Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for October 2008

Jennifer Visits the Australian Parliament

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Stewart Franks, Bob Carter and I gave a presentation at Parliament House on Monday evening on Climate Change.  Professor Carter focused on global temperatures, I followed with some rainfall graphs for different parts of Australia, and then Associate Professor Franks explained why rainfall along the east coast of Australia is so variable and dominated by either El Nina or La Nina cycles back at least as far as 1660.

Our main message was that there is no climate crisis, but that climate change is a natural hazard.  

The event was organised by the office of Dennis Jensen MP.  Dr Jensen is the member for Tangney in Western Australia. 

Shadow minister, Nick Minchin, and former opposition leader, Brendan Nelson, both attended and are pictured with me at Parliament House on Monday evening.

World Food Day 2008

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Tomorrow is the United Nation’s “World Food Day” and the focus is on the pressing need for the world to adapt to climate change. But even before “climate change” became a political concern, the poor have been unable to deal effectively with drought, storms and flooding.

Now government programmes in the name of climate change have already had terrible results – more than US$ 11 billion worth of subsidies were used to turn food crops into biofuels last year. This contributed substantially to the rise in food prices that helped push 75 million more people below the hunger threshold.

There is a case for government to provide flood defences and other collective goods, but most adaptation will occur at a much more local scale and as such is best left to individuals.

In a new report, world-renowned agricultural economists Professors Douglas Southgate and Brent Songhen point out that farmers will likely adapt to global warming by switching crops, and adopting new technologies and farming methods – just as they have done for centuries. 

The launch of the report, Weathering Global Warming in Agriculture and Forestry by Douglas Southgate and Brent Sohngen (November 2008, International Policy Network), coincides with World Food Day and can now be downloaded here.

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A calf drinking from a nearly full farm dam: Photograph taken just south of Oberon, Central Tablelands, New South Wales (Australia) by Jennifer Marohasy, October 14, 2008. 

Canadian Election: Carbon Tax Cost Liberals Votes

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Liberal Leader Stephane Dion has lost the Canadian election: “The owlish professor-turned-politician defied two central political tenets in this election campaign: avoid overly complex policy and, above all, don’t even suggest new taxes.  His beloved ‘Green Shift’ attempt to tax pollution was lauded by environmentalists and 250 economists.  But on the campaign trail, it became more of a Green Albatross around Dion’s slender neck, forcing him over and over again in the face of a Tory advertising onslaught to stress that any new levies on polluting fossil fuels would be offset by income tax breaks.  In the end, Dion’s impassioned calls for voters to “go green vote red” weren’t enough. While the Conservatives were held to a minority government, the Liberals were leading or elected in just 74 seats, down from the 103 claimed in 2006.”  Read more here.

Financial Crisis Has EU Climate Plans in Crisis

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“The fallout from the financial crisis might be ready to claim another casualty: Europe’s ambitious plans to tackle climate change… Or, as Germany’s foreign minister said last week: “This crisis changes priorities.” And where Europe’s biggest economies lead, others follow. The British, French, and Italians are also all getting cold feet about imposing more-expensive climate legislation on European businesses. The British, dependent as an island nation on air travel, don’t want aviation included in emissions schemes. The Germans want an out for heavy industry… That contrasts with newfound enthusiasm for climate-change policy in the U.S., which seems more likely to pass Congress if energy prices keep falling. Both presidential candidates, if not quite both vice-presidential candidates, have plans to fight global warming.”  Read more here.

Remember Taralga, Still no Windmills

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Remember that blog post from the residents of Taralga back in June 2005 explaining they did not want any windmills?

Well today I drove through the little town which is about 45 kms north of Goulburn in New South Wales (Australia).  It is very small and very cute.  

I didn’t see any windmills.

How Melbourne’s Climate Has Changed: A reply to Dr David Jones (Part 1)

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“THESE days, it can be hard to imagine how Melbourne ever earned a reputation as the gloomy, rain-filled capital of the south. But, growing up in the 1970s, my memories are full of muddy ovals, local creeks in flood and catching tadpoles in puddles that lasted for months on end. How things have changed.”

This is how David Jones, head of climate analysis at the Bureau of Meteorology, began an opinion piece entitled ‘Our hot, dry future’ published by Melbourne’s The Age newspaper on October 6, 2008.

The piece continued,

“Since 1996, each successive calendar year has brought the city below-average rainfall. With 299 millimetres recorded so far this year, and with just three months to go, it seems virtually certain that this year will become the 12th in a row that has failed to get to the average of 650 millimetres. September 2008 was the driest on record in Melbourne, and the outlook for the remainder of the year suggests that below-average rainfall will continue…

“We also know that over the past 11 years Melbourne’s rainfall has been about 20% below the long-term average, and that south-east Australia as a whole has now missed out on more than a year’s worth of its normal rainfall over the duration of the event. The run-off into Melbourne’s dams has been 40% below average over this drought period compared with the longer term, while regional areas have fared even worse. And the drought hasn’t ended.”

Dr Jones goes on to blame climate change for the drought and warns there is worse to come.

I recognise that Dr Jones is an expert on predicting future climates, but I am not sure he has adequately explained the recent past climate of Melbourne.

Climate always changes and in a country like Australia climate tends to naturally cycle between periods where there is a dominance of wet La Nina conditions and then dry El Nino. The 1950s and 1960s were very wet along the entire east coast of Australia, but since 1976 the median state of the Pacific Ocean has been towards El Nino that is dry conditions. Indeed Dr Jones was a young boy when it was relatively wet while his adult life has been dominated by El Nino conditions. Of course the built environment has also changed. Melbourne is a much more affluent city now than it was 30 years ago and along with affluence comes laser levelling of sporting venues and much improved drainage and flood mitigation so ovals dry out relatively quickly, creeks are slowed and puddles in public places now a thing of the past.

But there is more to this story.

Bill Kininmonth, a meteorologist formerly with the Bureau, has made the following comment about how the recording of Melbourne’s weather has changed over the years and how the rain gauge in Melbourne’s central business district is now sheltered from the rain bearing winds of the southwest:

“Although Melbourne’s observations commenced in 1851 the location and environment have changed over that time. The earliest observations commenced at Flagstaff Hill and then they changed to the Observatory site south of the Yarra. For more than 100 years the observations have been taken from the present site on the corner of Victoria Parade and Latrobe Street. However there has been urbanisation. The site has clearly lost exposure to the cooling southerly winds and the rain gauge is sheltered from the rain bearing winds of the southwest.

“Clearly it is difficult to draw a conclusion about Melbourne’s climate and the possibility that it might be changing. The urbanisation of the site should make the record indicate a hotter and dryer climate, whether or not that has occurred. Essendon airport was a previous non-urban locality in the vicinity but that closed in the early 1970s. Tullamarine is the current site but was not open during the dry periods of the first half of the 20th century. Laverton, likewise an early site with long data has also been closed.”

I shall post more tomorrow on Melbourne’s total catchment rainfall and water storage levels in Part 2 of ‘How Melbourne’s Climate Has Changed: A reply to Dr David Jones’

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Our hot, dry future, by David Jones, October 6, 200, The Age
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/our-hot-dry-future-20081005-4udg.html