phill Parsons
BY 1896 Svante Arrhenius [1859-1927] had published his work on the effects of Carbon build-up in the atmosphere. The next seminal work was that of Charles David Keeling [1928-2005] whose study of that build-up identified the rate of change and its correlation with human caused Carbon emissions from the 1950’s [the Keeling Curve].
Then followed much work at either end of our measured time continuum, with the past changes correlated with the great changes of the climate and projections into the future if humans are stupid enough not to take sufficient comprehensive and effective actions to reduce Carbon emissions in a timely manner.
A doubling of Carbon in the atmosphere to 580ppm is forecast to raise temperatures by between 2 and 4.5dC according to the multinational body the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Besides changes in climate in paleo times, shifts in the climate have been ascribed as causative factors in the failures of complexly structured human activity in prehistory.
The changes in the climate have not been connected with changes in the atmosphere until relatively recently by science and only in the last few years by government.
Will enough data become available to understand the cause of the change in the climate that generated the 1930’s dustbowl that some are now viewing as an early impact of warming.
Certainly there is enough to understand the impact on the Murray Darling Basin system upon which much of Australia’s agricultural production depends, now and into the foreseeable future.
Our reaction mimics that of ancient peoples as we turn to deities who haven’t deigned and to technology for miracles or answers when it would appear a radical shift in behaviour patterns is needed if we are to avoid major climate instability and perhaps the catastrophe that will closely follow.
Whilst Australians argue over the merits of taking action, the impact of those actions on the economy and attempt to formulate a national plan and be part of a global process to reduce Carbon and other greenhouse gases which warm the climate London has taken the message on board, understood the impact of the sea level rise they face given the IPCC predictions and adopted a target of 60% reductions by 2025.
Further, this target has stood up to its first political test and remained in place under the new Conservative Mayor, Boris Johnson.
Unfortunately, this target will be negated by the growth in air travel through Heathrow and will effectively be only a 20% reduction in emissions for that region.
London may have some advantages over Australia in their capacity to change. The population is concentrated, travel and transmission of energy are over shorter distances, its economy is dependent on finance rather than the sale of coal, gas and the associated mineral exports being a major element.
Australia has its own little crisis developing and a dichotomy between 2 groups in the economy.
The changes in the frequency and length of oscillations in the El Nino/La Nina combined with the warming of the Indian are affecting rainfall in the important agricultural area of the Murray Darling Basin. Decline in available irrigation water will continue.
Government has come in with a plan to upset nobody and thus placed the whole in danger of permanent damage. It is a failure of government to see the impact of climate instability in a piecemeal manner, the way it views environmental matters.
Instead of buying back water bit by bit in a system that is over allocated, all the water licenses should be compulsorily acquired and the whole of the water reallocated with the portion for agriculture purchased back by the cashed up who wish to stay.
Immediately the essential environmental flows are restored, those who wish to leave the land can go with some dignity or at least a limited debt based on thje sale of their water and the rural economy can adapt to continue under a new paradigm that includes a living river system from end to end.
I cannot claim this plan, it is the one favored by the Wentworth Group of scientists who can forsee the impact of the death of a thousand cuts under the current arrangements. Unlike government who can only count they have some understanding of how the biophysical system of the river works.
That failure to see the connectedness of human activity and the climate sees the carbon stored in the pear orchards that have become unviable under the current MDB arrangements bulldozed out using Carbon emitters and burnt to emit carbon and provide nothing of value.
If the land they were on was required for use they could have been heaped and left to rot before they returned to the soil. Half their weight was stored carbon biosequestered by a system under stress and, as some evidence indicates, failing under the pressures of drought and temperature increase.
So here we have the causative factor, increased atmospheric Carbon, exacerbated by those immediately impacted on by that increase in an misunderstood attempt at adaptation based on the idea that farmers will be able to trade their way out by changing their enterprise but not their habits.
Until government causes the adoption of full carbon accounting for all actions taken we will continue to act in a confused manner demonstrating the failure to understand and act against the problem.
The natural systems that account for the biosequestration of carbon are failing under the pressure of overload. There no systems more cost effective than these given the scale of the problem.
There is a point where even zero carbon emissions will be pointless as forests and soils emit more carbon than they sequester under the pressure of increasing temperature and decreasing available moisture. Oceans which do the bulk of the work will change as they are acidified by the high level of carbon emissions.
Sources of biosequestration must be maximized and not only in the tropical forests of other countries, burning sugar cane waste must cease and all cane should be grown on a drip irrigated 3 year rotation, the waste land in the sugare cane growing areas revegetated to address the problems of pests in a sustainable way. Both are proven processes.
The supply of pulp must be moved to the existing plantation estate, timber needs supplied from plantations first and if from managed forests only in a limited way. The balance of the national forest estate must be left to store carbon, the economic impact of ending native forest logging borne by emissions trading in forest stored Carbon as that trading should assist all industries to transit to a low carbon economy.
Recycling, especially of paper, needs goals legislated and measures taken to achieve them.
Obstacles to such activities need to be addressed through targeted funding of research for low carbon methods to meet our energy needs but more importantly with loans to assist changes with processes and systems which we know work today.
We need to pick and then back winners until they move into second place and then move our bets to the new winners so we aren’t all losers.
With electricity prices set to increase into the future why did the Rudd government fail to grasp the nettle and lend the full cost of alternative systems to users to repay. The limit of lending being the total amount available to lend.
Support those on lower incomes with rebates rather than mean test the rebate and make the alternative of solar less attractive for those who can afford it and unaffordable for those who can’t.
Idiots or deliberately meant to fail depending on how you see the relationship between government and the exploiters of the old forms of energy production.
Small energy users at the ends of long transmission systems or dependent on fossil fuels should be prioritized for assistance to move to alternatives and disconnect from the grid to save the transmission losses or reduce their carbon emissions.
Whilst research into using algae to produce biofuel continues in the attempt to make it cost competitive algal ponds can be used as a means to capture carbon and store it in the soil, generating soils better adapted to production in the emerging lower rainfall regimes.
The production of biofuels in rural Australia can secure food production without reducing the wheat harvest provided the area so allocated is under 15% of the total area dedicated to wheat. This is a synergistic crop rotation.
Processed and consumed close to the point of production energy used in diustribution is limited. Any fuel not consumed in the countryside and by the transport of goods to the city could be a backload for all those fuel tankers currently returning to the coastal refineries empty.
Why is the fuel efficiency standard for Australian manufactured cars not equal to or in excess those countries leading in those standards. How inflationary is it to keep Australia’s costs in transport higher then the global leaders.
How damaging to the incomes of working families that they have to pay for gas guzzlers when better is possible. Of course the inheritors of the previous nincompetents are silent here, cannot embarrass the old fossil fool.
I have outlind some of the many measures the Rudd government could take to set the parameter for the market to lead Australia in making the cuts needed including in ways that assist the many whose incomes are far from Kim’s ‘effluent’ and have little choice but to pay the rising costs of energy, including that embodied in the products, leaving less for the necessities and winding down the economy as the discretionary dollar is abolished by circumstances within the Rudd’s governments control.
Nelson may has his telescope backward when he makes noises about reducing the fuel excise but his fire is on the nail when he says the government is in charge of all new measures to address problems.
When Rudd needed to go greener he returned to the grey suits of business as usual where the defences will be;
[1] that is the policy we were elected to fulfill [whether right or wrong a promise is a promise except where it doesn’t suit.You know, the usual political spin]
[2] that is not a position I support [special deal involved?]
[3] that will affect working families [or that is against my principles where he wishes to personally identify] [Continuing the old party habit of exploiting populism]
The Rudd government has a big opportunity coming up when they review the taxation system.
For example it could phase out the fuel excise and replace it with a carbon tax which would equal the emissions trading value of the carbon lowering the cost of lower carbon fuels such as LPG, biodiesel or ethanol based petrol relative to petrol and diesel by the differential value of the carbon tax
This revenue stream should shrink away as fuel use changes under price pressure before such a tax exceeds the value of the excess on petrol, diesel and related fossil fuels driving a shift to other sources.
The important point is that in the interim the governments take is capped at the $0.38 fuel excise plus GST, assisting working families with their fuel costs as they make the transition to a new economy with the cost of carbon included by moving away from gas guzzlers and fossil fuels.
Currently the Rudd government’s climate crimes involve continuing with a seamless transition to the past practices; continued forest destruction in Tasmania, piecemeal action on water in the MDB and a failure to breakaway from coal and oil dependency.
Coming up is an opportunity to turn a new leaf and discover the joys of a green suit by adopting full carbon accounting and not omitting anyone from the emissions trading system, including imported goods.
The alternative is to remain in the mould of makeovers combined with an unsustainable schizophrenia that recognizes the problem of climate instability and then fails to take the medicine, condemning us all to obey the demons of climate instability or change the government to one who ensure we can all take the medicine and limit the pain.
phill Parsons finds it intriguing that Labor appears to have failed the pre-eelction promise of action that their rhetoric on climate offered, their bright stars tarnished by a parsimonic fear of upsetting an economy destined to fail on its present business as usual course attitude to the impacts of Carbon.
Just not in Kevin’s brilliant Prime Ministerial career, however short his pressure cooking the Public Service makes it.
Coming up this month is the Garnaut Climate Change Review’s Final input for us all to ponder.
In the USA and Canada tornado season will continue. Hurricane and Typhoon season will start in the Northern Hemisphere.
Hydro storage stands at 17.9% [26MAY08] as the loss of revenue to Victoria continues to be limited through sales in the National Electricity Market on a below average rainfall
BoM predicts an even chance of median rainfall over the storage’s catchments in the next 3 months, so the first quarter is unlikely to see storage refill to capacity.
