Sustainability Archives - Cool Australia

Taking care of business: the private sector is waking up to nature’s value

Author: Megan C Evans

Date: 2/2/21

Shutterstock Megan C Evans, UNSW For many businesses, climate change is an existential threat. Extreme weather can disrupt operations and supply chains, spelling disaster for both small vendors and global corporations. It also leaves investment firms dangerously exposed. Businesses increasing...

AI can now learn to manipulate human behaviour

Source: The Conversation

Artificial intelligence (AI) is learning more about how to work with (and on) humans. A recent study has shown how AI can learn to identify vulnerabilities in human habits and behaviours and use them to influence human decision-making. It may seem cliched to say AI is transforming every aspect of t...

Worried about Earth’s future? Well, the outlook is worse than even scientists can grasp

Source: The Conversation

Date: 13/01/21

Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Flinders University; Daniel T. Blumstein, University of California, Los Angeles, and Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University Anyone with even a passing interest in the global environment knows all is not well. But just how bad is the situation? Our new paper shows the outlook for li...

‘All things will outlast us’: how the Indigenous concept of deep time helps us understand environmental destruction

Author: Ann McGrath

Source: The Conversation

Date: August 19, 2020

The bushfire royal commission is examining ways Indigenous land and fire management could improve Australia’s resilience to national disasters. On the face of it, this offers an opportunity to embrace Indigenous ways of knowing. But one traditional practice unlikely to be examined is the Indigeno...

We live in an age of ‘fake news’. But Australian children are not learning enough about media literacy

Author: Tanya Notley, Michael Dezuanni.

Source: The Conversation

Date: July 6, 2020

Tanya Notley, Western Sydney University and Queensland University of Technology Today we release the findings from our new research into how young Australians consume and think about news media. Following a summer of bushfires and during the COVID-19 pandemic, young people have told us they cons...

A major scorecard gives the health of Australia’s environment less than 1 out of 10

Source: The Conversation

Date: 30/3/2020

Albert Van Dijk, Australian National University; Luigi Renzullo, Australian National University; Marta Yebra, Australian National University, and Shoshana Rapley, Australian National University 2019 was the year Australians confronted the fact that a healthy environment is more than just a pretty w...

The last ice age tells us why we need to care about a 2℃ change in temperature

Author: Alan N Williams, Chris Turney, Haidee Cadd and more

Source: The Conversation

Date: February 25, 2020

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that without a substantial decrease in our use of fossil fuels, we are on track for a global average increase of 2℃ in the next few decades, with extremes of between 3 to 6℃ at higher latitudes. But 2℃ doesn’...

No Australian city has a long-term vision for living sustainably. We can’t go on like this

Author: Mike Berry, Ian Lowe

Source: The Conversation

Date: 5/11/19

Australia was already one of the most urbanised nations by the end of the 19th century. Unlike European and North American countries, Australia’s pattern of settlement did not have a neat urban hierarchy. The gap between the large and small towns was huge. These patterns have intensified in the d...

Six of the best environmentally-friendly Australian startups

Author: Lianna Speers

Source: Smart Start Ups

Date: 20th July 2016

At Ideas Hoist, we’ve noticed that startups with an environmental purpose are on the rise. As the world grapples with the immensity of waste, climate and biodiversity challenges, these eco-friendly entrepreneurs are finding innovative and exciting ways to help meet these challenges, while improvi...

Welcome to Tesla Town: the new Melbourne suburb with a Powerwall in every home

Author: Sophie Vorrath

Source: Reneweconomy

Date: 18th of July 2016

Less than six months after Australia received its first shipment of Tesla Powerwalls, plans for what could be the world’s first “Tesla town” – a mini-suburb on the outskirts of the Melbourne CBD whose new-build homes will include rooftop solar and Tesla battery storage as standard design fea...