Category Archives: Bathurst Community Climate Action Network

It’s all of us, Brian!

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We have a family joke – the “Not me Brian” joke. It began when a neighbour of my father was hosing the path in the vicinity of Dad’s car when the alarm suddenly sounded. The neighbour shouted, “It wasn’t me Brian!” So now, whenever we want to deny responsibility, we say “Not, me Brian!”

When it comes to cutting greenhouse emissions, the “Not me, Brian!” approach seems to be winning the day. The big players all have excellent reasons why their own sector should be excluded from measures to combat carbon emissions –  or at least thoroughly compensated.

The fact is that it’s all of us. Yes, there are some who like to deny that there is even a problem, or argue that even if there is a problem it’s not our fault and there’s nothing we need to about it. But the majority consensus around the world is that there is a problem and the problem is us. The problem lies in just about everything we do. The way we eat, move, work and play is increasingly unsustainable. The net effect of our activities is to emit more carbon than we sequester.

With grazier Peter Spencer’s hunger strike in Canberra over the right to clear his own property, attention has turned to how agriculture fits with climate change. On a global level, farming is both a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions (and we’re all a part of this because we all eat!) and stands to be enormously affected by it.

Locally, farmers are organizing themselves against climate change laws that ban land clearing, arguing that this could destroy their livelihoods. They argue that farmers should not have to bear the brunt of the economic pain caused by emissions reductions schemes; that this is unjust.

The issues are very complex, but one thing is clear: everyone has to get on board. It’s all of us, Brian! At the same time, we need to ensure government policies are fair. It’s clear that the massive compensation proposed for the coal lobby doesn’t fit with the attitude taken to agriculture. If we want land to remain uncleared, then we need to give this a monetary value. As long as we go on eating, we’ll need agriculture. We need to work with our farmers, not against them, as change occurs.

Tracy Sorensen is the publicity officer for Bathurst Community Climate Action Network. Visit www.bccan.org.au

China and climate change

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Wasn’t Tuesday night a scorcher?! For me it came at the end of a hot but pleasant afternoon down beside the Macquarie River helping to staff the Bathurst Community Climate Action Network stall. While we were there to answer questions from the general public, it was also good for BCCAN members to chat amongst ourselves about the state of the world.

One member, BCCAN Treasurer Greg Walker, had just returned from a brief trip to Changchun, a city of seven million people in northern China. Greg found no sign of scepticism about climate change in that country. Instead, the talk was all about what can be done to meet the challenge.

But the Chinese fear that the developed world will try to take advantage of the developing world. They argue that carbon emissions should be measured on a per capita basis, rather than a per-country basis. They also point out that the developed world should be responsible for consumption as well as production of manufactured goods. They argue that Western consumers have shifted production of “dirty” manufactured goods to the developing world and that global accounting for emissions must take account of this.

“China refuses to accept the West’s dictate that China must reduce its overall carbon emission level,” says Greg. “To do so would condemn tens of millions to remain in poverty or impose enormous cost on China to convert rapidly to renewable energy sources.”

At the same time, China has made enormous investment in renewable energy projects, with more wind farms in that country than in the US. There are new regulations to force carbon efficiency gains in housing and production and reforms in the coal industry to close low grade dirty coal mines.

But Greg’s overwhelming impression was of the pace of building and construction and the inevitable increase in total emissions. “China is the world’s greatest producer of automobiles, the greatest consumer of concrete and I understand is even more dependent on coal fired power than is Australia!”

More on Greg’s trip to China can be found in the latest newsletter on the BCCAN website.

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Congratulations to Conservation Volunteers Australia’s John Fry, who won this year’s Jo Ross memorial award for his lifelong efforts to improve the local environment.

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Tracy Sorensen is the publicity officer for Bathurst Community Climate Action Network (BCCAN). Visit www.bccan.org.au

Another big hole in the ground

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The Cadia open cut gold mine near Orange is a dizzyingly impressive hole in the ground. It’s impossible to look down into it, with its tiny trucks crawling up the sides, without a sense of awe. Last week, the State Government said yes to an expansion of operations to the east of the existing site. At its peak, the new mine is expected to produce a billion dollars worth of gold and copper every year. That’s a lot of money in anybody’s books.

But the expanded mine comes amid continued disquiet about its impact on local water supplies. Local farmers – a tiny drop in the financial ocean when set beside the giant mine – are alarmed about the draw down effect on groundwater. While the company has named 16 properties likely to be affected and has offered compensation, farmers just outside the seven kilometre zone worry that they will also suffer. There are also fears about the mine’s use of surface water in its operations, particularly if conditions continue to get hotter and drier. The expanded mine will require about 6 megalitres per day of additional water, an increase of about 12 per cent on its existing use.

As we know here in Bathurst, Cadia has long been eyeing off our relatively abundant water supply. Locals here in Bathurst continue to worry that if supplies in Orange dwindle, we will be asked to help out our neighbours – nothing wrong with that, except that this would be an indirect benefit to the Cadia mine. While Bathurst council has rejected this idea outright, the State Government’s enthusiasm for Cadia could see our own wishes overruled in the interests of the wider economy.

In the short term, there can be no doubt that the world values gold and copper and that we’re onto a very good thing. But over the long term, a new set of values – increasingly to be given monetary value – are emerging: water and food security and biodiversity. We have now said “yes” to Cadia but perhaps they should be pressed harder to give more to the environmental side of the ledger. What about making them fund wind power technology to be used in their own operations with side benefits for the local region? Yes, it would cost a lot, but they are making a lot.

Tracy Sorensen is the publicity officer for Bathurst Community Climate Action Network. Visit www.bccan.org.au

In praise of idleness

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Happy New Year!* So far so good for me, as I continue to spend some hours sitting under the awning reading books, glancing up from time to time to watch the tomatoes grow. One book I’ve been looking at is Bertrand Russell’s In Praise of Idleness, written a few years before the Second World War. He outlines an idea that used to be popular but is now well out of fashion: that technology would liberate us all from long working hours. Everyone would be expected to put in, say, four hours a day and the rest of the time would be spent in leisure. Bertrand’s ideas about leisure didn’t include computer games (they hadn’t been invented yet) but did encompass some of the higher-order pursuits of human existence: reading, music, art and conversation.

As we know, things didn’t work out the way he was hoping. That’s because his ideas were based on a flawed premise: that once our basic needs were met, we’d ease off on our frantic work habits. The fact is that our “needs” keep shifting to encompass more and more stuff. Stuff like the Wii, a computer game that gets you on your feet, burning calories, as you hit a virtual tennis ball. Why the virtual tennis ball? Why not an actual tennis ball? Meanwhile, Mum and Dad are working overtime to make sure the kids have a Wii (and everything else) and when they finally get a bit of leisure, they feel that reading, art or even conversation are way too hard and all they can cope with is another cop show on telly. All of which adds to the sum total of carbon emissions, but there’s no time to think too deeply about that, because there’s so much to do!

We’re still on the treadmill, but there is a continuing disquiet. This was clear in the movie Avatar, in which the idea of development at all costs received a big hiding. In fact, it had its ass whupped, to use the language of the bad guys in the movie.

Thanks to Judy Walker for filling in for me in the weeks before Christmas. If you feel inspired to help make the world a more sustainable place in 2010, BCCAN would love more members!

Tracy Sorensen is the publicity officer for Bathurst Community Climate Action Network. Visit www.bccan.org.au

* This is the text of the BCCAN column written for Bathurst’s Western Advocate to be published on Thursday, January 7 2010.

Riding my bike to renew my driver’s licence

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Yes, that’s right – today I rode my bike to renew my driver’s licence.  The word “licence” comes up as a spelling error but this is how it’s spelled on the licence. Actually, have you noticed that the RTA steps neatly around potential possessive apostrophe problems (PPAPs) by calling the licence a “Driver Licence”? Have a look at your driver’s licence (if you live in New South Wales). The photo isn’t too bad; slightly untidy hair. It was wonderful, riding my bike on this gorgeous summer day. I found the cycle path that follows the highway, although at a certain point there I was riding over the crunchy gravel at the front of the Holden car yard, between the on-sale Holdens – a little short cut. When one rides a bike one is immediately outside mainstream experience. One is being a little bit different, a little bit daring, a little bit off the beaten track, even if it is just an unofficial path through the Holden car yard.