PAID TO POLLUTE

If you pollute you get paid and if you pollute more you get paid more. That’s the policy of the Rudd government now and it’s the policy all over the world. Who pays for this? Those who don’t have the money to pay, and don’t have the money to lobby and buy government and therefore democracy- if you are in some sort of a so-called democracy. And if you are in a totalitarian nation state you can’t even try and buy it! Democracy is not for all, even in a democracy, but its very much better having at least some democracy in a democratic state and if you are of the majority, and the majority in Australia is 70% who believe that global warming is real and is happening at ever increasing rates and will threaten our very existence soon, then you would want to do something about it now!! No you can’t! At least you can’t do all that’s necessary to save the planet. And you wont be able to channel enough money into the right areas. You haven’t got the money to do that even if you are of the majority because the Pondsi schemed financial sector has ensured that they will be paid for the pollution they’ve created, the crash of the economy they’ve created and the threat to the environment they’ve made and go on business as usual continuing the lie and hoodwinking you. But the environment is not silly even if we are. We are basically environmentally, economically and ethically bankrupt.The environment has limits and we are seeing those limits right in front of us as we smash into the world’s finite resources. Like it or not we are going to have to change immediately!! Otherwise we will keep on smashing into the environmental limits and we will be bounced back each time. None of the proposed options to reduce CO2 emissions by the polluters will work in any effective way because to do so will close their businesses. The polluters will probably control the Copenhagen meeting in December and make promises and perhaps listen to the poorest and most affected nations. That’s likely all that will happen. Effective emissions reduction means a total cut in emissions now!! The anthropogenic triggered rise in CO2 has tipped the fine balance between positive and negative feedbacks of this planet resulting in a summed positive warming effect rising exponentially. This is a disastrous situation to be in. Disastrous global warming will now happen certainly at least in our grandchildren’s lifetime or possibly sooner instead of playing out over the millennia. We need to understand that the planet is a heat sink gradually absorbing heat from the sun hence the rise in temperature as result of positive feedback. We can’t say the planet is cooling because of local temperature decrease. Or warming because of an increase in local temperature but we can say it is warming because we see more extremes of weather everywhere. And we all know about the polar icecaps melting. An analogy would be to see convection currents becoming more vigorous as more heat is applied to a pot of water on the stove eventually resulting in boiling. Already just a half-degree sea temperature rise has caused fish to migrate out of their usual areas to other areas. This is both good and bad as we are now seeing fish we never have seen before resulting in the collapse of some fishing industries. Overfishing and pollution has exacerbated it. More warming and hence more vigorous convection currents in sea and air –well you know the result. There now is a never-ending list of environmental degradation and collapse that could be cited. Carbon capture and storage for the coal industry, with all its other pollutants, will never work on a global scale and certainly the amount of money being spent to realise this is far too small and it will never happen. Nuclear power has its inextricable connection to nuclear weapons and is very costly. The pebble bed nuclear power system has not been proven for global scale and still involves transport of uranium with its inherent dangers and has more waste to deal with. The only way forward is to dump the model we have, understand how we are interconnected with the environment and all its ecologies and build an economy based entirely on the environment. We can use immediately already proven technologies for the energy sector using the environment for energy production and using it in a way that doesn’t destroy it and us, as we are part of the environment. We have taken a long time to learn and as an example we have built and are still building large-scale hydroelectric schemes but they have tended to destroy the environment at best and at worst destroyed it entirely and with it also peoples livelihoods. We need to know how to not do it that way. It’s hard to see how future projects of damming rivers to produce hydropower could help the environment. So we need to concentrate on technologies that impose little or no degradation and are not dangerous to human, and environmental health or security. Large-scale wind farms spread throughout the country in uninhabited areas or out at sea away from sight an analysis has shown will provide base power if connected to a grid over a sufficiently large area as at any one time there will always be a third of them producing base power 24/7. Tide and wave power together with direct absorption of photons from the only safe nuclear reactor we have-the sun in solar thermal installations with storage will provide the rest of needed base power. Solar thermal installations can be sited in desert areas. There’s plenty of desert in China, the Middle East, North Africa, Australia, America. And only relatively very small areas would be required and connection to where the power is needed by High Voltage Direct Current transmission lines which loose less power typically 3%. The present push for carbon capture and storage system of credits, it would be better to have a carbon tax all over the world where carbon taxes can’t be bought. This tax could then be put into financing renewable power systems. Worldwide cooperation will be needed. The Copenhagen talks should work along these lines.

DID GLOBAL WARMING DO THIS?

A few days ago Sydney received the worst dust storm in history. Of course Sydney has had many dust storms over many years as has most of Australia, but this one was THE WORST for Sydney. In my opinion global warming could be the genesis of more of these to come. After all the world’s weather is doing strange things nowadays resulting in horrendous destruction more often than usual, and even more extreme events could occur in future, and not too far down the track at that. It blew many many tones of top soil and fertility away but for this dust storm, what is of concern also is the fact that this dust came from dust in the heart of Australia where uranium mining is active, in particular Olympic Dam. A mine which is intended to be increased in size to a hole three kilometres wide, four kilometres long and one kilometre deep. True, the radioactive dust was diluted in the mix, but it spread out all over the Eastern States and even as far as New Zealand. With greater intensity and frequency of extreme weather events expected as global warming occurs it would not be too difficult to imagine, that we may be entering a time when carcinogenic certainties manifest themselves in the same way as we have seen in the asbestos scenario, as we will be receiving more radio activity than we would have normally from background radiation, this dust once driven deep into the lungs could cause 20-100 times more problems. And it only takes a minute particle size of plutonium to cause cancer once in the lungs as specks of plutonium are still lying around from the Maralinga atomic tests in the 50’s and we also have rare earth metals associated with uranium and all tailings from mines release radon gas. With the new scenario emerging this time all of Australia’s population will be at risk, which will have even greater consequences. And this of course will happen anywhere in the world where this scenario occurs. It must be added to the list of reasons why we must not go down the nuclear path and why we must adopt the very sound reasons of producing our power from renewable sources.

A global Warming Shock

The unprecedented bushfires in Southeastern Australia being Australia’s worst natural disaster and the floods in northern Australia in Queensland has shocked Australia. Fire fronts from Warnabool in the west to the Alps in the east and traveling at speeds of 120km/hour consuming and flattening and killing everything in its path. A wild fire of gigantic proportions left the landscape bare just like a nuclear holocaust. To date 181 people have died and will likely grow to more than 300, hundreds of others injured, 4000 homeless and 750 homes destroyed. At the same time at one stage 60% of Queensland was under water or affected by floods having had 2 meters of rain in about 5 days. All over the world extremes of weather are now happening. Is this a result of global warming? We only know that as time goes by more extremes of weather will occur and they will be even worse! Thousands of scientists discredit global warming at least that which is triggered or generated by man saying the earth is warming anyhow and some say it is cooling and we humans have had nothing to do with it. No matter which way you look at it, it is warming and we know that we have to do as much as we can to retard the process. We still have a small window of opportunity to do so, ten years at the most. If we all as global citizens understand better how nature works and have a better understanding of science, biology, geology and physics of the earth, we will understand that we need to look after the big fish, the large animals, the large old growth forest trees, as well as the understory, the macro as well as the micro in order for the earths ecologies to survive and we will know how we fit in and how dangerously close we are to extinction. We actually can’t live without intact ecologies! Also importantly we will have a greater chance to reverse the direction of global warming. It will quickly come upon us that we have to change our ways drastically. To do so needs massive education worldwide. The only mass worldwide educational tool is the Internet. Think for instance how those who cut down forests in third world villages to replace them for palm oil production or whatever, if they had a computer connected to the internet, they could learn how to earn a living without cutting the forests down or continuing in destructive ways and to protect the environment as well. In Australia our government is still pandering to the fossil fuel industry providing billions of dollars to it whilst leaving the renewable industries to almost fend for themselves saying that the fossil fuel industries provide the jobs and therefore have to be helped. This pandering has to stop. Our government like many governments in the world today are plowing massive funds providing an economic stimulus with the intention of preventing global economic collapse. It has been suggested that a small part of the 42 billion package in Australia be directed towards the funds needed to rebuild all that has been destroyed by the recent bushfires. This should be at least 2 billion. But it is also plainly evident that in view of global warming massive funds need to be directed to the renewable industries and to mass education worldwide. Understanding the physics of this planet and the implementation of renewable industries is where our future jobs will be and this is where the economy will be on a secure footing taking the environment into the economic equation. This is where global warming will safely be reduced and eventually stopped and where we will ultimately arrest those massive bushfires and disastrous floods and extremes of weather and where our food supply will be secured.

Commit to New Technologies

This planet is on a course for massive global warming. It is difficult to see if anything will arrest this as not only do we have global warming we also have world economic problems. But there is a way to help both. Global warming has to be considered the only issue, as we will not have an economy if we do not stem global warming. Presently politicians and business do not understand how serious it is. On the technical front we have the know how to produce 100% of our power needs from renewable sources. When the true cost of the market system is seen in terms of environmental degradation as it is at present only then will we be in a position to understand how to run our economy in a manner that will also help the environment. Today our market system is still based on the theory that there is no biophysical limit to growth of the market system. We are still in the age of trying to find new environmental horizons and plundering expectant wealth those horizons might reveal and plundering what we already have. There is no possible way to grow our economy using the old system. That’s why it’s imperative we change our ways now and one of the ways to help is to inject massive funds into renewable energy. It is a sunrise (excuse the pun) pursuit. It will provide much needed jobs and grow the economy in an environmentally responsible manner. Similar economic management has been done in many times of recession or depression e.g. the building of the railway system although back then there was no understanding of environmental issues and purely economic gain were to be had. We have that environmental understanding now, be it very limited, and we can now move ahead with the environment in mind. “Dramatic immediate commitment to nurturing new technologies is essential to averting disastrous global warming” –Jeffrey Sachs director of the Earth Institute Columbia University.

ENERGY OPTIONS IN THE WAR WE HVE TO WIN

If we can spend billions of dollars on wars in this world, we can spend just as much on global warming because we have to win this war!

Here are some of the things happening in Australia towards the war. It’s not much at all but worldwide it will have to be!

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2007/s2197789.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2007/s2196083.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2008/03/13/2187801.htm

Due to a serious health condition I will be unable to post to this site for several months. Hopefully it won’t be too long and I will post again. In the meantime look at this site and the links I have provided, they will lead you to new pathways in renewable energy that perhaps you have not seen before. Please continue commenting.

It's Happening and Growing

Proponents of nuclear power will always cite figures that are taken from old renewable energy data to boost their argument in favor of nuclear power as to how much more viable nuclear power is suppose to be and proponents of renewables often don’t take notice of the latest in nuclear power but there are some very fundamental differences in the two that make renewables much more attractive. Meanwhile there are many economists who say that we can do it by using renewables without negatively damaging the economy. Prof. Ross Garnaut is one of those [1]. So the renewable industry in Australia like elsewhere is just getting on with it [2] [3].

[1] http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2008/s2168338.htm

[2] http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5625

[3] http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,23238663-5006301,00.html?from=public_rss

Helping the planet to cool itself down.

This planet was on course to cool down towards another ice age but it’s not. Why? Because of human intervention. We have tipped the balance and set the course for our extinction by burning fossil fuels and disrupting the normal ecological processes. The only thing I criticize Lovelock on is his idea that nuclear energy will save us. His idea of the planet being regulated by life forces should not be ignored however. Every indicator that the earth is warming up fast can be seen by faster than predicted rises in sea level, CO2, and temperature. Still everything that can be done should be done to try and stem or slow down it and new ways to do it must be given serious money. Solar thermal power is going ahead and we expect big things from this. But there are other ways of doing things and they don’t happened to be nuclear. A huge amount of research is going on to find new ways and some success is coming through. New ways to produce hydrogen [1] storing sun and wind energy [2] harnessing wave power [3]. It’s this last thing that’s as important as any because if we are going to use the planet to help it cool down, like James Lovelock says we need to, then we need those scientists on that front, take seriously his idea of using the planet itself to do it. Due to global warming the normal regulatory mode of the oceans keeping the planet cool is breaking down. The top layer of ocean is clear and devoid of algae and nutrients that would otherwise regulate the atmosphere because this warm water stays on top not mixing with lower layers. His idea is to use an enormous number of tubes vertically about 100 meters long and 10meters diameter with a valve on the bottom and as the waves pass over them this has pumping action bringing cold water from below. Or next big thrust must be in wave technology not only in producing power and desalinated water but cooling the planet down as well.

[1] http://www.news.com/Producing-hydrogen-with-water-and-a-little-metal/2100-11392_3-6184879.html?part=rss&tag=2038-12_3-0&subj=news

[2] http://www.news.com/Storing-sun-and-wind-power/2100-13840_3-6221396.html?part=rss&tag=2038-12_3-0&subj=news

[3] http://www.news.com/2100-13840_3-6223220.html?part=rss&tag=2038-12_3-0&subj=news