Geologist, where art thou

This is interesting, someone standing up and arguing for geologists, AND it made it into the Australia:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20798804-30417,00.html

It argues some very good points:

1) Export earnings from mineral-energy in 2005-2006: $90 billion
Export earnings from agriculture: $29.4 billion

The "extractive" industries bring in more than 3 times more than the next closer competitor. This is why Australia has a great quality of life. This is why our dollar is so artificially inflated. This could also be our greatest weakness if these resource exports dry up.

2) To get at these deposits, you need geologists. If they dry up and you need new deposits: you need geologists to find 'em.
Someone straight out of uni with a geology degree can earn anywhere between $55,000-$100,000 at the moment. The companies are screaming for geos.

But there are no students coming through. Why? This brings me to point 3....

3) Geology departments across the country have been massacred. I know very few that have survived intact. They have been merged, downsized, staff not replaced... its a nightmare. No wonder students don't want anything to do with geology - its like backing a dinosaur.
Why are geology departments being hit so hard?
Student numbers. They are way down.

It all started in last economic boom. Resources take off, companies want geologists, lots of jobs, many students go through.
Resources plummet: first things the companies do - lay off non-essentials like geologists (ie. strip back operations to whatever it takes to run the mine you've got, rather than look for new ones). Lots of unemployed geologists. Students get turned off. Student numbers go down. The geology department gets downsized.
Its all a vicious cycle.

There's another reason to student non-interest. Mining companies typically get a bad rap. Who wants to work for a company that's polluting the world? A lot is, unfortunately, warranted. Just think of Ok Tedi.
BUT what people don't realise is that there is an entire industry for keeping mining (and other) industries from screwing the world too bad: environmental science. This includes site remediation after a mine's finished, sampling for toxic chemicals, water quality assessment, environmental impact statements (which you need to do anything these days...). Its a big - and important - industry, and it all falls under the category of geoscience.

Gregory Webb says it best in the article:

Although geoscience is commonly linked solely with the extractive industries, it is in fact a highly diverse field, encompassing the core disciplines in areas such as hydrology (water supply and quality), catchment and waterways management, mine remediation, hazard analysis (earthquakes, tsunamis, floods), geotechnical analysis for construction, soil conservation, inland salinity, coastal erosion, acid sulphate soils, and many others.

It is geoscientists who are playing the lead roles in research to understand our changing climate. The record of climate change during the past million years is contained in sediments from lakes and the deep ocean, corals from the Great Barrier Reef, stalagmites from caves, and ice cores from glaciers; all are studied by geoscientists.

This is important shit, and university bean-counters and public misconceptions are screwing Australia of an important intellectual commodity and essential skilled workforce.

What can be done? The article has a number of suggestions. Some of the best ones:

a) Government funding to provide adequate geoscience education. This requires some source of money to keep geoscience departments afloat before they all go under. Which won't be long.

b) Industry support. Companies scream for geologists during the boom years, but don't provide any support for departments in the bad. They're only kicking themselves in the arse. A lot of industry money goes into supporting engineering. The same needs to happen with geoscience.

c) Public views: there is a lot of work to be done informing potential students of the realities of geoscience careers. Its been a little lame. With the cost of going to uni these days, science needs to become a vocational degree, with clear, high paying job opportunities at the end - or else it will end up like arts, with some wit scrawling on the toilet walls next to the toilet paper "Science degrees. Please take one."
This will take some organization between the future employers, and the universities, and needs a program to address kids BEFORE they start uni (maybe final year school even - just to through the possibility out there).

All in all, its a difficult problem to fix, but its interesting people are starting to speak out on it.

A stern talking to

The Stern report on climate change, commissioned by the UK treasury and prepared by Sir Nick Stern, economic advisor to the PM and former chief economist of the World Bank, was released this week.

The impact on Australia's climate policy has been telling.

The report highlights what has been bleedingly obvious for most people: the cost of NOT doing anything to prevent or mitigate global warming will be far more than the cost of doing something now.

In a heroic display of resistance to crushingly overwhelming evidence, Australia's Prime Minister John Howard continues to disbelieve anything is wrong. This from yahoo news:

While he accepted science showed the globe was becoming warmer, Mr Howard questioned findings of the UK's Stern Report, which predicted a $9 trillion economic disaster resulting from climate change.
"I reserve judgment on whether the predictions of the scale of the crisis are accurate," Mr Howard told Sky News.

John Howard maintains that he is far better informed than the UK's premier economist, and besides, he is always right about shit.
Howard was last seen with his head under a pillow.

Previously in August, a report on the economics of global climate change was released by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics
(ABARE).

The detailed report was immediately creatively re-interpreted Australia's noble leaders. Howard's comments (House of Reps, Aug 16th):

According to ABARE, a 50 per cent cut in Australian emissions by 2050 would lead to a 10 per cent fall in GDP, a 20 per cent fall in real wages, a carbon price equivalent to a doubling of petrol prices, and a staggering 600 per cent rise in electricity and gas prices. These are not the calculations of my office. They are not the calculations of the federal secretariat of the Liberal Party. They are the calculations of the Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, a very respected federal government body.

What the report really says is outlined on carbonsink.blogspot.com:

In reality the ABARE report found that the impact of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) would be minimal. A 40 per cent reduction in GHGs would result in a 3.2 per cent fall in GDP spread over 40 years, or just 0.07% of GDP per year.

Not to be daunted, the Honourable Ian McFarlane, who is also, purely coincidentally, Inudstries minister, had this to say:

“Based on the ABARE estimated carbon dioxide price of $622 a tonne, a 50 per cent reduction in Australian emissions would result in a doubling of the current petrol price and a 600 per cent increase in electricity and gas prices."

(Source: http://minister.industry.gov.au)

The riposte on carbonsink.blogspot.com:

I can find no reference in this ABARE report (or any other ABARE report) to a 600 per cent rise in electricity and gas prices. I suspect Howard confused the "overall costs per unit of abatement" for scenario 2d ($499) with a percentage value. (500+100=600???)

Political corresponds attest that this is consistent with standard liberal policy: Never let the truth or absence of credible facts prevent you from making up figures and attributing them to a long boring report that hopefully no-one will read.

Showing further courage and a devout resolution in flogging a dead horse, Howard dismissed Newspoll results this week that showed 79% of voters wanted the government to sign the Kyoto protocol, and a staggering 91% of voters want to shift from reliance on coal-based power to renewable sources.
From the Australian:

"To start with, this was an online poll. It wasn't one where people were rung up and properly sampled, so I think we have to discount it to an extent because of that," Mr Howard said on Sky News today."

Five minutes later the PM showed admirable fluency in doublespeak. From the Australian:

While Mr Howard initially talked down the Newspoll - claiming it was conducted online - he later admitted to parliament he had been mistaken.

Unfortunately the Environment minister Ian Campbell wasn't informed of government's brave defensive, and in a rare an unfortunate lapse for the Liberal party, actually listened to what people thought:

"The figures are not surprising," Mr Campbell said on ABC radio today.
"I think most Australians are very concerned to see what will happen to Australia as a result of climate change and what will happen to the world, and they want to see their Government working on it."

In response to the savage two-pronged offensive mounted by certain groups within the community, such as the brutal caffe-latte gang, the government has performed a spectacular triple backflip and landed precariously on a global emissions trading scheme.

"I would be willing to look at an emissions trading system around the world, of which Australia were part, but it would have to include the nations of the world," he told Sky News.

The energetic acrobatics are purportedly in response to the increasingly violent demands of the caffe-latte crew. From the Australian:

Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment Greg Hunt said Labor's plan to tackle climate change aimed only to please the "cafe latte set".
"Our way, the Howard way, says he gets up every morning and he burns and burns and burns about protecting ordinary families," Mr Hunt said.
"Beazley gets up and he saunters in and wonders how he can please the latte set."

In response, opposition spokesman Anthony Albanese agreed the caffe-latte problem has grown out of control:

"There are a lot of Australians drinking cafe latte around Australia today, because 92 per cent of them say that his Government, the Government that he is a part of, however junior his position, is not doing enough on climate change," Mr Albanese said.

The government is considering cracking down on the caffe-latte movement, and is currently investigating claims some latte-swillers have been throwing babies overboard.
Inside sources say the government is sidestepping the environment issue as it probably won't be here in 50 years anyway.