Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for February 2006

Richard Lindzen on Hockey Sticks

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There has been more published in the last week about the hockey stick with summaries of what it all means at Real Climate and Climate Audit.

David J commented yesterday at this blog that,

It would seem the Hockey Stick “debate” is fast going the same way as the MSU “debate”.

I understand David’s comment to mean that more data and analysis is confirming that current warming is ‘unnatural’ and a consequence of global warming from greenhouse gases.

But the following comment from Richard Lindzen (see the second reason), sent as a letter to Benny Peiser, has got me wondering confused:

Dear Benny,

The concern over the hockey stick has always struck me as weird. There are several reasons for my impression:

1. There is no doubt that Europe and the North Atlantic were warmer than they are today for several centuries during the high middle ages. This is more than enough information to tell us that major climate changes can occur without the present level of industrialization — regardless of what happened to the global mean temperature.

2. Indeed, if the global mean temperature did not change while Europe and the North Atlantic underwent very substantial warming, this would imply a major change in the geographic pattern of
temperature. However, a major assumption in the hockey stick is that the patterns remain fixed. One is then left with the paradoxical conclusion that if the hockey results are right, the hockey stick analysis is wrong.

3. The medieval warm period in Europe was a period of high population, vibrant intellectual activity, and an absence of famine and plague. The onset of the little ice age was marked by famine, plague, and much reduced population. This suggests that warmth wasn’t all that bad. At the same time, the Renaissance and the intellectual flowering that followed all occurred before the end of the little ice age, suggesting that human abilities can rise above the problems posed by the environment.

In many ways, the whole story can be regarded as encouraging. Yet we focus on a couple of tenths of a degree in the global mean.

Best wishes,

Dick

…………………….

Richard S Lindzen is Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For more information visit http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen.htm .

Letter republished with permission from Benny Peiser.

Whales Fed to Dogs

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I received a note from marine ecologist Walter Starck this morning. He wrote,

Here’s an interesting news item on whaling. A growing stockpile of unsold whale meat would seem to indicate that the Japanese whaling effort is driven by political rather than commercial considerations. If the situation is really as depicted (always a big “if”) it seriously undermines the whole cultural importance argument.

Walter was refering to a piece in UnderWaterTimes.com that included the comment,

Some 1,035 tons of whale meat hit the market in Japan last year, a 65 percent increase from 1995, the Fisheries Agency says. And sluggish demand means inventories have almost doubled in five years to 2,704 tons in 2004.

And all of this before the most recent expedition to the Antarctic.

The article continues,

But the glut of whale meat hasn’t stopped the harpoon guns. Tokyo plans to kill – under a research program – some 1,070 minke whales in 2006, over 400 more than last year. Japan will also hunt 10 fin whales, and a total of 160 Bryde’s, sei and sperm whales, fisheries official Kenji Masuda said.

The International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986, approving limited hunts for research purposes a year later. Opponents have called Japan’s hunts merely a way for it to dodge the whaling ban.

The government, which distributes the meat and uses profits to fund research, is working to promote whale meat and secure new distribution channels.

“Even if we capture 2,000 whales a year for 100 years, it’s OK because whale numbers are growing,” the pamphlet says.

Some local governments have begun offering whale meat in school lunches.

Wakayama, a prefecture with a whale-hunting tradition 280 miles southwest of Tokyo, has been aggressive in getting youngsters to eat whale, introducing whale meals at 270 public schools in 2005.

Nutritionists have even developed child-friendly whale dishes, including whale meatballs, hamburgers and whale spaghetti bolognese, said Tetsuji Sawada of Wakayama’s education board.

Chimney Co., which runs the Hana No Mai eateries, acknowledges customers are wary of new whale dishes.

So there is more whale meat from the ‘research efforts’ than the Japanese can collectively stomach.

So, according to BBC News whale meat is being turned into dog food.

The dog food is apparently promoted as “organic” and fished “freshly out of the water”.

………

Story updated here: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/001190.html

Blog Update, Comments and Rules

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I began this blog in April last year. More and more people are visiting the site. I was surprised to see that there were 7,458 unique visitors to the site last month (January 2006), they came a total of 20,677 times and looked at 59,939 pages generating 97,378 hits.

Last month the most popular posts were on whaling and of course climate change. I thank those who contributed to both discussions.

This blog is a forum that encourages diverse opinion. There is some truth in the comment by Walter Lippman, “Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.”

Interestingly very few of the people who visit this site ever make comment. Some readers tell me they enjoy reading the comments from others and learn from the debates. Others tell me they never read the comments because they are too often “ugly”, “ignorant” and “defamatory”.

Properly monitoring comments would be a full time job – a job for which I have neither the time, nor inclination. But given the growing readership and concern from some readers, I am going to start deleting more comments. It won’t always be fair – because properly monitoring comments would be a fulltime job. I may delete comments that are spam, abusive, defamatory, off-topic or repetitive.

I have looked at the rules at Online Opinion and there are some that are perhaps relevant to this blog including limiting the number of comments per person. At Online Opinion readers are allowed a maximum of five comments in any given 24 hour period and no more than two comments per thread in any given 24 hour period.

Now such rules could really limit debate and discussion at this blog!

So I don’t intend to implement them. However, if you want to make more than five posts in any given 24 hour period, it would be great if you really had something new, important and informative to say that sixth, seventh and eighth time.

On the issue of names, Ian Castles and Roger Kalla are real people who use their real names to comment at this blog. They have families and reputations. I know some people will insist on using a nom de plume – and perhaps for good reason – but they shouldn’t necessarily expect the same level of respect, at least not from me.

It is obviously much easier to be flippant when you have nothing, or very little, at risk. The person commenting anonymously can easily dismiss and discard any mistake or misleading comment – along with ‘the name’ they were using and email address they were using.

In closing, thanks for visiting this blog and for being apart of the information exchange. Do come back and please leave a comment.

Coffee Banned in 1777, GM Food Banned in 2006

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Banning genetically modified (GM) food is just another example of promoters of “incumbent products” seeking to restrict competition argues Calestous Juma in yesterday’s Financial Times:

Take coffee: in the 1500s Catholic bishops demonised coffee as “Satan’s drink” and urged a ban. It was competing with wine. In its defence, Pope Clement VIII proclaimed: “Why, this ‘Satan’s drink’ is so delicious it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it. We shall fool Satan by baptising it and making it a truly Christian beverage.”

More than a century later, coffee was pitted against tea as the incumbent English drink. To defeat the competition, King Charles II decreed the banning of coffeehouses in 1675 only to revoke the decision two days before it came into effect.

In Germany, coffee was outlawed or its sale severely restricted for economic reasons. “It is disgusting to notice the increase in the quantity of coffee used by my subjects, and the like amount of money that goes out of the country in consequence. My people must drink beer. His Majesty was brought up on beer, and so were his ancestors,” declared Frederick the Great in 1777.

Historical cases of technological competition were limited in their reach. Today’s global economy demands that governments find ways to ensure that the benefits of new technologies are widely shared. Judicial rulings will safeguard the integrity of international trading rules. But they will not guarantee consumer enthusiasm for products that threaten their settled ways.

Calestous Juma was writting about a WTO finding, published earlier this week, that the current European Union moratorium on GM food crops breaches trade rules, click here for earlier post.

WTO Rejects GM Moratorium

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I missed the big news of two days ago, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has issued a preliminary report (which I have not yet read) indicating that the European Union (EU) moratoriums on GM food crops constitute a breach of WTO trade rules.

You can read about it at ABC Online, click here also at AgBioWorld, click here, and Agribusiness Freedom, click here.

But perhaps the best commentary came from a friend in the US who emailed me:

“The WTO has rejected the anti-scientific claims that EU governments are using to defend their populist policies. This was a decision about scientific evidence with trade implications, not about trade where there is scientific uncertainty. Even the EU’s own scientists have argued that the scientific evidence strongly supports the safety of these crops.

Otherwise, the anti-GM types are essentially trying (and probably successfully) to paint this as a purely technical decision driven by and supporting WTO policies favoring globalization and oppressing local rule.

In every case where anti-GM claims have met the hard rules of evidence of a high level court rather than the rumour mongering of public opinion (or the odd local judge), they have lost, whether for Percy Schmeiser, the New Zealand Royal Commission, or now the WTO.

Greenpeace, FOE and others have had their days in court, and lost.

This is a record equaled in modern times perhaps only by those other popular forces of anti-scientific irrationality, the advocates of creationism/intelligent design.”

Sydneysiders Prefer Water from Hidden Source

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I was amazed at the level of opposition to the planned desalination plant in Sydney, but even more amazed to find there is praise some support from Sydneysiders for the idea that water should come instead from an underground aquifer.

Read all about it in the Sydney Morning Herald, click here.

There are other options of course, including new dams and water recycling.

Does anyone know of a good study/report comparing the, at least, four options for water for Sydney?