Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Don't like the answer? Don't ask the question
Late in 2006 the Labor caucus in Council used its numbers to commission a "Climate Change and Energy Taskforce" to report on how Brisbane could become meet the greenhouse gas emissions targets set out in the Kyoto Protocol.

The taskforce researched the science, asked expert and councillor opinion and consulted with the public.

It is chaired by Ian Lowe, emeritus professor of science, technology and society at Griffith University in Brisbane and President of the Australian Conservation Foundation; never one to espouse the ‘business as usual’ model.

There has been a few leaks, but the report’s recommendations were never going to stray far from pressing the need for smart growth, reducing energy consumption from fossil fuels and to stymie rapid growth in private car-use.

Indeed, an early draft of the report, presented to Cabinet on 5th February recommended that some (20%) CBD roads be closed to private through-traffic. This was helpfully reported in The Courier-Mail with the headline "City streets to shut".

As expected, both Labour and Liberal politicians clambered over each other to distance themselves from the report and paint themselves as best friends of the motorist.

A second leak from another Cabinet report revealed a whole raft of measures, all of which would require regulation and active government in public policy. Of course this all goes against current political trend of cutting red tape and allowing consumers and business to pollute with impunity.

The report recommends:

• Council becoming carbon-neutral
  
• mandatory rainwater tanks
  
• banning additional private swimming pools
  
• only one airconditioning unit per dwelling
  
• more bus lands to be added each year
  
• wind turbines atop CBD buildings
  

These are things politicians don’t want to hear. Telling people they cannot do something or must do something else is taboo in this political climate, regardless of the consequences.

Political reaction was as revealing as it was predictable. The Lord Mayor was ‘alarmed’ by the draft report. Not by what the science said mind you (as he is a self-confessed ‘climate change convert’), but by the extent of the policy recommendations.

Liberal Councillor David McLachlan described the draft as an "unacceptable impost on the way people live their lives" and would cost billions to implement. Again, our good Councillor is either demonstrating considerable intellectual obstinacy or he is being disingenuous with his electorate.

He should be disagreeing with the science, not the recommendations. At best he should be stating what level of global warming he is willing to accept in return for keeping his current lifestyle. Brisbane residents cannot continue on the current path, without facing the consequences.

The Labor caucus has been similarly dishonest. Leader David Hinchliffe labelled some of the recommendations as "loopy".

Our civic / political culture has been crippled by a pervasive have-it-all consumer culture. Voters are no longer citizens but ‘customers’. As such, government must give them all they demand and only an expanding GDP can deliver it.

Under no circumstances must customers be asked to adjudicate between competing priorities; to assess those nasty either/or questions.

Cabinet will consider the Climate Change and Energy taskforce report as a final draft on 12th March. It will decide whether the $70,000 report will be published for the ratepayers of Brisbane or – more likely – that the recommendations are so politically unpalatable the report will be kept secret.

But surely, it was clear that the taskforce was going to advocate some significant departures from the status quo and the curtailment of our current energy- and transport-rich lives. And as such, the report was going to be politically unacceptable. I doubt it will never ever see the light of day. Public money will have been wasted. The public interest will have been undermined.

If you don’t like the answer, really, you shouldn’t ask the question.

Labels: Brisbane City Council, Sustainability

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Sunday, February 25, 2007
Standards in Australian journalism reaches a new low
Then again, I very rarely bother reading the first paragraph of an article in The Australian.

http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/02/24/golden-boy/

Labels: Journalism

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My kind of demonstration....peaceful

Labels: Cheney, Journalism

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Monday, February 12, 2007
Lord Mayor's tunnel vision falling apart
It is a big day in Council tomorrow for Lord Mayor Campbell Newman. He must come clean about how much his TransApex tunnel plan is going to cost the city.

He has been forced by the Labor majority to hand down a report of forward estimates. It will be a big thick document, no doubt plenty heavy enough for the Labor group to beat him repeatedly over the head with.

In the heady days of the election in 2004, Newman promised Brisbane voters that all five tunnels in TransApex would cost around $4.5bn. The first prong (already underway) - the North South Bypass Tunnel - is costing $3bn - a blowout of around 230%.

The storm clouds are gathering. It has already been reported on Channel 9 that the news is not good for Newman and rates will have to go up by more than inflation to help pay for the tunnels.
If this happened, Newman once promised he would resign. Lets hope he keeps this promise.

Queensland Greens published this, this evening:

Labels: Brisbane City Council, Campbell Newman

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More hot air in the global warming debate
Despite years in denial, which allowed Australian greenhouse gas per capita emissions to rise to highest in the world, Australian politics is now wrestling with the problem of global warming.

State governments have come out in favour of implementing a national carbon-trading scheme, throwing down the gauntlet to the Howard government and threatening to go it alone, with or without the Commonwealth.

Call me a sceptic, but all this is bluster from the States, afforded by the likelihood they will never have to take the lead – nor the political risk – of rolling it out.

Instead the States are keen to shame the feds into mandating it at a federal level. And it might work

Howard, in an election year, has crunched the numbers and concluded that global warming climate change is a clear and present danger to his re-election chances and he is vulnerable on the environment. Plus, as leader of a small-l liberal government, he should be seen to be supporting such ‘market-led’ solutions.

However, Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, has not yet fully fallen into line with his State colleagues. He remains equivocal in his support of carbon-trading and wants a “clear focus on developing clean-coal technology”, before he could fully support it. Without such a focus, the Queensland economy would be damaged.

It seems the other States will humour him, but only to form a united front in defiance of Howard.

But evidently Peter Beattie has misunderstood the concept of carbon-trading. In such a market-led scheme, Governments don’t pick winners. Instead they allow the market to decide which technologies would be most cost-effective in meeting a policy objective.

Government’s job is to set the emissions cap [the price of carbon]. Business will then decide whether to pollute and pay, or invest and save.

In reality, Beattie is not being niaive, but scurrilous. He is merely demonstrating the parochial obstinancy that has made agreement on dealing with global warming so fractious – domestically and internationally.

Beattie is desperate to protect his coal industry, on which the Queensland economy relies for tax revenue and some of the cheapest energy in the world. Already, any future carbon-trading market will be distorted by nearly a billion dollars of government handout to the coal industry, to fund its investigation of carbon sequestration.

In an open market, private investment will follow the most promising technologies that allow industry and consumers to meet the carbon emissions cap. If this doesn’t include burning coal and implementing carbon sequestration – which remains as yet unproven – then so be it.

And this is what terrifies Beattie and Howard. If industry finds that coal is not the energy of the future, and the global economy ditches 19th Century technology, a big chunk of Australian export earnings would steadily dry up. As mentioned before on this blog, China and India don’t need to import sunlight and wind.

Someone else who has misunderstands the objectives of a national carbon trading scheme is the pro-business Australian Industry Group, which maintained that "We need to work carefully and cautiously because our objective has to be to reduce global emissions, not just Australian emissions."

Again, this is a red herring. It is neither the Australian Industry Group’s nor the Australian government’s remit to reduce emissions outside Australia. Never has been, never will be. Using such spurious arguments to justify a refusal to act is simply dishonest. The AIG is clearly not representing all industries, only the big ones.

Not surprisingly, the Greens’ stated position on global warming has irked everyone, though they too seem to overstate the responsibilities of Australian governments re greenhouse gas emissions in other countries.

Battler Bob [Senator Brown] argued that Australia should draw up a three-year-plan to phase out coal exports altogether. Howard called it ‘knee-jerk’ and Labor leader Kevin Rudd suggested it would “send a shiver down the spine” of every coal miner [his union members] in the country.
Interestingly, this phase out similar strident views was were also suggested by Australian of the Year 2007, Tim Flannery, author of last year’s popular global warming book The Weather Makers. Flannery has recently been making the most of his award by shaming the Howard government on its environment record at every public opportunity.

Though the Green’s position may appear rash, and be easy pickings for a nationalist tub-thumper like Howard or a Union-man Rudd, there is a lot of sense in planning for the transition to a non-fossil fuel global economy.

Despite Bob Brown taking flak for his coal-export gambit, Greens policy does have a history of steadily becoming the framework for normal behaviour - though Howard et al would be loathe to admit it. On countless issues – from global warming to transport and planning - Greens have been 20 years ahead of the political mainstream.

Eventually, all nations will be capping their carbon emissions, and the sooner Australia weens itself off subsidising coal exports, the better shape the Australian economy will be in to face the future. Australian households will most certainly benefit too, freed from the tithes payable to big business, in the form of energy bills.

But even carbon trading scheme is not the silver bullet that will miraculously drive Australia towards a low-carbon economy. Despite the lofty theorising of economists, emissions caps are nevertheless set by business, through their proxies in government.

It is doubtful that the cap would be set at a level sufficient for attracting investment in non-coal sources of energy (notwithstanding government subsidy) or from saving the planet from dangerous global warming.

A political and cultural revolution in how people view the consumption of stuff and the energy that produces that stuff remains necessary.

Labels: climate change, global warming

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Monday, February 05, 2007
PPP - Protected Private Profit
Shares in River City Motorway (RCM) – the private consortium that will build, own and operate Brisbane’s North South Bypass Tunnel – have continued to slide in value - now down more than 20% on their initial offering.

The North South Bypass Tunnel (NSBT) is the first vector of TransApex, Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman’s $12bn plan to build a series of tolled tunnels and bridges under and over the city. It will be built using mostly private funds in a public private partnership.

The latest fall in share price is a result of brokerage firm UBS declaring it had doubts over RCM’s traffic modelling, which forms the revenue basis of the $3bn business plan for NSBT. UBS recommends investors reduce their holding in RCM. UBS said it lacked confidence in the figures and competition from other roads and the value proposition offered by the 10-minute time saving did not stack up.

RCM engaged consultants Maunsell to provide the traffic modelling for NSBT. Maunsell’s methodology was based on a number of projects being delivered, some of which have been virtually canned, and others that remain politically disputed.

Not surprisingly, RCM has stuck to its guns, as did Bell Potter, the brokerage firm that helped RCM with its IPO, both saying the usage predictions in the IPO were sound. However, Bell Potter also recommended a “buy” on shares in Sydney’s Cross City Tunnel, which went into receivership last week, with traffic levels well down on what was originally predicted.

Despite the doubts on usage predictions, RCM’s investor relations paint a much more positive picture of the future, projecting continual growth in NSBT usage, from the 100,000 trips per day on its 2010 opening to 135,000 trips in 2025.

Their presentations boast of Brisbane’s “high car dependency” and “poor public transport” as selling points, and the harbinger of investor profits.

In contrast, Wikipedia describes Brisbane’s public transport system as “extensive”. The Lonely Planet guide calls it “world class”.

As a promoter of the NSBT scheme, Brisbane City Council places itself in a ludicrous contradictory position. Its political vision is one of promoting public transport, yet on a partner’s website (RCM) Council peddles its own transport policy failures as badges of honour, so it does not scare investors.

And just to make sure the tunnel attracts the necessary customers and doesn’t go horribly wrong, like in Sydney, RCM is promising a glossy advertising campaign, to ensure Brisbane residents get the message that cars are good.

Public Private Partnerships are not inherently flawed, particularly in the era which followed the fiscal “discipline” of the 1990s, which precipitated massive delays in public infrastructure projects, just to deliver tax cuts to the middle class. However, in the case of NSBT, the private sector incentives are wholly contrary to public interest, as the project’s success is dependent on the continued failure of transport policy by the project’s promoters.

Worse, Council is also likely to aid and abet River City Motorway returning a profit. First by ensuring surface road conditions are amenable to encouraging drivers to use the tunnel and secondly by being liable to compensate RCM should Council make improvements to public transport which impact NSBT patronage.

Council has not made the details of its contract with RCM public (despite assurances that it would), so as yet there is no disclosure of any compensation clause. However, it remains highly likely that Council (and Councils 45 years into the future) will remain tied to restrictive clauses, which will curtail its ability to improve transport, lest it jeopardise the profitability of NSBT.

Labels: Brisbane City Council, transport, tunnels

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Thursday, February 01, 2007
Queen Mary Falls, Main Range National Park
We spent much of the Australia Day long weekend camping at Queen Mary Falls, on the western side of Main Range National Park.

Main Range National Park is part of the Central Eastern Rainforest Reserves of Australia World Heritage Area: a string of large protected areas in South East Queensland and Northern NSW.

The Main Range Section is an extinct and eroded 24 million year old shield volcano, much like that centred on nearby Mount Warning. The main ‘Main Range’ is a 100km long escarpment on what would have been the western part of the volcano. It has steeply sloping east-facing craggs with more undulating valleys flowing out west, spared from the excessive erosion from rain shadow and slower flowing creeks.

Cunninghams Gap was the first section of the park to be gazetted as National Park in 1908. However, the majority of the range was not protected until the 1960s and 70s, with the coup de grace coming in 1980 when the isolated sections were amalgamated into the contiguous park it is today.

As a result and coupled with the rich basaltic soils underfoot, most of the none-park area has been cleared, first by timber getters and then for pasture. Even the protected areas have been extensively logged, with the entire 25,000 hectare park cleared of the biggest of trees. Regrowth in these areas will take another 250-350 years to reach ecological climax. Some species – such as Red Cedar – were decimated.

Despite being in the more gentle valleys of the western side of the Main Range escarpment, Queen Mary Falls still plunges 45m down a basalt outcrop. 10km west, the creek forms the Condamine River, which flows into the Balonne River, which joins with the Barwon River to become the Darling, which in turn, flows into the Murray and then sometimes into the ocean near Adelaide. I say sometimes, as commonly so much water is pumped out to irrigate rice and cotton in the desert that by the time the river reaches Australia’s driest capital city it is all but gone. There the Adelaidians take what’s left.

The immediate area around Queen Mary Falls has a paucity of good long walks, but rock hopping down the creek beds provides ample entertainment. The [series of three] falls themselves are impressive enough, with significant overhangs, which allow access behind the falling water. All are in large ampitheatres, overlooked by hexagonal columns of basalt, betraying its volcanic heritage.

On the second day we scrambled through the Moss Gardens and the rainforest, along sections of the rabbit-proof border fence with NSW.

Being in the middle of cattle country meant two things: silt and flies. Extensive clearing in the upper catchment means the creek flowing over the falls is somewhat murky and the flow is irregular. This demonstrates the importance of protecting catchment areas above National Parks. Secondly, the campsite is virtually overrun with flies, making it unpleasant to sit and eat until after sundown. I assume there is a lack of dung beetles in the surrounding fields.

On the way home, we took the scenic route through Boonah, passing Carr’s Lookout and Wilson’s Peak – perhaps the most famous view in South East Queensland. A narrow road descends two long and steep escarpments through the National Park, before dropping onto the plains below with fantastic vistas of nearby Mounts: Superbus, Barney, Lindsay and Moon.
















The border fence


The view from Carr’s Lookout. In the centre is Wilson’s Peak on the border between QLD and NSW. To the right is Mount Barney in the distance. The ridge in the mid-distance is the Great Divide. Here water either flows west for thousands of kilometres through the Murray-Darling or east, along the more pedestrian route, 100km to Moreton Bay.

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