Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for November 2006

GM Crops Benefit US Farmers: New Report by Sujatha Sankula

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A new report entitled ‘Quantification of the Impacts on US Agriculture of Biotechnology-
Derived Crops Planted in 2005’ by the US National Centre for Food and Agricultural Policy begins with the key findings that:

“American growers continued to choose biotechnology-derived crops in 2005, the tenth year of their commercial planting, because they realized significant benefits from planting these crops. This report evaluated the reasons behind the adoption of biotechnology-derived crops on 123 million acres in the United States in their tenth year of commercial planting (2005) and analyzed the producer and crop production impacts that resulted from this widespread adoption.

American growers planted eight biotechnology-derived crops (alfalfa, canola, corn, cotton, papaya, soybean, squash, and sweet corn) in 2005. Planted acreage was mainly concentrated in 13 different applications (herbicide-resistant alfalfa, canola, corn, cotton, and soybean; virus-resistant squash and papaya; three applications of insect-resistant corn, two applications of insect-resistant cotton, and insect-resistant sweet corn). Though
the number of planted traits remained the same at three in 2005, similar to 2004, expanded acreage of 4 percent has led to overall increase in crop yield and farm income and further reduction in pesticide use.“

To read the executive summary (12 pages) click here: http://www.ncfap.org/whatwedo/pdf/2005biotechExecSummary.pdf

To read the full report (110 pages) click here: http://www.ncfap.org/whatwedo/pdf/2005biotechimpacts-finalversion.pdf

More Than One Striped Possum: A Note from Neil Hewett

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Hi Jennifer,

I photographed this striped possum (Dactylopsila trivirgata) at Cooper Creek Wilderness on the 21st October, 2006, and I was very pleased to see that this photograph of a striped possum, was in fact, two.

Sparsely distributed throughout the wet tropics and along the east coast of Cape York (Australia), the species is spectacularly acrobatic and most frequently found after hearing it crash into overhead vegetation.

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Striped possum carrying young, Cooper Creek Wilderness, 21st October 2006

It forages by welting rotten tree material and listening carefully for beetle larvae, which it extricates with its specialised elongate fourth digit on the front feet.

At Cooper Creek Wilderness we are hoping for the onslaught of the heavy wet in the not too distant future, when the sounds of striped possums will be overwhelmed by a menagerie of treefrogs and insects.

Neil

Wrong ‘Shot’ at Atlantic Conveyor Belt Speed?

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Last year Harry Bryden published a paper* in the journal Nature which indicated that there had been a 30 percent decline in the northward flow of warm water in the Atlantic Ocean. This was interpreted by many as another sign of climate change with potentially catastrophic consequences.

Also known as the ‘Atlantic Conveyor Belt’, this warm, north flowing current was made famous in the movie ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ where global warming, in particular the melting of polar ice caps, resulted in the ‘Atlantic conveyor’ stopping and North America freezing over.

Professor Bryden is part of an international monitoring program known as the Rapid Climate Change (RAPID) Program and since the Nature paper, they have collected some more data. This new data was discussed late last month with a meeting of scientists in Birmingham.

According to a new article** in the journal Science by Richard Kerr, 95 percent of the scientists at the Birmingham meeting concluded that there has been NO significant change in the overall flow of the North Atlantic conveyor and that the 30 percent finding was somewhat premature.

Importantly, more intensive monitoring has shown that variations in flow within as single year can be “as large as the changes seen from one snapshot to the next during the past few decades”.

This now appears to be the problem with Bryden’s findings as published by Nature: that is the initial findings was misleading because it just compared a 2004 snapshot with four earlier instantaneous surveys (snapshots) back to 1957.

But the popular press hasn’t caught on.

According to The Guardian, reporting on the Birmingham meeting: “Scientists have uncovered more evidence for a dramatic weakening in the vast ocean current that gives Britain its relatively balmy climate by dragging warm water northwards from the tropics. The slowdown, which climate modellers have predicted will follow global warming, has been confirmed by the most detailed study yet of ocean flow in the Atlantic.”

Gavin over at Real Climate, apparently attended the Birmingham meeting and at his blog asks how could the Guardian have got it so wwrong: “The Guardian story, which started scientists have uncovered more evidence for a dramatic weakening in the vast ocean current that gives Britain its relatively balmy climate was in complete opposition to the actual evidence presented … how could the reporting be so wrong?”

Well, if you read the report on the meeting at BBC News, it appears Professor Bryden is not part of the ’95 percent consensus’. He is still saying it is slowing, just revised down his estimate from 30 percent to 10 percent: “We concluded that there was some evidence of a small decrease but not as big as we reported in the Nature paper last year ….But we have had a decrease… in the order of 10% of the overturning circulation in the past 25 years.”

Maybe if the BBC reporter had asked Professor Bryden what the slowing has been over the past 50 years, he would have reply, not significant, no slowing? But instead the reporter let the Professor pick a 25 year interval?

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* Bryden, H.L., et al., 2005. Slowing of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation at 25ºN. Nature, 438, 655-657.

** Kerr, R. A., 2006. False Alarm: Atlantic Conveyor Belt Hasn’t Slowed Down After All, Science, 314, 1064, doi: 10.1126/science.314.5802.1064a

Thanks to Paul Biggs for sending in the link to the article by Richard Kerr and also comment that: “it is time that the Gulf Stream slow down, used by climate alarmists, was finally laid to rest. It has long been known that the Gulf Stream is primarily driven by westerley winds and the earth’s rotation.”

Why Greenpeace No-longer Battles Norwegian Whaler on the High Seas: A Note from George McCallum

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Hi Jennifer,

Since 1999 Greenpeace has not conducted an anti-whaling campaign at sea against Norwegian whalers.

According to Greenpeace, such campaigns are now considered “counter productive”.

One has to wonder then, why Greenpeace considers actions against Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean “productive”?

With this season’s Greenpeace anti-whaling campaign in the Southern Ocean almost upon us, I thought I´d look at a couple of the previous actions against Norweigan whalers.

In 1994 Greenpeace activists boarded Norweigan whaling ship the Senet and obstructed the vessel. Here’s a photograph of the Senet and Greenpeace’s Solo.

A Greenpeace activist cut loose a dying minke whale, before the whaling crew could deliver the coup de grace. Eva Egeberg, a veterinary surgeon and state inspector on board, commented, “What the activists actually achieved was to prolong the animal’s suffering”.

Greenpeace said that the cutting of the line to the minke whale was an individual action by one of the demonstrators and “not in accordance with the principles by which Greenpeace carry out their demonstrations”.

Greenpeace was sentenced in 1995 to pay 17,000 UK pounds (UKP) in damages and 11,000 UKP to cover the legal expenses of the whaling vessel skipper. The Senet continued whaling during the 1994 season and eventually took their full quota.

Whales saved = 0.

In 1999 Greenpeace conducts actions against the whaling vessels Vilduen and Kato.

During a coast guard chase of the Greenpeace rubber duckies, Greenpeace activist Mark Hardingham is seriously injured during a collision, resulting in serious breaks to one arm, a fractured pelvis and serious back injuries.

The Greenpeace ship MV Sirius is arrested by the Norwegian coast guard and towed into Stavanger harbour. A Norwegian court imposes a fine of US$35,000 dollars and a US$2000 fine for each of the activists in a rubber ducky attempting to cut loose a not yet dead minke whale next to the Kato. The whaler attempting to deliver a coup de grace to the dying Minke fires a number of shots into the head of the Minke, and a Greenpeace rubber ducky is struck by at least one of the shots.

Total value of fines and confiscations (three rubber duckies) was US$130,000. Greenpeace contest the judgements.

Kato skipper Ole Mindor Myklebust commented, “The Greenpeace inflatable then placed itself right into the side of our boat, with its bow close to the whale.

“Putting human safety first, I confirmed that nobody was close to the whale’s head. Nobody was sitting in the bow of the inflatable. I was only a few metres away from the animal when I fired three shots at it with the rifle. One bullet apparently made a hole in the bow of the Greenpeace boat because it was so close to the whale.
There is a very good reason for having a safety zone.

“This is a killing zone, not a playing zone. We are killing big animals, using heavy weaponry like explosive penthrite grenades and high-calibre rifles intended to kill Minke whales weighing up to 10 tonnes as quickly as possible.”

Whales saved = 0.

Will it take someone to be seriously injured or even worse killed in the Southern Ocean this winter before Greenpeace re-evaluates it position on battling the Japanese at sea?

Cheers, George McCallum

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Greenpeace Ship Esperanza at dock in Tromso, Norway

Mine Your Own Ignorance

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I’m in Perth at the moment, at the end of the Australian tour of a new documentary ‘Mine Your Own Business’. In the film, British journalist Phelim McAleer meets up with an unemployed 23-year-old Romanian miner Gheorge Lucian and together they explore a mine site in Rosia Montana before travelling together to Madagascar and Chile where environmental campaigining by western activists has prevented other mines going ahead. An underlying theme is that misguided environmental activism has stopped mining projects that would have brought jobs and opportunity to impoverished communities.

The film, produced by New Bera media in conjunction with the Moving Picture Institute in New York (a not for profit dedicated to advancing liberty through the medium of film), will go to film festivals next year and then hopefully into the cinemas. But this last week the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) sponsored the film’s Australian preview with one-off screenings in Melbourne, Hobart, Sydney and Perth.

After each screening there has been time for questions and discussion with Phelim and also Ann McElhinney, his partner and the film’s executive producer. In every city there have been some angry environmentalists in the audience letting us know that they disapproved of the documentary.

In Sydney a woman said that mining was a 200 year old technology that should be abandoned. Phelim followed up with comment that it was actually atleast a 2,000 year old activity and that mining technologies had changed and improved dramatically including over the last 20 years.

Ann followed on with comment that any one who lives in Sydney and is against mining is “living a lie”. She explained how mining provides the infrastructure and energy that we all use everyday.

Was the woman, who clearly stated as part of the discussion that she was “against mining”, living a lie or plain ignorant?

I know educated Australian women who are against logging, but use paper. I know women who are against mining, but couldn’t live without their gold jewellery. I know women who are against irrigation but expect an abundance of fruits, vegetables and affordable wine.

While in Sydney Phelim McAleer caught a bus, watched a movie and logged onto the internet. All activities that couldn’t happen without mining.

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Here’s Phelim in front of the Sydney Harbor Bridge – another product of mining.

The Story of Wielangta: How Environmentalists Mistake ‘A Timber Town That Disappeared’ for Pristine Wilderness

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There is a lot of forest in Tasmania.

In the south east of the island, there was once a thriving timber town known as Wielangta. In its heyday it had a general store, bakery, blacksmiths’ shops, a school and of course several saw mills.

Wielangta was ravaged by bushfires in the 1920s and abandoned in 1928.

I visited the area yesterday with Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney – the Irish born producers of Mine Your Own Business.

All we saw was forest. The town has disappeared.

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This is some of the beautiful blue gum forest we saw along the Wielangta forest drive.

The forest has re-grown and like most forest in Tasmania is now falsely considered pristine wilderness. But within the forest there is a rusted boiler and decaying tramlines — all that remains of the once thriving timber town known as Wielangta.

Interestingly, according to the website dedicated to Bob Brown’s fight to stop logging in Wielangta forest, this forest is described as “the most untouced and secluded area within 50 km of the Hobart CBD. It is a tiny fragment of the complex biodiversity here at the end of the last Ice Age.”

Wielangta forest is home to the swift parrot, wedge-tailed eagle and broad toothed stag beetle.

Parts of the forest have been cleared felled and then burnt by timber workers since European settlement. And the forest has always regrown.

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Here’s Phelim in a recently burnt coup, perhaps looking for the town that disappeared?

Tassie forests Phelim looking for ancient stag 2.JPG
Here’s Phelim perhaps looking for the ancient Wielangta (broad toothed) stag beetle.

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Thanks to Alan Ashbarry for taking us to Wielangta and for organizing the Tasmanian showing of Mine Your Own Business. Following the screening last night there was much comment over drinks, about how relevant the film is to Tasmanian timber communities struggling to survive against environmentalism. The film will be screened tonight (Wednesday night) in Sydney and tomorrow (Thursday night) in Perth. For more information visit http://ipa.org.au/events/event_detail.asp?eventid=120 .