Post of the Day
Our planet just set a scary new carbon dioxide record
Earth’s carbon dioxide levels typically peak in May
Today’s Celebration
Decoration Day – Liberia
Mother’s Day – Bulgaria. Laos
Revolution Day – Syria
San Juan de Dios – Peru
Climate Change
Our planet just set a scary new carbon dioxide record
Earth’s carbon dioxide levels typically peak in May
Shifting away from coal is key to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, PSU study finds
The United States could fulfill its greenhouse gas emission pledge under the Paris Climate Agreement by virtually eliminating coal as an energy source by 2024, according to new research from Portland State University.
Vast record of past climate fluctuations now available thanks to laser imaging of shells
An international team has developed newly refined techniques for obtaining past climate data from mollusc shells. Mollusc shells are abundant in archaeological sites spanning the last 160,000 years. Using laser imaging, researchers have now found new ways of reconstructing how climate changed during a mollusc’s lifetime, down to the seasonal level
Rising temperatures threaten health of fetuses, researchers say
An international team of researchers projected as much as a 35 percent increase in newborns with heart malformations in a region including Texas.
Rooftop solar trading platform cuts out energy market middle man
Energy Locals, Enosi launch rooftop solar trading platform to put consumers in charge of who they sell their excess PV generation to, and for how much.
Australia’s transport emissions laid bare, in four very nice graphs
Transport expert Chris Loader’s easy-on-the-eye graphs paint a very clear picture of Australia’s transport-based carbon emissions.
Katharine Hayhoe
Climate change is one of those “tree hugger” issues…right? Not quite. On this new episode of Global Weirding, Katharine Hayhoe shares why this issue concerns everyone.
National
‘Big stick’ energy laws off PM’s hit list
Labor wants the federal government’s proposed energy laws to be back on the parliamentary agenda so they can vote against the plan.
Australia increased pollution under Kyoto
Prime Minister Scott Morrison says Australia “smashed” the Kyoto agreement, but the nation was allowed to increase pollution under the arrangement.
‘National disgrace’: Glencore coal campaign revelations prompt calls for reform
Transparency advocates say secret campaigns such as Project Caesar have to be brought out of the shadows
‘Now’ is the time for new coal plants, resources minister says
Matt Canavan’s comments come as Queensland Nationals push for ‘immediate’ action to underwrite power stations
PM snuffs out Nationals’ power push [$]
Despite internal pressure on Nationals leader Michael McCormack, Prime Minister Scott Morrison says energy divestment powers are not a priority in Parliament’s dying days.
MPs seize on power hardship to renew coal push
A record number of households are being forced onto hardship programs to pay off their electricity bills as they struggle to cope with rising power prices.
Investors shun ‘volatile’ energy [$]
Australian energy policy is among the most volatile in the world, hurting investment plans, according to IFM Investors.
Energy bosses clash with Shorten [$]
Energy and resources chiefs argue the market case for a low-emissions power plant will be strengthened by Labor’s targets.
Energy utilities are building their solar portfolios
New data from Wiki-Solar reveals that some of the world’s leading energy utilities are beginning to build significant solar generation portfolios.
Networks unveil “safe and fair” rooftop solar, battery connection standards
Energy Networks Australia releases first of standardised guidelines to govern “safe, consistent and efficient” installation of rooftop solar and storage across NEM.
Climate Council of Australia
The Australian summer of 2018/19 marked the return of the ‘Angry Summer,’ with record-breaking heat and other destructive extreme weather events.
Australia’s energy policy is a tangled mess built on a foundation of lies
Simon Holmes à Court
The Coalition needs to come up with a credible climate policy. Tricky accounting and microwaved policy leftovers don’t cut it
Australian editorial
The political process has delivered up an unholy mess.
Australia needs a national plan to face the growing threat of climate disasters
Robert Glasser
Without a solid national plan to confront climate threats, there’s plenty more hardship on the horizon.
Victoria
Smoke to linger across Victoria for days
A smoke haze will cover parts of Victoria for days as firefighters continue to bring blazes under control.
Vic councils demand more recycling help
Victorian councils left in limbo after the closure of major recycling plants are demanding more cash from the state government.
Albino lizard in rice cooker among scores rescued in reptile-smuggling ring bust
A syndicate is busted for wedging lizards into cooking appliances, food packaging and toys in an attempt to smuggle them out of Melbourne to be sold as pets in Hong Kong and China.
‘Falling out of trees’: dozens of dead possums blamed on extreme heat stress
Rescuers found 127 ringtail possums along the shoreline and in the water on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula
Endangered grasslands may be lifeline in face of climate change
Temperate grasslands are home to diverse flora and fauna but they are in decline because of land clearing and our lack of concern
Energy efficiency market report: Lighting strikes twice in Victoria
Changes to product requirements and compliance matters, plus the election in New South Wales, have made for interesting times in NSW and Victoria energy efficiency markets.
Suburban rail loop – how can this mistake be prevented?
Alan Davies
If it were on a strategic plan with construction anticipated to commence several decades from now it would make a lot more sense.
Nation Building –
New South Wales
‘Safer on the streets than at home’: A town’s answer to youth crime
For some kids in Moree, roaming the streets at night can be safer than being at home, but police and youth services hope they might have the answer.
Brawl brewing over proposed NSW coal-fired power stations
Environmentalists are calling on the prime minister and NSW premier to stop plans for new coal-fired power stations in the Hunter Valley.
Planned $5bn Hunter Valley coal project will require investors
HK and China-based firms behind plan have access to only some of required capital
Site of planned Hunter coal plant is endangered bird’s only NSW breeding area
The regent honeyeater’s plight has blocked previous Hunter Valley development plans in the Hunter economic zone
‘Disappointing’: Last-minute pipeline, land-clearing changes rile foes
The final Berejiklian government moves before entering caretaker mode included easing the way for a gas pipeline to the proposed Narrabri coal seam gasfield and easing the rules of clearing native vegetation.
The ‘ludicrous’ election pledge to slash Opal fares to $1
It sounds too good to be true – and the state government is emphatic it is – but the NSW Greens are confident their sums add up.
ACT
Stage 2 of light rail likely to go around Parliament House to get to Woden
Cabinet is yet to make a formal decision on dropping the Barton dogleg, but the Transport Minister says the government now sees a direct route as more likely.
Queensland
Rare ‘Ringo Starr’ cockatoo facing extinction
A rare and beautiful cockatoo, known as the “Ringo Starr” of the bird world, could be extinct within a decade unless urgent action is taken to protect its habitat in a remote part of Queensland.
Thousands sign petition to investigate historic Aboriginal land sale
Thousand of people have signed a state government e-petition asking for an examination of how Ipswich land that was held as an aboriginal reserve was sold as freehold land.
‘Bauxite a reason to keep coal’
Rio’s $2.6bn bauxite mine in Queensland should serve as a reboot for the nation’s aluminium industry, Matt Canavan says.
Energy wars meet Lord of the Flies [$]
Matthew Stevens
Six Queensland rebel MPs have been inspired to action by a thesis that says the state’s Labor government is “robbing $1.5 billion from all Queenslanders” in power bills. There’s some truth to this – or there was.
South Australia
Farmers call for outback dingo fence repair as stock losses take a toll
Pastoralists say a century-old outback fence can no longer keep the sheep industry safe from wild dogs and dingoes.
South Australia solar shines out of Snowy’s pumped hydro modelling
The modelling used to promote the multi-billion Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro project appears to assume that in South Australia, solar power is produced during the night.
No help as councils face millions in recycling bills [$]
Councils will receive no financial help from the State Government to cope with escalating recycling costs, despite $120 million sitting in a green industry fund.
Elderly residents warned for 10 years about ‘hazardous’ trees [$]
An aged care home has reignited debate over the safety of Queensland box street trees, saying dropped seed pods are a major hazard for its elderly residents.
Annoying? Maybe. But e-scooters may change our city [$]
Greg Barila After spending an hour and $22 stuck in traffic, an e-scooter cost me $6 and 15 minutes to get back to work. Adelaide, embrace this idea — for the world as well as our sanity.
Northern Territory
EPA says ‘constant roar’ from INPEX gas plant within acceptable noise levels
Despite burning questions from residents, the NT’s environmental watchdog says a low roar emitting from a gas plant and audible in some suburbs meets acceptable noise levels.
Western Australia
PM gives $96m to ease Perth congestion
Prime Minister Scott Morrison is set to announce a $96 million infrastructure package to ease congestion in parts of Perth during his four-day visit to WA.
Further strife for Carnegie as value of ‘world-leading’ wave technology slashed
It was valued at $83 million in June 2017, but Carnegie Clean Energy’s CETO wave technology is now worth just $15 million, despite governments pouring tens of millions into the supposedly world-leading company.
WA prepares shift from coal to renewables, and distributed energy
Western Australia’s Labor government says it is drawing up plans to facilitate the shift from coal to a grid dominated by renewables, and will develop a “whole of system” plan as well as a strategy to cope with the dramatic uptake of rooftop solar and battery storage
C02 war: WA faces huge hit with new emission plans
All new large projects in WA face having to pay to offset their carbon emissions after WA’s environmental watchdog unveiled new guidelines.
Horizon Power swaps poles and wires for solar and storage
W.A. utility to decommission 54km of poles and wires and replace with 13 Micro Power Systems combining solar, battery storage and a back-up diesel generator.
Engineered microbe may be key to producing plastic from plants
With a few genetic tweaks, a type of soil bacteria with an appetite for hydrocarbons shows promise as a biological factory for converting a renewable — but frustratingly untapped — bounty into a replacement for ubiquitous plastics.
Coal crusaders eye WA’s iron ore industry
Activist investors targeting coal have put WA’s lucrative iron ore industry on notice, demanding the big miners take responsibility for the emissions generated when their product is turned into steel.
WA’s big polluters targeted by tough new emissions guidelines
WA’s Environmental Protection Authority will require offsets for any project emitting more than 100,000 tonnes per annum.
Twiggy’s new recruit is perfectly placed to wipe out ocean plastic
Ocean plastics, particularly the Indian Ocean Garbage Patch, is something Western Australia is perfectly placed to tackle, says the newly appointed leader of Andrew Forrest’s Flourishing Oceans philanthropic venture.
Sustainability
Court orders release of glyphosate studies
EU judges ruled that the European Food Safety Agency must disclose details of studies of the toxicity and carcinogenic properties of the chemical glyphosate.
EU sued to stop burning trees for energy; it’s not carbon neutral: plaintiffs
In a suit filed Monday, accusers say European nations burning wood pellets and chips for energy are putting the world at risk with carbon emissions greater than from coal burning.
Good news! Europe’s electric grid will still work even as the world crumbles
Temperatures may climb and seas may rise, but the lights (and, undoubtedly, the air conditioning) will still be on in nations with high capacities for wind and solar energy. New research suggests that these electricity systems should work almost equally well in both historical and future European climates despite changing weather patterns.
Microplastic pollution revealed ‘absolutely everywhere’ by new research
Contamination found across UK lakes and rivers, in US groundwater, along the Yangtze river and Spanish coast, and harbouring dangerous bacteria in Singapore
Chemical hydrogen storage system
Hydrogen is a highly attractive, but also highly explosive energy carrier, which requires safe, lightweight and cheap storage as well as transportation systems. Scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, have now developed a chemical storage system based on simple and abundant organic compounds. As reported in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the liquid hydrogen carrier system has a high theoretical capacity and uses the same catalyst for the charging-discharging reaction.
It’s not cheap being a green consumer
Planet-friendly products from straws to bottles to blankets are multiplying, but many Americans can’t afford them yet.
UK government throws its weight behind offshore wind power expansion
Deal with wind sector aims to produce one third of UK’s electricity needs by 2030
The latest Lent challenge for churches this Ash Wednesday: Give up plastic
Several churches have caught on to the trend of merging environmental activism and Lent.
Improving solar cell efficiency with a bucket of water
A simple frame that allows a solar cell to track the sun’s path across the sky
How Fukushima’s massive ice wall keeps nuclear radiation at bay
Think Game of Thrones, but this one is underground and defends against a far more realistic threat.
Green spaces can help you trust strangers
Simple, inexpensive urban design interventions can increase well-being and social connections among city residents, finds a new case study.
Cars are killing us. within 10 years, we must phase them out
George Monbiot
Driving is ruining our lives.
Nature Conservation
Red wolf: the struggle to save one of the rarest animals on Earth
Conservation groups say Trump administration plan that would scale the wolves’ protected area and allow people to shoot the species on private land will snuff out the species
Microplastic traces have been found in every single river and waterway tested in a UK wide study.
Rain is important for how carbon dioxide affects grasslands
Vegetation biomass on grasslands increases in response to elevated carbon dioxide levels, but less than expected. Vegetation on grasslands with a wet spring season has the greatest increase.
Culturally sensitive conservation approaches needed to protect Ethiopian church forests
Human disturbance reduces forest density, biomass, and richness of species in sacred church forests of northern Ethiopia, according to new research.
Solomon Islands oil spill expanding toward UNESCO site
A ship ran aground more than a month ago, and a gash on its side is leaking oil. There’s growing outrage that the companies responsible are not taking action to stop the environmental destruction.
Crucial milestone for critically endangered bird
A team led by a conservation biologist from the University of Kent has successfully relocated threatened Seychelles paradise flycatchers (Terpsiphone corvina) to a different island to help prevent their extinction.
Insects in decline: On farmland, latecomers lose out
Wild bees in Europe are in trouble — more than 50 percent of local species are now classified as endangered. Recent findings indicate that, in farming areas, species that emerge in late summer are most acutely threatened.
World Ocean Summit: climate change a major threat to UAE’s wetlands
Rising temperatures and humidity putting hugely important wetlands under pressure, environment official warns.
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