Aussie Enviro

cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/post/52114

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/42447538

As the deadline approaches for Tuvaluans to apply for visas to escape their climate-vulnerable home, hope and desperation collide. Will these 280 lucky individuals find safety in Australia, or will rising sea levels swallow their homeland whole? Join the fight for climate justice and human dignity. #SaveTuvalu #ClimateMigration.

Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://www.commondreams.org/news/tuvalu-climate-change

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

Tasmania has a complicated relationship with its natural beauty. Australia’s smallest state is marketed for its “clean and green” environment and produce, and the government runs tourism campaigns with the tagline “come down for air” that lean heavily on its stunning landscapes, coastlines and wildlife.

But it also has a reputation for backing environmentally damaging industries that grab national, and sometimes international, attention:

As somone who lives in Tassie, the state is a shitshow of environmental degredation. So this next bit of the article is not surprising

It says something about the debate that this even needs saying, but: environment laws should protect the environment.

On Saturday, the Tasmanian Labor leader, Dean Winter, rolled out the line out as he launched an equally remarkable policy before the state election on 19 July: that the state’s industries should not have to answer to Australia’s environment laws.

A 2021 five-yearly state of the environment report found that wasn’t happening – that nature was in poor and deteriorating health, in part because forest and other vegetation has continued to be knocked down without proper oversight.

Mildly okay news.

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/post/937026

Now, to the tree-kangaroos. Between 5 and 3.5 million years ago, Australia experienced a brief pause in an eons-long drying trend. For a few million years, forest habitats expanded across the continent. During this time, evolutionary biologists believe that an ancestral species of rock wallaby gradually adapted from climbing rocky cliff faces to climbing trees. They evolved shorter, broad feet with flexible ankles, and strong forearms with curved claws; all adaptations that aid life in the trees. 

Paleontologists regularly find ancient tree-kangaroo fossils in locations as diverse as the Nullarbor plain, in the far south, to the New Guinea highlands. Some of these species were as large as adult humans.

Why can't we do something like this, surely sand is something we have a ton of

Reminds me of @Zagorath@aussie.zone article they shared on Unapproved Rewilders.

They're right when they say these projects are like a service, or stewardship of the land.

Scientists have warned that extreme rains could become more common in eastern Australia, following heavy downpours from May 19-23 that caused widespread flooding, claimed five lives and left some 50,000 people stranded.

archived (Wayback Machine):

• Mongabay article
• analysis cited

Co-author Kimberley Reid, from the University of Melbourne, said, “We do know that ongoing reliance on fossil fuels — whether burned or exported — will only make weather events more dangerous in Australia.”

That's only part of the problem.