Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for November 22, 2005

Saving the Environment: What Individual Australians Can Do

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I am no Sandra Sully, but I did try and read with expression on ABC radio national’s Ockham’s Razor on Sunday. Hosted by Robyn Williams I got the spot after complaining to Williams about Jared Diamond hogging a whole hour of ‘The Science Show’ some months ago.

Anyway, in the speech – which you can hear via podcast or by listening to radio national this Wednesday evening at 9.45pm, and the transcript is at the website, click here – I take issue with Jared Diamond misrepresenting Australian agriculture and Ian Lowe’s attempt at reinventing science. But I go on to explain that I am concerned about rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and that I am quite happy to keep riding my bicycle.

A reader of this blog posted the following comment at a different thread earlier today:

I enjoyed your commentary on ABC Ockham’s Razor … I specifically found your comments regarding solution focused campaigns that will provide real environmental benefit thought provoking. You have agreed with Prof Tim Flannery regarding atmospheric carbon dioxide reduction levels. Would you also agree that the other solutions that he proposes for the individual like you and I are a great place to start for people that wish to make a difference for the environment and future generations? … I would really like to be a positive steward for future generations, so Tim Flannery’s suggestions are simple ways for me to try and make a difference, I guess I am just trying to also understand how I can make a judgement on what will deliver real benefits to future generations. (end of quote)

In Chapter 35 of his new book The Weather Makers, Tim Flannery makes the following recommendations for individuals who want to do their bit to reduce carbon dioxide emmissions:
1. Switch to green power (where the provider guarantees to source a percentage of power from renewables);
2. Switch to a solar hot water system;
3. Buy small devices where possible i.e. a small car, small fridge;
4. Consider buying a hybrid car.

Flannery writes on page 306, “If enough of us buy green power, solar panels, solar hot water sytems and hybrid vehicles, the cost of these items will plummet. This will encourage the sale of yet more panels and wind generators, and soon the bulk of domestic power will be generated by renewable technologies.”

Who agrees with Tim Flannery? What are some other ways of reducing our ecological footprint?

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I now have my own website www.jennifermarohasy.com that lists many of my newspaper articles, a few of my publications, and I will also endeavour to get more speeches up there. The website also gives me a capacity to send out a monthly newsletter to everyone who subscribes. So please subscribe and you will get to hear when, for example, I am next on Ockam’s Razor, click here!

Catholic Church Believes in Global Warming

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If there was ever a good reason to be skeptical, it is surely when catholic bishops and government scientists start preaching from the same poster!

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Following is the announcement from the catholic climate change conference:

Catholic leaders warn of ‘environmental refugees’ scenario

A statement issued yesterday following the weekend’s national climate change conference, calls for ecological conversion, warning that global warming could create a new wave of dispossessed people.

The warning followed a Position Paper launched by the Catholic Bishops Committee for Justice Development Ecology and Peace, which urged all Australians to cooperate in open dialogue and face the radical changes required to tackle global climate change.

Catholic Earthcare Australia was set up in 2003 by the Australian Bishops’ Conference and is chaired by Bishop Christopher Toohey.

In the keynote address before more than 300 delegates, Bishop Toohey said that human induced accelerated climate change “raises serious moral and spiritual questions, not just for Catholics but for all Australian citizens and leaders, and calls for change in our way of life.

“Scientific research has concluded that humans have caused rapid global climate change by contributing to ever higher concentrations of greenhouse gases, 80 per cent of which comes from the burning of fossil fuels.

“This build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is gradually increasing world temperatures that will lead to higher sea levels as icepacks and glaciers melt. We are also seeing the occurrence of more violent weather events, widespread droughts in some areas and lower food production in others,” Bishop Toohey said.

“If we act now the changes can be slowed and harm can still be minimised.”

Conference organizer and Executive Officer of CEA, Colin Brown, drew attention to United Nations figures released during the conference that revealed a blowout in Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.

“These alarming figures, released ahead of the international climate change conference in Montreal later this month showed that Australia’s emissions have increased by a massive 23 per cent in the past 13 years,” he said. “They expose a decade of lost opportunity in Australia in which things are getting worse, not better.”

All speakers in a packed two-day program that combined theologians of many faiths with scientists warned of the need for urgent and immediate action. (end of quote)

Misleading Reporting on GM

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The Courier Mail has published a piece by me today titled Let’s be smart on genetic crops. I suggested the article to the opinion editor at the newspaper after the front page story on Friday titled Genetic food plan axed.

What surprised me about Friday’s story, and general reporting on ABC radio on Friday and over the weekend, about how CSIRO had scrapped its research into a new GM pea variety because of an allergic reaction in trials on mice, was the lack of context.

There was no mention that even if the peas had passed all safety tests, they could not have been grown commercially in Australia because of the bans on GM food crops, see my piece in the courier mail.

It seems to me that reporting on GM issues generally occurs in a vacuum – or is just misleading.

For example, today, Farm Online has a story that reads:

Australia faces economic and environmental losses if it follows the United States and grows commercial genetically modified (GM) crops, a leading expert in agricultural technology has warned.

If Australia were to grow commercial genetically engineered (GE) canola, as they call GM crops in the US, it would enter the human food supply as vegetable oil and animal feed.

Dr Charles Benbrook, a former agricultural adviser to the Carter, Reagan and Clinton administrations, is touring Australia to warn government ministers and farmers about the problems with the first decade of GE crops in the US.

“Australian agriculture faces losing its international status as ‘clean and green’ if it ignores the food safety, environmental and economic costs associated with today’s GE crop technologies,” Dr Benbrook said. (end of quote)

At the very least the online journal should have made reference to the recent ABARE report that concluded quite the opposite, click here for a summary.

What exactly are Benbrook’s qualifications? The journal might at the very least have referred to him as a ‘GM skeptic’! 🙂

Does the lack of context in reporting on GM issues just reflect how little journalists understand about the issue?

In response to the various claims by Charles Benbrook that GM crops have not been successful in the US, Chris Preston, Senior Lecturer, Weed Management University of Adelaide has written in today’s AgBioView newsletter:

“GE crops a flop in the USA.” The GeneEthics Network makes this bold statement as part of their recent publicity for the upcoming visit of Dr. Charles Benbrook to Australia. Dr. Benbrook is apparently to tell us “what’s really happening with GE crops in North America, and why we should say ‘no’ to them here”.

I don’t know quite what Dr. Benbrook will tell us about how GE crops have flopped. I do know the claim that GE crops have stalled, flopped or are otherwise being given up by farmers in the US and elsewhere is not infrequently made in letters to the editor, press releases and other statements in the Australia media. However, whenever I look at the situation, I can find little support for the claims made.

We can look at how farmers perceive GM crops by looking at the levels of adoption.

If after 10 years GM crops were a flop, farmers should have already decided to stop growing them. A quick look at the area of crops grown demonstrates this is not the case. The statistics on the area sown to GM crops are easy to obtain for soybean, cotton and corn (or maize). They are available from the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/reports/nassr/field/pcp-bba/ ).

In 2002 75% of all soybean acreage in the US was sown to GM soybeans. In 2004, that had risen to 85% of soybean acreage and to 87% in 2005. This year, 63.8 million acres of GM soybeans were grown. In 2002, 34% of the corn acreage in the US was sown to GM corn. By 2004, this had climbed to 47% and to 52% in 2005. That means 42.4 million acres of GM corn were grown. In 2002, 71% of the area of upland cotton was GM. This had also increased to 76% of the cotton area by 2004 and 79% in 2005. This year, 10.9 million acres of GM cotton were grown.

Data are not as readily available for the area of other GM crops grown in the US, papaya, canola and alfalfa. The primary source for information on the area of GM papaya, the Hawaiian Agricultural Statistical Service, gives variety information only up to 2002 (www.nass.usda.gov/hi/prisetoc.htm ). In that year, between 44 and 48% of the area was sown to GM papaya. That would be just under 1000 acres. For canola, I have had to rely on a range of secondary sources (e.g.
http://www.pewbiotech.org/resources/factsheets/display.php3?FactsheetID=2 , http://www.pgeconomics.co.uk/environment_select_committee_report.htm ,
http://www.grdc.com.au/growers/gc/gc53/genescene.htm ) that normally cite “industry statistics”. These suggest GM canola was planted on 60% of the area in 2002, 75% of the area in 2003 and 84% of the area in 2004. Colleagues in the industry have given me similar estimates for 2004. In 2005, there was 1.1 million acres of canola grown, of which at least 700,000 acres would have been GM. I could obtain no statistics on the area of GM alfalfa, which is being planted commercially for the first time this year. However, I have been told by weed scientists in both Colorado and California that most, and in some places all, of the seed available for 2005 has been sold.
There are 22.1 million acres of alfalfa grown in the US, so even a small percentage of that will be a significant area.

Therefore, in total we have over 117 million acres of GM crops in the US.

For those,who like me, are more familiar with the metric system, this equates to about 47 million hectares of GM crops. In my local perspective, this is twice the area of grain cropping in all of Australia. If this is a flop, what will Dr. Benbrook count as a success?

Not only is there a large area sown to GM crops in the US, the area sown is continuing to grow each year. This is even true for crops like soybeans and cotton where large percentages of the area have been sown to GM crops for some years.” (end of quote)

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Update at 10am

I see David Tribe has a piece at Online Opinion today on GM food crops, click here.

Updated at 5pm

I have been informed by Dr. Christopher Preston, Senior Lecturer, Weed Management, University of Adelaide, that:

The current Benbrook tour will claim, amongst other things, that US farmers are losing billions of dollars in export sales because they have adopted GE crops.

You can access official US export statistics at http://www.fas.usda.gov/ustrade/USTExFAS.asp?QI= . You then need to search by commodity and region. In searching you will find that corn and soybean exports are reasonably variable; however, there is no evidence of a significant loss of trade. US corn exports to the EU have declined dramatically, but that has been more than made up by increased exports elsewhere. US corn exports have increased in value from $4.9 billion in 1999 to $5.9 billion in 2004. Soybean seed exports have also increased in value from $4.5 billion in 1999 to $6.7 billion in 2004. Although value is down on 2002 and 2003 because of droughts and lower prices as a result of increased competition from Argentina and Brazil.