Climate
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JEFFERY SACHS. We Are All Climate Refugees Now.
This summer’s fires, droughts, and record-high temperatures should serve as a wake-up call. The longer a narrow and ignorant elite condemns Americans and the rest of humanity to wander aimlessly in the political desert, the more likely it is that we will all end up in a wasteland. Continue reading »
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HYLDA ROLFE. What’s in a name? The threat to our National Parks
For three years now, Sydney-based company Gap Bluff Hospitality Pty Ltd (GBH) has been revising an offer it made to NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) under which the company would assume a large share of the burden of repair and maintenance of former Defence and other buildings in the Gap Bluff and Green Continue reading »
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ANDREW GLIKSON. Last call on climate—evidence for a demise of the planetary life support system.
In a key paper titled “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene“, published in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Science (6.8.2018), a group of 17 climate and environment scientists (Will Steffen, Johan Rockström, Katherine Richardson, Timothy M. Lenton, Carl Folke, Diana Liverman, Colin P. Summerhayes, Anthony D. Barnosky, Sarah E. Cornell, Continue reading »
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WILLIAM FINNEGAN. California Burning.
On the northwestern edge of Los Angeles, where I grew up, the wildfires came in late summer. We lived in a new subdivision, and behind our house were the hills, golden and parched. We would hose down the wood-shingled roof as fire crews bivouacked in our street. Our neighborhood never burned, but others did. In Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. National Parks and the new squatters
The new squatters on public land are being given a leg-up, as they were in the 19th Century, to seize and occupy public land. By deliberately underfunding National Parks developer-friendly governments are putting commercial interests ahead of the public interest. Our early wealthy and powerful squatters forced indigenous people off the land they had occupied Continue reading »
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IAN McAULEY. Don’t rush to endorse the National Energy Guarantee: There’s an election in a few months.
The best outcome for electricity consumers would be for state governments to kill the National Energy Guarantee when the COAG energy council meets on Friday. Having gone nine years without a well-grounded energy policy we can wait a few months until the next election. Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. The Great Barrier Reef Foundation and crony capitalism
Just imagine if a Labor prime minister handed out a $444 million grant to a small reef ‘charity’ without any due process. The Murdoch media would be even more apoplectic than usual. There is a lack of transparency and probity in this case. The Chairman’s Panel for this reef charity is full of mates and Continue reading »
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ALAN KOHLER. Another fine energy shambles (The Australian, 07/08/18)
Years of cat-herding by those who actually know and care about Australia’s electricity market will come to fruition this week with the meeting of COAG energy ministers to discuss the National Energy Guarantee, and possibly make a decision about it. Or maybe not. Continue reading »
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LESLEY HUGHES. Cognitive Dissonance in the Big Dry
Climate change is worsening the drought now affecting huge swathes of the continent, bringing gut-wrenching misery for farmers and the communities they support. And what have some of the parliamentary representatives of those regions been up to? They have been trying to convince the Japanese to invest in more coal-fired power generation in Australia. Continue reading »
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SALIM MAZOUZ, FRANK JOTZO, HUGH SADDLER. Could the NEG bring down power prices? It’s hard to be confident that it will.
The final design document for the National Energy Guarantee (NEG), released this week, contains a range of claims about the policy’s ability to drive down both greenhouse emissions and electricity prices. But still there is precious little detail on how exactly these assertions are backed up. Continue reading »
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CLIMATE COUNCIL. Drought and climate change. The elephant in the room we refuse to talk about.
The Climate Council in it’s Fact Sheet, Climate Change and drought June 2018 reports on how climate change is contributing to droughts. A key finding is that ‘climate change is likely making drought conditions in southwest and southeastern Australia worse’. Yet the media,politicians and farmer organisations consistently fail to acknowledge the link between climate change Continue reading »
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ANDREW GLIKSON. Global fires and droughts while Nero fiddles (but don’t mention the words ‘climate change’).
There was a time when the contamination of drinking water constituted a punishable crime. Nowadays those who wilfully ignore or promote the destruction of the Earth’s atmosphere and ocean acidification through the rise in emission of carbon gases (2014 ~36.08 billion ton CO2/year ; 2017 ~36.79 billion ton CO2/year), hold major sway in the world. Continue reading »
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IMOGEN ZETHOVEN. The Tourism Industry Calls for Climate Action
It’s not hard to find bad news about the Great Barrier Reef but amongst the grim reports, there are signs of hope. First the bad news: The Australian Institute of Marine Science recently released its annual findings on the state of the Great Barrier Reef. Hard coral cover has shown a steep decline throughout the Continue reading »
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James Wimberley Coal crash in India
Tony Abbott told us that coal was good for humanity. More recently the federal resources and energy minister Josh Frydenberg told us that there was a strong ‘moral case’ to export coal to countries such as India. That has more to do with coalition politics than any logic. Now India is moving rapidly away from Continue reading »
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MARK BEESON. Politics and climate change: Academia’s missing contribution
Academics who specialise political science are frequently not taking the implications of their discipline seriously when it comes to climate change. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. Don’t believe in climate change? Then come over to Europe.
Just how hot does it have to get before the global frog understands he’s cooking? Continue reading »
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JAMES FERNYHOUGH. Revealed: Australia’s most climate-conscious super funds
This week 23-year-old Queenslander Mark McVeigh made headlines when he revealed he was suing his super fund, REST, for failing to disclose how it was preparing for the investment risks of climate change. Continue reading »
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IAN DUNLOP. Climate Risk – Minerals Council of Australia Directors Breach Duties of Care and Due Diligence
After 30 years of inaction, the focus on climate risk is accelerating as the physical impact of climate change worsens and the transition risks to a low-carbon world intensify. Despite effusive official rhetoric, nothing has been done to seriously address climate change, notwithstanding increasingly urgent warnings[1] [2]. Global climate-related losses are running at record levels Continue reading »
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ANDREW GLIKSON. A mainstream media drive towards a nuclear WWIII ?
For many weeks much of the mainstream media world-wide, including broadcasters, been warning of potential concessions in the negotiations between the US and North Korea and between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, lest vital interests of the west are compromised. In the process little has been said about the alternative for such negotiations and potential Continue reading »
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Bad news for coal-huggers: Renewables at 50% by 2030
“King coal to rule for 20 more years” screamed the front page lead headline in The Australian, following the release of the Australian Energy Market Operator’s 20-year blueprint for the future of energy, known as its Integrated System Plan. Continue reading »
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MUNGO MACCALUM. ACCC Report ignites squabbling.
Just when you might have thought you were getting a grip on the tin full of worms masquerading as the government’s energy policy, along comes yet another authoritative report. Continue reading »
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JOHN QUIGGIN. Australia’s failed energy policy needs more than just a Band-Aid (the Guardian 13.07.18)
The ACCC report is a mishmash of cognitive dissonance and half-baked suggestions for fixing the unfixable. Continue reading »
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KATHARINE MURPHY. ‘We’ve turned a corner’: farmers shift on climate change and want a say on energy.
National Farmers’ Federation head Fiona Simson says people on the land can’t ignore what is right before their eyes. Continue reading »
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ANDREW GLIKSON. Abbott’s views on climate change
Since 2015 when the then Prime Minister stated Australia was making a “definite commitment” to a 26% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and possibly as high as 28% reduction”, now Abbott states he did not foresee as prime minister “how the aspirational targets we agreed to at Paris would, in different hands, become binding commitments”. Continue reading »
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ANDREW GLIKSON. The rise of fascism on the sinking Titanic.
In her new book “Fascism: A Warning” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I27X9L8rReo), Madeleine Albright’s states that the Fascism of a century ago was not atypical: “In hindsight, it is tempting to dismiss every Fascist of this era as a thoroughly bad guy or a lunatic, but that is too easy, also dangerous,” she writes. “Fascism is not an exception Continue reading »
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GRAEME WORBOYS. Kosciuszko. The destruction of a national heritage icon?
NSW Deputy Premier and State National Party Leader John Barilaro’s 2018 Kosciuszko Wild Horse Heritage Legislation is the single greatest political and ideological undermining of the conservation and protection status of Kosciuszko National Park in its 75 year history. It has elevated a pest animal to be more important than Australian native animals and has Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. Electricity – driving towards the coal cliff
How bad, how dumb, how driven by internal political stupidities, how simply nonsensically odd are the electricity troglodytes pushing to keep the old Liddell coal-fired power station open for a few more years? Their case is destroyed by a single graph. Continue reading »
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JOSHUA GILBERT. All the farms a stage …
As the ever closing climate change frontier looms upon Australian Shores, with signs already evident in most parts of the country, the question remains- when will our politicians act? After the failure and promises of Governments of the past, impending reforms that never come and budgets that get built and then pulled out under the Continue reading »
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SAM HURLEY AND KATE MACKENZIE. Climate horizons.
Companies are still lagging on modelling and disclosing impacts of climate change – more business, government and regulatory action is required. Continue reading »
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2018 Lowy Institute Poll – Climate change, renewables and coal.
Despite the debate and political rhetoric, most Australians have not been persuaded to support coal over renewables for the nation’s energy security. Almost all Australians remain in favour of renewables, rather than coal, as an energy source. In 2018, 84% (up three points since 2017) say ‘the government should focus on renewables, even if this Continue reading »