Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for August 2009

White Bark Pine Trees: A Note on Climate Change from Larry Fields

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THE last Ice Age killed off all of the coniferous trees in Finland. After the ice sheet retreated, trees from elsewhere – like the Scots Pine – gradually colonized the vacant niche. On a smaller scale, the same thing happened in many high mountains of the Earth’s temperate regions, including the Sierra Nevada Range of California. We can learn a thing or two about climate history from Alpine dendrology.

In the Sierra Nevada the White Bark Pine is typically the highest-elevation pine tree marking the tree line.

Round Top Lake, at 9,340 feet elevation in the Northern Sierras near Carson Pass is my favorite place for informal climate history research.   Here White Bark Pine trees grow in tight clumps around half of the lake; as shown in this photograph from Kevin Gong’s website. http://kevingong.com/Photography/RoundTopTrees.html

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No Hurricanes – Yet

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A slow start is no guarantee of a mild hurricane season. In 1992, the first named storm did not form until late August. When it did form, though, Hurricane Andrew became a Category 5 storm that poleaxed south Florida.  Read more here.

Malcolm Turnbull Needs to Go

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THE release of Malcolm Turnbull’s “Greener, Cheaper, Smarter ETS” puts the seal on his demise. You can explain Utegate away as a bizarre, once-in-a-lifetime accident, but the idea that you fight the government’s ETS by producing one of your own, is complete incompetence.  Read more here.

Defining the Scientific Sceptics (Part 9): John Izzard

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IF you are going to set up a new cult, which is what the emissions trading bill [currently before the Australian Senate] is all about, you really have to get in quickly and corner all of the best descriptive and emotive words; seize the moral high ground; then get out and kick hell out of any doubters.

The problem for those who question the scientific and ethical nature of the new Climate Cult, is that all the beaut stuff has been snaffled by the New Age Weathermen, and, as a result we are battling to get a decent foothold on the mountainous terrain of public opinion. But all is not lost!

If Rudyard Kipling was still about, or still fashionable, he would have, no doubt, given us something like this to fall back on:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are loosing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good nor talk too wise. 

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Australian Politics and Carbon Trading

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Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s plans for an early double dissolution election have been sunk… The Clerk of the Senate, Harry Evans, is understood to have confirmed that even if Mr Rudd were to go to a double dissolution election to get his ETS through Parliament, the scheme could still be blocked by the Senate.  Read more here.