Better start pumping up those floaties...

Sea warmth rise worse than was thought....soon every house will have a water view!
Deborah Smith Science EditorJune 19, 2008 - 5:48AM

OCEANS have heated up much more rapidly in the past four decades from global warming than scientists had thought.
An Australian and American research team found that between 1961 and 2003 the rate of warming of the upper ocean layers was about 50 per cent higher than was estimated in last year's report by the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
A CSIRO scientist, Catia Domingues, of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, said her team's finding helped solve a big problem for climate researchers.
They had been unable to fully explain why sea levels had risen so rapidly in this period, but this could now be largely attributed to the expansion of the warming oceans. "For the first time we can provide a reasonable account of the processes causing the rate of global sea-level rise over the past four decades," Dr Domingues said.
Sea levels rose about 1.6 millimetres a year between 1961 and 2003.
John Church, of CSIRO Marine Research, said the study, published in the journal Nature, increased scientists' confidence in their climate-change models of sea-level rise.
The CSIRO team reviewed millions of measurements of ocean temperatures, taken from instruments probing the upper 700 metres of the ocean, to assess the contribution of the thermal expansion of the upper layers to overall sea-level rises.
Contributions from melting glaciers, melting ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland, and thermal expansion of the deep ocean were also analysed.
"We now have a good match between observations and models," Dr Church said.
Last year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report predicted that by 2100 sea levels would rise 18 to 59 centimetres, with a possible additional 10-20centimetres if flow from melting ice sheets sped up.
A lead author of the report, Professor Nathan Bindoff, of the University of Tasmania, said an increase in sea level by one metre by 2100 was "completely plausible".

Well,as if we didnt know..........

Scumbags Hawke and Keating have a lot to answer for. Besides allowing all that politically correct filth to take over our society, along with stifling of free speech, not to mention deregulating the banks so the thieving mongrels can help themselves to whatever fees, and charges, they doeth please..
And did I mention the outcome of this is a revolting, greedy, user pays society where any sort of "service" has a cost attached to it?
Your legacy is as such that a large, knobbly vibrator would not do you two justice for the killing of old Australia.
And now........this...............

Govt 'knew about' climate change in 1984

June 11, 2008 - 1:59PM
he Hawke government knew about the risks of climate change 25 years ago but did little about them, according to Labor heavyweight Barry Jones who was a federal minister at the time.

Dr Jones cast himself as an Australian version of climate campaigner Al Gore in a speech to a Canberra conference on Wednesday.

He said he was the first politician to sound the alarm on global warming, as science minister in 1984.

But his cabinet colleagues did not listen.

"Of course I wish I'd been listened to," the former national president of the ALP told AAP.

"The response from my political colleagues in Canberra was distinctly underwhelming.

"I think some of them were persuaded by (industry) lobbyists to say sooner or later a technological fix will come up."

Dr Jones said the danger of increased carbon dioxide emissions was raised with him in 1983 when scientists were worried about ice depletion caused by global warming.

He spoke publicly on climate change in 1984, put it high on his agenda, and oversaw extensive publishing in the field.

"Talking about climate change was an isolating factor," Dr Jones told the conference.

Some of his government's efforts on climate change were feeble, he added.

"We were seen as understanding (climate change) and going along with it but not doing very much about it," he said.

An obstacle to tackling climate change was vested interests such as the coal industry and unions, Dr Jones said.

"Our politicians are too much influenced by vested interests in every area," he told AAP after the speech.

"Vested interest tends to win out."

Dr Jones said he did not want to target past Labor governments over climate change.

There had been a feeling Australia could achieve little by acting alone, and he also criticised the previous Howard government for not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.

Dr Jones told the conference - Imagining the Real Life on a Greenhouse Earth - climate change posed a great challenge to democracy and pluralistic values.

He said it could inflame fundamentalism and tribalism, lead to wars over food and water, and cause mass migration.

It could also lead to a "revolt against reason" of the kind society's thinkers had battled against since the Enlightenment in 18th century political thought.

The conference, organised by the cultural and scholarly centre Manning Clark House, continues at the Australian National University on Thursday.

More harbingers of the end of our existance..

Atlas shows effects of climate change on Africa

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - The United Nations environment agency unveiled a new atlas Tuesday that shows what the agency says are the dramatic effects of climate change on Africa.

The nearly 400-page publication features over 300 satellite images taken in every African country. The before and after photographs, some of which span a 35-year period, appear to show striking environmental changes across the continent."The atlas clearly demonstrates the vulnerability of people in the region to forces often outside their control," Achim Steiner, executive director, for the United Nations Environment Program said at a meeting of African environmental ministers in Johannesburg. "It is an indication of how serious the situation has become."Although Africa produces only 4 percent of the world's total carbon dioxide emissions, its inhabitants are expected by some officials to suffer most from the consequences of climate change."Africa is one of the regions least responsible for climate change, and is also least able to afford the costs of adaptation," said Marthinus Van Schalkwyk, South Africa's minister of environmental affairs and tourism.According to the atlas, Africa is losing nearly 10 million acres of forest every year — twice the world's average deforestation rate. Some areas of the continent are losing over 55.12 tons of soil per 2.5 acres each year, the atlas says.The atlas also appears to illustrate that erosion as well as chemical and physical damage have degraded about 65 percent of the continent's farmlands. The migration of refugees is causing further pressure on the environment, the atlas says.Besides well-publicized changes, such as Mount Kilimanjaro's shrinking glaciers, the drying up of Lake Chad and falling water levels in Lake Victoria, the atlas offers documentation of new or lesser known environmental changes.These include the disappearance of glaciers in Uganda's Rwenzori Mountains and forests in Madagascar, and the loss of Cape Town's unique 'fynbos' shrubland vegetation.The atlas shows the swell of gray-colored cities over once-green countryside, the tracks of road networks through forests and the erosion of deltas.It shows the dramatic expansion of cities such as Senegalese capital Dakar, which has grown over the past 50 years from a small urban center at the tip of the Cap Verde Peninsula to a metropolitan area with 2.5 million people spread over the entire peninsula.The compilers of atlas say it will be used as tool by policy makers as well as educators."The atlas is a way of bringing local information to a global audience," said project director Asbindu Singh. "If one action is taken on the basis of this report, it will be a huge success."The atlas also highlights some positive signs in protecting the environment and reversing damage."There are many places across Africa where people have taken action — where there are more trees than 30 years ago, where wetlands have sprung back, and where land degradation has been countered," Steiner said. "These are the beacons we need to follow to ensure the survival of Africa's people and their economically important nature-based assets."

Times running out, how long until total system crash....

No explanation needed, how long can? Wah lah!

Ecosystems can't keep up with China: WWF

China is now consuming more than twice as much as its ecosystems can supply sustainably, having doubled its needs since the 1960s, a new WWF report said.
China now utilises 15 per cent of the world's total biological capacity, said the report, which is published jointly by the World Wildlife Fund and the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development.
The report found that the Chinese had an average ecological footprint of 1.6 hectares in 2003, the most recent year for which figures are available.
This means that each person needs 1.6 hectares of biologically productive land to support their lifestyle demands.
While this is still lower than the world average of 2.2 global hectares per person, it "nonetheless presents challenges, considering China's large population and the robust economic development", said the report.
"If China were to follow the lead of the United States, where each person demands nearly 10 hectares of productive area, China would demand the available capacity of the entire planet.
"This is likely to be a physical impossibility for China, and for the other nations of the world," said the report.
If on the other hand China could, in its development, also balance environmental needs, it could "lead the way for the world as a whole," the report added.
"It's a critical period in the coming 20 years for China to realise its sustainable development, which is determined by important indicators including the balance between the utilisation efficiency of natural resources and the Earth's regeneration capacity improvement," said Zhu Guangyao, secretary general of the Chinese council.

© 2008

Yes, more of that freaky weather....

Old mother nature, is expressing her displeasure to we, the dominate species on the planet..
The USA, one of the world's top polluters, is coping a right hiding of late....

Floodwaters wash away homes as freak weather hits US

A home near Lake Delton in Wisconsin collapses as flood waters breach the bank on Monday. Three houses were washed away.
Photo: AP

Latest related coverage

Homes washed away
Waterfront homes are carried away by high waters brought on by severe flooding in Lake Delton.

• Mother Nature lands one on USA's chin

Floodwater washed away three houses and threatened dams in Wisconsin as military crews joined desperate sandbagging operations to hold back Indiana streams surging toward record levels.
The East Coast simmered through temperatures climbing toward the century mark.
Ten deaths were blamed on stormy weekend weather, most in the Midwest.
Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle declared an emergency for 29 counties and President Bush on Sunday declared a major disaster in 29 Indiana counties.
Iowa Governor Chet Culver said nearly a third of his state's 99 counties need federal help.
Rivers in several parts of the Midwest swelled with the runoff from heavy weekend rainfall, topped by the 11 inches that fell Saturday in Indiana.
Water was pouring over the top of Wisconsin's Dell Creek Dam on Lake Delton in Sauk County, and had swept away three houses, county emergency management director Jeff Jelinek said. He was not sure whether there were any injuries, but said people had been told to evacuate the area, which is about 50 miles north of Madison.
A couple of thousand people in Columbia County, about 30 miles north of Madison, were urged to evacuate below the Wyocena and Pardeeville dams, said Pat Beghin, a spokesman for the county's emergency management.
The Wyocena Dam's spillway had washed out, and workers were sandbagging to try to save the dam, Beghin said. The Pardeeville dam was overflowing, creating a risk for the nearly 10,000 people downstream in Portage, he said.
The Upper Spring Dam in Palmyra was failing, state emergency management officials said. But only one house in the rural area was in danger, Palmyra town chairman Stewart Calkins said.
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources engineers were being sent across the state to survey other dams.
Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle had declared states of emergency for 30 counties. At least 130 inmates from the Department of Corrections were helping sandbag in nine areas, according to the state emergency management. The Red Cross had 11 shelters open across the state and was preparing a 12th, officials said.
A new storm system was headed toward the Ohio Valley from the southern Plains on Monday and the weather service posted a tornado warning for south-central Illinois and a severe thunderstorm warning for Indiana.
While the Midwest fought to cope with flooding, the East was locked in a sauna. Heat advisories were posted Monday from the Carolinas to Connecticut, with temperatures expected to hit 100 from Georgia to New York, the National Weather Service said. Raleigh-Durham, N.C., hit a record 101 on Sunday.
"It's just crazy. ... It's really, really hot," said New York City street worker Jessica Pena as she swept a midtown Manhattan street at around 8:15 a.m. The temperature already was in the upper 80s.

Trains versus cars, only WA is really doing it right!

Compared to the basket case that is "Railcorp, we are" etc etc, finally somewhere in Australia is showing to can be done.
Now why cant the bunch of self interested loosers in charge of NSW do it thusly?

Western Australia has a lot to teach the nation about learning to live with rising petrol prices. But its FuelWatch - or should that be FuelBotch - scheme to be launched federally, is the least of it. Some Perthites apparently like FuelWatch - though I have yet to meet one prepared to drive out of their way to save a couple of cents a litre.
At the very time political leaders should be bold, preparing us for the high fuel and energy bills that climate-change policies necessitate, and finding ways to shield the poor, Kevin Rudd toys with lowering the GST on the excise on petrol, and adopts a scheme from WA of dubious merit.
The pity is WA has much better ideas to offer the nation. It has done more to tackle an entrenched car culture than any other state. Its hyperactive and hyperbright Minister for Planning and Infrastructure, Alannah MacTiernan, has not just talked about getting people out of their cars, improving public transport and building railways. She's done it.
While Bob Carr and Morris Iemma have announced, then abandoned, a series of public transport strategies over 11 years, and delivered instead tollways and tunnels, crushing traffic congestion, and diminished train services, MacTiernan has almost doubled the size of the Perth railway network in seven years. Her crowning glory is the 72-kilometre Perth-Mandurah rail link through Australia's fastest-growing urban region, that opened in December. She launched the project and six years later rode the first train.
Under her watch, Perth has also got an extension and spurs to the northern suburban rail line that was built in the 1990s by the previous state Labor government; a series of gleaming new stations, including one in the city that makes our Town Hall station seem even worse; an integrated ticket system, still a pipedream in Sydney; and an enviable $80 million investment in a bicycle path network.
Perth also has free city buses, paid through a levy on parking spaces. And its TravelSmart scheme is now franchised around Australia and overseas to help people reduce their car use. (Part of it involves personal phone calls to new residents in a suburb to see if they want to participate in the scheme; if they do, they get appropriate information about public transport options and timetables). That scheme alone has led to annual reductions of 30 million car trips, and seven million more hours of cycling or walking.
If ever there was a car-dependent city, it was Perth. I should know. I grew up there, a non-driver right until I left in my 20s. My most miserable memories are of waiting endlessly at suburban Perth bus stops. Buses were a bit like Godot. The (Charles) Court Liberal government was so dismissive of public transport, it shut down the train line that ran from Perth to Fremantle in the late 1970s. When I left Perth to live in Manhattan, I thought I had landed in heaven: a city of non-drivers who walked or used the brilliant underground subway system.
The challenge MacTiernan faced, given Perth's car culture and its mindset, could hardly have been greater. Just about the only thing she is not responsible for in WA is FuelWatch. Her planning and infrastructure roles, which she has held since 2001, have put her at the centre of WA's boom, and she was determined to make a difference.
Back in 1995, she came to the realisation that demand for oil would inevitably outstrip supply. (It was a book called The Decline Of The Age Of Oil by West Australian Brian Fleay that convinced her long before most of us had heard about "peak oil"). Climate change as well as the need to combat Perth's sprawl stiffened her resolve to provide the city and suburbs with first-class public transport. "Practically and financially it's unsustainable to rely on fossil fuel," she said.
Like a prophet in her own land, MacTiernan has gone through hell. The West Australian, the city's only daily newspaper, and the local ABC, were virulent critics of the Perth-Mandurah train line, aided and abetted by a coterie of Tory engineers and militant unionists. Nothing was off-limits to the critics, including MacTiernan's hairstyle. From China, where she was celebrating on Thursday the delivery of the first iron-ore shipment from Andrew Forrest's Fortescue Metals Group, she likened herself to a "soldier at the Somme; you go over the hill, dodge the bullets, regroup and fight another day". Now Perthites love the train, and MacTiernan said that on taking the inaugural trip two days before Christmas, she felt she "had done something right".
It is possible FuelWatch is useful at the margins in providing consumers with information. But it's inconsequential compared with weaning people off petrol, reconfiguring our cities, and supporting the less advantaged in outer suburbia. MacTiernan got it - Perth is on the way; Carr and Iemma missed the boat; Brendan Nelson doesn't get it. And Rudd has crumbled. Urban planning, public transport and cultural change are critical, not knocking a cent or two off the petrol price.

You would think we would learn by now.....

But no...............
Good old human stupidity, and short sighted greed is at it again.
No wonder we have no viable future in our present form of society!

PLANS for a huge expansion of longwall coalmining under the Sydney water catchment have emerged as a leaked NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change report urged the Government to confront the state's coalmining industry.
The proposals, part of a presentation to the Australian Stock Exchange earlier this month by Indian-owned resources company Gujarat NRE, call for longwall mining to within 500 metres of the wall of Cataract Dam near Wollongong.
The proposal, currently being assessed by the State Government, could cause widespread surface damage and endanger Sydney's water supply, says a coalition of green groups. Longwall mining operations similar to the Gujarat plans have led to subsidence that has damaged homes, dried up rivers and led to surface gas leaks.
The chairman of Gujarat NRE, Arun Kumar Jagatramka, did not reply to Herald questions about the project.
The NSW Minerals Council reacted angrily to the draft report from the climate change department. "The mining industry has been defending itself against misinformation for a long time," said the council's director of external affairs, Lancia Jordana.
Subsidence from longwall mining, in which the removal of slabs of coal hundreds of metres long causes the surface to crack and sag, was a problem being addressed by industry, Ms Jordana said.
"Where cracking occurs, you may have an area that runs dry but the independent science [shows] there is no loss of water quality, that there is in fact no loss of water at all. It flows back into the river a bit further down."
The draft climate change report said subsidence was a "major issue" causing environmental damage in the southern coalfields, and regional staff did not have the expertise to assess properly its impact.
Gujarat NRE plans to expand longwall operations in the Sydney Water Catchment beneath the Cataract River, which ran dry in 1994, largely as a result of longwall mining, but now feeds the Cataract Dam again.
Gujarat NRE acquired Elouera Colliery from BHP in December and merged it with neighbouring Avondale Colliery to create a single giant mine.
The company's documents say it intends to extract 350,000 tonnes of coking coal this year, rising to 1.3 million tonnes in 2010, with longer-term targets of 2.5 to 3 million tonnes a year, by mining areas close to the dam.
The NSW Government is yet to approve the mine extension plans, though approval has been granted for access tunnels.
It commissioned an inquiry into mining in the southern coalfields in December 2006, with the findings likely to be released next month. In its submission, the Sydney Catchment Authority said it feared 91 per cent of the catchment area would be undermined.
"The impact of the scheme will be enormous," said Jeff Angel, director of the Total Environment Centre. "It will lead to more serious cracking, more damage to river and stream beds, more damage to swamps, more cliffs collapsing, less groundwater, and a threat to the dam itself."
Environment groups, including the National Parks Association of NSW, Rivers SOS, the Colong Foundation, the Nature Conservation Council and the Wilderness Society, say longwall expansion will continue to damage rivers and drain upland swamps.