Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for September 2007

What Peer Review? A note from John McLean on the IPCC

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Hi Jennifer,

Bob Ferguson of the Science and Public Policy Institute has just asked me to draw your attention to the fact that he’s published my analysis of the IPCC review.

It’s titled “Peer Review, What Peer Review” and can be found at http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/sppi_originals/peerreview.html

A key finding in the document is that the WG I chapter that attributed warming to human activities had 62 reviewers but many had a vested interest (chapter authors, IPCC editors, researchers whose work was cited). Just FOUR reviewers without any vested interest explicitly endorsed the principal claim. Not thousands of researchers, not even hundreds, just 4.

Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters has picked up on the article and written about it at length (and with lots of quotes) at http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/09/09/what-media-won-t-tell-you-about-u-n-climate-panel

You might also be interested in another of my documents that Bob Ferguson has just published. It’s titled “Fallacies about Global Warming” and can be found at http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/sppi_originals/fallacies_about_global_warming.html.

Cheers,
John McLean

The Sydney Climate Change Declaration: Who Cares?

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Paul Kelly writing in today’s The Australian has suggested that

“The Sydney climate change declaration is a success for John Howard, a good outcome for APEC and an incremental step on the long journey to find global agreement on a post-2012 emissions policy.

“The leaders’ declaration is exactly what the APEC forum was established to do – confront the big issues and strike a regional position to influence global outcomes…

“It is the first time so many nations from the developed and developing worlds have backed this concept [a long-term aspirational global emissions reduction goal]. It is also the first time the APEC region has embraced aspirational targets for energy efficiency and forest expansion.

“This is the first such agreement involving the major polluters, the US, China and the Russian Federation,” Howard said at APEC’s conclusion.

A friend of mine in Washington emailed this morning:

“APEC and the ‘Sydney Declaration’ got ten sentences at the bottom of page 14 in today’s New York Times. There was a story above it by a staff reporter that commented that the Australian media were more interested in what the President ate than his policies – it made us look like complete hicks – unfortunately it’s true. And then the article went on to explain that ‘Bums for Bush’ was not a campaign by hobos – but rather a nude protest.”

The Cumulative Impact of Rainforest Research

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Pig-exclosure.jpg

In the late 1990’s, a scientific ‘pig-exclosure’ project was established in the Cape Tribulation section of the Daintree National Park. The project involved the construction of an 80 metre square fence, anchored aggressively to the ground with steel trimmer bar and pegs. The site selection encompassed much of the very restricted, endangered and previously studied laurel, Endiandra cooperana.

The purpose of the project was to collect comparative data, inside and outside the exclosure, to quantify the adverse impacts of feral pigs upon seedling recruitment rates of an endangered plant species.

Criticisms of the project at the time included the accessibility by piglets into the exclosure through the mesh squares, the obstruction to cassowaries in a known corridor, proximity to two roads and the contention that even blind Freddy could see that pigs were damaging to seedling recruitment rates.

Despite these concerns the project proceeded and there it remained for many years. Eventually, the land manager agreed to remove the construction, but was so under-resourced it dismantled only one corner section and middle panel on each side, leaving around eight 30-metres sections of fence in the rainforest, where they remain to this day.

Mammal-chute(2000).jpg

In around the year 2000, another scientific study was carried out in the vicinity of the pig-exclosure project. This one sought to capture the primitive rainforest macropod, Musky-rat Kangaroo Hypsiprymnodon moschatus. The methodology required the placement of several hundred metres of plastic barrier through known habitat, stretched to form walls with strategic openings every thirty or so metres. The animals would familiarise themselves with the openings and after a period of adjustment, cages would be placed at the openings into which the animals would be herded by the research scientist. Once caged, they would be analysed and genetic material collected from hole-punched tissue from the ears of specimens.

Mammal-chute(2006).jpg

More recently, another similar project was transferred to the same locality from rainforest in the Cyclone Larry affected areas. Different plastic barriers were constructed, for the same purpose, but this time the project sought to map the liberation of captured animals by gluing a cotton reel to the released subjects so that the thread would leave a variety of passages that could be compared relative to the adjacent roadway, to determine whether roads had a quantifiable impact on evasive mammal behaviour.

All very interesting projects, but why are the researchers abandoning their materials in the forest?

Prue’s Unidentified Anomoly

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In the year 2000 I posted an image on wikipedia of a growth that I found on a Ryparosa javanica hoping to get it identified.

Seven years older, but no wiser, I thought it worth giving it another shot.

I think it’s part of the growth of the tree. The stem looks similar, but it is not the normal fruiting body and with hundreds of trees to look at daily, I have not seen it again.

I am asking Neil, most humbly, if he will post my image on the blog, since I remain unempowered in the blogging process.

Ryparosa Growth.jpg

Something Rotten in the Daintree

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Ryparosa2.jpg

Step into the rainforests of the Daintree lowlands at the moment and you’re likely to whiff the pervasive scent of the rare Javan Ash (Ryparosa javanica). The abundant flowering emits a sweet, slightly off-smell, like five-day-old socks or raw hamburger mince.

The Javan Ash is found in both Java and Australia. This forms evidence of the mixing of the continental biota of the Australian and Asian plates, which are believed to have collided about fifteen million years ago, in the vicinity of what is now the Timor region.

As a defence against herbivores, these plants emit the poisonous gas Hydrogen Cyanide (HCN), through a process called ‘cyanogenesis’.

HCN is poisonous, not only to animals that the eat plants, but to the plants themselves. To prevent poisoning themselves, the plants limit the production of HCN through the strategic storage of both cyanogenic glycosides and an enzyme in adjacent vacuoles of the cell. When the cell is damaged the compartment walls are breached and the reaction takes place. In this way, HCN is produced only when needed.

Martin Durkin Convinces BBC Not to ‘Save the Planet’

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The BBC has scrapped plans for Planet Relief, a TV special on climate change.

The Planet Relief special was scheduled for broadcast in January 2008 but after Newsnight editor Peter Barron attended the Edinburgh Festival last month there has been “intense internal debates about impartiality with senior news editors expressed misgivings that Planet Relief was too campaigning in nature and would have left the Corporation open to the charge of bias.” [see BBC Switches Off Climate Special]

“It is absolutely not the BBC’s job to save the planet,” warned Newsnight editor Peter Barron at the Edinburgh Festival last month.

According to Martin Durkin, director of The Great Global Warming Swindle,

“The BBC U-turn followed a flaming row at the Edinburgh International TV Festival where I was invited to speak and where I publicly denounced Horrocks (head of current affairs) and other BBC’s executives present in the most colourful terms. The press were there in numbers and ran the story the next day, and now Horrocks et al have abandoned their ghastly Planet Relief campaign. It just shows, it’s worth causing a fuss and being loud. I’m also speaking at the World Congress of Science Producers in New York in November. I’ll try to make as much trouble again.”