Books
New Book on Climate Change
IN his book ‘The Climate Caper’, with a light touch and nicely readable manner, Professor Paltridge shows that the case for action against climate change is not nearly so certain as is presented to politicians and the public. Read more here.
In Defence of ‘Heaven and Earth’
IN the following open letter to the President of the Australian Academy of Science, William Kininmonth explains that the science of climate change is ‘not settled’ and if the scientific community is to get to a position where it can confidently prediction future climate it will be necessary to both understand why and how the climate system has varied in the past, and to have a robust computer construct of the climate system. Given so far we have neither, the recent very public criticisms of Ian Plimer’s new book ‘Heaven and Earth’ are not logical or consistent.
Some Changes: Plimer Book Launches
Due to overwhelming demand there have been some changes to the venues, dates and times for Ian Plimer’s book launches, Information here.
From Gaia to Medea: More Hubris
THE Gaia hypothesis first proposed by British scientist James Lovelock – the notion that all living things are interlinked as a single self-regulating body – is popular with some scientists and accords with the idea that because human activity has changed the chemical composition of the atmosphere we are likely to be interfering with the climate and upsetting the balance of nature.
Paleontologist, Peter Ward, rejects the notion of Gaia, and is running a contrarian but equally hubris argument in his new book, ‘The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive?’ [1]. Professor Ward suggests because there is no balance of nature mankind will needs to intervene and thus advocates geoengineering solutions including to climate change.
New Report on Australian Rangelands
The rangelands cover some 81% of Australia and are popularly known as ‘the outback’.
A new report, ‘Rangelands 2008 — Taking the pulse’, is the first time that disparate datasets have been brought together at a national and regional scale to report change in Australia’s rangelands.
The hard copy version of Rangelands 2008 — Taking the pulse includes a CD with a hypertext-linked version of the complete report plus summarised information for each of the 52 bioregions wholly or partly within the rangelands. Copies can be ordered from Land and Water Australia at http://products.lwa.gov.au/products/pn21387.
The Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts has published a booklet entitled Australia’s Rangelands 2008 — At a Glance which provides highlights from the complete report as well as the CD above. This booklet can be obtained from the DEWHA Community Information Unit.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.