Hi Jennifer,
I thought some of your readers might find this interesting:
Those with an interest in the economics of mitigating climate change should take a look at this – recent work on impacts and economic costs by CSIRO and the Allens Consulting Group, commissioned by a roundtable of businesses including BP, Origin, Westpac and Visy, and the the Australian Conservation Foundation.
The media release here suggests that the work finds that emissions can be reduced in Australia while maintaining economic growth, and that any adverse economic impact of mitigating climate change will be worse if we delay action and try and implement quick solutions, instead of measured action starting early, and over a longer period.
http://www.acfonline.org.au/news.asp?news_id=755
Steve
And here’s a link to the report.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
A big plus with this report is it demonstrates that forestry will act as a carbon sink for Greenhouse gases. It also advocates the development of renewable biomass power to meet future electricity needs.
Harvesting residue from sawlog and pulp wood production would make an ideal source of biomass for power stations providing a renewable energy source to coal. With this report predicting that “forestry will thrive” its great news for timber folk.
It is about time the extremists of the green movement acknowledged the environmental credentials of sustainable timber harvesting, and how it is eco- friendly in combating greenhouse gases. The report sees a strong future for forestry and diversification of value to include carbon credits.
So a pretty good case for growing more trees,
to throw the cat at the pigeons, an extract from Henry Thornton in today’s Crikey:
We note that Henry’s writer Louis Hissink suggests that the whole shebang of climate change is exaggerated and misunderstood, arguing here* that it’s impossible to predict future climate states by computer modelling, and here** that the so-called consensus on climate change is a fallacy. He may be right that some methods are sloppy and causes may be in part natural, not all due to human activity, but Henry is with the worthies of Australian business in their call to action.
*http://www.henrythornton.com/article.asp?article_id=3901 4 March 2006
**http://www.henrythornton.com/article.asp?article_id=3840
Pinxi; both those articles are well written, particularly the last. However the arguments put forward could equally apply to both sides of the climate debate. Imho of course.
Here is another thought Pinxi; did Louis actually write either of them?
A business group seems to be trying to drag a sluggish federal government into the 21st century. Again.
The coalition’s token greenie, Environment Minister Ian Campbell, is too focussed upon saving an (that is one, a solitary, less than two) orange bellied parrot every 12 months by scrapping a major windfarm project (see the previous post to this one). Such an heroic effort on behalf of the said individual parrot leaves one too exhausted to come up with something useful. Like an extension to the mandatory renewable energy target, or some other effective method of stimulating the development of renewable energy technology.
Whether or not you believe in human induced greenhouse effects, the fact that so much of the world’s oil lies underneath the most politically unstable nations in the world would seem to be a reasonable economic-rationalist reason for diversifiying our energy sources. Sometimes I wonder if we wouldn’t be better served if a corporation really did run the country. At least a hard-nosed capitalist can think further ahead than the next election.
There is nothing in the Allens report that suggests that the current Australian Government position is fundamentally wrong. Developing countries have repeatedly said they are no going to put their economies in a energy straightjacket and the report acknowledges that all players, including India and China, need to contribute for there to be meaningful progress – and so has the Australian Government. On page 54 it is noted that it would be irrational for Australia to unilaterally introduce a substantial carbon price into the economy.
So, given that the modelling assumes a global situation that many would argue is simply not going to happen short of China and India being run by an ideological son of Chairman Mao, i.e developing companies reduce emissions at the same rate as industrialised countries (which are all assumed to reduce emission by 60% by 2050)(page 16), the report seems to back the Australia’s position.
There’s nothing to suggest the Aust govt position of make noise, do nothing is right. participate in a climate change forum that’s going nowhere, with the US and China who we can’t influence. subsidise fossil fuels, withdraw support from renewables, incur debt, miss opportunities to stimulate Austn ingenuity to develop renewable technologies with export opportunities. Wait for the next round of excuses, it will be about the economy being in recession with high debt, and falling commodity prices as Aust never climbed up the value chain. Meanwhile big corporations who donate to govt political party will be the main beneficiaries. their profits will increase regardless of other economic and social effects.
I note here with this report TJ finally wakes up from his long slumber in the comforting ashes of yet another logging coupe down south.
Sorry TJ there is more to forestry than clear fell and burn and some of us have been saying the net balance of wood must go up for a while now.
What we can’t do is burn all the trash or chip it all up for something like beer cartons to put on the party barbie afterwards.
However I may need another random length pak of T&G KDH tas oak flooring before I’m through with this great life.
Mind you now TJ; grow those saplings long and strong and no chop chip in-between. My new timber house in the future will be every body’s carbon sink.
Having said that; I expect there will be a return to the wood fuel energy cycle where it’s an affordable strategy. We probably did not do enough in exploring these possibilities with good engineering back in the post war boom in forest exploitation. But more importantly we lost considerable ground with finished webs and packaging in the rush to cheap plastics based on oil feed stock.
Bugga
great to see you understand the benefits of building with the best and only renewable resource being timber
But sorry to say it looks like you are not quite full bottle on what Tassie wood chips are used for and what makes wood chips.
Always happy to help you get up todate with the facts; our hard wood woodchips that are exported to Japan are used to produce high quality printing papers. I can also assure you that the wood resource that is processed to produce chips you would not want to have your T&G flooring cut from.
And the wood resource that is used to produce renewable energy you would not what to put through a chip mill. Charcoal and root don’t make good printing paper.
Careful there TJ; you had better first explain to these other folks here, how Japan got to know how we made hardwood paper.
In case you can’t remember TJ someone else probably can. You can also tell us when we could expect your union to see into that all happening again, down stream from an other pulp mill, fine printing paper. coated & treated papers, upstream, hardboards, waste wood energy etc.
http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/258.html
http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/247.html#991
Did you know we once made glassine in Burnie?
Log trucks grinding stuff out of the bush is just the easy bit.
How about we have a TCA expert in some of that other up market stuff?
I read the report and noted that Allens say that a carbon tax will provide a policy shock and that changes to the existing energy infrastructure will induce an economic shock. They also refer to the costs of “policy shock”
Of their financial modelling Allens advise “Finally, it should be noted that it is difficult to put our results into perspective because the analysis does not incorporate the economic benefits of avoiding climate change. It is difficult to assess whether the costs of taking significant global action are high or low unless they can be related to the benefits of the policy, that is the costs of not taking action. Until the scientists can provide us with credible estimates of these costs, the value of studies such as this is necessarily limited.”
Moving back to the real world, according to the draft of the “World Economic Outlook” the IMF report that high energy prices are exacerbating global economic imbalances, increasing the risks of a crisis and they say that “global current account imbalances are likely to remain at elevated levels for longer than would otherwise have been the case, heightening the risk of sudden disorderly adjustment”.
The world does not need more shocks.
Hi,
Nothing new here really – economic growth does suffer and the report makes the usual flawed assumptions:
(1) C02 drives climate change – extremely unlikely
(2) Man can predictably control the climate/temperature with just one factor – CO2 – impossible
(3) Global action on CO2 – unlikely
(4) Increased rate of technological progress – possible, but not guaranteed
(5) Increased energy conservation – possible but may be offset by increased demand
If the Earth hadn’t warmed up – then we would still be in the Little Ice Age (approx 1300-1850) that followed the Medieval Warm Period (approx 800-1200), neither of which were driven by CO2. Warming took place up to about 1940 (despite aerosols), then another cooling into the 1970’s (blamed on aerosols), and then another warming to present.
Gleissberg cycle minima (cosmic ray maxima), similar to 1645-1715 during the LIA are likely to occur again around 2030, 2122 and 2201.
Gleissberg maxima are due around 2069, 2159 and 2235.
There is an 80% probability that the next El Nino will emerge around July 2006 and last at least until May 2007.
Despite ‘global warming,’ and relatively mild winters, the UK has around 30,000 excess winter deaths each year.
I’ll be watching solar cycle 24 for signs of cooler times ahead, leading to the temperature mimimum of 2030.
Regards,
Paul Biggs
Some ammo for TJ on his way to the boss. Been a while since we turned a blacksmith poured white metal bearing from a super calendar stack.
http://www.pssma.com/index.php?id=32
Wonder who has been eating those fine boxed chocolates?
What’s left on the inside these days?
So for Paul – why has the world warmed since in the last 30 years ?
And on El Nino – a forecast is always good. More even better – but given we’re impatient, give us a hindcast theory with a few numbers for say 1970 till present, or 1900 till present.
Bqarty
Not sure if you are trying to devalue the benefits for growing trees to make paper or not, but just in case you don’t have a handle on the social and economic benefits of growing trees (plantations) the Bureau of Rural Sciences (BRS) and the Forest and Wood Products Research and Development Corporation have recently completed a two year research study on the socio-economic effects of plantation forestry development in Southern NSW and WA.
These findings have been pulled together into five reports and was released last November. May I suggest you have a read of these reports as you will find that the expansion in plantation forestry [including both hardwoods and softwoods] in these study regions led to an increase in skilled workers and improved skills training. Also there was significant job creation through investment in tree farms and the flow-on effects in direct jobs and increased support jobs.
I’m sure you will also be pleased to read that the flow-on benefits of the tree farm plantations produce between $1.63 and $1.83 for every dollar invested by tree farm plantations. Also very important is were plantation forestry expansion takes place at a steady rate over time, populations either do not decline in rural areas or that existing decline is slowed. In fact, where plantation forestry expansion occurs as part of a mix of land use changes, it can increase rural populations, especially where there are processing industries associated with the plantations.
These reports are very positive for Tassie especially in the North East and North West where there are major hard wood tree farm plantations growing to not just feed our soon to be built pulp mill but also rotary peel veneer. The BRS studies are at http://www.brs.gov.au (look under Recent Reports)
As important as plantations are for paper making and some building products they don
I live in 67074 Las Vegas, Nevada. Have you been here before?