How to Create Carbon Credits – Kill a Camel.
By Viv Forbes
The people who brought us pink-bats and cash-for-clunkers have a new scheme – we can earn carbon credits by shooting wild camels, humanely of course.
Surely it would be far easier to shoot tame cattle? There are big mobs near all of our northern ports, going nowhere.
And if greens have their way and stop all live exports, we can earn heaps more by shooting millions of sheep and goats, humanely of course.
What about those mobs of kangaroos? They burn carbon fuel and emit dreaded carbon dioxide. Why should they be spared when the future of the planet is at stake?
One small problem – what do we do with all those carcasses? Left alone they will release all the carbon sequestered within their bodies within a couple of weeks, thus incurring massive carbon debits.
And who counts the dead camels? To prevent carbon cull fraud the economy will boom with jobs for regulators, inspectors, auditors and prosecutors.
And of course, we must not burn diesel, av-gas or gun powder to do the slaughter, so the hunting must be done from horses using bows and arrows.
And if killing camels earns carbon credits, why can’t cattle, sheep and goat abattoirs also earn them?
(Just think of the ball the camel killers could have among the 200 million sacred cows in India.)
First they came for camels, and I did nothing.
Then they came for cattle, and I did nothing.
Then they came for me.
Further Comment:
Wild camels are a valuable resource for those with eyes not blinded by the smog of global warming dogma. Here is a comment we made two years ago when this silly suggestion first surfaced:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/camel-cull.pdf
And here is a comment by Paddy McHugh who actually knows something about camels:
http://www.paddymchugh.com/pdfs/Camel%20Cull%20a%20Blind%20Mans%20solution…pdf
Does anyone believe that riflemen in helicopters will kill every camel cleanly and painlessly? Yet our whole live export industry is threatened for a few misdeeds. Here is the most likely final product from the carbon credit harvesters:
Here is the final product from the live camel harvesters:
Think this is all a hoax? Then check this out:
Yep, our bureaucrats have put together a 62 page proposal to issue carbon credits for killing feral camels. They note that there is not much use in killing an old camel so the cullers will be required to declare the age of each camel killed, so that that the Government auditors can determine how much pollution will be saved. To help this complex calculation the government is researching the average life expectancy for feral camels.
The document is full of endless dribble, including how the cullers discount the credits they will get by the amount of pollution that is created by the culling.
Here is a sample:
“There are two options for measuring fuel consumption for EVc,j,y as detailed below. Option 1 is preferred.
Option 1) Recording of all fuel purchased or pumped for use in these vehicles during the management activities.
Option 2) Recording of all ground vehicle and fuel types and odometer readings before and after management activities.
For Option 2 the amount of fuel consumed is calculated by taking the fuel consumption rating of the vehicle as a litres per kilometre figure and multiplying this by the kilometres of travel undertaken as part of the management activity, then divided by 1000 to convert to kiloLitres, as per the equation below:
Where:
| GDgv,c,j,y | = | Ground distance travelled by vehicle gv using fuel type j in undertaking the management activities c in year y |
| LPKgv,j | = | Litres of fuel type j combusted per kilometre for vehicle gv” |
(Thanks to Helen Dyer for this explanation of the calculations.)
A print-ready copy of this issue of “Carbon Sense” with all pictures can be downloaded from:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/camel-cull-credits.pdf
[snip ]
So if that camel was in Africa the farts would be acceptable?
These people has completely lost their mind.
Period.
I think we can now rephrase the famous saying:
Where camels are being killed, people will soon follow.
Fair dinkum the ALP in australia have gone mad.
Wouldn’t shooting termites be a lot more effective??
I still think we should hire the boat immigrants to go camel hunting, to make sure its is killed in the ‘proper’ fashion, then export the meat to Indonesia.
I’m no bleeding heart but this makes me sick!
The Australian labor government and the Eco fascist Greens have become very sick, it would be justice to force march these carbon exhaling monsters into the outback and allow hunters to practice their Carbon credit skills on them.
Because of ideology, they have become cruel and vindictive leaders as any I ever seen, this is just the tip of the iceberge for their dicusting and evil plans and they will only get worse.
What ever happened to so called sane well educated people, where is the decency, the kindness. What is our higher education system producing? Do environmentalist and average nature loving people find this even remotely acceptable, are they going to allow this kind of crap?
First they came for camels, and I did nothing.
Then they came for cattle, and I did nothing.
Then they came for me.
We have average humans and our animal friends have become a pests and an inconvenience to be controlled or removed and sacrificed to the great mother Gaia and her faithful eco green fascist high priest thugs, who masquerading with flowery lies and deception dressed in fine suits, it’s history repeating itself every time these evil progressives gain power, wake up Australia It’s time to stop them!
The world has twice the biomass cattle as humans ( and 2 – 20 times the biomess of ants compared to cattle ). Perhaps the Labor government will extend its carbon tax to farmers for all the methane and CO2 their cattle puts out.
It starts with camels and in the end they will hunt down people for breathing CO2.
The culling should start with the Climate change Department, and the goons who proposed this to them. I have seen the results of a horse cull from helicopter, and the scene is just as bad as that witnessed in Indonesian abattoirs. This WA State conservative government have been proposing another cull of thousands of horses at Lake Gregory over the last few years, which we are trying to stop and manage properly.
http://pindanpost.com/2011/04/25/wild-kimberley-horses/
u can’t blame the camel-culling carbonistas for trying. taxpayers’ money in australia is being spent on CAGW as if there is no tomorrow…and the way things are going, there may not be one worth living…
11 June: Perth Now: AAP: Collie carbon capture’s $50m injection
The Collie South West Hub project aims to initially capture up to 2.4 mega tonnes of CO2 a year from surrounding industry including coal-fired power plants.
The government will spend $52 million on a viability study, promising an extra $333 million if successful.
The funding is part of the $1.68 billion Carbon Capture and Storage Flagships and Solar Flagships scheme, deferred earlier this year to help fund the summer natural disasters recovery…
http://www.perthnow.com.au/business/collie-carbon-captures-50m-injection/story-e6frg2r3-1226073462119
Wikipedia: Carbon capture and storage in Australia
No coal fired power station in Australia presently has CCS of CO2. CCS is not presently a viable technology for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from coal fired power stations and is not expected, even by its proponents, to be commercially viable until at least 2020…
Australia has significant deposits of coal allowing economic benefits for years to come without significant environmental impacts…
Challenges
Cost of CCS will make coal fired electricity more expensive than wind power …
Existing power stations unlikely to be able to have carbon capture technology retrofitted …
CCS is forecast to require up to 30% more coal than conventional plants to cover the energy needs of CCS, and that extra coal must first be mined (which has environmental effects) and transported to the plant (which takes energy)…
Liability for leakage
A federal parliamentary committee has given the green light to burying carbon pollution under the ground – and suggested taxpayers pay any clean-up bills. If legislated this would be a huge taxpayer subsidy to polluters…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage_in_Australia
Saving Australia’s horse culture, here as well. http://pindanpost.com/2011/06/02/saving-austral…-horse-culture/
Try pulling this one in a place like Mongolia.
Wipe out at least a third of the (herder) population.
But I guess that’s what they really want.
As it has been demonstrated that four camels produce the same amount of greenhouse gas as a Toyota Prius (it wasn’t stated how far the Prius had been driven so that remains an unknown quantity) then it is logical to conclude that it would be four times as effective to cull the Toyota Prius.
The USA has its own problem animal (wild horses) and the only thing certain is that lots of money will continue being spent but the problem will never be solved. The number of animals is not so large so if the Australians get started soon they can probably out-spend us on this issue.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2011/06/wild-horses-nevada-blm-native-species.html
These people are parodies of themselves. Has someone been slipping hallucinogens in their Foster’s?
“Surely it would be far easier to shoot tame cattle? There are big mobs near all of our northern ports, going nowhere.”
LOL, I think the people that own them might be a little annoyed.
This
is what
they really
want to do
to remaining mountains
to vainly display crosses
and monstrous sunset sunrise flickering shadow fields
of sacrificial doomsday religion,
access roads and
power lines
included.
Shooting camels, and what about the grains of explosives in every round that is fired?
Gunpowder for example produces gaseous products like: carbon dioxide, nitrogen, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen, methane and water. I can’t imagine that modern cartridges are much better. Not mentioning of course the heavy metal in the form of lead being distributed amongst the camels and the surrounding landscape.
I did try posting this Bloomberg clip a couple of days ago – hope it works this time, otherwise here is the url.
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/70672944/
[snip . . no, no ,no . . kb] I hasten to add that I rafted the Franklin River in ’82 and took part in the dam protest and I call myself a conservationist but the “green” political movement is a liability to the human race.
A few years back they tried shooting Brumbys (wild horses) from the air here in New South Wales. That was an disaster in terms of animal cruelty and was stopped very quickly. Maybe the greens think this time they can do better by shooting the camels using bows and arrows from windmill powered helicopters? Our minority Socialist/Green national government is producing one hair brained scheme after another and you may be sure we haven’t seen the last of them, as we race headlong toward economic disaster.
A scheme made by the elites to fill the pockets of the elites – the only people who have time to hunt like this are rich people
One hump or two?
I’ll agree with Tom Harley. They’ve put the crosshairs on the wrong target.
You really have to love what is stated just below the WORD and PDF files of the 62-page proposal:
This proposed methodology is the subject of an application for patent that is pending approval (Australian Patent Application Number 2011200432; SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR OBTAINING CARBON OFFSET CREDIT OR EMISSIONS PERMIT BASED ON MANAGEMENT OF A FERAL HERBIVORE). Approval of a methodology is no authorisation whatsoever by the Commonwealth that a person may exploit or otherwise use any intellectual property necessary to use the methodology. If the patent is granted, project proponents using this methodology will need to ensure that they have adequate permission from the patent owner in order to carry out the project. The Australian Government cannot guarantee such access, and access may involve the payment of fees to the owner for access to the patented system.
Yes indeed, these mental pygmies have applied for a patent for the production of carbon offset credits via the extermination of camels.
Steve says:
June 11, 2011 at 10:35 pm
These people are parodies of themselves. Has someone been slipping hallucinogens in their Foster’s?
I’m not sure on that Steve. Best check with Paul Hogan previously of Foster beer [and Winfield cigarette] fame.
Fortunately our tax payer funded scientists at the Uni New South Wales (UNSW), Australia have turned to rap (lyrics included) to explain their work.
http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/stories/i-am-climate-scientist
source: ABC1 Hungry Beast
or the Institute of Higher Learning site: centre’s http://www.ccrc.unsw.edu.au/
Not clear whether they study inland environments though.
We in Australia hope that this is some kind of joke, but I, for one, am becoming anxious. We have a government that is a coalition between Greens and the left-of-centre Labor Party which is using a massive increase in taxation (from $200 billion p.a. in 2006-07 to $365 billion this year) to finance a series of extreme environmental policies, knowing that it doesn’t have to face the Australian electorate until November 2013. The intention is to force through policies that a large majority of Australians oppose, the strategy being that a future government will not be able to repeal all or most of them. There is no circuit-breaker in the Australian Constitution to prevent this happening. The Greens who are running the agenda have less than 12% of the popular vote, which will be around 6% at the next election given recent polling. More than Greens in other jurisdictions, the Australian version are extreme human-haters and would appear not to care if they have virtually zero public support while they’re able to use more than two more years’ incumbency before their numbers are annihilated. Canada’s repudiation of this extremism will be repeated Down Under, but the question is: how much damage will be done in the meantime?
pat says:
June 11, 2011 at 10:19 pm
The government will spend $52 million on a viability study,
Nice work if your pals can give it to you.
Wake up Australians, you are being robbed.
Sign me up. I wonder how many I would have to shoot just to offset my plane ride down there????
I’m kidding… This is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard. I was checking my calendar to make sure it wasn’t April 1st.
The fact that something as absurd as this makes it into an official government document tells you everything you need to know.
Galactic stupidity.
It is easier to pass a camel through the eye of a blind climate commissioner than it is for the Australian Government to enter the kingdom of the sane and rational.
Culling an intrusive nonnative species may be entirely justifiable. But using anything as insipid and nonsensical as their biological methane and/or CO2 emissions as justification is ludicrous. Attempting a ‘carbon balance calculation’ and issuing ‘carbon credits’ based on a calculated balance is sheer insanity.
Please see Fig. 2-1:
http://icp.giss.nasa.gov/education/methane/intro/cycle.html
If they were really serious about this stuff, they’d go after a few larger targets than the occasional wild camel. I didn’t even know Aus had any wild camels!!
A skilled shooter with the right equipment from a helicopter flown by an experienced pilot can gaurantee a head shot 99% of the time. Any one who went throught the BTEC eradication campaign in NT WA and Qld (900,000 + each of cattle and buffalo) and later the donkey eradication program (NT 400,000 donkey) are a testament to this.
jcrabb says: June 11, 2011 at 10:38 pm
“Surely it would be far easier to shoot tame cattle? There are big mobs near all of our northern ports, going nowhere.”
LOL, I think the people that own them might be a little annoyed.
A little annoyed? That is why northern Australia is seeking to improve its energy sources through the cheapest possible schema (used to be rent seeking) so the vast north (and population) has networked and reliable electricity. And presumably improved industries and production generally and also to provide a reality for some of the grossest examples of unemployment, ill-education and ill-health situated in the remote Aboriginal communities. Bit like the opportunities the eastern sea-board cities of Australia have.
Stunning is cheaper and more humane than expending cartridges, the latter used in the early days of the northern cattle/buffalo industry. Though industry in this case may be a misnomer to many cattlemen (women) these days. Read the Mudjinberri debacle of abattoirs in northern Australia http://www.hrnicholls.com.au/archives/vol1/vol1-4.php
‘In one year in the 1930s, two professional shooters on the run shot 4,000 brumbies as they came to water, for a bounty of 2s (shillings) and 2s 6d (pence) per pair of ears’ . Between 1945-7 8,000 brumbies were shot along the Cooper …’
The Wild Dogs Act was passed in 1912 (Sth Australia) authorising the ratings of land to supply funds for the scalp bonus. The bonus varied over the years bewteen 4s and 12s 6d and it was hoped that it would provide an incentive for hunters and trappers’ p199-202 Pastoral Plagues, Drought or Deluge: Man in the Cooper’s Creek region
We will see many schemes like this being posted in the Aussie MSM, they must think we’re all stupid! The Australian govn’t are on an all out bribe fest. It is now trying to bribe pensioners with an at least AU$500 boost in income to offset the carbon tax. Pensioners, especially state funded pensionsers, literally live in poverty and I can’t believe a modern day Australian govn’t would stoop to such blatant vote buying bribes all the while saying they will look after pensioners. Gillard, pensioners are not dumb, cash poor, but not dumb.
I once read there are millions of feral pigs running about in eastern Oz and they are rooting up the countryside. This is not good for water retention by soil. They should start shooting the pigs and feeding the dead pigs to the sharks.
If this scheme comes to pass, Psychic Larry predicts that the camel hunters will game the system. How? One strategy would be to shoot only male camels. The remaining male camels would rise to the occasion, and the reproductive rate would remain essentially unchanged. Camel-shooting could become an ecologically sustainable industry.
I’m assuming that the hunters can sex the camels before shooting them. If this assumption is not correct, the hunters could shoot the camels with tranquilizer darts, sex them, kill the males, and then give the females any appropriate on-the-spot veterinary care, before setting them free.
In the intermediate term, there will be a selective advantage for Australian camels that are: smaller, faster, more suspicious of humans, and that have coat coloration, which does a better job of blending in with the surroundings. In the long term, speciation will occur. Then Aussie camels will be declared to be endangered, and camel-hunting will be outlawed.
Trying to patent the idea of killing animals to stop the emission of greenhouse gases – so-called (but unproven) damage to atmosphere – is about as logical and reasonable as trying to patent the idea of killing animals because they are a waste of oxygen. I have a long, and growing, list of animals I consider to be a waste of oxygen…
Helen Armstrong says: June 12, 2011 at 12:55 am
Thanks Helen, I only observed the end of the BTEC and also dingo eradication program. Your comment on skilled shooters and equipment used for these programs in feral and diseased animals is spot on.
Thanks again.
This must be real, mustn’t it? You really couldn’t make it up.
It’s the bacteria in the animals stomach that produces the methane, not the animals them selves.
When grass or other plants (that are not eaten by camels or cows) die, they are eaten by earth bacteria which produces methane.
Shoot the bacteria!
I have mixed feelings on this one.
If this is being done mainly for the carbon idiocy, then I agree with those above.
On the flip side, camels are a non-native invasive species that now number over a million and double every decade. That may well be a legitimate reason to reduce their numbers.
If the latter is the case, then I’m all for the focus on carbon credits, because of the old rule that states “when your enemy is making a mistake, do not interrupt him.”
Look at it this way; if it’s a sensible and needed cull, better by far to let the carbon credit nonsense take the brunt of public outcry over it. That has to hurt its popularity amongst a large segment of its core supporters.
“The document is full of endless dribble”. I think you mean “drivel”; but I’m sure it’s a load of p*ss, so “dribble” will do.
So even a wild animal is not carbon neutral? This world is going crazy
Like all good socialists, the warmistas just gotta kill something. First it’s birds, then bats, then camels. Feral pigs up next and then anything else that breathes out CO2. Climate skeptics are w–a-a-a-y up there on the list.
All the vegetation eaten by Camels or any other large herbivore would produce and release far more methane if it were simply left to decompose than if it were consumed by such animals.
It is the decomposing plants that produce the methane not the animal. When vegetation is digested the methane is simply releases faster. But the amount released is not increased but decreased because the animal converts most of the plant material into calorific energy. If left to rot it would still end up in the atmosphere. Only more so.
Quote:
Methanogenesis
Methanogenesis or biomethanation is the formation of methane by microbes known as methanogens. Organisms capable of producing methane have been identified only from the domain Archaea, a group phylogenetically distinct from both eukaryotes and bacteria, although many live in close association with anaerobic bacteria. The production of methane is an important and widespread form of microbial metabolism. In most environments, it is the final step in the decomposition of biomass.
Recently, some experiments have suggested that leaf tissues of living plants emit methane.[1] Other research has indicated that the plants are not actually generating methane; they are just absorbing methane from the soil and then emitting it through their leaf tissues.[2] There may still be some unknown mechanism by which plants produce methane, but that is by no means certain.
So killing all the Camels on the planet will not decrease the amount of methane going into the atmosphere by one single molecule.
The exact opposite is the case. Large plant eating animals reduce the amount of methane going into the atmosphere by converting billions and billions of tons of methane producing plant material into calorific energy.
I thought it was only NewZealander’s that were gullible enough to fall for such a contemptuous scam. They actually have a fart tax on livestock.
Totally potty. It must be the beer they drink.
@Tom Harley says: June 11, 2011 at 10:17 pm
Culling wild horses?
Dang! That’s getting too close for comfort…..
It really does demonstrate the insanity of carbon fever. This one must rank right alongside the EPA declaring Carbon Dioxide, the very base of life on Earth, a dangerous pollutant. It’s becoming a complete fantasy world where awards are given for those creating the most insane scheme for getting rid of taxpayer money. You Australians need to get yourselves a money hole and do the job properly.
As many in Australia have pointed out recently, even if Australia closed tomorrow, using IPCC worst case scenarios the temperature reductions would be unmeasurable. Now Camels are a tiny fraction of Australian GHG output so how does one calculate a tiny fraction of an unmeasurable quantity?
Watching Camels shredded by helicopter gunships in the name of Gaia will probably do more to expose green thinking than quietly killing UK grannies though.
Why stop at camels? Australia has a variety of wild non-indigenous pest/game animals, I read somewhere that there are hundreds of thousands of wild Sambar deer alone.
Maybe we could boost the tourism by offering eco-hunting tours. I can just see it – visit the wilds of Australia, all expenses paid hunting tours, work your passage on a genuine eco-friendly three masted sailing ship. Local guides will assist you as you hunt deer and help save the planet by exterminating CH4 burping/farting animals. Your stay in this former developed country can be booked through the UN World Government Commissar for the Australian Wilderness Territories.
What the camels and horses don’t or can’t eat, termites do. Termite mounds in Northern Australia can reach 20 foot high, and there are millions of mounds that are built using dung from animals, their own saliva and resin from spinifex grass, and they also eat all the dead wood left around after fire. My blog logo is a termite mound made with pindan soil and cellulosic material, so I call it a Pindan Post.
@Bob in Castlemaine says: June 11, 2011 at 11:30 pm
“A few years back they tried shooting Brumbys (wild horses) from the air here in New South Wales.”
Aaaaaargh! Worse than I thought!
Australia would be better run by the Chinese hand over now…
“Yep, our bureaucrats have put together a 62 page proposal to issue carbon credits for killing feral camels.”
Really? It seems to be an application put together by NorthWest Carbon, Pty Ltd, which is also applying for a patent.
Tim Moore (in the Bloomberg video clip posted by Zorro) comes across as a nitwit.
There are some reasonable arguments for killing the camels (note:- “KILL”. Not “removal activity”, Tim!) and, OK, I gotta admit, maybe even some Brumbys. But using “Global Warming” as a reason is farcical.
But unfortunately these “non-native invasive species” eradication attempts don’t always pan out too well. How are you guys in Oz getting on with the Cane Toads? Plenty of “removal activity” there? How much “Global Warming” does a cane toad turn out?
I think the expression for Tim and his chums may be “a bunch of drongos”. Is that about right?
@Will
“The production of methane is an important and widespread form of microbial metabolism. In most environments, it is the final step in the decomposition of biomass.”
More strictly methane production by bacteria happens in the absense of oxygen – ruminants’ stomachs provide the necessary conditions.
That said, this cull is totally crazy as it will make so little difference to methane overall, as you rightly say.
Once again, humans got back to sacrificing to appease an angry God. In this case it’s killing camels to appease Gaia. We as a species havent really evolved in the past million years. Most of us do have a brain but for many its underutilzed. The primal instincts are still very strong.
Patenting a carbon scam – now that has to be a first (perhaps someone knows different).
Normally, politicians and other rent seekers just quietly hand carbon loot to their allies using a plain old complex web of deceit. This is the first time I have seen the theft patented.
And to think, these people ore in posiitons of authority. They should be put in some protected institution and remain there ’till the climate has warmed up by three degrees. These Green nutcases are a danger to society as they are taken seriously by too many of the masses who ‘buy’ there ludicrous and outrageous statements on how the future of the planet is in freefall. The Greens are a growing danger to all the balanced economies of the world and will create absolute havoc with catostrophic results for us all unless they are stopped very soon.
Australia has a significant insect population such as ants and termites. If methane was a problem and contributing to climate change driven by emissions of CO2 from human activities, then these people would be better off targeting termites. Good luck with that given the fact that this planet, if we take biomass as a measure, is an insect planet.
Verity Jones says:
June 12, 2011 at 3:15 am
“More strictly methane production by bacteria happens in the absense of oxygen – ruminants’ stomachs provide the necessary conditions.”
This is a common misconception. Methane is NOT produced by anaerobic bacteria. Please read the quote in my original post more carefully. All the information you need to appreciate the basics of methane production is included.
Methane production is NOT dependant on an oxygen free environment. If it were then there would be precious little methane on this planet with an atmosphere of 20% Oxygen and 70% of the surface covered in H2O
Finally, what makes you think that the stomachs of ruminant animals are free of oxygen?
@ Will,
Really? Archaea are generally referred to as anaerobic bacteria.
Read more: methanogenesis – Biology of anaerobic microorganisms – Bacteria, Anaerobic, Methanogens, Environment, Substrates, and Oxygen http://science.jrank.org/pages/47857/methanogenesis.html#ixzz1P3r27iou
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Methanogenesis
I accept that it is possible for leaf tissue to emit methane.
You are correct – ruminant stomachs are not free of oxygen. Whether the methanogens are growing in a ruminant stomach or in aerobic soil, it is possible for them to survive/thrive in microniches if surrounded by other microbes that rapidly use every molecule of oxygen that comes thier way. When oxygen levels are high – methane production is low.
You have to hand it to us ozzies.
My old granddad told me once that, “it takes allsorts of people to make up this world of ours…………………..unfortunately they all live here”
Jeez, good thing we got shot and drove to the limits of extinction all those pesky buffalo in the 19th century, estimates put the number between 20 and 70 million.
They must have been destroying the planet with all that methane production.
(sarcasm/off)
There’s method in this greenie madness. The ecoloons want to ban anything, including transport, that runs of fossil fuel and make us buy electric cars instead. Unfortunately no one wants to buy electric cars because they are expensive, not particularly green and completely useless. Something must be done to spin the worth of these travesties. Therefore the camels, a perceived threat to the greenie car industry, simply have to go…
I think this proposal neatly demonstrates the dangers of green thinking. Australia has an environmental problem caused by the importation of organic off-road vehicles. Sometimes this creates a problem requiring more immediate action, like the report of 6,000 camels damaging the community around Docker River. Communities could presumably organise their own culls and contract hunters to deal with the problem. That’s probably a simple decision of working out a contract price, monitoring kills for count ensuring they’re conducted humanely.
Enter NorthWest Carbon, Pty Ltd with a solution that makes dealing with the problem vastly more complex, but allows them to profit from the work of others. Their proposal includes $800,000 in set-up costs and an unspecified amount of ongoing administration costs which will presumably include NorthWest Carbon’s management or licensing fees. As the proposal points out, it’ll have a strongly negative IRR unless there is a high carbon price. If there is, then NorthWest Carbon will make even more money from this and their other environmental wheezes.
Assuming of course that they can get anyone to do the work and carry the costs of offsetting and performing all the etxra overhead work, and make any money from it after NorthWest’s fees. It seems typical watermelon thinking to turn something simple into something far more complex, and seek rent from the process. A better approach might be to look at ways to improve processing of camels in situ into meat, hides and create less waste.
Nick Stokes
Yes, Nick. It was written by a private company. But it has been placed on the government web site as a serious proposition under the category “Methodologies under consideration”.
Just for once, Nick, be honest. Does this really appear to be a rational “consideration” to you”?
I always thought Australia was a real country, not some sick joke.
@ Verity Jones
The simple fact is that the process of decomposition of biomass produces methane. All biomass eventually decomposes, wether it is quickly digested in the stomach of a ruminant or, the longer root, if it is blown away as dust and rained out of the sky ending up back in the soil or as sediment at the bottom of a lake.
If they get away with this nonsense there’s no question cattle are next. Their ultimate objective is to ban beef. This camel slaughter is just something to loosen public opposition and test the political waters for that greater objective.
Tom says:
June 12, 2011 at 12:02 am
Tom – it sounds like you need an Australian version of the US Tea Party Movement. Ordinary citizens CAN make their voices heard and help bring about political change.
Meanwhile, if the Aussie “Green” government decides to shoot camels in the name of Climate Change, I would deliver the carcasses to the local “Green” politicians’ homes … I’m sure they cook up great on the barbecue :^)
Verity Jones,
Once again
“Methanogenesis or biomethanation is the formation of methane by microbes known as methanogens. Organisms capable of producing methane have been identified only from the domain Archaea, a group phylogenetically distinct from both eukaryotes and bacteria, although many live in close association with anaerobic bacteria. The production of methane is an important and widespread form of microbial metabolism. In most environments, it is the final step in the decomposition of biomass.”
I am perfectly happy to agree to disagree with you on this point. But the following statement implies that the biomass consumed by ruminants would not eventually produce methane or as much methane as when consumed by such animals.
“When oxygen levels are high – methane production is low.”
If this is what you are implying it is incorrect. My point is simply that decomposition of biomass always produces methane. All biomass eventually decomposes whether quickly by being eaten or slowly turning to dust and returning to the soil and sediment in rivers and lakes or under the ocean floor.
Therefore it is not the ruminants which produce the methane but the plants on which they graze.
@ Will, 2011/06/12 at 5:15 am
I would put it this way : The simple fact is that the process of decomposition of biomass
producescan produce methane.@ Will, 2011/06/12 at 5:54 am
In common parlance – even in microbiology labs – methanogens are referred to as ‘anaerobic bacteria’. Yes, the correct term is Archea, but I had no wish to sound pedantic and that is why I used the common term.
I stand by my comments on oxygen in the rumen and its effect on methane production. For example:
Always?
What about carbon dioxide? Where does that come from? I am so glad we don’t have 380ppm of methane in the atmosphere.
Oh [snip snippity snip]. And I thought “Save a tree, kill a beaver” was just a silly joke.
I say give the camels some guns and a helicopter and let’s see what happens.
Australia has a habit of electing truly daft and dangerous Labour governments.
The last time around it was Gough Whitlam’s government in 1975, who was blindly leading Australia over an economic precipice. Luckily, the Queen’s representative dissolved parliament and forced a new election and Whitlam was ignominiously consigned to the dustbin of history.
This is the only real power a constitutional monarch has – that is the ability to call a new election, when things are going very very wrong..
It is probably time this was done again in Australia, as the country is fast becoming the laughing stock of the world.
Killing feral camels is probably not a bad idea, but creating a carbon credit business out of it will undoubtedly result in 400-500% of Australia’s camel population being rapidly slaughtered. In any event, it will just create another pointless, expensive bureaucracy paid for by real people in real jobs.
Will,
You keep emphasizing that comment about archaea not being bacteria. That’s true, but a distinction of recent vintage. What’s not controversial is that they make methane under anaerobic conditions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanogen
Although some claims have been made that terrestial plants make methane under aerobic conditons, those are contorversial.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2007.02103.x/full
I’m never sure whether governments are run by the Three Stooges or Jack The Ripper. In this case either could apply.
Back in the day there was an advertising slogan: ” I’d walk a mile to Smoke a Camel”; that was popular with soldiers and Marines serving in certain sandboxes, although for us it had nothing to do with tobacco. 😉
Perhaps that same t-shirt/bumpersticker slogan could be adopted by the Aussie’s to good effect. /sarc
Further evidence that they worship nature above creation.
Further evidence that they worship nature above the Creator.
Verity Jones,
Yes, decomposition of biomass always produces methane, CO2 and water are produced when methane is oxidised, just as CO2 and water are produced when methane is burnt.
Will,
I hope were are only splitting semantic hairs. I would be very concerned if you think decomposition must always proceed biochemically via methane, and that that is how CO2 is produced during decay processes. Microbial methane oxidation is again quite a specialised niche.
Verity Jones
“I am so glad we don’t have 380ppm of methane in the atmosphere.”
You may be surprised at how often you are immersed in methane levels way in excess of such trace amounts!
Will,
really? can you give me some examples?
First you create a phony ‘problem’, then you tell the bureaucrats to come up with a ‘solution’.
Remind you of anything? How about a ‘final solution’?
/Mr Lynn
Verity Jones,
I have said it clearly enough that you shouldn’t try to take me out of context.
The production of methane is an important and widespread form of microbial metabolism. In most environments, it is the final step in the decomposition of biomass.
David L. Hagen says:
June 12, 2011 at 8:09 am
Further evidence that they worship nature above the Creator.
I disagree. If they worshiped Nature, they wouldn’t be killing it. Pantheists believe that the Creator is manifest in Nature (something cannot come from nothing), and would, logically, be appalled by the slaughter of camels. These alleged Greenies are not Nature worshipers. They’re fakes, only interested in making huge profits from their idiotic carbon schemes.
Will,
I too will have to ask for a reference for that. Your statement is only important in the context of this discussion if the methane is released directly into the atmosphere from the biomass. Otherwise, who cares?
WTF!
They’ve lost the plot!
John M
“Your statement is only important in the context of this discussion if the methane is released directly into the atmosphere from the biomass. Otherwise, who cares?”
Is this deliberate nonsense or am I missing something? Where else could it be released?
John M
“In most environments, it is the final step in the decomposition of biomass.”
“I too will have to ask for a reference for that.”
Copy that sentence and paste it into google, there are 49,100 results for that statement. Take your pick.
All well planned and organised genocides start with a new burocratic sounding name for the enemies of the people to be culled. Here they have a nice one – camels are now “feral herbivores”.
This is analagous in many ways to the cull of sparrows carried out by Mao’s communists in China during the cultural revolution. With the agricultural disasters caused by the cultural revolution in full swing, some commissars had the great idea to blame sparrows for crop failure. Huge numbers were killed by bands of civilian volunteers. A catastrophic epidemic of crop destroying insects followed.
Will
my turn to be pedantic. I would consider the following to be correct – at a gross level:
In most anaerobic environments, methane (and CO2 and H2O) is the final step in the decomposition of biomass.
In most aerobic environments, CO2 and H2O is the final step in the decomposition of biomass.
There can be traces of methane produced from anaerobic micropockets in aerobic environments – for example composting, if it is insufficiently aerated.
I wonder how much methane the lentil /pulse /bean-eating vegetarians emit.
Next: water-boarding.
…-
“Harper government receives diplomatic spanking over climate policies”
“A Canadian delegate to a UN climate change conference in Bonn, Germany endured a bruising round of questioning Thursday over the Harper government’s policies on carbon emissions and the oilsands.”
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Harper+government+receives+diplomatic+spanking+over+climate+policies/4921908/story.html
As sure sign of someone in over his head. Most people can “google” and “read”.
Your search gives hits for methanogenesis, which is virtually exclusively under anaerobic condtions.
What I’m asking for is a reference that supports your claim that if biomass were left to its own devices, it would release as much methane to the atosphere as ruminants do when they eat the biomass, and not a product skewed more to CO2 than to methane. Perhaps they do, but you haven’t provided evidence for that.
You’ve also argued that the microbiological processes that produce methane occur in the presence of oxygen, which is refuted by you own simple minded google search.
I first read this in a Financial Times article. It has this informative graphic of emissions comparisons. A camel releases 45kg methane annually, which is one tonne of CO2 equivalent. Quite a multiplier. A cow for comparison is only 35kg methane for 0.8 tonne CO2 equivalent.
Also, a 7000km long-haul jet flight also yields one tonne of CO2 (equivalent?) per passenger.
This would be wonderful to use for PETA and WWF ads:
Save a camel, Don’t Visit Australia!
Golly, this methane trip into the weeds is becoming wearisome. Strictly speaking, methane is produced under mostly anaerobic conditions. We all know that decomposing vegetable matter in lakes produces methane. At the same time there is still dissolved oxygen in the lake water. It takes very little to qualify an environment as anaerobic. Soil is a good example. On the surface it is an aerobic environment, but dig down a few inches and you’ll find an abundance of anaerobes. A pile of maple leaves left on the surface will decompose into CO2 and water. Throw a few shovel loads of dirt on them and you have a methane producing compost heap.
It should be noted that human flatus contains methane (ask and teenage boy) and we’re not ruminants. Almost all animals produce methane as a part digestion. And just for the record, most methane emitted by ruminants comes out the front end, rather than the back end (more burps than farts). I don’t think there’s much question that camels eating twigs and brush will produce more methane than if the twigs and brush decomposed on the surface, but probably not nearly as much as if termites consumed said twigs and brush.
This is bugs, but it has some bearing.
The only good
bugcamel is a deadbugcamel . 🙂exterminate useless eaters , useless co2 producers, useless Oxygen users etc
Julia Does Not Have A Mustache
http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/paintimage2025.jpg
Verity Jones,
Pedantic would be putting it rather politely,
“There can be traces of methane produced from anaerobic micropockets in aerobic environments – for example composting, if it is insufficiently aerated.”
Again you are out of context. If you have ever composted you will be aware that biomass becomes extremely fertile soil. As you have already conceded, soil, particularly fertile soil, releases large amounts of methane. How do you suppose that happens?
There is no doubt that a ruminant animal will speed up the process of methane production from biomass through grazing but there is no evidence whatsoever that they can increase the amount of methane that eventually finds its way into the atmosphere.
The only way you can argue your point is to continuously switch time frames, and hope that no one is paying attention. Digestion and methane release in animals occurs within hours. Natural decomposition and methane production processes as biomass is turned back into soil can take years.
This I feel, is the source of your apparent confusion.
Will,
Again, you have provided no references, but merely your own opinion.
Here are two references for you to ponder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle
http://www.slideshare.net/mpspradlin/alex-hobbs-biomass
(Slide 7)
Dry biomass-mulched (non-landfilled)
90% aerobic –> mostly CO2
10% anaerobic –> mostly CH4
You would be well-served to provide specific references with hard numbers. Qualitative stuff off the top of your head is not cutting it. It’s like you telling me to google “the sun shines everyday” when I ask you for numbers to justify a solar installation.
Dr Dave
“I don’t think there’s much question that camels eating twigs and brush will produce more methane than if the twigs and brush decomposed on the surface,”
You have made the same mistake as Verity Jones. You are out of context because you compare ruminant digestion and methane production which happens over the course of a few hours, to natural decomposition and methane production in soil formed from biomass, which can take many years and can continue on for thousands of years.
There is simply no way that a few million ruminant mammals can compete with this planetary scale process.
To suggest otherwise would be laughable if it were not so dangerous.
Verity Jones, Dr Dave and John M,
If you can show that the mass cull of hundreds of millions of American buffalo resulted in a sharp or even noticeable decline in atmospheric methane content then I stand corrected.
If you are correct, there ought to be something in the geological record to show such an event, should there not?
Will says:
“If you can show that the mass cull of hundreds of millions of American buffalo…”
That number is a wild overestimation.
Hey, what claim have I made that requires me to show you anything? You’ve made the claim that biomass left to rot on its own would make more methane than if eaten by ruminants. Whatever atmospheric methane levels did during the slaughter of some unkown number of buffalo has nothing to do with that, and even if it did, there was certainly a lot of other stuff going on around the World while those buffalo were getting slaughtered, wasn’t there.
You can’t provide us with any references to support your claim, can you?
This is confirmation of the old saying, “When a Kiwi emigrates to Aus, it raises the average IQ of both countries.”
Smokey,
“That number is a wild overestimation.”
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Extermination-of-the-American-Buffalo&id=1755293
where is the decline in atmospheric methane in the geological record after this mass annihilation of the 1800’s.
Will,
You’re beating a dead camel here. I will readily grant you this much, the volume of methane released by every animal on the planet is very likely dwarfed by natural anaerobic decomposition of biomass. If I leave the leaves from my elm tree where they fall they will mostly decompose in the space of a year. Most of this decomposition will be aerobic but some of it will be anaerobic as bits and pieces of decaying leaves are incorporated into the soil. But if I raked up all those leaves and threw them in a hole and covered them in dirt, a much greater percentage of the ultimate decomposition would be anaerobic and likely result in more methane production. You could scatter a bale of alfalfa all over a piece of ground and let it slowly decompose. Most of the decomposition will be like my elm tree leaves; primarily into CO2 and water. But if you feed that bale of alfalfa to a cow the resulting decomposition will yield lots more methane because of the greater exposure to a “mostly” anaerobic environment.
I don’t believe anyone is denying that methane is released through a myriad of natural processes. But I can guarantee you that digestion of plant matter by a ruminant will result in more methane as a byproduct than would happen if the plant matter decomposed lying on the ground. It’s not a matter of time scale, it’s a matter of biology and chemistry. But the crux of this whole discussion was about the inane idea of killing feral camels to prevent GHG release. They probably have swamp land in Australia the releases more methane than all camels combined. I will, however, agree with you that the net release of GHG from whatever the camels eat would differ only slightly in its composition. Carbon atom for carbon atom it would be about a wash over a long enough time frame.
Dr Dave,
I agree – both with your scientific descriptions and that it is becoming wearisome.
Will,
“As you have already conceded, soil, particularly fertile soil, releases large amounts of methane. How do you suppose that happens?”
I have conceded nothing. Compost can release small amounts of methane. That is produced in microniches which are anaerobic. Soils tend to be methane sinks rather than net producers (unless they are waterlogged), whereas they do release CO2. (for example:http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/publications/pdfs/Bowden_SoilBiolBiochem_1998.pdf)
I say again that perhaps we are arguing over semantics. Outside of anoxic and anaerobic environments (such as lake sediments, rice fields, swamps, ruminant (and non-ruminant) digestive systems and anaerobic digesters) biomass decomposition will tend to be aerobic. The biotic end product of this is CO2 not methane – aerobic decomposition does not happen via methane.
Will (June 12, 2011 at 11:50 am)
“You have made the same mistake as Verity Jones. You are out of context because you compare ruminant digestion and methane production which happens over the course of a few hours, to natural decomposition and methane production in soil formed from biomass, which can take many years and can continue on for thousands of years.”
I have made no mistake. Yes ruminant digestion and “anaerobic digestion” in a biogas plant happen quickly; natural decomposition is slow, but in dry (not waterlogged) areas it will tend to be aerobic and will not produce methane. There is an excellent discussion of methane production in rice fields (waterlogged; anaerobic) here: http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/docs/004-032/004-032.html
“Hundreds of millions” of bison is still a wild overestimation. Per Wikipedia: “The current American bison population has been growing rapidly, and is estimated at 350,000 compared to an estimated 60 to 100 million in the mid-19th century.” Other sources give estimates of ≈40 – 60 million.
But it does bring up an interesting point. If the unlikely number of hundreds of millions of bison is accurate, then compare that with the same number of current U.S. residents. Bison weigh over half a ton each, while the average human is closer to 150 pounds. If 300 million bison didn’t cause catastrophic global warming [or even BGW], then human CO2 and methane emissions won’t, either.
Before the endless nitpicking starts regarding fossil fuels, nitpickers must either provide testable evidence of global harm due to CO2 and/or methane, or admit that they are promoting an evidence-free conjecture, and further admit that CO2 is harmless – as the observational evidence makes clear. There is no global harm from CO2. Thus, CO2 is harmless. QED
I wonder about the claim that a skilled marksman can affect a lethal head shot to running camel while perched in a helicopter 99% of the time. That would be a neat trick. But this got me to thinking. Camels are pretty big critters. Assume each one has to be shot with a 150 grain jacketed lead projectile. Assume 2 shots per camel x 1,000,000 camels. Thar works out to 19,440 kg of lead introduced into the environment. Further, this ruminant methane thing is a red herring. Most of the GHG release from a camel is in the form of CO2 by the simple process of respiration. So in effect they’re killing them for the sin of being living, breathing animals.
Verity Jones
“but in dry (not waterlogged) areas it will tend to be aerobic and will not produce methane”
Are you now claiming that soil needs to be waterlogged in order to produce methane?
Do you believe you are credible with such blatant goal post shifting?
Only on the surface will it be aerobic.
Even though there is no geological evidence of any decline in atmospheric methane corresponding to well known and well documented mass die off’s of ruminants, and even though you have to shift goal posts to maintain your position, you are entitled to believe what ever you wish.
But you cannot compare ruminant digestion to natural decomposition on the same time frame which is exactly what you have attempted to do.
Will says:
“Are you now claiming that soil needs to be waterlogged in order to produce methane?”
You are taking Verity Jones’ comments out of context. Stop it.
Smokey,
That’s a good point about Bison tonnage, but never mind Bison, domestic ruminant numbers have increased hugely, with the increasing demand of the human population:
Buffalo: 88,321,807 (1961) => 177,247,938 (2007)
Camels 12,926,638 (1961) => 24,246,291(2007)
Cattle 942,175,069 (1961) => 1,357,183,587 (2007)
Data from FAO Stat: http://faostat.fao.org/site/573/DesktopDefault.aspx?PageID=573#ancor Sad I know, but I just happened to have the data to hand.
Meanwhile methane in the icecore record have doubled from 1800: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/atm_meth/graphics/eth_comp.gif It is possible to extrapolate livestock numbers back to 1800 in line with the human population and the increase in domestic ruminants (and likely effect on methane) will completely swamp any effect from loss of the Bison (Will’s suggestion).
Will,
So that we don’t shift goalposts, please provide a quantitative reference for your original claim that
Will,
“Are you now claiming that soil needs to be waterlogged in order to produce methane?”
That is one condition that will allow it – that will create the necessary environment without oxygen.
@ Verity Jones says:
June 12, 2011 at 2:11 pm
Interesting numbers, especially on the cattle. Would you happen to know what percentage of that ( I assume US cattle population ) is exported to developing countries? Btw, I love buffalo burgers. 🙂
Curiousgeorge,
Actually, those are worldwide numbers, not just US. If you care to hit the FAOstat link I gave I think you can look up export by livestock type and certainly by country. It is reasonably intuituve if you play with it.
This is just like Rush’s Parody “Al Gore going out to tag a Moose or Caribou” as Al is explaining to his guide how much greenhouse gas the animal emits in a year, the guide just goes ahead and Kills the animal. He has another one where they Al is corking cows to stop emission of cow flatulence to decrease methane , but the cows keep blowing up.
Helen Armstrong says:
June 12, 2011 at 12:55 am
A skilled shooter with the right equipment from a helicopter flown by an experienced pilot can gaurantee a head shot 99% of the time. Any one who went throught the BTEC eradication campaign in NT WA and Qld (900,000 + each of cattle and buffalo) and later the donkey eradication program (NT 400,000 donkey) are a testament to this.
Helen.
That is total bullshit I had relatives involved with those campaigns of carnage and it was a “Clusterfuck ” thousands of Animals were found wondering around day’s and weeks later with shatter pelvis and bloody bones sticking through the skin. the pelvis is at least 4 to 5 ft from the head shot . Even my relatives who are redneck hunters were disgusted by the bloody carnage and after math. Do you believe every sanitized goverment report you read perhaps you believed Juilar Gillard “there will be no carbon tax”?? Helen Governments are crooked by nature don’t you get it yet !!!!!
Global warming causes desertification
(source: http://greenanswers.com/q/205554/nature-ecosystems/land-soil/how-does-global-warming-cause-desertification )
The camel is a creature of the desert
( http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/camel.htm )
Camels cause global warming via their methane emissions
( http://www.ehow.com/info_8253320_environmental-causes-global-warming.html )
Ergo: Camels are camel-engineering the planet to make it more habitable for camels. This requires a renaming from Antropogenic Global Warming to Camelogenic Global Warming.
Methane, lead and other unimportant matters apart, the most chilling aspect of this scheme is the proposed normalisation of killing as a solution to a so-called problem.
To call the killing of an animal a “removal or management event” is nought but an act of linguistic gymnastics to obscure the gory reality of death. It is simply the very first step in the conditioning of the population at large in the acceptance of this seemingly appropriate solution to an oft repeated “problem”.
Once the “management event” of a camel is accepted without demur by the majority of the population which has been brainwashed into the belief that the “problem” actually exists, then it is but a short step to the general acceptance that a “management event” is the preferred solution for anyone opposing the belief in the “problem”.
Pol Pot would be proud of this insinuation of the acceptance of death as an acceptable solution into the mind-set of the population at large.
I am not opposed to the killing of any animal for food; I am the son of a farmer and I’m a hunter. I have slaughtered many creatures and have shot a fair number, but always for food, not as part of the solution of a non-existent “problem”.
They should get rid of those pesky CO2 emitting Koala Bears next! SHOOT ‘EM ALL!!!!!
Hey, can I join the methane debate this late? Simple question – in an aerobic environment, why would bacteria release methane? They could get a lot more energy if they oxidized it and released CO2 and H2O. Are there some bacteria that normally live anaerobically and never learned to take advantage of all that O2 where the sun does shine?
3×2 says: June 12, 2011 at 3:29 am
leftymartin says: June 11, 2011 at 11:43 pm
Patenting a carbon scam – now that has to be a first (perhaps someone knows different).
Normally, politicians and other rent seekers just quietly hand carbon loot to their allies using a plain old complex web of deceit. This is the first time I have seen the theft patented.
Could the ‘solid-fuel’ burning in cooking used by m[b]illions of women and girls be similarly under patent?
“Introduction
Carbon offsets from improved cookstove programs present an economic option in
reduction of global carbon emissions especially given the large numbers of people
relying on solid fuels for their primary energy provision, and the considerable
health co-benefits that are incurred through reduction of air pollution. There are
two currently applied standard methods for determination of carbon offsets from
improved cookstoves: The Gold Standard “Methodology for Improved Cook-stoves
and Kitchen Regimes” for voluntary markets (Climate Care 2008) and the “Switch
from Non-Renewable Biomass for Thermal Applications by the User” small-scale
CDM method for use under the Kyoto Protocol (UNFCCC 2008).
2.4 Fuel consumption
There is general agreement across current methods that fuel consumption must be
directly monitored using the kitchen performance test, in which fuel is weighed
in a subsample of homes. Although there are moves to replace in home testing
with controlled cooking tests in simulated kitchens, controlled cooking tests may
also not represent daily fuel use (Berrueta et al. 2008). The additional uncertainty
incorporated by using this test and resultant reduction in carbon offsets likely
outweighs any gains through reduction in field testing.
Additional fuel consumption monitoring would be warranted in areas with large
seasonal or climatic variability, but gains in reduction of uncertainty should be
balanced with increased costs of more extensive monitoring.”
Open Access Improved Stove Programs need robust methods to estimate carbon offsets
Climatic Change, Volume 102, Numbers 3-4, 641-9, DOI: 10.1007/s10584-010-9802-0
http://www.springerlink.com/content/w7t47723083026t6/fulltext.pdf
Contents: http://www.springerlink.com/content/0165-0009/102/3-4/
source: 2010 publications in http://www.ccrc.unsw.edu.au/staff/pubs.html
“Murray Grainger says:
June 12, 2011 at 12:31 pm”
I believe it was politician Robert Muldoon who coined the phrase. He was notrious, but not too smart politically.
Feral camels are a pest, they are wreaking havoc on the marginal land they inhabit and have to be reduced in number. AGW is just the excuse a weak-kneed government is using to keep the Greens and the rest of the milk-sops happy.
By the same logic, hot air blowers like Gore etal would be perfect candidates for voluntary euthanasia to save the world.
Wonder if they’ll bite?
Dr. Dave says: June 12, 2011 at 1:49 pm
Perhaps you could test your lead hypothesis with the proponent of the camel cull from Uni of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia.
2009 “To be shot from a helicopter is actually quite humane, even though that sounds brutal,” he told the Associated Press. “If I was a camel, I’d prefer to just get it in the head.” (Animal rights groups are upset about the proposal, but Tony Peacock of the University of Canberra’s Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Center brushed off their concerns.)
source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=camel-burgers-australia-plans-to-sh-2009-08-11
Wonder what happened to the $16 million the government ‘ponied up’ in 2009?
That’d be on top of the $19 million or so taken to change fuel in all petrol stations in the Australian centre from petrol (lead) to AVGAS/COMGAS/OPAL (?more lead) because Aboriginal kids were sniffing the petrol(used for cars). Though these was never a clear number on this or the use of other substances inhaled.
I guess the aviation gas will be useful in situ for the helicoptors.
Shooting Camels for Carbon Credits. There can be little doubt that we are well along the slippery slope now. Whether you like animals or not, one should be very worried about the thought process involved here. On one hand there is playing God, deciding what is fit to live and how can we freeze our evolving planet into this particular time-frame.
On the other hand there is the illogical actions by bureaucrats that would kill camels but leave the deadly snakes alone. The former MIGHT kill someone in some far-off future from farts over-heating the planet and causing a snowstorm :-), the latter is likely to ACTUALLY kill someone today. We have them reducing deer hunting permits which lead to automobile carnage and deer starvation. We have them NOT spraying for mosquitoes or ticks, resulting in Malaria or West Nile virus and a Lyme disease epidemic. There is a sizable list of such examples here in the USA and I shudder to think what it is worldwide.
The non-native or non-indigenous species is a little troubling to me. It is arrogantly unscientific and has an air of something ugly to it. I remember the first time I went to Hawaii watching the people check our luggage for non-indigenous plants and stuff when we arrived there. Wow they are careful. And then later it dawns on you that nothing is indigenous to a volcanic rock, every single thing on those islands was brought there. Were those first plants and seeds carried by birds thousands of years ago indigenous? Were those first birds indigenous? How about the first Polynesian ‘invaders’? They’re now native Hawaiians? American Indians were either indigenous *or* crossed a land-bridge but not both. Perhaps it is a continental affair. Attention all animals: any species that crossed over to Australia the last time it was smooshed up against the other continents gets the ‘indigenous’ label, all others beware of helicopters. Yikes, and what about the Middle East 😉
ROTFLMAO!
Thanks for these. I have been using many such photos to affect the squeamish liberals I am in proximity to. I suggest everyone do the same. You can make a difference by picking off a few eco-nut liberals this way, it adds up. BTW, has anyone else noticed how such windmill Bird-Chipper stories and photos tend to fly under the radar?
See the strategic similarity with the USA liberal Congress 2007 + liberal White House 2009. The plan was the same, ram through everything (knowing they would likely lose the Congress) including that dead-of-night Christmastime ‘Obamacare’ by the slimmest majority of Congress *but* against the wishes of the vast majority of the people. Make it so tangled that Houdini couldn’t unravel it and hope most of it survives into the future. This is their plan going forward.
The Communists used to move two steps forward, one step back, but the modern green Socialist Neo-Communist has learned to move ten steps forward, maybe a few steps back. The only logical and effective response is a worldwide war on socialism, ridicule them, and beat them senseless. Unfortunately there are still those among us that are easily triangulated (e.g., in the AGW fight, they will often say ‘this is *not* about politics or socialism, it is about science, blah blah‘). In reality this is a worldwide struggle for freedom, and its spans many fields. So when the green socialists makes these brazen initiatives as described in the quoted comment, no-one should be surprised. Expect these same tactics, everywhere. Communists are international Socialists. The question is, do we yet have the courage to call them by their true names.
Exactly. And I say we should exploit it and ram it down their throats. I know there may be purists among us that decry such tactics (‘we mustn’t stoop to their level … play dirty … blah blah’), but enough is enough. Everyone should be able to see where this is going. Like the bird-chipper windmills, these types of stories are ripe for picking. They make good email fodder to your lists of family, friends and associates. Only the most hard-core leftists are immune to it’s appeal.
Really good point. Remember the thrust of that horror was not the poor buffalo, but the American Indians who were portrayed as good shepherds of the environment and killed just what they needed to survive, and consequently suffered from this action (as if liberals really give a crap about human beings and their plight). Who knew that the crazy cowboys on horseback and other western invaders firing at buffalo from trains were actually the good guys protecting the atmosphere!
Yes! That claim is ludicrous and anyone who has fired from a moving platform knows it. It reeks of ‘sanitized for the squeamish public’ post-op propaganda. Perhaps with some future multi-million dollar super-duper computer-tracking optical-auto-targeting laser range-finding sniper-system this would be true, however, economically and environmentally, the weight of the platform (chopper!) and it’s fuel for the engine and electricity for the computers, plus it’s exhaust has to dwarf any gain from whacking the camels.
OK, I can explain this.
Four years ago, there was no voter under the age of 30 who had ever seen anything but sensible government under the conservatives. They had paid off all government debt, were running fical surpluses and the economy was going gangbusters, unemployment was low and things were going fine. So this they thought had to be the normal state of affairs. The conservatives, they thought, was uncool, and they were tired of Prime Minister Howard.
So they voted for the soft-left socialists, not caring to notice that they were and remain barking mad loons who molest goats and bay at the moon.
They are starting to notice this now that the economy is in the toilet, they have run up $200 billion in debt, run $55 Bn deficits, electricity prices are soaring and people are losing their jobs. And yes, have a government that intends to save the world by taxing CO2 and shooting camels so they no longer fart.
MarkL of Canberra
Brisbane
AGW jumping the shark and shooting the camel?
I remember watching a Discovery Channel programme some years ago in which the main theme was the Aussie camels n the outback being practically driven to total annihilation due to………wait for it: Global warming. Yes, that’s it, global warming was driving the Australian feral camel population to extinction, driving me to tears watching a family of camels practically dying of thirst and hunger, not being able to find food and water etc etc. That programme did not tell me that there were 1.2 million feral camels. It just was used as a prop for the AGW scam.
Now, they are telling us that camels are the cause of global warming. So, either way, Aussie camels are dead, either because of global warming or because they ARE causing global warming.
AGW scam agendas driven by politicians hell-bent on flogging a dead horse…or a camel
So, dead camels are now to be traded for carbon credits. In some countries, new wives are traded for camels. Who knows, maybe the IPCC will one day issue carbon credits to be traded for new wives? LOL
This pathetic Gillard Labour government has made me feel so embarrased to be Australian that heaven forbid I will put on an Africaan accent next time I travel overseas.
I really don’t understand what Australia Gov. is thinking. If they reverted the entire country to the 16th century it wouldn’t have any meaning impact on climate. This reeks (pun intended) of another 10:10 stunt — aka if you don’t pay up we’ll start shooting indiscriminately.
And what’s more: Thousands of years ago, millions, maybe billions of ruminant beasts roamed the planet, from north american bison to yaks, deer, reindeer, water buffaloes sheep, goats etc etc. Wern’t these animals producing methane like today’s cars produce CO2? And while methane is a far stronger GHG than CO2, there was no ‘climate change’ during those times according to AGW proponents. Not. Climate change us what it is, climate change and change is the only constant in this planet’s climate. Only the climate-change deniers would want to deny this continuous change from happening by spending trillions of dollars, making cheape energy unaffordable, pushing up the poverty line and thus forcing 2/3 of the global population to become poor, the poor to become poorer and the most poor to die of hunger.
A bit off topic but an interesting aspect of this story.
I ran across an article discussing Mongolia mining ventures in 2014. Apparently, Mongolia has discovered huge coking coal, ferrous metal, rare earth minerals, and copper deposits. The proximity of Mongolia to China, Russia, Japan, etc. will reduce transportation costs and may reduce the cost of the related commodities.
source: http://www.mongolia-web.com/mining
If Australia was awake, they’d realize the economic implications and focus on helping Australia agriculture instead of destroying it.
In Canada every year environmentalists fight against the east coast seal hunt. They fight it because they claim it is bloody and brutal and it’s just for money. They provide the media with lots of video documentation and the anti-seal-hunt groups make lots of money through donations for their work. As a result, the EU has banned the import of seal pelts from Canada, and many Intuit seal hunters are now suffering cultural damage and lost income.
Now environmentalists are going to hunt camels. It will be bloody and brutal, and it will be for money (carbon credit money). How is this any different from the Canadian east coast seal hunt?
These people are mad. How do these people live with themselves?
Klem, the seal hunts are horrible, and the Inuit seal hunters can eat snow, for all I care. One would think that after centuries, they could come up with something better than clubbing newborn baby seals for a living. Killing camels for carbon credits is also hideous. You fault the environmentalists for opposing one (seal clubbing) and not the other (camel culling), yet you oppose one (camel culling) and not the other (seal clubbing), so you’re thinking is the same, just from two different points on the same line.
Interesting discussion on methane production, especially on the new nomenclature for the methane-producing unicellular critters. About as interesting as finding out blue-green algae have stopped being algae and are now prokaryotic cyanobacteria, which can cause algal blooms despite no longer being algae.
Ric Werme said on June 12, 2011 at 5:00 pm:
Hi Ric. Apparently these methanogens, classified in the domain Archaea, are a primitive form of life, without nuclei. They evolved enough to survive by making methane, and that’s where they stayed, just successful enough to exist in a suitable environment and that’s it, like government bureaucrats.
There are also the “matching” microorganisms, methanotrophs, that eat methane. Not surprisingly they are found in places where there is methane production such as “…oceans, mud, marshes, underground environments, soils, rice paddies and landfills.” The aerobic and anaerobic methanotrophs are different. In aerobic environments that type combines the methane with oxygen. The anaerobic ones have been found in deep waters such as in the Black Sea, such as mentioned in this 2010 Scientific American piece, resulting in less net methane production from organic matter decay than otherwise.
(As an interesting aside, that piece examines them in the Arctic Ocean, and notes how the (C)AGW warning of a Catastrophic! positive-feedback release of the potent GHG methane to the atmosphere from undersea deposits of clathrates, the methane hydrate ice, is largely nonsense as the methane will likely simply get eaten.)
So as to your (first) question, if it’s an aerobic environment then you won’t be getting methane production. But, there may be conditions, like in a mulch pile, where the oxygen will get locally depleted leaving the methanogens to finish the decomposition thus there will be methane production.
Haven’t we simply reached the obvious conclusion of this new paganism? We are now clearly at the animal sacrifice stage.
Atmospheric methane is measured in parts per BILLION by volume (p.p.b.v.). Methane did not increase between 1995 and 2006. Previous to that it was ‘increasing’ for some years. I could not find any sources re-2007- today.
Alex,
There was an uptick in ~2008, which led to a lot of foaming at the mouth in certain circles.
Here’s the latest, which has been met with more quiet, but it’s still a bit dated, so it will be interesting to see what it’s done in the last year or so.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/
Here are some things about that Australian Carbon Tax and climate change that I believe are true;
– Julie Gillard & Labour were elected on a MANDATE NOT TO INSTALL A CARBON TAX
– A tax is a Tax is A TAX someone is going to pay, someone is going to lose money and I bet some will come out of my pocket and yours.
– There is absolutely no evidence or proof that a Carbon Tax will make 1 iota of difference to the carbon balance.
– Gillards advisors are highly selected, highly overpaid “Scientists” who are all Global Warmist all claiming the science is settled.
– The climate system has a very large number of contributing elements and how they act and react is extremely complex – scientists can not even agree about what elements affect climate and have far less understanding about how those elements actually contribute to climate.
– The most upsetting thing of all is, even if we reduce our carbon footprint there is not 1 of these very clever scientists who will be able to tell you how much we will change the temperature BECAUSE THEY REALLY HONESTLY DO NOT KNOW!
Hey Julie, your scientists want to reduce Australia’s atmospheric CO2 by 5% by 2020? That works out to be about 65 CO2 molecules in every 1,000,000,000 (billion) great!, then make them really useful, give them chopsticks – go for it boys!!
“1Col says:
June 13, 2011 at 8:15 pm”
Any rational thinking person in Australia knows this carbon tax ISN’T about the environment. My justification for this statement is very simple. During the election campaign, forget what Gillard said, she’s a puppet being pulled here and there, it’s what Bob Brown said that gives a hint. He said, and I can’t actually quote, but it went along these lines “If we have a carbon tax we can provide the hospitals, build schools, roads and rail systems…..” yadda yadda yadda yadda. Now I ask what are they doing with EXISTING taxes if a NEW tax is required to provide this infrastructure? SCAM is a word that springs to mind.
Patrick Davis says: June 14, 2011 at 4:03 am
Nope, it is clearly the language of laziness, fraud and corruption.
Bob Day has something to say on the expenditure of people’s taxes
Beware the Bloated Public Sector
TO those struggling to put a roof over their heads and food on the table, the unions’ latest push for pay rises for those fortunate enough to be employed in the public sector will come as a bitter blow (“Unions launch new pay push”, 13/6).
Australia is rapidly developing a two-tier economy – the haves and the have-nots. The haves are those plugged into the public purse. The have-nots are those who have to survive in the real world.
What it reveals is that under Labor, Australia is going the way of many other countries – European countries in particular. The common thread running through these near-bankrupt economies is their bloated public sectors.
Bob Day, Adelaide, SA
source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/beware-the-bloated-public-sector/story-fn558imw-1226074496076
Surprise! Surprise! The Secretary of the Climate Change Department is a Taxman! Temple Grandin is absolutely right when she says [in her “Animals in Translation”] that all our bureaucrats are “abstractified”. They have lost contact with the real world and live totally in their own computer generated world.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/999/725/689/
Here is a link to a petition to stop the slaughter until some more reasonable solution can be found. There are people in African whose cattle are dying from the global warming drought. They would welcome a live camel. There are other solutions besides wanton slaughter.