Lethal Heating: 03/02/19

02/03/2019

Climate, The Crisis That Threatens Our Political Duopoly

Fairfax - John Hewson

When does an issue or policy challenge become more important than political party affiliation? When does a national or global issue outweigh the importance to a voter of their individual struggles?
These are becoming increasingly important questions as support for, and belief in, traditional political parties wanes, and voters are increasingly frustrated and disappointed by their political representatives and the so-called democratic processes of government.

Climate change ... any party that refuses to deal with it forfeits the right to govern. Credit: Bloomberg

In recent days in the United Kingdom we have seen several important resignations (12 at last count) from both the Conservative and Labour parties, over Brexit and other issues, which will test the UK’s ingrained political duopoly. Of course, this is not the first time the duopoly has been challenged – recall the breakaway of the Social Democratic Party in 1981.
However, given the more recent “success” of En Marche in France, and of Ciudadanos in Spain, and what is effectively the existential threat by Brexit to Britain’s political establishment, the exit of nine MPs from Labour and three from the Conservatives (with the real possibility of more to come), it must be close to a watershed moment.
To be clear, members of this new Independent Group had a variety of motivations for leaving – four because of alleged anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, as well as objections to the party’s left-wing bias, and some also in fear of being de-selected. However, the Conservative defectors, and all but one from Labour, want another “people’s vote” on Brexit. It is instructive that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn then moved to favour a second referendum, while Theresa May seeks to delay another parliamentary vote, hoping the Europeans will “blink”.
Given that the EU would still clearly prefer that the UK not leave, it is unlikely to offer any significant concessions, so it is hard to see how May can ever win a parliamentary vote on her withdrawal bill. Indeed, she continues to lose procedural votes that work to reduce her negotiating authority. No vote would mean that the UK would still leave on March 29, a “hard Brexit”, which most don’t want. The hope of the UK establishment is that a concensus emerges for a second referendum, or for withdrawing the leave application altogether. Much will depend on whether there are further defections.
It is clear that an issue such as Brexit is not only divisive across the UK community, but also within each of the major parties, important enough to threaten the traditional party duopoly. Many say, or hope, it can’t happen, but it may.
Party unity has been a significant issue in Australia's political history, but disunity has probably been more about individuals than issues, especially since World War II. The most notable exception was the ALP/DLP split of the mid-1950s over communism and communist influence. But Gorton v McMahon, Howard v Peacock, Hawke v Keating, Rudd v Gillard v Rudd, and Abbott v Turnbull were mostly just about personalities, occasionally dressed under a policy cloak.
However, over the post-war period there has been an increasingly significant voter drift against both major parties. In the late 1940s, together, they attracted about 95 per cent of the vote. Now it's in the mid-70s, at best. Most recently, the drift has manifested in support for high-profile independents, a trend that will gather momentum at the May election.
This is also occurring as both leaders have net negative poll ratings, and the electorate is genuinely faced with the choice between two lessers, both parties and individuals.
While there are multiple motivations, a principle reason for the voter drift has been dissatisfaction with the two major parties, which have become increasingly self-absorbed internally while focusing more on point-scoring against, and blame-shifting to, each other, rather than governing, and particularly meeting the bigger policy challenges. Conspicuous disloyalty, interminable scandals, opportunistic, short-term policy thought bubbles, cynicism, and so on, have led voters to disengage, stop listening, or protest where and when they can.
The economic narrative embraced by both sides doesn’t match the lived, and increasingly difficult, experience of voters, while the big issues they realistically expect their representatives to handle are simply denied, ignored, or fiddled with.
In all this, individual members are increasingly under considerable pressure to toe the line, to rabbit on with the party line, as summarised in the dot-points emailed to them each morning, even if they fundamentally disagree. It is a daily farce in the media. It becomes harder and harder to defend the indefensible, especially for those in marginal seats where their feedback is contrary, where their support is waning.
Some members have already broken out of the two-party structure – Cory Bernardi, Clive Palmer. Banks, most noticeably, joining significant independents, Cathy McGowan, Rebekha Sharkey, Andrew Wilkie, Kerryn Phelps and Bob Katter. Independents could certainly hold the “power of the balance” in the Lower House after the next election.
However, could climate policy be our Brexit? Could it threaten our LNP/ALP duopoly? It is a divisive issue within both the LNP and the ALP, against the background of some 70 to 80 per cent of voters consistently wanting decisive government-led action on the essential transition to a low-carbon society, and to renewables.
Advocates for a long-term climate action plan across the two parties are much closer than they are to the deniers, coal advocates and intransigents in their own parties.
We have already lost nearly three decades on this extremely important issue, squandering billions of dollars of investment and probably hundreds of thousands of jobs. We have already kicked the issue to our kids and grand kids. Our two parties and our political system have failed us.
Surely, those unable to rise to the climate challenge forfeit the right to govern?

*John Hewson is a professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU, and a former Liberal opposition leader.

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Early Sowing Can Help Save Australia’s Wheat From Climate Change

The Conversation - James Hunt

Timing is of the essence when it comes to growing wheat. Author provided

Climate change has already reduced yields for Australian wheat growers, thanks to increasingly unreliable rains and hostile temperatures. But our new research offers farmers a way to adapt.
By sowing much earlier than they currently do, wheat growers can potentially increase yields again. However, our study published today in Nature Climate Change shows that to do this they need new varieties that allow them more leeway to vary their sowing dates in the face of increasingly erratic rainfall.
Sowing wheat is a matter of delicate timing. Seeds of current varieties need to be planted at just such a time so that, months later, the plants flower during a window of just 1-2 weeks, known as the optimal flowering period.
In Australia’s wheat belt this window is generally in early spring. At this time the soil is moist after the cool, wet winter; days are getting longer and sunnier; maximum temperatures are still relatively low; and frosts are less frequent. If crops flower outside the optimal window, yields decline sharply.

Crops and colonies
When Europeans first started trying to grow wheat in Australia, they used varieties that were suited to the cool, wet climate of northern Europe, where the optimal flowering period is in summer. These varieties were much too slow to flower in Australian conditions, and yields were very low. Wheat breeder William Farrer used faster-developing wheats from India to create the Federation variety, which revolutionised wheat production in Australia, earning Farrer the ultimate honour of having a pub named after him.
Federation wheat is a “spring wheat”, moving rapidly through its life cycle regardless of when it is planted. If you sow it earlier, it flowers earlier. For more than a century Australian wheat breeders have bred spring wheats, allowing growers to adjust their sowing time to get their crops to flower during the optimal period. Anzac Day has traditionally been the start of sowing season, after autumn rains have wet the soil enough for seeds to germinate.
Here is where climate change is causing a problem. If farmers sow later than mid-May, the wheat is likely to miss its spring flowering window. But southern Australia has experienced declining April and May rainfall, making it harder for growers to sow and establish crops at the right time. This in turn means crops flower too late the following spring, meaning yields are reduced by drought and heat.
Growers could start sowing earlier, and use stored soil water from summer rain (which hasn’t declined and has even increased at some locations), but current spring wheat varieties would flower too early to yield well. For farmers to sow earlier, they need a different sort of wheat in which development is slowed down by an environmental cue. One such environmental cue is called vernalisation. Plants that are sensitive to vernalisation will not flower until they have experienced a period of cold temperatures. These strains are thus called “winter wheats”.
Ironically enough, the wheat varieties that Europeans first brought to Australia were winter wheats, but they were further slowed by sensitivity to day length which made them too slow to reach the earlier flowering times needed in the hotter, drier colony.
But this problem can be sidestepped by using a “fast winter wheat”, which is sensitive to vernalisation but not to day length. Our previous research showed that this type of wheat was very suited to Australian conditions – it can be sown early but still flower at the right time. In fact, the vernalisation requirement means that this wheat can be sown over a much broader range of dates and experience fluctuating temperatures, and still flower at the right time.

Yielding results
In our new research, we developed different lines of wheat that varied in their response to vernalisation and day length, and grew them across the wheat belt to compare which ones would yield best at earlier sowing times.
We found that a fast winter wheat performed best over most of the wheatbelt, and on average yielded 10% more than spring wheat when they flower at the same time.
We then used computer simulations to investigate how these crops would perform at the scale of an entire farm. Our results showed that if Australian growers had access to adapted winter varieties in addition to spring varieties, they could start sowing earlier in seasons where there was an opportunity. If the rains come early, farmers can use the winter wheat; if they come late they can switch to the spring wheat, which yields better than winter wheat at late sowing times.
This would mean that more area of crop would be planted on time, and yields would increase as a result. If realised, this could increase national wheat production by about 20%, or roughly 7.1 million tonnes.
The main hurdle is that growers do not currently have access to suitable winter wheats. Breeding companies have started work on them, but it will be several years before suitably high-quality varieties become available.
Australian growers urgently need to keep pace with climate change. Although Australia only produces 4% of the world’s wheat, it accounts for 10% of exports and is thus important in determining global supply and price. If global wheat supply is low, prices rise, and it becomes unaffordable for many of the world’s poorest people, potentially causing malnutrition and civil unrest. Steeply rising wheat prices were among the factors behind the food riots that broke out in more than 40 countries in 2007-08, which helped to trigger the Arab Spring uprisings of 2010-12.
The world’s poorest people deserve to be able to buy wheat. But Australian wheat farmers also need to earn a decent living and stay internationally competitive. The only way to meet all these needs is to keep production costs low – and increasing yields by sowing the right wheat cultivars for Australia’s changing climate is one way to go about it.

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Australia Breaks Weather Records With Hottest Ever Summer

The Guardian - Naaman Zhou

2018-19 season tops temperature highs across the country, exceeding previous record set six years ago

Australians sweltered through back-to-back heatwaves and battled bushfires across the country over the 2018-19 summer. Photograph: David Crosling/EPA

Australia has endured its hottest summer ever, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, breaking the previous record set six years ago.
The 2018-19 summer, which produced near 50C days and topped temperature highs across the country, has officially exceeded the previous record set in 2012-13, which was 1.28C above what is considered normal. Climate analysts say it falls into a pattern of human-induced global warming.
January alone had already been confirmed as the hottest month ever recorded in Australia, with a mean temperature across the nation of 30.8C, which was 2.9C above the average for January temperatures (calculated between 1961–1990) of 27.9C.
On Thursday, the BoM revealed the whole season was officially the hottest ever recorded.
While exact figures are not yet confirmed, the bureau said this summer’s mean temperature was at least 2C above the 27.5C benchmark of what is considered normal, based on 1961-1990.

“Summer has been our warmest summer on record in terms of maximum temperatures, in terms of minimum temperatures and in terms of mean temperatures,” said Andrew Watkins, the BoM’s manager of long-range forecasting.
The statistics will come as no surprise to Australians who sweltered through back-to-back heatwaves and battled bushfires across the country.
In January alone, Adelaide broke its all-time heat record with a 46.6C day, Port Augusta broke its record with 48.9C, and then broke it again with 49.5C a week later.
The small New South Wales town of Noona also broke the record for the highest overnight minimum ever recorded, with a night that never dropped below 39.5C. And in Cloncurry in Queensland, residents endured 43 days in a row over 40C, Watkins said.
This summer’s extreme temperatures had been predicted since late last year, with the BoM’s climate outlook forecasting a drier, hotter summer due to the El Niño weather event, a positive Indian Ocean Dipole and the effect of global warming.
The “long-term increasing trend in global air and ocean temperatures” was a factor in the hotter-than-average summer, the report said in October.
On Thursday, the BoM also updated its outlook for the coming autumn, saying there were “very high odds” that hot, dry conditions would continue.
Watkins warned that while some high rainfall events could occur, it would largely be bad news for drought-stricken farmers. “I wish we had better news than that,” he said.
Also on Thursday, Victorian health authorities warned of a late summer heatwave that would bring 40C temperatures on Saturday.
The bureau has forecast a heatwave across most of Victoria over the weekend, and Victoria’s chief health officer issued a health alert for parts of the state from Thursday to Saturday.
Pregnant women, the elderly, children and people with medical conditions have been warned to take care.
Victoria’s emergency management commissioner, Andrew Crisp, also warned there was a high fire risk, peaking at a severe fire danger rating in parts on Saturday.

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