The world's energy order is changing — and China is set to reap the strategic benefits

There have been many articles written about the social changes that may occur in the aftermath of the Great Shutdown.

Australia has been singled out as a potential new energy leader.

But one major change is already upon us, and it's being powered by forces that began years before the coronavirus emerged.

It's occurring inside the global energy system.

Since the 1960s, a cartel of 14 oil-producing countries, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), has controlled a huge amount of the world's oil supply.

In recent years the group has expanded, forming a super cartel with 10 non-OPEC countries, called OPEC+, to control roughly 55 per cent of the world's supply.

Read the ABC News story by Gareth Hutchins - “The world's energy order is changing — and China is set to reap the strategic benefits.”

World heritage Queensland rainforest burned for 10 days – and almost no one noticed

A year ago, a black scar appeared on the far north Queensland landscape. Satellite images and photographs show the aftermath of a bushfire that burned in world heritage tropical rainforest for 10 days.

‘When the rainforest was burning, the first thing
 we learned was that it can burn,’ says Leslie Shirreffs,
chair of the Wet Tropics Management Authority,
of the 10-day fire in far north Queensland.

Almost no one noticed when the Japoon national park caught fire – mature rainforest trees destroyed across about 250 hectares. A single story in a local newspaper, focusing on how the fire started, appears to be the only time it has been reported.

Experts and rainforest authorities say the remarkable extent of the damage, across an environment supposed to naturally suppress fires, is among the clearest evidence that climate change has shifted the paradigm in the tropics.

Read the story from The Guardian by Ben Smee - “World heritage Queensland rainforest burned for 10 days – and almost no one noticed.”

When Hurricane Dorian blew through the Bahamas, it exposed one of the world’s great faultlines of inequality

BAKERS BAY, The Bahamas — Here in one of the Bahamas’ most exclusive communities, the celebrity homeowners arrived in private jets. The cooks and cleaners and construction workers caught the ferry from the Mudd.

The Mudd, home to many workers at Baker’s Bay, was flattened. 

The Mudd, in Marsh Harbour on Great Abaco Island, was an informal settlement, built with abandoned construction materials on low-lying, flood-prone ground, ravaged periodically by fires. It was an open secret: The rich and famous here were served by — relied on — the residents of what the Bahamian government called “an unregulated community.”

For years, wealthy visitors to Baker’s Bay could ignore the precarious living conditions in the Mudd. But now, in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian, that’s no longer possible. The shantytown has been destroyed. Many people were killed; the rest are homeless. The devastating human toll has exposed an economic dependency — there’s no one to repair the mansions.

Read the story from The Washington Post by Kevin Seiff - “When Hurricane Dorian blew through the Bahamas, it exposed one of the world’s great faultlines of inequality.”

United States: Democrats add basic income to a climate change addressing plan

It started on Tuesday, 13th of November 2018, with a 200 large committee of environmental activists (Sunrise Movement) crowding Nancy Pelosi’s office premises at the Capitol Building. The activists called upon Pelosi, the Democrats House speaker, to push for a real, ambitious and wide-reaching plan to curb climate change. That alone would probably amount to little as far as media coverage was concerned. However, the event was mediatized by recently elected Democrat MP and young political leader Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who stepped in and weighted her support, attracting lots of media attention.

What first seemed to be the aftermath of yet another Democrat internal dispute over climate change issues, turned out to be a positive reinforcement between Democratic leaders to start pushing for a deep strategy which can eventually set real policy to solve the climate crisis. Recent Pelosi efforts to revive energy independence and global warming related issues in the Househad turned out inconsequential, which only made the new Resolution presented by Alexandria stand out even more.

Read the Basic Income Earth Network story by Andre Coelho - “United States: Democrats add basic income to a climate change addressing plan.”

Queenslanders to benefit from health plan to combat climate change impacts

In the aftermath of the king tides that swept through streets and homes in the Torres Strait early last month, Queensland Emergency Services Minister Craig Crawford called on governments at every level to take the need for protection of low-lying communities more seriously.

Grey's Bay, Bowen Queensland.

“Whether people are believers or not in climate change, sea levels are rising and governments need to do something about it,” he said.

The post below, by Sue Cooke and Fiona Armstrong from the Climate and Health Alliance, and Dr David Rissik, Project Manager at the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, relates to an important consultation that is currently occurring in Queensland.

Read the Croakey story by Sue Cooke, Fiona Armstrong and David Rissik - “Queenslanders to benefit from health plan to combat climate change impacts.”

Turnbull knows better than to deny fire weather link to climate change

Raising the issue of the role of climate change in extreme weather events is always a delicate matter for families battling grief over lost homes and emergency service teams managing the aftermath.

Malcolm Turnbull visit burned out homes in Tathra on Monday.

But that doesn't mean the rest of us can't have a discussion about the issues. If not now, when?

Malcolm Turnbull echoed the comments of his deposed predecessor Tony Abbott when he visited Tathra, the NSW south coastal town hit with huge fires amid record-breaking March heat.

Abbott in 2013 declared in the wake of Blue Mountain bushfires that destroyed 200 homes that "these fires are certainly not a function of climate change, they're a function of life in Australia”.

Unlike Abbott, though, Turnbull is not a denier of climate change, having taken personal efforts to school himself in the issue with scientists from the University of NSW well before becoming Prime Minister.

Read the comment by Peter Hannam from The Age - “Turnbull knows better than to deny fire weather link to climate change.”

Noam Chomsky: 'The Republican Party Has Become the Most Dangerous Organization in World History'

Noam Chomsky - concerned about
a "dangerous" Republican party.

On November 8, Donald Trump managed to pull the biggest upset in U.S. politics by tapping successfully into the anger of white voters and appealing to the lowest inclinations of people in a manner that would have probably impressed Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels himself.

But what exactly does Trump's victory mean and what can one expect from this megalomaniac when he takes over the reins of power on January 20, 2017?

What is Trump's political ideology, if any and is "Trumpism" a movement? Will U.S. foreign policy be any different under a Trump administration? Some years ago, public intellectual Noam Chomsky warned that the political climate in the U.S. was ripe for the rise of an authoritarian figure.

Now, he shares his thoughts on the aftermath of this election, the moribund state of the U.S. political system and why Trump is a real threat to the world and the planet in general.

Read the EcoWatch story - “Noam Chomsky: 'The Republican Party Has Become the Most Dangerous Organization in World History'.”