The Queensland government is vigorously promoting coal’s social licence. Heat waves are clearly linked to global warming. The war in Ukraine is destroying the environment as well as people.
Peter Sainsbury
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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. (more…)
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Environment: Australia’s energy transition pathways a shambles
Australia’s energy transition pathways are piecemeal and incoherent and inconsistent with achieving the 1.5oC goal. Eliminating fluorocarbons helps the climate and the ozone layer. No future for CCS in the steel industry.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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. (more…)
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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? (more…)
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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. (more…)
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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.
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Robodebt, a failure? Depends how you look at it
The horror stories revealed by the Robodebt Royal Commission have prompted commentaries that have criticised Robodebt as an ethical or moral failure, a legal failure, a failure of common sense, a failure to apply the laws of mathematics, a failure of the hollowed-out public service and a failure of leadership. However, there is an aspect of Robodebt that was a staggering success: its vivid portrayal of the worldview of the people responsible. (more…)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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’?
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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. (more…)
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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. (more…)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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. (more…)
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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? (more…)