Date: 29 August 2022 at 7:02:07 am AWST
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: Daily Links Aug 29
Post of the Day
Why are rivers drying up? Global droughts are turning waterways to dust
Waterways have dried to a trickle thanks to droughts and heat waves that owe their origins to climate change.
On This Day
Ecological Observance
Arbor Day – Argentina
International Day Against Nuclear Tests
Climate Change
‘Serious climate catastrophe’: Deadly flash flooding in Pakistan forces thousands to flee
Flash floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains across much of Pakistan force thousands to evacuate from their homes, as the death toll from the ongoing disaster passes 1,000, officials say.
Climate lawsuit over melting Peru glacier could set global precedent
A Peruvian farmer is suing one of Europe’s biggest emitters. The case could set a precedent for holding polluters accountable for harm to the planet.
Bill Nye’s new focus on climate change
Bill Nye’s new miniseries, “The End is Nye,” all six episodes of which premiered this week on Peacock, features a visual feast of digitized planetary disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
National
Russia ‘deliberately obstructing progress’ towards nuclear-free world, Penny Wong says
Foreign Minister Penny Wong has chastised Russia for blocking progress at a United Nations nuclear non-proliferation conference.
Farmers increasingly install and share solar energy to ensure reliability
Farmers are getting into renewable energy in a big way and setting up small trading groups to share power.
Greens push for authority to help coal and gas workers through energy transition
Penny Allman-Payne says body would combat climate scare campaigns by giving workers a secure future
‘It’s not radical’: Push to ban old polluting trucks from capital cities
The Grattan Institute, in a report released late on Sunday, warns that exhaust-pipe pollutants from trucks kill more than 400 Australians annually and contribute to diseases including lung cancer, strokes and asthma.
Plan to grow more Australian vegies using recycled water
Recycled water, currently running out to sea, could be the key to growing more food in Australia and reducing reliance on imported and canned food.
Gretta Peci et al
As the planet heats up, many marine plants and animals are moving locations to keep pace with their preferred temperatures. In the Southern Hemisphere, this means species are setting up home further south.
Labor is sending mixed messages on energy – and some of it sounds like climate denial
Adam Morton
The release of vast new areas along the Australian coast for oil and gas exploration is undermining proclamations about creating a cleaner economy
Australia risks mangling the brake and accelerator on climate
Nick O’Malley
The government can commit to long-term emissions reduction or long-term fossil fuel trade, but not both.
Labor’s climate change hypocrisy laid bare
Nicholas Stuart
Andrew Leigh, Alicia Payne and David Smith are all local Canberra MPs. They give every impression of being concerned about climate change. Despite this, however, all three are enthusiastic backers of a government that’s just waved the chequered flag to exploit more than 46,000 square kilometres offshore for oil and gas.
Drought of logic in climate crusade [$]
Andrew Bolt
Labor needs to explain what it’s trying to change with its mega-billions global warming plan.
Bowen’s green dream doesn’t pass IKEA test [$]
Andrew Bolt
Chris Bowen needs to try assembling an IKEA desk to learn that plans rarely work out perfectly the first time around, before changing how we power Australia.
A red-letter day for green steel [$]
Robert Gottliebsen
Few people in the Australian resources industry have a better reputation than Malcolm Broomhead, so his investment in a ‘green steel’ hopeful should be taken seriously.
Victoria
Victoria’s EPA runs inspection blitz after ‘shocking’ chemical spill
For weeks, Victoria’s EPA has been sending teams of inspectors out to industrial businesses across the state for surprise checks, designed to prevent another serious chemical spill.
New cost-benefit analysis questions the value of Victoria’s Suburban Rail Loop
Victoria’s Parliamentary Budget Office says the cost of the state’s Suburban Rail Loop would outweigh its benefit to the community.
Rewards not just environmental for farmers planting seeds of change
A huge carbon reforestation project is set to deliver environmental and financial benefits for the farmers taking part.
Melbourne’s suburban rail loop relies on trickle-down economic logic that would make Thatcher proud
Matthew Bach
Stage one of the project is a boon for developers and residents of a few wealthy suburbs, yet Labor insists it will benefit all Victorians
New South Wales
Whale season is in full swing, but tourist boat operators and citizen scientists are most excited about the increasing number of less social whales sighted this year.
‘Greedy’: War erupts over pristine bushland
Residents living in Sydney’s northern beaches have lashed a proposal to build 450 dwellings on 71ha of cherished nature reserve, calling on the plans to be ripped up.
Revealed: Flood solution could plunge NSW into drought [$]
A new report revealing the next two decades of waterway management has warned lowering Warragamba Dam could see the state’s supply crumble in a few short years.
Sydney committee’s radical plan for petrol cars revealed [$]
The sale of petrol and diesel cars would be banned in just five years’ time — replaced with 100 per cent electric vehicles — under a radical plan to meet climate targets.
Tougher energy efficiency rules set for new homes and renovations [$]
New homes in NSW will have to meet a 7-star energy efficiency rating from October next year under rules that will force developers to play their part in driving down the state’s emissions.
Queensland
This endangered marsupial is disappearing from one of its last remaining wild habitats
With only about 1,000 northern bettongs remaining in the wild, conservationists race to construct a feral-animal-free zone to rebuild the marsupials’ numbers.
‘Legal pioneers’ or ‘unauthorised’? Traditional owners occupy Bravus mine site for more than a year
After a series of failed legal challenges and their native title being extinguished, a group of Wangan and Jagalingou traditional owners are using a human rights act to occupy land at Bravus’s Carmichael Coal mine in central Queensland.
Adani mine ramps up production amid surging coal, energy prices
The controversial mine has ramped up to commercial production just as surging coal prices, and energy in general, send earnings soaring for the ASX energy sector.
Qld’s China trade rebound as coal exports soar [$]
Queensland’s trade with China has bounced back after hitting a five-year low, despite Beijing so far maintaining its unofficial coal ban. But exports of the black rock have skyrocketed to other countries.
South Australia
New clues to protecting frogs from deadly Bd fungus
As the globe continues to battle COVID-19, another pandemic – the deadly fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) – is ravaging the world’s frog species, contributing to the instability of Earth’s delicate ecosystem. Now, a world-first study from the University of South Australia shows that while Bd can significantly reduce in captive frogs, captivity can have negative consequences for the frogs’ protective skin microbiota, providing new insight into diversity management.
Hopes raised of Flinders Ranges’ World Heritage recognition [$]
South Australia’s far north communities are hoping the Flinders Ranges will hold the same reverence as Kakadu, the Daintree and Great Barrier Reef, due to an increasingly likely bid to have them listed on the World Heritage Register.
Tasmania
Ambitious rubbish raft journey, Hobart to Sydney [$]
Sailing from Hobart to Sydney is no easy journey, but one man plans to do just that, except his vessel will be made entirely out of plastic waste.
‘Game changer’: Tassie’s biggest green energy project [$]
It’s been described as the biggest industrial manufacturing project in the state’s history, and the man behind the southern Tasmanian green energy hub is excited by the opportunities it presents.
Inside the ‘crazy money’ bid to bring the Tasmanian tiger back from extinction
A scientist and a tech genius want to bring back the thylacine. They have “crazy money”. But scientists have tried this before – and last time it ended in acrimony and allegations of sabotage.
Northern Territory
Years after Defence stopped using PFAS, the toxic chemicals are still contaminating waterways
Recent studies reveal 30 kilograms of PFAS is making its way off the Darwin RAAF Base into popular creeks each year, as Defence embarks on a major operation to mitigate potential health risks.
Western Australia
Tassie tigers are extinct, but their legend is alive and well
The thylacine or Tasmanian tiger was declared extinct in the 1980s, but its spirit lives on in Nannup, a tiny WA town obsessed with the animal.
Project home without air con aims to convert public to benefits of low-energy living
A display house in Perth built with an energy rating over 9 stars aims to show people they can heat and cool their homes and save on their power bills.
Rare bee that digs burrows underground at risk from dirt road drivers
Indigenous elders and residents want more done to protect a rare native bee species found only in parts of Western Australia.
Sustainability
China’s record drought is drying rivers and feeding its coal habit
Dry weather in southwestern China has crippled huge hydroelectric dams, forcing cities to impose rolling blackouts and driving up the country’s use of coal.
EPA should crack down on fossil-fueled heating, climate groups argue
A coalition of activists is petitioning the US Environmental Protection Agency to phase out furnaces and water heaters that burn gas and oil.
The ‘spongy’ cities of the future
As weather becomes more extreme due to climate change, cities need to become ‘spongier’. Auckland is leading the way, but for how long?
At last, the Tories prove that Brexit has polluted the UK
Stewart Lee
Having raw sewage lapping around the UK is a fitting symbol of our freedom from the tyranny of EU red tape.
Nature Conservation
Electricity and drought killing white storks
The number of white storks is falling in many countries. The extreme heat this summer is just the latest of many hazards they face – in Europe, in Africa, and on the long migration routes in between.
Efforts to pass global ocean protection treaty fail
Campaigners say it is a missed opportunity to protect species like sharks at risk of extinction.
Why are rivers drying up? Global droughts are turning waterways to dust
Waterways have dried to a trickle thanks to droughts and heat waves that owe their origins to climate change.
The botanic matchmakers that could save our food supply
Undomesticated plants could help their farmed cousins adapt to climate stresses, but that requires tracking them down around the world while also “decolonizing botany.”
Centuries ago Jamaica’s coast was ringed by mangroves, but with the development of major towns such as Kingston, Portmore, Ocho Rios, Negril, Montego Bay and Port Antonio, the coverage of this wetland forest has declined significantly.
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