phill Parsons
Winds, rain and hail are not unprecedented phenomenon and therefore small increases in their power may go unnoticed in relatively wealthy countries, the capacity to address the burden through insurance and government support, and the subsequent stimulus to the economy by the reconstruction, masking the underlying problem that is hidden in an avoidable increase in frequency and intensity of climate events caused by the continuation of the wrong human activities, the burning fossil fuels, the degrading and destroying forests and other natural systems and the polluting the atmosphere.

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/ecosystems/article/22772The pine bark beetle attacks pine trees over 125mm in diameter and when the infestation level is high kills the trees. The Latin name is Dendroctonus, which means Dendro = tree ctonus = killer. There are at least 14 species.

In the warmer world we have made the natural controls on this beetle of lower winter temperatures have failed and now infestations are affecting huge numbers of trees from Canada to the high mountains of Central America.

Mountain Pine Beetles [Dendroctonus ponderosae] used to be mostly killed off by -30 to -40 degree below temperatures. That has not happened for about ten years. Eight years of drought also has weakened trees such as ponderosa pine and reduced their ability to flush out invaders with sap flow

Pine beetles affect pines, spruce, douglas fir and larch, all species in the family Pinaceae. These are trees upon which a large part of the North American timber industry depends. A failure of supply sees dependent industries such as housing construction affected.

Researchers from the Canadian Forest Service have studied the relationship between the carbon cycle and forest fires, logging and tree deaths. They concluded that by 2020 the pine beetle outbreak will have released 270 megatonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from Canadian forests. There is yet to be an accepted study of the carbon cycle effect over a future period of time for North American forests.[

Large numbers of spruce beetle [Dendroctonus rufipennis] are chewing their way through 1,560 square miles of Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula, including 620 square miles of spruce trees in Chugach National Forest.

Southern pine beetles southern pine beetle [Dendroctonus frontalis] are on the march in red spruce forests of the Southeast.

Other changes are appearing in the landscape with non-native grasses fast replacing native shrubs in the Mojave Desert, where the grasses also are fueling hotter and longer-lasting wildfires.

Fire is anther agent of landscape scale vegetation change, the frequency increasing with hotter and drier conditions changing the vegetation mix away from plants with a long maturity cycle or with reproductive systems lass attuned to fire.

Pinyon pines hundreds of years old that have survived droughts before in the Southwest of the US are dying off.

In Glacier National Park, the number of glaciers in the park has dropped from 150 to 26 since 1850. Projections are that no glaciers will be left within 25 to 30 years. These feeders to water supply melting has seen a turn to mining ancient ground water stores to supply demand.

Like in Australia desalinization plants will soon be a common sight along the coast of southern California.

In south-central Alaska, many of the ponds shown in 1950 maps and aerial photographs are now grassy basins with spruce and hardwood trees, indicative of a drying landscape.

Bleaching of coral reefs in the Florida Keysis being caused by the stress of warmer water – which causes the coral to eject microscopic algae that live within its tissues. That will harm the fishing and tourism industries there as will the belaching of reefs around the world.

The largets coral reef system in the world – the Great Barrier Reef will be severely impacted by warming and sea level changes.

California Governor Schwarzenegger has ordered his state bureaucracy to study the long term impacts of climate change on California, as the first step in devising a comprehensive plan to address the issues. Doubtless all of the United States will be glad to see national action under an Obama administration. Giving surety to the economy by addressing climate change across America.

From the large to the small, the Maldives government has, after only a year, successfully linked the impacts of climate change and basic human rights at the United Nations.

In March 2008 the Maldives, together with 80 co-sponsors from all regional groups, secured the adoption, by consensus, of United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution 7/23 on “Human Rights and Climate Change”, which, for the first time in an official UN resolution, stated explicitly that global warming has implications for the full enjoyment of human rights. The resolution asked the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to prepare a study on these implications ahead of a full Human Rights Council debate on the subject in March 2009. The Resolution further requires the Study and a summary of the Council debate to be sent to States Parties to the UNFCCC ahead of COP 15 in Copenhagen, in order to inform negotiations.

The Maldives President is of the view that linking human rights and decline in the dependability of the climate will bring the reality of the impacts home and generate action to limit them.

This win is 21 years after the first Heads of Government discussion about climate change by Commonwealth members in Vancouver in 1987.

As climate instability steamrolls ahead under the limited Kyoto Protocol and government agencies and business debate matters pertaining to Emissions Trading, Australians are feeling the impacts of decreased climate stability more directly.

The convergence of the storms on southern and central coastal Queensland can only be a coincidental to that States contribution to global warming through the export of coal. But the fact that coal as a fuel is a major driver of climate instability cannot be avoided.

This followed the offcourse cyclone [extra tropical transitional storm] related even that impacted Hobart last year and may see floods in Gippsland where last year fires reigned.

Winds, rain and hail are not unprecedented phenomenon and therefore small increases in their power may go unnoticed in relatively wealthy countries, the capacity to address the burden through insurance and government support, and the subsequent stimulus to the economy by the reconstruction, masking the underlying problem that is hidden in an avoidable increase in frequency and intensity of climate events caused by the continuation of the wrong human activities, the burning fossil fuels, the degrading and destroying forests and other natural systems and the polluting the atmosphere.

Haiti, a failed state, was attempting a recovery program for its denuded lands. Only a small percentage of the tropical forests remain in this charcoal consuming and fuelwood importing nation.

This year season so far 4 cyclones have hit the island destroying recent revegetation work and causing flooding and interruption of the food supply. Starvation is impacting isolated pockets now that the road network has been damaged and those living in poverty in the capital, Port Au Prince, are also presenting with evidence of malnutrition.

Next door, the Dominican Republic, remains forested thanks to the convergence of hydro electricity generating energy and wealth and a military dictator who benefited from that wealth. The forests protected the catchments and therefore were protected.

However, in the border region, the cancer of the failed state that Haiti has become in the last half of the last century is spreading into the forests. They are being eaten out by economic refugees, a death from degradation as poor people try to eke out a subsistence living in the forest that the wrong approach to nature has seen destroyed in their homeland.

Long term over exploitation of the natural capital leads to a failure of an economy regardless of its complexity or modernity. All economies are dependent on the rainfall and temperature remaining within the range that the local natural environment can survive. Exceeding that range leads to a decline in the productivity of the primary systems, with imbalances in the secondary following closely..

This spreads to the humans dependent on its as we see with Haiti, with countries facing desertification such as Sudan [of which Darfur is a region of], with Somalia, where the offshore fisheries have collapsed, and even with rural decline in Australia where long term drought is leading to a change in the population of drier regions.

For low lying countries like the Maldives sea level rise will equate to inundation of the land mass, much more serious than the loss of beaches and other coastal features and the associated infrastructure that will impact this and other developed countries, if sea level rise continues.

The only way to stop that rise is to reduce the planets temperature and the only way to do that is to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and then await natural processes to restore the balance centuries from now.

This is a zero emissions target, one which no government is contemplating.

Instead they are considering a slow sacrifice of coastal zones, of individual species and whole ecosystems, of cultures and lives and a drift closer to catastrophe, to allow economic growth and thus wealth generation for a few. This will result in the degradation of the natural capital upon which we all depend to continue apace.

High stakes played with whole countries and millions of lives without their agreement.

However, the closer the connection to natural processes the higher the understanding of the impacts, and when the roof blows off or the house floods this also comes home to the city dweller.

So it is not without their knowledge of the causal links between lifestyle, energy consumption and the results of the impacts.

Taking action may soon become simpler for the householder provided a feed in tariff is adopted as part of the Rudd Governments Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

In simple terms, rebates are replaced with a price for the power produced by the home or business and that income pays off the cost of the alternative energy unit in a time less than its life.

Current estimates for a national scheme for home owners is $6.5B over 20 years and if business is included $16.5B.

An $825M economic stimulus per annum paid for by power users encourages conservation through price as much as it changes the production of power through the incentive of a return on investment.

Just because Germany limited this rebate to solar photovoltaics does not mean Australia should do the same. We should stimulate a number of paths to provide small scale solutions for communities energy needs.

If isolated regional communities can fund themselves off the grid then the losses of power through transmission can be reduced. Australia because of the remoteness of energy production to use and the long distribution distances has a high loss in transmission. About 9% [17 of 187TWhrs excluding aluminium exports] of the national production is lost this way and with coal the fuel used just to run the system is also reduced.

What does it matter if its also small wind, water or wave systems that provide the power.

The coal and energy production industries should take a lesson from the dinosaur gas guzzler producers whose home is in Detroit. A failure to plan and adjust is costing them.

Their own Congress will only help if an industry plan to change is forthcoming.

Some assistance to help industry change through an agreed plan is justified. We have all benefited from coal and oil, from forestry and the petrol engine and many remain dependent upon it now.

However coal has now passed it safe to use by date and, along with oil and the degradation of Carbon sinks and stores, endangers us all.

Time for a major change of direction, rapidly phasing out anything that contributes to increasing greenhouse gases and in with the newer technologies.

For example Tasmanian Councils spend in the order of $20M per annum on power. That should be marshalled and invested in wind power production close to the points of high use to supplement the hydro system and thus reduce the demand on a dirtier coal, Victorian brown.

Staging that would see the burden shared making affordable for all Councils who could each benefit from the savings rather than leaving such activities to each alone thus making such changes unaffordable if approached in a piecemeal fashion.

Eventually, the redirection of this purchasing power to investment could see Tasmania return to a position where it can export green power.

The Hydro is compensated by a reduction of demand from the water storages allowing then to recharge for their specialty, rapid production of power at peak load, if not resell the green power at premium prices to other buyers as demand grows.

There are many ways that the communities resources can be mobilized to address climate instability and given the warnings we are having now one would think that anyone describing themselves as a leader would be ensuring that such measures were taken.

phill Parsons commends this measurement of leadership.