Climate
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RICHARD KINGSFORD. Policy holes drain the life out of Murray-Darling rivers.
This press statement by Professor Richard Kingsford outlines what needs to be done to protect the Murray-Darling rivers and the communities that rely on them in the lead up to the NSW state election. Continue reading »
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IAN DUNLOP. The Elephant in the Election Room. The Immediate Existential Threat of Climate Change.(SMH 14.2.2019)
Human-induced climate change is happening faster than officially acknowledged. Extreme events intensify, particularly in Australia, Asia and the Pacific. Victoria and Tasmania are ablaze again. Queensland needs a decade to recover from recent floods. Much of SE Australia has become a frying pan, curtailing human activity. The economic and social cost is massive, as Reserve Continue reading »
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MARC HUDSON. Game over for the Nationals on climate change? Spruiking for miners instead?
The National Party’s battles over climate policy are becoming ever louder, ever more ludicrous. The consequences of thirty years of climate denial and spruiking for mining may finally tear the party apart. Continue reading »
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TONY SMITH. The environment – top issue for New South Wales voters
Traditionally, New South Wales election campaigns are tightly controlled affairs. Perhaps because the major party planners think that most elections will be close, they concentrate on one or two key statewide issues and hope that local campaigning will see them through in marginal seats. Law and order ‘auctions’ dominated through the late 1990s and corruption Continue reading »
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DAVID SPRATT: Existential risk, Neoliberalism and UN Climate Policymaking Part 2
International climate policymaking has failed to avoid a path of catastrophic global warming. Two often-overlooked causes of this failure are how climate-science knowledge has been produced and utilised by the United Nation’s twin climate bodies and how those organisations function. Part 2 of 2. Continue reading »
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DAVID SPRATT: Existential risk, Neoliberalism and UN Climate Policymaking Part 1
International climate policymaking has failed to avoid a path of catastrophic global warming. Two often-overlooked causes of this failure are how climate-science knowledge has been produced and utilised by the United Nation’s twin climate bodies and how those organisations function. Part 1 of 2. Continue reading »
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JULIAN CRIBB. The Rise of Woman. Greta Thunberg.
She’s just turned 16 and is already a world leader with more statespersonlike qualities, clear-eyed goals, plain speaking and sheer guts than almost any national head of today or recent history. Julian Cribb looks at the rise of Greta Thunberg Continue reading »
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ALAN PEARS. Beyond the Climate Chaos
It seems our politicians live on a different planet from the rest of us. The government’s climate position is untenable and morally irresponsible, while the opposition’s is still marginal. Humanity and the planet are in serious trouble. Strong action is economically sensible, practical and morally responsible. Continue reading »
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PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday environmental round up, 10 March 2019
Water features strongly this week: while Birdlife Australia is being innovative to protect our water birds, the governments and shooters of Tasmania, Victoria and South Australia are wilfully destroying them in the hundreds of thousands; the citizens of Toledo (think Klinger, not El Greco) approve a Lake Erie Bill of Rights; Melbourne’s water supply is Continue reading »
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JEFFREY SACHS. Green New Deal is feasible and affordable. (CNN online, 26.2.2019)
There are three main ideas of the Green New Deal Resolution introduced by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey. Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Some Coalition legacies that a new government must confront
There are several major issues that dominate public life today and require resolution. Those issues are –the growing existential threat of climate change, the dire consequences following the Iraq invasion, tax cuts during the mining boom that result in continuing budget deficits and debt increases, the NBN debacle, hostility to refugees and asylum seekers, and Continue reading »
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PETER BROOKS. Will teenagers’ involvement in the climate change debate be a ‘game changer’?
March 15 has been flagged as a coordinated day of school strikes by teenagers around the world. Let us hope that they will start a new movement to bring home the urgency for real action around the world, but particularly in Australia, to ensure that our children, grandchildren and all future generations do actually have Continue reading »
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PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday environmental round up, 3 March 2019
To mixed responses, global and Australian mining giant Glencore has announced that it will not be expanding its coal mining operations. Meanwhile politicians squabble in Canberra over Australia’s greenhouse gas emission projections for the next decade. Waters shortages in Australia create many problems but they are unlikely to result in military conflict; in Africa and Continue reading »
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MARTIN WOLF. The US debate on climate change is heating up (Financial Times 21.2.2019)
Might the US move from being a laggard to a leader in tackling global climate change? Two recent announcements — the “economists’ statement on carbon dividends” and the Green New Deal — suggest that it might. Intellectually, these proposals are from different planets. But they could be a basis for something reasonable. More important, influential Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. The Liberal and National parties have deserted country people on climate change, NBN and more.
Both the Liberal and National parties are taking a drubbing from country voters. A while back it was New England and Lyne. More recently it has been Indi and Wagga Wagga. Continue reading »
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Morrison puts lipstick on Tony Abbott’s pig of a climate policy (Renew Economy).
Prime minister Scott Morrison has finally unveiled his climate policy and it is clearly designed to do two things: Placate the core rump of climate deniers and ideologues within his own party and the conservative media, and try to fool enough others that the Coalition is doing something to address a problem it barely admits Continue reading »
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PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday environmental round up, 24 February 2019
Glaciers, forests and the Great Barrier Reef: today’s round up discusses threats to biodiversity in each of these from global warming or drought or flood or deforestation, or some combination of these. And to finish, a map of Europe that demonstrates the serious and widespread harm caused to humans by coal fired power stations. Continue reading »
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BRUCE THOM. Future national need for a healthy environment.
Since the mid-1980s it has become increasingly established that climate change will impact the lives of Australians, on the economy and the health of environmental assets. The interconnected functioning of natural processes requires us to look beyond the settler view of exploitation of nature. To do this we must somehow enshrine in law, such as Continue reading »
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OISÍN SWEENEY. Lessons from the Murray-Darling disaster run deeper than water.
Environmental mismanagement runs deeper than the ecological tragedy gripping the Murray-Darling Basin. Recent policy decisions around native forest logging in NSW follow the same pattern of ignoring science and favouring extractive industry over the public interest. Continue reading »
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DAVID WALLACE-WELLS. Time to panic (The New York Times).
The planet is getting warmer in catastrophic ways. And fear may be the only thing that saves us. Continue reading »
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ALAN PEARS. The Politics of Confusion on Achieving the Paris Commitment
Will Australia meet the government’s Paris climate commitment? Experts disagree, while the government avoids explaining exactly how it will achieve its goal. This creates confusion and conflict, which suits the government in the lead-up to the election. Lack of information and widespread disruptive change mean it is not yet possible to make a definitive judgement. Continue reading »
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BRUCE LINDSAY. Reflections on the Murray Darling Basin Royal Commission
The headline findings of the Royal Commission into the Murray Darling Basin – unlawfulness, incompetence, regulatory capture – are spectacular. Despite its strong scientific base, the Murray-Darling Basin Plan has been undermined by the power of vested interests and a general ambivalence toward rivers. But responses to the Commissioner’s report by governments, opposition parties, the Continue reading »
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BOB DEBUS. How close to Armageddon do we have to get?
The 2019 OECD Environmental Performance Review for Australia, launched recently and reported in The Guardian if hardly anywhere else, makes horrible reading. “Australia is home to a 10th of global species and is seen by many as synonymous with pristine coastal areas and an outback brimming with nature. However the country is increasingly exposed to Continue reading »
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PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday environmental round up, 17 February 2019
It may be too slow but the policy environment around climate change is moving. Recently in NSW we have seen a mine proposal refused because of its impact on climate change and the release of a report calling for the development of a plan for the Hunter Valley to transition away from coal. In the Continue reading »
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ANDREW GLIKSON. Imagining the real: Two minutes to mid-night on the Clock of the Atomic Scientists
On January 24, 2019, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists stated: “Humanity now faces two simultaneous existential threats, either of which would be cause for extreme concern and immediate attention. These major threats—nuclear weapons and climate change—were exacerbated this past year (2018) by the increased use of information warfare to undermine democracy around the world, Continue reading »
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JOSEPH A. CAMILLERI. Just Peace: A timely roadmap for Australia or impossible dream? – Part 2
If ‘just peace’ requires peacemaking and peacebuilding to be sensitive to the cries of the poor and the cries of the Earth, how relevant is it to Australia’s present circumstances? If what is proposed is a holistic approach to the problem of violence that encompasses social and ecological violence as well as physical violence, is Continue reading »
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NOEL TURNBULL. A climate of hope.
Despite Donald Trump, Scott Morrison and others there is a significant change of opinion on climate change around much of the western world – particularly in the US of all places – for the better. Continue reading »
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LIZ HANNA. A warming Australia spells serious trouble for human health
Climate change. Global warming. A hotter planet. A hotter Australia. Yet few are asking the difficult question of ‘how hot is too hot?’. We have so many elephants in the room at present that ‘the room’ is getting pretty crowded, but as we are barrelling towards 1.5oC of planetary warming since pre-industrial times, the ‘how Continue reading »
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RICHARD FLANAGAN. Tasmania is burning. The climate disaster future has arrived while those in power laugh at us. (The Guardian 4.2.2019)
Scott Morrison is trying to scare people about economic policy but seems blithely unaware people are already scared – about climate change. Continue reading »
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PETER SAINSBURY. Sunday’s environmental round up, 3 February 2019
A complete focus on climate change this week, starting with a short video by the inspirational Greta Thunberg and finishing with a map of distinctly chilly Iowa. In between, articles about last year’s game-changing IPCC report on warming of 1.5oC, Germany’s plans to exit coal fired power, sweltering Adelaide and a report on feeding the Continue reading »