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2019 is the year of the climate strike.
As more and more cities and federal governments crackdown on protests, we’re left grappling not just with free speech issues but about whether alarmed citizens should be prevented from pleading with the public to do something about the greatest threat facing humanity.
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While California’s 7-year drought was declared over, a rain-less October along with a NOAA report warning of a dry winter are fueling fears that the state’s water woes will be back once again.
As If Drought Wasn’t Enough: A new study from the journal Nature Geoscience predicts that as a result of climate change, at the end of the century plants could consume substantially more water, leaving less for people.
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As ABC reported, after almost a decade spent protecting a famed little penguin colony in south-west Victoria from fox predation, Tula the maremma sheepdog is hanging up her lead. Along with her sister Eudy, 11-year-old Tula has been guarding breeding penguins on Middle Island, near Warrnambool, Australia, since she was just two years old. […]
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Australia’s Northern Territory will likely soon be home to the world’s largest solar farm, revolutionizing both Australia’s and Singapore’s energy sector. The project, Sun Cable, will house an array of 10-gigawatt solar panels across 37,000 acres of desert, backed by a battery storage unit able to supply power 24 hours a day. Construction for this 20 billion dollar plan is set to begin in 2023, with operations commencing as early as 2027.
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Australia re-elected center-right Prime Minister Scott Morrison over the weekend, pulling off a “miracle” thanks to a big turnout from his base of older, suburban economic conservatives and of supporters in Queensland, which is the coal-producing, sparsely populated region of the country. This happened despite the fact that Australia just experienced its hottest summer on record, with major fish die-offs as the country’s rivers run dry, and the Great Barrier Reef, one of the country’s most iconic and popular destinations, is experiencing a record coral bleaching event from which many believe it will never recover.
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The Australia Koala Foundation reported on Tuesday that the population of these beloved animals is in steep decline in many areas of Australia, and estimates are that only 80,000 remain in the wild, which makes the species “functionally extinct.”
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by Yoel Fessahaye A nightmare is unraveling in the jewel-toned waters of the Solomon Islands. According to CNN and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade, a ship carrying 700 metric tons of heavy oil ran aground in Solomon Islands’ Kangava Bay, near East Rennell — the only natural UNESCO World Heritage site in […]
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This summer Australia shattered its heat records, with temperatures nationwide 3.8°F, above the 1961-90 average, according to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). In a summary put out by the Bureau, they summed it up this way, “Mean and maximum temperature for the season broke previous records by large margins; both almost one degree above the record set in 2012–13.”
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The Australian government has given the go-ahead, according to The Guardian, for the Port Authority of North Queensland to dump more than 1 million tons of dredge spoil near the reef, taking advantage of an unfortunate loophole in the laws that were supposed to protect the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.
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On Monday the Australian government has recognized the first known demise of a mammal because of human-induced climate change.
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A new analysis presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science even concluded that replenishing the world’s forests on a grand scale would suck enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to cancel out a decade of human emissions–a stance that, while intriguing, doesn’t yet have broad consensus (we’ll keep you posted if consensus builds).
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While a record-breaking cold snap is headed for parts of the Midwest, summer in Australia has brought dangerous heatwaves that are threatening people and wildlife. As NPR reported, Australia’s State Emergency Service declared the heat wave a threat to public safety, as an increasing number of Australians have called ambulances and gone to hospitals in Adelaide for heat-associated illnesses.
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