The AUKUS deal for nuclear submarines by 2050 indicates that government has little grasp of the likely chaotic state of the world after current trajectories on climate and environmental change have played out for the next 27 years. In turn this engenders insecurity over their knowledge and ability to deliver appropriate policies on these threats. Continue reading »
climate
Can we avoid, what a growing number of researchers and writers, consider, will be the likely collapse of human civilisation in the not-too-distant future, if we do not quickly and radically change direction? Two books, published in recent weeks, one by Canberra, science writer, Julian Cribb and the other, by a distinguished panel of authors, Continue reading »
Indigenous owned forests in the Amazon absorb carbon; non-Indigenous forests produce carbon. Chicken and pig factories are bad for the animals and bad for the climate. Indigenous held forests capture more carbon The importance of natural forests as carbon sinks is well recognised – each year between 2001 and 2021 the world’s forests absorbed about Continue reading »
How best to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: stop burning coal, eat less meat or block out the sun? The first and second look preferable to the third to me. How many reports do we need? Every organisation with an interest in climate change seems to produce at least one report a year that analyses countries’ Continue reading »
The name of Will Lee Steffen will stand tall as a pioneer earth systems and climate change scientist at our critical time when the life support systems of our planet are increasingly threatened. Along with other pioneer climate scientists over the last ~40 years or so, such as Wallace Broecker, James Hansen, Ralph Keeling, Paul Continue reading »
Government action must lead the way by having 16 and 17 year olds vote at the next national election. Let us copy the “Make it 16” campaign in NZ. As a young person I lived in the UK through some of the terrors of bombing in World War II. Our parents always told us, and Continue reading »
Recent debate on this site about economic growth and environmental protection highlights the very narrow and limiting framing of mainstream economics, and points to the far more positive prospect that is available to us if we can broaden our vision. Mark Diesendorf (and here) has strongly countered arguments by Roger Beale and Michael Keating that Continue reading »
All countries are failing to look after their environments and their people. Long haul flights will continue to generate most CO2. The world’s youth are not happy. Biophysical boundaries and social thresholds This piece requires familiarity with two concepts: planetary boundaries and doughnut economics. The first posits that there are nine environmental factors that must Continue reading »
Like the environment itself, discussions of our collective future are becoming heated. They are also contradictory, polarised and – in my case, at least – increasingly pessimistic. No doubt my views about climate change say as much about me as they do about the problem itself. Given incontrovertible and inescapable evidence of climate change, however, Continue reading »
BP is dialing back its climate pledge.