Jennifer Marohasy

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Undemocratic Politics Again Determines Land Use in Tasmania: Alan Ashbarry

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A decision made in Cambodia in June by the United Nation’s World Heritage committee could add 172,000 hectares of forest to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. The Gillard government is seeking to have the deal sealed without proper scrutiny, in particular by using a loophole in the UN guidelines to label it as a “minor” modification so it can be approved before a likely change of government in September.

The proposal for a “minor” boundary modification was developed by the Federal minister for the Environment, Tony Burke, as part of the outcomes of the Tasmanian Forest Agreement signed between three main environmental lobby groups and industry representatives on 22 November 2012. The industry signed up with the hope the proposal would end years of campaigning against the Tasmanian forest industry.

Photography by Jennifer Marohasy, Tasmania , May 2005
Photography by Jennifer Marohasy, Tasmania , May 2005

The World Heritage area has been controversial since it was first inscribed in 1982 when only 769,355 ha in size, and led to the 1983 Australian High Court ruling that the Commonwealth’s external relations powers gave it the right to prevent the flooding of the Franklin River for a renewable Hydro power scheme, not withstanding Tasmania’s constitutional land use rights.

It was the subject of the Commonwealth’s Helsham inquiry in the late 1980’s that examined the need for a further extension to the wilderness. The majority finding was overturned by the Hawke government, and a proposal adding 604,645 ha, i.e. a 78 per cent increase, was accepted by the World Heritage Committee. The extension was said by the environment Minister Graham Richardson to cement the green preference strategy to re-elect the Hawke ALP government. [Read more…] about Undemocratic Politics Again Determines Land Use in Tasmania: Alan Ashbarry

The Great Barrier Reef: Have we Really Lost Half of It? [Part 1: Water Quality]

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IT was all over the news again this morning, that unless action is taken to improve water quality the Great Barrier Reef could be placed on the World Heritage list of sites in danger and by the way, there has already been a 50 percent decline in coral cover at the Great Barrier Reef.

No wonder the average person is concerned about the environment! Such casual reporting that we have already lost a full half of the Great Barrier Reef!

Photograph by Walter Starck
Photograph by Walter Starck

This publicity is all part of a campaign to stop the development of new port facilities along the Queensland coastline. But rather than just come out and say they don’t want more development– that in fact they despise industry– the activist scientists dress it up as the end of the Great Barrier Reef as we know it. [Read more…] about The Great Barrier Reef: Have we Really Lost Half of It? [Part 1: Water Quality]

Greg Hunt’s Carbon Buy-Back Scheme for Australia

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THE Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Greg Hunt MP, was in Brisbane yesterday explaining the Coalition’s plan to tackle climate change post September 14, 2013. You can download the manifesto as presented at the seminar here:

The Coalition’s Direct Action Plan, 29 April 2013 (9.8MB)

Clearly the Coalition has no intention of showing leadership on this issue with Mr Hunt explaining that:

“We agree with the Government on the science of climate change, we agree on the targets to reduce emissions and we agree on using markets as the best mechanism.”

But I can’t see how this “Direct Action Plan” can possibly work as detailed, in particular the economics of revegetation for carbon sequestration and soil carbon sequestration don’t add-up. Yet Mr Hunt claims:

“The fund will not only reduce our emissions, it will improve Australia’s environment through a range of measures including revegetation, better land management and enhanced soil quality.”

But hang on. Mr Hunt is claiming the price of carbon will climb to $350 per tonne by 2050. Ha! Hasn’t anyone told Mr Hunt that the carbon market recently collapsed in Europe?  Only a fool or a politician could write:

“This simple, straightforward approach is a vastly better way to tackle climate change than the blunt instrument that is the Carbon Tax, which has already inflicted economy-wide pain and will continue to do so as it climbs to its own predicted price of $350 per tonne of C02 by 2050. That is why we will repeal the Carbon Tax and replace it with a classic reverse auction system, based on incentive and innovation.”

What a crock!

Consensus and Controversy: The Debate on Man-Made Global Warming

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‘IN open societies where both scientists and the general public are equipped with critical skills and the tools of inquiry, not least enabled by the information revolution provided through the Internet, the ethos of science as open, questioning, critical and anti-dogmatic should and can be defended also by the public at large. Efforts to make people bow uncritically to the authority of a dogmatic representation of Science, seems largely to produce ridicule, opposition and inaction, and ultimately undermines the legitimacy and role of both science and politics in open democracies.’

That’s the final paragraph in a new report by Emil A. Røyrvik; a social anthropologist and senior research scientists at SINTEF Technology and Society, Scandinavia’s largest independent research organisation.

The report about “the debate on man-made global warming” including an analysis of “the four myths of climate change”, “the hockey stick”, “climategate” and surveys and petitions of dissenting and contrarian positions.

Dr Røyrvik comes at the issue from an academic perspective and very clearly articulates the strength of the consensus position but also the logic of the contrarians – as he labels us.

[Read more…] about Consensus and Controversy: The Debate on Man-Made Global Warming

Sarah Ferguson Defends Abattoir Footage of Dubious Origin

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IN June 2011 the Australian government halted all live cattle exports to Indonesia after ABC Four Corners broadcast disturbing footage of Australian cattle being mistreated in Indonesian abattoirs. As I wrote in May 2012, Australians were lead to believe that this footage, that shocked the nation, was typical of what occurs inside many abattoirs in Indonesia and that the footage was taken by Lyn White from Animals Australia [1]. However, according to British filmmakers Gem and Ian from ‘Tracks Investigations’ they were responsible for the footage that sparked massive public opposition [2]. Nowhere in the Four Corners program is the involvement of these professional filmmakers declared; activists who for a fee “offer a comprehensive global investigation and film production service to conservation, environmental and animal protection groups.”[3]

In the following email, which Sarah Ferguson from ABC Four Corners has asked me to publish, she explains that my recent column in The Land on the same topic is “mischievous” [4]. In particular she claims a first hand knowledge of the situation in Indonesia and that half the abattoir footage in the program was filmed by Four Corners.

[Read more…] about Sarah Ferguson Defends Abattoir Footage of Dubious Origin

Remembering Why There Are Carbon Markets

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CARBON is the key building block for all life on earth. We are made of it, we eat it and we breathe it. To label carbon dioxide, which is a component of the natural carbon cycle, a pollutant as the US Supreme Court did in 2007, is absurd. So, is the concept of trading carbon and taxing carbon.

Yet carbon markets have developed not because the Catholic Church requested them, but because they were justified and promoted by leading scientists in cahoots with well meaning economists.

These markets and trading schemes are part of a new vision for a different world, a world based in essence on junk science and the new religion of environmentalism.

[Read more…] about Remembering Why There Are Carbon Markets