In a comment Wendy suggested that climate change is really glamorous . I guess she means it is in the news a lot but I am not sure that glamorous is the word I would use. As a scientist I have been concerned about all the same things for many years and like many others, I am relieved that public awareness has caught up at last. I can remember having a debate about the limits to growth in the 1960s and having the opinion then that the first thing that would be in short supply would be potable water.

Technorati Tags: climate change, climate change in the news, ISO 14001

John Collins from Toowoomba has just left a comment about the Mayor of Toowoomba and their receycled water issue that clearly demonstrates how high feelings can run about issues when the communication process is poor. His side won, Toowoomba is still short of water and he is still ranting.

I have been at an environment industry conference this week and one of the topics was the importance of communicating clearly all the issues between industry, regulatory bodies including councils and the community. This comment all this time later, illustrates the point of good communication and use of common sense. Practices need to change when circumstances do and clear communication is vital or else common sense disappears.

Technorati Tags: water resources, poor communication, John Collins, Toowoomba, Mayor of Toowoomba, recycled water, ISO 14001

As we get more climate change, we are likely to have more extreme weather events, more droughts and more floods. Over all the predictions by most responsible climate scientists are that fresh water will decrease and Australia will be one of the hardest hit countries. Also as our human population increases, our need for water will increase. We must ask these questions.

This week I have been attending an internationally attended conference on Contamination Cleanup, Eco Forum and Industry Summit. I am really enjoying the industry summit where the audience is much more participatory rather than just listening to presented papers and having 2 or 3 questions at the end of each. People are getting very involved which is great to hear.

http://www.ecoforum.net.au the Contamination CleanUp 07 Conference in Adelaide this June will explore the science and engineering related to contaminated site assessment and remediation, the focus of the Industry Summit will be on the policies, structuring, regulation, risk management, insurance, financing and acquisition issues that impede or make the industry operate.
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I am not having a go at any industry sector but in Australia we have been in a severe drought and some places absolutely still are.

However I saw some figures that really concerned me at a conference last week.

My question is “can we really justify using desperately needed water for the low return produce?” I understand the needs of those industries and that the farmers involved would need some support but when fruit, nut and grape trees and vines are at risk of dying from lack of water and they give good $value for the water provided, I think we really need to question whether annual crops and exotics like cotton and rice should be grown during a drought. Both of these two crops are grown in the Murray Darling system which is under terrible ecological threat at present.

I actually found the entire discussion of the price of water allocations and the trading of same extremely interesting. There are no easy answers but this is a fair question that we should all be asking when resources are scarce.

Technorati Tags: Jean Cannon, envirojean, allocating water, how to allocate water, water allocations, ISO 14001

Personally I feel deep concern about the future my grandchildren and their friends face. I think we all need to take the many small steps that may seem to “not make much difference” to try to reduce the overall load on the system. I use low energy fluorescent bulbs in table lamps instead of the ceiling full of halogen lights in both my home and my office. I chose to live in a well insulated north facing place so that I get winter sun coming under my verandah but no summer sun and I seldom use the air conditioner. I used heating for only for 4 hours last winter and that was when the ground outside was white with frost. In summer 40oC outside translated to 29 oC inside and I decided I was comfortable as it was under 30oC. I drive a duel fuelled car (LPG & petrol {gas}) and walk or ride my bike when this is possible or sensible.

There are lots of little steps we can use to reduce our foot print and if we all do this in both our businesses and our homes we do have a cumulative effect. We can choose “green power” in most places. In our business we can think carefully about all the impacts we have just discussed and work out how to save green house gas use and remember this also saves us money.
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When our waste breaks down in land fills, it generates large amounts of methane gas. Some of the newer landfill sites have been carefully designed to prevent leaching into the water table and to capture the methane gas generated. In Victoria (Australia) in 2004-5, 5.4 million tonnes of waste was recycled. This is a 7% increase from the previous year it showed recycling saved over 78 million gigajoules of energy, 52 GL of water and 4 million tonnes of greenhouse gasses. 55% of the total solid waste stream was recovered.

Germany has become the 18th country to join the international “Methane To Markets Partnership”, an initiative to turn the toxic greenhouse gas in the coalmining, landfill, agricultural, and oil and gas sectors into a clean energy source.

India wants industry to use waste-to-energy technologies to both generate electricity and help address waste disposal challenges in various core industries including pulp and paper industry, breweries, textile mills, rice mills and solvent extraction units.
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We can think about our buildings and try to reduce energy use there. Eighty-four per cent of property owners, architects and consultants are involved in green development to some degree, but there are still limited choices of green building products, according to the first major survey of attitudes to sustainability.

While governments are seen as having the greatest influence on society’s reaction to climate change, 65% of people surveyed in a recent report expected the private sector to take the lead in coming years. What a pity our leaders are not leading. It is a shame we can’t harness the hot air from question time in parliament.

While wind power could supply one third of the world’s electricity by 2050 and save 113 billion tones of CO2 emissions (according to a report by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) and Greenpeace); consumers wanting to use “green energy” pay more for the privilege. This is an area where Government could make a difference by providing incentives and using “green power” themselves.

Technorati Tags: energy, energy use, Global Wind Energy Council, GWEC, Greenpeace, green energy, green power, ISO 14001

Global warming is expected to intensify the water cycle, with increased risk of floods and droughts. One of the effects of global warming is likely to be changes in the seasonality of river flows in regions where winter precipitation falls as snow. Additionally, rising sea levels will damage the quality of fresh water available from coastal aquifers and wetlands.

Less freshwater is likely to be available in West Africa, Central America, southern Europe, the eastern US and southern Australia. Other regions, particularly tropical Africa and northwest South America, will be at significant risk of excessive runoff as trees are lost, increasing the chances of severe flooding.

We need to preserve our water quality. There are more of us and fresh water is deceasing. Anything discharged into drains ends up in lakes, dams, rivers or the sea. Do any rivers or lakes near your business have algal problems? A wetland can remove up to 90% of sediments, nutrients and bacteria from stormwater.

When we go boating we really enjoy being in the environment but have we thought about the impact we may be having on water quality. Two-stroke engines produced up to 10 times more water pollution than four-stroke. They acidify waterways and release heavy metals from sediments resulting in underwater pollution up to 1000 per cent worse with two-stroke engines.

Technorati Tags: impacts on water, water, ISO 14001, freshwater, global warming, West Africa, Central America, southern Europe, eastern US, southern Australia, stormwater, acidity water

The outspoken leader of the Green’s Party in Australia, Dr Bob Brown, has one of the highest carbon footprints of any federal MPs. His carbon footprint is twice as high as Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Labour environment spokesperson Peter Garret. It is true that he has further to travel from Tasmania when they both live in Sydney which is closer to Canberra but he has not made any efforts to reduce this footprint. These figures were compiled by the NSW Business Chamber and published in the Sunday Telegraph. They show that Brown emits 23.44 tonnes of CO2e a year in air and car travel. In contrast, Turnbull’s annual emissions totalled 8.7 tonnes and Garrett 11.7 tonnes.

We can all take steps to minimise our carbon foot print. At Enviro Action we give part of every sale to Trees for Life to plant indigenous trees in South Australia and when I fly to work with clients offline, I give more to cover those aircraft emissions. Granted this is far from an exact calculation but I am making a considerable effort to both minimize and to compensate for my carbon outputs. This need to balance carbon does not apply to the Greens apparently.

Technorati Tags: ISO 14001, Greens Party, Australia, Dr Bob Brown, Bob Brown, Peter Garret, Malcolm Turnbell, Environment Minister, Labour Environment Spokesperson, Canberra, Sydney, NSW Business Chamber

Now about the Causes
There are three main gases that are responsible for causing the Greenhouse Effect.
The data for this has been taken from ice cores giving thousands of years of information.
- Carbon Dioxide CO2
- Nitrous oxides - often called NOX
- Methane

All three are increasing exponentially at present. We are now sitting a long way outside the concentrations that have ever occurred in the past and we don’t know what will happen.

Who is to blame for this? My little bit can’t make all that difference. Twenty-seven per cent of carbon emissions come from homes which means the rest comes from business in some form or other and a large percentage of business involves small to medium enterprises and farms, just like most of us.

Air traffic is currently blamed for about 3.5% of the human activities that cause climate change and is the fastest growing source of emissions. Its share of total CO2 impact is expected to grow to 5% by 2050.

A recent report stated that agriculture is responsible for 40% of greenhouse gasses,
- 70% of total methane,
- 80% of NOX – this comes from biochemical processes in soils. There are large losses of N from fertilizers – between 15and 50% of N fertilizer goes missing. If you use N fertilizer, you need to improve the efficiency of use.

There are 1.4 billion cows worldwide, each producing 500 litres of methane a day and accounting for 14% of all emission of the gas

There is now 5 times the historic concentration of fertilizers in the sea off the coast of Queensland. This causes and increased growth of algae and algae feed Crown of Thorns starfish larvae. The combination of higher temperatures and Crown of Thorns Starfish is seriously threatening the Great Barrier Reef.

Technorati Tags: ISO 14001, causes of global warming, global warming, CO2, NOX