'He's coming home': Tim Flannery returns to Australian Museum

Professor Flannery

"While concerned about Australia's lack of action on climate, Professor Flannery said "you have to remain optimistic". 

"You’ve got to look at this problem over decades. It’s a problem that’s developed over two centuries and it’s not going to be solved tomorrow," he said.;

But he said Australia must do more and said neither side of politics was offering enough of a solution.

"Is any political party doing enough, given the current situation, to avoid two degrees of warming? It’s very unlikely. We’ve got to do more. Our targets need to be increased."

Read the SMH article 

#Professor Flannery,  #global heating  #climate action   # Australia  #  politicians

Pacific shames PM on climate policy: SMH

PM Scott Morrison

"Mr Morrison's visit, which follows a trip to Papua New Guinea last year where he announced a naval base on Manus Island, reflected a new awareness of the need to counterbalance China's growing influence in the region.

The visit was not only diplomatically and symbolically significant. Mr Morrison and his counterparts announced a range of cooperative projects, overwhelmingly funded by Australia, on infrastructure, migration, border protection, military capacity, sport, economics and more.

But while Mr Morrison's gesture in showing the flag was welcome, his trip was marred by a lack of leadership on the region’s biggest issue, global warming – which poses an existential threat through rising sea levels and the increased frequency of catastrophic weather events."

Read the SMH article

#scottmorrison  #global heating  #climatechange  #Pacificnations   #LiberalNationalgovernment

“Hothouse Earth” Co-Author: The Problem Is Neoliberal Economics: the Intercept

"By shifting to a “wartime footing” to drive a rapid shift toward renewable energy and electrification, humanity can still avoid the apocalyptic future laid out in the much-discussed “hothouse earth” paper, a lead author of the paper told The Intercept. One of the biggest barriers to averting catastrophe, he said, has more to do with economics than science.

When journal papers about climate change make headlines, the news usually isn’t good. Last week was no exception, when the so-called hothouse earth paper, in which a team of interdisciplinary Earth systems scientists warned that the problem of climate change may be even worse than we thought, made its news cycle orbit. (The actual title of the paper, a commentary published in the Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences, is “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene.”)"

Read the article 

Related: The good, the bad and the ugly of climate change in 2018: Green Magazine

#wartimefooting  #fossilfuels  #coal  #hothouseearth  #anthropocene #climateactionnow

Why Saving the Earth Needs To Become Our Primary Political Obsession: Medium

Greenhouse gases

"Will Steffen, one of the authors of the Hothouse Earth paper, puts it like this:

“Absolutely no new fossil fuel developments. None. That means no new coal mines, no new oil wells, no new gas fields, no new unconventional gas fracking. Nothing new. Second, you need to have a rapid phase-out plan for existing fossil fuels.”

He also goes on to make the point that we need to be on something like a “wartime footing” in order to re-align the trajectory of the planet.

I mean, imagine if climate change, and all the other existential threats we have created, were a giant asteroid hurtling to earth — what resources we’d muster to save the planet! But in disaster movie scenarios, no-one ever objects to being rescued on the grounds that it might negatively affect their profits.

And there’s the crunch.

We need to outlaw fossil fuels."

Read the article

The good, the bad and the ugly of climate change in 2018: Green Magazine

As the planet relentlessly warms, action to address it is also heating up.  But while other parties are quickly adopting the cause, the Greens have been at the forefront of climate change action for years – and still are.

By Chris Johansen
 

Although ‘economics’ is derided as the ‘dismal science’, I would suggest that an even more dismal one is ‘climate science’. The unfolding series of measurements quantifying how planet Earth is overall warming, and its manifestations, paints a gloomy future for not only our grandkids but our kids – and even us. 

Increasing understanding of how humanity is driving this change, mainly through deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels, also presents solutions for turning this process around, i.e. revegetate and convert to renewable energy. However, an additional pall of gloom is imposed by the failure of humanity to, so far, meaningfully implement the obvious solutions to an otherwise inevitable catastrophe.

At this time of year, it is usual to sit back and review where we are, in the light of events unfolding over the previous 12 months. 

Yes, the bad news keeps on coming but signs of meaningful action to turn around our present climate trajectory are appearing.

David Attenborough tells Davos: ‘The Garden of Eden is no more’ : The Guardian

David Attenborough

"Human activity has created a new era yet climate change can be stopped, says naturalist

Sir David Attenborough has warned that “the Garden of Eden is no more”, as he urged political and business leaders from around the world to make a renewed push to tackle climate change before the damage is irreparable.

Speaking at the start of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, the 92-year-old naturalist and broadcaster warned that human activity has taken the world into a new era, threatening to undermine civilisation."

Read The Guardian 

#sirdavidattenborough  #anthropocene   #capitalism  #economicconsumption

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Learn the basic science of climate change in 24 easy steps



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Scientists overwhelmingly agree that our climate is changing, Earth is getting warmer, sea levels are rising, and it's primarily because of humans putting lots of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 

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