Jennifer Marohasy

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New Dams to Be Built in Queensland

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A year ago I criticised the Queensland Government for not telling us how much water would be delivered by the then newly released infrastructure plan and the proposed $2.3 billion budget allocation [click here for that bog post].

A lot has happened over the last year. Government has changed its plan and yesterday the Premier provided estimates in terms of how much water the new options will deliver at the same time announcing that two new dams will definately be built, the Traveston and Wyalarong Dams.

Here are some extracts from one of the media releases:

“The new water projects for the Logan/Albert River and Mary River will be essential to fill the future gap of water supply need in south east Queensland, Premier Peter Beattie said today.

Mr Beattie said the current estimated water supply capacity in south east Queensland was 450,000 megalitres a year.

“Our goal is to reduce demand through water efficiency measures such as fixing leaky council pipes, reducing water pressure, and encouraging changes in consumption by homes, business and industry,” Mr Beattie said.

“However, even if we meet these water saving targets we expect our water use to grow to 750,000 megalitres a year by 2050.

“Therefore we need to fill the gap of approximately 300,000 megalitres.

“We expect investigations on desalination and our work on industrial recycling will deliver 110,000 megalitres per annum

“However these projects alone will not be enough.

“We need to build new water storages to meet the capacity needs of another 190,000 megalitres per annum.”

Mr Beattie said the four new water initiatives on the Logan/Albert River were expected to deliver an extra 42,000 megalitres into the system by the end of 2011.

He said the three stage process for the Traveston Dam would deliver up to an extra 150,000 megalitres per annum. The first stage of Traveston will deliver up to 70,000 megalitres per annum, the raising of Borumba Dam an extra 40,000 megalitres per annum and the completion of Traveston, if required, an extra 40,000 megalitres per annum.

“Dams are able to provide relatively large volumes of reliable water supplies in an economical way,” Mr Beattie said

“It is true that climate change has affected the reliability of rainfall to supply dams, however, that is why we are developing a water grid to connect our water storages throughout south east Queensland.”

“We can share supply between the dams and other water storages through an inter-connected set of pipelines and transfer mechanisms.

“That way if it rains in one part of the region but not in another we can move water around the region to meet demand in the highest areas of need.”

Now that’s interesting. Is the Premier suggesting that climate change is not now anticipated to affect the overall amount of water falling in south eastern Queensland, just how its distributed?

It is now proposed that the dam for the Logan/Albert River be built at Wyalarong. Following is a rainfall record for parts of this catchment put together about a year ago by Warwick Hughes.

wyalarongVer2.GIF

Not so many years ago a dam was to be built in central Queensland on the Fitzroy River. It was to be called the Nathan Dam. Construction was blocked when an action was taken by conservation groups in the federal court under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. It will be interesting to see whether or not the same fate befalls the proposed new dams for south eastern Queensland?

It’s Been Unusually Cold & Dry In Australia

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Last year it was hot in Australia and the Bureau of Meteorology cried implicated ‘global warming’ [1] .

This year it’s cold and the Bureau of Meteorology is also crying implicating ‘global warming’ [2].

This is how the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper interpreted what Grant Beard from the Bureau of Meteorology had to say:

“AUSTRALIA is in the grip of a nationwide cold snap – and paradoxically, it could be another result of global warming.

Last summer was the hottest on record. But last month many parts of Australia reported record or near-record cold nights. The average minimum temperature was 1.69 degrees below the long-term average, making it the second-coldest June since 1950.”

A reader of this blog John McLean recently emailed me:

The [Australian] April average mean temperature was the 2nd coldest since 1961, surpassed only by 1974 (5th coldest since 1950), The May average mean temperature was 4th coldest since 1961, surpassed by 1968, 2000 and 1979 (7th coldest since 1970), The June average mean temperature was 3rd coldest since 1961, surpassed by 1982 and 1971 (5th coldest since 1950).”

And here’s more comment emailed from another reader of this blog:

“June has been drier than usual in South Australia with some parts of the state experiencing the lowest rainfall on record. …Adelaide has had its third-driest June on record.

The latest figures collated by the Bureau of Meteorology show Tasmania has recorded one of the driest months of June ever. … “Launceston Airport in particular has record its lowest rainfall total for June on record,” he said.

“Just 24 hours after its coldest day on record, Perth has recorded its driest start to winter. Perth has not recorded one drop of rain in the past 18 days, making it the driest start to winter since records began in the 1880s.

…”It’s also the driest start to the year to date in history as well,” he said.”

But hey, its raining in India:

“Mumbai commuters wade knee-deep as monsoon rains lash city. Commuters in India’s financial hub Mumbai waded knee-deep through water to reach their offices as torrential monsoon rains disrupted rail and air links and forced schools to close.

Municipal workers used shovels to clear clogged drains in the western city of 18 million people that has been pounded by heavy wind and rain since late Saturday.

“More than 40 domestic flights were cancelled and another 10 had to be diverted to other destinations,” a Government official said in New Delhi.

…The rains, which advance across the country from the southern tip, have stirred memories in Mumbai of last July when more than 400 people were killed by flash floods in the city.”

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[1] Click here for my blog post entitled ‘Last year: hottest on record’.
[2] Click here for the Sydney Morning Herald piece titled ‘Cold Spell’s Weird Cause’, 4th July.

This blog post was modified at about 5.30pm on 6th July following emails from several readers. As Dennis suggested in a comment earlier today, I was having some “fun” in the original post and at the expense of the Bureau of Meteorology.

Europe Cheats on Kyoto

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Emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are thought to be responsible for the elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide that are thought to be driving global warming. The Kyoto Protocol has been considered an important first step in reducing emissions with European nations agreeing to cap emissions under a trading scheme that kicked off in January last year.

But with Germany wanting to exempt coal (!) and the United Kingdom probably emitting about 92 percent more methane than it declares on top of the price tumble of late April, Kyoto doesn’t seem to be working.

This is how the Herald Tribune in a piece titled ‘Germany to Reduce Carbon Curbs’ reports Germany’s intentions to exempt coal:

“The conservative leader, Chancellor Angela Merkel, and her Social Democratic coalition partners agreed to cut the emissions limit by nearly 3.4 percent, but at the same time the cabinet has given an exemption to all new power plants, including coal, one of the worst industrial pollutants.

By allowing the power industry to opt out until 2022 before joining a program in which companies are given permits for emitting up to a certain amount of carbon dioxide and giving the permits free of charge, critics said the Merkel government was undermining EU efforts to combat climate change.”

Surely whoever is setting the rules for carbon trading in Europe won’t let the German’s get away with this?

A couple of weeks ago there was an article in New Scientist title ‘Kyoto promises are nothing but hot air’ in which Fred Pearce explained how Britain was not being honest with its emissions accounting:

“Under Kyoto, each government calculates how much carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide its country emits by adding together estimated emissions from individual sources. These so-called “bottom-up” estimates have long been accepted by atmospheric scientists, even though they have never been independently audited.

Now two teams that have monitored concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere say they have convincing evidence that the figures reported by many countries are wrong, especially for methane. Among the worst offenders are the UK, which may be emitting 92 per cent more methane than it declares under the Kyoto protocol, and France, which may be emitting 47 per cent more.”

It would seem the UK and Germany are treating Kyoto as something of a game in which it is OK to bend the rules and even cheat a bit?

But there are implications and not only for the environment. Robert Watts explained in an article title ‘Carbon Trading Leaves a Nasty Smell’ in the UK Telegraph last Sunday that Kyoto is costing hospitals:

“Open Europe’s report highlights the little-known fact that almost 150 schools, universities, military bases and even some prisons have also been obliged to sign up to the [carbon trading] scheme because they have a power station or boiler with a capacity of 20MW or more.

Whereas most private sector organisations have surpluses [of carbon credits], the opposite is true of organisations in the public sector. As a result, many hospitals, universities and army bases have been forced to buy carbon credits from businesses to meet their allocation targets.

Our tables show that, while some companies are making millions of pounds, a huge amount of taxpayers’ money is being spent buying carbon credits from the private sector. Open Europe estimates that this astonishing situation will cost the NHS [National Health System] about £1.3m a year between 2005 and 2008.”

While Kyoto hasn’t delivered much for hospitals or the environment in Europe, according to ABC Online Greenpeace is trying to force the concepts on South Australia and New South Wales.

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This is the second blog piece in which I have suggested Kyoto is turning into a game for cheats, click here for the piece written a month or so ago.

SourceWatch Needs Watching

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SourceWatch gives the impression it’s an honest organisation keeping an eye on individuals funded by industry involved in public relations and that “Unlike some other wikis, SourceWatch has a policy of strict referencing, and is overseen by a paid editor”.

It begins its entry about me, Jennifer Marohasy, by stating that:

“Dr Jennifer Marohasy is the Director of the Environment Unit at right-wing Australian think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. She is a climate change skeptic, denying that climate change is caused by greenhouse gas emissions.”

No, I’m just not sure that greenhouse gas emissions are the principal drivers of the current warming.

Sourcewatch goes on to use the following quotes from me to support the above proposition:

“DR JENNIFER MAROHASY: It’s ambiguous. It’s not clear that climate change is being driven by carbon dioxide levels. But let’s move beyond that argument and let’s start talking about how we can adapt to what will be a different climate in the future.” …

“DR JENNIFER MAROHASY: I actually think that it’s good if we can get beyond this debate of whether increase in carbon dioxide levels are driving more extreme climate events. I think that we need to move beyond that and accept and recognise that whether or not we can reduce carbon dioxide levels, there will be climate change.”

From the last quote it seem pretty clear that I believe there will be climate change. Yet they’ve categorized me as a climate change skeptic?

Interestingly they can’t get the link to my blog correct, this is the URL they use https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/Jennifer .

The link to my much quoted monograph titled ‘Myth & The Murray’ is also wrong. Why would they use the following URL
http://www.ipa.org.au/Speechesandsubmssns/jmwarrenspch.html ?

I’ve given a lot of talks over my career including to environment groups, but interesting they have chosen to highlight the only one ever sponsored by the United States Government and that was in about 1997 which is nearly 10 years ago.

I guess they are trying to give the impression that I’m a right wing propagandist?

Kyoto Won’t Help Poor People Much: Bjorn Lomborg

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It is often claimed by environmentalists that ‘stopping climate change’ is an obligation the world’s so-called rich and developed nations have to the poorer developing nations.

Thus the Kyoto protocol is all about ‘developed nations’ reducing carbon emissions, while countries like China and India are exempt.

If the Kyoto Protocol was really about the environment, then surely everyone would be expected to reduced emissions, particularly the really big emitters like China and India.

Yet according to Bjorn Lomborg, the Copenhagen Consensus, and Ambassadors from the United Nations, combating climate change through the Kyoto Protocol is a poor investment for humanity.

Lomborg begins a recent opinion piece in The Observer titled ‘Climate Change Can Wait, World Health Can’t’ by making the point that combating climate change through the Kyoto Protocol has a social value of less than a dollar for each dollar spent.

He goes on to repeat the findings from the Copenhagen Consensus that:

“The economists found that spending $27bn on an HIV/Aids prevention programme would be the best possible investment for humanity. It would save more than 28 million lives within six years and have massive flow-on effects, including increased productivity.

Providing micronutrient-rich dietary supplements to the malnourished was their second-highest priority. More than half the world suffers from deficiencies of iron, iodine, zinc or vitamin A, so cheap solutions such as nutrient fortification have an exceptionally high ratio of benefits to costs.

Third on the list was trade liberalisation. Although this would require politically difficult decisions, it would be remarkably cheap and would benefit the entire world, not least the developing world. A staggering GDP increase of $2,400bn annually would accrue equally to developed and developing countries with free trade.”

I understand that neither the European Union nor the United States are showing any real commitment to trade liberalisation at this current final Doha Round of World Trade Organisation negotiations in Geneva.

Worrying About Mekong River Dolphins

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They’ve been described as the rabbits of the sea. I’m referring to minke whales.

How much money does Greenpeace spend sending boats to the Antarctic to ‘save’ them?

I’m more concerned about the species that are really threatened with extinction like the freshwater dolphins of Asia.

After posting earlier today on the baniji in China, I was sent a link to the Mekong Dolphin Conservation Project.

dolphin_out_of_water.jpg
[from the Mekong Dolphin Conservation Project website]

This project to save the Mekong River Dolphins appears to have been initiated by one dedicated PhD Student, Isabel Beasley.

I wonder how her budget compares to the Greenpeace budget for minke whales?

Where are our priorities?