Author: The Green Outlaw

We hear about the importance of biodiversity, the rich diversity of species in natural areas and the urgent need for protection.

In 2015, the Queensland Government adopted a long-term target of increasing protected areas to 17% of the state’s landmass.

At present only 8.83% is within protected or conserved areas in Queensland. The lowest in Australia. This figure pales in comparison to the 42.3% in Tasmania, 24.9% in the Northern Territory and 30.1% in Western Australia.

To date, there has been a failure to adequately fund new national park acquisitions. Budgets for purchasing land for new national parks have been dramatically cut. Up to 65 per cent, from nearly $20 million per year over the period 2012-15, to less than $6 million per year subsequently.

Queensland conservation groups identified 175 properties since 2015 with very high biodiversity value that could have been bought and protected, but were not.

A lack of funding, missed opportunities and failing protected area targets highlights that we are wasting valuable time and taxpayer dollars in getting the Queensland government to do anything properly and productively for the environment.

The warmest days in modern history occurred across the planet this month.

Scientists say the planet is entering a multiyear period of exceptional warmth. “We are going to see things happen this year around Earth that we have not seen in modern history”. Expect damaging heat waves, floods, droughts, wildfires and hurricanes.

Greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels, have already heated the Earth by an average of 1.2 degrees Celsius compared with preindustrial levels. Now a powerful El Niño system in the Pacific Ocean is releasing a torrent of heat into the atmosphere.

In the past week Delhi recorded its wettest July day in 40 years, North Africa has seen temperatures near 50C, Beijing residents flocked to underground air raid shelters to escape the heat, and floods carried away cars in Spain.

But even more shocking: the record-breaking air temperatures are the result of only 1% of the extra heat trapped inside the climate system by all the carbon pollution we produce. The vast majority of that heat is going into the ocean, which is also reaching record high temperatures.

Sea surface temperatures in the northern and central Great Barrier Reef are now 2 degrees Celsius hotter than the 2002-2011 average. In June, the North Atlantic Ocean reached its highest temperatures in over 170 years of record-keeping, surpassing the average by as much as 5 degrees Celsius.

The need to decarbonise the world economy can be seen as the biggest collective action in human history. This requires the remaking of the world’s entire energy and transportation systems, not to mention vast overhauls of modern life. And it all needs to happen as a matter of urgency as the planet heats up.

We are living through a state of political stasis and moral disengagement with our political system.  Self-serving politicians, powerful corporate interests and a heavily concentrated (bias) media have nothing but contempt for those that speak the truth about wrongdoings. 

It has been over two years since the Australian Federal Election.  Labour was elected with Anthony Albanese talking a big game about integrity in politics.   But nothing has been done to protect whistleblowers or bolster transparency processes. The Government is still prosecuting McBride and Boyle; nothing for Assange; FOI regime busted and NACC hearings in secret.  

Lets not even delve into NSW politics, where the former premier Gladys Berejiklian was recently found to have engaged in serious corrupt conduct by The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).  Ms Berejiklian misappropriated over $170 million to financially benefit her partner and yet no legal consequences.

It is quite evident that governments only serve powerful interests and try to preserve the status quo.  When both major political parties are captured by powerful fossil fuel interests what hope is there for reforms towards the environment or reducing carbon emissions?    

It is time to hold politicians, the public service, mainstream media and businesses to account. We need to move forwards towards a morally engaged society and demand accountability, honesty, integrity and compassion.

Corruption needs to be adjudicated by an independent legal body not devised by serving politicians. Because, if we can’t hold politicians and the system to account, then we can’t tackle climate change, or make the necessary changes to our social and economic structures for a prosperous healthy society on a liveable planet.

Environmental issues have undeniably taken on crisis characteristics, which register in immediate local contexts, regionally, internationally, and globally.

Whilst climate change has many factors which play a role, we also have to address deforestation, biodiversity loss, plastic pollution, soil derogation and loss, fresh water decline/shortages, air pollution, pesticide use and ocean acidification.

Scientists and many in the general public agree that political responses to the challenges entailed in this are inadequate, too slow, and too incoherent at present.

What Can I Do?

Better systems and rules are needed.

1. On A Personal Level

Joining a community can be one of the best ways to increase your impact. It can enable you to make multiple connections and a group of people working together can have more impact than individuals.

2. On A Professional Level

Reconsider your career path. Or, maintain your career path, but consider donating a portion of your income to organisations that are focused on achieving meaningful & impactful goals.

Also try and influence your workplace to adopt clear policies that will result in reduced harm to the environment and a pathway to Net Zero.

3. On A Political Level

Vote for politicians or parties who will champion effective action.

Make your feelings known. Become a vocal and passionate advocate with friends and family (without being pushy) of the need for climate action.

Lastly, protest & civil disobedience.

Again, it is left up to a group of volunteers in the community to demand sensible action from governments, that is well supported by science, regarding the approval of coal projects.

The Environment Council of Central Queensland (ECoCQ) has filed two proceedings in the Federal Court seeking judicial review of the Minister’s decisions to extend the Mount Pleasant and Narrabri coal mines.

The applicants argue that the Federal Environment Minister made key legal errors when she refused to accept the serious and irreversible climate harm that new coal projects are likely to cause.

For detailed background and more information about the legal filing check out the Living Wonders website.

Believe what you want…or more like what your are told to believe.

Take climate change. Why do some people still deny climate change and the positive ways available to address it?

There is probably more scientific evidence that climate change is real, is being exacerbated by humans, and has shattering consequences than for any other topic in human history. And there is no shortage of communication channels to convey this information (and disinformation) far and wide.

Facts do matter. But more importantly, it is what we believe as it shapes our reality, and what we can do about it.

The powerful know it all too well. Hence, the still many well orchestrated media PR campaigns for the continual support of fossil fuels in Australia.

With cooler and calm weather conditions across South East Queensland, many burn programs in National Parks are now getting underway.

Each year the window of opportunity to safely conduct burns is narrowing. The obvious constraints are weather, fire intensity and resources such as budgets and staffing.

Fire is one of the best park management tools available. It is a critical component of conservation in Australia. The fuel load, occurrence and area burnt all have significant impacts on flora and fauna species compositions. Many Australian plants and trees need fire to survive and reproduce. However, there is very little scientific collection and research before and after each fire in each of the National Parks. How do we know that some types of fires aren’t causing more detriment than good to the environment?

Unfortunately no amount of prescribed burns will stop severe wildfires like those seen in 2019-2020 where 17 million hectares was burnt across Australia and billions of animals died. One can only hope our National Parks across South East Queensland can make it through the next few years relatively unscathed, given the long term predictions for dryer and warmer weather.

Is nuclear power a solution to combat climate change?

The prospect of nuclear power in Australia has been a topic of debate for many decades. Whilst we have never had a nuclear power station (they are banned in Australia), we do have 33% of the world’s uranium deposits and we are the world’s third largest producer of it.

Quite often support for nuclear power in Australia is driven by conservative ideologues (examples include Matt Canavan, Barnaby Joyce, Malcolm Roberts, and Newscorp media figures such as Andrew Bolt and Peta Credlin). Generally, those promoting nuclear power also support Coal, they oppose renewables, they attack environmentalists, they deny climate change science, and they have little knowledge of energy issues and options.

Proponents argue that nuclear power is a clean and efficient way to make electricity. In the context of climate change, nuclear power is seen as a potential solution to the problem of greenhouse gas emissions. Also the building of nuclear power plants will create jobs.

Opponents argue that nuclear power plants are expensive and take too long to build, require large amounts of water, have extreme consequences when something goes wrong (such as the release of radiation into the environment), produces waste that is radioactive and must be stored for thousands of years, can be potential targets for terrorist attacks and is limited by the availability of uranium (which is a finite resource).

Australia is one of the sunniest and windiest countries on earth. Building large-scale wind and solar projects is the cheapest way of producing electricity. It is also low risk, renewable and non-polluting. In comparison, nuclear power is the slowest, most expensive, most dangerous and least flexible form of new power generation for Australia. It makes no sense.

Nuclear power in Australia as an energy option is not in our best interest, hence the half truths and disinformation by wacko politicians, bias media outlets (Newscorp) and pro fossil fuel individuals online (i.e twitter) to convince us (well some…) otherwise.

For thousands of years humanity has grown and developed societies. In the last 200 years, with the rise of industrialisation under capitalism and a growing world population, we are now witnessing in real time a collapse of the Earth’s planetary system.

No amount of carbon offsets, carbon capture, fusion or recycling will substitute the fossil fuel industries choke hold on society by increasing the production of fossil fuels.

The world is about to pass the ‘safe’ guard rail of global temperatures with it predicted to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above the 19th-century average within the decade”

World Meteorological Organisation

El Nino Summers are predicted to break records. In just the past few days, we are getting a peek of what to expect!

Western Canada is experiencing a heat wave and over 90 wildfires.

In Northern Italy yesterday, it received half the annual rainfall in 36 hours.