Trump’s New Climate Plan Involves a Guy Who Compared Pollution to ‘Jews Under Hitler’

Withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement was only the beginning. According to a new report from the New York Times, the Trump administration is poised to enter a dangerous, politically motivated new front of its war on climate science. “It reminds me of the Soviet Union,” Philip Duffey, an expert who served on the National Academy of Sciences, told the paper.

Vehicles move along the the New Jersey Turnpike in 2017
while a factory emits smoke. The United States is still c
ontributing to the global greenhouse gas emissions as
the Trump administration has dismantled the U.S.
foreign policy to reduce carbon pollution.

In the coming months, the White House is expected to officially vanquish what’s left of Obama-era regulations to curb emissions from tailpipes and power plants. Though the scientific community agrees that to pumping carbon dioxide into the environment will be catastrophic for future generations, the administration isn’t very concerned with the state of the planet beyond the president’s potential lifespan. According to the Times, U.S. Geological Survey Director James Reilly — a former petroleum geologist appointed by Trump — has ordered his office to only study the effects of climate change up to 2040. Doing so would paint a relatively rosy picture of the effects of climate change, as the rate of warming isn’t expected to increase precipitously until the middle of the century.

Read the story from Rolling Stone by Ryan Bort - “Trump’s New Climate Plan Involves a Guy Who Compared Pollution to ‘Jews Under Hitler’.”

With the LNP returned to power, is there anything left in Adani’s way?

After months of “start” and “stop” Adani campaigning, the coalmine is poised to go ahead following the surprise success of the Coalition government at the federal election.

The habitat of the endangered black-throated finch must be protected.

So is anything still stopping the coalmine from being built?

Australia has a federal system of government, but states own coal. This means the Queensland Labor government is responsible for issuing the Adani mining licence.

Read the story from The Conversation by the Director of the Centre for Energy and Natural Resources Law from the Deakin Law School at Deakin University, Samatha Hepburn - “With the LNP returned to power, is there anything left in Adani’s way?”

White House seeks 72 percent cut to clean energy research, underscoring administration’s preference for fossil fuels

The Trump administration is poised to ask Congress for deep budget cuts to the Energy Department’s renewable energy and energy efficiency programs, slashing them by 72 percent overall in fiscal 2019, according to draft budget documents obtained by The Washington Post.

Filipinos ride energy efficient electric tricycles during
a test drive in TaguigCity, south of Manila, Philippines,
 in January this year. 

Many of the sharp cuts would probably be restored by Congress, but President Trump’s budget, due out in February, will mark a starting point for negotiations and offer a statement of intent and policy priorities.

The document underscores the administration’s continued focus on the exploitation of fossil fuel resources — or, as Trump put it in his State of the Union address, “beautiful clean coal” — over newer renewable technologies seen as a central solution to the problem of climate change.

Read The Washington Post story by Chris Mooney and Stephen Mufson - “White House seeks 72 percent cut to clean energy research, underscoring administration’s preference for fossil fuels.”

Logging of Victorian old-growth forest ‘cannot proceed’, lawyers say

A Victorian government-owned business is poised to clear-fell hundreds of hectares of spectacular old-growth forest, in a move lawyers say is unlawful and which they intend to halt through the supreme court if necessary.

 VicForests is poised to clear-fell hundreds
 of hectares of spectacular old-growth forest.

The area about to be logged by VicForests contains countless trees that are centuries old. It is made up of two forest types that are required by law to have 60% marked by the government as “special protections zones” that can’t be logged – a step that has not been taken.

Environmental Justice Australia (EJA) has written to the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, arguing that, in order to protect 60% of those forest types, the areas that are about to be logged must be included in the special protection zones.

Read Michael Slezak’s story on The Guardian - “Logging of Victorian old-growth forest ‘cannot proceed’, lawyers say.”

View from the top of the food chain might not be so good

H

umans (that is you and me) have been ruthless in securing our position at the top of the food chain.

Nothing, be that fellow species or the environment upon which we all depend, has been allowed stand in the way.

Our fellow species are disappearing at an alarming rate, because almost entirely because of our behaviour, and we are now poised for what might be a survival defining lesson.

Elizabeth Kolbert has written about the Sixth Great Extinction and now Vox asks the question, “What would happen if we lost one-sixth of Earth's species? We may just find out”.