Historic Industry Faces Climate Change

AAP

David Goethel returns to harbor in Hampton, N.H. Robert F. Bukaty, The Associated Press

The cod isn't just a fish to David Goethel. It's his identity, his ticket to middle-class life, his link to a historic industry. "I paid for my education, my wife's education, my house, my kids' education; my slice of America was paid for on cod," said Goethel, a 30-year veteran of these waters that once teemed with New England's signature fish.
But on this chilly Saturday, after 12 hours out in the Gulf of Maine, he has caught exactly two cod, and he feels far removed from the 1990s, when he could catch 2,000 pounds in a day.
His boat is the only vessel pulling into the Yankee Fishermen's Co-op in Seabrook. Fifteen years ago, there might have been a half-dozen. He is carrying crates of silver hake, skates and flounder - all worth less than cod.
One of America's oldest commercial industries, fishing along the coast of the Northeast still employs hundreds. But every month that goes by, those numbers fall. After centuries of weathering overfishing, pollution, foreign competition and increasing government regulation, the latest challenge is the one that's doing them in: climate change.

Climate change
Though no waters are immune to the ravages of climate change, the Gulf of Maine, a dent in the coastline from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia, best illustrates the problem.
The gulf is now warming faster than 99 per cent of the world's oceans, scientists have said.
The warming waters have caused other valuable species, such as clams, to migrate to deeper or more northern waters. Others, such as lobsters, have largely abandoned the once-lucrative waters off the southern New England states of Connecticut and Rhode Island, having become more susceptible to disease or predators.
Lobster catches in Maine are booming as the species creeps northward, but as the warming continues, that's a good thing bound to end.
Fish aren't the only ones moving on, and not just in the Northeast. The US fishing fleet has dwindled from more than 120,000 vessels in 1996 to about 75,000 today, the Coast Guard says.
For the fishermen of the northeastern US - not all of whom accept the scientific consensus on climate change, and many of whom bristle at government regulations stemming from it - whether to stick with fishing, adapt to the changing ocean or leave the business is a constant worry.
Michael Mohr harvested surf clams for almost 30 of his 55 years, and his desire to stay in the only business he has ever known now takes him far from his family.
The clams he caught for decades feed tourists and locals alike in towns all along the coast. Now, those clams, which he once caught off New Jersey, are found northward or farther out to sea.
Mohr has also moved on. About 10 years ago, he started commuting six hours each way from his home in Mays Landing, New Jersey, to the former whaling port of New Bedford, Massachusetts. He has also switched clam species; he got his start fishing for Atlantic surf clams but now pursues the ocean quahog.
The quahog is well known to New England diners as a stuffed clam or in its own kind of chowder. Both quahogs and surf clams populate supermarket seafood sections.
The reason for Mohr's decision has been documented by published science, as well as on the decks of the boat he fishes from, the ESS Pursuit. Moving north for quahogs was a way to remain a clammer.
"We're finding clams in deeper water instead of inshore water, where we used to work 25 years ago," Mohr said. "It's just affecting everything."
Mohr's migration story is common in the clamming business, said Dave Wallace, a Maryland-based consultant in the industry. It was once based largely off Atlantic City, near Mohr's home, but has shifted northward along with the clams, he said.
Some fishermen have decided to instead pursue quahogs, as Mohr has, while others now travel farther out to sea to harvest surf clams. The surf clam fishery has slipped somewhat in the face of the changes, with a little less than 41 million pounds caught in 2014, the second-lowest total since 1980.
Mohr is undaunted. Clamming has been good to him, and if he has to spend more time on the road as he nears 60, so be it.
"It's just a way of life," Mohr said. "You've got to go where the money is at, and you're happy. Right now, I'm happy."

Links

• David Goethel | Center For Sustainable Fisheries
• Fading fishermen: A historic industry faces a warming world
• Gulf of Maine Fishermen Face Warming 'Double Whammy'
• Northeastern fishermen struggling with warming waters

Zebra Finches Program Offspring For A Hotter World

ABC Science Show - Robyn Williams

AUDIO

Small zebra finch chicks begging (Andy TB Bennett)

Kate Buchanan* and Mylene Mariette* have studied incubation calling by the iconic Australian song bird, the zebra finch.
Calls can be heard by the embryo in the last 5 days before hatching.
Microphones placed in the nest revealed a special call only made when the temperature was 26 degrees or higher.
Mylene Mariette devised an experiment where eggs were placed in an artificial incubator, with parents absent.
Some eggs heard recordings of the special call. Other eggs were deprived of the special call.
Those chicks which heard the special calls showed clear differences in their vocalisation when they beg. They also displayed different growth rates. They gained less weight. This showed a clear pre natal response to stimuli.
This is the first time incubation calling has been shown to alter the growth and development of a bird.
In addition, when these birds bred, they chose warmer places.

A zebra finch copes with the heat (Graeme Chapman)

Mylene holds the egg of a zebra finch (Donna Squire)

Image: A male zebra finch incubating some eggs (Mylene Mariette)

*Kate Buchanan, ARC Future Fellow, Faculty of Science, Engineering and the Built Environment, Deakin University, Geelong VIC
*Mylene Mariette, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Faculty of Science, Engineering and the Built Environment, Deakin University, Geelong VIC 

Links

• Tandem solar cells to capture even more light
• Pumped hydro for the cloudy windless days and nights
• Response to rapidly changing climate - deflect, distract, deny and delay
• Batteries and software energise renewables

Video: Zebra Finch Call Prepares Their Eggs For Climate Change

American Association for the Advancement of Science - Virginia Morell



Scientists have long worried whether animals can respond to the planet’s changing climate.
Now, a new study reports that at least one species of songbird—and likely many more—already knows how to prep its chicks for a warming world.
They do so by emitting special calls to the embryos inside their eggs, which can hear and learn external sounds.
 This is the first time scientists have found animals using sound to affect the growth, development, behavior, and reproductive success of their offspring, and adds to a growing body of research revealing that birds can “doctor” their eggs.
“The study is novel, surprising, and fascinating, and is sure to lead to much more work on parent-embryo communication,” says Robert Magrath, a behavioral ecologist at the Australian National University in Canberra who was not involved in the study.
The idea that the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) parents were “talking to their eggs” occurred to Mylene Mariette, a behavioral ecologist at Deakin University in Waurn Ponds, Australia, while recording the birds’ sounds at an outdoor aviary.
She noticed that sometimes when a parent was alone, it would make a rapid, high-pitched series of calls while sitting on the eggs.
Mariette and her co-author, Katherine Buchanan, recorded the incubation calls of 61 female and 61 male finches inside the aviary.
They found that parents of both sexes uttered these calls only during the end of the incubation period and when the maximum daily temperature rose above 26°C (78.8°F).
To find out whether the calls somehow prepared the chicks for higher temperatures, the scientists artificially incubated 166 eggs at a standard temperature of 37.7°C (99.9°F).
During the last 5 days of incubation, they exposed the eggs to either recorded incubation calls or the parents’ normal contact calls.
When the chicks hatched, those that had listened to the incubation calls were more vocal than the control nestlings.
What’s more, the chicks that had been exposed to the incubation calls weighed less than the controls, they report online today in Science.
That could be an advantageous adaptation in a hot environment, the scientists argue. “With a smaller body size, they’re better at losing heat,” Mariette says.
She and Buchanan suggest that their lower body mass might also reduce oxidative damage, the harmful buildup of unstable molecules in proteins, fats, and DNA that can adversely affect reproduction.
They clinched their results with data on the success of the chicks: When kept in hot conditions, the lower weight chicks did indeed go on to produce more fledglings in their first breeding season than did the control birds.
But the control birds were more successful in cooler conditions. And the incubation calls may have other lasting effects.
For two breeding seasons, the males that heard these sounds preferred nesting boxes that were hot, whereas the control males chose cooler homes.
“It’s interesting and surprising that vocal communication at such an early stage of development could have such persistent effects,” says Renee Duckworth, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Incubation calls were first found in superb fairy wrens (Malurus cyaneus), another Australian songbird in a different family.
Unlike the finches, the fairy wrens’ calls teach their embryos a special “password” to elicit food from their parents after hatching.
Mariette and others now suspect that the calls may be widespread and used in various ways to program chicks for future challenges.
“This remarkable paper helps us understand how animals could adapt to changing climate by showing that parental care alters nestling growth,” says Sonia Kleindorfer, a behavioral ecologist at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, who was not involved in the study. “It also shows that … embryos can learn much more than we ever imagined.”
But Kleindorfer, who studies fairy wrens, wonders whether the calls are really sending a specific signal about the temperature, and are not just a natural response to the heat.
She also wonders how often finches use the incubation calls in the wild, because fairy wrens suffer increased predation when they make these sounds.
Mariette thinks the finches’ ability to prepare their offspring for their future environment makes sense because they live in arid habitats and they breed whenever conditions are good—irrespective of the season.
She adds that these finches show that some animals, at least, aren’t just sitting ducks when it comes to climate change—they may be much better able to adapt to a warming world than we thought.

Links

• Q&A: Amazon ‘tipping point’ may be closer than we think, Thomas Lovejoy says
• Relocating Australian tortoise sets controversial precedent
• Mysterious, ice-buried Cold War military base may be unearthed by climate change
• Climate change—not humans—killed giant camels and sloths in South America

Study Identifies Key Species Which Act As Warning Signs Of Ecosystem Collapse

The Guardian - James Dyke*

The success or failure of certain species can be used to predict the future health of an entire ecosystem, research says 

The coal miner's canary provided a warning of dangerous levels of toxic gases. Photograph: Don McPhee for the Guardian

The Earth's biodiversity is under attack. We would need to travel back over 65 million years to find rates of species loss as high as we are witnessing today.
Conservation often focuses on the big, enigmatic animals - tigers, polar bears, whales. There are many reasons to want to save these species from extinction. But what about the vast majority of life that we barely notice? The bugs and grubs that can appear or vanish from ecosystems without any apparent impact?
Biodiversity increases resilience: more species means each individual species is better able to withstand impacts. Think of decreasing biodiversity as popping out rivets from an aircraft. A few missing rivets here or there will not cause too much harm. But continuing to remove them threatens a collapse in ecosystem functioning. Forests give way to desert. Coral reefs bleach and then die.
New research that I have been involved in suggests that there biodiversity has a value that has been overlooked, but could be vitally important if we are to manage our impacts on ecosystems. Our study, published in the journal Ecology, shows that crucial information about the overall health or resilience of an ecosystem may be lurking in data about supposedly inconsequential species. In fact, the presence or absence of some of the rarest species may be giving us important clues as to how near an ecosystem is to a potential collapse.
Such rare species we call ecosystem canaries. Like canaries that coal miners used to check for poisonous gasses deep underground, ecosystem canaries are often the first species to disappear from a stressed ecosystem. Their vanishing can be linked to changes in the functioning of ecosystems, which can serve as a warning that a collapse is approaching.
Our study used data collected from lakes in China that showed changes in the abundance of species from algae (diatom) and aquatic midges (chironomid) communities as they compete for resources under environmental pressures. From this data it was possible to identify three types of organism: slowly-replicating but strongly competitive 'keystone' species; weakly-competitive but fast-replicating 'weedy' species; and slowly-replicating and weakly-competitive 'canary' species.

One of the lakes mentioned in study. Photo taken in July 2015 shows Erhai Lake in Dali, in southwest China's Yunnan Province. Yunnan plans to spend 26.4bn yuan (US$4.1bn) to tackle pollution in the Erhai Lake, which saw blooms of blue green algae in 1996 and 2003. Photograph: Lin Yiguang/Xinhua/Alamy

Runoff of fertiliser from surrounding fields has a major environmental impact on these lake ecosystems. As the situation worsens the canary species is the first to suffer.
With continuing degradation affecting all species, this leads to the eventual collapse of the keystone species as they are replaced by the weedy species. The loss of keystones tips the ecosystem into a critical transition – the point at which a system shifts into an alternate state which in lakes is dominated by smothering algae and absence of many plant and animal species. Moving a lake back to a clear water, high biodiversity state can be extremely difficult.Better to avoid the collapse in the first place.
Waiting to observe changes in the keystone species would not allow any intervention because the system would already be spiralling towards collapse. By searching for changes in the structure of populations that includes the ratio of keystone, weedy and canary species, we were able to detect a clear signal of an impending collapse many years, sometimes decades before the actual event. Time enough to put in place changes to farming and other practices.
The ecological theory underpinning this approach should apply to many other aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Given the extent and rapidity of human impacts there should not be any shortage of ecosystems to apply our findings to.

*James Dyke is a lecturer in sustainability science at the University of Southampton.

Links

• 'Ayahuasca is changing global environmental consciousness'
• Could we set aside half the Earth for nature?
• Pioneer gas project in Latin America fails indigenous peoples

Towards A New Economic System For The 21st Century

Al Jazeera - C J Polychroniou*

The new economic system should be based on localised forms of industry, finance and participatory democracy.

A revolution in consciousness is mandatory in order for a great shift to occur in the way the global economy works and the future we want, writes Polychroniou [Reuters]

In his Prison Notebooks, the Italian revolutionary Antonio Gramsci wrote: "The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear."
Today, it is the world economy, to be precise, that finds itself once again in the midst of an interregnum. The post-war model of economic growth that produced the golden age of capitalism is long gone, but a new economic system has yet to be born.
The morbid symptoms around abound: Intense and growing inequality, massive unemployment and extreme youth idleness in many parts of the world, rapidly declining standards of living, dangerously high levels of both public and corporate debt, a financial system that remains out of whack, and ecological collapse.

UpFront - Is capitalism driving climate change?

Moreover, the world economy not only continues to rely on fossil fuels to power growth, but is actually increasing the consumption of primary energy sources - such as coal, oil and natural gas - in spite of the phenomenon of global warming which threatens to destroy human civilisation as we know it.
Indeed, the existing economic model is defunct: consider also the fact that productivity growth in the advanced economies of the world since the eruption of the financial crisis of 2008 has been extremely slow in both absolute terms and relative to previous decades. But the model remains deadly dangerous.

Why a new deal is not enough
In light of the aforementioned reasons, many economists around the world, including Thomas Piketty, have been proposing the implementation of a new global deal on growth in the mould of Franklin D Roosevelt's "New Deal" programmes during the 1930s.
The call for a New Deal has also been adopted by several political movements in Europe, and the United States including Bernie Sanders and many of his supporters.

Capitalism is a rather new, historical economic system that belongs to a certain era of humanity, which means that there is nothing to suggest that it will be around for ever. The problem with this approach is that a new global deal is inevitably structured towards the goal of saving the existing economic system, not overcoming its ultimate contradictions and replacing it with a new socioeconomic order, which is what today's world really needs.

Roosevelt's New Deal, probably the greatest experiment of active state intervention under capitalism, saved many people's lives, but did not even end the Great Depression.
What really ended the Great Depression in the US was the mobilisation of all economic resources to support the war effort.
Roosevelt's New Deal did not advocate or promote economic democracy, nor did it seek to lay the basis for the emergence of a more rational socioeconomic order.
Indeed, when concerns about inflation and the federal deficit became widespread only a few years after the initiation of the New Deal programmes, the Roosevelt administration decided in 1937 to cut back on its economic stimulus, which caused the US economy to fall back into recession.

We need a new economic system
Unless we are willing to accept social disintegration, increased conflict and even wars as irreversible processes, and stand idly by while global warming caused by the logic of a fossil fuel-based economy destroys the planet, the existing system of neoliberal transnational corporate capitalism needs to be replaced by an economic order that is aligned with human interests and sustainable and balanced growth.
In actual practical terms, this means making a great shift away from the processes of constant capital accumulation, possessive individualism and economic globalisation.
It also means putting an end to the destructive practices of Western industrial extractive technologies and be respectful of the natural resources that sustain life.
Economic globalisation, which lies at the heart of the current economic system, is promoting a monoculture economy, and has devastating effects for the wellbeing of most communities in the global South and the environment alike.
Putting a halt to the current dynamics and contradiction of economic globalisation does not mean eliminating international trade.
But what it does require is doing away with the neoliberal trade treaties, which have given global corporations and banks such immense wealth and power that they can promote their own interests without concern for democracy, workers' rights and sustainability.
As such, we need to rethink terms such as development, growth and progress.
In this case, a revolution in consciousness is mandatory in order for a great shift to occur in the way the global economy works and the future we want.US tribes work with scientists against climate change Capitalism is a rather new, historical economic system that belongs to a certain era of humanity, which means that there is nothing to suggest that it will be around for ever.
The new economic system should be based on localised forms of industry, finance, participatory democracy, and the use of technologies which are congruent with community needs for the production and distribution of food in order to eradicate poverty and hunger and provide sustainable livelihoods.
This revolution in consciousness is already under way and it has been embraced by millions of people throughout the developed and developing world, particularly among urban youth, and could soon become the newest political and social movement to emerge as the old system is dying and a new one is struggling to be born.

*CJ Polychroniou is a political economist/political scientist who has taught and worked for many years in universities and research centres in Europe and the United States.

Links

• The Anthropocene: The Earth's new geological era
• Gaza headed for 'environmental catastrophe'
• A warming world: July marks 'hottest month on record'
• US tribes work with scientists against climate change

COAG Energy Council Outcome Statement

Climate Institute


The COAG Energy Council was a missed opportunity to start developing a coherent approach to the transformation to a net zero emission energy sector.
The initiatives announced by COAG are worthy but piecemeal.
If COAG will not take a strategic approach, it's now more important than ever that the national government does so.
In the lead-up to the 2017 review of national climate policies the Minister urgently needs to set in train a comprehensive investigation into how the electricity system can deliver on security, affordability and net zero emissions before 2050.
The COAG communique notes that work on the integration of energy and climate policy will now also include consideration of the impacts of state and territory emission reduction policies.
This is inadequate
In considering the impact of climate and clean energy developments on the electricity system, we need to think beyond the current 2030 emissions target to deliver a well-managed transition to zero emission electricity.
The objectives of the Paris Agreement are to limit global temperature rise to below 1.5-2C by reducing emissions to net zero or below.
Starting in 2018, the Agreement's framework requires countries to progressively strengthen their targets every five years.
So the current 2030 target of 28% is the absolute least that the sector could expect.
Prudent policy-making needs to take into account the net zero objective and the best pathway towards it.
The number of uncertainties about future energy is multiplying. But policy uncertainty is well within governments' power to resolve.
Australia has committed internationally through the Paris Agreement to consider a long-term emissions goal through the 2017 climate policy review.
This is an opportunity to provide businesses who are making 30 year investment decisions with clear signals on future policy direction.
One other certainty is that Australia's highest-carbon generators, our ageing coal burning power stations, will need to exit over the next 15-20 years if we are to deliver on our commitments.
As we saw in South Australia, disorderly, unplanned closures can have bad consequences for the local community, energy users, and the stability of the market as a whole.
An orderly transition, whereby 1-2 GW of coal capacity is withdrawn every year, with enough foresight and predictability for the right replacement energy services to be delivered at the right time and in the right place, is the best prospect for achieving our climate goals and a well-managed transformation of our power supply.
We urge the national government to set up a truly comprehensive and strategic review of the electricity system to work through these issues and integrate this with the 2017 review.

Links

• A Switch in Time: Enabling the electricity sector's transition to net zero emissions
• There goes the neighbourhood
• Below Zero: Carbon Removal and the Climate Challenge
• Buyer Beware: Home Insurance, Extreme Weather and Climate Change

Land-Clearing Laws' Failure Jeopardises Climate Change Targets, Says Minister

The Guardian - Joshua Robertson

Stephen Miles says targets harder to reach as Climate Council, WWF and Wilderness Society predict ‘panic clearing’ 

The Climate Council, WWF and the Wilderness Society are expecting a new surge in clearing after the defeat of the Palaszczuk government’s bill that attempted to restore controls on deforestation. Photograph: Auscape/UIG via Getty Images

Australia’s prospects of meeting its climate change targets have suffered a crucial blow with the failure of land-clearing reforms in Queensland, the state’s environment minister and conservationists say.
A renewed surge in clearing is expected after Thursday’s defeat of the Palaszczuk government bill that attempted to restore controls on deforestation. The defeat has also dashed hopes of tackling the nation’s fastest-rising source of carbon pollution.
However, Josh Frydenberg, the federal environment minister, insisted Australia was “on track to meet and beat” the first hurdle of its Paris climate pact commitments, a 5% cut in emissions by 2020.
Frydenberg’s optimism contrasts with a study released in February showing emissions from clearing in Queensland, after the former Newman government axed controls in 2013, had already wiped gains made under the federal government’s emissions reductions fund.
The Climate Council, WWF and the Wilderness Society all predict further bouts of “panic clearing” by graziers before the Palaszczuk government’s bid to pass controls in its next term if re-elected.
And a growing rate of remnant vegetation clearing is expected to drive a rise in carbon emissions, they say, further eroding progress towards targets pledged by the federal government in Paris last December.
The legislative defeat has also set the Palaszczuk government on a renewed course of lobbying Unesco not to revisit its decision to keep the Great Barrier Reef on its world heritage list, which was made in part because of assurances that runoff from clearing would be curtailed.
The ERF – the centrepiece of the federal government’s bid to cut emissions by 5% by 2020 and by 26-28% by 2030 – has invested mostly in buying back clearing permits from farmers.
Previous clearing laws in Queensland were instrumental to the former Howard government meeting carbon cut targets under the Kyoto protocol.
But their axing has led to a doubling in clearing rates to almost 300,000 hectares a year, suggesting the creation of 108m tonnes of carbon over the last three years, including 35.8m tonnes in 2014-15.
The ERF to date has allocated $1.7b to purchase 143m tonnes of carbon, 98m tonnes of which relates to “vegetation projects” – mostly buybacks of clearing permits from landholders.
Steven Miles, the Queensland environment minister, said unabated clearing in the state made national climate change targets “that much harder” with deeper cuts required in other sectors.
“Given it more than wipes out the ERF, it leaves the commonwealth without a tool to achieve their targets,” he told Guardian Australia.
“If you assume that billions of dollars of ERF money just get wiped out from land clearing, how are you achieving the cuts that they need and they’ve committed to across the economy?
“When you’re clearing at this rate, you’re behind the eight ball when you start doing the economic transition [to a low-carbon economy].

Drone footage shows significant land clearing in Queensland

“It’s running in the wrong direction. When your last resort for emissions that you can’t minimise is to offset them primarily by planting trees, they cut against each other, don’t they?”
However, Frydenberg said the ERF was “working effectively to achieve low-cost abatement”.
“Australia remains on track to meet and beat its 2020 emissions reduction target,” he said. “The latest estimate by the Department of Environment shows we are on track to exceed the target by 78m tonnes.”
Lyndon Schneiders, the national director of the Wilderness Society, said emissions from clearing in Queensland would now worsen and further eclipse ERF gains.
“I just think every bulldozer in Queensland will be out knocking down bush at accelerated rates because that’s what happens,” he said. “The only thing that’s keeping that 5% target [by 2020] even in the show has been that the economy’s tanked.
“The only place where emissions have been going through the roof is around land clearing.
“I’m sure the national government does not want to just throw $2b down the toilet in buying back emissions but they seem to be almost powerless to do anything about what’s happening at the state level.”
Martin Taylor, a scientist for WWF, said there had already been “massive amounts of panic clearing” in the lead up to the state government’s ill-fated push for controls.
Tayor said WWF researchers using satellite data had identified “two huge episodes” of 5,000 hectares and almost 7,000 hectares of remnant forest in central Queensland cleared since the last state land and tree cover survey.
“They’re running bulldozers through, tearing down everything except leaving a few sticks behind and calling it ‘thinning’,” Taylor said. “We’re discovering now that that is the main way that the Newman government axed the ban on broadscale clearing.”
This was separate to high-value agriculture permits issued by the former LNP government, some of which have since been frozen by the commonwealth for assessment under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
Commonwealth intervention under those laws has been applauded as a hopeful sign by conservation groups but criticised by Queensland Coalition senators such as Ian MacDonald.
Miles said the commonwealth intervention could help arrest the rate of some inappropriate large-scale clearing. But their scope for cracking down was limited to piecemeal individual cases under the EPBC laws and did not relate to their implications for emissions.
“Short of them legislating their own tree-clearing laws, like federal Labor said they’re going to do if elected, it really comes down to Queensland,” Miles said.
Comment was sought from Frydenberg’s office.
The Climate Council’s chief executive, Tim Flannery, said the failure of land-clearing legislation to pass in Queensland was “going to have a big impact” on Australia’s efforts to meet its Paris targets.
“We may yet see a spike in land clearing following this,” Flannery said. “Whenever farmers feel something is going to change in the future, they clear like crazy before what they see as the axe falling.
“It’s such a pity because Queensland is just such a biodiverse place and the sort of stuff that’s being cleared, often these bottle tree scrubs and dry rainforest communities, are particularly significant.”
Flannery separately called for the federal government to “hammer down on the use of fossil fuels” and stop using “biological carbon” emissions as a “smokescreen for a lack of performance” in cutting transport and energy sector emissions.
The tree-clearing study by environmental services company CO2 Australia also suggested the federal government’s bid to meet climate change targets could be undermined by its under-recording of emissions from clearing.
A federal government report last December projected that emissions from land clearing would rise 24% from 2013 levels, from an average 37m tonnes to an average 46m tonnes a year up to 2020 and 44m tonnes a year between 2020 and 2030.
But Queensland government data also released last year suggested a rate that would take national land clearings emissions to 55m tonnes a year between 2020 and 2030.
Clearing would then emit an extra 118m tonnes of carbon next decade, a blowout of more than 10% on reductions pledged by the commonwealth in Paris.

Links

• Donations to restore Great Barrier Reef could dry up if land clearing continues, says donor
• Exclusive: land-clearing surge in Queensland set to wipe out Direct Action gains – report
• Scientists write open letter in support of Queensland tree-clearing reforms
• Queensland land-clearing reforms could hinge on speaker's vote
• Deforestation surges in Queensland ahead of crackdown on land clearing