Climate change and the consumer - news

Have you seen some news about climate change that will have an impact on the consumer? You can post it here, or start a separate topic for a more detailed discussion.

Just a note, this topic is not for debating the existence of climate change, just for discussing the potential effects that climate change will have on the consumer.

7 Likes

Article on the ABC site about very likely food price increases in the coming months due to the lack of water:

This will put greater pressure on many household budgets. Something not really said but easily implied from the lack of water is the strong possibility of water rationing in our towns & cities also due to the lack of water across many areas.

8 Likes

While this CSIRO report is 5 years old, much of fhe information is still relevant today…

Climate adaptation: what it means for Australian consumers

6 Likes

An article regarding a segment of today’s episode of Landline.

The program was probably the best episode of Landline I have ever seen and showed just what enterprising and forward thinking Australian farmers are planning and achieving in the face of climate change.

For anyone interested in food security in the face of global warning, I highly recommend watching it on ABC iview.

5 Likes

When the old is new again. Fallowing of paddocks was very old school as was manuring, this includes green manuring ie ploughing plant growth back in to the soil, to increase the organic content of the soil. What broadacre year long cropping removed was the time to allow natural rejuvenation of soils so fertilisers became much more widely used. With our natural low phosphorus levels to grow mainstream crops we have have also needed to place phosphorus into the soils to get the improved growth we require from our crops. I applaud the farmer for his inventive nature to design the machine but as I noted carbonising the soil was very old practice eg the Sth American Black Soil known as Terra preta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta (they are said to regenerate themselves at a rate of about 1cm a year).

7 Likes

The full episode is available on iview:

There’s quite a lot in it. Worth an hour of your time.

7 Likes

13 posts were split to a new topic: Fires in QLD

An article regarding a now dormant committee that the Federal Government had formed to examine the fallout of climate change and a comment that private enterprise is much more active in this regard.

4 Likes

It appears some of those results from the wargaming scenarios may be coming to fruition. We still don’t know what they are but from the article we can assume that fire, outbreaks of disease, loss of water resources & civil unrest would have been included.

5 Likes

It appears that we will have a chickpea shortage due to the drought, but one farmer is adapting:

6 Likes

An article regarding farmers demanding action on climate change.

The farmers are probably the worst affected group in Australia but they are not giving up.

5 Likes

An article regarding the damage to the Iron Range National Park on Cape York.

Whilst the damage is very disappointing to read about, one has to wonder whether anyone actually checks news articles for accuracy when one sees puerile claims like this.

"## Unique and endangered animals struggle

The Iron Range (Kutini-Payamu) hosts a number of plant and animal species found nowhere else in Australia, including the ecletcus parrot, the green tree python, and the palm cockatoo."

So much for accuracy, even on the ABC News website.

Interestingly, the Electus Parrot is the only species of birds that I am aware of where the female is more striking than the male.

1 Like

At last a good news article regarding climate change.

Now for the rest of the problems.

1 Like

The link between the CFC ban and climate change is only quite small. CFCs are long-lived greenhouse gases but the amounts were never going to have much impact on climate change compared to other pollutants. Far and away the main reason to ban CFCs is to prevent (and through allowing natural repair processes) to reverse ozone depletion which was heading towards exposing the world to dangerous doses of UV radiation.

My purpose is not to nitpick but to avoid this being counted as international action on climate change. With the possible exception of some rebellious manufacturers in China the CFC ban has been a great example of effective international cooperation - unlike climate change.

6 Likes

The three species related in the story do seem confined to the Cape York area of Australia and nowhere else within Australia. They are present in other countries but the article specifically said “nowhere else in Australia”. The parrot from the included links is vulnerable to nest destruction from the fires and as with the others could be harshly impacted by the fires. While their extinction worldwide may not be under as great a threat the threat in Australia would seem a higher risk with the drying conditions that increase the damage and chances of fire on their habitat.

2 Likes

Linked from my post in the topic on Food Security

3 Likes

A letter written about the Student Climate Strike by a School Principal that supports the strike, well worth the read:

Australia has been banned from speaking at the UN Climate Change summit because we are failing to take action on having a clear Climate Change action plan and we support the use of Coal.

Our foreign minister will be attending to listen but will not be allowed to present a speech. To read an article about this matter see:

2 Likes

This might belong on the electricity prices thread. An open-access tool for examining power network options.
http://www.opencem.org.au/

2 Likes

An article by Joëlle Gergis who is a climate scientist on the IPCC as one of the dozen or so Australian lead authors on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) sixth assessment report due in 2021.

It is a very hard read to digest with the very real threats we face:

4 Likes

The Science Advisory Group to the UN Climate Action Summit 2019 has released a report on the latest climate science and like the article I posted before by Joëlle Gergis this report warns of faster climate change & the increasing risks of carbon based fuel usage.

The report advises we need to take very hard action now to limit the global temp change to 2.0 °C and extremely hard action to limitit to 1.5 °C.

The impacts on many facets of our lives are being felt right now worldwide, hopefully we start really addressing the problems now rather than talking about it.

5 Likes