Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
I’m now using Substack as a blogging platform, and for my monthly email newsletter. For the moment, I’ll post both at this blog and on Substack. You can also follow me on Mastodon here.
John Quiggin 
The football finals are over and we can say it. Corporatised professional sport is a complete waste of resources. In this resource-straitened age with multiple crises to deal with we cannot afford the resource waste and misallocation that goes with corporate, professionalised and subsidised sport. The main beneficiaries are owners, staff and players/athletes in professionalised sport and also the providers of accommodation, restaurants and catering for alcohol and junk foods. The general public receives little to nothing of real and lasting benefit.
“Australian governments subsidise corporatised professional sport in various ways, including direct funding, significant investment in sports infrastructure like stadiums, and the provision of tax concessions and other financial benefits. Federal, state, and local governments also contribute through programs that support high-performance athletes and facilitate major sporting events, often in partnership with national sporting bodies and private entities.” – Google AI.
This creates significant economic distortions, wastes resources and fails to address our real ecological and social problems which are now reaching crisis proportions. How long do we have to wait in this country to have our real problems addressed?
30 days of energy and renewables provide 50%, what’s not to like?
Source: NEM via Matthew Moyle-Croft
Here is some good news – some parts of the US are becoming slightly less dumb:
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/vermont-new-hampshire-plug-in-balcony-legislation
In case anyone’s wondering why this isn’t happening in California, my guess is that we are too union-dominated. (And yes it hurts me to say that.)
On second thought, maybe it’s more the investor-owned utilities.
Plus, in some places, people will be upset at how they look. In the denser areas.
Ikonoclast – “The football finals are over and we can say it. Corporatised professional sport is a complete waste of resources. In this resource-straitened age with multiple crises to deal with we cannot afford the resource waste and misallocation that goes with corporate, professionalised and subsidised sport.“
Playing sport outside in summer daylight hours, perhaps as early as in the 2030s, may perhaps become a lethal activity.
A 2017 research paper, reported by The Conversation, suggested that Sydney and Melbourne are on course for 50 °C summer days by the 2040s if high greenhouse emissions continue. Since the paper was published the rate of GMST warming has accelerated to ~0.4 °C/decade most recently. Thus, it seems to me 50 °C summer days may arrive sooner.
At 52 °C dry bulb temperature with 15% relative humidity, this has a heat index temperature of 55 °C, which means Extreme danger: at this condition, heat stroke is imminent. Exposure times of as little as 20 minutes for biologically compromised people and perhaps less than six hours for the supremely fit without any physical activity may be lethal.
The NSW Parliament Joint Committee on Net Zero Future is currently conducting an inquiry into Emissions from the fossil fuel sector. My Submission (#26) is one of 28 received and published. My Submission highlights where we are now, where we are heading towards, and the likely consequences.
More transition good news
Environmental think tank Ember have issued an update on the transition in electricity. https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-mid-year-insights-2025/
“Solar and wind outpaced demand growth in the first half of 2025, as renewables overtook coal’s share in the global electricity mix.”
The IEA says that emissions from China’s and India’s coal power sectors actually fell in the first six months of 2025, driving a modest global reduction from the sector. They naturally predict a rebound in the second half of the year. https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-mid-year-update-2025/demand (Better be respectably wrong than unSeriously right.)
Neither body endorses in so many words my retro-prediction that the world passed peak GHG emissions some time in 2024, but it keeps looking better. Gasoline and diesel demand is definitely falling, led again by China. Hydro output varies considerably from year to year, so a nasty overall surprise is still technically possible, but increasingly unlikely.
It is huge news that coal is no longer the dominant incumbent but a visibly declining loser. In the USA the Navajo nation made the sole offer for a lease on 167 million tons of coal on federal lands in Montana – at a derisory $186,000, or 0.11c per tonne. https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eenews/2025/10/06/company-bids-one-tenth-of-a-penny-per-ton-in-us-coal-sale-00595116
This coal will never be mined. The attempt to justify an American coal revival on the back of a projected boom in loss-making data centres is already being unpicked by an army of spreadsheet wonks. Trump’s first administration failed to rescue US coal, with halfway competent officials. The second Trump administration of lunatics and toadies stands no chance at all.
Fossil fuels are not falling anywhere near fast enough. Sure. But we should still celebrate the lead at half time, and laugh at the pro-nuclear holdouts.
Astroturfs exposed;
“..of the 63 objections that were raised with the Yanco battery, only five were received from within 100 kilometres of the proposed site, with 90 per cent coming from those located more than 100 kilometres away, including 17 of which were from interstate.
According to Iwan Davies, the director of energy assessments for the department of planning and environment, “there is a very low level of local interest or concern towards the project”
https://reneweconomy.com.au/ipc-gives-rapid-approval-to-giant-four-hour-battery-after-long-distance-objectors-force-referral/
There’s a a global online conference scheduled on the 15 – 16 Oct 2025 titled The global heating emergency and preventing 2°C by 2040: What’s the plan?
This conference is hosted by the Healthy Planet Action Coalition (HPAC). The HPAC is bringing together scientists, policymakers, and concerned citizens for a global online conference to build awareness about why temperatures are accelerating, and what this means for humanity.
Over two days, this conference will host five hours of discussion that will address:
This conference is open to all: the public, scientists, decision-makers—anyone who cares about the future of life on Earth. There is no charge for participating.
Each day’s program will be 2½ hours, with these starting times on 15 and 16 October:
I don’t understand it all well enough to laugh at nuclear proponents. However, I thank you again, James, for good news!! We need absolutely every bit we can get.