AUSTRALIA 2020 SUMMIT OUTCOMES
Population, sustainability, climate change water and the future of our cities
In this most urgent of areas, Summit delegates opted for a whole of government response encompassing government expenditure, taxation, regulation and investment, as well as the creation of institutions to support it. Delegates called for the government's own environmental credentials to be audited, and for the environmental reporting to be included in the regular reporting of the nation's current accounts.
The group also called for a nationally consistent approach to urban and regional planning which drives water efficiency and reductions in emissions, and the creation of a National Indigenous Knowledge Centre featuring a multidisciplinary research and program delivery pertaining to climate change, sustainability and water.
Some of the more controversial suggestions as to how we deal with the current environmental challenges included the requirement that all buildings constructed beyond 2020 be carbon neutral, and the adoption of "smart meters" to track energy and water consumption.
Finally the group called for an expansion in the use of market mechanisms to encourage sustainable water usage, and support the adoption of clean energy technologies.
So what do YOU think? Are these goals achievable, sensible or even desirable? What needs to happen on the ground for such outcomes to occur?
To read pre-Summit submissions by Open Forum participants, click here.
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Comments
Australia, Ethanol and its dependence of Crude Oil
The most impressive thing about search engines is that one can quickly find relative topics on subjects of interest within milliseconds. With 1000 "brain-stormers" in action on the weekend, I'm totally stunned there is not a mention of Ethanol apart from the fact that one Australian car manufacturer is working towards exporting cars that include ethanol powered hybrids. May I say that I'm disappointed that the following topics were not covered.
As soon as we get the World's car manufacturers design out dependency of crude oil for internal combustion powered vehicles, the sooner our climate recovers from our (well maybe the USA) high energy needs by- product called Global Warming
biofuels are bad
It looks like biofuels aren't as great as they were initially made out to be. Lately almost all the comments from scientists and environmental organisations about the idea have been negative. Maybe if they get a sewage or fluid based production system up and running things will change, but based on current technologies the negatives outweigh the positives.
http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1169519086
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Sustainability and Climate
HYDROGEN. The most abundant resourse available to us, and we don't utalise it. It appears to me that the summit for big ideas isn't thinking anywhere near big enough. Sure there are suggestions on the table that can, and should be utilised, but these are only short veiw, stop gap measures. Let's be honest, there are powerfull ecconomic forces at play that have a vested interest in keeping the status quo. There is a lot of money to be made from George W Bush's quote, "We are addicted to oil". We have even invaded a sovereign country, under the disguise of regime change, in an attempt to control oil reserves. That is a very bad indictment of our addiction. It is costing people their lives, not to mention the continued damage to our enviroment.
Consider this. The two largest nations on our planet, are increasingly seaking the benefits that the west has enjoyed from the energy obtained from Hydrocarbons. This is not only going to increase the rapidly advancing deterioration of our enviroment, through the accumulation of greenhouse gasses. It also means the cost of these deminishing resources is going to continue to escalate. The way fuel prices are going, it is becoming increasingly ecomomically prudent, to find a less harmful and more abundent sustitute. My suggestion is Hydrogen. It is certainly more abundent than oil, or uranium for that matter, and it also burns cleaner, and can be used in a way that is zero emission. ie: Fuel Cells. It also has the benefit of not producing difficult to handle toxic waste.
Why not think bigger and convert our society from a Hydrocarbon economy to a Hydrogen economy. Sure there is going to be issues and problems along the way. With sufficient effort and resourses, I am certain that we can make this work. Let us be a world leader, not a follower, and develope the technology required to make Hydrogen a safe, reliable and prefered energy resource. Bring Hydrogen from the background to the foreground. Afterall there is an increasing global market for reliable clean energy.
If nothing else, we have a responsibility to future generations, to do our very best to rectify the damage we have done with our senseless and self indulgent greed. We are all guilty of this, and are setting a very poor example to developing nations. Let us improve our legacy to the furture. Afterall, don't we love our children.
hydrogen is not a source
Hydrogen is not an energy source, just a way of transporting energy. The easiest way to get lots of it is by burning coal. Whether we go down the hydrogen path or some other alternative should be judged on economic grounds.
Climate Change / Sustainability
1. CSIRO / Uni Alternative fuels / engines research with success qualifying for incentives & extensive IP rights to ensure the fruits of the research see the light of day!
2. Biomass fuels developed from landfills / tips for both power generation and transport fuel requirements, soas not to dedicate farmland to the provision of growing for fuels.
3. Immediate commercialisation of geothermal power generation to substantially reduce the need for coal.
Geothermal is already being commericalised
With regards to gas from landfill, if this is more expensive than other ways to reduce our emissions, eg by repalcing coal with wind energy, with storage if necessary, is there any point in doing it?
Hydrogen
Freediver. Allow me to quote from the following website. http://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/ "Hydrogen is the simplest and most abundant element in the universe. Hydrogen can be produced from a wide variety of domestic resources using a number of different technologies."
It takes courage and imagination to reseach and adopt new ideas. You don't appear to be as well informed as you would like people to believe. I'm curious, what's your agenda? Better still, what suggestion do you have.
By the way. There is more to geothermal energy than heat produced from rubbish dumps. Take a look at www.geodynamics.com.au you may learn something.
sustainability and Climate Change.
Any discussion of policies dealing with climate change is simply rearranging deck-chairs on the Titanic if our economic basis is left out. Our economy is free market neoliberlism where profit is the driving force. Whatever makes a profit is good and the higher the profit the better, so profit depends on the size of the market and to maintain profit the market has to keep growing. This means that the earth's limited natural resources are being eaten up at an ever increasing rate and noxious wastes including carbon dioxide are produced in ever increasing amounts.
Converting to non-carbon energy sources is a help in slowing this down bur unless we convert our economy from profit before people to one of people before profit we are condemning Australia to an early death from galloping consumption.
Rod Anderson.