Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for August 2005

Saving the Planet Starts with The Sustainables?

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The Victorian government has endorsed the activites of a family called the Sustainables. This family has identified 10 things that we can all do to save the planet. They are:

1. Take a four minute power shower

2. Take reusable bags with you when you go shopping

3. Turn off lights and appliances at the switch when not in use

4. Sign up to Green Power with your electricity supplier

5. Buy the most energy and water efficient appliances you can afford

6. Put your food or plant scraps in the compost or worm farm

7. Look for products without unnecessary packaging

8. Walk, cycle or use public transport when you can � and leave the car at home

9. Grow plants native to your area in your garden

10. Go green when you clean.

For more information see http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/thesustainables/who.htm .

I wonder what would be achieve for the environment if every Melbournian subscribed to these activities? Would the planet really be saved?

My list is a bit different.

On Politics (Part 3)

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This follows my earlier two postings ‘on politics’ including the proposition that the left think the right are evil:

“The truth is not as simple as the question are people good or bad, as we so often put it. It is not as easy as Hobbes or Rousseau, because Hobbes and Rousseau are both wrong about the essential, inescapable fact of human nature.

Namely, that humans are animals, pure and simple. We are not good. We are not evil. We are not angels or demons. As much as we may try to deny it, we are very much a part of this world.

We are the product of evolution, and evolution bequeathed to us a system that is damnably hard to improve upon. If we find the world today is not to our liking, perhaps it would do us well to examine those cultural systems that evolution gave us, that worked for us so well for millions of years.

I refuse to believe that striking bit of irrationality that of all the animals in the world, humans are unique twice–the only fallen animal, and the most exalted one. Our mythology talks of “the fall,” and makes us the worst of all animals. Or we can focus on our superior soul or intellect, and laud ourselves as the best. Neither is true, but those myths serve a purpose.”

… from a blog here http://anthropik.com/2005/04/the-state-of-nature/
by Jason Godesky and titled ‘The State of Nature”.

Drinking Sewage – Request for More Information

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Toowomba is Ausralia’s largest inland regional city situated at the headwaters of the Murray Darling Basin. The population in the ‘Greater Toowoomba Region’ is 135,000 and expected to grow.

The Mayor of the city has committed to an ambitious waste water recycling program.

Some local irrigators are up-in-arms because they have been using the waste water to water their lucerne and other crops for about 60 years – and are going to lose access to this water.

Some local citizens are up-in-arms because they are being expected to drink “sewage” see, http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200508/s1443814.htm .

I am probably going to write this story up at some point in time and would be interested in information about other regional cities that are moving to recycle waste water – what it is costing, what it is delivering in terms of the social, economic and environmental impact and benefit?

More on Jared Diamond & ‘Collapse’

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“The fundamental flaw in Jared Diamond’s treatment of Easter Island is that he approaches the problems of its evolution and history with the zeal of an environmental campaigner, and not with the dispassionate detachment of a scientist. He is too much inclined to employ his historical reconstructions as a tool for the environmental agenda and subordinates much of his analysis to moralistic and preconceived intentions. ‘Collapse’ is perhaps the prime upshot of the amalgamation of environmental determinism and cultural pessimism in the social sciences.

“It epitomises a new and burgeoning doctrine expounded largely by
disillusioned left-wingers and former Marxist intellectuals. In place of the old creed of class warfare and socio-economic driving forces that used to explain every single development under the sun, environmental determinism essentially applies the same one-sided rigidity to historical events and societal evolution.”

…according to Benny Peiser in a piece titled ‘From Genocide to Ecocide: The Rape of Rapa Nui’ in Energy & Environment, 16:3&4 (2005), pp. 513-539. Read the complete paper here:

http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/EE%2016-34_Peiser.pdf .

And Roger Kalla has emailed me with a link to a multimedia exhibition based on Diamond’s book and commented that in a recent issue of Nature (vol :436 p778) under books and arts the exhibition is given a positive review by Philip Campbell who is the editor-in-chief of this respected Journal.

The link to the exhibition:
http://www.nhm.org/exhibitions/collapse

Adapting to Climate Change

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The question that I asked last Thursday (18th August) – might it get wetter as it gets warmer – was not answered.

There was comment made that this question can’t be answered. There was comment made that the question is irrelevant.

Phil Done has said he will do a summary of that long thread as it progressed the climate change argument/our understanding of the science of climate change, in particular by listing points of agreement. I look forward to this summary.

But I am also interested in moving beyond the detail of the argument about the science and the impact/potential impact of greenhouse gases on global temperatures and consider how we might/can adapt to climate change.

As part of the thread of the 18th August David Brewer provided a link to a talk given by Brian Tucker in October 1986 on the ABC radio program “Ockham’s Razor”. Tucker said:

“And finally there is an assumption that the total cost to society of such a drastic reduction of Greenhouse gas emissions, including social as well as economic consequences, will be less than the cost of adapting to any change in climate, for if it is not, then adaptation is the major sensible policy.”

As I see it adaptation must be a component of any policy, anyway.

Yet there seems to be so little real discussion about adaptation – including how much easier it might be for the developed as opposed to developing world to adapt.

What are the issues? What are the risks? How might we adapt?