Author: Neville

Super councils touted for Sydney

DateApril 24, 2013 – 2:15PM 567 reading now

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Nicole Hasham

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A review panel has recommended Sydney be divided into 15 super councils covering populations of up to 800,000 people.
A review panel has recommended Sydney be divided into 15 super councils covering populations of up to 800,000 people. Photo: Louie Douvis

Sydney would be managed by 15 “super councils” under a suite of amalgamations recommended by an independent panel.

Councils in the city centre, Parramatta and Liverpool would be expanded to cover up to 800,000 people each.

Twenty new-look county councils would be created to cover regional areas and councils in the lower Hunter Valley and central coast would be merged, under sweeping changes proposed by the Independent Local Government Review Panel.

In a new report, the panel has proposed a new “global city” of Sydney, from the central business district east to the coast and south to Botany Bay.

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This would require the amalgamation of Botany Bay, Randwick, Waverley, Woollahra and the City of Sydney councils. The panel recommends that Leichardt and Marrickville preferably also be included.

Councils in Sydney’s southern suburbs, inner west and north would also be “tidied up”, reducing unnecessary fragmentation.

The panel proposes merging Hurstville, Kogarah and Rockdale councils in the south; Hunters Hill, Lane Cove, Mosman, North Sydney and Willoughby councils in the north; Ashfield, Burwood, Canada Bay and Strathfield councils in the inner west; and Auburn, Holroyd, Parramatta and and Ryde councils in the west.

The panel also recommends merging Fairfield council with Liverpool, and Manly and Pittwater with Warringah.

The roles of mayors would also be expanded. They would be granted more authority and expected to have a greater grasp of strategic and financial issues.

Councils would be encouraged to consolidate through financial and other incentives – the panel has not called for forced amalgamations.

The chairman of the panel, Graham Sansom, said the reforms would transform local government’s “culture, structure, finances and operations, as well as its relations with the state government”.

The panel believes the system of rate-pegging in NSW has created political and financial difficulties for councils and has recommended the system be streamlined.

NSW is the only state in which rate-pegging applies. Each year, the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal sets a cap on how much councils are allowed to increase their rates.

The proposed changes would allow councils to make small rate increases more easily. The panel will seek comment on the proposals before it makes its final recommendations to the government in September.

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6 comments so far
“

You beauty! Now the State Government can wreck my local neighbourhood and pass the buck at the same time.

Commenterray pace Locationnarrabeen Date and timeApril 24, 2013, 2:44PM
“

You would need to know more about the logic behind the recommendations in order to assess whether they meet the criteria set for the panel. Growing the size of local government has downsides as well as upsides. They may become more “efficient” in terms of costs, but less “effective” in meeting local community needs.

CommenterLesm LocationBalmain Date and timeApril 24, 2013, 2:45PM
“

Amalgamations are a false economy. State Govs love them because they concentrate power and are easier to delegate to and control, and citizens on the whole love them because they assume that it will reduce the size of bureaucracy. BUT amalgamations only succeed in increasing bureaucracy because the middle of the organisational hierarchy just gets stretched vertically and horizontally. More managers to manage the managers !!

It also succeeds in making public accessibility to those who actually make decisions significantly more difficult. Local accessibility and accountability gets obfuscated behind maze of help desks, corporate logos and vision statements.

The larger the council, the less accountability because functions are compartmentalised making the buck passing so much easier

CommenterAndrew H LocationBrisbane Date and timeApril 24, 2013, 2:46PM
“

Getting ready to phase out the State Government then?

CommenterHenry Root LocationMilverton Date and timeApril 24, 2013, 2:47PM
“

About time, it is absurd the number of councils in Sydney, even 15 sounds like too many.

CommenterDamienF Location Date and timeApril 24, 2013, 2:49PM
“

What, you didn’t learn a lesson when the people of Noose voted in record numbers to De-amalgamate, and now our “wonderous” councils want to do the same.

The people might not stand for it you know…

Noosa voted 81.38% in favour of De-amalgamation.

I would urge any resident affected to strongly oppose these so called “super council”.

Councils are meant to be small community based, so that the money paid as rates, get spent better in that city, if you throw together ten councils one always comes off better than the rest.

BE CAREFUL!

CommenterMichael Jones LocationTerrafirma Date and timeApril 24, 2013, 2:51PM

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Greg Combet backed tainted mine, ICAC hears

Amy Dale
The Daily Telegraph
April 24, 2013 12:00AM

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CLIMATE Change Minister Greg Combet will be questioned about a letter he wrote endorsing a controversial training mine proposal as he becomes yet another politician ordered into the ICAC witness stand next week.

In the letter, Mr Combet urged the now disgraced resources minister Ian Macdonald to support the idea of a training mine in the Hunter Valley. It is expected ICAC will ask him about how he was approached to write the letter discussing its “benefits”.

Mr Combet, like others called to the inquiry because of support they gave for the mine, is not accused of wrongdoing.

ICAC has heard the idea, the brainchild of former union boss John Maitland and a cohort of investors, took what should have been a lucrative coal resource to the state and turned it into a “goldmine” for the Doyles Creek Mining group.

The inquiry has been told Mr Maitland’s $165,000 investment turned into a $15 million windfall within three years.

After close to six months of evidence in a three-part inquiry into alleged corruption by the former state Labor government, including an investigation into Mr Macdonald’s granting of the exploration licence to Doyles Creek without a competitive tender, ICAC is entering its final weeks of evidence.

Mr Combet confirmed yesterday that he had given a statement to ICAC as requested and would be called on May 3.

A September 2008 letter he wrote in support of the training mine idea spruiked by Doyles Creek Mining investors has been tendered to the inquiry.

Mr Combet was voted in as the federal member for Charlton, which covers the Lake Macquarie area, in 2007 and had previously led the Australian Council of Trade Unions.

“The proposal by Doyles Creek Mining to develop a world-class training facility in the Hunter Valley, in the event that an underground mine proceeds, will in my view make a significant contribution to meeting the skills shortage that exists in the mining industry,” the note, written on his electorate letterhead, states.

Mr Combet wrote that the proposed involvement of Newcastle University, the Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service and the Hunter Valley Training Company – which were all approached by Doyles Creek investors – “will ensure there is broad community benefit and confirms that this project deserves strong support”.

Yesterday Mr Combet welcomed the ICAC inquiry and defended his letter, saying it occurred after representations from Mr Maitland.

“In those representations, Mr Maitland disclosed no personal interest in the project, nor that the proposal in fact involved a large commercial mine,” he said. “I hope ICAC gets to the bottom of the Doyles Creek issue.”

State Opposition Leader John Robertson yesterday called for bipartisan support to have the Doyles Creek mining licence suspended while the ICAC corruption investigation was continuing.

ICAC Commissioner David Ipp has indicated that even if the deal was found to have been corruptly obtained, there was a possibility NuCoal, which took over Doyles Creek in 2010, could be allowed to keep the lease if they paid a penalty to the government.

The inquiry continues.

Biological Activity Alters the Ability of Sea Spray to Seed Clouds

Apr. 22, 2013 — Ocean biology alters the chemical composition of sea spray in ways that influence its ability to form clouds over the ocean. That’s the conclusion of a team of scientists using a new approach to study tiny atmospheric particles called aerosols that can influence climate by absorbing or reflecting sunlight and seeding clouds. By engineering breaking waves of natural ocean water under purified air in the lab, they were able to isolate and analyze aerosols from the spray and determine how life within the water altered the chemistry of the particles.

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“After many decades of attempting to understand how the ocean impacts the atmosphere and clouds above it, it became clear a new approach was needed to investigate the complex ocean-atmosphere system. Moving the chemical complexity of the ocean to the laboratory represented a major advance that will enable many new studies to be performed,” said Kimberly Prather, Distinguished Chair in Atmospheric Chemistry at the University of California, San Diego and director of the Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and the Environment, who led the team of more than 30 scientists involved in this project. They report their findings in the early, online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of April 22.

Tiny air bubbles form in the ocean when waves break, then rise to the surface and burst, releasing gases and aerosols into the atmosphere. Sea spray aerosols come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes with chemical complexity ranging from simple salts to complex biological mixtures to bacterial cells.

For decades, scientists have been studying how the chemical make-up of aerosols affects their ability to take up water, seed clouds, and react in the atmosphere. Because aerosols from other sources overwhelm field measurements, it’s been difficult to isolate and study marine aerosols over the actual ocean.

“Once the ocean-atmosphere system was isolated, we could systematically probe how changes in the seawater due to biological activity affect the composition and climate properties of the sea spray aerosol,” said Prather, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry who holds a joint appointment at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

They pumped seawater directly from the Pacific Ocean into a specially modified enclosed wave flume in the Hydraulics Laboratory at Scripps Oceanography. By stringently filtering the air within the wave chamber, the team eliminated contamination from other sources allowing them to probe sea spray aerosol directly for the first time right after it was produced by breaking waves.

Over five days, the team systematically altered biological communities within the flume by adding various combinations of cultures of marine bacteria and microscopic marine algae, or phytoplankton. Then, as a hydraulic paddle sent waves breaking over an artificial shoal, instruments positioned along the 33 meter long flume analyzed the chemistry of the seawater, air, and aerosols.

As the seawater changed and bacteria levels increased, the composition of the aerosols changed in ways that reduced their ability to form clouds. In particular, a day after new cultures were added, bacteria levels rose fivefold and cloud-seeding potential fell by about a third. These changes happened even as the concentration of phytoplankton fell, along with levels of chlorophyll-a, the pigment essential to photosynthesis. This is an important finding because current estimates of biological activity in surface waters of the ocean rely on instruments aboard satellites that measure the color of the sea surface, which changes along with levels of chlorophyll-a, an assessment that will miss blooms of other organisms, such as bacteria.

The findings demonstrate the value of the center’s novel approach for sorting through the interdependent factors governing the effects of the ocean and sea spray on climate.

Co-authors from UC San Diego include Timothy Bertram, Douglas Collins, Luis Cuadra-Rodriguez, Timothy Guasco, Matthew Ruppel, Olivia Ryder, Nathan Schoepp and Defeng Zhao from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry; Grant Deane, Dale Stokes, Lihini Aluwihare, Brian Palenik, Farooq Azam, Gregory Roberts, Lynn Russell, Craig Corriga, Michelle Kim, William Lambert, Robin Modini and Byron Evans Pedler from Scripps Institution of Oceanography; and Mario Molina, who holds a joint appointment. Additional co-authors include scientists from the University of Iowa, Colorado State University, California Institute of Technology, University of the Pacific, UC Davis, Northwestern University and Centre National de Recherches Météorologiques. The National Science Foundation’s Center for Chemical Innovation supports the Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and the Environment (CHE 1038028).

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Geochemical Method Finds Links Between Terrestrial Climate and Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

Apr. 22, 2013 — Nearly 34 million years ago, Earth underwent a transformation from a warm, high-carbon dioxide “greenhouse” state to a lower-CO2, variable climate similar to the modern “icehouse” world. Massive ice sheets grew across the Antarctic continent, major animal groups shifted, and ocean temperatures decreased by as much as 5 degrees.

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But studies of how this drastic change affected temperatures on land have had mixed results. Some show no appreciable terrestrial climate change; others find cooling of up to 8 degrees and large changes in seasonality.

Now a group of American and British scientists have used a new chemical technique to measure the change in terrestrial temperature associated with this shift in global atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

Their results suggest a drop of as much as 10 degrees for fresh water during the warm season and 6 degrees for the atmosphere in the North Atlantic, giving further evidence that the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide and Earth’s surface temperature are inextricably linked.

“One of the key principles of geology is that the past is the key to the present: records of past climate inform us of how the Earth system functions,” says Michael Hren, assistant professor of chemistry and geosciences at the University of Connecticut and the study’s lead author. “By understanding past climate transitions, we can better understand the present, and predict impacts for the future.”

The transition between the Late Eocene and the Oligocene epochs (between 34 million and 33.5 million years ago) was triggered in part, the authors write in their April 22 paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, by changes in the concentration of atmospheric CO2 that enabled ice to build up on the Antarctic continent.

Ice-sheet growth, coupled with favorable changes in Earth’s orbit, pushed the planet past a climatic tipping point and led to both the rapid buildup of a permanent ice sheet in the Antarctic and much larger changes in global climate, says Hren.

But much of what is known about this time period’s climate comes from cores drilled deep in the ocean, Hren says. There, organic and inorganic remains of ancient marine creatures retain chemical signatures of ocean temperatures when they were alive.

Now, Hren and his colleagues have used a recently-developed “clumped isotope thermometer” to examine terrestrial fossil shells from this time period. The team collected fossilized snails from the Isle of Wight, Great Britain, and looked for not just the kind and number of carbon and oxygen isotopes present, but how they were bound together.

The abundance of bonds containing heavy isotopes of both oxygen and carbon are temperature-dependent, so they can give a reliable picture of the terrestrial climate.

“The unique thing here is that we’re using isotopologues to measure the temperature that these snails experienced, and relating that to the climate during this interval of declining CO2,” Hren says.

What makes their results so important, says Hren, is that it’s further evidence that CO2 is linked not only to climate by way of the vast oceans and their temperature, but by terrestrial temperatures, too.

“It gives further evidence of the close links between atmospheric CO2 and temperature, but also shows how heterogeneous this climate change may be on land,” he adds.

Studies have shown that before this drastic cooling event, Earth’s atmosphere contained 1,000 parts per million (ppm) of CO2 or more, and by the end of the transition, it was likely lower than 600-700 ppm. Some predictions, notes Hren, suggest that Earth’s current CO2 concentrations, currently at close to 400 ppm and climbing, could increase to nearly 1,000 ppm in the next 100 years.

If that turns out to be the case, it’s likely that temperature changes on the scale of the Eocene to Oligocene could occur — but in the other direction, toward a much warmer climate that could again fundamentally alter living things on Earth.

“We are on a path to fundamentally alter our global climate state,” says Hren. “These data definitely give you pause.”

The other members of the research group are: Nathan Dale Sheldon and Kyger C. Lohmann of the University of Michigan; Stephen T. Grimes and Melanie Bugler of Plymouth University; Margaret E. Collinson of Royal Holloway University; and Jerry J. Hooker of the Natural History Museum.

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Al Gore: How Six Trends Will Impact Florida, The World

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Mon, Apr 22, 2013

By Phil Latzman

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In his new book, The Future: Six Drivers Of Global Change, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore lays out six drivers of global change. He spoke with WLRN’s Phil Latzman about the impact of these trends on Florida.

Today is Earth Day.

And here in low-lying, hurricane prone Florida, the day has special meaning.

Sea-level rise is no longer something so incremental that we don’t notice.

It’s real and visible, and planning for a future of rising oceans has become a top priority for local towns, cities and counties across the state.

Credit twitter.com/algore

Al Gore

For some perspective, WLRN turned to former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who has become one of world’s foremost thinkers on the consequences of global warming and climate change.

In his new book, “The Future: Six Drivers Of Global Change,” Gore goes beyond just the climate crisis of “Inconvenient Truth” and identifies six broad trends shaping the road ahead for humankind: economic globalization, digital communications, the shifting balance of power among nation-states, sustainable development, the revolution in life sciences and the changing relationship between human beings and Earth’s ecosystems.

Below is some of the conversation:

WLRN: How does Florida fit into your version of the future?

Gore: South Florida is experiencing many of the trends that I describe in the future. On thing that stands out on the climate front of course is sea level rise which people in South Florida know a great deal about as well as stronger hurricanes coming in off the Atlantic. The other trends (in the book) affect everyone in the world.

WLRN: What is your best advice to Florida lawmakers and policymakers?

Gore: People in vulnerable areas (will feel it first), where storm surges will cause damage long before the overall sea level goes up that much. In New York, they are actively trying to give incentives for people to move away from vulnerable, low-lying areas… I think we should have a carbon tax. We should put a price on carbon so that the markets will work for us and not against us. We need to shift to renewable energy and I would like to see much more aggressive programs in encouraging solar energy and wind power.

WLRN: Do you see income inequality getting worse in South Florida?

Gore: Income inequality has been getting worse but not only in the U.S. but also in Europe, Japan, China, India. And one of the reasons is that technology is having a bigger impact on the loss of middle class income as jobs are being both outsourced to other countries and robo-sourced (jobs replaced by advanced automation.) You’re always going to have inequality but when it comes to these hyper levels it becomes a problem for democracy and capitalism.

Listen to the full interview above by clicking play on the audio file.

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Earth’s Current Warmth Not Seen in the Last 1,400 Years or More, Says Study

Apr. 21, 2013 — Fueled by industrial greenhouse gas emissions, Earth’s climate warmed more between 1971 and 2000 than during any other three-decade interval in the last 1,400 years, according to new regional temperature reconstructions covering all seven continents. This period of humanmade global warming, which continues today, reversed a natural cooling trend that lasted several hundred years, according to results published in the journal Nature Geoscience by more than 80 scientists from 24 nations analyzing climate data from tree rings, pollen, cave formations, ice cores, lake and ocean sediments, and historical records from around the world.

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“This paper tells us what we already knew, except in a better, more comprehensive fashion,” said study co-author Edward Cook, a tree-ring scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who led the Asia reconstruction.

The study also found that Europe’s 2003 heat wave and drought, which killed an estimated 70,000 people, happened during Europe’s hottest summer of the last 2,000 years. “Summer temperatures were intense that year and accompanied by a lack of rain and very dry soil conditions over much of Europe,” said study co-author Jason Smerdon, a climate scientist at Lamont-Doherty and one of the lead contributors to the Europe reconstruction. Though summer 2003 set a record for Europe, global warming was only one of the factors that contributed to the temperature conditions that summer, he said.

The study is the latest to show that the Medieval Warm Period, from about 950 to 1250, may not have been global, and may not have happened at the same time in places that did grow warmer. While parts of Europe and North America were fairly warm between 950 and 1250, South America stayed relatively cold, the study says. Some people have argued that the natural warming that occurred during the medieval ages is happening today, and that humans are not responsible for modern day global warming. Scientists are nearly unanimous in their disagreement “If we went into another Medieval Warm Period again that extra warmth would be added on top of warming from greenhouse gases,” said Cook.

Temperatures varied less between continents in the same hemisphere than between hemispheres. “Distinctive periods, such as the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age stand out, but do not show a globally uniform pattern,” said co-author Heinz Wanner, a scientist at the University of Bern. By 1500, temperatures dropped below the long-term average everywhere, though colder temperatures emerged several decades earlier in the Arctic, Europe and Asia.

The most consistent trend across all regions in the last 2,000 years was a long-term cooling, likely caused by a rise in volcanic activity, decrease in solar irradiance, changes in land-surface vegetation, and slow variations in Earth’s orbit. With the exception of Antarctica, cooling tapered off at the end of the 19th century, with the onset of industrialization. Cooler 30-year periods between 830 and 1910 were particularly pronounced during weak solar activity and strong tropical volcanic eruptions. Both phenomena often occurred simultaneously and led to a drop in the average temperature during five distinct 30- to 90-year intervals between 1251 and 1820. Warming in the 20th century was on average twice as large in the northern continents as it was in the Southern Hemisphere. During the past 2000 years, some regions experienced warmer 30-year intervals than during the late 20th century. For example, in Europe the years between 21 and 80 AD were likely warmer than the period 1971-2000.

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