Singapore hornbag photograpy, can!For wondrous, glamerous and world class, best practice China girls...oh dear...Best one save for one's ticket while still can...Because after carbon emissions trading, one cannot afford....
Monday, July 7, 2008
Australia's harsh reality: adapt or perish
Rivers run dry … the once-thriving Murray River wetlands at Mildura, Victoria. Under Professor Garnaut's worst-case scenario, the rivers in the Murray-Darling Basin could deteriorate to a trickle by 2050. "By 2100, 97 per cent of agricultural production will be lost."
Latest related coverage
AUSTRALIANS must pay more for petrol, food and energy or ultimately face a rising death toll, economic loss and the eventual destruction of the Great Barrier Reef, the snowfields, Kakadu and the nation's food bowl, the Murray-Darling Basin.
That is the stark ultimatum presented yesterday by Professor Ross Garnaut in the first comprehensive assessment of the impact on the country of climate change.
Arguing that Australia must introduce an emissions trading scheme in 2010 to discourage the use of polluting forms of energy, Professor Garnaut said the more forms of energy encompassed by the scheme, the lower the price rises would be. This included petrol and other transport fuels.
He said the impact on petrol prices would not be as large as that being caused by the present oil shock and argued against compensating motorists at the pump by reducing fuel excise.
Offsetting the price by "a few cents would not destroy the scheme" but "it weakens the message", he said.
His 537-page report, commissioned by the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and released yesterday, says: "Climate change is a diabolical policy problem. It is harder than any issue of high importance that has come before our polity in living memory."
He warns that, as well as environmental degradation, taking no action would by the end of the century result in $425 billion being wiped each year from the economy and a reduction in wages of almost 8 per cent.
The report recommends adopting an unconstrained emissions trading scheme from 2010.
This would involve charging high-polluting industries such as coal-fired power stations for each tonne of carbon they emit. They would have to buy permits to emit greenhouse gases and the costs would be passed on to consumers, encouraging them to use less and driving everybody to look for cleaner energy sources.
Professor Garnaut said Australia alone could not have any significant impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions but, unless the developed countries moved first, the polluters in the developing world would not act.
"Any effective remedies lie beyond any act of national will, requiring international co-operation of unprecedented dimension and complexity."
It would be delusional to argue for a delay based on scientific uncertainty and only cost more in the long run.
He criticised the lack of action by the Howard government, saying it should have moved years ago and that Australia had given the US an excuse to do nothing.
The Government will respond on July 16 with a green paper that will indicate for the first time the shape of the scheme it proposes.
The Garnaut report recommends starting the scheme in 2010 but gives an option that would allow a transition to a full scheme in 2013. If there were a transition period, the Kyoto Protocol would define Australia's emissions reduction target and permits would be sold at a low, fixed price. These years would be used to pursue effective international global agreements.
But the Government is unlikely to opt for a delay and will probably start the scheme in 2010, an election year. Sources told the Herald there were ways to soften the immediate impact of the scheme, such as setting a low initial target to reduce carbon emissions. This would result in a low carbon price and only small increases to energy and consumables.
The report warns that current high prices will create political difficulties.
"The emissions trading scheme is likely to be introduced into an environment of recent and perhaps continuing large increases in fuel, electricity and fuel prices - precisely the goods and services whose prices will be affected most by the scheme," it says.
The price increases caused by the scheme will be lower than those being caused by current factors, but consumers will not know what is causing what.
"Households will not be able easily to distinguish between the varying sources of price increases, while agitators against the scheme will be busy spreading disinformation," the report says.
The Minister for Climate Change, Penny Wong, said the report "makes it absolutely clear that the time for playing short-term political games is over".
She backed Professor Garnaut's recommendation that all the billions to be raised by auctioning permits should be returned as compensation.
"Every cent of revenue that we gain through the introduction of an emissions trading scheme will be invested to ensure we assist families, households and Australian businesses to adjust to the impact of a carbon price," Senator Wong said.
The report recommends half the money should go to those on low incomes through tax cuts or social security payments.
Another 30 per cent would go to industries disadvantaged against unconstrained international competitors, and 20 per cent would be invested in developing and commercialising low-emissions technology.
Professor Garnaut said bipartisan support was essential.
But the Opposition Leader, Brendan Nelson, demanded yesterday it be delayed by at least a year so it was not botched.
He repeated that the impact on petrol prices should be offset by a reduction in petrol excise because "$1.70 a litre is a significant price signal for the average Australian motorist".
"To further increase taxes as a result of climate change policies without some other kind of off-set is something that will be opposed by the Opposition".
Professor Garnaut says that in the next 20 years climate change will affect Australia in familiar ways - longer, drier periods, with city people forced to cope with water rationing and country people worried about the ability of the land to remain productive.
But then it will get much worse, he warns. By 2050 the snowfields will be all but gone and the Great Barrier Reef will barely be hanging on.
By the end of the century the Murray-Darling Basin will have collapsed as a food-producing region and people will be moving away. "By 2100, 97 per cent of agricultural production will be lost."
Professor Garnaut said climate change held a serious threat to tourism. "With unmitigated climate change, on the basis of the mainstream science, we won't have much, if any, of the Great Barrier Reef, of Kakadu, of a number of our great environmental assets that are important attractions for international tourists."
Latest related coverage
AUSTRALIANS must pay more for petrol, food and energy or ultimately face a rising death toll, economic loss and the eventual destruction of the Great Barrier Reef, the snowfields, Kakadu and the nation's food bowl, the Murray-Darling Basin.
That is the stark ultimatum presented yesterday by Professor Ross Garnaut in the first comprehensive assessment of the impact on the country of climate change.
Arguing that Australia must introduce an emissions trading scheme in 2010 to discourage the use of polluting forms of energy, Professor Garnaut said the more forms of energy encompassed by the scheme, the lower the price rises would be. This included petrol and other transport fuels.
He said the impact on petrol prices would not be as large as that being caused by the present oil shock and argued against compensating motorists at the pump by reducing fuel excise.
Offsetting the price by "a few cents would not destroy the scheme" but "it weakens the message", he said.
His 537-page report, commissioned by the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and released yesterday, says: "Climate change is a diabolical policy problem. It is harder than any issue of high importance that has come before our polity in living memory."
He warns that, as well as environmental degradation, taking no action would by the end of the century result in $425 billion being wiped each year from the economy and a reduction in wages of almost 8 per cent.
The report recommends adopting an unconstrained emissions trading scheme from 2010.
This would involve charging high-polluting industries such as coal-fired power stations for each tonne of carbon they emit. They would have to buy permits to emit greenhouse gases and the costs would be passed on to consumers, encouraging them to use less and driving everybody to look for cleaner energy sources.
Professor Garnaut said Australia alone could not have any significant impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions but, unless the developed countries moved first, the polluters in the developing world would not act.
"Any effective remedies lie beyond any act of national will, requiring international co-operation of unprecedented dimension and complexity."
It would be delusional to argue for a delay based on scientific uncertainty and only cost more in the long run.
He criticised the lack of action by the Howard government, saying it should have moved years ago and that Australia had given the US an excuse to do nothing.
The Government will respond on July 16 with a green paper that will indicate for the first time the shape of the scheme it proposes.
The Garnaut report recommends starting the scheme in 2010 but gives an option that would allow a transition to a full scheme in 2013. If there were a transition period, the Kyoto Protocol would define Australia's emissions reduction target and permits would be sold at a low, fixed price. These years would be used to pursue effective international global agreements.
But the Government is unlikely to opt for a delay and will probably start the scheme in 2010, an election year. Sources told the Herald there were ways to soften the immediate impact of the scheme, such as setting a low initial target to reduce carbon emissions. This would result in a low carbon price and only small increases to energy and consumables.
The report warns that current high prices will create political difficulties.
"The emissions trading scheme is likely to be introduced into an environment of recent and perhaps continuing large increases in fuel, electricity and fuel prices - precisely the goods and services whose prices will be affected most by the scheme," it says.
The price increases caused by the scheme will be lower than those being caused by current factors, but consumers will not know what is causing what.
"Households will not be able easily to distinguish between the varying sources of price increases, while agitators against the scheme will be busy spreading disinformation," the report says.
The Minister for Climate Change, Penny Wong, said the report "makes it absolutely clear that the time for playing short-term political games is over".
She backed Professor Garnaut's recommendation that all the billions to be raised by auctioning permits should be returned as compensation.
"Every cent of revenue that we gain through the introduction of an emissions trading scheme will be invested to ensure we assist families, households and Australian businesses to adjust to the impact of a carbon price," Senator Wong said.
The report recommends half the money should go to those on low incomes through tax cuts or social security payments.
Another 30 per cent would go to industries disadvantaged against unconstrained international competitors, and 20 per cent would be invested in developing and commercialising low-emissions technology.
Professor Garnaut said bipartisan support was essential.
But the Opposition Leader, Brendan Nelson, demanded yesterday it be delayed by at least a year so it was not botched.
He repeated that the impact on petrol prices should be offset by a reduction in petrol excise because "$1.70 a litre is a significant price signal for the average Australian motorist".
"To further increase taxes as a result of climate change policies without some other kind of off-set is something that will be opposed by the Opposition".
Professor Garnaut says that in the next 20 years climate change will affect Australia in familiar ways - longer, drier periods, with city people forced to cope with water rationing and country people worried about the ability of the land to remain productive.
But then it will get much worse, he warns. By 2050 the snowfields will be all but gone and the Great Barrier Reef will barely be hanging on.
By the end of the century the Murray-Darling Basin will have collapsed as a food-producing region and people will be moving away. "By 2100, 97 per cent of agricultural production will be lost."
Professor Garnaut said climate change held a serious threat to tourism. "With unmitigated climate change, on the basis of the mainstream science, we won't have much, if any, of the Great Barrier Reef, of Kakadu, of a number of our great environmental assets that are important attractions for international tourists."
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Oh yes! More good old Aussie stupidity!
In the 1920s in Sydney, Bradfield designed the railway system with 50 years of capacity into the network.....
Since the 1970s we have had scumbag governments think that oil will go on forever, and every stupid twat will want to drive a car.
And of course in recent years we have had Carr for cars, Iemma, and Costa the railway hating bald headed, chrome dome filthhead.
He used to be a fireman on the railway at Enfield, and by all accounts was a useless, lazy, bludger, and has maintained an anti rail stance ever since.
So, suck on this you loosers, this is where your pro road policies have got us...
We need to learn from our betters, the Asian countries.
Stuck in traffic? Get used to it, Sydney
Linton Besser Transport ReporterJune 21, 2008
THE equivalent of 14 Lane Cove tunnels would need to be built every year for the next five years just to stop traffic getting any worse, a study by the University of Sydney has found.
Sydney's car addiction is so chronic that if traffic grows at the same rate as it has in the last couple of years, the number of car trips in the morning peak will climb 83,000 to 250,000 by 2013.
The road space needed to accommodate the extra cars is "equivalent to adding 21 M2 motorways over the next five years [just to] maintain traffic congestion as it is at present".
The report, by Peter Stopher and Camden FitzGerald, from the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies at the university, urges state and federal governments to scrap all car-related taxes such as registration and petrol excise, and instead impose a calibrated congestion tax on Sydney's roads.
The stunning assessment of just how choked Sydney's roads are becoming is echoed by the Roads Minister, Eric Roozendaal.
"There's an extra 1 million vehicles on our roads and an extra 600,000 drivers since 1996," he told the Herald.
But Mr Roozendaal dismissed the findings as "armchair advice from academics in ivory towers".
The report found that so many cars are clogging the city that to accommodate the growth "the capacity expansion required is in the order of 14 Lane Cove Tunnels per year".
"Contrasted to the population and car growth, one can see clearly that the rate of growth of vehicle kilometre trips is far outstripping additions to the road network," it says.
"If we consider that the roads in Sydney are congested today, then by 2031 we will be looking at a much more severe situation."
The authors do not, however, recommend large-scale road expansion. They say that road construction simply induces more traffic. Instead, they suggest that only targeted public transport services will reduce road congestion, but are pessimistic that even huge investment would be successful.
At least $225 million would need to be spent on 450 new buses, and rail would have to absorb 36,000 more passengers in the morning peak, "or the equivalent of about 45 more trains per peak period", the report says.
However, it also says that even doubling the number of rides on public transport "would realistically do no more than absorb the growth in peak period travel".
In several cities around the world, such as London, a congestion charge has helped cut non-essential car trips into city centres, and a similar scheme should be adopted in Sydney, the study recommends.
A charge that varies depending on the length of the journey and the time it is made is needed, it says. "It would penalise more heavily those who travel in the peak periods, thereby leading to some flattening of the peaks."
This, combined with staggering school starts and work hours, and focused improvements to bus and train services, would mean congestion would not worsen significantly as the population increased.
Mr Roozendaal said he understood motorists' frustration, but insisted there was no "silver bullet". "We need commonsense solutions," he said.
Since the 1970s we have had scumbag governments think that oil will go on forever, and every stupid twat will want to drive a car.
And of course in recent years we have had Carr for cars, Iemma, and Costa the railway hating bald headed, chrome dome filthhead.
He used to be a fireman on the railway at Enfield, and by all accounts was a useless, lazy, bludger, and has maintained an anti rail stance ever since.
So, suck on this you loosers, this is where your pro road policies have got us...
We need to learn from our betters, the Asian countries.
Stuck in traffic? Get used to it, Sydney
Linton Besser Transport ReporterJune 21, 2008
THE equivalent of 14 Lane Cove tunnels would need to be built every year for the next five years just to stop traffic getting any worse, a study by the University of Sydney has found.
Sydney's car addiction is so chronic that if traffic grows at the same rate as it has in the last couple of years, the number of car trips in the morning peak will climb 83,000 to 250,000 by 2013.
The road space needed to accommodate the extra cars is "equivalent to adding 21 M2 motorways over the next five years [just to] maintain traffic congestion as it is at present".
The report, by Peter Stopher and Camden FitzGerald, from the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies at the university, urges state and federal governments to scrap all car-related taxes such as registration and petrol excise, and instead impose a calibrated congestion tax on Sydney's roads.
The stunning assessment of just how choked Sydney's roads are becoming is echoed by the Roads Minister, Eric Roozendaal.
"There's an extra 1 million vehicles on our roads and an extra 600,000 drivers since 1996," he told the Herald.
But Mr Roozendaal dismissed the findings as "armchair advice from academics in ivory towers".
The report found that so many cars are clogging the city that to accommodate the growth "the capacity expansion required is in the order of 14 Lane Cove Tunnels per year".
"Contrasted to the population and car growth, one can see clearly that the rate of growth of vehicle kilometre trips is far outstripping additions to the road network," it says.
"If we consider that the roads in Sydney are congested today, then by 2031 we will be looking at a much more severe situation."
The authors do not, however, recommend large-scale road expansion. They say that road construction simply induces more traffic. Instead, they suggest that only targeted public transport services will reduce road congestion, but are pessimistic that even huge investment would be successful.
At least $225 million would need to be spent on 450 new buses, and rail would have to absorb 36,000 more passengers in the morning peak, "or the equivalent of about 45 more trains per peak period", the report says.
However, it also says that even doubling the number of rides on public transport "would realistically do no more than absorb the growth in peak period travel".
In several cities around the world, such as London, a congestion charge has helped cut non-essential car trips into city centres, and a similar scheme should be adopted in Sydney, the study recommends.
A charge that varies depending on the length of the journey and the time it is made is needed, it says. "It would penalise more heavily those who travel in the peak periods, thereby leading to some flattening of the peaks."
This, combined with staggering school starts and work hours, and focused improvements to bus and train services, would mean congestion would not worsen significantly as the population increased.
Mr Roozendaal said he understood motorists' frustration, but insisted there was no "silver bullet". "We need commonsense solutions," he said.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Another realistic individual tells it like it is!
A world of worries to chew on
Ross Gittins
June 18, 2008
Among all the problems besetting us at present, which is the most pressing and most important: the soaring price of oil, the global food crisis, the rise of China and India, or global warming?
Sorry, it was a trick question. When you delve into them you find that three of those problems - rising oil prices, the food crisis and global warming - have the fourth, the rapid industrialisation of China and India, as their most fundamental cause.
It was Marx who famously observed that everything is connected to everything else. If we want to make sense of all the good and bad things the world is doing to us, it helps to see how those connections run. Let me see if I can sketch them for you.
At its most elemental, the world price of oil is rising because demand for the stuff is outstripping supply. Temporary disruptions to supply add to the price from time to time and speculative investment in oil futures contracts by pension funds may be adding to demand - though I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that price "bubble" to burst.
Existing reserves of oil are running down and not many new reserves are being discovered. But the biggest factor putting upward pressure on the price is the huge growth in demand from China, India and other developing countries. These countries consume half the world's energy and accounted for 80 per cent of the growth in the demand for oil in the first half of this decade.
That growth is almost certain to continue and keep prices rising over the years to come. Martin Wolf, of The Financial Times, summarises the outlook for oil with three facts: it's a finite resource, it drives the global transport system, and if emerging economies consumed as much oil as Europeans do, consumption would jump by 150 per cent.
Next, the global food crisis. Across the world, the basic cost of food has risen by more than half in the past year, with grain prices the worst affected. Rioting over food prices has occurred in more than 30 developing countries.
The most fundamental explanation is that rapid economic growth in China and other emerging economies has raised consumers' purchasing power, generating rising demand for food and shifting food demand away from traditional staples towards higher-value foods such as meat and milk. This dietary shift is leading to increased demand for grains to feed animals.
But this is now a long-term trend and doesn't adequately explain the recent price surge. It's more convincingly explained by the effect of the United States' and other countries' diversion of grains towards the production of ethanol and other bio-fuels, and by the loss of wheat production caused by adverse weather conditions in key production areas, particularly the drought in Australia.
So, China not responsible for the food crisis after all? Sorry, not that simple. Why are the Americans subsidising their farmers to shift into growing maize for ethanol? Because they're reacting to the high price of oil - which would be higher than it is had they not done such a (dubious) thing. Then, of course, we've got the high price of oil adding to the costs of farm production, via transport costs, the cost of mechanical cultivation, and the cost of fertilisers and pesticides. Some dirt-poor farmers have had to give up planting crops.
As for adverse weather conditions, while we can't prove our exceptionally long drought is a product of global warming, there's a fair chance it is.
Quite apart from its effect on oil and food prices, the rapid industrialisation of China and India - the two most populous countries, accounting for almost 40 per cent of the world's population - is an event of huge consequence for all the economies of the world.
When Britain and the United States were industrialising in the 19th century, it took them about 50 years to double their real income per person. China keeps doubling every nine years and India is only a bit slower.
This is shifting the centre of global economic gravity from the developed economies towards the developing economies, which now account for more than half the world's annual production of goods and services.
China's emergence as a major exporter of manufactures has been exerting downward pressure on the world prices of computers, cars, clothing and many other manufactured goods. India is doing something similar for computer-related services.
The export-oriented growth of the emerging economies is adding about 1.5 billion people to the global labour force, doubling its size. This is forcing a lot of painful change in the structure of the developed economies.
As a country that exports mainly primary commodities and imports mainly manufactures, Australia has benefited mightily from China's emergence, in marked contrast to most other developed economies. This year China will overtake Japan as our major trading partner. Even so, our economy is also undergoing painful restructuring.
China's pivotal role in global warming needs to be explained carefully. Greenhouse gases have been building up in the atmosphere for several centuries, taking the stock of gases close to the point of causing irreversible warming. Clearly, the economic activity of the rich countries has contributed the great bulk of this stock, with the contribution of the poor countries being minor.
But when we look at the annual addition to this stock - an addition that's growing faster than we expected just a few years ago - the lion's share is coming from China, not the rich countries. That's because China is so big, its economic growth is much more energy-intensive and its energy use more emissions-intensive.
At the very least, the rise of China and India will continue creating serious adjustment problems for the rest of the world, including us.
At worst, this (eminently fair) attempt to have 40 per cent of the world's population, formerly among the poorest, rapidly approach the material living standards long enjoyed by the richest 15 per cent will bring us to the limit of the environment's ability to absorb economic growth. Doesn't sound like fun.
Ross Gittins
June 18, 2008
Among all the problems besetting us at present, which is the most pressing and most important: the soaring price of oil, the global food crisis, the rise of China and India, or global warming?
Sorry, it was a trick question. When you delve into them you find that three of those problems - rising oil prices, the food crisis and global warming - have the fourth, the rapid industrialisation of China and India, as their most fundamental cause.
It was Marx who famously observed that everything is connected to everything else. If we want to make sense of all the good and bad things the world is doing to us, it helps to see how those connections run. Let me see if I can sketch them for you.
At its most elemental, the world price of oil is rising because demand for the stuff is outstripping supply. Temporary disruptions to supply add to the price from time to time and speculative investment in oil futures contracts by pension funds may be adding to demand - though I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that price "bubble" to burst.
Existing reserves of oil are running down and not many new reserves are being discovered. But the biggest factor putting upward pressure on the price is the huge growth in demand from China, India and other developing countries. These countries consume half the world's energy and accounted for 80 per cent of the growth in the demand for oil in the first half of this decade.
That growth is almost certain to continue and keep prices rising over the years to come. Martin Wolf, of The Financial Times, summarises the outlook for oil with three facts: it's a finite resource, it drives the global transport system, and if emerging economies consumed as much oil as Europeans do, consumption would jump by 150 per cent.
Next, the global food crisis. Across the world, the basic cost of food has risen by more than half in the past year, with grain prices the worst affected. Rioting over food prices has occurred in more than 30 developing countries.
The most fundamental explanation is that rapid economic growth in China and other emerging economies has raised consumers' purchasing power, generating rising demand for food and shifting food demand away from traditional staples towards higher-value foods such as meat and milk. This dietary shift is leading to increased demand for grains to feed animals.
But this is now a long-term trend and doesn't adequately explain the recent price surge. It's more convincingly explained by the effect of the United States' and other countries' diversion of grains towards the production of ethanol and other bio-fuels, and by the loss of wheat production caused by adverse weather conditions in key production areas, particularly the drought in Australia.
So, China not responsible for the food crisis after all? Sorry, not that simple. Why are the Americans subsidising their farmers to shift into growing maize for ethanol? Because they're reacting to the high price of oil - which would be higher than it is had they not done such a (dubious) thing. Then, of course, we've got the high price of oil adding to the costs of farm production, via transport costs, the cost of mechanical cultivation, and the cost of fertilisers and pesticides. Some dirt-poor farmers have had to give up planting crops.
As for adverse weather conditions, while we can't prove our exceptionally long drought is a product of global warming, there's a fair chance it is.
Quite apart from its effect on oil and food prices, the rapid industrialisation of China and India - the two most populous countries, accounting for almost 40 per cent of the world's population - is an event of huge consequence for all the economies of the world.
When Britain and the United States were industrialising in the 19th century, it took them about 50 years to double their real income per person. China keeps doubling every nine years and India is only a bit slower.
This is shifting the centre of global economic gravity from the developed economies towards the developing economies, which now account for more than half the world's annual production of goods and services.
China's emergence as a major exporter of manufactures has been exerting downward pressure on the world prices of computers, cars, clothing and many other manufactured goods. India is doing something similar for computer-related services.
The export-oriented growth of the emerging economies is adding about 1.5 billion people to the global labour force, doubling its size. This is forcing a lot of painful change in the structure of the developed economies.
As a country that exports mainly primary commodities and imports mainly manufactures, Australia has benefited mightily from China's emergence, in marked contrast to most other developed economies. This year China will overtake Japan as our major trading partner. Even so, our economy is also undergoing painful restructuring.
China's pivotal role in global warming needs to be explained carefully. Greenhouse gases have been building up in the atmosphere for several centuries, taking the stock of gases close to the point of causing irreversible warming. Clearly, the economic activity of the rich countries has contributed the great bulk of this stock, with the contribution of the poor countries being minor.
But when we look at the annual addition to this stock - an addition that's growing faster than we expected just a few years ago - the lion's share is coming from China, not the rich countries. That's because China is so big, its economic growth is much more energy-intensive and its energy use more emissions-intensive.
At the very least, the rise of China and India will continue creating serious adjustment problems for the rest of the world, including us.
At worst, this (eminently fair) attempt to have 40 per cent of the world's population, formerly among the poorest, rapidly approach the material living standards long enjoyed by the richest 15 per cent will bring us to the limit of the environment's ability to absorb economic growth. Doesn't sound like fun.
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".
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".
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
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...............
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.
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
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."
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