Hello world!

Posted by admin on October 23, 2008

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Suburban Food Growing - Feeding The Family Or The Wildlife?

Posted by admin on April 13, 2008

Well, at the end of the first major summer (Southern hemisphere) growing season, the scoreboard stands at Local Wildlife 3 Family 1.

The score was calculated on the proportions of who got to eat what - basically the wildlife got to eat 3 times as much as we did.

Basically anything not covered up or fenced in was demolished by the wildlife, seemingly overnight - here one day gone the next. Fruit trees, tomatoes, peas, carrots etc. What the wildlife didn’t get at, our chooks (chickens) helped themselves to.

We tried netting one set of tomato plants, but whatever it was that was eating them had no problem getting past that.

The only things that survived were vegetables grown under a heavy duty wood and wire mesh enclosures. The only problem with that is if the enclosure is made high enough to allow large plants to grow, it becomes heavy and quite difficult to move, so it makes looking after and harvesting the vegetables hard work.

We’re looking round at alternatives for next season there has to be an easier way - possibly moeable mesh tent type enclosures that would be fairly light and cheap, light if not particularly durable.

Emissions & Climate Change

Posted by admin on February 27, 2008

The majority opinion among scientists is that the largely man-made stock of greenhouse gases has now built to a level that is causing global average temperatures to rise and thus leading to changes in the climate.

There’s still much uncertainty about the accuracy of the figures involved, but the common view is that if we allow the build-up to exceed a concentration of about 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent we pass the point where global warming produces "dangerous" and irreversible climate change.

According to simulations carried out for the Garnaut report (Professor Ross Garnaut is an economist of impeccable respectability), to stabilise the stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at the 450ppm level would require annual global emissions to:

• reach a peak in 2010,
• fall to 2000 emission levels by 2020 and then
• fall to less than half of 2000 levels by 2050 and less than a quarter by 2100.

This is a very tough set of targets and achieving it would require an unprecedented degree of international co-operation and economic pain, particularly for the developed countries. It would also require us to have started doing it some years ago.

The bad news though is that annual global emissions aren’t falling or even reaching a peak, they’re growing faster than we’d expected just two years ago.

The three main drivers of global emissions are

• population growth,
• economic growth and
• technological change.

"Growth in carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning and industrial processes has lifted markedly in the early 21st century," Garnaut says. In the 1990s, these global emissions grew at an average rate of 1.1 per cent a year. Between 2000 and 2006 the rate increased to 3.1 per cent a year. Ominously, this rise occurred despite the dampening effect of "extraordinarily large increases" in the prices of petroleum and substitute fuels such as coal.

The recent surge in emissions has three causes. First, global production of goods and services has been growing at the rate of 5 per cent a year (measured correctly), compared with the expected 3.3 per cent (using the wrong basis).

Second, the late 20th century saw this economic growth becoming less energy-intensive. In the 1990s, the energy intensity of global gross domestic product fell by 1.4 per cent a year. This trend was expected to continue. From 2000 to 2005, however, energy intensity fell by just 0.2 per cent a year.

Third, the 1990s saw the emissions-intensity of energy use fall by 0.2 per cent a year as a higher proportion of cleaner fuels were used. From 2000 to 2005, however, the emissions-intensity of energy use increased by 0.4 per cent a year as the higher price of oil encouraged more use of coal and synthetic liquid hydro-carbons derived from natural gas, coal, tar sands and shale.

Each of these three reversals is explained by the faster economic growth of the developing countries, particularly China and India.

The acceleration in global economic growth has been led by growth rates of 10 to 12 per cent a year in China and 8 to 9 per cent in India. Garnaut says evidence is accumulating that these high rates aren’t temporary. "In China, there are reasonable prospects for growth rates in the vicinity of 10 per cent per annum - perhaps higher for a while - to continue for some time, and for high growth to continue until average Chinese productivity levels and living standards are approaching the range of developed countries in the late 2020s," he says.

"In India, the new, higher growth trajectory is soundly based and has strong momentum."

Garnaut indicates that China will soon become the greatest single contributor to annual global emissions. Remember, however, that this annual flow is a problem solely because of the huge stock of greenhouse gases already accumulated in the atmosphere. The dominant contributors to that stock, of course, were the developed countries, led by the United States.

Garnaut says it is "neither desirable nor remotely feasible to seek to remove environmental pressures through diminution of the aspirations of the world’s people for higher material standards of living … The challenge is to end the linkage between economic growth and emissions of greenhouse gasses."

Can the world can achieve such a feat? Let’s see -time is running out.

According to simulations carried out for the Garnaut report, to stabilise the stock of gases in the atmosphere at the 450ppm level would require annual global emissions to reach a peak in 2010, fall to 2000 emission levels by 2020 and then fall to less than half of 2000 levels by 2050 and less than a quarter by 2100.

Achieving such a remarkably tough set of targets would require an unprecedented degree of international co-operation and economic pain, particularly for the developed countries. It would also require us to have started doing all that some years ago.

In the meantime, however, annual global emissions aren’t falling or even reaching a peak, they’re growing faster than we’d expected just two years ago.

The three main drivers of global emissions are population growth, economic growth and technological change.

"Growth in carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning and industrial processes has lifted markedly in the early 21st century," Garnaut says. In the 1990s, these global emissions grew at an average rate of 1.1 per cent a year. Between 2000 and 2006 the rate increased to 3.1 per cent a year. Ominously, this rise occurred despite the dampening effect of "extraordinarily large increases" in the prices of petroleum and substitute fuels such as coal.

The recent surge in emissions has three causes. First, global production of goods and services has been growing at the rate of 5 per cent a year (measured correctly), compared with the expected 3.3 per cent (using the wrong basis).

Second, the late 20th century saw this economic growth becoming less energy-intensive. In the 1990s, the energy intensity of global gross domestic product fell by 1.4 per cent a year. This trend was expected to continue. From 2000 to 2005, however, energy intensity fell by just 0.2 per cent a year.

Third, the 1990s saw the emissions-intensity of energy use fall by 0.2 per cent a year as a higher proportion of cleaner fuels were used. From 2000 to 2005, however, the emissions-intensity of energy use increased by 0.4 per cent a year as the higher price of oil encouraged more use of coal and synthetic liquid hydro-carbons derived from natural gas, coal, tar sands and shale.

Get this: each of these three reversals is explained by the faster economic growth of the developing countries, particularly China and India.

The acceleration in global economic growth has been led by growth rates of 10 to 12 per cent a year in China and 8 to 9 per cent in India. Garnaut says evidence is accumulating that these high rates aren’t temporary. "In China, there are reasonable prospects for growth rates in the vicinity of 10 per cent per annum - higher still for a while - to continue for some time, and for high growth to continue until average Chinese productivity levels and living standards are approaching the range of developed countries in the late 2020s," he says.

"In India, the new, higher growth trajectory is soundly based and has strong momentum."

Garnaut implies that China will soon become the greatest single contributor to annual global emissions. Remember, however, that this annual flow is a problem solely because of the huge stock of greenhouse gases already accumulated in the atmosphere. The dominant contributors to that stock, of course, were the developed countries, led by the United States.

Garnaut says it is "neither desirable nor remotely feasible to seek to remove environmental pressures through diminution of the aspirations of the world’s people for higher material standards of living … The challenge is to end the linkage between economic growth and emissions of greenhouse gasses."

If the world can achieve such a feat it will rival the Seven Wonders of the World combined. If we can’t, the globe will have hit its limits to growth.