Have I mentioned GoodCar before? This company imports second-hand electric vehicles from Japan to Australia, so that we have more affordable options than buying new. This month they have launched their own GoodCar $3,000 EV subsidy, which can be subtracted from their already-low prices.  As I write this, their cheapest EV is $19,000, is in 5-star condition, and has just 13,000 kms on it. Check out their range. Combined with the running-cost savings of thousands of dollars year after year, switching to an electric vehicle has become a very viable option. GoodCar say charging an electric ..read more

How will Australia go in this year's World Cup? That's the big sporting question in Australia at the moment. Other teams in Australia's group are France, Denmark and Tunisia. Statistically, Australia should probably lose all three games. If the game was carbon pollution, Australia would be the highest scorer by far. Our nation out-pollutes Denmark by 3 to 1, France 4 to 1 and Tunisia 6 to 1. Those scores would be great in soccer, but in climate change they are terrible for Australia - and for the world. In fact in the hole tournament, the only country that could match us would be host n ..read more

There's been a lot of talk about power price rises here in Australia. So what's causing it? Short answer: Old coal-fired power stations that keep breaking down. In detailed terms, here's a chart from finance reporter Elysse Morgan, showing the power output of AGL's coal-fired power stations over the last month or so. The purple line at the top is what they would normally be producing - if the stations were all functional, and not having "unplanned outages". The difference is around a million homes. Of course the electricity grid normally makes up for this shortfall by having gas-fired power s ..read more

2020 will be remembered for different things - but it was also yet another stinker of a year from a climate perspective. 2020 was the second hottest year on record - just 0.02 degrees Celsius behind 2016's record. That's virtually a dead heat. In Europe and Asia 2020 actually was the warmest year on record. This is a bit worrying considering that in weather terms it's a La Nina year - meaning that it's cooler than we would otherwise expect. In the bigger picture, the last seven years (2014 - 2020) are the seven hottest since records began (in 1880). The ten hottest years have all occurred ..read more

Australia has now passed the amazing milestone of 3 million solar homes. Even in 2020, around 370,000 homes got solar. It seems like only yesterday that I was writing a post about Australia reaching 1 million homes ..read more

Usually the finance guy on the news shows charts of interest rates, inflation, company performance and sharemarket movements. So it was a little bit surprising to see this last night. It comes from the latest IPCC report. You can read more about that here and here. But the basics are that we are likely to exceed 1.5 degrees of warming (considered the upper limit of what would be a "viable" society) by 2030. For Australia this means "fires are projected to get worse and more frequent, and fire seasons will last longer. In eastern Australia, if warming exceeds 2C, then droughts are projected t ..read more

I was recently clearing out some paperwork and found this little list of tips for greener vehicle use. I'm assuming it they came from a seminar of some sort. Anyway here they are, with my comments in brackets: Minimise vehicle use  Do multiple errands on one trip Utilise nearby shops (as opposed to distant ones) Avoid peak hour wherever possible (so much petrol consumed going at walking pace or standing still - fortunately electric cars are far better in this aspect) Drive in high gear at about 1500-2500 rpm Drive smoothly and avoid unnecessary acceleration Minimise fuel wasted in idling ..read more

The Future We Choose is unique in its format. Near the beginning the authors describe two worlds - one in which take no climate action and the other where we do everything right. It's a stark difference and if that's all that this book brought I would have been happy with that. But there's more. There's a few chapters on mindset - often so much of how we respond is due to the way we think. Then there's a section on actions. But not the normal type of actions. Often in books on climate change the list of actions will include things like turning off appliances when not using them, changing ligh ..read more

In the absence of meaningful action at a federal level, it's mostly up to Australian states to do the heavy lifting in the renewable energy area. Here's the Climate Council's assessment of how those states are going. LeadersSince last year's list, South Australia has leapt to to the top of the list with most of their power coming from renewables and a 100% target for 2030. The Australian Capital Territory has also overtaken Tasmania and looks set to hit 100% renewable energy in the new year. At the other endIt's not just the time zones that sees Western Australian behind the other states ..read more

Even if you're reading this outside Australia, you've probably heard about the enormous areas of bushfire through Eastern Australia. Climate change and firesClearly this is related to climate change. This map shows the changes in forest fire danger over the last four decades. Brown represents more danger, blue less. The more intense the colour bigger the change. Something to talk about?But leaders don't want to talk about it. You'd think leaders would be keen to address something that threatens the citizens. But apparently not. They didn't want to talk about it in 2013 - or during any ..read more