Jennifer Marohasy

By 2011-12, carbon emission-related direct and indirect hand-outs for industry will constitute about half the total of overall Australian Government help to industry.  In short, business has a new trough into which it can aim its ravenous snout. And lobbyists, industry associations and political parties will benefit.  Read more.

Every penny that leaves the hands of consumers does so by design, the final step in elaborate and often brilliant orchestrations of public policy, all the more brilliant because the public, for the most part, does not know who is profiteering on climate change, or who is aiding and abetting the profiteers.  Read more here.

President Nicolas Sarkozy’s desire to appoint an outspoken climate-change sceptic to a new French super-ministry of industry and innovation has drawn strong protests from party colleagues and environmentalists… Putting him in charge of scientific research would be tantamount to “giving the finger to scientists”, said Nicolas Hulot, France’s best-known environmental activist.  Read more here.

“SOME business leaders are cozying up with politicians and scientists to demand swift, drastic action on global warming. This is a new twist on a very old practice: companies using public policy to line their own pockets.
“The tight relationship between the groups echoes the relationship among weapons makers, researchers and the U.S. military during the [...]

Philanthropist Jeremy Grantham has given British universities £24m in a bid to save the planet … and Nicholas Stern £12m for climate change economics and Copenhagen…  Read more here.

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch expects News Corporation-owned newspaper Web sites to start charging users for access within a year in a move which analysts say could radically shake-up the culture of freely available content.  Read more here.