Swaths of native forest near Great Barrier Reef set to be bulldozed

Federal officials plan to back the destruction of almost 2000 hectares of pristine Queensland forest in a move that threatens the Great Barrier Reef and undermines a $500 million Turnbull government rescue package for the natural wonder.

Old growth forest in the vicinity of Kingvale Station,
near rivers that flow into the Great Barrier Reef.

A draft report by the Department of the Environment and Energy recommends that the government allow the mass vegetation clearing at Kingvale Station on Cape York Peninsula. The area to be bulldozed is almost three times the size of the combined central business districts of Sydney and Melbourne.

Read the story by Nicole Hasham from The Age - “Swaths of native forest near Great Barrier Reef set to be bulldozed.”

Shipping’s Heavy Fuel Oil Puts the Arctic at Risk. Could It Be Banned?

Heavy fuel oil—the molasses-like sludge left after the oil refining process—is among the dirtiest fuels on the planet, and yet its use by ships is widespread in the Arctic, a pristine environment where it could do significant harm.

The majority of the Arctic's black carbon, a short-lived climate
pollutant, comes from heavy fuel oil used in ships.

Burning the fuel contributes to climate change, and a spill in Arctic waters would be a nightmare for emergency response coordinators. But it's cheap, and attractive for ships making long hauls, the kind of traffic on the rise as climate change makes Arctic shipping easier.

Concerns about the safety and use of the fuel in a delicate and remote environment led to it being banned in the Antarctic in 2011, but efforts to include the Arctic in that ban fell short.

Read the Inside Climate News story by Sabrina Shankman - “Shipping’s Heavy Fuel Oil Puts the Arctic at Risk. Could It Be Banned?”

BP claims an oil spill off Australia's coast would be a 'welcome boost' to local economies

Coastal towns would benefit from an oil spill in the pristine Great Australian Bight because the clean up would boost their economies, energy giant BP has claimed as part of its controversial bid to drill in the sensitive marine zone.

Eyre Peninsula, South Australia. BP said local economies
would be boosted by clean up activities if its plan to drill
for oil caused a spill.

BP, which has since withdrawn the drilling plan, also told a federal government agency that a diesel spill would be considered “socially acceptable”.

BP made the statements in an environment plan submitted to the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority in March 2016.

The company had been seeking to drill two wells off the South Australian coast, raising fears of an environmental disaster akin to BP's 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Read Nicole Hasham’s story from The Sydney Morning Herald - “BP claims an oil spill off Australia's coast would be a 'welcome boost' to local economies.”

(Only the brutal madness of a neo-liberal economist devoid of an sense of feeling for our environment could see the sense of such an argument - Robert McLean)