Recently The Australian Environment Foundation handed out it’s first set of awards.
Timber company, Gunns Limited, has won a national environmental award for the management of grasslands and an endangered butterfly species in Tasmania’s north-west.
The award was given out by the Australian Environment Foundation, which was launched last year.
The foundation promotes itself as a science and evidence-based environmental movement. It has links to the Institute of Public Affairs and the timber industry.
So let me get this right, a new enviro org is launched and a year later two of it’s three awards goes to a timber company and a hunting group?
Don’t tell me, the AEF took an evidence-based, solution focused approach to the award process.
“It has links to the Institute of Public Affairs and the timber industry.”
Next Chopper Read will join up with the Melbourne mafia types, who will stop shooting each other for a few minutes and set up a “Crime Prevention Association”. Then they can all give each other awards for service to the comunity.
Why does this even qualify as news?
Surely the ABC editors should just throw this out like they for the hundreds of crap press releases they get a day from all sorts of PR groups and such.
sorry
‘like they do’
“two of it’s three awards” should be “two of its three awards” – [/grammar nazi]
If you look at the list of Conference sponsors, you find that one of them is the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania. And Gunns (Tasmania’s biggest forest industry player) wins one of the three AEF environmental awards. There’s nothing else to say, is there?
Yep Paul, agricultural chemical and seed in Monsanto, Auscott is a cotton industry entity and of course the FIA, absolutely an astroturf organisation.
The Daintree Saltwater Barra’s look yummy though.
Don Burke should be ashamed of himself for fronting this org.
I agree with michael, it should never even qualify as news but maybe the satirist news editors could have a field day with Gunns the woodchippers winning a grasslands award.
A superbly mounted stuffed possum, courtesy of 1080 poisoning over clear-felled wood coups is the prize.
Pablo and Michael, this qualifies as news not in a media sense but in that it further represents how these orgs are established to work against a general concensus of opinion on a range of issues.
Exxon funding climate denialists for example, and as was recently shown on Four Corners, Amcor vs forestry groups.
This award just greenwashes Gunns actual track record in relation to green and forestry issues in Tasmania.
I don’t see the analogy stretching to the hunting group, if their effort was a genuine conservation move rather than a token pr stunt as per Gunns.
That being said yes, I agree with the overall observation that AEF is a bit of a fraud.
It is odd that Don Burke has chosen to chair the AEF. In his AEF conference speech he said
“The greatest threat is us: myself, all of you here today and everyone else. We are all aware that animal and plant species are becoming extinct at a cataclysmically rapid rate. We are aware that
vast areas of our planet are being damaged. We know that we are not managing our planet well at
all.”
I asked IPA heavy and fellow AEF director Jennifer Marohasy whether she agreed with this statement. Her reply:
“I’ve a less pessimistic view on these issues than Don – as you know from reading me at this blog and as you would see if you read my paper from the conference.” http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001663.html#comments
Well that’s putting it mildly. Almost every post on her blog seeks to downplay environmental concerns. I’m thinking seriously about setting up my own blog to counteract the arguments of shills like Marohasy.
Aquaculture http://www.daintreesaltwaterbarramundi.com.au/
Cotton farming http://www.auscott.com.au/Graphic_About_Auscott.html
Old Growth logging http://www.fiatas.com.au/
GMO, pesticides, herdicides http://www.monsanto.com.au/layout/default.asp
Irrigated agriculture http://www.murrayirrigation.com.au/
Don Burke famous for wearing a beard and woolly jumpers on TV
Jennifer Marohasy (IPA) is on the board! âSince July 2003 Jennifer has been Director of the Environment Unit at the Institute of Public Affairsâ?
Kersten Gentle âKersten is currently the Victorian State Manager of Timber Communities Australiaâ?
Rita Bentley âRita has been a volunteer lobbyist on behalf of public land users in Victoria for many years through both the Prospectors and Miners Association and also the Bush Users Group. Rita is currently president of the Prospectors & Miners Association and secretary of the Bush Users Group, a coalition of peak bodies involved in public land access.â?
Dr Peter Ridd who is quoted by fellow board member (undisclosed) Marohasy âDr Peter Ridd from Townsvilles James Cook University (JCU) today challenged the widely held view that one of the world’s most important natural assets is in serious decline.He said the reef, which other scientists predict could be wiped out within 30 years due to global climate change, was in “first rate condition”. http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001209.html
Bronwen Petrie Lives on a cattle farm âThe farm has a lot of native vegetation including native forests from which Bronwyn harvests timber. She is the NSW Farmers Association local Tenterfield branch Chairman, also Executive Councillor and representative on the Private Native Forest Code of Practice committee.â?
Gillian Hogendyk her bio sounds great http://www.aefweb.info/staff.php?id=17, until you realise her partner is Chris Hogendyk âChris Hogendyk, an irrigator and chairman of Macquarie River Food and Fibre (MRFF), ref Marohasy blog again http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001567.html
Leon Ashby is a property rights advocate http://landholders.tripod.com/ and climate change sceptic.
A bit more searching found AEF on a list of greenwash organisations http://www.eco-shout.org/greenwash-organisations.php
This is so good that I just have to share. Flat-earth wingnut columnist Andrew Bolt’s been outed on Crikey for misusing the research of Jeff Severinghaus, Professor of Geosciences at UCSD.
Crikey link here: http://www.crikey.com.au/
Story reads:
Andrew Bolt abused my research: climate scientist:
Sophie Black writes
Anti-global warming columnist Andrew Boltâs recent column “Bulled by a Gore” forensically picked apart Al Goreâs film An Inconvenient Truth by scattering a number of references to studies by eminent scientists through his argument. But one of those scientists is now accusing Bolt of citing his research in a âgross distortion of scientific findingsâ?.
In his column (published in the Herald Sun and the Brisbane Sunday Mail in September), Bolt quoted the findings of Jeff Severinghaus, Professor of Geosciences at the University of California, San Diego:
Gore says ice cores from Antarctica, that go back 650,000 years, show the world got warmer each time there was more carbon dioxide in the air. In fact, as the University of California’s Professor Jeff Severinghaus and others note, at least three studies of ice cores show the earth first warmed and only then came more carbon dioxide, many hundreds of years later. So does extra carbon dioxide cause a warming world, or vice versa?
Severinghaus told Crikey that he doesnât make a habit of GoGooglingis own research, but Bolt appeared on his radar when a librarian in Brisbane wrote to him asking if âIâd really meant what Bolt said I meantâ?.
He didnât. âMany, many other studies have found that carbon dioxide causes the earth to warm. This is not controversial, and to continue to deny it is akin to denying that cigarette smoking causes cancer,â? SeveriSeveringhausCrikeyCrikey evidence for a human-caused warming of the globe is overwhelming. The scientific debate is over, and what we are seeing now is an attempt to mislead the public.â?
Severinghaus explained how Bolt had been slippery with the facts, “…Bolt omitted the key piece of information that the warmings took 5,000 years, thus misleading the reader into thinking that carbon dioxide was not warming at the same time as temperature and thus cannot have caused the warming…â?
Severinghaus wrote a letter to the editor of the Sunday Mail, but it was never published. He posted a comment on Boltâs blog but told CrCrikey…effectively I have not been able to make much if any responseâ?.
âAt the very least I would like it to go on record that Bolt’s abuse of my science is not done with my approval,â? says SeveSeveringhausSo is the professor sick of having his research misrepresented in the press? âMy research actually mostly isn’t misrepresented,â? he told CrikCrikeyut it is sometimes misrepresented on climate-denialdenialisttes. I suspect, though do not know, that Bolt got the info from a climate-denialdenialistste.â?
Crikey contacted Andrew Bolt this morning for a response, but he did not respond.
Oh yes. HA!
We can now look forward to all manner of obscurantist convoluted responses from La Bolta as he attempts to extract himself from the large dinosaur turd that so recently emanated from his nether regions.
Jaysus.
Use that preview function.
We are going to see more and more of this sort of thing as right wing industry linked groups copy what they see are the tactics of the left, and set up ‘communmity groups’ of their own. We have seen the fishing industry fund and lend assistance to groups of recreational fishers against marine parks and no fishing zones, for example. So, you guys. You know something of what to expect for the future.
Cheers…
Yeah, saw that Christine, just had a look at the Bolt one man denialist machine at work in his global cooling thread and he’s taking quite a few hits over this.
Put plainly, he clearly misrepresentented the scientists work, got caught out and continues to stick to his story no matter the consequences. To his credit all the negatives have been posted but I don’t think he’s taking it well.
Actually, it was only a matter of time before he got nailed like this. Serves him right.
I wonder what they hope to achieve with the awards? I mean, they’re not fooling us, they’re surely not fooling each other, perhaps they want to get media attention & fool the masses? But are they getting the attention?
Yeah, what’s with these guys?
Dont they ever pause and think “Hang on, Im gonna look a real jackass in 20 years time if it turns out the scientists were right”.
Google “arseclown” in 2030, and you’ll get a full bio, with pics.
Trackback.
You can tell the AEF is an astroturf organistion just by their use of Copperplate Bold crudely superimposed over a botched mishmash of a tree silhouette and the Southern Cross.
If you want to be a serious player in today’s very semiotically literate world, you don’t hire your 16 year old cousin to design a logo that can’t be easily reproduced on the merch. Even punctured teenage feral logging protesters are more sophisicated than that.
Of course Gunns deserve their award for “grasslands management”. I mean, they’re in the business of creating grasslands, no?
This is quite a useful site
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Australian_Environment_Foundation
“It is odd that Don Burke has chosen to chair the AEF”
Odd, indeed. He has guested more than once on Jon Faine, ABC.
‘Passionate’ is the only way you could describe him on the issue of global warming. I have heard him, more than once, take on denyers with extreme vigour. Maybe they have employed the other aussie icon, named ‘Don Burke’, who lives somewhere near the back of ………
whois aefweb.info
Admin Name: Marohasy Jennifer, Admin Street1: PO Box 246, Admin City: Healesville, Admin State/Province: VIC, Admin Postal Code: 3777, Admin Country: AU, Admin Phone: 61.0359621874
Timber Communities Australia – PO Box 246, 333 Maroondah Highway, Healsville VIC 3777, Tel: (03) 5962 1874
- So what if these 2 genuine grassroots community organisations have the same PO Box and Telephone? No conspiracy here, please move along…
Some relevant information about Chris and Gill Hogendyk can be found here: http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002193.html
From Media Watch: Episode 07, 19 March 2012, The last word.