A giant chunk of glacier-covered mountain has collapsed with catastrophic effect and, whatever the mechanics of the disaster in Nepal’s Langtang national park, this is what human-caused climate crisis looks like. The likelihood of it happening again will rise as temperatures increase and the ice within rock and soil formations melts.

Anthony Albanese was in Palau for the Pacific Islands Forum, speaking with the leaders of countries that could lose some or all of their homelands this century due to sea-level rise driven by emissions from burning fossil fuels.

Meanwhile, a senior member of his Labor government visited the Northern Territory outback and posed for photos laughing alongside the NT chief minister as they jointly turned the tap to release the first gas from what is potentially one of the world’s largest fossil fuel reservoirs.

We could ask how history will look on this, but why wait? We have a good idea now.

None of the trio acknowledged what else extracting and burning that gas would mean: the release of a globally and historically huge amount of heat-trapping pollution

The image of the federal resources minister, Madeleine King, marking the opening of the Beetaloo basin alongside the Country Liberal party’s Lia Finocchiaro received only passing attention in national discussion this week, but my guess is it will linger.

At some point, scientists will be able to estimate the amount of heating and destruction caused by the gas that is ultimately drawn from the Beetaloo. The celebratory photo may come to be seen as real-time evidence of how some political leaders felt about that prospect.

Very obviously, they won’t be able to say they weren’t warned.

The first gas being drawn from the Beetaloo basin is a significant and long-promised moment. The Beetaloo is huge, spread across about 28,000 square kilometres of Indigenous and pastoral land between........

© The Guardian