28 April 2023

[Articulating &] Reclaiming the Climate Emergency

 

Watch the discussion with Nick Breeze on ClimateGenn

by David Spratt

Recently I had the pleasure of speaking with Nick Breeze for his excellent ClimateGenn video podcasts. The subject, loosely, was my recent article, "Reclaiming 'climate emergency'", published (in English) in the Slovenian journal, Filozofski vestnik.

We discussed the origins of "climate emergency", the treatment of the term since then, and what next? How do we reclaim and respond appropriately in a real climate emergency, much like the one we are irrefutably in?

Also included, and so relevant today on the trajectory of the climate system, is a segment of an interview Nick recorded with Professor James Hansen, recorded in Vienna at the European Geophysical Union Conference in 2012. It highlights how perilous the lack of action over the last decade has really been.

12 April 2023

The case for climate cooling, and some eye-watering charts

 


by David Spratt

Recently I had the opportunity to do one of the MEERTALKS, organised  by Mirrors for Earth's Energy Rebalancing (MEER), a network of researchers and advocates established by Ye Tao which focusses on mirror-based cooling solutions. The topic was the recent Breakthrough paper Faster, higher hotter on some takeaways from climate research in 2022. But equally it could have been called "The case for cooling".

A video of the event is now available

In the talk I also included some slides not in the original paper, and each is startling in its own way.

05 April 2023

The government has a duty to be transparent about climate–security risks

By Admiral Chris Barrie, AC RAN (Ret.) & Ian Dunlop, first published at RenewEconomy

Read the report

The overblown rhetoric on imminent war with China has been justified as the need for the Australian people to be fully informed of threats to the nation. But the same rationale has not been applied to the security threat of climate change, a far greater risk the response to which will be far more costly and extensive.

Until a few months ago, the climate-change security threat had never been comprehensively assessed by any Australian government, abrogating a government’s primary responsibility to “protect the people”.     

But in late 2022, an Office of National Intelligence (ONI) initial climate risk assessment — an election promise of the Albanese government — was distributed to members of the federal cabinet. It addressed external but not domestic  climate threats. Since then there has been no government response to, or public communication of, the assessment’s findings.