Posts on aspects of climate science, climate action and climate policy & planning.
New Deputy PM Michael McCormack (Mick Mack) is a garden variety climate denier according to Paddy Manning at The Monthly:
Most of us would like to be able to travel when, where and how we want to and for the transport system to be managed in such a way that there will always be enough capacity to allow us all these choices. The problem with this “capacity management” approach is that a lot of money would have to be spent providing capacity that is only used for a very limited time of the day. Without this extra spending we still have to continue putting up with congested roads and overloaded public transport during peak hours.
Required capacity could be reduced by managing the “when”, “how” and “where” choices. This post looks at some “demand management” strategies that might be used to reduce peak capacity requirements These strategies offer rapid, low cost ways of getting more from the transport infrastructure we already have. It was concluded that a rapid, low cost doubling of capacity is not an impossible dream.
Continue reading Boosting Transport Capacity by Managing Demand
The UK Met Office has warned that temperatures could break through the 1.5°C threshold within five years.
The UN Environment Program in its annual emissions gap report, published last October, said government commitments were only a third of what was needed. Continue reading Climate clippings 222
I’ve just noticed that last September I followed CC 214 with CC 115. My bad.
That is according to an updated study by Stanford University professor Mark Jacobson and colleagues at the University of California at Berkeley and Aalborg University in Denmark summarised by Giles Parkinson.
Last Monday the ‘cosmic ray’ theory of climate change struck again when Amanda Vanstone at ABC RN’s Counterpoint found:
It has been a standard myth, debunked at Climate Skeptic. Now Svensmark and others have conducted new research published in Nature, which got this billing at Science News:
Bill Shorten probably knows Labor can’t win the byelection in the Melbourne seat Batman while supporting the far-away Adani coal mining project at Carmichael in the Galilee Basin in central Queensland. So he looks set to oppose the mine.
However, Queensland LNP senators Matt Canavan and Ian Macdonald and Capricornia MP Michelle Landry have invited Shorten to come to Townsville to explain his position there, and ultimately that is what he must do. Continue reading Adani casts a long shadow over Batman
Malcolm Turnbull has announced a $60 million package to rescue the Great Barrier Reef. If you believe him!
Here are two headlines, the first from an article from last year by scientists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science:
The second is from the New Scientist (probably pay-walled):
A study published in May 2017 tells us that oxygen is depleting in the oceans two or three times faster than expected.
Back in 2003 a heatwave centred in France killed over 70,000 people. Another which struck Moscow in 2010 killed 10,000. During the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria 173 people tragically lost their lives from the fire. However, health authorities believe Victoria’s record-breaking heatwave may have contributed to the deaths of about another 374 people with the state’s death toll 62% higher than at same time in the previous year.
The elderly were worst affected, but the very young and those in frail health are also typically affected in events like this. Continue reading Sizzling summers presage a global future
This is the first of several posts which will show that climate change is becoming a real and present danger.
Climate Central has a graph showing the hottest 10 years on the record: Continue reading The heat is on!
Found this interesting article where some experts argue that Sydney train problems could be fixed by halving car registration and removing tolls. It reverses the normal mantra in favour of active and public transport. My take is that the article is asking the wrong questions. The key question that should be asked is “Why do we continue to allow Australia’s mega cities to grow instead of creating new, properly planned cities?” This post looks at other questions that might be asked if we want to make the transport systems of Australian mega cities more workable. Continue reading Questions for Mega Cities
Josh Frydenberg has just written an opinion piece in the AFR about Why we can’t do without the power of Snowy 2.0.
Can’t do without it, that’s what he said. To impress us he said:
