It would be harder to stoke homicidal zeal if everyone understood that behind all our hostilities is the simple, though stark, reality that humanity faces climate change and resource depletion. (more…)
Category: Climate
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EVs and electric hot water can transform cities into ‘giant batteries’ to slash peak demand
Electrified homes and vehicles could help transform Australian cities into “giant batteries,” a new study has found, where each resident is effectively equipped with around three Tesla Powerwalls-worth of flexible energy storage capacity. (more…)
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‘New era of climate accountability’: ICJ says nations have legal duty to combat planetary crisis
“For the first time, it feels like justice is not just a dream but a direction,” said Flora Vano, an activist from Vanuatu. (more…)
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Time to clarify the scope for bipartisan cooperation in a new Federal Parliament
It would be wise if the Prime Minister and the new Leader of the Opposition were to meet early in this new Federal Parliament to clarify what they think is the desirable and possible scope for bipartisan cooperation. (more…)
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From media darling to persona non Grata: Greta Thunberg’s journey
Alan MacLeod looks at how the Swedish climate activist widened her focus to the capitalist system and Israeli genocide in Gaza and lost the attention of the corporate press. (more…)
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Environment: Forget 1.5 degrees C, even 2 degrees C, while forests and peat disappear and natural gas booms
Peatlands are vital for human survival, but we are destroying the few that are left. Australia’s gas industry facing a volatile future. Chinese banks funding the destruction of tropical forests – not good for humans or tigers. (more…)
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Our last, best chance – national environment laws that protect nature and power the net zero economy
“I am addressing you today in my capacity as the chair of the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation (ACBF). The ACBF is a not-for-profit, founded in 2021 to help decision-makers find means of securing the restoration of Australia’s natural environment in ways that support a thriving 21st century economy.” (more…)
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Federal Court rules Australian Government doesn’t have a duty of care to protect Torres Strait Islanders from climate change
The Federal Court has handed down its long-awaited judgment in a four-year climate case brought by Torres Strait Islanders. (more…)
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Humanity is ‘risking catastrophe’: UN
The full spread of the impending crisis facing humanity is, at long last, emerging into daylight with the publication by the United Nations of its 2025 Global Risks Report. (more…)
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Why the world needs renewable food
The future well-being and survival of civilisation rests upon a single, fragile assumption: that there will always be enough food. (more…)
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Australia cannot survive unless it switches to a no-growth economy
Big financial institutions have concluded that global warming will not be contained to the limits agreed more than a decade ago and are examining ways of maintaining their profits in such a world. (more…)
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Environment: Ocean acidification has left the safe zone for humans
Seven of the nine planetary boundaries have now been crossed. Civil society calls for major reform of COP meetings. Big banks fund Australian deforestation. China leaving USA behind in the energy transition. (more…)
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The Texas flood, Australia and the psychology of evacuation
The Texas flood on the weekend of 4 July has produced a shocking toll – probably well over 200 people dead, including many children. (more…)
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Not waving, drowning – Indonesia may lose warming battle
This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a flooding: With apologies to T. S. Eliot (more…)
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For the sake of food security, we must address population numbers
As a child, the thought of other children going to bed hungry upset me. Later, I began university studies in agricultural science with the naïve intent of ridding the world of hunger. It was all about increasing crop yields to ensure that the then 3.1 billion people might be fed. (more…)
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The Rainbow Warrior 1985-2025 – Nuclear refugees in the Pacific: the evacuation of Rongelap – Part 2
On the last voyage of the Rainbow Warrior prior to its sinking by French agents in Auckland harbour on 10 July 1985 the ship had evacuated the entire population (320) of Rongelap in the Marshall Islands. (more…)
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The Rainbow Warrior 1985-2025: French state terrorism and the end of innocence Part 1
Immediately after murdering Fernando Pereira and blowing up Greenpeace’s ship the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour, several of the French agents went on a ski holiday in New Zealand’s South Island to celebrate. (more…)
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Environment: Ken Henry and Xi Jinping agree nature is critical to productivity
Ken Henry says high-integrity environmental laws will be the government’s first test but new Labor MPs don’t agree. Great Barrier Reef still suffering from heat, agricultural run-off and overfishing. NATO to increase its spend and its emissions. (more…)
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‘Watershed moment’: Big battery storage prices hit record low in huge China auction
The price for big battery storage modules have hit a record low in the latest giant auction in China, where more than 70 bidders competed for 25 gigawatt hours of capacity in what is being described as a “watershed moment” for the industry. (more…)
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Australia, the UN and the future of humanity
The Albanese Government is now very well placed to encourage and assist the United Nations, to prevent human extinction, and make our planet habitable for future generations. It has also, now become very urgent that we take comprehensive action on the issues discussed below. (more…)
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As heatwave grips Europe, coalition says ‘no to a climate law for polluters’
“Will the European Commission propose a climate law that ends fossil fuel use and reflects the EU’s fair share of climate responsibility? Or will it choose political convenience?” (more…)
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Australia’s decision-makers are ignoring climate, hailing coal and impersonating Elvis
You could barely believe that there is a climate crisis going on. In the same week that climate scientists suggested the world will exhaust its remaining carbon budget within two years, carbon bombs are being set off left, right and centre, or allowed through regulatory hurdles on the promise of buying dodgy offsets. (more…)
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NZ cities are getting hotter: Five things councils can do now to keep us cooler when summer comes
Stand in any car park on a sunny day in February and the heat will radiate through your shoes. At 30°C air temperature, that asphalt hits 50–55°C – hot enough to cause second-degree burns to skin in seconds. (more…)
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Environment: Australia declared climate change ‘rogue actor’
A new “water economics” needed to safeguard supplies of domestic water and make it a common good. Australia’s fossil fuels make it a rich “Climate Wrecker”. Carbon capture technologies fail to deliver. (more…)
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‘It changes everything’: Plunging costs of PV and batteries mean 24-hour solar a growing reality
The plunging cost of solar PV and battery storage has opened up a new frontier in the transition to green energy, according to a new report, with cities and industries around the world now able to access low-cost, 24-hour solar generation. (more…)
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Faster than forecast, accelerated warming creates a climate time-bomb for the Albanese government
The physical reality of accelerating climate heating and faster-than-forecast impacts have mugged climate policymaking, which now needs to be rebuilt with up-to-date scientific observations and understandings, and a risk-management approach that gives particular attention to the most-damaging, plausible high-end scenarios. (more…)
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International survey shows 81% back forcing big oil to pay for climate destruction
“People are no longer buying the lies. They see the fingerprints of fossil fuel giants all over the storms, floods, droughts, and wildfires devastating their lives, and they want accountability,” said the head of one green group. (more…)
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Environment: Murray-Darling Plan delivers profits, but not environmental improvement
Murray-Darling Plan has achieved five of seven economic goals but only 2 of 12 environmental ones. Will climate change be good or bad for the economy? Nations’ current emissions reduction policies unlikely to keep global warming under 2oC. (more…)
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Australian net-zero projects to be rated to prevent greenwashing
Environmental projects will be analysed and rated in Australia in a move experts say could prevent greenwashing and encourage international investments. (more…)
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‘Cakes of coal, volumes of gas’: Australia accused of being climate wrecker as it seeks to host COP31
Australia has been “two-faced” by pushing to host the UN-backed COP31 climate conference in 2026 even as it has been approving massive new oil, gas and coal projects, an international climate group says. (more…)