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Date: 14 June 2023 at 8:42:31 am AEST
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: Daily Links Jun 14
Post of the Day
Solar pushes global grid to “cascading tipping points”, and puts science targets within reach
Joshua S Hill
The surge in global solar investments is creating cascading tipping points for the global grid, and even putting science based climate targets within reach.
On This Day
Climate Change
Greta Thunberg: not phasing out fossil fuels is ‘death sentence’ for world’s poor
Climate activist says only ‘rapid and equitable’ phaseout will keep temperatures within 1.5C limit
Cassy Polimeni
As well as defiant stories of empowered kids, we need to offer reminders that the responsibility isn’t theirs alone
Antarctic tipping points: the irreversible changes to come if we fail to keep warming below 2℃
Timothy Naish
The slow-down of the Southern Ocean circulation, a dramatic drop in the extent of sea ice and unprecedented heatwaves are all raising concerns that Antarctica may be approaching tipping points.
Chris Hedges
The effects of the climate crisis intrude with increasing regularity into our lives and yet we do not act. We are as paralysed as past civilisations were when facing catastrophic destruction.
National
‘Pay as you throw’: What Australia could learn from some of the world’s best recyclers
Australia has a long way to go to becoming one of the world’s great recycling nations. Here’s what we could learn from other countries.
Eco group wants shareholders to prod Toyota on electric
Australian investors in Toyota are being urged to vote for changes that would see the popular automotive brand launch electric cars sooner and reveal any lobbying against climate action.
Farmers bid to end transmission projects [$]
Farmers have travelled to Canberra to urge politicians to roll back plans for transmission lines that will carve through prime farmland.
Nationals urge inquiry on renewables impacts [$]
Farmers are concerned that prime agricultural land is being turned over to renewable energy projects.
Garnaut’s carbon call for farms [$]
“Not dealing with it is the peril and dealing with it is opportunity,” he said.
Climate Case: court told of fears cultural and environmental knowledge will be lost
The Federal Court has heard residents fear environmental and cultural knowledge will not be passed on to future generations due to the impact of climate change on Zenadth Kes (Torres Strait) islands.
Why air quality should be high on our health agenda – podcast
With the Bureau of Meteorology’s forecast that there’s a 70 per cent likelihood that the El Niño weather pattern is likely to come into play this year, it’s inevitable that Australians will remember the last time Australia experienced El Niño. That brought hotter, dryer weather, and with it, devastating bushfires that blanketed parts of Australia in thick smoke for days.
Australia can be America’s green power hub in the Indo-Pacific [$]
James Carouso and Charles Edel
AUKUS’s third pillar is an opportunity for both alliance partners to achieve their clean energy and foreign policy goals in the region.
Ditch copper and politics to keep energy costs down [$]
Robert Gottliebsen
Australia is involved in an energy transformation project that will inevitably lift costs and boost inflation, but there are solutions.
Four decades and millions spent on studies: Why Australia is still waiting for high-speed trains
Philip Laird
Some 34 countries have high-speed rail or are about to get it. But in the decades since it was first proposed for Australia, no local plan for high-speed rail has got further than the drawing board
To build better cities, we need to build better YIMBYs [$]
Guy Rundle
When your whole raison d’être is built on credulous premises, it’s time to get real. ‘Yes In My Backyard’ is a fine concept but needs smarts.
Dingo ear jerky, DNA and doppelgangers: a picture of Oz’s dingo population [$]
Julia Bergin
Seeing 15 dead dingoes hanging by their ankles on a family holiday is not on most people’s to-do list, but for a dingo DNA researcher it’s key.
“Truly momentous:” Solar is changing everything, and Australia must seize the occasion
Tim Buckley
Treasurer Jim Chalmers should introduce a solar module production tax credit so Australia can secure its position in global solar production supply chain.
Victoria
Trapped brumbies set free as feral horse control program struggles to find homes
A Victorian government plan to reduce the state’s brumby population through rehoming has approved only 11 applications, while dozens of trapped horses have been released because they don’t fit preferences.
Australia set for cheaper solar power as supply of panels soars, says report
Clean Energy Finance calculates the price of systems will fall by 10% thanks to cheaper raw materials and more production in China and US
This winter Parks Victoria is cracking down on organised groups felling river red gums at unprecedented rates.
Migration to cause major pain by 2028 [$]
International migration could create a Victorian housing shortage of more than 62,000 dwellings in the next five years amid already tight conditions.
NT land clearing shows why we need new national nature laws
Jenita Enevoldsen
On the same day that the state of Victoria announced native forest logging would end within a year, the Northern Territory government officially rolled out the red carpet to large-scale cotton irrigators and beef producers, to expand land clearing and deforestation across 100,000 hectares.
Victoria spent $100m on school air purifiers. We don’t know if they worked
Liam Mannix
More than 110,000 machines were sent to schools around the state. The data doesn’t show they made any difference. Was it money well spent?
Queensland
Dangerous pest that could be ‘worse’ than the cane toad breaches containment zone
The red fire ant, which can be lethal to humans and animals, has been found on the western side of the Great Dividing Range for the first time.
Treasurer Cameron Dick all smiles as coal fight results in billions flowing into Queensland’s budget
Labor’s voter-pleasing cost-of-living handouts, new housing and health funding have now been linked to increasing royalties on mining profits
Coal funds Palaszczuk cash splash [$]
Australian editorial
Renewable energy and the Olympics will be big financial challenges.
Queensland’s coal-fired budget [$]
AFR editorial
Ironically, Queensland Labor’s plan to phase out coal-fired generation is forecast to help turn the record surplus into a $2 billion deficit next financial year.
South Australia
AGL and Origin confirm electricity price rises of up to 30 per cent
South Australians will be hit by some of the highest electricity bill hikes in the nation over the coming weeks, as major players AGL and Origin Energy pass through price increases as high as 29.8 per cent.
Western Australia
K + S Salt Australia has released environmental studies which it believes show it should be able to develop a major project within a nationally significant wetland.
Populations of the brushtail possum have been declining in arid regions of WA since European settlement, but scientists believe reclassifying the species could be key to its survival.
Confusion reigns as deadline looms for Aboriginal cultural heritage laws
A government-run event in Esperance on Monday highlighted the deep confusion in WA’s agricultural regions over new rules taking effect in 16 days.
‘Form of terrorism’: WA Police up ante in Woodside ‘gas leak’ protest case
WA Police have raised the stakes in their probe of a faux gas leak that shut down Woodside’s headquarters.
Sustainability
Does this box contain the answer to the problem of space junk?
Space junk is made of hundreds of millions of fragments orbiting Earth — and while it isn’t a giant space bin, a small high-tech cube could be used to help hoover up some of the debris.
World must add 1.5TW of new wind and solar each year to keep to 1.5°C of warming
New analysis lays out the safest path to limit global warming to 1.5°C – and to slash future reliance on unproven methods of carbon removal.
No Noddy, you and Big Ears won’t solve housing with a tiny house
Ross Elliott
The tiny house promise of being eco-friendly and low cost ignores one very inconvenient truth: the land on which it sits and the services provided to that land.
Whisper it, but the boom in plastic production could be about to come to a juddering halt
Geoffrey Lean
A plastics treaty is on the cards – and it could join the rescue of the ozone layer as a landmark success in environmental diplomacy
Nature Conservation
Lynda Goldsworthy et al
Amid the challenges of climate change, resource extraction and pollution, the survival of species and ecosystems depends on setting aside protected areas. But plans to establish marine protected areas in East Antarctica have stalled.
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