Climate
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Counting the environmental toll of war – and why peace is a climate solution
One’s immediate thought on looking at any of the multitude of photos of the devastation of Gaza is a profound sense of sorrow and grief at the capacity of humans to wreak such destruction and suffering. Continue reading »
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Nuclear and gas expansion weakens our national security
Former Australian defence force chief and admiral retired, Chris Barrie frankly discusses with Michael Lester his deep concerns that Australia is complacent in its unwillingness to face up to the threat to our national security posed by global climate change. Continue reading »
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Climate emergency strikes Islam’s holy ritual, with nearly 600 dead of heat stroke in Mecca
As the temperature in Mecca reached 125.24° F. (51.8° C.) on Tuesday, word leaked out that nearly 600 pilgrims had died of heat stroke and 2,000 have been hospitalised for treatment. A virtual clinic treated more thousands remotely. Some 324 of the dead were Egyptians, while dozens were from Jordan. Continue reading »
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How Mike Baird’s privatisation almost crippled the Newcastle container terminal
The terms of privatisation included an anti-competitive restriction on the development of a commercial-scale container terminal at Newcastle, primarily to boost the sale price of Port Botany. Continue reading »
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Indonesia’s carbon crisis: will Islam get dirty hands?
Nahdlatul Ulama (NU)(revival of the scholars) is Indonesia and the world’s largest Islamic organisation claiming almost 100 million members. If it digs coal it could become mega-rich. How dirty work marries with sending souls to paradise only Allah knows. Continue reading »
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Environment: Pacific politician calls out Australia’s climate duplicity
The temperature is rising and the world is getting increasingly dangerous, even the rich bits. Former Tuvalu PM slams Australia’s climate policies. Rights of and around rivers. Continue reading »
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Dutton’s petrostate and the global far right
It is very difficult to predict the future fortunes of the global populist nativism that has been threatening democratic projects around the world. Far-right parties continued to gain ground in the European Parliament elections. Trump is overtly embracing the authoritarian themes set out in the Project 2025 roadmap, while his Republican allies pursue extreme policy Continue reading »
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Can China save the world?
As the climate crisis accelerates and intensifies, it’s easy to despair about the possibility of any country taking the lead in ‘saving the planet’. And yet Xi Jinping at least says encouraging things. Should we take China seriously? Continue reading »
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Who prepared Dutton’s report on nuclear power?
The Canberra Press Gallery is not a homogenous group although its members do seem to suffer from a fair amount of groupthink; preference for gotchas and speculation about what might happen next in politics; and heavy dependence on leaks and drops for copy. Continue reading »
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‘Two years to save the world’
This was the haunting title of a recent speech by UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell, at Chatham House in London. Continue reading »
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Planetary overshoot: How much should we degrow?
Global rates of resource consumption and ecological impact are now far beyond levels that are sustainable, or that all people in the world could rise to, or that technical advance could make sustainable. Continue reading »
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World War III and our failure to defend against climate
In World War III the enemy is not an array of tanks, shells and soldiers, but a collection of beliefs damaging to the earth’s future. The enemies are the minds and actions of those with the cult of neo-liberalism and greed acting through the power of huge industries, the enemy within. Continue reading »
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Environment: When will politicians take climate change seriously?
Both the WHO and UN may be starting to take seriously the effects of climate change on health. A global plan to save 1,000 freshwater fish from extinction. Covid reverses life expectancy at birth. Continue reading »
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Descendant of the conquistadors: the pursuit of wealth trumps all else
In an era of out of control climate change, the case for leaving gold in the ground is even stronger than that for coal. Investor and shareholder pressure has seen the likes of BHP and Rio Tinto divesting from the latter; but in practical, if not financial, terms ending the mining of gold is a Continue reading »
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Log the forest and get carbon credit rewards
Two major Malaysian logging companies that have devastated Borneo’s forests have been granted “Forest Carbon Research Permits” in the first step to enable them to log old-growth forests and claim carbon credits. Continue reading »
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Environment: Government delivers climate rhetoric but not emissions reductions
Australia’s emissions reductions have stalled just when we need to be ramping up ambition and action. Concrete’s emissions set to be high for decades. Continue reading »
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“Truly the stuff of nightmares”: unprecedented low in Antarctic sea ice recorded
Each winter the surface of the sea freezes around Antarctica, over a vast area, mostly to a depth of about one metre. But this is starting to change. Last year, the sea ice reached an unprecedentedly low maximum extent of only 17 million square kilometres. Continue reading »
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Global tribunal issues ‘Historic’ ruling for oceans and small island nations
“Protecting the global commons of the oceans and atmosphere is a matter of life and death,” said one expert who praised the decision. Continue reading »
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Full spectrum resistance: we need militant teams who are willing to destroy the death machine
I can not think of a greater tragedy in existence than to allow the greed of a few to destroy all life on earth. Continue reading »
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Old trees are good trees
Big old trees are few in number but store lots of carbon. Loopholes found in Victoria’s ban on native tree logging. Great Barrier Reef bleaches for fifth time in eight years. Continue reading »
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The ugly truth of the native forest logging wars
Despite industry and political spin, our Australian native forests continue to be destroyed. The many mythologies put forward in defence of continued logging are contradicted in detail by the facts and evidence. Continue reading »
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Tracking toward a greenhouse atmosphere and acid oceans
Where “Two plus two equals five if the party says so” (George Orwell) and when drilling methane wells reduces global warming. Continue reading »
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The bleak picture of Australian politics: this is how we change
We are confronting a deep structural crisis in our society. We have confused the idea of democracy with the institutions of political parties and representative democracies. The major parties have become structures representing economic and security elites to which only second rate personalities flock, incapable of navigating the huge challenges we face globally. Meanwhile, the Continue reading »
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What’s wrong with carbon capture?
It sounds wonderful. Politicians and fossil fuel companies love it. But more often than not carbon capture and storage (CCS) is raised as a smokescreen for something that will harm the world. Continue reading »
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Australia’s greenhouse targets cannot be met without the conservation of native forest
When Labour Governments moved to protect native forest in the past – Hawke, Wran, Gallop, Kirner, Beattie, Carr – they knew that they were protecting irreplaceable natural values and resources. Even as late as the early 2000s however, the role of forests in climate change mitigation was little known. It was certainly not a matter Continue reading »
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Environment: CO2 emissions still increasing
CO2 emissions continued to increase in 2023 with now little chance of global warming staying under 1.5oC. Planting trees is part of the solution but only in the longer term. Even Hollywood is getting the message. Continue reading »
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Nearly all major car companies are sabotaging EV transition, and Japan is worst, study finds
A damning new report has shown that nearly all major car companies are actively sabotaging the world’s efforts to avoid catastrophic global warming. The lobbying strategies being used by the world’s largest automakers are putting global climate targets at risk and threatening the electric vehicle transition, according to the new report released by InfluenceMap. Continue reading »
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Future Gas Strategy is a betrayal of promised Climate and Environmental Policies
Climate scientists reveal data that earth’s heating is accelerating, heat extremes are increasing and 1.5C has been breached faster than forecast. We are failing to treat climate change as the single greatest threat to humanity. Continue reading »
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Labor’s Future Gas Strategy: The greatest capitulation of any Australian government to the fossil fuel industry
Australians should be clear that the “Future Gas Strategy” released last week is not in the national interest. It represents the greatest capitulation of any Australian government to the demands of the fossil fuel industry. Continue reading »
