Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for August 2009

About a Clump of Ancient Black Oaks: Helen Mahr

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Black Oak_Helen Mahr_Eyre Peninsula_2009 August 13 2 cutIN the Sierra Nevada, there are Whitebark Pines, Pinus albicaulis, thought to be thousands of years old now growing at an altitude where seedlings can’t survive winter. So, they reproduce from suckers. Larry Fields told us the story earlier this week.

On the Eyre Peninsula, South Australia, there are Black Oaks, Allocasuarina cristata, also growing near the limit of their range but because of a lack of water, rather than cold. These trees also reproduce by suckering.  [Read more…] about About a Clump of Ancient Black Oaks: Helen Mahr

Vested Interests in Emissions Trading

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I believe corporations are just as bad as government in selling out on green issues. Most companies in the Fortune 500 have jumped on the climate change bandwagon. And there are lots of groups out there that will gain from carbon trading if it becomes a reality, so they have a vested interest in it going ahead. Read more here.

Senate Rejects Cap n Trade

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Oppose the ETS
AUSTRALIA’S Senate rejected the government’s climate-change legislation, forcing Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to amend the bill or call an early election.

Senators voted 42 to 30 against the law, which included plans for a carbon trading system similar to one used in Europe.

Australia, the world’s biggest coal exporter, was proposing to reduce greenhouse gases by between 5 percent and 15 percent of 2000 levels in the next decade…  Read more here.

AGW is a Thermometer Count Artifact: A note from E.M. Smith

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I HAVE been “characterizing” the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) temperature process and how the data are transformed…
My conclusion is that the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) “signal” is an artifact of the arrival and departure of thermometers from the scribal record: the addition of more thermometers in the Southern Hemisphere followed by the loss of Siberian thermometers with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The thermometer count rises from 1 in 1701 to over 9,000 then drops back to under 3,000 today.  This has an impact…

Read more here: http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/agw-is-a-thermometer-count-artifact/

Burning China’s Trash

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After surpassing the United States as the world’s largest producer of household garbage, China has embarked on a vast program to build incinerators as landfills run out of space. But these incinerators have become a growing source of toxic emissions, from dioxin to mercury, that can damage the body’s nervous system.  Read more here.  And what about GHGs?

Cows Greener than Soy?

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I am dismayed that so many people have been so easily fooled on the meat eating and climate change issue following the UN report.  The culprit is not meat eating but rather the excesses of corporate/industrial agriculture.  Read more here.