climate – Michmutters

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Australia

Blockade Australia shut down Sydney with climate change protests. Now they’re fighting arrests in court

A woman with bight blue and orange glasses a loosely tied grey hair poses with a determined look

In a white-walled room inside a community center in Sydney’s inner west, about 20 people are sitting in a circle.

One of them, a young man in a beanie, starts reading from a pamphlet:

“Corporate and institutional power is driving the climate crisis and blocking climate action.”

He’s a member of Blockade Australia, the protest group which shut down parts of Sydney in late June.

Today — June 26 — is the day before that happened.

“The very system we’re in is one of domination, so to resist that we have to be able to organize in a different way — organizing non-hierarchically and co-existing non-hierarchically.”

Sitting on a floor of rough gray carpet tiles, the small audience is nodding in agreement as the young man in a beanie continues.

“Blockade Australia is a coordinated response that aims to develop a culture of effective resistance through strategic direct action.”

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Categories
Business

Lettuce prices to fall as production lifts in flood-hit growing regions

Close up shot of a head of cos lettuce

After months of paying $10 for lettuce, shoppers can expect some relief with Queensland growers getting back on track, three months after they were devastated by flooding.

Prices for the salad staple skyrocketed after flooding in May wiped out millions of dollars worth of vegetables in the Lockyer Valley, west of Brisbane.

Mulgowie Yowie Salads director Shannon Moss said he had only started full production about two weeks ago.

“We’ve had nice weather where a lot of growers have got stock coming on,” Mr Moss said.

“I was going through the photos [of the flooding] and I’m thinking how it’s hard to look at it, look at the devastation that was here.

“It is nice to see the paddocks recover and the farm get back into some sort of normality.”

Mr Moss said he was now producing about 30,000 cos lettuces a week for markets in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Rows of lettuce wiped out from floods with the scenery of the lockyer valley in the background
Shannon Moss lost his entire lettuce crop in May when floods ripped through the Lockyer Valley. (Supplied: Shannon Moss)

He said prices had remained high for so long because the season had had to start from scratch.

“You have to remember a seedling in a nursery takes about four to six weeks to grow, then it’s another eight weeks in the ground to grow lettuce.

“So you’re looking at three to four months to grow any kind of lettuce.”

Man in fluro orange shirt stands in front of rows of lettuce.
After the trauma of floods, Mr Moss is happy to get back to normal production. (Rural ABC: Lucy Cooper)

Further price drop expected

Toowoomba-based greengrocer Bevan Betros said prices had halved in recent weeks.

“I think we can afford to eat iceberg lettuce again … they are a good size, they’ve got a bit of weight in them — they’re very good value again,” Mr Betros said.

He said prices would remain stable over the coming weeks.

“I don’t think they’ll get much cheaper just for the next week or two.

“There may be some gaps in the plantings due to the floods and what people were able to do when they could get on and off their property.”

Man stars at camera with shopping shelves behind him
Greengrocer Bevan Betros expects iceberg lettuce to drop to about $2 by September. (ABC News: David Chen)

Mr Betros said he expected prices would continue to fall heading into October.

“They’ll get back down as the warm weather comes on, as we get into spring.

“We should be getting down under $2 again, hopefully in September.”

Iceberg lettuce on shelf in supermarket with a price of $6.20
Iceberg lettuce has fluctuated from $1.50 a head to $12 and is now $6 a head. (ABC News: David Chen)

But don’t get used to it

Despite lettuce production returning to normal, shoppers are being warned not to get used to low prices.

Director of Coastal Hydroponics on the Gold Coast and Growcom chairwoman Belinda Frentz said a price reduction would likely be short term.

“We’ll start seeing the prices of most leafies coming back to what we would expect to be a normal sort of price,” Ms Frentz said.

Woman stands with arms crossed and lettuce growing behind her
Growcom chair Belinda Frentz says production is almost at full capacity. (ABC News: Steve Keen)

“Obviously we’ve got input cost pressures that are having a significant impact on businesses and recouping costs and seeing prices sort of not leveling out — there’s going to be some increases.”

Ms Frentz said farmers were still dealing with high labour, fuel and fertilizer costs.

“Growers are being hit in every pocket that they’ve got.”

Is there a right price?

While prices have dropped, growers want them to remain at levels where their businesses can survive.

“If we get down to $1.50 for retail lettuce that’s not going to be sustainable for too long,” Mr Moss said.

“You know, fuel levies are up 20 to 25 per cent, fertilizer prices are up another 25 to 30 per cent and diesel is up another 30 to 40 per cent, so our product needs to be up around 30 to 40 per cent,” he said.

Hand holds a plastic packaged cos lettuce
Lockyer Valley growers supply the key markets of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.(Rural ABC: Lucy Cooper)

Ms Frentz hoped the severity of the losses endured by farmers during the floods would demonstrate to consumers how exposed the industry was.

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Categories
US

More human remains are found in receding reservoir near Las Vegas

More human remains are found in receding reservoir near Las Vegas

A formerly sunken boat is currently stuck nearly upright in a now-dry section of lakebed at the drought-stricken Lake Mead on June 23, 2022 in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada. The US

Mario Tama | Getty Images

Lake Mead, a federal park as well as the country’s largest reservoir, has unveiled yet more secrets as human remains were discovered at Swim Beach on Saturday, officials said.

The find was reported in the late morning at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, the National Park Service said in a statement. Park rangers cordoned off the area while Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department divers helped with recovery, it said.

It was the fourth time since May possibly decades-old remains have been reported at the lake located in Arizona and Nevada 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas. The discoveries include the following:

  • May 1: Remains were found in a barrel. A victim had suffered a gunshot wound and his or her demise might be dated to the 1970s or early ’80s based on clothing, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said.
  • May 7: Remains were found in another barrel discovered along a shoreline, officials said.
  • July 25: Remains were reported at Swim Beach.

The Clark County Medical Examiner is responsible for determining identities, where possible, and cause of death.

A July 6 discovery of remains near the reservoir’s Bolder Islands turned out to be the body of a woman who had gone missing after she fell off a jet ski June 30, authorities said.

Authorities and experts say the four discoveries of possibly much older remains could be the result of the lake’s receding waterline, which has dropped its telltale white “bathtub ring,” made of drying minerals, more than 170 feet since 1983. The reservoir is at about one-quarter of its capacity.

In May, the Southern Nevada Water Authority announced that one of its water supply intakes was exposed to the lake’s descending surface and could no longer be used to draw liquid. The authority said it had long planned for the event, and had a deeper intake ready to take over.

Nearly continuous drought in major regions of the West and Southwest has plagued the Colorado River since at least the dawn of the millennium. Other symptoms have included the mighty Colorado’s longtime failure to reach the Gulf of California until last year, when a binational agreement put water back in Mexico’s delta.

The growing Southwest’s dependence on the Colorado River — which feeds taps and helps grow food for an estimated 33 million people — has also played a role in the lake’s shrinking presence. Last year the federal government announced mandatory water cuts for the seven states that use the Colorado.

In June, Lake Mead’s surface elevation was measured at 1,044.03 feet, its lowest since the lake was filled in the 1930s. In July, that number was bested by a new low: 1040.92 feet.

Some observers have speculated that the lake could reveal some long-held secrets buried by mobsters who killed for power and money in Las Vegas in the decades following World War II.

Historian and Mob Museum Vice President Geoff Schumacher told NBC News affiliate KNSV of Las Vegas that it was unlikely the mob would dump bodies so close to town because it was averse the kind of publicity and law enforcement attention that might have created.

“The mob doesn’t want murder victims to be found in the city because it creates bad publicity in a tourist town,” he told the station in July.

However, Schumacher said in May a body in barrel is a different story.

“A barrel has a signature of a mob hit,” he said. “Stuffing a body in a barrel. Sometimes they would dump it in the water.”

Lake Mead was created by Hoover Dam, completed in 1935 and officially opened the next year. It held up the Colorado River’s flow through Black Canyon and pushed water into four basins that can help it hold two years’ worth of the river’s flow.

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Categories
Australia

‘Disgusting’: Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi slams former prime minister Paul Keating’s attack on Adam Bandt

'Disgusting': Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi slams former prime minister Paul Keating's attack on Adam Bandt

Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi has labeled comments made by former prime minister Paul Keating about Adam Bandt as “disgusting” and “disappointing”.

Mr Keating dubbed Mr Bandt a “bounder” and a “distorter of political truth” after the Greens leader said Labor is a “Neoliberal” party during a National Press Club address on Wednesday.

Senator Faruqi came to the defense of her leader and supported his comments about the characterization that Labor has become more “neoliberal” over time.

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“I think the attacks on Adam’s character like this are frankly pretty disgusting and disappointing,” she told the ABC on Thursday.

“There is no doubt that over the last three or four decades Labor have adopted neoliberalism.”

Mr Keating ridiculed Mr Bandt’s assertions, pointing to a range of “mammoth changes”, including Medicare and compulsory superannuation, enacted under Labor.

“How could any reasonable person describe the universality of Medicare as an exercise in conservative neoliberalism,” Mr Keating told Nine newspapers.

“Or providing the whole Australian community, every working person, with mandated capital savings leading to substantial superannuation assets and retirement incomes.

“How could any reasonable person describe these mammoth changes as ‘neoliberalism’, a word associated with the likes of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

“And more than that, the world’s leading system of minimum award rates of pay, a safety net superintended by the Fair Work Commission – a Keating government creation. Again, hardly an exercise in neoliberalism.

“But Bandt is a bounder and a distorter of political truth.”

Mr Bandt confirmed his party’s support of the Climate Change Bill – which enshrines its emissions reduction target of 43 per cent by 2030 and net zero by 2050 into law – during the National Press Club address.

However, he said the Greens would still challenge the government to end fossil fuel production.

“To be crystal clear, the Greens have improved a weak climate bill,” Mr Bandt said during on Wednesday afternoon.

The Greens had initially threatened to block the bill over the “weak” 43 per cent 2030 emissions reduction target and concerns that it could be ratcheted back by future governments.

Labor then amended the bill to clearly enshrine the 43 per cent target as a floor – or a minimum requirement -rather than a ceiling to higher goals, but the Greens continued to steadfastly refuse to support the legislation if it failed to act on coal and gas .

Ms Faruqi flagged their support for the legislation showed it can still work with the government despite having differing opinions.

“We clearly have disagreements with Labor and a whole range of policies but we have shown that we want to work in good faith the way we can and our negotiations on this bill are a prime example of that,” she continued.

“It has now improved with the genuine floor, which means that the target cannot go backwards.”

The bill will be sent to the Senate where it is now expected to pass when Parliament returns in September.

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Categories
Australia

Great Barrier Reef coral cover at record levels after mass-bleaching events, report shows

An underwater shot showing a scientist wearing a snorkel, holding a tow bar, and floating over a large expanse of corals.

Record coral cover is being seen across much of the Great Barrier Reef as it recovers from past storms and mass-bleaching events. But the new coral taking over is leaving the reef more vulnerable to future devastating impacts, according to the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS).

AIMS’ 36-year Long-Term Monitoring Program has seen continued dramatic improvement in coral cover in the northern and central sections of the reef, following a period without intense disturbances.

The results come off the back of mass coral bleaching events that have happened at an unprecedented frequency — four out of six occurred in the last seven years. Mass bleaching, caused by marine heatwaves, was not known to occur at all prior to 1998.

When the water gets too hot, the algae that live inside the coral and provide it with most of its energy is expelled. If it remains too hot for too long, the coral stars and dies.

“The 2020 and 2022 bleaching events, while extensive, didn’t reach the intensity of the 2016 and 2017 events and, as a result, we have seen less mortality,” AIMS chief executive Paul Hardisty said.

“These latest results demonstrate the reef can still recover in periods free of intense disturbances.”

Line graphs show coral cover in the northern and central Great Barrier Reef declined after 2012, but increased after 2020.
The percentage of coral cover in the northern and central Great Barrier Reef has increased.(Supplied: Australian Institute of Marine Science)

Eighty-seven reefs were surveyed between August 2021 and March 2022 as part of the report, which showed cover in the north increased from 27 per cent to 36 per cent, and from 26 per cent to 33 per cent in the central section.

That recovery has led to the highest-ever coral cover the Long-Term Monitoring Program has recorded in those sections, which begin north of Mackay.

But Dr Hardisty said the frequent bleaching showed how vulnerable the reef remained.

Despite the good news, the southern section, which extends from the Whitsundays down past the Keppel group of islands, has seen a small reduction in coral cover largely due to an ongoing outbreak of coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish.

Some thick, spiky red crown-of-thorns starfish are seen crawling around branches of white coral.
Crown-of-thorns starfish (seen in the front) continue to decimate coral reefs.(Supplied: Australian Institute of Marine Science)

“This shows how vulnerable the reef is to the continued acute and severe disturbances that are occurring more often, and are longer lasting,” Dr Hardisty said.

But even the southern section of the reef remains in relatively good health, with 34 per cent coral cover, a reduction from a recent peak of 37 per cent in 2017.

Increased coral cover could come at a cost

The rapid growth in coral cover appears to have come at the expense of the diversity of coral on the reef, with most of the increases accounted for by fast-growing branching coral called acropora.

Those corals grow quickly after disturbances but are very easily destroyed by storms, heatwaves and crown-of-thorns starfish. By increasing the dominance of those corals, the reef can become more vulnerable.

Colorful little fish swim among a variety of healthy-looking corals on the Great Barrier Reef.
Acropora corals have proliferated across much of the northern and central parts of the reef.(Supplied: Australian Institute of Marine Science)

It is a point acknowledged by Jodie Rummer, a marine biologist at James Cook University in Townsville.

“While it’s great to see increases in coral cover of a particular species, we can’t ignore that the diversity is really what we need to emphasise, and that’s going to be key to a healthy ecosystem over the longer term,” Professor Rummer said .

“While one species might be fast growing and repopulating very quickly, that also might be the most susceptible to some of the stressors that the Great Barrier Reef has faced over and over and over again over the past decade.”

Mike Emslie wearing an Australian Institute of Marine Science T-shirt, and smiling in a portrait taken near the ocean.
Mike Emslie says Acropora corals are vulnerable to wave damage and bleaching.(Supplied: Australian Institute of Marine Science/Marie Roman)

Senior research scientist Mike Emslie, who leads the AIMS Long Term-Monitoring Program, agreed the news was mixed when it came to acropora.

“These corals are particularly vulnerable to wave damage, like that generated by strong winds and tropical cyclones,” Dr Emslie said.

“They are also highly susceptible to coral bleaching, when water temperatures reach elevated levels, and are the preferred prey for crown-of-thorns starfish.

“This means that large increases in hard coral cover can quickly be negated by disturbances on reefs where acropora corals predominate.”

Reef remains in danger from rising temperatures

Around the world, coral reefs face a grim future unless urgent action is taken to drastically halt man-made global warming.

In 2018, the United Nations released a report warning that coral reefs worldwide were projected to decline by up to 90 per cent even if warming was capped at 1.5 degrees Celsius.

On a shelf of coral, some corals are a stark white colour.
In February 2022, various types of corals experienced bleaching, pictured here in the central part of the reef.(Supplied: Australian Institute of Marine Science)

Great Barrier Reef campaigner with the Australian Marine Conservation Society Cherry Muddle said while the findings were promising, the reef remained in danger.

“The fact remains that unless fossil-fuel emissions are drastically cut, the reef remains in danger from rising temperatures and more mass bleaching events,” she said.

“In the wake of the State of the Environment report, which showed Australian inshore reefs were in a poor and deteriorating condition due to climate- and water-pollution pressures, it is more important than ever that we ensure urgent action is taken to address all threats to the reef.”

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Categories
Technology

New Study Offers a Surprising Timeline For Earth’s Sixth Mass Extinction

New Study Offers a Surprising Timeline For Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction

A climate scientist at Tohoku University in Japan has run the numbers and does not think today’s mass extinction event will equal that of the previous five. At least not for many more centuries to come.

On more than one occasion over the past 540 million years, Earth has lost most of its species in a relatively short geologic time span.

These are known as mass extinction events, and they often follow closely on the heels of climate change, whether it be from extreme warming or extreme cooling, triggered by asteroids or volcanic activity.

When Kunio Kaiho tried to quantify the stability of Earth’s average surface temperature and the planet’s biodiversity, he found a largely linear effect. The greater the temperature change, the greater the extent of extinction.

For global cooling events, the greatest mass extinctions occurred when temperatures fell by about 7°C. But for global warming events, Kaiho found the greatest mass extinctions occurred at roughly 9°C warming.

That’s much higher than previous estimates, which suggest a temperature of 5.2°C would result in a major marine mass extinction, on par with the previous ‘big five’.

To put that in perspective, by the end of the century, modern global warming is on track to increase surface temperatures by as much as 4.4°C.

“The 9°C global warming will not appear in the Anthropocene at least till 2500 under the worst scenario,” Kaiho predicts.

Kaiho is not denying that many extinctions on land and in the sea are already occurring because of climate change; he just does not expect the same proportion of losses as before.

Still, it’s not just the degree of climate change that puts species at risk. The speed at which it occurs is vitally important.

The largest mass extinction event on Earth killed off 95 percent of known species at the time and occurred over 60,000 years about 250 million years ago. But today’s warming is occurring on a much shorter timescale thanks to human emissions of fossil fuels.

Perhaps more species will die off in Earth’s sixth extinction event not because the magnitude of warming is so great, but because the changes happened so quickly that many species could not adapt.

“Prediction of the future anthropogenic extinction magnitude using only surface temperature is difficult because the causes of the anthropogenic extinction differ from causes of mass extinctions in geological time,” Kaihu admits.

Whichever way scientists slice up the data, it’s clear that many species are doomed unless we can halt climate change.

The exact percentage of losses and the timing of those losses remains up for debate.

The study was published in biogeosciences.

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