The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico following the fatal explosion on the BP leased Deepwater Horizon oil rig has exceeded the Exxon Valdez catastrophe of 1989, when eleven million gallons of crude oil devastated the pristine Alaskan coastline.

A White House energy official described the Gulf of Mexico spill as the worst environmental disaster ever to affect the USA. So far, all of BP’s efforts to plug the leaking well - located 5,000 feet below the surface of the sea - have failed.

By SP reporters

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As the Copenhagen summit approached last December, Scientific American ran a striking cover story, A Plan for a Sustainable Future. This showed how wind, water and solar power could supply the entire world’s energy needs by 2030. (November 2009) Renewable energy is superabundant. Authors Mark Jacobson of Stanford University and Mark Delucchi of the University of California show that accessible sunlight alone (excluding sunlight that falls on the oceans) could provide more than 40 times the amount of energy being consumed around the world today.

By Pete Mason, Socialist Party

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SP Newsletter No.302

Scandals over the past few months have given rise to people’s concerns about the reliability of scientific evidence on climate change. Recent polls have also suggested that concern about the threat of global warming is weakening in Australia.

In November it was alleged that a series of hacked emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia showed the manipulation and distortion of data. Then in January it was revealed that a report issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) included errors regarding the speed at which the Himalayan glaciers are melting.

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SP Newsletter No.296

Recent opinion polls have shown that support for an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) remains at just over 70%, despite 70% of respondents admitting they “don’t know enough” about Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).

This coincides with 76% of Australians being ‘concerned’ about climate change, with over half the population seeing it as a ‘critical threat’.

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“a historic failure that will live in infamy”

The UN conference on climate change (Cop15), held in Copenhagen 7-18 December, was a fiasco. The Independent called it “a historic failure that will live in infamy”. After years of preparation, the representatives of 193 countries discussed and wrangled for two weeks. In the closing hours, leaders such as Barak Obama and Wen Jinbao (plus Rudd and Brown) flew in, supposedly to break the deadlock.

Editorial from February 2009 edition of Socialism Today

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SP Newsletter No.291
The Labor Party’s approach to climate change is about pretending to do something while in reality protecting the big polluters. It is a policy of spin instead of substance. At least the climate change deniers in the Coalition are honest!

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SP Newsletter No.289
Climate change and drought are big issues for most Australians. Many are concerned about global warming and are looking for solutions. Unfortunately, instead of pinning the blame on big business, some people are blaming environmental problems on immigration and population increase.

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World leaders are to meet in Copenhagen this December to hammer out a successor to the Kyoto Protocol in an attempt to control greenhouse gas emissions. But after their failure to reach the modest target set at Kyoto of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 5.2% from 1990 levels we should not expect that whatever agreement they reach will seriously tackle the threat of climate change.

By Daniel Waldron, Socialist Party

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On the 20th anniversary of 1989…
When the Berlin wall was dismantled in 1989 and Stalinist regimes came crashing down, capitalism declared itself victorious. The collapse of Stalinism was used in a global ideological offensive against socialism, which was unjustly equated with that dictatorial, bureaucratic system, to drive through brutal, neo-liberal capitalist policies worldwide. In this article Peter Taaffe looks back at the incredible events of 1989 and their consequences.

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According to a new study by the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology, the worst drought ever seen in south east Australia is a direct consequence of global warming.

By Kirk Leonard, Socialist Party

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