We are in trouble.’ Global carbon emissions reached a record high in 2018

Between 2014 and 2016, emissions remained largely flat, leading to hopes that the world was beginning to turn a corner. Those hopes appear to have been dashed. In 2017, global emissions grew 1.6 percent. The rise in 2018 is projected to be 2.7 percent.

Global emissions of carbon dioxide are reaching the highest levels on record, scientists projected Wednesday, in the latest evidence of the chasm between international goals for combating climate change and what countries are doing.

Read the story from The Washington Post by Brady Dennis and Chris Mooney - “‘We are in trouble.’ Global carbon emissions reached a record high in 2018.”

Australia’s biggest mining states, ACT raise issues about energy plan

The Turnbull government’s hopes of securing an early ‘‘green light’’ to its landmark energy plan have received fresh setbacks, with Queensland, Western Australia and the ACT each declaring serious concerns about its design.

The federal government is seeking state and territory
support this Friday for its national energy guarantee.

The states object to the federal government’s proposed carbon emissions cuts and renewables targets, but energy minister Josh Frydenberg is confident his plan will progress past this Friday’s key meeting with state counterparts.

In their first responses to detailed papers on the National Energy Guarantee – a plan that aims to lower power prices, improve the grid’s reliability, and cut greenhouse emissions from the electricity sector – Queensland and Western Australia said key issues remain.

Read the story by Peter Hannam and Nicole Hasham from The Age - “Australia’s biggest mining states, ACT raise issues about energy plan.”

2017 brought another year of weather extremes as drought and heat took its toll

Australia is set to finish one of its hottest years on record, leaving fire authorities pinning their hopes a La Nina in the Pacific will bring soaking rains before heatwaves build through the summer.

Cooling off was a popular pastime for many in Victoria and NSW from spring onwards. 

Sydney is on track to post its fourth warmest December on record, according to Weatherzone. For the year, the city's mean, maximum and minimum temperatures will be in the top five warmest on records going back to 1858, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

Read Peter Hannam’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “2017 brought another year of weather extremes as drought and heat took its toll.”

The idea of never ending growth is simply wrong and we must resile from it

The maintenance of exisiting lifestyles and the mitigation of climate change are incompatible.

Modern lifestyles depend upon the profligate use of energy, almost exclusively fossil fuel-based energy, and as is well understood by our climate scientists, the resultant carbon dioxide from the combustion of the ingredients of those ancient fuels has disturbed, and significantly changed, Earth’s climate system.

Humanity has lived through an era of relatively unchanged climatic conditions, but that is changing, or has changed, and so what we are witnessing now is the arrival of weather events foreign to what is needed to allow the people of the world to thrive.

Humanity has been herded into a consumptive col-de-sac, driven there by the market paradigm of never-ending growth that was force-fed to the population using Edward Bernays created propaganda that was re-cast as “public relations”.

The idea of never-ending growth, the essence of capitalism that has now morphed into globilization, is fundamentally flawed and is ultimately impossible in a finite world.

It is the concept to endless growth and the need, now pressingly urgent, to live in a more restrained way which are contradictory and so demand, if we are to have any hope of a reconciliation between the two, we need a re-set of humanity’s values, ideals, aims, hopes, and dreams.

Considering this dilemma causes me to consider what the late German pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: 

“Culturally it means a return from the newspaper and the radio to the book, from feverish activity to unhurried leisure, from dispersion to concentration, from sensationalism to reflection, from virtuosity to art, from snobbery to modesty, from extravagance to moderation.”

Bonhoeffer, who was killed by the Nazis in 1945 for being involved in an attempt to kill Adolf Hitler, could see even than that our extravagance was detrimental to human wellbeing, although probably for different reasons than those that trouble, and threaten, humanity today.

And so taking Bonhoeffer’s advice, we need to pry apart our extravagance, resile from it and build a new way of living that is about understanding how we can continue to enjoy our lives with less of everything and so live in a more restrained fashion.