Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for August 22, 2007

Digging Up the Roots of the IPCC : An Essay by Tony Gilland

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“Many have criticised the scientific debate [on climate change] for becoming politicised – whether that be in terms of underplaying or overplaying the dangers presented by climate change – and this is an important issue to explore. But what has really been lacking in recent years is any substantive political debate about how we should view and respond to climate change. This has led to a situation where the IPCC, an unelected body, holds an unprecedented influence on the lives of everyone on the planet – and any attempt to question this body’s legitimacy or actions is shouted down as ‘denial’ of the scientific facts. In discussing the origins of the climate change issue and the IPCC, this essay raises the following questions:

1. How much of the global warming issue is shaped by new scientific discoveries, and how much by broader cultural and political trends?

2. How has the interaction between scientists, international institutions, governments, media and activists influenced the development of climate change policy?

3. Was the establishment of the IPCC a visionary act or an expression of political implosion in the West?

This essay does not attempt to provide a comprehensive history of the global warming issue; rather its aim is to contribute to the start of a critique. For whatever the facts about climate change can tell us, they do not tell us that the debate is over…

To keep reading this essay by Tony Gilland click here: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3540/

The Great “Illegal” Logging Swindle

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In a note from Gavin, attention is drawn to Tim Curtin and The Great “Illegal” Logging Swindle.

It appears that the primary issue concerns the propriety of Australia’s (and other OECD countries including USA and UK) criteria for establishing the ‘illegality’ of import logging.

Australia’s Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation (Senator, the Hon. Eric Abetz), relies largely upon its commissioned Jaakko Pöyry Report (JPC), which ranks source countries of Australia’s timber products, first by Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (TICPI) and then by its own assessment of their governance and managment capacity (GMC).

JPC deems the total timber exports to Australia, from countries with high TICPI and medium or low GMC, as illegal or at best “suspicious”.

Under its own environmental policies, Australia has acknowledged that to achieve sustainable economic development, there is a need for a country’s international competitiveness to be maintained and enhanced in an environmentally sound manner. Unfortunately, there exists no compliance requirement to its own Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment and as a consequence there is often no accountability.