Coal or renewables: Which is cheaper?

As you unplug your iPhone and turn on your kettle each morning, the complexities of Australia's energy market probably aren’t high on your mind. But at this year’s federal election more than any other, voters are being asked to think about where their electricity comes from, how much it costs and whether it will help make the planet too hot to live on.

A coal operation in the NSW Hunter Valley. Tony
Abbott says coal is the cheapest form of energy.

The Morrison government has pledged to make energy supplies more reliable and affordable by financing new generation projects – most controversially coal – using the taxpayer purse. It’s an issue that is, again, tearing the Coalition apart as some Nationals MPs push for a firm funding commitment before the election.

Read the story from The Age by Nicole Hasham - “Coal or renewables: Which is cheaper?”

Stephen Hawking's Final Warnings Urged World to Halt Climate Change

Stephen Hawking, one of the greatest minds on Earth, died peacefully at his home in Cambridge on Wednesday at the age of 76.

Stephen Hawking - final warnings were for
the world to halt climate change

As well as being a renowned physicist whose groundbreaking theories helped us understand the complexities of space, time and the universe, the British professor also taught us about our home planet.

In his last years, Hawking used his platform to warn that human activity is causing irreversible planetary damage and that we must take action to halt climate change.

Read the EcoWatch story by Lorraine Chow - “Stephen Hawking's Final Warnings Urged World to Halt Climate Change.”

A climate lesson from an eight-year-old

Deniers, prepare to be schooled by an eight-year-old. This climate factoid is elementary.

Sometimes the jargon and complexities of climate science can make important concepts sound confusing. That’s where deniers like to foster doubt. How do we really know we’re the cause? Hasn’t the climate changed before?

Watch this short clip from The Climate Reality Project - “So simple, a kid could explain it: the scientific consensus.”

Scientific consensus proves global warming, these charts illustrate it

S

cientific consensus unequivocally illustrates the earth is warming, as a result of human behaviour.

Although there is no longer a genuine debate about what has been thoroughly scientifically proved, the many attempts to convey that message to the wider public have failed dismally.

People, it seems are incapable of dealing with such a complex issue and while that is not a criticism, rather a reality.

Most people have what can be described as a “finite pool of worries” and so there is simply not room for the complexities of understand global warming.

The language of scientists is, to many people incomprehensible, despite the fact that those among the more communicative scientists present their arguments in quite simple terms.

Research has repeatedly shown that many people respond best to, an absorb most, information presented via graphics and so Bloomberg Business has prepared and circulated a series of graphics that illustrate, undeniably, that it is you and I (humans) who are responsible for global warming.

See the graphics - “What’s really warming the world?”

Our view of time makes the complexities of climate change even more complex

The road to hell?

Humans are creatures who by nature live and operate within a rather short time-frame.

Therein is the prime difficulty in having people understand the unfolding complexities of climate change – in a geological sense the outcomes of climate change will be here “tomorrow”, but on a human time-scale, those complexities are considered, by many, to be, wrongly a lifetime a way.

The science is now telling us that even people who are middle-aged today (50-60) will feel the early beginnings of a changed climate, their children most definitely and their grandchildren, oh dear!

Writing in a story headed: “United Nations predicts climate hell in 2050 with imagined weather forecasts” The Guardian tells about 'Reports from the future' that warn of floods, storms and searing heat”.

Interestingly 2050 is simply too far away for most people to contemplate or plan for.

Fast, slow, ancient, modern and uncertainity

Climate change is fast, slow, ancient, modern and something, it seems, that is of such complexity that many museums are not sure how to approach.

A story in the Dallas News headed: “Museums tiptoe around climate change” explore the complexities of this very real dynamic that is an essential part of a genuine museum collection.

The complexities revolve around not just the public misunderstandings of climate change, and the subsequent controversies, but also implications arising from different beliefs and values of both the museum staff and those who philanthropic generousity ensures the museum’s financial viability.

Understanding and responding to climate change is loaded with intricacies that stretch the minds of even those with seemingly unlimited intellectual athleticism and, of course, that reality can be both complex and distressing.

The Dallas News story notes that most museums are cautious of for they don’t want to overwhelm visitors with information that is too complex or too distressing.