Two important books you should read

SCORCHER: THE DIRTY POLITICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE by Clive Hamilton.
HIGH & DRY: JOHN HOWARD, CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE SELLING OF AUSTRALIA'S FUTURE by Guy Pearce.

I attended The Australian Carbon Trading Summit on 25th-27th June 2007 and saw first hand some of the people known as the "Greenhouse Mafia" in action. The big polluters were there pleading their case for special concessions and compensation. Brad Page from the Energy Supply Association of Australia and Ron Knapp of the Australian Aluminium Council are just two of the gang who have run the Federal Government's greenhouse policy for years. The way they have denied climate change and then delayed the introduction of an meaningful action is clearly outlined in these two books. Unfortunately for the Prime Minister, he is implicated as the chief denier and delayer of action. This wouldn't be so bad if it was just some everyday policy. But Climate Change is about the physical safety of citizens and their security. It is about the protection of the infrastructure that makes a consumer society possible.

The Carbon Coalition urges all interested in justice for farmers -and the dangerous way our future is being toyed with - to read these two books. The first book deals with issues that first sufaced on 4Corners. The second is written by as career Liberal Party insider who stumbled across the conspiracy to deny Australia a chance to head off climate disaster in time.

The conspiracy the Carbon Coalition has detected among federal ministers, industry research bodies and association executives is confirmed by these two books.

The Sydney Morning Herald's Environment Writer Wendy Frew: "Clive Hamilton, a long-term critic of the Federal Government, argues that it is partly Howard's heavy reliance on bureaucrats closely aligned to fossil fuel industries and his close personal relationships with coal, oil and aluminium smelting chief executives that has led him to protect them.

That protection, Hamilton says, has come at the expense of renewable industries, the gagging of government scientists, and confusion in the public mind about the seriousness of the threat posed by climate change.

"In the tight little world of greenhouse lobbying, the Prime Minister saw nothing improper in going to the country's biggest greenhouse polluters to ask them what the Government should do about greenhouse policy, without extending the same opportunity to other industries, not to mention environment groups and independent experts," he writes

I have posted a link to an extract of High & Dry. (http://www.highanddry.com.au/extract.cfm)

As a result of reading these books and 18 months pursuing the soil carbon objective of the Coalition, we have decided that I will stand as a candidate for the Climate Change Coalition in the next federal election (probably November) in the seat of Parkes (the old Gwydir) which stretches from the Queenland border to south of Mudgee.

Our objective will be to fly the flag for soil carbon and use the awareness-raising opportunities to spread the word in the seat. The perfect outcome would be taking the hands of the sceptics of the tiller of the ship of state.

Tilting at windmills? No. Promoting them.

Where the Greens call for the immediate cessation of burning coal (a complete denial of the free market), we have a saner alternative: continue to mine coal in Australia, but instead of selling it to 'dirty coal' burners, we restrict sales to clean coal power plants. IE. we stockpile a valuable resource and sell it only when we can be 100% sure we are not poisoning the atmosphere.

HELP NEEDED: We will need help of all kinds - fundraising, event organising, manning voting stations, etc. If you want to take some positive action about our climate, please call 02 6374 0329 or 0417 280 540.