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Opposition leader tells Andrew Bolt Australia needs to consider nuclear reactors and calls on Tim Flannery to apologise

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Peter Dutton has declared Labor’s proposal to overhaul the energy grid to boost the share of renewable generation “is never going to be realised” and says Tim Flannery ought to apologise for past statements about the link between global heating and extreme weather.

During an appearance on Andrew Bolt’s program on Sky News on Thursday night, the opposition leader characterised Labor’s Rewiring the Nation program as a “pipe dream”.

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Local government body says mayors are ‘really struggling’ with effect of extreme weather and need help from federal and state governments

• Sydney marks its wettest year on record, smashing past 1950 high-water mark with three months to spare
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A New South Wales mayor is threatening to close roads if his council does not receive a funding boost to cover the “beating” they have taken from this year’s record rainfall.

The mayor of Blue Mountains council, Mark Greenhill, said extreme weather, including heavy rain, flooding and landslides, had caused $400m worth of damage in the shire – the equivalent of 10 years’ worth of roadworks in 12 months. The council’s total annual income is $90m.

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Development banks need new strategies to address problems that cut across national borders, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said.

(Image credit: KHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP via Getty Images)

In case anyone who reads my blog is interested... I am about to list my remote property for sale.20 acres @ $1500/acreMake an offer...Here are the coodinates for the corners:NW  29 27 56.04 N      103 38 22.68 WNE  29 27 56.07 N     103 38 15.33 WSW  29 27 42.90 N      103 38 22.38 WSE   29 27 42.97 N      103 38 15.13 W

Ian is the second-deadliest storm to strike the US in the 21st century

Residents of south-west Florida were on Thursday returning for a first look at damage wreaked on their homes by Hurricane Ian, as the storm’s death toll continued to rise and details emerged about the victims.

Inhabitants of Sanibel, Captiva and Pine Island were among the first to get a glimpse after authorities still searching for survivors from the 28 September storm gave the go-ahead for civilians to return.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

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Experts claim deadly spillovers of disease between livestock and wildlife are increasing with the growth in intensive methods

Catastrophic declines in the number of birds and other wildlife are likely if countries do not act urgently to change the way animals are farmed, wildlife health scientists have warned.

The unprecedented die-off of seabirds from highly pathogenic avian flu (HPAI) being witnessed in breeding colonies across Europe, North America and Africa has been traced back to a commercial goose farm in southern China where a relatively mild bird disease mutated into a killer in 1996.

After spilling into wild bird populations in 2007, HPAI has spread around the world, killing millions of birds and showing no sign of stopping.

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In its role as president, China has sent invitations only to ministers and NGO heads, raising fears it is downplaying the crucial talks

China has not invited world leaders to a major nature summit being held this year, raising concerns Beijing is downplaying the crucial Cop15 meeting in order not to embarrass Xi Jinping.

In December, governments will finalise a UN agreement to halt the destruction of the natural world at a summit organised by China but hosted in Canada. Because of Beijing’s zero-Covid policy and after several delays, Cop15 was moved to Montreal, the seat of the UN convention on biological diversity. It was meant to take place in Kunming, Yunnan province, in 2020.

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From solar farms to floating arrays, from Australia to Bedfordshire, Lightsource BP is ramping up its renewable energy push

“He’s scaring me now,” laughs Mark Davis, as a menacing-looking ram takes a step towards him from underneath an angled solar panel. The burly operations manager is touring Manor Farm near Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire, where sheep are using the solar arrays for shade and a remote-controlled cleaning robot with the appearance of a mini tank steadily sloshes water down the panels.

A persistent hairdryer-like hum comes from the huge boxy green inverter, which converts the direct current electricity that the panels generate to the alternating current used by the electrical grid. This is one of about 270 solar farms that have been developed by Lightsource BP in the UK.

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Coal is the most polluting of all fossil fuels and investors must stop funding it, say campaigners

Hundreds of coal companies around the world are developing new mines and power stations, according to a study. The researchers said the plans were “reckless and irresponsible” in the midst of the climate emergency.

Coal is the most polluting of all fossil fuels and its use must be quickly phased out to end the climate crisis. However, almost half the 1,000 companies assessed are still developing new coal assets, and just 27 companies have announced coal exit dates consistent with international climate targets.

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Good Car Company plans to run a batch-buy program that would source cars from Japan and the UK

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A philanthropic foundation backed by Mike Cannon-Brookes has invested $10m into Tasmanian startup the Good Car company to help slash the cost of secondhand electric vehicles in Australia.

The announcement from Boundless on Thursday follows months of signalling by Cannon-Brookes that he was prepared to invest large sums into businesses addressing aspects of the carbon transition.

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The Australian conference supposedly devoted to ‘bold action’ from the right spent much of its time pouring scorn on any form of climate action

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Climate science is a fraud, according to one speaker; renewable energy has pushed up electricity prices for Australians and the case that carbon dioxide drives global warming is unproven, according to others.

Those were just some of the themes at last weekend’s annual conference in Sydney of the Conservative Political Action (CPAC) network – billed as the “largest and most prominent conference for conservatives and liberty lovers in Australia”.

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Shehbaz Sharif says he wants ‘climate justice’ from rich polluting countries after monsoons put a third of his country under water

Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister, has said Pakistan should not be forced to go out with a “begging bowl” to rich polluting nations after the floods that have devastated the country and said he would be seeking “climate justice” from the international community.

Speaking from his home in Lahore, Sharif warned that Pakistan is facing an unprecedented crisis of health, food security and internal displacement after the “apocalyptic” monsoons which put a third of Pakistan’s regions under water. Some areas were hit by 1.7m of rainfall, the highest on record.

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Having a lot of trouble getting a new RC transmitter to work with the long-range telemetry radios.  I think I found a good workaround.  Went through a bunch of boxes in storage until I found an old USB joystick I bought about 4 years ago.  Was able to get it to work in the ground station software and control the rover manually.  Since the control inputs are sent through the new long range telemetry system, there really is no need for an extra transmitter.   Since I'm not getting much cooperation out of the one I recently bought, I am going to return it for a refund ($140).  The Amazon return window closes on the 16th. 72,85,56,0,B 

A group of 50 NGOs found that bank and subsidiaries had funded oil refinery and gas processing

The World Bank has provided nearly $15bn of finance directly to fossil fuel projects since the Paris agreement was signed in 2015, and is likely to have spurred far greater investment indirectly, new research has found.

Funding for “upstream” oil and gas projects from the World Bank was meant to stop from 2019, but the Big Shift Global, a coalition of more than 50 NGOs, has found the bank and its subsidiaries funding oil refinery and gas processing since then.

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Particles breathed by mothers pass to their vulnerable foetuses, with potentially lifelong consequences

Toxic air pollution particles have been found in the lungs, livers and brains of unborn babies, long before they have taken their first breath. Researchers said their “groundbreaking” discovery was “very worrying”, as the gestation period of foetuses is the most vulnerable stage of human development.

Thousands of black carbon particles were found in each cubic millimetre of tissue, which were breathed in by the mother during pregnancy and then passed through the bloodstream and placenta to the foetus.

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Caroline Lucas responds to the business secretary’s claim that only she and ‘the socialists’ do not support his plans

If Jacob Rees-Mogg really believes that the only people who don’t like fracking are “the socialists and Caroline Lucas”, he’s clearly not been paying attention (Rees-Mogg tells Tories he’d welcome fracking in his back garden, 3 October)

This may come as no surprise since, until recently, his most memorable position on the green benches at Westminster has been horizontal. But if he couldn’t see the large numbers of his own party’s backbench MPs queueing up to voice their outrage at his proposal to restart fracking when he made his announcement a few weeks ago then he should certainly have been able to hear them.

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The RSPB, National Trust, green farmers and anti-frackers all got it in the neck at the Conservative conference

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In the middle of Liz Truss’s speech, at the end of a chaotic and divisive conference, a protest by Greenpeace activists was perhaps inevitable given the frustration and concern that has been brewing among environmentalists over the direction of government policy.

The prime minister’s words will have only heightened their anxiety.

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A Seattle nonprofit recently got some of the highest prices ever for carbon credits from urban forests. (Story first aired on All Things Considered on Oct. 4, 2022.)

Andrew Liveris says his position at Saudi Aramco means he ‘knows the solutions’ as he presides over climate-positive games

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Andrew Liveris has defended sitting on the board of the most polluting company in history at the same time as presiding over the organisation of an Olympic Games being billed as “climate positive”, saying: “If you emit, you actually know the solutions.”

Liveris is on the board of directors of the world’s biggest oil company, Saudi Aramco, which is 95% owned by the Saudi Arabian government.

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