Post of the Day
Climate change: Five cheap ways to remove CO2 from the atmosphere
A new US study says that several low-cost technologies can be deployed right now to limit global warming.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45967215
Today’s Celebration
Angam Day – Nauru
Armed Forces Day – Benin, Rwanda
National Day – Austria
St. Demetrius Day – Bulgaria
Climate Change
Three campaign ads that are putting climate change on the agenda in US
Across the country, there’s been a small explosion of campaign ads about global warming.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/climate/campaign-ads-climate-change.html
How CO2 removal can help clean up the climate mess
Climate change has backed us into a corner. Scientists say we have remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
The debate is over: we need to start sucking carbon from the air
How to get the goddamn carbon out of the goddamn atmosphere.
https://grist.org/article/the-debate-is-over-we-need-to-start-sucking-carbon-from-the-air/
Climate change: Five cheap ways to remove CO2 from the atmosphere
A new US study says that several low-cost technologies can be deployed right now to limit global warming.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45967215
Does climate change affect real estate prices? Only if you believe in it
Constantine Yannelis et al
Flooding due to climate change may make coastal homes less valuable.
We have so many ways to pursue a healthy climate – it’s insane to wait any longer
Peter C. Doherty
Nobel Prizewinning health researcher Peter Doherty reflects on the challenge of delivering a healthy climate for the world. From hydrogen power to wooden skyscrapers, the options are endless, but all require leadership.
How states can fight climate change under Trump
Peter Groffman
Given the Trump administration’s determination to ignore the climate change crisis, it’s time for states, cities and municipalities to act.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/25/opinions/how-states-can-fight-climate-change-groffman/index.html
Why and how business must tackle climate change now
Simon Mainwaring
Companies can take a stand by measuring emissions, making a climate action plan, setting emissions reduction targets, measuring progress and supporting policies that advance climate change mitigation.
National
Low chance of drought recovery for eastern Australia in coming months
Despite heavy rain lashing parts of the country in recent weeks the big dry is far from over — and according to the latest BOM outlook, the hard times are set to continue.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-25/bom-outlook-grim-forecast-drought-to-continue/10427318
Coalition to redirect $3.9bn into Drought Future Fund for ‘non-rainy days’
Money will come from Building Australia Fund, which was set up by Labor and closed by Turnbull government
Drought a ‘chance to make a dent in feral animal numbers’
The impact of the drought on wild animals offers a chance to try to get on top of pest numbers, a land service officer says, with species on the move looking for food and water.
When your home poisons you
Tim Kirby was living in a share house with mates when he fell sick — dropping more than 20kg and suffering headaches and fatigue — and was eventually diagnosed with an illness thought to be caused by mould.
Power bills on energy ministers’ agenda
Energy ministers will meet in Sydney on Friday to discuss the federal government’s plan to reduce electricity bills, which includes a default market price. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/power-bills-on-energy-ministers-agenda
Energy retailers fight divestiture threat [$]
Australia big energy retailers are preparing to take on the Morrison government’s threat to break up their vertically integrated companies if they don’t bring down power prices by early next year.
Labor states back away from COAG energy deal [$]
Victoria and Queensland won’t commit to anything at Friday’s energy minister’s meeting, dashing Angus Taylor’s hopes of signing the states up to a reliability mechanism for the National Electricity Market.
https://www.afr.com/news/politics/labor-states-back-away-from-new-coag-energy-deal-20181025-h172v0
Ex-AGL chief slams government’s ‘recipe to destroy’ energy policy
The former head of AGL says continued political instability makes it unlikely that Friday’s Council of Australian Governments Energy Council will be a success.
Migration cut to take toll on bush, expert warns [$]
Slashing immigration would lead to many Australians being lured to Melbourne and Sydney for high-paying jobs, thus causing population decline in regional areas, says a new report.
The layman’s guide to understanding climate change
John Lord
While the science behind climate change may be confusing for the average person, it shouldn’t be so for our political leaders.
Why Barnaby Joyce and Andrew Forrest have got it wrong on the drought
Richard Kingsford
We cannot tame this land and its rivers by “drought-proofing”. We need to support a sustainable agricultural sector.
The reality is we just don’t care enough about climate change
Harold Mitchell
Power prices today are more important to most than a liveable world for the children of tomorrow.
Better off sticking to knitting [$]
Chris Kenny
It’s not just politicians out of touch. Company directors, too, seem determined to signal their virtue by declaring their intention to save the planet.
Victoria
Vicar prays for train as study shows 1.4m Melburnians can’t reach public transport
There are more people in Melbourne’s outer suburbs without proper access to public transport than anywhere else in the country, according to new research.
How Andrews and Guy plan to cut your power bills [$]
Victorians will today be presented with competing plans from the Andrews Government and State Opposition outlining how each party would tackle soaring household power bills. Here’s your first look at the two major election-year promise details.
Victoria’s biggest solar farm under construction as land debate rages
The Mallee district is set to become home to a huge new, but the development has sparked concerns over the loss of prime agricultural land.
As power prices surge, Victorians are embracing solar — and it’s causing problems
Victorian households are increasingly turning to the sun to power their homes, and the Labor Government is promising more renewable energy projects. But the state’s electricity grid is actually struggling to adapt.
The fight for an old pub is the fight for civilised values [$]
Guy Rundle
By next week, we’ll know whether Victoria’s planning laws exist for the benefit of its citizens — or, indeed, at all.
https://www.crikey.com.au/2018/10/25/planning-laws-corkman-pub/
New South Wales
Sick of foam packaging for your vegies? A national solution is still years away
One NSW local council says its ambitions to reach a zero waste-to-landfill target are impossible as long as excess packaging exists.
Sydney’s great divide: public transport leaves outer suburbs behind
Inadequate public transport in Sydney’s outer suburbs is leaving its residents at a significant disadvantage to those closer to the inner city, the nation’s top infrastructure adviser says.
ACT
Canberra-Sydney fast train could be closer than we think
The announcement signals bipartisan support in NSW for the long-awaited rail upgrade.
Canberra’s light rail won’t take passengers until 2019
Canberra’s light rail project is running months behind schedule, with the start of operations pushed back until 2019 because of safety concerns and the sheer complexity of the project.
Queensland
Great Barrier Reef likely to be hit with another mass bleaching this summer, forecast shows
Mass bleaching in 2019 could undermine early signs of recovery on the reef, and portend its future as a system no longer dominated by coral. If another underwater heatwave hits, it would be the third mass bleaching on the reef in four years — something not predicted to occur regularly until the second half of the century.
Young jobseekers skill up to create funky furniture from rubbish
A youth training program provides job skills and upcycles industrial waste into funky furniture.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-25/young-jobseekers-create-funky-upcycled-furniture/10152224
Queensland nature refuge program ‘at breaking point’, report warns
Program that protects and restores environmentally sensitive land on private property badly under resourced, report warns
Rise of electric vehicles could cut Brisbane street parking
The rise of electric vehicles might be good for the environment, but council warns they could lead to a reduction in on-street parking.
Four in five on Brisbane’s fringe not in walking distance of public transport
More than one million people living on the outskirts of Brisbane do not have access to frequent public transport services within walking distance of their home.
Call for grid of CBD cycle lanes as cyclists list 2850 problem sites
Brisbane needs a CBD bikeway grid with connected, separated bike lanes along streets to let thousands of cyclists move safely through the city’s busy CBD streets, Bicycle Queensland believes.
New app to record Queensland’s suburban brush turkeys
A team of researchers is calling on citizen scientists and bird-watchers across Queensland to record sightings of backyard brush turkeys through a new app.
Machines, bags and bins sent across the state ahead of recycling scheme
Machines that can sort 200 containers a minute, bags that can hold more than 1000 items and countless bright purple bins are being rolled out across the state ahead of the launch of Queensland’s new recycling scheme.
Dire warning for Queensland over power plan [$]
The Federal Energy Minister says the Palaszczuk Government is threatening Australia’s future energy supply if it refuses to back key reforms designed to cut prices and guarantee reliability. https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/queensland-government/energy-minister-angus-taylor-warns-queensland/news-story/d5147803bf9870135887fdf3fd22fbb4
Video shows muddy run-off from cane farms in creeks, conservationists say
The Queensland Government investigates concerns raised by environmental groups that sediment run-off from more than 2,000 hectares of cane farming land south of Mackay is potentially polluting waterways leading to the Great Barrier Reef.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-26/sediment-run-off-cane-pollution-clairview-mackay-qld/10427726
Our public transport needs a different route [$]
Courier Mail editorial
A NEW report has highlighted the fact that about a million people living in Greater Brisbane are being short-changed when it comes to public transport. This needs to be fixed if we are to be a truly new world city’
South Australia
Graffiti near Adelaide conservation park buffed with rock-coloured paint
A second coat will be painted over a section of the cliffs near the Hallett Cove Conservation Park on Thursday in an effort to disguise graffiti that sparked outrage more than a week ago.
Tasmania
Leak into Stitt River after issues with MMG Rosebery tailings storage facility
Effluent from a mine at Rosebery has leaked into the Stitt River following a problem with a new dam.
https://www.examiner.com.au/story/5722603/mining-effluent-leaks-from-rosebery-dam/?cs=12
Aboriginal groups divide over land [$]
Tasmania faces competing Aboriginal land claims, with warring groups asserting rights over the same territory.
Sustainability
Nuclear fusion: wrestling with burning questions on the control of ‘burning plasmas’
Lehigh University professor Eugenio Schuster has recently been named ITER Scientist Fellow in the area of Plasma Control. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), promises to be the first nuclear-fusion reactor to produce net energy.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-10/lu-nfw102418.php
Why BMW is resisting electric car fever [$]
The German company will have 25 plug-in cars by 2025, but conventional piston engines will remain the main game well beyond that date.
5 major crops in the crosshairs of climate change
The plants that nourish us won’t disappear entirely. But they may have to move to higher, cooler latitudes. Some places may find it harder to grow anything at all, because there’s not enough water.
‘Air pollution is triggering a health crisis in Delhi’
Cases of breathlessness, asthma and allergy have sharply risen in Delhi as the city remains blanketed with the toxic air due to the rise in pollution and smog.
http://www.millenniumpost.in/delhi/air-pollution-is-triggering-a-health-crisis-in-delhi-324575
Malaysia struggles as global scrap piles up
Hundreds of sacks filled with plastic waste from the United States, Britain, South Korea and Spain spill onto the streets of an industrial zone in Pulau Indah, an island town just an hour’s drive from Kuala Lumpur and home to Malaysia’s biggest port.
https://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN1MZ0P6
Can your actions really save the planet? ‘Planetary accounting’ has the answer
Peter Newman and Kate Meyer
Are you really making a difference?
Why we need more than just data to create ethical driverless cars
Seth Lazar and Colin Klein
How can we make driverless cars ethical?
https://theconversation.com/why-we-need-more-than-just-data-to-create-ethical-driverless-cars-105650
Working to reclaim and rebuild our food systems from the ground up
Alana Mann
Through grassroots movements like La Via Campesina, farmers around the world are working to reassert the rights of local food producers.
Being in nature is good for learning, here’s how to get kids off screens and outside
Tonia Gray
It takes effort and imagination, but the benefits are many.
Nature Conservation
Mathematicians propose new hunting model to save rhinos and whales from extinction
Mathematicians have created a new model — of a variety commonly found in the world of finance — to show how to harvest a species at an optimal rate, while making sure that the animals do not get wiped out by chance.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-10/cul-mpn102418.php
Climate change: US desert areas to become even drier
Geologists from the University of Innsbruck study rainfall patterns in the distant past to better understand how deserts in the southwest United States will be impacted by future climate change.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-10/uoi-ccu102418.php
China’s longest sea bridge in the world cuts rare white dolphin population
Conservation activists say the number of rare Chinese white dolphins in Hong Kong waters has significantly dropped due to the construction of the world’s longest sea-crossing bridge, which links the territory to mainland China.
You’re misusing the term ‘100-year flood’
What the admittedly confusing categorization actually means.
https://www.outsideonline.com/2358486/youre-misusing-term-100-year-flood
In Antarctica, climate change is having surprising impacts
As the Antarctic Peninsula heats up, the rules of life there are being ripped apart.
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