We have heard much of the dangers of global warming due to carbon dioxide. But the potential danger of any potential anthropogenic warming is trivial compared to the risk of entering a new ice age. Read more here.
Archives for May 2009
Unwilling Communities on Big Rivers will be Flooded
THERE has been severe flooding along parts of the east coast of Australia with the towns of Grafton and Lismore evacuated over the weekend. Grafton is towards the bottom of the mighty Clarence River which is completely unregulated. I can’t find a reliable estimate for the amount of water discharged on average or during flood events. It drains an area of 23-thousand square kilometres.
It doesn’t matter what time of year you drive through this region, known as the Northern Rivers District, it is always green and the wide Clarence is always brimming with water.
In Australia we repeat the mantra that this is the driest inhabited continent on earth but, according to the World Resource Institute, we have 51,000 litres of available water per capita per day, this is one of the highest in the world, and well ahead of countries such as the United Kingdom with only 3,000 litres per capita per day.
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American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009
Something very important has been happening this week — more important, if you can believe it, than what Nancy Pelosi knew about waterboarding or why Kris Allen scored his upset victory on “American Idol.” Read more here.
Postmodern Physics
PHYSICS is the science dealing with natural laws and processes and the states and properties of matter and energy including of course the radiative transfer within the atmosphere that underpins the theory of anthropogenic global warming. There is criticism amongst some physics teachers both in the UK and Australia that the physics curriculum has become corrupted in particular “calculation has been replaced by writing”, “precision is gone”. Indeed according to one physics teacher: while physics was once a subject unpolluted by a torrent of malleable words, now everything must be described in words.
US House of Reps Committee passes Climate Bill
“The bill imposes cuts on greenhouse-gas emissions and creates a cap-and-trade system requiring power plants, manufacturers and other polluters to buy emissions allowances… “To convince skeptical Democrats to back the bill … agreed to lower emissions caps and renewable fuel standards… gives away nearly 85 percent of the emissions allowances for free to utilities, manufactures, oil refiners, and other industries.” Read more here. “If fully utilized, the emissions ‘offset’ provisions would allow continued business as usual growth in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions until 2030, leading one to wonder: where’s the cap in the “cap” and trade?” Read more here.
Who’s Afraid of Genetically Modified Bread?
CANADIAN, US and Australian wheat organisations recently released a joint statement asking for the development and commercialization of higher yielding varieties through biotechnology – through genetic modification.
Clearly wheat farmers are feeling left behind with the statement including the comment: Lack of private and public investment in wheat research has left wheat development behind the advances in competing commodity crops, and has also led to a shortage of scientific expertise in wheat research generally.
I’ve been aware for some time of important research being conducted in South Australia, at the Centre for Plant Functional Genomics (ACPFG), focused on developing new drought and frost tolerant varieties of wheat and barley.
Frost tolerance has become an issue because plant breeders have been selecting for early maturing varieties in order to escape potential summer drought. But, this has now exposed crops to frost during flowering. There is apparently variation for traits for frost and salt tolerance in the “crossable” gene pool for wheat and barley, but there are far better genes in other plants and these would need to be transferred through genetic modification.
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Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.