Australian politics in the pandemic, climate, nuclear crises – theme for November 20
I’ve had to update this, in view of changed circustances:
- This site from now on will leave pandemic and climate coverage to others, as these issues are being covered so well by others,. Here we will focus on matters nuclear, which are being studiously ignored in Australia’s mainstream media.
- A dramatic win for fair process and against the nuclear lobby has just happened, as Labor and crossbench Senators rejected the government’s Bill to impose a nuclear waste dump on Kimba, South Australia. (But that battle will no doubt continue Minister Pitt, Trump-like, does not like losing)
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To be fair, Prime Minister Scott Morrison did a good job – taking the advice of medical science, and promptly dealing with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
But – looking at the longer term – well, this government just doesn’t look at it!
They thought that coronavirus would magically all be over within a few months. They have no plan for the , longer term health and economic recovery,
Australia is a leper in the world community, as it refuses to take action against climate change.
The Australian government, hand in glove with weapons-makers, has its politicians freely moving into weapons-making jobs, and vice versa, ignoring the huge conflicts of interest.
Morrison government’s devastating cuts to Environmental research and teaching
‘Devastating’: The Morrison government cuts uni funding for environment courses by almost 30%, The Conversation, Dianne Gleeson, Professor, Science, University of Canberra, Ian Clark, Associate professor, University of South Australia, Stuart Parsons, Professor, Queensland University of Technology, 14 Oct 20, - agriculture, to address threats as diverse as water quality in the Great Barrier Reef, better retention of nitrogen fertilisers in soils and adaptation to climate change
- mining, for advice on site planning and restoration to ensure minimal environmental harm during and after the mine’s operation
- water management in rivers and wetlands, to respond to climate change and higher demand from growing populations…….
We need environmental experts
Australia’s recent, brutal experience with bushfires and drought shows just how badly we need world-class environmental expertise. As climate change grows ever worse, these experts will be critical in steering us through these challenges.
What’s more, the COVID-19 pandemic – linked to land clearing and more human-wildlife interaction – shows just what can happen under poor environmental management.
Australia is uniquely vulnerable to climate change, and in 2019, recorded its worst-ever environmental conditions. These university funding cuts affect the people with the answers to our pressing environmental problems – they are a blow to the future of all Australians.
Read more: A major scorecard gives the health of Australia’s environment less than 1 out of 10 https://theconversation.com/devastating-the-morrison-government-cuts-uni-funding-for-environment-courses-by-almost-30-147852
Global heating is affecting the Arctic much faster than expected
The region is unravelling faster than anyone could once have predicted. But there may still be time to act
The great thaw: global heating upends life on Arctic permafrost – photo essay, Guardian,
Gloria Dickie, Tue 13 Oct 2020 At the end of July, 40% of the 4,000-year-old Milne Ice Shelf, located on the north-western edge of Ellesmere Island, calved into the sea. Canada’s last fully intact ice shelf was no more.On the other side of the island, the most northerly in Canada, the St Patrick’s Bay ice caps completely disappeared.
Two weeks later, scientists concluded that the Greenland Ice Sheet may have already passed the point of no return. Annual snowfall is no longer enough to replenish the snow and ice loss during summer melting of the territory’s 234 glaciers. Last year, the ice sheet lost a record amount of ice, equivalent to 1 million metric tons every minute.
The Arctic is unravelling. And it’s happening faster than anyone could have imagined just a few decades ago. Northern Siberia and the Canadian Arctic are now warming three times faster than the rest of the world. In the past decade, Arctic temperatures have increased by nearly 1C. If greenhouse gas emissions stay on the same trajectory, we can expect the north to have warmed by 4C year-round by the middle of the century.
There is no facet of Arctic life that remains untouched by the immensity of change here, except perhaps the eternal dance between light and darkness. The Arctic as we know it – a vast icy landscape where reindeer roam, polar bears feast, and waters teem with cod and seals – will soon be frozen only in memory.
A new Nature Climate Change study predicts that summer sea ice floating on the surface of the Arctic Ocean could disappear entirely by 2035. Until relatively recently, scientists didn’t think we would reach this point until 2050 at the earliest. Reinforcing this finding, last month Arctic sea ice reached its second-lowest extent in the 41-year satellite record………
At outposts in the Canadian Arctic, permafrost is thawing 70 years sooner than predicted. Roads are buckling. Houses are sinking. In Siberia, giant craters pockmark the tundra as temperatures soar, hitting 100F (38C) in the town of Verkhoyansk in July. This spring, one of the fuel tanks at a Russian power plant collapsed and leaked 21,000 metric tons of diesel into nearby waterways, which attributed the cause of the spill to subsiding permafrost.
This thawing permafrost releases two potent greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, into the atmosphere and exacerbates planetary warming.
The soaring heat leads to raging wildfires, now common in hotter and drier parts of the Arctic. In recent summers, infernos have torn across the tundra of Sweden, Alaska, and Russia, destroying native vegetation………..
The Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago could soon yield another shortcut. And in Greenland, vanishing ice is unearthing a wealth of uranium, zinc, gold, iron and rare earth elements. In 2019, Donald Trump claimed he was considering buying Greenland from Denmark. Never before has the Arctic enjoyed such political relevance………….
“It’s got to be both a reduction in emissions and carbon capture at this point,” explains Stroeve. “We need to take out what we’ve already put in there.”………..
Queensland shift to 100 per cent renewables feasible within 15-years — RenewEconomy
New analysis suggests Queensland could complete shift to 100 per cent renewable electricity in 15 years, with more than enough wind and solar PV in the pipeline. The post Queensland shift to 100 per cent renewables feasible within 15-years appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Queensland shift to 100 per cent renewables feasible within 15-years — RenewEconomy
Greens renew call for Green New Deal, describe Morrison’s climate policies as “criminal” — RenewEconomy
Greens leader Adam Bandt says Australia missing out on chance to embrace Green New Deal in Covid response, calls Morrison government policies ‘criminal’. The post Greens renew call for Green New Deal, describe Morrison’s climate policies as “criminal” appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Greens renew call for Green New Deal, describe Morrison’s climate policies as “criminal” — RenewEconomy
October 14 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “Mitch McConnell Leaves Kentucky Nearly Last In Everything While Drowning Democracy And US Progress In The Senate” • Kentucky is a coal state. What has happened to coal with Donald Trump in office is exactly what Hillary Clinton said. She had a plan. Donald Trump didn’t. He simply claimed that he would magically […]
October 14 Energy News — geoharvey
Solar power is now “cheapest electricity in history”, says IEA — RenewEconomy
The IEA has finally twigged that solar is much cheaper than it thought – in fact, up to 50% cheaper than its estimates of just two years ago. The post Solar power is now “cheapest electricity in history”, says IEA appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Solar power is now “cheapest electricity in history”, says IEA — RenewEconomy
The world is deciding on a post-covid energy pathway, and Angus Taylor isn’t ready for it — RenewEconomy
Australia is barely mentioned in IEA’s 2020 World Energy Outlook, and only to note the exposure of its coal and gas industry to the state of climate action around the world. The post The world is deciding on a post-covid energy pathway, and Angus Taylor isn’t ready for it appeared first on RenewEconomy.
The world is deciding on a post-covid energy pathway, and Angus Taylor isn’t ready for it — RenewEconomy
Net zero targets change the game as IEA hails renewables as new “king” of electricity — RenewEconomy
IEA says renewables will emerge as the new “king of electricity” in latest World Energy Outlook, which for the first time looks at net zero target by 2050. The post Net zero targets change the game as IEA hails renewables as new “king” of electricity appeared first on RenewEconomy.
Net zero targets change the game as IEA hails renewables as new “king” of electricity — RenewEconomy
CSIRO report questions Morrison’s faith in soil carbon due to warming climate — RenewEconomy
A new CSIRO assessment suggests climate change could compromise the Morrison government’s plans to reduce emissions through storage in ‘soil carbon’. The post CSIRO report questions Morrison’s faith in soil carbon due to warming climate appeared first on RenewEconomy.
CSIRO report questions Morrison’s faith in soil carbon due to warming climate — RenewEconomy
Australia a leader in the worst sense – biodiversity loss and risk of ecosystem collapse
Fifth of countries at risk of ecosystem collapse, analysis finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/12/fifth-of-nations-at-risk-of-ecosystem-collapse-analysis-finds
Trillions of dollars of GDP depend on biodiversity, according to Swiss Re report, Damian Carrington Environment editor @dpcarrington, Mon 12 Oct 2020 .One-fifth of the world’s countries are at risk of their ecosystems collapsing because of the destruction of wildlife and their habitats, according to an analysis by the insurance firm Swiss Re.
Natural “services” such as food, clean water and air, and flood protection have already been damaged by human activity.
More than half of global GDP – $42tn (£32tn) – depends on high-functioning biodiversity, according to the report, but the risk of tipping points is growing.
Countries including Australia, Israel and South Africa rank near the top of Swiss Re’s index of risk to biodiversity and ecosystem services, with India, Spain and Belgium also highlighted. Countries with fragile ecosystems and large farming sectors, such as Pakistan and Nigeria, are also flagged up.
Countries including Brazil and Indonesia had large areas of intact ecosystems but had a strong economic dependence on natural resources, which showed the importance of protecting their wild places, Swiss Re said.
“A staggering fifth of countries globally are at risk of their ecosystems collapsing due to a decline in biodiversity and related beneficial services,” said Swiss Re, one of the world’s biggest reinsurers and a linchpin of the global insurance industry.
“If the ecosystem service decline goes on [in countries at risk], you would see then scarcities unfolding even more strongly, up to tipping points,” said Oliver Schelske, lead author of the research.
Jeffrey Bohn, Swiss Re’s chief research officer, said: “This is the first index to our knowledge that pulls together indicators of biodiversity and ecosystems to cross-compare around the world, and then specifically link back to the economies of those locations.”
The index was designed to help insurers assess ecosystem risks when setting premiums for businesses but Bohn said it could have a wider use as it “allows businesses and governments to factor biodiversity and ecosystems into their economic decision-making”.
The UN revealed in September that the world’s governments failed to meet a single target to stem biodiversity losses in the last decade, while leading scientists warned in 2019 that humans were in jeopardy from the accelerating decline of the Earth’s natural life-support systems. More than 60 national leaders recently pledged to end the destruction.
The Swiss Re index is built on 10 key ecosystem services identified by the world’s scientists and uses scientific data to map the state of these services at a resolution of one square kilometre across the world’s land. The services include provision of clean water and air, food, timber, pollination, fertile soil, erosion control, and coastal protection, as well as a measure of habitat intactness.
Those countries with more than 30% of their area found to have fragile ecosystems were deemed to be at risk of those ecosystems collapsing. Just one in seven countries had intact ecosystems covering more than 30% of their country area.
Among the G20 leading economies, South Africa and Australia were seen as being most at risk, with China 7th, the US 9th and the UK 16th.
Alexander Pfaff, a professor of public policy, economics and environment at Duke University in the US, said: “Societies, from local to global, can do much better when we not only acknowledge the importance of contributions from nature – as this index is doing – but also take that into account in our actions, private and public.”
Pfaff said it was important to note that the economic impacts of the degradation of nature began well before ecosystem collapse, adding: “Naming a problem may well be half the solution, [but] the other half is taking action.”
Swiss Re said developing and developed countries were at risk from biodiversity loss. Water scarcity, for example, could damage manufacturing sectors, properties and supply chains.
Bohn said about 75% of global assets were not insured, partly because of insufficient data. He said the index could help quantify risks such as crops losses and flooding.
Michelle Fahy blows open the disgraceful collusion between Australian politicians and weapons industries
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Sweeping policy changes by the Coalition, including bringing the military industry into the centre of defence planning and a 2018 strategy to catapult Australia into the world’s top 10 of weapons exporting nations, created a business bonanza in the military industry. The Turnbull government allocated $195 billion towards upgrading Australia’s military capability (since increased to $270 billion). Extraordinary amounts of money. When combined with the fundamental undeclared, and undealt with, conflicts of interest that have now become routine in Australia’s defence sector, the potential for corruption has increased markedly. Conflicts of interest have become entrenched because of the close integration of military industry interests with government policy. Corporate influence on government policy has been cultivated for years by a phenomenon at which the arms trade excels: the revolving door. This is how the revolving door works. Defence-related politicians and public officials and military personnel are regularly offered high-level, high-paying positions with weapons companies upon retirement. This provides a strong incentive for those in public service, with an eye to their future, to seek the best interests of these companies. Military industry executives in turn are welcomed into government as experts, consultants and employees. Legalised corruption of democracy? Corruption is defined as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain, be it grand, petty, or political corruption” in the 2019 Australian research report, Governing for Integrity. The report says ‘undue influence’ is a marker for corruption, and that undue influence and the ‘revolving door’ are two key problems “eroding public confidence in parliamentarians and ministers, and weakening the fundamentals of democracy”. Take the case of former defence minister Christopher Pyne, who discussed his future with EY Defence while still in parliament, then nine days after leaving politics accepted a position with them. Pyne now also runs his own lobbying firm, lectures as an ‘industry professor’ at the University of South Australia, and is chair of the advisory board and investment committee of a new investment fund promoting high returns via investment in selected defence and cyber stocks. Pyne’s post-politics career made a mockery of the ministerial standards and lobbying rules and led to a senate inquiry, which included former foreign minister Julie Bishop, who only months after leaving parliament joined the board of multinational aid contractor Palladium. The revolving door yet again exposed the parliament’s unwillingness to manage risk factors for corruption, further eroding public confidence in the integrity of our political system. As noted by Transparency International Australia in its submission to the senate inquiry, it is quite the “culture of cosiness”. Although a particularly egregious case, Pyne isn’t the only former defence minister to have used the revolving door. The Liberals’ Peter Reith left his ministerial desk and popped up a few days later at Tenix, then Australia’s largest defence contractor. EY also secured the services of Labor’s Kim Beazley within a year of his political departure, along with former Labor defence minister Stephen Smith. Beazley joined the board of Lockheed Martin in between his public roles as US Ambassador and WA Governor. (The job description and the budget of the WA Governor has been expanded to enable Beazley to advocate for defence industry.) After a three-year association with EY, Smith has recently accepted directorships with cyber security companies ArchTIS and Sapien Cyber. Meanwhile, former Liberal David Johnston is being paid $3,000 a day for up to 180 days a year as the federal government’s chief weapons industry advocate, while sitting on the board of Saab Technologies (a significant contractor to the Defence Department). Brendan Nelson, a former Liberal party leader, defence minister and director of the Australian War Memorial, is now with Boeing (a multibillion-dollar contractor to Defence). Nelson’s move to Boeing was announced in January 2020, just a few weeks after his departure from the war memorial, a tenure that caused controversy given Nelson’s pursuit of sponsorship from arms manufacturers. (In Nelson’s final appearance at senate estimates in October 2019 he highlighted Boeing’s $1 million sponsorship of the memorial.) Nelson also raised eyebrows in March 2019 when his entry on the foreign influence transparency register revealed he had been on Thales Australia’s “advisory board” since March 2015. Thales is a global top 10 arms manufacturer, a multibillion-dollar contractor to Defence, and a sponsor of the war memorial. Then veterans affairs minister Michael Ronaldson approved Nelson’s extracurricular activity while noting the potential for conflict of interest. Nelson countered public concerns by saying he donated the fees he received to the war memorial. Current minister Linda Reynolds was briefly employed by missile-maker Raytheon in between military and political jobs in her pre-senate career. Politicians attract almost all the attention for using revolving door, but they aren’t the only ones using it. Privileged accessConsider the appointment to the Thales Australia board of former ASIO boss Duncan Lewis in February 2020, just five months after he left ASIO. The appointment attracted almost no attention. While the Sydney Morning Herald noted the appointment, no hard questions were asked and no analysis provided of Lewis’s swift move into an industry over which he had had oversight. Lewis had spent five years as ASIO’s Director-General, his final public role in a long career of public service that spanned the military (commander of special forces), the departments of the prime minister and cabinet and defence, as well as diplomatic roles (including as Australia’s ambassador to NATO)……… Weapons CEO moves into public serviceThe revolving door also ushers former weapons industry executives into public sector roles. Jim McDowell is a good example. After 17 years with BAE, the world’s sixth largest weapons-maker, including 10 years as chief executive of BAE Systems Australia, McDowell returned to Australia in December 2013 from his post in Saudia Arabia as the company’s chief executive and was immediately appointed to the board of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. He became ANSTO’s chair in August 2014. For the next four years while with ANSTO he also undertook numerous influential consulting roles with the Defence Department. (More details here.)…….. McDowell was chancellor of the University of South Australia (which has close links with military industry) and was on the board of numerous companies in the military industrial sector …… Part 2: There’s been plenty of talk about enhancing military capability but nothing about enhancing defence’s anti-corruption practices . https://www.michaelwest.com.au/culture-of-cosiness-colossal-conflicts-of-interest-in-defence-spending-blitz/ |
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We’ve had so many wins’: why the green movement can overcome climate crisis
We’ve had so many wins’: why the green movement can overcome climate crisis
Leaded petrol, acid rain, CFCs … the last 50 years of environmental action have shown how civil society can force governments and business to change, Guardian, by Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent, Mon 12 Oct 2020
Leaflets printed on “rather grotty” blue paper. That is how Janet Alty will always remember one of the most successful environment campaigns of modern times: the movement to ban lead in petrol.
There were the leaflets she wrote to warn parents at school gates of the dangers, leaflets to persuade voters and politicians, leaflets to drown out the industry voices saying – falsely – there was nothing to worry about.
In the late 1970s, the UK was still poisoning the air with the deadly toxin, despite clear scientific evidence that breathing in lead-tainted air from car exhausts had an effect on development and intelligence. Recently returned from several years in the US, Alty was appalled. Lead had been phased out in the US from 1975. Why was the British government still subjecting children to clear harm?
Robin Russell-Jones asked the same question. A junior doctor, he quickly grasped the nature of the lead problem, moving his family out of London. His fellow campaigner, Robert Stephens, amassed a trove of thousands of scientific papers, keeping them in his garage when his office burned down – he suspected foul play.
Their campaign took years. But in 1983, a damning verdict from the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution prompted the UK government to decree that both petrol stations and manufacturers must offer lead-free alternatives. Leaded petrol was finally removed from the last petrol pumps in the UK in 1999.
Today, it seems incredible that lead was ever used as a performance improver in car engines. Clean alternatives were available by the 1970s, but making the transition incurred short-term costs, so the motor industry, led by chemicals companies, clung on, lobbying politicians and ridiculing activists.
Faced with multiplying, and interlinked, environmental crises in the 2020s – the climate emergency, the sixth extinction stalking the natural world, the plastic scourge in our oceans, the polluted air of teeming metropolises – it is easy to feel overwhelmed. Lockdown offered a tantalising glimpse of a cleaner world, but also revealed a starker truth: that the global economy is not set up to prioritise wellbeing, climate and nature. What can we do, in the face of these devastating odds?
It is easy to forget that environmentalism is arguably the most successful citizens’ mass movement there has been. Working sometimes globally, at other times staying intensely local, activists have transformed the modern world in ways we now take for granted. The ozone hole has shrunk. Whales, if not saved, at least enjoy a moratorium on hunting. Acid rain is no longer the scourge of forests and lakes. Rivers thick with pollution in the 1960s teem with fish. Who remembers that less than 30 years ago, nuclear tests were still taking place in the Pacific? Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior ship was blown up by the French government in 1985, with one death and many injuries, in a long-running protest.
Unease in USA over Trump’s authority to launch nuclear war
Trump’s Virus Treatment Revives Questions About Unchecked
Nuclear AuthorityEven before the president was given mood-altering drugs, there was a movement to end the commander in chief’s sole authority to launch nuclear weapons. NYT, By David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, 12 Oct 20,
President Trump’s long rants and seemingly erratic behavior last week — which some doctors believe might have been fueled by his use of dexamethasone, a steroid, to treat Covid-19 — renewed a long-simmering debate among national security experts about whether it is time to retire one of the early inventions of the Cold War: the unchecked authority of the president to launch nuclear weapons. Continue reading
Study shows that renewable energy is clearly better that nuclear at cutting greenhouse emissions
25-Year Study of Nuclear vs Renewables Says One Is Clearly Better at Cutting Emissions, Science Alert, DAVID NIELD 11 OCTOBER 2020Nuclear power is often promoted as one of the best ways to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels to generate the electricity we need, but new research suggests that going all-in on renewables such as wind and solar might be a better approach to seriously reducing the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Based on an analysis of 123 countries over a quarter of a century, the adoption of nuclear power did not achieve the significant reduction in national carbon emissions that renewables did – and in some developing nations, nuclear programmes actually pushed carbon emissions higher.
The study also finds that nuclear power and renewable power don’t mix well when they’re tried together: they tend to crowd each other out, locking in energy infrastructure that’s specific to their mode of power production.
Given nuclear isn’t exactly zero carbon, it risks setting nations on a path of relatively higher emissions than if they went straight to renewables….
It’s important to note that the study looked specifically at data from 1999-2014, so it excludes more recent innovations in nuclear power and renewables, and the scientists themselves say they have found a correlation, rather than cause and effect. But it’s an interesting trend that needs further investigation.
“The evidence clearly points to nuclear being the least effective of the two broad carbon emissions abatement strategies, and coupled with its tendency not to co-exist well with its renewable alternative, this raises serious doubts about the wisdom of prioritising investment in nuclear over renewable energy,” says Benjamin Sovacool, a professor of energy policy at the University of Sussex in the UK.
“Countries planning large-scale investments in new nuclear power are risking suppression of greater climate benefits from alternative renewable energy investments.”
The researchers suggest the tighter regulations and longer lead times associated with nuclear power are responsible for some of the statistics explored here, while the large-scale development that nuclear requires tends to leave less room for renewable projects that work on a smaller scale.
There are also broader considerations to weigh up – nuclear and renewables will be two factors among many in the policies put together by governments when it comes to reducing carbon emissions.
Plus, given the time frame, a lot of the nuclear power plants covered by this study are likely to have been getting towards the end of their lifespans, which means more energy is required to maintain them.
Whatever the ins and outs of the nuclear policies, the study does show a clear link between greater adoption of renewable projects and lower carbon emissions overall.
The study authors propose that by cutting out nuclear altogether, these renewable gains could be even greater.
This paper exposes the irrationality of arguing for nuclear investment based on a ‘do everything’ argument,” says researcher for technology policy Andrew Stirling at the University of Sussex.
“Our findings show not only that nuclear investments around the world tend on balance to be less effective than renewable investments at carbon emissions mitigation, but that tensions between these two strategies can further erode the effectiveness of averting climate disruption.”………..
it is astonishing how clear and consistent the results are across different time frames and country sets,” says Patrick Schmid, from the ISM International School of Management in Germany.
“In certain large country samples the relationship between renewable electricity and CO2-emissions is up to seven times stronger than the corresponding relationship for nuclear.”
The research has been published in Nature Energy. https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-why-nuclear-won-t-cut-it-if-we-want-to-drop-carbon-as-quickly-as-possible
1 This month
Help Aunty Sue Protect Her Land and Sacred Sites From Destructive Rocket Testing.
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AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
