Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for November 2010

Free Burma’s political prisoners

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Dear Jennifer,
Fantastic news!
After spending 15 of the past 21 years unjustly under house arrest, Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is finally free.
But the Nobel laureate was just one of 2,200 political prisoners in Burma punished for simply engaging in peaceful political activities. Now, as the people of Burma rally around Aung San Suu Kyi, we must remember her words that “the release of political prisoners is the most important thing for all those who truly wish to bring about change in Burma.”
Stand with Aung San Suu Kyi and call for thousands like her to be freed.
This morning in an ABC radio interview, Aung San Suu Kyi acknowledged your contribution to her freedom and the people of Burma’s. Yet her unfair treatment is only the tip of the iceberg of human rights violations in Burma. Imagine: if the government can subject her to such arbitrary detention, we can have little doubt about how vulnerable, less well-known individuals are treated.
People like Mie Mie – a 39 year old mother of two who was arrested in a violent crackdown following an anti-government protest. She is currently serving a 65 year sentence in a prison that is over 1,200 km from her family, making it almost impossible for her children to see her.
Or 32 year old Myo Min Zaw, arrested as student activist – and reportedly tortured – in 1998 for distributing leaflets and organising student. He is currently serving a sentence of 52 years in a prison.
These are only two of over 2,200 people unfairly imprisoned inside Burma: join us and others worldwide to demand the military junta free all prisoners of conscience.

http://www.amnesty.org.au/action/action/24153/?utm_source=assknov10&utm_medium=email-sf&utm_content=link2

Together, we have been campaigning for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi for over two decades. Thank you for everything you’ve done — your letters, demonstrations, phone calls and discussions with friends, family, and colleagues. Now Aung San Suu Kyi has her freedom, please help her achieve real change for Burma.
In hope,
Jenny Leong
Campaign Coordinator (and Aung San Suu Kyi admirer)
Amnesty International Australia

No Sydney Audience for Williams: Marohasy Debate

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THE planned debate on Monday at the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) in Sydney between John Williams from the Wentworth Group and Jennifer Marohasy from the Australian Environment Foundation on ‘Saving the Murray’ as advertised here has been cancelled due to lack of interest.

We hope it has nothing to do with Totschweigtaktik.

The word means “death by silence” and it’s an effective tactic for killing off ideas or news reports or contrary opinions that don’t fit the prevailing and fashionable mores according to Shelley Gare[1] writing for Quadrant.

Read the article by Gare here:  http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2010/7-8/death-by-silence-in-the-writers-combat-zone

Update from the CIS:

MANY thanks for your booking to attend our discussion on The Future of the Murray Darling Basin with Dr Jennifer Marohasy and Dr John Williams, scheduled for Monday, 15 November 2010. It is with regret that we advise the need to postpone this event until 2011. We apologise for any disappointment and inconvenience caused, and will refund any monies paid.    You will be contacted when a new date for this event has been established. In the meantime, we thank you for your understanding.

Best regards, Meegan Cornforth l Events Manager, The Centre for Independent Studies
www.cis.org.au

******
[1] Shelly Gare was educated in Perth then trained as a cadet journalist there. She moved to Sydney and in her early 20s, Gare was appointed editor of Cleo magazine… moved to London to work as Features Editor at The Sunday Times, returning to Australia in 1985, where she was the first woman deputy editor appointed to The Australian newspaper. Gare was responsible for all newspaper features. Gare was also a consultant editor on the start-up of WHO magazine…  Gare was a founding editor of The Australian’s Review of Books, for which she won a Walkley Award. She is now a freelance journalist and regular contributor to a variety of publications.  [From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelley_Gare ]

Confirmation Bias at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (Part 2)

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THE Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) admits it was wrong about urban heating effects as a professional statistical analysis by Andrew Barnham exposes a BOM claim that “since 1960 the mean temperature in Australia has increased by about 0.7 °C”; the BOM assertion has no empirical scientific basis.

Read more here:  http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/11/new-retreat-from-global-warming-data-by.html

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Second Open Thread

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It’s unknown how far the average, white, male, polar bear can swim because they’re always hitching rides on passing ice floes, according to Schiller Thurkettle.

National Broadcaster Refuses to Apologize to Bob Carter

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SEVERAL weeks ago on the Science Show, broadcast nationally by our ABC, the host Robyn Williams interviewed a journalist, Bob Ward, masquerading as an expert on climate science.    Mr Ward proceeded to make various inaccurate statements and false claims including that he had systematically reviewed the literature on climate science.    As a consequence of this systematic review the listener was lead to believe that Mr Ward had accurately identified a paper by Professor Bob Carter, James Cook University, as the worst paper ever published on climate science. 

In fact Mr Ward has made no systematic review, and the focus on Professor Carter and a paper he published two years previously was not news.    Furthermore Professor Carter was not invited onto the program to debate Mr Wards as suggested in the following letter, but rather to make a pre-recorded comment.

The real news that week was that Professor Carter’s new book, The Counter Consensus, was to be launched at a small function in Melbourne – something the program failed to mention.  

I complained to the ABC about the interview which I construed as a spiteful attack on Professor Carter’s credibility orchestrated by host of the science show, Robyn Williams, a well known hater of so called ‘climate sceptics’.

I received the following official reply yesterday which is complete nonsense.  Indeed the program violated the ABC’s various codes because while purporting to be factual, was inaccurate and not in context. 

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Is The Western Climate Establishment Corrupt? Asks SPPI

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THE Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) continues raising serious concerns for policy makers and the public as to whether the “adjustments” that government-funded employees continue making to raw surface and ocean temperature data sets can be trusted.   In a new collaborative paper, Is The Western Climate Establishment Corrupt?, Dr. Dave Evans has gathered substantial evidence that corruption has become endemic within government-sponsored climate units.  Dr. Evans finds that, “The Western Climate Establishment has allowed egregious mistakes, major errors and obvious biases to accumulate — each factor on its own might be hard to pin down, but the pattern is undeniable.” Evans asks, “How many excuses does it take?”

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