South Australia’s Lake Eyre continues to fill with water from prolonged heavy rains in the north of the country. Inital water from rains this season evaporated or were absorbed into the soil before reaching Lake Eyre, which is the lowest point on the continent.
A lone yacht takes a rare opportunity to sail in Lake Eyre. Photo: David Mariuz
Source: theage.com.au
He also announced that Argentina and Bolivia have eagerly adhered to the development fund. “Seven years ago I was alone in South America with a proposal for the Bank of the South, a bank that is ours to replace the international financing system, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. 15 days ago with Argentina we signed an agreement and today we have agreed to move forward to outline the Bank of the South. Tomorrow, Bolivia will adhere to the Bank of the South. They are building a bank that is ours.”
Leaders in the Southern Cone, so far from Venezuela, Argentina and Bolivia, have joined the bank project with hopes that such a bank would allow Latin American nations to avoid the policy conditions that generally come with IMF loans.
According to Alan Cibils, an Argentine economist specializing in foreign lending institutions, the Bank of the South is still in its early stages but could develop into a concrete alternative to the IMF and World Bank. “It could be that part of the function of this bank is to act as a lender of last resort for countries in crisis that need funds and instead of going to the IMF they would go to the Banco del Sur, so that’s a possibility. The other possibility or the other alternative is that it acts as a development bank for development projects of the different countries. I think either way it’s a good idea to have both of these functions.”
The IMF’s current crisis has further compelled leaders to look for regional alternatives for financing. “I think that it points to a very clear failure of the northern institutions specifically the IMF and also the World Bank and the effects of the policies they have promoted in Latin Ameirca and throughout the world,” says Cibils. He adds, “so having an alternative institution that is local and really obeys more to local needs than to the
need of northern finance I think is a good thing and is desirable.”
Despite enthusiasm, Cibils warns that the fund will have to overcome corruption and stay wary of draining economic reserves in the respective Latin American countries. “Now how this will be implemented and whether it will be able to act outside of the clientalism and corruption that you sometimes have in governments like Argentina for example is an open question.”
Carlos Aznarez international journalist with Resumen Latinoamericano says that Argentina and Brazil joined the Bank of the South project to keep up with competition with one another in the global market and in leadership of Mercosur. “Not all the countries think the same about the Bank of the South. The idea that is pushing Chavez is the idea to precisely use the funds and federal reserves from each country to promote economic growth in Latin America’s poorest countries.” Although he says he is skeptical over Brazil’s and Argentina’s intentions to adhere to the regional fund. “The direction this project is going to take depends on the ideological influence of Venezuela. Bolivia is the country that is going to receive substantial support because it doesn’t have a lot of economic alliances. And Brazil and Argentina are going to flirt with the Bank of the South.”
The Bank of the South is set to begin operations within four months with international reserves from all participating nations. Venezuela hopes that Nicaragua and Ecuador will soon join the fund, whose initial capital will be 10 percent of Caracas and Buenos Aires international reserves, or roughly seven billion dollars.
Marie Trigona is an independent journalist based in Buenos Aires.
The climate centres around the world, which are the equivalent of the pathology lab of a hospital, have reported the Earth’s physical condition, and the climate specialists see it as seriously ill, and soon to pass into a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years. I have to tell you, as members of the Earth’s family and an intimate part of it, that you and especially civilisation are in grave danger.
Our planet has kept itself healthy and fit for life, just like an animal does, for most of the more than three billion years of its existence. It was ill luck that we started polluting at a time when the sun is too hot for comfort. We have given Gaia a fever and soon her condition will worsen to a state like a coma. She has been there before and recovered, but it took more than 100,000 years. We are responsible and will suffer the consequences: as the century progresses, the temperature will rise 8 degrees centigrade in temperate regions and 5 degrees in the tropics.
Much of the tropical land mass will become scrub and desert, and will no longer serve for regulation; this adds to the 40 per cent of the Earth’s surface we have depleted to feed ourselves.
Curiously, aerosol pollution of the northern hemisphere reduces global warming by reflecting sunlight back to space. This “global dimming” is transient and could disappear in a few days like the smoke that it is, leaving us fully exposed to the heat of the global greenhouse. We are in a fool’s climate, accidentally kept cool by smoke, and before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.
By failing to see that the Earth regulates its climate and composition, we have blundered into trying to do it ourselves, acting as if we were in charge. By doing this, we condemn ourselves to the worst form of slavery. If we chose to be the stewards of the Earth, then we are responsible for keeping the atmosphere, the ocean and the land surface right for life. A task we would soon find impossible – and something before we treated Gaia so badly, she had freely done for us.
To understand how impossible it is, think about how you would regulate your own temperature or the composition of your blood. Those with failing kidneys know the never-ending daily difficulty of adjusting water, salt and protein intake. The technological fix of dialysis helps, but is no replacement for living healthy kidneys.
My new book The Revenge of Gaia expands these thoughts, but you still may ask why science took so long to recognise the true nature of the Earth. I think it is because Darwin’s vision was so good and clear that it has taken until now to digest it. In his time, little was known about the chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans, and there would have been little reason for him to wonder if organisms changed their environment as well as adapting to it.
Had it been known then that life and the environment are closely coupled, Darwin would have seen that evolution involved not just the organisms, but the whole planetary surface. We might then have looked upon the Earth as if it were alive, and known that we cannot pollute the air or use the Earth’s skin – its forest and ocean ecosystems – as a mere source of products to feed ourselves and furnish our homes. We would have felt instinctively that those ecosystems must be left untouched because they were part of the living Earth.
So what should we do? First, we have to keep in mind the awesome pace of change and realise how little time is left to act; and then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have to sustain civilisation for as long as they can. Civilisation is energy-intensive and we cannot turn it off without crashing, so we need the security of a powered descent. On these British Isles, we are used to thinking of all humanity and not just ourselves; environmental change is global, but we have to deal with the consequences here in the UK.
Unfortunately our nation is now so urbanised as to be like a large city and we have only a small acreage of agriculture and forestry. We are dependent on the trading world for sustenance; climate change will deny us regular supplies of food and fuel from overseas.
We could grow enough to feed ourselves on the diet of the Second World War, but the notion that there is land to spare to grow biofuels, or be the site of wind farms, is ludicrous. We will do our best to survive, but sadly I cannot see the United States or the emerging economies of China and India cutting back in time, and they are the main source of emissions. The worst will happen and survivors will have to adapt to a hell of a climate.
Perhaps the saddest thing is that Gaia will lose as much or more than we do. Not only will wildlife and whole ecosystems go extinct, but in human civilisation the planet has a precious resource. We are not merely a disease; we are, through our intelligence and communication, the nervous system of the planet. Through us, Gaia has seen herself from space, and begins to know her place in the universe.
We should be the heart and mind of the Earth, not its malady. So let us be brave and cease thinking of human needs and rights alone, and see that we have harmed the living Earth and need to make our peace with Gaia. We must do it while we are still strong enough to negotiate, and not a broken rabble led by brutal war lords. Most of all, we should remember that we are a part of it, and it is indeed our home.
james Lovelock is an independent environmental scientist and Fellow of the Royal Society. ‘The Revenge of Gaia’ is published by Penguin on 2 February
Tim Hollo from Fourplay spoke to The Generator when the band played Bangalow on March 9. The band plays the most original music, made with the most original use of classical instruments on the face of the planet. As well the band has taken bold, innovative steps to be completely sustainable by selling CDs in recycled cardboard sleeves, using a minimum of ink, keeping their power consumption to a minimum and offsetting all the greenhouse gases they cannot avoid creating.
In the first of these two interviews, Tim Hollo and Giovanni discuss the music, and the relationship between music and politics and environmental activism.
In the second interview, they get stuck into the politics of renewable energy and the coverage of that in the media.
The t-shirt that Tim is discussing is available for sale online through the One Stop Green Shop.
Every time we play the Flying Pickets we get requests for more information about them. Here as a start to satisfy that curiosity is a live concert of their biggest hit, "Only You"
In this interview with Parkwood Fires, Uncle Joe is brought up to speed on why waste sawdust is a sustainable fuel, and expresses amazement that the fuel is stored on top of the fire. Click here to listen.