Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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The Climate Change Scare Campaign: A Note from Paul Willams

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Under a double page headline ‘Dire warning on rising sea levels’, South Australia’s Sunday Mail had what Paul Williams described as an “extraordinary article on climate change”. Here’s his critique:

“On the right hand page are six maps of the Australian continent, showing the coastline as it is today, and as it would look if the sea level rose 100 metres, 200 metres etc up to 500 metres. In small print, at the bottom of the caption next to the first map, is the disclaimer “Readers should note this was done as part of a scientific experiment, not as a prediction”. Nevertheless, the graphic has a powerful visual impact.

On the left hand page headlined in the print version, “Hard decisions needed”, the accompanying article begins “An apocalyptic prophecy of an Australia under water shows Adelaide would be one of the first places to disappear in a catastrophic sea level rise.” So straight away readers are given the impression that the graphic is an actual prediction, despite the disclaimer on the next page.

The “hard decisions” of the headline are explained by Dr Graeme Pearman, who is described as a Climate Institute Australia adviser and former CSIRO head of atmospheric research.

He says we will have to decide between protecting the coast with breakwaters or letting the coastline recede naturally. Dr Pearman states that sea levels have already risen 20 cm “with global warming”, and are expected to rise half a metre more over the next century. But there’s more, “if Greenland goes, it will rise by 7m”, and “if Antarctica went as well it would rise by 80m”.

Dr Pearman concedes it is unlikely that Antarctica will “go” during the next few thousand years, but the article leaves the impression that Greenland is quite likely to “go”.

This article is blatant sensationalism, with a few facts thrown, which do not support the sensational claims, and no balance. Why would the Sunday Mail publish such an article? Does the last paragraph give a clue?

“He (Dr Pearman) called for urgent action to join global efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Australia and the US are the two main nations which have refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol to reduce such emissions.”

This looks like part of a process to sway public opinion towards Australia ratifying the Kyoto protocol.

If the article had said that Australia is on track to meet its Kyoto targets anyway, whereas many of the countries that have ratified Kyoto are NOT meeting their targets, I think most people would quite sensibly shrug their shoulders and say, “so why should we sign?” Add to that the fact that Kyoto can have no measurable effect on climate, yet will cost Australia jobs and hurt our economy, and there seems no reason at all to ratify Kyoto.

Of course there is a political aspect to all this. Labor has a policy that it will ratify Kyoto.

Is that why the Sunday Mail and the Advertiser are running a scare campaign, to help boost the prospects of Federal Labor?“

Maybe, or perhaps the newspaper, owned by Rupert Murdoch who is now concerned about global warming, is just really concerned about global warming? But is it good journalism?

Importing A Banned Product & Denying Drought Tolerance

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There is much concern in Australia about the current drought. The forecast for this year’s wheat crop has been cut by 8.5 million tons to just 11million. This is less than half last year’s production of 24 million tons.

The forecast for the canola crop is also down and there is talk about local crushers importing oil seed from Canada.

The imported canola would presumably be crushed to make vegetable oil and margarine.

If the imports go ahead, we will be importing seed from GM varieties of canola because that is what farmers grow in Canada. Farmers are banned from growing these GM varieties in Australia.

Indeed the current bans on genetically modified (GM) food crops in place in Australia, were forced by Greenpeace in particular to block the commercial planting of GM varieties of canola.

How hypocritical will that be, importing a product that Australian farmers are banned from growing.

And with all the focus on the drought, and predicted low wheat crop, it is interesting that there has been no public comment about the research effort in South Australia to develop GM drought tolerant wheat varieties; despite the bans.

Rather than rational discussion, a rural newspaper has published a letter denying the potential benefits of biotechnology for breeding drought tolerance. David Tribe explains, and explains the science:
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/10/hyperbole-and-misinformation-versus.html

David also has an interesting blog post on how much natural ‘genetic modification’ occurs within plant species:
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/10/natural-gmos-part-26-nature-inserts.html

Drilling for Platinum and Nickel: A Note from Louis Hissink

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Louis Hissink is drilling at Thundelarra Exploration’s Lamboo project located about 40 KM WSW of Halls Creek in the Kimberley Region of Western Australia. His focus is exploration for platinum and nickel.

Louis sent the following note:

“The wet season is on us and the usual climatic signs have appeared – with rain already falling in some of the more remote areas. Another two months of the ‘build-up’ and if Halls Creek gets a good solid drenching from a cyclonic depression over the wet season, then it might replenish the underground water acquifer we the town relies on for its water supply.

Seems the greenies and other do-gooders have put paid to any notion of building a small dam nearby for water catchment solutions. [Indeed, existing dams are being busted in parts of rural and regional Western Australia, click here for previous blog post on the issue.].

Oh there is a drought alright, but it’s in the state parliaments where a serious drought of commonsense is evident. I can’t write what the Western Australian Water Authority thinks of the Environment Protection Agency and its fellow travellers.

Lots of feral horses in the area, and dying from a lack of feed and water – sad to see, but that is reality up here.

Louis_Drill 016blog.JPG
Louis is the one on the right.

The drilling rig is a small Reverse Circulation (RC) machine which can bore holes to about 150 metres depth.

Principal drilling method uses a down-hole hammer that pulverises the rock into smaller bits, including dust, using high power air compressors. The sample from the hammer is pushed up the inside of the rod string (hence the term
reverse-circulation) through the inner pipes then via a sample hose into a sampling cyclone where equal volume samples (nominally 1 metre length times the hole area) are collected. These 1 metre samples are then split into 2 fractions,via a Jones splitter in which an aliquot of the 1 metre sample is collected for initial chemical analysis in a laboratory. The remainder of the sample is left in a green plastic mining bag next to the drilled hole for further work. Field assistants later take rock chip samples from each metre sample by seiving through a standard household kitchen sieve and stored in purpose built chip trays – durable plastic things with 20 small compartments.

These chips are studied by the geologist to record the rocks identified down the drilled hole and displayed as a geological log.

Constant volume samples are collected to eliminate the “sample-volume-variance” phenomena when dealing with geological samples, since the variation of any measurement of sample chemical composition depends on the volume of material collected. Unlike social science statistics in which the sample support is an individual human, or in the general physical sciences where objects such as billiard balls, coins, or other discrete objects, is the sample support and from which we note that N, the number of samples, is always an integer value, such objects do not exist in geology or the earth sciences and hence special emphasis is directed to ensuring that the sample-support is maintained, here by ensuring constant volume samples.

Mineral exploration generally involves developing hypotheses about where mineral deposits might be located in the accessible parts of the earth’s crust, and initially tested by collected many inexpensive geochemical soil samples, and again special emphasis is directed to ensuring that sample-support is maintained, again by collecting equal volume samples of soil.

Chemical analysis of these samples are done and the data analysed geomathematically. Usually the samples are reported as metal assays as parts per million or billion, depending on the element, and are “intensive” variables. Because the sample support of data set is uniform, sample-volume-variance issues, as well as the pitfalls of applying statistical analyses to intensive variables are avoided, and that is another issue which won’t be described here.”

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Thanks for sending in the photograph and note.

Biochar (Part 1)

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Hello Jennifer,
I recently did a google search on ‘biochar’, this would be a useful way to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and at the same time improve soils.
It could be used on woody weeds, crop residue or any other organic waste that was available.
Regards Bruce

About Walter Starck

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Walter Starck grew up on, an island in the Florida Keys and began catching fish in salable quantities off the family dock at age five. At 6 he helped his grandfather build his first boat with which he began diving using a face mask.

Watler Starck FirstBoat.jpg

He started scuba diving in 1954 (before scuba was a word). In 1964 he completed a PhD degree at the Institute of Marine Science of the University of Miami. In the process he determined that the world of academia was not to his taste so started his own business as well as a private research foundation. In 1968 he took delivery on a purpose built 150 ton research vessel, El Torito, and spent the next two decades exploring widely from the Caribbean to the Western Pacific.

Walter STarck _ElTorito.jpg

Walter arrived in Australia in 1979 before boat people became unfashionable and established a home base on a 164 acre rainforest property on the north shore of the Daintree River.

His research interest has centered on coral reef biology and has included research grants and contracts from the National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research and National Geographic Society as well as various private foundations and individuals.

Walter has been a research associate of the Institute of Marine Science in Miami, the Bishop Museum in Hawaii, The Australian Museum in Sydney and the Western Australia Museum in Perth.

His wide experience of reefs around the world has encompassed the full spectrum of conditions ranging from heavily impacted to untouched as well as several opportunities for decade or longer familiarity with individual reefs. His views on reef biology derived from direct observation are not always in accord with popular theories.

But the articles that Walter now writes are increasingly read by practical environmentalists. His paper ‘Threats to Great Barrier Reef’ was the most popular online publication at the IPA website last year and shortened versions where published in ‘Go Fishing’ (Aug/Sept 2005) and ‘News Weekly’ (18 June 2006).

His presentation, based on the paper ‘Marine Resources and The Growing Cost of Precaution’, was a highlight of the recent Australian Environment Foundation Conference.

You can read more on Walter Starck’s perspective at his website www.goldendolphin.com, click Eco-Issues for a list of recent environmental writings.

Walter’s favourite quote is by John Maynard Keynes:

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

Quotable Walter quotes include:

“You are never so comfortable as when doing what you’ve always done but never so alive as when doing what you’ve never done.”

“One of the most important lessons of history is that most people most of the time are wrong.”

“The eco-bureaucracy has become a sheltered workshop for those afflicted by the saviour syndrome.”

“Environmental management is characterized by the application of hypothetical solutions to imaginary problems.”

“Ecology is above all holistic. Everything we do or don’t do has consequences. We can’t save nature by locking it up.”

Walter is no fan of environmentalism and I once jotted down this comment from him:

“Environmentalism is about much more than concern for a healthy environment. You could describe it as a quasi-religious bend of new-age nature worship, junk science, left-wing political activism and anti-profit economics.”

Walter starck now.jpg