To what extent can technology protect communities from climate extremes through early warning and disaster response strategies and by having appropriate building plans, codes and drainage infrastructure? Here’s a comment from Paul Williams who’s been thinking about the situation in South Australia:
“Scientists such as Tim Flannery, the CSIRO, our Premier Mr Rann and the editorial staff of the Advertiser all tell us that climate change is coming, and it’s all due to human emission of greenhouse gases.
Droughts will increase and sea levels will rise. Apparently the science is settled and the evidence is incontrovertible.
The response to this coming disaster is to call for lifestyle changes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The problem is that South Australia emits only 0.15% of global greenhouse emissions, and greenhouse emissions by other countries (and other Australian States), still affects the atmosphere and climate of South Australia. In other words, South Australian greenhouse emissions have no effect on global or South Australian climate, and reduction of greenhouse emissions by South Australians will not reduce the degree of climate change we must undergo.
Assuming Mr Rann is sincere in his desire to protect South Australia from the effects of climate change, it seems the only actions which will be of any practical use, as opposed to merely symbolic, will be engineering solutions.
For instance, if sea level is definitely going to rise by up to seven metres by 2100, why not begin construction of dykes to protect coastal infrastructure? After all, Holland has been doing that for hundreds of years.
Similarly, why not run computer simulations to study the effects of flooding the Lake Eyre basin with sea water? Computer models are apparently sophisticated enough to predict Australia’s rainfall and sea level changes for the next 100 years, so they should be adequate to assess any benefit from an inland sea.
If the science really is settled, then Mr Rann needs to take effective action, not simply enact legislation that plays well with the inner city environmentalists.”
It’s not just in South Australia that politicians are calling for emission reductions rather than proposing some more practical adaptive solutions.
Just yesterday Queensland Sunshine Coast independent MP, Peter Wellington, proposed a notice of motion calling on the Queensland Parliament to acknowledge climate change is a threat and take immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Come-on! There must be something more practical that Mr Wellington can propose for coastal Queensland assuming “the science is really settled” and we face catastrophic climate change and dramatic sea-level rise?
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Let me guess.
There will be some quite expensive publicly-funded construction projects behind this somewhat-contrarian response to a warmer climate.
Follow the money.
Schiller, this is a letter I wrote to the “Green Left Daily”, aka the Adelaide “Advertiser”. They didn’t print it.
The point it makes is that if the science is settled, as politicians, etc keep telling us, and while there is no evidence that humanity is going to reset the world’s thermostat by ceasing to emit greenhouse gases, then the politicians have a responsibility to propose practical measures to deal with climate change. In other words, a kind of “precautionary principle”.
The fact that they don’t propose any practical methods of adaptation makes me doubt that they really do think the science is “settled”.
The letter itself is simply a provocation, not a serious proposal.
If Mr Wellington is really serious, rather than just grand-standing, then perhaps he should propose the Queensland government over-ride local planning laws that continue to allow development on the Gold Coast strip, Mackay is another low-lying area, and Cairns.
How can you believe Al Gore and not seriously consider resettlement?
Hey, I don’t believe Al Gore, so I’m not going to make these kinds of proposals.
Jennifer: I suppose we can’t really help if this continues to be such a right wing blog and it continues to host all those out of step with the rest of the community in SA or QLD for that matter.
Paul; your attitude is hardly hidden in your rhetoric.
Mark my words: This is about winners and losers and you may follow the money if you like. A sustained two degree average rise in global temperatures will melt the ice and more than a few houses will go swimming in the briny.
How long have you got to go lifting sand at the edges?
Right wing or not Gavin, what do you propose the federal government do? Sign Kyoto and put Australia at a competitive disadvantage to China and the rest of Asia, while Adelaide drowns? Come on, what are some practical solutions?
Where have all the climate change skeptics gone?
My vote
(1) Keep going with AP6 (and it better be a serious attempt!)
(2) For Australia we really need to nail down the climate wetter/drier issues much better. Forget 2030 and 2070 – what about the drying trends we may have NOW – natural or not – I want to know. It’s our most important issue. The polar bears (sorry guys) will have to wait. This requires better science – like getting El Nino representation, polar vortex, aerosols and land feedbacks sorted. Support the science to make some major inroads for Australia on this issue.
(3) Get together with business and the UN to see if we can come up with a better carbon trading market than Kyoto. Make carbon an internationally tradeable commodity.
Paul/Jen,
I don’t like your logic. While the science may be settled, the politics clearly are not – your own skepticism should tell you that.
We are still in the process of building up political will for solutions.
TAking the big leap straight from skepticism of the science and resistance to any action, over to criticism of the lack of action, is not a meaningful line of argument, and hopefully my pointing it out will tell you something about how unconstructive your approach to the debate is.
You know well that Rann proposing to spend billions on building new dykes without any debate on this, or any political consensus (the closest thing to a political consensus at the moment is for the simple commitment to achieving a long term reduction target, which the Australian Govt wont do) would be a very high risk political manouvre.
Ditto in QLD – Wellington is trying to bring the political climate to a state where some constructive action can occur. At present, Beattie is resisting being brought into the States emissions trading scheme. There is plenty of trepidation about how to act and what policies to introduce.
Lastly, can we finally lose the argument that reducing Australia’s emissions wont make a difference? Its not clever, its a narrow-minded argument.
Global warming is a GLBAL challenge. We all need to participate. America is the biggest emitter, but if they reduced their emissions to zero tomorrow, we would still have a problem. Everyone needs to participate, and we can be either leaders, or followers, or not even in the race.
Kyoto was negotiated on the premise that developed nations need to take the lead because we have more money and much much higher emissions per capita, and less pressing social problems. Thats why countries such as china and india have no commitments in the first round. Primary school students should be able to comprehend the logic.
PS. There is no scientific consensus for a 7m sea level rise by 2100. not sure why your inflated the figures in your comment.
Paul,
Engineering solutions to projected rising sea levels will only become politically acceptable when sea levels acutally start to rise – if ever.
In the meantime, the South Australian Government, under Premier Mike Rann, can be creatively opportunistic about “no-cost” provisions. Here’s one.
On settlement, most of the more reliable country was quickly taken up. Uptake of marginal country was much slower. But as past Governments preferred not to be responsible for vast tracts of Crown land, a system of leases was devised to encourage uptake of land in marginal and remote areas.
One was called a Perpetual Lease. Where the rent was set in perpetuity, the land was saleable at market (with the Minister’s consent, a formality) and land resumed by the crown had to be compensated at market rates. These leases were regarded as good as freehold, and were valued accordingly.
After about 100 years, due to inflation, the rent revenue was not covering administration costs. The Government decided to get rid of Perpetual Leases by offering transfer to freehold tenure. Some areas, like mine, were excluded from this offer.
The current scheme is aimed at tidying up the remaining perpetual leases where the owners did not, or could not, take up past freehold offers. The government has announced that the Minister will no longer consent to transfer perpetual leases. They have to be freeholded first (Ministerial consent then not required). This has made them (mostly farm land) unsaleable and unmortgageable. Lease holders are now under huge pressure to protect their investments. For most, the current scheme is pretty fair, and the uptake rate is high. Under such pressure, you would expect this.
But for perpetual leases abutting coast, things are different. Along almost all of the SA Coast, the Crown owns the first 30 meters (33 yards) above median high tide mark. The Government has decided that it wants a minimum 50 meters above the actual high tide mark to become Crown Land. This can vary according to coastal processes, like sand dunes, low lying flats, etc. The Coast Protection Branch determines what “should” be surrendered to the Crown. Very rarely, if ever, does this Branch settle for the minimum 50 meters. Mostly it is much more, sometimes more than 1 km inland.
I objected to one proposal (demand) for 100m along a piece of coast, and was told by the head of the Coast Protection Branch (Robb Tucker, meeting at Ceduna SA in 2004) that the Branch had to ensure continued public coastal access in 100 years time, taking into account the sea level rises that would happen because of global warming. That coast was 30 meter high cliffs on a rising coast line.
The landowner has to agree to voluntarily surrender the land so determined, and also agree topay the suvey and fencing for the new boundary. With the sort of dog-leg proposed boundaries I have seen, both the survey and fencing costs can be disproportionate to the value of the land remaining for the landowner.
The negotiators keep emphasising that acceptance of this deal is voluntary. (The Crown is not obliged to compensate for land voluntarily surrendered). The Government cannot just resume these leases, or the land demanded, without paying market compensation.
For those who cannot “volunatarily” agree to the terms set for freeholding, and many cannot, the Government is giving no indication whether the policy of Ministerial consent will change in future. Leaving these people in stress and uncertainty and some in hardship.
Mike Rann’s green government is being creatively opportunistic about making “no-cost” provisions for rising sea levels.
Paul says that the lack of action by politicians in not applying a “precautionary principle” shows that the science is not settled. This is a misapplication of the logic of the precautionary principle. (Besides which, who claims the science is settled anyway?)
The precautionary principle (PP) guides decisions to address risks to environment and health in circumstances where scientific uncertainty exists over cause and effect. Under the PP, uncertainty mustn’t prevent ‘cost effective’ action if there are considerable risks, and particularly, where there is a threat of irreversible effects to the environment or human health. PP fits AGW fairly & squarely then.
If you want to debate the application of the PP to AGW, the only avenue open to yu then is the interpretation of ‘cost effective measures’…
That’s a corker of an issue! Setting the unknown costs of AGW effects aside for the moment, let’s take a straight-forward monetary assessment:
Let’s start by removing perverse subsidies (from activities that emit GHGs), let’s factor in efficiency savings/losses, account for ‘no regrets'(win-win) actions in, and include revenues and savings from technology innovations into the cost benefit analysis. You see, the US and Australian business cases on the ‘costs’ of Kyoto or similar looked at only that, the COSTS. They didn’t account for the savings and business opportunities. ABARE admitted this. They didn’t do a Cost-Benefit Analysis or a Risk Assessment, they only did a Cost-Analysis. Arguments about costs rely on a one-sided balance sheet and deny businesses and nations a range of new market opportunities.
Innovation drives economic growth so let’s create a fair (unsubsidisied, eg remove artificial barriers in energy and transport) as a starting point to allow businesses and markets do what they do best.
>> However, a deeper error is the naive view of the political process expressed above. Science should inform, but does NOT determine, political actions. If for eg, hypothetically speaking, the voters were predominately short-term focused, selfish, and biased against AGW action (due to concentrated industry influence exaggerating the costs and misleading public opinion, for eg) then it would be political suicide to implement strong actions to address AGW. If you proceeded regardless, you’d be replaced by a party who undid your actions. The most you could attempt would be to make weak first steps and start to influence public opinion.
(Steve: Jen is already aware of all this, being a proponent of public choice theory.)
Jennifer: On practical solutions I moved my five tomato plants into bigger pots today; about six or eight weeks earlier than last year because I know from experience they won’t survive this summer. The three varieties in my rotting old half barrel are bound to be quite sacrificial left out in the midday sun. I’m also starting this year with the smallest watering can as my new token to the downstream health of the Murrumbidgee. A token? I know it will evaporate any way stored as it is out in the distant hills over the years between big falls.
At other levels I campaign for smarter engineering that will help everyone. However since I started on this course way back we have lost a number of choices. Note too my ideas have changed quite a lot over that time. It’s the rate rather than the way we process resources that must change. Sure; that means some of us have to do with less. Our farmers are well down that track now. It’s our cities that are lagging. A few think we can continue to buy our way out of it.
Readers should also know my skyline today is very pale indeed. Is it dust or is it smoke blowing in these hot winds?
Who wants to become a volunteer fire fighter this week?
I’m OK Jack, I have offset my CO2 emissions with some tree planting.
God help me – with the exception of (3) – the UN ; don’t make me laugh – I agree with Luke.
I’m going to have a lie down…….
Ahh rog must have seen my private note about our local tree planters earlier.
rog; grab today’s article in the Australian, “Canberra to seize syllabus” Mate youlovit !
It’s in part about the difference between information such as we have here and “Knowledge”.
In this climate there is much more to a forest than a mere handful of young trees. Howz yer water there up hey
Some interesting reactions. Given the lack of evidence that the world is going to cease emitting GHGs and thus won’t reset the world’s thermostat to the right temperature (or have I misunderstood the reasons we are being urged to reduce emissions?), what are politicians to do?
Of course they won’t do anything practical, like building sea walls. The voters would want some actual evidence that a sea wall was needed.
Yet Al Gore tells us the science is settled, and we have only nine years to act. (Actually he says ten years, but he’s been saying that for about a year.) The Advertiser recently ran an article with the words “climate terror” in the headline, which was about the CSIRO report on future Australian climate. It was complete with a map of Adelaide showing the new shoreline, and a photoshopped picture of the airport after a 7 metre sea rise. Apparently we’ll still be using the same aircraft in 2070, but unfortunately the water rose too quickly to get them off the runway!
But we already have quite a bit of warming built into the system that we can’t avoid, don’t we Luke? If we’re facing rising sea levels, and can’t stop it by our own actions, and South Australians can’t because we produce a minute fraction of the world’s emissions, then surely our only choice is to adapt in some way.
I’m a bit surprised that some of the people here who seem most convinced that AGW is happening are reluctant to consider practical measures to adapt.
Of course my purpose in writing this letter to the Advertiser was not to make a serious proposal for a sea wall or anything else.
Paul: Jennifer lives in the right spot. By delaying decisions she can save herself some money and some bother for a while. Coastal dwellers don’t want to hear the climate message any more than their Governments wish to think about turning off coal fired power generators.
“I’m a bit surprised that some of the people here who seem most convinced that AGW is happening are reluctant to consider practical measures to adapt.”
Who are ‘they’ Paul?
Which practical measures are ‘they’ reluctant to consider?
Do any of the AGW proponents on this site believe that mitigation measures will work? Or should we consider adaptation as well? If so, what measures.
SA govt refers to the recent report from the CSIRO titled
“Climate change under enhanced greenhouse conditions in South Australia” http://www.climatechange.sa.gov.au/PDFs/SA_CMAR_Exec_Summary.pdf
Extracts as follows;
“For rainfall, large natural variability and differences between model simulations indicates that it will be difficult to detect an enhanced greenhouse signal in annual rainfall before 2050 in South Australia.”
“Among three South Australian stations, two coastal stations show a decreasing trend in pan evaporation, while an inland station shows an increasing trend.”
“Significant uncertainties remain in relation to the estimation of future climate. These can be reduced by:
• Developing climate change scenarios based on improved and much finer resolution GCMs and regional climate model simulations.
• Improving the ability of GCMs to simulate climatic processes that influence South Australia as well as the whole of Australia.
• Improving climate change scenarios using new statistical and dynamical down scaling methods.”
Thanks rog, and here’s how the Advertiser (and Mike Rann) responded.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,20490358-1246,00.html?from=public_rss
With graphics as outlined above.
My opinion, “Media Mike” is building his climate change credentials, so when the voters finally boot him out, he’ll have a ready made UN career.
Looking out to west from our house through the thickening smokehaze, listening to the Monaro team RFS crews reporting that the Tooma fire had jumped a containment line and crews are starting to be evacuated by helo, I reflected that one of the problems with bushfires this year was created with the Sepp 46 reg’s of a decade ago ie accumulating fuel levels because of changed land management.
Will decisions made today with passion in the blood regarding sea level change and increasing temperatures cause similar unseen consequences?
Every problem should be seen as an opportunity, right? so, I’m looking for some venture capital.
A 7 meter rise in sea level will put 3 meters of sea water in the Albert river, at the bottom of my paddock, with access to the open sea.
With that rise in sea level, all the mariners will be flooded.
Its got to be cheaper to build a marina on dry land.
So lets build a marina in my bottom paddock, & then just wait for the salt water, & the boats to come.
We could even offer a calking service, to make old queenslanders watertight, & float them up here, as the water rises.
Well make a killing.
I had better stop this, before I take myself, & some of this BS seriously.
“I’m a bit surprised that some of the people here who seem most convinced that AGW is happening are reluctant to consider practical measures to adapt.”
Don’t be a goose Paul. You don’t know who is reluctant and who isn’t. You’ve just set up a simple straw man and, in the hope that you have a point, are attacking it vigorously, while we watch.
You don’t have a point.
Why don’t you try arguing with a real person instead of your tatty straw man, and address the point i made above, namely that scientific consensus doesn’t imply political will.
In any case, you aren’t the first person to think about adaptation measures, so not sure why you are carrying on as though you are and nobody else has cottoned on.
There is a large and growing amount of work looking at adaptation, as well as mitigation. It is not an either/or, despite your efforts to portray it as such. Everyone who is sensible on this issue is looking at both mitigation and adaptation. The former is easier to grapple with though, especially as it does not rely on regional-scale modelling like the latter, which is subject to quite a bit of uncertainty.
Here is one link:
http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/impacts/index.html
Who knew that Australia has a national climate change adaptation programme?!
If you look at the key objectives, it includes things like building capacity, engaging stakeholders etc. This is lingo for building a political consensus about what to do.
I’m sure you can find sources of info on adaptation if you look.
If you are interested in tangible, industry driven adaptation measure that is already taking place, then phone up a few Australian ski resorts (probably o/s ones too) and ask them about their recent purchases of snow making machines, and plans for future purchases, and visit here: http://www.keepwintercool.org
Lovely Hasbeen, lovely! What ever side of the fence you sit on you surely got a chuckle out of Hasbeen’s post!
Maybe you could regard this as directly climate driven rather than policy driven adaptation:
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/2006/s1764241.htm
wait, there’s more!
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/2006/s1764240.htm
Steve, I’ll put you down for pro-AGW then. How do you assess the results of mitigation efforts so far? Happy to rely on them, or should we consider adaptation as well?
What adaptation measures do you think are reasonable? Coastal protection?
I’m not a mind reader, I can only go on what people write in response to a post on adaptation. So why not post what YOU think.
I agree there is no political will for adaptation measures. That’s pretty much the whole point of my letter to the Advertiser. Well done to you for picking that up.
Thanks for the links showing people will adapt to changing conditions. Who would have guessed?
Allan confirms my observation of extreme haze today. ‘Looking out to west from our house through the thickening smokehaze, listening to the Monaro team RFS crews reporting that the Tooma fire had jumped a containment line and crews are starting to be evacuated by helo’
It’s another sad drought situation Allan not accumulating fuel or a recent regulation as you may wish believe. Your question “Will decisions made today with passion in the blood regarding sea level change and increasing temperatures cause similar unseen consequences? needs to be answered but beware. On this blog you are either a right winger or a left winger. Roving round the center is scoreless play.
Allan; here is my question. How do bushfires start in these conditions under a cloudless sky?
But let’s not get into an endless round of blame shifting like our bunch of pollies.
The fire at Tooma Dam was started by a campfire
which got away, the fire at Shannon’s Flat/Bredbo was started by the landholder clearing 600 ha by a prescribed burn, by himself.
Both made poor decisions.
As the senior deputy of a remote rural brigade I can assure you that what happens in Macquire St flows on to RFS HQ at Homebush Bay which flows onto district at Cooma which flows onto the Brigade as inane proceedure and paper work.
I can also tell you that there is as much available to burn east of the Monaro Hwy as burnt in the 2003 fires.
Thankfully we have the ‘Great Eastern Firebreak’
Note that I said that sep 46 was one of the problems.
Land management is a many-faceted discipline with lots of people offering their opinion.
Paul – something you could do for cyclone prone areas is recalculate areas affected by storm surge from more intense cyclones (some of this has been done already) and simply not build on in these areas anything that you not prepared to have inundated. Don’t locate major infrastructure on the beachfront – Cairns hospital? The cyclone strength of new buildings could be upgraded at minimal cost.
With new housing infrastructure in general – much more emphasis on passive solar design – orientation on the block, verandahs, air-flow systems, insulation. Active solar in terms of hot water and maybe solar panels to put power back into the home or grid (current cost effectiveness?) And water efficiency for the home built in – tanks, water saving devices and in soem areas “grey water” for gardens (not for everyone and everywhere). And for when you may need to escape from extremes much more efficient small air-conditioning plant to cool a retreat in the house – but hopefully most of the time you wouldn’t need it. All these things will help somewhat prepare for a world with more extremes where water and energy become more expensive. In any case you should save lots of money in the long run. Give McMansions – Tuscany style the boot ! We need Cobar chique !
Get a useful improvement in weather, intra-seasonal and seasonal forecasting and teach agriculture how to roll with the punches and be more tactically nimble. (when to spray, when to plant, when to irrigate). And at the strategic level – how much to plant, how much hedging on the markets to do, how to invest off-farm and off-agriculture, and for grazing properties – an assessment of what is a reasonable living area – how much property do you need in a warmer world?
Set a national research goal to double water use efficiency. Megalitres per tonne of produce. Toss state boundaries on water issues.
Review the tax system – tax year (move to Xmas?, or have a boundary that’s more industry activity sympathetic) and relook at income equalisation schemes.
Many of these things would be no regrets type decisions and apply to the future points of investment.
Farmers ‘demoralised’ by drought!
We should also ponder strongly what our farmers are now asking us. Class actions have been mentioned before on this hallowed blog – but not like below: Strange bedfellows these times may bring.
So what does the protective big end of town say to these people. And I invite the contrarians to tell a School of Arts town hall meeting – oh well the world have seen lots of climate changes in geological time. You can all just get used to it.
Anyway – a bit of emotion from me there – do we know this drought is a climate change drought – of course not definitively. But there’s an awful lot of “sus” things going on. If it was a horse race you wouldn’t be betting on it.
We now beyond tactical drought decisions into pondering long term structural issues.
And how’s the weather in the Americas I wonder?
Anyway clip says:
“The president of the Victorian Farmers Federation Grains Group says farmers are demoralised by the drought.
Ian Hastings grows grain near Ouyen, in north-west Victoria, on a farm established by his great-grandfather a century ago.
He says farmers would like to know whether global warming is responsible for the lack of rain.
“We need to know a whole lot more about climate change and what the actual effects of climate change are,” he said.
“I mean I made a light-hearted statement last week that if this current, what I would call cycle of dry years is in fact something to do with climate change, well let’s hurry up and prove it.
“Because I, as a farmer, would love to get a class action up against the governments that have not taken action in the past to stop climate change occurring.”
He says the drought comes after seven years of very tough times and farmers have no financial reserves left.
“It really is rather horrendous and… the decisions we are faced with are very difficult,” he said.
“Should we be moving our young people out, should we be closing the farm down?
“Is it, on the other hand, an opportunity to go and borrow further money and try and expand because others are facing the same kind of difficulties?
“It’s a very, very difficult situation.”
The full interview with Ian Hastings can be heard on The National Interest on ABC Radio National at 12:00pm AEST on Sunday.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200610/s1764757.htm
Luke, I think a lot of these things, (referring to your 9.26am comment) do happen anyway, without government intervention.
Water and energy efficiency will improve as surely as night follows day if there is a rise in price. The role of government policy should be to allow the price of these commodities to be truly discerned by the market.
Cognitive dissonance quickly reaches crisis point when one contemplates the role of governments in “efficiency” and “flexibility”!
Nevil Shute, the novelist, wrote an interesting story on the comparison between government and private industry. He worked, in the 1920s, on the construction of an airship, the R100, by private interests. There was a parallel enterprise by the Royal Navy, the R101.
As he tells it, the private company worked on a tight budget, had to improvise, experiment and change plans repeatedly. However the R100 was a successful airship.
The government run R101 was well funded, but dogged by bureaucrat inflexibility and the need to protect reputations and careers. The R101 crashed, with loss of life, on its maiden voyage.
http://uk.geocities.com/deko476/R100_R101.htm
I can see parallels to current climate science.
On it goes, the failure by State Govts to meet the needs of a growing urban population by providing sufficient water infrastructure could result in the acquisition of farmers water.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20578371-601,00.html
Allan: Thanks for your input on paper work surrounding bushfires.
For what its worth I reckoned it was time to quit hazard reduction burns in our region weeks ago however I said to the local authorities I expected fuel reduction burning programs to increase over coming years. My views have changed since the Nain inquiry where it was blatantly obvious crews acting over the ACT boarder were handicapped by regional HQ policies on a day by day basis. Action long after the initial ignitions was hopeless.
Back burning is always a contentious issue with me especially in wild weather like we have this morning. That means total fire bans and hit each flare with everything you have got. Fall back positions have to be last season’s burns not fresh fire fronts. That’s my idealism. Reality is every crew must judge their own situation as they find it on the run.
Good luck and be carefull.
Imagine the year 2070 and the dikes standing uselessly like the Maginot line.
If we’re to adopt the precautionary principle in public policy, maybe we should adopt it to ameliorate the effects of public spending for illusory or half-baked notions.
As the Principle states,
“Where an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.”
Cite: http://www.gdrc.org/u-gov/precaution-3.html
So we’re looking at devastating coastal environments with public works, such as dikes, and diverting wealth that could be used to improve human health/welfare in order to build them, all of which will have unforeseeable consequences.
Therefore, the precautionary principle requres that we hold off on dike-building and similar things, pending further investigation and review.
Hehe. What a ridiculous precept. It’s useless in any circumstance.
Hi All,
After a sojourn in Thailand I am now in Oz for the first time in some years and about to drive through Victoria and southern NSW in a loop back to Adelaide over the next couple of weeks. I am looking forward to seeing what the country looks like after this dry winter.
On the issue of proactive planning for sea level rise, I admit to being a little confused. I thought the total rise between now and 2100 was expected to be about 1-1.5m, not 7?
While I agree that the Precautionary Principle should be applied in relation to any situation where human activities create environmental impacts, I am not so sure how it could be done in this case where there is no general agreement on the scale of the impact, the timeline, or even whether it is occurring at all (why I am led to believe there are some who deny there is global warming!!!).
There would be some value in looking at the issue in terms of which are the most vulnerable bits of coastline i.e. low lying and determinig what might happen there if sea level rises in the near future by just a few centimetres. Interestingly, many low lying, coastal areas are shallow offshore and are accreting because sediment is being moved to the coast and along the coast. So the general trend in many of these areas is for the level of the land to rise as the coast progrades. Other areas are eroding, and are typically the steeper shorelines.
I do think there could be some value in looking at the impact of potential sea level rise scenarios upon some tracts of coastline, but the first thing our politicians should do is to fund some of the research required to determine the current dynamics of those tracts of coastline. That will have a favourable outcome even if there is no sea level rise as it will provide the basis for better coastal planning decisions.
Schiller,
The dykes could be named “Rann’s Folly”, and would serve an uncalculable public good by reminding people of the dangers of allowing governments to actually do anything. (Note to Steve; I’m pretty sure that was a strawman right there. Why not go ahead and take a swing at him?)
Alternatively, the land could be flooded BEHIND the dyke, to restore the ancient Adelaide wetlands.
Welcome to Australia, Russell. If you check out the real estate prices along the Adelaide shoreline, you will see that investors are not worried about rising sea levels. Have a nice time in SA, and check out the Adelaide Hills, absolutely gorgeous!
Myself I’d be going the storm surge calculations before sea level rise – sea level rise is longer term issue but needs to be factored in very long range planning.
The worry with sea level rise is that Greenland or Antarctic ice would melt/collapse/move faster than we have anticipated. How likely is that? From Sep 2006 Nature
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7109/full/443277a.html
Climate change: Greenland’s ice on the scales
Tavi Murray1
Satellite measurements of changes in Earth’s gravity field reveal ice loss from Greenland’s ice sheet. Over the past four years, this melt has contributed to global sea-level rise at an accelerating rate.
The volume of the ice sheet that covers most of Greenland is so large that, were it to melt completely, sea levels across the world would rise by about 7 metres. Furthermore, an increase in its delivery of fresh water to the oceans could weaken or disrupt the ‘thermohaline’ circulation of oceanic salt water1, profoundly altering the climate of the Northern Hemisphere.
Such doomsday scenarios are well rehearsed, but — expressed in this way — not necessarily accurate. If cold areas such as the centre of Greenland warm up, it might actually snow more. That would, in turn, thicken the ice sheet and remove water from the global oceans. The very different densities of snow, ice and water mean that measuring the volume of the Greenland ice sheet does not provide the complete answer as to whether it is growing or shrinking. The ideal method is to measure how the mass of the ice sheet is changing with time.
In two complementary studies, Velicogna and Wahr (on page 329 of this issue)2 and Chen et al. (published online in Science)3 do just that. They show that the Greenland ice sheet lost between 192 million and 258 million tonnes of ice each year between April 2002 and April 2006 (equivalent to a volume of 212–284 km3). This rate of ice loss is equivalent to a rise in sea level of 0.50 plus/minus .1 mm yr-1, which is higher than many previous estimates. Both studies also show that the rate at which ice was being lost increased dramatically in the course of the study: the loss rate in the period 2004–06 was 2.5 times higher than that between 2002 and 2004 (ref. 2).. .. ..
It is clear that there is much we don’t understand about the current response of the Greenland ice sheet. Records over short periods have to be treated with caution, and we cannot be certain that changes represent a profound alteration in the behaviour of the sheet. But several independent sources now confirm overall mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet, together with unexpected and rapidly changing behaviour. Uncertainties remain, but the GRACE results provide one of the best estimates of overall mass balance of the ice sheet.
They do not, however, reveal the detailed pattern, at least not yet. It is vital that we use a variety of instruments and techniques to make continued observations of the ice sheet’s response, and complement these with studies aimed at understanding the processes that are driving the observed changes. Such a programme will allow us to improve our predictive models of the Greenland ice sheet, and assess the timing and extent of its future contribution to sea-level rise.
Yes but…
increase sea levels could place more weight on sea bed causing land to rise lowering relative sea levels…
increased warming would lead to increased evaporation dropping sea levels…
Pity it rains.
Personally I reckon flooding Lake Eyre would be more fun than a lousy sea wall. Think of all that new beach front property!
Luke writes on Greenland ice melt and its potential: “Such doomsday scenarios are well rehearsed, but — expressed in this way — not necessarily accurate. If cold areas such as the centre of Greenland warm up, it might actually snow more. That would, in turn, thicken the ice sheet and remove water from the global oceans. The very different densities of snow, ice and water mean that measuring the volume of the Greenland ice sheet does not provide the complete answer as to whether it is growing or shrinking. The ideal method is to measure how the mass of the ice sheet is changing with time”
If the global surface average temperature rises two degrees the whole damn lot will slide under soon enough. The rate of free ice melting everywhere is the only question given the rate of warming overall. If hot spots like SE Australia are a true indication of all yet to come then we are indeed round the corner on the hockey stick and past rates of anything don’t apply any more. Looking backwards gives only false impressions of what can come on our way to the next peak. Extra heat is currently being soaked up in core ice and the sea. Rapid change in melt rates at any junction is the key.
If I recall correctly Paul, sometime during the 1950’s (about the time there were nuclear tests in Oz), some in government and the CSIRO were proposing the use of nuclear devices to blast a channel from the sea into the Lake Eyre Basin. Their rationale was that the creation of an inland sea once again would substantially alter the local climate and provide much higher (and more reliable) rainfall leading to the production of vast areas of high value farmland and also open up large new areas suitable for urban settlement.
For those who think flooding Lake Eyre might help the climate as well as provide beach frontage.
http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/downloads.aspx?file=7873544F7372482F626E66715171744C504B4E69464430704C323332757850313252537852437742677A4C43394E6D3273392F61527744715835584A6C6D4146
Well maybe it wouldn’t work, but at least we’d be doing something.
“but at least we’d be doing something”!!??!?!
heh heh heh, good one.
Schiller, I agree with much of what you say, but I wonder at what point the risk/cost/benefit of doing nothing about a possible problem are outweighed by the risk of not doing something/ a lot.
You have asked before I think about solutions vs adaptations. Since it appears obvious that we will not know if the AGW proponents are actually right for quite some time…by which time it may be too late….it seems foolish not to be weighing up the risks, costs and potential benefits of actually treating it as a genuine problem.
I am all for spending money helping get access to clean water in the third world and trying to solve poverty,AIDS etc, but it does seem prudent to be trying to find some solutions or adaptations to the potential problems of climate change.
I guess what I am saying is that at some point the risk has to warrant some sort of action which means at some point the ‘precautionary principle’ has to become valid.
The current IPCC projections are a sea level rise of 0.1m to 0.9m this century. Media reports suggest that the next IPCC report will reduce this to 0.09m to 0.43m. As sea level rise has been about 2mm per year for 150 years and melting artic icecaps would add 0.5mm a year, the reduction seems emminently sensible.
The Queensland coast doesn’t seem at much more risk anytime soon.
I keep suggesting that we improve habitat by removing weeds and ferals, link habitat strategically, restore rivers and riparian areas and get the fire regime right. This provides an adaptation strategy that seems more important than building dykes anytime soon – as well as improved ecological outcomes.