Australian ABC Radio National Saturday Extra reports national and international affairs. The Australian taxpayer-funded ABC egregiously censors reality and consumer comments. This page has been set up in the public interest to record comments I have made to Saturday Extra programs and any censorship of these comments by the ABC (such censored comments are indicated as such and printed IN BOLD below for clarity).
On 21 April 2012 ABC Radio National Saturday Extra reported on Australia’s energy future: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/saturdayextra/australia27s-energy-future/3962864 . My comments:
“There is an urgent need for Australia to get to 100% renewable energy before 2020. Thus in 2009 the WBGU which advises the German government on climate change estimated that for a 75% chance of avoiding a 2C temperature rise (EU policy; would you board a plane with a 25% chance of it crashing?) the world must emit no more than 600 billion tonnes of CO2 between 2010 and zero emissions in 2050. Australia's Domestic plus Exported greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution is so great that it had exceeded its fair share of this global terminal GHG pollution budget by mid-2011 and is now stealing the entitlement of impoverished countries like Somalia and Bangladesh.
Further, having achieved zero GHG emissions from industry and from agriculture that alone is over 50% of the problem, the world has the problem of reducing atmospheric CO2 from the present damaging and dangerous 392 parts per million (ppm) to a safe and sustainable 300 ppm CO2 through biochar production from cellulosic waste, re-afforestation and renewable energy-based CO2 sequestration (for expert scientific advice Google "300.org" and "300 ppm CO2").
Here are 3 estimates of the cost of Australia achieving roughly 100% renewable energy by 2020: (1) $370 billion (40% wind, 60% solar thermal with molten salts energy storage for 24/7 operation; Google BZE for Beyond Zero Emissions' "Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan"); (2) $252 billion (a mix of wind, solar thermal and other sources, with hydrological energy storage; Professor Peter Seligman, Google "Australian Sustainable Energy- by the numbers"), and (3) $144-$200 billion (for 260,000 GWh wind, excluding extra transmission and energy storage costs; Dr Gideon Polya, Google "2011 Climate Change Course".”
On 21 April 2012 ABC Radio National Saturday Extra reported on “Quality universities”: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/saturdayextra/dumb-unis3f/3960938 . My comments:
“University entrance scores and university standards already variously fell as a result of the so-called Dawkinization of Australian universities (the fusion of quality, research-based universities with generally not research-based but vocationally-oriented Colleges of Advanced Education) under John Dawkins, Minister for Employment, Education and Training, 1987-1991, in the Hawke Labor Government and thence Treasurer, 1991-1993, in the Keating Labor Government. Is further Dawkinization and dollar-driven dumbing down of our universities now adumbrated by the Gillard Labor Government?
Australian universities were in a bad way a decade after Dawkins due to Dawkinization and a squeeze on funding by successive philistine governments - for details Google "Crisis in our universities" (2001) and for a link to "Academic censorship and self-censorship in Australian universities" (2001) see "The Age censors informed, credentialled intellectual comments on Australia intellectuals" by Googling "Censorship by The Age". I should note that I have been near-continuously and very happily involved in teaching university science students at a very good Australian university for about 40 years. One is appalled at the current situation at the University of Sydney where academics are apparently being sacked for not meeting the seriously flawed, "bean counter" demand that they publish 4 papers over 3 years (Google "Sydney University academics speak out").”