Category: Climate

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What an outrage it is that the Northern Territory doesn’t lift its grape production, instead of importing wine from South Australia! And what about those lazy Tasmanians; rather than growing their own mangoes and pineapples they import them from Queensland! Michael West reports on the bizarre claims of the gas lobby. (more…)

History testifies to powerful rulers’ aspirations for the position of gods, including the Pharaohs and Roman Emperors such as Caligula or Nero, nowadays mimicked by false messianic prophecies of “intergalactic civilization” made by billionaires and their followers in public and the media, including some scientists. This includes predictions of making life interplanetary by giant proprietors of space hardware, such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, including plans for space tourism, asteroid mining and permanent human settlements on the Moon and Mars.  This would by some estimates be expected to cost about  $1 trillion by 2040. These ideas are closely linked to the rise of climate disruption and potential nuclear calamities and with the upsurge of fascism.  Space playgrounds of billionaires can only come at the expense of the multitude of humanity left behind where, coupled with plans for militarization and even weaponization of space, humanity may be left with a few barren rocks in space to temporarily support a few survivors.

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Monday week ago, Four Corners aired “Cash Splash”. It concerned whether government funded water saving schemes (“efficiency measures” in the Basin Plan) have been a waste of money. Since the broadcast, the National Irrigators Council, and other lobby groups, have indicated they will lodge a complaint to the ABC. Subsequently, “Media Watch” suggested that Four Corners ignored “inconvenient evidence”. I disagree, but more of that later. (more…)

Science can be incomprehensible to many, yet it requires others to help communicate and apply great works such as those of Albert Einstein. Climate change science is also quite complex and those in this field are facing similar difficulties to those who sought to explain relativity to the broader public. It is irresponsible of decision-makers to not trust the science and ignore its implications in today’s uncertain world. (more…)

The New South Wales deputy premier wants to allow logging in a national park in the state’s Riverina. John Barilaro says he intends removing statutory protection of the 42,000 hectare Murray Valley National Park – either by de-gazetting the entire area or reducing its size. (more…)

Nations behave wisely, Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban observed five decades ago, “once they have exhausted all other alternatives”.

One can only hope that proves the case with water policy in Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin, the nation’s largest river system and agricultural heartland. (more…)

The pace of global warming has been grossly underestimated. As the world keeps increasing its carbon emissions, rising in 2018 to a record 33.1 billion ton CO₂ per year, the atmospheric greenhouse gas level has now exceeded 560 ppm (parts per million) CO₂–equivalent, namely when methane and nitric oxide are included. This level surpasses the stability threshold of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. The term “climate change“ is thus no longer appropriate, since what is happening in the atmosphere-ocean system, accelerating over the last 70 years or so, is an abrupt calamity on a geological dimension threatening nature and civilization. Ignoring what the science says, the powers-that-be are presiding over the sixth mass extinction of species, including humanity. (more…)

Our last summer was the hottest on record in Australia, and we can expect the record breaking weather to continue for at least the next 20 years, new climate change research has found. (more…)

About sixty years ago, as an undergraduate of Sydney University, I met a flat earther on the campus.   (more…)

I am not sure how many Australians appreciated promises made about coastal issues during the recent federal election. Perhaps very few. This despite the fact that so much of our national well-being and livelihoods are dependent on healthy coasts and waterways. Yet it is interesting to look at promises made by the two major parties and think about what our federal system has to offer over the next 3 years (and beyond!). (more…)

A huge transformation of global energy production and consumption
is underway but sorely needs international governance. (more…)

With the Federal election verdict widely attributed to ‘quiet Australians’ favouring the economy over the environment, one key point has been missed in the wash-up analysis. Rather than supposedly avoiding a gaping economic hole required to fix the environment through the public purse, the modelling incorrectly assessed the impacts, costs and benefits of the environment. Current economic modelling predominantly relies on a confined definition of economy: one focused so narrowly that it fails to measure long-term environmental benefits or costs.

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In the Australia in Wonderland in which we are now living, things are getting curiouser and curiouser. Like the time-travel budget surplus arriving in 2019 from the 2020 budget, the Prime Minister has declared that Australia will meet its Paris Climate Change promise ‘in a canter’. (Or is that ‘at a canter’?) Curiously, the Department of Environment and Energy reports total emissions for the year to September 2018 increased by 0.9%.  What, then, is the true State of the Nation’s greenhouse gas emissions? (more…)

Ian Dunlop has argued persuasively that global warming now represents an emergency situation ‘akin to wartime’. The alarmingly obstinate year-on-year increase in the levels of greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere has brought this about and will ensure the IPCC prediction that ‘[G]lobal warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate’ is exceeded. The disaster of the Anthropocene is now unavoidable. The world has passed a tipping point and national security now means defence against the consequences of global warming.

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