A Perth reader sent me this little bombshell from June – so now the French desalination company Degrémont a part of the global SUEZ Environnement Group will “…operate and maintain water production and wastewater treatment assets for Perth.” And yes that includes the 13 dams.
The WA Govt about a decade ago decided to introduce seawater desalination and at the same time allow dams to steadily be “decommissioned” by a creeping process of not managing dam catchment vegetation. A process that has cost Perth water users about a thousand GL of water over say 15 years.
The media release is loaded with all the “expensive water” propaganda – referring to water as “precious” etc. No not precious; water is a common compound that falls free from the sky. We have to have the brains and will to collect it. Our pioneers and forefathers who built our dams would turn in their graves to think we were steadily making the dams more useless by not having the common sense and guts to thin catchment bush – due to political pressure from the Greens. As my reader in Perth said – “I can’t see Degrémont pushing catchment management as a profit centre.” Click more for text of entire media release.
Continue reading Management of entire Perth water supply outsourced to French desalination company
Monthly Archives: September 2012
Scottish Climate & Energy Forum says – “Commitments under the Kyoto Protocol cease as of 31st December 2012”
Mike Haseler Chairman of Scottish Climate and Energy Forum has emailed me to say –
As a result of finding out that the Kyoto commitments technically comes to an end on the 31st December, the Scottish Climate & Energy Forum have been investigating the likely consequences of this both in terms of what is likely to happen to the protocol and the wide implications when (as it seems) the protocol effectively ends operation on the 31st December.
We have written this up as a report. The main intention of this report has been to try to find the actual facts and having sorted the chaff from the wheat, ascertain what this might mean (with particular emphasis on Scotland).
The report has been produced to coincide with today which is 100 days to Kyoto Ends, and it is available on the SCEF website:
Continue reading Scottish Climate & Energy Forum says – “Commitments under the Kyoto Protocol cease as of 31st December 2012”
Garnaut rides bandwagon talking down mining amidst GreenLabor spin
There is so much spin around these days – I like the way Prof Ross Garnaut is intro’d as “Former Hawke government economist…” – heavens above, how many decades ago was that. Surely they are not trying to distance RG from his greatest work when he was commissioned by GreenLabor in Nov 2010 to provide an independent update to his 2008 Climate Change Review.
Talking about spin – I love this SMH headline – “Mining threat to Swan’s surplus”. Sorry mate – you got that dead wrong – mining is no threat to anything – it is crazy GreenLabor out-of-control spending that is the “…threat to Swan’s surplus”.
The Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) has asked – What do you want to know about Islam?
This blog sometimes goes off-climate-topic.
Following Muslim riots in Sydney last weekend and around the world recently – the ABC asks four questions.
In the wake of the unrest, ABC News Online is putting together an explainer on Islam and the protests.
Tell us the questions you want answered, and we will put them to an expert panel.
We have compiled the following questions to get things started:
1 – What have the recent protests by Muslims in Australia and around the world been about?
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3 – Are all Muslims angry over the film, or just a minority?
4 – How do the violent responses to the film sit with Islamic teachings?
What else do you want to know?
It is clear from the comments below the ABC article that most people have an understanding of Islam and do not need help from the ABC.
Professor Stephan Lewandowsky believes satellite temperature data “…yield precisely the same result…” as “surface-based thermometers”.
In May 2010 Professor Lewandowsky stated on the Australian ABC online The Drum – “The further fact that the satellite data yield precisely the same result without any surface-based thermometers is of no relevance to climate “sceptics.”
Just checkout the very real trend differences between satellites and surface that I found in April 2012. “You know how the warmists parrot on that “satellites agree with surface temperatures” – not any more – they should check the data.”
Here are the two Tables from my April post.
NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer could be more informative in her sea level paper
This Govt chart of changes in sea level over the last 140,000 years – from NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer article “CSE Report Sea Level Rise Benchmarks” (see my previous post) – could easily have been more informative by showing that sea levels ~6,000 years BP were one to two metres higher than today (marked by my red freehand line “HO” for Holocene Optimum). Their chart has no problems showing detailed oscillations at approx 55,000 BP where I have marked a “B”.
The higher sea levels around the Holocene Optimum are well known but it so happens that research on the Australian East Coast by scientists at James Cook University published in 2008 firms up the timing and magnitude of these changes.
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We realize here that Govt scientists prefer the simplistic IPCC story of constantly rising sea levels and that taxpayers should not be confused with the information that sea levels have in fact fallen over the last ~6,000 years.
New South Wales Govt takes more rational view of future sea level rise
The NSW Government today announced significant changes to the way the NSW coast will be managed, giving more freedom to landowners to protect their properties from erosion and dropping Labor’s onerous statewide sea level rise planning benchmarks.
Special Minister of State, Chris Hartcher said the changes mean councils will have the freedom to consider local conditions when determining future hazards.
The first stage of the NSW Government’s comprehensive coastal reforms will:
[1] Make it easier for coastal landholders to install temporary works to reduce the impacts of erosion on their properties;
[2] Remove the compulsory application of sea level rise benchmarks;
[3] Deliver clarity to councils on the preparation of section 149 notices by focusing on current known hazards; and
[4] Support local councils by providing information and expert advice on sea level rise relevant to their local area.
Mr Hartcher said the changes strike the right balance between protecting property and managing the State’s vast coastline.
The NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer has identified uncertainty in the projected rate of future sea level rise given that the scientific knowledge in the field was continually evolving.
I am amazed that in all this blather and taxpayer spending about this or that model of future sea level rise – nobody is telling us – what is the evidence from coastal survey marks of the last 150 years ? Funny that.
There must be hundreds of survey marks near the coast from which evidence could be assembled to demonstrate the sea level rise of the last 150 years.
Example of how mineral exploration is strangled by Green & Red Tape
Just saw this news item – “A long wait for new Tanami tenements” – in fact a six year wait.
Of course the legal and quasi-legal “leasing” costs would have been mounting all of that time. Crazy way to run a country, to handicap investors who want to spend their hard earned on mostly low impact activities to add to the National store of knowledge about our mineral resources. Minerals which if mined will help keep this country in a manner it has become used to. In this case the company Northern Minerals NTU has a market capitalization of $64Mn so can stand the cost of a wait like this. Many exploration companies are a tenth the size or less.
Qantas makes announcements about buying carbon credits
I noticed Andrew Bolt picked up this story from July – and the questioning article from the Australian Farm Institute. My curiosity was raised by another ABC article from ABC Rural in the NT – “Henbury carbon credits clear for take-off”. Where against the tone of the headline – the article states – “… The rangelands methodology that the Henbury Conservation Project depends upon has been submitted but is yet to be finalised, so Mrs Pearse says the first sale to Qantas is still months off. “We have to wait for the domestic offset integrity committee to have a good look at that methodology and then that will go out to public consultation for three months. “So we’re not expecting an approved methodology any time soon, it’s still a long path.”
This all sounds as though what QANTAS announced as a done deal – is still a work in progress.
And of course at the end of 2010 QANTAS announced “…New Carbon Offset Provider”, a private Euroland company Climate Friendly owned by South Pole Carbon – so what has happened that CF and SPC can not supply what QANTAS requires.
NIWA has big win in the New Zealand Supreme Court
The NIWA vs NZCET court result will be picked apart on more notable blogs than this – however I am curious about a few things in the 49 page “Judgement of Venning J”. My interest is mainly on the Clauses on the subject of the station data. To start though I want to look at Clause 176 – I will be interested to hear what readers think.
My press release from 2006 is still online here.
Here is Clause 176 from the Judgement –
I can not see that Judge Vennings paraphrasing of what Dr Wratt said about contrasting winds before and after 1945 – can have any bearing on the point in my press release which was that two IPCC compliant expert groups (Jones/CRU and NIWA) – both with access to the same database of station data – disagreed greatly about the long term New Zealand temperature trend – over whatever exact period chosen. I was pointing out how the science is not settled.
Wind affects equally the station data used by CRU & NIWA and is not a cause of the CRU – NIWA long-term trend divergence – as Venning J seems to conclude Dr Wratt has shown.