Saturday 27th of April 2024

present australian polluting policies are smartly preparing for the planet's future...

 

hunt in the hunt...

Australia has forfeited its position as a global leader on tackling climate change and is now a “free-rider”, a panel led by former secretary general of the United Nations Kofi Annan has said.

The Africa Progress Report 2015 disputes claims by the fossil fuel lobby that moving away from carbon would impede economic growth in developing countries. It says high-emitting nations, such as Australia, have stepped back from global discussions in favour of unilateral action.

 

“Despite the known threats, far too many countries are failing to take decisive action. Several countries including Australia and Canada appear to have withdrawn entirely from constructive international engagement on climate,” the report said.

It is particular scathing about the direction in which Australia’s climate change policies are headed.

“With one of the world’s highest levels of per capita emissions, Australia has gone from leadership to free-rider status in climate diplomacy. Repeal of the Clean Energy Future Plan effectively abolished carbon pricing. Current policies will result in emissions increasing by about 12-18 per cent above 2000 emissions,” it said.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/05/australia-has-forfeited-world-leadership-on-climate-policy-says-kofi-annan-panel

 

 

the hiatus is bunk...

...

The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington that is critical of climate science, issued a statement condemning the changes and questioning the agency’s methodology.

“The main claim by the authors that they have uncovered a significant recent warming trend is dubious,” said the statement, attributed to three contrarian climate scientists: Richard S. Lindzen, Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. Knappenberger.

However, Russell S. Vose, chief of the climate science division at NOAA’s Asheville center, pointed out in an interview that while the corrections do eliminate the recent warming slowdown, the overall effect of the agency’s adjustments has long been to raise the reported global temperatures in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by a substantial margin. That makes the temperature increase of the past century appear less severe than it does in the raw data.

“If you just wanted to release to the American public our uncorrected data set, it would say that the world has warmed up about 2.071 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880,” Dr. Vose said. “Our corrected data set says things have warmed up about 1.65 degrees Fahrenheit. Our corrections lower the rate of warming on a global scale.”

Even if the warming slowdown in the early 21st century was real, there seems to be little question that it is ending. By a small margin, the global temperature hit a record in 2014, and developing weather patterns suggest that record will likely be broken by a larger margin in 2015.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/science/noaa-research-presents-evidence-against-a-global-warming-hiatus.html?_r=0

"tropical" weather in holland...

The temperature at the Bilt weather station near Hilversum soared to 30 degrees on Friday, making June 5 the hottest day of the year so far, and the first to be officially ‘tropical’.

 

The temperature reached above 25 degrees in most of the country, apart from the Wadden Islands, where it remained around 23 degrees. The highest temperature recorded was in the dunes near Hoek van Holland, where it reached 33 degrees.



Read more at DutchNews.nl: Temperature officially tropical, storms on Friday evening http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2015/06/temperature-officially-tropical-storms-on-friday-evening/

the minister for holes...

 

The $1.2 billion Shenhua Watermark coal mine has won federal government approval despite claims by the peak NSW farm group that the open-cut project would blow "a 35-square-kilometre hole" in some of Australia's most productive farmland.

Environment minister Greg Hunt said he approved the project with "18 of the strictest conditions in Australian history which fully incorporate all advice" from an independent scientific committee.

The mine, owned by China's state-controlled Shenhua company, is expected to produce as much as 268 million tonnes of coal  during its 30-year life.

 

 

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/giant-shenhua-watermark-coal-mine-wins-federal-approval-from-environment-minister-greg-hunt-20150708-gi7j65.html

 

 

Idiotic beyond belief... See toon at top...