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6:21 PM (33 minutes ago)
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Ali Choudhry and Dr Matthew Hynd
Dear NEVILLE,
With the support of 140,000 people around the world, I just won my campaign on CommunityRun to stop the deportation of Ali Choudhry and give Ali and his partner Matt their lives back.
Last Friday, Ali and Matt were facing an uncertain future. I believe that Ali is in a committed, long-term relationship with an Australian man, but he faced the terrifying possibility of being deported to Pakistan – a country where he has never lived as an adult, where he can’t read or write the language and a country where homosexuality is punishable as a criminal offence.
I could never have imagined how big this campaign would get when I started it just six days ago. My wife heard about Ali and Matt’s story on the radio driving to work and once she told me about it, we both agreed we should do something. I believe that people deserve a chance to be happy, but it seemed to me like Ali and Matt weren’t getting a fair go.
I did a bit of research online about Ali and Matt’s story and ended up starting a petition on CommunityRun. I posted it on my Facebook wall and thought if it went well, the petition might get a few hundred signatures.
But in just six days this little petition took on a life of it’s own and helped change Ali and Matt’s lives. Now the ABC has reported that the Department of Immigration have confirmed Ali’s bridging visa. With a bridging visa, Ali and Matt can stay together while they wait for the Migration Review Tribunal to hear Ali’s case.
This campaign was the biggest and fastest growing CommunityRun petition ever. Together, campaign supporters put pressure on the Minister with over 140,000 signatures, a public delivery to the Immigration Minister, tweets and emails to his office and loads of media stories. That pressure forced the Department to do what they had failed to for months: confirm a bridging visa for Ali allowing him to remain in Australia.
It still won’t be easy for Ali and Matt. On a bridging visa, Ali can’t work in Australia and the outcome of his appeal is still uncertain. But together we helped prevent Ali’s deportation and gave the couple a chance to be happy.
| CommunityRun exists so that any GetUp member, like you, can start a campaign, just like I did, and change something in their street, their town or across the country. If you see something that isn’t fair or needs to change, you can change it. Through CommunityRun you can start a campaign, connect with people who feel the same way you do and take action together to change things for the better.
In the past, I’ve signed a CommunityRun petition to stand up for regional journalism and stop jobs being offshored from the Newcastle Herald, the local paper in the town where I grew up. I also signed a petition for a successful campaign to save the Barrett Adolescent Centre. That campaign locked in State government funding for a critical adolescent mental health facility that provides support to hundreds of vulnerable teenagers each year in my local area. Every day, people are using CommunityRun to create fantastic campaigns. So what campaign will you run? |
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Thanks a lot,
Paul Toner.
GetUp is an independent, not-for-profit community campaigning group. We use new technology to empower Australians to have their say on important national issues. We receive no political party or government funding, and every campaign we run is entirely supported by voluntary donations. If you’d like to contribute to help fund GetUp’s work, please donate now! If you have trouble with any links in this email, please go directly to www.getup.org.au. GetUp has recently updated our Privacy Policy, to read the policy go to: www.getup.org.au/about/privacy-policy. .
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A dose of reality for Australian energy cost estimates Giles Parkinson
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Government economic advisor radically adjusts its energy cost forecasts, with solar and wind costs revised downwards in a big way. It admits that it got the cost of nuclear hopelessly wrong (but still has not recognised the interest, insurance and decommissioning costs).
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Australia reaches nearly two million small scale solar systems Giles Parkinson
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Clean Energy Regulator says Australia now has 2 million small scale renewable energy systems – enough to power Perth, Hobart, Darwin and Canberra.
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World’s biggest solar player teams up with coal, nuclear giants Giles Parkinson
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Yingli, world’s largest solar manufacturer, teams up with coal and nuclear giants as China accelerates push into distributed solar generation.
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Consumption of electricity within the National Electricity Market has fallen for the 5th consecutive calendar year – and fell 2.8 per cent in 2013.
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Lancaster home solar mandate – leads city into 2014 Zachary Shahan
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It’s now officially a requirement in Lancaster, California – all new single-family homes have to come with solar power thanks to Republican mayor Max Parris.
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Will electric cars help or hinder climate action? Lindsay Wilson
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Electric cars are only as good as their juice. In coal dominated China, India and Australia, they simply move emissions around the supply chain.
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The Huffington Post | By Nick Visser Posted: 01/06/2014 6:20 pm EST | Updated: 01/06/2014 7:23 pm EST
As the frigid polar vortex makes itself at home over a giant swath of the country, it’s also serving as fodder for all those equally unwelcome climate change deniers. Despite the fact that 97 percent of scientists agree that man-made climate change is happening, the likes of Donald Trump say many of these record lows are the perfect proof to show that, no, the planet is not warming. Scientific right?
So, does this extreme winter weather prove that our planet is just as cold as it’s always been? No, not at all. But it does say this.
Dear Mr. Trump: Winter is always cold. And sometimes that means unimaginably cold.
Despite wind chills nearing -60 degrees Fahrenheit in Chicago and temperatures that left some parts of Canada colder than Mars, Arctic sea ice is still melting, atmospheric CO2 concentrations are still climbing and climate change is predicted to pose a far greater threat to the planet than many scientists thought.
Winters have become increasingly warmer over the past century, and despite the recent bout of subzero temps, global warming can make extreme weather events like the polar vortex even worse. In layman’s terms, as the planet warms and Arctic sea ice melts, the northern polar region equalizes a bit with temperatures farther south, causing the jet stream that forms a circular band around the northern latitudes to slow down.
This jet stream usually holds the far colder Arctic air in place with winds in excess of 100 mph, but pockets of cold can escape at times when the stream slows down, according to Time. That’s exactly what’s happened this time around, except the amount of cold that’s leaked past the seal is much larger than usual and has pushed farther south (take a look at this interactive graphic from the Guardian for a better visual).
Plain and simple, climate change can’t be proven or disproven by a single weather event. Period. Long-term trends have shown that climate change is happening and the IPCC has said it’s “extremely likely” humans are the dominant cause.
So, although it’s counterintuitive, the current frostbitten state of the country may be further proof that yes, the planet is warming — and climate change is here with a vengeance.
Related on HuffPost:
Frost patterns are formed on the ground next to a sewer drain Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2014, in Paducah, Ky. Temperatures were expected to rise into the teens Tuesday during the daylight hours, providing Kentucky with a slight warming trend as brutally cold air still gripped the state for a second day. (AP Photo/Stephen Lance Dennee)
A man walks past a snow encrusted bicycle with wind chills nearing minus 30 Fahrenheit on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2014, in downtown Chicago. Dangerously cold polar air snapped decades-old records as it spread Tuesday from the Midwest to southern and eastern parts of the U.S. and eastern Canada, making it hazardous to venture outside and keeping many schools and businesses closed. (AP Photo/Andrew A. Nelles)
Commuters depart from Union Station with wind chills nearing minus 30 Fahrenheit on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2014, in downtown Chicago. Dangerously cold polar air snapped decades-old records as it spread Tuesday from the Midwest to southern and eastern parts of the U.S. and eastern Canada, making it hazardous to venture outside and keeping many schools and businesses closed. (AP Photo/Andrew A. Nelles)
A commuter departs from Union Station with wind chills nearing minus 30 Fahrenheit on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2014, in downtown Chicago. Dangerously cold polar air snapped decades-old records as it spread Tuesday from the Midwest to southern and eastern parts of the U.S. and eastern Canada, making it hazardous to venture outside and keeping many schools and businesses closed. (AP Photo/Andrew A. Nelles)
A homeless man in a wheelchair sleeps in an alley as temperatures dipped into the single digits Fahrenheit and minus degrees with the wind chill on January 7, 2014 in Washington, DC. A blast of bone-chilling cold reaching lows not seen in two decades gripped the United States early Tuesday, snarling air travel, closing schools and prompting calls for people to stay inside. Superlatives of cold-talk abounded, even in midwestern states used to chest-high snow and bitter cold, as the National Weather Service said the deep freeze was making its way east. AFP PHOTO / Karen BLEIER (Photo credit should read KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images)
A woman bundled against the cold walks past a homeless man in McPherson Square as temperatures dipped into the single digits Fahrenheit and minus degrees with the wind chill on January 7, 2014 in Washington, DC. A blast of bone-chilling cold reaching lows not seen in two decades gripped the United States early Tuesday, snarling air travel, closing schools and prompting calls for people to stay inside. Superlatives of cold-talk abounded, even in midwestern states used to chest-high snow and bitter cold, as the National Weather Service said the deep freeze was making its way east. AFP PHOTO / Karen BLEIER (Photo credit should read KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY – JANUARY 07: A woman tries to stay warm against the frigid cold while waiting for a bus in Coney Island in Brooklyn on January 7, 2014 in New York, United States. A Òpolar vortexÓ carrying Arctic air and wind gusts of up to 50 mph has engulfed New York City and much of the Northeast making for life threatening weather conditions. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio talks to reporters while shoveling the sidewalk in front of his house in New York, Friday, Jan. 3, 2014. New York City public schools were closed Friday after up to 7 inches of snow fell by morning in the first snowstorm of the winter – and the first test of new Mayor Bill de Blasio hours after he was sworn in. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
US Postal Service letter carrier Danny Kim clears snow and ice as he climbs on the hood of his mail delivery truck in the parking lot at the U.S. Post Office in Bethesda, Md., Friday, Jan. 3, 2014. Kim said that despite the storm resulting in many closing of local school systems, he and his colleagues were working on an unchanged schedule. A winter storm that swept across the Midwest this week blew through the Northeast and its biggest cities on Friday, producing more than a foot of snow in spots, giving rise to wind gusts that threatened trees and power lines, and leaving bone-chilling cold in its wake. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
A man clears a sidewalk in blizzard conditions in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Friday, Jan. 3, 2014. The region is in the grip of unseasonably cold temperatures with heavy snow and high winds. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press,Andrew Vaughan)
Michelle Kottke shovels snow with the help of her dog Harlee in Barrington, Ill., Thursday, Jan. 2, 2014. The New Year’s Day snow storm stretched into Thursday for parts of Illinois, bringing double-digit snow totals to the suburbs of Chicago. (AP Photo/Daily Herald, Bob Chwedyk)
David Paluch brushes off snow from his truck in front of his home in Barrington, Ill., Thursday, Jan. 2, 2014. The New Year’s Day snow storm stretched into Thursday for parts of Illinois, bringing double-digit snow totals to the suburbs of Chicago. (AP Photo/Daily Herald, Bob Chwedyk)
Mary Davis clears snow from her sidewalk in Arlington Heights, Ill., Thursday, Jan. 2, 2014. The New Year’s Day snow storm stretched into Thursday for parts of Illinois, bringing double-digit snow totals to the suburbs of Chicago. (AP Photo/Daily Herald, Bob Chwedyk)
Kevin Pokorny works on his third house clearing snow for neighbors in Barrington, Ill., Thursday, Jan. 2, 2014. The New Year’s Day snow storm stretched into Thursday for parts of Illinois, bringing double-digit snow totals to the suburbs of Chicago. (AP Photo/Daily Herald, Bob Chwedyk)
Jessica Tomasiewicz, left, and her husband Kevin jog in the snow in Mount Prospect, Ill., Thursday, Jan. 2, 2014. The New Year’s Day snow storm stretched into Thursday for parts of Illinois, bringing double-digit snow totals to the suburbs of Chicago. (AP Photo/Daily Herald, Joe Lewnard)
Bill Murray shovels snow from the sidewalk in front of his wife’s vision care center in Mount Prospect, Ill., Thursday, Jan. 2, 2014. The New Year’s Day snow storm stretched into Thursday for parts of Illinois, bringing double-digit snow totals to the suburbs of Chicago. (AP Photo/Daily Herald, Joe Lewnard)
Reversing climate change via huge artificial volcanic eruptions could bring severe droughts to large regions of the tropics, according to new scientific research.
The controversial idea of geoengineering – deliberately changing the Earth’s climate – is being seriously discussed as a last-ditch way of avoiding dangerous global warming if efforts to slash greenhouse gas emissions fail.
But the new work shows that a leading contender – pumping sulphate particles into the stratosphere to block sunlight – could have side-effects just as serious as the effects of warming itself. Furthermore, the impacts would be different around the world, raising the prospect of conflicts between nations that might benefit and those suffering more damage.
“There are a lot of issues regarding governance – who controls the thermostat – because the impacts of geoengineering will not be uniform everywhere,” said Dr Andrew Charlton-Perez, at the University of Reading and a member of the research team.
The study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, is the first to convincingly model what happens to rainfall if sulphates were deployed on a huge scale.
While the computer models showed that big temperature rises could be completely avoided, it also showed cuts in rain of up to one-third in South America, Asia and Africa. The consequent droughts would affect billions of people and also fragile tropical rainforests that act as a major store of carbon. “We would see changes happening so quickly that there would be little time for people to adapt,” said Charlton-Perez.
Another member of the research team, Professor Ellie Highwood, said: “On the evidence of this research, stratospheric aerosol geoengineering is not providing world leaders with any easy answers to the problem of climate change.”
The study considered what would happen if carbon dioxide levels quadrupled in the atmosphere – the sort of extreme situation in which geoengineering might be seriously considered. Without intervention, temperatures rose by 4C, far above the 2C level considered dangerous by the world’s governments.
But the temperature rise was reduced to zero if a massive geoengineering effort took place. The 60m tonnes of sulphur dioxide pumped into the stratosphere each year in the simulation is equivalent to five volcanic eruptions, each on the scale of Mount Pinatubo, the huge 1991 eruption in the Philippines that cut global temperatures by about 0.5C in the following year or two.
The sulphate particles in the model not only reflected incoming sunlight, cutting temperatures, but also absorbed heat rising up from the Earth’s surface. This reduced the temperature difference between the lower and upper atmosphere, which is the engine that drives cloud formation and rainfall. The reduction in rainfall seen in the geoengineering model was as big as the increase in rainfall projected if global warming was unabated.
Dr Matthew Watson, a researcher at the University of Bristol and advocate of further research into geoengineering, said: “The researchers chose an extreme climate scenario so we should not be surprised if that, and any geoengineering attempt to counter it, had severe and uneven impacts.”
He added: “It remains the case that our only guaranteed way forward is to reduce the record levels of greenhouse gases we continue to pump into the atmosphere. It’s vital that scientists continue researching geoengineering; but no government serious about climate change should should see this as a quick fix
Recent floods can’t be directly attributed to global warming but it’s still vital we refine our projections of what the future holds
The devastation caused by intense rainfall events and associated flooding of properties over Christmas and the new year must have been dreadful for those affected.
So the very last thing that needs to be heard at the moment is a set of pompous statements implying this might be due to manmade climate change. What would this achieve? Nobody wants to hear the message “it’s your fault”, and it is almost certainly not completely true anyway.
At the same time, we do know that the composition of the atmosphere is changing, and predominantly with a ramping-up of carbon dioxide. The resulting warming will adjust the patterns of surface temperatures of the oceans, and change the yearly extent of sea-ice nearer the Earth’s poles. Many detailed simulations are starting to confirm that this then affects storm directions and rainfall patterns in the UK.
It is correct to state, almost as a mantra, that no single period of storm events can be attributed to climate change. There always have been extreme intense rainfall occurrences and there always have been floods.
What the meteorological research community is working hard to determine is the amount to which their frequency is changing. To answer this, there is continuous assessment of all available archived weather measurements. In parallel, an additional analysis is made using the best available weather forecast models, but artificially driving these computer models with different prescribed atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
What patterns then emerge from such a set of computer simulations when forced with past carbon dioxide concentrations? Do they tally with measurements? Once we see agreement for decades past, we can trust the same models far more to predict the future, corresponding to higher carbon dioxide measurements than present. Surprisingly, there is reason to believe that for some parts of the world, extreme events are starting to occur less often.
There is real hope in the UK that the combination of the advanced Met Office climate models, assessed in collaboration with our research centres and key university departments, are starting to make rigorous assessments of expected change. In particular, by supplying refined estimates for how the probabilities of major storm events happening might change over the coming decades. That information will be critical for adaptation planning, including how to make our infrastructure more robust.
Hence there is a pressure too on those who undertake ‘impacts calculations’ – for a given rainfall strength and duration, what are the consequences for safety, property and transport? Can we further improve estimates of soil moisture, river flow response and risk of landslides? There is a compelling argument that even should expected frequency changes be relatively small, there is still a duty to protect society as best as possible from the impacts of peaks in rainfall. With population growth and much more travel by society, inevitably larger numbers of people will be affected by extreme weather.
It feels as if these days, people now just switch off when hearing any discussion of climate change and its implications. There are many reasons for this, and some are no doubt very valid.
There was a period of time when even researchers working in this scientific area felt there was an over-emphasis on the concern, and to which a backlash would occur. But it is still worth remembering that even with the current “lull” in warming, averaged at the decadal timescale, the last decade has been the warmest on record.
Unfortunately there is compelling evidence such warming will start to climb again and most likely will change the hydrological cycle. Hence there remains a desperate need for refinement of projections as to how rainfall patterns might evolve in to the future.
It is this knowledge that will enable society to have a calm and considered discussion, allowing the UK and elsewhere to plan ahead. Such planning will need to optimise available adaptation funds, in a way to maximise safety and resilience should the weather events witnessed over recent weeks become more commonplace.
• Dr Chris Huntingford is a climate modeller at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
Recent floods can’t be directly attributed to global warming but it’s still vital we refine our projections of what the future holds
The devastation caused by intense rainfall events and associated flooding of properties over Christmas and the new year must have been dreadful for those affected.
So the very last thing that needs to be heard at the moment is a set of pompous statements implying this might be due to manmade climate change. What would this achieve? Nobody wants to hear the message “it’s your fault”, and it is almost certainly not completely true anyway.
At the same time, we do know that the composition of the atmosphere is changing, and predominantly with a ramping-up of carbon dioxide. The resulting warming will adjust the patterns of surface temperatures of the oceans, and change the yearly extent of sea-ice nearer the Earth’s poles. Many detailed simulations are starting to confirm that this then affects storm directions and rainfall patterns in the UK.
It is correct to state, almost as a mantra, that no single period of storm events can be attributed to climate change. There always have been extreme intense rainfall occurrences and there always have been floods.
What the meteorological research community is working hard to determine is the amount to which their frequency is changing. To answer this, there is continuous assessment of all available archived weather measurements. In parallel, an additional analysis is made using the best available weather forecast models, but artificially driving these computer models with different prescribed atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
What patterns then emerge from such a set of computer simulations when forced with past carbon dioxide concentrations? Do they tally with measurements? Once we see agreement for decades past, we can trust the same models far more to predict the future, corresponding to higher carbon dioxide measurements than present. Surprisingly, there is reason to believe that for some parts of the world, extreme events are starting to occur less often.
There is real hope in the UK that the combination of the advanced Met Office climate models, assessed in collaboration with our research centres and key university departments, are starting to make rigorous assessments of expected change. In particular, by supplying refined estimates for how the probabilities of major storm events happening might change over the coming decades. That information will be critical for adaptation planning, including how to make our infrastructure more robust.
Hence there is a pressure too on those who undertake ‘impacts calculations’ – for a given rainfall strength and duration, what are the consequences for safety, property and transport? Can we further improve estimates of soil moisture, river flow response and risk of landslides? There is a compelling argument that even should expected frequency changes be relatively small, there is still a duty to protect society as best as possible from the impacts of peaks in rainfall. With population growth and much more travel by society, inevitably larger numbers of people will be affected by extreme weather.
It feels as if these days, people now just switch off when hearing any discussion of climate change and its implications. There are many reasons for this, and some are no doubt very valid.
There was a period of time when even researchers working in this scientific area felt there was an over-emphasis on the concern, and to which a backlash would occur. But it is still worth remembering that even with the current “lull” in warming, averaged at the decadal timescale, the last decade has been the warmest on record.
Unfortunately there is compelling evidence such warming will start to climb again and most likely will change the hydrological cycle. Hence there remains a desperate need for refinement of projections as to how rainfall patterns might evolve in to the future.
It is this knowledge that will enable society to have a calm and considered discussion, allowing the UK and elsewhere to plan ahead. Such planning will need to optimise available adaptation funds, in a way to maximise safety and resilience should the weather events witnessed over recent weeks become more commonplace.
• Dr Chris Huntingford is a climate modeller at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
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