Hot change for Arabunna people of Lake Eyre facing climate change

New research from the University of Adelaide has highlighted the challenges facing the Arabunna people in the north of south Australia who face increased temperatures and a drier climate with global warming that will impact their traditional culture and lifestyle. The traditional Arabunna lands include the Lake Eyre region and also cover the giant Roxby Downs BHP uranium mine.

There will be a doubling of days above 40 degrees celsius by the 2070s with increases of 5 degrees and more. Such change will effect the fragile desert ecosystems and greatly impact the availability of bush tucker and the wellbeing of sacred sites.

Rally in Melbourne against Baillieu new coal plans and to stop HRL coal power station

June 28, 2012: Up to 300 People gathered on the steps of the Victorian Parliament house to show opposition to new coal projects which would destroy prime farmland and triple Victoria's contribution to greenhouse pollution.

Residents from Bacchus Marsh and south Gippsland attended to show their opposition to new coal mining projects and plans to use an experimental drying technology by Exergen to open up further mining and the export of brown coal.

Related: Latrobe Valley Coal Power and Climate Change | Carbon capture and storage and the Melbourne earthquake | No coal mine in Bacchus Marsh - locals and activists halt exploratory drilling

Latrobe Valley Coal power and Climate change

The flooding of the Yallourn coal mine since June 5 raises serious issues about energy security in Victoria facing a changing climate and the unwillingness of the Victorian Government to take the hard decisions in diversifying power generation to renewables.

Environment Victoria on Friday 22 June called for an independent investigation into the ongoing problems at the Yallourn mine. The open cut coal mine provides coal to the TRUenergy owned Yallourn power station via conveyor belts. The power station provides 22 per cent of Victoria's electricity, and the mine flooding and disruption to the conveyor belts has reduced power generation capacity by 75 per cent to just one unit operating since June 6 with a small stockpile of coal.

California coast to be hit hard by sea level rise with climate change

A US National Research Council report released June 22 concluded that average global sea level is likely to rise two to three times higher within this century than previously estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007, with the US west coast being particularly affected at greater than the global average for sea level rise.

The study confirms that sea level rise is accelerating and is in accord with other recent studies estimating global sea level rise at a metre or more by the end of the century, with the melting of land ice now the largest component of global sea-level rise (about 65%). Scientists say that Global Warming means 20 Metre sea level rise is in the pipeline.

Related: Sea Level Rise and Australia | The risks of Sea Level Change - Dr Peter Ward | Scientists Estimate Sea level Rise for next 500 years

Carbon capture and storage and the Melbourne Earthquake

Melbourne: Did the earth move for you last night? It did for me. Melbourne experienced one of the strongest earthquakes for many many years. Now consider what it might do if we had a couple of billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) geo-sequested beneath Southern Victoria and under Bass Strait. Because that is what Premier Ted Baillieu and Federal Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson have planned.

Update: Related article from theConversation: Earthquakes and mining – how humans create seismic activity

Sea level rise hidden impact on Biodiversity and Habitat loss

A new scientific study published in Global Change Biology raises alarm bells about global climate change and the secondary impact of sea level rise on habitat loss and species biodiversity, especially in the Asian and Pacific regions.

We already know that Climate change and habitat loss threaten biodiversity with the extinction rate underestimated and that Biodiversity is a crucial climate change buffer for ecosystem and cultural diversity. Scientists have warned that biodiversity is declining rapidly throughout the world, describing the loss of species as the 6th mass extinction event on the earth. Tropical insects may already be an extreme risk of extinction with just moderate increases in temperature. Now the secondary effects of sea level rise could also have a devastating impact on biodiversity.

Moreland Residents urge Replacing Hazelwood with clean energy

Local Moreland residents presented a signed letter to Federal MP Kelvin Thomson urging the Federal Government to conclude negotiations to replace Hazelwood coal fired power station with clean energy. I attended from Sustainable Fawkner and photographed the event.

Forest soil carbon release a vicious Global Warming feedback loop say researchers

Global warming is likely to accelerate release of forest soil carbon say researchers. This is another climate feedback loop. Rising temperatures are likely to accelerate forest soil carbon decomposition leading to more CO2 released into the atmosphere, compounding global warming. Rather than these forests acting as a carbon sink, warmer temperatures may make them a major source of greenhouse gas emissions further contributing to global warming warn the researchers.

"Our results suggest that large stores of carbon that built up over the last century as forests recovered will erode with rising temperatures," said Susan Trumbore of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry and University of California at Irvine (UCI), who led the research team.