Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for August 2, 2007

Toxic Dolphins: A Note from Ann Novek

By

Japanese officials have publicly condemned the eating of dolphin meat especially in school lunches due to mercury contamination:

“We tested some samples purchased at the Gyokyo supermarket in Taiji and Super Center Okuwa in the nearby city of Shingu …

One dolphin sample had a mercury content 10 times above the health ministry’s advisory level of 0.4 parts per million, with a methylmercury readout 10.33 times over the ministry’s own advisory level of 0.3 ppm.

Another dolphin sample tested 15.97 times and 12 times above advisory levels of total mercury and methylmercury, respectively.

The results prompted the two officials to describe dolphin meat as ‘toxic waste’.

Despite health concerns Taiji’s Mayor promises to build a new dolphin processing factory…

You can read more in the Japan Times

Earlier this year Norwegian media reported there was a growing problem with bioaccumulation of toxins in minke whales and that some parts of the whales contained higher concentrations of toxins that were recommended by health authorities.

When Keiko (Free Willy) died in Norway, children wanted to bury him on the beach. However, this was not suitable according to the health authorities due to danger from contaminants. Keiko was also consider ‘toxic waste’.

Cheers,
Ann Novek
Sweden

Register Now for the AEF Conference: Melbourne, Saturday September 8, 2007

By

Don Burke and many others will be at the Australian Environment Foundation Conference on Saturday 8th September.

Professor Bob Carter, a foundation member of the AEF, will talk on the myths of climate change. Dr Ziggy Switkowski, the chair of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, will provide insights into nuclear energy use and the environment.

Melbourne University Professor Rick Roush, recently returned from work in the United States, will outline the benefits to the environment of biotechnology while the Victorian government considers lifting the moratorium on genetically modified crops.

Professor Aynsley Kellow of the University of Tasmania’s School of Political Governance will speak on the political and social implications of environmentalism.

So, register at www.aefweb.info now.

I will also be there.

Chris Hogendyk and the Marsh Block

By

In May 2005 Chris Hogendyk became aware of a small 260ha property located in the heart of the Macquarie Marshes that was for sale. The property had been used for cattle grazing for over 150 years, and was in a rather sad state after 5 years of drought and overgrazing.

Chris motivated a group of 30 residents of the Macquarie Valley to chip in to buy the property, which they named ‘Burrima’, the local Aboriginal name for ‘Black Swan’.

The group formed a unit trust, the Macquarie Marshes Environment Trust (MMET), and elected a Committee of Management to handle the day-to-day management of the property.

Since the MMET has owned ‘Burrima’:

1. It has been de-stocked, with spectacular regrowth of reeds and other plants

block 2005.jpg
the block in 2005

restored
the same area a few years later

2. An eco-toilet has been put in to cater for visitors

toilet.jpg
Chris Hogendyk is the man with the wide brimmed hat.

3. Walkways have been put across major channels to make the wetland walk more accessible

board walk

4. A total of 1,170 native trees and shrubs, including 600 saltbush, have been planted. Revegetation with native grasses has been planned for this spring.

5. Local traditional owners have been granted access to map scarred trees and Aboriginal middens

The MMET has hosted hundreds of visitors to ‘Burrima’ including local community groups, schools, politicians, birdwatchers, universities, research scientists, and many more.

Chris has also become increasingly determined to expose the environmental water theft and politics that are destroying the two nature reserves in the Macquarie Marshes.

He has been lobbying for policy change through his role as Chairman of Macquarie River Food and Fibre.

Chris is also the General Manager of Auscott Macquarie – a large cotton growing enterprise with a farm and gins in the Macquarie Valley.

Chris is passionate about farming and the environment. His wife Gill Hogendyk is Treasurer of the Australian Environmental Foundation and an active member of the Wildlife Information and Rescue Service (WIRES).

Ignorant armchair environmentalists at the popular blog Larvatus Prodeo criticize Chris on the basis he grows cotton and Gill on the basis she is married to Chris (see comment posted at 4.43pm on October 5). And at least some of those guys and gals wear cotton jeans and t-shirts! If the folk at Larvatus Prodeo want to learn something about wetlands and cotton growing they could volunteer to chip weeds at ‘Burrima’ or in the upstream cotton fields.

Lockwood and Frohlich, Part 1

By

It has become common practice in climate science for a press release reporting the findings of a new paper to precede the publication in the journal concerned. Thus, the Lockwood and Frohlich paper ‘Recent oppositely directed trends in solar climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature’ (M. Lockwood and C. Fröhlich Proc. R. Soc. A doi:10.1098/rspa.2007.1880; 2007, 10th July) was announced in the 5th July edition of the journal Nature under the headline ‘No solar hiding place for greenhouse sceptics.’

It came as no surprise that Real Climate’s Stephan Rahmstorf was first out of the woodwork:

“This paper is the final nail in the coffin for people who would like to make the Sun responsible for present global warming,” says Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.

Normally papers are published because there is new research to report, but not this time it seems:

Mike Lockwood, says he was “galvanized” to carry out the comprehensive study by misleading media reports. He cites ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’, a television programme shown in March by Britain’s Channel 4, as a prime example.

But wait! There’s more:

Ken Carslaw, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Leeds, UK, points out that solar effects might still be possible. They might have acted to cool the climate in recent decades, but been overwhelmed. If so, the climate could be more sensitive to greenhouse gases than is generally thought, and future temperature increases might be greater than expected if a countervailing solar effect comes to an end.

Lockwood was “galvanised” again in response to criticism of his paper in the UK’s Daily Telegraph:

“I am one of the authors of the Royal Society global warming paper that you say is simple and fundamentally flawed (Comment, July 15). Simple? The idea was to present a straightforward demonstration, without recourse to complex climate models. Flawed? None of the three academic referees the paper was subjected to found any flaws.

Climate change is by far the greatest threat to everyone’s standard of living. Unlike political parties, companies, media stars, works of art, consumer products and even social trends and national economies, a scientific reality is immune to spin.”

(Prof) Mike Lockwood, Southampton University

Meanwhile, Piers Corbyn of Weather Action, who appeared in The Great Global Warming Swindle, had a letter published in The Guardian:

In desperate attempts to shore up their crumbling doctrine of man-made climate change, Professor Lockwood and Henry Davenport (Letters, July 14) themselves cherry-pick data. Prof Lockwood’s “refutation” of the decisive role of solar activity in driving climate is as valid as claiming a particular year was not warm by simply looking at the winter half of data. The most significant and persistent cycle of variation in the world’s temperature follows the 22-year magnetic cycle of the sun’s activity. So what does he do? He “finds” that for an 11-year stretch around 1987 to 1998 world temperatures rose, while there was a fall in his preferred measures of solar activity. A 22-year cycle and an 11-year cycle will of necessity move in opposite directions half the time.

The problem for global warmers is that there is no evidence that changing CO2 is a net driver for world climate. Feedback processes negate its potential warming effects. Their theory has no power to predict. It is faith, not science. I challenge them to issue a forecast to compete with our severe weather warnings – made months ago – for this month and August which are based on predictions of solar-particle and magnetic effects that there will be periods of major thunderstorms, hail and further flooding in Britain, most notably July 22-26, August 5-9 and August 18-23. These periods will be associated with new activity on the sun and tropical storms. We also forecast that British and world temperatures will continue to decline this year and in 2008. What do the global warmers forecast?

Piers Corbyn
Weather Action

The BBC’s verdict was ‘No Sun link’ to climate change.

In Part 2 I’ll take a closer look at some of what the L& F paper did, and didn’t say.