Herald Sun
By: Tom Woodroofe, 2009 Young Victorian of the Year and the founder of Left Right
The prevailing attitude among young people today continues to be "do as we say, not as we do'' when it comes to saving their planet.
Yesterday, the biggest youth climate change conference Australia has ever seen wound up in Sydney.
The likes of Al Gore lined up to inspire thousands of young people to discover their inner Captain Planets and solve the climate crisis.
The Advertiser
By: Edwina Scott, Melbourne
The increasing size of bushfires is a classic example of how rapidly the climate is changing, U.S. climate campaigner Al Gore says.
In Victoria, a series of devastating fires swept through the state on Black Saturday, February 7, killing 173 people and destroying hundreds of homes and businesses.
In a keynote address to 1000 leaders in Melbourne, the former U.S. vice-president and Nobel prize winner launched a think-tank, Safe Climate Australia, telling guests the mounting challenges required immediate action.
The Australian
By: Lauren Wilson
Al Gore has challenged the Rudd government to show leadership by rolling out its carbon pollution reduction scheme before the global climate talks in Copenhagen in December.
Speaking in Melbourne yesterday, where he spent time training 300 climate change disciples from the Asia-Pacific region, Mr Gore said it was important for the US and Australia to enact emissions trading laws before, rather than after, the Copenhagen conference.
"I don't want to interfere with Australian affairs -- or at least I don't want to be caught doing it,'' he said.
Herald Sun
By: Megan McNaught
A bus stop on your doorstep, a school around the corner and power generated by underground hot rocks.
These are all features of new suburb Armstrong Creek, which is taking shape on the outskirts of Geelong and has the aim of becoming Australia's first zero-emission neighbourhood.
The suburb will be home to 60,000 people on 27,500ha and initiatives to make it carbon neutral include:
Public transport within walking distance of every household.
At least 23,000 jobs, or one job per household, within the neighbourhood.
The Courier-Mail
International climate campaigner Al Gore has warned that Australia is "in the line of fire'' on climate change, after meeting Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Sydney.
Mr Gore and Mr Rudd discussed climate issues in a meeting yesterday morning before fronting the media.
"Australia is in the line of fire where the climate crisis is concerned,'' said Mr Gore, who has won a Nobel Prize for his work on the dangers of global warming.
The Australian
By: Barry Brook
Nuclear is the inconvenient but only solution, urges Barry Brook
If climate change is the inconvenient truth facing our fossil fuel-dependent society, then advanced nuclear power is the inconvenient solution staring right back at the environmental movement.
The Courier-Mail
By: Cathy Alexander
Green groups want emissions trading ditched in favour of direct and immediate action to tackle climate change.
Groups representing 400,000 people have put forward an alternative -- dubbed Plan B -- which includes phasing out coal-fired power stations and an overhaul of public transport.
They say the country has become obsessed with emissions trading and described the Federal Government's planned scheme as a dud.
The Advertiser
By: Frances Stewart
Saving water around the home can also save money, with many water-wise ideas paying for themselves within a few years.
Scientists predict climate change will lead to less rainfall in South Australia and it will become even more important to make the most of every drop in the future.
A dripping tap in the kitchen, laundry or bathroom can waste more than 20,000 litres of water a year, but can be easily repaired in most cases with a replacement washer, which costs a few cents from a hardware store.
Northern Territory News
By coordinator Environment Centre NT: Stuart Blanch
World Environment Day is two years younger than me.
The day commemorates the opening of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment on June 5, 1972.
Over the past four decades, the hot button environment issues may have changed -- pesticides in the 70s, rainforest logging in the 80s, to land and water management and climate change these past two decades. But the power of ordinary people to build a better future for our children and the planet is stronger than ever before.
The Courier-Mail
By: Graham Readfearn
Queensland's newest environmental warrior is practising what she preaches this World Environment Day, writes Graham Readfearn
"We are going to have new green-collar jobs and new industries that we have not had before''
Kate Jones, ever so slightly breathless, drops her diminutive frame on to the big brown leather couch in her even bigger ministerial office and immediately points to a half-full plastic bottle of mineral water on the coffee table.
"That's not mine,'' she says.
The Daily Telegraph
Natalie Isaacs was surprised how easy it was to do something to help save the planet from climate change.
But first she had to get her head around an issue that can be overwhelming even to experts.
"Until a few years ago it all seemed too hard. I wasn't connected to the problem and then I took a closer look and found you can help by changing little things in your daily life,'' the Newport businesswoman and mother of four said yesterday.
The Advertiser
By: Stuart Martin, Motoring Editor
Lumbering leviathans with "Made in the U.S.A.'' stamped on compliance plates have been put on death row by President Barack Obama as he tightens up emissions and fuel-consumption standards.
The now owner of a large chunk of the country's once-dominant GM, the American President is bringing the U.S. automotive industry into the 21st century.
The Advertiser
By: Simon Jenkins, Canberra
Federal government climate change adviser Professor Ross Garnaut remains critical of some aspects of the proposed carbon pollution reduction scheme, but says the legislation should be passed.
Professor Garnaut has largely endorsed changes to the scheme, now the subject of a Senate inquiry.
However, he remains critical of some parts.
The Courier-Mail
By: Graham Readfearn
When the time comes for calculating their budgets, a group of Queenslanders has introduced a currency other than the dollars in their bank accounts.
Known as the North Brisbane CRAG, the 20-strong group has created a new economy, with carbon as the only currency that matters.
CRAG stands for Carbon Reduction Action Group and it's one of the first Australian incarnations of similar groups launched in America and Britain to help combat climate change.
The Advertiser
London: Hundreds of millions of people will become victims of climate change-related disasters over the next six years, Oxfam stated yesterday, urging governments to change the way they respond to such events.
The British-based aid and development charity estimated the number of people affected by climatic disasters would rise by 54 per cent to 375 million people a year on average by 2015, based on data on similar disasters since 1980. In a report it warned that humanitarian aid spending and the way it was allocated was far from ready to meet the challenge.
The Advertiser
By: Cara Jenkin, Environment Reporter
The Advertiser has joined a select group of environmentalists tackling climate change after achieving an ambitious reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
News Limited, publisher of The Advertiser, is the first media organisation invited to join the United Nations Environment Program's Climate Neutral Network.
The network, also known as CN Net, includes 100 countries, cities, companies and organisations which have set high greenhouse gas reduction targets.
The Courier-Mail
By: Graham Readfearn
With the double-whammy of climate change and harsh economic times, everyone is looking for ways to save money and help the environment.
Rebates are available for everything from major solar-electricity systems to simple energy-saving bulbs.
But with state and federal rebates going through changes and modifications it can be difficult to know what is available.
Here's our comprehensive guide to the eco-rebates available for Queenslanders and why they can help your pocket and your planet.
The Australian
By: Lenore Taylor, National correspondent
US President Barack Obama plans to take a leadership role at the crucial UN climate change talks in Copenhagen later this year by calling meetings of major polluting nations, including Australia, for next month and July.
The President's involvement raises hopes a deal may be brokered despite the ravages of the global economic crisis.
The Daily Telegraph
By: Neil Keene
Hunter communities are signing up to a worldwide movement aimed at tackling climate change at one of the most grassroots levels.
Newcastle became an official part of the Transition Towns project and plans are already under way for the Lake Macquarie suburb of Coal Point to join the fray.
Devised in the UK, Transition Towns recruits entire communities to cut down on pollution and fossil fuels use by embracing sustainable lifestyle changes like renewable energy and communal gardens.
The Australian
By: Ian Talley, Washington
The US Environmental Protection Agency has sent the White House a proposed finding that carbon dioxide is a danger to public health, a step that could trigger a clampdown on emissions of greenhouse gases across a wide swath of the US economy.
If approved by the White House Office of Management and Budget, the endangerment finding could clear the way for the EPA to use the Clean Air Act to control emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases believed to contribute to climate change.
The Advertiser
By: Tory Shepherd, Mark Kenn
More extremely hot days will lead to increased discomfort, sickness and death, experts say.
Findings from two separate studies into the impact of climate change on health were presented at the Greenhouse 2009 conference yesterday in Perth.
One study found climate change could double the number of deaths from heat stress in Sydney.
The Australian
By: Asa Wahlquist, Rural writer
Australia is hotter than ever and is expected to get hotter, with huge consequences for the nation's farming industry.
CSIRO scientist Mark Howden has warned that changes in climate, even though only slight, meant the nation needed to re-think approaches to agriculture.
Dr Howden, from the CSIRO's Climate Adaptation Flagship, told the Greenhouse 2009 conference yesterday that agriculture practices could look quite different in future decades.
The Courier-Mail
By: Graham Readfern
One of the world's largest ever coordinated science research projects has uncovered further evidence of rapid climate change in polar regions.
Researchers found signals that ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica were melting, raising sea levels.
Scientists from more than 60 countries took part in more than 160 projects looking at the polar regions as part of the International Polar Year - a two-year program of research.
The Australian
By: Correspondents in Chicago and Paris
Source: AFP
Dire warnings of future devastation sparked by global warming have not been dire enough, climate scientists warn.
Just over a year ago, the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a report warning of rising sea levels, expanding deserts, more intense storms and extinction of up to 30 per cent of plant and animal species.
The Herald Sun
By: Peter Familari
New revolutionary solar panels could be just like money in the bank.
A Victorian printing firm will soon begin trials of the ultra-cheap panels made from plastic cells and printed like banknotes.
Mass production of the solar cells will be considerably cheaper than rooftop panels.
They could trim electricity costs by 95 per cent - to 50c a watt compared with $10 a watt for traditional solar cells.
The film-like cells are just the start of a revolution in plastic electronics at CSIRO's Future Manufacturing Flagship group.