(Illustration credit: Ian Sharpe, Canberra Times)
Michael had an opinion piece about the Great Global Warming Swindle film published in the Canberra Times.
CSIROpod also has a podcast interview with him; here is a direct link.
environment
Climate change is a tragedy of the commons
World Unity is crucial to the climate: Michael’s article on climate change as an archetypal tragedy of the commons is in The Age today. Read it – its good stuff!
Australia & accelerating global carbon emissions
A new analysis by Global Carbon Project scientists shows that carbon intensity in the world economy is increasing. While emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are accelerating worldwide, we are gaining fewer economic benefits from each tonne of fossil fuel burned. A study being published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science shows that CO2 emissions increased by 1.1 % per year through the 1990s but the rate of increase jumped to 3 % per year in the 2000s.
In Can climate change get worse? it has The Age looks at the implications for Australia from the same data, quoting Dr
Michael Raupach (senior CSIRO scientist and co-chairman of the Global Carbon Project, who led the international research).
The Age: CO2 emissions speed up over 2000: study
AM: Carbon emissions rise at twice the world rate (audio interview and transcript)
SMH: Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions twice world rate
Update:
The CSIRO media release provides a summary of the Australian focus in Background: Australia’s CO² Emissions in the Global Context:
Australia, with 0.32 per cent of the world population, contributes 1.43 per cent of CO² emissions from fossil fuels. In a global context, and particularly in comparison with other developed regions (the USA, European Union and Japan), these emissions rank as follows:
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- Australia’s per capita emissions in 2004 were 4.5 times the global average, just below the value for the USA.
- Australia’s carbon intensity of energy (amount of carbon burned as fossil fuel per unit of energy) is 20 per cent higher than the world average, and 25 to 30 per cent higher than values for the USA, Europe and Japan. Therefore, the energy efficiency of fossil fuel use is significantly lower in Australia than in these other developed countries.
- Australia’s carbon intensity of GDP (amount of carbon burned as fossil fuel per dollar of wealth created) is 25 per cent higher than the world average. It is a little higher than the USA and nearly double that of Europe and Japan. Therefore, the overall carbon efficiency of the economy, per unit of fossil fuel used, is about half that for
Europe and Japan. - Over the last 25 years, the average growth rate of Australian emissions was approximately twice the growth rate for world as a whole, twice the growth rate for the USA and Japan, and five times the growth rate for Europe.
- The rate of improvement (decline) in the carbon intensity of GDP for Australia is lower than in the USA and Europe.
(Disclaimer: Michael is my husband)
That one!
I want one of these hybrid electric bikes. Seriously.
Then there’s the George Bush Solar Powered Walking Chariot! The robotic rollerblading leg movement is very good.
(via Celcias)
Breakfast reading 5.10
Murdoch turning his empire green: ‘Although some of his newspapers were once sceptical about global warming, he said that although he was no scientist, he knew how to assess a risk. “This one is clear. Climate change poses clear,
catastrophic threats. We may not agree on the extent, but we certainly can’t afford the risk of inaction,” he said.’
Diggers speak about Iraq ambush: Did anyone else see this last night? Its been covered in the papers too. It seemed like something new to me, interviewing soldiers giving accounts of their activities as if they were policeman, sportsmen or celebrity. I can’t quite work out why I found it so disquieting – anyone else feel it was inappropriate or different?
The fine print in the university endowment scheme: The Howard government proposes centralised control of universities with a view to privatisation. It has wedge politics written all over it, too. Chilling.
Blogging Was Just the Beginning: Women’s Voices are Louder Online: Chris Nolan on political commentary and feminism online. (via Doc). I hope to get to other articles in S&F Online’s Blogging Feminism issue, too.
The SMH ran true to bumbling form (when it comes to its coverage of new media) the other day with this ‘lesson’ about blogging, which conflated the opening question “Isn’t blogging just for people who are stupid and lonely?” with women bloggers, gender inequity and ambivalence in Australia! “Of the 8000 women’s blogs listed at BlogHer.org, just 96 are of Australian or New Zealand origin. By comparison Canada, a country with 36 per cent more people, lists 82 per cent more women’s blogs.” I think its silly to take membership of BlogHer as a real statistic on the ratio in Australia. I’m not listed at Blogher, for instance.
Doc, who always gets a real buzz out of flying and seeing whats below, has some wonderful photos of Greenland from the air. Check out his other sets for Scotland, the Hebrides, England and others, too.
Breakfast reading 5.05
- Turnbull says IPCC report backs government position: The government asserts black is white (again). Breathtaking. Peter Garret, the Opposition Environment Minister, is not hitting back hard enough with things like this. I’m not sure why, because he is articulate and knows his stuff. On present form his predecessor, Anthony Albanese would be better. I was quite impressed with how well Albanese had a handle on global warming before he was replaced.
- Turnbull’s hypocrisy on climate: Ian Dunlop (formerly a senior international oil, gas and coal industry executive; Chair of the Australian Coal Association in 1987-88; and the Australian Greenhouse Office Experts Group on Emissions Trading from 1998-2000) pulls no punches.
- Schwarzenegger signs a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Victoria to share environmental expertise. “Sometimes if the federal government is a little slower than the states are, then we have to step up to the plate and we have to create the leadership. It is common that a lot of times the states provide the leadership and then eventually the federal government picks up with it and carries it on. So, what we are doing basically is in California we want to show the leadership and we want other states to join us in the United States, but also overseas.”
- To treat the dead: An intriguing new theory that after a heart attack people don’t die from irreversible cell damage due to lack of oxygen, but rather from an active biochemical event triggered by the resumption of oxygen supply. The cellular surveillance mechanism cannot tell the difference between a cancer cell and a cell being reperfused with
oxygen, and triggers the death of the cell. - In a flat world imagination is the key: edited version of a speech by Thomas Friedman (from The New York
Times) to the Sydney Institute. “The world is flat – it has been flattened. We are going from a
world of vertical silos of command and control to a world where value is created horizontally by who you connect and collaborate with… In this new flat world, there is one iron rule of business and one rule only. When The World is Flat, whatever can be done will be done. The only question is will it be done by you or to you.” - Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace: Danah Boyd (2006) looks at how and why kids use MySpace, a welcome voice of reason amid the hyped MSM coverage of MySpace following the tragedy of the Victorian girls. I like her analysis that relates it to public and private space.
Prediction
I predict that, fore-going anything out of left field like 9/11, Howard will lose the next election because of his refusal to take global warming seriously. And it will be because the business end of town has already calculated the risks and wants action for their own stability. Businesses, states, unions, industries, universities and ordinary people are already starting to take action on their own, bypassing government; but they want and need to see the same kind of commitment from government.
Mammatus clouds
We have had some amazing clouds over Canberra recently. These mammatus clouds rolled over our place last Saturday evening at sunset.
Sand Circles
Analogia (Andres Amador) has a lovely gallery of large scale sand circle patterns, made on the beaches of San Fransisco. The patterns are made by raking the sand , exposing the wetter, and therefore darker, sand underneath. Phidelity has other images of the same circles, and includes some designs to be considered for future circles. Glen Tregurtha in New Zealand is also a sand artist, and his gallery is here. I can understand liking the impermanence, seeing it washed away, rather like the Tibetan monks that spend days making intricate sand mandalas, and then brush it all up in minutes.
Updated 2015: some links broken.
