Oregon residents Sound the Alarm on coal dust, coal export and climate change

Oregonians rallied on the steps of the State Capital in Salem on Wednesday 13 March to protest Australian company Ambre Energy's Morrow Pacific coal export project which would transport 8 million metric tonnes of coal annually by rail and barge down the Columbia river destined to be burnt in China, with the pollution returning by prevailing winds to the US and Canada.

Columbia Riverkeeper reported on their facebook page that 425 people attended the midweek rally in Salem to stop coal export. See pictures of the rally on Demotix. You can read more about the fight to stop coal export from the Pacific Northwest at Power Past Coal.

The fight against coal export is an international one. Newcastle residents in New South Wales, Australia are fighting against the T4 coal loader being built to expand coal export from the world's biggest coal port. It is the same fight to stop King Coal in Australia and in the United States. One of the three companies keen to export coal from the Powder River basin is Ambre Energy, a Queensland based company.

Coal dust and climate change: Newcastle residents march against proposed T4 coal loader

Up to 1500 people attended a rally in Newcastle today in opposition to a fourth coal loading terminal being built. Gathering at Customs house at 10am, people marched to Civic Park, chanting 'our water, our health, more precious than your wealth' and 'one two three four, no to T4'. Protestors are concerned with the impact of coal mining on agriculture and water resources, coal dust pollution risks to public health, environmental concerns, and contribution to global climate change.

Related: Photos on Flickr

My favourite photo from the protest is a placard saying "The reason you want another coal terminal is that you are fucking Greedy" which perhaps states the obvious...but sometimes the obvious needs to be put in such blunt terms. Already China is indicating it wants to cap it's coal consumption to 4 billion tonnes per year, not much higher than it's current consumption. Much of the recent coal expansion in NSW and Queensland, and the development of other unconventional fossil fuels like CSG, has been driven by the increasing prospect of restrictions placed on fossil fuel extraction due to carbon emissions and the threat of global warming. These companies want to rip as much as they can out to make their profits before community outrage forces them to stop.

The decision by Metgasco to stop exploratory drilling in the Northern Rivers region last week was a massive victory and came after strong community outrage with protests, blockading and numerous arrests during civil disobedience by community members. Much of the community resistance has been co-ordinated by the Lock the Gate Alliance. Another victory was had when the Federal Government announced a water trigger to the EPBC Act as a reform to coal and gas mining and development

And so this Newcastle rally was organised by the Coal Terminal Action Group, an alliance of 17 community groups in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley.

Speakers at the rally at the end of the march included former farmer John Kaye, Brett Holmes from the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association, Associate Professor Nick Higginbotham, Bev Smiles from the Upper Hunter community,

John Kaye said that communities must come before coal and that sustainable planning should look to the long term, not the short term, to preserve arable land and water resources in the Hunter Valley for agriculture rather than allowing massive coal mining development.

Greens propose boost to funding for Antarctic and Southern Ocean Marine Research

Hobart as an important scientific hub and gateway for Antarctic and Southern Ocean marine research, not only for Australia but for other national scientific expeditions. That is the vision of a new policy initiative launched by the Greens today to boost the research and logistics capacity of Australian Antarctic, climate and marine scientists based in Hobart.

Tasmania presently hosts the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-operative Research centre (ACE CRC) , the Australian Antarctic Division, along with CSIRO's Division of Marine and Atmospheric Research. But funding for the ACE CRC will come to an end in the next year. The University of Tasmania, CSIRO and ACE CRC are currently working on a proposal for a new Antarctic research organisation.

Antarctica and the Southern Ocean influence the regional and global climate and in this period of climate change understanding the mechanisms and changes taking place will provide valuable information for climate adaptation. Temperatures are increasing at 3 times the global average on West Antarctica, ice streams are accelerating ice mass loss with the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet a real possibility in the decades and centuries ahead. The Southern ocean is warming and freshening at a much faster rate than the global ocean. The food web in the southern ocean is changing with Penguin numbers suffering with krill decline due to Global Warming

Melbourne heatwave a sizzling autumn end to an angry summer

Melbourne is setting another temperature record: the longest number of days of any month where the maximum temperature exceeds 30 degrees Celsius.

Monday was the 8th consecutive day of above 30C heat with a forecast of at least two more days of temperatures in the mid 30s. That will make 10 continuous days before a cool change is expected late on Wednesday brings down temperatures to a milder high 20s.

The previous record for any month was 8 continuous days set in February 1961. For the month of March, seven consecutive days above 30C is the record set in 1995.

The average temperature in Melbourne during March is 23.9C. The hottest March on record was 1940 with an average of 28.9C which we may well be on track to exceed this year.

And if you were tossing and turning in bed due to the heat, here is the reason: Melbourne experienced it's warmest March night on record on Tuesday night (12/3) according to a news report. Temperatures fell to a minimum of 26.5 degrees. The previous record was a minimum of 26.3 degrees set back in 1927.

Yes - the long term trend just keeps getting hotter. But we have had autumn heat waves before, they just weren't as long.

Related: The Bureau of Meteorology have issued a special climate statement on the Autumn heatwave: A prolonged autumn heatwave for southeast Australia (PDF) The statement was issued 15th of March 2013

Whitehaven Tarrawonga coal mine disrupted by protest

Frontline Action on Coal in the Leard State Forest claimed today that production at Whitehaven's Tarrawonga coal mine was disrupted due to a protester sitting on a tree platform with ropes attached to the front gate. Another twenty people supported the protestor.

The person up the tree was Jonathon Moylan who issued the ANZ hoax letter in January to garner attention on ANZ Bank financing to the tune of $1.2billion the Maule Creek coal mine.

The group claimed in a media release that all coal output and worker access to Whitehaven's Tarrawonga Mine this morning has been stopped. According to a report in the Herald a spokesperson for Whitehaven said that haulage of coal to the company's coal preparation plant had been stopped but production inside the mine had continued normally.

Front Line Action on Coal is one of the many community groups backing the "Call to Country" campaign by the Lock the Gate Alliance, calling for a federal moratorium on new coal and coal-seam gas projects and a Royal Commission into state government coal mine approval processes.

South American Lizards facing extinction due to climate change

Lizards are again in the news as being under threat from climate change. No, not those two footed political lizards we call politicians, who we elect again and again and who continue to support the corporate greed and short-sightedness of ripping the heart out of mother earth, destroying the environment and climate through subsidizing increasingly expensive fossil fuel extraction. We should be definitely trying to make them extinct. I am talking about four footed reptilian lizards who have evolved live birth as an evolutionary adaptation to living in cold climates. These are South American lizards who have successful adapted to a wide range of ecosystems.

I reported in May 2010 on the challenges facing lizards with climate change in "Why don't the people get rid of the lizards?". We are doing a very good job of driving the four footed reptilian lizards to extinction. Scientists estimate that "by 2080 local extinctions are projected to reach 39% worldwide, and species extinctions may reach 20%.". The 2010 scientific paper - Erosion of Lizard Diversity by Climate Change and Altered Thermal Niches - came to the conclusion that "lizards have already crossed a threshold for extinctions caused by climate change."

Reversing Victoria's anti-Wind Farm regulation could boost regional development

Victoria has a new Premier with Ted Baillieu falling on his own sword, with Denis Napthine, the member for South West Coast, being appointed into the role of Premier of Victoria. Just in time as new economic statistics show that the Victorian economy is in recession. Restoring sanity to planning regulations for wind farm development could boost regional development and the Government's very low environmental credentials as it faces re-election in 2014.

Related: Petition - Let's get Victoria back on track: clean energy, protect our farms

Update 14 March 2013: Sadly, Denis Napthine in conversation with Jon Faine on ABC Radio 774 Melbourne on 14 March scotched the prospect of reversing the anti-wind farm planning regulations as breaking a promise from last election in 2010. I don't know what that has to do with it, as the coalition Government has already broken several environmental policy promises as well as policies on maintaining TAFE and increasing salaries of teachers.

Friends of the Earth have highlighted one small policy change that could make a substantial difference in Victoria's regional economy and employment and also provide substantial climate emissions reduction. We are talking about reversing Baillieu's drastic planning law VC82 for wind turbines whereby anybody within a 2 kiloneter radius of a proposed wind turbine can veto the development.

"There is no doubt that Ted Baillieu was ideologically committed to opposing wind energy" said Friends of the Earth renewables spokesperson Leigh Ewbank. "The new Premier, Denis Napthine, does not have the same ideological baggage."

Coastal Wetlands under threat from Sea Level Rise says World Bank

Climate change induced sea level rise of one metre is likely to destroy 60 per cent of the developing world's wetlands says a new World Bank research working paper. The economic loss of these wetlands is estimated at approximately $630 million US dollars per year.

The World Bank study looked at the risk to coastal wetlands in 76 countries at a sea level rise of one metre. Because there are so many uncertainties with the rate of sea level rise, the one metre level was chosen to study the likely impact. This sea level may be achieved this century, with sea level rising 60% faster than IPCC projections. Sea level rise is unstoppable, but it can be slowed through emissions reduction and give us humans and ecosystems a chance to adapt. Sea levels will continue to rise for several centuries.

The study found that about 99% of the coastal wetlands at elevations of one meter or less in the Middle East and North Africa could disappear, as well as 77% in sub-Saharan Africa, 66% in East Asia and 39% in Latin America and the Caribbean. Places like the iconic Sundarbans of Bangladesh and India, a major home and refuge to the Bengal tiger, are under threat.

Water stress critical factor in reduced crop yield due to Global Warming

High temperatures over several days or more for a crop such as corn (maize) can reduce the crop yield substantially. But new crop research reveals that it is not so much the heat and heat stress that impacts the plants, but water stress caused by increased evapo-transpiration through vapour pressure deficit (VPD) - the plants version of human sweating to cool down.

The new understanding comes from research and modelling by one of Australia's leading crop scientists, Professor Graeme Hammer, from the University of Queensland. Graeme has spent much of the last decade as professor in crop science at UQ's Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI) developing increasingly sophisticated computer models to predict the growth and yield of agricultural crops. Lead author for the study was David Lobell, an Assistant Professor in Environmental Earth System Science and Associate Director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University.

Repost: China Takes a Leading Role in Solving Climate Change

China Takes a Leading Role in Solving Climate Change (via Skeptical Science)

Posted on 4 March 2013 by dana1981 A few months ago we looked at some hopeful climate news, including Mexico passing comprehensive climate legislation nearly unanimously, and many other efforts from a variety of countries to reduce their carbon emissions. Ultimately the biggest emitters need to get…