Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for April 2009

Bushfire Royal Commission to Focus on the Politically Possible

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EARLIER this year the suffering from the Victorian bushfires, and that video of the fire fighter giving a koala a drink of water in a burnt-out forest, captured the imagination of people around the world.

At the time some media outlets blamed the ferocity of the fires on global warming and this assessment was supported by some authorities at reputable institutions including Melbourne University, the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology. Others disagreed and claimed inadequate controlled burning as a key issue.

The Premier of Victoria promised a Royal Commission into the fires and preliminary hearings started this week.

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Threats of Carbon Trade Wars

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The Chinese government has warned that a proposed US border tax on carbon sensitive materials “smells of protectionism” and could spark retaliation from developing countries.  Read more here.

Quiet Sun Shouldn’t Baffle Astronomers

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THE Sun is the dimmest it has been for nearly a century.  There are no sunspots, very few solar flares – and our nearest star is the quietest it has been for a very long time. 

That’s according to a BBC report by Pallab Ghosh, which goes on to explain these observations are baffling astronomers … the Sun normally undergoes an 11-year cycle of activity. At its peak, it has a tumultuous boiling atmosphere that spits out flares and planet-sized chunks of super-hot gas. This is followed by a calmer period…  Last year, it was expected that it would have been hotting up after a quiet spell. But instead it hit a 50-year low in solar wind pressure, a 55-year low in radio emissions, and a 100-year low in sunspot activity.

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Defining the Greens (Part 4)

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ALL Greens have a deep passionate desire to make sure we live well without doing serious damage to the environment, but apart from that are a motley lot impossible to accurately define.

This is one of the messages that have emerged from my series entitled ‘Defining the Greens’. 

But I can’t agree. 

In the 70s there was some agreement that protecting the planet required fewer people, less wealth and simpler technology – I’m paraphrasing  John Tierney from an article in Monday’s New York Times. 

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Jared Diamond Just Keeps Making It Up

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JARED Diamond is not a man to spoil a good story for the sake of the truth. 

Some years ago I reviewed the chapter on Australia in his highly acclaimed book ‘Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive’.  I found it full of factual errors that played to popular myth while denigrating Australian primary industries. 

Today I received a copy of his article ‘Annals of Anthropology: Vengeance is Ours’ published by The New Yorker in April 2008, which Professor Diamond claims tells the true story of Daniel Wemp and the battles he led in the  New Guinea Highlands.   Along with this article I also received research by Rhonda Roland Shearer exposing it as a hoax. 

Rather than the true story of clan warfare that resulted in the death of 30 men and the theft of over 300 pigs, the story may well represent nothing more than the contrived ramblings of an aging Professor inspired by a yarn from a man who fancied himself as a hero once responsible for the marshalling of hundreds of warriors and the provision of some sex on the side.      

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