To some, any suggestion that the world is not on course to make drastic reductions in carbon dioxide emissions smacks of heresy and should be given no credence.
In their view, fossil fuel use simply must be reduced if we are to avoid disaster later in the century.
But, although most politicians subscribe to the view (informed by the scientific mainstream) that urgent action is needed to avoid possibly catastrophic global warming, policy actions do not yet match their words.
Setting targets is easy, achieving them is not.
The much-vaunted European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) has turned out to be an ineffective and costly piece of market fixing, which will not achieve its stated aims.
Carbon offsetting is even worse: transferring money to developing countries to fund projects that probably would have been implemented anyway, and with little real impact on emissions.
The carbon emissions market risks being the next bubble to burst.
dose of cold realism is needed if any significant, affordable reductions in carbon intensity are to be made.
Believing strongly that drastic reductions in fossil fuel use are essential does not make them happen; it just ignores the reality that effective action is not taking place.
It is in everyone's interest, whether you fully believe or are sceptical of the received wisdom, to accept this rather than allow policymakers to repeat the mantra of emissions reduction without taking realistic and effective action.
The impression is that governments want to say the right things, but hope that the whole issue will go away before they have to do anything.
Why would so many powerful people say that global warming is the single biggest threat facing humanity and yet fail to take action?
Weather woes
There are probably three main reasons for this.
The first is timescale. Put simply, weather patterns are just not following the sort of steady trend which would instil confidence in IPCC pronouncements.
No amount of "it's even worse than we thought" headlines will convince a sceptical public if the words don't fit with the evidence of their own eyes.
1998 remains the warmest year on record, and since then there has been no discernable upward trend
Last year saw a miserable summer in much of western Europe, and the same countries are in the middle of a winter which has been colder than for many years.
For the average layman, global warming remains a distant prospect.
Politicians are naturally reluctant to impose apparently unwarranted costs on their citizens if those same people can vote them out of office at the next election.
Which leads to the second point: whoever bears the initial cost, ultimately taxpayers (and therefore voters) will have to pay.
Businesses may have to buy emission permits, but (unless the cost is so small as to be meaningless as an incentive to reduce energy consumption) they will pass on the additional amount to their customers.
Whether we care to admit it or not, it is wealth created in the private sector which is taxed and enables the public sector to operate. The two cannot be divorced.
If businesses have higher costs, they either try to absorb them, become uncompetitive and fail (leading to both lower tax revenues and higher welfare costs for the state) or they put their prices up and consumers pay.
After you...
The third reason follows naturally: neither companies nor countries want to go out on a limb.
For almost all countries, it is a case of "we will if you will". If everyone moves in concert, then co-ordinated action is possible.
If some countries are perceived to be benefiting unfairly, then the whole system can fall apart.
This is the reason why agreement on a post-Kyoto deal in Copenhagen in December is going to be so difficult. This is only the first stage of a long process, a setting of targets and commitments.
Experience in the EU, which likes to see itself as setting an example to the rest of the world, suggests that not all countries will leave their negotiated goals unquestioned after agreement is reached.
There is certainly no guarantee that even the most enthusiastic will reach their targets.
Worse, from the point of view of those who see an effective deal as vital, is that Kyoto set rather undemanding goals, which look unlikely to be achieved by all countries who ratified it.
The world recession will cut energy consumption and help reduce emissions (every cloud has a silver lining), but will make no structural changes to how we generate and use energy.
What chance, then, for the far more demanding post-Kyoto targets?
Faced with a less than enthusiastic electorate, suspicious of the motives of other countries and having learnt some hard lessons from the example of Kyoto, it is hardly surprising that politicians try to play a waiting game.
They go with the flow in setting targets for carbon dioxide emissions reductions, but do not take radical action to achieve this because they want neither to alienate voters nor harm the economy.
This is not to say that drastic reduction of fossil fuel use without upsetting most members of the public is impossible.
The answer is to use the best available and most cost effective low carbon technology for base load generation (nuclear power), increase the focus on energy efficiency in all sectors of the economy, and encourage R&D on new transport and power generation technologies.
But to start to move in this direction needs policymakers to acknowledge the hard fact that the present unwarranted faith in power from renewables and emphasis on punishing emitters is going nowhere.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Climate activists blockade Rudd's office
Activists took to the streets and blockaded the prime minister's Sydney office protesting the Rudd government's response to climate change.
Streets were blocked off as protesters in Sydney marched from the harbour to Kevin Rudd's city office, where they staged a short sit-in protest against the carbon emissions scheme.
Families, young children and the elderly gathered in every state capital and Canberra dressed in red as part of the "climate emergency" message.
The rallies attracted about 6,000 people nationwide, and included environmental groups like Greenpeace and the Wilderness Society who want an emissions scheme ditched in favour of an alternative dubbed "Plan B", which includes the phasing out of coal-fired power stations.
The protest movement also wants 100 per cent renewable energy by 2020.
Government legislation setting up the scheme is due to go before the Senate during the next sitting in June, but the coalition and the Greens have indicated they will block the bill.
Australian Greens climate change spokeswoman Christine Milne, who addressed 1,200 activists in rainy Hobart, said her party would block the government's carbon emission's trading scheme (CPRS) unless it committed to 40 per cent cuts by 2020.
"What we need is a can-do mentality rather than listening to the people who say we can't do it," Senator Milne told AAP.
"The Australian Greens will oppose the CPRS legislation because the target is not ambitious enough."
NSW Greens Upper House MP Lee Rhiannon told Sydney's 2,000-strong crowd the government's scheme would not cut reliance on fossil fuels.
"The world is on red alert, urgent action is needed to rein in runaway climate change now," Ms Rhiannon said.
"The prime minister needs to recognise that baby steps is not what is needed, we need the giant leap to a zero emissions future.
"We know that achieving that is not going to come with the carbon pollution reduction scheme - that's a scam."
As protesters chanted, climate change minister Penny Wong defended the government's position.
"Like the people who are at these rallies this government does want to take action on climate change," Senator Wong told ABC Radio.
"The best way to take action on climate change is for senators to pass these laws that will for the first time reduce Australia's carbon pollution."
A leaked United Nation analysis, dated June 6, says that on conservative estimates, rich countries need to embrace 25 to 40 per cent cuts in emissions by 2020, below 1990 levels, to give the world a chance of avoiding a two degree temperate rise.
Labor is promising carbon cuts of 25 per cent by 2020 if an ambitious climate change agreement is reached at the UN climate change talks at Copenhagen in December.
Australian National University earth sciences visiting fellow Andrew Glikson told the Canberra rally the government's flagged emissions targets were inadequate.
"Government listens to economists, they listen to corporations, they listen to lawyers. There are no scientists at that level," Dr Glikson said.
Streets were blocked off as protesters in Sydney marched from the harbour to Kevin Rudd's city office, where they staged a short sit-in protest against the carbon emissions scheme.
Families, young children and the elderly gathered in every state capital and Canberra dressed in red as part of the "climate emergency" message.
The rallies attracted about 6,000 people nationwide, and included environmental groups like Greenpeace and the Wilderness Society who want an emissions scheme ditched in favour of an alternative dubbed "Plan B", which includes the phasing out of coal-fired power stations.
The protest movement also wants 100 per cent renewable energy by 2020.
Government legislation setting up the scheme is due to go before the Senate during the next sitting in June, but the coalition and the Greens have indicated they will block the bill.
Australian Greens climate change spokeswoman Christine Milne, who addressed 1,200 activists in rainy Hobart, said her party would block the government's carbon emission's trading scheme (CPRS) unless it committed to 40 per cent cuts by 2020.
"What we need is a can-do mentality rather than listening to the people who say we can't do it," Senator Milne told AAP.
"The Australian Greens will oppose the CPRS legislation because the target is not ambitious enough."
NSW Greens Upper House MP Lee Rhiannon told Sydney's 2,000-strong crowd the government's scheme would not cut reliance on fossil fuels.
"The world is on red alert, urgent action is needed to rein in runaway climate change now," Ms Rhiannon said.
"The prime minister needs to recognise that baby steps is not what is needed, we need the giant leap to a zero emissions future.
"We know that achieving that is not going to come with the carbon pollution reduction scheme - that's a scam."
As protesters chanted, climate change minister Penny Wong defended the government's position.
"Like the people who are at these rallies this government does want to take action on climate change," Senator Wong told ABC Radio.
"The best way to take action on climate change is for senators to pass these laws that will for the first time reduce Australia's carbon pollution."
A leaked United Nation analysis, dated June 6, says that on conservative estimates, rich countries need to embrace 25 to 40 per cent cuts in emissions by 2020, below 1990 levels, to give the world a chance of avoiding a two degree temperate rise.
Labor is promising carbon cuts of 25 per cent by 2020 if an ambitious climate change agreement is reached at the UN climate change talks at Copenhagen in December.
Australian National University earth sciences visiting fellow Andrew Glikson told the Canberra rally the government's flagged emissions targets were inadequate.
"Government listens to economists, they listen to corporations, they listen to lawyers. There are no scientists at that level," Dr Glikson said.
UN climate chief confident of global warming pact
U.N. climate delegates completed their first rough sketch of a new global warming agreement Friday, a draft replete with gaps and competing ideas that await decisions by political leaders.
At the end of a two-week negotiating session, the rift lay more clearly exposed between industrial and emerging nations - and within those blocs - on the obligations of the 192 countries involved in the talks to control greenhouse gases blamed for climate change.
The end result, due in six months, will determine the course of development for generations in the economies of rich and poor countries, as well as the planet's health.
Though conceptual issues remained unbridged, officials and environmental activists agreed the negotiations progressed toward drafting the framework for the accord that is due to be completed in December at a major conference in Denmark.
World leaders will meet several times later this year, beginning with a Group of Eight summit in July, with climate change on the agenda.
Yvo de Boer, the top U.N. climate change official, said he was confident of reaching an ambitious agreement in Copenhagen, though it will lack details that will require further work.
The latest round showed that governments "are committed to reaching an agreement, and this is a big achievement," he told reporters.
The draft, which began with 53 pages when this session began June 1, ballooned by Friday to about 200 pages as delegations inserted language to be negotiated later. The second draft was expected to be whittled down to a more manageable size at the next round of talks in August.
Environmental activists said they were concerned at incremental pace of talks.
"We see no political breakthrough. Instead, delegates are just preparing themselves for battles to be fought at later meetings," said Kim Carstensen of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature. It was helpful to clarify their positions, he said, but "we're losing time."
Scientists say industrialized nations must cut emissions by 25 to 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 to prevent climate disasters, such as coastal flooding from rising sea levels, severe weather events, and variations in rainfall and temperatures that will affect agriculture and wipe out species of plants and animals.
Pledges from advanced countries fall far short of that range. WWF calculated that the declarations from wealthy countries amounted to a total emissions cut of just 10 percent.
There is no question that industrialized countries must raise their sights higher," De Boer said.
The talks aim to craft a deal in Copenhagen to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required 37 industrial countries to cut emissions a total 5 percent from 1990 by 2012. It made no demands on developing countries, and the U.S. refused to sign on to that deal.
Now, the U.S. and the European Union say swiftly developing countries like China, India and Brazil must accept some commitments, although they would be of a different nature and legal force than the commitments of the industrial world.
Jonathan Pershing, the chief U.S. delegate, said that unlike the industrial countries China should not have national caps on its emissions.
Beijing should have binding actions, but not binding outcomes, said Pershing, who broke away from the Bonn talks earlier this week to join a U.S. delegation to Beijing.
"Our expectation of China is that they will take domestic actions that can be measured, quantified and reported," he said. "They will be bound to those actions both domestically and in the international arena. That is not the same thing as saying that those actions have to have an outcome that is binding."
On Thursday, India's chief delegate Shyam Saran said his country rejects any limitations on its development, but is willing to allow outside scrutiny of programs built from international funding and the transfer of technology.
With one-third of its 1.2 billion people lacking electricity, India needed to continue growing, and its historical emissions could not compare to the carbon pumped into the atmosphere over the past 150 years by the industrial West.
Saran rejected any idea of scrapping the Kyoto Protocol, which classifies countries as those with emissions targets and those with no obligations at all.
But that structure was unlikely to remain unchanged in Copenhagen to account for emerging economies that would also include South Korea, Brazil and South Africa.
"The world is a lot different now," said Andrew M. Deutz, of The Nature Conservancy, an advocacy group. "To make decisions you need to have the developing countries at the table, and they are going to have to participate" in the solution, he said.
At the end of a two-week negotiating session, the rift lay more clearly exposed between industrial and emerging nations - and within those blocs - on the obligations of the 192 countries involved in the talks to control greenhouse gases blamed for climate change.
The end result, due in six months, will determine the course of development for generations in the economies of rich and poor countries, as well as the planet's health.
Though conceptual issues remained unbridged, officials and environmental activists agreed the negotiations progressed toward drafting the framework for the accord that is due to be completed in December at a major conference in Denmark.
World leaders will meet several times later this year, beginning with a Group of Eight summit in July, with climate change on the agenda.
Yvo de Boer, the top U.N. climate change official, said he was confident of reaching an ambitious agreement in Copenhagen, though it will lack details that will require further work.
The latest round showed that governments "are committed to reaching an agreement, and this is a big achievement," he told reporters.
The draft, which began with 53 pages when this session began June 1, ballooned by Friday to about 200 pages as delegations inserted language to be negotiated later. The second draft was expected to be whittled down to a more manageable size at the next round of talks in August.
Environmental activists said they were concerned at incremental pace of talks.
"We see no political breakthrough. Instead, delegates are just preparing themselves for battles to be fought at later meetings," said Kim Carstensen of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature. It was helpful to clarify their positions, he said, but "we're losing time."
Scientists say industrialized nations must cut emissions by 25 to 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 to prevent climate disasters, such as coastal flooding from rising sea levels, severe weather events, and variations in rainfall and temperatures that will affect agriculture and wipe out species of plants and animals.
Pledges from advanced countries fall far short of that range. WWF calculated that the declarations from wealthy countries amounted to a total emissions cut of just 10 percent.
There is no question that industrialized countries must raise their sights higher," De Boer said.
The talks aim to craft a deal in Copenhagen to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required 37 industrial countries to cut emissions a total 5 percent from 1990 by 2012. It made no demands on developing countries, and the U.S. refused to sign on to that deal.
Now, the U.S. and the European Union say swiftly developing countries like China, India and Brazil must accept some commitments, although they would be of a different nature and legal force than the commitments of the industrial world.
Jonathan Pershing, the chief U.S. delegate, said that unlike the industrial countries China should not have national caps on its emissions.
Beijing should have binding actions, but not binding outcomes, said Pershing, who broke away from the Bonn talks earlier this week to join a U.S. delegation to Beijing.
"Our expectation of China is that they will take domestic actions that can be measured, quantified and reported," he said. "They will be bound to those actions both domestically and in the international arena. That is not the same thing as saying that those actions have to have an outcome that is binding."
On Thursday, India's chief delegate Shyam Saran said his country rejects any limitations on its development, but is willing to allow outside scrutiny of programs built from international funding and the transfer of technology.
With one-third of its 1.2 billion people lacking electricity, India needed to continue growing, and its historical emissions could not compare to the carbon pumped into the atmosphere over the past 150 years by the industrial West.
Saran rejected any idea of scrapping the Kyoto Protocol, which classifies countries as those with emissions targets and those with no obligations at all.
But that structure was unlikely to remain unchanged in Copenhagen to account for emerging economies that would also include South Korea, Brazil and South Africa.
"The world is a lot different now," said Andrew M. Deutz, of The Nature Conservancy, an advocacy group. "To make decisions you need to have the developing countries at the table, and they are going to have to participate" in the solution, he said.
Australians demand climate action
Thousands of demonstrators have rallied across Australia to demand greater government action to protect the environment from climate change.
The National Climate Emergency Rallies called on Australia to take the lead at the UN environment summit in December in Copenhagen.
Activists also want an end to Australia's dependence on cheap and plentiful supplies of coal.
It is one of the world's worst per capita emitters of greenhouse gases.
'Strong grip'
Protesters were urged to wear red to highlight the risks of global warming.
In Sydney, rally organiser Moira Williams said that a coalition of trade unions and religious groups, as well as students and environmental campaigners, was pushing for immediate action.
"We need to be making these alliances and be stronger than the fossil fuel industry that currently has such a strong grip on climate policy in Australia.
"That is the positive in this rally and in this year - that we need to build that movement and it does need to come from the ground up, because at the moment we are not seeing any action from the top down."
Scientists have warned that Australia is particularly vulnerable to the effects of a shifting climate.
As temperatures increase, there are predictions that coastal communities will be threatened by rising sea levels, while other parts of the country could suffer more severe droughts, cyclones and bushfires.
The government in Canberra has repeatedly stressed that tackling climate change is a priority.
The National Climate Emergency Rallies called on Australia to take the lead at the UN environment summit in December in Copenhagen.
Activists also want an end to Australia's dependence on cheap and plentiful supplies of coal.
It is one of the world's worst per capita emitters of greenhouse gases.
'Strong grip'
Protesters were urged to wear red to highlight the risks of global warming.
In Sydney, rally organiser Moira Williams said that a coalition of trade unions and religious groups, as well as students and environmental campaigners, was pushing for immediate action.
"We need to be making these alliances and be stronger than the fossil fuel industry that currently has such a strong grip on climate policy in Australia.
"That is the positive in this rally and in this year - that we need to build that movement and it does need to come from the ground up, because at the moment we are not seeing any action from the top down."
Scientists have warned that Australia is particularly vulnerable to the effects of a shifting climate.
As temperatures increase, there are predictions that coastal communities will be threatened by rising sea levels, while other parts of the country could suffer more severe droughts, cyclones and bushfires.
The government in Canberra has repeatedly stressed that tackling climate change is a priority.
Friday, June 12, 2009
British 'Searaser' invention promises green power revolution on the waves
Alvin Smith had his eureka moment not in the bath, but in the swimming pool. 'I was swimming round the pool, making little waves, and it struck me how much power there was in the displacement of the water,' he remembers. 'You think of a 500-tonne boat: a wave comes along, lifts that whole boat, and then drops it down again. You must be able to harness some of that, I thought.'
His subsequent invention would have made Archimedes proud, and should be making the renewables industry very excited.
Dubbed 'Searaser', it consists of what looks like a navigation buoy, but is in fact a simple arrangement of ballast and floats connected by a piston. As a wave passes the device, the float is lifted, raising the piston and compressing water. The float sinks back down on the tail of the wave on to a second float, compressing water again on the downstroke.
What is particularly clever about Searaser, however, is its simplicity. Where most marine energy devices have sealed, lubricated innards and complex electronics, Searaser is lubricated entirely by seawater, has no electronic components and is even self-cleaning. Smith describes it as 'Third-World mechanics', but this belies the sophistication of the concept.
'The beauty of it is that we're only making a pump, and bringing water ashore,' he explains. 'All the other technology needed to generate the electricity already exists.'
Searaser is designed to pump water either straight through a sea-level turbine to generate electricity, or up to a clifftop reservoir, where the water could be stored until needed, then allowed to flow back down to the sea through turbines, generating electricity on demand.
The second option is the one about which Smith is most passionate. By effectively storing the energy generated by Searaser to be used on demand, his system would solve a problem that dogs almost all renewable technologies – their variability. Energy that can be summoned at will is not only more valuable, but also allows the grid to compensate for other, less easily controlled renewables such as wind and solar.
Early trials of the prototype Searaser, one of which was completed in April, have proved encouraging. Despite being less than a tenth of the size of the version he hopes will eventually be supplying power to our homes, Smith's homemade machine managed to pump some 112,000 litres of water a day during the trial, at times operating from waves a mere 6in high.
The eventual machine will be capable of generating 1 megawatt of electricity – enough to supply some 1,700 homes – at prices that the team behind Searaser believe will be lower than most other renewable technologies.
As an intermediate step, a trial of two midsize machines should go ahead towards the end of this year, with a university invited to monitor the trial and provide independent accreditation of the results. Although these machines won't generate electricity (they will simply pump water through a flow meter to determine their potential) they will demonstrate whether the technology can work for prolonged periods and in rough conditions.
For Smith, however – a man who could use a welder by the age of eight – the incremental steps between prototype and commercial deployment seem almost an irritation. His vision is already far advanced, and includes using the pressurised saltwater generated by Searaser to produce drinking water, using the same reverse osmosis process used in conventional, energy-hungry desalination plants.
'All you'd have to do is reduce the size of the piston and increase the size of the floats to increase the pressure,' he explains.
He has also put plenty of thought into how he would persuade planners and landowners to allow him to build reservoirs on top of cliffs to provide the energy storage for Searaser.
'The planning will frighten everyone,' he says, 'but if you were trying to produce as much energy from wind turbines, they'd be very visible; a reservoir you'd only see from above.'
Smith has also put thought into how the reservoir could be made as water-tight as possible – vital to avoid saltwater leaching into soils. By double-lining the reservoirs and including an outlet pipe in between the two linings, you would instantly be able to see if the uppermost lining had a puncture by watching the end of the outlet pipe.
'If you saw any water coming out, you'd know you had a leak and you could drain down the reservoir and sort it out,' he says.
Beyond being simply functional, however, Smith believes the reservoirs could be beautiful, providing recreational spaces for watersports or sites for shellfish farmers. 'I bet the birds would love it, too,' he adds.
Although Searaser is clearly a commercial project and Smith hopes to see a return on his patents, he is also keen to see the technology deployed abroad, given that its simplicity lends itself to installation and maintenance in the less-industrialised world.
'It's a modular system: a community could start off with two or three machines, and expand as necessary. It can go round the globe, it really can,' he says.
His subsequent invention would have made Archimedes proud, and should be making the renewables industry very excited.
Dubbed 'Searaser', it consists of what looks like a navigation buoy, but is in fact a simple arrangement of ballast and floats connected by a piston. As a wave passes the device, the float is lifted, raising the piston and compressing water. The float sinks back down on the tail of the wave on to a second float, compressing water again on the downstroke.
What is particularly clever about Searaser, however, is its simplicity. Where most marine energy devices have sealed, lubricated innards and complex electronics, Searaser is lubricated entirely by seawater, has no electronic components and is even self-cleaning. Smith describes it as 'Third-World mechanics', but this belies the sophistication of the concept.
'The beauty of it is that we're only making a pump, and bringing water ashore,' he explains. 'All the other technology needed to generate the electricity already exists.'
Searaser is designed to pump water either straight through a sea-level turbine to generate electricity, or up to a clifftop reservoir, where the water could be stored until needed, then allowed to flow back down to the sea through turbines, generating electricity on demand.
The second option is the one about which Smith is most passionate. By effectively storing the energy generated by Searaser to be used on demand, his system would solve a problem that dogs almost all renewable technologies – their variability. Energy that can be summoned at will is not only more valuable, but also allows the grid to compensate for other, less easily controlled renewables such as wind and solar.
Early trials of the prototype Searaser, one of which was completed in April, have proved encouraging. Despite being less than a tenth of the size of the version he hopes will eventually be supplying power to our homes, Smith's homemade machine managed to pump some 112,000 litres of water a day during the trial, at times operating from waves a mere 6in high.
The eventual machine will be capable of generating 1 megawatt of electricity – enough to supply some 1,700 homes – at prices that the team behind Searaser believe will be lower than most other renewable technologies.
As an intermediate step, a trial of two midsize machines should go ahead towards the end of this year, with a university invited to monitor the trial and provide independent accreditation of the results. Although these machines won't generate electricity (they will simply pump water through a flow meter to determine their potential) they will demonstrate whether the technology can work for prolonged periods and in rough conditions.
For Smith, however – a man who could use a welder by the age of eight – the incremental steps between prototype and commercial deployment seem almost an irritation. His vision is already far advanced, and includes using the pressurised saltwater generated by Searaser to produce drinking water, using the same reverse osmosis process used in conventional, energy-hungry desalination plants.
'All you'd have to do is reduce the size of the piston and increase the size of the floats to increase the pressure,' he explains.
He has also put plenty of thought into how he would persuade planners and landowners to allow him to build reservoirs on top of cliffs to provide the energy storage for Searaser.
'The planning will frighten everyone,' he says, 'but if you were trying to produce as much energy from wind turbines, they'd be very visible; a reservoir you'd only see from above.'
Smith has also put thought into how the reservoir could be made as water-tight as possible – vital to avoid saltwater leaching into soils. By double-lining the reservoirs and including an outlet pipe in between the two linings, you would instantly be able to see if the uppermost lining had a puncture by watching the end of the outlet pipe.
'If you saw any water coming out, you'd know you had a leak and you could drain down the reservoir and sort it out,' he says.
Beyond being simply functional, however, Smith believes the reservoirs could be beautiful, providing recreational spaces for watersports or sites for shellfish farmers. 'I bet the birds would love it, too,' he adds.
Although Searaser is clearly a commercial project and Smith hopes to see a return on his patents, he is also keen to see the technology deployed abroad, given that its simplicity lends itself to installation and maintenance in the less-industrialised world.
'It's a modular system: a community could start off with two or three machines, and expand as necessary. It can go round the globe, it really can,' he says.
New York declares war on geese to prevent airport bird strikes
Authorities in New York have declared war on the large flocks of Canada geese that congregate around the city's airports, and will cull 2,000 in an attempt to prevent a recurrence of the bird strike that forced a passenger plane to ditch in the Hudson river earlier this year.
The cull will target geese at open areas and more than 40 public parks in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx within five miles of regional airports.
The city's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, said the effort was justified by the dangers the geese pose to aircraft. In January, the pilot of a US Airways flight was forced to make an emergency water landing after a bird strike, with his passengers making a miraculous escape from the aircraft as it floated on the freezing waters of the Hudson.
"The serious dangers that Canada geese pose to aviation became all too clear when geese struck US Airways Flight 1549," he said in a statement on Thursday. "The incident served as a catalyst to strengthen our efforts in removing geese from, and discouraging them from nesting on, city property near our runways."
The authority managing New York's three airports, Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark, had already had a programme to control bird populations through shooting and trapping birds, and removing their nests.
LaGuardia, which has a particularly bad history with birds, has had a programme of evicting geese for the last five years, and has removed 1,250 during that time. In the past, some of the offending geese were donated to food banks. That practice will not continue.
Jason Post, a spokesman for the mayor, told reporters the geese would be herded to a collection point, and then taken off site where they would be put down using carbon dioxide in methods approved by the American Veterinary Medical Association.
Conservation officials say there is a permanent population of about 20,000 Canada geese in the region. Another 25,000 are believed to pass through the area during the migration season. It is believed that the US Airways flight was brought down by migrating birds.
The cull is the first step in a major action plan to prevent birds strikes in the aftermath of the US Airways near-disaster, involving representatives from the city, airport authorities in New York and New Jersey, and the US agriculture department.
Bird strikes have been rising across the US, from 1,750 in 1990 to 7,666 in 2001 according to the federal aviation authority. Canada geese, whose population have risen to 5.5m last year, have emerged as a particular culprit. There have been 77 collisions between planes and geese in the New York area over the last decade, according to the federal aviation authority.
The city is planning to fill in a large hollow at Rikers Island, just north of LaGuardia, that had been popular among geese. At JFK airport, the authorities are also installing a new bird radar system, and have taken on an additional wildlife biologist to step up safety measures. The city will erect signs in parks warning people against feeding geese, and will teach wildlife supervisors in the field how to fire shotguns.
The cull will target geese at open areas and more than 40 public parks in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx within five miles of regional airports.
The city's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, said the effort was justified by the dangers the geese pose to aircraft. In January, the pilot of a US Airways flight was forced to make an emergency water landing after a bird strike, with his passengers making a miraculous escape from the aircraft as it floated on the freezing waters of the Hudson.
"The serious dangers that Canada geese pose to aviation became all too clear when geese struck US Airways Flight 1549," he said in a statement on Thursday. "The incident served as a catalyst to strengthen our efforts in removing geese from, and discouraging them from nesting on, city property near our runways."
The authority managing New York's three airports, Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark, had already had a programme to control bird populations through shooting and trapping birds, and removing their nests.
LaGuardia, which has a particularly bad history with birds, has had a programme of evicting geese for the last five years, and has removed 1,250 during that time. In the past, some of the offending geese were donated to food banks. That practice will not continue.
Jason Post, a spokesman for the mayor, told reporters the geese would be herded to a collection point, and then taken off site where they would be put down using carbon dioxide in methods approved by the American Veterinary Medical Association.
Conservation officials say there is a permanent population of about 20,000 Canada geese in the region. Another 25,000 are believed to pass through the area during the migration season. It is believed that the US Airways flight was brought down by migrating birds.
The cull is the first step in a major action plan to prevent birds strikes in the aftermath of the US Airways near-disaster, involving representatives from the city, airport authorities in New York and New Jersey, and the US agriculture department.
Bird strikes have been rising across the US, from 1,750 in 1990 to 7,666 in 2001 according to the federal aviation authority. Canada geese, whose population have risen to 5.5m last year, have emerged as a particular culprit. There have been 77 collisions between planes and geese in the New York area over the last decade, according to the federal aviation authority.
The city is planning to fill in a large hollow at Rikers Island, just north of LaGuardia, that had been popular among geese. At JFK airport, the authorities are also installing a new bird radar system, and have taken on an additional wildlife biologist to step up safety measures. The city will erect signs in parks warning people against feeding geese, and will teach wildlife supervisors in the field how to fire shotguns.
BA boss: Airline passengers will have to pay for pollution
Airline passengers will have to pay for the environmental impact of their journeys through fare increases if carriers join a global emissions trading scheme, according to British Airways boss Willie Walsh.
Airlines could contribute $5bn (£3bn) a year to help developing countries fight climate change if a scheme goes ahead, according to the Aviation Global Deal Group, whose members include BA, Virgin and Air France-KLM.
Under one version the industry would be limited to an amount of carbon dioxide emissions – for instance, 97% of 2005 emissions in 2005 – and would receive free carbon permits equating to 85% of its permitted emissions, and would bid for the rest. A proportion of those auction proceeds would go to developing countries.
The group made the proposal amid mounting frustration over negotiations for the Copenhagen climate change conference in December, which will thrash out a sequel to the Kyoto agreement. Airlines are concerned their representative body, the International Civil Aviation Organisation, will not produce a robust proposal in time and could expose them to measures such as an international air travel levy.
Walsh said fares would "have to" rise in order to cover the cost of a global trading scheme. Walsh added that the sector's "unsustainable" financial state, with a total loss of $9bn forecast this year, made fare rises inevitable. "This is going to add billions to the industry's cost base and the industry is unlikely to be able to absorb the cost. For the industry to play its part the people who benefit from that industry will have to pay for it as well."
Walsh said the European Union should use its emissions trading scheme as a fore-runner for a global programme but not attempt to drag in non-EU airlines lest they take legal action.
Airlines could contribute $5bn (£3bn) a year to help developing countries fight climate change if a scheme goes ahead, according to the Aviation Global Deal Group, whose members include BA, Virgin and Air France-KLM.
Under one version the industry would be limited to an amount of carbon dioxide emissions – for instance, 97% of 2005 emissions in 2005 – and would receive free carbon permits equating to 85% of its permitted emissions, and would bid for the rest. A proportion of those auction proceeds would go to developing countries.
The group made the proposal amid mounting frustration over negotiations for the Copenhagen climate change conference in December, which will thrash out a sequel to the Kyoto agreement. Airlines are concerned their representative body, the International Civil Aviation Organisation, will not produce a robust proposal in time and could expose them to measures such as an international air travel levy.
Walsh said fares would "have to" rise in order to cover the cost of a global trading scheme. Walsh added that the sector's "unsustainable" financial state, with a total loss of $9bn forecast this year, made fare rises inevitable. "This is going to add billions to the industry's cost base and the industry is unlikely to be able to absorb the cost. For the industry to play its part the people who benefit from that industry will have to pay for it as well."
Walsh said the European Union should use its emissions trading scheme as a fore-runner for a global programme but not attempt to drag in non-EU airlines lest they take legal action.
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