‘Greater warming': different species under threat

Entire ecosystems are under threat due to warming oceans with parts of the Australian coast stretching from Sydney to Adelaide experiencing the most stress, experts warn.

Fire weather conditions are worsening, particularly
 in the south and east of the country. CREDIT:

Eight of the 10 warmest years of sea surface temperatures have been recorded since 2010 contributing to coral bleaching, oceans acidifying and altering the habitats of different species, a joint study by the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO has found.

"The warming has been most noticeable, particularly around the south-east of the continent, and it's not just coral reefs that are impacted but kelp forests and commercial fisheries," the bureau's head of climate monitoring, Dr Karl Braganza, said.

Read the story from The Age by Ben Weir - “‘Greater warming': different species under threat.”

Liberal activists target Tony Abbott's seat over climate change policy

Tony Abbott’s political future could be under threat from a group of activists who have been organising environmentally conscious voters to join Liberal party branches on Sydney’s north shore – a move that could unseat the former prime minister.

 Environmentally conscious Sydneysiders are being
  urged to join the Liberal party in Tony Abbott’s seat. 

Billing themselves as “the counterweight” to the pro-coal power Monash Forum, the North Shore Environmental Stewards have held at least two recruitment functions at which attendees were urged to tap into their networks of environmentally conscious people to join the Liberal party branches in Abbott’s seat of Warringah and on the lower north shore.

The NSES has a Facebook page that says the group “supports clean energy and a healthy environment, and believes in traditional Liberal party values of environmental stewardship”.

Read the story by Anne Davies from The Guardian - “Liberal activists target Tony Abbott's seat over climate change policy.”

California fires bear down on exclusive Los Angeles suburbs

Los Angeles: At least six homes in one of Los Angeles wealthiest suburbs - the iconic Bel Air - have been destroyed and a winery owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch is under threat as a firestorm in California burns out of control.

A wildfire threatens a home in Ventura, California.

Part of Murdoch's Moraga Bel Air vineyard, where the 86-year-old Australian has a home, has been destroyed by fire, and it is one of a number of properties affected by a mandatory evacuation order, issued by emergency services today.

The fires have also closed one of America's busiest freeways - the traffic-choked 405 - with video emerging of one of the four fires reaching the edge of the freeway.

The pre-dawn sky of Los Angeles was lit bright orange with fire as traffic moved at a slow, silent crawl past the inferno until police made the decision to close a 15km stretch of the freeway because of the risk.

Read Michael Idato’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “California fires bear down on exclusive Los Angeles suburbs.”

We need science, not more hot air

The banners and placards were the first sign this was not your average protest: "science not silence", "yes to evidence-based policy and peer review", "science doesn't care what you believe, it cares about facts". 

Last weekend's protest march in support of science and research saw more than 3000 people in Melbourne supporting thousands more around Australia and tens of thousands in the US and elsewhere including Brazil and Chile. There were plenty of jokes at their own expense, such as battle cries of "nerds rule", but the message at the heart of this action was deadly serious: many in the global scientific community feel that they and their work are under threat.

In Melbourne, two Nobel Prize winners addressed the crowd, each stressing that while the issues at stake were apolitical, there was an urgent need for action to combat the major threats to the global culture of science and robust scientific research.

Professor Peter Doherty, a highly respected immunologist and Australia's eighth Nobel Laureate in science, argued that there had never been a more desperate need for a clear understanding of what is happening with, for example, the atmosphere, oceans and climate. 

Read the Editorial in today’s Melbourne Age - “We need science, not more hot air.”