The US election is symptomatic of a new, gloomier political reality facing those concerned with global efforts to avert climate catastrophe. Since the issue of climate change first gained widespread attention in the early 1990s, it has never been far from the centre of political debate in most Western countries. As the pace of warming has increased, and its impacts have become more visible, you might expect that it would retain that place or even gain in importance in the minds of politicians and the voting public. In the US this year, the opposite has happened.
Not even the multiple weather-related disasters the country endured during the presidential campaign could shift the dial. Hurricane Helene roared out of the Gulf of Mexico and slammed into the southern Appalachian mountains in late September with devastating winds and catastrophic flooding. Entire towns were swept away, and more than 230 people were killed. Two weeks later another major hurricane hit Florida. It didn’t matter. The climate crisis didn’t rank as highly as it previously had in <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/09/09/issues-and-the-2024-election/">polls of voters’ concerns</a>, and it was barely mentioned by Joe Biden, his replacement as Democratic Party presidential nominee Kamala Harris or Donald Trump during their campaigns.
The lack of discussion of or concern about climate change in this election wasn’t a sign that efforts to limit warming are going well. Quite the opposite. The decades of green rhetoric by politicians and the never-ending round of global climate summits have got us nowhere. Total global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, and the rate of increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere (which are the most accurate measures of lack of progress) is accelerating. 
Over time, the gulf between the rhetoric used by politicians hoping to establish their green credentials and the grim reality of a society still well and truly hooked on fossil fuels has become harder and harder to ignore. This is, no doubt, part of the explanation for the growing phenomenon of “climate apathy”. For many years now, every time an election comes around we’ve been told by supposedly progressive parties like the US Democrats and Labor in Australia that climate change is a major challenge demanding urgent action. Again and again, though, when these parties come to power they fail to do anything more than the bare minimum about it.
You might object, in the case of the Biden administration, that the green rhetoric was matched to a degree by action. To the extent that Harris sought to draw attention to climate policy at all during her campaign, it was to highlight Biden’s “trillion dollar” investment in clean energy. At the same time, though, she made clear her continuing enthusiasm for fossil fuels. She was proud, she said, that the administration had “increased domestic gas production to historic levels” and that during her time in office the US has carried out “the largest increase in domestic oil production in history”. On both counts, she had every right to brag: in the 2010s the US overtook countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the largest oil and gas producer in the world, and it hasn’t looked back since.
Taking climate change seriously demands finding ways to wind down the fossil fuel economy. With something like this, you can’t “have your cake and eat it too”. However much you might invest in clean energy (and it’s true the Biden administration invested a lot), if that investment is being directly counteracted by significant increases in the production and consumption of fossil fuels, then what’s the point? 
We’ve had years of “climate wars” and “climate elections”. This time it was different. This was, when it comes to the climate, a “what’s the point?” election. We shouldn’t be overly surprised. When—despite what the scientists have been saying for decades and despite their own green rhetoric—those in power continually send the message that it’s not only okay but commendable to continue to expand the fossil fuel economy, it’s only natural that some would start to question whether climate change is really worth worrying about.
Donald Trump, of course, was only too happy to capitalise on this sentiment. Unlike the Democrats, Trump has always been very open about his enthusiasm for fossil fuels and disdain for climate science. During his campaign <a href="https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1852547593873526930">he promised</a> to “terminate the green new scam, one of the great scams in history”, and scoffed at the prospect of sea level rises, saying “Who the hell cares?” and joking, in <a href="https://www.rev.com/transcripts/elon-musk-and-donald-trump-interview">an interview with Elon Musk</a>, that “you’ll have more oceanfront property”.
Trump sought to link the Democrats’ climate initiatives to the inflationary wave that hit the US and much of the rest of the world in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Biden administration, he said in July in his <a href="https://www.nbcboston.com/news/national-international/read-donald-trumps-full-rnc-speech-accepting-gop-nomination/3432055/">speech to the Republican National Convention</a>, has “spent trillions of dollars on things having to do with the green new scam, and that’s caused tremendous inflationary prices”. He promised to “drill, baby, drill” to lower the cost of energy for US consumers.
The Democrats had no real answer to this. Having established that they too were enthusiasts for the “drill, baby, drill” mentality, they could hardly turn around and denounce Trump for it. So, by and large, they remained silent. This strategy, predictably, didn’t work well. While Trump supporters were thinking “What’s the point of action on climate change?”, many potential Democrat supporters were thinking “What’s the point of voting?”. Millions of those who had voted for Joe Biden in 2020 stayed home this time. The Democrats’ promise of a “Trump-lite” administration inspired few.
Last time he was in power, Trump implemented a range of policies favourable to the fossil fuel industry—including reversing or rolling back almost 100 environmental regulations related to things like carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and cars. He also withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement, a (theoretically at least) legally binding international treaty committing countries that signed up to it to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. His second term in the White House is likely to bring more of the same.
“That things ‘just go on’ is the catastrophe”, Walter Benjamin once wrote. “It is not that which is approaching but that which is.” Another four years of Trump is no new catastrophe for the planet. The catastrophe was already here. The terrifying thing is that this election will reinforce the tendency for people in countries like the US and Australia to think “What’s the point in trying to do anything about it?”

James Plested

‘Drill, baby, drill’: Climate change ignored in the US election

King Felipe of Spain, along with the Spanish prime minister and the Valencian president, visited the flood-ravaged town of Paiporta on 3 November. They were greeted by crowds of angry residents chanting “Murderer!” and had mud thrown at them. 
The furious reception was in response to disastrous floods in the Valencia region in late October. The floods, caused by massive rainfall—in some locations a year’s worth of rain fell in eight hours—were the worst natural disaster in Spain in decades. More than 215 people have been killed and about 1,900 are missing. 
This part of Spain typically receives a lot of rain at this time of year, but as global temperatures rise, the air carries more moisture, leading to more extreme events. 
While the flooding is a result of climate change, the death toll is a product of neglect. The day before the downpour, the meteorological agency issued warnings, which the regional government of Valencia largely ignored. 
It was only at 8pm on the day of the floods that the government sent a warning to every mobile phone, instructing people to stay at home or move to higher ground. By this time, flood waters had already hit many towns, trapping people in their houses or in cars on their way home after work. 
<a href="https://youtu.be/XEqfDG8Xn00?feature=shared&amp;t=43">One young man berated the King</a>: “It was known, and nobody did anything to avoid it”.
In line with other disasters, such as <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/rescuers-find-body-worker-swept-tennessee-factory-hurricane-115409477">Hurricane Helen</a>e, there seem to have been several cases of bosses preventing their workers from leaving work early to seek safety. One widely shared video <a href="https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2024/10/30/criminal-companies-outrage-as-mercadona-sends-driver-out-into-deadly-floods-while-other-firms-are-slammed-for-endangering-employees/">shows a delivery driver for Mercadona</a>, one of Spain’s major supermarket chains, being saved by rescue workers. 
After the floods, Juan Roig, president of Mercadona, was <a href="https://x.com/NombreFalso1231/status/1852851619211223496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1852851619211223496%7Ctwgr%5E50476688fdf2e8e70c2e6c13fc8a9205673e97ce%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmarxist.com%2Fspain-monarchs-pelted-with-mud-as-rage-over-avoidable-deaths-boils-over-in-valencia.htm">confronted by angry shoppers</a> at a supermarket. “You have no shame. You sent your workers out to die”, one said. Graffiti reading “Your profits, our dead” summarises the sentiment. 
The Valencia Emergency Unit, which had been created to coordinate emergency responses, had been disbanded as a part of budget cuts by the conservative regional government last year. The government also initially refused help from firefighting agencies from other parts of Spain and France in an effort to show that it had everything under control. This left some of the worst affected areas without heavy machinery for up to six days. 
One consequence is that residents have had to organise the cleaning effort themselves. One, Ana Isabel Zomeno, told ABC News: “The street here was full of piled cars. Nobody came here, but all the neighbours in this street have organised themselves very well to do the clean-up. It looks this clean now because of us”. 
People throughout Spain have donated supplies. Volunteers from the region have travelled around to help others clean up. On one day when the government put a call out, up to 15,000 people volunteered to help. 
Video shows mud everywhere. It carpets the ground and is caked onto walls. The people are covered in it—from the flood and from cleaning up afterwards. 
The visiting politicians, and even the king, ended up covered in it too, for different reasons. That was one piece of good news coming out of this disaster.

Ben Lourie

Spanish floods highlight the muck of capitalism

As the death toll from Hurricane Helene rises and people search through the rubble of their destroyed towns for survivors, policymakers prioritise US imperialism in the Middle East and business interests at home.
With more than 220 people already confirmed dead and hundreds reported missing, Helene is the deadliest US hurricane since Katrina laid waste to New Orleans in 2005. The Appalachian region of North Carolina was particularly hard hit by the storm, despite being historically less affected by hurricanes. Severe rainfall caused record-breaking floods, swallowing up entire towns, cutting off power and water, and destroying access roads.
In the small North Carolina town of Marshall, reporter Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs described one particularly harrowing story for the New York Times. Bruce Tipton’s home was destroyed by the flood while he was still inside. The 75-year-old managed to grab hold of a tree and call out for help. He clung on for six hours, waiting for a rescue team to arrive, while his family and friends watched helplessly from the riverbank. But there was only one volunteer rescue team for the entire county. When the team finally arrived, they told his family that a rescue was impossible because it was too dangerous without a motorboat—they had only rafts. Eventually, he succumbed to the floodwater. They still haven’t found his body.
Tipton’s fate is just one of hundreds of similar stories in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. But these tragedies were not the result only of a freak weather event beyond anyone’s control. They were exacerbated by the priorities of a sick system.
Climate scientists have been warning that climate change is increasing the severity of hurricanes in the US. Climate Central released a report in May that said the Appalachian region is carrying an outsized burden for current and future flooding. Yet the North Carolina state legislature has spent the last decade reversing climate adaptation measures and slashing environmental regulations in the interests of developers and the fossil fuel sector.
In 2023, Republican lawmakers overturned building codes requiring inspections for inland houses to certify that they are built to withstand hurricane-force winds. The change was backed by the North Carolina Home Builders Association, a developers’ group. They argued it was unnecessary outside of coastal areas, despite predictions of inland communities facing greater risk of damaging hurricanes as climate change intensifies. The same group also backed legislation to open the state’s wetlands to development. Wetlands are like sponges for rainwater and are a crucial part of flood mitigation. Instead, they were filled in so developers could build flimsy houses, destroying the very asset that could defend against the devastating floods that swept away Tipton’s trailer in minutes. 
In a logical society, these actions would be considered egregiously reckless. However, under capitalism, reducing costly environmental regulations is better for business than ensuring that houses are safe to live in.
Not only did the state legislature inhibit storm-proofing of communities, but lawmakers also went out of their way to protect fossil fuel production and usage. A report by the Environmental Integrity Project found that the state reduced funding to the Department of Environmental Quality by 35 percent in the decade from 2008, one of the biggest cuts to a state environment agency in the country at the time. Power companies like Duke Energy were given sweetheart deals so they would not have to properly remediate areas impacted by toxic wastewater from their power plants (incidentally, the governor at the time, Pat McCrory, was a former executive at Duke Energy).
Comedian Stephen Colbert joked that North Carolina was the state that “outlawed climate change”. But jokes aside, these laws propped up the profits of developers and fossil fuel companies, with full knowledge of the risk they posed to communities. And people have likely died because of it.
The similarities to how Hurricane Katrina was handled in 2005 are striking. In the wake of Katrina, former President George W. Bush’s administration expanded funding for the United States’ war in Iraq instead of adequately supporting communities impacted by the storm.
But refusing to mitigate the climate crisis and protect communities against increasingly extreme weather events is not the purview only of Republicans. Today, a Democratic administration is prioritising US imperialist interests in the Middle East over protecting its citizens from catastrophic climate change. At the same time as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced a funding shortfall of US$9 billion urgently needed to deal with the fallout of Helene, the Biden administration gave a further US$8.7 billion in aid to Israel to continue its genocide in Gaza and invasion of Lebanon.
At the drop of a hat, the US government can send aircraft carriers with thousands of personnel and advanced equipment to the Middle East. But Bruce Tipton had to cling for his life to a tree for six hours because there was only one under-resourced volunteer rescue team available for the entire county.
Tragically, another hurricane has now made landfall in Florida. It could potentially be even more destructive than Helene. But FEMA is suffering from an acute staffing shortage, meaning more people could be stranded without rescue, just like Tipton. The agency has indicated that only 9 percent of its staff are available for deployment to Florida as it is battling numerous other environmental disasters. The money to prevent further loss of life is there, but it’s being spent on blowing up Palestinian children.
This is what our rulers think of us. From Gaza to North Carolina, ordinary people dying in preventable disasters are just the price of doing business under capitalism.

Clara da Costa-Reidel

Hurricane Helene exposes the deadly priorities of US capitalism

Global average temperatures have been at least 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial averages every month for the past twelve months, according to the European Union-run <a>Copernicus Climate Change Service</a>. Every one of those months also set monthly temperature records. 
The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement sought to limit global warming to a 1.5 degree threshold, warning that surpassing this could lead to catastrophic runaway warming. If this target is achieved, it will represent a “best case scenario”, according to the agreement. 
What does a “best case scenario” of warming look like? The past twelve months provide the answer.
It looks like record-breaking wildfires in Canada, which burnt over 16.5 million hectares of land. This was more than twice the previous Canadian record. Smoke from the fires blanketed New York and other cities in scenes reminiscent of the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires in Australia. 
It looks like historic heatwaves across the world, from North America to Africa, southern Europe, the Middle East, China and India. Phoenix, Arizona, experienced a record 31 consecutive days of temperatures above 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 Celsius) last year. China, Morocco, Albania, Turkey and Brazil all clocked record temperatures, while the town of Jerzu in Italy suffered the highest temperatures ever recorded in Europe. Heatwaves in India this year killed at least 110 people, and in Saudi Arabia at least 1,300 people died from extreme heat during the hajj, according to Saudi Arabia’s health minister. 
It looks like severe rainfall and flooding in China less than a month after recording its hottest day ever, as well as severe tropical storms like <a>Hurricane Beryl</a>—notable for being the earliest recorded category five hurricane in history.
It looks like the hottest day on record (6 July 2023), the hottest month on record (December 2023) and the hottest year on record (2023). 
This is the new normal under the “best case scenario”. But as former NASA scientist James Hansen <a>told the Independent</a>, limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees is “deader than a doornail”. According to the United Nations Environment Programme’s 2023 Emissions Gap Report, even if countries implemented all their current commitments under the Paris Agreement, the world would be on track for 2.5 degrees of warming by 2100. 
The reality is likely to be even worse, as greenhouse gas emissions are rising, not falling. For instance, despite Australia’s formal commitment to net zero emissions by 2050, the Albanese government’s <a>Future Gas Strategy</a>, released in May, commits Australia to “continued gas development” and the use of gas “through to 2050 and beyond”. The annual Global Carbon Budget found that carbon dioxide emissions hit a record high of 36.8 billion tonnes in 2023.
Capitalism is unfit to tackle climate change: its rapacious drive for profit above all else has the world teetering on the edge of total climate disaster. It has proven incapable of limiting global warming to anything approaching a “safe” level, and living with the effects of climate change under capitalism will be unbearable for millions, if not billions, of people. 
Mexico and Brazil suffered heatwaves last year, yet only 16 percent of households in those countries have an air conditioner, according to the International Energy Agency. In India that number drops to 5 percent. There’s no prize for guessing whether Indian billionaire Gautam Adani (of the Adani coal mine) belongs to that 5 percent. 
Millions of people will become climate refugees, fleeing rising sea levels and unbearable heat. Yet across the world, governments are imposing ever stricter anti-migrant and anti-refugee measures. 
In Australia, according to the Bureau of Statistics, insurance prices increased 14 percent in the year to May, largely driven by extreme weather events. This has left houses in Lismore virtually uninsurable after two “once in a lifetime” floods in five years. 
Although some degree of adaptation to the effects of climate change may be possible under capitalism, it will fall far short of what is needed. Whilst those who are responsible for and benefit from climate destruction flourish, working people, particularly those in the Global South, suffer. We need to radically reorganise the entire way in which we produce goods, construct cities and interact with the natural environment. This will be impossible while the profit motive reigns supreme.

Global average temperatures hit 1.5 degrees and climate devastation ensues

Way back in 1979, Lewis Lehr, the CEO of American corporation 3M, met with an expert on toxic chemicals. A mysterious set of chemicals produced by 3M had been found in the blood of people across the US.
The toxicologist told Lehr that, when tested on animals, exposure to the chemicals resulted in symptoms consistent with cancer. Instead of reporting this information to the authorities, 3M wiped it from the minutes of the meeting.
So began one of the most sinister and deadly corporate cover-ups in history, laid bare in the new Stan documentary Revealed: How to Poison a Planet.
Nearly 50 years after that fateful meeting, PFAS, known as forever chemicals because they do not break down naturally, are in nearly everything—and everyone. They occur in a range of household items as varied as non-stick cookware, cleaning products, make-up and rain jackets. Tap water across Australia contains unsafe levels of PFAS. The chemicals were detected in every study of umbilical cord blood in the last five years.
In 1998, the head toxicologist at 3M estimated that a safe level of PFAS in human blood is about one part per billion. The average American’s blood has not double, not triple, but 30 times that amount.
Media coverage of the health ramifications of PFAS is growing, for good reason. The list of afflictions linked to the chemicals is long and expanding.
A 2019 study commissioned by the Nordic Council of Ministers estimated that more than 15 million Europeans are affected by illnesses caused by PFAS exposure. It also predicted that high blood pressure caused by PFAS could be responsible for the deaths of up to 10,000 Europeans each year.
Researchers from the University of Michigan found in a 2023 study that women with high levels of exposure to certain PFAS chemicals had twice the chance of developing melanoma.
While today’s scientists are just scratching the surface, the CEOs of 3M and the other major producer DuPont knew about the dangers decades ago. But the chemicals were key to their most profitable products, so in keeping with the tradition of many a mighty corporate empire, they chose a systematic cover-up over telling the truth.
As early as 1970, researchers for DuPont found that some PFAS were “highly toxic when inhaled and moderately toxic when ingested”. Again, the company said nothing and continued to produce the chemicals. 
In the late 1970s, 3M scientists found that a relatively low daily dose of PFAS—less than most people consume today—administered to monkeys could kill them within weeks. This would put the chemicals in the highest of five toxicity categories recognised by the United Nations. Again, the company said nothing while ramping up production.
In fact, 90 percent of PFAS have been produced in the time since 3M and DuPont knew how dangerous the chemicals are.
Actor Mark Ruffalo raises the sharpest political question of the documentary. Putting toxic chemicals into popular products was not an accident but a conscious “decision made by people”, he notes. “You can’t help but ask—what kind of people do that?”
“Evil people”, he later concludes. He’s not wrong. 
But he’s not referring to evil people like drug dealers who get thrown in jail for distributing toxic products. He’s talking about the evil people who get multimillion-dollar salaries and an obituary in the Wall Street Journal.
The leaders of 3M poisoned the planet because it made them money. They played by the rules of the capitalist game—profit before all else—and were rewarded massively for it. 
3M has not been raided by police, nor have its leaders been thrown into jail. Instead, it is a Fortune 500 company with an estimated net worth of $58 billion. Forbes
ranked it as one of “America’s most just companies” in 2021, based on “issues relating to giving back to their communities”.
PFAS are just one of the many ways in which capitalism’s relentless drive for profits is poisoning the planet and all those who live on it. The only “just” solution to this disaster is for every complicit corporate executive to be stripped of their wealth and power.

Lucas Brunning-Halsall

How a giant corporate cover-up poisoned the planet—and everyone on it

Before Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Mexico, workers in Cancún dug sea turtle eggs from the sand and secured them in crates to ensure they would be safe from the category-five storm. Residents of Union Island in Saint Vincents and the Grenadines prepared by fortifying roofs with cinder blocks. From Venezuela to Texas, millions of people have been affected by Beryl. The impact has been devastating. On Union Island, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/07/06/hurricane-beryl-caribbean-damage/">almost all of the 2,500 residents</a> have been made homeless. In Texas, 2 million people have been left without power in the midst of a heatwave.
In Jamaica, a resident of Treasure Beach said that the storm was “terrifying” and people were grateful to be alive. Eyewitness reports detail the terror of being trapped inside homes while roofs are ripped off by the wind. More than eighteen people have been killed, but the death toll will likely rise as clean-up efforts continue. 
Speaking to the Guardian, meteorologist Jeff Masters said the hurricane was “unprecedentedly strange”. Beryl is strange both because it occurred earlier in the season than any other category-five hurricane on record, and because it intensified far quicker than expected. Usually, Atlantic hurricanes at this time of year are category one or two, meaning they are less likely to result in severe damage and loss of life. The reason for this unprecedented event is the warming ocean. 
The last decade saw the hottest ocean temperatures <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/ocean-warming/?intent=121">since the 1800s</a>, and 2023 set the record for the hottest year ever. Scientists estimate that 90 percent of global warming from human activity has been absorbed by the world’s oceans. And because hurricanes draw their energy from the ocean, warmer water makes for more powerful and destructive storms. 
Warmer water was an important factor underpinning the rapid intensification of Beryl from a lower category into a category five—the highest level. And it affects the coral reefs that act as natural barriers to the waves caused by Atlantic storms, providing protection for more than 18,000 people in the area. The reefs are being bleached and weakened by warmer waters. 
This double whammy of bigger storms and the breakdown of natural defences means there will be more storms as destructive as Beryl. Ko Barrett, deputy secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, said that Beryl is a harbinger of a “very active, very dangerous” hurricane season. 
Poor countries like Jamaica and other Caribbean islands are going to bear the brunt of these climate-change-induced superstorms. According to the prime minister of Grenada, Dickon Mitchell, 98 percent of the country’s infrastructure has been damaged. 
The story is similar everywhere. The countries that bear the least responsibility for the carbon emissions driving the climate crisis and which have the fewest resources available to deal with its impacts are the ones hardest hit. Because such countries are marginal to global capitalism, little is done to protect the lives of those in them. 
Western politicians have even been known to joke about the threat of climate change on these vulnerable populations. Opposition Leader <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-11/dutton-overheard-joking-about-sea-levels-in-pacific-islands/6768324">Peter Dutton</a>, for example, was <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-11/dutton-overheard-joking-about-sea-levels-in-pacific-islands/6768324">caught</a> in 2015 making fun of the prospect of “water lapping at the doors” of people in the Pacific Islands. 
Every year, new climate-related records are broken. Whether it’s warm oceans, heatwaves, rising sea levels. The causes are no mystery. Fossil fuels continue to be burnt so that companies can profit, with the encouragement of governments, when we need a rapid transition to renewable energy sources.

Anneke Demanuele

Hurricane Beryl is more evidence that climate change is here

“Don’t dump on us again”, says Wendy Farmer, president of the Latrobe Valley community group Voices of the Valley and a local community organiser for Friends of the Earth. The Latrobe Valley is one of Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton’s proposed sites for nuclear power reactors, which would replace the Loy Yang coal power station. 
The region is already saddled with several toxic industries. As Farmer explains to Red Flag, “We have a waste-to-energy, we have a lead smelter, we have a magnesium smelter, we have the power stations ... Just today I’ve gone outside and you should see the coal dust on my rubbish bins. It is just everywhere. People are like, ‘Why are we being the dumping ground again? Why are we just being told once again what’s good for us and what we need?’”
Wendy knows what it’s like for a community to be treated as expendable. She became an activist in 2014 during the Hazelwood coal mine fire, which lasted for 45 days. The fire blanketed the area with smoke, causing the deaths of at least 60 people according to extensive research carried out by Voices of the Valley. This was no accident, but a result of the owner ENGIE’s cost-cutting and negligence. “They knew the risks two days before the fire got into the mine and chose to ignore it. I think they put a couple of extra staff on over the weekend, when we were gonna have the hottest, windiest weekend. Any fool could have read that.”
The fire might also have been prevented through the mine’s watering system, a critical safety measure meant to keep the coal face wet and guard against bushfires, which the owners had previously dismantled.
“My husband at the time worked at Hazelwood”, Wendy says. “Hazelwood knew that things needed to be repaired. Hazelwood knew that they didn’t have the water where they needed it.” You can never completely trust a company, she says. “Industry has known about asbestos, yet they’ve used it. Industry has known about the stone [in kitchen bench-tops], yet they’ve used it. Industry has known about dangers before and covered them up.” 
If companies like ENGIE axe safety measures and governments cover up their crimes, why should we expect nuclear to be any different? Wendy describes Dutton’s nuclear proposal as a fantasy: “No plan, no proposal, no detail”. But her objections run deeper than that. The risks of a nuclear failure weigh heavily on a community with such a recent history of disaster and injustice. 
“If there’s a failure and the kids are at school or anywhere else”, Wendy says, “nuclear disaster would kill ... That sort of radiation you don’t have much chance. If the kids are at school, it’s too late to go and get them. And if they’re not dead, the damage is done. You can’t reverse the damage”. Worse still, Wendy explains, the valley sits on an earthquake fault line. “We’ve had many earthquakes. It’s only a matter of time before we have a big one.”
Fortunately, through Hazelwood the community taught itself how to fight toxic industries. On the morning Dutton’s proposed sites were revealed, Wendy organised a snap protest outside local Nationals MP Darren Chester’s office. “The people who joined the anti-nuclear rally were pretty upset, pretty pissed off”, Wendy says. “‘How dare they? We don’t want nuclear reactors.’”
Not everyone is opposed to nuclear, however; the community’s views are mixed. According to a <a href="https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/victoria/poll-shows-majority-of-aussies-support-nuclear-power-plan/news-story/72e344f1aea990623d38b98f64787115">News Corp survey</a> last month (which polled only 113 people), 59 percent of Latrobe Valley residents would be comfortable with a nuclear reactor being built in their state or region. “A lot of people who support nuclear are supporting it because there will be jobs. But in fact there won’t be jobs for 30 or 40 years”, says Wendy. Construction on the nuclear power plant cannot begin, Wendy explains, until after Loy Yang has been shut down and rehabilitated, which won’t be for at least a decade.
Affordable energy is the other argument opening people to nuclear. But nuclear-generated power is far more expensive than renewables, given the extensive capital costs. According to the <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/gencost">GenCost 2023-24</a> report published by the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), while wind and solar PV combined are estimated to cost between $73 and $128/MWh, large-scale nuclear will cost between $141 and $233/MWh, or $230 to $382/MWh for small modular reactors.
“Hazelwood was a David and Goliath”, Wendy says. “I felt the community won. For sure the company weren’t punished enough, but the community won. We have to stand together and we can win this.”

Cormac Mills Ritchard

No to nuclear in the Latrobe Valley

In the past few years, whole towns have been wiped out by fire and flood, suburbs have been inundated by floodwaters or storm surges in Sydney and Melbourne, and extreme heat is putting more people in hospitals.
We need an urgent and coordinated response to prepare for heatwaves, rising sea levels and increasingly frequent floods. But governments and property developers won’t listen; they aren’t interested. 
Consultancy firm KPMG <a href="https://kpmg.com/au/en/home/media/press-releases/2024/01/38--of-australians-face-high-risk-from-extreme-heat.html#:~:text=According%20to%20the%202023%20ACOSS,also%20has%20severe%20economic%20impacts.">estimates that 10 million people</a> in Australia live in areas that face “extreme heat-related risks”. And a 2020 study published in The Lancet Planetary Health journal estimated that nearly 37,000 deaths in Australia between 2006 and 2017 were associated with heat.
Yet many homes and workplaces are not designed for extreme weather. While new buildings are required to meet specific energy efficiency standards, the standards are based on average temperatures from 1990 to 2015. Most buildings were constructed before the standards were implemented, so they need to be upgraded to meet higher standards. 
There are many ways to improve the temperature regulation of a building. Timber frames, double glazing on windows and proper insulation make a difference. Occupants should be able to move from one side of the building to the other with the sun’s movement and have access to a cross breeze. “Green and blue infrastructure”—such as plants grown on walls and rooftops, sustained with rainwater and recycled water—can also reduce a building’s heat without increasing water usage.
This is a critical issue for society’s most vulnerable, especially the elderly and people with disabilities, who are most affected by heat waves. A <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/CCInfrastructure/Report">2018 Senate inquiry</a> into the effects of climate change on housing, buildings and infrastructure found that improved housing energy efficiency would have reduced the number of excess deaths during one Melbourne heatwave from 375 to 37. 
But most working-class people struggle to pay existing bills. <a href="https://www.acoss.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Heat-Survey-Report_20230228.pdf">A 2020 Australian Council of Social Service survey</a> also found that more than 60 percent of low-income households struggle to keep their homes cool in summer. That was before the huge spikes in gas and electricity prices over the last two years. Forking out for building upgrades is beyond most people’s means. And renters rely on landlords, who are not known for their generosity. So it can’t be left to individuals.
Air conditioning helps. But energy costs are making it a luxury for a growing number of households. Then there is the issue of power outages during heatwaves, caused by both high demand and the impact of high temperatures on power generation. Governments could help by improving electricity equipment and shifting grids towards renewables and better battery storage. 
It is not just buildings that will have to change; cities will, too. There is a glaring need for more urban green spaces. The urban heat island effect is a serious problem. Built-up areas lacking vegetation and containing dark, heat-absorbing materials like asphalt can be 1-7 degrees warmer than surrounding areas.
According to the 2021 report “Temperature Check: Greening Australia’s Warming Cities”, commissioned by the Australian Conservation Foundation, green spaces have declined in every major Australian city except Hobart over the last decade. While Hobart had increased its green space, it did so by only 1 percent. Parks and nature reserves are not viewed favourably in the profit-driven housing industry, which views every centimetre of land as something to profit from.
When constructing new residential areas, developers often clear entire natural habitats before building on them. Even if trees are replanted, they take years to grow into a substantial canopy that creates a cooling effect. To prevent habitat loss, we should focus on building upwards in existing developed areas rather than continuing to expand the city fringes.
Another problem is that developers continue building in areas at risk of flooding and rising sea levels. While it may be satisfying to imagine the coastal mansions of the super-wealthy being destroyed, many regular people will also be affected and won’t have the means to relocate.
We must strategically plan a retreat from coastlines to prepare for future floods and rising sea levels. Building new housing estates in high-risk areas should be prohibited, and more seawalls must be constructed to mitigate the risks. Yet, as one contributor to the Senate inquiry put it: 
“If you ... need to build a sea wall, you cannot generate a return on a sea wall so there will be zero private sector incentive to build a sea wall. But at the same time, the whole area will benefit from increased resilience to storm surge. So then how do you build an economic model which incentivises investment into public infrastructure, which then creates private sector incentives?” 
The straightforward answer is to eliminate the need to consider private sector incentives by ensuring that more public development is carried out for human need rather than profits.
It has been six years since the Senate inquiry. The government finally responded to it on 2 May. To each of the 32 recommendations it gave the same response: “The government notes this recommendation. However, given the passage of time since this report was tabled, a substantive Government response is no longer appropriate”.
Another year, another report. This year we got the results of the “climate risk assessment report”, out of which a “national adaptation plan” is being developed. But after decades of both major parties kicking the can down the road, we should not be holding high hopes for the Albanese government to deliver the sorts of sweeping changes that we need.

Erin Russell

Cities must be adapted for climate change

Australia’s political class is busy transforming the country into a <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/why-the-us-australia-alliance-against-china">base of operations </a>for a possible US war with China. That, you might think, is bad enough. Now Peter Dutton wants—with his nuclear power plan—to throw a significant new bit of (radioactive) “spice” into the mix.
Just imagine. It’s 2040, and China has just launched an invasion of Taiwan. The US declares war, and begins the mobilisation of its own and its allies' forces across the Indo-Pacific region. Tens of thousands of US and Australian military personnel are massed, ready for action, on bases around Australia. British and US nuclear-powered submarines are dispatched from ports in Western Australia and Queensland (parking their submarines in Australian ports being the only part of the AUKUS deal that was actually delivered).
The Chinese military has meticulously prepared for this scenario over many years. It knows its only hope for a quick and relatively casualty-free victory lies in crippling, as much as possible, the other side’s ability to counterattack before it gets started. So at this point the first barrage of Chinese hypersonic missiles rains down. The targets aren’t just military facilities but also critical infrastructure—ports, major highways and bridges, data centres and (of course) power stations.
How would you feel about living next to one of Dutton’s seven planned major nuclear power stations in this situation? You might think an attack like this is unlikely. Surely, even in the event of a major war, the contending powers would stop short of targeting civilian infrastructure in such a destructive way. This belief is, unfortunately, a fantasy. You need only look at what the Israelis have done to Gaza—with the full support of their allies in countries like the US and Australia—to know that in a situation of all-out war, anything and everything would be deemed “fair game”.
<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/nuclear-arsenal-must-be-on-australia-s-agenda-argues-defence-expert-20190701-p52306.html">Some of Australia’s foreign policy establishment</a> believe that a scenario like this might be avoided if only we take the next step after establishing a nuclear power industry and create our very own nuclear weapons “deterrent”. It’s possible Dutton himself has an eye to taking this path. He’s no doubt aware that the kinds of resources, skills and technology that would be needed to establish a “peaceful” nuclear power industry are exactly the same resources, skills and technology needed to produce nuclear weapons (hence Western hysteria about Iran’s “peaceful” nuclear program).
It’s testament to the level of historical amnesia about the realities of so-called nuclear “deterrence” during the Cold War between the US and Russia that anyone but the most Strangelovian psychopath would think a nuclear-armed Australia is a good idea. A world in which countries like Australia go nuclear, thus further accelerating what is already<a href="https://www.economist.com/international/2023/08/29/a-new-nuclear-arms-race-looms"> a new global arms race,</a> wouldn’t be one in which the populations of the contending powers were somehow rendered safe and secure. It would, rather, be a nightmare of the ever present threat of mutual annihilation in which the best you could hope for, either as a member of the armed forces or as a civilian, was that death would be quick.
I know this, because I’ve lived through it before. I was born on a British military base in West Germany and lived there and on bases in England during the early 1980s peak of Cold War tensions. My dad was in the British air force and was a navigator on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Vulcan">nuclear-armed Vulcan bombers.</a> 
In 1980, the British government <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1500124311">published a pamphlet titled </a><a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1500124311">Protect and Survive</a>, which contained instructions on “how to make your home and your family as safe as possible under nuclear attack”. This included things like building an “inner refuge” inside your house which “should be thick-lined with dense materials to resist the radiation, and should be built away from the outside walls”. The pamphlet and an associated media campaign were designed to allay public anxiety about the threat of war. Everyone knew, though, that it was just for show. The reality of what would happen in the event of war was more honestly portrayed in the bleak (to say the least) joint Australian and British television drama <a href="https://youtu.be/vgT4Y30DkaA?si=0XVTNyKGOaWdYlfn">Threads</a><a href="https://youtu.be/vgT4Y30DkaA?si=0XVTNyKGOaWdYlfn">.</a>
My dad regularly had to participate in military exercises that simulated what to do when war broke out. This involved getting British bombers in the air fast enough to ensure that any Russian attack could be countered by a large-scale counterattack. There was no real expectation that bomber crews would come back from these missions, nor that there’d be anything much to come back to. 
If ever present feelings of impending violent doom happen to be your thing, then nuclear “deterrence” and the “logic” of mutually assured destruction could really help you flourish. For everyone else, it’s probably better to try to build a world where our collective “safety” isn’t maintained by the threatened use of weapons that could wipe out entire cities in an instant.
Can we assess the merits of nuclear energy in isolation from its possible contribution to a new nuclear arms race that could once again place humanity under imminent threat of civilisation-ending catastrophe? We could, but it would be delusional. 
You can, and nuclear power advocates <a href="https://x.com/GrogsGamut/status/1803270883634716901">like Dutton do</a>, envisage all kinds of new technologies and designs that will supposedly make nuclear entirely risk free. Nuclear power stations could in theory be fuelled by <a href="https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/thorium">thorium</a> instead of uranium, thus ameliorating some of the problems of toxic pollution and waste that beset today’s nuclear power industry. But none of the new, supposedly clean and safe technologies nuclear advocates talk up actually exist today in any form close to implementation. The only path available to a nuclear power enthusiast is the same, dirty, toxic, uranium-fuelled path that’s existed since the dawn of the nuclear era. 
And going down that path will be <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/uk-s-nuclear-plant-will-cost-nearly-three-times-what-was-estimated-20240620-p5jna1#:~:text=Britain's%20Hinkley%20C%20generator%20in,will%20cost%20about%20$90%20billion.">extremely slow and mind-bogglingly expensive</a>. The new Hinkley C nuclear power station currently being built in Britain has been delayed by more than a decade and is set to cost, by the time it opens in the early 2030s, around $90 billion. For nuclear power actually to make a significant contribution to solving the climate crisis, you’d need to build thousands of new power stations at a cost of many trillions of dollars.
There are better options. 
Renewable energy is <a href="https://reneweconomy.com.au/wind-and-solar-power-half-the-cost-of-coal-and-gas-one-third-the-cost-of-nuclear-says-lazard/#:~:text=In%202024%2C%20Lazard%20finds%20onshore,MWh%2C%20depending%20on%20local%20conditions.">much cheaper to build and operate than nuclear</a>, and it has the added benefit of not putting the world on a path to the apocalypse. There are challenges that have to be addressed, such as the need to build large-scale stores of energy (batteries, pumped hydro, green hydrogen and so on) to make up for the intermittency of renewables like wind and solar. If we’re talking about spending trillions of dollars on new energy infrastructure though, this seems eminently doable. 
Can we head off Australia’s nightmare nuclear future before it really begins? Doing so will take a serious fight. It’s not only Dutton we have to worry about, but the Labor Party that, by signing us up to the AUKUS deal, took the first steps down the nuclear path.

Australia’s dark, twisted nuclear fantasy

Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton has gone into overdrive selling his plan for nuclear energy. Australia’s longstanding bans on nuclear power are a legacy of working-class movements against uranium mining and weapons proliferation. Dutton’s Liberals want to overturn these bans and have proposed sites for seven nuclear power plants.
Anyone naive enough to believe that Peter Dutton has had an environmental epiphany and genuinely wants a transition away from fossil fuels will be disappointed. For one, Dutton’s proposal involves increasing the use of fossil fuels—boosting the role of gas in particular—during the long wait for nuclear power generation to become viable. 
But nuclear itself is not an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels. Atom-splitting is an inherently volatile process that cannot be safely entrusted to the cost-cutting capitalist economy. The relatively short history of nuclear power has proven this, delivering monumental human and environmental tragedies in the cases of Chernobyl and Fukushima. Going into an era of more frequent and extreme weather events, covering the land with nuclear reactors is a terrifying prospect. 
Furthermore, nuclear is not a renewable resource. It relies on uranium mining, as well as constant and excessive water use. The question of how and where to store high-level nuclear waste, which must be isolated for millennia, multiplies the environmental problems of this supposedly “green” alternative.
While the Labor Party can dismiss the more insane proposals from Dutton, they themselves have paved the way for this. Over decades, both major parties have taken steps to try to normalise the nuclear fuel cycle in Australia, pushing back against the gains of anti-nuclear protests in the 1970s. 
Crucially, the Labor Party under Bob Hawke overturned its “no new mines” policy to permit the mining of uranium at Olympic Dam, one of the world’s largest uranium reserves. Under Kevin Rudd, Labor abandoned the party’s stated opposition to the expansion of uranium mining. At the state and federal levels, Labor has consistently pushed for the establishment of a nuclear waste dump in South Australia—a measure that, if successful, would increase the feasibility of nuclear power generation.
Today, the Albanese government’s commitment to Aukus has set the stage for Dutton’s nuclear turn. The development of nuclear submarines is Labor’s own version of a crazy and expensive nuclear program, and one holding a more realistic danger. With the steady rise in global tensions, ruling classes the world over are striving to bolster the nuclear fuel cycle as a prerequisite to potential nuclear arms development. On the importance of nuclear to warfare, Albanese and Dutton are in agreement, even while they bicker over energy policy. 
It’s also not as though Labor is offering an alternative path away from fossil fuels. While Dutton’s nuclear fantasies have stolen most of the headlines, the Albanese government’s recent gas plan is equally horrendous, offering no way forward on climate change.
A few years ago, Labor criticised Scott Morrison’s plan for a post-Covid gas-led recovery. “It’s a slogan, it’s not a policy. It’s simply a fraud”, Chris Bowen said at the time. Today, Labor’s Future Gas Strategy doubles down on Morrison’s efforts, committing not only to burn all the gas currently at our disposal, but to seek out and exploit new reserves.
The government has repeated verbatim the propaganda of the gas industry, presenting gas as somehow a “clean” alternative to coal. But this is not part of a green energy transition. Gas is a climate-wrecking fossil fuel, and the current plan will lock it in as a staple export and domestic energy source for decades to come. As Resources Minister Madeleine King said:
“Natural gas is needed through to 2050 and beyond ... We cannot rely on past investments in gas to get us through the next decades. We need continued investment in, and development of, gas supply and transport infrastructure to get us through the energy transition.”
Labor justifies the continued burning of fossil fuels with vague references to “offsets” that might still achieve net zero. But there is no existing carbon capture and storage technology capable of offsetting the scale of greenhouse gas emissions that the government is planning. This is even more of a fantasy than Dutton’s seven nuclear plants.
It is worth noting that Labor’s plans will have devastating global consequences for fossil fuel usage. Australia’s increasing supply of gas to world markets will shape the trajectory of the world economy, promoting the burning of gas wherever it can be sold.
It doesn’t have to be this way. There is no shortage of wealth and technology that could drive transition to renewable power sources. Labor has more than $350 billion to spend on nuclear submarines—money that could fund a complete transformation of our energy system. Instead Labor is committing us to the worst of both worlds: uninterrupted fossil fuel extraction for the profit of a few, and the wasteful construction of nuclear-powered war machines.

‘Drill, baby, drill’: Climate change ignored in the US election

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Global average temperatures hit 1.5 degrees and climate devastation ensues

How a giant corporate cover-up poisoned the planet—and everyone on it

Hurricane Beryl is more evidence that climate change is here

No to nuclear in the Latrobe Valley

Cities must be adapted for climate change

Australia’s dark, twisted nuclear fantasy

Labor and Liberals offer no way forward on the environment

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