Reply to Heartbreaking denialism by Joshua Gans

Reply to Heartbreaking denialism by Joshua Gans via 1petermartin: Sharing... They are environment haters; pure and simple - Gans http://bit.ly/87pLXy

But don't you see?  It's the extra layer of government, and the extra taxes (although they'll happily spruik for their constituencies and special interests to get tax payer funded "compensation"), and the jobs that will be lost, and the end of the economy as we know it.

What I wonder is, how is it then that the European Union, which has arguably had an even more flawed ETS for 6 years now, seems to be surviving?

Including in Germany alone, the directly attributable creation of 230, 000 plus jobs in the renewable energy industries (R&D, manufacture, sales - domestic and international, and installation of wind, solar, biomass, tidal technologies), and creation of an additional, invaulable income stream to (especially) farmers, from energy production.

You know, from all those solar panals and wind turbines they've planted in the paddocks where the livestock graze.

Good grief.  Who knew?  The sun shines and the wind blows and the tide goes in and out in Europe!

And they're (SHOCK! HORROR!) progressively decommissioning nuclear power stations, as more renewable energy sources come on line.

Oh well, guess we should just get used to a nice balance of trade deficit with the Euro zone over the next few years, importing technology and know-how, what with having sold off, closed down and driven out most of our world class renewables R&D technologies and intellectuals, to everywhere else during the last two federal administrations.

No, Joshua, they're not haters, they're just humans stuck in the oldest human dilemma.  Having to change their minds about a belief they hold dear, rather than admit to a mistake.

Like King Canute trying to hold back the tide, this is (I hope!) their last hurrah.  Just as the GST became the inevitable "tax reform" we had to have, so will the ETS and/or carbon tax be part of the new reality of the carbon constrained and oil depleted future of the Australian and global economy.

The sooner we all face this fact, regardless of our belief, the sooner we can start getting results.

Links:

• Emissions trading schemes by country
• Emission Trading System (EU ETS)
• Nuclear Europe: Country guide
• Decommissioning nuclear facilities
• Going where the green jobs are
• Green Jobs: The Future of America’s Economy?
• Cnut the Great
  

Affirm Humanity - Habitat for Humanity

Affirm Humanity - Habitat for Humanity

1.6 billion people around the world live in substandard housing.

Join with Habitat for Humanity (YouTube channel) as we build a new world.

Square Kilometre Array

Australia's getting (fingers crossed) a BIG telescope!  Woohoo! 

From the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator the Hon Kim Carr 11/11/08.

Australian square kilometre array industry consortium >> Press Release

 ...

The Commonwealth is totally committed to Australia’s SKA bid, and it’s not hard to understand why.

The SKA is a huge economic opportunity – a $2 billion opportunity – and we’d be foolish to ignore that.

But it is also a great scientific opportunity, a great innovation opportunity – an opportunity to revolutionise Australia’s technological capabilities and the world’s understanding of the universe.

This is a project to fire the imagination, and I have no doubt that your presence here says as much about your spirit of adventure as it does about taking care of business.

The SKA is one of the largest mega-science projects ever conceived:

• comparable to the Large Hadron Collider outside Geneva

• comparable to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor under construction in France.

It has ambitious scientific goals, ambitious technical requirements, and an ambitious lifespan.

Are the times right for this kind of ambition?

I think they are. ...

Australian square kilometre array industry consortium >> Press Release

Automotive help and greenhouse gases

Why do I get the feeling that the media is just parrot reading the first couple of par's from the press release, and even then, not recognising and including the big WIIFM for the average Aussie car buyer interested in doing their bit for the environment?

A $10.5 million expansion of the LPG vehicle scheme, to start immediately, that doubles payments [from $1000 to $2000] to purchasers of new vehicles using LPG technology.

Didn't hear a peep about it.

And the second most important thing, well actually, the MOST IMPORTANT thing,  "A better-targeted, greener, $3.4 billion assistance program, the Automotive Transformation Scheme (ATS), running from 2011 to 2020", which was mentioned, but with no context for treehuggers like me.

I have to come online and go and look for it myself.  Is this what it means?   From the Automotive Review Final Report

The Australian car industry has announced a voluntary target of reducing fuel consumption of new petrol-engined passenger cars to 6.8 litres per 100 kilometres by 2010.

Is this what some of the ATS money will be spent on?  Who knows?  No context.

But speaking of the Final Report, here are some interesting tidbits ...

8. Environment

In 2006, road transport accounted for 68.9 million tonnes (or 12 percent) of Australia’s net greenhouse gas emissions.  This was 14.5 million tonnes (or 26.7 percent) higher than in 1990.

Passenger cars were the largest source of these emissions, contributing 42.6 million tonnes. This was 7.4 million tonnes (or 21 percent) higher than in 1990.[2]

Fuel consumption

The Australian car industry has announced a voluntary target of reducing fuel consumption of new petrol-engined passenger cars to 6.8 litres per 100 kilometres by 2010.

The average rate of fuel consumption across all Australian-registered vehicles in the year ended 31 October 2006 was 13.8 litres per 100 kilometres, which means the average of the vehicle fleet was less fuel efficient than for the year ended 31 October 2004, when it was 13.6 litres per 100 kilometres.

This can be explained by the growth in the sports utility market, which has largely offset
improvements in engine technology as far as fuel efficiency is concerned.[3] Given this trend, the voluntary 2010 target presents a very difficult challenge for the automotive industry.

Lowering levels of fuel consumption will assist Australian motorists with the rising costs of fuel. The Australian Conservation Foundation’s submission to the Review noted that, at a petrol price of $1.50 per litre, a 6.8 litres per 100 kilometres standard could save the average Australian driver around $1,000 on petrol each year.[4]

Given that at least 2 passenger vehicles on the Australian market are already performing at lower than 6.8l/100klm (Audi A6 range and Hyundai i30), this should be a doddle. And even if we don't - let's say we get to 7.5l/100klm, then it's still a huge improvement in performance, with the flow on benefits to local hip pockets, environmental ambience, health care budgets and you'd think, international sales.

Hey!  Maybe we'll even be able to sell cars to China.

But not a mention in the coverage by the mainstream broadcast media.  And they wonder why eyeballs are looking elsewhere and profit margins are falling.

Frankly, I think improving the fuel efficiency of the vehicle, coupled with tighter emissions standards,  is the way to go.  Satuaration public transport would be even better.  And tax the gas guzzlers!

But we (humanity collectively) are in the end game - 5 minutes to midnight, and given we don't seem to want to forego any of our luxuries anymore, instead we have to throw everything we can at reducing our emissions as quickly as possible to avoid catastrophic (i.e. extinction level event - ELE) global warming.

I guess this is a start, even if it is 10 years too late.

Additional Related Links:

• California’s Motor Vehicle Global Warming Regulations >> Main Page
  
• The Role of a Low Carbon Fuel Standard in Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions >>White Paper
• Gov. Schwarzenegger Signs Executive Order Establishing World's First Low Carbon Standard for Transportation Fuels >> Press Release
• Emissions standards - Global (Wiki)

$1 a day to save the planet!

Kevin Rudd's emissions trading scheme: $1 a day to save planet

theaustralian.com.au. Lenore Taylor, National correspondent | October 31, 2008

THE Rudd Government has moved to ease fears about the impact of its emissions trading scheme, releasing Treasury modelling showing the scheme is affordable, with households paying up to $7 a week more for electricity and gas, and no industries forced offshore.

>> Full story

Rudd Government launches Australia's Low Pollution Future - The Economics of Climate Change Mitigation >>Press Release  (links to PDF documents only.)

Apparently, we're not going to reduce greenhouse gases, we're going to reduce carbon emissions.  The methane and nitrous oxide* emissions can look after themselves.

(*No wonder we're all acting as silly as drunk ducks ready for the Christmas dinner chop.)

And you'd think with all the talk of emission trading schemes and the imperative to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, that a story about an electric car network for Australia - well, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, would get a bit more traction.

Plan for electric car network

theage.com.au, Mex Cooper, October 23, 2008

Australia will become the third country in the world to have an electric car network in a bid to run the country's 15 million cars on batteries powered by green energy under a plan announced today.

Thanks to Kwoff for the heads up on the electric car.

AIM Emissions Trading Scheme Survey  1st July 2008

The Australian business sector is largely unprepared for the introduction of the Federal Government’s emissions trading scheme according to the findings of a new survey of top level executives conducted by the Australian Institute of Management.

Only 36 per cent of those surveyed were aware the Australian Government’s emissions trading scheme, the centrepiece of the nation’s greenhouse reduction efforts is to commence in 2010.

The economic crisis is petty

Thanks to Barry Brook over at Brave New Climate for the throw on this.  (Even the comments have interesting links.)

Monbiot.com » This Is What Denial Does

The economic crisis is petty by comparison to the nature crunch. But they have the same cause.

By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 14th October 2008

This is nothing. Well, nothing by comparison to what’s coming. The financial crisis for which we must now pay so heavily prefigures the real collapse, when humanity bumps against its ecological limits.

As we goggle at the fluttering financial figures, a different set of numbers passes us by. On Friday, Pavan Sukhdev, the Deutsche Bank economist leading a European study on ecosystems, reported that we are losing natural capital worth between $2 trillion and $5 trillion every year, as a result of deforestation alone(1).

The losses incurred so far by the financial sector amount to between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion. Sukhdev arrived at his figure by estimating the value of the services - such as locking up carbon and providing freshwater - that forests perform, and calculating the cost of either replacing them or living without them. The credit crunch is petty when compared to the nature crunch.

The two crises have the same cause. In both cases, those who exploit the resource have demanded impossible rates of return and invoked debts that can never be repaid. In both cases we denied the likely consequences. I used to believe that collective denial was peculiar to climate change. Now I know that it’s the first response to every impending dislocation

... Monbiot.com » This Is What Denial Does

Silver lining in the financial crisis cloud

So the US congress pulled its' finger out, or should I say, pork barrelled its way out of total financial melt down hysteria, and passed the "confidence restoration" $700 billion USD Wall Street bail out.

Because some people are saying that the banks have liquidity i.e. credit to lend; they just don't trust anyone anymore, not even each other.  Now there's confidence for you.

The people who loaned money like it was created out of thin air so they could loan it to anyone who asked for it, have now decided they don't trust each other, so the rest of us pay the price?

Whether the bail out, err ... liquidity confidence building,  actually does anything, remains to be seen in the reactions from the NZ and Asia openings tomorrow, what with Australia being closed for the (ironic smirk) Labour Day holiday long weekend.

Anyways, a different buzz seems to be happening now, with talk generally turning to funding "nation building" projects rather than credit bail outs, to avert another Great Depression scenario.

Some visionaries have long been talking about the green economy.  And now pundits seem to be jumping on the "green collar" jobs bandwagon, and the opportunities for transformation of the polluting sectors of the world economy into low carbon emission economic drivers.

More recently in the Australian industrial heartlands, we've seen union leaders finally get the message.

In the words of noted industrialist, Henry J Kaiser;"Problems are opportunities in work clothes".

And let's face it, right now we're (collectively) facing a couple of doozies!  The global warming crisis and the global financial crisis.

What an opportunity!

Links of interest:

• Green Economy and Green collar worker (wiki)
• Green Jobs: Towards Decent work in a Sustainable, Low-carbon World (ilo.org)
  
• Rocky Mountain Institute
• Green Recovery program | Center for American Progress
• $100B Green-Collar Jobs Plan Recommended (Yahoo! News)
• Green Collar Jobs | The Montana Climate Action Project
• Green Economy 2008 US cities rankings (sustainlane.com)
• One Country's Success Story: Building a Green Economy (egovmonitor.com)
• Sustainability within a Generation - Building a Sustainable Economy | David Suzuki Foundation
• ESD Ecologically Sustainable Development in Australia 1992 (environment.gov.au)
  
• New prospects for nation building (abc.net.au)

But not from this mob .... (see also "Nation Building and the Future Economy", Address to the Infrastructure Association of Queensland, by Treasurer Wayne Swan 09/09/08)

Green makeoever to create jobs

I don't read the papers every day, not even online, but I reckon this got lost in the mainstream noise generated by the financial gurus running around like chooks with their heads cut off.  (Thanks to Kwoff for the heads up.)

Homes 'should get free green makeovers' | NEWS.com.au

By Cathy Alexander
September 21, 2008 03:25pm

UNIONS want a "green revolution" to sweep the country's homes, saving more than $400 on annual household electricity bills.

They have called on the Federal Government to pay for a mass retrofitting of homes to slash electricity use.

Homes would be kitted out with insulation, double glazing and smart appliances at a cost to the Government of $5500 apiece. ...

Not a bad start Sharon, but a solar hot water system and/or grid connect solar system as well, would be even better.

The view from here: US Presidential Election

After watching the first Presidential debate live*, thought some quickie links with the view from here, would be useful:

ABC News Tag: US Elections
ABC TV: Insiders: Meltdown a challenge for Obama and McCain
ABC TV: 7.30 Report:  Clarke and Dawe on Wall Street's Woes; (Satire, Humour: BRYAN DAWE: President Bush, thank you very much for your time; it's a great honour.  ...)
SBS TV: Insight, Jennie Brockie in America:  McCain & Obama.  Insight transcript.  Interesting comments from would be voters.

JENNY BROCKIE: OK, anyone else like to join in here? What are you looking for? The people who are still deciding, what are you waiting for? Gentleman over here:

MAN: The thing I'm looking for is competence and competence is not experience, it's having the wisdom and the curiosity to consider an issue from all sides and then come up with the smart solution, not the ideological solution or not the sound-bite solution or not the politically expedient solution.

* Presidential Debate:

McCain would put a price freeze on to solve the financial crisis!?  That thinking went out the window even in the Shakey Isles with Rogernomics (wiki), back in the '80s!

Obama kept hitting the mark on the economy.  95% of tax payers would get a tax reduction.  Noticed he constantly referred to the "middle class".  Isn't there a "working class" in the US?  (Or do they still believe they're all "living the great American dream"?)

And while it's nice to keep the level of disagreement down, he said that McCain was "right" a few times too many times for my liking.

Number one rule of sales:  Don't mention/disparage the competition, but when you do, make sure you come back with an even stronger feature/advantage/benefit of your own product/service.  Obama may have kept to the rule, but all I heard was that McCain was right.

And just for another view altogether: Chrsitian Science Monitor Campaign 08:  How the US Presidential debate played overseas;

Pakistani political scientist Hasan Askari Rizvi is of two minds about Friday night’s presidential debate in the United States.  On one hand, he flinches at Barack Obama’s swashbuckling comments about taking out Al Qaeda leaders on Pakistani soil – with or without Pakistan’s consent. No policy could make him more unpopular in Pakistan, Mr. Rizvi says.

Then again, Rizvi acknowledges, he cannot rid himself of the idea that, despite his nuanced arguments Friday, Republican John McCain will be “George Bush III.” 

>Full Story here

Kevin 747, global financial crisis and climate change

UNunited Nations

So Kevin 747 (guess the honeymoon's well and truly over eh?) did his big thing at the UN today, by rabbiting on about the global financial crisis (thanks for nothing Fascists Inc.!) and how Australia's exemplary financial prudence would have prevented all this.

Kevin Rudd urges big economies to show leadership (The Australian 26 September 2008)

Instead of focusing on climate change or world poverty as part of the Millenium Development Goals established in 2000, the Prime Minister spent most of his time talking about expanding financial regulation beyond commercial banks and trying to protect families who borrow for their homes from the effect of excessive risk and financial greed.

And sign up to the "clean coal" bandwagon so we can solve the real crisis facing humankind. (Oh puuleeease! Well, at least Fossil Fuel Australia Inc. has announced they're paying for their own R&D.)

We're Doomed!  Doomed I tell you!  Doomed!

I saw Letterman's climate change rant on the Late Show back on the 9th or 10th?, and thought I'd post on it, but never got around to it (life and other distractions - ya know?), but it seems to have made a bit of a splash, evidenced by the number of blogs referring to it, so it seems redundant of me to do it now.

Anyways, got me looking back through my climate change posts, and lemme tell you, if I ruled the world, things would be different around here!

Welcome

New blog of interest to me:  A Free Man's Life: a Canadian based blog with an American perspective other than that of the elephant* just south of the border!

*Pierre Trudeau: "Sleeping with an elephant".

Buddy can you spare a dime?

So I usually only post when the muse strikes. Sometimes it's hot, sometimes it's not, but it's been a week, so here are a few random blogs/sites, in no particular order, that I've stumbled across in the wake of the good ship "USS taxpayer funded bailout".

• DC Examiner - Yeas and Nays
• Wonkette - The DC Gossip
• washingtonpost.com > Politics
  
• Las Vegas Gleaner
  
• Radar - *Pop *Politics *Scandal *Style
  
• Stocks tumble amid new Wall Street landscape

And the bloke who kicked it all off for me this morning, Michael Pascoe, with The story of the century

The Wall Street crash of 2008 is the financial story of the decade, Michael Pascoe writes, but don’t let it blind you to the much more important story of this century.

...

Not only is the USA sneezing, it has a very serious influenza, but the world hasn’t caught a cold and is still running along in quite reasonable health.

You’d never guess that from our hopelessly US-centric media, but global growth continues around the 4 per cent mark. The BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China) will still invest about US$22 trillion in today's dollars on infrastructure over the next decade and never mind what the oil-rich Middle East states spend or the regional economies (such as Australia) that hang off the BRICs. China continues to build another Brisbane every month. ...

Is it too early to opine that the new economic disorder in the US is not good news for McPalin?

Economic Models as explained by Cows

A little light relief on Fathers Day.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You worship them.

Moo ....

North Coast Voices: 21 Economic Models explained with Cows - 2008 update

Our carbon footprint - we're megawatt performers!

Our 1.1kW grid connect PV system ticked over the 1 megawatt hour of energy generated a month or so ago, a bit under a year after we installed it under the former Howard Government's solar rebate system.

Based on figures from DEUS (NSW), that means we've saved more than 1 tonne of greenhouse gas emissions from going into the atmosphere. Woo Hoo!

It hasn't reduced our power bill by that much, because our supplier has brought in a "daily connection" charge, so the excess we've produced above our household demand and fed back into the grid, is chewed up by that. (Thanks Morris, can't wait to see how our environmentally minded privatised electricity providers will handle the greenhouse challenge, and pass that cost along.)

Anyway, reducing our electricity bill wasn't the motivation for getting the system installed, we've always (as much as the budget would allow) factored in reducing* our carbon footprint in our lifestyle activities and choices, so this was more about doing our bit to save the planet, than saving money.

This year we installed a solar hot water system. It came online when we had unseasonal rain, so we had to fire up the booster for the first two weeks, but the offpeak meter has only ticked over 14kW or so since it was installed more than 4 weeks ago. It will be interesting to see how much more this will bring our household carbon footprint down.

So, all this got me wondering. Instead of building new coal fired or nuclear powered stations to satisfy "demand", how about we (collectively) reduce waste, improve efficiency and increase household market share of renewables to reach the 60%-90% greenhouse gas reduction target?

It cost about $13,000 to create a "point of use" 1.1kW power station on our roof. It produces about 1MW of power per year, sends some juice back to the grid, and forestalls about 1MW of greenhouse gas per year going into the atmosphere from our household activities.

There are approx. 1.6 million private dwellings in Victoria (VIC) and 6.6 million in Australia (2001 census: Separate house and Semi-detached, row/terrace etc.). The new coal fired power station mooted for VIC is going to cost a minimum of $150 million, apparently a nuke could cost USD$1B, ... can someone please do the math?

As the Stern Review and Garnaut Climate Change Review have already pointed out, the economic "ROI" bean counting, will soon be far outweighed by the environmental, social and economic costs of doing nothing.

The sooner we (collectively) start, the cheaper the solutions are, and the faster we get to our 60%-90% of 1990 greenhouse gas emission levels target. (And maybe save the planet.)

And don't use "China and India ... blah blah blah ...", as an excuse. We were primarily responsible for our greenhouse gas emissions in the past, we're responsible for our contributions now, and we'll be responsible for them in the future. Time to collectively get to work, because the clock is ticking.

Links:

• NSW ceiling insulation rebate
• Solar Homes and Communities Plan Rebate
• Solar Hot Water Rebate Program - Home Page
• Your Home - Design for lifestyle and the future
  

* If we hadn't already insulated the ceiling and all external and internal wall cavities when we built our house, we'd be getting that done too!

Ooooh quick - jump out the window dag NAB it.

From the International Herald Tribune ...

National Australia Bank, the top lender in that nation, booked another 830 million Australian dollars in losses from its exposure to U.S. mortgages, sending its stock plunging on Friday to its biggest single-day percentage drop in nearly 21 years. ... more ...

Yes, because an interim half yearly profit in excess of $2 billion, just isn't good enough, is it?

Maybe I'm cynical, or just been around long enough to have "been there seen that", but honestly, all this angst over the US sub prime and global "credit crisis" from supposed experts, would be laughable if it wasn't so potentially serious. (Bolting horses and all that.)

Anyone reading this old enough to remember when companies used to announce a half year or annual loss, with barely a ripple in the markets?

Ah yes, the good old days, when people used a thing called perspective (wiki).

Feed the world ... with the ever so 'umble Spud

Well, who'da thunk it?

And, I understand that there is very little, if any, international trade in potatoes. They're all home grown!

So, one of those "win-win's" for the local economy and global environment.


Landline - 13/07/2008: Handy Andes. Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC aka "Aunty")

Handy Andes

Reporter: Pip Courtney

First Published: 13/07/2008

ANNE KRUGER, PRESENTER: Climate change and even carbon emissions may still have their sceptics but there's no denying the impact the spiralling cost of staple foods is having right now on the world's poor.

The United Nations, the World Bank and the leaders of the eight biggest industrial powers have all pledged to do their bit to increase production of rice, wheat and corn. But what about the humble spud? Pip Courtney went to Peru for this special report to mark the International Year of the Potato.

Features full transcript, link to resource and segment videos in hi and low res bandwidth for download.

The sky isn't going to fall after all

On LateLine last night, a commentator appeared, to my jaundiced ear, to make out that a carbon tax of $185 per household would be a burden on consumers, after the introduction of the Australian Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). MOH* and I rejoiced.

Our household is not living the high life by any means, we do need to watch the pennies - closely; but if all us Aussies are going to end up paying, is just $185 per year in increased charges at the five year mark (2015), I reckon we've got away with our greenhouse gas belching ways cheap at twice the price!

Carbon tax nothing to fear - report | NEWS.com.au
NSW Business Chamber: Building and sustaining business

* MOH My Other Half