HOW time flies. Here I am stating that I will only comment from time to time to point out the foolery of the greedy and stupid in avoiding resolute action to avoid a climate crisis presaging a disaster and out comes more news of the indicators, the alarm bells ringing and the warning signs flashing.
Following on from the recent UK conference the British PM, Tony Blair has endorsed the recently released Meteorological Office report, Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change and in writing the foreword warned that the risks of climate change may well be “greater than we thought”.
Such a statement cannot be made lightly as the 2 old parties and the Liberals fight over who has the greenest policies.
The report addresses two main questions: when does global warming become “dangerous” and at what level should carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, be stabilised in the atmosphere.
The EU has pledged to act to limit warming to no more than two degrees above average global temperatures. Temperatures have risen 0.7 degrees since 1900.
The report sounds a note of caution about a two-degree warming. It could be more than enough to melt the Greenland ice sheet. The melting may take 1000 years if further temperature rises were halted, but sea levels would rise by seven metres and it would be irreversible.
[Phew, not in my lifetime, I can go on consuming as there is no tomorrow said stupid to greedy, who rubbed his hands together with glee.]
The report suggests that a two-degree warming would also see 97 per cent of the world’s coral reefs, including the Great Barrier Reef killed, lower crop yields [yes that less for the already starving to eat], put 2.8 billion, one third of the world’s human population, at risk of water shortage and the total loss of summer Arctic sea ice, sparking the extinction of the polar bear, the walrus and who knows what else.
Even a more modest rise in global temperatures of about one degree Celsius would probably lead to extensive coral bleaching.
Pre-industrial level
To limit warming to two degrees would probably require a stabilisation of carbon dioxide at 450 parts per million (ppm). The atmosphere now contains 380 ppm of carbon dioxide or 401 with the 7 other greenhouse gases included at a CO2 equivalent rate. Before the industrial revolution it was 275 ppm.
[Methane, reader will remember how I mention this gas, is measured at part per billion in the atmosphere and hey its at 230% of the pre industrial revolution level]
According to Howard’s AP6 plans 2015 is when carbon sequestration will begin, the Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change report’s modelling states this is when emissions should peak and thence decline to 1990 levels by 2050
The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics [ABARE] forecast that global energy demand would by 2050 to have risen to 21 gigatonnes of energy from the 9 today. ABARE.
Although the AP6 have agreed to share new technologies to reduce the impact of CO2 emissions the expected expansion of CO2 will most likely remain at or climb above the current levels due to the growth in energy use in these economies and the slow adoption of new technologies as the greedy and stupid remain unwilling to make economic sacrifices for the benefit of all.
[Unfortunately the ABARE reports own figures givew the data to support this]
What will happen if the mean of CSIRO’s predicted climate outcomes for northern Tasmania occur.
Based on similar models CSIRO predicts that northern Tasmania’s mean annual temperature will have risen by between 0.6 and 2.7dC by 2030 and 1 to 6dC by 2070.
With the ABARE report as a guide the outcomes are likely to be some 490 ppm by 2050 and 550 by 2100, a middle path among the models commonly used for predictions of outcomes.
Therfore we can expect an increase in MAT by about 1.7dC by 2030 and 3.5dC by 2070.
Gone before 2030 will be 97% of coral reefs, even if the oceans are not acidified by the reaction of seawater with high levels of CO2.
By 2070 we will see major transformations in the natural landscape
Taking the example of the browntop stringybark [Eucalyptus obliqua] and the data from the population of the southern highland of NSW and using the mean of the temperature predictions and for 2070, within the next native forest rotation we see the temperature rise placing the mean average temperature at the upper limit of the species current exhibited tolerance across much of its current range above sea level.
At the same time rainfall has changed within a parameter of 17.5% of current levels, affecting the water balance. If it fell the average would be below the minimum rainfall in its current distributional range for the population of the southern highland of NSW and if it rose then it would be too warm for most of the populations in that range.
The volume of timber produced falls as the trees adjust to the changing climate and then, as the temperature and rainfall moves outside of their tolerances they decline and die, perhaps replaced naturally from nearby populations of species more suited to the emerging climate if they are present or humans intervene with seeding suitable species onto the declining forests.
cabbage gum [Eucalyptus pauciflora] take the drier [currently the more likely outcome] and warmer niche.
And South Australia takes some more action – why?
More than the fact that SA has raised its renewable energy production target from 15 to 20% is the question why. Howard claims that we must make dirty coal clean to save Australia’s economy and, unstated, the government’s neck.
However, whilst SA has an economy, the contribution to it by coal mining and export is limited to nil. Therefore the state government is freed from being beholden to this interest.
Much more held to ransom by the unthinkable Iranian path, uranium mining, the start of the nuclear backpedal. [But neither a nuclear power plant or a waste dump will SA have.]
Further, the cost of electricity production is, partly because of the extremely limited coal resource, comparatively higher for SA. However, this minor impost has not completely broken the state’s economy.
SA is to take advantage of its sunshine hours and windy days to grow these 2 renewable electricity production areas along with another advantage it believes it has with geothermal energy [hot rocks].
Along with these forms it is promoting conservation with new houses being required to install solar or heat pump water heaters unless a technical reason prevents their use in that dwelling.
The SA economy will benefit from making this decision. Business can plan its investments in this sector and grow their production facilities with an assured market. Then, with some surety, an industry will grow to export innovation developed in Adelaide and proved in the deserts and on the peninsular.
What a pity the whole of Australia cannot even take minor steps along this path and place its economy in a position to take advantage of the regional demand by several billion people for alternative energy sources as their demand for energy grows whilst the capacity for a clean use of coal is eclipsed by the environmental collapse that the self interested myopic businesses of the fossil fool energy industries foist on us through their 3 stooges Howard [Liberal], Martin Fergusson [Labor] and Bush [Confused].
Further joy, the rapid growth in the global economy will outstrip the ability of the planet’s natural resources to sustain humanity.
As China and India grow thweir own industrial econmies, financed by the West seeking low labor costs and less environmental controls, we will see a struggle over resources and domination of the global economy with the US re-emerge.
China’s economy has been growing at a rate averaging about 9.5 per cent a year. That means it doubles in size every eight years. India’s economy has been growing by only about 5.5 per cent a year, meaning that it doubles only every 13 years.
Each has a population exceeding a billion, currently having 40 per cent of the world’s population. North America, with 5% of the worlds population, consumes 25% of the earth’s resources.
As these 2 populous nuclear armed countries move toward consuming at the American rate it will need above a factor 8 changes in improving the technologies involved in resource exploitation if these several billion people are to move to the US level of consumption with their current population.
Economies are often improving technological processes and so over time can mean more can be produced with the same material inputs. To achieve a factor 8 the material inputs must be reduced by 8 times.
It is hard to imagine this being achieved without some reallocation of the total material consumed by individuals within nations and between same.
The current State of the World report from the Worldwatch Institute [WWI] in New York, in a special report, tells us that China has 8 per cent of the world’s fresh water to meet the needs of 22 per cent of the world’s population. Much of it is polluted by poorly regulated industries.
A growth in the wealth of the Chinese people will see the demand on water rise toward western consumtion levels, even if their population remains stable. Whilst Australians resile from consuming treated water for the Chinese it will be their only solution.
The WWI concludes: “Global ecosystems and resources are simply not sufficient to sustain the current economies of the industrial West and at the same time bring more than 2 billion people into the global middle class through the same resource-intensive development model pioneered by North America and Europe.
“Limits on the ability to increase oil production, shortages of fresh water, and the economic impacts of damaged ecosystems and rapid climate change are among the factors that make it impossible to continue current patterns on such a vastly larger scale. Humanity is now on a collision course with the world’s ecosystems and resources. In the coming decades, we will either find ways of meeting human needs based on new technologies, policies and cultural values, or the global economy will begin to collapse.”
Not only are we heading toward a point where the impact of industialized and industrializing economies on the climate will impact on all human activity but we will also have to confront the limited resouces of the world, the Limits to Growth of the Brundtland Report.
Not only will technological capacities be challenged, so will the system of international relations and that of common morality as civilization declines with less and less grace.
On the current course it is an insane world we are heading too unless we pay attention to the memos. It beyond time for a change.
phill Parsons found Premier Lennon’s honesty about his reasons for his government acting to assist with the conserving of Reserche Bay and Southport Lagoon refreshing. In the North Minister Green denied any political motive this close to an election, when denying the Austalian Bush Heritage Fund the management of Hunter Island, instead giving it to locals to manage.
There is some distance to go before the trade offs and compromises of the old parties cease to steer us on a course to calamity.
MEDIA RELEASE
Monday, 13 February 2006
CSIRO independence must be restored: Greens
Reports that CSIRO scientists were ordered not to speak about matters that might have embarrassed the government are deeply disturbing and must be investigated, Australian Greens climate change spokesperson Senator Christine Milne said today.
“These reports confirm what many have suspected – that CSIRO management has bowed to the government’s policy agenda on climate change,” Senator Milne said in Canberra.
“Worse still, the government reportedly has been leaning on CSIRO and its scientists.
“These developments are part of a dangerous culture that has grown under a decade of Howard government rule, where people are threatened for simply doing their jobs – in this case alerting the community to climate change and energy issues.
“What have the government and CSIRO management got to fear from allowing the nation’s brightest and dedicated scientists to inform the public about issues that are vital to the nation’s environmental, social and economic wellbeing?
“It’s time the government restored CSIRO’s independence. It can start by establishing an independent investigation into these allegations.”
The government and Labor last Thursday voted down Senator Milne’s motion concerning the CSIRO and calling on the government to re-prioritise its policy and funding objectives to provide more support for renewable energy.
