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Fukushima, Brexit and the Amazon coral reef – green news roundup
The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox
Continue reading...The week in wildlife – in pictures
An otter family, a diving kingfisher and the Amazon coral reef are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...Sweden criticises US climate stance as it reveals ambitious carbon emissions law
Prime minister Stefan Löfven calls the Trump administration’s approach worrying as he announces new law binding future governments to a goal of carbon neutrality by 2045
Sweden has criticised the Trump administration’s approach to climate policy as it announced legislation binding future governments to a goal of phasing out greenhouse gas emissions by 2045, among the most ambitious by any developed nation.
“The position we hear from the new [US] administration is worrying,” prime minister Stefan Löfven said after announcing an ambitious new climate law promising zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2045.
Continue reading...RSPB logged 200 reports of crimes against birds of prey in 2015
Charity calls for tougher legislation to prevent shooting, poisoning and trapping of birds such as peregrine falcons, red kites, buzzards and hen harriers
Almost 200 reports of shooting, trapping and destruction of birds of prey were received by the RSPB in 2015, the charity said.
Some 64 out of the 196 reports were confirmed, including the shooting or attempted shooting of 46 birds of prey, including 16 buzzards, 11 peregrines, three red kites, one red-footed falcon and one hen harrier, a new report from the RSPB said.
Continue reading...Fukushima radiation levels at highest level since 2011 meltdown
Extraordinary readings pile pressure on operator Tepco in its efforts to decommission nuclear power station
Radiation levels inside a damaged reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station are at their highest since the plant suffered a triple meltdown almost six years ago.
The facility’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), said atmospheric readings as high as 530 sieverts an hour had been recorded inside the containment vessel of reactor No 2, one of three reactors that experienced a meltdown when the plant was crippled by a huge tsunami that struck the north-east coast of Japan in March 2011.
Continue reading...Rising carbon emissions could kill off vital corals by 2100, study warns
Destructive seaweeds found in reefs worldwide will grow more poisonous and eventually take over in the fight for space
The destruction of coral reefs worldwide could accelerate as rising carbon emissions help coral-killing seaweeds grow more poisonous and take over, according to researchers.
A Griffith University study on the Great Barrier Reef has shown how rising CO2 emissions trigger more potency in chemicals from common “weed-like” algae that poison corals as they compete for space.
Three ingredients for running a successful environmental campaign
Here in Perth, a battle is raging over a 5km stretch of road known as Roe 8. Work on the project, part of the proposed Perth Freight Link, began late in 2016 and as legal avenues to halt construction were exhausted, opponents resorted to non-violent direct action. Some protest “mass actions” have attracted more than 1,000 people from all walks of life and by the end of January, as bulldozers tore through the Coolbellup bushland under costly police protection, well over 100 had been arrested.
Clearing machinery arrives on site under heavy police protection, January 2017.
Gnangarra
Proponents say the road is necessary to improve the safety and efficiency of freight traffic to and from the Port of Fremantle. Opponents point to freight alternatives that will avoid Roe 8’s destruction of Aboriginal heritage, endangered banksia woodland, and important wetlands. Critics have also decried the government’s lack of transparency and prudence in decision-making, and highlighted serious shortcomings in environmental policies and laws.
The state’s Labor opposition has promised to scrap the project if it wins government at the state election on March 11, yet to the shock and dismay of many, bulldozing continues.
How will the conflict end? While history provides no sure guide to the future, it does reveal that successful environmental campaigns have tended to share several key features that unsuccessful campaigns have lacked. What are they?
1. Elections
Some of the biggest environmentalist victories have been won at the ballot box. This was the case for the proposed Franklin River dam, which became a federal election issue and helped to bring Bob Hawke’s Labor government to power.
By-elections have also decided the fate of environmentally contentious developments. Wayne Goss’s proposed “Koala tollway” between Brisbane and the Gold Coast cost Labor nine seats in the 1995 state election; a by-election in February 1996 saw the end of both Goss’s majority and the toll road.
Similarly, the campaign against a proposal for agricultural development in Victoria’s Little Desert delivered a shock metropolitan by-election result that, along with sustained public pressure, quashed the proposal.
More recently, the East-West Link toll road in Melbourne was, like Roe 8, hurried into the construction phase before an election with no full business case available for public scrutiny. The campaign against the Link, which united public transport advocates and local councils, ran for more than a year and attracted A$1.6 million in policing costs. Labor promised to halt construction and following his electoral success in November 2015, the incoming premier Daniel Andrews tore up the contracts, setting what might turn out to be a crucial precedent for WA Labor’s Mark McGowan.
Even electoral failures can help environmental causes in the long run. Advocates for Lake Pedder in Tasmania didn’t attract political support for their cause from either major party, so they formed their own: the United Tasmania Group. It narrowly failed to win a seat at the 1972 state election, and Lake Pedder was lost.
But those who were galvanised by this failure were instrumental in the victory 10 years later over the Franklin dam, which transformed federal-state relations and launched the Australian Greens as a political force.
2. Unions
Many past environmental campaigns have succeeded only through union involvement. In the 1970s and ‘80s, almost 50% of the Australian workforce was unionised, giving the unions significant power to shut down contentious projects.
The 1970 campaign against oil drilling on the Great Barrier Reef claimed success when the Transport Workers Union and affiliates placed a black ban on drilling vessels in the region. The 1970s “Green bans”, led by Jack Mundey and the NSW Builders’ Labourers Federation, blocked a range of threats to heritage sites and bushland, including urban bushland at Kelly’s Bush on Sydney’s lower North Shore.
With union membership today at only around 15%, and the environment a low priority for some key unions, this opportunity for intervention has all but vanished.
3. Alternatives
Campaigns are more likely to be successful where environmentalists can point to viable alternatives for the projects they oppose. For example, opponents of woodchipping in East Gippsland in the 1980s produced a report showing how developing agriculture and tourism in parallel with a restructured and modernised timber industry would produce 450 extra jobs in the region.
This material was then used in political lobbying, as well as campaigning in marginal seats, leading to the declaration of the Errinundra Plateau and Rodger River National Parks in 1987. Logging continues, however, in adjacent areas.
Similarly, Citizens Against Route Twenty achieved success in 1990 with an intense media campaign that included an alternative vision for Brisbane’s urban transport.
Back to Roe 8In sprawling suburban Perth, the track record of opposition to new roads does not inspire much hope for those campaigning against Roe 8. Previous protests against the Kwinana Freeway, the Graham Farmer Freeway and the Farrington Road extension were all more or less futile.
In each case the opponents were deemed to be “anti-progress”, with progress implicitly represented by the construction of new road infrastructure. Similar language pervades the current rhetoric around Roe 8, which is portrayed by supporters as a solution to all the traffic problems of Perth’s southern suburbs.
Sustainable transport advocates take a longer view; for instance, in the alternative plan laid out by Curtin University’s Peter Newman and Cole Hendrigan. This, however, has been rejected by the Barnett government in favour of the Roe Highway extension, which was originally planned for different purposes in the 1950s.
The protest against Roe 8 has two of the three key historical ingredients for success (an election, and a clearly outlined alternative plan). It has also harnessed the new power of social media and drone footage.
Opponents of Roe 8 at the end of an hour-long silent protest in Forrest Place, central Perth, January 2017.
Rarely has direct action clinched an environmental campaign, although there are precedents: protesters’ destruction of felled timber at Terania Creek in 1979 brought an end to logging. Tree-sitting and human barricades bought enough time for political change to halt the Cape Tribulation-Bloomfield Road in Queensland’s Wet Tropics. In Coolbellup numerous lock-ons and tree-sits have delayed works, but time is running out for the wetlands in the path of Roe 8.
After the March 11 election we will know whether the already bulldozed area will be restored, or whether the road will be built. Whatever the outcome, one thing is certain: pressure is building on resources and urban spaces, and the indicators of environmental health are continuing to decline.
This trend makes it ever more likely that our economic and political priorities will find themselves on a collision course with communities seeking to protect their local environments. It seems safe to say that we will see plenty more protests like this in coming years.
Andrea Gaynor is affiliated with The Beeliar Group: Professors for Environmental Responsibility.
Curled tightly in the mulch, a hedgehog
Crewe Green, Cheshire No wonder the spines of this tiny mammal keep most predators away; it’s like touching surgical needles
Although the air is mild for the time of year, the sky is iron-blue, threatening another downpour. It is wet and muddy under foot, slippery too. Charcoal and murky-brown, dead leaves clot the woodland path. There is the breath of tannin; I can almost taste it. Two grey squirrels chase each other over rotten logs, then dash up a tree strangled by ivy. A blackbird skitters into some bushes. I call my jack russell, Roob, who is loitering behind, sniffing new scents; this isn’t our usual walk. She doesn’t appear.
I retrace my steps, calling again, scanning through perished bracken and withered nettles. I smell ghostly flowers and wizened rosehips. There are tangled brambles, bitter-black berries and bare trees. A gust of wind rattles their branches; they creak and moan in protest. Then I hear her, growling at something near a holly bush.
Continue reading...New coal plants wouldn’t be clean, and would cost taxpayers billions
Turnbull right to fund energy storage: 100% renewable grid is within reach
How China could take climate leader role the US is giving up
Solar focused retailer Urth Energy goes into administration
'Clean' coal power plants: Matt Canavan hints at government subsidy
Minister says he’s not surprised that generators don’t want another big baseload power station to enter the market
Australia’s resources minister, Matt Canavan, has flagged subsidising a “clean” coal baseload power plant from the government’s $5bn northern Australia infrastructure fund, and says the government has already heard from an interested party.
Canavan on Friday suggested a potential investor in a new power station was eyeing off development in the Galilee Basin, the planned site of the Adani coal mine – and he said cheap power had been the key to opening up the Bowen basin in Queensland in the 1960’s.
Continue reading...Why aren't we gene editing people to be my size?
“Clean coal” most expensive new power supply, says BNEF (and not all that clean)
Oil spill near ExxonMobil drilling platform in Bass Strait to be investigated
Spill comes less than 18 months after a fire on the same oil rig and prompts warning from environmentalists over dangers of offshore drilling
An oil spill at an ExxonMobil platform in the Bass Strait is being investigated by the federal regulator, after the discovery of an oily sheen on waters around the rig.
The spill comes less than 18 months after a fire raged on the same platform for nine hours before it could be controlled. And in 2013, Exxon was responsible for a spill from another rig in the Bass Strait.
Continue reading...Arctic ice forecasters help subs come up for air
As the ice melts, the race is on to exploit Arctic resources. And that means more claustrophobic submarine operations
Diminishing ice cover has increased political and economic competition for resources inside the Arctic Circle. This means more submarine operations, which are doubly claustrophobia-inducing, as a sub can only surface where the ice is comparatively thin. In an emergency, finding the nearest hole in the ice is essential, and this has spurred the development of a new type of forecast.
There are two types of hole in the ice, known as leads and polynyas. Leads are long fractures, gigantic cracks caused by ice sheets moving apart. Ultimately, they are due to wind or ocean currents pushing areas of ice in different directions. Leads are generally transient, as the seawater freezes over quickly when exposed to the cold air.
Continue reading...Scientists record breach in magnetic field
Coal lobby's long game puts talking points into leaders' mouths | Graham Readfearn
Climate science denier and veteran lobbyist Fred Palmer is proud of getting Australia to adopt the sector’s arguments on climate and poverty
If you’re a lobbyist or an industry advocate, then you know you’re winning when you hear your own talking points coming back at you through the mouths of ministers.
Better still, if it’s the Australian prime minister.
Continue reading...Republicans back off bill to sell 3.3m acres of public land after outcry
Congressman Jason Chaffetz withdraws House bill 621 as conservationists and outdoorsmen vow to continue fight over similar legislation
In the small hours of Thursday morning, US congressman Jason Chaffetz announced that he would withdraw a bill he introduced last week that would have ordered the incoming secretary of the interior to immediately sell off 3.3m acres of national land.
Chaffetz, a representative from Utah, wrote on Instagram that he had a change of heart in the face of strong opposition from “groups I support and care about” who, he said, “fear it sends the wrong message”.
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