Melbourne weather: Heatwave continues as wild winds cause flight delays

If you woke up warm and wondering what season we're in, you weren't alone.

A dust storm covered the city this morning.
In some parts it was 30 degrees at 5am.

Thursday morning brought a confusing array of wild weather to the city including wild winds, a dust storm causing flight delays and temperatures as high as 30 degrees at 5am.

The dust storm was reported across Deer Park, Manor Lakes and Laverton and was moving into Footscray on Thursday morning. The State Emergency Service said a dust storm hit Ballarat and Ararat overnight.

Melbourne Airport is reporting 30-minute delays on flights - mainly arrivals - due to the dust storm and strong winds.

Read the story by Anna Prytz from The Age - “Melbourne weather: Heatwave continues as wild winds cause flight delays.”

Gas crisis? Energy crisis? The real problem is lack of long-term planning

If you’ve been watching the news in recent days, you’ll know we have an energy crisis, partly due to a gas crisis, which in turn has triggered a political crisis.

The long view: energy policy needs
to stay firmly focused on the horizon.

That’s a lot of crises to handle at once, so lots of solutions are being put forward. But what do people and businesses actually need? Do they need more gas, or cheaper prices, or more investment certainty, or all or none of the above? How do we cut through to what is really important, rather than side details?

The first thing to note is that what people really care about is their energy costs, not energy prices. This might seem like a pedantic distinction, but if homes and businesses can be helped to waste less energy, then high prices can be offset by lower usage.

The second thing to note is that energy has become very confusing. A host of short- and long-term problems have developed over decades of policy failure, meaning that there is no single solution.

Read the piece by Senior Industry Fellow at RMIT University,  Alan Pears, on The Conversation -  "Gas crisis? Energy crisis? The real problem is lack of long-term planning.”

Questionable government decision draws ire on social media

Christopher Pyne.

A new Growth Centre established by the Australian Government will drive innovation, competitiveness and productivity across the oil, gas, coal and uranium sectors.

The Oil, Gas and Energy Resources Growth Centre, to be known as National Energy Resources Australia (NERA), will promote collaboration and innovation across the energy resources sector.

Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science Christopher Pyne said the Australian Government was investing $15.4 million over four years in the growth centre.

Read the story by the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Christopher Pyne - “Energy resources growth centre launched.”

(This Federal Government decision contradicts a world-wide move to renewable energy and has brought many comments on social-media ranging from stupid to confusing and mystifying and short-sighted. It is rather difficult to disagree with those observations and equally difficult to disprove them – Robert McLean).

Renewable energy safe 'known' compared to geoengineering 'unknown'

Donald Rumsfeld wasn’t talking about climate change when he referred to “known knowns” or “unknown unknowns”, but he could have been.

The former U.S. Secretary of Defence was confusing and distracting listeners when talking about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

He said in 2002 “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.”

The conversation around climate change is equally confusing and achieves “lift-off” when it wanders into geoengineering, a dynamic loaded with “known knowns” and “unknown unknowns”.

Climate Spectator has bravely ventured into this risky space with its story: “Renewables still better than 'risky' geoengineering” pointing out that the known realities of renewable energy and vastly better than the “unknown unknowns” of geoengineering.