An extraordinary admission by the Australian Federal Government has passed unnoticed by the Mainstream media in the “look away” Land of Oz, the Antipodean Land of Flies, Lies and Slies (spin-based untruths), the Murdochracy called Australia.

However from the Green Senator Christine Milne’s blog of the June 4, 2008 entitled “Rudd Treasury not modelling real climate protection scenarios” we read that “Treasury is only modelling global emissions scenarios with a very high risk of triggering runaway climate change, Australian Greens climate change spokesperson, Senator Christine Milne, discovered today in Senate Estimates hearings … On questioning from Senator Milne in today’s [Senate] Estimates hearings, [public servant] Meghan Quinn revealed that her Department [Treasury] is only modelling scenarios leading to global atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases at 450 and 550 ppm of carbon dioxide equivalent. Treasury had not been asked to model lower concentrations, Ms Quinn said.”

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Australia has just had a 2-day Ideas conference in Canberra called the “Australia 2020 Summit”. This exercise was brought on by the right wing, Bush-ite Rudd Labor Government, ostensibly to garner Ideas for a better Australia.. Unfortunately the Australia 2020 Summit was quickly revealed as a quite crudely “stacked” and biased gab-fest vehicle for endorsement of Bush-ite Rudd Labor Government policy. For details of the Australia 2020 Summit process, the 10 Topic Areas considered, submissions, participants and the Initial Report from the Summit see: http://australia2020.gov.au) .

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The Australia 2020 Summit Initial Report IGNORES the Climate Emergency and Sustainability Emergency facing the World with Australia being the world’s top Developed nation “annual per capita CO2 polluter” (and it also IGNORES horrendous Australian child abuse – one third of all Australian women are sexually abused as children).

According to top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen the world has passed a tipping point at which all Arctic summer sea ice may be totally gone by about 2015. He says that the world must REDUCE atmospheric CO2 to a safe and sustainable 300-350 parts per million (ppm).

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Australia is having an “Australia 2020 Summit” in which1,000 chosen delegates will gather in Canberra for 2 days to discuss ideas for a better Australia (http://australia2020.gov.au) . Australians had the opportunity of submitted ideas on 10 topics and these have now been placed on the Web (http://australia2020.gov.au). Topic #3 is Sustainability and Climate Change - population, sustainability, climate change and water.

I did my duty as a citizen of Australia and of Planet Earth and sent them 255 Ideas (see: http://australia2020ideas.blogspot.com/…/) which I then edited back to about 200 in the formal submission (see: http://australia2020ideas.blogspot.com/…/).

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Will your house be solar-powered by “rose-tinted” windows in the future? At least that’s what professor John Bell from the Queensland University of Technology in Australia hopes.

He has worked with Dyesol, a Canberra-based company, trying to develop affordable transparent solar cells that act as both windows and energy generators in houses or commercial buildings.

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The World is facing a global food price crisis and looming mass starvation in the Developing World. The price of rice has doubled in 3 months and the price of wheat has doubled in one year. The huge increases in the price of staples such as wheat and rice is being driven by US, UK and EU diversion of food for biofuel; climate change and decreased agricultural productivity due to both inundation and drought; and globalization which means that 4 billion impoverished and under-fed people compete in the market place for those with the money to buy food to drive their cars or for grain-fed meat.

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Turn off your lights for one hour at 8pm March 29 (that’s tomorrow) “to deliver a powerful message about the need for action on global warming.”

Households and businesses around the world are urged to turn off their lights and non-essential electrical appliances for one hour in an international event called Earth Hour 2008.

Earth Hour started out in Sydney, Australia between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on 31 March 2007. That year it was a local event in Australia, this year they are going bigger than ever. Over 11,900 businesses and over 200,000 individuals have signed up to take part in this event. Cities worldwide like Dubai (UAE), Bangkok (Thailand), Örebro (Sweden), San Francisco (USA), Toronto (Canada) and many others will also participate.

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Well, that’s a maybe. The Australian government is hoping that a new proposal from them will be able to cover up a loophole that let’s Japan conduct whaling for “scientific reasons”.

The Australian environmental minister Peter Garett said today that Australia will present their proposal next week in London during an International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting.

If Australia’s proposal gets accepted whaling for “scientific reasons” must be conducted according to the commission’s rules.

But this will not be an end to whaling. Several countries like Norway, Iceland and Greenland will still continue to brutally slaughter whales for “commercial” and “cultural” purposes.

Missy Higgins is a popular musician in Australia. If you watched the Live Earth (7.7.07) events last year you could see her perform in Australia.

Now she is trying to make her way to the US music scene in her “green” US tour. She will promote her new album, “On A Clear Night” (which is being released today), and show her “commitment and interest in the environment” by touring in a Prius and stopping at various forward thinking green places along the way.

A series of videos will document Missy’s “green” tour in the USA. After the jump you can watch a trailer for the videos.

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Australian Climate Action Groups from Melbourne and wider afield gathered together on Saturday 9 February, 2008 for a Climate Movement Convergence at Melbourne’s Northcote High School. A major event was the launching of an important book published by Friends of the Earth entitled “Climate Code Red – the Case for a Sustainability Emergency” by David Spratt (Carbon Equity) and Philip Sutton (Greenleap Strategic Institute) (this important report can be downloaded here). A key outcome was the decision by some of these groups to form a Coalition for a Climate Emergency Declaration.

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