Two things strike me about the aftermath of these events.

First, unforeseen interruptions to highly complex systems demonstrate their fragility and lack of resilience. Risk culture, in late modernity, is partly a way of trying to contain such disturbances, and manage them.

Secondly, with peak oil and climate change both looming on the horizon, Eyjafjallajökull makes us reflect on what a world with less air travel might look like.

In that context, I wanted to recommend a very interesting post by Victoria Johnson at the New Economics Foundation:

While the aviation industry morns losses in revenue of over £130 million each day, and discussions emerge about the potential government bailout for an already struggling industry, perhaps this is yet again, a symptom of a system that is on the brink of collapse.

Last week, leading science journal Nature published a paper (subscription required) which highlighted the vulnerability of highly interdependent infrastructure, and argued that we need to consider more ‘mutually dependent’ network properties if we are to design resilient systems. But not only should these systems be resilient, they also need to be low carbon and ensure that societal adaptive capacity is enhanced – so as a species, we are better equipped to deal with the next 50 years of climate change we already committed to.

Our ability to predict the future is limited by a number of factors. Models are limited representations of reality, constrained by our understanding of a complex system and computational power. And, while they may provide information on possible future outcomes, they are not a crystal ball. Second, against the background of larger-scale and long-term trends are ‘surprises’, such as extreme events, tipping points and unknown unknowns. This means that adaptation of society needs to recognise that while some actions can be planned for, the best option is to increase system resilience and reduce vulnerability.

As they say, go read the whole thing.

NB: Previous commentary and discussion on LP here and here.

In the energy space, the big deal is a bunch of new funding for large-scale demonstration projects for both solar and geosequestration in comparable amounts – 1.5 billion over six years to the solar industry, 2 billion over nine years to geosequestration. John Hepburn at Rooted argues the value-for-money case for the solar investment, on the basis that the solar demonstration projects will deliver “…1GW of real, emissions free power within the next 6 years. Wheras the larger investment in CCS will support the development of demonstration projects over 9 years.” CCS research does indeed need to start poohing or be pushed off the government funding pot, but Hepburn is overselling the current state of the renewable energy sector. That 1GW of capacity might be “real” (if only delivered a few hours a day), but it will be very expensive, unreliable, and – until energy storage technology improves – only available when the sun shines, not when the power is wanted. Until these issues are sorted, the contribution of solar energy to Australia’s power grid will remain limited to little more than demonstration levels anyway. Incidentally, solar thermal is highly unlikely to ever be cheaper than Australian coal-fired power (ignoring externalities), because if the fuel is free and at the power plant, most of the rest of the cost is the steam turbine and generator. Guess what – a solar thermal plant needs the exact same steam turbine and generator.

In any case, for what it’s worth I strongly question the policy (as distinct from political) merits of singling out the solar industry for help. While my little investment, Geodynamics, has managed to bugger things up again, it’s just one of a number of alternative sources of renewable energy that can be turned on and off when required, not when the wind deigns to blow or the sun deigns to shine. Why not throw the money for demonstration projects open to the entire renewables sector and see what ideas turn up?

The budget starts taking on a distinctly camouflage mottled hue, unfortunately, when you examine the transport funding plans. On the green side of things there are substantial investments proposed for urban rail pretty much everywhere except NSW. However, the freight rail sector seems to have largely missed out. While there is a reasonable chunk of funding to the Australian Rail Track Corporation, most of that goes to funding infrastructure to export coal from the Hunter. By contrast, there’s roads going everywhere.

Aside from shifting coal around, it seems that the government still believes that the best way to shift goods around Australia is to unload them at the docks and throw them on trucks hurtling down freeways. Pity.

The ad features Laurence Springborg declaring his pride in presiding over the formation of “the LNP” as the first step towards “change in Queensland”. Said change will include things to do with schools, employment, housing and hospitals, and also making Queensland a place “where roads are planned for future growth”.

Two interesting things strike me about the advertisement.

One is that the full party name is never uttered. We hear the acronym “LNP” spoken by Sprongborg and in the authorisation at the conclusion. We see the LNP logo in the ad and the LNP initials in the authorisation. But we neither hear nor see the words “Liberal” or “National”. This raises the question of how to account for this omission. One hypothesis is that the aim is to avoid reminding so-called “Beattie Liberals” in metropolitan south-east Queensland that a vote for the LNP is a vote for the Nationals. Perhaps, however, it’s to avoid reminding “Hanson Nationals” in rural and regional Queensland that a vote for the LNP is a vote for the Liberals. Perhaps it’s both.

The other striking omission is any reference to anything to do with the environment, including policies on climate change and water security. Instead, the LNP will make Queensland a place “where roads are planned for future growth” – meaning more cars and more pollution, with no thought given to how much, if any, “future growth” in Queensland is prudent, feasible or sustainable. This projects an image of a party in which the “development as usual” (or, in Queensland, “development as it used to be usual”, greenhouse denialist hard Right is, literally and figuratively, in the driver’s seat.

Here are some images licenced under Creative Commons from flickr. Two aren’t actually of the most recent storms, but for those who aren’t used to a classic Brisbane storm, they might provide a bit of a lightning flash of illumination. Over at Circulating Library, there are also some contemporary photos to look at. Taking photos might be a tad risky, actually, as one of the two deaths from the storms has been a young man who unwisely tried to photograph a stormwater drain at Chermside on Sunday night. Via Stilgherrian, you can also have a squizzy at archived radar images of last night’s storms here. When I checked at around 5pm it was impossible to get on to the BOM site to check tonight’s storms on their way, and the site also couldn’t cope with the traffic just after the ABC weather at the end of the news.

<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/brisbane-storm-1.jpg"

courtesy of Garry’

<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/brisbane-storm-2.jpg"

courtesy of supernicko

<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/brisbane-storm-3.jpg"

courtesy of Michael Henderson

We’ve been fairly lucky here at New Farm – although getting off the bus just before I experienced the hail and the alarums and the torrential downpour and the water rushing down the streets first hand. Things have been fairly tough for folks in The Gap and now Paddington and some of the other Western suburbs, and other parts of South East Queensland, particularly around Ipswich where the Bremer River is at levels not seen since the 1974 floods. Most people I talked to today had a story about the downpour that hit at around 1am last night, and a lot of people seem to have slept very badly… but certainly one of the outcomes of these sort of events is a little more chatting to and smiling at people in the neighbourhood than happens routinely.

The authorities appear to have been responding well – much better in many ways than the last (isolated) freak storm in 2004. But given the flooding of the inner city bypass tunnel and also the closure due to flooding of the King George Square bus station this morning which had me and a friend hiking up to Roma Street station to get the bus to CI at QUT, Campbell Newman might like to reconsider the tunnel obsession. Contingency plans for transport don’t appear to have been ideal, and again – I’m as little of an engineer as I am a climatologist, but you do have to wonder whether the design of recent transport infrastructure really anticipated what occurs when heavy rain falls. It might not happen with the rather ominous regularity and intensity we’ve seen over the last few days and nights, but we are in the subtropics after all. My flatmate and I were just discussing how well our building – put up as were so many New Farm apartment houses in the 1960s by Italians – has coped. We’re of the view that the garages would have been flooded had it not for basically very well thought out design.

There are no doubt tons of links and stories around, but I’d be very interested in local people’s stories, and any photos and personal blogs people might have seen or written. Anyway, fingers crossed that if we are hit by another wave of water late tonight, it doesn’t add too much to the wreckage and destruction a lot of people are already coping with.