There are many ways to prevent mosquito-borne diseases – insecticides to kill mosquitoes, vaccines to prevent infection and healthy doses of insect repellent before heading off for fishing trips. But while…
The irony of the world’s climate change negotiators meeting in Doha this week cannot be lost on anyone taking an interest in climate change. Qatar is hardly a model of the low carbon economy. With annual…
Energy production must shift from fossil fuels to renewable sources within four decades to avoid the most damaging consequences of climate change, a government report has found. The Climate Commission’s…
Time has run out for governments to reduce carbon emissions gradually and only drastic reform can keep catastrophic global warming at bay, a panel of climate change experts said on Friday. Speaking ahead…
Global warming has caused nearly 200 billion tons of Greenland’s mass to disappear annually in the last decade but its icy centre actually grew, a new study has found. The melting of the Greenland ice…
In 1947 the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists set up a clock telling us how close we were to global calamity. It was initially set at seven minutes to midnight; then its hands shifted back to 17 minutes to…
In his acceptance speech of November 6, Barack Obama at long last reaffirmed the need to address global warming. But unfortunately he also reaffirmed the spurious goal of US oil independence, which can…
Global drought has not increased significantly over the past 60 years, a report in Nature has found. Previous assessments of global drought have relied on the Palmer Drought Severity Index, which only…
What is the oldest debate in Australian science? Probably, the argument over what caused extinction of our Pleistocene megafauna – the diprotodons, giant kangaroos, marsupial tapirs, über-echidnas and…
Market-distorting fossil fuel subsidies rose 30% from 2010 to 2011, stymying efforts to boost the renewables sector and reduce greenhouse emissions worldwide, a new global report has found. The 2012 World…
The Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Greg Combet, announced on Friday that Australia is “ready” to join a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework…
Ancient Central American rainfall records suggest climate change was linked to the rise and fall of the Maya civilisation between AD 300 and 1000, a new study has found. Giant stone structures throughout…
Why get worked up about our climate responsibilities when Australia’s contribution to global emissions – around 1.5% of the total - is small? Here is the usual reply. Australia’s domestic greenhouse gas…