Aussie Enviro

Interesting, certainly runs counter to prevailing narrative.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08174-6

In short:

Scientists say data from Antarctica ice core shows world has already warmed 1.49 degrees Celsius due to human activity.

The study calculates a pre-1700 baseline based off carbon content in the ice.

What's next?

Researchers behind the study want politicians and scientists to use their modelling as a baseline rather than a commonly used 1850-1900 time period when the Industrial Revolution had already started.

The Western Australian Labor government appears all but certain to give one of Australia’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters the green light to operate until 2070 after it announced it would abolish state emissions-reduction requirements.

...

The WA Environment Protection Authority recommended in 2022 that the state approve a 50-year extension for the plant, which is run by the oil and gas company Woodside, as long as it progressively reduced its operating emissions. It could do that by either making cuts onsite or paying for carbon offsets.

But the WA government last month announced it would change rules so that the EPA would no longer regulate emissions from development proposals that released significant climate pollution.

Around me here in NE Tassie, they just burn it :(

Thousands of mystery balls that washed up on Sydney beaches last month were gunk globules made of products such as motor oil, hair, food waste, animal matter and wastewater bacteria – but their source is yet to be traced.

A statement from the NSW Environment Protection Authority on Wednesday confirmed the balls comprised fatty acids, petroleum hydrocarbons and other organic and inorganic materials – and were not tar balls as previously theorised.

Red flows Zinc Flow batteries just went bankrupt unfortunately, maybe this will be a goer ? Vanadium Flow batteries seem to be chemically superior... I think?. A comment from somone more in the know would be appreciated

Nature Tourism is it a good thing to engage in? Or no longer appropriate?

Grazier using wild donkeys to regenerate land in legal battle.

From the article,

The four steps recommended are:

1. Legislate for ‘absolute net gain’: Australian law must ensure that any biodiversity loss from development is fully compensated and that conservation efforts result in an absolute net gain in biodiversity, not just improvements relative to ‘business as usual’. Currently, the Australian definition of nature positive deviates from the internationally accepted definition, which would allow biodiversity to continue to decline.

2. Limit and compensate for biodiversity loss: The study warned against allowing developers to compensate for environmental damage through payments that may not directly benefit the impacted ecosystems, which risks replacing more threatened and harder to replace habitats with ecosystems that are less threatened and/or easier to replace. Further, some biodiversity is irreplaceable, and so it is important to limit, and if possible, avoid negative impacts to irreplaceable biodiversity in the first place.

3. Secure net gains beyond development impacts: Australian law must address and reverse biodiversity decline beyond simply compensating for the loss of nature from development impacts. This will require a significant boost to conservation funding and resourcing.

4. Enforce transparent monitoring: Effective and transparent implementation of biodiversity policies is crucial. Dr Ward highlighted that many threatened species in Australia lacked proper monitoring, making enforcement of biodiversity protection laws difficult.

Greenhouse gas emissions from Australia’s main electricity grid increased for a third quarter in a row as higher power demand drove more use of black coal and gas plants, the Australian Energy Market Operator says.

Vote Green :(

In 2023, the hottest year ever recorded, preliminary findings by an international team of researchers show the amount of carbon absorbed by land has temporarily collapsed. The final result was that forest, plants and soil – as a net category – absorbed almost no carbon.

There are warning signs at sea, too. Greenland’s glaciers and Arctic ice sheets are melting faster than expected, which is disrupting the Gulf Stream ocean current and slows the rate at which oceans absorb carbon. For the algae-eating zooplankton, melting sea ice is exposing them to more sunlight – a shift scientists say could keep them in the depths for longer, disrupting the vertical migration that stores carbon on the ocean floor.

“None of these models have factored in losses like extreme factors which have been observed, such as the wildfires in Canada last year that amounted to six months of US fossil emissions. Two years before, we wrote a paper that found that Siberia also lost the same amount of carbon,” says Ciais.

“Another process which is absent from the climate models is the basic fact that trees die from drought. This is observed and none of the models have drought-induced mortality in their representation of the land sink,” he says. “The fact that the models are lacking these factors probably makes them too optimistic.”

In Australia, huge soil carbon losses from extreme heat and drought in the vast interior – known as rangelands – are likely to push its climate target out of reach if emissions continue to rise, a study this year found. In Europe, France, Germany, the Czech Republic and Sweden have all experienced significant declines in the amount of carbon absorbed by land, driven by climate-related bark beetle outbreaks, drought and increased tree mortality.

Short run down of some potential renewables opportunities the Future Made in Australia legislation could support.

The state Labor government is steering Australia’s climate policy, letting emissions soar unbridled as it paves the way for massive fossil fuel projects

Original URL: https://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/refugees-in-their-own-country-starving-cockies-flood-perth-zoo-vets-amid-food-crisis-20241004-p5kfwv.html

Perth black cockatoo rehabilitation centres and Perth Zoo are dealing with an influx of starving and emaciated specimens of the endangered species.

[Professor Kingsley Dixon] said what Perth was now witnessing with the drying climate was “a catastrophic failure of the banskias to be setting seed, leading to the mass starvation of the bird.”

Dixon said 2 million banksias must be planted as soon as possible and meanwhile the government should set up an urgent multidisciplinary taskforce.

Related links:

• We need two million more banksia to save endangered cockies, scientist says | ABC Listen
• Image Resources gains environmental approvals to clear WA banksia forest | ABC News

Kind of inspirational, kind of reminds us humanity has always been a bit crap, but we know that, so can do something about it.