Comments Craig Allen has made

Why not just tax pecticides by the same amount that it will cost to pay for all the necessary filtration? You can't get fairer than that.

Hang about! The review does not even mention nitrates. It concludes that conventional foods have a higher nitrogen content. Nitrogen is a component of many classes of organic molecules, including DNA and proteins. You've gone of on a tangent with the nitrates that is not related to the content of the report.

Unfortunately wind and solar have footprints also. The areas of land that will be required seem to be massive. In Australia we have already seen big arrays of wind turbines built in places where they have significant ecological impact. Solar will do the same. Wind and solar in the quanities required will have significant impacts. So it isn't a case of renewables 100% good, nuclear 100% bad.

I had hoped that solar and wind would preferentially be built in places where they have less or mininal impact. But that does not seem to be the case. The companies that build them seem to be just as bloody minded about the way they make their business decissions as others.

We have the same issue here in Australia. Our government is about to implement an emissions trading system, but it clearly falls short of what the science says is necessary.

But you have to get your foot in the door. The legislation that the US and Australia are about to bring will get us heading in the right direction. Once it becomes apparent that reducing emissions won't destroy our economies, and as the science and climate signals progress and the dire nature of the situation becomes ever more apparent we will be able to ramp up our efforts. Once we are moving in the right direction accelerating to the required speed is going to be a lot easier to achieve than getting there immediately from the current stand-still.

The worse thing we could do now is allow our legislation to be defeated and progress stifled for another couple of years.

All for the lack of a few geophytes

I can remember a couple of these hitting our farm in South Australia when I was a kid. We frantically ran around the house closing up windows and trying to seal gaps under doors, but the house ended up with dust all through it.

Australian deserts and arid zones naturally have a thin layer of geophytes (mosses, lichens and algaes) which grow when it rains, then desiccate and seal the soil surface, and which prevent dust being picked up by wind. Marsupials have soft feat and do not break up the geophytes. With the introduction of hard hooved stock throughout the outback the geophyte layer has been destroyed and these dust storms are the result.

In more arable regions of course ploughing paddocks has a more direct effect. It's not uncommon to see fences buried by drifts of sand and dust.

In really bad weather it all heads east and out to sea. Our main export to New Zealand may in fact be our topsoil. Most of the nutrients and organic matter is in the top 10 centimetres. And in the arid zone this has been shown to take 10,000 years or more to build up (sorry I can't give you the reference, but I have seen a research paper on it).On Freaky posted 9 months, 2 weeks ago 3 Responses

Only a dose of reality unfortunately ...

Unfortunately probably only a personal dose of something like this will jolt them out of their cynical attitudes.

I can assure you that many people in Australia are now accepting the reality of what global warming means.

Whether that translates into our politicians doing something effective about our emissions is the next question.

I firmly believe that people who knowingly lie, misrepresent and twist the science to sow doubt about global warming belong in the same category as the the arsonists who lit some of the Australain fires. Fire bugs light fires, denialists work to ensure that they increasingly occur during weather events that allow them to flare into fire-storms.On The entire conservative media is informed on climate science by the office of James Inhofe posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago 23 Responses

Re Black Wallaby's question about the the Murray

No matter how you look at it we are in a dire situation throughout south-eastern Australia.

I don't know where that factoid about the Murray only reaching the sea 40% of the time comes from. It's clearly not true now as the river no longer reaches the sea, ever. I guess that If you can find The Murray used to flow into Lake Alexandrina, Lake Albert and the Coorong then to the sea. These were originally saline to brackish, tending to fresh during periods of high flow down the river. With the installation of barrages in the 1930s the lakes became fresh. Now there is no flow, so Lake Alexandrina is dry. Albert will probably dry this summer. And the Coorong is increasingly hypersaline. There are plans to re-flood the system with seawater to stop it going acid. But the acidity is affecting wetland for hundreds of kilometres along the lower Murray, and these can't be flooded with seawater. For at least the last decade they have had to continually dredge the mouth to keep the Coorong open to the sea.

The problems are caused by a combination of over allocation of water for agriculture, and the historically low inflows to the system in recent years.

For more details on the current state of the Murray-Darling system, there is a PowerPoint summary here

Going by your user name I would have thought you were Australian, but if so it seems odd that you would be questioning the dire nature of the climatic trends in recent years. Are you from the north perhaps. Last nights news reported that 60% of Queensland is flood stricken. Perhaps that explains your skepticism. The top half of the continent gets floods, the bottom half gets drought. That's the new climate reality.On Australia faces collapse as climate change kicks in posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago 50 Responses

Australia the victim

To be honest amazngdrx, I'm not hopeful about any meaningful efforts from Australian politicians to bring down our emissions any time soon. Both the major parties are pandering to coal and other big emitters. The national Labour party (currently in power) is proposing a pathetic carbon reduction target and the opposition party is calling for it to be watered down. Incentives for installing renewable energy generation so far are aimed at winning votes rather than maximising CO2 reductions.

State governments are even more pathetic. Growth in spite of all costs is the mantra and there is a lot of money being spent on infrastructure to pipe around dwindling water resources, build desalination plants and such.

Australia has given up any pretence at playing a leadership role in addressing emissions. As a nation we seem intent accepting the role of climate victim while making as much money as we can exporting rocks, coal and gas.

Much of the populace desperately hopes the situation will change, and there is agitation from activists, but at the moment we seem to have hit a wall. As a nation we are just too economically conservative and consumption driven to hold our leaders to account over this.

In the mean time we wilt in the heat. Tonight's news here in Victoria was dominated by stories about how vegetable and fruit crops have been devastated by last week's heat wave and by fears of what will happen when Saturdays predicted extreme high temperatures and gales fan expected fire outbreaks.On NWF VP believes we'll see a cap-and-trade bill this year, and 'Waltzing Matilda' isn't about dancing posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago 6 Responses

Hey Black Wallaby: The data doesn't support you

Hey Black Wallaby,

While it is true that this one event does not prove climate change, various Bureau or Meteorology analyses show that the long term trends are very much in accord with global warming predictions. There have always been droughts, heatwaves and floods, but the droughts and heatwaves are getting more severe and more frequent.

As for camels walking across the Murray, it is naturally a system prone to highly variable flow. There is always water in the lower reaches these days because of the system of wiers that have been built and because of releases from dams in the Snowy mountains for irrigation purposes. Regardless of this, the total flow in the system has been at a record low for an unprecedented series of years. (Although I note that the authorities are now beginning to let some reaches go dry in order to keep others topped up.) And as you know I'm sure, the Coorong system and other lower lakes and have gone dry or are in the last phases of drying and have gone acid as a result. It has been so long since the last decent flood that vast areas of the ancient River Red Gum forests along the rivers are dead or dieing. Also if you go for a trip along the Murray, you will see that the non-riverine Mallee Woodlands are now beginning to die too. On Australia faces collapse as climate change kicks in posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago 50 Responses

Minor correction on the Australian record

That record of three days over 110 deg F is for Melbourne only. It got to 113 deg F on Thursday - uugh.

It regularly gets way hotter for way longer in other places.
On Australia faces collapse as climate change kicks in posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago 50 Responses

Oh come on

It's a cartoon for pities sake.

Just accept it a a piss-take of GM and have a chuckle.

I took it more as a goading of GM for not being innovative enough to make a decent electric car than as implying that electric cars can't be made.

Either way, who cares. If we get too humourless and negative we'll all end up like Jabailo. Imagine how miserable that would be.On Oliphant and Washington Post ignorantly smear GM and plug-in hybrids posted 11 months, 2 weeks ago 13 Responses

At least she is honest about it

I'm no fan of Sarah Palin, but at least she's displaying some honesty about the facts of life here.

Californians just passes a bill to mandate that livestock and fowl be given at least the room to turn around. Elsewhere they don't even get that privilege. The turkeys in that video look like they have luxury digs by comparison.

So, if you are shocked and appalled by what you see here, I guess that means you will be forgoing your turkey this season, or only partaking if you can find a free-range one that was gently sedated before having it's noggin lopped off.

Yes? No?

Hmmm, I guess hypocrisy isn't peculiar to Republican voters alone after all.

In my opinion, you should only be allowed to eat meat, if you have first undergone a right of passage wherein you have gone to a farm to ritually slit the throat of you first meal yourself.On Sarah Palin pardons a turkey just before another is slaughtered behind her ... live posted 1 year ago 7 Responses

The Terminator packing a fuel cell? ... Not!

jabailo:

Given that Arnie's power pack exploded with a massive shock wave and a substantial mushroom cloud, it was clearly not a wimpy hydrogen fuel cell. You're really clutching at straws there.

It was more likely to be a science fiction boosted ultra-capacitor energy cell. If one of the companies working on the real versions these finally makes a break-through like they've been promising, then there will be no need to waste energy inefficiently producing and distributing hydrogen.On Schwarzenegger on the environment and the state of his party posted 1 year ago 4 Responses

What is Cato's recipe for managing fish

I wonder what their recipe is for dealing with the collapse of fish stocks in unconstrained fisheries.

The currently collapsing of Mediterranian Bluefin Tuna stocks provides a good example. And can be compared well with what happened to Canadian cod stocks (among many many others).

Have you tried using these examples in arguments with Taylor. How does he respond?

It seems to me that there is practically no example of a fishery that does not eventually collapse unless severe controls on capitalist impulses are imposed.

Why would oil be different in their opinion? After all, it doesn't even have the benefit of being able to regenerate itself if we ease of the extraction rate.On The intellectual bankruptcy of the Cato Institute posted 1 year ago 4 Responses

Garnaut tells it like it is

Garnaut makes it clear that he thinks his recommendations will lead to a global and national catastrophe. It's and interesting strategy for him to take - basically pointing out that our only politically realistic option at this stage is aiming for a mild Armageddon. The politicians and pundits might be reporting the numbers without the background, but Garnaut has been on TV a fair bit laying down the facts as he see them.

We have to remember that getting this emissions trading scheme off the ground is just the first step. Once it is up and it can be seen that the economy isn't collapsing like the doomsayers predict, then we can ramp it up.

I actually think what Garnaut has attempted to do is cut through the spin by being brutally honest both about the risks posed by climate change and about how pathetic our political system is in the face of such a 'diabolical' (his word) political challenge.

Some recent news articles on the Garnaut report ...

• Doubts raised over Ross Garnaut's carbon emission targets

• Garnaut defends scenario-based emissions cut targets

• Garnaut fall-out: 'NSW must phase out coal power'

• Garnaut's climate change warning

• Economy won't delay carbon cut: Wong

• Professor makes sense of another meltdown

Good in theory ... but

Working as a wetland conservation officer I was successful in attracting AU$3.4 million for a conservation tender project in the Volcanic Plains ecosystems in Victoria (South East Australia) - www.ccma.vic.gov.au/home/vicvolcanicplains.htm

This followed in the wake of a bush tender project that was previously undertaken in region.

These projects a good in theory. But there are some severe problems with them. Most notably, as with all government programs, they receive inadequate funding in short bouts spanning at the most 3 years.

We are loosing remnants ecosystems in this region at a rapid rate. Once an area of native vegetation is lost, it is lost for ever. There is no example that I can think of where anyone has managed to recreate a significant area of bushland or native grassland so that it has more than a passing resemblance to a real remnant. Natural ecosystems are just too diverse and complex. Sure you can plant certain trees and shrubs, but what about the diverse array of small shrubs, herbs, grasses, sedges and geophytes. I guess that it is theoretically possible, but in reality the cost would be astronomical. Given this, there is an urgent imperative to halt the loss and decline of remnants. And loss is a one way street. You simple can not reverse losses (unless we increase available funding by several orders of magnitude - and invest massively in research and infrastructure to enable the propagation of species not currently available within existing horticultural propagation systems).

So in these tender projects we are asking people to bid to maintain or enhance existing remnants, we are designing the system so that they will do it for minimum cost, and the people we are asking to do it are generally farmers and hobby farmers with little understanding of ecological systems or ecological management techniques. However we will only pay for the ecological service for 3 years at a time. If the landholder/service provider does not continue to maintain a site, then it will subsequently degrade and all the invested money will have been lost. And if land changes hands, then the situation is worse still.

So we are actually critically dependent on the good will of the participating service providers, hoping that they will carry on the good work after the official project ends. However, it turns out the people who have participated in these programs as service providers or bidder often have a very poor opinion of them. They find the bidding process painfully complicated, in part because it generally involves a bidding to provide a service that they have never before provided. And also due the available money is always way less than needed to meet the demand or need in a region, there is a high bid failure rate. As a result, the tender process actually alienates many of the people who's good will we depend on.

With the Volcanic Plains Tender project, which has been implemented very well by the staff involved, I would estimate that rather than AU$3.4 over 3 years, we would realistically need AU$10 to 20 million per year, every year forever. It's a pittance when you compare it to funding on other programs such as roads. But it is just never going to happen. And besides, I suspect that we would be better off just buying up high value land and employing professionally trained ecosystem managers to look after that along with all the remnants on existing public land that are rapidly disregarding while we muck around with these tenders. Economists love these market based mechanisms, but you average economist has never tried to maintain an ecosystem, or tried to convince cranky farmers to not plough and graze them.

And besides, ecosystems and landscapes evolve over periods of hundreds and thousands of years, and need to be maintained over generations. These are not the timeframes within which economists work.On A little noted provision of the new Farm Bill posted 1 year, 2 months ago 4 Responses

Trucks, tractors, graders etc???

Is either technology likely to be able to power trucks, farm machinery and other such equipment, which currently runs on deisel?On To solve global warming, we need to support every alternative transportation pathway posted 1 year, 3 months ago 22 Responses

Negative clock auction???

Err, could you explain the negative clock auction a little more clearly please.On New England ISO's forward capacity market posted 1 year, 3 months ago 22 Responses

News on Australia's proposed emissions scheme

(I'm posting here in the hope that the following will be elevated to news item status.)

On Friday, 5th July Australia was presented with a draft report by Ross Garnaut on options for the implementation of an emissions trading scheme. The report is commissioned by the government prior to the last election. They seem to be holding firm on their promise to commence the scheme in 2010. The response in the media and by politicians has been remarkable for the fact that there is no hint of denial of the problems posed by climate change, of the fact that we have a tough task before us as a nation, or that we must none-the-less face up to and stoically accept the pain that lied ahead while doing all we can to reduce emissions

The Australian newspaper

• We must act now on climate change: Professor Garnaut
  
• PDF of Professor Garnaut's draft report
  
• Video of Garnaut at the National Press Club
  
• A bitter political pill
  
• Cut taxes to soften climate pain
  
• We must act now on climate change
  
• No mercy for dirty power, says Garnaut's climate report
  
• Target for 2020 not the main aim

• No time to waste on tackling climate change
  
• Act now or face disaster, Garnaut report warns
  
• 'One input' wields an unyielding message
  
• Building our own asteroid

• Garnaut urges emissions trading scheme 'without delay'
  
• Govt urged to act swiftly on Garnaut findings
  
• Garnaut report sparks call to arms for at-risk Barrier Reef
  
• Rudd pledges action on Murray's Lower Lakes

• Australia's harsh reality: adapt or perish
  
• 2100, a climatic odyssey
  
• Miners at the coalface of change
  
• Climate crisis 'diabolical'
  
• Garnault's speach at the National Press Club

Biofuel !!!

We keep hearing about research into generating biodiesel from algae. The Chinese are sitting on a mega biofuel production facility.On Olympic sailing venue battles with massive algae bloom posted 1 year, 4 months ago 8 Responses

If this is not a mortal issue I don't know what is

jatrussell:

Your statement that "Man-made CO2 contribution is absolutely DWARFED by natural sources" is just plain wrong. The level has been fairly constant for thousands of years and is now cranking up in line with the known emissions due to humanity minus a chunk of this that is going into sinks such as the ocean. Websites peddling disinformation blythly tell you otherwise. You are being lied to. It is fairly easy for you to confirm this for yourself. Go do some open minded investigation of the literature. The RealClimite website is a good place to start. It will point you to plenty of research conducted by actual scientists.

Global warming has very dire consequences in store for us all. Many of my extended family are farmers in South Australia where landholders are on their knees due to ongoing drought, a drying trend that shows no sign of abating and which Australia's peak science organisation the CSIRO, along with the Bureau of Meteorology predict will continue to escalate as greenhouse gas concentrations increase. I spoke to my father the other day. He's already lost his farm. He said the autumn rains have failed to materialize yet again and that there will probably be an exodus from the land this year. This is a real problem that is impacting the lives of real people.

• Australian Bureau of Meteorology Drought statement
  
• 1 in 1000 year drought hammers Australia
  
• Australias biggest river system the Murray-Darling is dying

It is time for you to take an objective look at the science. The video link you provided points to a video that has been pulled. But I see that is refers to the Global Warming Swindle documentary. It isn't surprising that it was pulled. The makers had to reissue it about 5 times after it's first airing because of complaints from a number of the scientists interviewed that their views were placed out of context and misrepresented.

To get a better understanding of why it is such a dishonest misrepresentation of what the science says do a search for articles addressing the swindle at RealClimate. The seventh and eights articles in that list address it directly, and the others indirectly. They are all well worth a read as are all the comments.

Time to open your eyes and get a grip on reality.

There are real solutions to this that will allow us to stop emissions without an overbearing cost. For example I note that that the solar thermal electricity company Ausra has just opened it's first manufacturing facility in Nevada and is building power stations that can produce base-load power day and night, at a cost that is competitive with coal. Companies are chaffing at the bit to get on with solving this. The people setting up companies like this deserve a level playing field. It's time to stop supporting the fossil industries, and to cheer on the heros. We have wasted enough time. There is precious little leeway left in the climate system.On New global warming denier article in Salon posted 1 year, 4 months ago 22 Responses

In reply to Mace re Arctic vs Antarctic

Mace,

The Arctic is an ocean surrounded by land. The Antarctic is a continent surrounded by an ocean and is circumnavigated by the massive Circumpolar Current. The climate dynamics are therefore quite different and we expect and are seeing very different trends.

Apparently there has been little or no significant trend in Sea Ice in the Antarctic taken as a whole and the sea ice extend is much more variable than that in the Arctic. But there are significant trends in particular regions, some toward more ice and some toward less.

This post on Ice Shelf Instability at the RealClimate website has lots of interesting information. Be sure to read through the comments - there is lots of interesting stuff there that relates directly to your question.On Arctic sea ice update: 2008 poised to repeat -- or beat -- 2007 posted 1 year, 5 months ago 11 Responses

So when do you think we will see clean coal?

Jabailo,

That's all very well, but can you point to a functioning clean coal power station anywhere. Or for that matter a functioning prototype - functioning or planned? Here in Victoria, Australia the power company's definition of clean coal is taking extra dirty brown coal and treating it so it is only as polluting as black coal. The definition of 'clean coal' seems to be very loose. They admit that the cost of making any coal truly clean - whether brown or black - is prohibitively expensive. What is the total emissions of the plants that you are suggesting be replaced? What proportion of emissions do they account for? What will the emissions be of the plants that you suggest they be replaced with. What will the net emissions savings be. And what will the electricity cost be compared to solar thermal, geothermal, wind or other alternatives.

Yes, get rid of the most polluting generators first, but clean coal plants are by no means the best replacement.On The right comparison between Obama and McCain on climate/energy posted 1 year, 5 months ago 13 Responses

Agriculture is in the firing line

I note that European fishing fleets are being grounded because of the high fuel prices.

Fuel prices are going to devastate Australian farmers:
I come from a farming community in South Australia. When I was a lad we expected one in three years on average to be a drought (although often they came back-to-back). Now it is closer one in two. But the fuel prices are the nail in the coffin for many farmers. On an average farm (about 4,000 acres) in my home district of Kimba (it's dry country) it costs something like $30,000 to put in a crop. This is always a gamble, because a farmer never knows whether he will get to reap a crop or watch it all blow away in dust storms. Most of Australia's wheat belt works like this. As fuel prices continue to rise and the frequency of good years decreases - this become less and less viable. One of the reason's World food prices are up is the drop in Australia's production. The fuel prices are going to make the situation much worse.
(The ongoing collapse of the Murray-Darling irrigation districts is an independent issue due to continued and worsening water shortages).On Airlines, cargo ships increasingly desperate due to rising fuel costs posted 1 year, 5 months ago 11 Responses

Nuclear subsidy via diesel subsidies

I'm not sure is it's the same in the US, but one means of nuclear subsidy in Australia is a diesel fuel subsidies for the mining sector. The mining of Uranium ore uses huge amounts of diesel. So if the US imports our Uranium then we are effectively subsidizing your nuclear industry. Very generous of us!On Subsidies for wind power pale beside subsidies for nuclear posted 1 year, 6 months ago 23 Responses

Australians hungry for climate change action

We have reached a tipping point in Australia with respect to opinion and impending action on reducing emissions. The government wants to do it, the public overwhelmingly wants to do it and wants the government to pull up its socks and get on with the job, and the emitters are conceding that it is inevitable.

A just-release report demonstrates that Australian are overwhelmingly eager to get on with the job of reducing emissions.

Some of the stats from second Annual Climate of the Nation report by the Climate of the Nation report Australian Climate Institute are as follows:

• Concern over climate change is high.  89% of Australians are now concerned about climate change, with 49% being either extremely concerned (17%) or very concerned (32%).
  
  
• For most people, ratifying Kyoto is just one part of Australia's continuing response to climate change.  Almost 78% of Australians believe that need to take further urgent action to deal with climate change.  17% have no opinion, and only 5% disagree that urgent action is still required.
  
  
• People are most concerned about the effects of climate change on drought (94% very concerned or concerned), and the consequence of less water for cities (93% very concerned  or concerned). Other highly rated concerns include impacts on the Great Barrier Reef, agriculture, and increased bush-fires and storms.
  
  
• Approximately 60% believe that addressing climate change might or will definitely impact negatively on the economy. About 20% think it will be beneficial.
  
  
• Even so, 78% of Australians believe that we should reverse growing levels of greenhouse pollution to achieve real reductions by 2012.
  
  
• 74 per cent believe that new electricity generation should come from clean energy.
  
  
• 88% believed that government should make large or very large changes in order to reduce emissions. 45% think that individuals should do likewise. Only 3% and 6% respectively thought that government and individuals should make no effort.
  
  
• 48% stated that they were willing to pay $10 to $20 extra for clean energy. 9% said they were willing to $30 to $40 extra. And 4% said they were willing to pay more than that.

Australian PM discusses emissions with China

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, currently visiting China, flags joint challenge on global emissions

From The Australian newspaper

KEVIN Rudd picked up two flags in front of him as he opened his speech last night to the Global Foundation's clean energy conference in Beijing.

Holding first the Australian flag then the Chinese flag, he said: "This is the largest coal exporter, this is the largest coal consumer.

"If between us we can't fix this problem, I don't think the rest of the world will think well of us. It's a core challenge."

Last night's gathering, he said, was focused on "the greatest economic and environmental challenge we'll be facing this century".

"Unless all of us are moving in the same direction, towards effectively saving the planet, then we will not be fulfilling our responsibility to the next generation," Mr Rudd said.

In his audience were the heads of many of Australia's biggest companies, including Telstra chairman Donald McGauchie, Future Fund chairman David Murray and ANZ chief executive Mike Smith.

From China's biggest companies and government departments came China National Offshore Oil Corporation chairman Fu Chengyu, China Shenhua Energy Company chief executive Ling Wen and Xie Zhenhua, China's environmental protection chief.

One of Mr Rudd's first acts as Prime Minister last year was to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. But Australia, and his Government, are also enjoying the economic bonanza from China's and the developing world's demand for national resources, including coking coal used in steelmaking and thermal coal burned to generate energy.

There is a recognition that any solution to climate change must involve the developing world containing its greenhouse gas emissions alongside developed countries such as Australia.

Mr Rudd, flanked by his Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, said that through commercial, scientific and political expertise and enthusiasm, "we have it in our hands to produce a solution for the planet".

"What is missing is a common resolve to press ahead," he said. "I hope that in my time we reach that resolve between us, because Ibelieve we have a common responsibility."

He said that he had arrived in China - the last leg on his 17-day world tour - after talking to the prime ministers of Britain and Norway and the presidents of the US, the European Union and South Africa. About "a third of the global discourse", he said, was focused on climate change issues.

He said all three US presidential candidates - John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama - were committed to significant action involving targets.

But unless all economies could agree on a path forward, there was "a great risk that we will undermine our long-term capacity for development". He said it was crucial for the world community to agree on a global target on carbon emissions.

"We are driven by the science, and if the science tells us we need to stabilise emissions at a certain level by a certain time (or irreversible and unsustainable climate change will result), this has toinform our carbon targets," hesaid.

So far, China has been reluctant to fix targets, calling on developed countries to recognise their per capita emissions remain much higher than the developing world.
On A roundup of news snippets posted 1 year, 7 months ago 3 Responses

Economists don't trust economists!

I've noticed an odd trend in Australian political-economic discussion lately.

Whenever the treasurers of the government and the opposition get into debate on TV, they do battle by flinging theories and factoids at each other which are attributed to various economists. But when they are presented with an economic point of view that they find inconvenient, they often attempt to deflect it by stating that you can always find an economist or economic theory to suit your argument, and that the public should not trust what economists say.

Both treasurers are economists!

Given that over the course on my life I will have seen most of the planet turned into a wasteland come toilet, and that our economies and therefore economists are largely responsible; I concur with their opinions of themselves, but little else.On A few thoughts for environmentalists posted 1 year, 8 months ago 95 Responses

An alternative mechanism

How about a hybrid system.

1. In the first place allocate emitters with leasehold permits at a government set price, reviewed annually.
   
2. Reduce the CO2 values of these over time.
   
3. Let emitters subsequently acquire leasholde permits from the leasehold pool, at which point leaseholders must either relinquish them or buy them competitively.
   
4. By carefully controlling the rate of transfer of leases, the devaluation rate, and if necessary the issue of additional permits, the government should be able to steer toward a target price per carbon, a target national CO2 emission target, prevent a windfall to polluters, and reap profits to be spent on mitigation, energy infrastructure and research.

Man charged over 'lawn watering' death

Forget road rage, we've got water rage!

* news articleOn Lessons the United States can learn from the drought in Australia posted 1 year, 8 months ago 6 Responses

Australia's new leader gets real on agriculture.

Oh what a difference enlightened leadership makes!

Australian prime Minister Kevin Rudd has signaled taxpayer grants to support drought-affected farmers will be overhauled to ensure grants encourage climate change preparedness.

>> News article at the Australian NewspaperOn New study from mainstream ag economists at Iowa State posted 1 year, 8 months ago 46 Responses

Keeping up with green neighbors.

In Australia there is a movement called landcare. It's very active where I live in southern Victoria. Many farmers are revegetating the creeklines that run from the Otway Ranges down to the Barwon River, recreating the links that will allow birds and other wildlife like possums to move between the two. A lot of farmers were skeptical to begin with, but as the more progressive landholders got into it and the newly revegetated sections started to bloom, neighbors began to take notice and opinions turned. Now we've reached the half way point, and with the various 'Jones' properties looking beautiful criss-crossed with strips of woodland instead of erosion gullies, I bet the others are regretting not getting into the action sooner. I notice that there has been a rush on lately to fence creeks in preparation for the next planting season.On If people want to keep up with the Joneses, could they at least adopt a different set of Joneses? posted 1 year, 10 months ago 128 Responses

The Saudi-Arabia of Geothermal is in Australia

Ours is way deeper though, in a vast region stretching from Queensland in the north-east of the continent through the cooper basin in the central-eastern deserts, down to the Flinders Ranges of South Australia, across to Victoria and Tasmania in the south-east (see figure three on this page). There is a rush on to explore and exploit it at the moment. The leader in the field is a company called Geodynamics but there are bunch of companies busily drilling away. The first Geodynamics production well is currently at 4km depth and will reach it's target within a few weeks. They will have their first prototype power station running within two years. Once that is done and they've achieved proof-of-concept, expect a further surge in investment and activity. The amount of energy available to be tapped is essentially unlimited.
On Talk about targeting! posted 1 year, 10 months ago 2 Responses

That the Australian Greens actually say

The Australian Green website has a section on climate change where you can go to see what they actually do say.

You won't find much about living in caves there.

Although I guess that for many, taking actions such as using more public transport, taking shorter showers or turning on a ceiling fan instead of the air conditioner is considered to be a decreased quality of life.

Then again, at the moment the acute water shortages are impacting on gardens, public amenities like parks and ovals and driving up the cost of both water and electricity, so I guess we get the reduced quality of life if we don't meet our targets also.

Australia desperately needs to convince all countries to collectively reduce emissions. We obviously don't have much chance of being effective at that if we don't get on with reducing our own.On Australia national government transforms; conservative party falls apart posted 1 year, 12 months ago 11 Responses

Oops

'I come from the land of Oz' is what I meant.On Partisan debate on climate change vs. unity posted 1 year, 12 months ago 24 Responses

Another thing on the Oz election

In my post below on the Australian election I forgot to mention one other significant thing.

The senate results are as below

Liberal/National Coalition (the conservatives who just lost) - 37
Labor (the new left wing government) - 32
The Greens - 5
Family first (a Christian party) - 1
Nick Xenophon (a left leaning, pro environment independent) - 1

So to get policies through the senate that the conservatives don't like, the government will need to have the support of the Greens + Nick Xenophon. That'll keep em on their toes.

So Caniscandida, stow your cynicism for now. Things are definitely looking up in the Antipodes.
On Partisan debate on climate change vs. unity posted 1 year, 12 months ago 24 Responses

Ha ! defeated by blog technology ...

When I said "Correction to the above" below, I should have said "correction to the below" below.

Um, ... you'll work it out I'm sure :)On Partisan debate on climate change vs. unity posted 1 year, 12 months ago 24 Responses

Australia has done a backflip

Let me give you a shining example of why politics is so important.

You may be aware that Australia recently had an election and that the government of John Howard (a good mate and supporter of George Bush) has been crushed by the left leaning Labor Party, led by Kevin Rudd (a former diplomat and fluent speaker of Mandarin) with the support of the Australian Greens.

Howard himself lost his seat to a very switched on former journalist from the Australian Broadcasting Commission - Maxine McKew.

It is widely recognized that the backward stance of Howard with respect to climate change played a significant role in the change of government.

The new Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, is the first woman ever to hold that role.

As of yesterday we now have two dedicated, intelligent, enlightened ministers who are committed to helping the country get to grips with the environment, water and climate change, and who are eager to seek and accept the best advice available from the scientific community, economists and business leaders. Mr Rudd declared yesterday that his minister for The Environment, Heritage and the Arts is Mr Peter Garrett - the former head of the Australian Conservation Foundation (equivalent to the Sierra club in the US and the RSPB in Britain). And in addition there will be a dedicated Minister for Climate Change and Water - Ms Penny Wong, a Malaysian-Chinese immigrant. Ms Wong will lead the way in international negotiations on climate change, Mr Garrett will lead the way in developing and implementing policy within Australia.

The Labor party already held power in every state and territory in the country. The state and territory governments have been battling the national government for years to get meaningful greenhouse policies in place. Now the brakes are off. To find the highest ranking right-wing politician in Australia you now have to look to the Mayor of Brisbane!

It's always easy to be cynical ('no matter what, you always get a politician'). But this new crop includes some of the most committed, intelligent, environmentally savvy, socially progressive people in the country.

It's like some kind of miracle!

The new Australian governments's commitments include :

• Signing and moving beyond the Kyoto agreement.
  
• Achieving a national renewable energy target of 20% by 2050.
  
• Reducing greenhouse emission by 60% by 2050.
  
• Commitments to short and medium term targets once the draft of the Garnaut Report is released in June next year. (The Garnaut report being Australia's version of the Stern Report.)
  
• Oz$500,000 - to develop, commercialize and deploy renewable energy .
  
• Oz$500 million - to the develop and deploy 'clean' coal technologies
  
• Oz$240 million - for assisting and encouraging business to reduce emissions.
  
• Oz$150 million - to keep our world leading scientists and researchers in Australia, rather than losing them overseas.
  
• $8000 rebates to households for solar power instillations.
  
• $1000 rebates for solar hot water systems.
  
• $500 rebates for gray water piping and rainwater tanks.
  
• $500 rebates to assist landlords to install insulation.
  
• up to $10,000 per household in low interest green loans for solar systems and water and energy savings measures.
  
• Invest $20 million in a Clean Energy Innovation Center.
  
• Invest in a Green Car Innovation Fund to develop and build green cars in Australia.

I suspect that in setting greenhouse reduction targets based on a comprehensive and honest analysis of both the most up-to-date science and a realistic understanding of our economy, and then acting in such a decisive manner to meet them, we will be able to significantly influence the likes of Canada, the US and China (as indeed the actions of US states such as California have influenced us). It is likely to be very helpful in negotiations to have a Prime Minister who speaks Mandarin and a Climate Change Minister who is ethnic Chinese. Mr Rudd, Mr Garrett and Ms Wong will all be attending the Bali Climate summit.

The unwillingness of conservative governments, such as those that remain in Canada and the US, to face and respond to the avalanche of science that details the grave dangers inherent in the business-as-usual path, inevitably dooms them to the same fate as the former Australian government. You can only be overtly, pigheadedly stupid for so long before the electorate starts to notice.

Cheers from sunny Australia
Craig AllenOn Partisan debate on climate change vs. unity posted 1 year, 12 months ago 24 Responses

John Bailo get a life

John Bailo, you seem to be afflicted with some form of verbal diarrhea. I'm worried for you, you should get it checked by a professional, it might be fatal.On Brit judge claims to find errors in Gore movie posted 2 years, 1 month ago 15 Responses

Keep it coming JB

Balloons? Real estate bubbles? Apple Computers?

Ha! Keep it coming, I need the laughs cos my hometown is dieing from a never ending drought. And those damned climatologists are bringing me no good news.
-> My home town bites the dust.
-> Followed closely by the rest of southern Australia.On The ongoing humiliations of the tattered 'climate skeptic' movement posted 2 years, 2 months ago 10 Responses

Use the compressed air to run air cars

Compressed air can be used to run cars directly.

A prototype car - the Air Car - has already been built and mass production is about to begin.

Imagine petrol stations being converted to air stations. In many places high pressure pipes from nearby hills fitted with windmills could enable compressed air to be generated locally.

I have no idea how much compressed energy a high pressure tanker could carry, but it would great if the tankers could both carry the air and simultaneously run their engines with it.

There is a bunch more info here.

And finally, I'd like to note that whereas wind power might not be available close to many major cities, wave power is. And this company will soon be producing submerged wave energy harvesters that pump compressed water ashore. If water pressure is used to compress air, then a large number of coastal cities could use compressed air for vehicles and for many other purposes.On Economist stuff posted 2 years, 3 months ago 17 Responses

ANother contender

Sliver cells may be another contender:

See here for an transcript of an interview with one of the developers.

See the manufacturers website here. They are currently building their pilot manufacturing plant.On Interesting stuff on the hottest new green tech posted 2 years, 4 months ago 4 Responses

Pro(ish) kangaroo harvest point-of-view from Oz

I see kangaroo harvesting as a means of improving nature conservation & land management in Australian landscapes. But as currently implemented the industry is flawed.

I grew up in a pioneer family on the Eyre Peninsular. My great grandparents, grandparents, parents and most of my extended family lived their lives carving farms out of the mallee bush which is characteristic of this area and much of southern South Australia. My father alone cleared about ten thousand acres of mallee woodland. As a kid I became  interested in ecology and conservation through seeing and catching the amazing variety of reptiles, birds, insects and marsupials and other mammals creatures that appeared when dad was bulldozing the bush. Some time around the age of eight I decided that I was less than impressed with the family business and eventually ended up studying ecology at university, and have worked in the conservation sector all my adult life.

So, here are a few observations and thoughts:

• In some seasons, kangaroos were a very real problem on our farm. I have seen mobs of 50 or so of them that emerged from bush adjacent to wheat or barley paddocks to graze. Dad's solution : grain laced with strychnine. I shudder to think what else was killed - parrots, other marsupials, eagles, crows etc feeding on the carcasses etc.
  
• Some of the more common species (some of which are harvested) have biologies that allow them to rapidly increase in population in good years. The populations then crash in drought years.
  
• Farmers have cleared vast areas of natural ecosystems and continue to do so in order to plant crops and graze stock. This will continue. Even though the era broad-acre clearance is coming to a close, a less obvious degradation of natural ecosystems still occurs through the grazing of the woodlands and grasslands by stock, a practice that slowly kills of the undergrowth and prevents regeneration.
  
• In drought years, vast areas of Australia's agricultural lands that have been cleared of all native vegetation effectively become Sahara-like desert, wracked by dust storms.
  
• In a holistic sense, the loss of native vegetation is a far greater threat to native species than is the harvesting of the more common native species.
  
• Most species of kangaroos and wallabys are totally protected.
  
• If farmers were able to make a living from kangaroos, they would in theory be able swap at least some of their enterprise away from domestic stock, thereby reducing their impact on the landscape and ecosystems.
  
• Currently the industry is not structured in a manner that enables this to occur. Landholders generally receive no direct income when roos are harvested from their land.
  
• In areas and at times where there are high populations, then farmers are given a licence to cull if there is no harvest by professional shooters. The carcasses are then left to rot.

• In theory, I support the concept of the harvest of some species of kangaroo, under strict controls including quotas that are set according to population monitoring.
  
• However, as currently structured, I believe that the industry does not provide the incentives that are required in order to achieve the positive conservation outcomes that are needed.

It saddens me to think that instead of clearing all that beautiful bush, my family could have found a way to perhaps clear perhaps only half of it and to instead make a living from looking after the rest and harvesting the roos rather then poisoning and shooting them as pests. It really burns me up to know that the process continues when a better way is known. It perplexes me to think that people, who claim to care, are actively working against the development of a way of living with the land that preserves habitat, flora and fauna rather than eliminating it.

An a final note on the animal suffering: I won't go into details here, but I am absolutely convinced that meat production through kangaroo harvesting is more humane than through sheep production. And there is no way known that we are going to convince everyone to become vegetarians any time soon.

Some further reading

• The Kangaroo harvesting page on the FATE website
  "The FATE vision is to incorporate alternative forms of land-use into the landscape mosaic of rural Australia that combine production and conservation through the commercial use of native species."
  NB: I have nothing to do with them - I just mostly agree with them.

• Background info from the Australian Government, including population statistics harvest quotas.

• The Australian Conservation Policy statement on kangaroo harvesting

• Notice on harvest season closure in Western Australia (Gives an idea of how the management currently happens.)
  

Huh! You've got this the wrong way around

John Howard is a master politician. He and George Bush are close pals. But I suggest that the influence is more likely the other way around.

We are currently witnessing an all out brawl among Australian politicians over climate change in the lead up to our federal election. Howard has no credibility on the issue, having spent the last decade denying that it is a problem. But given past experience it is not unlikely that he will manage to win anyway. He is running the line that:

'OK, you the Australian people want something done about this climate change thingy - alright I'll fix it - trust me - but I won't give you targets or anything that irresponsible until after the election - and don't be foolish and vote for the opposition - if climate change is a bad as you think it is, then you need me at the helm to deal with it by keeping the economy steaming ahead with my fiscal conservatism - oh and by the way, this means we'll need to build lots of nuclear power stations, and export loads more Uranium - cutting back CO2 is gonna hurt - but I'll make it hurt less than those other clowns - they'd ruin us all with their environmental extremism.'

To get a real idea of what is going on in Australian politics environment-wise, read the news items in the Environment section of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) website.

Or better yet, search the audio downloads of the Phillip Adams' Late Night Live radio show for relevant discussions of either greenhouse or Howard.

In fact, just listen to LNL from now on and you'll get a better understanding of what is going on in the World than is possible from any other single source.

On the other side of the coin, the Australian company Geodynamics is about to tap into a Geothermal source that has the potential to supply all Australia's power requirements for the next millennium at a price competitive with coal, so I suspect that the prime minister's opinion is about to become irrelevant with regard greenhouse in the domestic economy.On Australia tries to distract from Kyoto posted 2 years, 5 months ago 8 Responses