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My scientific colleague and regular collaborator, Corey Bradshaw of ConservationBytes, has been hitting the media this week to talk about mosquitoes, models and environmental change. Together with our postdoctoral researcher Guojing Yang, we’ve published a couple of papers on the population dynamics of mossies in northern Australia. The latest one has just appeared in the […]
Filed under: Ecological impacts, Hot news in climate science | 7 Comments »
A long-standing research interest of mine has been the impact of prehistoric people and palaeoclimate on ancient biota (animals, plants, ecosystems). Millennia before the modern biodiversity crisis — a worldwide event being driven by the multiple impacts of anthropogenic global change — a mass extinction of large-bodied fauna occurred. These end-Quaternary (late Pleistocene and Holocene) extinctions […]
Filed under: Ecological impacts, Hot news in climate science | 15 Comments »
Climate change is like a stalking predator, a threat that first crept up, and then swiftly leapt out at the ecological science community. There is no doubt it was an issue around which there was a simmering awareness for decades. However, recent detailed multidisciplinary studies, which have pored over numerous long-term datasets (most compiled for […]
Filed under: Ecological impacts, Hot news in climate science | 10 Comments »
Guest Post by Tim Kelly. Tim is works as a Principal Climate Change Advisor in the Water Industry. The Federal Government has now released its Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme White Paper and as expected the mechanism it has chosen is that of a pollution permit and trade system (cap and trade). The cap and trade […]
Filed under: Ecological impacts | 67 Comments »
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has released a detailed analysis of the 2009 southern Australian heatwave. Some of the figures presented are staggering, with numerous temperature records smashed. Indeed, a colleague at BOM pointed out just how exceptional this event was: “Given that this was the hottest day on record on top of the […]
Filed under: Climate change Q&A, Ecological impacts | 88 Comments »
Adelaide is the hot place to be right now. We’re in the middle of an extreme, enduring heatwave, and the city’s residents are suffering. Indeed, we’ve had rolling blackouts as the power system fails to meet peaking loads, and more people are suspected to have died from heat stress over the last week than were […]
Filed under: Climate change Q&A, Ecological impacts, Hot news in climate science | 95 Comments »
I haven’t talked a lot about marine impacts of climate change on this website — mostly because it is quite thoroughly covered by Prof Ove Hoegh-Guldberg in his Climate Shifts blog and Dr Simon Donner on Maribo. But in short, the marine environment is under severe stress from chronic human impacts (over-fishing, dredging, pollution [e.g., […]
Filed under: Ecological impacts | 31 Comments »
In Part II, Hansen looks at policy options required to drag us out of the Sustainability Emergency. It is self-explanatory, but I thought it worth adding some notes on a cap-and-trade versus a carbon tax. Which is better? Cap-and-Trade. Pros: (i) Cap reductions ensure falling emissions – in theory; (ii) Reduces inefficiencies or overpricing; (iii) […]
Filed under: Ecological impacts | 10 Comments »
Guest Post by Geoff Russell. Geoff is a mathematician and computer programmer and is a member of Animal Liberation SA. ———————— This second part will cover chapter 3 of Livestock’s Long Shadow (LLS), which concern livestock’s direct impact on the climate via forcings and its impact on air. It will be more concise than PART […]
Filed under: Ecological impacts, Emissions reduction | Leave a Comment »
Guest Post by Geoff Russell. Geoff is a mathematician and computer programmer and is a member of Animal Liberation SA. ———————— Late in 2006 the United Nations Food and Agriculture organisation published one of those huge thick reports that gets a one column story in quite a few newspapers and then vanishes from sight. It […]
Filed under: Ecological impacts, Emissions reduction | 17 Comments »
The long-awaited, much-anticipated Final Report of the Garnaut Climate Change Review has now been released. As per its website, the review was set up to: “…examine the impacts of climate change on the Australian economy, and recommend medium to long-term policies and policy frameworks to improve the prospects for sustainable prosperity.” It is an independent […]
Filed under: Ecological impacts, Emissions reduction | 29 Comments »
Guest Post by Tony Kevin. Tony Kevin served as an Australian diplomat in Moscow (1969–71), UN New York (1973-76), and as Australian Ambassador in Poland (1991–1994). This opinion piece was originally published in Eureka Street. Ross Garnaut’s important public statement was largely overwhelmed by the welter of federal and state political news. It was a […]
Filed under: Ecological impacts, Emissions reduction | 16 Comments »
One of Australia’s leading authorities on the ramifications of climate change for human health and welfare is Prof Tony McMichael from the Australian National University. Earlier this year he and three co-authors published an important review in the British Medical Journal entitled “Global environmental change and health: impacts, inequalities, and the health sector” [full text […]
Filed under: Ecological impacts, Renewable planet | 5 Comments »
Records of abrupt climate events in the recent history of Earth suggest current emission reduction targets fall short of preventing carbon and ice/melt feedback loops and consequent runaway greenhouse effects Andrew Glikson (editing and hyperlinking by Barry Brook) Earth and paleo-climate research, Research School of Earth Science, Australian National University Summary: Current CO2 (carbon dioxide) […]
Filed under: Climate change Q&A, Ecological impacts, Future shock | 33 Comments »
Solving climate change is a huge international challenge. Only a concerted global effort, involving the governments of all nations, will be enough to avert dangerous consequences. But that said, the individual actions of everyday people are still crucial. Large and complex issues, like climate change, are usually best tackled by breaking down the problem into […]
Filed under: Climate change Q&A, Ecological impacts, Emissions reduction, Renewable planet | 16 Comments »
Jennifer Marohasy’s article in the Weekend Australian newspaper (23/8/2008) is yet another installment in the ongoing saga of Australian non-greenhouse theorists (‘sceptics’) attempting to discredit, at least in the eyes of the general public, the conclusions of Australian climate science. But one wonders why Institute for Public Affairs supporters choose to give their imprimatur to such […]
Filed under: Climate change Q&A, Ecological impacts | 60 Comments »
As Monty Python would say, now for something completely different. Here is a report by Jennifer Viegas from Discovery Channel in the US, who recently reported on a paper co-authored by Corey Bradshaw (of ConservationBytes fame) and me on the problem of… shrinking fish! Specifically, a decline we had documented in the body size of […]
Filed under: Ecological impacts | 2 Comments »
Originally published in the Adelaide Advertiser, 1 degree series, August 2007 – updated with hyperlinks A RICH diversity of unique plant and animal species live in World Heritage Listed Kakadu National Park. These include vast flocks of magpie geese, which congregate in millions to feed on water chestnuts growing on the floodplain of the South […]
Filed under: Ecological impacts | 8 Comments »
Guest Post by Dr Andrew Glikson (former Principal Research Scientist, AGSO; Visiting Research Fellow, Australian National University) and Dr Barrie Pittock (Honorary Fellow, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research; former leader, Climate Impact Group, CSIRO). THE GLOBAL VIEW In a recent published statement (18 May, 2007) Professor James Hansen, NASA’s Chief Climate Scientist, states: ‘The Earth […]
Filed under: Ecological impacts, Future shock | 34 Comments »
Originally posted on Skeptical Science… A related post can be found here. Human are transforming the global environmental. Great swathes of temperate forest in Europe, Asia and North America have been cleared over the past few centuries for agriculture, timber and urban development. Tropical forests are now on the front line. Human-assisted species invasions of […]
Filed under: Ecological impacts, Future shock, Non-greenhouse theorists (‘sceptics’) | 50 Comments »
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