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admin /7 January, 2009
“Water is very, very divisive” … Steve Posselt on the Darling River. He thinks irrigation is the cause of many problems in the outback.
Photo: Bryan O’Brien
WHEN the poet Henry Lawson walked over the bridge across the Darling River at North Bourke more than a century ago, it inspired his belief that irrigation was the answer to the outback’s woes.
But when the Queensland water engineer Steve Posselt paddled under the bridge this week, he was thinking that irrigation had become the cause of much of the outback’s woes.
admin /3 January, 2009
Campaigners for reduction in energy waste have garnered support from the world’s atronomers who are lobbying for darker skies so more people can see the stars. The Dark Skies Awareness project was announced in the journal nature, with Chile based astronomer, Malcolm Smith, pointing out that one fifth of the world’s population live in areas lit too brightly for them to see the Milky Way. He pointed out that as well as raising awareness of the stars, a darker sky has benefits for wildlife and human health and saves large amounts of energy.
admin /3 January, 2009
The government of the United Kingdom is in breach of its own laws according to European Union officials who have prepared a court case against it. European environment commissioner, Stavros Dimas, said that the particulate emissions from diesels on London’s highways regularly exceed limits set by the EU in 1999 that passed into UK law in 2005. The controversial third runway proposed for Heathrow airport would cause emissions of Nitrous Oxide to exceed safe levels resulting in further actions. It is expected that this case will take two years to come to court.
admin /3 January, 2009
German reinsurance giant, Munich RE, reports that 220,000 people died as a direcdt result of natural disasters caused by global warming in 2008, the second worst year on record. The resulting insurance losses cost $US200 billion compared to $US82 in 2007 and $US232 in 2005. The annual round up of natural disasters is significant because the company backs many of the world’s largest insurers and sets the benchmark for premiums and those items considered to risky to insure. Cyclones in Asia, and earthquake in China and extreme weather resulting in death through exposure to cold or heat exhaustion in densely populated areas led to the high figures. As well as adjusting prices and risk ratings, the company is actively lobbying for responsible action from governments to minimise emissions and reduce the risk posed by extreme weather.
admin /3 January, 2009
The successful reduction of greenhouse emissions requires rapid investment in medium sized renewable energy generation, energy analysts Tam Hunt told investors in the California last week. He noted that rooftop solar is comparatively expensive and unlikely to make a major difference to overall emissions. By comparison, renewable projects in regional areas, especially those that use existing generation infrastructure can lead to significant change very quickly. Concentrated solar entrepreneur, David Mills, told Beyond Zero Emissions last month that the lack of suitable infrastructure is a challenge for building medium sized power plants quickly. His company is building 10MW and larger power stations based on concentrated solar power.
admin /3 January, 2009
An Air New Zealand jet flew for two hours last week, powered by a 50 percent blend of standard jet fuel and a biofuel refined from the jotropha plant. This is the first biofuel successfully tested in a standard jet engine. The jotropha plant is a small tree that grows in arid areas with low fertility, reducing the impact on food crops and the price of land required to grow it. European companies have been investing heavily in African jotropha over the last decade, but Australian and United States farmers have yet to invest significantly in the crop. The airline industry has set voluntary targets of 10 percent biofuels by 2017.
