In 2008, I and my colleagues published a study which appeared to confirm that current global warming could cause large losses of species and a loss of biodiversity. Four years later and a new approach…
While Australia fears either an environment or economic doomsday, other countries get on with making a cleaner future.
Detail of Hieronymus Bosch's The Last Judgment, from Flickr/profzucker
I sometimes wonder what planet this country of ours is on. The environmental debate we are having seems to be in a parallel universe to the rest of the world. Having spent the last four years running one…
Australians generally accept that the climate is changing, but we have lost confidence in politicians, experts, and the media to guide us in what to do about it.
Flickr/spodzone
Over the past several decades, scientists have studied the climate of the world and how that is changing. These studies have built on the recognition, made over 150 years ago by John Tindall, that certain…
Tree rings from around the time of Christ suggest warmer regional temperatures than those between the 1950s to the 1980s, but this does not imply higher mean global temperatures.
Flickr/Petrified Forest Ranger
A study of tree-ring data recently found that in some regions temperatures during Roman times (21AD to 50AD) were 1.05 degrees Celsius higher than the 1951-1980 mean.
The paper’s lead author, Professor…
Behind the times: Europe already had carbon taxes in 1992 back when Vanilla Ice topped the Australian charts.
AAP/Musicbiz
We price carbon. This is nothing new. The first time this explicitly happened, Vanilla Ice hit number one in Australia, and Bryan Adams was topping the global charts with “(Everything I do) I do it for…
Sometimes even the clearest signs of change are ignored.
Flickr/baldeaglebluff
With increasing global greenhouse gas emissions, and no clear internationally-agreed path for emission reductions, we are faced with a global climate that will be at least two degrees warmer than today…
Tiny humans would consume less and emit less, but who’s ready to genetically engineer their kids?
Dylan Luder
You know the situation is getting desperate when three bio-ethicists propose genetically modifying humans to reduce our environmental impact. In a bizarre paper titled Human engineering and climate change…
Humanity’s control of fire has led to a vastly changed atmosphere.
Jason A Samfield
The evidence for a rapid shift in state of the terrestrial atmosphere-ocean system over the last two centuries (see figure 1) requires a deep time perspective, beyond events of the day. Tracing the original…
