Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for December 2007

CSIRO Announcements to Be Consistent with New Australian Government’s Message

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I’ve noticed that CSIRO often puts out so many press releases announcing each of its new environment-related projects and expected findings, that by the time the results are in, it’s old news. This perhaps reflects the type of research increasingly undertaken by CSIRO – research designed to confirm the popular consensus on environmental issues and model the distant future – and also the extent of the organisation’s investment in public relations. Now the new Australia Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, is likely to find out just how many press releases CSIRO puts out, with a new directive asking that CSIRO media releases be cleared by his office.

The new Secretary of the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Mark Paterson, has said the new directive is not about censorship or controlling the message, but rather “consistency in message”. More likely the government appreciates the power of the organisation and the extent to which CSIRO often uses the media and the intrigue of science to push its own political message.

Read more here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/21/2124888.htm

Lots of Examples of Cold Weather in 2007

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I am waiting for the official reports that will come out in January 2008 telling us how much hotter or colder this year has been relative to the long term average, but in the meantime the following opinion piece by David Deming, a geophysicist at the University of Oklahoma, is full of the anecdotal suggesting 2007 was ‘the year of global cooling’:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071219/COMMENTARY/10575140

He concludes with the comment that, “If you think any of the preceding facts can falsify global warming, you’re hopelessly naive. Nothing creates cognitive dissonance in the mind of a true believer. In 2005, a Canadian Greenpeace representative explained “global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter.”

I am keen to post something entitled ‘Lots of Examples of Warm Weather in 2007’ – post your examples as a comment below or write a short piece for publication as a new thread at this blog. You can email me at jennifermarohasy@jennifermarohasy.com

Of Kookaburras and Catbirds

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Kookaburra.jpg

According to our most outspoken local adherent to Al Gore, business owners within the Daintree Cape Tribulation rainforest community need to start taking some responsibility and planning for a very different future to what we are used to.

We cannot anticipate a never-ending tourism market into the foreseeable future – I suspect we have 5-years at the most, and perhaps as a community we need to start planning our futures.

The extremely rapid pace of change in the Arctic (and Greenland and Antarctica) are indicative of what is happening – these areas are described as the ‘canaries in the coal mine’. Since 1999 – Cape Tribulation has had an almost doubling of rainfall – far more cloudiness … and this year, for the first time in recorded memory, currawongs have appeared on the lowlands.

It is true that currawongs Strepera graculina made an unexpected appearance this year. Top-knot pigeons were also much more abundant and remained within the area far longer than expected. And Kookaburras Dacelo novaeguineae have been frequenting the cleared areas in the Cooper Valley. However, this atypical representation is more likely due to the abundance of natural resources in the Daintree rainforest, relative to those areas south that were so severely damaged by Cyclone Larry in March of last year.

As I photographed this individual, a spotted catbird Ailuroedus melanotis did its utmost to evict the intruder, calling incessantly and finally dropping vegetation from above. The catbird has two nestlings nearby and I wondered if the Kookaburra’s notorious nest-thievery was familiar to the catbird.

Rainforest Katydids

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Predatory Katydid.jpg

Katydids grow incrementally, from the exoskeletal confines of one instar to the next. They emerge from a hanging position on warm, still, humid nights and rely on a very limited variation of climatic tolerances. They will not survive the moult if it rains too heavily. Colouring and hardening takes several hours to complete.

This (unidentified) individual is capable of flight. It is a powerful, predatory katydid, as indicated by its size and the tibial spurs on its forelegs (in the close-up below).

Katydid growing.jpg

How Many Koalas Burnt Alive on Kangaroo Island?

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Bushfires have been burning out of control on Kangaroo Island, off the southern coast of Australia, not far from the city of Adelaide. The island is known for its wildlife in particular its very large population of koalas.

kangaroo_TMO_2007346.jpg
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image on December 12, 2007. Red outlines mark areas where the satellite sensor detected scorching conditions associated with wildfires.

The bushfires in Flinders Chase National Park had burnt 11,000 hectares (about 27,000 acres) on December 12, and fires the previous week more than 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres) of the island.

So, how many koalas have been burnt so far?

The image and information on the fires was sourced from the NASA Earth Observatory newsletter: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17860

Liberalism after the [Australian] Howard Government

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The latest IPA Review is now out and many of the articles from this issue are part of a feature ‘What next: Liberalism after the Howard Governmet’ and can be downloaded from the IPA’s website.

The feature includes a longish piece by me entitled ‘John Howard, Environmentalist’.

I beginning by suggesting that the story of John Howard the environmentalist is a story of deference to professed expertise and include reference to his various ‘achievements’ in this area including the banning of broad-scale tree clearing in western Queensland, the banning of fishing over large areas of the Great Barrier Reef, the EPBC legislation, and the $10 billion national water plan. This plan included the buy back of many more gigalitres than ever proposed by the then Labor opposition.

I conclude by suggesting that John Howard will, nevertheless, probably be remembered as simply the Prime Minister who refused to ratify Kyoto and ‘save the world from global warming’. I suggest part of his government’s problem was that they never had their own plan or ideas for the environment.

Before commenting you may want to read the piece at http://ipa.org.au/publications/publisting_detail.asp?pubid=731