item 1 CUBAN TRADE EMBARGO. (scroll down)
item 2 GARNAUT REVIEW ON CLIMATE CHANGE Several people have asked me to comment on the worth and effectiveness on the Australian Garnaut Review on Climate Change.
For the information of readers outside Australian; all the Australian State Governments sponsored a review on climate change. Following the election of a left wing government in November 2007 the federal government also became a sponsor of the report. The author is Ross Garnaut Professor, Economics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. Australian National University, Canberra.
A draft report was released on July 4 th 2008 and the final report will be released in September 2008.
But first an overview- I maintain, along with quite a number of responsible people that global warming and climate change can be totally eliminated.
Those involved and those who study biofuels generally maintain that biofuels - based primarily on ethanol produced from sugarcane and vegetable oils produced primarily from tropical oil palms - can replace all the world's transport fuels. And currently cheaper than those produced from petroleum. Simple arithmetic shows there is an abundance of unfarmed land in the wet tropics sufficient to grow all the world's current requirements for transport fuels.
Those involved and those who study nuclear physics, in general maintain that there is sufficient cheap and easily accessible nuclear fuels (uranium and thorium) to last humanity for thousands of years. And with less risk than all other bulk power generating systems of real practical significance.
Those involved in organic type agriculture recognize that an international switch to organic type farming can rapidly cleanse the air of its excess of greenhouse gases and re-stabilize world weather systems. .
It's an axiom that ending global warming, stopping climate change and re-stabilizing world weather means the fossil fuel and agrochemical businesses must be put out of business. This is not a scenario that these industries are unaware of. Make no mistake, they are not fools.
Then the Garnaut Review comes along.
The fossil fuel industries problem is how do you neuter, how do you emasculate, a nationally foundered, supposedly comprehensive, global warming, climate change review? Too many scientists, too many meteorologist, too many agriculturalists will be interviewed. To many of them will give honest and therefore damaging assessments on climate change information. It's a problem. There is only one answer - the best thing to do, the only thing to do - is to defuse the whole issue before it can become an issue. So right at the very beginning you structurally limit the scope and the range of the entire investigation. That way you nip it in the bud. And that seems to be what happened.
Was it serendipity, was it happenstance, but below are the official terms of reference, as they came to be written, for the Garnaut Review on Climate Change .
Attachment 1 – Terms of Reference
To report to the Governments of the eight States and Territories of Australia, and if invited to
do so, to the Prime Minister of Australia, on:
1. The likely effect of human induced climate change on Australia's economy, environment,
and water resources in the absence of effective national and international efforts to
substantially cut greenhouse gas emissions;
2. The possible ameliorating effects of international policy reform on climate change, and
the costs and benefits of various international and Australian policy interventions on
Australian economic activity;
3. The role that Australia can play in the development and implementation of effective
international policies on climate change; and
4. In the light of 1 to 3, recommend medium to long-term policy options for Australia, and
the time path for their implementation which, taking the costs and benefits of domestic
and international policies on climate change into account, will produce the best possible
outcomes for Australia.
In making these recommendations, the Review will consider policies that: mitigate climate
change, reduce the costs of adjustment to climate change (including through the acceleration
of technological change in supply and use of energy), and reduce any adverse effects of
climate change and mitigating policy responses on Australian incomes.
This Review should take into account the following core factors:
_ The regional, sectoral and distributional implications of climate change and policies to
mitigate climate change;
_ The economic and strategic opportunities for Australia from playing a leading role in our
region's shift to a more carbon-efficient economy, including the potential for Australia to
become a regional hub for the technologies and industries associated with global
movement to low carbon emissions; and
_ The costs and benefits of Australia taking significant action to mitigate climate change
ahead of competitor nations; and
_ The weight of scientific opinion that developed countries need to reduce their greenhouse
gas emissions by 60 percent by 2050 against 2000 emission levels, if global greenhouse
gas concentrations in the atmosphere are to be stabilised to between 450 and 550 ppm
by mid century.
Consult with key stakeholders to understand views and inform analysis
******************************************************** Then you read what the draft report reports, in all its 573 pages.
It tells us that the very damaging droughts we currently experience are expected to get worse. Tornadoes, which are relatively rare in Australia will increase in frequency, and most definitely in ferocity. (That's not news. I think the majority of Australians are already aware of our weather changes)
The report then argues for, and strongly supports the concept of, a carbon trading and carbon credits trading system. In a nut shell this means continuing to burn coal, oil or gas is OK, provided the arsonist (I don't think that's an unfair term) can cajole, induce or bribe sufficient people in tropical
Third World Countries to refrain from clearing “tropical rainforests” to grow heathen biofuels. Using existing agricultural land to grow biofuels seems to be frowned on. Food prices will go up, people will starve. But surprisingly, planting trees, which incidentally must never be harvested, on that same existing agricultural land, is promoted as a good thing.
Australia could easily and economically produce sufficient biofuels to make us totally independent of the maneuverings of world oil suppliers and the manipulation of world oil prices. And it would be cheaper.
Nuclear energy guarantees a total cessation in the production of greenhouse gases in the generation of industrial power.
Australia is the world's biggest exporter of coal and according to the powers that be, it seems we should stay so. The Garnaut Draft Report argues we should spend taxpayer's money on inventing systems to collect carbon dioxide from the exhaust stacks of power station, pump it huge distances to some presumed safe geological structure, then compress it, and finally bury it deep underground, hopefully forever. Anybody familiar with this whole concept will tell you firstly, it would consume a third of the energy output of the power station, secondly it would be ludicrously expensive, and thirdly, the gas is inevitably going to seep back to the surface. But hopefully not at all sites.
In addition, I like many others I have spoken to, especially in the mining and oil drilling business like to argue that geological carbon sequestration is and at least a hundred times more difficult, dangerous and risky as is disposing of nuclear waste by simply dumping it down the same hole. Additionally, nuclear waste is not a gas. Also the quantities of waste are tiny by a factor of about a million to one.
Australia is an agricultural country and the sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide by the manufacture of fertile soil is effectively utterly ignored in the Garnaut Report. But then it was conveniently omitted from those cleverly constructed TERMS OF REFERENCE.
It seems to me before Professor Garnaut was ever asked to produce his report, his hands were tied, his legs were hobbled and he was required to wear blinkers.
For the coal, oil and gas industries the Garnaut report is a brilliant and highly supportive document.
Allan Yeomans
CUBAN TRADE EMBARGO.
BIG-OIL and GLOBAL WARMING
Allan J. Yeomans
The United States trades with Communist China, so why not Cuba?
United States arms embargo on Cuba was established in1958 resulting from the uprising against the Batista Government. It was progressively extended to a total embargo and travel ban following the USSR generated Cuban missile crisis in 1963. Today the USSR doesn't exist. But most of the embargos do; why?
There is a sick but logical answer. Sherlock Holmes said “first look for he who will benefit”, or “Cui Bono” which is another way of saying the same thing. Cuba's most successful business is growing sugarcane. Using sugar is the cheapest and most practical way to produce ethanol. Every year from an acre of sugarcane you can produce 750 gallons of ready-to-use ethanol. (And it can be done organically.)
If Cuba was allowed to trade freely with the US it could supply ethanol to US motorists at half the price US motorists now pay for gasoline.
When you look at the figures for Cuba you find that 75% of Cuba is sugar cane country. That's like a paddock one hundred and seventy miles square. It would produce enough to continuously run 30 million cars on straight ethanol. Or 35 million cars on E85, which a lot of modern American cars are designed for.
It is thus very logical for the Middle East oil States and their oil conglomerate associates, to insist, and demand, and to connive, to insure that the Cuban Embargo continues indefinitely.
Other things have also been “arranged” that suit the consortium. There is a 2.5% duty on both imported oil and imported ethanol into the US. So on face value that seems fair, but (and it's a big “but”) if you import ethanol you pay an additional 54 cents duty on every gallon imported.
With sugarcane ethanol you harvest the sap. With grain ethanol you harvest the nutritious seeds. So sugarcane is the logical choice.
Corn farmers and the oil conglomerates in the US are now subsidized to produce and blend ethanol from corn. The costs have been astronomical and the impact is that just a tiny 1.5% of US fuel is derived from corn farming. Coincidently, the oil industries' receive corn ethanol subsidies more than sufficient to offset the 1.5% loss in oil sales revenues.
WHAT TO DO ? First eliminate the 54 cents penalty on imported ethanol from anywhere in the World. Secondly, eliminate the trade embargo on Cuba - at least on sugar and ethanol. And lastly, because it would be political impossible to cancel; maintain pro-rata corn subsidies to American farmers.
If this makes sense to you, then forward it to whoever you think should read it.
Or maybe to everybody in your address book.
Or if you prefer send me the email addresses of everybody you feel should
receive copies and I'll send them direct, along with our news letter.
If you want information on how we stop global warming go to our URL www. yeomansconcepts .com.au . Also there, read free on line my book “PRIORITY ONE Together We Can Beat Global Warming”. Hard copies are available at www.Amazom.com and www.Amazon.com.uk
Email me at aj@yeomansplow.com.au or phone me at 61 (Australia) then area code 7 then 55923017. Time wise I'm about seven hours behind US times. I have answered many general questions on global warming. See them at allexperts .com a/q/Global-warming-Climate-3851/ - 23k
( “AllExperts” is part of The New York Times)] .
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