News for January, 2025

Welcome to the inaugural post in this blog.

It is an extension of the news links I have been adding to the newsletter for the local group of the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF). They have been threatening to take over the content of late, so I thought I would try separating them out. Besides, a wider audience might appreciate them (... or not. Comments are not enabled.)

As I'm drawing from articles noted over the last couple of months, this post will be a little longer than usual. I will be experimenting with layout and structure. For now I am grouping articles according to title of the old Morricone western "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly". However, I am reversing the order in the hope that you leave with a more optimistic take than when you arrive.

Anyway, let's get on with it...

Environment:

The Ugly: 

• Heeding pleas from the WA Premier and the mining lobby, Albanese snatched defeat from the jaws of victory when he vetoed the deal reached with the Greens and the Environment Minister to allow the Nature Positive laws to pass. These are a part of the bigger overhaul of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Control Act (EPBC), which is to be reviewed every ten years. At this rate, it will need to be reviewed again in 2030.
  

The Bad:

•  Out of sight and out of mind? Land forests aren't the only environments under threat from climate change
•  After $13b, a review of the Murray-Darling Basin plan suggests throwing money at a problem doesn't lead to a solution.
• While it may be convenient to consider them in isolation (as in news blogs), climate, biodiversity loss, and food insecurity are deeply interlinked, forming a knotty problem
  

The Good:

• The ongoing desertification of sub-Saharan Africa is a perennial topic of anguish. However, the Sahei locals have been doing something about it for some time.
• On a smaller scale, have you considered rewilding your nature strip? It turns out that a small patch of local vegetation can have a wide reaching effect on the insect population.
• Lord Howe Island's cloud forest experiences an astonishing recovery after rodent removal.
• ... which begs a question of how best to restore a cleared rainforest? Leave it alone, according to this Grist article.
• We may have a way of removing 'forever' chemicals
• Never mind the ecology, there's a business case for saving coral reefs, beyond tourism (and, y'know, habitat? Well, some people you have to engage with in their language.)
• The BBC has its own summary of good environmental news for 2024.

Climate:

The Ugly:

• Preliminary results from MethaneSat suggest that methane emissions are 3-5 times what is estimated. (There is, however, a bright side to this...)
  
• The speed of melting in the Antarctic may well cause a catastrophic sea level rise in our lifetimes. (Here's an exercise: stand at the high tide mark by a jetty of a popular city beach and look inland. What you see at eye level is a 1.5-2.0 meter rise. A meter by the end of the century would do for places like Bangladesh, and that's a very tame scenario. It could be as high as 45m.)

The Bad:

• Is climate change to blame for all those heatwaves? Correlation may not be causation, but statistics can place a strong onus on 'beyond reasonable doubt'.
• Trump has (once again) withdrawn the US from the UN Paris Agreement. To be precise, he has given the twelve month's notice required to formally withdraw. On the plus side, a number of states, representing 60% of the US economy, have vowed to continue with it. Billionaire Michael Bloomberg has undertaken to meet US contributions to the UN body. A messy situation, but not terrible.
  

The Good:

• Measuring a problem is the first step in controlling it. New satellite programs, like MethaneSat promise a new era in open and precise real-time measurement of greenhouse gas emissions.
  
• It appears that China has achieved peak CO2 emissions, the rate having plateaued over the past twelve months. This is significant because China is currently the biggest global emitter. Now to start bringing it down...
• ... and we have the technology to do so. (Trees still work  too, of course)
  

Energy:

The Ugly:

• We can't ignore the latest elephant in the room. Trump's back, and is intent on spoiling life for everyone else. Openly pandering to the fossil fuel interests, his first week of nastiness has seen the stopping of all permits for wind farms, and he has expressed a sincere desire to do the same for solar farms (don't panic yet, though: see below)

The Bad:

• In its own little category,  Dutton's Nuclear Dreaming:
• Will add an extra 1.7 bn tonnes of CO2 by 2050
• Relies on some very rickety accounting, according to the Climate Council
• Requires the shutdown of millions of domestic solar installations (ie your rooftop)
• But, not to worry! It will keep the gas flowing for a few decades more, while we wait.

The Good:

• Australia will soon sign on to an agreement to end subsidies for fossil fuel export projects
  
• South Australia has competition! California ran its grid on 100% renewables for 98 days last year (California's economy is also significantly larger than South Australia's. Still, go SA!)
• What was that about a 'gas led recovery?' Nationally, the percentage of Australia's grid sourcing from renewables has doubled in the last six years from 20 to 39%.
  
• Globally, renewables are devouring fossil fuel markets at a phenomenal rate.
• Solar farms are resilient to vandalism, and can actually help increase crop yields. Don't think farmers aren't aware of this.
• The solar panel construction industry in the US is booming. (Trump may claim to be using tariffs to bring back tribute manufacturing to the states, but I don't think he'll be too pleased about this.)
• ... about that. In trying to overturn the renewable industry, Trump will have to work against some fundamental market forces like the plummeting cost of renewables, their popularity, and the benefits red states are gaining from Biden's parting shot: the IRA. Will raw capitalist self-interest capitulate to 'magamania'?
  

 We'll see what the next month brings.