Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Demands for Moratorium on Organic Food

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“Right now, someone nearby is buying organic bean sprouts. It may be the last thing he ever does. Last week’s E. coli outbreak in Germany – potentially traced to an organic farm – was more deadly than the largest nuclear disaster of the last quarter-century.”

These are the claim in an article in the Washington Times. Are they true? Were the bean sprouts organic? The story continues…

“Indeed, in the past two years, two public safety stories have dominated global news headlines – an explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and a nuclear power plant meltdown in Japan. Yet in the recent German organic-food-disease outbreak, nearly twice as many people already have died as in the two other industrial disasters combined.

“In response to the oil spill, countries all over the world have stopped or curtailed deep-water oil drilling as new safety and environmental regulations are designed and implemented. And ground hasn’t been broken on any new nuclear power plant in Europe or the United States since news of the Japanese meltdown broke. Germany is developing plans to mothball its whole nuclear industry.

“Yet, 23 deaths and more than 1,000 hospitalizations caused by an industrial accident at an organic farm in northern Germany have caused no such newfound caution toward the expansion of that industry.”

The story continues here:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jun/8/dead-bodies-demand-organic-food-moratorium/

How Others Price Carbon

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The Australian Government asked the Productivity Commission to undertake a research study into effective carbon prices that result from emissions-reduction policies in Australia and other key economies.

Key findings include:

1. More than 1000 carbon policy measures were identified in the nine countries studied, ranging from (limited) emissions trading schemes to policies that support particular types of abatement technology. ◦As policies have been particularly targeted at electricity generation and road transport emissions, the Commission analysed major measures in these sectors.

2. While these disparate measures cannot be expressed as an equivalent single price on greenhouse gas emissions, all policies impose costs that someone must pay. The Commission has interpreted ‘effective’ carbon prices broadly to mean the cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions – the ‘price’ of abatement achieved by particular policies.

3. The Commission’s estimates essentially provide a snapshot of the current cost and cost effectiveness of major carbon policies. ◦The subsidy equivalent, abatement achieved and implicit abatement subsidy have been calculated for policies and aggregated by sector in each country.

4. As a proportion of GDP, Germany was found to have allocated more resources than other countries to abatement policies in the electricity generation sector, followed by the UK, with Australia, China and the US mid-range.

5. Estimates of abatement relative to counterfactual emissions in the electricity generation sector followed a similar ordering, with Germany significantly ahead, followed by the UK, then Australia, the US and China.

6. The estimated cost per unit of abatement achieved varied widely, both across programs within each country and in aggregate across countries. ◦Emissions trading schemes were found to be relatively cost effective, while policies encouraging small-scale renewable generation and biofuels have generated little abatement for substantially higher cost.

7. The relative cost effectiveness of price-based approaches is illustrated for Australia by stylised modelling that suggests that the abatement from existing policies for electricity could have been achieved at a fraction of the cost. ◦However, the estimates cannot be used to determine the appropriate starting price of a broadly-based carbon pricing scheme.

8. The estimated price effects of supply-side policies have generally been modest, other than for electricity in Germany and the UK. ◦Such price uplifts are of some relevance to assessing carbon leakage and competitiveness impacts, but are very preliminary and substantially more information would be required.

More here: http://pc.gov.au/projects/study/carbon-prices/report

Free-Flowing Estuary Vital to Healthy River System: Johnny Kahlbetzer

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Johnny Kahlbetzer
Johnny Kahlbetzer

“There is more to fixing the Murray-Darling Basin than fixating on the amount of fresh water coming downstream,” writes Johnny Kahlbetzer in today’s The Australian…

“I am a Murray-Darling Basin food and fibre producer, and I’m very aware of how much water our operations use. My company, Twynam Agricultural Group, also invests in research and develoment constantly to improve water-use efficiency so we can produce more food and fibre with less water.

“But the bottom line is that food and fibre production requires water, so on average there is less water flowing to the Murray Mouth, Coorong and Lower Lakes. Food and fibre producers don’t take all the water. In fact because of upstream storages there is more water on average in the Murray River during drought, including the recent drought, than there was historically…

Read more here:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/commentary/free-flowing-estuary-vital-to-healthy-river/story-e6frgd0x-1226070473687

World Environment Day: Time to Reflect on Barrages that Cripple Murray River Estuary

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“World Environment Day is a time to celebrate what has been achieved, but also to reflect on many seemingly insurmountable problems,” said Murray Darling food producer, Johnny Kahlbetzer.

“The Murray River is important to me,” said Mr Kahlbetzer, “And it is important for the Murray River that it has a healthy estuary.”

“Just as lakes and wetlands need freshwater, rivers need estuaries. The problems of the Murray are exacerbated by five barrages that now separate salt water close to the river mouth from fresh water in Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert. Built in the 1930s the barrages have crippled the Murray River estuary.”

“Freshwater needs to come down the River to trigger spawning of fish and flow out the Murray Mouth to take nutrients to creatures like the Goolwa cockle but saltwater is also required for the estuarine ecology.”

“The health of the Murray River and its estuary is dependent on more than the amount of water coming downstream,” said Mr Kahlbetzer.
“Yet in all the arguing about the new plan for the Murray Darling Basin there is no discussion about the Murray River estuary or the barrages.”

“I cannot see the logic in allocating thousands of more gigalitres of precious freshwater each year to these lakes,” said Mr Kahlbetzer, “when they have an estuarine history.”

“Evaporation from the Lower Lakes has been estimated at 1,300 GL each year. This is the equivalent of three Sydney Harbours of freshwater which is an enormous quantity of freshwater because the Lower Lakes are a vast shallow expanse of water not quite the size of Port Phillip Bay and maintained as an artificial freshwater system.”

Concerned about the current direction of water reform Mr Kahlbetzer has joined the group ‘Myth and the Murray’ to help get the Lower Lakes healthy and back the way they once were.
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This is the first media release from the Myth and the Murray Group.
Adverts have been placed in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald for World Environment Day on this issue sponsored by Mr Kahlbetzer. For more information visit the media page at www.mythandthemurray.org

About Myth and the Murray – Myth and the Murray is a group of Australians concerned about the health of the Murray Darling and in particular its estuary.

Australian Cattle Not Singled Out for Brutal Death

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I saw many buffalo, cattle and also deer, slaughtered in Indonesia during the 1970s. There was usually praying, the beast’s head was secured, and then a sharp knife used to saw through the neck. I write ‘saw’ because the neck is thick and as I watched it seemed to take time for the knife to get to the artery. Death as I watched always appeared slow and painful.

None of the incidences were as traumatic as the television footage on ABC TV Four Corners program on Monday night, but none of the animals I saw killed were stunned first.

I was exposed to these incidences because my father managed a cattle ranch and beasts were killed according to Halal custom for the many families who lived on the ranch. I also saw animals killed at local festivities, deer hunts and other events that typically involved the very public slaughter of a live animal.

The most bloody was probably a non-Moslem burial in animist Tana Toraja. I remember it as described at Wikipedia:

“Slaughtering tens of water buffalo and hundreds of pigs using a machete is the climax of the elaborate death feast, with dancing and music and young boys who catch spurting blood in long bamboo tubes.”

The way animals are killed in Indonesia has much to do with culture and tradition and it is not done in a way the RSPCA or most Australians would consider humane. Indeed it is brutal.

The reality is that despite protests from animal rights activists for many years, still only a tiny percentage of Indonesian abattoirs stun the beasts before killing them. And stunning is not going to happen at cultural festivals were witnessing live slaughter is a feature of the event.

In response to the Four Corners program the Australian government has suspended live export to Indonesia. In response, Sri Mukartini, the head of animal welfare at Indonesia’s agriculture ministry, has commented, “Animal welfare is a relatively new issue in Indonesia. We’re still developing regulations.”

The bottom line is that in Indonesia, Australian cattle aren’t singled out for a brutal death. Life and death is much more brutual for many people and many animals.

Banning live export will impact on our relationship with that country, deepening the cultural divide. And frozen meat from Australia is not going to replace live exports because meat is still sold warm in markets in Indonesia because not everyone has refrigeration.

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http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/05/31/australia’s-ban-cattle-exports-ri-‘political’.html

http://news.malaysia.msn.com/regional/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4889049

http://www.halalfoodguide.com.au/halal.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toraja

http://www.livecorp.com.au/SingleArticle/11-05-30/Response_to_ABC_TV_s_4_Corners_Program.aspx

http://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/Australia-stop-policing-live-abc-2537633490.html?x=0

The Carbon Tax: All Style no Substance?

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If the government was really serious about reducing carbon emissions it could just tax the coal industry to death.

Instead it plans to make us pay more for everything by introducing a carbon tax and then compensate us and everyone potentially disadvantaged. The concept has not caught on with the average Australian who is against it.

In an attempt to sway public opinion, Hollywood superstar, Cate Blanchett, is now appearing on television endorsing the tax.

Cate has a lot of style, but does her message have any substance? Have any readers of this blog seen the advert? What exactly is her message?