Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for August 18, 2005

Telstra was Meant to Save the Environment

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With all the talk about Barnaby Joyce and the sale of Telstra I am reminded of the Natural Heritage Trust – established from the sale of T1. And this is what John Anderson said in the Australian Parliament on 19th June 1996:

This Bill will establish the Trust and provide for it to be known as the “Natural Heritage Trust of Australia Reserve”. The initial capital of one billion dollars to be invested in the Trust will come from the proceeds of the partial sale of Telstra.

In effect, the transfer of funds from the partial sale of Telstra into the Natural Heritage Trust represents a transfer from investment in a telecommunications company to an investment in natural capital. Maintaining and restoring this natural capital is an investment in the well-being of future generations of Australians.

And what has the Natural Heritage Trust achieved for the Australian environment?

Could it Get Wetter, as It Gets Warmer?

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CSIRO climate change modeling has generally concluded that as it gets warmer, it is going to get drier.

I will give two examples:

1. CSIRO News Flash on Monday 15 August 2005 titled ‘Natural change, greenhouse effect influence WA rainfall’ with the text “Continued rainfall decreases in the south west of Western Australia are most likely a combination of natural variability and the enhanced greenhouse effect”. Read more at:
http://www.csiro.au/page.asp?type=mediaRelease&id=145WArainfall

2. CSIRO modeling for Queensland predicts that 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. For more detail see my earlier blog post at: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/000735.html .

But I thought that in past times as the earth got warmer it got wetter?

3. For example, a recent article in ABC Online began:

You would not expect to find a rainforest in what is now one of the hottest and driest places on the east coast of Queensland.
Ancient fossil deposits found in caves near Rockhampton in central Queensland have revealed the area was once a tropical rainforest, wiped out by climate change.

4. According to the IPCC there has been a 0.6C warming over the last 150 odd years and I have interpreted the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) summaries to show that it has generally got wetter over the last 100 years in Australia.

But I have been told:

Jen, The comment on Australia getting wetter – well you shouldn’t really quote national numbers. The centre to north-west may be getting wetter. But everywhere people or major agriculture is located doesn’t show this. We have a drier SW WA and east coast drying trend. See ALL the various period maps at: http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/reg/cli_chg/trendmaps.cgi . We also have had few La Ninas since 1976, more El Ninos and back-to-back “unusual” El Ninos. Few coast crossing cyclones.

So we can quote national figures for everything except rainfall? Because overall it has got wetter, see http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/reg/cli_chg/timeseries.cgi?variable=rain&region=aus&season=0112 ?

5. I checked the National Greenhouse Office and they say :

Climate modelling has predicted that on average Australia will get wetter as temperatures rise, especially in summer. Tropical cyclones and floods may become more common, and will happen in places that haven’t had them before. However, places such as Tasmania and parts of Western Australia will actually get less rainfall than before, and might even have droughts.

But then they conclude: As temperatures rise and some place get less rain, droughts could happen more often.

6. I remember that the IPCC has written that with climate change, in some areas it will get wetter, in others drier, and I also remember reading that,

7. Australian climatologists have predicted that it will generally get wetter as it gets warmer.

8. I have just read Rod Fensham’s new paper in the Journal of Ecology (2005, vol 93,pgs 596-606) titled ‘Rainfall, land use and woody vegetation cover change in semi-arid Australian savanna’. The summary includes “… this pattern (changes in vegetation cover in western Queensland) is consistent with the first half of the 20th century having more intense droughts and being drier overall than the relatively wet second half”.

So could it get wetter as it gets warmer?