Strange clouds deliver much-needed rain to central Victoria

Dion Costigan was watching his boys skate in Eaglehawk, in central Victoria, when he turned and saw something in the sky like nothing he had ever seen before.

A shelf cloud formation looms over Bendigo
 as Victoria receives much-needed rain.

"I just thought, wow!" he said on Saturday morning.

"The line, the formation of clouds just had amazing colours in it, these light greys all the way down to black.”

Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Tom Delamotte said the cloud mass Mr Costigan and many other social media users captured was a shelf cloud formation.

Read the story by Joe Hinchillfe from The Age - “Strange clouds deliver much-needed rain to central Victoria.”

Victoria’s environmental watchdog 'ignores big polluters, cracks down on oBikes’

Victoria's environmental watchdog is doing nothing to rein in global warming, preferring to crack down on dumped oBikes rather than regulate carbon emissions.

Victoria's environmental watchdog has been accused of
prioritising dumped oBikes over addressing climate change.

So argues a new report by Environment Victoria, which finds the Environment Protection Authority is letting the state's biggest carbon polluters off scot-free even though it has the power to make them cut their greenhouse gas emissions.

If the EPA continues to turn a blind eye, Victoria could ultimately fail to reach its goal of emitting no carbon dioxide by 2050, the report warns.

The 2050 target is integral to Victoria's plan to play its part to limit global warming to below two degrees of pre-industrial levels and avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Read Adam Carey’s story in the Melbourne Age - “Victoria’s environmental watchdog 'ignores big polluters, cracks down on oBikes’.”

Cruise ships showed contempt for customers by breaking clean air pledge, report says

The world’s cruise ships have done virtually nothing to reduce their pollution over the past year, with some still emitting as much particulate matter as 1m cars a day, a report says.

MSC Divina leaves Venice by St Mark’s Basin in 2012.
 The cruise industry has been criticised for not acting on
air pollution in the past 12 months. 

The annual survey of 63 ships, conducted by the German environment group Nabu, refused to recommend a single one for adequately reducing its environmental impact in 2017.

It accused the industry of having “contempt” for the health of its customers, saying companies had reneged on promises to clean up their fleets.

“Last year the sector claimed 23 ships would be operating with soot filters,” said Nabu’s Dietmar Oeliger. “The truth is not a single filter is working at present.”

The report’s authors say a mid-size cruise ship’s diesel engine can use 150 tonnes of fuel each day, which would emit as much particulate as one million cars. In December, the Australian government passed a regulation forcing cruise ships in Sydney harbour to use low-sulphur fuel, after residents complained emissions were negatively affecting their health.

The New South Wales Environmental Protection Agency had earlier warned that docked cruise ships posed a health risk to those who lived near them.

Read The Guardian story - “Cruise ships showed contempt for customers by breaking clean air pledge, report says.”

Commitment renewed after listening to Professor

by Robert McLean

My commitment to encourage a positive response to human-induced climate change was reinforced as I listened last night (March 17) to Professor Lawrence Krauss at Melbourne Embiggen Books.

Prof Lawrence
Krauss.

Prof Krauss, a Canadian-American theoretical physicist who is a professor of physics of the School of Earth and Space Exploration, and a director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University.

He is also the author of several bestselling books, including The Physics of Star Trek and A Universe from Nothing, which he talked about at Embiggen Books.

About 70 people filled the Little Lonsdale Street bookshop to hear about, and learn about, Prof Krauss’s theory of something evolving from nothing.

His arguments were convincing and, in his view and certainly many of those listening, provided a more than adequate response to the theists who argued that the existence life demanded an ultimate source, namely God.



A Universe from
 Nothing by  Prof
Lawrence Krauss.

Prof Krauss saw that ultimate source in physics and in answer to the question, “And where did they come from?” he can scientifically prove, they came from nothing.

Answering an audience question about the strength of the belief in God among Americans and many other parts of the world, Prof Krauss said the realization that it was all physics and not God was only inching ahead.

He said the science on which the world depends is so important “We have to continue to fight”

Considering that, it is critical we stand ready to disabuse the climate change skeptics among us and repeatedly, if necessary, consider an appropriate response to a behaviour that is irrevocably change earth’s climate.