Antinuclear

It’s hard to marry the concept of boomer selfishness with the activism of these ‘grey-haired’ protesters fighting on behalf of their grandchildren

Julie Burr, 59, mobilised fellow locals into a chapter of ‘Knitting Nannas’, a direct action protest movement of senior Australian women.’ Photograph: Supplied

If there was ever a generation cursed by those that came after it, it’s the generation known as the baby boomers. The “boomers”, were those born roughly between 1946 and 1964.
Scapegoated for everything from environmental destruction to social welfare spending, their crime was to be born in an economic period where wages kept pace with productivity – itself at a rate that was higher than ever before.
As governments repaired economies from the damage of the second world war, not only were the jobs the boomers grew into plentiful, but so was state support. Many Australian boomers benefitted from free university education and universal…

A new study finds there is no “deus ex machina” way to prevent a catastrophic collapse of ocean life for centuries if not millennia — if we don’t start slashing carbon pollution ASAP.The Nature Climate Change study examined what would happen if we continue current CO2 emissions trends through 2050 and then try to remove huge volumes of CO2 from the air after the fact with some techno-fix. The result, as co-author John Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, put it, is “we will not be able to preserve ocean life as we know it.”

A “Deus ex machina” — literally “God from the machine” — originated in Greek tragedy (and comedy) where a machine (like a crane) delivers actors who play gods to the stage to magically resolve all of the dramatic problems. Today it means, “a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is…

‘Trying to cost what they have on the table is really just grasping at straws. We need to start filling in the detail,’ says head of Australian Industry Group.
• Comment: why Tony Abbott’s climate ‘strategy’ won’t neutralise the environmental argument
Business leaders have said Tony Abbott has no detailed policies to meet his new climate change target and fear the uncertainty of the current “blank sheet of paper” on greenhouse policy could harm the economy and push up power prices.
The prime minister is arguing he can achieve the target to cut Australia’s emissions by 26% by 2030 more cheaply than Labor, even though neither major party has outlined a detailed or costed climate policy.
Abbott said he would continue to allocate $200m a year to buying greenhouse abatement with his emissions reduction fund, but this is likely to account for less than a quarter of the new target…

It is the development conundrum of our era. Extremely poor people cannot lift themselves out of poverty without access to reliable energy. More than a billion people live without power today, denying them opportunities as wide-ranging as running a business, providing light for their children to study, or even cooking meals with ease.

Ending poverty requires confronting climate change, which affects every nation and every person. The populations least able to adapt – those that are the most poor and vulnerable – will be hardest hit, rolling back decades of development work.
How do we achieve the dual goals of expanding energy production for those without power and drastically reducing emissions from sources such as coal that produce carbon dioxide, the primary contributor to climate change?
There is no single answer and we cannot ask poor communities to forego access to energy because the developed world has already put so…

Key Findings

1. The world is stepping up action on climate change, with Australia’s major allies and trading partners setting strong emissions reduction targets.
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The United States aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28% below its 2005 level in 2025 setting a path towards deep, economy-wide emission reductions of 80% or more by 2050.
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The European Union has a reduction target of 40% by 2030 relative to 1990 levels.
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By 2030, China aims to lower carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 60% to 65% from the 2005 level, and the world’s largest emitter aims to peak its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, possibly earlier.
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Australia is expected to submit its emissions reduction target by mid-2015.
2. Australia is a crucial global climate change player.

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Australia is one of the largest emitters per capita and the 13th largest greenhouse gas emitter in…