20 March 2011

 Hi folks

 In the last few weeks, I sent a signed copy of my book PRIORITY ONE to every Federal Senator and every member of the Federal House of Representaries, here in Australia. To date about thirty have written me back a personal "thank you" letter. Many said they were familiar with my work. Which i think is very positive.

I've followed this by posting to them a new paper "the EARTH'S TEMPERATURE surface layer control" Below is that paper. It's how it works in basic terms. You might find it useful in explaining it to your friends. ..........Allan Yeomans.

the EARTH'S TEMPERATURE surface layer control

CONTROL OF BIOSPHERE TEMPERATURES

Allan Yeomans January 2011

It is absolutely necessary that we stop global warming and return world weather to normal before runaway heating becomes firmly established. I argue it's absolutely feasible and totally economical. But first we must remove the manufactured confusion.

The global warming the Earth is now experiencing is caused entirely by the buildup of excess quantities of carbon base greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, principally carbon dioxide and to a minor extent, methane.

No other gas and no other phenomena has any meaningful significance.

Greenhouse gasses act on our Earth like the blankets on a bed. It's as if before the industrial revolution, and at least for a million years before that, we had two blankets. Humanity and human civilization was able to evolve and develop. Through all that time the atmosphere contained around 275 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide. That was our TWO blankets.

The carbon dioxide released by the burning of fossil carbon materials as fuels, and the release of carbon dioxide from the decomposition of organic matter from the use of powerful agricultural chemicals, have increased the levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere by near 50% over the last century.

We now have 385 ppm of carbon dioxide in our air. So we are now near THREE blankets. A long term heating process is becoming established.

Decreasing the flow of more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is not our immediate problem. The problem is how to quickly remove that extra blanket before global heating becomes irreversible.

Switching totally to biofuels and non-geological based carbon energy sources is necessary and must be done as soon as possible. But that third blanket will still be there. And its heating effect will probably continue for around a hundred years; if we don't remove it.

With the Earth's surface temperatures, and the Earth's ocean temperatures constantly rising, world weather patterns cannot stabilize. If we don't stop our endless addition of fossil carbon to the biosphere very soon, then weather violence and instability, and lack of reliable weather predictability could likely last a thousand years.

The only feasible, practical and economical option we have is to remove the excess carbon dioxide by converting it into carbon rich soil organic matter.

I see no other option. We have to systematically enhance the fertility of the world's agricultural soils. That was the solution I conceived and proposed and promoted over twenty years ago.

In essence we modify our Western agricultural practices to embrace techniques that remove carbon dioxide from the air in huge quantities.

We create fertile soil. It's not difficult, organic farmers do it all the time. The carbon dioxide gets converted into relatively stable soil organic matter.

We pay our farmers, or issue them with tax credits based entirely on how much carbon they entrap in their soil. It's our only option and the world's last chance to prevent runaway global warming. We must make it happen. The concept of endlessly planting trees and quarantining rain forests is actually counterproductive and illogical.

There are substantial fringe benefits to increasing the fertility of soils. Fertile soil produces healthy and nutritious food, and it tastes better. And generally such food production comes at competitive prices.

The pro-fossil carbon lobby likes to suggest that water vapor in the atmosphere is more significant than carbon dioxide. They also suggest that the internal heat of the Earth might be a significant factor in global warming. Both ideas are not true. We can no longer afford to be mushrooms.

Inside the Earth, 500 kilometres down, temperatures are around 800 degrees Celsius. At the Earth's center they are estimated to be somewhere in excess of five thousand degrees. This heat slowly leaks to the surface and ultimately gets radiated into space. The deep interior temperatures stay fairly constant and are mainlined by slight but widespread nuclear reactions.

Simple arithmetic, and some basic physics tell us that solar radiation ie. the sunshine energy we here on Earth receive, is some two billion times stronger than the heat convected up from the Earth's molten interior. Even if we factor in a highly exaggerated energy up flow from the world's volcanic activity, we find that solar energy is still around 15,000 times more than the heat energy coming up from within the Earth.

In effect we have 500 kilometres of solid rock insulating the surface from the internal heat. The result is that the leakage of this internal heat to the surface is so tiny that it has absolutely no significant effect on the temperature of the Earth's biosphere, and the upper ground for hundreds of metres down.

It does not affect the temperature of the atmosphere, and not in the least the temperature of the oceans.

The temperature of the surface of the planets in our inner solar system is determined absolutely by the composition of their atmospheres. Venus has a thick carbon dioxide rich atmosphere and surfaces temperatures range between 400 and 500 degrees C. Mars has negligible atmosphere and surface temperatures are around -50 deg C.

How does it work? At our Earth's distance from the Sun, solar radiation intensity is 1300 watts per square metre. That's a bit more than the heat radiation from a one bar electric radiator beaming onto every square metre of the Earth's exposed surface.

The majority of solar heat radiation comes in at visible light frequencies. (So our eyes naturally evolved accordingly.)

All objects emit heat as radiation. Emitted radiation frequencies depend on the temperature of the source. Room temperature matter emits infrared radiation. When objects are red hot they emit red light, hotter still they become white hot and emit white light.

The ground is warmed by the visible solar radiation. The warm ground then re-emits this heat as infrared radiation beaming it back into space. With warmer ground radiating slightly more heat than cooler ground.

Air, including its greenhouse gas components, is transparent to the incoming white light from the Sun.

But the infrared light emitted from the ground has trouble getting out because greenhouse gasses are not transparent to infrared radiation.

The balance between the visible light energy in, and the infrared light energy out, determines absolutely the Earth's average surface temperature.

Greenhouse gasses can justifiably be thought of as blankets. Those blankets, and only those blankets, determine the surface temperature of our entire planet. In turn it follows that all world weather phenomena are powered ultimately, entirely and absolutely by solar energy.

Now let's consider water vapor. It does in fact act like a greenhouse gas. But water vapor is not actually a gas, it's a condensing vapor. Warm air can hold more water vapor than cool air. As the air cools the water vapor condenses out as rain whenever its relative humidity climbs above 100%.

Relative humidity is the percentage of how much water vapor is in the air, relative, to the maximum the air can hold at any given temperature. And all vapors condense with cooling.

So average world temperatures control the atmosphere's total water vapor content. It's most definitely not the other way around.

The sequence is; atmospheric carbon dioxide levels first determine how much solar heat is trapped. So we get an initial biosphere and atmospheric temperature established. This in turn determines the quantity of water vapor the air can hold. A final temperature then becomes established. And that final average temperature, and all the heat energy retained, in turn controls and determine all world weather phenomena. Ultimately it all goes back to atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

The solutions promoted, backed and funded by the fossil carbon industries and countries are based on the argument that; a mere general reduction in total emissions will suffice. That same argument is promoted and supported by most politicians and green movements. One should suspect those opinions are encouraged by the receipt of a steady, but substantial flow of petrodollars.

These groups contend that the world will be saved from “major climate change disasters” by decreasing the rate at which we weave a FOURTH blanket. They also foster the concept that increasing world average temperatures by five degrees, that's five times more than what has occurred over the last few decades, will also, somehow, avert “major climate change disasters”. It cannot and it won't.

Altering the temperature of the massive biosphere of an entire planet usually takes at least a few thousand years. Our massive use of fossil fuels and agrochemicals has started a process that's heating the surface of our planet and destabilizing its entire weather system, and all in a matter of decades. We are now beginning to see the horrendous consequences, on almost every country on Earth.

So we stop global warming, or we let it happen. Oil, gas, coal and agrochemical organizations require global warming to continue.

But surely the choice should be ours?

Further papers in the coming weeks will deal with the necessary incentives to make ending global warming happen, such as fuel and agricultural taxation changes. Papers will cover conversion to practical and economical non-carbon energy systems. Also the fossil carbon fuel and agrochemical industries' disinformation marketing systems will be considered. ©

LET'S BE REALISTIC. A SO CALLED "PRICE ON CARBON" IS A GIANT CON'

July 2010

The coal, oil and gas mining companies and their fossil fuel distributors gleefully support the imposition of a carbon price, or tax. They have said so loud and clear. If they support it, one would have to be a complete fool to really believes they would support it if it meant for them even a smidgen loss in sales and profits.

Don't let them get away with it. Write your local reprehensive and tell them, you're not stupid, even if she or he is..

We demand our new Federal Government pay Australian farmers $10 a tonne. They job is then to suck carbon dioxide out of the air by converting it into carbon rich soil humus.

And that's the only sure way, and sane way, to stop global warming and to stop worldwide catastrophic climate change, quickly.

Then we make chemical fertilizers and pesticides non tax-deductible. That makes ending global warming self funding. Win!Win! Win!

Sequestration Explained at http MyYouTube  
For future energy seeFull Text Master Plan

POST ELECTION THOUGHT FOR AUSTRALIA

As reported in the AUSTRALIAN on what a NASA meteorologist observed  "What the world needs is a nation that will set an example, stop pandering to special interests, do what is necessary for the people and the rest of the life on the planet. It is a moral issue. We cannot turn our backs on our children and grandchildren. Is it possible that Australia could provide that example, that moral leadership?" *

* James Hansen is director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He is a guest of the University of Sydney and Intelligence Squared Australia (He is now back at NASA's New York office)

11 November 2010 

         This bit is a new entry at our blog site. This is what I said;-----

GREEN:: GLACIAL CYCLES ARE NOT TO BLAME

Is the global warming the world is now experiencing just part of the 100,000 years cycle of glacial and interglacial periods? This was a question I was asked at the Allexperts web site. The answer is, “It ain't.”

The fossil fuel public relations people use this ploy to placate the general public into dismissing the simple reality that using fossil carbon materials is the only significant factor causing global overheating. The fossil fuel public relations people. tell lies.

Looking at the history of glacial cycles we should be getting progressively cooler. Definitely not hotter. We are now at the end of an interglacial period and over the next several thousand years Northern Europe, Siberia and North America should be slowly cooling. Not rapidely heating as it is. If you look at the last dozen odd glacial cycles we should now be looking at a cooling period of a few thousand years with sea levels falling by something like 20 metres. So current global warming in the Earth's biosphere is in total contrast to what is normal for our planet

The amount of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and destroying the fertility of Western agricultural soils, has added to the Earth's biosphere a huge amount of carbon dioxide. As a result there is just no way that the planet's biosphere is going to cool down in the next few decades. It's absolutely, absolutely, impossible.

The carbon dioxide we have added has changed the optical characteristics of the atmosphere to an extent that has never happened in, at least the last several million years.

We didn't know what we were doing and catastrophic climate change is the result.

But we have learnt. So suddenly and incredible opportunity presents itself. When you boil it all down we now, in effect, know how to adjust the average temperature of our entire planetary surface, that's the Earth's biosphere to any average temperature we like to nominate. We can do it and it's easy.

That is provided we don't let either uncontrollable runaway heating or possible runaway global cooling take over with utterly unpredictable consequences.

And unfortunately that's where we are at now with heating.

So the first and most urgent job is to restabilize the situation and that can only be by removing the excess CO2 from the air by increasing the fertility of our agricultural soils.

It's also incredibly important that we simultaneous switch to nuclear energy and biofuels. The best biofuels grow in the hot wet tropics. Hence big oil and their sheep say “save the rain forests”. And the fossil fuel industries have the rest of their sheep say “nuclear waste is dangerious for at least a million years”.

If you want to comment on this just go to my blog site www.globalwarmingblog.org
and say what you think........... Allan Yeomans

        6 November 2010

Hello Again

I got a couple of requests from authors working on science fiction novels placed both in the near future and in a future a few hundred years hence.

Let's face it weather forecasters generally can't get tomorrow right. So to predict years into the future can only be done in a most general way. My meteorology and my knowledge of soils and agricultural prompted my idea of soil carbon sequestration almost a quarter of a century ago so I figure my guesses and predictions are probably as good as most.

So first let's assume for these science fiction novels we delay another decade and don't adopt the idea of using soil to restore normality followed up with switching to nuclear energy and biofuels to keep it the world fixed. That's what I sincerely believe to be our only viable option.

So here we go.

    The Predictions

     Natural and ancient, near surfaces greenhouse gas accumulations, specifically methane, will start discharging at accelerated rates with huge quantities released. That effect will be totally unstoppable even over maybe several hundred years.(It has already started.)

Now the predictions:--- All the major cities of the world will experience much more chaotic weather events. That's a near certainty as global warming means hotter ground temperatures along with cooler temperatures in the lower stratosphere. Therefore up draughts are more intense. I have written about this at my web site www.yeomansconcepts.com.au  then go to “METEOROLOGY AND GLOBAL WARMING” The meteorological reason why enhancing the greenhouse effect increases the altitude and intensity of weather phenomena is explained but I have avoided the complex mathematics.

Some factual predictions; - both polar ice caps will have gone. Greenland will be a rich farming area with regular rainfalls and fabulously rich volcanic soils. Iceland is uninhabitable due to the extreme volcanic activity as near surface weights and balances from melting ice packs and rising sea levels destabilize Iceland's precarious geological stability.

World sea levels will have risen around 60 feet. It won't be an even rise as sea levels on the American east coast will have risen even more so. (that's happening now to a small extent). All the world's coastal cities are under water or at least all their transport infrastructure.
 
 Now some gestermations but I think with a reasonable likelihood.   The warming of the East China Sea could cause huge storms to occur as far inland as the Gobi Desert. But these would be followed by extreme heating. The extreme heating would cause local storms and rain showers that would persist until the area dried out. The pattern would repeat periodically. Range land farming would become established with massive leaps in land prices. The range wars of the old American West would become a common occurrence in the Gobi Desert.

The fogs so common in San Francisco will be a thing of the past. Changing in ocean currents turn the local beaches into surfing favorites.

New York and London get regular extreme heat waves and in London especially, heavy snow falls.   Los Angles more dry weather with occasional flooding producing extreme fire dangers and serious mud slides. Ocean circulation changes generate stronger sea breezes that regularly clear the LA smog away. Snow capped mountains become a regular site from downtown LA. Or at least that area not under water. Tokyo and surrounding areas hit regularly with severe ocean waves and flooding. Sydney heat waves and freezing weather but hit often with violent tornados, previously never seen in Sydney.

Berlin flooding and heat waves followed almost inexplicable by increasing snow falls that persist often right through the summer months. In general Europe freeze over as the Gulf Stream slows. Toronto; some erratic weather but generally more pleasant weather patterns and temperatures. Vancouver; freezing conditions as the warm Japanese Current looses momentum.

Now for a few centuries, it gets a bit harder but here are my guesses.

World population will have fallen to around three billion. For the first hundred years, wars will be fought over farmable land. Starvation will be horrendous.

India will have collapsed into a multitude of warring states initially started by an unstoppable migration from the now generally non existing Bangladesh. As it's all underwater.

 As Pakistan starves from the inevitable non production of food from the central Indus valley those people will move into a warmer and more productive Kashmir. Then migration into Tibet will destabilize the central power structure in China. China's military and military production will not be affected, but the country will be split into several independent military dictatorships.

The US and the EU will turn inwards to become self contained isolated economies. The US will invade Venezuela (under some pretence) to secure oil supplies.

The Amazon will have long since dried out and burnt and all land above sea level will be farmed extensively. Brazil will become the most powerful state in South America.  

Unstoppable migration into empty Australia will cause wars with its densely populated near north neighbours. Australia will be overrun by migration from a flooded Indonesia.

The world's white population will be blamed for the world's chaos and these people will retreat into safe enclaves.  All of which will have huge military establishments.

My prediction is that it won't be a happy world at all.

      3 November 2010

     Hi Folks

    I had an Australian student ask me the other day on the AllExperts web site “Why is global warming such an issue” He had to write an assay for his English teacher. He was told that the facts weren't important, just opinions. But the student asked me for a bit more than “just opinions”

This is was my answer::--

Global warming is the most dangerious issue now facing the world. To end it is absolutely essential. To end it requires the oil, coal and gas industries to go out of business, along with the agrochemical industries.

They are the facts.

Now the opinions.

Those industries, just like the tobacco industry are doing everything possible to keep us dependent on fossil fuels. Allowing just 3% of gross profits for advertising and public relations they have available one billion dollars a week to create a public opinion that “global warming and climate change are not all that serious, and most probably it doesn't even exist”.

Australia accounts for 1.5% of world oil consumption that means they have $15 million a week to spend here convincing us not to worry too much. And that our recent droughts and recent floods are not global warming effects. It's just Mother Nature. And people believe it. And it's your world they're messing with.

The Coalition parties adopted my arguments and promised to fund our farmers to sequest CO2 into soil. But they didn't get in, so it's not going to happen.

For more on all this stuff go to my web site www.yeomansconcepts.com.au
or just Google Allan Yeomans. Best of luck.

The Land, August 15th, 2010: Gillard's Carbon Farm

Ms Gillard says a Labor government will study the possibility of storing carbon in soil. How long would that take? How many academics could live on how many grants, for how many years, and still get nowhere?

My father and I did it with Keyline fifty years ago. Natural farmers, organic farmers have been doing it for a few thousand years. So let's all do it.

The Coalition have promised you farmers a carbon dioxide equivalent of $10 a tonne for all the humus you can add to your soil. That's about $20 a tonne for added humus. And there are no strings attached. You just figure the best, the easiest and the cheapest way of doing it. As long as the carbon levels go up you get your money. It's a win-win for all.

(read the article here)

In The Land August 12 2010; My comment on "Labor's empty Murray water buyback"

The Murray's lower lakes were always open to the sea before we blocked them to raise the levels of the river for water storage a hundred years ago. The lakes' water levels have been below sea level for some time now. So if the environmentalists were genuine, they should plug for reopening them to the sea. The other piece of nonsense is that keeping them as fresh water we have to contend with evaporation losses, and those losses are at least five times the water usage of Adelaide. It's insane.

(read original article here)

August 11, Queensland Country Life: Why can't agricultural academics get it right?

Things changed in the 1950s when my father P.A Yeomans and I brought out the Yeomans Chisel plough and our Keyline system ideas took off.

Academics read too much into what is happening in other countries and presume its happening here. They're wrong. Overseas the use of agrochemicals are promoted by the State and by their agricultural authorities much more so than here.

I few years ago I gave several talks at universities and colleges in the US. When describing a typical farm in Australia and how it was managed students would ask was I talking about an organic farm. That's how different and advanced most farmers are in Australia in managing soil. Sustainable carrying capacity has improved all over Australia and that means soils have had to improve.

I simple say pay our farmers $10 dollars a tonne to sequester CO2 into soil by enhancing fertility. It becomes a double bonus. We both stop global warming and massively increase food and biofuel production. The Coalition have adopted the concept, and agreed to paying the $10 dollars. It's now in their “Direct Action Plan”. So let's hope they get in.

(read original article here)

Soil carbon sequestration to be locked up in time wasting research. Queensland Country Life, August 9th 2010

Organic farmers and biodynamic farmers have been increasing the humus content of their soils to amazing levels and in amazingly short times for donkeys' years. So it's easy to do and organic farmers usually do better in bad times as well as good.

But if your job is to sell agrochemicals then my Soil Carbon Solution at www.Yeom ansconcepts.com.au is their worst nightmare. So they fund research, demand validation, claim lower production. Say testing is difficult and needs study. Back studies that flatter chemical use. Study cigarette company strategies. And always remember the rules: foster doubt, create delays, and constantly discredit the opposition. And spread the money around, thick and fast.

I say it's sickening.

I say just pay the farmers $10 a tonne for CO2 equivalent into soil humus.
All those thousands of farmers out there will soon figure the best way of doing it. We pay only on results. No sequestration no money. It's a win win.

The Coalition have now taken this concept on board and it will be the best thing to ever happen to beat global warming. Apart from China, Australia has the biggest agricultural land area of any nation, so we must lead.

(read the original article here)

GM Holden in Australia nearly got it right. The Land, August 9 2010.

Ethanol has slightly less energy per litre but is also slightly lighter so at least for aircraft, range is unaltered. Plus with ethanol we can go back to the higher compression engines that needed lead and had better efficiency and so used less fuel. But really global warming is the big issue here, that is unless you are one of those petroleum programmed global warming sceptics. And yes maybe the Earth is flat.

I did write to Holden some time back and suggested they include an extra tank and set up the engine to also run on straight hydrous ethanol. It's expensive to remove the last drops of water to produce anhydrous ethanol. So hydrous ethanol is much cheaper. E85 engines suit the oil companies. Most US cars are now E85 compatible but the owners often don't know. So E85 sales have been kept down. Oil interests are happy, and people will eventually forgive and forget the Gulf of Mexico (with suitable PR) .

Engines that can run on straight hydrous ethanol are the real threat to the petroleum companies and the Middle East states.

(read the original article here)

In Queensland Country Life July 27 2010; My comment to a report on a farmer with common sense (that's really not that common.)

A great example in Western Australia of how our farmers are improving the land and not destroying it as is constantly claimed by those with university degrees who are consistently taught the opposite.

Yes, if we pay our farmers everywhere just $10 for carbon dioxide sequestration into soils global warming ends.

How sequestration actually works is on YouTube at ”Climate Change Terminated”. And congratulations to the Pensini family of WA for again proving that fertility and carrying capacity can both be enhanced for the betterment of all.

(read the original article here)

My comment to Queensland Country Life. Tuesday July 27

A good shower of rain and the grass is there in greater abundance than ever before. Long term carrying capacity has doubled. Erosion is less than pre-farming natural erosion. The land is no longer burnt off every few months. I wish these people in their ivory towers would wake up and look out the window. Australian farmers aren't just sustaining the land they're improving it. Imagine the mess the country would be in if government, environmentalist and university types took over from our farmers?

And yes pay our farmers for the mass of extra carbon they could put in their soils, with very little effort, and global warming would be history. Google Yeomans Concepts and go to the Soil Carbon Solution and see how easy it can be.

(read the original article here)

Queensland Country Life reported today July 26, 2010 that the Energy Supply Association of Australia was complaining that both Liberal Party and Labor Party policies on climate change were creating uncertainty and had “already caused power companies to slash $10 billion off their spending plans for the next five years”

I said in their “Readers Comments”

Billions of dollars to be spent on coal fired power stations frozen; that's good news, not bad. The uncertainty complaints all come from the gas and coal power industries and their lobby groups, Google who's complaining. It's sickening. They're so “noble” so happily support solar, wind, wave and tidal energy projects because they know they're no threat. It's nuclear energy that's cheap and safe and totally greenhouse gas free. And that scares them. So their antinuclear public relations campaigns power on. Their funds and lies flow freely to the “green” parties and “environmental” groups. I say; why don't we put just 2 cents a kilowatt loading on fossil fuel power production and give it to any non fossil fuel power system for say twenty years. Carbon dioxide power emissions would drop to zilch. Gillard's idea that you can build as many coal plants as you want just so long as the chimney has a coupling to hook it to some future magic carbon dioxide collector is a giant joke. So make them pay the 2 cents and let them have it all back when they get their “Carbon Capture and Storage” up and running. They claim it's all feasible. So fine; let's call their bluff.

(link to the original Queensland Country Life article)

July 25, 2010 Queensland Country Life reported that Minister for Natural Resources, Mines and Energy Stephen Robertson confirmed that his department employs 173 officers to monitor and enforce the Vegetation Management Act, but just 79 inspectors to cover the mining, gas and petroleum industries. So fossil fuels and global warming are to be ignored by the Queensland Labor Government. To me it makes them like George Orwell's thought please. The problem was that farmers didn't know what they could or couldn't do with their own land.

I said in their “Readers Comments”

  Trees are great for shade. They make good wind brakes. They are also handy for fence posts and fire wood. Good trees produce very useful timber. Apart from that they are useless.
  They don't stop erosion, they generally cause it. There are no trees on The Siberian steppes, just grass and there's just no erosion.

The Amazon is a nett producer of greenhouse gasses, not oxygen. Termites and rot generate methane. A carbon sink? No way. It's useless. It's already full. Otherwise the forest floor would be knee deep in carbon.

The VEGETATION MANAGEMENT ACT 1999 is supposed to protect “ endangered regional ecosystems”. Well they're 50,000 years too late. Nobody has a clue what Australia's “natural” look should be. It's long gone.

Protect biodiversity? Again too late. At the same time the many millions of years long giant marsupial era also vanished.

Australian farmers are fixing the mess despite incredible government stupidity. Carrying capacity has leaped. So obviously soil quality has massively improved. Kangaroos now outnumber people.

Best thing would be to rescind that dopy VEGETATION MANAGEMENT ACT entirely, and ASAP.

(link to the original Queensland Country Life article)

  July 25, 2010 PROPERTY Rights Australia chairman Ron Bahnisch reports in Queensland Country Life news paper that a contractor was fined $20,000 dollars for clearing 465 hectares of a farmers scrub land near the town of Dingo in central Queensland. The paper reported that

“The $20,000 penalty is the biggest fine handed to a contractor (non-landowner) under the Integrated Planning Act 1997 and Sustainable Planning Act 2009 for a vegetation-clearing offence.”

I don't think the farmer hasn't been charged as yet. I said in their “Readers Comments”

Land owners in general have more sense and more understanding if the land and more interest in its wellbeing and improvement than just about anybody in the Department of Environment and Resource Management. I know who I'd trust to care for Australia.

If the Department's motive is global warming then simply take an inventory of the carbon in the un-cleared land and let the farmers clear as much as they want. But with a proviso that the improved soil must have more carbon stored as was contained in the original scrub land. And it's all humus.

They'll actually store more carbon. The soils will be healthier, more fertile, more productive and almost immune to erosion. Australia will be a better place. See The Soil Carbon Solution at my web site Yeomans Concepts. Google Allan Yeomans or whatever and you'll find it.

I've been working with the Hon Greg Hunt MP the shadow minister for climate change and now the Coalition, if elected have given an undertaken in their DIRECT ACTION PLAN to pay farmers $10 a tonne CO2 equivalent for all the extra carbon they store.

So let them clear the land. It's a win win for everybody.

(link to the original Queensland Country Life article)