Nourishing the environmental debate

Category Archives: Global Warming

This is your planet, 4C later

How will the predicted 4C rise in global temperature by 2050 affect the planet?
The UK’s Met Office has produced this interactive map showing just how dramatically Earth could change in our lifetime if urgent action isn’t taken to curb this grim forecast.

The “Oh Shit” moment

Mark Hertsgaard in The Nation:
They say that everyone who finally gets it about climate change has an “Oh, shit” moment–an instant when the full scientific implications become clear and they suddenly realize what a horrifically dangerous situation humanity has created for itself.
It’s especially alarming when people who, ahem, know their shit, speak about their own [...]

What would real climate action look like? The Greens’ Safe Climate Bill!

So, what is the goal of legislative climate action?
Is it about trading emissions permits? Is it about technology policy? Surely it’s not about arguing over who can support polluters more! Is it even about reducing emissions, then?
While you can mount arguments for all of these, fundamentally, in my opinion, the goal is none of these.
Fundamentally, [...]

Where to now on the CPRS?

There’s a lot of burn-out in the climate movement right now. A lot of tired people, a lot of grumpy people. I know – I am one!
I can completely understand why – we’ve had a year of not only hard campaigning, but also a particularly distressing one. Dashed hopes aren’t easy to [...]

Wong refuses Senate request to model 40% target

The Senate today passed a Greens motion demanding that the Government require Treasury to model the 40% cuts below 1990 levels that we know are necessary.
But, within an hour, Minister Wong had thumbed her nose at the Senate and the planet, telling CE Daily that the Government “had already undertaken the largest economic modelling exercise [...]

Climate Change is no Republic moment

A new meme is being pushed by people close to Labor to help force through the CPRS. Just as the failure of the Republic referendum knocked that issue off the agenda for a decade or more, the story goes, so if the CPRS fails in the Senate will we have lost our chance to do [...]

Garnaut excised from Wong’s vocabulary?

After he embarrassed her government last week by saying the CPRS may be so bad that it should be taken out the back and shot (well, not quite),it seems that Minister Wong has excised Professor Garnaut entirely from her vocabulary.
In a speech to the Lowy Institute today (not yet on her website, but will be [...]

PM dog-whistling to climate action sceptics?

Anyone else troubled by the PM’s statement overnight that the GFC makes it more difficult to reach a strong climate agreement at Copenhagen?
He’s done it very carefully, of course. The usual Ruddsterness of saying effectively ‘oh, I don’t think it’s a problem, but everyone else does, so don’t blame me if it doesn’t work out [...]

Negative emissions needed for a safe climate: World Watch Institute

The latest State of the World report from the globally respected World Watch Institute is one of the highest-profile and credible calls for emergency action on climate change yet released.
The report concludes that the old scientific and environmental target of constraining warming to 2C is now well out of date and that we must do [...]

Joyce, the Nationals and climate change

Nationals Senate leader, Barnaby Joyce, let fly in today’s press and radio with an attack not just on emissions trading but on climate change science, effectively calling it “just a load of rubbish”.
According to Godwin’s Law, Joyce immediately lost his argument by invoking Nazism, referring to “environmental goose-steppers” and coining a new term: “eco-totalitarianism”. He [...]