Author: Peter Gardner

From the Bass Coast Climate Action Network Newsletter August 2020

When the climate emergency was declared by Bass Coast Council last year, two Councillors abstained. They are both in Bunurong Ward. It would be a great win for the climate if they were replaced at the October council elections. Well… two members of the Bass Coast CAN core group, Leticia Laing and Michael Nugent, will be candidates in Bunurong Ward.

Here is what you can do to support them:

1. Like, follow and share their Facebook pages even if you are not in Bass Coast, and make comments, ask questions, etc. on posts

https://www.facebook.com/pg/NugentForBass/posts/

http://www.facebook.com/Leticia4BCCouncil/

2. They will need help letterboxing in a few weeks’ time. This is an allowable activity outside Melbourne under current COVID rules. Please let them know if you might be willing to spend a few hours helping out:

. leticialaing@gmail.com  0415 801 821

. mnn@fastmail.fm  0416 039 933

3. Do you know anyone with a holiday home or hobby farm, or who runs a business in Bass Coast but doesn’t live here? They are entitled to vote both where they live and in Bass Coast. But only if they enrol in both places. They don’t need to be here at the time of the election, and won’t risk a fine since voting is not compulsory for non-residents, even when they are registered. Non-residents make up a massive 42% of all possible votes in Bass Coast! So, if you know any non-resident rate-payers, please urge them to enrol before next Friday, August 28, and to vote for the climate.

Further info at: https://tinyurl.com/y5lfjn5o or call 1300 226 278.

Forms are at: https://tinyurl.com/yxn78343 (click REGISTER TO VOTE).

4. Spread the word: tell friends, neighbours, relations, acquaintances … People you pass in the street… That a vote for Michael Nugent and Leticia Laing is a VOTE FOR THE CLIMATE at these council elections.

Authorised by: P N Mckenzie 166 Reed Cres. Wonthaggi 3995

When I first started acting seriously on a daily basis on climate change in 2008 I knew that this was a task that would consume the rest of my life. At that time I was angry with our elected representatives – that in a society based on knowledge they should ignore the clear message of science. I also felt a certain resentment, as I knew most of my energy was going to be diverted, though not entirely, from my preferred task of studying history.

Now my elderly disposition has started me thinking about the end of my career as a climate activist. Coincidentally, an opinion piece in a similar vein published this week in the Guardian by Sonia Sodha was entitled “We’ve got to start thinking beyond our own lifespans if we’re going to avoid extinction”.

Much as I dislike the use of the term ‘extinction’ in our literature this otherwise generally pessimistic piece makes the important point that global heating will be with us for a long, long time and that this requires a ‘monumental’ change to our way of thinking. Sodha noted “we could learn from those times in history when humans have proved their ability to think beyond their own lifespan: ‘cathedral thinking’ is based on those architects who planned spectacular buildings that would never be finished in their own lifetimes.”

On the other hand, Sodha downplays short-term activism, whereas I am of the opinion that the work of activists is cumulative. For many the lack of progress at a federal level of politics may seem a failure. Certainly, the ‘Vote Climate’ campaign at the last election did not gain the traction that we all had hoped. A number of my activities including my political campaigning and attempts to form a ‘climate’ party may be considered failures, yet there are now at least 2 single issue parties registered, and a number of locals entering the political arena as I have bowed out.

An old Arab proverb is a good guide for activists – “work today as though you were going to die tomorrow, plan for tomorrow as though you were going to live a thousand years”. With each action, each word, each vote, each lecture, each book, even each blog, we progress slowly towards our goal. We need those who come after us – our children and grandchildren – to follow, to help construct a ‘cathedral’ of ideas and action.

Republished from Just Community No.8

Our BIG news is the launch of our website. Thanks to the smart and hard-working Elizabeth Collins and her team, PACA now has its own home on the internet at www.promareaclimateaction.org. Please visit and see what we are up to, join in whatever takes your fancy, become a member, and listen to our previous webinars at your leisure.

On July 21st, the monthly webinar featured Fish Creek resident and PACA member Madelaine Moore, who spoke about water across the globe, the topic of her recently completed PhD. Madelaine said the move to privatise residential water provision and establish water trading markets in the commercial arena has severely limited access to clean drinking water and forced farmers, particularly in Australia, to compete with large speculative investors for access to agricultural water.

Our speaker this month is Waratah resident Bryan Watterson, who will speak on creating a forest. Bryan is a long-standing Landcare member and enthusiastic conservationist. He escaped from Carlton in the late 1970s to the southern foothills of the Strzeleckis. His initial property straddled the Little Franklin River, encompassing ancient ash, huge blackwoods and slender tree ferns and lyrebirds. In his [own] words he had “landed in paradise”. This lush, raw mix of healthy forest quickly developed into an ingrained essence.

Bryan’s next property at Toora North, a degraded, denuded dairy block provided an enormous challenge. Sixty-thousand trees and 20 years later a young forest is filling eroded steep gullies and creating corridors linked to the Agnes River. He will tell us aspects of this journey and how it rolls into the bigger picture of catchment restoration. What an amazing legacy. Can you imagine leaving a forest as your contribution to healing the damage we have done to Mother Earth?

The author is from Walkerville

Contact Just Community here.

Introduction to an article published by the Baw Baw Sustainability Network

Climate Change is happening throughout the world and one of the consequences is changing the wines that we all enjoy. There will not be an impact on many alcoholic beverages, like beer and spirits, because they are essentially manufactured. Natural beverages sourced directly from fruits, like grapes, that grow, ripen and reflect the season are certainly influenced.

Fruits are ripening quicker and are sweeter. Vintage (grape picking) is now 3-4 weeks earlier that 40 years ago. Paradoxically the frost damage risk in Spring is now longer by 3-4 weeks because the air is drier and there are more clear night skies.

Climate change means that everything is on average getting warmer. Over my lifetime alone temperatures have risen an average of 2 degrees. I can remember as a boy in Sydney the newspaper’s front pages in large letters shouting “40 Degrees!!”. Today, east coast temperatures often exceed 40 degrees and the novelty has long passed.

All would be well if we only drank sweet wines and ports, like our 19th century forbears, as they require grapes with high sugar. However, the most popular wine styles today are dry reds and whites, commonly consumed with food at the table. In the past these wines were between 11 to 13.5% alcohol.

A walk through your local bottle shop looking at red wine labels will show a range of alcohol levels, from 13 to 17%, with most 15-16%. A definite shift towards port styles (18 to 20%). The question is does it matter? The wines will be different in unexpected ways…

The full article is here.

The author is the proprietor of the Nicholson River Winery

Letter published in the Bairnsdale Advertiser 12.8

There is surely irony in Darren Chester releasing the draft East Gippsland Recovery 2030 Plan without once mentioning global warming, climate change, climate targets, impacts of global warming, renewable energy or electric vehicle infrastructure.

The Paris Agreement also focuses on 2030, with the goal of keeping global warming below 1.5ºC. It is astonishing that in his 2030 plan Mr Chester does not include climate change and its impact on our vulnerable region. 

Many of the very worthy initiatives proposed are needed as a direct consequence of the bushfires that ravaged our region just months ago. Climate scientists have concluded that these fires were so devastating and widespread as a result of climate change. It is predicted that we are likely to have further, equally severe events in the years leading to 2030, exacerbated by ongoing global warming.

Mr Chester’s plan includes much needed and welcome tourism initiatives across the region. Hopefully people will be encouraged to experience our amazing scenery, attractions and businesses. Other initiatives support fishing and key industries that form the lifeblood of our coastal and rural towns.

Unfortunately much of the plan will be pointless due to dramatic long-term changes to our climate reducing amenity and productivity. We need the same coordinated, largely successful disaster response that has occurred with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Please Mr Chester: when you revise your plan it must focus on dramatic reductions in fossil fuel use, and implementation of regenerative agriculture, renewable energy, increasingly energy efficient homes… and so much more. Your government must take the urgent action needed to contain rising temperatures before it’s too late.

The author is a climate activist and member of EGCAN

Commentators have drawn obvious parallels between the climate emergency and the coronavirus pandemic many times. One of these has been adopted by many governments, and in particular our own. On the one hand we accept and follow scientific advice on the coronavirus but on the other still ignore (and even oppose) that given by an overwhelming body of science on climate change. This is something our Liberal National Party governments have been doing for twenty years. The governments that have either ignored the public health science, or acted belatedly on its advice – including the UK, Brazil and the USA – are those that have suffered, and continue to suffer, horrendous numbers of fatalities from the coronavirus.

And the well-worn post pandemic recovery option called variously a ‘green revolution’ and here, Australia as a “renewable energy superpower”, is a conclusion drawn by science and activists across the country but again ignored, restrained or manipulated by a government anchored in the past. One less obvious and more subtle parallel with the coronavirus pandemic is that any delay in action can have catastrophic results. The prime example of this is the response of the USA where there mortality statistics lead the world and currently (early August) show no signs of respite.

Similarly, it was also possibly a delayed decision in Victoria that has led to a resurgence of the coronavirus and the correspondingly severe lockdown here. The slogan “go hard and go early” does not appear to have been applied, with some opposition politicians and irresponsible sections of the media urging a return to economic ‘normality’. The ‘go hard, go early’ slogan should also have been applied to global warming as we have known this was a serious problem for more than 30 years.

There can be little doubt the effects of global warming will be far worse than the pandemic. Already the fatalities associated with climate influenced events like the 2009 heatwave and bushfires and last summer’s bushfires are large – about 500 and 450 in each case. Whilst these grim statistics may be overwhelmed, in the short term, by a growing coronavirus fatality list in Australia, they will be surpassed quickly by fatalities from climate induced and exacerbated extreme weather events – the grim reaper of global warming in action.

Each delay in concerted action on climate change means that we will have to go even ‘harder’ and this will involve much more government direction and control. Global warming is a long-term problem that will be with us for generations. We have already had a generation’s delay. That is why the continued delaying actions of many of our politicians and the fossil fuel industry are criminal.

Sometime ago I wrote praising the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) being organised by the East Gippsland Shire Council (EGSC). The blog commented on the EGSC release in December last year announcing a PPA for close to 100% of their energy for the next 10 years. It then explained how the PPAs worked and that they were a win for both the purchaser, by providing renewable energy at a fixed cost, and the provider by guaranteeing sales and income into the future. The latter in turn enabled the producer to secure capital for the development and/or expansion of their renewable energy project.

I concluded that the “PPAs are an obvious way for the shire to get in on the ground floor and switch to 100% renewable energy use immediately. The East Gippsland Shire’s push for solar energy is… commendable..” and that “while the PPAs are encouraging the rapid expansion of solar and wind farms it is a shame that more of them cannot be located in Gippsland where the flow-on effects of employment in construction and maintenance are added benefits.”

Last month the Bass Coast Shire announced that they were also going down the PPA path. Promotion of this news on the social media led to correspondence with Wellington Shire Councillor Darren McCubbin on their own plans. Darren wrote of this in some detail: “My understanding is that we are only putting up 25% in the first instance, sort of a dip our toe in the water. I was not keen for much more as I am really keen for us to negotiate bigger PPA’s with local suppliers – we have been working on Ramayuck as a possible site with the income being used to generate indigenous employment plus a great rate for the Council.”

He added: “The current PPA is through a group which was headlined by Darebin Council although there were some problems and now the Municipal Association of Victoria are doing it… I know you can do better by working with others but I still would like to encourage local solar farms and believe in the long-run this is a better way to go. On another note, we announced our new sustainability strategy on Monday and put “sustainability” as one our pillars of governance and good policy (as it of course should be).”

It is now time for large businesses in the region large to go down the same path, especially those enterprises which can only capture a small part of their energy consumption or have substantial power consumption at night. With both local governments and business on board the target of 100% renewables will be more readily achieved.

Article first published in the Bairnsdale Advertiser 22.7

John Hermans* continues:

The resources needed to ‘fight’ and manage fires are now being increasingly stretched. For example, we have always shared firefighting aircraft with the U.S.A. With fire seasons now so much longer and challenging in each country the overlap in aircraft demand is limiting availability of this resource.

The same is true of our more local resources, CFA trucks, volunteers, heavy machinery, communications networks, water availability, aircraft and people power. They are all in greater demand, in more places, for longer periods of time than ever before.

Longer, hotter fire seasons are also compressing the amount of time available to conduct fuel reduction/management activities, with the window of suitable conditions now shorter than we have ever experienced. More fuel reduction fires are escaping and becoming major events in their own right. Another trend set to continue.

Overwhelmingly, the findings from successive fire inquiries, including royal commissions, supported by virtually all the experts and an ever-increasing body of evidence from Australia and around the world,  show that fires are getting harder to manage due to the increased temperatures caused by human induced climate change.

We know numerous and repeated research has shown that fuel reduction burning in close proximity to assets, such as houses and schools can be very effective at minimising property loss. But research also shows this depends on forest type, only works for the first few years after the ‘controlled burn’, and only helps when fire weather/behaviour is not extreme. Some forest types become less likely to burn if left alone and frequent burning reduces biodiversity. There are always trade-offs with fire management.

Urgent action on global warming is probably the single most effective way to stop fire behaviour from getting exponentially worse. We must address the ‘elephant in the room’ that is climate change.

*John Hermans and his family successfully defended their East Gippsland home from the recent fires. John was also assisted by four decades of informed preparation and understanding of how bushfires work, including consultation with fire agencies, scientists and personal research.

Article published in the Bairnsdale Advertiser 22.7

Recent claims by the Institute of Foresters that “climate change was not the cause of the summer’s bushfires” is at odds with the overwhelming scientific consensus which shows it played a major role. Furthermore the risk of similar events continues to increase with rising global temperatures. The current Bushfire Royal Commission has heard that there are likely to be two more similar fire events by the end of the decade.

Baseless assertions that “the fires were primarily the consequence of decades of poor fire management” is an attempt to draw attention away from the real reason why these fires were so damaging, extensive and unprecedented; changing climate.

The Institute of Foresters dismiss Greg Mullins and other ex-fire and emergency management chiefs because they have a ‘mostly urban and rural’ background. An interesting comment when Greg Mullins, the ex-fire chiefs’ spokesperson, is an internationally recognized expert in responding to major bushfires over decades and has 50 years of fire-fighting experience including 39 years with Fire and Rescue NSW.

Throughout history, fire managers have used various tools to try and keep fire as a welcome tool rather than a bad master. Many of these tools and strategies are still used, and while not without valid criticisms, remain relevant but increasingly difficult to utilise, such as fuel reduction in areas close to towns.

Mr John Hermans, Forest Ecologist and member of East Gippsland Climate Action Network, pointed out that other approaches are less used but increasingly relevant. He suggests Government authorities assist property owners to reduce the potential of their homes and assets being lost by removal of flammables and installation of water sprinklers at the building interface. This is especially pertinent in light of the millions of dollars of State funds spent on private property fire debris clean up.

Other ideas, largely obsolete, are advocated by the Institute of Foresters in the recent article ‘More Fuel Management Required’ (Advertiser, July 1 2020).  These ideas include percentage driven targets and the burning of large remote forested landscapes miles from town. This strategy is expensive and poorly targeted. In fact research has shown that this type of burning can actually increase the likelihood and intensity of a forest fire.

Fire seasons are getting longer, starting earlier and ending later.  The country is drier with more days with a higher fire index than ever before, leading to wildfires extremely difficult to control. These trends were identified decades ago and will continue to get worse if there is no effective action on climate change.

(To be Continued.)

*John Hermans and his family successfully defended their East Gippsland home from the recent fires. John was also assisted by four decades of informed preparation and understanding of how bushfires work, including consultation with fire agencies, scientists and personal research.

It is obvious that the Latrobe Valley’s greatest assets are its infrastructure – in particular the high voltage transmission lines and to a lesser extent a skilled workforce. There are four 500KV transmission lines between Hazlewood and Melbourne, which with the closure of Hazlewood have plenty of spare capacity. Elsewhere in the state, solar and wind farms have had their energy output restricted or closed down due to the inability, at various times, of the transmission lines to carry the extra power load. 

It is also obvious that, with the climate emergency, we have to move rapidly from our greenhouse polluting coal generators to clean energy. As the brown coal generators close, hopefully well before their ‘use by’ date, then further spare capacity will be created. This can easily be utilised and balanced by encouraging a large number of renewable energy projects within a reasonable distance of the mains transmission lines or the Basslink high voltage direct current interconnector.

One way to do this is by creating a renewable energy zone, similar to those currently promoted by the NSW government within, say 100K of Traralgon. Such a project would be a win / win opportunity for the valley with abundant jobs, and for the State government with its renewable energy rollout and climate obligations.

There are already a number of projects within this area that I have been promoting over the years include the Baw Baw Pumped Hydro project of Paul Treasure and the Star of the South Offshore wind farm, each of which could generate the energy now produced by Yallourn. The best projects to start with are those near or adjacent to the mains transmission lines including the Delburn wind farm west of Morwell.

One possibility is the utilisation of the Hazlewood pondage with floating solar. There are a number of similar projects, proposed by retired valley engineer Chris Barfoot, and he pointed out the required floats could be manufactured locally. Another project that deserves consideration is turning the Hazlewood open cut into a huge solar farm by placing solar panels on the reclaimed banks, as was suggested by Dan Caffrey of Traralgon many years ago.

Further afield, but well within the 100k zone, are the Fulham solar farm and the Gippsland Renewable Energy Park. Both these projects, proposed by Solis, are already on the ‘drawing board’. No doubt there are many other renewable energy opportunities here, including smaller pumped hydro sites and even battery storage.

All that is required is for the State government to come on board, and using the ‘renewable energy zone’ model as established by the NSW government, create a Victorian zone in the best place to do so – Gippsland.