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Climate Emergency Summit 04: Psychology and Feeling

February 18, 2020

Having briefly discussed the lack of political interest in the emergency, we can now look at general psychological issues, which hinder our response.

There are two strong features in the psychology of our responses to the climate emergency, which came out at the Summit.

Firstly recognition of the emergency presents us with an existential crisis. Acts that were praiseworthy and brought success, can now be perceived as harmful. Going along as we have been going along does not make sense. Indeed, most of what we do in our lives does not make sense. Consumerism is destructive, travel can be destructive, expanding growth can be destructive, seeking profit can be destructive, and so on. The expansion of self into the globe is potentially destructive, yet the alternative of narrow racist nationalism, lack of world wide commerce and interaction seems equally destructive. The forms of meaning within which our lives are embedded, seem fragile, and provide no guidance for life. This is psychologically disruptive and disorienting.

Secondly, our political rule of action is neoliberalism and ‘free market’ theory. Neoliberalism does not work in the way it is supposed to, as markets become subject to power-in-the-market through oligopoly (when a few corporations control a particular market) and plutocracy (rule by wealth in general). Markets are never free. Changing from this set of presecriptions for the world, is difficult because it is so entangled with our systems of power, order and suppression. It is inherently used to rejecting, or co-opting, challenges to its rule, rather than listening to information it regards as hostile.

One of the many problems of neoliberalism is that it reduces almost everything to numbers that refer to money and profit. This means that, as a directive, if an action brings established companies profit (especially if of low personal risk to highlevel managers), then it must be done, and also that whole realms of human experience become demoted and ignored, unless they can be manipulated to get people to attack those people who are suspicious of neoliberalism. This includes any recognition of a complex psychology, or even of feeling itself. Let alone our dependence on ecology.

These two factors means that our main social habits, patterns of life, patterns of power, ease of getting on with others, sense of meaning, ways of interpreting reality, and so on, lead us to deny the seriousness of the climatic situation and suppress awareness of our pain in relationship to the changes going on around us; the mass death, the burning, the strange weather, the threat of what is to come. Awareness brings pain and dislocation. We cannot be completely unaware of the crisis, nowadays, without a degree of effort, or without attempts to blame others for our pain. Humans are good at denial, and it can be useful up to a point. But in this case it is helping to perpetuate our own destruction, and suppress our selves as manifested in our feelings and understandings.

There is a possibility that we are encouraged in this response, precisely because the neoliberal life is so psychologically unsatisfying that we do not value ourselves, or that we actually might enjoy the release of the destruction of this narrow life. Destruction might satisfy our hatred of ourselves, the way we live, and our sense of confinement.

The crisis is frightening in itself, but when tied to these other factors can be overwhelming, so the desire to live peacefully, with equinamity, perhaps in the ‘spirit’ can also lead to suppression of information about the crisis, the feelings associated with it, and constructive discussion about it.

Indeed the media and the political Right have generally tried to stop recognition of climate crisis, and to turn climate change into a subject people are too frightened to talk about. People feel they will be attacked, humiliated, or inadequate. They may think the science is too complicated and they may get it wrong, or they would not know what is inncorrect in someone else’s assertion. Even the most open news sources may undermine their own articles on climate change by finishing with doubt. Or media may portray a heatwave with pictures of people at the beach, rather than people in ambulances. This lack of public conversation, and recognition of helps make climate emergency seem an intractable problem, and reinforces the idea that there is a real debate about whether climate change is happening, or whether it is humanly caused.

Even the climate movement seems generally ‘afraid’ of feelings, apparently thinking that fear or grief, for example, will lead people astray; but these feelings are a non-detachable part of human response to the crisis, and if ignored will undermine the work we do.

As Margaret Klein Salomon argued at the Summit, fear tells us to protect ourselves and those we value; it can move us into action. Fear is a warning and fear can be a fuel. If you are not frightened of climate change then you are not really alive – at the best you are probably suppressing your awareness of the situation we are in, and thus not reacting to it appropriately.

She went on to argue that grief also tends to be locked out, yet many of us grieve for the world we have lost, the animals, ecosystems and people who have been destroyed or severely injured. Grief is an expression of love and fellow feeling. We grieve because the loss matters, and because we feel the connection that has gone. By feeling the grief we feel, we are taking in the truth of the situation, and opening our way to something new. This world is dying, but with recogition of grief, we can start to build a new one.

Sally Gillespie suggests that discussing our feelings and understandings with like minded people, in places which are safe, furthers our ability to act, and overcomes the sense of isolation which is encouraged by the media and the Right. Simply listening to others and recognising these feelings can give people a sense of their own solidity and reality, and of the possibility of action. It makes the crisis real, and the possibility of response real.

The facts of climate change can be overwhelming, we can zone out when hearing them, and we need to acknowledge the feelings that arise so that we can process the information and its connection to our daily lives. Without these forms working together and acknowledging feelings and problems, we can enter a cycle of individual disconnection which reinforces established powers and destructive patterns. We are ecologies as much as we live in an ecology, and we need to acknowledge this reality.

Listening to reality and to others, implies the importance of listening to those things we are unconscious of, which we may find in fantasies and more particularly in dreams. Dreams themselves are modes of perception. Learning to live with these modes of awareness is vital to our response and to our psychological health, as we deal with the crisis which our society would rather did not exist.

Denying and suppressing feelings and distress takes energy, quite a lot of energy in muscle tension amongst other things. When we are able to acknowledge the feelings and share them with others so they seem normal and we can come to accept them and let them flow (rather than try to hold them in place), then we have a lot more energy with which to do things with, including protest and political (and other) action against climate change. We become alive again, and can honour life.

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Climate Emergency Summit 03: Political disinterest

February 16, 2020

Previously I discussed what needs to be done in the Emergency, now we discuss the lack of political interest.

We have to understand how little interest there is amongst the political class at Federal or State level, in solving, or even recognising the emergency – which is one reason why we might have to work outside of Parliament, maybe at the local council level. As far as I can see there were only two current Australian Federal politicians present, and few State politicians. Although there were numbers of people from local councils, and from the ACT.

Perhaps politicians think that acknowledging the presence of an ’emergency’ would make them look weak or panic driven? Certainly they know it would leave them open to attack from the Murdoch Empire and the Minerals Council and probably the Business Council, and that this three pronged attack would not be comfortable. In some cases it may not be survivable….

Adam Bandt, the new leader of the Greens, remarked that when people brought the remains of their homes in protest to Canberra, they were largely ignored. The government continued to pretend it was acting to make things better while actively trying to make things worse.

When Greg Mullins, a former fire chief, was talking to people in his field, before the current fires, he found they all said the changes were worse than the predictions. There has been close to a 20% reduction in rain; the winter rains do not come; the season for hazard reduction burning is shortening; the gaps between major fires is shortening; and the fire season is lengthening at both ends. Fire fighters in different states could previously share resources, because the fires in one state would happen when it was not burning in another state, now the fires are pretty much continuous leaving no respite. In the current fires, areas can burn several times, which is almost unheard of previously, hindering the process of regeneration; usual fires leave islands of bush in which plants and animals shelter, these fires did not. They tried several times to get discussions with the PM, but he refused and, as we all know, went on holiday in the middle of the fires. When they did finally get a meeting with a minister, the minister rushed to a press conference to say the government was already acting and had done enough already… Mullins said that as soon as they mentioned climate change these older ‘chiefs’ were branded as activists, and as of no worth. The Murdoch Empire news sheet The Australian tried to emphasise that the group was funded by the Evil alarmist Tim Flannery and the Climate Council. A volunteer fire fighter who complained about the Prime Minster on Television, because he had seen so much loss, was dismissed from the Rural Fire Service. That is how politicised the Coalition has made the issue, and how dismissive they are.

SM’s only solution to the crisis is for us all to adapt, or get used to it, as the satiric Australien Government ads suggest. It is not possible to get used to, or adapt to, 25m sea level rises and dying land; anyone who thinks we can do this without massive planning is either lying or without imagination, so its not surprising they can’t think of solutions…

Even more to the point is that PM Morrison’s staff members are often heavily associated with the fossil fuel industry, business-favouring denial is right in his office, and we know the Coalition will not support a Federal ICAC, and Labor are reluctant.

Labor is little better. Some people describe the last election as the climate election, but Labor hardly explained its climate policy let alone emphasised it, was ambiguous about the Adani mine, promoted fracking in the NT, and allowed Morrison to get away with claiming his government was acting. After the election, Labor seemed to spend most of its time defending coal mining and the new leader dropped Labor’s 2030 targets, but that is not enough for some of his party who seem convinced that they lost because they were perceived as being anti-fossil fuels.

It also shows willful refusal to face the problems. A refusal which is contemptible and cowardly.

****

In explaining the term ’emergency’ in ‘climate emergency’ Adam Bandt argued that we declare an emergency to safe lives. Ambulance workers and fire fighters are emergency workers. We could not live without them. An emergency does not always require a war.

As well as looking at the obvious fact that politicians seem controlled by factions of the corporate elite, who reward their lack of interest, there are also psychological factors which could be involved.

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Climate Emergency Summit 02: Action?

February 16, 2020

Part 1 of this discussion deals with the current state of the world and what the emergency looks like. We can now move on to what constitutes an adequate response.

The minimum actions seem to be something like the following. How they are organised is a political question which is vital, but open for discussion.

Firstly we need to stop all new fossil fuel mines and exploration. We almost certainly won’t do this, because of the power of fossil fuel companies and the (dis)information they disperse, and because some people cannot imagine life without fossil fuels, but it’s absolutely necessary. More fossil fuels will only make the situation worse.

This means no Adani mine, and no Clive Palmer mine. We apparently have plans for another 50-80 coal mines in Australia and even more new gas wells. This stops, Now. Personally I don’t think there should be any compensation for this. These companies were trying to profit from our destruction, so I have little pity for their loss, and we need all our resources to help the transition, but that is not my decision – that is part of the political process.

All existing fossil fuel mines need to be phased out over the next ten years. For the purposes of climate change, it is irrelevant whether these materials are burnt overseas or here. They have to be stopped.

We immediately start building, as public works, a grid that is capable of handling renewable energy and connecting new sources of energy to its markets. We also make it possible to directly transmit generated energy from a rooftop to another building without having to use the grid; this will make community energy developments much easier. The actual building of solar and wind farms can be left to companies or preferably communities, as there seems considerable will to build these.

We begin to reduce emissions in all fields (energy, transport, industry, building, agriculture etc) to zero by 2030. We start by phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, and by having a carbon price that rises every year in a predictable manner. We phase out ‘natural gas’ through renewably generated hydrogen and ammonia for transportation of the hydrogen. The hydrogen or ammonia can act as storage, along with weights, batteries etc. We mandate that all new buildings should have 7* energy efficiency by the end of this decade, exploring energy efficiency as best we can, and make sure regenerative agriculture becomes the norm. We may need to increase all taxes to raise money for action and research. At the minimum, no company should trade here and not pay tax on their local income.

People may say that being planned this is not going to deliver things as well as the market, but the market alone shows no signs of delivering what we need within the time frame in which we need it. The market is one of the factors which has generated the problem and it has failed to generate a solution. This does not mean we destroy the market, we just provide better parameters for it to function in. Parameters which are not determined by fossil fuel companies.

All the workers in these fields need to feel and perceive there is a progression to a new stable financially comparable and interesting employment. This will require more planning.

We need to engage in drawdown, not to offset burning fossil fuels, but to remove existing emissions from the air. Regenerative agriculture, biochar and massive tree replanting (that is not just planting the same tree over and over, but planting ecologically appropriate distributions of trees and bushes) might be useful here, as will be bans on land clearing and clear felling. We also need massive investment in research into carbon removal and reuse, as current tech is nowhere near adequate.

Drawdown, even to preindustrial levels, may not be sufficient. If the ice caps have melted enough then the world will be warmer and may not shift back into cooling fast enough. In which case we may need to do solar radiation management; that is cooling the earth by reflecting light back into space. This is dangerous with unintended consequences almost certain to arise. It requires worldwide co-ordination, and some plan to compensate those who end up worse off than previously. It is not to be contemplated before all other methods are found to fail and a time limit should be set for its use and slow withdrawal.

We almost certainly need to plan for migration inland resulting from sea level rises, and to protect coastal cities, towns and infrastructure where possible (nothing much is possible if we don’t prevent the 25 m rise). We almost certainly will need to have huge flexible and well equipped emergency services. And we will need to organise people to protect and tend changing eco-systems.

These requirements are truly massive in terms of preparation and expense (probably overwhelming) and we will not be able to protect everything. However the problem needs to be acknowledged, so we can do our best in advance, and it should create plenty of jobs.

The difficulties of such a project are enormous and possibly insurmountable. But the neoliberal elites from Keating onwards have derailed any attempts to solve these problems previously, and have politicised these problems in order to carry out their prime directive of making corporate power and hierarchy safe by destroying the power of ordinary people to affect their corporate overlords. In the long term, they have failed. In twenty to thirty years, without action of the kind discussed here, the whole economy will be falling apart and that includes the corporate sector, not to mention the billions who will suffer and die as a result of that refusal to act. If we had been able to start 30 years ago, we might not be needing this kind of ‘excessive’ action now.

This is not an exaggerated bid to gain action, it is a minimum bid for what is needed. Going still further would be better.

It is unlikely the State will go with these proposals, so we will have to work outside the State and build a new participatory democracy from the grass roots up. Some people will argue that the project violates their rights. But if we don’t have a working ecology, and a functional society, then no one will have rights. If we do nothing, we face dictatorship as the Corporate State tries to enforce its rule in a crumbling war torn world.

However if the best we are offered is 2050 targets (as, in Australia, with Zali Steggall’s Bill) then we should go with them, and press further. Anything serious is better than nothing. Even if it won’t work, it will get people thinking about what we need to do, and that might make the dangers clearer than if people keep running away from them in the hope that they personally will be special enough to escape the consequences.

This is a hard set of demands, which will not encourage unity. But it is extremely difficult to have unity with climate change deniers, after all they are seeking a unity in denial of the challenges and in flight from the challenges. However, as Zali Steggall said at the summit, as an athlete you live with failure: you have to be prepared to put it all on the line, and sometimes you will fail and sometimes it will be wonderful.

Part 3: The lack of political interest in the Emergency

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Climate Emergency Summit 01: Position

February 16, 2020

The Summit in Melbourne demonstrated the way that mainstream politics on climate action is nearly delusional. Mainstream politics basically denies the seriousness of the situation.

Firstly, and this is my opinion obviously, the fires all over the world in the last two years have not only released heaps of excess Greenhouse gases (GHG) into the atmosphere, making our situation leap into the next bracket of bad, but we already have record temperatures all over the world, and more importantly, the melting of the permafrost. This melting will release stored methane, another GHG, and this release will further increase the warming and rate of warming. We are now going into a phase in which natural processes are accelerating human induced warming. The Amazon has apparently become so messed up it is turning from a carbon sink into a carbon source, and this transformation in damaged forest is not rare. Melting of the Antarctic and Greenland land ice, has already begun, and the melting once started, and accelerated by the extra GHG release, will be hard to stop and will increase ‘exponentially’; that is it will start off slow and rapidly accelerate. We can expect a sea level rise of 25 to 50 metres in a fairly small timeframe – probably within a human life time. For reference, 25 m is about a seven story building. Speeds of melting seem massively underestimated in the older literature – it was not supposed to have started yet.

I could expect, with the situation continuing to worsen, that we might even get a couple of metres of rise in the next 10 to 15 years. Most big cities are on the coast, and large populations are also coastal. Billions of people will be dispossessed all around the world. Few countries will be safe as the waters continue to rise. The stress of flooded cities and loss of fertile land, with the sea gradually getting higher, will destroy economies, destroy supply chains and destroy residencies. Even if the displaced people can get to refugee camps, then there will be no organisation, as countries and corporations will be using their resources elsewhere to hold themselves together. Even those people who live above 50 m above sea level will feel the cascading destructions.

Many places in the world will become uninhabitable with a three degree rise. Parts of Australia are already approaching uninhabitable, after a mere one degree, because of the tendency to have strings of really high temperature days with no breaks and no rain – this can kill even the most resilient plant life.

On top of this, we can expect the recurrence of hugely destructive storms and floods, as well as droughts, as the climate system struggles to find equilibrium. It cannot find equilibrium while we keep increasing the stress in the climate systems. This weather will clearly add to the stress on our social systems and our abiilty to be resilient, or make useful change. Insurance bills seem to be mounting, which marks increased destruction.

The current mass extinction is another problem. Collapsing biodiversity will affect all surviving living systems including those of agriculture. Given the change in climate as well, we can expect very different biosystems to begin to start existing around us. This will mean new diseases and new spreads of old diseases.

Tropical disease will move into the first world. Heat stroke is a major cause of death indirectly through heart attacks and so on. At the summit, representatives of the AMA announced they believe that global warming will be catastrophic for human health. On top of this the disorder will promote the collapse of the medical system; hospitals may be underwater, or without power and supplies. You, your children, your siblings, spouse and your parents are more likely to die of avoidable disease if climate change runs away.

The threat is huge. Climate change is no longer in the future but here now and going to get worse.

Given the situation we have described, targets which are to be achieved by 2050 are almost a waste of time. Indeed 2050 targets can be primarily seen as a way of doing nothing now. By 2050 we will be deep into a deadly disorganisation of enforced change. While the disruption will not be reaching its peak by then, it is still extremely likely to be society destroying.

The targets need to start being visibly implemented now, and we need to start carbon dioxide drawdown now. The GHGs we already have in the air are going to increase warming. There is a delay in the effects; how much is hard to predict, but even if we stopped all emissions tomorrow we are still not past the worst consequences of what we have already set in motion – Michael Mann thought it was likely that we are already locked into a 10 m sea level rise. If you try to stop a passenger liner just by turning the engines off, it will still keep going forward.

The next post describes how we probably need to act….

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More on Energy Policy: Consequences

February 11, 2020

The previous post discussed the incoherencies of Australian energy policy. This post discusses the consequences of that incoherence.

Two relatively straightforward consequences of this mess, are, that emissions reduction is failing, largely because of policy issues.

[I]ndustry emissions (excluding electricity) have risen to 60% cent above 2005 levels behind increases in the Oil & Gas (621% increase), Road Transport (122%), Aviation (54%) and Mining (41%) sectors….

Emissions from the industrial sector will surpass electricity as Australia’s largest emitting sector in 2023-24, with companies free to increase their ‘emissions baselines’ under the government’s Safeguard Mechanism scheme.

RenewEconomy 12th Feb 2020 a

And, it appears that, in NSW, more expensive gas production is displacing cheaper coal and solar, due to internal market factors. As the reporters remark:

While more remains to be done to understand this in detail, prima facie this is yet another instance of the exercise of market power by the coal generation oligopoly in New South Wales.

RenewEconomy 12th Feb b

The incoherence of policy is also starting to bite into investment in Renewables, and it is quite possible it was intended that way, but it could have been an unexpected consequence of incoherence. Who can tell?

The level of new investment commitments in large-scale renewable energy projects has collapsed by more than 50 per cent according to new analysis by the Clean Energy Council which reveals a fall from 51 projects worth $10.7 billion in 2018 down to 28 projects worth $4.5 billion in 2019.

Clean Energy Council Chief Executive Kane Thornton said mounting regulatory risks, under investment in transmission and policy uncertainty have contributed to increased risks for investors and resulted in a lowering in confidence and slow-down in investment commitment….

The top reasons for a decline in investor confidence was due to grid connection issues, a lack of strong national energy and climate policy and network congestions and constraints.

Clean Energy Council 30 Jan

As the Clean Energy Council suggests, one of the fundamental problems is lack of working electricity grid, which is certainly influenced by energy policy. As a consequence, The Australian Energy Market Operator has warned of long queues for connection. The gird in some parts of Australia is massively fragile. This may be resolved by the AEMO’s Integrated System Plan, but the earliest this is likely to be built is in 2026 or 2027. So it may take seven years before some new projects can connect to the grid. What this does for investment, should be clear to nearly everyone.

The CEO of AGL remarked that although battery technology was improving rapidly, was cheaper than pumped hydro and will compete with gas peaking plants, fewer renewable energy projects would go ahead because of the costs and economics of connection. “There is a struggle for new projects, there is a struggle to get on, and they are struggling to maintain forecast loss factors… A lot of renewable energy is getting choked.”

There are forces pushing renewable companies out of the market.

One of the biggest contractors and constructors of large-scale solar farms in Australia, the listed constructing giant Downer Group, has signaled a dramatic exit from the solar business, saying it is too hard.

[The CEO said:]

“Developers, contractors and bankers all struggle to come to terms with the risk of large power loss factors, grid stability problems, connection problems, and equipment performance issue”

RenewEconomy 12 Feb 2020

Other companies are also having problems with the complications of the rules around connection and moving out of the field.

“To say this is a significant blow to investors is a major understatement,” said David Shapero, managing director of the Australian arm of German renewable energy developer BayWa r.e., which has one solar farm in Victoria forced to operate at half capacity since September and a second that was due to come online in October but is lying idle. “In the end, we have invested around $300 million in two solar farms and we’re getting returns on half a solar farm.”

Australian Financial Review 24 Feb 2020

Mr Shapero continued, to indicate that inadequate and old regulations were the main problem:

“There is no doubt that AEMO understand the issues. They have very good leadership. But there’s also no doubt AEMO needs assistance from government, other regulators, and the industry to put in place immediate, small changes to the rules.

“These small changes will allow them to ensure such issues don’t occur in the first place, and give them much greater control to manage the transition.”

as above.

Senior economic journalist John Kehoe, who again is not left-wing, generalises the problem to almost the whole economy:

The uncertainty and unpredictable energy market regulatory interventions by the government are contributing to business investment falling to its weakest share of the economy since the early-1990s recession.

Australian Financial Review 22 Feb 2020

Meanwhile the NSW government and the Federal Government are planning to fast track evaluations of three projects under the federal Coalition’s Underwriting New Generation Investment program. This agreement includes:

  • extension of the Vales Point coal generator 
  • ensuring sufficient coal supplies for the Mt Piper coal generator near Lithgow, to keep it going to 2042.
  •  a gas plant in Port Kembla
  • pumped hydro scheme in the state’s North
  • work on the grid in exchange for more gas production.

They also are trying to keep the Liddell coal fired energy generator going beyond its planned 2023 closure date which would cost $300m for three years. It is now likely that it will cost more to keep the power station operating than can be recovered in operating profits. It is not clear who would be paying this money.

Vales point gives further information about how business works in NSW. In November 2015, the NSW Government sold Vales Point Power Station to Sunset Power International for $1 million – less than the price of many suburban houses. In 2017 the site was valued at $730 million. The company bought back the shareholdings and the investors received a great cash pay out.

The shareholders are companies associated with Trevor St Baker who controls more than 25 per cent of ERM Power Limited, which purchases power from Vales Point, and which has contracts to supply the NSW Government with electricity. So the NSW government sells a station, used to provide it with power, at a bargain price and then buys power from it, making a fortune for those who invested. That seems like a sensible energy policy.

To make the power station cheap, the NSW government said it would close in 2021, but still sold it massively under the normal commercial rates. And now, the supposed closure date is being ignored, and it may be (according to the Daily Telegraph 14 Feb 2020 “Coal’s $11m turbo charge”) that at least $11m dollars of taxpayers’ money is being used to provide a turbine upgrade and high pressure heaters. This is how the free market works in practice.

This may also be more than government stupidity and policy incoherence, if it was, then why keep supporting the problem?

Nevertheless, the trends are clear. Have policy to make life difficult for investors in renewable energy, and life easy for investors in coal.

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Confusion in Australian Energy Policy….

February 10, 2020

This is a two part post. News from the last week helps capture the total confusion and incoherence of Australian energy policy. The first post discusses the incoherences and the second discusses the consequences of those incoherences.

Firstly, Australian electricity prices are falling. This is supposed to be of great concern to the Coalition government, which campaigns heavily on the idea of cheap electricity, and of blaming renewables, or a repealed carbon price, for any price increases…

However the reason the prices appear to be coming down is because of renewables…

In its Quarterly Energy Dynamics report for the fourth quarter of 2019, the Australian Energy Market Operator says spot wholesale electricity prices averaged $A72/megawatt hour (MWh), marking a 19 per cent fall from Q4 2018, and the lowest prices since Q4 2016….

The market operator said that a “key driver” of this fall in spot prices was increased supply from wind farms and solar farms, whose combined output increased by a massive 39 per cent compared to Q4 2018.

The largest fall in price occurred in the renewable rich state of South Australia, “where the average price for the quarter was $68/MWh”

The Energy Security Board, which reports to the Council of Australian Governments is expecting further price reductions:

Looking forward a downward trend in retail prices is noted. Over the period to 2021-22 a decrease in prices of 7.1% (about $97) is expected. A decrease in wholesale prices is the main driver and this decrease is in turn driven by new low-cost renewable generation entering the system.

ESB Health of the National Electricity Market Media Release

There were also a large number of coal outages in 2019 – we have old coal power stations which are unreliable in the heat – so much for the stability of coal power. The system used to collapse quite regularly when the generators where young as well, as many older people can tell you. What is worrying about the breakdowns is not the breakdowns of the old lignite fired power stations, but of the most recent and biggest power station, built in 2007, Kogan Creek. These collapses, and other factors, lead the AEMO to say:

black coal-fired generation around the country decreased by 1,061MW on average compared to Q4 2018, its lowest quarterly level since Q4 2016

So more black coal is not needed all the time, even now. Gas can also be problematic. RenewEconomy reports:

Origin [a major electricity provider] has been hit by a long-term outage at its Mortlake gas generator in Victoria, and at its Eraring coal generator in NSW. These outages alone slashed $44 million from its first half earnings, while a 7 per cent slump in volumes due to the growth of rooftop solar and expired business contracts cut profits by $46 million, and price controls in Victoria and federally cost another $55 million.

Renew Economy 20 Feb 2020

This apparently cost Origin $170 million in electricity earnings, an overall drop of 11% for second half of 2019.

There was so much renewable energy around, that not only did it reduce profits for some corporations, but prices were occasionally negative and some renewable sources were told to curtail production.

[R]enewable energy curtailment across the National Electricity Market – the main grid covering the eastern states – increased to 6 per cent of total output in Q4 2019, the highest amount on record.

With typical realism, former minister Matt Canavan (who left the ministry to support Barnaby Joyce’s leadership bid) declared that “Renewables are the dole bludgers of the energy system, they only turn up to work when they want to“. The reality is that they have to sometimes be laid off to keep the coal energy industry in business. He continued to argue that Australia apparently needs coal for our remaining manufacturing. Supporting manufacturing has not been something the Coalition has been that interested in for a while.

As the article quoted above states, it is close to “impossible to name a single federal Coalition MP that recognises the potential of wind and solar”, even with the latest research from the CSIRO and AEMO stating that renewables with storage are cheaper than coal, and far cheaper than nuclear. Some other research suggests storage and “dispatchability” could potentially no longer be a problem; a report from the ANU states that there are around 22,000 potential pumped hydro storage sites in Australia, and Professor Blakers from the ANU Research School of Engineering says:

“Australia needs only a tiny fraction of these sites for pumped hydro storage – about 450 GWh of storage – to support a 100 per cent renewable electricity system…”

There are large scale plans to sell renewable energy generated in Australia to Singapore, or to generate hydrogen gas and export it instead of methane (especially in South Australia), but the Federal government appears to ignore these ideas, or realities. Coal is still its god, and needs taxpayer support. So it is not surprising that:

The Australian Coalition government has announced a new $4 million grant to pursue a new 1GW coal fired generator in north Queensland in one of the first acts of the new pro-coal resources minister Keith Pitt.

Taxpayers’ money is being given to Shine Energy to conduct a feasibility study for a proposed 1GW HELE coal plant at Collinsville in Queensland.

Let’s ignore the probability that Northern Queensland already has more energy than it needs.

“The problem is it makes little commercial sense to build more generation in Queensland at the moment. The state is in oversupply. Queensland’s 13GW of conventional generation has been augmented over the last decade by more than 5GW of new rooftop solar and large-scale renewables. There’s more on the way”.

Australian Financial Review

Richard Denniss of the Australia Institute commented:

there is absolutely no evidence suggesting that marginal electorates are the cheapest or best places to build new power stations. …

The former resources minister Matt Canavan even pulled out the schoolyard defence of ‘they started it’, arguing on Twitter that: “I see some are saying that we should not help coal-fired power stations provide jobs because we should leave it to the market. Well if that’s the view be consistent and argue against the billions we give to renewables every year!”….

First, no federal government has spent billions per year on subsidies for renewables. None. While it’s true that the government mandates that minimum amounts of renewable energy are supplied to the grid, such obligations don’t cost the budget a cent.

Australian Financial Review 24 Feb 2020

Denniss also points out that:

Only one coal-fired power station is being built anywhere in Western Europe, North America or Australia; a German plant that is nine years overdue. Even in Trump’s America, no coal-fired power stations are under construction.

as above

What this grant to Shine shows is that nobody is prepared to even look at building coal power in Australia without subsidy. Just as Adani is constantly demanding subsidy for its coal mine (free water, royalty holidays, train lines, apart from straight money gifts), and this mine is unlikely to benefit any Australians at all, and likely to damage a few.

We now know:

The only physical trace of Shine Energy, which wants to build a $2bn coal-fired power station in north Queensland, is a small post office box next to an Asian grocer at a suburban Brisbane shopping complex…. 

Company documents show Shine Energy is worth a nominal $1,000 on paper. It has no registered financial obligations, and no physical office at its listed address.

On its website, Shine describes its business as providing “renewable energy solutions”, but the company could offer no evidence that it or its directors…. has ever previously worked on an energy generation project.

The Guardian 29 Feb 2020

Superficially, this looks like a strange company to entrust with the task.

The PM justified all of this by saying “We listen to all Australians and we listen to Australians right across the country, not just those in the inner city.” I suspect they only listen to Australians who sponsor them, or agree with them, after all “60% of a sample of 1,083 voters believes Australia should be doing more” and 64% of another poll see climate change as the prime critical threat to Australia, and most of them think we should act even if it involves significant costs. Quite a few people, including Coalition voters, think their lack of climate policy is problematic.

And of course this spending on coal is being justified as it will “help drive down prices for businesses and their customers.” The Prime Minister apparently said: “we won’t be bullied into higher taxes and higher electricity prices.” Barnaby Joyce argued that the government needs to ensure that “the poor people can get affordable power, and that we can get dignity in people’s lives.”

However, prices are already going down without coal, and coal emissions will have disastrous effects on poorer people in fire and flood zones – they won’t be able to afford the insurance hikes. No one in the Coalition seems at all concerned about the cost to the ecology in terms of climate change. The future costs of the loss of agriculture, loss of water and through storm, flood and fire damage appears completely opaque to them. It does not count. Effectively fossil fuels are being subsidised by ignoring the costs that will fall on ordinary people and the economy in general.

We already have problems of too much energy for the market, subsidised coal will not solve that problem, and if it is more costly to build, then without even more taxpayer subsidy, it will cost more and pollute more, and take more water and damage climate even more. Coal is a loose/loose situation.

And then we learn that:

Renewable Energy Partners has been given $2 million in funds from the Coalition government to advance a feasibility study into a project that would combine 1.5GW of pumped hydro, with seven hours storage, along with up to 1.3GW of solar PV, 800MW of wind energy and a 200MW hydrogen electrolyser, fuelled by the green energy sources.

The CEO states:

“Our initial studies have already shown that our site is well suited for solar generation, the topography is ideal for the construction of a large-scale wind farm and a recent study by the Australian Energy Market Operator has confirmed the need for a large pumped hydro facilities in North Queensland, the Urannah Renewable Hub is the battery of the north,” 

There is no evidence of coherency in this policy. The government could strongly point out that they are trying to find the best system, by linking or comparing the projects, but they don’t and probably can’t.

The government has also apparently started leaking that it would prefer to “favour technology over taxation” because, according to the PM:

“currently no one can tell me that going down that path won’t cost jobs, won’t put up your electricity prices, and won’t impact negatively on jobs in the economies of rural and regional Australia.” 

PM Transcript 18 Feb 2020

We have seen electricity prices seem to be coming down and the CSIRO working with other people such as the National Bank and other businesses (so this is not some ‘crazy’ left wing report) have argued:

Australia faces a Slow Decline if it takes no action on the most significant economic, social and environmental challenges. But, if these challenges are tackled head on, Australia can look forward to a positive Outlook Vision. This could mean higher GDP per capita, ‘net zero’ greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, strong economic growth and energy affordability, and more liveable major cities

CSIRO Australian National Outlook 2019

They go on to suggest that this could lead to 2.75–2.8% annual growth in GDP (ok there are possible problems with this, but from the Coalition’s point of view this is good), 90% wages growth by 2060, and $42–84 billion increase in returns to landholders (Executive Summary p.9). This is much better than the option of failing to “adequately address the global and domestic issues, resulting in declining economic, social and environmental outcomes.” So the Prime Minister can’t really say that nobody has told him that going renewable would be good for the economy and the country.

The PM continues his argument by suggesting that:

There’s a lot of people at the moment wanting us to put more taxes on people to solve problems. I don’t believe higher taxes are the solution to our problems. 

PM Transcript 18 Feb 2020

He does not say who these people are, but another commentator in the not leftwing Australian Financial Review remarks:

far from being mutually exclusive, technology and a carbon price can be complementary in driving down emissions. …

without a market-based carbon price to incentivise lower emissions technology and private sector research and development, the government will resort to heavy-handed interventions to try to spur new emissions-reduction technology. It’s remarkable that on climate and energy policies, a Liberal government favours big government picking winners instead of market principles.

Australian Financial Review 22 Feb 2020

In a later speech the Prime Minister seems to assume that:

“hazard reduction for keeping people safe as, frankly, as important as emissions reduction when it comes to addressing these climate issues…. And, you know, rural and regional Australia is tough. They’re resilient. And it’s a great place to be.”

PM Transcript 17 Feb 2020

You almost certainly cannot reduce the hazard from 3-4 degree temperature rises and and sea level rises, enough to keep people safe.

Then we hear there are:

Record levels of investment in renewable technologies, beating our Kyoto emissions reduction target by 411 million tonnes. 

PM Transcript 17 Feb 2020 b

Ignoring the Kyoto accounting trick [2] [3] [4] [5] and its effects, in this statement, the government, with Labor support, are running down the finances of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, which helps fund the establishment of renewable energy systems and research into renewable energy. ARENA expects to exhaust its funds by the end of the year. This is simultaneous boasting of spending on renewables and inhibiting that spending. It is not coherent. Unless of course, by technology, they do not mean renewables, or greenhouse gas free technologies.

Indeed we have to assume that incoherency is the standard response of Australian politicians when faced with climate change. The Labor deputy leader responded to all this, by saying:

“I absolutely support coal mining jobs and coal miners, and the role that that plays within our economy, and it will continue to play a role for a long time to come,… [we should] acknowledge the significant role that coal miners play and the communities play within our economy” [but] “A Labor government is not going to put a cent into subsidising coal-fired power. And that is the practical question as to whether or not it happens”

Yes look after the workers, but don’t poison the planet. This is not a difficult idea; the climate movement has been talking about “just transitions” for a long time. A few days after this, Labor leader Anthony Albanese said, in response to questions about coal fired energy plants:

You may as well ask me if I support unicorns…. I don’t think there’s a place for coal-fired power plants in Australia, full stop… The truth is no private sector operation will touch a new coal-fired power plant with a barge pole

Canberra Times

However,

Business and industry groups are urging the government to commit to zero carbon emissions by 2050…. Mr Albanese refused to give a clear answer when pressed on whether Labor supported their calls, saying his party would cement their climate policies closer to the next federal election in 2022.

same as above

Later Mr Albanese objected to the proposal to give Shine Energy taxpayer’s money, saying:

“they are using $4m of taxpayers funds to give to a private operation that has no record of building a new power station anywhere”

However, he went on to support the Adani mine saying:

“It’s a good thing those jobs have been created. I support jobs regardless of where they are [and, he supports] and the economic activity that will arise from them…..Our priority is jobs and jobs here in Queensland, and we make no apologies for that.”

The Guardian

As I have argued on several occasions there are not that many jobs in the Adani mine, and there are severe disputes about the economic flow on benefits, especially granted the royalty holidays, taxpayer subsidies and risk of destroying water flows. It might be cheaper just to use the subsidies to start new local industries in Queensland to provide real jobs.

Late last year Albanese also said:

“the proposal that we immediately stop exporting coal would damage our economy and would not have any environmental benefit”.

Brisbane Times

Nobody I am aware of, is arguing that we “immediately stop exporting coal,” so this is not a real point, but lots of people are arguing that we should not open new coal mines or expand the coal exports. This is because, climate change is a global systemic problem. It does not matter where the fossil fuels are burnt, they affect, and worsen, Australia’s climate, causing job losses in other parts of the country.

In an interview on the ABC’s Insiders, after the policy speech, Albanese agreed there was still likely to be coal mining and export in Australia after 2050. “[The target is] net, that’s the point.” He said that exported coal was not counted in Australia’s greenhouse gas budget. “You don’t measure the emissions where the original product comes from.” This avoidance of responsibility is despite him recognising the targets are economy wide, and not cutting back emissions affects the world.

If Labor supports the mining and burning of coal, they do not have an effective climate policy, they (at best) only have a ‘get Australia out of coal fired energy policy’.

Conservative Independent Zali Steggall has proposed legislation which would enforced zero net emissions by 2050, and give a series of targets on the way, but Albanese appears not to be keen to support her move, giving the excuse that the Government would not allow debate, leaving his climate change spokesman Mark Butler to try and say they would engage with the possibility of supporting the proposed legislation. Later Albanese said:

the world must achieve net zero carbon emissions by the year 2050…. [so that] the amount of pollution released into the atmosphere is no greater than the amount we absorb which can occur through agriculture, forestry and other means.

Speech: Leadership in a New Climate 21 Feb 2020

Nothing in this speech, or in what he has said elsewhere, gives any interim targets to get to “net zero carbon emissions by the year 2050”. This indicates little planning, or expectation of planning, and the apparent refusal to take on Steggall’s interim targets suggest this lack, is part of the policy.

He continued:

We pride ourselves on always pulling our weight. And we have seen climate change be a factor in our devastating bushfires. We could see it, smell it, even touch it. Our amazing continent is particularly vulnerable. So we have a lot to lose. But the good news is we also have a lot to gain. Action on climate change will mean more jobs, lower emissions and lower energy prices….in recent months we had some foreshadowing of the costs of inaction.

Speech: Leadership in a New Climate 21 Feb 2020

So, we are told both that action on climate must be sacrificed for jobs and produces jobs. And that we can sell climate change elsewhere and suffer here, and not suffer here. Labor is not coherent either.

One problem with neoliberalism, and Australian politics is primarily neoliberal, is that because it only recognises the virtues of profit, and preferably profit by established companies, it looks like corruption. Neoliberals will always support established corporate power and give it handouts, but they don’t have to be bought, they just do it anyway.

Then I guess there is the problem of existential crisis, and the difficulty of recognising that we cannot do what we have previously done, as it will harm us. This may well be affecting politicians and many high level business people, and if so then that leaves us in a storm without a rudder, clinging to what worked in the past and destroys us now.

The next post discusses the consequences of this confusion

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Problems with Shale Oil in the US

February 9, 2020

This is a summary of a series of blog posts by another writer. He is trying to sell you ‘precious metals’ as a hedge against economic collapse, but his analysis of a coming crisis in US shale oil production seems highly plausible…

He suggests that activity in the world’s economy has been driven by cheap energy availability, and this has largely been provided by cheap US shale oil.

Nowadays, it appears that Peak Mainstream oil is already here. Each year the world needs to replace 3 million barrels per day of supply no longer provided from mature and declining oil fields at the same time as meeting growth in demand for oil. Any growth in contemporary world oil consumption was allowed by the US shale.

However, the decline in US shale oil production is even more dramatic than that for mature mainstream oil wells. The top 4 U.S. shale oil fields have suffered a 44% decline in their rate of production in less than a year, between Dec 2018 to Oct 2019.

It will take a massive amount of investment spending and thousands of new wells to offset these losses in production from shale oil, and keep the output stable. As the easily available shale oil has by now been taken (as businesses generally go for the easy targets first), it is probable that new shale oil will also require a lot more energy to retrieve. The ratio of Energy Return to Energy Input (EREI) will be much lower, so overall energy availability will be lower.

The spending and oil output is almost certainly ungeneratable, and unsustainable, in any kind of financial system. This situation is made worse as the author has argued elsewhere, because shale oil has largely survived on borrowed money, with investors hoping for long term stable production which has not eventuated. There will likely be large scale losses of this borrowed money, which could start a general financial collapse.

Lack of production also means that oil based energy collapse is extremely likely, and this will probably reinforce the financial collapse.

It is also likely to make the necessary transition into renewables harder, although it might ‘help’ through unplanned and catastrophic degrowth.

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Barnaby Joyce on Climate Technologies

February 7, 2020

Barnaby Joyce commented in writing about climate policy after he failed to win Nationals leadership. The cause of the challenge probably had something to do with the current leader recognising that more should be done about reducing global emissions. His comments demonstrate how people can avoid climate change through technological fantasy. Mr. Joyce wrote:

If you want a macro climate policy to show the world our leadership on reducing carbon emissions then we must bring in nuclear power

Will he suggest a nuclear reactor for New England? He could even put it on his property, given that he is facing extended droughts, which don’t have anything to do with climate change of course.

But probably not and there is no water for cooling anyway. I sometimes get a bit tired of Right wing politicians boosting nuclear power solely as a tool to hit the ‘irrational’ Left with. They never actually agitate for Nuclear power in their local areas, or push for it in Parliament, even when they have the numbers to get it passed easily, or paid for – assuming anyone wanted to build it. It’s just a piece of rhetoric. Nuclear power is expensive and requires taxpayer subsidies, such as fixed high energy prices, to be economic, as with Hinkley Point in the UK.

The Vice-Chair of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group states:

The WNISR2019 paints a picture of an international nuclear industry with substantial challenges. Remarkably, over the past two years, the largest historic nuclear builder Westinghouse and its French counterpart AREVA went bankrupt. Trend indicators in the report suggest that the nuclear industry may have reached its historic maxima: nuclear power generation peaked in 2006, the number of reactors in operation in 2002, the share of nuclear power in the electricity mix in 1996, the number of reactors under construction in 1979, construction starts in 1976. As of mid-2019, there is one unit less in operation than in 1989….

In 2018, ten nuclear countries generated more power with renewable than with fission energy. In spite of its ambitious nuclear program, China produced more power from wind alone than from nuclear plants. In India, in the fiscal year to March 2019, not only wind, but for the first time solar out-generated nuclear, and new solar is now competitive with existing coal plants in the market. In the European Union, renewables accounted for 95 percent of all new electricity generating capacity added in the past year

The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2019

While nuclear appears generally safe, the possibility of catastrophic accident exists. Although people argue over exactly how severe Chernobyl [1], [2] and Fukushima were, their problems continue.

At the moment, it is only in fantasy that nuclear is the fuel of the future. If you want nuclear then commit to building it, and be prepared to fight for it, but don’t ignore the problems, or its apparent decline.

Mr. Joyce also argues that we need:

…development of the most efficient coal power technology that uses the least units of coal for the greatest output of power. Wanting to develop the most efficient coal fired power technology in the world is not disavowing the realities of climate change it is actually something that could be provided to substantially curtail emissions.

Emissions would be better curtailed by not emitting them, or by committing to not emitting them, rather than by cutting them by small fractions, and committing to emitting for longer than we would do otherwise.

The figures for improved coal “high efficiency, low emissions (HELE) technologies such as supercritical coal, ultra-supercritical coal or integrated gasification combined cycle” are not that impressive, according to Alan Finkel’s Independent Review into the Future Security of the National Electricity Market, from 2017. It compares the emissions for (page 203):

  • Subcritical brown coal which emits 1,140 kg CO2-e/ MWh
  • Subcritical black coal which emits 940 kg CO2-e/ MWh,
  • Supercritical black coal (HELE) which emits 860 kg CO2-e/ MWh,
  • Ultra-supercritical brown coal which emits 845 kg CO2-e/ MWh
  • Ultra-supercritical black coal (HELE) which emits 700 kg CO2-e/ MWh

The best of these, is not a huge improvement; it is of the order of 75% of normal at the best.

However, despite the fact that the new coal is still heavily polluting, the main problem here, as with nuclear energy, is that nobody in Australia seems to be interested in developing the “most efficient coal fired power technology in the world”. We hurled money at the coal industry to develop useful carbon capture and storage and they did close to nothing. Well, as the Coalition said at the time, they spent the money on a few dinners, but that’s about all.

Sadly unless evidence is provided otherwise we have to assume that clean efficient coal is not going to happen. It is also unlikely to happen because coal energy is not competitive anyway. No one will build coal fired energy in Australia without government subsidies. And that is for bog-standard coal fired energy, which can be built easily. If the builders are going to develop new efficient forms of coal based energy that will take money, research and time. It will, in other words, be likely to cost more, and be even less competitive.

Then we have the problem of coal taking away water supplies in a period which is likely to feature longer and harsher droughts. Adani for example, has been promised unlimited ground water. I’m not sure why our governments are encouraging this, but they are. If Renewables polluted, and took, this much water, it is extremely likely that Mr. Joyce would notice.

Even if we were to talk about gas, as with the current efforts to force more gas drilling, we still have emissions, we still have leaks, and we still risk water contamination.

We have to recognise that the public acceptance of wind towers on the hill in front of their veranda is gone, and the public dissonance on that issue is as strong as any other environmental subject. We have to understand that there is no sure thing in a political debate.  If wind towers are a moral good and environmentally inoffensive why can’t we have them just off the beach at Bondi so we can feel good about ourselves while going for a surf? It would cause a riot.

This again is a rhetorical fantasy, aimed at separating country people from city people. Choice is rarely offered in development. No one has offered us wind turbines on Bondi Beach. I’ve no idea whether there would be enough wind there, or whether they would be buildable there, but why not? Why not give the Inner West a choice between Wind turbines and the Westconnex tollroad? We don’t get the choice; we have to have a toll way which makes walking to some places difficult, that kills people with pollution and unfiltered exhaust stacks. We have to have people’s homes shattered by vibration. We have to have people thrown out of their houses, without enough compensation to buy back into the area. We have to have cars rat-running our streets. We have to have constant infrasound. We have to pay extra to travel, and the fees will constantly rise faster than wages. If we are talking about appearance, so far Westconnex is a lot less attractive than a group of Wind turbines, and has involved massive tree-felling. It would be nice to have the choice. Cities may be privileged but residents rarely get a choice between developments. And he must know that.

With more imagination, we could think about encouraging the installation of ‘vertical’ or ‘helix’ wind turbines on the rooves of office buildings. These don’t take up much space, don’t need sunlight and add to the free electricity of the building. Sure they don’t make as much power as standard turbines, but they fit in and could help diminish emissions. We also do have, and could have more, solar farms on rooftops for the same purpose.

If we had the right legislation, then people with an energy farm on their rooftops could sell directly to other people. At the moment, this seems more or less forbidden (in NSW at any rate), and it is obstructive to the development of renewables, and obstructive to development of a market for energy. Even local councils can’t use the roof of one building to provide power for another of their buildings, even if its across the road. They have to sell their power to the grid operator, and then buy it back from the grid operator at the standard price, not the cheaper price of their own generation. For some reason, this does not appear to be noticed by governments, and certainly is not up for debate.

He states that “We have to understand that there is no sure thing in a political debate,” yet he apparently knows some things so well that he can be certain that wind turbines at Bondi would cause a riot. Who by? Why would the government, or his party, take any more notice of them than they take of farmers protesting against coal mines and coal seam gas? The statements are pure rhetoric with no actual references to reality.

Do you want a 3000 hectare solar farm next door to you? Lots of glass and aluminium neatly in rows pointing at the sun. I am not sure others will want to buy that view off you when you go to sell your house!

Would Mr Joyce like to live next to a coal fired power station, or a coal mine? I don’t know. Perhaps he would, as he likes them so much, and there is no accounting for taste. It would clearly be hypocritical for him not to welcome them to his neighbourhood.

Again, why is the issue of pollution from coal, highways and massive building developments, just discounted as a problem in these fantasies? Will people who now have highways running past their front doors not be bothered by that, or not loose property value, because of that. At least solar panels are quiet, and don’t poison you. His statements are ingenuous at best.

The weather has determined the political climate and everyone is manipulating the recent calamitous events to push their own particular barrow.

It would certainly appear he is. Anything to avoid the issue of why the Government ignored the warnings about the likelihood of intense fires, and cut back funding for fire fighters etc (I admit that was not Joyce’s doing, but its his Coalition that refused to listen and cut the funds). There is also the issue of why, after years of the Coalition running away from climate change, we ordinary people have to adapt to the consequences, so they can continue to sell fossil fuels and make it worse.

Whether there is unanimity of people’s political views on the fire ground or feeding stock in drought as to what we can do to change the weather is as unlikely as to unanimity to their favourite song.

That is true of economic policy as well, but he does not seem to have much hesitation in pushing the neoliberal line, even though many of us think the song is total crap. Sometimes politicians simply have to do the right thing for the future, and in this case, however frightening, that means taking on the fossil fuel industry and the mining industry.

When politicians do stand behind a global climate policy the only certainty is that it will be the policy that has the least direct effect on them. Wind farms are for your backyard not mine, zero emission nuclear is for France, only support banning coal mines if the coal mines aren’t in your electorate, and try not to get caught on a sticky question of what replaces our nation’s largest export. There is a desire for intermittent power generation such as solar but an inability to afford the pump hydro to make it dispatchable. Simple answers are generally wrong.

We will wait for him to agitate for Nuclear power for New England. We will wait for him to challenge the mining industry and support farmers faced with dust and water problems because of that industry. We will wait for his party to suggest spending money on pumped hydro or other cheaper storage systems, rather than money (or blackmail) for coal and gas.

The simple answer, if you want to ignore climate change and its consequences, is more coal and more coal exports. But “Simple answers are generally wrong.” Mr. Joyce’s answers depend on fantasies that mining and burning fossil fuels has no cost, and that it is easy for Australians to adapt to their consequences of those costs. Consequently, he does not offer any solution for our problems at all. None, except blaming other people. He just wants to ignore the problem and keep on as he has always done.

He apparently does not realise that the trajectory we are on, is extremely likely to mean more drought, so we cannot afford to pollute water by mining, or lose water through mining, or through processing the products of mining. The water used in mines, should be charged for, at least at the rates farmers pay, and should be cleaned up after use.

The current trajectory of water depletion is likely to mean that many country towns will collapse through lack of water, through dying farms and through prolonged heat that humans cannot bear easily. Renewables might help to give the towns some way of existing. That requires some forethought, about extending the grid and so on, but these are things that can be done easily, as opposed to somehow make coal burning happen with much lower emissions, or nuclear power appear without political will.

So 2020 has started with quite some colour politically and tragedy nationally. The art form of politics will be the cogent response that the parliament can show the Australian people in two years time.

We have not seen a vaguely cogent response from Parliament as yet, and it is not sounding like we will get one, other than a cogent cover up of rorting, and false documents, and a series of fantasies about technologies with no harm.

See also what he did at Christmas….

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Current Republican Election Strategy and Climate

February 5, 2020

Apparent Republican strategy for the US elections, based on what has happened so far.

1) Both sides are equally bad.

Therefore, it is not really that bad if the Republicans win, because after all the Democrats are equally bad. Whether you are a old-style Conservative Republican, or Leftish, and Trump wins, well the other side would be as bad as he is. So be happy.

Unfortunately, while the ‘other side’ may not be perfect, they are not as corrupt as Trump. They are not encouraging destruction of people’s lives and environment. They are not in favour of people dying because they are poor. They don’t encourage poisoning by manufacture. They are not destroying established procedure and convention.

2) Tell Democrats if we can’t have Bernie or Tulsi we might as well have Trump.

There is certainly no reason to vote for someone else who might have a chance of defeating Trump. Remember, both sides are equally bad, and stay pure.

3) Criticise Democrats more than Republicans.

This reminds people of how bad the Democrats are, and skates over how bad the Republicans are. If people criticised both equally then people might come to realise both sides are not equally bad.

4) Discuss Foreign Policy Endlessly.

Because on this issue both sides are closest to being equally bad, and you can berate the Democrats endlessly about warmongering. People can also ignore Republican warmongering, despite the fact that the last 15 years of US wars were started by the President Bush and his allies against all the evidence, and because they wanted a war against Iraq before they were elected and long before 9/11 which was their excuse. Forget also that the media at that time ran extensively with the “if you oppose the war you are anti-American” and pretend Trump was opposed to the War before it started…. 

5) Repeat the idea that Democrats are warmongers.

While telling Righteous audiences, you are spending more on the military than anyone has ever done, and that you support ‘our troops’, and US military strength and the other side does not. Never mention that most spending on the military goes to corporate players who object to government support for unworthy poorer people.

6) Support free markets.

Economic problems are always the fault of the Governments interfering with the free market, not because of the ‘free market’ itself, or the ways that corporations take over both markets and politicians, for their own benefit. Keep those corporate donations coming.

7) Tell Right Audiences the Democrats are unreconstructed Communists and Socialists, while telling Left Audiences the Democrats are Pro-Capitalist Neoliberals.

No one will notice the contradiction.

8) Persuade people that Trump is a victim of the ‘Deep State.’

As many people are suspicious of the State and business, this has wide appeal, and it distracts from Republican tactics in the impeachment. Don’t point out how Trump is enforcing parts of the Deep State to make them stronger and more corrupt, and to destroy any checks on his power.

9) Use the State to suppress dissent, and stack electoral procedures.

Exclude people from voting, if you think they may not vote for you. Make it hard for people you think won’t vote for you to vote. Define climate protestors and anti-fascists as terrorists. Have them under constant surveillance. Make sure the voting machines can be hacked and don’t have a non-electronic back up. Complain the other side is equally bad. Complain the Russians are supporting the Democrats, but don’t check Russian activities, because they are not supporting Democrats.

10) Climate is irrelevant

Don’t ever point out that if we don’t do something about climate change now, we are probably stuffed. We cannot wait another 5 years to start action, or to stop making it worse. Compared to Trump, all Democrats have a climate change policy. More to the point, non of them have a “make climate change worse” policy like Trump. Pretend fossil fuels generate jobs, and any Climate policy would be an impingement on people’s declining liberty.

Summary

Alarm people about irrelevancies, and don’t ever talk about their real worries or the likely corporate causes of those worries, and pretend to the Left there is no real difference to the two sides, and to the Right the Democrats are really socialist.

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Q&A on the Bushfires

February 4, 2020

An important TV discussion. If the owners want it taken down, then please ask….

See the original unabridged version at:

https://www.abc.net.au/qanda/2020-03-02/11906192

HAMISH MACDONALD Compere
Let me bring in Michael Mann here. Was there sufficient warning to government in Australia, in your view, that something very different was going to happen this summer, enough perhaps to prompt them to act earlier than they did?

MICHAEL MANN, US Climate scientist
There are climate scientists who were telling us that because of the behaviour of something called the Indian Ocean Dipole – some of you may have heard about this – we can actually predict something about what’s likely to happen. It impacts the monsoon, rainfall patterns. It’s part of why it was so dry, why the winter was dry and the summer has been dry. So, yes, we knew this was coming. One would expect that policymakers should have used that information, used the information provided by the great scientists here in Australia…..

VICTOR STEFFENSON Indigenous fire expert
there’s been incredible awareness of Indigenous fire management for the general public of Australia – but not only in Australia, but the world. That is looking in now, that we need to have change. And we need change right across the board. This is not dissecting the problems with our environment or the disasters that we’re having now and going, “Well, it’s all about not managing the country. Oh, no, it’s not about climate change.” It’s everything above. It’s all about all of it.
And we need the scientists to help us to reduce the emissions and we need to get communities and people out on country and learning about the environment and reconnecting with landscapes again, just the way Aboriginal people have done for thousands of years…..

MICHAEL MANN
Look, Australia, this is a message to the rest of the world. Climate change has arrived. Dangerous climate change has arrived now. How bad are we willing to let it get?….

JIM MOLAN Coalition senator – ex-military
I certainly accept that the climate is changing. It has changed and it will change. And what it’s producing is hotter and drier weather and a hotter and drier country…. As to whether it is human-induced climate change, my mind is open. But this is… not the key question. The key question is, what are you going to do about it?

Michael might say that the science is settled. And I respect, very much respect, scientific opinion, but every day across my desk comes enough information for me to say that there are other opinions.

HAMISH MACDONALD
So what is that information? What’s the actual information you have?

JIM MOLAN
Oh, I see so much that… You know, I’m a very practical man, Hamish. I’m going to get out there and do things, which… You see, the one thing that…

HAMISH MACDONALD
Sorry, but… Could you answer the question…

JIM MOLAN
Hang on, wait till I answer. The one thing that I agree with, Hamish…

HAMISH MACDONALD
What’s the information… No, what’s the information?

JIM MOLAN
The one thing that I agree with Michael is that climate change, and our policies in relation to climate change, are designed to mitigate the risk. It’s very difficult to mitigate the risk. You can go back and look for the last 100 years how or why it started. If we can’t mitigate risk, then we’ve got to adapt. And that’s the key to what we’re doing. And we are adapting.

HAMISH MACDONALD
Senator, I’m sorry, but you haven’t answered the question, which is, you said you get information across your desk every day which leads you to doubt, or be open-minded about the science.

JIM MOLAN
Yes, I am open-minded about it.

HAMISH MACDONALD
What is that information?

JIM MOLAN
It’s a range of information, which goes… It’s a range of…

HAMISH MACDONALD
I’m just trying to get to the bottom of this. What is the evidence that you are relying on?

JIM MOLAN
I’m not relying on evidence, Hamish. I am saying…

MICHAEL MANN
You said it. You said it. You said it.

JIM MOLAN
But this is why my mind is open. I would love to be convinced one way or the other. But to be prudent, what the government is doing is it’s got a climate… an emissions reduction policy. And it is a good policy. And it will mitigate risk to the maximum that it can. And where risk cannot be mitigated, it will adapt. And that’s what we’ve got to work on, is the adaption.

MICHAEL MANN
Come on now, mate.

JIM MOLAN
And he’s an American.

MICHAEL MANN
Now, you know, you should keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out. When it comes to this issue, when it comes to human-caused climate change, it’s literally the consensus of the world’s scientists that it’s caused by human activity. Now, you sometimes hear the talking point from contrarians, from the Murdoch media… that maybe it’s natural. Natural factors would be pushing us in the opposite direction right now.

JIM MOLAN
And we’re into name-calling already, Michael. Well done.

MICHAEL MANN
Well, no, I didn’t call you names…. I just made a point about open-mindedness….

Scepticism is an important thing in science. But there has to be scepticism on both sides. It can’t be one-sided scepticism, where you’re literally…

JIM MOLAN
Oh, absolutely agree.

MICHAEL MANN
…rejecting the overwhelming evidence, based on the flimsiest of ideas that you can’t even define…..

KRISTY McBAIN Mayor of Bega (which was affected by the fires)
Can I just bring it back to Serena’s question?…. Serena’s question was, is this the new norm? Jeez, I hope not. Serena lives in Brogo, a heavily timbered area in the Bega Valley. Her parents… And she’s got a number of brothers and sisters. She is a smart, intelligent, capable young woman, who is now the school captain of Bega High. And we have fabulous schoolkids right across the Bega Valley. Her point is, what is going to change into the future for us?
And what I see constantly is this generational debate or a political partisan debate on climate change. Most people I speak to are over it. They don’t care what one says and what the other one doesn’t say or, “The sky is blue,” “No, it’s pale blue.” Nobody cares. It’s now about what are the actions going to be? How do we mitigate? How do we adapt? How do we make ourselves resilient as communities to it?…

Melissa, your question earlier, about you being affected, your business being affected, everybody up and down the east coast can relate to you. Because we have evacuated 90,000 tourists from an area. There are flame-impacted businesses and there are flame-impacted farms and there are flame-impacted industries but there is not one person that isn’t affected by this disaster that’s unfolded.

ANDREW CONSTANCE NSW MP for Bega
…. God, I’m hoping that they can be unified in a response to how we get through this. So, to Serena’s point about this being the new norm, we can’t afford for this to be the new norm. Nobody can….

We can’t sort of have royal commissions and commissions of inquiry if we’re not engaging with those within community to understand exactly whether there is enough fire trucks in that community,… in our lane, there’s five homes that have been flattened by the fires, and one of them was a mate of mine, Steven Hillier, who… Three beautiful girls. He came home at five o’clock having fought fires in other communities to find his house gone. And Steven, to his credit, he threw his chooks in the front of the ute, we had a beer, and then he went and told Mandy. But guess what he did the next day – straight back out fighting fires. And so many of those RFS volunteers who did that, who did lose everything, did exactly that. So, I think there is a need to talk to those types of people within local communities to do that

KRISTY McBAIN
Yeah, look, over the darkest days of those fires, we had 40 hours of darkness. How do I explain to my kids that it’s actually 10:30 in the morning, and you should be out of bed and eating breakfast? And when I went there, they were all huddled around an iPad, and I said, “What are you doing?” And they were laughing, and they said, “Is it too early to be up?” And I had to say, “Oh, look, come on, I’ll make you breakfast,” and make a joke out of it, but it’s very difficult in those really, really dark days of the Bega Valley when there was 40 hours of darkness, or the skies were, you know, a red or a pink for days on end.

Or you’ve got smoke… My middle son is an asthmatic, carrying asthma puffers everywhere and making sure we had enough supplies when we knew we were going to be cut off… from every road access. It’s really hard as a parent to manage your kids through that. I hold hope that, after what we’ve been through over the last five, six, seven, eight months now, that genuine good debate will happen and the politicians and leaders of our country will come together in a consensus to actually move us forward, because if that doesn’t happen, then there’s probably going to be more days where we’re going to be grappling with red, dark skies, or 40 hours of darkness.
So, I hold hope that this starts… this is the start of a big conversation, good genuine debate where people aren’t in camps, that everybody comes to the table with an open mind, prepared to make sure that the future is much better.

 

 

 

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