Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Terrorist or Freedom Fighter?

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There is a little poll at Senator Andrew Bartlett web-log that asks the question: “Which group is more damaging to the proper functioning of Australian democracy: journalists, politicians, apathetic voters?”

When I last looked most people had voted for apathetic voters. I voted for journalists.

And there is a great article at Online Opinion titled ‘T is for Freedom Fighter at the ABC’ all about the ABC Style Guide (see,
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3603)

I re-read the piece at OnLine Opinion after posting the blog from John McLean and thinking about Steve’s response to my blog about Terrorism. It also has relevance to the blog about Exxon Mobil.

It also prompted me to dig out some information from Barry Chipman about his ongoing battle with the ABC and reporting by journalist Ticky Fullerton.

Chipman is Timber Communities Australia’s Tasmanian Manager and he has successfully challenged the ABC Television Program Four Corners on the basis its program titled ‘Lord of the Forest’ contained misleading, biased and unfactual reporting. The video of the program has been withdrawn from sale in ABC shops.

Christian Kerr (from Crikey.com) has told some of the story in the March Issue of the IPA Review see,
http://www.ipa.org.au/publications/publisting_detail.asp?pubid=421 .

Chipman is still pursuing journalist Ticky Fullerton for return of the $10,000 which she won as part of the Australian Museum Eureka 2004 prize for outstanding environmentalism based on the Four Corner’s program.

Chipman also wants the process for reviewing complaints at the ABC completely overhauled.

I understand the latest ‘reform’ of the process for ‘independent’ complaints handing determined that while the ABC recognized the need for an independent process, the final decision about what to do once a finding had been made, for example a finding against the ABC, would rest with the ABC’s Managing Director.

Seems extraordinary! The guilty decides whether or not she should be convicted?

I quote from a letter from Chipman to Helen Coonan of 18th May,

“…We are also greatly concerned that the reforms fail to provide proper delegated independence for the ICRP to direct appropriate remedial action to redress a complaint that has been upheld. At present the ICRP findings are acted upon only at the ABC’s Managing Directors discretion. 12.6.11 of the ABC editorial polices states: “The Managing Director will decide what action, if any, will be taken as a result of the report. The report will be made public.” For the ICRP reforms to have any meaningful improvement this failing must be addressed. Without this being addressed it can not be claimed by the ABC that the ICRP is at arms-length from the ABC.”

While Chipman keeps fighting for reform, it seems that the ABC will keep doing its own thing.

In the most recent issue of Quadrant (July -August 2005, not yet available online) Frank Devine in an article titled ‘Take That, Russell Balding!’ provides an amusing example of the ABC caught tampering with the transcript of an interview by Tony Eastley with Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone on the subject of the deportation of Vivian Alvarez.

In closing, I would like to thank the Barry Chipman’s of the world for the time and effort they expend in the on-going fight for accurate reporting. It is a fight against propaganda.

Chipman is a freedom fighter – but perhaps to Fullerton a terrorist?

Alan Woods, The House of Lords, and More

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Both Alan Woods (columnist with The Australian) and Britian’s House of Lords have recently written on the economics of ‘global warming’.

I have received several emails asking me to post something about the House of Lords report. The first email arrived the day of the London Bombing and it got left in my growing ‘for the blog’ file.

Anyway an email received just yesterday read,

“In today’s Australian is an extremely well written piece by Alan Wood entitled ‘Kyoto is dead,let it be buried’ and subtitled ‘The Global Warming debate needs evidence’.

Rather than getting involved in never ending marginal debates about the science, which almost invariably end up with a lot of name calling (and even worse claims that because so and so doesn’t have a degree in whatever, he or she is disqualified from having both a brain and an opinion), the real issue is about the public policy of GW.

This turns around whether the Kyoto prescriptive model was a valid way treat a problem that is still in the porcess of being defined with any degree of certainty, or the USA way of throwing money at an energy effciency/technology solution is better. Wood is showing that it has already been decided that it is the latter, and we should all be thankful that common sense has prevailed.

Alan Wood refers to a House of Lords Committee report that is also extremely good and thorough. Not surprisingly both Wood and the Lords Committee are scathing in their criticism of the IPCC.

In my view whilst the ‘scientists’ are throwing bricks at each other, and being amazingly arrogant and manipulatve, the real issue once GW is established as being confirmed with an acceptable level of confidence will come down to how one solves the problem. Then it will get interesting.

Why not start a thread with either the House of Lords report or the Alan Wood article as the seed?”

Piece by Alan Woods
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15985290%255E31478,00.html

Report by House of Lords
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/12/12i.pdf

Associated Media Release
http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/lords_press_notices/pn060705ea.cfm

Now on a related issue, can anyone tell me the history of the negotiations behind the establishment of Australia’s Greenhouse Office. I can’t find an email I was sent about a year ago with a story that it was part of the deal with the Democrats to get the GST through?

Lichen Spider

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Neil Hewett, Cooper Creek Wilderness, The Daintree, Nth Queensland, emailed this picture of a lichen spider,

See Spider (40 kbs).

It came with the note,

“If only humankind would blend with the natural landscape with a little more discretion.”

And I gather the action was inspired by my ‘Global Warming Skeptics in Denial’ blog post.

And I was reminded by the spider of an article I saw in the lastest issue of Orion Online and the finding/thought that,

“Engagement with nature buffers against life stresses.”

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A Hockey Stick Question

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I have been asked the following question from a reader of this web-log:

What is the evidence for the medieval warm period?
My understanding is that the Vikings were able to settle Greenland and grow grapes in Canada over several hundreds of years because the climate was significantly warmer. Yet this period is not evident in the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph.

End of question.

Punish Exxon Mobil for Not Believing

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I don’t like bullies – so I don’t like the environment establishment much anymore.

My first real experience of being at the wrong end of their big stick was when I worked for the Queensland sugar industry and WWF launched its “save the reef campaign”.

The newly launched campaign against Exxon Mobil in the US because of the company’s position on global warming shows a high level of intolerant to different perspectives and the environment movement’s propensity for intimidation and bullying.

According to the New York Times,

A coalition of environmental and liberal lobbying groups is planning a boycott of Exxon Mobil products to protest the company’s challenges to warnings about global warming.

And boycott a company because you think it should be a better environmental steward,

Carl Pope, the Sierra Club’s executive director, said the goal was either to get Exxon Mobil to change or “to encourage other oil companies” to improve their environmental stewardship. The company was chosen, organizers said, because its record is worse than its competitors.

And boycott a company because you don’t like who they fund,

The company has also supported groups like the Competitive Enterprise Institute, whose work has challenged some generally accepted scientific models that predict the speed of climate change and the severity of its consequences.

This is the campaign site http://www.exxposeexxon.com.

Aussie Canola Contaminated by GM Material

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Traces of a GM material known as Topas 19/2 were have been found in Victorian canola ready for export.

GM canola was approved by the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator in Canberra sometime ago for commercial production in Australia. However, bans on GM food crops introduced by State Governments have prevented the legal commercial production of GM canola. GM canola is grown overseas including in Canada, the US and Argentina.

It is unclear how the Australian canola became contaminated.

Bayer has field trials of GM canola in Victoria. However, the Topas 19/2 is apparently not consistent with the GM material in the canola being grown in trials by Bayer in Australia at the moment – though was in trials grown prior to 1998.

While investigations continue, perhaps the more likely explanation is that the contamination is from an Australian breeding program. There are apparently a number of different companies that breed and sell canola seed in Australia – but not Bayer (because state governments have banned their GM product). Anyway these breeding program exchange material with overseas companies and it is possible that in an exchange of germplasm the impurity/the Topas 19/2 was introduced.

Topas 19/2 includes a gene from a soil bacteria that confers herbicide resistance. The same gene, known as the pat gene has been used as a marker in a wide range of research in a variety of crops around the world. The pat gene is a Bayer creation.

According to Greenpeace Campaigner Jeremy Tager, Bayer should take responsibility for the organism it created. Do you reckon we should get Jeremy’s Mum to take more responsibility for the campaigns he runs?

Bayer media release: http://www.bayercropscience.com.au/news/index.asp?id=20050714GMTraces3

Greenpeace media release:
http://www.greenpeace.org.au/media/ge_canola_details.php?site_id=55&news_id=1728

ABC online:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200507/s1416183.htm