Archived material from historical editions of The Generator
By Adele Horin October 7 2006 http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2006/10/06/1159641528381.html YOU would think a bunch of community legal centres that dispense advice to the down-and-outs might lie beneath the Federal Government’s radar. It has a war on terrorism to wage, a war on drugs, on the unions and on the Labor Party to execute. But no, the redoubtable Continue Reading →
The Seven network is lobbying the federal government to retain solar energy rebates. The intention is to present the petition on air to the environment minister. Sign the petition
Eastern Suburbs residents were Sydney’s biggest water wasters, with Woollahra households using an average 328,000 litres in 2005/2006 – above the average of 237,000 litres and even more than the city’s pre-water restriction average of 300,000 litres in 2002/03, reported The Daily Telegraph (21/10/2006, p.1). Woollhara’s shame revealed: Sydney Water figures also showed Woollahra residents Continue Reading →
A new study by the Bureau of Meteorology shows that while farmers on one side of the continent are struggling for survival as the climate steadily gets drier and hotter, on the other side it is getting wetter, reported The Sydney Morning Herald (21/10/2006, p.7).
Dry targets southeast farmlands: “It’s not a national drought,” said Grant Beard, a bureau climate analyst. “It’s been bad where the agriculture is and where the people are. But in the sparsely populated areas in the north and west, it’s very wet.”
Past decade wetter on average: The study by the bureau’s National Climate Centre found that the 10 years from October 1996 to last month, “when averaged over Australia as a whole … was somewhat wetter than the long-term average”. Further, “1997 to 2001 … was the second wettest five-year period on record for Australia,” surpassed only by the soaking the nation received from 1973 to 1977.
Cropping area in decade-long dry: However, while it had been “exceptionally wet” through central and north-western Australia, most of southern and eastern Australia – the vast majority of the nation’s cropping area – had endured a decade-long dry spell.
Records rewritten across east: In “southern inland NSW, the 1996-2006 period ranks among the three driest decades on record, alongside periods centred on 1938-45 and 1895-1902 (the so-called Federation Drought),” the report said. Victoria suffered its second driest 10 years on record, with the drought of 1935-45 only marginally worse. Parts of western Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, as well as Perth and parts of the Darling Downs suffered a decade of the lowest rainfall on record.
Loss of big downpours: It was not just the depth of the drought that drew the bureau’s attention, but the disappearance of downpours that spark vital flash floods, long relied upon to fill dams. Before 1992, Moss Vale, in Warragamba Dam’s catchment, could expect more than 200 millimetres of rain in a single month about every 15 months. Since 1992 the town has had just one such wet month – August 1998.
Dams reflect lack of floods: “This has been a contributing factor to the acute water shortages currently affecting [Sydney] … even though the 10-year rainfall in Sydney itself has only been 7 per cent below average, and well above levels seen in the 1937-47 period.”
The Sydney Morning Herald, 21/10/2006, p. 7
Source: Erisk Net
Some questions about the Prime Minister, posed by political correspondent Dennis Shanahan in The Australian (21 October 2006, p.3): Has Mr Howard just discovered the environment as an issue? Is he a newcomer to nuclear power because it’s clean and green? Is he linking drought, water shortages and climate change for pure political expediency? Does Continue Reading →
Along with other environmental changes Dooleys Lidcombe Catholic Club has made, it is expected to save 213 tonnes of CO2 emissions a year with a plan to use a machine which turns food waste into pulp which is then converted into methane and sold to electricity suppliers, reported The Daily Telegraph (20/10/2006, p.17). Changes make Continue Reading →