A carbon protection racket

If your neighbors were making a terrible racket, would you offer to pay them to stop? Of course not. Sure, they'll stop today. But they'll soon be clamoring for more payments.

One of the major features of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill – the ambitious climate change legislation recently passed by the House – offers just such payments. It pays polluting countries not to pollute. And, as with the noisy neighbor, this will just encourage a continuing racket.

Here's the story: India has offered to cap its greenhouse-gas emissions – but only at a level 10 times higher than its own emission rate. China will not accept a cap at all, and at the Major Economies Forum on July 9, China and India even blocked setting a target for world emissions in 2050. This trend confirms that other developing countries will also stick with their anti-cap positions, leaving half the world's emissions unchecked and growing far faster than emissions from the industrialized nations.

The Waxman-Markey bill was supposed to remedy this problem by providing US leadership, which poor nations would follow by accepting caps. But this hope ignored the inequities of caps and ignored the bill's offer of an estimated $13 billion a year – growing to $83 billion annually in 2050 – to buy "international offset credits" from developing countries.

Such offset purchases encourage poor countries not to accept caps. Global cooperation requires a reversal in US climate policy toward developing countries. We must reward cooperation rather than the lack of it.

Buying offset credits pays emitters in developing countries to emit "less than they would have emitted." But implementing a cap cuts back on what "they would have emitted," and reduces their profits from selling offsets.

The House bill did not create this offset problem. The European Union's cap-and-trade scheme has long allowed European companies to buy UN-certified offset credits instead of cutting their own emissions. As Stanford researchers Michael W. Wara and David G. Victor found over a year ago, Europe's offset purchases have not drawn developing countries into "substantial limits on emissions," but have, "by contrast, rewarded them for avoiding exactly those commitments." As a result of this perverse incentive, Europe's cap-and-trade market is considering rules to ban the purchase of UN offset credits from major developing countries.

One of the offset schemes that Europe might ban involves a type of chemical plant found, among other places, in China. While dumping a notorious greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, the plant's owners suggest to the UN that the plant could incinerate the gas instead – if the owners were allowed to sell offsets. The particular gas emitted is 11,700 times worse than carbon dioxide, so naturally the UN agrees that the owners can sell 11,700 tons of emission offsets for every ton of gas incinerated. With offsets worth about $15 a ton, the profits have been enormous.

By purchasing such offsets, Europe pays poor countries not to harm the climate, and the House bill would do the same. Most markets, however, pay for "goods," not for stopping "bads." In the private sector, we call a market for not doing harm a "protection racket." By offering to pay protection money – by buying offset credits – we invite the protection-racket way of thinking into the realm of international negotiations.

For example, if China had committed to even a weak cap or carbon tax, it would have curbed its horrendous chemical-plant emissions. But instead, the Chinese and others have allowed these emissions to continue and have offered to protect the world from them – for a price.

There's nothing wrong with contributing funds to fight climate change in poor countries. They have done little to harm the climate. But our contributions should reward those who commit to join us in the fight. Although China and India are not likely to reconsider caps, there is still hope for a policy that rewards cooperation. Top economists, from N. Gregory Mankiw on the right to Joseph E. Stiglitz on the left, have long recommended a carbon tax as far better than a cap.

Poor countries reject effective caps because they limit their per-person emissions to far less than our own. But carbon taxes lack this offensive inequality. So China, India, and others might well commit to taxing carbon, especially if given some assistance for doing so.

With half the world rejecting caps, we must change course. First, remove the foreign offsets from the Waxman-Markey bill. They cost us dearly and only work against us. Then, devise a policy to reward those who commit to join us. Offering to be the "mark" for a global protection racket is no way to lead the world toward climate stability.

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British Met Office/CRU Finds the Mole

Climate data must be kept secret!

by Steve McIntyre

Late yesterday (Eastern time), I learned that the Met Office/CRU had identified the mole. They are now aware that there has in fact been a breach of security. They have confirmed that I am in fact in possession of CRU temperature data, data so sensitive that, according to the UK Met Office, my being in possession of this data would, “damage the trust that scientists have in those scientists who happen to be employed in the public sector”, interfere with the “effective conduct of international relations”, “hamper the ability to protect and promote United Kingdom interests through international relations” and “seriously affect the relationship between the United Kingdom and other Countries and Institutions.” [Wow! If that's not a confession that they deceive the public about their data, I don't know what would be]

Although they have confirmed the breach of security, neither the Met Office nor CRU have issued a statement warning the public of the newCRU_tar leak. Nor, it seems, have they notified the various parties to the alleged confidentiality agreements that there has been a breach in those confidentiality agreements, so that the opposite parties can take appropriate counter-measures to cope with the breach of security by UK institutions. Thus far, the only actions by either the Met Office or CRU appear to have been a concerted and prompt effort to cover up the breach of security by attempting to eradicate all traces of the mole’s activities. My guess is that they will not make the slightest effort to discipline the mole.

Nor have either the Met Office or CRU contacted me asking me not to further disseminate the sensitive data nor to destroy the data that I have in my possession.

By not doing so, they are surely opening themselves up to further charges of negligence for the following reasons. Their stated position is that, as a “non-academic”, my possession of the data would be wrongful (a position with which I do not agree, by the way). Now that they are aware that I am in possession of the data (and they are aware, don’t kid yourselves), any prudent lawyer would advise them to immediately to notify me that I am not entitled to be in possession of the data and to ask/instruct me to destroy the data that I have in my possession and not to further disseminate the sensitive data. You send out that sort of letter even if you think that the letter is going to fall on deaf ears.

Since I am always eager to help climate scientists with these conundrums, I’ll help them out a little here. If, prior to midnight Eastern time on Thursday, a senior executive of the Met Office or the University of East Anglia notifies me that I am in wrongful possession of the data and directly requests me to destroy my copies of the CRU station data in question and thereby do my part in the avoidance of newCRU_tar proliferation, I will do so.

I will, of course, continue my FOI requests since I do not believe, for a minute, that their excuses have any validity nor am I convinced that the alleged confidentiality agreements actually exist nor, if they exist, am I convinced that they prohibit the provision of the data to me.

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BOOK REVIEW of "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years"

The book has been out for some time but for those who have not had time to read it, the following review by Rachel Alexander may be helpful

S. Fred Singer, a climate physicist, and Dennis T. Avery, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, have written the definitive book about global warming. They carefully explain the complexities and facts so the average person can understand. It is true the earth goes through warming phases, but they are cyclical and not manmade. Climate change is not a dramatic event but something as regular and dull as grass growing. A close look at the evidence reveals that climate change is probably due to variations in the sun’s radiation – sunspots. Global warmings and coolings have occurred regularly about every 1,500 years. The earth’s temperature increased in the early 20th century, before most man-made emissions began, but stopped increasing in the latter half of the century when man-made emissions were highest.

Higher levels of CO2 are not responsible for the current warming trend. Satellite and high-altitude weather balloon data confirm that the lower atmosphere is not trapping lots of additional heat due to higher CO2 concentrations. It is earth’s surface that is warming, and it is warming more rapidly than the lower atmosphere where the CO2 is accumulating.

Global warming alarmists assume that the increase in CO2 is also due to an increase in water vapor. Water vapor makes up about 60% of the natural greenhouse effect, with CO2 only making up about 20%. Minor gases including ozone, nitrous oxide, and methane make up the remaining 20%. If there was only an increase in CO2, the difference in temperature would be miniscule, so alarmists are forced to assume that water vapor is increasing too. North Dakota state climatologist John Bluemle has stated that doubling CO2 levels would have a miniscule effect on temperature. It is true that warmer air can hold more water vapor. But there is no evidence that the water vapor is remaining in the air – contributing to the greenhouse effect - or whether it is raining down more quickly.

Antarctic ice cores reveal that there is a close correlation between CO2 levels and the earth’s temperatures throughout the last three ice ages including global warmings. However, CO2 levels have lagged behind the global warmings by about 800 years, evidence that CO2 is not the causal factor. According to Hulburtus Fischer, an environmental physicist, and his research team from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, when the ocean warms, it releases CO2, stimulating more plant and tree growth. As the vegetation absorbs the additional CO2, it becomes lusher and bigger in size. This process takes approximately 800 years. So in reality, whenever earth’s temperatures have risen, things have improved on earth. A two degrees Celsius change would result in more beneficial conditions than now. “The Romans, Chinese and Medieval Europeans all tell us that the last two warming phases of the 1,500 cycle were prosperous times for humanity…The prosperity of the Medieval Warming is apparent to us today through the beautiful castles and cathedrals of Europe, which date mainly from that period. How could these have been built if the warmings were accompanied by the flooding, epidemics of malaria, massive famine, and constant storms assumed by the gloomy advocates of man-made warming?”

Unlike the computer simulation models environmental alarmists rely upon to create artificial worst-case scenarios, evidence shows that the earth has done a pretty good job regulating its atmospheric temperatures. Studies done by NASA’s Goddard Space Center and a NASA-MIT study in 2001 led by atmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen found that the ocean’s surface temperature always remains at 28-30 degrees Celsius due to self-regulation. When the temperature rises, more water evaporates into the air, which in turn creates more clouds that send cool, dry downdrafts of air that lower the sea temperature. “When the clouds deposit the increased moisture from that rapid evaporation on polar ice caps and glaciers around the world, the ice caps and glaciers will actually grow unless the local temperatures are warm enough to increase local melting.”

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is responsible for much of the global warming alarmism. It has been highly criticized by genuine scientific organizations like the International Union for Quanternary Research (INQUA). INQUA is a 75-year old scientific think tank that researches global environmental and climate changes throughout history. INQUA asserts that the IPCC ignored the scientists who produced most of the data and observations on sea level science, substituting computer models which produce “the falsification of scientific observational facts.”

The IPCC and its simulated computer models cannot explain why the earth became colder between 1940-1975. The frequently cited landmark 1996 global warming report issued by the IPCC simply omitted the portions contributed by scientists which expressed skepticism about global warming, instead relying principally upon the writings of global alarmist extremists like scientist Ben Santer of the U.S. government’s Lawrence Livermore National Library. Sentences like this were deleted from the report by Santer, “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed [climate] changes to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gases.”

There is plenty of evidence indicating that the earth has not been warming in recent years. The Indian Ocean’s level was higher between 1900-1970 than it is today. The Maldives, 1,200 islands which sit in the Indian Ocean, are 20-30 cm lower today than they were in 1970. Lester R. Brown, an agricultural economist who has made wrong predictions about world famines since the 1960s, claims that First World countries are flooding the Pacific Islands due to greenhouse gases from power plants. In reality, since 1993, the island of Tuvalu has seen ocean levels decrease by four inches.

The environmental extremists’ simulated computer models can be manipulated to generate any outcome wished. They are even further askew considering they are based on thermometers located in urban areas where there is a concrete jungle effect, increasing temperatures and overstating surface temperature increases by as much as 40 percent. Using the models’ conclusions, there should have been a rise of several degrees Celsius at the poles since 1940. In reality, the temperature at both poles has been decreasing. Temperatures at and near the North and South poles are lower than they were in 1930. This is evidence the Greenhouse Theory is not correct, because manmade emissions began dramatically increasing around 1940. In fact, 97% of the Antarctic has been cooling since the mid-1960’s. Alarmists point to the 3% that is warming because that is where most of the scientists and thermometers are, and it reinforces their Greenhouse Theory.

If the earth warms, wetlands won’t dry up. They will simply move slightly upslope, as they have in years past when the climate warmed. Similarly, animals will change locations and relocate to areas most conducive to their habitat. By the time Arctic regions have warmed enough to shift penguins and polar bears around, they will begin cooling again and the animals will shift back to their previous habitats, without causing any extinction. Glaciers also naturally shift around, which includes both retreating and growing. Physicist and meteorologist professor Johann Oerlemans of Utrecth University in the Netherlands produced a graph in 2001 which showed that the major glaciers of the world started to shrink around 1850, but by 1940 only half of them were still shrinking, and many of them had started to grow again.

The U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol was little more than a scam designed to punish wealthier countries. It did not enforce restrictions upon big developing countries like China and India, which refused to sign it. The only evidence provided for the Protocol was that the temperature of the earth had increased by .6 Celsius over the last century (conveniently omitting that the increases had mostly been during the first forty years of the century), along with simulated computer models that created any conclusions chosen to be programmed.

Global warming extremists like to point to the “Scientists Statement on Global Climatic Disruption” petition from the group Ozone Action as evidence that a majority of scientists believe manmade global warming is occurring. It was signed by 2,611 scientists worldwide in 1996 and sent to President Clinton. But according to Citizens for a Sound Economy, only about 10 percent of the signers had degrees in fields related to climate science – about 260 signers total. The signers included landscape architects, psychologists, a traditionally trained Chinese doctor, and a gynecologist.

On the other hand, these extremists ignore the Oregon Petition, which was signed by more than 17,000 scientists and expressed doubt about man-made global warming. More than 2,600 of its signers have climate science credentials. Global warming extremists tried to discredit it by saying a few of the signers were fake names, but there were only a few and were probably planted there by extremists in order to later discredit the petition.

In 2001, the IPCC issued a report that included a “hockey stick” graph showing global warming trends since the year 1000. The graph eliminated the Little Ice Age which occurred during the 17th and 19th centuries, and exaggerated the increase in global warming in the 20th century, making it appear as if this was the highest hike in global warming in the past 1000 years. This graph was discredited when it was pointed out that the earth’s warming in the early 15th century greatly exceeded any warming in the 20th century.

There was also a greater warming at the beginning of the last 1000 years. About the time the Vikings discovered Newfoundland, they also discovered “Vinland,” so named in 1001 A.S. due to the widespread growth of grape vines. This area has remained too cold to sustain grape vines, even up until today when environmental extremists tell us we are experiencing a dramatic increase in global warming unprecedented in the last 1000 years.

Sallie Baliunus, an astrophysicist with a degree from Harvard, and Willie Soon, also an astrophysicist, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, looked at 102 studies which analyzed whether the 20th century was the warmest, and found that 78% of them did not. Another four studies found that the earliest part of the 20th century was the warmest – before most manmade CO2 emissions.

Global warming alarmists warn that animal species will die out as the earth warms. In reality, not a single species has become extinct due to the .6 percent increase in the earth’s temperature over the past 150 years. Most alarmists point to a single species they claim has become extinct due to global warming, the Golden Toad of Costa Rica. In reality, the toad became extinct due to clearing by natives of the lowlands it inhabited. Overall, there are less species becoming extinct today than in the past. The United Nations Environmental Program issued a report in 2002 which found that the world lost only half as many major species during the last 30 years of the 20th century as it did during the last 30 years of the 19th century.

The artificial divide set up by global warming extremists between the underdeveloped countries and First World developed countries falsely portrays industrialized countries as the ones responsible for air pollution. The environmental movement uses an emotional argument to make people feel guilty about its wealth. In reality, “richer people have f children, feed themselves with much less land per capital, gradually but largely reduce industrial pollution, generally plant more trees than they cut, do most of the research on environmental preservation, and make most of the investments in actual conservation.” Whereas “primitive peoples have never ‘lived in harmony with nature’ as the urban legend would have us believe. They have, instead, exploited nature unsustainably because their populations always crept upward to the absolute limits of their resources – and then beyond…today [they] practice slash-and burn farming, cook and heat with wood from trees they don’t replant….”

Global warming alarmists never discuss using nuclear power, the only non-CO2 producing energy alternative that would be a cost-effective alternative to today’s energy uses. Unfortunately, activist lawsuits have driven up the costs of nuclear regulation. It is possible however; France currently gets about ¾ of its energy from nuclear reactors. Many of the environmentalists’ proposed energy solutions wouldn’t work. For example, to convert energy use to rely upon windmills, a landmass the size of South Africa would have to be cleared of all forests in order to install enough windmills. And that wouldn’t even cover the cloudy/windless/high-wind days.

There will always be environmental alarmists. In 1975, environmental alarmists warned that the earth was cooling. The National Academy of Scientists issued a report claiming “…a finite possibility that a serious worldwide cooling could befall the Earth within the next 100 years…”

It’s better to look at rocks, fossils, and sediment cores as more reliable predictors of climate temperature than simulated computer models. They reveal that there is a correlation between variations in the sun’s irradiation and the earth’s temperature. When there are larger sunspots, the earth’s temperature increases, and visa versa. In addition, some of the increased temperatures may be artificially due to urban heat islands, since the vast majority of higher temperatures have been reported in industrialized areas.

The authors conclude:

Human society should attempt to put binding constraints on human emissions of greenhouse gases only if the advocates of man-made warming can demonstrate three things:

1. That the greenhouse gases are certain to raise global temperatures significantly higher than they rose during previous natural climate warming cycles;

2. That the warming would severely harm human welfare and the ecology;

3. That rational human actions could actually forestall such overheating.

To date, the advocates of man-made warming have not been able to meet any of these minimum requirements. The IPCC’s claim to have found the ‘human fingerprint’ in the Modern Warming was bogus when Ben Santer first altered the science chapter in the IPCC’s 1996 report, and it remains bogus today. No one has been able to distinguish natural from man-made warming.

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British Air passenger tax is just another burden for families that will stop those nasty average people from messing up tourist spots

WITH so much grim news at home, from the recession to swine flu, plenty of us are hoping that summer holidays will be a much needed respite from the doom and gloom. Unfortunately, even when we try to get away from it all and take a holiday, the Government uses that as another excuse to raid our bank account. Last summer, the TaxPayers' Alliance revealed that a family of four travelling to Florida for a summer holiday faced a £200 tax bill before they even got on the aircraft.

Part of that big tax bill is the Air Passenger Duty (APD) that is charged on airline tickets. You would hope that the Government might try to help out and cut the burden on ordinary families when the country is in recession. Since 2006, however, APD for one-way, short-haul flights to Europe has doubled to £10 and it is set to rise to £12 by the end of next year – that means we'll have had a 140 per cent increase in four years.

This week we've discovered that APD isn't just pushing up the cost of travelling abroad. It is also contributing to a cut in the number of flights available, making it less likely that we can go where we want, when we want. The no-frills airline Ryanair, Europe's largest operator, has announced that it is to cut flights from UK airports. These cuts, which amount to a 40 per cent reduction in capacity, are most likely to fall on London Stansted, the start of many families' holidays.

Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's chief executive, blamed the "Scottish misers", as he described the Chancellor and Prime Minister, and said the move was a protest against plans to increase Air Passenger Duty on short flights, which he branded "insane and damaging". It is not just Ryanair which has criticised excessive APD rates. Easyjet, Ryanair's chief rival, has attacked the tax, branding it "certifiably bonkers".

Virgin Atlantic has also come out against the tax and started printing anti-APD messages on their e-tickets. BALPA, the airline pilots' union, has said that the rise will cripple the industry and put long-haul holidays out of reach of ordinary families while the Association of British Travel Agents has said the rise in APD will have a substantial impact on the airline industry.

Attacking the airlines like this will have serious consequences for the British economy. Ryanair's cuts are set to cost 2,500 jobs – from its own staff and among workers such as baggage handlers.

Air Passenger Duty isn't just hurting airlines and travel agents. With the pound so low against the dollar and euro, we should be attracting more tourists, but visits from abroad are down by 32.8 million. Big taxes on flights put off people from visiting the UK.

Ironically, earlier rises in APD probably increased emissions from air travel. Air Passenger Duty encourages people to fly further within its "bands", to Sydney instead of New York or the south of Italy instead of the north of France for example, and that means higher emissions. That issue has been addressed to a certain extent by the new bands introduced this year, but it is still doing little to reduce emissions.

There are other anomalies, too. For example the distance is measured to each country's capital city, so flights to Barbados, an eight-hour flight from London, are charged at a higher rate than flights to Los Angeles, which is 11 hours away. That can mean punishing extra bills for families – for example a family of four travelling to Egypt, just a couple of hours from Europe, will pay an extra £240 from 2010.

APD is supposed to be a green tax designed to correct negative externalities. Put simply, the Government makes polluters pay for the costs they impose on everyone else by increasing the level of climate change in the years to come, that way they will only pollute if the benefits of doing so really outweigh the costs.

TaxPayers' Alliance research has shown that we are already being charged more than we should in green taxes to compensate for the greenhouse gases that Britain produces. The Department for Transport itself has produced research which shows taxes on flights are higher than necessary to compensate for the environmental harm created by aircrafts' emissions.

It is clear that Air Passenger Duty is functioning not as a green tax but as another means to raise revenue. All that is achieved by increasing the cost of air travel is to make it harder for ordinary families to enjoy a much-needed break, as the higher taxes mean not just more expensive flights but fewer options over when and where to fly.

It really is sad that the people who suffer the most are those who were able to enjoy foreign holidays for the first time when budget airlines made them affordable.

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Some wind power disillusionment from Britain

An aquarium in Devon has taken down two wind turbines after seagulls were killed when they collided with the blades.

The 15m (50ft) high 6kW turbines at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth were installed in 2006 for a £3.6m sustainable energies project. But the Hoe-based attraction has taken them down after several birds died, it said. The aquarium also said they had not produced as much electricity as hoped.

Caroline Johnson, of the aquarium, said: "The major problems included where they were positioned. "The eddying effect of the wind meant they weren't producing as much energy as they potentially could have. "The loss of life of seagulls flying into the turbines was also a problem and, following a gale, the turbines were damaged."

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Australia: Greenie sewage scheme stinks

Google is on the nose with the workers and residents of Pyrmont, and it’s got nothing to do with the quality of its products. A mystery pong has been lingering around the harbourside Sydney suburb for weeks. The epicentre of the offensive odour appears to be the sewer mining facility connected to Google's new Sydney headquarters, which produces recycled water for toilet flushing and irrigation of the site.

The stench is impossible to avoid for anyone working or living around the Darling Island wharf or Star City casino. For many workers at Pyrmont-based companies including Fairfax Media, Google, Seven Network and Accenture, eating lunch by the water has become a hazard best avoided. ‘‘It honestly smells like something has died - I haven’t smelled anything like that since a sewerage pipe burst in my neighbour’s house,’’ an office worker said. Another said: ‘‘We decided it smells like dead bodies buried by the Mafia and coming up to the surface.’’ ‘‘It’s gross, and kind of turns me off the whole recycled water thing,’’ said another.

The stench is particularly offensive in the early morning and early evening but it has also put the kybosh on some midday exercise and sports sessions in the nearby park. Google initially blamed a Sydney Water vent located a few metres from its building but a Sydney Water spokesman said it had not determined the exact source of the smell. Later, a Google spokeswoman said: ‘‘It’s a bit of a mystery to us Pyrmont residents. We’re definitely downwind from something whiffy. Sydney Water tells us they’re looking into it - and we’re holding our breath.’’

The Sydney Water spokesman all but pointed the finger at the sewage recycling facility connected to Google’s headquarters. ‘‘Sydney Water’s sewer is functioning normally with no interruption to the natural flow. It’s also worth pointing out that our nearby sewage pumping station does not store waste water for any length of time,’’ the spokesman said.

GPT Group, which owns the innovative building that houses Google, named workplace 6, appeared to take responsibility for the pong, saying: ‘‘We’ve undertaken significant work to address the problem to date’’ and promising to ‘‘continue to work to resolve the issue’’. ‘‘There’s the Sydney Water [sewerage] plant and then there’s the plant that’s connected to our building ... my understanding is it’s that connection that’s the problem,’’ the GPT spokesman said.

The issue is particularly worrying for food-catering company Doltone House, which plans to open a cafe, food and wine emporium and conference centre in workplace 6 in October. The smell could turn customers off, particularly those seated outside. ‘‘We understand that GPT, the building owner, has it under control and is in the process of having it rectified,’’ Doltone House project manager David Hume said.

Michael Mobbs, a sustainability coach who helps businesses with environmental issues such as this, blamed the expensive, over-the-top sewage recycling facility connected to Google’s headquarters. He called it ‘‘the caviar approach to sewage treatment’’ and said a much simpler, cheaper system would have done the job far more effectively. ‘‘They’ve got this rocket-science filtration system - it’s basically a mini desal plant which is so fussy and fiddly that it requires almost a full-time maintenance person to adjust it as the stuff gets caught up in the very fine filters,’’ he said. ‘‘The same sort of system kept failing in Melbourne.’’

Complicating matters further is the fact that some Pyrmont residents have reported experiencing similar foul smells in the area for some years, long before Google’s new office opened earlier this year. It’s not clear whether or not there are multiple sources of the odour but Sydney Water said it starting investigating foul smells in the area only after workplace 6 opened and the building’s management raised the issue.

The Sydney Water spokesman said both it and the building’s management had conducted gas monitoring on the site but they had yet to sit down and compare results. ‘‘We will establish the cause as soon as possible,’’ he said.

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