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AEMO imposes price cap on electricity market for first time since 2009
AEMO intervenes to impose price cap on Queensland, which has been suffering the country's highest prices for nearly a year, and warns of supply crunch.
The post AEMO imposes price cap on electricity market for first time since 2009 appeared first on RenewEconomy.
I hate the cold, I’m scared of deep water. Here’s why I’m leaving my warm doona for ocean swimming | Eleanor Limprecht
If you had told me I would be doing this three years ago I would have said you’re mad
Wading in to the ocean the cold takes my breath away. Less than an hour ago I was beneath my warm doona in bed, and now the sun is spreading across the winter horizon and I’m wearing two millimeters of neoprene on most surfaces of my body. It’s Sunday, 7am, and I am about to swim out from Coogee beach to Wylie’s Baths and then across the length of the bay and back again with a group of others, some in just their swimsuits, some in full wetsuits, and some (OK – just me) in a full wetsuit with neoprene booties and fins.
If you had told me I would be doing this three years ago I would have said you’re mad; I hate the cold, I’m scared of deep water. But Covid lockdowns brought strange new hobbies to many. And mine – bracingly – is ocean swimming.
Continue reading...‘Secretive, adorable weirdos’: rare possum caught in the Northern Territory for first time
Ecologists say discovery of scaly-tailed possum at Bullo River Station is a sign of positive benefit of private land conservation
A rare scaly-tailed possum has been caught in the Northern Territory for the first time in what scientists say is a sign that private land conservation is having a positive effect.
The scaly-tailed possum, also known as the Wyulda, is a rock-dwelling marsupial with stout limbs and a “grippy” tail it uses to hang from branches and rock ledges to reach for seeds, fruits and flowers.
Continue reading...Scotland and UK split over gene-edited food
Why bankers close their ears to the ‘climate nut jobs’ talking about the end of the world | Nick Cohen
If the future remembers any corporate villain from 2022, it will be Stuart Kirk. The satirically titled head of “responsible investment” at HSBC looks the part: shaven headed, tightly trimmed beard, hard, sharp eyes. Like all the best villains, the banker’s arguments are insidiously appealing. He says out loud what his audience thinks, cutting through polite society’s pious crap to reveal its selfish desires.
“There’s always some nut job telling me about the end of the world,” he told the Financial Times’s Moral Money conference – and I haven’t made that title up either. “Who cares if Miami is six metres underwater in 100 years? Amsterdam has been six metres underwater for ages and that’s a really nice place.”
Continue reading...‘I had singular focus’: 30 years on from Severn Cullis-Suzuki’s Earth Summit speech
The then 12-year-old had diplomats squirming in their seats when she berated them at the 1992 gathering
Fidel Castro was there, along with George Bush, John Major and 100 other heads of state, billionaires and rock stars. But the biggest star of the 1992 Earth Summit was a young girl who delivered what would be known as the speech that “silenced the world”.
Severn Cullis-Suzuki was just 12 years old, and had set up a children’s environment group in Vancouver with her nine-year-old sister Sarika and friends Vanessa Suttie, Morgan Geisler and Michelle Quigg. When they heard about the Rio meeting they pestered family and friends to raise the money to fly south, accompanied by her father, David Suzuki, one of Canada’s leading geneticists. The group hired a small booth at a side event and set about ambushing anyone and everyone (I met them and was knocked out by their enthusiasm and intensity).
Continue reading...New York has a chance to generate all its electricity from clean energy by 2030 | Ross Barkan
If Democrats act, New Yorkers will begin to get the government they deserve. With climate cataclysms here, the political system can’t afford more delays
It has been, for progressives in New York, a trying year.
Major pieces of legislation that were supposed to reshape the state to safeguard the working class have stalled out. A bill to create a statewide single-payer healthcare system is no closer to passage than it was several years ago. A push to guarantee new protections for tenants as rents soar in New York City could not find the votes. And ambitious legislation to combat climate that did have the votes to go through the state legislature was halted by the speaker of the state assembly.
Ross Barkan is a journalist based in New York City. He is the author of Demolition Night, a novel, and The Prince: Andrew Cuomo, Coronavirus, and the Fall of New York
Continue reading...‘Forever chemicals’ are killing whales – and harming us | Ella Al-Shamahi
Their use is linked to the rise in whale strandings on British beaches, but partial bans keeps letting industry off the hook
In the aftermath of 9/11, scientists noticed a curious impact on the stress hormones of North Atlantic right whales. Ships are ubiquitous in our oceans but, for a brief window, immediately after the planes flew into the twin towers, there was a dramatic drop in traffic along the North Atlantic eastern seaboard, reducing underwater noise. While the world above ground was reeling, our underwater neighbours were thriving.
So often we think of the golden age of whaling as being over. Japanese and Icelandic whaling ships are now pariahs in the international community. But too often, out of sight is out of mind, and it remains easy to ignore the impact of our actions above ground on marine life. However, whales are increasingly forcing us to take note, as more of them than ever are beaching on our shores.
Continue reading...Young people wanted in UK forestry amid critical shortage of tree surgeons
Institute of Chartered Foresters says 70% more staff must be recruited to meet current tree planting targets
When Kevin Martin was a child he spent days beneath the canopy of Hampshire woodlands while his father, a tree surgeon, scaled the heights of oak and ash above him.
Twenty years later, with a degree and with research for a master’s under way, Martin is in charge of tending to the 14,000 trees at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew. With trees at the forefront of UK strategies to reach net zero by 2050, Martin and others like him are key professionals on the frontline of the fight to mitigate the impact of climate change and adapt to the changing conditions.
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