By Andy Rowell Conservationists and environmentalists in Australia are celebrating a major victory after the oil giant BP announced that it is abandoning its hugely controversial plans to drill for oil and gas in the Great Australian Bight. The area, which is off the country’s southern coast, is a marine park and home to one […]
American scientists have just confirmed that parts of Australia are being slowly parched because of greenhouse gas emissions, which means that the long-term decline in rainfall over south and south-west Australia is a consequence of fossil fuel burning and depletion of the ozone layer by human activity. Southern Australia has been experiencing declining rainfall since […]
Global energy markets are reaching a tipping point. A pathway has opened for climate progress, but only if governments, business and public recognize and exploit the opportunity. For the first time, a large fraction of the world’s fossil fuels could be replaced at a lower cost by clean energy, with today’s renewable technologies and prices. […]
The global fight to establish better protections from genetic contamination caused by genetically engineered (GE) crops suffered a legal setback in Australia this week. A ruling of the Supreme Court of Western Australia found that farmer Steve Marsh could not seek compensation after losing his organic certification as a result of a neighbor’s GE crops contaminating his organic […]
As the end of coal continues to loom larger on the horizon, a new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) has blown trench-sized holes in the industry’s latest attempt to talk up its future, dismissing the myth of coal alleviating poverty in the developing world. The report makes it clear that renewable energy projects are far better investments […]
Today and tomorrow hundreds of customers with Australia’s Big Four Banks will close their accounts in a statement against the banks’ investments in new coal and gas projects. These customers will be taking part in Australia’s first “National Days of Divestment Action” organized by Market Forces and 350.org Australia. Below, a slideshow of the first […]
Major Australian coal projects risk losing value due to falling demand from China, where leaders are increasingly concerned about growing public anger over severe air pollution, a new analysis from Oxford University has found. Australia’s coal investments, like this open pit mine in Victoria, risk becoming stranded if China implements new energy policies. Photo credit: Marcus Wong […]
TomDispatch By Michael T. Klare When it comes to energy and economics in the climate-change era, nothing is what it seems. Most of us believe (or want to believe) that the second carbon era, the Age of Oil, will soon be superseded by the Age of Renewables, just as oil had long since superseded the […]
Sometimes people tell me, “If you cover fracking, you really need to see that film—that film, what’s it called?” “Gasland?” I’ll offer helpfully. “Yes, that’s it.” It kind of charms me that people less immersed in this issue, than many folks I know, would imagine that I could cover the topic without knowing the film […]