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Climate

 

I originally wrote the paper, Issues Arising from the Greenhouse Hypothesis, in 1990 and do not see a need to revise it substantially.  Some of the science is better defined and there have been some minor changes in some of the projections; but otherwise little has changed.

In the Introduction to the 2006 update to that paper I wrote:

Climate change has wide ranging implications...  ranging from its impacts on agriculture (through drought, floods, water availability, land degradation and carbon credits) mining (by limiting markets for coal and minerals processing) manufacturing and transport (through energy costs) to property damage resulting from storms.

The issues are complex, ranging from disputes about the impact of human activities on global warming, to arguments about what should be done and the consequences of the various actions proposed.

To the conclusion I added:

Australian impact on global climate is insignificant. Our main contribution is likely to be indirect by way of diplomatic efforts to change global behaviour or through research into solutions that can be applied globally. Climate is likely to change no matter what we do. In Australia we are all too familiar with the effects of natural climate fluctuations. 

The degree to which human activity changes climate is related to our level of resource utilisation.  Although energy consumption is very important in this equation so too are mineral extraction and processing, farming and land clearing, pollution of oceans and lakes and the shear number of humans and their consequent demands for food and shelter.  Not only does excessive population lead to stresses on the biosphere of the planet; it makes huge numbers of people highly vulnerable to relatively minor changes in that biosphere.

Sudden climate change is just one of a number of a range of potential catastrophes that might befall the planet. It is important that while doing all possible to mitigate the impacts of increasing resource exploitation we:

1      commit more resources to means to respond flexibly to climate change than to trying to prevent it and;

2      treat the disease (over-population) not just the symptoms (like greenhouse gasses).

We need to focus on the possible. An appropriate response is to ensure that resource and transport efficiency is optimised and energy waste is reduced. 

Another is to explore less polluting energy sources. This needs to be explored more critically.  Each so-called green power option should be carefully analysed for whole of life energy and greenhouse gas production against the benchmark of present technology before going beyond the demonstration or experimental stage.

Much more important are the cultural and technological changes needed to minimise World overpopulation. We desperately need to remove the socio-economic drivers to larger families, young motherhood and excessive personal consumption (from resource inefficiencies to long journeys to work). 

Climate change may be inevitable. We should be working to climate "harden" the production of food, ensure that public infrastructure (roads, bridges, dams, hospitals, utilities and so) on are designed to accommodate change and that the places people live are not excessively vulnerable to drought, flood or storm.

Only by solving these problems will we have any hope of finding solutions to the other pressures human expansion is imposing on the planet.

The world still predominantly depends on coal and oil for energy as outlined in Energy and a ‘good life’ and A Crude Awakening – Critique on this website.

I have summarised much of this discussion in the Environment chapter within the Meaning of Life essay, also on this website.

Recent extreme weather events appear to confirm the predictions made in my earlier paper.  As the energy of the system increases, so this energy is partly dissipated in more violent weather excursions.  This upward trend in the severity of weather excursions from the norm, as well as the shift in the norm itself, can be expected to continue.

I am still inclined to believe that human overpopulation will soon have further serious consequences for the climate, in addition to other environmental devastation, and I continue to believe that there are grounds for alarm.

In practical terms the resulting climate impacts may mean that different crops or crop varieties and grazing patterns will be required across arable regions and crop yields may be increasingly affected by extreme events; floods; droughts; fire and so on.  Correspondingly some urban and outer urban areas, for example those particularly prone to flooding; fire; or high wind, may need to be relocated.  In other areas significant new infrastructure may be necessary to guard against climate related disaster.

And the real and underlying problem, of runaway population, is no nearer to being addressed.

But politically the World is quite different.  When I originally wrote the paper on climate change scientists were alarmed but very few politicians had any opinion on the matter.  Now it is 'bread and butter'.

 

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Travel

Denmark

 

 

  

 

 

In the seventies I spent some time travelling around Denmark visiting geographically diverse relatives but in a couple of days there was no time to repeat that, so this was to be a quick trip to two places that I remembered as standing out in 1970's: Copenhagen and Roskilde.

An increasing number of Danes are my progressively distant cousins by virtue of my great aunt marrying a Dane, thus contributing my mother's grandparent's DNA to the extended family in Denmark.  As a result, these Danes are my children's cousins too.

Denmark is a relatively small but wealthy country in which people share a common language and thus similar values, like an enthusiasm for subsidising wind power and shunning nuclear energy, except as an import from Germany, Sweden and France. 

They also like all things cultural and historical and to judge by the museums and cultural activities many take pride in the Danish Vikings who were amongst those who contributed to my aforementioned DNA, way back.  My Danish great uncle liked to listen to Geordies on the buses in Newcastle speaking Tyneside, as he discovered many words in common with Danish thanks to those Danes who had settled in the Tyne valley.

Nevertheless, compared to Australia or the US or even many other European countries, Denmark is remarkably monocultural. A social scientist I listened to last year made the point that the sense of community, that a single language and culture confers, creates a sense of extended family.  This allows the Scandinavian countries to maintain very generous social welfare, supported by some of the highest tax rates in the world, yet to be sufficiently productive and hence consumptive per capita, to maintain among the highest material standards of living in the world. 

Read more: Denmark

Fiction, Recollections & News

Remembering 1967

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1967 is in the news this week as it is 50 years since one of the few referendums, since the Federation of Australia in 1901, to successfully lead to an amendment to our Constitution.  In this case it was to remove references to 'aboriginal natives' and 'aboriginal people'.

It has been widely claimed that these changes enabled Aboriginal Australians to vote for the first time but this is nonsense. 

Yet it was ground breaking in other ways.

Read more: Remembering 1967

Opinions and Philosophy

Electric Cars revisited (again)

  

Electric vehicles like: trams; trains; and electric: cars; vans; and busses; all assist in achieving better air quality in our cities. Yet, to the extent that the energy they consume is derived from our oldest energy source, fire: the potential toxic emissions and greenhouse gasses simply enter the atmosphere somewhere else.

Back in 2005 I calculated that in Australia, due to our burning coal, oil and sometimes rural waste and garbage, to generate electricity, grid-charged all-electric electric cars had a higher carbon footprint than conventional cars.

In 2019, with a lot of water under the bridge; more renewables in the mix; and much improved batteries; I thought it was worth a revisit. I ran the numbers, using more real-world data, including those published by car companies themselves. Yet I got the same result: In Australia, grid-charged all-electric cars produce more greenhouse gasses than many conventional cars for the same distance travelled.

Now, in the wake of COP26, (November 2021), with even more water under the bridge, the promotion of electric cars is back on the political agenda.  Has anything changed?

 

Read more: Electric Cars revisited (again)

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