Tag Archives: Environment

Can you be too green?

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Back in 2009 the Australian Greens helped the opposition to vote down the then Labour governments Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme legislation. They said that it was weak on emission reduction targets; the proposed 5% was too distant from the minimum 25% the Greens wanted.

Now, as a much weaker carbon-tax-to-trading-scheme hybrid proposal is debated, they are prepared to compromise.  The Greens propose to accept a modest carbon price prior to a ramp up later. This is the very same approach they previously rejected. The fundamental premise of a cap-and-trade system is to manipulate supply and demand in a way that changes behaviour. The only difference with the current proposal is it begins with a clunky and hugely unpopular new tax.

After years of delay that has seen debate erode policy options and scarify public support, the Greens are agreeing to an option that is even less likely to achieve the outcomes they support.

It is time to call them on this blunder. Back in 2009 their inability to see that effective climate change policy is a long play, tipped the result over to inaction. Structural economic transitions never happen overnight. Economies adjust, they do not jump, and any policy that forces change too rapidly risks collapsing the system. Wise policy recognizes this and finds a more gentle and expedient path. The rough edges of a CPRS are a compromise worth taking to achieve smooth transition.

In 2009 the Greens missed this reality. The risk they take this time is to botch it again. They may accept the tax now only to balk again at the emission targets set in any subsequent trading scheme. Do so and decades of hard work progressing the environment into the public psyche and onto the political agenda will be undone.

Politicians of all hues need to understand that climate change policy is a once in a millennium opportunity. And for the Greens a carbon market will inject serious funds into the environment and begin the long and necessary process of business accounting for environmental costs. How else, other than through a market approach, will we see manufacturing, development and energy accounting for natural environmental services.

Perhaps when oil hits US$300 a barrel and our continued carbon intensity cripples our exports we will look back to 2009 and say, if only.  Let’s hope the same will not be said of 2011.

BMAD

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It is often said that the end cannot justify the means. This adage comes for the logic that an immoral act is an immoral act irrespective of when it occurs or for what reason.

The other day I witnessed an argument that left me thinking how this is adage is rarely applied.

The discussion began over a conservation problem that is becoming widespread in the eucalyptus forests of eastern Australia. Mature canopy trees are dying from infestations of sap sucking insects that proliferate to reach huge numbers sufficient to defoliate the tree. This explosion of insects and damage to leaves happens where a bird species, the bell miner, is abundant.

Rather than eat the insects, bell miners eat the sugary lurps that the scale insects use to protect themselves – it is a little like harvesting, for the insects regrow the lurp that covers them and the birds come round again.

Bell miners are aggressive birds and chase away other species. This lowers the predation rate on the insects that, over time, means more insects. The insects feed on the leaves that eventually succumb. When the trees loose too many leaves they die back. The process has been given an acronym BMAD; bell miner associated dieback.

Bell miners do well in disturbed forests suit because they like the dense undergrowth that comes when a forest is altered by fire, logging or other human interference.

Once established the best way to slow the spread of BMAD is active management involving the removal of shrubs. This means suppression through mechanical means, sometimes fire or, more usually, the application of herbicides.

These are drastic interventions of the kind that the conservation movement opposes with religious fervor. Only BMAD is far worse. So even among the ardent conservationists it has been accepted that intervention to remove shrubs is necessary. It is acceptable to manage with interventions of herbicide a habitat that was disturbed.

All good so far. The argument came of over the next issue.

Someone made the comment that ecologically endangered communities could be managed for improvement.

‘No, no, no you cannot do that’ was the indignant cry. ‘You cannot mess with an EEC, you just can’t.’

It was seen as a morally abhorrent suggestion. If something is designated as endangered it is suddenly untouchable.

But why not actively manage? Is it not exactly the same as the intervention proposed to tackle BMAD. In that thorny issue the end justified the means. But the same means cannot be applied to an EEC.

So in the real everyday world we have selective morality.

No surprise perhaps, but it makes you wonder what grounds our logic if its not a sense of morals.

The hip pocket

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A young colleague recently claimed that her generation has great concern about environmental ills. She thought that her y-generation all have deep feelings about the woes of our world. They want something done about it, especially climate change. She claimed that late alphabeters will be angry at any government that promised action on climate change but then reneged as the Australian government has just done.

“Are you sure,” I said, ‘won’t they vote with their hip pockets?”

“No they have all they need,” she said, “I mean we all have food and shelter and with those needs met we want to do the right thing.”

I believed her, at least the intent part. And I am sure it is how she feels herself having moved her own career path away from high finance into an environmental company. Unfortunately I don’t think that we have the freedom from basic needs that our apparent wealth implies.

It may be that most westerners are well fed, sleep in a bed, have a wardrobe, watch TV and take the occasional holiday. And it seems that all primary needs are covered (yes, it is true the TV is now a basic need according to the UK social services) and, therefore, higher values should mature. We should think about values beyond the basic, including care for the environment.

But this wealth, that supplies all the basics and more, has not given us emotional freedom. We are not free to think of higher things because we are still struggling to keep our wealth coming. We are locked into long hours of work to pay for large mortgages, excess food and more clothes than we could ever wear. And as we are at work we have to pay for someone else to look after the kids, and someone to do the washing, to mow the lawn and so it goes. In the end we have to keep the kids at home until they are middle aged to help us pay for it all.

And what if we just stopped? If we gave it all up in order to be enlightened, then the monetary flows so essential for our economies would stop as well. Our material world would collapse in a heap. And, well, it just can’t happen. Back to work we go, stressed to the max, a hand checking on the hip pocket.

Let us hope that I am just a cynic, a product of a different generation, and that the youngsters really do have a sense of higher value – although anyone who has seen a Lady Gaga music video may have to search hard for higher value.  Let us hope and believe that these youngsters will vote on their beliefs and give with their voice to help change the way we think.

Let us hope that they won’t vote with their hip pockets.

Greens

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Recent raucous debate on climate change In the Australian parliament resulted in the Greens, a minor party with environmental leanings, voting twice with the opposition against a Climate Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) policy proposed by the government.

The CPRS legislation was an emissions trading scheme that would leverage market forces to drive behaviours of consumers and investors to cleaner more efficient energy options to lower emissions. I say ‘was’ because the policy option has just been shelved. This decision means that climate change will not be a central item in either government or opposition campaigns in the upcoming election, handy for both major parties.

And why did the Greens oppose the legislation? Because, they said, it did not go far enough. It was too weak and too kind to the heavy polluters. The reduction targets were a joke, so the rhetoric went.

This is a curious position for green politicians to take. The CPRS was an attempt to restructure the way we generate our energy and a mechanism that would money would be made from climate change adaptation measures. In other words legislation that would push more funds towards environmental benefit than any previous conservation measures in the country’s history. Instead there is no climate change policy and no serious debate on climate change legislation likely for at least another two years, possibly longer. And without a policy there is no emissions target at all.

Someone once said that the perfect can get in the way of the good. After the excesses that brought us anthropogenic climate change, it would be irony indeed if the desire for excess in redress scuppered the good.

Spending on the environment

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The Australian government budget outcome for 2008 reported an expenditure of A$280 billion (US$180 billion at time of writing) or 25% of GDP.

Divided equally, 280 billion would give each resident of Australia A$13,340 and that was, more or less, what happened to the money.

Welfare, health and education combined to account for A$161 billion or 58% of the expenditure. People accept taxes as a necessity of life partly because these things, along with infrastructure, defense and other primary needs are best paid for collectively.

It makes sense to also pay for fundamental services such as clean air, fresh water, food and shelter. The food we eat and the roof over our heads we pay for after the taxman has taken his cut. What about paying for the rest?

The government spend on the environment is difficult to estimate. There is no line item in the budget, so we must estimate for the following:

  • A3.8 billion on agriculture, fisheries and forestry
  • A$3.2 billion on recreation and culture
  • A$16.6 on the public service

Let’s be generous and say this adds up to A$10 billion or 3.6% of the federal environment spend. That’s A$10 billion for a land area of 7,692,024 square km.

This rounded amount, A$10 billion, is a curious figure. It suggests that we can get clean air, clean water, conservation, and aesthetic outcomes for 21 million inhabitants, plus extensive natural resource exports, for $13 per hectare.

“Ah,” the skeptic would interject, “what about the monies spent by the state and local government, not to mention the huge amount of input from farmers, resource managers and community groups?”

Fair enough. Let’s double the amount to capture the contribution from all pockets in the government purse – $26 per hectare is now more than the defense budget… by $4 per hectare.

It makes you think that from the government perspective at least, the environment is free.

Mark

It is very hot today

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It has been hot and humid here for the past two weeks. Even the trees are wilting. Needless to say the media are onto it.

‘Is this heat wave global warming?’ they ask Dr David Jones, Acting Head of the National Climate Centre in Australia.

‘It’s a complex discussion. What global warming does is… it increases the frequency of hot events and decreases the frequency or likelihood of a cold event.’

I wonder how many of us know what this solid answer from Dr Jones means?

Is it hot because of global warming? No, it is hot because it is summertime. And in the Australian summer there is a chance that it will not only get hot, but also that it will stay hot for several days. Down under hot means over 40 degrees Celsius. What Dr Jones was saying is that as the globe heats up, so there will be a greater chance of these warm events occurring.

It is like weighting a coin. Spin a normal coin and there is an equal chance that it will fall heads or tails. Put a little extra weight on the head side and it will fall head side down more often than 50% of the time.

So warming weights these hot events, they are more likely to occur.

Global warming is really global climate changing. Especially change in the frequency of certain events.
Dr Jones did a good job. It’s a tough gig being the person everyone asks when there is a question about the climate.

Mark

Is Britney bigger than global warming?

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Whenever there is a topic that sparks debate in our house we usually need information to help resolve the issue. My wife will often jump up and announce that “the Google Gods will know” and, sure enough, they do. She will skip back after a minute or two on the browser with a useful answer.

Recently I discovered that the Google have made available a really neat tool in Adwords that estimates of the number of times people type key words into search engines (go to Adwords then click on Get keyword ideas). That’s all searches, not just those taking the heat out of dinner discussions.

My curiosity aroused I typed ‘environmental problems’ into the key word field and the software returned a respectable 74,000 searches per month. Then I tried ‘climate change’ and returned 823,000 followed by ‘global warming’ for a sizable 3,350,000.

Clearly we are worried about things getting warmer.

I took encouragement from this result – three million souls a month are curious enough to ask the Google Gods a question on an environmental issue.

Then I went mad and typed ‘Britney Spears’ and yes, the answer you were expecting…. 9,100,000 per month. Nearly half the population of Australia type in this search once a month – Ouch! If you add ‘Paris Hilton’ who manages a paultry 6,100,000 requests, we are looking at enough requests for every adult Australian. Even the celeb blogger ‘Perez Hilton’ manages to get 2,240,000 searches per month.

Bizarre as it this result appears, we did not need the Google Gods to explain this one. It is escapism. We can escape our worries and concerns for our own lives, and any lingering worry about the planet, through a fascination with celebrity. The thing that amazed me was that we do it a lot.

It may just be hierarchy of needs and avoidance of pain, but I reckon it is worth a thought.
Either that or Britney is bigger than global warming.

M