Date: 5 March 2023 at 8:15:36 am AEDT
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: Daily Links Mar 5
Post of the Day
‘Let’s get real’: scientists discover a new way climate change threatens cold-blooded animals
Lesley Alton and Vanessa Kellermann
All animals need energy to live. They use it to breathe, circulate blood, digest food and move. Young animals use energy to grow, and later in life, to reproduce.
On This Day
St. Piran’s Day – Cornwall, UK
Ecological Observance
National Tree Planting Day – Iran
International Day for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Awareness
Climate Change
Revealed: cabinet ministers warned of legal action over UK’s failure to tackle climate crisis
Senior civil servants have issued the warnings as government is way behind on net zero pledges, according leaked documents
The Antarctic ice sheet is melting. And this is bad news for humanity
Marta Moreno Ibáñez
Ottawa’s famous Rideau Canal, which turns into the world’s largest ice rink every winter, is too thin to open this winter.
The UK’s battle cries on net zero have led to nothing – and now time is running out
Robin McKie
The British government committed to achieving net zero by the middle of the century but all that has followed is inaction
The promise and peril of Biden’s climate policy
Paul Krugman
It’s a really big deal — but will the grid be able to handle it?
National
After China stopped taking our scrap paper and cardboard, Indonesia became a major customer
Australia has a long history of exporting cattle and wheat to Indonesia, but now looks set to increase shipments of woodchips and wastepaper.
Adam Bandt says Greens could support key Labor climate policy if fossil fuels developments paused
Greens leader says party will negotiate in good faith on proposals that deal with the ‘untenable’ opening of new coal and gas mines
Power vacuum: how a lack of charging stations is holding back Australia’s EV revolution
Chip shortages and years of government neglect mean the country is lagging well behind China, Europe and North America
Drought and flooding rains: the Murray-Darling Basin water rights balancing act
Floods brought the Macquarie Marshes back to life, but landholders need guaranteed environmental flows to help maintain a healthy marsh ecosystem that also supports businesses
Gas lobby called out for overcooking electrification costs
Gas lobby group caught out cooking up a new fossil fuel myth, that the electrification of Australian homes will cost taxpayers more than $66 billion.
Wind, solar and storage costs jump by up to 60 pct, says biggest project developer
Australia’s most successful developer of wind, solar and battery storage projects says costs have jumped significantly over last two years.
AGL says pumped hydro “critical” to energy transition, as it updates its own plans
AGL says feasibility studies underway on Muswellbrook pumped hydro energy storage JV, with a preferred technology solution on track for early 2024.
Adam Bandt on Labor’s ‘timid’ approach to the climate crisis and inequality – Australian Politics podcast
With Labor requiring the support of the Greens to pass the safeguard mechanism, the party’s leader talks to the Guardian Australia political editor, Katharine Murphy, about its stance on stopping new oil and gas projects and what it is willing to negotiate on. They also discuss party leadership, superannuation tax changes and social housing
Who will keep our submarine reactors safe?
Rex Patrick
The decision to acquire nuclear submarines has been made. The important question is who will be responsible for keeping the reactors safe?
‘Like the subprime mortgage crisis’: Most of Australia’s carbon credits are junk, experts say [$]
Emma Elsworthy
Carbon credits have been around for years, but experts say most of them are hot air.
Labor refuses to release modelling on its vexed climate policy [$]
Maeve McGregor
The Senate crossbench has been left in the dark over whether Labor’s revamped safeguard mechanism will actually drive emissions down.
The polluting f law in the safeguard mechanism [$]
Mike Seccombe
The Greens and David Pocock seek big changes to the safeguard mechanism, and a climate trigger. In the meantime, the policy allows companies to entirely offset emissions with sham credits.
Some decisions can’t be undone and it’s making us cheaters
Kelly O’Shanassy
Some years ago a group of satirists set up a service called CheatNeutral to market “cheat offsetting”.
Perfect, good, or downright dangerous? We need science before politics
Ebony Bennett
Just as the recent economic policy debate about tax breaks for multimillionaire superannuants has been overshadowed by sensationalist tabloid journalism (instead of what constitutes a dignified retirement), now the debate about climate policy risks being dominated by history wars and partisan politics – instead of what the science has been telling us for decades.
Victoria
For residents in Portland’s Dutton Way, an “exhausting” battle against the construction of an aquaculture facility near their homes may finally be coming to an end. But an expert in planning law says the process shouldn’t have taken so long.
‘Rebalance the ecosystem’: The plan to return dingoes and devils to the Prom
A group of ecologists and conservationists have written to the new Victorian minister for the environment, urging her to reintroduce predators like dingoes to the Wilsons Promontory National Park.
Busiest stations face twice the wait for trains
Passengers at some of Melbourne’s busiest suburban train stations in the city’s north and west are waiting twice as long for trains as those using the best-served rail lines through the eastern and south-eastern suburbs.
New South Wales
Labor’s pledge for mega koala park in south-west Sydney welcomed by conservation groups
Public land between Glenfield and Appin would be used for the new Georges River Koala National Park to save local colonies which, unlike other populations in the Sydney basin, are chlamydia-free and thriving.
NSW government called out on net zero goal as own data projects coal and gas emissions until 2050
Data also shows land sector will absorb more carbon than it emits from 2015 despite passage of laws that make land clearing easier
This small coastal community has a win over access to their dog beach
The community faced losing access to the beach they had used for years, but they fear others may face the same battle with National Parks and Wildlife Service changing boundaries.
NSW Labor to put brakes on plan for Australia’s longest road tunnel through Blue Mountains
The party promises to reallocate money from the controversial Great Western Highway upgrade to spend on roads across western Sydney and regional NSW if it wins this month’s state election.
Tens of thousands of fish have died in outback NSW. What’s caused the mass kill?
Locals in the western NSW town of Menindee are dealing with the effects of a ‘mass kill’ of tens of thousands of fish. It’s not the first time it’s happened.
NSW funds two new electrolysers as part of $1.5bn plan to slash cost of green hydrogen
Matt Kean announces two new electrolyser projects as part of $1.5 billion to slash technology costs by nearly half and help offset US Inflation Reduction Act.
Labor to keep Western Harbour Tunnel publicly-owned
In its election pitch to voters, NSW Labor is vowing to keep public ownership of Sydney’s Western Harbour Tunnel and cap toll charges.
Energy the focus if Labor leader wins power [$]
Chris Minns, the NSW Opposition Leader, says energy supply constraints and price increases would be key challenges for a Labor government if elected on March 25.
ACT
‘We don’t fit all the rules’: Businesses look for electrification pathway [$]
Artists manipulate glass into desired shapes by first heating the material to more than 1300 degrees inside a burning hot furnace, a steel post used to scoop it from the giant oven before it is blown and moulded.
Ban on new gas connections expected across all residential zones [$]
The ACT government is pushing its no-new-gas-connection legislation forward.
Queensland
‘What else is down there?’ Dredging crews uncover waste in seemingly clear waterways
On most days, Gold Coast waterways are a glistening blue-green, but scratch below the surface and the golden sands reveal something more sinister.
Bravus issued with Environment Protection Order over future underground works at Carmichael mine
Bravus must now do extra groundwater modelling after providing Queensland’s environment department with new information indicating that future underground mining may draw down on water from the nearby Doongmabulla Springs.
Will a focus on smaller Brisbane homes help the city’s homeless?
Brisbane’s new housing strategy acknowledges more than half of all homes are for single people and couples without kids. There is now a push to make projects in South Brisbane fit for purpose.
Crocodile attacks are becoming more common in the country’s far north — but one group says they can help stop them through education, not eradication.
New species of ‘big prickly’ gecko discovered on mountainous island 50 kilometres off Mackay coast
Leaf-tailed geckos are an “ancient group of Australian geckos”, once widespread, but constrained as rain forest contracted across the country.
Federal government considers review of $2.1b highway plan amid environmental concerns
The plan to build a second highway between the Gold Coast and Brisbane could face further delays as conservationists urge the government to reassess the project because of its potential impact on koalas.
Surge in solar panel dumping triggers possible ban [$]
Queenslanders could soon be banned from dumping their solar panels into landfill under a push from the Palaszczuk government to cut the amount of e-waste in the Sunshine State.
Queensland to the rescue for critically endangered species [$]
Powrunna State Forest, a 2,800 hectare site in Queensland’s southwest, will be the new home of the critically endangered Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat.
South Australia
Art meets science as handmade shells help marine life grow off Kangaroo Island
One thousand ceramic razorfish shells have been buried in the seabed of waters off South Australia’s Kangaroo Island to help encourage a threatened native flat oyster species to rejuvenate.
Kaolin ore to be mined by end of year on Eyre Peninsula, SA government gives approval
Up to 300,000 tonnes of kaolin ore will be mined on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula annually, with the state government rubber-stamping construction of the Great White project.
Tasmania
Tas firms face doubling of power costs
Businesses all over the state are negotiating contracts that are as much as double their old rates, but many of them won’t be eligible for a new government scheme aimed at easing energy hardship, says Kate Daley, Launceston Chamber of Commerce president.
Devil in the detail: Why green group’s roadkill court bid failed [$]
A green group that took the EPA and a North-West Tasmanian mine owner to the Supreme Court, in a bid to halt night-time ore cartage to protect devils, has failed.
Viola Barnes ends 72-day takayna tree-sit
Media release – Bob Brown Foundation
takayna forest defender ends 72 day treesit. The vigil continues.
Northern Territory
Rare sighting of bird ‘like Beyonce, Prince and Elvis all turning up at once’
A species of duck that has not been seen in Central Australia for more than 120 years turns up at the Alice Springs sewage ponds.
Kakadu National Park rangers in war against feral animals as populations boom
Government figures reveal Kakadu’s feral pig population has doubled and buffalo numbers are up by 50 per cent. So what’s gone wrong?
Western Australia
‘It’s a monster:’ Bid to stamp out plant invading WA’s South West coast
It looks pretty, but the white weeping broom is a fast-spreading, invasive plant that is threatening biodiversity in Western Australia’s coastal towns.
An expert in mine restoration labels Alcoa’s construction of a pipeline that could have leaked toxic chemicals into a drinking water dam as a troubling “pattern of behaviour”.
New data shows the state received just 5 per cent of the renewable energy capacity that companies committed to last year, raising concerns about whether coal-fired power stations will be able to close at the end of the decade.
Tanya Plibersek told to save Murujuga rock art
Murujuga Traditional Custodians escalated their campaign to protect Murujuga rock art in the Pilbara, Western Australia, by protesting outside federal environment minister Tanya Plibersek’s office in Sydney.
Unique garden an inspiring reminder to act on climate change
Leon Pericles is an ambassador for the not-for-profit Nature Conservation Margaret River Region, a group focused on protecting local bushland and biodiversity… and his garden is rather spectacular.
Sustainability
Can the dogs of Chernobyl teach us new tricks when it comes to survival?
More than 35 years after the world’s worst nuclear accident, the dogs of Chernobyl somehow still survive. Now scientists hope these descendants can teach us how to live in the harshest environments, too.
China approved the construction of another 106 gigawatts of coal-fired power capacity last year — the equivalent of two large coal power plants per week — new research shows.
Half the world will be too heavy by 2035 — report
More than half of the world’s population will be overweight or obese by 2035 without significant action, according to a report.
Adani faces probe into market manipulation after India’s top court orders investigation
India’s top court orders an expert committee to investigate any regulatory failures related to the country’s second-largest conglomerate, the Adani Group.
COVID-19’s enormous death toll: Worldwide life expectancy has experienced a steep decline
Based on excess mortality calculations there’s mounting evidence that the Covid-19 pandemic has taken a massive toll on global life expectancy. Not since the famine in China in 1959, have we seen such a sharp decline in life expectancy worldwide.
The 5 most common recycling mistakes, and how to avoid them
How to handle plastic bags, batteries, milk cartons, metals, and…bowling balls.
EU countries delay vote on landmark law to end sales of CO2-emitting cars
Germany questions support for rules that would effectively make it impossible to sell combustion engine cars from 2035
Deforestation Inc.: How ‘green’ firms prevent climate action
A new 9-month long cross-border investigation exposes the flaws of “green” forestry labels. Environmental auditors overlook harm by “sustainable” companies, hindering climate efforts.
Is nuclear power in a global death spiral?
Jim Green
Amid turbocharged renewables growth, nuclear power remains stagnant – only an acceleration of China’s program will save it from a death spiral.
Environment: does bad news about the environment create doom loops?
Peter Sainsbury
We are losing trees and insects at alarming rates and Australia’s land and sea temperatures continue to rise. But does too much bad news create ‘Doom Loops’?
Nature Conservation
How Colombia plans to handle Pablo Escobar’s ranch runaway hippo problem
The hippos, descendants of four imported from Africa illegally by the late drug lord in the 1980s, have spread far beyond the Hacienda Napoles ranch and are a biodiversity problem.
Earth’s poorest pay the highest price for human-wildlife conflict
A team of researchers have highlighted human-wildlife conflict as one of the globe’s most pressing human development and conservation dilemmas.
New disease caused by plastics discovered in seabirds
Natural History Museum scientists say plasticosis, which scars digestive tract, likely to affect other types of bird too
Blood teak for the super rich props up a cruel regime
Myanmar’s forests are under threat from the lucrative trade of valuable wood. An investigation has revealed how despite sanctions, teak is flooding Europe.
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