Category: Climate

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.  (more…)

Before again giving billions of dollars to agricultural businesses, our governments should have their feet held to the fire to get a straight answer about that spending in the name of transparency and honesty. (more…)

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 and weather.

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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. Consequently the rise rate of atmospheric CO₂ at 2 ppm/year (from 408.84 ppm in June 2014 to 410.79 ppm in June 2018) is the fastest observed in the geological record since 66 million years ago, when an asteroid hit the Earth, wiping out the dinosaurs.  (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gcb.13342). The hapless residents of planet Earth are torn between survival in several parts of the world and sport circuses in other parts, while some of their representatives are playing with chunks of coal in their parliament.  (more…)

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 Marine Park. The loss of coral in all three regions (northern, central, southern) of the Park is unprecedented. Many reefs now have very low coral cover. The geographic scale of recent bleaching means that breeding populations of corals have been decimated over large areas. (more…)

Academics who specialise political science are frequently not taking the implications of their discipline seriously when it comes to climate change. (more…)

Just how hot does it have to get before the global frog understands he’s cooking? (more…)

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. (more…)

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 [3].  (more…)

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 agreements, namely a nuclear holocaust on a regional to a global scale, with consequences that belong to the unthinkable (https://thebulletin.org/2010/03/the-climatic-consequences-of-nuclear-war/ ;  https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbressan/2017/08/12/even-a-small-nuclear-war-would-still-have-effects-on-global-scale/#5fbd4b75507d;  http://www.nucleardarkness.org/warconsequences/hundredfiftytonessmoke/). In this context, a picture is emerging regarding the priorities of the US President: On the one hand favoring authoritarian undemocratic leaders and regimes; on the other hand a wish to form an pact with Russia, which could avoid a mutually suicidal nuclear war. (more…)

 “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. (more…)

National Farmers’ Federation head Fiona Simson says people on the land can’t ignore what is right before their eyes. (more…)

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”. (more…)

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 to humanity, but part of it.” … “Anti-democratic leaders are winning democratic elections … and some of the world’s savviest politicians are moving closer to tyranny with each passing year.” Inherent in fascism are extreme nationalism, totalitarianism, racism, militarism a push for war, all of which are on the increase, including in the mainstream media, not uncommonly excelling itself in aiming derogatory comments at perceived adversaries, unverified false flags and personal smears. Strangely much of the Fourth Estate is expressing “concern” regarding US negotiations with North Korea and with Russia, even though such may temporarily avert the slide toward nuclear war and the demise of billions. (more…)

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 established a legislative precedent that threatens the concept of all Australian protected areas and National Heritage listed properties. (more…)

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 feet of hopeful scientists and activists, many cling to catastrophic weather events and foreign influence to encourage change. Yet as the drought sets in over most of the country, not even political tours and tourism hopes are enough to bring the rain where we need it the most. Perhaps, those that pray for rain in hope, can be the ones that encourage Government as it is needed. (more…)

Companies are still lagging on modelling and disclosing impacts of climate change – more business, government and regulatory action is required.  (more…)

Antarctica lost 3 trillion tonnes of ice between 1992 and 2017, according to a new analysis of satellite observations. In vulnerable West Antarctica, the annual rate of ice loss has tripled during that period, reaching 159 billion tonnes a year. Overall, enough ice has been lost from Antarctica over the past quarter-century to raise global seas by 8 millimetres.  (more…)

“To ignore evil is to become an accomplice” (Martin Luther King)

If there is a single critical issue science has ever conveyed, it is that altering the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere can only bear fatal consequences for nature and humanity. It is estimated that, to date, some 150,000 to 400,000 people world-wide have perished each year due to the direct and indirect effects of global warming (https://newrepublic.com/article/121032/map-climate-change-kills-more-people-worldwide-terrorism; https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/global-warming-and-health/), including for example 1833 in New Orleans, possibly 5000 in Porto Rico, 6329 by typhoon Haiyan in the Philippine. The list goes on. While these events have been documented in detail, the silence in most of the mainstream media regarding the connection between global warming on the one hand and the rising spate of hurricanes, storms and fires on the other hand, is deafening. (more…)

Australia’s “father of PV,” UNSW Scientia Professor Martin Green, has been awarded the 2018 Global Energy Prize, beating out a shortlist that included Tesla’s Elon Musk, and becoming the first Australian to win the $820,000 gong. (more…)

The outsourcing of nearly half a billion dollars of taxpayer funds to an independent Foundation to protect the Great Barrier Reef is unusual by any measure. (more…)

“Two plus two is five – if the party says so” (George Orwell).

Should anyone record the history of the 20th and 21st centuries, they may report that, while temperatures and sea levels were rising, the human sense of reality has been clouded by electronic systems, including television, the internet and smartphones, by science fiction, virtual realities, public circuses, fake news, gratuitous hype and superlatives which overtook  common sense and the quest for protection of the earth and the survival of the species. (more…)

Australians need to save Kosciuszko from legislative action that will lead to the decline of one of Australia’s most beautiful areas, its mountain water catchments and unique alpine native animals and plants. (more…)