When it comes to electricity Victoria likes it black, or at least brown. Our principal source of electricity is our large natural stores of coal in the La Trobe valley. This is causing some angst in the Green community because of fossil fuel emissions, global warming etc. In particular our "man of steel" is declining to sign up to the Kyoto agreement on greenhouse gas emissions which is cause all sorts of handwringing in the sustainable energy/environmental camp.

The Green Man, whilst in favour of environmentally responsible and sustainable approaches to existence, is somewhat concerned by the use of statistics by the Green movement in this whole debate. Australia has been quoted as having one of the highest emissions per captita (see graph below)

Source Australia Institute.

The reason that this statistic is somewhat questionable is because of the extremely small population that Australia has in comparison with its land size. The problem for the environment is not the per capita output of greenhouse gases but the gross output of greenhouse gases, of which Australia produces relatively few. This is, of course, immensely unfair and from an ideology perspective we may wish to push for a reduction in our greenhouse gases but in an objective assessment of our actual contribution to gobal warming we are a bit player.

To put some perspective on the problem at a gross level, here is the graph redone based on gross output of greenhouse gases.

To cloud the issue even further, even moving to more sustainable forms of electricity generation can backfire as Brasil has discovered. It's Tucuruí dam flodded 1,100 square miles of forest when it was constructed in 1985 to supply hydroelectric power. The environment has responded by spewing millions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere courtesy of the decomposing rainforest that was flooded. To add insult to injury the increased acidity in the water that has resulted from the decomposition is endanger of corroding the power generating turbines and the mosiquito increase has necessitated the relocation of a number of villages.

If we are to take a hard line environmental stance on greenhouse gases and global warming then we have to be prepared to look all the culprits and that includes the developing nations.

Read more on Tucuruí dam in New York Times.
Read more on Australia's Greenhouse Gas strategy.