CPRS: Carbon Politics Renders Squat

The whole point of introducing an emissions trading scheme is to make sure that polluting industries phase out and are replaced with cleaner alternatives, renewable energy and energy efficiency programmes. [1]

While the Australian Federal opposition dithers on passing the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) legislation which would enable carbon trading, Australia’s weather gets hotter and hotter.

The Bureau of Meteorology’s Annual Australian Climate Statement for 2009 noted last year was Australia’s second warmest year since high-quality records began in 1910 and the past decade was the warmest on record.

Government Visions

I just read Quarry Vision by Guy Pearse. I’m a bit slow because it’s no longer the most recent issue of Quarterly Essay. When it came out I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read it. I assumed it was more of Pearse’s results from his PhD thesis on Australia’s greenhouse mafia, otherwise known as the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network (AIGN),

an alliance representing almost all of Australia’s biggest fossil-energy producers and consumers, either directly or through their industry associations. [1] p.38

Not that I wasn’t interested in his research. He wrote High & Dry [2] a couple of years ago and I thought I’d heard all there was to tell, but I was wrong.