How to Raise Climate-Resilient Kids

Climate-related disasters are on the rise, and carbon emissions are soaring. Parents today face the unprecedented challenge of raising children somehow prepared for a planetary emergency that may last their lifetimes. Few guidebooks are on the shelves for this one, yet, but experts do have advice. And in a bit of happy news, it includes strategies already widely recognized as good for kids.

Helping kids deal with and understand the climate crisis.

First, consider that a child born today enters a world growing progressively hotter, where recent weather extremes have displaced tens of millions of people. Scientists say displacement may swell into the hundreds of millions in the years ahead, as the rapid melting of glaciers now underway drives sea levels upward. The resulting migrations will likely trigger conflict, hunger, and political instability. As we already see in the children pressed against the U.S.-Mexico border, many of them fleeing drought in Central America, migrations may also lead to hardened borders and xenophobic or racist impulses. All this causes military analysts to call climate change a “threat multiplier” that can exacerbate existing social problems.

Read the story from Yes! magazine by Tom Lydon - “How to Raise Climate-Resilient Kids.”

How playing games on your phone or tablet could cut your power bill

Summer has arrived, and with it, soaring energy bills. Australian households are paying more for their power as generators struggle to meet consumer demand.

Money-saving screen time? 

We blast our air conditioners to stay cool, and put on that old fridge for the Christmas drinks, both of which are likely to blow out our electricity bill.

But while we wait for the situation to improve, there is something you can do to help save money in the meantime: play games.

There is growing evidence that “serious” mobile phone games (games designed for purposes other than entertainment) can help households become more energy-efficient.

Read the piece on The Conversation - “How playing games on your phone or tablet could cut your power bill.”

High energy costs make vulnerable households reluctant to use air conditioning: study

The trifecta of rising electricity prices, soaring temperatures and concerns over possible blackouts risks increasing heat-related deaths and illness this summer, as households struggle to afford to run cooling appliances.

With a hot summer forecast, keeping cool will put
 a strain on financially vulnerable households.

Over the past year, our Heatwaves, Homes & Health research project has investigated the impact of electricity policy on heat-vulnerable and financially constrained households in Melbourne, Dubbo and Cairns. Many of these households live in poor quality homes that typically heat up quickly and cool down slowly.

Our findings reveal that schemes to reduce energy demand (like raising electricity prices during heatwaves and encouraging electricity conservation to avoid blackouts) could increase health and wellbeing risks, unless they take into account housing, health and socioeconomic disadvantages.

Read the piece on The Conversation - “High energy costs make vulnerable households reluctant to use air conditioning: study.”

Top adviser urges Coalition to end paralysis on clean energy target

One of Australia's most senior energy advisers has pleaded with the Turnbull government to end its paralysis over a clean energy target, saying the lack of clarity is hurting consumers already hit by soaring power prices.

Chloe Munro, chairwoman of the national energy
market operator's expert advisory panel.

"At least the states have a plan," said Chloe Munro, chairwoman of the national energy market operator's expert advisory panel.

Speaking at a symposium on energy futures, she said that while other countries were grappling with the transition towards clean energy, Australia was leaving it to the market, with potentially negative consequences for the community.

She said states were setting renewable energy targets in a time of unstable supply, rapidly rising wholesale prices and a lack of direction from Canberra.

Read Adam Carey’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Top adviser urges Coalition to end paralysis on clean energy target.

Battlelines: Malcolm Turnbull warns of soaring electricity prices under Labor

Malcolm Turnbull.

Soaring electricity prices under Labor's green energy agenda, a new attempt to legislate "job-creating" company tax cuts, and new savings to fund more affordable childcare are shaping as key government battlelines in the political contest this year as Malcolm Turnbull prepares to outline his strategy on Wednesday.

The Prime Minister, under growing pressure from voter disaffection and simmering discontent on his right flank, will unveil his objectives for 2017 at the National Press Club in Canberra, hoping to regain the political initiative, silence internal critics, and lay bare the dangers to growth and household budgets of the Labor alternative.

Read Mark Kenny’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Battlelines: Malcolm Turnbull warns of soaring electricity prices under Labor.”

(Malcolm Turnbull has a rather lopsided view of power costs, measuring them in immediate economic terms and ignoring the undeniable medium and longer term social and economic costs arising from fossil fuels. The short-term economic costs of renewable energy may well be higher than what is available through fossil fuel powered electric generators, but renewable power will be vastly cheaper, economically and socially, over the medium to longer term – Robert McLean).