Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for April 2011

Listing Murray River Myths

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There are so many myths surrounding the Murray River. It is far away from most Australians who live in cities and over the years various activists have told stories which have grabbed national headlines while bearing little relationship with reality.

Then there is this general disconnect because people who live and work along the Murray, who have a different type of relationship with the River than those who campaign for it and ordinary Australians who read about it the tabloid press.

I remember having a conversation with a cameraman from Channel 9 on the banks of the Edward River (an anabranch of the Murray) before being interview by Ross Coulthard in April 2006. I was making mention of the River Redgums along the Edward and how beautiful they were but the cameraman didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. Then I realized he was looking about for a red-coloured tree. Of course River Red Gums are a silvery colour – it is their wood which is red and only visible when the tree is felled.

I’m compiling a list of popular Murray River myths for a new website. Following are a few, I’m hoping you can add to this list in the comments thread.

Did you know that River Redgums aren’t red?

Did you know that Murray River salinity levels more than halved between 1982 and 2002 and continue to fall?

Did you know that the Lower Lakes didn’t need to dry-up during the recent drought; that was the choice of the South Australian government?

Did you know that the Murray’s mouth was never used for river trade, wool and timber was sent from Goolwa to Victor Harbour by rail?

Did you know that the Murray’s mouth was blocked by sandbars when Charles Sturt sailed down the Murray in 1830?

Did you know that many farmers with a water licence didn’t have a water allocation during the recent drought?

Did you know the Water Act 2007 puts the environment first; water for farming is what is left over?

Did you know that the world’s largest ever environmental watering was made into the Barmah-Millewa Redgum forest during the recent drought?

Did you know that Snowy Hydro manage the waters of the upper Murray and Murrumbidgee for electricity generation, not water conservation?

How Serious Are the Ngarrindjeri About Connectivity?

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According to David Nason writing in last Friday’s The Australian, the traditional owners of the Lower Lakes, the Ngarrindjeri, want more water flowing through their country from up-river to maintain connectivity and keep the Murray’s mouth as the “Meeting of the Waters”.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/aboriginal-australia/title-fight-looms-on-murray-water-flow/story-e6frgd9f-1226035619633?from=public_rss

But no mention is made of the tens of thousands of megalitres which have been flowing out the Murray’s Mouth every day since it started to rain – since the drought broke.

There is also no mention of the barrages and how they inhibit hydrological connectivity and prevent inflows from the Southern Ocean.

Indeed if the Ngarrindjeri were serious about connectivity then they would be campaigning against the barrages.

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The photograph shows me (in yellow life jacket) with fisherman Alastair Wood in front of the Murray’s Mouth on about March 15, 2011.

The article by David Nason in The Australian was entitled ‘Title fight looms on Murray water flow’.

Lake Eyre, Still Flooding

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For the last three autumns, Lake Eyre in central Australia has received runoff from good flooding rains.

These photographs were taken by Rhyl as she flew from Quilpie to Birdsville to Lake Eyre in July 2010.

And the flood waters are arriving again this year.

Wild flowers as a mass of yellow from the air.

A land of patterns, according to Rhyl.

Click on each image for a better view.

Australian Government Only Gets Flawed Advice on Climate

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ON November 10 last year the Australian government’s Multi-party Climate Change Committee (MCCC) received a scientific briefing before it entered the policy-setting mode that it remains in today.

The briefing was provided by the only scientist on the Committee, Professor Will Steffen. A copy of the slide presentation that Steffen used has recently come into the public domain.

Quadrant Online has today posted an analysis by four independent scientists and an economist of Professor Steffen’s presentation, http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2011/04/government-misadvised .

The analysis demonstrates that Steffen provided the MCCC with only alarmist, inaccurate IPCC advice; no attempt was made to familiarize committee members with the reasons that many independent scientists all around the world view the IPCC as a deeply flawed organisation, whose advice on climate change is almost valueless.

This analysis of Steffen’s advice of last November is the latest in a series of papers critical of IPCC science which go back to 2009. The Australian government and its advisory scientists have failed to respond to any of these critiques, apparently hoping that if they ignore criticism it will go away. Given mainstream media attitudes, this ploy has regrettably proved to be very effective.

Australian citizens – who will be paying the costs of the intended new carbon dioxide tax – should demand that the press and government alike listen to independent scientific assessments of the global warming issue, and undertake critical analyses of the unsatisfactory scientific advice that has been provided by Professor Steffen and the IPCC.

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Other due diligence reports & related commentaries on Australian Government advice on climate change can be found here: http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2011/04/due-diligence-reports

No Carbon Tax Rally – Brisbane May 7

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How will history record our current obsession with carbon dioxide and the idea of taxing it? What have you done about it?

I will be at the Brisbane rally against the carbon tax on May 7, See you there…
Queensland Parliament House Cnr of Alice Street and George Street
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Saturday, May 7 from 11:30am to 2:30pm

And if you were speaking at the rally…
What would you say?

Climate Refugees?

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UN Embarrassed By Forecast On Climate Refugees Six years ago, the United Nations issued a dramatic warning that the world would have to cope with 50 million climate refugees by 2010. But now that those migration flows have failed to materialize, the UN has distanced itself from the forecasts. On the contrary, populations are growing in the regions that had been identified as environmental danger zones. –Axel Bojanowski, Spiegel Online, 18 April 2011 http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,757713,00.html

Meanwhile a new forecast is doing the rounds. At the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in February, Cristina Tirado, an environment researcher at the University of California in Los Angeles, warned of 50 million environmental refugees in the future. That figure was a UN projection she said — for 2020. –Axel Bojanowski, Spiegel Online, 18 April 2011 http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,757713,00.html

The United Nations Environment Programme has tried to erase one of its glaring failed predictions about climate refugees by removing a map from its website purporting to show where 50 million climate refugees will come from by 2010. –Gavin Atkins, Asian Correspondent, 16 April 2011 http://asiancorrespondent.com/52560/cover-up-un-tries-to-erase-failed-climate-refugee-prediction/

Via CCNet – 19 April 2011 and The Climate Policy Network (more information here http://www.thegwpf.org )

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