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  • Greenpeace protesters invade power station

    When it was suggested that it was frightening to think how easy it was to gain access to a power station, Mr Campbell said: "Not everybody can actually do it and we’re actually very highly trained and we research the activities very well."

    When further pressed about how the activists managed to get in, he said there was, "No comment".

    On Wednesday, police received reports of people taking photographs of the nearby Vales Point Power Station, prompting speculation that it could have been Greenpeace members preparing for their protest.

    Tuggerah Lakes Local Area Commander Superintendent Geoff McKechnie said the group had gained access yesterday by cutting through a wire perimeter fence.

    He refused to answer questions about Delta Electricity’s monitoring of the power station fence lines, citing security concerns.

    "They do have security processes in place and we will be working with Delta to improve those security processes," he said.

    Yesterday a Delta spokeswoman said the incident would be investigated, "but it really is now a matter for the police".

    Power station staff were evacuated during the protest but power production was not interrupted.

    Police eventually cut free the protesters, who were later charged with a range of trespass and malicious damage offences.

  • At the tipping point

    At the Chilean research base on King George Island, scientists told me that the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet is at risk. Like Larsen, it is a continuous sheath of floating ice, comprising nearly one-fifth of the continent.

    If it broke up, sea levels could rise by six meters. Think of the effect on the coastlines and cities: New York, Mumbai and Shanghai, not to mention small island nations. It may not happen for 100 years – or it could happen in 10. We simply do not know. But when it happens, it could occur quickly, almost overnight.

    It sounds like the script of a disaster movie. But this is science, not science-fiction.

    Dr. Gino Casassa, a leading Chilean glaciologist with the Chilean Center for Scientific Studies and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that recently shared a Nobel Prize, worries particularly about the Antarctic Peninsula – a finger of land on the northern coast that he designates as one of three global "hot spots," along with Central Asia and Greenland.

    Temperatures there are rising 10 times faster than the global average, he has found. Glaciers are visibly retreating. Grasses are taking root in Antarctica’s barren soil, including one used on American golf courses. In the summer, it rains rather than snows increasingly often. A decade ago, Dr. Casassa was a skeptic on climate change. Today, he fears a calamity.

    I am not scare-mongering. But I believe we are nearing a tipping point. These are signs. I saw them everywhere I visited.

    In Chile, researchers told me that roughly half of the 120 glaciers they monitor are shrinking, at rates twice as fast as a decade or two ago. These include the glaciers in the mountains outside the capital, Santiago, that provide fresh water for six million residents. To the north, increasing drought threatens the country’s mining industry, a mainstay of the economy, as well as agriculture and hydroelectric power.

    I spent a day in perhaps the world’s most magnificent national park, Torres del Paine. Like Antarctica, it was beautiful, pristine and majestic – and equally troubling. The snows of the Andes are also melting faster than we think. I flew over Grey glacier, a virtual ice sea framed by towering alpine peaks. In 1985, it retreated a full three kilometers in little more than two weeks. Yet another demonstration of the abrupt, unpredictable and potentially devastating Larsen effect.

    I ended my travels under a great Samaumeira tree on the island of Combu, not far from Belem in the Amazon river delta. This was the heart of the fabled "lungs of the earth," the tropical rain forest prey to the de-forestation and land degradation that accounts for an estimated 21 percent of global carbon emissions.

    Scientists say that climate change could turn the eastern Amazon into savannah within decades. My own itinerary had to be changed at the last moment because a tributary of the Amazon I planned to visit, near the port of Santarem, had run dry from drought.

    All this might have been discouraging. Yet I left Brazil immensely heartened. Largely unnoticed by the rest of the world, Brazil has transformed itself into a quiet green giant – a leader in the fight against global warming. Over the past two years, it has cut deforestation in the Amazon by half. Vast tracts of jungle have been placed under federal protection.

  • World milk shortage doubles price

    It is hard work, 12 hours a day, but already it looks as though it has paid off: Just four years later, the farm is worth more than twice what he paid for it. Prices for dairy farms in New Zealand are soaring along with dairy incomes, thanks to a global milk boom.

    "It feels really good," Irwin said. "It feels like we’re going to be earning and be rewarded the way we should."

    Driven by a combination of climate change, trade policies and competition for cattle feed from biofuel producers, global milk prices have doubled over the past two years. In parts of the United States, milk is more expensive than gasoline. There are reports of cows being stolen from Wisconsin dairy farms.

    "There’s a world shortage of milk," said Philip Goode, manager of international policy at Dairy Australia in Canberra.

    But the biggest force driving up milk prices is the same one that has driven up prices for conventional commodities like iron ore and copper: a roaring global economy. Rising incomes, from China and India to Latin America and the Middle East, are lifting millions of people out of poverty and into the middle class.

    It turns out that, along with zippy cars and flat-panel TVs, milk is the mark of new money, a significant source of protein that factors into much of any affluent person’s diet. Milk goes into infant formulas, chocolates, ice cream and cheese. Most baked goods contain butter, and coffee chains like Starbucks sell more milk than coffee.

    Just meeting that demand, according to Alex Duncan, an economist at Fonterra, the dominant dairy cooperative in New Zealand and the world’s largest dairy-exporting company, will require the addition each year of the equivalent of New Zealand’s entire annual milk output.

    That is a lot of milk. New Zealand is one of the world’s largest milk producers, according to IFCN Dairy Research Center in Germany, but the largest exporter of dairy products. Some dairy economists doubt the world’s heifers are up to the task, and say there is a possibility that the shortage of milk now being seen in parts of the world will spread.

    Others say there are plenty of places where more milk can be produced if the price is right. One thing they agree on is that milk prices are likely to stay high and rise even higher.

    "No one forecast this rapid shortage of milk," said Torsten Hemme, head of the IFCN center.

    This is not good if you are in the market for milk. Pizza parlors and ice cream vendors are raising their prices. Starbucks has raised the price of its drinks. Raising the price of its candy bars didn’t stop milk prices from pushing Hershey’s profit down 96 percent in its latest financial year. Milk is also weighing on profits at Cadbury Schweppes and at Kraft Foods’ cheese unit.

    What is unusual, and somewhat confusing, about the milk boom compared with other booming commodities is that milk is not like oil: You can’t stick it in barrels and stockpile it. It goes sour. Even in powder form, the most commoditized version, milk has a shelf life. As a result, only about 7 percent of all the milk produced globally is traded across borders. The rest is consumed in domestic markets, which are protected by geography and just as often by tariffs or subsidies.

    Big buyers like chocolate makers and grocery stores buy their milk under long-term contracts, and so can smooth out sudden spikes or dips in prices. Thus, the full impact of the global shortage varies from country to country, and not all consumers are yet suffering the full impact.

    But because of the local nature of the market, there is very little spare capacity. In the past, the world could always count on the United States and Europe to fill shortages by exporting some of their subsidized stockpiles of cheese, butter and milk powder. But the United States has drawn down its butter mountain and other stockpiles; the same is true of the European Union, which started cutting dairy subsidies in 1993 and will be finished this year. Rising dairy demand in the United States and among the EU’s new members, moreover, is sucking up supplies. As a result, said Hemme, "This storage capacity is empty now."

  • Stormwater offers local water supply

    US experience: "Lakes can be used to capture stormwater, as demonstrated in Canberra. Large quantities of water can be stored underground. Adelaide uses urban stormwater, where water goes through a holding storage and a constructed wetland before being fed into a brackish aquifer and recovered at drinking-water quality. The holding basin and a cleansing reed-bed reduces nutrient and pollutant loads by up to 90 per cent. Aquifer recovery fields operate at 60 US sites, where it is seen as an effective means of storing large volumes of water at low cost. The success of aquifer storage in Florida has led to 25 new projects.

    Preventing saline-intrusion: "… A key aspect of aquifer recharge is to protect the beneficial uses of the ground water. In some cases, stormwater would improve the water quality in aquifers close to the coast of Brisbane where the ground water is brackish and not currently usable. Monitoring at the Port of Brisbane shows ground water is some 2m below the surface at most locations and is in transition from a saline to freshwater system. Injection of fresh water can prevent seawater intrusion into coastal aquifers and still provide a useful urban storage. Generally before injection into an aquifer, stormwater will need to be cleansed in sediment basins, reedy wetlands or by using sand filters.

    Can be used directly: "When extracted it may be possible to be used directly for parks and golf courses. But for human consumption, reverse osmosis is likely to be used to remove heavy metals and other contaminants. Capturing stormwater will reduce the pollution of Brisbane’s creeks and could avoid the environmental impacts of building dams," Wylie added.

    Reference: Dr Peter Wylie is a researcher and consultant, specialising in environmental issues, including water, energy, climate change and sustainable farming. He can be reached at peter@horizonrural.com.au

    The Courier Mail, 3/11/2007, p. 55

  • Massive desalination plans secret

    EPA recommends 35 exclusion zones – another secret: "By way of contrast, the Gold Coast City Council was open, up-front and honest with nearby residents about its pioneering desalination plans at Tugun. In addition, after new Premier Bligh promised a more transparent approach, it is amazing that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Moreton Bay Marine Park Study recommends up to 35 exclusion zones including many popular local fishing areas, which is another state secret. Labor has form on secret and political strategies to get re-elected…Despite confirming seven months ago that the Queensland government was assessing what could be the world’s biggest desalination plant, Premier Bligh has remained tight-lipped.

    Kept in dark because of upcoming election: "In March 2006 south-east Queensland drought contingency modelling showed that a decision on a second desalination plant or other major source of water was due by June of last year, and that that plant would start supplying drinking water to south-east Queensland from early 2009. This one is way behind schedule and the people who are likely to be affected by it have been kept absolutely in the dark because of an impending federal election.

    Bribie Island a leading contender: "In September the Deputy Premier acknowledged that there was indeed a plan for a second desalination plant, but since then we have not heard a whisper…It is no coincidence that one leading site proposed for a desalination plant is, in fact, Bribie Island in the federal seat of Longman. This seat is being targeted by the Labor Party. Voters on Bribie have a right to have this government come clean and this government has a duty to inform residents of Bribie Island about what is being considered for their community," said Flegg.

    Reference: Bruce Flegg, Member for Moggill-Lib, Records of Proceedings, First session of the Fifty-Second Parliament, Queensland, 13 November 2007.

    Erisk Net, 15/11/2007

  • Demand for resources outstrips supply

    Lat year, there was a serious, global shortage of key mineral products such as iron ore, copper and zinc.

    Shortage of supply reason for high prices: This was not so much about price as supply. That shortage was driving prices to unbelievable levels. Contract prices for iron ore of more than $US100 would have been unimaginable only three years ago, yet they were almost a reality.

    China the reason: China, of course, was the reason this was all happening. It was about to supersede the US as the main engine of global economic growth, and has emerged in just five years as the largest user of most major minerals and metals. Rather than fight BHP’s plan, China was looking to use its place at the head of the customer queue and the power of its capital reserves to buy strategic positions in resource owners worldwide.

    Demand outstrips supply capacity: Prices for a basket of minerals have hit absurd levels because global demand has so vastly outstripped the capacity of the industry to supply product.

    The Australian, 15/11/2007, p. 22