Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for May 2008

What is Wilderness? (Part 4)

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“Wilderness thus became the domain of the nobility, an environment where they alone could develop and display a number of artistocratic qualities. Friction arose between the peasants – inhabitants of open, unobstructed outdoor spaces – and the noble occupants of the forest, and that friction persisted as long as the peasant felt excluded from a portion of the landscape that he believed was his by right of heritage.”
John Brinckerhoff Jackson, 1994

Tasmania May 05 034 copy .jpg
Tasmanian Forest, Photograph taken by Jennifer Marohasy in May 2005

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part 1 https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/000797.html
part 2 https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/003015.html
part 3 https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/003044.html

Australia’s 2008 State of the Forests Report Released

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Australia’s State of the Forests Report 2008 was launched by the Hon Tony Burke MP, and Commonwealth Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry on May 21, 2008. According to a media release from Forestry Tasmania:

“The Report is based on data from the public and private sectors and provides the most comprehensive review of the state of our forests ever undertaken,” said Dr Hans Drielsma, Forestry Tasmania’s Executive General Manager.

“There are many positive signs amongst the Report’s finding. For example, Australia’s forests sequester more greenhouse gases from the atmosphere than they emit and therefore help to offset Australia’s contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions.

“The Report shows that managed native forests offset about 5.5%, and plantations about 3.5% of total national greenhouse gas emissions in 2005. Additional storage in wood products offset a further 1% of emissions. This complements the preliminary research done by FT that shows State forests are sequestering carbon over the long term.

“According to the document, since the 2003 Report, the area of Australia’s native forest in formal nature conservation reserves has increased by about 1.5 million hectares to 23 million hectares, from 13% to 16%.

“There are a total of 8.5 million hectares of forest certified as being sustainably managed under the premium (and not-for-profit) Australian Forestry Standard, and about 600,000 hectares certified under the FSC system. Combined, this is an increase of approximately 2.5 million hectares over the previous year.

“The State of the Forests Report shows that over 30 million hectares of public forests (20% of the total forest area) is managed primarily for protection, including of soil and water values; most is in nature conservation reserves.

The Report also confirms the fact that the net loss of woody vegetation (mostly forest) estimated by the Australian Greenhouse Office was 260,000 hectares (0.25%) per year between 2000 and 2004, due mainly to clearing for agriculture and urban development, and not forest practices.

“The report uses the internationally-established Montreal Process framework for criteria and indicators of sustainable forest management and was done by the national-level Montreal Process Implementation Group for Australia (MIG).”

The 2008 report was prepared by the MIG, comprised of representatives from the Australian, state and territory governments. Production of the report was co-ordinated by the Bureau of Rural Sciences on behalf of the MIG.

In addition to the main report, a package of supporting materials will also be launched, comprising a stand-alone executive summary and a series of fact sheets on topical forest issues such as carbon, certification, conservation, employment, fire, sustainable yield, forest type and extent, and water.

You can download the report here: http://adl.brs.gov.au/forestsaustralia/publications/sofr2008.html

Exxon Pulls Funding to Skeptics

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NEW YORK – Exxon Mobil Corp is pulling contributions to several groups that have downplayed the risks that greenhouse gas-emissions could lead to global warming, continuing a policy started in 2006 by Chief Executive Rex Tillerson.

Exxon will not contribute to some nine groups in 2008 that it funded in 2007. It said in its corporate citizenship report that the groups’ “position on climate change could divert attention from the important discussion on how the world will secure the energy required for economic growth in an environmentally responsible manner.”
The groups Exxon has stopped funding include the Capital Research Centre, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, Frontiers of Freedom Institute, the George C. Marshall Institute, and the Institute for Energy Research, according to Exxon spokesman Gantt Walton.

Read more here: http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/48489/story.htm

Decline in Victorian Autumn Rainfall

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VICTORIA has suffered a 40 per cent plunge in autumn rainfall since 1950 and climate change is a key factor, a new report has found.

Herald Sun: Victorian Autumn rain down 40 per cent since 1950: CSIRO

Fluctuations in sea-surface temperatures to the north of Australia and changes in atmospheric circulation patterns over the sub-tropical Indian Ocean have been identified as key factors leading to declining rainfalls in south-eastern Australia since 1950.

CSIRO: Understanding autumn rain decline in SE Australia

South Eastern Australian Climate Initiative

Thanks to Gavin and Luke.

Wompoo Fruit Doves

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Wampoo.jpg

Photographing this roosting pair of Wompoo Fruit-Doves Ptilinopus magnificus was simply irresistible. Over the years, I have seen many asleep, but never so low to the ground.

They are large doves, reaching almost half-a-metre and are richly coloured, with white head, purple breast, green wings with a conspicuous yellow stripe and bright yellow undergarments.

Their call is deep and resonant, with human-like attributes; “wollack-woo”. They feed on a variety of rainforest fruits, which may be quite large in size and are eaten whole.

Was 1998 the Warmest Year of the Millennium?

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Steve McIntyre’s recent Ohio State University presentation is now available online. This is an excellent summary of the ‘Hockey Stick’ debate and the climate debate in general, which extends to 45 pages (including references).

The presentation concludes:

So where does that leave us?

In my opinion, there are serious and probably fatal problems with the main proxies used as supposed evidence against a warm MWP – the Graybill strip bark chronologies, Briffa’s adjustment to the Tornetrask series, the inconsistency between Briffa’s Yamal substitution and the updated Polar Urals series and so on. For every proxy that supposedly shows a MWP cooler than the present, there seems to be one that is just as good or better evidencing the opposite. For the California and Urals proxies so fundamental to the Hockey Stick, the ecological evidence is further evidence against the Graybill and Briffa chronologies being interpretable as temperature proxies.

The selection of proxies in studies displayed by IPCC seems to me to be biased against proxies with a warm MWP. IPCC itself does not carry out any independent due diligence of the type that might be expected in a prospectus. Further, in 2007, as in 2001, the authors involved in preparing the paleoclimate section were active parties in controversies and, in the end, IPCC Fourth Assessment Report strongly reflects their partisan point of view.

Is there a wider lesson here for engineers? We are often told that the “Science is settled”. But engineers, of all people, know that, even if the “science is settled”, the engineering work may have just begun. One would hardly derive the parameters for a chemical process from an article in Nature without an engineering feasibility study.

The most critical question in climate is the estimation of a parameter – is the sensitivity of climate to doubled CO2 1.5, 2.5 or 3.5 deg C? Or could it be 6 deg C or 0.6 deg C?

In some ways, the estimation of such parameters through the development of complicated computer models is reminiscent of activities carried out by engineers. One important difference is that climate scientists typically report their results in highly summary form in journals like Nature, rather than in the 1000-page or 2000-page engineering studies that an aerospace engineering enterprise would produce.

Viewed from this perspective, a remarkable aspect of the climate debate has been the seeming inability of the climate science community to narrow confidence intervals on this estimate. In 1979, the Charney Report (National Research Council 1979) estimated the impact at 3 deg C with a 1.5 degree range either way. In 2007, IPCC AR4 estimates are virtually unchanged. With all the improvements in scientific knowledge and all the efforts of climate scientists over the years, why has the improvement of these confidence intervals proved so resistant? I don’t know, but it’s worth thinking about.