Fact check: The PM’s interview with Insiders’ host, David Speers

On Sunday, January 12 Prime Minister Scott Morrison did an interview with the host of Insiders, David Speers about the bushfire crisis and climate change. The Climate Council’s research team has fact-checked this interview.

Read the story from The Climate Council - “Fact check: The PM’s interview with Insiders’ host, David Speers.”

We’ve been arguing about climate policy for five elections: how many more before we get it right?

A decade ago I visited a dusty shanty town in India’s capital New Delhi to interview a remarkable Australian family.

Mark and Cathy Delaney on the roof of their house in a Delhi slum in 2009.

Mark and Cathy Delaney had left Brisbane suburbia to settle among the urban poor and explore a different way of living.

Their sons Tom, now 22, and Oscar, now 17, were born in India and have spent much of their lives there.

Read the story from The Age by Matt Wade - “We’ve been arguing about climate policy for five elections: how many more before we get it right?”

Memo to the environment minister: a river does need all its water

Protecting our rivers is a major 
responsibility for our new
 Environment Minister, Susan Ley.

Given her new role as federal environment minister, one of Sussan Ley’s comments in an interview with Nine Newspapers was eyebrow-raising, to put it mildly. She said:

"Sometimes the environment doesn’t need all its water but farmers desperately do need water."

This is inaccurate and concerning, but not all that surprising, given the attitude to water and rivers of some in the community and federal government.

Read the story from The Conversation - “Memo to the environment minister: a river does need all its water.”

Little Ice Age? No. Big Warming Age? Yes

In September, a website called Space Weather Archive interviewed Martin Mlynczak of NASA’s Langley Research Center. Mlynczak noted that because the sun is currently in a relatively inactive period, the thermosphere (one of the highest layers of Earth’s atmosphere, more than 300 miles above the surface) could reach its coldest temperatures since records began in the 1940s.

Woodcut of a famous 18th-century winter in Massachusetts,
during what some have called the "Little Ice Age," for the
lack of a better term. But compared to full-blown ice ages,
it was short-lived and puny, scientists say. Image from
"History and Antiquities of New England," published 1856.
Courtesy of New York Public Library.

The interview didn’t mention Earth’s surface temperatures, where the past five years have been the five hottest since records began in the late-1800s. However, the British newspaper Metro then ran a story falsely claiming that: “It’s feared this could herald the arrival of a uniquely grim ‘mini Ice Age.’ ”

Like a bad game of Telephone, this inaccurate reporting then spread throughout the conservative media, including Fox News, the Drudge Report, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin’s Twitter page. The story was debunked by the climate scientists at Climate Feedback, and Metro subsequently issued a correction, but the damage had been done.

Read the story from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists by Dana Nuccitelli - “Little Ice Age? No. Big Warming Age? Yes.”

Billionaire calls out “total BS” on Morrison’s views of wind and solar

Mike Cannon-Brookes.

Yesterday we wrote about Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s interview on Sky News, and how appallingly well it summed up his party’s cynical and ill-informed view – and complete lack of coherent policy – on both climate change and energy.

But, of course, we weren’t the only ones to take exception to the discussion with Sydney shock-jock Alan Jones and former Abbott advisor, Peta Credlin.

In particular, Morrison’s comments on energy were called out by billionaire tech entrepreneur and investor, Mike Cannon-Brookes, who vented his frustration at what he called ” total BS” via his Twitter account (the same one used to invite Tesla’s Elon Musk to build a big battery in South Australia, and we all know how that ended).

Read the story by Sophie Vorrath from RenewEconomy - “Billionaire calls out “total BS” on Morrison’s views of wind and solar.”

Trump Questions Climate Change in Piers Morgan Interview

In an interview set to air Sunday, President Donald Trump voiced skepticism about climate change by conflating it with global warming.

Trump Questions Climate Change in Piers Morgan Interview.

"There is a cooling, and there’s a heating. I mean, look, it used to not be climate change, it used to be global warming. That wasn’t working too well because it was getting too cold all over the place," Trump told British journalist Piers Morgan in an interview for ITV News.

Global warming, the rise in temperature of the Earth's surface, is just one symptom of global climate change. Climate change refers to the altering of the world's climate caused by rise in carbon dioxide levels, often attributed to widespread use of fossil fuels. 2017 was the warmest year on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

"The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now, but now they’re setting records. They’re at a record level," Trump said in the interview. During the interview with Piers Morgan, Trump said the he would consider re-entering the United States into the Paris Climate Accords, but only if there was a better deal for the United States.

Read Grace Guarnieri’s story from Newsweek - “Trump Questions Climate Change in Piers Morgan Interview.”

Conclusions about limits to growth less than comforting

T

he 1972 book, Limits to Growth, is the best-selling environmental book of all time, and deservedly so.

Dr Graham Turner.

The scientist who has done the most work updating the data underpinning the original Limits to Growth analysis, Dr Graham Turner, is a thoughtful interview subject.

Jordan Osmond, who conducted the interview said the Dr Turner’s conclusions are not always comforting, but surely it’s better, Mr Osmond said,  to have a clear grasp of the situation than sleepwalk over the edge.

“Only then can we be in a position to formulate appropriate responses. I highly recommend spending the time listening to Graham’s thoughtful analysis of the current state of the world. There is no better authority in the world on this important subject.’ Mr Osmond said.

Watch the interview here - “Graham Turner talks about ‘The Limits to Growth’”.

Talking about why so many remain unconcerned about climate change

N

orwegian psychologist Per Espen Stoknes has studied why so many people have remained unconcerned about climate change.

In a Yale Environment 360 interview, he talks with Richard schiffman about the psychological barriers to public action on climate and how to overcome them.

Per Espen Stoknes, a Norwegian psychologist and economist, has been doing a lot of thinking about a question that has bedeviled climate scientists for years: Why have humans so far failed to deal with the looming threat posed by climate change?

Read the interview - “How Can We Make People Care About Climate Change?”

Global warming can only be halted if we radically change the capitalist system - Naomi Klein

Naomi Klein believes we can only stop global warming if we radically change our capitalist system.

We must radically change the
capitalist system if we are to
stop global warming, says
author, Naomi Klein.

The Canadian author, journalist and social activist known for her political analyses and criticism of corporate globalization and of corporate capitalism, has made that point in an interview with Spiegal Online International.

The interview, headed: “SPIEGEL Interview with Naomi Klein: 'The Economic System We Have Created Global Warming'” said in answer to one question: “it's still a physical possibility. We would have to immediately reduce global emissions by 6 percent a year.

“The wealthier countries would have to carry a greater burden, meaning the United States and Europe would have to be cutting emissions by around 8 to 10 percent a year. Immediately.

“It's not impossible. It is just profoundly politically unrealistic under our current system, she said.

Russell Brand makes sense, lots of sense

Russell Brand.

Comedian Russell Brand seems an unlikely advocate we should listen to, but he makes complete sense in this interview.

I urge you to take few minutes to watch it,

Robert.