Jennifer Marohasy

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Bushfire Royal Commission to Focus on the Politically Possible

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EARLIER this year the suffering from the Victorian bushfires, and that video of the fire fighter giving a koala a drink of water in a burnt-out forest, captured the imagination of people around the world.

At the time some media outlets blamed the ferocity of the fires on global warming and this assessment was supported by some authorities at reputable institutions including Melbourne University, the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology. Others disagreed and claimed inadequate controlled burning as a key issue.

The Premier of Victoria promised a Royal Commission into the fires and preliminary hearings started this week.

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Threats of Carbon Trade Wars

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The Chinese government has warned that a proposed US border tax on carbon sensitive materials “smells of protectionism” and could spark retaliation from developing countries.  Read more here.

Quiet Sun Shouldn’t Baffle Astronomers

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THE Sun is the dimmest it has been for nearly a century.  There are no sunspots, very few solar flares – and our nearest star is the quietest it has been for a very long time. 

That’s according to a BBC report by Pallab Ghosh, which goes on to explain these observations are baffling astronomers … the Sun normally undergoes an 11-year cycle of activity. At its peak, it has a tumultuous boiling atmosphere that spits out flares and planet-sized chunks of super-hot gas. This is followed by a calmer period…  Last year, it was expected that it would have been hotting up after a quiet spell. But instead it hit a 50-year low in solar wind pressure, a 55-year low in radio emissions, and a 100-year low in sunspot activity.

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Jared Diamond Just Keeps Making It Up

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JARED Diamond is not a man to spoil a good story for the sake of the truth. 

Some years ago I reviewed the chapter on Australia in his highly acclaimed book ‘Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive’.  I found it full of factual errors that played to popular myth while denigrating Australian primary industries. 

Today I received a copy of his article ‘Annals of Anthropology: Vengeance is Ours’ published by The New Yorker in April 2008, which Professor Diamond claims tells the true story of Daniel Wemp and the battles he led in the  New Guinea Highlands.   Along with this article I also received research by Rhonda Roland Shearer exposing it as a hoax. 

Rather than the true story of clan warfare that resulted in the death of 30 men and the theft of over 300 pigs, the story may well represent nothing more than the contrived ramblings of an aging Professor inspired by a yarn from a man who fancied himself as a hero once responsible for the marshalling of hundreds of warriors and the provision of some sex on the side.      

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On a Tortuous Political Problem: Bob Carter

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Oppose the ETSLAST Wednesday, I had the privilege of appearing in front of the Australian Senate Select Committee on Climate Policy.

My main advice to the committee was that making a decision regarding an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) must be considered as a cost:benefit matter.

According to the only estimates that I could find, after ramp-up the cost of the Rudd ETS scheme is going to be about an additional $3,500 tax per year per Australian family. On the other side, the benefit will be a theoretical (i.e. modelled) reduction in temperature of less than 1/1000 deg. C.

I asked the committee if they had such figures in front of them (they didn’t), and expressed willingness to drop my estimates in favour of better-founded ones if the committee could provide them. Not a finger, or tongue, stirred!

Beyond recommending that a proper cost:benefit analysis should apply, I argued also for the implementation of a (Plan B) policy of adaptation to climate change in place of the intended (Plan A) emissions trading system. This follows the policy that I espoused in a recent talk at the New York Heartland-2 Climate Conference, a written version of which has been published in the April edition of Quadrant.

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