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The Forum > Article Comments > The simple-minded politics of international action on climate > Comments

The simple-minded politics of international action on climate : Comments

By Nicholas Gruen, published 23/12/2005

Nicholas Gruen argues in spite of Kyoto developing countries' economies and emissions keep growing.

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I think it will take a prolonged global crisis before there are real cuts to emissions. Even then there are people who keep smoking after they have been diagnosed with cancer rather than face harsh medicine. While the EU cap and trade system may work somewhat inadequately other greenhouse policies strike me as plain daft. For example selling generous unused entitlements under CDM, or relying on CO2 burial which seems at best to have a trifling impact under heavily subsidised experiments. There is no way the Howard government will hinder coal mining and export or double the renewables target. It seems all we can do is batten down the hatches.
Posted by Taswegian, Friday, 23 December 2005 12:31:07 PM
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I have not studied Kyoto, so perhaps someone can fill me in.
I get the impression that we are responsable for the emissions from coal we mine, even when it is burned in another country. Is this so?
Posted by Hasbeen, Saturday, 24 December 2005 1:38:05 AM
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It's a bit like asking "Are we responsible for wartime deaths if we sell arms"

The answer is in effect (and morally if I can use that contested word) - Yes. "Coal from Australia contributes to other countries greenhouse gas emissions; in 2003 Australia's coal exports (208 million tonnes) were responsible for approximately 733 million tonnes of CO2 emissions." http://www.lee.greens.org.au/campaigns/coal

However.....These figures are not counted as part of Australia's emissions under either Kyoto or UNFCCC.
Posted by Frogmouth, Saturday, 24 December 2005 7:58:25 PM
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Frogmouth,Yes you are right about the coal but the stupidity of the IPCC system is that if we let some foreign owned forestry company chop down a lot of trees for wood chip etc, that is immediately shipped to the owners country, we cop the carbon debit, not the end user. It was deemed by the intellectual pigmies and spivs that run this show, both here in Australia and in Europe, that it was just too hard to account for the timber any other way, even when it is dead easy to measure the tonnages of wood chip going to Japan, for instance.
Further, even if it was accepted that Nuclear was the best way to go, there is a specific provision preventing the bringing to account the tonnages saved from nuclear.
Who says it doesnt have a political dimension.
Posted by bigmal, Sunday, 25 December 2005 8:33:48 AM
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There will be no change in how we approach the planet, its not economic in the view of the ruling elite. The only thing that will change how we deal with this planet, is a severe and sudden reduction in human population.

You can gauge how important the environment and the health of our planet is by the number of posts for articles of this nature. When it comes to religious ego, they pour in, but the future of our planet and life, never rates more than a few posts.

Everyone wants their intelectual rights and will fight tooth and nail for them, but they have no interest in the right of this planet to survive. Just shows you how far engrossed in fantasy land the human race is.

Before any positive actions can be implemented, we first have to learn to care for all the other living beings on the planet that contibute to the natural balance. Instead of using them for our selfcentred greed.

However the reality is that we will continue along the present path until we succumb to the changing climate. Then nature will slowly rebuild and hopefully some may survive, so that we can rebuild society in a way that blends with nature and not obstructs and destroys it.

We have the technology to overcome the problems without losing our living standards, but again that is not in the interest of the elite who wish to retain economic, political and social control over society. Sadly the ruling elite are all brain dead and the population to entrenched in fear to change.
Posted by The alchemist, Sunday, 25 December 2005 8:34:57 AM
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Government is too influenced by lobbyists from the mining, coal and nuclear industries to do anything useful in terms of mitigating climate change but every person has the option of reducing their own excessive use of resources. Eg changing from incandescent to long life light globes, using power less wastefully, driving more slowly (using less fuel and producing fewer emmissions) purchasing fewer unwanted unaffordable consumer goods etc.

Basically its up to each of us to personally make the changes that will affect the the final outcome. I am planning to install a solar HWS this year, what are you going to do?
Posted by Nimue, Wednesday, 28 December 2005 6:11:26 PM
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BigMal, Whether we export wood or coal - same thing -both actions lead to increased CO2 in the atmosphere. In the case of timber, the loss of CO2 sink (and therefore more CO2 in the atmosphere) occurs in Australia - not the importing country.

So - who should cop the carbon debit? Those who permit the resource extraction or those who are the end user?

If a company sold a product that is injurious to human health (think asbestos for example) the company pays, in this case compensation, not the end-user - or asbestosis sufferer in this case.

So whoever knowingly sells a health-damaging product (in this case a resource that will contribute to climate change and therefore human and non-human health impacts) then following the asbestos example - the resource extractor should bear the cost - in this case a carbon debit.

But I prefer the idea that all who are involved in production and consumption should pay. The true cost - which includes environmental cost - would be represented in the market place.

Ultimately though, it is about reducing consumption of environmentally damaging goods - not about paying to use and pollute. Sadly, making environmentally harmful goods or production more expensive is the most likely way people will change behaviour - not from an understanding that our consumption and waste generation is threatening the health of the ecosystem services we depend on.
Posted by Frogmouth, Wednesday, 28 December 2005 7:08:10 PM
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Frogmouth.I think your answer confuses several points.
1. On a global scene it is true both carbon sources are supposedly injurious. But the whole ICCP palaver is about countries doing their part to reduce the emmisions of C02, and in order to manage this the ICCP has tried to set up measurement mechanisms whereby countries have to account for their carbon. My point was that these accounting rules are inconsistent in that they treat coal differently to timber/wood chip. Basically it is the user/burner pays, except for wood chip were it is the tree feller who pays (who invariably is not the end user eg wood chip to japan to create paper/carboard)
2. If a country is an exporter of these carbon sources then not only in the method of accounting dopey, but it depends upon which country these carbon source are being sent to, whether or not it will make any difference whatsoever to the global efect of C02. eg selling coal to Japan has a diferent effect than selling it to China. In the case of the former the the Japanese cop a carbon debit for having burnt the coal,whereas for China no such debit in created. This would have been the case even if we had signed up for Kyoto.
3. It appears that the USA has being performing better in reducing its C02 emmissions than many European countries.eg France,Spain and Italy. One reason being given is that the USA has shifted its dirty manufacturing to China where the C02 is not accounted for by anybody.
4.If AGW is real and the effects are as serious as the alarmists have claimed it to be, then the solution is a complete farce.In fact it is yet another indicator of just how incompetent the ICCP has been, and points to its failings in other areas.
Posted by bigmal, Thursday, 29 December 2005 2:16:46 PM
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i have some questions on global warming and wondered if anyone out there can point me to reputable peer reviewed studies on the following

PV=nrT, if both temperature and n the number of moles (measurement of molecules)are increasing is atmospheric pressure increasing as well?

I presume the volume of the Earth's atmosphere is constant as it is governed by the escape velocity required to break the earth's gravity pull.

Therefore is average pressure is increasing wouldn't we expect less severe storms which are afterall low pressure systems?
Posted by slasher, Wednesday, 11 January 2006 7:17:38 PM
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Slasher; may I blow in here on your post? Two www gov. sites have heaps of climate info and a google search reveals atmospheric pressure at sea level is 29.92 inches of mercury. But since the world was never a perfect place we need to check the local value of g. That’s how I remember it after building and calibrating manometers in various places.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/

http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/

A study of eddy and cell structure in the atmosphere is necessary to understand the heat transport around regions and it should lead to thinking about vortex and differentials across dynamic systems. Extreem weather patterns are covered here-

http://www.earthsci.org/J_Flood04/wea1/wea1.html

In another post I mentioned the power of personal observation relative to science; Three times I have been close enough to see the ground rush before the plasma arc reached down in a lightening storm. Lightening is a most important trigger in any event and it hurts. There are times when the air is full of water. We talk about due points and cloud bursts. Dust storms and fire storms also generate lightening.

The atmosphere is least of all, perfect. In dealing with overlapping areas of applied science we should recall much of it is still not complete.

After five decades I find little satisfaction in say flow theory as applied to rivers and pipelines. We can however use well known industrial models to get a feel for the say thermodynamics of furnaces in practice and likewise vortexes. Vortexes are most interesting heat exchangers. I made my first Hilsch Tube back in the 1960’s after reading an article that involved using compressed air as the energy source for snow flakes and steam in the one device. The scientists are still postulating on how it works but it serves us well in understanding some wild atmospheric events.

The PV=nrT question seems irrelevant here.

Sorry
Posted by Taz, Wednesday, 11 January 2006 9:26:33 PM
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my question is to see if we can verify global warming by measuring increased atmospheric pressure which should be occurring if the earth's atmosphere is warming
Posted by slasher, Thursday, 12 January 2006 6:30:41 AM
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Slasher: It should be possible to measure the mean atmospheric presure change and build a climate model based on that. But consider for a moment the tiny percentage of free CO2 now present and ask yourself how long it would take to see the trend compared to say; watching the loss of ice in the caps or even the rise in mean sea levels around the globe
Posted by Taz, Thursday, 12 January 2006 9:34:23 AM
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While I believe that we have been presented with sufficient evidence for global warming, I would like to move away from the issue for the moment.

We do not allow garbage and refuse to build up inside our homes. We do not use up all the foundations of our homes for fuel.

So why do we continue to do this to the planet?

Is it not common sense to develop renewable and safe fuels?

Is it not common sense not to pollute the atmosphere/rivers/oceans?

Whether or not we have changed the dynamics of our environment, surely we should (with our fantastic technology) be living in a sustainable and therefore, more economically viable manner, than we are doing at present?

Kyoto may not be perfect, but it is a start. The smart thing to do now, as a nation, is develop technology that is environmentally friendly and cash in on that.
Posted by Scout, Thursday, 12 January 2006 11:50:09 AM
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Scout, we have all the technology we need, but not the political or corporate will. There will be no change, because vested interests have all their resources tied up in fossil fuel. If they turn to biofuels, small scale solar and wind, those vested interests would lose their control to the people and small business.

Its all there to use, there are no excuses, even city people can change and save. How many of you refuse packaging, and buy bulk. You all eat food that requires huge amounts of fossil fuels to provide it. Cities are lit upi like christmas trees all night, wasting energy. City people should only be allowed to ride bikes and use non polluting public transport in cities. That would reduce emmissions dramatically, until more personal non polluting veicles come on line.

Now if everyone suddenly stopped buying petro-fuel cars, vested interests would quickly change, or go broke. That may be better for us all in the long wrong

But no, people just all sit there waiting for someone else to do it for them. Result, a destroyed planet and a decimated population.
Posted by The alchemist, Thursday, 12 January 2006 12:22:12 PM
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Taz, you miss the point pv=nrt is widely accepted rule to describe relationship between pressure, volume and temperature of a gas, I do not think anyone dispute the relationship.

Almost everyone accepts that the earth's atmospheric pressure is 101.3 kPa, in just about all science teachings it is preached as a constant.

if temperature is rising at 0.1 degrees/decade this is approximately an increase of 0.5% per decade. from pv=nrt then pressure must also be increasing at that rate (actually it is slightly more because there are increased greenhouse gas molecules entering the atmosphere represented by n in the equation)

Remember it is in climatology that Venus is often used to demonstrate the runaway greenhouse effect, high temperatures and correspondingly high atmospheric pressure.

I am just perplexed that the debate over rising temperatures, heat island, satellite data not being correctly callibrated etc could simply be determined if average atmospheric pressure was increasing. We have a very simple formula which has been accepted by the scientific world and repeated and empirically shown to be sound.

Why is there no use of atmospheric pressure to counter the arguments of those that doubt global warming?
Posted by slasher, Thursday, 12 January 2006 8:25:15 PM
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Slasher: I don’t have the answer and your question goes beyond all the class lecture notes on the www. regarding Boyle’s law and combined gas laws.

http://ic.ucsc.edu/~wxcheng/envs23/lecture5/lect5_print.htm

I have another question for climate change social-science commentators following our alternative to Kyoto in Sydney.

Have we learnt anything useful from our old ‘Hilsch’ Tube vortex experiments?

I reckon our understanding of such thermodynamics may hold the key to knowing what comes next. Extreme weather is wound up like the intense air streams in a Hilsch tube and the practical researchers amongst our latest crop of writers have already found that ‘scientists’ still have to get a handle on it all.

I don’t expect much to come from governments or their advisers up there either.

In another comment I mentioned making a vortex tube in the early 60’s. The original demonstration pair failed. I was under instruction to make these things in clear plastic or glass for a science exhibition in Melbourne so school children could see the vortex in action. One of our problems was the extreme temperature differential in the materials used. Our glass blower tried using Pyrex throughout the later models but then we had problems controlling the construction detail. I kept the “demon” my metal version with a Perspex ‘low pressure’ snow maker in my tool box for years. It was so neat and practical.

At the time we were working on making homogenous solutions. Those researchers gave us Dulux paints, one step forward in long term solar protection of our most valuable assets. Fine particles in a high speed machine or molecules in a rotating jet stream the engineering is roughly the same.
Posted by Taz, Friday, 13 January 2006 5:23:31 AM
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Vortex Part 2 The critical air stream separation takes place in a tiny chamber as it does scaled up in a tornado. Warm shallow seas and hot landscapes can produce the necessary atmospheric uplift to wind up a vortex with out a thunderstorm for starters.

Years ago I saw a massive air vortex develop over Bass Strait that discharged many miles away over the highlands in Tasmania. It was stationary for hours and the suction tube was clearly defined by the rising vapor above the sea. Lightening finally occurred in the rain at the far end. But it was neither a thunderstorm nor a water spout. Its sheer size made it a new weather cell. But not all aspects of our weather are automatically recorded.

Such phenomena drive bushfires too. I also watched fire in swirling gasses. By then process engineers had shifted from measuring CO2 in the stack for fuel combustion efficiency to measuring excess O2. Both dry and wet fuel is more rapidly consumed in the increased intensity of vortexes. We should not expect to turn off the energy or the conditions that drives these systems in the short term but we must deal with the extra fuel that surrounds us every long summer. But burning off the dry grass ahead of a disaster is only one practical detail.

This is all about preventing rapidly rolling furnaces in front of severe wind shear. As grassland fuel becomes dust with the hot summer winds; any fire becomes an integral part of that atmospheric event.

See formation diagrams of tornadoes and cyclones here and note the tubes within tubes -

http://www.earthsci.org/J_Flood04/wea1/wea1.html

When we learn to live with natural vortexes with increasing frequency and magnitude we will have gone some way in dealing with climate change on the whole and this sphere in general with its more steamy surface.
Posted by Taz, Friday, 13 January 2006 10:43:19 AM
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Alchemist

I am rather perplexed by your post in response to mine where you stated:

"Scout, we have all the technology we need"

I shouldn't need to point out that technology is not static, nor should I point out that further development into renewables such as wind and solar is urgently needed, nor to rule out the possibilities of new discoveries.

I was trying to reach those who do not believe in global warming. My point was it doesn't matter whether global warming is a threat or not, however it behoves us all to adjust our industry towards sustainable and environmentally compatible methods.

I agree that industry and government have been lax in research and development and was trying to point out that there is money to be made - given our capitalist economy I would think that the entrepreneurial would be seizing the many opportunities for development of safe, renewable energy sources.

People aren't going to stop driving petroleum based cars until there is a viable alternative.

Despite the abundant sunshine, people are not likely to install low energy sources such as solar panels without government support. Some councils subsidise water tanks, why not solar or wind technology?

I have tried writing to my local MP's. If more of us did wrote to them instead of just griping, maybe we would see some action.

Australia has the opportunity to be a leader in areas such as renewables and organic farming - where are the visionaries?
Posted by Scout, Friday, 13 January 2006 12:07:41 PM
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"Australia has the opportunity to be a leader in areas such as renewables and organic farming - where are the visionaries?"

Hey its ok, don't panic, I am right here :)

IMHO people don't do much in the name of ideology, but if they feel pain, they react pretty quickly. So in the energy debate, the so called "tragedy of the the commons" will apply. The world will use up all easily sourced and cheap energy, before anything changes.
Once the price skyrockets, things will change fast. That could well be not because of lack of energy, but instability in supplier countries, such as the Middle East.

A great deal of work is actually going on in Australia, regarding alternate sources. We produce around 600 K tonnes of lard alone, all which could be used for biodiesel when the price is right, which is about now. Many farms could switch to canola to drive their machinery at any time they wish. At present prices its marginal,
so nobody bothers, but if it becomes serious, it will happen really quickly.

So my take on this is as follows:
There are lots of sources of alternate fuel supplies, they will come to head when the price is right, that doesent mean that people arn't working on them right now.

People will act out of short term self interest. If the crunch came, they could cut their energy use dramatically, say by 30-40%, but they won't do it until the crunch comes and hits their pocket.

Some people might well jump on their bikes and cycle to work, to make themselves feel better, increase their endorphins etc, but whilst China and India are growing as they are, in global terms it won't make a scrap of difference.

We really do need to address the population problem. 6 billion can't live sustainablly right now, yet we don't even question the projected 10 billion in 2050, we just accept it as a given
Posted by Yabby, Friday, 13 January 2006 9:58:32 PM
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