04/25/12

Jane Crafter – My blog

Welcome . I am a freelance writer with and a (former) Journalist. My dear friend Kate Richards encouraged me to setup my blog – self expression she calls it. I write about the environment, my picpolitics, technology, the arts and society and a keen follower of Crikey. I edit a small local newspaper in Brisbane ‘ The Informed Opinion” – we have a small but growing circulation. This recent articles will give you a feel for our readership:

January 2005:

In my opinion the Federal Government has shown itself to be unworthy of trust with respect to many extremely important issues including :
  • the manipulation of, or lack of veracity in, the ’intelligence’ which ‘justified’ the engagement in war in Iraq
  • the mistreatment and vilification of refugees and detainees within Australia and via the Pacific Solution
  • the imprisonment of Hicks and Habib as a matter of principle
  • the lack of equity in dealing with Timor Leste over oil and gas reserves
  • the treatment of indigenous Australians
  • workplace relations policy as an means of destroying organised labour, exploiting workers and as an indirect attempt to limit political opposition
  • environment, greenhouse and energy related policy (in particular the abandonment of Kyoto and the attempt to protect existing large industry players and redirect the financial benefits of research funding toward technological investment)
I cannot help feeling that there is another, largely hidden agenda gaining great traction through this collective diminution of the right to dissent and to actively oppose the concentration and the misuse of political power.
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More recently i wrote about one of my favourite debates in Australia – Climate Change:
Ian Campbell’s conversion to the science of human-induced global warming is very
recent and probably not very sincere – just since the signing of the climate pact with
the US and China actually. This means that the main emphasis is on subsidizing the development of coal gasification and geosequestration (in Australia) and nuclear technology (elsewhere).
Australia’s role is to supply plenty of coal and yellowcake. When he talks about the “need for wind,
solar, nuclear, gasification of coal”, I would say he is really thinking of them in reverse
order. The coal industry is first, followed by uranium (ie. BHP), a power tower (for show) and a
few wind turbines to make it look like the government supports renewable energy too. I would say the reason of course is that the government depends on campaign funds from the Mining Industry, so that is where the government will put its R&D funds. The  only reason that he speaks so highly of Tim Flannery is because Tim now entertains the idea that the climate situation is so bad that we must develop nuclear power too. He overlooks Tim’s uncalled for comments on coal power  stations. Uranium is flavour of the month because China wants it and BHP owns a major
chunk of it. Even that is a slight exaggeration because most of the WMC Olympic Dam reserves
are very low grade and much of it might not be recovered. It is only being mined at all because
there is lots of copper and gold there as well.Official rhetoric is never what it seems on the surface. When Senator Campbell starts funding the development of renewable energy in a big way and introduces emissions trading to provide a strong incentive for the commercial development of energy efficiency and renewable energy, then I will accept that his conversion is complete.

I published 2 months ago re my concerns re  Tree Planting to Combat Global Warming:

With the news on global warming impacts getting worse and worse by the day, many people are now seriously looking at what they can do to reduce or better still eliminate their contributions to global warming. Many people are looking at using tree planting offset schemes as a way of tackling the issue. So is it valid to offset CO2 emissions by planting trees? The answer I’m afraid is usually NO.

As a general proposition any land where we can grow trees is land where trees used to be growing. So when we plant trees we are paying back society’s historical CO2 debt for the original tree clearing. Basically we can’t offset new fossil fuelled emissions using typical tree planting schemes.

The only way to offset fossil fuelled emissions is to use an avoidance or sequestration method that goes beyond the normal tree planting – it would have to involve either:
paying someone else to use renewable energy instead of fossil fuelled energy sources, (like an extended greenpower scheme) or sequestering CO2 in the crust, or building up soil carbon levels to much higher than would accur in nature, or planting trees in areas where they never grew in the last 8000 years or growing stands of vegetation that have biomass higher than what was there naturally over the last 8000 years. Existing carbon offset schemes based on tree planting need to be changed to fit this profile – otherwise they mislead people about what they are achieving.

Don’t get me wrong, it is very important to have standard tree planting or bush regeneration schemes – because society has a huge greenhouse debt to pay back due to past bush clearance – so every bit of regeneration/planting that we do helps. But standard planting does NOT offset current CO2 emissions from fossil fuel sources.

Well, i hope you have an essence now for my writing, and a little about my interests. I leave this post on a slightly more humorous note. Being the wife of an Italian man, i was a little alarmed when i watched this:

 

Testimony to my son – now, dear reader. If you are wondering why my blog has a title image of Galleons doing battle – well its because my son installed this blog – when he arrives back from South America guess what his first job is?

04/26/12

Green Uptake on The Move – Solar Power in Brisbane Booms!

Solar Panels in Brisbane are In! – Financial and Green Benefits…

As a resident of Brisbane, i commented in my column that there is a very high degree of visibility to the safe-climate actions many householders around Brisbane. Around 2.8 million Australians either use Green Power or have solar PV (read , solar panels), and it is reasonable to assume that many, many more are taking the easier and cheaper safe-climate actions, yet the misconception that most householders are doing nothing about climate change persists. This is not surprising if you consider that most such actions take place behind closed doors and in backyards! My neighbours Bob and Sue Ryan installed solar panels on their Brisbane home in 2002 – they were trail blazers! My other half decided it was time to do our bit on a practical level for the green movement and environment by installing solar power on our Brisbane roof. We installed a large 5KW solar system and are now self sufficient in terms of now producing more electricity than we use – how cool is that! John, from the solar panels Brisbane  company reckons we will reduce carbon emissions released into the atmosphere by more than 25 tonnes per year. That is an astounding amount. We get paid for the extra electricity that we ‘export’ to the electricity grid. The State Government in their wisdom pays us 44 cents per kilo watt hour for all the power we ‘sell back’ to them, meaning we get a credit on our electricity bill. The solar panels cost $8000 to install and my ‘other half’ calculates we will pay off the solar power system in 4 years. Why we did not do it earlier i dont know. The renewable energy industry needs to be given incentives to grow – installing solar power in Brisbane has become an industry in its own right. Brisbane solar installers are , according to the Queensland State Government , installing 1200 solar power systems in Brisbane every day!

Collective Action In Reducing Carbon Emissions Through Renewable Energy and Solar Power Uptake

We need to really consider global warming and how, on an individual level we can reduce our household carbon solar panels - renewable energy in Brisbane is boomingemissions. By making all those actions widely visible, like , as we did, installing solar,i hope we can help to  achieve a cultural shift towards a society in which everyone is engaged in reducing GHG emissions because they know that everyone else is doing it too (like in wartime). People would be less likely to ‘tune out’ or deny climate warnings if they could see action is being taken – it would remove the disconnect between the warnings and what they see around them – and visible mass action would send a strong signal to governments. Bravo the Queensland Government for promoting solar power .

If you are involved in a climate/sustainability/environment group, please consider submitting a Group Solar Power Application in to give visibility to what your group is doing towards a safe climate. This feature has two aims: firstly it is part of the overall strategy to increase climate-action visibility, but also it is a way of introducing solar power and renewable energy to your group to people who may wish to join in and help. This will take a few minutes using the online form, plus the time to compose the description of your group. John at the Solar power Brisbane site has kindly agreed to talk to a group of us on 22nd May at 7.30PM at the Brisbane Town Hall – note: it will be in the Council Annex. Call John Forsythe on 0456778990 if you would like to attend.

“Greening” Brisbane – My Passion!

A year or so ago I sent an email to the The Brisbane Greens suggesting that giving visibility to existing safe-climate actions could help weaken psychological barriers to taking action, and wondering how to achieve greater visibility. Some of the members responded with suggestions and comments, then and since, and have helped shape this project. The most obvious difficulty was finding an affordable means of “reaching” mainstream householders, since many would be unlikely to stumble across a website like this unless they were directed to it via non-web communications. My original strategy was to create a survey of householders’ safe-climate actions for my local LGA,Brisbane city council, and have them use their existing channels of communication with all residents in the area to invite residents to take the survey and, more importantly, to publicise the “results so far”. I was hoping then to interest other LGAs in copying the model. Since we have taken the plunge and installed solar panels we are working with John, to really promote practical ways the individuals can reduce green house emissions. Solar power installation , wind power on a small scale, home insulation and low energy, high efficiency lighting are ways we are suggesting to the groups…..more to come!!