Rural America is Stranded in the Dial-Up Age

This is the heading for a pertinent article in the Wall Street Journal [ www.wsj.com ] of 16 June 2017. 

It highlights the deplorable plight of rural America in regards to decent internet coverage, now seen as a necessity for business, education, healthcare and rural properties, let alone households.

While Australia has made considerable efforts to provide a decent service through the NBN, the once great US of A is struggling with services to rural areas.

We are not doing fantastically in Australia, but may be doing a great deal better than the USA it seems.

Read here - https://www.wsj.com/articles/rural-america-is-stranded-in-the-dial-up-age-1497535841 

This should be relevant reading for all those outside capital cities in Australia, in terms of pursuing additional pressure on the Australian government to really consider rural Australia in NBN planning.

Deep Carbon Cuts - Pathway to US Lower Greenhouse Emissions

Recently the Yale Environment 360 blog recently reported that the United States can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, using existing or near-commercial technologies, according to researchers with the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project.

The study analyzed scenarios with four types of decarbonised electricity: renewable energy, nuclear energy, fossil fuel with carbon capture and storage, and a mixed case. The scenarios achieved reductions of 83 percent below 2005 levels and 80 percent below 1990 levels, according to the study, which was released ahead of next month’s climate talks in Lima, Peru, and negotiations in Paris in December 2015.

The energy efficiency of buildings, transportation, and industry would need to increase through the use of smart materials and energy-efficient designs, and vehicles will need to be fueled with electricity generated from wind, solar, or nuclear, as opposed to coal, the researchers said. They project the net costs would be on the order of 1 percent of gross domestic product per year.

The 80-percent reduction by 2050 is a long-standing goal of the Obama administration, in line with the global commitment to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius. “One important conclusion is that investment opportunities in clean technologies will arise during the natural rollover and replacement of infrastructure,” said lead author Jim Williams. “The plan calls for non-disruptive, sustained infrastructure transitions that can deeply decarbonise the U.S. by 2050, and enhance its competitive position in the process.”

This is a significant move and one that seems a highly logical pathway to successful outcomes.  

There is more emphasis on energy efficiency, especially retro fitting to buildings, an area that has not greatly been explored in Australia.

While the study outcomes have not yet been included in US government policy, it does seem to point to a solid and logical route for progressing the gains required.

What is the program for Australia?  We seem to be stuck on 5% reduction by 2020, yet more is possible.  It also seems that individuals are also doing more outside of government policies - notably with the development of household PV systems around Australia. The transport fuel issue is a big problem in Australia with vast distances and a small population, but gas would seem to be part of the mix in this case.

I do not yet see a lot of confidence among people with the current direct action program of the federal government, that it could achieve the scale of reductions needed to get to 80% below 2005 levels, especially while most electricity seems to be generated by coal.  However, if these plants were replaced [ even if through old age] by gas or new thorium nuclear plants then much greater reductions might be achievable.  With both India and China developing thorium reactors - that could be an option within 15 years or so.

Temperatures ARE Rising - Data Shows Extent

The proportion of days in the United States that are warmer than the long-term average increased from 42 percent in 1964 to 67 percent today, according to an analysis of 3.2 million temperature anomalies over the last 50 years.

Enigma.io, a New York City-based company that specializes in searches of information from public databases, examined data from 2,716 U.S. weather stations to track the temperature anomalies. The company found that since 1964, temperature anomalies characterized as warm or “strong warm” have increased by an average of .5 percent a year.

Enigma’s data show, for example, that in 2012, 84 percent of temperature anomalies in the U.S. skewed on the warm side. The company forecast that by the 2030s more than 70 percent of anomalous temperatures in the U.S. are likely to be higher than the historical average, rather than colder.

Would similar data be apparent for Australia?

My guess is that similar data could be derived fro Australia.

So much for the climate change deniers, especially in both the US and Australia.

Australia is about to change ideas about how to combat climate change by removing a carbon tax and to replace that with so called direct action efforts to control greenhouse gas emissions.

Most scientists do not think the scheme would work.  Australia will be doing less to mitigate climate change.

With recent international reports arguing that temperatures and greenhouse gas emissions that are driving that issue are increasing more rapidly, it is time to also accelerate efforts at reducing impacts, or we are all up the creek without a paddle!!!   Sorry............our kids are.