Climate
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Environment: Rich investors make profits from killing leopards, tigers and rhinos
Western financial institutions are funding the extinction of threatened species. Many EV batteries make lights work. Continue reading »
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The government will underwrite risky investments in renewables – here’s why that’s a good idea
Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen last week announced a scheme to underwrite the risk of investing in new renewable energy generation and storage. Continue reading »
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Regulatory certainty and entrepreneurship: Unlocking Australia-China climate collaboration
Entrepreneurs occupy a pivotal role in bridging the gap between Australia and China, especially when it comes to climate collaboration. Continue reading »
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Environment: 1.5 degrees of warming in 10 years
Not long ago it looked like we’d exceed 1.5oC in 20 years, now it looks like 10. Maybe sooner if politicians keep approving new fossil fuel mines and fields and the logging of native forests. Particulate air pollution kills 9 million a year. Continue reading »
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Restoring democracy to avoid climate collapse
17 November 2023 will go down in history as the day when planet Earth reached its first two degree plus temperature anomaly relative to the preindustrial baseline. It was also the day that I was carted off to hospital in an ambulance after spending over two weeks on a climate hunger strike on the lawns Continue reading »
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COP-out: Why the petrostate-hosted climate talkfest will fail
After a succession of record-breaking months of record heat including 1.8°C in September, global warming for 2023 as a whole will likely tip 1.5°C, with 2024 even hotter as the effect of the building El Nino is felt more fully. Already hundreds of thousands have died and millions displaced, primarily in countries least responsible for Continue reading »
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Environment: NASA climate scientist criticises colleagues’ reluctance to agitate
James Hansen claims that climate scientists have been too slow to ring the alarm bells. Not so, says Michael Mann. International climate treaties are booming post-Paris. Putting trousers on a starfish. Continue reading »
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Human-caused climate change cost US $67 bn., produced hottest 12 months for 125,000 years
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The non-profit collective of high-powered scientists, Climate Central, has released a new report demonstrating that the past 12 months have been the hottest on record, and inferring that they are the hottest in 125,000 years. Continue reading »
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“Unconscionable”: Albanese government’s massive fossil fuel developments mock mitigation efforts
Anguish, despair and fear for the future will ravage your brain when you read the latest edition of the UN Production (emissions) Gap Report. Your distress will further increase when you read that Australia will increase the Gap with the development of the Middle Arm Sustainable Development Precinct, when to stand any chance of addressing Continue reading »
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Environment: Plants and fungi – abundant and ubiquitous but poorly described
Very few plants and fungi have been scientifically described – many are destined for extinction before we knew they were extant. Australia’s top companies lack transparency and honesty about their climate politics. Australia’s emissions are decreasing but far too slowly. Continue reading »
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Climate policy: The widening reality gap
The global warming problem seems increasingly insoluble. The past record shows growing gaps between ambition and achievement, decreasing time in which to act, and governments, including Australia’s, stubbornly sticking to policies that have failed to stop emissions growth. Clues to the reasons behind this can be found in the Treasurer’s address to the Economic and Continue reading »
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Environment: Plant trees but not to halt climate change
Lots of good reasons to plant trees but stopping climate change isn’t one. Krill – abundant but not for long unless we change our ways. Fossil fuels cause conflict and always have. Continue reading »
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Environment: Industrial activities produce a third of emissions
Industrial emissions, many hard-to-abate, are increasing. Norway leads the roll-out of EVs but China dominates the number purchased and the production of steel and EV batteries. 40% of amphibians are threatened with extinction. Continue reading »
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Hallucinatory world: Governments blind as multiple catastrophes besiege human civilisation
Life on Earth is under siege. A chain of tipping points with catastrophic consequences for everyone are being unleashed. Yet governments worldwide remain indifferent to the danger. Indeed, many continue avidly to stoke the very furnaces that will consume our civilisation. Continue reading »
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Environment: Oceans to the rescue: 7 watery ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
Oceans could reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by a third. Toxic materials from abandoned and currently operational metal mines are polluting half a million kilometres of rivers and their floodplains. What do you know about Tassie Devils? Continue reading »
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The missing link in Australia’s climate change adaptation strategy: Social infrastructure
We have “likely crossed a tipping point for Australia’s temperate broadleaf and mixed forests when a critical level of heat or drought triggers a massive, devastating event. … Climate change is driving a new era of ‘unnatural disasters’ – and as a country we are not prepared to cope.” – Australian Climate Council, 2021. Continue reading »
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Environment: On track for 2 degrees of warming within 20 years
Based on what’s actually happening rather than unfulfilled promises, the world will exceed 2oC of warming in the early 2040s and it doesn’t look like a comfortable place to be (not even for succulents). Continue reading »
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Environment: Australia labelled a ‘Planet Wrecker’
Wind and solar roll-outs are increasing globally but Australia and other Climate Wreckers are ignoring the science and developing new oil and gas fields. Continue reading »
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Climate disaster: Pope Francis repudiates developed world’s economics and culture
‘It is no longer possible to doubt the human origin of climate change’ (Pope Francis). Continue reading »
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Curse of the cumulative impacts
There are many actions taken by individuals, corporations, and governments that by themselves might be considered minor but when taken together can substantially cause harm to environmental values. Revision of the federal EPBC Act provides an opportunity to include provisions that will help mitigate adverse effects of these “cumulative impacts” on areas containing threatened species Continue reading »
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Planned degrowth is needed to stop the collapse of civilisation
An opinion piece (‘Degrowth approach is disastrous’, Canberra Times, 9 September, p.38) by authors from the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) attacked the concept of degrowth to a steady-state economy (SSE) and defended the notion of continuing economic growth on a finite planet. Continue reading »
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This land cries out in final warning
We need an Indigenous Voice to parliament. We need any other voice that will offset the disastrous self-serving notions of the present fools that govern this country. We are all living under the shadows of the illusions of the colonised mind. Continue reading »
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Environment: If ‘green growth’ is the answer, humanity needs a new question
‘Green growth’ withers in the heat of evidence. Humanity’s demands are creating a ‘global land squeeze’. Another year of murder for environmental defenders. Continue reading »
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Environment: Rich countries must do more to advance Africa’s economic and climate transition
African leaders and communities call for action to tackle the social and economic damage done by climate change. Warmer oceans lead to warmer conditions over land. UNESCO still looking for more government action to protect the Great Barrier Reef. Continue reading »
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A climate of insanity
Inherent in the nature of insanity is the fact that those inflicted by it are unaware of their mental state. Continue reading »
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Climate collapse – The grim silence of our leaders
None of us has previously witnessed a barrage of extreme weather events of the kind that has been devastating lives across the globe this summer. Continue reading »
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Earth Systems Treaty: The emerging cross-cultural commitment
“The evidence is compelling that human exceptionalism is a deeply-flawed construct – a grand cultural illusion – that has led modern techno-industrial societies into a potentially fatal ecological trap.” William Rees, Author, The Human Ecology of Overshoot. Continue reading »
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Environment: Governments and fossil fuel subsidies, the infatuation grows
Doesn’t matter how much harm fossil fuels cause, governments have an ‘Everlasting Love’ for subsidising them, so no surprise that coal and oil consumption is increasing. The global love affair with electricity started in 1950. Continue reading »
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Group think: Paralysis and the missing ONI climate security report
On assuming office, one of Prime Minister Albanese’s first actions was to task the Office of National Intelligence (ONI) to review the security threats posed by climate change. The report was finalised in late 2022 but not made public. Accordingly, a “release the ONI report” campaign has dominated climate-security discourse over much of 2023. Foreign Continue reading »
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Imagine a day when the whole planet was at peace
The UN International Day of Peace is next week, September 21st. It is a day for rekindling our noblest aspirations. Imagine even a day when the whole planet was at peace. A day when our most attractive power, our capacity to love, was all one could see. A day when not one person was killed Continue reading »
