Why the Guardian is changing the language it uses about the environment

The Guardian has updated its style guide to introduce terms that more accurately describe the environmental crises facing the world.

The destruction of Arctic ecosystems forces animals
to search for food on land, such as these polar bears
 in northern Russia.

Instead of “climate change” the preferred terms are “climate emergency, crisis or breakdown” and “global heating” is favoured over “global warming”, although the original terms are not banned.

“We want to ensure that we are being scientifically precise, while also communicating clearly with readers on this very important issue,” said the editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner. “The phrase ‘climate change’, for example, sounds rather passive and gentle when what scientists are talking about is a catastrophe for humanity.”

“Increasingly, climate scientists and organisations from the UN to the Met Office are changing their terminology, and using stronger language to describe the situation we’re in,” she said.

Read the story from The Guardian by Damian Carrington - “Why the Guardian is changing the language it uses about the environment.”

Gabrielle Chan learns and writes about people being "Rusted Off"

Gabrielle Chan is a political reporter with The Guardian, an author and was in Shepparton today.

Author Gabrielle Chan.

She was in the city to talk about her new book: “Rusted Off: Why Country Australia is Fed Up”.

Gabrielle who’s been a city girl all her life had no desire or intention of going to the country, but then she fell in love with a farmer and moved to the small southern New South Wales town of Harden.

She sensed there was something happend and wondered why country people were so fed up with politics, and why formerly rusted-on voters were fleeing major political parties in greater numbers than their city counterparts?

Puzzled by what she could see, Gabrielle talked with people on the street, researched this developing dynamic and wrote the book she discussed today.

Former Shepparton Mayor, Anne McCamish was the  MC, she had read the book, asked Gabrielle some wide-ranging questions and then offered the 40 or so people the chance to quiz the author.

Why Growth Can’t Be Green

Warnings about ecological breakdown have become ubiquitous. Over the past few years, major newspapers, including the Guardian and the New York Times, have carried alarming stories on soil depletion, deforestation, and the collapse of fish stocks and insect populations. These crises are being driven by global economic growth, and its accompanying consumption, which is destroying the Earth’s biosphere and blowing past key planetary boundaries that scientists say must be respected to avoid triggering collapse.

Joan Wong illustration for Foreign Policy

Many policymakers have responded by pushing for what has come to be called “green growth.” All we need to do, they argue, is invest in more efficient technology and introduce the right incentives, and we’ll be able to keep growing while simultaneously reducing our impact on the natural world, which is already at an unsustainable level. In technical terms, the goal is to achieve “absolute decoupling” of GDP from the total use of natural resources, according to the U.N. definition.

Read the Foreign Policy story by Jason Hickel - “Why Growth Can’t Be Green.”

Naomi Klein to rush out new book taking on Trump administration

Naomi Klein has revealed she is to publish a book taking on the Trump administration, arguing that a corporate political takeover got him elected and that a rise in activism can be utilised to resist his policies.

No Is Not Enough is the most rapidly written book by the acclaimed Canadian writer and activist, a respected political thinker with a huge following since her 1999 book No Logo. She only began writing it two months ago and it will be published by in June.

Klein said that while she usually spent at least five years researching and writing her books, she felt it was important to put a book out immediately to put Trump into the context of the ideas she has spent the past two decades researching.

“An unprecedented number of people are becoming engaged in movements and politics, which is the silver lining of Trump,” said Klein.

Read Hannah Ellis-Peterson’s story in The Guardian - “Naomi Klein to rush out new book taking on Trump administration.”

A right to repair: why Nebraska farmers are taking on John Deere and Apple

Farmer and technician Kyle Schwarting,
from Ceresco, Nebraska, in the cab of
his Case IH tractor. 

Our consumptive behaviour has played a key role in the worsening of climate change.

We are seduced in the consuming more through seductive marketing or planned obsolescence that makes further consumption unavoidable and, of course, corporations richer.

But there is something new that has riled many American farmers - they are being locked out of applying their traditional skills of repairing the machinery used to make their farms both productive and profitable.

Read Olivia Solon’s story on The Guardian - “A right to repair: why Nebraska farmers are taking on John Deere and Apple.”

Teargas, trees and oil: my life in the greatest job on earth

(Rob Gell (left) was one of three speakers at a Shepparton forum in 2013 aimed at apprising Goulburn Valley people of the implications and threats of climate change. In posting this story by John Vidal on Facebook, the former TV weather presenter, who is now an environmental and communications consultant, with a rich understanding of dynamics of climate change, both academically and anecdotally, urged people to actually read the story, not simply “share it”.)

In September 1989, Guardian editor Peter Preston took me to one side. “Environment? Your idea. You do it,” he said. I was on the arts desk and had quite forgotten that, two years earlier, I had proposed that we cover this fast-emerging issue in more depth and with new pages.

We had a great correspondent in Paul Brown, but no single journalist could keep up with events. This was the height of Thatcherism, the old Soviet Union was collapsing in ecological ruin, and there had been serious nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. That year, more than two million people in Britain had voted Green in the European parliament elections.

 John Vidal on an Arctic ice floe in 2012. 

If that wasn’t enough, the Great Storm had just blown down 15m trees in southern England, the Exxon Valdez had spilt 11m gallons of crude oil off Alaska, and the French government had blown up Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior in a New Zealand harbour.

Read John Vidal’s piece in The Guardian - “Teargas, trees and oil: my life in the greatest job on earth.”

This is the most dangerous time for our planet

‘In sub-Saharan Africa there are more people
with a telephone than access to clean water.’ 

Climate change manifests itself in many ways, among them is economic inequality.

That, however, is subtly wrong, as it is the broadly endorsed economic processes that are inherently unequal and it is from that predominantly unfair and unequal system that our disrupted climate system arises.

The incessant drive for growth and profit by the world’s multinationals and businesses, irrespective of social costs or damage to the Earth itself breeds the inequality that concerns a theoretical physicist.

Read Stephen Hawking’s opinion piece in The Guardian - “This is the most dangerous time for our planet.”

Direct Action paying polluters to avoid clearing land they would never have cleared – report

A Green Institute report found 75% of Direct
Action’s vegetation projects were paying to stop
 clearing in regions dominated by mulga
plants, which are usually not cleared for at least
15 years, since they are allowed to regenerate
before being harvested for cattle fodder.

Australia’s “Direct Action” policy aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions is paying polluters millions of dollars to avoid pollution they probably would not have emitted anyway, according to in-depth analysis.

The centrepiece of the government’s Direct Action scheme, introduced by the former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, is the emissions reduction fund (ERF). Through a reverse auction, it pays polluters to pollute less – mostly paying farmers not to clear their land. So far about $1.7bn has been spent through the ERF.

The analysis for the Green Institute, a not-for-profit organisation supporting green policies, says much of that clearing wouldn’t have happened anyway, so shouldn’t count as real abatement.

The authors, Margaret Blakers and Margaret Considine, looked at each of the projects funded and found 75% of the fund’s vegetation projects were paying to stop clearing in regions dominated by mulga plants.

Assuming those projects were paid the average price per hectare, the government paid about $360 per hectare for avoided deforestation and about $205 per hectare for regeneration.

Read The Guardian story - “Direct Action paying polluters to avoid clearing land they would never have cleared – report.”

Australia poised to 'blow' its carbon budget

Australia will blow its carbon budget with either the Coalition’s emissions reduction targets, or those suggested by the Labor opposition, highlighting the urgent need for negative-emissions technology, analysis commissioned by the Climate Institute shows.

“Everyone is just now beginning to work out the implications of the 1.5C goal, and how hard it is to get to it,” said John Connor, chief executive of the Climate Institute.

The report found that while the policy measures needed to keep global warming to 1.5C or 2C were similar, the risks and costs associated with letting global temperatures reach 2C would be “unmanageable”.

Global warming of 1.5C would make rare events such as extreme heat waves and coral bleaching the new normal, but 2C of warming would move the world into “uncharted territory”, the report by Climate Analytics found.

Read Michael Slezak’s story in The Guardian - “Australia will need to remove CO2 from air to keep warming below 2C, climate body says.”

Australia's biggest mining battle drawing to a close

 The NSW premier, Mike Baird, says mining
 under the most fertile soils in Australia
 ‘poses too great a risk for the future of this
 food bowl’. 

One of Australia’s biggest mining battles could be drawing to a close, with the enormous Shenhua Watermark coalmine looking set to be stopped by the state government after relentless community pressure.

In a major victory for the uneasy coalition of environmentalists, farmers and conservative politicians and commentators, the New South Wales government said it was moving to stop mining in the fertile farming soils of the Liverpool Plains.

The NSW premier, Mike Baird, said mining under the most fertile soils in the country “poses too great a risk for the future of this food bowl and the underground water sources that support it”.

It came with two announcements late on Thursday afternoon.

First, Baird announced the government was paying $200m to buy back BHP’s licence to build a huge underground coalmine at Caroona.

Second, the government also revealed it was negotiating with Shenhua to excise parts of its licence that encroached on the “strategic agricultural lands” of the Liverpool Plains.

Read Michael Slezak’s story on The Guardian - “From the rich black soil of the Liverpool Plains springs hope for coalmine-free future.”

Land-clearing laws' failure jeopardises climate change targets, says minister

Queensland tree clearing decision
contrary to climate change hopes.

Australia’s prospects of meeting its climate change targets have suffered a crucial blow with the failure of land-clearing reforms in Queensland, the state’s environment minister and conservationists say.

A renewed surge in clearing is expected after Thursday’s defeat of the Palaszczuk government bill that attempted to restore controls on deforestation. The defeat has also dashed hopes of tackling the nation’s fastest-rising source of carbon pollution.

However, Josh Frydenberg, the federal environment minister, insisted Australia was “on track to meet and beat” the first hurdle of its Paris climate pact commitments, a 5% cut in emissions by 2020.

Frydenberg’s optimism contrasts with a study released in February showing emissions from clearing in Queensland, after the former Newman government axed controls in 2013, had already wiped gains made under the federal government’s emissions reductions fund.

Read The Guardian story - “Land-clearing laws' failure jeopardises climate change targets, says minister.”

(The suggestion from Minister Frydenberg that Australia is going to “meet and beat” its Paris climate pact agreement is both ludicrous, irrelevant, mischievous, misleading and politically expedient. The Paris agreement sounds wonderful, but even the most optimistic view of what is proposed illustrates that the world is in serious trouble.

Achievement of the not-enforceable  Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) upon which the agreement hinges will see global temperatures increase by an estimated 2.7 degrees, and so although Mr Frydenberg can confidently beat his chest about meeting and beating what Australia agreed to, he is selling a fallacy as in reality Australians are doing naught about slowing climate change – Robert McLean).

Climate data 'hits me right in the gut' - economics writer

‘The temperature data is now at such a point that it requires absurd levels of conspiracy theory to suggest climate change is not occurring’

Greg Hunt - wilfully resistant to
 combatting climate change.

Last week it was announced that June was the warmest June on record – making it the 14th consecutive month of a record being set. It comes at a time our government and many in the media remain wilfully resistant to efforts to combat climate change, and at a time when the data should worry everyone.

One of the best things about the election result has been the cabinet reshuffle, which has seen Greg Hunt no longer the minister for the environment.

I once called him the emptiest suit in the history of Australian politics, and maybe that was wrong because given how he exited the role, perhaps a better descriptor is the biggest troll in Australian politics.

On leaving the job Hunt, told reporters that “I feel as if my work is done.”

No minister for the environment could look at the data of global temperatures and think their work is done – especially if the majority of their work involved pushing the con of Direct Action onto the public.

The temperature data is now at such a point that it requires absurd levels of conspiracy theory to suggest climate change is not occurring.

Read Greg Jericho’s story in The Guardian - “I spend my time writing about the economy, but the climate data hits me right in the gut.”

The Greens back community renewable energy projects

The Greens will back community renewable
energy projects - Adam Bandt.

The Greens will announce that they will spend $265.2m on community-owned renewable energy projects, including allowing these to generate tax-free profits from the electricity created.

The Greens energy spokesman, Adam Bandt, will announce the four-year package on Saturday in North Fitzroy at an apartment block seeking to establish a community-owned renewable project.

The Greens plan to create a $150m community energy start-up fund for 50 projects. The money will go towards planning, development, part of the capital costs and two years of operational funding.

They will spend $102.9m on community groups, schools and other local institutions to invest in solar panels and storage, including some capital costs.

Read The Guardian story - “Greens to spend $265m on community-owned renewable energy projects.”

Australia swelters through warmest autumn on record

A graphic shows Australia’s warmest autumn on
record with record temperatures throughout
much of eastern and northern Australia.

After officially sweltering through the warmest autumn on record, Australians can expect a return to normal chilly weather this winter.

The mean temperature between March and the end of May hit a fresh high of 23.86C, with records set in Queensland, NSW, Victoria and the Northern Territory.

Thermometers hovered 1.86C above average, the biggest climb above an average seasonal temperature since spring 2014.

Some of the hottest temperatures were recorded during the prolonged heatwave in March, with Mardie in Western Australia’s north hitting 47C, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

Karl Braganza, the bureau’s manager of climate monitoring, said a strong El Niño combined with global warming to push thermometers to their highest levels for autumn since records began in 1910.

Read The Guardian story - “Australia records warmest autumn ever.”

Reef preservation should dominate election campaign: Tim Flannery

Tim Flannery - Great Barrier Reef should
be at the heart of the election campaign.

Tim Flannery says preserving the Great Barrier Reef from coral bleaching linked to climate change should be a central issue in the federal election campaign.Flannery, a scientist and member of the Climate Council, said the lack of attention paid to climate change so far in the eight-week campaign was “staggering”.

“This needs to be the reef election,” he told Guardian Australia. “This is the last moment I think that we can realistically expect that we can enact some policies … to close down coal-fired power stations and save the reef.

“Other issues are still going to be there in another four years. This one won’t.”

A study in April found that almost 93% of the Great Barrier Reef had been affected by global bleaching, part of a global coral bleaching event that scientists say was caused partly by El Niño and partly by background global warming.

Read The Guardian story - “Saving Great Barrier Reef from climate change should be central election issue, says Tim Flannery.”

Solar thermal 'tantilisingly close' to replacing coal-fired power plants

Vast Solar is gradually build up its solar thermal
plant in Jemalong, New
 South Wales, and will soon have 6MW capacity.

Companies working on large-scale solar thermal projects in Australia say they are tantalisingly close to achieving the dream of building plants big enough to replace coal-fired energy in Australia.

Experts speaking at the Australian Solar Energy Exhibition and Conference in Melbourne last week said the technology had been proven in other countries, and projects in Australia were viable, but the challenge was getting major investors to gamble on something new.

James Fisher, the chief technology officer of Australian solar energy company Vast Solar, said solar thermal energy had been the “poor cousin” to photovoltaic solar panels for some years, but that may finally be changing.

Read The Guardian story - “'Tantalisingly close': is solar thermal energy ready to replace coal-fired power?”

Palin claims she is equal to Bill Nye, the "Science Guy"

Sarah Palin - climate change denier and
yet highly influential among Americans.

Of all the causes Sarah Palin has embraced in her varied career as hockey mom, Alaska governor, Republican vice-presidential nominee, Fox television commentator and Donald Trump supporter, none perhaps may be as bold or – as she still likes to say, “rogue” – as trying to take down a much-beloved children’s television personality: Bill Nye the Science Guy.

But that was where hardcore climate change denial landed Palin on Thursday: a wood-panelled committee room in Congress where she disputed the credentials of a hugely popular science educator who has designed devices for NASA and been awarded several honorary degrees.

“Bill Nye is as much a scientist as I am,” Palin told the gathering. “He’s a kids’ show actor. He’s not a scientist.”

And that was not even the low point of the event.

Read The Guardian story - “Climate change denier Sarah Palin: 'Bill Nye is as much a scientist as I am'.”

(Sarah Palin’s sincerity combined with her idiocy makes my shoulders droop – climate change is an issue that needs to lift us above the simplistic, populist, emotive responses such as those exhibited by Palin – Robert McLean.)

Paris/New York City deal will not save our reef - Greens

Australia’s lack of follow-through on climate change will leave the Great Barrier Reef “completely cooked” despite it signing the Paris climate deal, the Greens say.

The federal environmental minister, Greg Hunt, has joined leaders from 170 other countries in New York to sign the Paris Agreement to limit global warming by at least 2C.

Hunt says Australia will beat its Kyoto emission reduction targets by 78m tonnes and meet a 2030 target of reducing emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels.

“These are some of the highest targets anywhere in the world and certainly on a per capita basis we’re right at the top,” he told the ABC from New York on Saturday.

Read The Guardian story - “Climate deal won't stop Great Barrier Reef from getting 'cooked', say Greens.”

(The idea that the Paris climate agreement, backed up by signing a few days ago in New York City of documents certifying the deal seems to be a case of mass-delusion for even if all those international promises are realized, global temperatures are still going to increase by more than two degrees, nearly three degrees this century, according to some of the world’s best climate scientists – Robert McLean.)

Paris goals slipping from our grasp

World leaders have failed to come to grips with the epic challenge of phasing out fossil fuels and running the entire global economy almost entirely on clean energy by the middle of this century, experts said this week.

While more than 170 countries converged at the United Nations on Friday to demonstrate their support for the landmark deal to fight climate change reached at Paris last December, economists and scientists warned the accord’s goal of keeping temperatures below 1.5-2C may already be slipping beyond reach.

So far, the commitments covered by the Paris agreement would allow warming of about 2.7C, according to the UN’s own estimates – which would unleash rising seas, extreme heat and other upheavals.

Read The Guardian story - “Why the Paris climate change goals may already be slipping beyond reach.”

Transition to driverless cars a worry to Queensland professor

Prof Andry Rakotonirainy is worried.

The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) expert in intelligent transport systems and human factors believes that a road network full of self-driving cars will be far safer than today’s human-directed traffic, but what has him concerned is how to make the transition.

“We know that in over 90% of cases, crashes are due to human error,” he says. “Theoretically, if we have a driverless car and the driver is out of the loop, it means less crashes.

“In practice, it’s not that easy, when we say the driver is out of the loop it means the entire fleet will be deterministic and there won’t be any errors.

“That is not going to happen as we face a transition period of a mixture of automated cars, human driven cars and other road users like pedestrians and cyclists who are not automated.

“That period worries me.”

Read The Guardian story - “The end of cars is coming, so what will happen to the petrol heads?”

(The trouble is not the car itself, driverless, electric of otherwise, rather it is the idea from which we are unable to escape; emotionally, psychologically and physically. The idea that the imagined good life evolves from having unrestrained access to privately owned transport, in this instance a privately-owned motor car, is the root of the trouble, a far greater worry than that alluded to by Prof Rakotonirainy.

The “transition” he refers to is small change compared to the inevitable change facing us within decades, and that is a switch from privately owned cars and motorcycles to some form of public transport – Robert McLean).