Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for December 2006

Holiday Reading, Christmas 2006

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1. GM Files: Getting the Truth Out There
By Glenn Tong
December 20, 2006

… Worsening drought conditions around Australia have brought into sharp focus the need for new technologies to meet the challenge of global warming. The indisputable reality is that we cannot afford the indulgence of ignoring genetically modified (GM) crops amid this worsening crisis. Gene technology allows the production of crops that can be grown much more efficiently in drought areas.

Taking wheat as one example, at present 35 to 50 per cent of the world’s wheat is grown in drought-affected regions. The annual global wheat crop is valued at more than $23 billion. With drought affecting wheat supplies around the world, commodities traders are predicting record high prices for the staple. New research into drought-tolerant varieties could greatly increase the world’s supply of wheat in the face of harsher climatic conditions.”

Read the complete article here: http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/gm-files-getting-the-truth-out-there/2006/12/19/1166290544413.html

2. Getting Radical about Climate Change
By Gwynne Dyer
December 20, 2006

… Here’s the plan. Everybody in the country will get the same allowance for how much carbon dioxide they can emit each year, and every time they buy some product that involves carbon dioxide emissions – filling their car, paying their utility bills, buying an airline ticket – carbon points are deducted from their credit or debit cards. Like Air Miles, only in reverse.

So if you ride a bike everywhere, insulate your home, and don’t travel much, you can sell your unused points back to the system. And if you use up your allowance before the end of the year, then you will have to buy extra points from the system.

This is no lunatic proposal from the eco-radical fringe. It is on the verge of becoming British government policy, and environment secretary David Miliband is behind it 100 per cent. In fact, he is hoping to launch a pilot scheme quite soon, with the goal of moving to a comprehensive national scheme of carbon rationing within five years.

Read the complete article here: http://www.canadaeast.com/ce2/docroot/article.php?articleID=82069

3. Happy Feet director dodges conservative backlash
by Andrew Darby
December 16, 2006

Mumble the emperor penguin and star of the hit movie Happy Feet can thank his friend and creator George Miller for the heady challenges he faces in his fictional life.

Leopard seals are a normal hazard in the life of an Antarctic emperor, banishment from the flock’s protective huddle a little more unexpected. But squaring off against the evils of industrial fishing, as Mumble does in Miller’s film Happy Feet, might be stretching things a little bit.

The rites-of-passage film about a tap-dancing penguin, which has led the US box office for the past three weeks — grossing $US125 million ($A159 million) — has come under assault in the US from conservative commentators as environmentalist propaganda.

Questions are being asked about the truthfulness of the film, which opens in Australian cinemas on Boxing Day. Happy Feet’s alien enemies are industrial fishers ravaging the ocean; its surprise danger the plastic six-pack ring that winds up around the neck of one of the main characters. Mumble has to deal with such trials to help fellow penguins.

Read the complete article here: http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/happy-feet-director-dodges-conservative-backlash/2006/12/15/1166162320291.html

4. Mrs Adam Smith
From The Economist
December 7, 2006

Neanderthal man was a strong, large-brained, skilful big-game hunter who had survived for more than 200,000 years in the harsh European climates of the last Ice Age. But within a few thousand years of the arrival of modern humans in the continent, he was extinct. Why that happened is a matter of abiding interest to anthropologically inclined descendants of those interloping moderns. The extinction of Neanderthal man has been attributed variously to his having lower intelligence than modern humans, to worse language skills, to cruder tools, or even to the lack of a propensity for long-distance trade. The latest proposal, though, is that it is not so much Neanderthal man that was to blame, as modern woman.

In existing pre-agricultural societies there is, famously, a division of food-acquiring labour between men, who hunt, and women, who gather. And in a paper just published in Current Anthropology, Steven Kuhn and Mary Stiner of the University of Arizona propose that this division of labour happened early in the species’ history, and that it is what enabled modern humans to expand their population at the expense of Neanderthals.

Read the complete article here: http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8380326

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I may add to this list over the next few days.

The Concept of ‘Passionate Agnosticism’ on Boxing Day 2006

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I was at church yesterday on Christmas Day, and I was also at church on Christmas Eve. I am a protestant by upbringing and tribal affiliation, but like Richard Dawkins, an atheist by conviction. But unlike Dawkins I am not against religion.

Richard Dawkins has just written a new book ‘The God Delusion’ and it has been described as:

“A hard-hitting, impassioned rebuttal of religion of all types and does so in the lucid, witty and powerful language for which he [Dawkins] is renowned. It is a brilliantly argued, fascinating polemic that will be required reading for anyone interested in this most emotional and important subject.”

But according to Michael Fitzpatrick writing for Spiked Online in a piece entitled‘The Dawkins Delusion’, Dawkins fails to recognize environmentalism as the new religion of choice for urban atheists:

“The most curious feature of Dawkins’ crusade against religion is that it is mounted at a time when the social influence of religion is at a low ebb. In the USA, Dawkins follows liberals in grossly exaggerating the influence of the religious right as a way of avoiding any reflection on the lack of popular appeal of their own agenda. In the UK, Dawkins concentrates his fire on one school in Gateshead where creationism has crept on to the curriculum (allowing him to sneer at Peter Vardy, the vulgar ‘car salesman’ millionaire who has bankrolled the school). Yet, while he happily tilts at windmills, Dawkins ignores much more influential currents of irrationality – such as the cult of environmentalism – which has a far greater influence on the national curriculum than notions of ‘intelligent design’.

While Dawkins can readily identify common features between South Pacific cargo cults and the Christian churches, he seems oblivious to the religious themes of the environmental movement. Just like evangelical Christians, environmentalists preach a ‘repent, the end is nigh’ message. The movement has its own John the Baptist – George Monbiot – who has come out of the desert (well, Oxfordshire) to warn us of the imminent danger of hellfire (in the form of global warming) if we do not repent and embrace his doctrines of austerity and restraint (3). Beware – the rough beast of the apocalypse is slouching towards Bethlehem to be born! “

I don’t have any real difficulty with the religous themes within environmentalism and I don’t particularly have a problem with the doctrine of austerity and restraint, but I do have a real problem with the way in which many environmentalists wrongly appeal to ‘science’ to support these themes.

Many environmental organisations have professors of science in key leadership positions and often these same people confuse ‘the scientific evidence’ with their misguided belief that everywhere the natural environment is in crisis.

For me evidence and faith are two very different things.

Sitting in church on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day I was reminded again about the importance of faith to the Christian and also the importance of ‘helping’ in particular the needy.

Many environmentalists want to believe the environment is being harmed by people and they want to help the environment, but they often lack an understanding of science. So their approach to ‘helping the environment’ is often confused and in some instances is harmful.

In Science, Religion and the Meaning of Life, Mark Vernon, “confronts the lust for certainty found in the dogmatism of conservative religion and militant science. He believes that a committed even passionate agnosticism is vital for the future of our planet and our souls.”

As a committed environmentalist and atheist, who is often accused of being an extreme skeptic, I find the concept of ‘passionate agnosticism’ appealing.

Climate Conditions & The December 2006 Bushfires in Australia

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Following is the text* from a ‘Special Climate Statement’ entitled ‘Climate conditions preceding the December 2006 southeast Australian bushfires’. The statement was issued on 19th December 2006 by the National Climate Centre.

Introduction

Southeast Australia has experienced highly unusual widespread bushfire activity in December 2006. These fires were preceded by exceptionally dry conditions, over both the short and long term, in all of the major fire regions (Victorian Alps, Tumut, and eastern Tasmania). In the two mainland regions, exceptionally high daytime temperatures also occurred during the months leading up to the fires. This statement describes the antecedent climatic conditions in the fire-affected regions.

Severe and extensive bushfires in southeast Australia are usually a result of an extended drought which leads to the drying of forests and grasslands. In most summers, there are a number of days on which high temperatures combine with low humidity and high winds to produce dangerous fire weather conditions. When combined with ignition, the antecedent dry and extreme weather set the stage for potentially severe bushfires.

The short-term weather conditions during the fire period itself are not within the scope of this statement, and will likely to form part of a separate report on meteorological aspects of the fires to be released at a later date.

Most of the affected areas are mountainous, with relatively sparse meteorological station networks. In addition, the networks in the affected regions have changed substantially over time, with a number of automatic weather stations recently being installed at high elevations. The changes in the station network mean that the gridded analyses are likely to underestimate the severity of the current dry period at high elevations, while the shorter-duration station records miss some previous exceptional drought episodes (such as 1902 and 1914). For these reasons, this report uses a mix of station and gridded data sets. The gridded datasets are the Bureau’s operational 0.25 degree (~25 km) resolution analyses dating back to 1900 and experimental new 0.05 degree (~5 km)
analyses which currently extend back to 1941.

Long-term rainfall deficits in SE Australia

Rainfall has been generally below normal in most of south-eastern Australia (including Tasmania) for the 10-year period starting late 1996 (see Special Climate Statement 9). An analysis of rainfall deciles for the 10 years ending November 2006 shows that a number of areas have experienced their driest 10-year period on record, including the area east of Melbourne, around Tumut, and in parts of eastern Tasmania. Virtually all of southeast Australia has experienced its driest 10-year period since at least the 1940s.

Over most of the region, mean annual rainfall since 1996 has been 10-20% below the long-term average, with anomalies exceeding 20% over areas east of Melbourne.

Acute shorter-term rainfall deficits and depleted snow cover in 2006

After near average rainfall during 2005, acute drought conditions began across southeast Australia in January 2006. Over the period from January to November 2006, rainfall has been at or near record low levels over most of the area of interest, both on the mainland and in Tasmania. At some locations in the core of the alpine region, including Cabramurra, Harrietville, Mount Buffalo, and Dartmouth Dam, as well as sites in or near the Melbourne water supply catchments such as O’Shannassy and Marysville, the January-November 2006 rainfall has broken previous records (many set in 1967) by a substantial 80-200 millimetres.

At most mainland locations, January-November 2006 rainfall has been 50-65% below normal. The anomalies have been particularly acute at most of the higher-elevation stations, with Mount Buffalo and Charlotte Pass 66% below normal, and Cabramurra 65% below normal. In the vicinity of St. Marys (Tasmania) January-November rainfall has been generally near 50% below normal. We note that the streamflows across this region have been at record low levels, in many cases far below previously observed lows, indicating the severity of the current drought episode.

For instance, winter inflows to the Murray River system were around 100 GL per month below that of the previously lowest inflows, which occurred in the Federation drought of 1902. (Further details are available from the Murray-Darling Basin Commission website, www.mbdc.gov.au).

Rainfall anomalies have been less extreme on the Gippsland side of the Victorian fire region, although January-November 2006 is still in the driest 10% of years (i.e., decile 1) at most locations, with many areas 35-50% below the 1961-90 average.

Snow cover was also abnormally light throughout south-eastern Australia during winter 2006. Reliable long-term snow cover data are only available from the NSW Snowy Mountains. These data indicate that the peak depth of the 2006 snowpack was the lowest recorded in the 50 years (all records) since records began at the three major Snowy Hydro monitoring sites (Spencers Creek, Deep Creek and Three Mile Dam), although the snow cover during the early part of the season was not as light as it was in 1973 and 1982. Virtually all snow had melted or sublimated by the first week of October, not only indicative of the warm spring, but also suggesting a longer period of exposure for alpine grasses. Whilst no long-term objective data exist for the Victorian snowfields, anecdotal reports indicate that similar snowpack anomalies occurred there. For instance, the ski resort of Mt Baw Baw experienced a maximum natural snow depth of 15 cm during winter.

Exceptionally high mainland temperatures, August-November 2006

After a relatively cool autumn and early winter, daytime maximum temperatures were well above average over most of the south-eastern mainland from August onwards. August-November maximum temperatures were 2-4°C above normal over most mainland fire regions, and were the highest on record over almost all of this region.

The temperatures were particularly exceptional at the high-elevation alpine sites. Mount Buller, Mount Hotham and Cabramurra all set record high mean maximum temperatures for the August-November period by between 1.4 and 1.8°C. Whilst these sites (except for Cabramurra) only have data for relatively short periods, all were operating in 2002 when temperatures at longer-term lowelevation stations were near record levels, and therefore it is likely that the 2006 temperatures are extremely unusual in the context of the last century. The warm temperatures of 2006 are consistent with the long-term warming trend over Australia. In addition the lack of snow cover
during spring 2006 provided a positive feedback to maximum temperatures at the higher-elevation sites.

Abnormal warmth was not such a significant feature of the Tasmanian fire regions. August-November maxima were generally 0 to 1°C above normal and did not approach record levels.

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The text was supported in the original statement by various tables and graphs which have not been reproduced here.

Beware the Global Surface Temperature Record: A Note from Vincent Gray

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I received the following note* from Vincent Gray. He began by wishing us all “the compliments of the season” and then lauched into a discussion of mean global surface temperature records:

The theory that “Climate Change” is caused by increases in carbon dioxide stands or falls on the reliability of the “mean global surface temperature record” as compiled by the three compilers, Hadley Centre (UK) , GISS (Goddard Institute of Space Studies), USA, and GHCN (Global Historic Climatology Network), USA.

But how reliable is it?

There are enormous changes in the numbers of weather stations used for compilation of the “suface record” at different periods. In 1900 there were 1500, in 1980 there were 6000 and in 1998 there were 2700.

The averages are taken from “grid boxes” made up of 5ºx5º latitude/longitude squares on a Mercator map. Out of a possible total of 2,592 grid boxes, there were 300 available In 1900, 850 in 1980 and 500 in 1998. However, these were not distributed uniformly. There was a high density in the USA and in Western Europe and vast gaps in Africa, South America, India and Siberia. Antarctica had none until fairly recently.

Then there is the reliability for individual weather stations to record temperature trends.

The following website gives photographs of a large number of official weather stations, all of which are obviously unsuitable for recording long term trends. One is even on top of a building:

http://climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu/2006/12/12/new-evidence-of-temperature-observing-sites-which-are-poorly-sited-with-resepct-to-the-construction-of-global-average-land-surface-temperature-trends/ .

Cheers, Vincent Gray
New Zealand

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* I have shortened and edited ‘the note’.

Also by Vincent Grey:

“The Cause of Global Warming”, Energy and Environment 11 pages 613-629, 2000,
http://www.john-daly.com/cause/cause.htm), and

“Regional Climate Change” at http://www.john-daly.com/guests/regional.htm.

Weekend Reading, Christmas 2006

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1. Ebenezer Scrooge got a bad press
By David Rowe
December 22, 2006

Charles Dickens’s sentimental 1843 work, A Christmas Carol, delivered to the world a character who has come to embody mean-spiritedness. Ebenezer Scrooge is represented as a cruel, penny-pinching miser who exploited his workers and hated the soft heartedness, and interruption to capital accumulation, that Christmas celebrations entailed.

In fulminating to Fred, his hapless nephew, Scrooge demands, “What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ’em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you?”

After scary visitations by his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley, and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, Scrooge I is redeemed, coming across as the wettest of liberals in a burst of “We are the World”-style celebrity philanthropy as he is reborn as Scrooge II.

Read the completel article here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5311

2. Reports of a dying catchment ‘greatly exaggerated’
By Glen Kile
December 20, 2006

The impact of logging in Melbourne’s water catchments is topical, given the drought, but has been greatly exaggerated.

While it is true logging results in fast-growing regrowth that uses more water than mature forests, the fact that less than 0.2 per cent is harvested annually means the effect is small.

Overall, timber production for saw logs is only permitted within a 13 per cent portion of the total catchment area and this is planned for logging on an 80-year cycle.

Read the complete article here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5295

3. More info if we are to cotton on to water issues
By Michael Duffy
December 16, 2006

A fortnight ago I fulfilled a dream and visited the Macquarie Marshes, which are at the centre of a dispute over water in the Macquarie River valley.

It’s a reminder of the complexity of water issues, which include long-term weather trends. There was a dry period from 1890 (when records were first kept) to 1946, followed by a very wet period to 1978, and then another dry period that is continuing. So a lot of our perceptions of what the land “should” look like are based on memories and photos of the 30 years after World War II, which were actually quite unusual.

Read the complete article here: http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/more-info-if-we-are-to-cotton-on-to-water-issues/2006/12/15/1166162317474.html

4. The Truth about Greenpeace and Whaling
by Paul Watson
December 20, 2006

Enough is enough. The Greenpeace fraud about saving the whales must be exposed. For years, I have been tolerating their pretense of action and watching them rake in tremendous profits from whaling.
Greenpeace makes more money from anti-whaling than Norway and Iceland combined make from whaling. In both cases, the whales die and someone profits.

Read the complete article: http://www.seashepherd.org/editorials/editorial_061220_1.html

Interested in the Environment? Looking to do a PhD?

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A new partnership between the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) and the University of Queensland has resulted in the creation of a new ‘Science and Environment Research Group’ and 3 PhD Scholarships in Environmental Science and 1 in Environmental Law.

Funding is available for 4 PhD scholarships to undertake evidence-based research into environmental issues with the aim of providing improved information and frameworks for prioritizing environmental need, quantifying the costs and benefits of conservation initiatives, developing agricultural policies and appropriate legal frameworks.

Successful applicants will become research fellows at the IPA and PhD students at the University of Queensland. The recipient of the scholarship in environmental law will become, in addition, a Research Scholar of the Centre for Public, International and Comparative Law (CPICL) in the T C Beirne School of Law.

Areas of research

The PhD research topics will be determined by the successful candidate through discussion with their advisor(s) and the IPA. Environmental Science projects will involve students using an evidence-based approach to quantify the costs and benefits to the environmental from government policies in areas such as, but not limited to:
• agricultural practices and chemicals
• genetically modified organisms
• water use, conservation and environmental flow management.

The Environmental Law candidate will survey and evaluate the legal and administrative frameworks for environmental management in Australia to determine their fairness and efficiency for achieving environmental goals. The environmental law research topic will be in these broad areas:
• use of evidence to develop environmental protection policy and law
• the suitability and efficiency of current laws and administrative processes for determining environmental goals, impacts, options, costs and benefits and the development of regulatory models that allow the application of sound science and appropriate economic instruments in meeting the challenges of environmental management.

The Person

First class honours or Masters graduates from a relevant discipline such as but not limited to biological or environmental sciences or law. Potential candidates will want to contribute to the environmental policy debate and pursue a career in research and public policy, communicating science to the public or advising Government and Industry oin environmental issues. The research fellows will be selected based on demonstrated academic achievement and their allied interest in the goals of the Science and Environment Research group. The personal skills and attributes should also include:
• Ability to access, analyse and evaluate data in topical and controversial areas
• Developed oral and written communication skills
• The ability to participate in the public debate on environment issues
• Understanding of evidence based non-partisan assessments.

Remuneration

These are full-time scholarships for a fixed-term of 3 to 3.5 years at $25,000 per annum with a generous allowance for operating and travel.

Contact

For more information about the projects and to obtain a position description contact Dr Jennifer Marohasy from the IPA at jmarohasy@ipa.org.au or look online at www.ipa.org.au.

For general scholarship information contact Marijke Schmidt Research, The University of Queensland, m.schmidt@research.uq.edu.au.

Closing Date for Applications: Monday, 29th January 2007.