Parents for Climate have shared a beautiful new resource designed to help families talk to young children about climate-related emergencies. Charlie's Birthday Adventure, written by GP Dr Michelle Hamrosi and illustrated by Courtenay Tooth, is a gentle, community-informed children's book that models emergency preparedness and safety.

As Tasmanians face increasingly volatile fire seasons due to climate change, preparing our households emotionally and practically is more important than ever. This resource is an invaluable tool for parents looking to have honest, calm, and reassuring conversations about disaster preparedness with little ones without inducing fear.

The book was developed through extensive community consultation with child therapists, trauma psychologists, and educators. It is accompanied by free activity worksheets to help reinforce safety messages through play. You can read the full story and download the book and worksheets on the Parents for Climate website.

350 Australia has launched a new campaign and petition calling for an urgent national moratorium on the construction of AI data centres. Read and sign the petition on 350 Australia.

For Tasmania and the rest of Australia, the rapid expansion of power-hungry data centres poses a serious threat to the clean energy transition. Data centres are projected to draw as much electricity from the grid by 2036 as all households in New South Wales and Victoria combined. Without strong safeguards, big tech risks monopolising renewable resources and locking in fossil fuel reliance to meet soaring baseload demands.

The petition demands that state and federal governments block new construction until laws are established to enforce:

1. Free, prior, and informed consent from Traditional Owners
2. 100% power from new renewable energy sources, not existing coal and gas
3. Rigorous, transparent environmental and community impact assessments
4. Closed-loop recycled water systems to protect local drinking water
5. An independent AI data centre regulator with enforcement powers to audit and penalise non-compliance

Sue Barrett writes on Substack about how manufactured political fear campaigns are weaponised to distract the public from real crises. Read more on Substack.

Barrett details how newly registered lobby groups in Victoria, staffed by alumni of conservative think-tanks like the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), are exploiting disclosure loopholes to run massive, AI-generated social media campaigns. These ads, depicting false threats of violence and disaster, are designed to trigger raw fear, effectively bypassing facts and logical scrutiny. Barrett warns that this manufactured anxiety acts as a smokescreen, diverting public attention from real, devastating climate emergencies�such as the massive, climate-induced Himalayan glacial collapse that occurred in late August.

For climate action in Tasmania, this analysis highlights a crucial obstacle: the fight against climate change is also a fight against sophisticated political disinformation. To secure a resilient and just transition, we must counter emotional manipulation by demanding strict political donor transparency, calling out deceptive AI media, and engaging in clear-eyed, fact-based community conversations.

Mingming Cheng and Peta Ashworth write on The Conversation about the challenges of securing community support for Australia's renewable energy transition. Read the full article on The Conversation.

For Tasmania, where large-scale wind developments and transmission projects are central to our energy future, this research is incredibly timely. The authors show that community opposition is rarely a simple case of being 'anti-renewables'. Instead, it is about fairness�who bears the visual and physical disruption, and who receives the financial benefits?

Drawing on successful international models, such as Scotland's community benefit funds and Denmark's energy cooperatives, the research suggests that building trust is just as crucial as building infrastructure. To succeed, developers and governments must engage communities early, listen to practical concerns, and ensure local regional areas have a genuine stake in the transition.