Australia’s energy woes will not be solved by reinforcing a monopoly

The possibility of blackouts affecting half of Victoria has attracted plenty of attention to a document once read only by industry insiders and policy wonks: the Electricity Statement of Opportunities. 

Australia’s energy market has a logjam.

The Statement, updated every year by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), forecasts 10-year supply and demand in the main grids that serve the Australia’s south and eastern states.

But the chance of huge blackouts is just part of the Statement – and in fact it reveals a growing tension between the market operator and the bodies that oversee electricity regulations. 

Read the story from The Conversation by the Director from the Victoria Energy Policy Centre at Victoria University, Bruce Mountain -  “Australia’s energy woes will not be solved by reinforcing a monopoly.”

America’s Light Bulb Revolution

Solar panels and wind turbines get a lot of attention, but a more inconspicuous instrument is helping to reshape America’s energy economy right now: The humble light bulb.

The humble light bulb is reshaping America's energy economy.

Over the past decade, traditional incandescent bulbs, those distinctive glass orbs with glowing wire centers, have been rapidly replaced by more energy-efficient lighting. The shift has driven down electricity demand in American homes, saving consumers money and cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

The energy savings are expected to grow as highly efficient and increasingly inexpensive LED bulbs continue to replace older lights. But energy efficiency advocates worry that the Trump administration could slow the pace of this lighting revolution.

Read the story from The New York Times by Nadja Popovich - “America’s Light Bulb Revolution.”

Intensifying climate change protests 'could rival Vietnam War activism’

Mass protests of the scale held during the Vietnam War are just around the corner for people concerned about climate change, environmentalists have warned, as a growing number of activists turn their attention to those who fund fossil fuel industries.

Intensifying climate change protests could rival
 those challenging Australia's involvement in
the Vietnam War in the1960s

Activists on Sunday disrupted Labor's national conference in Adelaide to oppose oil drilling in the Great Australian Bight and the Adani coal mine in Queensland — two proposals considered "lightning rods" for unilateral climate protests.

It happened weeks after thousands of school students defied Prime Minister Scott Morrison and marched on capital cities to demand significant action to reduce carbon emissions — surprising authorities with the number of participants involved.

Read the ABC News story by Malcolm Sutton - “Intensifying climate change protests 'could rival Vietnam War activism’.”

Scientists just presented a sweeping new estimate of how much humans have transformed the planet

In this age of climate change, we naturally train our attention on all the fossil fuels being combusted for human use — but scientists have long known that what’s happening is also all about the land.

A map showing actual biomass stock estimates presented
 in grams of carbon per square meter, based on a land-use
 data set derived from past studies and reflecting national-level
 numbers from the global Forest Resource Assessment.

Just as buried fossil fuels are filled with carbon from ancient plant and animal life, so too are living trees and vegetation on Earth’s surface today. Razing forests or plowing grasslands puts carbon in the atmosphere just like burning fossil fuels does.

Now, new research provides a surprisingly large estimate of just how consequential our treatment of land surfaces and vegetation has been for the planet and its atmosphere. If true, it’s a finding that could shape not only our response to climate change, but our understanding of ourselves as agents of planetary transformation.

Read The Washington Post story by Chris Mooney - “Scientists just presented a sweeping new estimate of how much humans have transformed the planet.”

Disasters and mental health in rural and remote areas

Mental health problems cause profound suffering and are worthy of attention for that reason alone. But despite policy and service reform, such problems remain as common, expensive and disabling as they were a decade ago.

Vulnerable people and places are worst affected by weather-related
disasters, especially those most reliant on the land. 

Bad mental health erodes financial and personal resources, and undermines resilience and adaptive capacity in affected families, workplaces and communities. So it’s vital to foresee threats that might compromise mental health.

Climate change is one such threat. Our world faces potentially catastrophic warming and we have limited capacity to adapt to rapid or extreme climatic changes. As the world’s most variable climate, our continent is the canary in the mine. We have a need and an obligation to invest in understanding and responding effectively to this threat.

Read the piece on The Conversation by the Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology and Associate Dean Research, University of Canberra, Helen Louise Berry - “Disasters and mental health in rural and remote areas.”

The End of Being: Abrupt Climate Change One of Many Ecological Crises Threatening to Collapse the Biosphere

Human industrial growth is systematically dismantling the natural ecosystems which constitute our life support system. Rightly so, there has been an enormous amount of attention given to climate change (though action to rapidly reduce emissions still lags far beyond what is required). Climate change  is becoming abrupt and runaway; and threatens just by itself to collapse societies, economies, and ultimately the biosphere.

At least 10 planetary boundaries exist that
 threaten to make the biosphere uninhabitable

Yet climate change is only one of at least ten global ecological catastrophes which threaten to destroy the global ecological system and portend an end to human beings, and perhaps all life. Ranging from nitrogen deposition to ocean acidification, and including such basics as soil, water, and air; virtually every ecological system upon which life depends is failing. Gaia is dying.

The threat to global ecological sustainability goes well beyond climate change, and represents a more systematic failing of current political and economic models. Namely, the commodification of natural ecosystems – that are our and all life’s habitat – and their unsustainable industrial clearance for short-term profit, is sheer ecocidal madness.

Read the essay by Dr Glen Barry on EcoInternet - “The End of Being: Abrupt Climate Change One of Many Ecological Crises Threatening to Collapse the Biosphere.”

Tolkien’s inspiration for climate advocates

Sometimes I wish I didn't know as much about climate change as I do. For my entire professional life, I have been obliged to stay up-to-date with advances in climate science, as well as every intricacy of political manoeuvring in relation to climate policy. I would sleep much better if I had never paid any attention to it.

Inspiration for climate advocates from Tolkien's writing.

You see, I don't reckon we are winning. And if you pressed me into looking forward and objectively considering if we are likely to deal with climate change before it is too late I would say, 'Nup, we are stuffed.’

Read Tim Beshara’s story on Eureka Street - “Tolkien’s inspiration for climate advocates.”

Attention, rather than distraction makes for a civil society

A good life brought on by a civil society arises from paying attention rather than distraction.

The unfolding dilemma of climate change is perverse inverted example of just that.

Seduced by the idea of growth emanating from consumerism, we have been paying attention, but sadly to the wrong things.

Our attention should have been on the husbandry of the earth and its resources, but that attention has always been distracted by the flim-flam of answering our wants, fulfilling our aspirations and inflating egos.

America’s National Journal reports: “House Republicans Just Agreed Climate Change Is Real. But They Don’t Care” again illustrating that we, Americans in this instance, are not yet mature enough to see and understand that the damage we do to our atmosphere threatens the wellbeing of all humanity.