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You can find much greater detail for the timeframes 1550-1700 at a new website now almost finished ... THE ENGLISH BUSINESS OF SLAVERY... a website book also designed to bring genealogical studies up-to-date from 1530 to the present-day... as well as questions of merchant lives and activities... Click now to... The Business of Slavery (in English history).

Merchants and Bankers
February 2020++ - Australia


Trade - an international perspective

(This website closed in May 2020 due to corona virus problems - till November 2021 when it was re-opened - Ed)

A word on Economics: University Economics as taught to me in the late 1960s-early 1970s now seems like a sadly out-of-date joke - except that it was good about banks' prudential behaviour, behaviour which also by now - and certainly by 2008-2009 with the GFC - seems to be superseded - especially in the USA. For one thing, it was assumed in Economics (I still have trouble with many of its assumptions) that many things are a free good - but they are no longer free in fact! But their costs have not - not by economists, or politicians, and certainly, too many journalists - been satisfactorily factored into cost-equations. Things like, atmosphere, vegetation, wind/air, timber, water, (sea water, what used to be freshwater), and to some extent, new lands. This is ridiculous. And oddly enough, and worse as it is in sunny Australia - the sun's rays - free electricity - are NOT currently regarded by Conservatives as a free good? Economics is not just a dismal science, but as well a ridiculous science that does not deserve the sobriquet of "a science". It is not a science - was it ever? - but (more so in the USA) it is a belief system, like Political Science ... "Economics" was also taught to me as advertising-free (a plain nonsense and today -if not earlier - the economy is saturated with advertising while the Net grows fatter on advertising and the old business model of now-old-fashioned newspapers simply dries up), as asocial (in fact, economic activity is highly social - mankind is a social animal); as anti-waste (though plenty of public money has been wasted over the centuries in many countries, while "Private Enterprise" is its own kind of wasteland!)
Economics was and remains a really shockingly bad predictor of human behaviour; after all, very few economic commentators predicted the onset of the GFC; no one in 1989 saw coming the end of Russian communism. In December 2021, economists around the world are disturbed about risks arising from inflation - but how risky are things really? One might well ask: what was it - what is it - Economics - possibly correct about that actually remains useful? Instead, it needs to be asked: why is Economics such a bad predictor of future events?

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This Merchants and Bankers Listings website is now years old ... Some of its timeline material on economic history (for 1560-1930) has been moved to a 2007-2021 website managed by Ken Cozens and Dan Byrnes, The Merchant Networks Project. This Merchant and Bankers website now emphasizes data on modern developments, lately on pre-2050 green topics, on modern/technical industry, computing; and for the future, today's climate change problems. The editor's view is that in the context of Climate Change/Anthropogenic Global Warming, the views of Merchants and Bankers (and Economists, politicians), the gatekeepers of matters economic, are due for a considerable shake-up. If this website can encourage the shake-up, and help inform it reliably, well and good. -Ed

Issues for late 2021

31-12-2021: USA - fires in Colorado, end in destroying about 1000 homes. In midwinter? ABC 4pm afternoon TV News.

30-12-2021: Alaska heat record - US faces extra weather extremes after heavy snowfall/rain. BBC Headlines. Floodings in Brazil. DW/ABC News 2.07am.

28-12-2021: and 29-12-2021: Heavy snow in north and west Japan causes problems. ABC TV mid-afternoon news.

27-12-2021: Huge toll of disasters linked to Climate Change. Heavy snowstorms on US west coast. BBC Headlines.

27-12-2021: A matter of degrees: 2021 saw many more nations and businesses start to step on climate change action. SMH, p. 16+. And p. 23, Bright future for imported electric cars in Australia.

25-12-2021: What do scientists actually want? (No newspapers in NSW today.) BBC Headlines.

24-12-2021: Wikipedia. Its editors fight off climate denial. BBC Headlines.

22-12-2021: Heavy rains and flooding in Bolivia. SBS late evening TV news.

21-12-20-21: see BBC Headlines - Climate. (Set your browser bookmarker now!)

20-12-2021: Eyewitness to climate change tracks wild weather. SMH, p. 8+. Government agency to be grilled on NSW dam wall at Warragamba, p. 12.

20-12-2021: Bothersome snow and avalances for France/Spain in Pyrenees. Afternoon TV evening early news.

20-12-2021: Parts of Malaysia have evacuations due to rains and flooding. DW News/1am ABC News.

20-12-2021: Coalition climate change outlier *Matt Kean* has lost his environment portfolio in a major NSW cabinet reshuffle, *The Australian reports. Kean has on several occasions strayed from the watery party line on climate in an effort to, well, help safe the planet from a code-red meltdown — in October he said his colleagues in the federal Nationals could resign if they don’t back net zero, and last January said his boss, Prime Minister *Scott* *Morrison*, “doesn’t know what he’s talking about” on climate. Kean, who is also Treasurer in the Perrottet [NSW] ministry, will hold onto the Energy portfolio but Manly MP James Griffin will handle Environment (he’s parliament secretary for the portfolio at the moment). Crikey.worm.

18/19-12-2021: w/e Australian, Coal surge defies push for net zero. And p. 8. Court gives thermal coalmine green light after 14-year fight. And this issue has a so-far-rare proofreading error, too. "Grisly" is mispelled as "grizzly". Beginning of the end? >i>The Weekend Australian Magazine has a story, "The Burning Question: Its proponents say hydrogen could turn Australia into a green energy superpower. Is it hype or hope?"

19-12-2021: Severe drought and starvation on Madagascar. TV commercial on charity/aid.

19-12-2021: Freak storm in Northern Sydney, one life lost. Eg., Narabeen area affected. ABC evening TV news.

17-12-2021: Flooding and evacuations in Philippines, about 140 dead. (Typhoon Rai). TV news, various.

17-12-2021: Super typhoon Rai: Thousands flee as storm lashes southern Philippines (BBC). crikey.

15-12-2021: The Commentariat Back so soon, La Niña? Here’s why we’re copping two soggy summers in a row — Andréa S. Taschetto, Agus Santoso (The Conversation): “Last month was Australia’s wettest November on record, and summer in Queensland and parts of New South Wales is also expected to be soggy for the second consecutive year. So why is our summer parade being rained on yet again? … But this year, three climate phenomena also converged to drive the Big Wet over Australia’s eastern seaboard: a negative Indian Ocean Dipole, a positive Southern Annular Mode, and a La Niña. “… So why are we seeing it back so soon? It’s actually not uncommon for La Niña to occur in two consecutive years. In fact, since 1958, about half of La Niña events reoccurred the following year … The Bureau of Meteorology’s seasonal outlook shows an increased chance of rain this summer (January to March) over parts of Queensland and the NSW coast, but not much for the rest of Australia. So while it’s unlikely to be the wettest ever summer in Australia overall, we can’t yet rule that out for the east coast.” crikey.worm.

15-12-2021: Drought in Somalia for several seasons now. ABC TV News late evening, The World.

15-12-2021: Arctic heat record is like Mediterranean, says UN (BBC) crikey.worm

13-12-2021: Heavy flooding in Brazil, South America. SBS TV early evening news.

13-12-2021: Green is the colour Climate change action and jobs have topped the list of federal election hopes from Australia’s most powerful private sector leaders, the AFR reports. Up to a third of the 60 chief executives driving Australia’s business called for stronger climate plans — urging policy that will turn us into a global clean-energy superpower, pivot us towards electric vehicles, and see more carbon capture and storage for heavy industry. Among them, leaders from Carsales, Seven West Media, IAG, Mirvac, and Macquarie Group. It comes as the NBN Co became the latest behemoth to go green, The New Daily reports, with plans to use 100% renewable electricity by 2025. More than 8.3 million homes and businesses are connected to the NBN network. Meanwhile, for the first time ever, a publicly available online tool will collate Indigenous knowledge and western science to help conservation efforts, The Advocate reports. The Noongar Boodjar plant and animal encyclopaedia collates ancestral ecological and cultural knowledge about plants and animals in Noongar Nation, with a hope that it will preserve Indigenous language in the area. Crikey.worm.

13-12-2021: Kentucky tornadoes: up to 100 feared dead in historic US storms (The Guardian). Crikey.worm.

10-12-2021: Eora Nation (also known as Sydney): Energy Minister Angus Taylor, shadow energy minister Matt Bowen, British High Commissioner Vickie Treadell, ACTU’s Michele O’Neil, NSW Energy and Environment Minister Matt Kean, and Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore are all speaking at the two-day Australasian Emissions Reduction Summit which kicks off today. Crikey.worm/what’s on.

fix 12-12-2021: Heavy rains in Spain. ABC TV news, evening,

12-12-2021: Tornado Alley in USA reactivates; about 70 tornadoes appear; about 100 dead in five states; especially worrying is Kentucky. DW News/ABC TV news, 1am and much TV news later on 12th.

11-12-2021: WA has bushfires. Rain/hail storms lash parts of s/e Queensland. DW TV News (Germany) 2am on ABC TV News.

11/12 December, 2021: Weekend Australian, [Twiggy Forrest] A hunger for green trillions. Fears sun about to set on a mining gem [Glencoe may not continue in Mt Isa]. John Durie's column in Weekend Australian, Business Section, is headlined "A price 'solves problems': GreenCollars rise shows the value of Carbon Credits". But (an ongoing question), how is News Corp going at reporting any/all of this, hmm?

10-12-2021: As on 9th for Sydney area. Channel 9 afternoon TV news.

fix 9-12-2021: Heavy rain/flash flooding at Penrith near Sydney. Later, Sydney suffers further.

25/26-11-2021: Flood management in [Canada’s British Columbia] is left up to municipalities. Should it be? (CBC) - crikey.worm

fix 26-11-2021: Floods (La Nina) in eastern Australia. TV news all channels.

25-11-2021: Solar's power In some good climate-related news, east coast electricity bills will be going down in the next three years, according to the industry body, the SMH reports. Several state governments’ proactive emission targets are seeing cheaper renewable power like wind and solar in the grid, and the Australian Energy Market Commission’s (AEMC) price trends report reckons that’ll see bills decrease by $126 in south-east Queensland, by $99 in Victoria, and by $50 in NSW. Though, The Australian ($) adds, the closure of the Liddell power station in 2022-23 will see them spike a little in their downward trajectory. Nevertheless, AEMC boss Anna Collyer says, the message is clear: “integrating renewables in a smart way makes it possible to have both lower emissions and lower costs for consumers”. Speaking of — the ABS released a report yesterday that showed our renewable energy generation increased by a whopping 15% in 2019-20, and we actually used about 5% less energy in the same period. Solar is leading the charge (mind the pun), Guardian Australia adds. It comes as part of a coal-fired power plant was blown up yesterday in the Blue Mountains, the end of an era after it stopped operating in 2014. Check out the footage of the 175-metre-high chimneys toppling — it’s pretty spectacular. Crikey.com

fix 24-11-2021: The Commentariat Forrest’s fossil fuel subsidy illogic — Matthew Warren (The AFR): “Energy subsidies exist. Through a series of renewable energy target schemes, Australian governments have been successfully subsidising renewable energy investment for the past two decades. Usefully, the need for further support of this type is waning as the cost of wind and solar is now at or below its competitors. “We have not really discussed whether and how we should formally subsidise the suite of supporting technologies needed to complete a renewables-based energy system, such as batteries, pumped hydro, green hydrogen and biomethane. Funding for this next stage remains piecemeal and ad-hoc, relying on one-off deals with state and federal governments.” Crikey.worm.

16-11-2021: The planet is on the clock and Australia has an inexplicable position on climate change – it really isn’t funny — Katharine Murphy (Guardian Australia): “When it comes to climate policy, it’s never prudent to say we’ve hit peak preposterous, because this is Australia. There are always new depths to plumb. But we were certainly peak preposterous adjacent on Monday when Scott Morrison and Angus Taylor attempted to explain why Australia had just signed a commitment to look at its 2030 emissions reduction target — but our target wouldn’t be changing because it was both immutable and completely redundant.” crikey.worm.

11-11-2021: Earth’s peatlands store twice as much carbon as its forests. So will they be a ‘carbon bomb’ or a climate solution? (The Washington Post). Crikey.worm

11-11-2021: Draft COP26 agreement text calls on countries to strengthen 2030 targets by next year (ABC). Crikey.worm.

8-11-2021: A group of Australian state and territory level governments plan to join forces in order to achieve net zero. Crikey.worm.

5-11-2021: Does climate change have us licked? — Waleed Aly (The Age): “Climate change confounds us because it demands political solidarity across time and space that we find deeply unnatural. That’s not to say we can’t learn to create them. Indeed, the nation state that we take so much for granted now, is an artificial creation that required humans to imagine a political structure different to empire and reimagine their ideas of political solidarity accordingly. But here’s the thing: it took a monstrous crisis to do it. The nation state grew out of the Treaty of Westphalia, which was in turn designed to end Europe’s 30 Years’ War. That war killed about 20% of Europe’s population. That’s a pretty heavy incentive to unlock a new political imagination … Could climate change unlock something similar? … that is the last great demand climate change makes of us: to think and feel in a different way; to imagine the abstract as concrete and the future as now.” Crikey.worm.

5-11-2021: A climate change change? All net zero pledges to date plus the global methane pledge could see global warming limited to 1.8C, analysis from the International Energy Agency says. Reuters reports that still exceeds the Paris Agreement of 1.5C, which is the upper limit after which the catastrophic and irreversible impacts of climate change will be felt. But it’s an “extremely encouraging” projection, IEA chief Fatih Birol says. Indeed there have been a few big-ticket achievements at the COP26 — The New Daily has a cracking wrap up of the major agreements, like the aforementioned methane pledge, phasing out coal, and deforestation commitments. In some local climate news, South Australia has possibly set a world record. For the first time, the state generated more electricity from solar than it needed, five times during the past five weeks — and SA Power Networks called it a first for a gigawatt-scale power grid, ABC reports. The company’s boss says he expects the state will soon power the middle parts of the day only using rooftop solar, and applauded SA as a world leader in the renewable transition. The city of churches becomes the city of light. Crikey.worm.

fix 3-11-2021: Progress retort UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson says 90% of the world’s economy is now working towards net zero, The Guardian reports. The host — who described himself as “cautiously optimistic” — made the comments as the Glasgow climate summit wrapped up for the day. There were some positive steps forward: more than 100 leaders — who head up countries with 85% of the world’s forests — have committed to end global deforestation by the end of the decade, the BBC reports. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has committed to net zero emissions by 2070 — 10 years after China’s goal of 2060 — pledging that half the country’s grid would go renewable by 2030, as The Times of India reports (India is the world’s third-largest emitter, behind China and the US). Prime Minister Scott Morrison used his speech to grandstand about how Australia will cut emissions by 35% by 2030, though didn’t mention our unchanged target of 26-28%, the SMH adds. And yet Guardian Australia reports this morning that the Australian government has 116 fossil fuel projects in the pipeline, which together would see our emissions increase by almost 30%. Analysis by the Australia Institute found 72 coal and 44 gas and oil projects with the potential to be developed — including the Beetaloo Basin gas field in the NT, which has been funded by the government to the tune of $224 million — all part of our “gas-fired recovery” from the pandemic. The company reportedly hung up on traditional owners and ignored their questions at their AGM, the National Indigenous Times reports. Crikey worm.

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fix 9-12-2021: WHAT'S ON TODAY: Australia: University of Melbourne’s Kristy DiGiacomo, and University of Sydney’s Peter Windsor will discuss the effects extreme temperature can have on livestock, in a webinar by farmers and veterinarians climate action groups. Crikey.worm.

8-12-2021: Storm hits Western Sydney, eastern Australia. ABC TV mid-afternoon news.

8-12-2021: The Commentariat: The richest 10% produce half of greenhouse gas emissions. They should pay to fix the climate — Lucas Chancel (The Guardian): “Consider the US, for instance. Every year, the poorest 50% of the US population emit about 10 tonnes of CO2 per person, while the richest 10% emit 75 tonnes per person. That is a gap of more than seven to one. Similarly, in Europe, the poorest half emits about five tonnes per person, while the richest 10% emit about 30 tonnes — a gap of six to one. (You can now view this data on the World Inequality Database.)"
“Where do these large inequalities come from? The rich emit more carbon through the goods and services they buy, as well as from the investments they make. Low-income groups emit carbon when they use their cars or heat their homes, but their indirect emissions — that is, the emissions from the stuff they buy and the investments they make — are significantly lower than those of the rich.” Crikey.worm. The Commentariat.

7-12-2021: READ ALL ABOUT IT: Simon Holmes a Court’s climate cabal of independents in $20m Liberals hunt (The Australian) crikey.worm.com/.

7-12-2-2021: Whadjuk Noongar Country (also known as Perth): Extinction Rebellion will occupy Woodside Energy’s headquarters to protest the Scarborough gas field, holding a vigil for victims of the climate crisis. crikey.worm/what’s on.

6-12-2021: Boards at odds with "green shift" - "Many Australian boards (of companies) are struggling to prepare their companies or organisations for climate change, with almost half the country's directors saying they don't know how to tackle the issue." (A study of this Australian dilemma has been done by the Australian Institute of Company Directors.) SMH, Business, p. 24.

6-12-2021: Floods in Bali, Indonesia. Channel 10 afternoon TV news.

6-12-2021: National Press Club Westpac Address, from Chris Bowen, Labor Party Shadow Minister for Climate Change. ABC TV news at 12.30pm.

3-12-2021: Looking a little green:
Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese will reportedly commit to between a 40-43% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions when he unveils Labor’s long-awaited climate policy today, the SMH’s Rob Harris says. Albo is getting together with the shadow cabinet to sign off on the new policy today, and unnamed sources reportedly told Harris they expect the party to agree to the target. Guardian Australia reports the policy will also have plans to electrify transport, and invest “low billions” in renewable jobs and hydrogen. But it won’t have a pledge on fuel standards — Labor is pre-empting a Morrison scare campaign about rising petrol prices, the paper says.
Meanwhile, moderate Liberal Dave Sharma is in hot water over some grandstanding in his local paper. He told the Wentworth Courier he’d delivered “an upgraded 2030 emissions reduction target” while rebuffing his opponent Allegra Spender’s comments he hadn’t done squat for the climate. But Prime Minister Scott Morrison has repeatedly said he wouldn’t officially increase their existing target of 26-28%, as The Conversation reported, because we’re on track to “meet and beat” it, so what’s the point? Rather specious reasoning there. Sharma says he wants a 40-45% cut in emissions — climate playing a key part of his fight for Wentworth’s seat.
So why the medium-term emission target from Labor? Well, Labor got pummelled last federal election in Queensland over ambitious climate policy, as the ABC delved into — last week shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers says the target has to keep up with job and industry investment in the regions, applauding sunshine state Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s Gladstone and Townsville hydrogen projects as a good example. crikey.worm.

2-12-2021: READ ALL ABOUT IT: Another NZ ‘marine heatwave’ is unfolding: here’s what that means for you (NZ Herald). crikey.worm.

1-12-2021: WHAT'S ON TODAY: Australia: The Foundation for Rural Regional Renewal is holding a webinar on the results of its Heartbeat of Rural Australia report. • Canberra: ANU will host an Energy Update where experts from the university will discuss the energy sector and net zero emissions. You can catch this one online too. Crikey.worm.

1-12-2021: Heavy snow in England. Flooding (El Nina) in Southern Queensland, Australia. Storms in Turkey. Channel 7 at 10am, TV news.)

28-11-2021: Climate Change causing abatross divorce - study. BBC Headlines.

30-11-2021: THE ECONOMICS OF CLIMATE ACTION: Ditching fossil fuels will usher in a new era of energy price moderation. How will rising temperatures affect inflation? The productivity and crime consequences of increasing heat. Modelling of the costs of climate mitigation efforts overstates the net negative impacts. We should be talking about “carbon dividends” instead of carbon taxes. crkey/side.view.

30-11-2021: WHAT'S ON TODAY: Australia: • Former chief scientist Penny Sackett, independent Helen Haines, founder of 1 Million Women; Natalie Isaacs, Traditional Owner and guardian of the Mardoowarra, Lower Fitzroy River, Anne Poelina, are among the speakers at The Women’s Climate Congress’s National Congress of Women, held online. • Athens’ Chief Heat Officer Eleni Myrivili’s and Blacktown City Council CEO Kerry Robinson will chat about different approaches to extreme heat, held online. Crikey.worm

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29-11-2021: WHAT'S ON TODAY: Australia: Climate Leaders Coalition’s Lynette Mayne, Climate Change Council’s Amanda McKenzie, and Australian representative at the COP26 Youth Forum, Ella Simons, will speak about leadership and Climate Change. Catch this one online. Crikey.worm

29-11-2021: [Victoria] to host biggest wind farm in southern hemisphere as turbines win final approval (The Age) crikey.worm.

25-11-2021: Item on Investing (or not) re issues confronting Climate Change. ABC (The Business) pre-midnight TV news.

22-11-2021: Political Nonsense Dept. Labor [party] urged to find sweet spot beyond scare tactics. SMH.

22-11-2021: AI helps bring bushfire-hit birds back from brink. In California, lightning-lit fires kill nearly 1/5th of world's biggest trees. SMH.

22-11-2021: Why schools are failing children on climate change. BBC Headlines.

22-11-2021: Floods - worst in 60 years - in South Sudan. SBS Evening TV news.

20-11-2021: Now that Glasgow/Cop26 is finished, useful entries re Climate Change are thin on the ground. And like Climate Change these days, it seems to come with the territory. Almost any territory one can name. Indeed, is it global?

17-11-2021: The truth behind new Climate Change denial. BBC Headlines.

17-11-2021: Floods and heavy rain in Vancouver, Canada and the Canadian Western Provinces. Seems that British Columbia is badly designed and needs to be redesigned. So is Washington state of USA, bad. ABC late news TV.

16-11-2021: Australian PM Morrison allegedly contradicts UK PM Boris Johnson about whether or not Glasgow/Cop26 is "death knell" for coalmining, or not. ABC News TV news.

15-11-2021: BBC Headlines has five Climate Change stories today. BBC Headlines.

15-11-2021: 'Fixed' 2030 target an election battleground (front page). Re Climate Summmit - 'Fragile win' COP26 Glasgow's weak finale - Thirst for hopeful future remains unasked as last-chance saloon runs dry - Climate Summit ends in disappointment, but not total failure - "We are still knocking on the door of climate catastrophe", says UN secretary-general Antonio Guterre - pp. 4-5, SMH. Plea for investors to fund net zero plan - citing Finance Minister Simon Birmingham, p. 6, Sydney Morning Herald.

14-11-2021: Was Glasgow/Cop26 a success? India and Australia watered-down the wording on coal. The COP26 chairman apologised. Greta Thunberg seems correct about "blah blah blah". The SBS international correspondent thinks it probably depends whom one asks! Leader of the Australian opposition party, the Labor Paty, Anthony Albanese, gives the Australian report card a fail. SBS/ABC TV Evening News.

13/14-11-2021: SMH front page: "Don't be defeatist on climate" urges the same PM who as Treasurer appeared earlier in Parliament showing a lump of coal, p. 5. Value of coal 'to halve' under net zero plan, SMH. SMH News Review, Story by Nick O'Malley, Will the World fail Greta's generation? Existential Crisis: US and China stun COP26 with joint climate pact. Read Letters-to-editor section. Prof. Tim Flannery with "Australia: an embarrassing handbrake on energised world".

13/14-11-2021: The Weekend Australian's front page screams a nonsense, as a subheading screams "Modelling reveals financial gains from emissions policy" but a headline says "The real cost of no net zero", and here, evidently, a model turns "real" kinda instantly, whereas contrarily in Sydney Morning Herald we are told, "Your model will only be as good as the information you have," says Prof Jodie McVernon of Doherty Institute in News Review section of this weekend's Sydney Morning Herald. So evidently, this model discussed in Weekend Australian had perfect information, it was right on.
Greens to lead crackdown with "tycoon tax", p.8; Leaders in Glasgow (where negotiations take "longer than expected") weaken on coal pledge - Joyce aims both barrels at region's anti-coal activists - In the Inquirer section: Graham Lloyd, the environment editor, is headlined, "In climate circles, 'green' is also the word for cash; while the Business Review section has it that: 'Wall of cash' coming for green energy shift - and columnist John Durie backs rural carbon capture and storage, which the Greens in Australia regard the same scheme as a scam.

List of failed states from whom the the UN or the international climate change movement can expect nothing useful anytime soon ... Lebanon. Sudan. Somalia. Ethiopia. Afghanistan. Burma/Myanmar. In this context, one might also mention risk states such as: Yemen. Libya. Iraq. Belarus. Brazil. Nigeria, Zimbabwe. Mali. Or shaky states such as Egypt, Ukraine.

13-11-2021: Jeremy Moss, Carbon Justice. Scribe, 2021. Bill Gates, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. Black Inc., 2021. (Ban fossil-fuel-using vehicles from our cities?) Sean Kelly, The Game: A Portrait of Scott Morrison. Black Inc., 2021. Royal Meteorological Society/CSIRO (Australia), Weather: A Force of Nature. CSIRO. 2021.

13-11-2021: Five Climate Change stories are on BBC Headlines.

12-11-2021: Five Climate Change stories are on BBC Headlines.

12-11-12021: When on earth will politicians in Australia get with World Science and agree that the entire planet is warming? Or will they simply have to die out (in Australia and elsewhere) and be replaced by a wiser lot? (We do not even know if the Australian prime minister for 2050 is born yet!) But in case you were wondering ... One thing - quite unreasonably and more so re the Australian Press Gallery which pointedly avoids the issue - that is not mentioned or discussed in Australia is any date - while Alan Turge the Federal Minister for Education is allowed to get by with criticisng education in Australia without discussing it - for the origins of coalmining ... which was begun at Newcastle (NSW, "Coal River") in 1797 under the auspices of the Australian government of the day (in the days of "Botany Bay" as a convict colony); then was undertaken in the Hunter Valley by the Australian Agricultural Company (begun by 1824 - the AACo). Coalmining and/or coal are not indexed (and see the Preface re coalmining versus a history of metal-mining in Australia, not a non-metal such as coal) as such in Geoffrey Blainey, The Rush That Never Ended: A History of Australian Mining. (Melbourne University Press, 1964-1974) which begins with the gold rushes. So Blainey can perhaps now be judged here as remiss? Although, 1974 is a long time before our present days of Climate Change!
The AACo meantime was an outfit with an uncommon lot of British capitalists, (and/or MPs) in its memberships, and re its origins there are at least two Australian PhD theses, by (1) Atchison and (2) Pemberton. The AACo was later at least part-based in Tamworth, NSW. Other coalmining happened in Australia in Western Australia from 1846, in Tasmania from 1850, in Victoria from 1852, in Queensland from 1875 (Ipswich and 1870 in the Wide Bay area), in South Australia from 1889. Source: An Australian Bureau of Statistics website at: www.abs.gov.au/austats/abs@wsf/featurearticlesbytitle/689359639OAOO28CA259E3OOIF5555/.

12-11-2021: As COP26 in Glasgow begins to wrap up, a surprise pact between the world’s two most powerful nations has put Australia in an awkward position. Reuters reports that the United States and China have made a deal to work closer together to combat climate change by reducing emissions, stopping deforestation, and phasing out coal. The decision comes after China decided to skip the conference and refused to commit to a net zero by 2050 goal.
This decision combined with the draft COP26 statement has ratcheted up the pressure on Australia to commit to substantive climate change action, News Corp reports. The inclusion of a call to “accelerate the phasing out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels” and a promise to speed up their decarbonisation reviews and revisit them next year will be making people in Canberra a bit uncomfortable. Crikey.worm.

11-11-2021: Floods/heavy rain across India and Sri Lanka. DW TV news on ABC TV News.

11-11-2021: Indian village (Himalayan) split in two by climate change. BBC Headlines, which in addition has at least four other Climate Change stories.

11-11-2021: Surprise produced at Glasgow while Australia disappoints! Surprisingly at COP26, US and China announce that they will co-operate in future re Climate Change; reducing emissions, stopping deforestation, and phasing out coal. (Both nations are currently huge emitters but have in the past been ideological enemies.) Evening TV news multi-channel and crikey.worm next morning.

10-11-2021: Re COP26 - UN Climate Conference - BBC Headlines has at least four stories on Climate Change.

10-11-2021: Environmental groups place Australia last on new list of countries doing useful things re Climate Change/ re international climate policy index. Evening TV News.

9-11-2021: Ex-US-President Barack ("Step-up Now") Obama talks on Climate Change-COP26 in a context of urgency vis-a-vis any roles for Government. Midday TV news, multi-network. Which raises a point about Government and its role(s)) re Climate Change. Government seems set to enlarge so the days in politics of "small government seem to be over except for the views of a die-hard rump. This has got to do with what is or shall be mandatory? (This compiler comes from a part of Australia where if there is a pandemic on, one does not ask questions about anything, one merely goes along and gets vaccinated!) We know with Covid19 that The Unvaccinated (say 10 or 12 per cent of the general population?) run extra, calculable, risks of catching a deadly virus? And that about 8 per cent of people remain afraid of needles! Meantime, the authorities are engaged with public health orders -often draconian - and the media fields questions on whether vacinnation should be mandatory or not? But it is not asked for the future if Climate Change measures are or should be mandatory or not? The role of Government is different vis-a-vis Climate Change vs covid19. For one thing the individual has a different role with Climate Change vs covid19 - with Climate Change the role of the individual is far smaller than it is with covid19, and mass action - which in this case means government action - is far more appropriate (which means a rethinking of the role for government of us all); and so is the role of Big Capital quite different with covid19 as compared to Climate Change.
Governments at whatever level are far better placed than individuals to ameliorate the ill effects of Climate Change. It is by 2021 recognised that Climate Change poses a new threat for the military but, world-wide, public health officials have remained quiet about the prospects for rising threats to human health and lawmakers have been largely silent on the question of belief in Climate Change or not! It is also recognised that food and water security risks may increase (and to an extent transport/supply chain risks also rise), but it is not yet asked: what shall we do with non-believers in Climate Change? What does The Law imagine? Should belief in Climate Change become mandatory? So, all is not well with the Climate Change lobby! There is some thinking to do yet! And, you ain't seen nuffin" yet!
The future? Rising tribalism (what clan are you from?) is one kind of answer to the question: why don't you go back where you came from? - so this will happen! There will also be the death of inclusiveness. Fears already exist that nation states will try to protect their really carbon-intensive industries with tariffs; in effect, for their buyers, = taxes.

9-11-2021: What do climate scientists want from COP26? BBC Headlines.

"Gas-led recovery" chief calls for an ETS: Glasgow: High-profile Australian business executive Andrew Liveris is preparing to lead a new push for a price on carbon, arguing that neutralising emissions by 2050 will require political consensus. Sydney Morning Herald front page and p. 6. 'Morrison, pick up that hose.': Anti-Barnaby Joyce and Morrison advert in light of their anti-climate change stances, SMH, p. 11 from Getup. Nation urged to invest in research for net zero target, p. 14. Taiwan urges law to lock in net zero.

8-11-2021: Does your diet have a carbon footprint? BBC Headlines.

7-11-2021: Climate Change in Africa and Ros Atkins on effects of tree plantings and article on why C02 matters. BBC Headlines.

6/7-11-2021: What triggered Schwartz's drive for climate litigation, The Weekend Australian, business review. Green finance uses and abuses: why net zero pledges won't save the world- what is needed is a widespread price on carbon, an essay from The Economist. Re Glasgow COP26 the conference. Various reactions around the world. It is being reported that Swedish activist Greta Thunberg (now aged 18) thinks that the Glasgow Conference has been a failure, as "blah blah blah" and "business as usual". But US Senator John Kerry (who is now old enough to be her grandfather) begs to differ. So is this merely a generational disagreement? Or is something deeper afoot? BBC Headlines.

5-11-2021: Finance companies etc. at COP26 pledge about USD$130 trillion (95 trillion pounds UK) to ameliorate the world-wide effects of Climate Change. ABC lunchtime TV news.

3-11-2021: Seven stories re climate change on BBC Headlines.

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generic democracy sausgage photo from Australia

Credit: Photo by Anon.

2-11-2021: Glasgow: World leaders promise to end deforestation by 2030. Plus, rising sea-levels bother coastal Senegal on West African coast. India promises to be net-zero by 2070. BBC Headlines plus SBS late afternoon TV news.

2-11-2021: Energy costs rise in Spain. BBC Headlines.

1-11-2021: Column by Sean Kelly (a former adviser to PM Gillard): PM's policy is smoke and mirrors: We're all tired of the debate but the Coalition's magical thinking won't make the climate crisis go away, p. 26. On pp. 28ff are stories on: Net zero requires a big banking shake-up. Newsprint price pressure worries regional publishers. Fortescue to supply hydrogen to UK. Sydney Morning Herald.

1-11-2021: Nations split as PM backs new coal: Rome: A split among the world's biggest economies has thwarted a bid for stronger action on climate change, as Australian PM Morrison joins others in warning against mandatory cuts to emissions. Small business urged: switch to puchasing green power, NZ and Adern pledges to halve emissions by 2030, Economc risk looming from trade partners, Adani faces heritage scrutiny ahead of first coal exports, pp. 8-9. Sydney Morning Herald.

30/31 October, 2021: Australia joins China, India to fight for future of coal. News, p. 13, Buyers baulk at high cost of electric cars. p. 16 has, Bill Gates' book led PM Scott Morrison to take a second look at net zero. SMH.

30/31-10-2021: Block on carbon farm buy-ups: Victoria lagging on fire refuges; front page; w/e Australian. Business section p. 23 has it that: More info needed on net zero - Macquarie Bank. Greener travel push challenges airlines. Activist investor's proposal to divide Shell looks unlikely to succeed - (but ...) Oil majors are in the firing line in a decarbonised world - The Ross Gittins' column is about the modelling of Morrison's much-vaunted "plan" - Praying for costless climate change: Lord, send a miracle.

30 October, 2021: Story by Brook Turner on climate activist, Simon Holmes-a-Court. Good Weekend/Sydney Morning Herald.

30-10-2021: Pope calls for radical action (a visit from practicing Catholic US President Joe Biden seems not-unconnected) re climate change. Also, why China's attitude to climate change matters. BBC Headlines.

25-10-2021: Nation to go carbon neutral by 2050. And on p. 19, story on: Oil hub names net zero target, re reports on Saudi Arabia's efforts to stem global warming SMH. Business section: Macquarie to ride green energy boom - (The News Review section is highly readable this week - eg., read the Letters-to-Editor section on climate change issues.)

24-10-2021: Climate Change: Why Australia refuses to give up coal. BBC Headlines.

23/24 October, 2021: Cabinet threat over net zero. News Corp global boss discussed Glasgow with PM, p. 8, SMH.

23/24-10-2021: Front page has it that: Minister to defy US, UK on coal. Chris Kenny, p. 4 has it that "no hope for net zero if we don't go nuclear". Inquirer; Climate of dissent dividing the world: The Coalition is not alone in its net-zero battle ahead of Glasgow. Gerard Henderson writes on: Emissions schism exposes Nationals' innate vulnerability. John Durie column, One green reform really stacks up - Farmers can benefit while our carbon emissions are offset. w/e Australian.

23-10-2021: How adjusting flight plans can help the climate. BBC Headlines.

23/24 October 2021: Net zero take-off. Airlines taxiing for carbon-free flight. Resistance is futile as path is lit for a net zero world. SMH Business section.

22-10-2021: Climate change will bring global tensions. BBC Headlines.

21-1-2021; Largest hailstones ever recorded in Australia fall at Mackay Queensland. 12.20am, ABC TV news.

20-10-2021: Unseasonal floods in n/w India. SBS Late Evening TV News.

20-10-2021: Hailstorm at Coffs Harbour, NSW. ABC TV News.

18-10-2021: NP baulks at emissions strategy -p. 8, long article, Fruit farmers weather the destructive force of climate change and p. 9, chief political correspondent David Crowe writes on Place at UN climate table but not much credit on carbon; p. 9, Nick O'Malley writes on climate inaction: Business fires up at political indifference. Finance pages p. 32, Local green projects on Shell's radar. Sydney Morning Herald.

18-10-2021: Earthshot: new pro-environmental international awards are being promoted by Prince William of Great Britain. SBS TV sunset news.

fix 8-10-2021: Ros Atkins on China’s climate change promises. BBC Headlines.

8-10-2021: AGL Shareholders agree to abide by world’s 2050 agreements eg re emissions etc. ABC early morning TV News.

8-10-2021: Australia’s National Farmers’ Federation re meats and warmer winters. Channel 10 afternoon TV news.

18-10-2021: COP26 has three stories re climate change on BBC Headlines and same on 19th.

17-1-2021: Flooding in Kerala, India. (Malabar coast, extreme of s/w India.) ABC News TV, 11.12pm.

17-10-2021: NB: As Barnaby Joyce [on behalf of the party room], tells the media, the NP will NOT be held hostage [blah blah as if by a Federal Liberal Govt, its coalition partner?] to what other people may wish! Andrew Green reports for the ABC that most Nationals are for a policy of net zero. But the room decides, that there is …. NO agreement [at 10 p.m. and later after four hours of talks, four!] . The NP evidently, needs “more time”. And because this webpage thinks it is pro a belief in anthropogenic climate change, this webpage thinks that with this single non-decision, the NP of Australia has just, and so voluntarily, consigned itself to the dustbin of history. Just look at the alleged grown-ups of the Federal Australian NP pretending that they CANNOT join the global dots here! The Federal NP has had thirty or more years to “analyse” re climate change, there’s nothing new about the warnings and it is disingenuous to pretend otherwise, so we conclude that this is a disgrace! ABC News TV evening and comment since.

17-10-2021: NP split on climate policy, Channel 10 afternoon TV news.

16/17-10-2021: Snowy gas plant to bridge coal gap. w/e Australian Business Review Section. Teaser to p. 27 says, Going green: Miners change their tune on climate. Columnist Ticky Fullerton says, Financing will find its way to coal.

16/17-10-2021: w/e SMH, Business3, Ross Gittins column, The “net” in net zero emissions offers huge temptation to cheat. (Beware National Party rorts.) News Review section, p. 24, World will be watching crucial COP26, plus a column by ex-PM Kevin Rudd.

17-10-2021: Advert for climate change by positiveenergy.com.au for Australian Government. Channel 10 afternoon TV news.

17-1-2021: Discussion of (Australian) National Party policies on Climate Change. Channel 10 afternoon TV news.

18-10-2021: What’s behind News Corp’s new spin on climate change? — Gabi Mocatta (The Conversation): “News Corp must have done its climate communication research. It has assembled a collection of stories using best-practice climate communication techniques: telling a global story with a local face, visualising climate impacts and focusing on solutions, not creating fear. Crucially, the campaign marks a change from News Corp’s long-held position on climate action. “It’s moved from calling decarbonisation too expensive and bad for jobs (it tagged the cost at A$600 billion in 2015), to describing it now as a potential $2.1 trillion economic ‘windfall’, offering opportunities for 672,000 new jobs … Surprisingly, the campaign is making a big effort to spruik nuclear power. It states: ‘our aversion to nuclear energy defies logic’ and advocates strongly for an Australian nuclear industry for ‘national security’ purposes as well as energy.” crikey.worm/commentariat

18-10-2021: WHAT'S ON TODAY: Australia • Over 110 faith communities will hold early morning multi-faith vigils outside the offices of Prime Minister Scott Morrison in Cronulla, Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce in Tamworth, and other MPs, calling for a climate game plan for 2030. Crikey.worm.

15-10-2021: Article by Prof. Kate Crowley, University of Tasmania: Climate wars, carbon taxes and toppled leaders - Recent Australian climate history. The Conversation online.

9/10 Oct 2021: Economic boost of $890b at net zero. (The PR tide seems as if it has turned.) Farm subsidies the next target in Australian plan on carbon, on p. 6. SMH.

15-10-2021: Young people across Australia are taking today off school, university, and work as part of School Strike 4 Climate Australia to demand the government take swifter action about the climate crisis. And,
Adelaide: The three-day Festival of Climate Action kicks off today, with a community event on how to launch citizen assemblies at Tarntanyangga, also known as Victoria Square. Crikey.worm/what’s on.

15-10-2021: Fire-ravaged Greek island of Evia hit by floods and mudslides (The Guardian). Crikey.worm.

12-10-2021: La Nina alert (wet weather) issued for eastern Australia. Channel 10 afternoon TV news.

12-10-2021: In-depth report on poor selling practices for NSW solar panel scenarios. ABC 7.30 Report TV.

12-10-2021: READ ALL ABOUT IT: Cop26: world poised for big leap forward on climate crisis, says John Kerry (The Guardian) Energy Security Board chair Kerry Schott warns coal ‘faces early exit from grid’ (The Australian) Rotting Red Sea oil tanker could leave 8m people without water (The Guardian) Scientists looked at more than 100,000 studies and found the world has a giant climate-crisis blind spot (CNN) crikey.worm.

11-10-2021: Climate culprits: Australia’s worst individual offenders — the final three Bernard Keane, Politics Editor: “Crikey’s list of criteria for determining Australia’s worst climate culprits encompasses their role in setting climate policy, the level of emissions they’re responsible for, how much political influence their companies wield to undermine climate action, and how they can influence public debate and political reactions …
“Matt Canavan: the coal-addicted National backbencher lacks direct power but is the hard-charging mascot of the denialist rump of the Liberal National Party, which wags the dog of the National Party, which in turn can dictate climate policy to the Liberals.” Crikey.worm.

11-10-2021: Time for green steel: Forrest. SMH front page: p. 17, Turbines quiet , says a wind farm taking noise payments. On p. 28 on Business, Fortescue unveils plan to build Queensland hydrogen facility.

11-10-2021: Frank Luntz, an influential US pollster who predicts Trump will not have a second time as a US President and has advised Republican US presidents since 2001, now says he was wrong re climate change, he was trying to say the Science wasn’t settled, now feels it is his biggest regret. Letters section, SMH pp. 22-23. Coalition stalls on climate.

11-10-2021: Say hi to hydrogen: Central Queensland will soon be home to the world’s largest green energy hydrogen manufacturing facility under plans announced by chairman of Fortescue Future Industries (FFI) Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest on Sunday, ABC reports. The mining billionaire revealed the plan alongside Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who said it would boost the state’s credentials as an “emerging superpower” in renewable hydrogen. The plan is expected to double the world’s green hydrogen production capacity, with the first electrolysers to be produced and ready to be exported by 2023, the ABC says. While hydrogen projects are in the works in other states, the AFR explains that what makes this one significant is that money is being committed to a specific project. The first stage of the project is a $115 million manufacturing facility set to be built in Aldoga, west of Gladstone, and Brisbane Times reports that it’s expected to bring 120 construction jobs and 53 jobs operations, with thousands more expected in the years to come.
The news comes as Australia’s peak farming lobby, the National Farmers’ Federation (NFF), will demand today that Nationals MPs ensure the federal government gives farmers a dedicated income stream from sequestered carbon if the Coalition agrees to a new emissions reduction policy ahead of the Cop26, Guardian Australia reports. Crikey.worm.

11-10-2021: The Business Council, supported by many of the biggest companies in Australia, has apparently reversed its opposition to significant emissions reduction targets and issued a paper on how to achieve them. But look closely, writes Bernard Keane, and you’ll see it’s still supporting the interests of its fossil fuel members. That means there’s plenty on carbon capture, a bigger role for gas, and propping up fossil fuels in the name of “security”.
Put your money where your mouth is: Mobilising finance is a key topic at Glasgow’s COP26, meaning that governments and international financial institutions must dig deep to get decarbonisation efforts moving in earnest. A greener future is going to require mobilising greenbacks — trillions of them, in fact. In the latest instalment in his series on COP26, economist Richard Holden points out how governments can get more bang for their climate buck — and how they can lead the debate rather than simply following the market. Crikey.daily.

10-10-2021: What the COP2 Climate Change summit could mean for us all. BBC Headlines.

9/10-10-2021: Google hits climate denial sites, p. 26, w/e Australian.

9/10-10-2021: Nick O'Malley writes on: How Australia was blindsided in groups ill-fated climate bid: the powerful Pacific Islands bloc wants the developed world to deliver on its $100b climate finance promiuse ... A column by George Megalogenis is headlined: Why the PM can't spin climate into a COPout. SMH news review. SMH finance pages has a column by Ross Gittins headlined: We (Australia) wouldn't be trembling in our boots if we had a carbon price ...

fix below For the year 2020 ... re non-bushfire issues ... also re COVID-19

fix 16/17-10-2021: Graham Lloyd, an “environment editor” for Rupert Murdoch in Australia, writes pessimistically (more so if one takes the 1950s/1960s as the norm here), and in the wake of RM’s new-found finance-pages-wokeness to climate change issues, that really, energy markets are in chaos and the divisions between the developed and the developing world have never been more stark. Etc. Meantime, “foreign editor” Greg Sheridan thinks that “net zero” is more a rallying cry than reality, Chris Kenny fears that Climate policy is tearing us apart. Peter van Onselen is concerned that “Our political record on climate is appalling”. All in all, we can conclude that the staff have not yet reached the place where the boss is right now! w/e Australian, Inquirer section

16/17-1-2021: PM patient with Nats over net zero target. Front page and p. 13, he gives them some thinking time. p.12, Queen condemns “really irritating” leaders over Glasgow. And EV transition: Vehicle charging must be factored into new offices, homes: experts. w/e SMH.

16-10-201: Brazil has awkward sandstorm in northern areas and suffers drought badly. Channel 10 afternoon TV news.

16-10-2021: PM/s net-zero vow to regions. (front page) p. 2, No show by China “a blow for climate summit”. Fears of failure at climate talks. w/e Australian, eg., will China be absent? p. 10.

16-10-2021: Australia urged by overseas parties to be more ambitious re its targets on climate change. Channel 10 afternoon TV news.

16-10-2021: w/e Australian. This column is watching the Rupert Murdoch farrago (is this the second humblest day of his life?) keenly and has already received humourous phone calls about Andrew Bolt’s protests re the “revised situation” at RM’s Australian newspapers. This column also feels that “three stooges” jokes are due for Rupert Murdoch, Andrew Bolt and Barnaby Joyce, ha ha ha. We mean, imagine, the National Party is allegedly composed of grown-ups who admit they can’t join the dots. After all, what hope has government in Australia got left after it recovers from its addictions to mining taxes?? The letters-to-the-editor section of w/e Australian for example is hilarious, and one headline reads: “hyperventilating our way to the greenhouse talkfest”. Another letter from George Fishman of Vaucluse, Sydney says simply/briefly: “Climate sceptics just have to face it. The other side won.”

15-10-2021: Query re is UK ok for its climate change targets and a simple guide to climate change issues. BBC Headlines.

1-11-2021: The Commentariat: Global unity crucial to establishing fair carbon price system — Mathias Cormann (The Australian): “Climate action, to be effective, including any approach to carbon pricing, has to be appropriately globally coordinated, while recognising the different circumstances and the different opportunities in different parts of the world to make their best contribution. That is what I argued in my first speech in the Senate, back in 2007, and that was the message out of the report of the Senate committee inquiry I chaired into the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, and was the underlying principle of my contributions on climate action all throughout my period in the Senate … “Transparent reporting of climate policy outcomes achieved in different jurisdictions, based on rigorous objectively comparable data, including on implicit carbon pricing — via regulatory measures, subsidies, direct support for technology innovation or other such measures — will help drive better performance everywhere. That is because of the scrutiny it will generate and the platform for evidence-based cooperation it provides.”
Virtue-signalling over substance is why Ardern’s not in Glasgow — Alexander Downer (The AFR): “But Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, has announced she will not bother to go to Glasgow. There hasn’t been a squeak of condemnation from the left. Mind you, given New Zealand's poor effort to address climate change, I can’t blame her. Then there is China. When Australia was really looking to its traditional allies for support at the time China imposed sanctions on Australian imports in response to perfectly reasonable suggestions from Australia that there should be an international investigation into the COVID-19 outbreak, New Zealand’s response was to sign an upgraded free trade agreement with China.
“Later, the New Zealand Foreign Minister refused to sign a joint statement with Australia, Canada, Britain and the US — that is, the rest of the Five Eyes partners — expressing concern over China’s behaviour towards the Uyghurs, Hong Kong, the South China Sea and threats to Taiwan. The Foreign Minister said she felt quite ‘uncomfortable’ signing such a statement! No wonder some Australians and Brits say Five Eyes is really four eyes and a wink!”  Crikey.worm

31-10-2021: the effects of methane on climate change. BBC Headlines.

About 30-10-2021: Current Aldi catalogue, p. 9. advert re removal of plastics from product packaging. See aldi.com.au.

28-10-2021: Good views in movie, 2040 with Damon Gameau, re-generation etc., revisions of farming, going vegan, more natural fertilizers, new vehicles (driverless cars, new forms of ride sharing), on Beamafilm, non-bitter and emphasis on good ideas,. (Damon in 2019 has a four year old daughter, so he does 2040 when she will be 25!)

28-10-2021: READ ALL ABOUT IT: Scott Morrison to reject pledge on methane emissions cut (The Australian) Islanders sue Australia for inaction on climate change (CNN) China’s ambitious climate goals collide with reality, imperiling global efforts (The Wall Street Journal)
The Commentariat Coalition’s plan is to cut emissions the Australian way — Angus Taylor (The Australian) ($): “Whereas Labor’s policies are designed for international audiences, ours are grounded in the suburbs and regions of Australia. We won’t sign our country up to policies that undermine the prosperity of our regions or make life harder for everyday Australians. Cutting methane emissions by 30% by 2030, as some have called for, will do just that. At present, almost half of Australia’s annual methane emissions comes from the agriculture sector, where no affordable, practical and large-scale way exists to reduce it other than by culling herd sizes.
“What activists in Australia and elsewhere want is an end to the beef industry. Ged Kearney, the Labor member for the inner Melbourne seat of Cooper, has endorsed calls to reduce meat consumption and move Australians on to plant-based diets. In parliament on Wednesday, Labor voted in favour of legislating a 60% 2030 target, 15% higher than the economy-wrecking 45% target they took to the 2019 election.” Crikey.worm.

22-10-2021: READ ALL ABOUT IT: New Zealand becomes first country to force finance companies to act on climate risks (The Guardian) Syria says 24 executed for starting wildfires (Al Jazeera.) Document leak reveals nations lobbying to change key climate report (BBC)
The Commentariat: Revised draft curriculum gets C, must try harder — Alan Tudge (The Australian): “The biggest problem, though, was in the draft history curriculum. It gave the impression nothing bad happened before 1788 and almost nothing good has happened since. It downplayed our Western heritage. It omitted significant figures in our history such as Menzies, Howard and Whitlam. It almost erased Christianity from our past, despite it being the single most important influence on our modern development, according to our greatest living historian, Geoffrey Blainey. It introduced ridiculous concepts such as asking Year 2 students — 7-year-olds — to ask whether statues could be deemed racist … “Just as Indigenous Australians (and other Australians) celebrate and fiercely defend Indigenous culture and heritage, we should all celebrate and fiercely defend our Western liberal culture. Students should leave school with a love of country and a sense of optimism and hope that we live in the greatest country on earth.” There are no real climate leaders yet — who will step up at Cop26? — Greta Thunberg (The Guardian): “In fact, we are speeding in the wrong direction. 2021 is currently projected to experience the second-biggest emission rise ever recorded, and global emissions are expected to increase by 16% by 2030 compared with 2010 levels. According to the International Energy Agency, only 2% of governments’ ‘build back better’ recovery spending has been invested in clean energy, while at same time the production and burning of coal, oil and gas was subsidised by $5.9tn in 2020 alone. “The world’s planned fossil fuel production by the year 2030 accounts for more than twice the amount than would be consistent with the 1.5C target. This is science’s way of telling us that we can no longer reach our targets without a system change. Because doing so would require tearing up contracts and abandoning deals and agreements on an unimaginable scale — something that is simply not possible in the current system. In short, we are totally failing to even reach targets that are completely insufficient in the first place.” crikey.worm.

21-10-2021: World on track to blow past 1.5C warming target, pump out double the amount of fossil fuels (SBS). crikey.worm.what's on.

12-13 Dec., 2020, Blame Australia’s weak climate action for global summit snub, Column by Laurence Tubiana of France, CEO of European Climate Foundation. w/e SMH News Review section, p. 33.

1-12-2021:

1-11-2021:

1-10-2021:

13-10-2021: Shadow Minister for Climate Change Chris Bowen will launch Climate of the Nation 2021 with the Australia Institute, held online. Crikey.worm/what’s on.

13-10-2021: The Commentariat: News Corp’s turnaround on climate crisis is a greenwash — Ketan Joshi (Guardian Australia): “Despite the shiny cover, the ‘Mission Zero’ campaign makes a show of repeating many of the climate-delay talking points that have caused so much damage over the past decade. ‘The sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow … some energy experts believe we will still need gas- and coal-fired power to keep the lights on 24/7.’ That’s severely disconnected from the modern realities of electricity generation, in which zero carbon grids are theoretically understood and practically getting closer every day.
“Another example involves News Corp uncritically repeating the greenwashing campaigns of some of Australia’s most severe emitters. AGL Energy has openly decided to breach a 1.5C-aligned trajectory by keeping its coal plants open well into the 2040s. Ditto for Energy Australia and Alinta Energy, both justifying this on the grounds that shutting down coal would cause ‘blackouts’. It’s the worst of corporate climate delay, but it’s heralded as if it’s a grand turnaround on climate.” Crikey.worm.

fix 13-10-2021: Our underwater future: What sea level rise will look like around the globe (CNN) crikey.worm

13-1-2021: Wildfires in California. Channel 7 morning TV news.

12 or 13-10-2021: While Coalition dithers on climate, world moves ahead — Troy Bramston (The Australian

): “From cabinet room to party room, boardroom and environmental lobby, Australia has been served poorly when it comes to dealing with climate change. This policy debate has been beset by wild claims and denialism, and weaponised for political purposes while our inter­national reputation has diminished … It is easy to attack the Morrison government on climate change. But the truth is that Liberals, Nationals, Labor, Greens and One Nation have repeatedly failed to act or backflipped on their policies … “Climate change is probably the greatest collective failure across the political spectrum in Australian history. We need to continue to facilitate the take-up of renewables (solar and wind) and boost battery storage, support hydro-electricity and invest in hydrogen and natural gas as transitional energy sources. We should consider nuclear power, too. It is beyond time that the climate wars ended.” - crikey.com/commentariat:

fix 21-10-2021: WHAT'S ON TODAY Australia: Former NZ prime minister and administrator of the UN development programme Helen Clark will speak at the Health and Human Rights in the Climate Crisis conference, held online. • Australian Industry Greenhouse Network’s Susie Smith, Chevron’s Arthur Lee, and APPEA’s Damian Dwyer will unpack the Glasgow climate change conference, held online. • University of Melbourne’s Michael Wesley and foreign correspondent Aarti Betigeri will speak at India Rising?, a webinar hosted by the Australia Institute.
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra): • Extinction Rebellion has organised a parade of white-painted prams pushed by mourners to represent the loss of life that climate change could cause. Crikey.worm/what’s on.

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19-10-2021: WHAT'S ON TODAY Australia The Kaldor Centre Conference 2021 will see world experts share evidence, experience, and solutions for people at risk of displacement from climate change and disasters, held online. crikey.worm/what’s on.

19-10-2021: Toyota, Stellantis to build EV-battery factories in the US (The Wall Street Journal) crikey.worm

20-10-2021: READ ALL ABOUT IT: Greens vow election climate blitz on Liberals and Labor (The Australian) Who are the world’s biggest climate polluters? Satellites sweep for culprits (The Wall Street Journal

.) Over 100 million people in Africa threatened by climate change (Al Jazeera.) On a Pacific island, Russia tests its battle plan on climate change (The New York Times) crikey.worm
The Commentariat: The [UK] government’s net zero plan is impressive, but it is high risk — Chaitanya Kumar (The Guardian): “The scale of transformation that the strategy is set to unleash across the entire UK economy is breathtaking. Our electricity is expected to be fully clean by 2035. Our homes will no longer have new gas boilers fitted after then either. No new polluting car will roam our roads from 2030 and we will plant trees in an area the size of Milton Keynes every year from 2025, and all of this at a cost that is less than what we spend on defence each year … “The government has now submitted this strategy as part of its nationally determined contribution to the UN. And despite all the well-warranted criticism, this represents a watershed moment for the UK. With public concern on climate change at an all-time high and a strong consensus across all political parties on climate action, realising this strategy and hopefully building on it should be the foremost priority for the government. There are millions of jobs to be won and billions in economic gains to be had if we get this right.” How the new human right to a healthy environment could accelerate New Zealand’s action on climate change — Nathan Cooper (The Conversation): “New Zealand’s courts and policymakers look to international human rights for guidance and standards. As recognition of the right to a healthy environment grows internationally, we can expect to see greater reliance on it here. But there is one specific area where I anticipate this right may provide a new approach: climate-change mitigation. “When it comes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and New Zealand, the elephant in the room — or the cow in the field — is the dairy industry. Between 1990 and 2018 New Zealand’s GHG emissions rose by 24%. The increase was driven largely by methane from livestock and nitrous oxide from fertilisers. Both of these GHGs are many times more potent than carbon dioxide. Continuing to operate with this level of GHG emissions will make it extremely difficult for New Zealand to do its fair share of climate change mitigation or meet its international climate change obligations.” crikey.worm.

fix 18-10-2021: Say what? The government] has a prayer that hydrogen will somehow just work out, save all our jobs — well, the prime minister might believe in miracles, but I don’t think we should gamble people’s jobs on a wing and a prayer. People’s jobs are at risk here, hydrogen and other technologies might not work out, so why should we gamble our future, our security, our strength as a nation on stuff that we don’t know actually works?
Climate Change is affecting 85% of humanity, reportedly causing rapidly rising levels of mental distress and suicide, and Australia — one of the world’s largest polluters — was ranked last on climate action by the UN, but the Nationals backbencher described net zero by 2050 as simply another part of a “woke” agenda. SAY WHAT?: Climate change is affecting 85% of humanity, reportedly causing rapidly rising levels of mental distress and suicide, and Australia — one of the world’s largest polluters — was ranked last on climate action by the UN, but the Nationals backbencher described net zero by 2050 as simply another part of a “woke” agenda. Crikey.com.worm.

7-10-2021: Australian Mining Magnate Gina Rinehart in a video confronts the entire national educational establishment and in addition says that anthropogenic global warming is a myth! SBS evening TV News.

7-10-2021: Australian federal National Party produces plan to back national miners with $250 billion of Federal money as private-sector money for the industry grouping dries up. SBS 6.30 TV news. (Critics of the plan are asking if the new leader of the Nationals, Barnaby Joyce, has become a spokesman for the mining industry, not the farming industry!)

7-10-2021: Climate disaster costs to hit $73b by 2060: Deloitte Access Economics (The Australian) crikey.worm

7-10-2021: We need to get real about carbon offsets in Australia – they won’t stop climate change — Richard Denniss (Guardian Australia): “Australia is the third largest exporter of fossil fuels in the world, coming in behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. We are the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas and the second largest exporter of coal. And we aren’t transitioning away from fossil fuels, we are transitioning towards them, with plans to open enormous new gas basins and dozens of new coalmines …
” … now the energy and emissions reduction minister Angus Taylor is proposing to pay the oil and gas industry for capturing some of the C02 that leaks out when they are extracting their fossil fuels which, when burned, will actually cause more climate change. What this means is that if we expand the oil and gas industry we can increase the number of these “offsets” produced, making it then possible for the government to simultaneously support the fossil fuel industry while assuring voters it’s doing something about climate change. It’s a very Morrison solution to a very real problem.” crikey.worm.commentariat.

6-10-2021: Revealed: Australia’s worst climate culprits — corporate edition Bernard Keane, Politics Editor: “We know who Australia’s biggest polluters are. Every year, the government publishes data on the largest sources of scope 1 greenhouse emissions (that is, directly produced as part of the production process of a facility) and scope 2 emissions (indirectly produced). Unsurprisingly, that list — led by AGL Energy — is dominated by large coal-fired power companies and gas companies.
“But the list doesn’t capture scope 3 emissions (emissions produced indirectly by a business) and it particularly doesn’t capture the scope 3 emissions from the burning of Australian thermal coal exports around the world. Nor does it capture the impact on emissions and climate policy of a company’s actions. Is it seeking to exit fossil fuels, or separate its fossil fuel business from the rest of its portfolio?” crikey.worm.

6-10-2021: Sicily in Mediterranean Sea hit with excess rain. Channel 7 afternoon TV news.

6-10-2021: The Commentariat: Should Scott Morrison go to Cop26 in Glasgow? Not if he’s planning a climate con job — Bill Hare (Guardian Australia): “Morrison’s government continues to promote policies that would keep coal in the power system and that would create blockages to solar energy, dubbed ‘coalkeeper’ and ‘solar stopper’, respectively. Fortunately, the states are jacking up against this, but that has not stopped him. He has no policies to accelerate the rollout of electric vehicles, and his government appears antagonistic to this technology. Australia is alone in the developed world for not having motor vehicle CO2 efficiency standards, and our fleet efficiency is going backwards.
“Morrison does not support green hydrogen, instead he is focusing on so-called ‘clean hydrogen’ — hydrogen made with fossil gas, deploying carbon capture and storage which goes under the marketing name of ‘blue hydrogen’. Blue of course is a marketing colour that is designed to have a soft appeal to consumers, but there is nothing soft or nice about blue hydrogen. And it will not reduce emissions. So should Scott Morrison go to Glasgow? Sure, but only if he does his homework.” crikey.worm.

5-10-2021: Western religious leaders gather at Vatican to discuss climate change issues. ABC midday TV news.

5-10-2021: Australia's worst climate culprits (as miner Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest speaks against the carbon capture idea promoted by Australia’s Federal Govt.) crikey.daily,   Plus: Premier Perrottet, and the case for Twiggy Forrest.

5-10-2021; Emission impossible The Australian Defence Force will be increasingly distracted by climate change crises and less attentive to security risks, a former ADF chief has told Guardian Australia. Chris Barrie, a retired admiral, says during the bushfire and flood crisis the ADF didn’t recruit extra people, but they were expected to pitch in. He warned the defence force Australia can afford will “never be big enough” to deal with concurrent events — like China’s increasingly hostile military actions and extreme weather. Basically, something’s gotta give. It comes as renewable energy generation increased by 15% last financial year — but more than three-quarters of Australia’s electricity still came from fossil fuels, The Australian ($) reports. Energy Minister Angus Taylor says it shows we need more gas, as he green-lit Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest’s gas plant (which he says will become a green hydrogen generator by the end of the decade, as reported by AFR). But solar would make us richer, a think tank says. Rewiring Australia found we’d each pocket an extra $5443 a year if all home appliances and cars ran on solar-powered electricity — slashing a third of our emissions along the way, Guardian Australia reports. Saul Griffith, a Biden administration adviser on climate, said our abundance of sun and low population density positions us as a renewable energy world leader. He says: “If we go first, we’ll be selling those technologies to California. If we don’t go first, they’ll be selling them to us”. Crikey.worm.

4-10-2021: Incoming NSW premier Dominic Perrottet (a devout Catholic) is on record as saying, that a lot of climate change measures are “gratuitous waste”. SMH front page. On p. 3, SMH has story headlined “Wind power ‘can win Nats to net zero’.” On p. 12 SMH has a full-page article on “Power struggle: China’s energy woes.” On p, 24 it has a a story on: Santos seeks credits for underground carbon storage.

29-9-2021: Mexico’s struggle for water. BBC Headlines.

28-9-2021: “Why was this greeted rapturously in Washington? ‘The long-term prospect of eight nuclear-powered RAN subs prowling the Pacific resets the naval balance of power,’ says Mike Green of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. ‘The Collins class subs’ — the existing Australian fleet — ‘couldn’t get up to the choke points that are approaches to Australia and that are important to the US’, he tells me. Nuclear-powered subs have greater range and speed and underwater endurance than conventional.”
For farmers, Climate Change is both headache and a motivator — Tony Wood The AFR

): “First, the agriculture sector is the one most directly affected by our changing climate. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences estimates that changes in seasonal conditions over 2001 to 2020 have reduced average farm profits by 23% compared with pre-2000 conditions. “Second … about 75% of Australia’s beef production is exported, and the risk posed by international actions was recently recognised by the previous leader of the Nationals, Michael McCormack. The third reason for farmers to be actively engaged is that planting trees and rebuilding the carbon in soils delivers productivity benefits to agriculture beyond reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These actions also remove CO2 from the atmosphere, something that will be necessary across all sectors as we move towards, but fall short of, zero emissions.” Crikey.worm.commentariat.

28-9-2021: READ ALL ABOUT IT: Children born today to see ’24 times more’ climate-induced disasters than their grandparents (SBS News). Paraguay on the brink as historic drought depletes river, its life-giving artery. (The Guardian). Home and contents insurance premiums spike after floods, storms and bushfires (The Australian). Crikey.worm

28-9-2021: How Climate Change makes inequality worse. (Video.) BBC Headlines.

4-10-2021: Thermal coal surges to record on energy squeeze (The Australian) crikey.worm.

2/3-10-2021: Funds warn of climate change risks to savings. w/e SMH, Business Section.

29-9-2021: Mexico’s struggle for water. BBC Headlines.

28-9-2021: READ ALL ABOUT IT: Children born today to see ’24 times more’ climate-induced disasters than their grandparents (SBS News). Paraguay on the brink as historic drought depletes river, its life-giving artery (The Guardian). Home and contents insurance premiums spike after floods, storms and bushfires (The Australian). Crikey.worm

28-9-2021: How Climate Change makes inequality worse. (Video.) BBC Headlines.

27-9-2021: As Frydenberg peddles net-zero, it’s still all about… coal Bernard Keane, Politics Editor: “… we have yet another round of the 'inching towards 2050' game, with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg — the man who used to be the next prime minister — making the anodyne observation that capital markets are moving more quickly than the government on climate (and being applauded by press gallery journalists for doing so) and speculation that the Nationals will agree to a deal on a 2050 net-zero target, doubtless in exchange for yet more billions of taxpayer dollars.
“In the real world, Energy Minister Angus Taylor is still trying to push through his ‘CoalKeeper’ tax — which would require every household to pay up to $400 a year to keep coal-fired power stations going — in a meeting with state energy ministers today. 2050 in the streets, CoalKeeper in the sheets, as it were, with the press gallery dutifully averting its collective eyes.” Crikey.worm.

27-9-2021: Nats zero: Prime Minister Scott Morrison has just five weeks to convince the stubborn Nats on the benefits of committing to a policy of net zero by 2050 before he heads to Glasgow, The New Daily reports. It comes as he told The Australian ($) he will take a climate plan, “not just a number and a date”, to the United Nations COP26 climate summit. Tensions are brewing in the fractured National Party over climate action — yesterday coal fanboy Matt Canavan tweeted he was “deadset against net zero”, saying it “would just make us weaker”. Conversely, as Reuters reports, Australia faces an imminent risk of global ostracisation if we don’t act on net zero, with the trickle-down to be copped by households and small business, as Treasurer Josh Frydenberg explained last week. After Nationals 2IC David Littleproud said the party would need to fall into line behind Morrison’s approach, Canavan rather ominously told the Guardian Australia he hasn’t “even begun to fight” against net zero. Things have boiled over for moderate MP Darren Chester who’ll take a break from the party, citing “disrespectful and offensive views” from some colleagues, as ABC reports. Chester also mentioned a “failure of the leadership” in the party — though he was a close ally of dumped leader Michael McCormack and has been both sacked and usurped by Nats leader Barnaby Joyce in the past. It seems Joyce has shifted somewhat on net zero — he did defend fossil fuels on ABC’s Insiders, claiming we’d have to accept “a lower standard of living” without them, but said he had “no problems with any plan that does not leave regional areas hurt” on Friday, as The Conversation delves into. Crikey.worm.

25/26-9-2021: Black hole: smart money says time’s up for coal, p. 14; Big polluters must be reined in, says IMF; Nancy Pelosi says “Australia is leading the way on climate, p.15, w/e SMH.

25/26-9-2021: National approach needed to drive Evs. w/e Australian special report of electric vehicles. As world charges up, it’s time to go faster. Evs outperforming traditional supercars. Incentives driving change. Story on the innovators who drive us. Business Review section, p 23, Investors push for climate targets: push for emissions reduction targets to unleash “a wave of investment”.

26-9-2021: How to measure a shrinking glacier (video). BBC Headlines.

25-9-2021: Governor of California USA signs of $20 million deal to combat Climate Change. ABC TV news after 7.30am.

24-9-2021: The Commentariat: No virtue in rich nations outsourcing their emissions — Ron Boswell (The Australian) ($): “In recent decades the richest nations have lowered their emissions footprints by outsourcing the production of manufactured goods, mostly to China and other developing countries. And this shift is making some countries look green for no reason other than their companies have relocated their production to other countries. According to UN data, China’s share of global manufacturing output climbed from 8.7% in 2004 to 28.4% in 2018. “Across the same period, the manufacturing contribution to Britain’s gross domestic product more than halved from 25% to about 11%. Manufacturing in the US also has hollowed out, while in the past decade the EU has become a net importer of emissions-intensive steel. Does this mean the British, US and EU economies have stopped using emissions-intensive goods? Not at all … And under global climate rules the emissions generated producing those goods are counted against the nation that produces them, not the country that consumes them.” Financial markets are preparing for Climate Change and so must we — Josh Frydenberg (The SMH): “Australia’s interest lies in our markets functioning effectively so the financial system remains stable, investors are able to make informed and timely decisions, and capital can be accessed at the lowest possible cost … We cannot run the risk that markets falsely assume we are not transitioning in line with the rest of the world. Were we to find ourselves in that position, it would increase the cost of capital and reduce its availability, be it debt or equity …
“There is a message here for business: opportunities will abound and it will be those businesses that recognise these trends and put plans in place to adapt that will have the most promising futures. At the same time, there is a message to Australian banks, super funds and insurers. If you support the objective of net zero, do not walk away from the very sectors of our economy that will need investment to successfully transition. Climate Change and its impacts are not going away. It represents a structural and systemic shift in our financial system, which will only gain pace over time.” crikey.worm.

24-9-2021: Grow up on Climate Change, Boris Johnson (UK PM) tells world leaders (The New Daily.)

23-9-2021: Holding out for a zero: Prime Minister Scott Morrison told the US that Australia will work towards a goal of net zero after President Joe Biden warned Climate Change was rapidly approaching “a point of no return”. Morrison has continually declined to commit Australia to Net Zero by 2050, but in a characteristic tongue-twister, said “In Australia, it’s not enough to have a commitment to something — you’ve got to have a plan to achieve it … You have a plan to meet your commitment. If you don’t have a plan, you don’t have a commitment”, as The Australian reports. Morrison is yet to publicly present a plan on how we will reach net-zero emissions. China — the world’s largest carbon emitter — said their emissions will begin to decline by 2030 and that they’ll reach net zero before 2060.
Nationals MP Darren Chester has become the latest to stray from the unofficial party line, urging the Nats to release a “credible” policy on reducing emissions which includes net zero by 2050. He told Guardian Australia the party will lose a younger voting base without it. Of course, some experts have said net zero by mid-century isn’t actually enough: it has “licensed a recklessly cavalier ‘burn now, pay later’ approach which has seen carbon emissions continue to soar”, as The Conversation puts it, and is “too little too late” in that it falls woefully short of stopping a 1.5C temperature rise by the end of this century, as CCAG says. crikey.worm.

23-9-2021: What will it take for electric vehicles to create jobs, not cut them? (The New York Times) – crikey.worm

21-9-2021: UN warns world that coal-fired power stations must be shut down now if disaster is to be avoided. ABC Morning TV news after 7am. John Hewson: The case for electric vehicles - “We desperately need a government-led overarching EV transition strategy that focuses on both the demand and supply side of the issue, including the need to develop essential infrastructure. The Morrison government has made it clear that it will not offer any assistance to purchase an EV. Compare this with the United States, Germany, France, Italy, Britain and Japan, which each have incentives worth about $10,000 for EV purchases.” The Saturday Paper.

21-9-2021: Safe as houses: Here’s one way to get wealthy Liberal-voting boomers to care more about climate change: talk about how it might affect the property market. Analysis from the Reserve Bank of Australia found climate change could slash property prices across some of Sydney’s poshest suburbs, The Sydney Morning Herald reports. Because most bank lending in Australia is for mortgages, it means more risk for the banking sector, risk which is heightened by rising insurance costs in climate-affected areas. Separate work from the RBA cited in the same article found Australia’s coal and LNG sectors could struggle with exports to Asian markets, as China, South Korea, and Japan work to reduce their emissions.
Meanwhile, the suburbs the RBA’s report mentions are places like Lane Cove on Sydney’s north shore, in the kinds of affluent electorates climate-focused independents are hoping to snatch from the Liberals. One such area is Malcolm Turnbull’s old seat of Wentworth, in Sydney’s East, where local Liberal MP Dave Sharma just backed an emissions reduction target of 40-45% by 2035, far more ambitious than his Coalition colleagues, The Australian reports. Crikey.worm.

19-9-2021: The link between Climate Change, seaweed and ice cream. BBC Headlines.

18/19-9-2021: anti-Liberals candidate Kylea Tink is part of a growing movement that wants to change the climate – in Canberra and across the globe, She speaks (p. 6) of climate inaction. w/e SMH front page. Page 12, Gas puts methane emissions in spotlight.

18/19-9-2021: Janet Albrechtson says, Our courts must not become playgrounds for climate activists. Inquirer, w/e Australian. Business Review section, p. 21, Banks to update climate policies. p. 25, Victoria slammed for coal-keeper hypocrisy. Europe feeling pinch as energy prices soar.

18-9-2021: UN warns word of “catastrophic” Climate Change problems. ABC news afternoon TV.

17-9-2021: Democrats Rethink Climate Measures, Consider Carbon Tax (The Wall Street Journal) crikey.worm.

17-9-2012: Fires in California, again. BBC Headlines.

16-9-2021: Bureau of Meteorology says La Niña’s an even chance to return for a second consecutive spring (ABC) Australia isolated as US ups ante on coal power (The Australian) The greatest killer in New Orleans wasn’t the hurricane. It was the heat. (The New York Times.) Crikey.worm.

15-9-2021:   The world is watching The OECD recommends that Australia take action on climate change. Is our government listening? The Monthly Today.

15-9-2021: Hot and bothered Do you remember fewer heatwaves when you were younger? The data agrees. The mercury is soaring past 50 degrees twice as much as it did in the ’80s, BBC analysis has found. Between 1980 and 2009, temperatures passed 50 degrees about 14 days a year, but since 2010 that number has risen to about 26 times a year. The University of Oxford’s Friederike Otto said it was “100% attributed to the burning of fossil fuels”.
About 90% of the $540b in global farmer subsidies are damaging our health, destroying nature, driving inequality, and accelerating Climate Change, UN agencies say. And beef and milk — the world’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions — are receiving the biggest chunk of the change, The Guardian reports. One rather quirky offset idea is potty-training cows, according to the BBC. Cows can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by urinating in a special pen that collects and treats their waste. Researchers rewarded a cow for relieving itself in the pen, then moved that cow further away and rewarded it for walking over. Eleven of the 16 cows were trained, they say. Crikey.worm.

14-9-2021: BBC research finds that the number of (world) days passing 50 degrees centigrade has doubled in the past 40 years. BBC Headlines.

14-9-2021: Meat accounts for nearly 60% of all greenhouse gases from food production, study finds (The Guardian). Crikey.worm.

13-9-2021: ABC TV – Media Watch – Paul Barry on Rupert Murdoch/New Corps change of heart , views the issues as hot, but Andrew Bolt disagrees re extreme weather.

13-9-2021: Wildfires bother Spain. Crikey.worm.

13-9- 2021: Nation under pressure on climate: I/v with ANU Climate Change Institute Prof. Mark Howden. Story by climate/energy correspondent, Mike Foley, SMH, p. 9.

13-9-2021: BAD OPINION: Here ends the book of Joel: “The right and the left continue to see political opportunity in perpetuating the climate wars.” Guardian Australia. Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon confirms he will leave politics at the next election, claiming that “both” sides are responsible for holding the nation back on addressing Climate Change. The Monthly Today.

13-9-2021: Spanish wildfires drive thousands from homes close to Costa del Sol (The Guardian). Crikey.worm 12-9-2021: TV advert, Coles Supermarket by 2025 hopes to be on 100% renewable power. Afternoon TV 11/12-9-2021: News Corp says all [climate] views will still be heard. w/e SMH p. 14. 11/12-9-201; Big Deal – 20 or 30 years to late, too: A conversation (re Climate Change) that Australia needs to have …. “The executive chairman of New Corps Australia, Michael Miller, has announced plans for a major editorial project: that will inform Australians about the key environmental and climate issues of our time.” w/e Australian, p. 26. (Really! Well gee, we can hardly wait!) On Inquirer section, p. 21, climate denier Bjorn Lomborg has it that: (Do the maths for the real story on climate disasters.)

11-9-2021: Two killed as tornado hits Italian island of Pantellaria. BBC Headlines.

10-9-2021: The Commentariat: Morrison is wedged between Biden and Barnaby in forging climate policy for Glasgow — Michelle Grattan (The Conversation): “The US sees Australia as a poor performer and demands more. Firstly, it wants a firm commitment to net zero emissions by 2050, not Morrison’s current fudge of net zero as soon as possible, ‘preferably’ by 2050. Secondly, it wants Australia’s current limited ambition for 2030 to be improved, which is an especially hard ask (although an alternative would be for Australia to talk about some other medium-term target — say 2035). “What Morrison signs up for in his Glasgow policy will come down in large part not just to what Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce is willing to accept but what Joyce is able to deliver. Sources say Joyce does not want to make Morrison’s position difficult for Glasgow. The two men are pragmatists; they are anxious to avoid friction in this pre-election period. But whether Morrison, who is autocratic by nature, fully understands the situation Joyce finds himself in is less clear.” Crikey.worm.

9-9-2021: A coal new world Australia’s got to keep almost all of our coal in the ground from now on to have a shot at keeping global warming at 1.5 degrees, The Australian ($) says. The study, from University College London, found that 95% of Australia’s coal must not be mined by 2050, and comes after the UN said we have to end coal mining and retrain Australian miners within the next decade. UK PM Boris Johnson said he wanted the “developed world to kick the coal habit entirely by 2030”, adding the developing world should follow suit by 2040, ITV report. It comes as the fossil fuels industry is lobbying way harder against climate action than the net zero companies are for stronger climate action, ABC reports. A study into Australia’s biggest 50 companies found pro-Paris Agreement companies like the big four banks — NAB, Westpac, ANZ, and Commonwealth Bank — are “disengaged” with lobbying the government to commit to greener goals. But companies like Santos, Origin Energy, Woodside, and AGL Australia are loud voices in Canberra, lobbying for us to take a more limited approach. Meanwhile in the US, the Biden administration on Wednesday released a plan to produce “almost half of the nation’s electricity from the sun by 2050”, The New York Times. reports. crikey.worm.

9-9-2021: Climate + UK + Australia’s PM (Scott Morrison’s) remarks = Lead story on SBS TV News + The Project. Early evening TV news./

8-9-2021: THE HEAT IS ON: Twenty livestock companies are emitting more greenhouse gas than either Germany, Britain or France and are being paid billions in financial backing, The Guardian reports. Meat and dairy are huge contributors to global warming, with the industries accounting for 14.5% of the world’s emissions. That’s why rich countries were told to urgently lay off the steak in the IPCC’s landmark report. But the 20 companies got more than US$478b in backing from 2500 investment firms, banks, and pension funds, mostly in North America or Europe, an environmental group called Meat Atlas says. It comes as our animals are “shapeshifting” their beaks, legs, and ears to prepare for a hotter climate, according to research. Sara Ryding, a researcher at Deakin University, said the biggest increase was among some parrot species “which saw their beak size increase by 4% to 10% on average since 1871”, as CNN reports. But Ryding said that the change didn’t mean it was helping the animals cope with global warming. She said they “don’t know whether these shape-shifts actually aid in survival (and therefore are beneficial) or not”. (Crikey.worm.)

6-9-2021: Re extreme weather, SMH (Australia) reports that New York Times (US) seems sceptical. Front page. The source of denial? Murdoch tries a Climate Change of heart. On p. 12, Top UN official tells Canberra: get out of coal. On p. 13, Murdoch papers, Sky [TV] in policy shift on climate action.

6-9-2021: No retreat in face of China threat: UN gives 10-year deadline to shut down coalmining. The Australian front page, and p. 9, Pope issues “green commandments”.

6-9-2021: Perth) • Curtin Fuels and Energy Technology Institute’s Craig Buckley, and WA Minister for Regional Development Alannah MacTiernan will discuss the pitfalls and benefits of [using] hydrogen in our energy mix. (Crikry.worm.what’s on)

6-9-2021: COAL HARD FACTS: We’ve got fewer than 10 years to dump coal, a top UN official says, otherwise Australia’s agriculture, tourism, housing, construction, property, and services sectors will be decimated, The Australian ($) reports. The UN Assistant Secretary-General and Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Climate Action Selwin Hart made the comments in a pre-recorded speech for the ANU leadership forum today (Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is among the speakers). In his speech, Hart says he recognises the role the coal and other fossil fuels have played in our economy to date. But, he says, Australia has little choice but to retrain our 40,000-strong workforce and phase the industry out. “If the world does not rapidly phase out coal, Climate Change will wreak havoc right across the Australian economy: from agriculture to tourism, and right across the services sector”, as SMH reports. It’s a similar situation, he says, for “construction, housing, and the property sector, in a country where the vast majority live on or near a coastline”. It comes as a rather mouthy deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce said on Friday that Australia would not revisit our unrevised targets because of what he called “straight-out bullying”, as Guardian Australia reports. “I can say and think what I like,” he said. Australia’s long-time emissions reduction target is 26-28% — well short of the global reduction of 45% needed to stop warming at 1.5 degrees. (Crkey.worm) ps: re decimated: more to come. But we notice with relief that the grossly ignorant word-and-language change people (bless-their-little-hearts) haven’t noticed yet that musical-tempo words are traditionally given in Italian (such as Adagio, or Allegretto). God help us all if they ever change those! Quickly, now!

w/e Australian 4/5-9-2021: Markets Drive Green push: Banks warn of risks to lending: Weekend Australian Business Review, front page.

4-9- 2021: North Korea: Kim Jong-un calls for urgent action on Climate Change. BBC Headlines.

3-9-2021: Emissions-reduction targets called for “In its 2021 plan, Infrastructure Australia has called on the Morrison government to provide policy certainty to kickstart investment in low-emissions technology and prevent saddling taxpayers with the cost of stranded high-emissions assets.” Guardian Australia Australia’s peak infrastructure advisory body is calling for new vehicle and fuel-emissions standards, along with sector-specific emissions-reduction targets. The Monthly Today.

3-9-2021: A lack of leadership When the independent advisory body Infrastructure Australia looks at the nation’s infrastructure needs and opportunities, it sees a lack of leadership from the Morrison government. And on energy it warns that Australia is being left behind as other countries improve efficiency and pursue opportunities in clean energy exports. “This is a time for decisive national action that secures Australia’s future,” it warns. If only the government was listening, opines [one of the crikey editors] Bernard Keane. crikey.daily.

3-9-2021: A CLIMATE OF CONCERN: “At least 28 people are dead in the US after Hurricane Ida ripped through New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, The New York Times reports. A state of emergency has been declared. There has been widespread flash flooding — including across five boroughs of New York City — while hundreds of thousands remain without power in Louisiana (where Ida made landfall earlier this week). President Joe Biden called Hurricane Ida’s warpath a sign that “extreme storms and the climate crisis are here”, constituting what he called “one of the great challenges of our time”. Photos show the extent of the damage. It comes as WWF Australia chief Dermot O’Gorman says Tasmania’s salmon industry is not environmentally sustainable, The Australian ($) reports. Salmon farmers Huon and Tassal each use certifications from WWF Australia, the RSPCA and industry body ASC to show their operations are sound — but WWF just commissioned a report which claimed ASC’s certification doesn’t cut the mustard. In some more positive environmental news, we are one step closer to the first offshore wind farm in Australia. The federal government has introduced legislation that would see the farm built off the Gippsland coast in Victoria. It could power 20% of the state’s energy, ABC says”. Crikey.worm

2-9-2021: Without help for oil-producing countries, net zero by 2050 is a distant dream – Ali Allawi, Fatih Birol (The Guardian): “In the Middle East and north Africa, global warming is not a distant threat, but an already painful reality. Rising temperatures are exacerbating water shortages. In Iraq, temperatures are estimated to be rising as much as seven times faster than the global average. Countries in this region are not only uniquely affected by global temperature rises: their centrality to global oil and gas markets makes their economies particularly vulnerable to the transition away from fossil fuels and towards cleaner energy sources. It’s essential the voices of Iraq and similar countries are heard at the Cop26 climate change conference in Glasgow this November. “To stand a chance of limiting the worst effects of climate change, the world needs to fundamentally change the way it produces and consumes energy, burning less coal, oil and natural gas. The International Energy Agency’s recent global roadmap to net zero by 2050 shows the world’s demand for oil will need to decline from more than 90m barrels a day to less than 25m by 2050. This would result in a 75% plunge in net revenues for oil-producing economies, many of which are dominated by a public sector that relies on oil exports and the revenues they produce.” Crikey.worm.

4/5-9-2021: Story by Gabrielle Chan on: Farmers finding new ways to thriller. w/e Australian Magazine.

2-9-2021: Solar "boom" times as Lebanon’s fossil fuels run dry (Al Jazeera.) Crikey.worm.

2-9-2021: new study shows the world is experiencing five times the level of extreme weather disasters compared to pre-1970 levels. WEATHER'S WORSENING — WHY WAIT?: The world is seeing five times as many extreme weather disasters compared to pre-1970 levels — and global warming is the reason, a UN report says. Two million people are dead, and the world has lost $3.64 trillion from some 11,000 disasters up to 2019, Al Jazeera reports. Conversely, the annual death toll has actually fallen — from more than 50,000 in the 1970s to about 18,000 in the 2010s, indicating we’re better prepped to handle disasters these days. And what about the actual cause of them? Australia’s leading scientists and engineers say we’re prepped to handle that too. The Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering has told the Australian government the country already has the technology to slash its emissions, and that they should be “getting on with it”. Guardian Australia reports solar and wind power, energy storage, electric vehicles and energy efficiency for buildings would cut emissions in the electricity, stationary energy and transport sectors. ABC asks this morning: why don’t we just pay coal miners $3700 a month to retire? It worked for Spain." Crikey.worm.

1-9-2021: WHAT’S ON TODAY Australia: Canberra: New Forests’ David Brand will discuss Climate Change policy on the forestry sector as a key speaker at the National Forest Industries Symposium. 1-9-2021: More than 20 LGAs in NSW to enter bushfire danger period early ahead of hot, dry spring (The Australian). crikey.worm.

31-8-201: Survey shows that 73% of Australians want zero net emissions by 2050. ABC 1.18 am, TV news.

30-8-2021: Sports commentators join forces on climate change re the Cool Down Project. Channel 10 afternoon TV news.

23-8-2021: IPCC Report falls short on extremes: Australian scientists say it underestimates threats. But Australia is ready for EV “jolt”. On p. 18 is a report from Brazil to effect that a seaside town [Atafona in Rio de Janeiro state] is drowning due to advancing ocean. And the Letters-to-Editor section decries the “too little, too late” inaction from our Federal Government. The Ross Gittins column is headlined: How Morrison can get going towards net zero emissions.

30-8-2021: Hurricane Ida makes landfall at Category 4 as New Orleans in Louisiana USA braces for impact (The Guardian). crikey.worm.

29-8-2021: Hurricanes close in on US Gulf Coast. BBC Headlines.

29-8-2021: About an area of 14 football fields of Swiss glacier to be coddled and given special treatment. Afternoon TV news, Channel 10.

28-8-2021: Tribes want voice in Amazon health. SMH, p. 33.

28-8-2021: Floods in Tennesee, USA. ABC TV news, The World.

26-8-2021: ”The weird politics of Climate Change: Is democracy getting in the way of saving the planet? — Kate Aronoff (The Guardian): “In France, the far-right National Rally — formerly the Front National — has made ecological politics a key part of its rebrand away from Holocaust denial. Jordan Bardella, the party’s vice-president, has called borders “the environment’s greatest ally”, casting foreigners as rootless cosmopolitans divorced from the land. The aim is not to reach net zero faster — neither party has laid out workable plans to do so — but to endear climate-conscious voters to an ethno-nationalist cause. “It’s not just the right, however, that has considered a turn away from democracy for the planet’s sake. Back in 2010, the influential climate scientist James Lovelock suggested that it "may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while" to curb emissions. More recently, centrists such as Michael Bloomberg have started to see corporations as more reliable engines of climate progress. As much as US and UK liberals have talked up the promise of spreading democracy throughout the world this century, though, many centrists — as the Progressive International’s David Adler wrote in 2018 — are pretty down on democracy itself.” (Ends, from crikey.worm and this website feels, for what it is worth, better get used to it, folks.)

26-8-2021: Madagascar hit by drought. BBC Headlines.

26-8-2021: California in trouble with bushfires about San Bernadino and also Lake Tahoe. Channel 7 afternoon TV news.

26-8-2021: Infographic: Lebanon is about to run out of water (Al Jazeera). crikey worm.

25-8-2021: Former European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmstrom speaks in an Australia Institute webinar called “Trading Away Australia’s Climate Ambition” with journalist Michael Brissenden. Crkey.worm. (what’s on)

25-8-2021: United States nears first major steps to control CO2 emissions (Al Jazeera.) Crikey worm.

23-8-2021: Deforestation in Brazilian Amazon hits highest annual level in a decade (The Guardian.) crikey.com.worm.

21/22-10-2021: Climate danger for 1 billion kids: UN report.

21/22-10-2021: ?? p. 24, Energy Ministers back coal plan. Two-time Central banker Carney on a crusade to turn industry green … gradually, p. 25.

21-8-2021: Coles supermarket hopes to have its supermarkets electrically modified nationally by 2025. TV ad.

20-8-2021: THE COMMENTARIAT: The climate crisis is an accelerating calamity of our own making. So what would it take to turn things around? — Lesley Hughes (Guardian Australia): So here’s my top 10 things to do (Mr Morrison, the first three are for you): 1. Electrify everything — energy, transport and manufacturing. 2. Power it all from renewables, obviously. 3. Remove all fossil fuel subsidies (more than $10b from taxpayers per year) and use this money to transform the grid. 4. Stop, or at least greatly reduce, eating the products of methane-belching cows, the farming of which is also responsible for most land-clearing in Australia. 5. Plant trees — still the best way to draw down CO2. “6. Stop buying so much stuff — everything has a carbon cost. 7. Reuse, retain, recycle. You know the drill. 8. Move your money out of banks, insurance companies and superannuation funds that invest in fossil fuels — it only takes a few clicks. 9. Give your time, your talent or your treasure to organisations that are fighting the good fight — there is power in the collective. 10. And most of all, ask yourself: is my elected representative threatening the lives of my children and grandchildren, either by actively blocking climate action, or by simply delaying in the hope that some uninvented technology will fall from sky? You can help save the world with a pencil. Vote. Them. Out.” crikey.worm.

19-8-2021: "We can’t begin in 2049": Chris Bowen calls for stronger climate goals as he signals Labor’s plan (Guardian Australia). crikey worm.

18-8-2021: Australia: The clean energy industry will launch a new campaign, Renewable Energy is Here Now, with businessman Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest, author Rebecca Huntley, Brighte CEO Katherine McConnell, and ACTU president Michele O’Neil. And, it’s day two of the Better Futures Forum, with the architect of the Paris agreement and former UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon, the deputy to the US Special Envoy on Climate Jonathan Pershing, and former Irish president and UN Climate Envoy Mary Robinson.
Kaurna Country (also known as Adelaide): The City of Charles Sturt will host a seminar on how businesses can adapt for Climate Change. Crikey.com – what’s on.

18-8-202I: Israeli firefighters battle blaze near Jerusalem for third day (Al Jazeera) Crikey worm.

18-8-2021: THEY REALLY SAID THAT? “ We’ve met every target. Australia’s a good nation, you’ve got to remember. China’s not. China’s going to emit more emissions than all of the other OECD countries combined. — Barnaby Joyce Again showing his aptitude for words, the deputy PM continued to point the finger at China despite the fact that Australia is one of the biggest per-capita emitters and has refused to progress its emissions promise since 2016, something experts say is “against the spirit of the [Paris] agreement”. crikey worm.

18-8-2021: TWIG TO THE POSSIBILITIES: Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest had promised Australia will become the renewable green hydrogen superpower of the world, The Australian ($) says. Fortescue Metals Group’s (FMG) subsidiary Fortescue ­Future Industries will commit to 15 million tonnes of green hydrogen a year by 2030, scaling up to 50 million tonnes “over time”, he says. Forrest’s FMG — which he founded 18 years ago — has generated more than 2 million tonnes of greenhouse gas a year, but the businessman said he plans to “crack the code to decarbonising heavy industry”. Green hydrogen is hydrogen that is made through the electrolysis of water, leaving nothing but oxygen as a byproduct, Columbia University’s Climate School explains. It comes as BHP is betting billions on a lower-carbon future, too. The mining titan is planning to dump oil and gas assets into Perth-based Woodside Petroleum, The Guardian reports, which would make Woodside one of the biggest energy producers in the world. BHP’s exit from petroleum, which made up 5% of its annual earnings, will speed up its departure from fossil fuels, Reuters says. BHP will also be combining the Australian and UK arms into one company and will bail on the London Stock Exchange in the process (the company’s primary listing will now be in Sydney. The Wall Street Journal says). crikey worm.

17-8-2021: Wildfires In Israel, near Jerusalem. ABC TV Neews, 2.12am.

17-8-2021: IPCC climate report author: our final plea to the world “During my time working on the Sixth Assessment Report, it dawned on me that this IPCC assessment is the scientific community’s last chance to really make a difference. If our latest report and the intensifying evidence now all around us doesn’t persuade this generation of political leaders that we must stabilise Earth’s climate immediately, nothing ever will. Let’s hope the governments of the world are finally ready to listen.”  The Saturday Paper/The Monthly Today.

16-8-2021: Fire risk: UN’s “code red” warning a burning issue: re Australia’s bushfire future. SMH. And p. 15, US, UK keep climate pressure on Australia. pp. 33, Big carmakers at odds over new vehicle emissions. P. 37, New flames feed deadly French Riviera fires.

16-8-2021: Appearance in Paraquay of pink water/lake. Can be seen from space. But it is probably due to illegal industrial pollution and government is looking into the matter. Prime TV afternoon TV news.

16-8-2021: Germany ‘set for biggest rise in greenhouse gases for 30 years’ (The Guardian). crikey.com.

15-8-2021: IPCC Report; implications for Australian rural life. ABC TV/Landline, 4.25pm.

15-8-2021: Heavy rain/flooding in Japan. ABC Evening TV News.

14/15-8-201; Bjorn Lomborg column titled: The other side of climate change: it is saving lives. w/e Australian. Inquirer section.

14/15-8-2021: A story by Lachlan Moffett Gray, subheaded: Investment rules may have to change as big four go green: story implies that Foreign Investment Review Board may have to change its ways if locally-derived funds for gas-and-coal dry up. W/e Australian Business Review section. On the same page, another story is headlined: Investment clout set to silence climate sceptics.

14/15-8-2021: Libs “must raise their sights on climate”. The w/e Australian, p. 9.

14/15-8-201; w/e Australian, Paul Kelly article on PM Scott Morrison, subheading, The PM is being squeezed on Covid and climate, and time is running out.

14/15-8-2021: News Review front page: Carbon dreaming: The outlook for global warming is dire but with bold ideas and commitment, the worst can still be avoided, write Nick O’Malley and Peter Hannan. Cunning in Barnaby Joyce’s climate shuffle. News Review column by Peter Hartcher. w/e SMH.

14-15-8-2021: Push for carbon neutrality, SMH Commercial Real Estate section.

13-8-2021: Northern Turkey hit with severe flash flooding. BBC Headlines, So it seems to this weather observer that the a belt around the Mediterranean Sea plus California is being subjected to strong heatwave (leading to wildfires) and the belt north of there (Germany, Nn Turkey, Nn China, North Korea, Japan) is being subjected to heavy rain to the point of flooding and independent of The Monsoon. What price the Black Sea and then the USA and Canadian tundra that Rupert Murdoch (the metahistorian who in his own eyes is more all-seeing than the others) also evidently can’t see?

13-8-2021: If we don’t have a climate policy, the world will give us one — Waleed Aly (The Age): “Morrison can spruik “technology, not taxes” as his policy, but if this happens, we’ll be paying a carbon tax. It just means other countries will be getting the money. Little wonder Australia stamped its feet when the European Union announced a proposal to do exactly this. Protectionism!’ we shout, promising to take our case to the World Trade Organisation. But these tariffs aren’t designed to give local producers an advantage. They’re designed to level the playing field, so that companies in countries who are paying a carbon price can compete with overseas companies who aren’t. “And smarter people than me have said that if the scheme targets particular products rather than particular countries, it will probably be legal. We can plead for other countries not to do this. But why would they listen to a country that won’t even adopt the same net zero target they are? That’s the abiding irony of this situation. While our own internally divided government is jostling over the costs of any climate policy, those costs might well be imposed by other nations, and soon.” Crikey.com.

12-8-2021: Heatwave hits North Africa (Algeria) plus a fire). BBC Headlines.

12-8-2021: A National Science Week event sees experts debate food waste, which accounts for 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, at the Republic Bar & Cafe. What’s on, crikey.com

12-8-2021: DIALLING UP THE HEAT: Australia has been called out as one of the main nations dragging the chain on climate action by a senior US climate official, Guardian Australia reports. It comes as the newly released IPCC report concluded that the world is almost certainly hurtling towards a climate catastrophe. Jonathan Pershing, deputy to US presidential climate envoy John Kerry, said Australia was one of the top 20 emitters and yet had twiddled our thumbs since the 2016 Paris agreement. “As a G20 member, as a leading developed country — the commitments they made in Paris are not sufficient,” he said. Pershing said Australia’s target — reducing emissions by about 27% by 2030 — was “inconsistent with what the science is suggesting”, saying we need to nearly double it to 50%, like the US. The IPCC report found climate change is already here and is affecting every country in the world. There are wildfires raging in Greece, Turkey, California, and Russia. Arctic warming is rising at twice the global average rate since 2000. The Maldives president said the destination is on the “edge of extinction”. But Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce told the ABC he wouldn’t support an emissions reduction target unless he was shown “exactly what is the cost and who is paying it”. The SMH says the Nats will likely use a net-zero emissions target as a bargaining chip with the Liberals, by tapping into a long-held grudge by farmers for Howard’s 1998 Kyoto climate accord. Crikey.com

11-8-2021: Algeria (North Africa) now has wildfires. SBS Evening TV News.

11-8-2021: Are wildfires getting worse? BBC Headlines. (BBC Headlines means Northern Hemisphere, which is NOT as a zone being reported well in Australia.)

11-8-2021: BBC Future section: Northern Hemisphere glaciers – the multi-billion $ giants that are melting away. BBC Headlines.

11-8-2021: Guy Rundle wants to know: The right's silent spring: Have climate denialists finally run up the red flag now the world’s scientific community has delivered its code red for humanity? If not, why the deafening silence, asks Guy Rundle. Perhaps it’s not “the right” per se. Perhaps it’s only “he”, as in Rupert Murdoch. Seems global warming is once again accepted in his empire after a deep and strong denialist position for many years. Crikey.com.

10 or 11-8-2021: WA weighs putting climate target into law (The New Daily). Greta Thunberg says global warming’s ‘worst consequences’ can be avoided (ABC).

10 or 11-8-2021: THE COMMENTARIAT: Setting fire to the politics of global warming — Graham Llyod (The Australian): “The issue is how to treat the developed and developing world differently but fairly and still cut total emissions. Scott Morrison touched on it on Tuesday when he said we could not ignore the fact the developing world accounted for two-thirds of global emissions and those emissions were rising. The difficult part is that advanced economies have developed over a long time, principally on the basis of fossil fuel industries. “And, as Morrison says, ‘It’s a very fair argument that the developing world makes, which says “why should our economic futures be denied when advanced economies around the world have been able to go forward on that basis of their energy economies over a long period of time?”‘ This is the issue that has stalled global progress on limiting greenhouse gas emissions, which continue to grow as increases from developing economies swamp cuts from the developed world.” With the release of a terrifying IPCC report, Australia must face its wilful political blindness on climate — Mark Kenny (The Australian) ($): “Ever wonder why an Australian political class steeped in short-termism is so animated about 2050 — a date way beyond the horizons of those currently in power? Partly it is because if an economy is to genuinely commit to emitting net-zero carbon by 2050, the hard work of adjustment needs to commence immediately. But mostly it is that 2050 has become a useful distraction from the here-and-now. “And it is on this faux battleground that Prime Minister Scott Morrison has excelled in restricting not just his own rhetorical manoeuvrings, but increasingly, those of his opponents. Indeed, Morrison has achieved a remarkable double by simultaneously reducing 2050 to mere symbol, while also framing it as the only battleground on which the climate contest can be fought. This way, he either wins, or he doesn’t lose, because the stakes are rendered so distant and so low as to not affect voting preferences appreciably.” Crikey.com/The Monthly Today.

10-8-2021: Greek fires on the island of Evia: Island’s rugged beauty fuels fire. The Australian, p. 9. (Evidently, the Environment Editor of The Australian thinks that “rugged beauty” fuels fires in Greece. Pardon us but we think it is something different. What is happening is that during a summer an entire territorial zone of the Northern Hemisphere is aflame, from California across to Turkey. Across continents, too. What is happening with the tundra areas of Russia and Canada, The Australian newspaper is not telling us! Because it isn’t asking! But the best journalism is a thing of answers to good questions.)

10-8-2021: Ok folks, What has happened now that the IPCC has delivered its 2021 report is that Rupert Murdoch has conceded that the “theoretical” science is probaly “in”, but thrown up his hands in despair at the rest of it, and left things at the ‘inevitable” slowness of the responses of business and/or politics. Of course, presumably RM (now world metahistorian, mind you, how dignified, and how self-appointed) and his various newspapers and TV interests will now continue to report “responsibly” on the increasingly difficult nexus between the conceded science and the contortions of politics around the word as things get worse. It seems to this compiler that as he is a business man as well as a journalist, RM will now follow his own finance pages, and he will remain a slow-down fellow/climate change sceptic. So RM has escaped what “theoretical” science might recommend. Evidence? RM’s chief Australian newspaper, The Australian, has a box-ticking front-page story by “Environment Editor” Graham Lloyd, on the science. But inside RM has an editorial that is replete with references to natural phenomena as an explanation for apparent climate change, and is headlined, “the politics of climate change is far from settled”. So now we know; the science of climate change might be settled but the politics isn’t. Which unfortunately is true enough. So Barnaby Joyce, it’s over to you and, for Australia, evidently, the views of the NP.

10-8-2021: Energy stored in electric car batteries could power your home or stabilise the grid — and save you money (ABC). Crikey.com.

10-8-2021: Australia • The NSW Smart Energy Summit will be held online, with talks from NSW Energy and Environment Minister Matt Kean, NSW Roads and Transport Minister Andrew Constance, businesswoman and former Sydney lord mayor Lucy Turnbull, and federal Labor climate and energy spokesman Chris Bowen. Crikey.com (what’s on)

9-8-2021: Full page climate ad, things are dire etc: From Greenpeace, Australian Conservation Foundation, Can (climatre action network), Oxfam, actionaid and Edmund Rice Centre. SMH, p. 7.

9-8-2021: Mass fires cast doubt on offsets (In US). SMH, p. 16.

9-8-2021: Australian energy still in dirty dozen. The SMH, p.3.

9-8-2021: Why China’s climate policy matters to us all. BBC Headlines.

9-8-2021: Climate Catastrophe: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report (the last IPCC report was in 2013) – the entire planet is warming faster than expected: BBC Headlines reacts in terms of “code red for humanity”. (Is this alarmist or is it reasonable?) And it is true, as this webpage has been saying, though “climate sceptics” deny it, that if one place (say, the entire Southern Hemisphere and all its oceans) is warming, then so are other places (say, the Northern Hemisphere and all its oceans) warming. Warning: But have you been hoaxed? Readers should expect an upscaling of vituperation between Climate Change Believers vs Denialists as they find other new names for their enemies due to this. I mean: everyone needs someone to hate! But (gasp) will the increasingly lonely-voiced Rupert Murdoch now change what passes for his mind? (And how many other 90-year-olds do you dote on? I dote on none!) Details: Torres Straits islands are now seen as badly threatened due to sea level rise. Some 196 nations are to meet soon in Glasgow (Scotland), but meanwhile it does seem that humanity will not meet agreed-on deadlines re the stemming of warming of 1.5 degrees (or more). Channel 10m afternoon TV news, at 6.13pm; SBS TV News at 6.53pm; ABC TV/7.30 Report at 7.39pm. A little more digested, 12.08am for ABC TV News. And of course, the Internet generally!

9-8-2021: "We didn’t expect a monster like this": Wildfires devastate California (The SMH. Crikey.com.

4-8-2021: DW TV News reports wildfires in Southern Europe (Southern Turkey [8 killed], Greece, [the worst heatwave in 30 years]. Italy. Spain also is in trouble. And DW TV asks, why is this season so severe? EU helps Turkey, EU data says this is the worst season on record. ABC/DW TV News, 2am. And this is one of the first signs in Europe about “joining the dots” re climate changes, or asking why entire belts/zones of territory are in trouble. This webpage takes the view that if Climate Change is actually global, then if Australia is warming, so is the Canadian and Russian tundra, Himalayan glaciers, Greenland ice, with Britain, China, the USA and the oceans also warming. Whereas Climate Change Denialists say this is due to natural cycles, sun cycles, and/or is a local weather/climate phenomenon, merely. Climate Change Denialists also don’t see that Climate Change redistributes heat, and that cold [from a human or an animal point of view] is merely an absence of heat, which has been redistributed. But it is all a join-the-dots task, surely, and 2021 is the crunch year for Climate Denialists because it is a crunch year for weather in the Northern Hemisphere. We note that World and the Australian TV industries are not following Rupert Murdoch’s forays into Climate Denialism. ABC/DW [Germany] TV news after 2am.

4-8-2021: Actions speak louder than words: Murdoch buys into renewables, biofuels data - Glenn Dyer. “So renewables, electric vehicles, solar, hydrogen, carbon credits are seen as a money-making opportunity for News and the Murdochs to enable them to ‘leverage the global transition to renewables and the growth opportunities’ from the emerging energy technologies. “And yet in Australia its media outlets, from The Australian through to Sky News, plus the various tabloids, are cluttered with climate deniers (and COVID deniers) and have been instrumental in sabotaging repeated attempts from Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison to give Australia a credible and cohesive energy policy to tackle the fallout from global warming.” crikey.com.

3-8-2021: News Corp is buying a major global oil and gas data reporting website called Oil Price Information Service. Interestingly, the site plans to expand its remit to do more on renewables and biofuels — an indication that at least someone on Planet Murdoch knows there is money to be made in alternatives to fossil fuels. Glenn Dyer reports. Crikey.com.

1-8-2021

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29-6-2019: Canada Heat: Record-breaking temperatures hit British Columbia – a heat dome. BBC Headlines, and instances of fire soar by 2-7-2021.

28-6-2021 US National Weather: Re Canada heat warnings, US (west coast) for Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho. BBC Headlines.

28-8-2021: The Policy: Grid bias: “Criticism from the renewable energy sector over proposed market rules, that some fear could prop up ageing coal generators, has led Australia’s Energy Security Board (ESB) to vow to work with industry players and all tiers of government to design a new system by 2023.”
Guardian Australia The Energy Security Board’s proposed rules, intended to ensure grid reliability in the transition away from coal, were reported on The Australian’s front page with the headline “Subsidise coal”. crikey.com.

fix 27-9-2021: SMH front page says: raking over coal: how should we manage the end of an era? On p. 2 the gossip column jibes Murdoch’s 90th birthday party. NP politician Matt Canavan feels net zero emissions are impossible, but NP Darren Chester has frustration with fellow NPs. National Affairs editor Rob Harris analyses the Chester-Joyce NP relationship, p. 7. On. pp. 8-9 is a two-page story on: alarm bells are “deafening” as we ponder coals’s rivers of gold. Coal-fired power stations still provide up to 70% of Australia’s electricity requirements. The Monthly Today.

8-8-2021: Floods in North Korea. BBC Headlines.

7-8-2021: About 260,000 Emporer Penguins face extinction due to declines of ice. ABC TV news 12.13am.

7-8-2021: Greece has mass evacuations due to bushfires. BBC Headlines.

7-8-2021: UN Report to show stark reality of climate change. BBC Headlines.

7-8-2021: News Review section: Emission cuts no longer enough. Interesting column by Margaret Simons on free speech vs lies. w/e SMH of 7-8 August, 2021.

7-8-2021: story re pre-IPCC Report matters in Saudi Arabia, India, Glasgow Scotland, Australia and the world generally. w/e SMH of 7-8 August, 2021:

7-8-2021: Stories on Californian wildfires and re EV in US: w/e Australian, 7-8- August 2021:

7-8-2021: Re vehicles: Sparks fly in race to go all-electric:

6-8-2021: Rooftop solar is expanding electrical capacity as compared to coal fired. ABC Midday TV news.

6-8-2021: The Number 3x The amount by which Australians are more worried about climate change than COVID-19. The Conversation/The Monthly Today.

6-8-2021: World to hit temperature tipping point 10 years faster than forecast (AFR) crikey.com.

5-8-2019: The Policy: In too deep?: “Divisions have emerged in the federal government over farming rules to improve water quality on the Great Barrier Reef, as the government’s special envoy for Northern Australia slams regulations targeting harmful farm water runoff that has been endorsed by the environment minister.” Nine Media The government is further divided over how to protect the Great Barrier Reef, and now has just months to demonstrate to the United Nations why the reef should not be listed as “in danger”, after having recently secured a delay on the decision. The Monthly Today.

5-8-2021: Australian science says the Great Barrier Reef is in danger. ABC TV/7.30 Report item on the Australian Federal Government ambivalence on alleged global climate change and what to do about it.

5-8-2021: Perth: The Sustainable Development Awards will host a panel on the intersection of different social and environmental issues at the Ezone Learning Studio. Crikey.com. (what’s on)

28-6-2021: Climate action is still hotly contested in Australia. BBC Headlines.

27-6-2021: Tornadoes in Quebec Canada. Commercial evening TV news.

24/25-6-2021: Robert Gottliebson column, Telstra’s power play as energy revolution looms. The Markets, w/e Australian.

10-11 April, 2021: SMH, p. 11, Fossil fuel interests fuel criticism over board role at climate body. East Timor is in climate trouble, p. 38. w/e SMH.

11-4-2021: Climate of denial puts lives at risk – article by Chris Kenny. w/e Australian>, 10-11 April 2021.

1-4-2021:

fix 29-3-2021: Barnaby Joyce (not yet leader again of the NP) takes energy survey of his electorate. His email to compiler of this webpage, Dan Byrnes, in the electorate of New England.

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1-4-2020

14-10-2021: Armidale NSW (which has the highest altitude airport in Australia) is hit from its west with a wild rainstorm/hailstorm that turns into a tornado in North Hill area, the worst-hit. Armidale has seldom-if-ever had a tornado before! This happens BTW in the federal electorate of the climate-change-denying leader of the federal National Party, Mr. B Joyce. (Part of the life story of the compiler of this column.)

14-10-2021: Net-zero plan to boost coal exports: Barnaby Joyce has confirmed that the government will spend billions of dollars to build a rail line to Gladstone that will exist solely to subsidise coal exports from the Surat Basin. The project — an expansion of the existing coal-subsidising inland rail line — is likely to push the cost of the project over $20 billion, and means that the government’s “net zero by 2050” package will depend on increasing greenhouse emissions. Bernard Keane reports. Crikey.daily.

1-11-2020:

1-12-2020:

Issues from March 2020

By 6-11-2019 we find it reported that 11,000 scientists from 153 countries in Bioscience Journal warn that we have a climate emergency that is happening faster than predicted, so we now guess the “science is in”. This is the end of all guessing. We now wonder even more deeply what non-Climatology-studying climate science sceptics in Australia feel they are actually on about. More so as March 2020 reactions to the corona virus surely seem to prove more and more that economic behaviour is indeed social. Very social.

28 February, 2020: In what now seems like his finest hour of all, US President Donald Trump at a rally tells his followers that the corona virus is "a hoax". That's right, folks, anything happens that you don't understand at all, call it "a hoax". And well, it's now your call.

w/e Australian, 29 February-1 March 2020: Finance pages: Finance journalist Terry McCrann says (and it sounds like US politician Donald Rumsfeld to us): "... We really are in a world of known unknowns".

SMH on 2-3-2020: p. 15, Trump's post-truth presidency collides with health emergency: US epidemiologists regard his February views that corona-virus problems will "work out fine" as "wishful thinking". And by 10-3-2020, most or all of Italy is in lockdown due to corona virus. Yes, it really is, working out fine. Even, fine and dandy.

AAP to close

Climate Change Sausages ... so good

Getcha climate change sausages here ...

generic democracy sausgage photo from Australia

Credit: Photo by Anon.

April 2021: Opinions differ, but this webpage blames the economic decline of print media in Australia very much for this ...

4/5-3-2020: AAP (Australian Associated Press) for decades has assisted journalism in Australia by providing regional media outlets in particular with accurate, good-quality and well-written syndicated news items. This is now to change by about mid-2020 and AAP will close. It seems that nothing can or will fill the gap. Adieu, then, AAP. At stake are 85 years of media history and up to 600 media jobs.

5-3-2020: crikey.com reports: The Department of Industry had confirmed that government funding for Australia’s only dedicated bushfire research centre will end next year, The New Daily reports. ADF chief Angus Campbell confirmed defence has a corona virus plan in the works, The Australian reports, and described talking with Scott Morrison about the “discomfiting” use of ADF personnel, without permission, in that bushfire video, The Guardian reports. Climate denialists have forced world-class scientists to justify, ad nauseam, science. BBC Headlines reports meanwhile that climate change boosted Australian fire risk by 30% at least. One report author is Prof. Geert van Oldenborgh of Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute of De Bilt, Netherlands and 17 others from six countries. So much for the work of arsonists/anecdotalism.

5-3-2020: Late afternoon news from Schwartz Media: A fear at the end of the earth - James Button spoke to scores of people about climate change and what it means to them. He found deep anxiety – but also a contradiction between how people thought and how they acted. Today, find out what a conversation about ecological catastrophe could look like. Schwartz Media also like this webpage today wants to know why ScoMo's government wants to use the best of new-science-knowledge for corona-virus-issues but not for climate-change-issues. Just why is this anomaly and when is this absurdity going to end? Yes. We'd really like to know! And the same questions apply to Trump's administration in the US White House.

10-3-2020: ABC TV: Stock exchange behaviour, all over the shop and on the run big-time from corona virus, is described jocularly as a "textbook case of volatility". A day of confusing turmoil on stock exchanges around the world. (In France, and as a measure of the irrationality aroused by a major health issue, arises the erroneous idea that using cocaine will fend of attack by the corona virus.) Strewth, the Italian PM puts the entire country (60 million people) of Italy into "a health lockdown".

11-3-2020: More turmoil on world stock exchanges. Australian Federal Government outlines $2.4 billion worth of corona virus health funding plans. One idea is to use 100 pop-up clinics for corona virus testing to reduce pressure on hospital systems.

fix 12-3-2020: crikey.com reports: Australian Govt Health minister says Australia cannot predict how many will die from coronavirus; Guardian journalist Russell Jackson "unpaid for five weeks".

OPINION: Barry Jones: We need more democracy, not less “What is the evidence that supports the health measures that are being taken? What are the competing views? Of these, we know very little. Most important of all, we do not know what economic decisions are implicit in the health choices being made. If there are none, let us know. If there are some, what are they? Then, and only then, can the community make an informed judgement. Without transparency, and scrutiny, there is no democracy.” THE SATURDAY PAPER - From Schwartz Media, 7-4-2020. And well, here it is ...

10-4-2020: Why is US President Donald Trump so ill-informed about corona virus epidemiology - and in public? Why is the president of Brazil, Bolsonaro, allowed to be even more ignorant?

Items various in 2020 - An economic abyss, the opening of, as a doctor, surgeon Mark Ghallager, who has had corona virus, says, don't believe those who say it's just like flu, I've had it and it's more like suffering malaria ...

One billion people will live in insufferable heat within 50 years – study

The human cost of the climate crisis will hit harder and sooner than previously believed, research reveals

Story by Jonathan Watts, The Guardian, 5 May 2020.

The human cost of the climate crisis will hit harder, wider and sooner than previously believed, according to a study that shows a billion people will either be displaced or forced to endure insufferable heat for every additional 1C rise in the global temperature.
In a worst-case scenario of accelerating emissions, areas currently home to a third of the world’s population will be as hot as the hottest parts of the Sahara within 50 years, the paper warns. Even in the most optimistic outlook, 1.2 billion people will fall outside the comfortable “climate niche” in which humans have thrived for at least 6,000 years.
The authors of the study said they were “floored” and “blown away” by the findings because they had not expected our species to be so vulnerable. “The numbers are flabbergasting. I literally did a double take when I first saw them, ” Tim Lenton, of Exeter University, said. “I’ve previously studied climate tipping points, which are usually considered apocalyptic. But this hit home harder. This puts the threat in very human terms.” There will be more change in the next 50 years than in the past 6,000 years Instead of looking at climate change as a problem of physics or economics, the paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examines how it affects the human habitat. The vast majority of humanity has always lived in regions where the average annual temperatures are around 6C (43F) to 28C (82F), which is ideal for human health and food production. But this sweet spot is shifting and shrinking as a result of manmade global heating, which drops more people into what the authors describe as “near unliveable” extremes.

This website closed in May 2020 due to corona virus problems. - Ed

Humanity is particularly sensitive because we are concentrated on land – which is warming faster than the oceans – and because most future population growth will be in already hot regions of Africa and Asia. As a result of these demographic factors, the average human will experience a temperature increase of 7.5C when global temperatures reach 3C, which is forecast towards the end of this century. At that level, about 30% of the world’s population would live in extreme heat – defined as an average temperature of 29C (84F). These conditions are extremely rare outside the most scorched parts of the Sahara, but with global heating of 3C they are projected to envelop 1.2 billion people in India, 485 million in Nigeria and more than 100 million in each of Pakistan, Indonesia and Sudan.
This would add enormously to migration pressures and pose challenges to food production systems. Sign up to the Green Light email to get the planet's most important stories Read more “I think it is fair to say that average temperatures over 29C are unliveable. You’d have to move or adapt. But there are limits to adaptation. If you have enough money and energy, you can use air conditioning and fly in food and then you might be OK. But that is not the case for most people,” said one of the lead authors of the study, Prof Marten Scheffer of Wageningen University. An ecologist by training, Scheffer said the study started as a thought-experiment. He had previously studied the climate distribution of rainforests and savanna and wondered what the result would be if he applied the same methodology to humans. “We know that most creatures’ habitats are limited by temperature. For example, penguins are only found in cold water and corals only in warm water. But we did not expect humans to be so sensitive. We think of ourselves as very adaptable because we use clothes, heating and air conditioning. But, in fact, the vast majority of people live – and have always lived – inside a climate niche that is now moving as never before.” We were blown away by the magnitude,” he said. “There will be more change in the next 50 years than in the past 6,000 years.”
The authors said their findings should spur policymakers to accelerate emission cuts and work together to cope with migration because each degree of warming that can be avoided will save a billion people from falling out of humanity’s climate niche.
“Clearly we will need a global approach to safeguard our children against the potentially enormous social tensions the projected change could invoke,” another of the authors, Xu Chi of Nanjing University, said. We've got an announcement … … on our progress as an organisation. In service of the escalating climate emergency, we have made an important decision – to renounce fossil fuel advertising, becoming the first major global news organisation to institute an outright ban on taking money from companies that extract fossil fuels. In October we outlined our pledge: that the Guardian will give global heating, wildlife extinction and pollution the urgent attention and prominence they demand. This resonated with so many readers around the world. We promise to update you on the steps we take to hold ourselves accountable at this defining point in our lifetimes. With climate misinformation rife, and never more dangerous than now, the Guardian's accurate, authoritative reporting is vital – and we will not stay quiet. You've read 31 articles in the last six months. We chose a different approach: to keep Guardian journalism open for all. We don't have a paywall because we believe everyone deserves access to factual information, regardless of where they live or what they can afford to pay. Our editorial independence means we are free to investigate and challenge inaction by those in power. We will inform our readers about threats to the environment based on scientific facts, not driven by commercial or political interests. And we have made several important changes to our style guide to ensure the language we use accurately reflects the environmental emergency.
The Guardian believes that the problems we face on the climate crisis are systemic and that fundamental societal change is needed. We will keep reporting on the efforts of individuals and communities around the world who are fearlessly taking a stand for future generations and the preservation of human life on earth. We want their stories to inspire hope.

(Ends)

13-5-2020: Message for Amazon/Prime Video Australia . . . Re "War for a New Nation", a long documentary mostly on the military aspects of the American Revolution which I have just seen. It seems well-researched, well-scripted, well-narrated, and it quotes many US historians still living. But the proofreading of the accompanying spoken script, displayed on the screen, is appallingly bad; ludicrous, inept, illiterate, laughable, and worse-than-amateur. The result is a completely spoiled production. So don't argue, please, just fix it! Fix it soon or bear with the world's laughter of derision. It's a disgrace! It looks like it's been done by an illiterate computer program. What is this? Another symptom of the decline of US power in the world? Proofreading by cowboys from Modern America? Nonsense? Idiots! I say again! Fix it yesterday! I really don't give a tuppenny damn how much it costs, just fix it and fix it soon!
Yrs etc, Dan Byrnes.
(The last message of all, the end of these websites)

The UN recognises about 193 nation states in the world. That's 193 countries to get corona virus and then decide what to do at government levels. 193 sets of borders. 193 countries to own to a health system. 193 countries to do testing. 193 different cultures? What could possibly go wrong? What could possibly go wrong with so many countries when so many people want perfect moral fix-ups of all sorts of things (like better/more affordable housing, like true social justice) during an emergency which stretches health workers, health systems and entire economies. Good luck with that!

These nation states were well-warned about "pandemic(s)" by movies, books, newspaper and magazine articles ... (Matt Damon starred in a recent movie called Contagion). In February 2018, about 30 microbiologists, zoologists, public health experts met at the HQ of World Health Organisation in Geneva Switzerland to discuss issues. The group had been started in 2015 by WHO to establish a list of dangerous viruses as populations grew, global travel widened, the natural world had to exist in a smaller space. What this group spoke of as "Disease X" (a highly-infectious respiratory disease with no known cure or vaccine) became . . . what we call corona virus. (w/e Australian Magazine, 9-10 May, 2020, article The Next World War by Jenifer Kahn.)
No one can say something like this this was not coming eventually! This website page rather wonders if global warming will not offer the world more pandemics? But if so or not, are corona-virus-problems just a fast version of the kinds of health, system and economic problems that will arise more slowly due to global warming? This webpage rather thinks so.
This is why the 193 nations already recognised by the UN need to look into how corona virus originated - in order to see that such a thing never happens again, regardless of where it originated in fact - seemingly in China. (Where the USA seems to want to abdicate its world leadership position, to mishandle this pandemic, withold funds from WHO, blame China in a conspiratorial way, to recommend unproven drugs and to also mention the ingestion of disinfectant in a way which is immediately denied by disinfectant companies! Go figure!)

This corona virus situation meantime is NOT war and idiots-in-power like Trump would do well to realise this. It is a medical and epidemiological emergency - and should be treated as such. Unfortunately, the mode of thinking required is scientific/probable-istic - which is foreign to Trump and his ilk, hence their particular use of language, politics, numbers and actual power . . . What the world is seeing is actually a clash of thinking styles in politics - a shake-out - the epidemiological vs the non-epidemiological. Who will win? The issue is the same as with climate change - is the science "in" or not? Who believes in the science? And who doesn't?

This webpage thinks - re "economic recovery" - that all relevant graphs used should go back to 1929, the appearance of The Great Depression. Only in this way will meaningful comparisons be made. If not to the economic effects of the 1918-1919 outbreak of Spanish Influenza. (Which in fact is misnamed, and it ought to have been originally named for when/how it originated, within the US Army via Kansas via France.) This - "The Plague" - hit Australia in January 1919 and went through three waves till September 1919. The death rate climbed to 400 per day. People stayed as far from each other as possible and crowds were avoided.

What is a human life worth the newspapers ask, mostly rhetorically. Well. a life is valued at $4.9 million. (The figure is Australian and is borrowed from the insurance industry.) But as a cautionary tale, a newspaper reminds us that while life is precious, it is NOT priceless.
Worldwide the same virus pandemic by 16-5-2020 has caused the cancellation of 28 million surgical procedures. Life in hospitals seems destined to be dynamic!

This website closed in May 2020 due to corona virus problems. - Ed

We live, apparently, in times in Australia when seemingly respectable employers (likes Coles supermarkets) have allegedly been underpaying employees/members of their staff. Go figure. There is something very wrong somewhere!) "Working from home" seems set to change work practices long-term and may also in time modify house-designs. We now live in a time of change.

Apparently, world-wide, corona virus, a very clever virus indeed, has been exposing dire weaknesses in entire economies, health systems, in the political management of entire populations. Once well-off goverments are suddenly in debt. Apparenty, world wide, health workers are being hailed as our new heroes; they were unsung, and now they are being sung. Apparently, in Australia, restaurants, hotels and eateries of all sorts are in trouble. Airports and airlines are in trouble. Retailing is in trouble. TV shows are denuded of audiences. Entire economies are in trouble.

The arts are in trouble, as are musicians and anyone else whose income relies on a human gathering of more than about ten people (except for schools (?)). Cinemas are in trouble but not the streamers of video product. Children's schooling is in trouble, which means state Education Depts are in trouble bigtime. Accomodation is in trouble. Football and most sports are in trouble. The Ruby Princess maritime disaster re maritime health for a cruise ship in Sydney/ NSW/ all Australia was because a low-risk warning was incorrectly issued for the ship and its passengers based on badly-assessed test results for corona virus. This was an example of our scientific ignorance of this virus, but also, and even more mysterious for what was once Australia's largest convict colony, the complete and final erasure of matters maritime in the NSW bureaucratic mind. It was a very strange thing to happen in what was once a major convict colony for Britain, receiving shipload-after-shipload of beknighted passengers. (The land-and-buildings of the one-time Sydney quarantine station, once famous on Sydney's North Head, have evidently long-been-sold to private interests.)

In Indonesia by mid-May 202, millions are "headed for the breadline", with nine million forced into poverty. "Don't mess with me", warns Frank Zappa's Zombiewoof. A mutant strain of the corona virus might be spreading in Australia... (w/e Australian, 9-10 May, 2020). Vaccine matters are horrendously expensive and involve pharmaceutical companies in general; Australia's CSIRO, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Vanderbilt University Medical Centre, Tennessee; Duke University in North Carolina, USA University of Sheffield in UK and of course in Washington USA the absurd Trump and his "Operation Warp Speed". The world is now engaged in a race to develop a corona-virus vaccine - watch this space for news of the race's casualties ...
Trump as POTUS and his predecessor Obama are now engaged in a slanging match over what this webpage (like Obama) believes in the US has been a gross mishandling of this medical nightmare. Well, survive, and otherwise, stay away from all of it. And there we leave it, to fester as usual, or worse . . . The simple reason that this webpage has bowed out of the discussion is that the changes are too many ...
But Australia has done comparatively well with all the challenge, we so far think. What is amazing is that a Liberal-National coalition government has been so Keynsian, so socialistic, so agreeably, and so quickly.

Viruses such as corona virus are called zoonotic and the villain of the story seems to be the bat-of-Asia. (But human difficulty with disease is nothing new. Measles is thought to have originated with the domestication of cattle and pigs and chickens can carry swine flu and bird flu.)

Then there's the great argument about "when to re-open the economy". I loved the deep irony of the headline arising in Australia - "snapback to stagnation". Our PM Morrison wanted our economy to "snapback" to normal, (the old normal, not the new one, and BTW, surprise, surprise, Australia is now officially in recession ). But since Australia was in the grip of stagnation anyway, the headline soon became, inevitably, "snapback to stagnation". Sorry Scomo, but facts are facts.
Meantime, when to re-open the economy? It's a debate that engrosses the EU, the USA, Brazil, and in Australia, what do we do with the restaurants, the schools, the university systems, the transport systems involved? Which are not built for 1.5 metre social distancing. When will a vaccine arise so that people, and the economy, ultimately, the world economy, will be protected? For what we do is that we don't prevent well, we merely respond well. Or badly, as the case may be.

This website closed in May 2020 due to corona virus problems. - Ed

In climate change news various, things look worse as time goes by. One of Australia's chief scientists, NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer, Hugh Durrant-Whyte, says climate-change is the most significant challenge of the 21st Century. (The story carrying his remarks is in Sydney Morning Herald, 16 March, 2020.) Later, world climate scientists are saying that 9 of the world's 16 major tipping points have already been exceeded - it may be now too late to avoid the ill-effects of climate-change.
Which now should possibly be renamed, World Climates Change. Just to make the point sharper?

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