In 2008, the Garnaut Climate Change Review predicted this bushfire situation
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How a climate change study from 12 years ago warned of this horror bushfire season, In 2008, the Garnaut Climate Change Review said Australia would face a more dangerous fire season by 2020. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/how-a-climate-change-study-from-12-years-ago-warned-of-this-horror-bushfire-season– 6 Dec 2020, BY NICK BAKER As the nation’s horror bushfire season shows no sign of abating, a landmark 2008 report that warned of these looming conditions is once again in the spotlight.
Twelve years ago, economist Ross Garnaut led an independent study of the impacts of climate change on the Australian economy. The Garnaut Climate Change Review’s final report said projections of fire weather “suggest that fire seasons will start earlier, end slightly later, and generally be more intense”. “This effect increases over time, but should be directly observable by 2020.” Broadly, the report stated, “the weight of scientific evidence tells us that Australians are facing risks of damaging climate change”. “The risk can be substantially reduced by strong, effective and early action by all major economies. Australia will need to play its full proportionate part in global action. As one of the developed countries, its full part will be relatively large, and involve major early changes to established economic structure.” One of the report’s key recommendations was the implementation of an emissions trading scheme. Conditions ‘will keep on getting worse’On Monday, SBS News asked Mr Garnaut his reaction to the current conditions, in light of the 2008 report. “It’s one of sadness, that I was ineffective. Having been given the opportunity to talk to Australians on this issue, that I was ineffective in persuading Australians that it was in our national interest to play a positive role in a global effort to mitigate the effects of climate change,” he said. However, Mr Garnaut said, “although things are bad, they will keep on getting worse if the concentrations of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere keep increasing”. The report said there could be a 300 per cent increase in the number of days with extreme fire weather by 2067. “It’s in the interest of the whole of humanity that we move promptly towards zero net emissions,” he said. However, Mr Garnaut said, “although things are bad, they will keep on getting worse if the concentrations of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere keep increasing”. The report said there could be a 300 per cent increase in the number of days with extreme fire weather by 2067. “It’s in the interest of the whole of humanity that we move promptly towards zero net emissions,” he said. ‘What will our government do?’Over the weekend, a number of social media users in Australia started sharing the bushfire passage of the 2008 report, as fires raged across the country. ….. ‘What will our government do?’Over the weekend, a number of social media users in Australia started sharing the bushfire passage of the 2008 report, as fires raged across the country. The Rudd government accepted a number of key findings of the report including, “that a fair and effective global agreement delivering deep cuts in emissions consistent with stabilising concentrations of greenhouse gases at around 450 parts per million or lower would be in Australia’s interests”. But climate change policy went on to become both a divisive and defining issue in Australian politics in the years ahead. Mr Rudd tried but failed to pass an emissions trading scheme. A carbon tax was passed under his successor Julia Gillard but it was later overturned by then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Australia committed to the Paris Agreement under Mr Abbott but the Coalition has seen sustained criticism that it is not doing enough to curb climate change. |
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Malcolm Turnbull blasts government’s ‘right-wing’ over energy policy sabotage
Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has blasted the “right wing” of the Morrison federal government for bringing down his signature energy policy, calling for it to be “reinstated now”.
On Monday, a Twitter user challenged Mr Turnbull for only “calling for coherent energy policies now [he’s] out of government”
The former PM responded by defending his proposed National Energy Guarantee (NEG), which faced opposition in government ranks and was later ditched.
“The National Energy Guarantee was a coherent integration of climate and energy policy,” he tweeted.
“It was sabotaged by the right-wing of the Coalition and their supporters in the media and coal lobby and finally abandoned by Morrison Government. It should be reinstated now.”
The policy was intended to deal with rising energy prices as well as cutting emissions.
Mr Turnbull was later dumped as the leader and his successor Scott Morrison announced the NEG “is dead”…… https://www.sbs.com.au/news/malcolm-turnbull-blasts-government-s-right-wing-over-energy-policy-sabotage
Liberal former Foreign Minister Julie Bishop calls for Australia to show leadership on climate change
Julie Bishop says Australia must show leadership on climate change, SMH
By Megan Gorrey, Former foreign minister Julie Bishop says Australia needs to show global leadership on climate change by putting forward a “coherent energy policy” in response to the nation’s bushfire crisis.
Amid growing international criticism of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s climate change policies as fires burn across six states, Ms Bishop said on Monday other countries looked to Australia for “direction, guidance and leadership”.
“Australia is a highly developed country,” Ms Bishop said in an interview on Nine’s Today show. “We should be showing leadership on the issue of climate change.”
“We don’t have a national energy policy in this country and a national approach to climate change so we are part of a global effort.
“If a country like Australia fails to show leadership, we can hardly blame other nations for not likewise showing leadership in this area.”
Australia should be putting forward “a cogent, a cogent, coherent case for an energy policy” at international conferences, Ms Bishop said…….
Ms Bishop said at the gathering of prominent Liberal figures before Christmas that Mr Morrison was “testing the theory that the best way to resolve a crisis is to be as far away from it as possible”. …..
Greens leader Richard Di Natale told ABC Radio on Monday the bushfires “should be a wake-up call to every single member of the political establishment in Australia”.
“The reality is we’ve had a prime minister who has chosen to effectively work as a lobbyist for the coal industry at a time when he should have been keeping Australians safe.”
Greens leader Richard Di Natale told ABC Radio on Monday the bushfires “should be a wake-up call to every single member of the political establishment in Australia”.
“The reality is we’ve had a prime minister who has chosen to effectively work as a lobbyist for the coal industry at a time when he should have been keeping Australians safe.” https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/julie-bishop-says-australia-must-show-leadership-on-climate-change-20200106-p53p48.html
Mega fire set to form as ‘frustrated’ authorities plead with ‘stubborn’ residents
Mega fire set to form as ‘frustrated’ authorities plead with ‘stubborn’ residents— Yahoo News 6 Jan 2020
Residents in Victoria have been told a giant 180,000 hectare fire will join with out-of-control fires across the border in NSW to create a ‘mega fire’.
Exhausted firefighters worked tirelessly to contain the bushfires throughout the weekend but a powerful and volatile southerly on Saturday quickly stretched the blazes, with the fires edging closer to each other throughout Sunday.
And while rain has brought a brief period or respite, residents were told at a CFA meeting in Tallangatta on Sunday night it is only a matter of time before the Corryong fire connects with the huge 297,000-hectare Dunns Road fire around the Snowy Mountains, the ABC reported…….
‘Uncharted territory’ for NSW
Ms Berejiklian labelled the ongoing threat “uncharted territory” with hundreds of homes feared lost across southern NSW.
“We can’t pretend this is something we have experienced before – it’s not,” she told reporters on Sunday.
At 6am, there were 136 fires burning across NSW, with 69 uncontained.https://au.news.yahoo.com/mega-blaze-forming-nsw-victoria-border-500000-hectares-213253196.html
Guardian’s latest updates on fires
Australia fires live: NSW and Victoria bushfires heap pressure on Scott Morrison – latest updates, Guardian 6 Jan 2020
The PM’s handling of the Australian bushfire crisis comes under further scrutiny as NSW and Victorian towns gain brief reprieve from fires. Follow the latest news and live updates
The impact the bushfire emergency is having on our First Nations people is required reading as well.
From Lorena Allam:
For First Nations people the bushfires bring a particular grief, burning what makes us who we are ……
Not only is the bushfire disaster devastating for Australia: it’s bad for its image, too
‘People aren’t stupid’: bushfire crisis scorches Australia’s image, The Age, By Andrew Taylor, January 5, 2020 A photo of a kangaroo leaping across the pages of British newspapers is the sort of free publicity that tourism authorities usually crave.
Except the animal was another victim of the months-long bushfire crisis, fleeing as flames engulfed a house at Lake Conjola on the NSW South Coast.
Another photo of two German tourists wearing surgical masks against a backdrop of the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge published in the Financial Times last month under the headline “Wildfire smoke endangers lives and Sydney outdoor lifestyle” is likewise the sort of coverage money would not want to buy.
Apocalyptic images of tourists sheltering in water as flames threatened the Victorian seaside town of Mallacoota or stranded on beaches on the NSW South Coast have also featured across television screens, newspapers and news websites around the world.
They provided a stark contrast to Sydney’s New Year’s Eve fireworks, which went ahead despite calls for the event to be cancelled.
Images of terrified tourists, fire-devastated communities and distressed wildlife are also a far cry from the idyllic beaches and landscapes in Tourism Australia’s new $15 million tourism campaign targeting the British market…….
The vitriolic debate over climate change was also at odds with Australia’s claim to be laid back and friendly, Mr Derwin said. “Our reputation as a tourist destination would be greatly enhanced by taking leadership on climate change, and showing the world that we’re serious about protecting our natural habitats.”
Scott Morrison’s condescending call for “patience” and “calm” on bushfires and climate change
There may now be so much heat trapped in the system that we may have already triggered a domino effect that could unleash a cascade of abrupt changes that will continue to play out in the years and decades to come.
I single out our political leaders because the rest of the country is already leading the way.
The scientific community has been trying to warn the government of the need to plan to adapt to climate change for at least a decade.
As a climate scientist I find prime minster Scott Morrison’s request for people to be “patient” as infuriating as it is condescending. With respect prime minster, the science of climate change has been ignored in this country for decades. We are now seeing the very worst of our scientific predictions come to pass.
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We are seeing the very worst of our scientific predictions come to pass
 in these bushfires, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/03/we-are-seeing-the-very-worst-of-our-scientific-predictions-come-to-pass-in-these-bushfires Joëlle Gergis As a climate scientist I am wondering if the Earth system has now breached a tipping point
Fri 3 Jan 2020 I had goosebumps watching surreal footage of the mass evacuation of people stranded on the south-east Australian coast. Once again, catastrophic bushfire conditions are bearing down on communities during increasingly horrific summers in Australia. It has been an unprecedented continuation of the horrendous bushfires that started as early as spring in south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales. As I write this, the Australian navy is evacuating over 800 people from the bushfire ravaged town of Mallacoota in eastern Victoria. Holiday makers are being forced to abandon their cars, complete with kids’ bikes strapped to the roof racks, ice melting in Eskies. People hoping for a carefree break over the new year are instead faced with the extraordinary position of having to flee for their lives. Currently, there are tens of thousands of people in coastal NSW and Victoria stranded in towns where the highways are closed, supermarkets are running out of food, and queues for petrol snake down the streets of devastated towns. The scenes experienced by those caught up in the ordeal are being described as apocalyptic – rightly so. Meanwhile, the locals face the infinitely more serious situation of returning to find their homes completely incinerated. Cars melted, pets killed, beloved landscapes destroyed. A lifetime of memories razed to the ground. As Australia’s climate continues to warm, the most intimate places of human safety – our very homes – are being threatened in an increasingly dangerous world. It’s confronting to see military evacuations, usually reserved for developing regions of the world following natural disasters, happening right here in 21st-century Australia. The sheer scale and severity of the emergency has actually overwhelmed our capacity as a nation to deal with the unfolding events. Not just in one area following a single event, but across multiple disasters occurring simultaneously in every state and territory of our nation. To avoid sounding like a broken record, instead I will say that as a lead author on the forthcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment report of the global climate due out next year, I can assure you that the planetary situation is extremely dire. Continue reading |
Australian bushfires latest
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Australian bushfires latest: NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania face terrifying weekend Examiner, 4 Jan 2020, Authorities have warned of a day like no other – with major concerns consuming emergency services across a number of states.
The NSW RFS wants people to evacuate from five large areas; the military leading the safety operation in Mallacoota after a tragic day in Victoria; emergency warnings in place in South Australia and fears of a worse to come in Tasmania. Forecasters have predicted temperatures in the mid-40s on Saturday for some parts of south-east Australia. The fire danger will be increased by strong winds.
What you need to know:
Please allow the blog a moment to load. ……..https://www.examiner.com.au/story/6565877/all-the-bushfire-updates-from-across-australia-live/?cs=95
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Morrison’s Aussie ocker, very religious, fans won’t care, but he’s not popular globally
 From Bernie Sanders to Bette Midler: The world reacts to the bushfires, SBS , 4 Jan 2020, Figures from across the globe are weighing in on Australia’s bushfire crisis, with many directing criticism at Prime Minister Scott Morrison.The world has taken to social media to express horror and condolences for those affected by the Australian bushfires.Personalities across the political spectrum, from legislators to entertainers have used various platforms to react to the “unfathomable loss and destruction”. At least 19 people have died and more than 1400 homes have been destroyed this fire season as flames leave their mark on more than five million hectares. Many observers have made the connection between Australia’s bushfires and climate change. Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said, “with Australia on fire and the Arctic in meltdown, it’s clear we’re in a climate emergency”…. Fellow high-profile Democrat and climate campaigner Al Gore made a similar point, saying “the bushfires in Australia represent a startling climate catastrophe unfolding before us”.
Among the risks of the climate crisis is a normalization of its horrific and deadly consequences. The bushfires in Australia represent a startling climate catastrophe unfolding before us. Important piece from @dwallacewells. http://nymag.com/intelligencer/
The sentiment was shared by US presidential-hopeful Senator Bernie Sanders. “What is happening in Australia today will become increasingly common around the world if we do not aggressively combat climate change and transform our energy system away from fossil fuels,” he said…… Actress Bette Middler had some harsh words for Prime Minister Scott Morrison. “Pity the poor Australians, their country ablaze, and their rotten Scott Morrison saying, ‘this is not the time to talk about climate change, we have to grow our economy.’ What an idiot,” she said, before slamming the PM with even stronger language…… But it was not just progressives who weighed in. Conservative UK commentator Piers Morgan has tweeted a number of times…… Mr Morgan then went on to criticise Mr Morrison, siding with fire victims who heckled him on Thursday….. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/from-bernie-sanders-to-bette-midler-the-world-reacts-to-the-bushfires |
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Hugh Riminton: We Are A Burning Nation Led By Cowards, https://10daily.com.au/views/a191119irujf/hugh-riminton-we-are-a-burning-nation-led-by-cowards-20191119
Among those determined to do nothing about climate change, the arguments have shifted over time.
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We know them all too well. But here’s a reminder. 1. It’s a hoax. 2. It’s corruption. Climate scientists are scammers getting rich on grants. 3. It’s a mental illness. People reflecting the science are “alarmists”, “warmists” and “catastrophists” recklessly damaging the mental health of children. 4. It’s something we can’t talk about — especially when the weather and bushfires are behaving precisely as the science predicted they would behave. The trouble is, across the country people who have believed this stuff are having to swap their tinfoil hats for fire helmets. The predictions of the scientists are playing out exactly to the script. Reality is biting Continue reading |
How the Murdoch media murdered Australia’s climate policy
Michael Pascoe: How Murdoch’s myrmidons murdered climate policy, The New Daily –Michael Pascoe, Contributing Editor 3 Jan 2020, “The Murdoch media, determined to remove the Labor government at any cost, mounted a savage war on the science of climate change and the structural reforms that needed to be undertaken,” wrote former Labor Treasurer Wayne Swan in a 2017 article and reprised this week on Twitter.
It’s an important insight as it suggests an answer to the mystery of the Murdoch media’s rabid climate denialism in Australia – a campaign by our biggest newspaper company that has both enabled and goaded the troglodyte end of the Coalition to make Australia a world leader in fighting carbon reduction, in worsening our changed climate.
Without the on-going Murdoch campaign promoting climate disinformation and sheer lunacy, it’s hard to imagine any government being able to persist with its cynical twisting of emissions policy, never mind outright lies.
If all major Australian media played the climate issue straight, a denialist government couldn’t survive.
But that has been the point of the Murdoch campaign – political power, not economics, not science, not even the pseudo-science it promotes.
Murdoch’s myrmidons have been exploiting climate denialism for so long, they’ve become trapped by it. Having mounted the denialist tiger to take down Malcolm Turnbull as Liberal leader and the federal Labor government, they dare not dismount.
And ride a tiger long enough – it’s 10 years since then-senator Nick Minchin and Tony Abbott used climate change scepticism to roll Malcolm Turnbull as Opposition Leader and officially weaponise climate policy – it’s unsurprising to start believing it’s the natural thing to do. It’s the nature of echo chambers to be self-reinforcing.
The tragedy of the Murdoch echo chamber is that it has come to ensnare its readership as well as its editors. Coalition members and voters are the core of that readership
Tell a lie long enough and loud enough, many people will believe it. The ABC’s Media Watch last year demonstrated the point.
When The Australian printed a surprisingly straight report of the latest consensus climate concerns, readers’ comments were strongly critical of the story, but readers’ comments after a whacky denialist rave were strongly supportive. Murdoch media have been captured by the monster they created. ……A decade of climate denialism has had its way on the Murdoch stable. Now, when the effects of changed climate scorch the land, the Murdoch papers can still delight in publishing nonsense commentary. …..
A decade of climate denialism has had its way on the Murdoch stable. Now, when the effects of changed climate scorch the land, the Murdoch papers can still delight in publishing nonsense commentary. ….. https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2020/01/02/michael-pascoe-murdoch-climate/
Murdoch media: The Australian, Herald Sun and Courier Mail downplay bushfire news
The Australian: Murdoch-owned newspaper accused of downplaying bushfires in favour of picnic races https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jan/04/the-australian-murdoch-owned-newspaper-accused-of-downplaying-bushfires-in-favour-of-picnic-races
Herald Sun relegates bushfires to page 4 while Courier Mail brings good news via ‘Onion Oracle’Amanda Meade, Sat 4 Jan 2020 The Australian, Rupert Murdoch’s flagship newspaper, has defended itself against criticism it downplayed unprecedented bushfires by failing to put a picture of the disaster on the front page of an edition, even as newspapers across the world featured the harrowing scenes.
Many of the world’s leading mastheads featured pictures of the devastation of the Australian bushfires on page one on Thursday. But the Australian’s first edition ran an upbeat picture story about the New Year’s Day picnic races at Hanging Rock.
Sources at the newspaper said the newsroom was short-staffed over the holidays, however it was noted that resources were found to attack the ABC with gusto over its New Year’s Eve concert.
“Our readers have been fully informed across the nation both online and in paper all week,” editor John Lehmann told Guardian Australia.
The national broadsheet’s lead story on Thursday was about a secret proposal by police to ban alcohol in Indigenous communities in Western Australia – a story deemed more important than the bushfire report, which said eight people were dead and mass evacuations were underway.
There wasn’t a single photo of the catastrophic bushfires until page 4.
Before readers got to that coverage, they were given an exclusive interview with “rebel marine scientist Peter Ridd” who has challenged reef scientists to test whether or not human actions have caused a collapse in the growth rate of corals on the Great Barrier Reef.
The later editions of the paper dropped the racing story and replaced it with photographs of bushfire victims surveying the damage.
The Australian is not the only Murdoch-owned newspaper that has been accused of downplaying the bushfires.
On the same day, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph blamed the Bureau of Meteorology for inaccurate weather predictions, which may have “lulled residents into a false sense of security about conditions”.
But it was the Courier Mail’s story about the “Onion Oracle” that had some readers wondering what was going on at News Corp.
The Queensland tabloid carried the optimistic news that “Onion Oracle” Halwyn Hermann was predicting rain using an old German tradition. They even compared the Onion Oracle’s predictions to those of the bureau of meteorology.
The Australian has been consistent on one front. Throughout the bushfire season it has kept up its coverage of climate denialism.
Before Christmas, the Australian attempted to smear Greg Mullins and his Emergency Leaders for Climate Action group as “largely a vehicle for Tim Flannery”. Flannery is a leading environmentalist and chief counsellor at the Climate Council.
The former fire and emergency chiefs from multiple states and territories say Australia is unprepared for worsening natural disasters from climate change and governments are putting lives at risk.
The Australian says they are a front for Flannery who is an “alarmist” for urging that coal-fired power stations be shut down.
On New Year’s Eve, the paper led with another “exclusive” report that pushed the line Australia should not speed up its response to global warming.
The Institute of Public Affairs has poisoned climate discussion in Australia
How one think tank poisoned Australia’s climate debate, Crikey NAPIER-RAMAN, JAN 29, 2019 One of the Institute of Public Affair’s greatest successes has been to stitch climate denialism into the very fabric of the conservative political identity.
From anti-vaxxers to climate deniers to a general simmering scepticism of science, denialism in all its forms is everywhere. Crikey is presenting a four-part series on how the seeds of doubt are planted and how they blossom through media and politics. Read the first three parts here.
In the 1980s, long before there was widespread public awareness of the proximity of imminent environmental apocalypse, before climate change became a wedge issue that toppled Australian prime ministers and divided politics, free market think tanks like the Institute of Public Affairs were busy sowing the seeds of doubt.
Today, those seeds have grown into vast tendrils which have a stranglehold on politics. The IPA exists as a conduit between the respectable mainstream right, represented by the Liberal Party, and fringe climate deniers, whose marginal views are largely rejected by the rest of the scientific community. Their greatest success, mirroring that of other free market think tanks in the United States, has been to stitch climate denialism into the very fabric of the conservative political identity. Continue reading
Michael Mann- climate change is now upon Australia
Australia, your country is burning – dangerous climate change is here with you now , Guardian, Michael Mann 1 Jan 2020, I am a climate scientist on holiday in the Blue Mountains, watching climate change in action,
After years studying the climate, my work has brought me to Sydney where I’m studying the linkages between climate change and extreme weather events.
Prior to beginning my sabbatical stay in Sydney, I took the opportunity this holiday season to vacation in Australia with my family. We went to see the Great Barrier Reef – one of the great wonders of this planet – while we still can. Subject to the twin assaults of warming-caused bleaching and ocean acidification, it will be gone in a matter of decades in the absence of a dramatic reduction in global carbon emissions.
We also travelled to the Blue Mountains, another of Australia’s natural wonders, known for its lush temperate rainforests, majestic cliffs and rock formations and panoramic vistas that challenge any the world has to offer. It too is now threatened by climate change.
I witnessed this firsthand.
I did not see vast expanses of rainforest framed by distant blue-tinged mountain ranges. Instead I looked out into smoke-filled valleys, with only the faintest ghosts of distant ridges and peaks in the background. The iconic blue tint (which derives from a haze formed from “terpenes” emitted by the Eucalyptus trees that are so plentiful here) was replaced by a brown haze. The blue sky, too, had been replaced by that brown haze. ……
The brown skies I observed in the Blue Mountains this week are a product of human-caused climate change. Take record heat, combine it with unprecedented drought in already dry regions and you get unprecedented bushfires like the ones engulfing the Blue Mountains and spreading across the continent. It’s not complicated.
The warming of our planet – and the changes in climate associated with it – are due to the fossil fuels we’re burning: oil, whether at midnight or any other hour of the day, natural gas, and the biggest culprit of all, coal. That’s not complicated either.
When we mine for coal, like the controversial planned Adani coalmine, which would more than double Australia’s coal-based carbon emissions, we are literally mining away at our blue skies. The Adani coalmine could rightly be renamed the Blue Sky mine.
In Australia, beds are burning. So are entire towns, irreplaceable forests and endangered and precious animal species such as the koala (arguably the world’s only living plush toy) are perishing in massive numbers due to the unprecedented bushfires.
The continent of Australia is figuratively – and in some sense literally – on fire.
Yet the prime minister, Scott Morrison, appears remarkably indifferent to the climate emergency Australia is suffering through, having chosen to vacation in Hawaii as Australians are left to contend with unprecedented heat and bushfires.
Morrison has shown himself to be beholden to coal interests and his administration is considered to have conspired with a small number of petrostates to sabotage the recent UN climate conference in Madrid (“COP25”), seen as a last ditch effort to keep planetary warming below a level (1.5C) considered by many to constitute “dangerous” planetary warming.
But Australians need only wake up in the morning, turn on the television, read the newspaper or look out the window to see what is increasingly obvious to many – for Australia, dangerous climate change is already here. It’s simply a matter of how much worse we’re willing to allow it to get.
Australia is experiencing a climate emergency. It is literally burning. It needs leadership that is able to recognise that and act. And it needs voters to hold politicians accountable at the ballot box.
Australians must vote out fossil-fuelled politicians who have chosen to be part of the problem and vote in climate champions who are willing to solve it.
- Michael E Mann is distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University. His most recent book, with Tom Toles, is The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy (Columbia University Press, 2016).
Scott Morrison’s govt under pressure for its lack of climate policy
Australia bushfires: PM’s climate stance criticised as thousands flee blazes
Scott Morrison’s government under pressure as fires feared to have killed 17 people,Guardian, Ben Smee , Calla Wahlquist Helen Davidson in Sydney and Jon Henley– 2 Jan 2020
Navy ships and army aircraft have been dispatched to help fight devastating bushfires on Australia’s south-east coast that are feared to have killed at least 17 people, amid a spiralling debate over the government’s stance on the climate emergency.
Thousands of people have fled apocalyptic scenes, abandoning their homes and huddling on beaches to escape raging columns of flame and smoke that have plunged whole towns into darkness and destroyed more than 4m hectares of land.
Thousands of firefighters were still battling more than 100 blazes in New South Wales (NSW) state and nearly 40 in Victoria on Wednesday, with new fires being sparked daily by hot and windy conditions and, more recently, dry lightning strikes created by the fires themselves.
At the end of Australia’s hottest-ever decade, Canberra, the capital, was blanketed in a cloud of dense smoke that left its air quality more than 21 times the hazardous rating and could be seen more than 1,200 miles (2,000km) away, on the South Island of New Zealand, where it turned the daytime sky orange.
Fanned by soaring temperatures, strong winds and a terrible three-year drought, huge blazes have ravaged a tinder-dry landscape, causing immense destruction: since November, more than 900 homes have been lost in NSW alone.
With three months of the summer still to go, the early and devastating start to the country’s fire season has led authorities to rate it the worst on record and prompted urgent questions about whether the conservative government of the prime minister, Scott Morrison, has taken enough action on global heating.
Polls show a large majority of Australians see the climate emergency as an urgent threat and want tougher government action, but Morrison has focused instead on the nation’s response to the bushfire crisis and defending Australian business, while other government officials have publicly disparaged climate activists.
In his New Year’s Eve address to the nation, Morrison did not make any connection between the bushfires and global heating, suggesting that while they were a terrible ordeal, Australians had faced similar trials throughout history.
Past generations had “also faced natural disasters, floods, fires, global conflicts, disease and drought” and overcome them, the prime minister said in a video message. “That is the spirit of Australians, that is the spirit that is on display, that is a spirit that we can celebrate as Australians.”…….
Criticism of the Morrison government’s climate stance has intensified as the fires have raged. Australia is the world’s largest exporter of coal and liquefied natural gas, but the prime minister, who won a surprise election victory in May, last month rejected calls to downsize Australia’s lucrative coal industry.
His government has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28% by 2030, a modest figure compared with the centre-left opposition Labor party’s pledge of 45%. The leader of the minor Australian Greens party, Richard Di Natale, demanded a royal commission, the nation’s highest form of inquiry, on the crisis.
“If he (Morrison) refuses to do so, we will be moving for a parliamentary commission of inquiry with royal commission-like powers as soon as parliament returns,” Di Natale said in a statement……. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/01/australia-bushfires-defence-forces-sent-to-help-battle-huge-blazes
1 This month
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