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African rhinos in the Mediterreanean, French butterflies in southern England... the biologist on how dynamic ecology offers hope in a changing world
After a lifetime out in the field, measuring the egg-laying preferences of Californian butterflies or counting plant species living in and around Birmingham, ecologist Chris D Thomas is no typical debut author. But like so many writers, his first book, Inheritors of the Earth, has been germinating for some time.
The seeds were sown in the early 2000s: Thomas was researching ways of saving animals and plants threatened by climate change, when he began to focus on the inconsistencies in attitudes to the ebb and flow of nature. “When things died out or declined it was seen as a loss,” he says, “but when new things arrived it was either ignored or also counted effectively as a loss, because it was seen as a departure from how things used to be. Implicitly, people were thinking that there was a way the world should be.”
Related: Doomsday narratives about climate change don't work. But here's what does | Victoria Herrmann
Continue reading...Increase in peak electricity demand could be more than capacity of planned Hinkley Point C nuclear power station by 2030
A dramatic growth in electric vehicles on Britain’s roads could see peak electricity demand jump by more than the capacity of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station by 2030, according to National Grid.
The number of plug-in cars and vans could reach 9m by 2030, up from around 90,000 today, said the company, which runs the UK’s national transmission networks for electricity and gas.
Continue reading...As a Trump appointee pushes for televised slanging match, a New York magazine cover story sparks a different debate – should we talk about how bad global warming could actually get?
In the United States, people who refuse to accept even some of the basic tenets of climate science are calling for a heated debate.
“Who better to do that than a group of scientists … getting together and having a robust discussion for all the world to see,” the boss of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, told Reuters.
Related: Climate Change Authority loses last climate scientist | Planet Oz
What follows is not a series of predictions of what will happen — that will be determined in large part by the much-less-certain science of human response. Instead, it is a portrait of our best understanding of where the planet is heading absent aggressive action. It is unlikely that all of these warming scenarios will be fully realized, largely because the devastation along the way will shake our complacency. But those scenarios, and not the present climate, are the baseline. In fact, they are our schedule.
Related: Planet could breach 1.5C warming limit within 10 years, but be aware of caveats
"#Climate change is the number one threat to the reef" but India needs our coal, says @JoshFrydenberg pic.twitter.com/P5Jx5uBGfw
Continue reading...Federal minister attracts ridicule after he says state should ‘concentrate on saving jobs today’ instead of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050
The federal resources minister, Matthew Canavan, has attracted a slew of criticism after attacking the Queensland government for trying to “save the planet in 2050”.
On Wednesday Queensland announced it would aim to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050. The announcement was far from radical, with identical pledges already made by the Coalition-led New South Wales government, as well as Labor-led Victoria, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory.
Instead of trying to save the planet in 2050 the QLD labor should just concentrate on saving jobs today!
instead of trying to avoid the cliff we're heading for we should just concentrate on going as fast as we possibly can
Comments like this epitomise the short-sighted political era we live in! There is #noplanetB
Matt, poppet, of the very many dumb things that we regularly hear from you, this really has been one of the dumbest.https://t.co/AJqABlYoxu
Not a big fan of intergenerational equity, are you Minister.
You are captured by a binary mindset. Try doing both by supporting renewables that actually employ more people. Think ... don't just react'
But luckily anyone with an understanding of economics knows that's not the choice. Handful of jobs in Adani, tens of thousands on the Reef.
Dear Matthew #Adani will kill as many coal jobs as it creates, not to mention lost tourism jobs #nojobsonadeadplanet https://t.co/bnFl197uVW
Continue reading...Labor criticises ‘appalling intervention’ by Craig Kelly, who is chair of backbench energy committee
Renewable energy will kill people this winter, Craig Kelly, the chair of the Coalition’s backbench environment and energy committee has claimed.
Kelly, a Liberal backbencher, said the deaths would be caused by people not being able to afford to heat their homes in winter. He blamed rising fuel costs on the government’s renewable energy target.
Related: States may go it alone on clean energy target, says Victoria's energy minister
Continue reading...It is heartening to see the Guardian giving considered coverage to the issue of human population and its impacts upon our planet and the threat that continued population growth and excessive consumption pose to the wellbeing and indeed survival of future generations (Best solution to climate change? Fewer children, 12 July). For too long population has been a taboo subject avoided by those normally courageous and outspoken in publicising inconvenient truths about the consequences of ongoing environmental damage.
The new study from Lund University showing that the most effective solution to curbing climate change is for people to have fewer children and smaller families confirms research we highlighted back in 2012, when seeking to persuade the likes of Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund to talk openly and honestly about population issues (with little success!). That earlier study by Oregon State University concluded that, over a lifetime, a family that chose to have one less child would reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 20 times the amount saved from undertaking all other obvious “eco-friendly” lifestyle changes.
Continue reading...In Boigu, part of Australia but just six kilometres from Papua New Guinea, roads are being washed into the sea
Torres Strait residents face being forced from their homes by climate change, as their islands are lost to rising seas.
On Boigu Island, the most northerly inhabited island in Australia, just six kilometres from Papua New Guinea, the community’s cemetery faces inundation and roads are being washed into the sea. A seawall installed to protect the community is already failing.
Every year I have moved my shed back from the beach another few metres.
Related: Sea level rise will double coastal flood risk worldwide
We have been advocating for years but it just does not seem to get enough attention.
Related: World Bank: let climate-threatened Pacific islanders migrate to Australia or NZ
Continue reading...The other night I tried out some of my new material about how the world might end at a comedy event especially for cynical people
Sign up here to get an email whenever First Dog cartoons are publishedGet all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog merchandise and printsContinue reading...A new study has crunched the numbers on efforts to fight climate change, from skipping holidays to ditching our cars. Here’s a guide to the (not always) easy ways to be green
It’s easy to feel powerless in the face of new coal mines and shrinking rainforests in distant countries, but we also know that being green starts at home. We do what we can, right? But what really helps, and what is a drop in a warming ocean? A study by the Universities of Lund, Sweden, and British Columbia, Canada, has crunched the numbers and the results are intriguing. Bottom line: every little recycled yoghurt pot helps, but the environmental impacts of our actions vary massively. Here’s a cut-out-and-keep (and then, you know, recycle) guide to a greener you.
Continue reading...Feeling hopeless about a situation is cognitively associated with inaction. Instead of being defeatist, look to climate change heroes who are leading the way
The title of David Wallace-Wells’ recent essay in New York magazine is catchy, if not uncomfortable. “The Uninhabitable Earth: Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreck – sooner than you think.”
The article asks us to peer beyond scientific reticence into a doomsday future. The accounts of mass heat deaths in cities and praying for cornfields in the tundra is disturbing, but they’re familiar. It’s the same frame for how we talk about a much more immediate climate change disaster – US communities at risk to sea level rise today.
Related: You don’t need a scientist to know what’s causing the sixth mass extinction | Paul R Ehrlich
Related: The fight against climate change: four cities leading the way in the Trump era
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