Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

jennifer

Save the Environment, Stop the Emissions Trading Scheme

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Dear Friends and Colleagues,

I am writing to you as the Chair of the Australian Environment Foundation (AEF).  Over the last year a key issue for us has been the protection of River Red Gum forests in the Central Murray Valley of south eastern Australia.   At our recent conference and AGM in Canberra, members decided that the best thing we could do as an organisation for the environment over the next year would be to oppose the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). 

You might well ask why an environment group would oppose such a scheme.  Well, for three reasons:
1. An ETS  will not change the global temperature;
2. It will force many clean and green Australian industries overseas; and
3. It will make Australians poor, but it is richer, not poorer nations, that are generally better able to protect their natural environment. 

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Blog about The Sun

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Hi Jennifer,

I have recently taken over Carl Smith’s blog at http://landscheidt.auditblogs.com/

The site was originally set up to discuss Dr. Landscheidt’s work and is a good source of his documents. I am currently expanding the format to include any scientific work related to planetary influence on the Sun.

Ian  Wilson has just contacted me and gave permission to air his recent paper on the topic and I thought it and other articles may have been of interest to you and your readers.

Geoff Sharp.

Australian Parliamentarian, and Sceptic, Banned Prevented from Tabling Climate Data

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DR Dennis Jensen BAppSc (RMIT), MSc (Melb), PhD (Monash) is the only member of the Australian Parliament with any training in science a PhD in a science discipline. 

[As correctly pointed out in the comments following this posting, my brother Jim Turnour, also a member of the Federal Parliament, has a Batchelor of Agricultural Science.  Other members with science and science-related degrees are listed in a comment in the following thread.]    

Yesterday Dr Jensen suggested in the Australian Parliament that many of the current problems facing the Murray Darling Basin are the result of low runoff as a consequence of changed land management practices (including more plantations in the top of catchments), catchment-wide drainage management plans (place in the 1980s and 1990s to lower water tables) and more efficient water use (resulting in less leakage). 

He explained that it was wrong to blame climate change for the low levels in the dams, because there had been no long term decline in rainfall in the Basin. 

Dr Jensen also explained that many of the climate models used to predict regional rainfall, including the CSIRO models (relied upon by Ross Garnaut in his report on climate change to the Australian government), are unreliable and unduly pessimistic.

When Dr Jensen asked to table supporting information in the Parliament by way of charts and tables, the request was denied. 

Much of the information that Dr Jensen was banned from tabling can be found in a recent publication from the IPA entitled ‘What’s Happening to the Murray River?’.

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The picture of Dr Jensen is from his parliamentary website.

A Double Congratulations to Ross Coulthart and Nick Farrow

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INVESTIGATIVE journalist Ross Coulthart and guru producer Nick Farrow have won the Gold Walkley for this year for exposing a doctor’s alleged malpractice in the New South Wales town of Bega.

The award is the most prestigious in Australian journalism.

They undertook the investigation while working for the Sunday Program, a program recently axed by Channel 9.

You may remember, back in June, Nick Farrow working with Adam Shand, made the only feature so far on Australian TV questioning whether we really have a climate crisis.  This cover story for  Sunday was entitled ‘Questioning Science’ and screened on June 29, 2008.

In 2006 Ross Coulthart with Nick Farrow critically examined many of the popular claims about the Murray River and found them wanting.  That cover story which confirmed many of my findings was screened on May 26, 2006 and entitled ‘Australia’s Salinity Crisis: What Crisis’. 

Margaret Simons writing in yesterday’s Crikey.com.au commented:

“There is something profoundly sad and disturbing about an industry forced to give its highest awards to things that no longer exist, or are in decline. That’s what happened last Thursday night at the annual Walkley Awards …
The highest award for the evening, the Gold Walkley, went to Channel Nine’s Sunday program, for a piece by Ross Coulthart and Nick Farrow about the “Butcher of Bega” — a doctor accused of abusing and mutilating the women in his care. The same piece won both the award for Television Current Affairs Reporting, and the award for Investigative Reporting. Yet the program — a frequent winner of Walkley Awards — no longer exists.”

There is some good news though.  Ross Coulthart and Nick Farrow are now at Channel Seven and working on a new public affairs program ‘Sunday Night’ to be unveiled late in January 2009.

Congratulations to both Ross and Nick on the award, and also the new jobs.