Australian education can learn something from climate change. For a long time, people ignored the truth about the climate. We no longer can because the evidence is clear: there is a looming crisis, and we need big structural solutions to enable widespread change and action. The same can now be said about Australia’s schools. We find ourselves among the countries showing Continue reading »
climate
Rich countries and rich people have incredibly high greenhouse gas emissions. Arctic sea ice is shrinking. Tasmanian government plans to make fish farms more environmentally destructive. High income = High emissions I’ve previously discussed how wealthy countries are responsible for a disproportionately huge share of greenhouse gas emission and how rich people, wherever they live, Continue reading »
Francia Márquez Mina is a renowned land defender and the first Afro-Colombian to be elected Vice President of Colombia. In this Special Issue of The Internationalist, we publish the very first translation of Márquez’s speech at the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, in which the Vice-President calls for reparations, recognition and protection of Continue reading »
China leads the world in building both coal and renewable infrastructure. Ten leading drivers of climate action are ineffective at keeping warming below 2oC. More and more species exposed to extinction as temperatures rise. The many faces of China The USA might spend as much on its military as the next ten countries put together Continue reading »
The overblown rhetoric on imminent war with China has been justified as the need for the Australian people to be fully informed of threats to the nation. But the same rationale has not been applied to the security threat of climate change, a far greater risk the response to which will be far more costly Continue reading »
There is something but not much to celebrate over the safeguard compromise. It may well ensure we reduce our emissions by 43%. But the Labor government’s continued permissive attitude to new fossil fuel projects is in blatant disregard of the IPCC’s pathway to a 1.5C limit on global warming. Just how conflicted is Labor? Until Continue reading »
Climate change is causing more flash floods in dry areas and increasing methane emissions from wetlands. Cats continue to destroy Australian wildlife. Chicken and salmon farming pollute their local environments. Pet cats killing our wildlife Cats have driven 27 Australian native animals to extinction and currently threaten another 124 birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals with Continue reading »
Governments must come to understand that preservation of life support systems is more vital than many economic ones and they must develop the ability to explain this to the public. In the eastern states debate on the environment or ‘nature’ has been mainly about protecting koala habitat. This view is too simplistic. Protection should embrace Continue reading »
The fact that the IPCC incorporates in its core business risks of failure to the Earth system and to human civilisation that we would not accept in our own lives raises fundamental questions about the efficacy of the whole IPCC project. If low risks of failure are taken as a starting point, “net zero 2050” Continue reading »
Labor talks the talk, but doesn’t walk the walk. Last week’s ‘‘final warning’’ from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – and the Albanese government’s refusal to be moved by it – should be a gamechanger in our assessment of Labor’s willingness to do what must be done. The IPCC’s message – driven home by Continue reading »