Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for June 2011

Yarra’s prize makes mockery of Murray-Darling ‘crisis’: Danny O’Brien

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THE short-listing of Melbourne’s Yarra River for the International Riverprize, billed as the “world’s most prestigious environmental prize”, just goes to highlight how farcical the debate over river health has become.

The National Irrigators’ Council said while the Yarra is being lauded as among the world’s best, the Murray-Darling Basin – which has more water available for environmental flows – is said to be in “crisis” and need of “saving”.

“For all the hand-wringing over the health of the Murray-Darling, it’s salient to remember that it has 58 per cent of flows available to the environment[1], while the Yarra has only 57 per cent,[2]” said NIC CEO Danny O’Brien.

“Yet management of the Yarra is now short-listed for an award while irrigators and their communities are facing the prospect of massive withdrawals of water for consumptive purposes in the Murray Darling. How can this be?”

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Outgoing Longwave Radiation and the Greenhouse Effect: Ken Gregory

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Outgoing longwave radiation and the greenhouse effect HAS the greenhouse effect increased with man-made greenhouse gas emissions? Canadian Ken Gregory asks and answers this question concluding…

The greenhouse effect as characterized by the normalized greenhouse factor has increased by only 0.19% from 1960 to 2008. The temperature change from 1960 attributable to AGW is less than 0.1 C. The extrapolated temperature change attributable to AGW at doubled CO2 concentration is 0.26 C. The data shows that the IPCC estimate of climate sensitivity at doubled CO2 concentration of 3.0 C is unrealistic.

Read more here: http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/OLR&NGF_June2011.pdf

Climate4You Update May 2011

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Dear all.

Please find below a link which will take you directly to a monthly newsletter with meteorological information updated to May 2011:

http://www.climate4you.com/Text/Climate4you_May_2011.pdf

All temperatures in this newsletter are shown in degrees Celsius. Previous issues of the newsletter, diagrams and additional material are available on http://www.climate4you.com/

All the best, yours sincerely,
Ole Humlum

Ole Humlum, Professor of Physical Geography, Department of Physical Geography, Institute of Geosciences, University of Oslo, Norway

US Supreme Court Impressed by Climate Sceptic

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There was an important ruling last week in the USA. Would-be regulators of carbon dioxide lost an appeal in the Supreme Court.

They lost on technical grounds and in the process the Court cautioned, by way of a footnote in the judgement, that the science of climate change is hardly settled. Rather than citing some evidence, however, the Judge cited an article about the views of physics and sceptic Freeman Dyson, published in of all places, the New York Times Magazine and over two years ago.

You can read the article entitled ‘The Civil Heretic’ by Nicholas Dawidoff here… http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?pagewanted=1

You can read the Supreme Court ruling here…
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/10-174.pdf

Irresponsible: SA Politicians Unite Against Upstream Communities and Environments

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ADELAIDE in South Australia is a one paper town. Everyone reads the Adelaide Advertiser. Today, as usual, it’s full of parochial chatter including a one page advertisement devoted to a statement from all 23 South Australian Federal MPs (Green, Labor and Coalition) blaming the problems of the Lower Lakes and Coorong on upstream irrigators and their “chronic overuse of water”.

Of course the Adelaide Advertiser has never let the facts get in the way of a good story and so, without explaining that there is a local solution to the problem, their journalist Catherine Hockley supports the advertisement organised by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) with a nonsense story headlined ‘Politicians unite to rescue the Murray’

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/politicians-unite-to-rescue-the-murray/story-e6frea6u-1226080269703

[Read more…] about Irresponsible: SA Politicians Unite Against Upstream Communities and Environments