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Sudden 30m decline in Helheim glacier: The new evidence from Greenland, to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters,
showed a sudden decline in the giant Helheim glacier, a river of ice
that grinds down from the inland ice cap to the sea through a narrow
rift in the mountain range on the east coast. Professor Slawek
Tulaczyk, of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of
California, Santa Cruz, said that the glacier, where it meets the sea,
had dropped 30m this northern summer.

Front of glacier retreats 7km in four years: Over the past four
years, the front of the glacier – which had remained in the same place
since records began – retreated about 7km. As it has retreated and
thinned, the effects have spread inland “very fast indeed”, Tulaczyk
said.

Jakobshavn moves faster than usual: The research echoed
disturbing results from studies on the opposite side of Greenland: the
giant Jakobshavn glacier (Greenland’s biggest at 6.5km wide and 300m
thick) was now moving towards the sea about 40m a year; the normal
annual speed of a glacier is about 30cm. The studies found that water
from melted ice on the surface was percolating down holes in the
glacier until it formed a layer between it and the rock below, slightly
lifting it and moving it to the sea, as if on a conveyor belt.

Gulf Stream could fail this century: This glacier is believed to
be responsible for 3 per cent of the annual rise of global sea levels.
Scientists had already shortened the odds to evens on the Gulf Stream
failing this century. When it failed before, 12,700 years ago, Britain
was covered in permafrost for 1300 years.

The Canberra Times, 26/11/2005, p. B9

Sound of one hand clapping: Environment Minister Ian Campbell’s
delegation will therefore be reduced to pushing their only idea: reduce
carbon in the sky via business as usual, says Martin Callinan, who
works for the US Democrats and is a former adviser to Federal Shadow
Cabinet Minister Kelvin Thomson.

Emission reduction schedules essential: If climate change is to
be taken seriously, scheduled emission reduction timelines are the
surest path to carbon-lite economic growth, he argues. Not that such
growth is unanimously favoured. Some US neocons hold a muted belief
that climate change will hinder other countries, particularly China and
India, more than it will harm the US.

Unconstructive policy: This backbeat is yet to be carried by
Australia’s conservative bongo drums, but such abject cynicism needs to
be nipped in the bud with the counsel that unconstructive policy never
stands for long.

US automakers fail to hold back the tide: Last week, the big
players in the US auto industry announced that they were laying off
thousands of workers, in large part because of the no-worries attitude
to the price of oil and climate change. This belief, nurtured by
extensive lobbying, facilitated heavy investment in recent years in
infrastructure to produce inefficient sports utility vehicles, whose
competitive qualities are diminishing by the month.

“Degraded object”: It is one thing to lobby for certain ideas
but it is quite another to lobby against physical reality. Australia’s
climate policy has become a degraded object in the eyes of most
Australians and most of the world. What matters most now is how soon we
can find the domestic resolution to reduce our greenhouse gas
emissions.

Reconciling the irreconcilable: “Environment Minister Campbell
stands astride a proverbial melting crevasse. In Montreal, he needs to
reconcile his party’s conservative attitude with the reality the rest
of the world will be sitting down to vote upon.”

The Canberra Times, 29/11/2005, p. 17

500bn litres released into forest: Many of Barmah’s old red gums
are now soaking their thirsty roots in a metre of water. The two state
Governments have planned to release 500 billion litres into the forest,
sustaining a five-month-long flood.

Spectacular flooding results: The flooding began in October and
the results already are spectacular – a relief to governments and
freshwater scientists who were keen to demonstrate the benefits of
giving the environment more water. In Kakadu-style, the Barmah wetland
is alive and teeming with lush growth, birds, frogs, huge dragonflies,
black snakes, turtles and fish.

A boost to local ecosystem: The great egret is breeding on the
Victorian side of the Barmah for the first time in 30 years. Pelicans
swirl around in groups. In the red gums, ibis are building nesting
platforms over the water. The massive roots of old red gums are
surrounded by flood water, while up in the canopy, koalas are feasting
on the new green growth.

Hit and miss flood timing: Water managers are getting better at
timing the floods to get the best outcome. Floods need to be the right
length, depth and frequency. If the waters subside too quickly,
waterbirds abandon their nests. All three factors have been hit and
miss as the Murray’s dams and water extraction reduce natural flows.

The Age, 26/11/2005, p. 7

Lead up to cold snap: The cold snap followed:

• Sydney’s weekend drenching and predictions of more rain;

• sea rescues after storms and heavy winds lashed the coast; and

• disaster relief being offered to farmers in the state’s Central West
after a hail storm the previous week wrecked 17 homes and destroyed
crops.

The Daily Telegraph, 29/11/2005, p. 16

Source: Erisk – www.erisk.net 

Call for open debate on water crisis: The coalition of councils
requested an urgent meeting with the Minister for Utilities, Carl
Scully, before Parliament finished for the year on Thursday 8 December.
The Sydney Coastal Council Group executive officer, Geoff Withycombe,
said the coalition wanted an open debate on Sydney’s water crisis and a
chance to discuss the environmental impact of desalination compared
with recycling. “We really want the government to make a commitment to
look for further options for the community of Sydney,” he said.

Iemma already has 26-month timetable: The Premier, Morris Iemma,
has set a 26-month timetable to build a $1.3 billion desalination plant
at Kurnell, despite continued local protests from nearby residents. The
government’s own expert water panel opposed desalination in favour of
demand management and improved stormwater harvesting.

Members of the coalition: Coalition councils are: Auburn,
Bankstown, Baulkham Hills, Blacktown, Blue Mountains, Botany,
Fairfield, Hawkesbury Holroyd, Hornsby, Hunters Hill, Ku-ring-gal, Lane
Cove, Leichhardt, Liverpool, Manly, Mosman, North Sydney, Parramatta,
Penrith, Pittwater, Randwick, Rockdale, Ryde, Sutherland, City of
Sydney, Warringah, Waverley, Willoughby and Woollahra.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 30/11/2005, p. 7

New breed of green design professionals: Wheeler was a regular
on the panel of ABC-TV’s The New Inventors and was director of
Environa, a Sydney-based firm that specialised in creating smaller and
smarter buildings. He is one of a growing breed of design professionals
interested in sustainable design and building. There is nothing
particularly “alternative” about Tone, except perhaps his first name.
“The green fanatics – or you could call them the green nazis – are so
rabid about it that they are unreasonable,” he said. “There aren’t many
of them but they tend to want us to make houses that over-emphasise the
green ‘hairshirt’ issues at the expense of comfortable living.”

Green aware clients go for the subtle approach: The second kind
of client attracted by Wheeler’s firm is the “green aware”, he said.
These are people for whom the desire to use less energy in their house
is “at the top of their agenda”. “They want an air-conditioner but they
want to use less energy and they want a higher standard of living.”

The great green dumb: The third category, the “green dumb”, are
the clients “for whom we put green things in and tell them afterwards”
Wheeler reveals. “If we were to tell them beforehand they might baulk
at it because they think it might lower their lifestyle.”

Embedded and invisible design works best: Environmentally
sustainable design (ESD) seems to work best when it is embedded and
invisible. “We built a house for one client and he loved it,” Wheeler
said. He fitted squarely into the third category, the “green dumb”.
ESD, in other words, just wasn’t on the radar when he commissioned
Environa to design his home. “The house was highly celebrated and
photographed,” Wheeler says, and it won a couple of ESD awards. “And
then at one point the client said to me: ‘Tone, what is ESD?’ And I
said to him ‘that’s what your house is. You know how you don’t have to
put air-conditioning on or the heating on and you are comfortable year
round and your bills have gone down and you have rainwater to water
your , garden. That’s ESD’,” says Wheeler. “If you bury it in the
building and don’t proselytise, it’s better,” he says. The principles
should be sold as “an improvement in the quality of life and because it
works better”.

The Australian, 26/11/2005, p. 9