Archive for 2008

The UK Uplands Entry Level Stewardship scheme


From the UK today comes a welcome report of a new funding scheme designed to support financially farmers who protect natural resources, wildlife and other environmentally-valued aspects of their land. Internationally these funding schemes are called Payments for Environmental Services.  Watersheds are a favourite application of these schemes.  The headwaters of rivers are often farmed, [...]

Posted by: Geoff Wells on Friday, 19th Dec, 2008

Monbiot on target


George Monbiot doesn’t mince words.  The science columnist for The Guardian has been for years in the vanguard of those who have been warning about the scale and potential impacts of climate change.  This week’s column is no exception.  It is entitled “The planet is now so vandalised that only total energy renewal can save [...]

Posted by: Geoff Wells on Tuesday, 25th Nov, 2008

New study documents further cooling effects of trees


The role of trees and forests as carbon sinks is well known.  Recent research indicates that trees may also have a direct effect in reducing global warming.  Scientists in the UK and Germany have discovered that some trees release a chemical that thickens clouds above them, thus increasing the action of clouds in reflecting incoming [...]

Posted by: Geoff Wells on Tuesday, 4th Nov, 2008

The surprising importance of paleoclimatology: David Beerling’s ‘Emerald Planet’


As noted in a series of recent postings, ‘Reflections on Flannery’s National Library lecture’, critical evidence concerning contemporary climate change is being recovered from the analysis of ancient environments. The seminal work of James Hanson and his colleagues was cited: their analysis of Cenozoic climate history has lead them to propose a much lower threshold [...]

Posted by: Geoff Wells on Wednesday, 22nd Oct, 2008

Study supports organic agriculture in Africa


The agricultural biotechnology sector has been active in recent years in promoting their technology as the answer to world food shortages, whether these shortages are driven by price rises associated with futures speculation or by declining rainfall with climate change.  The willingness of the sector to overlook health and environmental risks in the pursuit of [...]

Posted by: Geoff Wells on Tuesday, 21st Oct, 2008

News story: Sustainable business in mining


Here is an article of mine in the Mining Bulletin, October 2008, on sustainable business and the mining industry. mining_bulletin.pdf

Posted by: Geoff Wells on Thursday, 9th Oct, 2008

Valuing catchment as assets


This research was conducted for SA Water over 2008-2009, out of the International Graduate School of Business, and the Sustainable Communities Innovation & Research Cluster of the University of South Australia. Its aim was to develop a framework for valuing catchments as assets.  This becomes important in evaluating proposals for capital budgeting in water utilities.  [...]

Posted by: Geoff Wells on Wednesday, 8th Oct, 2008

Reflections on Flannery’s National Library lecture (final)


So where does that leave us?–’us’ being here simply the population of the world.  Flannery attempts a rallying call to the troops.  Calling, rather oddly, on the nineteenth century campaign to rid the world of slavery, and on the late twentieth century campaign to rid the world of the CFC’s that deplete ozone, he argues [...]

Posted by: Geoff Wells on Thursday, 2nd Oct, 2008

Garnaut adrift


Of the two main news stories in Australia yesterday–the global financial crisis and the release of the final Garnaut report on the economics of climate change–the latter was the more puzzling and, in the long run, the more disturbing.  After an initial draft which seemed eminently sensible and coherent (see my post of July 7) an [...]

Posted by: Geoff Wells on Tuesday, 30th Sep, 2008

Reflections on Flannery’s National Library lecture (part 2)


It is greatly to Flannery’s credit that, faced with daunting conclusions on this scale he habitually finds grounds for positive thinking and action. That was true of The Weather Makers which ended with a call to arms for household action, still one of the main fronts of climate strategy. In 2006, as the emerging data [...]

Posted by: Geoff Wells on Monday, 22nd Sep, 2008

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