Using a complex systems framework, we argue that a set of feedback processes intrinsic to the Earth System could form a planetary threshold which, if crossed, would not only speed up climate change, but also take the trajectory out of human control and propel the system irreversibly to a Hothouse Earth state. (more…)
Category: Climate
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IAN McAULEY. If we can’t kill the NEG can we at least shape it into something useful?
The National Energy Guarantee can possibly be made to work – to improve the reliability of power supplies, to reduce emissions, and to reduce people’s power bills – but not in its present form. (more…)
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JEFFERY SACHS. We Are All Climate Refugees Now.
This summer’s fires, droughts, and record-high temperatures should serve as a wake-up call. The longer a narrow and ignorant elite condemns Americans and the rest of humanity to wander aimlessly in the political desert, the more likely it is that we will all end up in a wasteland.
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HYLDA ROLFE. What’s in a name? The threat to our National Parks
For three years now, Sydney-based company Gap Bluff Hospitality Pty Ltd (GBH) has been revising an offer it made to NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) under which the company would assume a large share of the burden of repair and maintenance of former Defence and other buildings in the Gap Bluff and Green Point sectors of Sydney Harbour National Park at Watsons Bay NSW. While the financial terms of the offer were not made public, the deal envisaged the adaptation and use by GBH of several buildings in the National Park as an integrated event/function complex. The mountain laboured…. (more…)
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ANDREW GLIKSON. Last call on climate—evidence for a demise of the planetary life support system.
In a key paper titled “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene“, published in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Science (6.8.2018), a group of 17 climate and environment scientists (Will Steffen, Johan Rockström, Katherine Richardson, Timothy M. Lenton, Carl Folke, Diana Liverman, Colin P. Summerhayes, Anthony D. Barnosky, Sarah E. Cornell, Michel Crucifix, Jonathan F. Donges, Ingo Fetzer, Steven J. Lade, Marten Scheffer, Ricarda Winkelmann, and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber) have issued a stern warning to humanity with regard to the future of advanced life on Earth (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/07/31/1810141115) (more…)
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WILLIAM FINNEGAN. California Burning.
On the northwestern edge of Los Angeles, where I grew up, the wildfires came in late summer. We lived in a new subdivision, and behind our house were the hills, golden and parched. We would hose down the wood-shingled roof as fire crews bivouacked in our street. Our neighborhood never burned, but others did. In the Bel Air fire of 1961, nearly five hundred homes burned, including those of Burt Lancaster and Zsa Zsa Gabor. We were all living in the “wildland-urban interface,” as it is now called. More subdivisions were built, farther out, and for my family the wildfire threat receded. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. National Parks and the new squatters
The new squatters on public land are being given a leg-up, as they were in the 19th Century, to seize and occupy public land. By deliberately underfunding National Parks developer-friendly governments are putting commercial interests ahead of the public interest.
Our early wealthy and powerful squatters forced indigenous people off the land they had occupied for tens of thousands of years. The new squatters are taking over more and more of our public land – national parks, botanic gardens and public reserves.
There is currently an attempt by a latter-day squatter, aka developer – Gap Bluff Hospitality Pty Ltd – to in effect destroy the ‘peaceful enjoyment’ of the Sydney Harbour National Park by developing a series of quite inappropriate features for weddings, ‘bucks’ and hens’ parties’ and student formals. (more…)
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IAN McAULEY. Don’t rush to endorse the National Energy Guarantee: There’s an election in a few months.
The best outcome for electricity consumers would be for state governments to kill the National Energy Guarantee when the COAG energy council meets on Friday. Having gone nine years without a well-grounded energy policy we can wait a few months until the next election. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. The Great Barrier Reef Foundation and crony capitalism
Just imagine if a Labor prime minister handed out a $444 million grant to a small reef ‘charity’ without any due process. The Murdoch media would be even more apoplectic than usual. There is a lack of transparency and probity in this case. The Chairman’s Panel for this reef charity is full of mates and cronies. (more…)
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ALAN KOHLER. Another fine energy shambles (The Australian, 07/08/18)
Years of cat-herding by those who actually know and care about Australia’s electricity market will come to fruition this week with the meeting of COAG energy ministers to discuss the National Energy Guarantee, and possibly make a decision about it. Or maybe not. (more…)
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LESLEY HUGHES. Cognitive Dissonance in the Big Dry
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…)
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SALIM MAZOUZ, FRANK JOTZO, HUGH SADDLER. Could the NEG bring down power prices? It’s hard to be confident that it will.
The final design document for the National Energy Guarantee (NEG), released this week, contains a range of claims about the policy’s ability to drive down both greenhouse emissions and electricity prices. But still there is precious little detail on how exactly these assertions are backed up. (more…)
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MICHAEL PASCOE. The key question for governments giving farmers money: is it climate change or weather? (New Daily)
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…)
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CLIMATE COUNCIL. Drought and climate change. The elephant in the room we refuse to talk about.
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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ANDREW GLIKSON. Global fires and droughts while Nero fiddles (but don’t mention the words ‘climate change’).
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…)
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IMOGEN ZETHOVEN. The Tourism Industry Calls for Climate Action
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…)
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James Wimberley Coal crash in India
Tony Abbott told us that coal was good for humanity. More recently the federal resources and energy minister Josh Frydenberg told us that there was a strong ‘moral case’ to export coal to countries such as India.
That has more to do with coalition politics than any logic. Now India is moving rapidly away from coal as John Quiggin points out in his blog which was derived from James Wimberley….see below (John Menadue)
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MARK BEESON. Politics and climate change: Academia’s missing contribution
Academics who specialise political science are frequently not taking the implications of their discipline seriously when it comes to climate change. (more…)
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MICHAEL PASCOE. Don’t believe in climate change? Then come over to Europe.
Just how hot does it have to get before the global frog understands he’s cooking? (more…)
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JAMES FERNYHOUGH. Revealed: Australia’s most climate-conscious super funds
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…)
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IAN DUNLOP. Climate Risk – Minerals Council of Australia Directors Breach Duties of Care and Due Diligence
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…)
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ANDREW GLIKSON. A mainstream media drive towards a nuclear WWIII ?
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…)
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Bad news for coal-huggers: Renewables at 50% by 2030
“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…)
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MUNGO MACCALUM. ACCC Report ignites squabbling.
Just when you might have thought you were getting a grip on the tin full of worms masquerading as the government’s energy policy, along comes yet another authoritative report. (more…)
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JOHN QUIGGIN. Australia’s failed energy policy needs more than just a Band-Aid (the Guardian 13.07.18)
The ACCC report is a mishmash of cognitive dissonance and half-baked suggestions for fixing the unfixable. (more…)
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KATHARINE MURPHY. ‘We’ve turned a corner’: farmers shift on climate change and want a say on energy.
National Farmers’ Federation head Fiona Simson says people on the land can’t ignore what is right before their eyes. (more…)
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ANDREW GLIKSON. Abbott’s views on climate change
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…)
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ANDREW GLIKSON. The rise of fascism on the sinking Titanic.
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…)
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GRAEME WORBOYS. Kosciuszko. The destruction of a national heritage icon?
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…)
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MICHAEL PASCOE. Electricity – driving towards the coal cliff
How bad, how dumb, how driven by internal political stupidities, how simply nonsensically odd are the electricity troglodytes pushing to keep the old Liddell coal-fired power station open for a few more years? Their case is destroyed by a single graph. (more…)