Archived material from historical editions of The Generator
Dwindling water reserves caused by the drought are raising concerns for the Victorian government and power companies about interruptions to coal powered generators in the Latrobe Valley, which provide about 90 per cent of the state’s electricity, says The Australian Financial Review (10/3/07, p. 4). Inquiry launched: The government, three generation companies and Gippsland Water Continue Reading →
New Scientist reported that references to the potential for climate change to happen faster than had been expected, were watered down or removed from an international report on climate change after governments got involved, reported The Sydney Morning Herald (10/03/07, p.10).
‘Positive feedback’ cut from IPCC report: Most of the references to positive feedback (when a change in the climate leads to additional and enhanced changes), were cut from the final version of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, released in Paris in February, the magazine says. The story, published this week, relied heavily on a line-by-line analysis done by the British climate change analyst David Wasdell, who said he was "astounded at the alterations that were imposed by government agents during the final stage of review" of the report.
Watered down by governmental agents: "The evidence of collusional suppression of well-established and world-leading scientific material is overwhelming," he said. The story also quoted the University of Cambridge ocean physicist Peter Wadhams, who said the public needed to know that the policymakers’ summary, "presented as the united words of the IPCC, has actually been watered down in subtle but vital ways by governmental agents before the public was allowed to see it".
Bush Administration accused of muzzling scientists: The Bush Administration has been accused of muzzling scientists who want to speak publicly about topics such as polar bears, the melting of sea ice and climate change. Leaked emails from the US Fish and Wildlife Service revealed that foreign travellers on US Government business were not allowed to speak on or respond to questions about these issues in any public forum, Reuters reported.
"Pleased with changes governments made": Associate Professor Nathan Bindoff at the University of Tasmania agreed. Any references to things such as the "possible acceleration of climate change" that were removed from the final report, were removed for scientific reasons, he said. "The scientific view is that the observational record did not support the word acceleration. No government asked us to remove [it]. The contributions from the governments are very helpful. We are all very, very pleased with the changes that governments made."
The Sydney Morning Herald, 10/3/2007, p. 10
Source: Erisk Net
THE union movement has swung behind the need for clean coal technology saying it was necessary to protect both jobs and the environment.
The Opposition’s environment spokesman, Peter Garrett, toured the Hunter Valley with the secretary of the ACTU, Greg Combet, and the national secretary of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, Tony Maher.
While keen to push its green credentials, the Opposition is being careful not to get the union movement offside as it did in 2004 when a policy to save Tasmania’s old-growth forests was strongly criticised by the local union.
UNSW presents a free public lecture on solar energy
In the summer of 1996, the Ford Motor Company began building the Expedition, its new, full-sized S.U.V., at the Michigan Truck Plant, in the Detroit suburb of Wayne. The Expedition was essentially the F-150 pickup truck with an extra set of doors and two more rows of seats—and the fact that it was a truck was critical. Cars have to meet stringent fuel-efficiency regulations. Trucks don’t. The handling and suspension and braking of cars have to be built to the demanding standards of drivers and passengers. Trucks only have to handle like, well, trucks. Cars are built with what is called unit-body construction. To be light enough to meet fuel standards and safe enough to meet safety standards, they have expensive and elaborately engineered steel skeletons, with built-in crumple zones to absorb the impact of a crash. Making a truck is a lot more rudimentary. You build a rectangular steel frame. The engine gets bolted to the front. The seats get bolted to the middle. The body gets lowered over the top. The result is heavy and rigid and not particularly safe. But it’s an awfully inexpensive way to build an automobile. Ford had planned to sell the Expedition for thirty-six thousand dollars, and its best estimate was that it could build one for twenty-four thousand—which, in the automotive industry, is a terrifically high profit margin. Sales, the company predicted, weren’t going to be huge. After all, how many Americans could reasonably be expected to pay a twelve-thousand-dollar premium for what was essentially a dressed-up truck? But Ford executives decided that the Expedition would be a highly profitable niche product. They were half right. The "highly profitable" part turned out to be true. Yet, almost from the moment Ford’s big new S.U.V.s rolled off the assembly line in Wayne, there was nothing "niche" about the Expedition.
About 2,000 people on Papua New Guinea’s low-lying Carteret Islands could be among the first in the world forced to relocate because of rising sea levels put down to global warming, the Sydney Morning Herald reported (12/3/07).
Saltwater already has invaded much of their freshwater sources and destroyed food gardens.
The islands have been beseized by storm surges and high tides causing seawater to invase the country side. The islanders are receiving relief supplies to help them cope.
The atolls lie around 85km north-east of Bougainville where the autonomous government responsible for the region is developing a plan to shift the islanders to the mainland.
Photo by Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert December 2007, from his collection of Carteret Island photos entitled The Tide is High
Last month, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur also reported on the tragedy of Carteret Islands
‘; var PageContent= ‘Singapore – Nothing is as it used to be on the Carteret Islands in Papua New Guinea. n
n
Only from a distance does the archipelago appear like a South Pacific paradise, but the illusion quickly evaporates as soon as one steps foot onto land.
nWhere blossoming fruit orchards once stood, all that remains are smelly puddles of brackish water. And practically all freshwater wells have been contaminated by sea water.
nIdyllic huts that once lined the beach are now abandoned ruins, slowly being swallowed by the encroaching ocean.
n‘The flood last June was the worst experienced by anyone there,’ Paul Tobasi, a former Carteret resident, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. He is executive manager of the Atolls District in the local government of Bougainville.
nThe atoll, reached by a 2-hour flight from Papua New Guinea’s capital Port Moresby to the island of Bougainville and an additional 7-hour boat ride, is sinking into the sea.
nThe 2,500 Carteret Islanders planted mangroves in an attempt to save the land near the beaches and even erected sea walls with heaps of giant clam shells, but all to no avail.
nCarteret’s fate is also shared by the Pacific island republics Tuvalu and Kiribati and the Cook Islands, a territory of New Zealand, as the South Pacific’s water level is rising and rising.
nThere is no future for the people on the Carteret Islands, which have been inhabited for more than 400 years.
n‘They must leave this year. The way things are going, I think the islands will be underwater in 15 to 20 years,’ said Tobasi.
nNext week, the 2,000 member-scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will release their latest report, the result of six years of research.
nThe 7 million citizens of 22 South Pacific island nations and territories are not expecting rosy news.
nThe panel already warned in 2001 that global sea levels will rise by up to 88 centimetres by the end of the century, a development primarily caused by an increase in human-produced greenhouse gases heating the earth’s atmosphere and melting icebergs and glaciers.
nCarteret islanders, where the highest elevation is a mere 1.70 metres above current sea level, will be resettled to Bougainville within the year provided the necessary funds can be raised.
nThe islanders are aware that they must hurry, because living on the islands has become almost unbearable and food is getting scarce.
n‘They live on coconuts and fish. They used to cultivate sweet potatoes and taro in the swamps, but the floods invaded everything. There are high deposits of salt water and the soil is inappropriate now,’ said Tobasi.
nOn Tuvalu, located halfway between Australia and Hawaii, vegetable fields also have long since deteriorated while fish stocks have been depleted due to coral reef bleaching.
nThe highest hills found on the eight Tuvalu islands reach only 5 metres above sea level.
nThe island-nation’s government has signed an agreement with New Zealand, which will accept Tuvalu’s 11,500 inhabitants when the situation becomes dangerous.
nTuvalu’s government expects the islands to be entirely underwater within the next 50 years.
nRain is the only source of drinking water for the 100,000 citizens of the island republic of Kiribati as shallow freshwater reservoirs are increasingly contaminated by salt due to the rising ocean level.
nKiribati once also comprised the uninhabited islands of Tarawa and Abanuea, but in 1999 they simply went under during a tropical storm and never resurfaced.
nThe doomsday clock is also ticking in the Maldives, a country of 1,200 islands off the southwestern tip of India.
nSome of the coral islands were washed over by the 2004 tsunami and remained flooded for several days, after which the waters receded once more.
nThe United Nations warned that in a few years continually rising sea levels might cause up to 50 million people to lose their livelihoods and become environmental refugees.
n
© 2007 dpa – Deutsche Presse-Agentur‘; PrintArticle();//–>
Singapore – Nothing is as it used to be on the Carteret Islands in Papua New Guinea.
Only from a distance does the archipelago appear like a South Pacific paradise, but the illusion quickly evaporates as soon as one steps foot onto land.
Where blossoming fruit orchards once stood, all that remains are smelly puddles of brackish water. And practically all freshwater wells have been contaminated by sea water.
Idyllic huts that once lined the beach are now abandoned ruins, slowly being swallowed by the encroaching ocean.
‘The flood last June was the worst experienced by anyone there,’ Paul Tobasi, a former Carteret resident, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. He is executive manager of the Atolls District in the local government of Bougainville.
The atoll, reached by a 2-hour flight from Papua New Guinea’s capital Port Moresby to the island of Bougainville and an additional 7-hour boat ride, is sinking into the sea.
The 2,500 Carteret Islanders planted mangroves in an attempt to save the land near the beaches and even erected sea walls with heaps of giant clam shells, but all to no avail.
Carteret’s fate is also shared by the Pacific island republics Tuvalu and Kiribati and the Cook Islands, a territory of New Zealand, as the South Pacific’s water level is rising and rising.
There is no future for the people on the Carteret Islands, which have been inhabited for more than 400 years.