With the federal budget just over three weeks away, researcher Chelsea Hunnisett has some pointed questions for the Albanese Government, including: what happened to plans for a wellbeing economy, and where is your commitment to intergenerational investment for health and wellbeing? Hunnisett is a Laureate PhD Candidate and Government Relations Specialist in the Planetary Health Continue reading »
climate
Australia’s carbon offset scheme costs a lot and captures almost no carbon but provides a fig leaf for continuing emissions. Technology-based Carbon Dioxide Removal is still a distant dream. Distributed energy resources can be the Swiss Army knife of the electricity system. Australia’s carbon offset scheme exposed as a scam Over the last decade the Continue reading »
Five times in the history of life on Earth the corals have perished, swept from the board by conditions hostile to nearly all life. Each time, it has taken them millions of years to evolve anew. Each mass death of corals has been accompanied by the mass deaths of most other species, on land and Continue reading »
Scientists confirm a fourth global coral bleaching event, the second in the last ten years. “This is something everyone should be worried about, and everyone should be angry about, frankly”, the head of the Coral Reef Watch program at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Derek Manzello, told ABC Radio. “Significant severe coral Continue reading »
Australian leadership is no longer an embarrassment at UNFCCC COPs. Nonetheless, Australia’s participation in the fossil fuel industry, including through new projects, is not putting us on the fastest path to net zero. Will we miss our “brief and rapidly closing window” to secure a liveable future? The UNFCCC COPs reflect the ‘international rules-based order’ Continue reading »
One month ago, three Extinction Rebellion protesters led by Deana ‘Violet’ Coco blocked the Westgate Bridge to deliver a desperate plea to all Australians. ‘Climate Breakdown has Begun.’ ‘Declare a Climate Emergency!’ they urged. Despite 1.15 degrees of warming confirmed in 2022 and the drastic effects of climate change currently affecting global communities, the Federal Continue reading »
The recent P&I article by Chris Douglas featuring Glencore and the Great Artesian Basin raised many genuine concerns, especially regarding the sophism of corporate social responsibility. These included Glencore’s predatory culture and rapacious deeds and the egregious conduct of many other extractive mining brigands across Australia and elsewhere around the globe. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Continue reading »
How accurately are methane emissions reported and whose estimates can you believe? Who should be the last producers of oil and gas? What are Australia’s commonest birds? How well do you know our Aussie birds? 1 Which of the following are among Australia’s commonest ten birds: Rainbow Lorikeet Red Wattlebird Sulphur-crested Cockatoo Australian White Ibis Continue reading »
“We are really running out of time. We need to reduce our emissions immediately,” one expert warned. “We cannot expect to save the Great Barrier Reef and be opening new fossil fuel developments.” Marine conservationists warned Thursday that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef may be suffering its worst-ever coral bleaching event amid record ocean heat fuelled Continue reading »
I have flashes of climate grief, recognition in photographic bursts: Pakistani cotton farmers walking through knee-deep water trying to salvage a few white puffs of income off blackened plants; precious graves of ancestors being inundated by the sea in Fiji, the Torres Strait Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Samoa, the Marshall Islands; the view of fire-ravaged forests, Continue reading »