Now Or Never
A Sustainable Future for Australia?
Tim Flannery
<Rating: 5 stars>Tim has excelled himself with this book. In this relatively short, 64 page essay, he has presented new information on the degree of serious trouble we are in due to climate change (see A New Dark Age). But also he has presented some very innovative ways to transform our energy harnessing and sequestration of carbon (see Geothermia, Trees for Security and Revolution in the Feedlot). One of the more interesting possibilities is sequestering carbon as biochar in agriculture which also improves soil bacteria levels and fertility.
The chapter titles of Tim's essay present an overview:
- In the Year Four Billion
- The Climate Problem
- A New Dark Age
- The Coal Conundrum
- Geothermia
- Trees for Security
- Revolution in the Feedlot
- The Age of Sustainability
Here is a summary of one interesting chapter.
Trees for Security
"Reducing emissions is one part of the challenge. Equally pressing is the need to get some of the polluting gas that has already been emitted out of the air."
Tim illustrates an innovative solution to begin the sequestering of carbon.
The drawdown of carbon is the fastest and most large scale at the equatorial tropical belt. The abundant sunlight and moisture at the equator enable strong growth all year. Tropical forests also help keep the earth cool by transpiring water vapour and creating clouds. [I guess at the process being white clouds having higher albedo than most other surface coverage.]
Rain Forest Destruction
A significant part of the climate problem is the destruction of rainforest accounting for 18% of global GHG emissions. In this region, swidden agriculture is the norm where the forest is cut down, timber is wasted or sold, farmers grow crops, exhaust the soil and move on to cut more forest. With high population levels practicing swidden agriculture and the burning of forest for access and hunting, the forest cannot regrow resulting in grasslands on poor soil. The benefit is only to timber loggers, but the loss to villages is of building materials, food and medicine. The loss to everyone is climate stability.
eBay in the Village
Forest regeneration funding often does not get from government to villagers so villagers need to continue cutting forest down to live. There are some new innovative ideas evolving where village communities are able to sell goods internationally via eBay. Tim's illustrates the proposal to support village schools to have PCs with internet connections. NGOs could use an eBay-like system where anyone can purchase carbon sequestration and climate security by purchasing forest protection or other sustainable agriculture.
Sequestration Security
Google Earth and Google Maps show how satellite surveillance of forest land could be done precisely and NGOs could carry out detailed inspections where required. The eBay advantage is that vendor reliability is published globally by purchasers and thus vendors will have additional incentive to protect the forest or risk loosing customers. Additional security can be included by NGOs holding funds in escrow. [One part of this I'm not sure about is that 'we can't eat money', Thus these funds must be used protect the forest and enable some crops for food and purchasing of food from elsewhere. Where that will be from could be a problem.]
In December 2009, the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen to form a new global agreement on carbon trading could and should include forests. This would lead to billions of dollars in the sequestration market.
Natural Justice
Tim briefly illustrates the natural justice ethical arguments. The tropical belt is only a few % of land surface, but has 66% of all living species. It also has 100's of millions of the poorest citizens. A sequestration plan such the above would provide a financial windfall directly to the people who need it. [The principles of 'polluter pays' and 'ability to pay' illustrate that since the Industrial Revolution, the West became rich using cheap carbon polluting fossil fuel and we are overdue in repaying that historic debt.]
more... ABC Radio National Interview
more... Extract from quarterlyessay
more... www.quarterlyessay.com
Updated November 2008