Comment

Comment by Matthew Hodson on September 15, 2011 at 9:57pm

The latest episode of Skeptoid (Brian Dunning) discusses fracking.

Well worth a listen.

 

Comment by Janet H. Thompson on June 6, 2011 at 10:48pm

Hi Guys-

 

For what it's worth, because of my involvement in fighting the climate change fraud, I was on the Not Evil Just Wrong mailing list.  I found this on the movie Gasland very interesting.

 

Hello

We wanted you to be the first to know that Josh Fox has responded to valid journalistic questions about his documentary Gasland by stifling the freedom of the press.

As you probably  know, I traveled to Chicago for a Q&A where I forced Fox to admit the documentary hid facts that contradicted his scaremongering about drilling for natural gas.

And Fox's response when we posted the video on YouTube - he got his lawyers to have YouTube pull it down.

That's right - he has tried to use lawyers to silence a journalist from asking difficult questions and putting his answers on the Internet.

Fox's excuse is a breach of copyright. In a video that is 3:10 minuntes long, we used 26 seconds of Gasland only to show how Fox was being unethical and misleading. It is a classic case of "fair use" of someone's work for the purpose of criticism and is totally legally allowed if not encouraged under fair use law.

But Fox does not want any criticism. He does not want any freedom of speech.

We now have to hire lawyers to try and have our journalism restored to our own YouTube channel. In the meantime we have put the video up on Vimeo (a YouTube rival). You can see it here until Fox and his lawyers try to force Vimeo to pull it down.

We will fight all these attempts to silence our journalism. We have been here before. The Society of Environmental Journalists turned off my mic for asking Al Gore tough questions. The UN used armed security to try and stop me asking difficult questions of a scientist and a politician at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen. And environmentalists attacked me on live television for daring to question the orthodoxy.

And the makers of the Age of Stupid, another eco-disaster fantasy, had me removed from their press gallery for asking the "wrong questions". They also took legal action to have the blog showing their behavior removed from the internet.

They did not succeed and Josh Fox will not succeed.

You can watch my questioning of Josh Fox here. Please send it around to as many people as possible. It needs to be seen before Fox and his lawyers try to crush journalism again.

Thanks!

Ann & Phelim

Cheers,
Janet

 

Comment by Peter Firminger on January 2, 2011 at 11:31am

See Robertson exploits LNP split over CSG for the continuing saga of Jeff Seeney's stupid article

Comment by Joanne Rea on December 8, 2010 at 6:21pm

Don't do it.
You never know what is round the corner and there is life after farming.
Your family needs you.

Comment by Drew Hutton on December 4, 2010 at 9:24pm

Hi John...thanks for the nice words and I liked your original article. I took myself out of this debate when it looked like I might be introducing a bit of unnecessary divisiveness. There is, I think, a nice symmetry between environmentalists and rural landholders in southern Queensland (and also in the north where Patricia Julien from the Mackay Conservation group has been doing good work on the effects of mining). Our lock the gate campaign is designed to give us leverage against the Queensland Government in getting a) all good ag land protected from mining b) banning of UCG c) a moratorium on CSG and d) protection of nature refuges. We have had one great victory at Tara where QGC has been obliged to see the rural residential estate there as a no-go zone. Lock the gate can work.

Comment by Peter Firminger on December 3, 2010 at 9:37am

I should also plug another group here The Preservation of Agricultural Land started by Rosemary Nankivell

Comment by Peter Firminger on December 3, 2010 at 7:15am

Another nice piece from John Mikkelsen: Farmers not sold on Anna's new 'One-stop LNG Shop'

The industry itself says that Coal Seam Gas or "Coal Bed Methane" extraction is more dangerous than extracting gas from Shale, which makes GASLAND even more important for Australia.

Comment by Peter Firminger on November 16, 2010 at 3:20pm

Thanks and welcome John. We're dealing with a lot of farmers that generally don't have an online comment culture. There are some, but it's hard to get traction. Thankfully, the plans to drill in St Peters and Rouse Hill may fire up the Sydney audience soon. Unfortunately, city people seem to believe the industry rhetoric and trust the government to regulate. I'm passionately against the entire CSG industry and I am keeping out of the ridiculous debate on GASLAND in the forum as I am also the moderator and would end up booting myself out of here :)

Comment by Drew Hutton on November 14, 2010 at 9:04am

Cate...I don't know much about the Delbessie Agreement but what I do know doesn't lead me to believe it has anything much to do with Wild Rivers. I thought it was an agreement signed between the government, Agforce and the Rainforest Conservation Society to deal with managing leasehold land. I must admit I have limited faith in these sorts of agreements that don't seem to have much in them for farmers and, if there are going to be restrictions on what farmers can do (like the land clearing laws) then there should be market mechanisms built in to enable farmers to make money out of new opportunities. Wild Rivers on the other hand simply stops mega-projects with big environmental impacts in areas that are not suited to this (like Cooper Creek or the Wenlock River). As Ian hayllor has been saying, if the Darling Downs had the same protection as the State Govt is going to give to the Lake Eyre Basin (not Wild Rivers obviously), they wouldn't be facing the current disaster from coal and coal seam gas mining.

Comment by Drew Hutton on November 12, 2010 at 4:21pm

As the originator of the "Lock the Gate" concept (I originally called it "Shut the Gate" but Lee M suggested, quite correctly, that "lock" was a better word) I want to endorse John's comments about the worth of this campaign but add a few comments.
1. There are something like 1300 conditions on the 3 CSG projects but, on the most important of these, they have 18 months to show they can meet these conditions. If you or I had a project requiring and environmental authority we would be expected to meet its conditions from day one. If there is anyone out there who thinks Anna Bligh will tell them to pack up and go home if, after 18 months they can't meet these conditions, I've got a lovely big bridge across Sydney Harbour I'd like to sell you.
2. Abolishing Wild Rivers on Cape York would simply allow bauxite mining right up to the biologically diverse Wenlock River. I know a bit about Rio's environmental management at Weipa and it is not conducive to biodiversity.
3. Wild Rivers protection to the western rivers - Georgina, Diamantina and Cooper Creek - will stop mining on those flood plains and this is a very real threat to landowners out there.

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