Scuttling the solar solution!

Why the Right won't eat their greens

Climate Spectator

Silex Systems CEO Michael Goldsworthy could hardly contain his frustration this week after announcing the closure of Australia’s only solar cells manufacturing facility – at a cost of 30 jobs at the company’s Homebush plant in Sydney.

The solar cells division was already struggling against the price and volume of overseas producers, and the rising Australian dollar, but Goldsworthy has no doubt that the killer blow came in the policy vacuum on the future of solar tariffs, particularly in NSW, where the industry has been brought to a standstill. It has made it impossible for his company to make forward investment decisions. All of Australia’s clean energy developers, indeed the entire energy industry, understands this problem well.

And further on....

Like Ayres, and many others, Goldsworthy says there appears to be animosity towards green technology.

“We have got better sun than any other country, but there seems to be a philosophical opposition at the moment to solar power,” he told Climate Spectator. “It is just inconceivable – we have Coalition governments being elected in NSW, Victoria, and WA leading the charge to scale back any support for renewables, And we know the federal Coalition is less disposed to renewables and the whole climate change issue.”

Who won?

Tea Party is 'fragging'!

Kathleen Parker is a journalist with the Times Union.

Fragging: "To intentionally kill or wound (one's superior officer, etc.), esp. with a hand grenade."
Take names. Remember them. The behavior of certain Republicans who call themselves tea party conservatives makes them the most destructive posse of misguided "patriots" we've seen in recent memory.

Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Good-riddance-tea-party-1663584.php#ixzz1TmCNZFMy

The US suffers from deadlock politics...too!

Times Union is a Albany, New York daily and yesterday's had an article by John T. Sullivan struck a chord with me..well at least provided an insight into the US political deadlock that plagues the Congress.

One of the axiomatic principles in our two-party system used to be: First, do the right thing. Second, if you can't do the right thing, at least do no harm.

This principle appears to have been abandoned by the zealots and ideologues who have taken control of the Republican Party, and who are determined to run the ship of government aground, if they don't send it over the nearest falls. They are bound to do what is best for their short-term and long-term political goals, regardless of the consequences to the Commonweal. It wasn't always thus. Read on.....

Read all about it...in the Straits Times!

British PM praises Australia's carbon plan

 
British Prime Minister David Cameron (above) has written to Australian leader Julia Gillard in support of her planned tax on carbon to combat climate change, describing it as a 'bold step', a report said. The Sun-Herald reported that the Conservative leader had told Ms Gillard the policy would 'add momentum to those, in both the developed and developing world, who are serious about dealing with this urgent threat'. 'I was delighted to hear of the ambitious package of climate change policy measures you announced on July 10 and wanted to congratulate you on taking this bold step,' he wrote, the paper said on Sunday. Ms Gillard's plan to impose a tax on the nation's 500 biggest carbon polluters to cut down on harmful emissions has proven divisive in Australia. While Canberra says the tax will help slow global warming and save natural treasures such as the Great Barrier Reef, critics say it will make not change global emissions but hurt industry, cost jobs and increase the cost of living. -- AFP