[Previous page File 24 for Climate Change issues in later 2021.] [You are now on a chronology page for 2022, filed as (http://www.danbyrnes.com.au/merchants/merchants25.htm) [Next page (the first page of this entire series) File 1 ]

This webpage updated 11 January, 2023 - (This is the last page of this series)

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
2022++ - Australia

Trade - an international perspective

Climate stats: For every one extra degree of terrestial temperature there is about 7% more water vapour in the atmosphere ... this is partly why there are so many more floods around the world ...
Life stats: (How you doin'?): In Australia your life expectancy will vary according to your race. So go figure.
Food intake questions: The average human adult needs to drink (then excrete from) about two litres of fresh water per day. The average person needs: calories, 4 kcal/gram) (carbohydrates); moderately active females (aged 19-30) use 1500-2000 kcal daily and a mostly-childhood condition of semi-starvation is called marasmus; amino acids (nutrients); fatty acids are saturated (eg., butter), monounsaturated (eg., olive oil); polyunsaturated (eg., corn); trans fats; (cholesterol and phospholipids; omega-3 fats (fish oils); minerals; vitamins, lack of vitamin C (ascorbic acid) produces scurvy; lack of vitamin B produces beriberi, lack of niacin produces pellegra.
Humanity is still torn about what happens at death. But we have so far had more than 4000 years of recorded human history and even so, no one in the Western World is quite sure about it all even yet, which is truly alarming. Yet, there are folks who want to speak loudly about what we still do not know for sure. Moving along, psychologists say it takes about seven seconds to formulate, process and decide on a first impression, so how do I feel about ... whatever? (The Kardashians?)
It takes the average person about seven minutes to go to sleep once they settle down to it. And about 8% of people are afraid/phobic about needles. (So how many of them are anti-vaxxers?)
We also find that men like sex (or, at least, an orgasm) up to about 2.8 times per week; while women prefer it about once per week; so what could possibly go wrong here? But oops, eg., at what ages are those stats (percentages), for either of men or women, applicable? At what stages in or of the life cycle? The relevant stats, it seems, are easily buried on the Net amid discussions of many other factors - and there are many signs on the Net that amid various types of discussion, the relevant figures are not to be bandied about, certainly not by just anybody.
Oh well, otherwise, see ABC TV, and see how your favourite anxiety expert now cuts their mustard ...

Climate issues for 2022

Climate Change Sausages ... so good

So good! Getcha climate change sausages here ...
Credit: Photo by Anon.

11-1-2023: Australia: WA North/Kimberley floods and in Queensland, ex-tropical cyclone Ellie: USA: California floods.

10-1-2023: Australia: the Kimberley Cleanup begins: Rain and high winds in Nn, Central and Eastern Australia.

9-1-2023: Australian fright at Kimberley floods.

7-1-2023: Australia: Fright re Kimberley area (flooded) of Northern WA: India: severe cold wave in North India: BBC Headlines: World: at current rates of warming, one third of worlds' glaciers will disappear by the end of the century. Overnight DW TV News.

6-1-2023. Australia: And 5th, too. WA says it has never seen rain/floods like what is now evident in the state's north. Switzerland: Switzerland has less snow and is warming.

3-1-2023: Italy: Frustrated climate activists bother Italy: USA: Monster storm afflicts California plus other states with floods.

2-1-2023: USA: California has heavy rain/floods. Australia: Destructive winds in Northern Australia: Anxieties heighten in eastern Australia as floodwaters move downstream.

31-12-2022: TV news predictions just after mn are that a rain dump may interfere with New Year's Eve fireworks plans in Northern Australia.

29-12-2022: Much as 28th. The Philippines: Deaths arise due to floods. Mid-morning/ sunset TV news.

28-12-2022: Australia: Northern heatwave plus Murray River flood anxiety in South Australia both continue: High fire danger for tomorrow. US: Death toll from US/Canada Christmas snow storm stretching from Great Lakes to Texas now reaches 50.

27-12-2022: DW News (Germany) has big item re frigid US/Canadian snow storm. Overnight TV news.

26-12-2022: USA: Death toll due to US/Canadian storm climbs to 28-34. Australia: Flood anxiety attaches still to River Murray peaking in SA. Northern Australian heatwave continues. Breakfast TV news.

25-4-2022: Australia: Northern Territory floods. Amid observations on Chaos and tales of disruption, super-cold storm afflicts about 2000 miles of US/Canada and 19 dead. Coastal flooding around New Jersey. 4pm ABC TV news bulletin. TV news mention of South Australian flood risks.

24-12-2022: US snow/super-cold storm "weather bomb" gravely disrupts Christmas air travel in the nation. TV lunchtime news.

23-12-2023: US President warns population against coming snow storm.

22-12-2022: US/Canada: powerful arctic-born snowstorm expected/Great Lakes area expected to be particularly bad. Malaysia has severe monsoon flooding. Australia: Anxiety continues re risks of flooding in lower reaches of Murray River, and in Northern Territory.

21-12-2022: South Australia: Anxiety continues in SA re lower reaches of River Murray and risks of flooding.

19-12-2022: South Australia: Murray Bridge: Premier Peter Malinauskas will open a solar and battery storage farm near Murray Bridge.

16-12-2022: Federal Labor Government passes new legislation capping power prices for Australian homes and businesses alike.

15-12-2022: Africa: Congo is devastated by floods. High count of drownings.

13-120-2022: Whadjuk Noongar Country (also known as Perth): WA Minister for Regional Development, Agriculture and Food Alannah MacTiernan, CSIRO’s Brad Ridoutt, and the University of Washington’s David R. Montgomery are among speakers at “Meaty Matters: Cows and Climate”, at the Convention Centre. crikey.worm.

11-12-2022: Eastern India (especially Chennai=Madras) is hit with tropical cyclone from Bay of Bengal. TV News.

10-12-2022: Australia braces: Lunchtime TV news: SA near Murray River braces for flood, as Australian north braces for heatwave.

9-12-2022: Australian Federal minister speaks: "What I am most worried about is cascading disasters. Imagine a future January, where we see a Black Saturday-size bushfire in the south-east, a major flood in the north, then overlay a cyberattack on a major hospital system in the west. Our country would be fully absorbed in the management of domestic crises." Clare O'Neil. Sends a shiver down the spine. The home affairs minister said climate change is a security threat to Australia in that disasters often divert our armed forces and our attention, leaving us potentially vulnerable in what is shaping up to be a fairly highly-charged geopolitical environment.

8-12-2022: TV warnings re Northern Australian heat wave for WA, NT and Qld.

7-12-2022: Eastern Australia: TV flood warnings issued for SA reaches of Murray River.

6-12-2022: TV: Heatwave plus fire warnings for northern Australia. Queenslanders are especially warned re 40C+ temperatures. Colombia South America has landslide after heavy rain.

5-12-2022: Australia: Heatwave TV warning for NT. Australia eastern - TV warnings issued re peaking of Murray River downstream in a day or three and waterborne diseases.

3-12-2022: Australia: TV warnings issued - rivers in flood may peak later than predicted but may peak higher. Brazil has floods. Somalia in Africa has drought.

1-12-2022: Revealed: more than 70% of English water industry is in foreign ownership (The Guardian). crikey.worm. Once again, Labor’s rhetoric on climate doesn’t line up with its actions ... The Monthly/The Politics. The US will be funding some northern tribes (one is in Alaska) troubled by climate change. BBC Headlines.

29-11-2022: Great Barrier grief: The Great Barrier Reef should be added to the World Heritage in-danger list, according to the UN. Guardian Australia reports there are 10 things we must do “with utmost urgency” to save the reef, according to a mission report published yesterday in Paris by experts from UNESCO and the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Among them, we’ve got to stop pollution running into the reef from nearby farming, we’ve got to invest in water quality targets, and we’ve got to stop using gillnets in the marine park. Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek stressed that the “World Heritage Centre is yet to make a recommendation” on officially listing it as in danger, however. The March reef mission was at the behest of then environment minister Sussan Ley, who lobbied against a 2021 UNESCO recommendation it should join the list, as the ABC reports, an apparent kick-the-can manoeuvre at the cost of our declining national wonder from the now depu. ty-leader of the Opposition. Interestingly, as the SMH says, the report notes the Albanese government still hasn’t passed laws enshrining a target of net-zero emissions by 2050 — a goal that “remains aspirational”, it says. crikey.worm.

28-11-2022: Giant wind farms arise off Scotland, easing the pain of oil’s decline (The New York Times). crikey.worm.

27-11-2022: Mudslide on Italian island (Iskia near Naples) after heavy rains. ABC TV news at noon.

25-11-2022: Canada unveils new climate adaptation strategy with more than $1-billion commitment (CBC). More than 20,000 died in western Europe’s summer heatwaves, figures show (The Guardian). crikey.com.

23-11-2022; Australia is 1.47 degrees warmer, sea levels are rising, rainfall generally will be more intense: report. Polar sea ice is at record low levels. Other warnings are given.

21-11-2022: Eastern Australia: flood anxiety eases. UN climate talks end with a deal to pay poor nations for damage (The New York Times) crikey.com/TV morning news.

19-11-2022: Eastern Australia: Central NSW braces for more flooding. ABC mid-morning TV news.

17-11-2022: Eastern Australia: Flood anxiety continues as waters move downriver in NSW west of The Great Divide. Mid-morning TV news.

16-11-2022: Eastern Australia: Central NSW sees flooding levels not seen for 70 years. Mid-morning TV news.

15-11-2022: Eastern Australia: Central NSW: Condobolin and Forbes a worry. Rivers are flooded; flood shocks reported; some places have been flooded twice in quick succession, some places are more ok than not. General TV early lunchtime news.

14-11-2022: Eastern Australia: "There’s another slew of intense rainfall hitting NSW and Victoria today, impacting as far as southern Queensland and Tasmania, the Bureau of Meteorology said. The towns of Bathurst, Molong, Dubbo, Wellington, Narromine, Condobolin and Forbes, as well as the rivers Edward, Darling, Lachlan, Murrumbidgee, Murray and Macquarie are all on flood watch, Guardian Australia adds. It came as 80,000 homes lost power on Saturday in South Australia amid what one expert compared with a “mini cylone”, The New Daily reports. And Alice Springs also copped one of its biggest storms at the weekend, the NT News adds. crikey.worm. There is more rain on the way according to mid-morning ABC TV news, and there are more than 100 flood warnings out. Flash floods are being feared.

13-11-2022: Flooding anxiety in Eastern Australia re saturated catchement areas and as floodwaters move downstream.

12-11-2022: USA: Florida cleans up after a Hurricane Nicole storm. (General TV news.)

11-11-2022: The Monthly Archive: Past the warning stage on climate ... This webpage recommends you read BBC Headlines on Climate-Change-driven issues. (Don't believe the Climate-Change denialism of the Murdoch press. Which is written by people who can't for whatever reason read a world weather map anymore.)

9-11-2022: Europe has "warmest October on record’, EU earth program says (EuroNews). crikey.worm.

8-11-2022: South America: Colombia has heavy rain, floods. (TV lunchtime news). COP27: we’re on a "highway to climate hell", UN chief warns world leaders in Egypt (EuroNews). crikey.worm. See BBC Headlines, Climate section.

7-11-2022: Climate crisis: past eight years were the eight hottest ever, says UN (The Guardian). Cop27 - Planet Earth is now deep in its climate crisis. And, in the Commentariat section of crikey.worm item we find this: "How Mandela’s moral courage can guide climate battle (by his granddaughter) — Ndileka Mandela: When my grandfather, Nelson Mandela, stood up to apartheid in South Africa, he did so from a place of strong political leadership. However, he was guided and grounded by his morals. And his efforts were complimented by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who knew better than anyone that religious values were crucial to change. They inspired a genuine culture shift that spread across South Africa, changing the hearts and minds of millions. Like climate change, it was a moral challenge. And moral challenges require leaders who can provide a moral framework that political goals can leverage. Except now we need it on a global scale.
We know that to effectively tackle climate change, the world’s societies will have to undergo vast behavioural changes. In fact, without mass individual change, meeting net-zero targets will be all but impossible. And who better to shift global opinion than society’s most powerful behavioural change agents? Faith remains one of the last remaining universal unifiers. Yet politicians and religious leaders rarely address real-world issues together. Until now. This past week, for the first time, the world’s religious leaders were asked to partake at the G20 meeting of faith leaders, otherwise known as R20. Co-organised by Indonesia’s largest Muslim organisation, Nahdlatul Ulama, and the largest Islamic NGO in the world, the Muslim World League, R20 gathered more than 300 religious leaders in Bali to form a new era of climate moral leadership underscored by an unprecedented coalition of interfaith climate alliances.” crikey.worm.

6-11-2022: Floods peak at Forbes/Wagga in NSW. Waters move downriver. UN's world climate conference [Cop27] begins in Egypt (Size of the associated carbon footprint? I mean, it could be done by international Internet video conference!).

4-11-2022: General anxiety in Eastern Australia re flooding as floodwaters move downstream - and it is probably time to get rid of old-technology blame categories such as "one-in-one hundred years floods", (these categories came into use during the 1980s), and to get into some new categories of blame-description of climate events that are more appropriate to our new times of human-induced, global climate change. The use of outdated categories of blame-attribution is akin to other forms of climate-change denialism.

3-11-2022: General anxiety in eastern Australia re risks still of flooding - General mid-morning TV news - then, crikey.worm says: "In short: it’s a ‘potential’ that would be deadly if it eventuated, but the possibility of another health pandemic, nuclear war, a large volcanic eruption, a coronal mass ejection (a cosmic event that would ultimately meddle with everything electrical on Earth) are also on the cards." “Then there’s death on account of climate change, which already has the numbers on its side. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 25% of all deaths globally are due to environmental factors, including poor air and water quality, lack of sanitation and exposure to toxic chemicals. The WHO has also tipped that between 2030 and 2050, climate change will cause about 250,000 excess deaths a year, due to malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress. Much to look forward to.” Meantime, the Commentariat section says: Despite years of exposure to the climate science, I don’t believe we are headed for total societal collapse — Rebecca Huntley (The Guardian): “I’m not immune to the message. I just know I can’t do the work I need to do unless I treat this information in a particular way. Namely like a floor-length taffeta dress I once bought for a formal event: it hangs in my wardrobe as a reminder, worn only occasionally, but I can’t relax or do actual work in it. That requires the elasticated pants of functional denial. I am often asked why other people outside the climate movement don’t react immediately with alarm and take to the streets when they read headlines like this. They may actually be immune to the message. They may not pay attention to the United Nations. But more likely their failure to respond is a very human response. “To feel fear, we must observe and register a threat, such as the sight of a predator. That will then activate our ‘fight or flight’ response. Climate change seems to defy nearly all the evolutionary and cognitive triggers for urgent action. Of course, the kinds of extreme weather events we have seen in Australia and around the world are as tangible a threat to us as a terrorist attack or a virus. But in order to see these floods and fires in the same vein you must make the connection — that this is climate change created by humans rather than just Mother Nature doing her thing.”

1-11-2022: "It’s a horrible thing to say but until more people in developed nations are dying because of the climate crisis, it’s not going to change." Lee White. (Gabon’s environment minister reckons that meaningful climate action won’t happen until the death toll surges in the rich countries. White added that poor countries dealing with the worst of climate-driven floods and heat are yet to see the $100 billion of promised climate finance from wealthier nations.) crikey.worm.

29-10-2022: Australia: Floods cleanups continue. Northern Australia has heatwave. TV News general

28-10-2022: The world is hot and getting hotter and is close to an “irreversible” climate breakdown, the UN warns. [We are] Burning our bridges: Earth is close to an “irreversible” climate breakdown, according to several new UN reports. The UN environment agency has found there is “no credible pathway to 1.5C in place”, Guardian Australia reports, and our pledges for action by 2030 would see the earth warm by at least 2.5C — and that’s only if we manage to meet them. That would see us enter into a catastrophic climate breakdown, including a sea-level rise of more than 50 centimetres on average. The UN’s meteorological agency found all top heating gases hit record levels this year, and methane surged. The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, warns we’re headed to “economy-destroying levels of global heating”, the ABC continues, pointing out [that] countries have barely increased their emission reduction pledges since Glasgow last year. OK, so what do we do? Australia has to reduce emissions by 76% below 2005 levels by 2030 to limit warming to 1.5C — nearly double the Albanese government’s 43% goal — and start right now.
It comes as about 2000 NSW homes that are in flood-prone areas posing “a catastrophic risk to life” could be bought back by an $800 million state-federal scheme to be announced today, the SMH reports. Homeowners in the Ballina, Byron, Clarence Valley, Kyogle, Lismore, Richmond Valley and Tweed areas will also be able to apply for up to $100,000 to help cover the costs of having their houses raised, retrofitted (up to $50,000) or repaired, Guardian Australia reports. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese put it plainly: disasters will become “more frequent, and more severe due to climate change” and the government is working to mitigate the risks. It comes as Australia’s east is battling its fifth major wave of floods in 19 months, New Scientist reports, with extreme rain flooding 43 towns in NSW, 24 in Victoria and three in Tasmania.but a third of voters say they’ll ditch the big parties to vote Greens, minor parties and independents, according to a survey commissioned by The Age. crikey.worm.

27-10-2022: Atmospheric levels of all three greenhouse gases hit record high (The Guardian). crikey.worm.

26-10-2022: BBC Headlines reports that Global Climate Change is negatively affecting the health of folk around the world. Virtually all children on earth will face more frequent heatwaves by 2050 (The Guardian). crikey worm. Anxiety continues in Eastern Australia re risks of flooding. Bureau of Meteorology in Australia warns that this third El Nina could continue into the New Year! Morning TV news.

25-10-2022: France: Calais area has unexpected tornado with winds of 200kmh. Late-night ABC TV news. General anxiety continues in Eastern Australia re risks of flooding. Both Victoria and NSW have had too much rain. TV mid-morning news.

24-10-2022: South America: Hurricane Roslyn batters Mexico’s Pacific coast (BBC). crikey.worm. Australia: anxiety continues re risks of flooding in Eastern Australia. Morning TV news.

23-10-2022: Anxiety continues re flooding risks in Eastern Australia. Early evening TV news.

22-10-2022: Australia: Eastern Australia has floods. Africa: Nigeria has floods. Eastern Europe: Ukraine has floods ( a dam burst risk, apart from a war with Russia). DW TV news

21-10-2022: Australia: What's on today: Melbourne: Protesters will blockade the Yarra River to call for climate action. On TV news, anxiety continues re flooding situation in Eastern Australia. crikey.worm.

20-10-2922: Australia: Eastern Australian anxiety continues re third El Nina floods, especially near Murray River.

19-10-2022: Africa: Drought/famine huge threat in Somalia. Eastern Australia: Flood anxiety continues especially near the Murray River. Murrumbidgee River nears peak near Narrandera, NSW. ABC late evening news.

18-1-2022: Eastern Australia: Floods continue as fears grow of food inflation extra costs. Big water moves downriver. Some towns isolated. Early morning TV news general. Nigeria rushes to aid flood victims, as death toll tops 600 (CBC); Venezuela crisis: 7.1m leave country since 2015 [amid economic and political crisis] (BBC) crikey.worm.

17-10-2022: France: Massive protest in Paris against inflation and climate crisis (Al Jazeera). crikey.worm Australia: floods continue. TV news.

15-10-2022: Near 7am and later, the Internet is flooded (sorry about the pun there) with moving-picture treatments of the current Australian flood situation. Later, TV anxiety and warnings continue.

14-10-2022: Australia: Victorian Premier Dan Andrews says the flooding in his state is extremely serious as NSW and Tasmania await their turn ... crikey.worm. When it rains it pours: Victoria is in the midst of a “significant flood emergency” according to the State Emergency Service (SES), which Victoria Premier ­Daniel Andrews declared “one of the most ­serious flood events we have had for quite some time”. About 10,000 properties have lost power, The Australian reports. This morning people in Wedderburn were told to evacuate immediately, along with Seymour, Rochester and Benalla, The Age says. Shepparton can expect its worst flood in almost 30 years on Saturday afternoon, Guardian Australia continues, and Melbourne suburbs such as Essendon, Footscray, Moonee Ponds and Keilor were put on high alert last night too. At 9.16pm, the Maribyrnong River was at 2.33 metres and rising when VicEmergency told Keilor residents to move to higher ground. NSW and Tasmania are copping dangerously heavy rainfall too as the 400 kilometre-wide deluge rains down on Australia’s south-east, news.com.au reports. About 500 people in Forbes, in NSW’s central west, were told to leave last night as the Lachlan River is expected to peak today at 10.6 metres (!), the ABC reports. If there’s one thing to remember it’s this: never, ever drive through flood waters. The SES warns that’s the single biggest killer during floods in Australia. In the northern half of Tasmania, the rivers have risen to a height not seen since deadly floods in 2016, Guardian Australia continues, but the mayor of Latrobe says people are well- prepared with sandbags and are, like many others, bracing for more. crikey.worm Forbes in NSW is flooded: ABC mid-morning TV news.

13-10-2022: Africa: Nigeria has floods, so does West Nepal. In India, too. SBS early evening TV news. On why net zero is not enough for biodiversity - WWF today released its latest Living Planet Report. In line with reports past, it found species loss on the rise, biodiversity on the decline, and government action to be perfectly stalled. Julia Bergin takes a look at how these reports illustrate decades of negligence, inaction, political partisanship and policy failure in Australia. crikey daily. Australia: TV/Internet warnings continue about wild weather/flood risks. Overnight/mid-morning TV news general. Flooding in Bangladesh.

11-10-2022: Globally, eastern Australia, Venezuela and Mexico have floods: Under the weather: Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has warned her state to brace for cyclones and more floods earlier than usual, the Brisbane Times reports. The cyclone season is usually between December and January in the Sunshine State — but she says it could start an entire month earlier. Get ready now, she urged people, or else we risk losing more Queensland lives. The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) says the state can all but expect 11 tropical cyclones. Speaking of, the ABC has done a wrap up of the BOM’s forecast for every state and territory. There’ll almost certainly be widespread flooding in the east, with unusually high tides due around January 23. In Victoria, brace for thunderstorm asthma if you’re prone to hay fever, while there may be grassfires in the south. WA can also expect more cyclones than usual, while the Top End will have a higher-than-normal risk of bushfires. SA will likely get a hot, dry summer, as will Tasmania.
Increased flooding risk is bad news for our coastlines — La Niña’s wild weather can bolster erosion along our coastlines, meaning entire stretches of beaches and sand dunes can just disappear. The Conversation has a fascinating story about the history of erosion in Australia and what we can learn from it — interestingly, it’s the smaller and more frequent storms that cause more erosion damage than one big one. Take Bribie Island in Queensland, as ABC reports — it was smashed by waves from ex-tropical cyclone Seth earlier this year and the island literally split into two, with a 300-metre wide passage of water separating the islands." crikey.worm.

10-10-2022: South America: Torrential rain in Venezuala causes problems. (Yes, it's the same La Nina weather pattern that is now annoying eastern Australia.) TV news general.

7-10-2022: Australia: Flood warnings continue for much of eastern Australia. TV news general.

6-10-2022: Australia: Flood warnings continue for some NSW rivers. And go right ahead, criticise the looks of today's wind farms by all means; as if the current methods - power lines - for delivering electricity were pretty, Right on, not, Mr Abbott, Mr. Hockey.

4-10-2022: (Taken from a climate-change-denying facebbok post in Australia: "Ponder this for a moment. The wind farm in Mt. Pulaski (USA? - Ed) has been running for 3 1/2 years. They have been replacing the generators in all the wind towers. There are 100 of them in this wind farm. So evidently the life span on the generators on these things is about 3 to 4 years. It takes 12 semi-trucks and trailers, a 9-axle 500,000 pound crane, a 100,000 pound crane and 12 pick-up trucks to change each generator. That is a huge amount of diesel fuel being used to maintain these wind towers. And the "Green Groups" would like you to believe they are all fueled by magic fairy dust."
But this website page as Climate Change ramps up maintains a distinction between weather events, which are reported, and political-commercial responses made in respect of same - or climate-change-denyial material like the foregoing ... Whether the media in a particular country choose to objectively report on Climate Change weather events may be left unreported by this webpage.
TV news today, and this long weekend in Australia has been preoccupied by reports on Pakistan floods, the aftermaths of Hurricane Ian in the US and Cuba, Australian rain in general.

30-9-2019: Mexico named deadliest country for environmental activists (The New York Times): Hurricane Ian’s rainfall was a 1-in-1000 year event for the hardest-hit parts of Florida (CNN): crikey.worm.

29-9-2019: Switzerland: Glaciers are melting at a greater rate since records-keeping began a century ago, according to mid-morning ABC TV news. Australia: A flood of concern: Every town in Australia should brace for “floods, drought, out-of-control grassfires and torrential storms”, according to forecasters at Sky News, who warned Australians to prepare for one of the most severe weather seasons on record. Greater Sydney copped it yesterday when a massive hailstorm and flash-flooding hit parts of the region. Flooding remains the No. 1 risk, particularly in the eastern states, and we’re starting on the back foot considering our dams, soil and rivers contain more water than this time last year. Indeed dams in the Murray-Darling Basin, which goes from Queensland’s inner south through inland NSW, northern Victoria and south-east South Australia, are on average 96% full. There’s also a dam in Adelaide Hills that’s about to burst, putting up to 40 homes at risk, as The New Daily reports (but the risk according to mid-morning TV now eases -Ed). Meanwhile, Loy Yang A coal plant in Victoria and Bayswater coal plant in NSW are both probably going to close early, the SMH reports. AGL is expected to announce it today — Loy Yang A will reportedly close its doors in 2035, a decade earlier than expected, while Bayswater will call time in 2030, three years earlier than previously announced. It comes as Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk confirmed yesterday that her state would be 80% powered by renewables by 2035, in light of the state facing what she called a “climate emergency”, Guardian Australia reports. Coal will not provide any power at all after 2037. How? Some 2000 more wind turbines and 35 million more solar panels, she says, with $4 billion allocated towards the project. At the moment Queensland gets 65% of its electricity from coal, 14% from gas, 18% from solar and wind and 1.5% from hydro power — it actually has the highest emissions of any state, and yet the lowest emissions target (30% compared with 50% in NSW and Victoria). crikey.worm.

28-9-2022: Australia: Sydney NSW has a sudden hailstorm plus flash floods. USA: Hurricane Ian: Florida braces for powerful storm amid evacuation orders (The Guardian): USA and Caribbean Sea: Hurricane Ian means problems for Florida and (electricity supply problems for) Cuba. Australia: "Meanwhile, the planet continues to warm and the wild weather continues to roll in. Queenslanders should brace for more wet weather today, as a senior meteorologist warned that isolated severe thunderstorms may lead to flash flooding, The Courier-Mail reports. Thousands lost power yesterday when severe thunderstorms pummelled Queensland’s south with large hailstones, strong winds and heavy rain. Indeed there’s a huge rain bomb expected to hit 'virtually all' of Australia over the next 10 days, 7News reports via Weatherzone. WA should expect 'significant unseasonable rainfall', which is just another way of saying: none of this is normal." crikey.worm.

27-9-2022: USA: Big storm Hurricane Ian bears down on Cayman Islands, Florida and then Cuba (where it takes out the electricity supply for eleven million people), early evening Channel 10 TV news. Australia: NSW flood warnings for certain rivers are posted. Mid-morning TV news.

26-9-2022: Canada: South-western Newfoundland grapples with catastrophic aftermath of Hurricane Fiona (CBC). crikey.worm. Floods continue in NSW Australia: Meantime, storms/hurricane approach Florida USA and Typhoon Noru approaches Philippines and prompts evacutions there, then worries Vietnam- mid-morning/afternoon TV news, BBC Headlines.

25-9-2022: Australia: NSW floods continue. TV news on s/e Canadian weather events. Read more on Pakistan's floods: Pakistan’s humanitarian crisis has only just begun: Asia decimated by severe floods, droughts and heat waves - crikey.com today. (The use of the term "decimated" is, of course, modern and therefore outside the Latinesque old meaning of the term "decimated", meaning, of course, ten per cent.)

24-9-2022: Australia: NSW: In the north, Lismore is flooded, as are areas of Central NSW at Tullamore; and Gunnedah. The south-east of Canada is devastated by the high winds of Hurricane Fiona and power to many homes is out.

23-9-2022: Climate change: South America: Brazil: Spike in Amazon emissions linked to (weak) law enforcement: BBC Headlines: Australia: Eastern NSW: Flood warnings continue. News general.

21-9-2022: Australia: There are now flood warnings for 17 NSW river systems - ABC/7.30 TV news.

20-9-2022: ”We need to hold fossil fuel companies and their enablers to account.” Antonio Guterres, UN secretary-general.

19-9-2022: Puerto Rico is now without power due to suffering Hurricane Fiona - mid-morning TV news. Reporting in Australia continues re floods in NSW and eastern Australia, and the effect of fires on Kangaroo Island are re-explored. (ABC TV news). "Under the weather: "Natural disasters and climate-induced weather are wreaking havoc across the Asia-Pacific. Seismic activity in Taiwan saw a 6.4 followed by a 6.8 magnitude earthquake shake the island, Reuters reports. One person was killed and the damage to infrastructure has been significant, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency. The island and neighbouring nation Japan remain on wave watch. In Japan, tsunami warnings come hand-in-hand with a rare “special warning” from the Japan Meteorological Agency over typhoon Nanmadol which made landfall in south-western Japan on Sunday evening. The storm unleashed winds of up to 234km/h and has already drenched parts of the country — 500mm of rain in less than 24 hours The Japan Times reports."
It’s “climate carnage” in Pakistan as the country continues to grapple with floods that engulfed a third of the country, Crikey reports. Back home, “major flooding” alerts were issued in Victoria and NSW at the weekend, with NSW and Victorian SES directing communities to stay informed, move to higher ground, or evacuate. crikey.worm.

18-9-2022: French Guadelope has horrendous storm/floods, post-lunch time-TV news. So does Italy, some dead. As floods continue in eastern Australia at Dubbo, Wee Waa and Gunnedah: Wee Waa could be isolated for a week. Southern Japan stands by for an incoming typhoon, with winds of up to 250kph.

17-9-2022: Eastern Italy has floods: late night ABC TV news. TV news warnings ABC re flood risks of eastern Australia due to third successive la Nina weather event and saturated state of the natural environment; floods still at Dubboo zoo area in NSW. Flood situation in Pakistan; some 35 million people have been displaced and incoming international aid is neccessary.

16-9- 2022: Australia: Floods in Central NSW (Dubbo area). TV news in general.

15-9-2022: France has wildfires/many firefighters. TV news general tho late in the day.

14-9-2022: GOOD OPINION (from the UN chief): Sounding the alarm: “The current fossil fuel free-for-all must end now. It is a recipe for permanent climate chaos and suffering. Today, I urge leaders to heed the facts of this alarming report.” Via Twitter ... United Nations secretary-general António Guterres calls for immediate action, as a report shows the world heading into “uncharted territories of destruction”. Former Pacific leaders are calling on Australia to take climate change more seriously, including banning new coal and gas developments. // Patagonia or Chile: glacier melts/crashes due to higher temperatures - Channel 7 lunchtime TV news, early evening TV news. The heat is on: Climate change inaction is leading us to “uncharted territory of destruction”, according to the United Nation’s latest report. Guardian Australia puts it this way: “The world’s chances of avoiding the worst ravages of climate breakdown are diminishing rapidly, as we enter 'uncharted territory of destruction' through our failure to cut greenhouse gas emissions.” It’s kind of bizarre to type sentences like that — call it the Don’t Look Up Effect, I suppose — considering how excruciating it was to get to our newly-minted 43% reduction in emissions target (well short of the 75% reduction we actually need). The target came 16 years after Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and 33 years after Time declared our “endangered earth” person of the year. Anyway, the UN report cited a third of Pakistan being underwater, the unprecedented heatwave in Europe, the unprecedented drought in China, the “megadrought” in the US and the near-famines in Africa as evidence that we are staring down climate change “tipping points”.
Get ready for a wet summer (officially): La Niña is back for the third consecutive year — and that means the risk of widespread flooding has just leapt up and mushrooms will continue to take over our cupboards. So why does La Niña make everything so soggy? The warmer waters in the north-east of the country team up with trade winds to put moisture into the atmosphere, ABC reports. The problem is that the ground is soaked already, our rivers are high and our dams are full, one expert told the broadcaster. It’s very unusual to have three La Niñas in a row — so why is this happening? “Climate change continues to influence Australian and global climate,” the Bureau of Meteorology states plainly. “Australia’s climate has warmed by around 1.47 degrees for the 1910-2020 period.” Brisbane residents will be given sandbags more than a month before the wet season usually begins to prepare for more flooding this year, Brisbane Times. reports, after getting 80cm (!) of rain in February and March .. . crikey.worm.

12-9-2022: SAY WHAT? "I think dealing with the challenge of climate change shouldn’t be seen as a political issue. It should be seen as an issue that is about humanity and about our very quality of life and survival as a world … I think engagement in issues is very different from engagement in party political matters." Australian PM Anthony Albanese. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton argued long-term environmentalist King Charles III should be an “impartial person” when it comes to climate change, but the PM asked why should he be? Climate change disaster is a “big threat”, and Charles has known that for a “long period of time”. crikey.worm.

11-9-2019: USA: California has wildfires. Australian lunchtime TV news.

10-9-2022: The death in Scotland of Queen Elizabeth II and declarations in London re King Charles III hog the news.

9-9-2022: THE NUMBER 5: The number of climate tipping points the world may have already passed, according to a study. Thank goodness Australia now has that 43 per cent target for emissions reduction, which doesn’t include the emissions from the coal we will continue to export. Guardian/Australia. The Politcs/The Monthly. European summer brought record heat, solar power to the continent (Al Jazeera). In Mparntwe Country: (also known as Alice Springs): Desert Song Festival kicks off today, a 10-day celebration of artists, musicians, choirs and audiences celebrating the musical traditions of Central Australia, with this year’s theme of “Our Climate, Our Planet, Our Future”. crikey.worm.

8-9-2022: Europe's warm summer shatters records: BBC Headlines. Australia: Wind storms in South Australia, hail at Port Augusta. Australian TV news general.

7-9-2022: World discussion continues of situation in Pakistan (except in the Australian newspaper as run by Rupert What's His Name Again?)

6-9-2022: Australia: TECH AND CLIMATE: Bryan Appleyard is overly optimistic about autonomous vehicles but otherwise has some trenchant points about the welcome end of the internal combustion engine. Enjoy — the record-breaking hot northern summer will be the coolest one you experience for most of the rest of your life. The costing of climate emergency modelling has been badly astray — the costs of global warming are much higher than previously believed. Get it right, economists — climate costs aren’t your regular “inflation”. While buffoons tout nuclear power in Australia, in France ... crikey, Side View.

4-9-2022: Wildfires predicted for? SBS early evening TV news.

2/3/4-9-2022: It is said that Pakistan needs $233 million right now. But look for this kind of world-climate-news from Weekend Australian as managed by Rupert Murdoch - and you'll not find any mention of it, so is he too busy with "dollar dynamics"? BBC Headlines links Pakistan floods to (world) climate change. DW TV news (Germany via Australia) in early morning gives great attention to Pakistan floods.

1-9-2022: UN chief comments on flood situation in Pakistan. Early morning TV news.

31-8-2022: USA: Mississippi: Jackson residents don’t have enough water to flush toilets (CNN). Pakistan: Repair of Pakistan: About $15 billion. (Where is it going to come from?) Shocking photos show one-third of Pakistan submerged by deadly floods (Euro News). crikey.worm.

30-8-2022: Before and after photos show severity of Pakistan flooding (CBC) (One third of country is now under water) ABC lunchtime TV news; Major sea-level rise caused by melting of Greenland ice cap is "now inevitable" ... (The Guardian). crikey.worm.

29-8-2022: "In recent days, Pakistan has been decimated by extreme flooding, with the death toll having passed 1000. As Mary Yang writes for Foreign Policy, it typifies the kind of disastrous weather — exacerbated by climate change — that has battered Asia over the past year, leaving some of the world’s most vulnerable people in a state of heightened precarity." (This quote is also a good proof that today's journalists are unfortunately innumerate, and we refer of course to the meaning of the Latin word "decimate", which in the original Latin and as the very word itself suggests, is meant to reduce by ten percent; but is now used by journalists writing in English to more dramatically refer to situations that are up to 90 per cent disabled, not a mere ten per cent disabled. Something needs also to be said about the editors of Foreign Policy for permitting this linquistic atrocity to even arise, and about the editors of crikey.com for so uncritically reprinting it!) From, crikey.com. Pakistan appeals for international help to aid Monsoon-rain flooding-caused humanitarian crisis. General TV news.

28-8-2022: Pakistan (state of national emergency declared) floods continue to preoccupy ABC TV news today.

27-8-2022: Floods in Pakistan are the worst in living memory. 1000 or more dead. Early evening TV news.

26-8-2022: Lunchtime crikey comments: "China is facing 'severe challenges' as the worst drought in the country’s recorded history just keeps on going, it suffers power shortages, and its endemic water supply problem just keeps growing. Michael Sainsbury writes that 'the statistics are frankly frightening' and the soaring temperatures are also having a devastating human cost. China drought on ABC TV news at lunchtime. Water levels in China's Yangtze River are low due to drought; hydro power is hit.

25-8-2022: Floods in Afghanistan. USA: Floods in Texas vs dinosaur bones uncoverered by drought. TV news generally. WHAT'S ON TODAY Online: US ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy, US deputy special envoy for climate Rick Duke and Australia’s Department of Change, Energy, Environment and Water’s Kushla Munro will speak at the Ask Me Anything: Climate Edition webinar. crikey.worm.

24-8-2022: Solar overtakes coal in energy transition: The Wrap-Up — on LinkedIn News-The Sydney Morning Herald. Australian south-east has cold weather including snow. ABC TV News mid-morning. Europe's drought worst in 500 years - experts. crikey.worm in morning.

23-8-2022: crikey.com at lunchtime: Energy change needs thousands of sparkies [in Australia]. But a survey of 642 electrical apprentices showed more than a third (37 per cent) were thinking about quitting. USA: Floods have moved on from Kentucky and Texas (Dallas area, worst since 1932) is now in flood trouble: ABC TV News mid-morning edition.

22-8-2022: Evening TV News, heavy flooding in North India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and people are distressed, while in North East Africa: Sudan has floods. ABC News Morning TV. Germany's five remaining alpine glaciers at risk of melting in the next 15 years. BBC Headlines.

21-8-2022: Drought across Europe is exposing once-sunken treasures in what once were watercourses. BBC Headlines. Spain regains control of wildfires. After dark TV News. India has flash flooding.

20-8-2022: China: due to heat the Yangtze River is drying up. SBS early evening TV news. Australia: Discussion of Electric Vehicles is better informed after government interventions.

19-8-2022: Caught napping while violent storms rampage, entire European countries: in Austria, France/Corsica (and the Loire River in Central France has seriously dried up due to drought), Northern Italy, winds of 224 km/hr. Channel 10 early evening news. Violent storms (tornado?) kill at least seven in Southern Europe; in Corsica (France), and Tuscany (Italy). Lunchtime ABC TV news. At least 38 people killed as "tornado of fire" rages in northern Algeria (The Guardian). crikey.worm.

18-8-2022: Spanish Govt. by law resets air conditioning units to eg., 270Centigrade to conserve energy. (But various interviewees promise faithfully to break such laws.) ABC TV. And re New Zealand, South Island declares flooding emergency.

17-8-2022: Portugal has wildfires; smoke bothers Spain.

16-8-2022: La Nina predicted to revist Australia for third time; so more floods possible for areas near Pacific coasts during the southern hemisphere's summer of 2022-2023. Marshall Islands of Pacific Ocean caves in to covid cases.

15-8-2022: World leader efforts to protect world's oceans. Japan has tropical storm - both in BBC Headlines. Vanuatu, one of the Pacific's most climate-vulnerable countries, launches ambitious climate plan (The Guardian). crikey.com. Medical bulk-billing (a safety-net mechanism for poorer people by way of a medical billing system) caves in in Australia.

14-8-2022: Germany: Climate activists arrested by police as Rhine River becomes unfit for trade or navigation due to regional drought. Late-night TV news. And see BBC Headlines.

13-8-2022: Drought in UK, London etc. ABC TV news, morning edition.

12-8-2022: About 60 per cent of Europe (multi countries including England) will soon be declared drought-stricken. Channel 7 late morning tv news. French PM sounds climate crisis alarm as ‘ogre-like’ wildfire rages (The Guardian). How to make America the green investment capital of the world — Andrew Forrest (The AFR): “Here in Australia, where two-thirds of coal plants are scheduled to close before 2040, we are taking the same approach to two major facilities in NSW, which together account for 40% of the state’s emissions. Why do I have faith in what I am saying? Because I am an industrialist. I built my career by developing some of the largest iron ore mining infrastructure in the world. I also built it on never giving up and putting certain values at the core of everything we do: frugality, integrity, safety, humility, courage and determination, enthusiasm, family, generating ideas. Fortescue emits as much greenhouse gas as the whole of France. We are no shrinking violet when you factor in our steel-making customers, our armada of iron ore carriers and the diesel trucks we use to haul red Pilbara dirt across our mine sites.
“But we see the writing on the wall. We know that climate change is real — and that if we don’t change, our customers will go elsewhere. When I talked to leaders in the coal industry in the US last week about the green jobs I want to bring to America — seriously tough, rusted-on men and women with seriously tough values — they looked at me as one of them. They understand that we need the Inflation Reduction Act. They understand that green jobs give America a plan B to go with its plan A — not instead of it. They understand that the act will create an America that is not only a fossil fuels superpower but also a green energy superpower. They understand that the Inflation Reduction Act will give everyday mums and dads — not just the coal workers, but teachers, electricians, small business owners, financial analysts, hairdressers, butchers, mechanics, construction workers — a way out.” crikey.worm.

11-8-2022: Dire warnings of melting of Antartic ice sheets. France has wildfires today and yesterday. SBS early evening TV news: Major environmental groups in Australia and leading climate experts have warned that net zero emissions goals could do more harm than good if unchecked; WHAT'S ON TODAY Online: Climateworks Centre’s Helen Rowe and Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries’ Tony Weber will speak about Australia’s need for an emission ceiling for cars in a webinar held by the Grattan Institute. crikey.worm.

10-8-2022: UK prepares for more heat as a heatwaves move north from Southern Europe and Europe generally prepares for extra drought. Switzerland’s melting glaciers reveal human remains and plane wreckage (The Guardian) crikey.worm.

9-8-2022 South Korea: Has heavy rains, eg., Seoul, some dead. BBC Headlines/ and next-day Australian TV news.

8-8-2022: Australia: southern NSW floods as the Murrumbidgee River rises, some low-lying areas around Wagga Wagga NSW subject to evacuation orders. Australia: A secret campaign to slow the progress of electric vehicles in Australia was put in place by the car industry. crikey.worm.

7-8-2022: USA: Death Valley has flash flooding.

6-8-2022: USA: Now, California has floods as well as wildfires.

4-8-2022: Floods in Japan. ABC TV News, the World: By lunchtime TV News, the Australian Great Barrier Reef is back in the news for alleged ocean-warming reasons! Also Caribbean seaweeds are responding to warmer waters.

3-8-2022: Spain puts limits on air-conditioning and heating to save energy.(The Guardian). crikey.worm. Canberra: Carbon Market Institute’s John Connor, Footprint News’ Murray Griffin, Grattan Institute’s Alison Reeve, Clean Energy Finance Corporation’s Bianca Sylvester, and Ndevr Environmental’s Matt Drum will speak on a panel about our carbon future. Greens Leader Adam Bandt will speak to the National Press Club about the Greens and the 47th Parliament. crikey.worm.

2-8-2022: California wildfire: two dead as firefighters battle McKinney blaze (BBC). crikey.worm. Early evening BBC Headlines has Kentucky floods and death toll of Calfornia wildfires. (2).

1-8-2022: SBS evening TV news has it that Kentucky floods now kill 28. North Californian wildfires now meet wildfires on the border with Oregon. Plus wildfires in Portugal. ABC TV news mid-morning, USA: California drought plus Colorado River: "Soon it will be unrecognisable": total climate meltdown cannot be stopped, says expert (The Guardian) crikey.com.

31-7-2022:USA: Floods in Arizona. (Evening, BBC Headlines.)

30-7-2022: USA: Floods in Kentucky, some 25 or more dead. Channel 7 evening TV news.

29-7-2022: USA: Floods in Kentucky, some dead. ABC mid-morning TV news. Surprise climate deal would be most ambitious of its kind undertaken by US. (The New York Times.) crikey.worm.

28-7-2022: USA: California now fears drought. Climate Change is killing elephants, says Kenya. BBC Headlines.

27-7-2022: Wildfires worry Germany/Czechoslavakia. Europe worries if heatwave leads to drought? Melting glacier in Alps shifts border between Switzerland and Italy (The Guardian). crikey.worm.

26-7-2022: Evacuations for Yosemite area in California USA: SBS evening 6.30pm TV news.

25-7-2022: Pakistan floods continue, ABC late night TV news; Sunset TV news, fires on island of Lesbos Greece + Yosemite in California getting worse amid rising temperatures. USA: Yosemite National Park inland of San Francisco has wildfires. ABC mid-morning TV news: [US] heat records expected to be broken on Sunday (The New York Times), crikey.worm. Could a smaller, bolder Splendour be a better festival experience? — Osman Faruqi (The SMH): “Who’d be crazy enough to run a music festival? It was a frequently uttered question backstage at this year’s Splendour in the Grass, as artists, crew members and managers grappled with the logistical issues that defined its return after three years. Back in the summer of 2019, it was Falls Festival that bore the brunt of Australia’s increasingly frequent natural disasters when the entire Lorne show was cancelled due to extreme heat and bushfire threat. Sheer resilience kept Australian music afloat over the past two years, but as live shows started to return anticipation built for Australia’s biggest music festival, Splendour, (run by Secret Sounds, who also put on Falls Festival). “This time it wasn’t COVID that affected the festival’s return. In a throwback to Falls in 2019, it was weather that posed the biggest threat. The north coast of NSW has been battered by heavy rains and floods throughout 2022, devastating many local communities. The area had been drying out in the lead-up to Splendour, but an already high water table and projected torrential rain led to fears the entire show would be scrapped — for the third time in a row. In the end, it was only the first day of Splendour that had to be abandoned due to flooding. Organisers and crew worked throughout Friday night to get the site in working order so that all the scheduled artists could hit the stage on Saturday and Sunday. It seems significant that extreme weather has bookended the pandemic’s impact on live music. With climate change making summers hotter and rainfalls heavier, there are serious questions about the long-term viability of Australia’s iconic outdoor festivals. But weather wasn’t the only logistical challenge.”

24-25-7-2022: Pakistan has serious floods due to Monsoon rains. TV News, general.

23-7 -2022: European heatwave: more wildfires in Spain. Australia: Byron Bay's (NSW) music festival, Splendour in the Grass, is rained out. The latter matter is reported in Weekend Australian, front page.

21-7-2022: London fires plus fires in Norfolk, England: ABC TV News early lunchtime. WHAT'S ON TODAY: Melbourne: Federal Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy Jenny McAllister, Economist Ross Garnaut, and author Saul Griffith will speak at the First Nations Clean Energy Symposium held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. Sydney: Environmental scientist Emma Johnston and her co-authors will speak about the findings of their 2021 State of the Environment Report and what we can expect moving forward, held at the University of Sydney. crikey.worm.

20-7-2022: US Heatwave (a Nevada postman collapses; up to 43 degrees Centigrade) on Channel 10 Australia after 6pm TV News. British-European heatwave gets big comment with lunchtime ABC TV news. Morning: London’s burning: fire engulfs homes as UK temperatures hit record 40C (Reuters) Overnight: Europe on fire is lead story for DW TV news (Germany) on ABC TV news, 2am. UK has hottest day on record. Heatwave in Southern France. Strong winds. State of German crops worries local farmers. The Commentariat: We’ve reached boiling point — nobody should have to work in temperatures above 30C — Mika Minio-Paluello (The Guardian): “As record temperatures pass 40C (104F) in the UK, working people deserve to be safe. Builders, postal workers and street cleaners who spend long periods outside in high temperatures are at serious risk of sunstroke, heat stress and skin cancer. Other workers doing physical labour in indoor heat, like packing in a hot warehouse, can also suffer heat stress, respiratory problems and even heart failure. Working under pressure in these temperatures can reduce people’s capacity to concentrate and lead to deadly accidents. This can be especially dangerous in industries such as transport and construction, and in manufacturing plants. “Class shapes who is most at risk from the health risks caused by the climate crisis. People in low-paid and insecure jobs and those on zero-hours contracts find it harder to complain or raise safety concerns because they fear losing their wages. There are legal minimum working temperatures in the UK, but no legal maximum. This defies common sense. Spain, Germany and China all have maximum working temperatures enshrined in workers’ rights. And hotter countries adjust work patterns so workers can avoid the worst heat. The TUC is calling for 30C as a new absolute maximum indoor temperature to indicate when work should stop, or 27C for those doing strenuous jobs.” crikey.worm commentariat.

19-7-2022: Report finally issued on Australia's dismal environmental record since white settlement in 1788: ALP's Tanya Plibersek addresses National Press Club on the matter: Wildfires rage in France and Spain amid heat wave, while the UK faces its hottest day ever (CNN). crikey.worm. Sydney: Clean Energy Regulator chair David Parker, Clean Energy Council’s Kane Thornton and inventor Saul Griffith will speak at the Australian Clean Energy Summit. Canberra: Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek will give a State of the Environment Address to the National Press Club. crikey.worm.

18-7-2022: Flashflooding in China. ABC TV News 8.16pm. European Heatwave: More evacuations as Mediterranean wildfires spread (BBC): As the planet cooks, climate stalls as a political issue (The New York Times). crikey.worm. ABC TV News at lunchtime. Temperatures to 41oC in UK. All big on BBC Headlines.

17-7-2022: European heatwave/wildfires storyline continues. Channel 7 sunset TV news in Australia. Temperatures are 40-47 degrees Centigrade. Now Greece is affected, and also there are wildfires in Morocco in North Africa. There is re medical cases, medico talk of "the new normal". SBS 6.30 TV news broadcast in Australia. Record temperatures in UK. Evacuations in some areas. Some 360 folk die of varied medical conditions in Spain alone. WWF believes it is due to "climate change". ABC TV news broadcast, dinnertime, in Australia. BBC Headlines has stories including that heatwave is being fuelled by jet stream phenomena. Japanese fish catches declining due to global warming. Late night ABC TV News/The World.

16-7-2022. UK heatwave, near 40 degrees Centigrade. Emergency declared. Also heatwave in France, wildfires at Bordeaux. Spain, Portugal, Croatia and Italy also suffer excess heat. Channel 7 sunset + SBS, ABC evening TV news broadcast.

15-7-2022: Wildfires in Portugal (late afternoon TV news, Channel 10); Heatwaves across Asia, especially in Shanghai, China. (Lunchtime ABC TV News.)

14-7-2022: Wildfires threaten sequoia trees in Yosemite National Park, California: 300 firefighters and 67ha are involved. USA: Flooding in Virginia: BBC Headlines; websites various.

13-7-2022: Europe swelters as heatwave spreads (BBC). crikey.worm.

12-7-2022: Sydney: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Energy Minister Chris Bowen, special adviser to the Australian government on low-emissions technology Alan Finkel, the International Energy Agency’s Fatih Birol, Fortescue Metals Group’s Andrew Forrest, Institute of Energy Economics Japan Tatsuya Terazawa, Siemens Corporation’s Barbara Humpton, and US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm will speak at Sydney Energy Forum 2022. crikey.worm.

12-7-2022: [NZ] Weather: Deep low storm bringing heavy rain, 120kph gusts and snow (Stuff); UK heatwave: Temperatures rise to 32C amid extreme heat warning (BBC). crikey.worm.

11-7-2022: ABC 4 corners, a Lismore? Mayor said it (re recent floods), "This is not for Federal or state government, nor local government, this needs something more autocratic … ".

9-7-2022; The blunt view of an Australian friend: A onetime Australian PM, Kevin Rudd, famously referred to Climate Change as "one of the greatest scientific, economic, and moral challenges of our time" ... And alas he was quite wrong. It's not a challenge ... It is a threat ... In fact it's an existential threat. Cheers, if that is the right word ... .

8-7-2022: Plant-based meat by far the best climate investment, report finds (The Guardian). crikey.worm.

6-7-2022: Italy declares state of emergency in drought-hit northern regions (The Guardian.) crikey.worm.

5-7-2022: Coal makes a comeback as the world thirsts for energy (The Wall Street Journal)/. crikey.worm. Much on Australian TV news re the Sydney-area floods.

4-7-2022: At least six dead after chunk of glacier breaks loose on Italian mountain (The Guardian). crikey.worm/afternoon TV News. In Dolomites area, which is having a heatwave.

3-4 -7-2022: Flash-flooding in Sydney-Hunter regions of Australia/the Nepean/Hawkesbury river systems. Many evacuations from Newcastle south past Sydney to Bateman's Bay. Some people have been recently flooded four times by now. The Drum on ABC TV News devotes an entire panel to discussing it. The Australian states BTW are responsible for disaster management, not the Federal sphere.

Sat 2-7-2022: n/e India/Manipur State: Weeks of rains unleash deadly mudslide. Killed are 16 inc. army people; 70 are missing; railroad buried. SMH, p. 43. (Asian Monsoon is said to be wetter than usual).

1-7-2022: Hey, what's this? More climate denialism from Australia? What's with all this national talk of renovating the electricity grid and NO ONE is talking anything about electrical engineering? Like, what do the peak bodies feel about any of this! And NO ONE talks about any of this silence, either? Can you believe it? Do we have a bright media or do we just have a bright media? - Ed

30-6-2022: Japan swelters in its worst heatwave ever recorded (BBC). crikey.worm.

28-6-2022: Tornado in Netherlands, late night TV news, and Japan has heatwave and their air conditioners spike electricity demand. While BBC Headlines has it that the world needs to protect its oceans.

28-6-2022: World faces "ocean emergency", UN warns, as activists urge action. (Al Jazeera). Crikey.worm.

23-6-2022: Floods in China, TV News.

22-6-2022: Floods in Bangladesh, Assam in India and Southern China.

21-6-2022: ‘A huge crisis’: At least 26 more dead and millions marooned in flood-hit India and Bangladesh (SBS) and China (Channel 7 News). BBC Headlines has it that China also has a tornado.

21-6-2022: Re Climate Change (or CC) on the net; and it seems to have entered yet another phase. Tonight's TV news is that Nepal has just shifted the base camp for climbing Everest for Climate Change reasons. This is significant.

20-6-2022: Spain/Germany battle wildfires amid unusual heatwave in Europe (Al Jazeera) which spreads to France, Britain; The US: Republican drive to tilt courts against climate action reaches a crucial moment (The New York Times). crikey.worm. Floods in China.

19-6-2022: Floods in Bangladesh.

18-6-2022: UK and France have heatwave. Fires in US. (TV News.)

16-6-21022: Over a third of US population urged to stay indoors amid record-breaking heat (The Guardian) crikey.worm.

11-6-2022: Heavy rains/floods in Central China.

10-6-2022: Wildfires in Spain, US (California/Colorado.)

6-6-2022: WHAT'S ON TODAY: (Melbourne): ACT Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment Sophie Lewis, Emergency Management Australia’s Joe Buffone, and Australian Climate Service’s Vicki Woodburn are among the speakers at the Fire & Climate 2022 Conference. crikey.worm.

4-6-2022: Rupert Murdoch - Weekend Australian - has a 12-page advertising supplement (it's the second one within a year by our count) on electric vehicles (imported). Wonders will never cease!

2-6-2022: A ‘perfect recipe for extreme wildfire’: New Mexico’s record-breaking, early fire season (The New York Times): ‘Consequences will be dire’: Chile’s water crisis is reaching breaking point (The Guardian).

1-6-2022: Adelaide, SA: The Australian Hydrogen Conference 2022 will continue with SA Premier Peter Malinauskas and Special Adviser to the Australian Government on Low Emissions Technology Alan Finkel among the speakers. crikey.worm. Mexico has landslides and hurricanes.

30-5-2022: Heavy rain kills 44 in northeast Brazil (CNN). crikey.worm.

27-5-2022: Pakistan has heatwave. (51C).

4-5-2022: Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney): Federal Labor spokesperson for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen, Member for Warringah Zali Steggall, Power Ledger’s Jemma Green, and ACT Minister for Water, Energy and Emissions Reduction Shane Rattenbury will all speak at the Smart Energy Exhibition & Conference 2022. CEO of Sydney, Monica Barone, will give the keynote address to The Future City seminar, which addresses carbon, climate and societal crises. crikey.worm.

3-5-2022: Scorching weather forces India to face climate change head-on (Al Jazeera). crikey.worm.

2-5-2022: Heatwave alerts re India/Pakistan, TV News general, in Australia, ABC TV News, The World, about 10.30pm. Iraq duststorm. BBC Headlines.

30-4-2022: USA: Kansas/Wichita, tornadoes. Channel 9 afternoon TV News.

29-4-2022: Climate change may increase risk of new infectious diseases (CBC). crikey.worm.

22-4-2022: Sir David Attenborough (of England) named "Captain of the Earth" by UN. TV news general, SBS evening TV news.

14-4-2019: South Africa: Death toll reaches 259-440 in KwaZulu-Natal floods (Al Jazeera); Climate change: COP26 promises will hold warming under 2C (BBC); Dozens dead or missing after tropical storm hits the Philippines (The New York Times). crikey.worm.

13-4-2022: The climate crisis is supercharging rainfall in hurricanes, scientists report (CNN). crikey.worm.

11-4-2022: Kaurna Country (also known as Adelaide): Flinders University is holding a conference about Australia’s place in global environmental governance since the 1972 Stockholm Conference. crikey.worm

10-4-2022: Global: climate groups say a change in coding can reduce bitcoin energy consumption by 99%: Bitcoin mining already uses as much energy as Sweden (a small country), according to some reports. But that could change with a simple switch in the way it's coded, according to a campaign by Change the Code Not the Climate. (O'Reilly computer books (California) promotional email to the compiler.)

8-4-2022: Australia: Rain lashes Sydney. ABC TV various.

7-04-2022: Rain lashes Sydney, Australia. Wind and solar now supply 10% of global requirements. BBC Headlines. 30 tornadoes rip through USA. Channel 10 afternoon TV news.

5-4-2022: Australia: Bondi Beach Sydney has huge tides. BBC Headlines.

5-4-2022: IPPI urgency: UN chief Guterres in despair at state of world Climate Changes: ABC TV, mid-day TV news.

5-4-2022: The Commentariat: What Australian cities can do to pull their weight on global warming — Xuemei Bai (The SMH: “For example, building green infrastructure in cities such as leafy parks and green roofs is a great way to absorb carbon emissions, support biodiversity and other ecosystem functions, while helping to alleviate extreme heatwaves caused by climate change … shifting to more plant-based diets and reducing food waste could cut up to 44% emission in the food sector, and shifting to active transport and living in comfortable but smaller housing has the potential to cut two-thirds of emissions in each of these sectors … “… It would be more enticing to cycle to work if bikes didn’t have to share highways with cars and trucks. Many are concerned with the quantity and the management of food waste, but not everyone has the capacity to do backyard composting. Having food waste separately collected and composted has proven to be effective in Milan in reducing waste streams to landfill and consequent methane emission … Electric vehicles combined with low or zero carbon electricity are identified by the IPCC report as the most promising options for reducing urban transportation emissions. Smart urban policies and regulations can accelerate their adoption.” crikey.worm.

USA: More tornadoes in Texas. Climate groups say a change in coding could reduce bitcoin energy consumption. TV news various.

4-4-2022: IPCC talks stretch past deadline: The final draft of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report has been delayed, with governments accused of trying to water down the scientists’ findings. Key dissidents were India, China and Saudi Arabia. Guardian Australia/The Policy.

28-3-2022: ABC TV 4 Corners: A TV special on Climate Change - Canada mid-year is very hot, so wildfires appear - 6000 fires burn 1 million acres and cost $10 billion (of Canadian dollars?) - Climate scientists' dire warnings, are they heeded sufficiently - the entire planet is about 1.6 degrees Celsius warmer than it was in the 19th Century - roles for governments re decisions to be made - vs evident lack of speed and too little being done - Floods in Germany - good intentions, but, there are deaths and the resulting feelings are? - accurate weather forecasting is simply getting more difficult - Globalism vs localism? - Adapt or Die - India, the Monsoon; and the Indian Ocean is warming more quickly than any other ocean - China, dust-storms and air pollutions - effects of air pollution on children - national comparisons - Australia is hot and dry and likely will become more so - Insurance problems and problems of uninsurability - Australian coal - Problems worldwide of food and water security - Is it really make or break? ABC TV.

28-3-2022: Climate change: Past the warning stage on climate ... The Politics/The Monthly.

28-3-2022: Kaurna Country (also known as Adelaide): The City of Adelaide will host a youth forum for young people aged 12 to 24 to share their view on climate action. crikey.worm

23-3-2022: USA: Texas reels from effects of tornadoes. US states such as Alabama and Louisiana stand by apprehensively. Channel 7 11.30am news, evening ABC news.

23-2-2022: Online: Former Australian Defence Force chief Chris Barrie AC will speak at a webinar hosted by The Australia Institute on responses to climate-change-related natural disasters. crikey.worm

22-2-2022: ABC TV from 9.30pm screens a documentary on the poles, the Arctic and the Antarctic, which was produced with an eye to: The effects of warmth in such regions. Ice (some of which in Antarctica comes in sheets 4km thick), reindeer of the Arctic Circles and penguins of Antarctica; temperature. Winds and blizzards. The life cycles of krill and plankton and of all things, iron molecules in them. The Southern Ocean surrounds the continent Antarctica and engages in important heat transfers. Antarctica supports no people and so the ocean rules life, and research. Marine habitats and sundry depth zonings. Strange and maybe pressurised marine environments. The Aurora Borealis (north and south) is due to the interaction of solar storms and the earth's magnetic field. The colours visible, it is said, are magnificent. The compiler BTW has never heard a bad word about Antarctica from people who have been there and finds that most people want to return there.

20-3-2022: USA: Texas has wild wildfires. ABC breakfast TV.

16-3-2022: Electric Vehicles Fun, fun, fun: Prime Minister Scott Morrison is set to announce a $234 million injection into electric vehicles in a bid to steer away from China, news.com.au reports. It’ll be funding for private projects who either dig up critical minerals or build batteries, including a $30 million investment in an NT plant set to be the “biggest non-China source of rare earths” worldwide, Energy Minister Angus Taylor says (China supplies 70-80% of global critical minerals at the moment). WA also gets a decent slice of pie, with a $119.6 grant for a material refinery hub and $49 million for a battery project.
Morrison seems keen to drum up some support in WA — he contradicted his state Liberal colleagues in commending popular Premier Mark McGowan’s decision to do a week’s worth of quarantine voluntarily when kicking off his election campaign in Perth yesterday, WA Today reports. It comes as the WA Liberals leader called McGowan’s overcaution a “grandstanding stunt” on Friday. But it’s not hard to see why Morrison is singing the praises of McGowan, who has a 60% approval rating. Labor is surging ahead in three key WA seats — Hasluck, Pearce, and Swan — The West reports. It means Liberal MP Ben Morton could lose his seat according to polling — Morton is one of Morrison’s closest allies, travelling with him for the entirety of the last federal election campaign.

14-3-2022: TV reports allege mid-morning that NSW SES had rebuffed offers of ADF-help prior to NSW coastal floods onset. Comment from this website: the onset of Anthropogenic Global Warming (which is new) means that all old bets are off; the entire thing, especially re the role of levels of government in Australia, needs a rethink.

13-14-3-2022: Albanese takes PM to task over flood response. w/e Australian, p. 8.

12-3-2022: Front page: Don't rely on army in disasters: Cosgrove. Barnaby Joyce, the leader of NP, p. 5, says, "shift out of floodplains is up to state [of NSW]"; and re Climate Change he feels, 'OK, Australia has to deal with the reality we're in, not the reality we wish for' ... SMH. On p. 34, George Megalogenis says, "Climate of denial around leadership" and has a futuristic back page essay (that this webpage happens to agree with), in News Review section. News Review section begins with headline - "Helpless against force of nature" - "With natural disasters only set to increase, Australia needs a plan to cope", writes Jordan Baker.

9-3-2022: Australia: crikey.com says that more than 50,000 NSW people have been told to evacuate. Prime Minister declares national emergency for Northern NSW. Morning ABC TV has it that flood warnings are current for Hunter/Hawkesbury regions. (Yes folks, read all about it in newspapers by Rupert Murdoch, yes, all the news that's fit to print, trooly rooly.)

8-3-2022: North America: USA: Seven dead as more tornadoes tear at Iowa. (Read all about it in newspapers by Rupert Murdoch.)

5-6-3-2022: Chris Kenny says: "Where normal people see disaster, climate catastophists see opportunity". And sorry Chris, but these "disasters' are not "normal", they are due to Anthropogenic Climate Change, the effects of which are to an extent modifiable as they are man-made. Sorry, Chris. w/e Australian.

5-3-2002: Australia: NSW coastal regions as La Nina awaits seem right in the thick of debate (and revised debate) about Climate Change: it now looks like the realities of Climate Change have outpaced the denialism of politicians, and/or the ability/willingness of multiple levels of government to assist disaster-stricken people. People are wanting a faster and more positive response from government resources. But the observer might remark: can anything human necessarily outpace nature? A nature turbo-charged by Anthropogenic Global Warming? And the answer might be: it might depend on circumstances; sometimes yes, sometimes no.

5-3-2022: Front page has it that NSW premier promises review into disaster response, and has advice on how best to make an insurance claim. News Review section asks (p. 26ff), "Floods renew debate over where people should live". Is it true re Letters-to-editor section, "climate apathy to blame here" ... SMH.

3-3-2022: Front page says: Flooding reignites feud over dam wall. SMH Letter-to-editor section headline: Climate change deniers have to face costly truth. Brian Everingham of Engadine writes: "Given the numbers of 'unprecedented' events in the past decade, we either have an unprecedented number of politicians unable to plan for the future or an unprecedented number of politicians rushing to excuse their inaction to deal with said 'unprecedented' events." On p. 27 a story is headlined: War [in Ukraine] will 'accelerate' green energy transition: (Blackrock.)

3-3-2022: Global scramble for Australian coal [due to Ukraine-Russian war]: Pathways to net zero is driving company boards: Insurers facing higher costs as floods persist: climate activists turn to litigation: Australian Business Review, pp. 13-15. At the rear of the Finance section the John Durie column is headlined, "carbon credit confusion". (Yes, folks, read all about it in newspapers by Rupert Murdoch, all the news that's fit to print.)

In 2021, Anthropogenic Climate Change ended its warning phase and entered its actual phase. So given this, the discussion here will be somewhat different from now on. - Ed

28-2-2022: Business section has it that "investors not happy with coal exit plan (of AGL)". SMH, p. 20.

26-27 Feb 2022: Australia: Twiggy Forrest's fury over fossil fuel support - A rear-view mirror view, he says, and is any form of hydrogen, "clean" - Commentary, the real risk in energy policy lies in not planning renewables transition, w/e Australian.

21-2-2022: Atlassian mogul in bid to shut down coal - and p. 28, Hydrogen hype gets real with Japanese tender. SMH

26-27-2-2022: On p. 16 of the Inquirer section, environment editor Graham Lloyd has a piece headlined, "Dealing with an uneasy shift of power", while Paul Monk writes ardently on "Go soft on socialism? Don't delude yourself" and Chris Kenny (having his usual fun with The Left) has it that "It's a postmodern dance around the verifiable facts" - w/e Australian - which, surprise surprise, has a special report/supplement on electric vehicles. But this website asks: when will electric vehicles be manufactured in Australia? By whom? In which state?

26-2-2022: News Review section has it that, Billionaire banks on green power. (On Mike Cannon-Brooks from Atlassian) - Nick O'Malley writes on the demise of coal. SMH.

24-2-2022: Climate scientists warn of a "global wildfire crisis". (The New York Times). crikey.worm. TV news indicates similar re tornadoes. (Read all about it folks in newspapers by Rupert Murdoch. But oops, can his staff read a world weather map?)

23-2-2022: On p. 7 is headline, 'Rush to end coal a risk to power costs: AGL leader. On p. 10, "Bucketload of rain" hits Sydney in final week of summer. SMH.

23-2-2022: What happened to the Greens? Climate change might be one of the biggest political issues on the agenda for the upcoming federal election, but the party most associated with environmental policy is struggling to cut through. According to the latest opinion polls, the Greens are finding it hard to connect with voters. Today, Mike Seccombe on the challenges facing Australia’s third party. The Monthly/Today.

22-2-2022: Sydney and parts of New South Wales (Australia) slammed by wild weather. Channel 7 afternoon TV news.

21-2-2022: South America: Wildfires in Argentina. ABC News TV at 1.50 am. (Yes folks, read all about it in newspapers by Rupert Murdoch.)

Push for transport fleets to go green, w/e Australian.

18-2-2022: South America: "Like a war zone": Deaths in Brazil floods, mudslides top 100 (Al Jazeera). Crikey.worm. (Read all about it, folks, in newspapers by Rupert Murdoch.)

17-2-2022: Unexpected coal plant closure puts climate centre stage - The electoral contest in the coal seats just got even more interesting, with Origin Energy announcing it would be shuttering its Hunter Valley Eraring power station — the largest in the country — in 2025, instead of in the 2030s. Bernard Keane and Glenn Dyer point out that it reflects how unviable coal-fired power has become — especially as AGL announced last week it was bringing forward its closure of the Bayswater plant, also in the Hunter, to 2032. crikey.com.

16-2-2022: Online: The Wheeler Centre presents an interactive series about an imagined climate crisis led by storyteller Bernard Caleo. Crikey.worm.

16-2-2022: The joy of cooking (insects) — Tala Schlossberg, Kirk Semple and Jonah M. Kessel (The New York Times): “Mealworm soup. Chile-lime cricket tacos. Charred avocado tartare with ant larvae. In the West, edible insects have long been the domain of food adventurers, with few other takers — even as billions of people elsewhere on the planet count insects as a part of their traditional diets … It’s a matter of numbers. The world’s population is booming. So, too, is agricultural production to meet the growing demand for food. Yet agriculture, particularly the production of meat, is a big driver of environmental harm.
“Scientists have warned that unless we make major adjustments to the kinds of food we eat and how we produce it, we have no chance of meeting our climate goals. A change in dietary patterns, especially reduced demand for meat, would help relieve pressure on the environment and mitigate global warming. That’s where insects come in. Though the research is still nascent, the early evidence suggests that some edible insects offer a more environmentally sustainable alternative to some conventional livestock. Insects also offer tremendous potential as pet food and a feed source for conventional livestock.” (crikey.worm.)

14 Feb., 2022: Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest hits a record January high. SMH. p. 19. And, push for oil giants to disclose clean up cost.

10-2-2022: Renew Hope: New data shows coal-fired power is at its lowest level since records began in Australia, powering just 62.8% of electricity, Guardian Australia reports. And last year saw a new green record, with a whopping 31.4% of our electricity being from renewable sources, The Age continues, while gas fell to its lowest level in 15 years, according to the Climate Council. Renewable energy was actually up to 32.2% in the WA grid (which is separate). In the last few years we’ve been smashing the national renewable energy target out of the park, which was 23% from solar, wind and hydro plants by 2020 — that’s in big part thanks to our groovy state-based renewable schemes.
So why is gas down, considering Prime Minister Scott Morrison is — rather embarrassingly — spruiking the fossil fuel? Well — money. Solar and wind are now way cheaper, as Forbes explains. It seems Morrison is falling behind public opinion on coal too — he told Glasgow’s summit coal jobs would continue for decades, but news.com.au reports this morning 70% of folks living near big coal-burning stations in NSW and Victoria say coal-fired power states should be shut down in the next 10 years (as long as retraining is part of the picture).
First details are in about Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest’s 5.4-gigawatt wind and solar farm in Pilbara after the plans were released to the public for the first time, WA Today reports. There’ll be 340 wind turbines and heaps of solar panels over 25km, another step towards Fortescue’s goal of net zero in its mining operations by 2030. Twiggy’s move will no doubt set the green example for other commercial-scale operations, showing renewables are powerful and potent. crikey.worm.

9-2-2022: Africa: UN: 13 million people face hunger in Horn of Africa as drought worsens (Al Jazeera). crikey.worm. (Read all about it folks in newspapers by Rupert Murdoch.)

7 Feb., 2022: SMH has special supplement headed as: Towards Sustainability.

7-2-2022: Indian Ocean: Cyclone Batsirai: Whole villages swept away in Madagascar (BBC). Crikey.worm. (Read all about it, folks, in newspapers by Rupert Murdoch; all the news that's fit to print.)

6-2-2022: Item on Climate Change re Devon coast of UK and tough decisions re coastal erosion. SBS evening news TV.

In 2021, Anthropogenic Climate Change ended its warning phase and entered its actual phase. So given this, the discussion here will be somewhat different. - Ed

31-1-2022: North and South America: USA: East Coast hit hard by snowstorms. Channel 7 TV News from 11.3oam. Flooding in Brazil; landslides and deaths result ABC TV Plus/The World. (Read all about it folks in newspapers by Rupert Murdoch.)

31-1-2022: Australia and England: Floods in northern South Australia and impacts on Northern Territory and Western Australia supply lines. Deadly storms in Scotland and Northern England. Midday and later ABC News TV. (Yes, read all about it folks in newspapers by Rupert Murdoch, yes folks, all the news that's fit to print as long as it's business as usual.)

30-1-2022 North America: USA - State government asks the people of New York City to stay indoors and off the streets due to snow and wild weather. (USA had 20 extreme weather events in 2021.) Read all about it folks in newspapers by Rupert Murdoch.

29/30 Jan 2022. Carbon capers taking off: the John Durie column. Carbon market prices in Australia rose 35 times in 2021. w/e Australian, p. 32. Read all about it folks in newspapers by Rupert Murdoch.

28/29-1-2022: Australia: Victoria and South Australia both have thunderstorms and floodings. TV News various. Read all about it folks in newspapers by Rupert Murdoch.

25-1-2022: Eastern Europe: Heavy snow in Greece and Turkey, Istanbul suffers. SBS evening TV news. Read all about it folks in newspapers by Rupert Murdoch.

17-1-2022: Australia and North America: 7.30 Report has item on heatwaves and Climate Change in Australia. 7.30 Report/ABC TV. BBC Headlines reports that USA (eastern) is hit by huge snowstorm.

21 Jan 2022: ‘The treeline is out of control’: how the climate crisis is turning the Arctic green (The Guardian). Crikey.worm.

The Merchant Networks Project

	The history websites on this domain now have a companion website at: The Merchant Networks Project, produced by Dan Byrnes (of Australia) and Ken Cozens (of London).

19 Jan 2022: Oil prices hit 7-year high on rising geopolitical tensions (The Wall Street Journal). Crikey.worm.

Dec 11-12,2021: Fortescue Metals: CEO Elizabeth Gaines to step down to drive green hydrogen. w/e SMH Business section, front page.

January 2022: Indian sub-continent: Himalayan glaciers are melting at furious rate, new study shows (The Wall Street Journal). Crikey.com 4/5 December 2021: Carbon cuts: ALP targets big emitters: NSW coal power station profit plummets. w/e Australian.

17-1-2022: North America: Tornadoes in Florida USA. Channel 10 afternoon TV news.

Climate Change Sausages ... so good, juicy and warming

Getcha climate change sausages here ...
Credit: Photo by Anon.

24-1-2022: Santos sees the future of energy: it's still fossil fuels. SMH, p. 26.

22/23-1-2022: front page, Bureau of Meteorology's quiet temperature shift: w/e Australian, and p. 5. .

17-1-2022: Disaster funds go to repairs, not prevention. South Australia runs on renewable energy for record-breaking week. SMH, p. 12.

15/16-1-2022: More tosh from this newspaper's "environment editor", Graham Lloyd. "Are we weathering the climate storm?: Australia has benefited from the effects of two La Nina years, much to the chagrin of climate catastophists": Come on Graham, 'fess up: La Nina is an established weather pattern that has been affecting Australia for centuries, while Anthropogenic Climate Change is relatively new. Are we comparing apples and pears here, Graham, or we just comparing apples with pears? w/e Australian. Inquirer section. Otherwise, p. 8., the newspaper headlines: Past nine years in 10 hottest on record. (Some records began in 1880!) 2022 might be hot, too. The mentioned risk of a major volcanic eruption has actually since happened, near Tonga, and it sent clouds/material about 20 km into the sky; a once-in-1000 years event. The US 2021 heatwave is also described as a "once-in-1000-years" event. So, two of once-in-1000 years events! (AFP story, not researched by Murdoch's own News Corp.) [At the end of February, the NSW coast suffered serious floods. Such that a morbid joke mid-flood became, how come these 1-in-100 or 1-in-1000 year events are happening so often? - What say now, dear Graham? - Ed]

14-1-2022:

13-1-2022: South America: Heavy flooding in Brazil. ABC late night TV News.

11-1-2022: It's getting hot in here: Last year was Earth’s fifth hottest year on record, The New York Times reports, while the last seven years were the hottest by a clear margin, according to new data from the EU’s satellite system. The average temperature of 2021 was 1.1 – 1.2 degrees hotter than 150 years ago — if it rises above 1.5 degrees, icecaps could melt and envelop the world’s coastal cities and Pacific nations, while intensified storms, hurricanes, heatwaves, and droughts could endanger countless lives, and coral reefs such our Great Barrier Reef would likely die, as NPR writes.
BBC reports Europe sweated through its warmest summer ever, with Sicily reporting 48.8 degrees, breaking the continent’s record by nearly a whole degree. Indeed 10 countries — the United States, Canada, Oman, UAE, Morocco, Turkey, Taiwan, Italy, Tunisia and Dominica — either broke or tied their temperature records in 2021, with more than 400 weather stations worldwide recording new highs, The Guardian adds. The heatwave that struck the US mid-last year broke records by up to a staggering 5 degrees, which according to one climatologist, “surpassed anything I have seen after a life of researching extreme events in all modern world climatic history in the past couple of centuries”.
Methane levels in the atmosphere also reached an unprecedented level in 2021, and the growth rate was steeper than 2020, though as ABC reported, the Australian government declined to join more than 100 countries that signed on to cap methane levels at the UN Climate Change Conference. Methane comes from gas, open-pit coal mines, landfills, cattle, and sheep. crikey.worm.

10-1-2022: Ultra low-cost solar power in sights of $30m Coalition plan: re Australian Renewable Energy Agency. SMH, p. 12.

Politicians wrangle over coral re Great Barrier Reef. Surge in NSW coal mines would drive up emissions. Magic mangroves on the march. News Review p. 22, w/e SMH, 8/9-1-2022.

8-1-2022: Indian sub-coninent: Heavy snow in Pakistan about Muree, north of the capital, Islamabad: traps 1000 vehicles/ or their drivers, Irony, as tourists may have been lured by sight/experience of heavy snows. BBC Headlines.

6-1-2022: North America: US battered by unusually heavy snowstorms. ABC TV News 3.30am.

5-1-2022: Middle East: Heavy rain/flooding in Iran. DW/ABC News 3.08am.

1-2 Jan, 2022: w/e Australian, p. 9-14, Bonanza for electricity retailers as green push boosts carbon certificates.

4-5 Dec., 2021: Australia: Election showdown looms on climate. Big business backs Labor's climate policy. Labor vows lower bills as battle looms on climate policies. David Crowe writes, Climate fight fuels hope but risks blowback when sparks fly. SMH.

27-28 Nov, 2021: Flooded creek claims life of driver: A man's body has been recovered from a vehicle caught in a flooded creek as wild weather continues to lash Australia's east coast, p. 3. w/e Australian. In the Inquirer section the imported Swede and climate denialist Bjorn Lomborg says anti-Glasgow, enigmatically / with an eye to the finance pages, World will go green only when the price is right. Ha, he thinks people think they will have a choice! They won't, you know! But Lomborg closes optimistically, "If we can innovate the price of green energy below fossil fuels, everyone will switch."

20-21 Nov, 2021: Canada: Mudslides, floods strand thousands. "Easily the costliest natural disaster in Canadian history". Yes, people, Canada too is unprepared for Climate Change(s). In May 2016 some $Canadian 3.6 billion was paid out in insurances from wildfires in an oil-producing area; these floods were even more expensive. w/e SMH.

20-21 Nov, 2021: w/e Australian, Business section p. 25, Just how green is your ethical fund? Greg Craven article is headlined, Climate extremists leave us feeling dazed and confused. But Greg dear, reading the Weekend Australian usually leaves us feeling dazed and confused, since Rupert Murdoch has never studied Climatology, yet he wants to use his newspapers to pontificate about it. Whereas I did, study Climatology at university as part of Geography in 1971. Rather before things started! Craven is rather gobsmacked by COP26 in Glasgow, you see. Whereas an article/column by Gemma Tognini - Assisted dying? Give me assisted living every time - has us wondering why more people aren't talking about what really surrounds us all, depending on culture? - Yes, we're talking about mixed economies. Yes, mixes of Capitalism and Socialism. Which most nation states have, including the USA. w/e Australian.

In 2021, Anthropogenic Climate Change ended its warning phase and entered its actual phase. So given this, the discussion here will be somewhat different from now on. - Ed

27-28 Nov, 2021: Climate change fuels 800% rise in forest burnt - Climate change is the dominant factor causing the increased size of bushfires in Australia's forests, according to a landmark study that found the average annual area burned had grown by 800 per cent in the past 32 years. w/ SMH

6-7 Nov, 2021: On p.12, NSW Labor wants net zero target written in law. And former finance minister Matthias Cormann tells leaders, to axe fossil fuel subsidies. And p. 38, Wealthy nations asked to pitch in to rid Indonesian archipelago of coal-fired power. (See another story on Indonesia by Amanda Hodge, p.12 of w/e Australian on 20-21 Nov 2021; "Orangutans dodging death as habitats shrink".
Peter Hartcher writes on Australia's taking the climate low road at COP26. Australian former PM Malcolm Turnbull quoted p. 28 as saying, "Australia has never been more out of step on a global issue with its friends and allies than it is on climate." w/e SMH.

6-7 Nov, 2021: On p. 13 we find hmm that, Loophole in a COP26 document keeps coal burning till 2050; and Jakarta backpeddling throws forest pact into doubt. Inquirer section has a humorous teaser - Chris Kenny, Hot air and hypocrisy of the overpriveliged climate warriors. COP hypocrisy is all a bit rich - and an odd article by Chris Kenny, seems to be about meetings of richies, but says things neither here nor there, such as that the British royal family (probably) has more palaces than Australia has coal-fired power stations (what has this odd stastic got to do with modern Australia?). - w/e Australian, Inquirer section. Also where imported Swedish climate-denialist, Bjorn Lomborg, writes, Death tolls tell different tale to headlines' climate of fear - There's more to dramatic statistics on global natural disasters than activists like to admit, and reprinted from The Wall Street Journal (which Murdoch also owns) - Breathlessly telling us eg., that in the US, as dozens of peer-reviewed studies will tell us, historically, the number of landfalling US hurricanes has declined slightly since 1900, but without telling us what tornadoes have been doing (killing marginally more people of late?) since 1900. Lomborg we think needs to learn how to read/re-read death stats. He also conflates natural disasters with man-made disasters. For the record, Lomborg reckons only 5500 people have died in 2021 from climate-related disasters and that the figure by year's end will be about 6600. We'll let you know what the figure is when we find out some facts!

30-31-10-2021: Inquirer section: Paul Kelly's front page article is on Scomo - 'PM's green light for the Australian Way - Morrison has laid out his strategy for the election by redefining climate change as an economic challenge' - ... [But] politics diverges from reality - political disputes over climate are going to get far worse - the government's plan is a policy free zone - and elsewhere in Inquirer - Odd couple of climate war [Australia and China] and from Chris Kenny, another anti climate-policy story re 'Fantasy policies will only deliver a fantasy outcome - the climate debate ... is playing out as an issue of symbolism and morality rather than practical outcomes' ... - w/e Australian.

December 2019: Africa: Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe, Africa) falls silent due to drought/Climate Change. BBC Headlines.

20-21-11-2021: News Review p. 24ff has it that 'Hypocrisy call as Australia risks losing its friends and influence over climate'. w/e SMH. (And the 2019-2020 eastern Australian bushfires burned an area about as large as Syria.)

23-24 Oct 2021: Fearful of bush backlash - Mike Foley explains why the National Party is out of step on reducing emissions. SMH News, Review section.

From 1-1-2022: Political Nonsense Dept re Climate Change.

SAY WHAT?: Those carrying coffins out of Ukraine churches are not focused on climate change, as the aggressor has never made it an item of negotiation of a ceasefire. - Barnaby Joyce
The deputy PM is the latest to link the invasion of Ukraine with so-called progressive movements, like the people who are keen to stop the irreversible destruction to our planet largely done during one human lifetime, for instance. Joyce made the comments in Brisbane, urging young people advocating for more climate action to think about how their liberties could be squashed if we were invaded. crikey.worm on 18-3-2022.

Crikey Recap: 15/16-1-2022: More tosh from the "environment editor", Graham Lloyd, of The Australian. "Are we weathering the climate storm?: Australia has benefited from the effects of two La Nina years, much to the chagrin of climate catastophists": Come on Graham, 'fess up: La Nina is an established weather pattern that has been affecting Australia for centuries, while Anthropogenic Climate Change is relatively new (1900-1970s). Are we comparing apples and pears here, Graham, or we just comparing apples with pears? w/e Australian. Inquirer section. Meanwhile, professional climate denier the Swede, Bjorn Lomborg, has it that we have had 50 years of climate panic. So fund innovation and trust to technology, ie., to man-made structures. But don't ever ask awkward questions such as: when was the last time Sweden felt anything large or severe from nature, like a tsunami?

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