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Crunch time for Great Southern forestry assets
30/10/2009 10:48:00 AM
GREAT Southern's club banks - which include Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group and Mizuho - met in Melbourne yesterday to nut out the best possible options regarding the varied proposals for the failed group's forestry assets.
According to The Australian Financial Review Great Southern receiver McGrathNicol is believed to have been there, too, passing along information on the three proposals from Gunns, Black Tree and Pulpwood Plantations, which are all keen on becoming a new responsible entity in some form or another.

Several other parties are believed to be interested in purchasing just the land, and still others may be partnering to do both.




Tussle with banks to decide Great Southern's future
26/10/2009 11:03:00 AM
The future of Great Southern's billion-dollar forestry assets has come down to a tussle between the failed company's banks and bidders for its management rights.
According to The Australian Financial Review, more than 40,000 grower investors are waiting on a final proposal from Gunns after receiving bids from Black Tree Proprietary and Pulpwood Plantations earlier this month.

Behind the bids for management rights, the real game is for Great Southern's land - 190,000 hectares of prime freehold.

Gunns's offer is expected to be made this week but it is taking longer than anticipated as the banks try to save as much of their security over the land assets as they can.




Carbon crisis, what carbon crisis?
BY EMMA ROBINS
30/10/2009 4:00:00 AM
AUTHOR, science communicator and public speaker Joanne Nova knows the world has warmed in the past century, but unlike many scientists in her field, she doesn't put the warming down to carbon.


In an "exposing the carbon fraud" presentation to members of the public and the Council of National Interest in Perth recently, Ms Nova showed attendees how scientists from around the world are proving that carbon has minimal impact on raising temperatures.



A self-proclaimed believer in the greenhouse gas crisis from 1990 to 2007 and a former Greens member, Mrs Nova is now what climate change activists call a sceptic.



"As a science communicator, I'm quite embarrassed at how my profession has absolutely let us down with poor standards and good intentions, and people have not been getting the full story," she said.



Ms Nova used scientific findings for the past 10 years as evidence to show there is no carbon crisis and that something else is causing global warming.



Mrs Nova said while computer models predict a 3? rise by 2100, most people don't realise that two thirds of that warming is due to humidity.



"Even if everything the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says is on target, we are only looking at one degree of warming for a doubling of carbon," she said.



"A change in cloud cover of just one per cent undoes all the warming that carbon may cause.



"Is it worth redoing our entire economy from scratch to prevent one degree, of which we've already had half?



"We're talking about a doubling of carbon since industrial times, so there is no crisis."


Read full story in this week's Farm Weekly.


No doubt growers will want this wrapped up as soon as possible, given McGrathNicol is tipped to be making about $1.5 million a fortnight.

However, sources say the receiver is hoping to have a grower meeting by Christmas and has already checked out venues