A “Conditional Approval” system would seem to be a sensible step to allow for the development of new and emerging technologies to enable the kinds of changes we need over the next 10-20 years if we are to in any way manage the “runaway train” of global warming and its flow on implications. I firmly believe that while Government needs strict regulations preventing environmental harm and enforcing greenhouse gas reductions, they also need to get out of the way and permit innovation.

I have previously mentioned coastal aquaculture located in high wind areas that would like to power their pumps with wind turbines but this is not permitted because they are too big to be domestic and too small to be commercial. Bullshit is about the only comment that I think fits!

I sat in on the summary and outcomes session on coal seam gas water at the EcoForum. This was a fascinating insight on how Government needs to be able to be more flexible in some of their regulations and a bit of across States consistency would help!

There is a large amount of water in the coal seams and it is regarded as a waste under rigid EPA restrictions and, although it is much needed, it is only allowed to be put into evaporation ponds. They would even be in breach of their licence if they use the “waste” for jobs like dust suppression around their own mine site.

The discussion brought out very interesting State differences and strongly overlapped with a discussion of water resource management. Australia is a Federation made up of what were originally separate colonies and the legacy at times seems to present difficulties in establishing sensible management of national issues like water (not to mention hospitals and education!).

The water issue is huge in Australia. A lot of people want the water and if the gas is to be extracted, the water must be also. Power stations need to be cooled. Some use treated sewage effluent, some cool with sea water and some use dry fans. As it is logical to locate power stations near the coal and gas they are fired by, cooperation with this water would seem logical.

There was interesting discussion around the different rules between States and contrasting with overseas experience also. Queensland does not have the concept of environmental water flows that is the norm in most states. In the ACT the miners would have to pay to be allowed to evaporate their water – it would be regarded as a valuable resource to be cleaned and used, not a waste. In South Africa if a miner extracts water or uses it, they have to replace it.

Kwinana in Western Australia was mentioned as an example of organisation between neighbouring businesses so that the companies trade their waste with each other on the principle that one man’s waste is another’s treasure.

If we can’t even agree about sensibly managing our water how in the **** are we going to get the 50-80% reductions we need in greenhouse emissions, the 50% reduction in available water, cope with an increasing population (50% increase was mentioned) and increasingly unstable weather patterns.

Get real Government and get a razor gang onto red and green tape!

It is very interesting that the organisers have managed to make this much more of an interactive forum than most conferences I have been to previously. My personal feeling is that the methods they are using of having short content rich talks on a topic with no immediate questions, then a much longer forum for the last third of the session in some cases; in another case – a full session of forum; and yet another a café style interaction; is very much more respectful of a room full of additional minds that can be brought to problems rather than needing to be passively lectured to be an “expert”. It allows the expert and the audience opportunities to take topics further and gain more insights.

The café style interaction is very interesting and would be a very useful tool for community consultation and it is no coincidence it is being used in the 2-day stream on communication risk. The first session, which I had the honour of chairing, was more conventional with 5 x15 minute speakers followed by an interactive forum but it has been followed by sessions with 1 speaker then a question put to the session to be discussed in groups of 4 around small tables. One person at each table is the host and makes sure the group is recorded. Everyone is encouraged to write or draw their concepts on the A3 page, then all except the host move and go on considering the same question with a new group. At the end, the table host briefly summarises the discussion for the entire group and the pages are handed in.

This is a really interesting tool for public consultation. People do hear each other and be heard in a much less threatening environment than in a public meeting where the two extreme ends of the opinion bell curve try hard to influence the silent majority in the middle. People hear other views and a mind stretched never returns fully to where it was.

The last session tonight included food and drinks so the atmosphere was most enjoyable and made a very long day into a pleasant atmosphere to keep working

I read an interesting article by SITA who is a major recycling and waste disposal business. They find that plastic bags cause many problems in recycling but that they are relatively benign in landfills - so long as they do end up in landfills. Left around as litter they cause enormous problems to wildlife.

SITS feel that the they are not nearly so significant a problem as degradable organic waste which generates methane and contribute to climate change., particularly in older land fills without gas capture.

They suggest a levy for the bags at supermarkets to act as an incentive to people to remember to bring their re-usable bags. Let’s be realistic there are times when the most dedicated environmentalist needs to dash into a shop and buy things when the bags are not with them.

Unless they go to an alternative waste treatment facility where there is aerobic digestion, biodegradable bags are apparently not the answer because they are carbon based and they end up emitting methane.

I remember to take my bags 95% of the time but sometime forget even though the back of my car sometimes seems to be overrun with green cloth bags. I have one bag that the others are all supposed to be stored in but they seem to escape and take over the back of my car at times!

Technorati Tags: domestic waste, waste, reducing litter, litter, SITA, recycling, waste disposal, plastic bags,   green cloth bags

I recently read a report from Reuters that Japan is looking to harness wind power in a big way. Adapting an initiative first made in Europe, the country is looking to construct wind farms offshore, employing wind currents found in the Pacific Ocean.

The first offshore wind farm for Asia has been built in Hokkaido on the northern most island of Japan. Two 600 kilowatt turbines situated just a kilometre offshore generate enough power to run almost 1,000 homes a year. The challenge in constructing more sites for these offshore farms is finding a cost effective way to do so in deep sea waters.

I have a naughty question- Would the NIMBYs (not in my back yard) we have objecting to all developments in this country object to them offshore also? Personally I think they are very elegant and beautiful structures and have a less offensive visual impact then clearing vegetation or building houses on rugged windswept coastlines.

Well done Japan! Lots of the EU countries also have offshore wind farms. I would love to see more here. There is potential for much of the coastal onshore aquaculture to minimise the impact of the energy used in running their huge sea pumps if they were allowed to run wind farms but, believe it or not, they are too big to be classified as domestic and too small to be commercial so they are not permitted under whatever red tape has been set up. I have a client trying to do this!

Technorati Tags: Reuters, Japan, wind power, harnessing wind power, wind farms, wind currents, Pacific Ocean, Hokkaido, northern Japan

This morning I flew to Brisbane then caught the train to the Gold Coast where I am attending this year’s EcoForum conference and exhibition. This meant a 4am start to catch a 6am flight so I spent some time after lunch in the hotel pool. The conference is being held in the Conrad Jupiter Casino so it was a rather bizarre contract walking from a serious environmental conference, through a casino with a Mexican band and dancers on stilts who were about 10ft tall!

The pool was wonderful! It was set in trees with fantastic landscaping. The local small wildlife was living there happily so I sat and enjoyed a wonderful soak in a spa along side exotic pools with fountains galore and a delightful small lizard (an eastern dragon) who was happily ignoring me and catching small insects. He was around 15cm long and as thick as my thumb and the most delightful company. There was also an Ibis and a wild turkey walking around the edge of the pool complex and scratching in the bushes. Totally delightful and totally relaxing!

I have a deep love of lizards which are fascinating creatures and we have such a wide range of them in Australia, from miniature skinks to the huge monitors in the North. My personal favourites are the dragons with the big collars that run at you with a huge show of bravado with their collars up making them look so wonderfully fierce. I also have fascination with turtles and have had a pet turtle called Toots for the past 25 years. She started as a tiny thing the size of my thumbnail! Yes I do have a permit for her. I do not, however, like all reptiles. I regard snakes, both venomous and not, and also crocodiles with the deepest suspicion. What an interesting contrast. I must admit though that last time I was in Darwin; there were some utterly beautiful snakes around looking for flood refuges in the places we were working. They were lovely – but highly venomous and the guys were relocating them, without harm, away from the work area. Admired from the safety of a bucket, I could appreciate them.

Technorati Tags: Conrad Jupiter Casino, EcoForum conference and exhibition, EcoForum, wildlife, reptiles, spa, eastern dragon

Jean’s clients, Australian Bight Abalone is an ABALONE farm off the South Australia’s West Coast is the first aquaculture project in Australia - and possibly the world - to achieve an official carbon-neutral …

Read the story on news.com.au

They have already implemented ISO 14001, ISO 9001, Occupational health and safety (AS/NZS 4801) and HACCP. Look at their case study.

http://enviroaction.com.au/bight_abalone.html

These Guys are impressive and a joy to work with!

Technorati Tags: Australian Bight Abalone, Abalone, Abalone farm, South Australia’s West Coast, carbon neutral, ISO 14001, ISO 9001, Occupational health and safety

The CSIRO has discovered the rise of pollution in the atmosphere is forcing a change in ocean circulation in the Southern Hemisphere, in turn affecting our region’s weather systems. A report by Dr Wenju Cai said aerosols cool the Northern Hemisphere’s ocean surface and induce a hemispheric imbalance. This causes an increase in the transport of heat from the Southern Hemisphere oceans to the Northern Hemisphere oceans via the south Atlantic. “For the first time, we see that human-generated aerosols are partly responsible for intensifying features such as larger ocean gyres, causing them to shift southward. They also cause the southward movement of maximum sea surface temperature gradients, mid-latitude storms and the westerly jet stream,” said Dr Cai.

Technorati Tags: CSIRO, ride of pollution, pollution, atmosphere, Southern Hemisphere, weather systems, hemispheric imbalance, climate change, global warming

The Australian Minister For Environment, Peter Garret, has suggested that they be banned by the end of the year. Outcry from retailers!

50% of consumers bring their own bags and don’t use the plastic ones. The big issue for me is remembering to carry them up from the car. I keep enough bags in the car to cope with forgetting to take them back to the car from the house.

The waste processors tell us that the bags cause problems in many automated and manual resource recovery systems. They also tell us that the bags do not cause as much problem in landfill as degradable organic waste which generates methane and contribute to the greenhouse effect.

The problem is the litter that they cause when people are irresponsible.

A sensible solution would be to charge a small levy per bag and let the market decide what they feel is the best way for them to move their groceries from shop to home BUT couple this with an education campaign or signage on the bag to remind people about the damage bags cause as litter.

Extending this subject to farming and aquaculture - what about stock feed and fertilizer bags. I am sure lots of my clients would love some helpful comments on how to deal with this problem.

Technorati Tags: plastic bags, resource recovery systems, landfills, degradable organic waste, methane, greenhouse effect

Albert Einstein once said “we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them”. Applying this to today’s sustainability challenge would read “we are not going to rebalance the economy and ecology using economic decision support tools like cost benefit analysis, regardless of how ‘rigorous’ or ’scientific’ they purport to be”.

All environmental problems stem from a single cause – our systems of production and consumption are out of sync with the ecology of the planet. As a result major ecosystems are in decline and we are undermining our own ability to thrive, let alone the untold damage inflicted on other species.

But what about the cost?
The discussion on cost as opposed to value is a problem because at present it is not part of our main stream thinking.. It is not possible to go to the corner store and purchase $2.50 worth of improved biodiversity, or water catchment protection, or salinity control, etc. Spending money on what is essential to our resource and lifestyle security is counted as a cost.

Conversely you can happily buy $2.50 worth of nutritionless caffeinated beverage that arguably accelerates obesity, diabetes and dental decay but this is considered to be necessary expenditure - not a cost.

Go Figure! We need a mindset change.

Technorati Tags: thinking outside the square, Albert Einstein, sustainability challenge, economy, ecology, environment, environmental problems, biodiversity