Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Great Barrier Reef ‘Research’ – A Litany of False Claims

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WE may live in the information age, but how true are many of the scientific claims we read and hear?  For ten years the World Wide Fund for Nature, WWF, has been campaigning to ‘Save the Great Barrier Reef’. [1,2,3] When the WWF campaign was first launched in June 2001 it was claimed Diuron was killing seagrass and dioxins were killing dugongs and so both these pesticides should be banned.  Ten years on and the ban on Diuron appears imminent, but the chemical is probably no more harmful than the dioxin that was found to be natural.[4]

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Which Pesticides Should be Banned?

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NICK Heath is worried about the future of the Great Barrier Reef.  He has a Bachelor of Commerce and after ten years in business and consulting, moved into political and policy advice for government.  He’s now the national program leader for water at WWF-Australia.   He’s been spearheading the ongoing WWF campaign to ‘Save the Great Barrier Reef’. [1]

As part of this campaign WWF wants the herbicide Diuron banned.  Heath recently told journalist Brian Williams at the Courier Mail that he accepted that government would probably ban Diuron, but he was disappointed about further delays. [2]

Why does Heath want Diuron banned?

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Good Advice from New York on the Murray Darling

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A year or more ago a prominent climate sceptic suggested that he felt sorry for me whenever he heard me talking publicly about the Murray Darling.    When I asked why, he suggested it was a lost cause… the Murray Darling.  Furthermore, he hinted, it did the reputation of other sceptics no good for me to be defending irrigators.

More recently, in a piece in The Monthly, New York-based Australian author and poet, Kate Jennings, suggests it does the Murray Darling cause no good my being a “prominent climate-change sceptic”.  While Jennings, may understand very little about anthropogenic climate change, her recent article on the Murray Darling is better researched than most and is of course beautifully written.

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Go buy a box of Reflex brand paper

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WE are so connected to each other via the Internet, but so disconnected from reality when it comes to primary production including paper production.  Indeed most Australians don’t know the first thing about farming or forestry.     So, we are so susceptible to the slick, online, marketing campaigns from the mainstream multi-million dollar environmental lobby.   Their campaigns are increasingly big on style, reinforce popular myths, and promise you redemption. In the case of an on-going campaign from the Wilderness Society this just involves you not buying Reflex brand paper.[1]

But I’m sceptical.

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Universe Getting Colder: New Nobel Laureates

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The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to three US-born scientists for overturning fundamental assumptions about the universe.   According to the Nobel Physics Committee their research on supernovae implies the universe will get increasingly colder as matter spreads across ever-vaster distances in space. [1]

According to Oliver K. Manuel, who occasionally emails me, their theory:

1. Negates the need for a “Big Bang” origin of the universe and “Dark Energy” to keep it expanding.

2. Confirms that in our infinite, cyclic cosmos [2] neutron-emission from surfaces of neutron stars – driven by neutron repulsion [3] –  occurs faster from smaller fragments of parent neutron stars, just as water evaporates faster from expanded surfaces of smaller water droplets!

3. Illustrates the need to reconsider the role of a rotating superconducting super-fluid in iron-rich supernova debris [4], and expulsion of magnetic fields from the Sun by the Meisner effect [5].

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Which Books Should be Banned?

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ACCORDING to the American Library Association (ALA) the book most American parents have wanted banned over recent years is ‘And Tango Makes Three’ about two male penguins that adopt a fertilized egg and raise the chick.  According to Walt Brasch writing at On Line Opinion:

“Gays saw the story as a positive reinforcement of their lifestyle.

“Riding to rescue America from homosexuality were the biddies against perversion. Gay love is against the Bible, they wailed; the book isn’t suitable for the delicate minds of children, they cried as they pushed libraries and schools to remove it from their shelves or at the very least make it restricted.

“The penguins may have been gay-or maybe they weren’t. It’s not unusual for animals to form close bonds with others of their same sex. But the issue is far greater than whether or not the penguins were gay or if the book promoted homosexuality as a valid lifestyle. People have an inherent need to defend their own values, lifestyles, and worldviews by attacking others who have a different set of beliefs. Banning or destroying free speech and the freedom to publish is one of the ways people believe they can protect their own lifestyles.”

The books that make me cringe are always about what I perceive to be the distortion of science.   I described three of the worst in a piece I wrote for ABC Radio National’s Ockham’s Razor in 2005:

“Several books have been published this year by celebrity scientists warning that unless we change our ways, civilisation as we know it is doomed. Tim Flannery in ‘The Weather Makers’ explains that our addiction to coal is impacting on our weather systems. In ‘A Big Fix: Radical solutions for Australia’s environmental crisis’, Ian Lowe advises that the situation is so desperate we abandon the traditional scientific method. Jared Diamond in ‘Collapse: How societies choose to fail or survive’ explains how the elite can lead us in the wrong direction.

The very worst was Lowe’s ‘A Big Fix’ and in particular his contention that we abandon the traditional scientific method.

“Professor Lowe begins his new book by stating, ‘I am a scientist’. But then on page 86 explains how we should abandon the traditional scientific method in favour of ‘sustainability science’ which ‘differs fundamentally from most science as we know it’. The Professor writes that, ‘The traditional scientific method is based on sequential phases of inquiry, conceptualising the problem, collecting data, developing theories, then applying the results. … Sustainability science will have to employ new methods, such as semi-quantitative modelling of qualitative data, or inverse approaches that work backwards from undesirable consequences to identify better ways to progress’.”

While it might be tempting to wish such a book were banned given that it appears to promote the corruption of science, I should perhaps be grateful Lowe has so clearly articulated this popular, if misguided, concept called ‘sustainability science’.   Once something is clearly articulated, it should be easier to discuss and it is through discussion we can best hope to reasonably argue the pros and cons of apparently subversive ideas.

References/Links:

Banning the First Amendment, Walt Brasch  http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=12681

We need real science for the environment – send Chicken Little to Hollywood, Jennifer Marohasy http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2005/1509193.htm