Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Farmers want Protection for Iconic Farmland

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At a hastily convened Landcare meeting yesterday, around 100 landholders affected by the proposed Tarong Coal mine on the Haystack Plain called on the Queensland government to protect iconic farmlands from mining development.

 

Landcare Project Officer Nevin Olm said: “It is good enough for the government to protect the iconic Daintree and other natural areas, why is it not good enough for them to protect our world renowned fertile floodplains. On the Haystack Plain, we have been growing crops to feed the nation for over 100 years, and we can sustainably continue for 1000 years. Yet Tarong Coal wants to displace landholders off the best of the best land in our state, for a one off windfall gain that will see one of our iconic floodplains ruined forever.”

 

The meeting was attended by state MP’s, regional council representatives, Agforce representatives, representatives of federal members, and concerned community members.

 

Tarong representatives at the meeting apologized for the way in which landholders had been informed by a letter containing the decision last Monday with no prior advice or consultation, and the fact that the Haystack Road deposit had always, until Monday, been referred to as the Glen Wilga deposit which was misleading.

 

Jeff Bidstrup, group spokesperson said, “A recent UN report that states that farmers will need to grow as much food in the next 50 years as we have produced in the last 10, 000 years, yet we have a government corporation about to rip the heart out of our community and one of the nations most productive food bowls for short term gain.  All this to sell coal in an era when CO2 emissions are rising alarmingly.”

 

The meeting went on to pass a motion calling on the Liberal National Party, if elected, to rescind any Mining Development Leases and mining licences on iconic farmlands, and retrospectively rescind those licences on iconic farmlands where mining has not yet commenced.  It was agreed that society needs to urgently take responsibility for the decisions of such magnitude where food security is traded for a short term benefit of one off resource exploitation.

 

Geoff Hewitt, a local farmer not affected by this mining development said: “We need as a society to put a stop to the practice of destroying iconic farmlands forever in the mad rush for coal dollars. Trading off long term food security for short term government income, at the same time, accelerating global warming, is very bad policy. We are selling off our kids’ food security, this is generational selfishness taken to a whole new level.

 

There is an urgent need for a review of the policies that allow a state government to grant a corporation it owns the right to destroy a community and some of Australia’s most productive farmland.”

 

Brigalow-Jimbour Floodplains Group Inc

26th September 2008

BBC Misrepresented Climate Skeptics

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The BBC is being investigated by television watchdogs after a leading climate change sceptic claimed his views were deliberately misrepresented.  Lord Monckton, a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, says he was made to look like a ‘potty peer’ on a TV programme that ‘was a one-sided polemic for the new religion of global warming’.  Read more here.

Carbon Emissions Scaling Record Peaks

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A new report by a research consortium called the Global Carbon Project has confirmed that China leapfrogged the United States in 2006 as the world’s biggest carbon emitter and India is heading for third place.  The report also claims global greenhouse gas levels are “scaling record peaks”. Read more here.

Dying, I’m Not: A Poem from the Murrumbidgee

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I begin as a trickle, of melting snowflakes,

High in the mountains as Springtime awakes.

I ooze from the sedges, and springs neath the ground.

Drawn by gravity, it’s downward I’m bound.

I’m one of the elements of antiquity,

The basis of life, I begin clear and free.

It’s water I am, the compound H two O.

They say I am scarce, but it’s really not so.

Most abundant I am on this wonderful earth,

Without me nature, would have been a stillbirth.

 

 As I gurgle along, in my search for the sea,

I’ve been given a name, the Murrunbidgee.

Over rocks past Kiandra, I flow clear and free,

Then I nurture all life in our own A.C.T.

Because that is my votive, my reason for being,

The lifeblood of life, for everything living.

So sing in the rain, but save my runoff,

Lest in the future the rainfall’s far-off.

Though perpetual I am, I’m not here to waste,

For all life depends on my aquatic embrace.

 

With the Goodradigbee I rest, in old Barren Jack,

Before meandering through our arid outback.

‘Cross the Riverine plains, where for millions of years,

I’ve laid down a profile of rich earth veneers,

Just needing my lifeblood to grow and to bloom,

With the food for this world, before I resume,

My journey to where I’m joined by my brothers

That’s Lachlan and Murray, before nature ushers

Into our fold, the Darling, our sister you see;

For our journey of destiny, to our Mother the sea.

 But now I am ailing, but dying I’m not.

 

So what ailment afflicts me I now hear you ask?

Well believe not those, who all seem to bask,

In the self serving glory of media headlines.

Of pillage and plunder that always maligns,

Those who care most for my health and welfare.

These green charlatans all, who seem not to care,

That I’ve been infected with the terrible cancer,

Of European carp and they have not the answer.

For this ecological disaster that is ailing me so,

Now turbid and muddy, my reed beds don’t grow.

It’s ailing I am, but dying I’m not.

 

As I flow on to the lake, called Alexandrina.

I hereby refute what is claimed in the media.

My great river gums, are not dead or dying.

Of those who profess this, well frankly they’re lying.

These gnarled old eucalypts, survive without floods.

They’ve done so for decades, on just a few scuds.

It is only Mother Nature, can send floods so great.

That my dry lakes and wet lands begin to gestate,

With a food chain of plenty, that may last for years.

 Until drought once again, brings back the tears.

It’s ailing I am, but dying I’m not.

 

I now join my Mother the source of all life;

I’m cleaned and refreshed, away from lands strife.

Subsumed in the bounteous source of the clouds,

I begin a new journey as one of the shrouds.

Those cumulonimbus, cirrus, strata and all;

We race over the sea and become a snowfall,

On a high mountain pass I softly alight.

As a protective blanket, all fluffy and white.

I begin as a trickle, of melting snowflakes,

I’m now in the Andes as springtime awakes.

 

Pikey

Murrumbidgee Valley

New South Wales, Australia

Sun Baking on Low: New Data from Solar Probe Ulysses

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The solar wind — a stream of charged particles ejected from the sun’s upper atmosphere at 1 million miles per hour — is significantly weaker, cooler and less dense than it has been in 50 years. And for the first time in about a century, the sun went for two months this summer without sunspots, said NASA solar physicist David Hathaway.  Read more here.

Grain Stubble as Petrol

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Biofuels made from the stubble left over from harvesting grains could replace around one fifth of the volume of petrol used in Australia.

The article, Grain Stubble Could Power a Greener Future, by Anna Salleh, at ABC Online, doesn’t explain that this depends on second generation bioethanol production becoming an economic reality; but we are hopeful that this lignocellulosic ethanol will become a reality one day.

Michael Dunlop, from CSIRO, is quoted explaining that based on 2001 figures, the 10 main grain crops of Australia produce about 65 million tonnes of stubble.  Much of this needs to be left in the ground to protect soil, retain soil carbon and reduce evaporation, leaving just under 15 million tonnes of remaining stubble to be distributed in a way that is economically viable to collect.

“That would be equivalent to roughly 20 per cent of the volume of the petrol that we use,” Dr Dunlop said.