Ignore the government rhetoric, Australia’s actual emissions are not falling. NSW Forestry Corporation facing 29 charges of illegal logging. Swift parrot habitat continues to be logged in three states. Trump swimming against the energy tide. (more…)
Category: Climate
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Military experts warn of climate wars
“Accelerating climate disruption is the greatest threat to the human future: our safety and well-being, our homes and communities, and how and where we live and work,” a group of leading Australian military and security experts says. (more…)
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Sprinting to stand still: Still no progress in Australia’s energy transition
August 2025: The Australian Government’s oxymoronically named Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water has just published its 2025 Australian Energy Statistics Update Report. (more…)
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Where have all the flowers gone?
One of my most memorable interspecies encounters was many years ago with an orangutan in a nature reserve in Sabah on the island of Borneo. (more…)
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‘Act of bastardry’: Queensland LNP Government kills another giant wind project
The Queensland state LNP Government has scrapped another approved wind project in what is being called “an act of bastardry”, and accusations that the state is openly rejecting renewables as it moves to re-open coal country. (more…)
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Environment: Too much and too little water causing problems from the tropics to the poles
Three-quarters of World Heritage Sites are threatened by water issues. Habitat for orangutans or electricity for the people? Summer 2024 heatwave caused massive ice melt in the Arctic. Humans, dogs, foxes, SUVs, plastics, climate change – parenting is tough for beach nesting birds. (more…)
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The Earth is under chemical attack
The largest of the 10 catastrophic threats now facing humanity is global poisoning, yet it receives less attention from science, government and society than all the others. (more…)
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Carbon bootprints: How war is fuelling climate catastrophe
The military-industrial complex’s vast carbon footprint is deliberately hidden from public view, while we get gaslit into using paper straws. (more…)
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Cutting through the spin – Ten logging ‘myths’ in the new ABARES report
Australia’s native‑forest debate has long been characterised by falsehoods generated by industry and arms of industry such as parts of government. (more…)
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Shared vision, greener together: China and Australia unlock opportunities in eco initiatives
On 9 April, Swatten, a subsidiary of Sieyuan Electric which is headquartered in Shanghai, China, made an appearance at Booth 58 of the Smart Energy 2025 expo in Sydney. (more…)
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‘Who will look after the elderly?’ Bush Summit is back, and so is Gina Rinehart’s dystopian net zero vision
The Australian Bush Summit is back – the Murdoch media’s annual regional roadshow sponsored by Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, who is using the opportunity to present a highly dystopian vision of Australia as it heads towards net zero. (more…)
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Environment: Humanity’s big success: turning forests from saviours to spoilers
We’re destroying the ability of forests to mitigate global warming. Extreme weather events cause food price hikes and social unrest. Airlines are ignoring sustainable aviation fuel, but does it matter? (more…)
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Capping Australia’s biggest fossil subsidy is the productivity reform we can’t afford to ignore
Australia’s biggest fossil fuel subsidy is hiding in plain sight. The diesel Fuel Tax Credit (FTC) scheme — a taxpayer-funded rebate mostly benefitting big miners — is costing Australians tens of billions, fuelling emissions, and damaging productivity growth. (more…)
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Environment: 18th century vicar describes controlled burning in English countryside
English farmers used controlled burns of gorse 300 years ago. Too hot and dry even for cacti. Urbanisation induces genetic evolution in birds. China powering ahead with the roll out of wind and solar. (more…)
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As deadline looms, advocates call plastics treaty draft ‘nothing short of a betrayal’
“The process has been completely captured by swarms of fossil fuel lobbyists and shamefully weaponised by low-ambition countries,” said the chief executive of the Environmental Justice Foundation. (more…)
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Burning wood for power Is a dangerous step backward
The NSW Independent Planning Commission is currently considering an application to reopen the Redbank Power Station near Singleton. (more…)
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The Great Barrier Reef is the litmus test for the forthcoming 2035 emissions reduction target
Coral reefs are highly vulnerable to climate change. That’s why, for years, conservationists have advocated that Australia’s climate policy be tied to the future of the Great Barrier Reef. (more…)
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Environment: Decisive action needed to avoid unmanageable climate tipping points
Global climate tipping points are getting closer, creating danger zones for the biosphere and human societies. Naturally regenerating forests must be left to grow for longer. The North Atlantic Ocean has swapped cod for nanoplastics. (more…)
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Australia leads the world on rooftop solar, now it needs to catch up with how to manage it
It is an irony of no small significance that Australia, while leading the world in per capita uptake of rooftop solar, finds itself in 2025 well behind the pace on how best to manage this huge and valuable resource as part of a modern, increasingly renewables-powered grid. (more…)
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Algal bloom: first peoples ngamath-sea country
A civilisation that proves incapable of solving the problems it creates is a decadent civilisation. – Aime Cesaire. (more…)
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Economists want a carbon price comeback – but does Australia have the political courage?
Bold economic ideas are flowing ahead of this month’s roundtable convened by the Albanese Government, aimed at boosting Australia’s productivity and economy, and repairing the budget. Among the biggest ideas to emerge is: should Australia resurrect its carbon price? (more…)
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To meet 21st century challenges, business regulation needs urgent reform
A new parliamentary term in Canberra for a re-elected government with a huge majority is a timely opportunity for long-term policy and regulatory reform. One necessary focus is the ecosystem for business success in society under 21st century conditions, in an age of existential threats. (more…)
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Environment: Humans are the wisest mammals, but which have the most biomass?
The biomass of marine mammals is almost double that of land mammals. Clean energy investments are increasing but not quickly enough. Illegal gold mining wreaks havoc on the Amazon’s Indigenous communities and environment. (more…)
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New National Climate Risk Assessment – more omission than commission?
The Albanese Government will soon deliver Australia’s first domestically-oriented National Climate Risk Assessment, which was due in December 2024. (more…)
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Ley must be saved from drowning over net zero
When Napoleon remarked that one should never interrupt an enemy when it was making a mistake, he was referring to the way the enemy was disposing of his troops, not about the policies and programs with which he proposed to govern. Like all the countries arrayed against him, (even, effectively, England) Napoleon didn’t do elections. (more…)
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The principal barrier to a rapid energy transition
With the dead-end nuclear energy scenario binned during the present reign of the Labor Government and rapid technological change facilitating renewable energy solutions, we must now come to grips with the principal non-technical barrier to a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. (more…)
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Environment: Judge says advocate and protest to make government responsible for climate damage
Federal Court says Australian government not negligent in failing to protect Torres Strait Islanders from climate change. Human-induced climate change triples current European heatwave deaths but who is responsible for the harm and damage? (more…)
