Category: Climate

In Europe ExxonMobil is spending billions of Euros every year to hold back climate action in the EU, while in Asia communities living in the sixteen downstream countries of the ten rivers that rise in the Hindu Kush region of the Himalayas face increasing problems with food production and incomes as a result of climate change. In the USA forest regrowth after bushfires is also threatened by climate change. And yet recent research demonstrates that action on climate change makes social, environmental sense and economic sense. An initiative by Melbourne City Council produces unexpected heart-warming results.

(more…)

The conservatives have got themselves into a terrible lather about last week’s climate change protest.   (more…)

The Reserve Bank of Australia issues its first statement on climate change – it’s highly likely to disrupt the productivity and stability and they now include it with the other factors they consider when managing the economy – while schools students across the world strike to draw attention to the failure of current leaders to take adequate action to combat climate change. In Central America, people and governments in Costa Rica and Cuba take climate action more seriously.

(more…)

This press statement by Professor Richard Kingsford outlines what needs to be done to protect the Murray-Darling rivers and the communities that rely on them in the lead up to the NSW state election.   (more…)

The National Party’s battles over climate policy are becoming ever louder, ever more ludicrous. The consequences of thirty years of climate denial and spruiking for mining may finally tear the party apart.  (more…)

Traditionally, New South Wales election campaigns are tightly controlled affairs. Perhaps because the major party planners think that most elections will be close, they concentrate on one or two key statewide issues and hope that local campaigning will see them through in marginal seats. Law and order ‘auctions’ dominated through the late 1990s and corruption has been the theme of several polls. In 2019 the issue which should determine the outcome is the environment. (more…)

 It seems our politicians live on a different planet from the rest of us.

The government’s climate position is untenable and morally irresponsible, while the opposition’s is still marginal. Humanity and the planet are in serious trouble. Strong action is economically sensible, practical and morally responsible.

(more…)

Water features strongly this week: while Birdlife Australia is being innovative to protect our water birds, the governments and shooters of Tasmania, Victoria and South Australia are wilfully destroying them in the hundreds of thousands; the citizens of Toledo (think Klinger, not El Greco) approve a Lake Erie Bill of Rights; Melbourne’s water supply is threatened by logging native forests; and, perhaps drawing a longish bow, financial institutions are abandoning their support for coal (the mining of which requires a lot of water).

(more…)

To mixed responses, global and Australian mining giant Glencore has announced that it will not be expanding its coal mining operations. Meanwhile politicians squabble in Canberra over Australia’s greenhouse gas emission projections for the next decade. Waters shortages in Australia create many problems but they are unlikely to result in military conflict; in Africa and Asia water wars are a distinct possibility. To finish, I present an alarming graph of global carbon dioxide emission projections from fossil fuels to 2050.

(more…)

Both the Liberal and National parties are taking a drubbing from country voters. A while back it was New England and Lyne. More recently it has been Indi and Wagga Wagga.  (more…)

Environmental mismanagement runs deeper than the ecological tragedy gripping the Murray-Darling Basin. Recent policy decisions around native forest logging in NSW follow the same pattern of ignoring science and favouring extractive industry over the public interest.

(more…)

Will Australia meet the government’s Paris climate commitment? Experts disagree, while the government avoids explaining exactly how it will achieve its goal. This creates confusion and conflict, which suits the government in the lead-up to the election. Lack of information and widespread disruptive change mean it is not yet possible to make a definitive judgement. The government must, as a matter of urgency, explain in detail the assumptions, policies and expected outcomes underpinning its claim that it will meet the 2030 Paris commitment ‘at a canter’.

(more…)

The headline findings of the Royal Commission into the Murray Darling Basin – unlawfulness, incompetence, regulatory capture – are spectacular. Despite its strong scientific base, the Murray-Darling Basin Plan has been undermined by the power of vested interests and a general ambivalence toward rivers. But responses to the Commissioner’s report by governments, opposition parties, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, private sector organisations and even members of the community have been critical and/or dismissive. There is still time to save the river but the political system may be too broken to fix it.

(more…)