Still Yes Minister in Hobart

phill Parsons

Its now or never time because when the climate goes runaway and the instabilities become permanent, feeding on each other and taking away the base from which humans have built all their structures of activity, the food and water supply, governance, heritage will proceed to an end not unlike the plagues of the old testament, with the imaginings of Dante’s inferno imaginings no more as the Australian landscape adjust to the knew climes, the stupid monkey forced to subsist.

At least 100 years of warnings and its still Yes Minister in Hobart.

We weren’t able to connect the dots and perhaps they aren’t connected but the dendrological record in Agathis australis, a New Zealand distributed tree species with a long life and thus record in it growth rings show a step change in growth, this was some 90 years after the industrial revolution started and coal became the fuel.

That step has continued to early this century.

In 1970 the water catchments of Perth had a step down in average rainfall to be followed by another as patterns continued to alter.

The Murray Darling system had been relatively stable until the early 1900’s when a drought almost of the magnitude of today’s in the Murray Darling Basin. Perhaps the next largest was the dustbowl of the early 1930’s in America although I wouldn’t be surprised if there were other pre World War 2 warning rumbles in a climate system under stress.

Much was rosy after WW2, after all it was over and the consumer age had begun. Charles David Keeling also began to measure Carbon [CO2] in the atmosphere.

Now here we are, having described the cause of climate instability and had a second taste of the business as usual future with the MDB again in a prolonged drought, will southern Australian capital cities about to desalinate seawater for a drink, with Victoria burnt over, with the Hydro storage again at 16.9% on the 23rd of June [and rain on the 25th for a few days].

And if it was just us what would be the worry but the Horn of Africa has again gone into drought mode, the US corn belt has been affected by record [5 times maximum] flooding, Europe has had heat waves, Spain is desertifying and the arctic sea ice is disappearing.

The head of the Goddard institute of Space Science, the respected climate scientist James Hamsen, describes this modeled and therefore predicted change in the Arctic as a tipping point in climate behavior.

Its now or never time because when the climate goes runaway and the instabilities become permanent, feeding on each other and taking away the base from which humans have built all their structures of activity, the food and water supply, governance, heritage will proceed to an end not unlike the plagues of the old testament, with the imaginings of Dante’s inferno imaginings no more as the Austrlaian landscape adjust to the knew climes, the stupid monkey forced to subsist.

This is why using the proposed means of addressing climate instability, the Rudd government’s National Emissions Trading Scheme, as a political football to scare voters from one party to another is a climate crime greater than the, perhaps temporary and therefore forgivable, hypocrisy of Garrett and Wong.

Some in the Liberal opposition know this, others just hate Labor running anything and there is a, one would hope, minor group, probably of older members, who will deny the evidence even when it is before their very own eyes in the fire affected suburbs of the nation’s capital.

No doubt I will be criticized or dismissed for lumping every disaster together and ascribing its cause to one thing. Some may not be evidentiably linkable to the climate going unstable, but as a body who can extract the increased temperature and reduced rainfall that added to the fire the swept into Canberra from natural and what was attributable to human induced climate change now we have the ongoing phenomenon to reflect back on.

The Liberals are right to question the governments plan on emissions trading but only insofar as to make it work both in socal and economic terms but also environmentally.

Any party that fails to balance carefully the three legs that hold up society are threatening the whole with disorganized human activity in a very unfriendly environment.

It is time for Nelson, Turnbull and Hunt et al to take their party in hand and ensure that it acts in the national interest.

It may not seem like an emergency that threatens the nation in this period when the warnings of the storms to come are clearly evidenced and ground proofed but failure to take strong action here and reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions by every means at out disposal, even if it costs us, will be something that will dog your grandchildren as they hunt for a feed in a very dark competitive world.

And so to Bartlett and Aird, the team that has brought you an environment protection authority without teeth or staff and an expenditure on action to limit climate instability that would be more honest if it was nothing.

They too have a short window of opportunity to put Tasmania into a position where it has an income flowing to it from a National Emissions Trading Scheme substantial enough to ensure its people have some benefits from the transition to a low carbon economy, not just costs.

Forestry Tasmania, has modeled its forest carbon sink and surprisingly let everyone know. It was on their website at http://www.forestrytas.com.au/uploads/File/pdf/2007-75%20FT%20Carbon%20Report%20Dec%202007.pdf

And in response to the questions the Minister should have asked of Forestry Tasmania

Yes Minister, we can assist you with answers so you can respond to Mr Parsons Open Letter to the Premier.

We only have 2.5 times that amount of carbon in the commercial production forests, not the 5 times Mr Parsons assessed from his working of the very limited data that the Forest Practices Authority published in its State of the Forests Tasmania 2006 report.

Yes Minister, if there was a market into which we could sell all this Carbon value in one go and the price was the bottom of the predicted market price under a National Emissions Trading Scheme the value returned to Tasmanian would be $9,000,000,000.00.

Yes Minister, this is a return of $15,834.61 cents per ha but it is only a one off. We would still have the forests to supply us with water and other essential natural services.

Yes Minister, it would be possible to harvest some wood for sale and sell some Carbon and maximize both values although our current contractual commitments have limited our options and for this we sincerely apologize.

Yes Minister, private freehold forest owners could do the same and receive a financial benefit although some legislation may need to be drafted.

Yes Minister, the amount of carbon stored in the commercial forest, will due to our wood production program decline by 16MtC to 2030 representing a loss in value of at the lowest predicted market price of $304Million.

Yes Minister, we have faithfully followed government policy and run Forestry Tasmania at a loss.

Yes Minister, we renewed a poorly drafted contract with a price structure to prop up Gunns Tamar Valley pulpmill adventure and we most sincerely apologize for the political embarrassment it has caused you and the financial loss we have foisted on the Tasmanian people.

Please find enclosed the resignation of the Chief Executive Officer and his coiterie effective immediately.

And to whom is this fictional reply addressed. Why its David Llewellyn now Minister for Resources [where did Forestry go and who is Chairman of the Board now?].

With a Treasurer that also the Minister for Racing [where did Gaming get to?] can they be entrusted with the parliamentary morning coffee order?

The Premier might like to keep the portfolios that interest him but he needs to be across the strategic and future implications of the whole of government.

Its time to ensure the Tasmanian people get the full value of the emerging low carbon economy and emissions trading form the publically owned resources Mr Bartlett, the time when daylight robbery was clever has passed.

The alternative is all cost and pain and the electorate always finds a way to pay out for that treatment.

Phill Parsons, who if you don’t know him by now, can be read in as collection of his rantings on this site.