In public, the coal industry proclaims that it accepts the mountain of scientific evidence that humans’ burning of fossil fuels are warming the planet. But a secretly recorded conversation at an American coal industry conference between Arch Coal executive Matt Ferguson and lobbyist Lauri Hennessey revealed that in private, they believe climate change is not …
Category: Climate Science
Oct 05 2013
Cool reaction to IPCC needs a reality check
Last Saturday, two momentous events occurred. Firstly, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a globally respected Nobel-Peace-Prize-winning international scientific institution, released a summary, vetted line-by-line by all of the world’s governments, of what may be the most thoroughly researched and meticulously reviewed report ever produced in human history: its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), a …
Oct 01 2013
IPCC AR5: global warming more evident than ever
Last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the first (and primary) instalment of its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). Its key conclusions include: The Earth is accumulating heat. Heat-trapping greenhouse gases are rising: Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide have reached levels unprecedented in at least 800,000 years because …
Sep 16 2013
Australia’s climate-change-denying Cabinet
The Cabinet announced today by Australian Prime Minister-elect Tony Abbott says some revealing things about the priorities of the new Liberal/National Coalition government. There will be no minister for climate change, science, energy, resources, banking, housing, tourism, youth, aged care, disability care, multiculturalism, or workplace relations. (Climate change will be included in Environment, while energy, …
Sep 06 2013
Let’s make this Australia’s climate election
Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: ‘Too late.’ – Martin Luther King Jr. As Australia, the world’s largest coal exporter, goes to the polls, the window of opportunity for humanity to act on climate change is closing fast. Anthropogenic global warming is the largest and most …
Jun 18 2013
Australia’s Climate Commission does the maths
US climate activist Bill McKibben recently toured Australia as part of his “Do the Maths” campaign advocating divestment from fossil fuels, based on the arithmetic which shows to avoid dangerous climate change we must leave most fossil fuel reserves in the ground. Of course, the Australian government and businesses scoffed. Now, this reality has been …
Mar 19 2013
The many faces of climate change denial
There is much debate in Australia, particularly in the political sphere, about who is a climate change denier. To answer that question, we first have to clarify what we mean by climate change denial. The book Climate Change Denial by Haydn Washington and John Cook helpfully distinguishes between several different stages of denial: literal, interpretative, …
Mar 16 2013
Australia’s angry summer
Figure 1: Examples of extreme weather records broken during Australian summer 2012-13. (Source: Climate Commission) Australia is recovering from its hottest summer on record, dubbed the “Angry Summer” by the Australian government’s independent Climate Commission. Australia has been experiencing record heat since September 2012. Central Australia suffered a spate of heatwaves during spring, culminating in …
Mar 04 2013
Caps Review Part 1: The global climate crisis
The Australian Government’s independent Climate Change Authority (CCA) is conducting a Caps and Targets Review this year. In this series I will explain why the review is important, outline what I think its recommendations should be, and attempt to deconstruct everything I believe is wrong with the Government’s climate policies and its underlying flawed beliefs …
Jan 11 2013
Liberals Part 1: Climate denial and deregulation
Almost all of my posts to date have focused on criticizing Australia’s incumbent Labor government. I have written very little about the alternate Liberal/National Coalition government. But as we enter an election year, it is time to examine the Liberals’ policies. Can the Liberals be trusted? To begin with, it is worth noting that the …
Precarious Climate
- Bendigo Climate Drawdown Summit
- The Paris Agreement was a sham anyway
- Australian election: say no to the polluting major parties
- Will Turnbull act on climate?
- Are we approaching peak stupidity?
- Is Turnbull a green Liberal?
- 2014 the warmest year as global heating speeds up
- The Trans-Pacific Partnership: the dirtiest trade deal you’ve never heard of
- Tony Abbott’s intergenerational theft
- 2014: the year that was