Footage returned to whaling activists

The Australian Federal Police has given back 70 hours of Animal Planet video footage confiscated when the Sea Shepherd’s Steve Irwin docked in Hobart in February.
The police action had been in response to Japan’s complaints to the Australian Government that the Steve Irwin was guilty of piracy on the high seas for blocking the actions of the whaling fleet.
A Sea Shepherd Australia spokesman said the videos had been returned and Animal Planet will be showing Whale Wars II in late May.
“There are no warrants or restraints on the ship or any of the crew,” he said. “No details are available on what the AFP is doing right now, but Captain Paul Watson is prepared to return to Australia to face any charges that may yet be laid. He is currently in North America trying to stop the annual slaughter of fur seals in the Canadian Arctic.”
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society noted on its website that Japan had resumed whale meat imports: “Norway and Iceland are unlawfully shipping Fin and Minke whale meat to Japan, and Japan is making illegal purchases of this meat. In response to this, other nations are saying nothing or sending mild letters of protest. Enforcement is non-existent. This is the first time since 1988 that whale meat has been traded.”
Japanese officials authorised the import of 5.6 tonnes of Minke whale from Norway, but tests showed the meat contained high levels of mercury. Officials said only cooked whale meat could be sold.
Meanwhile, Environment Minister Peter Garrett told the newly-formed Southern Ocean Non-Lethal Research Partnership (SORP) in Sydney last week it was necessary to develop a scientific approach “that doesn’t involve killing whales”.
SORP includes representatives from the International Whaling Commission, Argentina, Chile, France, Germany, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States.
Dr Natalie Kelly from the CSIRO presented the meeting with new data on Minke whale distribution in the Southern Ocean, after the first-ever Australian aerial whale survey in December.
“New equipment installed in our aircraft helps detect whales hidden by the ice, opening the way for a really comprehensive count of Minke whales in Antarctic waters,” she said.
Dr Nick Gales of the Australian Marine Mammal Centre said ship-based surveys in the Southern Ocean had found a decline in Minke whale populations over the past two decades. He said the Japanese whale hunt in the Southern Ocean mainly targeted Minke whales.

Mass-transit Mayhem

The recently-released PriceWaterhouseCoopers report, Cities of Opportunity, contains bad news for transport planners in Sydney.
The comprehensive analysis of 20 cities examined ease of doing business, tourism, community standards, infrastructure and green qualities. It rated Sydney overall as very good averaging fifth in the world and coming top in housing, entertainment and life expectancy. But the city came last in one indicator: transport and infrastructure.
Sydney Chamber of Commerce’s Patricia Forsythe says Sydney’s mass transit system is a major throttle. “All these other cities have been building infrastructure to support their communities, metro rail in particular,” she said. “We are so far behind. You can’t be way out in front in terms of sustainability, global readiness and yet come last in public transport if you want to send a message to the world that this is a great place in which to invest and live and do business.”
NSW Transport Minister David Campbell stated that the government was aware of the problem. “The government will bring on line next year the Epping to Chatswood rail link and there are also 600 rail carriages on order,” he said.
Greens Senator Scott Ludlam called for a senate inquiry into mass transit and major investment in the nation’s public transport.
“We are initiating an audit of all public transport in his country. Australia needs to clearly understand what public transport exists, what condition it’s in, where the gaps are, and what can be done to increase its usage in the community,” he said. “We are working to shift federal funding away from roads to public passenger transport which does not currently receive any federal funds, leaving this vital responsibility entirely to the states.”
Meanwhile Greens MP Lee Rhiannon has criticised the NSW Government’s recent passing of the Transport Administration Amendment (Metro Rail) Bill 2008 which establishes a separate Sydney Metro Authority to manage plans for a CBD metro.
Ms Rhiannon said the Bill was misguided, expensive and went against the worldwide trend to integrate transport management in cities. “Sydney needs a single transport co-ordination authority, not another separate agency going about its business in isolation,” she said. “The Greens support the extension of public transport, but this $4 billion CBD metro project is not the solution to Sydney’s transport crisis. The government could deliver a better outcome at a fraction of the price by extending the existing light rail service.”

Busting the myth of carbon capture

Last November the Rudd Government announced a $100 million Global Institute grant to speed up the development of carbon capture and storage technology, bringing its spending commitment to $150 million on this project.
But while energy policymakers worldwide agree carbon dioxide emissions need to be reduced drastically to prevent catastrophic climate change, some experts question the effectiveness of carbon capture and storage (CCS) to help with this problem. They also question whether it will be safe.
Phil Freedman of the Australian Conservation Foundation is among those calling for Australia to cut emissions by at least 30 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020. Freedman said he was open-minded about CCS, but that it was up to the coal industry, not the taxpayer, to prove that it works and is safe.
Greens Senator Catherine Milne said that, like storage of nuclear waste, the process posed an unknown danger to future generations, with the possibility that carbon storage reservoirs could eventually leak.
“CO2 reservoirs will need to be monitored into the far future,” Senator Milne said.
CO2 is toxic. Concentrations of 5 per cent are harmful to animals and people, causing dizziness and heart disease: the air normally contains less than 0.004 per cent.
The biggest source of CO2 emissions in Australia are coal-fired power stations. Australia has 24 major power stations that supply 80 per cent of our electricity, and burn more than 250,000 tonnes of coal daily. Burning a tonne of coal creates 1.5 tonnes of CO2, so every day an enormous volume is ejected into the atmosphere – 20 million cubic metres of gas, which has to be compressed into 200 megalitres of liquid, or about the capacity of 100 Olympic pools. 365 days a year. So far, the techniques for separating CO2 from the exhaust gas have only been tested in very small-scale pilot projects.
After capture and compression, the CO2 would be transferred to a storage area. Shipping the waste by rail or sea will be expensive as liquid CO2 needs to be stored in heavy pressure vessels. In some places CO2 pipelines may be suitable, but they are a largly unproven technology and need massive investment of capital and manpower.
There are concerns that an accident while transporting the waste could have serious consequences. Also there are few suitable sequestration sites in NSW, which is by far the biggest electricity generating state.
At the storage site the waste is forced through piping to an underground depth of 1 kilometre where it is apparantly expected to stay for ever as a stable liquid.
And it won’t be cheap; according to Dr Peter Cook of CO2/CRC, a carbon storage start-up company financed by Rudd’s federal money, the extra cost of capturing CO2 from a power station may range between $30 and $45 per MWh (megawatt hour) generated. This could effectively double generation costs, which are now at $35 per MWh.
Dr Mark Diesendorf, of the Centre for Energy Research and Policy Analysis at the University of NSW, says solar and wind technologies are the solution.
He said we have an ideal environment for solar electricity generation, which is safe and low-impact technology. Research worldwide is focusing on increasing energy yields per square metre, and costs are expected to fall rapidly once production plants come online. “We should be investing in solar. It is a reliable, non-polluting energy source,” Dr Diesendorf said. “Despite an excellent pre-election policy statement on renewable energy, there has been no investment in renewable energy research and development by this government.” he explained.

Minister Snubs Light Rail Again

Transport Minister John Watkins met with representatives of the public transport advocacy group EcoTransit on August 15 to discuss a proposal to extend the Sydney light rail system.

The Minister later said in a statement about the meeting that Eco Transit had presented a “number of interesting ideas to extend light rail services throughout Sydney”.

“I know many inner-west residents want the Dulwich Hill – Rozelle line to be integrated into Sydney’s public transport network because Balmain MP Verity Firth, Marrickville MP Carmel Tebbutt and Canterbury MP Linda Burney regularly discuss the community’s concerns with me,” Mr Watkins said. ”However as it is a freight corridor I will have to investigate whether it can be be excised from the Metropolitan Freight Network and retained in RailCorp’s control. “

EcoTransit’s Leah Mason, who met with the minister, said this was typical because transport planning was done in several different government departments, and the RTA and branches within RailCorp had conflicting claims on resources.

“The government definitely seems to have an ideological problem with light rail. There have been many studies done in the last decade, most showing its feasibility but the only project that has been built is the Central to Lilyfield section,” Mason said. “And this is going great – passenger patronage has doubled over the last year and the Metro company is very keen to extend the line to Dulwich Hill. I think the problem is with a government and a bureaucracy whose planning is done by people who don’t get out enough.”

In his statement, Watkins said that although this line seemed under-utilised at present, it might be needed as a possible rail haulage route to remove spoil from excavation works for the $12 billion North-West Metro. “Also the future of the rail corridor can’t be decided until the results of the $30 million West Metro Feasibility Study are in,” he said.

But Greens MP Lee Rhiannon believes light rail has few friends within the NSW government. “Former Roads Minister Carl Scully dubbed it ‘a pipe dream’ and Transport Minister John Watkins is on record as saying ‘it’s a bad answer for Sydney’. But higher oil prices are here to stay. Light rail is a far better investment for the future than roads,” she said.

In a statement last month Ms Rhiannon said the government had defeated by one vote a move to allow the release of documents that would reveal details of major road plans for Sydney. The Greens have been trying for a long time to get information on the planning of the M5 East, the Cross City Tunnel and the Lane Cove Tunnel.

“The community has not been informed by the government about any of the new plans that may concern them. Turning around the RTA once it’s committed to a road proposal is like trying to turn around a massive tanker without tugs,” Ms Rhiannon said. “Given the failure of recent large scale road projects the public is right to ask to know more. Documents should be made public so the community can decide whether Sydney’s motorway plans make sense.”

China – 08080808 – is it the new world? Critics say NO!

Olympics make a potent brew of sport, money, entertainment, politics, strategic alliances and geopolitics. When a country hosts the Olympic games they are under the intense scrutiny of the media. Recent Olympics have been held in Athens, Sydney, Atalanta, Barcelona and Seoul – all these cities are in countries where the dominant political system is some sort of democracy.
The last time the Olympic games were held in a totalitarian state was in 1980 in Moscow, where several countries boycotted the event because of the invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet troops in December 1979. And the time before that was in Berlin in 1936, which became a propaganda coup for the Nazis.
Politics interfered with the games in Munich in 1972 when eight members of the Palestinian Black September movement stormed the Israeli compound at the Olympic Village demanding the release of Palestinian prisoners. 18 people were shot dead. The games were interrupted for 34 hours, and talk of calling them off, but continued after the IOC president declared “the games must go on”.
In 1968 more than 25 people were killed in a vicious gun battle in Mexico City just days before the Olympic Games were due to begin.
And now it is China’s turn. China is now a major member of the world economy and a full member of the World Trade Organization. it is the last big country to have a government without any form of democratic representation (if we count Russia as a democracy). The Chinese leadership has been trying to re-brand itself accountable and tolerant, but this is turning out to be mostly spin.
As China’s wealth increases, so does it’s rapidly growing middle-class of consumers, the exclusive wealthy cliques of executives and entrepreneurs, and the hierarchies of well paid bureaucrats and party cadres, with all the potential for graft and corruption inherent in that mix. For the greater number of Chinese citizens poverty and red tape are still very much in evidence, with despotic local administrators and new, wealthy landlord classes the big winners from the socially skewed increasing wealth.
China’s two thousand year period of isolationism has shaped its dominant ethos. China’s Confucian values instill in young scholars a respect for authority (supposedly benevolent) and hard work. These rules also apply to households, and in many cases give rise to a principled, hardworking and honest people who care about education and see it as an avenue to higher status and wealth. And for those who don’t cooperate there are the ever-present Red Guards to guide them to correctness.
All this would be for the good if it were not for continuing abuses of state power, for example the eviction of thousands of poor city dwellers from Beijing for the Olympic infrastructure, or the ruthless enforcement of assimilation of minority cultures on the fringe of the Chinese state. And, apart from the obvious potential for corruption in a totalitarian state with a new dynamic engine of raw capitalism, there is the rural hinterland, usually strangled by the grasping octopus of local bureaucracy.
So let the games commence. We are certainly living in very interesting times, to paraphrase the old Chinese curse. I hope the Olympics helps to bring China out of it’s shell, and above all helps the poor and disadvantaged there, but I am not holding my breath.

CO2 geo-sequestration – is it realistic?

Here is a mental picture for you;

You know those trains that you see in Hunter valley when on the high road to Queensland – long trains of graded coal going to the giant power-stations that supply most of the electricity in NSW?

Flash forward a few years;

But what’s this coming the other way! even longer trains carrying compressed CO2 cylinders – because liquid CO2 has a lower density than coal, and burning 1 tonne of coal yields 1.5 tonne CO2, a 50% increase in weight.

CO2 is technically difficult to extract from the fast, super-hot flue gas in the cooling stack – CO2 represents only 15% of the total exhaust volume from the process, the rest being super-hot N2, superheated steam and some noxious products caused by the combustion.

Assuming this extraction becomes possible the sequestered CO2 has to be compressed and transferred to high pressure cylinders, loaded onto transport, and taken somewhere suitable. The CO2 then needs to be forced deep into the ground by high pressure pumps into theoretically impermeable strata where it will hopefully remain until it is geologically fixed or goes through the subduction meatgrinder. Both are very long processes.

Even if all this is achivable, suppose that the cost of disposal of all effluent streams becomes as much as or more than the cost of getting the coal out of the ground and getting it to the power station – there won’t be many normal businesses in the coal industry able to adjust to this or prevent the collapse of the industry and the huge increase in price of consumer and business energy as it’s costs are passed downstream.

So why was there $50 million in the fed budget to research ‘clean coal’? They could better spend the money on solar research and solar water heating and environmental building design.

My biggest concern with this fake ticket item is that it will stall any other research, as the Profs, Boffins and Mandarins are sucked off into the long Australian waste of time.

There have been signicant improvements in theoretically attainable yield from solar energy, with new, high yield technologies in the development stage overseas. Why arent we involved in this? Partly because the feds have wasted fifty million dollars to suck up to the coal industry, some people say.

And last time we looked at the ABS figures, we had Australia exporting a big percentage of the world’s traded coal in anthracite and other high-carbon grades, mostly used in smelting and other activities where C02 is effectively unrecoverable. Compare this with the domestic production of far smaller amounts of CO2 for generating local electricity.

Which activity by Australia will achieve the greatest cut in world greenhouse gas emission – reducing exports of coal, or geosequestration of local waste CO2?

Footnote From The Economist, July 24

In a report on July 4th that Mr Rudd commissioned, Ross Garnaut, an eminent economist, called for a tougher approach than the prime minister appears to be taking. Without a lower-carbon economy, Mr Garnaut said, the Great Barrier Reef and other Australian “heartlands” would change “beyond recognition”.

Yet Australia’s dependence on coal and other mineral exports makes the government wary. Thanks to demand from Asia, coal exports are expected to grow by one-third over the next five years. Critics accuse Australia of double standards: curbing emissions at home, yet exporting carbon fuel to less strict countries.

Eccles says “tough-love double standards”

Darwin’s big One-Five-Zero. The Consensus.

Eccles snipped this jewel of information in to provide a good rocket up the previous example of FUD. (His Old Dad asked of him ‘how come we didn’t see about it on the telly?)

Happy evolution! The theory’s 150th anniversary

By John Timmer | Published: July 01, 2008 – 01:44PM CT

Major scientific theories have an impact that spreads beyond the scientific community itself, as they change the way society views the world around them, influencing culture, language, and countless other things. Quantum mechanics has indicated our world is dominated by forces that are fundamentally probabilistic and indicates that there are limits to the precision with which we can measure nature; both of these ideas have profound philosophical implications. But quantum mechanics was built through decades of experiment, and it took a while for its findings to leech out into popular culture through things like the frequently (mis)used term “quantum leap.”

Evolution has had an even more profound affect on culture, as it inspired misguided cultural movements almost immediately, and remains controversial outside the scientific community to this day. It’s also far more personal than quantum mechanics, since it doesn’t just speak of the universe, but of our own place in it, and how we got here. Its import was apparent to society almost instantly, and its acceptance within the scientific community spread widely and rapidly, helping turn biology into a scientific discipline, rather than an exercise in cataloging.

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the first publication of the Theory of Evolution, an event that’s the proximal cause of so much social and scientific upheaval. Next year will see anniversary celebrations of Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150th year since the publication of The Origin of Species, but, as far as public awareness is concerned, events started on July 1, 1858, when the Linnean Society of London hosted a reading of papers by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace that described evolution by natural and sexual selection.

To an extent, evolution was a pretty poorly kept secret; Lamarck had suggested a theory based on evolutionary change, but the mechanism he proposed had failed experimental tests. Darwin had started to consider natural selection as far back as the 1830s—one of the two texts appearing under his name dates from 1839—and Wallace had written a paper describing common descent three years earlier. Darwin had also made some of the foremost scientists in London, including Charles Lyell, aware of his work, and had an extensive correspondence with American biologist Asa Gray, who provided him with supporting data; a letter to Gray appears as the other text presented on Darwin’s behalf.

Wallace happened to be in the field in Indonesia and was left out of this loop, scientifically. But he recognized many of the same ideas that Darwin had, and independently arrived at evolution by natural selection, which he set down as a paper. Having exchanged letters with Darwin following his earlier publications, Wallace sent the manuscript to Darwin, asking that he try to get it published. Darwin agreed but his friends, anxious to see him recognized for his own work, arranged to have his two papers read into the record simultaneously.

The impact may have been mild at first; the Linnean Society mentions that the papers were a last-minute addition to the program:

None of those attending that night, apart from the Officers of the Society, knew of the changes to the programme and those papers, read by the Secretary of the Society, came at the end of a long session. It is doubtful that many in the audience were able to take in the full import of the message they contained.

Still, because the papers relied on data that everyone was well aware of, and tied together so many intellectual loose ends, the basic concepts received overwhelming acceptance as they gradually made their way through the scientific community. A few holdouts resisted evolution for decades, but the scientific community rapidly left them behind.

The Origin of Species put all these ideas before the public a year later, which may have been a more significant event overall. But part of that book’s intellectual heft came from the fact that Darwin’s ideas had already found significant support within the scientific community, and that support was built on the basis of the papers presented 150 years ago today.

An example of modern educational thinking

Notes from a distance learning course for mature-age students at Murdoch University…

Do you have an Attitude? Or a world view – or is it just shared assumptions

Time isnt a thing, its just an idea. Sense of how Australia was 300 years ago, how would you feel before we became a nation.

A Walnut was good for the brain in the old days because it resembled it in it’s crenelated appearance. Ha Ha how funny now that it turns out that walnut enzymes are good for you ha ha

Gravity doesnt exist, God doesnt exist, money doesnt exist. They are just ideas. Gravity is what Newton Came up With to explain something. It’s just a theory. Since the time of enlightenment – Instead of us using God we are using Science to explain things

search for perfection ratio – measure by reason.

Look at things in ratio – science is just another way of looking at things.

The Modern World View: Its my mind that allows me to think who I am it is not my soul. Newtown and Locke reinvented causes Aristotelian, and Gallileo – Isaac Newton managed to look at the moon.

The earth is the center of an enclosure and It took them more than 200 years to work out what that meant

Then of course Einstien came along and… well its a fabric if you like – the fabric of space time!

its the latest theory!

Newton had gone back to the greeks then came up with atoms

John Locke extended the idea of atoms to the social contract – Individuals as atoms

how different is a world view from an individuals

In the modern world the existentialists With quantum shift – yes -Its a post modern world view

Walnuts – other ways to know the world – environment, Bodies!

Post-Modern sense of self we celebrate

so there we are. the sense of self changes over time but you can be the author of your own narrative.

(See above for a different point of view – ecc.)

Govt blocks release of secret motorway plans for Sydney

A recent press release by the NSW Greens:

Thursday, 19 June 2008
The government today blocked a move by Greens MP and roads spokesperson Lee Rhiannon to force the release of documents that spell out its major road plans for Sydney, including the M4 East, the F6 corridor, Port Botany, the widening of the M4 and its tolling regime and other new road projects across the Inner West.

The government won the vote by one joined by the Shooters Party and Fred Nile, with the Opposition voting with the Greens.

“Roads Minister Eric Roozendaal is keen to avoid scrutiny of his motorway plans but it’s important that they are available to the public before they become concrete,” Ms Rhiannon said.

“Minister Roozendaal said climate change and peak oil did not make it urgent to release the plans.

“Past call for papers by the Greens on the M5 East, the Cross City Tunnel and the Lane Cove Tunnel have embarrassed the government, so it has opted to pull down the shutters.

“Climate change and peak oil make it imperative that we debate the value of the government’s plans for Sydney’s road network, but blocking access to these papers has left the community in the dark.

“Allowing the public to scrutinise traffic modelling, maps, discussion papers and costings is key to enabling proper debate on whether motorways should proceed.

“The Inner West community has been waiting in limbo for the full detail on plans for the M4 East, the Marrickville Truck Tunnel and an Inner West Motorway.

“Premier Iemma breaks public transport promises freely, but road announcements are rarely abandoned even if they defy common sense. Turning around the RTA once it’s committed to a road proposal is like trying to turn around a massive tanker without tugs.

“The community must be given information to empower it to debate whether money should flow to energy efficient public transport or roads. Local residents should not be kept in the dark about where the RTA plans to site motorways, tunnels and emission stacks.

“Given the past poor performance of tunnel projects, and the growing recognition that motorways can face financial difficulties, the public must be able to have its say.

“Key documents must be released so the community can discuss whether Sydney’s motorway plans make economic, social or environmental sense,” Ms Rhiannon said.

For more information: 9230 3551, 0427 861 568.

Light Rail In Sydney – Update

While the state government proceeds inexorably to implement its “Metro” system (first train out of the station in 2017) councils in Sydney’s inner west are angry. Following the statement on May 28 by the Leichhardt Council in support of converting the disused freight line from Rozelle to Dulwich Hill to commuter transport, came a similar initiative on June 9 from Ashfield Council, introduced by Monica Wangmann, an independent councilor.

The proposed light rail would be an extension of the existing privately owned and operated Metro Line which runs from Central Station through Pyrmont to Lilyfield. The tracks continue from Lilyfield to the railway junction at Dulwich Hill.

Gavin Gatenby, a spokesman for the pressure group Ecotransit said it would be an inexpensive exercise to convert the line to accommodate light rail. The 10 kilometers of track would service a huge number of people who have less access to public transport than the guidelines allow. He also pointed out that the entire work of extending the service would cost considerably less than the money earmarked in the last budget for a feasibility study of the unpopular proposed M4 motorway extension through the inner west.

Another key player is the Greenways for Sydney group who were responsible for initiating the footpath and bicycle way from Cooks River to Marrickville. They would like to see a continuation of this through the rail corridor and into Rozelle and Balmain.

Ms Wangmann said this densely populated part of Sydney would benefit enormously from this initiative. It would reduce the impact of commuter traffic on suburban areas, provide a tourism boom to the inner west, and if the Greenways concept was also implemented, a safe and speedy bike track to the city. As well as the light rail and a cycleway the Greenway proposal includes incorporating existing parks and the creation of new parks along the route. The inner west has the lowest ratio of public space in the Sydney metropolitan area and any improvement in amenity would be of great benefit to all.

Transport Minister Watkins is on record as saying in late 2006 that he had not ruled out light rail as a solution for Sydney city’s transport problems, but that major questions remain over its suitability. This was in response to the publication in the SMH of a study the government commissioned in 2004, predicting traffic chaos in Sydney’s CBD unless the Government switches from buses to trams.

According to Gavin the current roads-based ideology is becoming obsolete because of the escalating cost of fuel and the urgent need to curtail CO2 production. Oil production worldwide has peaked and fuel costs will continue to rise quite rapidly. He noted that the last year has seen an increase in public transport commuter numbers in Sydney by 8 per cent which can be directly attributed to the 50 percent rise in fuel prices over the period, and that the Sydney bus and train services are above peak capacity now. He stated it is quite likely there will be massive social disruption with people not being able to afford to drive to work, and an underperforming public transport network unable to help them.

This issue has been raised several times with the state government by Leichhardt, Ashfield and Canada Bay Councils and the NSW Greens several times over the last decade, and each time it has been knocked back. This is because a lobby group called “Friends of Greater Sydney” (FROGS) which is composed of local councils, RTA officials, building and road contractors and various experts in transport planning; FROGS is advocating the use of the Dulwich Hill rail corridor as a route for a South Western motorway feeder, coming off the Western Distributor at Leichhardt.

At its meeting on May 28 the Leichhardt Council unanimously agreed to disassociate itself from the FROGS group and lobby the state government to consider the light rail and Greenways option for the rail corridor. Ashfield followed suit, and other inner west councils including Marrickville and Canterbury intend to address this issue in the coming weeks.

For more information go to the EcoTransit home page at www.ecotransit.org.au and the Greenways home page at www.greenway.org.au. From here you can to email the Premier, Morris Iemma and the Minister of Transport, John Watkins.