One of the US President Barack Obama’s key advisors on climate change has lambasted Australia for its backflip on climate change policies and its decision to not send a minister to key international climate talks last year.
Heather Zichal, who was lead advisor at the White House on energy and climate change for the first term of Obama’s presidency, noted that climate change policy – like it had been in the US – had unfortunately been politicized.
However, she said this was likely to become an issue at the G20 – which Australia is hosting later this year. Prime Minister Tony Abbott has refused to put climate change on the agenda (he wants a “simple” outcome from the talks), despite pressure from the Obama administration to do so.
“Many in Australia are trying to repeal the carbon tax, and that is an issue that has become more prominent with Australia’s chairmanship of the G20 this year,” Zichal told a conference on energy productivity in Sydney on Thursday.
“But ignoring one of the biggest challenges we have ever faced is simply not an option …. sitting out climate change negotiations is not in Australia’s or any other nations’ interest. It is a huge mistake.”
Last year, Australia chose not to send a minister to the annual climate change negotiations – held in November in Poland – and was widely criticized for an obstructionist role in the back-room talks.
“Facts are facts …. if traditional climate policies are not politically feasible, we just need another credible path forward to emissions reduction,” Zichal said.
“Abbott has said the focus of the G20 should be on economic growth. Economic productivity could be the sweet-spot here.”
The Obama administration has been thwarted in its attempts to introduce a carbon price or an emissions trading scheme in the US, however it has introduced biting regulations that restrict the amount of pollution and emissions on power plants, and imposes strict standards on transport and buildings.
It aims to double energy productivity by 2030 – a target it says will reduce domestic electricity bills by $1000 a year, create more than a million jobs, boost economic growth and reduce emissions by 33 per cent below 2005 levels.
Zichal said Australia should adopt a similar target. “Ultimately, across all economic sectors, energy productivity is the most reliable, cleanest, and cheapest resource.”
Heather Zichal’s public statement is just the tip of the iceberg of pressure that the Abbott government will experience if it continues to try to avoid addressing climate change by ignoring it. This won’t go away and the G20 summit will become irrelevant (maybe even boycotted) if the Abbott Government doesn’t put climate change and reducing carbon emissions as major items on the agenda. These are THE economic issues that must be addressed.
Alen
In the first six months now the Abbott government has managed undermine the relationship with a our close ally (Indonesia) and is well on track to undermine our other international relationships (especially with EU countries and now the US). This is quite the achievement in such a short timeframe. Keep this up for the rest of his term,and Abbott willl give Russia a good ‘run for the mone’y when it comes to international politics.
We don’t usually begin lead stories with a table, but this one is compelling. It shows how, over the past 40 years, Australia has sacrificed its position as one of the most energy productive economies – and therefore one of the cheapest – to become one of the least efficient, and therefor one of the most costly.
And it all came about because the country got lazy. Australia still has vast coal reserves, but the cost of delivery has soared to the point that consumer electricity prices have virtually doubled in the last five years. And now it is about to deal with a doubling, or even trebling, of gas prices.
This is clearly having an impact on Australia’s competitiveness, but the nation’s energy productivity hardly figures in any of the major economic reforms that are currently under consideration.
This is the major theme of a two-day conference in Sydney dubbed 2XEP, which stands for double energy productivity, a target that the energy efficiency industry says should be adopted in Australia (double the productivity by 2030), because all other major economies are doing the same thing.
Australia, though, has hopelessly inadequate rules and regulations on efficiency – be it for buildings, transport or electricity generation. Alan Pears, a professor from RMIT, noted that building regulations in Australia are at a point where they would not be legal in most other countries.
But Australia’s attitude to efficiency is long dated.
Robert Hill, a former environment minister in the Howard government and now at the US Studies Centre, made a few interesting points at the conference.
One was that his efforts to introduce stricter emissions targets on vehicles in Australia would destroy the Australian car industry. Now, the irony is, the country’s inability to produce energy fficiency vehicles was a likely contributor to downfall of the industry. The US car industry, meanwhile, is booming, particularly around low emission vehicles from the big 3 carmakers, and Tesla.
(He noted that he was also responsible for helping to introduce the first renewable energy target. He said that he was told at the time that even a 1.5 per cent renewable target would “destroy” the Australian economy. Now, he noted, the target was for a minimum 20 per cent and his home state was over 30 per cent. Still, the alarmism continues).
Hill said he had no doubt that the federal government would reach the 5 per cent emission reduction target through “Direct Action.” The bigger question was what happens after 2020 – (or even with a higher target) – and “how much public money” can be thrown at a higher target. He suggested tighter regulation – through those much derided emission targets for cars, buildings, renewables – would be needed.
In this context it was interesting to hear what the government had to say. The current environment minister Greg Hunt was a “no-show” after being dragged to a cabinet meeting in WA. His substitute, a senior department official, made his speech instead. The speech noted that the “electricity sector is facing major challenges as demand continues to fall.”
This appears to be the premise that underpins the attitude to the current government’s position on renewals and energy efficiency. The prospect of “megawatts” – as we highlighted on Wednesday” – is a terrifying one to many in the industry and on the conservative side of politics which, as Hill suggested, resist these policies.
The official noted that the current review of the renewable energy target would assess the “competing claims” on costs.
Jon Jutsen, chairman of the Australian Alliance to Save Energy, says that Australian economic discussion is obsesses about labor costs and red tape, but energy productivity is simply not addressed in an meaningful way.
Jutsen says Australia has blown its ability to offer cheap electricity, partly because too much money was invested in network infrastructure, leading to a surge in consumer costs, and partly because it has locked in a doubling, or possibly trebling in gas prices through its massive LNG export investments.
He says that much of the $45 billion invested in network infrastructure over the last five years could have been avoided if utilities had “properly understood” customer needs. This would have resulted in lower consumer energy bills.
However, Jutsen says despite its importance, the issue of energy productivity is not included in the government’s broader economics agenda.
“We have poor energy productivity compared to our (international) competitors,” Jutsen said, noting that it had been increasing at half the rate of our competitors over the last decade.
“It is clear now that this has to be addressed as productivity issue, not just as a sidebar of energy policy or electricity policy. “We should be looking at doubling our energy productivity by 2030.”
As part of its roadmap, the alliance to save energy proposes:
Changes to National Electricity Rules to support utilities undertaking Demand Management instead of new infrastructure investment
– A national investment incentive scheme for business in all sectors to improve energy productivity, including facilitating greater private sector finance.
– Streamlining, harmonising and extending existing energy efficiency schemes such as the NSW Energy Efficiency Scheme and the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target.
– Minimum fuel economy standards for passenger and light freight vehicles, consistent with other developed nations.
– Greater development and use of public transport and urban planning to reduce traffic congestion, including through innovative financing and road charging.
All of which shouldn’t be, but could be, a major challenge for the government under its current policy directions. The Direct Action policy is likely to absorb the various state based energy efficiency targets, raising questions about whether any such savings would be “additional” to what would have happened.
And it seems the Abbott government is determined to focus its infrastructure on the building of yet more roads – even to the point of pushing state governments to sell energy infrastructure to provide the funds for more tarmac.
I has suspected that our mighty fearless leader didn’t mean decarbonising the economy in his carrot to the states.
If the donkeys in Canberra were serious, energy efficiency and transport energy would be major goals. I see electrical efficiency, while very important, as a less pressing issue than transport, which is almost totally exposed to imported oil with it’s cost and supply issues. Instead, he is thinking more roads will solve the nation’s problems. His brain is stuck in the 1960s.
A couple of years ago I was talking to an associate, who specialises in pavement surfacing, about when he thought that peak bitumen may occur. He said it had already happened in Australia and bitumen supplies are often the limiting factor in road construction. Perhaps this is a better use of Canadian tar sands, which come with built in aggregate!
When science and philosophy collide in a ‘fine-tuned’ universe
When renowned scientists now talk seriously about millions of multiverses, the old question “are we alone?” gets a whole new meaning. Our ever-expanding universe is incomprehensibly large – and its rate…
Our ever-expanding universe is incomprehensibly large – and its rate of growth is apparently accelerating – but if so it’s actually in a very delicate balance.
It’s then incredible that the universe exists at all. Let us explain.
In a 2004 review in Science of Searle’s Mind a Brief Introduction, neuroscientist Christof Koch wrote:
Whether we scientists are inspired, bored, or infuriated by philosophy, all our theorising and experimentation depends on particular philosophical background assumptions. This hidden influence is an acute embarrassment to many researchers, and it is therefore not often acknowledged. Such fundamental notions as reality, space, time and causality – notions found at the core of the scientific enterprise – all rely on particular metaphysical assumptions about the world.
This may seem self-evident, and was regarded as important by Einstein, Bohr and the founders of quantum theory a century ago, but it runs against the grain of the views of working scientists in the post-war period.
Karl Popper. Wikimedia Commons
Click to enlarge
Indeed, 21st-century mathematicians and scientists seem to have little need of philosophy.
The glory days of Karl Popper, who argued that falsifiability was a hallmark of good science, and Thomas Kuhn, who noted the phenomenon of paradigm shifts, are long gone — in science, if not in the humanities.
For many years, scientific philosophy as practised by scientists has languished, punctuated only by lapses such as the Sokal hoax, when NYU physicist Alan Sokal wrote a tongue-in-cheek article with a lot of scientific nonsense that was accepted by a leading journal in the postmodern science studies field (and launched a cottage industry of similar hoaxes).
But maybe the tide is finally turning. Perhaps modern science really needs philosophy after all.
Cosmic coincidences
The main drivers here are some truly perplexing developments in physics and cosmology. In recent years physicists and cosmologists have uncovered numerous eye-popping “cosmic coincidences,” remarkable instances of apparent “fine-tuning” of the universe.
Here are just three out of many that could be listed:
Carbon resonance and the strong force. Although the abundance of hydrogen, helium and lithium are well-explained by known physical principles, the formation of heavier elements, beginning with carbon, very sensitively depends on the balance of the strong and weak forces. If the strong force were slightly stronger or slightly weaker (by just 1% in either direction), there would be no carbon or any heavier elements anywhere in the universe, and thus no carbon-based life forms like us to ask why.
The proton-to-electron mass ratio. A neutron’s mass is slightly more than the combined mass of a proton, an electron and a neutrino. If the neutron were very slightly less massive, then it could not decay without energy input. If its mass were lower by 1%, then isolated protons would decay instead of neutrons, and very few atoms heavier than lithium could form.
The cosmological constant. Perhaps the most startling instance of fine-tuning is the cosmological constant paradox. This derives from the fact that when one calculates, based on known principles of quantum mechanics, the “vacuum energy density” of the universe, focusing on the electromagnetic force, one obtains the incredible result that empty space “weighs” 1,093g per cubic centimetre (cc). The actual average mass density of the universe, 10-28g per cc, differs by 120 orders of magnitude from theory.
Physicists, who have fretted over the cosmological constant paradox for years, have noted that calculations such as the above involve only the electromagnetic force, and so perhaps when the contributions of the other known forces are included, all terms will cancel out to exactly zero, as a consequence of some unknown fundamental principle of physics.
But these hopes were shattered with the 1998 discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, which implied that the cosmological constant must be slightly positive.
It was a Nobel prize-winning discovery too.
This meant that physicists were left to explain the startling fact that the positive and negative contributions to the cosmological constant cancel to 120-digit accuracy, yet fail to cancel beginning at the 121st digit.
Curiously, this observation is in accord with a prediction made by Nobel laureate and physicist Steven Weinberg in 1987, who argued from basic principles that the cosmological constant must be zero to within one part in roughly 10120 (and yet be nonzero), or else the universe either would have dispersed too fast for stars and galaxies to have formed, or else would have recollapsed upon itself long ago.
The Anthropic Principle
In short, numerous features of our universe seem fantastically fine-tuned for the existence of intelligent life. While some physicists still hold out for a “natural” explanation, many others are now coming to grips with the notion that our universe is profoundly unnatural, with no good explanation other than the Anthropic Principle — the universe is in this exceedingly improbable state, because if it weren’t, we wouldn’t be here to discuss the fact.
They further note that the prevailing “eternal inflation” big bang scenario suggests that our universe is just one pocket in a continuously bifurcating multiverse.
Inflation cosmology, by the way, got a significant experimental boost with the March 17, 2014 announcement that astronomers had discovered gravitational waves, signatures of the big bang inflation, in data collected from telescopes based at the South Pole.
In a similar vein, string theory, the current best candidate for a “theory of everything,” predicts an enormous ensemble, numbering 10 to the power 500 by one accounting, of parallel universes. Thus in such a large or even infinite ensemble, we should not be surprised to find ourselves in an exceedingly fine-tuned universe.
But to many scientists, such reasoning is anathema to traditional empirical science. Lee Smolin wrote in his 2006 book The Trouble with Physics:
We physicists need to confront the crisis facing us. A scientific theory [the multiverse/ Anthropic Principle/ string theory paradigm] that makes no predictions and therefore is not subject to experiment can never fail, but such a theory can never succeed either, as long as science stands for knowledge gained from rational argument borne out by evidence.
And even the proponents of such views have some explaining to do. For example, if there are truly infinitely many pocket universes like ours, as physicists argue is the case, how can one possibly define a “probability measure” on such an ensemble? In other words, what does it mean to talk of the “probability” of our universe existing in its observed state?
But others see no alternative to some form of the multiverse and the Anthropic Principle. Physicist Max Tegmark, in his recent book Our Mathematical Universe, argues that not only is the multiverse real, but in fact that the multiverse is mathematics — all mathematical laws and structures actually exist, and are the ultimate stuff of the universe.
With this backdrop, a growing number of scientists are calling for head-to-head interactions with philosophers. In a recent New Scientist article, cosmologist Joseph Silk reviews these and other issues now faced by the field, and then notes that such problems, probing the meaning of our very existence, are closely akin to those that have been debated by philosophers through the ages.
Thus perhaps a new dialogue between science and philosophy can bring some badly needed insights into physics and other leading-edge fields such as neurobiology. (Indeed, there is a burgeoning sub discipline of neurophilosophy.)
As Silk explains,
Drawing the line between philosophy and physics has never been easy. Perhaps it is time to stop trying. The interface is ripe for exploration.
Linda Samera via CommunityRun ljrsamera@gmail.com via sendgrid.info
4:40 PM (25 minutes ago)
to me
Dear Supporters,
Just in case you didn’t see this last week, we’re still accepting responses to the survey about country patient accommodation. Can you help by completing the survey?
Despite our best efforts, country patients are still out in the cold. The NSW Government has yet to take steps to ensure country patients have accessible and affordable accommodation at all major hospitals in NSW.
During my meeting with the General Manager of Royal North Shore Hospital, Sue Shilbury, it was pointed out that there is no data on the experience of patients who have to travel and stay near a major hospital to receive healthcare. This data is not kept by NSW Health.
Knowing more specifics about how many people require accommodation and for how long, would be invaluable evidence to take to decision-makers who want figures and facts before they act to fix the problem. We also want to tell the stories of the people who have been affected by the closure of country patient accommodation.
Each of you has some experience of the lack of accommodation near a major hospital and your stories can help make an emotional connection with decision makers and persuade them to fix the problem.
We have put together a survey to collect the facts that tell us how big this problem is and tell the stories of the people it’s affected. Can you take ten minutes now to complete a survey on your experience with country patient accommodation?
Your story could be a personal experience or that of a family member, friend, or a patient you’ve known. Every story counts and will help create at strong argument for the need for this accommodation at all NSW major hospitals. Your survey answers will form the largest and only data source on this problem in NSW. It will also strengthen this petition as your stories are a powerful tool in communicating a clear message to decision makers in NSW.
Many of you have already heard my own story. I was a remote area GP and saw first hand my patients choosing not to get treatment or struggling with crippling debts from ttravelling to capital cities to receive healthcare. Later, as a patient myself who requires reqular treatment in Sydney more than 500km from home, I was forced to make the same difficult decision when Blue Gum Lodge closed. But my decision to share my own story has already lead to thousands of people across NSW signing my CommunityRun petition and writing to the Minister.
We all have a story worth sharing. Can you take 10 mins now to complete this survey and tell me about your own experiences? I invite you to be a part of the building of this first and only resource and a valuable tool in this campaign.
Thank you so much for taking this time. I deeply appreciate your support and know there are many more people out there who appreciate all that is being done to see this problem turned around.
Thanks again!
Linda Samera
You received this email because you signed the petition ‘Don’t leave country
Radio: “Surprisingly, high concentrations [of Fukushima cesium] found in Vancouver area” since ocean currents slow down — Levels are increasing — “Might be hotspots where radiation concentrates” — “Chances are high for marine life to absorb it… concern about mussels, clams, oysters” (AUDIO)
Heather Zichal’s public statement is just the tip of the iceberg of pressure that the Abbott government will experience if it continues to try to avoid addressing climate change by ignoring it. This won’t go away and the G20 summit will become irrelevant (maybe even boycotted) if the Abbott Government doesn’t put climate change and reducing carbon emissions as major items on the agenda. These are THE economic issues that must be addressed.
In the first six months now the Abbott government has managed undermine the relationship with a our close ally (Indonesia) and is well on track to undermine our other international relationships (especially with EU countries and now the US). This is quite the achievement in such a short timeframe. Keep this up for the rest of his term,and Abbott willl give Russia a good ‘run for the mone’y when it comes to international politics.