And now for some good news, pest eradication works for vulnerable species. Lord Howe Island is seeing a bounce-back now it is rat-free.https://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/endangered-animals-bounce-back-on-rat-free-lord-howe-island-20210130-p56y1t.html
I’m doing what one should never do and that is make assumptions about the thrust of an article from the title and the short descriptor. But – The Oz gets my dander up with their relentlessly regressive campaigns. The EPBC Act is one of the few pieces of environmental protection legislation we have. ‘Clumsy and out-dated’? Try ‘under-resourced and ignored’, then add ‘needs strengthening’. Conservative and conservation should go together but when it comes to conservation, this lot are lower than a snake’s duodenum, a term coined by the wife of a conservationist conservative ex-PM.
The Samuels Review of the EPBC Act has delivered the final report to ‘Three S Sussan’. I trust that we’re all prepared for the campaign that must be mounted to protect the Act and its strengthening from those who would seek to soften it? One stop approvals, devolving to the states and doing nothing more than that because being raptured up is imminent is not what we want.https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jan/28/australia-urged-to-overhaul-environment-laws-and-reverse-decline-of-our-iconic-places
Check the 8 articles under the heading Climate Change and then ask yourself what’s wrong with the more than third of the global UN survey respondents who can’t see what’s happening around them?https://www.sbs.com.au/news/almost-two-thirds-of-respondents-in-a-global-un-survey-say-the-world-faces-a-climate-emergency
To the sneering question asked of progressives at each election ‘how big is the economic hit if we move away from fossil fuels’ we have a quantified rejoinder, ‘how much will not reducing emissions cost us?’https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australia-could-take-massive-economic-hit-from-climate-fuelled-extreme-weather-report-warns
And now for something completely different … . I’d add that I don’t think that the jury is still out on Margaret Court, they have returned and they were unanimous in finding her guilty of extreme nastiness and totally undeserving of the gong. Further, her inclusion in the list to be gonged brings the entire honours system into disrepute.https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/culture/celebrity/the-most-unaustralian-australians-of-the-year-20210119-p56vd5.html
Today’s Age has chapter and verse on Carbon Capture and Storage. (There’s a great article by Henry Reynolds with chapter and verse on the English Invasion too). Chevron has sunk $3.1 billion into trying to make it work in the only example proponents can cite. Australian governments have, since 1999, committed $4 billion dollars of public money in research and development. Let it go! It’s a dud! Get serious about renewables and what $4 billion could for this sector.https://www.theage.com.au/national/what-is-carbon-capture-and-storage-and-does-it-work-20210122-p56w5z.html
Here’s an interesting analysis to explain the tight links between resource industries and the LNP government. It didn’t have to be this way; consider how all Norwegians benefit from the Sovereign Wealth Fund established with the proceeds from North Sea oil. Norwegians get democracy, Australians get aristocratic government.https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/coalitions-dependence-on-mining-sector-causing-a-decline-in-economic-growth,14719
Stacking panels with resource shills is bad and then they they rub our noses in it!https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/23/coalition-quietly-adds-fossil-fuel-industry-leaders-to-emissions-reduction-panel
The appeal of using flat coastal land for runways isn’t so great nowadays. And I’ve been told that there’s already been a runway extension in Brisbane because higher temperatures means …