France: 5000 rally in Rennes against #NDDL #ZAD evictions and airport construction

Original article published at San Fransisco Bay Area indymedia

5000 people joined a rally in Rennes, France, on Saturday to stop the Notre-Dame-des-Landes (NDDL) proposed airport and the evictions of historical occupants from the site.

The event was called "backhoe cycling" and provided three assembly points with processions which took off at 11 am to converge on the city of Rennes Town Hall.

The proposed airport is contentious with the proposal being in train since the 1970s and being supported by the French state Prime Minister Manuel Valls and Loire-Atlantique Regional President @BrunoRetailleau. Opponents argue that the existing Nantes Loire-Atlantique airport is far from operating at capacity for the runway, while the terminals could be renovated and expanded to allow for better passenger processing.

The site of the new airport, 15km north of Nantes, is on agricultural land and wetlands which supports 130 protected species, including 5 species that have not been adequately considered in the project environmental assessment.

Extreme heat across Victoria: heat health alert and total fire ban in place

At a press conference this afternoon people across Victoria were warned of the extreme bushfire threat, and equally, the health threat from extreme heat. Temperatures across the state are forecast to exceed 40 degrees C.

The Victorian Health Department, Vic Health, have issued a heat health alerts for north Central and North East regions with Central region, which includes Melbourne, on the threshold.

Total Fire bans have been issued for eight of the nine regions, with East Gippsland being the exception.

"One of the most important things about tomorrow is it is hot across most parts of Victoria. It will reach 40 degrees in most districts and it will be extremely hot all day with very strong winds." said Emergency Services Commissioner Craig Lapsley.

France: 20,000 people protest #NDDL airport construction as a climate crime near #Nantes

Article originally published at San Fransisco Bay Area Indymedia.

400 tractors, 1,000 cyclists and 20,000 marchers turned up on the ring road on the periphery of Nantes to protest the Notre-Dame-Des-Landes (NDDL) proposed airport, and support the ZAD ongoing occupation. The protest blockaded the Chevire Bridge over the Loire River on the ring road before dispersing before midnight under a heavy police presence.

Town of Yarloop destroyed in #Waroonafire #bushfire maelstrom

The Waroona bushfire South of Perth was started by lightning strike last Wednesday. It rapidly grew to be an uncontained uncontrollable fire of such size, ferocity and intensity that it produced pyrocumulus clouds creating it's own local convective weather.

December 2015 Christmas #Heatwave in Europe, US and Canada

December was remarkable for high temperature anomalies in Europe and North America. Many maximum temperature records and high minumum temperature records were broken in the leadup to and on Christmas day, particularly in North America.

2015 is set to be the hottest year on record, but already the UK Met Office has projected that 2016 will likely be hotter still.

In New York City shorts and T-shirts were still being worn, and tomatoes were still ripening. Many people highlighted the irony of turning on air-conditioning at Christmas. Some even pondered having a christmas barbecue or pool party.

Intense Bushfire hits Surf Coast on Christmas Day forcing evacuations

We are already getting a taste of the future with climate change with record temperatures in December, extreme bushfire alerts, and intense bushfires like the Separation Creek and Wye River fire causing town evacuations on the Surf Coast near Melbourne.

On Christmas day BOM Tasmania reported in a tweet "A sweltering 36 degrees in #Hobart today - the hottest Christmas Day on record! Cool change early tomorrow". Temperatures in Adelaide reached 37 degrees, the hottest Christmas Day in 29 years, just short of the temperature of 37.3°C reached in 1986.

In Victoria along the Great Ocean Road there was a major bushfire out of control on Christmas Day along Separation Creek and Wye Valley causing the Great Ocean Road to be closed and town evacuations. Wye River, Allenvale, Kennett River, Grey River were all affected. Most of the houses destroyed were at Wye River and Separation Creek.

A cool change with rain moved through overnight. Initially houses in Lorne were thought to be in danger as the wind changed direction with the cool change, that might push the fire towards the town. Evacuation warnings were issued for the small coastal settlements and for Lorne.

Burying the bad news at Christmas: Australian Greenhouse Gas emissions rising

First published at nofibs.com.au

Australia's Quarterly Update of Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory to June 2015 was published on Christmas Eve. You can usually tell something is trying to be hidden when it is being released late on a Friday to avoid public and media scrutiny. Doubly so if published on Christmas Eve.

I find it hard to believe that some diligent public servant worked hard to get it completed and published on Christmas eve. Almost certainly, it would have gone through Environment Minister Greg Hunt's desk in recent weeks.

According to the report, total Annual emissions for 2014-15 are estimated to be 537.0 Mt CO2-e, which is an 0.8% increase in emissions when compared with the previous year (excluding land use change emissions). If you include emissions from land use clearing and deforrestation, then our emissions increased by 1.3 per cent.

Hot night in December heatwave across south-eastern Australia

A heatwave encompassing much of south-east Australia to 20 December broke numerous maximum temperature records with the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) issuing special climate statement No 53 (PDF).

This included an exceptionally hot night on 19–20 December breaking many minimum overnight temperature records.

The Paris moment for climate justice and the historic #Parisagreement of #COP21

In the history of the World the Paris Agreement will be regarded as an historic moment. Even though it was far from perfect and didn’t go far enough. It was part of the Paris moment for climate justice.

Paris was a moral turning point. When 195 countries agreed by consensus to set a target to decarbonise by the later half of the century, an ambitious climate temperature goal and an international framework to achieve it.

It signifies the turning of the tide against fossil fuel pollution, although as Naomi Klein highlights, fossil fuels is not mentioned once in the agreement.

Thousands protest for #climatejustice in Paris #D12 as #COP21 concludes

Even though the State of Emergency which prohibits large political protests is still in place, tens of thousands turned out on the streets of Paris for climate justice in various creative protests.

The French state on Friday, relented, and allowed the protest to go ahead.

For two weeks activists had been planning a day for redlines for the climate emergency, to defy the state crackdown on the right to freedom of speech and assembly.

Organisers had embarked on civil disobedience training of thousands of people at the Climate Action Zone in preparation for the day. The Climate emergency, it was argued, was far more important than the security restrictions imposed by the State of Emergency to protect citizens.

Coalition organisers, Climate 21, estimated 30,000 people participated in a rally and march from the Arc de Triumphe via the Trocadero to the Eiffel Tower. Just after 4pm organisers at the other event in Champs de Mars say 20,000 people were in attendance.

As a visitor to France it was one helluva way to see and visit some of the iconic sites of Paris, with 30,000 other people as my tour guides.