Climate of angst laid bare within battered and bruised post-election Labor

Labor's internal anxiety over its future policy direction - especially on climate - is set to intensify in the coming weeks as the reality of another three years in opposition sinks in for its caucus members.

Veteran frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon, who has been in Parliament for 23 years but has served less than two of them as a cabinet minister, laid the angst bare on Wednesday. The MP, who hails from coal country in the NSW Hunter region, argued the opposition had "confused and scared" voters with its policies at the May election during his speech to think tank the Sydney Institute.

The speech, which argued for a "sensible settlement" with the Morrison government on emissions targets, was leaked ahead of time and ran on the front page of The Australian, ensuring a full day of debate before it was delivered.

Read the story from The Sydney Morning Herald by Rob Harris - “Climate of angst laid bare within battered and bruised post-election Labor.”

Maybe We’re Not Doomed After All

As the effects of a warming climate intensify and a sense of impending catastrophe grows stronger, it’s becoming easier to give in to environmental despair. Having spent the past five years studying the Arctic and traveling around Greenland, I feel the pull as well. 

We have the technology to deal with the climate crisis, we just need the will.

Glaciers and sea ice are melting at an alarming rate; temperatures are rising at a steady clip. To make matters worse, the Trump administration’s recent efforts to ignore a fact-based, scientific approach — rejecting, for instance, the use of computer projections to assess how a warming world might look after 2040 — leads me to worry that climate denialism is moving from the scientific fringes to the institutional center.

Still, it’s worth considering that things may not be as bad as they appear. I say this with a full understanding that most indicators are pointing in the wrong direction. Yet I also feel we’re in danger of losing sight of two crucial and encouraging aspects of our predicament.

The first is the extraordinary value of the climate knowledge we’ve amassed over the past 100 years — a vast archive of data and wisdom that gives us a fine-grained understanding of how the planet is warming and how we can change the trajectory we’re on.

Read the story from The New York Times by John Gertner - “Maybe We’re Not Doomed After All.”

Coral Sea tropical low 'unlikely' to intensify into cyclone, but heavy weather still on the way

A tropical low in the Coral Sea is continuing to move towards Queensland's south-east, but the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) says it is unlikely to intensify into a cyclone.

Mike McMaster and Max Wilson head into the surf on
the Sunshine Coast which has wild winds expected.

But gale-force winds and dangerous surf are still expected to impact the southern coastline from Wednesday.

The system is about 1,300 kilometres north-east of the Sunshine Coast and will keep tracking south on Tuesday, but is not expected to cross the coast.

On Tuesday afternoon, BOM forecaster Dean Narramore said winds would pick up on Tuesday night around the Fraser Island coast area.

Read the ABC News story - “Coral Sea tropical low 'unlikely' to intensify into cyclone, but heavy weather still on the way.”