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Not much in the federal budget for the environment, particularly for the natural environment. However, the news is generally good for the energy transition and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) reductions.
Despite the USA standing aside from addressing climate at present, particularly at the national level, one story showed that progress is being made globally. Climate scientists have decided to scrap the worst-case-scenario GHG emissions trajectory as a result of global efforts to reduce global emissions. Not out of the woods yet, clearly, but perhaps a light on the hill. In Australia, car buyers are catching on to the advantages of electric cars. Electricity prices are falling as sustainable generation and storage is making a significant impact on the need to use fossil fuels to generate electricity. John Lane With ongoing war and pestilence, not to mention politics and budgets, the media's attention remains focussed on short term issues, not the long-term subjects that our group normally has a focus on. However, despite this there are still bright spots. It seems that while scepticism and resistance remain in some quarters, progress in the rollout of renewable energy production and use is significant. For example, last summer's heat sparked record power use, but renewable energy was able to meet that additional demand. Additionally, in its first-quarter snapshot for 2026, Australia's market operator also showed that rising battery capacity was eating into gas use, and power prices are expected to drop when the energy market regulator releases its power price guidelines at the end of May. We also looked into an up-coming high court case that will consider whether emissions from coal burned overseas should be considered in Australian mine approvals. And electric vehicles are beginning to eat into overall vehicle sales in Australia. Happy days!  John Lane Here are the Recommended Reading lists for May. The links to the New Scientist articles have been incorporated into the PDF's.
Recommended Reading Suggestions for Class - 1 May Recommended Reading Suggestions for Class - 15 May Enjoy! With one of our programmed days being Good Friday we had just the one session in April. With the world focussed on wars, seemingly here, there and everywhere, sustainability issues have dropped off the media agenda.
Stock and land issues have been focussed on the impact on farming of energy resources and fossil fuel dependent fertilisers and other agri-products. It just shows that the world remains dependent on fossil fuels to a large extent despite the inroads that have been made rolling out renewables; the transition will be long and at times difficult. On a happier note, we looked at the recently published World Happiness Report which made for interesting discussion. Australia generally came in at #14 or 15 depending on the issue. We also discussed a takeover of a large olive 'ranch' in California by a Victorian olive grower, Cobram Estate. Getting one back for team Australia! John Lane We meet again for another Sustainability and Stock & Land session this Friday, 17 April, commencing at 10:00 am. Following are links to articles you may find of interest covering topics we can discuss at our session. Looking forward to seeing you on Friday.
Article links 17 Apr 26.docx New Scientist 14 Mar 26 - Sign key ocean current is weakening.pdf NS 21 Mar 26 - Divide over causes of faster warming.pdf We meet again this morning, Friday, 20 March, at 10:00 am. Again, war and it's consequences have pushed sustainability out of the media. Hence we have slim pickings again this session. Links to what I've found - check email for additional reading.
(Click – ‘CTRL + Click - on ‘Link’) The Conversation 10 Mar 26 - Too valuable to burn? Chemical and plastic industries will rely on oil far longer than motorists Link The Conversation 12 Mar 26 - Rising CO₂ levels are reflected in human blood. Scientists don’t know what it means Link The Conversation 11 Mar 26 - Electric trucks are finally ready for prime time. Could high oil prices speed up the shift? Link ABC News 12 Mar 26 - How much have our summers changed over three generations? Link ABC News 12 Mar 26 - King penguins successfully changing breeding habits in face of climate change Link The Conversation 16 Mar 26 - Australia's biodiversity report card leaves out fossil fuel support Link Hope to see you all on Friday. John Lane We meet again this Friday, 6 March at 10:00am. Following are links to articles we can discuss at our session. Slim pickings this fortnight, for obvious reasons. ABC News 19 Feb 26 - Australian solar forecasting technology shapes energy prices and keeps grids stable Link The Conversation 20 Feb 26 - Dramatic changes in upper atmosphere are responsible for recent droughts and bushfires: new research Link The Conversation 19 Feb 26 - ‘Blood cobalt’ is disappearing from batteries – and cheaper, cleaner batteries are arriving Link The Conversation 25 Feb 26 - Climate change is drying out the ‘forgotten rivers’ that keep the Murray-Darling alive. We need a new plan Link The Conversation 26 Feb 26 - How Australia’s new fuel efficiency scheme quietly created a carbon currency for cars - and it’s working Link However, I have been able to load in Noel B's diagram that we couldn't manage to load at our last session. Perhaps, Noel, we could start off discussing this.
Noel B's graph.avif Looking forward to seeing you all on Friday. John Lane We have kicked off 2026 with some new members and plenty to discuss. As we hadn't met since November 2025, there was a long list of topics to choose from. Inevitably, climate change and the energy transition dominated discussions.
The world is now further from being united on tackling these issues than probably ever before. At the extremes there is China close to being at 'peak' carbon emissions and the USA going the other way, at least at the federal level. Debate too, continues here in Australia about the impacts of renewable and transmission projects in rural ares, on one hand, and the apparent slow speed of the transition on the other. Some of this discussion rolled over into our second meeting where we discussed our expectations that change now happens quickly; think about the internet, the development of smart phones and social media. This expectation of 'instant' change is colouring attitudes to the speed of the energy transition. We compared this to the time it took for steam power to dominate industry, transport and energy; about 200 years from the first rudimentary use of steam to when it became fully imbedded in society (late 1600s to late 1800s). Another issue of note that was a discussed was how, in the face of well proven scientific facts, some people refuse to accept these and yet take as fact views put out on social media that have no scientific basis. Can the views of these people be changed, and if so, how? One for the Psychology group, perhaps. John Lane Following are John;s links to articles of interest for discussion in class on Friday 20 January. .
Article links 20 Feb 26.docx NS 24 Jan 26 - Batteries.pdf NS 24 Jan 26 - Climate impacts could cost trillions.pdf What happened to happiness.jpg Welcome to the combined sustainability and stock & land group for 2026. I hope everyone had a good festive season. Our first session for the year will be in this Friday, 6 February, commencing at 10:00 am. We meet in the main U3A room at the senior citizens centre. As in past years, you'll see below a number of links to articles, as well as a link to a document full of other links to yet more articles! Don't feel the need to read them all. But I would like it if you could pick one or two on topics of your choice, read them in full (perhaps even do a little further research on the issue) with a view to help me steer a conversation at the session. On another note, as most of you already know, I'm not a farmer's boot lace and also not a 'local', so I would like your help to conjure up some real farmers who may like to talk to us, or host us at their property so as to add a bit more stock & land meat to our sessions this year.
I look forward to catching up with you all on Friday. John Lane At our first meeting in November, we took a deepish dive into the latest HILDA report (Household, income and labour dynamics in Australia). This is a longitudinal survey of Australian households that has collected data annually since 2001. It looks at changes in household size and type, amount spent on childcare, changes in income (economic wellbeing), poverty, jobs and much more.
Leaving aside the COVID 'blip', most indicators are showing broad social and economic improvement, except for significant standout being housing stress, which has been gradually rising through the entire time-series but with a significant up-tick since COVID. At our second and last session for 2025 we returned to discussing a range of issues from articles that were pre-circulated. Of interest was one where the author argued that the plastics industry has waged a successful campaign of transferring responsibility for plastic waste to consumers and taxpayers since the 1950s. While some waste sectors are moving towards industry waste product 'stewardship' schemes, the vast bulk of plastic waste remains the responsibility of everyone else, except the industry. We also looked briefly at a new interactive map of relative flammability across Australia. This type of tool is particularly important given our warming climate - in fact, another article explained that 2025 is set to be the second or third warmest year on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). It reports the past 11 years have been the 11 warmest individual years in the 176-year observational record. John Lane Our last session for 2025 will be held this Friday (tomorrow) commencing at 10:00 am. Please find following links to articles you may find of interest. John Lane
Our next Stock and Land & Sustainability session will be held this Friday, 7 November commencing at 10:00am. Links to articles you may find of interest follow.
I look forward to catching up with you on Friday. John Lane The big news discussed in the sustainability and stock and land session on 3 October was the government's recently announced greenhouse gas emissions target for 2035. The 60% to 70% below 2005 emission levels was hotly debated in the media. Commentary ranged from it being too 'brave', too costly or not ambitious enough. One consideration was the less than great progress in reaching the 2030 target of 43% below 2005 levels; currently our emissions are just 28% below 2005 levels (and the low hanging fruit has already been picked). John Lane The Stock and Land & Sustainability group had two indoor sessions in September. Due to computer problems at our first session we had to squeeze into the small room. Very cosy! Still we had a good session discussing a range of issues that had appeared in the media since we last met. Of particular interest was the issue of environmental changes in Antartica and the southern ocean (Link) We also discussed the recent international conference on dealing with plastics which failed to achieve any real agreement due to countries who are 'addicted' to petroleum not wanting to make any significant concessions (Link). On the up-side, some degree of domestic soft plastic recycling is about to resume in Australia with the three big supermarkets agreeing to contribute. 500 supermarkets will be part of the initial set-up.
At our second session we were back in the "big" room and had another session of discussions on current issues. The buzz at this session was the Federal Government's release of several reports looking at the likely impacts of climate change on economic, social and environmental sectors, together with the release of a CC impact mitigation strategy. Additionally, the Government released its greenhouse gas emissions reductions target out to 2035 of between 62% and 70% on 2005 levels. A big range but probably still ambitious. We also discussed a New type of ‘sieve’ that detects the smallest pieces of plastic in the environment more easily than ever before, including particles so small that they can cross the 'brain-blood' barrier (Link). John Lane We meet again this Friday, 19 September at 10:00 am. Please check out the following document containing links to articles of interest. If any take your fancy, it would be great if you could lead discussion on the topic. Looking forward to seeing you on Friday.
John Lane We meet again this coming Friday, 5 September at 10:00 am. As usual, I've attached a document containing links to articles that may be of interest to you.
Can I please ask that you pick an article to look at in detail (or some other topic of interest to you) as I propose to call on group members to lead a discussion on the topic you've chosen. It need only be for a few minutes, or longer if you like. Looking forward to seeing you on Friday. Remember, access is now only through the front door. John Lane For our first session we visited the delightful property of Christine and Peter Holmes in the Lima East Valley. The property is beautifully located towards the end of the valley up against the forests of the Strathbogie Ranges. Over the decades Christine and Peter have worked to create vegetation corridors and manage stock movement to protect sensitive areas. They are also committed to recycling and reuse, this point clearly demonstrated with materials used in their house. Our second session involved discussion around issues raised in articles that had been pre-circulated. These included the recently released Victorian Government's Circular Economy Risk, Consequences and Contingency Plan, the extraordinary rate of expansion of China's renewable energy generation capacity and its associated industry, and changing rules in Victoria allowing farmers to establish small-scale abattoirs as the larger facilities no longer take on small volumes.
John Lane ABC Rural Roundup 1 Aug 25 - Link
ABC News 2 Aug 25 - Red tape cut for farmers looking to build small on-farm abattoirs in Victoria Link The Conversation 4 Aug 25 - Economists want a carbon price comeback – but does Australia have the political courage? Link ABC News 4 Aug 25 - EV batteries are fit to run a home or even power the grid – but some car brands say 'no' Link The Conversation 4 Aug 25 - Foot-and-mouth disease would devastate Australia’s graziers if it got in. Here’s how a new vaccine might help Link ABC News 5 Aug 25 - Solstice Energy to cut gas supply to 10 regional Victorian towns Link ABC News 5 Aug 25 - Waratah Super Battery connected to NSW power grid and switched on Link ABC News 6 Aug 25 - Cotality warns building industry can not keep pace with building approvals in race to fix housing crisis Link ABC Rural Roundup 8 Aug 25 Link ABC News 9 Aug 25 - Australia's rooftop solar and batteries now the main game as large-scale transition flounders Link ABC News 10 Aug 25 - Wind turbine prototype helps power Main South Road construction site Link The Conversation 11 Aug 25 - Triple whammy: how 3 types of drought crippled southern Australia this year Link ABC News 11 Aug 25 - NSW councils and farmers call for halt to renewable energy developments Link ABC News 13 Aug 25 - Why China is becoming the world’s first electrostate Link John Lane At our first session in July, we discussed the resignation of the management committee for Winton Wetlands, a place we visited during an earlier session. Concern was expressed for the loss of jobs, closing of research and restoration programs and closure of the Hub centre.
Discussion raised the question of how difficult it is to run conservation reserves based on a commercial business model. We also discussed an unexpected consequence of the closure of hardwood forestry on public land in that vital seed collection associated with the industry may not occur, particularly in ash forests. At our second session, group member Les Maclean gave a very informative presentation about the forestry industry in the early 1900s in the Tatong - Tolmie district; the mill settlements, tramways, artifacts left behind and much more. He presented plenty of related photos and copies of old documents. We also viewed a video of Amsterdam's aim to have a 'circular' city by 2050, meaning that all materials used in the city are reused or recycled. It looked like a very ambitious plan. John Lane We meet again this coming Friday 18th July at 10:00. Winter will be officially past its half-life for 2025. So, enjoy it while it lasts!
Following are links to some articles you may find of interest. Les mentioned last time we met that he had some material about the Tatong forestry and its railway and he will be presenting this. Looking forward to seeing you all on Friday. John Lane Article links 18 July 25.docx - plus: Aus Geo Jul-Aug 25 - Bringing in the sea.pdf NS - 28 June 25 - World Faces Huge Crop Shortages.pdf NS 14 June 25 - Europes Forests are in Crisis.pdf We meet again this Friday, 4 July commencing at 10:00am. Please find attached a list of links to articles I've collected since last we met.
See you on Friday John Lane At our first session in June we discussed the Federal Government's recently released Greenhouse Gas Inventory. This regular report tracks Australia's emissions from various sectors, such as electricity production, industry, agriculture, transport and land use. Apart from the Land Use sector (which is a negative emitter - meaning it is a carbon sink), our overall level of emissions have plateaued. However, emissions from the electricity sector continues to fall as a result of increasing development of renewable electricity projects.
At our second session we discussed the Victorian Government's 'Plan for Victoria' which had been released earlier this year and sets the scene for the next 30 years. This plan is primarily a land use and housing policy that, amongst other things, sets targets for new dwellings in Melbourne and regional centres, aims to protect areas of agricultural and environmental significance from development and reduce local government 'red tape' in relation to achieving the plan's objectives and targets. It also includes policies to ensure traditional owners of Aboriginal land can use and develop their land without the burden of unnecessary local government restrictions. John Lane We meet again this Friday, 20 June, at 10:00 am. Following are links to articles you may find of interest. Looking forward to seeing you. John The Conversation 5 June 25 - Unprecedented heat in the North Atlantic Ocean kickstarted Europe’s hellish 2023 summer. Now we know what caused it.
ABC News 5 June 25m - Gippsland communities fear erosion protection not coping with rising tides ABC News 5 June 25 - Forestry companies shift focus to pine to meet demand for housing timber ABC News 6 June 25 - Landmark trial to enable energy trading between solar homes and those without ABC Rural Roundup – 6 Jun 25 The Conversation 9 Jun 25 - How Trump’s trade war is supercharging the fast fashion industry ABC News 9 June 25 - Even Australia's EV owners believe misinformation about cars, study finds The Conversation 11 June 25 - Jacaranda, black locust and London plane: common street trees show surprising resilience to growing heat in Australia ABC News 12 June 25 - Solar waste problem looms following rooftop panel boom, with batteries to add to the pile ABC Rural Roundup 13 June 25 ABC News 15 June 25 Australia is set to embrace energy from waste, but should it? The Conversation 16 June 25 - A solar panel recycling scheme would help reduce waste, but please repair and reuse first ABC News 16 June 25 - Plan to manufacture aviation fuel from Australian canola well underway The Conversation 18 June 25 - Australia could become the world’s first net-zero exporter of fossil fuels – here’s how Also, class members can check their email for John's reading recommendations from recent New Scientist Magazines.. |
Sustainability (& Stock and Land)Full sustainability is only achieved when our society achieves this in three spheres of our activity: Social, Economic and Environmental. Sustainability in each of these three spheres is far from being achieved. This has become the concern of governments and ordinary people world-wide and has resulted in many questions about the sustainability of our present lifestyle. Convenors and contact details
John Lane
0474 936 460 Meeting Times1st and 3rd Friday
10 am to 12 midday U3A Meeting Room 1 Convenor 2008-2021
John Lloyd - Thank you John!
Local LinksRenewable Energy Benalla - website
Other LinksEconomists for Equity and the Environment
The Future Economy Population Matters-For A Sustainable Future Strathbogie Voices Seminars on Climate Change in Euroa (YouTube) Frank Dunin's paper 'Fire reduces water harvest from Melbourne's water supply catchments'. Frank Dunin's response 'Chemistry Lesson for Scott Morrison' Archives
October 2026
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