Tag Archive for 'Environment'

Peter Garrett rejects Traveston Dam

Published
by
Mark
4 months, 1 week ago
in Politics, Queensland and Water
. 49 Comments

Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett has declined to give Anna Bligh’s Traveston Dam the tick of approval.

Bligh inherited this project from Peter Beattie, and I, and a lot of others, always thought its conception in the first place had been as a political wedge. It had a lot more to do with Beattie’s manoeuvrings to split the Libs and Nats in the lead up to the 2006 election than any rational assessment of how to ensure South East Queensland’s water supply into the future.

When still Deputy Premier, Bligh faced down many Mary Valley locals protesting the dam, and I wonder whether her reticence to admit the thing was a dud has something to do with that. I would hope not, but Bligh certainly hasn’t displayed the deftness in backing away from stupid and unpopular decisions (which state governments are often in the habit of making) that her predecessor had.

It’s a good thing that Garrett has nixed the dam, but the waste of time and money that could have gone into much smarter thinking about water futures, and the needless uncertainty and suffering caused to Mary Valley folk is most assuredly not.

State of the Victorian Environment

Published
by
Robert Merkel
1 year, 3 months ago
in Environment, Transport, Victoria and Water
. 75 Comments

The Victorian Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability has released an annual report which examines the condition of the Victorian environment.

Early media reports note that some sections of Victoria have been “damaged beyond repair”. I am surprised that this is news to anyone, but I suppose it’s worth repeating.

There’s lots to chew through in the report, and I’d imagine that there are various aspects that various LP’ers might want to quibble about (to pick one, I don’t think the use of “ecological footprint” is terribly helpful, as it gives very little indication of what aspects of our lifestyles are unsustainable, and contains a lot of assumptions which have value judgements embedded in them). But there was another interesting little statistic from the section on energy and transport in Chapter 3 that caught my eye: “Based on full fuel cycle greenhouse gas emissions factors and average occupancy rates, passenger cars emit 0.213 kg of CO2-e per person-kilometre travelled, compared with 0.145 kg CO2-e/PKT for trains, 0.158 kg CO2-e/PKT for trams and 0.159 kg CO2-e/PKT for buses”.

I am slightly surprised, but it seems that replacing Commodores with trams is not nearly as big a win for the global environment as might be hoped, at least until Hazelwood and Loy Yang stop belching CO2 into the air.

China’s pollution goes global

Published
by
Brian
1 year, 7 months ago
in China, Climate change, Developing world and Environment
. 27 Comments

olympics_pollution.jpg

We’ll be seeing plenty of China on our TV screens in the next little while, as long they don’t give us too many long shots. No matter how spectacular the Olympic opening ceremony, if we can see it, I think the abiding image from the Games for me will be the astonishing soup of pollution. I can’t wrap my mind around the kind of hubris and single-minded neglect that could produce such a mess. Rick Birch talking on local radio said the Chinese Government had assured everyone a couple of years ago that the weather would be fine for the opening ceremony, the weather apparently being subject to government will. Hence no need for a plan B in case it rains. Rick says you always have a plan B in case it rains, but not this time.

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