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
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?
@William Hickman
“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?
@ur momisugly 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.
@ur momisugly 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.
@ur momisugly 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.@ur momisugly 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.