Water Commission closure announced in 2014 Budget as Drought approaches

The speeding up and movement south of the Westerlies is bad news for farmers reliant on winter rainfall over the southern part of Australia. It comes at a time when the Murray Darling Basin is still under stress with the Abbott Government announcing the closure of the National Water Commission, which advises the Australian Government on progress on water policy issues and the accountability of State and Federal Government in this area. The closure will save $19.5 million over the next four years.

One needs to ask how much this closure may cost the Australian economy in reduced agricultural productivity through poor water management through the next period of extensive drought conditions.

“Taking the eye off water is foolhardy,” Mike Young, Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser Chair in Australian Studies at Harvard University, said in e-mail to Circle of Blue. “National oversight of water is critical to the future of Australia.”

Australia becoming drier, Antarctica colder due to Westerly winds speeding up

The Southern Annular Mode consists of Westerly winds that blow continuously over the southern ocean, helping to insulate the southern continent of Antarctica. In recent decades these winds have sped up and moved further south as a result of climate change. This results in drawing rain clouds to the south away from Australia particularly affecting Autumn and winter rainfall.

The Bureau of Meteorology has observed a long term trend for south-eastern and south western Australia becoming more dry. New research has identified reasons for this and why Antarctica has not experienced a warming trend like the rest of the planet.

Western Australia has suffered a 20 per cent loss in winter rainfall since the 1960s. South eastern Australia has suffered a 10 per cent reduction in winter rainfall from the 1990s.

Even during the back to back La Ninas in 2011 and 2012, the Drying trend in Australia still evident despite being the wettest two year period on record. But we have known for some time that Less rain across southern Australia is a long term climate trend due primarily to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increasing atmospheric temperatures thus changing the dynamic of the sub-tropical jet stream and thus the number and intensity of storms bringing autumn and winter rainfall to southern Australia.

Climate science and clean energy suffer under first Abbott budget

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Treasurer Joe Hockey used the federal government's first budget to continue the assault on scientific research, climate change infrastructure, and clean energy programs to devastate the fledgling renewables industry breaking several electoral promises along the way. This will have long term impacts for responding to and mitigating climate change, pushing even greater costs of action on future governments and future generations.

As leader of the Greens Senator Christine Milne observed, "The words environment and climate change did not appear once in budget speech."

And in the short term the budget reduces spending on health, education and social welfare which hit low and middle income earners particularly hard by making drastic and substantial cuts to 89 different health and social welfare programs to save $80 billion over the next 4 years.

The result: these policies increase social inequity on the short and the longer term.

The challenge of adapting to climate change and heatwaves in Melbourne

Originally published at Mpress at Melbourne Polytechnic

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II in its latest report – Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability - highlights the growing impact of climate change both globally and regionally. Resolving the climate change issue requires action by individuals, businesses and all levels of Government in Australia and globally.

Professor Glenn Albrecht, Director of the Institute for Social Sustainability at Murdoch University, WA commented on the IPCC report "The messages in the IPCC Working Group 2 Summary for Policymakers are clear, we need to remove the barriers for political change away from fossil fuel dependency. We must make a rapid transition to non-polluting renewable forms of energy. At the same time we need to acknowledge the urgent need to adapt to the changes we have already imposed upon ourselves."

The challenge also involves educating for sustainability, whether in school programs, TAFE or University.

NMIT has been developing a strong focus on sustainability in our education programs, whether in the Diploma of Sustainability, courses in Renewable Energy, Aquaculture and Environmental Management, Horticulture, Conservation and Land Management, the Bachelor of Accounting course with a strong focus on environmental accounting, or more traditional trade courses in building and engineering design.  The Green Skills Centre of Excellence on Epping Campus, completed in 2010, provides facilities for teaching many of our practical skill-based courses with a sustainability component.

Liberal Arts courses also offer the opportunity to discuss and research the challenges of climate change. NMIT website administrator and Tertiary Studies student and blogger John Englart made a presentation and handout to his Academic Research class in March 2014 that outlines some of the recent science and the many challenges we face in Melbourne with heatwaves and climate change. The views expressed in this article are his own, and do not necessarily reflect endorsement by NMIT.

Australia's 2014 summer breaks more records

Reading the climate Council latest report on the Angry Summer 2013/2014 (PDF) I was struck by the extent and rapidity of the changes in temperature we are seeing now.

The angry summer we have just experienced comes on top of 2013 being the hottest year on record for Australia, with temperatures off the charts setting new temperature records. A risk attribution study found that 2013 record temperatures could be clearly attributed to climate change with 2013 temperatures not found in 13,000 model years of simulations under a natural only scenario.

Climate change gives a clear signal in 2014 State of the climate Australia report

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO have published their latest State of the Climate report for Australia for 2014 which shows a clear signal of anthropogenic climate change for the Australian region.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott says that climate change is occurring but refuses to acknowledge that this is overwhelmingly caused by human greenhouse gas emissions. He says he believes in the science and then continues dismantling the small amount of climate mitigation policies we have in place in the carbon price, Clean Energy Finance Corporation, Climate Change Authority, and appointing Dick Warbuton an advowed climate sceptic and anti-wind advocate to chair the Renewable Energy Target review panel.

Professor Neville Nicholls from Monash University, writing in a post at the Conversation, clearly articulated the dangers in not taking appropriate climate action:

"...we are already seeing the impact of more severe heat events and more weather conducive to fire activity.

Heat events and bushfires already cause increased death and illness, as well as destroying property and damaging infrastructure. The recent increases in the climate drivers of severe heat events and bushfires have exacerbated the risks.

These heatwaves and bushfires are bringing home the reality of climate change. They affect Australian families and their homes – they are not something that happens to other people a long way away, or will happen to us a long time in the future. They are a clear and present danger to us, right now.

The Climate Change Authority last week, after extensive analysis of scientific conclusions, economic modelling and examining climate action happening on an international scale recommended that our greenhouse gas emissions target be lifted to 19 per cent by 2020 from 5 per cent on 2000 levels.

USA: 398 arrested in civil disobedience at the White House saying no KXL

Washington, March 2, 2014: over one thousand young people marched on the White House demanding President Obama reject the Keystone XL pipeline and uphold his commitment to protecting the environment. Hundreds of these students then handcuffed themselves to the White House fence in the largest youth act of civil disobedience in a generation! There were 398 arrests.

According to DC Indymedia, "an estimated 2,000 opponents of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline marched from Georgetown University to the White House for the largest one-day civil disobediance against the pipeline DC has seen."

Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 19 percent says Australia's Climate Change Authority

The Australian Climate change Authority has released its final assessment on what Australia's climate emissions reduction target should be. They say that the global conditions have clearly been met for Australia increasing emissions reduction from 5 per cent on 2000 levels to 19 per cent on 2000 levels by 2020.

In 2009 the Australian Government under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd gave an unconditional guarantee of a 5 per cent target to the Copenhagen UN Climate Change conference. This was part of a range of 5 to 25 per cent with specific conditions attached for increasing the target past 5 per cent. Australia's formal target needs to be advised by 30 April 2014, although governments can strengthen their targets at any time. This target and the conditional range had bipartisan support: Both Labor and the Liberal and National Parties supported this international undertaking.

Bernie Fraser, the chair of the Climate Change Authority, said during the press conference:

"The five percent minimum isn't credible in terms of the task that has to be done and the time frame to stick to the 2020 target of a minimum of 5 per cent would, within the framework of the present global budget, Australia's share of that global budget, would impose a virtually impossible task of catching up, making up that lost ground and getting to the end result in the time available.

Harnessing the wind to fight the storms of climate change

How Offshore wind turbines can win a david and goliath battle with hurricanes. Here is a lateral idea: build large offshore wind farms that provide electricity from day to day, but also substantially decrease damaging hurricane or tropical cyclone wind speed and storm surge.

With tropical cyclones forecast to grow stronger and more intense with climate change, if not in greater frequency, such an idea has definite merit to explore. Climate change is predicted to escalate Tropical Cyclone / hurricane damage costs particularly for US and China.

We wouldn't need to put offshore wind farms right along the coast, perhaps just where they can be most effective at lessening storm damage to human lives and infrastructure. And allow us to plant mangroves and cultivate coastal wetlands to store carbon, and provide fish nursery habitat, and absorb storm surges, rather than hugely expensive rock and concrete sea walls.

Tackling food security with a growing population, climate change and peak oil

With a growing population and improving diets there is a need to double our food supply by 2050. Identify three measures you would take to meet this demand. Identify one of your measures from your list and post your solution into the discussion - be prepared to defend your choice!

That is a big question to throw in a climate change course. I am presently doing an online course - Climate Change: Challenges and solutions - offered by the University of Exeter (UK). So please indulge me as I also use this blog for some climate course work. This article is for week 6, section 6.5 of the course on 'Tackling food security'.

Food security is one helluva big area to try and come to terms with. Earth's population is just over 7 billion people. It is projected by the United Nations in a June 2013 report on global population to reach 9.6 billion people by 2050, although some commentators like David Merkel think it may peak at 8.5 billion around 2030 due to officials underestimating the fall in the fertility rate.

Currently, at least one billion people are constantly hungry or living under the threat of hunger.

Agricultural productivity of the last century has been brought about by the energy input from fossil fuels. There is a strong recent correlation between soaring food costs and soaring oil costs. With Peak oil, energy costs can expect to increase much further, placing further costs on food production. A FAO 2011 report says: "Commodity prices tend to be linked with global energy prices. As energy prices fluctuate and trend upwards, so do food prices".