Author: Neville

‘Einstein parents’ say no to kids’ vaccination

Sue Dunlevy and Daniela Ongaro
The Daily Telegraph
April 11, 2013 12:00AM

Increase Text Size
Decrease Text Size
Print
Email
Share

0

Genevieve Milton

Mum Genevieve Milton is anti-vaccination and husband Darrell Milton is pro. They have two sons Cadel, 4, and Keanu, 21 months. Neither boy is vaccinated / Pic: Nic Gibson Source: The Daily Telegraph

ALMOST 80,000 Australian children are not immunised against deadly diseases, and the highest number live in Sydney’s west.

Experts say the “baby Einstein” demographic – parents who take an intensive interest in their children’s education and health, eat organic food and use alternative medicines – is responsible.

Sydney’s west has an immunisation rate of 90 per cent for five-year-olds but last financial year was home to 3600 children who were not fully immunised. In wealthy Manly, Mosman and eastern Sydney, however, fewer than 85 per cent of children are immunised in some age groups.The figures are contained in a National Health Performance Authority report.

The World Health Organisation says immunisation rates for measles must be above 93 per cent to prevent its spread. Immunisation expert Julie Leask says parents who perform extensive research and are often suspicious of medicine are more likely to object to vaccination.

“I think what these figures say is … you can’t rely on herd immunity in your region,” the University of Sydney academic said.

Australian Medical Association president Dr Steve Hambleton said the removal of an $18.50 government incentive for doctors to chase up unvaccinated children would exacerbate the problem.

New data on immunisation rates in smaller areas shows the Richmond Valley on the north coast, home to the anti-immunisation Australian Vaccination Network, has the lowest immunisation rate in the country. Only 82 per cent of one-year-olds are fully immunised, falling to just 80 per cent for two-year-olds and 75 per cent of five-year-olds.

NSW Health infectious diseases expert Dr Jeremy McAnulty said two children died on the north coast last year during a whooping cough epidemic that infected 24,000 people. Western and southwestern Sydney were also hard hit by a measles outbreak, with 199 cases last year.Naturopath and mother-of-two Genevieve Milton is convinced vaccines can be harmful and decided against immunising her sons.

Husband Darrell, however, is pro-vaccination and admits he is not entirely comfortable with the decision. “I don’t know I totally agree with her but if Gen wasn’t going into this armed with all the information that she obviously has, then I would be more against her,” he said.Mrs Milton believes she can best protect sons Cadel, 4, and Keanu, 21 months, by strengthening their immune system with good nutrition, vitamins and good hygiene.

She says her boys “line up every day for their echinacea and fish oil” and stresses white sugar and flour must be eliminated from children’s diets for a strong immune system to develop.

Albanese calls for debate on high-speed rail link

By chief political correspondent Emma Griffiths, ABCUpdated April 11, 2013, 2:19 pm

tweet

Email
Print

Sydney rail passengers are being warned of delays with part of the Northern Line closed for repairs.
AAP © Enlarge photo

Related Links

: Drowning fears after bus plunges into river

: FIRST ON 7: Train app uses GPS technology

: FIRST ON 7: Train brakes putting lives at risk

The Federal Transport Minister says if a $114 billion high-speed railway line along the east coast is to happen, states and territories need to start reserving land now.

Anthony Albanese has released a final report into high-speed rail which proposes a 1,748-kilometre link connecting Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne.

The Government is stressing it could not be built “tomorrow”, pointing to the estimated cost of $114 billion and a completion date of 2053 at the earliest.

Much of the cost, which is to be borne by federal and state and territory governments, would go towards building tunnels in the major centres.

Mr Albanese says it is up to state and territory ministers to start protecting the land so the line could become a reality.

“I don’t want to verbal state and territory ministers… but clearly the report envisages if it’s going to happen, that work has to begin now – in terms of once the report is considered by state and territory governments,” he said.

“Unless the route is protected now, the growth of cities and towns along the preferred corridor will make the project harder and more expensive in the future.

“So I believe route protection is absolutely vital.”

Under the plan, a trip between Canberra and Sydney would take just over an hour instead of the current three-hour rail journey.

If it was fully operational by 2065, as the report suggests, the estimated patronage is 83.6 million passengers a year.

Access to Sydney’s CBD would be the most challenging element, requiring 67 kilometres of tunnelling in and out of the city.

Mr Albanese says tunnelling was found to be the only viable option.

“It’s certainly a cracker of a tunnel – there’s no doubt about that,” he said.

“It’s difficult to see frankly, realistically, how you could have a corridor through a city that has developed as Sydney has, in a non-planned way – I mean Sydney is not Canberra.”

‘Challenges are harder’

Mr Albanese released the report saying the Government “hasn’t gilded the lily” and has pointed to the difficulties of building high-speed rail here compared to other countries.

“The challenges in Australia are more difficult than in countries which are talking about smaller routes with higher densities of populations,” he said.

“We’re not Japan; we’re not Europe. The challenges are harder, but nonetheless also the opportunities are there.”

The Minister says he believes “high-speed rail will happen in Australia” but the plan outlined is neither the Government’s position nor Labor Party policy.

He says the cost is substantial but would produce economic benefits.

“A return of around $2.30 on every $1 invested. This is a reasonable return,” he said.

Mr Albanese says he is proud the Government has had the “vision” to commission the report and has released it “without a political finesse”.

“There was no political interference in this report; it is what it is – out there for community debate to occur,” he said.

The Government has released the report for community consultation until June 30.

After that it is unclear what will happen, especially given the federal election campaign will begin just seven weeks later.

‘Horrendously expensive’

Opposition transport spokesman Warren Truss says the price tag is a huge barrier for the project.

He says he wants to check if the cost-benefit analysis is realistic.

“It’s certainly a great dream that people have been thinking about for a very long time but the cost of $114 billion estimated at this stage is obviously a huge barrier,” he said.

“The country has got $300 billion in gross debt and to find that extra money will obviously be a challenge.”

Griffith University’s research fellow Dr Matthew Burke agrees the cost could be a big stumbling block.

“It’s a horrendously expensive exercise,” he said.

“Just to get us involved in the east coast network to get from Newcastle and Brisbane will cost somewhere between $20 and $40 billion and at the upper end of the estimate that’s equivalent to the National Broadband Network,” he said.

But former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer says the line is feasible in spite of the huge price tag.

“On a Snowy Mountain Scheme calculated indexed for inflation, it is within reach,” he told ABC News Breakfast.

“It is a huge boost to transport infrastructure on two of the biggest city pairs in the world.”

Greens leader Christine Milne says the Government should now do an environmental impact assessment of the preferred route and set aside money to buy the land needed.

“I think it’s a practical option and an urgent [one] and I’m very excited by it,” she said.
“It’s why we did negotiate with Prime Minister Gillard to bring on high speed rail in Australia. One of the huge costs to business to the community is congestion through the airports, the time air travel is taking.”

Reported on ABC radio 702 this morning that local community

based groups were slow to respond to fire disasters in Tasmania.

The report also suggested that these groups be included in future

disaster planning. Some of the remarks expressed were unkind

and unfair to the groups concerned. It takes time for these groups

to get whatever action is necessary to provide whatever service

they can muster, usually at very short notice.

These groups consist of volunteers who give time and in some

cases personal funding, or revenue raised by raffles, cake stalls

and fetes. Volunteers are short on the ground and many move on

leaving a hard core of dedicated locals to carry out the excellent

work they do.

It is hard to visualise how these groups could be brought under

the umbrella of Govt. disaster plans. since they are unfunded.

Neville Gillmore

Nissan Navara ST-X 4×4 Dual Cab .
.

$114 billion fare for fastest rail link

EXCLUSIVE by Simon Benson
The Daily Telegraph
April 11, 2013 12:00AM

Increase Text Size
Decrease Text Size
Print
Email
Share

5

THE federal government’s dream of a 350km/h rail link between Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane would cost $114 billion and involve 67km of tunnels under the heart of Sydney.

It would also transform Australia by cutting travel time between Sydney and Brisbane to just two hours and 37 minutes, and two hours and 44 minutes between Sydney and Melbourne.

A final report into the project, which the Gillard government is expected to give in-principle agreement to, admits that nothing of its scale has been tried anywhere in Australia.

It claims most of the project would have to be funded by government, with the returns of about 1 per cent falling well short to make the project commercially viable.

The $20 million feasibility study commissioned in 2010, to be released today, outlines a regional route from Sydney to Brisbane with stops at Central Coast, Newcastle, Taree, Port Macquarie and Coffs Harbour before reaching the Gold Coast and then Brisbane – taking three hours and nine minutes.

It would reach the Central Coast in 27 minutes, Newcastle in 39 minutes and Coffs Harbour in 1 hour 50 minutes.

The express, travelling at a top speed of 350km/h and an average 300km/h, would take just two hours and 37 minutes.

To the south, it would stop at the Southern Highlands, Wagga Wagga, Albury-Wodonga and Shepparton before reaching Melbourne in three hours and three minutes, or, as an express, in two hours and 44 minutes.

It would also involve a spur line to Canberra, taking just over an hour from Sydney.

It is envisaged that by 2065, the service would cater for 111 million passenger trips, running 18 hours a day, all year. The report also said significant issues included noise pollution, while environmental and planning laws would also present hurdles.

The report estimates that 144km of tunnel would have to be built to carry the bullet train, with the largest single section of 67km underneath Sydney.

Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese, a proponent of an east coast high-speed line, welcomed the report and said it had the potential to be a “game changer” for the way Australians, live, work and holiday.

“It also has the capacity to better integrate our regional and metropolitan communities, ease congestion on our roads as well as provide a new foundation for a low carbon, high productivity economy,” Mr Albanese said.

“Already this technology is being rolled out across the globe with clear economic, productivity, lifestyles and environmental benefits.”

The report says that high-speed rail could produce economic benefits to Australia’s economy in the order of $2.30 for every dollar invested and cut carbon emissions from the transport sector.

The government will seek public comment until June 30 and set up a high level advisory group to consult with industry on how it could be delivered.

The Daily Telegraph did not seek comment from the Coalition on the report, according to a strict condition of the government releasing the report.

The condition comes two days after Communications Minister Stephen Conroy criticised The Daily Telegraph for not seeking his comment before the release of a Coalition NBN policy.

Global Solar Photovoltaic Industry Is Likely Now a Net Energy Producer

Apr. 8, 2013 — The rapid growth of the solar power industry over the past decade may have exacerbated the global warming situation it was meant to soothe, simply because most of the energy used to manufacture the millions of solar panels came from burning fossil fuels. That irony, according to Stanford University researchers, is coming to an end.

——————————————————————————–

Share This:

2

Related Ads:
•PV Solar Energy
•More Energy
•Energy Costs
•Wind Energy

See Also:

Matter & Energy
•Solar Energy
•Energy Technology

Earth & Climate
•Energy and the Environment
•Renewable Energy

Science & Society
•Energy Issues
•Environmental Policies

Reference
•Biomass
•Solar panel
•Desalination
•Renewable energy

For the first time since the boom started, the electricity generated by all of the world’s installed solar photovoltaic (PV) panels last year probably surpassed the amount of energy going into fabricating more modules, according to Michael Dale, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford’s Global Climate & Energy Project (GCEP). With continued technological advances, the global PV industry is poised to pay off its debt of energy as early as 2015, and no later than 2020.

“This analysis shows that the industry is making positive strides,” said Dale, who developed a novel way of assessing the industry’s progress globally in a study published in the current edition of Environmental Science & Technology. “Despite its fantastically fast growth rate, PV is producing — or just about to start producing — a net energy benefit to society.”

The achievement is largely due to steadily declining energy inputs required to manufacture and install PV systems, according to co-author Sally Benson, GCEP’s director. The new study, Benson said, indicates that the amount of energy going into the industry should continue to decline, while the issue remains an important focus of research.

“GCEP is focused on developing game-changing energy technologies that can be deployed broadly. If we can continue to drive down the energy inputs, we will derive greater benefits from PV,” she said. “Developing new technologies with lower energy requirements will allow us to grow the industry at a faster rate.”

The energy used to produce solar panels is intense. The initial step in producing the silicon at the heart of most panels is to melt silica rock at 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit using electricity, commonly from coal-fired power plants.

As investment and technological development have risen sharply with the number of installed panels, the energetic costs of new PV modules have declined. Thinner silicon wafers are now used to make solar cells, less highly refined materials are now used as the silicon feedstock, and less of the costly material is lost in the manufacturing process. Increasingly, the efficiency of solar cells using thin film technologies that rely on earth-abundant materials such as copper, zinc, tin and carbon have the potential for even greater improvements.

To be considered a success — or simply a positive energy technology — PV panels must ultimately pay back all the energy that went into them, said Dale. The PV industry ran an energy deficit from 2000 to now, consuming 75 percent more energy than it produced just five years ago. The researchers expect this energy debt to be paid off as early as 2015, thanks to declining energy inputs, more durable panels and more efficient conversion of sunlight into electricity.

Strategic implications

If current rapid growth rates persist, by 2020 about 10 percent of the world’s electricity could be produced by PV systems. At today’s energy payback rate, producing and installing the new PV modules would consume around 9 percent of global electricity. However, if the energy intensity of PV systems continues to drop at its current learning rate, then by 2020 less than 2 percent of global electricity will be needed to sustain growth of the industry.

This may not happen if special attention is not given to reducing energy inputs. The PV industry’s energetic costs can differ significantly from its financial costs. For example, installation and the components outside the solar cells, like wiring and inverters, as well as soft costs like permitting, account for a third of the financial cost of a system, but only 13 percent of the energy inputs. The industry is focused primarily on reducing financial costs.

Continued reduction of the energetic costs of producing PV panels can be accomplished in a variety of ways, such as using less materials or switching to producing panels that have much lower energy costs than technologies based on silicon. The study’s data covers the various silicon-based technologies as well as newer ones using cadmium telluride and copper indium gallium diselenide as semiconductors. Together, these types of PV panels account for 99 percent of installed panels.

The energy payback time can also be reduced by installing PV panels in locations with high quality solar resources, like the desert Southwest in the United States and the Middle East. “At the moment, Germany makes up about 40 percent of the installed market, but sunshine in Germany isn’t that great,” Dale said. “So from a system perspective, it may be better to deploy PV systems where there is more sunshine.”

This accounting of energetic costs and benefits, say the researchers, should be applied to any new energy-producing technology, as well as to energy conservation strategies that have large upfront energetic costs, such as retrofitting buildings. GCEP researchers have begun applying the analysis to energy storage and wind power.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Report: 243 million Americans affected by weather disasters since 2007

Posted by Justin Grieser on April 9, 2013 at 10:30 am

21

Comments

More

Drought, record heat and Hurricane Sandy were among the major weather-related disasters that affected the United States in 2012. But just how many Americans felt the impact of these events? A newly released report from the Environment America Research and Policy Center says 243 million people – nearly 80 percent of the U.S. population – live in counties that experienced at least one weather-related disaster since 2007.

U.S. counties federally declared disaster areas due to extreme weather, 2007-2012. (Environment America)
U.S. counties federally declared disaster areas due to extreme weather, 2007-2012. (Environment America)

The report, titled “In the Path of the Storm,” is based on six years of county-level disaster declaration data gathered from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). It offers a comprehensive overview of which regions in the U.S. are most vulnerable to various types of severe weather, including hurricanes, floods, drought, tornadoes and winter storms. An interactive online map allows the public to learn more about the types of disasters that have occurred in individual counties across the country.

Among some of the report’s major findings:

Number of Americans living in counties declared federal disaster areas due to severe weather-related events. (Data source: Environment America)
Number of Americans living in counties declared federal disaster areas due to severe weather-related events. (Data source: Environment America)
◾About 4 out of 5 Americans live in counties that have been declared federal disaster areas in the past six years.
◾In 2012, the U.S. recorded 11 weather disasters causing economic losses of $1 billion or more, including Hurricane Sandy.
◾Sandy claimed 72 lives in the Northeast and caused over $70 billion in damages, making it the costliest hurricane ever to hit the East Coast and the costliest weather disaster since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
◾77 million Americans live in counties that experienced federally declared weather-related disasters in 2012 alone.
◾19 million Americans live in counties that have averaged one or more such weather-related disasters per year since 2007.

While every state but South Carolina has had at least one county declared a federal disaster area, the Plains states are the most disaster-prone. In Oklahoma, for example, five of the state’s counties have each declared 10 or more weather-related disasters in the past six years.

Clickable interactive map showing number of weather-related disasters by county during the 2007-2012 period. (Environment America)
Interactive map showing number of weather-related disasters in Washington, D.C. during the 2007-2012 period. (Environment America)

By shedding light on these numbers, Environment America hopes to raise public awareness about the the nation’s vulnerability to climate change and the possibility of more frequent extreme weather events in the coming decades.

The report reaffirms scientific research that shows the U.S. is already experiencing greater extremes in precipitation and will likely see an increase in the number of heat waves and severe storms as Earth’s climate warms. In 2012, the U.S. experienced its hottest year on record and worst drought in more than 50 years.

“Extreme weather is happening, it is causing very serious problems, and global warming increases the likelihood that we’ll see even more extreme weather in the future,” says Nathan Willcox, co-author of the report and global warming program director at Environment America.

Willcox is calling upon local, state, and federal leaders to seek further reductions in CO2 emissions and invest in more renewable energy projects to reduce the impact of global-warming induced severe weather events.

In particular, the report denounces further development in carbon-rich fuels such as tar sands, and urges the Obama administration to reject construction of the Keystone XL pipeline in the central United States.

Meanwhile, Environment America is lauding state-based and regional efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), comprised of nine northeastern states. Two months ago, all nine members pledged steeper cuts in carbon emissions from power plants, which would result in a 20 percent reduction over the next decade.

“In the wake of Winter Storm Nemo [Feb. 2013 Nor’easter], Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Irene, we need all of the Northeast to double down on its commitment to lead the nation in reducing the pollution that’s warming the planet and changing our climate,” said Willcox.

Justin Grieser grew up in Northern VA and is a features writer for the Capital Weather Gang. He has a BA in linguistics from the University of Virginia and enjoys using his language skills toward researching international climate data.