Canberra Times
The National Gas Infrastructure Plan flouts the call from the international Energy Agency for no new fossil fuel developments, and the intent of the COP26 pledge to reduce emissions of methane by 30% by 2030. It is becoming inevitable that International economic retribution will occur, and that agricultural exports may suffer. Read more…

Pearls and Irritations
The public knows that the need to win a few “fossil fuel seats” is behind party policies on climate change for it may deliver government. Party and power come before lives. As a result large necessary reductions in greenhouse emissions by 2030 have been delayed for six years to the shame of both major Parties. Read more…

The Hill
A study in Lancet Planetary Health of 10,000 young people aged 16 to 25 across 10 countries, found “widespread psychological distress” which related to government inaction on climate change. Of those surveyed, 75 percent thought the future was frightening and 56 percent said they thought humanity is doomed. Many suffer from intense forms of eco anxiety. Read more…

The Canberra Times
Effective resilience to climate change is vital for Australia. The government has published its National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy 2021-2025, for COP26. This document appears to follow the ‘Australian way’ of reacting to an urgent, complex issue by producing a colourful, well-constructed document with little substance. Cynically, it has been delivered by a minister who recently approved three new coal mines, and by a government refusing to sign the methane 30 per cent reduction pledge. Furthermore there are health implications which are discussed in this article. Read more…

Pearls and Irritations
A new parliament is urgently needed with the ability to act on the climate crisis and this must include young Independent members who will inherit the terrible legacy provided by many of the current members and will have the incentive to bring reform. Read more…

The Hill
Even if climate change was contained today, the biodiversity crisis would still proceed, though more slowly, for its fundamental cause is the consumption of the natural environment for economic gain by a population too large for the world’s finite natural resources. Read more…

Pearls and Irritations
The fundamental problem is that governments, commerce, media and much of humanity fail to understand the complexity of ecosystems, their increasing fragility and the impacts of their decimation, which so far mainly remain hidden. Read more…

Economic Review Australia Review
This is a reprint of the article of June 25 published in Pearls and Irritations about the UK G7 summit which aimed to help the world build back better from the COVID-19 pandemic to create a greener, more prosperous future. Read more…

Independent Australia
This article explores the psychology and mindset of the leaders in the fossil fuel industries in their perpetration of continuing damage to the Earth’s environment and the responsibility for thousands of deaths and illnesses. This also questions the role of many democratic governments in associating with these industries. Read more…

The Hill
Australia and indeed some other countries must ask themselves if nuclear submarines will be relevant to their likely plight in 2050 or whether the $90 billion (AUD) should be a small down payment on the huge ongoing costs of survival from the predicted climatic ravages which have already commenced worldwide. Read more…

Mirage News
The response of the UK government to the Dasgupta Review on “Economics and Biodiversity” is positive and comprehensive. The question is whether the environmental movement will see this as an opportunity to slow the demise of the natural environment. Read more…

The Hill
John Kerry has noted that Australia is one of 20 countries most responsible for 80 percent of world emissions and needing to take “bold action.” Yet Australia is intransigent — it vows to continue with coal for decades. Read more…

Pearls & Irritations
If OECD countries don’t phase out existing coal by 2030, they will be facilitating global collapse. This article explains that to do less would facilitate global collapse. Read more…

The Advertiser, Page 27
Whether human habitation remains in South Australia by the end of this century can be summed up in one word – Water. The three threats to water security are inadequate management of the Murray Darling Basin Plan, climate change and the lack of understanding of our plight in the recent SA Water Security Statement 2021 “Water for Sustainable Growth”. Read more…

The Hill
A recent UN report states that reducing human-caused methane emissions is a most cost-effective strategy to rapidly reduce the rate of global warming and limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The U.S. may succeed in reducing methane. Australia has no intention of doing so. Read more…

Mirage News
If the Beetaloo Gas project is allowed to proceed, not only will it drive up Australia’s and the world’s climate emissions, it will also ignore many newly documented health dangers for the people of the Northern Territory. Read more…

Under the current NVA the decline in native vegetation has been extensive. Urgent consideration needs to be given to a coordinated policy review on natural vegetation, wildlife, water resources, fire control management and development. Read more…

The Hill
There comes a time when the citizens of one country the USA need help from another country to solve crucial problems. In the case of Australia, help is not for poverty, chaos or insurrection, it is the need to join the world in addressing the climate and environmental crisis. Read more…

The submission to the Senate Environment and Communications References Committee details recent human health and environmental evidence on the Beetaloo gas mining development. Read Submission No 50 here…

Pearls and Irritations

The steady deterioration in Australia’s environment and the ineffective revision of the EPBC Act suggest that we need help from other developed nations to solve our problem. This help may come from proposals on trade from the EU and the USA which penalize trade with countries having ineffective climate and environmental legislation. Read more…