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The Generator news service publishes articles on sustainable development, agriculture and energy as well as observations on current affairs. The news service is used on the weekly radio show, The Generator, as well as by a number of monthly and quarterly magazines. A podcast of the Generator news is also available.
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  • UK government infighting fails climate

    Britain’s efforts to cut carbon emissions have been hampered by government infighting and a reluctance to stand up to industry, according to the UK’s former climate change minister.

    Elliot Morley, head of the new energy and climate change select committee, said tensions between different government departments had undermined moves to cut greenhouse gas pollution. Policies to cut carbon and help the environment were dismissed inside Whitehall as “idealistic and not giving enough attention to the pragmatic needs of industry”, he said.

    Read the full story

  • Fertiliser prices knock ethanol production

    Read related story from The Land
    For the past year the price of fertiliser has been skyrocketing in the United States, which lead to slow sales and increased stockpiles of fertiliser.

    The increase prompted many companies to decrease production.

    Last northern autumn prices began to come down, but farmers continued to wait to make fertiliser purchases in the hopes that prices would continue to go down.

    Now as planting time draws nearer, fertiliser manufacturers are claiming that delivery channels for fertiliser are unable to move product due to a full supply chain.

    According to Mosaic Company chief executive officer James Prokopanko warehouses at all levels – from distribution to retailer – are full.

    “I’m not going to forecast a shortage, but capacity is going to be ever more constricted,” Mr Prokopanko said.

    One of the big challenges to overcome, according to Mr Prokopanko, is the idling of railways that has occurred in response to the slowdown in commodity shipments.

    He says the railroad will need time to get equipment back in operation.

    Compounding the problem is the fact that many dealers are reluctant to mark down the price of fertiliser that they purchased last summer when prices were high.

    “It’s one thing to have high inventory,” said Mark Gulley, an analyst at Soleil Securities Corp in New York.

    “It’s another thing to have high-priced inventory.”

    The result in parts of the US are a wide variety when it comes to fertiliser prices.

    Due to the clogged supply chain Mmr Prokopanko says there could be a shortage that could limit farmers ability to get the fertiliser they need.

    It was estimated on January 6 that US farmers would plant 85 million acres of corn this season, but now with the fertiliser situation as it is, Mr Prokopanko says he expects farmers may plant only 82.5 million acres.

  • Agribusiness giant cleans up on water sales

    Related story from The Land

    Tandou Limited has received a $4.8 million revenue injection following the sale of some of this year’s water allocations.

    The company has sold a total 12,500 megalitres of temporary water allocations at an average price of $385/ML.

    Tandou says the $4.8m, net of expenses, comes in addition to the net $4.3m of temporary water sales recorded in the 2008 year end accounts.

    “The sale of these water allocations puts Tandou in a very strong cash position,” Tandou chief executive Guy Kingwill said.

    “We will carefully consider new ventures this year if we identify compelling value and good fit with our business.”

    The agribusiness giant has a mix of cropping, orchard and grazing properties.

    Late last year it hit the news by selling 250,000ML of supplementary water entitlements for $34m to the Federal Government.

    Tandou says that sale eliminated all bank debt, while allowing it to still retain 31,617ML of regulated water entitlements, recently valued at over $30m.

    The company also has significant temporary water allocations remaining and it is anticipated that these, along with any further increase in allocations by the NSW Department of Water and Energy, will continue to be traded pending the continuing strength of the temporary water marke

  • Food prices to soar after fire and floods

    Story from The Land

    The impact of the North Queensland floods and the Victorian bushfires will be felt by consumers, according to Federal Agriculture Minister Tony Burke.

    While there are estimates of up to 150,000 cattle killed by the floods, it will be some time before an accurate figure is known.

    However, Mr Burke said estimates already showed that up to 20pc of the cane crop had been lost in some areas.

    And with the Victorian bushfires devastating fruit crops, consumers are in for a shock at the supermarket shelves.

    “Sugar cane’s taken a 20pc hit in parts [as have] a number of our fruits, our stone fruits,” Mr Burke said.

    “Similar with apples down south, there’ll be a number of fresh produce items where if people are willing to put up with more blemished fruit the next couple of months, that will certainly help the farmers to do the best with the produce that has survived.

    “If there was ever a time to be picky, it’s not the next few months.”

    Mr Burke said there would not be an immediate shift in meat prices in the supermarket, as it would take until “the first muster in May or June before we know exactly what the cattle numbers are”.

    “Some cattle, the stronger ones, can swim for a couple of weeks, but certainly most of the calves of the last season will have been taken out,” Mr Burke said.

    “And you’ve got to remember, Queensland is the calf factory for the Australian beef industry so there will be some very significant challenges in total beef numbers.”

  • Diamond compares G20 to Easter Island

    Related article from Mike Adams in Natural News

    Jared Diamond is no doom-and-gloomer; he’s a Pulitzer Prize winning author of thoughtful, carefully researched books about the rise and fall of societies. Diamond is best known for Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed and Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, both of which are among my top-recommended books of all time.

    When you read these books, you’ll quickly realize that Diamond is perhaps the world’s top expert on what might be called the “holistic, interdependent nature of complex societies.” Rather than limiting his perspective to immediate, short-term actions and consequences (as most national leaders and corporations do), Diamond intelligently examines the long-term, interdependent factors that lead to any society’s success or failure.

    I’ve personally read both of Diamond’s books mentioned above, and they have strongly influenced my own views about the future (or lack thereof) of western civilization. What Diamond and I both agree on is that complex civilizations are quite fragile, and short-terming thinking can easily doom a society or civilization to irreversible collapse. (Another interesting book to read on this subject, although it’s quite technical and a bit older, is The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter.)

    Collapse can come from many vectors. Many collapses are environmental, such as the collapse of the Anasazi Indians in North America or the collapse of the Tiwanaku in South America.

    Other causes of collapse include man-made accelerations of environmental change; the classic example being the rampant deforestation of Easter Island by its inhabitants.

    It is the Easter Island example that perhaps most closely resembles the short-sightedness of modern western civilization. At the expense of future generations, today’s CEOs, bankers and politicians are destroying our future in so many ways (financial, chemical, environmental, plundering of fossil fuels, etc.) that it is a challenge to imagine a scenario where western civilization even survives in its current form.

    Jared Diamond, in fact, has publicly declared he sees only a 51 percent chance of western civilization surviving. You can hear this from his own mouth in this video interview.

    About the author: Mike Adams is a holistic nutritionist with a passion for sharing empowering information to help improve personal and planetary health. Adams posts his missions statements, health statistics and health photos at www.HealthRanger.org

  • Rudd in the cold on warming

    Opposition climate change spokesman Greg Hunt said indecision and internal division were behind Thursday’s decision to dump a House of Representatives inquiry into the ETS.

    The BCA, which gave guarded approval to Labor’s plans last year, now says the Government has to find a way to minimise the initial cost of the scheme if it comes into effect in July next year. Policy director Maria Tarrant said the economic crisis meant “the Government has to think of a way to minimise the scheme’s impact in the early years after its introduction on July 1 2010”.

    “There are likely to be big questions as to whether companies will have the cash flow to buy the permits they need, or invest in the emission-reducing technologies they need at that time and still remain viable,” Ms Tarrant said. “It could put many companies’ ongoing operations at extreme risk.”

    With green criticism intensifying, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong yesterday warned environmentalists the ETS was their best chance to see an early reduction in Australian greenhouse gas emissions. Green groups have argued the scheme’s lack of ambition and already generous industry compensation means it is fatally flawed.

    Senator Wong said: “We have a chance now to reduce Australia’s emissions next year or, if we fail, to simply allow our emissions to grow. The most responsible thing to do, even in this economic environment, is to start the hard task of reducing our emissions right now.”

    Australia Institute executive director Richard Denniss and others have advanced the argument that an ETS means an individual’s or state’s efforts to voluntarily reduce emissions have no impact on the country’s total level of greenhouse gas, and that a carbon tax would be a better answer.

    But Senator Wong rejected those arguments as well.

    “If you are serious about climate change a carbon tax is not the answer,” Senator Wong told The Weekend Australian.

    But the federal Coalition appears to be hardening in its opposition to the scheme.

    And the Australian Industry Group agrees the Government needs to “look at every option” to ameliorate the early costs, warning the effects of the economic crisis risk “fracturing any consensus around this issue”.

    Among options being canvassed by industry groups are a plan advocated by Professor Ross Garnaut for a low fixed price on carbon in the first two years of the scheme, offering trade-exposed industries all their permits for free in first few years, starting the scheme as a “dry run” without actually charging for permits and offering industries exemptions or holidays from the cost of the renewable energy target.

    Coalition emissions trading spokesman Andrew Robb told Sky news yesterday the scheme was a “total failure”.

    And Australian Industry Group chief executive Heather Ridout said the global financial crisis had “amplified the negative effects of the emissions trading scheme many times over”.

    Executives from Virgin Blue also told the Senate fuel and energy committee yesterday they were “deeply concerned about the planned timing of the introduction” of the emissions trading scheme.

    “Even in the most benign circumstances, the (emissions trading scheme) is effectively a tax on investment and growth,” said Virgin Blue general manager Simon Thorpe.

    The Government is drafting its legislation. It says it intends to try to pass it through both houses of parliament by June, but most observers believe debate will continue later in the year.

    The Greens have said they are willing to negotiate with the Government over the legislation, but also believe the scheme as it stands is deeply flawed.