The Journey of Possum and Sugar Glider (1)

A Fable for Our Times

The traveller asked the guru how to find Nirvana. The master replied, "You need to reduce your carbon emissions below 4 tonnes per year. Then you need to persuade all your countrymen to do the same. After that, you need to persuade the whole world. If you fail, your comfortable life will be taken away and your children and grandhildren will live in chaos and darkness unto the seventh generation."

Our hero shook his head and replied, "As soon ask a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. You ask too much." 

The master said, "You have only to start the journey. You will find help along the way. Even Hercules, with all his strength did not achieve his 12 Labours without help from the gods, his companions and those who had journeyed before him. Even his enemies helped."

So the hero put on his shoes and set out. Afterall, he wouldn't be a hero if he didn't, would he? This is an account of the obstacles he met along the way, and how he overcame them.

1. ALONE, I AM NOTHING

Our hero – who we will call Possum because he was small and weak, not at all like Lion or Rhinocerus  or Eagle — sat by the side of the dusty road and wondered how to start. His eyes got a bit damp and he felt very sorry for himself.

"Why me?" he asked, "I'm just a small creature and all alone. What can I do?"

The swallows swooped in the afternoon sun slanting through the tall trees of the eucalypt forest. His eye followed them as they circled and swooped. Then he saw a movement high in the leaf canopy and Sugar Glider came gliding down to land beside him.

"Hello Possum," she said, "What's up?"

Possum told her his story and added that he regretted asking the question about Nirvana because now the weight of the world was on his shoulders. Sugar Glider paused thoughtfully then she explained that the world was being destroyed and the guru had waited for years for the One who would come and ask the right question. Only the one with the question would be able to undertake the journey. "You knew the question, Possum, so the journey is yours," she said softly.

"Just me?" asked Possum. "All on my own."

"Not quite," said Sugar Glider, "There are a few of us. Shall we travel together?"

"Yes!" said Possum, jumping up. "Where are they?"

So Possum and Sugar Glider went off to meet the others. Possum had a spring in his step and his tail curled brightly. He snuck sideways glances at Sugar Glider, admiring her grace as they chatted about Great Nature, Nirvana and the relative merits of nectar from grevillea and melaleuca.

2. KNOW YOUR ENEMY

With his new group of friends, Possum sometimes felt his head would burst as he learnt more and more about the danger the world was in.

He already knew that there were gases called greenhouse gases that stopped the earth from reflecting a lot of heat back into space. He knew that these gases gave the earth a nice warm blanket that made all of life possible. He knew that one was called carbon dioxide, but now he learned about others called methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone.

He learnt that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was very small, only 280 parts per million (ppm). "That's like me," he thought, "Small, but powerful!" and he danced a little jig.

He learned that carbon dioxide had stayed at 280 ppm for millions of years, and that some things put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere while other things soaked it up. This created the carbon cycle that kept a nice tidy balance between the amount of carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere from plants and animals, decay, fires and occasional volcanoes, and the amount absorbed by the big carbon sinks – the forests and the oceans.

He learnt that the amount of carbon dioxide had shot up to nearly 400ppm in the past 150 years. With more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the planet was getting warmer.

He listened wide-eyed as Old Man Kangaroo described how forests had been removed from whole continents so there was less forest to soak up carbon dioxide. He heard how coal, oil and gas were mined and burnt to provide energy for electricity, heating, cooking, transport and plastics. These fossil fuels meant there was more carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere.

"Makes sense," thought Possum, "More going in, less coming out, the amount of greenhouse gases is rising."

Dingo curled her lip and showed her teeth as she said that it wasn't just a matter of getting hotter, there would also be more droughts and more bushfires. "And the storms will be much fiercer, so there will be more floods," she growled.

Possum looked alarmed.

Sugar Glider said, "Don't forget the oceans. They have absorbed some of the extra cardon dioxide and now they are more acidic than anytime in the last 800,000 years. The little creatures can't form proper shells in more acidic oceans, and if they fail the bigger fish will have nothing to eat. Everything will die if this continues."

That made Possum's head REALLY hurt!

3. THE MOST POWERFUL IDEA IN THE WORLD

Sitting around the campfire one night, the group of friends were telling stories. Snake told a story about Mr Einstein.

Mr Einsstein was one ssmart man. He thought big important thoughtss that no one had ever thought before. Mosst people couldn't undersstand his Theory of Relativity and many of thosse who did undersstand weren't ssure it was true. But hiss new idea turned the world of physsics upside down when new data showed it really wass true. 

Mr Einsstein became the mosst famouss sscientisst in the world. One day Mr Einsstein was at a dinner party where he ssat next to a writer who was blowing hiss own trumpet about all the good ideass he had. He ssaid that he had ideass all through the day, and even at night. He kept a notebook with him sso he could write down his ideass. If he woke in the night, he wrote hiss new ideass in hiss notebook. After talking about his own cleverness, he ssaid to Mr Einsstein, "I ssuposse you write down your ideass too?"

Mr Einsstein thought a bit, then he said, "Actually, I think I've only had one idea in my life."

Everyone laughed when Snake finished the story.

Magpie said, "That reminds me about something else Mr Einstein said."

Everyone wanted to hear, so Magpie went on.

When Mr Einstein was an old man, someone asked him, "What is the most powerful idea in the world?" Mr Einstein thought a bit and said, "Compound interest."

No one laughed this time. Echidna looked puzzled, "Why is that? Why did he say that?"

Magpie explained, "Compound interest is where the interest you owe is added onto the debt. If you don't pay the interest your debt gets bigger every year. Because the debt gets bigger every year, the interest gets bigger too. As the years go by, the debt grows enormous and too big to pay. So it's important to pay your interest every year, and to pay back some of the debt too, so it grows smaller every year."

Echidna asked, "Is that like reducing carbon emissions? If we start reducing them now, the debt we leave to the next generation will be smaller? But if we keep adding more carbon to the atmosphere, and more every year, the amount will be too big for our children and grandchildren to pay?"

"Yes,"  said Magpie, "I think that is right."

Possum was listening carefully, "It sounds like we should start straight away, so we don't get caught by compound interest. Does it matter how much we pay?"

"Well, as a first step, even small payments make a difference when they are made regularly," said Magpie.

"Oooh," said Sugar Glider, "I know a song about compound interest."

She started the familiar song, and soon the small band of travellers were singing along. Possum smiled as he listened for Sugar Glider's sweet voice mingling with the others.





To be continued....

Calling a spade a spade

Italians will romance you, Americans will sell you, but Australians are more blunt, they are inclined to tell it like it is. They'll call a spade a spade, not a a digging tool or cultivation implement or even a blunt instrument.

In Australia this week, scientists at the 12th International Coral Reef Symposium in Cairns, Queensland, are telling it like it is. And it isn't pretty.

It's not the decaying coral reefs that aren't pretty, though they aren't, it is the blindness and inertia of political leaders that isn't pretty.

Professor Stephen Palumbi, from Stanford University, pushes back against the view that scientists have failed to communicate the reality of climate change and its likely consequences.

Scientists have done all they can to describe the severity of the problem and the solutions now rest with political leaders.

Prof  Stephen Palumbi

To add oomph to the message, the Symposium presented a Consensus Statement on Climate Change and Coral Reefs that outlines the core facts and is signed by more than 2500 scientists. The statement was drafted by a group of eminent scientists under the auspices of the Center for Ocean Solutions (COS) at Stanford University in California.

The international Coral Reef Science Community calls on all governments to ensure the future of coral reefs, through global action to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and via improved local protection of coral reefs. Coral reefs are important ecosystems of ecological, economic and cultural value yet they are in decline worldwide due to human activities. Land-based sources of pollution, sedimentation, overfishing and climate change are the major threats, and all of them are expected to increase in severity.

Consensus Statement on Climate Change and Coral Reefs 

What more can climate scientists do and say? They conduct the research and publish the facts. Their institutions have prominent websites about climate change (CSIRO, BOM, PIK, Met Office, NASA, NOAA, and more) and individual scientists have published books, websites and blogs aimed at general audiences. You'll find some of these resources listed on this blog on the Take Action tab and the Book/Film/Creative tab.

Let's stop pretending that political failure to act is the fault of scientists. It's not. It's the fault of politicians who choose not to know, choose not to lead, choose not to educate their constituencies. 

By the way, Australians are not the only people who speak bluntly. The hardy folk from Yorkshire and Durham, people like my Grandma Blanche, have it in spades! 

Topsy Turvey Taxland

In Topsy Turvy Taxland, the government runs a tax system that encourages bad behaviour and then complains that people and corporations are behaving badly. This is a tax system run by Jabba the Hutt – dysfunctional, dictatorial and counter-productive.

It's a tax system that punishes work, encourages wasteful spending, and is too lazy to bother discouraging bad behaviour like smoking, gambling and polluting.

In contrast, my ideal tax man is Cary Grant – energetic, practical, flexible and intelligent.

Tax reform gives Jabba the Hutt a makeover so he is more like Cary Grant. As you can see from the picture, it's a monumental task that is best achieved in small steps.

Australia's latest tax reform, the Clean Energy Legislation, continues a trend to move taxes away from those that penalise work towards taxes on expenditure. This is Cary Grant's way of encouraging citizens to work hard, save their money and spend wisely.

The previous tax reform in 2000 gave us the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which is a value-added tax of 10% on expenditure. In July this year the Clean Energy Legislation includes a tax of $23 tonne on major greenhouse gases. In 2015, this tax will change into a price that is integrated with world carbon markets.

This structural shift away from taxing income towards taxing expenditure is highly praised.

The Economist says,

Other governments would do well to emulate and improve upon Australia’s efforts to shift the tax burden from hard-earned wages and profits to unearned rents and uncompensated harms.

This New York Times article praises British Columbia's carbon tax.

On Sunday, the best climate policy in the world got even better: British Columbia’s carbon tax — a tax on the carbon content of all fossil fuels burned in the province — increased from $25 to $30 per metric ton of carbon dioxide, making it more expensive to pollute.

Yoram Bauman and Shi-Ling Hsu

The authors ask, "Why tax good things when you can tax bad things, like emissions?" and they note that this principle is supported by  economists across the political spectrum, from Arthur B. Laffer and N. Gregory Mankiw on the right to Peter Orszag and Joseph E. Stiglitz on the left.

Economic theory suggests that putting a price on pollution reduces emissions more affordably and more effectively than any other measure. It is good policy.

In Topsy Turvey Taxland,Tony Abbott, our Leader of the Opposition, is promising to undo Australia's Clean Energy Legislation and remove the price on greenhouse gases when he gets into power. He'll have to increase income taxes so the government doesn't lose revenue, though of course he's staying mum about that part of his plan.

This will take us back to square one, to Jabba the Hutt as tax man supervising a system that lazes around, doing none of the heavy lifting required to reduce greenhouse gas pollution.

Mainstream climate scientists say that global warming is an urgent problem that should be tackled head on with gusto. "With gusto" means that our tax system can't be lazy. It has to pull its weight.

We need Cary Grant on the job, not Jabba the Hutt lazing around.

Oxygen tanks help to make sense of the world

Last week my two daughters visited their 'Little Nana' in hospital. She is 92 years old and was recovering from a broken ankle. She doesn't always remember who they are, but they wanted to see her. They have lots of happy memories of childhood meals at her old kitchen table.

After some hellos and questions, they fell to chatting with each other. They got to talking about the weather and climate and Australian politics. After a few minutes, they realised that the woman in the next bed had joined their conversation and was listening with interest.

There was a pause in the conversation and the woman commented that she wasn't sure that the climate was really changing. My older daughter, Claire, smiled and said that there was a lot of evidence that temperatures were getting hotter and America was having record heatwaves right now.

They talked a bit more, and then the woman said,

"But how do they know how much carbon dioxide is in the air? I'm not sure they can measure that."

Claire is not a scientist and she didn't know how CO2 is measured, just that a lot of smart people have figured it out.

"I'm not sure how they measure it either, but the scientists are pretty smart," said Claire.

Then her younger sister, Lizzy, spoke up, "See that oxygen cylinder? That's pure oxygen that they put in the cylinders, so they must have a way to measure and separate the oxygen from other gases. So I guess if they can do that with oxygen, they must do that, or something similar, to measure carbon dioxide.''

The woman looked thoughtful and sounded a bit forlorn, "Maybe it really is getting hotter."

Back home, my daughters talked about their visit to their 'Little Nana' and they were pleased to recount their conversation with the woman in the next bed. They were particularly pleased by the serendiptity of the oxygen tank that allowed them to explain that scientists must know how to measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Truth be told, most of us don't have a clue about the amazing things scientists have worked out. We don't understand the fine detail of most medical treatment, but we're happy to benefit from it.

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Kudos to Nathan Clark for the oxygen tank idea.

Those of you with a more technical interest can check out how the Earth System Research Laboratory measures CO2 in the atmosphere using infrared radiation. 

The Transformation page on this blog showcases examples of progress on addressing climate change. Here's the latest.

Australia will fund a $20 million Pacific Climate Change Science Program in Pacific countries and East Timor to better understand how the climate and oceans have changed and how they may change in the future. The 15 partner countries are the Cook Islands, East Timor, Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Source: Australian Government.

You've got to dance with the one who brung ya...

"Dance with the one who brung ya" is a social rule that underpins respect and civil society. It's about keeping your word, doing unto others as you would be done by, and playing the hand you are dealt.

It's a bulwark against the temptation to use others in cynical and selfish ways. And it's a warning against denial or pretence. It's a reality check. 

This came to mind as we were talking about the world our grandchildren will live in. All the serious messages tell us that without immediate efforts on a war-footing scale, the world will be a mess in 30-40 years time.

Michael Pollan asks in a recent essay,

Have you looked in the eyes of a climate scientist lately? They look really scared.

But even after reading these warnings on a daily basis, I find it hard to grasp, really hold as a concrete fact, that temperatures 6C hotter by 2100 will mean the end of civilisation as we know it. Mr. Six Degrees is the boy who will ask our grandaughters to dance.

Without action to reduce carbon emissions, we are guaranteeing that our grandaughters will have to say "Yes" to Mr Six Degrees. They will HAVE to dance with him, though they'd much rather dance with the cute guy from the Chemistry class, or giggle with their girlfriends. 

If we want our grandaughters to go to the dance with the cute guy from the Chemistry class, we have to do everything to get governments onto a war footing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 80% reduction by 2050 isn't going to happen by itself.

Of course, our grandaughters, those who survive the floods, droughts, wildfires, and collapsing food systems, will find the inner fortitude to dance with Mr Six Degrees. They will probably do it without the benefit of civil society because who can see that surviving the Climate Wars?

Check the Take Action tab for things you can do to prompt your government to take stronger action.

FOOTNOTE: George Monbiot uses the same metaphor (Dance with the one who brung you) in August 2012 to castigate US political funding that makes politicians shape policies for the fossil fuel companies that funded their campaigns.

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Latest from the Transformation tab.

United Kingdom’s wind industry switched on the world’s largest offshore wind farm, the Walney wind farm. It comprises 102 turbines and has an electricity generation capacity of 367 MW, enough to provide power for about 320,000 homes. It will be soon be surpassed by larger ones, such as the 388-MW West of Duddon Sands project and the whopping 630-MW London Array. Source: BusinessGreen.

The carrot, the stick and the map

The Can Do! attitude that harnessed the efforts of whole nations in an all-out war effort during WWII survives in the iconic figure of Rosie the Riveter. When men joined the armed forces, women filled their places in factories, transport, businesses and on farms. My Grandma Blanche saw out WWII as a transport driver for local military bases in the North of England, where her two daughters met and married improbably good looking airmen.

The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has given Can Do types a shot in the arm with the release of its report, Renewable Electricity Futures Study (RE Futures) which outlines how the US can convert its electricity system to 80% renewables by 2050.

The detailed report proves the nay-sayers wrong by demonstrating that current technology is sufficient and that intermittent sources like solar and wind are no obstacle.

The report is a massive work in four volumes and covers the subject comprehensively. It was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and is a collaboration with more than 110 contributors from 35 organizations including national laboratories, industry, universities, and non-governmental organizations.

I am very heartened to see responsible government agencies get on with the job of planning a pathway to the new low-carbon future. I'm afraid that Australia's Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism lacks the capacity, vision and leadership to produce useful work like this. They seem to be too much in the thrall of the coal and mining sectors.

A Can Do map is one of the three things needed for a fundamental shift in beliefs and practices. The other two requirements are: Awareness that the current system is unsustainable (the stick), and recognition of the benefits of change (the carrot).

The carrot, the stick and the pathway map are necessary preconditions for the transition from an ecosystem of denial to a culture of responsibility.

With a reason to act, confidence in the destination and an outline of what needs doing, millions of Rosies will roll up their sleeves and see that the job gets done.

H/T KC Golden.

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New on the Transformation tab.

Ireland has signed a MOU with UK to provide renewable power. Irish businessman Eddie O’Connor, the CEO of Mainstream Renewables, has unveiled a plan to invest €12.5 billion to expand the country’s wind energy farms, and build links to supply the UK. Source: ReNewEconomy

Mother knows best

Anita Renfroe runs through some motherly advice in her Mom Song ...

share
make new friends
clean up after you
pay attention
be respectful
be careful
play fair
wait your turn
never take a dare
say thank you, please, excuse me
if all your friends jumped off a cliff would you jump too?

What happens when we grow up? Do we leave this advice behind along with our lego and paper dolls as kid stuff? Or do we take it as the basis for civil society?

The sheer weight of insults and lies thrown around in public discourse about policy response to climate change shows that many never heard their mother's call for attentive, respectful, fair dealings.

But worse than the insults and denigration, climate change deniers are embracing risky behaviour. They are ready to jump off a cliff and drag us with them.

Taking our mothers' advice, we clean up after ourselves, pay attention, act respectfully and refrain from jumping off cliffs. 

Mother Love, the ultimate renewable.

Dominique Browning of Moms Clean Air Force

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News on the Transformation tab.

South Korea is channelling 2% of its GDP into its Green Growth Plan. The Plan aims to reduce total GHG emissions by 30% of BAU by 2020 and outlines a transition path to a low-carbon economy. Australia is one of 15 partner countries in the Global Green Growth Institute, initiated by South Korea. Source: GGGI. 

Yin and yang of clean energy

Ma Xuelu, chief strategy officer for solar panel manufacturers Yingli, sketches a vision of the future of solar power.

We want solar to be the green energy that the common man can use. It’s not like oil, solar is a harmonious resource, a peaceful resource.

Ma Xuelu, Financial Times

In these words, I hear echoes of the ancient teachings of Taoism which promotes harmony or union with nature, virtue and self-development.

China has a long cultural history where patience is a core value, so I am interested to see that their forward planning gives prominence to clean energy. China plans to spend $27 bn in 2012 to promote energy conservation, emission reductions and renewable energy.  Their goal is to reduce emissions by 40-45% by 2020, compared with 2003 levels, and boost use of renewable energy to 15% of overall energy consumption.

Its deep history gives China a long term perspective. In contrast, many Western democracies have relatively new national identities and seem driven to make their mark quickly. Western cultures are impatient for results. When we encounter obstacles we sometimes want to crash through, or change course.

Li Junfeng, a senior policy official, brings a different perspective in this comment about difficulties encountered by fledgling solar and wind industries.

Our industries are still very young. A child will stumble as he walks, because he’s still young. But eventually he will grow up.

Li Junfeng, Financial Times

This reminds me that solar power has been described as the teddy bear of renewables because it is small and lovable. What will it be when it grows up? A 360kg grizzly?

This graphic from the Financial Times shows how China's fledgling wind industry compares with that of the USA (click to enlarge).

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News from the Transformation tab.


World solar energy usage almost doubled in one year. In 2010 the world used 30 terawat-hours and in 2011 this had risen to 55.7 terawatt-hours.  Source: e360.

Waste not, want not

Waste not, want not.

Did you grow up with this homily? I seemed to hear it quite often when I grew up — mostly when I pushed vegetables around on my dinner plate. But then, I grew up in a time and place that is now foreign, even to me.

When I was five, I lived on a dairy farm and attended a rural one-teacher school. Electricity came from the diesel generator, water came from rainwater tanks, and the school even had a horse paddock for the couple of kids who rode horses to school.

That was post-WWII Australia — a foreign land compared with my current life in Sydney, one of the world's most liveable cities.

So, why am I thinking about "waste not, want not" when I could be thinking about Luke Nguyen's new restaurant?

It was triggered by this Eurostat data that ranks European countries on their use of renewable energy. One column of data shows the proportion of their energy that comes from 'Biomass and renewable wastes'. Here's a graph of the top countries.

Share of biomass/wastes in gross inland energy consumption, 2009

Latvia already gets 29% of its energy from biomass and renewable wastes!

These countries are so much better-prepared for the future than countries like Australia where we rely so heavily on fossil fuels for our energy. Less than 1% of our energy comes from biomass/renewable wastes.

It seems to be taking enormous effort for Australia to move to more sustainable energy, however our new carbon tax, starting 1 July, will make a difference. For example, it will give an incentive for major rubbish dumps to harvest their methane emissions and generate power, instead of letting the methane leak into the atmosphere where it contributes to global warming.

Another helpful measure is our State target to increase the proportion of ethanol in petrol. Ethanol in NSW is made as a byproduct from processing wheat into protein and starch. After these food elements are produced, ethanol is made, and finally the waste from ethanol production is turned into feed supplements for cattle. Waste not, want not. 

Nevertheless, it will take us decades to catch up with countries that already get more than 10% of their energy from biomass and renewable waste. Our efforts now will build a bridge to the new Clean Energy Economy that will appear when the Dinosaur Economy based on fossil fuels collapses.

Human societies are fast approaching the limits of some critical resources. The earth has only limited quantities of oil and gas. It is foolish to waste things that are in short supply.  Indeed, it is foolish to waste anything at all.

In a world of constrained resources, coming generations will re-learn what our grandparents knew. They will live again in a world where "waste not, want not" is the rule to live by.

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News from the Transformation tab. 

Vale, the world’s second-largest mining company, and leading Australian renewable energy company Pacific Hydro will jointly build and operate two wind farms in Brazil’s northeast. The power produced will be used by Vale in its mining operations. Source: Pacific Hydro.

Low hanging fruit

Non-carbon dioxide pollutants are the low hanging fruit of the climate fix. Carbon dioxide is the big baddy because it stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, but other greenhouse gases contribute 40% of the warming effect, and some of them are easy targets.

They include factory-made hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), used as refrigerants and to make insulating foams; methane that leaks from landfills and oil and gas production, including fracking; and black carbon soot from dirty diesels, brick kilns, coke ovens, and wood and dung cooking fires still used by nearly half of the world.

See the blue band showing 10.2% bioenergy in this graph? Most (60%) of it is wood and dung used for cooking by the poorest of the poor.

IPCC: Total Primary Energy Supply by Fuel Type, 2008 (click to enlarge)

Because these non-CO2 climate pollutants wash out of the atmosphere in a matter of days to a decade and a half when you stop emitting them, almost all of the heat they are trapping disappears quickly, along with their impacts. Reducing or eliminating them would show quick results, and wouldn't that be inspiring!

Like many pollutants, these greenhouse gases cause other problems. Reducing black carbon, including from cooking fires, would save many millions of lives a year, mostly women and children. Reducing methane improves crop yields and protects forests.

HCFs can be elimintated using the Montreal Protocol which has already eliminated nearly 100 chemicals just like HFCs, and never fails to do its job. It could ensure that only HFCs with very low climate impact are manufactured. Phasing out HFCs is the single biggest climate prize available in the next few years.

On the international stage, governments are forming alliances to legislate for the removal of these harmful greenhouse gases. At the individual level, NGOs are running programs like The Himalayan Stove Project that help the world's poorest people replace smokey and polluting cooking methods with healthier alternatives. It's only with the help of the richer half of the world that the poorest 1 billion people can improve their own lives and reduce greenhouse emissions.

Non-carbon greenhouse gases are the low hanging fruit of climate fixes. Let's support these initiatives at the policy level and at the individual level.

Source: Durwood Zaelke and Andrew Light at The Hill.

A lump sum or a magic pudding?

I had a friend, Miranda, who spent her income as she earnt it. Her view was that she would get another packet of money next week to replace what she spent this week. Just like Norman Lindsay's Magic Pudding that simply re-grew when part of it was eaten, her money was continually replaced with a fresh supply.

I was concerned that she would go into retirement with no savings and I figured that paying rent on the age pension is no fun. So I suggested that instead of thinking about her income as a magic pudding that got replenished each week, she should think of it as a lifetime allowance that is doled out week by week. Across her lifetime, she would earn a limited amount of money, and as each week passed there was one less portion awaiting her.

After that, she started saving. When she retired, she didn't have enough to live on, but she was able to buy a small apartment in a regional town and lived a modest and contented life on the age pension.

It seems to me that Western consumer societies have been living like Miranda, as though natural resources would be magically renewed year after year. But that is not the case. Like Miranda's lifetime income, many of Earth's resources are large, but limited.

Towards the end of her working life Miranda had only a small portion of her earnings still to come. Similarly, some of Earth's resources have only a small portion left. For example, we have used most of the earth's oil resources, most of the arable land is already farmed and most fresh water resources are fully used.

With population due to expand by another 2 billion in coming decades, many of earth's resource budgets can only get tighter.

Fortunately, not all earth's resources are as limited as Miranda's lifetime earnings. Some resources renew endlesslessly in human timeframes. It's good to see countries beginning the transition to these magic pudding energy resources — sun, wind and geothermal.

By conserving our limited resources, we wisely give our children and grandchildren the opportunity to live fulfilling lives, instead of blindly devouring the lump sum of their inheritance.

Eureka! It's a bathtub budget!

When Archimedes noticed the water level in his bathtub go up, he had an "ah-ha" moment. The bathtub holds a limited amount of stuff whether it is water or humans. When you go over the limit, the bathtub overflows. His insight was to recognise that it doesn't matter whether it is water or a grubby human body, when you put too much in, the water spills over the edge.

Similarly, the atmosphere can hold a limited amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) before climate systems go crazy. It doesn't matter who puts them there, when there's too much we get climate catastrophe — droughts, ocean acidification, rising sea levels, storms and floods.

To stop the water spilling onto the bathroom floor, you have to turn the tap off. Even a small drip will cause the bathtub to overflow eventually. It's the same with the atmosphere, we will have to stop GHG emissions altogether or the climate system will go crazy. Carbon sinks don't work like a bath drain because they developed over millennia to balance the amount of natural CO2 emissions and they can't cope with the extra emissions humans have been putting out from fossil fuels. They can't drain it out as fast as we're putting it in, so the water level has been inching higher every year.

How soon do we need to turn off the tap and reduce our GHG emissions to zero? That depends on how close the bathtub is to overflowing. Is it half-full, or lapping the rim?

The best scientific advice is that the size of the GHG tub is about 350 ppm of CO2-e gases. This is a lot higher than the pre-industrial level of 280 ppm when the GHG bathtub was nicely balanced.  For thousands of years GHGs dripped into the tub and the leaky plug (carbon sinks that absorbed carbon dioxide) let them out  at the same rate. 350 ppm is higher and it will have some climate impacts, but they are likely to be manageable.

Right now, measurements of 400 ppm CO2 are starting to come in. This means that the tub is already overflowing. We have no time to waste to move to zero emissions as quickly as possible.  If we don't, we are driving headlong into catastrophe which guarantees that we'll have a big clean up job to do.

All our policies should be directed towards this bathtub budget. But how do we calculate our share of the bathtub budget? For social justice to prevail the only fair measure is to allocate a carbon budget for each per person on the planet. Based on 7 billion people, this works out to be about 5 tonnes of CO2-e per year (c.f. Serbia or Argentina). When world population has grown to the projected 9 billion, then our per-person budget will be 3.9 tonnes of CO2-e per year (think of Jordan or Turkey).

This means that Australia has to move quick-smart from something like 28 tonnes per person (the highest among OECD countries) down to 5 tonnes per person, and then be prepared to shave off a bit more.

Targets like "5% lower in 10 years time" aren't going to stop the bathtub from overflowing any time soon.

Twitterstorm will challenge fossil fuel subsidies

Growing public pressure is pushing governments to reduce fossil fuel subsidies. Activists are mobilising public opinion using social media.

From a mass of social media platforms, Twitter and Facebook have emerged as dominant players. Using them, climate communicators are finding fresh ways  to spread messages and organise action. Watch Twitter on 18 June for the Twitterstorm campaign that calls for the Rio Earth Summit to address the problem of fossil fuel subsidies.

The total global amount of fossil fuel subsidies provided in 2012 is likely to be at least $775 billion, according to OilChange International. These subsidies have the effect of encouraging fossil fuel consumption and increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Their impact is so big that the IEA's Fatih Birol says ending fossil fuel subsidies could provide half the answer to solving climate change.

Wealthy OECD countries are not the worst offenders, instead Iran, Saudi Arabia and Russia have the highest subsidies, as this Guardian graph illustrates.

Countries with fossil fuel reserves, like Iran and Saudi Arabia, use subsidies as a way to spread the wealth by making fuel and fertiliser cheaper. However analysis has shown that little of the subsidy reaches the poorest people, and that there are more efficient ways to spread the wealth.

Poor countries like India have programs that make kerosine, the common cooking fuel, affordable for their poorest citizens. To remove the kerosine subsidy, these countries will need assistance from wealthy countries so their poorest citizens can continue to buy enough kerosine to cook every day.

The worst effect of fossil fuel subsidies is to discourage the uptake of renewables because it is hard for clean energy to compete against artificially cheap fossil fuel.

Organisations like 350.0rg are using Rio's Earth Summit to advocate for wealthy countries to remove their own subsidies and to give assistance to poor countries so they can reduce theirs.

You can add your voice to campaign petitions at 350.org, or Earthday Network. And you can join the Twitterstorm planned for 18 June 2012 by following #endfossilfuelsubsidies.

It's a storm caused by fossil fuel emissions, but it's a good one.

UPDATE 20 June 2012: The Twitter campaign took the hash tag #endfossilfuelsubsidies to No. 2 in the ranking of globally trending topics and No. 1 in the US, and succeeded in mobilising action from tens of thousands of people worldwide.

The Twitterstorm was one element in a suite of related activities – petitions signed by more than 1 million people, banners, screen projections in major cities, and a panel discussion in Rio before the conference.

Among the cacophony of messages at the Rio+20 Earth Conference, the Twitterstorm may have helped to draw attention to fossil fuel subsidies. Early drafts of the Rio text didn't mention oil, coal or gas subsidies at all, and the final draft made only a passing reference. In the end, the impact of this Twitterstorm and the wider campaign will be measured by how quickly fossil fuel subsidies are unravelled over coming years.

Image: Campaign agains climate change

Small island nations: Throw them a lifeline

Everyone loses with climate change. Many countries will lose productive farmland to desertification while others will lose lives and infrastructure to extreme storms or flooding. Small Island States will lose the most, because their homelands will be engulfed by rising sea levels.

Low-lying Pacific island nations, such as Kirabati and Tuvalu, and the Maldives in the Indian ocean, are set to disappear altogether when sea levels rise a meter. 

We know that someone will have to throw them a lifeline.

New Zealand is the first country to throw a lifeline to its neighbours. Since 2001, a limited quota of citizens of Fiji, Tonga, Kiribati and Tuvalu have been able to enter New Zealand under the Pacific Access Category, effectively as environmental refugees displaced by climate change.

OK, it's a miserable quota which make it more of a gossamer thread than a lifeline, but Australia has been even less forthcoming. When Tuvalu requested immigration assistance for its population of 12,000 to move to Australia, the Australian government said its humanitarian obligations were to people who require ''assistance urgently''.

That's not exactly creative thinking, is it? And far from humanitarian.

These small countries are doing what they can to help themselves. The Maldives has established a sovereign wealth fund, drawn from its tourist revenue, to be used to buy land overseas and finance the relocation of the country's population of 350,000. They also aim to be the first country in the world to be carbon neutral.

But direct action is not all they are doing to help themselves, Small Island States have become a force to be reckoned with in international climate negotiations. At Durban, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) joined with the EU and Least Developed Countries to play a lead role in forging agreement to  keep the Kyoto process alive.

Going into the Rio Earth Summit, AOSIS argues that the Blue Economy (ocean-based economic life) needs as much attention as the Green Economy.

If these Small Island States are regarded as expendable collatoral damage it will be a loss for all of us. Their plight can be a catalyst for preventative action that would benefit everyone. Afterall, degraded ocean life and rising sea levels will affect most countries, not just the Small Island States.

The lifeline we need is preventative action, not migration quotas that try to deal with the mess.

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The Maldives plans to be the world's first carbon neutral nation by 2020. It has set a mandatory target to generate at least 60% of its electricity from solar power by 2020. The latest initiative, funded by Japan, will install 675kW of solar power at schools and other public facilities. Source: PowerEngineering.

Kitchen combat – culinary climate change

The thought of a dangerously warming planet with a population growing to 10 billion by 2100 has many people worried. How will we cope?

In his book, Climate Wars, Gwynne Dyer says,

The first and most important impact of climate change on human civilisation will be an acute and permanent crisis of food supply.

Eating regularly is a non-negotiable activity and countries that cannot feed their people are unlikely to be 'reasonable' about it.

People point to the 2011 Arab Spring as evidence that this is already happening.

This adds urgency and purpose to an examination of my own activities. What are my food habits? How do they contribute to climate change and global food prices?

As a food exporter, Australia will be one of the lucky countries, nevertheless food prices at home will be affected by global prices. 

A University of Chicago study found that carnivores generate an additional 1.5 tonnes of CO2 per year compared with vegetarians. I know that the world average carbon emissions are 6 tonnes per person per year and that this is too high. Saving of 1.5 tonnes will make a big impact on my personal goal of 5 tonnes.

Monica Merkes from La Trobe University observes that Australians eat more meat now than ten years ago (108.7 kg vs 111.8 kg pa) whereas American meat consumption is falling. 

Our household doesn't eat a lot of meat, but in January we decided to go vegetarian for a month. It was fun and interesting to make vegetables the centrepiece of every meal. In February, meat and fish returned to our dining table, but at a reduced level.

Then in April we learned that a friend has advanced cancer and he adopted an organic vegan diet as part of a plan to boost his immune system. We are providing him with an organic vegan meal every week.

Without the carbon footprint of dairy products, vegan diets have even lower carbon emissions than vegetarian diets. Organic foods avoid chemicals and pesticides, and they are usually grown locally so they have fewer carbon miles.

Where are we now in our household food consumption? I see that we're moving along a trajectory towards a diet with lower carbon emissions. We haven't arrived at a final place, but we're a long way from where we began.

For many people, Meatless Monday, is an easy first step towards healthy eating that also has a lower carbon footprint. Give it a try.

You could try this main meal dish that we ate last night.

Cauliflower Pasta

Cauliflower Pasta (serves 4)

1 onion
1/2 eggplant (or other vegetable, this is just what I had on hand)
Garlic (as much as you like, we like a lot)
1/2 cauliflower (or more or less, depends on size)
1 tin chopped tomatoes
Basil (or any combination of basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, sage)
400-500g short pasta
Olive oil (a good drizzle)
Grated cheese (parmesan or pizza mix, or anything you like)

1. Slice onion and garlic. Chop eggplant. Cook in frypan with a good drizzle of olive oil.
2. Add chopped cauliflower stalks.
3. After a few minutes add the tin of tomatoes and herbs. Cover and cook 10 minutes.
4. Chop the cauliflower in flowerets. Add to pan, cover and cook 10-15 minutes.
5. Cook pasta till al dente. That should take about 10 minutes, so it is ready about the same time as the cauliflower.
6. Serve and sprinkle with cheese. Garnish with olives, if you like.

This dish is nice if there is more cauliflower than pasta. It's not like pasta with a tomato-cauliflower sauce. Cauliflower is the hero of this dish!

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News of the day on the Transformations menu tab. 

Marine reserves. Australia announced the world's largest network of marine reserves that will ring the country and cover more than 3 million square kilometres of waters to protect reefs and marine life. The marine reserves will include key waters such as the Coral Sea and pygmy blue whale habitats off the southern coast of Western Australia. Source: Sydney Morning Herald.

Basketball feels the impact of climate change

I can't resist sharing Joe Romm's delight in the teams playing in the American NBA final where Heat comes up against Thunder. He calls it the First All-Weather NBA Final: Heat Vs. Thunder.

Given the poor track record of Florida, home of the Miami Heat, on addressing climate change it's hard to back Heat in this NBA final.

However, Romm notes that Oklahoma, home to Oklahoma City Thunder, has its own climatic ironies.

Insured losses due to thunderstorms and tornadoes in the U.S. in 2011 dollars. Data and image from Property Claims Service, Munich Re.

With climate change, no one's a winner.

UPDATE: Heat beat Thunder 4:1 in best of 7.

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A better lithium ion battery, Nanophosphate EXT, delivers 20 percent more power, works at temperatures as low as -30°C and as high as 60°C, and should be just as easy as current batteries to manufacture. It can be air-cooled, saving cost and weight. Source: Scientific American.

Wuthering Heights – love is not a rational activity

Our enduring love affair with oil means that pain and punishment don't diminish our affection for the beloved. Even catastrophes like the Gulf oil spill haven't dented our passionate dependency on oil.

It's hard to comprehend this kind of irrational behaviour. Science has its logical explanations, but no one has shone a better light on irrational love than Emily Bronte in Wuthering Heights where destructive forces are unleashed when Cathy and Heathcliffe can't be together. This kind of love is a force of nature not to be argued with. It makes absolute sense on an emotional level, and, after all, love is not a rational activity. 

It seems that we'll put up with a lot of abuse from oil and still keep loving it, but that is not the case with nuclear. When nuclear treats us badly, we're outa there! Japan closed 50 nuclear power stations after the Fukushima disaster. And half way around the world, Germany pulled the plug on its nuclear plants, closing eight immediately and phasing the remainder out by 2022.

Given the destructive force of carbon emissions, we better hope that our love affair with oil tapers off into a cooler and more pragmatic business relationship, similar to our feelings for nuclear.

If we think back, perhaps we can see some signs that this is happening. Cars have lost their place as fetish objects in popular culture. Increasingly, young people are choosing not to drive at all. In the US, the percentage of people younger than 35 without a driver’s license has risen to 26% in the past decade.

Our new fetish objects are mobile phones, ipods, ipads and e-books. They are all powered by electricity.

Perhaps we see emerging signs of love for renewables in growing affection for solar power, the teddy bear of renewables, and appreciation of wind generators for their majestic beauty.

Let's hope this early affection flowers into full blown obsessive passion—a Cathy and Heathcliffe kind of love that let's nothing get in the way.

Kate Bush captured the wild irrationality of Cathy-and-Heathcliffe love in her song, Wuthering Heights. Check out this fabulous version by Hayley Westenra who can really sing!



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India takes up solar power. Karnataka Renewable Energy Development Ltd. (KREDL) has embarked upon a Public-Private-Partnersip project for a 1000 hectare solar park at Mannur village in Bijapur. KREDL has already commenced projects to generate 80 MW of solar power in Bijapur and Gulbarga districts, and is working on increasing solar power generation by 40 MW every year. 

Energy Slaves

You thought slavery was long gone? Well, not quite. When the energy used to sustain our lifestyles is converted to human power we find that the average American has 204 slaves, and even those egalitarian Australians have 130 each.

We don't notice our slaves and we sleep with easy consciences because our slaves are not human, they are 'energy slaves'—a term coined by American energy philosopher, Buckminster Fuller, in 1944.

The purpose behind the ‘energy slave’ concept is to understand how much human labour would be required to sustain a certain action, lifestyle, or culture in the absence of the highly concentrated fossil-­fuel energies available today.

For example, it would take 11 energy slaves peddling madly simply to power an ordinary toaster. In the absence of fossil fuels, the global economy in its entirety would need approximately 66 billion ‘energy slaves’ to sustain itself in its current form.

This makes us take a second look at our energy consumption and ask how sustainable it is. When coal, oil and gas are stranded assets, will human power replace some of the energy they produced for us? How well are we prepared for this? Will we cut back our overall energy consumption so we need less energy/fewer energy slaves, and will we have enough renewable energy in place so we don't have to default to human power for everything?

To illustrate energy slavery at work, the BBC program The Human Power Station powered a family home for a day entirely on bicycle power, using a rotating band of 100 cyclists to provide the energy.

Here is a wonderful 3-minute clip showing the mighty effort made by 80 cyclists to provide enough power while Dad took a shower.



The producers found that one of the biggest problems was feeding the cyclists. It appeared that you would use more energy feeding them than the energy they produced. Also, many of the cyclists were so exhausted that they were unable to walk for days.

If this was your household, you'd have a major incentive to use less power! Maybe you'd look at communities that live without electricity to find how they do it. Although the Amish use oil for tractors, they don't use electricity in their homes. Does our future hold a return to more human-powered work?

If you'd like to watch the whole The Human Power Station program (1 hour) it is here.



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In Europe, coal's share of electricity generation has declined from 39% to 26% over the past 20 years. Of the 120 coal fired power plants proposed in Europe in 2007, none have been brought to the construction stage. In 2011, clean energy accounted for 71% of the new electricity capacity in the European Union, while another 22% was natural gas-fired generation.  Source: Compass.

Climatology 101

In the strongly contested ground of climate science, don't fall for fake Climatology 101 written by lobbyists with connections to the mining industry. 

When the Australian scientist Ian Plimer, a geology professor and mineralogist with no background in climate science, wrote a general interest book, How to get expelled from school: a guide to climate change for pupils, parents and punters (2011), he framed it around 101 questions as a reference to university courses like Climatology 101, in a effort to pretend that his work was university-standard .

Not so. Plimer's book is of dubious quality and full of inaccurate and misleading information based on false premises.

Teachers and scientists were outraged when a right wing lobby group (Institute for Public Affairs) arranged for free copies of the book to be sent to schools. In response, the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency has prepared a set of correct responses to the 101 questions in Plimer's book by drawing on climate scientists and science communicators from CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology, the University of Queensland and the University of Melbourne, who helped review the document and provide feedback.

They say,

Many of the questions and answers in Professor Plimer’s book are misleading and are based on inaccurate or selective interpretation of the science. The answers and comments provided in this document are intended to provide clear and accurate answers to Professor Plimer’s questions. The answers are based on up-to-date peer reviewed science, and have been reviewed by a number of Australian climate scientists.

You can download the excellent booklet, Accurate Answers to Professor Plimer's 101 Climate Questions, here and read a Crikey article about it, here.

With large and powerful vested interests eager to spread misinformation about climate change, readers will do well to follow the advice of teachers and use trusted sources of information— scientists whose work passes peer review.

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Hydrovolt power generators work in canals to generate 20MW power. Tens of thousands of miles of irrigation, flood management or transport canals can be tapped for hydrokinetic power using  Hydrovolt  generators.  Countries with extensive canals include the U.S., India, Pakistan, China, Australia and Brazil. Source: Grist.

After Pearl Harbour

Following my comments yesterday about the disparity between the catastrophic potential of climate change and the mild words and actions even of those who accept the science, I was interested to see David Spratt address the same topic,

After Pearl Harbor, the US government told Detroit to stop manufacturing automobiles for private use, and start building tanks and other war materiel. Automobile production was 162,000 in 1941 and zero in 1942. Tank production was <300 in 1940 and 25,000 by 1942.

When the US does act decisively on climate, the government will tell the private sector to stop burning coal and start getting power from renewables within one year, and they will do it because it feasible. The US can't solve the climate crisis unilaterally, so we will pay for China to go solar in exchange for shutting down its coal mines (the two nations control 40% of the worlds coal reserves), just as we couldn't win the war alone, and paid the Soviet Union to keep the second front open.

Our agenda must aim for that level of action, nothing short of it is sufficient, and the details will not be worked out beforehand. Our present agenda, focused on US domestic emissions and anything-is-better-than-nothing, has more in common with the pre-war policies of isolationism and appeasement.

Hear! Hear!

I read that the last time CO2 levels were as high as they are today was 15 million years ago. Global temperatures were 5-10°F higher than they are today, the sea level was about 75-120 feet higher than today, there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic and very little ice on Antarctica and Greenland.

The geological record suggests that the current acidification is potentially unparalleled in the last 300 million years of Earth history. Researchers say this is worse than during any of four of the major mass extinctions in history.

What is a proportional response to this situation? I don't think more bicycling and worm farms will do the job. As David McKay says,

If everyone does a little, only a little gets done.

David McKay, Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air

Just as the attack on Pearl Harbour brought a massive response, so it is inevitable that climate change will foster an all-out response at some point.

As individuals we can advocate for change and prepare ourselves by making adaptations ahead of the curve. See the Take Action tab above for things you can do.


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News of the day on the Transformations menu tab.

8 June 2012. Emirates Airlines' 2012 environmental report shows that in the year to March 31,  the Emirates fleet burned 22.5 percent less fuel (litres/passenger km) than the IATA global average as well as emitting 18 percent less fossil sourced carbon by the same metrics. Most of the advantage is due to having a younger, more fuel-efficient fleet. Source: Climate Spectator.

On our watch

A disaster is unfolding on our watch.

What is happening? Are the guards asleep on duty? Do they not believe their eyes? Are they afraid to call out? Are they shouting in the wrong language? Are we ignoring those that do call out? Are we confused because the leaders say it's bad, really bad, while doing nothing about it?

All of the above.

Many of us understand the calls, but we can't quite grasp the magnitude and urgency of the situation. We nod our heads and wait for our governments to show leadership. We're waiting to see what our fearless leaders do.

KC Golden urges us to stop waiting,

We need to stand tall – with both feet, whole hearts, and strong, explicit words – on the side of the truth.

KC Golden, Climate Solutions

In a similar vein, Kate Lovelady, Leader of the Ethical Society of St Louis, ruminates on the need to bring our carbon actions in line with our values when she asks what message she conveys when she flies to a conference instead of taking a train.  

Action is by far the most powerful communication.  Michelle Obama's White House vegetable garden replaces a thousand speeches about healthy food and active lifestyles.

So, how do we bring our words and actions in line with the real urgency of the situation?

Climate Solutions draws on this study to suggest that the tactical risks of talking explicitly about climate are overblown. Yes, it can be a “loser” as a “message,” but generally only when we talk like losers – when we internalize and reiterate our opponents’ bad frames. They find that focusing on climate is generally a “winner” when we:

• Invoke a strong sense of human agency and responsibility. We’re causing it. We should fix it.
• Foster engagement and efficacy. Futility is the enemy of responsibility, and it’s rampant in our political culture. But people remain hungry for solutions, and eager to participate. Pollyannish optimism? No. Can-do determination to build a better future? Definitely.
• Embed (don’t bury) climate in the challenge of freeing ourselves from fossil fuel dependence. Almost everyone at least suspects that fossil fuel dependence is a dead end, and feels victimized by the forces that perpetuate it. Climate solutions can free us!

KC Golden again,

• My primary point here is not:  “Talk more about climate because it’s not as bad of a message as you think.” My point is: Talk about climate because we must – because tackling it is a moral imperative, and we’ll never convince anyone of that if we keep dodging and weaving around it.

KC Golden, Climate Solutions

It's happening on OUR watch. We need to meet it head-on, hug the monster, and get on with the job of mobilising all our forces to head off catastrophe.

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8 June 2012. Amazon deforestation is at a record low. Data from Brazil's National Institute for Space Research shows that 6,418 sq km of Amazon forest was stripped in the 12 months before 31 July 2011 – the smallest area since annual measurements started in 1988. Since the peak deforestation year of 2004, the rates of clearance have fallen by almost 75%. Most (81%) of Brazil's original forest remains – one of the highest levels of any country. Source: The Guardian.