Car travel and a taste for meat fuel rise in greenhouse gas emissions

Victoria’s greenhouse gas emissions are rising in defiance of the Andrews government’s strong renewable energy push, mostly due to surging car and truck traffic, and from cattle, sheep and pig farming.

Victoria's greenhouse gas emissions tumbled when
the Hazelwood power plant closed in 2017 but are rising again.

A report on the state’s carbon dioxide emission levels reveals they fell about 10 per cent when the Hazelwood coal-fired power station closed in March 2017, but have been increasing since, with population growth and rising demand for meat major contributors.

Read the story from The Age by Adam Carey - “Car travel and a taste for meat fuel rise in greenhouse gas emissions.”

NSW farmers urged to plan for dry season as lack of rain increases pressure on landholders

A sheep and cattle farmer from the New South Wales Hunter Valley says conditions in the region have not been as dry as they currently are in almost 40 years.

Large parts of NSW are in desperate need of rain.

The observation came as farmers were urged to plan for the warmer months in a bid to mitigate the effects of the harsh conditions.

Ian MacCallum has worked the land around Moonan Flat in the Upper Hunter for 60 years.

"For the cattle industry, it is particularly bad because our cows have just calved, and we've got young calves on the ground which are this coming year's income.

Read the ABC News story - “NSW farmers urged to plan for dry season as lack of rain increases pressure on landholders.”

Big gathering today to hear all nine candidates for Murray

More than 100 people were Beneath the Wisteria
in Shepparton's Maude St Mall to hear eight
candidates for the Seat of Murray in July 2 election.

More than 100 people gathered today Beneath the Wisteria to hear from all eight candidates nominated for the Seat of Murray in the July 2 Federal Election.

All nine candidates had five minutes to explain who they were, why they had nominated for the northern Victorian seat of Murray, why they should be elected to represent the near 100 000 electors who live in the nearly 20 000 square kilometre area based on sheep, wheat, dairy, viticulture and fruit processing industries.

Speakers today included independents Nigel Hicks, Andrew Bock, Fern Summer and Dianne Teasdale (just nominated), and Damian Drum (Nationals), Ian Christoe (Greens), Alan Williams (Labor), Robert Danieli (Country Party) and Duncan McGauchie (Liberals).

Each speaker was allowed five minutes to present their arguments and each took two or three questions from the crowd.

The event, the first public appearance of the candidates en masse, was greeted with enthusiasm by the crowd, which demonstrated respect for the speakers and treated the public meeting, in a public space (Shepparton’s Maude St Mall) with the civility.

Master of ceremonies for the day, John Pettigrew, was thrilled with the outcome of the gathering.

The next Beneath the Wisteria gathering on Saturday, June 25, will allow reflection on what was discussed today, and by whom, and those attending will be able to articulate their views on who should represent Murray after July 2 and why.

Lunching with Flannery and lamenting a decade of lost leadership

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Tim Flannery.

here's a hilarious, if slightly unsettling, scene in Two Men In China where Tim Flannery and John Doyle (aka Roy Slaven) find themselves in a penis restaurant in Beijing which serves up the mighty members of various animals and fish – sheep, shark, dolphin, dog and the like. It's an altogether horrific buffet of the unthinkable. With dipping sauce. Flannery says he got through it by choosing to view the experience as a first-year biology experiment. And, no, he didn't get stuck in. Not even a tasting plate.

The internationally renowned climate scientist, paleontologist and author of around 30 books and I are in the comparatively less challenging culinary environment of Dr Jekyll's cafe in Grey Street St Kilda, a convivial and evidently popular eatery with a courtyard out the back.

Read Graham Reilly’s story in Spectrum in today’s Age - “Tim Flannery laments 10 lost years of political leadership.”

Change our diet, help slow climate change

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ome argue that if we are serious about slowing climate change we should stop eating meat, for a couple reasons.

Beef cattle are a prime source of meat and on every count the production of the meat they provide is energy-inefficient as is the milk from dairy cows.

Sheep that provide us with wool and along with beef cattle are rich source of meat, but they too are energy-inefficient.

In other words, it costs us vastly more in fossil energy to produce the human energy we get from the meat, wool and milk.

But there is another issue – when the beef cattle, sheep and dairy cows eat the grass that ensures they gain weight and produce the wool and milk we so want, they burb massive amount of methane that contributes about 11 per cent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Today’s Melbourne Age expands on this theory with an idea about changing their diet to cut down on their burping. Read the story - “Diet change cuts methane emissions in cow burps”.