Climate change top of voters' minds in NSW election

Climate change is a key election issue for most people in NSW, polling shows, as the environment emerges as a more pressing concern for voters than hospitals, schools and public transport.

57.5 per cent of voters say they will be swayed by
climate change and environmental protection.

Exclusive Herald polling shows that 57.5 per cent of voters say they will be swayed by climate change and environmental protection when deciding who to vote for on March 23.

Read the story from The Sydney Morning Herald by Alexandra Smith - “Climate change top of voters' minds in NSW election.”

Federal budget: Half-a-billion dollars for the Great Barrier Reef

The Turnbull government will deliver the largest single environmental protection package in Australian history by committing half a billion dollars to protect the Great Barrier Reef from climate change and pollution.

The Great Barrier Reef, the largest living structure on the planet.

The investment, to be detailed in the May budget, will aim to shore up support in key Queensland seats ahead of an election in the next year, as the Coalition tries to balance environmental concerns with its pro-mining jobs focus through the Adani coal mine.

Read the story by Eryk Bagshaw from The Age - “Federal budget: Half-a-billion dollars for the Great Barrier Reef.”

(Don’t fall for this, it is political and rhetorical trickery. If the Federal Government was serious about saving the Great Barrier Reef it would tell Mr Adani to take his money, return to India and leave the coal he was so anxious to exploit in the ground. Climate change is the main player in the destruction of the reef and if Mr Frydenberg and his coalition counterparts were serious in their intentions to save the reef they would make climate change mitigation its first priority and that means an immediate shift from the use of any fossil fuels - Robert McLean)

France’s Macron to pitch global environmental rights charter to UN

French president Emmanuel Macron is set to call for a global pact affirming universal principles for environmental protection at the UN general assembly next week.

France's Emmanuel Macron is making environmental
protection a key theme of his presidency 

As the US under Donald Trump reneges on its climate commitments, Macron will speak at the UN on 19 September, pitching to unite the rest of the world behind a binding green charter.

Yann Aguila, leader of the 30-strong team who produced a draft pact in June, said France was seeking UN support to set up a working group. That would eventually result in a document to be agreed by the UN general assembly or another international body, and ratified by member states.

Read the Climate Home story - “France’s Macron to pitch global environmental rights charter to UN.”

Top Official Resigns From Trump EPA With Scathing Letter

In her 40 years working in environmental protection, Elizabeth “Betsy” Southerland has confronted all manner of environmental threats.

Elizabeth “Betsy” Southerland. 

But even she has her limits. Faced with the stark new environmental policies ushered in by President Donald Trump and Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, Southerland resigned from the agency Monday, where’d she’d been working as the director of science and technology in the Office of Water.  

Southerland explained her decision in a farewell letter published Tuesday by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a non-profit group for federal resource professionals.

Read the Huffington Post story by Ryan Grenoble - “Top Official Resigns From Trump EPA With Scathing Letter.”

Using a 'megaphone' to raise climate awareness

President Obama visits Turtle Beach
on Midway Atoll yesterday.

President Obama wants to make climate change a big part of his life and work after leaving the  next year, he said yesterday.
"I think anybody who has the megaphone that even an ex-president has needs to be working on this and raising awareness," Obama told pool reporters during a visit to Midway Atoll in the Pacific Ocean to highlight his conservation.

Obama speculated he might have more influence with Republicans who "have been resistant to the science" after he departs Pennsylvania Avenue.

Americans are now more polarized than ever on environmental protection, according to a newanalysis published in the journal Environment that tracked Gallup opinion poll surveys going back to 2001 and congressional voting patterns since 1970.

The authors noted that GOP lawmakers have moved more to the right, especially in terms of opposing government regulations on principle and attacking U.S. EPA.

"This is something that all of us are going to have to tackle, and maybe I get a little more of a hearing if I'm not occupying a political office," Obama said.

Obama's argument for Republicans: If the private sector and the business community are embracing a clean energy agenda, and insurers are pricing coverage for flooding, hurricanes, drought and wildfires based on climate change projections, "then there's no reason why this is something that should be a partisan issue," he said.

Over the last eight years, researchers say, public concern over climate change has fluctuated considerably because of the economic downturn.

The study's authors — Aaron McCright of Michigan State University and Oklahoma State University's Riley Dunlap and Jerrod Yarosh — note an upsurge in "organized denial" in response to the Paris climate deal and other international treaties.

On the flip side, Pope Francis' encyclical on climate change and abnormal weather conditions have increased grass-roots interest in conservation and renewable energy.

Obama reflected on his efforts over the past seven years to mobilize the nation against the unseen threats of climate change.

His historic three-day visit to Alaska in 2015, showing villages already overwhelmed by rising sea levels and changing ocean patterns, stood out as one example.

Obama this week described the Arctic as "the leading edge of climate change — our leading indicator of what the entire planet faces.

His trip yesterday to Midway Atoll, after stops in California and Lake Tahoe, similarly served to highlight the importance of addressing climate change.

The remote site is in the middle of the newly expanded Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, which Obama has made the largest marine protected area in the world.

"The question gets asked, why protect such a large area?" White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters yesterday. "And one of the answers to that is the emerging climate science, that you actually need to create scale in order to create the ecosystem."

He said, "I think that in the future, people will look at this and actually see it as a climate refuge because you have a protected space of sufficient scale to actually allow the natural features to become more resilient."

'We've done it before'
Obama arrived in khakis and brown desert boots at an old hangar terminal, where he was greeted by almost all the 40 people who live on the 2.4-mile-long island.

He later made remarks, pointing to the monument's "spectacular" ecosystem and the need to "examine the effects of climate change" in the Pacific.

On the deck of Clipper House — a white wooden structure within the monument that overlooks lush green vegetation, white sand and cyan waters — Obama said it was part of his job to present "visual aid" so the public can understand what is happening in remote regions of the world.

"When we come here, being able to highlight the incredible beauty of a place like this but also recognizing that if oceans continue to get warmer, that a lot of the marine species here could be affected and ultimately that's going to have an impact on human populations, so it's tough," Obama said.

The president also offered advice to his successor on making progress and keeping the climate change from becoming so partisan.

With Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton looking to build on momentum generated by Obama's climate initiatives and Republican nominee Donald Trump vowing to pull out of international agreements on climate, the study's authors concluded that the 2016 presidential election presents a historic choice.

This November, voters confront the "most consequential climate-related decision" most voters will have ever taken, they wrote.

Obama said his successor should tell the story of previous efforts to regulate pollution, including dealing with Ohio's Cuyahoga River, smog in Los Angeles and acid rain in the Northeast.

"The Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act transformed parts of the United States, urban and rural, that a lot of people had written off," he said.

"... Or more spectacularly a hole in the ozone way above our heads that's now actually healing itself in part because of steps that we took back in the '70s and '80s. So we have to have confidence in our ability to solve these problems," Obama said.

"We've done it before; there's no reason why we can't do it this time," he added.

 

 

Beder explains the realities of "spin" and how if affects us



Sharon Beder.

Concluding her 1997 book Global Spin, Sharon Beder wrote:

“Surveys show that the majority of people in most countries are not only concerned about the environment: they think environmental protection should be regulated by governments and given priority over economic growth. Yet this widespread public concern is not translating into government action because of the activities of large corporations that are seeking to subvert or manipulate the popular will.”