Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for November 2011

How Aborigines Made Australia: Bill Gammage

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A new book, The Biggest Estate on Earth, by historian Bill Gammage explodes the myth that pre-settlement Australia was an untamed wilderness revealing the complex, country-wide systems of land management used by Aboriginal people.

According to the publisher’s website:

“Early Europeans commented again and again that the land looked like a park. With extensive grassy patches and pathways, open woodlands and abundant wildlife, it evoked a country estate in England. Bill Gammage has discovered this was because Aboriginal people managed the land in a far more systematic and scientific fashion than we have ever realised.

“For over a decade, Gammage has examined written and visual records of the Australian landscape. He has uncovered an extraordinarily complex system of land management using fire and the life cycles of native plants to ensure plentiful wildlife and plant foods throughout the year. We know Aboriginal people spent far less time and effort than Europeans in securing food and shelter, and now we know how they did it.

“With details of land-management strategies from around Australia, The Biggest Estate on Earth rewrites the history of this continent, with huge implications for us today. Once Aboriginal people were no longer able to tend their country, it became overgrown and vulnerable to the hugely damaging bushfires we now experience. And what we think of as virgin bush in a national park is nothing of the kind.”

This book must challenge the myth of virgin “remnant” vegetation that currently underpins significant land management legislation in Queensland and NSW.

Bill Gammage is a historian and adjunct professor in the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University.

University Entitlement Must Change

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THE revelations that Paul Greenfield, vice chancellor at the University of Queensland, has been forced to retire early because of “irregularities” in admission of a close relative to medical school do not come as a shock to many of us who have worked in the Australian university sector for many years (‘Relatively stupid for vice-chancellor’, November 12-13, Australian Financial Review).

Neither does the unsuccessful attempt to cover up the scandal.  Ethical standards in universities have deteriorated alarmingly over the past couple of decades.  I have seen situations where final grades of particular  students at Queensland universities, including University of Queensland, have been arbitrarily changed to accommodate the whims of senior administrators.

I have been a lecturer and senior lecturer at universities for more than 20 years.  These also include Queensland University of Technology and Griffith University.

I have seen practices amounting to selling degrees to poorly qualified overseas students to bring in revenue.  Those at subordinate staff levels who try to intervene or object are dealt with very harshly.

There is a pervasive sense of personal entitlement and lack of accountability among the most senior ranks of our universities that is very disturbing.  This culture needs to change.  A step in the right direction would be for Greenfield to leave his position immediately, acknowledge his failings, and at least provide a public apology to the hapless medical school applicant his relative displaced.

John W. Bearsey
Noosa, Queensland
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Republished with permission from Bearsey, first published by the Australian Financial Review, Letters, November 15, 2011.

Australia to Become Involved in ‘Subprime’ Carbon Market?

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EARLIER this week the Australian Senate passed the Clean Energy Bill and the associated 18 other Bills that set out the carbon pricing mechanism due to come into effect from July 1, 2012. The so-called big polluters will need to reduce or offset their emissions from that date.

One potential mechanism for offsetting emissions is by buying Kyoto compliant carbon units from overseas.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) established under the Kyoto Protocol is a cornerstone of the existing international greenhouse-gas emissions-trading scheme. It allows emissions to be offset by investing in schemes, for example hydroelectric power and wind farms, in developing countries. But the schemes have to be certified.

About one-fifth of existing Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM) are registered in India, and certified, but they may nevertheless be non-compliant.

That’s according to a recent article in the journal Nature that reported on a 2008 diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks.

The situation may have improved, but the Nature article suggests it may have actually gotten worst. Then again the United Nations own validation and registration process for the CDMs, like Kyoto itself, is fairly arbitrary and bureaucratic and not particularly focused on emissions reductions.

Now the carbon tax legislation is through the Australian parliament the Australian Regulator will start to auction floating priced carbon units, based at least in part on CDMs. In addition to buying carbon units in the auction process, secondary markets and derivative markets will likely also develop in Australia also linked in to the international greenhouse-gas trading system.

So does this in effect mean Australia will soon be linked in to a type of ‘subprime’ UN compliant carbon trading scheme?

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Australia: Carbon tax/pricing mechanism approved – what needs to be done to prepare for it? By Fiona Melville And Jo Garland
http://www.utilityproducts.com/news/2011/11/1538624264/australia-carbon-tax-pricing-mechanism-approved-what-needs-to-be-done-to-prepare-for-it.html

Clean-energy credits tarnished: Wikileaks reveals most Indian claims are ineligible. By Quirin Schiermeier.
Nature, Volume 477, pages 517-518

Dredging a Harbor Won’t Destroy the Great Barrier Reef

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Activist group GetUp! has just launched a campaign to save the Great Barrier Reef from the dredging of Gladstone Harbor.

http://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/coal-seam-gas/great-barrier-reef/dredging-the-reef/take_action

“Millions of cubic metres of sea floor is being removed from the Great Barrier Reef right now. It’s the largest dredging project ever undertaken in Australia, making way for massive new coal seam gas export facilities.

“This massive industrial activity is damaging the Great Barrier Reef and threatens its status as a World Heritage Site. Sign the emergency petition now!”

Over the years the Great Barrier Reef has been going to be destroyed by crown-of-thorns starfish, over-fishing, agricultural run-off, global warming and more. But it’s still a big place running almost the entire length of Queensland and still in mostly pristine condition. And dredging of one little harbor is not going to have any long-term significant impact. In fact Heron Island, just off the coast of Gladstone, is still open for business…

http://www.heronisland.com/Articles.aspx

Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions Up, Australian Carbon Dioxide Emissions Down

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PRELIMINARY estimates of global and national emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel combustion and cement manufacture indicate 2010 was a record year. Australian emissions, however, are down to 99 Teragrams from 108 Teragrams in 2008. As a percentage of world emissions we are now only 1.09 percent, down from 1.24 percent in 2008. The data is from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC), Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

According to a media release at the site:

“Globally 9,139 Teragrams of oxidized carbon (Tg-C) were emitted from these sources. A teragram is a million metric tons.

“Converted to carbon dioxide, so as to include the mass of the oxygen molecules, this amounts to over 33.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. The increase alone is about 512 Tg-C, or 5.9%, over the 2009 global estimate.

“Much of the 5.9% global increase from 2009 to 2010 is due to increased emissions from the world’s largest fossil-fuel emitter, the People’s Republic of China, where emissions rose 10% to 2.247 Tg-C.

“Emissions from the United States were 1,498 Tg-C, up by almost 60 Tg-C, or 4%, of the 2009 estimates of 1,438 Tg-C. The record year for the United States was 2007, with estimated emissions of 1,589 Tg-C. The 2010 total is about 94% of that value, reflecting economic conditions.”

Data here: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/perlim_2009_2010_estimates.html

I would like to see data from before 2008 for Australia, to see the longer-term trend for Australia. Does anyone know where I can find it? The biggest savings in Australia appear to be from coal and cement. This accords with data from the National Greenhouse Office which suggest a significant drop in energy generation from black coal.

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Record High 2010 Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Fossil-Fuel Combustion and Cement Manufacture Posted on CDIAC Site. by Tom Boden and T.J. Blasing

Pseudoscience as a Consequence of Confirmation Bias: Matt Ridley

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Matt Ridley began a recent lecture to the national academy of sciences in Scotland by suggesting it was easy to distinguish science from pseudoscience. He explained that:
Astronomy is science; astrology is pseudoscience.
Molecular biology is science; homeopathy is pseudoscience.
Chemistry is science; alchemy is pseudoscience.

But Ridley also reminded us that Sir Isaac Newton, the famous seventeenth-century mathematician and scientist, was passionate about alchemy.

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