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Date: 20 February 2023 at 8:29:36 am AEDT
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: Daily Links Feb 20
Post of the Day
One in five developments threatening koala habitat are renewable energy projects
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek faces hard decisions as the government balances competing environmental aims of lowering carbon emissions and avoiding extinctions.
On This Day
Shrove Monday – Christianity
Climate Change
Do you have to be an optimist to work toward a better world?
For professionals in fields such as suicide prevention and climate science, the future can seem bleak. But sometimes action is the most effective form of optimism.
NZ cities urgently need to become ‘spongier’ – but system change will be expensive
Alex Lo and Faith Chan
Two extreme and deadly weather events within the first two months of 2023 have brought the consequences of climate change into sharp focus.
National
Greens leader says onus is on Labor to explain need for new coal and gas projects
Adam Bandt says the party is open to negotiating on the government’s key climate change policy, but believes voters can see they are fighting to stop new coal and gas projects from being approved.
Greens consider dialling back ‘ban new mines’ stance [$]
The Greens say they will consider softening their stance from banning new mines to just pausing them, in order to pass Labor’s signature plan to cut emissions.
Greens dig in on NRF resistance [$]
The Greens are strengthening their opposition to the National Reconstruction Fund, which Labor says is critical to the country’s national security and ability to meet AUKUS commitments.
It was this weather phenomenon that made Ash Wednesday bushfires so much worse
There was one surprising reason the bushfires of Ash Wednesday, 1983, were the worst in more than four decades. The focus of research around the phenomenon changed as a consequence.
Small brewers in Tasmania and Victoria are struggling to keep up with individual container refund schemes across the country. Brewers say the red tape is killing innovation.
The who’s who of Australia’s corellas and white cockatoos
Australia’s corellas and white cockies are raucous, seemingly everywhere, and sometimes almost callously destructive. But there are rules about what you can do about them.
The kitchen benchtops killing young Australians
Ken Parker was a model worker, smashing out 40 benchtops a day. Now he just hopes to live long enough to see his daughter turn 18. Ken, and others like him, have silicosis, acquired from inhaling dust from the cutting of engineered stone.
Australia’s ‘grubbiest’ firms say they can hit net zero and still grow [$]
A group of the nation’s biggest carbon emitters say they can slash their emissions by 92 per cent by 2050, and crucially, do it without a heavy reliance on offsets.
Banks, hedge funds snap up cheap carbon credits [$]
Trade in Australia’s carbon market surged to record levels last month ahead of binding emissions reduction targets on major polluters coming into effect.
‘Dial remains firmly on the red’: No details to finalise basin plan [$]
It appears unlikely water ministers will be able to discuss plans to finalise the Murray-Darling Basin Plan when they meet in Canberra this week.
Water holder helps native fish breathe after widespread blackwater events [$]
The agency in charge of delivering environmental flows is helping to boost native fish populations by creating refuges from blackwater after last year’s riverine floods in inland New South Wales and Victoria.
Doing better than the previous government is often enough. Not this time
Sean Kelly
Anthony Albanese’s government is using Liberal failure as a justification to quietly remake the country. But that won’t work for every policy area.
EVs will not stop climate change, but we must help motorists make the shift
Clover Moore
If we simply swap internal combustion vehicles for EVs we’ll have done more to save the car industry than the planet.
Greens and Liberals should back Labor’s climate bill
Canberra Times editorial
Nobody, least of all the Greens and the Coalition, should be in any doubt that Australia voters endorsed much stronger action on emissions reductions and climate change when they went to the polls in May last year.
Victoria
Every kilometre David drives his plug-in hybrid in Tasmania, he’s paying tax in Victoria
Victoria’s electric vehicle tax is being challenged at Australia’s highest court, but experts say it raises bigger questions about how the country could make transport taxes fairer in the future.
New South Wales
How does the NSW government’s renewable energy plan stack up against Labor’s? We asked the experts
The NSW Coalition and the state opposition are putting major funding on the table for clean energy – with both sides recognising action is needed
‘Metro mania’: Former top NSW rail exec says train mega-projects lack rationale
The man who masterminded the train timetable for the Sydney Olympics warns the city’s multibillion-dollar metro rail projects risk delivering limited benefits to commuters despite their staggering price tags.
‘This is evolving quickly’: City of Sydney accelerates switch to electric vehicles
The City of Sydney will require all new apartment buildings to accommodate electric vehicle chargers in car spaces and look to retrofit existing residential blocks with charging stations under a plan to spur the uptake of the technology as the council pushes to reach net zero emissions by 2035.
Minns’ plan for energy security leaves Andrews’ stunt in the shade [$]
Matthew Warren
Re-establishing a bloated, inefficient 20th-century electricity utility is a political and economic nightmare. But government can play an important role in the 21st-century grid.
Queensland
Could this rare, aggressive pest spell the end of the backyard veggie patch?
A highly invasive and destructive pest that attacks the roots of vegetables and can cause significant crop loss has been discovered in a Queensland backyard, prompting a warning from farmers to home growers.
Western Australia
State’s key energy grid ‘headed for disaster’ [$]
A former director of WA’s state-owned energy retailer says the state’s key energy grid is headed for disaster under a plan to shutter coal plants by the end of the decade.
Sustainability
The myth of safe plastics persists, despite risk of disasters like East Palestine
The vinyl lobby has poured millions of dollars over the years into convincing lawmakers that PVC plastic is safe and sustainable.
This 36-year-old scientist is leading the Biden administration’s push for nuclear power
‘Right now, our biggest single source of clean electricity in this country is nuclear power,’ says Kathryn Huff, head of the Office of Nuclear Energy.
Want to be influential and drive change? Be a woman (on a farm in Indonesia)
When it comes to being an influencer on Instagram and other social media platforms, women rule the roost. But, social media isn’t the only domain where women lead – they can also be the drivers of change in their local communities and lead the implementation of new sustainability and development initiatives, according to a new study published today in Agriculture and Human Values.
Nature Conservation
Cattle, not coca, drive deforestation of the Amazon in Colombia – report
Past governments blamed the growing of coca – the base component of cocaine – for clearcutting, but a recent study shows otherwise
Mark Bloomberg
The severe impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle on the North Island, and the five severe weather events experienced by the Thames–Coromandel region in just the first two months of 2023, are merely the latest examples of more frequent erosion-triggering rainfall events over the past decade.
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