Australia’s hidden opportunity to cut carbon emissions, and make money in the process

A seagrass meadow. For the first time, researchers have counted the greenhouse gases stored by and emitted from such ecosystems.
NOAA/Heather Dine

Oscar Serrano, Edith Cowan University; Carlos Duarte, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology; Catherine Lovelock, The University of Queensland; Paul Lavery, Edith Cowan University, and Trisha B Atwood, Utah State University

It’s no secret that cutting down trees is a main driver of climate change. But a forgotten group of plants is critically important to fixing our climate — and they are being destroyed at an alarming rate.

Mangroves, tidal marshes and seagrasses along Australia’s coasts store huge amounts of greenhouse gases, known as blue carbon.

Our research, published in Nature Communications, shows that in Australia these ecosystems absorb 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. That’s about the same as 4 million cars.

---

Read more:
Rising seas allow coastal wetlands to store more carbon

---

Worryingly, the research shows that between 2 million and 3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide is released each year by the same ecosystems, due to damage from human activity, severe weather and climate change.

This research represents the world’s most comprehensive audit of any nation’s blue carbon. Around 10% of such ecosystems are located in Australia — so preserving and restoring them could go a long way to meeting our Paris climate goals.

A pile of washed-up seaweed and beach erosion at Collaroy Beach on Sydney’s northern beaches. Storms can damage blue carbon ecosystems.
Megan Young/AAP

Super-charged carbon dioxide capture

Blue carbon ecosystems are vital in curbing greenhouse gas emissions. They account for 50% of carbon dioxide sequestered by oceans — despite covering just 0.2% of the world’s total ocean area — and absorb carbon dioxide up to 40 times faster than forests on land.

They do this by trapping particles from water and storing them in the soil. This means tidal marsh, mangrove and seagrass ecosystems bury organic carbon at an exceptionally high rate.

Globally, blue carbon ecosystems are being lost twice as fast as tropical rainforests despite covering a fraction of the area.

Since European settlement, about 25,000km² of tidal marsh and mangroves and 32,000km² of seagrass have been destroyed – up to half the original extent. Coastal development in Australia is causing further losses each year.

When these ecosystems are damaged — through storms, heatwaves, dredging or other human development — the carbon stored in biomass and soils can make its way back into the environment as carbon dioxide, contributing to climate change.

In Western Australia in the summer of 2010-11, about 1,000km² of seagrass meadows at Shark Bay were lost due to a marine heatwave. Similarly, two cyclones and several other impacts devastated a 400km stretch of mangroves in the Gulf of Carpentaria in recent years.

The beach and Cape Kimberley hinterland at the mouth of the Daintree River in Queensland.
Brian Cassey/AAP

Such losses likely increase carbon dioxide emissions from land-use change in Australia by 12–21% per year.

Aside from the emissions reduction benefits, conserving and restoring blue carbon ecosystems would also increase the resilience of coasts to rising sea level and storm surge associated with climate change, and preserve habitats and nurseries for marine life.

How we measured blue carbon – and why

The project was part of a collaboration with CSIRO and included 44 researchers from 33 research institutions around the world.

To accurately quantify Australia’s blue carbon stocks, we divided Australia into five different climate zones. Variations in temperature, rainfall, tides, sediments and nutrients mean plant productivity and biomass varies across regions. So ecosystems in a tropical climate such as North Queensland store carbon dioxide at a different rate to those in temperate climates such as southeastern Australia.

---

Read more:
UN climate change report: land clearing and farming contribute a third of the world’s greenhouse gases

---

We estimated carbon dioxide stored in the vegetation above ground and soils below for each climate area. We measured the size and distribution of vegetation and took soil core samples to create the most accurate measurements possible.

Blue carbon must be assessed on a national scale before policies to preserve them can be developed. These policies might involve replanting seagrass meadows, reintroducing tidal flow to restore mangroves or preventing potential losses caused by coastal development.

Seagrass at Queensland’s Gladstone Harbour.
James Cook University

There’s a dollar to be made

Based on a carbon price of A$14 per tonne – the most recent price under the federal government’s Emissions Reduction Fund – blue carbon projects could be worth tens of millions of dollars per year in carbon credits. Our comprehensive measurements provide greater certainty of expected returns for financiers looking at investing in such projects.

Restoring just 10% of blue carbon ecosystems lost in Australia since European settlement could generate more than US$11 million per year in carbon credits. Conserving such ecosystems under threat could be worth between US$22 million and US$31 million per year.

---

Read more:
A landmark report confirms Australia is girt by hotter, higher seas. But there’s still time to act

---

Blue carbon projects cannot currently be counted towards Australia’s Paris targets, but federal environment authorities are developing a methodology for their inclusion. The reintroduction of tidal flow to restore mangrove and tidal marsh ecosystems has been identified as the most promising potential activity.

Other activities being explored include planning for sea level rise to allow mangrove and tidal marsh to migrate inland, and avoiding the clearing of seagrass and mangroves.

There are still questions to be answered about exactly how blue carbon can be used to mitigate climate change. But our research shows the massive potential in Australia, and allows other countries to use the work for their own blue carbon assessments.

Oscar Serrano, ARC DECRA Fellow, Edith Cowan University; Carlos Duarte, Adjunct professor, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology; Catherine Lovelock, Professor of Biology, The University of Queensland; Paul Lavery, Professor of Marine Ecology, Edith Cowan University, and Trisha B Atwood, Assistant Professor of aquatic ecology, Utah State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Advertisement

Mangrove forests can rebound thanks to climate change – it’s an opportunity we must take

Mangroves growing strong.
Ali Suliman/Shutterstock

Christian Dunn, Bangor University

Humans have become adept at destroying natural habitats. Indeed, we’re so good at it we’ve changed the very makeup and climate of our planet. But there may be signs the natural world is fighting back by protecting itself against rising temperatures and changing weather patterns, and we face the tantalising prospect of helping this process.

A recent study found that mangrove forests could be adapting to climate change by growing beyond their usual range. The risk of several days of continuous frost, which previously kept these trees in tropical and subtropical areas near the equator, is continuously shifting towards the poles. As average global temperatures rise, mangroves are able to increase their growth and expand their range beyond the equator.

Mangrove forests are coastal wetlands made up of a dense jumble of trees and shrubs capable of living in salt or brackish water. Famous for their tangle of roots sticking up from the ground and dropping down from branches, mangrove forests can grow out into the sea and create almost impenetrable mazes of narrow channels along shorelines.

The roots of mangroves provide shelter and nursery habitat for juvenile fish.
Damsea/Shutterstock

Mangroves protect coastlines, treat polluted waters, provide livelihoods and resources for some of the world’s poorest people and are home to an impressive number of species – many of which are commercially important. It’s been suggested that the majority of the global fish catch relies, either directly or indirectly, on mangroves.

Despite their value, humans have also done an impressive job over the last century of destroying them to make way for coastal developments, aquaculture and by logging them for timber and fuel production. Not to mention destroying their natural water courses and polluting the ground they grow in.

So the possibility that climate change could be benefiting these habitats is promising indeed. In the long run, this could help society adapt to climate change and even reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Adapting to climate change

One feature of mangroves that we’ve long benefited from is the protection they offer to our coastlines. Waves lose their power passing through dense mangrove forests, and they can offer protection from storms, typhoons, hurricanes and tsunamis.

Their mass of roots –- both above and below ground – help to bind and build sediments, meaning mangrove areas can grow vertically, which is a clear asset in the face of rising sea levels. Expanding mangrove forests could therefore help protect us from the devastating effects of extreme weather that become more likely with climate change.

Mangrove forests are also incredibly productive ecosystems, which means that lots of carbon dioxide is taken in and used by the trees and shrubs as they grow. When this organic matter dies, a proportion of it forms the sediment underneath the mangrove forest. As a result, carbon remains trapped as semi-decomposed plant matter, and is unable to re-enter the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas. This ensures mangroves can actually act as giant stores – or sinks – of carbon.

Research suggests that mangroves could be better carbon stores than the coastal habitats they are encroaching on – opening the possibility for mangroves to combat the very causes of global warming. In this way, mangroves act as Earth’s natural defences to climate change –- protecting the planet by striking at the very cause of the problem.

Around the world, some mangrove forests are being given legal protection and large-scale restoration works are taking place with varying degrees of success, as one study in Sri Lanka found.

In America and Australia work is being undertaken to restore areas of mangrove dieback following ill-considered developments and the use of herbicides. Conservationists and academics are researching where mangrove restoration would be most beneficial, and developing the best methods for these projects around the world.

The knowledge that mangroves could both benefit from a changing climate and protect us from some of its worst effects demands a renewed vigour in promoting these wetlands. It also raises a question. Should resources be ploughed into maintaining ecosystems where regional changes in the climate are unlikely to help them prosper? Or should we concentrate our efforts on helping expand habitats that are not only resilient to climate change but can help mitigate climate change itself?

Perhaps it is time to move towards the latter and act as ecosystem physicians, giving healing and healable habitats like mangroves every opportunity to do what they do best.

Christian Dunn, Lecturer in Wetland Science, Bangor University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

China’s legalisation of rhino horn trade: disaster or opportunity?

Hubert Cheung, The University of Queensland; Duan Biggs, Griffith University, and Yifu Wang, University of Cambridge

The Chinese government will be reopening the nation’s domestic rhino horn trade, overturning a ban that has stood since 1993. An outcry since the announcement has led to the postponement of the lifting of the ban, which currently remains in place.

---

Read more:
The case for introducing rhinos to Australia

---

The directive, if instituted, would require that rhino horn be sourced sustainably from farmed animals and that its use is limited to traditional Chinese medicine, scientific and medical research, preserving antique cultural artefacts, and as educational materials.

The announcement has been widely condemned. The United Nations Environmental Program called it “alarming”. But done carefully and correctly, and with necessary international consultation, it doesn’t have to add to the threat to rhinos. Indeed, it could even support rhino conservation.

A legal trade of rhino horns, as seen here, could ensure income goes to legitimate conservation efforts as opposed to criminals.
Paul Fleet/Shutterstock

Rhino horns regrow and can be sustainably and humanely harvested from live animals. Those arguing for legalisation say that a well-regulated trade could be a source of funding for expensive rhino conservation. It could also help reduce poverty and support development around protected areas.

A legal trade could also provide an alternative supply of horns, where income goes to legitimate conservation and development efforts, rather than to criminals, which is currently the case.

Rhino horn for medicinal use

The directive from Beijing stipulates that rhino horn for medicinal use must come from rhinos bred specifically outside of zoos (such as at dedicated horn-farming facilities). The ground-up horn powder would then be certified under a scheme developed by a coalition of Chinese regulatory agencies.

These agencies should draw from China’s experience regulating the medicinal use of pangolin scales to make sure poached horn does not infiltrate the legal marketplace. Though strictly controlled since 2008, illegal pangolin products continue to be seized frequently throughout China.

According to the directive, the medicinal use of rhino horn will be restricted to treating urgent, serious and rare diseases. This is consistent with what traditional Chinese medicine practitioners see as the appropriate application of rhino horn. Strict guides for clinical application will be needed to prevent misuse and overuse, particularly given the length of time that rhino horn has been unavailable to law-abiding clinicians.

Existing rhino horn stocks

Beyond medicine, the directive stipulates that people who already own horns will be able to declare their stocks. The government will then issue identification and certification records. After this, the horns must be sealed and stored safely, and not traded under any circumstances, barring gift-giving and inheritance.

This part of the directive is particularly concerning, as such a scheme will be complex, potentially giving owners of poached rhino horns smuggled into China a get-out-of-jail-free card. Lessons should be learned from the ivory trade in Hong Kong, where poached ivory has been laundered into legal stocks thanks to inadequate record-keeping and lax enforcement.

This section of the directive also raises concerns about the development of a socially accepted practice of gifting rhino horn akin to that of Vietnam. There, rhino horn has been found to be given as a gift for terminally ill family members and in business settings, where horns are offered as bribes to government officials. Strict enforcement will essential if China is to make sure illegal trading under the guise of gifts is not to spread.

China will have to work with countries where the rhinos live in Asia and Africa.
Kevin Folk/Unsplash

Working with China

China will have to work with countries where rhinos live, including range states in both Asia and in Africa, as well as other rhino conservation stakeholders around the world. Swaziland and South Africa have previously proposed legalising the international trade in horn as a mechanism to fund and bolster conservation efforts.

Domestic trade in horn is legal in South Africa, and China and South Africa will have to coordinate to make sure their domestic marketplaces support rhino conservation and don’t enable transnational laundering and trade.

Beijing’s decision has certainly attracted immediate and fierce criticism from some conservation and animal welfare organisations. This criticism is exacerbated by different moral perspectives. Some people see the sale and consumption of rhino horn to fund conservation as morally repulsive. For others, it is legitimate and pragmatic.

Whichever side of the debate you stand on, the priority should be conservation outcomes and making sure that China’s newly legalised domestic horn trade strengthens rather than dangerously undermines rhino protection efforts. Rhino conservationists will need to find common ground with Beijing. This requires an appreciation of different cultural and moral values, and the use of evidence on how to minimise risks to rhino under the directive.

Responding to the widespread criticism, Chinese officials clarified that the implementation of the directive will be postponed. The government has also launched a short-term enforcement drive against illegal trading of rhino horn, which will run until the end of the year.

While heightened enforcement actions are welcome, it indicates that China can do much more to tackle illegal wildlife trade. China must strictly enforce its own regulations once its domestic horn trade has been opened.

---

Read more:
The northern white rhino should not be brought back to life

---

Postponing implementation gives Beijing time to develop a detailed and robust set of regulations. Now is the time for rhino range states, conservation scientists and concerned groups around the world to work with Beijing so that the impending domestic horn trade in China can be a positive for rhino conservation.

Hubert Cheung, PhD Candidate in Conservation Biology, The University of Queensland; Duan Biggs, Senior Research Fellow Social-Ecological Systems & Resilience, Griffith University, and Yifu Wang, PhD Candidate, Department of Geography, University of Cambridge

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How to turn the waste crisis into a design opportunity

David Lisbona/Flickr, CC BY-SA

Tom Lee, University of Technology Sydney; Berto Pandolfo, University of Technology Sydney; Nick Florin, University of Technology Sydney, and Rachael Wakefield-Rann, University of Technology Sydney

You might never have heard of expanded polystyrene, but you’ve definitely used it. It’s the lightweight white foam used for everything from packing peanuts to holding boxes of veggies at the supermarket.

Expanded polystyrene (EPS) is versatile, waterproof, and surprisingly strong. Unfortunately, it’s also a nightmare to dispose of. It fragments easily into many small, light pieces which can be easily carried away by the wind, and is difficult to process.

---

Read more:
We can’t recycle our way to ‘zero waste’

---

Australia exports some EPS to be recycled overseas, but we have less than one collection point per state. All of this means that The NSW Evironmental Protection Agency estimates that some 12,000 tonnes of EPS is sent to landfill every year. According to the Australian Plastics Recycling survey, about 14% of EPS is recovered for recycling. Most of that is exported – only around 1.6% of all the EPS used in Australia is recycled here.

This is why many researchers are looking for ways to re-purpose EPS, taking advantage of this very useful material and keeping it out of landfill.

Turning trash into treasure

Over the past seven weeks our Master of Design students at UTS have been working on this problem. On level two of the UTS tower, down in the carpark, is a piece of machinery that turns EPS into patties of hardened plastic. These are collected on a palette, taken to a processing facility, and turned into low grade industrial products like traffic bumpers.

EPS is fed into the machine at one end. It’s then shredded, heated, and pressed through an opening at the other end.

It coils into a messy sausage on the cement floor, before being quickly worked into a rough disk by a service worker using a rudimentary, rake-like tool. The spectacle is vaguely reminiscent of watching chefs work pizza dough. Every week cluttered stacks of EPS become these compact, easy-to-handle patties.

Artist Peter Trimble uses a similar method to create Rubbish Stools out of EPS. The process removes the air from the material, reducing it to 3-5% of its original volume.

A different kind of meaning emerges when this substance, rather than piling up in an inchoate lump on the floor, transforms into something useful: a chair, bowl, or tray.

Design and systemic change

Design involves finding ways to create value and meaning with materials that might otherwise remain inconspicuous and neglected. Rather than dismiss EPS as redundant packaging, we aim to see it as something with its own inherent functional and aesthetic value.

In their initial experiments my design students discovered that EPS can be a beautiful material. Through the application of heat and use of specific moulds, EPS can take on an organic, porous texture, reminiscent of bone, or an immaculate, plastic sheen, almost like glass.

This intensity of contrast is one of the common attributes of aesthetic beauty. It could easily be turned into an object, such as a vase or bowl, that someone might hold onto for life.

Considered in isolation, these insights are of limited value to a sustainable Australia. It doesn’t help that many people if the UTS gift store begins selling items made from recycled material (although obviously it is a very small improvement).

However, if these things find their way to landfill soon after purchase the sustainability benefit is marginal.

---

Read more:
If we can’t recycle it, why not turn our waste plastic into fuel?

---

The more significant change comes when good design helps create a broader shift. For example, could UTS change its recycling systems to accommodate a range of ongoing projects, designed to supply the needs of the university community?

Better still, could those results be applied to large shopping centres, local councils, or small towns? Sometimes seeing the beauty in an overlooked piece of rubbish can open our minds to many different possibilities.

---

The authors would like to acknowledge Andrew Simpson, founder of Vert Design, for his guidance and teaching expertise in the student project.

Tom Lee, Lecturer, Faculty of Design and Architecture Building, University of Technology Sydney; Berto Pandolfo, Senior Lecturer Product Design, University of Technology Sydney; Nick Florin, Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney, and Rachael Wakefield-Rann, Research Consultant and PhD Candidate, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Climate mitigation – the greatest public health opportunity of our time

Fiona Armstrong, La Trobe University

Tackling climate change is the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century, a team of 60 international experts today declared in a special report for The Lancet medical journal.

The 2015 Lancet Commission on Health and Climate report comes six years after the groundbreaking first Commission report – a collaboration between The Lancet and University College London – which described climate change as the “biggest global health threat of the 21st century”.

The latest report shows many mitigation and adaptation responses to climate change can directly reduce the burden of ill health, boost community resilience, and lessen poverty and inequity.

In particular, switching to clean renewable energy sources, energy-efficient buildings and active transport options will reduce air pollution and have flow-on health benefits. This includes reducing rates of heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, mental illness and respiratory disease.

The commission also reveals these health co-benefits associated with emissions reduction strategies offer extraordinary value for money. The financial savings associated with avoided ill-health and productivity gains can outstrip the costs of implementing emissions-reduction strategies – if they are carefully designed.

What if we wait?

The commission makes it plain we cannot afford to wait. There are limits to the level and rate of warming humans and other species can adapt to.

With “just” 0.85°C warming since the pre-industrial era, many predicted health threats around the world have become real. Long, intense heatwaves and other extreme weather events such as storms, floods, fires and drought are having direct health impacts. The impacts on ecosystems affects health indirectly, through agricultural losses, as well as contributing to spread of disease.

Mitigation and adaptation responses to climate change can directly reduce the burden of ill health.
Vaclav Volrab/Shutterstock

Climate change is affecting economies and social structures, which also cause health impacts, particularly when associated with forced migration and conflict. Given the risks of climate change-induced “regional collapse, famine and war”, the commission notes mitigation-focused investment “would seem to be the prudent priority at a global level”.

How does this affect Australians?

Climate change is driving record temperatures in Australia, with heatwaves now hotter, longer and more frequent. People die from heat exposure during these events. Many others seek medical attention, leading to massive surges in demand for ambulances, emergency services, and health-care services. Deaths from heatwaves in Australian cities are expected to double in the next 40 years.

Hotter summers are leading to more bush fires, which cause injuries and fatalities. People lose their homes and businesses. Communities lose schools and health care. After bush fires, communities also face a higher rate of general illness, increased in alcohol and drug abuse, and more mental illness.

Extreme rainfall and cyclones cause direct fatalities and injuries. Floods and cyclones can severely affect health care services. In 2011, floods in Queensland caused the cancellation of 1,396 surgical cases, increasing waiting times for vital procedures by 73%.

Rising temperatures are leading to increases in deadly foodborne illnesses, disruptions to food production and water security, and worsening air quality, increasing respiratory illnesses.

Finally, infectious diseases are becoming more common, as are vector-borne diseases such as Ross River fever and zoonotic diseases, which are spread from animals to humans.

What does the future hold?

The report notes that since the first commission six years ago, emissions have risen beyond the “worst case scenario”.

Without mitigation, the authors warn “large-scale disruptions to the climate system” (not currently included in climate modelling and impact assessments) could “trigger a discontinuity in the long-term progression of humanity”.

In lay terms, they mean “wipe us out”.

At the very least, or at least put another way, the authors suggest likely temperature rises may be “incompatible with an organised global community”.

A prescription for action

Cutting emissions, the commission says, will limit health damages, as well as bring important health improvements associated with improved air quality, increased mobility from better public transport, and better physical and mental health from greener spaces and more energy efficient homes.

There is no need to wait. The commission says it is technically feasible to transition to low-carbon infrastructure now. The technologies have been available for at least 40 years, and some since the 19th century.

The financial savings associated with avoided ill-health and productivity gains can outstrip the costs of implementing emissions-reduction strategies.
TCDavis/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

There is potentially significant economic savings associated with the health benefits of climate policies. One study suggests savings from avoided ill-health arising from the implementation of an emissions trading scheme could return up to ten times the cost of implementation.

Policies to achieve this must include carbon pricing, the commission argues – either carbon taxes or emission trading schemes. Where these are not appropriate, it recommends taxes on energy products. Feed-in tariffs (for electricity fed back to the grid) should drive renewable energy deployment, while perverse subsidies to fossil fuels should be abolished.

A key recommendation is the rapid phase out of coal – part of “an early and decisive policy package” to target emissions from the transport, agriculture and energy sectors.

Timing is everything

In order to have a 66% likelihood of limiting global warming to less than 2°C, the remaining global carbon budget will be used up in the next 13 to 24 years.

As all good health professionals know, treatment is of most value when it addresses the cause – in this case, largely fossil fuels. Scaling of low-carbon technologies policy options is vital.

The commission doesn’t spell this out, but in order for global emissions to begin to fall, we must use our remaining carbon budget to make the switch to low-carbon technologies and resources. Doing so will create many new jobs, and help avoid expensive adaptation costs.

Questions for Australia

The Lancet commission makes a clear case for climate action based on health benefits alone. This raises important questions for the Australian government, which abolished the carbon price, wound back policies to support renewable energy, and committed to supporting coal as an energy source:

Why is it failing to protect the health of Australians from this very serious threat? And why are the health benefits associated with climate policies not being factored into policy decisions, given the billions of dollars in savings for health budgets?

Australians should themselves be asking these questions, but at least now we know the Commission will also be listening for the answers.

Fiona Armstrong is Associate, Melbourne Sustainable Societies Institute, University of Melbourne; Sessional Lecturer, School of Public Health and Human Biosciences at La Trobe University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Read the original article.

Site is Moving House

There are some massive changes happening at kevinswilderness.com – it will soon not even be called that. The name of the site will be called simply ‘Kevin’s Wilderness and Travels and will be hosted on WordPress.com. The domain name will probably be disposed of, by simply letting it slip off into history.

The move has come about because of the dramatic rise in hosting costs – which jumped greatly after the hosting company was sold to another. It did concern me at the time that a major price rise would be on the way. So the rise has arrived as expected and I’m now moving on. I love the WordPress.com platform, so the move won’t upset me too much at all. Being able to have ‘kevinswilderness’ in the site name has been a great bonus also, as it will mean that previous site visitors won’t find it
too difficult to remember.

WordPress.com offers the opportunity for so much more social interaction with visitors to the site – especially through comments being available on every page hosted there. Expect more photos and videos at the new site, with these to be hosted at Flickr and YouTube respectively. There should also be opportunities for chatting on site (via a widget or a link to Pip.io), forums, etc. The move is an exciting one for furthering the capability and usefulness of the site.

Work is already well under way and I am hoping that the move will provide new stimulus to improve the site, as well as add new features along the way. The social network hosted at Grou.ps will become a more important associated site and I am hoping to try and promote that more and more. I may however look at some other bushwalking/camping social networks that are out there too – perhaps they will provide a better enhancement to the site. Time will tell.

Please visit the new site and add it to your bookmarks/favourites – the old site has only a month or two to go before it ends forever.

The site is moving across to WordPress.com at the following address:

http://kevinswilderness.wordpress.com/

NSW Road Trip 2010: A Few Thoughts From the Road

It is now day 5 of the road trip and I have already covered almost 3000km. As you can appreciate covering that amount of territory in 5 days doesn’t leave a lot of time to Blog, especially when I have been trying to keep the website updated as well.

See the NSW Road Trip 2010 website at:

http://www.kevinswilderness.com/NSW/nswRoadTrip2010.html

What I thought I might do in this Blog is just pass on a few thoughts that have come to me while I have been driving around this great state of Australia – New South Wales. Let’s call this post, ‘A Few Thoughts From the Road.’

I have often thought that the governments of this country are wasting a great opportunity in promoting tourism in Australia. With such great distances to travel in Australia, wouldn’t it be great if the governments came up with an action plan to improve the rest areas throughout the country. Certainly some of them have been upgraded to a wonderful state – but then there is a lack of maintenance.

Many of the rest areas I have stopped at in the last few days have no facilities at all. Often they are nothing more than an overloaded garbage bin on the side of a road, with limited space in which to park.

To cut a long story short, I think Australia’s tourism industry would get a great shot in the arm if rest areas were improved across the country. It would also be good if hey could be located somewhere with a good view, an attraction, a small park for families, etc.

To go a step further (and this is perhaps pie in the sky), wouldn’t it also be great for the many Australians that drive throughout the country on camping/caravan holidays, if a percentage of these rest areas had some limited facilities for tents and caravans as well?

Perhaps a lot more people would travel around the country if such improved rest areas were created. There would also need to be some plan to keep the maintenance of these areas up to scratch also.

Another thing that militates against the travelling tourism that is fairly popular in Australia (it could be far greater), is the condition of many of the caravan parks across the country. To be sure, there are some excellent parks – but there are also a large number of parks that charge top dollar for run down facilities and grubby grounds. These poor operators need to lift their games to provide good facilities for their customers or they won’t get the return business that caravan parks depend upon. They need to spend a bit of money in order to make money.

I won’t return to a caravan park in which I had a bad experience – whether it be top dollar for run down facilities, poor service, poor attitudes of operators, etc. Some of these places just have no idea how to run a successful caravan park.

More thoughts to come – these will do for today.

EARTH HOUR: A COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME???

Earth Hour is to be held this Saturday (March 28) between 8.30 pm and 9.30 pm. All you need to do to take part in Earth Hour is simply turn your lights off for the hour between 8.30 pm and 9.30 pm on March 28.

Earth Hour began as an annual event in Sydney in 2007, when an estimated 2.2 million buildings switched off their lights for an hour. This year Earth Hour is going global for the second year and is giving people the opportunity to ‘vote’ for either the Earth or global warning. By switching off the lights for an hour a person can ‘vote’ for fighting global warning.

Organisers of Earth Hour are hoping some 1 billion people will ‘vote’ for the Earth and hope to be able to give world leaders 1 billion ‘votes’ for the Earth at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009. The conference is the forum in which world leaders will determine policy to supersede the Kyoto Protocol on Greenhouse Gas reduction.

For more on Earth Hour visit the official website at:

http://www.earthhour.org  

However, is Earth Hour a colossal waste of time? What is really being gained by turning the lights off for an hour once a year? All other electrical devices are still on and a lot of people go for alternative lighting devices that also pollute the environment. Other than awareness of global warming (which I would suggest everyone knows about now and either believes or does not believe – turning off some lights won’t change anyone’s mind on global warming), what does Earth Hour really achieve?

The following Blog post makes for interesting reading:

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/earth_hour_crashes_to_earth/

Am I against reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions? Am I against reducing Global Warming and other associated disasters? Am I anti-environment? The answer to those questions is no! I’m just simply saying Earth Hour is little more than tokenism by most people who are against the Rudd government Greenhouse Gas Emissions reduction policies and other policies that actually aim to make a difference.