Australian Green Party’s Christine Milne displays cognitive dissonance between climate crisis and antinuclear
During Atomic Show #207, Ben Heard, the principal at Think Climate Consulting, described how he was going to be involved in a discussion later in the morning, his time, with Christine Milne, a leader of the Australian Green Party. Elections in Australia will occur within the next two weeks; energy and climate are important issues in the campaigns leading up to those elections. Through the magic of Google hangouts and YouTube archiving, I am able to share that Australian discussion with you. Don’t we live in a wonderful world; geographic limits are fading away.
As Ben expected, Ms. Milne gave him a wonderful opportunity to introduce the issue of nuclear energy into the discussion by her focus on climate change as an emergency that requires direct action along with her dismissal of any expansion of fossil fuel production.
Not surprisingly, she responded with a litany of the typical Green Party talking points, some of which Ben had the opportunity to rebut. Ben points out that taking powerful tools off of the table is not the way anyone should respond to something that they consider to be an emergency.
PS – For those of you who have been following my commentary about the fragility of the shale gas revolution (aka shale gas fad) in the US, please pay attention to how “coal seam gas” (CSG) is one of the big topics of discussion in Australia. That topic sounds so 1990s to my ears. I was frustrated by the inability of the man from APPEA to effectively use the available technology to make sure that his voice could be clearly heard. It was amusing to learn that APPEA’s tag line is “The voice of Australia’s oil and gas industry.”
Rod. Wrong vidéo posted I think.
@Daniel
I do not understand; the video that I see on my screen is the YouTube replay of the discussion with Christine Milne of the Australian Green Party. What do you see?
It is fixed now. SAw the Kuperman from previous blog this morning.
It should be pointed out that the AEMO (Australian Energy Market Operator) report on scenarios for all renewables electricity generation in 2030 and 2050 completely depends on geothermal and wood burning for baseload generation. The geothermal depends on the successful development of dry hot rock technology which was much hyped a few years ago but progress has been very disappointing. It probably would be expensive and require very long expensive transmission. As for burning trees – really?
This is not AEMO’s fault – it’s due to the terms of reference set by the federal government and no doubt the influence of the Greens as some Labor ministers definitely support nuclear power. This is a pity, because the technical competence of AEMO is considerable. Just allowing nuclear in the modelling would allow the various claims about nuclear (“too slow”, “too expensive” etc) to be tested by a credible authority with no overt agenda to promote. Laying out the results of such a study with nuclear allowed before the public (or at least that portion of that public that is interested) should be what democracy is about.
Incidentally, CSIRO modeling shows that things go better with nuclear allowed with somewhat lower costs, faster emissions reductions and significantly lower emissions by the 2040s.
http://efuture.csiro.au/#scenarios
It is funny how each country can have its own ‘custom based’ fear on anything nuclear.
In Australia a constant source of debate and worry is to make sure that the Uranium mined in Australia and shipped abroad will not come back as waste down under.
Wow. Like when they mine copper in Canada it comes back at the end of its economic life to the mother land.
How stupid can you be. How stupid can you get.
To Ben Heard. Good work. Like Winston Chuchill said. Do not worry. Do not despair. Never give up.
Like the US Australia has 2 major political parties. They are like Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee and the outcome is Tweedle Dumber.
The Greens have been around for about 30 years and have been gradually increasing their support. In the sense of having a viable third party this is a good thing and they do have some sensible policies.To be charitable, their heart is in the right place.
However,they are so off with the pixies on some important issues that I have given up supporting them.I was a member for a while many years ago.
One of those important issues is nuclear power.I don’t see the Greens changing their stance on this issue until it is way,way too late.Their core support comes from commited anti nuclear ideologues.Their prole support will likely follow in the usual mindless fashion.
It is all rather sad.
We already have much woodburning taking place in Australia. Also known to the public as devastating bushfires. That is, trees that cannot be mined for their wood are allowed to burn wastefully, while killing thousands of native animals, birds, fish and insects. Fires that kill not by producing billions of tons of CO2, but by using the oxygen in the air to fuel the fires and kill living creatures that possess circulatory systems.
This is what Milne wants, and all greenies want. The destruction of the natural world so 1 or 2 useless species of trees can reproduce. Meanwhile people in poor countries burn all their forests to have heat to cook food and take hot baths or showers. All because the UN won’t loan them money to build coal fired power plants.
The bulk of fervent “greenies” want the extermination of humans from the planet, and to cripple the biosphere so there are no living creatures. Even Bob Brown said this many times, that humans are a blight on the planet. So now you can understand why milne says what she does.
Thanks Daniel. I’ve plenty in front of me, so the encouragement is very welcome!
For an abridged 15 minute version of this chat that cut together the nuclear bits, see here http://decarbonisesa.com/2013/08/29/is-role-change-scarier-than-climate-change-a-web-chat-with-greens-leader-senator-christine-milne/
Thanks for posting Rod. Your international commitment to matters nuclear never fails to impress!!!