Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for December 2005

New Year’s Eve 2005

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A CNN/TIME survey of Asia-Pacific countries reports that avian flu is expected to be the biggest global issue in 2006, followed by economic slowdown and terrorism.

What happened to global warming? Why didn’t it rate a mention in the survey?

The Australian weather bureau is predicting that tomorrow will be the hottest New Year’s Day on record – at least in Sydney. But with freezing conditions in Europe, will 2005 end up being on average, cooler globally than 1998?

Interestingly, according to the CNN survey, the war in Iraq was of concern to only 7 percent of respondents, with the highest awareness in Australia (13 percent).

My best wishes to readers of this web-log for the New Year, for 2006 …another chance for us to get it right.

And a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt as we end 2005,

“Understanding is a two-way street”.

How Many Died at Chernobyl?

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Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park and other best sellers, gave a lecture on 6th November with the text now ‘doing the rounds’ on the internet. Titled, ‘Fear, Complexity and Environmental Management in the 21st Century‘ it is a bit of a ramble covering issues as diverse as management of Yellowstone National Park and deaths at Chernobyl, click here for the entire speech with some powerpoint slides.

In the speech Michael Crichton claims that the BBC and New York Times reported 15,000-30,000 dead from Chernobyl when the actual number was 56. Crichton claims:

Chernobyl was a tragic event, but nothing remotely close to the global catastrophe I imagined. About 50 people had died in Chernobyl, roughly the number of Americans that die every day in traffic accidents. I don’t mean to be gruesome, but it was a setback for me. You can’t write a novel about a global disaster in which only 50 people die.

Crichton claims CNN estimated there would be 3.5 million future deaths when in reality there were less than 4,000.

In the speech Crichton claims:

But the shock that I had experienced reverberated within me for a while. Because what I had been led to believe about Chernobyl was not merely wrong-it was astonishingly wrong. Let’s review the data.

The initial reports in 1986 claimed 2,000 dead, and an unknown number of future deaths and deformities occurring in a wide swath extending from Sweden to the Black Sea. As the years passed, the size of the disaster increased; by 2000, the BBC and New York Times estimated 15,000-30,000 dead, and so on …

Now, to report that 15,000-30,000 people have died, when the actual number is 56, represents a big error. Let’s try to get some idea of how big. Suppose we line up all the victims in a row. If 56 people are each represented by one foot of space, then 56 feet is roughly the distance from me to the fourth row of the auditorium. Fifteen thousand people is three miles away. It seems difficult to make a mistake of that scale.

But, of course, you think, we’re talking about radiation: what about long-term consequences? Unfortunately here the media reports are even less accurate.

The chart shows estimates as high as 3.5 million, or 500,000 deaths, when the actual number of delayed deaths is less than 4,000. That’s the number of Americans who die of adverse drug reactions every six weeks. Again, a huge error.

But most troubling of all, according to the UN report in 2005, is that “the largest public health problem created by the accident” is the “damaging psychological impact [due] to a lack of accurate information … [manifesting] as negative self-assessments of Xanax health, belief in a shortened life expectancy, lack of initiative, and dependency on assistance from the state.”end of quote

Is this true? How many really died from the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl?

Importing Doctors and Trees is Immoral

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I was interested to read in today’s Courier-Mail (pg 29) that Queensland Premier Peter Beattie considers it “immoral” for a national as wealthy as Australia to rely on developing nations to provide its medical workforce.

The Premier was referring to what I am told is a growing reliance on overseas trained doctors for rural and regional Australian hospitals.

The Premier was supported by AMA Queensland president Steve Hambleton, who according to the newspaper report, said “We are now getting some of our doctors from very poorly doctored nations … That’s not fair. We should be a net exporter of medical expertise, not an importer.”

This is exactly how I feel about forestry issues. How can a country with as many trees as Australia import hardwood from Indonesia and Malaysia? How can the Greens rally against the Tasmanian forestry industry and turn a blind eye to the imported teak furniture displayed in every second furniture store?

For my all my posts at this blog on forestry (beginning with this one) click here and scroll to bottom to read about the lock up of the Pillaga-Goonoo forests in north-western NSW earlier this year.

Blogs with an Australian Environmental Focus

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A farmer from south western Queensland phoned me about one of my columns in The Land newspaper earlier this year. It was my column on koalas and he wanted to tell me about how many koalas, kangaroos and emus there were on his property. I suggested that there was some good information on kangaroo numbers on the internet at the Environment Australia website.

He replied that he didn’t trust anything he read on the internet – but he did trust what he read in The Land.

I was reminded of the George Orwell quote: Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.

I wonder what Orwell would have had to say about blogging?

I think he would have liked the medium, because it seems to potentially be the ultimate form of independent communication. It is a mechanism for those with an alternative perspective to make comment and tell their story.

Since I started my blog in April this year three other blogs have come on line focusing on environmental issues from an Australian perspective.

Peter Spencer first posted on 28th June, click here for first entry. Peter’s key issue is vegetation management but his blog has turned into something of a personal account of farming and families in the High Country.

David Tribe first posted on 11th November, with a short note listing sources of information on GM food crops, GM organisms and biotec websites, click here for first entry. David described his site as a clearing house for information on biotechnology, but it has evolved to cover a range of agricultural and environmental issues with a recent post on water.

Warwick Hughes’s first post is dated 26th November, click here for first entry. Warwick is passionate about climate science and very critical of established institutions including the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. His blog has already attracted debate and discussion amongst ‘global warming skeptics’ with an interest in the detail and an interest in scrutinizing information on global warming as reported in the popular press.

I have just today started a blog roll at my website, click here. I have added the above three sites and ‘The Domain’ which includes Australian political blogs. I have also included a blog maintained by Brendan Moyles, a Kiwi, who takes a keen interest in environmental issues in Australia and New Zealand.

Brendan has a sense of humor, click here, and shares my interest in alternative and environmentally friendly foods, click here.

I am interested to know of other blogs with an Australian environmental focus. Have any foresters started blogging? Are there any Australian blogs that take, for example, an anti-GM perspective? Is there an Australian blog that is more sympathetic to the Bureau of Meteorology than WarwickHughes.com/blog? I am keen to also include these on my list at my website.

Blogs and the internet potentially provide an important alternative perspective. Furthermore, they are likely to be providing a forum for the discussion of ideas several days, if not years before the mainstream media/popular press. But I wouldn’t believe everything I read, on the internet, or in The Land!

Martin Ferguson Promotes Australian Forestry

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“Australia has 155 million hectares of native forests. About 10 percent – 11 million hectares – of those forests are managed for wood production with less than 1 percent being harvested in any one year. The small proportion of forests that is harvested annually is regenerated so that a perpetual supply of native hardwood and softwood is maintained in this country.

And let me say that Australia is fortunate to have some of the best foresters in the world working to maintain our forest assets in perpetuity.”

So began a speech by Martin Ferguson, the Australian Labor Party’s resources and forestry spokesman, to the National Association of Forest Industries titled “Australia’s role in the global sustainability of forestry and forest industries” on 28th November 2005.

The speech was the focus of an opinion piece in today’s The Australian in which Glenn Milne suggests that,

“Ferguson’s speech amounted to the most unrelenting attack on the Greens from a figure of substance on the Labor side of politics since the defeat of the Keating government in 1996. Brown is now on notice. In the words of one senior Labor figure supporting Ferguson: “We’re about sending a message to Tasmania. Some sections of the Labor Party now no longer believe that the rainbow alliance is the way forward, especially when it’s our economic credibility that’s under question. Running around chasing the Green tail just means we’re ignoring our base, and that includes small contractors.”

In the speech Martin Ferguson tries to take the moral high ground on environmental issues as well as shafting the greens.

As Milne reported, Ferguson said, “The Greens are a political movement chasing votes like any other party. The campaign being run by the Greens is aimed at capturing votes, it has nothing to do with the environment or sustainability, and above all, it is dishonest.
The result of the Greens actions could well be to scare international customers away from sustainable forest resources in Tasmania to countries where illegal logging leaves a trail of total devastation, but where ignorance is bliss.”

While the forestry industry and me have been saying as much for a long time, I haven’t read anyting like this in The Australian by a regular columnist or heard anything like this from a federal Labor leader – ever.

The Shadow Minister was talking to the timber industry when he gave the speech. Milne is suggesting the speech is part of a new realignment by the Labor party.

But how will federal Labor promote a pro-forestry policy and also retain some of its inner city seats won at previous elections at least in part because of its popularist pseudo-green credentials which have historically been about opposing logging in Tasmania.

Read the speech here, download file here (51 kbs).

Christmas Eve 2005

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It feels like Christmas Eve …

It is so hot here in Brisbane. I have eaten too many fruit mince pies and I have three packets of unopened Christmas cards that were to be written in and posted earlier this week.

But nevermind. My Christmas tree has been decorated (no lights to save on electricity and thus greenhouse gases). I have a fridge full of food and drink and have found my favourite Christmas CD (Morningtown Ride to Christmas by the Seekers).

A reader of this web-log sent me the following image,

HOHOHO on NameCalling.jpg .

I wonder what Rudolf did with the carcasses?

According to Wikipedia: Reindeer meat is popular in the Scandinavian countries. Reindeer meatballs are sold canned. Reindeer stew is the best-known dish in Lapland. In Alaska, reindeer sausage is sold locally to supermarkets and grocery stores.

I also recieved the following message about Rudolf:

“According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, while both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year, male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid-December. Female reindeer retain their antlers till after they give birth in the spring.

Therefore, according to EVERY historical rendition depicting Santa’s reindeer, EVERY single one of them, including Rudolph, had to be a girl.”

I don’t know. I thought young males also kept their antlers over Christmas?

But anyway, I think Santa’s Reindeers are a whole different species or subspecies given they can fly? Given there were only 9 of them, Rudolf should surely be listed as endangered or something. There’s a job for Rog for the New Year!

Anyway, to all readers of this web-log, for tomorrow, may peace and happiness be with you.