Victorian Government offers cash incentive to help households get better energy deal

Every Victorian household will get a $50 bonus for visiting an energy comparison website, in an election-year giveaway to encourage people to find better power deals.

More than 700,000 people had used the website
in the past three years to cut their electricity bills.

But the State Opposition accused the Andrews Government of trying to bribe voters by investing $48 million for the power-saving bonus in next month's budget.

Households will be eligible for the payment if they use the Energy Compare website between July and December, which shows consumers the best tariff for them based on their electricity and gas use.

People are not obliged to take up an offer or switch plans to be eligible for the $50 bonus.

Premier Daniel Andrews said a typical household had saved $330 on their energy bills in the first year alone by using the website.

Read the story by Jean Edwards from ABC News - “Victorian Government offers cash incentive to help households get better energy deal.”

Better understand the impact of climate change

Keen to get a clearer visual idea of climate change and its impacts?

Well, visit the Climate Change in Australia website and visit its “climate analogues” page.

Using the page and its many tools you can identify areas that experience similar climatic conditions, but which may be separated in space or time (i.e. with past or future climates) can be helpful when starting to consider adaptation strategies to a changing climate. 

You can locating areas where the current climate is similar to the projected future climate of a place of interest (e.g. what will the future climate of Melbourne be like?) is a simple method for visualising and communicating the impact of projected changes.

Visit “about climate analogues”.

Craig Kelly slams RenewEconomy: “Shameless propaganda arm of green rent seekers

Craig Kelly, the chairman of the Coalition’s backbench energy committee, clearly doesn’t think much of wind and solar, and it appears he thinks even less of this website.

Craig Kelly - chairman of the Coalition’s
backbench energy committee,

A reader this week sent Kelly a link to a story we published on Monday – or, more to the point, republished from The Conversation – which was co-authored by ANU researchers Andrew Blakers and Matthew Stocks, and which predicted a rapid switch from fossil fuels to renewables.

It was titled: Solar PV and wind on track to replace all coal, oil and gas within two decades.

Read the story by Gile Parkinson from RenewEconomy - “Craig Kelly slams RenewEconomy: “Shameless propaganda arm of green rent seekers.”

Australia’s 2016 environment scorecard: rains return but in some cases too late

Green shoots: a mangrove in Cairns enjoys
the wet. Not all of Australia was so lucky.

After several dry years, vegetation across much of Australia received much-needed rains in 2016. But this broad pattern of improvement belies some major environmental damage in parts of the country – particularly in Tasmania, which was scorched by bushfire, the Gulf Coast and Cape York, which missed out on the rains’ return, and on the Great Barrier Reef, which suffered massive coral bleaching.

That is the conclusion of our report on Australia’s Environment in 2016, released today. It’s a summary of the state of the nation’s environmental indicators, which we compiled by analysing huge amounts of satellite imagery, ground data, and water and landscape modelling.

The report and the accompanying Australia’s Environment Explorer website summarise those data into graphs and plots for 13 environmental indicators. With most data extending back to at least the year 2000, this makes it possible to see how the environment is changing.

The overall story is one of rainfall boom after four years of bust. The national average rainfall in 2016 was again well above average, albeit not quite as much as in the bumper years 2010-11.

Read the story on The Conversation by a Professor of Water Science and Management from the Fenner School of Environment & Society at the Australian National University, Albert Van Dijk, and a research academic, also from the Fenner School of Environment & Society, David Summers - “Australia’s 2016 environment scorecard: rains return but in some cases too late.”

Reconstructing south-eastern Australia's climate record

Researchers at the University of Melbourne are working with partners from around Australia and the world to reconstruct south-eastern Australia’s climate record for the past 200–500 years.

“This”, according to the Climate History website,” is currently the largest Australian Research Council Linkage Project within the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Science.

“This landmark project, spanning the sciences and the humanities, draws together a team of leading climate scientists, water managers and historians to better understand south-eastern Australian climate history over past centuries. “It is the first study of its kind in Australia.” it says.

The project, led by researchers from the University of Melbourne’s School of Earth Sciences, aims to investigate south-eastern Australia’s climate history.

Is a disappearing sign a 'sign of the times'

The “carbon counter” that appeared on our Beneath the Wisteria blog for a few weeks is gone.

Well, it had stopped working when I accessed the page and it appears as if it has been dumped completely by the Deutche Asset and Wealth Management.

Searches of their website, the original source of the carbon counter widget drew a blank.

Subsequently, it has gone and if someone can find a replacement please let me know.

Should they have scrapped it completely, that unnerves me somewhat as it seems that the 2009 (that’s when it was first posted) urgency surrounding climate change has abated somewhat.

Rather than signs, we need climate change abatement.

-       Robert McLean.