https://reneweconomy.com.au/angus-taylor-im-not-driving-an-electric-car/
Date: 21 May 2021 at 8:18:51 am AEST
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: Daily Links May 21
Post of the Day
Mouse plague: bromadialone will obliterate mice, but it’ll poison eagles, snakes and owls, too
Rovert Davis et al
It’s the smell that hits you first. The scent of urine and decomposing bodies. Then you notice other signs: scuttles and squeaks, small dead bodies leaking blood, tails sticking out of hubcaps.
On This Day
Climate Change
Bernard Keane
The technology exists to get us to net zero by 2050. Governments just have to do the right thing.
The bell has tolled for the fossil age: Why net zero makes us all richer
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
The International Energy Agency’s conversion pulls the rug from under those with vested interest who keep repeating that we cannot afford to stop global warming.
National
Kids prepare another strike against government climate inaction
This Friday, schoolchildren will again take to the streets to protest the failure to address the climate crisis.
Angus Taylor: “I’m not driving an electric car”
Federal energy and emissions reduction minister says he will not drive an electric vehicle.
S&P says taxpayer handout for gas plant won’t solve Snowy’s financial pressures
Leading credit ratings agency warns Snowy Hydro still faces significant credit risk, even after $600m of taxpayer funds to build a gas plant.
Australian, Dr Robert Floyd, elected to lead nuclear test-ban body
Australian Robert Floyd has been elected to lead the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO) as its executive secretary.
Australia’s big banks reject Nationals’ claims managing climate risk is ‘virtue signalling’
Major banks say Australia’s international trading partners require the sector to identify and disclose climate risk on their balance sheets
Labor dissent on power ‘not surprising’: Albanese
Anthony Albanese says it’s not surprising some of his MPs are breaking ranks on the government’s power station proposal.
Extreme weather may drive flying foxes to seek ‘climate refuge’ as far south as Tasmania
Scientists predict migration of the megabats, mostly found in eastern and northern Australia, could have significant effects on Tasmania’s ecosystems
A ‘just add water’ approach is unlikely to be successful, with better monitoring of species needed to target environmental watering
Australians pay too much for major road and rail projects
Australians pay too much for major road and rail projects according to a new paper by The Grattan Institute.
Native forest logging makes bushfires worse – and to say otherwise ignores the facts
Philip Zylstra et al
The Black Summer bushfires burned far more temperate forest than any other fire season recorded in Australia. The disaster was clearly a climate change event; however, other human activities also had consequences.
The Coalition, where all revolving doors lead to outdated fossil fuels
Michelle Pini
In one of the most uninspiring and regressive budgets ever, the Morrison Government, among other backward moves, has continued its eye-watering bolstering of the fossil fuel industry, throwing good public money after bad policy.
Roads, schmoads: Australia needs to ditch its freeway addiction and get on the train [$]
George Morgan
Our obsession with roads puts us behind the rest of the world on railway infrastructure. It’s time to invest in rail — and help save the planet.
Crony capitalism: Morrison’s gas spending masks a deeper coal addiction
Ketan Joshi
The Morrison government is going on a fossil gas spending spree. But a deeper, more urgent coal problem is growing bigger.
Victoria
Brimbank signs on to VECO, Australia’s largest ever emissions reduction project by local government
Brimbank City Council is one of forty-six Victorian Councils to sign on to VECO, the Victorian Energy Collaboration, the largest ever emissions reduction project by local government in Australia.
Victorian budget 2021: Project cost blowouts dig a $3.8bn hole [$]
A $3.8bn blowout to major projects including the Metro and West Gate tunnels has delivered a substantial hit to the Andrews government budget.
Fears radical church is targeting Victorian politics [$]
Insiders are alarmed a contentious church group with followers linked to claims of gay conversion practices is trying to infiltrate politics.
New South Wales
Two ancient plant species described as ‘”remnants of ancient rainforests” have just been discovered in the path of a new highway. The NSW government says it will protect them, but scientists fear they could become extinct.
Explainer: Australia’s mouse plague and how to avoid it
The mouse emergency has reached such a critical level the NSW government has announced a $50 million campaign to subsidise baits and traps and a new form of commercial pest control has been hastily approved for grain producers which doubles the potency of the mouse “napalm”: zinc phosphide.
Kosciuszko brumbies outbreeding trapping program
Even the highest rate of horse removal from the Kosciuszko National Park employed nine years ago would be insufficient to impact on the wild horse population, now growing at an estimated 18 per cent per year.
Mouse plague: bromadialone will obliterate mice, but it’ll poison eagles, snakes and owls, too
Rovert Davis et al
It’s the smell that hits you first. The scent of urine and decomposing bodies. Then you notice other signs: scuttles and squeaks, small dead bodies leaking blood, tails sticking out of hubcaps.
ACT
Canberra’s biggest solar suburbs revealed [$]
After tossing up for years as to whether to get solar panels, it took a global pandemic for Jorma Soininen to commit to putting them on his roof.
Queensland
Final call for say on change to animal laws [$]
If you want to see tougher sentences for crimes against animals or other laws changed then have your say in the government’s first animal welfare review in decades by midnight tonight.
South Australia
Frustrated students unite for change on climate [$]
Thousands of Adelaide students are expected to skip school to rally over climate change, but the Education Minister says they should stay in class.
KI timber could save jobs, ease shortage [$]
A landmark deal could help solve a statewide timber shortage and save a family sawmill, providing the government steps in to help.
Gardener’s water theft legal coup won’t wash, minister says [$]
Prosecutors and SA’s water minister are pondering their next moves after a Mannum man successfully argued that water theft was impossible.
Northern Territory
Fishers put on notice over crab pot risk to wildlife [$]
NT Water Police are urging fishers to make sure they recover their crab pots after a bird became trapped in an abandoned pot on a Top End beach on Thursday.
Sustainability
Why does bitcoin consume ‘insane’ energy?
Cryptocurrency fans have counted Tesla boss Elon Musk as among their champions, but this week he rocked their world by questioning the future of the digital assets and singling out carbon emissions from bitcoin mining for particular criticism.
Could biomass become a renewable peaking fuel? This man is counting on it
Energy start-up Verdant Earth Technologies says it has figured out a way of using biomass to produce hydrogen and help firm the grid.
Global food, hunger challenges projected to increase mortality, disability by 2050
A new study shows that population and climate change will exacerbate the challenge of meeting nutrition and food needs over the next 30 years, especially in Africa south of the Sahara, but also that increased investment of $25.5 billion annually would more than offset the negative impacts of climate change.
Christopher Stone, environmental scholar who championed fundamental rights of nature, dies at 83
His seminal 1972 article “Should Trees Have Standing?” won notice at the U.S. Supreme Court and entered the bedrock of the modern environmental movement.
Climate mayors green and equitable recovery
The United States faces a once-in-a-generation opportunity to address the challenges of rebuilding economies, promoting racial justice, and reducing emissions while building for a more resilient, sustainable future. But it will take careful policy and planning to make this a reality. This Climate Mayors report, co-authored by RMI, lays out proven solutions for a green and just economic recovery in cities across the United States, while highlighting examples of local success.
Time to panic-buy an electric pickup truck?
Michael Grunwald
In 2020, while Americans bought nearly 300,000 electric vehicles, they also bought nearly 800,000 Ford F-150 pickup trucks. The F-150 may be a gas-guzzling disaster for the climate, but it’s been the nation’s best-selling vehicle for 40 straight years. This is why Ford’s decision to roll out an electric version of the F-150 is such a big deal.
It’s been called a ‘nanny state’ policy, but 30kph zones could be the key to more liveable cities
Matthew Mclaughlin et al
Low-speed streets are about much more than road safety and increasing fine revenue. By building safer streets, governments and cities around the world are creating more liveable cities.
The particular psychology of destroying a planet
Bill McKibben
What kind of thinking goes into engaging in planetary sabotage?
Nature Conservation
Normally, mountain forests are among the most diverse habitats in alpine regions. Yet, as a team from the Alfred Wegener Institute discovered in the Tibetan Plateau, the higher, treeless areas are home to far more species.
What′s the big deal if bees are dying?
We are losing billions of bees every year to many complicated causes, including climate change, decreasing crop diversity and habitat loss. Why does it matter if bees are around?
Climate crisis behind drastic drop in Arctic wildlife populations – report
Native shorebirds and caribou among species at risk as survival strategies are upended
Variety is the spice of life… and key to saving wildlife
Andrew Weeks and Professor Ary Hoffmann
Conservation genetics can boost a species’ ability to adapt and decrease its extinction risk by understanding how varied a species’ DNA is across its entire genome
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