Month: January 2022

Let’s hear it for the small, the slimy and the secretive. They are species too.

‘This is the way the world endsThis is the way the world endsThis is the way the world endsNot with a bang but a whimper.’https://johnmenadue.com/our-obsession-with-economic-growth-will-destroy-us/

Just because we can doesn’t mean we should, and what is done cannot be undone. Uncontrolled experiments on the one planet we have are unthinkable!https://www.miragenews.com/scientists-say-no-to-solar-geoengineering-714625/

Conservation policy and animal welfare policy are quite different propositions, but they do intersect. They conflict in the brumby issue in the high plains, they conflict in the duck-shooting issue. What does the science say? Brumbies are wrecking the alpine environment, get rid of them. If the science says duck numbers are high, it’s not so much a conservation issue but it is an animal welfare issue.https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-28/volunteers-help-remove-wild-horses-from-national-parks/100783402

More climate denial from the LNP, the political arm of the fossil fuel industry. One can only hope Albanese’s adherence to that fundamental Labor value of being elected to government will allow a root and branch review of the NAÏF, fossil fuels and government subsidies to the resources sector. As Whitlam observed, ‘certainly, the impotent are pure’.https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jan/27/morrison-government-urged-to-stop-using-northern-australia-fund-for-fossil-fuel-projects

Off-list with this one, a comparison of the climate policies before us at the election. It’s most likely our last chance, so don’t blow it!https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/21/make-no-mistake-labor-and-the-coalition-have-starkly-different-climate-policies

Thank you Cathy Wilcox.

Here’s my take on the matter in agreeing with the selected article. The environment is all we’ve got and we’re part of the biosphere, a component of the environment. We humans organise into societal structures, other species live in groups, lead solitary lives, are colonial etc. Our society explains its origins, at least by some members, through religion, we express ourselves through the arts, we have selected from among the options a free-market economy to distribute goods and services. Get this order of things awry, as Menadue argues we are doing, and look at the trouble it brings.https://johnmenadue.com/society-has-to-create-the-framework-in-which-business-works-not-the-other-way-around/

And we are pushing through, driving forward, looking through the windscreen and not looking at the rear-view mirror – NOT! The tragedy is that the transition is well underway in most advanced economies but not in this ‘lucky country’, led by people who haven’t quite reached even second-rate.https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/australia-must-jump-on-board-the-e-bus-express-20220118-p59p7o.html

Ah, Western Port. Once more over the parapets, protectors of the Ramsar Wetland, the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and the much-loved bay. The zoning of land at Hastings for industrial purposes has yet another resource company eyeing it off. The price of a healthy environment is eternal vigilance!https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-21/world-first-hydrogen-tanker-docks-at-port-of-hastings/100769138