Moving on from talking the talk

phill Parsons

As the Coorong Lakes die and the debate about returning the mouth of Australia’s most important river system to its natural estuarine state heats up the driver of this collapse of a river system becomes clearer.

Storages are down to 25% full. Why? Runoff is down to 25% of normal even though rainfall is normal for July.

Years of drought has seen the catchment dry out and so the soil, the billabongs and the many aquifers recharging explains the low level of downstream flow even with ‘normal’ rainfall.

The 3 month outlook is for 25 to 100mm in the catchment and even with a heavy rainfall in the headwaters of the Murray Darling system the weeks it would take the water to reach the mouth of the Murray in all probability condemns the Coorong to salinity as acidity means a permanent death.

The ACF and the Wentworth group, among others, have suggested buying properties and returning their water allocation to the system; but what is the point when the water is not there or will not get to where it’s needed because a parched system soaks it up or farmers take it out of their own desperation.

The speeded up buyback announced by Rudd in Adelaide with an additional $50M from a budget that was described as tight and fiscally responsible to rein in inflation may save something, but it will not be the Coorong.

Adelaide electorates, farmers not going to the wall but not the massively important wetland system. You can’t fill a wetland with the idea of water, it has to be the real thing, wet and in a 400 Gigalitre bucket.

Over a decade of warnings and calls for action ignored by successive governments. The great trick of a change of colors of the old parties from blue to red and all is forgiven has failed the real teat of nature.

Who in the permanent government [the public service], is taking the heat for this incompetence or should the politicians of the red and the blue take the unusual step of a sackcloth suit, ashes and mea culpa for failing to heed the free and fearless advice that was ignored.

This is not an unpredictable act of nature, blameless because of our impotence when nature acts. Years of buckpassing, blameshifting and blindness carrying right through till today when we find Queensland in breach of an agreement to keep the Paroo free of the curse of over allocation of water, the last wild river of the Darling system has been given awayin the face of an interstate agreement not to.

The state where wages theft from the traditional owners and resource deals with the common property are the stock in trade of the power elite.

Emptying storages does not seem viable when the climate has become unstable. No longer is there a guarantee that the rain will fall in the historic volumes again. The long term averages indicate a small declining trend.

The Coorong is gone Penny Wong bravely said only to find real false politik takes over and the appearance of action, when only a natural event could intervene, takes center stage in the 7 ring circus that dresses up as management of the nations major river system appears on stage to wow and win the voter.

The southern Australian drying trend goes back to the 1970’s when CO2 passed 315ppmv, the paleo turning point for a change to a period of glaciation passed and greenhouse gases have kept growing.

% years after the 1992 Rio Earth summit and the Kyoto agreement was signed and 10 years later Australia ratified it. Many developed countries have failed to meet their small carbon pollution reduction targets they agreed then. How will they face up to the much bigger cuts required to return some semblance of stability to the climate.

And the disingenuous are using the data to argue that a cooling trend is occurring because 1998 was especially warm and that high in temperatures has, fortunately, not reoccurred in the decade following.

With a dynamic global system where has that heat energy been going?.

Contrary to the view of Dr Bellamy the World Glacier Monitoring Center has many glaciers retreating, be they alpine or polar. The ones advancing are moving into the ocean more rapidly than their known rates for modern times.

The Indian Ocean off NW Australia has warmed and when this is combined with strong El Ninό’s running one into another, rainfall is deserting inland SE Australia more often and for longer periods, and the temperature is trending up increasing water losses due to evaporation.

The Arctic Ocean is changing from ice covered to open water, a major turning point as cold water from both poles reports to the ocean, in an attempt to offset rising temperatures.

We may not have a perfect understanding, but one thing is clear to all, the climate has become unpredictable, the data of the modern period that we have used to locate urban water supply storages, to allocate irrigation volumes, to design storm water and flood management systems and to locate investments in food production is very likely wasted. Food production will have to be restructured and water supply augmented at a tremendous cost to the economy.

So here we are with the speed of the walk under discussion by those who perceive a problem and by those who see a risk and some are still stuck in the talk and others not even opening their eyes to the events before them, denying to the last the dangers of high carbon emission energy, the associated population growth and unrestrained consumption.

We continue to hear from vested interests and their captives how it is okay to cut down a tree because the one that grows in it place takes up the carbon, a big little white lie forestry and its foolish minions continue to peddle.

Bartlett’s disingenuity may not be a real lie, he may have seen figures that show plantations take up more Carbon than ancient forests but, even if they are correct, it is inescapable that the wood products made from either of them release Carbon.

The release from solid wood product is some 12% of the harvested volume, from woodchips [paper products] there is a higher 73% release of Carbon to the atmosphere, because of the relatively short life of the product, and this excludes the carbon from the processing.

Recent work at the Australian National University shows undisturbed forests store 3 times more carbon than was originally thought. Further, it is undeniably clear that forestry reduces the amount of carbon stored in forests, the Green Carbon report averaging that at 40% below the capacity of unlogged forest.

Importantly, the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali in 2007, where Austrlaia ratifies the Kyoto agreement, recognized the importance of natural forests in the carbon cycle and identified the reduction of emissions from forest degradation and deforestation.

Deforestaton is limited here, its how Austrlaia got to emit 108% of its 1990 level of CO2, but degradation continues and if a pulpmill fed by native forests is built it will significantly ramp up in Tasmania. Forestry Tasmania’s MRAC Report evidences the degradation from commercial forests.

In Tasmania the biggest use of wood is causes the biggest emission of CO2. This makes Forestry Tasmania, the single largest seller of woodchips, and Gunns Limited, the major buyer, the biggest emitters and therefore the most critical points where reform of forestry can make major gains.

By ceasing to woodchip and export our native forests their carbon capturing potential can be realized, the lowest cost means of removing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it, meeting our international obligations during this critical period where emissions need to be arrested and begin to decline.

How foresighted Latham seems now, an $800M restructuring package may have seen the jobs lost from Scotsdale still there processing long life solid wood product, the industry producing more solid wood product across the state and the natural forests locking up carbon pollution.

The national government needs to establish a means of paying for a process that compensates forest owners for locking up carbon in natural forests and stimulate their replacement as sources of wood for processing with plantation, more eco less ash.

The biggest losers in this game of who is the most incompetent forest manager are those who increasing climate instability impacts on most, those on lower incomes, perceived by Labor as their heartland, and those dependent on natural systems to make a living, such as farmers, fisherfolk and foresters, perceived by the Coalition [soon to be the Liberals] as their own.

A strange position for any Labor government to take and one that, should the sleepers awake, return to haunt the myopia of the Tasmanian Branch, even if the national one manages to walk the away from the CFMEU model of business as usual to the bosses end.

Stopping forestry will not end climate instability impacting on Tasmanian’s, because the terrestrial sinks, even with the humungous capacity of ancient old growth forests to sink and store more Carbon or the piddling efforts of new plantations to copy them, will not offset the amount we are emitting, some 23tonnes of CO2 per Tasmanian per annum and over 28 for each Australian.

However, changing the use of the forests to generate income from Carbon sinks and solid wood product is one of a suite of steps we can take to reduce per capita emissions and set the nation on a path to stabilizing the climate, rather than desertifying the inland even more.

Solid wood product is one that releases the least from the forest and therefore more of this should be made. Carbon trading should give a value to the additional carbon sunk whether it is in a post 1990 plantation or an existing forest, as long as it is removed from the production cycle.

And what of the new opportunities that a low Carbon economy offers, will Tasmania be up with the game or remain behind, exacerbating the losses for the losers?.

Government has the opportunity to lead some changes, the fuels it elects to power its vehicle fleet drives infrastructure change and feeds into the used vehicle market.

Forcing in new fuels by leading demand could increase the capacity of the gas supply, the trucking, bus and other businesses able to manage costs by converting their existing vehicles or buying new. Government at the state and local level would then feed the lower income second hand car market as they change their fleets to the second generation of gas powered vehicles.

Will we see the example of the forward thinking West Coast Council followed?. Its not rocket science, so it should be within the capacity of government without any reports or consultancies, just a simple accounting exercise, that need not include the cost of Carbon if fuel prices remain high, but even if they fall will be influenced by emissions trading.

Anyway where is the moral imperative.

Here is work for the gas industry to convert vehicles before the specifically designed gas powered engines come onto the market.

So now the government could save the taxpayer the indignity of an ever rising fuel bill for the supply of services such as public transport and school buses by a simple measure what other carbon emissions could it address.

With full storages the Hydro system could reverse the energy flow and thus the profitability of the essential major State Enterprise, the Hydro.

Rather than alternative energies being seen as a challenge the Hydro recognized the importance of supplementing systems with centralized wind power over a decade ago and has built a wind farm.

Whilst centralized power production has its place in complex modern societies the production of energy at its use point has many advantages, one of which is an expansion of generating capacity.

Its well beyond time to lend the capital cost of domestic scale alternative power production and water heating units to users to be repaid through their power bill and the value of the energy released for resale.

With Billions of dollars in value tied up in dams, power stations and transmission systems some lateral thinking to supplement a system that is rainfall dependent, when that has failed to fill the storage for over 5 years in a row, and restrain costs for Tasmanians, needs to be taken.

Already the Federal and other state governments have financially supported changes to domestic energy consumption with solar water heating rebates and with the production of energy from alternative systems at the home and the industrial scale.

Whilst these first steps of limited subsidy are insufficient, they show that many governments see them as necessary even if the scale of support indicates it is simply for kudos rather than impact.

Bartlett dreams of a future where the issue of global importance that will impact on everything will go unnoticed by Tasmanians because of the size of our impact, 1.5% of Australia’s 1.2% contribution to Carbon pollution from domestic emissions, and thus allow government to avoid real action.

The costs of emissions trading will end such dreaming unless Tasmanian takes a proactive approach to the opportunities that will be created rather than denying reality by claiming an exemption due to size.

The Rudd government is preparing the whole country to walk the walk, although he wants it to be in the Kevin style.

The Liberals appear to see the style of walk as a partisan matter, an improvement on the dinosaur position they were toying with last month. They may not provide the support Rudd needs to balance the believers with the unbelievers and those who will end up paying for Carbon pollution reduction who make up the governments electoral supporters.

These 3 groups are not exclusive of each other, even believers can have doubts, the task of the shock jock and doubting journalist to generate such conflicts fuelled by shadowy groups whose funding should have dried up, if you take the vested sectoral coal and oil industries at their word, but their disbelief drives them on.

The Greens are promoting Olympic walking, where Australia sets a winning pace from the start, taking advantage of the economic opportunity that the research and action will give economies that take a leading position on the conversion to a low Carbon economy.

Every time an economy leading technological change at the cutting edge is compared to the tardy you can see what drives an economies growth, the railways, the production line, even coal fired steam power, these were the cutting edge of their time as low carbon energy and sustainable systems could be for ours.

Rudd is most likely going to be forced into negotiation with the Greens, Family First and Xenephon’s No Pokies party to get their legislation through. Waiting to 2010 and another election is not an option for Rudd and a double dissolution may change the Senate to give the Greens the balance of power by themselves, something both old parties wish to avoid because of its implications for Australia’s polity

[The 2 old parties converge or they out green the Greens and each other. Currently we see the period of talking Green and walking the same old path trying to keep the believers believing and the sleepers asleep.]

Australians will need to see a government walking with them as the costs of carbon pollution reduction comes home.

Some of those measures may appear in the tax review although the indications are that the taxes that are higher than OECD averages are the ones likely to be cut and they are the ones on company profits although reducing them never guarantees more or new investment in any particular country.

Increasing the level of superannuation contributions may be necessary for the issue of costs of service provision in a country where the population demographic is an ageing one. It also has the benefit of increasing the investment funds [savings] pool potentially assisting in mitigation and adaptation.

That would also balance a reduction in the company taxation level by redistributing income into the economy through the superannuation investment funds and then to offset social security costs later.

In the end the voters have to measure what they see in the environment, dying rivers, reducing rainfall, rising sea level, forest destruction, species extinction with the cost of living and what action they can afford to address these issues.

With an aware polity that already considers the climate when they vote they will judge government on how it supports them through adjusting to a low carbon economy.

For State governments that avoid taking action believing they can sell ignorance and inaction as an issue where responsibility belongs elsewhere they will see the credit for recommending action to support for those who can least afford change to to low cost energy systems reducing their costs of living move to those parties.

Handouts and price watch programs that simply move the money through the losers without reducing the Carbon pollution will be seen for what they are and cost government at the polls.

phill Parsons

PS; It is hard to believe that the Bell Bay gas fired power station, lower in Carbon emissions than coal, that is now faltering before refurbishment under privet ownership is now being considered for reacquisition by the government.

Bartlett identified the possibility that the government did not know all the answers and this is a classic example of bumbling ineptitude driven by an absence of foresight and the lack of a strategic vision.

A gas fired plant would have kept the cost of emissions that will apply to the very dirty brown coal fired power segment of Tasmania’s economy lower than coal and the benefits would have remained in Tasmania.

Now the bumbling investment ineptitude of Babcock and Brown, merchant bankers, has created a white elephant and rectifying the issues will be expensive.

Brown coal to replace the hydro power and so allow the dams to refill will take our 1.5% contribution to Carbon pollution up more after emissions trading begins and with the rainfall in apparent decline to a lower annual amount such an activity may become permanent as the government seeks to make the Billlions tied up in the dams pay rather than their emptiness cost in lost potential.

Whilst the Hydro may, based on its history and its cultural importance, appear to be an asset, selling the dams and buying solar power stations could be a move more clever than NSW selling its coal fired power stations, as both will keep loosing value as the worlds climate changes.

As we attempt to do things to minimize that in the future, such an apparently radical suggestion will seem mainstream but empty dams will have little value. The day the sun don’t shine will be the day to go to the party at the end of the planet.

For those who keep their head in a place where the abovementioned party may be held day or night, the first baseload solar power stations are under construction. We should not miss out on the opportunity to convert to energy supply systems neither carbon or climate dependent.