Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred sparks call to cyclone-proof homes as far south as northern NSW

"The research is really clear that cyclones and severe weather events are coming south along the Queensland and Australian coastline, and that our severe weather events will become more severe... Professor Steve Turton, a climate change expert with Central Queensland University, said homes and buildings outside traditional cyclone zones should now be subject to cyclone ratings, including in south-east Queensland and even northern New South Wales. I would suggest it needs to go down to at least Coffs Harbour." >>
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-23/ex-tropical-cyclone-alfred-weather-preparation-storm-resilience/105074460
#FossilFuels #plasterboard #housing #cyclone #climate #infrastructure #NSW #storms #floods #disaster #CoffsHarbour #MidNorthCoast

Highway expansions and road widening
How America (Australia) Can Break Its Highway Addiction

"After a century of rampant roadbuilding, the U.S. highway network is ubiquitous, dominating the American landscape in bucolic rural settings as well as dense urban ones. Rather than being a tool for mobility, it has become a monument to an auto-centric lifestyle that fouls the air and depletes the public coffers. Neither the country nor the planet can afford to keep expanding it."

"At the federal level, even asking questions about the collective climate impact of highway building appears verboten."
>>
https://slate.com/business/2024/08/construction-traffic-cars-driving-transportation-highway.html
#Sprawl #roads #highways #expansion #cars #automobility #industry #asphalt #Motordom #MobilityDesign #ClimateBreakdown #pollution #NSW #CoffsHarbour #bellingen #GlenifferRoad

Transport systems designed around the car: congestion

“You can’t build your way out of congestion, not in the long term...The standard description is that putting extra lanes on a road is a cure for congestion, in the same way that buying larger pants is a cure for obesity."

“The more capacity you provide, the more people will drive, and it doesn’t get anywhere in the end. Congestion is one of those things that really suggests that we need to invest more in public transport, and we need to take careful thought about how we actually develop new areas, because the more we design and build car dependent areas, the more congestion we’ll have.”
>>
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jan/08/brisbane-traffic-congestion-ranked-10th-worst-in-world-but-experts-question-black-box-analysis
#roads #congestion #traffic #Bellingen #GlenifferRoad #CoffsHarbour #highways #MobilityDesign

Forestry Corporation NSW logs 1.44 hectares within Bindarri National Park

"Bindarri National Park is home to birds, wallabies, possums, quolls, koalas, platypus, owls and bats. It lies next to Orara West State Forest, which Forestry Corporation manages and it claims the error was made because a timber plantation that sits on the border was rezoned and split between the two parks in 1999."

A "penalty will likely further hit the beleaguered state-owned company’s bottom line – on Friday, it revealed its native forestry business has lost $29 million over a single year. It said a key reason for its woes was legal action and protests against its operations. Although Victoria and Western Australia have shut down their state-owned logging companies, the Minns government has backed Forestry Corporation, which controversially logs endangered koala and greater glider habitat."
>>
https://au.news.yahoo.com/calls-to-shut-down-controversial-business-after-illegal-act-in-national-park-061722075.html
https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/visit-a-park/parks/bindarri-national-park/map
#NSWLogging #crime #FCNSW #breaches #NSW #CoffsHarbour #ResourceFrontiers #NationalParks #Bindarri #koalas #biodiversity #climate #governance

Measles confirmed case visited the following locations:

Monday December 16:

- - Byron Bay Beach, between 9.00am and 12.00pm
- - United Petroleum, 2910 Pacific Highway, Mullaway
- - Coffs Central Shopping Centre, Harbour Drive, Coffs Harbour
- - Woolworths, 7 Park Avenue, Coffs Harbour, between 4.40 and 5.15pm
- - Wingham Riverside Reserve camping site, from 5.30pm

Tuesday December 17:

- - Newcastle Bogey Hole pool
- - The Grand Hotel, 32 Church St, Newcastle
- - Woolworths, 23 Steel St, Newcastle West
- - McDonalds Liverpool Mega Centre, Orange Grove Rd, Liverpool
- - BP Truck stop, 155 Pennant Hills Rd, Normanhurst
- - Bungonia Campground, Bungonia Access Rd, Bungonia, from 5.00pm

Wednesday 18 December:

- - Coles Express, corner of Mount St and Middle St, Gundagai

#Medical #Measles #RegionalAustralia #NSW #Australia #NewCastle #Gundagai #Liverpool #Normanhurst #Mullaway #CoffsHarbour #Bungonia #Wingham

https://7news.com.au/news/health-alert-issued-on-christmas-eve-after-second-measles-case-visits-multiple-locations-across-nsw-c-17184457?fbclid=IwY2xjawHX_3VleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHTxXAuCg26xZEJgYXJwDJzfyHKbGH9-olKeBBgwNtsTXImihhnSenY2PeA_aem_7GVEeouAQiyxuSIWK5v5fw

Koala habitat and roads

"A research project to compile the first genome map of koalas across eastern Australia has exposed areas where the species is most at risk.The most surprising results were in coastal pockets of NSW, where koala populations are increasingly hemmed between sprawling coastal communities, and the Pacific Highway."

"Those koala populations are really quite constrained genetically because you've got ocean on one side, highway on another and a town to the north and a town to the south.The fracturing of habitat makes it hard for koalas to mix and diversify the genes of their offspring, putting the species at risk of extinction from environmental shocks, and serious diseases like chlamydia."
>>
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-03/koalas-genome-map-university-of-sydney/104647824
#koalas #wildlife #habitat #MidNorthCoast #NSW #roads #cars #sprawl #extinction #GlenifferRoad #Bellingen #CoffsHarbour #PacificHighway

The tyranny of automobility and sprawl

While the Bellingen /Gleniffer area is transitioning from an ‘idyllic tourist town’ into a ‘normal Aussie suburb’ (of Coffs Harbour), road congestion gets everyone stuck in traffic.

Car dependent motorists in their SUVs and bloated oversized trucks demand more and wider roads, larger car parking and a right to pothole-free roads for their 'sports utility vehicles’.

Extreme commuting for the necessaries of life are conducted in big private vehicles powered by fossil fuel. An aggregate of ugly big-box stores (large format retail, Coffs) with hostile giant car parks deliver what consumers desire. These consumption hubs are mostly inaccessible to pedestrians and can be dangerous ‘non-places’ (Marc Augé).

The mobility design of old school traffic engineers responds to the sprawling expansion with more of the same: more roads, wider roads and bypassing the last bypass. They call it ‘upgrades’.

As the latest $2.2 billion highway or forest road ‘upgrade/s’ are blasting their way through the landscape, they are silent about the ‘public bads’: the destroyed biodiversity habitat, the downgraded neighbourhoods, the violence and the polluted biosphere.

The ‘normality’ of automobility, or the 'car in the head' in petromodernity together with regulatory inertia make a transition to alternative land uses, energy systems, mobilities and ways of being a challenge.