Showing posts with label climate change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label climate change. Show all posts
Saturday 22 December 2018
Still no hope of a genuine national energy policy as crew on the sinking liner SS Liberal Party brawl on deck
Financial
Review, 19
December 2018:
NSW Climate and Energy
Minister Don Harwin vowed to push on with his crusade to "end the Canberra
climate wars" after federal minister Angus Taylor derailed his proposal to
plot a national pathway to net zero emissions by 2050 at an acrimonious Council
of Australian Governments' meeting.
Tempers flared at
the meeting of energy ministers in Adelaide after Mr
Taylor used an obscure procedural rule to block Mr Harwin's motion for a net
zero emissions pathway. A furious Mr Harwin said that if Mr Taylor was going to
use obscure procedural rules to block a motion supported by most state and
territory energy ministers "be it on your own head".
The bitter split between
the NSW and federal coalition governments comes as Gladys Berejiklian's NSW
Coalition government faces a March 23 election in which climate policy looms
large after voters sharply rejected the Morrison government's climate change
agnostic energy policies at the Wentworth byelection in October and the
Victorian state election in November.
Mr Harwin said in a
statement after the meeting: "I am very disappointed by the actions of the
federal government at COAG Energy Council in Adelaide today.
"The refusal, on
procedural grounds, to let the vital matter of restoring an emissions
obligation into national energy policy be discussed is extraordinary. NSW will
continue to pursue this critical matter with COAG Energy Council."
…..the NSW-federal
government stoush dominated the aftermath of the meeting as Mr Harwin told
reporters he was furious that "the Commonwealth used the rule book to try
and shutdown a discussion on emissions".
"As a sign of how
out of touch they are, they wouldn't let us have the discussion," Mr
Harwin said. "NSW is not giving up on this. It's absolutely imperative
that we end the Canberra climate wars. "
Wednesday 19 December 2018
Climate Change: the power of one, the power of many
By 2012 over half the world's population was estimated to be under thirty years of age, with around 16 per cent being under 15 years old.
All around the world those who govern are considerably older on average.
Yet it is thee yound people who willl be forced to endure the worst impacts - the life changing, life threatening impacts - of climate change.
The young have begun to speak up in defence of their future.
This is Greta, she is fifteen years old...........
TRANSCRIPT:
Greta Thunberg’s Speech to COP24 UN Climate Summit, Katowice, Poland, December 2018
GRETA
THUNBERG: My name is Greta Thunberg. I am 15 years old, and I’m from Sweden. I
speak on behalf of Climate Justice Now!
Many
people say that Sweden is just a small country, and it doesn’t matter what we
do. But I’ve learned that you are never too small to make a difference. And if
a few children can get headlines all over the world just by not going to
school, then imagine what we could all do together if we really wanted to.
But
to do that, we have to speak clearly, no matter how uncomfortable that may be.
You only speak of green eternal economic growth because you are too scared of
being unpopular. You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas
that got us into this mess, even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the
emergency brake.
You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that
burden you leave to us children.
But
I don’t care about being popular. I care about climate justice and the living
planet.
Our civilization is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a very
small number of people to continue making enormous amounts of money. Our
biosphere is being sacrificed so that rich people in countries like mine can
live in luxury. It is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of
the few.
The
year 2078, I will celebrate my 75th birthday. If I have children, maybe they
will spend that day with me. Maybe they will ask me about you. Maybe they will
ask why you didn’t do anything while there still was time to act.
You say you
love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in
front of their very eyes.
Until
you start focusing on what needs to be done, rather than what is politically
possible, there is no hope. We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a
crisis. We need to keep the fossil fuels in the ground, and we need to focus on
equity. And if solutions within the system are so impossible to find, then
maybe we should change the system itself.
We
have not come here to beg world leaders to care. You have ignored us in the
past, and you will ignore us again.
We have run out of excuses, and we are
running out of time.
We have come here to let you know that change is coming,
whether you like it or not. The real power belongs to the people.
Thank you.
Labels:
climate change,
people power,
youth
Saturday 15 December 2018
Quotes of the Week
“If you want to
know what caused those conditions, I’ll give you an answer – it’s called
climate change,” the Queensland premier told reporters. “It is only the LNP who
could watch Queensland burn and then blame the trees.” [Queensland Premier Anna Palaszczuk
quoted in The
Guardian, 7 December 2018]
“Last year, more
Australians bought their seventh home than those who bought their first” [Journalist Timothy Swanston quoting an incorrect statment by Queensland Minister for Housing and Public Works Mick de
Brenni, ABC
News, 8 December 2018]
“Most
people just consider Assange a spoilt-brat egomaniac with murky motives, a
limelight habit and some profoundly questionable political affiliations.”
[Journalist
Elizabeth Farrelly writing in The
Sydney Morning Herald, 8 December 2018]
“Both Brandis and
Turnbull were regularly labelled, and probably were what passes for, ‘moderates’
in the neoliberal alt-right nativist populist Trumpist tribal world, or
whatever white patriarchy is called these days.” [Academic and blogger Ingrid Matthews writing in oecomuse,
27 November 2018]
“Scott Morrison reminds me of a belligerent & angry Sunday School
teacher. Protected by his Christian reputation but in reality just a nasty,
angry, vengeful man” [Elizabeth Marr on Twitter,
9 December 2018]
Friday 14 December 2018
Australia’s Chief Scientist gives the Clarence Valley’s Daily Examiner a polite serve
This is what
happens when a once proud 159 year-old newspaper
is brought by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp
and begins to publish the political rot that Andrew Bolt spews forth…….
The Daily Examiner, letter to the Editor, 11 December
2018, p.13:
Doing nothing on climate
change not an option
On Tuesday, December 4 you published an opinion piece by
Andrew Bolt titled, ‘Less marching, more learning’, which included a reference to me
‘admitting’ that we “could stop all Australia’s emissions – junk every car,
shut every power station, put a cork in every cow – and the effect on the
climate would still be ‘virtually nothing’.”
Those are Andrew Bolt’s words, not mine, and they are a
complete misrepresentation of my position.
They suggest that we
should do nothing to reduce our carbon emissions, a stance I reject, and I wish
to correct the record.
On June 1, 2017 I
attended a Senate Estimates hearing where Senator Ian Macdonald asked if the
world was to reduce its carbon emissions by 1.3 per cent, which is
approximately Australia’s rate of emissions, what impact would that make on the
changing climate of the world.
My response was that the
impact would be virtually nothing, but I immediately continued by explaining
that doing nothing is not a position that we can responsibly take because
emissions reductions is a little bit like voting, in that if everyone took the
attitude that their vote does not count and no-one voted, we would not have a
democracy.
Similarly, if all
countries that have comparable carbon emissions took the position that they
shouldn’t take action because their contribution to this global problem is
insignificant, then nobody would act and the problem would continue to grow in
scale.
Let me be clear, we need
to continue on the path of reducing Australia’s carbon emissions. The fact
remains that Australia’s emissions per person are some of the highest in the
world.
In response to the
recent IPCC report, I urged all decision makers – in government, industry, and
the community – to listen to the science and focus on the goal of reducing
emissions, while maximising economic growth.
I was upfront about the
magnitude of the task: it is huge and will require a global effort.
We’ve never been a
nation to shy away from a challenge, or from shouldering our fair share of the
responsibility for solving global issues.
Sitting on our hands
while expecting the rest of the world to do their part is simply not
acceptable.
Dr Alan Finkel AO,
Australia’s Chief
Scientist. [my yellow highlighting]
Wednesday 12 December 2018
Are Prime Minister Morrison & Co determined to reduce Australia to a hot, barren desert from sea to sea?
Human
activities are estimated to have caused approximately 1.0°C of global warming
above pre-industrial levels, with a likely range of 0.8°C to 1.2°C. Global
warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to
increase at the current rate. (high confidence) (Figure SPM.1) {1.2} [United Nations (2018) Global Warming of 1.5°C. Summary
for Policymakers]
United Nations, Sustainable Development, 8 October 2018:
The Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC was
approved by the IPCC on Saturday in Incheon, Republic of Korea. It will be a
key scientific input into the Katowice
Climate Change Conference in Poland in December, when governments
review the Paris Agreement to tackle climate change.
“With more than 6,000
scientific references cited and the dedicated contribution of thousands of
expert and government reviewers worldwide, this important report testifies to
the breadth and policy relevance of the IPCC,” said Hoesung Lee, Chair of the
IPCC.
Ninety-one authors and
review editors from 40 countries prepared the IPCC report in response to an
invitation from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) when it adopted the Paris Agreement in 2015.
The report’s full name
is Global Warming of 1.5°C, an IPCC special report on the impacts of
global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global
greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global
response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts
to eradicate poverty.
“One of the key messages
that comes out very strongly from this report is that we are already seeing the
consequences of 1°C of global warming through more extreme weather, rising sea
levels and diminishing Arctic sea ice, among other changes,” said Panmao Zhai,
Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group I.
Limiting global
warming
The report highlights a
number of climate change impacts that could be avoided by limiting global
warming to 1.5ºC compared to 2ºC, or more. For instance, by 2100, global sea
level rise would be 10 cm lower with global warming of 1.5°C compared with 2°C.
The likelihood of an Arctic Ocean free of sea ice in summer would be once
per century with global warming of 1.5°C, compared with at least once per
decade with 2°C. Coral reefs would decline by 70-90 percent with global warming
of 1.5°C, whereas virtually all (> 99 percent) would be lost with 2ºC.
“Every extra bit of
warming matters, especially since warming of 1.5ºC or higher increases the risk
associated with long-lasting or irreversible changes, such as the loss of some
ecosystems,” said Hans-Otto Pörtner, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group II.
Limiting global warming
would also give people and ecosystems more room to adapt and remain below
relevant risk thresholds, added Pörtner. The report also examines pathways
available to limit warming to 1.5ºC, what it would take to achieve them and what
the consequences could be.
“The good news is that
some of the kinds of actions that would be needed to limit global warming to
1.5ºC are already underway around the world, but they would need to
accelerate,” said Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Co-Chair of Working Group I.
The report finds that
limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require “rapid and far-reaching”
transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities. Global
net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about
45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching ‘net zero’ around 2050. This
means that any remaining emissions would need to be balanced by removing CO2 from
the air.
“Limiting warming to
1.5ºC is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics but doing so would
require unprecedented changes,” said Jim Skea, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group
III.
Allowing the global
temperature to temporarily exceed or ‘overshoot’ 1.5ºC would mean a greater
reliance on techniques that remove CO2 from the air to return global
temperature to below 1.5ºC by 2100. The effectiveness of such techniques are
unproven at large scale and some may carry significant risks for sustainable
development, the report notes.
“Limiting global warming
to 1.5°C compared with 2°C would reduce challenging impacts on ecosystems,
human health and well-being, making it easier to achieve the United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals,” said Priyardarshi Shukla, Co-Chair of IPCC
Working Group III.
The decisions we make
today are critical in ensuring a safe and sustainable world for everyone, both
now and in the future, said Debra Roberts, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group II.
“This report gives
policymakers and practitioners the information they need to make decisions that
tackle climate change while considering local context and people’s needs. The
next few years are probably the most important in our history,” she said.
The
Denver Post,
8 December 2018:
Global emissions of
carbon dioxide have reached the highest levels on record, scientists projected
Wednesday, in the latest evidence of the chasm between international goals for
combating climate change and what countries are actually doing.
Between 2014 and 2016,
emissions remained largely flat, leading to hopes that the world was beginning
to turn a corner. Those hopes have been dashed. In 2017, global emissions grew
1.6 percent. The rise in 2018 is projected to be 2.7 percent.
The expected increase,
which would bring fossil fuel and industrial emissions to a record high of 37.1
billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, is being driven by nearly 5 percent
emissions growth in China and more than 6 percent in India, researchers
estimated, along with growth in many other nations throughout the world.
Emissions by the United States grew 2.5 percent, while emissions by the
European Union declined by just under 1 percent.
As nations are gathered
for climate talks in Poland, the message of Wednesday’s report was unambiguous:
When it comes to promises to begin cutting the greenhouse gas emissions that
fuel climate change, the world remains well off target.
“We are in trouble. We
are in deep trouble with climate change,” United Nations Secretary General
António Guterres said this week at the opening of the 24th annual U.N. climate
conference, where countries will wrestle with the ambitious goals they need to
meet to sharply reduce carbon emissions in coming years.
“It is hard to overstate
the urgency of our situation,” he added. “Even as we witness devastating
climate impacts causing havoc across the world, we are still not doing enough,
nor moving fast enough, to prevent irreversible and catastrophic climate disruption.”
Guterres was not
commenting specifically on Wednesday’s findings, which were released in a trio
of scientific papers by researchers with the Global Carbon Project. But his
words came amid a litany of grim news in the fall in which scientists have warned
that the effects of climate change are no longer distant and hypothetical, and
that the impacts of global warming will only intensify in the absence of
aggressive international action.....
When
hard-right, anti-science, fundamentalist ideology in Australia descends into
madness………….
The
Guardian, 10
December 2018:
As four of the
world’s largest oil and gas producers blocked UN climate talks from “welcoming”
a key scientific report on global warming, Australia’s silence during a key
debate is being viewed as tacit support for the four oil allies: the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia
and Kuwait.
The end of the first week
of the UN climate talks – known as COP24 – in Katowice, Poland, has been mired by
protracted debate over whether the conference should “welcome” or “note” a key
report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The IPCC’s 1.5 degrees
report, released in October, warned the world would have to cut greenhouse gas
emissions by about 45% by 2030 to limit global warming to 1.5C and potentially
avoid some of the worst effects of climate change, including a dramatically
increased risk of drought, flood, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of
millions of people.
The UN climate
conference commissioned the IPCC report, but when that body went to “welcome”
the report’s findings and commit to continuing its work, four nations – the US,
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Russia,
all major oil and gas producers – refused to accept the wording, insisting
instead that the convention simply “note” the findings.
Negotiators spent two
and a half hours trying to hammer out a compromise without success.
The apparently minor
semantic debate has significant consequences, and the deadlock ensures the
debate will spill into the second critical week of negotiations, with key
government ministers set to arrive in Katowice.
Most of the world’s
countries spoke out in fierce opposition to the oil allies’ position.
The push to adopt the
wording “welcome” was led by the Maldives, leader of the alliance of small
island states, of which Australia’s Pacific island neighbours are members.
They were backed by a
broad swathe of support, including from the EU, the bloc of 47 least developed
countries, the Independent Association of Latin America and the Caribbean,
African, American and European nations, and Pacific countries such as the Marshall
Islands and Tuvalu.
Australia did not speak
during the at-times heated debate, a silence noted by many countries on the
floor of the conference, Dr Bill Hare, the managing director of Climate
Analytics and a lead author on previous IPCC reports, told Guardian Australia.
“Australia’s silence in
the face of this attack yesterday shocked many countries and is widely seen as
de facto support for the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait’s refusal to
welcome the IPCC report,” Hare said…..
Australia’s environment
minister, Melissa Price, arrived in Katowice on Sunday, with negotiations set
to resume Monday morning.
“The government is committed to the Paris
agreement and our emissions reduction targets,” she said before leaving
Australia. “Australia’s participation in the Paris agreement and in COP24 is in
our national interest, in the interests of the Indo-Pacific region, and the
international community as a whole.”
Price said a priority
for Australia at COP24 was to ensure a robust framework of rules to govern the
reporting of Paris agreement targets. “Australia’s emissions reporting is of an
exceptionally high standard and we are advocating for rules that bring other
countries up to the standard to which we adhere.”
The latest
Australian government
figures, released last month, show the country’s carbon
emissions continue to rise, at a rate significantly higher than recent
years.
Australia’s emissions,
seasonally adjusted, increased 1.3% over the past quarter. Excluding emissions
from land use, land use change and forestry (for which the calculations are
controversial), they are at a record high..... [my yellow highlighting]
Greenhouse gas emissions in Australia to date.....
The
Guardian, 11
December 2018:
Patrick Suckling (sitting on panel right),
Australia’s ambassador for the environment, waits as protesters disrupt an
event at the COP24 climate change summit in Katowice, Poland. Photograph:
Łukasz Kalinowski/Rex/Shutterstock
Australia has reaffirmed
its commitment to coal – and its unwavering support for the United States – by
appearing at a US government-run event promoting the use of fossil fuels at
the United
Nations climate talks in Poland.
Australia was the only
country apart from the host represented at the event, entitled “US innovative
technologies spur economic dynamism”, designed to “showcase ways to use fossil
fuels as cleanly and efficiently as possible, as well as the use of
emission-free nuclear energy”.
Its panel discussion was
disrupted for several minutes by dozens of protesters who stood up suddenly
during speeches, unfurling a banner reading “Keep it in the ground” while
singing and chanting “Shame on you”.
Patrick Suckling,
Australia’s ambassador for the environment, and the head of the country’s
negotiating delegation at the climate talks, spoke on the panel. His nameplate
bore a US flag…..
…Simon Bradshaw, Oxfam
Australia’s climate change policy adviser, said it was “extremely
disappointing” to see Australia line up behind the US in pushing a pro-coal
ideas.
“It is a slap in the
face of our Pacific island neighbours, for whom bringing an end to the fossil
fuel era is matter of survival, and who are working with determination to
catalyse stronger international efforts to confront the climate crisis. And it
is firmly against the wishes of an overwhelming majority of Australians.”
Bradshaw said continuing
to use coal was not only uneconomic, but would “be measured in more lives lost,
entrenched poverty, rising global hunger, and more people displaced from their
land and homes”.
He said the advice of
the IPCC showed emphatically there was no space for new coal and that
Australia’s position on coal was isolating it from the rest of the world.
The Climate Vulnerable
Forum, a group of 48 countries most acutely affected by climate change, has
committed to achieving 100% renewable energy production by the middle of the
century at the latest. Other developed countries, including the UK, France,
Canada and New Zealand, have committed to phasing out coal power by 2030.
Wells Griffith, a Trump
administration adviser speaking alongside Suckling on the panel, said the US
would continue extracting fossil fuels, and warned against “alarmism” about
climate change…… [my yellow highlighting]
Trend emissions levels are inclusive of all sectors of the economy, including Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) |
Reading Quarterly Update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: June 2018 [PDF 39 pages] released on 30 November 2018 it is highly unlikely that the Morrison Govenment will be able to meet Australia's commitments under the Paris Agreement.
Australia was closer to meeting Paris Agreement goals in 2013 under a Labor federal government than it is today under a Coalition federal government.
Thursday 6 December 2018
The truth about Australia's approach to climate change
The graph below says it all - in 2008 through to September 2013 there was an Australian Labor Government in Canberra producing programs to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and from September 2013 until today there has been a Liberal-Nationals Coalition Government in Canberra intent on dismantling as much established cilmate change policy as is possible.
Trend emissions levels are inclusive of all sectors of the economy, including Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) |
Reading Quarterly
Update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: June 2018 [PDF 39 pages] released on 30 November 2018 it is highly unlikely that the Morrison Govenment will be able to meet Australia's commitments under the Paris Agreement.
For interim PM and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison to assert otherwise is a political lie.
Wednesday 5 December 2018
NSW Liberal & Nationals politicians won't be satisfied until they have turned this state into a wasteland
Echo
Net Daily, 3
December 2018:
The North East Forest
Alliance has called the process used by the Commonwealth and State Governments
to adopt new Regional Forest Agreements as a superficial sham simply intended
to lock-up public native forests for private sawmillers at significant environment
cost.
North East Forest
Alliance spokesperson Dailan Pugh says there has been no attempt to assess or
review environmental, industry or social data, instead they are relying on
incomplete and out of date assessments undertaken 20 years ago.
’The Governments chose
to ignore the recommendation of their own reviewer for a contemporary review
that included an assessment of the effects of climate change,’ he said.
‘By rejecting the
recommendation of their own review and proceeding on incomplete and out of date
assessments the National Party have once again proven that their intent is to
lock up public resources for private companies irrespective of the
environmental costs and community interests.
Mr Pugh says NEFA are
disgusted that the Governments have not publicly released their new RFAs, so it
is not possible to know what changes they have made. ‘They are keeping us in
the dark,’ he said. ‘The only document they have released is their resource
commitments which show they are increasing the cut of high quality logs in
north-east NSW by at least 10,000 cubic metres to 230,000m3 per annum, at the
same time they are fraudulently claiming a shortfall of 8,600m3 per annum to
justify opening up protected old growth and rainforest for logging.’
‘Due to their increased
logging intensity they are intending to more than double the cut of small and
low-quality logs from 320,000 tonnes per annum to 660,000 tonnes per annum.
‘The increased logging
intensity and significant reductions in protections for most threatened species
and streams is an environmental crime.
Mr Pugh says that out of
more than 5,400 public submissions on the proposed new NSW RFAs, only 23
supported the RFAs. ‘There is no social license to continue the degradation of
our public native forests.
‘Plantations already
provide 87% of our sawntimber needs, it is time to complete the transition to
plantations and establish more plantations on cleared land, while we actively
rehabilitate our public native forests to help them recover from past abuses
and restore the full suite of benefits they can provide to the community.
BACKGROUND
North Eastern, Southern & Eden Regional Forest Agreements Image:NSW EPA |
NSW EPA Regional Forest Agreements
Here are links to NSW members of the state parliament:
If any readers wish to contact members of the Berejiklian Government in order stand up for native forests these links provide addresses, telephone numbers and, in the case of the Legislative Assembly, the names of electorates these politicians represent.
Tuesday 4 December 2018
The Fire Next Time: "Climate is a driver of wildfire and of fire full stop"
Image: Green Cross Australia |
ABC
News, 1
December 2018:
Both the bushfires and
the heatwave ravaging parts of Queensland have been described as extraordinary
and abnormal.
Bureau of Meteorology
Queensland manager Bruce Gunn said records had tumbled in a week of widespread
and protracted heatwave conditions, combined with catastrophic fire danger.
"On Wednesday,
Rockhampton Airport recorded catastrophic [fire] conditions for approximately
three-and-a-half hours," Mr Gunn said.
"This was the first
time this district has recorded catastrophic conditions and the most prolonged
event in Queensland since the implementation of the current Fire Danger Rating
System in 2010."
Fire ecologist Philip
Stewart said Queensland's fires of the past few days were historically unusual.
"When one looks at
the charcoal records with Aboriginal burning, we haven't seen any indicators
that show that there had been mass fires or large intense fires like we are
seeing today, or 'mega-fires', as I would call them," Dr Stewart said.
"They're not something
one would expect at this time, but then again, fires of this nature can occur
anywhere, provided that there's the right climatic conditions and the right
fuels and so on."
Dr Stewart said the
intensity and the extent of the fires was abnormal, as was the time of year
that they were occurring.
He said they were
"absolutely" a result of climate change.
"Climate is a
driver of wildfire and of fire full stop," Dr Stewart said.
"So when we start
to see an increase in temperature, we start see an increase in energy
availability in that atmosphere, and that obviously will increase the potential
for high-intensity fires and fast fires as well."…..
"We have definitely
seen over the past 10 to 15 years an earlier onset of burning and a later fire
season as well," Dr Stewart said.
He said the fire seasons
were starting to overlap, within Australia and globally, so sharing resources
would become harder.
And the tropics burning
this week demonstrated that even areas traditionally considered safe were at
risk.
"I would say that
wherever you are you should have a fire plan … even [in] urban areas as we've
seen in Greece recently, right down to the coast, and in the Californian fires
… there's always a possibility that a fire can get in unless it's a concrete
jungle," he said……
Bushfire and Natural
Hazards Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) CEO Richard Thornton said past fires
were not necessarily predictive of future bushfires, so people needed to
consider the worst-case scenario for them.
"It's about forward
planning and getting people to recognise the changing nature of risk," Dr
Thornton said.
"I think what we
can say more generally and this doesn't apply just to Queensland … is in the
Australian context, if we have days that are in the 40s with very high winds
and very low humidity, the chances of fire starting and becoming uncontrollable
very quickly, is highly likely.
"On those days,
communities need to be very vigilant and aware of the environment and what
their plans are for those days, and whether it's going to be to leave
early," he said.
Dr Stewart said he would
like to see an increase in funding for fire management and crews.
"There is very
little funding available for any proactive fire management and fire mitigation
research.
"We need a lot
more, especially in Queensland," Dr Stewart said.
Labels:
bushfires,
climate change
Monday 3 December 2018
The Dept.of Youth sends a clear message to all those climate change deniers in the Morrison Coalition Government & those elsewhere in state governments and Australian industries
“activism is like the
immune system it
rises in response to the threat” [Aidan
Ricketts by way of Jane Caro, Twitter,
1 December 2018]
— Nikki Bradley (@PrincessFluffy) November 30, 2018
— nick wray (@nickwray) November 30, 2018
More kids arriving. So inspirational #climatestrike pic.twitter.com/23Lrg4h0NN— Duchess no more (@bulga99) November 30, 2018
A packed Trades Hall as #Ballarat students protest for climate change. See it all tonight @WINNews_Bal pic.twitter.com/1EBfiOblQr— Cam Inglis (@inglis_cam) November 30, 2018
“ScoMo sucks” - Australia’s youth pic.twitter.com/gL5I0sB1Q9— nick wray (@nickwray) November 30, 2018
Loving this sign at the Melbourne #ClimateStrike pic.twitter.com/64FnzZqQjy— Moira Cully 🏳️🌈 (@mkcully) November 29, 2018
Scott Morrison said school kids wouldn't learn anything from protesting. These students disagreed. pic.twitter.com/93wqKjf5Zi— SBS News (@SBSNews) November 30, 2018
And on the NSW North Coast……..Regional NSW schoolchildren striked for climate action today. The future is theirs. We are the guardians and it is time to ACT. A healthy environment is a basic human right.#climatestrike #Renewables NOT #Coal & #Gas #CSG #Fracking #Environment #Extinction #FederalICAC #Auspol pic.twitter.com/Kz8wP1gBZg— Carly Woodstock (@stopthefrack) November 30, 2018
@ScottMorrisonMP without activism, without challenging the status quo and by not calling out poor decision making, nothing ever changes #futurevoters #climatestrike #portmacquarie pic.twitter.com/CVbqAO5lyh— Tracey Fairhurst (@traceyfairhurst) November 30, 2018
“Don’t underestimate our knowledge and power of education” students speaking to fellow students at this years #Strike4ClimateChange rally @nbnnews pic.twitter.com/J6a1wfHvWk— Georgia Anderson (@GAndersonNews) November 29, 2018
Memo to all Australian politicians: these students have parents, older siblings, grandparents and aunts & uncles who vote. Ignore them in May 2019 at your peril.Clarence Valley students took to the streets to have their voices heard and express their disapointment over government inaction on climate change today: https://t.co/COazyi0RGT @StrikeClimate #strikeclimate #schoolstrike4climate pic.twitter.com/EJ7VgWIVKw— Daily Examiner (@daily_examiner) November 30, 2018
Labels:
climate change,
people power
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