Climate
-
Restoring Australia’s prosperity by becoming a superpower
The debate about climate change is far too often in denial. It needs to change to focus on the positives of how Australia can become a Superpower based on green energy and products that rely on green energy. Continue reading »
-
Shock as warming accelerates, 1.5°C is breached faster than forecast
If there was shock and awe last week when the Copernicus Climate Change Service announced that global average warming over the last twelve months — February 2023 to January 2024 — had exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius (°C), it was likely because too many people had succumbed to the predominant but delusional policy-making narrative that holding warming Continue reading »
-
Climate chaos: world overheats while Europe faces a new Ice Age
The hottest January ever recorded in human history has passed, with barely a nod from governments worldwide and international media. For a full year, the Earth has now exceeded the +1.5 degrees danger level set by the Paris Agreement in 2015. And 2024 may be hotter still, US scientists are warning. Continue reading »
-
Environment: Humans don’t make history – we play host
How germs made history. Greenhouse gas emissions keep rising but USA and Europe are still the major causes of global warming. Continue reading »
-
Judgment Day: Final retribution for the ecocidal psychopaths
100 Fossil Fuel CEOs directly and knowingly threaten all life on Earth. Continue reading »
-
Too late? Climate change denial and the rise of fascism
“… but they can be sure that they won’t be recorded for their crimes in history — because there won’t be any history” (Noam Chomsky, 2023, in a letter to the author) Continue reading »
-
Environment: Government inaction is killing our parrots
Australia’s parrots are increasingly threatened. Coal, gas, wind and solar supply the world’s surging demand for electricity. Methane emissions must be reduced rapidly. Continue reading »
-
Towards an unliveable planet: Climate’s 2023 annus horribilis
The heat and extreme climate records of 2023 shocked scientists. So where are we heading? Given current trends, the world will zoom past 2°C of warming and the Paris climate goal of limiting warming to 1.5-2°C. Continue reading »
-
How labelling is concealing common ground on climate, COVID and indigenous issues
You’re either a climate realist or you’re a climate sceptic. You’re either pro COVID vaccines or you’re a vaccine sceptic. You either voted ‘no’ in the recent ‘indigenous voice to parliament’ or ‘yes’. On too many issues, the labels that Australians are using are confrontational. Australians are being led to see just two camps and Continue reading »
-
As earth records hottest year, Coalition digs in against climate action and renewables
The science is in. The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service has overnight confirmed that 2023 was the earth’s warmest year on record: 0.16°C warmer than the previous record year (2016); 0.6°C warmer than the 1991-2020 average; 1.48°C warmer than the pre-industrial period. Continue reading »
-
Is climate change too hard for democracy?
We have all heard that 2023 was the warmest year ever for the world, by some margin. Continue reading »
-
Climate adaptation: government action on life support systems is lamentable
The foundation for effective climate change adaptation must be the preservation of ecological life support systems for humans and all other species. We must prioritise the protection and expansion of water, biodiversity and ecological services to provide food security for future generations instead of environmentally damaging industries, especially fossil fuels. Continue reading »
-
Environment: The best of Peter Sainsbury
Reporting a climate of hope and despair for the environment in 2023, Peter Sainsbury has brought us a raft of issues impacting our environment in his weekly report. We share a selection here to round off 2023. Continue reading »
-
Australia’s changed climate: The Bureau’s yearly reminder
Is climate change a myth? To use a little old-fashioned English slang, not on your nelly. Continue reading »
-
Environment: 2023 – increased GHG emissions, increased atmospheric GHG levels and record high temperatures
Despite what we have we seen and learnt during 2023, the COP meeting failed again to take strong action on fossil fuels. Is nature for nature or only for humans? Continue reading »
-
Abject failure: COP28 is sealing the globe into climate armageddon
Chris Bowen would have us believe that actually mentioning the words ‘fossil fuels’ and a transition away from them was a “turning point” in the history of COP negotiations. What is he smoking? Continue reading »
-
Environment: Not much environmental cheer in the season of goodwill
Exmouth Gulf threatened with industrial development. Africa being forgotten as global economies develop. Australia’s emissions reductions likely to stall long before we get to net zero. Read on for the weekly environment update. Continue reading »
-
Damaged climate: Australia must learn from deadly Northern Rivers floods
“What happened here in the Northern Rivers [in 2022] with Lismore as the epicentre has to be recognised as one of the worst disasters the nation has ever seen,” says Lismore City Councillor Elly Bird. The scale of the floods was immense: Australia’s “biggest natural disaster since Cyclone Tracy in 1974, the second-costliest event in Continue reading »
-
Environment: Health, budgets and the environment, all damaged by food and plastic waste
Food loss and waste harm the environment, human health and wallets. Chemical recycling of plastic not living up to its promise. Concerns about dead solar modules are unfounded. Continue reading »
-
Climate, health, and the Rising Tide
“Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels. Investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure is moral and economic madness” – Antonio Guterres Continue reading »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
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 »
-
“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 »
-
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 »