[LINK] Garnaut Climate Change Report misses role of information

Tom Worthington Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au
Fri Jul 4 23:10:46 AEST 2008


The Garnaut Climate Change Review Draft Report, was released today at 
the National Press Club. There is a Media Release with a summary 
(PDF, 312kb) and the full Draft Report of 548 pages (13.5Mb of PDF): 
<http://www.garnautreview.org.au/CA25734E0016A131/pages/draft-report>. 
Public forums about the report will be held in Perth, Adelaide, 
Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane from next week.

One of the key messages of the report is that a way must be found to 
decouple economic development from fossil fuels. One of the obvious 
ways to do this is with the commerce of information, not physical 
goods. Unfortunately this is something Professor Garnaut has not grasped.

The report itself fails to use efficient online techniques to reduce 
the environmental footprint of its distribution and allow more public 
consultation. The report is formatted as relatively inefficient PDF 
(about ten times larger than it need be) and so will itself 
contribute to the greenhouse effect. Also the public forums are only 
being held in a few locations, requiring those in outlying areas to 
consume fossil fuels to attend, with no online forum.

The lack of understanding of the role of electronic communications in 
sustainable development is illustrated by the notation in the PDF 
version of the document, which claims that it is "... printed on 
9Lives 80, a paper composed of 80 per cent post-consumer fibre and 20 
per cent totally chlorine-free pulp ..." and "All inks used in the 
printing of this report are vegetable based". Neither of these claims 
is true, as the electronic document is composed of bits of 
information, with no particular physical form. Very few of the people 
reading the report will ever see one of the small number of paper 
copies produced. Understanding that will be key to the solution to 
climate change.

For those wanting a quick look, without having to download large PDF 
documents, I have extracted the text of the media release and table 
of contents of the full report:

* Media release: 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2008/07/garnaut-climate-change-review-draft.html#release>
* Table of Contents: 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2008/07/garnaut-climate-change-review-draft.html#contents>



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University  




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