Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for September 2008

Polar Bears Move When Climate Changes: A Note from Nichole Hoskin

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THIRTY years ago polar bear experts were discussing ‘climatic fluctuations’ rather than climate change, and the effect this can have on polar bear distribution in the Arctic.  In fact, Christian Vibe, the Greenland representative on the Polar Bear Specialist Group, was more focused on how climatic fluctuations affected distribution, than abundance.  His observations back then, for example polar bears drowning in scattered drift ice, are similar to what is being observed now.  But back then such incidences were not considered unusual or causing long term decline in polar bear numbers.

At the 2nd Working Meeting of the Polar Bear Specialist Group, in 1970, Dr Vibe said:

“The ecological conditions of the Arctic have changed as a result of this alteration of the climate. Some high Arctic regions get colder winters and less open water in summer. The productivity of the sea decreases in the Arctic and in regions nearer the Atlantic. The ringed seal moves to the areas of higher productivity, and the polar bear follows the seal.

This is the situation today in Northwest as well as in Northeast and Southeast Greenland. All other animals in Greenland, in the sea as well as on land, are affected by the same climatical fluctuations, which are reflected in a regular shift between Arctic and Atlantic conditions (or Continental and Atlantic) over a period of 56 to 66 years; they are more marked every second time the period culminates. The climatic situation of today, with intense movements in the drift ice in summer, is very similar to that 110-120 years ago. For the polar bear, especially in East Greenland, that means unstable living conditions, more roaming, and probably greater loss of animals by drowning in scattered drift ice off South Greenland.

Under the Atlantic conditions of forty years ago [1930], the drift ice from the Polar Basin kept moving throughout the winter and melted at high latitudes in summer. The situation for the polar bear was quite the opposite to that today [1970]. It then had to go ashore early in summer at high latitudes –and fewer got lost.

Alternatively, we could say that the polar bear probably was more numerous 30-40 years ago – as all Arctic animals were – but the Arctic-Continental climate of today has forced it south to regions with unstable drift ice conditions and within the range of man.” (pgs 20-21)

In this extract from Dr Vibe, written in 1970, he notes the negative effects of colder Arctic winters and less open water in summer. He explains that polar bears in the late 1960s were moving southwards to unstable sea conditions, with the possibility that more polar bears were dying.  However, Dr Vibe also noted that polar bears adapt to climatic fluctuations in the Arctic by moving to the areas with more of their primary prey, ringed seals, as ringed seals move to more suitable habitats. 

This note was sent to me by Nichole Hoskin from the Blue Moutains in Australia.

Sarah Palin will Shake- up Environment Policy in the US

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Americans will go to the elections in November and the Republican Presidential nominee, John McCain, has chosen a woman who believes in hunting wildlife and drilling for oil in Alaska as his running mate.

Hunting and drilling in wilderness areas are issues that many politicians in the western world tend to shy away from or actively reject, but not Palin.

According to Larry Kudlow, writing for the National Review Online, Palin knows more about energy policy than McCain, Obama, or Biden and she knows that there is a lot of oil under Alaska and she believes that the expectation it can be exploited will bring the price of petrol down.

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Sarah Palin has the Energy Answer
By Larry Kudlow, National Review Online
September 3, 2008
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzYyMmU0ODE1ZjFlMjZkODcwNTdiOTgzYjI4ODdlYWI

Hat tip to Benny Peiser for the link.

Be Very Cautious of the Precautionary Principle. A Note from J. Richard Wakefield

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Some who adhere to the global warming theory use the Precautionary Principle (PP) as a reason to act. Their claims are that even if the science is not guaranteed as to the cause and effect of our emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) that the PP dictates that we act to reduce our emissions. That is, if Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) theory has a potential to be wrong, because we cannot have 100% certainty as to the effects of our emissions of CO2, then we must act anyway because the PP applies.

Surprisingly there is no specific definition of the Precautionary Principle.**

Wikipedia has this: “The precautionary principle is a moral and political principle which states that if an action or policy might cause severe or irreversible harm to the public, in the absence of a scientific consensus that harm would not ensue, the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action.”

According to Bill Durodie in ‘An Apology for Capitalism’, “One of the more authoritative [definitions] versions comes from the 1992 Rio ‘Earth’ Summit. It contains a rather cumbersome triple negative, to the effect that not having evidence is not a justification for not taking action. If we undo a couple of the knots, then as two negatives make a positive, we are left with ‘action without evidence is justified’. That’s it, in a nutshell. The precautionary principle is, above all else, an invitation to those without evidence, expertise or authority, to shape and influence political debates. It achieves that, by introducing supposedly ethical elements into the process of scientific, corporate and governmental decision making.”

Is the use of the PP as a reason for acting to change climate change justified? The Wikipedia definition has two important aspects: morals and politics. Both of these are highly abused and twisted depending upon the political bent of the people wheedling the PP sword.

Does the PP require us to act to stop climate change? I would argue no. There are two simple reasons for this.
First, does invoking action actually change the course of climate change? According to Wiki “burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action.” Thus those who advocate taking action to curb climate change need to show us that taking action will actually achieve the desired goal. It’s not like some potential new drug coming to the market where the company needs to show that it is safe. There is no action on the part of the advocates of caution there as they just prevent the drug from coming on to market. What the advocates of PP on climate change want is for positive actions to take place. This includes spending billions on things like the carbon trade system and billions more on carbon sequestering. Thus the burden of proof falls on them to show that these actions they propose will actually work, and not do more harm than good.

Second, what is the cost of the proposed actions? Does the cost of action out trump the “costs” of inaction? This is a common sidestep by those who advocate action by saying the cost of inaction will be much more. But the economy is so complex, so interdependent, that there is no way that such evidence can be shown. Furthermore, economic models are notorious for being grossly wrong, worse than climate models.

In conclusion, we should forcefully challenge any claim that the PP be used as a reason to act against climate change. We must demand that they show that the use of the PP, and their actions, can be justified.

Richard Wakefield
London, Ontario, Canada

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** Gary Marchant and Kenneth Mossman explain in their book ‘Arbitrary and Capricious: The Precautionary Principle in the European Union Courts’, (International Policy Press, 2005) that the more than sixty European Union judicial opinions mentioning the PP, with perhaps a single exemption, do not attempt to define the PP and that the European Union Courts are well aware that the PP is not defined in European Union legislation, in specific regulatory enactments, or by the EU courts themselves (pg.31).

This blog is a gathering place for people with a common interest in politics and the environment. I strive for tolerance and respect. I don’t always agree with what I publish, but I believe in giving people an opportunity to be heard. I take no responsibility for comments and hyperlinks that follow each blog post and some content may be considered offensive by some people.

Second Attempt to Deny the Medieval Warm Period: New Paper by Michael Mann

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In yesterday’s The Australian science writer Leigh Dayton claims that the northern hemisphere is hotter now than at any time in the past 1500 years. The article qualified her comment with this is “according” to the most comprehensive reconstruction of the earth’s temperature over the last two millenniums.

Dayton is referring to new research soon to be published by Michael Mann – the climate scientist credited with the now infamous 1998 “hockey stick” graph that shows a sharp uptick beginning around 1900 and that featured prominently in the 2001 IPCCs Third Assessment Report.

The graph was contested from the beginning because it did not show the medieval warm period and then
Canadians Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick were unable to replicate Manns’ results and Mann initially refused to provide them with all the input data. The saga is detailed in various publications** and a chapter in Aynsley Kellow’s book ‘Science and public policy: The virtuous corruption of virtual environmental science’

I wonder how his new research by Mann has dealt with the medieval warm period ? Indeed I wonder how, after all the controversy surrounding Mann’s earlier work, Dayton can so uncritically report something so at odd with what is know about the history of Europe over the last 2,000 years.

Update: The paper is available on line
Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia. PNAS, September 9, 2008, vol. 105, no 36.
http://holocene.meteo.psu.edu/shared/articles/MannetalPNAS08.pdf

hat tip to Nexus 6 for the update/link.

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** The following text including citations is from Ross McKitrick’s website:

Hockey Sticks, Principal Components and Spurious Significance Geophysical Research Letters, Vol 32(3), Feb 12 2005, copyright 2005 American Geophysical Union (doi: 2004GL012750). Further reproduction or electronic distribution is not permitted. This is a preprint of the GRL paper that shows Mann’s program mines for hockey sticks and overstates the statistical significance of the final result. There have been 4 technical comments submitted to GRL in response. We submitted replies to all 4, and they were sent out for refereeing. Two of the comments have been rejected by GRL. The two that were published were accompanied by our replies. These exchanges are discussed below.

The M&M Critique of the MBH98 Northern Hemisphere Climate index: Update and Implications Energy and Environment 16(1)69-100. AVAILABLE ON-LINE AT ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT by kind permission of the publisher. This paper shows how Mann’s results can be reconciled to our results based on handling of the PC algorithm and a Gaspe cedar ring series. We also discuss the bristlecone pines in detail and show why they should not have been included in the original data set.

“Corrigendum” by Mann, Bradley and Hughes. Nature 430, July 1, 2004 p. 105. This arose from our Materials Complaint to Nature in the winter of 2004. The story is detailed on the page about our dealings with Nature (see below–link to Archive).

“Verification of multi-proxy paleoclimate studies: A case study”. Accepted abstract for presentation at American Geophysical Union Meetings in San Francisco, December 2004. Steve travelled to the AGU in December 2004 and presented our research–this was the abstract.

“Corrections to the Mann et al (1998) Proxy Data Base and Northern Hemisphere Average Temperature Series” Energy and Environment 14(6) 751-772.
This is the paper that started the whole ball rolling!

PR Wins Top Journalism Prize

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The Victorian Government has awarded a fiction writer, Richard Flanagan, their highest award for outstanding journalism.

The judges awarded the John Curtin Prize for Journalism to Richard Flanagan for an article on “the tragedy” of Tasmania’s forests, a piece that was described by Australia’s Minister for Forests, Eric Abetz, in June last year as including 70 deliberate or inexcusable errors of fact, selective citing of fact, or twisting of facts.

The award comes just a week after Guardian journalist Nick Davies described journalism as increasingly about falsehood, distortion and propaganda at the Melbourne Writers Festival. Mr Davies has written a book on the trajedy entitled Flat Earth News.

My advice, keep reading blogs!
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Out of Control: The Tragedy of Tasmania’s Forests
Richard Flanagan, Published in The Monthly, May 2007, No. 23
http://www.themonthly.com.au/tm/?q=node/512

Hat tip to Alan Ashbarry
http://www.tasmaniapulpmill.info/home

Skinny Whales, Claim Japanese

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“Australian scientists have expressed serious doubts about a Japanese study which claims whales are losing blubber because more of them are competing for food,” according to a recent article at ABC Online. It continues,”The Japanese Government-backed study, published in the Polar Biology survey, examined more than 6,000 dead whales. It concluded that the amount of blubber on Antarctic Minke whales had declined over the past 18 years because increased numbers of whales were competing for krill and other fish.”

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This blog is a gathering place for people with a common interest in politics and the environment. I strive for tolerance and respect. I don’t always agree with what I publish, but I believe in giving people an opportunity to be heard. I take no responsibility for comments and hyperlinks that follow each blog post. Some content may be considered offensive by some people.