Using electricity means using water

Using coal to generate electricity consumes huge amounts of water. The five coal-fired power stations in the La Trobe valley use the equivalent to more than a quarter of Melbourne's annual water consumption. And clean-coal technologies (carbon capture and storage) consume even more water.

Coal is the elephant in the room for Australia's greenhouse reduction/consumption. Most of our coal is exported (some 75%) and the rest is burnt to make electricity or in the making of steel. That burning produces a little over 42% of our greenhouse gas emissions.

Coal is our largest commodity export and is worth $24 billion, and Australia is the world's largest exporter of coal.

It's a big elephant.

Obama's greenhouse reduction legislation

There's seems to be a change of mood in the world of greenhouse gas reduction with the passage through the House of Congress of Obama's greenhouse reduction legislation.

a couple of good websites

The Blacksmith Institute

… which focuses on pollution in the third world.

The ten worst pollution problems in the third world are:

Industrial Mining Activities

Metals Smelters and Processing

Radioactive Waste and Uranium Mines

Untreated sewage

Urban air quality

Used Lead Acid Battery Recyclinmg

Contaminated Surface Water

Indoor Air Pollution

Artisanal Gold Mining

Algalita Marine Research Foundation

“The base of the food chain is being displaced by a non-digestible,

non-nutritive component which is actually out-weighing and out-

numbering the natural food. That is our core issue.”

It takes a little time to find this on the website but algalita is a highly focused organization with a great story to tell.

Victorian ALP State election promise

"immediately protect the remaining significant stands of old-growth forest in Victoria"

Devil may save the Tarkine

The Tassie Devil may save the Tarkine by becoming endangered. Garrett may over-rule the construction of the 113km road on the grounds that it will spread the devil facial tumour disease. The devil has been reduced to 30% of its population 13 years ago. 5.4k would be carved into Australia's largest temperate rainforest. The Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt has joined the state liberals in opposing the road.

is Antarctica melting?

A significant rise in sea levels depends on a good chunk of Antarctic ice melting, but the information coming from surveys isn't clear cut. This month the Wilkins ice shelf melted, and created a big media response. Wilkins is in the west.  In the east (and East Antarctica is four times bigger than West) the ice is growing and parts are cooling. The melting of sea ice doesn't affect sea levels as it is already in the sea, what does is the calving of icebergs from ice shelves. But there have been significant calvings in the West but ice shelves usually have episodic calving. And it is expected that reports will confirm that sea ice (fast and melt) has grown around the Antartica in the last 30 years. One measure of what is happening is the thickness of the sea ice - and that's at its densest in 10 years. 

Key environmental pieces of legislation

Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Act (EPBC) - since it was introduced in 1999 by the Howard government - only 9 approvals have been refused out of 2700 referrals. It's looked at Gunns pulp mill, Port Phillip dredging. Ineffective in protecting native forest 2.5 milion hectares have been cleared for farming since the passing of the act and 16,000 saved. And there are exemptions for the foresty industry so there's been a clearing of a further 80 million hectares by the forestry industry. And there were high levels of illegal clearing of land for agriculture.

There's a forthcoming book, which I look forward to. (From Allen & Unwin I guess.)