VCE Environmental Science

Unit 4 of VCE Environmental Science is about Ecologically Sustainable Development, including the Environmental Management Systems of government and businesses. Every reputable organisation in Australia should be considering the impacts of climate change on their business – even if they are skeptical of the anthropogenic causes of global warming, changing climate will affect resource managment, agriculture, manufacturing, transport and consumer spending. An Emissions Trading Scheme (or Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme) will result in rising energy costs and hopefully provide opportunities for increased recycling, improved renewable energy technologies and greater uptake of low-emission vehicles. Companies that plan for climate change, using Environmental Risk Assessment principles, will be most prepared to act to reduce the threats to their economic, social and environmental sustainability.

At Hawkesdale P12 College we aim to reduce our energy use from from the grid and reduce solid waste going to landfill by recycling. In September our 5.5 KWh photovoltaic solar system was installed. This was made possible through a federal government grant from the National Solar in Schools program ($50,000) and a state government grant of $15,000. You can see our current energy production and total since installation at the Sunny WebBox site. By using renewable energy we hope to reduce our carbon footprint and educate students and the community about the benefits of solar power.

The 350 network, supported by World Vision Australia, is a group of over 200 organisations around the world who support a target of 350ppm of carbon dioxide so that our atmosphere is “similar to the one on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted”. The 24th of October is International Day of Climate Action – you can join a local action or register your own here.  Calculate how much carbon dioxide you produce each year using this Energy Requirements Survey.

This post is part of a global project “Blog Action Day 2009” about climate change. From the previous post: More information about Co-generation Plants from the Energy Globe Portal. More on heat-pump technologies, cogeneration and refrigeration research from the Swiss Federal Office of Energy.

Heron Island is a 20-hectare coral cay, 65km east of Gladstone, at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef. Half of the island is a national park, one quarter is the University of Queensland Research Station and one quarter is the Resort. The island can be occupied by up to 400 people at any one time, with up to 200 resort guests, 100 staff and 100 scientists and students at the HIRS. The resort is advertised as an ecotourist destination, with opportunities to swim with sting-rays, reef sharks, sea turtles and other marine life. It is certainly nature-based, with ample bird life, coral reefs teeming with fish and invertebrates and walks through rare Pisonia forest. The island also has extensive opportunities for environmental education with ‘The Heron Gazette’ in every room, daily news leaflets – the ‘Heron Times’- with information about local species and island activities, as well as the well-designed and equipped Information Centre, staffed by friendly and helpful resort employees. The resort holds regular information nights, about the biology of sea turtles or star-watching, as well as daily reef or forest walks or excursions to the Research Station. It also has a popular Junior Ranger program for 7 to 12 year olds. However, is the resort an ecologically sustainable development? I went behind the scenes, to areas that many tourists don’t even think about – the desalination plant, sewerage treatement plant and recycling and waste collection areas to find out.

All the fresh water used on the island is produced from this desalination plant, which pumps water from the sea, filters out particles, including living organisms, and then forces the water through fine membranes. The filters consist of layers of gravel, coarse and fine sand, which remove algae and floating debris. The salty brine is returned to the sea, and the fresh water is pumped up to high storage tanks. The whole process is energy intensive, powered by four huge diesel generators.

Sewerage treatment isn’t something a lot of people like to think about – but imagine what life would be like without it! All the wastewater from the toilets (so-called ‘black’ water) is pumped to concrete sinks, where it is mixed and aerated and then passed into settling ponds. Bacteria consume some of the nutrients, but the remaining sludge is emptied into concrete evaporating ponds, lined with sand. As the water evaporates, the sludge dries and cracks and is eventually shovelled into skips and removed from the island.

This waste, together with food scraps from the kitchen (frozen to prevent putrification) and recyclables (cardboard, glass, aluminium and plastics) must all be shipped off the island and disposed of appropriately. Any waste escaping would provide excessive nutrients to the delicate coral reef ecosystem, causing increased algal growth and disrupting the existing food webs. Transport of people (staff and patrons), products (food, drinks and other consumables, furniture and equipment etc) and waste materials to and from the island requires enormous quantities of fossil fuels.

At present, the island’s energy needs are provided by fossil fuels (diesel and gas), with solar panels for hot water requirements. What further renewable energy sources could be used to  make this development more environmentally sustainable? Geothermal or hydropower are not available and solar PV panels would only be able to supply a small proportion of the island’s energy requirements.

Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation - turning algae grown on sewerage ponds into fuel.

Ecogeneration News - general information about processing biomass for renewable energy.

EM Matters – Solar Energy on Queensland’s Lady Elliot Island and Solar PV Sparkles on Magnetic Island

Earth2Tech – Clean Energy Island – Maldives Goes Carbon Neutral

Energy Island - a world of clean energy and water

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Ecotourism has been defined as  “ecologically sustainable tourism with a primary focus on experiencing natural areas that fosters environmental and cultural understanding, appreciation and conservation”.  Another way of explaining ecotourism is “nature-based tourism that has an educational component and follows sustainability principals with regard to energy and water use, waste reduction and maintaining biodiversity.”

Your task is to plan a holiday to an ecotourist resort, or a trip that includes an ecotourist activity, and identify why it is considered to be ecotourism. Then rate your holiday/activity according to how sustainable it is. You will need to ask questions such as:

• What is their source of energy? Is it renewable?
• Do they emit greenhouse gases or other toxic chemicals?
• Where do they obtain water and is it recycled?
• How do they maintain  or improve biodiversity?
• How do people travel to get there? Is there a carbon-credit system to offset travel?
• How do they manage their wastes – including food packaging and human waste.

Heron Island Resort  (Queensland) , Aquila Eco-lodges  (Victoria) and  the winner of the 2008 Ecotourisn awards, Wayoutback Desert Safaris (Northern Territory), are examples of ecotourist destinations within Australia.

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Over the two week study break and before you return to school on Monday 13th July, you need to have read Chapters 1 and 2 from the “Issues of Sustainability” textbook. This is an introduction to human health and the environmental effects of pollution in the air, water and soil. Try this worksheet to match various terms with their definitions: environmental-pollutants-worksheet.

Use the following to write notes about mercury, sulphur dioxide and fluoride: unit-4-pollutants-table

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23 Brush Tailed Rock Wallabies have recently been released into the Warrambungle National Park, NSW. The captive breeding program has been quite successful in adding numbers to the population, which is close to extinction. The WWF write about the release here. Captive bred individuals have also been released into the Grampians National Park. More information about this species at the Australian Fauna site. Conservation and recovery resources here. Australian government management strategies for the BTRW.

Photo by Dave Watts

97 surveys were conducted in 2007 to record sightings of the bird in the south west of Victoria. OBP’s were sighted at seven sites, with the maximum of nine birds sighted at both Rutledge’s Cutting and Yambuk Lake. The Birds Australia website has the most up-to-date data about OBP sightings from surveys at: http://www.birdsaustralia.com.au/our-projects/orange-bellied-parrot-mainland-recovery.html For example, the data for south-western Victoria Orange Bellied Parrot Surveys Summary for 2007. From these sumary sheets I have compiled the following:

Cartoon Image reproduced with permission from http://www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au/

I love this cartoon by Nicholson, who sketches for the Australian newspaper. It was printed on 22nd June, 2006, when the then Environment Minister, Senator Ian Campbell vetoed a $200 million wind farm development due to the risk to the critically endangered Orange Bellied Parrot. What is the significance of the Red-tailed Black Cockatoo in the cartoon?

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Today we discussed the processes that contribute to variation within a population and how small populations can be vulnerable to inbreeding, genetic swamping and genetic drift. You can find the definitions of these terms in the VAEE glossary, here: glossaryofterms. Genetic drift occurs when harmful alelles are retained in small populations over time, such as when animals are held in captivity. Genetic swamping is the process that occurs two genetically isolated populations come into contact and the genes from a larger population dominate over the genes in the small population, reducing the genetic diversity in the small population.

These beautiful images have been put together by Renata, from the “Back to Nature” group on Slideshare. Many of these species are endangered and all are threatened by climate change. Do you remember the acronym for threatening processes? CHIPPO -

• Climate Change
• Habitat destruction
• Introduced species
• Pest plants
• Pollution
• Overharvesting (fishing, hunting, trapping, shooting, poaching etc)