Global orientation - NYU Sydney - Fall 2014 - Environment issues in Australia
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What are the key environment issues Australia faces?
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Global orientation - NYU Sydney - Fall 2014 - Environment issues in Australia
- 1. Environment in Australia: Big Issues
- 2. Four Major Issues • Climate Change • Destruction of habitat • Water Shortages • Great Barrier Reef
- 4. “Australians all let us rejoice, For we are young and free” Advance Australia Fair – National Anthem
- 5. but our history didn’t start in 1901 …
- 6. … or 1788
- 7. … but 4.4 billion years ago!
- 8. What was rainforest, for millions of years …
- 9. … has mostly turned to dust
- 10. … since humans, 50,000 years ago
- 11. … ate all the megafauna
- 12. … and used fire to hunt and trap game
- 13. … turning the continent into parkland
- 14. … But images of Colonial Australia, some 80 years later
- 15. show a different landscape, with thick undergrowth
- 16. “We've golden soil and wealth for toil” Advance Australia Fair – National Anthem
- 17. … to create wealth for settlers & Empire – we farmed timber (cleared land)
- 18. … created space for European farms
- 19. Settlers ‘riding the sheep’s back’
- 20. … to wealth
- 21. And mining … from Gold Rush
- 22. To Coal Rush
- 23. … which brings us to Climate Change
- 24. Climate Change • Anthropogenic (caused by humans) • Fossil Fuel / Clearing forests • Since 1900 Earth average temp rose 0.8°C / 1.5°F • IPCC established 1988 – reports 5-7 years
- 25. Australia and Climate Change • Heatwaves, drought and bushfires dominate • Increased intensity and frequency of extreme weather events – flood, fire, cyclone (tornado) • EAC brings tropical water further south – bleaching coral, killing sea life
- 26. Au$tralia and Fo$$il Fuel$
- 27. Mining = Big Buck$
- 28. Destruction of Habitat • Landclearing – Farming – Salinity – Mining
- 29. Tasmania
- 30. Tasmania
- 31. 80’s Green battlezone of Australia • Flooding Lake Pedder • Plan to Dam river • Franklin campaign • Iconic battle • 1983 Federal election • Key election issue
- 32. Gunns – a bizarre saga
- 33. Woodchip mill: $10m to the greenies
- 34. Tasmania
- 35. Is the Forest safe?
- 37. Water Shortages • Australia: world’s greatest rainfall variability • From 1895 to 1995: nine severe droughts, 39 places, 2-8 years [CSIRO] • Since 1995: 7-10 years of severe drought, most of central / southern mainland
- 39. Water use • Domestic per-capita city water use: highest in world • Irrigation-heavy crops: – Cotton: 3rd largest producer in world – Rice, Sugar Cane: Huge expansion – Farm forestry - Fast-growing pine
- 43. Overdevelopment, new & expanded coal ports & offshore terminals
- 46. Anti-environment? • No science minister • Abolished Climate Commission • Removed ‘carbon tax’ – emissions trading scheme • Approved coal port expansion near Barrier Reef • Applied to de-list world heritage forest • Removed mining tax • Wants to remove Renewable Energy Target (20% by 2020)
- 47. Blocked in the Senate by …
- 48. Environment in Australia: OMG
Editor's Notes
- This is part of the Gondwana Rainforests – remnant rainforests on Australia’s east coast. Millions of years ago, most of Australia was covered in forest like this …
- … now about 20 percent of Australia is officially named desert … and much more, probably about half the continent is classified semi-arid Here’s Pindan country, west of Broome - semi-arid … red, sandy soil … worn down over millions and millions of years .. Very low fertility … harsh conditions Australia’s geological stability – few volcanoes, a whole continent sitting smack bang in the middle of a stable tectonic plate – has left Australia old and weathered But was it turned to desert through human activity?
- That’s certainly the theory of many respected scientists We know that indigeneous Australians made their way to This is the oldest known painting of ceremony in the world – 12,000 years old Gwion figures, in the Kimberley
- This is hotly debated … Tim Flannery’s book ‘The Future Eaters’ argues that the megafauna – large prehistoric animals including giant wombats and giant kangaroos – became extinct within 1,000 years of the first evidence of human settlement … he thinks early Aboriginal people probably hunted them, though others, like archaeologist Judith Field from UNSW, think that his evidence is flimsy …
- There’s certainly lots of evidence cited in Bill Gammage’s book ‘The Biggest Estate on Earth’ to show that Aboriginal people
- Bill Gammage – The Biggest Estate on Earth – explores an Australia where “large trees were carefully situated within pampered grassland, providing sustenance and shelter to an array of grazing animals” resembling a ‘gentleman’s park.’ Aboriginal Australians had developed sophisticated techniques using fire-stick farming – carefully selecting plants and animals through controlled burning resulting in resources that were predictable – and in times of drought and flood - more predictable than farming. “Like land-owning gentry, people generally had plenty to eat, few hours of work a day and much time for religion and recreation.” p4
- The arrival of Europeans devastated the Aboriginal population, of somewhere between 3-500,000 people Smallpox and measles were big killers, but loss of their hunting lands and attacks by soldiers & settlers also killed many Some twenty years after the penal colony was established, explorers crossed the Blue Mountains and opened up ‘the great plains’ from Bathurst west … more and more ‘free settlers’ flooded the continent
- Aboriginal ‘fire stick’ farming regimes couldn’t continue .. And so scrub took over the grasslands .. Problem seedlings (white cypress, Bimble Box etc) were fire sensitive … when fire stopped & cattle grazing thinned the grass, these “scrubby” trees took over & produced dense undergrowth
- … that ‘golden soil and wealth for toil’ mentality has seen Australia as a resource, to be logged, planted, grazed, cropped & mined for “wealth” - Often that ‘wealth’ is imported goods
- The National Land and Water Resources Audit shows since 1788, we’ve cleared about a million square kilometres of land – about 12% of the total land mass, most of that around the vegetated eastern coast rather than the dry inland 700,000 km2 (20%) of woodland and forest cleared or thinned for crops and grazing 130,000 km2 (35%) of mallee 20,000 km 2 (45%) of heath 60,000 km2 of tussock grassland
- From 1820 -> pastoral industry expanded rapidly across Australia Wheat cultivation was big in South Australia
- 1840s to 1950s – sheep a huge part of economy 1850 : 16 million sheep 1980: 170 million sheep now … around 80 million sheep
- Largest catchment in Australia, 40% of all agriculture : rice, cotton, produce, livestock
- Underneath 20% of Australia … holds about 18,000 boreholes supplying farmers with water
- World’s largest coral reef – can be seen from space. World Heritage listed, one of the world’s seven natural wonders. A reef has been on or near this site for around 600,000 years. Current reef about 6000 to 8000 years old. Worth about $ 3billion
- Under threat from agricultural runoff, hostile marine species – particularly crown of thorns starfish – but major threat is expansion of ports mainly for coal & gas export
- sea surface temperature in the Great Barrier Reef has increased by about 0.4oC across last 30 years Projected by 2020 - 0.5°C warmer & by 2050 over 1°C warmer Natural processes break down, ocean acidity rises
- Australia elected conservative Govt in 2013, headed by Tony Abbott, on a pro-development, anti-refugee, anti-carbon ‘tax’ platform
- Marks 2014 (Independent UK) asks, is this the most environmentally-hostile govt Australia has ever had? Cites examples
- Election has not given Abbott govt control of Senate – ALP & LNP each hold less than 50% and have to deal with minor parties which include … This guy. Clive Palmer. Multi-millionaire, he says billionaire, mining magnate, Dinosaur Park Owner and Titanic builder.
- Fran Molloy Adjunct Lecturer, Environmental Journalism NYU Sydney 157 Gloucester Rd, Sydney 2000