Tag: Climate Change

Informed Comment

Revealed: Properties in nature’s firing line – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Andrew Bolt and Sky News say it’s bullshit but his insurance premiums will boom

Key facts:

  • 40 per cent of all properties in NSW are now at moderate to high risk of flooding.
  • The risk of catastrophic loss, both financially and physically, will drive up insurance premiums.
  • NSW’s so-called Black Summer bushfires of 2029-20 cost $4.9 billion.
  • Insurers have paid our $13 billion in climate-related claims in NSW.
  • The combined value of coastal properties exposed to coastal erosion damage is $25 billion.
  • Some suburbs and land lots will see reductions in risk from the elements due to favourable weather forecasts.
  • Some regions will see no change at all. But for many, the situation will worsen during the next 30 years.

 

Source: Revealed: Properties in nature’s firing line – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Informed Comment

World Bank Pumps Billions into Fossil Fuels

Yet another revelation on how Trump went about servicing the world without providing even the minimum of service.

A recent analysis by the German nonprofit Urgewald estimated that the World Bank spent nearly $4 billion on fossil fuel financing last year, when it was under the leadership of a climate denier nominated by former U.S. President Donald Trump.

Source: World Bank Pumps Billions into Fossil Fuels

Real News

In First, Rooftop Solar Alone provides 101% of South Australia’s Electricity Demand

Australia reports that rooftop solar briefly generated 101% of South Australia’s electricity demand on Saturday around 2 pm local time.

Source: In First, Rooftop Solar Alone provides 101% of South Australia’s Electricity Demand

Banks

Loopholes and carve-outs: how tricky accounting makes a farce of carbon neutral claims – Michael West

CBA Not Carbon Neutral

Big banks claiming to be ‘carbon neutral’ are anything but. The big four banks in Australia only account for a fraction of their emissions, with CBA offsetting just 4%. Callum Foote investigates.

Big bank carbon offsets

Source: Loopholes and carve-outs: how tricky accounting makes a farce of carbon neutral claims – Michael West

ALP Government,

Betrayal: The threat to life on Earth – Pearls and Irritations

Red soil hand shape on sand in aboriginal art style.

It has been overlooked during Garma festival that, under current policies, global warming would render aboriginal lands in central and northern Australia unliveable and the top-end a nuclear target…

Source: Betrayal: The threat to life on Earth – Pearls and Irritations

Prisons

‘I wasn’t sentenced to be cooked’: Heat desperation in a Texas prison – scheerpost.com

Politicians in Texas denied air conditioning for prisons in May. Now temperatures of 100 F and higher are killing incarcerated people.

Source: ‘I wasn’t sentenced to be cooked’: Heat desperation in a Texas prison – scheerpost.com

Neoliberalism

The Rampage of Reckless Individualism Matches Climate Change as a Global Threat | The Smirking Chimp

Just as we needed institutional and legal checks and balances against monarchs, high time to confront the tyranny of willful individualism run amok. As Russell Kirk summarizes, “Individualism is a denial that life has any meaning except the gratification of the ego; in politics it must end in anarchy. It is not possible for one man to be both Christian and Individualist.” What about being a genuine democrat vs. a radical, anti-democratic individualist? Or a Constitutionalist vs. a rebellious individualist, per Jan. 6 infamy? It’s really become an either/or dilemma and nothing less than everything is at stake.

Source: The Rampage of Reckless Individualism Matches Climate Change as a Global Threat | The Smirking Chimp

Fossil Fuel Industry

‘Incredibly Disturbing’ Docs Reveal Oil Giant Shell Knew About Climate Impacts Even Earlier

The Shell logo is pictured at a gas station in London

Corporate Crimes and Secrets lie behind the media announcement that Shell was to be the biggest investor in battery power in Australia

“Despite internal awareness, the company systematically downplayed the problem to the public, instead promoting more and more fossil fuel use despite the dangers,” said one expert. “Now, five decades later, Shell continues to dawdle and delay.”

Source: ‘Incredibly Disturbing’ Docs Reveal Oil Giant Shell Knew About Climate Impacts Even Earlier

Australia's Shame

Study charts decade of loss on Australian reefs

Life is dwindling on the reefs that ring Australia with more than half of the most common species in population decline, new analysis shows.

Scientists have collated data from three Australian reef monitoring programs that are among the longest-running in the world.

Source: Study charts decade of loss on Australian reefs

Truth in Humor

Climate denier says it’s suspicious that every single scientist says EXACT same thing | The Shovel

A climate change conspiracy theorist has uncovered a set of strange patterns and repeated terminology in research papers, which he says is highly suspicious.

Source: Climate denier says it’s suspicious that every single scientist says EXACT same thing | The Shovel

Indonesia

A Tale of Two Cities – Jakarta is sinking, but funding for Indonesia’s new capital has yet to surface

Jakarta sinking

Despite Andrew Bolt’s claims that this isn’t happening and it’s simply alarmist fake news

Jakarta is sinking but financing for Indonesia’s new $33bn capital city on the island of Borneo remains uncertain

Source: A Tale of Two Cities – Jakarta is sinking, but funding for Indonesia’s new capital has yet to surface

Australia

Report details Australia’s hotter, rainier and more dramatic climate

Australia has experienced its hottest year on record, its most intense flooding and an unprecedented coral bleaching — all in the last few years — as the climate warms, says a new report.

Source: Report details Australia’s hotter, rainier and more dramatic climate

Opinion

Now is not the right time … – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Change always has some fear and uncertainty attached to it. There is no way to determine ahead of time if the change will be successful and beneficial. However leaving the discussion to the ‘ideal’ time isn’t an option as there never will be an ‘ideal’ time. Soon after the 2020 bushfires, the pandemic arrived on our shores. While you could argue that a government should be able to address more than one issue at a time (another reason why Morrison’s concentration of power was concerning), as collective memory begins to fade it is harder to enact change. Former Prime Minister Howard understood this when enacting strict gun control measures soon after the Port Arthur murders in the early 1990s.

So maybe we should be having the discussion about becoming a republic now, in addition to the welcome discussion about climate change and emissions reduction. Rather than accept whatever happens, whether that be King Charles III and his heirs as our Head of State or constantly rebuilding parts of the country when they are destroyed by devastating flood, fire or cyclone, there is no better time than disruption to assess if the status quo is what we collectively want as a nation.

Source: Now is not the right time … – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Media

Scientists Conclude Climate Change Contributed to 1/3 of Pakistan being Under Water; Calls for Debt Relief

Climate scientists are very careful about attribution. But these scientists wrote, “we found that the 5-day maximum rainfall over the provinces Sindh and Balochistan is now about 75% more intense than it would have been had the climate not warmed by 1.2C, whereas the 60-day rain across the basin is now about 50% more intense, meaning rainfall this heavy is now more likely to happen.”

Source: Scientists Conclude Climate Change Contributed to 1/3 of Pakistan being Under Water; Calls for Debt Relief

Misinformation

The Right Wing disinfosphere and the King – » The Australian Independent Media Network

King Charles’s history of support for environmental projects and sustainable development has drawn the many conspiracies about his family into the Great Reset horror. The very people most keen to display their respect for the crown are torn by their climate denial loathing of anyone promoting policy to address the crisis. It will be interesting to see how they reconcile their ambivalence.

Source: The Right Wing disinfosphere and the King – » The Australian Independent Media Network

China

‘Matter of national destiny’: China’s energy crisis sees the world’s top emitter investing in more coal

‘Matter of national destiny’: China’s energy crisis sees the world’s top emitter investing in more coal

‘Matter of national destiny’: China’s energy crisis sees the world’s top emitter investing in more coal

Informed Comment

Europe dries up from climate change-driven drought

Meanwhile Andrew Bolt, Rowan Dean, etal keep pumping out the notion that global science is just a hoax, a new religion, and that the planet isn’t subject to man-made climate change,or that the warming we are experiencing is in fact good for the planet, why? Because if we accepted otherwise CO2 emitters and producers might just have to change the course of history and forgo the profits they have been making.

Climate change has drastically affected water levels in famed rivers across Europe. Whole territories are vanishing with the current drought — possibly the worst in 500 years, writes Dr Binoy Kampmark.

Europe dries up from climate change-driven drought
Uncategorized

Climate Emergency: Europe Parched, Farms Fallow, as Lakes and Rivers Dry up in worst Drought since time of Christ

Climate Emergency: Europe Parched, Farms Fallow, as Lakes and Rivers Dry up in worst Drought since time of Christ

Climate Emergency: Europe Parched, Farms Fallow, as Lakes and Rivers Dry up in worst Drought since time of Christ
Media

Right-wing media downplay climate change amid deadly extreme heat, attack idea that we are in a climate emergency | Media Matters for America

Right wing media downplay heat wave

Despite the fact that year in year out records are being smashed.

Source: Right-wing media downplay climate change amid deadly extreme heat, attack idea that we are in a climate emergency | Media Matters for America

Global Warming

Why is Australia so cold right now despite global heating? | Michael Grose for the Conversation | The Guardian

With data, we can inform and guide our intuitions and overcome our natural focus on the local scale. To be convinced the climate is warming, we need to watch the long-term trends and expect the wiggles.

Why is Australia so cold right now despite global heating? | Michael Grose for the Conversation | The Guardian
Pacific Region

Australian Diplomacy in the Pacific Is Driven by Self-Interest

Australia’s Labor government is promising Pacific countries a new and friendlier era in diplomatic relations. But without challenging the vested interests and right-wing politics that dominate the region, these promises are altogether empty.

The new opposition Liberal Party leader (and previous immigration minister) Peter Dutton was famously caught on camera joking about the threat of rising seas to Pacific Islands. This was just one example of the “disrespect” Penny Wong has repeatedly referred to on her Pacific tour.

But Australia’s neglect of its climate commitments and the existential threat it continues to pose to its neighbors is not fundamentally an attitude problem. It’s a problem of interests.

Source: Australian Diplomacy in the Pacific Is Driven by Self-Interest

Germany

Majority of Germans favor higher top Tax Rate to finance Climate Protection – Poll

Some 66 percent of German households are in favour of raising the top tax rate to finance climate action, according to a survey conducted by the ifo Institute in cooperation with the forsa opinion research institute. Researchers asked households about their preferences with regard to financing climate change policies.

Source: Majority of Germans favor higher top Tax Rate to finance Climate Protection – Poll

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- If Morrison was debating Tanya Plibersek Trump would have been there for us all to see. His and the LNP’s need to rule but not to serve

Fighting Fake News with REAL 9/5/22; Climate Change; Trump/Morrison, Presidential Campaign; Plibersek v David Speers, Stoker the Handmaids Tale; Monique Ryan; Fact Check Morrison CO2;

News Corp

Is News Corp following through on its climate change backflip?

Can a leopard change its spots? My analysis of the Murdoch outlets’ recent flood coverage suggests not.

The Murdoch promise ” I’ll put it in a little bit if it hurts I’ll take it out”

Source: Is News Corp following through on its climate change backflip?

Informed Comment

Why the listless reaction from governments, the hush on climate change? – Michael West Media

The Morrison government has gone missing again at a time of crisis and devastation, despite its disaster relief fund brimming with $4.8bn. NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet finally made it to the outskirts of Lismore on the weekend, vowing support, visibly shaken at the magnitude of the devastation. Why the failure of governments to respond in times of crisis, asks resident Robyn Fitzgerald. Why no mention of “climate change”?

Source: Why the listless reaction from governments, the hush on climate change? – Michael West Media

Uncategorized

New IPCC report shows Australia is at real risk from climate change, with impacts worsening, future risks high, and wide-ranging adaptation needed

Peter Dutton runs a Go Fund Me Campaign for flood victims in order to try to save the Government. That’s standard for an IQ like his.

Climatic trends, extreme conditions and sea level rise are already hitting many of Australia’s ecosystems, industries and cities hard. As climate change intensifies, we are now seeing cascading and compounding impacts and risks, including where extreme events coincide. These are placing even greater pressure on our ability to respond. While the work of adaptation has begun, we have found the progress is uneven and insufficient, given the risks we face. These findings are from our work as co-authors of the new Australia and New Zealand chapter in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 6th Assessment Report on Impacts, Vulnerability and Adaptation, released today.

Source: New IPCC report shows Australia is at real risk from climate change, with impacts worsening, future risks high, and wide-ranging adaptation needed

Informed Comment

Pauline Hanson v the gas giants: who would have thought? – Michael West Media

Pauline Hanson

Elections bring on desperate changes and sometimes common sense is an accidental outcome.

So, if you want action against major gas companies controlling Australian politicians, a red-hot climate denier may still be worth some attention.

Hanson went so far as to propose a government-owned enterprise instead of paying private companies to do the same job. “If we’re going to pay $2.3 billion to secure Australia’s fuel supply, the government should buy the Brisbane refinery in Lytton and let it become an asset owned by the Commonwealth.” Hanson continually references Norway’s Sovereign Health Fund having “struck the right chord for its citizens, earning $1.5 trillion from its commodities.” “Australia, on the other hand, last year took a measly $300 million in direct payments for $50 billion worth of gas off the North West Shelf” while “the tiny nation of Qatar has a different approach. It receives around $26 billion in royalties on the gas it exports.” Qatar trades slightly less gas and hydrocarbon products than Australia.

Source: Pauline Hanson v the gas giants: who would have thought? – Michael West Media

Misinformation

Ex-Woodside insider rejects gas industry’s ‘clean fuel’, ‘net zero’ claims

China isn’t gods gift to gas which isn’t as clean as the LNP make out.

“They have one view for investors, and then another view when they want to ask the government for money. They talk completely different messages out of both sides of their mouths, constantly. It’s incredible. And somehow still seem to convince everyone of the narrative for how useful gas is.”

Source: Ex-Woodside insider rejects gas industry’s ‘clean fuel’, ‘net zero’ claims

Informed Comment

A quarter of the world depends on Glacier Melt for their Water; it will be Gone Sooner than Expected

Mountain glaciers are essential water sources for nearly a quarter of the global population. But figuring out just how much ice they hold – and how much water will be available as glaciers shrink in a warming world – has been notoriously difficult. In a new study, scientists mapped the speed of over 200,000 glaciers to get closer to an answer. They discovered that widely used estimates of glacier ice volume may be off by about 20% in terms of how much Earth’s glaciers outside the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets could contribute to sea level rise. Mathieu Morlighem, a leader in ice sheet modeling and a coauthor of the study, explains why the new results hold a warning for regions that rely on glaciers’ seasonal meltwater, but barely register in the big picture of rising seas.

Source: A quarter of the world depends on Glacier Melt for their Water; it will be Gone Sooner than Expected

Informed Comment

After the seven hottest years on record, Labor lessens its climate ambition – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Whilst Labor’s policies are preferable to the Coalition’s, they fall far short of what must be done. We cannot afford the timidity shown by the two major parties who bow to pressure from vested interests and are paralysed by fear of reprisal from their colleagues as much as from the electorate. Nor can we afford the denial from Barnaby’s mob and the Pauline and Clive cults. When Labor form government, the necessity for action will only be greater and the voices demanding it even louder. I hope they are ready.

Source: After the seven hottest years on record, Labor lessens its climate ambition – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Warning

Intercepted: Naomi Klein on “Don’t Look Up”

PODCAST

Klein is a professor of climate justice at the University of British Columbia and the author of many books on climate change, including her latest, “How to Change Everything: The Young Human’s Guide to Protecting the Planet and Each Other.”

Source: Intercepted: Naomi Klein on “Don’t Look Up”

Fighting Fake News, Uncategorized

Old Dog Thought- Growth: from 2014 Abbott to Global Anti-Democracy movement in 2021

Fighting Fake News with REAL; 1 /01/22; Murdoch’s Manipulation; Rat’s Chaos benefits Morrison; Climate Change : Trump’s Dress Rehersal; Robert Reich;

Humor, Humour, Truth in Humor

“Don’t Look Up” Is “Dr. Strangelove” for Climate Change

DON'T LOOK UP

Like most comedies, “Don’t Look Up” is probably best seen in theaters. But be prepared: As in “Dr. Strangelove,” the depth of comedy of “Don’t Look Up” is matched by a subtle, profound grief. The end of the movie is unbearably poignant; in particular, Lawrence delivers one line that is clearly the filmmakers explaining why they made this, even if it turns out to be completely futile. There may be a few movies that will make you laugh more and some that make you cry more, but if you add the laughing and crying together, it’s hard to think of anything that puts more emotional points on the board.

Source: “Don’t Look Up” Is “Dr. Strangelove” for Climate Change

Fight against Fake News, Fighting Fake News

Old Dog Thought- Morrison is no Ghandi. A Government is judged on how it treats it’s most vulnerable. They have to sue and still not be heard.

Fighting Fake News with REAL; 28/10/21; A divided LNP doesn’t and has never governed; A planet united witout Australia; The most vulnerable need to sue this government;

Malcolm Turnbull

Malcolm Turnbull blasts key part of government’s net zero plan

net zero

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says his long-awaited net-zero plan will lower power bills, create 100,000 jobs, and leave Australians thousands of dollars better off by increasing the gross national income by 1.6 per cent.

But his predecessor Malcolm Turnbull has been scathing of a key pillar of the plan, calling carbon capture and storage – which the government is relying on to cut emissions in manufacturing and mining – as a “con” and “distraction” by the coal industry. Scott Morrison announces the net zero plan. “It is a proven failure and it keeps getting run up the flagpole by the fossil fuel sector as a way to defer action,” Mr Turnbull told The New Daily. Mr Morrison will take the net-zero plan, and a projection that Australia will comfortably beat its Paris agreement goals, to Glasgow’s COP26 climate summit this week.

Source: Malcolm Turnbull blasts key part of government’s net zero plan

Australia

There are three approaches to climate, Australia is choosing the wrong one

climate change

There are three ways to approach climate change – one, do nothing and hope; two, dig in, and go slow, because it’s ‘the economy, stupid’; or three, step into the change and maximise the opportunities it presents.

Source: There are three approaches to climate, Australia is choosing the wrong one

Informed Comment

Cheap Grace and Climate Change: Australia and COP26 – » The Australian Independent Media Network

It was not for everybody, but the shock advertising tactics of the Australian comedian Dan Ilic made an appropriate point. Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison, a famed coal hugger, has vacillated about whether to even go to the climate conference in Glasgow. Having himself turned the country’s prime ministerial office into an extended advertising agency, Ilic was speaking his language. The language was promoted through sponsored imagery in Times Square, New York, with advertising space purchased by a crowdfunding campaign of considerable success. Billboards featured the prime minister as a “Coal-o-phile Dundee,” mercilessly mocked Australia’s climate policies and responses to the murderously scorching bushfires of 2020.

Source: Cheap Grace and Climate Change: Australia and COP26 – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Scott Morrison

Waking up to Climate Change Dinosaurs – » The Australian Independent Media Network

As things stand, it is a wonder Prime Minister Scott Morrison is even bothering. The Australian delegation in Glasgow is bound to be poorly briefed, confused and barely able. The coalition government, still weighed down by fossil-fuel fantasists, will continue to be engaged in a battle of such stunning incoherence any undertakings on carbon neutrality and change can only be regarded as unreliable and disingenuous. As McKenzie and a few of her lobotomised colleagues would have you believe, climate change is something that happens to other people. In the meantime, fossil fuel socialists the world over, unite!

Source: Waking up to Climate Change Dinosaurs – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Iraq, Iraq War

Iraq is seeking 10 Gigawatts of Solar Power; if World had gone Green in ’80s, Would the US have ever invaded Iraq?

I am struck by the irony that if only the US had invested massively in renewable energy and electric vehicles right from the 1970s when the climate crisis had become clear to scientists, Washington may not have felt the need to invade Iraq to unleash its hydrocarbon resources. When Ronald Reagan took back down Jimmy Carter’s solar panels off the White House, he was symbolically committing this country to generations of energy wars.

Source: Iraq is seeking 10 Gigawatts of Solar Power; if World had gone Green in ’80s, Would the US have ever invaded Iraq?

The World

Road to net zero: What the world thinks about Australia’s climate policy

climate change World leaders slam Australia's climate change policy

Australia is becoming a pariah on the world stage when it comes to climate policy. From initially refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, to remaining dependent on coal, successive Australian governments have repeatedly adopted policies that put them at odds with their foreign counterparts. Ahead of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, here’s what world leaders and environmentalists have said about Australia’s climate change track record.

Source: Road to net zero: What the world thinks about Australia’s climate policy

Scott Morrison

What could possibly go wrong? – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Why on earth would a climate-change-denying PM who shows 100% support for the filthy, polluting coal-mining and environmentally destructive gas fracking industries attend the COP26 (climate change conference) in Glasgow? Wasn’t this the same fool who dragged a piece of coal into Parliament House and declared – in front of a gleeful Barnyard Joyce – that “there is nothing to be afraid of – it’s just coal! Nothing to see here!” It came as no surprise that the yellow-bellied coward, Sloth Morrison, slunk away and returned back to Australia right before the conference even started! Why? Because he knew that his climate-change-denying ideology will be held up for ridicule on the world stage at any international summit on the emergency to address important issues on a subject the LNP do not believe in! That is exactly the type of disgraceful, cowardly behaviour we have come to expect from a useless, non-achieving PM who expends more energy trying to get out of work and totally avoiding any of his responsibilities as one of the highest paid “leaders” in the free world!

Source: What could possibly go wrong? – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Informed Comment

Australia’s approval of gas projects lighting climate change fires

The gas development in the Beetaloo Basin is guaranteed to accelerate and worsen climate change impacts on our health, writes Dr David Shearman. AUSTRALIA IS A global pariah for its unapologetic fossil fuel stance, in the face of the recent IPCC code red warning on climate change.

Source: Australia’s approval of gas projects lighting climate change fires

Informed Comment

On a matter as important as climate change, shouldn’t the Prime Minister attend the Glasgow conference? – » The Australian Independent Media Network

My thought for the day The ability of thinking human beings to blindly embrace what they are being told without referring to evaluation and the consideration of scientific fact, truth and reason, never ceases to amaze me. It is tantamount to the rejection of rational explanation. (John Lord )

Source: On a matter as important as climate change, shouldn’t the Prime Minister attend the Glasgow conference? – » The Australian Independent Media Network

LNP, LNP Corruption, LNP Government, LNP Tactics

Government’s climate change web of lies

Our political leaders will do anything to stay in positions of power, including deceiving the voting public on urgent matters of climate change, writes Sue Arnold. PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT issue facing this nation is not the pandemic, economic scenarios or nuclear submarines but a perilous lack of critical thinking and analysis by political parties, the mainstream media and a large majority of Australians.

Source: Government’s climate change web of lies

China

China makes progress in fight against climate change

Xi’s announcement signals the end of coal-fired power plant development outside China. Developing countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines, seen until recently as sources of future demand growth for coal, are now taking part in a program in which the Asian Development Bank will buy coal-fired plants with the sole purpose of shutting them down. At least as significant and somewhat more surprising has been a renewed commitment to limit the development of coal-fired power in China itself. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the Government’s central planning agency, has released a new plan on energy consumption that includes requiring all provinces to review already permitted high-emissions projects, including those under construction. Combined with the emissions trading market launched in July, this development suggests that Xi’s stated goal of reaching a peak in China’s coal consumption by 2026 may well be reached. China pushes for a cleaner climate China pushes for a cleaner climate Despite escalating tensions between nations, China is taking positive steps towards reaching net-zero carbon emission targets. The final development of the past week has been

Source: China makes progress in fight against climate change