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On 20 April the Commonwealth and Tasmanian Governments released the final report on the feasibility of a second Tasmanian interconnector. The study was undertaken by Dr John Tamblyn, with support from a taskforce led by the Department of the...

Queensland government calls for expressions of interest to develop up to 450MW of large-scale solar, wind or biofuels near Gladstone coal port.

Turnbull unveils plans for up to 2,500MW pumped hydro in Tasmania, a possible "energy battery" in the "distributed, renewable era".

Climate Council says weaning Australia from coal via increased reliance on gas won't cut emissions, will push up power prices.

Will you be marching on Saturday? Michele Paccione/Shutterstock.com

This Saturday, the March for Science will be held in cities around the world – coincidentally enough, ten years to the day since John Howard urged Australians to pray for rain.

While such marches are not the answer to everything, their very existence tells us that science is under attack, not merely from defunding of research bodies, but also via attacks on the inconvenient truths of climate science.

While scientists weep over the Great Barrier Reef, some politicians respond by laughing and joking.

Two years ago, Joss Whedon (he of Firefly and Buffy fame) captured the frustration when he fired off a tweet that went viral:

Policy makers who deny basic scientific truth should also be denied penicillin, horseless carriages, [and] air time on the magic box of shadows.

Many marchers will doubtless agree, not least because various forms of denial have been going on for decades, in Australia and elsewhere.

In the early 1970s there was much international concern about the prolonged drought and crop failures in the Sahel region of Africa. US national security adviser Henry Kissinger spoke of the issue and the CIA produced assessments of the geopolitical implications.

Against this backdrop, the legendary Australian public servant Nugget Coombs persuaded the Whitlam government to request a report on the possible impacts of climate change for Australia.

The report, delivered to the new Fraser government in March 1976, declared that there was “no convincing evidence of an imminent climatic change on a global scale, or in Australia” but that nonetheless “climatic variability must be incorporated into economic and land-use planning”.

On the evidence available at the time, it was a reasonable conclusion. But while the US National Academy of Sciences was investigating thoroughly, Australia’s climate investigations were muted. A 1978 conference organised by CSIRO and ATSE investigated climate impacts, but had little impact itself.

Someone, however, was paying attention to international research – in 1981 the Office of National Assessment produced a report called Fossil Fuels and the Greenhouse Effect, which forecast temperature rises of 4-6℃ by 2100 if action was not taken. Malcolm Fraser’s response is not recorded.

In the 1980s CSIRO scientists like Barrie Pittock and Graeme Pearman, together with the then science minister Barry Jones, worked hard to get the issue of climate change onto the political agenda. In 1987 Jones’s “Commission for the Future” launched an educative “Greenhouse Project”, and the following year the issue exploded onto the international stage. It was not to last.

From indifference to attack

When Paul Keating took charge in 1991, Australia found itself with a prime minister who was far less interested in green issues. His government did not attack the science directly but did seek to emphasise the costs of climate action, and only grudgingly accepted the “Berlin Mandate” which called on developed countries to set emissions targets.

Next came John Howard, who was actively hostile to the need for action. Under domestic pressure in the runup to the Kyoto negotiations in December 1997, Howard announced a renewable energy target and the creation of an “Australian Greenhouse Office.” But its head, Gwen Andrews, resigned in 2002, saying she had never once been asked to brief Howard.

Howard listened to other voices - in 1999 the Howard government appointed Rio Tinto’s head of research Robin Batterham as its chief scientific adviser. Batterham stepped down after a 2004 Senate inquiry found a “clear conflict of interest” between his two jobs.

CSIRO scientists, meanwhile, were feeling the heat. Graeme Pearman, head of the atmospheric research division, described how he was reprimanded for daring to join the WWF-affiliated Australian Climate Group.

He told the Age that he had been admonished by his Canberra superiors for “making public expressions of what I believed were scientific views, on the basis that they were deemed to be political views”.

The meddling continued. Barney Foran, a 30-year CSIRO veteran, said his managers told him they had fielded a call from the Prime Minister’s Department suggesting he should say nothing critical about ethanol as an alternative fuel.

While there was a change in mood under Kevin Rudd, CSIRO economist Clive Spash nevertheless found himself attacked in parliament for his doubts about emissions trading.

Things did not improve under Julia Gillard, who presided over further budget cuts and the unexplained departure of Chief Scientist Penny Sackett. Commentators lamented that Australia – unlike the UK and US – does not have a truly independent research council.

The record of the Abbott government is too vivid to need – or bear – repeating. It seems that the relentless disparagement and defunding of science has gained a momentum that the current Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, perhaps captive to his backbenchers, cannot halt.

Global patterns

The problem is that while we claim to love science, what we often mean is the kind of science that leads to new production techniques and capacities. But as the US environmental sociologist Alvin Schnaiberg has pointed out, there is another kind of science – one that speaks of the impacts of those production techniques.

The dilemma - captured in the very name of the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation - is not one that we have solved, or look like solving any decade soon.

Although the Australian government’s response to climate advice is woeful, it is not inexplicable or unusual. US climate scientists such as James Hansen, the late Stephen Schneider and Michael Mann have been under sustained attack for more than 20 years (see Mann’s “The Serengeti Strategy” for a brief summary).

Some American scientists have decided to leave and conduct their research elsewhere. Neither have Canadian scientists been immune to attack.

Scientists understandably worry about losing credibility if they enter the public arena.

The Nobel prizewinning chemist Sherwin Rowland poignantly asked:

What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions if, in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true?

Carl Sagan concurred:

Anything else you’re interested in is not going to happen if you can’t breathe the air and drink the water. Don’t sit this one out. Do something.

So yes, we need to march for science, and more besides. This is an “all hands on deck, every single day” situation, which calls on us to act locally and creating pressure for some real action at last from our political leaders.

March was 1.3°C above pre-industrial average temperatures. If you were born after December 1964, you’ve never experienced a month cooler than average on this planet.

When climate scientists look at Antarctica, they see a ticking time bomb. If the ice sheet melts, sea levels will rise dramatically.

Carnegie to accelerate pipeline of large scale solar farms and renewable-based micro-grids after securing $18m in capital raising - three times its original target.

Scientists have attached cameras to whales to unlock the mysteries of their lives in Antarctica, revealing where, when and how they feed, their social lives, and even how they must blow hard to clear sea ice and allow them to breathe. Vision: WWF

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A world-first development in energy technology with the deployment of a battery-gas turbine hybrid system in California, which will back-up the state’s renewable generation.

The DNV GL-led joint industry project, WIN WIN (WINd powered Water INjection), has completed its first phase and determined that wind power could be used to power offshore water injection.

Partners assist in developing initiatives to grow investment in climate finance solutions, green finance markets, and participate in different market development and information activities.

There's a global grassroots movement that's fighting against needless waste and built-in obsolescence - Repair Cafes. There's five in Australia and Michael Mackenzie takes a broken thing in for repair.

Report by Adelphi thinktank warns terrorist groups will exploit natural disasters and water and food shortages

Climate change will fuel acts of terrorism and strengthen recruiting efforts by terrorist groups such as Islamic State and Boko Haram, a report commissioned by the German foreign office has found.

Terrorist groups will exploit the natural disasters and water and food shortages expected to result from climate change and allow them to recruit more easily, operate more freely and control civilian populations, argues the report by Berlin thinktank Adelphi.

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European satellites will routinely map every land volcano on Earth, looking for early eruption signs.

A hipster brewery in a Sydney suburb has created beer with an environmental message

• How Broken Hill went from mining to drag queens and solar farms

Newtown – Sydney’s grungy inner-city suburb where a seemingly endless string of Thai restaurants is interrupted by body-piercing shops, clothes stores and a growing number of small bars.

It’s a suburb known for its beer-fuelled nightlife and alternative cultural tastes. It’s also one of the most progressive areas in Australia: at the last New South Wales election, the Greens got more than 45% of the primary vote (and almost 60% after preferences) in the seat of Newtown.

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While the politicians dither around energy policy, Newtown is teaming up with a pair of hipster brewers to support a solar-powered brewery and beer with a conscience

• Mining the ground to mining the sun in Broken Hill
  

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Bank expected to retain offices in London and Edinburgh, as bid from Australian bank Macquarie accepted despite stiff political opposition

The government has agreed a £2.3bn sale of the Green Investment Bank to the Australian bank Macquarie, according to sources close to the process.

The privatisation of the bank was expected in January but signoff was delayed in the face of stiff political opposition and wrangling over the final price.

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Humans have burned 420 billion tonnes of carbon since the start of the industrial revolution. Half of it is still in the atmosphere. Reuters/Stringer

Getting climate change under control is a formidable, multifaceted challenge. Analysis by my colleagues and me suggests that staying within safe warming levels now requires removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The technology to do this is in its infancy and will take years, even decades, to develop, but our analysis suggests that this must be a priority. If pushed, operational large-scale systems should be available by 2050.

We created a simple climate model and looked at the implications of different levels of carbon in the ocean and the atmosphere. This lets us make projections about greenhouse warming, and see what we need to do to limit global warming to within 1.5℃ of pre-industrial temperatures – one of the ambitions of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

To put the problem in perspective, here are some of the key numbers.

Humans have emitted 1,540 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide gas since the industrial revolution. To put it another way, that’s equivalent to burning enough coal to form a square tower 22 metres wide that reaches from Earth to the Moon.

Half of these emissions have remained in the atmosphere, causing a rise of CO₂ levels that is at least 10 times faster than any known natural increase during Earth’s long history. Most of the other half has dissolved into the ocean, causing acidification with its own detrimental impacts.

Although nature does remove CO₂, for example through growth and burial of plants and algae, we emit it at least 100 times faster than it’s eliminated. We can’t rely on natural mechanisms to handle this problem: people will need to help as well.

What’s the goal?

The Paris climate agreement aims to limit global warming to well below 2℃, and ideally no higher than 1.5℃. (Others say that 1℃ is what we should be really aiming for, although the world is already reaching and breaching this milestone.)

In our research, we considered 1℃ a better safe warming limit because any more would take us into the territory of the Eemian period, 125,000 years ago. For natural reasons, during this era the Earth warmed by a little more than 1℃. Looking back, we can see the catastrophic consequences of global temperatures staying this high over an extended period.

Sea levels during the Eemian period were up to 10 metres higher than present levels. Today, the zone within 10m of sea level is home to 10% of the world’s population, and even a 2m sea-level rise today would displace almost 200 million people.

Clearly, pushing towards an Eemian-like climate is not safe. In fact, with 2016 having been 1.2℃ warmer than the pre-industrial average, and extra warming locked in thanks to heat storage in the oceans, we may already have crossed the 1℃ average threshold. To keep warming below the 1.5℃ goal of the Paris agreement, it’s vital that we remove CO₂ from the atmosphere as well as limiting the amount we put in.

So how much CO₂ do we need to remove to prevent global disaster?

Are you a pessimist or an optimist?

Currently, humanity’s net emissions amount to roughly 37 gigatonnes of CO₂ per year, which represents 10 gigatonnes of carbon burned (a gigatonne is a billion tonnes). We need to reduce this drastically. But even with strong emissions reductions, enough carbon will remain in the atmosphere to cause unsafe warming.

Using these facts, we identified two rough scenarios for the future.

The first scenario is pessimistic. It has CO₂ emissions remaining stable after 2020. To keep warming within safe limits, we then need to remove almost 700 gigatonnes of carbon from the atmosphere and ocean, which freely exchange CO₂. To start, reforestation and improved land use can lock up to 100 gigatonnes away into trees and soils. This leaves a further 600 gigatonnes to be extracted via technological means by 2100.

Technological extraction currently costs at least US$150 per tonne. At this price, over the rest of the century, the cost would add up to US$90 trillion. This is similar in scale to current global military spending, which – if it holds steady at around US$1.6 trillion a year – will add up to roughly US$132 trillion over the same period.

The second scenario is optimistic. It assumes that we reduce emissions by 6% each year starting in 2020. We then still need to remove about 150 gigatonnes of carbon.

As before, reforestation and improved land use can account for 100 gigatonnes, leaving 50 gigatonnes to be technologically extracted by 2100. The cost for that would be US$7.5 trillion by 2100 – only 6% of the global military spend.

Of course, these numbers are a rough guide. But they do illustrate the crossroads at which we find ourselves.

The job to be done

Right now is the time to choose: without action, we’ll be locked into the pessimistic scenario within a decade. Nothing can justify burdening future generations with this enormous cost.

For success in either scenario, we need to do more than develop new technology. We also need new international legal, policy, and ethical frameworks to deal with its widespread use, including the inevitable environmental impacts.

Releasing large amounts of iron or mineral dust into the oceans could remove CO₂ by changing environmental chemistry and ecology. But doing so requires revision of international legal structures that currently forbid such activities.

Similarly, certain minerals can help remove CO₂ by increasing the weathering of rocks and enriching soils. But large-scale mining for such minerals will impact on landscapes and communities, which also requires legal and regulatory revisions.

And finally, direct CO₂ capture from the air relies on industrial-scale installations, with their own environmental and social repercussions.

Without new legal, policy, and ethical frameworks, no significant advances will be possible, no matter how great the technological developments. Progressive nations may forge ahead toward delivering the combined package.

The costs of this are high. But countries that take the lead stand to gain technology, jobs, energy independence, better health, and international gravitas.

Eelco Rohling receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the UK Natural Environment Research Council. Eelco Rohling is also affiliated with the University of Southampton, UK.

BBC Springwatch presenter, making a film about Malta’s spring hunt of migrating birds, accused of ‘pushing against’ man

Chris Packham, the naturalist and broadcaster, has been charged with assault and trespass in Malta after confronting hunters he believes had illegally trapped wild birds.

The BBC Springwatch presenter and naturalist will appear before magistrates on Thursday morning on the island of Gozo after being charged with “attempting to use force” and “pushing against” a Maltese man.

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