At the tipping point
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We all agree. Climate change is real, and we humans are its chief cause. Yet even now, few people fully understand the gravity of the threat, or its immediacy.
Certainly I did not. It was only after I took a recent fact-finding "eco tour" of vulnerable regions that I realized the true magnitude of the danger. I have always considered global warming to be a matter of utmost urgency. Now I believe we are on the verge of a catastrophe if we do not act.
Last week, in Antarctica, I saw extraordinarily dramatic landscapes, rare and wonderful. It was the most vivid experience of my life. Yet it was deeply disturbing, as well, for I could see this world changing. The age-old ice is melting, far faster than we think.
You have heard how the famous Larsen ice shelf collapsed and disappeared five years ago. A giant slab of ice 87-kilometers long – the size of some small countries – vanished in less than three weeks. What if this "Larsen effect" were to repeat itself on a vastly greater scale?
Canada Racing in the Wind
In April of 2006, the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) announced that Canada’s total installed wind capacity had reached the 1,000 megawatt (MW) milestone. Virtually every province and territory in the country has some degree of wind power in place or under construction, but for two.
British Columbia, long considered a bastion of environmental stewardship, is one of the last regions to add wind power to its energy mix (New Brunswick is the other). In August of last year, three wind developers were chosen to receive 25-year contracts in BC Hydro’s Call for Tender process. Two projects are located in the excellent wind zones of the Peace River Country, near Dawson Creek on the BC/ Alberta border. The other is on the Northwest coast near Prince Rupert.
$360m solar plant for Hunter
Australian company CBD Energy has announced plans to build a $360 million solar farm and manufacturing plant in the New South Wales Hunter Valley. CBD Energy says the first stage of the project will cost $60 million. It involves the construction of a five-megawatt solar farm on land near Raymond Terrace, north of Newcastle, which Continue Reading →
The future is drying up
Scientists sometimes refer to the effect a hotter world will have on this country’s fresh water as the other water problem, because global warming more commonly evokes the specter of rising oceans submerging our great coastal cities. By comparison, the steady decrease in mountain snowpack — the loss of the deep accumulation of high-altitude winter snow that melts each spring to provide the American West with most of its water — seems to be a more modest worry.
But not all researchers agree with this ranking of dangers. Last May, for instance, Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, one of the United States government’s pre-eminent research facilities, remarked that diminished supplies of fresh water might prove a far more serious problem than slowly rising seas. When I met with Chu last summer in Berkeley, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, which provides most of the water for Northern California, was at its lowest level in 20 years. Chu noted that even the most optimistic climate models for the second half of this century suggest that 30 to 70 percent of the snowpack will disappear. ”There’s a two-thirds chance there will be a disaster,” Chu said, ”and that’s in the best scenario."
Scientists say Murray-Darling requires immediate attention
Today marks the first anniversary of the Prime Minister’s emergency water summit, when he summonsed the states on the Murray-Darling Basin to decide how to turn around the dire state of the river.
Concerns are now being raised that not enough progress has been made since that pivotal meeting, and the commitment to a $10 billion national plan for water security.
Water expert and member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, Professor Peter Cullen, says more should have been achieved by now to secure water supplies in the Murray-Darling Basin.
Professor Cullen has studied the ramifications of Australia’s water use for more than 30 years.
Drought leads to butter shortage in Western Australia
Speaking in the Legislative Council, Western Australia, on 25 October 2007 Kim Chance, Leader of the House, Minister for Agriculture and Food, answered questions regarding the shortage of butter in Western Australia due to the culling of dairy herds in the eastern states because of the drought and the collapse of the Murray-Darling River system.
No formal briefing on butter situation: Chance said: "I have seen one media report and I have heard some anecdotal information. However, I have not had a formal briefing from the Department of Agriculture and Food yet. Those anecdotal and media references have pointed to a shortage of butter to the point of an incapacity to supply butter to commercial users. As yet, I have not heard of a shortage at the supermarket supply level…As far as I am aware, the shortage of supply is directly linked to the shortage of irrigation water, particularly in Victoria, but throughout the eastern states generally.