Most of that national volume has been from the magnificent Tas forests, but also in WA and Victoria and northern NSW if my understanding holds. Qld effectively banned woodchipping of native forests in recent years, but what’s good for PM Rudd’s home state is not good enough for the rest of the nation’s landscape. South Australia is plantation based.

What a crying shame. Killing forests to privatise profit, socialise environmental and economic cost, and convert the landscape to defacto tree farm plantations, that once were wet old growth. By the by, this woodchipping industry promotes dry schlerophyll across landscapes which is a recipe for mega bushfires. Welcome to The Future.

First, there is little evidence the climate can “stabilize” at greenhouse forcing levels as high as CO2-e of 460 ppm, or even above 350 ppm (Hansen et al., 2008), levels at which runaway processes commence.

Second, evidence from the ice cores indicates abrupt changes in atmospheric state, including sharp warming and sharp cooling, occurred during the last glacial termination (12.9 - 11.7 thousand years ago) (Steffensen et al., 2008) under much lower CO2 levels, leading to the conclusion that, once forcing triggers occur (whether solar/orbital forcing or anthropogenic GHG forcing), climate change is driven by FEEDBACK PROCESSES.

Third, the level of CO2-e of 460 ppm is at the top of the interglacial, namely just under the 500 ppm level at which the Antarctic ice sheet began to form (34 Ma ago).

A major question is at what point would methane release from subpolar permafrost and clathrates from Arctic from sediments reach an extent resulting in irreversible changes (tipping point)?

Unless CO2 reduction targets and schedules are closely related to these scientific questions, not all of which can be answered with precision, the only way is risk minimization, as indicated by John Holdren:

When driving a car in the fog toward a cliff, press the breaks as hard and as early as you can.

Andrew Glikson
25-5-09

So she knows how to screw the green vote NSW style, well and truly.

On one level the ALP were harvesting votes by presenting big ticket green policies, on another level they were stymying any establishment of a Green Party on the left as genuine rival as per international political trends.

Then Keating decided he’d had enough of that ‘Balmain basket weaving’ stuff. The man dressed in charcoal, with ashphelt in his veins told us effectively to go and get stuffed by 1995 or so and duly lost the 1996 election.

Unlike Carr who won the close March 1995 election. And NSW state electoral history from there is intructive on the ETS/CPRS. In 1996 exec Secretary of the NSW Nature Conservation Council Sid Walker , then the only rival in NSW to Labor friendly ACF and indy TWS in size (with TEC still dominated by ailing Milo Dunphy) was replaced by one John Connor.

Over the next two years or so a programme of duchessing by the Carr Govt proceeded and the highly indy TWS with biggest membership on domestic green issues was sidelined. NCC/Connor’s group were granted $50K every 6 month in a forest negotiation process totalling $300K, which was in turn farmed out to freindly small g green groups inside the ‘peace deal’. Remember this NCC body had little hands on forest protest credibility but they go the govt dough. Now TWS and others were excluded from the ‘peace deal’ but in 1992 they organised 4,000 protesters in the SE forests ( campaign with most arrests in Australian history including the Franklin) to close the Eden Chipmill, and helped drive out the redneck Coalition Govt, but by 1998 Carr had Connor’s NCC and Angel’s TEC effectivley signed up to another 20 years resource security for the Eden chipper sweetened by national park declarations.

It all wedged the Libs and Nats on green issues for the 1999 (‘helping jobs and trees live together’) and even 2003 state elections harvesting the green vote putting the ALP over the line. But the anger of the reality was expanding - 1M tonnes of chips per year from native forests, outside crafty national park boundaries, like the majestic East Gippsland into the Eden chipper.

Keating’s black hearted ALP was in domination. Not for nothing was Carr, Keating, Richo, and Brereton known as the 4 amigos.

Now Connor is leading the ‘ALP aligned green voices’ for the Climate Institute. He’s very smooth on RN this morning no doubt. But never forget Carr donated seed money to the Climate Institute. Never forget the Eden Chipmill got 20 years extension in breach of Carr’s 1995 election promise. The goals of the ALP are threefold - wedge the Libs and Nats, harvest green votes, and stymy growth of a Green Party. Actually protecting the environment has always been a fourth order concern.

Thus Annabel Crabb last week noted Rudd’s federal ALP KEPT an election promise of $18B in welfare for the ‘rich’ but failed to even mention it in their Treasurer’s budget speech it was so embarrassing given the GFC. But they broke an election promise to actually make real action on climate change policy, according to most fair minded observers. True 1 billion solar project in the Hunter mitigates the disgust but … just remember the Eden chip mill 15 years after the 1995 election promise to close it, only this time think expanded coal mines and climate change.

And people wonder why Mark Latham cracked up. As Senator Milne said today ‘this government’s cynicism’.

And keep voting Green for more sound independent green policy.

Unfortunately because of the stupidity of the electorate and the craven incapability of the the bulk of the media he will get away with it for some time yet and his acolytes will enjoy the spoils of the election victory, until like most bureaucratic dictators he overreaches himself.