Earth Hour is on again – tonight 28th March at 8.30pm. The event asks people and businesses to turn off lights and appliances for one hour. It ran for the first time in Sydney only a few years ago. Since then the idea has been picked up by many other major cities around the world.

But looking beyond all the hype, how useful is it really in helping to tackle the problem of climate change?

Last year I spoke with Andy Ridley, Executive Director of Earth Hour, to put him on the spot. Listen to the interview with Andy Ridley.

Check out their website. There’s heaps more information there – www.earthhour.org.

]]> http://theenvironmentshow.com/2009/03/earth-hour-is-it-a-waste-of-time/feed 1 http://theenvironmentshow.com/2009/02/emissions-trading-what-the http://theenvironmentshow.com/2009/02/emissions-trading-what-the#comments Tue, 24 Feb 2009 08:55:19 +0000 Phil Stubbs http://theenvironmentshow.com/?p=1026

Just at the time Australia is launching into an emissions trading scheme, the EU one appears to be faltering. Eek. In this post we’ve collected links to articles and videos on the European scheme and the political stoush that’s happening here in Oz. (We predict it’s only a matter of time before the Opposition here cotton on to the European failings.) And of course there’s the question of – what the hell is an emssions trading scheme anyway? Plenty of people wouldn’t have the foggiest. We explain here at the end. Click on.

It’s all set to hot up due to the timelines the Australian Government has set itself – to introduce the scheme by mid-2010. The Climate Minister Penny Wong should be unveiling the new legislation next month or so. And in a strange twist, the Greens have sided with the Conservatives to force a Senate Inquiry. So we’re bound to see more of this in the news. And more time lost. Plus, to complicate things, at the end of the year we have the big meeting in Copenhagen where the nations of the world come together to hammer out a post-Kyoto agreement.

Related articles:
The collapsing carbon market in Europe is making mega-pollution dirt cheap (The Guardian)
Emissions Trading scheme explained by Ross Gittins (Herald)
Our collection of news stories on carbon emissions & emissions trading

Video:
The EU’s emissions trading scheme
How carbon trading could solve global warming

Audio:
Here’s an old podcast interview we did with Matt Dever from Emit Brokers explaining how carbon trading works.

Photo:
Coal power plant photo courtesy of Wigwam Jones on flickr.

The last few days has seen some of the worst fires in Australia’s recorded history. That’s in the South East of the country. Meanwhile in the north we’ve had extensive flooding. Not so well covered in the Australian media has been the snow storms enveloping the Northern hemisphere in places like the UK.

So is climate change the cause of these extreme weather events?

The ABC’s Lateline last night addressed this issue bringing in Professor David Karoly, a lead author in the for the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). According to Karoly, it’s hard to directly pin extreme weather events such as Hurricane Katrina and the recent ones in Australia on climate change. But the scientists are pretty certain climate change means more intense events, more often. He likened it to the rolling of a dice and the increased likelihood of our number coming up.

Here are some of the other key points from my digging around on this issue:

• Australia is the developed country most at risk from the effects of climate change.

• Even if we can turn climate change around it’s going to take some time to do – because we’re stuck with the greenhouse gases we’ve put up there for decades.

• Scientists have expected these kinds of effects from global warming but they say it’s happening faster than expected.

• Weather records have been broken recently by unexpectedly large margins e.g. Melbourne’s hottest day on record was broken this last week by almost a whole percent when normally records go by 0.2%.

• Records have been broken not just for highest temperature but also for the duration of the recent heatwave which preceded the fires.

• It’s not just hotter days, lower rainfall also means a drier landscape and increases the possibility of larger fire events.

• The scale of disasters is also increased by the fact there’s more people on the planet, and more people living in danger areas.

• Many people think global warming means small temperature increases. The reality is small changes in climate increase the likelihood of large changes in weather.

You’d think these disasters would be a wake up call.

A week ago two and a half thousand people encircled Australia’s Parliment House to demand we do more about global warming. There was not one article in the Sydney Morning Herald about the protest. Instead we got pages on the global financial crisis and the economic stimulus package.

I don’t think I can put it any better than Freya Mathews who did manage to get an opinion piece in the Herald today:

…. the consequences of climate change will make the financial crisis look like a garden party.

But when the embers die in rural Victoria and the next media story blows in, will we go back to business (or worrying about business) as usual?

Audio:
David Karoly discusses the role of climate change in Victoria’s bushfires (ABC Radio National)

Transcripts:
Quite fortuitously climate experts from around the world have gathered in Melbourne this week for a conference on global warming. The link below provides Lateline’s interviews with leading climate specialists Kevin Hennessy of the CSIRO and Andy Pitman from the Uni of NSW about extreme weather. Transcript of the interviews from the Melbourne extreme weather conference.

Here also is the transcript of the Lateline interview with Prof David Karoly, the Victorian Government’s chief climate change adviser.

Related articles:
Why global warming may be fuelling Australia’s fires (Time)
Australian fires a climate wake up call (Reuters)
Fires will increase in intensity as climate changes (Herald)
Records smashed – heatwave registered unprecedented highs (Herald)
An analysis of 2008 – a record year of extreme weather events (Herald)

Useful links:
Environmental Defense Fund site on extreme weather

Photos:
Sydney Morning Herald’s multi-media on the Victorian bushfires
Photos on flickr of the bushfires in Australia

More video:
Another video tracing emerging news on the fires in Victoria

Check out this video which reminds us how easy it is to make noises about climate change. But what about doing something about it?

Here in Australia the Rudd government initially talked up the importance of dealing with climate change but then committed to relatively small cuts in Greenhouse gas emissions.

Now a groundswell of community action groups are rallying to put pressure on the government to do more.

Two hundred community action groups from around the country are coming together in the nation’s capital Canberra for a climate action summit from 31 January to 3 February. The event will culminate in a peaceful protest at Parliment House on the 3rd. Word has it they intend to form a human chain around Parliment House. Tuesday the 3rd is the first sitting day of Parliment following the summer break, so you can expect this story to be all over the news then.

Useful links:
If you want more info or want to get involved in the Canberra protest, go to www.climatesummit.org.au. There’s also more in our events section.

Related articles:
Giving up on climate change? (Online Opinion)
Green groups damn paper on climate change (Sydney Morning Herald)

Video credit:
Time to Lead! (Time to Lead is a collaborative campaign from the Climate Action Network, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and WWF in Europe.)

Audio:
Have a listen to our Christmas lights podcast. In it we hear from people with ‘over-the-top’ Christmas lights on their houses to find out why they’ve done it.

It seems pretty obvious the root of our environmental problems comes back to one key thing – consumption. And there’s one time of year when it really hits you in the face – Christmas.

Mostly I’ve stayed clear of the shopping centres myself, but one thing you can’t avoid is Christmas lights. Every year there seem to be more houses getting into it. And every year they seem to be more over-the-top.

It got me thinking – how does this stack up against Earth Hour? If Earth Hour is meant to be a symbol people do care about the planet – by switching their lights off for an hour, what does that make the whole month of December? A time when not only do people festoon their houses with Christmas lights, consumption is well and truly king.

Television:
The film clip in our podcast is from the documentary ‘Christmas Lights’. It premiers Wednesday 24 2008, 8.05pm on ABC2 and Thursday 25 December 2008, 10.05pm on ABC1.

Video:
Click this link for more over-the-top Christmas lights video – this house is brilliantly synchronised to music. But wait there’s more … ‘OTT’ video. (This house got the same idea.)

And don’t forget not long til the official Energy Wasting Day! (1st April.)

More photos and where to see more Christmas lights:
Click these links for more photos and locations of houses with over-the-top lights in Sydney – from our learned colleagues at The Telegraph and 2GB.

Archie and my big Christmas lights adventure was to Matraville. The shot below is a house complete with Sydney landmarks in Franklin Street. Nearby Barwon Cresent is a mind explosion (for kids) of lights on every house. You should also check out – Hodge Street, Hurstville.

I’m sure there’s plenty more near you.

Merry global warmed Christmas.

Snow is looking increasingly unlikely for Sydney.

This last photo and the first (feature) photo courtesy of Screen Australia.

A new documentary called ‘The Future Makers’ shows how the answers to our environmental problems are there in nature itself. It includes renewable energy innovations in solar, wave and geothermal. And discusses the application of biomimicry.

Video:
You can view here the The Future Makers documentary trailer.

(If you’re a YouTube fan you can find it on The Environment Show’s YouTube channel. It’s also on The Environment Show’s Current TV Channel.)

Television:
The documentary airs on the Discovery Channel on Boxing Day 26th December.

Useful links:
The Future Makers film website and news.
Review in G magazine.
Discussion in Sydney Morning Herald article ‘It’s the ultimate hottie’.

2008 – a not so hot year compared to the last few, but ….. it looks like the only way is up! This is the global temperature trend since the industrial revolution.

Maybe we’re so used to hearing about global warming, the 7th warmest year on record doesn’t sound so bad. But remember most of the other warmest years have all occurred since 1998 – as you can see in the chart above.

These figures have been compiled and were released yesterday by NASA’s Goddard Institute and the World Meterological Organisation.

According to James E Hansen of the Goddard Institute, we’re building a blanket of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which will take a long time to turn around. Hansen is a campaigner for immediate and significant cuts in emissions. Otherwise he says we run the risk of the Earth becoming “a different planet” from the one humans have experienced for thousands of years. (Source: The New York Times ‘Dot Earth’ blog.)

Hansen is the guy who testified before the US Congress 20 years ago and explained that the world was heading toward dangerous climate change and we needed to do something about it.

Video:
And what response have we had from politicians since 1988? This Greenpeace TV commercial sums up two decades of our leaders leading on climate change.

Here’s a short ABC news story on the outspoken James Hansen.

And check out this more detailed doco from the PBS TV network in the US Frontline: ‘Global warming – is it getting warmer?’ Yes, the science is in, but there’s still skeptics. (Not sure the IPCC has convinced Barnaby Joyce.)

Recent related articles:
Glut of hot years a coincidence? Fat chance (New Scientist)
‘Believe it or not, this was the tenth hottest year (in the UK)’ (The Independent).
2008 colder than previous years but world still warming (Yahoo Green)

It’s less than a year until the major UN climate change meeting in Copenhagen – where the nations of the world are meant to settle on an agreement that will take us the next step on from the Kyoto Protocol. In the lead-up to Copenhagen, nations have been meeting at Poznan in Poland to prepare the ground.

One of the many issues in the climate debate has been how to halt rampant deforestation in developing countries. Destruction of forests is a significant contributor to global warming. It’s thought to be up to 20% of the problem.

But how do we get poor countries to stop chopping down their trees when they need money for the basics we take for granted – like food and education? And as some in the developing world would argue, why should they stop when the West has already done the deed on its own forests.

On the sidelines of Poznan green groups are pitching their own solutions. In the following interview, we examine an interesting proposal from Greenpeace on deforestation. It proposes that the money generated from auctioning pollution permits in Developed countries be used to encourage Developing countries to keep their trees.

Audio: Paul Winn is Greenpeace’s ‘Forests for Climate’ campaigner. He’s speaking with Carolin Wenzel about Greenpeace’s deforestation proposal . Paul is on the ground in Poznan Poland.

Useful links:
Official 2009 Copenhagen Meeting website
Background on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Greenpeace’s Forests for Climate Report “Preserving Paradise”
Greenpeace Poznan blog
Oxfam’s Climate Change Campaign

Video:
UNFCCC Exec Sec Yvo de Boer explains what the conference is meant to achieve. And MIA President Elect Obama gives us his thoughts on climate change.

Articles:
The spin sounds good in theory, but as we’re hearing from Poznan, the reality of these climate talks is somewhat different. Check out this recent article from The Age – ‘Hot air but little else at global climate talks’. No surprise really when you get that many bureaucrats and politicians in one place.

See also this BBC article ‘Peru says it can reach zero deforestation in 10 years with funds from the West’.

Photo:
Let the hot air begin. The UN Climate Change Conference opening. Shot by Piotr Fajfer from Oxfam International. And you can see the reality of third wild forest logging at Phil’s photo favourites.

So what will be the fate of the Greenpeace proposal? Maybe it will plant the seed.

It’s estimated governments have collectively found about $5 trillion to rescue banks and galvanize economies. Now the Head of the United Nations Environment Program and the leaders of some European countries are saying the time is right for the world to invest substantially in renewable energy. They’re calling for a “Green New Deal” to tackle our climate, oil and credit crisis together.

Audio:
Listen to our interview with Senator Christine Milne on the Green New Deal.

Leaders of the G20 countries recently met to discuss what can be done about the global financial crisis. Spending our way out of the crisis seems to be a big part of the solution. Already we’ve seen the Australian government promise to spend more than $10 billion to stimulate its economy.

But exactly how will such vast sums of money be spent?

The “Green New Deal” calls for a massive injection of funds to radically change our economies – to make them more sustainable. It’s an idea which draws inspiration from Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” 75 years ago. A plan which helped pull the U.S. out of the Great Depression.

Video:
Van Jones is the author of the bestseller “Green Collar Jobs”. Watch Van Jones spruik the Green New Deal.

Related articles:
Here’s some interesting articles on the Green New Deal:
‘How green technology can spark economic growth’ from Newsweek magazine.
‘A Green New Deal can save the world’s economy’ from The Independent.
‘Climate crisis: Roosevelt revisited’ from the BBC.
‘7 ways to fund a Green New Deal’ from Treehugger.
‘Green New Deal makes sense but unlikely’ – opinion piece from Reuters.

Useful links:
The New Economics Foundation is a leading economic think-tank in the UK and one of the pioneers of the Green New Deal idea. Their page’‘A Green New Deal will tackle the triple crunch of credit, oil and climate’ describes the idea further.
Here also is a link to the Greens website.

More audio:
Thomas Friedman is author of the book ‘Hot, Flat and Crowded: why we need a green revolution and how it can renew America’. Listen to the ‘Living on Earth’ interview with Thomas Friedman.

Hear Bob Brown on developing a new green economy. And there’s a good discussion on the ABC’s ‘Late Night Live’ program on the Green New Deal – which includes Ann Pettifor from the New Economics Foundation and Nick Nuttall, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program.

Photo:
Sparktography, Creative Commons, Flickr

The ‘Walk Against Warming‘ is on again this Saturday the 15th of November. It’s organised by a coalition of green groups and it’s no small thing. Last year there were 80,000 people in Sydney and Melbourne alone and thousands more in other places around Australia.

Yes people are aware of global warming already, but this is a chance to let the pollies know now is the time to transform our economy into a clean, green one. And be amongst heaps of other people who feel the same way.

Useful links: Walk Against Warming website shows where and when it’s on.

Video: Watch this 2007 Walk Against Warming video, including speech by Bob Brown. Shows the mood for change on the issue of climate change – two weeks before the ousting of the conservative government.

Photo: The Walk Against Warming in Sydney, courtesy of Erland Howell from the Nature Conservation Council.

Lots of people dream of making a ’sea change’ to escape the rat race of the city. Some people even do it.

But how many leave with the intention of living sustainably? To live on the land, grow their own food, generate their own power and water, and even restore their new patch closer to its original, natural state. James Woodford and his family are working on just that.

Audio: Interview with James Woodford about his new book ‘Real Dirt’.

And no James, isn’t a hippy. He loves sushi as much as any inner-city dweller, and for a long time was an ambitious journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald.

Just how he came to be living on a beautiful stretch of the South Coast and slaughtering his own chooks is documented in his new book ‘Real Dirt: how I beat my grid-life crisis’. It’s a very personal account of “what you have to go through to get to where you want to be.”

I read it recently and got decidedly itchey feet myself. I then spoke with James by phone – at the place he now proudly calls home.

Useful links: This and other books by James Woodford are available through Text Publishing. There’s more of his James’s writing on his blog – Real Dirt. And here’s an excerpt from the ‘Real Dirt’ book – recently published in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Photo: James Woodford, environment journalist and “footprint changer”, at his true home on the South Coast of New South Wales.

A decade ago Germanys uptake of solar energy was on par with Australia. But thanks to an innovative financial incentive, Germany has surged ahead. So much so, its renewable energy is now a mainstream industry and a leading employer in that country.

Audio: Markus Lambert explains the effect the electricity feed-in tariff has had in Germany.

A key driver of renewables in Germany has been the introduction of an electricity feed-in tariff. The scheme views households and businesses producing renewable energy as mini-power stations and pays them for the power they generate.

Here in Australia, Victoria and South Australia have recently introduced versions of the tariff, and one is about to launch in the ACT. New South Wales is yet to try the scheme, but the State Opposition has vowed to implement one if it’s elected in 2011.

Markus Lambert is a German now working for local renewable energy firm Energy Matters. In this podcast he explains the effect the feed-in tariff has had in Germany.

Useful link: The Energy Matters website explains the difference between a net feed-in tariff and a gross feed-in tariff. And what each of the state governments in Australia are offering. The renewables industry is pushing for a gross feed-in tariff.

Audio: Listen to The Cars That Ate China movie podcast – part 3, James Kyng on the implications for the world’s environment.

In this interview Fiona Wain, CEO of Environment Business Australia, tells us about the opportunities for business and some of the interesting green business innovations on the go – some we rarely hear about.

And we have these videos from the Garnaut Forum. In fact you can even rate what he has to say. In this video, the good professor lashes out at the sceptics (in his own gentile way):

Here’s what Ross said when asked why Australia should act when other countries aren’t:

And here’s what Professor Garnaut had to say about compensating the coal industry:

It seems the two majors parties are heading for a showdown on the shape of it. And thrown into the mix is a newly configured senate. A strange assortment of new powerbrokers – The Greens, Family First and Mr X – may well determine the new scheme’s fate.

This segment came out of our regular review of key environment news. Each week we speak to one of the country’s leading environmental journalists to find out what’s happening. This week, we talk to Ben Cubby, the Sydney Morning Herald’s Chief Environment Reporter. Listen to The Environment Show’s interview on the latest carbon trading scheme news.

The Cartaret Islands, north east of PNG, are only a metre above sea level. Each year tidal surges on the island get bigger.

The tides have damaged the islands’ fresh water sources and food growing areas. To the point where the people of The Cartarets are now planning to evacuate to nearby Bougainville. It’s estimated their island will be unihabitable by 2015.

Phil spoke with Charlotte Sterrett, Climate Campaigner for Oxfam Australia, to find out more about the situation and what can be done. Listen to the interview.

Listen to this independent rating of our political parties.

The interview was just prior to the election last year. Following the success of Labor in the election, Peter Garrett has become Australia’s Environment Minister.

(If you’re reading this from outside Australia, you may know Garrett as the lead singer of the band Midnight Oil. After many years of activism on environmental issues, including a stint as head of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Garrett re-invented himself as a politician.)

The day of the election at the end of 2007, I went to a polling both to gauge the mood of the people – for change generally and to check the importance of the environment in their decision making. Listen here to what they had to say: election day vox pops.

The booth was at Sydney’s Bondi Beach in the contentious seat of Wentworth. Wentworth was held by Malcolm Turnbull – who was at that stage Environment Minister.

Phil Stubbs spoke to Matt Dever from Emit Environmental Brokers to find out.

For a fuller explanation, I’ve added this link to a video interview with Dr Andrew Sentance who was formerly the Head of Environment for British Airways. It was produced by Warwick iCAST and can be found on YouTube.

And for more on the European carbon trading system (which is well down the track), there’s a link below to a video prepared by European channel EUX.TVand loaded to YouTube.

Cities like Austin have been making some of the most progressive changes in the US. The action of these cities in Texas and states like California shows the other side of the U.S. coin. And they show there’s plenty more Australian cities could be doing.

Following is a link to a news story by Aljazeera which has been posted to YouTube.

The U.S. government under George Bush has refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol and refused to commit to binding carbon emission targets. Following the change of government, Australia with Kevin Rudd now at the helm, is still being coy about specifying a target, despite having signed the Protocol.

Phil Stubbs spoke with Julien Gronbach from Greenpeace to clear the air on binding emission targets. Click on the following link to play this podcast. (To come.)