Unsurprisingly, the Government doesn’t like to draw attention to the fact that since the 2022 election:
It has approved four new coal projects.
It has approved the drilling of 116 new coal seam gas wells.
It has sat in court with coal companies and defended its right not to consider the climate impact of opening new fossil fuel projects.
The Government has passed legislation at the request of gas companies specifically designed to expedite their expansion. This is not hyperbole. The transcripts and documents are there in black and white.
The Government has stacked the agencies legislated to oversee and shape Australia’s climate policies — including the Net Zero Authority and the National Reconstruction Fund — with industry interests and surrounded them with a fortress-like bureaucracy, impervious to public scrutiny. It has left a former gas executive in charge of the Climate Change Authority.
The Prime Minister and various ministers have flown to India, Japan, Korea, and (just this month) Vietnam to lock in customers for our gas and coal. The media releases never mention that either. Australia is one of the world’s largest fossil fuel exporters, and the Government is subsidising, legislating, and using the full weight of our foreign policy to ensure we stay that way. Because Governments are very effective at making very big things happen very quickly when they want to.
The Australian Government has lobbied UNESCO to stop the Great Barrier Reef from being listed as “in danger”. This is as it is in the grip of another mass coral bleaching event.
The Australian Government has refused to end native forest logging. Despite the carbon it would store and the very real risk of extinction to the koala and the swift parrot. It has left the protection of our collapsing ecosystems to the market. It has put far more energy into talking about being ‘nature positive’ than doing anything about it.
The federal Labor government alone still gives over $9 billion in subsidies to fossil fuels. It has committed $1.5 billion to a gas export hub in the Northern Territory. One single gas export hub is getting half of what Australia has committed to global climate finance over five years.
Pedal-electric Hopper may be the German "car" you didn't know you wanted.
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The rider's pedaling power is augmented by a 250-watt rear hub motor, taking the Hopper up to a top speed of 25 km/h (16 mph). The motor is powered by a removable 30-Ah/48V/1,440-Wh lithium-iron-phosphate battery, which is claimed to be good for a range of approximately 65 km (40 miles) per charge. An optional rooftop solar panel should help boost that figure.
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In order to minimise maintenance and mechanical complexity, the Hopper utilises an electronic pedal-by-wire system instead of a traditional chain-drive drivetrain.
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Such systems work by having the rider spin up a generator as they pedal. Doing so converts their mechanical energy into electrical energy, which is fed into the motor. That motor converts the electrical energy back into mechanical energy, which is used to turn the wheel.
WEEK 31: Your government, your representatives and your media are NOT ON YOUR SIDE.
I'll just say again that the LAPD took more than two hours to show up and then watched from the sidelines, and refer you to the statement of the Palestine Solidarity Encampment.
I can only imagine what they mean by "online encouragement of crime during protests".
Anyone who thinks we don't live in a police state, I hope you're enjoying your post-lobotomy existence.
More biased hyperbole from the client media.
"Fun" fact: Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic, served as a prison guard for the IOF after he finished university.
"Hatem Abudayyeh, U.S. Palestinian Community Network National Chair: “I am guaranteeing tens of thousands of people in the streets with thousands of Palestinian flags, with Palestinians from all walks of life, from all over the country. We mean business.”
WEEK 26: Nashville, yesterday. Eli Motycka, journalist with Nashville Scene, is arrested while reporting on a Palestine protest.
via Nashville Scene on the dark side.
It's been getting harder and harder to find information about global ceasefire protests for a while now.
Remember Phoebe, who was pre-emptively arrested in central London on a trumped up charge of "conspiracy to commit burglary" based on evidence from the Daily Mail?
She's not the only one. This crackdown on protest is getting dark.
"The thing about being a politician these days is that you're very used to protests. I get JSO outside my house, Gaza protesters wherever I go ... it's a form of intimidation which actually undermines our democracy."
Emily Thornberry at the Institute for Government today
The #GeneralMedicalCouncil counsel said Dr Benn's conduct had brought the profession into disrepute because she had broken the law by failing to comply with the injunction against protests at the Kingsbury oil terminal on multiple occasions & her fitness to practise was impaired as her conduct failed to justify patients' trust in the profession.
We've signed the open letter from Amnesty, warning of the threats to freedom of expression and protest in the UK.
The government's new protocol will "add to a chaotic patchwork of repressive legislation and policing powers that has placed undue restrictions on the right to protest."
Find out more about the open letter signed by 46 civil rights organisations ⬇️
WEEK 23: The International Jewish Anti-Zionist network had been holding a peaceful weekly protest outside the Israeli Ambassador's house - until Friday. It has now been banned. 🤬
"This can’t go on. If #Sunak really wants to know why the country feels as if it’s falling apart, it’s because we haven’t got a functioning #government. All that he did get right was “enough is enough”. It is. Time for an #election.