Aussie Enviro

South Australian beaches have been awash with foamy, discoloured water and dead marine life for months. The problem hasn’t gone away; it has spread.

This bloom represents a stark warning to coastal communities, as well as tourism, seafood and aquaculture industries. It’s a sign of what’s to come, in Australia and around the world, as the oceans warm.

“I’ve seen a fair bit of death and destruction, but Rowley Shoals was always the place that was still standing,” says Dr James Gilmour, a research scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

“Just the sheer abundance of life is incredible. It was our hope spot. It’s the reef I love more than any other. So this was super emotional.”

On the back of a massive ocean heatwave

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/fast-running-out-of-time-to-turn-the-tide-australia-at-sea-in-vast-marine-heatwave-20250605-p5m53o.html

Thanks ALP and LNP voters for giving up and enabling the destruction to continue for a brief moment of GHG emissions flatulence

Goals:

Financial sustainability:

We live within our means, and we grow our capacity.

Environmental sustainability:

We aim to achieve net zero emissions by 2045 to reduce the impact of climate change on the health of our community. We always aim to improve the value of our services.

We apply evidence to improve care. Right care, right time, right place, right way.

Outcomes:

Environmental:

Total reduction in emissions was estimated to be 906 kg CO2-e per year.

Financial:

Annual savings from the reduced number of tests were estimated to be around $885,000, based on a comparison of test numbers in April 2023 to April 2024. In addition, staff time for testing was reduced by around 726 hours per year, or around 91 eight-hour shifts. Assuming an average hourly rate of $50 this added a further $36,000 to the annual financial savings.

Patient care:

No adverse events were identified.

archived (Wayback Machine):

• phys.org article
• research cited

Hobart's River Derwent and other south-east Tasmanian waterways have experienced some extraordinary marine events since December: jellyfish population explosions, toxic algal blooms, wild shellfish health alerts, and mass salmon and sardine deaths.

Toxic industries abound in Tassie

In short:

Cameras in Kosciuszko National Park have captured a sighting of a Leadbeater's possum in NSW, where it was thought to be extinct.

Forest ecologist David Lindenmayer says the population is likely a new subspecies of the critically endangered mammal.

What's next?

Professor Lindenmayer says more surveys will be done and genetic sequencing will paint a picture of the population's past.

Full report: https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-review-2025/

In short:

Murray-Darling carpet python populations in South Australia have declined due to loss of habitat and predation.

Trials using conservation detection dogs to find the snakes in the Riverland have so far had positive results.

What's next?

The trials are expected to continue towards the end of the year once the weather warms up.

Lawns suck. But what if they could be better? In this episode I hope to express my absolute disdain for the masochist's meadow, and make the argument for why building back native habitat is not just good for our wildlife, but us humies too.

Phillipa's Paper on road verge insect biodiversity: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...

Get involved with or donate to the Urban Guerrillas: https://linktr.ee/urbanguerrillas

Get involved with or donate to the KooyongKoot Alliance: https://kka.org.au/how-to-help/

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/30155075

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/22612622

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/22612621

A mysterious, brown foam appeared on a beach an hour south of Adelaide. It was just the beginning of a toxic algal bloom that has now grown to thousands of square kilometres in size, killing precious sea life in its wake. Experts say it could be a sign of things to come.

The blame was placed on an “ongoing marine heatwave” which had seen water temperatures 2.5 degrees Celsius warmer than usual.

I wonder what prciptated the marine heatwave /s

On Kangaroo Island, which reported its first fish kills in March, some beaches were so littered with dead sea life, the smell was overpowering.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/22254674

The reason I don't intend to travel anymore to Australia with large groups of musicians is because it's just not environmentally tenable," Anohni says.

"The footprint is too abhorrent. The amount of carbon that I burned to get here … it's football fields full of forests for me to come here with a group."

Good on her

This time, Anohni is focused on the Great Barrier Reef, where she has spent time investigating and documenting its destruction.

"I put all the money or the proceeds from the concert into this project, Mourning the Great Barrier Reef, which has been my focus for the last month," she says.

"I've been in Queensland filming at Lizard Island with a group of marine biologists and filmmakers, documenting the state of bleaching and acidification that's currently playing out on those group of reefs."

https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/life-after-oil/2016/02/11/how-far-can-we-get-without-flying

Hour for hour, there’s no better way to warm the planet than to fly in a plane.

In short:

WaterNSW found a 1992 petrol tanker crash and explosion was one of three likely sources of so-called "forever chemicals" found in a Blue Mountains drinking water catchment.

Firefighting foam used in historic emergency responses matched chemical signatures of the PFAS chemicals.

What's next?

Medlow Dam and Greaves Creek Dam remain disconnected from the Blue Mountains water supply system until WaterNSW is confident mitigation measures are in place.