Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Opinion

Number of ‘Official Skeptics’ Increased in 2008

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“Over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe challenged man-made global warming claims made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former Vice President Al Gore” according to Marc Morano at the launch of a new report in Washington.  Mr Morano is  communications director for the Republicans on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

According to Mr Morano, “This new 231-page U.S. Senate Minority Report report — updated from 2007’s groundbreaking report of over 400 scientists who voiced skepticism about the so-called global warming “consensus” — features the skeptical voices of over 650 prominent international scientists, including many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN IPCC.

“This updated report includes an additional 250 (and growing) scientists and climate researchers since the initial release in December 2007.  The over 650 dissenting scientists are more than 12 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.

The chorus of skeptical scientific voices grow louder in 2008 as a steady stream of peer-reviewed studies, analyses, real world data and inconvenient developments challenged the UN and former Vice President Al Gore’s claims that the “science is settled” and there is a “consensus.” On a range of issues, 2008 proved to be challenging for the promoters of man-made climate fears. 

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White Possum Probably Not Extinct from Global Warming

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SO many things are blamed on global warming.  A quick internet search of reported repercussions just beginning with ‘p’, includes psychiatric illness, puffin decline, plankton blooms, polar bears drowning, polar bears cannibalistic and polar bears deaf.   

Last week another was added when Professor Steven Williams from James Cook University, said a rare white possum might have disappeared as a consequence of global warming.

After some research of my own I discovered the “the white possum” is more commonly known as a lemuroid ringtail (Hemibelideus lemuroid) and is usually a charcoal brown colour. 

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Bunyips in Australian Rivers (Part 2)

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ACCORDING to Australian aboriginal mythology Bunyips are monsters that live in rivers.  According to Ron Pike, an Australian who has spent his life working with water from the Murrumbidgee River, much of what is being claimed about Australian rivers is as unreasonable as a belief in Bunyips: 

“The lack of flow volumes in the rivers of the Murray Darling Basin (MDBC) in recent years is not due to irrigation and over extraction.  The facts are that without the storages and the irrigation industries, conditions would have been considerably worse.   Throughout the MDB there is presently more wetland habitat than there would have been had there been no irrigation for the last several years.  It is also wrong to suggest that increasing stream flows by releasing extra water from storages, somehow benefits the environment.   It makes no appreciable difference to the  environment whether the Murrumbidgee at say Narrandera is running at 3,500 megalitres per day or 25,000 megalitres per day. The flows in both cases remain within the banks and do not, and cannot, water the floodplain or most wetlands.

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