Following an election last weekend in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), the major parties will have to negotiate with the Greens as they now hold the balance of power. The result is a huge win for the Greens; a party that continues to grow in power in Australia. Read more here.
News
How Melbourne’s Climate Has Changed: A reply to Dr David Jones (Part 2)
IT is generally believed that there has been a decline in rainfall across Australia and that as a consequence cities like Melbourne must suffer severe water restrictions. Indeed if you live in Melbourne you must get prior written approval to fill a swimming pool, there are strict rules explaining how and when you can water your garden, and it is illegal to wash to your car with a garden hose.
In Melbourne reducing water demand and ensuring the efficient use of water is now government policy and the public is continually reminded of this imperative.
Melbourne’s broadsheet, The Age, recently published an opinion piece entitled ‘Our hot, dry future’ by David Jones, head of climate analysis at the Bureau of Meteorology. The piece reinforced the popular belief that there has been a long term decline in rainfall as a consequence of climate change. Dr Jones wrote:
“We also know that over the past 11 years Melbourne’s rainfall has been about 20% below the long-term average, and that south-east Australia as a whole has now missed out on more than a year’s worth of its normal rainfall over the duration of the event. The run-off into Melbourne’s dams has been 40% below average over this drought period compared with the longer term, while regional areas have fared even worse. And the drought hasn’t ended.”
Total rainfall for the major water-harvesting catchments feeding Melbourne is archived on a weekly basis at the Melbourne water website as well as total dam storage levels back to September and August 1998, respectively. My assistant at the Institute of Public Affairs, Nichole Hoskin, asked the Water Commission if we could have this information in an excel format for ease of manipulation, but a Mark Kartasumitra, explained we would have to make-do with what was at the website. So Nichole extracted the individual weekly values for rainfall and water storage from their archives and entered these values into a spread sheet and then plotted a chart for rainfall, shown below, and also a chart for water storage.
There has been a steady decline in the amount of water in Melbourne’s dams since 1998, but the chart of total catchment rainfall shows no such decline. Indeed rainfall over the last decade appears to have been fairly steady.
When Dr Jones writes that rainfall has been 20% below the long-term average I wonder what time frame he uses by way of comparison? When Dr Jones writes that runoff has been 40% below average it is interesting to again ponder time frames and also what changes in land management in the catchment may have contributed to the reduction. Indeed the available data suggests that dam levels have fallen significantly even though there has been reasonable rain.
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Part 1 of ‘How Melbourne’s Climate Has Changed: A reply to Dr David Jones’ was published on October 14th, 2008, and can be read here.
Jennifer Visits the Australian Parliament
Stewart Franks, Bob Carter and I gave a presentation at Parliament House on Monday evening on Climate Change. Professor Carter focused on global temperatures, I followed with some rainfall graphs for different parts of Australia, and then Associate Professor Franks explained why rainfall along the east coast of Australia is so variable and dominated by either El Nina or La Nina cycles back at least as far as 1660.
Our main message was that there is no climate crisis, but that climate change is a natural hazard.
The event was organised by the office of Dennis Jensen MP. Dr Jensen is the member for Tangney in Western Australia.
Shadow minister, Nick Minchin, and former opposition leader, Brendan Nelson, both attended and are pictured with me at Parliament House on Monday evening.
World Food Day 2008
Tomorrow is the United Nation’s “World Food Day” and the focus is on the pressing need for the world to adapt to climate change. But even before “climate change” became a political concern, the poor have been unable to deal effectively with drought, storms and flooding.
Now government programmes in the name of climate change have already had terrible results – more than US$ 11 billion worth of subsidies were used to turn food crops into biofuels last year. This contributed substantially to the rise in food prices that helped push 75 million more people below the hunger threshold.
There is a case for government to provide flood defences and other collective goods, but most adaptation will occur at a much more local scale and as such is best left to individuals.
In a new report, world-renowned agricultural economists Professors Douglas Southgate and Brent Songhen point out that farmers will likely adapt to global warming by switching crops, and adopting new technologies and farming methods – just as they have done for centuries.
The launch of the report, Weathering Global Warming in Agriculture and Forestry by Douglas Southgate and Brent Sohngen (November 2008, International Policy Network), coincides with World Food Day and can now be downloaded here.
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A calf drinking from a nearly full farm dam: Photograph taken just south of Oberon, Central Tablelands, New South Wales (Australia) by Jennifer Marohasy, October 14, 2008.
Canadian Election: Carbon Tax Cost Liberals Votes
Liberal Leader Stephane Dion has lost the Canadian election: “The owlish professor-turned-politician defied two central political tenets in this election campaign: avoid overly complex policy and, above all, don’t even suggest new taxes. His beloved ‘Green Shift’ attempt to tax pollution was lauded by environmentalists and 250 economists. But on the campaign trail, it became more of a Green Albatross around Dion’s slender neck, forcing him over and over again in the face of a Tory advertising onslaught to stress that any new levies on polluting fossil fuels would be offset by income tax breaks. In the end, Dion’s impassioned calls for voters to “go green vote red” weren’t enough. While the Conservatives were held to a minority government, the Liberals were leading or elected in just 74 seats, down from the 103 claimed in 2006.” Read more here.
WWF and Greenpeace as Well-Funded Successful Modern Political Organisations
I spent last weekend at The Annual Australian Environment Foundation (AEF) Conference at Rydges Hotel Lakeside in Canberra. The conference theme was a ‘climate for change’.
But it wasn’t only about ‘climate change’, political analysis Graham Young spoke at the conference about the power of the internet, politics and lobbying and even mentioning this blog. He suggested we were about “community”, “sharing information”, “understanding objections” and also “rehearsing arguments”.
In the context of lobbying Mr Young made reference to the large environment groups’ Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund suggesting they are “successful modern political organisations”.
Outspoken geologist and climate change sceptic, Bob Carter, also made mention of the same two organisations, explaining that Greenpeace with an annual budget of US$272 million and WWF with a budget of US$487 million have more money to spend on lobbying than Australia’s major political parties during a federal election.
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There are photographs of some of the delegates and speakers at the AEF conference at the Community Web pages of this blog.
https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/2008/10/aef-annual-conference/
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.
