Tuesday, January 30, 2007
The man from Queensland... he say "Yes"
Queensland Premier Peter Beattie has declared the State will drink recycled water after all.

Originally the Premier has stated that Queenslanders will have a say in a State-wide plebescite in March, but such is now the urgency of the situation he has made the decision for us.

The past 12 months have been the driest on record in South East Queensland and run-off into major dams has been 20 per cent less than the previous worst year on record, 2004-05.

By the end of 2008 sewage water will be filtered, treated and pumped back up into the Wivenhoe catchment where it will be naturally re-filter and treated again before re-entering the reticulated system.

Last year, the residents of the City of Toowoomba – already then on Level 4 restrictions – voted “no” to drinking recycled water. Instead they opted for the do-nothing approach to water management.

Beattie’s decision will override this, but will not immediately affect Toowoomba, as it does not yet draw water from the Wivenhoe system.

Sure enough, the top marketing consultants in government have come up with some comforting words to mitigate public concern over quality.

It is not just ‘recycled water’ but ‘purified recycled water’.

It is not just ‘filtered’ but ‘ultra-filtered’.

So it must be safe then.

Beattie said, "No one is going to know the difference. The truth is, it is going to be better."

Then he said once dam levels have recovered and it is not needed, it will be switched off.

But why switch it off, if it is going to be better?

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Make him squirm
Tim Flannery – author of The Weather Makers – has received the award for Australian of the Year Award at this year’s Australia Day celebrations.

With wonderful irony, the arch-Kyoto-refusenik, John Howard, had to present the award to the person who has probably done more to convince Australians of the necessity to tackle global warming, bar Al Gore.

The Weather Makers was one of 2006’s best sellers and carefully but urgently documented the evidence supporting global warming and the impacts of both committed warming and of business as usual.

Needless to say, Flannery took the opportunity to fire-off a salvo at Howard’s record and subsequent volte-face on global warming.

He said "The award […] means I have an obligation to the people of Australia to continue the quest to create a sustainable future for our country and for our children.

"We can only call ourselves Australian if we have a long-term future in this country and that means to live sustainably."

More directly, he later spoke critically of Howard’s $10 billion plan to address the water crisis. He said the nation's lack of water is a symptom of a much larger problem and "unless we address the overarching issue of climate change, [it] will be for nought, so we need to address climate change in order to build us that longer-term security."

Howard claimed he had thick skin and wasn’t at all embarrassed by Flannery’s comments.

Of course he wasn’t. It is the style of this government to be brazen about its policies and to only confront contrary arguments obliquely, or in this case, simply ignore them.

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Friday, January 26, 2007
Brisbane Square
My glorious employer, Brisbane City Council has moved into recently and purpose built premises.

The colourful structures at the base contain the customer service center and a rather splendid new library.

Needless to say, the bright colours have attracted some disparaging and encouraging comments.

It has been variously been called "Wiggles HQ", the "pencil box" and simply "a scar on the landscape".

I think its great and is set to open up the top end of Queen Street Mall into a first class public space.

The facilities are execllent, the interior is top sort and the views from the upper floors are fantastic, especially when watching an incoming storm over Mt Coot-tha. The offices are filled with natural light and there are 'break-out' areas on each floor.

Too bad I am based in an outer office, in an old Georgian building purpose built for offices in the 1920s.

Another angle (artist impression) of the library and customer service centre.

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Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Water update
What would South East Queensland give for rain like this?

Flooding has cut off several towns in central and western Queensland. Some areas have experienced more rain in 2 days than they did in the whole of 2006. More than 200mm has fallen, replenishing stock watering holes and bursting over dry creek banks.

Brisbane and South East Queensland continue to stare down the barrel of a gun. Dam levels are at 22.90% and January is nearly gone. The weather outlook is staying ‘fine’.

‘Fine’ is also what the Water Commissioner thinks we’re doing. Ms Nosworthy remains strangely sanguine. "No, there's no crisis." she has insisted.

She is obviously showing great faith in the latest meteorological forecasts (here and here) that suggest the extended negative ENSO conditions are on the wane, and that the east coast will return to long run climate averages mid-2007.

Level 5 water restrictions were originally planned to kick-in when the dam levels hit 20% (all things being equal, at the end of March), however, Ms Nosworthy, seems to have plans of her own. She has refused to state what the restrictions will be, and has even suggested that Level 5 will not be implemented until June, if it doesn’t rain.

A number of projects will come on stream in the next 12 months, diversifying the regions supply. Waste water recycling and desalination (on the Gold Coast) are definitely coming. Rainwater tanks are steadily being rolled out. Bore water is proving more difficult.

But even after the implementation of these projects the system of dams will still provide the vast majority of water to the region and this remains reliant on rainfall. Furthermore, consumption is drifting upwards again, as ‘restriction fatigue’ kicks in. And the latest meteorological reports, though perhaps more positive than they have been for a while, still only detect a 40-50% chance of above average rainfall. (Therefore it is more likely that there will be below average rainfall.)

So Ms Nosworthy’s nonchalance seems a little misplaced. She is not a politician, but she should at least be briefing politicians to prepare us for bad news or future scenarios.

Urban residents have not yet faced ‘hardships’ (as claimed by the Opposition leader), but at level 5 the real damage begins, as significant investments in thousands of backyards, rural properties and farms begin to whither away.

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Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Murder in Nundah
I’m sure it’s just part of ‘live in the big city’, but still, when someone gets bashed, robbed and left dead in a pool of blood in the road, in your suburb, you stop and have a granny moment: “What is the world coming to…”

At 2am on Sunday morning, two passing drivers reported they had found a body on the corner of Bage Street and Buckland Road in Nundah village centre. This intersection is right outside the State primary school, which our children attend.

The victim was 40-year old bloke (subsequently identified) had been set-upon after a night out at the Royal English Pub in Nundah, where he was a local.

(Personally, I don’t know how anyone could actually stick-it out at the Royal English until that late, but nevertheless he did.)

A man and a women from the Sunshine Coast have been arrested and are kindly helping police with their inquires.

This is the first murder (that I know of) that has occurred anywhere vaguely near where I live and public safety has never been a real concern of mine, where ever I have lived.

Hopefully this won’t change....

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,21101892-3102,00.html

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Cooking the greenhouse books
THE GOVERNMENT’S OFFICIAL opposition - the Australian Institute (AI) - has again challenged the Howard administration, this time accusing it of cooking the books greenhouse gas emissions.

The AI has highlighted significant discrepancies between land clearing rates as calculated by the [federal] Australian Greenhouse Office (AGO) and the Queensland government’s Department of Natural Resources and Mines, with the federal office consistently estimating lower clearing rates when compared to State figures.

This has huge bearing on whether Australia can meets its ‘commitments’ under the Kyoto Protocol.

Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) was belatedly included in Kyoto carbon accounting mechanisms, on the insistence of Australia, whose delegation threatened to walk out if their demands were not met.

The ‘Australia Clause’ – as it came to be known - not only allowed land use changes to be included in carbon accounting, but also for the net emissions from LULUCF in 1990 to be included in the baseline, against which total emissions would be measured in the commitment period.

The clause did not significantly affect most developed (Annex 1) nations, as they generally were undergoing a long period of reforestation following almost total clearing since the Industrial Revolution. Of Annex 1 countries, only Australia continued to clear native forest at significant rates and benefiting from ‘avoided deforestation’ was going to be a huge boon.

Reducing clearing could effectively offset growth in emissions from other sectors as a result of population growth and GDP expansion.

When the Kyoto Protocol was agreed in 1997, the Australian government was well aware that its LULUCF emissions were already falling fast from a very high 1990 baseline. Coupled with the 8% allowed increase in emissions negotiated by Australia, the government effectively had to do very little else to meet Kyoto objectives.

But here comes the rub. (And the acronyms.)

To calculate clearing rates, AGO uses a complex process involving satellite imagery and computer and human checking of images known as the National Carbon Accounting System (NCAS). This system measures tree cover against Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change-defined standards for reforestation, afforestation and forestry. It has been peer-reviewed and meets minimum standards for methodology as set by the IPCC.

The Queensland government publishes its land use data in the Statewide Landcover and Trees Study (SLATS). Again, this involves a highly complex methodology, which interestingly also deploys ‘ground-truthing’ to verify tree cover changes. Importantly, it uses subtly different definitions of tree cover to that defined by Kyoto and employed by NCAS.

However, despite the two data series measuring approximately the same thing (tree cover), there are huge differences in the two data series, with the federally estimated clearing rates consistently and significantly below SLATS figures. Furthermore, while NCAS clearing rates are trending downwards, SLATS shows an upwards trend.

True, the methodologies remain slightly different, but surely tree cover is tree cover is tree cover? Either it is there, storing carbon, or it is not, as it has been pushed over to make way for another privatopia or more pasture.

Though NCAS system does not account for some kinds of regrowth (if not human promulgated), AI argues that this does not account for the high level of discrepancy. (Kyoto carbon accounting considers only anthropogenic changes in land use, not actual changes on the ground, as measured by SLATS.)

The government is backing its figures. The AI is calling for an independent review of NCAS, questioning its validity.

BUT THIS IS not the only issue AI has with NCAS. In 2000, the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory estimated the 1990 baseline for net carbon emissions from LULUCF to be 113Mt CO2-e. By 2004 (the latest figures available) this had been revised upwards to 129Mt.

Out of nowhere, the Howard government has ‘found’ another 16Mt of CO2 emissions per year to play with. Alas, this has been quickly gobbled up by runaway emissions in all other accounting sectors, particularly stationary power generation.

The “2006 Tracking to the Kyoto Target” report declares Australia is no longer on course to meet its commitments. In 2010, CO2 emissions will be at 109.25% of 1990 levels, more than 1% over the target. (Of course, Australia never actually signed the Protocol’s ambitions into law, only ‘committed’ to meeting them in a relaxed, non-binding sort of way.)

But using the figures for LULUCF calculated in 2000 (113Mt), by 2010, Australian emissions would be at 112.5% of 1990 levels. It seems NCAS’s continued downwards revision of the LULUCF 1990 baseline is providing considerable breathing (or polluting) space for Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions (see below).



To refute NCAS is a considerable challenge and will require the kinds of resources and expertise that is only employed by the AGO. Instead, maybe we should just believe what the Howard government tells us about rates of land clearing and carbon storage.

However, it all seems a little too convenient to be accepted without question, especially in the context of Howard’s belligerent anti-Kyoto position.

Each year the net LULUCF baseline gets revised down. Each year the projected emissions from the energy sector go up. For example, in the 2005 annual report, even with a lower LULUCF 1990 baseline, Australia was on track to meet its 108% target by 2010. This year, even with a higher LULUCF baseline, Australia is going to miss its target, thanks to a blow-out in industrial and energy emissions.

To expand on a cliched analogy: Not only is the government moving the goal posts to its advantage, at the same time it is making the goal bigger.

But sadly, it is still missing.

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Thursday, January 18, 2007
Becoming carbon neutral cannot remain voluntary
Tony Blair has declared it is unreasonable to expect people to give up flying for the sake of saving the planet from global warming. Those whistle-stop Christmas shopping trips to New York or quick weekend breaks in Tuscony are, after all, the little things essential to decent life.

Blair’s right. If you have the money, you should be able to spend it how your conscience dictates. Why should you forgo the mini-break, when your neighbour is not compelled to?

At least Blair has decided that his foreign travel will become ‘carbon neutral’, by simultaneously investing in carbon-capture schemes, such as reforestation.

Brisbane’s Lord Mayor Campbell Newman is embracing carbon capture too. Despite inaugurating the biggest and most expensive road expansion program in the city’s history, he too wants to do his bit for slowing CO2 emissions growth.

The O2 project is a pilot project driven by Brisbane City Council to plant 1,000 hectares of trees in the Oxley Creek catchment. The aim is twofold: rehabilitation of the catchment and carbon capture under the South East Queensland Regional Carbon Sink scheme.

It is expected to capture and store between 15,000 and 20,000 tons of carbon dioxide per annum. To begin with, the project will be funded by Brisbane City Council, but the Mayor is hoping that eventually Brisbane residents will voluntarily buy into the scheme – to the tune of around $75 to $150 each year - to become personally carbon neutral.

It all sounds to good to be true. A politician finally grappling with climate change. But before Newman gets his Honorary Diploma from the Rocky Mountain Institute, a sense of perspective is required.

Brisbane is a city of 957,000 residents who emit over seventeen million tons of carbon dioxide each year.

To sequester the city’s emissions in forestry schemes will require between 861,000 and 1.15 million hectares of reforestation and / or avoided deforestation each year, or between 63% and 84% of the total land area within Council’s jurisdiction. Not entirely possible….

But Brisbane is a metropolitan area, and it is unfeasible for it to be sustainable without drawing on the ecological services of a large hinterland. But even on a regional basis the sums don’t add up. South East Queensland (SEQ)’s population is currently 2.7million, in an area of 22,420kms2, stretching from the NSW border, Toowoomba in the west and Noosa in the north. To become carbon neutral, the SEQ region will require between 11% and 14% of it’s total land area to be reforested each year.

Most of the region is already urbanised, suburbanised, used for intensive agriculture or water catchment. Forested areas account for around 25% of the region. Carbon sequestration from forestry schemes has around 4 to 5 years productive activity before exhaustion, at static population levels and energy consumption levels. A regional scale of operation is simply not enough. Australian cities emit enormous amounts of carbon dioxide.

A state-wide carbon sequestration program is the only scheme capable of meeting the climate challenge. Today’s four million Queeslanders emit around 72 million tons of CO2 each year. Reforesting between 0.21% and 0.28% of the State would in theory sequester most of this carbon each year.

This seems entirely feasible, leveraging the States competitive advantage in being thinly populated, but the scale of change will require a huge paradigm shift from the population growth driving material expansion policy settings driven by governments of all levels.

But it is only feasible through a cap-and-trade scheme, demanding that consumers, government and business can choose between cutting emissions or paying the price. Conserving energy or investing in carbon capture.

Reforestation would have numerous external benefits, including habitat preservation, habitat rehabilitation, catchment protection and tourism value.

However, not all reforestation projects will deliver such lofty benefits. Much would be plantation. Huge expanses of monoculture – fast growing pines most likely – is probably not what most people would have in mind for reforestation. However, some human productive use of the land is a necessity, as much of the reforestation will be a value recovery from otherwise productive land.

Carbon markets are a panacea for environmental economists, but remain riddled with ethical and ecological questions and are yet to prove that nature retains its fair share of resources. But then did ethical questions form part of contemporary political debate?

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Thursday, January 11, 2007
Queenslanders workin' too hard
A survey by travel company Expedia has revealed that Queenslanders take the least annual leave in Australia – just 16 days per year. As a whole, Australians, take 17 days. Internationally, this is the second lowest, after the US, whose workers take just 14 days holiday per year.

In contrast, Germans take 27 days, Brits 24 and Canadians 26. Not surprisingly, the French topped the charts with a whopping 39 days. In August, the nations puts up a sign saying “Closed, back in September”.

I personally know people who work like dogs: six or seven days a week, as self-employed or small business ‘tradies’. No doubt they are earning huge amounts of money, hopeful of setting themselves up for some mythical future date, when they can slow down and enjoy their amassed wealth.

Others I know work long, long hours because they are effectively ‘owned’ by their employers. As sponsored workers, their continued residence in Australia is dependent on their ‘satisfactory’ employment at that firm. This provides excellent incentive to work longer and harder, when tapped on the shoulder.

The pressure of not being able to leave work and the deregulation (de-unionisation) of the workforce are undoubtedly big factors in the survey findings. Few people profess to wanting to work longer and do so only through compulsion, feelings of guilt or fear of being singled out by their boss as the ‘wimp in the workplace’ who can’t hack the long hours.

Even when people are on leave, work life intrudes. 75% of Australian respondents reported being asked to perform tasks or come into the work while on leave.

But it’s different for others. I like my job, but some people are utterly enthralled by theirs. For them, the long hours and lack of holiday is barely noticed. Their work is their life. The salary is merely a bonus.

And for others, particularly men, they no doubt secretly prefer the longer hours, regardless of the nature of their work. It gets them away from the domestic, the mundane and the stressful.

Personally, I would prefer to be sat at my desk at 8am and leave the frenetic morning activity at home to someone else. Ensuring two young boys are fed, dressed, have school bags and two prepared lunches ready and are waiting at the bus stop by 8am is infinitely more stressful than meandering through your morning’s emails over coffee. But to leave all that to one’s partner - who also works – is inherently lazy.

But other ‘structural’ factors are probably equally important in forcing this trend to longer hours, but are rarely explored in main stream media. Worse, they are insidious and self-perpetuating.

Tourism and Transport Forum spokeswoman Joyce DiMascio touched on it when – commenting on the survey - she said: "People are very busy. They are very tired, so they are spending their money on creating a cocoon at home so they can enjoy that with the flat screen TV, the wonderful sofa and the colour co-ordinated cushions."

Yes, people really would prefer a new tele to more time at home or on leave with family and friends out in the city or country.

The consumption mania which drives us to own bigger homes, flatter TVs and more cushions than your neighbours is permitting employers to stretch their workforce. They become more willing to bargain away holidays and work longer hours. Logically, employers leverege this ‘demand’ for working harder, encouraging them to offer poorer conditions as the market dictates, to the detriment of the entire work force.

If we gauged our wealth in purely absolute terms, there would be some salvation; at least some opportunity to step aside from the fray. But this is the big lie that our consumer culture spins – overwhelmingly we are conditioned by advertisers to gauge our wealth in comparison to others. We can therefore never be content, as wealth turns out be a zero-sum game after all. Your neighbour’s assent of the ladder can only come at your expense. By analogy, it is not really a ‘ladder of opportunity’ – more a human pyramid.

Of course, the employers offering us longer hours are the same employers that directly benefit from our preoccupation with our neighbour’s plasma screen TV.

A sanguine view of this working life survey could suggest long hours are merely a reflection of the freedom to work harder and longer Australians now enjoy, emancipated from a regulated industrial relations regime, mistakenly promoted by trades unions for the last 100 years. This is the rhetoric behind John Howard’s WorkChoices legislation: workers should not be forced to accept twenty days leave per year: they should be treated with maturity and given the option to swap it for money instead.

And swapping it for money is exactly what they are doing. How sad.

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