September 20, 2006 2:25 AM

AUSTRALIAN PRAYER NETWORK NEWSLETTER

* LAST RITES FOR THE EUTHANASIA DEBATE

* SCIENCE TEMPERS FEARS ON CLIMATE CHANGE IN AUSTRALIA

LAST RITES FOR THE EUTHANASIA DEBATE

A decade after the Northern Territory voluntary euthanasia

legislation was thrown out by Canberra, the euthanasia issue has

stalled. Evidence of its demise can be found in the propaganda put

out by Philip Nitschke, Australia’s self-styled euthanasia

guru. Despite his claims to the contrary, there is no compelling evidence that enough Australians want a change to the law. Barely a dozen people, joined by two dogs, marked the 10th

anniversary of the voluntary euthanasia legislation’s enactment in

Darwin recently. However, this doesn’t mean Nitschke is giving up.

Many backing voluntary euthanasia see it as a fight by the secular

against the religious. It is, of course, nothing of the sort. The suggestion that only the religious are uncomfortable with the concept of doctors being given

the qualified power to kill patients, including infants in Europe, is

glib. The idea that the religious are somehow clouded by their

beliefs is no more than a convenient wedge used by Nitschke to

distort the debate. While religion might motivate some to oppose

voluntary euthanasia, there are many others who find the question

troubling. It is tempting to dismiss Nitschke as irrelevant, but he is in fact a significantly powerful figure in the global debate, influencing

discussion through his New Zealand-based website. That website was

set up across the Tasman in part to evade new federal laws here that

sensibly make it harder to tell people how to kill themselves.

Selling himself as the first doctor in the world to legally and

voluntarily end the life of a patient, Nitschke’s catch-cry is: “A

peaceful death is everybody’s right.” Whilst the steam has gone out of the euthanasia debate there will be support for voluntary euthanasia in the Victorian and federal

parliaments. Given that Labor is about to hand over its power to the

Greens in Victoria’s Upper House, it would be interesting to know

where these candidates stand on the issue. Given that Greens federal

leader Bob Brown received a gong by Nitschke’s organisation, for

services to the right-to-die movement, it is a fair bet Green’s candidates will back the move.

Source: Compiled by APN from media reports

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SCIENCE TEMPERS FEARS ON CLIMATE CHANGE IN AUSTRALIA

The world’s top climate scientists have cut their worst-case forecast for global warming over the next 100 years. A draft report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, offers a more certain projection of climate change than the body’s forecasts five years ago. For the first time, scientists are confident enough to project a 3C rise on the average global daily temperature by the end of this century if no action is taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The Draft Fourth Assessment Report says the temperature increase could be contained to 2C by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are held at current levels. In 2001, the scientists predicted temperature rises of between 1.4C and 5.8C on current levels by 2100, but better science has led them to adjust this to a narrower band of between 2C and 4.5C. The new projections put paid to some of the more alarmist scenarios raised by previous modelling, which had suggested that sea levels could rise by almost 1m over the same period. The report projects a rise in sea levels by century’s end of between 14cm and 43cm, with further rises expected in following centuries caused by melting polar ice. The new projections forecast damage by global warming, such as stronger cyclones, modest sea-level rises and further shrinking of the arctic sea ice. CSIRO research predicts the biggest impact of sea-level changes of this scale would be to increase the effect of storm surges, particularly on Australia’s tropical northern coastline. The forecast temperature rises would also result in lower rainfall over most of the Australian mainland and exacerbate the threat to the survival of coral reefs and shellfish by increasing the risk of bleaching and increasing the acidity of the ocean. A recent Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics report on the cost of cutting greenhouse gas emissions estimated Australians would incur a fall in real wages of about 20 per cent if the nation was to unilaterally cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050. John Howard this week said that sort of scenario would have an “enormously damaging” effect on the economy. “I accept that climate change is a challenge,” the Prime Minister said. “I accept the broad theory about global warming. I am sceptical about a lot of the more gloomy predictions. “I also recognise that a country like Australia has got to balance a concern for greenhouse gas emissions with a concern for the enormous burden that would need to be carried by consumers.”

Source: Compiled by APN from various media reports.