Congratulations to whale and wildlife photographer, George McCallum. His revamped website is back online with a thousand or so images including of minke whales, humpback whales and killer whales:
The website includes albums on ‘European birds’, ‘oil platforms and rigs’, and also one entitled ‘weather and water’:
http://www.whalephoto.com/2007/thumbnails.php?album=24.
For more information on George: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/001650.html.
Hi Russell,
Going back to your points about sentient beings and our perception of other life forms. As you say, there is debate about how intelligent certain species are, how to measure that intelligence, whether they can feel emotions, what this all means. Being human, although we may try to be objective in assessing the cognitive abilities of other species, we are still limited by our own perceptions and interpretations.
I guess you would have come across certain situations with all manner of different species that have amazed you and made you re-evaluate your idea of how these organisms perceive their world. Most people who have pets, domestic animals or who have worked with wild animals can tell you interestng stories of certain encounters, but of course interpreting this into something that will not be labelled anthropomorphising is very hard. Often I think that our shame of anthropomorphising animals means we miss a lot of interesting details.
With regards to whales, I am sure that George, Ann and Peter can related stories that would suggest cetaceans are sentient beings and can feel fear as well as other emotions, and there is literature out there on studies into cetacean ‘intelligence’ and perception. For myself, I have had a few encounters that suggest to me that cetaceans are most definately sentient beings . One was with a southern right whale female I was cautiously observing in the water. I was careful to maintain my distance from her, but she kept positioning herself right next to me. If I would swim away she would follow. When I got tired and was treading water at one stage, she came up underneath me so that I was supported on her back. When I returned to the small boat and placed my hand in the water to say ‘goodbye’, she apporached the boat and lifted it up so that she could touch my hand with her back. Another encounter was observing a mother and calf humpback The mother was snoozing on the reef, but all of a sudden the calf looked up at me, left her side, swam straight up and put me on his belly, before casually rolling over and returning back to mum.
Why did these two animals choose to interact with me the way they did? Was I just a weird looking cetacean, or was I something quite different but that could obviously provide some tactile stimuli as well as perhaps ‘entertainment’? As I said, people who are close to pets and so on would have countless stories of special interactions with them.
Our preception of other species is also as you mentioned dependent upon cultural and religious beliefs. Whether we see ourselves as the pinnacle of all life and thus the ones to control it and dominant it depends often on these factors.
For me, I believe that as animals that can feel empathy, and have an awareness of themselves and others, we have a responsibility to ensure that our actions are not unnecessarily harming those others. Our relationships with animals should be humane and with careful thought for the past, present and future. Humans nowadays divorce themseves from the natural world, but in the end we are animals and part of that natural world, and could do well to remember that.
Cheers Libby.
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This note was originally posted as a comment here: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/001806.html .
The Queensland Premier, Peter Beattie, yesterday announced that $7.6 million will be provided over four years to evaluate the effectiveness of cloud seeding in increasing rainfall in Queensland, Australia.
Mr Beattie said beginning next year (2007) a pilot project would be conducted in south-east Queensland using new “warm cloud” seeding processes.
The pilot project will be in collaboration with the Bureau of Meteorology and the United States National Centre for Atmospheric Research.
Interestingly China already has a $50 million a year weather-modification program with the aim of increasing rainfall by up to 15 percent.
Indeed when the Chinese government’s 11th Five Year Plan kicked off earlier this year it included provision for the creation of 48 billion to 60 billion cubic meters of artificial rain annually. How many gigalitres is that?
So what about techno-fixes for global warming too? We could fertilize the ocean making more algae which sequester carbon? We could put sulfur particles into the stratosphere to cool the earth?
I can hear an environmental fundamentalists shout, “DON’T MESS with the climate!” But we already have?
1. GM Files: Getting the Truth Out There
By Glenn Tong
December 20, 2006
… Worsening drought conditions around Australia have brought into sharp focus the need for new technologies to meet the challenge of global warming. The indisputable reality is that we cannot afford the indulgence of ignoring genetically modified (GM) crops amid this worsening crisis. Gene technology allows the production of crops that can be grown much more efficiently in drought areas.
Taking wheat as one example, at present 35 to 50 per cent of the world’s wheat is grown in drought-affected regions. The annual global wheat crop is valued at more than $23 billion. With drought affecting wheat supplies around the world, commodities traders are predicting record high prices for the staple. New research into drought-tolerant varieties could greatly increase the world’s supply of wheat in the face of harsher climatic conditions.”
Read the complete article here: http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/gm-files-getting-the-truth-out-there/2006/12/19/1166290544413.html
2. Getting Radical about Climate Change
By Gwynne Dyer
December 20, 2006
… Here’s the plan. Everybody in the country will get the same allowance for how much carbon dioxide they can emit each year, and every time they buy some product that involves carbon dioxide emissions – filling their car, paying their utility bills, buying an airline ticket – carbon points are deducted from their credit or debit cards. Like Air Miles, only in reverse.
So if you ride a bike everywhere, insulate your home, and don’t travel much, you can sell your unused points back to the system. And if you use up your allowance before the end of the year, then you will have to buy extra points from the system.
This is no lunatic proposal from the eco-radical fringe. It is on the verge of becoming British government policy, and environment secretary David Miliband is behind it 100 per cent. In fact, he is hoping to launch a pilot scheme quite soon, with the goal of moving to a comprehensive national scheme of carbon rationing within five years.
Read the complete article here: http://www.canadaeast.com/ce2/docroot/article.php?articleID=82069
3. Happy Feet director dodges conservative backlash
by Andrew Darby
December 16, 2006
Mumble the emperor penguin and star of the hit movie Happy Feet can thank his friend and creator George Miller for the heady challenges he faces in his fictional life.
Leopard seals are a normal hazard in the life of an Antarctic emperor, banishment from the flock’s protective huddle a little more unexpected. But squaring off against the evils of industrial fishing, as Mumble does in Miller’s film Happy Feet, might be stretching things a little bit.
The rites-of-passage film about a tap-dancing penguin, which has led the US box office for the past three weeks — grossing $US125 million ($A159 million) — has come under assault in the US from conservative commentators as environmentalist propaganda.
Questions are being asked about the truthfulness of the film, which opens in Australian cinemas on Boxing Day. Happy Feet’s alien enemies are industrial fishers ravaging the ocean; its surprise danger the plastic six-pack ring that winds up around the neck of one of the main characters. Mumble has to deal with such trials to help fellow penguins.
Read the complete article here: http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/happy-feet-director-dodges-conservative-backlash/2006/12/15/1166162320291.html
4. Mrs Adam Smith
From The Economist
December 7, 2006
Neanderthal man was a strong, large-brained, skilful big-game hunter who had survived for more than 200,000 years in the harsh European climates of the last Ice Age. But within a few thousand years of the arrival of modern humans in the continent, he was extinct. Why that happened is a matter of abiding interest to anthropologically inclined descendants of those interloping moderns. The extinction of Neanderthal man has been attributed variously to his having lower intelligence than modern humans, to worse language skills, to cruder tools, or even to the lack of a propensity for long-distance trade. The latest proposal, though, is that it is not so much Neanderthal man that was to blame, as modern woman.
In existing pre-agricultural societies there is, famously, a division of food-acquiring labour between men, who hunt, and women, who gather. And in a paper just published in Current Anthropology, Steven Kuhn and Mary Stiner of the University of Arizona propose that this division of labour happened early in the species’ history, and that it is what enabled modern humans to expand their population at the expense of Neanderthals.
Read the complete article here: http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8380326
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I may add to this list over the next few days.
I was at church yesterday on Christmas Day, and I was also at church on Christmas Eve. I am a protestant by upbringing and tribal affiliation, but like Richard Dawkins, an atheist by conviction. But unlike Dawkins I am not against religion.
Richard Dawkins has just written a new book ‘The God Delusion’ and it has been described as:
“A hard-hitting, impassioned rebuttal of religion of all types and does so in the lucid, witty and powerful language for which he [Dawkins] is renowned. It is a brilliantly argued, fascinating polemic that will be required reading for anyone interested in this most emotional and important subject.”
But according to Michael Fitzpatrick writing for Spiked Online in a piece entitled‘The Dawkins Delusion’, Dawkins fails to recognize environmentalism as the new religion of choice for urban atheists:
“The most curious feature of Dawkins’ crusade against religion is that it is mounted at a time when the social influence of religion is at a low ebb. In the USA, Dawkins follows liberals in grossly exaggerating the influence of the religious right as a way of avoiding any reflection on the lack of popular appeal of their own agenda. In the UK, Dawkins concentrates his fire on one school in Gateshead where creationism has crept on to the curriculum (allowing him to sneer at Peter Vardy, the vulgar ‘car salesman’ millionaire who has bankrolled the school). Yet, while he happily tilts at windmills, Dawkins ignores much more influential currents of irrationality – such as the cult of environmentalism – which has a far greater influence on the national curriculum than notions of ‘intelligent design’.
While Dawkins can readily identify common features between South Pacific cargo cults and the Christian churches, he seems oblivious to the religious themes of the environmental movement. Just like evangelical Christians, environmentalists preach a ‘repent, the end is nigh’ message. The movement has its own John the Baptist – George Monbiot – who has come out of the desert (well, Oxfordshire) to warn us of the imminent danger of hellfire (in the form of global warming) if we do not repent and embrace his doctrines of austerity and restraint (3). Beware – the rough beast of the apocalypse is slouching towards Bethlehem to be born! “
I don’t have any real difficulty with the religous themes within environmentalism and I don’t particularly have a problem with the doctrine of austerity and restraint, but I do have a real problem with the way in which many environmentalists wrongly appeal to ‘science’ to support these themes.
Many environmental organisations have professors of science in key leadership positions and often these same people confuse ‘the scientific evidence’ with their misguided belief that everywhere the natural environment is in crisis.
For me evidence and faith are two very different things.
Sitting in church on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day I was reminded again about the importance of faith to the Christian and also the importance of ‘helping’ in particular the needy.
Many environmentalists want to believe the environment is being harmed by people and they want to help the environment, but they often lack an understanding of science. So their approach to ‘helping the environment’ is often confused and in some instances is harmful.
In Science, Religion and the Meaning of Life, Mark Vernon, “confronts the lust for certainty found in the dogmatism of conservative religion and militant science. He believes that a committed even passionate agnosticism is vital for the future of our planet and our souls.”
As a committed environmentalist and atheist, who is often accused of being an extreme skeptic, I find the concept of ‘passionate agnosticism’ appealing.
Following is the text* from a ‘Special Climate Statement’ entitled ‘Climate conditions preceding the December 2006 southeast Australian bushfires’. The statement was issued on 19th December 2006 by the National Climate Centre.
Introduction
Southeast Australia has experienced highly unusual widespread bushfire activity in December 2006. These fires were preceded by exceptionally dry conditions, over both the short and long term, in all of the major fire regions (Victorian Alps, Tumut, and eastern Tasmania). In the two mainland regions, exceptionally high daytime temperatures also occurred during the months leading up to the fires. This statement describes the antecedent climatic conditions in the fire-affected regions.
Severe and extensive bushfires in southeast Australia are usually a result of an extended drought which leads to the drying of forests and grasslands. In most summers, there are a number of days on which high temperatures combine with low humidity and high winds to produce dangerous fire weather conditions. When combined with ignition, the antecedent dry and extreme weather set the stage for potentially severe bushfires.
The short-term weather conditions during the fire period itself are not within the scope of this statement, and will likely to form part of a separate report on meteorological aspects of the fires to be released at a later date.
Most of the affected areas are mountainous, with relatively sparse meteorological station networks. In addition, the networks in the affected regions have changed substantially over time, with a number of automatic weather stations recently being installed at high elevations. The changes in the station network mean that the gridded analyses are likely to underestimate the severity of the current dry period at high elevations, while the shorter-duration station records miss some previous exceptional drought episodes (such as 1902 and 1914). For these reasons, this report uses a mix of station and gridded data sets. The gridded datasets are the Bureau’s operational 0.25 degree (~25 km) resolution analyses dating back to 1900 and experimental new 0.05 degree (~5 km)
analyses which currently extend back to 1941.
Long-term rainfall deficits in SE Australia
Rainfall has been generally below normal in most of south-eastern Australia (including Tasmania) for the 10-year period starting late 1996 (see Special Climate Statement 9). An analysis of rainfall deciles for the 10 years ending November 2006 shows that a number of areas have experienced their driest 10-year period on record, including the area east of Melbourne, around Tumut, and in parts of eastern Tasmania. Virtually all of southeast Australia has experienced its driest 10-year period since at least the 1940s.
Over most of the region, mean annual rainfall since 1996 has been 10-20% below the long-term average, with anomalies exceeding 20% over areas east of Melbourne.
Acute shorter-term rainfall deficits and depleted snow cover in 2006
After near average rainfall during 2005, acute drought conditions began across southeast Australia in January 2006. Over the period from January to November 2006, rainfall has been at or near record low levels over most of the area of interest, both on the mainland and in Tasmania. At some locations in the core of the alpine region, including Cabramurra, Harrietville, Mount Buffalo, and Dartmouth Dam, as well as sites in or near the Melbourne water supply catchments such as O’Shannassy and Marysville, the January-November 2006 rainfall has broken previous records (many set in 1967) by a substantial 80-200 millimetres.
At most mainland locations, January-November 2006 rainfall has been 50-65% below normal. The anomalies have been particularly acute at most of the higher-elevation stations, with Mount Buffalo and Charlotte Pass 66% below normal, and Cabramurra 65% below normal. In the vicinity of St. Marys (Tasmania) January-November rainfall has been generally near 50% below normal. We note that the streamflows across this region have been at record low levels, in many cases far below previously observed lows, indicating the severity of the current drought episode.
For instance, winter inflows to the Murray River system were around 100 GL per month below that of the previously lowest inflows, which occurred in the Federation drought of 1902. (Further details are available from the Murray-Darling Basin Commission website, www.mbdc.gov.au).
Rainfall anomalies have been less extreme on the Gippsland side of the Victorian fire region, although January-November 2006 is still in the driest 10% of years (i.e., decile 1) at most locations, with many areas 35-50% below the 1961-90 average.
Snow cover was also abnormally light throughout south-eastern Australia during winter 2006. Reliable long-term snow cover data are only available from the NSW Snowy Mountains. These data indicate that the peak depth of the 2006 snowpack was the lowest recorded in the 50 years (all records) since records began at the three major Snowy Hydro monitoring sites (Spencers Creek, Deep Creek and Three Mile Dam), although the snow cover during the early part of the season was not as light as it was in 1973 and 1982. Virtually all snow had melted or sublimated by the first week of October, not only indicative of the warm spring, but also suggesting a longer period of exposure for alpine grasses. Whilst no long-term objective data exist for the Victorian snowfields, anecdotal reports indicate that similar snowpack anomalies occurred there. For instance, the ski resort of Mt Baw Baw experienced a maximum natural snow depth of 15 cm during winter.
Exceptionally high mainland temperatures, August-November 2006
After a relatively cool autumn and early winter, daytime maximum temperatures were well above average over most of the south-eastern mainland from August onwards. August-November maximum temperatures were 2-4°C above normal over most mainland fire regions, and were the highest on record over almost all of this region.
The temperatures were particularly exceptional at the high-elevation alpine sites. Mount Buller, Mount Hotham and Cabramurra all set record high mean maximum temperatures for the August-November period by between 1.4 and 1.8°C. Whilst these sites (except for Cabramurra) only have data for relatively short periods, all were operating in 2002 when temperatures at longer-term lowelevation stations were near record levels, and therefore it is likely that the 2006 temperatures are extremely unusual in the context of the last century. The warm temperatures of 2006 are consistent with the long-term warming trend over Australia. In addition the lack of snow cover
during spring 2006 provided a positive feedback to maximum temperatures at the higher-elevation sites.
Abnormal warmth was not such a significant feature of the Tasmanian fire regions. August-November maxima were generally 0 to 1°C above normal and did not approach record levels.
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The text was supported in the original statement by various tables and graphs which have not been reproduced here.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.
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