By Gary Ellem, University of Newcastle; Damien Giurco, University of Technology, Sydney; James Ward, University of South Australia, and Steve Mohr, University of Technology, Sydney
Australia likely has decades of fossil fuels left to extract, export and burn. That could prove to be a problem if the world comes to an agreement on climate change. Here's four ways to help the economy, and the climate.
Wind energy will be an important part of the world’s energy future - but it won’t be enough to feed growing demand.
David Clarke/Flickr
Peak fossil fuel and action on climate change will mean we have less energy available to power the future.
Monitoring fishing vessels could be a growth industry in the tiny Pacific island nations that govern the world’s largest tuna fishery.
AAP Image/Xavier La Canna
A tiny handful of Pacific island nations control more than 50% of the world's tuna fishery, and their efforts to monitor international fishing vessels are set to become a major source of jobs.
How will we cope with the losses posed by climate change?
Tim J Keegan/Flickr
Revelations of live baiting in greyhound racing have sent shockwaves through the industry. Baiting is prohibited, but laws lack teeth to stamp out the practice.
Proposed laws requiring covert footage of animal cruelty to be handed promptly to authorities would make in-depth investigations much harder.
Animals Australia
Proposed laws requiring immediate reporting of animal cruelty sound like a good idea. But in practice they will make it harder to mount comprehensive investigations like the ABC's greyhound expose.
Not too hot, not too cold, but just right.
Gary Miller/Australian Antarctic Division
Emperor penguins are adapted to the bitter cold of Antarctica, but a new study reveals that during the last ice age it got too cold even for them.
South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill surprised his federal Labor colleagues by announcing a Royal Commission on possibilities for the nuclear industry.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
The terms of reference for South Australia's Royal Commission on the nuclear industry are intentionally broad, meaning that anti-nuclear advocates will have to choose carefully where they direct their efforts.
Kangaroos are common in some areas but scarce in others.
AAP Image/Lukas Coch
Dead whales can cost beachside ratepayers a lot to clean up. The alternative is to tow them away before they wash up - but the legal question of who does the job is far more complex than it sounds.
What happens to coal in China will play a big role in deciding which climate road we’re all on.
Han Jun Zeng/Flickr
Huge beasts roamed Australia before suddenly dying out around 50,000 years ago. New research shows that at this time, vast inland lakes dried up, potentially explaining the megafauna's demise.
In most states, the issue of container deposit legislation has festered for decades.
Brian Finestone/Shutterstock.com
Four decades after South Australia's container deposit scheme began, New South Wales has finally overcome industry resistance and launched its own. Could the rest of the country now follow suit?
Use your solar photovoltaic panels to heat your water too, and you could cut the amount of excess electricity you give away cheaply to the grid.
zstock/Shutterstock.com
Most solar power households feed excess electricity back into the grid, for very little financial reward. A hot water heat pump could put that power to better use, by heating water for evening use.
The face of climate evil, or just a juicy steak?
Sheila/Flickr
Do politicians really have to choose between being pro-development or pro-environment? No, says Allan Dale, and Queensland's new government has the chance to prove it.
A huge float called an ‘actuator’ is lowered into the water off the Perth coast.
AAP Image/Carnegie Wave Energy
Australia's first large-scale wave energy project is online off the coast of Perth. As Hugh Wolgamot writes, it's a promising development, but technological challenges remain.
Orange roughy - one of the vulnerable fish species caught on the high seas.
CSIRO Science Image
The high seas – the area outside any country’s national waters – cover nearly two-thirds of the oceans and are largely ungoverned. Some fishers do venture into the open ocean and over the past century…
The Onkaparinga River, part of the catchment that supplies around half of Adelaide’s drinking water.
Justin Ratcliff/Flickr
Imagine a future where the yearly flow into one of the largest water reservoirs of a major Australian city could halve within 70 years. This is a scenario that Adelaide could face if the world continues…
Despite adjustments to temperature data in the Arctic, the overall global warming trend remains the same.
Flickr/P J Hansen
Attacks on institutions that keep records of global temperatures, such as NASA, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the UK Met Office, and Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, continue…
Secret footage revealed that Australian greyhound trainers are still using the banned practice of live baiting.
Animals Australia
Australia’s greyhound industry is reeling from the ABC’s Four Corners expose, featuring graphic footage of racing dogs tearing other mammals apart in the illegal training practice of live baiting. The…
The dingo fence is the world’s longest.
Thomas Newsome
Australia holds many world records, including the world’s longest fence, the dingo fence. At 5,531 km, the dingo barrier fence stretches from eastern Queensland all the way to the South Australian coastline…
Shell chief Ben van Beurden is pointing the way for oil companies to demand greater certainty over future climate policy.
EPA/FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA/AAP
In a speech last Thursday at International Petroleum Week – one of the biggest events on the industry’s calendar – Ben van Beurden, chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, argued that big energy companies…
Water in Western Australia is one of the Academy’s examples of where climate is having an impact, and where communities are already adapting.
Bram Souffreau/Wikimedia Commons
The Australian Academy of Sciences today released the new The Science of Climate Change: Questions and Answers. This is an extensively revised update of a similar publication in 2010. Its stated purpose…
Dr Mike Raupach died earlier this week after a brief illness. He passed away peacefully at home with his family in Canberra, Australia. He was 64. Mike was a brilliant and outstanding scientist. He was…
