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Date: 6 November 2023 at 8:52:27 am AEDT
To: Undisclosed recipients:;
Subject: Daily Links Nov 6
Meat-loving Australia has no appetite for vegetarian diet to help planet, study finds
La Trobe University research shows Australians would prefer to embrace many other green options to help the environment before giving up meat and becoming vegetarians.
On This Day
Recreation Day – Tasmania
Ecological Observance
International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict
Climate Change
Pasifika activists say climate inaction is a violation of human rights [$]
The Pacific Islands are on the frontline of climate change, with the future for many living there becoming increasingly uncertain. Ahead of the Pacific Islands Forum in the Cook Islands, Pasifika activists are calling on Australia to take firmer steps to reducing emissions, saying failure to do so is a violation of their human rights.
‘Loss and damage’ deal struck to help countries worst hit by climate crisis
Governments draw up blueprint for fund to be administered at first by World Bank after tense Abu Dhabi talks
Study links changes in global water cycle to higher temperatures
Over last 2,000 years, rising and falling temperatures have altered the way water moves around the planet
Humans are spiking the level of poisonous mercury in the atmosphere
Mercury pollution levels in the Earth’s atmosphere have spiked by seven times since the modern era began around 1500 CE, new research shows.
Pakistan bears the brunt of global extreme heat illness and mortality
Climate-fueled disease — tied to heat, pathogens and toxins — is an emerging, lethal threat that countries are ill-prepared to confront. The Post visited ground zero for this new era, Pakistan, to see what the future holds.
Climate change laying healthy African land to waste
The UN Convention to Combat Desertification has concluded that over 100 football pitches worth of healthy land is lost every minute in Africa.
National
Energy projects swamp councils [$]
Renewable energy projects are creating a headache for overrun rural councils.
Electrician Kacee Milnes swapped her job in mining for the clean energy industry because she wanted to be part of “the way of the future”, and when she got there she found a less male-dominated industry.
Frog sounds Australian database nears million milestone, thanks to citizen scientists
Nature-enthusiasts are being urged to get outside and record frog sounds for an app named Frog ID. Five new Australian frog species have been identified as a result of the pioneering Australian-made app, which is about to hit a very significant milestone.
Community–battery applications swamp renewable energy authority
A surge in public interest in a community battery grants project has left the government’s renewable energy agency “overwhelmed” by its popularity.
Census finds Australia is becoming less liveable [$]
Australia’s big cities, like Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide, often rank as some of the most liveable in the world but not everyone rates them highly. A new report has found First Nations, non-binary and women have some of the worst living experiences.
Projects hijacked by ‘political actors like Peter Dutton suddenly pretending to care about whales’
Nick O’Malley
Consultations about possible wind farm developments have just begun, but already misinformation is flooding social media.
Can we eat our way through an exploding sea urchin problem?
John Keane and Scott Ling
Longspined sea urchins are native to temperate waters around New South Wales. But as oceans heat up, their range has expanded more than 650km, through eastern Victoria and south to Tasmania. Their numbers are exploding in the process, clear-felling kelp forests and leaving “urchin barrens” behind.
Jo Clay
When I had a baby, those future generations I’d worried about had a face. It transformed me
Labor’s renewable ‘investments’ are just blowing in the wind [$]
Nick Cater
The tragedy of our renewables fiasco is that Australia was gifted the chance to learn from the mistakes of others. Chris Bowen’s obstinacy comes at a price.
Victoria
West Gate Tunnel another step closer
Deep under the ground and high in the air, two major milestones have been reached on the West Gate Tunnel Project – bringing commuters in Melbourne’s west another step closer to having their travel times slashed.
Quarry quandary: Green wedge becomes battleground over plans for mine or eco-suburb
Plans to convert farmland near Wallan into the city’s most water-wise suburb have stalled as the Victorian government considers a competing proposal to open a quarry.
Sanctuary rises from the ashes of Black Summer fires
A wildlife sanctuary is bringing native species back with man-made homes but its owner fears for animals in barren bushfire zones where nothing’s being done.
‘Send tree vandals to prison’: Council to push for jail time [$]
Property owners who poison trees to improve views and to increase the value of their property would be jailed under a new plan being pushed by a Sydney council.
Queensland
Great Barrier Reef annual coral spawning begins east of Cairns
Divers captured the spawning of soft corals on Moore Reef with researchers to analyse next generation
Thousands of plastic beads wash up on Sunshine Coast beaches days into turtle nesting season
The local environmental group has described the spill as a “pollution event of an industrial scale”.
What do we know about why arsonists light fires?
Police believe several recent bushfires that threatened homes and residents in Queensland were started on purpose. Motivations for arson can vary but will be key to investigations.
Great Barrier Reef annual coral spawning begins east of Cairns
Divers captured the spawning of soft corals on Moore Reef with researchers to analyse next generation
‘Don’t touch our money’: Labor civil war as Chalmers threatens Qld raid [$]
Cameron Dick issued a clear warning to his federal counterpart after learning some of Queensland’s biggest road and rail projects may have to be cut.
World-first recycling in Brisbane [$]
A world-first recycling innovation could supercharge the green economy in Brisbane.
Tasmania
Billionaire’s $30 billion renewables project announces plan for cable plant
SunCable wants to build what it calls the world’s largest renewable energy project and has identified Bell Bay in northern Tasmania as the potential site for its advanced cable manufacturing facility
Councillor’s crack down on plastic pollution [$]
After gusty winds left the Hobart Rivulet polluted with plastic last month, one councillor has led the charge to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
How Tasman Peninsula’s Three Capes Track became a tourism icon [$]
Almost a decade since bursting onto the eco-tourism scene, the spectacular Three Capes Track has cemented its place in the Tasmanian tourism establishment, but some say the cost is too high.
Incat’s battery electric ferry revolution [$]
Renowned Hobart shipbuilder Incat says it plans to churn out multiple 70m battery electric ferries, and a single, larger 140m vessel, each year,…
Six proposed Tassie windfarms risk becoming stranded assets: Labor [$]
Delays to transmission lines associated with the Marinus Link project put jobs, and the viability of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of renewable energy projects at risk, Labor says.
Media release – Climate Tasmania
The consultation draft of the transport sector emissions reductions and resilience plan reveals the Tasmanian Government’s frightening lack of commitment to reducing emissions and preventing the worst effects of climate change.
Forest protest reclaims swift parrot habitat from loggers
Media release – Bob Brown Foundation
A protest is underway in Tasmania’s southern forests where contentious logging has been destroying swift parrot habitat.
Northern Territory
The “globally significant” project will store up to 400,000 tonnes per annum of toxic waste, including low-level radioactive material from Australia and overseas.
Santos bulls face test amid Barossa gas threat [$]
Most analysts remain positive on Santos stock, but a lot rests on securing final approvals for the company’s growth gas project in the Timor Sea.
Mumbo-jumbo and irrational superstitions stop $4.7bn project [$]
Andrew Bolt
The Federal Court has halted one of our biggest new gas projects far out at sea because Indigenous people might be buried deep underwater.
Western Australia
Did three dolphins die because of an oil spill? The company says no. A worker says that’s not true
Three dead dolphins turn up in an oil spill. The energy company says it’s got nothing to do with it, but Alex, an insider, sets out to prove it wrong. Now, an ABC investigation has revealed mistakes were made.
Why this WA shire is receiving ‘hundreds’ of inquiries about tiny houses
Lynda Mackillican suspects anyone struggling with the cost of living, insecure housing or mounting pressure to live more sustainably will draw inspiration from her new home.
‘Act immediately to survive’: Bushfires threatening WA communities
Out-of-control bushfires continue to put lives and homes at risk as fire rages in bushland south-east of Perth.
Green zone: Hydrogen histrionics and mixed messages as energy experts descend on Perth
WA and other centres of the world energy economy meeting in Perth this week are committed to renewables, but should the transition involve gas?
Half of Europe’s family homes could be energy self-sufficient with solar and storage
Just over half of Europe’s single family homes could technically be fully energy self-sufficient with a combination of solar energy and storage systems.
How salt from the Caribbean affects our climate
Study explores link between salinity, ocean currents and climate
Poisoned for decades by a Peruvian mine, communities say they feel forgotten
Communities in Cerro de Pasco, Peru, have been living for decades with contamination from mining activities, which has had serious health consequences, ranging from chronic to fatal diseases.
Tracing the links of Monsanto’s weed killer glyphosate to cancer cases
Journalist Carey Gillam on the lawsuit against Monsanto that unleashed thousands of cases and why toxic chemicals are still in the marketplace.
Some houses are being built to stand up to hurricanes and sharply cut emissions, too
Climate change is increasing billion-dollar disasters, many of them from intensifying hurricanes. Some housing developers are building homes with an eye toward making them more resilient to such extreme weather, and friendlier to the environment at the same time.
The race to destroy PFAS, the forever chemicals
Scientists are showing these damaging compounds can be beat.
Nature Conservation
Global stocks are being driven to exhaustion. Who is eating all the fish?
The number of overfished stocks has tripled over the past 50 years, as fishing fleets push further afield to feed their growing populations.
Seed-sowing drones help with reforestation
The unmanned aerial vehicles could improve access to mountainous terrain and rapidly disperse many more seeds than planting by hand, experts say.
Why grazing bison could be good for the planet
American bison were hunted almost to extinction by European settlers. Now making a comeback, they could help reverse damage to prairies from decades of poor management.
Maelor Himbury | Library Volunteer
Australian Conservation Foundation | www.acf.org.au
p | 1800 223 669 t | @AusConservation
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