‘The daughters lost everything': Why more Australians need to be prepared for disaster season

In her decade as an emergency volunteer for the Australian Red Cross, and five years as a volunteer firefighter, Amanda Lamont has responded to hundreds of disaster incidents – but one sticks out.

Amanda Lamont speaking with children after
 Tropical Cyclone Marcia in Queensland.

It was in January 2015, two days after a bushfire had torn through homes and livestock in Moyston, Western Victoria, and her Red Cross team had been called to a property that had been, in part, burnt to the ground.

Read the story from The Age by Casandra Morgan - “‘The daughters lost everything': Why more Australians need to be prepared for disaster season.”

Banking on solar power

Australian businesses investing in solar power for their own use will see a massive 400 per cent increase this year, according to the regulator. And Shepparton businesses are joining in, with hundreds of businesses having installed substantial systems, ranging from 10 to 500 kilowatts.

Clean Energy Regulator executive general manager Mark Williamson said the growth of businesses investing in solar plants had been underestimated.

Two years ago Mr Williamson predicted commercial and industrial solar sector would be cumulatively putting on a large scale renewable power station every year.

That milestone is set to be reached this year.

‘‘It’s really taking off . . . the capacity in applications for commercial and industrial-sized systems between 100 kW and 1 mW (for 2018) is going to smash last year,’’ Mr Williamson said.

‘‘In Shepparton, you now have five power stations (over 100 kW) with a capacity of 1.94 mW, that’s equivalent to about 400 households.’’

The Greater Shepparton region has a further 431 installations between 10 and 100 kW, with a total capacity of 9.66 mW, with more in the pipeline.

SCS Plastics business operations manager Andrew O’Sullivan said the installation of a 300 kW plant had been a game changer.

‘‘We’re quite a large consumer of power (and) we have noticed a significant reduction in our power bills, particularly over the summer months. We’ve seen a reduction of between $4000 and $6000 a month,’’ Mr O’Sullivan said.

‘‘The solar is basically driving our business for three to four hours a day.’’

When the Wheeler St, Shepparton, business closes its doors on weekends its solar plant continues to work, so 100 per cent of the generated power goes into the electricity grid, bringing in further Mark Williamson financial gains.

Mr O’Sullivan said SCS Plastic’s plant had been built with the help of a low-interest loan, sourced through the Greater Shepparton City Council.

SCS Plastic’s decision to invest in solar was a purely commercial decision.

The price of power and the skyrocketing percentage of total spend led to the investment, Mr O’Sullivan said.

And that investment is being copied across the country as the Clean Energy Regulator is inundated with applications, outpacing the growth in household solar installations.

‘‘Obviously there’s been a lot of focus on electricity prices and I think a lot of businesses as well as households have been looking at that,’’ Mr Williamson said.

‘‘It’s really a combination of electricity prices going up and cost of systems going down.

‘‘While we’re still seeing very steady growth in the household level, the economies of scale for industrial systems are much better.

‘‘We are looking at an exponential growth rate . . . Australia has the biggest penetration of rooftop solar in the world (and) the headline story here is that business is embracing solar in a really big way.’’

Story from The Shepparton News by Myles Peterson - “Banking on solar power.”

Ancient carbon discovered coming from Arctic soil

Scientists have published new evidence that old or even ancient carbon, pulled out of the atmosphere and stored in the bodies of plants hundreds or thousands of years ago, is being set loose again from soils in the Arctic region.

The discovery is a potentially worrying indicator that "permafrost"
soils may already be worsening the problem of climate change.

It's a potentially worrying indicator that these "permafrost" soils may already be worsening the problem of climate change. However, scientists are still debating just how much old carbon Arctic soils should release normally even without climate change, leaving the ultimate significance of the findings unclear.

Read Chris Mooney’s story in The Age - “Ancient carbon discovered coming from Arctic soil.”

Health Check: how can extreme heat lead to death?

Our climate is becoming hotter. This is our reality. Extreme heat is already responsible for hundreds of deaths every year. It’s a big environmental killer, and deaths from heatwaves in Australian cities are expected to double in the next 40 years.

Our climate is going to get warmer, and we
need to protect ourselves from heat-related illness. 

Those most at risk are the elderly, people with chronic illness, those living in socioeconomic disadvantage, outdoor workers, and athletes who play their sport in brutally high temperatures. But extreme heat can affect anyone at any age.

So, what happens in our body during times of extreme heat? And how can it lead to fatal consequences?

Read the piece on The Conversation by the Emeritus Professor of Medicine from the University of Adelaide, David Shearman -  “Health Check: how can extreme heat lead to death?”

Tiny home batteries propping up Victoria's coal-fired power plants

Bill Childs switched on the airconditioning inside his Williamstown house on Sunday to ward off the sticky heat, just like hundreds of thousands of other Victorians.

Bill Childs at home with his solar battery.

But unlike most of us who pay a price for keeping cool on hot days, Mr Childs made a bit of money out of the electricity retailers, as he has on most of the hottest days this summer.

Read Adam Carey’s story from the Melbourne Age - “Tiny home batteries propping up Victoria's coal-fired power plants.”

Logging of Victorian old-growth forest ‘cannot proceed’, lawyers say

A Victorian government-owned business is poised to clear-fell hundreds of hectares of spectacular old-growth forest, in a move lawyers say is unlawful and which they intend to halt through the supreme court if necessary.

 VicForests is poised to clear-fell hundreds
 of hectares of spectacular old-growth forest.

The area about to be logged by VicForests contains countless trees that are centuries old. It is made up of two forest types that are required by law to have 60% marked by the government as “special protections zones” that can’t be logged – a step that has not been taken.

Environmental Justice Australia (EJA) has written to the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, arguing that, in order to protect 60% of those forest types, the areas that are about to be logged must be included in the special protection zones.

Read Michael Slezak’s story on The Guardian - “Logging of Victorian old-growth forest ‘cannot proceed’, lawyers say.”

Climate Change Will Bring Major Flooding to New York Every 5 Years

New York is a city on the water. For hundreds of years, its rivers and harbor have worked to its advantage, bringing it speedy transportation and pleasant temperatures.

Joseph Leader, the vice president of the New York
MTA, inspects a flooded escalator down to a
                                  subway platform in the days after Hurricane Sandy.s after Hurricane Sandy.

The next couple hundred years may not be as smooth sailing. Global warming, caused by the release of carbon-dioxide pollution into the atmosphere, will cause the seas to rise and the storms to intensify around the city. A new study from an all-star list of climate scientists attempts to estimate how a few of climate change’s symptoms—higher seas, large storm surge, and more intense hurricanes—will intersect in New York over the next 300 years.

It isn’t pretty. Sea-level rise will make every tropical cyclone that hits New York more likely to release damaging floods. For instance, storm floods of nearly seven-and-a-half feet once occurred only a couple times per millennium. In today’s somewhat warmed climate, 7.5-foot floods are projected to happen every 25 years. By 2030, these floods will occur every five years.

Read The Atlantic story by Robinson Meyer - “Climate Change Will Bring Major Flooding to New York Every 5 Years.”

Doctors call on health super funds to pull $1.7 billion out of coal and oil companies

Hundreds of Victorian doctors and medical staff are pressuring their super funds to quit investing in coal and oil for the sake of health, as they did with tobacco five years ago.

Hundreds of medical staff in Victoria are pressuring
their super funds to divest from corporations that
are based on fossil fuels.

The group, which includes some of Australia's leading health experts, says there is overwhelming evidence that climate change is already making people sick and causing thousands of deaths.

They want the two largest health super funds, HESTA and First State, to divest from fossil fuel-based companies, arguing the nest eggs of the medical profession should not be built on industries that make people sick.

Combined, the two default health super funds have about $1.72 billion invested in these heavily fossil fuel-based companies, according to Market Forces, an environmental investment advisory group.

Read Adam Carey’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Doctors call on health super funds to pull $1.7 billion out of coal and oil companies.”