This week’s articles all have visual cues. Climate change is already affecting people’s lives and it’s not always the environment itself that causes the harm. In various ways though people are resisting, as demonstrated in three short videos from around the world. And finally, rising water temperatures are devastating salmon breeding and stocks in the Pacific.
Hurricanes, floods, and wildfires aside, climate change is delivering another threat: a remaking of geopolitics that stands to empower some of America’s adversaries and rivals.
Synopses of two books: why climate change is happening quicker than expected and why civilisation will look very different soon. Antibiotic resistance is a serious and growing problem, not helped by spraying antibiotics on citrus trees in the USA. Microplastics are in the water we drink but that’s probably not a health problem, certainly not compared with what else is in the water many drink. Coal generated power is collapsing in the EU.
Global concern about climate change has now reached a remarkable level, thanks in large part to Greta Thunberg and her team. There is however, in my view, little understanding of what the underlying problem is or how to solve it. The climate problem is just one of many factors driving consumer-capitalist society to its imminent destruction. (more…)
Not only Donald Trump in the USA and Boris Johnson in the UK struggling to bluff and bluster their way out of their self-inflicted problems, but even the previously untouchable Canadian Justin Trudeau was embroiled in decades old controversies over black face pranks. (more…)
Six deep transformations in the structure of society will be required to meet the SDGs and the Paris goals – but are the proposals deep enough? Net zero emissions is ‘Mission Possible’ though for the hard-to-reduce industrial and transport sectors of the economy, even if the Trump administration is hell bent on reducing environmental controls, including on the rapidly rising methane emissions.
The dust-up at the Pacific Islands Forum was not simply a zero-sum game between the Pacific and Australia over coal. While this may have been the tip of the spear, it went to a far deeper divide over climate and development assistance that has now dramatically been exposed and will continue to hamper Australia’s ability to ‘Step Up’ regional engagement. Australia has so far only upset its friends, opened the door further to China, and trashed its global reputation. (more…)
As fire, flood and drought ravage swathes of the Earth, communities around the world are realising that climate change is accelerating and climate emergencies are declared. Many governments fail to act and quibble about fulfilling the meagre responsibilities of the Paris agreement. Some others seek to pressure the recalcitrants. This might be called climate “diplomacy” but it could include the twisting of arms if necessary. (more…)
The world’s rich countries continue to pump US$64 billion per year into coal companies, with Japan leading the charge internationally and domestically. Unhealthy environments are responsible for almost a quarter of deaths globally, but maybe if your community is in an environmentally-challenged area it’s best to stop fighting the environment and move. And a shout-out for mangrove swamps.
There was a time when leaders fell on their sword if they were defeated in battle or lost their core beliefs. Nowadays they would not resign their privileged positions to take a stand against even the existential danger posed to advanced life on Earth, including their own civilization. While large parts of Earth are burning, neither do some parliaments, preoccupied as they are with minor political squabbles, declare a climate emergency. (more…)
This is the paradox: as towns run out of potable water, our livestock and crops die, and water to fight infernos dries up, how can a Nation ‘girt by sea’ use unlimited volumes of sea water to slake a parched land? Wind and solar generated electricity costs have continued to decline, facilitating economic desalination of sea water and operation of water-pumping as an essential component of Australia’s response to the deleterious effects of climate change and climbing temperatures. (more…)
A focus on the economic aspects of climate change this week: business-as-usual will reduce global GDP but climate action is blocked by potential financial losers; the Adani mine is viable only because of massive government subsidies, while in India investment in coal facilities is plummeting; and hydrogen power seems to have some answers for Australia if the right investments are made. To combat the heat island effect, Singapore is going green.
New Zealand’s government released a plan to reverse the decline of iconic lakes and rivers this week. It proposes higher standards for water quality, interim controls on land intensification and a higher bar on ecosystem health. (more…)
Last night (6 September) as fires were raging through the desiccated granite belt of southern Queensland, not a single reporter, politician or anyone else had the “temerity” of pointing out the inevitable relation between coal mining, carbon emissions, global and regional heating and the incendiary consequences.
An update on the Adani mine to start and on Sydney’s Sea-eagle chicks to close. In the middle of the sandwich is evidence demonstrating the lethal effects of air pollution and the health benefits of reducing even apparently low levels of pollution, a new World Heritage site recognising the link between Indigenous culture and country in Victoria, and an explanation of why we’ve got only 12 years left to act on climate change.
The Colombian wilderness has been protected from mining by the 50 years civil war with the FARC guerrillas. No investor was prepared to take the risk of its infostructure being blown up and its personnel assassinated. Now that the civil war is over, mining companies are moving in to bribe local communities with false promises to gain popular support. [more] Simply because there are minerals in the ground does not mean they have to be dug up. Many other things have to be taken into account. (more…)
As fires rage across tens of thousands of square kilometers of the Amazon forest, dubbed the Planet’s lungs as it produces some 20 percent of the oxygen in the atmosphere, some 72,843 fires are burning in Brazil this year. Fires on a large scale including through Siberia, Alaska, Greenland, southern Europe and elsewhere, herald a world where increasing temperatures and droughts overwhelm original habitats, flora and fauna.
Ship owners start to clean up their highly polluting fuel; forests are being felled and burned around the world but ordinary Brazilians want more done to prevent the loss of their iconic rainforest; and the fashion industry starts walking the talk on environmental sustainability. Finally, Saudi Arabia ? and Timor Leste ? have different feelings about Australia.
Another heavy report confirms that efforts to achieve GDP growth while reducing resource and ecological impacts have failed and will continue to do so. The implications for sustainability are profound … but will be ignored. The finding means that unless there is dramatic De-growth all the big global problems will get worse, but this economy cannot tolerate reduction in GDP. What to do? (more…)
Ocean scientists express the need for urgent action in eight policy areas to restore the health of the world’s oceans, while an article in the BMJ highlights the links between ocean health and human health. Australia’s current review of air quality standards is timely in light of a report identifying four locations in Australia that rank highly among the world’s sulphur dioxide level hotspots. And heat: January was Australia’s hottest month on record and July was the world’s hottest month on record.
Last week at the close of the Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu I described the leaders’ discussions as frank and fierce. It is now well-known that the leaders debated the text of the Kainaki II Declaration for Urgent Climate Change Action Now for many hours. I do not want to comment on the tone of the debate, as many others have done that already. (more…)
Hearing the New South Wales government rush through two import gas terminals approvals is like revisiting the fantasy world of Mary Poppins. (more…)
The Great White Father has arrived the far flung atolls of the Pacific. And, like the missionaries before him Scott Morrison is delivering the bringing of the light — a gospel of hope and salvation.
Well, up to a point. Boiled down, his message is that if they are worried about the rising waters, they should sandbag the foreshores and move to higher ground if there is any, because he is not going to do anything substantial to help. (more…)
A new report from the IPCC focusing on land and climate change draws together many threads from the environmental and social crises facing the world. CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are of course the major cause of global warming but methane from fracking and tipping points in earth systems also magnify the problem. Victorians send a very clear message to their government about how much they value and want to preserve their native public forests.
The first priority of any government is the security of its people. The greatest threat to that security today is human-induced climate change. Because of the refusal of political and corporate leaders over the last two decades to take climate change seriously, it now represents a threat which will wipe out civilisation as we know it, unless we move to emergency action. We have left it too late to make a gradual transition to a low-carbon world. (more…)
Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator has called out the Murdoch media for “inaccurate” reporting on the standard and safety of rooftop solar installations, following the release of its latest national data on solar panel inspections in 2018. (more…)
What will it take before the Morrison government recognises the great peril from climate change? Is the overwhelming consensus of scientists not enough, as they track the record-breaking heat waves globally? And why are religious leaders not echoing Pope Francis more vigorously about a looming ‘catastrophe’ from global warming? (more…)
With atmospheric CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas concentrations now above 500 ppm and average global warming approaching 1.5oC, there is a clear shift in the world’s climate zones, displayed for example on maps of the expanding wet tropical zones, drying sub-tropical latitudes and polar-ward migration of temperate climate zones. Large parts of southern Europe are suffering from droughts, heat waves and fires, the Kalahari Desert is encroaching southward and much of southern Australia is affected by warming and droughts. And yet the world’s governments and media fail to accord these problems the priority they merit.
“As temperatures rise, so will we,” says 350.org.
