Gippsland Climate News

Blogging by definition is amateur journalism. As a consequence today’s news or commentary is tomorrow’s history. But as many readers will know history is very important to me and I have resisted the suggestion that previous blogs be rewritten, condensed or even removed from my website, in order to make it more suitable for the search engines. I was reminded of this recently when a friend asked whether I had written anything on fuel reduction burning and other aspects of the logging industry.

A google search brought up one or two of the more recent pieces on this subject but the remainder – I later discovered more than a dozen – stayed buried. Consequently I searched my own blog archives and came up with most of the others. Some of the pieces may be slightly dated but generally speaking they remain topical today. There also remains a certain amount of repetition – a general feature of both journalism and politics. What follows is a brief summary of some of these not so easily found articles.

One of the first I found was a blog on Aboriginal burning entitled Firestick Farming Controlled Burns and Climate Change which looked at the propaganda that promoted widespread controlled burns. This was because it was supposedly a practice widespread in Gippsland and across Australia before the arrival of Europeans. The evidence, at least for Gippsland, suggests otherwise.

Other blogs more specific to the burning practice included Controlled Burns, Asset Protection and Climate Change which highlighted the work of Dr David Cheal and came to the conclusion that these burns “in terms of asset protection, [were] useless and a waste of resources” and that logging and burning practices should be phased out as quickly as possible.

Dr Cheal was the keynote speaker at the Burning Issue symposium chaired by Deb Foskey, to which I made a small contribution. This in turn was based on earlier research blogged as Logging Coupe Burns and Greenhouse Gas Emissions which looked in some detail at how disastrous the practice of clearfell logging and associated burning was for climate change. It was clear then that the loggers and the bureaucrats had little idea of the science of climate inertia, forests as a carbon store and other aspects of climate change and the climate emergency.

This was highlighted by the recent wholesale removal of trees along roads near Cape Conran and the Mitchell River National Park. The only so-called assets these planned burns are protecting are logging coupes and the whole ‘burning’ process is abused and misdirected. Obviously many bureaucrats and politicians need to be educated on climate change and the climate emergency. When they have some knowledge, even an inkling of possible future climate disasters, the logging economy will disappear and be replaced by the forest protection and fire prevention.

Media Release: East Gippsland Climate Action Group

Last week the members of the East Gippsland Climate Action Network met to explore ways to deal with the issue of climate change and to raise public awareness of the potential destruction of so much of our environment, both regionally, nationally and globally.

The Network members were delighted to welcome members of the Bairnsdale Scouts to their meeting.  The scouts are working towards their environment badges.

The work being undertaken by young people at a local level gave inspiration to the group.  Sarah Lamble, Scout Leader and teacher at the Bairnsdale Secondary College, described some of the initiatives of her students.  These included the planting of 3500 tree seedlings over the past seven years, VCAL students installing bird nesting boxes made from recycled timber, food waste studies, assisting with cooking meals at the neighbourhood house, and studies on ethical clothing.

The scouts were enthusiastic in providing positive actions they can be involved in, to make a difference to climate change.  They were concerned about the threat of extinction of many of our native animals and plants, and were keen to explore the options of renewable energy rather than carbon based energy generation.

Some of the quotes from members of the Bairnsdale Scouts were:

“I love animal, so I care about the environment.”

“We have to look after this planet as it’s the only one we’ve got.”

‘We need to protect the water.”

The scouts talked about ways they already reduce their impact on the environment.   They mentioned planting seedlings as part of national tree day, riding or walking to school (instead of emissions from driving), recycling and avoiding single use plastic (inefficient use of energy and raw materials).

The scouts have offered to work with members of the Climate Action Network to develop posters depicting issues about climate change, and to be involved in public education.

One of the things members stressed was to be aware of the “food miles” travelled by much of the food we purchase.  If food and produce can be sourced locally and in season, it is fresher, supports local producers, and lessens the impact of carbon production.  And the group stressed that people should look towards energy efficiency and low emissions first, before relying on solar power.

More information on EGCAN can be found on their facebook page.

(edited account of a possible South Gippsland)

Imagine this. It’s 2030 and you’re driving from Cowes to Inverloch in an electric share car. You could have gone driverless but hey, it’s a nice day and you feel like driving. Besides, it costs nothing to charge the car off your solar panels. Your electrician has been telling you to use more power. “Just leave the lights on,” she says, but it’s hard to get into the habit. All those years of being ultra-careful about wasting electricity…

You catch a sight of a work team putting the finishing touches to the new carpark at the Koala Conservation Sanctuary. It’s roofed in solar panels that will provide all the electricity they need. Why on earth did they wait so long? Past the sanctuary, you catch a flash from the inland solar farm that’s powering the residents of Smiths Beach and Wimbledon Heights.​

As you cross the bridge to San Remo you glance to the right to see the sun flashing on the floating solar array. That caused a bit of a sensation when it first went in. Someone told you it was the world’s first marine grade solar farm. It became a bit of a model, especially for Pacific countries.

In the middle of the channel you can see the tidal generator that now powers most of Newhaven and San Remo through a mini grid. You take the turnoff to Wonthaggi and as you’re approaching the roundabout you see the Anderson solar/wind farm. The beauty of it is that when one source isn’t producing the other generally is, and it provides valuable backup power for the island.

You come around the Kilcunda headland to the enchanting sight of the six Wonthaggi turbines. That’s where it all started, you reflect, way back in 2005. That was our first renewable energy project. The changing of the guard. It created a bit of a stir at first. People reckoned it would kill birds. There was something about the rare orange bellied parrot. And the rotating blades were going to make the cattle stampede.

Things soon calmed down. A lot of people fell in love with them. The six turbines are now owned by a local energy co-op. There’s a bit of sentiment involved. The turbines are first generation and not very efficient but on a good day still produce enough energy to power half the town…

So much has changed in the past 10 years. Who would have thought the power hungry desal plant would one day be returning energy to the state? Turns out that if you’re producing water, you might as well produce hydrogen to power the plant. Since they closed Yallourn and Loy Yang coal-fired power stations, the excess energy from Wonthaggi now returns to the La Trobe Valley through the 90MW electricity cable and then to the townships of Moe and Morwell …

Fantasy? Maybe, but these are some of the ideas put forward for a Renewable Energy Roadmap for Bass Coast and South Gippsland.

Full article here.

I confess that as a non-scientist the principle of inertia is one aspect of climate change I have had trouble coming to grips with. I remember in my last science classes at school the master posing the question at the beginning of each lesson ‘What is inertia?’ A question I clearly remember because of the enthusiasm of the teacher. Recently I used the example of the Titanic tragedy as an analogy for climate change inertia.

I could as easily have used the collision between our naval ships Melbourne and Voyager. The captain of HMAS Melbourne realised the collision was inevitable almost a minute before the collision occurred. This was in spite of every action and manoeuvre that both ships made to avoid it. The movement of ships is a popular analogy for inertia in the climate system with the sceptical science website using that of a supertanker trying to avoid a collision.

They note “The climate system also has a tremendous amount of inertia built in. And like with the supertanker, this means that early action is required if we want to change the climate’s course. This inertia is a crucial aspect of the climate system, both scientifically but also societally – but in the latter realm it’s a very underappreciated aspect. Just do a mental check: when did you last hear or read about the climate’s inertia in mainstream media or from politicians?”

The simplest definition of inertia is that it is ‘a property of matter by which it continues in its existing … uniform motion in a straight line’. The inertia in climate systems is defined by Wikipedia thus: “Inertia means a delay, slowness, or resistance in the response of climate, biological, or human systems to factors that alter their rate of change, including continuation of change in the system after the cause of that change has been removed.”  Wikipedia further noted the lags and delays in particular components of the climate system – in particular the thermal inertia of the oceans which in turn leads to the inertia of the ice melt of the poles.

The implications are clear. If CO2 and other greenhouse gases cannot be cut back then all aspects of the climate will continue warming. Even if we could somehow instantly stop greenhouse gas emissions the earth will continue to warm for hundreds of years.  Three million years ago when CO2 levels were last over 400ppm the earth was at least 2 degrees warmer and sea levels were about 25m higher. But civilisation may collapse well before this, perhaps even before sea levels have risen by little more than a metre, with heatwaves, droughts, and food scarcity causing mass movements of refugees.

Global warming is already causing large numbers of climate refugees most noticeably following the Syrian civil war and the failure of Honduran food crops – both after severe droughts. The movement of Syrian refugees has spawned an anti-immigration political reaction in Europe. Somewhat ironically it is these same political parties that deny or ignore climate science. Their reaction and the impetus of climate inertia means that humanity is in for a very rough ride. And this is only the beginning. Meanwhile we await the first climate emergency declaration in Gippsland.

A recent media release from the Gippsland Environment Group noted the wholesale destruction of trees in parts of East Gippsland. “Hundreds, possibly thousands, of trees have been felled in protected forest areas with the approval of the Department of Environment Land and Water (DELWP), in what has been described as an excessive and extremely environmentally damaging operation.”

The MR continued “Gippsland Environment Group has documented the irreparable damage to much loved and picturesque roadsides into the highly significant Cabbage Tree Palms Flora Reserve near Cape Conran and into the old Mitchell River Weir and Billygoat Bend in the Mitchell River National Park. Roadside trees have been clear felled by contractors under the guise of ‘worker safety’ as part of planned burning preparations.”

GEG secretary Louise Crisp added “There is a mass of trees down in Mitchell River NP on tracks. On the west side of the river, we checked out Billygoat Bend access tracks from Dargo Rd and Park Rd (Den of Nargun) and on the east side down Old Weir Track” and that it was “probably too difficult to calculate the lost carbon in the many trees felled but I can work out the kilometres cleared if that’s any relevance.” Crisp then estimated that at least 10 kms of roadside were cleared in the Mitchell River National Park and 8kms at Cabbage Tree Palms.

Commenting on the MR on facebook a very angry former landcare co-ordinator Paul Harvey noted “And you should see the damage that DELWP and Parks Vic (PV) have caused in and around Cape Conran Park. PV’s small burn 2 weeks ago turned into 135ha of out-of-control fire that ripped through a swamp area, unsurprisingly dry after 2 years or more of drought, crossed the road and nearly took out the office. PV celebrated their incompetence by then pushing over heaps of trees (unsafe, you see……actually I didn’t; many of them were rock-solid, 100 year old banksias). That dovetails neatly with their destruction of habitat on the road to Yeerung Gorge last year.”

“Meanwhile, DELWP contractors…[who created an]…astonishing amount of damage in a very short space of time – then proceeded to push over hundreds and hundreds of trees along the Cabbage Tree / Conran Road, turning a once beautiful rural road, delineating a supposedly protected National Park, into a logging coupe. It’s truly unbelievable – and they don’t have to do any sort of offsetting, unlike everyone else. So here’s a question; if a government agency like, say, Vic Roads, has to offset any vegetation removal that they do in the course of their duties, why don’t other government agencies, like DELWP?”

To which we may add what part of climate science the DELWP administrators and contractors don’t understand? Whilst their actions were, and are, sanctioned by the status quo so were those of Hitler and the Nuremberg defence of ‘following orders’ was not valid. They have destroyed and continue to destroy with their burning and logging Victoria’s most valuable carbon store. Trees are precious and should be preserved at all costs. These rapacious actions are more like those of ‘Attila the Hun’ and bordering on the climate criminal.

Much of Gippsland remains in a ‘green drought’. This has been highlighted recently in the Gippsland Times especially in relation to the Giffard area in south Gippsland. Local MP Danny O’Brien of the National Party, with support from the local Victorian Farmers Federation branch, has been calling for the Premier Daniel Andrews to visit the drought affected areas. But the Premier will be welcome only “if a suitable guarantee of assistance was forthcoming.” The current drought has been with us for some time and I have written about it on several occasions. See here and here.

Having lived most of my life in pastoral country in the foothills of the Victorian Alps I sympathise with farmers struggling with drought conditions many of whom, especially at these times, are asset rich and income poor. Their choices are limited to sending the stock away on agistment or reducing the herd size to a minimum and feeding out. Due to drought conditions prevailing in western NSW and other parts of Victoria as well as Gippsland fodder is scarce and expensive. I am aware of many farmers currently feeding out and, by hearsay, one who has been feeding out for the best part of 2 years at a cost of $1000 per week.

To complicate the politics the Adani coal project has just been given the go ahead by the Queensland government. Coincidentally I was given a small window of opportunity to comment on this on ABC Gippsland radio. I pointed out the disconnect between what governments and politicians were doing and the basic physics of the greenhouse effect and stated that the current drought in Gippsland was certainly made worse by global warming. It is unfortunate that such opportunities mean only brief messages can be conveyed.

Which brings us back to the question of drought and the warming. The science has been in on climate change and its effect on droughts for some time so politicians and farmers representatives ignore it at their peril. It is not possible to select the facts (or science) that you like or agree with, and ignore or even oppose those which you don’t. To ask someone whether they ‘believe’ in climate change is the wrong question for personal beliefs are irrelevant to what actually is.

So when our local National MPs finally talk about climate change and the need for urgent action, when they oppose the most ridiculous statements of their colleagues in Queensland on coal and the Adani mine, when they support a ‘just transition’ from coal to renewables in the Latrobe Valley, when they spruik hard and continuously the advantages of the various wind generator and energy storage projects, then they will have more credibility.

Last week I used the Titanic tragedy as a metaphor for little understood aspects of global warming – inertia and tipping points. These I coupled with the hubris of the captain and  crew in ignoring the warnings about their impending catastrophe and suggested that many of our politicians were acting similarly on global warming and concluded that we have been ‘warned many many times’.

The basic science of the Greenhouse Effect was firmly grounded in the nineteenth century by Fourier, Tyndall, Foote and Arrhenious. The science has not changed much in the 120 years since Arrhenious made his calculations in 1895. Veiled warnings of the effects of increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere began to be published in various journals (see above) from the start of the twentieth century. And this slowly but surely developed into a crescendo of warnings at the end of the century by a wide range of scientists and some prominent politicians including Margaret Thatcher who, when conservative Prime Minister of the UK in 1989 said “The danger of global warming is as yet unseen, but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices.”

But of all the politicians perhaps the most interesting, and early, warning came from President Lyndon Baines Johnston (LBJ) in an address to the US Congress in 1965 – an era unsullied by the lies and misinformation of the fossil fuel lobby. ‘Within a few short centuries, we are returning to the air a significant part of the carbon that was extracted by plants and buried in the sediments during half a billion years’ and ‘Through his worldwide industrial civilization, Man is unwittingly conducting a vast geophysical experiment. Within a few generations he is burning the fossil fuels that slowly accumulated in the earth over the past 500 million years’

Johnson suggested, in part incorrectly, that ‘By the year 2000 the increase in CO2 will be close to 25%. This may be sufficient to produce measurable and perhaps marked changes in climate.’ The level of the greenhouse gas CO2 in fact only increased by half that predicted by Johnson’s scientists but measurable, if not marked, climate changes were already being found by the year 2000. He cautiously concluded that the ‘climate changes that may be produced by the increased CO2 content could be deleterious from the point of view of human beings.’

These words were spoken when very few individuals outside the scientific community had heard of climate change or global warming. It was a time when as a 20 year old I was confronted with the issues of conscription and Vietnam – political issues that were to dominate the next 10 years of my life. It was another 10 years before I began to consider the ‘climate’ question amongst a plethora of environmental and political problems. And another 20 before I finally realised that existential threat of the warming and that humankind faced a climate emergency.

Perhaps if the climate change message and publicity had been more prominent and the Vietnam fiasco somehow avoided we would have been able to agree with Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt’s catch phrase in 1966 “all the way with LBJ.”

In a recent power point lecture I gave at Bairnsdale U3A I concentrated on 2 aspects of global warming imperfectly or not clearly understood by the general public – tipping points and inertia. This was coupled with repeated warnings of possible dire consequences of global warming that have generally been ignored.

As a metaphor for all these aspects I used the Titanic tragedy and most of the details of what follows can be found in the Wikipedia entry. It appears that the Titanic was warned at least 6 times that they were approaching ice. The first warning was received 2 ½ hours before the collision.  Some of these warnings were acknowledged, some got through to the Captain and there was some human error. Despite the warnings the ship continued at close to full speed. Perhaps the Captain believed his ship was invincible or as one deckhand reputedly had said “God himself could not sink this ship!”

Wikipedia noted that on 14 April the Titanic “was travelling near her maximum speed when her lookouts sighted the iceberg” dead ahead 8 minutes before the collision occurred. From first sighting the Titanic went from full speed ahead to stopped engines and tried to pass the iceberg. But the inertia in the ships motion carried it almost inevitably to its fate and by the time the Titanic struck the Iceberg its speed had only been reduced  to 22 knots.

The inertia of the ship powering along nearly at full speed and ignoring all the warnings meant that by the time the iceberg had been sighted the ‘tipping point’ of the Titanic – between its life and death – had already been passed. Had the previous warnings been listened to, and caution prevailed, the outcome may possibly have been different and the collision avoided.

As a metaphor of our climate systems the Titanic tragedy may be imperfect but it illustrates much of the predicament we are now facing. Many, possibly most of our political leaders, fail to understand the existential threat of global warming. And of those a number appear to have the same hubris as the Titanic captain and crew. Inertia in the system means the planet will continue warming for the foreseeable future regardless of any actions we take now. By the time humanity makes a concerted and organised effort to combat this threat it may be too late. Tipping points will be recognised only with hindsight. The Titanic metaphor also explains something often forgotten about tipping points – that of passing from one state to another completely new one from which there is no return.

And we have been warned many, many times.

The recent retreat of the shoreline near Inverloch invites a closer look at the Bruun Rule – whether it is applicable in Gippsland, and if so what it means in practice. Wikipedia states that “The Bruun Rule is a formula for estimating the magnitude of the retreat of the shoreline of a sandy shore in response to changes in sea level. Originally published in 1962 by Per Bruun, the Bruun Rule was the first to give a relationship between sea level rise and shoreline recession.” The ‘rule’ is a simple two dimensional model highly controversial, little known, and as far as I am aware has not been considered in Gippsland.

The rule is often illustrated in a simple diagram (see above). These diagrams seldom accurately depict the actuality of the rule where the retreat is usually illustrated as one or two times the sea level rise rather than the 50 times that rule maintains. Understandably it is difficult to illustrate these dimensions in diagrams of this sort.

The standard approach of measuring sea level rise is static – that is it factors in a vertical rise in the levels but does not take storm surge or coastal erosion into account. This is often applied to images of Lakes Entrance where flood levels (or the sea level rise equivalent) only are taken into account and not the retreat or even disappearance of the coastal dune barrier.

The fact that sand dunes are readily erodible is obvious but the sand when removed has to be deposited elsewhere, either in deeper water or somewhere along the coast. If the latter occurs then there will be a build up of beaches in other parts of the coast. This seems quite likely to occur whilst the sea level rises are small in the short to medium term. On the other hand large rises over a longer period of time are almost certain to be catastrophic. 

The measurements taken by citizen scientist Aileen Vening at Inverloch indicates the coastal retreat, at least in this location and at this time, is far greater than the Bruun Rule suggests and that it is at best a very rough guide only. To reiterate the retreat of the coast is a result of a combination of several climate change factors. As well as sea level rise there is the number and intensity of storms all of which are predicted to get worse. It follows that replenishing the sand on the beach as is currently proposed is a waste of time, energy and money and that planning for a long term retreat from the coast is the only viable option. What is happening now at Inverloch will soon be occurring, if it is not already, along most of Gippsland’s coast.

The second meeting of EGCAN (or the third if the Jane Morton lecture is counted) went off smoothly and was well supported with 17 attending and 4 apologies. The group now has two Facebook pages – an open one for the public and a closed page called ‘EGCAN What’s Next’ accessible only to group members. Some members held a market stall at Paynesville and a “number of t-shirts and bags have been screen printed with an experimental logo.”

On membership “It has been decided that anyone who agrees with our principles and values can join the group. That is we are: not for profit, not affiliated with any political party, accepts the science of human induced climate change” and that “We work under the following principles:  respectful listening, respectful behaviour, non-violent, inclusive, kind.”

East Gippsland Shire Sustainability Officer Bec Lamble spoke to the meeting at some length outlining what the shire has been doing on the renewable energy front including some encouraging news on electric vehicles and the continuing expansion of the rooftop solar program on Shire buildings including the Bairnsdale Library. Some discussion followed on whether we should ask the shire to declare a ‘climate emergency’.

There was discussion about a wide range of future activities of the group including participating with the ‘Extinction Rebellion’, support for any local striking students, various aspects of climate education and practical aspects such as banner making and letter writing. One idea that was popular was having “climate coffee mornings” of which the first will be held this week. Also the film ‘2040’ will be screening at the local cinema. Members and supporters are encouraged to attend at the Bairnsdale Cinema at 4.30pm on Saturday 8th. The film explores what the earth could be like if we address the climate emergency with the tools that are available now.

The next meeting will be held on Tuesday 18th June 7pm at the Butter Factory. Please note the change of venue.