Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts

Monday 5 June 2017

World Environment Day, 5 June 2017


Connecting people to nature

From your backyard to your favourite national park, 
nature is closer than you think. 
It’s time to get out and enjoy it.

A species growing in the Barmah region in the Murray-Darling Basin, NSW
For at least the last 6,000 years
Photograph: The Australian


World Environment Day has been celebrated since June 1970
This year's host country is Canada





Friday 2 June 2017

Australia's Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on the planet and it is dying before our very eyes


“The breathtaking array of marine creatures includes 600 types of soft and hard corals, more than 100 species of jellyfish, 3000 varieties of molluscs, 500 species of worms, 1625 types of fish, 133 varieties of sharks and rays, and more than 30 species of whales and dolphins” [Great Barrier Reef Marine Authority, 2017]

The Great Barrier Reef - stretching 2,300 kilometres along Australia’s east coast - is the largest living structure on the planet and it is dying right before our very eyes.


Winter sea surface temperatures in 2016 remained above average and, by the beginning of the 2016-17 summer, the accumulated heat stress on the Reef resulted in a second wave of mass bleaching.

Staff from the Marine Park Authority took part in aerial surveys conducted by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, and the results confirmed the extent and severity of the 2017 bleaching event…..

In addition to severe bleaching affecting over half the Reef since 2016, large portions of the Reef have also been subjected to other simultaneous impacts during the 2016-17 summer.

Severe tropical cyclone Debbie crossed the coast at Airlie Beach on 28 March 2017.
  
It is estimated approximately 28 per cent of the total reef area in the Marine Park was within the ‘catastrophic damage zone’ of the cyclone’s path.

Surveys conducted by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service have revealed that some sites have suffered significant damage (up to 97 percent coral loss) and are down to very low coral cover, while others received less damage and still have moderate coral cover…..

Outbreaks of coral disease and crown-of-thorns starfish have also been ongoing.

The cumulative impact of these disturbances are affecting most of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, and it is likely the resilience of the majority of reefs north of Mackay has been severely diminished.

Although some disturbances are considered natural processes that have shaped coral reef communities over time, impacts such as climate change are leading to more widespread and frequent disturbances.

New Atlas, 29 May 2017:


Prior to 2017, the Great Barrier Reef had suffered through three major bleaching events in modern history – 1998, 2002 and 2016 – and underwater and aerial surveys earlier this year indicated that 2017 would offer little reprieve, with scientists confirming back-to-back bleaching events were taking place. They had maintained hope that things would cool off quickly, but further surveys have now revealed that seems unlikely, along with the true extent of the current damage. 
Scientists from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority have confirmed that 29 percent of shallow water corals died from the bleaching in 2016, an increase on the 22 percent they had predicted midway through that year. Deeper coral was also affected, but divers are unable to systematically assess mortality rates at those depths.


Science Alert, 30 May 2017:

The Great Barrier Reef can no longer be saved by existing plans to protect the ecological site, experts have warned, saying that efforts should shift to a lesser, backup plan of maintaining the reef's "ecological function" instead.

Scientists have told an Australian government committee that the current strategy to protect the reef – the Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan – is unachievable in light of recent mass bleaching events, especially since the plan doesn't include steps to counter climate change.

The AU$2 billion Reef 2050 plan was launched in March 2015, with an aim of improving the "universal value" of the world's largest coral reef every decade leading up to 2050.

But in a meeting last week, scientists warned the advisory committee that oversees the plan that the goal of improving the reef environment is unrealistic after back-to-back bleaching events in 2016 and 2017, contributing to the worst coral die-off ever recorded…..

According to Panel Chairman and former Chief Scientist of Australia, Ian Chubb, the Reef 2050 Plan needs a significant overhaul to directly address the elephant in the room: warming oceans, the main contributor behind coral bleaching.

"We can't be passive bystanders in this. We're the custodians of the reef and its ecosystem for the world," he told Adam Morton at The Sydney Morning Herald.

"We don't say toss out the plan and start from scratch – action on water quality, sediment, and fertiliser remain important – but events mean it needs to be shifted."

Monday 29 May 2017

The Ladies Who Bake (and organize, lobby, raise funds & volunteer) come out against coal seam gas exploration, mining and production


The Country Women’s Association (CWA) of New South Wales came together for its annual conference on 22-25th May 2017 for the 95th time and debated policy.

Photograph: The Land, 25 May 2017

At this conference the CWA passed the following motion:

Maules Creek Branch (Namoi Group):

Preamble: The results of hosting unconventional gas on farms are properties devalued, mortgages refused, insurance covers rejected, destroys families, divides communities, drains aquifers and turns land into dead zones, sick children, suicide and mental breakdowns.

“That the policy of CWA of NSW shall be to support a ban on unconventional gas exploration, extraction and production”.

With the largest women’s organisation in Australia now having this policy endorsed by one of its founding chapters, NSW Nationals leader and MP for Monaro John Barilaro’s statement that he saw no reason why the coal seam gas industry should not be supported in areas of the state where it would not affect prime agricultural land is not looking as robust a proposition as he perhaps thought two weeks ago.

Sunday 23 April 2017

Australia has the highest rate of land clearing in the developed world, according to the Dept. of Intergenerational Theft




Australia has a land mass of 149,50,000 km2 or est. 14.94 billion hectares.

According to the FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS, GLOBAL FOREST RESOURCES ASSESSMENT 2015 the following figures are fact:

In 2015 only 16.2  per cent of Australia’s land mass was forest and another 32.7 per cent had another form of tree cover.

There are now only 5 million hectares of primary forest remaining in this country and we are losing an est. 201,600 hectares of this type of forest each year, principally due to commercial logging.

Mangroves now cover only 913,000 hectares of coastal land.

Introduced species tree cover, presumably for commercial forestry and orchards, totalled 1.02 million hectares in 2015.

Tuesday 18 April 2017

"Zero prospect of recovery" for many sections of Australia's World Heritage Great Barrier Reef


James Cook University, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, media release, 10 April 2017:

Two-thirds of Great Barrier Reef hit by back-to-back mass coral bleaching

For the second time in just 12 months, scientists have recorded severe coral bleaching across huge tracts of the Great Barrier Reef after completing aerial surveys along its entire length.  In 2016, bleaching was most severe in the northern third of the Reef, while one year on, the middle third has experienced the most intense coral bleaching.

“The combined impact of this back-to-back bleaching stretches for 1,500 km (900 miles), leaving only the southern third unscathed,” says Prof. Terry Hughes, Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, who undertook the aerial surveys in both 2016 and 2017.

“The bleaching is caused by record-breaking temperatures driven by global warming. This year, 2017, we are seeing mass bleaching, even without the assistance of El Niño conditions.”

The aerial surveys in 2017 covered more than 8,000 km (5,000 miles) and scored nearly 800 individual coral reefs closely matching the aerial surveys in 2016 that were carried out by the same two observers.

Dr. James Kerry, who also undertook the aerial surveys, explains further, “this is the fourth time the Great Barrier Reef has bleached severely – in 1998, 2002, 2016, and now in 2017. Bleached corals are not necessarily dead corals, but in the severe central region we anticipate high levels of coral loss.”

“It takes at least a decade for a full recovery of even the fastest growing corals, so mass bleaching events 12 months apart offers zero prospect of recovery for reefs that were damaged in 2016.”

Coupled with the 2017 mass bleaching event, Tropical Cyclone Debbie struck a corridor of the Great Barrier Reef at the end of March.  The intense, slow-moving system was likely to have caused varying levels of damage along a path up to 100 km in width. Any cooling effects related to the cyclone are likely to be negligible in relation to the damage it caused, which unfortunately struck a section of the reef that had largely escaped the worst of the bleaching.

“Clearly the reef is struggling with multiple impacts,” explains Prof. Hughes. “Without a doubt the most pressing of these is global warming. As temperatures continue to rise the corals will experience more and more of these events:  1°C of warming so far has already caused four events in the past 19 years.”

‘Ultimately, we need to cut carbon emissions, and the window to do so is rapidly closing.”

Not all data is shown, only reefs at either end of the bleaching spectrum: Red circles indicate reefs undergoing most severe bleaching (60% or more of visible corals bleaching) Green circles indicate reefs with no or only minimal bleaching (10% or less of corals bleaching).

Tuesday 11 April 2017

The American Resistance has many faces and these are just two of them (6)


“In the absence of a federal framework, we will continue to work with US states and cities who are demonstrating clear leadership through the Under2 Coalition, and businesses who see that the future will be about clean energy.” [The Climate Group, 1 April 2017]

On 28 March 2017 U.S. President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order titled PROMOTING ENERGY INDEPENDENCE AND ECONOMIC GROWTH.

This order commences the process to roll back climate change mitigation, environmental, public health and safety regulations governing the energy and mining sectors in the USA.

Resistance was immediate……………………..


US President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order on March 28, aimed at making dramatic changes to the US approach on climate action. Commenting on the order, Helen Clarkson, Chief Executive, The Climate Group, said: “In the absence of a federal framework, we will continue to work with US states and cities who are demonstrating clear leadership through the Under2 Coalition, and businesses who see that the future will be about clean energy.”

Today (28 March 2017), US President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order aimed at making dramatic changes to the US approach on climate action. 
   
Commenting on the order, Helen Clarkson, Chief Executive, The Climate Group said:

“Today’s decision to end the Climate Action Plan and review the Clean Power Plan is a major step backwards for the US.

“National policies to reduce US emissions and boost clean energy to date have helped create jobs for nearly 800,000 Americans, with another 2.2 million Americans working on energy efficiency. With the clean energy sector growing globally, and with the EU and emerging economies such as India and China all embarking on clean energy transition policies, the US should be doubling down on its current efforts, not turning back.

“This also runs counter to the leadership we’ve seen from US businesses, states and cities who are setting ambitious climate and clean energy goals, and are more committed than ever to achieving them. Just today, we have seen the world’s largest brewer, AB InBev, join our RE100 campaign, committing to 100% renewable electricity across its global operations.

“Federal action to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions helps safeguard the prosperity of American citizens and future generations. In the absence of a federal framework, we will continue to work with US states and cities who are demonstrating clear leadership through the Under2 Coalition, and businesses who see that the future will be about clean energy.”

The governors of California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, and Washington, and mayors of New York City, Oakland, Portland, Sacramento, and Seattle, issued the following statement on behalf of the Under2 Coalition in response to the recent Executive Order to review the Clean Power Plan: 
“As United States governors and mayors, we speak with one voice against the decision to review the Clean Power Plan. As members of the Under2 Coalition, we know that the climate crisis demands global action at every level. As Washington, D.C. delays, the work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in our cities and states continues. Our commitment to limiting global average temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius remains. We will not waver. And we will continue to enlist like-minded cities, states, regions and countries around the world to join this fight.”
The Under2 Coalition is a global pact of 167 cities, states and countries representing more than one billion people and US$25.9 trillion in combined GDP – more than one-third of the global economy. Coalition members commit to limit greenhouse gas emissions to 2 tons per capita or 80-95% below 1990 levels by 2050. The Under2 MOU was formed in 2015 by the states of California and Baden-Württemberg, Germany to mobilize and galvanize bold climate action from like-minded city, state and regional governments around the globe.
The Climate Group acts as Secretariat to the Under2 Coalition and works directly with government signatories and partners of the Under2 MOU to drive net-zero ambition and action.

No More Bumbling—Bee Cleared for Endangered Species Listing


There are times—even today—when law and science triumph over politics.

Hard to believe, I know, but that’s exactly what happened this week when the Trump Administration backed away from its “freeze” on listing the rusty patched bumble bee as an endangered species.

The rusty patched bumble bee is the first bumble bee to receive endangered species protections, and for good reason.  Although common across the Midwest and the East Coast as recently as the mid-90s, since then, the bee’s population has plummeted by about 90%. After studying the bee for years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service came out with a report last summer, finding it was likely to disappear from most of its remaining habitat within five years, and go completely extinct within thirty.

That’s one small step for a bee, one giant leap for common sense.

Recognizing there was no time to waste, the agency finalized a rule to list the bee as an endangered species in January. The rule was set to take effect in thirty days, but then Donald Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States.

On day one, the Trump Administration issued an order to “freeze” or delay the effective dates of all final rules, including the rusty patched bumble bee listing. The Fish and Wildlife Service then issued a notice—just one day before the bee was scheduled to be added to the list—claiming to delay the effective date of the listing until March 21.

That’s when we sued. Because as any good government attorney knows, agencies can’t simply discard or delay final rules years in the making at the whim of the president. They must instead follow the procedure required by law, which includes fair warning of a change in policy and an opportunity for interested members of the public to weigh in. The process can sometimes be slow, but it’s designed to stop rash, baseless, or purely political decision making—like, say, suddenly stopping the listing of a critically imperilled species supported by years of scientific study and review.

Given the Trump Administration’s questionable track record on appropriate legal process, we had anticipated a fight. But then, something incredible happened—the Administration backed down and allowed the rusty patched bumble bee to get the federal endangered species protection it so desperately needs.

While it’s hard to know whether this victory for common sense will be repeated elsewhere, it’s unquestionably a win for bees everywhere—especially for the 4,000 species of native bees here in the U.S.  While native bees like the rusty patched don’t always get the same attention as honey bees, they are just as important to our food and our environment, and many are just as in trouble.  That’s why we’re hopeful that the protections the rusty patched bumble bee now enjoys will begin to help other bees too, chipping away at the larger bee crisis before it’s too late.

The devil, of course, is always in the details, so we’ll be watching closely as the Trump Administration starts to implement those protections.  Whatever happens, one thing’s for sure—if they step out of line again, we’ll “bee” there.

Tuesday 4 April 2017

Ballina Council and sand miner behaving badly?


Echo NetDaily reported on 27 March 2017 that McGeary Bros Pty Ltd plan to extend its quarry operations:

Residents of Lennox Head and the Ballina Greens are opposing a proposal to create a new 3.2 million tonne sand mine on Newrybar Swamp Road, saying an existing mine in the area is already exceeding its extraction approvals and creating a blight on the coastal landscape.

The No Sand Mine for Lennox group said that following its investigation of the existing mine, Ballina Shire Council admitted that despite quarterly statements being submitted to the council clearly outlining the over extraction, council have not contacted the miners to discuss their over extraction, nor imposed any restrictions or fines.

Newrybar resident and Greens member Nathan questioned if the council was unwilling or unable to control the extraction rates of the existing mine, how would it manage the much larger site.

‘We would like to question whether council understands or is monitoring the impact on the very sensitive Newrybar Swamp and North Creek. The over extraction of 115,000 tonnes of material means that there has been about 115 million litres of water displaced,’ he told Echonetdaily.

‘The new mine is proposing a much, much larger sand mine for that same area,’ he added.

‘Locals are already concerned about the number of trucks on the road, whether environmental concerns are being monitored correctly as acid sulphate soil issues, water runoff, habitat loss and agricultural land loss.

‘Then there are the trucks, the noise, the damage to local infrastructure, safety and the fact the tab for any damage will have to be picked up by ratepayers.

‘So that’s what motivated us to have a bit of a look into it and check what’s happening with the current mine,’ he said.

Lennox Head resident and group spokesperson Amelia Hicks said that on council’s statements the group estimates ‘there have been 18,000 extra truck movements’ east and west on Ross Lane in 2016 ‘which equates to 62 additional truck movements per day’.

The Lennox Wave, 29 November 2016:

According to Planners North spokesperson Steve Connelly, ‘We submitted a basic application to the Department of Planning and Environment seeking Secretary’s Environmental Assessment Requirements (SEARs).

The Secretary of the Department consulted all relevant government departments then issued us with a very comprehensive set of Environmental Assessment Requirements. These SEARs must be addressed as part of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Development.

We are preparing the EIS, in association with an expert team of environmental, design and engineering consultants. The EIS must include comprehensive environmental management and monitoring measures.

That EIS, when it is completed, will be lodged with the with Council. The EIS will be publicly exhibited for at least 30 days. During this time, submissions will be invited from the public and Council consults with all the government agencies.’

As part of the EIS issues of soil, water, noise, biodiversity, transport, heritage, waste, public safety, visual impact, social and economic factors, and rehabilitation will all be addressed.

Meanwhile, Amelia Hicks is urging residents to stay alert and ready to take action on this issue. If you would like more information on the planned mine or would like to get involved you can contact her on amelia.hicks@me.com.

Monday 13 March 2017

Australia at the sharp end of global warming


“Australians endured another intense summer, with more than 200 record-breaking extreme weather events driven by climate change” [Climate Council, 7 March 2017]


World Weather Attribution (WWA), media release, March 2017:

Extreme Heat:

A look at the recent record high temperatures in Australia

New South Wales, located in southeastern Australia, just experienced its hottest summer on record (Figure 1). Temperature records across the central and the eastern parts of Australia were broken, leading the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to issue a Special Climate Statement on the exceptional heat. For example, January 2017 saw the highest monthly mean temperatures on record for the cities of Sydney and Brisbane, and the highest daytime temperatures on record for Canberra. Overall, Australia experienced its 12th hottest summer on record.
There were three distinct heat waves in southeast Australia during January and February, with the highest temperatures recorded from February 9th to the 12th. For much of the country, the heat peaked on the weekend of February 11th and 12th, when many places hit upwards of 113°F (45°C). The 2016-2017 heatwaves broke long-standing records in central New South Wales that were originally set back in January of 1939 (Figure 2).
The WWA team and colleagues from the University of New South Wales conducted a rapid attribution analysis to see how climate change factored into the exceptionally warm summer (December to February) of 2016-2017. The team also looked at the hottest three-day average February temperatures in Canberra and Sydney.
 Figure 1: New South Wales, located in southeastern Australia, reported its hottest summer (Dec. 2016 – Feb. 2017) on record while the northwestern part of Australia reported cooler than average temperatures. Map shows temperature deciles. Source: Australian Bureau of Meteorology

Figure 2: Time series (1910-2016) of summer mean temperature anomalies for New South Wales. The 2016-2017 heatwaves broke long-standing records in central New South Wales that were originally set back in January of 1939. Source: Australian Bureau of Meteorology

Regional Level: New South Wales
The New South Wales record hot summer can be linked directly to climate change. Two different methods were used to reach this conclusion. First, drawing from a previously published analysis using coupled model simulations, we see that average summer temperatures like those seen during 2016-2017 are now at least 50 times more likely in the current climate than in the past, before global warming began. The team also performed an analysis based on the observational series from ACORN-SAT. This approach is similar to previous analyses used for record heat in the Arctic in 2016 and Central England in 2014. Comparing the likelihood of this record in the climate of today compared with the climate of around 1910 (before global warming had a big impact on our climate system and when reliable observations are available), the team again found at least a 50-fold increase in the likelihood of this hot summer.
The team then looked at the maximum summer temperature for New South Wales (see graphic below). Based on climate model simulations (weather@home and CMIP5) and observational data analysis (ACORN-SAT), maximum summer temperatures like those seen during 2016-2017 are now at least 10 times more likely in the current climate than in the past, before global warming began. In the past, a summer as hot as 2016-2017 was a roughly 1 in 500-year event. Today, climate change has increased the odds to roughly 1 in 50 years — a 10-fold increase in frequency. In the future, a summer as hot as this past summer in New South Wales is likely to happen roughly once every five years. In addition, climate change has increased the intensity of an exceptionally hot summer like this by roughly 1ºC (1.8°F). In the future, the intensity increases by roughly 2°C (3.6°F).
Local Level: Canberra and Sydney Heatwaves
The team also looked at the local scale to see if a climate change role could be measured in the heat waves that hit Canberra (population ~380,000) and Sydney (population ~4.9 million). Climate has much larger variability at the city level compared to a big area like New South Wales. This can make it more difficult to see the influence of climate change within the overall noise of the weather system.
In Canberra, temperatures hit 96.8oF (36°C) on February 9th and 104oF (40oC) on both February 10th and 11th. Using the weather@home model and ACORN-SAT observations, we analyzed three-day average maximum temperature. Both the observational data and the climate model simulations show that climate change increased the likelihood of the kind of extreme three-day heat observed in Canberra. The weather@home results point to at least a 50 percent increase in the chance of a heatwave like that.
For Sydney, a coastal city, the effect of climate change on this heat wave is less clear. Observations show that climate change increased the chance of such a heat wave occurring, but the high year-to-year variability makes identifying a clear human influence more difficult.
The Future
The heat seen this past summer across parts of Australia is still rare in our current climate. However, if greenhouse gas emissions are not dramatically reduced, intense summer heat will become the norm in the future.
For Further Information Contact:
Andrew King (University of Melbourne): andrew.king@unimelb.edu.au
Sarah Kirkpatrick (University of New South Wales): sarah.kirkpatrick@unsw.edu.au
David Karoly (University of Melbourne): dkaroly@unimelb.edu.au
Geert Jan van Oldenborgh (KNMI): persvoorlichting@knmi.nl (press office)


*****ENDS*****

Excerpts from The Climate Council’s Angry Summer 2016/17: Climate Change Supercharging Extreme Weather report released on 7 March 2017:



In just 90 days, more than 205 records were broken around Australia.
The state-wide mean temperature in summer was the hottest for New South Wales since records began, with temperatures 2.57°C above average.
Sydney had its hottest summer on record with a mean temperature 2.8°C above average.
Brisbane had its hottest summer on record in terms of mean temperature at 26.8°C, equivalent to 1.7°C above average.
Canberra had its hottest summer on record in terms of daytime temperatures and recorded temperatures of at least 35°C on 18 days, already far higher than what is projected for 2030 (12 days).
Adelaide experienced its hottest Christmas day in 70 years at 41.3°C.
Moree in regional New South Wales experienced 54 consecutive days of temperatures 35°C or above, a record for the state.
Perth had its highest summer total rainfall on record of 192.8 mm.......
The impacts of the last Angry Summer of 2013/14 cost the Australian economy approximately $8 billion through absenteeism and a reduction in work productivity. The economic impact from the 2016/17 Angry Summer has not yet been quantified.

The Australia State of the Environment (SoE) 2016 Overview was tabled in the Australian Parliament on 7 March 2017.

Saturday 25 February 2017

"Blinky Bill" visits a couple of Iluka residents in February 2017




Delightful video and photograph of a koala in Spenser Street, Iluka NSW, by Lisa Shaw from the Green Room café at Iluka.

Ken Nicholl from Iluka Landcare transferred this little koala to a koala food tree next door.


An Iluka resident tells me that this koala was approximately 1km from the proposed subdivision of Lot 99 Hickey Street, Iluka, a parcel of land which also reportedly contains koala food trees.

Tuesday 21 February 2017

Of the 2,145 species studied forty-seven per cent of land-based animals and over twenty-three per cent of threatened birds may have already been negatively impacted by climate change


NATURE.COM, Nature Climate Change,  Letter, abstract, 13 February 2017:

Species’ traits influenced their response to recent climate change

Although it is widely accepted that future climatic change—if unabated—is likely to have major impacts on biodiversity12, few studies have attempted to quantify the number of species whose populations have already been impacted by climate change34. Using a systematic review of published literature, we identified mammals and birds for which there is evidence that they have already been impacted by climate change. We modelled the relationships between observed responses and intrinsic (for example, body mass) and spatial traits (for example, temperature seasonality within the geographic range). Using this model, we estimated that 47% of terrestrial non-volant threatened mammals (out of 873 species) and 23.4% of threatened birds (out of 1,272 species) may have already been negatively impacted by climate change in at least part of their distribution. Our results suggest that populations of large numbers of threatened species are likely to be already affected by climate change, and that conservation managers, planners and policy makers must take this into account in efforts to safeguard the future of biodiversity.


UPDATE

Climate Home, 21 February 2017:

Seaweeds, invertebrates, fish and giant, ethereal kelp jungles are among a group of more than one hundred species that are being driven towards extinction by warming waters around Tasmania, an Australian senate inquiry has heard.

Neville Barrett, a research fellow at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies in Hobart, where the hearing was held, told the Environment and Communications References Committee that the waters around Tasmania were a global hotspot for warming.

“I mentioned that there were 100 or more species in general of kelps and endemic fishes and things that will probably disappear over the coming century, certainly by the turn of the next century under the current bottom end of predictions of climate change,” he told Climate Home after his appearance.

“There’s a whole lot of species on the southern end of Australia that are as far south as they can currently go and some of them are already pushed to their upper thermal limit, as far as summer temperatures will go.”

Beyond Tasmania, there is no major landmass until Antarctica, meaning many species have “nowhere else to go”, said Barrett.

One such species is the giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera, the last stands of which Climate Home reported had been lost from Tasmania’s east coast in 2016.