Last week the International Energy Agency (IEA) released its much-anticipated World Energy Outlook (WEO) 2011. Most notably, it warned that our chances to keep the world to 2°C of warming are fast slipping…
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The World Solar Challenge (WSC) is a race held every two years in which roughly 40 teams race solar-powered cars from Darwin to Adelaide. I’m a member of the UNSW Solar Racing Team (called Sunswift). The…
All over Australia, landowners are fighting to keep mining companies off their property. From the Darling Downs to the Liverpool Plains, farmers have been locking out coal seam gas extraction companies…
How would you feel if you opened your energy bill and there was a smiley face next to your usage? Or you found yourself being compared to your neighbour? Would this influence you to use less energy? The…
Bushfires are part of the Australian landscape and the psyche of its human inhabitants. This is particularly true as months of hot, dry weather approach. Recent warnings have predicted a dire summer ahead…
The bill creating the carbon price has passed through Parliament. However, the campaigning efforts of the environmental lobby will not pause. More than ever, the coal industry is in its sights, with court…
Storm clouds are gathering in the world of weather and climate modelling – a discipline that saves lives and property every day and has revolutionised our lives in recent decades. What we might call the…
Spokespeople for the Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia and some other pastoralist organisations, are warning that in the current land of “flooding rain”, landholders will be overwhelmed by burgeoning…
The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (East Timor) is one of the world’s newest post-conflict nations. Next year it celebrates ten years as an independent democratic state, after almost 30 years of Indonesian…
Three recent shark attacks in Western Australian waters have led some politicians in WA to request the culling of the sharks involved, and the increase of fisheries quotas for sharks. What no politician…
Australia’s carbon price mechanism has become law. But how does it work? There are six key points: 1. Australia’s emissions trajectory Australia has committed unconditionally to reduce its greenhouse gas…
When announcing the media enquiry in September this year, Senator Conroy committed to regulatory processes that support “a healthy and independent media that is able to fulfill its essential democratic…
At long last, the Gillard Government’s carbon price is law. On July 1 next year, approximately 500 of our biggest companies will start paying the government $23 for every tonne of greenhouse gas they emit…
When we think of the last 50,000 years of prehistory, particularly the “Ice Age”, extinct species such as the woolly mammoth and woolly rhinoceros often spring to mind. Did humans bring about the extinction…
Many plants and animals will become extinct in this century – millions of years of evolutionary experimentation will be abruptly terminated. This raises profound philosophical dilemmas: which species should…
One of the biggest challenges in our fight against climate change is reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the energy sector. Approximately 87% of current global primary energy supplies (and 67…
Coral reefs around the world are under pressure from multiple threats. A burgeoning gas industry – such as that near Gladstone – is one of the newest of these. Pollution, sedimentation, declining water…
Over the past ten years, total vehicle sales in Australia have increased by roughly 35%. But sales of the once-most-popular cars, the Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon, have halved. This fall in sales has…
There are many good reasons why the general public, and in particular farmers, are concerned about coal seam gas (CSG) extraction. There are major gaps in our knowledge about the future impacts of CSG…
If you live in eastern Australia there’s a good chance you’re one of nine million Australians who call the world’s newest biodiversity hotspot home. In a recent publication, “Forests of East Australia…
Water exploding from the Jindabyne Dam into the Snowy River made for compelling viewing in recent TV news reports. As well as being good TV, this water release highlighted the importance of releases in…
Independent MP Tony Windsor has said he won’t back the government’s Mineral Resources Rent Tax unless more is done to make coal seam gas mining sustainable. He has called for $200-400 million annually…
A recent article in Nature Neuroscience contends that optimism is hard-wired – that we are more likely to update our knowledge with positive than negative news. So what happens if all the news seems bad…
“Don’t Californicate Oregon [or Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Washington, Montana etc]” was a popular slogan in the western United States during the 1960s and ‘70s. It was a repudiation of the mindless…
By now most of us have read articles suggesting we “eat less red meat and save the planet”. Some may also have heard statements by the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr Rajendra…