In a few short months the United States assumes Chair of the Arctic Council (AC). This is a two-year long opportunity to shape the future of the Arctic, an opportunity that will likely not come around…
Could climate change be making flying more unsafe?
KamrenB Photography
On December 28, AirAsia flight QZ8501 crashed into the sea between Indonesia and Singapore. Shortly before the crash, the pilots requested an alteration to the flight route due to severe weather. While…
Mountain Pygmy Possum numbers are declining due to environmental changes, including earlier snow melt.
AAP/Tim Arch/DSE
Every Spring, the blanket of Australian alpine snow starts to melt, and the Mountain Pygmy Possum wakes up from its seven-month-long hibernation. Naturally after so long under the snow, its first thought…
Horses cool off during an Adelaide heatwave in January 2014.
AAP Image/David Mariuz
2014 has been confirmed as Australia’s third-hottest year, capping off a record-breaking decade, according to the Bureau of Meteorology’s annual climate statement, released today. Seven of Australia’s…
Voluntary programs are all the rage. From ratcheting up cybersecurity to fighting obesity, firms in the United States and elsewhere voluntarily make pledges to do better than governmental regulation. Firms…
‘Plates of the Outback’ - A supercell thunderstorm near Urana, NSW drifts over the landscape.
John Allen
The supercell that hit Brisbane on November 27 this year caused more than A$500 million worth of damage, produced hail up to 7.5 cm in diameter, and lashed the city with winds of more than 140 km an hour…
This lot survived rapid global warming – so why can’t we?
Jay Matternes / Smithsonian Museum
It is often said that humans have caused the Earth to warm at an unprecedented rate. However researchers have discovered another period, some 55m years ago, when massive volcanic eruptions pumped so much…
Energy supply including nuclear is the best way to fight climate change and conserve wildlife and ecosystems.
James Marvin Phelps/Flickr
Should nuclear energy be part of Australia’s (and many other countries’) future energy mix? We think so, particularly as part of a solution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent dangerous climate…
Two weeks of international climate negotiations in Lima, Peru, are over, with an agreement pulled out of the bag at the eleventh hour. While Lima has been seen by many as a mere curtain-raiser to talks…
Imagine the smokestacks without the billowing clouds of greenhouse gas pollution.
JuergenGER
Earth’s climate is changing rapidly. We know this from billions of observations, documented in thousands of journal papers and texts and summarized every few years by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental…
The Gold Coast is one of Australia’s climate “hot spots” — vulnerable to rising seas, storms and erosion.
Phalinn Ooi/Flickr
The world’s population could reach almost 10 billion by 2050. Most people will live in cities. To accommodate an additional 3 billion people, we’ll need to build the equivalent of one new city, that can…
Australian farmers apply nearly a million tonnes of nitrogen-based fertilisers every year.
Pete Hill/Flickr
Peter Grace, Queensland University of Technology and Louise Barton, The University of Western Australia
When we talk about greenhouse gases we usually talk about carbon dioxide. When media reports depict climate change, we invariably see the cooling towers of a coal power station. Which is fair, because…
Global environmental and social welfare per capita has not improved since the 1980s.
www.shutterstock.com
The focus of the recently concluded G20 summit was economic growth. The final communiqué begins: “Raising global growth to deliver better living standards and quality jobs for people across the world is…
A properly designed cap and trade scheme could lift Illinois out of the fog.
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Don Fullerton, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
So-called cap and trade may be a solution to a problem it was not intended to solve: state budget crises. Cap-and-trade policy was designed to address climate change by putting a “cap” on carbon dioxide…
Trade Minister Andrew Robb will accompany Julie Bishop to the Lima climate conference – without the environment minister.
AAP/Dan Himbrechts
Tony Abbott is sending Trade Minister Andrew Robb rather than Environment Minister Greg Hunt to accompany Julie Bishop at the United Nations climate conference in Peru. Bishop, as Foreign Minister, is…
Another million tonnes of this and we can cancel that ski holiday.
Jimmy Thomas
We know the world is warming and that, unless things drastically change, we will keep emitting more carbon. We know the two are linked. But exactly how much warmer will it become as we emit more carbon…
Phytoplankton are responsible for half the world’s productivity. Here, a phytoplankton bloom in the northern Pacific.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Flickr
You may not have heard of them or given them much thought, but phytoplankton — the microscopic plants that grow throughout the world’s oceans — are the foundation of oceanic food webs. Although tiny, they…
King tides are just one of the threats faced by the people of Saibai Island in the Torres Strait, as a result of climate change.
Brad Marsellos
While you may have heard about the increasing threat that climate change and rising seas pose to Pacific islands — already forcing some communities to move — Australia has its own group of islands that…
All bark no bite? Green shoots of growth hide risks as well as opportunities.
Sharon Mollerus
Not too long ago, cynics were wondering if David Cameron’s fears over the global economy were a ploy to shift blame for any flaws in the UK’s performance as we near the May 2015 general election. However…
For several years now climatologists have puzzled over an apparent conundrum: why is Antarctic sea ice continuing to expand, albeit at the relatively slow rate of about one to two percent per decade, while…