Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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10th Anniversay: GM Cotton in Australia

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This is the 10th year that GM cotton has been grown in Australia. Interestingly I have seen no mention of this milestone in the popular press or online.

GM canola was to be the next GM crop approved for commercial production in Australia but Greenpeace ran a campaign against it. We now have moratoriums banning new GM food crops – cotton exempt on the basis it is grown primarily for fibre – in all states except Queensland where it is too hot to grow canola.

The state government regulations banning this new technology are dumb*, click here for an example.

The general public has no real understanding of the issues, and neither do most bloggers judging from comment earlier in the week at John Quiggin’s site. In this post on global warming he suggests there has been sensible discussion in the Australian media on GM issues – but not on global warming.

I would suggest Greenpeace has just done a good snow job on most Australians – in part because the media and most bloggers haven’t researched the issue, encouraged intelligent debate and discussion.

Most of the rest of the world is planting more GM – even Europe.

On Monday (23rd January) e-news journal farmonline provided an update on GM cotton globally:

Biotech cotton varieties were planted on an estimated 9.7 million hectares in seven countries in 2005-06, accounting for 28pc of world cotton area this season.

Biotech varieties appear to confer advantages in efforts to raise yields, hence their growing popularity.

The average yield with biotech (GM) varieties is estimated at 967 kilograms of lint per hectare, compared with a world yield estimated at 725 kg/ha.

Biotech cotton will account for approximately 37pc of world cotton production and trade in 2005-06.

The US was the first country in which biotech cotton varieties were approved for commercial production in 1996.

Area planted to biotech varieties in the US increased to 82pc of 5.5 million hectares in 2005-06.

Herbicide-resistant and stacked gene varieties having both herbicide and insecticide resistant characters accounted for 90pc of the US biotech cotton area in 2005.

Pure insect resistant varieties were planted on less than 10pc of the US biotech cotton area.

Dr David Tribe has lots of information on GM everything at his blog, click here.

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* I’m sure there is a better word than ‘dumb’? Suggestions?

Which Climate Change Consensus? (Part 2)

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This blog post follows on from my comments last night under the title Which Climate Change Consensus?, click here. The following information was sent to me by Ian Castles, Visiting Fellow, Asia Pacific School of Economics and Government, The Australian National University.

“One of the most serious problems that has dogged the climate debate at the science-policy interface and confused the public and political discussion of future climate, since greenhouse warming became an issue in the 1980s, has been the issue of terminology. The unfortunate reality is that, whenever scientists, who speak in the language of the IPCC, and policy people, who speak in the language of the FCCC, refer to climate change, they are usually talking about different things. I firmly believe that a great deal of the public and political confusion about climate change in the world today is the direct result of each community having attached its own interpretation and connotations to statements about climate change made by the other.”

… said Dr. John Zillman in a speech titled Our Changing Climate given on World Meteorological Day in 2003. Dr. Zillman headed the Australian Bureau of Meteorology for 25 years, was President of the World Meteorological Organization from 1995 to 2003, and is President of the Australian Academy of the Technological Sciences and Engineering.

In the 2003 speech, Zillman continued,

“In the IPCC community climate change means change on all timescales, irrespective of the cause, and it thus includes both natural variability and any change that may result from human interference with the working of the climate system. Regrettably, in my view, those who negotiated the FCCC chose to define climate change as only that part that is due to human activity.

Thus, when an IPCC scientist says there is unambiguous evidence of climate change, the Convention people (and, of course, the media) hear, and usually promulgate, an unambiguous conclusion that humans have changed the climate.”

In his contribution to a policy paper published by the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) in February 2005 titled Uncertainty and Climate Change: The Challenge for Policy, Dr. Zillman said that,

“We do not yet understand the natural variability of climate well enough to predict the natural component of change”

and that,

“We do not yet have a sufficient basis for knowing how greenhouse gas emissions will change in the future to enable us to estimate the greenhouse component of the change.”

In February 2004 the leading peer-reviewed journal Ecological Modelling published Climate change: detection and attribution of trends from long-term geologic data (Vol. 171, No. 4: pgs 433-50) by Dr. Craig Loehle of the US National Council for Air and Stream Improvement (NCASI), who has over 100 published papers in applied mathematics and ecology on topics that include statistical models, optimization, simulation, artificial intelligence, fractals, and wavelets.

The abstract of this paper reads as follows:

Two questions about climate change remain open: detection and attribution. Detection of change for a complex phenomenon like climate is far from simple, because of the necessary averaging and correcting of the various data sources. Given that change over some period is detected, how do we attribute that change to natural versus anthropogenic causes? Historical data may provide key insights in these critical areas. If historical climate data exhibit regularities such as cycles, then these cycles may be considered to be the “normal” behavior of the system, in which case deviations from the “normal” pattern would be evidence for anthropogenic effects on climate. This study uses this approach to examine the global warming question. Two 3000-year temperature series with minimal dating error were analyzed. A total of seven time-series models were fit to the two temperature series and to an average of the two series. None of these models used 20th Century data. In all cases, a good to excellent fit was obtained. Of the seven models, six show a warming trend over the 20th Century similar in timing and magnitude to the Northern Hemisphere instrumental series. One of the models passes right through the 20th Century data. These results suggest that 20th Century warming trends are plausibly a continuation of past climate patterns. Results are not precise enough to solve the attribution problem by partitioning warming into natural versus human-induced components. However, anywhere from a major portion to all of the warming of the 20th Century could plausibly result from natural causes according to these results. Six of the models project a cooling trend (in the absence of other forcings) over the next 200 years of 0.2-1.4 degrees C.

With the above information from Ian Castles was a note recommending that Phil Done and others spend less time studying the realclimate website and more time reading some peer-reviewed literature instead.

Ian suggested readers of this blog could start with the John Zillman paper for ASSA, and also the contributions of economist Warwick McKibbin and political scientist Aynsley Kellow which are published in the same Policy Paper. It is available on the ASSA website at http://www.assa.edu.au/publications/op.asp .

Ian suggests we then move on to the paper by Roger Pielke Jr. which can be found at http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-479-2004.10.pdf .

Whaling off Norway: My Questions Answered by Peter Corkeron

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There has been much published at this blog about whaling including letters from Libby Eyre and Glenn Inwood. I have just today received a letter from Peter Corkeron which is posted below. The letter has been edited including through the addition of subheadings.

In the letter Peter explained he was employed to study the population biology of seals in Norwegian waters for nearly four years to 2004. He worked as part of the marine mammal research group, first at the Norwegian Institute of Fisheries and Aquaculture Research (NIFA), then at the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research (IMR), both in Tromsoe, northern Norway. He has a PhD from the University of Queensland in 1989 (on dolphins in Moreton Bay) and is the author of over 60 refereed papers and book chapters on aspects of the biology of marine mammals. He has worked on dolphins, whales, dugongs and seals.

Dear Jennifer

Is the Norwegian approach achieving a demonstrably sustainable harvest of baleen whales – in their case, northern minke whales, Balaenoptera acutorostrata?

Some Background

I guess if you’ve taken an interest in whaling, you’re aware that what the Norwegians claim to be doing is implementing the Catch Limit Algorithm (CLA) of the IWC’s Revised Management Program (RMP), developed by IWC Scientific Committee through the 1980s and finalized in the early 90s. The RMP is one facet of the Revised Management Scheme (RMS), which also includes things like an international observer programme, but the implementing RMS still hasn’t been resolved at the IWC. If you’re not aware of the details of this, there’s primary literature around that explains it.

What about the Norwegian implementation of the RMP? There are a couple of issues with what’s been done over the past few years, since Norway gave up scientific whaling in the early 90s and returned to commercial whaling.

Minke quotas have trended upwards over time – the 2006 quota is 1052 animals. Some of this has come from carrying over untaken quotas from previous years – not a part of the RMP/RMS as far as I’m aware. Some has come from changing the “tuning level” – a multiplier built into the CLA/RMP to allow for uncertainty, and changing circumstances. Other problems with quota setting include that predominantly female minkes are taken, and (as I understand it) the CLA assumes a balanced sex ratio in a hunt.

On the science side, one main data requirement is an estimate of abundance with associated estimate of error. The point estimates for northern minke abundance from Norwegian surveys increased, as you note. But the two survey series weren’t directly comparable as they covered somewhat different areas. The most recent survey series was not synoptic – the survey area was divided into 5, with one area surveyed in each of five years. These surveys are logistically difficult to run, and synoptic surveys are really hard to organize – I think the last was in 1995.

So a strong assumption (that is, an assumption that, if it’s wrong, the analysis wrong) is that whales don’t move between survey areas between years. This remains untested.

The actual surveys are vessel-based distance sampling surveys – I’m presuming that you know what distance sampling is (and if this goes to your blog, folks will read up on it).

I’ve never taken part in one of the minke surveys, but know how they work, as I’ve taken part in others elsewhere (US waters, Antarctic). Unlike virtually all other vessel-based surveys for cetaceans, the Norwegian team don’t use binoculars. They have their reasons for this, but it reduces their effective strip width, hence their survey coverage and so the precision of their abundance estimates.

There have been technical queries in past years regarding the Norwegian surveys – double counting (i.e. accidentally recording one whale as two) is an example I recall from the 90s. These have been published as papers in the IWC journal and details can be found there. You have to read through the dry, mathematical language to get at the points being made. There are others who know far more about the machinations within the IWC than I do as I’ve only been to one IWC Scientific Committee meeting.

Is the Harvest Sustainable?

To quote you: “I have repeatedly stated that Norway claims to be sustainably harvesting whales and to the extent that I have researched the issue there claim appears to hold up. I have repeatedly been told, however, that the sustainable harvest of whales is neither possible nor desirable nor ethical.”

Whether the sustainable harvest of baleen whales is desirable or ethical – well, my opinion is worth no more than anyone else’s so I won’t give it.

I’ll give some thoughts on whether the information we have on what the Norwegian minke hunt over the past decade or so tells me regarding the practical possibility for a sustainable harvest of baleen whales. Because it does seem like Norwegians are sustainability hunting minke whales. The devil is, as always, in the detail.

Once it became clear that the RMP/RMS deliberations were bogged down at the IWC, Norwegians decided to recommence commercial whaling, applying the CLA/RMP as seemed appropriate (I’m glossing over a lot of history in this sentence). Over time (this has been going on for a little over a decade), quotas set have trended upwards, and now don’t bear much resemblance to quotas that would have been set under the way that the IWC Scientific Committee designed the RMS.

So, this management procedure, developed to ensure sustainability (as far as humanly possible) hasn’t actually been implemented by the Norwegians.

So in practice, we don’t know whether what’s happening now is likely to lead to an increase, decrease or no change in the abundance of northern minke whales in the north-east Atlantic and Barents Seas.

It’s important to remember that demonstrating sustainability takes more than just doing some very simple back-of-the-envelope calculations about maximum likely reproductive rates of a mammal population. In the first place, the science of wildlife biology / population ecology involves much more, as I’m sure you’re aware. And second, calculating quotas is a small part of managing a fishery (or marine wildlife hunt) – just ask any anyone working in a fisheries management agency. Managing the behaviour of people once quotas have been established is also important. The final decision on quotas for the minke hunt is made by the Norwegian Sjopattedyrradet (marine mammal advisory board), comprised of industry representatives, based on advice from the Fisheries Directorate, who in turn receive advice from IMR.

So in theory, the sustainable harvest of whales may be possible. As things are playing out in Norway at present, this remains theory.

On Harvesting Dugongs

Could the CLA/RMP/RMS management approach (or some variant thereof) be applied to, for instance, dugong harvesting by indigenous Australians?

Possibly yes.

[Click here for Jennifer’s original question on this issue.]

And the IWC’s approach is being modified for application to what the IWC classes as Aboriginal Subsistence whaling, which may prove an even more useful model.

Food Subsidies

I’d like to touch on another point that’s been missing the blogdebate underway at your site.

Your comment[following the post by Libby Eyre] is an interesting one:

“You are rebelling as a romantic against science and economics. Romantics identify with natural systems, scientists study them, some economists recognise the reality of human nature and work with, rather than against it.”

I get a quiet chuckle when folks of an economic rationalist bent use Norwegian whaling for an example of wildlife utilization.

Norwegian markets for food are about as far removed as you can get from what IPA-type folks would consider acceptable.

One aspect of whether Norwegian whaling is sustainable or not that gets missed completely – by both sides, it appears – is the economics of the Norwegian market for food. From an OECD report on agricultural subsidies in 2004, Norway is one of the five worst offenders internationally when it comes to overpaying their internal agricultural lobby.

The other four are Japan, Iceland (notice the pattern?), South Korea and Switzerland. And tariffs on imported food in Norway are very high.

Australians may be astonished to learn that one of the reasons against Norway joining the EU is Norwegian agricultural subsidies would have to be dramatically reduced to drop to EU levels.

So prices for meat in Norway are artificially high. Given the current population sizes of baleen whales in the northeast Atlantic, were a management regime for whaling that demonstrated a decent chance of being sustainable (the IWC’s RMS or something similar) ever implemented, the meat would be so expensive that it would probably price itself out of an open market.

How Popular Is Whale Meat?

A couple of asides from living in northern Norway – I’ve seen ‘fresh’ whale meat turning green as it sat on sale at the local fish market, waiting to be bought. It’s not that popular. And folks from elsewhere in the world who’ve moved to Tromsoe set up stalls and sell their traditional food at weekend markets in summer.

Sometimes at these markets, there was also a stand giving away free meals of whale meat, part of the government drive to encourage Norwegains to eat whale. Government-funded undercutting of small businesses run by enterprising migrants.

Sincerely
Peter Corkeron

2005 Not Hottest Year: Warwick Hughes

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Dear Jennifer,

I have just posted updated temperature anomaly maps for 2005 from CRU (Jones) and satellite data from UAH (Christy) and both disagree with the Australian Bureau of Meterology (BOM) in that they indicate 1998 was warmer than 2005 for Australia, click here and also here.

Best wishes,

Warwick Hughes

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Thanks Warwick.

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I have previously posted on the BOM claim 2005 was hottest, click here.

I have not yet ‘digested’ Warwick’s findings. Have the CRU and UAH adjusted for the ‘heat island effect’ and should they?

Which Climate Change Consensus? (Part 1)

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I find ‘global warming’ a fascinating subject, terribly complex but so interesting and so potentially important. It is the big issue of our day and more than any other issue it has the potential to impact on how we live.

By “how we live” I don’t mean that there are necessarily going to be more hurricanes or droughts, though there may, or that planet earth will become too hot for habitation, though James Lovelock suggests this will be the case. What I do mean is that it is going to impact on energy policy and this will impact on our quality of life.

The obvious solution to reducing carbon dioxide emissions, the cause of ‘global warming’, is the phasing out of fossil fuels, particularly coal and oil. There are already alternatives, hybrid cars and nuclear power stations. But how much are we prepared to pay for our electricity and our cars? Some argue governments should force us to pay more, or take away our cars and coal fired power stations altogether.

If we banned cars and coal fired power stations right across the globe, we would reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and stop ‘global warming’ – in so much as global warming is defined as an increase in temperature as a result of an increase in greenhouse gases from anthropogenic (human) sources. As scientists from the Max Planck Institute in Germany recently explained, methane emissions from plants are natural and could thus not contribute to ‘global warming’.

This approach is consistent with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (IPCC)(UNFCCC) which defines ‘climate change’ as that which is attributable directly or indirectly to human activity, click here.

So, ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ have been defined exclusively in terms of human impact.

I am a biologist with a double major in entomology and botany. I also dabbled in some evolutionary biology particularly as a post graduate. It is generally accepted that evolution has been driven by natural selection and that this has occurred against a backdrop of continual climate change.

But, as a biologist, how do I reconcile the idea that there has been natural climate change with the IPCC UNFCCC definition of climate change?*

I used to laugh at the notion that a group of scientists could come together under something called the IPCC UNFCCC and redefine climate change. Make it such a political phenomenon with man at the centre of it all!

I am not a climate scientist, but I reckon the official definition of ‘climate change’ used by a consensus of climate scientists is baloney.

It does mean that people like Ian Lowe, an emeritus professor at several universities and President of the Australian Conservation Foundation, can write a book pondering that “it is now indisputable that the global climate is changing”.

Natural climate change is not something I have ever much heard disputed. But with the new definition of ‘climate change’ well, it is very unclear how much last year’s temperature rise was due to greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels versus natural processes.

Some biologists, and many geologists, tend to focus on natural processes and may, as a consequence appear to trivialize the relatively recent human influence on climate from carbon emissions. Perhaps as a consequence some of us are labeled climate skeptics. It doesn’t mean we are wrong or that we don’t care, as John Quiggin suggested at his blog this morning. It might just mean we see things differently.

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Post script

Just yesterday I received an email with information about a new book titled, Shattered Consensus: The True State of Global Warming consisting of ten essays on global warming by Sallie L. Baliunas, Robert C. Balling Jr., Randall S. Cerveny, John Christy, Robert E. Davis, Oliver W.
Frauenfeld, Ross McKitrick, Patrick J. Michaels, Eric S. Posmentier and Willie Soon.

And a note from David Douglass Professor of Physics, University of Rochester, commenting: “The beauty of science is that truth is determined by observation and not by consensus. The seemly endless press releases, commentary and resolutions claiming a consensus for the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis is scientifically meaningless. The consensus claims, however, must be answered.”

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UPDATE: 9am, 25th January 2006

* The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports to the UNFCCC.

Out Now: 2006 World Watch Report

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Hi Jennifer,

I haven’t had a look at the full report yet, but you might be interested in this article, about the State of the World report, click here.

It discusses the growing resource needs and eco-impact of China and India into the future, and includes some interesting stats that need challenging and verification.

Steve

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Thanks Steve,

I note the full report can be downloaded here
http://www.worldwatch.org/pubs/sow/2006 .

And is prefaced with the comment:

This year, Worldwatch Institute’s annual State of the World report provides a special focus on China and India, examining the global impact as these two nations join the United States and Europe as major consumers of resources and polluters of local and global ecosystems. The report explains the critical need for both countries to “leapfrog” the technologies, policies, and even the cultures that now prevail in many western countries for the sake of global sustainability-and reports on some of the strategies that China and India are starting to implement.