If you came here looking for good news, I would turn away quietly now. Though, in a strange way the subject of this post is a simple solution to many of our problems. It’s just not that easy to implement.

First however, a few bits of news.

Both the extent (area) and the volume (which is much more important) of the arctic sea ice are unusually low for the time of year, pointing again to the fact that the ice no longer fully recovers over winter and “in situ observations found heavily decayed, very small remnant multi-year and first-year floes interspersed with new ice between floes, in melt ponds, thaw holes and growing over negative freeboard older ice. This icescape contained approximately 25% open water”. Climate Progress has the details including graphs of the decline.

The chorus of calls for an end to the most damaging coal mines is reaching a crescendo, here in Australia, but especially in the US (here and here).

A group of geologists have suggested that humanity is having such a profound and lasting effect on the environment that a new geological period, the Anthropocene, should be declared, and members of the august committee that controls the geological time scale seem to agree. The report concludes:-

Human activity is altering the planet “on a scale comparable with some of the major events of the ancient past. Some of these changes are now seen as permanent, even on a geological time-scale.”

The recent UN biodiversity report says that the goods and services from the natural world must be factored in to the global economic system. Reports quoted showed that on average one third of Earth’s habitats have been damaged by humans, including 85% of seas and oceans, and more than 70% of Mediterranean shrubland, and that the world’s animal population has decreased by 30%, mangroves and sea grasses have shrunk in area by 20%, and live-coral coverage has fallen by 40% since 1970 (reported at hot Topic). 

If you have 15 minutes spare, have a look at this video by coral reef ecologist Jeremy Jackson taking about the damage we have caused in the oceans.

Then at least have a quick look at this rather oily video on Climate Progress showing some underwater footage of the Gulf of Mexico. This spill has and will cause a massive amount of damage offshore, regardless of the visible damage, and argues that prevention is the only cure. Grist asks what the effect will be if current attempts to stop the oil fail.

Then Grist discusses the latest stats on oil production and figures we are much closer to peak oil than many folk think. At least roll down to the graph marked “Worlds Liquid Fuels Supply”, and look both at the shortfall, and the small amount being made up by all the new conventional and unconventional projects. It is obvious that oil will become much harder and more expensive to obtain, and will probably come with rapidly increasing risks. Note that the graph is not from some hippy environmentalist; it was presented by the US Department of Energy.

Finally Grist asks why we wouldn’t prefer to invest in clean renewable energy rather than continuing to clean up the mess our old industries deliver.

I couldn’t agree more. We are literally scraping the barrel for oil, we have ignored the damage done in retrieving all fossil fuels, and we are starting to see the ultimate price we will pay.

We continue to pay an increasing cost to monitor, impose partially effective safety regulations, and clean up after this filthy industry, while at the same time giving it hundreds of billions in subsidies and tax breaks The International Monetary Fund estimates that the subsidies are about $250 billion, or $740 billion if you include the tax breaks, and calls for reform of this system.

Meanwhile we spend virtually nothing on the technologies we absolutely need to survive in the medium term; improving efficiency, renewable energy generation, large scale energy storage, and (probably) fourth generation nuclear power, all of which can actively help to clean up our current pollution.

We desperately need to break through the voodoo belief that the market will solve all these problems for us. The market has been increasingly stacked against real innovation by large companies trying to get rich quick by manipulating the political process, and is, in any case, in real danger of collapsing under its own inefficiencies.

We already have the technologies we need to start fixing these problems, though many of them need to be brought to commercial scale. We just don’t have the will, the guts, or the gumption to get on with it.

Fist we need to force the world’s governments to acknowledge the scale of the problem, and then to take action sufficient to resolve the issues.

Easily said no?

The Gulf spill has given Obama a golden opportunity to drag the debate in the USA in the right direction; it remains to be seen if he will seize the opportunity.

Please keep pestering your choice of politician.

 

I have deliberately delayed commenting for the last few weeks to ensure I could keep at least a semblance of objectivity.

As it turns out yesterday’s 7:30 interview with Tony Abbot frames the issue perfectly.

Kevin Rudd’s extraordinary decision to “delay” the ETS was completely shocking, especially after having ridiculed the opposition’s wish to delay until after Copenhagen stating:-

What absolute political cowardice.

 

What an absolute failure of leadership.

 

What an absolute failure of logic.

 

And much more, including some of the most emotive utterings of this normally rather dull speaker. The transcript in the Australian of his speech at the Lowy Institute last year makes stirring reading. However the reality of the ETS, was that it put the interests of the current energy industry and the big miners ahead of that of the nation as a whole. The Greens were quite right to vote it down, though Labor has tried to paint them as the minor villains of the piece, with Abbot and his merry men of course being the major baddies.

This puts Australia back to the top of the list of the developed countries doing least on climate, and despite our lack or importance and small size, will have been very significant. We were the holdout that recanted at Bali and joined the good guys, and now we are back to full “Black Hat” status, and will be the example seized on by China and India when pressed to do more.

Rudd’s dropping of his commitments on climate change as soon as they are no longer in his own interests are just the latest, and most blatant, example of politicians apparent belief that they can say whatever they like to get elected, and then change their minds as expedient. First we had core and non core promises, followed by a host of small broken promises plus this major one by the current government, and lastly we have the extraordinary performance of Tony Abbot on the 7:30 report last night. Some way in he admitted that he was liberal with the truth, and that the only things he said that you could treat as gospel were policy speeches and the like. His actual words are below, before he started to dig himself rather deeper into the hole he made for himself.

“I know politicians are going to be judged on everything they say, but sometimes in the heat of discussion you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark.

“Which is one of the reasons why the statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth are those carefully prepared, scripted remarks.”

So we are left with the obvious proposition that we cannot trust either of the two main parties to do what they say they will do. Their actions do show that they consistently put the industry lobby above the general public, and hope we have forgotten by the next election, or just marginally hate the current major party slightly less than the other.

Europe, and specifically Britain, is suffering from the same problem, and has just reacted by voting for the three main parties in almost equal proportions (by percentage of the vote rather than elected seats) thus forcing the parties to debate the issues a bit more honestly. This has been common in Europe for years, where majority governments are uncommon. The vote in Britain has also forced a discussion on electoral reform, including discussions on political donations and the ability to “sack” an obviously incompetent government, which living in NSW, seems a wonderful idea. Unfortunately, Australia and the USA, the two main recalcitrant “developed” nations on climate change, both have more polarised political affiliations, though the recent election in Tasmania is encouraging.

The conclusion is obvious. After a century or so in roughly its current state, democracy needs a serious overhaul. The cosy links with money and commerce must be disbanded, and politicians need to be much more concerned about upsetting the electorate. Electronic voting systems are in their infancy and won’t be trusted until an open source implementation is developed and refined, but they do point to some of the possibilities we need. I propose the following vague and unrefined thoughts and suggestions:-

  • Australia’s electoral system is relatively elegant, though the Senate would be better chosen by proportional representation over the whole country rather than by state.
  • State Governments have outlived their usefulness. Let’s have one government to praise or blame, rather than allowing another opportunity for buck-passing.
  • It’s a total disgrace that we tolerate elected representatives of the ilk of Fred Nile and Steve Fielding. I suspect they would not exist if negative as well as positive filters were available, so that, for example, a candidate cannot be elected if more than 50% put a black mark against them. This becomes vital when no one party has an outright majority, to avoid the convenient giveaways to minority interests who hold the balance of power.
  • Governments should be elected for fixed terms, but the double dissolution mechanism should be replaced by one which is triggered by the voters. For example the electoral web site could allow voters to start and sign petitions. Once these have been signed by a reasonable number of people, they would act as more robust opinion polls. A petition to call a fresh election, and therefore sack the government would be automatically started every 6 months, and the government dissolved if a 55% majority is obtained on two consecutive occasions.

Apart from promoting these sorts of dreams, there seems only one thing we can all do to ensure government’s attention, and coincidently, in Australia it’s also a sensible thing to do. Vote Green, or anyone you support who is not in a major party. This is especially likely to be successful in the Senate, and you can help further by donating to the Greens.

We must keep the global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha