Daily Links Apr 27

There’s a lot to be said for the aims of Extinction Rebellion and not much for Business as Usual.

Post of the Day

In degrading Nature humanity harms itself, UN report warns

Diplomats and scientists from 130 nations gather in Paris next week to vet and validate the first UN global assessment of the state of Nature in more than a decade, and the news is not good.

 

Today’s Celebration

Freedom Day – South Africa

Horse Day – Turkmenistan

Independence Day – Sierra Leone

Independence Day – Togo

Day of Resistance – Slovenia

Abolition Day – Mayotte

King’s Day – Netherlands

Children’s Day – Colombia

National Transportation Safety Day – Iran

Dan We Zo, alias St Louis Cleimeille – Voudon

Final day of Passover  Judaism

Holy Saturday – Eastern Christianity

Morse Code Day

World Tai Chi and Qigong Day

World Veterinary Day

More about Apr 27

 

Climate Change

Climate change protests in London: Extinction Rebellion, explained

Extinction Rebellion is skillfully using civil disobedience to sound the alarm on the climate emergency.

 

Antarctica’s effect on sea level rise in coming centuries

There are two primary causes of global mean sea level rise – added water from melting ice sheets and glaciers, and the expansion of sea water as it warms.

 

Does the climate change movement have a class problem?

Roisin Lanigan

Environmental activism is frequently associated with the white middle class, but it’s an issue that disproportionately affects working class people and people of colour. Without addressing that dissonance, the movement can’t move forward.

 

Appetite for self-destruction [$]

Chris Kenny

When will green-left delusionists see through the falsehoods of the climate change argument?

 

National

Hanson, climate change dominate Facebook

Women played a greater role in Facebook conversations in week two of the federal election campaign, while Pauline Hanson and the environment dominated hashtags.

 

13 Regional Forest Industry Hubs needed to reach one billion trees goal

A major call of the Australian Forest Products Association’s (AFPA’s) Growing Your Future Federal Election Campaign is for political parties to commit $13 million for 13 individual Regional Forest Industry Hubs (Hubs) around Australia, Chief Executive Officer of AFPA, Mr Ross Hampton said today.

 

No one behind the wheel: The new workforce driving Australia’s mines

In the last five years, driverless vehicles have increasingly operated in the vast Pilbara region. How long before we see the first autonomous mine?

 

Celebrating native weeds

Learn about native weeds and how gardens can promote healing.

 

Solar Insiders Podcast: Australia and the art of the stop-start solar policy

Australia’s mix of solar policies is driving some parts of the industry crazy with frustration, as the phone stops ringing in Victoria and strict new workplace rules derail Queensland.

 

Labor accused of refashioning NAIF into gas fuelled “carbon disaster”

Federal Labor’s pledge to spend up to $1.5 billion unlocking gas supply in Queensland and the Northern Territory has angered green groups, and blurred the lines between Bill Shorten’s apparently climate-forward policies and those of Scott Morrison’s climate-denying Coalition.

 

Keelty warns river ‘ripe for corruption’ [$]

Former AFP chief Mick Keelty is examining links between political donations and water licences, and calling for proceeds-of-crime laws to be expanded.

 

Ex-Liberal minister calls for water royal commission [$]

Election podcast Australia’s water system must be examined over issues, a former Liberal Cabinet minister says, as the buyback scandal continues to trouble the government.

 

What is next for the Australian Greens [$]

While high-profile candidate Julian Burnside has animated the Greens in Kooyong, party strategists fear there is a lot to lose.

 

The Aussies cars Bill Shorten will make extinct [$]

Some of Australia’s favourite cars could become extinct on the roads if Bill Shorten pushes strict Euro-style emissions standards.

 

Here’s an election promise: we’ll waste a shedload of money on infrastructure

Ross Gittins

Election campaigns are when the seeds of later waste are sown – mainly by building the wrong things in the wrong places.

 

Coalition takes water, presses on [$]

Paul Bongiorno

Just when many of his troops were beginning to believe Scott Morrison’s Easter prayers might be answered, their hopes were shattered by Barnaby Joyce.

 

Modern day protesters are all emotion and no momentum [$]

Jane Fynes-Clinton

Old-fashioned methods of protesting to force the hand of government have become obsolete.

 

Victoria

Coastal campaigners look to ride big wave of worry over gas, oil plans

Voters are concerned about the state of their fragile coastlines and are using the federal election to demand action.

 

Grampians ban follows claims of rock art damage in ‘mecca for climbers’

Climbers have been banned from some parts of the Grampians amid an increasingly vocal battle over disputed claims that they’re damaging ancient rock art.

 

Victoria cuts 5000 ha of harvest timber

Victoria’s government will slash the timber harvest in the state by 5000 hectares but it’s also planning new native blue gum plantations.

 

ACT

Charging up Canberra’s electric car future

Bold pre-election promises about the future electric make-up of Australia’s new car fleet will have a huge impact on the cars Canberra public servants would be expected to drive and their novated lease options.

 

Queensland

Pro-mine rally to greet stop Adani convoy

Hundreds of Adani coal mine supporters are expected to rally in a Queensland mining town as a Bob Brown-led convoy of anti-Adani activists arrives on Saturday.

 

PM stands for coal alongside Qld candidate

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he stands for coal because it creates thousands of jobs, as he launches another attack on Labor’s plan to reduce pollution.

 

PM fires up carbon warning in Queensland

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has used a visit to Townsville to promise an expansion of a government program to encourage new apprenticeships in regional areas.

 

Roundtable conversations a success in lead up to Stop Adani Convoy in Clermont

A roundtable meeting in Clermont with key stakeholders surrounding the Bob Brown’s Stop Adani Convoy has been described as beneficial.

 

Dingoes and tourists will never mix

A QUT expert on law and human-wildlife conflict argues the most effective way to safeguard people from dingoes on Fraser Island is to reduce visitor numbers to the world’s largest sand island which receives around 400,000 tourists a year.

 

Dingo plan set to be controversial [$]

A radical response is being considered to address the spate of dingo attacks on Fraser Island — and regular visitors won’t be impressed.

 

Labor announcement on Great Barrier Reef funds welcomed, but 1.5C warming limit is key

A Labor promise to reclaim a $444m Great Barrier Reef grant and return it to public agencies has been welcomed by Australia’s peak marine conservation body.

 

Bob Brown dismisses reports of cold shoulder in regional Queensland

The mayor of a regional council facing Bob Brown’s Stop Adani convoy has labelled the protest an “absolute affront” in an editorial published in News Corp on Friday.

 

Myths outweigh evidence in politics, says surgeon-turned-minister

Mines Minister Anthony Lynham did not mention Adani by name, but he is determined to tackle the “myths” perpetrated about the mining industry.

 

What we know about Adani’s Carmichael coal mine project

Adani’s Carmichael coal mine looms as a federal election issue after the miner was granted a contentious eleventh-hour environmental approval by the Morrison Government in April.

 

Want to stop Adani? Fight the labour hire creep

Van Badham

Promises of 10,000 jobs have been exposed as self-promotion, but it’s a fallacy that the jobs on offer would be permanent ones

 

Mining both sides [$]

Saturday Paper editorial

Publicly, Bill Shorten said he doubted the Adani coalmine would go ahead but that he wouldn’t change the law to prohibit it.

 

South Australia

Embrace the electric vehicle revolution: Hackett

With the federal election imminent, an Adelaide technology entrepreneur calls for political leadership in getting behind the wheel of a  global transport revolution.

 

The yellowcake highway to Port Adelaide [$]

Uranium produced from a controversial West Australian mine approved a day before the federal election was called will be exported from Port Adelaide.


Tasmania

Tasmania a climate battleground [$]

Greens Senator Nick McKim was only narrowly elected ahead of a One Nation candidate at the last election.

 

Northern Territory

Tourists rush to climb Uluru before it permanently closes

Uluru is considered a sacred and holy place by traditional landowners and will close permanently to the public in October.

 

Renewables a better bet than gas for Labor’s $1.5bn transformation plan

Eytan Lenko

Labor is right – there is a huge opportunity to transform the NT economy through energy development. But it’s renewables that hold the most opportunity, not gas.

 

Western Australia

It’s not worth wiping out a species for the Yeelirrie uranium mine

Labor is slamming plans for a uranium mine in Western Australia. Source: Supplied

Like the rest of the Western Australian outback, there’s a wonderful paradox where the land appears barren, but is, in fact, rich with biodiversity – and animals are under threat of extinction if the mine goes ahead.

 

Labor questions ‘shonky’ WA uranium mine deal

Labor is slamming plans for a uranium mine in Western Australia. Source: Supplied

Federal Labor leader Bill Shorten wants to know why Environment Minister Melissa Price approved a controversial WA uranium mine, labelling it a “shonky deal”.

 

Australian wave power technology tapped to power Spanish Canary Island

WA-based Bombora Wave Power to supply 4MW of its mPower technology to help wean fourth largest of Spanish Canary Islands, Lanzarote, off diesel.

 

Yeelirrie uranium mine approval all pain no gain for Coalition [$]

Nick Evans

Environment Minister Melissa Price’s last-minute approval of a major West Australian uranium mine has bought the federal government a world of political pain over a mine that is unlikely to be built in the next decade.

 

Sustainability

33rd anniversary of Chernobyl nuclear disaster

Ukraine marked the 33rd anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, when the 4th unit of the plant exploded in the early hours of April 26, 1986. Some 50,000 residents were evacuated after the disaster, taking only a few belongings. They never returned, and workers and their families now live in Slavutych.

 

If you build them, they will come: record year for cycle counters

New superhighways and better networks are helping cycle lane usage boom across the UK

 

Green jobs have higher wages, lower entry barriers

But there are a lot of open questions about who would get them.

 

We need to talk about virgin plastics

As the EU waves through the single-use plastics ban, broadly shuns fracking and pushes for decarbonization by 2050, plans for a wholesale contradiction involving INEOS and US ethane are underway in the city of Antwerp.

 

States are using taxpayer money to greenwash dirty nuclear power

New Jersey is the latest state to subsidize aging reactors with credits designated for clean energy.

 

Nature Conservation

In conservative Bavaria, citizens force bold action on protecting nature

Alarmed at steep declines in insects and wildlife, Bavarian voters backed a referendum aimed at changing destructive farming practices and repairing damaged ecosystems.

 

In degrading Nature humanity harms itself, UN report warns

Diplomats and scientists from 130 nations gather in Paris next week to vet and validate the first UN global assessment of the state of Nature in more than a decade, and the news is not good.

 

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Maelor Himbury

6 Florence St Niddrie 3042

93741902

0432406862