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from the smoke-gets-in-your-eyes-and-lungs-and-clothes-and-environment dept.
Australia Doesn't Care to Break its Coal Habit in the Face of Climate Change:
Earlier this week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a dire warning about climate change: unless governments of the world coordinate to implement multiple long-term changes, we risk overshooting the 2°C warming scenario that countries strived to target in the Paris Agreement. This would lead to ecosystem damage, increasingly dramatic heat waves and previously-irregular weather patterns in different regions, and subsequent health impacts for humans.
Retiring coal-fired power plants is a significant action that could limit our race toward an unstable future. But Australia's officials don't quite care. According to The Guardian, the country's deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, said that Australia would "'absolutely' continue to use and exploit its coal reserves, despite the IPCC's dire warnings the world has just 12 years to avoid climate-change catastrophe."
McCormack also reportedly said that Australia would not change its coal policies "just because somebody might suggest that some sort of report is the way we need to follow and everything that we should do."
The country's previous prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, abandoned emissions reductions targets that the nation had agreed to, and Australia's renewable energy targets are set to expire in 2020. In September, government analysis showed that Australia's greenhouse-gas emissions increased last year, and independent analysts said the country would likely not meet the greenhouse-gas emissions reductions that it committed to under the Paris Agreement. Unlike the US, Australia has not exited the Paris Agreement, but the country's current prime minister has declined to add any more money to the global climate fund.
[...] Still, Australia ranks only fourth for economic coal resources, with the US, Russia, and China ahead of it. In the US, which has the world's largest economic coal resource, the Trump administration has had a difficult time fighting to save coal. On Wednesday, US coal supplier Westmoreland filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the face of $1.4 billion in debt. That makes the company the fourth major US coal supplier to file for bankruptcy in recent years due to the significant decline in coal use.
Internalize the profits, externalize the costs?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 11 2018, @04:30PM (7 children)
Did that wall wart ever show up or was that AC trolling you?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday October 11 2018, @07:18PM (6 children)
The address I gave was the homeless day center in Oldtown Portland. I figure it should be here by then
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 11 2018, @08:14PM (5 children)
The FedEx tracking says it was delivered yesterday.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday October 11 2018, @08:25PM (4 children)
I would go pick it up today but I'm still not feeling right in the head.
I figure I should stay home one more day.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday October 11 2018, @08:45PM (2 children)
Having that level of insight about your head problems is remarkable.
The bipolar person I am close to has absolutely zero insight, and needs a huge amount of guidance when she starts a manic phase. If she refuses to listen bad things happen and picking up the pieces afterwards is the best anyone can do for her.
Good luck to you Michael. I hope you're feeling better soon.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday October 12 2018, @09:08AM (1 child)
Three felonies
I think I can get your charges dropped if you agree to 72 hours in a mental hospital
But I'm not crazy
I know that but stay cool for three days and you're a free man
Three days later
Times up doc you got to let me go
No
But that was the deal
If you don't stay voluntarily I'll hold you involuntarily
Why?
You're hallucinating
No I'm not
Do yo ever hear someone call your name and you go look and they're not there?
How did he know she was calling my _name_?
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 14 2018, @12:00AM
Ok now *I* want to know. How did he know the voice was calling your name?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 11 2018, @10:12PM
It will wait. Do what is right for you. Your health takes priority over everything.