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Limiting the Production of Carbon Dioxide

 

Carbon dioxide production is linked directly to burning fossil fuels (coal, peat, oil and natural gas), biomass (wood, straw etc) and garbage for energy.

Countries in the developed world (including Australia) typically consume over ten times the energy per capita of people in the third world.  There is growing international pressure on developed countries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions[6].

It was therefore decided by the Keating administration that Australia should adopt the Toronto Target, which proposed a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 20% from the 1990 level by the year 2005, for all greenhouse gasses combined, to the extent that this can be achieved without adverse economic impact.  This was subsequently modified at Kyoto in 1997 where most first world countries agreed to a 5.2% reduction on their 1990 emissions of greenhouse gasses by 2008 – 12 (with a large number of conditions and tradeoffs agreed to).

 

The Howard administration took the view that the Toronto goal could not be met without adverse economic impact.  As a result, at Kyoto, Australia successfully negotiated an 8% increase from the 1990 emission levels (representing a substantial reduction in projected emissions). 

 

Arguments against Toronto target included:

  • Australia can’t comply without disproportionate economic harm (relative to other developed countries) because of:Australia’s high proportion of energy intensive exports (coal and metals);
    • our extended transport distances;
    • our moral stance against nuclear power (many first world countries generate between 10% and 80% of their electricity by nuclear means and can comply by building more reactors).
  • Our relatively small population (making negligible difference to the planetary generation of carbon dioxide).
  • Australia’s very large area for absorption of the carbon dioxide we generate.
  • Unless the developing countries also comply, any effort will be useless anyway (we should instead be looking for advantage from the change).
  • The whole thing may be a scientific ‘storm in a tea cup’ and we should wait and see what happens before restructuring our economy.

Arguments for compliance included:

  • Only developed countries have the potential to lower greenhouse gas production;
  • If all developed regions adopt the same attitude nothing will be done;
  • If Australia’s economy is structured to be more than usually carbon dioxide intensive, then this is an argument for more effort to restructure, not less;
  • Australia’s economic model, showing high unemployment resulting from compliance, was suspect;
  • If we wait, by the time we see the effects it will be too late;
  • Australia stands to suffer more than some other areas from global warming and should be arguing for, not against, the Toronto Target.

Even the small increase in emissions negotiated at Kyoto represents a significant cut back on projected production and will force Australia to restructure the economy.  We need to consider how this might be done to advantage.

The rate of energy consumption per person is tied to economic growth, while the overall growth in energy consumption is tied to population growth times the energy consumption per capita.

For example, in NSW the standard of living (measured by consumption per capita) is increasing far less rapidly than in developing countries. The population growth is modest by world standards (the birth rate is lower than replacement rate and growth [about 1% pa] relies on immigration and ageing). Yet the combined impact of these two forces is projected to double electrical energy consumption in NSW within two decades.  This could be a conservative projection if there is increased processing of primary products in regional NSW or more ways are found to replace petroleum fuelled vehicles with electric vehicles.  Compliance with the Kyoto target, for example, could spell the death of electric vehicles as a means of reducing air pollution in our major cities.

 

 

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Travel

Israel

 

 

 

2023 Addendum

 

It's a decade since this visit to Israel in September 2014.

From July until just a month before we arrived, Israeli troops had been conducting an 'operation' against Hamas in the Gaza strip, in the course of which 469 Israeli soldiers lost their lives.  The country was still reeling. 

17,200 Garzan homes were totally destroyed and three times that number were seriously damaged.  An estimated 2,000 (who keeps count) civilians died in the destruction.  'Bibi' Netanyahu, who had ordered the Operation, declared it a victory.

This time it's on a grander scale: a 'War', and Bibi has vowed to wipe-out Hamas.

Pundits have been moved to speculate on the Hamas strategy, that was obviously premeditated. In addition to taking hostages, it involving sickening brutality against obvious innocents, with many of the worst images made and published by themselves. 

It seemed to be deliberate provocation, with a highly predictable outcome.

Martyrdom?  

Historically, Hamas have done Bibi no harm.  See: 'For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces' in the Israel Times.

Thinking about our visit, I've been moved to wonder how many of today's terrorists were children a decade ago?  How many saw their loved ones: buried alive; blown apart; maimed for life; then dismissed by Bibi as: 'collateral damage'? 

And how many of the children, now stumbling in the rubble, will, in their turn, become terrorists against the hated oppressor across the barrier?

Is Bibi's present purge a good strategy for assuring future harmony?

I commend my decade old analysis to you: A Brief Modern History and Is there a solution?

Comments: 
Since posting the above I've been sent the following article, implicating religious belief, with which I substantially agree, save for its disregarding the Jewish fundamentalists'/extremists' complicity; amplifying the present horrors: The Bright Line Between Good and Evil 

Another reader has provided a link to a perspective similar to my own by Australian 'Elder Statesman' John MenadueHamas, Gaza and the continuing Zionist project.  His Pearls and Irritations site provides a number of articles relating to the current Gaza situation. Worth a read.

The Economist has since reported and unusual spate of short-selling immediately preceding the attacks: Who made millions trading the October 7th attacks?  

Money-making by someone in the know? If so, it's beyond evil.

 

 

A Little Background

The land between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea, known as Palestine, is one of the most fought over in human history.  Anthropologists believe that the first humans to leave Africa lived in and around this region and that all non-African humans are related to these common ancestors who lived perhaps 70,000 years ago.  At first glance this interest seems odd, because as bits of territory go it's nothing special.  These days it's mostly desert and semi-desert.  Somewhere back-o-Bourke might look similar, if a bit redder. 

Yet since humans have kept written records, Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, Ancient Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, early Muslims, Christian Crusaders, Ottomans (and other later Muslims), British and Zionists, have all fought to control this land.  This has sometimes been for strategic reasons alone but often partly for affairs of the heart, because this land is steeped in history and myth. 

Read more: Israel

Fiction, Recollections & News

The Craft

 

Introduction: 

 

The Craft is an e-novella about Witchcraft in a future setting.  It's a prequel to my dystopian novella: The Cloud: set in the last half of the 21st century - after The Great Famine.

 Since writing this I have added a preface, concerning witchcraft, that you can read here...

 

Next >

Read more: The Craft

Opinions and Philosophy

How does electricity work?

 

 

 

The electrically literate may find this somewhat simplified article redundant; or possibly amusing. They should check out Wikipedia for any gaps in their knowledge.

But I hope this will help those for whom Wikipedia is a bit too complicated and/or detailed.


All cartoons from The New Yorker - 1925 to 2004

Read more: How does electricity work?

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