Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Best Blog Posts of 2008

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EACH year On Line Opinion and Club Troppo collaborate to publish a Best Blogs feature in January, which features the best blog pieces from the previous year selected from reader nominations. This year they are doing it again.

What was the best blog piece that you read in 2008?  Was it at www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog?

Cast your vote here: http://polling.nationalforum.com.au/index.php?sid=54429&lang=en

Graham Young and team will consider the votes, weigh them up with his expert panel, and get the right to republish as many of them as he can in On Line Opinion over the January period.

The best blog posts of 2007 are here: http://onlineopinion.com.au/feature.asp?year=2008&month=1

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Photograph taken looking into Lake Weyba, south east Queensland, December 25, 2008, by Jennifer Marohasy.

Top Green Story of 2008

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WHAT was the most significant event of 2008 from an environmental perspective?  According to website grist.org it was the election of Barack Obama to President of the US. 

The story by Katharine Wroth and David Roberts lists the top 10 “green stories of 2008” with “Obamania” as number 1 on the basis: 

“[Obama] has already assembled a seasoned green team, with Clinton EPA administrator Carol Browner in a new executive office to coordinate energy and climate efforts. Three key positions — energy secretary, White House science adviser, and NOAA administrator — will be occupied by highly regarded professional scientists who have raised alarms about climate change — respectively, Steven Chu, John Holdren, and Jane Lubchenco.

“There will be a champion of environment justice and green jobs, Rep. Hilda Solis, as labor secretary, and a new White House Office of Urban Policy.

“Two close allies, Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman, are in key environmental positions in the House of Representatives, and Dems have 58 or 59 seats in the Senate, where most green legislation has gone to die.”

Merry Christmas & Beware the White Ibis

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IT is just two more sleeps until Christmas. 

Down under, that is here in Australia, it is summer.  Right along the east coast the weather is usually warm, often sunny, and it’s a time when extended families enjoy picnics and barbeques together outside. 

A native Australian bird, the Australian White Ibis, Threskiornis spinicollis, has learnt to take advantage of this feasting and can often be found perched on the edge of these gatherings waiting for the opportunity to swoop through – once collecting a large piece of quiche from my plastic plate. 

Interestingly the Australian White Ibis were once considered something of a novelty in Australia’s cities.  Indeed less than 10 years ago breeding colonies were encouraged including at Lake Gillawarna – an artificial wetland in Bankstown in western Sydney.  This lake is now home to the largest nesting colony in eastern NSW and possibly the entire state. 

The colony was established in 2001 with five nests, by 2002 there were 120 nests and by 2003 the colony boasted 860 nests. 

But, by 2004, the residents of Bankstown were fed-up – and the local city council developed a management plan to try and reduce numbers.  The management plan went as far as the pruning of horizontal branches of Coral trees and Casuarina to limit the birds nesting opportunities. 

I can only conclude that we really are a fickle lot – loving the Australian White Ibis only as long as it is somewhat contained.

If there is any message in this little story, just two sleeps before Christmas, it is perhaps be careful what you wish for!

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The picture of an Australian White Ibis in Redfern, inner city Sydney, was taken by Jennifer Marohasy in November 2008.

Trading Carbon as a Belief

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“Australia’s Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has failed to see through the vested interests that promote anthropogenic global warming (AGW), the theory that human emissions of carbon cause global warming. Though masquerading as “science based”, the promoters of AGW have a medieval outlook and are in fact anti-science. Meanwhile carbon is innocent, and the political class is plunging ahead with making us poorer because they do not understand what science really is or what the real science is.”

This is the message from David Evans, former consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office, in an opinion piece first published by ABC Unleashed.  It continues:

“The Renaissance began when the absolute authority of the church and ancient texts was overthrown. Science then evolved as our most reliable method for acquiring knowledge, free of superstition and political authority. Suppose you wanted to know whether big cannonballs or small cannonballs fell faster. In medieval times you argued theoretically with what could be gleaned from the Bible, the works of Aristotle, or maybe a Papal announcement. In the Renaissance you ignored the authorities and simply dropped cannon balls from a tower and observed what happened – this was science, where empirical evidence trumps theory.

[Read more…] about Trading Carbon as a Belief

Still Cattle in the Barmah Forest (Part 2)

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ON December 1, the first day of summer here in Australia, residents of the little town of Barmah in northwestern Victoria, drove cattle into their forest in defiance of a government ban.  The Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) has threatened legal action, but so far the cattle are still there.  The forest has historically been grazed and the Barmah locals believe this is important to reduce the fire risk. https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/2008/12/cattle-still-in-the-forest/

Yesterday Police turned up to remove the cattle, residents turned up to protest, there was some mediation, some media interviews, and the Police left without any cattle – they couldn’t find them in the large forest.

[Read more…] about Still Cattle in the Barmah Forest (Part 2)