One more Australian creature is about to join the red list of those which may disappear because of climate change

If anything was needed to convince Australian governments and all domestic political parties that this continent has run out of time to fiddle about over decisions to back climate change mitigation measures, then the ABC News report on this little marine snail might do the trick.

Tasmanian scientists are concerned a microscopic marine snail species found in the Southern Ocean may soon die out due to climate change.
The scientists say it is field evidence that sea life in the Southern Ocean is being affected by warmer water....
"Many researchers have been assuming we would see this kind of result for the past 50 years and this is the first time we've got a measured response to the changing of the ocean chemistry," she said.
Dr Roberts fears if the snails die out there could be dire effects on the food chain.
"It's interesting to know what's going to happen to commercial fish that eat them because a change in their diet might mean a change in where they actually are living, so it's not just we might loose one variety of snail it actually could change the whole eco-system of the southern ocean.
"That's what we're most worried about that it could completely upset our commercial fish stocks."

I would like to remind Federal Nationals MP for Cowper, Luke Hartsuyker, that the regional economy of the NSW North Coast relies on both commercial and recreational fishers.
Perhaps he might also remember that the many low-income families in the area supplement their diet with fish they catch themselves.

Mr. Hartsuyker needs to think of both his electorate and the nation, before he decides to participate in any stalling tactics that the Federal Opposition may think fit to indulge in when Parliament considers the proposed national emissions trading scheme.

Sadly, this small mollusc joins a long list of Australian species, that are now on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and which may become extinct due to climate change.

Australian 2007 list here.

First round of Federal Government climate change advertising is missing the mark?

Federal Leader of the Opposition (for now at least), Brendan Nelson, has accused the Rudd Government of missing the bigger picture in its multi million dollar climate change ad campaign.

Missing the bigger picture? The current televised ad is nothing except the Big Picture.
A big picture of which 99 per cent of all Australians would already be well aware.

Now is the time for advertising that actually tells us something about the finer details of how global warming is expected to affect our regions and communities.
Now is the time to go into more detail about how the Federal Government intends to proceed.

Whoever convinced the Rudd Government that it should run such a generic and simplistic presentation of the issues has, in my opinion, got it badly and expensively wrong.

As for the Coalition objections to this ad. I doubt whether Howard's planned Clever Climate advertising would have been any different and, this is what makes the Rudd-Wong televised advertisements so disappointing - they weren't elected to be a mere mirror of the Howard Government.

A new hybrid animal sighted roaming the political neighbourhood

Mal (B)rough has taken his bat and ball onto a plane for home, now that the Queensland Liberals and Nats have created that strangest of political hybrids, the Liberal National Party (LNP).

At it's new website the LNP promises:
"Government that is open and honest;
Government that has plans for the future, not just for the next five years but for the next 50 years;
Government that is caring and empathetic;
Government that is in touch and understands what life is like for Queensland families;
Government that builds for the future today, not just talks about it...
And that is what your new LNP will deliver."

A two-man executive currently musters this mob.
X marks the spot of the Draft Constitution and the lengthy amendments are here.

I think that Bleak's daily cartoon in The Australian has it about right.

Slate's interactive guide: Who in the Bush administration broke the law, and who could be prosecuted?

A little 'light' Sunday reading from Slate online magazine last Thursday.

What kind of lawbreaking has happened on President Bush's watch, among his top and mid-level advisers? What hasn't? Who is implicated and who is not? Despite the lack of or*l s*x with an intern, the past seven years have yielded an embarrassment of riches when it comes to potentially prosecutable crimes. We have tried to sketch out a map of who did what and when, with links to the evidence that is public and notes about what we may learn from investigations that are still pending....

Click here for the diagram, and here for a text-only version.