Posted by: Rich Bowden
on 23 Jul, 2011
Despite being two years away from an official federal election, the government’s knife edge majority has seen us move to an apparent permanent election footing. However while hard hat-wearing, baby kissing politicians are becoming more visible on our news screens, quality policy discussions on vital infrastructure issues appear to have taken a permanent back seat in favour of the personal political attacks, soundbites and slogans so favoured by our media.
Posted by: sustainadelic
on 12 Jun, 2011
If it flows, dam it. I've blogged previously about huge dam projects in the Amazon and Tibet, and Chile's plans for a dam in pristine Patagonia is also attracting fierce criticism from environmentalists. But Turkey's plans to harness "100 per cent" of its hydro-electricity potential by building 4000 dams in the next 12 years are breathtaking even by those standards.
Turkey has one of the world's fastest growing economies. Largely as a result, the country is hungry for energy. Currently it depends heavily on Iranian and Russian natural gas and the re-elected liberal-leaning government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan is keen to develop a degree of energy independence.
Laws are being drafted allowing hydroelectricity schemes to proceed even in nature reserves. And each hydro scheme will be allowed to take 90 per cent of the water out of a section of river, leaving the remaining 10 per cent as "lifeline support".
They should come to Australia and study the Murray-Darling first to see what happens when you do that to a river.
Read more in this report.
Posted by: sustainadelic
on 12 Feb, 2010
This list includes current federal and state rebates and grants. There may also be rebates and grants available from local councils. Retailers of solar panels/hot water and rainwater tanks should also know about rebates. We haven't listed remote region rebates - see the state sites below to check if any are available.
Posted by: sustainadelic
on 07 Aug, 2009
Two environmentalists from Nepal - climber Pemba Dorje Sherpa and environmental lawyer Prakash Sharma, are in Australia talking about the impact of global warming on the Himalaya.
As the associated Big Melt website explains:
"Glaciers are melting creating floods and danger for the local people. But the big melt also means a big dry as these 'water towers' of Asia lose their capacity to provide water to the giant rivers in the summer months. Eventually rivers like the Ganges in India and the Yellow River in China will lose their dry season flow and the billion people in these river basins will lose their water security."
Glaciers and snow melt from the Himalaya and Tibetian plateau are in retreat. A UN report says they could be gone by 2035. These glaciers feed the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Yellow, Yangtse, Mekong, Ayeyarwady and Salween rivers. Rivers that provide the irrigation water upon which more than a third of humanity depends.
I recently read a book called Climate Wars by Gwynne Dyer.
The book plays out imaginary - but potentially real - future scenarios. ne of these is about the Indus. The Indus is the lifeblood of Pakistan, and the main source of irrigation for the nation's agriculture. It rises in the Indian Himalaya.
Posted by:
on 05 Aug, 2009
Sydney doesn’t need the $2 billion desalination plant. The Hunter doesn’t need the proposed $300 million Tillegra dam.
Posted by:
on 25 Apr, 2009
Adelaide is facing the prospect of
having no water supply within two years, following six years of drought, the worse dry spell ever and forecasts of more of the same. The Murray-Darling river system, which supplies all Adelaide's water as well as irrigating Australia's agricultural breadbasket, is down to 18 per cent of capacity.
As the article says, the Murray currently holds 940 gigalitres of water. Although only 350 gigalitres are required to meet current water demand, evaporation means 1000 gigalitres is required to transport that 350 gigalitres along the river.
