Kyoto II and a low carbon future - there is no Plan B

Executive Director of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Christiana Figueres, addressed a standing-room only lunchtime gathering at the Lowy Institute for International Policy on Wednesday 24 October 2012.

She reviewed progress with the establishing a low-carbon future emphasising that every nation and every sector of society holds part of the solution to solving a global problem and a top-down level approach on its own will not work. The international climate change negotiations are the intergovernmental face of this global trend towards a low-carbon future with the next step in the international response to climate change, being in Doha, this year.

She made three key points in her speech starting with a negative reality but balanced with two positive trends. First the negative reality is the progress has been slow and the world is well behind the targets needed to manage climate change and greenhouse gas emissions.

The positive points are that a large number of countries are implementing carbon reduction and emission trading schemes or equivalent. Australia is not alone in developing a response and the Clean Energy Future policy of the Australian Government is in line with policies being taken overseas by many countries including many of Australia's trading partners - China, South Korea and Singapore.

 

She observed that she is often asked what she has for “Plan B” if the negotiations fail. Her response: “There is no Plan B for there is no Planet B. There’s no alternative for we only have one planet and failure is not an option”.

The sustainable world from Monsanto's view

Monsanto is arguably the world's largest multinational agricultural biotechnology company (but not agricultural company per se) with assets of $19.8 billion USD and the leader in genetically modified grain. It has an interesting history having previously been a chemical, polymers and plastics company and was transformed between 1997 and 2002 into the current entity. It still produces some pesticides but in its earlier incarnation, DDT and Agent Orange came from this company as well as PCBs for insulation. As a corporation it remains highly controversial and its development of GM products remains highly contested in the public domain.

Social License to Operate and Coal Seam Gas Mining

 A central principle and mechanism for community engagement used in the mining industry generally is termed the 'Social License to Operate' or SLO. This term is used to describe the approval and / or ongoing acceptance for a development granted by the local community and other related stakeholders. It's not a static arrangement but a dynamic approval which must be renegotiated continually as new information comes to light or circumstances change. Arguably the coal seam mining sector has failed to adequately address this critical link to communities with whom they interact and ultimately also affect with their mining operations. SLO has five key features -

• Starting point is that no SLO exists until one is negotiated - miners cannot assume they have any social licence from the community until they engage in dialogue to establish one.
• Dynamic is the descriptive term underpinning the SLO and an SOL must be earned and then maintained.
• Key values for an SLO must include credibility, transparency and fundamentally, trust.
• Dialogue enabling communties and stakeholders to engage meaingfully with miners on issues around the acceptibility of new or continuing operations.
• Information which is sufficient and from a range of perspectives for public education to enable communities and the broader public to make informed decisions, consider trade-offs and develop realistic expectations concerning coal seam gas mining.

To the degree that there is a high level of opposition to coal seam gas mining, there is equally apparent an absence of a social license to operate.

Genetically Modified Food - the Greenpeace view

Genetically Modified (GM) Food - The perspective from Greenpeace - this short animation contains some of the accepted information on this issue but should be seen as one view on the debate as some explantations are contestable.

Genetically Modified Crops - The Upside Debate

Maize harvested

Any discussion involved genetically modified (GM) foods plus GM crops immediately triggers regular and consistent controversy with steadfast opposition from both environmentalists and some in the agriculture sector. However not all of the negative reaction is warranted and in a number of cases, the evidence against GM crops is flawed. In September 2012, the University of Caen, France reported that rats fed GM maize with an inbuilt resistence to the herbicide, glyphosate, were more susceptible to cancer. However subsequent analysis of the study has found that many of the control mice fed non GM maize also developed cancer. This month, the European Food Safety Authority concluded that the Caen study was of "insufficient scientific quality to be considered valid for risk assessment.."

An alternative set of data from the US National Agricultural Statistics Service has found that between 1996 and 2010, use of herbicides and insecticides with GM crops apparently declined by 9.1 % globally compared with non-GM crops. This is due to the fact that some GM crops have been engineered to be partly pest resistant and hence require less pesticides. Other GM crops produce sufficient pest resistant chemicals to not require spraying at all. This is a debate however which remains inconclusive and will continue for many years to come.

Asteroid collisions - size doesn't matter after all

The idea that asteroid collisions with Earth pose any more a direct threat than science fiction films from Hollywood would portray ('Deep Impact' ) is a common belief not readily shared by many astronomers. This conventional and common understanding is grounded in a perception of a giant asteroid hurtling to earth in an event similar to the extinction of the dinosaurs. In reality, much smaller and more readily Near Earth Objects (NEO) which traverse similar orbits can, in fact, do extraordinary damage without actually striking the planet.

This was demonstrated all too effectively by the Tunguska event where a very powerful explosion occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, in the early morning on June 30,1908. It is estimated the asteroid,measuring 70 meters in diameter entered Earth's atmosphere travelling at a speed of approx 33,500 miles per hour and during its rapid descent, the space object heated the air surrounding it to 44,500 degrees Fahrenheit. At 7:17 a.m. (local Siberia time), at a height of about 28,000 feet, the combination of pressure and heat caused the asteroid to fragment and explode, producing a fireball and releasing energy equivalent to about 185 Hiroshima atomic bombs (NASA). 2,000 square kilometers of forest was destroyed. The above ground explosion is in fact referred to as an ‘air burst’ and constitutes the more likely threat to the Earth from asteroids. The Tunguska asteroid is now considered to have been much smaller than first estimates and was probably 30-50 meters in diameter. Measurement of sizes of asteroids suggests that even relatively small objects with the correct mass, trajectory and speed would be able to create a downward directed blast from an air burst with devastating results.The images in this post show the effects of the 1908 blast, many years after it occurred.

Festival of Dangerous Ideas - All Women Hate Each Other

The Festival of Dangerous Ideas at the Sydney Opera House held over the October long weekend again brought a range of interesting, if slightly askew topics to be discussed, debated and questioned by panels of recognised public commentators and advocates. One of the larger events held in the Concert Hall of the SOH was the topic of "All Women Hate Each Other" with panellists Eva Cox, Germaine Greer, Tara Moss and Danielle Miller. Although the panel were not in  agreement with the premise of the topic they managed to deliver many insightful, frequently amusing observations on corporate power and culture, the structure of society, men's relationships with women, body image, feminism, Julia Gillard's size and dress sense, UK journalist Samantha Brick's story about being beautiful, women in film, and how males oppress females. Not surprising the two most experienced women on the panel, Eva Cox and Germaine Greer, made the most telling and often amusing contributions to the debate again underscoring their formidable life experience and public contribution to the wider society over many decades. Eva Cox is now 74 and Germaine Greer, 73 and their experience spans the period of the 1960s to the present day which was clearly on display at the Festival.