In 1999 NASA lost its $125-million Mars Climate Orbiter because spacecraft engineers failed to convert from Imperial to metric measurements when exchanging vital data before the craft was launched. Numbers are important!
Climate stories continue to float across my viewing zone, especially lately in the New Scientist, which for us is loo reading. NS articles are usually pay-walled, so I’ll try catch up a bit.
Massive icebergs are one sign that change is on the way NASA/ Brooke Medley
There are lots of tipping points in ecosystems and the climate, and many are interconnected. That means the massive changes we are wreaking will have many unexpected consequences. Continue reading Climate clippings 229→
As PM Scott Morrison reels from the latest crisis, and polls show that he’s in trouble, two big events signal the election race is up and running.
In brief, we had the ALP National Conference, which ScoMo attempted to disrupt by announcing the next Governor General. Then the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2018‑19 showed the economy producing unexpected riches. However, the media were diverted by NP member and Assistant Finance Minister Andrew Broad’s ‘Sugar Daddy’ scandal, which, according to the Betoota Advocate, his leader Michael McCormack explained was a private family matter and hence none of our business. Meanwhile two opinion polls came out, which were not to ScoMo’s liking. Continue reading Federal election campaigning has started→
The conference also received the special report on achieving a 1.5°C global average temperature rise prepared on request by the IPCC. While I had some reservations about the whole exercise, the report a strong wake up call on the need for more urgent cuts. Fossil fuels had to be wound back rapidly. This from Dr. Joeri Rogelj, of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria:
“I’m greatly concerned about my future and the future of children all around the world who will suffer the consequences of climate change more than anyone else,” Marco said.
“A few days ago thousands of students from around Australia, like me, went on strike from school to demand that the Government acts on climate change.
“When will the Government start to care about my future and children around the world by acting on climate change and create a strong climate policy?”
whoso shall offend one of these little ones … it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
You can’t beat Labor on policy, that’s the lesson Michael Kroger took from Victoria, so ScoMo has decided to make it personal, telling Bill Shorten the election is ‘between you and me’:
1. Unsubsidised wind and solar now cheapest form of bulk energy
That is the case in all major economies except Japan, according to BNEF. From RenewEconomy:
The latest report says the biggest news comes in the two fastest growing energy markets, China and India, where it notes that “not so long ago coal was king”. Not any more.
“In India, best-in-class solar and wind plants are now half the cost of new coal plants,” the report says, and this is despite the recent imposition of import tariffs on solar cells and modules. Continue reading Climate clippings 228→
Big investors have slammed the Morrison government’s “big stick” approach to the electricity sector, saying any move to force companies to cut prices will have a major impact on profits, future investment and result in less competition in the long term. Continue reading Big investors slam ‘big stick’ approach→
Energy industry warns Morrison power plans would disrupt market was the story to begin the week in the AFR. Meridian Energy Australia chief executive Ed McManus said that the government intervention risked crowding out investors from the energy market and creating a “spiral effect”:
“The more the government do things, the more private investors hold back. The more private investors hold back, the more there is a need for government to do things,” he told The Australian Financial Review.
“You get in a position where, looking out several years, the market as we know it disintegrates. When that happens you need very, very deep pockets to fill the gap.”
That was the headline in the dead tree version of the AFR. Bill Ferris is the outgoing Science and Innovation Australia chair. He says he didn’t find the Coalition government’s rewriting of the ACCC report to support coal-fired power a helpful signal, but:
what I am seeing – and you see it in the US as well – is that business and state governments are getting on with alternative energy sources, mainly renewables and storage,” said Mr Ferris, a veteran venture capitalist.
