Climate Change Research
Pretty hard to read without some separation between sentences and paragraphs.
But do our emissions include our exports of coal and gas etc???
OMG that is ridiculous if it does, as we know it does nobody any favours forcing countries to buy and burn poor quality higher C20 emitting coal from elsewhere or use other fuels instead of gas, in particular our gas exports reduce the use of poor quality higher C20 emitting coal
So in reality our global C20 emissions are actually lower than stated.
So we could actually be below 1% of global emissions in which we produce./burn?
EDIT: Okay just did some research luckily there is some common sense, seems it doesn't include exports.
No Indo, Australia's emissions are about 1.3% of the total but are just about the highest per capita. The point the article was making is that our Energy Minister, Angus Taylor does not know how emissions are calculated. He was trying to defend the fact that while the government claims we are on track to meet our targeted reduction, the data shows that they are still rising. He claimed this was because of our gas exports ........ but energy exports are not included in OUR emissions. We just profit from them. The take away conclusion is that the Morrison government is using the same tactics as Trump and Johnson. Feed 'em bullshit ........ and we fell for it.
I think it is important to look at Australia's behaviour from the outside. We have a government which is not meeting its international commitments on climate change. We have a population which is made up of people deriving significant benefits from their high personal emissions and to add to that, a large portion of our national wealth comes from exporting fossil fuels. What sort of conclusion do you think people draw from these facts? That we are an environmentally responsible nation doing our best for the planet or that ....... well you can write your own description there but the use of the word "bludgers" might be appropriate.
The figure is 1.3% of emissions by 0.3% of the global population. That’s Australia no exports included.
And it is CO2 not C2O, carbon-C dioxide-O2.
Angus Taylor couldn’t lie straight in Bed. And as Laurie said emissions in Australia are increasing.
As far as natural gas goes, the gas exporters are raping it and Australia, once again is piss weak and makes no money. We just get sold on a few short term construction jobs.........constantly.
Good call , Laurie.
The reason that our emissions are increasing is obviously because our population is increasing. Blind Freddy could see that.
Easy to kill two birds with one stone. By using the same theory of a marine park which is not subject to the over exploitation suffered by the rest of the ocean and thus provides a haven for biodiversity and habitat, we should be completely reducing net immigration into Australia.
This will save our country , provide a safe haven for the environment and REDUCE our emissions.
And it’ll save the immigrants from being referred to as bludgers . Think how responsible the immigrants will feel when they can contribute to the preservation of both our country and our planet by staying in their own countries and trying to improve them !
Of course the bludgers will still try to enter Australia every day , so we must be vigilant.....for the sake of them and their home countries which we threaten with our spiralling emissions.
Great idea , BB.
Blowin.... are you indigenous ? If not then I suggest you go easy on the whole ‘our country’ thing.
The biggest bludgers are aussies. Immigrants made this country - we are mostly sons and daughters and relatives of immigrants - regardless of however we feel now, this is a fact...
The bludgers are already here mate, and now they have second and third generation bludger offspring on the gravy train too. You can sprout your idealist fantasies all you want, hard not to hear that what you are saying is straight out racist. This is not ‘our’ planet or ‘our’ country and the sentiments you project are all about selfishness. The name blowin has a nice paradoxical meaning in regard to your comments above ;)
Maybe we just need less blowins ? ;);)
- ‘We must be vigilant’ yadda yadda, give it a rest.... Try and consider why people want to come here, for real, try put yourself in their shoes. Sure some are aiming for a better opportunity, some escape persecution/ poverty/ war or whatever - and yes some come here through supposed ‘illegal’ means. The whole ‘net immigration’ argument is silly, where is the evidence and how have you arrived at your conclusions regarding how we can save this country if immigration is lessened or more stringently policed? The growing population is coming from within....
In my experience of managing crews of workers the asians and the backpackers and the broken english speakers are not the bludgers. Yes some come here and take advantage of the system....
Sustainability and environmental awareness yes I’m all for it - just don’t underestimate the willingness of immigrants to contribute to this country and consider that they may not actually be the problem that you perceive them to be.
I don’t recommend looking at Australia from the outside, it’s far too confronting
what?!
From the outside Australia looks like a stable, peaceful democracy with an incredibly high standard of living.
One of the chief reasons our immigration rate is so high: it's such an incredibly desirable place to live by any world-historical standard.
I say that without a trace of jingoism or nationalism.
True freeride but if you open the other eye Australia has an appalling record of environmental management across biodiversity, water management, greenhouse emissions and waste management. Then there is the huge problem that we are still living on stolen land and have brutalised our indigenous people severely over two hundred and fifty years.
"The reason that our emissions are increasing is obviously because our population is increasing. Blind Freddy could see that."
Yep...but some people still don't get it.
Interesting little thought bubble from blowin.
I had this exact same thought the other day, as I rode my non polluting bike through some beautiful pristine bush on the edge of the suburbs the other day...
"Easy to kill two birds with one stone. By using the same theory of a marine park which is not subject to the over exploitation suffered by the rest of the ocean and thus provides a haven for biodiversity and habitat, we should be completely reducing net immigration into Australia.
This will save our country , provide a safe haven for the environment and REDUCE our emissions."
Possibly australia's biggest potential contribution to 'saving the planet' generally, could be to go down this road, and preserve the amazing remnants of natural earth that are still relatively abundant in oz.
custodians for the future could potentially be our biggest realistic role and contribution to the planet as a whole....
Arrogant and selfish possibly, but realistically, possibly our biggest potential contribution
And, for those thinking the current swing to the right in politics globally is 'the end of the world as we know it...", I found this guardian article quite interesting...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/21/democrats-republic...
From the article...
"...But one man I talked with – someone raised on a sugar plantation, retired from a life-long career in oil, a proud member of the Louisiana Tea Party and a Trump supporter – grinned broadly at the mention of Bernie Sanders. “Free college? Free medical care? How yawl going to pay for that? He’s a pie in the sky guy,” he said. “But he’s a good man, Uncle Bernie.” Although an oil worker, he was a fan of clean energy, and liked the idea of a Manhattan Project to implement it.
Among Republicans, he isn’t alone. Despite the president’s denial of the climate crisis, national polls recently conducted by researchers at Yale, Stanford and Monmouth Universities show that a majority of voters in both parties now agree on many actions to mitigate it.
Should the US “set strict carbon dioxide emission limits on existing coal-fired power plants to reduce global warming and improve public heath”, Yale asked, even if “the cost of electricity to consumers and companies would likely increase”? Eighty-seven per cent of Democrats and 56% of Republicans answered yes.
“Should the US participate in the Paris climate accord and reduce greenhouse gas emissions regardless of what other countries do?” A majority of voters in both parties said yes.
A coalition of college Republican clubs recently endorsed a tax on carbon pollution."
As I alluded to a couple of weeks ago, the left needs to realise they do not have a monopoly on the environment. Not anymore anyway....
Very telling about a lot of overblown perspectives on just about everything re, the current state of politics that article....
....currently enjoying access to cnn again, the above statements and info. could not appear to be truer...
cnn should be shut down for peddling overblown breathless bias bullshit. Whatever cnn's endeavour is, it certainly isn't jounalism
the people haven't left 'the left'. It's 'the left' that's left ....reality that is....
Why are our emissions so high per capita compared to other developed countries?
Two reasons
1. Most developed countries have high percentage of energy from gas ad we dont.
2. Most developed countries have some use of Nuculer and we dont.
France=74%
Germany 10%
UK= 20%
USA=10%
Canada 7%
We are not behind in transition to renewables or even higher energy users than other developed countries but are at a disadvantage because we never adopted Nuclear or used much Gas to reduce energy. (agree on the Fuck up of the exporting of gas)
This is generally because we have such rich and accessible coal fields both brown and black and already had power stations set up.
................ which the science proved over 40 years ago was the worst possible energy source ......... and our current PM loves it ...... and in the full knowledge of that we voted for him! But don't panic just because the climate scientists whose models have accurately predicted the current changes are now talking of terrifying consequences. Nah, settle back in your deckchair, no icebergs around here!
@ Laurie
"In his speech, BHP’s Mackenzie recognized the need for a mobilization on the scale of World War Two" –
I said as much in a previous post in this thread.
Corroborated also by one of the Honeysuckle Creek engineers when commenting on ABC radio national last Saturday about what it took to get the moon landing done - basically hand the project over to the engineers , fund it properly and add the political will to get the job done -he added that the cold war prompted the last of those ingredients in that case. In WW2 it took a war also.
Absolutely H2O, but the message from the science is clear, that project needs to start now. After 40 years of fiddling around the edges we cannot afford any further delays.
NCCARF is great. More useful thing they have for coastal communities is: https://coastadapt.com.au/
It's pretty much a one-stop-shop for all things climate related in coastal oz.
Goldy is also doing a QCoast2100 project. http://www.qcoast2100.com.au/
For those interested (perhaps Blowin, judging by the way it seems he leans vis-a-vis development vs. nature), this is also another useful resource: https://coastalresilience.org/
Agreed Laurie- but what will it take today to get the ball rolling? I believe , along with entrepreneurs like Mike Cannon Brooks, that we have the intelligence to do the technology ,but that "war time " survival instinct has not kicked in .
Some people doing good things.
Once again
Australia per capita has the highest uptake of roof top solar in the world.
At current or recent rates we are on track to between 50% to as possibly high as 78% renewables by 2030.
(rates comparable to countries like Germany who are often viewed as very pro renewables)
It's our government state and federal government that have encouraged our high roof top take up and the on a commercial scale the 100 wind farms or so and solar farms like the recent one Adani opened in QLD are happening because of economics, creating energy for basically nothing makes good business sense.
These projects happen despite freaks like Bob Brown jumping up and down against proposals for one of the worlds largest wind farms in Tassie
Are we going to shut down all our coal powered power stations tomorrow without the ability to replace them?
No sorry not going to happen, it's a phase out that will take time.
Are we going to stop exporting coal?
No because it makes no sense to do so. and would actually be worse for world carbon emissions anyway as has been said may times..
But you guys need something to whinge about nothing is ever good enough, you guys always know better.
Our total emissions are the issue. Progress has been made in solar and wind but the bottom line is that our total emissions continue to rise when we have committed to a reduction. So any communication which ignores that fact is misleading and probably damaging to a genuine understanding of the issue. There are a few engineers around who believe we can achieve the targeted reduction but the majority opinion is that this will not happen without fundamental policy changes this government refuses to make.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-01/is-australia-on-track-to-meet-its...
What’s causing our emissions to continue to rise do you think , Laurie ?
Umm, hot air coming out of Canberra?
The link gives a good overview.
I think it's transport emissions that have gone up, counter-balancing a bit of a drop in the stationary source emissions. Land clearing and agri are big ones but they always get a free pass because of the Nationals.
As for whether we'll meet the Paris agreement targets? Maybe in Oz, but I've got very little hope it will be achieve globally.
The lead time for achieving the emissions reduction needed is longer than the time we have left. This is why we should've started all of this 10 years ago. If you see the emissions reduction curve required in the IPCC's 2018 report, is steep as hell.
How long does it take to secure tenure agreements from land owners, consult the community, secure financing, then do an EIA and submit that along with other applications for regulatory approvals. Then to build it. That's just renewable energy projects. How about staffing? That's a helluva lot of tradies that at least in some part will need a bit of training in the new systems.
Sitting underneath all of that is the raw materials....the nickel requirements for current battery technology, and the energy storage required to make effective use of said renewable energy, is huge and there simply is not the supply ready and waiting to go to serve that need. I know, my family has been in mining for multiple generations and it was MY OLD MAN who told me this (CEO of a mining company). I was quite surprised (and impressed....I am not in mining) that he said this before I could.
Rooftop solar is great but the grid isn't designed to take that much energy going the other way. We need rooftop solar + battery, and to support that we need households to require less energy. That means national policy tools to mandate strong energy efficiency standards right across the product spectrum, from white goods to fixtures and fittings.
I could go on for days. The point is the technology already exists. The solutions are multi-tech but need federal govt support in the form of policies and levies (call it a tax if you want, but it never was and it won't be, it's a pollution levy, same as ya local dump and the silica dust levy from a hundred years ago).
........a good start would be a government that did not promote V8 diesel utes and worship lumps of coal. Mowgli, I will look into the supply chain for renewables but, having just installed solar panels I can tell you that there is no problem hooking them into the grid. If the total solar supply increases there may need to be more battery storage but as South Australia has proved, the technology is ready to go.
That article of Lauries is actually quite interesting.
Basically
Transport rise in emissions 16% in last ten years from guess what?..
Yes increase in population.
Industry rise in emissions 16% in last 10 years from guess what?...
Yes increase in population.
Agriculture rise in emissions 6% in last ten years, from guess what?
Yes increase in population.
Electricity emissions dropped 11% in last 10 years. guess why?
Transition to renewables...and if the population hadn't increased by crazy numbers imagine how much emissions in this area would have dropped?
Now the interesting thing in that article is
"Industry makes up the second largest portion of our emissions — around 30 per cent — and they are rising.
This sector includes the greenhouse gases that come mainly from manufacturing and extracting and processing resources**.
One of the biggest reasons for the rise is our liquid natural gas exports. Australia is now the world’s biggest LNG exporter.
When gas is burned for energy it is cleaner than coal — which is good news for the countries that buy our gas — but extracting and processing it here is pushing up Australia’s emissions."
Basically our emissions in this area are rising due to the demand overseas for our gas because its a cleaner fuel, so while we actually help other countries drop their emissions we actually increase ours.
Globally though the world is actually better off, it's the same deal with our coal exports rather than higher carbon emitting coal they would otherwise source elsewhere.
So really its misleading when looking at the bigger picture.
Reality is world emissions are actually much lower because of Australia providing gas and decent coal, imagine if we didn't and these countries were left to burn higher carbon emitting coal, and all that gas of ours used instead was coal or oil etc.
Id love to see the figures and percentage with this factored in on a world scale, it would definitely bring our own emissions down it could even complete wipe them out.
What would change peoples attitudes?
Apart from roof-top solar which people have worked out that if you are a property owner and can access the subsidies is a total no-brainer. Bad luck if you are a renter.
I went and checked the surf today and a bloke beside me in a Porsche 4wd sat there for 40 minutes+ with the engine running belching greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
See it all the time.
See population growth leading to ecological devastation and no sign of it slowing down in sight.
It's business as usual as far as I can see, except with the foot put flat to the accelerator pedal.
You could do a lot worse than investing in high purity Silica of the type used to make glass in solar panels.
The dunes back from the coast in WA are amongst the highest purity in the world and it’s just a matter of scooping it into a simple mechanical arrangement for reducing contaminant materials then it’s ready for manufacturing.
There’s best in class materials in massive quantities for a rapid growth industry which is already straining with resource shortfalls. It’s ILLEGAL to export Silica sands in most of Asia. China has declared it a strategic mineral ! Piracy is rife and supplies are tenuous , unpredictable and of irregular quality.
Imagine if Australia was to create a manufacturing base utilising our resources. High value technical industry and secondary industry !
We could lead the world in innovation for an industry which will benefit the planet and guarantee export dollars instead of the old route of shipping our resources offshore for cents in the dollar.
Of course I’m dreaming.
Money to be made though.....
Not investment advice obviously. What the fuck would i know ?
I once bogged a series Landrover Ambulance in that very sand...
FR - if someone is a tenant, could you rig a heap of solar panels on a trailer, put it in the back yard and then transmit into grid, lessening the power bill? Then if moving, just hitch up the trailer. An idea
Guys - if reductions made need to be massive and 10 years ago, have any of you looked up synthetic trees?
Laurie, glad to hear you got the solar.
Would you really touch the dune system though Blowin? The negative flow on effects of that inshore have been seen time and time again. Or you talking really inland?
No where near the dunes, Craig.
Solar panel glass wants greater than 99.95 percent purity ,
The sand shown here ( not far behind the suburbs of Nth Perth are 99.96 percent pure straight out of the ground. An easy mechanical process puts it at 99.99 purity. World’s finest with hundreds of millions of tonnes available.
It’s the area labelled HMS deposits that youre chasing.
This is just an example. This particular company could turn to dust like any other mineral explorer. But they’ve just signed a non binding strategic alliance with the largest architectural glass manufacturer in China in the last couple of weeks.....
Ah sweet!
Bullshit- That's a great idea Blowin subject to the following. Need a mining lease for the area- is the tech settled/ costed ? Anyone else in this space? Environmental impacts? Getting flashbacks to the sand mines round Seal Rocks area though -destruction of native species habitats . Are you (and your liver),up for a presentation at the annual Diggers and Dealers conference in Kalgoorlie? .Please expand.
Sorry Blowin you're dreaming.
If you were a solar panel manufacture why on earth would you make them in Australia, with our ridiculously high wages, and high cost in every single other aspect of doing business in Australia, not to mention red tape and regulation to jump over and through.
If you were a solar panel manufacture, you would buy the Silica from Australia and build them in Asia for a fraction of the price and you could still export them back to Australia and still make gods know how much more money than if you made them in Australia.
We don't make jack shit in Australia for a good reason, solar panels are no different.
OK slight diversion into the world of tomorrow.
Carbon reduction is going to come to pass (unless you are wearing a 'developing country' badge, if so you can continue to pollute). Carbon is priced and this is where the fun begins.
You might notice CRBN on the NYSE
https://www.ishares.com/us/products/271054/ishares-msci-acwi-low-carbon-...
Seems to me to be a mixed play on economic growth and lessening emissions, interesting concept.
The funnest stuff potentially on the ICE Futures market in Europe, presently and I suppose others will follow next time govs go left.
https://www.theice.com/products/197/EUA-Futures
Futures of CO2 allowances. Nice.
https://www.theice.com/products/814666/CER-Futures
Futures on one lot of Certified Emission Reduction units. :)
But wait, there's options on the futures:
https://www.theice.com/products/196/EUA-Futures-Options
https://www.theice.com/products/918/CER-Futures-Options
Soo, (not financial advice, breathes in): it may just be possible to craft combinations of spreads (say, an Iron Condor matches your current trading view) on the options (the right but not the obligation to take delivery of an amount of the underlying at a certain strike price on or before a certain date; or, the obligation to provide an amount of the underlying at a certain strike price on or before a certain date - if I have regurgitated that from memory correctly...) of the futures contracts (derivative financial contracts that obligate the parties to transact an asset at a predetermined future date and price) of an underlying that is expressed in units of reduction of an invisible trace gas essential to life.
What's being fought for is perhaps the most esoteric financialisation I can imagine.
It's going to be mint.
Not my deal. I got out a few days ago. Very early days yet !!! They’re awaiting environmental approval currently then feasiblity studies.
The environmental should be a piece of piss seeing that it’s generic dunes adjacent to subdivisions and industrial land. Easy regeneration. Minimum impact - for mining ! - the resource is just sitting on the surface, scoop it up to depths of up to 8m then feed into a small process similar to a concrete batch plant. But you never know what will go down.
Mate , it’ll never be virginal again, but it could potentially regenerate into something very close to original.
It’s actually good that this discussion is occurring. It highlights the reality of what’s involved when crew get an Earth Love hard- on whilst contemplating “ green “ energy.
Nothing is without impact.
You want solar energy ? Then be prepared to displace habitat, remove sand dunes , mine rare earths and every other mineral and material involved. Then transport them around the globe.
If you want to protect the Earth then use less shit. Grow or catch as much of your own food as you can.
Indo - You’re right , I am dreaming.
The Chinese company proposing a strategic alliance with the Aussie Silica explorer is indicating they want to build a glass manufacturing hub in situ.
Of course it’ll be built by Chinese labour and owned by China with all production benefiting China ......
And that’s my point .
Why are we wasting money on Sydney infrastructure , which is chasing the tail of unsustainable immigration , which is detrimental to our environment and standards of living and which is a NET DRAIN on our economy when we could be using the money to create an entirely new nationalised industry which would make our economy strong and be beneficial to the planet ?
The immigration Ponzi scheme is an unproductive life support for our unproductive real estate Ponzi scheme. And every Australian is worse off for it.
Does my head in.....
VJ - Futures on emissions allowances ?!
Shit , mate . You’re out of my league. How do you find this stuff ? Who teaches you this ?
Indo, immigration has an impact on emissions but immigration over that time is only responsible for about half the population growth. So assuming emissions are divided equally only half the increase is due to immigration. So, if there had been no immigration over the last decade, our emissions would still have risen. The bottom line is not population growth it is how we produce energy and this government has failed to manage that over the previous six years and has no meaningful policies to manage it over the next three.
Laurie did you actually read the article you posted?
Your post makes no sense?
Your article shows our electricity sector is the only area where emissions have decreased despite the pressure of population increase.
They have decreased because of the take up of renewables made possible in the private sector by federal and state governments, and in the commercial sector because it makes economic sense to invest in this area.
All the other areas emissions have increased , Transport, Industry, Agriculture all these areas have increased because of population growth.
If you going to critical of the government then at least give criticism on these areas where they are failing, not on the areas where there is success.
Immigration means squat
Population rise is everything
Know your enemy
and vote green so your grand kids can look you in the eye
Indo transport emissions have risen because Australia has been slow on the uptake of hybrids and electric vehicles. By using energy from electricity, a source where the transition is well underway, overall emissions would have been reduced and further investment in solar encouraged. In industry this government's scheme was to cap emissions from large sources but what they have done is simply raise that cap when requested. In short, they have encouraged large industry to remain dependent on fossil fuels, a policy as catastrophic as it is moronic and deceptive.
Another factor in transport emissions has been the failure of both parties over a long period to plan and construct efficient public transport. Trains and buses move people with much lower per capita emissions than single occupant cars. Urban sprawl has increased the problem so that millions of people now travel long distances at slow speeds in both directions for their daily commute.
Laurie I don’t question your motives here but for your own sanity I ask why bother? Enjoy your days down the south coast, you’re got it made so let it be.
If you have to ask that Guy then we have such different views that it is probably impossible to explain.
Mate we're on the same page but I've stopped banging my head against the brick wall
Guy I posted before that my aim is not to persuade those who post but to make sure that the many people who read but don't post are provided with accurate information, so yeh when something interesting comes up I will post it and when someone posts bullshit I will explain why it is bullshit. No great strain, I often find myself laughing at some of the stuff it is so transparently absurd.
“The familiar maxim that the climate is always changing is certainly true,” noted geographer Scott St. George of the University of Minnesota in a commentary on the new research, also published in Nature. “But even when we push our perspective back to the earliest days of the Roman Empire, we cannot discern any event that is remotely equivalent—either in degree or extent—to the warming over the past few decades.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/current-warming-is-unparallel...
Shoredump population growth has two components: natural increase measured as births and deaths in the current population and Net Overseas Migration (NOM).
Australia natural population growth rate stabilised a long time ago at roughly the replacement rate.
Most of our population growth rate increase is from NOM, and that is some of the highest in the world, certainly in the developed world.
Which means it would be incredibly easy- as it is govt policy- to stabilise or reduce the population growth rate to achieve environmental/infrastructure outcomes.
I've voted Green pretty much my whole adult life. We have a Green state member in her second term. Byron Shire has a Greens dominated local council. Ballina shire a number of greens councillors.
The result: bulldozers everywhere destroying habitat, McMansions occupying every square centimetre of blocks, hotels, motels, fish kills in ICOLL's, a continuous and never ending process of building infrastructure trying to keep up with population growth; which is being driven by white flight from the cities as anyone with assets sells up and moves out in search of a more sane existence.
This idea that we can somehow maintain massive population increases and standards of living while reducing emissions or somehow ameliorating the extinction crisis is a pernicious fiction. Quite literally one of the most insane self deceptions humanity has ever told itself.
Either population growth is rapidly stabilised or the western standard of living with all that entails is hugely curtailed or transferred to the developing world.
This idea we can have both: the evidence of the insanity of that intellectual position is stark and growing by the hour.
The biggest change my children will have to face, apart from climate change, is an Australia with 50 million people crammed into a thin fertile strip between Melbourne and Brisbane.
Thats not much by Asian standards but for an ancient, fragile, continent with infrastructure built for far fewer it's going to mean tremendous environmental degradation.
I thought I might again.