Post of the Day
Coronavirus holds key lessons on how to fight climate change
The most lasting lesson may be what the coronavirus teaches us about the urgency of taking swift action.
On This Day
Climate Change
New model helps explain seasonal variations in urban heat islands
Rising temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns linked to climate change may alter the seasonality of urban heat islands in coming decades. A new model simplifies predictions of ‘urban heat islands’ based on temperature, sunlight and rainfall.
Global efforts on ozone help reverse southern jet stream damage
Jet stream appears to have stopped moving south and may be moving back towards normal
England could face droughts in 20 years due to climate breakdown – report
Auditor general predicts drought in 20 years as demand rises and climate crisis reduces supply
Coronavirus holds key lessons on how to fight climate change
The most lasting lesson may be what the coronavirus teaches us about the urgency of taking swift action.
‘Coronavirus forces adherence to Paris climate goals’
The global outbreak of the novel coronavirus has led to falling carbon emissions due to drops in industrial production and transportation amid nation-wide lockdown measures across the world, forcing countries to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris climate accord, according to a Turkish meteorologist.
Coronavirus could lead America to pass its biggest climate bill ever
For a clean energy transition that truly safeguards the climate, the country needs moonshot legislation – a bill that would authorize billions of dollars to redirect the economy away from fossil fuels and toward a low-carbon future. Historically, those kinds of bills only happen on the heels of a crisis. The coronavirus pandemic is one of them.
Greta Thunberg wasn’t the first to demand climate action. Meet more young activists
In what they see as a battle for their future, youths are taking action and demanding their elders do more to protect the planet.
How to win the fossil fuel word game
Alan Pears
There is no longer time to take incremental action on climate change. What are the key actions policy makers must take in the next decade, and what’s needed to…
Why we’ll succeed in saving the planet from climate change
Emma Marris
Life will be different—and warmer—in 2070. But we will find ways to limit carbon emissions, embrace nature, and thrive.
Delay is deadly: what Covid-19 tells us about tackling the climate crisis
Jonathan Watts
Rightwing governments have denied the problem and been slow to act. With coronavirus and the climate, this costs lives
National
Clean energy industry seeks clarity on renewables as an essential service
Clean Energy Council writes to governments to seek clarification of clean energy sector’s status as an essential service under Covid-19 response.
Major power stations consider isolation to protect workers from Covid-19
Australia’s energy companies have ramped up protections for key operational workers at Australia’s largest power stations, and may include the total isolation of staff in a bid to prevent any impact to power supplies from the spread of Covid-19.
Hundreds of deaths linked to toxic bushfire smoke [$]
Toxic bushfire smoke that blanketed much of eastern Australia last summer led to more than 400 excess deaths, according to startling new research.
Coronavirus: Mining, gas sectors may get COVID-19 ban exemption to keep working [$]
The national cabinet will consider measures to ensure Australia’s mining and gas industries can continue operating through the COVID-19 crisis with state and territory travel bans impacting flights and non-essential staff.
Snowy 2.0 is a wolf in sheep’s clothing – it will push carbon emissions up, not down
Bruce Mountain
For the next couple of decades, Snowy 2.0 will in fact store coal-fired electricity, not renewable electricity.
Landcare is central to natural disaster response, recovery and resilience building
Adrian Zammit
While Australia grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic which poses an acute threat to our wellbeing and way of life, climate change and its many manifestations remains a serious and chronic threat to life as we know it.
Victoria
Is it safe to get public transport during the coronavirus pandemic?
Commuter numbers have halved in some places in the past two weeks as people enact social distancing in response to rising COVID-19 cases across the country.
Victorian emissions target decision likely delayed by coronavirus crisis
A landmark decision on how deeply Victoria should cut its carbon emissions over the next decade is likely to be delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
New South Wales
Big new solar farm in NSW begins production, more or less on schedule
Bomen solar farm dodges delays affecting other projects and begins production more or less on schedule.
Cotton farmers guilty of water theft during NSW drought [$]
One of the state’s biggest cotton-growing families is expected to fight fines of up to $500,000 after being found guilty of illegally pumping the equivalent of around 720 Olympic swimming pools from the battling Barwon River.
Queensland
Great Barrier Reef suffers third mass coral bleaching event in five years
Renowned scientist Terry Hughes says huge swathes of reef have been affected in a ‘severe’ situation
Our social identity shapes how we feel about the Adani mine – and it makes the energy wars worse
Rebecca Colvin
New research shows how deeply entrenched “us” and “them” attitudes make it much harder to make a fair energy transition.
South Australia
Belgium-based company to be prosecuted over alleged acid leak at Port Pirie lead smelter
South Australia’s environmental watchdog will prosecute a Belgian company over allegations 700 litres of acid leaked from its Port Pirie lead smelter into a creek.
Tasmania
Hobart fuel reduction burns program continues
A fuel reduction burn will go ahead at Ridgeway Park today (weather conditions permitting), as the City of Hobart proceeds with its autumn bushfire mitigation program.
Western Australia
WA prisoners to remain behind bars despite coronavirus fears
More than 7000 West Australian inmates will remain behind bars, despite ongoing warnings from experts prisons could become coronavirus “epicentres”.
Sustainability
Bristol team develops photosynthetic proteins for expanded solar energy conversion
A team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, has developed a new photosynthetic protein system enabling an enhanced and more sustainable approach to solar-powered technological devices.
World’s wind power capacity up by fifth after record year
Offshore windfarms and onshore projects in US and China fuel one of strongest years on record
Planning for future water security in China
China’s fast economic growth and accompanying rise in food demand is driving an increase in water use for agriculture and industry, thus threatening the country’s water security. The findings of a new study underscore the value and potential of technological adoptions to help design targets and incentives for water scarcity mitigation measures.
Coal mining continues during coronavirus pandemic. Experts say that puts miners’ health at risk
Because of the nature of the work and the significant incidence of lung damage from years of exposure to coal dust, silica and diesel exhaust, coal miners may be especially vulnerable to the coronavirus, medical researchers say.
Mr Catastrophe: the fundie hedging pandemic and climate risk [$]
As the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps the globe, hot on the heels of the summer’s bushfires, a handful of hedge fund managers have spotted an opportunity.
An old-school fuel may be the future of renewable energy, but there’s a catch
The environmental benefits of using wood for energy could outweigh the cost of cutting down trees, a new study suggests.
50 years of progress—and setbacks—since the first Earth Day
Many countries have cleaner air, water, and land. But we face a rapidly warming climate, rising extinction, and other challenges.
Green stimulus plan for a post-coronavirus economy
A group of U.S. economists, academics and policy makers say the Covid-19 pandemic is an opportunity to fix the economy — and the planet — for the long term.
Covid-19 is nature’s wake-up call to complacent civilisation
George Monbiot
A bubble has finally been burst – but will we now attend to the other threats facing humanity?
The community-led movement creating hope in the time of coronavirus [$]
Sango Mahanty and Nisha Phillipps
Thousands of community groups have sprung up around the world to help us stay together while we’re apart.
Coronavirus exposes economic, cultural, environmental fallacies
Nate Hagens
The novel coronavirus has laid bare many societal problems that have accreted over previous decades: chasms of inequality, the use of virtual debt to paper over physical world problems, ecological ignorance, addiction, obesity, fragile supply chains, fractured political governance, all in service of the growth.
Public spaces bind cities together. What happens when coronavirus forces us apart?
Tahj Rosmarin
Most of the activities that define city life we do together. Now that we are having to get used to more isolated lives, will this have lasting social impacts or will city life resume as before?
Steps to re-invigorate the economy must free us from polluting fossil fuels
Elizabeth Sawin
You’ve seen the headlines: Air pollution is down in places where efforts to limit coronavirus spread have locked down cities and towns.
Nature Conservation
National parks pay the price as land conflicts intensify in Colombia
A new study finds a dramatic increase in deforestation in the majority of Colombia’s protected areas and buffer zones following the demobilization of the FARC in 2016.
Why marine protected areas are often not where they should be
Piers Dunstan et al
Biodiversity is often highest in places with human activity. The fishing industry has shown we can often have it both ways: maintain important livelihoods while protecting precious marine life.
Environmental harm and diseases like COVID-19 are linked
Sue Arnold
In the 1700’s, Chief Seattle, a powerful Native American figure, made many insightful predictions on the future of humanity, which live on in the 21st Century.
Now for something completely different
Your coronavirus questions answered: What you can and can’t do in the era of social distancing
Professor Nikolai Petrovsky from the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University is answering your questions about how to stay healthy and virus free.
The data that proves we can beat virus by doing absolutely nothing
The success or failure of Australia’s coronavirus fight relies to a remarkable degree on just one thing, new modelling has found.
Maelor Himbury
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