The global fossil fuels trap

The “State of the Environment Report for 2021 for Australia” has been finally released more than half way through 2022. I do not know why their was such a delay. Perhaps because the widespread environmental decline in so many categories would have been more political ammunition against the previous parliament, which was ousted in the May 2022 federal election.

The introduction headlined is

“In a rapidly changing climate, with unsustainable development and use of resources, the general outlook for our environment is deteriorating”

And so it goes, the world and Australia.

SOE-2021 is a monumental report, with several detailed sections. For introductory digestion it is presented with a graphical website front end, nicely done, requiring some time and taxpayer expense. Very good for school research projects. It took me a little while to locate a download page for the more traditional format as PDF documents here — https://soe.dcceew.gov.au/about-soe/downloads

All of our environmental sins are enabled by economic growth of fossil-fuel powered machinery and large scale chemical transformations. All political efforts have failed to turn down the global fossil fuel tap, and so limit growth economics.