With an Australian federal election due this year, climate change has become an inevitable hot topic. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recognised the significance in a recent appeal to environmentalists to make their environments issues ’sexy’[]. What Arnold is trying to do is bring environmentalism in to the mainstream and to no longer appear to be solely the domain of ‘tree huggers’.
Meanwhile, in Australia, Prime Minister John Howard and opposition leader Kevin Rudd are debating to what extent Australia is responsible to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Both have acknowledged that a reduction of emissions is needed. Australia and New Zealand count for approximately 1.1 percent of the worlds contribution to global warming[]. John Howard has expressed that any targets need to be considered carefully, emphasising that Australia’s global warming role doesn’t compare to that of the United States and China[].
In Australia, one of the primary ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is through the use of renewable energy. A report from green groups suggests that a move to renewable sources of power, such as wind and solar could generate new jobs[]. This is the sort of financial incentive that is needed to move towards a real reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.
Australia is also behind in the federal government’s projections to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to a report by the Climate Institute[], suggesting Australia is not on track to meet its Kyoto targets. Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull disagreed with the findings of the report, pointing out that it omits offsets from land use.
Whether the issue of tackling global warming is significant to Australia or not, the Queensland public are concerned about climate change[]. Whether the Australian economy is perceived to be able to bear the weight of strong action will be a key factor in what position Australia will take in the years ahead.
Let’s talk more about Carbon Dioxide (CO2) as it is right up there in the leading ingredients for global warming (there are other greenhouse gases such as methane which are even worse). Last weekend I was reading an article in Time discussing how the Academy Awards were offsetting their carbon dioxide emissions by purchasing carbon credits. The author rightfully pointed out that purchasing carbon credits didn’t reduce their individual emissions one bit.
That’s right, purchasing a Carbon Credit will not suddenly make the carbon dioxide you emit disappear. Instead, it guarantees that an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide will not be emitted by providing green power to someone else. Therefore, the net effect worldwide is a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.
Carbon Credits are in no way the final solution to the problem, but rather they act as a catalyst for the change that must occur. They create a market for green power without the complexities of only supplying it to the people willing to pay for it. As this market grows, the green energy companies can take advantage of economies of scale to reduce the overall cost of green power.
Carbon Credits are useful so long as there is energy that can be supplied by renewable sources that would have otherwise have been supplied by carbon dioxide emitting sources. Ideally as renewable power becomes more prevalent, old coal power stations will be closed down.
Anyone can buy a carbon credit. Sites like Climate Friendly (Australian Site) provide tools to help you work out how many carbon credits you need to offset your carbon output. Remember, your carbon output doesn’t change, but you will be sponsoring a reduction of other’s carbon output by the equivalent amount. Virgin Blue has recently announced a plan to allow passengers to offset their carbon dioxide emissions as part of their ticket. Or you can try to go directly to the source with companies like Jack Green which provide power supplied from renewable sources.
The Australian government has unfortunately not yet set targets for carbon dioxide emissions. I can only hope that when the results of the federal task force on carbon emissions are released next month a decision can be made. It is troubling that the government’s plans seems more based on working around the problem, than addressing its root causes with an investment of $170 million being spent on a “Climate Change Adaptation Centre”, tasked with the job of investigating “the effects on coastlines and the atmosphere”. At a guess, recommendations of snorkels for low-lying coastal areas will be the pinnacle of this centre’s achievements.[]
Yesterday, The Mill looked into the problem of smoking and possible reasons behind why it is so hard to stop existing smokers and first-time smokers. Today we will into the problem of littering.
This time the problem is caused by a combination of laziness and apathy which continues to plague our society. So I can link this properly with yesterday’s article, let’s discuss the problem of cigarette butt litter. I have recently seen more than one person throw their cigarette butt out of their car window. This made me very angry.
According to Planet Ark 7 billion cigarette butts are littered in Australia each year. That’s just over 2 cigarette butt for every person on the planet. It is also believed that 4,500 bush-fires are started by improper disposal of cigarette butts.
I’m not sure what TV show I heard this from, but I remember hearing that even caged animals are clever enough to do their business in the corner rather than in the middle of their cage. We are living in a much bigger cage and yet we litter our cage with cigarette butts, chip packets and other waste without thought.
The annoying thing about littering is that it is not hard to not do. What is so different about throwing a cigarette butt out the window to dumping toxic waste on the side of the road? Both actions are reckless and in my opinion, border on evil. People should know better, the do know better, but they do it anyway.
At my work we use a lot of toner cartridges. Unfortunately we’ve tried to get them refilled but often they end up leaking and are of poor quality. So eventually we gave in and purchased brand new toner cartridges. Unfortunately this left us with a problem. Old cartridges that needed to be disposed of. Fortunately the post office across the street was able to take our cartridges. Of course, they were in no mood to keep this up forever, particularly as I started making very regular appearances dropping off cartridges. One day they just stopped taking cartridges.
Since then I have amassed quite a collection of empty cartridges, hoping to find somewhere who will accept them and take them all in at once. On Friday I called Office Works at Garden City to check they were still accepting cartridges. But were they? No! The box had just disappeared.
So I went straight to the cartridges for ark website and discovered that any business could collect cartridges and arrange to have them recycled, for free! Seeing as we were “any business” I quickly signed us up and soon we’ll be receiving a large box to put our cartridges in!
Over the weekend I began to wonder if there were other ways we could recycle at work and what options were available. The most obvious resource that we throw away plenty of is paper. Surely someone was collecting paper for recycling, ideally for free. Unfortunately despite the website saying it was still free it seems as though you now have to pay for this service (which is fair, after all, you pay for your usual waste disposal).
That said, the prices weren’t that bad. There was a $22 setup fee and $2.20/week for a wheelie bin to collect the paper. Then it was $11 get it picked up. Alternatively you could get two cardboard boxes for $5.50 each (and they are then yours to keep).Paper that is recycled was then supposed to go to companies including (and this is what their website lists):
Am I the only one who spotted that the paper is going to the KKK?
All jokes aside, it’s a pretty good idea and hopefully I’ll be able to convince management of that. Or at least get them fighting with Mater to provide some sort of recycling service.
I’ve begun the exciting task of researching the environment and the role of corporations. In a couple of months I will be arranging access to the University Library so I can access all the academic journals I need. In the meantime I have ordered a number of books to get me started:
- Al Gore. Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit
- Al Gore. An Inconvenient Truth
- Daniel C. Esty & Andrew S. Winston. Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage
And while I’m waiting for those to arrive I’ll be reading:
- Dexter Dunphy, Andrew Griffiths & Suzanne Benn. Organizational Change For Corporate Sustainability. 2003
- John E. Brandenburg & Monica Rix Paxson. Dead Mars Dying Earth. 1999
I am currently considering starting a PhD on this topic. If you have any other books or articles to suggest, let me know.