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When the right-wing press isn’t hacking the voicemail of murdered teenagers, much of its energy goes to denouncing “green extremists”. You know, the ones who’d destroy our economy just to claw back a few tonnes of greenhouse emissions. So what would Rupert Murdoch, Andrew Bolt and their whole tribe prefer be done, in practice and in the near term, to stop global warming? Let’s be honest — nothing. Cutting emissions, they implicitly argue, will inevitably cost more than if society lets carbon polluters get on with what they do best.

— Evidently there is progress in Northern Territory prescribed communities. The Prime Minister has visited and she says so. The mainstream media report so. Indeed what the Prime Minister says is remarkably similar to what Jenny Macklin has been saying for some time: there is progress.

Australia’s dirty future Australian taxpayers, at their own expense, are receiving copies of the Labor government’s 20-page document entitled “Clean energy future, What a carbon price means to you”. Unfortunately this scientifically-illiterate document contains a falsehood of commission or omission on nearly every page.

On August 7, 50 sex and gender diverse and transgender people gathered in Petersham in Sydney’s inner west at a “Save the Drop-In” BBQ. The event was in response to the Gender Centre — the only community service provider for transgender people in Sydney — closed a cornerstone of its service: the weekly “Drop-In” service. The drop-in attracted about 40 people each week. It was held in the evening and food was provided. The service accounted for 28% of the Gender Centre’s client contacts, according to the Centre’s 2010 annual report.

Residents from the Putty Valley, 150 kilometres northwest of Sydney, are outraged at the news that coal seam gas drilling will begin in their rural community on August 15. An August 10 statement on the website said residents heard about the drilling start date only after a local resident called mining company Dart Energy about a different matter.