climate change
Climate Science in Chelsea An invitation to hear Dr. Graeme Pearman
Addition: Video of Pearman's lecture. Port Phillip Conservation Council contains a freakishly well-informed collection of environmental activists and is an entertaining and instructive organisation to attend ordinary meetings at. On 22 October, however, they have an additional drawcard in Dr Graeme Pearman who was for a long time a CSIRO insider.
Internationally renowned climate scientist and former Chief of CSIRO’s Atmospheric Research, Dr. Graeme Pearman is guest speaker at Port Phillip Conservation Council Inc. Annual General Meeting
7.30 PM
Monday 22nd October
Long Beach Place Chelsea Community Centre
15 Chelsea Rd. Chelsea
(Melways Map 97 B1)
All Welcome.
Port Phillip Conservation Council Inc have asked Dr. Pearman to speak on what to expect locally and globally at various temperature scenarios; tipping points; how the insurance industry might deal with climate change; and how the climate science community has dealt with the challenges of getting its message heard.
Dr. Pearman’s speech will precede the AGM and guests are invited to remain for the AGM and supper.
[Sheila Newman recommends this organisation for the striking expertise of its lay members - well worth joining, contributing to and learning from. - Ed.]
Inquiries: Jenny Warfe Jenny Warfe
Ph. 0405 825769
Web: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~phillip/welcome.htm or Google Port Phillip Conservation Council.
Private brown coal, public liability? Doesn't sound right.
On the ABC News radio this morning (9 Sept 2012) we heard that private coal companies are demanding compensation for carbon trading costs from the Victorian Government and apparently this is being taken seriously!
All the brown coal stations in Victoria belonged to the State electricity Commission of Victoria until 1994 when they were privatised by Jeff Kennett.
Now the current government is saying that it may have to compensate brown coal producers for their not being able to use it because it is too polluting and will be too costly under the carbon trading system.
Do we require further proof of how corrupt and unproductive privatisation is?
What gives when a government not only sells off our assets but then somehow agrees to retain liability for business risks?
You would have thought that the private corporations would have assumed responsibility for the debt.
They have profited from the privatisation over the years and are now crying poor and demanding compensation!
How about making the parliamentarians who agreed to selling off these assets personally financially responsible for any such compensation?
We've known of the dangers of coal since the 18th century. Our leaders should be held responsible for getting us into this mess.
The Numbers That Scare Me----And The Nightmare That Keeps Me Awake
Bill McKibben has recently unveiled some new "terrifying math" about global warming. But there are other numbers that terrify me more. My mother used to tell me to stop worrying, because it is not the things we worry about that usually get us, but the things we don't see coming. I think she was right.
Bill McKibben recently wrote about the “terrifying math” of global warming:
Climate Change
A third of the summer Arctic ice is gone and oceans are 30% more acidic.
We are already three-quarters along the road to the two-degree increase that we have been told is the tipping point beyond which runaway temperature increases follow.
We are on pace to exceed the 565 gigaton carbon “budget” left to keep us under the tipping point in just 16 years.
We are planning to burn oil, gas and coal reserves that would exceed this carbon budget by a factor of five.
To keep “under budget”, we must keep 80% of known hydrocarbons in the ground.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719
Yes, those numbers sound truly terrifying alright. But try these on for size:
Population Overshoot
October 31, 2011
7 billion humans on Planet Earth.
A thousand times more people than what there were through most of human history.
More humans are born every day than there are primates in the world.
Each day the world adds 220,000 people to its burden (a Saskatoon, Saskatchewan every day). Each day each Canadian--or an American---consumes over 100 lbs of minerals, metals and fuels---all non-renewable.
Each day as the pool of affordable and accessible minerals, metals and fuels shrinks, the number of people making a claim on them grows.
Each year a Canadian consumes the equivalent of 25 barrels of oil.
These numbers are scary. And solid.
Realists know that there is a difference between a LONG emergency and a PERMANENT one, and know therefore, that there can be no real preparation for de-industrialization. They know that they can hide from marauding hordes in a bunker, or in a remote re-localized community, but they cannot hide from scarcity. And they know that governments will pull out all stops to keep the industrial machine running. In retrospect, environmental sensibilities will seem like a quaint middle class indulgence of a people who didn't know what real hardship was all about. We will drill in children’s graveyards if we think it will keep us warm at night.
Arctic ice can melt. But so can human flesh in a thermonuclear war---or freeze after one.
Vanishing ice can send temperatures soaring, but nuclear winter can send them plummeting.
An old bush pilot said to me that if your plane is aloft and you notice that your engine is on fire, you don't care about what the needle on your fuel gauge says. You have to focus on putting that fire out. First things first. We have to address scarcity.
Connect these dots
Connect these dots. 2010--the Chinese spend over $4 billion to buy 9% of Syncrude as a part of their determined effort to gain more control of the Alberta tar sands project. Then in the summer of 2011, they launch their first aircraft carrier in determined effort to build up their fleet and grow their military muscle. Then this summer they spent over $15 billion to purchase control of Nexen Corporation, paying 61% more than share value, to gain an even bigger foothold in the Tar Sands. Given the scale of this commitment, a pipeline to the Pacific coast to serve the Chinese market is a certainty. If not soon, then later. Environmental concerns will be cast aside.
Final dot. China---an emerging superpower, and the US, an increasingly desperate and fading superpower, both crave tar sands oil. Is this not reminiscent of the conditions which led the Japanese to launch the desperately foolish attack on Pearl Harbor? How ironic it would be if it was the United States that would be placed in Japan's position in 1941?
These are things that keep me awake at night, not Glikson’s or Hansen's speculations regarding sea levels 50 years from now.
Tinderbox
I feel that we are all sitting on a tinderbox, while across the world governments are stockpiling matches. As McKibben’s nightmare is unfolding with a quickening pace, mine has broken out into a sprint.
Let me summarize the forgoing perspective in point form:
1) The “down slope” experience is one of increasing scarcity.
2) Relocalization is just one moment in the down slope ( not the end condition).
3) Relocalized communities require isolation or insulation from roving pillagers, but there is no sanctuary from scarcity.
4) Governments are not going to help us get to sustainable communities. They are going spend every bit of monetary and natural capital trying to keep the overloaded system afloat.
5) The actions that concerned people (environmentalists) are taking to prevent the down slope are too weak to be meaningful.
6) In the end each person (each environmentalist) will desecrate everything to stay afloat.
7) You worry about rising waters and temperatures that will fry us. I worry about nuclear winter that will freeze us. But it is increasing scarcity that will trigger one of these two, and it is the problem that most deserves our focus.
8) Governments sold our resources to industry, and industry will sell them to the highest bidder. The lower bidder will resort to desperate measures to re-access lost resource streams.
9) The resulting conflict will drain resources from all both sides, resulting in further scarcity and death. Nuclear winter is the climate change that may kill us first.
Tim Murray
August 14, 2012
Satellites see Big Surface Melt Greenland Ice Sheet between July 8 and July 12, 2012
On 24 July 2012, NASA reports that "Satellites see Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt." Photos permit comparison between Greenland's ice sheet on July 8, left, and July 12, right, showing the extent of surface melt.
Extent of surface melt over Greenland’s ice sheet on July 8 (left) and July 12 (right).
[29-July-2012, Ed.This article was originally published by NASA with the title, "Satellites see Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Melt between July 8 and July 12, 2012," but after comment pointing out that this may well have occurred about 150 years ago, we have changed the title to reflect this. We have republished the pictures and associated commentary from the NASA site. Candobetter editor inserted headings. Otherwise the text is unchanged from the NASA text.]
Measurements from three satellites
Measurements from three satellites showed that on July 8, about 40 percent of the ice sheet had undergone thawing at or near the surface. In just a few days, the melting had dramatically accelerated and an estimated 97 percent of the ice sheet surface had thawed by July 12. In the image, the areas classified as “probable melt” (light pink) correspond to those sites where at least one satellite detected surface melting. The areas classified as “melt” (dark pink) correspond to sites where two or three satellites detected surface melting. The satellites are measuring different physical properties at different scales and are passing over Greenland at different times. As a whole, they provide a picture of an extreme melt event about which scientists are very confident. Credit: Nicolo E. DiGirolamo, SSAI/NASA GSFC, and Jesse Allen, NASA Earth Observatory
› Hi-res of left image
› Hi-res of right image
For several days this month, Greenland's surface ice cover melted over a larger area than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations. Nearly the entire ice cover of Greenland, from its thin, low-lying coastal edges to its two-mile-thick center, experienced some degree of melting at its surface, according to measurements from three independent satellites analyzed by NASA and university scientists.
On average in the summer, about half of the surface of Greenland's ice sheet naturally melts. At high elevations, most of that melt water quickly refreezes in place. Near the coast, some of the melt water is retained by the ice sheet and the rest is lost to the ocean. But this year the extent of ice melting at or near the surface jumped dramatically. According to satellite data, an estimated 97 percent of the ice sheet surface thawed at some point in mid-July.
Researchers have not yet determined whether this extensive melt event will affect the overall volume of ice loss this summer and contribute to sea level rise.
History of Greenland Ice-sheets
"The Greenland ice sheet is a vast area with a varied history of change. This event, combined with other natural but uncommon phenomena, such as the large calving event last week on Petermann Glacier, are part of a complex story," said Tom Wagner, NASA's cryosphere program manager in Washington. "Satellite observations are helping us understand how events like these may relate to one another as well as to the broader climate system."
Son Nghiem of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., was analyzing radar data from the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) Oceansat-2 satellite last week when he noticed that most of Greenland appeared to have undergone surface melting on July 12. Nghiem said, "This was so extraordinary that at first I questioned the result: was this real or was it due to a data error?"
Unusually high temperatures, strong warm air ridges
Nghiem consulted with Dorothy Hall at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Hall studies the surface temperature of Greenland using the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites. She confirmed that MODIS showed unusually high temperatures and that melt was extensive over the ice sheet surface.
Thomas Mote, a climatologist at the University of Georgia, Athens, Ga; and Marco Tedesco of City University of New York also confirmed the melt seen by Oceansat-2 and MODIS with passive-microwave satellite data from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder on a U.S. Air Force meteorological satellite.
The melting spread quickly. Melt maps derived from the three satellites showed that on July 8, about 40 percent of the ice sheet's surface had melted. By July 12, 97 percent had melted.
This extreme melt event coincided with an unusually strong ridge of warm air, or a heat dome, over Greenland. The ridge was one of a series that has dominated Greenland's weather since the end of May. "Each successive ridge has been stronger than the previous one," said Mote. This latest heat dome started to move over Greenland on July 8, and then parked itself over the ice sheet about three days later. By July 16, it had begun to dissipate.
Even the area around Summit Station in central Greenland, which at 2 miles above sea level is near the highest point of the ice sheet, showed signs of melting. Such pronounced melting at Summit and across the ice sheet has not occurred since 1889, according to ice cores analyzed by Kaitlin Keegan at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather station at Summit confirmed air temperatures hovered above or within a degree of freezing for several hours July 11-12.
Ice cores from Summit show melting events like this every 150 years or so
"Ice cores from Summit show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time," says Lora Koenig, a Goddard glaciologist and a member of the research team analyzing the satellite data. "But if we continue to observe melting events like this in upcoming years, it will be worrisome."
Nghiem's finding while analyzing Oceansat-2 data was the kind of benefit that NASA and ISRO had hoped to stimulate when they signed an agreement in March 2012 to cooperate on Oceansat-2 by sharing data.
Maria-José Viñas
NASA's Earth Science News Team
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Climate change impacts on Reefs are here and will change what Reefs look Like in the future
CAIRNS, Australia -- International Coral Symposium. "The impacts of a warming climate on reefs is not a future event. Complex changes have already begun that could fundamentally change what reefs look like in the future." Picture: Coral growing on plastic bottle
Picture: Coral faded through stress.
See Proceeedings from 12th International Coral Reef Symposium.
Reefs already changing
That was the overarching message today from a panel of coral reef experts, who are on the forefront of understanding the varied impacts of a rising seawater temperatures and ocean acidification on such areas ranging from coral growth and fish behaviour to the ability of reefs to provide fish and other services to millions of people worldwide.
The panel conducted a media briefing on climate change and at the International Coral Reef Symposium, the premier coral reef conference held every four years and a hotbed of the latest advances in coral reef science. The research and findings presented at ICRS 2012 are fundamental in informing international and national policies and the sustainable use of coral reefs globally.
The panel included Janice M. Lough, of the Australian Institute of Marine Science; John M. Pandolfi, of the University of Queensland; Roberto Iglesias Prieto, of the National Autonomous University of México; and Philip L. Munday, of James Cook University.
Tropical coral reefs significantly warmer and getting hotter
"Tropical coral reef waters are already significantly warmer than they were and the rate of warming is accelerating," said Janice Lough. "With or without drastic curtailment of greenhouse gas emissions we are facing, for the foreseeable future, changes in the physical environment of present-day coral reefs."
Lough said, over the past century global temperatures have warmed by 0.7oC and those of the surface tropical oceans by 0.5oC. This raising of baseline temperatures has already resulted in widespread coral bleaching events and outbreaks of coral diseases. Current projections indicate that the tropical oceans could be 1-3oC warmer by the end of this century.
Lough focuses on long-term growth histories from massive coral skeletons. Even with the modest amount of warming to date -compared to future projections-coral growth rates are responding to these observed temperature changes. Several reefs, including the Great Barrier Reef, have witnessed slower massive coral growth in recent decades, while cooler reef sites off Western Australia have, initially, responded by increasing their growth rates. The latter is unlikely to be sustainable, given the setbacks in growth following coral bleaching and, as temperatures continue to warm, optimum temperatures for coral growth are exceeded, she said.
Vulnerability varies across coral species
Pandolfi further elaborated that there is large variation in the vulnerability of coral reef species in their response to temperature change and ocean acidification, so some taxa may survive but others could go extinct. In addition, coral reefs that are already degraded from human pressures, such as overfishing or land-based pollution, will be much less likely to handle the increase in temperature and ocean acidity
.
Different species' survival rates will cause differences in reefs
"There will be winners and losers in climate change and ocean acidification, but reefs will demonstrably change and, for most people's idea of what reefs are, not for the better," says John Pandolfi.
Picture: Tires litter the ocean floor.
Act local and reduce controllable stresses apart from CO2
Pandolfi added that ultimately the global community must act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But new science is also showing that, given that the impact on corals will be more variable than first realized, our management approaches must become more sophisticated, with particular focus on reducing local threats such as overexploitation and pollution. Managing reefs for local stress will ensure maximum health as they continue to confront a changing global climate.
Coral populations change will affect fish populations
Munday said changes to coral reef habitat caused by climate change will also potentially lead to changed fish populations. The direct impacts, which are already occurring, are reduced coral cover and less habitat structure for fish.
"That will mean fewer species and lower fish abundance," Munday said. "Some species will fair better than others. For example, fish that eat coral will be more severely impacted, but overall we can expect a decline in fish numbers."
Theory that high carbon dioxide levels affect piscine sense of smell and survival
Over time, he said, more carbon dioxide dissolved in the ocean can also cause abnormal behavior in fish leading to reduced survival. In a recent study, Munday and his team examined the changes to fish in tanks with artificially high levels of carbon dioxide. They found neurological changes that resulted in fish being less effective at avoiding predators, because of adverse impacts to their sense of smell and an increased tendency to stray further from reef areas where they can hide. At the same time, some fish showed, over generations, an ability to adjust to temperatures changes.
"Like coral, there will be winners and losers and the communities of fish we see on reefs in the future are likely to be different to those of today," Munday said.
Humans also depend on coral reefs for food, income and storm protection
Roberto Iglesias-Prieto underscored that these changes will ultimately have severe impacts on the millions of people worldwide who depend on reefs for food, income and storm protection. Reefs also contribute to national economies through such sectors as tourism and commercial fisheries.
"To truly understand the impacts of climate change on reefs, you have to be an ecologist, an economist and a political scientist," Iglesias-Prieto said.
Big CO2 Group wins $3.8 million Biodiversity grants to create wildlife corridors, sequester CO2
CO2 Group's Chief CEO, Andrew Grant says that anthropogenic climate change science is quite simple really: "It's a function of increased population on the earth." Candobetter.net received the following as a press release today. We obviously like the idea of wildlife corridors connecting national parks. By the same token, nothing in the corporate or the government area can be taken at face value. Until the corridors are established; until we can see that more is not taken away by related interests somewhere else, we have to remain cautious. Nonetheless, on face value, this is cheering news. So is the Chief CEO of CO2 Group's attitude to human population growth and carbon emissions.
Asked by the Australian Financial Review interviewer, "What is your scientific understanding of human co2 emissions which are causing dangerous levels of global warming?", Andrew Grant, Chief CEO of the C02 Group, said:
"Well, it's really rather simple. It's a function of increased population on the earth and if you go back into look at population history for example it took from the beginning of time to 1880 for the earth to get its first billion people. Now we're at seven billion. Fundamentally what we have done is cut down 20 per cent of the world's forests and liberated that carbon into the atmosphere and then we've burnt fossil fuels at a rate where we've taken a large amount of carbon from fossil fuel reserves and put them into the atmosphere. So it's no more complex than that. As humans we have liberated more carbon at a rate quicker than the carbon cycle can handle. And it's not a good or a bad thing. There's no value based in this, but the simple reality of doing that is it changes global weather patterns. The debate really is not do we need to act? Even in Australia where it's very politicised, both parties say they support reducing emissions by 5 per cent by 2020. The debate is how."
CO2 Group Press Release on Commonwealth funding for reforestation of wildlife corridors
Melbourne 8 May 2012: CO2 Group is pleased to announce it has been successful in gaining funding for two projects of the Federal Government’s Biodiversity Fund. The grants, worth $3.8 million, will support two projects in Western Australia and New South Wales.
CO2 Group’s Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Grant said: “We are delighted to receive these grants, which we see as recognition of the quality of our work in the Australian market and our deep environmental expertise.
“Our projects will research, map, design and implement targeted biodiversity enhancements across Australia’s largest commercial forest carbon sink estate. We manage a 26,400 ha estate across 30 properties in Australia’s highly fragmented wheat-sheep belt, including sites within the south-west Western Australia biodiversity hotspot.
“The two projects will integrate biodiversity outcomes with large-scale commercial carbon plantings, creating a unique partnership between a for-profit commercial entity and the government. A partnership of this nature and scale has not been attempted outside the not-for-profit sector,” said Mr Grant.
In Western Australia, the CO2 Group project will take tangible steps toward the establishment of vital corridors between both Lake Magenta Nature Reserve and Fitzgerald National Park and Corackerup National Park and Fitzgerald National Park. These corridor links will contribute to the capacity of the reserves to continue to function and facilitate biodiversity conservation in face of uncertain climatic challenges ahead.
CO2 Group’s project in WA will contribute to the Fitz-Stirling Functional Landscape Plan, the Carnaby's black cockatoo Recovery Plan and also assist with the conservation of a range of other nationally and regionally significant conservation targets such as western whipbird, mallee fowl, tammar wallaby, western mouse, and black gloved wallaby.
In New South Wales, CO2 Group’s project adjoins conservation reserves in central NSW. The selected sites will contribute to consolidation of the regional conservation estate as well as enhancing connectivity between some reserves. The reserves that will benefit include Goonoo National Park, Goonoo State Conservation Area, Pillaga State Conservation Area and Pillaga West State Conservation Area. Conservation target species include the black glossy cockatoo, mallee fowl and sugar glider. Specific flora of conservation significance may contribute to the revegetation and restoration actions.
Another CO2 Group project site in NSW offers an opportunity to commence consolidation of a chain of remnant vegetation stands along a 100km section in the Upper Central West and Plains of NSW.
All of the projects supported by the Biodiversity Fund will help to revegetate, rehabilitate and restore more than 18 million hectares of the Australian landscape over the next six years.
CO2 Group has a history of being a leader in its field and was the first organisation to achieve accreditation for reforestation projects under the NSW Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme and the Federal Government’s Carbon Farming Initiative. With 26,400 hectares under management across the country, plus 3500 hectares of native remnant vegetation, CO2 Group is the largest provider of dedicated carbon sink plantings in Australia. The company currently manages landmark commercial contracts for Qantas Airways, Eraring Energy, Macquarie Bank, Woodside Energy, INPEX Browse, Origin Energy, Newmont Mining and Wannon Water."
End of Press Release.
Candobetter.net Ed's comment:
Please comment on this article and tell us what you may have experienced about this group and its work. Obviously this kind of investment seems infinitely superior to land speculation in its usual form, which is to clear land, build infrastructure and housing, then invite loads of people into the country in order to drive up the price of the housing. We don't see the downside of this kind of investment, except where it impinges on property rights and common land of indigenous and other Australians. But we could be naive. Obviously we have a positive view of a CEO who seems to understand the importance of human population growth in the creation of pollution/atmospheric change. Marketing companies, such as the one that sent the press release on, also understand that ecological blogs like that kind of statement. The Primeminister got support against Kevin Rudd for that kind of statement. How sincere is it? We don't know.
New cooperative transport idea harnasses peoples' ordinary trips
An Australian firm called MeeMeep has developed a management interface for a social network of people to act as couriers for each other as the need and opportunity arise. The participants can negotiate costs but MeeMeep makes the final payments when all parties are satisfied. The pay-off is that you can negotiate cheap transport of anything from a computer to a pair of sunglasses to where you want it by finding someone who is already going in that direction and who will charge less than commercial transport solutions to move your object.
We don't know how good or bad this is. If you have feedback, please let us know by commenting.
Here is MeeMeep's press release:
MeeMeep.com plays major role in the Australian Collaborative Consumption arena
A revolution is sweeping through the business sector, reinventing the way that people purchase goods and services. Known as Collaborative Consumption, it is gaining traction in Australia thanks to start-ups like MeeMeep.com.
MeeMeep.com – loosely defined as a ‘social courier’ – harnesses the power of Collaborative Consumption by using a simple online business model. Via its website, it transforms everyday commuters into couriers and connects these commuters to people who need stuff moved.
The face of MeeMeep.com, 23-year-old Will Emmett is passionate about this new business model.
Picture: MeeMeep movers with myriad quirky items that have moved on MeeMeep.com
“As a community, we’ve awakened to the idea of sharing and collaborating for a greater good. It is a remarkable shift – when you think about Collaborative Consumption, it
really is a perfect economic example of creating shared value amongst a huge range of people.
As MeeMeep shows, Collaborative Consumption is not just about community and sharing – it is a way for commuters to make money, and for everyday people to save
money,” said Emmett.
Melbourne's Draft Urban Forest Policy not what it appears
This threat to clearfell half of Melbourne's street and park trees because they are supposedly "nearing the end of their lives" is an unprecedented threat to Melbourne's heritage. I regard the threat to Melbourne's trees as one of greatest threats to Melbourne and its livability. Plus the revival of the East West Link tollway-in-a-tunnel through the inner suburbs and parks. Can you imagine what this tree clearance of elms and plane trees will do to tourism? And what about living conditions in the city - the "heat island effect" will be extraordinary if half the city's trees are to be removed. Just as they are looking fantastic with recent good rainfall! - Julianne Bell, Protectors of Public Lands Victoria
Julianne Bell (of Protectors of Public Lands Inc.) writes:
I appeared at the Future Melbourne Committee on Tuesday last and spoke on the agenda item on the Draft Urban Forest Policy. I was the only person to speak and PPL VIC the only group apparently to make a submission.
This threat to clearfell half of Melbourne's street and park trees because they are supposedly "nearing the end of their lives" is an unprecedented threat to Melbourne's heritage. See my submission below. Also the Herald Sun report of 5 November 2011 with comments from the Lord Mayor in case you think I am making this up.
"Stately elms going in city tree change"
I did not make a submission on the Committee of Melbourne's (CoM's) Open Space Strategy which was raised the same night but am following this up. I would not have been allowed to speak anyway as there were hundreds of residents there to hear the result of resolutions regarding a review of the CoM's electoral system and Occupy Melbourne protests.
Note that there are supposed to be "consultations" on the "Draft Urban Forest Policy" and the "Draft Open Space Strategy."
I regard the threat to Melbourne's trees as one of greatest threats to Melbourne and its livability. Plus the revival of the East West Link tollway-in-a-tunnel through the inner suburbs and parks. Can you imagine what this tree clearance of elms and plane trees will do to tourism? And what about living conditions in the city - the "heat island effect" will be extraordinary if half the city's trees are to be removed. Just as they are looking fantastic with recent good rainfall!
Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc (PPL VIC)
The Chair
Future Melbourne Committee
Town Hall,
Melbourne 3000
8 November 2011
Dear Chairperson
Submission on Item 5.3 Draft Urban Forest Strategy
I am speaking for Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. (PPL VIC) in commenting on this draft strategy.
I wish to make the following points:
Our organisation applauds the objectives expressed in the document of the Draft Urban Forest policy. The trendy name tends to conceal the fact that we are dealing mostly with street trees.
We recognise that the drought has impacted badly on Melbourne’s trees and that it was the intransigence of the Bracks Government for refusing to assist the City of Melbourne to drought proof the trees by, for instance, building a sewer mining project in Princes Park which would have supplied water to Melbourne’s parks and street trees.
We are alarmed, however about suggestions that there will be a wholesale felling of trees classified as “nearing the end of their lives.” In particular we are concerned over the fate of avenues
Staff of the City of Melbourne appear to have a purist view about removal of avenues of trees and maintain that the entire avenue should be removed rather than attempting removal of failing trees and interstitial planting of the gaps. At a recent hearing on the World Heritage Management Plan of the Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens held by Heritage Victoria, the spokesperson for the CoM suggested that as the Plane Tree avenue in the Carlton Gardens was nearly the end of its life then the whole avenue should be removed. Our arborist who gave evidence, was of the opinion it was the finest avenue of plane trees in Victoria: that the trees are healthy; and that they have another 20 years or so lifespan.
Several years ago we had the unfortunate example of the avenue of Camperdown elms - 550 elms in the main street – which a Committee of representatives including Heritage Victoria and Friends of the Elms, with I believe the support of the City of Melbourne arborist, recommended the whole avenue be felled. The Corangamite Shire Council accepted the recommendations of our consultant arborist that the few gaps be filled by interstitial plantings. Consequently a moratorium has been placed on the destruction of the elm avenue and elm avenues in side streets. They have adopted a policy of interstitial planting in any gaps. between trees.
We would request that the City of Melbourne identify exactly what trees you are proposing to remove and what species you are proposing to plant in their stead. Additionally with regard to avenues we would like explanations as to why healthy trees cannot be saved and replacement trees of the same species planted in the gaps. (We realise that there may be problems with this approach in St Kilda Road.)
I have heard that Council has a questionnaire on the Draft Urban Forest policy. I can’t locate it on the website.
Signed Julianne Bell Secretary PPL VIC Mobile: 0408022408
Article adapted for candobetter.net from emails and announcements by
Julianne Bell
Secretary
Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc.
PO Box 197
Parkville 3052
Mobile: 0408022408
Trying to reverse deforestation in the Pacific - One tree, One day, One life.
The 8th of November 2011 in New Caledonia marked the launching of a new program, called, "One tree, one day, One life" at the 7th Conference of the Pacific Community. Deforestation is the hallmark of colonisation in the South Pacific as everywhere. In small islands, deforestation can make the difference between an inhabitable and an uninhabitable island in terms of rainfall. A joint declaration to participate in a program where every island inhabitant in every participating island in the Pacific will plant a tree every year has already been signed by the Marshall Islands, Samoa, the Cook Islands, Tuvalu, Nauru, Tokelau, Vanuatu, Wallis and Futuna and French Polynesia as of the last SPREP summit in Apia in July 2011.
(What do Australia and New Caledonia have in common? See end of article for the answers.)
Pacific Islands get together to plant trees
The 8th of November 2011 in New Caledonia marked the launching of a new wider Pacific Island program, called, "One tree, one day, One life."
The idea is for each island inhabitant to plant one tree every year.
Anthony Lecren, New Caledonia government member for the economy, trade and sustainable development presided over the launch at the global warming and sustainable development summit at the 7th Conference of the Pacific Community in Noumea preparing for the RIO+20 Summit.
He urged Pacific island countries and territories to unite around a common project in order to make Oceania heard at the Rio+20 Summit in June 2012. He was joined by Samoan Deputy Prime Minister, Fonotoe Nuafesili Pierre Lauofo, who said, "We will not be the last to react."
Deforestation of Pacific Islands
The Pacific islands are home to some 10 million people and constitute one-third of the world's maritime exclusive economic zone, with its natural riches and biodiversity still relatively intact compared to those of Europe. They represent an invaluable treasure for our planet. The ecology of these islands is, however, damaged and consequently fragile. Climate change is expected to add to their vulnerability.
Deforestation is the hallmark of colonisation in the South Pacific as everywhere. In small islands, deforestation can make the difference between an inhabitable and an uninhabitable island in terms of rainfall. An extreme case is Nauru. Once perhaps the richest and most beautiful of all islands in this area, it was mined into a desert for the its guano phospate reserves, which had been deposited over millenia by a rich population of migratory birds. As the forest disappeared, then the soil, tragically the rain stopped falling. Now the few locals that remain rely on water imported from Australia (itself the driest inhabited continent on earth), and the human population there, once tall and powerful in the region, is now exceptionately unhealthy.
Nickel mining in New Caledonia
New Caledonia has also been deeply scarred by mining, not for guano-phosphates, but for nickel. The scars are both ecological and social, for nickel-mining meant that there was always a well-paid temporary immigrant strata with power on the island, able to call political shots, running the principle employment sector and massively changing the shape of the land and its use to the great disadvantage of the indigenous inhabitants who were largely deprived of their self-sufficient economic choices.
"Wide-scale mining started in 1875 in Houaïlou and Canala communes. Early mining was done by hand and then gradually became mechanised. By beginning of the 20th century two large mines at Bourai and Thio were established. In the initial years, after nickel was discovered mining was done in about 330 mines. However in 1981 there were only 30 functional mines as against 130 in the early 1970s. [5] Because of the remote location of the islands, about half of the ore was smelted locally, despite the underdeveloped industrial infrastructure of New Caledonia.
The production of ore was nearly constant between 1875 and 1948, but then increased about 70 times reaching a peak of about 8 million tonnes in 1971. This rise followed by a decline, to about 4 million tonnes of ore in 1981, due to cyclones, reducing demand for the metal and increasing role of other world producers, such as Indonesia, Philippines and Australia. Correspondingly, the mined area decreased from 21,500–8,700 hectares (53,000–21,000 acres) and the number of people employed in the industry from about 6,200 to about 3,600. Nearly half of them worked at the mines and another half at the major Doniambo processing plant near Noumea." Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_mining_in_New_Caledonia
Joint declaration on climate change, biodiversity, economic diversity
A joint declaration pertaining to the "one tree, one day, a life" initiative for the Pacific region will be signed by those countries wishing to participate in the program, which now includes the Marshall Islands, Samoa, the Cook Islands, Tuvalu, Nauru, Tokelau, Vanuatu, Wallis and Futuna and French Polynesia as of the last SPREP summit in Apia in July 2011.
The joint declaration comes from awareness both of the international responsibilities in ensuring the preservation of the insular biodiversity of the Pacific region in a context of climate change and of the difficulties facing each of the governments in making their voices heard at international level in matters of the environment and sustainable development.
The initiative aims to harmonize the sustainable development policies and actions of the countries, governments and territories of the Pacific in accordance with the institutional framework recommended by Rio+20 and to make it the environmental and sustainable development platform for the territories of the Pacific at the Rio+20 Summit.
South Pacific islands have suffered from very unbalanced economies since colonisation and this program seeks to contributing to a diversification of the economies of the South Pacific and, in particular, the development of the "green economy."
This article is the result of press communications resulting from the conference with the hope of producing "factual communication with an international reach."
"One tree, one day, one life"
The project unveiled by Anthony Lecren consists in planting one tree each year by New Caledonia's 250,000 inhabitants. That is equivalent to 250,000 trees planted per year over a period of at least 10 years. The program has also been designed to promote economic spin-offs, develop activity in rural areas and ensure livelihoods for those populations all the while contributing to restoring the "human-nature" link.
This project draws on the support of over 10 years of knowledge and experience in terms of existing research and development in New Caledonia and enables consolidation of a number of different projects by their size, geographic scope and economy.
Because New Caledonia suffered by mining, it also has long experience of the problem of reforestation and skilled scientific personnel, organisations and companies to carry this out. New Caledonia hopes to gain more visibility for these specialists in the wider Pacific community and to play an important role in their common reforestation project.
To find out more about biodiversity in New Caledonia, have a look at the biodiversity portal that brings together participants, scientists, institutions, programs and organisations in this project.
What do Australia and New Caledonia have in common?
They are both beautiful Pacific Islands, although Australia is also identified as a continent.
They have both suffered major deforestation for mining and agriculture.
They both have a colonial history which dispossessed an indigenous community, although France has done a better job of providing housing and education for its citizens, including indigenous ones.
They have very similar climate and biodiversity regions.
They were both convict colonies.
Both suffer from the political impact of continued high immigration. In New Caledonia's case this is mainly restricted to French and European skilled or wealthy nationals, whereas in Australia it is part of a virtually unrestricted program to inflate local prices for resources and assets.
NOTES
Source for announcements about the One Tree, One Day, One Life program launch was a Press release from Noumea, 8 November 2011, from Florence Dhie-Le Guénédal, Antipode Productions. Also: www.1tree1day1life.nc and www.biodiversity.nc
False hope and saving bio-diversity – “an inconvenient truth” for WWF and environmental NGOs
According to WWF UK and most other environmental organisations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, it is demand from wealthy nations that is the real problem and the world’s unsustainable population growth is not a fundamental concern, merely something to ignore, because it is an ‘inconvenient truth’.
This month WWF (formerly the World Wildlife Fund) celebrates its 50th year of work.
Launched in the UK in October 1961, WWF can be justly proud of what it has achieved, its dedicated volunteers and its ‘Living Planet reports’, published with the Global Footprint Network and the Zoological Society of London. But there is a profound challenge that WWF and many environmental groups choose to ignore - a problem that will soon become a disaster, unless we wake up.
Writing in the February 2011 ‘Action’ magazine for members, WWF UK’s chief executive, David Nussbaum, tells us:
“you can only achieve these successes if you have a trenchant grasp on the threats.” “Statistics aside, there’s one single pattern that stands out above all others: that demand from wealthy nations is driving the extraction of natural resources in poorer countries.”
According to WWF UK and most other environmental organisations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, it is demand from wealthy nations that is the real problem and the world’s unsustainable population growth is not a fundamental concern, merely something to ignore, because it is an ‘inconvenient truth’.
Instead they like to tell us that ‘if only people in developed nations each reduced our environmental demand, human numbers would not be a problem. But our economic system, predicated on ever more growth, is driving us in the opposite direction. Even if all the efficiency and renewable alternatives could be implemented the savings would be quickly wasted if populations continue to grow.
In October 2011 WWF (formerly the World Wildlife Fund) celebrated its 50th year of work.
Launched in the UK in October 1961, WWF can be justly proud of what it has achieved, its dedicated volunteers and its ‘Living Planet reports’, published with the Global Footprint Network and the Zoological Society of London. But there is a profound challenge that WWF and many environmental groups choose to ignore - a problem that will soon become a disaster, unless we wake up.
Writing in the February 2011 ‘Action’ magazine for members, WWF UK’s chief executive, David Nussbaum, tells us: “you can only achieve these successes if you have a trenchant grasp on the threats.” “Statistics aside, there’s one single pattern that stands out above all others: that demand from wealthy nations is driving the extraction of natural resources in poorer countries.”
According to WWF UK and most other environmental organisations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, it is demand from wealthy nations that is the real problem and the world’s unsustainable population growth is not a fundamental concern, merely something to ignore, because it is an ‘inconvenient truth’.
Instead they like to tell us that ‘if only people in developed nations each reduced our environmental demand, human numbers would not be a problem. But our economic system, predicated on ever more growth, is driving us in the opposite direction. Even if all the efficiency and renewable alternatives could be implemented the savings would be quickly wasted if populations continue to grow.
In a fund-raising message on December 1, 2011, Peter Seligmann, chief executive of one of America’s biggest environmental groups - Conservation International, invited supporters to watch a video saying: Right now, there are 7 billion people on Earth, all of whom need nature for food, water, clean air, energy, jobs and more. Yet we are drawing down our resources as never before. The need to provide for 7 billion people - and the 80 million more who join us each year - is our new reality. We are placing a crushing burden on Earth’s ability to support us. But there is hope. Conservation International has an ambitious plan to change the way the world thinks about nature.
It looked as if Conservation International had woken up to the population challenge, but, go to the video link and it is all about getting your donation to preserve natural habitat. Beyond the seven million tag, they don't even talk about the need to reduce population growth as part of the solution.
For several decades there has been a willful blindness in recognising that relentless human population growth is one of the pre-eminent problems we face. A problem that is driving the astonishing growth of fossil fuel use and its depletion, climate warming, bio-diversity loss and species extinction, the growing shortage of fresh water to meet human needs - and as a consequence of these changes – the prospect that agriculture will be unable to produce enough food to feed us
In most countries today existing populations are not living environmentally sustainably. If current birth rates persist, the United Nations Population Division warned in March 2009 that our population will exceed 11 billion by 2050.
It is not a question of ‘either or’ and who needs to act. We are in this together. Rich nations are consuming too much and populations continue to rise. Legitimate aspirations to raise living standards in high population countries like China and India are consuming ever-more resources. In many developing countries with acute water and food shortages, populations are projected to double or triple in size within 40 years.
In Australia, with most of the country desert, the population is set to double every 33 years, fuelled mainly by high immigration. America, Canada and the UK’s already high environmental impact is also growing due to rising demographic pressures.
Egypt's population, dependent on a small strip of fertile land in the Nile Valley increased from 10 million in 1900 to 85 million in 2010 and is projected to be 130 million by 2050. Madagascar's beleaguered rainforest is surely threatened not just by logging companies but by continuing high population growth, projected to more than double by 2050.
In Ethiopia people are suffering enormously from the fact that their ancestors stripped the country of its forests because they needed to grow more food and get firewood to cook it. Ethiopia’s population in 1900 was just 12 million. Its current population of 85 million is projected to rise to 174 million by 2050, despite well-publicised famines.
How will governments provide all the schools, jobs and the food to feed populations that are set to more than double and in some countries triple in size in the next 40 years? Governments will be struggling with millions of unemployed and hungry populations attracted to violence and extremism. You can try reducing consumption all you want, but when you keep adding 100 million and another 100 million, you simply drive every human to a lower and lower standard of living. You cannot escape that reality.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) assessment in October 2008 found a quarter of all mammal species on the planet are now under threat of extinction.
In evidence to the All Party Parliamentary Group in 2006, Sir David King, then UK Government chief scientist, warned: “It is self-evident that the massive growth in the human population through the 20th century has had more impact on bio-diversity than any other single factor.”
Since the 1970s WWFs high-profile Save the Tiger campaign has repeatedly asked the public for money. Yet 35 years later WWF tells us that tiger populations are in ever more drastic decline.
It is worrying that global environmental organisations like WWF, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and others appear blind to these warnings. Since the 1970s, most environmental organisations, for a variety of ‘politically correct’ assumptions on who not to ‘offend’, wilfully neglect their responsibility to talk about the subject.
When pressed with the fact that human numbers are in massive overshoot and impacting hugely on bio-diversity, WWF obfuscates and pretends that it is somehow sustainable – even cutting off debate in its supporter magazine. Not only are they deluding themselves by refusing to talk openly about the fundamental cause of our ever rising impact on the planet, they are deluding their supporters who fund them.
Even if areas dedicated to conserving plants, animals, and other species that provide Earth's life support system increased tenfold, it would not be enough without dealing with the big issues of population, over-consumption and inefficient resource use.
While the number of protected areas on land and sea has increased dramatically since the 1980s, now totalling over 100,000 in number, covering 17 million square kilometres of land and two million square kilometres of oceans, protecting bits of nature here and there will not prevent humanity from losing our life support system.
The report’s lead author Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii points out that global expenditure on protected areas is estimated at six billion dollars per year and many areas are insufficiently funded for effective management. Effectively managing existing protected areas, he says, requires an estimated 24 billion dollars per year - four times the current expenditure.
One thing WWF doesn’t like to emphasise - except in an obscure footnote, is that the Living Planet Report’s regularly updated global human footprint calculation makes no allowance for set aside natural habitat to sustain bio-diversity and wildlife. Yet this was WWF’s primary mission.
They would do well to remember the words of WWF’s co-founder, Sir Peter Scott in his 1996 autobiography: “If the human population of the world continues to increase at it’s present rate, there will soon be no place for wildlife or wild places….But I believe that sooner or later man will learn to limit his overpopulation. Then he will become much more widely concerned with optimum rather than maximum, quality rather than quantity.”
He later remarked on a visit to an elephant project in Zambia: “You know, I have often thought that at the end of the day, we would have saved more wildlife if we had spent all WWF’s money on buying condoms.”
People should be asking whether major environmental organisations are ‘fully fit for purpose’? Are they instead, ‘rearranging the deck chairs and polishing the furniture while the planet is sinking? Is a generous legacy gift ultimately going to be a lost opportunity, unless global environmental groups start talking openly about population?
In early 2011 WWF produced a report with the Ecofys consultancy, claiming it was possible to cut emissions and move to a 100% Renewable Energy world by 2050. There were many sensible ideas in the report, but the potential for reducing population growth and the beneficial impact this would also have on emissions, energy demand and bio-diversity was never mentioned.
Part of the report’s solution was to persuade people to eat half as much meat to make the calculations realistic. It is amazing that so many 'green' groups promote this restriction as a 'highly desirable and necessary' option, yet refuse to contemplate the alternative of having less children, because it impacts on people's 'freedom of choice'.
The more crowded we become, the more governments will restrict our activities. There will be precious little choice of any kind left, if we go on multiplying with no thought for the future.
Saving the planet and greenwash
Green groups, like politicians, like to stress how alternative technologies will save the day. A huge problem is most alternative energy sources are poor net energy performers. Hydrogen provides only a quarter the energy as the same volume of petrol. Ethanol, produced from corn or sugarcane, contains 33 per cent less energy and competes with food production, while wind and solar are intermittent.
Apart from bicycles, there are virtually no functioning forms of transportation that are not powered by oil. Most jobs would cease to exist without it.
Governments now plan to spend billions by substantially increasing nuclear generation.
Experts say even doubling the number of reactors across the world could see commercially extractable uranium ore run out in just 20 to 30 years. Unless there is an unlikely breakthrough with fusion power and we drastically cut demand, we are on course to exhaust the energy we need in the lifetime of many people alive today.
The Stockholm International Water Institute calculated in 2008 that 1.4 billion people live in regions where existing water cannot meet the agricultural, industrial, municipal and environmental needs of all.
And then there is the impact of climate change. The accelerating icecap melt will make at least a metre rise in sea level probable by 2100 - threatening the world's major cities and fertile crop-growing deltas.
Population Matters
If governments and major environmental groups won’t talk population, then they are not serious about cutting emissions, managing the water supply, managing food supplies, and a secure quality of life for our people. Do we plan for a secure and better life or do we carry on blindly towards a minefield of lethal limits, trashing the planet and our children's future?
Unless green groups and others open their eyes to the key impact of population growth we will be swept aside when the ethics and politics of scarcity replaces the ethics and politics of transient abundance. When affordable oil and fossil fuel runs out and we find that the hope of renewable alternatives no way meet our ever growing demand.
We still have a choice. The world badly needs a grown-up, rational discussion of the population issue. The High Priests of the Green movement need to gain some courage. Al Gore and all the other Priests need to begin to speak openly and accurately about the critical role of our rapidly rising population on a planet of rapidly diminishing resources, to the large following of people who trust them.
It would be a tragedy if population growth became a catastrophe - a catastrophe we were too polite to talk about. Our children will not thank us for inheriting a world driven to the abyss.
Age Poll on population size and carbon emissions mitigation
Will there ever be a real debate on sustainability?
Most objections to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard's Carbon Tax are founded on the apparent belief that it is possible for human society to continue its wasteful consumption of non-renewable natural resources and destruction of our natural environment without posing any risk to the life support system which exists in this tiny corner of a Universe, mostly barren of life.
However, compared to what can be done and what must be done if human civilisation is to hope to further endure for a period which even remotely approaches the 32,000 years since our ancestors left evidence of intelligence probably equaling our own in the in the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave of the Ardèche department of southern France, the proposed Carbon Tax is a joke in extremely poor taste..
At best, the Carbon Tax is token gesture by Government and its corporate masters to be acting to protect our future. At worst, it is another paper economy scam that will allow wealth to be gouged from the rest of us by unproductive members of society whilst weighing us down with yet more more red tape.
This article was adapted from a #comment-159465">comment I made in response to A long time coming … an article by Professor John Quiggin written on 13 October. It has yet to draw a response there. If any visitors to candobetter.net decide that this article is more worthy of a response than visitors to johnquiggin.com have so far indicated, comments, whether critical or supportive, are most welcome.
I have sympathy with very few of those who are so stridently denouncing Julia Gillard's Carbon Tax.
True, the way she went about introducing it is questionable from the standpoint of democratic principles, but those who are against the Carbon Tax seem to want us to believe that Earth is not facing an environmental crisis which could well threaten threaten the life support system that sustains human life.
Without getting into the scientific argument, when the conditions which support life are so rare in the Universe and those which support the sort of complex life forms which exist on Earth are rarer still, it defies common sense to think we can materially change our planet as much as we have done in the last three centuries and continue to do so at an an even faster rate without putting at risk the very conditions which sustain life.
We have substantially altered the concentration of the Earth's atmosphere by having dug up and burnt much humankind's nonrenewable endowment of fossil fuels that took at least tens of millions of years of sunlight and terrestrial biological and geological to produce.
How anyone can know for a fact that these changes to Earth's protective atmospheric blanket won't cause runaway global warming is beyond me. Given that our very future and the future of our children and descendants is at stake, it is surely most imprudent to assume that we can continue to quarry and export coal iron and other non-renewable natural resources at the accelerating rate that the likes of Qld Premier Anna Bligh and our leading 'free market' economic ideologues would have us do.
My own problem with the Carbon Tax is that it is, at best, a small fraction of what needs to be done to make human civilization truly sustainable.
If the Carbon Tax were to be adopted, even if comprehensively at the international level, does anyone seriously imagine that it will somehow induce the market to reduce, to any worthwhile extent, activities that are now consuming non-renewable resources?
Just go to the rubbish tip and ask for how many more decades they believe we can continue to extract the resources necessary to manufacture all the artifacts -- thrown out hi-fis, computers, TVs, fridges, cars, furniture, toys, etc. --- and packaging that has ended up there?
How is this going to stop manufacturers continuing to manufacture and sell, at an enormous cost to our natural capital, so many artifacts that are designed to fail after only a few years and which become inoperable when parts and batteries are lost because they refuse to make these compatible with similar artifacts?
Does anyone imagine that we could go on the way we are for more than a hundred more years?
David Montgomery's "Dirt - the Erosion of Civilisations" of 2007 shows how past civilisations -- Mesopotamia, ancient Greek civilisations, Rome, the Chaco Anasazi of North America. etc., which did not dig up dug up coal, oil and metals still only lasted hundreds of years, so could not be considered sustainable.
If they had dug up and wasted coal, oil and metals and deforested at the same rate as 21st century human civilisation does they could not have even lasted that long.
Any Government which does not attempt to make human civilisation at least as sustainable as those past failed rural civilisations once were is not serious about sustainabilty.
Gillard's Carbon Tax is only a token pretence of an attempt to achieve sustainability and nothing more.
Any serious sustainability policy would comprise at least:
- Reuse of food and drink containers rather than the phony recycling schemes that our council rates are wasted to pay for.
- Inducements, possibly including laws, to force manufacturers to cease planned obsolescence and the deliberate manufacture of artifacts with incompatible parts, particularly cables and batteries. If cars and motorcycled built at the start of the 20th century can still be run today, why, with the improvements in science and technology can't cars be built to last centuries? Why can't cars and motorcycles be handed down to our children and grandchildren instead of being consigned to the tip or scrap metal?
- Real town planning so that it is not necessary for so many to spend as much of their days and waste so much petroleum traveling to and from work, educational institutions and amenities.
- Proper planned public transport so that we don't have to own our own car to commute. End the Taxi license plate speculation scam so that taxis can be affordable to ordinary people and taxi drivers can earn a livable income in a 40 hour week and not a 72 hour week.
- Outlawing the destruction of native forests to manufacture paper.
- Preservation of bio-diversity. Stop destroying forests and other natural habitats, which other species need for their survival.
- End the population growth/mass immigration Ponzi scheme. It is a lie that Australia's prosperity needs more people. Any honest measure of people's wellbeing would show that our prosperity, on average, as well as our sustainability, decrease as we add more people. Only a small minority, including property speculators and landlords, gain through population growth and they gain at everyone else's expense.
Frozen in Time: Prehistoric life in Antarctica - new book
In its transition from rich biodiversity to the barren, cold land of blizzards we see today, Antarctica provides a dramatic case study of how subtle changes in continental positioning can affect living communities, and how rapidly catastrophic changes can come about. Frozen in Time reconstructs Antarctica’s evolving animal and plant communities as accurately as the fossil record permits.
Antarctica: from paradise to polar ice
No other continent on Earth has undergone such radical environmental changes as Antarctica.
According to a new book, Frozen in Time: Prehistoric life in Antarctica, by Dr Jeffrey Stilwell from the School of Geosciences at Monash University and John Long from the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles County, Antarctica has gone from paradise to polar ice in just a few million years, a geological blink of an eye when we consider the real age of Earth.
In its transition from rich biodiversity to the barren, cold land of blizzards we see today, Antarctica provides a dramatic case study of how subtle changes in continental positioning can affect living communities, and how rapidly catastrophic changes can come about.
Frozen in Time presents a comprehensive overview of the fossil record of Antarctica framed within its changing environmental settings, providing a window into a past time and environment on the continent.
It reconstructs Antarctica’s evolving animal and plant communities as accurately as the fossil record permits.
From the story of how fossils were first discovered in Antarctica to modern day expeditions through remote sites, Frozen in Time presents a clear guide to the palaeontology of Antarctica. The publication provides an overview of the discovery and exploration of the continent to contemporary issues of heritage and preservation including the major impacts of climate change.
Chapter highlights include the age of fish and ferns, giant amphibians and hairy reptiles, volcanic lakes and early dinosaurs, when giant reptiles swam in southern seas, killer birds, giant penguins and early mammals.
Jeffrey Stilwell is a Senior Lecturer and Leader of the Applied Palaeontology and Basin Studies Group in the School of Geosciences at Monash University. Dr Stilwell is also an Honorary Research Associate at the Australian Museum, specialising in ancient greenhouse Earth environments and equator-to-south-polar ecosystems.
Dr Stilwell is the author of five monographs and more than 60 peer-reviewed research papers, including many on the fossil record of Antarctica. He has participated on five major expeditions to the Antarctic Peninsula and Transantarctic Mountains/McMurdo Sound.
John Long is an Australian palaeontologist and the Vice President of Research and Collections at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. He has authored some 26 books, including The Rise of Fishes and Feathered Dinosaurs. His research has focused on the early evolution of fishes, especially from Australia and Antarctica.
Frozen in Time: Prehistoric life in Antarctica (248 pages, illustrated, RRP $69.95) is published by CSIRO Publishing and will be available online and at bookstores from October 2011.
The Ultimate ‘Thought Crime’: The Limits to Growth
The Julian Simon/Matt Ridley School of economic optimism essentially denies the limits to growth and the possibility of human extinction because they believe that human technological capacity makes humans exceptional. But technology is applied science and it is well recognised that science in itself has limits, perhaps intrinsic limits.
by Fiona Heinrichs
Sitting above an article by Paul Howes for The Australian about alleged ‘thought crimes’ (20 June, 2011, p.14) is an article by the author of The Rational Optimist, Matt Ridley, ‘Left Activists Profits of Doom’. Ridley is of the Julian L. Simon School of optimism that sees the world as getting better and the future as so bright that we’ll all need to wear shades. The Australian, especially in columns such as ‘Cut & Paste’ has pushed the line that the ABC appears intolerant of controversial views, but The Australian has its own economic correctness, that of a faith in endless economic growth.
In his book The Ultimate Resource (1981) Simon claimed that the supply of natural resources was ‘infinite’ due to recycling and substitutes. Further, even though more people ‘mean higher total output, and this implies more pollution in the short run, all else being equal’ (248), in the longer term additional people will create new ways of reducing pollution. People are the ultimate resource being creative problem-solvers.
Matt Ridley carries on where Julian Simon left off. He maintains that ecological pessimism, largely advanced by the left, ‘relentlessly preaches millennial doom and technological risk’. But Ridley claims even with rapid growth in the world economy, there will be falling populations, ample food and mild climate change. All this based ‘on the trajectory of the past five decades’. But assuming that is true, in itself that is no scientific basis for supposing that such a trend will continue. Philosophers are still debating how inductive inferences are justified but many believe that the basis for predictions is some law-like relationship. Nothing like that is shown by Ridley.
He raises against the pessimists the failed predictions of the Y2K computer bug. See, it didn’t happen, and right he is. It did not happen because nations mobilised to correct the problem. If nothing was done to correct the date problem then no doubt chaos would have occurred. Rather than showing that ecological pessimism is false, his example supports the basic philosophy behind it, namely that action is needed to avert catastrophe.
Ridley does not attempt to justify his claim that there will be only ‘mild climate change’ in the future. There is considerable scientific debate about this, some of which has been mentioned in The Australian. For example, Professor Chris Field of Stanford University believes that the rate of climate change will be faster than previously predicted by the IPCC because greenhouse gas emissions have increased at a rate faster than expected and because positive feedback processes are now starting to kick in.
Higher temperatures are starting to melt the Artic permafrost which could release hundreds of billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide and methane. Methane is twenty-five times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. In my online book Sleepwalking to Catastrophe (www.sleepwalking-to-catastrophe.com), I cite scientific papers documenting the release of methane from the permafrost, underwater. The release of only a small fraction of the methane held in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf could trigger catastrophic climate change. Already 80 percent of the deep water and over half of surface waters have methane levels eight times higher than normal sea water.
The Simon/Ridley School of economic optimism essentially denies the limits to growth and the possibility of human extinction because they believe that human technological capacity makes humans exceptional. But technology is applied science and it is well recognised that science in itself has limits, perhaps intrinsic limits. There are unsolvable problems in computing science and limitation results even in mathematical logic such as Gödel’s theorem. In physics, quantum mechanics and relativity are logically inconsistent, although the physics community hopes that String theory will ultimately solve the problem some day. In evolutionary biology it is accepted that mass extinctions, often caused by climate change have devastated life on Earth a number of times. Looked at from the perspective of the hard sciences, Ridley’s optimism simply lacks a scientific basis.
Unfortunately saying all this, that there are limits to growth in a finite world has become something of a ‘thought crime’, contrary to Ridley. This position is rarely seen in opinion pieces in Australian newspapers. Yet regardless of how inconvenient this position is, without action future generations will battle against the conditions past generations left behind. An ecological, rather than a business profit mindset requires thinking beyond commerce and money-making, and focusing upon the biological parameters that keep civilisations in existence. Our business elites seemingly have no concern beyond day-to-day profit-making. This would not matter if they did not hold such influence over both our major political parties.
What to do? Well, leadership has been demonstrated by one notable exception – Dick Smith, who champions the limits to growth argument in his new book Population Crisis. Under such guidance, this force needs to be countered by ordinary people taking action but that is easier said than done. Nevertheless we all must try. As a 23 year old generation Y female, I am determined to show my own leadership in challenging the ideology of growth. After all, it’s our future at stake.
Climate change and population growth implication, CO2 emission targets
Australia's rising emissions
Australia is on course to miss the bipartisan target of a 5% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020.
The emissions for the 12 months to December 2010 are 0.5%
higher than the previous 12 months , according to figures released 18th April. An increase in emissions was offset by a drop in electricity demand due to lower temperatures, the flooding of Queensland coal mines and greater use of hydro-electric power due to greater rainfall.
These temporary offsets disguise the fact that it means national emissions of over 570 million tonnes per annum in 2020, well above the target of about 530 million tonnes.
Australia's annual emissions rose to 543 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent as at December last year, up from 500 million tonnes in 2000, meaning the nation is already nearly 70 million tonnes over its 2020 target.
Based on even the highest population growth projections, the 2020 target will still make Australia one of the world’s most carbon-intensive economy, producing more than 20 tonnes of CO2 per person - ahead of the likes of the United States, Canada - even Saudia Arabia.
Population growth out of control
Melbourne University reproduction expert Roger Short argues that Australia's population growth – apparently increasing by one person every two minutes - is out of control, and in a paper to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, recommended that the Copenhagen conference 2009 acknowledge the importance of population as a key driver of climate change. It didn't happen!
While Australians are supposed to be reducing greenhouse gas emissions, at the same time our government is pushing for high rise developments and population growth.
High density housing advocates say planning policies must compel higher density in order to save energy and cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and to accommodate population growth. However studies using a diversity of methods demonstrate the converse. The Australian Conservation Foundation Consumption Atlas calculation of greenhouse gas emissions shows that those living in high-density areas they are greater than for those living in low-density areas, and that with increasing density and loss of open green areas , our cities are becoming hotter and less sustainable.
High-rise developments mean that residents are much more reliant on non-renewable energy and have higher per capita greenhouse gas emissions than those in lower single houses with gardens, solar energy, recycling, trees and shade, and water tanks.
ACF Consuming Australia, the main findings
Climate change will affect the availability and cost of reliable food, water and energy supplies. It will threaten remaining natural ecosystems and biodiversity and increase storm intensity and the likelihood of both wildfire and heat-related deaths.
Population growth not "projected" but "targeted"
The Third Intergenerational Report's "projection" (or "targeted") is that Australia's population is likely to reach 35.9 million by 2050.
The people of Australia should be consulted, and respected and be the first priority of government . They should not be manipulated by the economic interests of the business elite and (the) academics entrenched in the economics of constant growth.
Population growth can't be ignored in the context of anthropogenic climate change.
Braking the rise in Earth's population would be a major help in the fight against global warming, according to an unprecedented UN report published in 2009 . It draws a link between demographic pressure and climate change. Population growth is among the factors influencing total emissions in industrialised as well as developing countries, it says.
Government posturing on climate change
Our growing population and relatively emissions-intensive economy means that we will have higher adjustments costs than many other developed countries to reach ostensibly similar goals. Our government's posturing on climate change and ghg emissions is purely rhetoric while we in Australia continue to boost our population. How can we be taken seriously, internationally, with such discriminatory attitudes – that we can continue to grow our population and economy but other nations must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and "save" the planet?
Emission reduction in Australia must occur in a context of rapid population and economic growth. If Australia’s population reaches 35.9 million by 2050, a 60 per cent decline in total emissions by this date will require a cut in per capita emissions from 28.8 tonnes per head in the year 2000 to 6.1 tonnes per head in 2050.
Strong ghg emissions in growing nations
In developed countries with relatively high rates of population growth, including Australia, Canada and the United States, total greenhouse gas emissions have increased strongly by comparison with countries with low rates of population growth (notably in Western Europe).
(Population growth and sustainability, by Dr Bob Birrell, Monash University}
According to modelling, the growth in greenhouse emissions of 221 million tonnes to 774 million tonnes in a business-as-usual case (or 184 million tonnes) was attributable to the six million population growth – compared to 2000 level of 19.2 million but with the GDP reaching projected levels at 2020. Thus population growth was responsible for 83 per cent of the overall growth in greenhouse emissions between 2000 and 2020 under the business-as-usual case.
The carbon footprint of farming will become larger over the next 40 years as we feed a rapidly growing world population. With an additional three billion people in the world by 2050, producers will face a unique challenge. To feed the world, farming emissions must rise
The link between population size and carbon emissions can't be ignored when reporting anthropogenic climate change. They are irrevocably linked to our numbers, economy and lifestyles.
Australia is one of the top nations for per capita greenhouse gas emissions. Our population growth rate is the largest in the developed world. Each person added adapts our lifestyles and add to our total output. Australia has a limited "carrying capacity" due to poor regular water supplies, poor and arid soils, vast deserts, limited arable soils, and sensitive biodiversity that has evolved slowly. The "canaries in the mine" - our wildlife - are being pushed to the edge of extinction at a global rate. What ever we do individually to recycle reduce and re-use is being negated by undemocratic governments who are relying on property development and population growth to keep our growth-based economy ticking. It's unsustainable.
Australia an "embarrassment" Senator Sarah Hanson-Young
Australia is an 'embarrassment' on climate change, says Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young.
Many other countries have already put a price on carbon and introduced realistic pollution reduction targets. And while they are spending significant public and private dollars firming up investment in the technologies and energy sources for the future, Australia is still locked in a debate over whether big polluters should even pay for their pollution. We are also still locked into the retro "populate or perish" economic growth ideology!
The Greens have no population policy. It's all based on vague possibilities and limitations, flexible and ambiguous statements and non-quantitative slogans. They even want to create another category of refugees under "climate change" so they can be resettled in Australia! Surely anthropogenic climate change - and all the environmental issues they say they want action on - can't be fulfilled if the elephant in the room of population growth/size is ignored.
Europe has population stability, not an economy based on growth! They can actually spend money on implementing climate change technologies, and plan ahead, not just try and keep up with infrastructure "shortages" and shortfalls. Contradictory policies will keep the Greens out of office.
Our MPs are indeed in a position to change the climate of debate in government circles , towards a culture of stabilisation rather than businesses-as-usual promotion and acceptance of environmentally damaging unending population growth.
David Attenborough - population growth contrary to addressing climate change
Broadcaster and Naturalist David Attenborough said in a speech to the Royal Society of Arts in London on 10 March, hosted by its president, the Duke of Edinburgh….....”...we can all see that every extra person is – or will be – an extra victim of climate change – though the poor will undoubtedly suffer more than the rich. Yet not a word of it appeared in the voluminous documents emerging from the Copenhagen and Cancun Climate Summits”.
Why this strange silence? I meet no one who privately disagrees that population growth is a problem. No one – except flat-earthers – can deny that the planet is finite.
'Climate change is undoubtedly going to get worse; the only question is how much and how fast, he said. I believe that we somehow have got to prevent the human population from increasing as fast as it is doing.
Big population preferred over tackling climate change
John Howard and Kevin Rudd were both advocates for large populations. Because a growing population equates to a growing economy, until you reach the tipping point of no return on environmental/climate change. No politician has the foresight to see this.
Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd gave priority for a "big Australia" over tackling climate change, the ‘greatest moral challenge of our time’.
Melbourne University reproduction expert Roger Short argues that Australia’s population growth – apparently increasing by one person every two minutes - is out of control, increasing the rate of global warming.
High density developments create hot cities
While Victorians are supposed to be reducing greenhouse gas emissions, at the same time our government is pushing for high rise developments and population growth.
High density housing advocates say planning policies must compel higher density in order to save energy and cut down on greenhouse gas emissions. However studies using a diversity of methods demonstrate the converse. The Australian Conservation Foundation Consumption Altas calculation of per capita greenhouse gas emissions shows that those living in high-density areas are greater than for those living in low-density areas. Our cities are becoming hotter and less sustainable.
High-rise developments mean that residents are much more reliant on non-renewable energy and have higher per capita greenhouse gas emissions than those in lower single houses with gardens, solar energy, recycling, trees and shade, and water tanks.
A combination of climate change and urban growth will push temperatures higher in cities worldwide, say researchers. Dr Richard Betts, a climate scientist in the UK, and colleagues found not only do cities retain more heat than rural areas do but hot cities will grow even hotter as the climate warms and cities grow.
By mid-century, night-time temperatures in cities could rise by more than 5.6°C, they say.
As cities grow warmer, it will become even more important to invest in urban cooling strategies, the study suggests, such as white roofs, green spaces, calculated window placement and other architectural decisions that allow buildings to spit out fewer greenhouse gases and less heat. This means more investments and infrastructure needed for high density buildings to replace what Nature provides naturally – and free!.
Food security taken for granted
Climate change will affect the availability and cost of reliable food, water and energy supplies. It will threaten remaining natural ecosystems and biodiversity and increase storm intensity and the likelihood of both wildfire and heat-related deaths.
The Third Intergeneration Report’s “projection” (or social-engineering) is that Australia’s population is likely to reach 35.9 million by 2050.
The people of Australia should be consulted, and respected, not be manipulated by the economic interests of the business elite and the academics entrenched in the economics of constant growth when the priority should be the people of Australia. Population growth can’t be ignored in the context of anthropogenic climate change.
Australians greenhouse gas commitment
The Rudd Labor Government pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Australia by 5 per cent relative to year 2000 levels but this cannot be achieved if Australia’s population grows as projected. Treasury modelling indicates that, with business-as-usual, emissions will reach 774 million tonnes by 2020, 40 per cent above the 2000 level. However, it is set against government encouraged population growth of 20% by then.
Braking the rise in Earth's population would be a major help in the fight against global warming, according to an unprecedented UN report published in 2009. It draws a link between demographic pressure and climate change. "Population growth is among the factors influencing total emissions in industrialised as well as developing countries," it says.
Australia's hypocrisy
Our growing population and relatively emissions-intensive economy means that we will have higher adjustments costs than many other developed countries to reach ostensibly similar goals. Our government's posturing on climate change and ghg emissions is purely rhetoric while we in Australia continue to boost our population. How can we be taken seriously, internationally, with such hypocritical attitudes – that we can continue to grow our population and economy but other nations must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and “save” the planet.
Sir David Attenborough said, there is no major problem facing our planet that would not be easier to solve if there were fewer people and no problem that does not become harder (with more people).
A population growth of 20% by 2020, and at the same time a symbolic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, is inherently contradictory and people will be forced to pay an ineffective carbon tax.
While human populations expand, renewable energy sources must continue to outstrip increasing outputs of carbon emissions to achieve this target. The carbon tax will simply burden the people of Australia, and net greenhouse emissions reduction will be outside their control.
According to a global financial services study, a carbon tax will have to be set at $60 a tonne -- three times the expected $20 tax to be set next year -- to force electricity generators to switch from dirty brown coal in southeastern Australia to cleaner gas to reduce greenhouse emissions.
The Australian "Carbon price 'would need to be tripled' to force change from coal-fired electricity"
With privatisation of the power suppliers, the market forces needed for them to switch to renewable energy, rather than passing on the costs to consumers, would be considerable.
The carbon tax will be a financial burden on families, and businesses, and do little to actually address climate change while at the same time our population continues to boom!
No human being is illegal?
New wave of asylum seekers could be coming our way
As the nation panics over a small number of asylum seekers, we're left to wonder how Australia will respond to the millions of anticipated "climate change” asylum seekers? How are we to respond?
According to the Australian Greens, Australian society, culture and the economy has benefited, and will continue to benefit, from immigration of people from around the world. We won't continue to benefit if immigration continues to drive our population growth beyond sustainable limits. The environment, and ecological forces, and Nature's devastating powers transcend humanitarian concerns and economic requirements of an economy that needs to be fed by constant growth. We still haven't, despite advances in science and technology, solved the limitations of nature, and we still can't harness extreme weather or reign in natural disasters.
The Australian Greens are being inconsistent with their environmental and climate change policies by supporting limitless population growth.
Australia's fragile food security
The Chief Scientist's report to PMSEIC (Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council Oct 2010) on food security, reported that we currently feed nearly 40 million people on top of our own 22.5 million. If our population grows to 35–40 million as planned, and climate change reduces food production, we can expect to see years where we will import more food than we export.
We can no longer rely on increased water, land and energy use to drive the transformation of food production systems.
The PMSEIC report suggests increased challenges to the important food exporting industry including land degradation, population growth, long-term climate change, competition for arable land in peri-urban areas, scarcity of water, nutrient and energy availability.
With the high level of foreign investment in agricultural production much of our food production is committed to overseas consumption. There are now a large number of properties owned by middle eastern companies using them as feed lots to prepare animals for the live stock export trade. WA is responsible for 50% of live animal exports. There is also feedlot livestock for export to Indonesia and the USA.
In 2008, following prolonged drought, our wheat exports dropped to nearly match the level of our domestic consumption. Wild fish catches are declining in Australian waters and productivity in the agricultural sector declining.
Status of Refugees – at present
According to the United Nations Convention and Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees (the Refugee Convention), a refugee is someone who is outside their own country and cannot return due to a well-founded fear of persecution because of their: This definition does not at present include those fleeing from climate change, overpopulation or natural disasters.
From the Australian Human Rights Commission webpage:
Governments have traditionally approached climate change as an ecological problem, or more recently, as an economic one. So far, the social and human rights implications of climate change have not been widely recognised .....As a signatory to the major international human rights instruments, Australia has an obligation to protect people against the threat that climate change poses to human rights. But the challenge is to develop a response to climate change that distributes rights and responsibilities equally.
...a human rights-based approach to policy development could, and should, be adopted to provide a standard for evaluating policy and resource allocation.
Under the 1951 Refugee Convention, a refugee is a person with a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. Environmental and climate change factors are largely irrelevant. Will it be changed?
Surely there needs to be a lot more emphasis and policies, on "responsibilities" , not just rights. There is a lot of talk and words related to "sustainability" and mitigating climate change, but little is being done in real terms, especially in Australia.
The Hon Tony Burke MP is Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities. He is not a minister for Sustainable Population any more! There is a lot of use of the word “sustainable” but little action.
Australian Greens – “No human being is illegal”
The Australian Greens want an immigration program that is predominantly based on family reunions and other special humanitarian criteria as defined by international human rights Conventions. They want migrants to be given access to a full range of culturally sensitive, appropriate health services including a comprehensive medical examination on arrival.
They are also lobbying for the planning for climate change refugees with a particular focus on the Asia-Pacific region.
It is vital that Australia needs to develop a considered, long-term approach to asylum seekers and refugees because many of them could be heading our way.
Australian Greens Deputy Leader Senator Christine Milne thinks so. Australia is historically one of the biggest contributors to the climate crisis. Whether we are legally obliged to or not, we certainly have a moral obligation to help those who climate change will hurt or displace. However, we are not responsible for their over population, their unsustainable environmental use, or their cultures that encourage fertility.
Environmental refugees set to increase six-fold
Norman Myers of Oxford University has estimated climate change will increase the number of environmental refugees six-fold over the next fifty years - to 150 million.
Australian climate scientist Dr. Graeme Pearman, has predicted that a 2°C rise in temperature would place 100 million people “directly at risk from coastal flooding” by 2100.
Asia Pacific region
Most of the 22 nations in the Pacific are low-lying atolls, with limited land space, small populations and little financial resources. More than 50% of Pacific Islander people live within 1.5 kilometres of the shore. They are all under threat of natural disaster and rising sea levels.
The Asia Pacific region is home to over 60% of the world's people, of which according to the United Nations two-thirds of whom live in extreme poverty. With such large proportion of the current population living in poverty, climate variability already has a significant impact on the health and livelihoods of people across Asia.
Climate change will exacerbate natural disasters, health problems and threats to water and food security. It will undoubtedly affect the lives of those who are without social and economic resources to adapt to the changes in climate.
At the Copenhagen Conference in December 2009, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), António Guterres- G-Magazine report , predicted that climate change will become the biggest driver of population displacements within the not too distant future. The numbers we're talking about are astronomical. His agency predicts between 50 and 200 million people to have moved by 2050.
A report suggests billions of people will starve by the year 2050 - ABC online , unless farm productivity lifts around the world.
Food production must be lifted or many people could go hungry, and there is a lot of pressure on food industries and farmers to increase their efficiency and output. Australian food security expert Professor Peter Langridge has similar views. However, there are limits to what Nature can continue to provide.
Norman Borlaug – the father of the “green revolution”
Norman Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1970 for his "green revolution" that revolutionised food security for millions of people and for many nations. In his acceptance speech, he warned the world in the clearest terms that his breakthrough had not tamed what he termed the "Population Monster". He merely bought us about 40 years respite in which to do something about it.
"Big Australia"
With bipartisan support for a "big Australia" and ongoing economic immigration, there seems to be little empirical or pragmatic difference between the Australian Green's altruistic and moral justification for population growth, and the demands of our capitalistic economic growth argument.
Is it because Australia’s political elite, including the Australian Greens, can no longer say ‘NO’ to immigration or accepting asylum seekers? Our sovereignty is not being given due respect, or being sufficiently honoured.
Our first priorities should be to the Australian voters, citizens, our descendants, and any obligations to help other nations should be primarily through aid, crisis assistance, providing skills ( not poaching them!), health and family planning advice, training towards permaculture farming.
Hair Refugee
Correspondence between two friends on the brink of major life changes driven by what looks to be climate change.
True climate change story
This is a true story told to me by Alberta E., a woman whose hair acts as a constant gauge of air humidity. She is happy and in control of her locks in the dry season in dusty central Australia. or Rajasthan but the tropics present a true challenge to her coif. Yesterday after nearly two days of constant rain, followed by uncharacteristic steaminess in Melbourne, I received the following electronic cris du coeur.
"I am writing to you as the first person I thought of who might sympathise with the new plight of the Melbourne-born woman who has VCH (Very Curly Hair). I mean, it's no use my writing to Anna Harrison whose straight lank mousey awning we used to admire so much, is it?"
She continued, as though the topic would be of intense interest to me, "My hair, since attaining its maximum curling wiry strength when I was about 13, just before we met, has since then acted as a very sensitive gauge of moisture content in the air . After moving temporarily from Melbourne to Sydney as a 20 year old, it was in a constant unmanageable frizz due to the sub tropical humid climate but I knew all the time that I only had to return to Melbourne to be once more in control of my mane. "
"It appears now, however, that climate change is on the march, somewhat more dramatically, and quicker than most of us would have imagined. Sydney's weather has come to Melbourne, the air hangs over me like a warm sodden blanket even if it is not raining and my hair is standing out in an undifferentiated halo of frizz. The only solution, it seems, to regain control over my unruly, moisture-sensitive locks, is to move to Hobart and give that a go for a while. I will make do with the sun's pale attenuated, angled rays in the more polar capital if I can regain control of what should be my crowning glory."
How much time do we really have?
"How quickly will climate change advance though? The Hobart solution may not be a permanent one. As the warm moisture laden air advances south, might I need to make plans for an international flee from Hobart to Invercargill? By this time might the cultural and linguistic differences - especially the extreme vowel shifts - be too much to adjust to? Should I instead plan for a direct move from Hobart to Macquarie Island, by-passing "New Zullun"? When will it be possible to buy real estate, possibly a villa unit with ocean views on the mainland of Antarctica?"
"As you know," (she added) "I don't often plan so far ahead, but my hair, so plagued by atmospheric changes is driving me to these lengths!...."
Alberta E., an old school friend was always rather self-centered, a little vain and inclined towards hyperbole. She did not mention in her email this week's terrible floods in Queensland, which could also be due to climate change, nor the floods right here in our own state, Victoria.
The floods have killed people and animals. Many survivors will be struggling for months to come and many more animals will die from lack of food and loss of habitat.
My old friend, however seems to be capable only of seeing the local climate through the prism of her own image in the mirror. The tresses which she describes in terms which conceal her actual pride in them must by be showing some silvery signs of wear and tear but the world is not allowed to see this. We could judge and dismiss her as a shallow, self-centered creature, but I know her finer qualities and will reply to her with sympathy to her plight with the following message.
Coinciding perspectives, different priorities
"Dear friend,
I have made the same journey myself in my mind- to Hobart, to Invercargill and then further south perhaps, not only to retain control over "the hair" but maybe in a quest for the impossible- survival. Weather is not just something that affects our hair, it could affect our feeding patterns and food availability. You may need to buy a property with the capacity to grow food. Just wear a scarf if the early morning drizzle gets to your hair as you harvest your snow peas.
Whilst I don't make decisions as you do using your hair as a gauge, I think we have reached the same conclusion as to our future. We will no doubt catch up shortly in Hobart. Please keep in touch by email, meantime, I pass on advice from one who has spent extended periods in the humidity of Brisbane: the application of hair styling mousse -even a cheap brand from the supermarket - will work for a while she tells me. Until our relocation to Hobart, stay in control :-)
I look forward to meeting her in Hobart and hope that the Invercargill stage of our plans does not become necessary.
The humanitarian challenge of refugees
Who is a refugee?
The 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (and its 1967 protocol), to which Australia is a signatory, defines a refugee as:
Any person who owing to a well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his/her nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country.
However, the terms "refugees" and "migrants" are frequently used interchangeably. The two words refer to very different groups of people.
Boat people threats?
There's never been any credible evidence of a particular threat to national security.
Five thousand arrivals a year by boat seeking asylum is a drop in the Pacific Ocean of a migration program of hundreds of thousands.
The number of refugees Australia accepts is set each year and has remained between 13,000 and 14,200 since 2003. This year the number will be 13,750, regardless of the number of boats that arrive.
Over 3 million people have arrived by plane in the last 20 and about 50,000 over-stayed visas etc thus making them illegal immigrants. Boat people in numbers terms are a lot less than numbers by plane for illegal immigrant status. The media and political parties play to the fear of “boat people” and illegal immigrants.
The illusion of control
An Australian born citizens who marries a foreigner will find it difficult to bring his/her spouse to Australia. This injustice enforces the illusion that Australia is seriously in control of who and how many people arrive at our shores.
Our politicians are deliberately making political use of the "security threat" from boat people and creating a smoke screen to hide the main source of our our population growth - skilled economic immigration!
The hype of the “boat people” and “border security” is a smoke screen to draw attention away from the real source of the drain on our resources, and an impediment to our obligation to the resettlement of genuine refugees – economic migration!
Challenges of settlement
Statistically, women from refugee backgrounds have the highest unemployment rates in the Australian labour market. Along with our own unemployed, and those who lack opportunities to gain skills, they need to be protected from being replaced by the skilled imported here from overseas.
Becoming economically integrated and maintaining financial security is difficult for newly-arrived immigrants to Australia, who in some cases are excluded from the social welfare system for a significant period after arrival.
Refugees tend to be in higher risk low skill jobs and tend to be employed in industries more affected by economic downturns. Some may have been tortured or experienced other trauma either before or during their journey.
There are also a significant number of entrants whose qualifications are not recognised in Australia and they need time to make adjustments. There is also the issue of learning English.
It is important that we recognise their specific needs and address these.
The challenge for Australia is to assist newly arrived refugees to process the experiences of their past and rebuild their lives in Australia.
In terms of global rankings, Australia comes in at 68th in terms of refugees per 1000 inhabitants and 77th in terms of refugees per gross domestic product per capita. In real terms, this is 1.1 refugee per 1000 inhabitants and 0.6 refugees per GDP per capita. This makes us mean-spirited and misers in regards to taking refugees.
According to the Green Left, nations like Australia need to throw open their doors and pay for the mass relocation of people who now have no choice but to abandon their homes to survive.
Climate change refugees
It is predicted that there will be millions of climate change asylum seekers in the future. Oxford University's Norman Myers believes that the number of climate refugees could be as high as 200 million by 2050. It will be the poorest countries that will be the worst affected. How many of these will also be from the impacts and direct consequences of overpopulation is also unknown.
More refugees will knock on Australia's door unless rich countries help poorer nations cope with climate change, a key UN scientist has warned.
Professor Martin Parry - a prominent UK scientist who chaired the last United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment of the impact of climate change - said wealthy countries such as Australia had “good, selfish reasons” to
spend money helping the developing world adapt to global warming. Not selfish, just realistic.
Professor Parry said there are likely to be significant population shifts away from areas severely affected by global warming, but the process will be "manageable" if it takes place over a number of decades. Really?
In July 2008 the World Bank warned Australia that future climate change refugees present the government with a major policy challenge. in August 2009, Pacific members of the Alliance of Small Island States (SIS) underscored 'serious and growing threat posed by climate change to the economic, social, cultural and environmental well-being and security of the SIS countries'.
In July 2009, an Oxfam report warned that:
By the year 2050, about 75 million people could be forced to leave their homes in the Asia-Pacific region due to climate change. Pacific island governments are already tackling climate change-related relocation and resettlement.
Policies based on Compassion?
Australia's system of immigration detention is failing on many fronts, and the Greens believe a more commonsense and compassionate approach is needed,
Greens Senator Hanson-Young said. However, environmental limitations don't respond to “compassion” but to “commonsense” and being responsible for keeping ecological balance.
Artificially replacing nature's bounties is energy consuming, costly or even undiscovered. There are limits to technology.
Our own carrying capacity could easily be compromised if we take the route of compassionate response and try to accommodate them all. Our environment, our ecological "services", have no obligation to increase their outputs, their bounties, to accommodate more people, no matter how urgent and pitiful their plights are.
Tight guidelines
Thus, we need some very tight and water-proof guidelines to how we treat asylum seekers to avoid the floodgates being opened, under the assumption that we have limitless land and resources here in Australia.
Politicians do not have the capacity to paint broad strokes even on such a large canvas!
The UN should be trying to advocate a global responsible human population challenge to limit family sizes, but the "sacred cow" of population growth still roams at large!
Clearly, our limits to growth are already being stretched, and we have a high reliance on oil and a globalised economy! Prime Minister Julia Gillard must make some tough, long term, policies and put the interests of Australians FIRST while maintaining a limited humanitarian intake!
Whose responsibility?
The problem is not just overpopulation, and it is not just of “non-whites”. It is a global responsibility.
The majority of Australia's growth, 66 per cent, was due to overseas migration, with the remainder, 34 per cent, due to there being more births than deaths. Australia's population growth is double the world's average!
People settling in Australia adapt our lifestyles, our consumption levels, and add to the local/global population pressures.
Carrying capacity
According to Paul Kelly, Editor-at-large of The Australian , the idea that Australia could not "carry" 36 million people is absurd, and the idea of a “carrying capacity” is loopy!
He believes that environmentalists will “construct principles that make this seem untenable”. Thus, environmental science is not tangible, substantive or concrete?
NSW premier Bob Carr has told a forum that Australia's population should be capped at 28 million. Back in January this year, Tony Abbott's “instinct” was “to extend to as many people as possible the freedom and benefits of life in Australia.” Should such serious policies be left to “instinct”?
Professor Tim Flannery believes the long-term human carrying capacity of the Australian continent and Tasmania could be as low as 8 million people. It looks big on the map but its mostly desert and non arable land.
The idea of a “carrying capacity” has been buried by the growth lobby and other deniers of reality.
Whereas most farmers have an accurate understanding of the carrying capacity of their land, we really have very little idea of what level of population this land can support.
Solution?
The solution to the world's displaced is left for politicians driven by economics, philosophical and idealistic arguments. What we can deduce from our current knowledge is that our present population in Australia is already more than enough, indicated by our lack of fresh water, the demise of our food bowl, and lack of arable land.
What is the answer to the escalation of our looming humanitarian crisis of countless refugees?
We have no new colonies to plunder, and the capacity of developed countries to accommodate millions is doubtful. It's like changing the deck chairs of the Titanic. Once a vessel is full, it is reckless to keep adding more passengers.
Do we start to turn away the haunted, the rejected, the persecuted, the homeless? It's a serious ethical challenge, a dilemma!
Mass Immigration or the Alberta Tar Sands Project: Which Disaster Will Have The Greater Impact On GHG Emissions?
Climate Change Obsession A Justification for An Open Borders Agenda
Canadian Green Party leader Elizabeth May has frequently said that immigration has had a "trivial" impact on Canada's environment. The real damage is being done by the Alberta Tar Sands, she claims, and the only immigrants that we should worry about are immigrants like Royal Dutch Shell. This is the tack taken by the Green-Left and Eco-"socialist" groups like the ones that are connected to blogs like "Climate and Capitalism" and the "Green Left Weekly" : Focus almost exclusively on climate change, because it is in, May's words, "the most urgent problem of our time". A global issue that requires a global solution and global cooperation, something that could be hampered by all this 'divisive' talk about tightening the borders to stop a population tsunami from destroying our environment. We mustn't send our unfriendly signals to those nations we need to work with, mustn't we? We can't lock our front door and close the gate or our neighbours might not love us.
So while the Green-Left has declared war on the free and unfettered trade of capital and goods, it supports the corporate agenda of promoting the free and unfettered movement of cheap labour across borders. The workers, after all, have no country, do they? Thus the open-borders, corporate-friendly stance of the Green Globalists is marketed as a gesture of "international solidarity". Solidarity with migrants but not solidarity with the indigenous labour force whose jobs are displaced or wages suppressed by their incoming foreign comrades. The native-born proletariat can surely take a hit in the cause for "Climate Justice", can't they? Climate change is public enemy number one.
Whose carbon footprint is larger---immigration or the tar sands?
For the sake of argument, let's say it is. Let's say that overpopulation, the collapse of biodiversity services, Peak Oil, Peak Soil, and the prospect of running out of the minerals and fuel vital to our industrial civilization is small potatoes compared to the environmental damage wrought by hydrocarbons. OK. If that is the field of battle that the Green-Left wants to play on, then let's join them. The question then is, what impact has hyper-immigration of the kind that Canada and the United States have been subjected to in the past two decades had on GHG emissions? American analysts Leon Kolankiewicz and Steve Camarota already established some time ago that each immigrant to the United States, on average, quadruples his GHG emissions upon arrival. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mOpEnQvD1Y While that figure would approximate the impact that immigrants to Canada have had, another question arises. In the Canadian context, how does the carbon footprint of immigrants compare to the carbon footprint of the Albert tar sands project?
Economist John Meyer has done the math. His calculations rest on the fact that post-1990 immigration has been responsible for an additional 7 million people in Canada, and that per-capita emissions have risen very little in that period. He asserts that if a “zero-net” immigration policy (immigrants accepted equaling emigrants) had been in effect in the past two decades, the country’s population would have stabilized at 27 million. “The 7 million (inclusive of children born to immigrants) is just the difference between the 27 million ceiling that was achievable 20 years ago and the 34 million we have now.”
Nevertheless, to be conservative, Meyer works with a figure of 5 million:
"In 2006 tar sands emissions were 27 million tonnes (mt) and emissions attributed to the 5 million extra people (about 2+ Toronto's) were 120mt. Canada's Kyoto target is 556mt. By 2012, we will probably hit 714mt - over by 28% - the worst performance of any Kyoto signatory save Saudi Arabia. We will be #57 out of 58. The top countries will have cut their emissions by close to 40%. They have stable populations. Canada has the fastest growing population in the western world courtesy of mass immigration. Saudi Arabia's population is growing even faster, naturally."
"Oil sands emissions are growing faster than immigration-based emissions. By 2012, oil sands emissions will be 75mt. Immigration's will be 154mt. Although oil sands emissions grow rapidly, they will never quite catch those from immigration-based population growth because oil production will level off and immigration policy calls for an exponential grow-forever rate of 1%."
"So in 2050, oil sands emissions will be 350mt and immigration's will be 414mt. That is as close as it gets. Tars sands flatten after that but immigration-based emissions keep on climbing to 879mt in 2100. (If post-1990 immigration levels continue), Canada's population will then be 66 million.”
Immigrants did not invent our lifestyle, but they aspire to it
Meyer acknowledges that his analysis does not differentiate between the emissions of rich Canadians and those of immigrants, most of whom are relatively poor, and take a decade to climb up to the average Canadian income level. Meyer speculates that the GHG emissions of immigrants is perhaps 20% lower than the Canadian per capita average. But this is hardly an argument in favour of mass immigration, because even at 80% of the Canadian level, immigrants still generate GHG emissions, and at a rate many times higher than they did in their former countries. While immigrants did not invent our higher ecological footprint (lifestyle), they nevertheless aspire to it, as our parents or great grandparents once did in coming here. Improving one’s lot, after all, is the major and fully understandable motive for those who choose to settle here. The point is not to blame immigrants but to cite immigration as the major driver of population growth, which, contrary to green perceptions, has a demonstrably negative impact on our environment. Arguably, much can be done to mitigate that damage by more efficient technologies, more conservation measures and better planning, but it must be expected that citizens of a country with an average year round temperature of little over 5 degrees centigrade will of necessity make higher energy demands than those who live in warmer climates. Energy efficiency and conservation cannot offset population growth indefinitely.
Mass immigration has despoiled at least as much land as the Tar Sands
Mass immigration rivals the tar sands development in environmental damage in another important respect as well. Aside from thwarting the attainment of Kyoto targets, Meyer also makes the point that the land area despoiled by the tar sands development is matched or exceeded by the land area despoiled to accommodate the immigrant-driven population growth of the last twenty years---and will vastly outstrip it in the decades to come. Furthermore, Meyer notes, “... this urban sprawl has taken place on Canada’s best agricultural land---not in remote boreal forest.” He continues, "We are trained to see shopping malls and subdivisions as signs of progress but seen through an environmental filter, they are even uglier than strip mines and tailing ponds because they are huge resource consumers for their entire lives. Mass immigration creates more energy overhead and reduces the environmental base both in total and in per capita terms when we should be cutting overhead, conserving resources and expanding green energy production.”
To curb carbon emissions, we must break the taboo against talking about immigration
What is most worrisome to Meyer is that the taboo against an open and public discussion of immigration and population policy has rendered our response to a range of challenges ineffective.
“As a result of the immigration no-go zone, Canada's policy formation process has, for decades, been unable to deal effectively with a host of issues from child poverty to productivity to land use to income polarization. And now immigration is short-circuiting emissions planning.”
Meyer adds that the tar sands may be the poster pariah, but if real solutions are to be found to curb our appalling carbon emissions, "the cloak of invisibility will have to be pulled from immigration”. Immigration should be the focus of corrective action duly proportionate to its crucial impact.
Tim Murray,
October 12/2010
Climate Change is 1% of the problem, but 99% of the excuse
Few are prepared to admit when they are wrong, so then why has this expression become a cliché?
Humans as animals have a survival instinct and so by extension are naturally defensive of criticism. They will defend their actions to the hilt, despite the surrounding damage they knowingly cause. Modern 'progressive' Man (humans) even more arrogantly proclaims that the world without human endeavour would be a wasteland.
So blaming human overpopulation for the earth's ills does not come easy to humans, especially to those self-righteously but religiously conditioned to traditional procreation; far more palatable to blame some external force for human damage.
Climate change is just pollution re-badged. Many were protesting back in the 1960s and 70s about the impact of pollution on the planet. Pollution seems to have matured into climate change - whatever. Some even let humans off the hook.
But climate change is 1% of the environmental problem.
How so? Well, when one considers the exponential sexed up epidemic in developing countries (India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh), compounded by the human food demand for more farmland, the human deforestation to make way for food growing, human consumption habits driven by corporate marketing increasing in sexed up developing countries, increased housing demand pushing into nature, increased energy demands to feed the consumption demands of more sexed up humans, biofuels clearing more of nature to fuel exponential human energy demand...
Well ain't the core driver of environmental damage caused by the sexed up habit of humans and the selfish overpopulation they procreate?
Independent scientists have proven that 'climate change' is a contributor to the environmental damage collectively across the planet. But when compared with the cumulative impact of human overpopulation, the impact of climate change pales to 1% like the impact of passive smoking on a chain cigar smoker.
Societal Two Year Olds
This is a dilemma of the immature society that like a typical human two year old selfishly believes that it is the centre of the world and has an unlimited right to have what it wants.
The problem of the two year old is one for the parents, to reshape immature thinking and behaviour so it learns to be part of society rather than falsely thinking it is the centre of society.
Immature societies have a similar problem. Twentieth century societies emerged out of 19th century societies that were spoilt by their governments. Exploitative, selfish habits are cross generational. Emerging third world societies are now aspiring to the execesses of their 'first world' older siblings.
What to do with Societal Two Year Olds in the 21st Century?
Livestock Industry's Real Cost to Environment
In 2007 when the U.N. Food & Agriculture Organisation released its 400+ page report titled 'Livestock's Long Shadow' there was one little problem. It estimated the livestock industry's contribution of greenhouse gases at 18% while failing to consider at least 10 other ways in which this environmentally destructive industry contributes GHG. World Watch Institute reports a study showing that this industry actually contributes a whopping 51% GHG, meaning that shutting down fossil fuel industry is not going to be enough, given that livestock numbers are predicted to double in the next few decades.
Biggest Source of Emissions is Not Transport
If all the organisations claiming climate change is anthropogenic are serious why aren't they recommending that people adopt a plant-based diet?
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (UNFAO) report titled Livestock's Long Shadow,(1) 18% of greenhouse gases (GHG) come from the livestock industry, which is more than the entire transport sector (14%).
GHG From Livestock More than Reported
However this estimate was proved to be grossly underestimated by two environmental specialists at the World Bank, Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang who estimated it is closer to a whopping 51%. Their report was published in a magazine of World Watch Institute (2). Because the UNFAO report excludes:-
a) GHGs attributable to refrigerants used for livestock products, such as chlorofluorocarbons, hydrofluorocarbons, and perfluorocarbons. Most of these gases have a global warming potential that is hundreds or thousands of times stronger than that of CO2. Additionally, considerably more refrigerants are needed for livestock products than for meat/dairy/egg alternatives as well as the fact that byproducts are more numerous than those attributable to meat/dairy/egg alternatives.
b) first of all the UNFAO neglected to count not only the Co2 in livestock exhalation but also the fact that the CO2 exhaled by livestock may be larger than the same amount of CO2 emitted from any other industry because other industries emit CO2 with particulates (such as sulfates) believed to have a cooling effect that offsets CO2's warming effect, while breath has no such particulates.
c) emissions attributable to carbon reduction foregone by using land to graze livestock and grow feed. A foregone reduction of any magnitude has exactly the same effect as an increase in emissions of the same magnitude. Carbon reduction available from land used for livestock and feed is the only feasible way to absorb a significant amount of today's atmospheric carbon in the short term.
d) the fact that FAO's own statistical division says that there were 56 billion livestock in 2007, not 21.7 billion which changes the figures substantially.
e) GHGs attributable to cooking livestock products. Meat typically requires cooking at higher temperatures and for longer periods than meat alternatives. Meat is often cooked using stoves, barbeques, and street vendors' facilities, which in developing countries are often fueled by charcoal or kerosene. These methods are widespread, highly inefficient and carbon intensive. They entail periods of heating and cooling for each cooking event, so are even more carbon-intensive per unit of thermal energy used than are coal-fired power plants.
f) GHGs emitted from livestock waste disposed in landfills or incinerators, either of which would emit significant amounts of GHGs.
g) the fact that a large proportion of livestock products becomes waste in the form of bone, fat, and past-the-due-date spoiled products. This waste is converted into rendered products, in processes that typically use significant amounts of energy.
h) GHGs resulting from the disposal of some livestock waste in waterways, where it kills algae that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
i) GHGs attributable to the production, distribution, and disposal of byproducts, such as products made of leather, feathers, skin and pelage, and their packaging. Additionally there are more GHGs used in the production of livestock byproducts than alternative products not made from livestock.
j) considering that the 2006 FAO report projects that the number of livestock will double within a few decades then GHGs from all other aspects of the livestock sector might double. So even if new feed for livestock was developed, manure was converted to biogas and was somehow affordable to the developing world and implemented, this would only mitigate a few percent of GHGs worldwide and with the doubling of livestock numbers the situation would be worse than today.
CLEARLY MAJOR PROGRESS IN REDUCING FOSSIL FUEL USE WOULD NOT ELIMINATE THE NEED TO REDUCE MEAT AND DAIRY CONSUMPTION.
Authors: Robert Goodland retired as lead environmental adviser at the World Bank Group after serving for 23 years. In 2008 he was awarded the first Coolidge Memorial Medal by the IUCN for outstanding contributions to environmental conservation. Jeff Anhang is a research officer and environmental specialist at the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation, which provides private-sector financing and advice in developing countries.
Livestock Industry's Other Dark Side
It's time we shut down the livestock industry. Even if people don't believe in anthropogenic global warming there are other negative effects of the livestock industry, such as(4):-
* Uses 50% water used for all purposes
* Causes massive biodiversity loss
* Causes deforestation
* Water pollution from fertilisers and manure
* Hoofed animals cause soil erosion
* Contributes to world hunger
If each of us cuts back then eliminates entirely dairy and meat we WILL shut down the industry due to lack of demand.
How do I Adopt a Plant-Based Diet?
Online free recipes for a plant-based diet can be found at http://veganeasy.org/Recipes
Eating a plant-based diet is delicious, compassionate and gives human optimum health as humans are 100% herbivore.(3) Nothing to lose-the planet is worth saving!
PS Eating kangaroo is not the answer either.(5)
ELIMINATING ANIMAL PRODUCTS FROM YOUR DIET IS THE MOST POWERFUL WAY YOU CAN HELP THE PLANET IN OUR LIFETIME.
References
1. http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM
2. http://www.worldwatch.org/files/pdf/Livestock%20and%20Climate%20Change.pdf
3. http://www.waoy.org/26.html
4. http://whyveg.com/save_the_planet/
5. http://www.nokangaroomeat.org + http://www.stopkangarookilling.org
Bushfire Commission - playing politics with fire?
Many Victorians who lost friends and family, and know people who lost houses in the 2009 furnace in Victoria are appalled at some of the recommendations issuing from the Royal Commision Final Report. They are trying to find solutions that match the enormity of the increase in bushfire threats of the future. Inform yourself with this analysis of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission Report and Recommendations!
Analysts in the field are calling for new ideas and asking Victorians to be wary of obsessing about yesterday’s solutions, which haven’t worked or are still scientifically unproven).
Safety lies in scientific, not simplistic solutions
Thoughtful people say that before land management is altered we need evidence and scientific knowledge before repeating unproven solutions. Fire management must be different for each landscape, taking into account that there are 300 different vegetation types across Vic.
Burning off a ritual to ward-off evil but not a real solution
Calls for burning-off as a solution lack science and evidence. They are like warding off evil by burning incense, but they do a hell of a lot more damage, whilst doing little if any good. Burning gives a false sense of security by cultivating a mistaken belief that it will make people safer. Fire experts appointed by panel all agreed that prescribed burns wouldn’t reduce fire severity on extreme fire danger days.
New extreme weather conditions need useful, not political or superstitious responses
CSIRO and BOM study of 2007 says Victoria faces up to 65% more days of extreme fire risk in the next decade. Extreme weather conditions are unfortunately Victoria's new future. Politicians need to accept this reality and allow the delivery of new solutions to match, instead of simply legitimating inadequate traditional responses from their politically positioned beneficiaries.
Declaring war on forests and the environment and trying to alter nature is ineffective and could add to problem.
Fact: Arson and electricity problems, not trees, cause loss of lives
Contrary to the folklore of forests as a danger in themselves circulated by the logging, real-estate and agribusiness industries, it turns out that arson and power line failures are far and away the greatest cause of total areas burnt and loss of lives.
We need to control the sources of the fires - the arsonists and the power-line incidents - not the forests which keep our country cool and watered and stop carbon emissions.
Australians need to beware of politically and commercially motivated scapegoating of groups, such as 'environmentalists' and 'greens' because these tactics are used to avoid and postpone real solutions, whilst protecting bad habits in the commercial world.
We cannot afford to have commercial beneficiaries of forest-destruction, such as land-developers, loggers and agribusiness take our future hostage. We have to take democratic and political control to ensure that rational solutions are used to tackle a new future of extreme weather conditions.
Extreme weather conditions in January/Feb 2009
Fires tragically claimed 173 lives, damaged or destroyed more than 2000 properties and 61 businesses, burned through entire towns and affected 430,000 hectares of land throughout Victoria. Disasters on this scale do not occur in isolation, but are the result of preceding events and conditions.
The 7th & 8th of February 2009 were the hottest days on Victorian records. These terrible conditions which many of us recall were exacerbated by high winds and very low humidity. Most meteorologists think that these conditions were less a drought than a permanent trend of drying. Many believe that they were signs that climate change is here.
The general conclusion by responsible scientists and other environmentalists is that we all need to work together to find best way to deal with this frightening but unavoidable reality.
Shocking facts about the Royal Commission into Victoria's 2009 Bushfires
Royal Commission recommendations into the Victorian Bushfires seem politically driven not scientific
The Royal Commission’s team of experts admitted that on days of such extreme conditions, control burns were useless. So why did the Commission recommend threefold increase in so-called controlled burns?
Was this Royal Commission politically driven even in these shocking circumstances that demanded rigorous honour, compassion and honesty?
Observers say that the Royal Commission ignored the fact that the major danger around towns and settlements was not old growth forests, but - to the contrary - plantations and the flammable re-growth from logging!
The fires that came out of these plantations killed 11 people.
Yet the fire-risk they caused and continue increasingly to cause was not examined by the Commission!
Shocked observers feel that this strange omission can only be explained by the wish by the authorities to protect commercial interests vested in plantation assets.
Bizarre and irrelevant focus on native forests on public land ignored major causes and areas of bushfires
The one dimensional nature of the Royal Commission's focus on just native forests on public land for prescribed burning will do nothing to lessen the fire risks that the other land tenure types pose.
Priority attention needs to focus on deadly powerlines
SEVENTY PER CENT OF BLACK SATURDAY'S DEATHS WERE DUE TO POWERLINES!
Much can be done to reduce the risk of power line sparks in hot windy weather. Attention to this would provide the most effective protection against fires in the future!
Media, including public media, has a responsibility for ongoing fatalities by bushfire
The commercial and public media (the ABC) should provide objective information. At the moment all mainstream media and the government favour sources from the pro-logging and commercial forestry lobby. This lobby unconscionably pushes an over-simplified message about fuel reduction burns that is UTTERLY IRRELEVANT to saving lives, or preventing firestorms on days like Black Saturday.
Critique of Recommendations from the Commission
Although there have been some good recommendations, some are very bad. Others seem to be largely padding.
Bushfire Safety Policy.
Recs 1-4 and 6-7: Mostly sensible and relatively obvious, on education, safety policy revision, evacuation and shelters, looking after the vulnerable and elderly, standards for community refuges.
Rec 5 is a bit ambiguous on the subject of evacuations.
Emergency and incident management.
Recs 8-19: These discuss internal processes to be improved, such as the Department of Sustainability and Environment and or the Country Fire Authority (DSE/CFA) needing better coordination.
Fireground response
Rec 20-26: Fast response by aircraft – put on standby, look at engaging Defence Department to help, more inter-agency communication, radio black-spot problem looked at etc.
Rec 24 & 25: Dangerous incidents including back-burns (obviously a problem in the past) be fully investigated, and no back-burns lit until IC gives approval (implies past mistakes with cowboys lighting up and creating bigger fire front. Hearsay has it that 50% of fire area in 2003 and ‘06 caused by back burns).
Electricity caused fires.
Recs 27-34: Underground or bundled power lines – priority in high danger zone – to be replaced within 10 years. Power utilities to improve relevant performance with inspections every 3 years. Advice to cut down even more trees along power lines that are outside of clearance zone ‘just in case’. Councils also advised to cut down ‘hazard trees’ around lines, as well as to install spreaders and vibration dampers as soon as possible on power lines.
Deliberately lit fires.
Recs 35-36: These recommendations make noises that sound like huffing and puffing about better arson prevention and detection and police training but don't give details.
The Report gives more practical suggestions, such as police patrols.
Planning and Building.
Recs 37-55: Planning, mapping, bushfire risk, council controls, CFA input ... etc. Recommendation 39 talks about “substantially reducing development in areas of highest risk – giving due consideration to biodiversity conservation...”
It may seem picky, but it is hard to see how these two things are logically or logistically connected.
Rec 39-40: Discusses minimal lot size to allow for ‘defendable space’. Does this mean permanent moonscaping? (A good way to heat up the earth.)
Rec 41: Amend planning regulations to let more tree clearing permits through where fire threat is a priority. Looks for a maximum level of permissable clearing.
Rec 42: Mention of “collective offset solution” (?) when native veg cleared.
Rec 43 – This is one for the cynics!
DSE to “conduct biodiversity mapping to identify ...threatened species throughout Vic...”
State and local government have demonstrated lack of will or allocated resources to do this even in small areas where it’s critically important. The Department of Sustainability and the Environment have been shown by Auditor General reports in 2009 and the Minister for the Environment's responses to be unwilling or unable to carry out such an immense survey and mapping exercise.Thus this recommendation seems naively founded on ignorant overestimations of DSE's competence, power and resources. Or worse, it simply continues to use DSE as a convenient front to cover inaction with a pretense of good intentions.
Man or Mouse - no contest
Will Brumby reject or set up such a Mickey Mouse type biodiversity mapping exercise?.
Rec 44: Fire resistant plants list to be produced by the CFA. Don't the bushfires already produce fire-resistant vegetation and isn't this part of the problem of our drying environment? Old-growth forests (by definition) do resist fire, but this is not what is meant by the commission, unfortunately.
Rec 46: Buy-back land and settle people elsewhere in high risk zone – non compulsory.
No mention of funding fire-bunkers.
Rec 47- 55: Building codes, overlays, etc
Land and fuel management - a pyromaniac's guide
Recs 56 – 62: Currently about 1.5% of land is burned annually. This is a huge amount. The Commission has recommended that the area to be crudely devastated in this way by human agency may be increased up to 5%, or 3 x increase!
Why was more burning advocated despite the Royal Commission’s expert panel earlier admitting there was little evidence that control burns achieved anything on the extreme days Victorians will face in the future?
Cynics will say that it's no surprise that the Royal Commission is politically driven, but Victorians should march on Parliament in outrage.
Rec 57: Annual report on targets and “impacts on biodiversity”! We cannot say what the impact of a burn was for years afterwards. As the report says, there is a need baseline data, seasonal monitoring, and surveys on many diff veg types, aspects, areas etc.
At least they admit they don’t have the necessary information, but this doesn't stop them making dangerous recommendations about burning off.
The current monitoring looks only at plants. It does not look at micro-fauna, fungi, insects, frogs, reptiles, birds and the ground mammals that are most heavily impacted when huge areas of forest are ‘control burnt’.
Rec 58: DSE to improve its long-term data collection to monitor the effects of its burns and of bushfires. As mentioned above, DSE' current data collection is almost non-existent and next to useless.
DSE does not monitor the impact of fire on loss of ground cover and on the soil life that depends on healthy leaf litter. It doesn't look at how the vegetation that grows back after a fire is thicker, more flammable i.e. "fire-adapted."
Risk analysis model lacking holistic context could promote commerically motivated abuse
Rec 59: Contains a risk analysis model which gives humans priority over the [read 'natural'] environment where there’s a dispute.
The dangers of this model are obvious. Without a healthy natural environment we will all perish and the risk of commercially vested interests using this model to devastate natural forests and make them loggable or clear them for housing and agriculture is a well-known one which the commission, in good faith, should have avoided.
Recommendation 60 promotes annual destruction of roadside vegetation
Rec 60: Revised Planning regulations allow major vegetation clearing along roads under the guise of fire safety. This is often where the last remnant strips of original vegetation survive in farmland. Such actions will raise the water table and promote more drying.
Rec 61: Discusses getting the Federal government to solve conflict over destruction of valuable roadside vegetation and to modify the already tattered Federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) to allow protected vegetation to be destroyed annually!
Rec 62: That VicRoads, which is an organisation that has no core ecological or environmental expertise, do risk assessments along roadsides.
Organisational structure.
Recs 63 – 64: Monitoring and implementation.
Rec 66: Auditor General or other ‘independent’ body report back on the progress of these recommendations by July 2012.
Age letters [email protected]
Herald Sun [email protected]
Talkback on Gippsland ABC 1300 295 222 or text in 197 22 842
Melb talkback on ABC 1300 222 774
Drive show – regional Vic 1300 303 468
Or make your comments here on this article and send the article around to politicians and friends to publicise the absurdities, cruelties and dangers in these recommendations.
The Zero Carbon Australia 2020 Stationary Energy Plan for 100% renewable energy by 2020
The Zero Carbon Australia 2020 Stationary Energy Plan by Beyond Zero Emissions outlines a technically feasible and economically attractive way for Australia to transition to 100% renewable energy within ten years. The Zero Carbon Australia report provides a detailed blueprint for transitioning Australia’s stationary energy sector to 100% renewable energy sources by 2020.
The ZCA2020 Plan shows that with a combination of energy efficiency, fuel-switching from gas and oil to electrified energy services, then using a combination of commercially available renewable energy technologies, Australia's energy needs can be met with 100% renewables.
The required investment is the equivalent of a stimulus to the economy of 3% of GDP or $370 billion.
The project involved a team of engineers, scientists, researchers and others — including engineers from the existing fossil fuel energy sector —contributing thousands of hours of pro bono work to put together a detailed roadmap of the steps necessary to replace our coal and gas infrastructure with renewable energy.
The plan details a rollout of large solar thermal plants at 12 proposed sites across the country to supply 60 per cent of Australia's power, with the other 40 per cent being supplied by wind.
According to the Plan, to avoid the threat of a “tipping point”, such as the decline in Arctic ice, triggered by excessive temperatures we need to reduce atmospheric CO2 from the present level of 390 ppm to well below 350 ppm‚ significantly closer to pre-industrial concentrations of 285 ppm .
The aim of the Project as a whole is to outline how each sector of the Australian economy can achieve zero or negative greenhouse emissions: in Stationary Energy, Transport, Buildings, Industrial Processes, and Land Use. This Stationary Energy Report is the first of the installments.
To make an immediate transition, we can use only the solutions that are available to us today. Should new zero-emissions technologies become viable, cost-competitive and available in the lifetime of the Plan, their inclusion may reduce costs and increase benefits even further.
To meet the 40% extra electricity demand by 2020, a combination of wind and solar thermal with storage are proposed as the primary electricity generation technologies. The ZCA2020 Plan calls for energy efficiency measures to progressively reduce electricity used for current services.
Examples of how this can be done include efficient appliances, improved building design, retrofitting insulation, double and triple-glazing, as well as improved industrial efficiency .
The chosen renewable energy technologies are a mix of wind turbines, concentrating solar thermal with storage, small-scale solar, and backup capacity from biomass and existing hydroelectricity:
Plants will be located at sites around Australia that are selected for their wind availability, solar incidence, economy of scale, transmission costs, technical efficency, and geographical diversity.
The plan has received support by a variety of academics and scientists. Associate Professor Keith Lovegrove, Leader Solar Thermal Group at the Australian National University said ”The ZCA report analyses one particular scenario of renewable energy technology choice based on available solutions, in considerable depth. It successfully shows in detail that 100% renewable energy is both technically possible and economically affordable”.
The plan would create up to 80,000 jobs from installation of renewable energy generation at the peak of construction, and over 45,000 jobs in operations and maintenance that will continue for the life of the plant. Such a scheme would also generate up to 30,000 jobs in manufacturing wind turbines and heliostats.
Ironically, Trade Minister Simon Crean recently signed an export deal between Melbourne-based Environmental “Clean” Technologies and Vietnamese company TinCom. From 2014, the Victorian company expects to export 2 million tonnes of dried brown coal a year to burn in Vietnamese power stations, eventually rising to 20 million tonnes a year. Greens climate change spokeswoman Christine Milne said the federal government could not be serious about reducing emissions if was willing to open up a massive polluting export industry. It's no use talking about a carbon price in Australia if at the same time you are going to rev-up coal exports to other parts of the world to make climate change worse.
Why does it take volunteers from a non-government organisation to come up with such a sustainable solution to our energy needs that avoids our addiction to fossil fuels?
FREE PUBLIC LECTURE - The Future of Renewable Energy in Australia
When,
Wednesday 14th July,
6pm – 8pm
Where,
Basement Theatre,
The Spot,
198 Berkeley Street
University of Melbourne
Albert Bartlett: Population Problems Downunder
By Albert Bartlett
Let me thank Bill Ryerson of the Population Media Center for circulating a set of several reports telling of the concern that a growing number of thoughtful people in Australia are having about Australia’s continuing explosive population growth and dwindling water and other natural resources.
In the first report, Penny Wong was listed as the Climate Change Minister in the government of Kevin Rudd. An interviewer asked the Minister, “Australia’s population is projected to increase by 65%... by 2050. During the same period, the government is committed to cutting our carbon emissions by 60%. Aren’t these goals or facts mutually exclusive?”
Minister Wong responded emphatically “…Absolutely not.”
Minister Wong’s response notes that “Whereas the last few hundred years …growth in our carbon pollution has essentially tracked our population and economic growth…The key issue here is breaking that link, not trying to reduce population.”
Let’s look at some numbers.
The average growth rate needed to increase Australia’s population 65% by the year 2050 is only 1.252 percent per year.
The average annual reduction of emissions needed to reduce emissions 60% by 2050 is 2.291 percent per year.
Add these two rates (1.252 + 2.291) and you find that to accommodate the projected population growth AND to reduce overall annual emissions by 60% would require an annual rate of decrease of per capita emissions of polluting greenhouse gases of 3.543 percent per year over the next forty years. The per capita annual emissions would have to be cut in half every 19.6 years!
What is the basis for Minister Wong’s belief that this enormous reduction can be achieved, year after year for 40 years? What progress toward this goal has Australia made during Ms. Wong’s leadership in her present position of Climate Change Minister?
Does Minister Wong really believe that this can be done? Or is she basing her policy recommendations on Walt Disney’s First Law:
“Wishing will make it so.”
Let’s look a little farther. The present rate of growth of Australia’s population is quoted as being 1.8 percent per year which is significantly higher than the 1.252 percent per year assumed above. If this current higher rate continues, Australia’s population will double by 2050 and would reach a density of one person per square meter over the whole continent in just over 700 years!
Surely the Minister will admit that population growth in Australia will stop itself through starvation, pollution, warfare and lack of resources long before the population density reaches one person per square meter.
The critical question for the Minister then is, “Should Australia encourage continued population growth or should the people of Australia act to stop the growth before Nature stops it?”
If the Minister feels that Australians should act to stop population growth before Nature stops the growth, then why not stop it now while there are still some resources and some open spaces?
It would be very helpful for the people of Australia if Climate Change Minister Wong would give these facts and options some serious consideration and then report the results of her considerations promptly to the people of Australia.
Albert A. Bartlett; Professor Emeritus of Physics
University of Colorado at Boulder, CO; 80309-0390
Phone, Department Office; (303) 492-6952
Home; 2935 19th Street, Boulder, CO; 80304-2719
Phone; (303) 443-0595; FAX; (303) 449-9440
Circulated by Bill Ryerson, President of the Population Media Center and Population Institute
Delfin development threatens critically endangered bushland
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Article by Geoff Brown
Delfin Lend Lease, the developer of the ADI Site, is now promoting its new suburb. It has the appalling name of Jordan Springs (another generic Delfin project with Springs in the name).
Jordan Springs is the 230 ha area of bushland - the now critically endangered Cumberland Plain Woodland - found on the western (Penrith) side of the ADI Site. Check out the spin from Delfin http://jordansprings.com.au/
There should now be a big question mark over this development
There should now be a big question mark over this development with both the NSW and Australian Government's upgrading Cumberland Plain Woodland from Endangered to Critically Endangered. You would assume any development that proposed to clear over 200 ha (there is still another suburb to go at ADI and it is 130 ha) of critically endangered bushland would be struggling to get approval.
Penrith Council recently approved the first 6 ha subdivision prior to the critically endangered listing.
Penrith Council, Delfin, Peter Garrett
They need to be hammered about this issue and reminded they have an obligation to reject developments that threaten critically endangered vegetation. They can easily justify refusal under the Threatened Species Act and the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act. Delfin have also got some kind of get out of jail free card from Peter Garrett whereby they don't have to refer their plans to him for assessment under the EPBC Act. This is appalling as any other proposal in Australia that threatens matters of National significance needs the approval of the Federal Environment Minister.
We are meeting with Garrett's adviser next week and will be raising plenty of issues with him about protecting CPW and the Western Sydney Priority Lands. Also the Cumberland Plain Recovery Plan which is a joint State and Federal Govt Plan.
Wong sticks to guns on emissions target
One of the most important principles internationally when referring to greenhouse gas reduction schemes it that the polluter pays. This means that national targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions should be based on the historical contribution of each nation to global emissions.
A most important factor is the levels of emissions per capita. Australia has the highest greenhouse gas emissions per person at 26.7 tonnes per annum and this it twice the average level for all other industrialised countries and 25% higher that per person in the USA (21.2tonnes).
It is obvious that Australia's population growth policies have a enormous impact on our greenhouse gas emissions. Our immigration rate is the major contributing factor of our population growth and thus the biggest contributor to increasing our greenhouse gas emissions, and not "natural" growth. Immigrants coming here therefore adopt our consumption habits and lifestyles, thereby increasing their emissions, and our overall output.
If Australia decides to increase our population rapidly, to 50 million by 2060 or more, then energy-related emission would grow to around 600 parts per million CO2, or about double 1990 levels! (Population Policy and Environmental Degradation Sources and Trends in Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Clive Hamilton and Hal Turton, Monash University)
People are not pollution -- Why climate activists should not support limits on immigration.
People are not "pollution" and neither is CO2, but both can cause problems from excess quantities!
Recently, as concern about greenhouse gas emissions and global warming increasing, the anti-immigrant argument has taken on a new form. Now the argument is: immigrants should be kept out because our way of life is a threat to the world’s environment.
According to the article: To calculate “per capita emissions”, we simply divide a country’s total greenhouse gas emissions by its total population. This provides a useful baseline for comparing countries of different sizes – but it tells us nothing at all about the emissions that can actually be attributed to individuals. In fact, most emissions are caused by industrial and other processes over which individuals have no control. In Canada, for example, no change in the number of immigrants will have any effect on the oil extraction industry at the Alberta Tar Sands, described by George Monbiot as “the world’s biggest single industrial source of carbon emissions”.
However, Australians have made effort to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, but unless our numbers are limited the gross output will continue to rise. Industry and technology cause anthropogenic emissions, and a higher population increase the demand for larger markets and increased production. More population naturally equates to a demand for more jobs, and thus more industries and more plundering of finite natural resources! Excessive exports are due to human greed and worship of growth.
The Government accepted the findings of Professor Garnaut that a fair and effective global agreement centred on stabilising long-term atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases was at or below 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent is in Australia’s national interests. However, the Australian National Greenhouse Accounts released in June 2009 showed emissions rose by an estimated 553 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, or 1.1 per cent, in 2008. According to Climate Group, (Jan 2008) compared with 2000 levels, emissions from energy-use were significantly higher across all states, collectively up 19 per cent.
The Greenhouse Indicator Annual Report, released by the Climate Group, measures emissions created by electricity and petrol use across the eastern states. The report shows overall emissions were 5.3 million tonnes lower in 2009 than in the previous year. The base line should be 2000 (Copenhagen) or 1990 levels (Kyoto) , not 2008! So we are reducing our increase?
Australia has declared it will not go beyond a 5 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 without guaranteed action by major emitters including the US, China and India. Little hope anyway of going beyond 5 %! By 2020 the Federal Government wants to cut emissions by 5 to 25 per cent. At our present rate of population growth, our numbers are likely to be well over 25 million by then!
THE United States (Jan 29th) officially stated a goal to cut carbon emissions by 17 per cent by 2020 off 2005 levels, in a submission to the United Nations as part of last month's Copenhagen meeting.
Our 5% is looking a little short now that the US have challenged it!
Kevin Rudd's drive for a "big Australia" and his efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emission are totally at odds, and are completely contradictory and hypocritical to addressing climate change, what he previously called the "greatest moral challenge of our time"!
Global warming melts Peruvian peaks
About 2,000 tourists are stranded in Peru after mudslides hit the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu. A Canberra man whose son is trapped by the Peruvian mudslides says the Australian consulate in Lima is proving difficult to contact. A West Australian tourist trapped in Peru says her group has been abandoned by their tour guide as stocks of fresh food and water in town dwindle. They say they were getting little or no assistance from the Australian Government.
Heavy rain triggered the slides and swept away roads, leaving the tourists stuck in Aguas Calientes, a small town near the Inca ruins.
Apart from hiking the Inca Trail, a stay in Aguas Calientes, is one of the best ways to get to Machu Picchu before all of the tourists arrive by train from Cusco.
Climate change impacts:
Peru has the most tropical glaciers in Latin America and has already lost 20 percent of the 2,600 kms of glaciers running through its central and southern Andes in the past 30 years, according to CONAM. (Peru's National Environment Council). If climatic conditions remain as they are, all the glaciers (in Peru) below 18,000 feet will disappear by around 2015, CONAM's President told Reuters in an interview.
Climatic warming during the last 100-150 years has resulted in a significant glacier ice loss from mountainous areas of the world. Changes in sediment and water supply induced by climatic warming and glacier retreat have altered channel and floodplain patterns of rivers draining high mountain ranges.
Temperature in the Andes has increased by approximately 0.1 °C per decade, with only two of the last 20 years being below the 1961–90 average. By the end of the 21st century, the tropical Andes may experience a massive warming on the order of 4.5–5 °C.
According to a study by Britain's East Anglia University, Peru is the country most at risk to global warming, after Honduras and Bangladesh, because of the proximity of its towns to glaciers and a lack of disaster prevention measures. The glaciers and lakes specifically are of principal interests to tourists. However, glacial retreat and systems for lake stabilization may be negatively influencing tourism.
Climate change could cost Andean countries US$30 billion per year by 2025, according to a study commissioned by the Andean Community of Nations and carried out by the Peruvian University of the Pacific. The figure represents 4.5 per cent of the countries' combined gross domestic product.
The study also predicts that 70 per cent of Andean people will have severe difficulties in accessing clean water sources by 2025. By 2020, about 40 million people will be at risk of losing their water supplies as well as some crops, due to the melting of the glaciers and greater desertification of the Andean mountains.
Because of this geographical mismatch between national water resources and the human population, Peru is estimated to be a “water-scarce” country by 2025 if population growth trends remain high. Peru is particularly vulnerable to climate change because some 70 percent its energy comes from hydroelectric plants, supplied mainly by meltwater from Andean glaciers.
A natural hazard in itself does not necessarily cause a disaster; a disaster results when a natural hazard impacts on a vulnerable, exposed or ill-prepared community. Destruction of mountain forests or inappropriate farming practices can accelerate erosion and expose land to the risk of landslides, floods and avalanches. Moreover, dams, roads or mining enterprises can be hazardous if not properly constructed and managed.
(Yungay showing the remains of the church spire and palm trees)
Yungay area tragedy, 1970:
Yungay, Peru
In a major catastrophe in 1970, some 25,000 people were killed when a mudslide caused by melting ice submerged the town of Yungay in the central Andes. The reported death toll from what came to be known as Peru’s Great Earthquake totalled more than 74,000 people. On May 31, 1970, an undersea earthquake off the coast of Casma and Chimbote, north of Lima, triggered one of the most cataclysmic avalanches in recorded history – wiping out the entire highland town of Yungay and most of its 25,000 inhabitants. The 8.0 quake destabilized the glacier on the north face of Mount Huascarán, causing 10 million cubic meters of rock, ice and snow to break away and tear down its slope at more than 120 miles per hour.
It is the image of lone surviving palm trees in the Yungay cemetery that is burned into Peru’s memory. In Yungay, only some 350 people survived, including the few who were able to climb to the town’s elevated step-like cemetery. Among the survivors were 300 children, who had been taken to the circus at the local stadium, set on higher ground and on the outskirts of the town. To this day, a crushed intercity bus, four of the original palm trees that once crowned the city’s main plaza and remnants of the cathedral still stand. In 2000 the government declared May 31 “Natural Disaster Education and Reflection Day.”
(Mountain climbing in the Cordillera Blanca)
Cordillera Blanca's deadly avalanches
Cordillera Blanca
As mountains are often located in tectonically active zones, susceptibility to earthquakes is higher than in other areas. In the Andes, for example, as much as 88% of the mountainous area is susceptible to destructive earthquakes.
Cordillera Blanca glacier retreat since the late-19th century has triggered some of the world's most deadly avalanches and glacial lake outburst floods. Although a Peruvian glaciology and lakes security office has “controlled” 35 Cordillera Blanca glacial lakes, 30 glacier disasters have killed nearly 30,000 people in this region since 1941.
The accumulated precipitation values for November surpassed by 127% the average historic values and, in December, this value has reached 36%.
There are innumerable small to medium-size slope failures that cumulatively impose costs to society as great or greater than the large infrequent catastrophic landslides that draw so much attention. Damage to ecosystems has not generally been documented, but landslides may destroy habitats, for example by blocking streams and denuding slopes.
Lake Paron - looming danger:
Laguna Paron, Caraz, Peru
Currently, the Peruvian federal government has funded projects for the stabilization of 35 lakes that were considered to be the greatest threats to the populations inhabiting the valley below. The construction of tunnels prevents the increase in lake size above the tunnel outlet and dams are used to reinforce the existing, and potentially unstable, moraine walls
Lake Parón is a glacial lake in the Peruvian Andes, supporting a community of 15,000 people. The people in the area live with the looming danger that, as the glacier above the lake continues to melt, the lake will overflow its banks, flooding the area and possibly killing many in the community.
Duke Energy (a U.S. company) acquired the rights to control Lake Parón that provides water for hydroelectricity generation. The community decided to reclaim control of the lake, and in 2008 it did just that. The community has control of the area but they can't physically get inside the tunnel and change the water flow. Lake Paron is fed with water derived from several large glaciers, and is surrounded by large peaks. This lake - above Caraz, in the Northern part of the Cordillera - was once much visited, as it is 90 minutes of travel by car from Huaraz - a major town that serves as the jumping off point for those wishing to explore the region. However, the lake has now been dammed and tapped for hydroelectricity in order to support mining activities, and its has developed the characteristic and unsightly "high water mark" so characteristic of such reservoirs.
While Duke Energy has reaped solid economic rewards for its investment in Huaylas province, the Ancash Department maintains very high poverty levels despite its vast hydro and mineral resources.
The battle over the waters of Lake Parón, in the Northern Andes of Peru, came to a head during the late afternoon hours of July 29, 2008, when over 100 farmers from Huaylas province of the Department of Ancash took over the hydraulic operations of the Cañón del Pato Hydroelectic Center. The farmers were protesting the nearly 50% drop in Lake Parón's water levels following the center's release of the lake's water in order to enhance its power production capabilities.
The licensing of Lake Parón's waters for energy development in 1994 coincided with the enactment of structural reforms under the administration of then President Alberto Fujimori, who sought to attract foreign investment through privatization and pro-business economic policies.
The increase in the peasant population in the Andes area and the fact that, with global warming, it will become possible to cultivate, therefore irrigate, at ever higher altitudes, means that the resources required by traditional irrigation are set to grow and will increasingly be in competition with hydroelectric needs. Thus, even in the highest regions, there will be greater and more intense conflict between different users.
De-vegetation:
A mid-sized country with a large and highly biodiverse forest estate, Peru ranks within the top 10 countries worldwide in deforestation rates, emitting an estimated 127 million tons of CO2 equivalent per year.
In 1990, the total forest area in Latin America was 1,011 Mha, and it was reduced by 46.7 Mha in ten years (UNEP 2003a). The expansion of the agricultural frontier and livestock, selective logging, financing of big scale projects like construction of dams for energy generation, illegal crops, construction of roads and increased links to commercial markets have been the main causes of deforestation
Re-vegetation on such sites is a slow process, they may remain unprotected against erosion for decades or even centuries. As a result, slope failures, rockfall and debris flow will pose increasing threats to settlement and infrastructure.
Sanitation and poverty:
Peru’s per capita GDP has historically remained well below the regional and world averages. It is estimated that 18.1% of the population lives on less than one dollar a day, and 37.7% of the population lives on less than two dollars per day. Peru continues to suffer from incomplete coverage of water and sanitation infrastructure. Inadequate sanitation and water supplies was evidenced by the 1993 cholera outbreak that spread rapidly across Peru. If the national government does not promote the comprehensive management of water resources, then it is unlikely that regional departments will be able to single-handedly implement management regimes, especially in the context of limited funding.
Caring for Mother Earth:
The scientists of Western society have dismissed indigenous people as sentimental and superstitious and accused them of being an obstacle to development. Paradoxically, those that previously turned deaf ears to our warnings, now are dismayed because their own model of "development” endangers our Mother Earth.
Pervian helicopters are airlifting tourists from the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu where hundreds remained stranded by heavy rains and mudslides that claimed seven lives.
A Hamster takes growth economics apart
Click image for the same hamster film that is in the teaser for this article.
Or click to go to thewebsite of the impossible hamster.
You can download a file about how long we have to go before, according to the New Economics group, climate change build up reaches tipping point.
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