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News for November, 2025

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Welcome to some environmental news for November. As usual, it is just a fraction of the environmental news available. If you want to start seeing what I've missed or left out, I have added a list of common articles sources to the left hand margin. Environment The news of the moment is that Australia's revised environment laws have been passed. The revisions represent a substantial improvement over the original, closing loopholes in logging, and reducing ministerial interference in project approvals. Nevertheless, there is still a lot of room for improvement, especially in the recognition of climate change being a fundamental driver of environmental degradation. It seems the message got through (- ACF) Reviews of the legislation are required to take place every ten years, so we get to go through all this in 2030! Hopefully, there will be fewer weeds to clear out.  The Ugly A report alerting the NSW Environment Protection Authority to elevated lead levels in children was b...
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News for October, 2025

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  Prolonged dry spells are causing Australian rainforests to flip from carbon sink to source (- Wikimedia) Welcome to another month of a conglomeration of news articles concerning environment and climate issues. This is by no means a complete coverage, by the way. I might start adding some links to my more frequent news sources for you, the occasional reader, to investigate for yourself. In the meantime...  Environment While some nuggets of good environmental news occurred this month, the general trend is gloomy (this might have a bit to do with the Climate news which is, frankly, dire. Mind you, we're not dead yet!)  If the environmental news is getting you down, have a numbat (-dilettante wordpress) The Ugly In approving the operating extension to the NW Shelf gas project to 2070(!), it seems the Environment Minister weakened laws protecting the neighbouring rock art . EPBC reforms are about to be tabled in Parliament , with the usual run of back-room deals intended to ...
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News for September, 2025

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Welcome to the September roundup of environmental news. In Australia at least, this has been dominated by three announcements within a week of each other. The first is the Friday afternoon approval of Woodside's North West shelf gas facility until... 2070. This project is a known 'carbon bomb' that will be emitting large quantities of methane into the atmosphere for decades to come. This puts the lie to the Australian Government's 'net zero by 2050' policy, As with his predecessor, the Environment Minister Murray Watt continues to present a flimsy defence in that the current legislation by which he operates has no provision to consider the effects of climate change on the environment. That legislation is currently under review, but there is still a strong resistance to allow references to climate change to be included. At least we saved 40,000 year old Murujuga rock art, didn't we? - Wikimedia commons The second was the release of the Climate department'...
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News for August, 2025

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Welcome to August's round up of news. There has been a lot of it! Far more than just the links I'm giving here, so I hope I've selected the ones of most general interest. It keeps coming, too, with news breaking even as I type...   "About those tariffs for Norway..."  (Wikimedia) In organising the articles, I did consider whether or not to dispense with 'the ugly' sub-sections and group those articles into their own section called 'What Donald did Next'. It would be easier to avoid for those who browse on a 'need to know' basis! However, as there have been a few ugly acts from other parties, I'll stick with tradition. Environment Quite a few good news pieces on efforts to preserve one species or another. The question is whether that progress can be maintained generally. Rakali: fighting crime, and cane toads.(David Todd via ABC)  The Ugly   Trump's war on climate solutions is why Puget Sound oyster fishers and farmers can't get...
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