Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

jennifer

Warm Weather, Lower Quota for Seal Hunt

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Seal pups have been drowning because of thin and melting ice due to warmer than usual weather. So, the Canadian government has reduced the hunting quota by about 20 percent according to Doug Struck writing for the Washington Post:

“Canadian authorities reduced the quotas on the harp seal hunt by about 20 percent after overflights showed large numbers of seal pups were lost to thin and melting ice in the lower part of the gulf, off Prince Edward Island.

“We don’t know if it’s weather or climate. But we have seen a trend in the ice conditions in the last four or five years,” said Phil Jenkins, a spokesman for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. “The pups can’t swim for very long. They need stable ice. If the ice deteriorates underneath them, they drown.”

“We’ve brought this seal herd back from 1.8 million in the 1970s to 5.5 million in 2004…

“Our scientists say that the 5.5 million population can sustain this kind of event, but it has to be managed” with the lower hunting quotas, he said.

Read the complete article here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/03/AR2007040301754.html

How Much Money for Climate Change Research in Australia?

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According to science writer, Julian Cribb, “climate change has unleashed the biggest academic gold rush in recent history, with state and federal governments splashing tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars around almost weekly on new projects and research centres – a classic Australian response to decades of indolence, neglect and bad planning.”

In the article entitled ‘When drought spells cash’ he lists the following recent projects

• the Federal and Victorian governments have poured $100 million into a clean brown coal project;
• the New South Wales Government announced it would spend $22 million on two pilot clean coal projects;
• Victoria has begun work on a $30 million underground carbon storage project;
• SA is spending $800,000 on a wind tunnel to improve wind turbine performance and a further $200,000 on various clean energy projects;
• Queensland has put $9 million into a Climate Centre of Excellence;
• the University of NSW has announced a new $6 million national climate change research centre;
• the Australian National University has created the Fenner School for Environment & Society for research into areas including climate change and water;
• Adelaide University has launched a Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability;
• Griffith University has signed an agreement with the Government of Indonesia to study the regional impact of climate change; and
• the University of Ballarat has launched a project in community-owned renewable energy.

The article goes on to suggest that agriculture has missed out, “In all the excitement the area most affected by climate change – agriculture, and the science that backs it – has largely remained like Cinderella.”

I’m not so sure. Isn’t there a pile of money for agriculture in the $10 billion plan for water security, including money for research?

And I image the above list for Australia is incomplete?

And how much is spent worldwide on climate change research?

Choosing Between a Whale, Kangaroo or Beef Steak? A note from Ann Novek

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Hi Jennifer,

In the spirit of Steve Irwin, we have learned that no wild animals should be killed for food as we have an abundance of farm animals. Also, many people believe that activities such as whaling belong in the past.

However, a report from LEAD, which also has been refereed to by FAO, stated

“The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity.

“Livestock’s contribution to environmental problems is on a massive scale and its potential contribution to their solution is equally large. The impact is so significant that it needs to be addressed with urgency. Major reductions in impact could be achieved at reasonable cost.” [end of quote]

The report also stated that cattle fed on artificial fodder in factory farms constantly suffered from stomach ache. (Maybe not a problem for Australian cattle, as I understand they are kept in big paddocks.)

From a strict animal welfare aspect we also know of the cruelty associated with pig farms. Here’s an example:

“Gestation crates are 2-foot by 7-foot metal cages used to confine breeding pigs for months on end. Pigs confined suffer leg and joint problems and psychosis resulting from extreme boredom and frustration. Confinement in gestation crates is so abusive that the entire European Union is phasing out the practice, with a total ban taking effect in 2013.”

In light of these issues, I wonder if it is time to re-evaluate our opinion of factory farming relative to the harvest of natural resources, such as eating organic kangaroo meat or a minke whale steak?

In whaling discussions at the blog, there have been slight cultural differences.

Also, most Norwegian NGOs (except Greenpeace and WWF) are not opposed to whaling. Their main argument being that it’s more eco-friendly to consume minke whales than factory farmed meat. Note these NGOs have in other cases a similar agenda to most large, international NGOs.

Regarding factory farming, the animal welfare organisation WSPA stated : “In terms of numbers, intensive farming is the biggest cause of animal suffering in the world.”

Travis provided evidence in a previous post on kangaroo culling, and as I have understood, it is done in a humane way.

Whaling is perhaps more controversial in this aspect, as we know, for example, from the Norwegian hunt that 20 percent of the whales don’t die instantly (statistics submitted by Norwegian researchers to the IWC). The time to death , TTD, varies between some minutes to one hour, but is seems like a majority of the whales die within some minutes.

So the final question to you is:

“Would you prefer to be kept in captivity, without sunlight for the rest of your life, or is whaling a better alternative?”

Note, in this globalized world, it would be very difficult to Valtrex completely abandon factory farming.

Cheers,
Ann Novek
Sweden

US Supreme Court Rules on C02

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“The US supreme court yesterday issued a landmark ruling in favour of environmentalists and against George Bush’s stance on global warming. The court judged that the federal Environmental Protection Agency had the power through a clean air law to restrict exhaust emissions, and told the agency to re-examine the issue.

“The ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by 12 states and 13 environmental groups frustrated with the Bush administration’s lack of action. Individual states, led by California, have been imposing regulations of their own. Car makers, public utilities, and others responsible for carbon dioxide emissions opposed the lawsuit.

“The court found that the scientific evidence shows that global warming is not some future threat, but is already having serious impacts in the United States. This will be a huge turning point in federal policy. The administration massively overreached in refusing to cut global warming pollution from cars when the Clean Air Act explicitly requires it to act…

Read the article ‘US supreme court overrules Bush’s refusal to restrict C02’ by Ewen MacAskill in The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2048760,00.html

Earth Hour and Candles: A Note from Sylvia

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Hi Jennifer,

I suppose you’ve heard about Sydney’s “Earth Hour”.

I’m not sure whether to be amused, or saddened, by TV footage showing people turning off their lights, and using candles instead. It seems to indicate a total lack of understanding.

Leaving aside whether CO2 emissions are really a problem, if these people thought they were reducing CO2 emissions by their actions, then I rather think they were deluding themselves. Earth Hour was held during a time of peak electrical load, so any electricity generation displaced would be peak load, probably running on natural gas. Such generation produces about 500 grams of CO2 for every kilowatt-hour.

So turning a 100 watt light bulb off for an hour saves 50 grams of CO2, or 13 grams of carbon. A candle is mostly carbon by weight, and candle wax is only moderately less dense than water at room temperature. This means that burning just 5 cm of a typical 2 cm diameter candle will produce more CO2 than running the 100 watt light bulb for an hour. If the light that was turned off is fluorescent, then even less candle can be burned if there’s to be a net reduction in CO2.

By the way, the Sydney Morning Herald published these pictures to show the effect of Earth Hour

In the ‘after’ picture, the lights that are still on are dimmer than they were in the ‘before’ picture, which rather implies that the ‘after’ picture is artificially darkened. That really is dishonest reporting.

Sylvia.

Queensland Tsunami Warning

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TOP PRIORITY FOR IMMEDIATE BROADCASTQUEENSLAND TSUNAMI WARNING
Issued at 8:57am on Monday the 2nd of April 2007, by the Bureau of Meteorology

For people in coastal areas of Queensland.

TOP PRIORITY FOR IMMEDIATE BROADCAST

TSUNAMI BULLETIN

TSUNAMI THREAT TO EASTERN AUSTRALIA and Willis and Barrier Reef Islands, Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii has detected an undersea earthquake near Solomon Islands and has issued a Tsunami Bulletin.

The earthquake has also been detected by Geoscience Australia.

FOR ALL OTHER PACIFIC AREAS, THIS MESSAGE IS AN ADVISORY ONLY.

AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS ORIGIN TIME – 6:40 am EST 02 APR 2007 COORDINATES – 8.6 SOUTH 157.2 EAST LOCATION – SOLOMON ISLANDS MAGNITUDE – 8.1

MEASUREMENTS OR REPORTS OF TSUNAMI WAVE ACTIVITY HONIARA 15CM ZERO-TO-PEAK OBSERVED AT 7:31 am EST EVALUATION

SEA LEVEL READINGS INDICATE A TSUNAMI WAS GENERATED. IT MAY HAVE BEEN DESTRUCTIVE ALONG COASTS NEAR THE EARTHQUAKE EPICENTER AND COULD ALSO BE A THREAT TO MORE DISTANT COASTS. AUTHORITIES SHOULD TAKE APPROPRIATE ACTION IN RESPONSE TO THIS POSSIBILITY. THIS CENTER WILL CONTINUE TO MONITOR SEA LEVEL DATA TO DETERMINE THE EXTENT AND SEVERITY OF THE THREAT.

FOR ALL AREAS – WHEN NO MAJOR WAVES ARE OBSERVED FOR TWO HOURS AFTER THE ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL OR DAMAGING WAVES HAVE NOT OCCURRED FOR AT LEAST TWO HOURS THEN LOCAL AUTHORITIES CAN ASSUME THE THREAT IS PASSED. DANGER TO BOATS AND COASTAL STRUCTURES CAN
CONTINUE FOR SEVERAL HOURS DUE TO RAPID CURRENTS. AS LOCAL CONDITIONS CAN CAUSE A WIDE VARIATION IN TSUNAMI WAVE ACTION THE ALL CLEAR DETERMINATION MUST BE MADE BY LOCAL AUTHORITIES.

ESTIMATED INITIAL TSUNAMI WAVE ARRIVAL TIMES. ACTUAL ARRIVAL TIMES

MAY DIFFER AND THE INITIAL WAVE MAY NOT BE THE LARGEST. THE TIME BETWEEN SUCCESSIVE TSUNAMI WAVES CAN BE FIVE MINUTES TO ONE HOUR.

Based on the magnitude and location of the earthquake, tsunami could start affecting these locations at the following local time:

Cooktown from 0931am 02/04/2007
Cairns from 0949am
Brisbane 1033am
Gladstone 1139am
Mackay 1144am

This bulletin is also available through TV and Radio broadcasts and the Bureau’s website at www.bom.gov.au/tsunami/

Dangerous waves and currents may affect beaches, harbours and rivers for several hours from the time of impact and low- lying coastal areas could be flooded.

The waves can be separated in time by between ten to sixty minutes and the first wave of the series may not be the largest.

The Queensland State Emergency Service advises that people should stay away from low lying coastal areas.

This warning will be updated by this morning.

This warning is also available through TV and Radio broadcasts; the Bureau’s website at www.bom.gov.au or call 1300 659 218