The temperature is rising and the world is getting increasingly dangerous, even the rich bits. Former Tuvalu PM slams Australia’s climate policies. Rights of and around rivers. All of the last 12 months were the hottest on record The graph below shows the average global temperature increase above the pre-industrial level (1850-1900) for each month, Continue reading »
climate
Bronwyn Kelly interviews prominent science writer and researcher Julian Cribb on key strategies that we will need for dealing with the significant environmental disasters we are facing in the age of climate change. Kelly and Cribb focus on strategies for transitioning our current unsustainable agriculture systems to systems that create an endless, renewable food supply Continue reading »
As the climate crisis accelerates and intensifies, it’s easy to despair about the possibility of any country taking the lead in ‘saving the planet’. And yet Xi Jinping at least says encouraging things. Should we take China seriously? A decade or so ago I wrote a paper with the, not entirely serious, title: can Australia Continue reading »
This was the haunting title of a recent speech by UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell, at Chatham House in London. He speaks with knowledge, hoping to inspire faster action. The science is clear, as the latest IPCC report makes plain. We are now seeing what has been predicted. Simon speaks of “record-shattering heat Continue reading »
The Canberra Press Gallery is not a homogenous group although its members do seem to suffer from a fair amount of groupthink; preference for gotchas and speculation about what might happen next in politics; and heavy dependence on leaks and drops for copy. One part of it – the Murdoch part – subsumes this into Continue reading »
Global rates of resource consumption and ecological impact are now far beyond levels that are sustainable, or that all people in the world could rise to, or that technical advance could make sustainable. This is steadfastly ignored by all governments and the economics profession and the consuming masses. Few realise how great the degrowth would Continue reading »
In World War III the enemy is not an array of tanks, shells and soldiers, but a collection of beliefs damaging to the earth’s future. The enemies are the minds and actions of those with the cult of neo-liberalism and greed acting through the power of huge industries, the enemy within. In 2006 “Why we Continue reading »
Both the WHO and UN may be starting to take seriously the effects of climate change on health. A global plan to save 1,000 freshwater fish from extinction. Covid reverses life expectancy at birth. WHO resolution on climate change and health It’s difficult to know whether to celebrate (the achievement) or groan (about the delay) Continue reading »
In an era of out of control climate change, the case for leaving gold in the ground is even stronger than that for coal. Investor and shareholder pressure has seen the likes of BHP and Rio Tinto divesting from the latter; but in practical, if not financial, terms ending the mining of gold is a Continue reading »
Two major Malaysian logging companies that have devastated Borneo’s forests have been granted “Forest Carbon Research Permits” in the first step to enable them to log old-growth forests and claim carbon credits. The Malaysian state government of Sarawak has granted Forest Carbon Study permits to the Shin Yang group of companies and SaraCarbon Sdn Bhd, Continue reading »