Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 07/05/2008 1:00:20 PM PDT by Coffee200am
The climate change debate is often portrayed as a stark choice between two extremes. Do we try to save the economy or do we try to save the environment? Many in established industries argue vociferously that you need to protect the former to save the latter, or that if we act to protect our environment then we might end up killing the economy.
Ross Garnaut, in his much awaited draft report, seeks to turn that argument on its head: Australia has much to lose from even the mildest impacts of climate change. If we want to save our economy, then we need to save our environment first.
Let’s put aside, for the moment, the hand-wringing from vested interests about the potential impact of a carbon price and an emissions trading scheme. What happens if we do nothing? Here, Garnaut is unequivocal. His review group has conducted preliminary economic modelling on just the "measurable", unmitigated climate change for "middle of the road outcomes" on temperature and rainfall. The result: a 4.8 per cent cut in Australia’s projected GDP, a 5.4 per cent cut in projected household consumption, and a 7.8 per cent cut in real wages by 2100.
And this is only part of the story. "There are also conventional economic effects that are not currently measurable, the possibility of much larger costs from extreme outcomes, and costs that aren’t manifested through markets,” says Garnaut.
Agricultural production would be deeply impacted, in the Murray Darling Basin it could decline by 92 per cent by the end of the century. The Barrier Reef, Kakadu and other tourist assets could disappear much earlier. And, he notes, there would be dramatic and inestimable impacts on Australians' quality of life and lifestyle.
Garnaut says a full assessment of the economic impacts will be made in his "supplementary" draft report, due in late August, which will include modelling from Treasury and suggested emissions reduction targets and trajectories.
In this report, however, he makes several key recommendations. First, that the coverage of an ETS should be broad, that all permits should be auctioned, and that the money raised should go to: households, preferably in the form of efficiency measures (50 per cent); structural adjustment, including payments to trade exposed industries (30 per cent); and investment in new technology (20 per cent).
Because Australia has more to lose than any other developed country – Russia, quips Garnaut, is quite excited about the prospect of a three degree rise in temperature – it has an interest in encouraging the strongest feasible global effort.
Time is running out, says Garnaut. It would have been better to start the process years ago. "We will delude ourselves should we choose to take small actions that create an appearance of action, but which do not solve the problem," he says. "Such an approach would risk the integrity of our market economy and political processes to no good effect."
It will be interesting to see what the most vocal industry groups have to say in response. So far, we have seen little more than the expression of vested interests.
For instance, Brad Page, the CEO of the Energy Supply Association of Australia, was on the radio this morning claiming that energy generators needed to be protected from a scheme because they were the only ones in a position to invest in new energy technology. Pure hogwash. The flow into new and renewable technologies in places like California, where they have been smart enough to encourage such investment, is just extraordinary. In Australia, the renewable energy target attracted nearly $12 billion of investment before grinding to a halt when the Howard Government acceded to lobbying from the likes of the ESAA and decided to can the target.
And an extra thought. A recent report commissioned by Merrill Lynch into the global private banking industry found that more than a quarter of the world’s 10 million people who count as high net worth individuals and have some $US40 trillion to invest between them, wanted to invest in green technology. The figure for the second generation of these wealthy individuals was a staggering 80 per cent. No one is as keen to protect their wealth as the ultra rich.
But back to another point made by Page. He admitted that some generators are particularly vulnerable to a carbon price because they have huge debts. That’s because the financial engineers have geared them up to the eyeballs and structured them so they can take dividends now from future cash flows. That’s why they are in no position to invest in anything much at all. What the world needs is engineers who can make investments now to create a future dividend, the ones that will be appreciated by the next generation. Not the other way around.
Of course, not all generators find themselves in such a predicament. Origin Energy CEO Grant King says he wants an emission trading scheme. That’s because his company has been smart and has seen what’s coming. It has invested heavily in gas resources, which have much lower emissions than coal, and in renewables, particularly wind and geothermal. Not only does King want a carbon price, created by the issuing of permits and other constraints, he wants to ensure it is high enough to achieve the desired reduction in emissions. If heavy emitters such as coal are excluded, then there is no reductions scheme.
So at least some companies are prepared for the future. Garnaut agrees there will be winners and losers. But, he notes, there will be big winners. Everyone just needs to get used to the new economic formula. The economy and the environment will only thrive if carbon is taken out of the market. E=M-C.
One thing we have noticed by observing what has happened since various eggheads have been inventing new economic systems is that it is impossible to invent new economic systems that actually work outside textbooks.
This therom is nothing at all but BULL S$%^.
Why does the term, “follow the money” come to mind. Anyone without an agenda knows global warming is a farce. The latest scare is that all the ice in Greenland is going to melt by years end is a joke. One thing I am sure of, the MSM will not report on the wrong prediction.
They do. All the time. They don't editorialize the way they should, but the stories are there.
and then they’re explained away. No rise in global temperatures over the past 10 years? Oh, global warming comes back with a vengeance after 2015! Meanwhile, the anchor on Fox this afternoon, in segue between two stories, “As summers get hotter from year to year, we’ll need to....”
"As summers get hotter from year to year, we’ll need to....”
And the funny thing about that? Our local weather man (Ohio) just reported last night that we had the coolest July 4th since 1922 LOL
they really believe they’re going to convince us weather never happened before.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Just imagine if man could actually change climate, and if these climate-nazis jump in too soon to accelerate a GLOBAL COOLING that is already taking place . . . and usher in a new ice age!
I agree that Australia needs to change a lot of its environment, but not for any MMGW nonsense, but because it needs changing to give a better life to Australians.
The way to do this is to let nature work for your benefit, with some technological help. For example, depending on geology, Australia might be able to turn hundreds of square miles of its inland desert green.
How in the world? Sea water. In many places around the world, when brine sea water percolates through the ground, the salt is filtered, and the water table is fresh water.
Perhaps with a canal project, Australia could create an artificial “inland sea”, whose waters would in turn create an artificial aquifer that would stretch for perhaps hundreds of miles.
This fresh water aquifer would be easy to tap with ordinary wells and windmills, bringing fresh water to the surface.
After the canal was built, nature would do the rest.
Perfect project for 200 nukes.
Education for peaceful uses of nuclear explosives, University of Arizona Press.
The final gasp of university education programs for engineers, how to dig canals, build earthen dams, etc., before it all died out with the advent of the anti-nuclear movement.
Interesting read, if rather academic in presentation. I noted that one of their top suggested projects was the building of an earthen dam in southern Arizona. Many years later, because that dam was not built, there was a major flood with much damage to property.
Today, I can imagine a much more important reason to build an earthen dam.
“The biggest expulsion of radioactive material in the United States occurred July 16, 1979, at 5 a.m. on the Navajo Nation, less than 12 hours after President Carter had proposed plans to use more nuclear power and fossil fuels. On that morning, more than 1,100 tons of uranium mining wastes — tailings — gushed through a packed-mud dam near Church Rock, N.M. With the tailings, 100 million gallons of radioactive water gushed through the dam before the crack was repaired.
“By 8 a.m., radioactivity was monitored in Gallup, N.M., nearly 50 miles away. The contaminated river, the Rio Puerco, showed 7,000 times the allowable standard of radioactivity for drinking water below the broken dam shortly after the breach was repaired, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The few newspaper stories about the spill outside of the immediate area noted that the area was “sparsely populated” and that the spill “poses no immediate health hazard.”
Unfortunately, the long term story about this nuclear accident is that much of the radioactive material and toxic chemicals are in the watershed that eventually provides water for Phoenix. When the eventual flood happens, that contamination will pour into a dam lake, making a vast amount of water unusable.
Unless, perhaps, a nuclear explosive earthen dam is constructed to catch the flood waters.
Nobody else has come up with a better idea, and even the bad ideas are few and far between.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.