Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for March 26, 2006

Apology Owed to CSIRO and BOM: Geoffrey Sherrington Letter Misleading

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“On the 15th February The Australian newspaper published a letter from Geoffrey Sherrington of North Balwyn, Victoria, alleging that CSIRO fraudulently selected weather recording sites that showed more warming, including sites predominantly from capital cities under suspicion for heat island effects. This would give a result that suggested global warming, even if most weather recording sites showed little or no temperature change since the 1880s.

The Sherrington letter was emailed about cyberspace and used by some global warming skeptics as reason to dismiss the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) finding that last year was the hottest on record.

I phoned Geoffrey Sherrington last week. He said that he stands by everything he wrote in that letter. But when I pressed him for details, he said it was the University of Bath in the United Kingdom, not the CSIRO or BOM Bureau of Meteorology, that had been selective in its choice of weather recording sites and furthermore that the letter related to work he did 20 years ago.

I suggest The Australian newspaper and some global warming skeptics owe the CSIRO and the BOM a big apology. The claims in Mr Sherrington’s letter should be discounted accordingly.

While I am often labeled a global warming skeptic because I not convinced that ratifying the Kyoto Protocol will bring Australia anything but grief, and I am unsure how much of the warming over the last 100 years is due to natural forces as opposed to human activity,, I have no reason to dispute the methodology that the BOM Bureau of Meteorology uses to calculate temperature change and I accept that last year was the hottest year since official recordings were made in Australia.”

This is a draft of the letter I intend sending to The Australian newspaper tomorrow, or Tuesday, based on discussion at a previous thread at this blog, click here. Apart from Louis Hissink who republished the letter, here, I can’t find any other reference to it in the public domain?

Let me know if you have any suggested additions or changes to this letter, by posting a comment below or sending an email to jennifermarohasy@jennifermarohasy.com .

The Whale: A Fish in Japanese Eyes (Part 1)

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Whales&Jap_Komatsu.jpg

Glen Inwood recently sent me some books about whaling from a Japanese perspective. They are so interesting with a lot of history. Given many readers of this blog have a particular interest in whaling, I plan to post some extracts from these books over the next few months. Here’s the first installment:

“Since time immemorial, the Japanese people have been religiously taught to avoid eating four-legged animals – a teaching that has its genesis in the influence of the Buddhist faith. When Buddhism was introduced from the Asian continent well over a thousand years ago, the Prince Regent Shotoku, who ruled the nation at the time, quickly became a devoted follower of the new faith. He promoted a marriage of Bhuddism with the indigenous Japanese religion, Shinto.

After Prince Shotoku, there was a successful coup bringing Emperor Tenchi to power, and he wasted no time in declaring Buddhism the national religion. In the seventh century, Emperor Tenmu prohibited the eating of land animals entirely. The whale, however, lived in the ocean and was regarded as a fish, and therefore notably not included in the prohibition.

Centuries after this decree, in 1687, the Shogun Tsunayoshi introduced a special mercy law protecting animals. He loved dogs to the point of madness, and all animals were further protected by this law. However, even under this Shogun, whales were not protected.

Moreover, because this law made it harder to procure animal meat, the whale found itself even more sought after as a crucial source of protein in the Japanese diet. It was during this era that net whaling developed, and whale meat consequently became a more regular feature of the Japanese diet.”

(From Whales and the Japanese by Masayki Komatsu and Shigeko Misaki, pg. 54)

And here’s a link to a recent news story with Japanese surfers complaining not enough was done to save stranded melon-head whales.