Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Uncategorized

Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Levels Follow Sea Surface Temperature: A Note from Lance Endersbee

By

Dear Colleagues,

Following is a chart showing the definite physical relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide and sea surface temperatures.

It can be regarded as the experience curve of reality.

I used CO2 data from Mauna Loa as it is at a higher elevation and well mixed.

I used recent global average sea surface temperatures based on satellite sensing as they are the only reliable data we have on average SST.

I used a 21 year moving average of SST values as the oceans breathe carbon dioxide in and out with the El Nino and La Nina cycles.

The net result is a clear firm relationship.

It is what would be expected from the solubility curve of CO2 in water.

The little bumps on the line can be traced to volcanic events.

I note that the oceans scavenge excess CO2 from volcanic events within about 2 years.

This chart shows that it is physically impossible for man-made emissions of carbon dioxide to accumulate in the atmosphere.

It proves that CO2 is not a pollutant.

Lance Endersbee
Former Dean of Engineering (1976-1988) and Pro-Vice Chancellor of Monash University

Lance Endersbee.jpg

————————–
And Jen is reminded of a note from Arnost, dated March 29, 2007 and entitled ‘Why Are There No Major “Spikes or Troughs” in the Official Direct Measurements of C02?’ click here: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/001976.html

How Long Does it Take to Kill a Whale and Sink a Ship? An Update from Ann Novek

By

According to Paul Watson from anti-whaling NGO Sea Shepherd, traditional Makah whalers had no plans to resume whaling. Then Watson’s mate Wayne Johnson went out one Saturday morning and killed a gray whale:

According to Lynda V. Mapes reporting for the Seattle Times:

“It was about 6:30 on a beautiful summer morning, with gray whales all around, when Wayne Johnson decided he had waited long enough: It was time to hunt whales again.

Within minutes Saturday, Johnson and four other Makah tribal members were on the downtown dock at Neah Bay, boarding two motorized boats. By the end of the day, the men were in handcuffs and a whale was dead.”

“Sunday, even as tribal council members strongly denounced the hunt, Johnson said he had no regrets. “If anything, I wish I’d done it years earlier,” he said.”

“Johnson confirmed that the hunt that shocked his own tribe and anti-whaling activists Saturday was carried out without the permission of his Tribal Council or Whaling Commission”

“And it was done without conforming to conditions of the federal permit that controlled that 1999 hunt — permission from the tribe; prior notification to a federal observer who had to be in place at the time of the kill; restricting the hunt to the outer coast to protect “resident” whales in the Strait of Juan de Fuca; approaching the whale in a traditional canoe; and using first a harpoon and then a .50-caliber gun to dispatch the whale.

On Saturday, there was no permit, no observer, no canoe; no restricting the hunt to the coast. Just five whalers, four from the 1999 hunt, casting loose from the downtown dock.

“Why mess around with a canoe?” Johnson said. “It would have been more people in jail, and we would have lost the canoe.”

“Saturday night, after the whalers were taken into custody, tribal officials met with community members for more than two hours to talk about what had happened. Some were concerned the rogue hunt would complicate and slow their efforts to legally hunt whales again.”

Journalist Ken Schram is even harder on Wayne Johnson:

“Don’t call it a hunt.”

“Never mind that they didn’t have permission from the Makah tribal council to hunt the whale.

Never mind that they didn’t have the necessary federal permit.

Never mind that the spiritual and cultural elements of a whale hunt were no where to be found.

Never mind any of that.

Wayne Johnson, the guy who says he’s got whaling in his blood, just felt the time was right to go out and kill.

No blubber shared with the elders and the young.

No ancestral stories.

No respect for the whale or for Indian heritage.

It took 12 hours for the gray whale to die.

Meanwhile …

An American animal rights activists has take responsibility for the sinking of the Norwegian whaling ship:

“On the night of august 30th we decided to celebrate the end of commercial whaling in Iceland by removing a large section of cooling pipe in the engine room of the norweigan whaler Willassen Senior.

“After ensuring that the vessel was unoccupied the salt water intake valve was opened unleashing a torrent of water into the heart of the killer ship that two years earlier took 14 minutes to brutally murder a threatened minke whale.”

“The sinking of the whaler and the silencing of its deadly harpoon is dedicated to the memory of the yangtze river dolphin who because of humankinds greed will never again grace the waters of our blue planet”

Of course now the whaler has been sunk due to anti-whaling activists, Norwegians will probably once again unite to defend whaling as was proved in the late 90’s. Indeed, the local Labour Party Chair has now stated this is a terrorist attack on Norway and wants political reaction.

Ann Novek,
Sweden

———————
Apologies to Ann for not posting this sooner.

Australia Not GM Free: A Note from David Tribe

By

Surely the bans on genetically modified (GM) food crops in most Australian states will be lifted soon?

But the mainstream media keep printing these letter from people like Gill Rosier perpetuating misinformation – in particular the myth that Australia is GM free. David Tribe busted a few myths in his letter to The Age on September 13, 2007, reprinted here with permission:

Horse has already bolted on GM foods

GILL Rosier (Letters, 11/9) points out the decision to lift or extend Victoria’s moratorium on genetically manipulated crops rests with Premier John Brumby. Rosier also offers the judgement that Mr Brumby is likely to drop the ban, given his vision for Victoria to be a world leader in biotechnology. But Rosier also raises the issue of whether in making such a decision, Mr Brumby will throw away Victoria’s “GM-free status”.

The answer to this is simple. There is no way our “GM-free status” will be affected because in Victoria we already import large quantities of GM foods and stock feeds — maize, soy and canola — particularly in times of drought. For many years now we have been feeding them to farm animals in stock feed. So, without even mentioning GM vaccines, GM carnations or Australian GM cottonseed, the truthful answer to Rosier’s rhetorical question is this: in Victoria’s case, the “GM-free status” tag is just tricky double-speak for our present active use of GM feeds and foods in farming systems. The equally misleading question of whether there is any real price advantage from this dubious distinction can be left for another day.

David Tribe
Senior Lecturer, Institute of Land and Food, University of Melbourne

Conference on Integrity in Science Focuses on IPCC

By

A claimed “first world conference on research integrity” opens in Lisbon, Portugal, today. The conference media release explains: “The controversies surrounding the recent assessment report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) demonstrates how research integrity is a critical issue not only for the science community, but for politicians and the society as a whole as well. In August 2007 the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had to withdraw previous published historical climate data.

The incident came after a British mathematician discovered that the sources used by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) have disregarded the positions of weather stations, plus intentionally using outdated data on China from 1991 and ignoring revised data on the country from 1997.

Now 350 concerned scientists, scientific managers and magazine editors from around the world are scheduled to attend the event in Lisbon, initiated and organised by the European Science Foundation (ESF) and the US Office for Research Integrity (ORI). It marks a milestone for the science community as it will link all those concerned parties in a global effort to tackle the issue head on.

”At the very least, countries should know how misconduct will be handled in other countries and whom to contact if they have questions. A more ambitious goal is to begin to harmonize global policies relating to research integrity,” says Conference Co-Chair Nicholas Steneck from the University of Michigan.

“By now there are no consistent global standards for defining and responding to major misconduct in research. Definitions and practices vary from country to country and even institution to institution. Improper practices that could be ignored in one country could get a researcher dismissed from a position in another country,” Steneck adds.

The conference will be focusing on both individual and institutions’ responsibilities, and of funding agencies as well as publishers, according to Conference Co-Chair Tony Mayer from the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Mayer is also the former Senior Science Policy Adviser to the ESF.

Jose-Mariano Gago, the Portuguese Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, Janez Potocnik, the European Commissioner for Research, Angel Gurri?a, the Secretary-General, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and Tim Hunt from the Cancer Research UK, South Mimms will kick off the event by participating in the opening talks. .

In his keynote address, Paul David form the Oxford University, UK, and Stanford University, Palo Alto, U.S., will give an overview on analytical and empirical studies of ORI on the problem of scientific misconduct. David is well known for his research in the economics of science and technology, with special reference to the impact of intellectual property rights protections on the direction and conduct of ‘open science’ research.

Howard Alper, Professor of Chemistry and Vice-President Research at the University of Ottawa, and winner of the first Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal in Science and Engineering, Canada’s most prestigious award for science and engineering, is also affiliated with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada, because he is also an expert in the situations in developing and emerging countries. From his experiences he presents the best practices for the benefit of a society.

Herbert Gottweis from the Institute of Political Sciences, University of Vienna, Austria, will reconsider the Hwang gate from 2005 and present the lessons learned. Gottweis is vice-president of the Austrian Research Fund (FWF) and coordinator of the PAGANINI (“Participatory Governance and Institutional Innovation“) project of the European Union.

The conference will also touch on the situation in developing and emerging countries, where scientists often have to produce publications in numbers under pressure to achieve the formal scientific qualifications. Thus voices from Africa, like that from Amaboo Dhai, University of the Witwatersrand Medical School, Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics, Parktown, South Africa, will also be heard. In addition, Annette Flanagin of JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and Muza Gondwe, University of Malawi, College of Medicine, Blantyre, will contribute their experiences from the „African Journal Partnership Project“. Flanagin is the author of the JAMA Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors, now in it’s 10th edition.

In other words the World Conference on Research Integrity focuses on an open sore of science, taking into consideration the reality, legal and institutional aspects, as well as regional, social and psychological environments in which scientists work.It intends to be the beginning of the healing process.

For more information on the conference please go to:
http://www.esf.org/conferences/researchintegrity
Live news and photos from the event will be posted on the ESF Media Centre:
http://www.esf.org/media-centre.html

Where Did Salinity Go in Queensland: A Note from Peter Wylie

By

Salinity is a significant land management problem in Western Australia but not in Queensland. In 2000 the extent of dryland salinity in Queensland was reported to be 48,000 hectares and rapidly increasing to a level where 3 million hectares were likely to be affected by 2050. It was widely believed that tree clearing had to be halted to stop the onslaught of salinity.

Since then it has been confirmed that salinity is not such a big problem in Queensland and the secret that tree clearing is not responsible for salinity has been let out of the bag.

A more detailed review of the extent of dryland salinity in the Murray-Darling Basin of southern Queensland now indicates there is a total of 9428 ha of salt affected land. This was reported in 2003 to be a 400% increase on a previous study in 1991, supporting the concept of a rapidly increasing problem.

However, in the fine print of this report we find that the bulk of this salt affected land, almost 7000 hectares, was contained in two areas where natural salinity has been observed since mankind first explored Queensland.

The biggest of these is referred to as the Yelarbon desert, where hard setting saline soils have been degraded by grazing. It is certainly not a pretty area, but has always been salty and the report admits it is ‘primary’ salinity rather than ‘secondary’ salinity, which is induced by farming.

This official estimate now indicates that salinity ‘development’ in the Queensland part of the Murray Darling Basin is confined to 2459 hectares, somewhat less than the prediction that it was likely to affect 628,000 hectares of land in this area. It currently comprises 192 salt expressions, with an average size of 13 hectares, affecting one hectare in 10,000.

Now, I am the first person to admit that salinity deserves attention, but the point I am making here is that the salinity problem in Queensland is not large and it is not escalating.

In fact there has been some good results with salinity control and the area affected has declined in recent years. An example of this is on one of the largest outbreaks to the north of Oakey. The ground water at this site is not too salty to use on pastures, and pumping for irrigation has lowered the water table and produced a good profit at the same time. As the water table has dropped, salt levels in the soil have retreated and gradually the productivity of the salt affected land is being regained.

A lot of emphasis was put on the need to halt tree clearing in Queensland to prevent the development of salinity. Not only has the salinity problem been exaggerated, the commonly accepted theory that salinity is caused by tree clearing, has been scrutinized and found wanting.

One of the most intensely researched areas of salinity is in the Liverpool Plains region of NSW. Careful monitoring, backed up by computer modeling has found the clearing of vegetation on the upper slopes to be a relatively minor contributor to ground water and the salinity problem. Small amounts of drainage over large areas of cultivation and runoff pooling on the valley floor have been found to be the important contributors to salinity.

Tree clearing on the hills of the Darling Downs, has been blamed for salinity. But the soils on these hills are shallow and do not hold a lot of moisture. If there is significant rainfall, it does not make any difference whether the vegetation is trees or grass, the soil cannot hold much water and some escapes to drainage.

Drainage which could cause rising water tables is very limited on clay soils as we go westwards. Research and modeling by rangeland ecologists suggest tree clearing has almost no impact on deep soil drainage on clay soils where the rainfall is less than 500 mm.

This means that in the western areas where most of the tree clearing was being conducted in Queensland, there is almost no impact of tree clearing on salinity.

Salinity hazard maps drawn up for Queensland were a big furphy. Large areas of Queensland were coloured in red, indicating a high salinity hazard. However, the reason for this classification in many areas, was that the soil contained a significant amount of salt in the subsoil. The ‘Catch 22’ here is that the salt has built up at depth in these soils over thousands of years, because they have very little drainage. If there is very little drainage, there is very little risk of salinity.

Where there is a problem, salinity deserves attention. Like many of our land degradation issues there are
ways to change farming practices which not only reduce the problem, but which can increase farm profit at the same time.

However some of the answers to salinity, such as agroforestry, salt tolerant pastures and more productive farming systems are having impacts in other ways. Forests planted in parts of Western Australia have reduced runoff into urban water storages. Last time I was out in the Western Australian wheat belt looking at salinity, the comment was made that if effective strategies for salinity control were widely implemented in the catchment to the west of Perth, it would stop the water flow in the Swan River.

The irony of salinity is that it is a problem caused by an excess of water in a dry country. Attention is now switching from salinity being a major curse, to how we can make use of the surplus water, even if it is salty. In Southern states, salt tolerant grass species are being used to utilize more of the water and restart production on saline areas.

One of the most productive ways to use salty water in the future will be to grow algae in ponds and harvest it for conversion to biodiesel. Algae is the most productive plant we can use to convert sunlight into energy and these plants can tolerate salt in a watery environment.

———————-
First published in the Courier Mail on 25th August and republished here with permission from the author.

Pulp Mill Should Go Ahead Says AEF Chair, Don Burke

By

“The proposed pulp mill at Bell Bay in Tasmania should go ahead if it meets environmental guidelines” said Don Burke, chairman of the Australian Environment Foundation [AEF].

Mr Burke was commenting after discussion at the AEF annual conference in Melbourne on the proposed pulp mill.

“This is best practice pulp production. We believe that it is essential to support best practice industries. Encouraging improvements in environmental behaviour of companies is the best way forward.

To refuse the mill a permit and continue to export wood chips to mills overseas that are not up to the standard of the Bell Bay mill is to show a breathtaking disregard for the environment” said Mr Burke.

“We have looked at Gunn’s operations in Tasmania, we have looked at the data and we have listened to the needs of the Tasmanian people. Based on the available science AEF supports this project as an example of best practice sustainable forestry.

Decisions on the environment must be based on science and evidence – not emotion – if we are to achieve the best possible result for the environment and the people that are part of that” concluded Mr Burke.

The AEF conference was addressed by Gunns Ltd Resource Manager, Calton Frame prior to discussion on the proposed mill.

———————–
The Australian Environment Foundation (AEF) is a not-for-profit, membership-based environment organisation having no political affiliation. The AEF is a different kind of environment group, caring for both Australia & Australians. Many of our members are practical environmentalists – people who actively use and also care for the environment. We accept that environmental protection and sustainable resource use are generally compatible. For more information about the AEF visit www.aefweb.info .