Both business lobbies and those who argue for waiting for the world are fond of privileging market based solutions over all others, and indeed “skeptics” and denialists claim that those who warn of the consequences of global warming are attached to central planning.

Indeed.
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It’s interesting how discussion of policies and habits pertinent to sustaining modern civilization by not destroying its ecological basis have been sucked into the theological grindstone of 19th and 20th century ideological conflict. If people in general had paid heed to the ecological price a little contemplation told us that we would have to pay way back in the late 40s market solutions wouldn’t be the default preference as they are today. Then it was Keynes not Friedman who was the Economic Guru and being a socialist was acceptable (communist not really).
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Would the solutions’ve been better?
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I don’t know. The socialist agenda also put a high value on industrial production and growth so the left once upon a time was just as inclined to pooh-pooh ‘Malthusian’ fear as the right. Nowadays the left almost universally endorses the AGW hypothesis. Given the defeat of the Soviet system and the roll back of Social Democracy since the 70s many people on the Leninist and non-Leninist Left have jumped on the environment bandwagon as a new tool to kick Capitalism with.
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Those sections of the New left whose primary basis is not ‘the victory of the proletariat’ are not included necessarilly in this group (a feminist isn’t necessarilly ‘anti-capitalist’). And of course there is the environmental movement, whose ideological origins are heterogenous and related at least in my experience to associational anarchism, have long seen the impact of the industrial system regardless the ideology as ‘the problem’.
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Nevertheless it is, I think, true that those agents in political debates who are the main voices of environmental policy favour regulatory solutions.
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Partially thru the reluctance to accept anything that will hault growth, raise taxation or re-regulate enterprise, partially because the call is a left-wing one, there are people on the right who are almost insanely obtuse about the evidence that our economic success is damaging the environment on a serious and global level. Some argue for market solutions when none are apparent. The trouble with hard-wired ideology is that you tend to assume all sorts of things you shouldn’t. The Sovs assumed they could stop people being selfish for example.
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I tend to think we should scrap both the default to market-based solutions and the hostility to capitalism in developing environmental responses. Market-based solutions may not be available and even Friedmanites like Arnold Schwarzanegger and John Humphreys attest to this. On the other hand going to war with Capitalism may waste a lot of energy. Ultimately Capitalists live on the planet as well. And private enterprise is very good at something governments are not - creativity.
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Well except the banks.

BBB

Question for you - where, in your opinion, do we stand on climate change right now? Amber just about to turn red? Or are we in the red already?

Yes, if you want to decarbonize the economy in a great hurry, you could put a carbon tax of $500 per tonne on emissions. Let’s see how long the Economic Purity Party which imposes such a policy lasts in government…

WWII ration books may have not been the economically optimal solution, but I doubt the alternative of just raising the price of everything enough such that only the very rich could afford to buy anything would have been politically possible.

Have you ever heard of ‘the German economic miracle’? Market systems dynamically adjust as fast as the various participants feel they have to. They efficiently distribute information about who wants what across indirectly connected sectors. That’s why economists keep banging on and on about market-based solutions.

Our economy is so heavily reliant on carbon emissions that introducing C&C mechanisms for carbon use is pretty close to introducing C&C for large parts of the economy. It’s well known at this stage that such a thing is, putting it bluntly, a stupid idea.

So yes, we marketdroids are privileging the market. Not because we understand in advance what it will do — we can’t — but because we understand what the alternative can’t and won’t do. To turn old leftist phraseology on its head, climate change is too important to leave to governments.

For those not aware of the Toowoomba Water Recycling saga: Toowoomba, a city built to service the easiest Range Crossing in N-NSW & SE Qld, is in the 750mm per year rain belt and has no natural above-ground water (but some bore water). It and areas c70Ks or so to the north & west are serviced by three dams, all 30-50Ks north of T, the last built in the 1970s. There is no other suitable dam site. Since then, there has been a population explosion, esp in “dormitory” towns to the north & west. In addition, old dairying land with access to the water pipeline was converted to “tree-changer” acreage, intensive flower & some fruit farming - some in-ground, some hydroponic.

Dams were last full in 1998. The last good rain fell in the dam areas in Feb 01. In a normally cool area, summers from 2000 onwards were blazing and most winters very warm. Water restrictions slowed usage; but by 2005 the situation was dire & Council investigated possible solutions, inc: other dam sites, piping from local bores; piping in from Artesian basin and/ or coal-seam gas water, and water-recycling. Although bores, Artesian & coal-seam gas water could provide some water, only water-recycling provided a long-term viable option if dams were low. Reports on these investigations are available http://www.toowoombawater.com.au/home/

Intensive exploration of OS water-recycling, esp of new “reverse osmosis” processes in Singapore & California, made this the best option. The plan, though controversial, was passed by Council whose Mayor, Di Thorley, was ALP … so the issue rapidly became political. Local fed member Ian McFarlane was originally supportive. Opposition to recycling was led by National Cr Lyle Shelton (would stand, unsuccessfully, for the ALP_held state electorate of Toowoomba North) & the no-campaign bankrolled mainly by former Nat minister millionaire local developer Clive Berghofer. McFarlane rapidly wussed it & Howard made Federal funding subject to a referendum.

Held on 29 July 2006, the result was overwhelmingly “No” (over 60%). http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001511.html

2006 continued dry. In early 2007, dam water levels fell below 11%. Rain during 07-08 barely kept the dam levels above 11%. Public opinion began to turn, and was running against the anti-recycling candidates by the time of March 2008 elections for the new Regional Council. Just before the election Premier Bligh announced that Toowoomba dams would be linked into the SE Qld recycling water-grid, including Brisbane’s Wivenhoe by pipeline. In the election, anti-recycling candidates were thrashed (c11.3% of the mayoral vote).

On 9 July 2008, recycling, and connection to Wivenhoe was a done deal; so much so that, according to The Chronicle, even Berghofer had stopped fighting it. A report on the 9 July announcement is here. http://www.toowoombarc.qld.gov.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=944:toowoomba-regional-council-welcomes-wivenhoe-pipeline-project&catid=9:newspublications&Itemid=21

Currently, dams have dropped to 10.5%; we’re also using local “harder than industrial diamonds” bore water (leaves copper blue & brown stains on toilet despite cleaning) Artesian & Coal-seam-gas water will add to our “water-grid”, probably even after Wivenhoe water (to which Brisbane’s recycled water is added) reaches here.

Meanwhile, the very day SA protestors were all over Sunday’s national news, Anna Bligh laid the last part of the Gold Coast-Wivenhoe water-exchange pipeline (A$901 million), and the sea-cocks were opened on the Gold Coast desalination plant. Several months ago, Brisbane industrial-strength grey-water reached the Tarong Powerhouse (near Kingaroy). Reverse-osmosis purified recycled water will be pumped into Wivenhoe in 2009.

It all costs a packet - many $$ billions - but there really is no other way to assure long-term water supply for rapidly expanding SE Qld (esp the dry Toowoomba Region). Even if we get a string of very wet summers (it will take Noah’s flood to fill our dams) the population keeps expanding and frequent droughts will still occur.

It took a mere 19 months for 60+% “NO” to recycling on 29 July 2006 to became a 11% vote for the anti-recycling Mayoral candidate in March 2008 - in Australia’s most conservative city by far.

All it takes is the Will to recycle and what ex-premier Pete Beattie called an Armageddon situation

As I have posted many times on many other forums, the monopoly situation hit home here when the privately run water retailer here announced price hikes of between 300% and 1200%. The problem was not too little water - rather, it was FAR too much. The resevoir was full but the biggest customers had slashed their consumption and the private monopoly holder was determined that ordinary residents would make up the shortfall in it’s margin. From memory, they actualy issued a press release stating that “people needed to understand that water was a business and business must turn a profit”.

So…………….where else were we going to get our water from? We couldn’t refuse to use the stuff in protest.

Nahh, market based solutions are no solution when it comes to vital services like water supply.

Re market solutions - they’ll work with systems in the green zone. They can work when conditions are amber if well designed and mature.

But you won’t get a market solution, an immature one at that, to work when it’s two seconds to midnight, you’ve got bodies everywhere and one band-aid.

As to BBB’s comment, this is not the sort of problem where you can happily tinker and toy with policy settings when the damage may have been done to a point where it’s basically irreversible. You then have a new set of facts, and any response to them will be much harder, more drastic, and less effective.

Some of the actual work is being done by private enterprise, eg. the design of the desalination plant, building it and I believe the water grid will be operated by a private outfit.

If declaring interests is the go, I have some Leighton shares. John Holland, one of their construction companies, is doing the heavy lifting. But there is a public body firmly between private operators and the public, which is the way I like it.

Gotta go now. See you tonight.

On the issue of the Paroo, the Queensland Government says diversions were approved before it imposed its moratorium.

And we are still not informed about the current Bligh Government’s attitude to these things.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/15/2336253.htm?section=australia

1. Market-based solutions and global warming - a topic which is, I feel, on blogs like this (a) preaching to the converted (b) just about done to death

2. A dry continent & dry-climate farming & living … long-established problems for which climate-change is a smokescreen & an excuse.

Living in & farming a dry continent

29 Jan 1788 - the First Fleet arrives, just in time to deal with the onset of the Foundation Drought, which seems to break not long before James Ruse develops rust-resistant wheat. What we know about approximate numbers of Aborigines, and the time-frames of their ancestors’ penetration of the continent, indicates a fragile land which has trouble supporting a nomadic population much in excess of a million.

1890-c1907 - the Federation Drought adds to the woes of the 90’s economic downturn; but demonstrates that irrigation presents a “golden opportunity” for massive cropping (for export) of very marginal land, much being destroyed by grazing, esp sheep (for fleece export). The white population is about 5 million. Note: The Federation Drought was probably the worst in the history of white settlement, but a small total population and only a small amount of river-damming & irrigation limited its impact.

c1991-20?? - the Millennium Drought.

Irrigation, most of it in old open channels (very little of it surface or root “drip” irrigation, even when the nature of crops makes mould/fungi-minimising drip a better option) is an established practice in once-marginal land along just about every accessible metre of every tributary of the Murray-Darling system. Cropping had become “broad acre” farming (requiring tree massive clearing) & water-hungry rice and cotton are now grown in marginal lands.

Population now c20 million - all but a small percentage dependent on urban water supply. Murray River water also supplies much of the electricity for states near the Murray.

Although urban water-recycling (out of/into rivers & some dams) became common in most major European urban after World War II, the driest continent has, by 2000, not one major urban area recycling waste water back into rivers or dams. Even after years of very low dam levels, only one major area (SE Qld) has tackled large-scale recycling back into dams; a couple have built or are building major desalination plants, and a couple more are talking about building them.

In 1890-1907, had the population been 20 million, farming methods and irrigation methods the same as they are now, would the Murray, even without Cubby Downs, have reached SA’s lower lakes in 1908?
What, then, is SE South Australia doing to limit dependence on & to replenish the Murray? How far advanced is its urban recycling? How many desalination plants are under construction? What changes has the state made to irrigation systems, eg how much is “root drip” (in-ground)? What “water grid and “drought proofing” plans has the SA government put in place to diminish its dependence on the Murray?

Blaming one’s problems on others - the federal government, other states, properties like Cubby Downs - is only acceptable when one has done all in one’s power to solve the problem one’s self.

SA’s current problems almost certainly would - given Australia’s record of “turn of the century droughts” - have occurred irrespective of “climate change”, and result from (a) farming practices unsuited to most of the Murray-Darling region, especially in the Murray from Mildura down-stream (b) failure to develop mass urban water-recycling & other “drought proofing” systems inc. desalination.

So let us not confuse bad (or non-existent) farming & water-conservation practices with climate change! All that does is let bad or non-existent “downstream” farming and water-saving practices, and very poor public & state government planning, off the hook.

PS: I’m from the Toowoomba area, where the recycling battle has just been won after more than two traumatic years. Our rates have skyrocketed and we and the state will be paying for it for years to come. But OH and I have been recycling advocates for three decades and, like most SE Qlders, are willing to pay for what “drought-proofing” our part of the Dry Continent costs.

So yes, I do feel very strongly about South Australia’s “Everyone else’s responsibility but ours” attitudes! Time its whingers and demonstrators grew up and took responsibility for themselves!

This would have given the existing privatised water supplier a strong incentive to prevent the entry of competitive water suppliers by better managing the resource. Milking monopoly profits doesn’t work forever if there can be new entrants to a market.

I’m not excusing the Qld government, and when the issue of the Paroo has come up in the past I’ve always thought any water harvesting should be banned. As I understand it the Paroo drains into important and fragile wetlands in NSW.

Also I know you are talking about attitudes. I think it’s unclear what the Bligh Govt attitude is. Certainly the amounts of water are of no significance to the people on the lower Murray.

But the comparison I was making was what you do when an emergency is identified.

But the climate change story is where you get hit by conditions that are simply unprecedented. In Brisbane in the 2004-5 summer storage improved from 40% to 60% from memory. There was some alarm when the following summer produced record low inflows, but people thought that would be corrected in the following summer. The following summer yielded even less - practically nothing.

A similar pattern has caught the Murray Darling system, though the time-scales are longer. The dry has been here before in the Federation drought, but with higher temperatures and greater on-farm catchment the runoff has collapsed, quite apart from the ‘greedy’ up-river irrigators.

On the Murray there is further factor that Quiggin mentions in his article. Historically the system near the mouth has been an estuarine system with inflows from seawater oscillating with freshwater flushes. We built barrages to make it a freshwater system. Opening the barrages as some suggest with no prospect of a freshwater flush would now be a different kind of disaster, as the river and lakes are not adapted to sea water. Also it would threaten town water supplies.

In Brisbane there was a lack of awareness that extra capacity was needed, given the pattern of rain and runoff in living memory, on the part of the authorities charged with looking after such things (Brisbane Water Board? - I’m unsure of the title but it wasn’t the state government). It’s highly doubtful that a privatised system would have been more alert. In the Murray the problem of over-allocation has been known for decades.

And yeah, they are responsible to voters. That’s called politics. Got a more realistic approach?