Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for April 2008

A Cool Idea to Warm To, By Christopher Pearson

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ABOUT the beginning of 2007, maintaining a sceptical stance on human-induced global warming became a lonely, uphill battle in Australia.

The notion that the science was settled had gathered broad popular support and was making inroads in unexpected quarters. Industrialists and financiers with no science qualifications to speak of began to pose as prophets. Otherwise quite rational people decided there were so many true believers that somehow they must be right. Even Paddy McGuinness conceded, in a Quadrant editorial, that on balance the anthropogenic greenhouse gas hypothesis seemed likelier than not.

What a difference the intervening 15 months has made. In recent weeks, articles by NASA’s Roy Spencer and Bjorn Lomborg and an interview with the Institute of Public Affairs’ Jennifer Marohasy have undermined that confident Anglosphere consensus. On Amazon.com’s bestseller list this week, the three top books on climate are by sceptics: Spencer, Lomborg and Fred Singer.

Read more here: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23597729-7583,00.html

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from The Australian, by Christopher Pearson, ‘A Cool Idea to Warm To’, April 26, 2008.

Flannery – The Wrong Weather Maker

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RAIN sure is falling this week on the parade of our global warming alarmists.

Wettest of all is Tim Flannery, who was made Australian of the Year last year for wailing the world was doomed.

“I think there is a fair chance Perth will be the 21st century’s first ghost metropolis,” he groaned. But buy his The Weather Makers before you flee.

Reporters solemnly reported even this: “He (Flannery) also predicts that the ongoing drought could leave Sydney’s dams dry in just two years.”

And when did he say that? Oh, three years ago? Yet what do I read in my papers yesterday but this: “Sydney’s run of rainy days in a row – 11 – is the most in April for 77 years.”

And Sydney’s dams? Above 65 per cent capacity now, and rising.

…..it was probably no surprise Flannery didn’t turn up at the Rudd Government’s ideas summit last weekend to talk more about how warming was dooming Sydney, despite being issued a gold-edged invitation.

He flew to Canada instead to tell their yokels to cut gases like the ones he just blew out the back of his jet, and talked warming with British Columbia’s Premier and businessmen.

But once again Flannery picked the wrong time and place to preach his warming gospel. A local paper reports: “In some regions of usually balmy British Columbia, many were caught by surprise by a storm that moved in late Friday and set snowfall records in Nanaimo, Victoria and Vancouver.”

How the weather mocks Flannery. He’s flooded in Sydney, where he predicted drought, and snowed in in Canada when he predicted heat.

Read the entire article in The Herald Sun: Prophecy all washed up

Population, sustainability, climate change, water & the future of our cities

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Australia faces an unprecedented challenge from climate change. We risk losing our natural heritage, our rivers, landscapes and biodiversity. We have a brief opportunity to act now to safeguard and shape our future prosperity. – AUSTRALIA 2020 SUMMIT – INITIAL SUMMIT REPORT

One of the 100 privileged participants within the POPULATION, SUSTAINABILITY, CLIMATE CHANGE, WATER & FUTURE OF OUR CITIES topic area, proposed,

“A zero species loss by 2020 goal, and one of the ways that this could be achieved is through a comprehensive series of protected areas.”

Not one of the 100 participants argued in support of protecting the integrity of the evolutionary process.

Another participant stated,

“My understanding, from my work in natural resource management, biodiversity and so forth, we could stop any further degradation by 2020; that’s a feasible goal; most of it is government, not money…”

Again, no argument from participant expertise, along the lines of the 24-million feral pigs in Australia, as but one example.

The summit proposed that environmental considerations will be fully integrated into economic decision making in Australia, at the household, business and government levels, but there was no contention that legislation enacted in 1994 already required the integration of environmental and economic considerations in decision making and for balancing the interests of current and future generations.

I would have hoped that the more important recital would have recognized the historical lack of compliance as the preeminent issue and that future refinements would preclude non-compliance.

Indeed, the 1992 Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment expresses a significant achievement of environmental policy design and rather than reinventing the regulatory wheel, as-it-were, it could have formed the foundation for refinement towards the forum’s stated aims.

The delegation proposed the adoption of a National Sustainability, Population and Climate Change Agenda and the development of robust institutions to support it. As a part of this agenda, an audit function to report on governments’ performance against these climate change and sustainability objectives, would be included.

Again, the pre-existence of the National Environment Protection Council Act 1994, with its annual auditing and reporting functions, was conspicuous in its absence from the debate.

Interestingly, the Initial Summit Report indicated how strikingly and often concern arose that Australia has not been sufficiently clever in using the skills and ingenuity of its people.

This is despite Principle 22 of the 1992 RIO DECLARATION ON ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT, which states:

Indigenous people and their communities and other local communities have a vital role in environmental management and development because of their knowledge and traditional practices. States should recognise and duly support their identity, culture and interests and enable their effective participation in the achievement of sustainable development.

The Initial Summit Report did stipulate, however, the involvement of indigenous people, insofar as:

• A new dialogue will have been established with our indigenous peoples on our response to climate change, water and sustainability challenges;

• Stakeholder engagement, including with regional Australians, capacity building and education are needed to support the significant behavioural change required to implement these policies. Indigenous people must also be involved in policy development and implementation; and

• That a National Indigenous Knowledge Centre be established and maintained with indigenous people. This centre would examine multidisciplinary research and program delivery pertaining to climate change, sustainability and water.

However, the essence of environmental interdependence (in my opinion), binding individuals and families together in common possession, through the building block of both communities and nationhood, was largely overlooked. So too was the excellent practice of so many individuals, families and communities through existing commitments. There was rather the stale and familiar stench of enriching the bureaucratic stake in an illusion of environmental concern.

I would have preferred that Australia was rather re-defined by its people and their relationship with their natural environment. Surely it would have been better if Australia had been required to be supportive of its unique communities, bound in triumphant territorial respect for the aspirations, life and memory of their constituents. I would have thought it much more encouraging, if it was exposed to discomfort of its historically abhorrent dislocation of communities from their natural environment and in the same unequivocal terms that bind Australians to Australia.

I also believe that Australia’s adaptive strategy must be accommodated by the national strength of unity. The federal Government needs the solidarity of its people to act upon this global conviction and to bring the divisiveness of yesterday’s enviro-corruption to an unequivocal end. All Australians must annihilate the perverse belief that we condone the removal of people and communities as a condition of caring for the natural environment. We must rather stand united and restore dignity to our disenfranchised communities and revitalise their children’s futures.

Ozone Hole Recovery Could Modify Southern Hemisphere Climate

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A full recovery of the stratospheric ozone hole could modify climate change in the Southern Hemisphere and even amplify Antarctic warming, according to scientists from the University of Colorado at Boulder, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.

ScienceDaily.com: ‘Ozone Hole Recovery May Reshape Southern Hemisphere Climate Change And Amplify Antarctic Warming’

Humans Nearly Wiped Out 70,000 Years Ago?

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Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests.

The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday.

The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimated that the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age.

CNN: ‘Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says’

BBC News website: Human line ‘nearly split in two’

Norwegian Fishermen’s Union: NGOs a Threat to the World’s Food Resources – A Note From Ann Novek

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“This due to their campaigns against whaling and sealing. Their campaigns are against a reasonable and sustainable harvesting of marine resources,” states the Head of the Norwegian Fishermen’s Union, Reidar Nilsen, yesterday in paper, Fiskeribladet Fiskaren.

His reply was a response to WWF Norway that had made statements that the fishermen overfished the marine resources and thus were a threat to the world’s food resources, but Nilsen said the NGOs are a bigger threat to the world’s food resources through their anti whaling and anti sealing actions. According to Nilsen, it was in the fishermen’s own interest to conserve and harvest marine resources in a responsible way.

It seems as well that Mr. Nilsen’s statement has not as much to do with eating whale and seal meat but again as an “whales eat too much fish” argument. Nilson states that the whales are consuming 4 or 5 times as much fish than the fishermen are harvesting.

According to Norwegian animal welfare organisation, Dyrebeskyttelsen, It’s wrong to make scapegoats of the whales. They state, “The whales belong in the eco system, and that the fish the whales are eating are brought back to the eco system. Humans on the contrary are removing both fish and marine mammals from the system.”

We have also heard that the Norwegian IWC Commissioner, Mr. Klepsvik , has stated that the Norwegians are managing their marine resources in a holistic approach, meaning if they take out fish from the seas, they must also harvest whales.

Cheers,
Ann
Sweden