In 1998, Bjorn Lomborg wrote "The Skeptical Environmentalist". The book was a statistical critique of many of the leading indices used to measure the state of the planet's environmental health.
Lomborg concluded that, overall, the world was in pretty good shape, with many of the claims made by environmentalists wrong and excessively alarmist. My reading of the book showed that, with a couple of exceptions (greenhouse gas emissions, salinisation in countries like Australia and wild fisheries), Lomborg was indeed on the mark.
He later called together a group of economists and other global non-environmental specialists and asked them this: how would you spend a limited amount of money so that it benefited the maximum number of people? The answer again outraged environmentists: ignore biodiversity and some of the 'trendy' issues. Instead, provide clean water and childhood education to developing countries if you really want to benefit billions of the world's most underpriviledged.
Now Lomborg has written a review of the Stern report which recently predicted global economic collapse if we don't solve the world's greenhouse gas emission problems in the next few decades. Read on......
BJORN LOMBORG: STERN SCARE BLUNTED BY THE FIGURES
On the dodgy economic modelling behind the latest warming beat-up
November 6, 2006
The AUSTRALIAN
THE report on climate change by Nicholas Stern and the British Government has sparked publicity and scary headlines across the world. Much attention has been devoted to Stern's core argument that the price of inaction would be extraordinary and the cost of action modest.
Unfortunately, this claim falls apart when one reads the 700-page tome. Despite using many good references, the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change is selective and its conclusion flawed. Its fear-mongering arguments have been sensationalised, which is ultimately only likely to make the world worse off.
The review correctly points out that climate change is a real problem and that it is caused by human greenhouse-gas emissions. Little else is right, however, and the report seems hastily put together, with many sloppy errors. As an example, the cost of hurricanes in the US is said to be both 0.13 per cent of US gross domestic product and 10 times that figure.
The review is also one-sided, focusing almost exclusively on carbon-emission cuts as the solution to the problem of climate change. Stern sees increasing hurricane damage in the US as a powerful argument for carbon controls. However, hurricane damage is increasing predominantly because there are more people with more goods to be damaged, settling in more risky habitats. Even if global warming does significantly increase the power of hurricanes, it is estimated that 95 per cent to 98 per cent of the increased damage will be due to demographics. The review acknowledges that simple initiatives such as bracing and securing roof trusses and walls can cheaply reduce damage by more than 80 per cent; yet its policy recommendations on expensive carbon reductions promise to cut the damage by 1 per cent to 2per cent at best. That is a bad deal.
Stern is also selective, often seeming to cherry-pick statistics to fit an argument. This is demonstrated most clearly in the review's examination of the social damage costs of CO2, essentially the environmental cost of emitting each extra tonne of CO2. The most well-recognised climate economist in the world is probably Yale University's William Nordhaus, whose "approach is perhaps closest in spirit to ours", according to the Stern review. Nordhaus finds that the social cost of CO2 is $2.50 per tonne. Stern, however, uses a figure of $85 per tonne. Picking a rate even higher than the official British estimates - which have been criticised for being over the top - speaks volumes.
Stern tells us that the cost of flooding in Britain will quadruple to 0.4 per cent from 0.1 per cent of GDP because of climate change. However, we are not told that these alarming figures only hold true if one assumes that Britain will take no additional measures, essentially doing absolutely nothing and allowing itself to get flooded, perhaps time and again. In contrast, the British Government's assumptions take into account a modest increase in flood prevention, finding that the cost will decline sharply to 0.04 per cent of GDP, in spite of climate change. Why does Stern not share that information?
But nowhere is the imbalance clearer than in Stern's central argument about the costs and benefits of action on climate change. The review tells us that we should make significant cuts in carbon emissions to stabilise the concentration of atmospheric CO2 at 550 parts per million. Yet such a stark recommendation is not matched by an explicit explanation of what this would mean in terms of temperature.
The UN climate panel estimates that stabilising at 550ppm would mean an increase in temperature of about 2.3C by the year 2100. This might be several degrees below what would otherwise happen, but it might also be higher. Nordhaus estimates that the stabilisation policy would reduce the rise from 2.53C to 2.42C. One can understand the reluctance of the Stern review to advertise such a puny effect.
Most economists were surprised by Stern's large economic estimates of damage from global warming. Nordhaus's model, for example, anticipates 3per cent will be wiped off global GDP if nothing is done over the coming century, taking into account the risk for catastrophes. The Stern review purports to show that the cost is "larger than many earlier studies suggested".
On the face of it, Stern accepts Nordhaus's figure: even including risks of catastrophe and non-market costs, he agrees that an increase of 4C will cost about 3 per cent of GDP. But he assumes that we will continue to pump out carbon far into the 22nd century, a rather unlikely scenario given the falling cost of alternative fuels, and especially if some of his predictions become clear to us towards the end of this century. Thus he estimates that the higher temperatures of 8C in the 2180s will be very damaging, costing 11per cent to 14 per cent of GDP.
The Stern review then analyses what the cost would be if everyone in the present and the future paid equally. Suddenly the cost estimate is not 0 per cent now and 3 per cent in 2100, but 11per cent of GDP right now and forever. If this seems like a trick, it is certainly underscored by the fact that the Stern review picks an extremely low discount rate, which makes the cost look much more ominous now.
But even 11 per cent is not the last word. Stern suggests that there is a risk that the cost of global warming will be higher than the top end of the UN climate panel's estimates, inventing, in effect, a worst-case scenario even worse than any others on the table. Therefore, the estimated damage to GDP jumps to 15 per cent from 11 per cent. Moreover, Stern admonishes that poor people count for less in the economic calculus, so he then inflates 15 per cent to 20 per cent.
This figure, 20 per cent, was the number that rocketed across the world, although it is simply a much-massaged reworking of the standard 3per cent of GDP cost in 2100, a figure accepted among most economists to be a reasonable estimate.
Likewise, Stern readjusts the cost of dealing with climate change. The UN found that the cost of 550ppm stabilisation would be somewhere from 0.2per cent to 3.2 per cent of GDP today; he reports that costs could lie between minus 4 per cent and 15 per cent of GDP. The minus 4 per cent is based on the suggestion that cutting carbon emissions could make us richer because revenue recycling could address inefficiencies in taxation; but the alleged inefficiencies, if correct, should be addressed no matter what the policies about climate change.
The reason Stern nevertheless finds a very low cost estimate is because he only considers models with so-called induced technological change. These models are known to reduce costs by about two percentage points because carbon cuts lead to an increase in research and development, which again makes further cuts cheaper. Thus, Stern concludes that the costs are on average 1 per cent of GDP, and in the summary claims that this is a maximum cost.
The Stern review's cornerstone argument for immediate and strong action is based on the suggestion that doing nothing about climate change costs 20 per cent of GDP now, and doing something only costs 1 per cent. However, this argument hinges on three very problematic assumptions.
First, it assumes that if we act, we will not still have to pay. But this is not so: Stern tells us that his solution is "already associated with significant risks". Second, it requires the cost of action to be as cheap as he tells us, and on this front his numbers are at best overly optimistic. Third, and most significantly, it requires the cost of doing nothing to be a realistic assumption, but the 20 per cent of GDP figure is inflated by an unrealistically pessimistic vision of the 22nd century, and by an extreme and unrealistically low discount rate. According to the background numbers in Stern's report, climate change will cost us 0 per cent now and 3 per cent of GDP in 2100, a much more informative number than the 20 per cent now and forever.
In other words, given reasonable inputs, most cost-benefit models show that dramatic and early carbon reductions cost more than the good they do. Stern's attempt to challenge that understanding is based on a chain of unlikely assumptions.
Moreover, there is a fourth key problem in Stern's argument that has received very little attention. It seems naive to believe that the world's 192 nations can flawlessly implement Stern's multi-trillion-dollar, century-long policy proposal. Will nobody try to avoid its obligations? Why would China and India participate? And even if China got on board, would it be able to implement the policies?
In 2002, China decided to cut sulphur dioxide emissions by 10 per cent; they are now 27 per cent higher despite SO2 being nationally a much bigger health and environmental problem than climate change.
We all want a better world. But we must not let ourselves be swept up in making a bad investment simply because we have been scared by sensationalist headlines.
Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge, 2001), teaches at the Copenhagen Business School and is director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center. This is extracted from The Wall Street Journal.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Thursday, November 02, 2006
So what if Australia produces more greenhouse gases per capita than any other country?
Many critics of Australia's response (or lack thereof) to its greenhouse gas emission complain that we've got the highest emissions per capita of any country on earth. Well, so what?
The reality is that Australia, for some commodities, is the world's leading supplier. Aluminium metal is the most obvious, but there are others, including titanium dioxide pigment and semi-processed nickel matte from Kambalda.
But what would global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions be like if, instead of Australia doing this processing with modern plants using the world's best technologies, China and India were operating their own plants? My guess is that these countries would be using old plants with old technology and, for electricity production, they'd be using some of the dirtiest coal produced anywhere on the planet. Sure, Australia's GHG emissions would be lower, but overall global emissions would be far higher.
The debate has been won by those who accept the reality of human-caused global warming. So now we should focus on how the world - not just Australia - can lower GHG emissions. If we had a genuinely global agreement (not this silly Kyoto agreement which is, was and for ever will be ineffective) with a global carbon tax and a global carbon emission trading scheme, then those countries that produced aluminium metal with the lowest GHG emissions per tonne of finished product would probably have the cheapest sale prices and hence would have a major market advantage over other producers (all other things being equal). This could mean that Australia continues to produce the world's cleanest aluminium or it could be China or the USA or whoever. Who cares, so long as the world lowers its total GHG emissions. For iron and steel production, the cleanest may be Germany or Japan or, using new clean technology, it could be China.
The fact that Australia produces more GHG per capita is an absolutely irrelevant statistic. If we accept that the world will continue to consume aluminium and titanium dioxide and nickel, etc, we should demand an international agreement be negotiated that will result in the cleanest production technologies being used right around the world.
What Tim Colebatch from the Age with his recent newspaper article or Al Gore with his recent campaign event (sorry, I'm referring to his movie!) are really trying to do is make Australians feel guilty because we have some of the the cleanest commodity production processes and operations in the world. As Abraham Lincoln was (wrongly) attributed as saying, "you don't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong". Similarly, you don't close down the world's best and cleanest producers of globally-traded commodities in order to allow some of the world's dirtiest processing countries to produce even more greenhouse gases.
The reality is that Australia, for some commodities, is the world's leading supplier. Aluminium metal is the most obvious, but there are others, including titanium dioxide pigment and semi-processed nickel matte from Kambalda.
But what would global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions be like if, instead of Australia doing this processing with modern plants using the world's best technologies, China and India were operating their own plants? My guess is that these countries would be using old plants with old technology and, for electricity production, they'd be using some of the dirtiest coal produced anywhere on the planet. Sure, Australia's GHG emissions would be lower, but overall global emissions would be far higher.
The debate has been won by those who accept the reality of human-caused global warming. So now we should focus on how the world - not just Australia - can lower GHG emissions. If we had a genuinely global agreement (not this silly Kyoto agreement which is, was and for ever will be ineffective) with a global carbon tax and a global carbon emission trading scheme, then those countries that produced aluminium metal with the lowest GHG emissions per tonne of finished product would probably have the cheapest sale prices and hence would have a major market advantage over other producers (all other things being equal). This could mean that Australia continues to produce the world's cleanest aluminium or it could be China or the USA or whoever. Who cares, so long as the world lowers its total GHG emissions. For iron and steel production, the cleanest may be Germany or Japan or, using new clean technology, it could be China.
The fact that Australia produces more GHG per capita is an absolutely irrelevant statistic. If we accept that the world will continue to consume aluminium and titanium dioxide and nickel, etc, we should demand an international agreement be negotiated that will result in the cleanest production technologies being used right around the world.
What Tim Colebatch from the Age with his recent newspaper article or Al Gore with his recent campaign event (sorry, I'm referring to his movie!) are really trying to do is make Australians feel guilty because we have some of the the cleanest commodity production processes and operations in the world. As Abraham Lincoln was (wrongly) attributed as saying, "you don't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong". Similarly, you don't close down the world's best and cleanest producers of globally-traded commodities in order to allow some of the world's dirtiest processing countries to produce even more greenhouse gases.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Climate Change is going to happen: prepare for it!
Climate change is inevitable, and policies to help societies adapt to a warmer future are badly needed.
That is the message from the President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA), Frances Cairncross, at the BA annual festival.
She will tell delegates that even maximal deployment of the best technology cannot stop climate change.
She will also say that improving scientific literacy would raise public understanding of environmental issues.
"An innumerate population is less likely to devise good solutions to climate change and a host of other environmental problems than one at home with mathematical and scientific concepts," she will say in her address to the festival, held this year at the University of East Anglia in Norwich.
'Ineffectual' Kyoto
Ms Cairncross, who is also chair of Britain's Economic and Social Research Council, believes that attempts to reduce emissions through the UN's Kyoto Protocol will not work.
We've got to realise we're going to live in a warmer world
"[Climate change] is undoubtedly going to happen on the basis of all we know at the moment," she told BBC News.
"One of the most thorough reports was done by the International Energy Agency in the summer, and that suggested that even if we threw at climate change all we had at the moment, even if we put it all in place, we would still see a rise in the concentration of emissions.
"[So] although we've got to continue taking steps to slow it down, we've also got to realise we're going to live in a warmer world."
The British government, she will say, should develop and implement policies for adaptation now, although the main issues lie in the developing world.
She will urge countries to consider measures such as developing new crops, constructing flood defences, and banning building close to sea level.
That is the message from the President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA), Frances Cairncross, at the BA annual festival.
She will tell delegates that even maximal deployment of the best technology cannot stop climate change.
She will also say that improving scientific literacy would raise public understanding of environmental issues.
"An innumerate population is less likely to devise good solutions to climate change and a host of other environmental problems than one at home with mathematical and scientific concepts," she will say in her address to the festival, held this year at the University of East Anglia in Norwich.
'Ineffectual' Kyoto
Ms Cairncross, who is also chair of Britain's Economic and Social Research Council, believes that attempts to reduce emissions through the UN's Kyoto Protocol will not work.
We've got to realise we're going to live in a warmer world
"[Climate change] is undoubtedly going to happen on the basis of all we know at the moment," she told BBC News.
"One of the most thorough reports was done by the International Energy Agency in the summer, and that suggested that even if we threw at climate change all we had at the moment, even if we put it all in place, we would still see a rise in the concentration of emissions.
"[So] although we've got to continue taking steps to slow it down, we've also got to realise we're going to live in a warmer world."
The British government, she will say, should develop and implement policies for adaptation now, although the main issues lie in the developing world.
She will urge countries to consider measures such as developing new crops, constructing flood defences, and banning building close to sea level.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Lower Fertility: A Wise Investment for Developing Countries
The following article appeared in the September 2006 issue of Scientific American. It encourages developing countries to take four steps to reduce population growth: promote child survival; promote girls' education; promote the availability of contraception and family planning; and increased farm productivity. Surely the fundamentalist Christians who are so influential in determining US foreign policy can't object to these laudible goals.
**********************************************************************************
Lower Fertility: A Wise Investment
Plans that encourage voluntary, steep reductions in the fertility rates of poor nations pay dividends in sustainability for everyone. By JEFFREY D. SACHS
The world faces looming ecological threats from the incredible stresses that global economic activity places on our major ecosystems. True, rapid population growth is not the main driver today of these threats. Pride of place goes to the high and rising rates of resource use per person rather than to the rise in the sheer number of people. Even if the total population were to stabilize at today's level of 6.5 billion, the pressures of rising per capita resource use would continue to mount.
With the rich countries living at roughly $30,000 per person and the world's average income at around $10,000 per person, simply having the poor catch up with the income levels of the rich would triple global economic throughput, with all the attendant environmental consequences.
Yet the continued rapid population growth in many poor countries will markedly exacerbate the environmental stresses. Under current demographic trends, the United Nations forecasts a rise in the population to around nine billion as of 2050, another 2.5 billion people. They will arrive in the poor regions bur aspire to the income and consumption levels of the rest of the world. If the economic aspirations of the newly added population are fulfilled, the environmental pressures will be mind-boggling. If those aspirations are not fulfilled, the political pressures will be similarly mind-boggling.
For the poor countries, the benefits of lowering fertility are apparent. High fertility rates arc leading to extreme local environmental pressures—water stress, land degradation, over-hunting and over-fishing, falling farm sizes, deforestation and other habitat destruction—thereby worsening the grave economic challenges these lands face. High fertility also represents a disaster for the added children themselves, who suffer from profound under-investments in education, health and nutrition and are thus far more likely to grow up impoverished. In short, a move to lower fertility rates will mean healthier children, much faster growth in living standards and reduced environmental stressors.
Reducing fertility rates in the poorest countries would also be among the smartest investments that the rich countries could make for their own future well-being. Fifty percent of the projected population increase by 2050 will fall within Africa and the Middle East, the planet's most politically and socially unstable regions. That development could well mean another generation of underemployed and frustrated young men, more violence because of joblessness and resource scarcity, more pressures for international migration, and more ideological battles with Europe and the U.S. The global ecological toll could be just as disastrous, because rapid population growth would be taking place in many of the world's "biodiversity hot spots."
Disappointingly, the Bush administration has turned its back on fertility control in poor countries—despite overwhelming evidence that fast, voluntary and highly beneficial transitions to low fertility rates are possible. Such transitions can be promoted through a sensible four-part strategy.
First, promote child survival. When parents have the expectation that their children will survive, they choose to have fewer children.
Second, promote girls' education and gender equality. Girls in school marry later, and empowered young women enter the labor force and choose to have fewer children.
Third, promote the availability of contraception and family planning, especially for the poor who cannot afford such services on their own.
Fourth, raise productivity on the farm. Income-earning mothers rear fewer children.
These four steps can reduce fertility rates quickly and dramatically from, say, five or more children per fertile woman to three or fewer within 10 to 15 years, as has occurred in Iran, Tunisia and Algeria. Many African leaders are waking up to this imperative, realizing that their nations cannot surmount their deep economic woes with populations that double every generation. If we in the rich countries would rise to help with this vital task, we would find eager local partners.
An expanded version of this essay is available online at www.sciam.com/ontheweb
Jeffrey D. Sachs is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and of the U.N. Millennium Project.
**********************************************************************************
Lower Fertility: A Wise Investment
Plans that encourage voluntary, steep reductions in the fertility rates of poor nations pay dividends in sustainability for everyone. By JEFFREY D. SACHS
The world faces looming ecological threats from the incredible stresses that global economic activity places on our major ecosystems. True, rapid population growth is not the main driver today of these threats. Pride of place goes to the high and rising rates of resource use per person rather than to the rise in the sheer number of people. Even if the total population were to stabilize at today's level of 6.5 billion, the pressures of rising per capita resource use would continue to mount.
With the rich countries living at roughly $30,000 per person and the world's average income at around $10,000 per person, simply having the poor catch up with the income levels of the rich would triple global economic throughput, with all the attendant environmental consequences.
Yet the continued rapid population growth in many poor countries will markedly exacerbate the environmental stresses. Under current demographic trends, the United Nations forecasts a rise in the population to around nine billion as of 2050, another 2.5 billion people. They will arrive in the poor regions bur aspire to the income and consumption levels of the rest of the world. If the economic aspirations of the newly added population are fulfilled, the environmental pressures will be mind-boggling. If those aspirations are not fulfilled, the political pressures will be similarly mind-boggling.
For the poor countries, the benefits of lowering fertility are apparent. High fertility rates arc leading to extreme local environmental pressures—water stress, land degradation, over-hunting and over-fishing, falling farm sizes, deforestation and other habitat destruction—thereby worsening the grave economic challenges these lands face. High fertility also represents a disaster for the added children themselves, who suffer from profound under-investments in education, health and nutrition and are thus far more likely to grow up impoverished. In short, a move to lower fertility rates will mean healthier children, much faster growth in living standards and reduced environmental stressors.
Reducing fertility rates in the poorest countries would also be among the smartest investments that the rich countries could make for their own future well-being. Fifty percent of the projected population increase by 2050 will fall within Africa and the Middle East, the planet's most politically and socially unstable regions. That development could well mean another generation of underemployed and frustrated young men, more violence because of joblessness and resource scarcity, more pressures for international migration, and more ideological battles with Europe and the U.S. The global ecological toll could be just as disastrous, because rapid population growth would be taking place in many of the world's "biodiversity hot spots."
Disappointingly, the Bush administration has turned its back on fertility control in poor countries—despite overwhelming evidence that fast, voluntary and highly beneficial transitions to low fertility rates are possible. Such transitions can be promoted through a sensible four-part strategy.
First, promote child survival. When parents have the expectation that their children will survive, they choose to have fewer children.
Second, promote girls' education and gender equality. Girls in school marry later, and empowered young women enter the labor force and choose to have fewer children.
Third, promote the availability of contraception and family planning, especially for the poor who cannot afford such services on their own.
Fourth, raise productivity on the farm. Income-earning mothers rear fewer children.
These four steps can reduce fertility rates quickly and dramatically from, say, five or more children per fertile woman to three or fewer within 10 to 15 years, as has occurred in Iran, Tunisia and Algeria. Many African leaders are waking up to this imperative, realizing that their nations cannot surmount their deep economic woes with populations that double every generation. If we in the rich countries would rise to help with this vital task, we would find eager local partners.
An expanded version of this essay is available online at www.sciam.com/ontheweb
Jeffrey D. Sachs is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and of the U.N. Millennium Project.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
How the US can help developing countries - food, seeds and medicine.
The following article is taken from the August 2006 edition of Scientific American. It makes a lot of sense to me, not just in the suggested simplicity of how the US can REALLY help developing countries but also in its likely effectiveness.
VIRTUOUS CIRCLES AND FRAGILE STATES.
Want to promote stable democracy in struggling nations? Send timely packages of food, seeds and medicine By JEFFREY D. SACHS
If U.S. leaders better understood the politics of impoverished and crisis-ridden countries, they would more effectively protect American national security by advancing the causes of economic development and democracy. Although the administration of George W. Bush has often stated its commitment to the spread of democracy, partly to combat the risks of terror, it relies excessively on military approaches and threats rather than strategic aid. Timely development assistance to places hovering between democracy and disarray can yield enormous benefits.
For nations in a deep crisis, the greatest danger is a self-fulfilling prophecy of disaster. Consider Liberia, just emerging from a prolonged civil war, and Haiti, which has suffered decades of intense political instability. Both nations have recently elected new democratic governments, but both face continuing possibilities of internal violence and disorder.
When the public thinks that a newly elected national government will succeed, local leaders throw their support behind it. Expectations of the government's longevity rise. Individuals and companies become much more likely to pay their taxes, because they assume that the government will have the police power to enforce the tax laws.
A virtuous circle is created. Rising tax revenues strengthen not only the budget but also political authority and enable key investments—in police, teachers, roads, electricity—that promote public order and economic development. They also bolster confidence in the currency. Money flows into the commercial banks, easing the specter of banking crises.
When the public believes that a government will fail, the same process runs in reverse. Pessimism splinters political forces. Tax payments and budget revenues wane. The police and other public officials go unpaid. The currency weakens. Banks face a withdrawal of deposits and the risk of banking panics. Disaster feeds more pessimism.
By attending to the most urgent needs of these fragile states, U.S. foreign policy can tilt the scales to favor the consolidation of democracy and economic improvement. To an informed and empathetic observer, the necessary actions will usually be clear. Both Liberia and Haiti lack electricity service, even in their capital cities. Both countries face massive crises of hunger and insufficient food production. Both suffer from pervasive infectious diseases that are controllable but largely uncontrolled.
But if each impoverished farm family is given a bag of fertilizer and a tin of high-yield seeds, a good harvest with ample food output can be promoted within a single growing season. A nationwide campaign to spread immunizations, anti-malaria bed nets and medicines, vitamin supplements and de-worming agents can improve the health of the population even without longer-term fixes of the public health system. Electric power can be restored quickly in key regions. And safe water outlets, including boreholes and protected natural springs, can be constructed by the thousands within a year.
All these initiatives require financial aid, but the costs are small. Far too often, however, the U.S. response is neglect. Rather than giving practical help, the rich countries and international agencies send an endless stream of consultants to design projects that arrive too late, if ever. They ignore emergency appeals for food aid. After a few months, the hungry, divided, disease-burdened public begins to murmur that "nothing has changed," and the downward spiral recommences. Pessimism breeds pessimism. Eventually the government falls, and the nascent democracy is often extinguished.
By thinking through the underlying ecological challenges facing a country—drought, poor crops, disease, physical isolation—and raising the lot of the average household through quick-disbursing and well-targeted assistance, U.S. foreign policy makers would provide an invaluable investment in democracy, development and U.S. national security. Liberia and Haiti are two important places to begin to make good on the Bush administration's pledge to spread democracy.
Jeffrey D. Sachs is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and of the U.N.'s Millennium Project.
VIRTUOUS CIRCLES AND FRAGILE STATES.
Want to promote stable democracy in struggling nations? Send timely packages of food, seeds and medicine By JEFFREY D. SACHS
If U.S. leaders better understood the politics of impoverished and crisis-ridden countries, they would more effectively protect American national security by advancing the causes of economic development and democracy. Although the administration of George W. Bush has often stated its commitment to the spread of democracy, partly to combat the risks of terror, it relies excessively on military approaches and threats rather than strategic aid. Timely development assistance to places hovering between democracy and disarray can yield enormous benefits.
For nations in a deep crisis, the greatest danger is a self-fulfilling prophecy of disaster. Consider Liberia, just emerging from a prolonged civil war, and Haiti, which has suffered decades of intense political instability. Both nations have recently elected new democratic governments, but both face continuing possibilities of internal violence and disorder.
When the public thinks that a newly elected national government will succeed, local leaders throw their support behind it. Expectations of the government's longevity rise. Individuals and companies become much more likely to pay their taxes, because they assume that the government will have the police power to enforce the tax laws.
A virtuous circle is created. Rising tax revenues strengthen not only the budget but also political authority and enable key investments—in police, teachers, roads, electricity—that promote public order and economic development. They also bolster confidence in the currency. Money flows into the commercial banks, easing the specter of banking crises.
When the public believes that a government will fail, the same process runs in reverse. Pessimism splinters political forces. Tax payments and budget revenues wane. The police and other public officials go unpaid. The currency weakens. Banks face a withdrawal of deposits and the risk of banking panics. Disaster feeds more pessimism.
By attending to the most urgent needs of these fragile states, U.S. foreign policy can tilt the scales to favor the consolidation of democracy and economic improvement. To an informed and empathetic observer, the necessary actions will usually be clear. Both Liberia and Haiti lack electricity service, even in their capital cities. Both countries face massive crises of hunger and insufficient food production. Both suffer from pervasive infectious diseases that are controllable but largely uncontrolled.
But if each impoverished farm family is given a bag of fertilizer and a tin of high-yield seeds, a good harvest with ample food output can be promoted within a single growing season. A nationwide campaign to spread immunizations, anti-malaria bed nets and medicines, vitamin supplements and de-worming agents can improve the health of the population even without longer-term fixes of the public health system. Electric power can be restored quickly in key regions. And safe water outlets, including boreholes and protected natural springs, can be constructed by the thousands within a year.
All these initiatives require financial aid, but the costs are small. Far too often, however, the U.S. response is neglect. Rather than giving practical help, the rich countries and international agencies send an endless stream of consultants to design projects that arrive too late, if ever. They ignore emergency appeals for food aid. After a few months, the hungry, divided, disease-burdened public begins to murmur that "nothing has changed," and the downward spiral recommences. Pessimism breeds pessimism. Eventually the government falls, and the nascent democracy is often extinguished.
By thinking through the underlying ecological challenges facing a country—drought, poor crops, disease, physical isolation—and raising the lot of the average household through quick-disbursing and well-targeted assistance, U.S. foreign policy makers would provide an invaluable investment in democracy, development and U.S. national security. Liberia and Haiti are two important places to begin to make good on the Bush administration's pledge to spread democracy.
Jeffrey D. Sachs is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and of the U.N.'s Millennium Project.
Friday, June 30, 2006
THE EUSTON MANIFESTO - A FRESH POLITICAL ALIGNMENT
During my 20 years of involvment in the political process, I've regularly handed out how-to-vote cards at polling booths on election days. Invariably, the two to four hours of standing in the sun or rain are made not just tolerable but downright enjoyable thanks to the people representing other political parties (most are volunteers, although some are paid) who also hand out HTV cards. It is normal for all of us volunteers to engage in deep and meaningful dialogue about the strengths and weaknesses, hopes and deficiencies of their respective leaders or politicians or parties as a whole.
What amazed me when I first started handing out HTV cards is the commonality of beliefs and values shared by the multitude of people representing this wide spectrum of political parties and political thought. Virtually no matter who I spoke with, we agreed on 80 to 90% of topics that we chose to discuss. My personal view is that this mutual agreement shows how homogeneous our Australian population generally is. In turn, this provides one of the foundation stones on which one of the world's most successful democracies has been based since 1901.
In March 2006, Norman Geras, professor of politics at Manchester University UK produced a political manifesto. He and his supporters are undeniably socialists: they support many socialist philosophies and principles. Yet Geras and the manifesto emphasise support for America and much of what it stands for. He is bitterly critical of his left-leaning colleagues who are unthinkingly anti-American.
I've read the Manifesto and, while I reject some of its more socialist statements, nonetheless it contains much that most people committed to the principles of operation of parliamentary democracies would unhesitatingly support. It's reproduced below and more details are available from http://eustonmanifesto.org .
The Euston Manifesto
Wednesday, 29 March 2006
A. Preamble
We are democrats and progressives. We propose here a fresh political alignment. Many of us belong to the Left, but the principles that we set out are not exclusive. We reach out, rather, beyond the socialist Left towards egalitarian liberals and others of unambiguous democratic commitment. Indeed, the reconfiguration of progressive opinion that we aim for involves drawing a line between the forces of the Left that remain true to its authentic values, and currents that have lately shown themselves rather too flexible about these values. It involves making common cause with genuine democrats, whether socialist or not.
The present initiative has its roots in and has found a constituency through the Internet, especially the "blogosphere". It is our perception, however, that this constituency is under-represented elsewhere — in much of the media and the other forums of contemporary political life.
The broad statement of principles that follows is a declaration of intent. It inaugurates a new Website, which will serve as a resource for the current of opinion it hopes to represent and the several foundation blogs and other sites that are behind this call for a progressive realignment.
B. Statement of principles
1) For democracy.
We are committed to democratic norms, procedures and structures — freedom of opinion and assembly, free elections, the separation of legislative, executive and judicial powers, and the separation of state and religion. We value the traditions and institutions, the legacy of good governance, of those countries in which liberal, pluralist democracies have taken hold.
2) No apology for tyranny.
We decline to make excuses for, to indulgently "understand", reactionary regimes and movements for which democracy is a hated enemy — regimes that oppress their own peoples and movements that aspire to do so. We draw a firm line between ourselves and those left-liberal voices today quick to offer an apologetic explanation for such political forces.
3) Human rights for all.
We hold the fundamental human rights codified in the Universal Declaration to be precisely universal, and binding on all states and political movements, indeed on everyone. Violations of these rights are equally to be condemned whoever is responsible for them and regardless of cultural context. We reject the double standards with which much self-proclaimed progressive opinion now operates, finding lesser (though all too real) violations of human rights which are closer to home, or are the responsibility of certain disfavoured governments, more deplorable than other violations that are flagrantly worse. We reject, also, the cultural relativist view according to which these basic human rights are not appropriate for certain nations or peoples.
4) Equality.
We espouse a generally egalitarian politics. We look towards progress in relations between the sexes (until full gender equality is achieved), between different ethnic communities, between those of various religious affiliations and those of none, and between people of diverse sexual orientations — as well as towards broader social and economic equality all round. We leave open, as something on which there are differences of viewpoint amongst us, the question of the best economic forms of this broader equality, but we support the interests of working people everywhere and their right to organize in defence of those interests. Democratic trade unions are the bedrock organizations for the defence of workers' interests and are one of the most important forces for human rights, democracy-promotion and egalitarian internationalism. Labour rights are human rights. The universal adoption of the International Labour Organization Conventions — now routinely ignored by governments across the globe — is a priority for us. We are committed to the defence of the rights of children, and to protecting people from sexual slavery and all forms of institutionalized abuse.
5) Development for freedom.
We stand for global economic development-as-freedom and against structural economic oppression and environmental degradation. The current expansion of global markets and free trade must not be allowed to serve the narrow interests of a small corporate elite in the developed world and their associates in developing countries. The benefits of large-scale development through the expansion of global trade ought to be distributed as widely as possible in order to serve the social and economic interests of workers, farmers and consumers in all countries. Globalization must mean global social integration and a commitment to social justice. We support radical reform of the major institutions of global economic governance (World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, World Bank) to achieve these goals, and we support fair trade, more aid, debt cancellation and the campaign to Make Poverty History. Development can bring growth in life-expectancy and in the enjoyment of life, easing burdensome labour and shortening the working day. It can bring freedom to youth, possibilities of exploration to those of middle years, and security to old age. It enlarges horizons and the opportunities for travel, and helps make strangers into friends. Global development must be pursued in a manner consistent with environmentally sustainable growth.
6) Opposing anti-Americanism.
We reject without qualification the anti-Americanism now infecting so much left-liberal (and some conservative) thinking. This is not a case of seeing the US as a model society. We are aware of its problems and failings. But these are shared in some degree with all of the developed world. The United States of America is a great country and nation. It is the home of a strong democracy with a noble tradition behind it and lasting constitutional and social achievements to its name. Its peoples have produced a vibrant culture that is the pleasure, the source-book and the envy of millions. That US foreign policy has often opposed progressive movements and governments and supported regressive and authoritarian ones does not justify generalized prejudice against either the country or its people.
7) For a two-state solution.
We recognize the right of both the Israeli and the Palestinian peoples to self-determination within the framework of a two-state solution. There can be no reasonable resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that subordinates or eliminates the legitimate rights and interests of one of the sides to the dispute.
8) Against racism.
For liberals and the Left, anti-racism is axiomatic. We oppose every form of racist prejudice and behaviour: the anti-immigrant racism of the far Right; tribal and inter-ethnic racism; racism against people from Muslim countries and those descended from them, particularly under cover of the War on Terror. The recent resurgence of another, very old form of racism, anti-Semitism, is not yet properly acknowledged in left and liberal circles. Some exploit the legitimate grievances of the Palestinian people under occupation by Israel, and conceal prejudice against the Jewish people behind the formula of "anti-Zionism". We oppose this type of racism too, as should go without saying.
9) United against terror.
We are opposed to all forms of terrorism. The deliberate targeting of civilians is a crime under international law and all recognized codes of warfare, and it cannot be justified by the argument that it is done in a cause that is just. Terrorism inspired by Islamist ideology is widespread today. It threatens democratic values and the lives and freedoms of people in many countries. This does not justify prejudice against Muslims, who are its main victims, and amongst whom are to be found some of its most courageous opponents. But, like all terrorism, it is a menace that has to be fought, and not excused.
10) A new internationalism.
We stand for an internationalist politics and the reform of international law — in the interests of global democratization and global development. Humanitarian intervention, when necessary, is not a matter of disregarding sovereignty, but of lodging this properly within the "common life" of all peoples. If in some minimal sense a state protects the common life of its people (if it does not torture, murder and slaughter its own civilians, and meets their most basic needs of life), then its sovereignty is to be respected. But if the state itself violates this common life in appalling ways, its claim to sovereignty is forfeited and there is a duty upon the international community of intervention and rescue. Once a threshold of inhumanity has been crossed, there is a "responsibility to protect".
11) A critical openness.
Drawing the lesson of the disastrous history of left apologetics over the crimes of Stalinism and Maoism, as well as more recent exercises in the same vein (some of the reaction to the crimes of 9/11, the excuse-making for suicide-terrorism, the disgraceful alliances lately set up inside the "anti-war" movement with illiberal theocrats), we reject the notion that there are no opponents on the Left. We reject, similarly, the idea that there can be no opening to ideas and individuals to our right. Leftists who make common cause with, or excuses for, anti-democratic forces should be criticized in clear and forthright terms. Conversely, we pay attention to liberal and conservative voices and ideas if they contribute to strengthening democratic norms and practices and to the battle for human progress.
12) Historical truth.
In connecting to the original humanistic impulses of the movement for human progress, we emphasize the duty which genuine democrats must have to respect for the historical truth. Not only fascists, Holocaust-deniers and the like have tried to obscure the historical record. One of the tragedies of the Left is that its own reputation was massively compromised in this regard by the international Communist movement, and some have still not learned that lesson. Political honesty and straightforwardness are a primary obligation for us.
13) Freedom of ideas.
We uphold the traditional liberal freedom of ideas. It is more than ever necessary today to affirm that, within the usual constraints against defamation, libel and incitement to violence, people must be at liberty to criticize ideas — even whole bodies of ideas — to which others are committed. This includes the freedom to criticize religion: particular religions and religion in general. Respect for others does not entail remaining silent about their beliefs where these are judged to be wanting.
14) Open source.
As part of the free exchange of ideas and in the interests of encouraging joint intellectual endeavour, we support the open development of software and other creative works and oppose the patenting of genes, algorithms and facts of nature. We oppose the retrospective extension of intellectual property laws in the financial interests of corporate copyright holders. The open source model is collective and competitive, collaborative and meritocratic. It is not a theoretical ideal, but a tested reality that has created common goods whose power and robustness have been proved over decades. Indeed, the best collegiate ideals of the scientific research community that gave rise to open source collaboration have served human progress for centuries.
15) A precious heritage.
We reject fear of modernity, fear of freedom, irrationalism, the subordination of women; and we reaffirm the ideas that inspired the great rallying calls of the democratic revolutions of the eighteenth century: liberty, equality and solidarity; human rights; the pursuit of happiness. These inspirational ideas were made the inheritance of us all by the social-democratic, egalitarian, feminist and anti-colonial transformations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries — by the pursuit of social justice, the provision of welfare, the brotherhood and sisterhood of all men and women. None should be left out, none left behind. We are partisans of these values. But we are not zealots. For we embrace also the values of free enquiry, open dialogue and creative doubt, of care in judgement and a sense of the intractabilities of the world. We stand against all claims to a total — unquestionable or unquestioning — truth.
C. Elaborations
We defend liberal and pluralist democracies against all who make light of the differences between them and totalitarian and other tyrannical regimes. But these democracies have their own deficits and shortcomings. The battle for the development of more democratic institutions and procedures, for further empowering those without influence, without a voice or with few political resources, is a permanent part of the agenda of the Left.
The social and economic foundations on which the liberal democracies have developed are marked by deep inequalities of wealth and income and the survival of unmerited privilege. In turn, global inequalities are a scandal to the moral conscience of humankind. Millions live in terrible poverty. Week in, week out, tens of thousands of people — children in particular — die from preventable illnesses. Inequalities of wealth, both as between individuals and between countries, distribute life chances in an arbitrary way.
These things are a standing indictment against the international community. We on the Left, in keeping with our own traditions, fight for justice and a decent life for everyone. In keeping with those same traditions, we have also to fight against powerful forces of totalitarian-style tyranny that are on the march again. Both battles have to be fought simultaneously. One should not be sacrificed for the other.
We repudiate the way of thinking according to which the events of September 11, 2001 were America's deserved comeuppance, or "understandable" in the light of legitimate grievances resulting from US foreign policy. What was done on that day was an act of mass murder, motivated by odious fundamentalist beliefs and redeemed by nothing whatsoever. No evasive formula can hide that.
The founding supporters of this statement took different views on the military intervention in Iraq, both for and against. We recognize that it was possible reasonably to disagree about the justification for the intervention, the manner in which it was carried through, the planning (or lack of it) for the aftermath, and the prospects for the successful implementation of democratic change. We are, however, united in our view about the reactionary, semi-fascist and murderous character of the Baathist regime in Iraq, and we recognize its overthrow as a liberation of the Iraqi people. We are also united in the view that, since the day on which this occurred, the proper concern of genuine liberals and members of the Left should have been the battle to put in place in Iraq a democratic political order and to rebuild the country's infrastructure, to create after decades of the most brutal oppression a life for Iraqis which those living in democratic countries take for granted — rather than picking through the rubble of the arguments over intervention.
This opposes us not only to those on the Left who have actively spoken in support of the gangs of jihadist and Baathist thugs of the Iraqi so-called resistance, but also to others who manage to find a way of situating themselves between such forces and those trying to bring a new democratic life to the country. We have no truck, either, with the tendency to pay lip service to these ends, while devoting most of one's energy to criticism of political opponents at home (supposedly responsible for every difficulty in Iraq), and observing a tactful silence or near silence about the ugly forces of the Iraqi "insurgency". The many left opponents of regime change in Iraq who have been unable to understand the considerations that led others on the Left to support it, dishing out anathema and excommunication, more lately demanding apology or repentance, betray the democratic values they profess.
Vandalism against synagogues and Jewish graveyards and attacks on Jews themselves are on the increase in Europe. "Anti-Zionism" has now developed to a point where supposed organizations of the Left are willing to entertain openly anti-Semitic speakers and to form alliances with anti-Semitic groups. Amongst educated and affluent people are to be found individuals unembarrassed to claim that the Iraq war was fought on behalf of Jewish interests, or to make other "polite" and subtle allusions to the harmful effect of Jewish influence in international or national politics — remarks of a kind that for more than fifty years after the Holocaust no one would have been able to make without publicly disgracing themselves. We stand against all variants of such bigotry.
The violation of basic human rights standards at Abu Ghraib, at Guantanamo, and by the practice of "rendition", must be roundly condemned for what it is: a departure from universal principles, for the establishment of which the democratic countries themselves, and in particular the United States of America, bear the greater part of the historical credit. But we reject the double standards by which too many on the Left today treat as the worst violations of human rights those perpetrated by the democracies, while being either silent or more muted about infractions that outstrip these by far. This tendency has reached the point that officials speaking for Amnesty International, an organization which commands enormous, worldwide respect because of its invaluable work over several decades, can now make grotesque public comparison of Guantanamo with the Gulag, can assert that the legislative measures taken by the US and other liberal democracies in the War on Terror constitute a greater attack on human rights principles and values than anything we have seen in the last 50 years, and be defended for doing so by certain left and liberal voices.
D. Conclusion
It is vitally important for the future of progressive politics that people of liberal, egalitarian and internationalist outlook should now speak clearly. We must define ourselves against those for whom the entire progressive-democratic agenda has been subordinated to a blanket and simplistic "anti-imperialism" and/or hostility to the current US administration. The values and goals which properly make up that agenda — the values of democracy, human rights, the continuing battle against unjustified privilege and power, solidarity with peoples fighting against tyranny and oppression — are what most enduringly define the shape of any Left worth belonging to.
What amazed me when I first started handing out HTV cards is the commonality of beliefs and values shared by the multitude of people representing this wide spectrum of political parties and political thought. Virtually no matter who I spoke with, we agreed on 80 to 90% of topics that we chose to discuss. My personal view is that this mutual agreement shows how homogeneous our Australian population generally is. In turn, this provides one of the foundation stones on which one of the world's most successful democracies has been based since 1901.
In March 2006, Norman Geras, professor of politics at Manchester University UK produced a political manifesto. He and his supporters are undeniably socialists: they support many socialist philosophies and principles. Yet Geras and the manifesto emphasise support for America and much of what it stands for. He is bitterly critical of his left-leaning colleagues who are unthinkingly anti-American.
I've read the Manifesto and, while I reject some of its more socialist statements, nonetheless it contains much that most people committed to the principles of operation of parliamentary democracies would unhesitatingly support. It's reproduced below and more details are available from http://eustonmanifesto.org .
The Euston Manifesto
Wednesday, 29 March 2006
A. Preamble
We are democrats and progressives. We propose here a fresh political alignment. Many of us belong to the Left, but the principles that we set out are not exclusive. We reach out, rather, beyond the socialist Left towards egalitarian liberals and others of unambiguous democratic commitment. Indeed, the reconfiguration of progressive opinion that we aim for involves drawing a line between the forces of the Left that remain true to its authentic values, and currents that have lately shown themselves rather too flexible about these values. It involves making common cause with genuine democrats, whether socialist or not.
The present initiative has its roots in and has found a constituency through the Internet, especially the "blogosphere". It is our perception, however, that this constituency is under-represented elsewhere — in much of the media and the other forums of contemporary political life.
The broad statement of principles that follows is a declaration of intent. It inaugurates a new Website, which will serve as a resource for the current of opinion it hopes to represent and the several foundation blogs and other sites that are behind this call for a progressive realignment.
B. Statement of principles
1) For democracy.
We are committed to democratic norms, procedures and structures — freedom of opinion and assembly, free elections, the separation of legislative, executive and judicial powers, and the separation of state and religion. We value the traditions and institutions, the legacy of good governance, of those countries in which liberal, pluralist democracies have taken hold.
2) No apology for tyranny.
We decline to make excuses for, to indulgently "understand", reactionary regimes and movements for which democracy is a hated enemy — regimes that oppress their own peoples and movements that aspire to do so. We draw a firm line between ourselves and those left-liberal voices today quick to offer an apologetic explanation for such political forces.
3) Human rights for all.
We hold the fundamental human rights codified in the Universal Declaration to be precisely universal, and binding on all states and political movements, indeed on everyone. Violations of these rights are equally to be condemned whoever is responsible for them and regardless of cultural context. We reject the double standards with which much self-proclaimed progressive opinion now operates, finding lesser (though all too real) violations of human rights which are closer to home, or are the responsibility of certain disfavoured governments, more deplorable than other violations that are flagrantly worse. We reject, also, the cultural relativist view according to which these basic human rights are not appropriate for certain nations or peoples.
4) Equality.
We espouse a generally egalitarian politics. We look towards progress in relations between the sexes (until full gender equality is achieved), between different ethnic communities, between those of various religious affiliations and those of none, and between people of diverse sexual orientations — as well as towards broader social and economic equality all round. We leave open, as something on which there are differences of viewpoint amongst us, the question of the best economic forms of this broader equality, but we support the interests of working people everywhere and their right to organize in defence of those interests. Democratic trade unions are the bedrock organizations for the defence of workers' interests and are one of the most important forces for human rights, democracy-promotion and egalitarian internationalism. Labour rights are human rights. The universal adoption of the International Labour Organization Conventions — now routinely ignored by governments across the globe — is a priority for us. We are committed to the defence of the rights of children, and to protecting people from sexual slavery and all forms of institutionalized abuse.
5) Development for freedom.
We stand for global economic development-as-freedom and against structural economic oppression and environmental degradation. The current expansion of global markets and free trade must not be allowed to serve the narrow interests of a small corporate elite in the developed world and their associates in developing countries. The benefits of large-scale development through the expansion of global trade ought to be distributed as widely as possible in order to serve the social and economic interests of workers, farmers and consumers in all countries. Globalization must mean global social integration and a commitment to social justice. We support radical reform of the major institutions of global economic governance (World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, World Bank) to achieve these goals, and we support fair trade, more aid, debt cancellation and the campaign to Make Poverty History. Development can bring growth in life-expectancy and in the enjoyment of life, easing burdensome labour and shortening the working day. It can bring freedom to youth, possibilities of exploration to those of middle years, and security to old age. It enlarges horizons and the opportunities for travel, and helps make strangers into friends. Global development must be pursued in a manner consistent with environmentally sustainable growth.
6) Opposing anti-Americanism.
We reject without qualification the anti-Americanism now infecting so much left-liberal (and some conservative) thinking. This is not a case of seeing the US as a model society. We are aware of its problems and failings. But these are shared in some degree with all of the developed world. The United States of America is a great country and nation. It is the home of a strong democracy with a noble tradition behind it and lasting constitutional and social achievements to its name. Its peoples have produced a vibrant culture that is the pleasure, the source-book and the envy of millions. That US foreign policy has often opposed progressive movements and governments and supported regressive and authoritarian ones does not justify generalized prejudice against either the country or its people.
7) For a two-state solution.
We recognize the right of both the Israeli and the Palestinian peoples to self-determination within the framework of a two-state solution. There can be no reasonable resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that subordinates or eliminates the legitimate rights and interests of one of the sides to the dispute.
8) Against racism.
For liberals and the Left, anti-racism is axiomatic. We oppose every form of racist prejudice and behaviour: the anti-immigrant racism of the far Right; tribal and inter-ethnic racism; racism against people from Muslim countries and those descended from them, particularly under cover of the War on Terror. The recent resurgence of another, very old form of racism, anti-Semitism, is not yet properly acknowledged in left and liberal circles. Some exploit the legitimate grievances of the Palestinian people under occupation by Israel, and conceal prejudice against the Jewish people behind the formula of "anti-Zionism". We oppose this type of racism too, as should go without saying.
9) United against terror.
We are opposed to all forms of terrorism. The deliberate targeting of civilians is a crime under international law and all recognized codes of warfare, and it cannot be justified by the argument that it is done in a cause that is just. Terrorism inspired by Islamist ideology is widespread today. It threatens democratic values and the lives and freedoms of people in many countries. This does not justify prejudice against Muslims, who are its main victims, and amongst whom are to be found some of its most courageous opponents. But, like all terrorism, it is a menace that has to be fought, and not excused.
10) A new internationalism.
We stand for an internationalist politics and the reform of international law — in the interests of global democratization and global development. Humanitarian intervention, when necessary, is not a matter of disregarding sovereignty, but of lodging this properly within the "common life" of all peoples. If in some minimal sense a state protects the common life of its people (if it does not torture, murder and slaughter its own civilians, and meets their most basic needs of life), then its sovereignty is to be respected. But if the state itself violates this common life in appalling ways, its claim to sovereignty is forfeited and there is a duty upon the international community of intervention and rescue. Once a threshold of inhumanity has been crossed, there is a "responsibility to protect".
11) A critical openness.
Drawing the lesson of the disastrous history of left apologetics over the crimes of Stalinism and Maoism, as well as more recent exercises in the same vein (some of the reaction to the crimes of 9/11, the excuse-making for suicide-terrorism, the disgraceful alliances lately set up inside the "anti-war" movement with illiberal theocrats), we reject the notion that there are no opponents on the Left. We reject, similarly, the idea that there can be no opening to ideas and individuals to our right. Leftists who make common cause with, or excuses for, anti-democratic forces should be criticized in clear and forthright terms. Conversely, we pay attention to liberal and conservative voices and ideas if they contribute to strengthening democratic norms and practices and to the battle for human progress.
12) Historical truth.
In connecting to the original humanistic impulses of the movement for human progress, we emphasize the duty which genuine democrats must have to respect for the historical truth. Not only fascists, Holocaust-deniers and the like have tried to obscure the historical record. One of the tragedies of the Left is that its own reputation was massively compromised in this regard by the international Communist movement, and some have still not learned that lesson. Political honesty and straightforwardness are a primary obligation for us.
13) Freedom of ideas.
We uphold the traditional liberal freedom of ideas. It is more than ever necessary today to affirm that, within the usual constraints against defamation, libel and incitement to violence, people must be at liberty to criticize ideas — even whole bodies of ideas — to which others are committed. This includes the freedom to criticize religion: particular religions and religion in general. Respect for others does not entail remaining silent about their beliefs where these are judged to be wanting.
14) Open source.
As part of the free exchange of ideas and in the interests of encouraging joint intellectual endeavour, we support the open development of software and other creative works and oppose the patenting of genes, algorithms and facts of nature. We oppose the retrospective extension of intellectual property laws in the financial interests of corporate copyright holders. The open source model is collective and competitive, collaborative and meritocratic. It is not a theoretical ideal, but a tested reality that has created common goods whose power and robustness have been proved over decades. Indeed, the best collegiate ideals of the scientific research community that gave rise to open source collaboration have served human progress for centuries.
15) A precious heritage.
We reject fear of modernity, fear of freedom, irrationalism, the subordination of women; and we reaffirm the ideas that inspired the great rallying calls of the democratic revolutions of the eighteenth century: liberty, equality and solidarity; human rights; the pursuit of happiness. These inspirational ideas were made the inheritance of us all by the social-democratic, egalitarian, feminist and anti-colonial transformations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries — by the pursuit of social justice, the provision of welfare, the brotherhood and sisterhood of all men and women. None should be left out, none left behind. We are partisans of these values. But we are not zealots. For we embrace also the values of free enquiry, open dialogue and creative doubt, of care in judgement and a sense of the intractabilities of the world. We stand against all claims to a total — unquestionable or unquestioning — truth.
C. Elaborations
We defend liberal and pluralist democracies against all who make light of the differences between them and totalitarian and other tyrannical regimes. But these democracies have their own deficits and shortcomings. The battle for the development of more democratic institutions and procedures, for further empowering those without influence, without a voice or with few political resources, is a permanent part of the agenda of the Left.
The social and economic foundations on which the liberal democracies have developed are marked by deep inequalities of wealth and income and the survival of unmerited privilege. In turn, global inequalities are a scandal to the moral conscience of humankind. Millions live in terrible poverty. Week in, week out, tens of thousands of people — children in particular — die from preventable illnesses. Inequalities of wealth, both as between individuals and between countries, distribute life chances in an arbitrary way.
These things are a standing indictment against the international community. We on the Left, in keeping with our own traditions, fight for justice and a decent life for everyone. In keeping with those same traditions, we have also to fight against powerful forces of totalitarian-style tyranny that are on the march again. Both battles have to be fought simultaneously. One should not be sacrificed for the other.
We repudiate the way of thinking according to which the events of September 11, 2001 were America's deserved comeuppance, or "understandable" in the light of legitimate grievances resulting from US foreign policy. What was done on that day was an act of mass murder, motivated by odious fundamentalist beliefs and redeemed by nothing whatsoever. No evasive formula can hide that.
The founding supporters of this statement took different views on the military intervention in Iraq, both for and against. We recognize that it was possible reasonably to disagree about the justification for the intervention, the manner in which it was carried through, the planning (or lack of it) for the aftermath, and the prospects for the successful implementation of democratic change. We are, however, united in our view about the reactionary, semi-fascist and murderous character of the Baathist regime in Iraq, and we recognize its overthrow as a liberation of the Iraqi people. We are also united in the view that, since the day on which this occurred, the proper concern of genuine liberals and members of the Left should have been the battle to put in place in Iraq a democratic political order and to rebuild the country's infrastructure, to create after decades of the most brutal oppression a life for Iraqis which those living in democratic countries take for granted — rather than picking through the rubble of the arguments over intervention.
This opposes us not only to those on the Left who have actively spoken in support of the gangs of jihadist and Baathist thugs of the Iraqi so-called resistance, but also to others who manage to find a way of situating themselves between such forces and those trying to bring a new democratic life to the country. We have no truck, either, with the tendency to pay lip service to these ends, while devoting most of one's energy to criticism of political opponents at home (supposedly responsible for every difficulty in Iraq), and observing a tactful silence or near silence about the ugly forces of the Iraqi "insurgency". The many left opponents of regime change in Iraq who have been unable to understand the considerations that led others on the Left to support it, dishing out anathema and excommunication, more lately demanding apology or repentance, betray the democratic values they profess.
Vandalism against synagogues and Jewish graveyards and attacks on Jews themselves are on the increase in Europe. "Anti-Zionism" has now developed to a point where supposed organizations of the Left are willing to entertain openly anti-Semitic speakers and to form alliances with anti-Semitic groups. Amongst educated and affluent people are to be found individuals unembarrassed to claim that the Iraq war was fought on behalf of Jewish interests, or to make other "polite" and subtle allusions to the harmful effect of Jewish influence in international or national politics — remarks of a kind that for more than fifty years after the Holocaust no one would have been able to make without publicly disgracing themselves. We stand against all variants of such bigotry.
The violation of basic human rights standards at Abu Ghraib, at Guantanamo, and by the practice of "rendition", must be roundly condemned for what it is: a departure from universal principles, for the establishment of which the democratic countries themselves, and in particular the United States of America, bear the greater part of the historical credit. But we reject the double standards by which too many on the Left today treat as the worst violations of human rights those perpetrated by the democracies, while being either silent or more muted about infractions that outstrip these by far. This tendency has reached the point that officials speaking for Amnesty International, an organization which commands enormous, worldwide respect because of its invaluable work over several decades, can now make grotesque public comparison of Guantanamo with the Gulag, can assert that the legislative measures taken by the US and other liberal democracies in the War on Terror constitute a greater attack on human rights principles and values than anything we have seen in the last 50 years, and be defended for doing so by certain left and liberal voices.
D. Conclusion
It is vitally important for the future of progressive politics that people of liberal, egalitarian and internationalist outlook should now speak clearly. We must define ourselves against those for whom the entire progressive-democratic agenda has been subordinated to a blanket and simplistic "anti-imperialism" and/or hostility to the current US administration. The values and goals which properly make up that agenda — the values of democracy, human rights, the continuing battle against unjustified privilege and power, solidarity with peoples fighting against tyranny and oppression — are what most enduringly define the shape of any Left worth belonging to.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
AUSTRALIA'S SALINITY CRISIS. WHAT CRISIS?
On May 28, Channel 9's Sunday program ran a controversial article on salinity. The article questioned much existing orthodoxy of what scientists tell us are the problems and solutions to our salinity problem. Although it is less relevant to WA than to the Murray-Darling Basin, I've reproduced much of the article below as it makes interesting reading. In particular, some of you may remember a recent two part ABC Australian Story on Peter Andrews, a NSW farmer with very unorthodox views on managing water on farms. I was able to arrange for Peter to visit the Busselton area in the mid 1990s and his message, while not universally applicable, is nonetheless scientifically sound and, like this article on salinity, deserves greater airing.
AUSTRALIA'S SALINITY CRISIS: WHAT CRISIS?
May 28, 2006
Reporter : Ross Coulthart
Producer : Nick Farrow
Pyramid Hill farmer Ross Hercott. It's an apocalyptic story of environmental disaster we all know so well. The Murray Darling basin is being poisoned by salt. Adelaide's water supply is threatened, along with some of our most productive farmland — and our beautiful rivers are dying. It's a frightening scenario. But is it true? This week on Sunday, reporter Ross Coulthart takes a look at the real threat posed by salinity — and finds things are going badly wrong in public science.
As Coulthart reveals, some of the claims being used to support calls for billions of dollars to be spent on fixing a "looming salinity crisis" are simply not true. Salinity is a problem. But it seems nowhere as bad as we've been told by environmental groups, government departments and many in the media.
Claims that an area of land twice the size of Tasmania is under threat are false. The reality is a fraction of that. Even top scientists now admit the predictions of a disaster have been exaggerated.
They say this may be because the theory about what causes salinity in non-irrigation areas is flawed.
Worse still, scientists suggest a cheaper and easier solution for salinity problems is being ignored — for very unscientific reasons.
Sunday reporter Ross Coulthart: "It's a disaster for science. It's a disaster for farmers," one former CSIRO scientist tells Sunday.
Taxpayers have now given Government scientists billions of dollars to spend on efforts to understand and tackle salinity. But how solid is the science behind it?
TRANSCRIPT:
REPORTER ROSS COULTHART: It is an apocalyptic tale that is near Biblical in proportion. Here in Adelaide the people are told their drinking water is being poisoned by salt. Australia's most productive farmland is slowly drowning in a saline flood, the beautiful Murray River is dying. For many in public science, environmental groups and the media, this looming catastrophe has long been an article of almost religious faith. But what if much of this is nothing more than misguided pessimism, or as one eminent scientist describes it: a Gothic horror story?
DR JOHN PASSIOURA, honorary research fellow, CSIRO Plant Industry: Gothic horror stories appeal to people. I don’t think it’s as serious as we came to believe in the late nineties.
ROSS COULTHART: So can you give me a yes or no on whether the river system is dying?
PROFESSOR PETER CULLEN, director, Land and Water Australia: I don’t think the river is dying at the moment
ROSS COULTHART: We’ve already spent billions of dollars on the fix but in this month’s Budget, another half billion dollars was committed to fixing the Murray, salinity levels a major priority. You’ll also hear the evidence suggesting that something is very wrong in public science in Australia. Are we wasting billions of dollars on a dubious fix for salinity?
Picnic on the bed of the Murray
GEORGE WARNE, GM Murray Irrigation: The river is certainly not in crisis with salinity and the stories they’re talking about, the stories of doom and gloom, we think are grossly overstated.
ROSS COULTHART: We were being told that the Murray Darling river system is sick and in danger of dying. Is it?
DR JOHN PASSIOURA: I don’t believe so. If you talk to the people who are in the thriving communities along the Murray they would hotly dispute that.
ROBERT GOURLAY, MD Environmental Research Information Consortium: We are literally pouring this money down the drains they are creating.
ROSS COULTHART: Today you’ll hear how a growing number of scientists and farmers are now disputing the whole theory that supposedly explains how salinity occurs. They believe the orthodox explanation is just plain wrong.
DR BRIAN TUNSTALL, former CSIRO research scientist: It’s a disaster for science. It’s a disaster for farmers.
ROSS COULTHART: And here’s a few things you likely haven’t heard: Tree planting can actually make salinity worse. That, despite panicked claims to the contrary, this natural icon is not under threat of extinction. And the curious link between salinity and this famous art icon, ‘Blue Poles’.
For years we’ve been told that this river system is sick and in danger of dying if nothing’s done to cut the rising levels of salt that our bad land practices are dumping into it. But the river tells a different story. Here near Morgan on the Murray River is where Adelaide takes in its water supply so because of that it’s long been used as a benchmark indicator to measure for the salinity along the entire Murray Darling River system. And what it shows is really quite dramatic. That rather than increasing, salinity levels over the past twenty years have dramatically decreased. In fact they’re back to pre-World War Two levels. So what’s going on? Has the multibillion dollar fix for our river system been driven not by good science but by emotion and politics?
DR JENNIFER MAROHASY, Institute of Public Affairs: We don’t have a salinity crisis. We have an honesty crisis rather than a salinity crisis.
ROSS COULTHART: Gloria Griffiths has been fishing along the Murray River and its tributaries for the last quarter century. She and her Deniliquin Fishing Club colleagues are more than a little amused at the bleak claims that the river system is in crisis, and especially the notion that their beloved Murray Cod is in danger of extinction.
GLORIA GRIFFITHS: Each time you go out you pull in these beautiful cod you can see how healthy they are.
ROSS COULTHART: So what do you think when you read these newspapers from the big cities and they’re all saying the river’s dying and there’s no Murray Cod any more.
GLORIA GRIFFITHS: That they should get out and have a decent look themselves.
ROSS COULTHART: And on cue, Gloria caught us this equally glorious Murray Cod.
GLORIA GRIFFITHS: He looks pretty healthy. Yes actually this is the second one I’ve caught here today
ROSS COULTHART: Let’s put him back in before he gets upset. No-one denies an increase in the river flows would be desirable but as environmental scientist Dr Jennifer Marohasy from the Institute of Public Affairs argues, the notion that we’ve changed the Murray River from a mighty constantly-flowing watercourse to a trickle is challenged by early photos showing the river bed bone dry. Is this a sick river?
DR JENNIFER MAROHASY: No, it’s a bit murky but that’s how it is naturally.
ROSS COULTHART: And as for those who think the river should be returned to its natural state, think again. As Professor Peter Cullen acknowledges, we may now be trying to reduce salt in the river to artificially low levels. Do we know at all what the natural saline level was in the river system before we came along?
PROFESSOR PETER CULLEN: Well I don’t, but my expectation would be that from time to time it was very saline. But we’ve put human communities along that Murray who are taking water for drinking and irrigating and they have therefore pushed to manage and change that river so that it is usable by those communities.
ROSS COULTHART: But aren’t we putting an expectation on that river system that is far beyond what is naturally sustainable?
PROFESSOR PETER CULLEN: We are changing the river beyond what it was naturally. Naturally from time to time there would be no flow and it’d be salty.
ROSS COULTHART: As for the Murray cod, Dr Marohasy believes the grim predictions came about because the scientists who went looking for them were lousy fishermen.
DR JENNIFER MAROHASY: They went out and they surveyed for a couple of years and they apparently spent two million dollars on fishing gear and they concluded that there was no Murray cod in this region. And the fishermen were up in arms. They said: ‘But we’re catching Murray Cod, there’s Murray Cod in the river!’ What I did do was actually look at the commercial harvest for this region for those years and it was actually 26 tonnes of Murray Cod.
ROSS COULTHART: Support for Marohasy’s claims too from Professor Peter Cullen.
PROFESSOR PETER CULLEN: I think one can be confident we will be able to maintain Murray Cod populations.
ROSS COULTHART: Marohasy argues that a similar failure by government scientists lies behind the gloomy predictions that, unless governments commit billions of dollars, the Murray river system faces a salinity catastrophe. She analysed the official data, showing that salt levels had halved over the past 20 years near Morgan here in South Australia and it’s this data that has historically been used as a bench-mark for the river’s salinity health.
DR JENNIFER MAROHASY: They were back at what they were pre-World War Two levels. But everybody, at the same time I was talking to those guys and they were saying ‘yeah, you’re right salt levels have halved’, we had the front page of the CSIRO Land and Water website saying that salt levels ware increasing. But the data actually showed that salt levels had halved.
ROSS COULTHART: The levels of salinity at Morgan show there’s been an appreciable decrease in salinity levels in the entire MD River system over the past 20 years.
WENDY CRAIK, CEO, MDBC: Correct. And why? One, because we’ve been putting into place our salt interception schemes and they’ve been pumping salt out. And secondly, and a really important issue in recent years is the drought.
ROSS COULTHART: So why then, as benchmark salinity levels are the lowest in twenty years was the CSIRO still talking up the so-called ‘rising’ salinity problem on its website?. In June 2003, it said:
VOICEOVER READ: Salt levels are rising in almost all of the Basin’s rivers.
ROSS COULTHART: When these alarming claims were challenged by Marohasy, the CSIRO quietly dropped this sentence from its website. So why would scientists do this? Why make a representation that there is a huge problem when there isn’t?
DR JENNIFER MAROHASY: Maybe they were being driven by some environmental campaigning. And maybe they were concerned about continued funding if they’d fixed the problem.
ROSS COULTHART: For at least 30 years, the official explanation for salinity has been that cutting down trees and other land clearing is making groundwater rise, pushing salt up to root zones or the surface, killing plants. This explanation, called the Rising Regional Groundwater Theory, is used in all the models to predict salinity across Australia. But it’s never been proven. It’s still just a theory. Yet billions of dollars have been spent trying to fix salinity problems using solutions based on it.
Dr Maarten Stapper is a principal research scientist with the CSIRO. It’s a measure of the sensitivity of the debate that he insisted we emphasise he is speaking in a private capacity. For he is one of the dissident scientists who believes there’s something very wrong with the whole rising groundwater theory and the alarming predictions it makes. Are you a believer in the rising groundwater theory as an explanation for salinity?
DR MAARTEN STAPPER, principal research scientist, CSIRO: No. Not a full verdict on that it’s true for every situation.
ROSS COULTHART: Honorary CSIRO Research Fellow Dr John Passioura — who is also speaking in a private capacity — is a true believer in the theory but even he acknowledges it has its problems. That’s the theory that’s very much driven our scientific understanding of salinity for the last 20 or 30 years — right?
DR JOHN PASSIOURA: Yes
ROSS COULTHART: Is it right?
DR JOHN PASSIOURA: I believe the big picture is right. The difficulty is that when you have to start looking at the action on ground, you have to start dealing with the little picture.
ROSS COULTHART: Meanwhile former CSIRO research scientist Dr Brian Tunstall is happy to say he thinks the Rising Groundwater Theory is largely bunkum.
DR BRIAN TUNSTALL: It was never right and if you look at the reviews and if you look at the literature overseas, it’s not right. It’s unique to Australia.
ROSS COULTHART: Why does it matter though?
DR BRIAN TUNSTALL: Because of the wastage of money. Because we’re not fixing the problem. We’re spending money on it and we’re penalising farmers.
ROSS COULTHART: If there are villains in this tale of horror they’re the farmers and especially the irrigators. Popular wisdom has it that irrigation farming is doomed, the irrigators accused of greedily sloshing vast amounts of river water on to their farms, which in turn is washing mountains of salt out of the soil back into the rivers. It’s a perception that Deniliquin irrigation rice farmer Adam Wettenhall says is totally false.
ADAM WETTENHALL, Deniliquin irrigation rice farmer: I’d say to the doomsayers ‘instead of staying inside your ivory towers in Sydney and Melbourne and other cities, come out to the country and have a look.’
ROSS COULTHART: A decade ago the scientists were predicting that what’s happening here in this field today just wouldn’t be possible. This was a salinity hotspot. Back then, the groundwater was just below the surface and in danger of rising and wiping out this area completely with salinity. Ten years on, not only is the watertable now far lower, see for yourself, it’s a bumper harvest. One of the best ever. What did they say was going to happen here?
ADAM WETTENHALL: Basically if nothing was done about it we wouldn’t be here. And the irrigation, the whole irrigation in the area, the bulk of it would have gone under.
ROSS COULTHART: You proved them wrong
ADAM WETTENHALL: Yes definitely.
ROSS COULTHART: Official government predictions using computer modelling based on that Rising Groundwater Theory said that much of the irrigation farmland along the Murray was headed for disaster, as Murray Irrigation’s General Manager George Warne explains.
GEORGE WARNE: We were told that unless we took radical action more than a third of our farmland would basically be under water, that is, under saline water. And even if we took radical action a quarter of our farmland would be highly at risk.
ROSS COULTHART: By when?
GEORGE WARNE: By now. By 2006, 2010 and certainly by 2020 over 300,000 hectares would be suffering from high watertables.
ROSS COULTHART: That was a disaster being projected
GEORGE WARNE: That is a disaster scenario. And it certainly hasn’t been told out in what’s happened since
ROSS COULTHART: As Adam Wettenhall showed us, on a site near his farm, salinity can kill good farmland. And in irrigation farming, if too much water’s put on the land, salt can rise up to the surface with disastrous results. On their farm, Adam and Rob carefully monitor their water use and groundwater levels. Both feel it’s unfair that irrigators like them are still being demonised for washing salt into the river.
ADAM WETTENHALL: We can recycle every bit of water on the farm we’ve also planted an extensive amount of trees, planted crops like lucerne, deep rooted plants that suck up the water table and virtually treated water that comes onto our farm as liquid gold. We don’t let anything go below the root zone of the plant therefore we are using the water to its maximum ability.
ROSS COULTHART: So how much salt are you washing into the Murray River?
ADAM WETTENHALL: None. No water leaves this farm. What water comes onto this farm stays on this farm and we recycle every little bit.
ROSS COULTHART: From up above, it’s easy to see why the Murray-Darling river basin is this country’s foodbowl. With the irrigation industry’s share of river flows still a hot political issue, Murray Irrigation’s chairman Stewart Ellis, argues the irrigation farmers at least deserve credit for proving the doomsayers wrong on salinity.
STEWART ELLIS, Chairman Murray Irrigation: The predictions as you say are just so far out. The picture they were painting just hasn’t eventuated.
GEORGE WARNE: It hasn’t happened and we have got an area now of less than four farms out of a total of two and a half thousand that are affected by high water tables. It just seems that somewhere the science got it seriously wrong.
ROSS COULTHART: If science got its predictions so badly wrong on the salinity risks in irrigation areas, then what about dry-land salinity, where salt appears on land even though it’s not being flooded with irrigation water? Computer models based on the Rising Groundwater Theory predict that, by 2050, farmland more than twice the area of Tasmania could be wiped out by salinity. It’s scary and expensive. But while salinity is a problem is such extreme pessimism justified? In part two of our story you’ll hear from the dissidents who believe the real explanation for salinity and a possible cheap fix - has been suppressed.
ROBERT GOURLAY: There’s too much at stake in terms of the credibility of public science to admit to a major error in this area of science
DR MAARTEN STAPPER: People just don’t want to talk about those issues. They don’t want to get stirred into thinking that there is another way.
ROSS COULTHART: And yet, as a scientist, you’ve seen it work?
DR MAARTEN STAPPER: Yes
ROSS COULTHART: You’re convinced it works
DR MAARTEN STAPPER: Yes.
ROSS COULTHART: Courtesy of this month’s Budget, the Murray Darling Basin Commission has another half a billion dollars of taxpayers? money to spend. Much of it will be going on expensive schemes to stop salt reaching the rivers similar to this one in northern Victoria near Pyramid Hill. This is Pyramid Salt a private company funded with $13 million dollars of taxpayers’ money. Here they pump saline water from underground and harvest the salt it contains, for sale.
Does it make you laugh that people in Sydney are paying six bucks for a 250g box of salt that you blokes are desperate to throw away in this part of the world?
GAVIN PRIVETT, project manager, Pyramid Salt: No it doesn’t make me laugh. Actually, it makes me cry because the in-between guy is getting all the money.
ROSS COULTHART: But it’s only here at all because of an environmental blunder years ago, when attempts to lower the watertable under here ended up poisoning the Murray River.
GAVIN PRIVETT: Initially, what they looked at, they started putting drainage systems and then the problem was they realised they were transferring the problem from one place to another. They put in drainage systems. The next thing it was going into the Murray.
WENDY CRAIK: That’s true and I think that’s a fact of life, that science moves on, that people learn more about systems, learn more about what they should and shouldn’t do.
ROSS COULTHART: So it’s a multi-million dollar patch-up for a past mistake and it’s not a long-term solution for salinity.
GAVIN PRIVETT: You can’t put projects like this all over the place. One, people don’t eat enough salt. It’s a low value commodity. It’s not the answer to the problem. What we’re doing is we’re just intervening and I believe it’s probably as a short-term fix which we’re probably looking to buy some time.
ROSS COULTHART: Nearly 170 years ago, the explorer Major Thomas Mitchell climbed to the top of Pyramid Hill. He proclaimed the then rich farming country here in northern Victoria ‘Australia Felix’ or ‘Blessed Australia,’ perhaps an origin of the expression ‘the Lucky Country’.
He said this is one of the best pieces of land I have ever seen on the face of the earth. So when he got back to Sydney and people read his report they just bolted down here.
After the First World War, the town boomed again. Returning soldiers were given small blocks of land which they cleared, ploughed and swamped with irrigation farming. By the mid-1950s, much of the land was poisoned by salt. The rising watertable was officially thought to be the cause.
ROSS HERCOTT, Pyramid Hill farmer: What I don’t agree with is that the rising water-table causes salinity
ROSS COULTHART: Pyramid Hill farmer Ross Hercott has long campaigned on Australia’s salinity problems. He’s the first to admit not everyone sees eye to eye with him and his radical analysis of the problem. Hercott argues most dryland salinity isn’t caused by rising groundwater at all but by what many current farming practices do to the health of the soil. He’s designed a plough which opens up the ground yet doesn’t turn soil over like conventional ploughs do so it stops the earth becoming hard and compacted. He also believes that the millions of tonnes of acid fertiliser put on Australian farms every year cement the surface soil and increase salinity because the acid in the fertiliser reacts with minerals in the earth and forms much more salt.
Fourteen years ago Hercott was told much of this land was so saline it was near useless. Now the water in this well is fresh enough to drink, all because Hercott believes he stopped using fertiliser and opened up the soil with his special plough.
ROSS COULTHART: When did you first realise you were getting fresh water coming up in the well?
ROSS HERCOTT: Within a couple of years but we had the good stuff in 2002. There you go, you taste the water for yourself
ROSS COULTHART: That’s not bad. Not bad at all. Tests show it’s purer than rainwater. Not so the water coming out of the ground 500 metres away on the farm next door. That’s very salty, extremely salty. How salty is that?
ROSS HERCOTT: Twice as salty as the sea. 59000 ECs.
ROSS COULTHART: Now if the Rising Regional Groundwater Theory is right.
ROSS HERCOTT: This would be the same as that.
ROBERT GOURLAY:
ROSS COULTHART: Is Ross Hercott right?
ROBERT GOURLAY: He’s definitely right and he’s done all the right things
ROSS COULTHART: Rob Gourlay is one of a group of scientists who have studied Hercott’s methods. He too believes salt problems can be fixed by getting soil healthy again.
ROBERT GOURLAY: This country has put millions of dollars into salinity by treating the symptoms. They have not looked at the cause. The cause is our soil health. Yet we continue to pump ground water. We continue to put in large draining systems and plant trees and we haven’t addressed the cause. The implications are enormous for our agricultural system and the survival of our regional economies.
ROSS COULTHART: Brian Tunstall is a former CSIRO soil scientist who now works with Gourlay, helping farmers fix salinity problems.
DR BRIAN TUNSTALL: Farmers have realised that there is not a massive groundwater system. That planting trees on the hills is not solving the problem. But they can solve the problem by planting grasses and other vegetation locally so that they get local solutions.
ROSS COULTHART: This is Gulgong in mid-NSW. Colin Seis is getting great results from land he was told was at high risk from salinity. His salt solution — planting his crops in with native grasses. It’s meant he’s one of the few farmers in his district who can plant anything in the current drought.
Now what would be the orthodox explanation for how to fix the salinity problem that you have?
COLIN SEIS: The orthodox thing would be either to plant all this down to trees or plough it up, destroy these native grasses and put lucerne in here.
ROSS COULTHART: And what would that have done?
COLIN SEIS: Made the salinity worse, probably.
ROSS COULTHART: Seis, who was last year’s Conservation Farmer of the Year in NSW, also doesn’t use ploughs but drills his crops in to avoid compacting the soil. He has also not used super phosphate fertiliser for 25 years
COLIN SEIS: I see it as basically growing a plant and then getting addicted to super phosphate almost like a drug. We couldn’t afford the $20-30,000 of super phosphate any longer so we started to look at other ways of doing it. I always had a belief that if we pulled the fertiliser out our native grasses would return. And that’s exactly what happened.
ROSS COULTHART: Right next door to his rye crop is land blighted by salt. Fifteen years ago government scientists suggested he fix it by planting trees. Why is this land sick and that land okay?
COLIN SEIS: The main difference is that we’ve still got our native grasses in there, our native grasslands in there which are managing the water better than here. Whereas the trees have been planted on this side really aren’t doing the job.
ROSS COULTHART: This is the orthodox fix for though, isn’t it, for the groundwater problem?
COLIN SEIS: Yes.
ROSS COULTHART: If that’s right?
COLIN SEIS: Yes. Yes.
ROSS COULTHART: Clearly planting trees here hasn’t done a thing?
COLIN SEIS: No. It hasn’t
ROSS COULTHART: The grasses add mulch to the soil, build up carbon, allowing it to hold much more water and they help flush out salt. Initial research by scientists from the CSIRO supported Seis’ unconventional approach. But, as he tells it, their bid to get funding for a more intensive study was rejected.
COLIN SEIS: The CSIRO people I remember at the time were astounded that it got knocked back. Almost all of the research work that has been attempted to be done on pasture cropping gets rejected.
ROSS COULTHART: There are a heck of a lot of reputations riding, Colin, on the theory that this problem is caused by rising groundwater?
COLIN SEIS: Yes. But maybe they’re wrong.
ROSS COULTHART: Professor Peter Cullen, a director of the peak research body Land and Water Australia denies that salinity science funding has become politicised.
PROFESSOR PETER CULLEN: I’ve not seen any evidence of that. I mean there’s often people who have contrary views. Sometimes they are wanting to get research funds. Sometimes they might be right. But I haven’t seen any evidence of suppression.
DR JENNIFER MAROHASY: There’s some fantastic scientists and it’s sometimes very hard for them to honestly report their results.
ROSS COULTHART: Remember that painting we showed earlier? For many Queensland farmers this work by Jackson Pollock called ‘Blue Poles’ is about as much use for predicting salinity problems on their land as the work of State Government scientists. It’s a standing joke that ‘Blue Poles’ looks pretty much the same as this official salinity hazard map. That’s why farmers call it ‘Red Poles’. But for them it’s no laughing matter. Farmers have been forced to plant trees — or stopped from clearing land — because of those ominous red blotches. But Brian Tunstall’s research on the ground shows the watertable in these areas is often too far down to be the cause of salinity.
DR BRIAN TUNSTALL: There’s no groundwater system for over a hundred metres down. And yet they have the groundwater model, the Rising Groundwater model producing high levels of salinity.
ROSS COULTHART: And that’s just not true?
DR BRIAN TUNSTALL: Well there’s not any groundwater system there to create it
ROSS COULTHART: And what do they say when you say where’s the groundwater that supposedly causing this salinity?
DR BRIAN TUNSTALL: I’ve never had a response.
ROSS COULTHART: For much of the past two decades we’ve been told the Murray is in crisis. And all of those grim predictions of disaster were based on that one theory, that water tables are rising across whole regions, and that massive tree planting would fix the problem. But the evidence now is that tree planting can sometimes be disastrous
DR JOHN PASSIOURA: Tree planting can be counterproductive. And the reason for that is trees, young trees use more water than what might have been used before. The result of that being there is less runoff of fresh water into the streams.
ROSS COULTHART: Murray Darling Basin Commission boss Wendy Craik now admits many of the predictions of disaster were badly wrong. A decade ago in 1993, the MDBC predicted that dryland salinity was increasing at a rate of 10 to 15 percent per annum. It’s not happening is it?
WENDY CRAIK: Well I think Ross that it’s fair to say that as a result of the consensus of science at the time organisations make, because of that consensus of science, provide the best information they can to decision-makers. That’s life.
ROSS COULTHART: In 2000, Wendy Craik was heading the National Farmers’ Federation. At the height of the salinity hysteria she called for $65 billion to be spent on fixing Australia’s land and water crisis — with a whopping 37 billion to come from taxpayers.
WENDY CRAIK: We were basing our recommendation on the best available information at the time.
ROSS COULTHART: But that information was wrong wasn’t it?
WENDY CRAIK: Subsequently I think we would say, we wouldn’t, I wouldn’t support that particular line.
ROSS COULTHART: Imagine if those billions of dollars had been expended on what you now acknowledge are incorrect models that were talking up the threat of salinity?
WENDY CRAIK: As a taxpayer I am just as happy as you that we didn’t actually do that
ROSS COULTHART: Even inside Australia’s peak science body many are now questioning what causes salinity. CSIRO principal research scientist Maarten Stapper says he too thinks salinity is actually caused by poor soil health. So touchy is the current debate in scientific circles that several scientists we spoke to felt unable to talk publicly. Maarten Stapper did but as a private citizen.
DR MAARTEN STAPPER: But the cause of most of the salinity in the dryland is on land where there’s no rising watertable and it’s caused by the lack of organic carbon and life in the soil.
ROSS COULTHART: If your solution to this problem is right then we’re wasting hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars on trying to fix salinity aren’t we’
DR MAARTEN STAPPER: Yeah. That’s money working on symptoms and not the cause of the problem.
ROSS COULTHART: So when you’ve been saying inside the CSIRO there’s a microbiological explanation for salinity, what do they say?
DR MAARTEN STAPPER: Oh silence. No reaction.
ROSS COULTHART: Do you concede it’s possible you’re wrong?
WENDY CRAIK: What I would concede is it’s possible further information might refine the models but I find it hard to believe that rising groundwater tables are not a major cause of salinity.
ROSS COULTHART: The debate over what causes what we’ve long been told is one of the biggest environmental problems in this country will doubtless rage for many years to come. But while the scientists argue, farmers like Colin Seis are getting on with their own solution. And they’re doing just fine.
How long before conventional science catches up with you?
COLIN SEIS: Probably 50 years. I don’t know. Hopefully, sooner than that.
AUSTRALIA'S SALINITY CRISIS: WHAT CRISIS?
May 28, 2006
Reporter : Ross Coulthart
Producer : Nick Farrow
Pyramid Hill farmer Ross Hercott. It's an apocalyptic story of environmental disaster we all know so well. The Murray Darling basin is being poisoned by salt. Adelaide's water supply is threatened, along with some of our most productive farmland — and our beautiful rivers are dying. It's a frightening scenario. But is it true? This week on Sunday, reporter Ross Coulthart takes a look at the real threat posed by salinity — and finds things are going badly wrong in public science.
As Coulthart reveals, some of the claims being used to support calls for billions of dollars to be spent on fixing a "looming salinity crisis" are simply not true. Salinity is a problem. But it seems nowhere as bad as we've been told by environmental groups, government departments and many in the media.
Claims that an area of land twice the size of Tasmania is under threat are false. The reality is a fraction of that. Even top scientists now admit the predictions of a disaster have been exaggerated.
They say this may be because the theory about what causes salinity in non-irrigation areas is flawed.
Worse still, scientists suggest a cheaper and easier solution for salinity problems is being ignored — for very unscientific reasons.
Sunday reporter Ross Coulthart: "It's a disaster for science. It's a disaster for farmers," one former CSIRO scientist tells Sunday.
Taxpayers have now given Government scientists billions of dollars to spend on efforts to understand and tackle salinity. But how solid is the science behind it?
TRANSCRIPT:
REPORTER ROSS COULTHART: It is an apocalyptic tale that is near Biblical in proportion. Here in Adelaide the people are told their drinking water is being poisoned by salt. Australia's most productive farmland is slowly drowning in a saline flood, the beautiful Murray River is dying. For many in public science, environmental groups and the media, this looming catastrophe has long been an article of almost religious faith. But what if much of this is nothing more than misguided pessimism, or as one eminent scientist describes it: a Gothic horror story?
DR JOHN PASSIOURA, honorary research fellow, CSIRO Plant Industry: Gothic horror stories appeal to people. I don’t think it’s as serious as we came to believe in the late nineties.
ROSS COULTHART: So can you give me a yes or no on whether the river system is dying?
PROFESSOR PETER CULLEN, director, Land and Water Australia: I don’t think the river is dying at the moment
ROSS COULTHART: We’ve already spent billions of dollars on the fix but in this month’s Budget, another half billion dollars was committed to fixing the Murray, salinity levels a major priority. You’ll also hear the evidence suggesting that something is very wrong in public science in Australia. Are we wasting billions of dollars on a dubious fix for salinity?
Picnic on the bed of the Murray
GEORGE WARNE, GM Murray Irrigation: The river is certainly not in crisis with salinity and the stories they’re talking about, the stories of doom and gloom, we think are grossly overstated.
ROSS COULTHART: We were being told that the Murray Darling river system is sick and in danger of dying. Is it?
DR JOHN PASSIOURA: I don’t believe so. If you talk to the people who are in the thriving communities along the Murray they would hotly dispute that.
ROBERT GOURLAY, MD Environmental Research Information Consortium: We are literally pouring this money down the drains they are creating.
ROSS COULTHART: Today you’ll hear how a growing number of scientists and farmers are now disputing the whole theory that supposedly explains how salinity occurs. They believe the orthodox explanation is just plain wrong.
DR BRIAN TUNSTALL, former CSIRO research scientist: It’s a disaster for science. It’s a disaster for farmers.
ROSS COULTHART: And here’s a few things you likely haven’t heard: Tree planting can actually make salinity worse. That, despite panicked claims to the contrary, this natural icon is not under threat of extinction. And the curious link between salinity and this famous art icon, ‘Blue Poles’.
For years we’ve been told that this river system is sick and in danger of dying if nothing’s done to cut the rising levels of salt that our bad land practices are dumping into it. But the river tells a different story. Here near Morgan on the Murray River is where Adelaide takes in its water supply so because of that it’s long been used as a benchmark indicator to measure for the salinity along the entire Murray Darling River system. And what it shows is really quite dramatic. That rather than increasing, salinity levels over the past twenty years have dramatically decreased. In fact they’re back to pre-World War Two levels. So what’s going on? Has the multibillion dollar fix for our river system been driven not by good science but by emotion and politics?
DR JENNIFER MAROHASY, Institute of Public Affairs: We don’t have a salinity crisis. We have an honesty crisis rather than a salinity crisis.
ROSS COULTHART: Gloria Griffiths has been fishing along the Murray River and its tributaries for the last quarter century. She and her Deniliquin Fishing Club colleagues are more than a little amused at the bleak claims that the river system is in crisis, and especially the notion that their beloved Murray Cod is in danger of extinction.
GLORIA GRIFFITHS: Each time you go out you pull in these beautiful cod you can see how healthy they are.
ROSS COULTHART: So what do you think when you read these newspapers from the big cities and they’re all saying the river’s dying and there’s no Murray Cod any more.
GLORIA GRIFFITHS: That they should get out and have a decent look themselves.
ROSS COULTHART: And on cue, Gloria caught us this equally glorious Murray Cod.
GLORIA GRIFFITHS: He looks pretty healthy. Yes actually this is the second one I’ve caught here today
ROSS COULTHART: Let’s put him back in before he gets upset. No-one denies an increase in the river flows would be desirable but as environmental scientist Dr Jennifer Marohasy from the Institute of Public Affairs argues, the notion that we’ve changed the Murray River from a mighty constantly-flowing watercourse to a trickle is challenged by early photos showing the river bed bone dry. Is this a sick river?
DR JENNIFER MAROHASY: No, it’s a bit murky but that’s how it is naturally.
ROSS COULTHART: And as for those who think the river should be returned to its natural state, think again. As Professor Peter Cullen acknowledges, we may now be trying to reduce salt in the river to artificially low levels. Do we know at all what the natural saline level was in the river system before we came along?
PROFESSOR PETER CULLEN: Well I don’t, but my expectation would be that from time to time it was very saline. But we’ve put human communities along that Murray who are taking water for drinking and irrigating and they have therefore pushed to manage and change that river so that it is usable by those communities.
ROSS COULTHART: But aren’t we putting an expectation on that river system that is far beyond what is naturally sustainable?
PROFESSOR PETER CULLEN: We are changing the river beyond what it was naturally. Naturally from time to time there would be no flow and it’d be salty.
ROSS COULTHART: As for the Murray cod, Dr Marohasy believes the grim predictions came about because the scientists who went looking for them were lousy fishermen.
DR JENNIFER MAROHASY: They went out and they surveyed for a couple of years and they apparently spent two million dollars on fishing gear and they concluded that there was no Murray cod in this region. And the fishermen were up in arms. They said: ‘But we’re catching Murray Cod, there’s Murray Cod in the river!’ What I did do was actually look at the commercial harvest for this region for those years and it was actually 26 tonnes of Murray Cod.
ROSS COULTHART: Support for Marohasy’s claims too from Professor Peter Cullen.
PROFESSOR PETER CULLEN: I think one can be confident we will be able to maintain Murray Cod populations.
ROSS COULTHART: Marohasy argues that a similar failure by government scientists lies behind the gloomy predictions that, unless governments commit billions of dollars, the Murray river system faces a salinity catastrophe. She analysed the official data, showing that salt levels had halved over the past 20 years near Morgan here in South Australia and it’s this data that has historically been used as a bench-mark for the river’s salinity health.
DR JENNIFER MAROHASY: They were back at what they were pre-World War Two levels. But everybody, at the same time I was talking to those guys and they were saying ‘yeah, you’re right salt levels have halved’, we had the front page of the CSIRO Land and Water website saying that salt levels ware increasing. But the data actually showed that salt levels had halved.
ROSS COULTHART: The levels of salinity at Morgan show there’s been an appreciable decrease in salinity levels in the entire MD River system over the past 20 years.
WENDY CRAIK, CEO, MDBC: Correct. And why? One, because we’ve been putting into place our salt interception schemes and they’ve been pumping salt out. And secondly, and a really important issue in recent years is the drought.
ROSS COULTHART: So why then, as benchmark salinity levels are the lowest in twenty years was the CSIRO still talking up the so-called ‘rising’ salinity problem on its website?. In June 2003, it said:
VOICEOVER READ: Salt levels are rising in almost all of the Basin’s rivers.
ROSS COULTHART: When these alarming claims were challenged by Marohasy, the CSIRO quietly dropped this sentence from its website. So why would scientists do this? Why make a representation that there is a huge problem when there isn’t?
DR JENNIFER MAROHASY: Maybe they were being driven by some environmental campaigning. And maybe they were concerned about continued funding if they’d fixed the problem.
ROSS COULTHART: For at least 30 years, the official explanation for salinity has been that cutting down trees and other land clearing is making groundwater rise, pushing salt up to root zones or the surface, killing plants. This explanation, called the Rising Regional Groundwater Theory, is used in all the models to predict salinity across Australia. But it’s never been proven. It’s still just a theory. Yet billions of dollars have been spent trying to fix salinity problems using solutions based on it.
Dr Maarten Stapper is a principal research scientist with the CSIRO. It’s a measure of the sensitivity of the debate that he insisted we emphasise he is speaking in a private capacity. For he is one of the dissident scientists who believes there’s something very wrong with the whole rising groundwater theory and the alarming predictions it makes. Are you a believer in the rising groundwater theory as an explanation for salinity?
DR MAARTEN STAPPER, principal research scientist, CSIRO: No. Not a full verdict on that it’s true for every situation.
ROSS COULTHART: Honorary CSIRO Research Fellow Dr John Passioura — who is also speaking in a private capacity — is a true believer in the theory but even he acknowledges it has its problems. That’s the theory that’s very much driven our scientific understanding of salinity for the last 20 or 30 years — right?
DR JOHN PASSIOURA: Yes
ROSS COULTHART: Is it right?
DR JOHN PASSIOURA: I believe the big picture is right. The difficulty is that when you have to start looking at the action on ground, you have to start dealing with the little picture.
ROSS COULTHART: Meanwhile former CSIRO research scientist Dr Brian Tunstall is happy to say he thinks the Rising Groundwater Theory is largely bunkum.
DR BRIAN TUNSTALL: It was never right and if you look at the reviews and if you look at the literature overseas, it’s not right. It’s unique to Australia.
ROSS COULTHART: Why does it matter though?
DR BRIAN TUNSTALL: Because of the wastage of money. Because we’re not fixing the problem. We’re spending money on it and we’re penalising farmers.
ROSS COULTHART: If there are villains in this tale of horror they’re the farmers and especially the irrigators. Popular wisdom has it that irrigation farming is doomed, the irrigators accused of greedily sloshing vast amounts of river water on to their farms, which in turn is washing mountains of salt out of the soil back into the rivers. It’s a perception that Deniliquin irrigation rice farmer Adam Wettenhall says is totally false.
ADAM WETTENHALL, Deniliquin irrigation rice farmer: I’d say to the doomsayers ‘instead of staying inside your ivory towers in Sydney and Melbourne and other cities, come out to the country and have a look.’
ROSS COULTHART: A decade ago the scientists were predicting that what’s happening here in this field today just wouldn’t be possible. This was a salinity hotspot. Back then, the groundwater was just below the surface and in danger of rising and wiping out this area completely with salinity. Ten years on, not only is the watertable now far lower, see for yourself, it’s a bumper harvest. One of the best ever. What did they say was going to happen here?
ADAM WETTENHALL: Basically if nothing was done about it we wouldn’t be here. And the irrigation, the whole irrigation in the area, the bulk of it would have gone under.
ROSS COULTHART: You proved them wrong
ADAM WETTENHALL: Yes definitely.
ROSS COULTHART: Official government predictions using computer modelling based on that Rising Groundwater Theory said that much of the irrigation farmland along the Murray was headed for disaster, as Murray Irrigation’s General Manager George Warne explains.
GEORGE WARNE: We were told that unless we took radical action more than a third of our farmland would basically be under water, that is, under saline water. And even if we took radical action a quarter of our farmland would be highly at risk.
ROSS COULTHART: By when?
GEORGE WARNE: By now. By 2006, 2010 and certainly by 2020 over 300,000 hectares would be suffering from high watertables.
ROSS COULTHART: That was a disaster being projected
GEORGE WARNE: That is a disaster scenario. And it certainly hasn’t been told out in what’s happened since
ROSS COULTHART: As Adam Wettenhall showed us, on a site near his farm, salinity can kill good farmland. And in irrigation farming, if too much water’s put on the land, salt can rise up to the surface with disastrous results. On their farm, Adam and Rob carefully monitor their water use and groundwater levels. Both feel it’s unfair that irrigators like them are still being demonised for washing salt into the river.
ADAM WETTENHALL: We can recycle every bit of water on the farm we’ve also planted an extensive amount of trees, planted crops like lucerne, deep rooted plants that suck up the water table and virtually treated water that comes onto our farm as liquid gold. We don’t let anything go below the root zone of the plant therefore we are using the water to its maximum ability.
ROSS COULTHART: So how much salt are you washing into the Murray River?
ADAM WETTENHALL: None. No water leaves this farm. What water comes onto this farm stays on this farm and we recycle every little bit.
ROSS COULTHART: From up above, it’s easy to see why the Murray-Darling river basin is this country’s foodbowl. With the irrigation industry’s share of river flows still a hot political issue, Murray Irrigation’s chairman Stewart Ellis, argues the irrigation farmers at least deserve credit for proving the doomsayers wrong on salinity.
STEWART ELLIS, Chairman Murray Irrigation: The predictions as you say are just so far out. The picture they were painting just hasn’t eventuated.
GEORGE WARNE: It hasn’t happened and we have got an area now of less than four farms out of a total of two and a half thousand that are affected by high water tables. It just seems that somewhere the science got it seriously wrong.
ROSS COULTHART: If science got its predictions so badly wrong on the salinity risks in irrigation areas, then what about dry-land salinity, where salt appears on land even though it’s not being flooded with irrigation water? Computer models based on the Rising Groundwater Theory predict that, by 2050, farmland more than twice the area of Tasmania could be wiped out by salinity. It’s scary and expensive. But while salinity is a problem is such extreme pessimism justified? In part two of our story you’ll hear from the dissidents who believe the real explanation for salinity and a possible cheap fix - has been suppressed.
ROBERT GOURLAY: There’s too much at stake in terms of the credibility of public science to admit to a major error in this area of science
DR MAARTEN STAPPER: People just don’t want to talk about those issues. They don’t want to get stirred into thinking that there is another way.
ROSS COULTHART: And yet, as a scientist, you’ve seen it work?
DR MAARTEN STAPPER: Yes
ROSS COULTHART: You’re convinced it works
DR MAARTEN STAPPER: Yes.
ROSS COULTHART: Courtesy of this month’s Budget, the Murray Darling Basin Commission has another half a billion dollars of taxpayers? money to spend. Much of it will be going on expensive schemes to stop salt reaching the rivers similar to this one in northern Victoria near Pyramid Hill. This is Pyramid Salt a private company funded with $13 million dollars of taxpayers’ money. Here they pump saline water from underground and harvest the salt it contains, for sale.
Does it make you laugh that people in Sydney are paying six bucks for a 250g box of salt that you blokes are desperate to throw away in this part of the world?
GAVIN PRIVETT, project manager, Pyramid Salt: No it doesn’t make me laugh. Actually, it makes me cry because the in-between guy is getting all the money.
ROSS COULTHART: But it’s only here at all because of an environmental blunder years ago, when attempts to lower the watertable under here ended up poisoning the Murray River.
GAVIN PRIVETT: Initially, what they looked at, they started putting drainage systems and then the problem was they realised they were transferring the problem from one place to another. They put in drainage systems. The next thing it was going into the Murray.
WENDY CRAIK: That’s true and I think that’s a fact of life, that science moves on, that people learn more about systems, learn more about what they should and shouldn’t do.
ROSS COULTHART: So it’s a multi-million dollar patch-up for a past mistake and it’s not a long-term solution for salinity.
GAVIN PRIVETT: You can’t put projects like this all over the place. One, people don’t eat enough salt. It’s a low value commodity. It’s not the answer to the problem. What we’re doing is we’re just intervening and I believe it’s probably as a short-term fix which we’re probably looking to buy some time.
ROSS COULTHART: Nearly 170 years ago, the explorer Major Thomas Mitchell climbed to the top of Pyramid Hill. He proclaimed the then rich farming country here in northern Victoria ‘Australia Felix’ or ‘Blessed Australia,’ perhaps an origin of the expression ‘the Lucky Country’.
He said this is one of the best pieces of land I have ever seen on the face of the earth. So when he got back to Sydney and people read his report they just bolted down here.
After the First World War, the town boomed again. Returning soldiers were given small blocks of land which they cleared, ploughed and swamped with irrigation farming. By the mid-1950s, much of the land was poisoned by salt. The rising watertable was officially thought to be the cause.
ROSS HERCOTT, Pyramid Hill farmer: What I don’t agree with is that the rising water-table causes salinity
ROSS COULTHART: Pyramid Hill farmer Ross Hercott has long campaigned on Australia’s salinity problems. He’s the first to admit not everyone sees eye to eye with him and his radical analysis of the problem. Hercott argues most dryland salinity isn’t caused by rising groundwater at all but by what many current farming practices do to the health of the soil. He’s designed a plough which opens up the ground yet doesn’t turn soil over like conventional ploughs do so it stops the earth becoming hard and compacted. He also believes that the millions of tonnes of acid fertiliser put on Australian farms every year cement the surface soil and increase salinity because the acid in the fertiliser reacts with minerals in the earth and forms much more salt.
Fourteen years ago Hercott was told much of this land was so saline it was near useless. Now the water in this well is fresh enough to drink, all because Hercott believes he stopped using fertiliser and opened up the soil with his special plough.
ROSS COULTHART: When did you first realise you were getting fresh water coming up in the well?
ROSS HERCOTT: Within a couple of years but we had the good stuff in 2002. There you go, you taste the water for yourself
ROSS COULTHART: That’s not bad. Not bad at all. Tests show it’s purer than rainwater. Not so the water coming out of the ground 500 metres away on the farm next door. That’s very salty, extremely salty. How salty is that?
ROSS HERCOTT: Twice as salty as the sea. 59000 ECs.
ROSS COULTHART: Now if the Rising Regional Groundwater Theory is right.
ROSS HERCOTT: This would be the same as that.
ROBERT GOURLAY:
ROSS COULTHART: Is Ross Hercott right?
ROBERT GOURLAY: He’s definitely right and he’s done all the right things
ROSS COULTHART: Rob Gourlay is one of a group of scientists who have studied Hercott’s methods. He too believes salt problems can be fixed by getting soil healthy again.
ROBERT GOURLAY: This country has put millions of dollars into salinity by treating the symptoms. They have not looked at the cause. The cause is our soil health. Yet we continue to pump ground water. We continue to put in large draining systems and plant trees and we haven’t addressed the cause. The implications are enormous for our agricultural system and the survival of our regional economies.
ROSS COULTHART: Brian Tunstall is a former CSIRO soil scientist who now works with Gourlay, helping farmers fix salinity problems.
DR BRIAN TUNSTALL: Farmers have realised that there is not a massive groundwater system. That planting trees on the hills is not solving the problem. But they can solve the problem by planting grasses and other vegetation locally so that they get local solutions.
ROSS COULTHART: This is Gulgong in mid-NSW. Colin Seis is getting great results from land he was told was at high risk from salinity. His salt solution — planting his crops in with native grasses. It’s meant he’s one of the few farmers in his district who can plant anything in the current drought.
Now what would be the orthodox explanation for how to fix the salinity problem that you have?
COLIN SEIS: The orthodox thing would be either to plant all this down to trees or plough it up, destroy these native grasses and put lucerne in here.
ROSS COULTHART: And what would that have done?
COLIN SEIS: Made the salinity worse, probably.
ROSS COULTHART: Seis, who was last year’s Conservation Farmer of the Year in NSW, also doesn’t use ploughs but drills his crops in to avoid compacting the soil. He has also not used super phosphate fertiliser for 25 years
COLIN SEIS: I see it as basically growing a plant and then getting addicted to super phosphate almost like a drug. We couldn’t afford the $20-30,000 of super phosphate any longer so we started to look at other ways of doing it. I always had a belief that if we pulled the fertiliser out our native grasses would return. And that’s exactly what happened.
ROSS COULTHART: Right next door to his rye crop is land blighted by salt. Fifteen years ago government scientists suggested he fix it by planting trees. Why is this land sick and that land okay?
COLIN SEIS: The main difference is that we’ve still got our native grasses in there, our native grasslands in there which are managing the water better than here. Whereas the trees have been planted on this side really aren’t doing the job.
ROSS COULTHART: This is the orthodox fix for though, isn’t it, for the groundwater problem?
COLIN SEIS: Yes.
ROSS COULTHART: If that’s right?
COLIN SEIS: Yes. Yes.
ROSS COULTHART: Clearly planting trees here hasn’t done a thing?
COLIN SEIS: No. It hasn’t
ROSS COULTHART: The grasses add mulch to the soil, build up carbon, allowing it to hold much more water and they help flush out salt. Initial research by scientists from the CSIRO supported Seis’ unconventional approach. But, as he tells it, their bid to get funding for a more intensive study was rejected.
COLIN SEIS: The CSIRO people I remember at the time were astounded that it got knocked back. Almost all of the research work that has been attempted to be done on pasture cropping gets rejected.
ROSS COULTHART: There are a heck of a lot of reputations riding, Colin, on the theory that this problem is caused by rising groundwater?
COLIN SEIS: Yes. But maybe they’re wrong.
ROSS COULTHART: Professor Peter Cullen, a director of the peak research body Land and Water Australia denies that salinity science funding has become politicised.
PROFESSOR PETER CULLEN: I’ve not seen any evidence of that. I mean there’s often people who have contrary views. Sometimes they are wanting to get research funds. Sometimes they might be right. But I haven’t seen any evidence of suppression.
DR JENNIFER MAROHASY: There’s some fantastic scientists and it’s sometimes very hard for them to honestly report their results.
ROSS COULTHART: Remember that painting we showed earlier? For many Queensland farmers this work by Jackson Pollock called ‘Blue Poles’ is about as much use for predicting salinity problems on their land as the work of State Government scientists. It’s a standing joke that ‘Blue Poles’ looks pretty much the same as this official salinity hazard map. That’s why farmers call it ‘Red Poles’. But for them it’s no laughing matter. Farmers have been forced to plant trees — or stopped from clearing land — because of those ominous red blotches. But Brian Tunstall’s research on the ground shows the watertable in these areas is often too far down to be the cause of salinity.
DR BRIAN TUNSTALL: There’s no groundwater system for over a hundred metres down. And yet they have the groundwater model, the Rising Groundwater model producing high levels of salinity.
ROSS COULTHART: And that’s just not true?
DR BRIAN TUNSTALL: Well there’s not any groundwater system there to create it
ROSS COULTHART: And what do they say when you say where’s the groundwater that supposedly causing this salinity?
DR BRIAN TUNSTALL: I’ve never had a response.
ROSS COULTHART: For much of the past two decades we’ve been told the Murray is in crisis. And all of those grim predictions of disaster were based on that one theory, that water tables are rising across whole regions, and that massive tree planting would fix the problem. But the evidence now is that tree planting can sometimes be disastrous
DR JOHN PASSIOURA: Tree planting can be counterproductive. And the reason for that is trees, young trees use more water than what might have been used before. The result of that being there is less runoff of fresh water into the streams.
ROSS COULTHART: Murray Darling Basin Commission boss Wendy Craik now admits many of the predictions of disaster were badly wrong. A decade ago in 1993, the MDBC predicted that dryland salinity was increasing at a rate of 10 to 15 percent per annum. It’s not happening is it?
WENDY CRAIK: Well I think Ross that it’s fair to say that as a result of the consensus of science at the time organisations make, because of that consensus of science, provide the best information they can to decision-makers. That’s life.
ROSS COULTHART: In 2000, Wendy Craik was heading the National Farmers’ Federation. At the height of the salinity hysteria she called for $65 billion to be spent on fixing Australia’s land and water crisis — with a whopping 37 billion to come from taxpayers.
WENDY CRAIK: We were basing our recommendation on the best available information at the time.
ROSS COULTHART: But that information was wrong wasn’t it?
WENDY CRAIK: Subsequently I think we would say, we wouldn’t, I wouldn’t support that particular line.
ROSS COULTHART: Imagine if those billions of dollars had been expended on what you now acknowledge are incorrect models that were talking up the threat of salinity?
WENDY CRAIK: As a taxpayer I am just as happy as you that we didn’t actually do that
ROSS COULTHART: Even inside Australia’s peak science body many are now questioning what causes salinity. CSIRO principal research scientist Maarten Stapper says he too thinks salinity is actually caused by poor soil health. So touchy is the current debate in scientific circles that several scientists we spoke to felt unable to talk publicly. Maarten Stapper did but as a private citizen.
DR MAARTEN STAPPER: But the cause of most of the salinity in the dryland is on land where there’s no rising watertable and it’s caused by the lack of organic carbon and life in the soil.
ROSS COULTHART: If your solution to this problem is right then we’re wasting hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars on trying to fix salinity aren’t we’
DR MAARTEN STAPPER: Yeah. That’s money working on symptoms and not the cause of the problem.
ROSS COULTHART: So when you’ve been saying inside the CSIRO there’s a microbiological explanation for salinity, what do they say?
DR MAARTEN STAPPER: Oh silence. No reaction.
ROSS COULTHART: Do you concede it’s possible you’re wrong?
WENDY CRAIK: What I would concede is it’s possible further information might refine the models but I find it hard to believe that rising groundwater tables are not a major cause of salinity.
ROSS COULTHART: The debate over what causes what we’ve long been told is one of the biggest environmental problems in this country will doubtless rage for many years to come. But while the scientists argue, farmers like Colin Seis are getting on with their own solution. And they’re doing just fine.
How long before conventional science catches up with you?
COLIN SEIS: Probably 50 years. I don’t know. Hopefully, sooner than that.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Stand by for a warmer but not scorching world.
Researchers have recently reported new scientific findings that have important implications for how we humans respond to climate change.
On April 21, SCIENCE, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, carried a report which helps people to more readily accept the reality of climate change and to better understand its implications for the future of the planet. The article reports on the findings of several researchers who advise that that the likely rise in global temperatures is now better understood. Whereas previously it was thought that temperatures would rise by as much as 9 or 11 degrees Celsius, now it appears likely that the increase will be restricted to between 1 and 4.5 degrees Celsius.
This is a very important conclusion from these researchers as policy makers around the world can now start to determine what actions need to be taken to mitigate against a likely maximum rise of 4.5 degrees rather than 9 or 11 degrees. At the same time, the probability that the most likely temperature rise will be about 2.5 degrees has doubled as shown in the attached graph.
These findings are important because they provide greater certainty in an field of science that has been subject to great uncertainty and scepticism. One reason why Australia and the US rejected the Kyoto agreement was because of the uncertainty behind the science on which it was based. Now, with a better understanding of what changes will result from climate change, the world can move forward with a global agreement that will result in significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
Below is the text from the article:
Latest Forecast: Stand By for a Warmer, But Not Scorching, World
While newly climate-conscious news reporters seek signs of apocalyptic change in hungry polar bears and pumped-up hurricanes, evidence-oriented researchers are working to nail down some numbers. They are concerned with climate sensitivity: how much a given increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide will warm the world. If it's extremely high, continued emissions of greenhouse gases could ignite a climatic firestorm. If it's very low, they might merely raise the global thermostat a notch or two.
Now two new studies that combine independent lines of evidence agree that climate sensitivity is at least moderately strong moderate enough so that a really scorching warming appears unlikely. Even with the most conservative assumptions, says climate researcher Chris E. Forest of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, the studies cool the maximum warming. And the reinforced low end of the range, he says, means continued emissions will fuel a substantial warming in this century.
The new studies use a technique called Bayesian statistics to gauge how adding new information improves past estimates of climate sensitivity. Most previous estimates used only a single line of evidence, such as how climate warmed as greenhouse gases increased during the 20th century or how climate cooled right after the debris from a major volcanic eruption £ shaded the planet. Lately, such analyses have tended to support a 25-year-old guess about climate sensitivity: If the concentration of CO2 were to double, as is expected by late in the 21st century, the world would warm between a modest 1.5°C and a hefty 4.5°C (Science, I 13 August 2004, p. 932). The low end of that a range looked fairly firm; the negligible warming claimed by greenhouse contrarians looked
very unlikely. But no one was sure about the high end. Some studies allowed a real chance that doubling CO2 could raise temperatures by 7°C, 9°C, or even 11°C (Science, 28 January 2005, p. 497).
The two new studies rein in those soaring upper limits for climate sensitivity while reinforcing the substantial lower limit. Climate modeler Gabriele Hegerl of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and colleagues started with Northern Hemisphere temperatures between 1270 and 1850 extracted from records such as tree rings. In those pre-industrial times, volcanoes, the waxing and waning of the sun, and natural variations in greenhouse gases were changing temperature. Hegerl and her colleagues then combined the pre-industrial temperature response to those climate forcings with the global response in the 20th century to volcanoes, rising greenhouse gases, and thickening pollutant hazes. In this week's issue of Nature, they report a 5% probability that climate sensitivity is less than 1.5°C and a 95% chance that it's less than 6.2°C. That's still pretty high, but a far cry from 9°Cor 11°C.
In a similar study published on 18 March in Geophysical Research Letters, climate modelers James Annan and Julia Hargreaves of the Frontier Research Center for Global Change in Yokohama, Japan, found the same lower limit of 1.5°C and a 95% upper limit of 4.5°C. They combined published 20th century warming data with records of coolings after recent volcanic eruptions and estimates of chilling in the depths of the latest ice age.
"Combining multiple lines of evidence is certainly the way to go," says Forest. An extremely high climate sensitivity "is probably less likely than we thought a year ago," agrees climate researcher Reto Knutti of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. More importantly, "we start to see a much better agreement on the lower bound," says Knutti. "We can be pretty sure the changes will be substantial" by the end of the century, he says.
-RICHARD A. KERR
On April 21, SCIENCE, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, carried a report which helps people to more readily accept the reality of climate change and to better understand its implications for the future of the planet. The article reports on the findings of several researchers who advise that that the likely rise in global temperatures is now better understood. Whereas previously it was thought that temperatures would rise by as much as 9 or 11 degrees Celsius, now it appears likely that the increase will be restricted to between 1 and 4.5 degrees Celsius.
This is a very important conclusion from these researchers as policy makers around the world can now start to determine what actions need to be taken to mitigate against a likely maximum rise of 4.5 degrees rather than 9 or 11 degrees. At the same time, the probability that the most likely temperature rise will be about 2.5 degrees has doubled as shown in the attached graph.
These findings are important because they provide greater certainty in an field of science that has been subject to great uncertainty and scepticism. One reason why Australia and the US rejected the Kyoto agreement was because of the uncertainty behind the science on which it was based. Now, with a better understanding of what changes will result from climate change, the world can move forward with a global agreement that will result in significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
Below is the text from the article:
Latest Forecast: Stand By for a Warmer, But Not Scorching, World
While newly climate-conscious news reporters seek signs of apocalyptic change in hungry polar bears and pumped-up hurricanes, evidence-oriented researchers are working to nail down some numbers. They are concerned with climate sensitivity: how much a given increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide will warm the world. If it's extremely high, continued emissions of greenhouse gases could ignite a climatic firestorm. If it's very low, they might merely raise the global thermostat a notch or two.
Now two new studies that combine independent lines of evidence agree that climate sensitivity is at least moderately strong moderate enough so that a really scorching warming appears unlikely. Even with the most conservative assumptions, says climate researcher Chris E. Forest of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, the studies cool the maximum warming. And the reinforced low end of the range, he says, means continued emissions will fuel a substantial warming in this century.
The new studies use a technique called Bayesian statistics to gauge how adding new information improves past estimates of climate sensitivity. Most previous estimates used only a single line of evidence, such as how climate warmed as greenhouse gases increased during the 20th century or how climate cooled right after the debris from a major volcanic eruption £ shaded the planet. Lately, such analyses have tended to support a 25-year-old guess about climate sensitivity: If the concentration of CO2 were to double, as is expected by late in the 21st century, the world would warm between a modest 1.5°C and a hefty 4.5°C (Science, I 13 August 2004, p. 932). The low end of that a range looked fairly firm; the negligible warming claimed by greenhouse contrarians looked
very unlikely. But no one was sure about the high end. Some studies allowed a real chance that doubling CO2 could raise temperatures by 7°C, 9°C, or even 11°C (Science, 28 January 2005, p. 497).
The two new studies rein in those soaring upper limits for climate sensitivity while reinforcing the substantial lower limit. Climate modeler Gabriele Hegerl of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and colleagues started with Northern Hemisphere temperatures between 1270 and 1850 extracted from records such as tree rings. In those pre-industrial times, volcanoes, the waxing and waning of the sun, and natural variations in greenhouse gases were changing temperature. Hegerl and her colleagues then combined the pre-industrial temperature response to those climate forcings with the global response in the 20th century to volcanoes, rising greenhouse gases, and thickening pollutant hazes. In this week's issue of Nature, they report a 5% probability that climate sensitivity is less than 1.5°C and a 95% chance that it's less than 6.2°C. That's still pretty high, but a far cry from 9°Cor 11°C.
In a similar study published on 18 March in Geophysical Research Letters, climate modelers James Annan and Julia Hargreaves of the Frontier Research Center for Global Change in Yokohama, Japan, found the same lower limit of 1.5°C and a 95% upper limit of 4.5°C. They combined published 20th century warming data with records of coolings after recent volcanic eruptions and estimates of chilling in the depths of the latest ice age.
"Combining multiple lines of evidence is certainly the way to go," says Forest. An extremely high climate sensitivity "is probably less likely than we thought a year ago," agrees climate researcher Reto Knutti of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. More importantly, "we start to see a much better agreement on the lower bound," says Knutti. "We can be pretty sure the changes will be substantial" by the end of the century, he says.
-RICHARD A. KERR
Saturday, April 22, 2006
PERTH'S EARTHQUAKE RISK
ON APRIL 24, 2006, I SEND THE FOLLOWING EMAIL TO TREVOR JONES OF GEOSCIENCE AUSTRALIA ON THE ISSUE OF THE EARTHQUAKE RISK FOR PERTH AND THE SOUTH WEST OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA:
Some weeks ago, I received the December edition of the AUSGEO news which featured an article by yourself and Miriam Middlemann about the Cities Project Perth natural hazard risk. I subsequently went to your report on the Geoscience Australia website to see what comments had been made about earthquake risk as I have some comments to pass on which may be of interest to you about reasonably recent earthquakes in the southern Swan Coastal Plain around Bunbury and Busselton which may affect your assessment of Perth's risk rating. I should point out that I'm a geologist and have worked in the south west of WA for most of my life.
Here's the three comments that I hope will be of interest:
1) Several years ago, I was speaking with Ray Mewett (now deceased) who told me of an earthquake in the Dunsborough in the 1940s. He had lived in the area for all of his life and he advised that, in the 40s, he felt an earthquake one night while he was at home in the Dunsborough area. The next morning, he went out to inspect his farm and found a low (about 30 cm), north-south striking escarpment had been formed through one of his properties that lay close to what I know is the Dunsborough fault. Some time later, I met Ray's son (sorry, his name escapes me) to whom I related this story. His response was that he'd never heard his father talk about the escarpment but he can clearly recall being told that, after the earthquake, a well was found to have gone dry. His father spent some time and money trying to find where the water had gone to but without success, so that well lay abandoned thereafter.
2) Several years ago, I was studying the 1990 Department of Agriculture report written by Tille and Lantzke on the soils of the Busselton/Margaret River region. As shown on the attachment, the soil unit Ad2 is Abba Deep Sandy Dunes, a prime host of heavy mineral deposits such as ilmenite and zircon which have been extensively mined in the past in this region. Tille and Lantzke define Ab2 as "gently sloping low dunes and rises (0-5% gradients) with deep bleached sands". The north-south displacement in the Ad2 soil unit, which corresponds to the geological unit Bassendean sands with an estimated age of less than 100,000 and which I have coloured yellow on the attachment, is striking and strongly suggestive of an earthquake with some 2000 metres of lateral displacement along what I understand has been mapped by Geological Survey of WA geologists as the Busselton fault.
3) In the 1980s, while exploration manager for Westralian Sands Ltd (now Iluka Resources) at Capel, I directed a drilling team to explore the region north-east of Bunbury in what is known as the Kemerton industrial park area. On the western side of this industrial part, a rival company Cable Sands (WA) Pty Ltd - now part of the BeMax group - was known to have found the northern extension of the mineral sand deposits contained within the Bassendean sands. The drill crew drilled along a public road reserve and the geologist in charge of that rig subsequently told me that they had duly found the strand line (our name for a mineral sand deposit) but its base was several metres lower than expected. From memory, its base lay close to 0.0 AHD whereas it should have been somewhere between 4 and 10 m above AHD. We assumed that this was because of some post-depositional movement. It was only some time later that, when looking at a topographic map of the general area, I noticed that there was a unique topographic feature to the east of this lowered mineral sand deposit that was found nowhere else on the southern part of the Swan Coastal Plain. The feature was Benger Swamp, a large (5 km circumference) circular wetland located just to the west of the Darling escarpment which marks the eastern limit of the coastal plain. All other wetlands on the coastal plain are either very small or are elongated to reflect their history of being formed in swales between shoreline-dependent dune systems. My conclusions were that, at some stage since the Kemerton mineral sand deposit was formed, there had been a very significant lowering of a roughly triangular or wedged-shaped section of the coastal plain as shown in the attached drawing (apologies for its poor quality).
Taken together, these three examples suggest to me that there is far more tectonic movement affecting the Swan Coastal Plain on which Perth is largely sited than has previously been considered. I believe that the earthquake risk to Perth is therefore significantly higher than what recent seismic records indicate.
I don't know how you can use this information, regardless of whether you agree with my conclusion or not, but I hope it is of interest nonetheless.
Some weeks ago, I received the December edition of the AUSGEO news which featured an article by yourself and Miriam Middlemann about the Cities Project Perth natural hazard risk. I subsequently went to your report on the Geoscience Australia website to see what comments had been made about earthquake risk as I have some comments to pass on which may be of interest to you about reasonably recent earthquakes in the southern Swan Coastal Plain around Bunbury and Busselton which may affect your assessment of Perth's risk rating. I should point out that I'm a geologist and have worked in the south west of WA for most of my life.
Here's the three comments that I hope will be of interest:
1) Several years ago, I was speaking with Ray Mewett (now deceased) who told me of an earthquake in the Dunsborough in the 1940s. He had lived in the area for all of his life and he advised that, in the 40s, he felt an earthquake one night while he was at home in the Dunsborough area. The next morning, he went out to inspect his farm and found a low (about 30 cm), north-south striking escarpment had been formed through one of his properties that lay close to what I know is the Dunsborough fault. Some time later, I met Ray's son (sorry, his name escapes me) to whom I related this story. His response was that he'd never heard his father talk about the escarpment but he can clearly recall being told that, after the earthquake, a well was found to have gone dry. His father spent some time and money trying to find where the water had gone to but without success, so that well lay abandoned thereafter.
2) Several years ago, I was studying the 1990 Department of Agriculture report written by Tille and Lantzke on the soils of the Busselton/Margaret River region. As shown on the attachment, the soil unit Ad2 is Abba Deep Sandy Dunes, a prime host of heavy mineral deposits such as ilmenite and zircon which have been extensively mined in the past in this region. Tille and Lantzke define Ab2 as "gently sloping low dunes and rises (0-5% gradients) with deep bleached sands". The north-south displacement in the Ad2 soil unit, which corresponds to the geological unit Bassendean sands with an estimated age of less than 100,000 and which I have coloured yellow on the attachment, is striking and strongly suggestive of an earthquake with some 2000 metres of lateral displacement along what I understand has been mapped by Geological Survey of WA geologists as the Busselton fault.
3) In the 1980s, while exploration manager for Westralian Sands Ltd (now Iluka Resources) at Capel, I directed a drilling team to explore the region north-east of Bunbury in what is known as the Kemerton industrial park area. On the western side of this industrial part, a rival company Cable Sands (WA) Pty Ltd - now part of the BeMax group - was known to have found the northern extension of the mineral sand deposits contained within the Bassendean sands. The drill crew drilled along a public road reserve and the geologist in charge of that rig subsequently told me that they had duly found the strand line (our name for a mineral sand deposit) but its base was several metres lower than expected. From memory, its base lay close to 0.0 AHD whereas it should have been somewhere between 4 and 10 m above AHD. We assumed that this was because of some post-depositional movement. It was only some time later that, when looking at a topographic map of the general area, I noticed that there was a unique topographic feature to the east of this lowered mineral sand deposit that was found nowhere else on the southern part of the Swan Coastal Plain. The feature was Benger Swamp, a large (5 km circumference) circular wetland located just to the west of the Darling escarpment which marks the eastern limit of the coastal plain. All other wetlands on the coastal plain are either very small or are elongated to reflect their history of being formed in swales between shoreline-dependent dune systems. My conclusions were that, at some stage since the Kemerton mineral sand deposit was formed, there had been a very significant lowering of a roughly triangular or wedged-shaped section of the coastal plain as shown in the attached drawing (apologies for its poor quality).
Taken together, these three examples suggest to me that there is far more tectonic movement affecting the Swan Coastal Plain on which Perth is largely sited than has previously been considered. I believe that the earthquake risk to Perth is therefore significantly higher than what recent seismic records indicate.
I don't know how you can use this information, regardless of whether you agree with my conclusion or not, but I hope it is of interest nonetheless.
REVIEW OF BOOK ON "Geological Storage of Carbon Dioxide"
Geological Storage of Carbon Dioxide
Edited by S. J. Baines and R. H. Worden (2004)
Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 233.
Geosequestration is the geological storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the subsurface in saline aquifers, existing hydrocarbon reservoirs or unmineable coal seams. As the editors of this excellent publication state, it is one of the more technologically advanced (but expensive) options available for storing CO2 produced from the combustion of fossil fuels as a practical solution to CO2 pollution of the world’s atmosphere.
Many of the articles contained in this hardcover book arose from a technical session held at the 2001 European Union of Geosciences conference held in Strasbourg (France). Apart from a general introductory article by the editors, the remaining 240 pages comprise 15 articles focusing on mostly European and American geology and gas injection projects or theoretical assessments, although the content should be readily applicable to similar geological environments elsewhere on the planet.
Several articles provide useful information on existing CO2 deposits within sedimentary sequences, some many millions of years old. This suggests that geosequestration is feasible, provided potential leakage hazards are recognised, assessed and monitored to ensure an acceptably low overall risk.
While faults are an obvious potential source of CO2 migration out of the storage reservoir, chemical interactions between pre-existing minerals and the injected CO2 are shown to be an important factor in assessing long-term security of the CO2 reservoir. The editors’ article on the long-term fate of CO2 in the subsurface explains some of the possible chemical reactions between CO2 and carbonate or aluminosilicate minerals. Anorthite, zeolite, smectite and other Fe- and Mg-clay minerals are likely to react with injected CO2, so their presence must be determined prior to CO2 injection.
Rochelle et al. go further and state that chemical processes and hence chemical stability will also be dependent upon the structure, mineralogy and hydrogeology of the lithologies of strata into which CO2 is injected. Individual storage operations will therefore have to take into account local geological, fluid chemical and hydrological conditions.
Some 2.3 million tonnes of CO2 have been injected into a saline aquifer beneath the North Sea since 1999. Three papers describe aspects of results and simulations from this trail. Johnston et al. demonstrate a simulated increase in caprock integrity when CO2 is placed into the saline aquifer, suggesting that the chemistry of the sedimentary rocks into which CO2 is to be injected may assist in long-term reservoir security. Conversely, Zweigel et al. report on their simulation of the same saline aquifer, concluding that the 6.5 metre shale caprock does not fully inhibit upward migration of CO2. Finally, Arts et al. report on seismic monitoring of the injection area and express confidence that there has been no significant leakage into the overlying Pliocene shales.
To give an idea of the potential scale of geosequestration, Laenen et al. estimate that parts of a carbonate sequence in the Roer Valley graben of north Belgium could store up to 130 million tonnes of CO2, while six coalbed methane target areas containing an estimated 53 to 79 million tonnes of methane could store at least 400 million tonnes of CO2 once the methane has been extracted.
The book concludes with two papers on related but relevant topics. Bachu and Gunter discuss the injection of acid gas (hydrogen sulphide and CO2) into depleted oil and gas reservoirs in Alberta, Canada. Stenhouse and Savage then describe the lessons learned from the monitoring of a nuclear waste repository in New Mexico, USA, where geotechnical, environmental and subsidence issues were important considerations in the repository’s long-term security.
Criticisms of this publication are few and mostly minor. There is no list of abbreviations and it would have been useful to summarise the methods by which CO2 is removed from power station exhaust gas and the dangers posed by uncontrolled release of CO2 onto the land. The most serious criticism is that little space is devoted to the potential storage of CO2 in unmineable coal seams – just 4 pages relating to Westphalian coal in northern Belgium. Considering that the editors highlighted such coal seams as major potential sites for geosequestration, this paucity of coverage is surprising.
Overall, however, this book is of a high technical standard and it deserves to be widely available to policy makers and the public. At a cost of GBP75.00, it isn’t cheap but the 16 papers cover a diverse range of technical aspects of geosequestration and the publication warrants its use as an essential reference in academic and research institution libraries.
Edited by S. J. Baines and R. H. Worden (2004)
Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 233.
Geosequestration is the geological storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the subsurface in saline aquifers, existing hydrocarbon reservoirs or unmineable coal seams. As the editors of this excellent publication state, it is one of the more technologically advanced (but expensive) options available for storing CO2 produced from the combustion of fossil fuels as a practical solution to CO2 pollution of the world’s atmosphere.
Many of the articles contained in this hardcover book arose from a technical session held at the 2001 European Union of Geosciences conference held in Strasbourg (France). Apart from a general introductory article by the editors, the remaining 240 pages comprise 15 articles focusing on mostly European and American geology and gas injection projects or theoretical assessments, although the content should be readily applicable to similar geological environments elsewhere on the planet.
Several articles provide useful information on existing CO2 deposits within sedimentary sequences, some many millions of years old. This suggests that geosequestration is feasible, provided potential leakage hazards are recognised, assessed and monitored to ensure an acceptably low overall risk.
While faults are an obvious potential source of CO2 migration out of the storage reservoir, chemical interactions between pre-existing minerals and the injected CO2 are shown to be an important factor in assessing long-term security of the CO2 reservoir. The editors’ article on the long-term fate of CO2 in the subsurface explains some of the possible chemical reactions between CO2 and carbonate or aluminosilicate minerals. Anorthite, zeolite, smectite and other Fe- and Mg-clay minerals are likely to react with injected CO2, so their presence must be determined prior to CO2 injection.
Rochelle et al. go further and state that chemical processes and hence chemical stability will also be dependent upon the structure, mineralogy and hydrogeology of the lithologies of strata into which CO2 is injected. Individual storage operations will therefore have to take into account local geological, fluid chemical and hydrological conditions.
Some 2.3 million tonnes of CO2 have been injected into a saline aquifer beneath the North Sea since 1999. Three papers describe aspects of results and simulations from this trail. Johnston et al. demonstrate a simulated increase in caprock integrity when CO2 is placed into the saline aquifer, suggesting that the chemistry of the sedimentary rocks into which CO2 is to be injected may assist in long-term reservoir security. Conversely, Zweigel et al. report on their simulation of the same saline aquifer, concluding that the 6.5 metre shale caprock does not fully inhibit upward migration of CO2. Finally, Arts et al. report on seismic monitoring of the injection area and express confidence that there has been no significant leakage into the overlying Pliocene shales.
To give an idea of the potential scale of geosequestration, Laenen et al. estimate that parts of a carbonate sequence in the Roer Valley graben of north Belgium could store up to 130 million tonnes of CO2, while six coalbed methane target areas containing an estimated 53 to 79 million tonnes of methane could store at least 400 million tonnes of CO2 once the methane has been extracted.
The book concludes with two papers on related but relevant topics. Bachu and Gunter discuss the injection of acid gas (hydrogen sulphide and CO2) into depleted oil and gas reservoirs in Alberta, Canada. Stenhouse and Savage then describe the lessons learned from the monitoring of a nuclear waste repository in New Mexico, USA, where geotechnical, environmental and subsidence issues were important considerations in the repository’s long-term security.
Criticisms of this publication are few and mostly minor. There is no list of abbreviations and it would have been useful to summarise the methods by which CO2 is removed from power station exhaust gas and the dangers posed by uncontrolled release of CO2 onto the land. The most serious criticism is that little space is devoted to the potential storage of CO2 in unmineable coal seams – just 4 pages relating to Westphalian coal in northern Belgium. Considering that the editors highlighted such coal seams as major potential sites for geosequestration, this paucity of coverage is surprising.
Overall, however, this book is of a high technical standard and it deserves to be widely available to policy makers and the public. At a cost of GBP75.00, it isn’t cheap but the 16 papers cover a diverse range of technical aspects of geosequestration and the publication warrants its use as an essential reference in academic and research institution libraries.
ARE WE SERIOUS ABOUT SAVING YOUNG LIVES ON OUR ROADS?
At first glance, the connection between the tragic loss of young lives on our roads and the reduction in crime rates in New York city seems remote. But there are two connecting factors. First, New York administrators decided that they wanted to get tough on crime and the resolve to adopt the same attitude here in WA in relation to young people killing and injuring themselves in motor vehicle accidents is increasing.
Second, as explained in Malcolm Gladwell’s book “The Tipping Point”, the most important decision in New York was to adopt the Broken Window concept: even the smallest anti-social act was to be considered unacceptable and the full force of the law would be applied. The result was that criminals, who are for the most part perceptive, human beings like you and I, realised that here was a community that was going to get tough on crime, so it made sense not to undertake criminal activity.
In Parliament, I have argued that we have done most of the obvious things needed to make our roads safer for all who use them. Motor vehicle designs are much improved, safety belts are compulsory, riding in the backs of utilities is banned, blood alcohol levels must be below certain levels, driver education is much improved and so on.
But deaths and injuries continue to occur on our roads at an unacceptable rate, especially for people under the age of 25. Why is this? I believe that we haven’t yet properly understood the psychology, the thought processes, of young people. Most serious traffic accidents now involve spur of the moment decisions by drivers to do something stupid: drive fast to impress the girl friend, ignore the signs of drowsiness, show off to our mates, and so on.
So one thing is lacking: we haven’t yet got the message across to these people that any mistake while driving, no matter how minor they might think it is, can result in a serious traffic accident.
If we want to significantly reduce the accident rate among young drivers, we as a community have to say to them that any infringement of the traffic laws is totally unacceptable and will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Just as New Yorkers said they wouldn’t accept even one broken window, so we have to say that we won’t accept even one minor traffic infringement from young drivers.
I propose that all drivers under the age of 21 must display a ‘Y’ plate on their motor vehicles. Our police will then be instructed to apprehend any Y plate driver who commits any traffic infringement. Minor breaches of the road rules, such as changing lanes without indicating or even the smallest squealing of tyres, will attract the maximum penalty of fines and/or demerit points. Serious offences such as driving without a license would also result in impoundment of the vehicle, regardless of who owned the vehicle (unless it was stolen, in which case the illegal activity is to be treated even more seriously).
As Jim Kelly reported in the Sunday Times on October 9, getting tough with P-plate drivers in New Zealand has made a big difference to the death toll. But 101 dead young people in that country in 2002 is still unacceptable.
In New York, fare evaders on the underground rail system were handcuffed together and forced to wait in a queue in the station until 20 such people were apprehended. Then, as a group, they were marched upstairs to be processed in a specially outfitted bus, to be released an hour or so later. Fare evasion plummeted.
In New York, graffiti artists were allowed to spend three nights defacing new train carriages and then apprehended, whereupon they were forced to see their ‘artwork’ removed or painted over. Strange as it may seem, they were devastated by the loss of what they considered to be the product of their talent and three days of hard work. Most never tried to deface carriages again.
We have to get a message into the heads of all young drivers that any traffic infringement will not be tolerated. We have to warn them that, thanks to the Y plate, they will be subject to far more public and police scrutiny than in the past. We have to make them realise that they will get caught, sooner rather than later, and that they will pay whatever penalties their stupid driving behaviour warrants.
Most importantly, we have to say to them that they will look anything but cool to their mates or girlfriends if they have to catch the bus or walk once they lose their license or their car.
We have to make it a privilege, not a right, for any person to own a motor vehicle and to have a license to drive that vehicle. Being a privilege, we as a community can take that motor vehicle registration or drivers’ license back if the privilege is abused. And we have to show that we mean what we say.
New York city repaired its broken windows within a day of the breakage. That sent out a message that even minor anti-social actions would not be tolerated. West Australians should demand almost absolute compliance with the traffic laws from young inexperienced drivers. They have to know that even minor traffic infringements are unacceptable.
Second, as explained in Malcolm Gladwell’s book “The Tipping Point”, the most important decision in New York was to adopt the Broken Window concept: even the smallest anti-social act was to be considered unacceptable and the full force of the law would be applied. The result was that criminals, who are for the most part perceptive, human beings like you and I, realised that here was a community that was going to get tough on crime, so it made sense not to undertake criminal activity.
In Parliament, I have argued that we have done most of the obvious things needed to make our roads safer for all who use them. Motor vehicle designs are much improved, safety belts are compulsory, riding in the backs of utilities is banned, blood alcohol levels must be below certain levels, driver education is much improved and so on.
But deaths and injuries continue to occur on our roads at an unacceptable rate, especially for people under the age of 25. Why is this? I believe that we haven’t yet properly understood the psychology, the thought processes, of young people. Most serious traffic accidents now involve spur of the moment decisions by drivers to do something stupid: drive fast to impress the girl friend, ignore the signs of drowsiness, show off to our mates, and so on.
So one thing is lacking: we haven’t yet got the message across to these people that any mistake while driving, no matter how minor they might think it is, can result in a serious traffic accident.
If we want to significantly reduce the accident rate among young drivers, we as a community have to say to them that any infringement of the traffic laws is totally unacceptable and will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Just as New Yorkers said they wouldn’t accept even one broken window, so we have to say that we won’t accept even one minor traffic infringement from young drivers.
I propose that all drivers under the age of 21 must display a ‘Y’ plate on their motor vehicles. Our police will then be instructed to apprehend any Y plate driver who commits any traffic infringement. Minor breaches of the road rules, such as changing lanes without indicating or even the smallest squealing of tyres, will attract the maximum penalty of fines and/or demerit points. Serious offences such as driving without a license would also result in impoundment of the vehicle, regardless of who owned the vehicle (unless it was stolen, in which case the illegal activity is to be treated even more seriously).
As Jim Kelly reported in the Sunday Times on October 9, getting tough with P-plate drivers in New Zealand has made a big difference to the death toll. But 101 dead young people in that country in 2002 is still unacceptable.
In New York, fare evaders on the underground rail system were handcuffed together and forced to wait in a queue in the station until 20 such people were apprehended. Then, as a group, they were marched upstairs to be processed in a specially outfitted bus, to be released an hour or so later. Fare evasion plummeted.
In New York, graffiti artists were allowed to spend three nights defacing new train carriages and then apprehended, whereupon they were forced to see their ‘artwork’ removed or painted over. Strange as it may seem, they were devastated by the loss of what they considered to be the product of their talent and three days of hard work. Most never tried to deface carriages again.
We have to get a message into the heads of all young drivers that any traffic infringement will not be tolerated. We have to warn them that, thanks to the Y plate, they will be subject to far more public and police scrutiny than in the past. We have to make them realise that they will get caught, sooner rather than later, and that they will pay whatever penalties their stupid driving behaviour warrants.
Most importantly, we have to say to them that they will look anything but cool to their mates or girlfriends if they have to catch the bus or walk once they lose their license or their car.
We have to make it a privilege, not a right, for any person to own a motor vehicle and to have a license to drive that vehicle. Being a privilege, we as a community can take that motor vehicle registration or drivers’ license back if the privilege is abused. And we have to show that we mean what we say.
New York city repaired its broken windows within a day of the breakage. That sent out a message that even minor anti-social actions would not be tolerated. West Australians should demand almost absolute compliance with the traffic laws from young inexperienced drivers. They have to know that even minor traffic infringements are unacceptable.
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