Mixed Greens: Call for CSG freeze after damning ABC report

The Australian Greens have called for an immediate freeze on all CSG mining and exploration, and independent MP Tony Windsor has called for increased industry scrutiny, after a report on the ABC’s Four Corners alleged that certain Queensland coal seam gas projects were rushed through without proper governmental oversight. The report, aired last night, featured extensive interviews with former Qld Department of Infrastructure and Planning employee-turned whistleblower, Simone Marsh, who told the program that in 2010 she and her colleagues were not given enough time or basic information to assess two southern Queensland projects worth $38 billion. Four Corners also obtained documents under Right to Information laws which show the approval process was rushed, and that commercial considerations were put ahead of the environment, reports ABC News. Both projects were deemed to be of state-wide significance and were being overseen by Queensland’s Coordinator-General.

Greens Leader Christine Milne has responded to the report by calling for an immediate freeze on CSG mining and exploration, saying miners were “essentially writing their own permits”. “Four Corners last night made very clear to all Australians just how inadequate the scientific base has been for the approval that has been given by state governments and the federal government for ongoing coal seam gas,” she said. “This is the end of the fossil fuel age and we should not be driving a new fossil fuel industry at this time.”

Tony Windsor, meanwhile, stressed the need for rigorous independent research, to ensure the industry is safe, with governments having vested interests in the approvals process. “We need to go back, get the baseline information, base the approval process on science and risk, not on the capacity of the government to absorb a deficit or a surplus at the time, and then make those decisions based on those parameters,” he said.

Climate guru James Hansen leaving NASA

US climate scientist James Hansen – aka ‘the father of global warming’ – is retiring from his NASA post as Director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies – a move he has made to better pursue his passion for climate activism. Hansen finishes up at NASA on Wednesday, after nearly half a century of research in planetary and climate science which led him to issue one of the earliest and clearest warnings of the 20th century about the dangers of global warming. Called before a Congressional committee in 1988, Hansen testified that human-induced global warming had begun. And, as the New York Times reports, speaking to reporters afterwards, he stressed it was “time to stop waffling so much and say that the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here.”

According to the NYT interview, Hansen now plans to take a more active role in lawsuits challenging US governments over such issues as their failure to limit emissions, while also fighting the development in Canada of tar sands oil extraction. “As a government employee, you can’t testify against the government,” he said in an interview. Hansen says he senses the beginnings of a mass movement on climate change, led largely by the youth, and he intends to give it his full support. “At my age,” he said, “I am not worried about having an arrest record.” Hansen also tells the paper he will continue publishing scientific papers once he leaves NASA.