Andrews government opens up state's western coastline to gas drilling

More than 1300 square kilometres of coastal waters and coastline in western Victoria has been opened up to gas exploration by the Andrews government, including potential drilling from onshore.

The Andrews government has opened up more than
1300 square kilometres of coastal waters to offshore
 gas exploration.

Industry has been invited to bid for the right to explore for gas along a vast stretch of ocean between the Twelve Apostles Marine National Park and the South Australian border.

Read Adam Carey’s story from The Age - “Andrews government opens up state's western coastline to gas drilling.”

How climate change could wreck beach vacations

Every summer, visitors flock to the beaches along Rhode Island’s 400 miles of coastline. And the locals gain the benefits of a five-billion-dollar tourism industry. But climate change is starting to interfere with Rhode Island’s beach season.

Climate change could bring an end to beach holidays.

Rubinoff: “We have seen more and more heavy rain events.”

Pam Rubinoff is a coastal resilience specialist for Rhode Island Sea Grant. She says excess rain washes lawn fertilizers and other pollutants into the ocean. It can also overwhelm sewer systems.

Rubinoff: “Sometimes that runoff will cause areas in the water to be cut off to swimming.”

And even when beaches are open, beachgoers may encounter problems.

Read/listen to the Yale Climate Connections story by Dianne Madson - “How climate change could wreck beach vacations.”

Vertical rulers show climate change is here, now!

Highway 80, the only road to Tybee Island,
GA, in June. High tides are
forcing the road to close several times a year.

NORFOLK, Va. — Huge vertical rulers are sprouting beside low spots in the streets here, so people can judge if the tidal floods that increasingly inundate their roads are too deep to drive through.

Five hundred miles down the Atlantic Coast, the only road to Tybee Island, Ga., is disappearing beneath the sea several times a year, cutting the town off from the mainland.

And another 500 miles on, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., increased tidal flooding is forcing the city to  fixing battered roads and drains — and, at times, to send out giant vacuum trucks to suck saltwater off the streets.

For decades, as the global warming created by human emissions caused land ice to melt and ocean water to expand, scientists warned that the coastline of the sea would eventually imperil the United States’ coastline.

Read The New York Times story - “Flooding of Coast, Caused by Global Warming, Has Already Begun.”

Antarctic ice is now melting faster than ever

A

Matt King.

ntarctic ice is now melting faster than ever, raising sea levels. But the degree of risk to our coastline and economy is still a big unknown.

The professor of polar geodesy and ARC Future Fellow at the University of Tasmania, Matt King, who is also the Royal Society of London's 2015 Kavli medallist and lecturer, tells us in today’s Age that, “Shrinking Antarctic has us skating on thin ice”.