Nine tipping points for irreversible effects of climate change

The Independent yesterday reported on the nine tipping points which may cause global warming to run out of control.

 

"Our findings suggest that a variety of tipping elements could reach their critical point in this century under human-induced climate change," said Professor Timothy Lenton, of the University of East Anglia, who led the study."

 

Irreversible changes

* Arctic sea ice: some scientists believe that the tipping point for the total loss of summer sea ice is imminent.

* Greenland ice sheet: total melting could take 300 years or more but the tipping point that could see irreversible change might occur within 50 years.

* West Antarctic ice sheet: scientists believe it could unexpectedly collapse if it slips into the sea at its warming edges.

* Gulf Stream: few scientists believe it could be switched off completely this century but its collapse is a possibility.

* El Niño: the southern Pacific current may be affected by warmer seas, resulting in far-reaching climate change.

* Indian monsoon: relies on temperature difference between land and sea, which could be tipped off-balance by pollutants that cause localised cooling.

* West African monsoon: in the past it has changed, causing the greening of the Sahara, but in the future it could cause droughts.

* Amazon rainforest: a warmer world and further deforestation may cause a collapse of the rain supporting this ecosystem.

* Boreal forests: cold-adapted trees of Siberia and Canada are dying as temperatures rise.

U.S. Big Brother is watching Australia but doesn't like what it sees

The very peaceful and law-abiding Port Phillip Bay anti-channel dredging protest group Blue Wedges Coalition has turned up on the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence's international threat list, according to Richard Baker of The Age.

 

"Blue Wedges is included in an Office of Naval Intelligence's worldwide threat to shipping document, which details active violence against shipping, credible threats to vessels, or situations that have the potential to develop into direct threats.------

Blue Wedges joins Greenpeace as the only groups included in the threat list under the section headed: Environmental and Economic Non-State Activist Groups.

"Protesters plan to surround the dredger (Queen of the Netherlands) as it arrives in Port Phillip Bay, Australia, on 02 Aug (sic) to begin a controversial trial dredging project for the Port of Melbourne Corporation," the Office of Naval Intelligence warned.

"The Greenpeace ship (Rainbow Warrior) is due in port the same week but Greenpeace denies they are planning to block dredging operations. The Blue Wedges Coalition, which is leading the opposition, is consulting lawyers over possible action in the Supreme Court to block the trial dredging."

The Age article last Monday week:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/investigations/blue-wedges-tagged-with-sea-pirates/2008/01/27/1201368944836.html

 

It would seem that the Bush Administration finds democracy Australian-style just a little too heady for its neo-con taste.

 

Greenpeace also appears to be a sensitive topic generally with U.S. Intelligence.

When North Coast Voices began to mention Greenpeace and the protest against Japanese whaling in Antarctic waters, it received a rather interesting site visit from the Naval Ocean Systems Center (Joint Intelligence Center Pacific/RDON) out of Hawaii at ISP 198.201.23.#, confirmed by WHO.IS as a U.S. Dept of Defense ISP address.

Aloha, boys and girls.

 

Brendan Nelson hoist with Liberal Party's own petard

I found this The Sydney Morning Herald take on Brendan Nelson's reluctance to fully support an apology to the Stolen Generation a perfect example of where semantics and pedantry have led the Liberal Party of Australia.

 

"Nelson has argued, however, that we do not claim credit today for the heroics at Gallipoli so why take responsibility for taking children from their families?

These themes last met seven years ago when the Howard government scaled new heights in pedantry by using mathematics to deny the existence of the stolen generation. In a submission to a Senate inquiry, the then-minister John Herron argued fewer than 10 per cent of Aboriginal children were taken from their families, either wrongfully or "for good reason".

Therefore: "There was never a 'generation' of stolen children."

Three weeks later, John Howard was in Turkey for the 85th anniversary of the Gallipoli landing.

"Thus we come to this place at this hour on this day to observe not only a dawn but a dusk," the prime minister said in his dawn service speech. "For dusk has all but fallen on that great-hearted generation of Australians who fought here."

Demographic statistics for 1915 were not as detailed as they are today but, back then, Australia's population was about 5 million. Based on the best information available, slightly more than 1 million were aged between 15 and 35 years. During the nine months of the Gallipoli campaign, between 55,000 and 60,000 Australians were landed on the peninsula, neither 10 per cent of the whole population or those of military age.

Based on the then-government's logic, there was never a Gallipoli "generation" either.

Try mounting that argument and see how popular you'd be."

 

The Liberals are fast becoming a laughing stock for their convoluted reasoning.

Poll on Rudd's 2020 vision

It was great to see Rudders come up with the notion of a national summit to map out an agreed national direction for Australia beyond the next electoral cycle.

It appears that I am not alone in approving of the Australia 2020 Summit.

Granny Herald ran a poll yesterday which showed 75% of those who answered thought that Kevin Rudd's summit was a 'great idea'.

Let's hope both he and co-chair, Melbourne Uni vice-chancellor Glyn Davis, have a workable outcome to show us all by the end of April.

Leader of the Opposition Brendan 'we'll all be rooned' Nelson as usual is fence sitting and hasn't decided if he will attend this summit.

NSW North Coast Area Health Service tries 'the cheque is in the mail' routine

CEO Chris Crawford and the North Coast Area Health Service are obviously having problems colouring in between the lines of the recent announcement that some public hospital beds would be withdrawn from daily use and nursing shift numbers would be decreased.

 

"AT 5.10pm yesterday members of the New South Wales Nurses Association were still sitting by their fax machine waiting for an explanation from the North Coast Area Health Service on its plans to reallocate 86 North Coast hospital beds, including 12 from Grafton and Maclean, as surge beds.

They didn't get it.

Nurses Association organiser Susan Pearce said she had been told the Health Service had sent the material electronically about 4.45pm, but it hadn't arrived by the 5pm deadline set by a disputes committee.

"They were going to implement this plan on Tuesday, so I wouldn't have thought it would take them that long to send us the material," she said."

The Daily Examiner article on Saturday:

http://www.dailyexaminer.com.au/localnews/storydisplay.cfm?storyid=3762539&thesection=localnews&thesubsection=&thesecondsubsection=

 

Ms. Pearce is being diplomatic here. This was so obviously local health policy on the run, that I doubt whether anything was in place except the most rudimentary moves to close down beds and reduce shift numbers. 

Why is it that only ratepayers and local government are responsible for disposal of all wasteful or inappropriate packaging of consumer goods?

Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. It doesn't matter who buys that soft drink or hamburger on the NSW North Coast. Eventually the throw-away bottle, styrofoam box or paper bag will be disposed of in landfill, using the resources of local government and money collected from local ratepayers.

So why is it that the manufacturers of food and drink are not responsible for the enduring forms of packaging that they use?

That bottle or styrofoam container lasts well beyond its immediate purpose, and either litters our streets or adds to our landfill refuse volume.

 

Clean Up Australia's Ian Keirnan has the right idea when he calls for the introduction of a national drinks container refund scheme.

It has always been frustrating to watch the successful refund scheme operating in South Australia and know that there was no such scheme available to us on the North Coast.

 

"The organisation's annual rubbish report, for 2006-07 "showed nearly 40 per cent of the 8000 tonnes of rubbish collected on Clean Up Australia Day was used drink bottles and cans.

Chairman Ian Kiernan said climate change meant Australia had to change its ways, with recycling reform an important part of that."

 

So how about it, Prime Minister Rudd, are you up to tackling the multinationals over packaging rubbish?

Is there no-one brave enough to send Peter Garrett to the backbenches?

Peter Garrett attracts bad press like a magnet and almost appears to go out of his way to create conditions for the political gaffe.

Under fire for his volte-face agreement with the Coalition on Gunn's pulp mill proposal during the election campaign, he then went on as the new Environment Minister to endorse another disaster in the making - Port Phillip Bay dredging.

In between, he managed a large and very public foot in the mouth over Labor's future policy intentions.

Somewhere in all this he also cocked-up his part in organising Australia's monitoring of this year's Antarctic whaling season.

Now it seems Garrett thinks he can finalise the Bay dredging issues by looking at documents "over the weekend". At the same time putting Gunn's mill to bed by approving the environmental plan in stages, while hoping Australia doesn't notice by announcing it after 5pm on a Friday night.

The man is shaping up as Federal Labor's great galah. Gawd knows what will happen to this minister once February 13 comes around and he has to get to his feet in the House of Reps.

By then he'll have probably brought Labor's entire environmental platform crashing down.

Especially as Rudd has just given him responsibility for community and household climate change action, greenhouse gas abatement and energy efficiency.

What on earth was the Prime Minister thinking?