River Murray records lowest flows ever. An average month for rainfall across the River Murray catchments was not enough to stop the trend of the lowest flows into the system on record. [ABC News: Breaking Stories]
Category Archives Economics
ALGA Publishes 2006 State of the Regions Report. The Australian Local Government Association [ALGA]released it's highly valuable State of the Regions Report yesterday, 27th November. The survey of Australia's 64 regions is commissioned annually by the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) from National Economics. This is the 9th survey undertaken by National Economics. Editors Note: The Central Ranges LLEN Board…
Science in the News - Friday 10 November. The UN's annual Human Development Report highlights lack of access to clean water and sanitation as possibly the greatest developmental challenge facing humanity. By press@royalsoc.ac.uk. [The Royal Society Press Releases]
The debate is over.... Shell Oil, Energy Resources and Global Warming. John Hofmeister, President of Shell Oil, USA, speaks about Shell's position on energy conversation and Global Warming. The speech was made at the Washington University, St. Louis, USA in September 2006. The Mp3 of the speech can be heard here. [Mp3] [The Whalesong Project: Whalelog] Archive
Peter McMahon, writing in the On line Opinion presents an intriguing position that... The radical impact of new information technologies and the rise of the global crises (global warming, peak oil and the like) are forcing a new kind of politics into being. He suggests [as many of us would agree] that twenty-first century society will be defined by the…
The number of people employed in Queensland's mining industry is increasing at a rapid rate. Link: Job numbers soar in Qld's mining industry: ABS. [Source: ABC News: Business Stories]
An ongoing, recurring and avoidable national disgrace.... Children are among the highest users of a government-funded program for the homeless, a report says. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) report shows of the almost 160,000 people who accessed government-funded accommodation last year, 43 per cent were children. The Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP) is a shared responsibility of…
A Net Energy Parable Revisited. (**Note: This was my first main post on TOD. It was an anecdotal attempt at showing how scaling of lower energy gain renewables might have deleterious wide boundary impacts on society. The core principles behind this story remain intact and relevant). Besides water, energy is the most important substance for life on the planet. For…
A very interesting discussion on ABC radio regarding new models of infrastructure funding and the sustainability of the programmes. Macquarie Bank's bosses have made millions by buying and running toll roads and airports and it's the world's biggest name in infrastructure. But there are questions about whether its pioneering model for financing these assets is sustainable. Investor groups are shunning…