As Ross Garnaut’s report last week shows, even the economists are now convinced that we must act quickly to avoid environmental disaster.

But what does that mean? What must we do?

The first step, as always, is to equip ourselves with the knowledge we will need, to meet this challenge.

So a paper the Australian Bureau of Statistics is planning to release tomorrow should be particularly interesting.

We all know that the world can’t continue to rely on dirty, coal fired power stations for ever. Yet coal exports are one of Australia’s biggest exports.

And coal still provides most of Australia’s electricity.

But what are the alternatives?

That, hopefully, is what the Statistician will address tomorrow, in a very timely paper the bureau is planning to release then.

It’s a new publication.

The research paper will be called “Developing an Alternative View of Electricity and Gas Supply Activity in Australia.”

In less urgent times, it probably wouldn’t get much attention.

But, with environmental disaster looming, it should be a big mover.

You will be able to get your copy, free, by going to www.abs.gov.au after 11.30 am tomorrow (Tuesday). The catalogue number you will need is 4647.0.55.001

The final full stop, which would otherwise have been at the end of the last sentence, has been deliberately omitted, to avoid confusion.