2015-11-2 Open Letter to the ABC [Australia's equivalent of the UK BBC] re major corrections required after Emma Alberici interview with Chief Scientist appointee Dr Alan Finkel.
Major ABC corrections are required after the Emma Alberici interview with Dr Alan Finkel (Emma Alberici “Interview: Dr Alan Finkel, newly-appointed Chief Scientist”, ABC Lateline, 27 October 2015: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2015/s4340246.htm ).
Emma Alberici asked exactly the right questions – indeed repeatedly so - but comments by PM Turnbull and Dr Alan Finkel reported in the program transcript require public correction by the ABC.
1. PM Turnbull re Finkel: “Now, Alan Finkel is remarkably qualified for this… He has been a very successful businessman, entrepreneur. He has applied the knowledge that he learned at university. He's applied that knowledge to do extremely well. He's been very successful”.
Reality: The Sydney Morning Herald: “Better Place [for which Alan Finkel was chief technology officer] aimed to supply battery-switching services to what was expected to be a mass roll-out of electric vehicles. It filed for bankruptcy in Israel in 2013 after burning through $US850 million (then worth about $885 million) in private funds” (Jane Lee and Peter Hannam, “Meet Alan Finkel, the man tipped to become Australia’s next Chief Scientist”, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 October 2015: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/meet-alan-finkel-the-man-tipped-to-become-australias-next-chief-scientist-20151026-gkijp4.html ).
2. Dr Finkel re how quickly to zero emissions: “Very slowly. I think we should be aspiring to do it but it would take a long time. And yet, in the 20 or 30 years that we've been investing through subsidies and massively building out our capacity, worldwide solar and wind only contribute about four per cent of our electricity supply. And our electricity supply is only a fraction of our total energy use. It's an accelerating thing. We're building solar and wind at an ever increasing rate, but it will take decades to get to the volume that we need. In the energy industry: scale. It's all about scale. The requirements are just massive… we could see huge changes in the 20- to 30-year timeframe”.
Reality: Expert opinion indicates that it is now very unlikely that we will avoid a catastrophic plus 2C temperature rise (for alphabetically-organized compendia of such opinions see “Are we doomed?”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/are-we-doomed and "Too late to avoid global warming catastrophe": https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/too-late-to-avoid-global-warming ). Beyond Zero Emissions engineers detailed a plan for 100% renewable energy for Australia by 2020, top electrical engineer Professor Peter Seligman had a related expert approach, and numerous towns, cities, states, countries and corporations committed to 100% renewable energy by 2020 (for details see “2011 climate change course”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/2011-climate-change-course , “Cut carbon emissions 80% by 2020”: https://sites.google.com/site/cutcarbonemissions80by2020/ and “100% renewable energy by 2020”: https://sites.google.com/site/100renewableenergyby2020/ .
A “20- to 30-year timeframe” means increasing CO2 above the present disastrous 400 ppm CO2 whereas numerous climate scientists and biologists demand a return 300 ppm CO2 ASAP for a safe planet for all peoples and al species (see 300.org: . https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org and “300.org – return atmosphere CO2 to 300 ppm CO2”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org---return-atmosphere-co2-to-300-ppm ), noting that 7 million people de from air pollution each year, this including 10,000 Australians and 75,000 people killed by pollutants from burning exported Australian coal (see “Stop air pollution deaths”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/stop-air-pollution-deaths ).
3. Dr Finkel re “Direct Action is best”: “Direct Action can be as effective as many other things. The biggest difference between Direct Action and, say, a carbon tax or a carbon price is where the money comes from. Does it come from general revenue or is it a tithe on the activity? And that is a decision that economists and governments have to make. But on a per dollar basis, Direct Action can be very effective” .
Reality: The Coalition’s Direct Action Policy absurdly rewards polluters for polluting less (cf paying rapists to rape less etc), involves setting a Carbon Price of circa $0 /t CO2-e rather than the damage-related US$200/t CO2-e demanded by top climate economist Dr Chris Hope of 90-Nobel-Laureate Cambridge University, and as climate change inaction is intergenerational theft by generating an enormous Carbon Debt to be inescapably paid by future generations (see Dr Chris Hope, “How high should climate change taxes be?”, Working Paper Series, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, 9.2011: http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/fileadmin/user_upload/research/workingpapers/wp1109.pdf ).
Assuming a damage-related Carbon Price in USD of $200 per tonne CO2-e as estimated by Dr Chris Hope from 90-Nobel-Laureate Cambridge University, the World has a Carbon Debt of $360 trillion that is increasing at $13 trillion per year. Australia has a Carbon Debt of $7.5 trillion that is increasing at $400 billion per year and at $40,000 per head per year for under-30 year old Australians (see “Carbon Debt Carbon Credit”: https://sites.google.com/site/carbondebtcarboncredit/ , “Climate Justice & Intergenerational Equity”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/climate-justice and “Science & economics experts: Carbon Tax needed NOT Carbon Trading”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/sciennce-economics-experts-carbon-tax-needed-not-carbon-trading/ ).
4. Dr Finkel re nuclear power: “ I think that there's no doubt that, in terms of carbon dioxide emissions, nuclear is fantastic. It's right up there with solar and wind as a near-zero emissions technology”.
Reality: In a carbon economy the overall nuclear cycle from mining the uranium ore and building the power station to disposal of waste and decommissioning the power plant involves massive CO2 pollution and indeed a modern conventional nuclear power station based on use of low grade uranium ores can be as dirty greenhouse gas (GHG)-wise as a modern combined cycle gas-fired power station. Thus Dr Mark Diesendorf (theoretical physicist and energy analyst , Deputy Director of the Institute of Environmental Studies, University of New South Wales) : “The CO2 emissions from the nuclear fuel cycle are only small when high-grade uranium ore is used. But there are very limited reserves of high-grade uranium in the world and most are in Australia and Canada. As these are used up over the next several decades, low-grade uranium ore (comprising 0.01 per cent or less yellowcake) will have to be used. This means that to obtain 1kg of yellowcake, at least 10 tonnes of ore will have to be mined and milled, using fossil fuels and emitting substantial quantities of CO2. These emissions are comparable with those from a combined cycle gas-fired power station” ( Mark Diesendorf, “Nuclear power: not green, clean or cheap”, On-line opinion, 16 June 2006: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4581 ) .
In this matter Emma Alberici has done her job brilliantly as an informed and incisive interviewer and I have done my job in responding as a 5-decade career scientist and responsible Australian citizen. What is the ABC going to do about this?
Yours sincerely, Dr Gideon Polya (300.org; [contact details]).
PS. This is just the tip of the Mainstream –ignored iceberg in look-the-other-way Australia - see Gideon Polya, “Coalition Climate Crimes & 200 Reasons Why Australia Must Dump Pro-coal, Pro-war Coalition PM Malcolm Turnbull”, Countercurrents, 1 November, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya011115.htm .