(Sustainable) Fish Recipe

Make this its good.....

Char-grilled salmon with corn salsa

Ingredients
1 cob corn
1 smallish avocado, diced
Some lemon juice (2 lemons)
1 small ripe tomato, chopped
1 tbs finely chopped red onion
Some coriander leaves (can substitute with flat leaf parsely)
2 tsp Moroccan seasoning*
Dash of Olive Oil
2 reasonable sized salmon fillets, skin removed (the easiest way to remove skin from salmon is to ask the fishmonger to do it for you when you purchase the fish or you can do what I did and struggle with a crap knife for 20 mins)
Baby spinach leaves or Roquette(to serve)

Method
1. Blanche corn in boiling water until tender. Set aside to cool slightly.

2. Cut the corn from the cob, Place the avocado and lemon juice into a medium bowl and toss to coat. Add the warm corn, tomato, red onion add coriander leaves and toss gently to combine. Season to taste.

3. Heat a barbecue or char-grill pan over a medium heat. Sprinkle salmon with Moroccan seasoning*, salt and pepper and spray with cooking oil spray. Cook for 4 to 5 minutes on each side or until cooked to your liking, being careful not to burn as the seasoning colours quickly. Place salmon on plates, serve with salsa and accompany with spinach leaves or roquette.


Though the Australian Marine Conservation Society recommend using these fish:

Blue Grenadier (Hoki)
Barramundi
Blue-eye Trevalla (Blue-eye cod, Big eye, Deep sea trevalla)
Bream
Yellowfin tuna
Flathead
King George whiting (spotted whiting, SA whiting ­ but avoid WA-caught fish, as the fishery is closed)
Whiting (school, sand, trumpeter, yellowfin)
Mackerel
Mullet (bluetail, fantail, flicker, yellow eye)
Ling (pink ling, rock ling)
Snapper (red bream, cockney, squire)
Tailor (bluefish, skipjack)
Coral trout (various species)

You can buy their complete guide for $10 and support their work (see the link at the top).


*Make your own Moroccan seasoning
5 teaspoons grated nutmeg
5 teaspoons ground cumin
5 teaspoons ground coriander
2-1/2 teaspoons ground allspice
2-1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1-1/4 teaspoons Cayenne pepper
1-1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Some Exciting Developments

I went to a conference last week on Energy Developments in my state of Victoria.

The old
Currently we produce the most carbon emissions per capita in a state that is in the country that produces the most emissions per capita. And the brown coal power stations in the LaTrobe Valley are the most polluting. Brown coal makes up between 90 and 95% of our total energy output. So everytime you turn on a light in Melbourne or most of Victoria 9 10ths of that energy comes from burning coal the remaining 10th comes from a combination of hydro, gas, wind and a tiny amount of solar. It just seems like something from the 1900's.

The new
Its funny even though the conference was about Energy - everyone who spoke at the conference focused on climate change and the Energy sector's response to it. The guys from the coal fired power stations talked about their ongoing efficiency efforts and technology they are testing to dry their coal (which reduces emissions) and capture CO2. A guy from Origin talked about the (very real) possibility of geosequestration of CO2 in the Bass Strait Oil and Gas fields (ie injecting the C02 where oil and gas used to be under the sea). A Spanish company Acciona is building their largest wind-farm near Ballarat - and also launching the largest "sostenibilidad" campaign ever by a corporate (see the link).

The future
And most exciting of all was the talk by Solar Systems - an Australian company that could revolutionise the production of solar energy. The efficiency of most PV systems is crap - so much so that to power Australia we would need to cover a good proportion of Victoria with PV cells to produce all the energy we need. These guys have developed a revolutionary system over the last 15 years which uses heliostats (funky mirrors) to focus the Sun 500 times onto very small PV cells. This can increase the efficiency of a PV cell up to 1500 times the average. Their intellectual property (IP)is really the box that surrounds the PV cell as this cools the air around the cell to 60C but still allows the reflection of the suns rays to produce energy. This revolutionary technology has the ability to be upscaled initially to be a 154MW powerstation (about 10% of the size of a large coal or nuclear plant)and depending on reducing cost and improving efficiency; Dave Holland the CEO of Solar Sytems suggests there might be 5000MW of these solar reflector power stations built in Australia in the next 25 years. And on his numbers it seems reasonably feasible - as long as we get a price on carbon. He has also been talking to the Chinese who are also very keen on the technology. Although he has reservations about the Chinese possibly stealing his IP (as they have done in the past to others). He presented the company's proposal to the Chinese Energy Minister a week before he later went with other Australian delegates and the Australian Government to a presentation by the same Chinese Minister on the future of energy. During the Chinese Minister's presentation he used some pictures from a slide that Dave had shown him a week earlier. After the presentation he went to talk with the Chinese about his problems about them using his pictures in their presentation. He spoke through an interpreter and the Chinese Minister claimed he did not understand Dave's concerns. I have attached an artist impression picture of what the power station might look like (thanks to the Chinese Energy Minister!)

carbon neutral 2006 word of the year

The lexicographers at Oxford University press have named their "word of the year" (but carbon neutral is really two words).

This proves two things to me - I am a nerd as I am posting a link to a blog about dictionaries but I'm forward looking and one of the "cool kids"...

Being carbon neutral involves calculating your total climate-damaging carbon emissions, reducing them where possible, and then balancing your remaining emissions, often by purchasing a carbon offset: paying to plant new trees or investing in “green” technologies such as solar and wind power.

The rise of carbon neutral reflects the growing importance of the green movement in the United States. In a CBS News/New York Times Poll in May 2006, 66% of respondents agreed that global warming is a problem that’s causing a serious impact now. 2006 also saw the launch of a new (and naturally, carbon neutral) magazine about eco-living, Plenty; the actor Leonardo DiCaprio is planning a environmentally-themed reality TV series about an eco-village; and colleges from Maine to Wisconsin are pledging to be carbon neutral within five years. It’s more than a trend, it’s a movement.

Erin McKean, editor in chief of the New Oxford American Dictionary 2e, said “The increasing use of the word carbon neutral reflects not just the greening of our culture, but the greening of our language. When you see first graders trying to make their classrooms carbon neutral, you know the word has become mainstream.”

“All the Oxford lexicographers look forward to choosing the Word of the Year. We know that people love fun, flashy words like truthiness or the latest Bushism, but we are always looking for a word that is both reflective of the events and concerns of the past year and also forward-looking: a word that we think will only become more used and more useful as time goes on.”


If making the world a better place isn't enough of a reason for you to become carbon neutral, consider doing it because the cool kids are. Al Gore, Rupert Murdoch, and the Rolling Stones are all advocates of being carbon neutral.

Al Gore, Rupert Murdoch and the Rolling Stones are hardly the cool kids, but I guess you have to take what you can get. Though I had no idea that Leonardo DiCaprio was planning on making a TV show based on an eco-village ( me thinks that will be a bit crap).....

Paying People To Do Nothing

I know it sounds a little crazy - but I met a guy who is planning to do just that in Queensland. The idea is simply that you pay land owners not to clear their land and buy the carbon credits off them for not doing it. Mark Jackson (not Jacko) has done a lot of work with farmers and landowners in Queensland in the last couple of years - calculating their carbon stores, working with them and lawyers to draft appropriate land use agreements and selling their credits to companies who want to buy them. The outcome of this transaction is that the company who buys the credits then owns the plant life on the property for a given period; with appropriate safeguards and legal remedies should a future owner look to subsequently clear the land. I understand he is very close to announcing this publically.
The reason for the existence of this project was a clause in the Kyoto agreement signed back in 1997 which allowed developed countries with net land clearance emissions in the baseline year (1990 from memory) to claim avoided land clearing as a valid emission reduction. Australia was the only developed country that was a net land clearer in 1990. And for this reason Australia might meet its 108% of 1990 emissions target in 2012, but that is a discussion for another post.
Now while this is a little dodgy - the fact that the Australian government never ratified the treaty is probably dodgier. And the ramifications of the work that Mark is doing in Queensland is quite positive. This kind of project gives a clear direction to developing countries such as Brazil, Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica - where avoided land clearance could give them a cheap source of emission reduction in the post-Kyoto carbon market. This would also be great for some of the other harder to measure aspects of avoided land clearance such as the halt in the loss of biodiversity in these regions.
However, as many of these regions are rainforest that are extremely carbon rich and the farmers who own this land are often very poor - this could become a very cheap source of carbon credits. Developed countries could then buy these cheap credits to offset their emissions from fossil fuel energy use and delay spending on more expensive measures such as renewable energy development (currently Kyoto-ratified developed countries can source emission reduction units from developing countries from projects such as methane capture and flaring, hydro electricity and wind-farms). This is one of the many issues to be ironed out before we reach a post-Kyoto agreement.

Rupert is behind the curve

It seems Uncle Rupert is coming around to climate change. However, in Australia many enlightened corporates have been working on the proviso that Australia will be part of a carbon trading regime at some point in the future. John Howard and others have not wanted to embrace this idea for idealogical reasons - many conservatives see the greens as the antipathy of the world they inhabit. But business and environmental action are moving closer together every day. However, increasingly it appears to most that it is the Coaltion government that is out of step with business and the community on this issue. Spending $500m picking new technology winners - while it helps to unearth some excting projects - is bad policy and bad economics. An enquiry into nuclear power instead of an enquiry into all possible options to combat climate change seems myopic at best. As for the economics of nuclear power, it seems unproven to most who know the energy industry. The fact that Australia lacks any uranium enrichment facilities, people with skills in the construction, maintenance and operation of nuclear power plants or any proven means of disposal of nuclear waste should ring alarm bells. Its a dangerous 1950's idea based on 1970's technology. Australia should be leading the way in the development of new exciting and clean means of producing energy. Geothermal or Hot Rocks technology is moving ahead with little or no government support. Reflective Solar, Solar Tower, Offshore Wind and advanced fuel cell technology all show promise for providing alternative energy solutions for future generations. But we need a market mechanism to make investing in these technologies make sense. Yes that means that our energy costs will go up. Yes we should insulate our exporting industries. By embracing carbon trading and a renewable energy future we become part of the next wave of technological innovation and new industries that many Australians would very much like to be a part of. I mean who really wants to live in the country with the highest per capita emissions of carbon dioxide?
By the way check the link - gotta love "The Sun"

The Activity Gap

It is funny how much effect the Stern Report has had on the debate about Climate Change in Australia over the last week - its gone crazy mate. Coupled with the drought, it seems all those climate change skeptics are now becoming quite isolated. Though what I would say about the recent hysteria - while I think that global warming is real and is due in part to an anthropogenic effect (ie we done it) - I don't know how much we can really do to change it. Our lifestyles are so intertwined with the burning of carbon based fuels that it will take massive changes in attitude to be able to turn our emitting around. All the talk of climate change from pundits and politicians is just that - talk. What we are facing now is what some are calling "the activity gap". People believe that they ought to do something about climate change but only very few end up buying green power, ditching the car for a bike, stop flying internationally (the hardest thing for me to give up actually), buying food and drink that is sourced from close to home (within a hundred clicks) to name a few things they will have to do to turn climate change around. And it will cost more to be green. I'm currently writing a guide on buying green power in Australia - I might share it with you soon - its a complicated area.