Author Archive: roman

Friends of the Earth Adelaide > Articles by: roman

Tell the Albanese government: it’s time for a national Energy Transition Authority!

September 5, 2022

Australia has traditionally relied on coal fired power stations to meet its energy needs. This is now rapidly changing, as renewable energy and storage becomes cheaper and older coal fired power stations become ever more expensive to run and less reliable. 

Friends of the Earth has long argued for the need for a national Just Transition Authority

Now, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has issued a call for the Albanese government to establish an independent and properly resourced national Energy Transition Authority to manage an orderly and fair transition process for affected workers – including support for redeployment, skills and training, and secure job opportunities.

Friends of the Earth supports this call and encourages our members and supporters to sign the letter below, which will go to the prime minister Anthony Albanese.

You can find details on the ACTU proposal in their Secure Jobs for a Safer Climate report.

Tell the Albanese government: it’s time for a national Energy Transition Authority!
Send a letter

Adelaide FoE Notes, Clean Futures, Climate

Tell the Government they should Dump the dump!

September 5, 2022

Email Decision Makers to Dump the Dump

The Federal Labor Government has inherited an abusive relationship from the Morrison Government. One where the Morrison Government was trying to impose its toxic nuclear waste onto the fertile lands of the Barngarla Traditional Owners and local farming community, without their consent. When the Traditional Owners spoke up, the government tried to silence them.

Now the Labor Government is facing a legal challenge, which if they choose to fight it, would undermine the Uluru Statement of the Heart and call into question the government’s commitment to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

Instead, an inquiry should be initiated to advise on future options for radioactive waste management and to consider related matters such as the suitability of the National Radioactive Waste Management Act. The Act is viciously racist, and problematic in other ways, and needs to be repealed or heavily amended.

Urge the Labor decision makers to Dump the Dump and abandon the nuclear waste dump plans before this gets any more ugly.

Email Decision Makers here

 

Adelaide FoE Notes, Clean Futures, Nuclear

celebrate 50 years of FoE!

August 17, 2022

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the creation of the first Friends of the Earth group in Australia, one at Adelaide University in 1972.

Next week is Sustainability Week at Adelaide Uni, so with the help of the students there, we’re talking about the early days of FoE in the Unibar  — entry from the Cloisters, level 2 (ground level) —  from 7pm Monday, August 22nd.

We invite Friends to join us for nibbles from 6:30pm. We’ll start the programme at 7pm.

7pm: Introduction and Welcome

then Early days at Adelaide Uni — slideshow by Roman Orszanski, followed by discussion.

7:30 Paul Downton via Zoom talking about a fragment of EcoCity at Christie Walk

8pm Jim Green talking about Chain Reaction and various Anti Nuclear campaigns

8:30 Film about the Barngarla traditional owners fight against the Nuclear waste dump

FoE, Old_Notes

How a great big tax on fossil fuel profits could fix Australia’s energy crisis

August 17, 2022

Jim Regan writes (
A leading environmental and economic think tank is calling for urgent fossil fuel industry tax reforms that could add hundreds of billions of dollars to government coffers, accelerate decarbonisation on a national level, and even help to fix the current energy market crisis.

The report, by Climate Energy Finance, offers a scathing review of how everyday Australians lose out due to the favourable financial treatment of coal and gas companies.

It says that closing Australia’s tax loopholes for multinational corporations, introducing export levies and overhauling longstanding fossil fuel subsidy and rebate schemes could raise $322 billion in tax and royalty income over the coming decade.

Hyper-inflated fossil fuel commodity prices and large profits being reported by the companies that produce them has led to widespread calls in Australia for reforms to force corporations to pay billions of dollars more in annual taxes and forego hefty rebates.

“It beggars belief that companies that say they are the backbone of Australia’s budget revenue cry wolf to secure handouts,” said CEF director and senior market analyst Tim Buckley.

The report points to existing tax structures that have allowed the top 20 fossil fuel multinationals to generate $113 billion in revenue but pay only $1.3 billion in corporate tax last year, labeling them “no longer fit for purpose” and failing to deliver projected government returns.
— see full article at reneweconomy.com.au

Climate, Old_Notes

The Workers on the Frontline of Climate Impacts

August 17, 2022

Aug 14, 2022

The Climate Impacts at Work report details that workers are already heavily impacted by climate change – from poorly ventilated kitchens, to accessible housing in heated-surburbia. Anna Langford writes for Chain Reaction #142.

In 2022, we’re already seeing how the impacts of the climate crisis are wreaking havoc on communities. And while a new band of tech billionaires are quick to make pronouncements about broad-sweeping fixes, tackling the climate crisis in a socially just way means putting workers’ rights at the core of solutions.

To ensure this happens, workers need to be a key part of the conversation about what solutions we will embrace to rapidly lower emissions and respond to the climate change impacts that are already locked in. But to open this conversation, we first need to ask the question: What does climate change look like for workers across Victoria?

In October 2021, Friends of the Earth launched the Climate Impacts at Work project with RMIT University and six Victorian unions. Its aim is to conduct pioneering research into the ways that climate impacts are already affecting workers in different industries.

While we may not be able to speak about every aspect of the climate crisis with the detail of those who study it, what we are equipped with are our own stories. With climate change already hitting us here and now, we can speak to it from experiences in our daily lives – like in our workplaces.

With this understanding, the Climate Impacts at Work survey has sought to draw out workers’ local knowledge of climate impacts, and gather their ideas for the climate solutions they want to see. The research will give a picture of how climate change on the ground looks different for transport workers compared with health workers, or for people in Northern Victoria compared with Gippsland or Melbourne.

… Read more >>

Clean Futures, Climate, Old_Notes