Comments undyau has made

Its a bit of a stretch to describe the proposed Australian scheme as a cap-and-trade measure - the only cap that has been defined at the moment is the $10/tonne cap on the price of permits.

What could have been a good scheme, a proving ground for other countries has turned into a scramble by the polluters for free permits (value $billions). With its very low targets (a reduction of 5% on 2000 emissions) and the ability of polluters to buy in credits from overseas, its possible that the scheme could see NO REDUCTION in Australian emissions.

The most successful scheme for avoiding emissions in Australia has been the GreenPower scheme whereby homeowners, businesses and local authorities can buy certified GreenPower by paying extra for their electricity. Each kWh of GreenPower is currently certified to be clean energy produced above and beyond the mandatory targets that the power industry has. This scheme will be eviscerated by the proposed legislation which is going to include any GreenPower as part of the targets that the power generators have to make - so every kWh of GreenPower I buy is a kWh less that the power company has to generate.

The government seems to be having two dialogs about this legislation - one with the resource companies, who donate vast amounts of money their way and one with the even-more-coal-faced Liberal/Nats party who are electorally irrelevant. They aren't engaging with the public or the Green party (who could pass the legislation if it was amended to be effective).

Monkey butt

Crutzen's comments seem reasonable to me, whilst the argument you present against him seems a bit contrived. By all means attack the politicians for their vacillation, but hammering Crutzen's comments like an odd way to lead into it.

As Crutzen says, reduced economic activity will probably mean reduced fossil fuel burning, which is good climate-wise.

I'm not sure that you are disagreeing with that, it seems to be the comment about the slower increase of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. Reducing the rate of increase of emissions is a necessary step to turning that rate negative. For the climate it doesn't matter how that rate change occurs, its just important that it does occur.

You say "If carbon dioxide emissions stopped growing forever, concentrations would still keep rising forever".

This isn't true if the rate of emissions growth goes negative. In that case concentrations would actually drop, rather than still keep rising forever.On Nobelist Paul Crutzen suggests that a slowdown in the economy could be good for the climate posted 1 year, 1 month ago 5 Responses

Other coal songs

Imagine, having to fight
To work two miles down from the air and the light
And imagine, having to plead
That a job that can kill, is a job that you need

Words from Latin Quarter's "The Men Below" that have been stuck in my mind for ummm... 21 years. Gosh. Its pretty interesting to revisit their music now and look at how many of the issues they were singing about are unresolved.

From memory this dates from the Thatcher government's battles against the mining union (NUM). I've never been a fan of Thatcher, but she did have her finger on the pulse when it came to global warming.

Thanks for the article - along with the discussion, its opened up a few new artists for me to get my ears around.On Songs about the enemy of the human race posted 1 year, 7 months ago 30 Responses

and the USA is on which planet ?

"I just don't think that continuing the IPCC process will have any meaningful impact on American climate policy. And much of the rest of the industrialized world is ready to make the necessary commitments now."

The USA is one nation amongst two hundred. Are you really so blinkered that you think that the IPCC should close down because one nation's political process is so corrupted by vested interests that it can't develop a useful climate change policy ?On It is doubtful that future IPCC reports will make a difference in climate policy posted 1 year, 11 months ago 9 Responses

Why not cut production ?

I've always thought that it made more economic sense for the countries in OPEC to reduce their output. That would force prices up and would extend the duration of their oil reserves and the wealth that flows from it. They should be able to take a slightly longer term perspective than the next quarter.

I guess that if they did take that approach then some rogue state may decide to go and bomb them back to the stone-age.On OPEC nations demand that petroleum-consuming countries maintain current thirst for oil posted 2 years ago 13 Responses

Estimating power usage

Instead of using a gizmo to measure the overall power-use of your home, you could just read the power meter each day and do the sums to see how much you use each day. You soon yet to spot the energy patterns of your household - when there were two washes done, when someone baked a cake or  roasted something in the oven.

Re: the Tivo problem. The open source Tivo-equivalent, MythTV, can be configured so that it powers itself off and just powers back on when there is something to record. Because its based on a PC, it still draws power when its off (you see the LAN connection LED glow), but you can safely put a timer device on it if you never record (say) day-time TV. That's what we use in our (sub 5kWh/day) house. Still looking for a microwave without a clock.

AndyOn Umbra on power strips posted 2 years ago 13 Responses