AUDIO: Marshall Islands call on Australia for Climate Change support
rising sea levels will create a humanitarian crisis in the region, with many people eventually seeking asylum in Australia.
“If you look further down the line there are two million people – potential refugees – from the Pacific should climate change continue the way it is now
The Marshallese Government has called on Australia to support its new global climate change initiative.
The Marshall Islands is hosting this year’s meeting of the 16-nation Pacific Islands Forum in September.
It wants leaders to agree to approve the Majuro Declaration for Climate Leadership, an initiative for urgent action on climate change.
Tony de Brum, the Minister in Assistance to the Marshall Islands President, is in Canberra to highlight the unprecedented droughts and floods that have hit his country and to seek support from the Australian Government ahead of the Pacific summit. Continue reading
Australians way ahead of politicians in attitudes to climate change
Climate of the nation 2013: Australian attitudes on climate change http://apo.org.au/research/climate-nation-2013-australian-attitudes-climate-change
Kristina Stefanova | The Climate Institute
The 2012 research was conducted in the heat of the toxic and speculative debate leading up to the introduction of the carbon laws.
A year later we find that two-thirds of Australians think that climate change is occurring and almost all of them believe that it is impacting Australia now. People are genuinely worried about the cost impacts of extreme weather and climate change on everyday concerns such as crop production and food supply, insurance premiums, water shortages and climate refugees.
Climate change is not perceived as a major issue in this election, but it is also clear that there is no basis from which to call the election a “referendum on the carbon tax”.
Only around a third of Australians think that the carbon laws should be repealed and more oppose a double dissolution to get rid of them than support one. The “carbon tax” itself is not a major reason for supporting a Coalition vote. “Economic mismanagement”, “lies and incompetence” and the “carbon tax lie” are cited as far stronger reasons.
Opposition to carbon pricing is dropping. While support remains soft, it strengthens significantly when the policy is explained. This matches the findings of other recent polls. Continue reading
Arctic permafrost thawing, with drastic climate results
Release of methane gas from Arctic permafrost could devastate global economy: study http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-25/arctic-methane-could-devastate-economy3a-study/4842994 By David Mack and Stuart Gray
European scientists say the release of large amounts of methane gas from thawing Arctic permafrost could devastate the global economy.
Permafrost, or soil below the freezing point, has been thawing under rising global temperatures for many years.
The thawing is releasing the powerful greenhouse gas methane, which is concentrated in the Arctic tundra and is also found as semi-solid gas hydrates in the sea. A study in the science journal Nature says the release of 50-gigatonnes of methane over a decade will result in flooding, sea-level rise, agriculture damage and health impacts amounting to $60 trillion – which was roughly the size of the entire global economy last year.
The researchers say the impacts will be particularly devastating in developing countries..
Separate research also shows permafrost melting at alarming rates in the Antarctic.
Study finds that the Coalition’s carbon storage plan is not viable
Coalition’s soil carbon plan ‘unviable’, study finds SMH, uly 17, 2013 Peter Hannam Carbon economy editor The Coalition’s plan to store carbon dioxide in soil as a central plank of its climate policy has been thrown into further doubt by new research showing Australian soils are unlikely to offer low-cost emissions cuts.
A University of Melbourne survey of hundreds of Australian studies going back three decades found that using the country’s soils to offset a significant proportion of national greenhouse gases “is technically limited and economically unviable at the present time”. Published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, it suggests farmers would lose out through soil-carbon projects at carbon prices backed by both the government and the opposition.
Report co-author Rick Roush, the Dean of the Melbourne School of Land and Environment, said most active soil scientists thought it would be “a stretch” for farmers to use the Carbon Farming Initiative – a policy that encourages soil-carbon projects and is backed by both major parties……
Sequestering carbon would likely be restricted to the top 10 centimetres of soil, and be limited by low-nutrient levels and water scarcity. Application of fertiliser would boost the sink capacity of soils but at a rising cost to farmers, Professor Roush said.
Better investment Carbon is slow to accumulate in the soil, and the agricultural methods mostly likely to encourage it, such as no-till farming, are already widely used, he said.
While the survey focused on Australian studies, Professor Roush said carbon bio-sequestration may not have much greater promise overseas. “Our gut suspicion is that it will also be disappointing even in areas that have better rainfall and better soil fertility to start with, for the same reasons,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s difficult to keep soil carbons accumulating when you continue to plough and cultivate annual crops.”http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/coalitions-soil-carbon-plan-unviable-study-finds-20130717-2q3e3.html#ixzz2ZQw8eNMA
Tony Abbott’s carbon theories seen as not intelligent
”He’s now mocked John Howard’s design of an emissions trading scheme,” she said. ”Imagine Tony Abbott at an international meeting talking to Barack Obama and David Cameron – both of whom believe in action on climate change – and telling them that, ‘Look, this is just about the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no one.”’…… Just one in 10 Australians supports the Coalition plan to pay companies to reduce carbon emissions, the survey of 1000 people by JWS Research found
Abbott hit by backlash, The Age, July 16, 2013 Heath Aston, Mark Kenn Tony Abbott’s insistence that Labor’s emissions trading scheme is an expensive exercise in buying and selling an ”invisible substance” has drawn derision from climate experts and industry.
As the Rudd government prepares to detail a path from the carbon tax to an ETS a year earlier than scheduled, the Opposition Leader faces claims he is treading his own path back to the ”politics of climate denial and scepticism”.
Mr Abbott’s assertion that an ETS – to be introduced on July 1, 2014, as the government will announce on Tuesday – was a ”so-called market in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no one” sparked an immediate backlash, with critics pointing out that former Liberal prime minister John Howard designed a similar scheme. Professor Richard Dennis, an economist at the Australian National University, said Mr Abbott should make it clear whether he thinks radiation was harmful or not. Continue reading
Like King Canute, Wyong Council behaves as if the sea level will not rise
Actually – that headline is not really fair to King Canute. The Canute story is that his courtiers believed that King Canute had god-like powers, and could stop the tide coming in. Canute, in order to educate them, went down to the beach, and ordered the tide not to come in. However, as he expected, the tide did come in, and he got wet.
And the Wyong mayor and councillors might get we one day.
Sea level rise recommendation rejected http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-05/sea-level-rise-recommendation-rejected/4802480, 6 July 13
A sea-level rise recommendation for building heights in Wyong has been rejected by the Tuggerah Lakes Estuary and Flood Plain Management Committee.
Wyong Council staff had recommended that an increase to floor level building heights of 400 millimetres was needed to allow for any future
sea level rises. Wyong Mayor Doug Eaton says the recommendation was rejected five votes to one.
“That recommendation of the committee now has to go to council to be either endorsed or changed by it my view it will almost certainly be
endorsed,” he said.
World Meteorological Organisation’s critical report on Climate Change
The WMO says droughts affect more people than any other kind of natural disaster because of their large scale and long duration. The decade saw droughts across the world, with some of the longest and most severe in Australia (2002 and other years),
Clear upward trend’ in global temperatures: WMO ABC News, ALEX KIRBY, 5 July 13, In the first decade of this century extreme weather, global temperatures and sea level all continued a trend in a “clearly upward direction”, says a new report from the World Meteorological Organisation.
If you think the world is warming and the weather getting nastier, you’re right, according to the United Nations agency committed to understanding weather and climate.
The World Meteorological Organisation says the planet “experienced unprecedented high-impact climate extremes” in the ten years from 2001 to 2010, the warmest decade since the start of modern measurements in 1850.
Those ten years also continued an extended period of accelerating global warming, with more national temperature records reported broken than in any previous decade. Sea levels rose about twice as fast as the trend in the last century.
A WMO report, The Global Climate 2001-2010: A Decade of Climate Extremes, analyses global and regional temperatures and precipitation, and extreme weather such as the heat waves in Europe and Russia, Hurricane Katrina in the US, tropical cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, droughts in the Amazon basin, Australia and East Africa, and floods in Pakistan. Continue reading
Australia’s recent “angry summer” was most likely caused by climate change
Manmade Emissions Led to the Heat Wave That Baked Australia Motherboard, By Jason Koebler, 27 June 13 Scientists are 90 percent sure this year’s Australian heat wave couldn’t have happened without manmade influence. Photo: CIA
Surprise, surprise: The record-breaking heat wave that plagued Australia earlier this year with temperatures that reached up to 121 degrees was almost certainly caused by humans, according to a new study.
The study, published in Geophysical Research Letters by scientists at the University of Melbourne and Australia’s ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Systems Science, highlights how humans have heightened drought effects on the continent. According to the authors, “human contribution to the increased odds of Australian summer extremes like 2013 was substantial, while natural climate variations alone, including El Niño Southern Oscillation, are unlikely to explain the record temperature.”
The so-called “angry summer” was easily the hottest on record, with temperatures hitting more than 27 degrees above average in some parts of the country during the first week of January. When it was happening, meteorologists with the Australian government said that though “Australia has always experienced heat waves … the event affecting much of inland Australia has definitely not been typical.”…..”The model experiments also show that these types of extreme Australian summers will become more severe and more frequent in the future, with further global warming,” she said. “Extreme summers occur 8 times more frequently in the climate model simulations that include human influences, such as greenhouse gases, compared to the climate model simulations with only natural climate variations.” http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/manmade-emissions-led-to-the-heat-wave-that-baked-australia-1#ixzz2XZtGQ5uR
Institute of Public Affairs vilifies climate scientists
Much of the climate change scepticism in Australia can be traced back to the free-market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), a prominent news source and intellectual role model for conservative politicians, industry magnates, religious leaders and opinion makers in the media.
The mining industry is a major IPA sponsor and occupies senior positions on its board of directors. The IPA opposes regulations on GHG emissions and rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. It vilifies climate scientists, environmentalists and the political left.
Think tank a false climate prophet, SMH June 20, 2013 – Elaine McKewon A free-market think tank has 
been heavily pushing climate change scepticism. “…….What began as an almost universal acceptance of the science and the need for action has become a false debate between climate change scientists and ideologically driven climate change “sceptics”.
On one side, we have 97 per cent of climate scientists who endorse the empirically based reality that Earth has been warming since the mid-20th century, that human-induced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are the main cause, and that deep and rapid reductions in global emissions are necessary to avoid the worst impacts.
Then there’s the alternative reality in which there’s no scientific consensus and the idea that human-induced GHG emissions cause global warming is either a hoax, a religion or a scare tactic cooked up to justify higher taxes and restrictions on personal freedoms. This is the “reality” in which many Australians, including several of our political and religious leaders, appear to live. Continue reading
Australia’s mainstream media actively promotes climate change denialism
How Australia’s old media sows doubt about climate change Independent Australia 20 June 13, Australia’s corporate media does not properly hold politicians accountable or give the public the full picture — and is most especially remiss concerning climate change, says Brad Farrant, David Holmes and Assistant Professor Mark G Edwards. “…….
Why are they getting away with it?..….You would think most journalists would be forensically questioning any politician who denied the science or failed to devise and support adequate policies to address this threat.
Unfortunately, very few, if any, of our mainstream journalists have ever really challenged climate-science-denying politicians.
In fact, the opposite has been true. According to research by Robert Manne, many major media outlets – notably the Murdoch media, and particularly The Australian – have actively created doubt about the science. They have misreported the science and supported inaction among politicians who should be developing climate policies and offering national and international leadership on the issue. Continue reading
Climate change predicted to bring bushfires to Canberra
Scorching increase in bushfire danger June 17, 2013 Scott Hannaford The Sunday Canberra Times editor.Canberra could be facing a nearly 70 per cent increase in dangerous bushfire weather in less than seven years as the result of climate change, according to Australia’s Climate Commission.
The report, The Critical Decade 2013, to be released on Monday, paints a grim picture of the future for the ACT as a result of unchecked climate change, including a rising death toll from extreme-heat days, dwindling inflows to the city’s major water storages and further reductions in winter and spring rainfall.
”The decisions we make from now to 2020 will largely determine the severity of climate change our children and grandchildren experience,” the report states.
The CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology predict the number of days where the temperature climbs above 35 degrees in Canberra will rise from the current long-term average of 5.2 days a year to eight by 2030 and between 10 days and 18 days by 2070, depending on the action taken.
One of the report’s two authors, Professor Will Steffen, said many of the predictions climate scientists made in the 1970s and ’80s were becoming reality as communities began to suffer more-damaging storms, major bushfires and prolonged droughts.
”Canberrans hardly need reminding about the devastation bushfires can cause. If you look at the data since about 1973, 16 of the 38 observation stations show the fire danger rating has increased, while the remainder haven’t gone down. Of particular importance for Canberra is that most of those 16 stations are in the south-east corner and Canberra’s right in the middle of that,” Professor Steffen said……
Changes in rainfall meant summer rains could increase in Canberra, but in terms of the number of extreme-heat days the ACT was already experiencing nearly double the long-term average. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/scorching-increase-in-bushfire-danger-20130616-2ocpf.html#ixzz2WdnhEcMF
Climate change action by religious groups
Climate change gets religious SMH, 19 June 13 Few religious communities have gone as far in fighting climate change as a church in Queensland which has 24 solar panels bolted to the roof in the shape of a Christian cross. “It’s very effective. It’s inspired some members of our congregation to install panels on their homes,” Reverend David Lowry said of the “solar cross” mounted in 2009 on the Caloundra Uniting Church, which groups three Protestant denominations.
Many religions have been wary of moving to install renewable energy sources on their places of worship, from cathedrals to mosques – or of taking a strong stand on climate change in general – despite teachings that people should be custodians of nature.
But slowly, that may be changing, thanks to new religious leaders including Pope Francis, the head of the Roman Catholic Church.
Australians buying up big, in electricity guzzling appliances
Rise in appliance sales prompts fears of a climate time bomb The Age, June 19, 2013 Peter Hannam Australia’s rush to acquire airconditioners and fridges is creating a greenhouse gas time bomb, which the Greens and environmental groups say existing regulations, including the carbon tax, are ill equipped to defuse.
The country has at least 45 million cooling devices, up from about 30 million in 2007, with 1 million airconditioners alone sold each year for home use and a similar number in new passenger vehicles.
The vast bulk of the equipment uses fluorocarbon coolants which, though small in weight – about 600 grams per car or more than 1 kilogram per airconditioner – can pack as much as 10,890 times the global warming impact of carbon dioxide when released, either through leakage or when the device is disposed of. The deliberate release of such gases has been illegal since 1989, but with as little as 25 per cent of the gases recovered each year from discarded devices, the rest of the gas is vented with impunity.
The replacement coolants, mostly hydrofluorocarbons (HFC), don’t deplete ozone but are potent greenhouse gases……. http://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/rise-in-appliance-sales-prompts-fears-of-a-climate-time-bomb-20130618-2ogq3.html#ixzz2WhGlp0fs
Australian public brainwashed into climate scepticism, by Murdoch media?
Sceptics put heat on climate change BY:DAVID UREN, The Australian, June 10, 2013
CLIMATE change sceptics outnumber believers, according to an OECD study that shows how the debate has sharply divided Australians
The study into household attitudes towards the environment shows Australians are more sceptical than any of the other 10 nations examined, with the exception of The Netherlands… (subscribers only) http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/sceptics-put-heat-on-climate-change/story-e6frg6xf-1226660995986
Greens push to cease Future Fund’s investments in fossil fuel industries
Greens push to end Future Fund fossil fuel investment http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/greens-push-to-end-future-fund-fossil-fuel-investment-20130606-2nr45.html#ixzz2VVM2J100 Peter Hannam Carbon economy editor, 6 June 13,
The Greens will on Thursday launch a campaign to get the $85 billion Future Fund to sell its holdings in fossil-fuel industries, starting with coal. The fund’s energy holdings now total about $3 billion, and are exposed to a ”carbon bubble” as nations shift towards low-carbon fuels, Greens leader Christine Milne said. The International Energy Agency last year estimated that two-thirds of proven fossil-fuel reserves would have to remain in the ground if the world is to avoid global warming of 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
”It’s good for the planet, good for people and good for long-term financial management to get out of coal,” Senator Milne said.The Greens are hoping to match the success of the anti-tobacco push, which led to the Future Fund deciding in February to dump its $222 million holdings of tobacco-related investments.
The Future Fund ”takes a very serious approach to environmental, social and corporate governance issues”, spokesman Will Hetherton said. However, exiting coal or other fossil fuels ”is certainly not on the current agenda”.
Senator Milne is hoping the campaign will spread to other superannuation funds, mimicking the push among US universities and other institutions to divest fossil-fuel investments. Tom Swann, a spokesman for Fossil Free ANU, said his university’s council recently discussed plans to set up responsible investment guidelines and will seek public input.
ANU has more than $80 million invested in coal, coal seam gas and other fossil investments out of about $260 million in equities, he said.
“The divestment campaign has really taken off in the USA, with campuses and city governments as large as Seattle and San Francisco dropping their investments in fossil fuels because people understand that if it’s wrong to wreck the climate, it’s wrong to profit from the wreckage,” said US environmentalist, Bill McKibben, ahead of a speech at ANU on Wednesday. ”Divestment had a real impact in the fight against apartheid, something Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu recognise, and it’s an important part of tackling climate change
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