Interesting item in the Courier Mail today, with a dire warning for the world’s population
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22780446-952,00.html
Action on Global Warming is no longer an academic request or an option.
The UN report on global warming mentioned impacts to Queensland's Great Barrier Reef and wet tropics. Scientist feel just 13 short years will see significant biodiversity losses in these regions. That means unless we do something today our children will not as Adults be able to see the things that we saw. And the heritage of hundreds of thousands of years that they entrusted us with has been destroyed in our lifetime, by our generation.
Australia’s production of crops has already peaked, and the drying up of our rivers, salinity increase and lack rainfall will increase the price of basic vegetables and fruit. Wheat costs and therefore bread has already risen. So the argument that it cost money to abate greenhouse gas is basically flawed. It is costing us money now to sit on our hands and be inactive as a nation. The lack of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol is a national disgrace, and I believe that a government with the information we have now is not only negligent but culpable.
The loss of productivity in my wife’s home town of Mypolonga is catastrophic. As a farming (orchardist) community that lives off irrigation the drought and overuse of water upstream has decreased their allowance to 10% of what they had been able to use 5 years ago. What will be the financial impact to their community? Huge to say the least. This is one town of many, and is a graphic demonstration of the IPCC report of the cost of Global Warming on the world. They recommend that action now will reduce that overall financial impact. They further warn that lack of action will destroy whole economies. Well we see the evidence before us now……
Australia must act. We have the highest carbon imprint per person than any other country in the world. We must:
1. Sign the Kyoto Protocol and start a national carbon trading system
2. Reduce our carbon imprint through an energy reduction drive (already well supported by the community)
3. Improve the efficiency of land transportation and its consumption of fossil fuels
4. Increase the green energy production within our country and reduce the use of coal fired power stations
5. Demand more from our governments whilst doing more at a personal level.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Comments from Tim Flannery
This week I attended Energy21 in Australia. Tim Flannery was the key note address speaker (Australian of the year) with some interesting things to say. It went something like this:
If you took the world’s air, and compressed it to a liquid its volume would make up 1/500th of that of the oceans. Given therefore the container size (a great deal less that the oceans) the air is much more sensitive to pollutants (by volume) that the sea.
Over the last 120 years we have introduced a number of technologies that threaten the balance ecology of this planet directly. These impacts have all been to the atmospheric ecosystem. The first of these technologies was the electrical production based on coal fired (and now oil and gas fired) power stations. The second was the introduction of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in 1928 and the third was the internal combustion engine (petrol and diesel based) that drives a lot of our ground based transportation today.
We faced two crisis now facing our third crisis as a result of the rapid uptake of these technologies.
Let’s talk about these crisis and our responses:
The first crisis was acid rain. The sulphur dioxide from both the production of electricity from coal fired power stations was seen to cause acid rain; which was destroying the forests. This was observed after the fact (many years of SO2 build up) but was acted upon quickly with scrubbers installed at power stations. The resulting management of the problem has had an immediate impact.
Fortunately for us SO2 is short ivied in the atmosphere, it is quickly dropped out by combining with water causing H2SO4 (Sulphuric Acid) hence the term acid rain1.
See: http://www.epa.gov/acidrain/what/index.html
CFC’s and GHG’c unfortunately are longer term problems. Once created their life is in the order of hundreds of years.
Turning then to CFC’s; the second problem. We realized in the 1970’s that a hole was growing over the south pole. But it took us until the late 80’s to understand the link between CFC’s and Ozone depletion. To put this in proportion, in Australia Tim Flannery tell us that you have about 20 minutes when you go outside (without protection) before you become sunburned. This is at today’s protection rate where the Ozone layer blocks 90% of the sun’s harmful UV rays. If we didn’t act to stop the hole in the Ozone layer and deplete it completely (which was possible) then we would walk outside and be burnt in 20 seconds. This level of UV would destroy life (plant & animal) on this planet as we know it, so again something had to be done quickly. The Montreal Protocol banded the production of CFC’s and the Ozone hole has stabilized. It will take many years for the Ozone levels to rebuild, but the catastrophic possibility of Ozone depletion was avoided.
Now the third impact of our electrical production and transport technologies is creation of Green House Gases (GHG’s). We spill an increasing amount into the same container that we breathe from. The impact is Climate Change. Why are we surprised? With acid rain and ozone holes we have seen that we have large impacts on this relatively small container in a short time. As I mentioned above air is 1/500th of the oceans volume; so a little amount of GHG’s has a large influence. Unlike the impact of sewage and other contaminates in our oceans, our influence in the air is much higher.
The issue is this:
- Unlike water pollution – it’s difficult to see the impact because CO2 is invisible.
- Unlike Ozone and acid rain, the impact will have an avalanche point (it will have small impacts then cascade in impact)
- Temperature change (climate change) is very small (only 0.6oC average at the moment)
BUT
It’s there, and 2oC change will be catastrophic. We have already seen the impact of drought and storms due to 0.6oC increase throughout the world. When the polar ice starts melting, instead of the ice reflecting solar radiation, the blue sea will absorb it, so this provides a positive feedback loop that will reveal itself as an “avalanche” of change.
There is no doubt we can act and be successful in combating air pollution like acid rain and CFC’s – but we must start now otherwise we will enter the avalanche period and then there is no turning back. The impact of CFC’s and sulphurdioxide pollutant also to some degree acts as coolants. The risk is when we cut that pollution; the GHG’s again accelerate the impact of the current levels of GHG’s in the atmosphere. And, unlike Sulphur, the GHG’s will take hundreds of years to reduce their levels. So it is important we react and react strongly. For the impact is social and economic. More storms are obvious, drought and lower agricultural production is obvious.
Tim was very enlightening as a speaker, and in addressing the energy conference (Energy21 - Sydney) he made provocative and pointed requests to the power industry to take positive action and not wait for regulation to push them in a direction. He mentioned the culpability of the senior management teams in those organizations who understand the impact but use economics as a reason for inaction. The Stern report lays out well the fact that the mid to longer term economic impacts of inaction. This impact on all of us in society is actually the reason to do something and doing it now.
1Since coal and petroleum often contain sulfur compounds, their combustion generates sulphur dioxide. Further oxidation of SO2, usually in the presence of a catalyst such as NO2, forms H2SO4, and thus acid rain.
If you took the world’s air, and compressed it to a liquid its volume would make up 1/500th of that of the oceans. Given therefore the container size (a great deal less that the oceans) the air is much more sensitive to pollutants (by volume) that the sea.
Over the last 120 years we have introduced a number of technologies that threaten the balance ecology of this planet directly. These impacts have all been to the atmospheric ecosystem. The first of these technologies was the electrical production based on coal fired (and now oil and gas fired) power stations. The second was the introduction of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in 1928 and the third was the internal combustion engine (petrol and diesel based) that drives a lot of our ground based transportation today.
We faced two crisis now facing our third crisis as a result of the rapid uptake of these technologies.
Let’s talk about these crisis and our responses:
The first crisis was acid rain. The sulphur dioxide from both the production of electricity from coal fired power stations was seen to cause acid rain; which was destroying the forests. This was observed after the fact (many years of SO2 build up) but was acted upon quickly with scrubbers installed at power stations. The resulting management of the problem has had an immediate impact.
Fortunately for us SO2 is short ivied in the atmosphere, it is quickly dropped out by combining with water causing H2SO4 (Sulphuric Acid) hence the term acid rain1.
See: http://www.epa.gov/acidrain/what/index.html
CFC’s and GHG’c unfortunately are longer term problems. Once created their life is in the order of hundreds of years.
Turning then to CFC’s; the second problem. We realized in the 1970’s that a hole was growing over the south pole. But it took us until the late 80’s to understand the link between CFC’s and Ozone depletion. To put this in proportion, in Australia Tim Flannery tell us that you have about 20 minutes when you go outside (without protection) before you become sunburned. This is at today’s protection rate where the Ozone layer blocks 90% of the sun’s harmful UV rays. If we didn’t act to stop the hole in the Ozone layer and deplete it completely (which was possible) then we would walk outside and be burnt in 20 seconds. This level of UV would destroy life (plant & animal) on this planet as we know it, so again something had to be done quickly. The Montreal Protocol banded the production of CFC’s and the Ozone hole has stabilized. It will take many years for the Ozone levels to rebuild, but the catastrophic possibility of Ozone depletion was avoided.
Now the third impact of our electrical production and transport technologies is creation of Green House Gases (GHG’s). We spill an increasing amount into the same container that we breathe from. The impact is Climate Change. Why are we surprised? With acid rain and ozone holes we have seen that we have large impacts on this relatively small container in a short time. As I mentioned above air is 1/500th of the oceans volume; so a little amount of GHG’s has a large influence. Unlike the impact of sewage and other contaminates in our oceans, our influence in the air is much higher.
The issue is this:
- Unlike water pollution – it’s difficult to see the impact because CO2 is invisible.
- Unlike Ozone and acid rain, the impact will have an avalanche point (it will have small impacts then cascade in impact)
- Temperature change (climate change) is very small (only 0.6oC average at the moment)
BUT
It’s there, and 2oC change will be catastrophic. We have already seen the impact of drought and storms due to 0.6oC increase throughout the world. When the polar ice starts melting, instead of the ice reflecting solar radiation, the blue sea will absorb it, so this provides a positive feedback loop that will reveal itself as an “avalanche” of change.
There is no doubt we can act and be successful in combating air pollution like acid rain and CFC’s – but we must start now otherwise we will enter the avalanche period and then there is no turning back. The impact of CFC’s and sulphurdioxide pollutant also to some degree acts as coolants. The risk is when we cut that pollution; the GHG’s again accelerate the impact of the current levels of GHG’s in the atmosphere. And, unlike Sulphur, the GHG’s will take hundreds of years to reduce their levels. So it is important we react and react strongly. For the impact is social and economic. More storms are obvious, drought and lower agricultural production is obvious.
Tim was very enlightening as a speaker, and in addressing the energy conference (Energy21 - Sydney) he made provocative and pointed requests to the power industry to take positive action and not wait for regulation to push them in a direction. He mentioned the culpability of the senior management teams in those organizations who understand the impact but use economics as a reason for inaction. The Stern report lays out well the fact that the mid to longer term economic impacts of inaction. This impact on all of us in society is actually the reason to do something and doing it now.
1Since coal and petroleum often contain sulfur compounds, their combustion generates sulphur dioxide. Further oxidation of SO2, usually in the presence of a catalyst such as NO2, forms H2SO4, and thus acid rain.
Monday, November 05, 2007
Jacque's bark
After yesterdays’ blog entry, I was contemplating the issue of why there are still people resisting Climate Change initiatives. Even if you don’t believe that climate change will happen from our dumping of Green House Gases into the atmosphere, you must support an approach that reverses the impact humans are having on the earth, making it less habitable every year – so, by this reasoning a more conservative approach to any “dumping” is a good thing; right? Then later today I saw this following comment by famous filmmaker and scientist Jacques Cousteau:
“Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans”....
We do need to protect the air and water, and I would have thought that leadership should be shown by the developed countries of the world and encouragement given to those developing nations to follow suit. This is the spirit of the Kyoto Protocol together with the more urgent need to address catastrophic climate change scenarios predicted by the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change). But as I say, support of Kyoto does not have do endorse Climate Change science, it provides a foundation of an approach that is needed to address Jacques famous statement about air and water.
“Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans”....
We do need to protect the air and water, and I would have thought that leadership should be shown by the developed countries of the world and encouragement given to those developing nations to follow suit. This is the spirit of the Kyoto Protocol together with the more urgent need to address catastrophic climate change scenarios predicted by the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change). But as I say, support of Kyoto does not have do endorse Climate Change science, it provides a foundation of an approach that is needed to address Jacques famous statement about air and water.
What’s the fuss about Kyoto?
We (the bigger “we” meaning those scientist vested with advising governments) have know for sometime that the earth’s balance is being disrupted by the impact of human activities. I don’t think in fact any one actually disputes this fact. It just the amount of impact that everyone seems hung up on.
Back in 1972 at the UN Conference for Human Environment in Stockholm pollution was the main theme on the agenda. The meeting drew attention to the fact that something dramatic was happening to the environment and that the parties present should find out about the effects and causes and take voluntary steps towards reducing pollution. No specific pollutants were mentioned.
Twenty years later we knew more. It had been observed that certain gases were having dramatic effect on our environment. The primary culprits were found to be 6 Green House Gases (GHG). They were isolated as being the most responsible. So, in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio - also known as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; 189 parties gathered together to make an agreement to reduce emissions of these GHG’s.
Unfortunately even though the knowledge of impact is there, the mechanisms of the climate and atmosphere are complex and therefore consensus takes sometime. My feeling is where doubt based on good scientific observation is in place we should act, because if we wait until it is absolutely unequivocal to all, it will be much too late to reserve the impacts.
Here’s the rub. The developed nations of the world are the primary producers of GHG from back in the 60’s till now. So the Kyoto accord decided to get those nations that profited creating GHG’s to start the reduction program. The program is a non-binding program to reduce GHG’s and the developing nations such as India and China (although larger producers now) do not have to sign off on reductions at this point.
Whilst many countries signed off on the above principles two notable exceptions (Australia and the USA) decided that they weren’t going to sign. They sight the fact that China and India don’t have to make reduction commitments and all sorts of things. But the fact is the USA and Australia (Australia on a per capita basis) are significant contributors GHG’s. America on the basis that it is 5% of the world’s population and contributes 25% of GHG’s - it has a lot to answer for…… The US also consumes 40% of the world’s oil, so just imagine if we don’t set and example and China plus India (2.4 Billion people) end up with the same rate of consumption and GHG production! Whew!
Note the Kyoto targets are actually non-binding, but they get the system of reduction mindedness and carbon trading in place for a more significant set of measures likely to be introduced in 2012. In its most simple form we have to sign off and move forward as leading nations of the world. To not do so only shows ignorance, arrogance and stupidity by the leaders of Australia and the USA.
Back in 1972 at the UN Conference for Human Environment in Stockholm pollution was the main theme on the agenda. The meeting drew attention to the fact that something dramatic was happening to the environment and that the parties present should find out about the effects and causes and take voluntary steps towards reducing pollution. No specific pollutants were mentioned.
Twenty years later we knew more. It had been observed that certain gases were having dramatic effect on our environment. The primary culprits were found to be 6 Green House Gases (GHG). They were isolated as being the most responsible. So, in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio - also known as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; 189 parties gathered together to make an agreement to reduce emissions of these GHG’s.
Unfortunately even though the knowledge of impact is there, the mechanisms of the climate and atmosphere are complex and therefore consensus takes sometime. My feeling is where doubt based on good scientific observation is in place we should act, because if we wait until it is absolutely unequivocal to all, it will be much too late to reserve the impacts.
Here’s the rub. The developed nations of the world are the primary producers of GHG from back in the 60’s till now. So the Kyoto accord decided to get those nations that profited creating GHG’s to start the reduction program. The program is a non-binding program to reduce GHG’s and the developing nations such as India and China (although larger producers now) do not have to sign off on reductions at this point.
Whilst many countries signed off on the above principles two notable exceptions (Australia and the USA) decided that they weren’t going to sign. They sight the fact that China and India don’t have to make reduction commitments and all sorts of things. But the fact is the USA and Australia (Australia on a per capita basis) are significant contributors GHG’s. America on the basis that it is 5% of the world’s population and contributes 25% of GHG’s - it has a lot to answer for…… The US also consumes 40% of the world’s oil, so just imagine if we don’t set and example and China plus India (2.4 Billion people) end up with the same rate of consumption and GHG production! Whew!
Note the Kyoto targets are actually non-binding, but they get the system of reduction mindedness and carbon trading in place for a more significant set of measures likely to be introduced in 2012. In its most simple form we have to sign off and move forward as leading nations of the world. To not do so only shows ignorance, arrogance and stupidity by the leaders of Australia and the USA.
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