Student climate change protesters take to the streets across the country

A teenager whose family home was destroyed in bushfires has delivered an impassioned plea to the Prime Minister to take action on climate change, saying "thoughts and prayers are not enough".

Shiann Broderick lost her family home in the Nymboida bushfire.

Shiann Broderick, 18, who lost her home in Nymboida in northern NSW, gathered along with about 500 protesters outside Liberal Party headquarters in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Woolloomooloo.

"Mr Morrison, as Prime Minister your thoughts and prayers are not enough," Ms Broderick said.

"I want climate action. This is a crisis. Act like it."

A series of strikes in cities across the country took place today as part of the School Strike for Climate Australia in response to recent devastating bushfires.

Read the ABC News story - “Student climate change protesters take to the streets across the country.”

Reserve Bank warns climate change posing increasing risk to financial stability

Australia’s central bank has delivered a clear warning that climate change is exposing financial institutions and the financial system more broadly to risks that will rise over time if action isn’t taken.

The Reserve Bank says climate change can
result in a decline in the income or value of
collateral that banks are lending against.

The RBA’s financial stability review, released Friday, concluded that while climate change is not yet a significant threat to financial stability in Australia, it is becoming increasingly important for investors and institutions to actively manage carbon risk.

The bank notes Australian insurers are the most directly exposed to the physical impacts of climate change, and points out that inflation-adjusted insurance claims for natural disasters this decade are more than twice what they were in the previous 10 years. It notes “this impact is likely to grow over time”.

“An increase in the frequency and severity of natural disasters will increase the incidence of damage to, or destruction of, physical assets that are insured or used as collateral,” the RBA said.

Read the story from The Guardian by Katharine Murphy - “Reserve Bank warns climate change posing increasing risk to financial stability.” 

How Oceans Rise and Die on a Warming Planet

In a Park Hyatt hotel ballroom in midtown Manhattan, on Wednesday, Greta Thunberg, the sixteen-year-old climate activist, stood before world leaders and delivered a goosebump-inducing speech. The occasion was the release of “The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate,” a major scientific report by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which concluded that human activities have made the oceans increasingly inhospitable to marine life and have caused glacial melt and sea-level rise to happen at an even faster rate than scientists had previously projected. The effects—already well underway, with some locked in over the next century—pose an immediate threat to the survival of certain island nations and high-alpine communities, as well as hundreds of millions of other coastal inhabitants and many of the world’s fisheries. “The reason we have taken to the streets is because of science,” Thunberg said, after thanking the U.N. scientists who authored the report. “This is about an existential crisis for the biosphere and for humanity.” On the projection screen behind her was a seal stranded on a tiny iceberg in a big blue ocean. “Our main enemy now is physics. We can still fix this, it is still possible, but not if we continue like now.” She concluded, “We must listen to the scientists.”

Flooding in Houston, Texas, after Hurricane Harvey. A new report from the
 I.P.C.C. is the first to comprehensively tie together ocean acidification,
 glacial collapse, and sea-level rise.

The report, which is based on nearly seven thousand peer-reviewed studies, was prepared and written by a hundred and four scientists from thirty-six countries. It was the latest addition in a dire trilogy of I.P.C.C. special reports, which previously included studies on the extreme risks of even 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming and on the impacts of climate change on land. (Additionally, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, a U.N.-backed body, released a report in May on the accelerating rate of widespread extinction across species.) Wednesday’s report took a similarly comprehensive approach to studying climate change’s impact on ice formations, sea level, and the planet’s oceans.

Read the story from The New Yorker by Carolyn Cornman -  “How Oceans Rise and Die on a Warming Planet.”

Tesla big battery delivered a $22 million profit in 2018.

The Tesla big battery in South Australia has delivered a handsome profit in its first full year of operation in South Australia for owners Neoen Australia, as well as playing a key role in lowering market costs and keeping the lights on.

The profitable Tesla 'big battery' in South Australia.

The 100MW/129MWh battery – still the biggest lithium-ion battery in the world, but officially known as the Hornsdale Power Reserve – cost around $96 million to build but pulled in revenue of €18 million ($A29 million) in 2018 (as we reported in February).

It now emerges that the profit from the operation (earnings before interest, depreciation, and tax) was €14.2 million for 2018 ($A22.8 million at current exchange rates), adding on to to €0.4 million of earnings from the single month of operation in 2017.

Read the story from RenewEconomy by Giles Parkinson - “Tesla big battery delivered a $22 million profit in 2018.”

‘Our future has been sold': Teen climate activist confronts MPs

London: Teenage Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has delivered a scathing speech to British MPs, accusing them of failing to prevent the likely “end of our civilisation”.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg (centre) meets
leaders of the UK political parties, including Green Party
 leader Caroline Lucas (left) and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (right).

The 16-year-old won headlines and inspired action around the world with her “school climate strike” outside Sweden’s Parliament last year.

And her visit to a packed room in Westminster on Tuesday coincided with a climate protest in the capital that has seen more than 1000 arrests and sparked fierce debate over its tactics and aims.

Read the story from The Age by Nick Miller - “‘Our future has been sold': Teen climate activist confronts MPs.”

Drones Deliver Green Transportation Option

By getting your next package delivered by drone, you could be saving energy, but only if companies deploy drones sensibly.

Lawrence Livermore researchers flew test campaigns with
two commercial drones and developed an estimate of
 the energy needed to deliver a package in various
scenarios. They also considered how battery technology
 and drone design will improve over time.

New research by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Carnegie Mellon University(link is external), SRI International(link is external) and the University of Colorado(link is external) at Boulder shows that drone-based delivery could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy use in the transportation sector. The research appears in the Feb. 13 edition of Nature Communications(link is external).

Drones have been used for years by the military and government, but using drones for commercial package delivery is becoming a new industry. Several companies are developing programs for package delivery using drones, including Amazon, Google, UPS and Deutsche Post DHL. The researchers set out to find if drone delivery is a promising idea for the environment or whether, like conventional overnight package delivery, it leads to much higher energy use and carbon emissions.

Read the Science and Technology Research News story - “Drones Deliver Green Transportation Option.”

Extreme hail, frost and rain throughout November causes severe damage for western Victorian farmers

Victoria was all set for another fantastic cropping season, until mother nature delivered a series of cruel blows and there is more to come this weekend.

This canola crop in Banyena, Victoria has been ruined by a massive hail storm.

Parts of Victoria could see a summer's worth of rainfall in the next three days.

It all started in early November when an incredible late-season frost blasted most of western Victoria.

Temperatures dipped below zero, freezing lentils and chickpeas across most of western Victoria and wheat near Ararat.

The Victorian Government is estimating the freeze caused $180 million.

Read the ABC News story by Lily Hoffman - “Extreme hail, frost and rain throughout November causes severe damage for western Victorian farmers.”

Productivity Commission pulls no punches on 'appalling' energy crisis, calls for carbon price

Basil Fawlty couldn't have done it better.

Don't mention the war... or the carbon tax.

Treasurer Scott Morrison last week stood at the lectern and delivered a thundering dissertation on the urgent need for cuts to company taxes.

The occasion was the release of the Productivity Commission's latest report on how best to lift our living standards.

So convincing was the Treasurer's speech, so lucid his argument, a reasonable person may well have formed the impression that the commission endorsed his major policy initiative.

Sadly, not. In fact, not a single sentence on company tax is to be found anywhere in the entire report, the modestly titled 'Shifting the Dial: 5 year productivity review', which runs to six chapters with various forwards and appendices.

Read the ABC News story by Ian Verrender - “Productivity Commission pulls no punches on 'appalling' energy crisis, calls for carbon price.”