Amazon Deforestation Rate Hits 3 Football Fields Per Minute, Data Confirms

The Amazon rainforest in Brazil is being clear cut so rapidly — a rate of three football fields per minute — that it is approaching a "tipping point" from which it will not recover, according to the Guardian. 

The Amazon rainforest is disappearing at
the rate of three football fields a minute.

As trees are lost, researchers said there is a risk that large areas could transition from rainforest to savannah as they lose the ability to make their own rainfall from evaporation and from plants giving off water vapor, according to Newsweek. 

A transition on that scale could have significant implications for global warming since the rainforest absorbs vast amounts of atmospheric carbon. Recent research has shown the potential for massive tree plantings to remove excess carbon from the atmosphere.

Read the story from EcoWatch by Jordan Davidson - “Amazon Deforestation Rate Hits 3 Football Fields Per Minute, Data Confirms.”

Tony Abbott launches warning shot on climate policy

Tony Abbott has fired a telling shot across Malcolm Turnbull's bow, warning that any energy package agreed to in cabinet must also pass a party room wary of anything approaching a clean energy target or other subsidy scheme for renewables.

Warning shot on energy: former prime minister Tony Abbott,
 pictured with then-assistant treasurer Josh Frydenberg
at Parliament House in March 2015.

It came as the Turnbull government received more bad news in the fortnightly Newspoll series, prompting Mr Abbott to declare a future return to the leadership was possible but would occur only if he was drafted by colleagues, which he described as "almost impossible to imagine”.

Signalling that Coalition MPs will be no rubber stamp on energy, the dumped former prime minister said the backbench deserved "plenty of chance to digest" the formula.

Mr Abbott's blunt message sets the stage for another showdown over a policy area that has divided moderates and conservatives within the Coalition for a decade, and become a constant cipher for simmering leadership rivalries.

Read Mark Kenny’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Tony Abbott launches warning shot on climate policy.”