Climate Tasmania

A Tasmanian take on the thorniest global issue since the dinosaurs. Based on Peter Boyer’s newspaper column in the Hobart Mercury.

The power in our rivers

Hydro power was a good idea back then, and it still is, as Nigel Tomlin is showing. [15 May 2012 | Peter Boyer]
It seemed like a pretty good idea at the time. In 1878 the world’s first hydro-electric plant near Rothbury, England, started producing power, and here in the Antipodes were all these rivers cascading [...]

A reminder that climate change is upon us

A Hobart event this Saturday will be a reminder that it’s getting harder by the year to take effective action on our carbon emissions. [1 May 2012 | Peter Boyer]
Since time immemorial, using whatever intellectual tools are available to them, people have struggled to make sense of what they see around them.
At first we put [...]

A lesson from the Great Depression

Franklin Roosevelt’s advice to his people to get together and start doing things is being applied by local governments in preparing for future oil scarcity [12 July 2011 | Peter Boyer]
It’s hard to imagine a bleaker outlook than what Americans were facing on 4 March 1933, their new President’s Inauguration Day.
The temperature in Washington on that [...]