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PGTS Humble BlogThread: Global Warming/Bio-Security |
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Dan Byrnes. Poet, historian, raconteur |
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April Climate Update |
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Chronogical Blog Entries: |
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Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2021 23:30:19 +1000April Climate Update |
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Submitted by Dan Byrnes ...
Climate change items for GP --- Early April 2021. Ist and 2nd, Japan: Reports surface on ABC TV that this year, Japan's much-vaunted cherry blossom (both white and pink) has come out earlier than ever before in the past 1000 years, largely due to climate change.
2021-04-01: Easter Thursday: ABC TV screens Extinction, a documentary by David Attenborough. The globality of warming is equivalent to the simultaneity of the effects of warming The rate of extinction of various species is up to 100 times faster than previously experienced --- But rates given vary according to the methodology used. Proviso: It is important here to analyse one's assumptions used. Warning: Denialists will tend to view holes in models used as signs of unmitigated intellectual failure, whereas Non-Denialists will tend to see them as signs of room for improvement --- One day. Go figure. Neither side it seems would agree that humanity has long used models --- Including various religious explanations --- To explain quite varied phenomena, from volcanoes to variation in fish catches.
Questions:
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Why isn't the falsity of many Asian folk beliefs re animal products (the victims are often animals from Africa, the so-called "medical properties" are mostly non-existent) more often called into question?
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Why isn't the world's best practice re climate change matters more widely advertised - by somebody?
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Why isn't the world TV industry more entertained by an index of some kind of interesting economic investments in climate-change amelioration topics?
- Which products popular in the West are drivers of habitat
loss/bio-diversity loss in other parts of the world?
Related: what habitat losses help explain how and why pandemics/medical problems jump species and end up attacking humans?
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Should amelioration of climate change problems be left to
- individuals?
- corporations?
- governments?
- celebrities?
- or well-meaning organisations, often international, but staffed by
the kind of people generally regarded as tree-huggers?
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Are our economists mistaught? If so, what responsibility might the world's universities bear for this? What price here, Reason?
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If all it takes for climate change ameliorations is political will, why don't populations just vote out all the denialists?
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What about people/voters who (for whatever reason including their education or lack of it) can't or won't think or argue in terms of historical or geological time?
2021-04-12 Climate change is being blamed for "dryness" which seems to be behind fires now current in the East Himalayan parts of Northern India and Nepal. But the issues are not being discussed in India's parliament, critics say. Nor are forest fires being listed along with other natural disasters counted by NDMA, India's Natural Disaster Management Authority, including tsunami, heatwave, landslides, flood, earthquake. BBC Headlines.
2021-04-12 "Disaster damage bill set to treble". Sydney Morning Herald, p. 8. [The item refers to recent floods - Compiler]. While p. 9, SMH has a headline, "Thousands shelter as large cyclone heads for WA coast".
2021-04-12 "Coal could be squeezed out of energy grid: report: Eliminating coal from the nation's energy system by 2040 would not risk price spikes or blackouts, new research has found ...": Sydney Morning Herald, p. 1. And p. 8, News, Headline, "Power grid can be rid of coal, 'without price rises, outages."
2021-04-12 "Climate damage bill heads for $17b a year". Sydney Morning Herald, p. 1.
2021-04-12 Ross Gittins column headline: "The best economists 'know they don't know'". Sydney Morning Herald, p. 26.
2021-04-13 The Australian newspaper reports that bureaucrat James Larsen has been appointed a "climate co-ordinator:" (crikey.com on 13-04-2017.) The media also carries more reports on Scott Morrison's "gas-led-recovery". Meantime, total fire bans have been issued for nine regions of South Australia and mid-coastal Western Australia about 700km north of Perth has just been battered by a rare cyclone. (Australia in mid-April 2021)
2021-04-13 Somalia, Africa, is suffering locust swarms, extreme weather, below average rainfall. BBC Headlines.
2021-04-13 World's wealthiest at heart of climate problems: Survey by Cambridge University, Sustainability Commission, a 31-member panel, some from other UK universities. BBC Headlines.
2021-04-14 New Zealand reportedly is to newly oblige many financial institutions (including insurance companies) to report to government on the likely impacts of climate change on their business(es). SBS TV Evening News and BBC Headlines.
2021-04-14 LABOR'S DAY? Finally, The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Labor's climate change and energy spokesman Chris Bowen will outline a plan in an Australia Institute webinar today to target regional electorates for clean energy investment and ditch the Morrison government's plan for a gas-fired recovery written, in large part, by gas executives. crikey.com
2021-04-14 "[Australia is a] uniquely hostile market." Nine Media : Behyad Jafari, chief executive of the Electric Vehicle Council, says Australia's electric vehicle policies make its citizens look like "a bunch of gas-guzzlers", and wants subsidies for EV buyers like those in the UK and Europe. Schwartz Media/The Monthly Today.
2021-04-15 Front-page headline: "Endgame warning on climate change". The Age.
2021-04-15 Eagle-eyed readers will note BCG is the US-based group the government gave $9 million to advise on "gas modelling", "business delivery", and "infrastructure", after the body that already does those things, the Australian Energy Market Operator, projected gas will fail to compete with batteries in its inconvenient 2020 Integrated Systems Plan. crikey.com
2021-04-15 The Policy - Smoke and mirrors - "[Michael E. ]Mann, who is a distinguished professor of atmospheric science at PennState University, said the Morrison government seemed to be pursuing an approach of talking a better game on climate action in response to 'the pressure coming from renewed American leadership on climate, while continuing to promote policies - such as a gas-led recovery - that do absolutely nothing to address the climate crisis in any meaningful way'." Guardian Australia: Influential climate scientist Michael E. Mann says US climate negotiators are not going to be "fooled by the smoke and mirrors the Morrison government appears to be employing to distract from their clear record of inaction on climate". Schwartz Media/The Monthly Today.
2021-04-16 Queenslanders will be hardest hit if Australia fails to act on climate change, Labor warns. The Guardian.
2021-04-16 Shareholders pressure Woodside over carbon emissions and Scarborough gas project, The Guardian.
2021-04-16 Climate change (heat) is shrinking Australian strawberries, as the producers wish to tell government/whoever will listen. 5.55pm, Channel 10 TV news.
2021-04-16 The UN Human Rights Committee has been approached for a first time by Torres Strait /Australian islanders, alleging Australia has breached their rights by failing to address climate change, as their homes are being eroded by rising sea levels. BBC Headlines.
2021-04-16 Morrison's Memo 'The time' is never right for the PM to talk about the tough issues by AMBER SCHULTZ - "I think the time for those sorts of statements is another time, not right now," he said.
2021-04-17 Headline: "European-style carbon taxes tipped to spread - The former WTO chief [Pascal Lamy] believes a carbon border tariff is inevitable, writes Nick O'Mally." Sydney Morning Herald, p. 18.
2021-04-17 "Let's just get on with it and really tackle climate change." Chloe Munro works from the simple rules "if you can't measure it you can't manage it" (which is in distinct contrast to the the usual Marxist objection of "commodification") - "from a policy point of view the lack of leadership is evident". And "policy today [in Australia] is too focussed on energy generation". ... "a regular series on people who are leading Australia towards a carbon-neutral future." The Weekend Australian, Commentary, p. 32, by John Durie. [Amazing in one of Rupert Murdoch's newspapers!]
2021-04-17 Brazil's environment minister says the country needs $10bn (7.2 billion pounds) a year in Foreign Aid in order to reach zero emissions by 2020. BBC Headlines.
2021-04-17 New book by Martin Parkinson, A Decade of Drift. Monash University Publishing, 2021. (By a long-term senior public servant, this survey of Australia's past decade focusses on the need for effective climate change policy. ... "a disaster for Australia".)
2021-04-18 Bushfires make you realise climate change is real. BBC Headlines.
2021-04-19 Coal mining in the Hunter on the wane, says Treasury. SMH, p. 15.
US-China climate truce turns up heat on slow-moving Australia: China and the US will push for stronger international climate change commitments by the end of 2021. SMH front page. Inside, p. 6, Climate change a security threat. Common ground between rivals (US-China) a signal for optimism.
The best climate solution you've never heard of. BBC Headlines. (Re CFCs in South America).
2021-04-20 Drought-hit Taiwan rations water to protect tech. BBC Headlines.
NP figure and Member for New England Barnaby Joyce repeats his opposition to admitting the reality of climate change in/for Australia, etc. 4.30pm, Patricia Kervaleas Show on ABC TV News.
The world running out of patience with our excuses on climate change - Michele O'Neil (The Sydney Morning Herald): "If the Prime Minister thought 2021 was about to get a little easier, he should think again. At US President Joe Biden's Climate Leaders Summit to be held next week, Australia will come under unprecedented pressure to join global efforts to stop global warming. So far though, the prime minister looks to be turning up to the summit empty-handed. crikey.com.
NET ZERO CHANCE OF ACTIONS Scott Morrison has again vaguely hinted at a 2050 net zero emissions target, this time by extolling the virtues of regional communities and sectors in a speech to the Business Council of Australia'Emails1out2021.odt Page 16 s annual dinner. Morrison again rejected carbon taxes or pricing - the most cost-effective fEmails1out2021.odt Page 16 orm of emissions reduction - and, to be clear, did not actually announce any targets or initiatives. The news comes ahead of Joe Biden's two-day virtual climate summit this week, where the US president plans to pressure governments holding up the rear on climate action. This will include thEmails1out2021.odt Page 16 e Morrison government, which is currently sitting on Tony Abbott's 2030 target of just 26-28% off 2005 emissions levels, a goal largely condemned as "out of step" with the global community even back in 2015. Leading up to that meeting, The Australian ($) reports Energy Minister Angus Taylor has claimed that "between 2005 and 2018, Australia's emissions fell faster than Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Korea or the US", apparently neglecting to mention that, if we ignore the Howard government's unique land use cheat, that's almost entirely due to the carbon price's 2012-14 dip. Elsewhere, Anthony Albanese has outlined Labor's plan for "green manufacturing" in an AFR ($) op-ed through the previously-announced $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund, the "Rewiring the Nation" project to upgrade national grids, a $200 million community battery scheme, and slight electric vehicles tariff and tax reforms. PS: At the same Business Council dinner ($), Morrison announced a new recovery initiative will slash $430 million in annual compliance costs. Note that the last time the government announced a post-COVID deregulation plan it directly contravened a banking royal commission recommendation for responsible lending laws. crikey.com.
Climate change - Thoughts And Prayers.
When fires raged across Australia in late 2019 and early 2020, Morrison rebuffed calls to talk about climate change. "I'm focused on the needs of the people in this room today," he said, before offering his priceless "thoughts and prayers".
Other Liberal and Coalition members followed suit: Emergency Management Minister David Littleproud said it was "not the time" for a conversation by people who wanted to politicise climate change. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian rebuffed journalists' calls to open a discussion on climate change by saying "not today", while Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack accused those of asking about the link between fires and climate change of being "inner-city raving lunatics". Of course, the bushfires were the perfect time to talk about cricket, which Morrison said was sure to give communities and firefighters "something to cheer for". He also wheeled out the line to argue it wasn't time to discuss a royal commission into the fires. crikey.com
Acquired Helplessness: When you're operating in an ideological bubble, a vaccine roll-out will always be difficult
Bernard Keane
There's a pattern here. The National Broadband Network (NBN) has ended up severely compromised by the Coalition's imposition of a profoundly flawed Multi Technology Mix that delivered neither the more rapid roll-out nor the cost savings promised, and instead left the government to announce it would pump billions more into the crippled network to make the original Fibre To The Premises model available. The government's decision to build a new generation of submarines in Australia is already plagued by cost blowouts and delays, with promises of local production looking unlikely to be met. Its energy policy, apart from being driven by climate denialism and the Coalition's fossil fuel donors, is a shambles that has required state governments to lead on new infrastructure and the transition to renewables. Bernard Keane, crikey.com.
2021-04-21 QandA TV show in Climate Change + US + scuttlebut-in-general. With Malcom Turnbull, Sarah Hanson-Young and others. ABC TV (Australia).
2021-04-21 USA climate summit to push for "immediate action". BBC Headlines.
2021-04-21 How Australia is blocking global climate action: World leaders are preparing to meet for a historic global climate change summit, to try to limit the catastrophic impacts of global warming. Today, Mike Seccombe on the global shift towards tackling climate change, and how Australia could hold everything back. The Monthly /Schwartz Media.
2021-04-21 Climate change is inevitably mentioned as ABC TV screens a National Press Club Address from the university editors of a new Australian year book on China. Which is: Canberra: The Chinese Embassy to Australia's deputy head of mission, Wang Xining, joins the ANU's Australian Centre on China in the World director Jane Golley to launch the new China Story Yearbook 2020: Crisis. (There is possibly a war to break out of China, we don't know yet.) crikey.com.
2021-04-21 "Carbon-surges" expected in post-Covid energy boom. BBC Headlines.
Scott Morrison continues to avoid setting new emissions targets despite a historic pledge by Joe Biden to halve US emissions by 2030. crikey.com.
USA climate summit to push for "immediate action". BBC Headlines.
QandA TV show in Climate Change + US + scuttlebut. With Malcom Turnbull, Sarah Hanson-Young and others. ABC TV (Australia).
Australian former PM Malcolm Turnbull uses the term "coal-hugger".
Climate change is inevitably mentioned as ABC TV screens a National Press Club Address from the university editors of a new Australian year book on China. Which is: Canberra: The Chinese Embassy to Australia's deputy head of mission, Wang Xining, joins the ANU's Australian Centre on China in the World director Jane Golley to launch the new China Story Yearbook 2020: Crisis. (There is possibly a war to break out of China, we don"t know yet.) crikey.com.
TIME FOR DEFENSIVE ACTION: Ahead of US president Joe Biden's climate summit this week, more than 30 current and former defence personnel have formed the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group, which argues the Australian government is lagging behind its allies in combating climate change, and is pushing for a whole-of-nation assessment of the security risks the climate emergency poses. crikey.com.
Carbon-surges expected in post-Covid energy boom. BBC Headlines.
2021-04-22 How Australia is blocking global climate action: World leaders are preparing to meet for a historic global climate change summit, to try to limit the catastrophic impacts of global warming. Today, Mike Seccombe on the global shift towards tackling climate change, and how Australia could hold everything back. The Monthly /Schwartz Media.
2021-04-23 World's oceans changing as currents show new patterns By Peter Hannam.
The world's ocean currents are changing, particularly along Australia's eastern seaboard and around Antarctica, creating more powerful eddies that could have far-reaching effects on what happens to the climate. Australian researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes made these findings using satellite data from 1993-2020 that can detect changes in ocean levels down to a few centimetres. The Southern Ocean is changing the most, with the Antarctic Circumpolar Current strengthening about 5 per cent per decade over those years, according to the research published on Friday in Nature Climate Change. The Sydney Morning Herald).
2021-04-24 Business. Carbon cash saves the day. On Heather Campbell and Bush Heritage. The Weekend Australian, p. 32.
Business. China the elephant in the climate change room. Terry McCrann column, The Weekend Australian.
World's oceans changing as currents show new patterns By Peter Hannam
Business. Climate pledges put heat on exports. The Weekend Australian.
Major fires reported in Killarney National Park, Ireland. (When was the last time we heard of bushfires in Ireland? Never?). BBC Headlines.
2021-04-26 She's back! Greta Thunberg, about a year older, re-appears in ABC TV for an hour, complete with a guest appearance by Sir David Attenborough.
Malcolm Turnbull will discuss "Coal, Climate Change & Conservatives" in an Australia Institute webinar. crikey.com.
2021-04-27 ABC News has item, on stock exchange price(s) of "renewables" (growing and watch for roles for o/s companies vis-a-vis Australian companies).
7.30 Report/ABC TV has item, on returns from solar power in Eastern Australia. (homeowners vs renters etc).