Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for October 2005

Camel’s Poo Too

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Just back from another day at the beach: this time Mooloolaba which is an hour and a bit north of Brisbane. The sky was a perfect blue and a terrific breeze chopped the tops off some of the waves.

There are no camels at Mooloolaba. But I see today a story at ABC Online about camels at Broome’s cable beach and how they will soon be fitted with ‘poo bags’.

I guess the bags can be emptied where the poo can be mulched – rather than washed out to sea? I don’t know about the ocean off the north west, but parts of Australia’s east coast are nutrient poor. I wonder what the decision to mandate ‘poo bags’ was based on?

I will be in Darwin later this week at a conference on ‘population’. In preparation I have been reading a paper by Ron Brunton titled ‘The End of the Overpopulation Crisis’. He quotes from Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 book ‘The population bomb’:

I have understood the population explosion intellectually for a long time. I came to understand it emotionally one stinking hot night in Delhi a few years ago … The streets seemed alive with people. People eating, people washing, people sleeping. People visiting, arguing and screaming. People thrusting their hands through the taxi window, begging. People defecating and urinating. People clinging to buses. People herding animals. People, people, people, people. AS we moved slowly through the mob, hand horn squawking, the dust, noise, heat and cooking fires gave the scence a hellish aspect.

Brunton remarked “Clearly, Ehrlich felt some revulsion at the culturally unfamiliar use of personal and public space by a people who were physically different from himself.”

I reckon Ehrlich would also be intolerant of camel’s pooing on the beach.

Two Quotes for this Week

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1. Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. Oscar Wilde

2. Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it. Charles D. Warner

Quotes from two readers of this web-log. Thanks.
…………………..

And I might post another ‘quote for the week’ next Friday. So feel free to send me your best quote for next week, next week. In the interim perhaps post your best quote from this week as a comment below. Cheers,

Michael Crichton & DDT

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There has been a focus on Michael Crichton and what he doesn’t know about climate, see this post and thread.

What does he know about environmentalism? I remember his speech in San Francisco a couple of years ago, it began:

“I have been asked to talk about what I consider the most important challenge facing mankind, and I have a fundamental answer. The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.

We must daily decide whether the threats we face are real, whether the solutions we are offered will do any good, whether the problems we’re told exist are in fact real problems, or non-problems. Every one of us has a sense of the world, and we all know that this sense is in part given to us by what other people and society tell us; in part generated by our emotional state, which we project outward; and in part by our genuine perceptions of reality. In short, our struggle to determine what is true is the struggle to decide which of our perceptions are genuine, and which are false because they are handed down, or sold to us, or generated by our own hopes and fears.

As an example of this challenge, I want to talk today about environmentalism. And in order not to be misunderstood, I want it perfectly clear that I believe it is incumbent on us to conduct our lives in a way that takes into account all the consequences of our actions, including the consequences to other people, and the consequences to the environment. I believe it is important to act in ways that are sympathetic to the environment, and I believe this will always be a need, carrying into the future. I believe the world has genuine problems and I believe it can and should be improved. But I also think that deciding what constitutes responsible action is immensely difficult, and the consequences of our actions are often difficult to know in advance.

Keeping reading Download file.

I don’t agree with everything Crichton has written/said here. But it is worth a read. It provides an insight. He is an optimist. He cares about the truth, about people, and he has an interest in DDT.

When I lived in SW Madagascar in the late 1980s DDT was a big issue as was cerebral malaria. People had their huts sprayed with DDT in the hope that it would save them from malaria.

I was sent this link, which gives an insight into DDT and its potential to save lives in 2005. The article is titled ‘Fighting malaria with DDT in South Africa’and is from BBC News.

Yes and No to GM

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Dear all,

The latest biennial Biotechnology Australia consumer survey results have been released this morning. This is the fourth such survey undertaken in Australia.

I have attached a summary of the results which compares them with the results of 2003. There are no obvious developments, with most people seeing all applications as risky. Three interesting and contradictory points to note:
– 51 per cent agreed that “Australian farms and foods need to be free of GMOs to remain internationally competitive”
– 56 per cent agreed “Australian farmers need access to gene technology to stay internationally competitive”
– 55 per cent agreed “We have to accept some degree of risk from gene technology if it enhances Australia’s economic competitiveness”

The full reports for 1999, 2003 and 2005 are available from www.biotechnology.gov.au/reports.

Kind regards,
Larissa Mullot
Public Affairs
Agrifood Awareness Australia Limited

A Big Fix

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Professor Ian Lowe’s new book titled ‘A Big Fix: Radical solutions for Australia’s Environemntal Crisis’ will be launched in Melbourne tomorrow.

Graham Young heard Lowe on radio national yesterday advertising the book and did an interesting post on the book, John Howard, AGW and ‘Fear’ that includes that phrase the ‘dictatorship of the scientariat’, the post is here.

You may remember I did a few posts on the book . I ended up converting them into an opinion piece which was published in Brisbane’s Courier Mail today.

The Courier Mail led with a piece by the Professor:
http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,16832802%255E27197,00.html .
And then followed with something by me:
http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,16832847%255E27197,00.html.

Thanks for the comments on the original posts, including from Steve, which helped focus the mind – which helped with the writing of the piece.

No Info from David Paton @ Adelaide Uni

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There was a piece in Melbourne’s The Age newspaper last week in which Associate Professor David Paton from Adelaide University was quoted calling on the Federal Government to start actioning its pledge to put 500 gigalitres of water back into the Murray.

The piece also stated that:

“Bird numbers at the Coorong have fallen from 250,000 in the 1960s and 150,000 in the 1980s to an estimated 50,000.”

This is an incredibly dramatic decline. I wondered which species and why?

So I emailed David Paton on 29th September with the following text:

“I noted your piece today in Melbourne’s Age newspaper and reference to declining numbers of birds in the Coorong.

I was wondering whether or not this information is published and/or how I might access it. Could you possibly send me a copy of any reprints and/or reports with some of the data you quote. I am particularly interested in which species of birds are in decline and what the trend looks like on an annual and seasonal basis back to the 1960s.

I write for NSW rural weekly The Land and also the IPA.”

There was no reply.

The next day I phoned and left a message on his answering machine. No response. Yesterday I phoned again and again left a message on his answering machine.

In the afternoon Associate Professor Paton phoned me.

I explained that I had emailed, that I was interested in the reports and/or research papers on which the piece in The Age was based. I said I was particularly interested in information on the dramatic decline in bird numbers.

He said he was too busy to put together that sort of information for me.

I said I had previously tried to find information on bird numbers at the Coorong – unsuccessfully. The names of the reports and research papers would do – I could track them down.

He said he would send me the report on the plants of the Coorong. I said I would appreciate that, but I was particularly interested in numbers of birds.

I also suggested at some point that if he had time to talk to The Age, he should have time to provide me with some information.

He said that the information was provided to The Age by the Australian Conservation Foundation. The information in the newspaper article was not his responsibility but he would nevertheless send me an email with the relevant information later in the afternoon.

I am still waiting.

I phoned the journalist responsible for the article, Adam Morton. I said I had been speaking with David Paton and asked whether the information in his piece titled ‘Salinity killing Murray River Wetlands’ was from the Australian Conservation Foundation. Morton said it was based on a media release from the Australian Conservation Foundation and Environment Victoria but that he had phoned Paton to run the figures past him – that is the bird numbers as quoted in the media release. He said he had phoned Paton because he is the recognised expert in the field and has been working in the area for 20 years. He said Paton had confirmed the numbers were accurate.

David Paton has time for Kerry O’Brien, Alexandra de Blas and a 30 part series for radio 5UV, but not it seems to send me an email with references supporting information published in The Age or to put any of his publications up at his university homepage.

Some other University of Adelaide faculty members have lots of information at their homepages, for example Nicolas Stevens.

In December 2003 the IPA published my review of some key indicators of Murray River health, the Backgrounder is titled ‘Myth and the Murray: Measuring the Real State of the River Environment‘.