Category Archives: Environment and climate

Australia’s new energy minister Angus Taylor made a claim about carbon emissions this week that looked on the surface to be fantastic news, but on closer inspection is false.

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack last week suggested the government would look at changing the law to allow water to be taken from the environment and given to farmers struggling with the drought.

A common framework for crime fiction builds on the notion of a heavy character leaning on target persons in order to ‘encourage’ them to fund the provision of protection from even heavier characters.  Hoping for security, the targets oblige and … Continue reading →

The history of Earth is marked by at least seven major mass extinctions,  including asteroid impact effects 580 million years ago, the end Ordovician glaciation, late Devonian asteroid impacts, end-Permian volcanism and ocean anoxia, end-Jurassic volcanism and Cretaceous-Tertiary asteroid impact—mostly … Continue reading →

Australia has navigated a somewhat stormy passage through the Pacific Islands Forum in Nauru. Scott Morrison’s new-look government faced renewed accusations at the summit about the strength of Australia’s resolve on climate policy.

The change in the world’s climate is currently on full display with equatorial deluges, hurricanes and typhoons causing destruction and misery while the the rest of the world burns and experiences record temperatures further North than ever recorded before. As … Continue reading →

Ending world hunger is a central aspiration of modern society. To address this challenge – along with expanding agricultural land and intensifying crop yields – we rely on global agricultural trade to meet the nutritional demands of a growing world … Continue reading →

As someone who is dependent on Mother Nature for a living, climate is very much a “front and centre” issue for all farmers.  I graze livestock on semi-arid, native rangeland pastures in western NSW; the numbers we graze is dependent on … Continue reading →

Here’s the most damning assessment of the Coalition’s energy and climate policy, such as it remains after the crucifixion of Malcolm Turnbull and the elevation of conservatives Scott Morrison as prime minister and Angus Taylor as energy minister:

If the world continues on a “business-as-usual” trajectory on climate change, global ecosystems including Australia’s will undergo a “major transformation” over the next century.

Fiona Simson says people have been tiptoeing around the subject for too long and it is time for a national strategy. 

Why farmers who are at the forefront of the impact from climate change, continue to support the National Party, a party of climate sceptics? After a week of unfathomable machinations in Canberra, a decade of climate wars and the “death” … Continue reading →

Energy Minister Angus Taylor has unveiled a new energy policy focused exclusively on reducing electricity prices, in a strong signal the Morrison government will abandon all efforts to lower carbon emissions.

Sea-level rise is already threatening some communities around the world, particularly small island states, as it exacerbates disasters resulting from storm surges and flooding.

This summer’s fires, droughts, and record-high temperatures should serve as a wake-up call. The longer a narrow and ignorant elite condemns Americans and the rest of humanity to wander aimlessly in the political desert, the more likely it is that … Continue reading →

In a key paper titled “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene“, published in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Science (6.8.2018), a group of 17 climate and environment scientists (Will Steffen, Johan Rockström, Katherine Richardson, Timothy … Continue reading →