Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for July 2013

Peer Review Falters at the Altar of Conviction

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IT is perhaps easier to build the Great Wall of China than to convince a global warming devotee to reconsider their mistaken faith.

A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point. So wrote, American social psychologist Leon Festinger in 1956.Bob on the wall

The human brain often struggles to discern fact from fiction, and even the cleverest scientist is susceptible to their own convictions. So if modern climate science is to provide a better understanding of how the dynamic, real-world forces that create weather and climate operate, rather than simply supporting the popular theory of dangerous global warming, then some discipline will be required.

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Menstrual Sanitation – An Environmental Issue

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“LIKE many other Western countries, my home country of Australia is reluctant to support development in all its forms,” writes Caroline Marohasy in an article just published by New Internationalist. In the article, entitled “Menstrual sanitation is not just a ‘lady issue'”, Caroline explains that…

“WE liberally support causes like AIDS or infant mortality prevention, but equally important issues like female hygiene and sanitation attract minimal attention.Screen Shot 2013-07-26 at 7.40.30 PM

Yet investment in projects that directly support women and girls is essential to reducing poverty. In 2012, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that ‘the greatest return comes from investing in girls and women. When they are educated, they drive development in their families, communities and nations.’

A single year of primary education correlates with at least a 10-per-cent increase in a woman’s wages later in life, with the returns on a year of secondary education estimated to be double that. Moreover, educating girls remains the single best policy for reducing fertility.

– See more at: http://newint.org/blog/2013/07/25/menstrual-sanitation-development-education/?1946526611352061#sthash.CBlt7MAF.dpuf

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The article was written by my daughter Caroline who has just spent 5 weeks in Kenya.

The photograph was taken by kyhm54 and is reproduced here under a Creative Commons Licence.

Coalition’s Soil Carbon Plan Unviable

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THERE will soon be a federal election in Australia. One of the issues that should be discussed and debated is ‘climate change’ and how the Australian Labor party, led by Kevin Rudd, versus the Conservative Coalition, led by Tony Abbott, plan to address this important issue.

Central to the Coalition’s policy is a Direction Action Plan [1] and central to this plan is the idea that farmers can and should be paid to sequest carbon in their soil. Liverpool Plains February 2007

This is how the plan is explained in the policy document:

“Soil Carbons – Once in a Century Replenishment of our Soils

The single largest opportunity for CO2 emissions reduction in Australia is through bio-sequestration in general, and in particular, the replenishment of our soil carbons. It is also the lowest cost CO2 emissions reduction available in Australia on a large scale.

Significantly improving soil carbons also helps soil quality, farm productivity and water efficiency, and should be a national goal regardless of the CO2 abatement benefits.

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Open Thread

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I encourage you to share links to breaking news and interesting information at this thread. sausages barbecue

I intend to post more in the future about the need for Australia to have a comprehensive climate policy. In the meantime get informed by reading Bob Carter’s new book entitled ‘Taxing Air’. Electronic copies available on Amazon for instant download for $8.

http://www.amazon.com/Taxing-Air-ebook/dp/B00CY1EOZA

The Central England Temperature Index: A Useful Reference

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It has been suggested at this blog that it is too risky for mainstream politicians, for example the leader of the Coalition, Tony Abbott, to admit to being sceptical of anthropogenic global warming. It has been suggested journalists at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) would simply poke fun at him.

I disagree.

Indeed using Bob Carter’s new book Taxing Air as a reference, he could start educating ABC journalists on some of the basics. A good starting point is the longest established ground temperature record, termed the Central England Temperature Index (CETI).

Central England Temperature Index

This record starts in 1659, which was soon after the invention of the thermoscope but before the Fahrenheit scale came into use.

It is a 353 year-long data set, archived by the British Meteorological Office, and it shows that the average summer temperature in Central England in the eighteenth century was 15.46ºC while that for the twentieth century was 15.35ºC.

Yes.

Far from being warmer due to assumed global warming, comparison of actual temperature data shows that UK summers in the twentieth century were cooler than those of two centuries previously.

This is the sort of very useful information that Mr Abbott could share with ABC journalists.

He could then conclude, as Professor Carter does, that our longest available thermometer records, like our shorter and more accurate modern measures of temperature, offer little by way of evidence for the occurrence of dangerous human-caused global warming.

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To order your copy of Taxing Air and an extra copy to send to Mr Abbott, visit http://www.taxingair.com. The book has great charts like the one embedded into this post of the CETI.

Bob Carter is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed research papers in professional scientific journals. The great majority of these concern interpretations of ancient environments, including paleo-climatic studies. Link to full of list of publications here http://members.iinet.net.au/~glrmc/new_page_4.htm

Dumping the Carbon Tax without Dumping Anything

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THE Coalition’s attacks on the carbon tax have been more about broken promises than policy, allowing Kevin Rudd to ‘dump the tax’ without actually dumping anything, writes Chris Berg…

“WHEN Julia Gillard promised in 2010 that there would be no carbon tax under a government she led – but that her government would pursue an emissions trading scheme – she probably thought it would defuse a toxic debate and help secure victory.

Like so many of Labor’s ploys in that election, it was far too clever by half. Tony Abbott dined off Gillard’s no-tax promise for three years.

Now it’s Kevin Rudd’s time to dine. On Sunday we learned that he wants to transition from a fixed-price carbon tax to a full-blown floating-price emissions trading scheme one year ahead of schedule. Kevin Rudd laughs

Here’s the riddle: why?

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