Post of the Day
Is an urban water crisis caused only by water scarcity?
Aanandita Sikka
Water crises in urban areas aren’t just caused by scarcity, but by technological, social and economic factors.
Today’s Celebration
Sukkot (until Sep 27) – Judaism
Nativity of the Theotokos – Eastern Christianity
Ecological Observance
Arbor Day – Brazil
Climate Change
Climate crisis: history will judge failure to act, Johnson says at UN
PM’s warning to world’s richest countries comes amid suggestions US could commit more funds
U.N. chief, UK PM increase pressure on leaders for climate change funds
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged leaders of the world’s major economies including the United States to deliver on their commitments toward a $100 billion per year climate fund with less than six weeks to go before a U.N. climate summit.
James Hansen, a climate scientist who shook Washington when he told Congress 33 years ago that human emissions of greenhouse gases were cooking the planet, is now warning that he expects the rate of global warming to double in the next 20 years.
Chen Zhao and Rupert Gladstone
The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest mass of ice in the world, holding around 60% of the world’s fresh water. If it all melted, global average sea levels would rise by 58 metres. But scientists are grappling with exactly how global warming will affect this great ice sheet.
Weather, climate and model madness
Viv Forbes
Weather or climate? It pays to know the difference before we slaughter our economy on the climate alarm altar.
Jerry Hinkle and Christopher Clapp
The time to tackle climate change is now and carbon fee and dividend should be the centerpiece.
National
‘Higher ambition’: Moderate Liberals urge government to raise climate targets
Liberal MPs want the federal government to set more ambitious climate targets for 2030 ahead of a climate summit in November.
Climate change to deliver suburban house price pain: RBA
Research by the Reserve Bank suggests more than 250 suburbs are at risk from house price falls due to climate change.
Woolworths-backed plastic recycling disrupter in $30m raise [$]
Samsara’s technology uses enzymes to break down plastic bottles to a powder able to be used again, in an endless recycling loop.
Global Citizen’s advocacy given green light by tribunal
Charity leaders say advocacy is a key part of a charities mission
Australia’s emerging seaweed industry could be worth $1.5 billion by 2040
To ensure Australia’s seaweed industry reaches its full potential, key players have joined forces to create the Australian Sustainable Seaweed Alliance — the industry’s first peak body.
Clean energy sector issues plea to ministers to reject ‘disruptive’ market reforms
Clean energy investors call on energy ministers to reject controversial energy market reforms, including a plan to subsidise coal generators.
Records smashed as renewables break through 60pct, coal output at new low
Renewables surge through 60 per cent of Australia’s main grid for first time, as output of coal and network demand also hit new lows.
Future hydrogen industry to create jobs, lower emissions and boost regional Australia
Scott Morrison and Angus Taylor
The Morrison Government’s $1.2 billion hydrogen investment is set to increase, boosting economic activity and jobs in regional Australia.
Proposed rules risk tying up renewable energy in red tape [$]
Simon Corbell
Australia could become a clean energy superpower over the next decade. We have all the sun and wind we need to power our economy and send clean energy exports to the world. But we must get the red tape out of the way.
Climate change is testing the resilience of native plants to fire, from ash forests to gymea lilies
Rachael Helene Nolan et al
Green shoots emerging from black tree trunks is an iconic image in the days following bushfires, thanks to the remarkable ability of many native plants to survive even the most intense flames.
Nuclear sub plan sees Australia’s reputation take a dive
Dave Sweeney
Australia’s nuclear submarine deal will be of no benefit to the country in terms of environment or foreign policy
Post-it note workshops are no way to deliver a market for solar, storage and EVs
Gabrielle Kuiper
The heads of AEMO and AEMC must plan for a 100% renewable future where distributed energy resources are given equal priority to large-scale resources.
From baseload to flexible capacity: The market, and even the rules, are on the move
David Leitch
Flexible capacity, delivered through battery storage, pumped hydro and new market concepts, is going to rapidly overtake the old baseload paradigm.
Australia needs to spend $165bn to rapidly decarbonise grid, but we’ll be better for it
Michael Mazengarb
Australia’s go slow on climate means it faces one of the steepest decarbonisation challenges, but doing so will leave consumers better off.
New South Wales
BlueScope’s climate change boss warns green steel still decades off
Addressing investors for the first time in her new role, Gretta Stephens says breakthrough technologies that will allow the company to transition to green steel production are not likely to be available until the 2040s.
Labor candidate’s social media taunt aimed at coalmining opponents stokes preselection anger
Olympic shooter and former coalminer Daniel Repacholi wrote that people who didn’t support coal should ‘sit in the dark and freeze’
AI and drones to monitor power lines in NSW tech trial [$]
In NSW, a trial by Sydney start-up Unleash Live is underway that could convince authorities to allow drones to automatically patrol infrastructure.
Lord Howe enjoys five days and nights with solar and Tesla battery only
A solar and Telsa battery powered microgrid on Lord Howe Island turns six-months old, dramatically reducing the island’s diesel use.
Hearing and heeding the voices of Forgotten River
In the summer of 2018-2019, when a million fish died near the town of Menindee in outback NSW, tearful landholders along that stretch of the Darling River switched their pumps in reverse, desperately trying to save them by putting water back into the river.
NSW government got a great price for WestConnex but motorists will pay
Jennifer Hewett
The NSW government is thrilled with the $11.1 billion sale of 49 per cent of WestConnex to toll road giant Transurban. But motorists are paying high prices for the result.
Transurban backs a winner with $11.1bn WestConnex buy [$]
Richard Gluyas
The $11.1bn purchase by a Transurban-led consortium of the remaining 49 per cent stake in Sydney’s WestConnex motorway project is a bog-standard toll road deal. It just happens to be a very, very good one.
Queensland
‘It’s unusual’: Emus seek greener pastures in long migration south
Mobs of emus march across the outback in search of food and water after recent rains replenish drought-affected areas and habitat.
Renewables surge raises concerns consumers may turn away from power grid
A pumped hydro facility at Borumba Dam, near Gympie, would be a multibillion-dollar construction project that had the potential to leverage billions more in clean energy investment, according to the State Government.
Almost every coastal suburb in Brisbane ‘climate-sensitive’: RBA
Research by the Reserve Bank suggests more than 250 suburbs across the country are at risk from house price falls due to climate change.
Push for access to record of violence
Couples would be able to ask police if their partners have a history of domestic violence under a scheme being considered by the Queensland government.
Paradise found as World Heritage Area reinstates traditional name
The Butchulla word for paradise, K’gari, will be restored as the official name of Fraser Island after approval from the World Heritage Committee.
Neoen locks in finance for Kaban wind hub, despite Pitt snub
Neoen will proceed with the Kaban wind farm, snubbed by Keith Pitt, after locking in $370m in project finance.
Tasmania
The Hub could impact Tasmania’s goal of reaching 200 per cent renewable power
Clean Hydrogen Industry Hub program proponents say a Bell Bay facility would provide jobs and economic growth for the state, but experts warn it could harm the state’s long-term green energy goals.
KI timber finally free to ease chronic shortage
Enough wood to build 10,000 homes and ease the country’s continuing shortage is finally set to leave KI after being collected from the ashes of devastating bushfire.
‘Ancient trees’ face mass clearing for Victor Harbor Rd
Huge gum trees that predate European settlement face the chop along with hundreds of others in a road upgrade that critics say could still be done with less harm.
Western Australia
WA bushfire a threat to lives and homes
A bushfire burning southwest of Broome in Western Australia is a threat to lives and homes in the area, Emergency WA says.
Gulfs apart as nature-loving locals resist port development
Almost 20 years after a battle between activists and developers brought Ningaloo Reef to prominence, and more than a decade after the UN awarded the reef a World Heritage listing, locals from the nearby town of Exmouth are again engaged in a fight, this time over a planned deepwater port in the Exmouth Gulf.
Calls for clean water continue
The Western Australian government is under pressure to ensure remote Aboriginal communities have access to clean drinking water.
Rio Tinto accused of providing false information to parliamentary inquiry
The Wintawari Guruma Aboriginal Corporation (WGAC) has alleged that mining giant Rio Tinto provided incorrect information to an inquiry into the destruction of Aboriginal artefacts.
Rio Tinto to triple solar capacity of Weipa mine, and add battery storage
Rio Tinto to treble size of Weipa solar farm – once the largest solar facility at an off-grid Australian mine site – and add battery storage.
Sustainability
Ending population growth integral to avoiding conflict
On the eve of the International Day of Peace, Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) says that there can be little hope of peace in regions of rapid population growth unless accompanied by productivity growth and strong institutions.
Big tech’s pro-climate rhetoric is not matched by policy action, report finds
Tech companies poured $65m into lobbying in 2020 – but only 6% of their lobbying activity is targeted at climate policy
Poland refuses to halt disputed coal mine despite EU court penalty
Poland vowed to keep its disputed Turow coal mine running on Monday despite being hit with a order to pay a 500,000 euro ($585,550) daily penalty to the European Commission for defying an earlier court ruling to halt operations.
Possible consequences of NYC’s green infrastructure push
The goal of the project is to replace fossil fuel-generated electricity with power that’s derived from cleaner sources like solar, wind and geothermal energy.
The computer chip industry has a dirty climate secret
The semiconductor industry has a problem. Demand is booming for silicon chips, which are embedded in everything from smartphones and televisions to wind turbines, but it comes at a big cost: a huge carbon footprint.
As climate change fears grow, a real fight over fake turf
A city’s decision to replace actual grass with a synthetic version sets off a conflict over the possible environmental and health risks of the move.
Location matters: The new science of siting clean energy to push more carbon from the grid
Where solar and wind is built matters when it comes to displacing dirty energy. Clean energy buyers are starting to pay attention.
The promise of carbon-neutral steel
A new manufacturing technique could drastically reduce the footprint of one of our dirtiest materials.
Research guides future of plastic waste chemical recycling
New research aims to ease the process of chemical recycling — an emerging industry that could turn waste products back into natural resources by physically breaking plastic down into the smaller molecules it was originally produced from.
The limits to growth, revisited
Peter Boyer
Fifty years ago, in 1971, a team of young scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology released findings from a year-long study of the capacity of Earth’s natural systems to sustain a rising rate of growth in population and economic activity.
Is an urban water crisis caused only by water scarcity?
Aanandita Sikka
Water crises in urban areas aren’t just caused by scarcity, but by technological, social and economic factors.
Nature Conservation
Swarm of bees kills 63 endangered South African penguins
More than 60 endangered African penguins have been killed by bees, with post-mortem testing finding evidence of multiple stings around the penguins’ eyes.
Loss of picky-eating fish threatens coral reef food webs
According to a paper out today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the networks of predator fish and their prey found on coral reefs all over the world are remarkably similar, and those predator fish are pickier eaters than previously thought. These delicate ecosystems become even more vulnerable when these specialized hunters go extinct.
Coral reef biodiversity predicted to shuffle rather than collapse as climate changes
Most coral reef biodiversity consists of tiny organisms living deep within the three-dimensional reef matrix. New research led by scientists at the University of Hawai‘i reveals that the species which dominate experimental coral reef communities shift due to climate change, but the total biodiversity does not decline under future ocean conditions of warming and acidification predicted by the end of the century.
Climate change and environmental destruction have inspired court cases around the country—and the globe—aimed at protecting the natural world.
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