The state and federal governments have given conditional approval for a massive new open-cut coal mine at Breeza on the Liverpool Plains. The Liverpool Plains is one of the most highly productive farming regions in the nation, if not the world. It is where our food comes from. Now Shenhua plan to dig three huge open-cut pits there. 

"It's literally blowing up a 35-square-kilometre hole in the heart of Australian agriculture," said NSW Farmers President Fiona Simson upon hearing news of the mine's approval.

Farmers are fired up, and rightly so. And putting coal mines on farm land is not just an issue that affects farmers. If you eat, you're a partner in farming. As local farmer Andrew Pursehouse says, the future is about dining, not mining.

read more: http://www.landwaterfuture.org.au/farmsnotcoal?utm_campaign=stopshenhua_v2&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sunriseproject

The president of the Pacific Island nation of Kiribati has urged world leaders to adopt a moratorium on building new coal mines.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has previously repudiated calls for a moratorium, claiming it would not help "one iota" if Australia were to stop all of its coal exports.

But president Anote Tong, who is visiting Australia, has called on Mr Turnbull and other world leaders to reconsider the idea.

"I think [Mr Turnbull] should be talking with the scientists," Mr Tong told AM.

"The scientists are really putting forward some very drastic scenarios, which calls for a very urgent and quite substantial commitment by the global community, and we should be doing this in any way possible."

He stressed his nation is "running out of time", ahead of climate change talks in Paris which get underway later this month.

"The science is quite clear. It's not a political argument, it's not an economic argument," he said.

Scientists predict the current pledges on reducing carbon emissions will limit global warming to 2.7 degrees Celsius.

Mr Tong warns his nation is already in big trouble.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-19/kiribati-president-urges-world-leaders-moratorium-coal-mines/6953930

Malcolm Turnbull and Greg Hunt are the now terrorists of the future. Big statement to make but the reality of the scientific data is clear. NO MORE EMISSIONS OF CO2.

The NSW Baird Government has approved the controversial extension to the dud Mt Thorley Warkworth coal mine extension in the Hunter Valley using erroneous financial data, reports Lachlan Barker.

The NSW Planning and Assessment Commission (PAC) has approved the controversial extension to the Mt Thorley Warkworth mine.

This is a blow to the residents ofBulga – the village that will be destroyed by this extension – however the mine’s Operator, Rio Tinto, would be well advised to hold off on celebrations for a while yet.

The residents have vowed to fight on using civil disobedience if necessary and they certainly have grounds to seek redress over this decision.

As it turns out, the supposedly independent PAC used – as usual – hopelessly optimistic financial analysis done, in this case, for Rio Tinto by resource company cheerleaders, BAEconomics.

This financial analysis is subjective to a certain degree, but since a simple two minute check of the coal price and exchange rate shows it’s wrong, one wonders– yet again – just how independent the PAC is.

Thankfully for the people of NSW the Australia Institute (TAI) has provided a more accurate financial analysis, which is shown here:

read more: https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/baird-govt-approves-mt-thorley-warkworth-mine-extension-using-flawed-data,8435

My name is Sarah Ciesiolka and I am a farmer. 

My family lives and farms a few kilometres downstream from Santos’ proposed Narrabri Coal Seam Gas Project in the Pilliga Forest. Each year, year in, year out, our farm produces 50 million potatoes, 1000 tonnes of peanuts and enough wheat to make 3.3 million loaves of bread. We rely entirely on underground water to irrigate our crops, for drinking and for everyday household use.

That is why we are fighting so hard against Santos’ plans for an industrial gasfield near us – the only one now proposed in New South Wales, and why we need your help to stop it.

The risks associated with the CSG industry are so significant that they are considered "uninsurable".

We approached our own insurance company to mitigate the risk of CSG operations in our locality and to safeguard our assets and livelihoods but were advised that this was not possible.

We'd feel like we were completely on our own, if it wasn't for Lock the Gate Alliance.

Lock the Gate is a movement of people like me and people like you, city and country, working together to protect the water, landscapes and people of New South Wales and the whole country.

Thanks to the work of people in my community, Santos' project is terribly delayed and worth nothing to them.

Next week in Sydney, our local group will be in court challenging the approval of their CSG wastewater treatment plant, which the government gave them without proper consideration of the risks.

Lock the Gate will be there with us, bringing city and country people together, united for our love of Australia, its people, its ancient water, its culture and wildlife.

We need you too. Will you join us?

With your help, and the help of Lock the Gate, we can keep my region and its food-producing lands gasfield free.

Thank you,

Sarah Ciesiolka

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Meanwhile in the USA:

"By including human-induced events, our assessment of earthquake hazards has significantly increased in parts of the US," said Mark Petersen, who leads the agency's National Seismic Hazard Mapping Project, in a statement.

The risk is most acute in parts of central Oklahoma and southern Kansas, the epicenter of a fracking boom. According to the new report, the chances of a damaging earthquake (defined as level 6 or greater on the Modified Mercalli Intensity scale) in these areas now range from 5 percent to 12 percent in the next year. Level 6 is considered the threshold at which earthquakes become more than a matter of a few smashed dishes and jolted nerves, causing structural damage in the form of cracked walls and chipped plaster.

However, the researchers say damaging tremors linked to injection wells are unlikely to pack the punch of the strongest earthquakes on the West Coast. The largest earthquake ever in Oklahoma was a magnitude 5.6 on the Richter scale in 2011 centered near the town of Prague, about 40 miles east of Oklahoma City. (A level six MMI corresponds to roughly 5.0 on the Richter scale.) Located near several active injection wells, the trembler injured two people and destroyed more than a dozen homes.

read more: http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2016/03/earthquakes-injection-wells-usgs