Climate
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Con job: Australian Sea Dumping Bill facilitates fossil fuel mining
Governments around the world are promoting and subsidising carbon capture and storage (CCUS) to facilitate an increase in fossil gas mining. This will dash any hope of controlling world emissions at a time when there are deep concerns for climate change becoming uncontrollable. 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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Australia scores zero for taking action to protect our health from climate change
Climate change poses major threats to the health of all people globally. Australia has been slow to recognise this. In an assessment of the health-related content of 58 nations’ plans to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris Agreement, Australia scored zero. 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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China adds 62 gigawatts of solar capacity in just five months, compared to 10 gigs in the US
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Carrie Xiao at PV Tech reports that in the first five months of 2023, China has installed 62.1 gigawatts of solar capacity at a cost of $13.6 billion. Year on year, it was a 140 per cent expansion. Just to give you an idea of the magnitude of this advance, Continue reading »
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To tackle climate change, we need peace – and also an accountable Defence department
Preventing wars, demilitarisation and promoting peace are vital strategies for tackling climate change, writes Dr Sue Wareham OAM, President of the Medical Association for Prevention of War. She also urges the Defence Department to lift its game on climate action, and to commit to improved measurement, reporting and scrutiny of military emissions. Continue reading »
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Malignant obsessions distract us from the collapse of human civilisation
The real drama played out in the North Atlantic last week wasn’t the latest hubristic exercise in “frontier tourism”, but the current sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly rise, recorded on the Northern Hemisphere summer solstice, June 21, 2023. 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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Our planet is imploding: when will we act to save ourselves?
While much of humanity was glued to the unfolding drama over one tiny submarine, the Earth we all inhabit is slowly, steadily and implacably imploding around us. 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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Requiem for our species
The effects of the climate crisis intrude with increasing regularity into our lives and yet we do not act. We are as paralysed as past civilisations were when facing catastrophic destruction. 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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Environment: Who are the green groups pocketing dirty dollars?
Fossil fuel companies burnish their image with environmental sponsorships. Lakes and reservoirs drying up around the globe. China dominates the production of solar panels. Continue reading »
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The swarm: International consultancies
Predatory capitalism has become visible across the world as neo-liberalism becomes fully transnational. Consultancies working to authoritarian rules have consumed big business by making executives richer. They may be set to engulf governments and even entire societies. 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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Spain runs entirely on green energy for 9 hours for first time, in harbinger of green future
Spain, the world’s 15th largest economy and the fourth-largest in Europe, recently ran for 9 hours entirely on wind, solar and hydro. It is not the first time the renewables supplied all of the country’s domestic electricity needs on the peninsula, but it is the first time they did so for so many hours in Continue reading »
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SA’s populist punishment law to chill climate dissent
A new Bill to silence climate protest has provoked a broad chorus of alarm in South Australia. Despite opposition, it seems likely the Bill will pass and South Australia will join the ranks of governments determined to suppress opposition to the fossil fuel industry. Continue reading »
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Australia: The clever country?
In the 1980s, then Prime Minister Bob Hawke told us we should try to become the clever country. Instead, we have become the stupid country. We now have the trade pattern of a poor developing nation. It is obvious that the decade of Coalition government has moved us away from that goal, giving us instead 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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Environment: Emissions, climate change and disasters got markedly worse in 2022
Greenhouse gas emissions continued to increase in 2022, as did the effects on Earth’s climate and the consequences for humans. Pet trading within Australia needs to be more strictly monitored and regulated. Continue reading »
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The budget and climate change: getting our priorities right
The Government’s treatment of climate change in the 2023 Budget is a vast improvement on their conservative predecessors. That said, it continues a pattern of reluctance to face reality on the really big issues which will determine our future as a nation, notably on climate. 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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Are Australia’s climate–security risks too hot to handle?
The Australian government is keen to talk about defence, big submarines, China and national security. And renewable energy, big batteries, electric cars and big hydrogen. But put the two together — security and climate — and an odd thing happens. Continue reading »
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The USA and Australia fail on climate change
Nearly two years ago relief was expressed that the USA had emerged under President Biden to offer world leadership on climate change. Sadly this leadership has been a disappointment and today both the US and other high emitters such as Australia are not on track to meet the challenge. 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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Environment: Rich people are melting Arctic sea ice
Rich countries and rich people have incredibly high greenhouse gas emissions. Arctic sea ice is shrinking. Tasmanian government plans to make fish farms more environmentally destructive. Continue reading »
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Environment: Energy transition’s progress is AC. Needs to be DC
China leads the world in building both coal and renewable infrastructure. Ten leading drivers of climate action are ineffective at keeping warming below 2oC. More and more species exposed to extinction as temperatures rise. 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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The government has a duty to be transparent about all security risks
The overblown rhetoric on imminent war with China has been justified as the need for the Australian people to be fully informed of threats to the nation. But the same rationale has not been applied to the security threat of climate change, a far greater risk the response to which will be far more costly Continue reading »
