Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Books

Aboriginal self-determination: The Whiteman’s dream – Gary Johns

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GARY Johns, a former colleague and friend of many years, has just had a book published by Connor Court entitled ‘Aboriginal self-determination: The Whiteman’s dream’.   I haven’t got my copy yet, so can’t provide a review, but no doubt it will be hard hitting.   Gary believes in integration, not self determination, for Australia’s aborigines.  According to Gary:

“Aboriginal self-determination is a white man’s dream. Those who continue to lobby for the grand experiment of aboriginal self-determination, long after its costs have been revealed, should say sorry to those the policy has harmed – every woman bashed, every man drunk out of his mind, every child molested, everyone without a job. Aborigines, especially those in remote Australia, need an exit strategy from the dream. The exit strategy outlined in this book destroys the rallying cry for culture. Instead, it shows that the way to self-determination is through individual dignity.”

Order your copy here: 
http://www.connorcourt.com/catalog1/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=7&products_id=155

Comment on ‘Solar’ by Ian McEwan

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IN his latest novel about climate change, award-winning novelist Ian McEwan[1] apparently took inspiration for his main character, Michael Beard, from the people he encountered at the 2007 Potsdam Nobel Laureate Symposium on climate change.   Not surprising Professor Beard is male and a Nobel Laureate, but interestingly also fat, comic, aging, a liar and scoundrel.  

At the beginning of the novel Beard is a global warming sceptic, but by the end he is lecturing on the need for fund managers to invest in his research on artificial photosynthesis as the new clean energy and solution to peak oil etcetera… 

“We have to replace that gasoline quickly for three compelling reasons. First, and simplest, the oil must run out. No one knows exactly when, but there’s a consensus that we’ll be at peak production at some point in the next five to fifteen years. After that, production will decline, while the demand for energy will go on rising as the world’s population expands and people strive for a better standard of living. Second, many oil-producing areas are politically unstable and we can no longer risk our levels of dependence. Third, and most crucially, burning fossil fuels, putting carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere, is steadily warming the planet”.

While the book has been praised and promoted by environment groups, including Friends of the Earth, and not received so well by US Republicans, there are various appeals in the story to classic liberal philosophy including in the following paragraph where Beard juxtaposes the grand plans for the world expounded by a group of climate activists sharing time together in the Arctic with their general inability to maintain order in a shared boot room …

“Everyone, all of us, individually facing oblivion, as a matter of course, and no one complaining much. As a species, not the best imaginable, but certainly the best, no, the most interesting there was. But what about the general disgrace that was the boot room? Evidently, a matter of human nature.  And how were we ever going to learn about that? Science of course was fine, and who knew, art was too, but perhaps self-knowledge was beside the point. Boot rooms needed good systems so that flawed creatures could use them properly. Leave nothing, Beard decided, to science or art, or idealism. Only good laws would save the boot room. And citizens who respected the law.”

[Read more…] about Comment on ‘Solar’ by Ian McEwan

Learning Dust Lesson to Fight Wildfires

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untitledIT is generally agreed that the worst dust storms since European settlement were during the 1944-1945 period.  

In his book Out of the West: A Historical Perspective of the Western Division of NSW, former Western Lands Commissioner, Dick Condon, says there were 34 severe dust storms at Wagga Wagga during the period 1944-45, many so bad that it would have been necessary to turn the lights on in order to see inside the average sized house.  

Mr Condon suggests the dust storms during the 1982-83 drought were not as bad as those during the period 1885 to 1945 because of the much improved conditions of the landscape in the semi-arid and arid grazing country in western New South Wales.

In contrast, it is generally agreed that bushfires are getting worse.   [Read more…] about Learning Dust Lesson to Fight Wildfires

Risking the Reputation of Science: Garth Paltridge

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“Perhaps the most interesting question in all this business is how it can be that the scientific community has become so over-the-top in support of its own propaganda about the seriousness and certainty of upcoming drastic climate change. Scientists after all are supposed to be unbiased in their assessment of a problem and are expected to tell it as it is. Over the centuries they have built up the capital of their reputation on just that supposition. And for the last couple of decades they have put that capital very publicly on the line in support of a cause which, to say the least, is overhung by an enormous amount of doubt. So how is it that the rest of the scientific community, uncomfortable as it is with both the science of global warming and the way its politics is being played, continues to let the reputation of science in general be put at considerable risk because of the way the dangers of climate change are being vastly oversold?”   Garth Paltridge*

Some answers are here:  http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26056202-7583,00.html 

* ‘Global warming hotheads freeze out science’s sceptics’ by Christopher Pearson, in The Australian, on September 12, 2009

New Atlas of IPCC Rainfall Projections

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atlas global water cycleRESEARCHERS from The Australian National University have created the world’s first comprehensive visual atlas of global rainfall projections over the next 100 years based on all of the models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its most recent report.

PhD researcher Wee Ho Lim and Dr Michael Roderick from ANU have created the Atlas of the Global Water Cycle, which contains some 300 pages of global maps and tables showing current and projected measures of rainfall, evaporation and runoff.

The atlas illustrate the projections of each of the 20 computer models used by different countries to forecast future water cycles – data drawn upon by the IPCC in its reporting on climate change, but not visualised in the same way and place until now.

“We know that as the world warms there is likely to be more rainfall on a global average basis,” Dr Roderick said. “But where is this increased rainfall going to occur, and which areas might get drier? These are simple questions to ask, but it is surprisingly hard for an individual to get an answer, whether they’re a farmer, civil engineer, teacher or interested citizen,” Dr Roderick said.

Read the rest of the media release here.

Advice from a Sydney Detective on Theories

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The Tower 2“YOU didn’t want to start to firm up ideas too early in an investigation, before you had enough facts. But you couldn’t help wondering how the pieces you had fitted together. It was a compulsion, even if at times it had to be resisted.”

This is not a quote from a scientist, but Sydney detective, Nicholas Troy. He’s a character in Michael Duffy’s first work of fiction, The Tower.

The Tower is in Australian bookshops from tomorrow.

Michael Duffy is of course a presenter of ‘Counterpoint’ one of the few programs on ABC Radio that provides an alternative perspective on a range of issues including climate change.

I wonder how much of Detective Troy’s character is a reflection of Mr Duffy’s own approach to life?

When it comes to not jumping to conclusions some of our scientists, especially our climate scientists, could probably learn a bit from both Troy and Duffy about the importance of resisting developing their own theory, or becoming too attached to a theory, too soon.

Reading a good book can be like taking a short vacation… In the case of The Tower it will be a journey to Sydney. Michael Duffy describes Sydney as a city of sharks – and he’s not referring to what’s in the harbour.

http://www.cityofsharks.com/