Date: 24 May 2021 at 8:12:24 am ACST
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: Daily Links May 24
Post of the Day
Stop removing your solar panels early, please. It’s creating a huge waste problem for Australia
Deepika Mathur and Imran Muhammad
Installing solar panels is an easy way to lower your carbon footprint and cut electricity bills. But our recent research found there are many incentives to remove them prematurely, adding to Australia’s massive waste problem.
On This Day
Saint Cyril and Methodius Day – Eastern Orthodox
Whit Monday – Western Christianity
Ecological Observance
Climate Change
States are pricing carbon. Washington hasn’t followed their lead
Even the president’s ambitious calls to transition to clean energy and fight climate change omit any mention of putting a price on carbon dioxide.
National
Are gas stovetops giving us asthma?
As the nights get colder, you have probably started to use your heater more, or fired up your gas stovetop to whip up a big pot of warming soup. But a new report has found that household gas use is thought to contribute up to 12 per cent of the childhood asthma burden in Australia.
This town’s battery may not be ‘big’ but experts say it’s enough to ‘petrify’ energy providers
Battery manufacturers across Australia are pushing into the production of mid-sized batteries for remote towns, schools, and even greenfield housing developments.
Scott Morrison’s claim Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are falling does ‘not stack up’
Fossil fuel and other emissions not linked to the land and agriculture increased by 7% over the past 15 years, analysis finds
‘A 20 per cent vision’: Labor’s environment group lashes embrace of coal
A fresh internal stoush over the ALP’s climate and energy policies is poised to erupt on the federal stage after the party struggled to a 20 per cent primary vote in the NSW’s electorate of Upper Hunter, behind the victorious Nationals.
‘Some refuse to sit in them’: The multibillion-dollar gamble to get Australians into electric cars
General Motors is spending billions on the performance, speed and silence of its electric vehicles to win the hearts of Australian sceptics. At the same time, two video makers have been capturing the reaction of local coal miners going electric for the first time.
Future generations will not thank this government
Bryce Ham
I have lived my whole life in the Hunter Valley, and I’m proud of our region’s coal history.
Our insane electricity future leaves users off the grid [$]
Terry McCrann
This month the lights went off – figuratively speaking – at an aluminium smelter.
Stop removing your solar panels early, please. It’s creating a huge waste problem for Australia
Deepika Mathur and Imran Muhammad
Installing solar panels is an easy way to lower your carbon footprint and cut electricity bills. But our recent research found there are many incentives to remove them prematurely, adding to Australia’s massive waste problem.
Victoria
When COVID hit, these pilots changed course. Now, they’re hunting pests in Victoria’s High Country
Welcome to the new frontier of aerial surveillance and feral animal control.
How this pasta recipe could help save our oceans
This seafood delicacy is so over-abundant in Victorian waters that scientists and the government want people to start feasting on them — so they stop feasting on our reefs.
State urged to fund walking, cycling projects or miss targets
Wariness about public transport after COVID-19 is prompting people to drive their cars more for short local trips. Without investment in active infrastructure, lobby groups fear this behaviour will become entrenched.
New South Wales
The four candidates lining up for Labor leadership after disastrous byelection
NSW Labor is facing a bitter internal battle over leadership as MPs prepare for Jodi McKay’s fall.
‘Black hole’: EPA sought nod to spy on timber plans after being left in the dark
NSW’s environmental watchdog is seeking to expand its satellite surveillance capabilities to detect how much logging is taking place on private land after another government agency failed to keep them informed.
Logging set to resume in South Coast forests hit by Black Summer bushfires
Logging operations in some forests along the South Coast badly affected by the Black Summer bushfires are set to recommence.
Upper Hunter’s wake-up call over woke war on coal [$]
After his party won the Upper Hunter’s contest on coal, an outspoken federal Nationals Senator has urged colleagues not to ‘play footsie with woke concepts’.
Nationals’ win deepens ALP disarray on energy [$]
Australian editorial
As always in interpreting by-election results, important caveats apply in analysing Labor’s disastrous showing in the Upper Hunter NSW by-election on Saturday.
Gas plant at Kurri Kurri a no-brainer with batteries on hold [$]
Ticky Fullerton
The federal government’s announcement of a 660MW gas peaker plant at Kurri Kurri just next door to the Upper Hunter was timed perfectly for the weekend state by-election and naturally contributed to the stonking result for the Berejiklian government while dividing Labor on gas.
Workers see through Labor’s global warming scare [$]
Andrew Bolt
How many more times must Labor be smashed in an election before it realises workers see through its global warming scare?
ACT
ACT’s two-year free registration scheme for zero-emission vehicles underway
Drivers who buy zero-emissions vehicles will receive free registration for two years from Monday, as part of a $5.1 million ACT government scheme to encourage more people to switch their cars to more efficient alternatives.
How Covid has changed the way Canberrans commute
Steve Crispin first started cycling to work as a way of improving fitness levels.
Explainer: How to protect pets from mouse bait
Mice in plague proportions are invading homes, sheds and anywhere they can get access to food.
Tasmania
Feds drawn into fight over China miner’s rainforest toxic dump [$]
Amid the tannin-stained waters and ancient rainforests of Tasmania’s west, a new environmental stoush has erupted, placing the Morrison government between a Chinese government-owned mining giant and Bob Brown-backed protesters.
Maria Island is a magical, historical secret — but its fans fear overdevelopment will ruin it
In the middle of a state election campaign, a controversial draft management plan for Maria Island, off Tasmania’s east coast, was quietly released by the government. The proposals could change the place forever.
Northern Territory
Fire money: how Indigenous land management is transforming Arnhem Land
Strategic burning combines modern technology with traditional Aboriginal knowledge – and generates income through carbon credits
‘Unjust’: Review lodged into controversial NT water licence [$]
The NT’s peak environment bodies have lodged a review of the controversial Singleton Station water licence, which would see 40 billion litres of groundwater extracted per annum.
Uluru: a rock that plagues Australia’s conscience
Paul Daley
Mark McKenna’s short, elegant book Return to Uluru gazes inwards to the continental interior, metaphor for a nation’s yearning
Western Australia
A year on from the Juukan Gorge destruction, Aboriginal sacred sites remain unprotected
Rio Tinto’s reputation is in pieces, but the laws, policies and power imbalances that allowed the blast to happen remain largely unchanged
Sustainability
Small farms have a huge role to play in our sustainable future
Charles, Prince of Wales
Small-scale agriculture needs the tools and confidence to deal with the rapid changes society has to make
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