The atmosphere is to the earth as a layer of varnish is to a desktop globe. It is thin, fragile and essential for preserving the items on the surface.150 years of burning fossil fuel have overloaded the atmosphere to the point where the earth is ill. It now has a fever. Read the detailed article, Soothing Gaia’s Fever for an evocative account of that analogy. The items listed here detail progress on coordinating 6.5 billion people in the most critical project undertaken by humanity.Â
Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink Coleridge, The Ancient Mariner Predictions that the Global North would cynically turn its back on Climate refugees as drought, heatwaves and floods decimate the population of the Global South this week appear both reasonable and prescient. As I write this in my comfortable home in the Continue Reading →
The big wet has Brisbane renters tearing apart sharehouses, burning leather clothing and scrubbing walls with clove and tea tree oil, mixed with vinegar and warm water in a battle with an unwanted, microbial, housemate; mould. Christine Schindler wrote in Westender last week “The mould ripened, it invited friends and propagated indiscriminately on brick and Continue Reading →
The rise of the Green-Teal tide on the weekend speaks volumes about environmental politics.Geoff Ebbs reflects on the implications for the Liberals and the Greens The destruction of the Liberal Party by Scott Morrison has many dimensions including integrity, misogyny, gender wars, culture wars and climate wars. Both the Teal independents and the Greens benefited Continue Reading →
Deforestation is a significant contributor to climate chaos, biodiversity loss and depletion of groundwater. It requires significant effort on a number of levels. There are global certification bodies that provide a form of policing, including the capacity to interrogate the source of timber products using a chain of custody, or record of the handling of Continue Reading →
The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis published a report this week showing that governments are not reducing their use of coal as promised at Paris and, even if they did, it would not be enough to meet the emission reduction promises consistent with 2degrees of warming. The graphs outlining the energy descent required Continue Reading →
Two official COP26 “Net Zero” programs were exposed as harbouring large elements of greenwash this week by New York based ‘YesMen” and UK-based Glasgow Calls Out Polluters (GCOP). The official “Race to Zero” and “Science based Targets” initiatives have been criticised by many academics and environmentalists including Greta Thunberg who tweeted that “net-zero targets [are] Continue Reading →