Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Alan Kohler and climate change

Usually the finance guy on the news shows charts of interest rates, inflation, company performance and sharemarket movements. So it was a little bit surprising to see this last night.


It comes from the latest IPCC report. You can read more about that here and here. But the basics are that we are likely to exceed 1.5 degrees of warming (considered the upper limit of what would be a "viable" society) by 2030.

For Australia this means "fires are projected to get worse and more frequent, and fire seasons will last longer. In eastern Australia, if warming exceeds 2C, then droughts are projected to increase. Across southern Australia drought has already increased, and projections suggest that will worsen."

So why is this on the finance report?

I did some digging and finance journalist Alan Kohler has doing a fair bit of research in this area.

He wrote an article about Australian businesses that are taking advantage of the move to electric vehicles, and the massive drop in the cost of renewable energy.

He's also written an article titled Australia's solar tsunami to trigger coal collapse - explaining how inflexible coal-fired power stations are on the brink of being unprofitable and closing. That's another business story, similar to the way Netflix made Blockbuster unviable.

Business is about managing risks

More recently Alan Kohler has written about how Australia manages risk. When a vaccine has a 0.0011% chance of a side effect we take steps to avoid that risk. But when a country faces a risk (climate change) that is hundreds of times more likely we seem to do nothing.

He says that a "4 degree rise in the average global temperature would make large parts of the planet uninhabitable and lead to the total collapse of the banking system."

Even if we avoid that, a mere 2 degrees of warming (which is still quite likely) would mean "the banking system barely survives".

It seems that climate change information should be very important to the finance community. And all of us.

PS. Zooming in on that graph (and the current steep slope) it looks like we need to get serious about putting the brakes on pretty soon - if we're going to have any chance of keeping under 1.5 or even 2 degrees.

Tuesday, April 27, 2021

Greener Vehicle Use

I was recently clearing out some paperwork and found this little list of tips for greener vehicle use. I'm assuming it they came from a seminar of some sort.

Anyway here they are, with my comments in brackets:

  • Minimise vehicle use 
  • Do multiple errands on one trip
  • Utilise nearby shops (as opposed to distant ones)
  • Avoid peak hour wherever possible (so much petrol consumed going at walking pace or standing still - fortunately electric cars are far better in this aspect)
  • Drive in high gear at about 1500-2500 rpm
  • Drive smoothly and avoid unnecessary acceleration
  • Minimise fuel wasted in idling
  • Speed kills (not just lives but petrol too) - a journey uses 5% more fuel if travelled 110kmh compared to 90km/h
  • Minimise drag - roof racks, spoilers, open windows can increase fuel consumption by 20%
  • Inflate tyres - also gives longer life and better handling
  • Air conditioning uses 10% extra fuel, but if you're travelling faster then 80km/h then it's better than leaving the windows open
  • Travel light (having the bag of golf clubs permanently in the boot weighs you down)
  • Service regularly

Hope that help you reduce your fuel bills and your emissions.

Of course, the biggest and maybe simplest thing you can do is (next time you get a new car) choose one with low fuel consumption. The Green Vehicle Guide is the place to go to compare cars available in Australia.