Category: Archive

Can of worms: Details emerge of complex multimillion-dollar compensation for Snowy Hydro

admin /20 February, 2006

he NSW Special Minister of State, John Della Bosca, found himself in
the Snowy Mountains this week trying to placate local angst following
the announced re-opening of the Mowamba Aqueduct which will effectively
cease flows down the Mowamba River, which in turn feeds the Snowy
River, reported The Sydney Morning Herald (18 February 2006, p.15).

Spring St “must have known”: He accepts that locals did not know
of the move but rejects criticism from the Victorian Government that it
too was not aware of the ultimate right of Snowy Hydro’s owners to once
again turn the Mowamba into the Jindabyne dam. “I accept that the
[local] people … clearly did not know, or it was very much in the back
of their minds, that it was going to happen. I don’t accept that people
in public life on the other side of the border did not know.”

Vic says scientific study needed: The Victorian Government has
criticised the move, saying that it has been made despite the fact that
the impacts of water flows down the Mowamba River have not yet been
investigated by the still-to-be established Snowy Scientific Committee,
which NSW agreed in 2002 to establish to advise on the future regime
for Snowy River water flow releases.

NSW says original decision only interim measure: The NSW
Government argues that the original closure of the aquaduct was always
interim, and merely a way of boosting the Snowy flows until engineering
necessary to allow water to flow from Jindabyne Dam had been completed.

Environmental flows at risk: Della Bosca tabled the licensing
agreements in late 2001 but it seems no one read them. There is also
disquiet now that the documents contain details of a
multimillion-dollar compensation agreement that could affect in years
to come attempts to boost the Snowy flows to 28 per cent.

Former Federal Science Minister censors CSIRO members over environmental matters

admin /19 February, 2006

Wentworth Group scientists say Dr Steve Morton was reprimanded by
Former Federal Science Minister Peter McGauran and told to remove all
CSIRO members from the group after representations by government
agencies, farm industry lobby groups and right wing think-tank, the
Institute of Public Affairs, according to The Canberra Times (14 February 2006 p1).

Ministerial concern over WWF support: They say the minister
expressed concern over the group’s comments on water reform and its
funding links to World Wildlife Fund Australia president Robert Purves.
Mr Purves, a Bungendore grazier, financial investor and philanthropist,
paid for dinner and the hire of a hotel conference room when members of
the group initially met in Sydney at the invitation of land clearing
campaigner Peter Cosier.

Attempt to suppress damning biodiversity report: WWF Australia
and CSIRO jointly published the blueprints with funding from Mr Purves.
The meeting followed the leaked release of a controversial and damning
report to the federal government by Queensland ecologist Dr Paul
Sattler on the state of Australia’s biodiversity. The report, which
scientists assisting Dr Sattler claim the Department of Environment and
Heritage tried to suppress, listed land clearing as the No 1 threat to
Australia’s biodiversity and ecosystems.

Bureaucrats would rather not know: “Yes, there was some pressure from the minister over Wentworth,” Dr Morton told The Canberra Times
yesterday. Dr Williams said there had been “lots of pressure and lots
of angst and agony” from government bureaucrats in at least three
departments over the Wentworth Group analysis of environmental problems
facing the nation.

Stand by for the “nega economy”: the smaller your eco footprint, the more money you’ll make

admin /19 February, 2006

David Gottfried, CEO of WorldBuild Technologies Inc and founder of the
US Green Building Council, http://www.usgbc.org, can see a day where capitalism is turned on
its head, reported The Australian Financial Review
(16 February 2006, p.61). Instead of rewarding extraction of wealth
from the earth it will lavish riches on those who reduce their
ecological footprint.

New growth sector: In Australia to launch the Green Building
Council of Australia’s latest rating tool, which offers a means of
measuring the ecological impact of existing buildings, Gottfried’s
advice to the property world is to get in early. In the US, he says,
the green building market is growing at 30 per cent a year, “and that’s
in a stagnant industry”.

Nevada leading way: Star projects such as the massive $6 billion
MGM Grand Casino in Nevada, built over five city blocks, are having a
huge impact. Inspired by the $100 million of tax credits available in
that State for going green, the project aims for a maximum green
rating. “They’re hiring every green building consultant they can find
… All my colleagues are setting up LEEDS (the US green rating system)
consulting offices in Nevada. It’s huge.”

Aust lagging: Gottfried said he did not see the Australian
Government involved in anything and this was his fourth visit here.
“The new model here is open co-operation: public-private. Our
government is at the table with private industry and the NGOs
(non-government organisations). I’m all about making money. It’s
capitalism 101. But now it’s about greening capitalism.”

“Nega” economy is coming: He argued that the billionaire of the
future would be someone who moved towards a zero footprint, or ‘nega’
foot print,” – that is, having no or minimal impact on the earth. “It
will be a nega footprint economy – that is, anything you buy, sell or
do will make money if you decrease its eco footprint, and anything that
adds to the footprint will cost money.” Already, “you can get very
wealthy selling carbon credits”.

Mandatory energy and water efficiency is hard on consumers but the alternative is worse

admin /19 February, 2006

Few people would deny the need for concerted action to reduce or even slow our rate of greenhouse gas emissions, said The Canberra Times
(17 February 2006, p.14). But when it comes to implementing a plan to
do just that, altruism often takes a back seat to self-interest.

Energy efficiency does increase costs: Whichever way they’re
assessed, stringent energy standards on new houses do add a significant
premium to building costs, the newspaper editorialises. And from a
purely economic viewpoint, it’s doubtful that owners will ever recover
those costs from reduced utility charges.

This is tough on first home buyers: Young couples desperate to enter the housing market might well have cause to grumble.

But they would pay anyway, in other ways: But without the big
stick of rising power and water prices, or mandatory codes, builders
(and their customers) have little motivation to lift their game. It is
therefore up to governments to make the difficult choices for them,
saving them, and everybody else, the financial pain of having to build
new dams and power stations in the future, the newspaper argued.

Retrofitting is harder but just as necessary: “But government
should not rest there. The far tougher, but no less important, task is
to investigate ways to renovate and retrofit Australia’s existing
building stocks to make them more energy efficient.

Melting of ice-caps doubles

admin /18 February, 2006

Greenland’s glaciers are the worlds largest reserves of fresh water and they are melting twice as fast as predicted five years ago. Research carried out by the NASA Jet Propulsion Labroratory and the California Institute of Technology indicate that 36 million cubic miles of ice are now being dumped into the oceans each year. This Continue Reading →

Government gags CSIRO

admin /18 February, 2006

Wentworth Group scientists say Dr Steve Morton was reprimanded by
Former Federal Science Minister Peter McGauran and told to remove all
CSIRO members from the group after representations by government
agencies, farm industry lobby groups and right wing think-tank, the
Institute of Public Affairs, according to The Canberra Times (14 February 2006 p1).

Source erisk.net