Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for March 3, 2009

Radical New Hypothesis on the Effect of Greenhouse Gases

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CLIMATE is complex but in an attempt to understand the effects of increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide on global temperatures simplified General Circulation Models (GCMs) have been developed and are used by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).      Al Gore, in his famous movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, explained that as the concentration of carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere, more energy is trapped, warming the planet.   This assumption is central to the GCMs and the current consensus on climate change. 

Some sceptics complain that the GCMs do not realistically simulate climate because there are many processes that can’t be adequately modelled including cloud formation.  Michael Hammer, an engineer who specializes in spectroscopy, is also sceptical of the GCM but his criticism is more fundamental.  In the following paper, using the basic laws of spectroscopy, he shows that a significant portion of energy loss from the Earth’s surface is by direction radiation to space at wavelengths not absorbed by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.    This is in direct contrast to the IPCC explanation that there is low radiation from the Earth’s surface to space and potentially high radiation from the atmosphere to space.

Science is a process of getting it wrong and hopefully learning – on this single issue Michael Hammer and the IPCC can’t both be right.  

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Unethical Forest Protestors in Tasmania: A Note from Alan Ashbarry

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IN a rare display of sympathy and understanding for forest contractors, ABC journalist Tom Tilley has put the hard word on protestors in the Upper Florentine Valley, accusing them of perhaps even being “unethical”.  

You can play the interview at the ABC Triple J website  while watching a slide show. [1]
  

The issue is ongoing conflict at a blockade in the Florentine Valley along a road that was constructed in the mid 1960’s. Until recently a protest camp has blocked the path of a new spur road to access forest harvesting areas.  The timber of the Florentine Valley, together with the Styx Valley, was granted to a consortium of media companies in the late 1930’s to create a newsprint pulp and paper mill and jobs at the end of the last world recession.

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HundredsThousands Protest Global Warming

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IT was predicted to be the largest demonstration yet against coal and climate change, 10,000 activists to descend on a coal-fired power plant in Washington DC.

According to the Capitol Climate Action website, they are there now, as I write, “courageous activists have occupied three of five gates at the Capitol Power Plant. The march of thousands is continuing to circle the plant. The situation is peaceful, non-violent, and of course inspiring…

“The atmosphere is charged with hope and excitement. People are bundled up in their warmest coats and staying active by chanting. I hear ‘Coal can never be clean.’ There’s a prayer vigil in the south section of the park.”

There may have been even more people including celebrities from New York at the rally, if it wasn’t for the unseasonal cold weather and large snowfalls delaying flights into Washington.

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