Carbon Dioxide
Wednesday 07 May, 2008 - 10:49 by David Boyd
FUN FACTS about CARBON DIOXIDE
Of the 186 billion tons of CO2 that enter earth's atmosphere each year from all sources, only 6 billion tons are from human activity. Approximately 90 billion tons come from biologic activity in earth's oceans and another 90 billion tons from such sources as volcanoes and decaying land plants.
At 368 parts per million CO2 is a minor constituent of earth's atmosphere-- less than 4/100ths of 1% of all gases present. Compared to former geologic times, earth's current atmosphere is CO2- impoverished.
CO2 is odorless, colorless, and tasteless. Plants absorb CO2 and emit oxygen as a waste product. Humans and animals breathe oxygen and emit CO2 as a waste product. Carbon dioxide is a nutrient, not a pollutant, and all life-- plants and animals alike-- benefit from more of it. All life on earth is carbon-based and CO2 is an essential ingredient. When plant-growers want to stimulate plant growth, they introduce more carbon dioxide.
CO2 that goes into the atmosphere does not stay there but is continually recycled by terrestrial plant life and earth's oceans-- the great retirement home for most terrestrial carbon dioxide.
If we are in a global warming crisis today, even the most aggressive and costly proposals for limiting industrial carbon dioxide emissions would have a negligible effect on global climate!
09 June, 2009
Climate Change-Ian Plimer
In his new book, Heaven and Earth: Climate change – the real science, Prof Plimer, from the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Adelaide, notes that climatic change is ‘the norm’, sea levels rise and fall all the time, and that climate cycles are driven by massive forces completely unrelated to carbon emissions.
He says: “Climate changes in the past have been far greater and far more rapid than anything measured in the present. Not one previous climate change has ever been driven by carbon dioxide.
To talk of carbon pollution shows an appalling ignorance of basic school science. Carbon dioxide is plant food, without it humans could not exist.”
He says: “Climate changes in the past have been far greater and far more rapid than anything measured in the present. Not one previous climate change has ever been driven by carbon dioxide.
To talk of carbon pollution shows an appalling ignorance of basic school science. Carbon dioxide is plant food, without it humans could not exist.”
Irrigation-Letter In SMH
Letter in SMH 30.05.09
Saturday 30 May, 2009 - 07:25 by David Boyd in Irrigation
Solution flows from fewer licences and more dams
May 30, 2009
There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the cause of our record low river flows, particularly in the Murray-Darling, and buying back water licences won't fix it ("River rescue deal leaves NSW spluttering", May 29).
Take a look at the graph on the Murray Darling Basin Authority website that shows record low run-off into the Murray in recent years. The problem is clearly not extractions, which in any event are limited by low, or no, allocations. The problem is lack of run-off and too few efficient water storages.
There has been no discernible benefit from the water licence purchases and lower allocations that have taken place. Why? Because there has been no widespread heavy rain in the catchment. Thus, throwing another $300 million at buying back water licences is fiddling with the problem and will only restrict production when the rain does come.
The central feature of Australia's inland rivers is their massive variability. Storages can even this out and make production not only possible, but economically and environmentally sustainable.
Under natural conditions the Murray would have stopped flowing about two years ago and salt water would have entered Lakes Alexandrina and Albert (the Lower Lakes), as it always did when river flows were low before the building of barrages. Yet in this drought, with some water available from Eildon, Hume and Dartmouth dams, and from the Snowy system, a flow in the Murray has been maintained.
Conclusion: what we need are more dams and more efficient dams, not fewer licences. The Federal Government needs to recognise this and apply its collective mind to the profligate waste of fresh water in the form of evaporation from the man-engineered Lower Lakes and Menindee Lakes, and to identifying new sites for efficient storages. When it does so I will believe that it has
moved on from shallow, South Australia-centric political games and is addressing the problem.
With increasing world food shortages, Australia has a moral duty to maximise production, providing this can be done, as it can, without damage to our long-term productive capacity.
David Boyd St Ives
Saturday 30 May, 2009 - 07:25 by David Boyd in Irrigation
Solution flows from fewer licences and more dams
May 30, 2009
There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the cause of our record low river flows, particularly in the Murray-Darling, and buying back water licences won't fix it ("River rescue deal leaves NSW spluttering", May 29).
Take a look at the graph on the Murray Darling Basin Authority website that shows record low run-off into the Murray in recent years. The problem is clearly not extractions, which in any event are limited by low, or no, allocations. The problem is lack of run-off and too few efficient water storages.
There has been no discernible benefit from the water licence purchases and lower allocations that have taken place. Why? Because there has been no widespread heavy rain in the catchment. Thus, throwing another $300 million at buying back water licences is fiddling with the problem and will only restrict production when the rain does come.
The central feature of Australia's inland rivers is their massive variability. Storages can even this out and make production not only possible, but economically and environmentally sustainable.
Under natural conditions the Murray would have stopped flowing about two years ago and salt water would have entered Lakes Alexandrina and Albert (the Lower Lakes), as it always did when river flows were low before the building of barrages. Yet in this drought, with some water available from Eildon, Hume and Dartmouth dams, and from the Snowy system, a flow in the Murray has been maintained.
Conclusion: what we need are more dams and more efficient dams, not fewer licences. The Federal Government needs to recognise this and apply its collective mind to the profligate waste of fresh water in the form of evaporation from the man-engineered Lower Lakes and Menindee Lakes, and to identifying new sites for efficient storages. When it does so I will believe that it has
moved on from shallow, South Australia-centric political games and is addressing the problem.
With increasing world food shortages, Australia has a moral duty to maximise production, providing this can be done, as it can, without damage to our long-term productive capacity.
David Boyd St Ives
Irrigation Misunderstandings
Irrigation
Wednesday 18 March, 2009 - 09:50 by David Boyd
There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the cause of our record low river flows, particularly in the Murray/Darling; and buying back water licenses simply won't fix it!
Wednesday 18 March, 2009 - 09:50 by David Boyd
There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the cause of our record low river flows, particularly in the Murray/Darling; and buying back water licenses simply won't fix it!
Take a look at the Murray Darling Basin Authority website and the graph showing record low run-off into the Murray in recent years. The problem is clearly not extractions, which in any event are limited by low or no allocations. The problem is lack of run-off and too few efficient water storages.
Likewise consider the considerable “cut backs” that have already taken place, from which there has been no discernible benefit. Why? Because there simply hasn’t been any widespread heavy rain in the catchment.
Thus, throwing another $300m at buying back water licenses is really fiddling with the problem and will only restrict much needed production after we have the inevitable big rain event.
The central feature of Australia's inland rivers is their massive variability. Storages can even this out and make production possible and economically and environmentally sustainable.
The central feature of Australia's inland rivers is their massive variability. Storages can even this out and make production possible and economically and environmentally sustainable.
Under natural conditions the Murray would have stopped flowing 2/3 years ago and salt water would have entered Lakes Alexandrina and Albert (the Lower Lakes), as it always did before The Barrages were built when river flows were low. Yet with some water available from Eildon, Hume and Dartmouth Dams and from the Snowy system, a flow in the Murray has been maintained.
Conclusion - what we need is more dams and more efficient dams, not less licenses. When the Australian Government recognises this and applies its collective mind to doing something about the profligate waste of fresh water in the form of evaporation from the man-engineered Lower Lakes and Menindee Lakes and to identifying new sites for additional efficient storages, I will believe that they have moved on from shallow, South Australian centric, political games and are actually addressing the real problem.
With increasing world food shortages Australia has a moral duty to maximise production, providing this can be done, as it can, without damage to Australia's longterm productive capacity.
With increasing world food shortages Australia has a moral duty to maximise production, providing this can be done, as it can, without damage to Australia's longterm productive capacity.
ARTICLE by PAUL MYERS TOORALE and the DARLING
Toorale and the Darling
Thursday 30 October, 2008
ARTICLE by PAUL MYERS
TOORALE and the DARLING
………………………………………………………………………………………….
The joint purchase in September by the federal and NSW governments of Toorale Station in outback NSW has been shown to be the sham and public relations stunt it always was.
Not only did the Minister for Water and Climate Change Penny Wong admit in Monday’s Four Corners program that she didn’t know the identity of Toorale’s owners in the pre-purchase negotiations, it also emerged that the Commonwealth provided most of the funds for the $24 million acquisition “sight unseen”.
And after suggesting in immediate post-sale comments that 20 gigalitres a year would be returned to the Darling River as a result of the purchase, neither Senator Wong nor anyone else can now quantify the benefit.
Buyer, beware. Nobody ever buys a rural property of any size, let alone one for $24 million, without at least several inspections and a lot of questions – except, it seems, taxpayers. And when it comes to water, that was apparently intrinsically valued in the Toorale sale at about half the property’s price, you want to be doubly sure that what you expect is what you get.
The shambolic and hasty manner in which the federal and NSW governments acquired Toorale is bad enough. But worse, it has effectively killed any chance of achieving broad public understanding of the real problems affecting Australia’s inland rivers, and how they should be tackled.
The sale may well have convinced the public that similar acquisitions of farmland and/or irrigation water can restore health to inland rivers. But in most cases, buybacks will deliver only a trickle of additional water to the environment, because irrigators can access water only when there are significant and prescribed flows in a river after heavy rain.
This is certainly the case with Toorale, which has several thousand hectares developed for cotton, but not a boll of which has been harvested for several years because there hasn’t been enough water available from the Darling and Warrego rivers to support a crop.
So while the drought continues, the payback to taxpayers from the Toorale purchase will be nil. It will still be nil even if there is moderated rainfall, and only minor benefits during floods because a lot of water stays out on flood plains and only some returns to the river from whence it came.
Mother Nature – not governments, environmentalists, irrigators or anyone else – determine whether rivers flow or dry up. It may be too simplistic for some, but 99 percent of the problems on the Darling and other rivers are caused by lack of precipitation, the variability of rainfall, and evaporation. It has been that way for millennia, and always will be.
The Murray, Darling and most, if not all, of Australia’s inland rivers have been dry several times during white settlement, and often beforehand.
The Murray, for example, stopped flowing in 1850 and for six months during the “Federation drought” of 1902 before there was any real human intervention. But Australia’s greatest river has continued to flow during this drought – the worst since white settlement – because water has been stored and subsequently released from Hume and Dartmouth dams.
The Darling is a microcosm of the Murray, with only 12 percent of its bigger brother’s average flow. The Darling flows strongly after a big rain, or otherwise not much at all. Irrigators – mostly cotton farms – on its route are strictly controlled, can take water only when the river reaches prescribed flows at various points, and in a normal year access about six percent of the river’s entire volume of water.
Most of the Darling’s much-maligned cotton growers have produced only one or two crops this decade. The lion’s share of these properties – 97pc in Toorale’s case – is devoted to grazing. This is far from a profligate, raping and pillaging of the river mentality.
It also makes a mockery of the apparent intention of the new owners to pull down the main dam – and perhaps other small dams – on the Warrego (which meets the Darling on the station) that were built in the late 1880s by the architect of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Scheme, Sir Samuel McCaughey, to prevent water being wasted during peak flows.
Like many smaller inland rivers, the Warrego flows only occasionally, usually about once a year. McCaughey designed a system that allowed excess water from the river to spill across Toorale’s floodplains. There are four-foot diameter pipes in Toorale’s dams on the Warrego to allow smaller flows to pass straight through to the Darling.
If the Toorale purchase was a blueprint for fixing the problems of Australia’s inland rivers, we can be sure that a lasting solution will never be found.
Paul Myers
22.10.08
Thursday 30 October, 2008
ARTICLE by PAUL MYERS
TOORALE and the DARLING
………………………………………………………………………………………….
The joint purchase in September by the federal and NSW governments of Toorale Station in outback NSW has been shown to be the sham and public relations stunt it always was.
Not only did the Minister for Water and Climate Change Penny Wong admit in Monday’s Four Corners program that she didn’t know the identity of Toorale’s owners in the pre-purchase negotiations, it also emerged that the Commonwealth provided most of the funds for the $24 million acquisition “sight unseen”.
And after suggesting in immediate post-sale comments that 20 gigalitres a year would be returned to the Darling River as a result of the purchase, neither Senator Wong nor anyone else can now quantify the benefit.
Buyer, beware. Nobody ever buys a rural property of any size, let alone one for $24 million, without at least several inspections and a lot of questions – except, it seems, taxpayers. And when it comes to water, that was apparently intrinsically valued in the Toorale sale at about half the property’s price, you want to be doubly sure that what you expect is what you get.
The shambolic and hasty manner in which the federal and NSW governments acquired Toorale is bad enough. But worse, it has effectively killed any chance of achieving broad public understanding of the real problems affecting Australia’s inland rivers, and how they should be tackled.
The sale may well have convinced the public that similar acquisitions of farmland and/or irrigation water can restore health to inland rivers. But in most cases, buybacks will deliver only a trickle of additional water to the environment, because irrigators can access water only when there are significant and prescribed flows in a river after heavy rain.
This is certainly the case with Toorale, which has several thousand hectares developed for cotton, but not a boll of which has been harvested for several years because there hasn’t been enough water available from the Darling and Warrego rivers to support a crop.
So while the drought continues, the payback to taxpayers from the Toorale purchase will be nil. It will still be nil even if there is moderated rainfall, and only minor benefits during floods because a lot of water stays out on flood plains and only some returns to the river from whence it came.
Mother Nature – not governments, environmentalists, irrigators or anyone else – determine whether rivers flow or dry up. It may be too simplistic for some, but 99 percent of the problems on the Darling and other rivers are caused by lack of precipitation, the variability of rainfall, and evaporation. It has been that way for millennia, and always will be.
The Murray, Darling and most, if not all, of Australia’s inland rivers have been dry several times during white settlement, and often beforehand.
The Murray, for example, stopped flowing in 1850 and for six months during the “Federation drought” of 1902 before there was any real human intervention. But Australia’s greatest river has continued to flow during this drought – the worst since white settlement – because water has been stored and subsequently released from Hume and Dartmouth dams.
The Darling is a microcosm of the Murray, with only 12 percent of its bigger brother’s average flow. The Darling flows strongly after a big rain, or otherwise not much at all. Irrigators – mostly cotton farms – on its route are strictly controlled, can take water only when the river reaches prescribed flows at various points, and in a normal year access about six percent of the river’s entire volume of water.
Most of the Darling’s much-maligned cotton growers have produced only one or two crops this decade. The lion’s share of these properties – 97pc in Toorale’s case – is devoted to grazing. This is far from a profligate, raping and pillaging of the river mentality.
It also makes a mockery of the apparent intention of the new owners to pull down the main dam – and perhaps other small dams – on the Warrego (which meets the Darling on the station) that were built in the late 1880s by the architect of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Scheme, Sir Samuel McCaughey, to prevent water being wasted during peak flows.
Like many smaller inland rivers, the Warrego flows only occasionally, usually about once a year. McCaughey designed a system that allowed excess water from the river to spill across Toorale’s floodplains. There are four-foot diameter pipes in Toorale’s dams on the Warrego to allow smaller flows to pass straight through to the Darling.
If the Toorale purchase was a blueprint for fixing the problems of Australia’s inland rivers, we can be sure that a lasting solution will never be found.
Paul Myers
22.10.08
Remember, farmers feed us all
Remember, farmers feed us allPaul Myers
April 3, 2009
If there's one industry in Australia that needs some decent PR, it's agriculture.
There are 175,000 farmers who feed Australia and contribute significantly to global nutrition. But they have lost the hearts and minds of the people who depend on them. Their status has sunk to an all-time low, and they are now regarded, variously, as environmental vandals, cruel managers of livestock and economic opportunists.
How times and attitudes have changed. Fifty years ago farmers (or more so, graziers) were at the top of the social and economic pecking order. It was a status symbol just to belong to a farming family, or to have relatives on and connections to the land.
Not now. In a world where the lines between perception and reality are blurred, all types of farming are viewed as being bad, and taking water to grow food and fibre is worse. Using fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides is untenable.
The farming community seems incapable of overcoming this negativity, incapable of working out how to make a public argument that sustainable food production is a national and global necessity.
A good starting point would be abandoning the word agriculture. Agriculture is no longer sexy. It is widely seen, inaccurately, as an outdated industry with anachronistic low-tech practices - one that the best young minds are increasingly avoiding.
Producing food and fibre may be a simplistic way of describing what farmers do, but there is an astonishing gap between what the public thinks of as farming and maximising food production.
Many farming critics don't seem to understand that inhibiting farmers' capacity to produce food limits the global supply, increasing the need for imports, making scarcer food more expensive and taking food away from those who need it more.
That arrogant disconnect is far graver than whatever environmental irresponsibilities farmers may or may not practice.
The planet has more than 6 billion people, but only enough for five. By 2050 9 billion people - the vast majority living in cities and towns - will compete for scarce food produced from less agricultural land than we have available now. Nutrition has to come from somewhere, and farms seem an obvious choice for continuing to meet that need. But the prospect of widespread food shortages does not, apparently, engender any greater understanding of the vital role of farming in the future of both the planet, and humanity.
Some of us who live in the developed world - with full bellies and ready access to cheap, wholesome food - are among the strongest critics of modern farming, yet many don't look beyond their next meal. Certainly not in Australia, and Sydney in particular, where planned urban developments will remove three-quarters of the Sydney basin's food production capability. It is a significant capability, still, and removing it means a lot of poultry, eggs, Asian vegetables, fruit and specialty crops will have to be produced elsewhere and transported, or not grown at all.
Agriculture - or whatever it should be called - urgently needs to start talking to its customers, not just to itself and governments. It needs to explain what's right, sustainable and good, and why. Not doing so threatens Australia's future food supply.
Take, for example, the way the federal and NSW governments trashed the reputation of responsible riparian pastoralists when they bought Toorale station in western NSW last year. Government and environmental spin machines went into overdrive to convince us the purchase was necessary "to restore water flows to the Darling River".
Not true. Farmers can take water from regulated rivers like the Darling only when there are certain flows and river heights downstream. They can't, and don't, take water when there isn't enough. Until recent rain, little water had been extracted by Toorale or nearby properties for years.
When farmers are allowed to take water, either so much flows that there's virtually no "return of water" to the river, or it spills out on to floodplains (where it is available for productive agricultural practices) and some returns to the river naturally. The lack of water in rivers is more because of the lack of rain than farmers taking the water, although water has been over-allocated on the Murray.
When properties like Toorale store water in the wet times, river flows are much better than when there are marginal amounts of water available.
Toorale is to become a national park, and will not be cared for like a private property. Within a few years it will be overrun by weeds and feral animals, to the detriment of the property, the neighbours and everyone.
The property has been taken out of production to satisfy an agenda that doesn't pass scrutiny. It was a $24 million stunt.
But it may be the policy blueprint for future food and fibre production and, as such, is an ominous signal that producers will ignore at their peril. A vocal minority can quickly sway a debate, as happened with mulesing, a debate the wool industry comprehensively lost.
The same outcome threatens the next big-ticket issues: carbon trading and genetically modified foods. Farmers will lose this battle if they don't take the initiative and sell it to the people they feed. The world will lose. We need it to eat, prosper and survive. Extreme views about agriculture are biting farmers hard, but losing control of the food production imperative will be disastrous for everyone. Farmers may have lost some battles, but the planet can't afford them to lose the war.
Paul Myers, a freelance journalist, is a former editor of The Land and an Australian trade commissioner in Canada.
April 3, 2009
If there's one industry in Australia that needs some decent PR, it's agriculture.
There are 175,000 farmers who feed Australia and contribute significantly to global nutrition. But they have lost the hearts and minds of the people who depend on them. Their status has sunk to an all-time low, and they are now regarded, variously, as environmental vandals, cruel managers of livestock and economic opportunists.
How times and attitudes have changed. Fifty years ago farmers (or more so, graziers) were at the top of the social and economic pecking order. It was a status symbol just to belong to a farming family, or to have relatives on and connections to the land.
Not now. In a world where the lines between perception and reality are blurred, all types of farming are viewed as being bad, and taking water to grow food and fibre is worse. Using fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides is untenable.
The farming community seems incapable of overcoming this negativity, incapable of working out how to make a public argument that sustainable food production is a national and global necessity.
A good starting point would be abandoning the word agriculture. Agriculture is no longer sexy. It is widely seen, inaccurately, as an outdated industry with anachronistic low-tech practices - one that the best young minds are increasingly avoiding.
Producing food and fibre may be a simplistic way of describing what farmers do, but there is an astonishing gap between what the public thinks of as farming and maximising food production.
Many farming critics don't seem to understand that inhibiting farmers' capacity to produce food limits the global supply, increasing the need for imports, making scarcer food more expensive and taking food away from those who need it more.
That arrogant disconnect is far graver than whatever environmental irresponsibilities farmers may or may not practice.
The planet has more than 6 billion people, but only enough for five. By 2050 9 billion people - the vast majority living in cities and towns - will compete for scarce food produced from less agricultural land than we have available now. Nutrition has to come from somewhere, and farms seem an obvious choice for continuing to meet that need. But the prospect of widespread food shortages does not, apparently, engender any greater understanding of the vital role of farming in the future of both the planet, and humanity.
Some of us who live in the developed world - with full bellies and ready access to cheap, wholesome food - are among the strongest critics of modern farming, yet many don't look beyond their next meal. Certainly not in Australia, and Sydney in particular, where planned urban developments will remove three-quarters of the Sydney basin's food production capability. It is a significant capability, still, and removing it means a lot of poultry, eggs, Asian vegetables, fruit and specialty crops will have to be produced elsewhere and transported, or not grown at all.
Agriculture - or whatever it should be called - urgently needs to start talking to its customers, not just to itself and governments. It needs to explain what's right, sustainable and good, and why. Not doing so threatens Australia's future food supply.
Take, for example, the way the federal and NSW governments trashed the reputation of responsible riparian pastoralists when they bought Toorale station in western NSW last year. Government and environmental spin machines went into overdrive to convince us the purchase was necessary "to restore water flows to the Darling River".
Not true. Farmers can take water from regulated rivers like the Darling only when there are certain flows and river heights downstream. They can't, and don't, take water when there isn't enough. Until recent rain, little water had been extracted by Toorale or nearby properties for years.
When farmers are allowed to take water, either so much flows that there's virtually no "return of water" to the river, or it spills out on to floodplains (where it is available for productive agricultural practices) and some returns to the river naturally. The lack of water in rivers is more because of the lack of rain than farmers taking the water, although water has been over-allocated on the Murray.
When properties like Toorale store water in the wet times, river flows are much better than when there are marginal amounts of water available.
Toorale is to become a national park, and will not be cared for like a private property. Within a few years it will be overrun by weeds and feral animals, to the detriment of the property, the neighbours and everyone.
The property has been taken out of production to satisfy an agenda that doesn't pass scrutiny. It was a $24 million stunt.
But it may be the policy blueprint for future food and fibre production and, as such, is an ominous signal that producers will ignore at their peril. A vocal minority can quickly sway a debate, as happened with mulesing, a debate the wool industry comprehensively lost.
The same outcome threatens the next big-ticket issues: carbon trading and genetically modified foods. Farmers will lose this battle if they don't take the initiative and sell it to the people they feed. The world will lose. We need it to eat, prosper and survive. Extreme views about agriculture are biting farmers hard, but losing control of the food production imperative will be disastrous for everyone. Farmers may have lost some battles, but the planet can't afford them to lose the war.
Paul Myers, a freelance journalist, is a former editor of The Land and an Australian trade commissioner in Canada.
Climate Change-Paul Johnson
The idea that human beings have changed and are changing the basic climate system of the Earth through their industrial activities and burning of fossil fuels--the essence of the Greens' theory of global warming--has about as much basis in science as Marxism and Freudianism.
Global warming, like Marxism, is a political theory of actions, demanding compliance with its rules.Marxism, Freudianism, global warming. These are proof--of which history offers so many examples--that people can be suckers on a grand scale. To their fanatical followers they are a substitute for religion.
Global warming, in particular, is a creed, a faith, a dogma that has little to do with science. If people are in need of religion, why don't they just turn to the genuine article?
Paul Johnson
Global warming, like Marxism, is a political theory of actions, demanding compliance with its rules.Marxism, Freudianism, global warming. These are proof--of which history offers so many examples--that people can be suckers on a grand scale. To their fanatical followers they are a substitute for religion.
Global warming, in particular, is a creed, a faith, a dogma that has little to do with science. If people are in need of religion, why don't they just turn to the genuine article?
Paul Johnson
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