Drink only beer
The water supply situation in Brisbane just keeps on getting worse.
The city's three water sources, Wivenhoe, Somerset and North Pine dams are now down to 32.45%. Level 3 restrictions, kicking in at 30%, now seem likely than any easing.
Put simply, it hasn’t rained… again. Through late November and December, South East Queensland experienced numerous, intense, but isolated tropical storms. The dams rose a little, but so bad has been the drought to date, any rainfall essentially soaked into the parched ground before it thought about running-off.
Upstream farmers have refilled their on-farm storage, but the storage areas for Brisbane have stubbornly refused to move.
But since then, nothing but clear skies. Dam levels are now rapidly dropping off fast, from a 'high' summer point of 34.50%. The traditional wet season has just 2 weeks left.
Making things worse, residential demand is back on the up (see right). Following a major publicity campaign accompanying the roll out of a new water restriction regime, Brisbane residents slashed their consumption drastically. Now, it seems 'savings fatigue' has set in and the trend line is up 16% since late October. Brisbanites' thirsty gardens are more important than long-term water security.
The long-term weather outlook predicts a 45-50% chance of above average rainfall over the next 3 months .
Dam levels have been this low in February before , but have recovered, but for this to happen, it needs to start raining yesterday.
Arguably, Brisbane is the midst of the dry cycle, the last one occurring when the population was much less thirsty and less populated. But if this is the case – and the water planners have misjudged our long-term dam yields - the situation is even more pressing.
Until yesterday, the answers seem to lay in buck-passing and prevarication; demand the population reduces their consumption and eventually it will rain. We can then all sit down and wait for it to blow over.
Two key strategic documents: the South East Queensland Regional Water Supply Strategy and the South East Queensland Regional Plan 2005-2026, have set out an action plan and a number of options for exploration, but so far little has been done to actually secure a sustainable water supply.
When these two documents were drawn-up in mid-2005, the 'water crisis' was something that was going to happen in the future – in 2025 – when demand will meet current available yield – all things being equal. Again, they assumed it was going to rain, like it always does.
Up to now, the only tangible remedial work is Brisbane City Council's proposal to begin prospecting for aquifers, to supplement dam supply. $30m will be spent on investigating the feasibility of 40 bores in 8 locations around the city. If all 8 prove to be 'sustainable' (the Council's terminology, not mine) and the water quality is sufficient, they could supply 20m litres each day.
But 20m litres a day represents just 2.5% of Brisbane's consumption. This bore hole gig is nothing but politicians clutching at straws.
Alternatives on the books include desalination or accessing what is [hopefully] a giant artesian basin underneath the Sunshine Coast hinterland.
No doubt about it, Brisbane has a big problem. If it doesn’t rain (unlikely), the water we have to supply a city of 1.5m people will run out in 24 months. A developed-world city will face a water crisis.
But who is to blame?
- Councils, for not investing in adequate mega-infrastructure to meet the growing population?
- Bureaucratic wrangling between State and Councils over public health and use of private rainwater tanks?
- Bureaucratic wrangling between Councils and their water companies over water ownership and use of private rainwater tanks?
- Federal government and immigration policies, bringing in too many people?
- Australians, for using each using too much water, living on the driest continent on the planet?
- No one, it just hasn't rained
- Anthropogenic global warming?
Probably all of them, to differing extents. But the biggest issues is finding an answer
- More dams? – Surely not. Firstly it takes years to fill the dams and even that is built on the proviso there will be average rainfall. Furthermore, it is doubtful there are many more suitable places, not settled and not protected. However, one major new dam is planned.
- Desalination? – Could be brought on-stream within 2 years but I am not sure this is the answer when we should be cutting greenhouse gas emissions. To generate drinking quality water requires a phenomenal amount of energy. Furthermore, the hyper-saline waste product presents its own problems for ecologically benign disposal .
- Bore holes? – It seems unlikely that sinking boreholes will supply anything like enough water and it is doubtful it would be of sufficient quality to enter the mainstream. Industrial and horticultural use would be appropriate.
- A diverse and integrated approach to water supply and demand management? – This will include rainwater harvesting, grey-water recycling (supply), use of efficient appliances and leakage control (demand).
It also requires a new ethic. Despite the dire situation, people can still pour an unlimited amount of drinking quality water onto their gardens (provided they pay for it). My neighbour religiously waters every available morning for 20 minutes, probably using as much water as our entire household uses in one day. This surely cannot continue.
Furthermore water supply must be geographically diversified. The current paradigm of mega-dams is not suited to current weather patterns where rainfall is fragmented, but heavy. Water planners are now concluding that we can no longer rely on historical trends to determine future supplies. Harvesting must be decentralised and built on a redundancy system, where each household, street, suburb, city and region has appropriate-sized capture and storage and between which water can flow between areas of need.
My personal contribution (despite our excellent record of efficient water use in our household) is to make a binding, committed decision to drink no water, only beer.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Will Cheney face any charges?
If the guy who Dick Cheney shot (Harry "Dick" Whittington) dies from his heart attack, I guess it won't really be that funny...Until then, I think it's funny as hell - one of the craziest things Cheney has done since going on the duck hunt with the Chief Justice (Scalia), one of the people reviewing his case in the Supreme Court !
Summed up perfectly by the New York Times (via the BBC):
"The transformation of Mr Cheney's misfire from comic turn to political metaphor is most in evidence in the New York Times.
"The newspaper dissects the White House's apparent reluctance to reveal the full story, offers a detailed graphic on the workings of a shotgun, and lets star columnist Maureen Dowd loose on Mr Cheney.
"With American soldiers dying in Iraq, Five-Deferment Dick - 'I Had Other Priorities in the 60s Than Military Service' - Cheney gets his macho kicks gunning down little birds and the occasional old man while 'W' rides his bike, blissfully oblivious to any collateral damage," Ms Dowd writes. "
Another from (David) Letterman was preview on Aus TV last night:
"We may not have got Bin Laden, but we've nailed a 78-year old lawyer!"
Excellent!
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Letters to the Editor, Times of London (never published)
Hats off to the England cricketers for their achievements in the Ashes this summer, which rightly earned Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff BBC Sports personality of the Year. Winning a two-team tournament against a nation with a much smaller population once in every ten attempts, then never shutting up about it makes me proud to be British.
Yours,
XXXXX
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Four Corners merely states the obvious
LAST NIGHT'S much publicised Four Corners on ABC television claimed that greenhouse gas and energy policy in Australia is dictated by the coal industry 'mafia'. Publicly funded scientists are also routinely gagged for daring to suggest the government is mistaken in believing that burning coal is the answer to our problems.
The Four Corners reporters made two arguments:
- That [the coal] industry has privileged access to government Ministers in the lobby. This privilege has extended to drafting Cabinet submissions and Ministerial briefs; both papers that should contain the 'frank and fearless' advice of the bureaucracy, not interest groups.
- CSIRO scientists are routinely reprimanded and gagged by government; accused of stepping outside the legitimate scope of presenting scientific evidence into espousing a policy position.
The first part of the expose was based on assertions by an ex-Liberal party staffer and former speechwriter for an Environment Minister. He claims (and it was the subject of his doctoral thesis) that industry lobby groups, particularly in the extraction and coal industry, effectively constrain government policy on greenhouse gas emissions.
He claimed the sardonically named industry front group the 'Australian Industry Greenhouse Network' (AIGN) commonly refer to themselves as the 'mafia', such is the influence they claim to exert on government energy policy, in the lobby. This is backed by recordings of anonymous interviews with some of the groups members.
Furthermore, this cosy relationship has overstepped the boundaries of proper government process in formulating policy. The same whistleblower claims that industry has in the past been invited to draft Cabinet submissions and Ministerial briefs on greenhouse gas and energy policy. True, industry should be consulted on such things as 'cost of abatement', but the contents of these papers should not have to pass muster at the AIGN.
In one sequence, the Four Corners reporter grills Senator Ian Campbell, Federal Environment Minister, on whether this claim, [if true] concerns him.
(It was almost deja-vu, as I thought the interviewer was just going to keep going, in the same way the BBC's Jeremy Paxman repeated the same question to a Minister 12 times.)
The answers Senator Campbell gives, most would agree, are far from satisfactory:
SEN. IAN CAMPBELL, FED. ENVIRONMENT MINISTER: Cabinet submissions are drafted by the departments.
JANINE COHEN: They're supposed to be, aren't they?
CAMPBELL: Yeah.
COHEN: Industry insiders have recorded interviews claiming they've helped write Cabinet submissions and ministerial briefs, and write costings relating to greenhouse policy, while being informally invited into government departments. If that is happening, would that concern you?
CAMPBELL: Well, I'd want to make sure that every department in government are working closely with industry where industry's affected. For example, I've gone to the...
COHEN: I'm sorry, Minister, that's not what I'm asking you. These people, these industry insiders, are claiming that they've been drafting Cabinet submissions and writing ministerial briefs on greenhouse policy-related issues in the past. Would that concern you if that is happening?
CAMPBELL: Well, I've specifically, for example, asked the renewable energy sector in Australia to come up with new policies in that area, which, which I, which I would quite frankly, I would...
COHEN: Minister, that wasn't my question.
CAMPBELL: I would want to ensure that we get expert advice from industry. Now, the renewables in...industry...
COHEN: Minister, could I just ask you the question again? Would it concern you if industry representatives were writing or helping to draft Cabinet submissions and ministerial briefs on greenhouse-related issues?
CAMPBELL: Industry would provide input into departments...
COHEN: That's not what I'm asking you, Minister.
CAMPBELL: Departments write the Cabinet submissions, industry don't write them.
Thankfully, the reporter didn't fall for the renewable energy straw man thrown in by Cambell. But why did he not answer the question? (This is from a government which has stated that though it is NOT acceptable to lie in Parliament, it IS okay to lie to the media.)
On this first issue, the Liberal party insider merely claims the bleeding obvious: that this [and not only this] government's energy and greenhouse gas policy is driven by extraction industry interests. They have an enormous amount to gain from delaying the imposition of energy efficiency standards and limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
After all, the east coast is virtually made of coal. It is our biggest foreign earner, it makes for easy power generation and easy sales to East Asia, especially feeding the hungry dragon.
And industry finds a willing partner in crime. The government has a huge stake in ensuring the continued steady flow of coal and energy and the tax revenues it derives.
The anthropogenic global warming (AGW) that will occur as a result of these policies can be excused by arguing that this energy paradigm is the only route to economic growth for Australia, and all those developing world types who we care about so much. To complete the obfuscation, simultaneously the Howard government continues to send out mixed-signals and that it doesn't necessarily believe that AGW is even occurring. There you have it, for Howard, it's a no-brainer.
So what Four Corners revealed shouldn’t surprise anyone. The government's own Chief Scientific Adviser, Dr Robin Batterham, is Chief Technologist for mining conglomerate, Rio Tinto. He was also the author of the government's 2004 energy white paper Securing Australia's Energy Future. Nobody thought he might have a conflict of interest.
And for the employees of most lobby groups, the rear access to their office is the revolving door to employment in very government departments they earn access to.
THE SECOND claim of Four Corners was that CSIRO scientists are routinely censured, accused of straying beyond the bounds of supplying scientific advice and into the realm of policy, the rightful domain of our elected representatives.
What is science and what is policy?
Scientific debate about AGW rarely stays with the bounds of observation, explanation and prediction. Scientists – being caring and socially and environmentally responsible citizens – frequently blur, or cross, the boundaries into policy, not just describing a particular set of policies to mitigate it, but actually espousing them.
Thus, last week, when scientists at the University of Queensland discovered a major bout of bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef, they not only described the phenomena and offered a likely explanation (ie, AGW), but they advocated a suite of policy settings, which they argued should be implemented to stop it.
Scientists are people; therefore it is a somewhat purist to expect them to steer clear of suggesting what a government should do. Surely no sane person – understanding the cause of a something as catastrophic as coral bleaching – could stay silent on whether they thought it was a good or bad thing, simply to adhere to something as contested as the 'scientific method'.
Of course to get round this, the scientist could say "If the government wishes to address the issue of coral bleaching, it would need to take a global lead on reducing greenhouse gas emissions." That is not policy.
And this is where the Four Corners whistleblowers at CSIRO suggested that government intervention has pushed the envelope too far. They claim their science has been gagged.
One CSIRO employee recounted being advised by a Department of Environment bureaucrat that his scientific conclusions - that there would be more environmental refugees as a result of AGW - should be deleted from his speeches and government publications.
When a senior scientist on the CSIRO (climate change) Impact Group was asked about this in interview, he stonewalled. Again an extract from Four Corners is revealing:
JANINE COHEN: Kevin Hennessy is the coordinator of the CSIRO's Climate Impact Group. One of his jobs is to talk about the potential impacts of climate change. But there are some likely impacts of climate change that are clearly a no-go zone. Some scientists believe that there'll be more environmental refugees. Is that a possibility?
KEVIN HENNESSY, CSIRO IMPACT GROUP: I can't really comment on that.
JANINE COHEN: Why can't you comment on that?
KEVIN HENNESSY, CSIRO IMPACT GROUP: That's, that's, er... No, I can't comment on that.
JANINE COHEN: Is that part of editorial policy? You can't comment on things that affect immigration?
KEVIN HENNESSY, CSIRO IMPACT GROUP: No, I can't comment on that.
JANINE COHEN: Can I just ask you why you can't comment?
KEVIN HENNESSY, CSIRO IMPACT GROUP: Not on camera.
JANINE COHEN: Oh, OK. But is it a policy thing?
KEVIN HENNESSY, CSIRO IMPACT GROUP: I can't comment on that.
Hennessy later proffers the following: "The sort of thing that I could say as a scientist, is that with sea level rise there may be people inundated in places like Tuvalu in the Pacific. And that would be an issue that needs to be considered by government policy. But I certainly can't go beyond that as a scientist."
Commenting that sea level rise may impact on people seems remarkably timid for a scientist, and sound to me like the words of someone who is 'holding the party line', probably against his better judgement.
Certainly, it is NOT a statement of policy to argue that rising sea levels would impact on Tuvalu, nor to say that those impacted would be refugees (not simply 'people'), as there is already a pretty clear definition of refugee in international law. For me these are both [albeit disputed] facts of science and law, not policy.
A statement of policy would assert a particular course of action for government. For example, 'we should accept 25% of them', or more likely, 'we should position gun boats off the Great Barrier Reef and fire live rounds over the bows of their boats; then tell 'em to fuck-off back to their own country'.
Yet Hennessy does not, does not want to, or simply cannot make this distinction.
Another CSIRO scientist received warnings from his seniors that he should not criticise ethanol as a viable renewable fuel for cars (due to the huge hydrocarbon inputs into ethanol's production, there is actually a net energy loss). He was told this could upset the government which saw ethanol as a useful greenwash story to pump out when it was simulatneously shaking hands on the AP6 [non-binding, non-regulating, no-target, no nothing] agreement.
This second expose in Four Corners was more revealing. It appears that when an issue becomes politically contentious, the boundary between policy and science is rolled back further. Scientists become too timid to state scientific conclusions, just in case it reveals government information to be either wrong or an untruth. Blunting discussion over the likelihood that the current bout of atmospheric warming is both human induced and potentially devastating to the environment, is policy dictating what is valid science.
….like refusing to acknowledge the elephant in the room next to you…
Why does this happen?
That's for another post.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Plague!
It was ironic then that the first (wild) one we saw had made its home in suburbia; in Lawnton.
However, it is still pretty special to then see, not one, but two, at home, in the bush. These two – almost a plague - were in Daisy Hill Koala Centre, to the south east of Brisbane in Redlands, a 70-hectare reserve of bushland in one of the few areas in South East Queensland where koalas are still relatively prevalent.
That said, I had walked this reserve at least half a dozen times, and not seen a bean. I was beginning to think the whole thing was a hoax. There were so many (well, two) that next time I was thinking of taking a hard hat.
Friday, February 03, 2006
Enraged and amused: News that smells funny
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Reef bleaches, while Howard prevaricates
WHILE GOVERNMENTS representing half the world's population prevaricate over whether to slow their burgeoning greenhouse gas emissions, Australia's Great Barrier Reef is suffering a further bout of coral bleaching. This time, three months earlier than ever before.University of Queensland scientists studying reefs off Great Keppel Island (at the southern end) have found a major section of bleaching reef. It has the potential to develop into the worst episode yet, as it has occurred so early in the season.
Previous mass bleachings – in 1998 and 2002 – had occurred in April, when the ocean is at its warmest. But persistent settled and hot weather in the region has led to early bleaching, even before the hottest month, February, has begun.
Coral bleaching occurs when the water gets too warm, too quickly. A rise of 3º can lead to devastated reefs.
Coral's colour is a result of its symbiotic relationship with zooxathelle (algae) which live within the coral animal. Stress factors – such as rapidly warming water – cause algae to spontaneously vacate its coral host, thus sapping it of colour. Swathes of reef can turn a ghostly white.
If tolerable conditions return within a couple of months, the algae will happily return and their cosy and productive relationship with their coral hosts can pick-up where it left off.
But if the relationship is broken for longer, the coral dies back and whole reefs can be trashed. Green algae will quickly coat the coral skeletons and disease takes over. Recovery – if it occurs at all – takes many years.
The scientists studying the Great Keppel Island coral argue that continuing settled weather could spell disaster.
As well as being unsightly, coral bleaching has a massive impact on the complex reef ecosystem, devastating local fish stocks and reef productivity. Large areas of the Indian Ocean - East African, Sri Lanka, Seychelles and Maldives - have already been destroyed.
For these communities, damaged reefs (much like destroyed mangroves) mean damaged livelihoods with wild fish take, already depleted by over-exploitation and pollution, robbed of its reproductive potential.
Similarly, any severe damage to the Great Barrier Reef will also have an impact on the Australian economy, not least because of its value to tourism. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority have calculated that the reef is worth $5.1bn per year to Australia; tourism makes up 87% of this.
Like unseasonably hot weather, coral bleaching is an 'event' and – as such – cannot be unquestionably attributed to anthropogenic global warming (AGW). That said, a body of water the size of the Coral Sea takes an immense amount of energy to heat up. Higher temperatures are attributed to persistent El Nino conditions, which is predicted as a result of climate change modelling with increasing greenhouse gas.
So while this single despoilation cannot be assigned to global warming, realclimate.org's dice analogy provides an insightful view on the effects of continued pollution (using Hurricane Katrina as an example:
Yet this is not the right way to frame the question. [..] we can indeed draw some important conclusions about the links between hurricane activity and global warming in a statistical sense. The situation is analogous to rolling loaded dice: one could, if one was so inclined, construct a set of dice where sixes occur twice as often as normal. But if you were to roll a six using these dice, you could not blame it specifically on the fact that the dice had been loaded. Half of the sixes would have occurred anyway, even with normal dice. Loading the dice simply doubled the odds. In the same manner, while we cannot draw firm conclusions about one single hurricane.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=181
WITH CRUEL irony, the desolation of the Great Barrier Reef could be a good thing. Already, Australians suffer from the effects of AGW, with many of the major cities facing severe water shortages, for example. But the widespread destruction of one of the nation's foremost natural icons could offer the right incentive to shake Australians out of their mass-cognitive dissonance: "See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil".
However, John Howard's recent stark analysis - that we cannot continue to increase our prosperity without the use of fossil fuels – is a sad reminder that we are stuck with compromised politicians who cannot see beyond the next round of political donations.
The Australian landscape and its ecosystems will become irreparable damaged by the attitudes of our political leadership which helps shape (by doctoring information) public opinion on complex issues such as global warming. But whilst most Australians would care little - nor notice - the extinction of say, a dozen species of rainforest frog (whose rainforest habitat is being pushed ever upwards until it runs out of mountain), it might just take note of the destruction of the largest living land mass on the planet.
Particularly, when it begins to damage the economy.
| I am employed by Brisbane City Council. All views expressed in this blog are my own and in no way reflect the views of my employer. |
From WeaselWords.com.au