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ABC fact checks Mike Carbon-Brookes
Via the ABC: Do Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions account for more than 5 per cent of the global total once exports are included, as Mike Cannon-Brookes says? The claim In a recent speech to the United Nations, Prime Minister Scott Morrison sought to downplay Australia’s contribution to world greenhouse gas emissions, arguing the nation is responsible for
“No climate change” coughs Scummo amid thick Sydney smoke
Via The Australian comes a choking Scummo: Scott Morrison has hit back at claims his climate change policies have contributed to the fire season, declaring it “doesn’t bear up to credible scientific evidence”. With fires burning in Queensland, South Australia and NSW, the Prime Minister said Australia’s emissions had no impact on the dry and
Fire chiefs return to set Scummo ablaze
As they should, at News: NSW hasn’t even entered what’s traditionally the most devastating period of bushfire damage. “We’ve got the worst to come,” former NSW fire commissioner Greg Mullins told news.com.au. …“So we need to brace ourselves. If we don’t get summer storms to wet everything down, we are in dire straits.” Mr Mullins,
Sweden dumps carbon glutton Australian bonds
Welcome to the future at the AFR: Sweden’s central bank said on Thursday (AEDT) it had sold off bonds from the oil-rich Canadian province of Alberta and parts of Australia because it felt that greenhouse gas emissions in both countries were too high. Riksbank Deputy Governor Martin Floden said the bank would no longer invest
Hong Kong fights for our freedom
Via the ABC: Hong Kong police have warned violence is bringing the Chinese-ruled city to the “brink of total breakdown” after more street battles raged in several parts of the territory. Police on Tuesday fired tear gas in the heart of the central financial district and at two university campuses to break up pro-democracy protests.
Does scum burn?
Via The Australian comes scum of all colour and hue: Senior Coalition and Labor MPs have launched a bitter attack on the Greens for suggesting climate change policies are responsible for the catastrophic bushfire threat confronting NSW and Queensland. As firefighters braced for the arrival of high winds and low humidity that threaten some of
MS: Climate change a key asset price driver henceforth
Via Morgan Stanley: In three weeks, the world’s leaders will begin to gather in Madrid for the 25th United Nations Climate Change Conference. The intensity of the global climate strikes this year suggests that the proceedings will be scrutinized as never before. But the decisions made, or not made, will also have repercussions for global markets.
11,000 scientists: Over-population behind climate crisis
Last year, a team of scientists published their recommendations for slowing current rates of biodiversity loss in a paper in Nature Ecology and Evolution, which will include limiting human population growth: Although key threats to biodiversity include habitat clearing for cattle, mining, and urban sprawl, these are all consequences of population pressure and high rates
Garnaut warns: Address climate change or “things fall apart”
Ross Garnaut is a professorial research fellow in economics at the University of Melbourne: Four years ago in December 2015, every member of the United Nations met in Paris and agreed to hold global temperature increases to two degrees Celsius, and as close as possible to 1.5C. The bad news is that four years on
Environmental issues voted Australia’s biggest problem
New research from Roy Morgan shows a record high 41% of Australians regard Environmental problems as the major concern facing Australia – up 17% points since June: This is the first time Environmental problems have topped the list of concerns facing both Australia and the World since February 2011 when massive floods hit Queensland, and
Australia’s gas cartel killer takes shape Outback
Via Bloomie: The answer to the renewable energy industry’s biggest challenge is emerging in the Australian outback. Early next year, one of the first power projects that combine solar and wind generation with battery storage is planning to start up in northern Queensland state. The Kennedy Energy Park, just outside the sleepy town of Hughendon,
Cannon-Brookes attacks Fuhrer Morrison
Every modern nation needs good billionaires to fight evil ones. I have my issues with Mike Cannon-Brookes and the Atlassian cheap labour arbitrage model but on climate change he’s excellent, via David Crowe: “The people protesting over climate change are not quiet Australians. They are being loud because the government is quiet on the climate,”
Watch: Fuhrer Morrison’s brown shirts beating shielas
Some nice examples of belting sheilas around the face so that they can no longer terrosise billion dollar miner conglomerates, via Crikey: Attempts by protesters to blockade the International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) in Melbourne have been met by a… let’s call it a heavy-handed police response. Videos of cops shoving, hitting and unleashing
9th wonder of world: China’s cracking glass bridges
Look out below, at The Guardian: They were meant to be futuristic marvels, allowing thrill-seeking tourists to feel like they were walking on air. But China’s growing obsession with glass bridges may be coming to an abrupt end, after a series of accidents led one province to close down all its glass-bottomed attractions. Hebei, a
CCP Fourth Plenum delivers little
Via Sinocism today: The Fourth Plenum has concluded, there was no announcement of any personnel changes other than the automatic ascension to full membership of the two alternate Central Committee members discussed yesterday. Sinocism readers were right to be very skeptical of the rumors going around, though the lack of any public sign of pressure
ScoMo pays a billion dollars to drive up power costs
It just keeps getting weirder, via The Australian: An extra $1bn will be pumped into the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to turbocharge development of next-generation electricity production and upgrade the transmission network to future-proof the grid and drive down prices. The first new capital provided to the CEFC since it was established in 2012 will
Mining, Nats condemn “disgraceful” kids for saving planet
How the narrative has turned, via the ABC: Climate change protesters have clashed with police in violent scenes outside an international mining conference in Melbourne. Police arrested 47 people outside the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre, where the International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) is being held this week. About 250 demonstrators were met by
Is China about to stimulate or bust?
Neither. It’s going to stagnate. Some links from Sinocism as we head into the Fourth Plenum: China Braces for Sub-6% Economic Growth in Key Policy Meetings – Bloomberg Data released Friday showed an economy expanding at just 6.0%, the slowest in almost three decades, and with broad investment growth too tepid to rely on an
A much bigger gas crisis is building in Australia
Via Wood Mackenzie: International gas and LNG prices have collapsed. For most of 2019, the global market has seen improving gas supply and intense supplier competition result in lower prices. In August 2019, Asian spot LNG prices went below U.S.$4 per million British thermal unit (mmBtu) (A$5.70 per gigajoule (GJ)), two and a half times
Murdoch has gone climate crazy
Every day it is the same now. Chris Kenny: The extent of daily political deception in the global warming debate is extraordinary. The most obvious and relevant facts go unreported and the most pressing questions are not asked. It is an unspoken conspiracy of misinformation perpetrated by large elements of the media whose starting point
Do-nothing Malcolm’s Snowy hydro to cost 500% more
He did nothing all of the time and when goaded into movement did stupid, via the ABC: The promised Snowy Hydro 2.0 project will be an expensive white elephant according to a leading energy expert. “Here is a project that is likely to cost five times more than the then prime minister [Malcolm Turnbull] said
The staggering idiocy of the Australian carbon price
Via Domain: Australia would fail to meet its Paris Agreement commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions even with a $US75 carbon tax that would drive up Australia’s electricity prices by 75 per cent over the next decade. Research by the International Monetary Fund, released on Friday, shows Australia is still so dependent on coal and
Coal finished as renewable costs crash
Bloomberg just published another stark reminder of the shifting landscape for energy generation – fossil fuels have a limited time as viable sources of energy. And I’m not talking about saving the planet or carbon taxes, simply economics. Coal, gas, oil, all have economics based on a scarcity curve: the more we use, the deeper
Time to change your tune on climate change, Mr Bolt
MB has been a great admirer of Andrew Bolt’s exposure of Gladys Liu and his longer term fight to bring rationality to population growth. But in another area, Bolt’s stubbornness refuses to adapt to changing circumstances. For many years, Bolt denied that there were rising temperatures globally. Time has proven him comprehensively wrong: These days
Newcastle beach washed away by irony
This is one for Betoota: In just five hours, those living in the coastal town of Stockton Beach watched in horror as the heart and soul of their community was washed away. “It’s a crisis, a complete crisis,” Lucas Gresham, a local of five generations, told news.com.au. “We’ve lost our suburb, because that beach is
Bravo Mike Cannon-Brookes
I’ve given him a mighty serve on a foreign labour arbitrage business model and mass immigration hypocrisy but Mike Cannon-Brookes has some kick-arse ideas, via AFR: Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes will invest part of his personal wealth in an audacious $25 billion project to create the world’s biggest solar farm, its biggest power storage system,
Australia settles into carbon pariah role
Via The Guardian: Scott Morrison is increasingly seen as running a “denialist government” that is not serious about finding a global climate solution and uses “greenwash” to meet its emissions commitments, analysts and former diplomats say. Australian observers in New York said Morrison’s failure to attend a UN climate action summit on Monday despite being
Global children condemn climate failure
Via the ABC: Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has captured the world’s attention in a fierce and passionate speech at the United Nations headquarters, accusing world leaders of failing to act on climate change. The UN event was aimed at mobilising government and business to break international paralysis over carbon emissions, which hit record highs