A habitable climate?

Australian governments subsidising fossil fuel use by more than $30,000 a minute, analysis finds

"Australian federal and state government subsidies that encourage fossil fuel use and help drive the climate crisis will reach $16.3bn this year after leaping by nearly 10%, according to a new analysis."

"It found federal and state governments will pay or forgo the equivalent of $31,020 each minute in 2025-26 to subsidise companies producing and using coal, gas and especially oil, mostly in the form of diesel." >>
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/11/australian-governments-subsidising-fossil-fuel-use-by-more-than-30000-a-minute-analysis-finds

How much have our summers changed over three generations?

“What we’re seeing now is the rate in which the climate is changing is faster than any part of our Earth system can keep up with — our plants, our animals, our infrastructure, us." >>
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-12/australias-summers-are-getting-longer-with-more-extreme-heat/106419414
#FossilFuels #climate #FossilFuelSubsidies #oilandGas #ClimateCrisis #mining #extractivism #HotPlanet #heatwaves #habitability #HabitableClimate

Smoulderscape

Still suffocating in smoke pollution
from the 'agricultural activity' of
post-harvest burning by the cellulose 'plantations'
of the NSW government's Forestry Corporation.

Déjà vu
* " “Rome Plows,” massive bulldozers with an armor-fortified cutting blade, could clear 1,000 acres a day. Enormous concussive bombs, known as “daisy cutters”, flattened forests and set off shock waves killing everything within a 3,000-foot (900-meter) radius, down to earthworms in the soil. " >>
https://theconversation.com/50-years-later-vietnams-environment-still-bears-the-scars-of-war-and-signals-a-dark-future-for-gaza-and-ukraine-254971

* Ecocide and the history of herbicidal warfare in the Vietnam War >>
https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/wars-and-missions/vietnam-war-1962-1975/events/aftermath/agent-orange

#Pollution #Smoke #pollution #HealthHazards #FCNSW #forestry #harm #Bellingenshire #Gleniffer #BellingenLogging #NSW #COPD #AirQuality #breathing #soot #PineCreekStateForest #TuckersNobSF #PostHarvestBurning #agriculture #PileBurning #NSW #EPA #AirQuality #CleanAir #SacrificeZone #extractivism #LoggingIndustry #NegativeExternalities #governance #care #StructuralViolence

Suffocating in smoke pollution
from the 'agricultural activity' of
post-harvest pile burning by the cellulose 'plantations'
of the NSW government's Forestry Corporation.

"You can kill a person with post-harvest burning just as well as with an axe”.
(Bertolt Brech, slightly altered)

"Structural violence
is a form of violence wherein some social structure or social institution may harm people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs or rights."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_violence

When residents express their concerns about the prolonged toxic pollution to the relevant state institutions, the response is along the lines of 'close up your house, stay indoors or move away and shut up.'

Toxic smoke pollution maximising harm >>
https://mastodon.au/@Bellingen/116146034632404631

(The original quote: "You can kill a person with an apartment just as well as with an axe”. Heinrich Zille/ B. Brecht)

#Pollution #Smoke #HealthHazards #FCNSW #forestry #harm #Bellingenshire #Gleniffer #NSW #COPD #AirQuality #breathing #soot #PineCreekStateForest #TuckersNobSF #PostHarvestBurning #agriculture #PileBurning #NSW #EPA #AirQuality #CleanAir #SacrificeZone #extractivism #LoggingIndustry #NegativeExternalities #governance #care #StructuralViolence

"Pour lutter contre l'extractivisme, un collectif de pierres passe à l'Âge du Bronze"

"For the fight against extractivism, a stone collective enters the Bronze Age"

#illustration #pencil #stones #collective #graphite #helmet #bronze #petractivism #extractivism #pierre #riot #fight #solidarity

Wa.S.T.E.D. is a research project that investigates waste flows in the Garda Region (Northern Italy) and their links to segregation, housing exclusion, and overtourism. Funded by Fondazione Cariplo and supported by the University of Brescia.

#environmentaljustice #extractivism #sociology #urban #lakegarda #sociology #urbanplanning #geography

Toxic smoke pollution maximising harm

The government's Forestry Corporation of NSW is still polluting the Bellingen, Gleniffer and Repton area with toxic smoke. Wet piles and the green timber piles are smouldering. After a cocktail of pesticides was applied, the wet piles with green timber were set alight and are left smouldering for days, maximising the toxic smoke pollution over a wide area.

These negative externalities occur when the consumption or production of a commodity (cellulose) causes a harmful effect to a third party.

It appears that the Forestry Corporation and EPA evade or pass responsibility and the many concerned residents ring 000 and overburden the small Gleniffer Bushfire Brigade now...

Fire-induced health impacts by the Forestry Corporation of NSW Pt 1 >
https://mastodon.au/@Bellingen/116134685710504402
Fire-induced health impacts by the Forestry Corporation of NSW Pt 2 >
https://mastodon.au/@Bellingen/116134917857123855

#Pollution #Smoke #HealthHazards #FCNSW #forestry #harm #Bellingenshire #Gleniffer #NSW #COPD #AirQuality #breathing #PineCreekStateForest #TuckersNobSF #NSW #EPA #AirQuality #SacrificeZone #extractivism #LoggingIndustry #NegativeExternalities #governance #care

Image: Tuckers Nob SF smouldering after pesticide applications

King Charles’s official representative in the Northern Territory

"As the controversial pastoralist prepares to take his oath on Friday, Aboriginal leaders have vowed to refuse to host the administrator – King Charles’s official representative in the territory, and the equivalent of a state governor – in remote communities, saying Connolly is “toxic”. "
>>
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/feb/26/nt-administrator-david-connolly-apologises-racist-posts-mps-plan-boycott-ntwnfb

"The former head of the NT Cattlemen's Association
has been at the centre of recent controversy due to his past social media commentary, which has been deemed offensive by groups including the Northern Land Council and Aboriginal Peak Organisations NT."

"As a cattleman, who also helped set up the NT's fledgling cotton industry, Mr Connolly was never shy about criticising what he saw as impediments to northern development...The tug-of-war between environmental concerns and industry development remains as present in the territory as ever."
>>
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-26/david-connolly-phil-scott-onstage-clash-political-fault-lines/106382028

The NT: In them old cotton fields back home >>
https://mastodon.au/@Bellingen/116133626999168906

#NT #cotton #extractivism #pastoralism #environment #IndigenousPeoples #biodiversity #water

Fire-induced health impacts by the Forestry Corporation of NSW Pt 2

Negative externalities occur when the consumption or production of a commodity causes a harmful effect to a third party.

Bushfire smoke: There is no safe level of exposure. >
https://theconversation.com/how-to-protect-yourself-from-bushfire-smoke-272065

Hundreds died from the effects of smoke inhalation caused by Australia’s 2019-2020 black summer bushfires and many more are likely to have long-term health issues." >
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/22/smoke-pollution-from-wildfires-may-be-killing-an-extra-12000-people-a-year-new-research-suggests

"Breathing polluted air may do more than harm your lungs — it could also increase your risk of Alzheimer’s disease." >
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/02/260220010836.htm

Fire-induced health impacts by the Forestry Corporation of NSW Pt 1 >
https://mastodon.au/@Bellingen/116134685710504402

#Pollution #Smoke #HealthHazards #FCNSW #forestry #harm #TheGreatkoalaNationalPark #PineCreekStateForest #TuckersNobSF #Bellingenshire #Gleniffer #NSW #EPA #COPD #AirQuality #SacrificeZone #extractivism #LoggingIndustry #NegativeExternalities #governance

Image: Forestry Corporation signage: Smoke Hazard, Roses Rd., Gleniffer

Bulldozing Australia’s great tropical savanna
"One of the largest intact and biodiverse savanna ecosystems left on Earth”.

"The environment minister, Murray Watt, has given the green light for the bulldozing of nearly 3,000 hectares of tropical savanna in the Northern Territory without an assessment under Australia’s nature laws."
>>
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/feb/24/federal-green-light-bulldoze-tropical-savanna-northern-territory-threatened-species
#biodiversity #cotton #monoculture #ThreatenedSpecies #EPBCAct #LandClearing #NationalInterest #exemptions #laws #Australia #extractivism #water

Image: The Gouldian finch (Erythrura gouldiae)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gouldian_Finch_(8952067299).jpg

A yearning for the idyllic forest scene and cellulose factories

When they want to ‘get away from it all’ and ‘go for a drive’ through nature, the idyllic forest scene, they are in denial that the romantic craving for the bush turns out to be industrial plantations.

“Nature ... is a planned product of the forestry industry, a purely wisely placed storehouse for cellulose production, which is readily apparent.”
- The Man Without Qualities, Robert Musil, 1930

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Without_Qualities
#forests #forestryCorporation #forestry #CelluloseFactories #LoggingIndustry #landscapes #TheBush #plantations #monoculture #RawMaterials #extractivism #biodiversity #nature #book #literature