Australian aid to preserve overseas rainforests does not absolve it from domestic rainforest destruction
- Harnessing ancient primary forests for continued carbon storage requires ending industrial logging, and in Australia too
Media Release, 21 Aug 08
By Ecological Internet, Dr. Glen Barry, +1 (920) 776-1075
www.rainforestportal.org
(Earth) -- Ecological Internet welcomes Australia’s expression of concern about forests and climate change, demonstrated by yesterday's release of an initial US$2 million in aid for Asia-Pacific nations to help protect forests and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But it is unfortunate these efforts to maintain forest carbon are only being applied overseas, are based upon flawed science, and thus will not likely make much difference.
An important new study from Australian National University researchers recently found that first-time logging of ancient primary forests results in more than a 40 percent reduction in long-term carbon compared with unlogged forests[1]. Further, untouched natural forests were found to store three times more carbon dioxide than previously estimated and 60 percent more than plantation forests. These findings directly contradict industry propaganda that logging old-growth is climate friendly.
"For forests to be maximally effective in addressing climate change, these findings suggest the focus of Australian forest policy should be upon preserving primary forests with strict protections from industrial development; and focusing upon regenerating natural forests' old-growth characteristics while meeting needs for certified forest products," explains Ecological Internet's President, Dr. Glen Barry.
"If Australia, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia are sincere in their efforts to establish payments for forest protection, and if these efforts are really going to protect regional climate and biodiversity, they are going to have to forego industrial forestry in each of their remaining primary forests. Anything else is greenwash with grave local and global ramifications."
Australia continues large scale first time industrial logging and other clearing of their important ecosystems, with massive release of carbon and drying of water resources, even as their government promotes forest protection internationally to combat climate change. In Tasmania, ancient forests are clearfelled to make disposable paper products, tropical rainforests are cleared for agriculture in Queensland, and logging of rare jarrah continues in the southwest's precious Gondwana forest remnants.
The Australian government is encouraged to rely upon ecological science rather than industry propaganda in regards to forests and climate.
"It is preposterous to impose massive costs upon society for a new carbon trading market while ignoring how first time industrial logging of primary forests in Australia and regionally is a primary driver of climate change. These activities can, and should, be discontinued relatively inexpensively. The Australian government ignores their own University science that first time logging damages carbon stores, funding yet further rounds of "sustainable forestry" aid overseas while continuing to log their own forests, at great peril for Australia's climate and ecological sustainability."
Footnotes
[1] Green Carbon:The role of natural forests in carbon storage, 2008, Australian National University E Press, Brendan G. Mackey, Heather Keith, Sandra L. Berry and David B. Lindenmayer. Visit epress.anu.edu.au/green_carbon/pdf_instructions.html to download book as 2.0M pdf file or download flyer (505K)
For further information : ecologicalinternet.org, phone Dr. Glen Barry on +1 (920) 776-1075, or e-mail info [AT] ecologicalinternet org
Greens endorse strike against electricity retail sell-off
Iemma's arrogance drives power retail workers to strike action
NSW Greens Media release: 29 August 2008
The United Services Union has called its members working in call centres of Energy Australia, Integral Energy and Country Energy off the job in protest against Premier Morris Iemma's 'plan B sell-off' announced late yesterday.
Greens NSW MP Dr Kaye said: "The Premier has treated electricity retail workers with complete contempt.
"Morris Iemma's sulking refusal to accept the will of the parliament has brought him into open warfare with the unions, his own party, and the people of NSW.
"Retail workers know their jobs are on the line. Private owners will ship call centre operations overseas as a cost-cutting exercise.
"The strike action also highlights the importance of maintaining public ownership of electricity retailers for the state's economy, household finances and efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"Privatisation will undermine important opportunities for demand management that can control increases in electricity bills and reduce NSW's carbon footprint.
"NSW deserves a Treasurer and a Premier who put the needs of the community and the environment ahead of the greed of big business.
"The Greens support the electricity retail workers' strike action.
"It is in the state's interests to stop the sell-off," Dr Kaye said.
For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455
John Kaye
Greens member of the NSW Parliament
phone: (02) 9230 2668
fax: (02) 9230 2586
mobile: 0407 195 455
email: john.kaye [AT] parliament nsw gov au
web: www.johnkaye.org.au
See also: Iemma unethical, says ALP backbencher, Torbay urged to fire up in power debate
After cowardly backdown Costa, Iemma threaten back-door privatisation
Contents: #PunishesHouseholds">Power retail sell-off plan punishes households and environment, #BackDoor">Costa, Iemma must resign over back-door sale move, #CowardlyRetreat">Costa's cowardly retreat from stunt gone wrong, #JohnKayeSpeech">speech by Dr John Kaye, #SylviaHaleSpeech">speech by Sylvia Hale.
#PunishesHouseholds" id="PunishesHouseholds">Power retail sell-off plan punishes households and environment
NSW Premier Morris Iemma's refusal to accept the will of the parliament and people of NSW is undermining the state's ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to Greens NSW MP John Kaye.
Dr Kaye said: "Public ownership of electricity retailers is just as important as the generators.
"In a time of rising wholesale energy prices, privately-owned retailers will treat households as cash cows.
"Privatisation will destroy important opportunities for demand management that can control increases in electricity bills and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"The Premier has treated the people of NSW and their parliament with complete contempt.
"He has allowed himself to yet again be bullied into an unpopular and undemocratic move by his Treasurer.
"NSW is in the grip of climate sceptic Michael Costa and his obsession with privatisation.
"At a time when reducing emissions is moving from being a personal commitment to becoming a national imperative, selling off the retailers will make it much harder to share the burden of climate change fairly.
"It is not surprising that the big business lobby has invested heavily in peddling privatisation.
"They are not just pushing the sell-off to help their mates in the banking industry skim off massive profits from the sale.
"They are making sure that when prices do rise, the costs will be born by households, not the big commercial and industrial consumers.
"NSW needs a Treasurer and a Premier who put the needs of the community and the environment ahead of the greed of big business," Dr Kaye said.
For more information:
NSW Greens Media release: 29 August 2008
Contact: John Kaye 0407 195 455
#BackDoor" id="BackDoor">Costa, Iemma must resign over back-door sale move
The eleventh hour move by Morris Iemma to sell off electricity retailers after privatisation had been declared 'dead and buried' is a complete abuse of parliament, according to Greens NSW MP John Kaye.
Dr Kaye said: "The Treasurer has misled parliament. Michael Costa has no credibility and must resign.
"Michael Costa directly told the NSW Upper House that any sale would be determined by the parliament.
"He and his Premier have dishonoured the Westminster system.
"Premier Iemma’s manufactured excuse for the back-door sale is ludicrous. The so-called crisis in credit ratings comes from nowhere and is not believable.#main-fn1">1
"The capital markets should know that the Greens will work with the unions to undo this commitment to sell the retailers.
"The Premier has swapped excuses in midstream. This was supposed to be about encouraging investment in power generation. Now we are told it is to solve an alleged credit crisis.
"The government has no mandate to sell the state’s electricity assets.
"The utter contempt they are showing for parliament, the people and the democratic process has brought NSW politics to a new low," Dr Kaye said.
(NSW Greens Media Release: 05:12 pm 28 August 2008)
For more information John Kaye 0407 195 455
#CowardlyRetreat" id="CowardlyRetreat">Costa's cowardly retreat from stunt gone wrong
The move by the Iemma government to delay the inevitable defeat of power privatisation after squandering money on a parliamentary recall will destroy its credibility, according to Greens NSW MP John Kaye.
Dr Kaye said: "Michael Costa has condemned his privatisation to a coward's death.
"The Treasurer's henchmen in the Legislative Council manipulated the parliament process because they know the lies and propaganda behind his privatisation push would not withstand scrutiny.
"The community will be furious that the Iemma government has squandered their money on a parliamentary recall that achieved nothing.
"When parliament reconvenes in late September the Greens will ensure that the Treasurer's sell-off plans receive the scrutiny they so richly deserve.
"We will work with the Coalition and responsible Labor MPs to deliver the final defeat to Costa's privatisation legislation.
"If this government tries to bring in privatisation by the back door using ministerial powers then the community will come after them.
"The obligation is now on Morris Iemma to tell the people of NSW that electricity privatisation is dead on arrival.
"Michael Costa should now do the right thing and resign," Dr Kaye said.
(Source: NSW Greens Media Release: 02:53 pm 28 August 2008)
#JohnKayeSpeech" id="JohnKayeSpeech">Speech to NSW Parliament by Greens MLC Dr John Kaye on the issue of Privatisation of Electricity
*Dr JOHN KAYE *[1.22 p.m.]: I join with the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in opposing the motion for adjournment. It is an act of total cowardice to avoid debate on a central plank. Treasurer Michael Costa and Premier Morris Iemma have said that the vote on the electricity industry privatisation legislation was the most important single vote to be taken in this Parliament. But what did the Labor Iemma Government do? It ran away from the vote, and it seeks to hide from the inevitable defeat that this bill would have inflicted. Why did the Government do that? It knows that 80 per cent of the New South Wales population is opposed to electricity privatisation. The Government knows that 80 per cent of its own party is opposed to electricity privatisation, and it knows that every sensible and independent observer of the electricity industry agrees.
Handing public assets into private hands would be a complete and total disaster. To adjourn the debate is simply an attempt to avoid inevitable humiliation. It must be accepted now that the Costa-Iemma electricity privatisation is dead in the water. And it is dead in the water without appropriate debate and vote, and they have inflicted a cowardly death on the legislation. I note that Minister Kelly is now leaving the Chamber; he is embarrassed by what he had to deliver for the Costa-Iemma Government, and embarrassed by his failure to allow the bills to be debated appropriately.
The underpinning of privatisation was the Owen inquiry. The Chamber has not had the opportunity to debate the Owen inquiry, or the opportunity to determine whether the State needs new baseload capacity. The Chamber has not had the opportunity to test the presumption that we cannot afford to buy new baseload capacity, or to test the assumption that the private sector will not invest in the New South Wales electricity industry as long as it is publicly owned. As long as those assumptions are not tested in this Chamber, the Owen inquiry remains a document of propaganda and ideology. The Government lacks the courage to allow that document to be subjected to the scrutiny of the New South Wales upper House. In doing so, the Government denies the people of New South Wales the debate that Michael Costa and Morris Iemma promised them.
For the past 12 months, Premier Iemma and Treasurer Costa said that there would be debate on the privatisation of the electricity industry, but that has now been denied us. If Premier Iemma and Treasurer Costa sneak away from this Chamber and try to privatise the industry behind closed doors, this Chamber will go after them as will the New South Wales union movement---the activists who have campaigned long and hard against privatisation---and 80 per cent of the New South Wales population who are opposed to it. We will find whatever rock they will hide under, and we will make sure that they pay the price for selling off assets.
It is time this Chamber had a debate about privatisation. We will make sure when the Chamber resumes that that debate is held; it has to happen. The Government cannot run the propaganda and lies in the media that have been heard from Michael Costa and Morris Iemma and not conduct that debate in this Chamber. Adjourning the Chamber now will not avoid debate at a future time. The Government has extended the agony for itself. The Government does not have the majority in this Chamber---the media and the people know that. People who have campaigned against privatisation know that, and Government members know that full well. Running away and hiding will not destroy the evidence that power privatisation was always going to be bad for the people, bad for households, bad for the economy and bad for the environment.
It remains absolutely true that the Government cannot continue down the path of spreading myths from Tony Owen that have been propagated by the Business Council of Australia, the Alliance for a Better New South Wales, the business lobby and the Premier and the Treasurer. The Government cannot keep relying on those myths unless it is prepared to hold debate in this Chamber; if it is not, it will have no public credibility. By hiding from this debate, all it has done is guaranteed that the people know what is really going on. The Government will not stand up to the scrutiny of this Chamber; and it cannot, because what it is doing is a complete and total tissue of lies. If debate on this matter is not listed for when the Chamber resumes on 23 September 2008, we will have to take matters into our own hands to ensure that it is held. The Greens oppose the adjournment.
#SylviaHaleSpeech" id="SylviaHaleSpeech">Speech by Greens MLC Sylvia Hale to NSW Parliament on issue of Privatising Electricity
Ms SYLVIA HALE [1.32 p.m.]: Two years ago this Government attempted to privatise the Snowy Hydro scheme. That time it was saved from itself by a statewide campaign of opposition that made it clear that privatisation was unacceptable to the community. Protests and opposition started in the Snowy region and spread across the State, from village to town and into the cities. The State Government tried to tough it out, but ultimately the Federal Government's withdrawal from the process forced the hand of the State Government, which then withdrew from its attempted privatisation of Snowy Hydro. That decision was significant in saving the Government at the subsequent State election in March 2007.
One can hear the eager, servile capitulation of the Premier, the Treasurer, and the Minister for Planning: "Rewrite the planning laws the way you want them? Certainly, Mr Morrison. Hand the State's electricity assets over to the corporate sector? Of course, Mr Morrison". I do not know why Labor does not simply appoint Ken Morrison as Premier and cut out the middleman! The policy outcomes would be the same.
In the face of overwhelming opposition from the community, from the trade union movement and from its own rank and file members, why is the New South Wales Labor Government so keen to tread this self-destructive road? Many people in New South Wales will look at what has happened today and wonder what the Labor Party has become and whose interests it now serves. It appears that the leadership of the parliamentary Labor Party has determined that the future of the New South Wales Labor Party is as the party of big business. It has deliberately turned its back on its own members, on the trade unions and on the community generally in order to embrace the agenda of the State's large corporate interests.
It was instructive this week to see the pro-privatisation urgings of the corporate sector being led by the so-called Alliance for New South Wales' Future. This is the latest front group set up by the head of the Property Council, Ken Morrison, and his corporate lobby group mates. The last such group Mr Morrison fronted was the Coalition for Planning Reform. That was the group whose wish list formed the basis of the Government's deeply unpopular changes to the planning system—changes that, like the privatisation proposal before us, pretty well every Labor candidate in the upcoming local council elections is trying to disown. All these various coalitions and alliances that Mr Morrison fronts are supposedly motivated solely by the best interests of the residents of New South Wales, and their members become deeply offended by any suggestion that they are merely pursuing the financial interests of the corporations that make up their membership. They may claim public altruism, but there is no doubt that they are really lobbying in the financial interests of the big end of town. That is fair enough; it is what their corporate sponsors pay them to do.
What is disturbing, however, is the extent to which the so-called Labor Government has embraced the agenda of these corporate interests. One can hear the eager, servile capitulation of the Premier, the Treasurer, and the Minister for Planning: "Rewrite the planning laws the way you want them? Certainly, Mr Morrison. Hand the State's electricity assets over to the corporate sector? Of course, Mr Morrison". I do not know why Labor does not simply appoint Ken Morrison as Premier and cut out the middleman! The policy outcomes would be the same. The relevant bills were introduced in the lower House on the same day that Frank Sartor introduced his developers' wish list of a planning bill. This demonstrates clearly and finally for all to see that Labor's parliamentary leadership has turned its back on its rank and file members and its trade union base in order to fall into the loving embrace of the corporate sector that now funds its election campaigns and sets its policy agenda. As with Snowy Hydro, from the outset the Greens have opposed the privatisation of the State's electricity assets. We are united in our condemnation of the Government's pro-privatisation agenda.
Footnotes
#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">1. #main-fn1-txt">↑ On pages 257-259 of Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" there is a narrative of another manufactured credit crisis in Canada in 1993:
In September 1995, a video was leaked to the Canadian press of John Snobelen, Ontario's minister of education, telling a closed door meeting of civil servants that before cuts to education and other unpopular reforms could be announced, a climate of panic needed to be created by leaking information that painted a more dire picture than "He would be inclined to talk about". He called it "creating a useful crisis."(p259)
See also: NSW electricity privatisation can be stopped!, Open letter to NSW state Opposition members urging a vote against electricity privatisation, Open letter to NSW Labor parliamentary caucus members to urging a vote against electricity privatisation
Privatisation debate exposes Costa's hypocrisy and incompetence
#speech" id="speech">Upper House Liberal leader Michael Gallacher's speech against electricity privatisation
See also: comment #EditorsComment">below and #speech2">Duncan Gay's speech
The following speech has been copied from the NSW Legislative Council Hansard of 27 August 2007.
The Hon. MICHAEL GALLACHER (Leader of the Opposition) [12.44 p.m.]: The Government has had 13 years to get the important issue of this State's future power generation right and, as members will shortly hear, it has got it wrong. The New South Wales Liberal-Nationals Coalition will not support the Iemma Government's Electricity Industry Restructuring (Response to Auditor-General Report) Bill and the associated cognate bill. The Liberal-Nationals Coalition does not take this decision likely. There are three key reasons for our dissatisfaction with this proposed electricity industry restructuring: the continued uncertainty surrounding the Commonwealth Government's emission trading scheme; the current state of capital markets is not conducive for the sale of such a valuable asset; and the Iemma Government's history of financial and infrastructure delivery mismanagement and incompetence. Underpinning all three reasons is the fundamental issue of trust. The community does not believe that the Government can be trusted to get this privatisation right. The community does not believe that the Iemma Government can be trusted to spend the proceeds of the sale in a transparent and honest manner. The community also does not believe that the Iemma Government can be trusted to put public interest ahead of the Labor Party's re-election plans.
The community's concerns are well founded. The 2007 State election did not deliver the Iemma Government a mandate to embark upon the sale of this State's electricity assets. In fact, the Iemma Government issued emphatic denials that any such sale would take place. The arrogant dismissal of concerns held by the Government's own members and its party, whilst contemptible, is not surprising. The Government's failure to put the question to the people of New South Wales demonstrates beyond any shadow of a doubt that this is a Government out of control, out of step and out of options. Mr Iemma betrayed the trust when he refused to reveal his true plan about the future of electricity prior to the 2007 State election. By opposing this legislation the New South Wales Liberal-Nationals Coalition will ensure that the people of the State are not betrayed.
The Treasurer's ever-shifting position on the privatisation of electricity portrays him as a political opportunist. As an executive member of the Labor Council he opposed the privatisation of electricity. On 12 February 1998 as Acting Secretary of the council he moved the following executive recommendation:
That …the Labor Council reaffirms its opposition to the Egan Electricity Privatisation Proposal.
At a Labor Council meeting on 21 October 1999, in his position as Secretary of that council, he moved the following executive recommendation:
That …the Labor Council continue its campaign against contracting out of Government employees' work and jobs.
As well as opposing electricity privatisation the Treasurer has also spoken of the need to put social concerns above market fundamentalism. In his inaugural speech to this House in September 2001 he spoke of what he imagined as a better world:
While it is true that I respect the power of the market mechanism, I reject market fundamentalism, which places all market outcomes above social concerns … Societies structured on markets that do not deliver social outcomes supported by the majority of the community are doomed to failure.
Perhaps the Treasurer should have considered his own advice before bringing this legislation to the Parliament. In addition to those sentiments in his inaugural speech, he said:
Barrie Unsworth advised me that this inaugural speech was an important speech because it provides a public benchmark to judge one's contribution to public life. I hope that at the end of my time in this House I will be judged as having contributed to prosperity, opportunity and fairness.
As I said earlier, the Treasurer is a recent public convert to the "privatisation at all costs" agenda. As late as before the last State election—in this House on 23 November 2006—the Treasurer said:
There is no energy crisis in New South Wales … In fact, New South Wales has surplus energy.
A month out from the State election, on 20 February 2007, he was reported in the Australian Financial Review as saying:
There are no plans to sell our retail electricity businesses.
Yet here we are in an extraordinary sitting of this Parliament, having been recalled at great expense to the taxpayer, to pass legislation to privatise the electricity assets.
That I stand shoulder to shoulder with my Coalition colleagues, the Nationals, and accuse the Government of betrayal is not political rhetoric. The Government's Ministers pledged that they would not sell our State's power in any restructure, but not 12 months later, in a backflip, they and announced that they would. That is a betrayal. The Treasurer does not have a monopoly on opportunism when it comes to electricity privatisation. In the other place on 9 May 2007 the Premier said, when referring to the Owen review:
The Government goes into this review with an open mind, and only two things will be ruled out. The first is nuclear power. As I have stated previously, there will be no consideration whatsoever of nuclear energy for New South Wales. Second, there will be no sale of electricity generation, transmission or distribution. On all other matters I am yet to be convinced and will await Professor Owen's expert advice.
The Premier even has been accused of lying to Unions NSW. In a Sydney Morning Herald article dated 25 May 2007 he was reported as stating in a letter to Unions NSW:
The privatisation of the State Government-owned energy companies is not on our agenda. In fact, the NSW Government's commitment to this sector is stronger than ever … with record investment in new and upgraded electricity infrastructure.
I reiterate: This represents a betrayal of trust. It is a lack of trust that underpins the Coalition's opposition to these bills. While such significant uncertainty surrounds the creation of the proposed emissions trading scheme, New South Wales's taxpayers cannot be confident they are receiving full value for their assets. My colleague the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in this House, the Hon. Duncan Gay, will further outline our concerns regarding the Federal Government's emissions trading scheme.
The great disappointment in all of this is that rather than engage in a constructive conversation with the Rudd Government, Michael Costa has wasted time threatening Labor rank and file and berating the Opposition. When the bills are rejected by this House, responsibility will fall squarely at the feet of the Treasurer. From the outset he misled the community, isolated his colleagues and politicised the process. The Treasurer has failed to show leadership. Leadership is about engaging the community in open dialogue, leadership is about asking the hard questions, and leadership is about inspiration and bringing people along on a journey toward a desired outcome. At no point has the Government engaged the New South Wales public in anything resembling leadership consultation. Conversely, it has betrayed and engaged in spin, and in this House it will pay a hefty price for its hubris.
The proposal to privatise electricity does not meet the public interest test. In so many ways Australia's capital market conditions are not conducive to a positive outcome for the people of New South Wales. Since the release of the Owen report in 2007, Australian stock markets have fallen significantly. The Australian All Ordinaries fell almost 20 per cent, and the Australian utilities sector index fell almost 30 per cent. The impact of falling markets is clearly evident in the Hon. Michael Costa's consistent downward revision of the value of the assets. In December 2007 the Treasurer described a $15 billion price tag as conservative. In June 2008, he estimated the price at "around $10 billion". If a public company mysteriously lost $5 billion off the value of an asset in the space of six months, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission would declare an immediate audit. I point out that $5 billion is equivalent to the cost of 5,000 hospital beds or 130 new schools.
Importantly, the negative impact of capital markets will not be limited to initial public offerings; it will also affect trade sales. Market multiples will be used as a part of any basic valuation for a trade sale. Furthermore the global credit crunch makes it more difficult for companies to secure debt funding. My colleague in the other place the member for Manly estimates that the cost of underwriting $10 billion in current market conditions is $400 million more than at the same time last year.
The Iemma Government has spent the last week trying to make the future of its electricity plans all about the Opposition. The Treasurer has made numerous claims about why the Opposition should support the legislation—claims that simply do not stand up to scrutiny—and says that the Owen report found that $15 billion needs to be spent on electricity infrastructure. However, he is yet to explain why spending on electricity assets has been so neglected and why allegedly we need to come up with $15 billion by 2013. We reiterate that even as late as before the 2007 State election on 23 November 2006 the Treasurer stated in this House, "There is no energy crisis in New South Wales … In fact, New South Wales has surplus energy."
Responsible government is about planning for the future and anticipating the need for the replacement and ongoing maintenance of assets, particularly major assets such as power stations, hospitals, schools and police stations. The Treasurer claims that the details of the Commonwealth's emissions trading scheme will be clear by the end of the year, but what he does not point out is that, just as the New South Wales Government does not control its upper House, the Rudd Labor Government does not have control of the Senate. There is no way the Treasurer can be assured that legislation for the emissions trading scheme will be in place by the end of the year or that that legislation, even if it is amended or passed, will operate as intended.
The Treasurer also believes that financial market conditions, now or indeed at the end of the year, will be conducive to the sale of our State's electricity assets. Nobody, not even the Treasurer, knows what the market conditions will be at the end of the year. What we know now is that since the release of the Owen report in September 2007, the Australian stock market has fallen significantly. As I have said, the Australian All Ordinaries fell by almost 20 per cent and the Australian utilities sector index fell by almost 30 per cent. International rating agency, Fitch Ratings, stated:
The final valuation of NSW's coal-fired generation assets will be affected by the details of (the) carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS) due to be introduced in 2010. Uncertainty over how the CPRS will affect the electricity generator's cashflows and of the present state of credit markets are likely to affect the value of proceeds.
It should never ever be forgotten that the only reason the Government faces defeat is that it has failed to secure the votes of its own caucus members. This predicament is entirely of the Government's own making. The Coalition's approach to electricity privatisation was never about ticking boxes or meeting deadlines. It has always been about what is in the best interests of the New South Wales community. Our approach to this legislation has not been about the father-knows-best politics of the Australian Labor Party. From the outset, it has been about doing what the people expect of us.
My colleagues in the other place each represent more than 40,000 voters in their respective electorates. The Leaders of the New South Wales Liberals-Nationals involved each and every one of those 40,00 voters in formulating the Coalition's final position. The Hon. Michael Costa and his leader cannot say the same. The Auditor-General's Report and the Rural Community Impact Statement have played an important role in our decision. We also considered a range of factors, including external economic conditions and the current state of flux in the energy sector. The process has involved wide consultation with groups ranging from business interests to energy sector employees and of course the general community.
Ultimately the Coalition decided that the Government cannot be trusted with the privatisation of electricity. Let me echo the words of the State's Leader of the Opposition, Barry O'Farrell, who confirmed this morning that the New South Wales Liberals-Nationals will have an energy policy to put to the people of New South Wales before the next election. Our policy will include the principle of private sector involvement where it meets the public interest. It will consider the broadest range of methods that deliver to the public the best outcomes in electricity. What our electricity policy will not be is the singular agenda of an individual member of Parliament who is intent on rushing through a fire sale of the State's most valuable asset.
Much has been said in the press concerning the effect that this decision will have on the Coalition's relationship with the business community. Irrespective of what some business groups might think about the role of private enterprise in electricity generation, most members of the business community would agree that the Government cannot be trusted with even the most basic economic endeavours, let alone something as substantial as electricity privatisation.
Ultimately, the key stakeholders in the proposed sale of the State's electricity assets do not sit in New South Wales boardrooms; they sit in lounge rooms. They open a power bill every three months. They will watch as market forces, both external and internal, affect the retail price of power generation. Some of them will be renters, some will pay mortgages, some will have children, and some will live on a pension.
While the Iemma Government decides how to divide the spoils of its sale across marginal constituencies, these people will decide what to cut from the family budget as the cost of living in New South Wales continues to increase. It should never be forgotten that if this legislation fails today it will be because the Labor Party has split. Two parties with conflicting agendas now run the New South Wales Government. I am proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with my Coalition colleagues The Nationals in condemnation of these bills and the manner in which they have been introduced. Today we oppose legislation that puts Morris Iemma and Michael Costa's interests and quick-fix financial gains above the interests of the people of New South Wales. The Opposition opposes this legislation.
#EditorsComment">Editor's comment on speech #speech">above
Although I am elsewhere highly critical of many other Liberal Party politicians, I found this speech by NSW Upper House Opposition Leader Michael Gallacher to be brilliantly incisive and informative. Thanks to Sheila Newman for having drawn my attention to it. Site visitors should also take the opportunity to read Treasurer Michael Costa's speech in support of the Electricity Privatisation bill in order to form their own judgement. It can be found on the Parliamentary web site. We intend to publish it here when time permits.
Readers should also contrast the damning case against Treasurer Costa and his Government presented here with the craven pro-NSW-Government coverage of electricity privatisation by virtually all the mainstream press, including that given by the supposedly independent ABC.
Why is it that newspapers, such as Rupert Murdoch's Australian which postures incessantly about its struggle to supposedly defend Your Right to Know so rarely report to the Australian public important basic facts about issues - like that of electricity privatisation - which can be readily found in the Parliamentary Hansards of almost every sitting day of the year?
The NSW's State Opposition's stance against privatisation is, unfortunately, not absolute. Ironically though, the NSW public and NSW unionists owe Michael Gallacher, Peter Debnam, Barry O'Farrell, Andrew Stoner and the whole NSW state opposition an enormous debt of gratitude. This is because the state opposition informed the NSW public of the truth about privatisation and the Labor Government record. The opposition then put its words into action. Of course, credit also rightly belongs to the Greens, the minor party and independent members, and those Labor members who defied the unprincipled stance of the Labor Caucus majority to vote against privatisation. Also credit is due to the trade unionists and community grass roots activists who campaigned so hard against privatisation. - James Sinnamon
#speech2" id="speech2">Uppper House Nationals Leader Duncan Gay's speech against electricity privatisation
The Hon. DUNCAN GAY (Deputy Leader of the Opposition) [1.16 p.m.]: Today we have witnessed the contrast between two leaders: one leader who divided the party and another leader who brought two parties together. Never before have we seen greater contrast in this State. We have a political party that wants to hide in the back rooms of this State and not take decisions to the people. Its members do not want to walk up the front path to the front door of a house, knock on that door and say to the constituents in that house, "This is what we want to do." That party has defied the people's house of New South Wales and has not gone into the Legislative Assembly where the elected members of this Parliament represent the electorates of New South Wales.
We have seen vicarious cowardice on the part of the Premier and his tyrant Treasurer, who is probably already out there with the failed Babcock and Brown hunting for a job. Never before in this Parliament have we seen a greater contrast between those who are willing to listen to the people of New South Wales and act in the community's interest and a group who refuses to do so. That particular group unwisely spent taxpayers' money to recall the Parliament to debate a flawed scheme. The Parliament was offered one option, a flawed option that does not add up with the trading schemes yet to go before the Australian senate.
<8>
The balance of power in the Senate will be held by a small group of Independents, including the newly elected South Australia Senator, Nick Xenophon, the Family First party and the Greens. Who knows what cost that will put on power generation in New South Wales? The Treasurer, in a rare bout of honesty in this House, indicated that cost could be as much as $3 billion. No-one knows what that cost will be out of Canberra. No-one knows what the competing cost will be out of the current fire sale at Babcock and Brown, as it divulges similar interests into the markets in this country.
What has the Government been doing for the past 13 years? Why is it suddenly Barry O'Farrell's fault? For 13 years the Government has had a chance to fix this problem. For 13 years former Treasurer Michael Egan and Treasurer Michael Costa have told Parliament that the New South Wales taxpayers have had a surplus through the good financial management of the Labor Party.
The Government promised to fix the roads, it promised to lower hospital waiting lists and it promised to provide extra police, but it has not delivered on one of those promises. Not one Government promise has been fulfilled. The electricity legislation that was introduced today is dead in the water, because the Government did not consult with the people of New South Wales and it gave a flawed plan. The Government has reaped its own revenge. The Government has lost, and it deserved to lose. The contrast is stark—we will go to the people with a proper plan. [Time expired.]
See also: Open letter to NSW state Opposition members urging a vote against electricity privatisation of 28 Aug 08, Open letter to NSW Labor parliamentary caucus members to urging a vote against electricity privatisation of 27 Aug 08
AWPC Kangaroo trail map restores respect for gentle and beautiful creature
Promising new approach to restoring respect for kangaroos
The Kangaroo Trail map (pictured left) is a bold initiative from the persistently performing Australian Wildlife Protection Council.
We read often in the mainstream news distressing stories about how kangaroos are too numerous and need to be culled. In fact the evidence for these statements, and for the cruel and bloody actions that follow them, is extremely poor. Definitions of how many is too many are circular. Kangaroo population statistics which ignore immigration and emigration are useless. Statistics which infer population numbers from rising road-kill without factoring in the spread of development which is driving more animals onto the roads in search of food and water should be exposed for the rubbish that they are, but are accepted instead without question.
Stooping to aphrodisiac wildlife trade depraves Australia
Do Australians really want this kind of 'productivity' or the kind of leaders who encourage it?
Wildlife in general and kangaroos in particular get a really rotten deal in this country. Apart from the usual carnage promoted by our government at all levels, it seems that some businesses will stoop to any depth to make a dollar. Despite the invention of Viagra, the extinguishing of rhinos for their horns and tigers for their penises goes on. One of the most recent abjectly flogs ground up kangaroo testes in capsules at Australian Products Info, in NSW, and I quote:
"Essence of Kangaroo is made from Australian Red Kangaroo Testis. This large, powerful animal is the most magnificent of all the Kangaroos. It can leap up to 3.6m into the air and has a top speed of 65 km/hour. It alone illustrates the Kangaroos amazing strength and vitality. The research has found that male Kangaroo produces twice as much semen as a bull. The research has also proven that Essence of Kangaroo is extremely potent as it is rich in natural hormones, proteins, zinc and iron, which are able to increase physical strength and enhance the sexual energy. (...) Suggested Serving: Adults only. Take 1-2 capsules with meals per day or as directed by nutritionist."
Kangaroo trail tourist map restores respect for beautiful and gentle wildlife
So it is with relief and admiration for a group which punches a lot higher than its weight - the Australian Wildlife Protection Council (AWPC) that I am able to report on a magical new idea to improve the public, business and government perception of kangaroos.
It is the Kangaroo trail tourist map. This is a beautiful colour pamphlet with images of the fifty kangaroo species located in their regions on a map of Australia. Around the map is additional information about these animals and where to see them, how to see them.
The Kangaroo Trail Team produced the Kangaroo Tourist Brochures. Map and illustrations are by Australian artist, Neil Williams. Main photographers are Juri Lochman, Michael Williams, Bill Corn, Uli Kloeke. Text is written by the kangaroo trail team leader, Dr David Croft, from the University of New South Wales, who is passionate about kangaroos and whose career has been devoted to learning more about them and educating others.
AWPC President Maryland Wilson deserves our support for leading the way
Maryland Wilson, President of the AWPC, and Kangaroo Trail Team manager, brought the project into life and is promoting it. Wilson's extraordinary energy and dedication to the shining cause of getting Australians to defend the kangaroo's right to live in its own land and to be loved and appreciated as a complex, beautiful and social creature defies nearly every prevailing trend and shows the kind of courage that is necessary in standing up to institutional cruelty.
Is Garrett a dud? CSIRO pulp mill report on Gunns and other disappointments
(pulp mill effluent image on front page is from http://www.surfrider.org/srui.aspx?uiq=a-z/pulp_mills)
Population numbers
Decidedly, the Federal Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, is proving a substantial disappointment on some major environmental group concerns. As President of the Australian Conservation Foundation he infuriated Australians who were concerned about too much population growth in this country by heading an organisation which refused to voice their concerns and failed to uphold its own constitutional policy on population, but would act as if it was representing the Australian public and ACF constitutional values in this matter.
RAMSAR Wetlands
Since becoming Environment Minister, Garrett has outraged the Blue Wedges, a substantial environmental movement in Victoria, centred around the health of Port Phillip Bay because of what they see as his abject failure to protect the bay, including its RAMSAR wetlands areas, and his failure to meet his obligations under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC) Act to consider sustainability principles – including intergenerational equity.
Intergenerational Equity
"How," asks Blue Wedges, "can it be equitable to future generations of humans - and all other species for that matter- to leave a legacy of a toxic dump in the Bay, 60 times larger than the Hattah Nowingi site near Mildura? It is worth remembering that in 2006, the Mildura site was rejected, first by the community and then by an independent planning panel."
EPBC Act
Australian wildlife campaigners had hoped that Garrett in government would intervene to make the EPBC Act more effective. Instead he has relied upon its inherent weaknesses to support more development in and destruction of important environments around Australia. Environmentalists, many who elected him, have found his performance bitterly disappointing. (The Act had never been very strong but had been further watered-down by the Howard Government in 2006 amendments.)
Murray Darling Basin
And his failure to intervene in the Murray Darling Basin South Australia crisis has provoked disgust. Here, as with Port Phillip Bay, RAMSAR wetlands and fragile marine ecosystems are threatened.
The Arts
Yesterday, The Age reported that Garrett, as Minister for the Arts has let down the arts community badly, defending the Rudd Government’s 3.25% funding cut to small public sector agencies, such as the National Gallery of Australia, National Library of Australia and the Australian War Memorial. See: http://news.theage.com.au/national/cultural-institutions-get-enough-money-20080825-41xf.html
Broad agreement that Garrett is a dud
In short there is broad agreement that Garrett is a dud – although calling someone a dud is likely to have one ejected for the House of Representatives (ABC PM tonight – 26-8-08) …..It seems even parliamentary privilege is no protection for robust criticism any more - So much for freedom of speech in this fair land!
Green Senator denied CSIRO research report on Gunns Pulp Mill
On the 21st of August, Senator Christine Milne strongly criticized Garrett’s failure to supply her Freedom of Information request for a CSIRO research report from a member of an independent expert group which has the task of reviewing material submitted by Gunns pulp mill.
Query about pulp mill effluent dumping
According to her press release of 21-8-08, Senator Milne believes that the report relates to “Gunns’ intention to dump 64,000 tonnes of effluent into Bass Strait per day and the probabilities of it exceeding the allowable effluent concentration.”
Garrett's department mired in process?
On 22 August, Garrett, in an ABC Radio National Breakfast interview with Fran Kelly Garrett seemed basically to be saying that his department would not release the report Milne was complaining about because the material in it had not been verified and because there was a process whereby Gunns could be asked to supply more information to clarify the material in the report. One wonders if Garrett was being circumspect because of the possibility that Gunns (famous for having pursued 16 individuals - including Green MPs Bob Brown and Peg Putt - and four green organisations - including the Wilderness Society - for a total $6.3 million damages arising out of protests and campaigns against the company) could sue for defamation if a report led to financial losses and could be shown to be knowingly premature or incomplete.
Senator Milne seems to be indicating in her complaints, that she believes that the report must already be adequately informed.
Deadline for Gunns
In the interview with Fran Kelly of the ABC it was made clear by Garrett that Gunns has until October 4, 2008, to finalise its input into the Government's assessment process. It sounded like Garrett might well give Gunns more time if it requested this.
Both Senator Milne, in her 21 August press release, and Fran Kelly in her 22 August interview with Garrett, described Gunns' as if they were in severe financial difficulty and as if the question of the amount of discharge they might be contemplating was the focus of much speculation in the business community.
Senator Milne: “With Gunns stock in freefall, and rife speculation in the investment community as to the content of scientific studies, this is not the time for the Government to prioritise Gunns’ commercial interest over the public interest."
Fran Kelly: "Yesterday, shares in Gunns were at an eight year low, in fact placed in a trading halt while the company goes out seeking this funding. In the last few weeks doubts have been raised about the future of the pulp mill. Leighton Holdings boss, Wal King, says it will never be built and there are some reports that even the new Tasmanian Premier, David Bartlett is sceptical."
This kind of comment about Gunn's financial situation should, one would think, tend to alleviate any anxiety Mr Garrett might have about the possibility of defamatorily prejudicing Gunns' business outlook by the release of more information.
Milne: Since when does an environment minister protect the interests of big business over those of the public?
Garrett's close-lipped approach on this matter does seem to lend weight to the relevance of Senator Milne's question:
“Since when has the Commonwealth Environment Minister seen himself as the protector of the interests of big business at the expense of the environment and the public interest?"
Changes to defamation laws
For many years it was extremely difficult for the Australian press to report clearly on financial matters because of Australia's defamation laws, which did not support truth in reporting and which could lead to extraordinary costs in court. In those days, even if what you said about a company was true, if that company lost money over your revelation, you might lose any case they brought against you for defamation. This problem is well treated at the end of Trevor Sykes, The Bold Riders, Allen and Unwin, Australia, 1996, for anyone who would like to know more. (Trevor Sykes writes for the Financial Review as Pierpoint.)
Since 2006 these state laws have been largely harmonised and made much more reasonable, with truth a very strong defense and the public interest a non-qualifier or at most a minor qualifier. There are also limitations on costs and processes (articulated or implied through precedent) to increase motivation to mediate rather than to sue. The very unpopular Howard Government immigration minister, Philip Rudd, was responsible for placing pressure to free up these laws in favour of public expression.
Article written by Sheila Newman with Jenny Warfe
US environmentalist takes equivocal stance on immigration in Lou Dobbs interview
Lou Dobbs interview on US population explosion
The following transcript is instructive for its revelation of the globalist mentality of mainstream environmentalism. In this case represented by Robert Engelman of Worldwatch Institute (www.worldwatch.org). Engelman, the good environmentalist that he is, takes the safe, easy way out. He opposes population growth alright. On a global front. The Worldwatch Institute says it's a bad thing and Engelman has written a book saying all the politically correct things. You know, "Women don't want more children, they want more for their children", so let's empower women. Fine.
It's when you start talking about population growth at home that environmentalists get nervous. And as soon as you mention "immigration", they get more than nervous, they get a panic attack. They start thinking about losing their donor base, especially that donor whose initials are D.G. and who gives $100 million every year on condition you don't take a stand on immigration. If you press them too hard and win the argument, well then you are a racist and the discussion is over.
What do folks like Engelman do? As you will see in the transcript, he blames the population increase on more people having babies. Environmentalists are very comfortable about discussing a "woman's right to choose" but apparently not a whole people's right choose how many shall become citizens. What Engelman doesn't want to face up to is that the fertility boom America is experiencing is driven by immigrants. And even if it wasn't, isn't there something perverse about an environmental movement that a)ignores population growth as an agency of environmental degradation and b) ignores immigration as an agency of population growth when in Canada and the US it accounts for 70% of such growth, irrespective of the children of immigrants?
The environmental movement can be likened to a police force that sets up a road block to arrest drunk drivers but allows the drug impaired to drive on through. It is prepared to arrest unwanted pregnancies but mass and illegal immigration can just drive on through.
The transcript was circulated by Bill Ryerson. I highlighted the juicy parts and inserted some annoying comments. Tim Murray
This is the transcript from Lou Dobbs' CNN program segment on U.S. population growth broadcast on August 21, 2008. For the entire program, see transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0808/21/ldt.01.html. Be sure to send Lou Dobbs your comments on the program and encourage him to do more programs on population issues at loudobbs [AT] cnn com .
Dobbs: The population of this country is expected to grow, get ready, by 135 million people in just the next 40 years. That growth is driven principally by immigration, both legal and illegal, and not by birth. There are serious concerns whether this country's national resources can keep up with and support such an outright explosion in our population.
Joining me now are three experts on population growth. From Washington, D.C., Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute (www.aei.org). Norm, great to have you with us. Norm is co-author of "The Broken Branch: How Congress is Failing America and How to Get it Back on Track."
Robert Engelman is vice president for programs at the Worldwatch Institute. Good to have you with us. Robert is the author of "More: Population, Nature and What Women Want."
And that is one of my favorite titles. And here in New York is Jane Delung, president emeritus of the Population Resource Center (www.prcdc.org). Great to have you with us.
Let's begin. We're talking about an outright explosion. Almost 50 percent increase in our population over the course of the next four or five decades. That's crazy.
Jane Delung, President Emeritus, Population Resource Center: It is an explosion. For every two people that are in the United States today, there will be a third person. And this explosion is occurring both because of immigration and descendants to immigration. All respective experts say that it's between 60 and 75 percent of that growth will be driven by immigration. No one talks about this.
This is the hidden elephant in the room in the United States. We will have immigration reform discussions and debates next year. And it is beyond me why the American public is not willing to talk about what size do we want to be and how fast are we going to get there? We're growing from 300 million people to almost 450 million people in 40 years. Three million additional people a year.
Dobbs: That's incredible. To put that in some context, that growth rate is in excess of 10, 15 percent greater number than the entire number of people living in this country in 1940. That's nuts.
Delung: It's double the population in the 1960s. We hit 200 million in 1967. We're going to hit 450 million in 2040. It's an extraordinary growth rate.
Dobbs: Robert, let me ask you this. The environmental impact -- at a time when this country is being criticized for consuming so much of the world's resources. At a time when we are finding ourselves running into limits in terms of this country's resources whether it be for building, for the production and manufacture of products and goods, whatever it may be, what is the environmental impact?
Robert Engelman, Worldwatch Institute: Well, first of all, it's probably worth pointing out that these projections sometimes change. This is actually an increase in what the census was projecting just a few years ago. Probably more because of increases in births than actual increases in immigration. (Nonsense! What Engelman fails to note is that much of the current baby boom is attributable to illegal Hispanics exploiting the 14th amendment that allows citizenship to anyone born in the country. "Anchor babies". Hispanics in the US are having more children than they did in their home country. Population growth is driven by immigration. Other factors are peripheral.-Tim)
But let's assume the number is more or less accurate, it's going to be fairly close to that. It's interesting that this discussion is occurring at a time when everyone from President Bush on down has recognized that one of the reasons Americans are paying more for gasoline, more for food, is increases in demand. Demand matters and we're starting to lose confidence that I think we used to have that we can always produce more, we can always find more of everything we might need, so it doesn't matter how many people are consuming.
It clearly does matter and what we're seeing in America is a high consuming country that will need to consume about 50 percent more of the energy of housing. Whether it's John McCain's numbers or our own individual houses. We're going to be consuming more living space and more transportation. All of these things that we're worried about right now will need to find a lot more of.
Dobbs: So where is - where are the environmentalists on this? The impact is tremendous on the environment, on water supplies, on air. It's extraordinary and we're not hearing any discussion at all of what is a critically important issue from the environmental sector. (They have been bought out my friend. Google David Gelbaum. $100 million will make the "P" in the "IPAT" equation go away. Then all of America's environmental problems become ones of our sinful over-consumption.-Tim)
Engelman: I think the whole topic of population has become very sensitive. It's scary, it's very difficult for the environmental movement as a movement to take on. And it's one of the difficulties with a lot of things we face.
Dobbs: Sensitive and scary. Why should any American in any quarter ever be scared?
Engelman: People like to have safe conversations at least when they're not on television.
Dobbs: On this broadcast, we would like to have honest conversations. We want to tell everybody in this country who watches the broadcast, it's OK talk straight. We don't have to be politically correct. We don't have to be bound up with some silly orthodoxy on the left or right, some partisan nonsense. And it is all nonsense, coming from the right or left in this country. Feel free.
Engelman: Fine, I do. But for those who are trying to raise funding, for those who are trying to gain members, when you're looking at a phenomena that's basically about births and immigration, it has a lot to do with sex. It has a lot to do with contraception, touches on abortion.
Dobbs: You mean life itself?
Engelman: Yes, it can sometimes be sensitive and that's one of the difficulties of population. It's not like technology in just saying if we put up enough windmills, we'll be OK.
Dobbs: Let me put this in an expression of one of my daughters. Is the environmental sector about ready to man up on this issue?
Engelman: I don't know if I would put it that way. But I think we're going be forced more and more to examine where we're going demographically, because it is so important. At some point, we're going to have to decide whether we're going to cap our greenhouse gas emissions. Then it will get very interesting as our population keeps growing.
Dobbs: To me, it's already interesting, Robert, to be honest, and troubling. Let me turn to you, Norm. The idea as Jane just pointed out that we're not having a conversation. We don't hear from John McCain or Barack Obama, despite all of their nonsense on the campaign trail, we're not hearing from either of them about what the country will look like, how should our country function. What should we be thinking about in terms of the resources we will demand for the population one or two generations out? We're talking about finances on some levels at the margin. But we're not talking in any real terms about population growth, environmental impact, scarce resources, all of the tough issues.
Norm Ornstein, American Enterprise Institute: You know, it's almost inevitable in a political campaign that you look at short-term driving things. Right now, it's $4 a gallon gasoline. You mentioned the word that I think is an absolutely critical one, Lou, which is water. There will be an international water shortage. Safe potable drinking water, for other purposes that will make the oil crisis look pale by comparison.
And we really need to have a discussion of this. It's not going to happen in a political campaign, I'm afraid. We're going have to have a discussion about transportation. As more and more people move to exports, how are we going to afford to or find the vehicles or ways to get them around? And it's certainly great to have this conversation now.
You know, I might add one other thing, though. Keep in mind that as we look at our projections, in Europe the projections are exactly the opposite. They're going dramatically falling birth rates. They're actually going to have fewer people. They're going to have a whole lot more older people with very few young people to pay for the services that they've grown used to having. There's going to be crises in a lot of different ways and a lot of places, Lou.
Dobbs: We're going to don't talk about just exactly that when we continue with our panel here. Stay with us, we'll be right back. We're going talk about how in the world is the planet going to support over 9 billion people in the next four decades. Stay with us.
(Commercial break)
Dobbs: Jane, let me turn to you first quickly. The projections here for population growth. Do you believe that we're going to be growing faster than the rest of the world? Is it possible that it would even be growing even faster than these projections?
Delung: I do not think we're going to be growing faster than the rest of the world. But as Bob said, there's a real possibility that we will actually grow faster than these projections. I believe we will. The last population projections were in the mid-1990s. These projections have us with 45 million more people than they did in the mid-1990s.
Dobbs: So we continue to underestimate.
Delung: The growth has accelerated. We are underestimating the population that we're going have.
Dobbs: That's even more troubling. Robert, the environmental impact here, the political correctness issue, the sensitivity if you will as you described it here, there's a point of which, when we look at the issues of clean water, the energy demand that is resulting, natural resource demand. Why in the world would the environmental groups not now coalesce around this issue and start dealing with political issues that are going to have to be made in this society?
Engelman: Well I think one of the things that we need to communicate better is there are reasonable choices to make. One of the big factors in this that doesn't get talked about is the high level of unintended pregnancy in this country. If we had universal health care, and I might say if we had health care that was accessible to people who are not documented here as well as people who are undocumented here so that everyone, whether you're legally here or not, could at least get access to good family planning service, we could eliminate a large proportion of the pregnancies and thus the births that are occurring in this country. That's something we don't tend to talk about, environmentalists.
Dobbs: So it's politically incorrect to discuss illegal immigration, but it's politically correct to talk about substituting the national birthrate for immigration.
Engelman: I'm not sure which is politically correct.
Dobbs: We'll have that debate later. I want to turn to Norm very quickly. Norm, the choices that are here. We're talking about political choices. How do we get the political choices involved with exploding population growth on the national agenda?
Ornstein: You know, we're going to have to among other things hope that we can have more than three structured presidential debates. Have a different way to focus on all of the policy implications that flow from larger population. Some are positive. We're going have young people who at least can pay into a social security system and perhaps provide some of the resources to pay for health care for the elderly population and a whole lot of others that aren't.
(Unbelievable. The old Population Pyramid Scam. And who will pay for their health care when they reach old age, another billion immigrants? Young people cost more to care for than the elderly.-Tim)
Dobbs: You make them sound like social security slaves that we can bring in for the great entitlement plantation.
Ornstein: For our age, that's something we've got to think about, Lou.
Dobbs: Well, I didn't dismiss it out of head. Norm, thank you very much. Robert, thank you. Jane, thank you. So much, all three of you for being here to help us examine this. Come back soon, please.
Tonight's poll results: 98 percent of you say the Rhode Island bishop would be better served by calling upon the Mexican government to exercise morality in providing for its own citizens rather than encouraging them to break the law and enter the United States.
We thank you for being with us tonight. Please join us tomorrow. For all of us here, thank you for watching. Good night from New York. "THE ELECTION CENTER" with John King begins now -- John?
Topic:
NSW electricity privatisation can be stopped!
The recently released NSW Auditor-General's report supposedly gives the green light to the NSW Government's electricity privatisation legislation. NSW Premier, Morris Iemma, has seized on this and has announced that he may recall the NSW Parliament as early as next week in order to rush through the privatisation legislation.
The actual words from the report (pdf, 354K), which NSW Premier Morris Iemma claimed as a "stunning endorsement" of his government's plans were "... nothing has come to my attention that causes me to believe that the Government's strategy for the transfer of assets to the private sector ... is not appropriate for maximising financial value for taxpayers."
These read like weasel words, intended to satisfy the political needs of the Iemma Government whilst maintaining a facade that the Auditor General has fulfilled his responsibilities to hold the Government accountable to the NSW public.
A condition imposed by the Auditor-General, which superficially appears to pose a hurdle to privatisation, is that a confidential reserve price for each electricity generation asset to be sold be arrived at. If, for any one asset, the bids fail to exceed that asset's secret reserve price, that asset's sale is to be scrapped. One "of the factors used to determine the reserve price for each transaction" is to be the asset's 'Retention Value'. The report doesn't specify what other factors are to be used in determining the reserve price.
The A-G's report describes the 'retention value'.
The Strategy Document outlines the intended approach to be adopted to estimate the value of the businesses under continued Government ownership. This approach values the projected future dividends from the businesses and projected corporate taxes paid by the businesses which are ultimately received by the State under the Tax Equivalent Regime. The projections should reflect the expected performance of the businesses under continued Government ownership taking into account any impact of Government ownership on the businesses’ growth strategy, capital structure and performance. The projected future dividends and tax payments should be discounted at an appropriate cost of equity reflecting the risks associated with the projected cash flows.
From the point of view of accountability and the public interest, there are a number of problems:
- The 'retention values' were unspecified.
- What is to stop the NSW Treasurer from applying 'factors' other than an asset's 'retention value' in order to reduce the reserve price?
- The process requires, on the one hand, concealing from the NSW public the calculated retention values, whilst, on the other hand, relying on those managing the sell-off to keep that knowledge from the intending purchasers.
- The 'retention value' is defined only in the narrowest financial terms. For example, it appears to accept shifting of costs, previously borne by publicly owned corporations, onto the public as a legitimate means to favorably assess comparative performance of the privately owned utility. One example of cost-shifting typically employed by privatised corporation is the reduction in on-the-job training of its staff.
In other ways, the report helps expedite privatisation. It states:
... it is in the interests of investor confidence and bearing in mind the long lead times for developers to physically obtain generation equipment, that any uncertainty relating to the proposed restructure should be removed as soon as possible.
The report also takes issue with the five year employment guarantee to current NSW electricity employees:
Based on information provided by Treasury, the planned measures for the proposed employee protections are generally consistent with other privatisations and Government restructures, except for the employment guarantees. A five year employment guarantee for certain Generator employees exceeds such guarantees in previous privatisations and restructures, which were for three years or less.
From the A-G's objection to the five year employment guarantee which he implies is excessive, we can see that he unquestioningly accepts the prevailing economic orthodoxy which is that the greater propensity of private owners to shed jobs is a factor in favour of private ownership.
Whatever can be said of the report, it fails to clearly demonstrate, as the NSW public who paid for the report are entitled to know, whether or not privatisation is in their best interests. It admits that its parameters are confined to dollar projections in the narrowest sense, and does not consider factors beyond this - notably democracy.
The fate of NSW's electricity assets, paid for over recent decades by the NSW public with taxes and through electricity bills, should not rest on such an obviously limited and deficient report.
Democracy disregarded
The NSW public, the rightful owners of the electricity assets, have consistently and emphatically shown their opposition to the sale. In the 1999 elections where they resoundingly voted against the NSW Liberal/National opposition which stood on a platform of full privatisation. The latest poll showed 79% opposition to the sale. An earlier poll showed 85% opposition. The NSW state Labor Party Conference, wholly consistent with the feelings of the broader community, voted 702 to 107 against privatisation, but was subsequently ignored by the NSW state Labor Parliamentary Caucus.
The plans to privatise were never put to the NSW public during the 2007 elections. As it is impossible to believe that privatisation had only occurred to Iemma and Costa since the election, it would appear that they deliberately concealed their intentions, knowing that they would have been rejected.
If democracy in this country is to have any practical substance whatsoever, then the NSW government has no mandate to proceed with the sale.
Given that the Iemma Government may well have the numbers on the floor, how is it possible for the NSW public to prevent this brazen theft from proceeding?
The public have already made it clear they don't support privatisation of electricity
As the Vietnam Moratorium and many other popular protest movements have demonstrated, Parliament does not always get its way when it is so far removed from the will of the public.
The most effective way to block privatisation would be for the Electrical Trades Union (ETU), members of which stand to lose the most should it proceed, to carry out their threat of industrial action. In all likelihood the ETU would not even need to carry out its threat. If it were simply made clear to the Iemma that, unless privatisation is abandoned outright, or the legislation put to the NSW public either through a referendum or at the next election, it will proceed with industrial action, it is hard to conceive of how this could not enjoy the overwhelming support of the NSW public and and it is hard to concieve of how Iemma, faced with such an ultimatum could see any alternative but to agree.
Whether or not the ETU decides to pursue this course, all parliamentary representatives must be held to account for their actions. As hardly any who have voted in Parliament for privatisation, least of all the Labor representatives, are acting in accord with the will of their constituencies then their constituencies have every right to have them replaced by others who will. In the case of the NSW Labor Party, whose will has also been ignored, simply supporting those few Labor members who have voted against privatisation is hardly sufficient. They should not hesitate to disendorse each and every member who have voted for privatisation, starting from Morris Iemma and Michael Costa. Given the generally appalling record of the Iemma Government and its abysmally low popularity, this would seem, in any case, to be the only realistic chance that Labor would have of retaining government in NSW in 2011.
If the public don't endorse the sale it can be revoked later on
However, the most important measure that should be adopted by those now fighting privatisation is to clearly warn those intending to buy NSW's electricity assets that they have no right to do so and be resolved to both remove from office all those who are pushing privatisation and to renationalise those assets.
All those who intend to buy NSW's electricity assets in open defiance of the will of the NSW public must be told in no uncertain terms that once a government, which is representative of the NSW public, comes to power, that they, and not the NSW public, will be made to bear the cost. Whatever costs, which were were illegitimately imposed on the NSW public in the course of privatisation and whatever further costs are necessary to renationalise those assets should be discounted in full from the money paid for the repurchase of these assets.
If this were stated clearly now, then they won't be able to say that they weren't warned.
What's in it for Russia? Georgia, Ossetia, & Caspian oil and gas
One impact of Georgia's nose-thumbing Russia has been for the US and Europe to take a step backwards, away from it. This leaves Georgia, not only vulnerable to a Russian take-over, but it also frees Georgia to succumb to Russia.
See also: Russia Never Wanted a War by Mihkail Gorbachev in New York Times of 19 Aug 08 for a view critical of Georgia's role in the conflict.
The US invasion of Iraq was identified by many oil 'peakniks' as the first of the oil depletion wars. Hostilities around Ossetia between Georgia and Russia, identify this region as the second of the oil depletion warzones.
The World’s longest oil pipeline runs through Georgia
Illustration source: http://www.american.edu/ted/ice/ossetia.htm
South Ossetia is a Georgian state, north of Tbilisi, Georgia, where the world's longest oil pipeline - the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline - runs through on its politically and geographically circuitous route to the Mediterranean from the Caspian Sea. The Caspian Sea is the largest closed body of water in an ancient fiery region full of legend, bordering central Asia. It is also an international wildlife preserve,[1] with many threatened species, including the near-extinct Caspian sturgeon (source of caviar and little sturgeons).
(Photo of Caspian Seal from Wikipedia)
The entire pipeline is underground and fascinatingly high-tech,[2] to cope with the climate, seismic, and gravity features of the regions it tunnels through as well as the high wax content of the oil. It is patrolled by US trained Georgian soldiers. [2] The crude comes from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli oil field in the Caspian Sea, which has slowly been coming on line since 2005 with Gunashli only beginning production in May 2008.
There has been for a long time conflict as to whether the inland body of water known as the Caspian Sea is a sea or a lake. The political difference is that, if it is a lake, then the hydrocarbons (oils and gases) it produces belong to the countries bordering its shores. These are, clockwise from the port of Baku: Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Iran. If it is a sea, however, such products are divided up by median lines.
Caspian oil and gas
Much has been hoped for from the Caspian's oil and gas reserves.
Their location, however, for many reasons, makes profitable oil extraction especially difficult and probably impossible in many cases.
Source: http://www.martinhovland.com/mud_volcanoes_files/garadag2.jpg
The highest density of mud volcanoes occurs in Azerebaijan and in the Caspian Sea
Conditions make the region sound like a strange and hostile planet, scorching in summer and frigid in winter. Caspian oil has a super-dangerous high sulphur content which means that workers need to wear oxygen tanks to avoid hydrogen sulphide during exploration and extraction. The water is often ice-bound. The winter climate, as well as wet and freezing, is stormy with severe winds. The site of the most important oil reserves off Kazakhstan, in Kashagan field, are located in shallow water which is hard to navigate, and the deposits are in pockets, inconveniently separated by rock layers, 4.02 km or 2.5 miles below the seabed at pressures around 500 times sea level. It has been necessary to build special platforms and equipment. An offshore gas platform and plant for Stage 2 of the Shah Deniz project was costed at $10 billion plus.
Even if the reserves in the Caspian do prove to be huge, and it becomes possible to extract a good portion, the amount of petroleum and other fuels and materials expended in order to do so mean that the margin for profit is much smaller than with wells in the past. This is just one of the reasons why oil is becoming so dear; the easy to get supplies were taken first; now only obscure and difficult deposits remain. On top of this, demand for an ultimately finite supply is rising daily along with population numbers and economic activity.
Geopolitics
Although it is true that the pipeline avoids "using tanker transport along the Black Sea and the highly congested Bosporus, "[2] which a shorter pipeline through Russia would have led to, other, more political reasons, have been highlighted by the August Georgia-Russian confrontation.
It is largely these political associations which caused the pipeline to be much longer than it might have been, adding an estimated $3.20 per barrel to the cost of transporting the oil.[2]
Russia is the big power in the area, yet it has been left out of the pipeline in question. What is more, there are several more pipelines in the … um… pipeline and none of them involve Russia. Prior to this one there was the Baku-Supsa pipeline, which transports oil from Azerbaijan to the Black Sea coast of Georgia. Sohbut Kabuz reports that there is a preliminary agreement for construction of a pipeline to ‘connect Romania's Konstanza port to Italy's port of Trieste.” There is another planned to link Ukraine's Odessa-Brodi pipeline to Poland's Gdansk port in the Baltic Sea, and another to transport Azerbaijani and Turkmen natural gas to Europe via Romania and Ukraine. “All give key roles to Georgia,” Kabuz says. [3]
But Russia obviously believes that the countries around the Caspian, and their product, should be within its hegemony. Unsurprisingly, it is suspicious of US 'democracy' missions and gifts and influence in the area. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline is not just an insulting symbol, it is actually siphoning oil out of the area beyond the reach of Russian taxes, and more like this are planned.[3]
Logically, a pipeline through Russia and Iran would have made more sense.
On the face of it, the pipeline took a very strange route when there was a much shorter one available with less geologically unstable terrain (high seismic activity). But that route went through Russia or Iran. Although Russia's oil supply appears to have peaked, the US supply peaked ages ago (in about 1973), but the US is a glutton for oil. Obviously the US does not want to deal with Russia any more than it has to. Not surprisingly the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline was the outcome of US influence in the region. The US paid Turkey something like one fifth of the construction costs ($823m) and has been extending its influence via NATO in the area for some time. The pipeline was designed to accommodate an oil throughput of one million barrels per day, which is around 1/87th of recent daily world demand. (EIA stats)
Colin Campbell, thought that the US invasion of Iraq might have indicated that US expectations may have diminished in the light of the many difficulties associated with extraction and transport in the Caspian region.[4] This disappointment factor might explain, in part, why the US cavalry did not come galloping to Georgia's rescue in the latest hostilities.
Sharing the Caspian coastline, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan gained independence following the fall of the Soviets in 1991. Campbell writes in his superbly informed article on this complex subject, “The Caspian Chimera,” that Dagestan and Chechnya reluctantly remain part of federated Russia but “still seek independence, in a vicious campaign attended by many acts of terror. (...) [adding that] “Tehran, the capital of Iran, lies only 100km from the Caspian shore, so its role in the future of the region cannot be ignored." [4]
The position of Iran vis a vis the Caspian Sea (or lake) also explains some of the US interest in that country. Both Iran and Russia were obviously excluded from any participation in the construction of the pipeline.
China has been negotiating now since at least 2004 with Kazakhstan to build a 750 km extension of the Atasu-Alasankou oil pipeline to connect with the Kenkiyak and Kumkol oil fields, which are operated by China National Petroleum Company in Kazakh. CNPC stated that it expects to obtain about 5 per cent of its current requirements from the pipeline – 400,000 barrels a day. China's interest in the area could overshadow Europe's because the projected growth in demand from China is greater than Europe's.
Azerbaijan and Georgia receive gas from the Shah Deniz project in Azerbaijan. Interruption of supply forced Georgia to purchase gas at very high prices from Russia between January and July 2007. Georgia was desperate to lose its energy — and political — dependence on Russia and hopes that Shah Deniz may allow her to do this for a while. In the current petroleum gas and oil supply scenario, any country which has a reliable supply for a few years into the future becomes a potential magnet for development or for exploitation, and, in this region, US support.
Europe currently relies on Russia for a quarter of its gas supplies. More diverse supplies would be desirable.
Russia has developed a reciprocal relationship with Venezuelan oil in supplying oil to different customers.[5] Chavez in Venezuela has a strong relationship with Cuba and is a strong promoter of Latin American oil and solidarity with non-US states, especially in the third world. Not insignificantly, on 5 August, Putin announced that Russia ought to "restore [its] position in Cuba and other countries." This was after a visit to Cuba in July from Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin. It is well-known that Latin America has good reason to fear interference by the US in its politics and its oil. [3]
Sorbet Khabuz feels that Russia percieves its old allies as disloyal when they cooperate on oil-ventures with the EU or the US. He says that Putin objected strongly to Kosovo's independence and "was unhappy that the Albanian Macedonian Bulgarian Oil pipeline (AMBO), extending from Bulgaria's coastal city of Burgaz through Macedonia and ending at Albania's Vlora port, would pass through Kosovo." [Referring to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyan pipeline], he notes that, "The pipeline project in question is being actively supported by the EU and the US with the goal of carrying Azerbaijani and Kazakh oil to the Black Sea via Georgia." [3]
Why did Georgia rattle its sabers?
On the face of it, it seems very unlikely that Georgia would have picked a fight with Russia if the Georgian president had not believed that he would receive backing from the US and Europe. Neither the US nor the EU have the means to enter into serious new wars, however. The US is already involved in Iraq and Afghanistan because of its own dwindling oil and gas supplies. Russia does have a reasonable supply of oil, coal and lots of gas and the capacity to defend itself. It can be very tough about managing its oil exports and it can form alliances with other oil exporters. It has also been suggested that Russia would not like Iran to develop nuclear capabilities and that this would provide a common point with the US.
One impact of Georgia's nose-thumbing Russia has been for the US and Europe to take a step backwards, away from it. This leaves Georgia, not only vulnerable to a Russian take-over, but it also frees Georgia to succumb to Russia.
Of course, Russia has evacuated, for the time being. If, however, we treat the recent (tragic for the civilians who have been victimised) events as a dress rehearsal, we now know that no-one is going to stop Russia from taking Georgia. A respectable ostensible reason may be to unite Georgian South Ossetia with Russian Northern Ossetia. From there it would be but a small step for Russia to assimilate Georgia. This would then solve Russia's problem of being kept out of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyan pipeline and the Baku Supsa pipeline and all the planned pipelines.
Russia has oil and gas, but it has probably passed its oil peak. If Russia were to acquire Georgia it would then control the BTC pipeline and become oil-rich as well as gas-rich. Although the US and the EU won't like buying the oil from their pipeline in Georgia from Russia, they have already shown that they don't intend to go to war over this prospect. The incentives for Russia to take Georgia and the pipeline are enormous; face-saving and energy securing in a region and a world where most powers are receding in their capacity to fuel daily business, let alone wars.
Historic precedents
There is an historic pattern of Russia taking over Georgia in exchange for protection from regional enemies, particularly Persia (old name for Iran) and Turkey. From 1810 to 1878, beginning with Western Georgia, most of Georgia was annexed to the Russian Empire, in an association which, after an initial unsettled period, was not too uncomfortable for the land-owning aristocracy of Georgia and probably made little difference to the severely ill-treated serfs. (Georgia freed its serfs even later than Russia did.)
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia declared independence from Russia. In 1921 the Red Army occupied Georgia and, Georgia remained a Soviet Republic (state) until 1990.
Historically the Caucasus oilfields were one of the main objectives of Hitler's invasion of the USSR in August 1941, but the German army and its allies failed to reach them. Georgia furnished the Red Army 700,000 soldiers (of which 350,000 died). There were, however German sympathisers who formed the Georgian Legion and fought with the Germans.
Political tension in Georgia prior to the Ossetia incident
There have been many historical tensions within post-soviet Georgia, principally from ethnic separatists in South Ossetia. The country has a history of corruption, even in Communist times by Russian standards.
In November 2003 the "Rose Revolution" in Georgia carried pro-Western Mikheil Saakashvili to power. Georgia accuses Russia of fanning separatism in Abkhaszia and south Ossetia in order to undermine Georgia's government. Russia has accused Georgia of spying and vice versa. Russia maintained or maintains two military bases in Georgia, scheduled to be withdrawn in 2007 and 2008. The United Nations has been involved in Peace Keeping in South Ossetia for some time and there are thousands of displaced people in Georgia. In November 2, 2007 Georgians demonstrated against the government, protesting that President Mikheil Saakashvili's government was corrupt. [6]
Also, if we know the United States, their versions of economic reform and democracy carry very heavy penalties for ordinary people. Wikipedia reports that
"The Georgian Government is committed to economic reform in cooperation with the IMF and World Bank." "Saakashvili is still (2006) under significant pressure to deliver on his promised reforms. Organisations such as Amnesty International have serious concerns over human rights [3], and discontent over unemployment, pensions and corruption (...).Georgia's relationships with Russia are at it lowest point in modern history due to Georgian-Russian espionage controversy and related events."
Sounds like the usual privatisation and asset-stripping drill that accompanies friendships with the USA to me. See review of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine
All in all, it might be very hard for Georgia to remain friends with the US if Russia and many of its own citizens did not want it to. Such sentiments are expressed here in a pro-Russian page. And the US doesn't seem all that keen either. One hopes not to see a re-run of situations like the one where the US encouraged the Kurds and Shi'ites to rise up against the Iraqi goverment, but left them to be slaughtered. And was Hussein set up by the US when he asked diplomat, April Glaspie, if Kuwait was important to the US, and she said, "No," and then he invaded, presumably believing that the US would turn a blind eye. After this the US went to the UN and the UN authorised force to get Hussein to withdraw his troops. Hussein agreed to withdraw, but the US seems to have used the opportunity then to attack his troops anyway.[7]
Alternative to war
Instead of war, there may be a different outcome, as oil-writer, Mark Jones suggested [6]:
"It should be borne in mind that the changeover from declining to ascending hegemony can happen - and has historically - not by means of war but with the consent and active participation of the declining power (...) Since the 1939–45 war, the US has in fact made a practice of co-opting present and potential rivals into junior partnership. It has done this not only to Britain, but also to Germany (1960s), Japan (1970s and 1980s) and latterly even to Russia (from 1991).(...)
Of the US situation, he observed,
"If the US has to compete on a level playing field with the rest of the world, then it may find that its urban infrastructure is just as uneconomic and unsustainable as was the Soviet Union’s loss-making effort to base itself on the industrialization of the Urals and Siberia. The US currently uses twice as much energy and raw materials per capita as the EU-15 average, and more than ten times that of China. It is desperately uncompetitive. When the dollar has to be backed up by real values, US per capita GNP may fall by half in just a few years, as in the Great Depression. Under these conditions it is hard to see how the US can hope to maintain its global reach and present hegemonic position. (...)
And, in the case of global war:
If, on the other hand, we are set on a course of global war, which was the outcome for “classic” economic depressions before 1914, and again through 1929–36, then Americans have only a very small window of opportunity (like Hitler enjoyed in 1939) before their military advantage evaporates." - Mark Jones, Battle of the Titans in Sheila Newman, (Ed.) The Final Energy Crisis, Pluto, UK 2008.
See also: Russia Never Wanted a War by Mihkail Gorbachev in New York Times of 19 Aug 08 for a view critical of Georgia's role in the conflict.
Sheila Newman is the editor of Sheila Newman, (Ed.)The Final Energy Crisis, Pluto Press, UK, 2008 which is due out around August 27 in Australia and round about the same time in the US. It should already be available in Britain. It is a collection of scientific, economic and political articles about oil depletion and other fuels and new technologies, including fission, fusion, geothermal, cellulosic biofuels and terra preta, by ten different authors.
ENDNOTES
[1] The Caspian Sea is considered an independent zoogeographical region due to the diversity, specificity and endemism of its fauna. Waters of the Caspian Sea house 400 endemic aquatic animal species, including the Caspian seal (Phoca caspica) and sturgeons (90% of the world catch). The sea coast provides important sites for many nesting and migratory birds such as flamingoes, geese, ducks, gulls, terns, swans. Many multinational companies are exploring the region for oil and gas. Source (with interesting descriptions of geophysical features and wildlife: http://www.worldwildlife.org/wildworld/profiles/terrestrial/pa/pa1308_full.html
[2] "Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Caspian Pipeline" at Hydrocarbons Technology com, http://www.hydrocarbons-technology.com/projects/bp/)
[3] Sohbet Karbuz, “War stirs energy corridor in Georgia,” in Today’s Zaman//www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=150151&bolum=109
[4] Colin Campbell, "The Caspian Chimera," in Sheila Newman, (Ed.)The Final Energy CrisisSecond Edition, Pluto, UK, 2008.
[5] Sheila Newman, “Venezuela, Chavez and Latin-American oil on the world stage,” in Sheila Newman (Ed.) The Final Energy Crisis, Second Edition, Pluto UK, 2008.
[6]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Georgia_(country); http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Georgian-Russian_espionage_controversy;
[7] "Please cast your minds back to 1990. We must remember the complete history of James Baker, the aristocratic Secretary of State to Bush 41. He instructed our ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspy, (remember her?) to tell Saddam Hussein that we had no interest in his fight with Kuwait. Saddam was itching for war with Kuwait whom he accused of slant drilling into Iraq's oil fields. Right after receiving Baker's message sent through Ambassador Glaspy, Saddam invaded Iraq. From that moment on Mr. Baker left April out there turning slowly in the wind. He denied all knowledge of her conversation. (Someone please tell me what lowly ambassador writes their own portfolio?)" Source: Re: Philip Klein's Talking with the Enemy, "Baker's World", The American Spectator, http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=10496
[8] Mark Jones, Battle of the Titans in Sheila Newman, (Ed.) The Final Energy Crisis, Second Edition, Pluto, UK 2008.
Good news: Business Council of Australia says members may leave Australia
The Business Council of Australia says that the current design of the Government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme will force closure of at least three major business, cause four to "fundamentally review their operations", and force others to find ways to cut expenses. It claims to have surveyed 14 businesses over sectors including minerals processing, manufacturing, oil refining, coal mining and sugar milling.
Whilst the problem is real, there is really no avoiding it.
Whilst the problem is real, there is really no avoiding it. The fact is that the kinds of industries and clients that the BCA and similar groups represent cannot expect to survive in their current form. Neither can the tertiary industries that rely on them, such as expensive law firms, frenzied global stock-exchanges, advertising corporations, high-flying consultants and millionaire-salary CEOs.
"Propaganda about a ‘dematerialised economy’ makes it hard to establish the reality that material industrial productivity is not actually less reliant on burning fossil fuels than it was in the 1970s, and that drawdown on fossil fuels has in fact been multiplied by the needs of much greater populations. Similarly the obvious still needs to be pointed out that increasing productivity means burning more fuel and outputting more pollution, accelerating petroleum depletion and adding more greenhouse gases."[1]
We have to face reality. Business and economic structure and expectations have to change.
The Business Council of Australia writes in its recent news release of "The ‘truly dreadful
problem’ of the emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries." It says, "Professor Ross Garnaut, in his review of emissions trading, accurately describes what he calls the ‘truly dreadful problem’ of EITE industries: so-called ‘carbon leakage’. If we price emissions fully in Australia, emissions-intensive activity might simply relocate overseas. Rather than eliminating emissions, Australia’s regime would move the source of the emissions offshore, most likely to jurisdictions with less stringent environmental standards. Thus a well-intentioned Australian regime could produce the truly perverse effect of actually increasing the level of global emissions."
It is all very well threatening to go overseas, but this will be a very temporary measure; as these industries try to continue to process and sell massive amounts of industrial product, they are going to run into the long-anticipated problem of not having any customers left in the industrialised 'richworld' to sell to, since the people in those 'first world countries', unburdened of corporate accelerated profit-making, will simply slow down and relocalise their activities. Big business will finish up mired in the poverty which it has sought to exploit in its offshore victims.
It adds that, "This problem affects a substantial slice of Australian economic life. The EITE industries contribute 16 per cent of Australian business investment, 51 per cent of exports, 15 per cent of gross value add and employ nearly one in 10 working Australians."
What to do about mass unemployment with the decline of mass production?
Val Yule often says, that it isn't that there isn't any work. It is that the work that needs to be done isn't done because of all the work we do that doesn't need to be done in paid employment which uses up our time and energy.
If we stop working to feed the profit machines, which only expend most of the profits we make for them on more growth, creating more needs for more growth, and less time for everyone, we could, instead, work according to our needs and desires, rather than the hypertrophied needs and desires of a small sector of global power-freaks.
Political commentator and climate activist, Clive Hamilton, writes in Growth Fetish,[1]
Reduction in working hours is the core demand for the transition to post-growth society. Overwork not only propels overconsumption but is the cause of severe social dysfunction, with ramifications for physical and psychological health as well as family and community life. The natural solution to this is the redistribution of work, a process that could benefit both the unemployed and the overworked.
He remarks that
“Moves to limit overwork … directly confront the obsession with growth at all costs,” and talks about the liberation of workers “from the compulsion to earn more than they need.”
Because growth is sustained by a constant ‘barrage of marketing and advertising’ Hamilton wants advertising taxed and removed from the public domain, and television broadcast hours limited so as to
“allow people to cultivate their relationships, especially with children.”
The era of big profits, big business and big government is in terminal decline
The problem is that, with rising fuel costs, the margins for profit are declining. Add this to costs for carbon emissions, and you are looking at a profound challenge for the growthist economy of profit.
We industrialised humans have to change the way we do business and the pace of business.
We are facing global climate change; futures of very unpredictable wind-speeds, temperatures, crop productivity and water availability. We are facing continuous declines in agribusiness productivity because of the decline in availability of fossil fuels. Permaculture will be better able to provide than agribusiness as fossil fuels decline and it will provide better socially as well. See Antony Boy's delightful "Photo essay of a rural Japanese city," for an excellent and entertaining discussion of the problems and solutions.
It is normal for the Business Council and for the Government to be worried, because the necessary changes threaten their systemic hegemony and the whole notion of profit.
If we attempt to go on as we are, Australia faces monolithic power production and government systems, in the effort of the current elite to retain a profit-oriented society, from which the elite themselves are the overwhelming social and financial beneficiaries, at the cost of the greater population. There will be continuous attempts to find finance for huge nuclear power plants to keep up ever less viable industries and giant cities.
The Nuclear route (...) implies total electrification, synthesising, using complex technology, the pattern of settlement and transport which arose from exploitation of the natural endowment of petroleum. It requires massive investment, and in Australia’s case, the investment sought is likely to be private. This implies ongoing loss by citizens of control over the country’s energy systems and all that flows from that – the future of work, the state of the environment, natural amenity. It implies the reshaping of Australian society by corporations with profit alone in mind, for the benefit of a small dominant asset-rich class, with the electorate a mere captive market.[2]
This is a truly unsustainable battle; it will just bring us into feudalism and a much deeper economic depression than a relocalising of all our systems will.
Not only do we not need all the goods we produce for consumption at home or abroad, we do not need the income they bring, and their acquisition is a poor compensation for lives given to industry. Wonderful jobs are few and far between. No-one wants to give those up. Some people also derive much of their social life from work but they would derive similar benefits, and perhaps more status and satisfaction, from other community activities. And plenty of people reach a stage of maturity where childlike obedience to workplace regimes in the cause of producing more and more widgets in different colours, or processing more and more customers a day, with unflinching subservience, challenges every natural instinct.
Instead of those complicated international agreements about percentile reductions in emissions over the years to come, which are hardly enforceable or even measurable, remaining mostly in the control of the corporate emitters, the solution lies much closer at hand, and could ultimately be controlled at grass-roots levels by the masses themselves. Relocalisation is obviously the best way to develop the solidarity and self-sufficiency to reorganize work.
It should be obvious that the slower we work, the more fuel will remain, the less greenhouse gas will be emitted. If the populations which have ballooned to unimaginable proportions since the 1950s were allowed to return (through natural attrition) to more natural sizes by 2050, and the economy permitted to slow, it would take the heat off the planet and us as well. With so much less effort we could make such a positive difference to the planet and to our personal effectiveness.
ENDNOTES
[1] Hamilton, Clive, Growth Fetish, Allen & Unwin, Australia, 2003 and Pluto Press UK, 2005, last chapter, especially, pp.218-220
This article contains extracts from :"101 Views from Hubbert's Peak" in Sheila Newman (Ed.) and from "France and Australia after oil," in Sheila Newman (Ed.) The Final Energy Crisis, Second Edition Pluto Press, UK, 2008 (Available in Australia in late August)
Population growth threaten's UK's future
OPT for a sustainable planet
www.optimumpopulation.org
On Thursday, August 21, a spokesperson for the Optimum Population Trust, (OPT), stated that continuing large-scale population growth threatens Britain’s future security.
(The stream of immigrants fleeing the crowded British Isles is also exacerbating overpopulation in other countries, such as Australia.)
Record immigration, emigration and rising birth rate
Commenting on the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, which showed UK population growth running at 0.6 per cent (388,000) in 2007, along with record immigration and emigration and rising numbers of births, David Nicholson-Lord, OPT policy director, said: “In an era of growing food and energy shortages, population growth of this magnitude is simply storing up trouble for the future. The UK is already one of the world’s most overpopulated countries, relying on imports for more than two-thirds of its total needs. The more overpopulated we are, the greater our environmental and food insecurity and the more vulnerable we shall be to price rises and disruptions in supply.
UK far from self-sufficient in global competition for diminishing resources
“OPT calculations suggest that even if we comprehensively greened our lifestyles, the UK could only support 27 million people – less than half its present population – from its own resources. It’s tempting to think we can always buy our way out of trouble but apart from being grossly unfair to poorer people in developing countries, this would be an exceptionally high-risk strategy in a world of growing hunger and increasing resource nationalism.”
What is OPT?
The OPT, a think-tank and campaign group, was founded in 1991 by the late David Willey. Its main aims are to promote and co-ordinate research into criteria that will allow the sustainable or optimum population of a region to be determined. Its patrons include Sir Partha Dasgupta, Frank Ramsey professor of economics at Cambridge University; Paul Ehrlich, professor of population studies, Stanford University; Jane Goodall, founder, the Jane Goodall Institute, UN Messenger of Peace; John Guillebaud, emeritus professor of family planning and reproductive health, University College, London; Susan Hampshire, actor; Aubrey Manning, broadcaster and professor of natural history, University of Edinburgh; Professor Norman Myers, visiting fellow, Green College, Oxford; Sara Parkin, founder director and trustee, Forum for the Future; Sir Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission; and Sir Crispin Tickell, director of the Policy Foresight Programme, James Martin Institute for Science and Civilisation, Oxford University.
For more information, See www.optimumpopulation.org, or contact 07 976 370221
Source: OPT
Optimum Population Trust, News Release, August 21 2008
Tel: 07976-370221 www.optimumpopulation.org info[at]optimumpopulation.org
Registered charity No: 1114109 Company limited by guarantee No: 3019081
Renewable energy - show me the money..
Ills of rampant growth presented as virtues by guilty politicians
Speaking about the "Future Melbourne" draft plan, Australian environmentalist and author of forthcoming book, Overloading Australia,(1) Mark O'Connor, said today that deteriorating circumstances caused by rampant growth are being presented as virtues.
He gave as an example the fact that the "Future Melbourne" draft plan sets a target to by 2020 reduce per capita drinking water use by 40% per resident ... compared to 2000 levels.
He said that this really means: "Expect 40% less water by 2020, citizen, so that newcomers and expanding industries can have more."
The 'Future Melbourne' draft plan, recently released by the City of Melbourne, sets 'targets' to by 2020 reduce per capita drinking water use by 40% per resident and 50% per worker compared to 2000 levels.
The draft plan also targets reductions in greenhouse gas emissions of 35% per resident and 59% per worker in the city by 2020.
Everything points to a worsening situation in Victoria and Australia. We know that greenhouse gases have continued to rise, in Victoria, nationally and per capita. As David Spratt and Philip Sutton write in Climate Code Red Scribe, Melbourne, 2008, (p.96),
"Because Australian emissions are five times the global average, and the world population will be half as large again by 2050, these scenarios require Australian per capita emissions to be cut by at least 95 per cent by 2050 - a proposition currently rejected by Australia's Rudd government."
We might add that Australia's population is on course to be half as large again by 2050. This is a trend which should be arrested, if we want to reduce total carbon gas emissions in Australia.
There is, unfortunately, nothing here to inform us about the impact on the total national output of greenhouse gases of growing Australia and Victoria's population. The total output is disguised by the constant growth in population, which makes a mockery of per capita measurements because population growth in a worsening economy can drive per capita emissions down whilst driving total emissions up.
Fairness is not being pursued. The gap between rich and poor is widening. On present trends we can also expect an Australian dystopia, with a minority of very well-off continuing to consume profligately, whilst ordinary Australians live in poverty and without any functioning democracy.
You can read more about the so-called "Future Melbourne" plan here. And you can contribute to the plan with comments here.
(1)Mark O'Connor and William Lines, Overloaded Australia is soon to go to press. The piercing analysis above is characteristic of Mark's writing. He was Australia's Olympic Poet at the Sydney Olympics and author of the very popular This Tired brown land Overloading Australia is written in partnership with another Australian environmentalist, Bill Lines, author of the very famous The Taming of the savage land
Baby Boomers can't win!
Ageist ABC baby-boomer bashing - incites blame against older people for housing crisis.
See also: Brisbane's housing unaffordability crisis spun by ABC to promote property lobby interests of 23 Jun 08
The article "Baby Boomers Hog Housing Market" on ABC News and quoted on ABC local radio 15.8.08 runs the serious risk of engendering intergenerational resentment. In the report, "Baby Boomers" (people born between 1945 and 1960) are bagged for using the equity in their first homes to buy subsequent investment properties, thus driving up the cost of housing and depriving later generations of being able to afford a roof over their heads.
The article is sparked by information reported by the Financial Services Institute of Australasia.
It seems the blame for declining housing affordability is being laid on a whole generation (easily identifiable by their appearance as most of them are in their 50s) whereas one would be more justified in laying the blame on those who have successfully lobbied governments for very high population growth - mainly through immigration.
It is well accepted that high immigration and housing construction lagging behind the added demand that comes from immigration, is the main reason for declining housing affordability. Real estate pundits and governments admit this readily. Who would plunge themselves into debt to purchase an investment residential property and deal with the hassle of maintenance and tenants, if one did not think it would be financially worth while? The prices were already rising because there are more people needing them ! Far easier to buy some easily liquidated shares and not have the hassle!
"Working families" in their fifties who have 2 or 3 mortgaged investment properties are, as I would see it, defensively taking the crumbs they can afford in order to fund their retirement and to bequeath something to their children.
It is quite possible that many of those who lobby for population growth are in the "baby boomer" category. To blame, however, all the ordinary people in that age bracket who need to invest wisely for their retirement, not to mention those many baby-boomers without homes or superannuation, is to blame the victims. They are certainly not the main beneficiaries of rising property prices.
Coincidentally there are reported serious concerns that many people of this BB generation will have insufficient means to fund their winter years.
An article also on ABC News 4.8.08 by business editor Peter Ryan and headed "Survey reveals baby-boomers' retirement cash fears," makes one wish that more of them were able to provide adequately for themselves. Seems they are damned if they do and damned if they don't!
The August 15th article is mischievous and its conclusion is spurious. It concludes that one generation is to blame for the fact that declining housing affordability affects those who don't yet own a house and who are generally in a younger age group.
This is simplistic and sensationalist.
If the blame was laid at the feet of a particular religion or ethnic group, rather than an identifyable age group, there would be outrage and complaints to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission.
See also: Brisbane's housing unaffordability crisis spun by ABC to promote property lobby interests of 23 Jun 08
Dodgy connections in BrisConnections
Quantock in just released "Planning Backlash" - the movie
Rod Quantock is currently appearing in First Man Standing at Trades Hall in Carlton, 03 9659 5699, but here he is in a stand up role for democracy (which does seem very funny in Victoria) at the Mary Drost-led rally in July.
This film was made on the occasion of the Planning Backlash rally against the horrific, undemocratic changes being forced on Victoria's population, more about which you may read and view by going to the Marvellous Melbourne website at www.marvellousmelbourne.org, where you will find an example worth following of how to organise a rally and motivate people to confront government and undesirable policies.
How could a comedien not get involved in Victorian politics? Or Brisbane ones? Or West Oz ones or ...
Anyway...
You can see Rod live in his new show called, First Man Standing!
'First Man Standing'
Now Playing:
Wed to Sat, 6 Aug to 6 Sept, 8:00pm
Trades Hall, Carlton
Tickets: $20 - $35
Bookings: comedyattrades.com.au or 03 9659 5699 or at the door. (Rod recommends 'at the door')
Ideas for affordable housing
Topic:
As Rudd Government dithers, Greens and Independents act to save Murray lakes
The Australian Greens Senators, with the support of Independent Senators will move to set up a Senate Inquiry to establish exactly what water in the Murray Darling system can be used to save the RAMSAR listed Coorong and lower Murray River lakes from acidification.
See also: Keep fighting for the Murray Darling in spite of our Government, Oz Turtles pay horrible price of mindless market-focus: S.A. Murray-Darling, Coorong tragedy was avoidable: Greens Senator Siewert, Why did Karlene Maywald conceal surrender in fight to save Coorong from Goolwa meeting?, Minister Karlene Maywald 'too busy' for Save the Murray rally of 1 Aug 08, Why Karlene Maywald must lose water portfolio of 10 Aug 08, River inaction something to shout about of 11 Aug 08, River Lakes and Coorong Action Group Inc.
Urgent Senate Action to Save Murray
Greens Media Release of 14 Aug 08
The Australian Greens will move to set up an urgent Senate inquiry when Parliament resumes on August 26th, aimed at securing water for the Coorong and lower lakes of the Murray before Christmas, Greens Senators Bob Brown, Rachel Siewert and Sarah Hanson Young said today.
"The Coorong and lower lakes need a drink before Christmas. The water is there but the political will isn't. When Governments fail to act, the people, through the Senate, must provide action," Greens Leader Bob Brown said in Canberra today.
Senator Brown said the inquiry would report back by the end of September and that the Greens would urge the committee to visit the Coorong. The inquiry will investigate current water stocks and options for amending the Water Act to accelerate the purchase of water allocations and entitlements for the Coorong.
Governments across four states and the Commonwealth are dithering while Australia loses the great RAMSAR-listed wetlands of the Coorong, ...
"Governments across four states and the Commonwealth are dithering while Australia loses the great RAMSAR-listed wetlands of the Coorong, and the entire social and economic fabric of the lower lakes and their communities have been thrown into turmoil."
SA Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said, "There is a cry for help coming from the communities of the Lower Murray to save the Coorong. That's a call that is being keenly felt by the river communities along the length and breadth of the Murray-Darling system."
"They do not accept Senator Wong's statements that the Coorong is lost."
Senator Rachel Siewert, Greens water spokesperson said there was enormous goodwill in river communities upstream to contribute to a revival of the Murray River.
"We don't want the federal government to simply hold a vigil for the death of the Murray"
"We need action now, and an emergency Senate inquiry can deliver that," Senator Siewert said.
For more information: Ebony Bennett 0409 164603
See also: Keep fighting for the Murray Darling in spite of our Government, Oz Turtles pay horrible price of mindless market-focus: S.A. Murray-Darling, Coorong tragedy was avoidable: Greens Senator Siewert, Why did Karlene Maywald conceal surrender in fight to save Coorong from Goolwa meeting?, Minister Karlene Maywald 'too busy' for Save the Murray rally of 1 Aug 08, Why Karlene Maywald must lose water portfolio of 10 Aug 08, River inaction something to shout about of 11 Aug 08, River Lakes and Coorong Action Group Inc.
#WhatYouCanDo" id="WhatYouCanDo">What you can do
Public Forum Climate Change and Water Solutions
With Kenneth Davidson of The Age, Dissent
Compere: Nonie Sharp of Arena publications
at Dante's
150 Gertrude Street Fitzroy
(in the back room, downstairs)
On Thursday 4 September 2008
At 7 pm for a 7:30 start
After a decade of drought, Australia faces an unprecedented water crisis. The once mighty Murray-Darling river system stands on the brink. Projected climate change makes the prospect look even drier. The water crisis will have lasting economic, social and political effects on the future of rural Australia, the southern states, and Australia as a whole.
Kenneth Davidson, economist, Age columnist, and co-editor of Dissent magazine, has been a leading commentator on the Australian water crisis. The forum will begin with Kenneth making a presentation on the issue, and the floor will then be opened to general discussion. All are welcome
.
Photo essay of a rural Japanese city
Note from Candobetter Editors:
Since this article is so popular, we feel we should tell readers that there is more, much more by Antony Boys, in Sheila Newman (Ed.) The Final Energy Crisis, Pluto, UK, 2008. Antony has two long articles in it: The first is about how North Korea coped without cheap soviet oil. The second evaluates in detail Japan's carrying capacity in the Edo period, then looks at changes to agriculture and population during Japan's industrialisation, then looks at how Japan may fare with oil depletion.
1. Rationale
A short while ago I wrote a "food and energy survey" of the city where I live in Japan to try to get some idea of how the city might do if there was an extended food and energy crisis. A pdf file of the survey is attached to this article. Please feel free to read and comment on it. Until October 2004, what is now Hitachi Omiya City had been Omiya Town, one other town and three other villages, and although I had lived in Omiya Town since 1986, when the town and village amalgamation occurred I had only a vague idea of what the new city consisted of.
Take the word "city" with a degree of skepticism, by the way. This is not London or New York. In Japan, any administrative unit with a population over 30,000 can be a "city". That can mean that you have a small commercial and administrative district with a large rural hinterland, as we have here. Don't go looking around for the "city". There really isn't one.
After writing the survey, I sent it off to several people for comments. One of these was my good friend Martin, who lives near Tokyo. Martin is writing a book about food in Japan, so he has a good feel for the subject, but the problem was that he had very little idea of what the city looked like. Martin came up to visit my family a few days ago, and so we set off on a five-hour drive around the city so that we could both get a much better idea of what is there. You can also see Martin's version of the trip on his blog.
Here's a sketch map of the city. It is very roughly a square, each side being about 12 miles, or 19 km. The brown shaded area near the southeast corner of the city is the main commercial and administrative area. An interesting feature of the city that you can see from the map is that there are two quite substantial rivers that approach each other and come quite close together at the southern end of the city area. The river flowing north to south on the east is the Kuji River and the river flowing roughly southeast in the south of the city is the Naka River.
One further notable geographical fact is that the city is on the northern edge of the Kanto Plain, the large flat area that surrounds Tokyo.
2. What's different about Japanese Agriculture?
Martin and I decided to drive along some of the main roads as far as the border with the next administrative unit, and to stop to take pictures every time we saw something interesting or representative of the city, or of Japanese farming in general. Perhaps three of the most representative features of Japanese farming are:
1) Field areas are small,
2) Farmers are mostly older people,
3) Capital intensity is high.
The first two are fairly clear, but the third feature refers to the fact that the amount and size of machinery is out of proportion to the land it is used to work. This is also one factor in the high energy-intensity of Japanese agriculture, which is expressed either in terms of high levels of chemical (fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and so on) inputs to the land, or in terms of very intensive labour inputs. In addition, for some fruit and vegetable crops, large amounts of plastic sheeting for covering the ground or for making hothouses are used, and in the colder seasons kerosene is sometimes used to heat the hothouses from the inside.
I will try to illustrate these three features with photographs taken during our half-day trip.
3. A Local Farmer
Actually, as we came out of the house, I saw that the farmer who is now growing a crop of upland rice (i.e. a rice variety that does not need to be grown in a wet paddy field) right next to my house had turned up on his morning round of his fields. We went over and said hello and I took out my camera and snapped him right there. The evening before, Martin and I had passed by another of his fields which is on my regular dog walk. The field is a bit less than one-tenth of a hectare and is now covered with a dense growth of soybeans. It's very 'clean', but it's interesting how it got that way. Since I walk our dogs along the same route nearly every day between about four and five in the afternoon, I had seen what had happened in the field over the few weeks since the soy had been planted. The farmer had been out there with a tiny hand-pushed machine (like a small manual lawn mower about 20 or 25 centimetres wide) almost every day, slowly and labouriously, and with meticulous care, removing anything green in the rows between the soybean plants. Sometimes he was just walking up and down between the rows, with his eyes on the ground, occasionally bending down to pluck out a weed. Only once in the two weeks or so that I walked by the field every day did we greet each other, because he was concentrating so hard on what he was doing that he probably didn't notice me, and I didn't want to disturb his concentration by calling out to him.
Martin and I agreed as we walked the dogs that this man's work is now being replaced by herbicide-resistant GE soybeans. If you are farming hundreds of hectares of soybeans, perhaps that makes sense to you. But it does not make sense in about 90% of Japanese farming, which is done something like I describe here, on very small plots of land. (There is NO commercial planting of GE soy in Japan.) When I visited Kumamoto Prefecture some years ago, the topography was so hilly/mountainous, that field sizes were even smaller than where I live. The people there told me that in the 1950s and early 60s they had switched to chemical/mechanical farming along with everyone else, but had given up a few years later because it just did not make economic sense on their small fields. That's why now Kumamoto Prefecture has more organic farming than any other area in Japan. I didn't hear anyone complain about it, though.
This farmer, growing his upland rice and soybeans on small fields here and there in the area (and is also well-known for his good vegetable seedlings) is about in his mid-seventies. I don't know anything about his children, but I have never seen any younger people in his fields. The 'funny' thing was that when Martin and I arrived back at my house about two in the afternoon, at the end of our drive around the city, there was a bicycle standing at the edge of the field with the upland rice growing in it; the farmer's wife had turned up to do a little weeding!
4. Small fields, disproportionally large amounts of machinery
First of all, we drove out along the main road that roughly follows the course of Naka River, which cuts across the southern end of the city. We reached the border with the next prefecture (Tochigi Prefecture), took a few pictures and turned back again. Here's a picture of what the river looks like at this point.
As we drove back towards the town again, we saw a brilliant example of feature number three (and one) taking place right up ahead; a farmer preparing a miniscule patch of land with a tractor. You can imagine his concern as, early on what should be an uneventful Monday morning, a car screeches to a halt and two foreigners jump out and start to take pictures! He smiled as we explained who we were and what we are doing (Martin's Japanese is pretty good too) and then went on to his next job for the morning.
This example is clearly extreme. I'm sure small plots of land as small as this are farmed all over the world, but do the farmers come round to prepare the ground with a tractor? These photos will make some of you, used to farming 100s of hectares at a time, laugh your heads off, but it is pretty typical of the way Japanese farming works, as you will see below.
5. Japanese agriculture: Elderly individuals with little family or local solidarity
A little further on, we saw a sign for "ostriches" and decided to take a look, expecting to see some kind of ostrich farm, but there were only the two giggly specimens that you can see in the chain-link pen here.
As we were having a laugh about the size of the 'ostrich farm', Martin caught sight of something interesting in a paddy field close by; a farmer with a basket on his back weeding the field.
We decided to go over and investigate. The farmer noticed us immediately as we stood at the edge of the field taking pictures and decided to come out and talk to us. He turned out to be extremely friendly and open, as most Japanese farmers are. He told us that his main work was growing vegetables for sale and that the rice he would harvest from the paddy field was just for family consumption. Looking around, we could see that there were plastic sheet hothouses nearby for preparing vegetable seedlings, and also vegetable fields.
I asked the man if the vegetables were his main source of income. I half expected him to say that he had other family members who bring in more income, but he did not, simply replying 'yes' to my question. I imagined that he lived nearby with his wife. I asked if he had been farming long and he said he had been farming in the same place for 55 years - he told us he was now 65.
He mentioned that he was doing his vegetable farming business as a group. I was interested in this because working as a group is one way of reducing the capital-intensity of the farming; the group could buy machines and chemicals as a collective, thereby holding down the average cost to each individual farmer. Martin and I had talked about this the previous day, and I was hoping we had perhaps run into a positive example of feature number three. I asked the farmer how many people were in the group. He said that they had started as seven, but were now down to two. That was disappointing, but he agreed with us that there were advantages to working as a group and I encouraged him to see if he could find more local farmers he could work with.
I was interested to know if the administrative areas had changed before and he told us that the area had been a small village before the previous round of town and village amalgamations in the 1950s. Then the area had become Gozenyama Village, which was then amalgamated into Hitachi Omiya City in October 2004.
I told him that I had recently completed a survey of the city to get some idea of how the city would fare if there were a sudden 'food and energy' crisis in Japan, given all the 'news' we were getting from the media about global food and energy problems, as well as the prices of gasoline at the pump and food in the supermarkets.
He seemed to be quite interested in this, but then, quite unprompted, began to talk about his son. I suddenly realized that we had stumbled upon a typical example of feature number two.
The farmer told us that his son, who lived with him in the house close by, was 38, but had only just recently begun to help out with the farmwork by sometimes cutting the grass (at the edges of fields and so on) with a kusaharaiki, the ubiquitous little two-stoke engine grass-cutter that every farming family here seems to have. The son apparently had no idea how to grow rice or vegetables.
This is absolutely typical of the situation here; children of farming families, with farmland that they will eventually have to take over, but with not a clue about how to grow their own food. I told the farmer that he had better hurry up and pass on his skills to his son, because if there is a problem in the future the son will not want to find himself hungry, and yet with fields that he doesn't know how to farm.
Martin told him that he could tell his son that two "European specialists" had just visited him and told him to do just that. I thought that was quite amusing. I don't know if the ostriches found it funny as well. Anyway, we exchanged names and I promised to visit him again sometime. In a month or so I will probably drive out and see how he's doing.
6. Prototypical Japanese agricultural scenery
Martin and I then continued on down the road back towards the city 'centre', but turned left onto a small road heading north towards the areas where the golf courses are. I had never driven up this road before, and it turned out to be a very pleasant typical Japanese country road in a low mountain area. We decided to stop and look when we saw a small area of paddy fields nestling in a tiny valley.
In hilly areas in Japan (all over Asia, actually) you will come across tiny valleys like this where the original stream bed has been built up and leveled so that the farmer can take advantage of the natural water flow of the stream to construct paddy fields. Large areas of paddy fields tend to be areas close to larger rivers and so work on the same basic principle. These small valley paddy fields are generally surrounded by densely wooded hills, as here, and so are fed with the runoff from the woods, usually full of minerals and other nutrients. This is sometimes called the "original Japanese scenery" - a kind of prototypical essence of the Japanese agricultural lifestyle. (You may get some idea of why the Doha Round and so on does not make a lot of sense out here.)
The rice flowers were just 'blooming' in the field so I tried to photograph some of them. If you haven't seen rice flowers before, this is what they look like.
Over the last 30 or 40 years, some of these tiny paddy fields have been abandoned as the owners become older and unable to farm all the land, or as the rice consumption per capita has declined and the government has ordered farmers to take some land out of use - 'set-aside'. Sure enough, the old paddy field at the head of the little valley had been abandoned. The paddy fields are nearly always abandoned from the head of the valley down - pretty obvious really, I suppose - but the main reason is that the top paddy field will always be the least productive because the water temperature is always lowest in that field.
Unfortunately, in this particular case, the little valley backed onto one of the local golf courses, which means that the runoff probably contained high concentrations of chemicals. That would certainly be one good reason for abandoning the top field, though I should think the rice in the other paddies would not be much better. Since there was no one around, we could not ask, but I have a feeling that the farmer is possibly eating the rice he grows in other paddies elsewhere and selling the produce from this little valley into the industrial food chain.
Sometimes one or two of the paddies have been turned into ordinary 'upland' fields, like the one you can see here, so tiny that you can even see the farmer's footprints.
Further up the road, we saw a field with an unusual dark red colour. We stopped to take a few photos. This was a small field of 'akajiso' plants. ("Aka" is red in Japanese. There are red and green varieties of this plant, the green one being called "aojiso". The word "ao" covers a wide range of colours all the way from what we call blue to green.) This is an edible leaf - quite tasty once you get used to it - which is used as a decorative leaf on certain kinds of food, especially sashimi, raw fish slices. If you buy a small plastic tray of sashimi in a supermarket here, the sashimi slices are placed on shredded Japanese radish (daikon) and then decorated with two or three of these leaves. The colour contrasts make the fish look really appetising. This small field of akajiso is maybe one-tenth of a hectare, perhaps a little less. When I got home, I showed the photo to my (Japanese) wife, who immediately exclaimed, "What a big field of akajiso!" (The ostriches probably would have had a good laugh at that.)
7. What Japanese call a "large" area
Martin and I drove up the main road to the border with Tochigi Prefecture close to the northwest corner of the city, enjoying the forests as we went. The trees are mostly Cryptomeria japonica, a kind of conifer in the cypress family. The tree is called "sugi" in Japanese and is sometimes called the 'Japanese cedar' in English, though it is unrelated to the cedars. Being a conifer, it is good for construction wood, but not much good for leaf mold. I am told it is also not a good fuel wood, perhaps because it burns too quickly and fiercely.
We then drove eastwards along a small and very pretty road through the low mountains until we came to the main north-south road, where we turned right to head home again. On the way there is a good lookout spot which overlooks an area of rice paddies close to the Kuji River. In the photo, you can see low wooded hills in the distance, which are on the far side of the river. In the middle distance, if you look carefully, you can see the river embankment. In this area, this is what we would call a 'large' area of rice paddies. Even so, you can see that the individual fields are one-tenth to one-fifth of a hectare each, each one of them owned by different families, with one family having one, two or three fields dotted about here and there. You can also see that some of the fields have been abandoned. It's either 'set-aside' or the owners have become too old to farm the land, or died, and the younger members of the family either cannot be bothered to farm it, or don't know how to, or have moved away to Tokyo (or other conurbation) in search of higher incomes.
8. Final comment
These three features of Japanese agriculture, small fields, age of farmers, and capital intensity, are generally not known to people in the US, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Argentinia, or Brazil and so on, although Asian agriculture is quite similar and people in India and China would be able to relate fairly easily with this description.
Large-scale 'industrial' farming no doubt 'feeds the world'. Without the green revolution, humanity may well have run up against land-population limits in the 1980s or 90s, and Japan relies on industrial agriculture to feed 60% of its population, since only 40% of the food calories needed to keep the Japanese population alive are actually produced here. So what will happen if imports of cheap food and oil cease? That's why I wrote the survey; to try to see whether this small city can survive without 'imports' of food and energy from outside. If you read the survey you will see that there are many problems to be overcome even for a city like this to reach sustainable self-sufficiency (not the least of which is what to do about the hordes of hungry people from Tokyo who will want to relocate here - but that is another story). At least, after reading this and seeing the photos you have a better idea of what the city looks like, and perhaps what life might be like here after "peak oil" becomes really serious.
Please also feel free to comment below on either this 'photo essay' or the survey. If you care to ask questions, please also feel free do do so as a 'comment' and I will try to get around to answering your question(s) within a reasonably short period of time.
Immigration to U.S. increases global greenhouse gas emissions
Once again Canadian Green Party leader Elizabeth May was wrong in her contention that immigration was a "trivial aspect of the world's and the country's environmental problems", as only 3% of the global population was on the move. So "stop beating up on immigrants." Well this report by the Centre for Immigration Studies reveals that immigration to the United States is putting the whole world, not just the US, in deep trouble. There is a message for Canada and Australia here too.
Study: Immigration to U.S. Increases Global Greenhouse-Gas Emissions
WASHINGTON (August 13, 2008) ? The findings of a new study indicate that future levels of immigration will have a significant impact on efforts to reduce global CO2 emissions. Immigration to the United States significantly increases world-wide CO2 emissions because it transfers population from lower-polluting parts of the world to the United States, which is a higher-polluting country.
The report, entitled "Immigration to the United States and World-Wide Greenhouse Gas Emissions," is available at www.cis.org/GreenhouseGasEmissions and a video regarding the report is available at www.cis.org/GreenhouseGasEmissionsVideo.
Among the findings:
- The estimated CO2 emissions of the average immigrant (legal or illegal) in the United States are 18 percent less than those of the average native-born American.
- However, immigrants in the United States produce an estimated four times more CO2 in the United States as they would have in their countries of origin.
- U.S. immigrants produce an estimated 637 million metric tons of CO2 emissions annually -- equal to Great Britain and Sweden combined.
- The estimated 637 million tons of CO2 U.S. immigrants produce annually is 482 million tons more than they would have produced had they remained in their home countries.
- If the 482-million-ton increase in global CO2 emissions caused by immigration to the United States were a separate country, it would rank 10th in the world in emissions.
- The impact of immigration to the United States on global emissions is equal to approximately 5 percent of the increase in annual world-wide CO2 emissions since 1980.
- Of the CO2 emissions caused by immigrants, 83 percent are estimated to come from legal immigrants and 17 percent from illegal immigrants.
- Legal immigrants have a much larger impact because they are more numerous than illegal immigrants and because they have higher incomes, and thus higher emissions.
- The above figures do not include the impact of children born to immigrants in the United States. If they were included, the impact would be much higher.
- Assuming no change in U.S. immigration policy, 30 million new legal and illegal immigrants are expected to settle in the United States in the next 20 years.
- In recent years, increases in U.S. CO2 emissions have been driven entirely by population increases, as per capita emissions have stabilized.
Discussion: Some may be tempted to see this analysis as "blaming immigrants" for what are really America's failures. It is certainly reasonable to argue that Americans could do more to reduce per capita emissions. And it is certainly not our intention to imply that immigrants are particularly responsible for global warming. As we report in this study, the average immigrant produces somewhat less CO2 than the average native-born American. But to simply dismiss the large role that continuing high levels of immigration play in increasing U.S. (and thus worldwide) CO2 emissions is not only intellectually dishonest, it is also counterproductive. One must acknowledge a problem before a solution can be found.
One can still argue for high levels of immigration for any number of other reasons. However, one cannot make the argument for high immigration without at least understanding what it means for global efforts to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. Some involved in the global-warming issue have recognized immigration's importance. For instance, chief U.S. climate negotiator and special representative for the United States, Harlan Watson, has acknowledged that high immigration to the United States is thwarting efforts to reduce the nation's emissions. "It's simple arithmetic," said Watson. "If you look at mid-century, Europe will be at 1990 levels of population while ours will be nearing 60 percent above 1990 levels. So population does matter." This research confirms Watson's observation.
The Center for Immigration Studies (www.cis.org) is an independent research institute that examines the impact of immigration on the United States.
Queensland Government killing koalas for developer dollars
Queensland Labor Premier Anna Bligh, in a #CourierMailLetter">letter published in the Courier Mail on 8 August, claimed concern at the decline in South East Queensland's koala population. However, it was her Government which only recently legislated, against community and local council objections, to fast-track the destruction of much of the remaining koala habitats in South East Queensland to make way for residential development.
Queensland Government to blame for the koala's demise
Wildlife Preservation Society Queensland, Bayside Branch media release
The Queensland Government's growth strategy and past poor planning are the causes of the demise of the state's wildlife emblem, the koala, in South East Queensland, say conservationists.
"One of the biggest reasons why the SEQ koala is heading towards extinction is because of the State Government's pursuit of growth at any cost," said Simon Baltais, spokesperson for Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland Bayside Branch. "As Deputy Premier and Minister for the Department of Infrastructure and Planning, Paul Lucas should be held responsible for this deplorable situation."
"Hundreds of hectares of koala habitat will be destroyed and hundreds of koalas will be killed because of the Minister's push to open more land for residential development," said Mr Baltais.
In a recent joint statement from the Premier and Deputy Premier Lucas on the issue of providing more land for urban development it was stated, "The development industry has been calling on us to make more land in the Urban Footprint available sooner - here it is." (see attached #QldGovtMediaRelease">media statement at end)
Yet the Government's own research has shown urbanisation is driving the koala to extinction (see attached background paper). The SEQ koala had gone from Common to Vulnerable in 2004 and now the Koala Coast koala population is considered Endangered. Just recently the Environmental Protection Agency and Moreton Bay Regional Council showed the urban koala population in that area had declined 46 per cent over the past six years. The situation is similar on the Gold Coast, where the State Government has condemned hundreds of koalas to death because they have allowed massive development in Coomera koala habitat.
"The loss of koala habitat was recognized as the biggest killer of koalas." said Mr. Baltais. "As a member of the Koala Taskforce recently setup to advise the State Government on the matter of how to save the koala I will state what scientists have been saying since 1995, protect koala habitat in both the rural and urban environment."
"The key reason why the koala is heading towards extinction is because the State Government is ignoring the scientists and because ministers like Mr Lucas have encouraged an unsustainable pattern of development in SEQ."
Simon Baltais
WPSQ - Bayside Branch
Mb: 0447 539 968
#Background" id="Background">Background for Media Release
Sunday, August 10, 2008
The 1995 Planning Guidelines for the Conservation of Koalas in the Koala Coast (SPP 1/95) stated, urban residential, industrial and commercial estates and major Community developments were considered to be generally incompatible with the maintenance of koala habitat values.
However, the State Government allowed urban development to occur in koala habitat.
The 1997 Planning Guidelines for the Conservation of Koalas in the Koala Coast (SPP 1/97) stated that urban residential, industrial and commercial estates and major community developments were considered to be generally incompatible with the maintenance of koala habitat values.
However, the State Government allowed urban development to occur in koala habitat.
In March 2004 the koala was re-listed from a common species to 'vulnerable to extinction' in the South East Queensland Bioregion, under the Nature Conservation Act 1992 (NCA).
However, the State Government allowed urban development to occur in koala habitat.
In 2005 the SEQ Regional Plan stated that koala populations are declining or becoming locally extinct in many areas, primarily due to habitat loss. The SEQ Regional Plan Regulatory provisions stated that subdivision of land in the Regional Landscape Area could not be subdivided below 100 ha.
However, the State Government allowed urban, commercial development, rural industries and quarries to occur in koala habitat and allowed subdivision of koala habitat in the Regional Landscape Area. The lots were smaller than 100ha.
In 2006 the Nature Conservation (Koala) Conservation Plan 2006 and Management Program 2006-2016 stated that koalas are suffering from the impacts of urban development and habitat clearing. The greatest threats to their survival are the destruction and fragmentation of their habitat, car strikes, dog attacks and disease.
However, the State Government allowed urban expansion and development to occur in koala habitat.
In 2006 Nature Conservation (Koala) Conservation Plan 2006 stated:
koala habitat means-
(a) a woodland where koalas currently live; or
(b) a partially or completely cleared area that is used by koalas to cross from (1) one woodland where koalas currently live to another woodland where koalas currently live; or
(c) a woodland where koalas do not currently live, if the
woodland-
(i) primarily consists of koala habitat trees; and
(ii) is reasonably suitable to sustain koalas
However, the State Government allowed urban expansion and development to occur in koala habitat.
In 2007 the Report on Koala Coast Koala Surveys 2005-2006 (EPA) stated,
Studies have suggested that conservation programs for wild populations need to be designed to conserve habitat capable of supporting approximately 5000 - 7000 animals in order to ensure long term persistence (Begon et al. 1996; Smith 1996; Reed 2003). To conserve this number of koalas in the Koala Coast, the area of RL/RP would need to be increased by between 12% (24 550 ha) and 57% (34 440 ha) based on habitat composition in 1997. Improving the landscape composition through bush rehabilitation to fully vegetate the RL/RP would not provide sufficient habitat by itself to maintain a viable koala population of 5000 - 7000 animals. Consequently, functional habitat must also be conserved on the Urban Footprint to secure sufficient resources
However, the State Government allowed urban expansion and development to occur in koala habitat.
In 2008 the survey by consultants GHD for the Environmental Protection Agency and Moreton Bay Regional Council showed the urban koala population in that area had declined 46 per cent over the past six years. The loss of koala habitat was recognized as the biggest killer of koalas.
Perhaps repetition repetition repetition will finally see the State Government take strong positive action and stop the loss of koala habitat?
Unfortunately, the State Government has already suggested major koala habitat south of Boundary Road, Thornlands (Woodlands Drive) be opened to greenfield development and has forced the community to go to court to stop quarries destroying koala habitat in Mt Cotton. The State Government appears to have written off hundreds of hectares of koala habitat and koalas in the Coomera area.
Is the State Government perhaps just a bunch of slow learners? Do they listen too much to developers and not the scientists and community?
Help the State Government understand the need to protect koala habitat, if
they are genuine about saving the koala, by sending them an email and
reminding them. Email:premier[AT]ministerial qld gov au and
deputypremier [AT] ministerial. qld. gov. au
#QldGovtMediaRelease" id="QldGovtMediaRelease">Bligh greenfield study reveals land, lots of land
Joint Statement:
Premier The Honourable Anna Bligh
Deputy Premier and Minister for Infrastructure and Planning The Honourable Paul Lucas
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Premier Anna Bligh today announced the State Government would fast-track planning for development of 17 greenfield sites in South-East Queensland, as part of its plan to tackle housing affordability.
Ms Bligh said while the Government was limited in its ability to influence
housing prices, she was determined to do everything possible to tackle the
issue of affordability.
"I want the Australian dream to be alive and well here in Queensland, particularly for young people wanting to own their first home.
"Yesterday we announced significant changes to stamp duty to make buying a home in Queensland cheaper and today, we are tackling the issue of land supply.
"Last year as Treasurer and Infrastructure Minister I commissioned a review of the Greenfield areas within the Urban Footprint that could be market-ready sooner.
"I want to see land being turned into new homes for Queenslanders as quickly
as humanly possible and this investigation looked at 42 greenfield areas -
containing more than 40,000ha of undeveloped land.
As a result - the Government will remove any regulatory hurdles slowing the development process on 12 sites:
- Maroochydore, Meridian Plains, on the Sunshine Coast;
- Market Drive and North Lakes in Moreton Bay;
- Upper Kedron and Rochedale in Brisbane;
- Coomera and Helensvale on the Gold Coast;
- Springfield and Redbank Plains in Ipswich; and
- Kinross Road and South-East Thornlands in Redlands
"This will make it possible for the industry to begin the development process of these sites by Christmas.
"In addition, there are five sites where we believe integrated communities of 15,000 people or more can be delivered and we will work with councils to prepare land developer-ready within 12 months:
- Palm View and Caloundra South on the Sunshine Coast;
- Flagstone in Logan;
- Oxley Wedge in Brisbane;
- Ripley Valley in Ipswich
"That's a total of 17 new Greenfield sites that will be developer-ready by this time next year.
"This is about cutting red tape and bottlenecks that are delaying the development process.
"These bottlenecks are occurring at all levels of government - including within State Government agencies - and its not good enough.
"An implementation team will be established with the Department of Infrastructure and Planning charged with the task of cutting through and removing these hurdles.
"The development industry has been calling on us to make more land in the Urban Footprint available sooner - here it is," she said.
Deputy Premier and Minister for Infrastructure and Planning Paul Lucas said
the fast tracking of Greenfield sites will be guided by an Action Plan
released today.
"Housing affordability is a challenge that demands action not just at all levels of Government but also from the development industry," said Mr Lucas.
"The industry wants more land released and the Bligh Government has responded with a plan that will provide additional housing choice for the public and contain costs by increasing competition between developers.
"But governments can't do it all alone and we can only bring these sites forward if the necessary infrastructure is in place.
"Yesterday we announced the $107 billion South East Queensland Infrastructure Plan and Program, which demonstrates our commitment to building for Queensland's future.
"Now we need to work with the industry to deliver these sites ahead of time.
"They will also need to demonstrate how they plan to deliver the transport options, road upgrades, water and energy needs for these areas.
"These sites must all be developed as well-planned and integrated communities and the State Government will need to ensure growth is spread across the regions.
"Although the review shows plenty of greenfield land available for housing it must be emphasised the South East Queensland Regional Plan aims to cater for 45 percent of the expected population growth through infill and redevelopment."
"This review is another one of the State Government's strategies to address
housing affordability in addition to setting up the Urban Land Development
Authority and implementing reforms to the state's planning and development
systems."
Visit www.dip.qld.gov.au for more information.
Media: 3224 4500 (Premier's office) or 3227 8425 (Deputy Premier's office)
Wednesday, 4 June 2008
#CourierMailLetter" id="CourierMailLetter">Queensland Premier Anna Bligh's letter published in the Courier Mail of 8 August
I assure readers who share my concern about the continued decline in southeast Queensland's koala population that I appreciate the need for a multi-pronged strategy.
The specific areas I have requested the taskforce to consider are further protection of koala habitat, changes to road speeds, signage and koala crossings, koala-friendly fencing in habitat areas, restricting or controlling dogs and banning clearing of habitat trees.
Pets are an important part of our lives, so proposals for controls or restrictions will arouse the most discussion.
However, this is a discsussion we need to have as part of a total response.
Anna Bligh
Premier of Queensland
What you can do: Email Premier Anna Bligh (premier [AT] ministerial qld gov au) and Deputy Premier Paul Lucas (deputypremier [AT] ministerial. qld. gov. au) to demand that they act now to end Queensland's economic dependency upon population growth. This dependency, if not broken, will make the extinction of the koala and other native species, such as the lungfish, inevitable.
See also: Locals join koala 'crisis' taskforce in the Bayside Bulletin of 7 Aug 08 including readers' comments.
Oz Turtles pay horrible price of mindless market-focus: S.A. Murray-Darling
Mon Jul 14, 2008
Volunteers remove parasites from the shells of tortoises
Hundreds of Australian long-necked turtles are the latest victims of the demise of the lower reaches of the Murray-Darling Basin. [The Murray Darling Basin is Australia's major riverine system and principle foodbowl.]
Volunteers cleaning victims of worm and market-logic
Small turtle, Big message
The message is that, in the Environment Minister, Penny Wong's scheme of priorities, South Australia's southern lakes long-necked turtles, don't rate much against an irrigation incumbent from the big end of town. For Australia's cash-obsessed government, economic growth may seem to out-rate the turtle, but remember Aesop's fable about the slow and steady turtle against the hare. Thermodynamics tell us that the turtle outlives the hare due to superior thermodynamic efficiency over the long haul. Consider in this light, that respect for nature, rather than subservience to the inhuman market, carries the greater chance for the survival of humans and their civilisation in this desert country. (Sheila Newman)
(Film briefly showing worm-affected turtle but also gives good info on frightening impending collapse of riverine system.)
The turtles that live on the Murray mouth in the Coorong Lakes have been infected by a parasitic bristle worm that thrives in hyper saline waters.
A Goolwa resident, David Surmon, has organised an emergency rescue service for the turtles.
He says that he has saved something between 200 and 300 tortoises, but that he finds more dead each day.
He was reported by Bronwyn Herbert, to say that,
"In the last week I've found around about 13 or 14 dead and that's all deadly in the case of the bristle worm - because what happens is the turtles, if they can move, they get up onto the shore and they can't go any further because there's so much weight."
He added that foxes and rats attacked the encumbered turtles and killed them.
Apparently the bristle worm attaches itself to the turtles' shells and then the infestation slowly increases from then, creating a huge encrustation on the turtles upper and lower shells. The turtle can be trapped inside its shell by the growth of the encrustation. Its legs may not reach the ground anymore, or the worm-infestation may become so heavy that the weight prevents the turtle from moving.
Surmon was quoted by interviewer Bronwyn Herbert, saying that the rescue group had "...actually weighed one, one time, and it weighed nearly seven kilos. And that was a very small turtle. On the back of the turtle was around about three or four inches high of bristle worms."
Turtle rescuer, David Surmon, describes how the team he works saves as many turtles as they are able to reach by taking the turtles from the river and putting them in a big bathtub of rain water. They leave them there for about two or three hours, which is enough to kill the worm. Afterwards the volunteers liberate the turtles from their prison by scraping the dead worm and its encrustation off the turtles carapaces.
"Believe it or not pure fresh water, even tap water will actually kill the bristle worm because it is not used to living in fresh water," David Surmon says.
He said that when he had around a dozen of them, he generally took them further up-river, freeing them up above Murray Bridge.
According to Surmon, the Coorong Lakes comprise very important habitat for turtle reproduction and are the location of a significant breeding population.
Many of us would agree with David Surmon that "Without the wildlife in the river and around the river (...) All we've got is just a big, big mud pan that's going nowhere."
He sounds like a kind and thoughtful man, able to take responsibility and initiative, and to communicate something very significant about our society, our government, and our river system, by reading and interpreting important signs from generally overlooked inhabitants of this badly treated country.
Photos of turtles and their human helpers republished with kind permission from Citizens saving turtles from Murray-Darling crisis The film from you-tube was a selection by the writer.
Bloomington USA - An oasis of sanity in a sea of growthist madness?
An oasis of sanity in a sea of growthist madness?
Could this be happening in the Land of MORE, MORE, MORE?
Bloomington, Indiana supports a steady-state economy!
You heard it right….
The City of Bloomington Environmental Commission issued a statement which identifies steady state conditions as being in the best interests of the community..
Apparently the Commission built on the work of:
1] Economist Herman Daly, who describes the economy as a "wholly owned subsidiary of the environment"
2] Eben Fodor, who demonstrated that population growth imposes capital costs far in excess of taxes that can be recouped from a community's new residents; and
3] The American Farmland Trust which showed that residential growth is a net economic drain on community resources.
Press Release, for immediate release, August 8, 2008
Contact: Kelly Boatman, Chair, City of Bloomington Environmental Commission
(812) 287-0031
Environmental Commission addresses growth
"The City of Bloomington Environmental Commission has adopted a position statement and completed a report to increase awareness of growth and sustainable development. The statement, “Position of the City of Bloomington Environmental Commission on Economic Growth in the United States” is modeled on similar statements issued by the United States Society for Ecological Economics and over 40 other groups inspired by the work of the Center for the Advancement of a Steady State Economy (CASSE). The statement advocates a steady state economy in which resource consumption and waste production are maintained within the environment’s capacity to regenerate resources and assimilate waste, emphasizing development as a qualitative, rather than quantitative, process.
“This position statement acknowledges that the human economy is contained within, and dependent on, a finite and depletable natural environment.”
“This position statement acknowledges that the human economy is contained within, and dependent on, a finite and depletable natural environment,” said Environmental Commission member Heather Reynolds. “Ever-increasing economic growth ultimately leads to resource consumption and waste production at rates greater than can be sustained by nature.” A steady state economy for the U.S. will depend in no small part on the efforts made by communities across the nation to achieve sustainable local economies. The first step is awareness and acceptance of the concepts, both of which it is hoped that the position statement will foster.
Report examines costs associated with residential growth
The report, “An Examination of the Costs Associated with Residential Growth in Bloomington” is modeled after similar studies in other communities. Such studies have shown that infrastructure costs to support growth often outpace the benefits of that growth to the city. A sustainable approach to development would mean ensuring long-term benefits outweigh costs.
The Commission’s report focuses on the City of Bloomington’s capital expenditures and how these expenditures are impacted by residential growth. The report is not intended to define the full costs of growth in Bloomington, but rather to illustrate that there are substantial costs incurred by the City to provide necessary infrastructure to residences. To fully examine costs, further analysis of not only facilities and infrastructure, but also social and environmental impacts is needed.
“The Commission’s report illustrates that the City incurs real costs that are associated with residential growth,” said Environmental Commission member Mike Litwin. “The Commission would like to see the costs of growth balanced against the benefits and incorporated into the decision-making process in order to promote sustainable development in Bloomington.” The report and position statement are available on the Environmental Commission website at http://bloomington.in.gov/environmental-commission.
Position of the City of Bloomington Environmental Commission on Economic Growth in the United States
(Adapted from the Position of the United States Society for Ecological Economics on Economic Growth in the United States and adopted on May 22, 2008 in a 4-2-0 vote following two years of discussion.)
Whereas:
1) Economic growth, as understood by most professional economists, policy officials and private citizens, is an increase in the production and consumption of goods and services, and;
2) Economic growth occurs when there is an increase in the multiplied product of population and per capita consumption, and;
3) Economic growth has long been a primary policy goal of U.S. society and government because of the belief that it leads to an enhanced quality of life, and;
4) Economic growth is usually measured by increasing gross domestic product (GDP), although this is an incomplete indicator of quality of life that excludes the equity of income distribution, other social factors such as physical health and level of crime, and ecological health, and;
5) The U.S. economy grows as an integrated whole consisting of agricultural, extractive, manufacturing, and services sectors (and the supporting infrastructure) that requires physical inputs of non-renewable resources, land and water, and that produces wastes, and;
6) Economic growth occurs in a finite and depletable biophysical context, and;
7) Continuing non-renewable resource-intensive economic growth is having unintended damaging consequences for ecosystems and human societies…
Therefore, the Bloomington Environmental Commission takes the position that based on the above evidence:
1) There is a fundamental conflict between economic growth and ecosystem health (in such areas as biodiversity conservation, clean air and water, and atmospheric stability) and the ecosystem services deriving from healthy ecosystems that underpin the human economy (for example, regeneration of renewable resources, decomposition and recycling of wastes, pollination of crops and other vegetation, and climate regulation), and;
2) Although technological progress and unregulated markets have had many positive effects they cannot be depended upon to fully reconcile the conflict between economic growth and the long-term ecological and social welfare of the U.S. and the world, and;
3) A sustainable economy (that is, an economy with a relatively stable, mildly fluctuating product of population and per capita consumption) is a viable alternative to a growing economy and has become a more appropriate goal for the U.S. and other large, wealthy economies, and;
4) A long-run sustainable economy requires its establishment at a size small enough to avoid the breaching of ecological and economic capacity (especially during supply shocks such as droughts and energy shortages) to promote the efficient use of energy, materials and water, and enable an accelerated shift toward the use of renewable energy sources, and;
5) A sustainable economy supports economic development, an increase in human welfare through strategic changes in the relative prominence of economic sectors and techniques (e.g. renewable vs. non-renewable energy) that maintains the human economy within the regenerative and assimilative capacity of the larger earth system, and;
6) While establishing a sustainable economy, it would be advisable for the U.S. to assist other nations in moving from the goal of economic growth to the goal of a sustainable economy, beginning with those nations currently enjoying adequate per capita consumption, and;
7) For many nations with widespread poverty, increasing per capita consumption through economic growth and often via more equitable distributions of wealth remains an appropriate goal."
[End of press release.]
Good grief. With a State Senator in Hawaii who supports a Steady State economy and a Democratic Socialist Senator in Vermont who wants closed borders and an end to runaway population growth maybe, just maybe there is hope that enough people in America want to stop the train from speeding off the tracks.
Tim Murray August 10/08
Oz Wildlife sacrificed as political and economic palliative
The Nature of Greed
Greed cannot be defined in conventional terms exclusively as a quest for more money or material possessions. It is simply a desire to have more and more. More than one needs. More than one can use. We know that billionaires don’t need and can’t use four yachts and a fleet of twenty antique cars but most North Americans have affluenza too. And our greed is manifested not just in our insatiable material appetites, but in our need for more activity. More hobbies, more “courses”, more “lessons”, more structured leisure events, and volunteering. All this in tandem with a double income work schedule.
Something must give. So what is deemed expendable? Small talk with friends. (Sorry, gotta go). Real talk with family. Time with pets. (North American dogs average a 20 minute nightly walk). Reading time. (remember novels?). Writing letters.(Emails mutilate the language ) Our sleep. (Canadians slept 9 ½ hours a night a century ago). Our health. (Indigenous people averaged 2 hours of work daily---the industrial revolution turned us into mindless robots.) In our contemporary society it is a sin to be seen not to be busy. I recall the words of Thoreau:
“If a man should walk in the woods for love of them of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer, but if spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.”
Above all we must be “goal-oriented”. We must have “plans” and “objectives”. The impression must be left that my life is not something to be experienced but rather like a career in the Cub Scouts where I get various performance badges to mark my “progress”. Just like the people who plaster their cars with the decals of National Parks to prove they had a good time. Well, I am an not a Japanese tourist and I feel more like just experiencing the moment rather than ruining it by recording it. I don’t think life is like a carport that you have to fill up with junk ---activities---so much to the point that there is no room for your car, that is, for what is essential.
In the 1950s people found time for people. Because they were satisfied with less. Satisfied and happy for the most part. When people had problems, my recollection was, hey, come over for a cup of tea, dear, and let’s talk about it. Grandparents and their concerns were an integral part of the family. Mom was always home waiting for me to arrive from school with a cup of cocoa and a peanut butter sandwich, wanting to know how my day went. She could do that, because it took only one income to deliver what we wanted. A 950 square foot house, with three small bedrooms, one small bathroom, one icebox and one car for seven people. And no foreign vacations. A typical middle class lifestyle. Rich in time and quality of life.
But times have changed. 950sq feet is now a telephone booth for today’s Canadians. Bathrooms are that size it seems. Some kids today have their own ensuites. I had to share my bathwater with two brothers, third in line, and one bath a week sufficed for hygiene. Many people in my boyhood were of the belief, like my parents, that Canada’s wealth was not fairly shared, and that it was outrageous that there were poor among us who did not even have shelter or medical care. This situation is even worse today. But with one difference.
While folks like my parents, the socialists of the 1950s, believed that government services should assist the needy, they did not think, as apparently many people now do, that government should substitute for the care and assistance that friends, neighbours and relatives used to provide in the 1950s. The role of government in their view was to supplement what was already being done. Nothing is so debilitating as the notion that one has no individual responsibility, or community responsibility, to help people because we can just sit back and leave government to carry the ball. Or that we must await “funding” from government to proceed. In the post-carbon era we will have to return to the old Canadian pioneer ethic, get off our butts and help people ourselves. Barn-raising was not done by government employees. But by neighbours and friends who found time to help neighbours and friends. For nothing. No “funding” was available.
Presently, when an individual in obvious need of help or assistance is encountered the reflexive response is to offer the recommendation that he seek the help of some government agency or counseling service. That cup of tea that was offered in the 1950s is never proffered. There is a comfortable and convenient belief about that “these people” will be taken care of “if only” they will seek help. The fact is that if we spent 50% of our GDP on psychologists and counselors it would not take the place that stay-at-home moms, live-in-grandmas, and kindly neighbours did 5 decades ago. And given the choice between the fashionable trauma counselor of this century and my grandmother’s apron, I’ll take my grandmother any day of the week. The people who survived the London blitz didn’t need psychologists---maybe if they had had them , they would have surrendered to Hitler. As it was, they just spent the time to help each other.
But the 50s will never return, you say. Just wait until the oil economy is done. You’re going to get a crash course in Amish living and I am going back to the future.. You’ll have lots of time to slow down then and get re-connected with the people around you. But hey, you can do that now. You have time for me. Your day is 24 hours long just like mine. The point is, you will not MAKE time for me because you have put too much on your plate and I am not a priority.
Now, I most probably should not be a priority. You have your family after all. But realize that is not external forces that are making you run so quickly on a treadmill. It is the force of your own greed to have it all. The bigger more expensive house, the higher paying more stressful job, the two cars, your yoga classes, the two kids, their music lessons, their soccer practices, your Mexican vacations that have to be financed by working over-time. etc. I didn’t twist your arm to make those choices.
You “gotta go” because you are as “Type A” and wired into the system as is any Vancouverite, who at least doesn’t have the hypocritical trappings of Island culture.
Have another expresso.
But one day, please read Leo Tolstoy’s “How Much Land Does a Man Need?”
Tim Murray
June 13/06
The Rubber band snaps at 140 USD-per-barrel?
Oil Superspike and Forecasting Fatigue
If we take a flashback view on “official forecasts” from one year ago – in June 2007 – the unreality of those Cheap Oil Hopes jump from the page. While the OECD’s IEA is mutating quite fast into a Peak Oil friendly organization, able to admit that future oil supplies will not meet likely or probable demand, the US EIA and other diehards, ironically including the OPEC Secretariat and its far out underestimates of world oil demand growth, have not yet made that cultural revolution.
The chart below, from the US EIA’s June 2007 forecast, which for natural gas set a truly unreal forecast or wish-list 2008 average price, Henry Hub, of about 7.40 USD/mln BTU, is typical of how far out of line from reality some of the ‘official forecasting’ fraternity has got. For 2007-2008, the US EIA in June 2007 was hoping, very hard, the upward price spiral for oil was going to be trimmed back, to highly moderate, almost zero growth of average prices.
From Q3 2007 the graph of crude oil price change from previous year goes straight up – in the real world – not close to zero, as the US EIA hoped and wanted for 2008 and for 2009. For obvious reasons, the US EIA’s faith-based forecasters expected “nonOPEC supply” to ramp up, because OPEC was set to stay recalcitrant about unleashing its massive-mythic pent-up supply capacities. The US EIA placed its bet on new hopefuls like Angola and Azerbaijan + Kazakhstan, and tarsand grubbing Canada, and perhaps even hoped Russia, too, would ramp-up exports in a quest to grab petrodollars. Or maybe they would do this to please the outgoing G W Bush administration? Or because NOPEC producers have a special urge to exhaust their resource pile at record speed, drive down the oil price and national revenues, ending up as Price Takers peddling their cheap and tacky Sunset Commodity like they did for 15 years through 1985-2000. Dream on !
We all know that ‘supply side economics’ is the only economic policy music since at least 20 years, but supply siders also have one demand-side idea on oil. This is ‘price elastic’ demand shrinkage due to oil demanding consumers, habituated to cheap oil, waking up to unreal and exotic prices and suddenly using less. Certainly since 2005, as oil prices have racked their way up, the consumer-nation energy agencies led by the OECD’s IEA and the US EIA have manfully done what they could to talk down demand – on paper.
It might have been high last year but Boy ! Have we got news for you next year ! The slump in demand forecast for last year didn’t happen, as the world’s regular Teflon Herd consumer kept on gulping their gasoline, gasoil, cooking kerosene, aviation kerosene and other fuels, but this year everything is different. Rivaling each other in unreal forward demand estimates, and joined also by OPEC’s Secretariat for whatever dark or hidden motive, by the investment banks and by almost all analysts, the forecasting crowd today claims world oil demand in 2008 is “unlikely” to grow more than 1.1 mln b/d to 1.3 mln b/d.
Maybe these ‘experts’ don’t know the world automotive industry is in full-flood, with a likely 2008 output around 70 million cars, 27 million motorcycles and scooters, 8 million heavy vehicles including trucks, buses, tractors, harvesters and construction site vehicles, and 2 million other road and off-road vehicles. To be sure, 4WD monsters with 350 HP engines trundling round shopping mall car parks are no longer in vogue, in the US or Europe, but cars arent going out of fashion. The first thing buyers do with a new car is fill the tank, and the same for buyers of ‘Capemax’ cargo ships using up to 10 tons of oil per hour, or buyers of Airbus, Boeing and business jet planes and the bulldozers needed to build new airports for them to land on their oil-based tires.
Real world demand growth in 2008 is likely closer to 1.6 or maybe 1.7 mln b/d than 1.2 mln b/d, immediately swallowing June’s largesse from King Abdullah, to grace the world’s consumers with another 0.3 mln b/d (or was that 0.2 mln b/d ?). The headline number for world oil demand as a year average daily number, is likewise and constantly underestimated. One big reason for this is ignoring the rate of loss-to-production and losses through all downstream steps in the well-to-wheel chain. These add by my estimates to a year average near 1.4 mln b/d and are increasing at least 2 times faster than production growth (around 4% annual increase of losses for 2% production growth). By late this Summer, the peak annual bulge of demand can lift global demand beyond 90 mln b/d. Will production meet this ?
WORLD OIL DEMAND 2005 - 2008
NOTES:
1.Daily demand in Million barrels/day (Mbd) on “all liquids” base, including NGLs, refinery gains, other condensates, tarsand and syncrude oil, GTL (gas to oil), CTL (coal to oil) and the biofuels
2. Total demand includes all loss-in-production, loss in transport, storage and loss in break of bulk operations, estimated at 1.4 Mbd.
Net final demand for 2008, for example, is a day average of 89.5 – 1.4 = 88.1 Mbd.
3. First annual peak, 2007, was depressed due to exceptionally warm winter conditions in northern hemisphere.
200-dollar oil by Christmas ?
Since late April 2008, gathering numbers of analysts have come around to the simple logic I noted many times previously. From Jan 2007 to Jan 2008 oil prices swung from a month-low of 49.50 USD/bbl in 2007 to a month high above 100 USD/bbl in 2008. Doing that doubling operation one more time generates a Jan 2009 target of 200 USD/bbl. After Jeff Rubin of CITIC, we had GS analysts led by Arjun Murti, in a 5 May report titled “Has the Oil Super-Spike Endgame Begun ?” which concluded 200-dollar oil is not impossible. The few European analysts following Patrick Artuis of Natixis Bank, who more than 2 years ago forecast that 200-dollar or 300-dollar oil was far from science fiction by around mid-2009, come to the same ballpark estimates as Murti’s report.
Maybe we need to spike-up to 200 USD/bbl to achieve finance sector and global economic meltdown, but maybe also we don’t. Prices above 130 USD/bbl are going to do impressive things for US monthly oil trade deficits, on its 13 or 13.5 mln barrels/day of crude and products imports. India imports the same percent of its total consumption, about 65%, even if this only adds to a modest 2.2 mln b/d, but paying for cooking kerosene in a country where 300 million persons – exactly the same number as USA’s total population – live on about 1 dollar 50 cents-per-day means very big subsidies. If not, the rubber band breaks and India’s vanishing forests disappear even faster as firewood, and social tensions will burn in a country with a Muslim minority big enough to make it the third-biggest Muslim nation in the world, if it was a separate entity. Oil subsidies in India, loudly decried as market distortion by OECD finance ministers worried about gasoline prices for their consumer horde car fleets, and worrying fall-out in the airline industry, have spiraled to about 3% of India’s GNP. China’s impressive foreign exchange cashpile, like the US trade deficit but in exact reverse – China is a creditor nation – will surely start shrinking as 130 dollar-oil eats into it, but nowhere near so fast as shrinkage of Japan’s ‘traditional’ monthly trade surplus, already down 33% on one year previous. As economic growth slows, quite fast in India and also in China, quite fast in several European countries, very fast in some Latin American countries, inflation rises – usually described as ‘only due to oil’, but now surely helped by oil.
The club of big economies and countries with 20%+ annual inflation has now reached more than 20, and is growing. Inflation is not uniquely due to oil prices but helped by energy cost push, specially at over 100 USD/bbl, and when added to falling economic growth is the signal we have the rubber band of “seamless global growth” stretched near its limits. The detonator for a global economic explosion, triggering a crash landing for growth and inflation at 10% pa right across the OECD, and many times that outside the OECD, is easy to project. When sudden and repeated interest rate rises are brought to close proximity with existing high inflation the global economy can replicate 1979-1980. This was the last time oil prices in 2008 dollars were anything like today’s, probably around 95 to 110 USD/bbl when corrected for inflation. The real difference was that interest rates, at the time, were sky high, at over 10%pa in all OECD countries when the second Oil Shock hit.
Stress and Storm Signals
To be sure the situation is grave. June’s G-8 finance ministers meeting in Osaka, at which the Russian and Canadian ministers were perhaps not sincerely sure they wanted cheap oil, due to oil’s miracle effect on their budget balances, foreign exchange reserves and value of their national moneys, was held under special crisis conditions. The ministers posed for the family photo without neckties – a new Japanese custom for office-based salarymen who, without ties, can take temperatures at least 10°C higher than nekutai colleagues hooked on air conditioning. As everybody, or at least finance ministers believe, airconditioning is a big oil user in advanced economies burning 140 million-year-old fossil residues to change the world’s climate. We can ask: at 200-dollars for the barrel will the ministers pose naked ?
World finance and business leaders have to date in mid-June not come around to telling us what oil price is needed to make the band snap, which in fact is the real and interesting question. There are several parameters in the mix deciding when and how this happens, all of them daily-commented by finance and business players, analysts, and by consumers in the street, whether driving their car or buying food or anything else.
One way global economic explosion can happen is when or if the USD versus EUR, or Dollar/Euro struggle gets vicious. Today even Ben Bernanke wants a strong dollar, to curb both imported and domestic inflation, and is fast losing interest in bailing out subprime-addicted investment and other banks, asset reinsurers, and other Wall Street wailers for billion dollar Federal Reserve handouts. The Euro Central Bank’s Monsieur Trichet created the Euro in a pure atavistic dream of “saving Europe from inflation”, forever of course. This hasn’t worked. The outrageously overvalued Euro does not protect against inflation – it might even favor or generate it by its own heavy presence. No country feels the money is its own, and everybody feels they were cheated by the fiat exchange rate they had to accept, to get Euros.
As in Argentina, Venezuela, Russia or the GCC countries, real world inflation has really slipped out of Al-Din’s petro lamp in Europe, trashing ECB and official, as well as “consensus” CPI figures produced by consensus forecasters anxious to please the ECB. Europeans no longer believe inflation is low because, after all, flat screen TVs always cost less and “the Euro is strong”.
The USD/EUR pivot is exactly 1.50 USD for 1 Euro; when the Euro gets there it can fall and fast, with no floor, like it rose against the US dollar with no ceiling – which is par for a fiat money The Trichet gang will not take this lying down and will crank up interest rates. So will Bernanke. Pretty soon the US goes into real economy recession, like the Eurozone was already “but nobody knew” because 1.5%pa economic growth is normal for Europe’s obsolete, oil-intense and energy-intense “postindustrial” countries living like the USA with unreal dreams of economic power.
In the Europe of June 2008, retail gasoline and diesel prices around 9 to 10 US dollars per US gallon are already generating daily protests by the biggest energy-using and wasting industries and professions, from fishing and trucking through farming to taxis and ambulances. With a Euro buying only 1.18 USD, the famous “target rate” the ECB itself set, back in 1998 at the Euro’s launch, this shifts up to 11 dollars-a-gallon or more. How long do consumers take that ?
The Oil Price Trigger
The important point is this: current global oil supply/demand conditions can bring 2009 Super-Spike prices to the present anytime we get a geopolitical shock to layer on the shifting mix of factors making the rubber band very fragile. Even without this, completely spooking average analysts and business-as-usual deciders, pure physical shortage might tilt oil prices into Super-spike realms by mid-2009. Constantly underestimating demand, and overestimating new supply is a sure way to experience bad surprises.
We can say that if 130-dollar oil is a really bad dream for the real world economy, 200-dollar oil will be even more traumatic. With the USA’s oil trade deficit running at maybe 2 billion dollars-a-day, the Obama gang will need a lot more than friendly winks and gifts from Wall Street backers – and will have to radically cut US oil import demand. Exactly the same applies to European leaders painfully trying to fool European consumers they need a European passport and army, not affordable food, lodging and energy. In other words, the pussyfooting with bolt-on gadget “soft energy solutions” as our heartfelt contribution to fighting climate change will need to give way to simple and straight oil-saving and energy-saving. This will be the equivalent of what Jimmy Carter called a cultural revolution – and like his administration showed, these don’t happen without crisis.
Copyright Andrew McKillop, 2008
Andrew Mckillop
Also published at http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=1798
Anti-greed candidate to contest Western Australian state seat of Cockburn
This e-mail was sent to me by Mary Jenkins. We will endeavour to keep you posted on further news from Mary.
Dear People who care for our community,
I have decided to contest the state seat of Cockburn at the next election as an independent candidate. I am seeking support from those who are fed up of the like minded two major parties that are in bed with big business at the expense of community needs. Where is the community voice today? In the democratic process an independent can speak for their community while party hacks follow party lines at the expense of their electorate.
Being a safe ALP seat has done nothing for Cockburn. My aim is to make Cockburn a marginal seat to improve the status of Cockburn. Fran Logan the minister for the Gas debacle has been the member for Cockburn for too long. He is not a local popular member but has blind union support. To realise to win would be a miracle! But the ALP must be shaken up.
The ALP twenty year transport plan left rail out of Cockburn completely.
The new plans for Phoenix redevelopment and North Coogee will mean around 100,000 more residents in Cockburn without a good transport system. Public infrastructure like energy and water, deep sewerage, health, education, justice and welfare services can hardly cope now. Some of us are still waiting deep sewerage or elective surgery.
Pensioners in Cockburn still wait on a decent venue. Cockburn Bowling Club has been earmarked for high rise development. High density in the Coastal plan robs community of access to their beach. Cycleway and bushland between Woodman Point and Fremantle no longer exist. The plan offers little parking for existing residents.
Many Wetlands have disappeared, turned into housing eg. The Ski Park. Bushland become industrial parks that threaten existing Wetland chain and lakes. Also future climate change.
Plans are rushed through council and endorsed by the State government at rapid speed without due social impact and environmental studies done on the existing community. Global warming and climate change are ignored by the State.
There is nothing in place in the State to address climate change or carbon trading for low income families who today face rapid increase in living costs. No one reports rising suicides or increase in violence anymore!
I have been working on my profile for many years in the local Herald.
I seek donations that will be repaid if I get more than 4% on polling day.
I intend to put out a Blog on the Web of my published letters and past “Thinking Allowed” in the Herald. I do not intend to waste money on the WEST or Gazette who only promote the major parties. No one can match the Government’s latest press propaganda exercise - just look in this weeks Gazette and West its unethical, pages of ministers spending sprees!
I have been a member of Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) for a few years. I will include SPA information on my website Blog. I will also promote OZSP to inform folk . I have also been endorsed by Conflict resolution principles in the past. I welcome help in this battle against greed.
Yours truly, Mary Jenkins 08 94182117
P.S. I am working on a Blog any help will be appreciated.
I have set up an Email address for the campaign. It is antigreed [AT] eftel com au
For further information: 08 94182117, antigreed [AT] eftel com au
Port of Melbourne Corporation on 'go slow' again with the facts
Blue Wedges media release of 1 Aug 2008
Revelations today (Friday 1st August 2008) that the Port of Melbourne Corporation (PoMC) has failed to clean up after itself at The Heads is not surprising, nor was it a surprise that the Corporation was slow to reveal the facts on the issue.
"The Port Corporation has a long history of failing to disclose information until the eleventh hour" says Jenny Warfe Blue Wedges Spokesperson.
No penalty for this breach of the 'rulebook' has been applied and PoMC officials are reportedly confident that "minimal environmental damage" would have occurred to nearby colonies of rare sea sponges ... Just as they hailed the 2005 Trial Dredge a success, but later had to admit the trial had caused serious rockfall events and ongoing disintegration of the Port Phillip Heads seabed.
In 2005, The Port Corporation claimed only 20 m3 of rocks had fallen during Trial dredging. In fact around 6,000 m3 of rock tumbled over rare and delicate sponges into the canyon 100 metres below. It wasn't until independent divers were able to access the area that the full extent of the damage was revealed to the public.
In 2007, the Corporation again failed to disclose crucial documents regarding toxic sediments, water quality and bioaccumulation studies during the Public Inquiry. Those documents underscore inadequacies in the human health risks assessment presented to the public in the SEES released earlier that year. What's more, on the last day of the Inquiry, a report by consultants SKM was produced, revealing ongoing damage at The Heads from rock scour and erosion as a result of the 2005 Trial Dredge. The report even admits that mobile rocks will be an ongoing hazard to shipping, with rock mounds up to 2 metres height accumulating in the Great Ship Channel.
"Due to the Port Corporation's tardiness in releasing these documents (and who knows what else hasn't been released) the public is mostly unaware of many additional risks well known by the PoMC but only revealed after the Supplementary Environmental Effects Statement (SEES) was released" says Ms. Warfe.
"It's time for Mr. Brumby and Mr. Garrett to call a halt to the dredging project" says Ms. Warfe. "Federal Environment Minister Garrett has a moral imperative to protect those 120+ unique sponge species at The Heads, many of which would take hundreds of years to re-colonise, and which exist nowhere else on earth. If he can't do that, what use is he as an Environment Minister""
"Mr. Brumby has just announced that Victoria cannot cope with current growth rates, so what better time than now to re-evaluate the need for a project whose projected economic benefits are entirely reliant on quadrupling trade through Melbourne in the next 25 years. Melbourne cannot cope with its current congestion level, so how would we cope with the projected quadrupling of trucks trundling through portside suburbs which are already suffering more than 8,000 truck trips per day outside their homes"
Today's announcement from the PoMC gives Mr. Brumby a wonderful opportunity to re-think the future.
"We are allowing the Port Corporation to risk the health of the Bay and our community, based entirely on their fervent hope that more big ships will come here at some point in the future. The Port's growth projections were never well justified and are even less so now. We might be digging a big freeway through the Bay that will never be used" says Ms. Warfe.
Tiny Lampedusa struggles with tide of clandestine immigration
July 2008
Lampedusa is a tiny Italian island near Malta. It is located 205km from Porto Empedocle in Sicily, 167km from Tunisia and 167km from Libya. It has only 6,000 permanent inhabitants. With the recent failure of Libya to honour a 2004 agreement the Island's resources are being overwhelmed by clandestine immigrants from Africa en-route to Europe.
The immigrants come through Lampedusa, as if through a permanently open door. They do not want to stay too long. Their objective is to go somewhere else, to the rich cities of the north of Italy or of Europe. It is a problem for the European Community, as much as Italy's problem.
At the beginning of July, 1000 clandestine immigrants reached the shores of this little island, in just 12 hours. Two women died, one was pregnant.
The Mayor of Lampedusa Bernardino De Rubeis comments: "It is an uninterrupted influx, we cannot cope. The immigrants are escaping war or famine. This is the nearest port from North Africa, that is why they all end up here. And here nothing functions anymore: the rubbish collection, the sewers, the water supply, the hospital. With 6,000 inhabitants plus the tourists, we must ration even the water to provide for the immigrants. The desalination plant cannot cope. Meanwhile, there are thousands of other refugees ready to leave from Libya."
Another official asks for the help of the European Commission, but what Italy gets is criticism for its handling of the emergency that has overpowered the Italian Government, accused of racism.
Nobody criticises the Libyan Government for not respecting previous accords with the last Government, which included the surveillance of the coast, especially the port of Zwara, from where the immigrants leave, undisturbed and uncontrolled by the Libyan authorities.
During the night about twenty clandestines, escaped the Immigration Centre and terrorized the locals by going into shops to buy alcoholic beverages, and then getting drunk.
The island is torn between immigrants, inhabitants and tourists, because the resources do not grow with the growth of the population, a truth that is ignored at our peril, even at the global level.
However, if we do the numbers, we find out that every clandestine immigrant brings the Immigration Centre 36€ a day. Every day in Lampedusa there are about 400 clandestine immigrants, which means about 60,000€ a day, all in the pockets of the association "Lampedusa accoglienza" (Lampedusa Reception) which administers the Centre.
A new business.
See also: Migrant swell hits Lampedusa of 31 Jul 08, About 800 illegal immigrants land in Southern Italy of 31 Jul 08, Malta receives proportionately 18 times more migrants than Italy of (undated) from the Malta Independent, Italy: 1,000 illegal immigrants moved from overflowing holding centre of 1 Aug 08, Boat migrants swamp Italian island of 31 Jul 08.
Recent comments