Climate change in court

Last month, Chief Justice Preston of the New South Wales Land and Environment Court handed down what has been heralded as a landmark decision dismissing on appeal the proposal of Gloucester Resources to construct a new open-cut coal mine in the state’s Hunter Valley.

The Chief Justice found that “all anthropogenic
GHG emissions contribute to climate change”. 

The Chief Justice found that as well as creating unacceptable impacts for local residents, the proposed Rocky Hill Coal Project would adversely impact upon measures to limit dangerous anthropogenic climate change.

Dismissing the notion that has been relied upon in Australian courts in previous cases that one mine in Australia represents only a small fraction of global emissions, he found that all of the direct and indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the Rocky Hill Coal Project will negatively impact on the environment, since “all anthropogenic GHG emissions contribute to climate change”.

Read the Pursuit story from the University of Melbourne - “Climate change in court.”

George Monbiot discusses 'System Failure'

James C. Scott's "Against
the Grain" - considered
by Monbiot as 'fascinating'.

It’s a good question, but it seems too narrow. “Is Western civilisation on the brink of collapse?”, the lead article in this week’s New Scientist asks. The answer is probably. But why just Western?

Yes, certain Western governments are engaged in a frenzy of self-destruction. In an age of phenomenal complexity and interlocking crises, the Trump administration has embarked on a mass deskilling and simplification of the state. Donald Trump might have sacked his strategist Steve Bannon, but Bannon’s professed intention, “the deconstruction of the administrative state”, remains the central – perhaps the only – policy.

Defunding departments, disbanding the teams and dismissing the experts they rely on, shutting down research programmes, maligning the civil servants who remain in post, the self-hating state is ripping down the very apparatus of government. At the same time, it is destroying the public protections that defend us from disaster.

Read the latest piece by Guardian columnist George Monbiot - “System Failure.”