By Don Aitkin

“I object to having to pay more for electricity that is produced inefficiently and erratically because some people are worried about the end of the world. In the 1980s, solar energy looked a possible way in the future of protecting our small and diminishing reserves of oil – because even then there were experts telling us that ‘Peak Oil’ had already arrived. It would never have occurred to me that we would be considering it as a source of baseline power. How would we store overnight the energy gained during the day? No one had the answer then, and no one has produced an efficient working model of the answer today. For isolated settlements and properties? Yes. For the grid? No.”

From: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=14447

Australia, when Europeans arrived, consisted of a series of biota highly adapted to what we now call hazard reduction burning. The reason is that this is what the aborigines had been practicing for 50,000 years or so.

They were greatly assisted in this by the existence in Australia of the “The Fire Tree”, the eucalypt. The eucalypt promotes fire and is resistant to fire, so that in a regime of constant burning, eucalypts have a higher survival rate and you tend to get the type of monoculture remarked on by many early scientists, including Charles Darwin.

Since the advent of European man in Australia, we have, by preventing the Aboriginal practice of Fire-stick Farming, changed the landscape.

More here by Peter Stitt: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/hazard-reduction-burning.pdf [PDF, 109 KB]

Creating Bushfire Hazards

A recent report from friends who suffered terrible losses of buildings, fences, pasture and cattle in the Coonabarabran fire commenced with the ominous and oft-repeated message: “a raging fire came out of the National Park straight for us”.

There is only one way to limit fire damage – reduce the fuel available.

Fuel load can be reduced in three ways – by grazing animals, by planned small “cool” fires, or by mechanical reduction with slashers, mulchers or dozers.

Australia’s grassland landscape was created and managed by generations of Aborigines who were masters at using man’s most useful tool – fire. Every explorer from Abel Tasman (1642) and Captain Cook (1770) onwards noted the smoke in the sky and the burnt trees whenever they landed. This burning created the open grassland landscapes that dominated pre-European Australia. Aborigines lit fires continually, mainly to keep their fires sticks alight. Their small patchwork fires caused no permanent damage to the environment and fortuitously created and maintained the healthy grasslands and open forests on which many animals and Aborigines depended.

There have been two major changes to the tree/grass balance since European settlement. In the fertile well-watered coastal strip, large areas of thick scrub and open forest were logged and cleared for timber, farms, towns, roads, schools and the domesticated grasses of suburban lawns. Most of those trees have been displaced by those people who now, in ignorance, are also destroying the grasslands and remaining open forests by locking up land and preventing any form of regrowth control. Having destroyed much of the coastal forests and scrubs, they are now destroying the open forests and grasslands.

Misguided tree lovers and green politicians have locked the gates on ever-increasing areas of land for trees, parks, heritage, wilderness, habitat, weekend retreats, carbon sequestration etc. Never before on this ancient continent has anyone tried to ban land use or limit bushfires on certain land. The short-sighted policy of surrounding their massive land-banks with fences, locked gates, fire bans and exclusion of livestock has created a new alien environment in Australia. They have created tinder boxes where the growth of woody weeds and the accumulation of dead vegetation in eucalypt re-growth create the perfect environment for fierce fires.

Once ignited by lightning, carelessness, or arson, the inevitable fire-storms incinerate the park trees and wildlife, and then invade the unfortunate neighbouring properties. Many of today’s locked-up areas were created to sequester carbon to fulfil Kyoto obligations. Who pays the carbon tax on the carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere by wild fires? The green bureaucracies and politicians are clearly mis-managing their huge land-bank. Aborigines and graziers did a far better job. There should be a moratorium on locking up any more land and a return to sustainable management for existing land holdings.

More, as well as:

• Time to Build Better Infrastructure
• Magic-gas Discovery
• Extreme Weather is Nothing New
• The Blind Worship of Windmills
• The Last Word

Read the full report: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/destructive-green-policies.pdf [PDF, 65 KB]

Keywords: Bushfires, grasslands, parks, floods, infrastructure, carbon dioxide magic, extreme weather, windmill monuments, James Lovelock, CSIROh!, Monckton, politicians on drugs.

When Europeans settled Australia, much of the country was covered by grasslands and open forests. In 1770, that great botanist Sir Joseph Banks reported “very few tree species, but every place was covered with vast quantities of grass”. Many other explorers and settlers made similar observations.

The land had been kept in this state for centuries by aboriginal land managers using their main tool, fire. However, since 1788, the use of fire was progressively suppressed by settlers, foresters, city dwellers, bureaucrats and environmentalists.

Trees invade and then suffocate grasslands unless tree seedlings are kept in check by fire or by mechanical or chemical means.

The destruction of Australia’s ancestral grasslands has received a massive boost in recent years by green extremists aiming to remove human activities from rural Australia using national parks, reservations, crown land, heritage areas, Wild Rivers, vegetation orders, logging bans and now Kyoto bans on regrowth clearing.

Prevention of hazard reduction burning (the key tool used by generations of aborigines to maintain Australia’s landscape), lockout of grazing animals and the spread of carbon credit forests is completing the destruction of our savannah lands.

Once the grasslands become infested by woody scrubs, these quickly give protection to noxious weeds such as lantana, groundsel and boxthorn, and vermin such as foxes and wild dogs, cats, and pigs.

The amazing grasses of the world and their seeds feed most of the animal kingdom. The deliberate sacrifice of native grasslands to woody weeds is another suicidal green policy.

For those who would like read some fascinating comments by early explorers and settlers see: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/fire-and-landscape.pdf [PDF, 1.8 MB]

The Australian government’s plan to sell their un-saleable carbon tax has hit a snag – their pollsters have discovered that the word ”carbon” provokes anger in the electorate. This is no surprise. Most decent people hate liars and the carbon tax campaign has been mired in lies from the start.

There are five big carbon lies.

Read on for more, including:

• Farming Carbon Credits
• The New Brisbane Line?
• The Big Unravelling Starts, in Germany
• Global Warming is not the Threat – Ice is the Killer
• Renewable Electricity for Australia – the Cost
• Practical Weather Prediction
• How we are Winning the Climate Wars
• Carbon Sense will keep up the fight

See: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/carbon-lies.pdf [PDF, 230 KB]

Below are some comments received by “Carbon Sense” in 2011. Originals of all (with full names) are held in our files. Naturally we also get a few brickbats, some too abusive to reproduce, but they are vastly outnumbered by comments like those below. We appreciate all feedback, even critical ones. We learn most by being challenged by intelligent people.

Read here: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/testimonials.pdf [PDF, 183 KB]

The carbon policies of the Australian government will destroy regional industry.

Most regional industry relies on adding value to the products of primary industries – smelters, refineries, processing plants, cement plants, sawmills, flour mills, abattoirs and rail and port infrastructure. These facilities require cheap reliable electricity, which will never be supplied by green energy toys.

Recently Xstrata announced plans to cease smelting and refining copper in Queensland. Then Blue Scope Steel decided to reduce production and shed workers. Now Rio has signalled the sale of its aluminium processing empire. Next we can expect that a large coal fired electricity generator will be unable to repay its debts. Cement plants will be squeezed and rail and port costs will increase.

All of these projects are denigrated in their own country because they have one thing in common – they rely heavily on carbon fuels such as coal and gas and thus are all threatened by the toxic carbon tax. None of these activities will cease because of our carbon tax. They will either pay foreign spivs for “carbon credits” or the business will transfer to other countries who will welcome our trashed industries.

Not one of these operations will survive if forced to use costly and unreliable wind or solar power.

The 74 green lemmings in Parliament have given us “certainty” – the certainty of capital flight and job losses.

Are we prepared for the new green future where jobless Australians survive from backyard vegie gardens, poaching kangaroos and wild pigs from carbon credit forests and cooking with biomass on a wood stove? Of course we will enjoy pirate movies downloaded at the speed of light using the NBN (as long as the sun is shining or the wind blows).

More:

• The Carbon Dioxide Tax Game
• Speaking of elections, Ontario Wind Turbines Slice Liberal Politicians
• Carbon Dioxide and the Politics of the Carbon Tax
• Julia Gillard explains carbon dioxide to students
• Reduce Australian CO2 emissions and provide low cost power by… building new coal plants!

See http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/reaping-green-dividends.pdf [PDF, 213 KB]

Britain scrambles to avoid future blackouts

Source: http://dailybayonet.com/?p=9131

Chris Huhne, the UK’s Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change gambled the future of Britain’s energy generation on a massive expansion of giant bird shredders:

February 2007 [before Huhne was in government]:

Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Chris Huhne said: “The doubling of our electricity generation from wind in a little more than a year shows what renewables can do and gives the lie to the need for a new generation of nuclear power. “However, the incentives for wind need to be maintained while the Government is still far short of doing what is necessary to encourage tidal and wave power. “On a windy island surrounded by waves and tides, we should never be short of environmentally-friendly energy sources.”

June 2010:

Huhne expressed his excitement over the findings of a recent report into the value of Britain’s offshore resources. He is quoted saying: “It is right to point out, as that report did, that in due course we may once again be a net energy exporter, as we were during the peak of oil and gas in the North Sea, and that’s a very exciting prospect.”

July 2010:

The Energy Secretary said enabling Britain to be totally self-sufficient thanks to renewable sources – which also included wave power and harnessing tidal streams – would be an extraordinary prize.

September 2010:

I’m pleased that we’ve reached the point where 5GW of our energy comes from onshore and offshore wind – that’s enough electricity to power all the homes in Scotland.

Cartoon by Josh

But wind power is a mirage.

If the promise of wind was real, the UK wouldn’t need to spend £5 billion on new undersea cables linking it to more reliable power from European nations like nuclear-powered France:

The Government plans to spend more than £5billion laying 11 undersea power cables to allow Britain to import electricity from neighbouring countries and prevent blackouts in the next decade. The giant cables would provide up to 10GW of electricity, enough to power 2.4 million homes a year. Ministers are said to be alarmed at Britain’s likely energy shortfall, made worse by the fact the country has less capacity to import power than any other in Europe.

Chris Huhne scattered the land and oceans with anti-avian monuments to stupidity, and all he has to show for it is millions of dead birds and people who can’t afford electricity. Turns out the green dream is more of a nightmare for Britons.

Geoff Derrick is an Australian geologist with 47 years of practical experience in acquiring knowledge as to how our planet works and how it provides the resources for modern civilisations.

In this submission to the Australian Parliament on their proposed Carbon Tax Bills, Geoff uses the words and work of others to summarise the main issues that should be considered before the Carbon Tax Bills become law.

He concludes there is absolutely no reason or justification for the introduction of a carbon tax.

See his full submission: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/submission-carbon-tax-bills-derrick.pdf [PDF, 2.8 MB]

Some image of wind turbine failures.

More images here: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/wind-turbine-failure.ppt [PowerPoint file, 483KB]