From the ABC RN’s Science Show, May 23rd 2020.
4 hours ago · 54 min
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The plunder and destruction of the vast Amazon forests have been so terrible, that by 2035, they will cease to be a sink for CO2. The burning was so bad last year that the holocaust featured on the cover of The Economist magazine. This week The Science Show receives its first report from Ignacio Amigo who lives in Manaus and writes for the journal Nature.
A young woman reminds us we can help to ease the rate of global warming by our decisions and our actions. And so many of us in our daily lives are doing what we can. But what about when governments and corporations, by their decisions and actions, do the opposite.
In Australia, imagine a Murdoch-media-supported, Minerals Council-supported, fossil fuel magnates-supported, supposed gas-led transition, instead of clean energy. To be funded through the revenue provided by our citizens who pay taxes and contribute to the revenue we need. That’s what appears intended. The Federal Australian government subsidizes mining and allied industries with $29 billion a year. [IMF figures] Now they intend to foster the expansion of gas as a source of energy and profit in the name of ‘transition’!
Consider also the impact of logging, the refusal to foster the regeneration of burnt forests, while we try individually to lessen the impact of global warming! All that logging destroying forests in Australia. And governments are encouraged by corporations to remove protection of the environment and care nothing about the decline in bio-diversity. All this when we have the approach to education and government we need. Read https://www.monbiot.com/2020/05/17/university-of-life/ by George Monbiot.
Sciences and Humanities 