Royce Kurmelovs

@roycerk2.bsky.social

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Journalist. Author of The Death of Holden (2016), Just Money (2020) and others.

For more me: https://www.roycekurmelovs.com/

Pre-order Slick (2024) now: https://www.slickthebook.com.au/

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I've been digging into how, from the very beginning, the oil and gas industry courted Australian journalists -- and how they sought to use their skills to quell public dissent on environmental issues. Here's my write-up of the latest materials I found:

Raising Hell: Issue 84: Encouraging the Careful Use of Petroleum Productsroycekurmelovs.substack.com "My belief is, we will, in fact be greeted as liberators" - Dick Cheney, former Vice President and head of Haliburton, Meet The Press with Tim Russert, March 16, 2003

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Climate plans of Australian companies would be exempt from private litigation for three years under Albanese government proposal. Part of mandatory climate disclosure legislation before the Senate.

Climate plans of Australian companies would be exempt from private litigation for three years under proposalwww.theguardian.com Bill praised for targeting corporate climate responsibility but lawyers say it could allow polluters to avoid public scrutiny for longer

Based on what we know so far, a Republican shot a Presidential Republican nominee and killed two Republican supporters, and the response from Democrats is to remind the public how their candidate has been attacking his own base over protests against the ongoing attack on Gaza. Do I have that right?

Biden, Democrats scramble after Trump rally shooting upends campaignwww.reuters.com U.S. President Joe Biden's reelection campaign is scrambling for a new strategy after an assassination attempt on Republican rival Donald Trump in western Pennsylvania, including deciding to call off verbal attacks on the former president for now.

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July 15, 1972 – "Soviet Weekly" quotes Mikhail Budyko... “In the past few decades C02 in the atmosphere has risen by 1-15 per cent, and it is still rising. Most of it comes from the burning of 1,000 million tonnes of coal a year." allouryesterdays.info/2024/07/14/j...

July 15, 1972 - Soviet Weekly on how man affects the weather… - All Our Yesterdaysallouryesterdays.info Fifty two years ago, on this day, July 15th, 1972, Soviet Weekly runs a piece based on comments by Mikhail Budyko, “How Man affects the weather.” “In the past few decades the carbon dioxide in the ear...

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In Spartacus news ⚔️, archaeologist Paolo Visona's team in the Dossone della Melia forest in Calabria (S. Italy, across from Messina) have likely found the Roman fossa & agger (ditch and mound) defensive system erected by Crassus' men to stop Spartacus' troops. www.archaeological.org/wall-built-t...

News - Wall Built to Contain Spartacus Discovered - Archaeological Institute of Americawww.archaeological.org AIA News news from the AIA

Visiting Cyprus last year reinforced two things for me: 1) far right authoritarians can't judge risk and 2) you can't trust Henry Kissinger.

"One of the main problems was that memories of what had virtually been a civil war where the British recruited Turkish Cypriots and some Greek Cypriots firmly believed in their Athens-backed enosis dream, were too recent."

‘Turkish troops fired on our hotel, the invasion had begun’: 50 years after Cyprus was torn apartwww.theguardian.com In July 1974, Colin Smith was the Observer’s correspondent in Cyprus. Five decades on, he recalls paratroopers dropping from the skies and a grand hotel under siege

Your timely reminder that it is sometimes okay not to post.

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flood protection is just one of a huge range of benefits that could be had from building this infrastructure everywhere and more people should know about these

Montreal's sponge parks, designed in a way to deviate as much rain water as possible away from the sewers, have saved a bunch of areas from flooding due to Beryl's rainfall. So you get really nice parks in a major city, with a bonus against flooding. They're making more of them now and I love it

Montreal sponge parks soak up the stormmontreal.ctvnews.ca After over 100 millimetres of rain pummelled Montreal Wednesday evening, some Montreal streets saw less flooding, and sponge parks played a big part in soaking up the precipitation.

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If you're in Australia, may I direct you to an incredibly nifty little site: yourbookstore.io You can search for any book you like, and it will tell you the nearest bookstore where it is stocked. And noting many independent bookstores will mail out online orders as well. Books! Near you!

Home - yourbookstore.ioyourbookstore.io Find the book you are looking for in a local bookstore.

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🚨The UK's new energy secretary, Ed Miliband, has ordered a ban on new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.

Ed Miliband orders immediate ban on new drilling in North Seawww.thenational.scot ED Miliband has ordered an immediate ban on new drilling in the North Sea, overruling his own officials.

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the state of journalism.

👀

Prosecutors investigate National Rally campaign fundingwww.bbc.com Marine Le Pen has not yet commented on the probe, announced two days after her party came third in France's legislative election.

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This will be an interesting day to reflect on in the future. "Battery cells at $50/kWh means the technology to decarbonize most of road transport globally is already here, as opposed to in some future scenario." EVs are cheaper than ICE now. Today.

China’s Batteries Are Now Cheap Enough to Power Huge Shiftswww.bloomberg.com We no longer need to model for when cell prices drop far enough to decarbonize road transport. That day is here.

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1/? WWII story time. In the 90s I was part of a Danish program where high school students interviewed surviving resistance fighters and got their stories written down. Two of the men I interviewed had been part of one of the largest and most dramatic actions taken by the resistance.

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The Third Avenue Bridge between the Bronx and Manhattan is stuck open due to overheating. The 120-year-old bridge's metal components expanded in Monday's 90-degree heat 🥵 📷 @NYCFireWire

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Can we air condition our way out of extreme heat? A primer on air conditioning from The Climate Brink www.theclimatebrink....

Can we air condition our way out of extreme heat?www.theclimatebrink.com part 1: a primer on air conditioning

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The creeping authoritarianism in Australia is really bleak. HRLC examines two decades of governments eroding the right to protest. "These laws have disproportionately targeted environmental defenders and people advocating for action on climate change." www.hrlc.org.au/reports-news...

Protest in Peril | Human Rights Law Centrewww.hrlc.org.au The Protest in Peril report analyses and compiles every single bill across Australia over the last two decades which has impacted upon the right to protest, and has found the right to protest is bei...

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"The new Labour government is expected to drop a bid to delay the international criminal court (ICC) reaching a decision on whether to issue an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in Gaza." elections have consequences www.theguardian.com/law/article/...

Labour expected to drop challenge to ICC over Netanyahu arrest warrantwww.theguardian.com Exclusive: UK government appears unlikely to go ahead with legal bid, while Keir Starmer has spoken with Israeli PM over Gaza ceasefire

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Bernard Looney plots Abu Dhabi comeback from BP scandal https://www.ft.com/content/04ff003f-e986-47ae-9cd5-6d28fe5cb5a4

Bernard Looney plots Abu Dhabi comeback from BP scandalwww.ft.com Adnoc’s Sultan al-Jaber has discussed projects with ex-CEO following exit from oil major

Today I learned "gift" is the German word for "poison".

"Applying a conservative estimate [...] it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. Using the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2 375 259, this would translate to 7·9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip."

Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essentialwww.thelancet.com By June 19, 2024, 37 396 people had been killed in the Gaza Strip since the attack by Hamas and the Israeli invasion in October, 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, as reported by the UN Offi...

Apropos of nothing, that WWII French partisan anthem slaps.

Song of The French Resistance - "Le Chant Des Partisans"youtu.be Widely recognized as the unofficial anthem of Free France, Le Chant Des Partisans is one of the most well known patriotic songs within France.

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Well this is grim

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Christian nationalist takeover attempt of Idaho town: A fundamentalist congregation wants to make Moscow an explicitly Christian city, governed by Biblical principles https://idahocapitalsun.com/2024/07/05/new-extremely-american-podcast-tackles-christian-nationalism-through-story-of-an-idaho-town/

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the ayn rand foundation has a scholarship which i was encouraged to apply for. you were to read a specific novel, fountainhead for my grade, and write an essay abt it i thought it was very funny to write an essay about a “never compromise or beg” book, in the hopes of appealing to others for money

"In private, weeks earlier, [Cameron] responded furiously to the plan to seek warrants, calling it "crazy" because Khan's team had not yet visited Israel and Gaza, and threatening in a phone call with Khan to pull Britain out of the court and cut financial support to it[...]"

Exclusive: ICC prosecutor opted for warrants over visit to Gazawww.reuters.com On May 20, the same day International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan made a surprise request for warrants to arrest the leaders of Israel and Hamas involved in the Gaza conflict, he suddenly cancelled a sensitive mission to collect evidence in the region, eight people with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

"One Nation has already recruited McCallum, who has been preselected as its candidate for Gympie. This was not disclosed at the Kilcoy meeting."

‘There’s angry people out there’: Inside the renewable energy resistance in regional Australiawww.theguardian.com In community meetings and Facebook groups, true stories of mismanaged projects mesh with conspiracy theories to build distrust against the renewable energy rollout