Enviroment
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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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Environment: Andrew Forrest’s climate message to Biden, Modi and Xi
Andrew Forrest makes impassioned plea for governments to hold business responsible for climate action. African countries struggle to extract their natural resources without destroying their environments and people. Continue reading »
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Environment: Eat more plants to save the world
Vegans and vegetarians do less damage to the environment than meat-eaters. TotalEnergies and World Rugby team up in Paris to play a dirty game. Tips to become a better recycler. Continue reading »
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Environment: Fossil fuels still dominate energy systems and economies
Burning of all fossil fuels continues to increase. Gas is not better for the climate than coal but the myth continues and companies increase production. The fertile crescent is no longer fertile. Continue reading »
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Are we failing to see the wood for the trees on climate risks?
Extreme climate impacts are exploding in this year’s Northern Hemisphere summer. We urgently need to understand how climate disruption will affect Australians: their safety and well-being in the face of ever-more-extreme climate events, the viability of public and private infrastructure, communications and logistical systems, challenges to food security, and much more. Continue reading »
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Environment: Critical months ahead for Australia’s environmental legislation
Australia’s environmental protection legislation needs all hands-on deck right now. City centre households have lower emissions than the suburbs. Northern hemisphere summers getting hotter. Continue reading »
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Environment: Carbon bombs will explode all hopes of 1.5
There are over 400 fossil fuel projects each with the potential to release more than 1 Gt of CO2. Serious environmental and human rights problems associated with mining the energy transition’s essential metals. Barry Commoner described the problem and its cause 60 years ago. Continue reading »
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Climate change gets worse daily
Torres Strait Islanders and the people of Vanuatu pursue legal action to force inept governments to stop climate change. The Great Barrier Reef is at severe risk of disappearing as a result of climate change, which is also causing Earth to wobble on its axis. Continue reading »
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Environment: Invasive animals and plants are the main killers of our native ones
Invasive species, including pet cats, have been and remain the major cause of extinctions in Australia. ‘Net zero emissions’ sounds good but is it just a greenwashing delaying tactic? Continue reading »
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Environment: Natural resources, renewable energy, opportunities and vision will create the African Century
A plan for Africans to take control of Africa and make it prosperous, fair and low carbon. Price of solar panels falling again. Protection for Macquarie Island’s wildlife. Continue reading »
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Environment: Two years left for a decent chance of keeping warming under 1.5ºC
Scientists establish annual dashboard of indicators of climate change to guide policymakers. Bushfires fatal for humans and invertebrates. Commercial sponsors sought for November’s COP meeting in Dubai. Continue reading »
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Environment: Do CO2 emissions influence your life expectancy?
Military activities generate uncounted but large amounts of greenhouse gas. Ocean temperatures hit all-time peak in April. Victoria to end logging of native forests. And, do your personal CO2 emissions influence your life expectancy? Continue reading »
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The federal budget: what planet does Labour live on?
It’s astonishing now that the analytical dust has settled on the budget that out of 57 leading Australian economists, most have given it top marks. What planet we may ask do they – and the Labour Government – live on? Not one critically endangered by climate change and a catastrophic decline in biodiversity which collectively Continue reading »
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We love you gas, we do. Oh gas, we love you
Sycophantic ministers cosy up to the gas industry. Electricity from renewables will soon match increasing demand for electricity. Will sodium replace lithium in batteries? Continue reading »
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Environment: Developing a better relationship with Nature
Jurisdictions are increasingly introducing Rights of Nature provisions into their legal systems. International shipping needs to steer a better course to zero emissions. Rewilding Britain one stream at a time. Continue reading »
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There’s still time to avoid climate catastrophe
If we fail to reach the goal of reducing emissions by 50 percent by 2030, it won’t be for lack of options. Continue reading »
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Environment: the real meaning of CCS: capitalism, corporations and subsidies
Carbon Capture and Storage, nothing but an inadequate fig leaf for obscene government endorsed corporate practices. Direct Air Capture may play a useful climate role in a few decades. Banks still lending trillions to fossil fuel companies. Continue reading »
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Environment: How good are we at capturing carbon?
Effective carbon capture is needed to stay under 2oC but need does not guarantee supply. A national park in Wales is regenerating culturally and ecologically. Helping you to know your cirrocumulus from your altostratus. Continue reading »
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Environment: climate change colonialism
Wealthy developed countries worsen the climate and debt crises of poor countries and trample on the rights of their Indigenous peoples. Continue reading »
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Labor’s conflicted climate change policies
There is something but not much to celebrate over the safeguard compromise. It may well ensure we reduce our emissions by 43%. But the Labor government’s continued permissive attitude to new fossil fuel projects is in blatant disregard of the IPCC’s pathway to a 1.5C limit on global warming. Continue reading »
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Environment: Climate change, chickens or cats: choose our poison
Climate change is causing more flash floods in dry areas and increasing methane emissions from wetlands. Cats continue to destroy Australian wildlife. Chicken and salmon farming pollute their local environments. Continue reading »
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Environment: Rapidly closing window of opportunity to achieve a safe, sustainable future
New IPCC report documents a threatening climate-present and a bleak climate-future. Alcoa failing to rehabilitate the lands it has destroyed once mining stops. Shortage of integrity not gas behind our gas problems. Continue reading »
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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 »