’s dictim about conservatives being stupid, this story will clear up remaining qualms and ensure folks are aware that US conservatism is well on its way back to the dark ages.

In January, after refusing the suggestion that scholars or teachers be present at the board meetings, the board’s Republican majority, largely social conservatives, began to make drastic changes to the curriculum. A huge battle ensued, led by the Texas Freedom Network (TFN), against the literal takeover of the curriculum by political ideas of the right wing and religious conservatives, often showing lack of knowledge and creating an embarrassment to the state. Some 40,000 letters and phone calls came into the board from the public and from scholars within and outside Texas.

Some of the worst examples of the changes became known as the “list of shame”:

* Rejecting the word “capitalism” and substituting “free enterprise,” since “capitalism” is only used by “liberal” professors in academia.

* Rejecting teaching students about constitutional protection of religious beliefs and the separation of church and state.

* Downplaying President Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, and references to enlightenment ideas.

* Removing concepts of “justice and responsibility for the common good” from the list of characteristics of good citizenship.

Fires are an everpresent threat in Australia – many catastrophic blazes are lit by firebugs. With soaring temperatures in Victoria and New South Wales, dozens of people have died in the latest bush fires.

Fierce winds were fanning the fires and pushing them in unpredictable directions in Victoria on Sunday, after temperatures reached a state record of 47 degrees Celsius.

Forecasters said hot and uncertain weather conditions would continue through the day on Sunday.

Blair Trewin, a climatologist with the National Climate Centre in Melbourne, told Al Jazeera: “They are the most extreme conditions that we have ever seen in historic record in parts of southeastern Australia.

“We are seeing an upward trend in temperatures in Australia as elsewhere in the world.”

More than 600 houses have been destroyed by the fires.

The worst wildfires in recent memory killed 75 people and razed 2,500 homes in Victoria in 1983.

In south Queensland we continue to enjoy pleasant summer weather, while in the north of the state, there’s flooding. Australia – a land of climatic extremes.

UPDATE FEB 9

107 people are now known to have perished in the fires, which are still raging through Victoria and New South Wales.

Authorities suspect arsonists are responsible for some fires and police are treating some razed towns as crime scenes.

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, says deliberately starting the fires is mass murder.

…

The fire that is of most concern is burning out of control in Victoria’s north-east, threatening the townships of Stanley and Eskdale.

…

The other major fire of concern, the Murrindini Mill fire, is moving north-east and is now about 93,000 hectares in size.

Fire authorities are also warning it will take several more days to control a large blaze burning near Victoria’s biggest electricity generator, the Loy Yang power station.

There are 50 fires raging across New South Wales. A 31 year old Gosford man has been arrested for arson.

UPDATE FEB 10

At last, something that captures the imagination of Australia’s vampire media more than the global economic situation and counting ever-dwindling loot.

173 people have now died, and blame is being thrown here, there and everywhere. Beyond the predictable media frenzy, I see this as a tangible expression of denial, the first stage of grief. 911 had the same effect on folks – blame everyone except the culture which through its practices, contributed to the calamity.

There’ll be plenty of time to look for answers, if there are any which can really be addressed, given our frustrating 200 years of braindead whitey farming practices, 40,000 of pre-colonial firing techniques which preceded these and folks’ unwillingness to learn from science and successful models of integrating human habitation with the environment on which it depends.

How many people know that most eucalypts are weeds in Australia, which create the conditions they need to colonise, whose seeds only germinate when fired? It is more popular to romanticise about the noble Australian aboriginal living in ‘harmony’ with ‘nature’ than look with a scientific eye at the result of their nomadic farming experience.

Once the large slow moving forest dwelling herbivorous marsupials were hunted to extinction, it became traditional for our traditional owners to use fire to promote grassland for kangaroos – which conveniently breed like – kangaroos.

Always a joey in the pouch, one out grazing, always another on the way.

And eucalypts, with their need for fire, thrived at the expense of hardwood wet forest timber.

Clearing and much, much more firing by whiteys have increased the problem – along with the urban sprawl into Victoria’s bushland. You’d think we’d have learnt the lesson by now – this land can’t support the people it has – not enough water or arable farmland to depend upon. Yet our stupid government ignores the very real environmental impacts and limitations whilst mouthing rubbish about a sustainable economy needing more people. This bleating has been going on since whitey arrived here – the first settlers saw an empty land which needed wave on wave of migrants, with Australia’s rivers and forests bearing the brunt.

The choices are stark – either live with the forests – which make rain and oxygen on which we depend, revegetate with non-fire dependent species as much as possible, and take sensible precautions against bushfire catastrophes; or chop down even more of our precious bushland, till most of our land becomes as dry as the Simpson Desert.

The destruction of the planet is encouraged in the English translation of the book of Genesis. Attenborough points out ‘the devastation of the environment has its roots in the first words that God supposedly uttered to humankind, as detailed in Genesis 1:28: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”‘

An atheist raised in an academic, non-religious family, Sir David said Genesis peddled untruths about how animals and plants appeared on earth and was also at the root of why there was now serious environmental degradation due to the greedy overexploitation of the earth’s natural resources.

“The influence of the Book of Genesis, which says the Lord God said ‘go forth and multiply’ to Adam and Eve and ‘the natural world is there for you to dominate’, [is that] you have dominion over the animals and plants of the world,” Sir David said.

“That basic notion, that the world is there for us and if it doesn’t actually serve our purposes, it’s dispensable, that has produced the devastation of vast areas of the land’s surface.

“Of course it’s a gross oversimplification, but that’s why Darwinism, and the fact of evolution, is of great importance because it is that attitude which has led to the devastation of so much, and we are in the situation that we are in,” he told the science journal Nature.

How different the planet might have been if Genesis had been translated to say, “live in harmony with the planet and don’t over-populate to the detriment of other creatures with whom you shares its space, for if you do, therein lies your doom.”

Interestingly, the more intellectually advanced New Testament in Revelations 11:18, says: “And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.”

Perhaps not as many people finished reading the book as those who began it.

In contrast, the Koran contains numerous references to the environment, and it’s being used to teach environmentalism in countries like Indonesia.

The Koran, Suaedy says, contains numerous references to environmental protection, including the line: “Don’t do destruction upon this earth.” At one point, the Koran equates a human life with that of a tree: “Do not kill women, elders, children, civilians or trees.”

Saleem Ali, associate dean of graduate studies at the Rubenstein School for the Environment at the University of Vermont, says Islamic environmentalism can be traced back to the religion’s origins in the seventh century.

“The advent of Islam as an organized religion occurred in the desert environment of Arabia, and hence there was considerable attention paid to ecological concerns within Islamic ethics,” he said. “There is a reverence of nature that stems from essential pragmatism within the faith.”

Lo! We offered the trust
Unto the heavens and the
Earth and the hills,
But they shrank from bearing it
And were afraid of it
And man assumed it
Lo! He is a tyrant and a fool

—The Koran 33:72

Buddhism also contains elements of respect for life other than human on the planet.

Environmental efforts based on Buddhism include ordaining selected trees and groves as symbolic members of a Buddhist order.47 With its strong ethical basis, Buddhism has been connected to the Deep Ecology movement, as has Hinduism to a lesser extent.

For atheists like us, science and the history of civilisations more than adequately explain what happens when populations crash after devouring the resources that sustain them.

As recommended by Syd, Bill Hicks gets the last word here:

Last year, the smartest cockatoo ever passed away of natural causes at the age of 29. Charlie was much beloved by her human family and fans across the Australian continent over which she roamed with her performing mate, Pirate Pete.

We caught up with the Pirate recently and obtained this video of some of the lovely Charlie’s antics. The charismatic female sulphur-crested cockatoo was highly intelligent, affectionate and good humoured, more so than many humans.

Cockatoo is a Malaysian word meaning pincher or old father.

In Brisbane, the Libs picked up 6 Council seats, whilst in Townsville, long term ALP mayor Tony Mooney lost his position to Thuringowra mayor, Les Tyrell.

Captain Bligh boasted about the hard decisions made to produce “larger, better equipped councils in place across all our major regions”. Better equipped to charge us higher rates and to carry out unilateral armslength State decrees in defiance of resounding public dissent is our cynical reaction.

Despite the present State Government’s South East Queensland Regional Plan and Infrastructure Plan and claims that the State government wishes to slow development on the coast of South East Queensland and move population to Beaudesert and Mt. Lindsay, our Sunshine Coast region’s concept of sustainability, determined as Bob Abbot envisages through community consultative processes well known to Noosa residents, may clash with the State’s vision to which our new super Council must defer, given that there is still no Federal legal recognition of local government. The Sunshine Coast and other regions which desire and plan for more realistic and truly sustainable development and population caps with majority support from their electors and which had opposed amalgamation can still be overridden by the State. The States can also argue for Federal support on the basis outlined by Andrew McNamara, Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation, when he supported population distribution omitting to mention the addition of a more sensible, palatable and sustainable federal policy of negative population growth with a truly innovative economic strategy to match. Rudd has thrown his national condom out the window as well.

Regardless of the warm, fuzzy wording of the SEQRPIP, the travesty of Traveston Dam has already provided a clear example of the State Government sacrificing the environment and existing landholders for the “greater good of Queensland” … in other words, the good of those requiring development at the expense of irreplaceable natural habitat and communities.

As Captain Bligh called her new lieutenants to a Brisbane summit, Bob Abbot expressed similar suspicions about Bligh’s real agenda:

“I’ve got a great fear that the next attack on local government will be in the planning sphere and I think they (state government) need to look very closely at what the communities are saying about how they want to be managed in the future as regards to development,” he told a Brisbane newspaper.

“Any further attack on local government in the development sphere would create another Gold Coast highway koala corridor type fiasco for the government – and would bring them down.”

Centralised decision-making may facilitate government planning aligned with big money, yet a government markedly out of step with its constituents could pay a high price at the next State election. Big Bob, with 70% of the Sunshine Coast vote has a clear mandate for sustainability. Perhaps Captain Bligh is counting on voters forgetting her and Beattie’s attack on democracy by then, yet Howard’s end was largely due to his deafness to the voice of the people, from his outrageous disregard of public feeling against his draconian no choice work laws, his ignorance of the realities of climate change to his pandering to Bush with the disgraceful war on Iraq.

When politicians step above their role as servants of the people, the people whom they are elected to represent will teach them humility.