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 »
climate
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 »
The greatest threat to human health is environmental destruction, primarily due to climate change, and worsened by biodiversity loss and pollution. It needs addressing immediately by cooperative action throughout society. But societal cooperation is severely challenged by gross inequality, confusion from misinformation, and bigotry against certain ‘others’, so that the required climate action has failed Continue reading »
New research shows 116 new government-approved fossil fuel projects due to start before 2030 will emit 4.8 billion tonnes of emissions by then. That amount is vastly more than proposed reduction in emissions; ‘clearly, Australia’s climate policies are not working’. Australia’s newly approved fossil fuel projects and government policies that permit pollution will make it Continue reading »
New IPCC report documents a threatening climate-present and a bleak climate-future. Alcoa failing to rehabilitate the lands it has destroyed once mining stops. Shortage of integrity not gas behind our gas problems. IPCC’s climate change synthesis report As a (lapsed) sociologist, I am well accustomed to non-sociologists scornfully saying, ‘I could have told you that Continue reading »
No one knows what was on the mind of Labour leaders discussing emission limits while approving near one hundred new coal mines and gas wells, thus betraying future generations and eroding the life support systems of the planet. Smirking with satisfaction for achieving government at last, albeit at the cost of adopting conservative climate and Continue reading »