Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Energy & Nuclear

Getting Rid of Cars

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“You’ve heard of warning labels on things like beer and cigarettes, but how about automobiles? Well believe it or not, a British Parliament member, Collin Challen, recently proposed placing warning labels on cars to inform consumers of their impact on, you guessed it, global warming. According to the UK Guardian, such warnings might include highlighting the auto’s contribution to sea level rise, increasing deaths, species extinctions, food and water shortages, and heightened regional conflicts and wars. These warnings would vary depending on the emissions from each vehicle, according to the British MP, with the worst gas-guzzlers carrying the most severe warnings…

“Marc Morano, editor of CFACT’s Climate Depot website, appeared on Fox News with Neil Cavuto yesterday to discuss the recent spike in oil and gas prices in the wake of instability in the Middle East.

“Cavuto asked why, instead of getting oil from Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi and other Middle East countries, America doesn’t drill for more oil domestically. Morano replied, ‘The Congressional Research Service just did a study of natural gas, coal, and oil. We have more than the entire world, we have more than China, Canada, and Saudi Arabia combined, but 83 percent of our lands are inaccessible for oil drilling. And we have the Interior Department held in contempt of court for not allowing more permitting out in the Gulf Coast.’

“Marc pointed out that many environmentalists view high gas prices as a good thing: ‘Many people, including the environmentalists, are getting exactly what they want right now, and it is a situation they helped create by locking up 83 percent of our oil…'”

“What would life be like without cars? Well for residents of Vauban, Germany, living without cars is a reality – as the town has now become a showcase for the latest utopian vision of suburban planners. In Vauban, there is no more parallel parking or squeezing your car into a garage bursting with lawn equipment and bicycles. That’s because over 80 percent of those living in Vauban have no cars.  Now city officials do give people the option of car ownership – if they don’t mind paying a $40,000 dollar permit fee…”

Via http://www.cfact.org/

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More about Vauban:
http://www.vauban.de/info/abstract.html

The Inevitable Triumph of Nuclear Power?

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“ANNA Bligh, the Queensland Premier, has backed calls for the Labor Party to review its policy on nuclear power

“The Queensland Premier has warned that renewable sources cannot meet the surging demand for baseload electricity…  according to The Australian.

PHIL Sawyer, friend, retired fisherman, foundation member of the Australian Environment Foundation and member of the ALP, explains why the ALP will vote for nuclear at the national conference next year:

“THE recent flurry of statements about nuclear energy from some  ALP politicians, including the PM, have ensured that the subject will be debated at next year’s national conference. The consequences of this  development are going to be considerable.

Not least, the work of  Parliament’s Climate Committee is now reduced to irrelevance. How can this Committee possibly come to any conclusion about a national carbon price regime before the ALP decides its energy policy?

Impossible.   It will be forced to defer its deliberations until the ALP conference finally decides the issue. Thus the chief vehicle of Green influence on the Government will be sidelined for a year, an interesting development  indeed.

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When Half the World Population…

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“ENVIRONMENTAL policy isn’t just about the environment, it’s also about people. And it isn’t just about a future nearly impossible to predict, it’s also about what is happening today. When half the world population today does not have access to reliable supply of energy, to talk of problems that may arise 50 or 100 years later and call for reducing consumption is a hard political sell. Green activists almost always forget this. Political leaders do so at their own peril.”

Mr. Mitra is director of the Liberty Institute, an independent think tank in New Delhi, and a columnist for WSJ.com.

The Political Solution to Australia’s Energy Dilemma: Open Letter to Greg Combet from Phil Sawyer

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The Hon Greg Combet  AM MP

Dear Greg, 

Recognising the important role that you will undoubtedly play in shaping our future energy policies, and mindful of the difficult situation that we, as a party, currently find ourselves in, I write to respectfully suggest that there is, under our noses, a politically adroit solution to our dilemma, a policy change that would not only solve the knotty problem of arriving at a credible climate response that doesn’t compromise our national development trajectory, but would also serve to recast our relations with the Greens at the same time. 

I would be very interested in your thoughts on the merits of my arguments, and especially in your judgement as to whether or not the left could be persuaded to support such a policy change.  I am also forwarding a copy of this letter to Don Farrell.
 
Briefly put, I wish to argue that our traditional opposition to nuclear energy has effectively blinded us to the significant advantages that would actually follow from a well managed change in policy, and that our politically expedient concord with the greens on this issue is coming at a very high cost, to the party, to the Government, and to the public interest, and that it needs an urgent rethink. 

I go on to make the case for the inclusion of nuclear energy in the currently bipartisan MRET scheme, a policy change that, when analysed for its political implications, shows that distinct advantages would accrue to us if we did so.

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Comment on ‘Solar’ by Ian McEwan

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IN his latest novel about climate change, award-winning novelist Ian McEwan[1] apparently took inspiration for his main character, Michael Beard, from the people he encountered at the 2007 Potsdam Nobel Laureate Symposium on climate change.   Not surprising Professor Beard is male and a Nobel Laureate, but interestingly also fat, comic, aging, a liar and scoundrel.  

At the beginning of the novel Beard is a global warming sceptic, but by the end he is lecturing on the need for fund managers to invest in his research on artificial photosynthesis as the new clean energy and solution to peak oil etcetera… 

“We have to replace that gasoline quickly for three compelling reasons. First, and simplest, the oil must run out. No one knows exactly when, but there’s a consensus that we’ll be at peak production at some point in the next five to fifteen years. After that, production will decline, while the demand for energy will go on rising as the world’s population expands and people strive for a better standard of living. Second, many oil-producing areas are politically unstable and we can no longer risk our levels of dependence. Third, and most crucially, burning fossil fuels, putting carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere, is steadily warming the planet”.

While the book has been praised and promoted by environment groups, including Friends of the Earth, and not received so well by US Republicans, there are various appeals in the story to classic liberal philosophy including in the following paragraph where Beard juxtaposes the grand plans for the world expounded by a group of climate activists sharing time together in the Arctic with their general inability to maintain order in a shared boot room …

“Everyone, all of us, individually facing oblivion, as a matter of course, and no one complaining much. As a species, not the best imaginable, but certainly the best, no, the most interesting there was. But what about the general disgrace that was the boot room? Evidently, a matter of human nature.  And how were we ever going to learn about that? Science of course was fine, and who knew, art was too, but perhaps self-knowledge was beside the point. Boot rooms needed good systems so that flawed creatures could use them properly. Leave nothing, Beard decided, to science or art, or idealism. Only good laws would save the boot room. And citizens who respected the law.”

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