Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for January 2008

You Can’t Tax the Sun

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Yes, if you can’t tax the Sun, the current highly politicised state of climate science suggests that there isn’t much point spending money on understanding the Sun either.

I refer to this article on the BBC website: ‘Space weather science rues cuts’

Excerpt: The field of science dedicated to understanding “space weather” – which can pose hazards to satellites and aircraft – may be wiped out in the UK. That is the verdict of experts responding to UK physics and astronomy cuts made as administrators seek to plug an £80m hole in their finances.

Tracking the Sun’s changing activity is vital for managing radiation doses and for protecting aircraft electronics. It is also of economic importance, since it costs airlines to deviate from flight paths.

Blog contributor Arnost observes:

One of the risks that the world faces, as more and more funds are diverted to AGW and related projects, is that “real” science will get under-funded.

This is a case in point – understanding Solar Terrestrial Physics is critical. If adequate warning of solar activity is not provided, Solar Flares / Coronal Mass Emissions etc. may fry satellite electronics (if they aren’t shut down), and in worst cases may cause aircraft (esp. in trans-polar routes) to suffer major electronic failure putting lives at
risk.

It is of course ironic that the first cuts are made to the Solar Terrestrial Physics field – as this is the major threat to the CO2 driven AGW thesis in that a viable counter-theory may be found as a by-product of monitoring / predicting solar behaviour.

IPCC Chairman Tries to Explain Global Non-Warming

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The head of the UN IPCC is sounding like a salesman who is worried about the quality of his product:

Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N. Panel said he would look into the apparent temperature plateau so far this century. “One would really have to see on the basis of some analysis what this really represents,” he told Reuters, adding “are there natural factors compensating?” for increases in greenhouse gases from human activities.

So, Pachauri has noticed that the natural ‘El Nino’ driven record year for instrumentally measured ‘global average temperature’ remains as 1998. We are now in 2008, Rather than admit to the possibility that ever increasing CO2 emissions don’t seem to be pushing up global temperatures, he is looking for another excuse.

Read more on Pielke Jr’s excellent Prometheus blog.

Would Nathan Dam have Stopped Reef Flooding?

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There has been a lot of rain in central Queensland over the last month. Water has been flowing over the Fairbairn dam spillway and the Nogoa River has flooded the town of Emerald with over 2,000 residents seeking emergency accommodation. The Nogoa River flows into the MacKenzie River which flows into the Fitzroy River which flows into the Great Barrier Reef.

According to environmental researcher Alison Jones floodwaters flowing down the Fitzroy River to the Great Barrier Reef will kill off masses of coral around the Keppel Islands.

So, according to Jones, floodwaters are bad for the reef.

The Dawson River, also flows into the Fitzroy River, and was to have a massive dam built in its headwaters. But development of the Nathan Dam was blocked through a court action brought by the Queensland Conservation Council (QCC) and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

If the Nathan dam had been built on the Dawson River would there now be less flooding of the Great Barrier Reef, or would there be not enough flooding? Is there such a things as just the right amount of flooding?

Instability in Sustainability: Paraphrasing Aynsley Kellow

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The American Geophysical Union (AGU) recently released a statement on climate change which began, ”The Earth’s climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming.”

Implicit in this sentence, and implicit in the concept of ‘sustainability’, is the idea that there is such a thing as a steady state …nature in balance. But as Aynsley Kellow wrote way back in 2002:

“There is no clear consensus on what sustainability means, but there are some fundamental questions inherent in all this. Sustainable for how long? Are ecosystems to be sustained? Or should the emphasis be on the sustainability of human societies? If so, should it be all humanity? Nation-states? Or subgroups, including traditional societies, threatened by development activities? (see Sneddon, 2000).

“Many of the conceptions which aim to settle this matter rest – as eventually did the ESD [Ecologically Sustainable Development] process in Australia – on a notion of ecological sustainability. But how helpful is this? Ecologists once thought that nature left free of human interference would eventually reach a steady state, but over the past 30 years ecological disturbance has replaced the climax community among most ecological scientists – a revolution to which Australian Ralph Slatyer made a significant contribution.

“It is a point of some interest that in the popular imagination, the stability of the climax community is probably still the dominant ‘myth of nature’, sustained by constant repetition by political ecologists and, like sustained yield in Germany, no doubt offering the promise of stability in uncertain and rapidly changing times.

“An ecological science in which perturbation, turbulence, disturbance, succession and flux are the norm creates insurmountable problems for ecocentric philosophical positions. While we are not reduced to seeing nature in purely utilitarian terms, it does place the emphasis back on human choice – in Botkin’s (1990) terms, we must choose among the discordant harmonies of nature those elements we wish to retain. We must reject nature as providing norms which guide how we must live and accept instead that we are part of a living, changing system; we can chose to accept, use, or control elements to make for a habitable existence, both singly and individually.

“An emphasis on disturbance and chaos also suggests we need to be cautious about assuming we can manage resources at sustained yield …

Read more here: http://www.science.org.au/sats2002/kellow.htm

from: SCIENCE AT THE SHINE DOME 2002: ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM. Transition to sustainability . 3 May 2002. Social aspects of sustainability. by Professor Aynsley Kellow

What If The Climatologist’s Have Got it Wrong?

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“Just suppose, if you are able, that significant man-made climate change is false; further, that it cannot happen, and that all changes to the climate system are due to external forcings, such as those caused by changes in solar output. Just suppose all this is true for the sake of argument.

“Now put yourself in the place of a climatologist, one of the many hundreds, in fact, who was involved with the IPCC and so shared in that great validator, the Nobel Peace Prize.

“You have spent a career devoted to showing that mankind, through various forms of naughtiness, has significantly influenced the climate, and has caused temperatures to grow out of control. Your team, at a major university, has built and contributed to various global climate models. Graduate students have worked on these models. Team members have traveled the world and lectured on their results. Many, many papers were written about their output, and so forth…”

I am quoting Statistician William M. Briggs** who explores this issue by considering four different alternatives for today’s climatologists:

1. Abandon the model and seek a new career

2. Discover where the model went wrong; publish results admitting why and how you were wrong

3. Sit and wait: after all, the temperature is bound to increase sooner or later, hence validating your model

4. Believe that the model cannot be wrong, else so many people wouldn’t believe it, and so posit some new source that is “holding back” warming, and only if that new source weren’t there, your model would be perfect.

Read more here: http://wmbriggs.com/blog/2008/01/28/is-climatology-a-pseudoscience/

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** Is climatology a pseudoscience?
January 28th, 2008

US President Promises New Fund for Secure and Clean Energy

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“To build a future of energy security, we must trust in the creative genius of American researchers and entrepreneurs and empower them to pioneer a new generation of clean energy technology. (Applause.)

“Our security, our prosperity, and our environment all require reducing our dependence on oil. Last year, I asked you to pass legislation to reduce oil consumption over the next decade, and you responded. Together we should take the next steps: Let us fund new technologies that can generate coal power while capturing carbon emissions. (Applause.)

“Let us increase the use of renewable power and emissions-free nuclear power. (Applause.) Let us continue investing in advanced battery technology and renewable fuels to power the cars and trucks of the future. (Applause.)

“Let us create a new international clean technology fund, which will help developing nations like India and China make greater use of clean energy sources. And let us complete an international agreement that has the potential to slow, stop, and eventually reverse the growth of greenhouse gases. (Applause.)

This agreement will be effective only if it includes commitments by every major economy and gives none a free ride. (Applause.)

The United States is committed to strengthening our energy security and confronting global climate change. And the best way to meet these goals is for America to continue leading the way toward the development of cleaner and more energy-efficient technology. (Applause.)

To read the last ‘State of the Union’ address from US President George Bush click here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/01/20080128-13.html

According to ABC Online this represents a commitment of US$2 billion (A$2.25 billion).