The “Great Dying” Has Begun. Only Transforming the Economy Can Stop It

Extinction has threatened Earth’s plant and animal life several times over the planet’s multibillion-year history. During the mass extinction event called the “Great Dying,” around 250 million years ago, 96% of all marine species died out — gone forever.

Life is again headed for total collapse and only total
transformation of how we can live will slow it down.

Life is once again headed for total collapse. While coverage of last week’s major Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) report on biodiversity loss rightly played up the dire numbers — an estimated 1 million species gone by 2050 — what’s truly remarkable are the solutions the authors offer in response. Ditching the timid pragmatism of technocrats, these scientists are calling for nothing less than the total transformation of the global economy. Producing for profit has failed us, they say, and failed the planet. We need a new system.

Only “transformative change” can stop massive species loss, according to the report’s conclusion. That means overhauling the global economy to prioritize human well-being and environmental sustainability rather than the pursuit of profit. “We’re not addressing the underlying causes of biodiversity loss, which is the way we organize economies, production and consumption patterns, our institutions, and our rules,” says Ingrid Visseren-Hamakers, associate professor of environmental science and policy at George Mason University and a coordinating lead author of the IPBES report. “We need to transform the sheer fabric of our society to become more sustainable.”

Read the One Zero story by Casey Williams - “The “Great Dying” Has Begun. Only Transforming the Economy Can Stop It.”

When planetary catastrophe is your day job

The smiling young woman approaches me, hand outstretched to shake mine. “I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your talk,” she enthuses. I thank her warmly; I’m as grateful for a compliment as the next person. But my heart is sinking. I’ve failed, again. The “enjoyable” talk I’ve just delivered was about climate change and its impacts, now and in the future – planetary catastrophe in a 40-minute PowerPoint presentation. And now the audience is filing out, eager for a coffee or something stronger, already thinking about where to get a taxi, or what to have for dinner, or any one of a million things other than mounting a revolution to save the planet.

Professor Lesley Hughes.

I give a lot of these talks – to university students, business groups, community organisations, anyone who’ll listen. I work hard to be engaging, keeping the text and complex graphs to a minimum, adding lots of pictures and analogies, personal anecdotes and even the odd joke. And therein lies the conundrum. As a scientist I feel a compulsion to deliver the facts as we currently understand them. But too much gloom and doom is paralysing. Apocalypse fatigue can send people under the metaphorical doona.

Read the essay from The Monthly by Lesley Hughes -  “When planetary catastrophe is your day job.”

Australia’s emissions rise again in 2017, putting Paris targets in doubt

Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2017 were again the highest on record when unreliable data from sectors including land clearing and forestry are excluded, according to consultants NDEVR Environmental.

Rising greenhouse gas pollution comes despite
 decline in electricity sector emissions.

Even including land clearing, overall emissions show a continued rising trend, which began in about 2011, putting Australia’s commitment under the Paris agreement further out of reach.

The rising greenhouse gas pollution comes despite continued decline in emissions from the electricity sector, following increased renewable energy generation and the closure of Australia’s dirtiest coal power station, Hazelwood.

Read Michael Slezak’s story from The Guardian - “Australia’s emissions rise again in 2017, putting Paris targets in doubt.”

Costa Rica's Electricity Has Run Entirely on Renewables For 300 Days in 2017

Costa Rica has done it again. In January, the Central American country announced it had powered its electricity for a stunning 250 days in 2016 without burning fossil fuels. Now its 2017 effort has already eclipsed that feat – and it's still only November.

So far this year, Costa Rica has clocked up 300 days where 100 percent of its electricity generation came from renewable energy sources – no small accomplishment for a nation comprised of some 5 million people.

According to figures provided by Costa Rica's National Centre for Energy Control, 99.62 percent of the country's electricity production is now generated from five renewable sources.

Leading the charge is hydropower, which provides 78.26 percent of Costa Rican electricity, followed by wind (10.29 percent), geothermal energy (10.23 percent), biomass and solar (0.84 percent), and hydrocarbons (0.38 percent).

Read the Science Alert story - “Costa Rica's Electricity Has Run Entirely on Renewables For 300 Days in 2017.”

Australia fails again climate rankings, but states get honourable mention

Australia has once again found itself languishing at the bottom of the global rankings on climate policy and action, not budging from its 2016 position of fifth-last, in the latest Climate Change Performance Index, published overnight by the Climate Action Network Europe and German NGO Germanwatch.

As you can see in the table below, Australia comes in at number 57 – sandwiched in-between two developing nations, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Korea, in the “very poor” performance section – out of a group of 61 countries responsible for more than 90 per cent of global energy-related CO2 emissions.

Read Sarah Vorrath’s RenewEconomy story - “Australia fails again climate rankings, but states get honourable mention.”