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Climate Crisis on Election Back-burner

climate-crisis-election — Coal-fired power station in Germany – Catazul www.pixabay.com

My reading of election coverage (such as it is), is that both major parties have shuffled the climate crisis to the back burner. It must be crowded back there, with homeless people and refugees trying to stay warm.

What has been widely ridiculed as the ‘shouty’ debate (on Channel Nine) said nothing meaningful about the most important issue of all – the climate crisis. Such has been the pre-occupation with the election here, we haven’t seen much coverage of Canada’s wet, cold spring, India and Pakistan’s lethal heatwaves, or debate about whether our wet autumn is driven by climate change or something else.

People who deny climate change theory often dismiss it with ‘there’s always been climate change’. Well, yes, but it’s been accelerating since 1950 and in 2022 we have the technology to make material changes.

Andrew Wallace, Federal member for Fisher and Speaker of the House, recently told a public meeting in Montville he was not convinced that climate change was caused by emissions from human industry.

Sunshine Coast resident Gillian Pechey, who was at the meeting, wrote to the Glasshouse News after hearing this statement.

“I asked him (Wallace) whether he had worries about the predicted ocean level rise, loss of the sandy beaches which tourists flock to holiday on. He smiled! His position is predicted to lead to global temperature rise of 3-4 degrees. Parts of Queensland will become unliveable unless you’re wealthy enough to live and work in a solid air-conditioned building.

“It is frustrating to see the lead political party turning its back on climate science which predicts that over this century we will continue to have destructive bushfires, floods, eroded beaches and gradual loss of the Great Barrier Reef.”

FOMM’s observation is that Andrew Wallace, elected in 2019 with a 62.7% two-party preferred vote, is obviously going to stick to the LNP’s position on subsidising fossil fuel at the expense of investment in renewable energy. He persists with this line even when campaigning in the Green-friendly towns of the Sunshine Coast hinterland.

Whatever politicians are saying (or not saying) about the climate crisis, there is evidence that the general population has been trying to self-educate. The ABC found a researcher who uncovered a 5,000% increase in the volume of climate questions on Google since 2019.

The data has been ‘normalised’, meaning interest has increased relative to that of other topics. The use of ‘big data’ to reach conclusions is called ‘culturomics’.

For the past 18 months, social researcher Rebecca Huntley has been conducting focus groups to understand climate change concerns among Australians.

Dr Huntley said the Google search data broadly aligns with the focus group results. Various other polls concur – the climate crisis is a hot-button issue. The ABC’s Vote Compass shows an overwhelming number of Australians want more action to reduce carbon emissions.

“The basic theory as to why this is happening now rather than, say, three years ago, is stuff builds up,” Dr Huntley said.

She told the ABC the 2019/20 Black Summer fires were not enough on their own to “shift the dial” on climate concern. But they were followed by two other major climate crisis events.

Australia was criticised for inaction on climate change at the November 2021 COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. Australia did present a net zero emissions plan, but it lacked detail and critics pointed this out.

The third event which may have tipped some Australians over the climate fence was the 2022 floods in Queensland and New South Wales. There’s no evidence yet to blame that individual weather event on climate change. But it was consistent with predictions of the type of epic natural disaster we can expect under global warming scenarios.

The ABC delved into the Google research to find that the top ‘searchers’ came from very small towns, which suggests the data may not be that reliable. A reporter asked Lawrence Springborg, Mayor of Goondiwindi Shire and president of the Queensland Liberal National Party, what he thought.

He suggested people were searching “because they don’t believe” climate change and wanted ammunition to disprove the science when the topic came up in conversation.

“I have absolutely no idea why they’re searching,” he added.

One of the common searches on Google is ‘when did climate change start’.

The latest research now suggests that atmospheric warming began in the early to mid-1800s, rather than the mid-20^th century. Until 1950, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels had never been above 300 parts per million. Now the readings are over 400 ppm and rapidly increasing.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report says the current warming trend is unequivocally the result of human activity since the mid-20^th century.

“It is undeniable that human activities have warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land and that widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere have occurred.”

The Sydney Morning Herald said the Resolve Political Monitor found young voters (18-34) ranked climate change as the second-most important issue in this year’s election. Not surprisingly, the number one issue for young voters was keeping the cost of living low.

Meanwhile, the LNP is sticking to its target of reducing emissions by at least 26% by 2030. Labor’s target is 43% although climate experts warn Australia must cut emissions 75% by 2030. Both major parties want to keep on exporting coal, despite the US Environmental Protection Agency stating that the burning of coal, natural gas, and oil for electricity and heat is the largest single source of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Professor Stephen Bartos was recently commissioned by Farmers for Climate Action to prepare a report on the impact of climate change on food supply. Farmers for Climate action is part of the National Farmers Federation (which has 7,000 members).

Writing in The Conversation, Prof Bartos, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, explained his methodology. He reviewed research in this area, interviewed more than a dozen farmers, farmer representative bodies, and other participants in the food supply chain. Among the issues identified were the impact of drought, diseases and stress on livestock, the loss of food due to hotter weather, and shorter shelf lives.

“An unexpected finding was the degree to which everyone involved in the supply chain is affected by uncertainty caused by climate change. It is making future weather highly unpredictable, making planning harder for both farms and in transport networks.”

Climate change has made a further impact on lending and insurance, where unpredictability means higher costs for financial products. Some farmers reported that they were unable to insure due to climate risks. All these costs are passed on to consumers in the form of higher food prices.

This concurs with the Climate Council’s findings that one in 25 Australian properties would be ‘uninsurable’ by 2030. The Climate Council says this is directly due to the rising risk of extreme weather and the impact of climate change.

The Climate Council created at interactive map so households, businesses and farmers can assess the likely risk. Queensland is looking vulnerable.

Finally, though this report is five months old and I’ve mentioned it before, it should be remembered that Australia ranked last in a survey of 60 countries on climate change policy. The Climate Change Performance Index, published annually since 2005, gave Australia a zero for its policy response to the climate crisis, citing ‘a lack of ambition and action’.

As we post this, the Condamine River has risen so much overnight authorities are about to close the bridge into town. The Cunningham Highway to Brisbane is closed and the road to Toowoomba must surely be compromised.

Climate crisis? What climate crisis.

Bushfires, Methane and the Climate Crisis

methane-climate-change — Nature’s resilience – regrowth in the fire-ravaged Cunningham’s Gap. Photo Laurel Wilson

You’d think those with an interest in promoting the climate crisis would have made more of James Murdoch quitting the family media business.

While there is much to be wary of when considering Murdoch Jnr’s defection, he did make it crystal clear that he and his wife Kathryn disagreed with News Corp’s climate agenda. The first real signs of family business friction emerged last year. James accused News Corp of promoting climate denialism during its coverage of last summer’s Australian bushfires.

University of Sydney professor Rodney Tiffen’s thorough examination of James Murdoch’s chequered history points out that it was James who first persuaded Rupert Murdoch (in 2006) to embrace the climate change cause. While Rupert soon drifted away, James remained committed. Tiffen makes a trenchant point, that Rupert’s conversion had little impact on the company’s journalism:

“Its upper editorial echelons contained a large number of climate denialists, and Rupert seems to have never made any effort to change their views.”

This is an interesting read if you want to be reminded of James Murdoch’s role in the UK phone hacking scandal and management of News Corp’s global satellite TV business.

Despite the claims about climate denialism within News Corp, its Australian flagship has kept up with the topic. You won’t be able to read about it unless you subscribe, but Erin Lyons filed a story on July 29 from a Senate inquiry headlined ‘Unequivocal link between extreme bushfires and climate crisis’.

I note with interest the use of language officially adopted by The Guardian to describe climate change as a ‘crisis’.

Lyons quoted Bureau of Meteorology chief executive Dr Andrew Johnson who said a rise in global emissions was driving up temperatures, which was likely to increase the risk of bushfires.

“Bushfires are starting earlier and ending later. There’s a climate signal in that,” he told the panel. “How that plays out in the future will very much depend on how humanity responds.”

Lyons followed up next day with a story about firefighters and bushfire survivors calling for the fossil fuel industry to pay for the damage.

Almost on cue, the weather map showed the first signs of an early bushfire season, with large swathes of central Western Australia painted red for danger. In southern California, not all that far as the crow flies, the northern summer’s first forest fire forced thousands to flee their homes south of Los Angeles. Here we go again: “There’s always been bush fires.” (Climate change deniers drag out last year’s talking points). No, it’s because of the dangerous build-up of methane in the atmosphere. (Ed: He said, interpreting science, which is a danged dangerous thing for a journalist to do).

The thing is, such is the media pre-occupation with COVID-19 and the risks to Australian (and global) economies, the topic of climate change barely gets a look in. Allow me to fill in the gaps and maybe do a bit of fact checking while I’m here.

My attention was dragged back to this subject when reading a four paragraph filler in The Guardian about methane. Animal farming and fossil fuels have driven levels of the greenhouse gas to the highest on record, it stated. The Guardian cited the Methane Budget study, published by Earth System Science Data, which stated that discharges of methane gas have risen about 9% on the 2000-2006 average, to 600 million tonnes a year.

It’s no easy task, quantifying methane emissions, which occur naturally in wetlands and inland water sources, but also from biofuel, waste, coal mining, oil and gas production and agriculture. A global team of more than 90 researchers from 70 institutions contributed to this latest update. Ironically (well, I think it’s ironic), melting permafrost contributes to the release of methane.

The increase of atmospheric methane is important, in that its global warming potential is estimated to be up to 34 times higher than CO2 (over 100 years). That’s why you will see large-scale industrial plants like oil refineries burning off methane (converting it to CO2). Besides, methane build-up within an industrial complex can be quite lethal because of its explosive nature. Major oil companies including Shell and Exxon made commitments several years ago to cut methane emissions by up to 15%. (I read that 2018 report in The Australian, while fruitlessly searching the database to see if it had published anything about the Methane Budget study). The most recent reports involving methane were to do with the explosion at the Moura coal mine.

As we were saying at the outset, James Murdoch’s resignation from the board of News Corp came with a statement in which he castigated the chairman (Dad) and the company over its climate change denialism. It’s not so much about bias as choosing which stories to cover (and when) .

While the Methane Budget study might be deemed by editors of mainstream tabloids to be ‘boring as batshit’, nevertheless its key findings were reported by outlets including the ABC, Washington Post, The Guardian, the Straits Times, Nature and quality monthlies that report on science. There is a good analysis by carbonbrief-org where the key points can be grasped by the lay person. Methane is often ignored in climate change discussions, despite having a more deleterious effect than CO2 (more carbon per molecule) – thanks Dr John.

One thing I missed on the first read through was that South East Asia and Oceania were in the top three regions for recording increased methane emissions. Global methane emissions were 1875 parts per billion at the end of 2019 – two and a half times higher than pre-industrial levels.

Why this topic caught my attention was an awareness, given a wetter winter than usual (building up fuel loads), that we could be heading into an early bushfire season. This was the case in 2019, with the first reports of serious bushfires alerts emerging in early August.

Those engaged in fire fighting know why bushfires are getting earlier and nastier. A report by volunteer firefighters published in the University of Melbourne’s Voice magazine in early 2015 flagged a few warnings about bush fire prevention. It also cited the role of bushfires in escalating the release of methane and CO2 into the atmosphere.

The study authors found that levels of carbon and greenhouse gases released in Eucalypt wildfires could be reduced by fuel reduction burning, or planned burns conducted prior to the bushfire season in high risk forests.

“The results of these actions could inform land management decisions as well as government policy regarding planned burning. Also, it could enable more accurate estimations of the contribution that bushfires make to Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory.”

As we head into the spring of 2020, I can but offer this insight on the left and right of politics, still bickering about hazard reduction burning (and whether it works or not). What was that about Rome burning?

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A cold snap, firewood and a short history of chimney sweeps

cold-snap-firewood-chimney-sweep — Image by Steven Helmis, https://pixabay.com/photos/chimney-sweep-roof-chimney-housetop-2792895/

Almost on schedule, a cold snap arrived, coinciding nicely with our completely running out of firewood. Oh you too, eh? I thought as much, queuing up on Saturday at the fill-your-own-boot firewood supplier. It took a while. Chatting to a friend on the same mission, I mentioned that the fire was not drawing very well.

He then told me about an organic solvent you could buy from the hardware store.

“You just get a good fire going then chuck the sachet on the embers,” he said. “It took three (sachets) but it’s burning pretty good now.”

The helpful chap at the hardware store knew which product I wanted and we had a chat about the era when young orphan boys were press-ganged into manually cleaning chimneys in return for board and lodgings.

This same chap also gave me a contact for someone down the coast who cleans chimneys (the instructions on the soot-remover packet recommend having the flue professionally cleaned annually).

“When did we get the chimney swept last?” I asked She Who Pays the Bills.

“Not sure,” she said. “I threw out all the receipts that were older than five years, so that could be a clue.”

Of course, once we had bought more firewood and I had chopped it into wood stove-size pieces, it clouded over and the overnight temperature rose to 15, as opposed to 5 the night before. Fortunately, the cold south-easterlies returned mid-week and my labours were justified.

The nature of a ‘cold snap’ is a sudden, brief, severe drop in temperature. The ‘severe’ was felt in Tenterfield (-8), Stanthorpe (-8) Warwick (-4.7) and Brisbane (3), among other south east Queensland locations (average June low in Brisbane is 12 degrees). There were reports that Quart Pot Creek (which flows through Stanthorpe) froze over. Well, not froze over in the Manitoba sense but yes, a layer of ice.

Yesterday I attempted step two of the chemical chimney clean – remove excess soot from the drop plate. I took a torch and shone it up the stainless-steel shaft of the wood stove chimney. My thoughts turned to the poor urchins of the 17th and 18^th centuries forced to climb spaces like this and clean them by hand. Well, perhaps not that narrow a space, but you get the picture.

Master chimney sweeps would suborn young orphans into this line of work and boys were sometimes ‘sold’ by parents who needed the money. I gleaned some of the following information from a blog written by George Breiwa on behalf of Chimney Specialists Inc. of Dubuque, Iowa.

If a boy was showing some reluctance to climb inside the chimney and navigate to the roof, the master chimney sweep would light a small fire. Hence the expression, ‘to light a fire under someone’. I never knew that.

As you’d imagine, these boys (and girls), suffered from deformed bones (from cramming themselves into tight spaces. It was a short life span on account of inhaling soot, or if they became lost or stuck inside a brick chimney, (where they subsequently died).

That’s a long way from ‘Chim chiminey, chim chiminey, chim chim che-ree.”

If this subject fascinates you, here is a link to a (5,000-word+) academic article by Karla Iverson.

The most important point in this story is the Act for the Regulation of Chimney Sweeps, passed by the English Parliament in 1864. This was 22 years after, I might add, an act of Parliament which put an end to mining companies sending children to work in underground mines.

Since I have shared my experience with a few people re: the wood stove not drawing properly (the wood should burn cleanly), much advice was imparted. Ironbark and mixed hardwood is still the preferred fuel for wood stoves and fireplaces.

The main issue if you are trying to burn timber salvaged from your own (or someone else’s) property is that it takes a long while to dry out.

Our resident firewood expert, Dr. John Wightman, who harvests firewood from his 12ha property, says drying under cover takes 18-24 months. He saws and splits fallen trees and the occasional tree that is endangering property or whose time has come.

“We had our chimney swept a few weeks ago – first time in five years. We only had half a bucket of soot. The sweep said it was because of good quality wood which I took to mean dry wood.

“I also remove as much bark as possible because certain constituent chemicals can gum up the chimney.”

Dr. John reminisced about the first half of the 20^th century, when coal fire smog was a killer.

“I lived in London during the 50s and remember the incredibly impenetrable coal- induced smog,” he said. “It disappeared entirely once smokeless fuel fires were made compulsory.”

The Clean Air Act of 1956 followed the great London smog of December 1952, which led to “5,000 more deaths than usual”. U.K. citizens began to use electric and gas heaters and rely less on coal.

The Clean Air Act required coal fire owners to burn coal with low-sulphur content (i.e. ‘clean coal’) or coke, which is the less polluting by-product of gas production.

Those who lived in Scotland in the first half of the 20^th century would remember that Edinburgh was once referred to as ‘Auld Reekie’. The dubious nickname referred to the dense coal fire smog which settled upon the old town.

I asked Dr. John (a scientist) to comment on the cold snap and comparative air pollution caused by wood smoke, as I worry about it every winter, and of course it is Climate Week.

“The energy content of dry wood is 17 MJ/kg, and of coal 24 MJ/kg. So a bit less heat and less carbon dioxide from wood combustion,” he said.

“In theory, the CO₂ should be sucked up by the trees around us.

“Coal can have a lot of impurities such as sulphur and sulphur oxides (the killers in London’s smog)”.

But, as he remarks, both wood and coal produce particulate matter when combusted.

“We call it smoke which is bad for the lungs, irrespective of the source – wood smoke can smell better than coal smoke.”

While domestic wood fires are visibly more polluting than electric heaters or reverse-cycle air conditioning, the latter are powered by electricity produced primarily by coal-fired power stations.

Australia’s emissions totalled 538.2 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2018, up 0.7% on the previous year. That was the third year in a row of rising numbers under the Liberal government, although the long-term per capita trend is down. The figures were released this week by the Department of the Environment and Energy.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/energy-minister-defends-australia-s-growing-greenhouse-gas-emissions-20190531-p51t8s.html

Australia has one of the highest per capita emissions of carbon dioxide in the world, at 21.5 tonnes per person, down 38.2% since 1990.

Electricity is the sector producing the most CO₂, at 185.5 million tonnes, followed by stationary energy (97 Mt CO₂), transport (97 Mt CO₂) and agricultural production (71.7 Mt CO₂).

On the latest global figures, Australia is the world’s biggest exporter of coal (389 million tonnes) and the fourth largest producer (503 million tonnes). Three quarters of Australia’s mined coal is exported and most of the rest is burned in domestic coal-fired power stations.

‘Clean coal” – an analysis

So don’t feel bad about burning a half-dozen or so hardwood logs tonight – it is comparatively benign.