The NSW Government’s announcement this week allowing beach fishing in sanctuary (no-take) zones of marine parks flies in the face of sensible conservation of precious marine biodiversity. It is a warning…
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Environment + Energy – Articles, Analysis, Comment
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Many Australian consumers and businesses are working on ways to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. For some, the carbon tax meets their needs: it’s designed to specifically motivate changes in behaviour…
The Federal Government has moved to exert greater control over coal seam gas mining projects which are currently largely in the hands of the states. Under the proposed new rules if a coal seam gas project…
Last week, the “super trawler” Abel Tasman left Australia, with far less fanfare than you might have expected. Many hail this as good news for Australian fisheries, but we believe it could be a great step…
A reported 10 billion drink containers are thrown away in Australia every year. Many of these are recycled, but many end up in landfill, on roadsides and in waterways. The danger posed to wildlife by plastic…
In Europe and America, electricity retailers let their customers know whether their electricity is coming from renewable energy or fossil fuels. In Australia, your retailer has no such obligation. The…
It is time to reframe the climate change debate. Inadvertently, climate and environmental scientists have created an intellectual ecosystem that has created opportunities for contrarians like Lord Monckton…
It is hard to imagine a scientific breakthrough more abstract and less politically contentious than Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Yet in Weimar Germany in the 1920s it attracted fierce controversy…
As with the federal elections of 2007 and 2010, climate change appears set to feature again in the forthcoming September poll. Yet one of the most important aspects of the issue, that of adaptation to…
Planning for our future can be a heated topic, as the many people affected may have competing or conflicting objectives. The tension, frustration and bewilderment that can accompany such an exercise can…
Seabirds: the poster children for ocean health. Fishers use them to identify fishing hot spots. Environmental and marine scientists use them as indicators of the condition of the ocean environment due…
Just as 40 years ago Australia was a very different place from the Australia of today, the Australia of 2050 will be different again. If there are aspects of Australian life that we’d like to hang on to…
When asked to name an Australian lizard, most Australians would probably pick the familiar blue-tongue, stumpy lizard or bearded dragon, or perhaps the iconic thorny devil, frill-neck lizard or a goanna…
Many commentators have had a go at forecasting what Australia might be like in the future. Such exercises are valuable inputs to our thinking as individual, organisational or societal decision-makers…
Yesterday the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency released its draft regulations and a consultation paper, setting out the details on linking the EU Emissions Trading System (“EU ETS”) and…
In medieval times the leader of a victorious army planted a standard to signify ownership of territory. The standard signified all that its supporters believed in. Similarly, the rewriting of Australia’s…
Even among the experts who don’t question our right to use and kill animals, there is disagreement over what animal welfare actually means. With the government calling for a review of animal welfare standards…
Australians want a future of sustainable self-sufficiency and a healthy environment supporting a robust democracy – free of poverty and inequity. That was one of our projections, as part of the Australia…
Ocean acidification - where the ocean becomes less alkaline as it absorbs excess CO2 from the atmosphere - has been described as the evil twin of global warming. Yet, remarkably, it is only over the past…
Future generations can no longer be assured of being better off: it’s a challenge to traditionally held beliefs in the value of progress. Australians face threats from climate change, reduced biodiversity…
In visiting Australia regularly for the last two decades I have never quite understood why greater value is not placed on the nation’s latent solar and nuclear energy assets. Perhaps it is because Australia…
The hottest summer on record. The hottest month on record. The hottest day ever recorded for the whole of Australia. Heatwaves, bushfires, record rainfall and floods – extreme events across the land. This…
Welcome to the CBD. Take a look at all the glass masonry and asphalt. The streets are canyons. Apart from a tree in the footpath, or a Peregrine Falcon way overhead, there’s little nature to be seen. Nature…
Peter Christoff: Your book, The World Until Yesterday, is really the third in a series on societies and their futures. Guns, Germs, and Steel was really a short history of everybody of the last 13,000…
American scientist and author Jared Diamond was recently in Australia promoting his 5th book The World Until Yesterday: What can we learn from traditional societies? Jared has worked extensively in New…