I just don’t get the logic of ignoring the valuable Australian seafood industry

While this industry is not directly exposed to carbon trading, they will be severely hit by rising prices for their inputs, especially for energy.

The seafood industry is a highly diversified industry exceeding $2.2 billion and employing very large numbers of people.
However it is not being mentioned as a trade exposed industry.  The seafood industry contributes 7 per cent of the gross value of Australian food production (2003-04) and its estimated 45,000 workers are strongly regionally-based. additionally there are many more support industries dependent on the seafood industry.

The seafood industry is already experiencing job leakage to overseas countries.  While about 30 per cent of the volume of all production is exported, 50 per cent of all seafood consumed in Australia is imported.

The quality of Australian wild caught and also farmed fish is far superior to much of the imported farmed fish that comes from more polluted water bodies and less strictly regulated fish farms.

The Australian industry is currently under threat from increased numbers and lobbying by recreational fishers, the rapid proliferation of marine parks and misinformation campaigns by some ‘green” lobby groups.

Unlike agriculture, our seafood community has no ability to reduce its costs by selling carbon credits through various types of soil sequestration and it needs to be protected.

Increases in their input costs with an ETS (or CPRS or whatever the latest acronym will be when it is passed) will make many more of our valuable fishing businesses unviable costing more jobs and leaving Australians with lower quality food on their tables.

envirojean

Save Money with Simple and Effective Management Systems

Jean Cannon is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want to save money by implementing simple and effective management systems. Sign up to discover how YOU can save money with sensible energy management and ISO 14001.

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Here is an email I received today

Message

“I was delighted to learn of your success in the International Design Competition … Your achievement reflects great credit not only on yourself and your two colleagues but on the Snowy Scheme and for this reason the Authority is proud of your efforts

envirojean

Save Money with Simple and Effective Management Systems

Jean Cannon is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want to save money by implementing simple and effective management systems. Sign up to discover how YOU can save money with sensible energy management and ISO 14001.

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Last week I asked your opinion about the use of words like green and environment and the winner is most resoundingly environmental sustainability.  This was also my favourite although green is easier to type.  I was also asked for no green fonts.

The other interesting buzz phrase is “reduce your carbon footprint” and someone asked me what that meant recently.  The answer is also environmental sustainability really.  It is reducing your waste energy and materials so that you are polluting our atmosphere less.

We all accumulate so much “stuff” and all of it either contains carbon and/or it took energy to make, distribute and store.

Having recently moved both house and office I had an accumulation of “stuff” – mostly on the back verandah because I neither brought it into the house, nor stored it in the shed until I had sorted it.  Finally I was left with several scattered piles that I consolidated in one pace to sort into keep, store, landfill, recycle or Vinnies/Salvos.  An interesting process.  I will have another go at what I put in the shed in a couple of weeks as I suspect I can be more ruthless yet.

The trick would be to let less in, in the first place.  I have fantasies about a paperless office and I do have mainly electronic files now.  This was the huge benefit of not having full time staff who loved printing, filing and filling filing cabinets with colour coordinated files.

The electronic filing does require a robust backup and firewall which is why I found the recent “attack of the gremlins” frustrating.  I am a firm believer in low paper simple systems that reduce your workload and also reduce your overheads.

It has been an interesting week with lots of environmental news from around the world as groups position themselves for Copenhagen only six weeks away and there are also many major conferences like the forest conference, the African Union, the European Union and more; pulling their facts together to present unified positions in preparation for Copenhagen.

It really is time we all acted to stop polluting our atmosphere and make sure we are running our homes and businesses environmentally sustainably.

You see ………
We will have financial pressure to push us in the direction of sensible energy management.

Over the next few months there will be agreements and changed legislation and it really makes sense to be on the front foot and take proactive steps to reduce our carbon footprint and have environmentally sustainable homes and businesses.  The anwer is to reduce – NOT to simply buy offsets and pay to continue polluting.

A Major Trend
Trends around the world are for more people to “telecommute” and work at least some of the time from home to reduce commuting time, greenhouse gas emissions and money.

I find that working from a well set up home office and working with virtual helpers is a sensible option.  I run much of my consultancy this way also with clients widely scattered around Australia and sometimes the world and it saves my clients time and money also.

You only have a one hour per week set time commitment when you join a coached group course to do ISO 14001 and your training materials come in both written and audio form so that you can choose the one that suits you.  Many of my clients find that when they are tired, they can still listen and if they commute that is when they listen

Why not take the plunge and join a group implementing ISO 14001 online and making savings of time, waste, energy and more in your business now.

Or if you are not sure you can buy the low cost ISO 14001 Do-It-Yourself package which is the same course except for the weekly coaching.  You can get extra one-on-one coaching or upgrade to the coached course if you wish.

envirojean

Save Money with Simple and Effective Management Systems

Jean Cannon is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want to save money by implementing simple and effective management systems. Sign up to discover how YOU can save money with sensible energy management and ISO 14001.

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The World Forestry Congress is currently running with 3,500 delegates from 160 countries whose conclusions are to provide some groundwork for a UN climate change summit to be held in Copenhagen next month.

A major problem is that deforestation was not included in carbon calculations under the Kyoto agreement.

World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) claims that the equivalent of 36 football fields are being stripped from the world’s forests each minute and they called for “net deforestation of zero” by 2020.  The WWF appeal was not a call for deforestation to be stopped completely but rather that the devastation of forests be compensated with forest renewal initiatives.

According to the WWF, the pace of deforestation “generates around 20 per cent of global emissions of greenhouse gases”.

In Argentina, there has been massive eradication of forests in the central and north of the country to make way for lucrative soja crops and they now only have 30 per cent of the original forests, according to a document presented by five environmental groups including Greenpeace and Argentina’s Forestry Life Foundation.

envirojean

Save Money with Simple and Effective Management Systems

Jean Cannon is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want to save money by implementing simple and effective management systems. Sign up to discover how YOU can save money with sensible energy management and ISO 14001.

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Europe is offering to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by up to 95 per cent by 2050 and by 30 per cent by 2020 if a climate-change pact is sealed in Copenhagen in six weeks’ time.

”This should be seen as a clear message to the world,” said Andreas Carlgren, the Swedish environment minister.

The EU still has to settle how to pay the developing world to cope with the impact of global warming and disputes over the EU emissions trading scheme, with Poland and other poorer east European countries unhappy about being asked to subsidise action in countries such as China and India.

Given the reluctance of the US, China and India to unveil targets or specific figures for a pact, the EU was divided over tactics. But Britain, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands believe Europe can gain from seizing the leadership before Copenhagen.

Interestingly they have previously signed up to a 40% reduction by 2020 so why is this being weakened?

envirojean

Save Money with Simple and Effective Management Systems

Jean Cannon is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want to save money by implementing simple and effective management systems. Sign up to discover how YOU can save money with sensible energy management and ISO 14001.

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The beef industry has hit back at a so called “environmental” group’s push to have people eat less red meat.

This campaign says people should ‘go vegetarian’ on the basis that beef production uses too much water.  The more common ones are about methane belching.

They claim that it takes 15,500 litres of water to produce a kilogram of beef which differs from cattle producer Grant Maudsley says the real amount of water used per kilogram of beef is between 27 to 540 litres. The group included all the processing, the transport and everything else.

Vegetarianism seems to me to be a religion and while it may suit some people’s metabolism it does not suit everyone.  This is not sensible environmental management and I object to them claiming to be an environmental group.

If we look at our nearest relatives, our ancestors and even our teeth, it is clear that we have evolved to be omnivores and should eat a mixed diet.

Personally I seldom eat red meat simply because I prefer fish and free range poultry.  This is a choice thing only.  I eat a good variety of fruit and vegetable and relatively few grains because I am allergic to all grains except oats.

I vigorously oppose people telling me what I must and must not eat or having high “moral” indignation about eating any particular foods.  Remember lettuces are also living things I say.

The two big problems we have with western diets is not waste but excess sugar consumption in almost everything and also the amount that we simply waste and throw away to lanfil to produce the very methane that the vegos worry about.

envirojean

Save Money with Simple and Effective Management Systems

Jean Cannon is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want to save money by implementing simple and effective management systems. Sign up to discover how YOU can save money with sensible energy management and ISO 14001.

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The Victorian Brumby Government is considering establishing a brown coal export industry in Victoria.  The State Energy Minister Peter Batchelor is trying to allocate all unallocated brown coal as quickly as possible, before an emissions trading scheme and global climate deals bite and prevent this.

So what’s wrong with exporting brown coal?
1.    Firstly, burning brown coal (or lignite as it’s known in Europe) is among the most polluting ways of generating electricity because it is wet, volatile, and inefficient. If all 13 billion tonnes of unallocated coal were allowed we’d be unleashing 12 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide — more than 20 years’ worth of Australia’s current emissions.
2.    The coal industry has been promising to dry coal and reduce its emissions since the early 1970sbut have not delivered on this pledge despite significant public investment in coal-drying projects.

Three companies received massive coal allocations in 2002 on the promise of delivering “clean coal” projects. Seven years later these projects are yet to materialise but the recipients have received a windfall allocation worth tens of millions of dollars.
3.    Finally, the argument that if we don’t export our coal to the developing world then someone else will is the drug dealer’s defence. The fact is, because brown coal is more polluting than other fuels

Victoria, should aware of the threat posed by climate change and be wanting to avoid increased years of drought, firestorms and heat-waves.  They tasted it last summer.

envirojean

Save Money with Simple and Effective Management Systems

Jean Cannon is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want to save money by implementing simple and effective management systems. Sign up to discover how YOU can save money with sensible energy management and ISO 14001.

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CHINA is the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide but it is wrong to ignore the rapid progress China is making in clean energy development. In fact, in many aspects China is leading the world in the fight against climate change.

China has decided to take an alternative paradigm for the sake of the country. Renewable energy is now considered as a strategic element in the country’s future competitiveness internationally.

One of the first signs that China was choosing a greener path was its 4000 billion yuan ($646 billion) stimulus package. Almost 40 per cent was directed towards green initiatives.

Compare that with US’s 12 per cent was aimed at renewables, building efficiency and low carbon vehicles and Australia’s commitment of only 9 per cent committed to climate change investment. This came largely from the Government’s pink-batt policy to insulate 2.7 million homes.

The United Nations climate chief, Yvo de Boer, said China’s stimulus package would position it as a world leader in fighting global warming, and well ahead of the US in dealing with climate change.

While China eclipsed the US as the largest national emitter of greenhouse gas in 2007, its 1.3 billion citizens emit less per capita than do those of the US and European Union, and below the global average.

The Chinese Government had adopted a multi-faceted approach to climate change. Its attention to renewable energy has come about because it has found a market to sell into.

The Climate Group report shows that 44 per cent of the world’s solar photovoltaic was
Growth in installed wind turbines is faster in China than in any other country. Wind power in 2008 topped 12 gigawatts – a figure that is doubling every year. The country has committed to a renewable energy target of 15 per cent by 2020.

This week China Daily quoted a senior energy official as saying China would have 100 gigawatts of wind-power capacity by 2020 – more than three times the 30 GW target the Government has proposed. China wants to increase its wind power capacity to 20 GW by next year, suggesting it will smash the 2020 target.

As we get closer to Copenhagen, and hopefully a new global climate change deal, China is in an interesting position. If the world signs up to a post-Kyoto emissions reduction target, China will be able to help bring down the world’s emissions by manufacturing the renewable technology needed.

A Chinese commentator said the Copenhagen deal needs to offer more robust technology transfer agreements than in Kyoto, to get China on board.

China will not lose economic prosperity for the sake of global warming but it has recognised a business opportunity in greening its economy. Recent signals from its leaders show that China could be amenable to a global climate change deal although on its own terms.

It is set to play a leading role at Copenhagen – not least in showing the world how to position itself to take advantage of the upside.

The Chinese have a long way to go and major obstacles to overcome because of its huge population but it is certainly doing far more about environmental sustainability and reducing their carbon footprint than Australia.

envirojean

Save Money with Simple and Effective Management Systems

Jean Cannon is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want to save money by implementing simple and effective management systems. Sign up to discover how YOU can save money with sensible energy management and ISO 14001.

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African governments, supported by the African Union (AU), are drafting harmonized legislation in regard of the climate change to give Africa a common voice in the international arena of negotiations and compensations expected to come out of the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in December.

African delegations are expected to look at US$70+ billion from the developed “polluters” whose previous actions are now adding to the African suffering previously caused by economic exploitation by colonial powers and the slave trade.

East Africa, in particular, has been suffering from the ever faster and ever more intense cycles of drought and flooding that may well be due to global warming and climate change.

Africa has the lowest carbon footprint of all continents, but because of its geographical position is the most likely to suffer the severe weather fallout associated with climate change with a predicted 10 percent rise in average temperatures over the next 90 or so years.

The main targets for compensation will be the United States, the EU, China, India, and Russia. The latter three are expected to be the most obstinate and difficult ones to reach an agreement with.

Meanwhile, Uganda is the first country to take advantage of the World Bank’s “Bio Carbon Fund,” which was set up, post Kyoto, to help countries to restore forests through reforestation projects.

They will use tropical hardwood trees, native trees and commercial tree species in areas where they are rolling out the project to ensure the longevity of the project while still, after some years, being able to use the “commercial” species for timber production. They have also pointed out that Uganda’s carbon trading position will be greatly enhanced.

envirojean

Save Money with Simple and Effective Management Systems

Jean Cannon is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want to save money by implementing simple and effective management systems. Sign up to discover how YOU can save money with sensible energy management and ISO 14001.

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Global warming will leave the Arctic Ocean ice-free during the summer within 20 years, raising sea levels and harming wildlife such as seals and polar bears, a leading British polar scientist Professor Peter Wadhams of the University of Cambridge said on Thursday.  Much of the melting will take place within a decade, although the winter ice will stay for hundreds of years.

The changes will mean the top of the Earth will appear blue rather than white when photographed from space and ships will have a new sea route north of Russia.

Wadhams, one of the world’s leading experts on sea ice cover in the North Pole region, compared ice thickness measurements taken by a Royal Navy submarine in 2007 with evidence gathered by the British explorer Pen Hadow earlier this year.  Now the average thickness of ice-floes was 1.8 meters, a depth considered too thin to survive the summer’s ice melt.

The Arctic Sea plays a vital role in the world’s climate.  As Arctic ice melts in summer, it exposes the darker-colored ocean water, which absorbs sunlight instead of reflecting it, accelerating the effect of global warming. Take it out of the equation and we are left with a dramatically warmer world.

Britain’s Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said the research “sets out the stark realities of climate change.”
“This further strengthens the case for an ambitious global deal in Copenhagen,” he added.

People tell me that they find this information depressing and they don’t want to know But like the question I asked last week about what would you do if your kitchen was on fire would you really rather pretend it is not happening and just get depressed while it all burns anyway.

Let’s get some action going, some international agreements and some environmentally sustainable practices in all our homes and workplaces.

Let’s even get the coal industry unions to listen to common sense and ban all new coal mines and close down the dirtiest ones and move people into renewable energy jobs instead.

If every home and every small business decided to reduce their carbon footprint with sensible energy management we would make a big difference.  Even small businesses benefit from implemeneting environmental sustainability and you can do this easily, in your own time with ISO 14001 the Do-It-Yourself home study system

envirojean

Save Money with Simple and Effective Management Systems

Jean Cannon is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want to save money by implementing simple and effective management systems. Sign up to discover how YOU can save money with sensible energy management and ISO 14001.

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