These are painful times for those hoping to see an international consensus and substantive action on global warming. In the US, Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney said in June 2011: “The…
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Environment + Energy – Articles, Analysis, Comment
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The trouble with words is that you never know whose mouths they’ve been in. – Dennis Potter Readers following the Australian news media’s coverage of climate change will probably have detected the conspiracy…
When you’re complaining about the price at the bowser next time, consider this. Australia’s oil imports amount to a little over 1% of GDP. In Fiji, the oil import bill was around 14% in 2010. It’s probably…
We are poised at a pivotal moment for native forests, the wood products industry and climate change. Australia is moving away from a damaging native forestry industry - and a damaging conflict over its…
Is the confinement of animals for human purposes akin to slavery? Are some animals slaves? Slavery is an evocative concept. Treating someone as a slave is one of the worst things you can do to them. Using…
Australia is moving towards more energy-efficient houses. But are we doing enough? We think Australia could be aiming for zero-carbon homes; the tricky bit will be working out how to get there for the…
Globally, more than 800 million people are chronically undernourished. And some of these people live in Australia. Of course, these people do not live in desperate refugee camps; and most do not endure…
Last year, revelations of cruelty to cows in Indonesian abattoirs led to outrage in Australia. The assumption was that these sorts of things could never happen here. Last week, a NSW abattoir was closed…
In June 2012 around 40,000 participants are expected to attend one of the most important environmental gatherings in a generation - Rio+20. A draft agenda has been released, bearing the slogan “The Future…
James Lovelock’s “Gaia hypothesis” has challenged conventional thinking about the nature of the earth as an integrated system. Gaia proposes that the earth acts like a living organism — that life is part…
“Artists are shape-shifters and in this there is a perennial, ferocious hope; the hope which transforms, which whispers of possibility, of vision, of change and radical healing. Existing art about climate…
The “collapse” of the Solar Flagship Program has recently hit the news. With Minister Ferguson re-opening the bidding for the photovoltaic (PV) component of the program, and extending the deadline for…
Last week I published an opinion piece in Nature attempting to crystallise debate on a number of issues in Australian environmental management: bushfires, weeds, feral animals, management of Aboriginal…
We have entered a new, digital, era in animal protection, yet one in which a legislative backlash against video exposes is stirring in parts of the US. Last week brought another revelation of animal cruelty…
“What is the value of zero?” asks the seductive commercial for the new Nissan Leaf (due to launch in Australia in April). Set against a montage of natural and man-made images of “0”, the Leaf advert asks…
The first real test of whether the public will accept Australia’s carbon tax will be when electricity bills start landing in peoples’ mailboxes after 1 July 2012. The main issue is that while the carbon…
Aviation is a growing source of emissions. Emissions from aviation are increasing against a background of decreasing emissions from many other industry sectors. Airlines - with their international reach…
Many species have dubious futures in the face of climate change. But sea turtles have a particularly pressing problem: their sex is determined by temperature. Australia has ecologically and culturally…
In his recent Quarterly Essay, Man-made world: choosing between progress and planet, economist Andrew Charlton presents technological innovation as the solution to climate change and the route to unbounded…
We are seeing the first signs of dangerous climate change in the Arctic. This is our warning that humanity is facing a dire future. The Arctic region is fast approaching a series of “tipping points” that…
A recent cartoon (below) extrapolates the use of the word “sustainable”. It predicts that in 50 years each sentence will on average contain the word at least once. The cartoon is clever, and “sustainable…
Looking at embryonic cells allows researchers to understand many of the fundamental questions about how an animal’s genes are structured and the role they play in developing the adult animal. This information…
It seems that every day you read in the scientific literature and global media about the human destruction of our oceans, through impacts such as climate change, eutrophication, overfishing and urban sprawling…
Car travel is becoming a victim of its own success. If we in the West had only kept cars for ourselves, automobility could have survived much longer. But we shared them with the rest of the world, and…
News that Gina Rinehart has reportedly attained a 12.8% stake in Fairfax Media (and is seeking just under 15%) is bad for the Australian media environment: it potentially puts yet another billionaire in…