Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for October 2008

WWF and Greenpeace as Well-Funded Successful Modern Political Organisations

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I spent last weekend at The Annual Australian Environment Foundation (AEF) Conference at Rydges Hotel Lakeside in Canberra.  The conference theme was a ‘climate for change’.

But it wasn’t only about ‘climate change’, political analysis Graham Young spoke at the conference about the power of the internet, politics and lobbying and even mentioning this blog.  He suggested we were about “community”, “sharing information”, “understanding objections” and also “rehearsing arguments”. 

In the context of lobbying Mr Young made reference to the large environment groups’ Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund suggesting they are “successful modern political organisations”.  

Outspoken geologist and climate change sceptic, Bob Carter, also made mention of the same two organisations, explaining that Greenpeace with an annual budget of US$272 million  and WWF with a budget of US$487 million have more money to spend on lobbying than Australia’s major political parties during a federal election.

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There are photographs of some of the delegates and speakers at the AEF conference at the Community Web pages of this blog.
https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/2008/10/aef-annual-conference/

AEF Annual Conference: Photographs from The First Day

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The Australian Environment Foundation (AEF) held its Annual Conference and AGM this last weekend in Canberra.   We heard some great speakers and also had a good time.  Photographs about to be uploaded here

After I welcomed delegates to the conference as Chair of the Australian Environment Foundation, Professor Bob Carter spoke about climate change – both warming and cooling – as a natural hazard.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bill Kininmonth, a meteorologist formerly at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, and Professor Don Aikin, a former Vice Chancellor of the University of Canberra, also spoke on climate change and emphasised like Professor Carter, that it is something that always changes.  

 

Gillian Hogendyk, AEF Secretary, is pictured in the front row at Rydges Lakeside.  Gillian is a Vet who lives in Warren (near Dubbo) and has spent some years studying the natural history of the Macquarie Marshes in central western New South Wales.  Gillian spoke to conference delegates about the need for controls on grazing within the marshes. 

       

Forester, Mark Poynter, is pictured here making some last minute changes to his speech notes before telling us about the River Red Gum forests of western Victoria including how controlled grazing can be a useful weed control. 

 

 

 

Well known climate change sceptic and sometimes commentator at this blog, John McLean was also at the conference.

 

 

 

Leon Ashby recorded the entire first day’s proceedings and I hope will have DVDs for sale soon.  I shall ask him to post details as a comment.

 

 

I will post more on the conference over the next week, including photographs from the dinner where comedian Dr Barry York spoke about “that movie”.   

Next year’s AEF conference and AGM will be in Perth.

Sydney to Have Farmers on Rooftops

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“Australian cities must join a global network in which urban farmers grow produce on rooftops, a leading science commentator says.   Professor Julian Cribb, author of The Coming Famine, said the global food crisis was a forewarning of what could be expected as civilisation ran low on water, arable land and nutrients, and experienced soaring energy costs.  Professor Cribb said the urban farmers of the future – who would primarily grow vegetables – would play a much larger role in the global diet.   Read more here (free sign-on at FarmOnline).

Aynsley Kellow on Popular Nonsense in Perth

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A couple of weeks ago Aynsley Kellow, Professor and Head of the Department of Government at the University of Tasmania, gave a lecture in Perth. He said: 

“I am pleased to present this lecture today in Perth.I am particularly pleased to find that Perth is still here. I last visited here in 2005 – the year that Professor Tim Flannery suggested that Perth could become the first ‘ghost metropolis’ due to reductions in rainfall because of climate change.  I must confess that I was somewhat bemused by this statement, because my visit to Perth was to present a paper on water policy under climate uncertainty. I knew from my research for that paper that Perth was in fact better adapted to uncertainty in its water supply than any other capital city. 

Perth and the south-west of the state have suffered a decline in rainfall, which appears to have shifted to the north-east. The cause appears to be not the gradual accumulation of greenhouse gases, but a sudden shift in ocean currents. This decline in rainfall has translated into a marked decline in catchment yields thanks to changed catchment management, and an increased yield can be obtained by thinning catchments. 

Regardless, Perth has adapted to its natural environment with a number of responses: demand management; use of aquifers; the construction of the Kwinana industrial recycling plant; and now a desalination plant.  Professor Flannery was, of course, talking nonsense – but, as sales of his book The Weathermakers and his subsequent selection as ‘Australian of the Year’ showed, this is popular nonsense.”   

Read more here: The 2008 Harold Clough Lecture: ‘The Politics and Science of Climate Change: The Wrong Stuff’

Proof of the Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect: Arthur Smith

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Arthurs Smith does not explain the specific contribution of carbon dioxide to global warming, nor does he deal with the issue of convective overturning, but in ‘Proof of the Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect’ he elegantly explains the greenhouse effect in harmony with “the scientific standards of theoretical physics”.  In particular he first defines basic terms and relevant equation for energy flow, considers a planet with no infrared-absorbing atmosphere, and then shows that by adding a simple infrared-absorbing layer it is possible to explain why we are not all freezing here on planet earth.

Read more here: http://arxiv.org/abs/0802.4324

Leading Climate Scientists Don’t Really Believe Their Climate Theory (Part 1)

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Belief in the truth of a theory is inversely proportional to the precision of the science.  At least that is what someone called Harris once said.

Modern climate science theory seems to be a case in point with imprecise extrapolation from often poorly understood variables to what have become generally accepted General Circulation Models which many scientists claim can predict future climate.  

But do the leading climate scientists, in particular the United Nation’s IPCC scientists, really believe in this theory? 

Not really. 

As their last big report was being assembled, The Fourth Assessment Report published in 2007, lead authors who asked what they really thought by way of a questionnaire. 

Climate scientist Ann Henderson-Sellers then pulled together these responses for a workshop held in Sydney in October 2007.   

Following are some of the responses from the climate scientists which fall into the category of ‘Serious inadequacies in climate change prediction that are of real concern’:

“The rush to emphasize regional climate does not have a scientifically sound basis.

“Prioritize the models so that weaker ones do not confuse/dilute the signals.

“Until and unless major oscillations in the Earth System (El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) etc.) can be predicted to the extent that they are predictable, regional climate is not a well defined problem. It may never be. If that is the case then we should say so. It is not just the forecast but the confidence and uncertainty that are just as much a key.

“Climate models need to be exercised for weather prediction; there are necessary but not sufficient things that can best be tested in this framework, which is just beginning to be exploited.

“Energy budget is really worrisome; we should have had 20 years of ERBE [Earth Radiation Budget Experiment] type data by now- this would have told us about cloud feedback and climate sensitivity. I’m worried that we’ll never have a reliable long-term measurement. This combined with accurate ocean heat uptake data would really help constrain the big-picture climate change outcome, and then we can work on the details.

“[Analyse] the response of models to a single transient 20th century forcing construction. The factors leading to the spread in the responses of models over the 20th century can then be better ascertained, with forcing separated out thus from the mix of the uncertainty factors. The Fourth Assessment Report missed doing this owing essentially to the timelines that were arranged.

“Adding complexity to models, when some basic elements are not working right (e.g. the hydrological cycle) is not sound science. A hierarchy of models can help in this regard.”

So here, in the words of leading climate scientists who are part of the so-called consensus, we have recognition that there are some major problems with the climate theory on which many of the world’s governments, including the Australian government, are making major interventions into our lives and our economies.

Interestingly the issues raised by the IPCC scientists are similar to those often discussed at this blog, including the issue of cloud feedback and climate sensitivity.  There have been recent major breakthroughs in this area by Dr Roy Spencer a so-called climate change skeptic who’s research findings, if incorporated into the climate theory of the IPCC, could significantly improve it and also perhaps go some way to helping develop a more scientifically sound basis for regional climate.   

Roy Spencer’s website with links to his key published scientific papers is here:
http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm

[Thanks to Luke Walker for the link to the opinion of Ann Henderson-Sellers with the quotes from the lead authors of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.]