Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for July 2005

Aussie Canola Contaminated by GM Material

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Traces of a GM material known as Topas 19/2 were have been found in Victorian canola ready for export.

GM canola was approved by the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator in Canberra sometime ago for commercial production in Australia. However, bans on GM food crops introduced by State Governments have prevented the legal commercial production of GM canola. GM canola is grown overseas including in Canada, the US and Argentina.

It is unclear how the Australian canola became contaminated.

Bayer has field trials of GM canola in Victoria. However, the Topas 19/2 is apparently not consistent with the GM material in the canola being grown in trials by Bayer in Australia at the moment – though was in trials grown prior to 1998.

While investigations continue, perhaps the more likely explanation is that the contamination is from an Australian breeding program. There are apparently a number of different companies that breed and sell canola seed in Australia – but not Bayer (because state governments have banned their GM product). Anyway these breeding program exchange material with overseas companies and it is possible that in an exchange of germplasm the impurity/the Topas 19/2 was introduced.

Topas 19/2 includes a gene from a soil bacteria that confers herbicide resistance. The same gene, known as the pat gene has been used as a marker in a wide range of research in a variety of crops around the world. The pat gene is a Bayer creation.

According to Greenpeace Campaigner Jeremy Tager, Bayer should take responsibility for the organism it created. Do you reckon we should get Jeremy’s Mum to take more responsibility for the campaigns he runs?

Bayer media release: http://www.bayercropscience.com.au/news/index.asp?id=20050714GMTraces3

Greenpeace media release:
http://www.greenpeace.org.au/media/ge_canola_details.php?site_id=55&news_id=1728

ABC online:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200507/s1416183.htm

New Pro-GM Network Establishes

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Some months ago grain and oilseed growers from West Australia, dried fruit, dairy, grain and beef producers from Victoria, and cotton, grain, cattle, sheep and oilseed growers from New South Wales and Queensland got together in Canberra to talk about GM issues.

They formed a network with the following vision and aim:

Our vision is “To ensure timely access to agricultural biotechnologies for the economic, social and environmental benefit of all Australians”.

Our aim is “To promote informed discussion and decision making on agricultural biotechnology between rural and metropolitan communities and decision makers, for the benefit of all Australians, to ensure rural viability, environmental sustainability, and consumer and producer choice”.

They can be contacted at info@producersforum.net.au .

A founding member has written:

We are driven by frustration at the attitude towards GM crops of some of the major commodity companies and State Governments in Australia, and feel that Australia is missing out on possibly the most beneficial technical advance the world has ever seen. Australian farmers have stayed viable by being at the forefront of technology adoption on a very uneven global playing field, and we are now being forced to abstain from possibly the most important technology in our lifetime.

Global Warming Skeptics in Denial?

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I received the following email from a Fletcher Christian. In some of the email exchange associated with getting his approval to post this comment he signed off “Gotta go put Bligh in the long boat.”

Anway, he clearly believes that readers of this web-log are not getting the whole story when it comes to global warming/climate change.

And he writes:

“I note only that mainly anto-global warming dissent gets reported on your blog and any pro-evidence is discarded. Seems pretty selective.

It’s also fascinating to see how “certain” all the anti’s are in this debate; and how the any “uncertainty or caveats” from proponents is jumped on as AHA ! – WEAKNESS.

I’m sure you’re not concerned about what happening out there is terms of temperature changes, freak weather, species movements and Arctic melt.

I’m sure there’s a perfectly rational alternative explanation – it’s just that nobody has come up with one yet. Nor cited any mechanisms except the climate has changed in the past so….

umm …errr… that must be it – yea that’s it….

But we all know what IT COULDN’T POSSIBLY BE true don’t we. We’re all sooooo sure.

Anyway on a few comments to various classics that do the rounds on your blog. And most anti sites.

10,000 years between ice ages. Sorry – wrong – 50,000 to 100,000 years for next one – see NOAA’s site for some intelligent papers on the subject.

10,000 years is a persistent urban myth from mis-reporting popular press of the 1970s – the science journals haven’t said ice age.

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html See the references quoted within.

Hockey stick – note you guys have given up on this since the independent confirmation – see as usual proponents turn to http://www.realclimate.org for the news.

and we find – http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2005/ammann.shtml hmmm independent verification – whoops…

anyway that will start you all up again. But remember even if the hockey stick was wrong – who cares. But it ain’t…

On Landsea doing a dummy spit. Well boo hoo. Pity he didn’t hang in and help the process.

But it is interesting that we have had those record breaking 300 km/hr plus storms in the Pacific and off WA in recent years.

And gee that South Atlantic storm (hurricane) certainly looked weird.

And did you note our recent tropical cyclone Ingrid’s speed and track – 300 km/hr again and very unusual track across the top.

And have you wondered where all the coast crossing Qld cyclones have gone.

And strangely despite some commentators saying our annual rainfall has increased (well maybe our average overall may have – what a useless statistic)

But everywhere people live and we have agriculture – SW WA, eastern Australia, SE SA, eastern Tasmania, central Queensland seems to have dried up over decades.

Where has all the rainfall gone ?

Any mechanisms come to mind – perhaps annular mode changes in Antartica.

Journal of Climate: Vol. 14, No. 10, pp. 2238�2249

Science, Vol 296, Issue 5569, 895-899 , 3 May 2002

Nah – couldn’t be – it will just be one of those coincidences.

and nothing on those physics stories that confirm the greenhouse flux is pretty well what you’d expect

http://www.iup.uni-heidelberg.de/institut/studium/lehre/Uphysik_Litertur/scholl.ppt
– whoa there – let’s not get technical now.

And nothing on the latest Scripps ocean studies
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4275729.stm

And if anyone says – all the models are wrong without some reasoned comment we’ll all be very cross.

And is anyone says cities have warmed and the heat island effect etc we’ll be evener crosser…. yes they don’t use city data. Jeez.

And no mention of the Christy satellite data story getting reviewed with some different findings.
http://www.climateark.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=36988

No mention of Wall St journal getting it totally wrong.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?s=wall+st

or Crichton’s State of Fear book telling a few porkies
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74

or Bellamy going berserk and getting his maths wrong
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2005/05/10/junk-science/

And also no mention of Oliver North type in the Whitehouse editing the climate change documents from IPCC to water things down ….

Here’s the rebuttal story – yep I believe it – sure ….. http://www.waterconserve.info/articles/reader.asp?linkid=30672

Anyway off to check my oil shale shares, through another whale steak on the barby, and have a fag (smoking doesn’t cause cancer – I simply don’t believe it so it must be wrong).

What’s whale taste like – stronger than dolphin but not as tough as koala. 🙂

Fletcher”

end of message.

There looks like a fair bit of reading at the end of some of those links. Thanks Fletcher for taking the time to compile all this information.

New Coral Reef from Global Warming?

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Scientists believe they have discovered proof that global warming has altered Tasmania’s marine environment. So begins one of today’s stories at ABC Online, that continues …

A group of biologists from the Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute has found a shallow reef extensively covered by coral at the Kent Group Marine Protected Area near Flinders Island off the north-east of Tasmania.

Coral reefs only survive in warmer waters and are usually found in tropical areas such as Queensland.

The senior biologist who discovered the reef, Neville Barrett, believes it is evidence that rising water temperatures are having an impact on the marine environment.

John McLean has responded with a letter to the Editor of ABC Online. The letter begins with a comment about “sloppy journalism at its worst” and then makes the following 7 points:

1. Data from the UK’s Climate Research Unit shows that Southern Hemisphere
temperatures are less than 0.4 degrees C above their 1961-90
average. WARMING IS LARGELY A NORTHERN HEMISPHERE PHENOMENON (despite
carbon dioxide being relatively even in both hemispheres – but that’s
another story).

2. Data from the Bureau of Meteorology shows that both Tasmania and
Victoria were warmer than the 1961-90 average in 1999 (by about 0.5
degrees) but annual average temperatures have steadily declined since
then. In 2004 Tasmania’s average temperature was 0.25 degrees below that
long term average and Victoria’s just 0.07 degrees above their average.

3. Data from the US NOAA shows that sea surface temperatures in Bass
Strait have been close to normal save for a short period about January 2003
when warmer waters (caused by El Nino conditions in the Pacific a few
months earlier) made their way down the east coast of Australia.

4. The report INCORRECTLY stated “Coral reefs only survive in warmer
waters and are usually found in tropical areas such as Queensland.” The
report would have been closer to the mark had it said that “SHALLOW WATER
coral reefs have only been found…” because deeper water coral reefs have
been found in many places. In the 1990s, Norwegian scientists discovered a
14-kilometer-long, 30-meter-high coral reef on the Sula Ridge–an ocean
ridge off the western coast of Norway-at a depth of 250 meters. Also in the
1990s, a French-led team discovered coral gardens thriving at 600 meters
below the surface on seafloor mounds off the coast of Ireland. Since then,
researchers throughout the world have documented a 35-kilometer reef off
Norway, coral growths atop mounds off Scotland’s coast, an area of growth
covering 100 square kilometers off Nova Scotia, and colonies along Alaska’s
Aleutian Islands.

5. Your report failed to mention the types of coral found in these reefs
and whether these were typical of shallow or deep water reefs. Given that
reefs exist at both depths, i sthere any good reason why reefs could not
exist at intermediate depths? I don’t know and your reporter clearly
didn’t bother to ask any of Australia’s most knowledgeable experts at James
Cook University in Townsville.

6. Your report failed to mention the estimated age of this coral
reef. Coral grows slowly and if this reef is more than 50 years old you
can forget about recent in Australia’s temperature having anything to do
with this formation.

7. Your report failed to mention if the region had been properly surveyed
in the past. For all we know there may be extensive coral reefs across
Bass Strait as remnants of the last Ice Age when sea levels were much lower.

Thanks John for taking the time to put the extremely naive reporting in some context. My guess is the journalist just copied from a press release – from honest scientists at a reputable research institute?

John’s website is at
http://mclean.ch/climate/global_warming.htm.

(The 7 points as detailed above were edited, mostly shortened and sharpened, at about 2.10pm on 17th July – following request from John.)

Dam and Damn Climate Change in Queensland

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I received the following message from a reader of this web-log:

“You have previously exposed the drawing of shonky conclusions by government agencies from time to time. Here is a developing case. The Queensland DNRM (Department of Natural Resources) web site makes the following claim about a recently released CSIRO report titled ‘Climate Change in Queensland under Enhanced Greenhouse Conditions’, projected climate changes for Queensland can be summarized as follows: Annual rainfall over Queensland is projected to decline over most of the State, although projections of rainfall change are less certain than for temperature.
The full report link is at http://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/ClimateChanges/pub/FullReportLowRes.pdf .

The issue is, no where in the report does it state that average annual rainfall is projected to decline, quite the opposite. See statements in Section 2.2.2, page 13 “…the Mark 3 model projects slight increases in annual rainfall in Queensland by 2050 (about 7%; see section 3.2).” Other references to rainfall increases are made on pages 48 and 73. Page 74 states “average rainfall in Queensland is projected to change little by Mark 4.” Mark 4 is the next version of the Mark 3 climate model.

DNRM (Department of Natural Resources) spokespersons have recently been taking every opportunity at workshops and seminars to play up large projected declines in Queensland rainfall and I understand that the Minister was making statements to that effect today on radio too.”

In fact the report is not recent. It was published in January 2002. However, this web-log reader and others probably heard the Minister on radio on Wednesday morning and it sounded like he was talking about a new report. The ABC radio news was actually quoting the Minister answering Estimates Committee questions in the Queensland Parliament on Tuesday. This is what was said in Parliament on 12th July 2005:

“Mrs DESLEY SCOTT: Minister, page 9 of the MPS mentions the department’s role in researching the potential impacts of climate change. Can the minister outline the findings of any government
research into the possible effects of future climate change on Queensland rainfall patterns?

Mr ROBERTSON: For four years my department has been researching the possible effects of future greenhouse concentrations on Queensland’s climate. Our studies into past climate conditions have been central in covering the link between greenhouse gas concentrations, natural variability, ozone depletion and declining rainfall across much of eastern Australia. The results indicate that growing greenhouse gas concentrations and ozone depletion have contributed significantly to Queensland’s rainfall decline over the past 20 years.

In collaboration with the CSIRO’s Atmospheric Research Division we are researching whether this declining trend will continue. We expect rainfall to continue to decline over the next 70 years. Our modelling experiments suggest that over much of the state annual rainfall may decline by as much as 13 per cent by 2030 compared to conditions in the 1990s. By 2070 the decline may be as much as 40 per cent compared to conditions in the 1990s.”

Was not the Minister referring to that 2002 report that was a four-year contract between the Queensland Government and the CSIRO and that is now 3 years old?

Roger Stone contributed to that 2002 report.

Graham Young (Editor of e-journal Online Opinion and Blogger) has been remembering Roger Stone’s predictions. This is what Graham wrote on 1st July 2005:

“Another entry for my yet to be constructed database of predictions is climatologist Dr Roger Stone of the University of Southern Queensland and the Queensland Department of Primary Industries.
On the first of June ABC Rural carried these pars:

The prospects for normal winter rainfall and crops have deteriorated, with news today Australia is officially in a borderline El Nino.
The southern oscillation index is in the negative.
Dr Roger Stone, a climatologist with the Queensland Department of Primary Industries, says the outlook is bleak for winter crops.
He says three eastern states have almost no chance of a normal crop, with the outlook worst in New South Wales.
“For the state as a whole, less than 10 per cent chance of getting normal winter crop,” he said.
“This is normal yield, so it doesn’t miss out altogether on getting what we call median yields.
“For most of those shires to the west and south-west of Parkes and Dubbo, stretching down towards the Victorian border, in fact for most of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, the chances of getting a normal wheat crop are about 10 per cent to 20 per cent at most.”

Then, on the 30th June, a mere 29 days later, the Courier Mail carried this sentence about the sometimes torrential rain South-East Queensland has been receiving since mid-June:
Climatologist Roger Stone said the rain was likely to continue at least through winter due to a one-in-10-year climate phenomenon.”

Yeah, we did have a bit of rain including through the NSW wheat belt -and contrary to the original prediction!

I note that the Queensland Government in their summary of that 2002 report claims that:

“Maximum tropical cyclone wind speeds are likely to increase by 5 to 10%, by 2050. This will be accompanied by increases of 20 to 30% in peak tropical cyclone precipitation rates. However, little change is expected in the regions of tropical cyclone formation, and there is no evidence that tropical cyclones travel further south.”

I don’t think cyclone-expert Chris Landsea would approved, see
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/science_policy_general/000318chris_landsea_leaves.html .

And I was recently sent this information in relation to my blog about the Wyaralong Dam (my blog of 7th July titled Government Commits $2.3 million to Unknown Quantity of Water):

“I suspect DNR (Queensland Department of Natural Resources) is fudging on projected volumes because the decision to go with Wyaralong rather than Glendower as the next dam site was taken late in the piece. The Government has bought up almost all the land it needs for Gledower, not so for the dam it is now shackled to. Old timers tell me that there is no way the water volumes from the Teviot Brook catchment will produce the sort of dam the Government is talking about, but I suspect there is a bit of politics in that, too. Locally, the dam is seen as water storage for metropolitan use located smack dab in an area crying out for more water for rural use.
DNR has always maintained that the Mary River valley is where the next big dam will be located for seq’s urban water needs. I believe all this talk of Wyaralong is an attempt to control the policy agenda until the Government sniffs how the political breeze will blow in relation to a bigger dam on the Mary.”

I think this message is saying that the Queensland Government already knows that the dam they have committed to, will catch no water.

In making this determination I suspect the Queensland Government did not even consider the predicted 40 percent decline in rainfall over the next few decades as per the Minister’s comments in state Parliament on Tuesday?

Timber Town Imports Timber

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I was in Gympie yesterday.

When I asked the origin of a pile of logs at a saw mill I gleaned the following story:

There are over 3,000 wooden bridges on main roads in Queensland. These bridges are held up with wooden girders many of which are reaching the limit of their design life. Restrictions on harvesting from ‘old growth’ native forests in Queensland means that timber for these bridges is now being imported. These logs have been trucked the 700 km from Coffs Harbour (in New South Wales) to Gympie (in SE Queensland), to supply this need:
View image of logs, 20kbs.

Gympie was once a proud timber town (http://thecouriermail.com.au/extras/federation/CMFedSClead.htm ).

The Cooloola region is still full of forests that extent west to the famous Conondale Ranges (http://www.travelmate.com.au/Places/Places.asp?TownName=Kandanga_%5C_QLD ).

The forests surrounding Gympie are still full of trees of the same species and with equivalent or larger girths than those being logged in Coffs Harbour. But it is apparently easier for at least one of the timber mills that has traditionally supplied Queensland Main Roads to import, because they are restricted to younger forests with smaller trees in the Gympie region. Sourcing logs is further complicated because the local Forestry Department doesn’t have enough officers to mark trees for cutting.

This situation has been driven by mindless and incessant environmental campaigning to stop logging in mature native forests followed by government dollars to ‘pay off’ and/or ‘buy out’ the industry.

The following paper by Graham Murray provides information on timber bridges in Queensland and the current dilemna facing local governments in Queensland: http://www.ipwea.org.au/papers/download/Murray_g.pdf.