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Category: Articles

  • Australia 2050 is a future we can’t afford

     

    Using figures from the government’s intergenerational report, Mr Thorpe and his colleagues have calculated Australia will need 6.9 million more homes to cope with a population of 36 million by 2050. This represents 82 per cent of our existing housing stock.

    Should Australians continue to rely on the car, the country will need 173,348 kilometres of new roads – a 51 per cent rise equivalent to the entire road network of Thailand.

    We would need 3254 new schools, 1370 new supermarkets and 1370 cinema screens.

    In dollar terms, the amount spent by both government and the private sector on infrastructure would need to increase by approximately $2.5 billion every year until 2050.

    The PWC economists say that while the government talks about increasing productivity, it makes no mention of the crucial role the national pool of savings plays in funding infrastructure.

    ”The banks rely quite heavily on the savings of individual people to provide capital for investment in infrastructure. Because as a nation our savings are currently quite low, there is a real risk that there will be a significant shortage of credit.”

    As a result, both the private sector and government have come to rely heavily on foreign capital. But the global credit crunch has dramatically lifted the costs of overseas borrowing, requiring government and companies to take on extra debt.

    The ageing population exacerbates this situation as older people contribute less to the savings pool, and tend to draw more from government coffers in the form of social security and healthcare.

    But a spokesman for the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, dismissed the analysis.

    ”Australia’s reputation as one of the most attractive investment destinations in the world allows it to access large savings pools of foreign investors … to fund high levels of investment in our own economy,” he said.

    ”We are able to be a net importer of capital because foreign investors are confident we use their capital so well.”

  • New wind power tops all other sources in 2009

    New wind power tops all other sources in 2009

    Ecologist

    4th February, 2010

    Wind and solar technology made up over half of Europe’s new electricity generating capacity in 2009, as the number of new coal and nuclear facilities fell

     

    More wind capacity was installed in Europe during 2009 than any other electricity-generating technology, according to statistics released today by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA).

    Wind accounted for 39 per cent of increased European energy capacity, ahead of gas (26 per cent) and solar (16 per cent). In contrast, the nuclear and coal power sectors decommissioned more megawatts of capacity than they installed in 2009, with a total of 1,393 MW of nuclear and 3,200 MW of coal decommissioned.

    Wind investment

    According to the EWEA report, €13 billion has been invested in wind farms across the EU in the last year, which are now capable of meeting 4.8 per cent of EU energy demands.  
     
    Spain is the country with the biggest share of new wind capacity (24 per cent), followed by Germany (19 per cent), Italy (19 per cent), France (11 per cent) and the UK (10 per cent). 
     
    The wind energy sector has grown by an average of 23 per cent over the last 15 years, with annual installations up from 472 MW in 1994 to 10,163 MW in 2009. 
     
    ‘The figures, once again, confirm that wind power, together with other renewable energy technologies and a shift from coal to gas, are delivering massive European carbon reductions, while creating much needed economic activity and new jobs for Europe’s citizens,’ said EWEA CEO Christian Kjaer.

    More growth needed
     
    The British Wind Energy Agency (BWEA) welcomed the UK’s increase in wind energy capacity but said more needed to be done to ensure the sector continued to develop.
     
    ‘The UK has delivered more than 1GW of capacity for the first time in one calendar year, which is enough to power 600,000 homes. It shows that we can deliver as a sector, provided the right policy framework is in place,’ said Nick Medic of the BWEA. 
     
    ‘We need a policy that provides answers to the four big questions – planning, grid, supply chain and finance,’ he added.  

    Useful links
    European Wind Energy Association (EWEA)

  • Europe is not heading for a population collapse.

     

    In addition, fertility rates in Europe are currently above 1.5 children per woman. As a rate of 2.1 is needed in the long run to replace population in the absence of migration, each European generation is reproducing about three-quarters of its number, not a half. In some of the richer countries – such as France, the UK and Sweden – the fertility rate is around 2.

    Pearce says: “Demographer Peter McDonald calculates that if Italy gets stuck with recent fertility levels, and fails to top up with foreign migrants, it will lose 86% of its population by the end of the century, falling to 8 million compared with today’s 56 million. Spain will lose 85%, Germany 83% and Greece 74%.” I ran such a scenario for Italy, using fertility data for 2007 when the total fertility rate there was at 1.37. This concluded that by 2100 Italy’s population would fall to 23 million, almost three times higher than McDonald’s reported number.

    This is all theory, however, since birth rates are notoriously unstable and Europe is likely to face continued immigration in the coming decades. For example, Spain has had low fertility rates since the 1980s, and many projections assumed its slow population demise.

    Instead, Spain witnessed an unprecedented immigration wave, and a gradual increase in birth rates. Despite low fertility, the Spanish population jumped fastest in Europe in the last decade, from 40 million to 46 million. There is no indication, save the short-term impact of the recent economic crisis, that this migration stream is going to end: since 2000 the EU has recorded a net migration gain of 15 million, more than during the previous four decades combined.

    There will be countries and regions that will suffer long-term depopulation due to low fertility and emigration – but a combination of the two phenomena is mostly concentrated in eastern Europe, particularly in eastern Germany, Bulgaria and Ukraine. But the European population will also continue to age, and some demographers predict that babies born in the first decade of this century will live to an average age of 100.

    Since the late 19th century, when a massive decline in birth rates began in most of Europe, some demographers and long-forgotten futurologists have been busy envisioning an inevitable demise of Europe and “western civilisation”. However, it is not population size but affluence and technology that make some countries more powerful than others. Switzerland, with a population of 8 million, is globally more significant than, say, Bangladesh, with a population 20 times larger. In any case, a slow decline in European population should be cheerfully welcomed by all who care about climate change and global pressure on resources.

  • Brazil to build world’s third larest dam in Amazon

    Public opposition

    Previous attempts to start the project in the late 1980s failed after public opposition. A number of NGOs and indigenous populations remain opposed to the project, which will divert the flow of the Xingu River, devastate an extensive area of the Amazon rainforest and displace local communities.

    ‘No one knows the true cost of Belo Monte,’ said Aviva Imhof, International Rivers Campaigns Director.

    ‘The project would displace tens of thousands of people, and destroy the livelihood of thousands more. Even as Brazil argues that the international community should support rainforest protection, its government insists on promoting mega-infrastructure projects in Amazonia that are socially and environmentally indefensible.’

    Indigenous peoples

    NGO Amazon Watch said the project and other dams being planned for the region threatened the survival of indigenous peoples.

    One of those indigenous groups, the Kayapo, called on the World Bank to stop funding dam projects in the Amazon region.

    ‘If you lend money to the government of Brazil to pave roads and build other projects [such as] the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, you will be contributing to the destruction of our forests, and conflicts with – possibly even deaths – of our people,’ wrote Megaron, the new Kayapó chief in a letter to the president of the World Bank.

    ‘We want to make sure that Belo Monte does not destroy the ecosystems and the biodiversity that we have taken care of for millennia. We are opposed to dams on the Xingu, and will fight to protect our river,’ he said.

    Useful links
    Conservation
    International Rivers
    Amazon Watch

  • Populate and we will perish

     

    Related Coverage

    My view then was that Australia couldn’t have an immigration policy without first having a population policy. It hasn’t changed.

    The then minister for immigration, Phil Lynch, understood what I was on about. He set up an inquiry under Wilfred Borrie, but when Borrie eventually reported in 1978, no mention was made of population numbers.

    What surprises me is that Rudd has decided to support a massive increase without the matter being debated in public, the parliament, the party or the press. I am not alone in my concern.

    What advocates of big Australia haven’t yet done is spelt out clearly the benefits from such a huge population increase. In the early 1990s our annual growth rate, including immigration as well as births and deaths, dropped below 1 per cent. It is now, thanks to more babies and more people living longer, almost 2 per cent.

    With a population of 22 million, the deterioration in the quality of life in our cities is already obvious. Daily our media highlights the inadequacy of our schools, hospitals and transport system, housing and water shortages, and spiralling land prices. You don’t need to be an urban planner, demographer or sociologist to see the problems.

    If the 35 million predicted by 2050 is correct, with Sydney and Melbourne rising to seven million each, we are courting disaster. Double the population and life in the cities will be intolerable.

    No, no, say the big Australians, we can take millions more. We can but who will benefit? It is up to the big Australians to show how this will improve the quality of life for present and future generations of Australians.

    In the immediate post-war period, Australia, having just fought a war of survival with the Japanese, recognised that we could not occupy or defend a vast island continent with six million people. It may seem xenophobic today but fear of being swamped by the yellow peril before, during and after World War II was real enough. Most of these fears have now abated and, thankfully, with the end of the White Australia policy, most Australians recognise that our security is no longer dependent on increased population. If it is, what numbers will be necessary to repel the three billion who live to our near north? .

    The other reason given at the time was that a larger population would provide our manufacturers with the economies of scale. That may have had some validity then, but Australia’s economy now depends more on mining, tourism and agriculture as well as financial and educational services rather than manufacturing.

    The Prime Minister might also care to explain why the government is telling us we must reduce our carbon footprint while suggesting we should double the number of feet. We appear to be on two different planets. Some suggest that not to share our country with millions more immigrants is selfish and that we have the responsibility to help other countries to lighten their population load.

    Excuse me? What about helping them with population control?

    Why has it taken so long for this debate to take place? One reason is that the ethnic lobby brands anyone who questions immigration as racist. That won’t work with the type of people who are now entering the debate. People of the calibre of Dick Smith, Bob Carr and, if I may say so, yours truly can’t be so labelled.

    More and more Australians are speaking out on this issue and they will not be silenced out of fear of being blackguarded by those afraid to seriously debate the issue.

    The pundits suggest the federal election will be fought on the economy, climate change, health care and education. To that we can add population and immigration. It’s the big sleeper. Rudd and Tony Abbott take note. It will be a debate not about who comes to this country but how many.

    Barry Cohen was a minister in the Hawke government.

  • Nasa mission to unravel sun’s threat to earth

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    Orbiting the Earth at a distance of 22,300 miles, the observatory will measure fluctuations in the sun’s ultraviolet output, map magnetic fields and photograph its surface and atmosphere.

    Experts have likened the mission to a “giant microscope” that will capture for the first time every nuance of the sun’s exterior. The images relayed to Earth will be 10 times clearer than high-definition television.

    Barbara Thompson, project scientist, said: “It is Nasa’s first weather mission and it aims to characterise everything on the sun that can impact on the Earth and near Earth.

    “We know things happen on the sun which affect spacecraft, communications and radio signals. If we can understand the underlying causes of what is happening then we can turn this information into forecasts.

    “The key thing about the mission is that it is not just pure science for its own sake. There is likely to be a direct and immediate benefit for people.”

    Solar magnetic storms and space weather disturbances have had a number of dramatic consequences over the years.

    On March 13, 1989, millions of people in Canada and the United States were left without electricity for more than nine hours after a magnetic storm sent shockwaves through the Hydro-Québec power grid.

    Five years later, a geomagnetic storm temporarily knocked out two Canadian satellites and Intelsat-K, an international communications satellite.

    The most powerful solar storm in history, known as a “superstorm”, occurred on September 1, 1859. It caused the failure of telegraph systems in Europe and North America.

    The storm produced auroras — phenomena normally only seen near the poles — which were visible in Cuba, Mexico and Italy. The lights were so bright in California’s Rocky Mountains that gold prospectors mistook them for dawn and began preparing breakfast.

    Transpolar aircraft are particularly sensitive to space weather because they rely on navigation systems for the entire duration of a flight.

    Nasa estimates that the SDO will transmit as much as 50 times more scientific data than any other mission in the space agency’s history.

    Each image will consist of more than 16m pixels and the amount of data sent back to Earth daily will be equivalent to downloading 500,000 songs a day from the internet.

    In order to process the data, the organisation has set up a pair of dedicated radio antennae near Las Cruces, New Mexico.

    The SDO’s orbit will match the speed of the rotation of the Earth, meaning that it will be in constant view of the two 59ft dishes throughout the mission.

    The UK-based Science and Technology Facilities Council is supplying some of the equipment for the observatory.

    Professor Richard Harrison, of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, said understanding the impact of the sun’s magnetic fields was key to the mission.

    “The idea is to image different layers of the sun’s atmosphere all the way down to the surface and measure magnetic fields,” he said.

    “The bottom line is that you are trying to understand how this atmosphere works. We can already see phenomena like the flares. The question is how does the magnetic field form to allow this sort of thing to happen