Over the past few months, a lot of attention has been paid to the potentially strong El Niño event brewing in the Pacific Ocean. But there is also the potential for an emerging climate phenomenon in the…
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Climate change – Analysis and Comment
On tour in North America, Prime Minister Tony Abbott has forged an alliance with the Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper on climate change. Both champion climate policies that don’t put a price on carbon…
As delegates gather once again for climate talks in Bonn, the question has to be asked: after decades of conferences, committees, procedures and protocols, is the multilateral approach to tackling climate…
Tony Abbott will arrive in the US this week for his first face-to-face meeting with US president Barack Obama in Washington since becoming prime minister. It comes at an important time: Australia is to…
Enrico Fermi, when asked about intelligent life on other planets, famously replied, “Where are they?” Any civilisation advanced enough to undertake interstellar travel would, he argued, in a brief period…
US President Barack Obama’s latest plan to reduce carbon emissions is a welcome one, and not just because it addresses climate change. In publicising the plan to cut emissions from old coal power stations…
Over recent decades, scientists have watched the Arctic and Antarctic polar regions respond in starkly different and perhaps surprising ways to the effects of increasing human influence on the Earth’s…
This year could well see a new record set for the extent of Antarctic sea ice – hot on the heels of last year’s record, which in turn is part of a puzzling 33-year trend in increasing sea ice around Antarctica…
The animated movie Finding Nemo is responsible for most children’s (and parents’) image of the East Australian Current. Marlin: “I need to get to the East Australian Current – E A C.” Crush: “You’re ridin…
The infiltration of anti-coal protests in New South Wales by spies employed by a private security company is unlikely to be a one-off event. More likely, the revelations of spying on the Maules Creek and…
How we talk about climate change has a lot to do with how we feel about it, and what we’re willing to do to act on it. Recent research from the US found that the terms “global warming” and “climate change…
The state of the British summer has always been a constant source of fascination and irritation, if only for its fickle nature. Now the latest prediction is for more heavy summer downpours. Our study…
The climate system is in a foul mood. From “angry summer” to “abnormal autumn” – we’re running out of words to describe the relentless extreme weather that Australia is experiencing as global temperatures…
It is amazing for me to see the very aggressive building boom underway in south Florida; on the beaches and barrier islands, throughout downtown and in the low western areas bordering the Everglades. They…
If you’ve stepped outside at lunchtime in Sydney over the past few days, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was more like early summer than the beginning of winter. On each of the past 23 days, the temperature…
The way we currently produce food around the world contributes up to 20-30% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and accounts for 70% of all human water use. But is it possible to eat well and take…
Record-breaking rains triggered so much new growth across Australia that the continent turned into a giant green carbon sink to rival tropical rainforests including the Amazon, our new research shows…
In the midst of harsh cuts to Great Barrier Reef management and research, including cuts to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Australian Institute of Marine Science, the Department of…
Warnings about the dangers of climate change are coming from some new and not so new places. Military, security and foreign policy advisors, financial marketeers, the White House – all have recently set…
The word “climate” was conspicuously absent from Joe Hockey’s first budget speech as treasurer. It’s not hard to guess why – the full budget sets out major cuts to climate research, and strong moves against…
Antarctic climate science is having a moment – a worrying moment. Three new studies have all concluded that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has begun to collapse. This collapse will impact humanity for generations…
When we think of North Korea, we think of a nation determined to be an outsider in the international community. Whether it’s testing nuclear weapons or threatening London hairdressers, the Democratic People’s…
There are billions of dollars of broken promises in the Abbott government’s first budget for low-emission and renewable energy programs – and wiggle room to break even more in the next few years. Among…
Whether discussing vaccination, climate science, the state of the budget or educational reform, it is common to hear calls for “the facts”. The appealing simplicity of the word “fact” is instrumental in…
While a privatised energy market has delivered stable and cost-effective electricity to Britain’s national grid for 25 years, the world and the pressures it faces are changing. A group of Newcastle University…