As the story unfolded.........
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Friday 16 February 2018
Failed coal seam gas mining company Linc Energy's 9 week trial underway in Queensland, Australia
As the story unfolded.........
ABC
News, 16
April 2016:
Oil and gas company Linc
Energy has been placed into administration in a bid to avoid penalties for
polluting the environment, a Queensland green group says.
It was announced late
Friday that administrators PPB Advisory had been called in to work with Linc's
management on options including a possible restructure.
In a statement to the
ASX, the company said after receiving legal and financial advice and
considering commercial prospects the board decided it was in the best interests
of the company to make the move.
It comes one month after
the company was committed to stand trial on five charges relating
to breaches in Queensland's environmental laws at its underground coal
gasification site.
The state's environment
department accused the company of wilfully causing serious harm at its trial
site near Chinchilla on the Darling Downs.
Drew Hutton from the
Lock the Gate Alliance said the company could face up to $56 million in fines
if found guilty, but the penalty might never be paid.
"It is going to be
difficult to get any money out of this company now that it is in
administration," he said.
Mr Hutton said going
into administration was a common legal manoeuvre to dodge fines and costly clean-ups......
Queensland Government, Dept. of Environment
and Heritage Protection,
29 January 2018:
Environmental Protection
Order directed to Linc
Prior to Linc entering
liquidation, DES issued Linc with an Environmental Protection Order (EPO) which
required it to retain critical infrastructure on-site, conduct a site audit and
undertake basic environmental monitoring to characterise the current status of
the site.
Linc’s liquidators
launched a legal challenge associated with this EPO in the Supreme Court
seeking orders that they were justified in not causing Linc to comply with the
EPO (or any future EPO). DES opposed this application.
In April 2017, the
Supreme Court directed that Linc’s liquidators are not justified in
causing Linc not to comply with the EPO. The Court accepted DES’ argument that
the relevant provisions of the EP Act prevail over the Commonwealth Corporations
Act and that Linc’s liquidators are executive officers of the company.
Subject to any appeal decision, this confirms DES’s ability to enforce
compliance with environmental obligations owed by resource companies who have
gone into administration or liquidation.
Linc’s liquidators have
since appealed the decision to the Court of Appeal. This appeal was heard in
September 2017 and the decision was reserved.
Environmental Protection
Order directed to a related person of Linc
DES used the ‘chain of
responsibility’ amendments to the EP Act to issue an EPO to a ‘related person’
of Linc. The EPO requires the recipient to take steps to decommission most of
the site’s dams and provide a bank guarantee of $5.5 million to secure
compliance with the order.
The recipient of the EPO
has appealed to the Planning and Environment Court and that litigation is
ongoing.
The recipient of the EPO
also applied for an order that the appeal be allowed and the EPO be set aside
on the basis that DES denied him procedural fairness. The Planning and
Environment Court dismissed that application. The recipient of the EPO appealed
that decision to the Court of Appeal. That appeal was heard in March 2017 and
judgment in favour of DES was delivered in August 2017. Subject to any further
appeal, this decision confirms that the recipient was not denied procedural
fairness and that DES’ interpretation of the EP Act was correct.
The earlier appeal in
relation to the EPO (regarding the substance of the document) is yet to be
heard by the Planning and Environment Court.
Investigation and
prosecution of Linc and former executives
Linc Energy Limited will
stand trial in the Brisbane District Court, commencing 29 January 2018, on five
counts of wilfully causing serious environmental harm, in contravention of the Environmental
Protection Act 1994.
All counts relate to
operations at the Linc Energy underground coal gasification site near
Chinchilla, from approximately 2007 to 2013, and allege that contaminants were
allowed to escape as a result of the operation.
In addition, the
Queensland Government has charged five former Linc Energy executives over the
operation of the UCG site in Chinchilla. A committal hearing in the Brisbane
Magistrates Court is expected to take place in mid-2018.
As these matters remain
before the courts, DES is unable to comment further on the legal proceedings.
Media releases
11 March 2016—Linc
Energy committed for trial
ABC
News, 30
January 2018:
A landmark case
described by a District Court judge as "unusual" will hear how gas
company Linc Energy allegedly contaminated strategic cropping land causing
serious environmental damage to parts of Queensland's Western Downs.
Linc Energy is charged
with five counts of wilfully and unlawfully causing environmental harm between
2007 and 2013 at Chinchilla.
The charges relate to
alleged contamination at Linc Energy's Hopeland underground coal gasification
(UCG) plant.
The trial will enter its
second day today in the District Court in Brisbane, with crown prosecutor Ralph
Devlin QC expected to begin his opening address to the empanelled jury later
this morning.
Former Linc Energy
scientists, geologists, and engineers as well as several investigators from the
Queensland Environment Department are among those expected to give evidence.
Echo
NetDaily, 30
January 2018:
BRISBANE, AAP – A
failed energy company accused of knowingly and illegally polluting a
significant part of Queensland’s Darling Downs has faced trial in a landmark
criminal case in Brisbane.
Linc Energy is charged
with five counts of wilfully and unlawfully causing environmental harm between
2007 and 2013 after allegedly allowing toxic gas to leak from its operations.
The Brisbane District
Court trial has heard Linc’s four underground coal gasification (UCG) sites and
water were polluted to the point it was unfit for stock to consume but the
company kept operating.
Crown prosecutor Ralph
Devlin QC told the jury the company allowed hazardous contaminants to spread
even after scientists and workers warned about gases bubbling from the ground.
Linc operated four UCG
sites in Chinchilla where it burnt coal underground at very high temperatures
to create gas.
In his opening address
on Tuesday, Mr Devlin said scientists warned senior managers about the risk
environmental harm was being caused throughout the operation…..
‘Bond prioritised Linc’s commercial interests
over the requirements of operating its mining activity in an environmentally
safe manner,’ Mr Devlin said.
‘Linc did nothing to
stop, mitigate or rehabilitate the state of affairs that Linc itself had
caused.’
As part of the UCG
process, Linc injected air into the ground, which created and enlarged
fractures.
It tried to concrete
surface cracks and use wells to control pressure but they didn’t sufficiently
reduce risks or damage, the court heard.
‘Linc kept going, even
knowing the measures weren’t working,’ Mr Devlin said.
Scientists who visited
the site are due to give evidence during the nine-week trial, but no senior
managers from the company, which is in liquidation, will take the stand.
The trial continues.
ABC
News, 8
February 2018:
Workers at an
underground coal gasification plant on Queensland's Western Darling Downs were
told to drink milk and eat yoghurt to protect their stomachs from acid, a court
has heard.
The gas company
has pleaded not guilty to five counts of causing serious
environmental harmfrom its underground coal gasification operations between
2007 and 2013 in Chinchilla.
The corporation is not
defending itself as it is in liquidation so there is no-one in the dock or at
the bar table representing the defence.
A witness statement by
former gas operator Timothy Ford was read to the court, which he prepared in
2015 before his death.
The court was not told
how Mr Ford died.
He said the gas burnt his
eyes and nose and he would need to leave the plant after work to get fresh air
because it made him feel sick.
"We were told to
drink milk in the mornings and at the start of shift… we were also told to eat
yoghurt," he said.
"The purpose of
this was to line our guts so the acid wouldn't burn our guts.
"We were not
allowed to drink the tank water and were given bottled water."
Mr Ford said he always
felt lethargic, suffered infections and had shortness of breath.
"During my time at
the Linc site, would be the sickest I have been," he said.
"It is my belief
that workplace was causing my sickness.
"I strongly feel
that the Linc site was not being run properly due to failures of the wells and
gas releases.".....
Sunshine
Coast Daily,
9 February 2018:
A CONCRETE pumper says he
saw 'black tar' seeping up at a Linc Energy site and raised concerns with the
company.
Robert Arnold has told a
court he noticed some odd occurrences when he went to the Chinchilla site in
late 2007……
On Thursday, Mr Arnold
told jurors he noticed several phenomena at the site.
"We saw bubbles
coming up ... and a black tar substance. We commented back to Linc about
it."
"A few of us went
over and had a look ... basically it just looked like a heavy black oil ... it
was in the puddles as well, in the same area," Mr Arnold added.
"We couldn't place
our equipment close to the well because of these overhead pipes ... it was
dripping out of the joints."
Prosecutor Ralph Devlin
earlier claimed a "bubbling" event happened on the ground after
rainfall at the coal gasification site.
Mr Arnold told jurors
that after discussing the oozing substance, concrete trucks turned up and he
pumped the concrete into a well.
Mr Arnold said he felt
the concrete used that time was "very light" but the on-site
supervisor made that decision.
Prosecutors previously
told the court concerns were raised at various times with Linc leadership about
the quality of cement and geological data used at the site.
The Crown has also
claimed Linc used its underground wells in a way that made them fail, and
allowed contaminants to escape far way, to places Linc could not remove them.
BACKGROUND
Wikipedia, 5 February 2018:
Linc started its
Chinchilla Demonstration Facility in July 1999. First gas was produced in that
very same year. Initially Linc Energy used the underground coal gasification
technology worked out by Ergo Exergy Technologies, Inc, of Canada.
However, in
2006 the cooperation with Ergo Exergy was terminated and the cooperation
agreement for technology usage, consultation and engineering services was
signed with the Skochinsky Institute of Mining and
the Scientific-Technical Mining Association of Russia.[2]
In 2005, Linc signed a
memorandum with Syntroleum granting a licence to use the Syntroleum's
proprietary gas-to-liquid technology and started to build a
GTL pilot plant in November 2007 at the Chinchilla facility. The plant was
commissioned in August 2008. The first synthetic
crude was produced in October 2008.[3]
Labels:
Coal Seam Gas,
environment,
farming,
law,
mining,
pollution,
water
Friday 9 February 2018
Falling biodiversity, degradation of productive rural land, intensification of coastal & city development, and the threat of climate change require Australia to produce blueprint for a new generation of environment laws
“The next
generation of environmental laws will need to recognise explicitly the role of
humanity as a trustee of the environment and its common resources, requiring
both care and engagement on behalf of future generations.” [APEEL,
Blueprint for the Next Generation of Environmental Law,
August 2017]
The Guardian, 6 February 2018:
Environmental lawyers and academics have called for a comprehensive rethink on how Australia's natural landscapes are protected, warning that short-term politics is infecting decision-making and suggesting that the public be given a greater say on development plans.
The Australian Panel of Experts on Environmental Law has launched a blueprint for a new generation of environment laws and the creation of independent agencies with the power and authority to ensure they are enforced. The panel of 14 senior legal figures says this is motivated by the need to systematically address ecological challenges including falling biodiversity, the degradation of productive rural land, the intensification of coastal and city development and the threat of climate change.
Murray Wilcox QC, a former federal court judge, said the blueprint was a serious attempt to improve a system that was shutting the public out of the decision-making process and failing to properly assess the impact of large-scale development proposals.
"We found the standard of management of the environment is poor because everything is made into a political issue," Wilcox said. "Nothing happens until it becomes desperate.
"We need a non-political body of significant prestige to report on what is happening and have the discretion to act."
The legal review, developed over several years and quietly released in 2017, resulted in 57 recommendations. It was suggested by the Places You Love alliance, a collection of about 40 environmental groups that was created to counter a failed bid to set up a "one-stop shop" for environmental approvals by leaving it to the states. The panel undertook the work on the understanding it would be independent and not a piece of activism.
Review report can be found here.
Tuesday 30 January 2018
Scientists issue a final warning to humanity
THEN……
1992 World Scientists'
Warning to Humanity
Scientist Statement: World
Scientists' Warning to Humanity (1992) (PDF document)
Some 1,700 of the
world's leading scientists, including the majority of Nobel laureates in the
sciences, issued this appeal in November 1992. The World Scientists' Warning to
Humanity was written and spearheaded by the late Henry Kendall, former chair of
UCS's board of directors.
Introduction
Human beings and the
natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and
often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not
checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish
for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the
living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know.
Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present
course will bring about.
NOW……
World
Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice (PDF Document)
WILLIAM
J. RIPPLE, CHRISTOPHER WOLF, THOMAS M. NEWSOME, MAURO GALETTI, MOHAMMED
ALAMGIR, EILEEN CRIST, MAHMOUD I. MAHMOUD, WILLIAM F. LAURANCE, and 15,364
scientist signatories from 184 countries
Twenty-five years ago,
the Union of Concerned Scientists and more than 1700 independent scientists,
including the majority of living Nobel laureates in the sciences, penned the
1992 “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity” (see supplemental file S1).
These concerned
professionals called on humankind to curtail environmental destruction and
cautioned that “a great change in our stewardship of the Earth and the life on
it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided.” In their manifesto,
they showed that humans were on a collision course with the natural world. They
expressed concern about current, impending, or potential damage on planet Earth
involving ozone depletion, freshwater availability, marine life depletion,
ocean dead zones, forest loss, biodiversity destruction, climate change, and
continued human population growth. They proclaimed that fundamental changes
were urgently needed to avoid the consequences our present course would bring.
The authors of the 1992
declaration feared that humanity was pushing Earth’s ecosystems beyond their
capacities to support the web of life. They described how we are fast
approaching many of the limits of what the biosphere can tolerate without
substantial and irreversible harm. The scientists pleaded that we stabilize the
human population, describing how our large numbers—swelled by another 2 billion
people since 1992, a 35 percent increase—exert stresses on Earth that can
overwhelm other efforts to realize a sustainable future (Crist et al. 2017).
They implored that we cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and phase out fossil
fuels, reduce deforestation, and reverse the trend of collapsing biodiversity.
On the twenty-fifth
anniversary of their call, we look back at their warning and evaluate the human
response by exploring available time-series data. Since 1992, with the
exception of stabilizing the stratospheric ozone layer, humanity has failed to
make sufficient progress in generally solving these foreseen environmental
challenges, and alarmingly, most of them are getting far worse (figure 1, file
S1). Especially troubling is the current trajectory of potentially catastrophic
climate change due to rising GHGs from burning fossil fuels (Hansen et al.
2013), deforestation (Keenan et al. 2015), and agricultural production—
particularly from farming ruminants for meat consumption (Ripple et al. 2014).
Moreover, we have unleashed a mass extinction event, the sixth in roughly 540
million years, wherein many current life forms could be annihilated or at least
committed to extinction by the end of this century.
Humanity is now being
given a second notice, as illustrated by these alarming trends (figure 1). We
are jeopardizing our future by not reining in our intense but geographically
and demographically uneven material consumption and by not perceiving continued
rapid population growth as a primary driver behind many ecological and even
societal threats (Crist et al. 2017). By failing to adequately limit population
growth, reassess the role of an economy rooted in growth, reduce greenhouse
gases, incentivize renewable energy, protect habitat, restore ecosystems, curb
pollution, halt defaunation, and constrain invasive alien species, humanity is
not taking the urgent steps needed to safeguard our imperilled biosphere.
As most political
leaders respond to pressure, scientists, media influencers, and lay citizens
must insist that their governments take immediate action as a moral imperative
to current and future generations of human and other life. With a groundswell
of organized grassroots efforts, dogged opposition can be overcome and
political leaders compelled to do the right thing. It is also time to
re-examine and change our individual behaviors, including limiting our own
reproduction (ideally to replacement level at most) and drastically diminishing
our per capita consumption of fossil fuels, meat, and other resources.
Read the full
Second Notice here.
ALL THE WHILE THE DOOMSDAY CLOCK IS TICKING.......
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 25 January 2018:
ALL THE WHILE THE DOOMSDAY CLOCK IS TICKING.......
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 25 January 2018:
It
is now two minutes to midnight
Editor’s
note: Founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who had helped
develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin of
the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock two years later, using
the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear
explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the planet. The
decision to move (or to leave in place) the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock
is made every year by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board in
consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 15 Nobel laureates. The
Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s
vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and new
technologies emerging in other domains. A printable PDF of this statement,
complete with the President and CEO’s statement and Science and Security Board
biographies, is available here.
To:
Leaders and citizens of the world
Re:
Two minutes to midnight
Date:
January 25, 2018
In 2017, world leaders failed to respond
effectively to the looming threats of nuclear war and climate change, making
the world security situation more dangerous than it was a year ago—and as
dangerous as it has been since World War II.
The greatest risks last year arose in
the nuclear realm. North Korea’s nuclear weapons program made remarkable
progress in 2017, increasing risks to North Korea itself, other countries in
the region, and the United States. Hyperbolic rhetoric and provocative actions
by both sides have increased the possibility of nuclear war by accident or
miscalculation.
But the dangers brewing on the Korean
Peninsula were not the only nuclear risks evident in 2017: The United States
and Russia remained at odds, continuing military exercises along the borders of
NATO, undermining the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), upgrading
their nuclear arsenals, and eschewing arms control negotiations.
In the Asia-Pacific region, tensions
over the South China Sea have increased, with relations between the United
States and China insufficient to re-establish a stable security situation.
In South Asia, Pakistan and India have
continued to build ever-larger arsenals of nuclear weapons.
And in the Middle East, uncertainty
about continued US support for the landmark Iranian nuclear deal adds to a
bleak overall picture.
To call the world nuclear situation
dire is to understate the danger—and its immediacy.
On the climate change front, the danger
may seem less immediate, but avoiding catastrophic temperature increases in the
long run requires urgent attention now. Global carbon dioxide emissions have
not yet shown the beginnings of the sustained decline towards zero that must
occur if ever-greater warming is to be avoided. The nations of the world will
have to significantly decrease their greenhouse gas emissions to keep climate
risks manageable, and so far, the global response has fallen far short of
meeting this challenge.
Beyond the nuclear and climate
domains, technological change is disrupting democracies around the world as
states seek and exploit opportunities to use information technologies as
weapons, among them internet-based deception campaigns aimed at undermining
elections and popular confidence in institutions essential to free thought and
global security.
The Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists Science and Security Board believes the perilous world security
situation just described would, in itself, justify moving the minute hand of
the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight.
But there has also been a breakdown in
the international order that has been dangerously exacerbated by recent US
actions. In 2017, the United States backed away from its long-standing
leadership role in the world, reducing its commitment to seek common ground and
undermining the overall effort toward solving pressing global governance
challenges. Neither allies nor adversaries have been able to reliably predict
US actions—or understand when US pronouncements are real, and when they are
mere rhetoric. International diplomacy has been reduced to name-calling, giving
it a surreal sense of unreality that makes the world security situation
ever more threatening.
Because of the extraordinary danger of
the current moment, the Science and Security Board today moves the minute hand
of the Doomsday Clock 30 seconds closer to catastrophe. It is now two minutes
to midnight—the closest the Clock has ever been to Doomsday, and as close as it
was in 1953, at the height of the Cold War.
The Science and Security Board hopes
this resetting of the Clock will be interpreted exactly as it is meant—as an
urgent warning of global danger. The time for world leaders to address looming
nuclear danger and the continuing march of climate change is long past. The
time for the citizens of the world to demand such action is now:
#rewindtheDoomsdayClock.
The untenable nuclear
threat. The risk that nuclear weapons
may be used—intentionally or because of miscalculation—grew last year around
the globe.
North Korea has long defied UN
Security Council resolutions to cease its nuclear and ballistic missile tests,
but the acceleration of its tests in 2017 reflects new resolve to acquire
sophisticated nuclear weapons. North Korea has or soon will have capabilities
to match its verbal threats—specifically, a thermonuclear warhead and a
ballistic missile that can carry it to the US mainland. In September, North
Korea tested what experts assess to be a true two-stage thermonuclear device,
and in November, it tested the Hwasong-15 missile, which experts believe has a
range of over 8,000 kilometers. The United States and its allies, Japan and
South Korea, responded with more frequent and larger military exercises, while
China and Russia proposed a freeze by North Korea of nuclear and missile tests
in exchange for a freeze in US exercises.
The failure to secure a temporary
freeze in 2017 was unsurprising to observers of the downward spiral of nuclear
rhetoric between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
The failure to rein in North Korea’s nuclear program will reverberate not just
in the Asia-Pacific, as neighboring countries review their security options,
but more widely, as all countries consider the costs and benefits of the
international framework of nonproliferation treaties and agreements.
Nuclear risks have been compounded by
US-Russia relations that now feature more conflict than cooperation.
Coordination on nuclear risk reduction is all but dead, and no solution to
disputes over the INF Treaty—a landmark agreement to rid Europe of medium-range
nuclear missiles—is readily apparent. Both sides allege violations, but
Russia’s deployment of a new ground-launched cruise missile, if not
addressed, could trigger a collapse of the treaty. Such a collapse would
make what should have been a relatively easy five-year extension of the New
START arms control pact much harder to achieve and could terminate an arms
control process that dates back to the early 1970s.
For the first time in many years, in
fact, no US-Russian nuclear arms control negotiations are under way. New
strategic stability talks begun in April are potentially useful, but so far
they lack the energy and political commitment required for them to bear fruit.
More important, Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea and semi-covert support
of separatists in eastern Ukraine have sparked concerns that Russia will
support similar “hybrid” conflicts in new NATO members that it borders—actions
that could provoke a crisis at almost any time. Additional clash points could
emerge if Russia attempts to exploit friction between the United States and its
NATO partners, whether arising from disputes on burden-sharing, European Union
membership, and trade—or relating to policies on Israel, Iran, and terrorism in
the Middle East.
In the past year, US allies have
needed reassurance about American intentions more than ever. Instead, they have
been forced to negotiate a thicket of conflicting policy statements from a US
administration weakened in its cadre of foreign policy professionals, suffering
from turnover in senior leadership, led by an undisciplined and disruptive
president, and unable to develop, coordinate, and clearly communicate a
coherent nuclear policy. This inconsistency constitutes a major challenge for
deterrence, alliance management, and global stability. It has made the existing
nuclear risks greater than necessary and added to their complexity.
Especially in the case of the Iran
nuclear deal, allies are perplexed. While President Trump has steadfastly
opposed the agreement that his predecessor and US allies negotiated to keep
Iran from developing nuclear weapons, he has never successfully articulated
practical alternatives. His instruction to Congress in 2017 to legislate a
different approach resulted in a stalemate. The future of the Iran deal, at
this writing, remains uncertain.
In the United States, Russia, and
elsewhere around the world, plans for nuclear force modernization and
development continue apace. The Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review
appears likely to increase the types and roles of nuclear weapons in US defense
plans and lower the threshold to nuclear use. In South Asia, emphasis on
nuclear and missile capabilities grows. Conventional force imbalances and
destabilizing plans for nuclear weapons use early in any conflict continue to
plague the subcontinent.
Reflecting long decades of frustration
with slow progress toward nuclear disarmament, states signed a Treaty on the
Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the ban treaty, at the United
Nations this past September. The treaty—championed by the International
Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which has been awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize for its work—is a symbolic victory for those seeking a world without
nuclear weapons and a strong expression of the frustration with global
disarmament efforts to date. Predictably, countries with nuclear weapons
boycotted the negotiations, and none has signed the ban treaty. Their increased
reliance on nuclear weapons, threats, and doctrines that could make the use of
those weapons more likely stands in stark contrast to the expectations of the
rest of the world.
An insufficient response
to climate change. Last year, the US government
pursued unwise and ineffectual policies on climate change, following through on
a promise to derail past US climate policies. The Trump administration, which
includes avowed climate denialists in top positions at the Environmental
Protection Agency, the Interior Department, and other key agencies, has
announced its plan to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. In its rush to
dismantle rational climate and energy policy, the administration has ignored
scientific fact and well-founded economic analyses.
These US government climate decisions
transpired against a backdrop of worsening climate change and high-impact
weather-related disasters. This year past, the Caribbean region and other parts
of North America suffered a season of historic damage from exceedingly powerful
hurricanes. Extreme heat waves occurred in Australia, South America, Asia,
Europe, and California, with mounting evidence that heat-related illness and
death are correspondingly increasing. The Arctic ice cap achieved its
smallest-ever winter maximum in 2017, the third year in a row that this record
has been broken. The United States has witnessed devastating wildfires, likely
exacerbated by extreme drought and subsequent heavy rains that spurred
underbrush growth. When the data are assessed, 2017 is almost certain to continue the trend of exceptional global
warmth: All the warmest years in the instrumental record, which extends
back to the 1800s, have—excepting one year in the late 1990s—occurred in the
21st century.
Despite the sophisticated disinformation
campaign run by climate denialists, the unfolding consequences of an altered
climate are a harrowing testament to an undeniable reality: The science linking
climate change to human activity—mainly the burning of fossil fuels that
produce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases—is sound. The world continues
to warm as costly impacts mount, and there is evidence that overall rates of
sea level rise are accelerating—regardless of protestations to the contrary.
Especially against these trends, it is
heartening that the US government’s defection from the Paris Agreement did not
prompt its unravelling or diminish its support within the United States at
large. The “We Are Still In” movement signals a strong commitment within the
United States—by some 1,700 businesses, 250 cities, 200 communities of faith,
and nine states, representing more than 40 percent of the US population—to its
international climate commitments and to the validity of scientific facts.
This reaffirmation is reassuring,
and other countries have maintained their steadfast support for climate action,
reconfirmed their commitments to global climate cooperation, and clearly
acknowledged that more needs to be done. French President Emmanuel Macron’s
sober message to global leaders assembled at December’s global climate summit
in Paris was a reality check after the heady climate negotiations his country
hosted two years earlier: “We’re losing the battle. We’re not moving quickly
enough. We all need to act.” And indeed, after plateauing for a few years,
greenhouse gas emissions resumed their stubborn rise in 2017.
As we have noted before, the true
measure of the Paris Agreement is whether nations actually fulfill their
pledges to cut emissions, strengthen those pledges, and see to it that global greenhouse
gas emissions start declining in short order and head toward zero. As we drift
yet farther from this goal, the urgency of shifting course becomes greater, and
the existential threat posed by climate change looms larger.
Emerging technologies
and global risk. The Science and Security Board
is deeply concerned about the loss of public trust in political institutions,
in the media, in science, and in facts themselves—a loss that the abuse of
information technology has fostered. Attempts to intervene in elections through
sophisticated hacking operations and the spread of disinformation have
threatened democracy, which relies on an informed electorate to reach
reasonable decisions on public policy—including policy relating to nuclear
weapons, climate change, and other global threats. Meanwhile, corporate leaders
in the information domain, including established media outlets and internet
companies such as Facebook and Google, have been slow to adopt protocols to
prevent misuse of their services and protect citizens from manipulation.
The international community should establish new measures that discourage
and penalize all cross-border subversions of democracy.
Last year, the Science and Security
Board warned that “[t]echnological innovation is occurring at a speed that
challenges society’s ability to keep pace. While limited at the current time,
potentially existential threats posed by a host of emerging technologies need
to be monitored, and to the extent possible anticipated, as the 21st century
unfolds.”
If anything, the velocity of
technological change has only increased in the past year, and so our warning
holds for 2018. But beyond monitoring advances in emerging technology, the board
believes that world leaders also need to seek better collective methods of
managing those advances, so the positive aspects of new technologies are
encouraged and malign uses discovered and countered. The sophisticated hacking
of the “Internet of Things,” including computer systems that control major
financial and power infrastructure and have access to more than 20 billion
personal devices; the development of autonomous weaponry that makes “kill”
decisions without human supervision; and the possible misuse of advances in
synthetic biology, including the revolutionary Crispr gene-editing tool,
already pose potential global security risks. Those risks could expand without
strong public institutions and new management regimes. The increasing pace of
technological change requires faster development of those tools.
How to turn back the
Clock. In 1953, former Manhattan
Project scientist and Bulletin editor Eugene Rabinowitch set the
hands of the Doomsday Clock at two minutes to midnight, writing, “The achievement
of a thermonuclear explosion by the Soviet Union, following on the heels of the
development of ‘thermonuclear devices’ in America, means that the time, dreaded
by scientists since 1945, when each major nation will hold the power
of destroying, at will, the urban civilization of any other nation, is close at
hand.”
The Science and Security Board now
again moves the hands of the Clock to two minutes before midnight. But the
current, extremely dangerous state of world affairs need not be permanent. The
means for managing dangerous technology and reducing global-scale risk exist;
indeed, many of them are well-known and within society’s reach, if leaders pay
reasonable attention to preserving the long-term prospects of humanity, and if
citizens demand that they do so.
This is a dangerous time, but the
danger is of our own making. Humankind has invented the implements of
apocalypse; so can it invent the methods of controlling and eventually
eliminating them. This year, leaders and citizens of the world can move the
Doomsday Clock and the world away from the metaphorical midnight of global
catastrophe by taking these common-sense actions:
• US President Donald Trump should
refrain from provocative rhetoric regarding North Korea, recognizing the
impossibility of predicting North Korean reactions.
• The US and North Korean governments
should open multiple channels of communication. At a minimum,
military-to-military communications can help reduce the likelihood of
inadvertent war on the Korean Peninsula. Keeping diplomatic channels open for
talks without preconditions is another common-sense way to reduce tensions. As
leading security expert Siegfried Hecker of Stanford University recently wrote: “Such talks should not be seen as a reward or
concession to Pyongyang, nor construed as signaling acceptance of a
nuclear-armed North Korea. They could, however, deliver the message that while
Washington fully intends to defend itself and its allies from any attack with a
devastating retaliatory response, it does not otherwise intend to attack North
Korea or pursue regime change."
• The world community should
pursue, as a short-term goal, the cessation of North Korea’s nuclear weapon and
ballistic missile tests. North Korea is the only country to violate the norm
against nuclear testing in 20 years. Over time, the United States should seek
North Korea’s signature on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty—and then,
along with China, at long last also ratify the treaty.
• The Trump administration should
abide by the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action for Iran’s nuclear
program unless credible evidence emerges that Iran is not complying with the
agreement or Iran agrees to an alternative approach that meets US national
security needs.
• The United States and Russia should
discuss and adopt measures to prevent peacetime military incidents along the
borders of NATO. Provocative military exercises and maneuvers hold the
potential for crisis escalation. Both militaries must exercise restraint and
professionalism, adhering to all norms developed to avoid conflict and accidental
encounters.
• US and Russian leaders should return
to the negotiating table to resolve differences over the INF treaty; to seek
further reductions in nuclear arms; to discuss a lowering of the alert status
of the nuclear arsenals of both countries; to limit nuclear modernization
programs that threaten to create a new nuclear arms race; and to ensure that
new tactical or low-yield nuclear weapons are not built and that existing
tactical weapons are never used on the battlefield.
• US citizens should demand, in all
legal ways, climate action from their government. Climate change is a real and
serious threat to humanity. Citizens should insist that their governments
acknowledge it and act accordingly.
• Governments around the world should
redouble their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions so they go well
beyond the initial, inadequate pledges under the Paris Agreement. The
temperature goal under that agreement—to keep warming well below 2 degrees
Celsius above preindustrial levels—is consistent with consensus views on
climate science, is eminently achievable, and is economically viable, provided
that poorer countries are given the support they need to make the post-carbon
transition. But the time window for achieving this goal is rapidly closing.
• The international community should
establish new protocols to discourage and penalize the misuse of information
technology to undermine public trust in political institutions, in the media,
in science, and in the existence of objective reality itself. Strong and
accountable institutions are necessary to prevent deception campaigns that are
a real threat to effective democracies, reducing their ability to enact
policies to address nuclear weapons, climate change, and other global dangers.
• The countries of the world should
collaborate on creating institutions specifically assigned to explore and
address potentially malign or catastrophic misuses of new technologies,
particularly as regards autonomous weaponry that makes “kill” decisions without
human supervision and advances in synthetic biology that could, if misused,
pose a global threat.
The failure of world leaders to
address the largest threats to humanity’s future is lamentable—but that failure
can be reversed. It is two minutes to midnight, but the Doomsday Clock has
ticked away from midnight in the past, and during the next year, the world can
again move it further from apocalypse. The warning the Science and Security
Board now sends is clear, the danger obvious and imminent. The
opportunity to reduce the danger is equally clear.
The world has seen the threat posed by
the misuse of information technology and witnessed the vulnerability of
democracies to disinformation. But there is a flip side to the abuse of social
media. Leaders react when citizens insist they do so, and citizens around the
world can use the power of the internet to improve the long-term prospects of
their children and grandchildren. They can insist on facts, and discount
nonsense. They can demand action to reduce the existential threat of nuclear
war and unchecked climate change. They can seize the opportunity to make a
safer and saner world.
They can #rewindtheDoomsdayClock.
Wednesday 24 January 2018
In addition to the unrelenting summer heat, the earth beneath our feet is starting to rumble a bit
Labels:
environment
Thursday 18 January 2018
Reef 2050 plan to restore outstanding universal values of the Great Barrier Reef decade by decade questioned in the wake of back to-back bleaching events
Time is running out for one of the seven wonders of the natural world. Two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef is now severely damaged by bleaching. #sciencematters @NOAA @CoralCoE. pic.twitter.com/91GzreTe3c— Australian Academy of Science (@Science_Academy) January 4, 2018
On 8 December 2017 the Australian Academy of Science made a submission to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority consultation on the Coastal Ecosystems Position Statement.
This submission made the following points:
* The federal government Reef 2050 Long-term Sustainability Plan to restore the “Outstanding Universal Values” of the Great Barrier Reef decade by decade is no longer tenable following back to-back bleaching events.
* Climate change is a clear and present challenge to the ongoing health of the Great Barrier Reef.
* Almost all “historic” and “legacy” stressors to the Great Barrier Reef remain today, and most of them continue to escalate — for example, land clearing, maintenance dredging, ship anchoring, and coastal recreational fishing pressure.
* There is a need to avoid further environmental damage through better management of stressors.
* Monitoring of drivers or stressors, including so called “legacy” drivers, should be included as a subject of research and management.
Friday 8 December 2017
Is the NSW Berejiklian Coalition Government moving against Clarence River communities?
According to the state-owned corporation Port Authority of New South Wales, during the 2017-18 cruise season which commenced in October, international cruise ships will be visiting Sydney, Newcastle, Port Kembla and Eden.
On its website the Authority proudly announced an expectation of a bumper season – as other parts of the world buckle under the weight of the cruise ship industry’s agenda and start to say ‘no more’.
When cautionary tales like this are appearing…..
Traveller.com.au, 20 November 2017:
Venice is planning to divert massive cruise liners. Barcelona has cracked down on apartment rentals.
Both are at the forefront of efforts to get a grip on "overtourism", a phenomenon that is disrupting communities, imperiling cherished buildings and harming the experience of travellers and local residents alike……
The backlash has even given rise to slogans such as "Tourists go home" and "Tourists are terrorists".
"This is a wake-up call," Taleb Rifai, secretary general of the United Nations' World Tourism Organisation, told tourism ministers and industry executives last week at the World Travel Market in London.
Meanwhile Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (USA) and Carnival Corporation (USA) – the biggest cruise lines operating in Australian waters – are moving some of their passenger ships off the NSW list of scheduled stops and berthing then in Melbourne, Brisbane, Singapore and China.
The cruise ship industry goes where its rapacious business model can be utilised most effectively and Australia has been the flavour of the month for a few seasons now, even if Sydney is losing its sheen.
Before this latest Martin Place brain snap Port of Yamba was the only open port in New South Wales that had not been targeted by cruise lines as a destination port. Perhaps in part because they realise that a barrier estuary – where the barrier is the remains of a once living indigenous woman turned to stone - and multiple deck cruise ships are as compatible as oil and water.
Now the NSW Berejiklian Government and, particularly the NSW National Party, want to include this small regional estuarine port in grand plans for increasing cruise ship traffic in the state. Even though, according to Cruise Lines International Association Australasia, by 2016 New South Wales had captured around 58 per cent of the total Australian cruise market annual dollar spend - that's not enough for those greedy politicians down south.
The government tells us these passenger ships will only be “smaller cruise vessels” but it is also considering building an international cruise terminal in the Clarence River estuary.
Now if one goes online and looks at the cruise ships currently operating on the Australian east coast what is immediately obvious is the dearth of "smaller" ocean-going passenger vessels which might enter the Clarence River safely.
There aren’t enough of them to bring the economic benefit NSW Minister for Maritime, Roads and Freight and MP for Oxley Melinda Pavey implies would flow into the Lower Clarence River along with these ships.
Currently the NSW Dept. of Transport is sending a React Future Transport 2058 van all over the state selling the Draft Future Transport Strategy 2058 and asking people to tell those manning this van what they would like to see happen with regard to local transport needs.
The van came to Grafton in the hinterland of the Clarence Valley on 27 November 2017 wanting to hear opinions on trains, buses, roads, cycleways and air travel, but carefully avoided mention of sea transport, cruise ships or a cruise terminal unless a local specifically asked.
This van is never coming to the Clarence Coast - residents will never see it in Maclean, Iluka or Yamba. Their opinions are being deliberately limited in this faux consultation.
So what is going on here?
Perhaps the answer can be found in the idea being canvassed by the Berejiklian Government that all three NSW designated regional ports should ideally be multi-purpose ports which include cargo shipping, cruise ships and naval facilities.
The state government's push to establish the cruise ship industry in the Clarence River estuary looks suspiciously like the first move to bring this about, as inevitably demands will come from the international cruise lines for significant dredging to occur from the river entrance and along main the navigation channel to ship berths.
If such dredging occurs then it is possible the Australian Navy will be encouraged to revisit its strategy for use of smaller coastal ports and, a Sydney-centric NSW Government will begin to insist more freight passes through the port despite the known strong opposition of the wider Clarence Valley community to an industrialised Clarence River estuary.
Now might be the time for Ms. Pavey to consider the possibility that, Oxley being a regional electorate bordering the Clarence electorate, may induce many increasingly concerned people in the Lower Clarence to pack a hamper, get in their car and drive down to Oxley for the day and campaign for whomever of her political rivals takes their fancy during the next state election.
At the very least many are likely to write to local papers in her electorate during the 2019 state election campaign informing them of her actions in Clarence.
These letters could start off by mentioning those troublesome smokestacks at WestConnex, her support of the foreign multinational miner Adani’s plans for a mega coal mine which will inevitably pollute the Great Barrier Reef if it goes ahead, her failure to support road workers who built a section of the new Pacific Highway for her on zero pay for months (pay they are never likely to see), removing historic Windsor Bridge, the reaction of others to her bizarre transport strategy - before moving on to the mess she is about to make of the Clarence River estuary.
After all the Clarence Valley has a habit of standing up for the aesthetic, environmental, cultural, social and economic values that underpin community in this valley and the wider Northern Rivers region.
Just ask Metgasco, Australian Infrastructure Development or Malcolm Turnbull.
NOTE
The name of the culturally significant reef just outside the mouth of the Clarence River is variously spelt Dirragun and Dirrangun in various books and documents, so both spellings are used interchangeably in North Coast Voices posts.
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