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SENG National Newsletter - November 2014

See information on Australia’s emissions compared with the United States and China.

See information on Australia’s emissions compared with the United States and China.

Over 50 companies, including Samsung, Dell, Sky and B&Q, have signed up to UK government-backed plan to refurbish and resell unwanted electrical goods

Consumers will be urged to trade in their unwanted electrical gadgets at retailers in return for cash – with the products to be refurbished and resold – as part of a national initiative unveiled on Tuesday.

The government-backed plan to improve the disposal of electric waste is supported by 51 companies and organisations including Samsung, Dell, Sky, B&Q, and the owner of Argos and Homebase.

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The Collaborative Australian Protected Area Database (CAPAD) is used to provide a national perspective of the conservation of biodiversity in protected areas.

On Tuesday, the Senate will vote to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. With Republicans now in control of both chambers in Congress, here’s a round-up of some of the most prominent climate sceptics (and deniers) in the GOP

It’s much easier to list Republicans in Congress who think climate change is real than it is to list Republicans who don’t, because there are so few members of the former group. Earlier this year, Politifact went looking for congressional Republicans who had not expressed scepticism about climate change and came up with a list of eight (out of 278).

But with the GOP taking over the Senate next year – and with the Senate set to vote on approving the Keystone XL pipeline on Tuesday – the question again arises of what, exactly, prominent Republicans think about the evidence that humans are changing the climate.

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Information is sought by the Associated Press as part of an investigation into deaths of protected species at Pacificorp facilities and the government’s reluctance to prosecute

A company that operates at least 13 wind-energy facilities across three states is suing in federal court to block the US government from releasing information to the Associated Press about how many birds are found dead at its facilities.

Pacificorp of Portland, Oregon, is seeking an injunction in US district court in Utah to prevent the Interior Department from releasing information it considers confidential. The Obama administration has said it planned to turn over the material to the Associated Press, which sought it from the Interior Department in March 2013 under the US Freedom of Information Act. The government concluded that the industry’s concerns were “insufficiently convincing” to keep the files secret.

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Additional funding secured by the Threatened Species Commissioner means 10 innovative projects targeting key species, habitat and threats across the Parks Australia network now have the go-ahead.

The Minister has recently agreed to amend the list of threatened species, under section 178 of the Act, by including, transferring or deleting eleven bird species/subspecies.

Media release - A new five year monitoring plan for the Murray-Darling Basin announced today by the Commonwealth Government will provide unprecedented knowledge into the effectiveness of environmental watering.

November seminar - Personalised Rapid Transport: A New Sustainable Public Transport System

China and the US have agreed a historic deal to cut carbon emissions – but both countries are still huge consumers and producers of coal, the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. Drag the slider below to see how coal use has changed in the past few decades – and click the ‘future’ button to see what’s to come. Data: EIA

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RSPB described killing of 11 birds of prey by Allen Lambert at Stody estate in Norfolk as worst case ever detected in England

A judge has warned Britain’s rural aristocracy that they must take responsibility for the actions of their employees after a gamekeeper was sentenced for poisoning birds of prey.

The RSPB described the killing of 11 birds of prey by Allen Lambert, former gamekeeper at the Stody estate near Holt in Norfolk, as the worst case of bird poisoning ever detected in England.

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UN body’s warning on carbon emissions is hard to ignore, but breaking the power of the fossil fuel industry won’t be easy

At this point, the scientists who run the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change must feel like it’s time to trade their satellites, their carefully calibrated thermometers and spectrometers, their finely tuned computer models – all of them for a thesaurus. Surely, somewhere, there must be words that will prompt the world’s leaders to act.

This week, with the release of their new synthesis report, they are trying the words “severe, widespread, and irreversible” to describe the effects of climate change – which for scientists, conservative by nature, falls just short of announcing that climate change will produce a zombie apocalypse plus random beheadings plus Ebola. It’s hard to imagine how they will up the language in time for the next big global confab in Paris.

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Report says logging and burning of Amazon might be connected to worsening droughts – such as the one plaguing São Paulo

The Amazon rainforest has degraded to the point where it is losing its ability to benignly regulate weather systems, according to a stark new warning from one of Brazil’s leading scientists.

In a new report, Antonio Nobre, researcher in the government’s space institute, Earth System Science Centre, says the logging and burning of the world’s greatest forest might be connected to worsening droughts – such as the one currently plaguing São Paulo – and is likely to lead eventually to more extreme weather events.

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Water is a precious resource.  This sentiment should ring mighty in the South Australian context, especially as it is known as the 'driest state in the driest country'.  As we are heading toward our hot and dry season, our upcoming AdelaideSBN event will look to bring water into focus, and how our built environments can help us optimise the value of water. 
Presenter, Des Menz, takes us on a short journey into areas that he has been involved in for the past 17 years - wastewater and treated water management.

Des Mens - Des calls himself an old geezer engineer, although as a young engineer once, he thought he’d never become an old geezer.
He began his professional career as a railway engineer in Port Augusta, moved into municipal engineering for a period of 10 years (in SA and Victoria), and by 1989 decided he had had enough of being an employee and jumped ship to start his own consulting business. 
This was in the thriving region around Cobram, Victoria. In 1997 he relocated back to South Australia, based himself in Clare, and began the struggle all over again to eke out a living from a smaller economy and far fewer people than he experienced in Victoria. 
As a sole operator in a country town, there’s no such thing as being a specialist. And so, Des had to become educated in many different areas of his profession. The most satisfying has been in the environmental management arena, at both the community scale and the household scale. 

Cast: AdelaideSBN and ESM

Tags: sustainable water management, reed bed design, rural water solutions and blue gold

Information about the funding conditions under the package can be obtained through Centrelink’s Farmer Assistance Line on 13 23 16. It is important to note that the irrigation exclusion period commenced when the grant was paid to the recipient....

The Department of the Environment Annual Report 2013-2014 was tabled on 30 October 2014.

The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder is preparing for drier times by building on the gains of the past few years and coordinating environmental flows with irrigation deliveries this water year.

Nuclear safety expert claims there is ‘significant risk’ due to poor condition of storage ponds containing highly radioactive fuel rods

Previously unseen pictures of two storage ponds containing hundreds of highly radioactive fuel rods at the Sellafield nuclear plant show cracked concrete, seagulls bathing in the water and weeds growing around derelict machinery. But a spokesman for owners Sellafield Ltd said the 60-year-old ponds will not be cleaned up for decades, despite concern that they are in a dangerous state and could cause a large release of radioactive material if they are allowed to deteriorate further.

“The concrete is in dreadful condition, degraded and fractured, and if the ponds drain, the Magnox fuel will ignite and that would lead to a massive release of radioactive material,” nuclear safety expert John Large told the Ecologist magazine. “I am very disturbed at the run-down condition of the structures and support services. In my opinion there is a significant risk that the system could fail.

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