Home Archive by category "GLOBAL WARMING"

Category Archives: GLOBAL WARMING

Marine heatwaves are getting hotter, lasting longer and doing more damage.

On land, heatwaves can be deadly for humans and wildlife and can devastate crops and forests. Unusually warm periods can also occur in the ocean. These can last for weeks or months, killing off kelp forests and corals, and producing other significant impacts on marine ecosystems, fishing and aquaculture industries. Yet until recently, the formation, distribution and frequency of marine heatwaves had received little research attention. Long-term change Climate change is warming ocean waters and causing shifts in the distribution and abundance of seaweeds, corals, fish and other marine species. For example, tropical fish species are now commonly found in Sydney Harbour. But these changes in ocean …

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The Great Barrier Reef Could Be Protected By A Giant ‘Sun Shield’

The Great Barrier Reef has become arguably one of the biggest casualties of global warming with over a third of the reef dying in 2016. The sun’s rays, combined with increasingly warm waters causes the corals to bleach and in severe cases completely die out. Well one solution could be to reduce the effect of the sun on the water and in turn the reef by implementing a giant ‘sun shield’. Developed by the University of Melbourne and the Australian Institute this ultra-thin film would sit on the surface of the water and create a barrier between the reef and the Sun. While the testing …

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Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef: going beyond our backyard to protect the reef

From place-based to problem-based campaigns, we are seeing a rise in initiatives aiming to foster collective environmental stewardship among concerned citizens across the globe. These international communities have arisen to meet new environmental challenges and seize the opportunities presented by our increasingly connected world. Traditional approaches to community engagement have tended to focus only on the involvement of local people. However, the recently launched Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef initiative highlights the changing nature of community engagement aimed at fostering environmental stewardship. In a globalised world, maintaining treasures like the Great Barrier Reef and other ecosystems affected by global-scale threats demands …

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Responding to Global Warming

The National Sustainability in Business Conference will be held in Brisbane from the 23-24 March 2017. Adj Prof David Hood AM, Chairman, Long Future Foundation and Adjunct Professor, Science and Engineering Faculty, QUT joins us this month to discuss ‘Responding to Global Warming.’ It’s all about risk. Would you cross a bridge if the design engineer told you that you only had a 66% chance of getting to the other side? Would you board on aircraft if the aeronautical engineer said that ‘I only design aircraft with a 66% chance of them arriving at their destination? No? Neither would I. We engineers design and …

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HVACR: A Major Source of Emissions Reduction

The National Sustainability in Business Conference will be held in Brisbane from the 23-24 March 2017. The Conference theme ‘Renewables – Markets – Innovation – Opportunities – Capital’ will address the need for sustainable business practices, and what this means in today’s ever-changing world. Mr Tim Edwards, President of the Australian Refrigeration Association joins us in March and will present on the topic ‘HVACR: A Major Source of Emissions Reduction’. The presentation will explain that the Refrigeration and Air Conditioning industry will add more to global warming than all other sources of carbon emissions combined unless we stop using high GWP …

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Global warming milestone about to be passed and there’s no going back

Within the next couple of weeks, a remote part of north-western Tasmania is likely to grab headlines around the world as a major climate change marker is passed. The aptly named Cape Grim monitoring site jointly run by CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology will witness the first baseline reading of 400 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, researchers predict. “Once it’s over [400 ppm], it won’t go back,” said Paul Fraser, dubbed by CSIRO as the Air Man of Cape Grim, and now a retired CSIRO fellow. “It could be within 10 days.” The most …

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