Feed aggregator

Australia's only geothermal power supply is to finally get its long awaited upgrade.

Climate risks are either not understood or wilfully ignored at leadership level in Australia, a profound failure of imagination, and far worse than that which triggered the GFC in 2008.

Text used for preparation for citizenship test looks like marketing material for the coal lobby.

In a sign of just how hot things are getting, American Airlines cancelled 50 flights out of Phoenix because the planes can’t operate above 118°F.

New report finds that $2.3 trillion worth of projects are inconsistent with goals and objectives of limiting global warming to 2⁰C.

State Grid Corporation of China is conducting a trial to supply all of Qinghai Province with hydro, wind and solar only for 7 consecutive days

New solar plant in Queensland will be built at less than half the cost modelled in the Finkel Review, and give a payback to investors in less than 5 years. Small is beautiful for large scale solar.

Many in financial and corporates sectors remain unaware of importance of 1.5°C target, or can't gauge its relevance and apply it to business and investment.

Huge and unexplained bloom has fishers racing to save their nets, and scientists hurrying to study the rare animal

A rare, tiny marine creature known as the “unicorn of the sea” has swarmed in its millions on the west coast of America, ruining fishermen’s nets and baffling scientists who are scrambling to find out more about them.

Fishers along the west coast have told researchers that in some places they are unable to catch anything because the pyrosome clusters are so dense and tightly packed. Their hooks, when pulled from the ocean, wriggle with the odd-looking creatures, which are sometimes referred to as “sea pickles” or “fire bodies”.

Continue reading...

It is not so much the technology but eemissions regulation that matters most: Whether a plant is ultra-supercritical or not matters little, except to profits.

World-first climate and health framework from 30 health and medical groups calls for recognition of citizens’ ‘right to health’

To save hundreds of lives and billions of dollars, Australia should rapidly phase out coal power stations and establish strong emissions reduction targets, according to a coalition of 30 major health and medical groups.

Related: Australia warned it has radically underestimated climate change security threat

Continue reading...

Could an effort to gather genetic data from its population of one billion people help India take the lead in advanced healthcare?

The obscure and difficult to reach tracts of the seabed being claimed in the hope they contain mineral riches.

A group of the world's Ocean Elders led by marine biologist Dr. Sylvia Earle has written to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull calling on him to stop the Adani coal mine to demonstrate climate leadership and help save the Great Barrier Reef.

World’s largest banks lent $87bn to oil, coal and LNG companies in 2016 – a 22% drop from a collective $111bn worth of lending in 2015

The world’s biggest banks have reduced their lending to some of the most carbon-intensive sectors of the fossil fuel industry by billions of dollars, marking a potentially seismic shift against coal investment, a new study says.

The report commissioned by environmental groups tracked the lending decisions of 37 banks across Australia, the US, Europe, Canada, China and Japan in the first calendar year since the signing of the Paris climate agreement.

Continue reading...

Australia is renowned worldwide for our venomous and poisonous creatures, from snakes, spiders and ticks on land, to lethal jellyfish, stingrays and stonefish in our waters. Even the shy platypus can inflict excruciating pain if handled without due care.

Yet while injuries and deaths caused by venomous snakes and jellyfish are often sensationalised in the media, and feared by international visitors, a recent review found that very few “deadly” Australian animals actually cause deaths. Between 2000 and 2013, there were two fatalities per year from snake bites across Australia, while the average for bee stings was 2.2 and for jellyfish 0.25, or one death every four years. For spiders – including our notorious redbacks and Sydney funnel-webs – the average was zero.

Snakes nevertheless strike fear into many people who live in or visit Australia. When we have a higher risk of injury or death from burns, horses, bee stings, drownings and car accidents, why don’t we fear these hazards as we do the sight of a snake?

Snakes and statistics through history James Bray, Venomous and Non-Venomous Reptiles (1897). State Library of NSW/Peter Hobbins

When settlers arrived in Australia in the late 18th century, they believed that Australian snakes were harmless. By 1805 it was accepted that local serpents might kill humans, but they were hardly feared in the same way as the American rattlesnake or Indian cobra.

Until the 1820s, less than one human death from snake bite was recorded each year; in 1827 visiting surgeon Peter Cunningham remarked that:

…comparatively few deaths [have] taken place from this cause since the foundation of the colony.

Similar observations were made into the 1840s. What the colonists did note, however, was the significant death toll among their “exotic” imported animals, from cats and sheep to highly valuable horses and oxen.

By the 1850s, living experiments in domestic creatures – especially chickens and dogs – were standard fare for travelling antidote sellers. Given the popularity of these public snake bite demonstrations, from the 1860s, doctors and naturalists also took to experimenting with captive animals. It was during this period that official statistics on deaths began to be collated across the Australian colonies.

One sample from 1864–74, for instance, reported an average of four snake bite deaths per year across Victoria, or one death per 175,000 colonists. In contrast, during the same period one in 6,000 Indians died from snake bites each year; little wonder that around the world, Australian snakes were considered trifling.

The 1890s represented a dramatic period of divergence, though. On one hand, statistical studies in 1882–92 suggested that on average, 11 people died annually from snake bite across Australia. Similar data compiled in Victoria led physician James Barrett to declare in 1892 that snakes posed “one of the most insignificant causes of death in our midst”. On the other hand, by 1895 standardised laboratory studies, aimed especially at producing an effective antivenom, saw a global recognition that Australian snake venoms were among the most potent in the world.

In Sydney, physiologist Charles Martin claimed that Australian tiger snake venom was as powerful as that of the cobra. In 1902, his collaborator Frank Tidswell ranked local tiger snake, brown snake and death adder venoms at the top of the global toxicity table.

Over the ensuing century, this paradox has remained: why do so few Australians die from snake bites when our serpents have the world’s most potent venoms? Why aren’t they more deadly?

Deadly fear

Scientific research has delivered ever-expanding knowledge about venoms, what they do, how they work, how they affect us clinically, and their comparative “potency” based on animal studies. In response we have introduced first aid measures, guidelines, effective clinical management and treatment, which in Australia forms one of the world’s best emergency health care systems.

In contrast, countries where snakebites cause far more deaths generally face challenges in accessing affordable essential medicines, prevention and education options.

Snakes form an essential part of their ecosystems. They do not “attack” humans, mostly being shy animals, but are defensive and prefer to escape.

It would seem that venom potency is not a good measure of deadliness, and it may be a combination of our history, behaviour and belief that creates a cultural fear.

Without understating the potential danger posed by venomous snakes, what we offer instead is reassurance. As nearly two centuries of statistics and clinical experience suggest, most snake bites in Australia are survivable, if managed quickly, calmly and effectively. In fact, encounters with humans all too often prove deadly to the snakes themselves – a paradox that is within our power to change.

The authors are presenting on this topic at the upcoming Emerging Issues in Science and Society event at Deakin University’s Downtown campus on 6 July 2017. Sponsored by the Australian Academy of Science and Deakin University’s Science and Society Network.

The event brings together scientists with humanities and social science scholars to discuss common questions from different angles. For more information on the event and to book tickets see the event’s website.

Ronelle Welton receives funding from the NHMRC.

Peter Hobbins received an Australian Postgraduate Award to undertake his PhD on the subject of snakebite in colonial Australia, and was the 2016 Merewether Fellow at the State Library of New South Wales, which entailed research on a similar topic.

Prominent oceanographers and global leaders write to Australian prime minister and Queensland premier

A group of prominent oceanographers and global leaders headed by renowned marine biologist Dr Sylvia Earle has written to the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, urging him to reject the proposed Adani Carmichael coalmine, which it says will have a devastating impact on the Great Barrier Reef.

The letter from the group Ocean Elders argues that if it goes ahead, the coalmine will damage international efforts to mitigate climate change by increasing global carbon emissions.

Continue reading...

Climate change | Inflammatory language | Plagiarism | The cryptic crossword | North-south divide

Normally I would write to complain about such a gendered phrase as “man-made” (Opinion, 17 June). In the case of “man-made climate change” however, I’m inclined to let it pass. On balance it seems likely that rather more men than women do bear responsibility for the changes which are leading our planet to fry. “Anthropogenic” is a much more elegant word though.
Sylvia Rose
Totnes, Devon

• Virginia Cumming (Letters, 21 June) calls out the Daily Mail for inflammatory language. On page 25, Aditya Chakrabortty declares that “Britain still murders its poor” (Opinion, 21 June) Mote and Beam?
J Moorhead
Gorstage, Cheshire

Continue reading...

Analysis of world’s lenders reveals many claim green credentials while still financing fuels like tar sands, oil and coal

Some of the world’s top banks are continuing to lend tens of billions for extracting the most carbon-intensive fossil fuels, according to a report of top lenders.

Finance provided for these fossil fuels – tar sands and other unconventional oil and gas, as well as coal and liquefied natural gas – amounted to $87bn for the top 37 banks in 2016. That represented a slump of more than a fifth compared with the $111bn raised the previous year, and was also down on 2014’s total of $92bn.

Continue reading...

Former US vice-president says green revolution is bigger than industrial revolution and happening at faster pace than digital revolution

The fight against global warming is one of humanity’s great moral movements, alongside the abolition of slavery, the defeat of apartheid, votes for women and gay rights, according to the former US vice-president and climate campaigner, Al Gore.

The battle to halt climate change can be won, he said, because the green revolution delivering clean energy is both bigger than the industrial revolution and happening faster than the digital revolution.

Continue reading...