Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for August 2007

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.

Revamping the Blog

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I started this blog on April 14, 2005 with a first post pondering what it means to be a progressive environmentalist.

For more than two years various people have made a significant contribution to the blog including Alan Ashbarry, Ann Novek, Arnost, Chthoniid, Chrisgo, Paul Biggs, Boxer, Ian Castles, David, David in Tokyo, Ender, Gavin, Helen Mahar, Hasbeen, Louis Hissink, Lamna nasus, Warwick Hughes, Jim, John, Roger Kalla, Ian Mott, Libby Eyre, Walter Starck, Neil Hewett, Rog, Roger Underwood, Russell, Steve and Steve, David Tribe, Schiller Thurkettle, SJT, Travis, David Ward, Luke Walker, Paul Williams, Woody, Graham Young and many others.

Thank you so much and please kept sending contributions and/or providing commentary.

A few weeks ago I decided to have the banner redesigned and I invited a few regular contributors to take a more prominent role in the running of the blog. Neil Hewett and Paul Biggs agreed.

Neil Hewett

Neil worked as an outdoor educator in the timber community of Ravenshoe at a time when the forestry industry was being closed down and tourism promised as an alternative industry – a promise that remains unfulfilled. He then spent seven years in remote aboriginal homelands before returning to the Daintree rainforest in far north Queensland, Australia, to become a co-founding director of Cooper Creek Wilderness.

You can read more about Neil here and email Neil at neil@ccwild.com

Paul Biggs

Paul is a Biological Sciences graduate who works in medical research at Birmingham University, UK, since 1979. He became interested in climate change after watching a BBC documentary which claimed that the Gulf Stream could be cut off within 20 years, resulting in the UK having climate like Alaska.

He now spends much of his spare time debunking the claims that there will be a man-made climate catastrophe due to carbon dioxide.

You can read more about Paul here and email Paul at pmbbiggsy@yahoo.com

The Goat

The goat is looking over my shoulder – check out the banner. The goat lives on a farm in the lovely misty green Bowman River valley near Gloucester, New South Wales, in Australia.

The goat posts new threads at this blog on behalf of anyone looking for an alias. Just send an email to mail@jennifermarohasy.com

Blog Rules

While the banner has changed, the rules remain the same. If you have forgotton study the picture and text here.

And also,

We strive for tolerance and respect. We don’t always agree with what we publish, but we believe in giving people (and goats) an opportunity to be heard.

The blog is archived in the National Library, Canberra, in Australia.

On the Decline of Coral Reef Ecosystems: A New Paper by Peter Ridd

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The supposedly already-degraded state of coral reef ecosystems is sometimes claimed to be a reason why anthropogenic global warming will have a major impact on the reefs, i.e. they are already close to extinction and can easily be tipped over the edge.

A recent paper** by Peter Ridd challenges the methodology used to conclude that the outer and inner Great Barrier Reef (GBR) are already 28% and 36% respectively, down the path towards ecological extinction.

I’ve uploaded the full paper, with permission from the author, here: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/data/Ridd_Energy%20n%20Environment.pdf

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** A CRITIQUE OF A METHOD TO DETERMINE LONG-TERM DECLINE OF CORAL REEF ECOSYSTEMS
by Peter V. Ridd. Reprinted from ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT, VOLUME 18 No. 6 2007

2007 Hurricane Season Begins with a Category 5

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The 2006 hurricane season ended on 30th November with the number of hurricanes that qualified as “major” – category 3 or above – 50 percent below NOAA forecasts and not a single hurricane made landfall.

Hurricane Dean is the first for this 2007 season and according to Jeff Master’s Wunder blog:

“Hurricane Dean has intensified into the first Category 5 storm in the Atlantic since Hurricane Wilma of 2005. The latest Hurricane Hunter fix at 8:34pm EDT found 185 mph winds at their flight level of 10,000 feet, which corresponds to surface winds of 160 mph. The pressure had dropped to 914 mb, and I expect Dean will strengthen right up until landfall. Landfall is expected near Chetumal, Mexico, just after midnight local time…

Keep reading here: http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html

Rhodes Fairbridge and the Idea that the Solar System Regulates the Earth’s Climate: A New Paper by Richard Mackey

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Hello Jennifer,

My paper, “Rhodes Fairbridge and the idea that the solar system regulates the earth’s climate”** has now been published.

Here is the link:
http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf

I would be most grateful if you would post it on your website. I am sure it will be of interest to your readers.

As is usual for a high quality international scientific journal, my article was subject to a vigorous peer review process, to which I had to respond before the reviewers and the editors would agree to publish it. This having been done, the paper has now been published.

Yours sincerely
Richard Mackey
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Here is the abstract:

Rhodes Fairbridge died on 8th November, 2006. He was one of Australia’s most accomplished scientists and has
a special connection with Australia. In July, 1912 his father Kingsley established Fairbridge Village near Perth.
It contains a chapel of elegant simplicity designed by one of the world’s most famous architects of the time, Sir
Herbert Baker, as a labour of love to commemorate Kingsley. Rhodes is one of the few scientists to research the
sun/climate relationship in terms of the totality of the sun’s impact on the earth (i.e. gravity, the electromagnetic
force and output and their interaction). When the totality of the sun’s impact is considered, having regard to the
relevant research published over the last two decades, the influence of solar variability on the earth’s climate is
very strongly non-linear and stochastic. Rhodes also researched the idea that the planets might have a role in
producing the sun’s variable activity. If they do and if the sun’s variable activity regulates climate, then ultimately the planets may regulate it. Recent research about the sun/climate relationship and the solar inertial motion (sim) hypothesis shows a large body of circumstantial evidence and several working hypotheses but no satisfactory account of a physical sim process. In 2007 Ulysses will send information about the solar poles. This could be decisive regarding the predictions about emergent Sunspot Cycle No 24, including the sim hypothesis.

According to the sim hypothesis, this cycle should be like Sunspot Cycle No 14, and be followed by two that will
create a brief ice age. During the 1920s and ‘30s Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology published research about
the sun/climate relationship, especially Sunspot Cycle No 14, showing that it probably caused the worst drought
then on record.

And an extract from the paper:

“The earth’s atmosphere contains several major oscillating wind currents that have a key role in the regulation of the earth’s weather and climate. These wind currents include the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO); Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO); the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO); the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO); the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO); the Atlantic Multdecadal Oscillation (AMO); the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD); and the Arctic Oscillation (AO); and the northern and southern polar vortices, which are two permanent cyclones at the poles. FAGAN (1999), (2000) and (2004) has shown how the climate changes rendered by these global atmospheric systems have resulted in major historic changes to cultures and societies throughout the world since the dawn of history.

LABITZKE et al. (2005), COUGHLIN and KUNG (2004) and CORDERO and NATHAN (2005) report that the sunspot cycle drives these large-scale oscillating wind currents. For example, strength of the QBO circulation and the length of the QBO period varies directly with the sunspot cycle. COUGHLIN and KUNG (2004) also conclude that at a range of atmospheric heights and at all latitudes over the planet, the atmosphere warms appreciably during the maximum of the sunspot cycle, and cools during the minimum of the cycle.xix VAN LOON, MEEHL AND ARBLASTER (2004) established that in the northern summer (July to August), the major climatological tropical precipation maxima are intensified in solar maxima compared with solar minima during the period 1979 to 2002.

NUGROHO and YATINI 2006 report that the sun strongly influences the IOD during wet season in the monsoons climate pattern; that is, the December to February period. CAMP and TUNG (2006) found that a significant relationship exists between polar warming and the sunspot cycle. ZAITSEVA et al. (2003) found that the intensity of the NAO depends on solar activity. ABARCA DEL RIO et al. (2003) have found that the patterns of variation between indices of solar activity, the Atmospheric Angular Momentum index and Length of Day show that variations in solar activity are a key driver of atmospheric dynamics. The United States Geological Survey agency found that changes in total solar radiant output cause changes in regional precipitation, including floods and droughts in the Mississippi River basin.xx The tropical oceans absorb varying amounts of solar radiant output, creating ocean temperature variations.

These are transported by major ocean currents to locations where the stored energy is released into the atmosphere. As a result, atmospheric pressure is altered and moisture patterns are formed that can ultimately affect regional precipitation.

SCAFETTA et al.(2004) and SCAFETTA and WEST (2005) have found that the earth’s temperature periodicities, particularly those of the oceans, inherit the structure of the periodicity of solar activity. WHITE et al. (1997) and REID (1991) have found that the sunspot cycle produces periodicities in the oceans’ temmperatures. This research shows that sea surface temperatures in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans, whether taken separately or combined, follow measures of solar radiant output derived from satellite observations and the sunspot record.

The sun’s separate impacts on the atmosphere and the ocean, and the complex non-linear interaction between the atmosphere and the ocean, is another process that amplifies the non-linear impact of the sun on our climate. Given that solar activity is a key determinant of ocean temperature, the decline on solar activity measured over the last decade should give rise in due course to a cooling of the oceans.

Read the full paper here: http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf

** MACKEY, R., 2007. Rhodes Fairbridge and the idea that the solar system regulates the Earth’s climate. Journal
of Coastal Research, SI 50 (Proceedings of the 9th International Coastal Symposium), 955 – 968. Gold Coast,
Australia, ISSN 0749.0208

Waste Not, Want Not: A Note from Tom Quirk on Nuclear Waste Disposal

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The mining of uranium and the disposal of spent fuel are the largest components of the costs in the uranium fuel cycle.

The disposal of long-lived radioactive waste within Australia could be one of the single biggest contributions we can make to the safety of our region, and even the world.

Domestically, Australia produces about 45 cubic metres – three truckloads – per year of low and intermediate level radioactive wastes. Much of this material is produced in the research reactor at Lucas Heights, then used at hospitals, industrial sites and laboratories around the country.

There are about 3,700 cubic metres of low-level waste stored at over a hundred sites around Australia. Over half of the material is lightly-contaminated soil from CSIRO mineral processing research. In addition there are about 500 cubic metres of long-lived intermediate level waste.

But having dispersed storage is not considered a suitable long-term strategy for the safe storage of waste. So the Federal Government has proposed a consolidation to a single repository site.

The plan is for a disposal area about 100 metres square within a two square kilometres area.
Low-level and short-lived intermediate level wastes would be disposed of in a shallow, engineered repository designed to contain the material and allow it to decay safely to background levels.

Intermediate-level wastes with lifetimes of greater than 30 years would be stored above ground in a facility designed to hold them secure for an extended period and to shield their radiation until a geological repository is eventually established, or alternative arrangements made.

Contrary to popular belief, this proposal is not about the ultimate disposal of high-level radioactive waste from the spent fuel of reactors.

The high level wastes produced by nuclear power stations are not yet a concern. If we are lucky we might have two operating nuclear power stations within 20 years. But we would not then be worrying about waste from them for another 50 years.

Even so, it may be with cheap coal and carbon dioxide burial – what we grandly call geosequestration – that we find conventional power plants are the better buy.

Currently, the concern is about the disposal of industrial waste, an area where governments have had great difficulties in finding acceptable solutions.

So what is the fuss about?

There is a worry about instability caused by earthquakes. Helen Caldicott in ABC News Opinion on Monday expressed concern that the Federal Government’s preferred site for a waste dump experienced recently a quake measuring 2.5 on the Richter scale.

However, an earthquake of this magnitude is classified as detectable but generally not felt. There are about 1,000 earthquakes of this intensity each day all over the earth. It might not even cause a ripple in your café latte.
Enrichment and reprocessing may provide further business opportunities. In this area, Australian scientists have made major technical contributions. But firms require access to large amounts of capital to pursue their development. None of our major mining or energy companies has expressed, at least recently, any desire to enter these markets.

The mining of uranium and the disposal of spent fuel are the largest components of the costs in the uranium fuel cycle. Australia could benefit from providing both services.

Indeed, there could be significant regional demand. Thailand, China and India might find an Australian waste storage facility extremely attractive. Countries that are genuinely earthquake prone, as Japan and Indonesia are, would no doubt welcome an opportunity even more.

Australia provides its reputation, its technical expertise and its high-quality infrastructure for all manner of services to Asia-Pacific region. We should not be blind to the potential of a waste storage facility.

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This piece was first published by ABC Online and is republished here with permission from the author. Tom Quirk is a member of the board of the Institute of Public Affairs and chairman of Virax Holdings Ltd, a biotechnology company. He is a nuclear physicist by original training.