Batchelor uses ETS failure to defend Hazelwood

In responding to Environment Victoria's plan to replace Hazelwood with a combination of gas-fired power, renewables and energy efficiency, energy minister Peter Batchelor has said that jobs from "cleaner energy industries" will only flow when an emissions trading scheme becomes law.

In effect, the minister is using the federal government's ETS failure to defend Australia's heaviest emitting power station. Instead that failure places an urgent obligation on Victoria to implement its own strong climate measures, as individual states have done in the absence of federal action in the United States.

Predictably, management of International Power Hazelwood has questioned the feasibility of the Environment Victoria plan, but the real question is how feasible it is to continue the massive emissions of Hazelwood as the world approaches climate tipping points that loom closer with emerging science.

James Hansen, the world's leading climate scientist, considers it essential to leave remaining coal reserves in the ground unless emissions from burning coal are captured as of now. With carbon capture and storage a distant and unproven prospect at best, and with realistic renewable strategies at hand that will save emissions and yield thousands of jobs, the choice is clear.

Victorians must reject the coal lobby's notion that a switch to renewables means they will not be able to switch on their lights - a realistic transition period is possible in a timeframe that will contribute strongly to a safe climate.

Government spins letter threat against all greenies

Following coverage of the letter threat to the CEO of the Hazelwood power station, The Age published my letter today arguing that the Victorian Government is trying to spin this unfortunate incident against environmental activism as such (See 'Don't fall for this spin on greenies' on The Age Letters page).

Here's the letter, with a small grammatical correction that didn't make it into the published version:

Threatening the boss of the heavily polluting Hazelwood power station does nothing to advance the campaign for action on climate, and such measures are rightly condemned (The Age, 15/6). However, media reports of Energy Minister Peter Batchelor's call for environmental groups to denounce such measures indicate a ham-fisted attempt to tie all environmental activism with this extreme.

The tactic is underlined by Treasurer John Lenders' reference to 'green extremists' in radio reports about the incident.

Contrary to the perception these politicians wish to create, the vast majority of environmental groups legitimately campaign against the huge contribution coal-fired power stations make to global warming and its consequent impacts on the planet. Following the Black Saturday bushfires, the Queensland floods and other impacts arriving much sooner than expected, global warming is a much bigger threat that the Government would do well to take seriously.

Since I wrote the letter, the article I was responding to has been expanded from the original AAP story that appeared yesterday, with text now including Peter Batchelor's reported view that

...the credibility of the whole of the environmental movement would be jeopardised unless the people involved were identified.

This further underlines the Government's tactic, and seems to borrow from the ignorant practice of blaming all Muslims for instances of Islamist terrorism should they fail to identify terrorists whose identities are completely unknown to them. We reject outright the latter, and must therefore reject Batchelor's cheap PR ploy against environmental activism.