Jennifer Marohasy

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Rhodes Fairbridge and the Idea that the Solar System Regulates the Earth’s Climate: A New Paper by Richard Mackey

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Hello Jennifer,

My paper, “Rhodes Fairbridge and the idea that the solar system regulates the earth’s climate”** has now been published.

Here is the link:
http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf

I would be most grateful if you would post it on your website. I am sure it will be of interest to your readers.

As is usual for a high quality international scientific journal, my article was subject to a vigorous peer review process, to which I had to respond before the reviewers and the editors would agree to publish it. This having been done, the paper has now been published.

Yours sincerely
Richard Mackey
—————————————

Here is the abstract:

Rhodes Fairbridge died on 8th November, 2006. He was one of Australia’s most accomplished scientists and has
a special connection with Australia. In July, 1912 his father Kingsley established Fairbridge Village near Perth.
It contains a chapel of elegant simplicity designed by one of the world’s most famous architects of the time, Sir
Herbert Baker, as a labour of love to commemorate Kingsley. Rhodes is one of the few scientists to research the
sun/climate relationship in terms of the totality of the sun’s impact on the earth (i.e. gravity, the electromagnetic
force and output and their interaction). When the totality of the sun’s impact is considered, having regard to the
relevant research published over the last two decades, the influence of solar variability on the earth’s climate is
very strongly non-linear and stochastic. Rhodes also researched the idea that the planets might have a role in
producing the sun’s variable activity. If they do and if the sun’s variable activity regulates climate, then ultimately the planets may regulate it. Recent research about the sun/climate relationship and the solar inertial motion (sim) hypothesis shows a large body of circumstantial evidence and several working hypotheses but no satisfactory account of a physical sim process. In 2007 Ulysses will send information about the solar poles. This could be decisive regarding the predictions about emergent Sunspot Cycle No 24, including the sim hypothesis.

According to the sim hypothesis, this cycle should be like Sunspot Cycle No 14, and be followed by two that will
create a brief ice age. During the 1920s and ‘30s Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology published research about
the sun/climate relationship, especially Sunspot Cycle No 14, showing that it probably caused the worst drought
then on record.

And an extract from the paper:

“The earth’s atmosphere contains several major oscillating wind currents that have a key role in the regulation of the earth’s weather and climate. These wind currents include the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO); Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO); the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO); the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO); the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO); the Atlantic Multdecadal Oscillation (AMO); the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD); and the Arctic Oscillation (AO); and the northern and southern polar vortices, which are two permanent cyclones at the poles. FAGAN (1999), (2000) and (2004) has shown how the climate changes rendered by these global atmospheric systems have resulted in major historic changes to cultures and societies throughout the world since the dawn of history.

LABITZKE et al. (2005), COUGHLIN and KUNG (2004) and CORDERO and NATHAN (2005) report that the sunspot cycle drives these large-scale oscillating wind currents. For example, strength of the QBO circulation and the length of the QBO period varies directly with the sunspot cycle. COUGHLIN and KUNG (2004) also conclude that at a range of atmospheric heights and at all latitudes over the planet, the atmosphere warms appreciably during the maximum of the sunspot cycle, and cools during the minimum of the cycle.xix VAN LOON, MEEHL AND ARBLASTER (2004) established that in the northern summer (July to August), the major climatological tropical precipation maxima are intensified in solar maxima compared with solar minima during the period 1979 to 2002.

NUGROHO and YATINI 2006 report that the sun strongly influences the IOD during wet season in the monsoons climate pattern; that is, the December to February period. CAMP and TUNG (2006) found that a significant relationship exists between polar warming and the sunspot cycle. ZAITSEVA et al. (2003) found that the intensity of the NAO depends on solar activity. ABARCA DEL RIO et al. (2003) have found that the patterns of variation between indices of solar activity, the Atmospheric Angular Momentum index and Length of Day show that variations in solar activity are a key driver of atmospheric dynamics. The United States Geological Survey agency found that changes in total solar radiant output cause changes in regional precipitation, including floods and droughts in the Mississippi River basin.xx The tropical oceans absorb varying amounts of solar radiant output, creating ocean temperature variations.

These are transported by major ocean currents to locations where the stored energy is released into the atmosphere. As a result, atmospheric pressure is altered and moisture patterns are formed that can ultimately affect regional precipitation.

SCAFETTA et al.(2004) and SCAFETTA and WEST (2005) have found that the earth’s temperature periodicities, particularly those of the oceans, inherit the structure of the periodicity of solar activity. WHITE et al. (1997) and REID (1991) have found that the sunspot cycle produces periodicities in the oceans’ temmperatures. This research shows that sea surface temperatures in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans, whether taken separately or combined, follow measures of solar radiant output derived from satellite observations and the sunspot record.

The sun’s separate impacts on the atmosphere and the ocean, and the complex non-linear interaction between the atmosphere and the ocean, is another process that amplifies the non-linear impact of the sun on our climate. Given that solar activity is a key determinant of ocean temperature, the decline on solar activity measured over the last decade should give rise in due course to a cooling of the oceans.

Read the full paper here: http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf

** MACKEY, R., 2007. Rhodes Fairbridge and the idea that the solar system regulates the Earth’s climate. Journal
of Coastal Research, SI 50 (Proceedings of the 9th International Coastal Symposium), 955 – 968. Gold Coast,
Australia, ISSN 0749.0208

Parliaments Review the Evidence on Global Warming: A Note from Bob Carter

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Parliamentary legislatures around the world, diverse though they are, generally all share a committee system of review. The review process usually consists of either ad hoc or standing committees that are convened to discuss particular issues or draft pieces of legislation.

Thus in the United States, until recently, members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works under the chairmanship of Senator Inhofe – ignoring political blandishments and distorted science alike – have trail-blazed a path of sensible and moderate commentary on the vexed issue of dangerous human-caused climate change.

Similarly, in the United Kingdom, in 2005 the powerful Select Committee on Economic Affairs of the House of Lords conducted an investigation into the economics of climate change, concluding that “the scientific context (of climate change) is one of uncertainty” and that IPCC procedure “strikes us as opening the way for climate science and economics to be determined, at least in part, by political requirements rather than by the evidence. Sound science cannot emerge from an unsound process

Now a third parliament has chimed in, this time in the Australian lower house. There, a committee under the leadership of government MP Petro Georgiou was asked to advise the Howard government regarding the feasibility and costs of sequestration of carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. In a politically bizarre development, Mr Georgiou – whose view is that “there is now compelling evidence that human activity is changing the global climate”, and who insisted on making clear reference to this view in his sequestration report – needed the support of the Labor party opposition members of the committee in order to produce a majority report. And four of Mr Georgiou’s government colleagues, led by Dr Dennis Jensen, issued a separate minority report which provides a restrained, rational and sensible discussion of the climate change issue.

Dr Dennis Jensen is that rare animal, a politician who is both a PhD-trained scientist and an experienced researcher. Dr Jensen, who represents a West Australian seat in the Canberra Senate, has worked for two of Australia’s premier research organizations, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Organisation (CSIRO) and the Defence Science and Technology Organization (DSTO).

His minority report points out that the widely promulgated and alarmist British Stern Report has been “thoroughly debunked”, and that “most of the public statements that promote the dangerous human warming scare are made from a position of ignorance – by political leaders, press commentators and celebrities who share the characteristics of lack of scientific training and lack of an ability to differentiate between sound science and computer-based scare mongering”.

With delicious irony, such a diagnosis encapsulates exactly the astonishing and fierce reaction that release of the minority report provoked from the majority members of the committee, other politicians and the press. Chairman Georgiou averred that Jensen was wrong because 43 out of the 46 submissions that the committee had received said so, apparently being unaware that matters of science are not decided by unrepresentative and unqualified consensus. Deputy Chairman Harry Quick badged Jensen’s report as “philosophical waffle”. Labor’s environment spokesman, former rock musician Peter Garrett, wondered out loud in parliament “What planet are these government MPs on?”, and Greens senator Christine Milne called Dr Jensen “a dinosaur”. Finally, The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper referred to the group of four dissentient MPs as the “Flat Earth Four”, and their reporter described one of them, Danna Vale, as simply “daffy”.

What’s remarkable about that, I hear you thinking? Politics is politics. Well, yes it is, and so is science. Dennis Jensen’s minority report contains a careful and accurate assessment of the science relevant to the global warming issue, and advances logical argument and facts in support of the view that human-caused warming is not proven, nor likely, to be dangerous. Yet not one other Australian politician, scientist or media reporter is prepared to discuss any of the science issues, let alone to try to show where Dr Jensen might have erred. Instead, en masse, the commentariat have scorned and abused him for daring to challenge the mighty shibboleth of human-caused global warming.

Of course, Prime Minister Howard – whose government is well behind in the opinion polls and who faces an election in the next few months – is in a politically exposed position regarding climate policy. Recent informal polls suggest that as many as 75% of Australian voters remain unconvinced of the danger of human-caused warming. Nonetheless, with strong bias the media continue to promulgate the shrill climate alarmism of extreme groups like the IPCC, NGOs such as the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Australian Conservation Foundation, and the Labor and Green political parties, and this has forced the Liberal government to make an in principle commitment to the future introduction of a carbon trading system.

It surprised no-one, therefore, that Mr Howard’s comment on the Jensen minority report was “No, I don’t agree with their views”. Pragmatism, after all, is what wins most elections.

The reality is, however, that over the last few years, the legislatures of the U.S., U.K. and now Australia – all, incidentally, nations with strong scientific credentials – have given independent assessments of the in-vogue claims of climate change disaster, and each has found them wanting.

The Jensen group’s third review, launched in Australia this week, closely follows several other sensational revelations that undermine even further the already very weak case for dangerous human-caused global warming.

First, that bastion of warming alarmism the British Hadley Centre has finally faced reality by publishing a computer model which acknowledges that warming has not occurred since 1998 (and conveniently threatens “but just you wait until 2014”!). Having ignored natural climate variability for 15 years, the modelers now take it into account and discover – guess what – that climate varies.

Second, earlier British research which suggested that the late 20th century warming of the ground temperature record was not due to urban heat island effects was found to be unrepeatable, and therefore must be discarded. This calls into question the accuracy and usefulness of all thermometer-based surface temperature data.

Third, NASA acknowledged that since 2000 its much-reproduced US temperature record has been inaccurate because of a computer programming error. After appropriate corrections, it turns out that 1934, not 1998, was the hottest year of the century in the US, and that only four of the hottest ten years on record occurred around the turn of the 21st century.

Finally, and fourth, an in-progess audit of the quality of the Global Climate Network of weather stations maintained by NOAA is showing that many stations are sited in unsatisfactory locations. This revelation shows, once again, that the ground-based thermometer stations provide unreliable data. Perhaps even more serious, it shows that major government and international climate agencies have been, at best, asleep on the job

The wise men and women of our three houses of parliament may mostly be professional politicians, but nonetheless they have discerned correctly the non-alarmist nature of contemporary climate change. The world has many more pressing problems to deal with than quixotically reducing carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere in order to feel good. The global warming scare campaign needs to be recognized as such, badged as such, and then disregarded as such – and in short order.

Bob Carter

Different Emotional Responses to Mining and Logging in Jarrah Forests: A Note from Boxer

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The response by our society to mining on one hand and logging on the other in the jarrah forests of Western Australia could not be more in contrast. Alcoa’s bauxite mining is met with silence, but to oppose logging of virtually any sort (even of plantations in some cases) has become a normal part of the moral foundation for all well-informed citizens. Yet if we look at other forms of economic activity that covers large tracts of land, only well-managed tourism could be said to have a similar or less environmental impact than well-managed commercial native forestry.

As Roger Underwood recently explained, bauxite mining causes total removal of all organisms from large tracts of the forest and removal of several metres of soil (bauxite ore), material that is the foundation upon which a forest exists. This is followed by re-establishment of the forest back onto the irreversibly altered soil profile. The changes that are imposed by mining are permanent in terms of geological time scales – these soils/ores were formed on-site by many millions of years of weathering of the underlying granite basement rock. Roger’s post gives additional important information.

Logging on the other hand is a short period of harvesting that occurs within a process that takes many decades: the forest is regenerated, managed by thinning, controlled burning and other practices, leading to the maturing of the overstorey trees over a period of between one and several human generations. Harvesting occurs again, followed by the same regeneration and management process. Many Australian native forests have been through two or three such cycles, yet they are now considered “high conservation value” forests by the greens and the public.

Harvesting may be either clear felling at one extreme to selective (individual tree) logging at the other, and there is a continuous spectrum of logging practices between the extremes. But most importantly, the soil is left almost undisturbed compared to mining, and the understory is not stripped away. No species has been recorded as having been driven to extinction by logging in Australia, though this is not a reason to be complacent. It does indicate that the commercial use of native Australian forests since European settlement has had less impact upon biodiversity than urban expansion or farming, or indeed the first arrival of humans tens of thousands of years ago.

Possibly the paradox arises because of three factors and our normal emotional responses to these factors. They are our perception of order versus chaos, a sense of time, and a sense of space.

Order versus chaos

Order and chaos are easy to recognise. In this context, logging is chaotic. The jumble of smashed limbs and small trees presents a confronting image. Furthermore, as timber has a relatively low economic value and the yields per hectare are relatively low, the logging debris is left in place for a year or so and then burnt (more chaos), which means that chaos interacts with time to create the impression of lasting destruction. There is plenty of time for Bob Brown to get up on top of the biggest stump (“big” being related to our sense of space) for photo opportunities.

In contrast mining demonstrates a good deal of order. After logging, the debris, stumps, and all the understorey is heaped and mulched and removed promptly. Access to the entire mining “envelope” is prohibited for safety reasons. Some of this biomass debris is sold for renewable energy and charcoal, whereas native forest logging residues from normal logging are ruled to be non-renewable. This is known as “painting with the Alcoa brush”, because this is all it takes to change a commodity from dirty and undesirable to green and renewable. This simple self-deception occurs at senior corporate and political levels, as well as at the general public level. I maintain that it makes more sense to consider all the biomass residues from logging and mining to be renewable, as occurs across Europe and North America.

The sense of order in mining continues because after the removal of the biomass residues the open mine area looks like a ploughed paddock. The boundary of the surrounding forest is clearly and cleanly defined and looking into a tall forest from the side is an emotionally pleasant experience. As the site is stripped, drilled, blasted and the ore removed, there is little confronting imagery of chaos, though many people find the instant of blasting very confronting if they can see it. By the time the public are allowed back (after the mining envelope moves away through the bush) the pit has been rehabilitated and order continues to reign – smoothed contours, curved parallel rip lines, young plants germinating under-foot. It’s a positively pastoral image.

The importance of time comes up in several ways. During the time of public exclusion from a mining envelope, the public is unaware of the time passing for this particular point in the forest. A tour of Alcoa’s operations takes you from one point in the process to the next by bus: this step is followed by this step, by this step etc, and then … here is the rehabilitated pit. The emotional response of the viewer is influenced by the rapidity of the tour. You’re back home in time for tea. The same occurs if foresters take you on a tour of forest operations, but the demand for such tours is non-existent. The public do not wish to be further informed about commercial forestry and the political arm of government would be reluctant to fund such public relations exercises for an industry that the public tells them should be closed down.

In contrast, the campaigns against forestry always leave the observer with the impression that this smashed up post-logging condition is the end result, rather than the end of one week’s work in a cycle that spans many decades. You are never shown photos of the stump Bob Brown stood on ten years after the logging, because the regrowth at that stage is so thick, it would tend to detract from the message of “devastation, forever”. Bob wouldn’t even be able to find the same stump.

A sense of time

Time can also be influential in other ways; telling people that the devastation in this photo will look like the young forest in that tourist brochure in three decades has little emotional impact. A trivial immediate benefit is of much greater emotional consequence than a major benefit in the next decade. So long periods of time can make it harder to portray the concept of an environmental impact now (logging) being followed by a positive response a human generation in the future.

It is interesting how green activism often involves the use of photos taken in regrowth forest. In this case, the beauty of the tall evenly-spaced trees (the sense of order again, but did you realise they are spaced that way because of thinning?) is used to convey the impression of permanence, and the permanence of a good thing being desirable. Senescing forest, with it’s dead tops and crooked old trees, is rarely used for this type of publicity, because to do so would disrupt the sense of order and implies decay, and so undermines the association between the attractive forest and permanence. However if you take people to that same patch of regrowth forest and show them a photo of what the exact same spot looked like immediately after it was last logged, or killed by wildfire, they are astounded and often excited. In this case it is possible to use a long period of time from the past devastation to convey the understanding that the forest is a vibrant dynamic system. I find young forests uplifting.

A sense of space

Space is critical. Big is always better in emotional terms if you are contemplating an object of which you approve, but the reverse applies if you are contemplating something of which you disapprove. (If you want to minimise the effect of a traumatic memory, you repeatedly visualise it and then make the image smaller in your mind.) A tall dominant tree species is generally much more emotionally influential than a dumpy sub-dominant species. A tall straight tree is more valuable than a crooked or heavily forked tree, which comes back to the sense of order and possibly the perception of beauty being related to symmetry.

Selective, or single-tree logging is widely perceived to be more benign than clear-felling, because the area of chaos is smaller. The small clearing created by the tree’s falling crown is surrounded by undisturbed forest. The big stump used for the anti-logging photo opportunity is always taken against a background of an open space caused by clear felling, and that space always continues to the local horizon, which creates the impression that this chaos extends, if not to the nearest coastline, certainly as far as the eye can see. A short camera lens is used and the image cropped to convey the impression of perhaps a thousand metres to the cleared horizon. It is never taken with the 50 year old regrowth just behind the photographer in the shot.

But this use of space to engender a feeling of anxiety about total destruction over vast tracts of land may be at odds with the evidence of forest science. In some forests (typically the tall wet forest types in Australia) it is better to regenerate blocks of forest as even aged self-sown seedlings over areas of perhaps 10 to 30 hectares to reduce competition between established trees and seedlings. And 10 hectares, photographed from the right angle with a short lens, carries a strong emotional impact. The data that demonstrates the degrading influence of selective logging in some forests has no appeal at the emotional level.

It is a curious contrast between public and activist reactions to logging and mining. Examining the basic differences in perceptions of logging and mining, for example, the perceptions of space, time and order/chaos, demonstrate that the emotional responses to logging are not related to the fundamentals of conservation.

In the context of this discussion, none of these factors directly relate to the fundamental principle of conservation of protecting biodiversity. To prevent the extinction of any species seems to me to be the inviolable principle of conservation. If we were really honest with ourselves, then our emotional responses to these three factors would have little relevance to the preservation of biodiversity.

Boxer is a regular reader and sometimes contributor to this blog.

Scientific Hypothesis as Ideological Dogma: And More from Benny Peiser

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On Monday Benny Peiser quoted from the teachings of Marcus Aurelius: “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”

Benny Peiser publishes CCNet, an e-newsletter with links to various opinion pieces, reports and new technical papers .

Yesterday there was more food for thought:

What is the optimal climate change policy – the one that sets future emissions reductions to maximize the economic welfare of humans? Yale University economist William Nordhaus, perhaps the world’s leading expert on the economics of climate change, has just released a new study, The Challenge of Global Warming: Economic Models and Environmental Policy, which estimates the costs of various proposed trajectories for limiting carbon dioxide over the next couple of centuries. So what did Nordhaus find? First, the Stern proposal for rapid deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions would reduce the future damage from global warming by $13 trillion, but at a cost of $27 trillion dollars. That’s not a good deal. For an even worse deal, the DICE-2007 model estimates that the Gore proposal would reduce climate change damages by $12 trillion, but at a cost of nearly $34 trillion.
–Ronald Bailey, Reason Online, 14 August 2007

Today, the peer reviewed process of funding and validation of scientific research in climatology is equally controlled by the modern equivalent of the Collegium Romanum (the Vatican’s Institute of Research), the Inter-government Panel of Climate Change (IPCC). They in turn answer to the equivalent of the Inquisition, the Green ideologists, who, mercifully, can only torment through derision or denying the heretics research funding, and not the frightening instruments of torture.
–Deepak Lal, Business Standard, 15 August 2007

Some of the hysteric and extreme claims about global warming are also a symptom of pagan emptiness, of Western fear when confronted by the immense and basically uncontrollable forces of nature. Belief in a benign God who is master of the universe has a steadying psychological effect, although it is no guarantee of Utopia, no guarantee that the continuing climate and geographic changes will be benign. In the past pagans sacrificed animals and even humans in vain attempts to placate capricious and cruel gods. Today
they demand a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.
–Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, 2006

Anthropogenic global warming is a scientific hypothesis, not an article of religious or ideological dogma. Skepticism and doubt are entirely appropriate in the realm of science, in which truth is determined by evidence, experimentation, and observation, not by consensus or revelation. Yet when it comes to global warming, dissent is treated as heresy — as a pernicious belief whose exponents must be shamed, shunned, or silenced. The issue of global warming isn’t a closed book. Smearing those who buck the “scientific consensus” as traitors, toadies, or enemies of humankind may be emotionally satisfying and even professionally lucrative. It is also indefensible, hyperbolic bullying.
–Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe, 15 August 2007

But the overriding reality seems almost un-American: We simply don’t have a solution for this problem. As we debate it, journalists should resist the temptation to portray global warming as a morality tale — as Newsweek did — in which anyone who questions its gravity or proposed solutions may be ridiculed as a fool, a crank or an industry stooge. Dissent is, or should be, the lifeblood of a free society.
–Robert J. Samuelson, The Washington Post, 15 August 2007

To subscribe to CCNet send an e-mail to listserver@livjm.ac.uk (“subscribe cambridge-conference”).

Water Diversions in the Marshes: Finally a Mainstream Issue

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Chris and Gill Hogendyk, with a bit of help from this blog, have been working hard to draw attention to the levy banks in the Macquarie Marshes starving the two nature reserves of water.

It seems the mainstream media have finally caught-on with an article in today’s Sydney Morning Herald entitled Cattlemen stealing water, irrigators say .

The piece by Daniel Lewis includes comment from Chris:

“Chris Hogendyk, the head of the irrigator group Macquarie River Food and Fibre, said the Gum Cowal-Terrigal branch of the marshes received less than 10 per cent of flood flows before 1980 but now got up to 30 per cent of what previously went to the nature reserves. There were once no large bird breeding colonies on the system, he said, but now there were several.

“The water should be going to the nature reserves, not onto private land. Once water enters the Gum Cowal-Terrigal system it is diverted and banked up across the floodplain by no less than 30 banks and channels.

“This water creates wonderful feed for fattening cattle, but kills the trees that are flooded. The resulting man-made wetlands are grazed bare.”

“Mr Hogendyk said rather than buying more water, the Government had to get rid of the banks and channels or buy the private land being flooded and set it aside for conservation.”

I understand that contrary to the Sydney Morning Herald article, Chris and Gill are keen for land to be purchased by The Australian Wildlife Conservancy or Bush Heritage – not government.

I am not sure that land needs to be purchased. But some of the levy banks need to be removed and some controls placed on grazing.

Can Whaling and Whale Watching Coexist? A Note from Ann Novek

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In the whaling countries, Norway, Japan and Iceland, whaling and whale watching exists side by side.

In Norway the whale watching industry is focused on sperm whales and killer whales and whale watching doesn’t happen near minke whale hunting grounds. In Japan as well, most whaling happens off shore, far away from coastal whale watching.

But in Iceland the killing of minke whales and the watching of minke whales occur in close proximity.

The Icelandic whale watching industry is unhappy and has commented:

“Whale watching in Iceland is being highly jeopardized, first by the resumption of the so-called “scientific” whaling in 2003 and now by the resumption of commercial whaling, announced and immediately performed in October 2006.

“161 minke whales have been caught for scientific purposes and their stomach contents analyzed to seek justification for the depleting fish stocks. However, at the last IWC meeting in June 2006, Iceland’s research was critized by the Scientific Commitee of the IWC for not being scientifically viable. The whales had been caught too close to shore, often within whale watching areas, and the study results are therefore insufficient.”

We have discussed here on Jennifer’s blog, what will happen with the Australian humpback whale watching industry, when Japan resumes humpback whaling this Austral summer for “scientific” reasons.

The whale watching industry is concerned the whales may become easier targets.

Comments from Australians include:

“Wally Franklin: The whales have become very used to these vessels and will come up to and roll over and present their underside and their belly to these vessels. Now are they going to do this, of course, to the Japanese harpooners in Antarctica?
That’s … we’re hoping they won’t.”

“Steve Dixon: Well if a season was added to the Hervey Bay calendar through whale watching and that industry suddenly becomes endangered, or the whales stop trusting the whale watchers, then it will have a severe economic impact on the whale city, because suddenly that fleet that goes out from July though to the end of September will suddenly find itself going out and looking at dolphins.”

So what will the impact of Japanese whaling be on the Australian humpback whaling industry?

My guess: The whale watchers may only experience the skittish animals that have been left – detracting from the whale watching adventure.

Cheers,
Ann Novek
Sweden