Enviroment
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Environment: Trees good. Plastics bad. Why don’t governments turn it around?
Trees are good for the climate and human health. Plastics are bad for the environment and bird health. Where are the good governments when you need them? Continue reading »
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Environment: Labor safeguards our fossil fuel climate wreckers
Australia’s Safeguard Mechanism gets a government greenwash while international efforts to control Scope 3 emissions increase. Pygmy chameleons and eagle-owls are fighting for survival in different ways. Please stop eating shark and Tassie farmed salmon. Continue reading »
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Environment: does bad news about the environment create doom loops?
We are losing trees and insects at alarming rates and Australia’s land and sea temperatures continue to rise. But does too much bad news create ‘Doom Loops’? Continue reading »
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Environment: humans must care for our travelling companions: earth’s animals, plants and ecosystems
Indigenous owned forests in the Amazon absorb carbon; non-Indigenous forests produce carbon. Chicken and pig factories are bad for the animals and bad for the climate. Continue reading »
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Sunblock for Planet Earth
How best to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: stop burning coal, eat less meat or block out the sun? The first and second look preferable to the third to me. Continue reading »
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Environment: Young people unimpressed by boomers’ environmental and social neglect
All countries are failing to look after their environments and their people. Long haul flights will continue to generate most CO2. The world’s youth are not happy. Continue reading »
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Population, growth and the environment: a response to Michael Keating
Michael Keating’s response to the P&I article series on growth – GDP and population – is very welcome as it provides a condensed summary of what has befuddled Australian political economy in recent decades. Continue reading »
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Environment: Life scientists endorse civil disobedience
Australia’s oceans, Greenland’s Ice Sheet and Antarctica’s sea ice are all feeling the heat. One million species are on the edge of extinction. No wonder life scientists are taking to the streets. Continue reading »
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Efforts to combat climate change and biodiversity loss are inseparable as new mass extinction looms
Recently, I had a catch-up conversation on climate change and November’s UN climate change conference (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh with one of Hong Kong’s most conscientious students of the subject. Continue reading »
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Environment: It’s a wonderful world …
… as Louis Armstrong famously croaked. Well, perhaps: The temperature’s going up. The rich are getting richer. Wetlands are disappearing. Gas is officially green. Continue reading »
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Environment: Guterres: ‘the ecosystem meltdown is cold, hard scientific fact’
Tell it like it is, António: ‘climate disaster, death sentence, insanity, inconsistent with human survival’. Thank goodness for chocolate and birds. Continue reading »
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Devastation and blindness in our High Country
One can only hope that the day is not too far away when “I was only doing my job” will be no more a defence against climate crimes than it is against war crimes. Continue reading »
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Protecting nature: art of the impossible?
In recent months governments around the world, including ours, have been striving to reach agreement on “protecting nature”. The UN summit held in Montreal aimed at reaching a global deal to secure the protection of 30 per cent of the planet by 2030. Continue reading »
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What’s not to like about nuclear fusion?
Recently the mass media have bombarded us with hype about a ‘breakthrough’ in controlled nuclear fusion. Continue reading »
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Environment: melodrama and tragedy worthy of the great storytellers
Hard times lie ahead. Are the Great Expectations of renewable energy, ocean-based removal of CO2 and protein from microbes justified? Continue reading »
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Environment: No reasonable prospect of keeping 1.5 alive
Not one of over 1200 computer simulations provides a reasonable chance of global warming being under 1.5oC in 2100. Climate protester jailed for 15 months in NSW. Continue reading »
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Environment: COP’s over but climate change is like ‘ol man river …’,
‘… he just keeps rolling along’, destroying homes, communities, health and farming. Continue reading »
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Environment: How to feed 10 billion and predict the next Covid
The global population is now 8 billion but the vast majority make little contribution to global warming. The search is on for ways to feed 10 billion sustainably in 2050. Continue reading »
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An open letter to Bill Gates on food, farming, and Africa
We, 50 organisations focused on food sovereignty and justice worldwide, want you to know there is no shortage of practical solutions and innovations by African farmers and organisations. We invite you to step back and learn from those on the ground. Continue reading »
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Environment: 1.5 degrees is still alive (just)
The bad news: more evidence of humanity’s callous disregard for the environment and our own future. The good news: sex in the moonlight is not yet dead. Continue reading »
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Environment: COP meetings keep happening; emissions keep rising
Four reports and Greta Thunberg highlight the failure of 30 years of COP meetings to slow climate change. Continue reading »
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Environment: Greenhouse gases – same old winners, same old losers
Whitehaven Coal is selling more coal and making record profits and (apparently) helping countries reduce their emissions. Rich nations should cancel developing nations’ debt to help them cope with climate change. Continue reading »
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Environment: Cherish old trees, rivers and birds
The world’s old trees, Australia’s rivers and the USA’s birds are in decline. The cause is the same everywhere – failing to respect nature. Continue reading »
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Environment: A bleak, hot future for Australia
New data confirms Australia’s vulnerability to climate change. Nitrous oxide emissions set to become a climate battleground. Answers to where I’ve been for the last month. Continue reading »
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Beetaloo gas field: Resurrect health impact assessments to save lives
Our new government walks both sides of the street on fossil fuels. Continue reading »
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Environment: Pacific wants Australian support for strong climate action
Pacific nations want climate action not military bases. Emissions and temperatures keep rising and forest fires keep increasing. Continue reading »
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Climate laws for the environment and for people
A roadmap for reforming Australia’s climate laws and Chile rewrites its constitution with the environment and people to the fore. Greater warming where and when its coldest. Continue reading »
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Trust in the powers that be
Remember the Cold War I years, when Capital Hill in Canberra became a huge hole, at the bottom of which was a space designated as a bomb shelter? Continue reading »
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Peter Sainsbury’s Environment Report: Rewilding the USA’s west and saving the Amazon’s headwaters
Wolves and beavers could recreate the wild West. Indigenous communities fight for the Amazon’s sacred headwaters. Is your battery killing mine workers? Continue reading »
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This week with Peter Sainsbury on catastrophic ‘Climate Endgame’
Scientists call ignoring ‘Climate Endgame’ dangerous. Biden’s persistence navigates the Inflation Reduction Act through Congress. Renewables keep getting cheaper. Continue reading »