The third set of six biodiversity cartoons for 2018. See full stock of previous ‘Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss’ compendia here.
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Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss XLVIII
26 04 2018
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Tags: alien species, biodiversity, clean coal, climate change, Coal, ecr, energy, environment, Global warming, postdoc, religion, science, sustainability
Categories : biowealth, cartoon, conservation, environmental policy
Inaugural Environmental Arsehat of the Year
9 01 2017
As you recall, I asked both for your nominations and your votes for the inaugural Environmental Arsehat of the Year. Nominees could be a person or an entity who stood out in 2016 for his/her/their egregious attacks on environmental integrity. There were many fine nominations, and so now I’m elated to announce the results of the voting. Drumroll …
In 4th place with 13.7% of the votes, Matt Ridley. He is Conservative hereditary peer in the British House of Lords, and a flack for the coal industry who has championed global-warming denialism.
In 3rd place with 14.9% of the votes, Gautam Adani. The multibillionaire is a major coal baron in India and elswhere who has made a lot of splash recently in Australia for trying to build the biggest coal mine in the world that will likely finish off the Great Barrier Reef once and for all. Nice one, Gautam.
In 2nd place with 17.7% of the votes, The Liberal-National Party of Queensland. The (former) State Government ushered Queensland into 2016 by making the state one of the world’s deforestation hotspots, yet again!
And now, for the winner with a whopping 30.3% of the popular vote; please put your virtual hands together for the 2016 Environmental Arsehat of the Year … Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: climate change, Coal, deforestation, denialism, environmental degradation, environmental destruction, flack
Categories : conservation
Vote for the 2016 Environmental Arsehat of the Year
20 12 2016
In March 2016 I requested nominations for the Environmental Arsehat of the Year, and you happily complied by providing many excellent suggestions.
I now request that you vote on these nominations using the polling widget that follows a brief description of each nominee and why they’ve been suggested by the CB.com community. Once the votes are tallied, I’ll post the ‘winner’ (loser) in a new post in early 2017. Happy voting!
The nominations (in no particular order)
- Dennis Lowe, Barbados Minister of Environment and Drainage: Nominated for intentionally destroying the last mangrove on the island. Despite being privately protected and offered for donation to the national park system, the Minister would prefer to destroy the wetland by preventing inflow of saltwater and dumping raw sewage into it.
- The Norwegian Government approved wolf shooting in that country, with more than 11,000 Norwegian hunters lining up for shooting permits. In Norway, sheep run free everywhere and farmers strongly refuse to use electrified paddocks.
- Matt Ridley has a PhD and is a popular science writer. He is also a fervent climate change denialist (writing for the Times and guesting elsewhere). He preaches a brand of conservation optimism and neoliberalism that is not borne out by facts.
- Greg Hunt, former Australian Minister of the Environment, for rolling back environmental protection in Australia by decades, and actually believing that he did a great job.
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Tags: arsehat, clearing, Coal, deforestation, energy, environment, governance, government, nuclear energy, policy, pollution, shooting, wolves
Categories : conservation
Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss XXXVIII
25 08 2016Another six biodiversity cartoons for your midday chuckle & groan. There’s even one in there that takes the mickey out of some of my own research (see if you can figure out which one). See full stock of previous ‘Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss’ compendia here.
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Tags: biodiversity, climate change, Coal, ecosystem services, extinction, Global warming, politics, Population, science, science denial, trophy hunting
Categories : cartoon, conservation, ecosystem function, ecosystem services, environmental policy, science
Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss XXXIV
14 01 2016Another six biodiversity cartoons for you this week. You might have asked yourself ‘Why six?’ — the number 6 is, of course, the smallest perfect number (i.e., the sum of its aliquot divisors is equal to the number itself: 1 + 2 + 3 = 6), and as a result, my favourite (geek). See full stock of previous ‘Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss’ compendia here.
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Tags: biodiversity, biodiversity cartoons, cartoon, cartoons, climate change, Coal, denialism, Economics, wildlife
Categories : deforestation, development, environmental policy, governance
Australia’s motto: “Screw the environment!”
2 09 2015
Mmmmm! I love coal!
An article originally posted on ALERT by April Reside (with permission to reproduce).
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The Conservative Tony Abbott government in Australia is proposing alarming changes to Australia’s Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act 1999 — a remarkable move that would prevent environment groups from challenging many damaging development projects.
This has all come to a head over the Carmichael Coal Mine — a plan to build a massive mine in central Queensland in order to export 60 million of tonnes of coal to India each year.
Coal, of course, is the dirtiest of all fossil fuels, and India’s plan to burn it by the shipload for electricity is bad news for the planet.
The Abbott government is in a tizzy after after a community organization, the Mackay Conservation Group, challenged the approval of the Carmichael Mine in Australia’s Federal Court.
The community group says Environment Minister Greg Hunt didn’t properly consider the impact the mine would have on two threatened species, the yakka skink and ornamental snake.
The mine site also sustains the largest population of the southern subspecies of the black-throated Finch, which is endangered.
The implications of the mega-mine go well beyond a few imperilled species. If the mine goes ahead, it will be one of the biggest in the world — and the emissions from burning its mountains of coal would cancel out all gains made from Australia’s current emissions-reduction strategy.
On top of the frightening precedent it would set, the Abbott government appears to be double-dealing. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Abbottoir, Adani Group, Australia, Carmichael Coal Mine, climate change, Coal, coal mining, Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, EPBC, Global warming, greenhouse gases, Greg Hunt, Mackay Conservation Group, Queensland, The Coalition, Tony Abbott
Categories : Australia, carbon, climate change
It’s time for environmentalists to give nuclear a fair go
16 12 2014This is an article by Barry Brook and me, published today in The Conversation. I’m republishing it here.
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Should nuclear energy be part of Australia’s (and many other countries’) future energy mix? We think so, particularly as part of a solution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent dangerous climate change.
But there are other reasons for supporting nuclear technology. In a paper recently published in Conservation Biology, we show that an energy mix including nuclear power has lowest impact on wildlife and ecosystems — which is what we need given the dire state of the world’s biodiversity.
In response, we have gathered signatures of 70 leading conservation scientists from 14 countries in an open letter asking that the environmental community:
weigh up the pros and cons of different energy sources using objective evidence and pragmatic trade-offs, rather than simply relying on idealistic perceptions of what is ‘green’.
Energy demand is rising
Modern society is a ceaseless consumer of energy, and growing demand won’t stop any time soon, even under the most optimistic energy-efficiency scenario.
Although it goes without saying that we must continue to improve energy efficiency in the developed world, the momentum of population growth and rising living standards, particularly in the developing world, means we will continue to need more energy for decades to come. No amount of wishful thinking for reduced demand will change that.
But which are the best forms of energy to supply the world, and not add to the biodiversity crisis?
Assessing our energy options
In short, the argument goes like this.
To avoid the worst ravages of climate change, we have to decarbonise fully (eliminate net carbon emissions from) the global electricity sector. Wildlife and ecosystems are threatened by this climate disruption, largely caused by fossil-fuel derived emissions.
But they are also imperilled by land transformation (i.e., habitat loss) caused in part by other energy sources, such as flooded areas (usually forests) for hydro-electricity and all the associated road development this entails, agricultural areas needed for biofuels, and large spaces needed for wind and solar farms.
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Tags: climate change, Coal, conservation biology, ecology, Economics, electricity, Emissions, energy, finance, fossil fuels, geothermal, green, hydro-electricity, IPCC, land use, nuclear energy, nuclear fission, power, safety, solar photovoltaic, wind
Categories : conservation
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