Monthly Archives: January 2021

PLEA Network

27 January 2021, The Conversation: We are the 1%: the wealth of many Australians puts them in an elite club wrecking the planet. Among the many hard truths exposed by COVID-19 is the huge disparity between the world’s rich and poor. … Continue reading →

PLEA Network

25 January 2021, Renew Economy, One year after “Black Summer” bushfire crisis, media misinformation still burns. During Australia’s Black Summer bushfire crisis, misinformation raged alongside the flames. Large media outlets pushed the line that the sheer intensity of the crisis could be explained by a sudden surge in arson attacks, using an inflated number that simply kept growing in size. This falsehood was presented as a counter to the widespread assumption that climate change had played a major role in making that bushfire season so wildly catastrophic and unusual. That misinformation was eventually firmly debunked. About 0.09% of the fires in New South Wales were found to be deliberately lit, and all of these were minor spot fires, found the NSW Royal Commission report, and the federal equivalent firmly pins climate change as a major cause. Much of the initial misinformation was driven by 7 News Australia, first with a post claiming the following: Read more here

PLEA Network

13 January 2021, The Conversation, Worried about Earth’s future? Well, the outlook is worse than even scientists can grasp. Anyone with even a passing interest in the global environment knows all is not well. But just how bad is the situation? Our new paper shows the outlook for life on Earth is more dire than is generally understood. The research published today reviews more than 150 studies to produce a stark summary of the state of the natural world. We outline the likely future trends in biodiversity decline, mass extinction, climate disruption and planetary toxification. We clarify the gravity of the human predicament and provide a timely snapshot of the crises that must be addressed now. The problems, all tied to human consumption and population growth, will almost certainly worsen over coming decades. The damage will be felt for centuries and threatens the survival of all species, including our own. Our paper was authored by 17 leading scientists, including those from Flinders University, Stanford University and the University of California, Los Angeles. Our message might not be popular, and indeed is frightening. But scientists must be candid and accurate if humanity is to understand the enormity of the challenges we face. Read more here

PLEA Network

13 January 2021, ABC: As the Arctic melts, a regime shift is taking place. The Arctic is changing faster than any environment on Earth. The old order is being swept away, leaving scientists to ask: What’s coming in its place? Where there was once ice, there is now open ocean. Milky swirls of plankton, hundreds of kilometres in length, now bloom where polar bears once roamed. It is a spectacular sight looking down from space. The Arctic is exploding with new life — but not as we know it. Microscopic phytoplankton is the foundation of the marine food chain. It has increased in abundance in the Arctic by more than 50 per cent since the 1990s. Last August, plankton numbers in the seas north of Siberia increased by 600 per cent. Read more here