Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Something Rotten in the Daintree

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Ryparosa2.jpg

Step into the rainforests of the Daintree lowlands at the moment and you’re likely to whiff the pervasive scent of the rare Javan Ash (Ryparosa javanica). The abundant flowering emits a sweet, slightly off-smell, like five-day-old socks or raw hamburger mince.

The Javan Ash is found in both Java and Australia. This forms evidence of the mixing of the continental biota of the Australian and Asian plates, which are believed to have collided about fifteen million years ago, in the vicinity of what is now the Timor region.

As a defence against herbivores, these plants emit the poisonous gas Hydrogen Cyanide (HCN), through a process called ‘cyanogenesis’.

HCN is poisonous, not only to animals that the eat plants, but to the plants themselves. To prevent poisoning themselves, the plants limit the production of HCN through the strategic storage of both cyanogenic glycosides and an enzyme in adjacent vacuoles of the cell. When the cell is damaged the compartment walls are breached and the reaction takes place. In this way, HCN is produced only when needed.

Martin Durkin Convinces BBC Not to ‘Save the Planet’

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The BBC has scrapped plans for Planet Relief, a TV special on climate change.

The Planet Relief special was scheduled for broadcast in January 2008 but after Newsnight editor Peter Barron attended the Edinburgh Festival last month there has been “intense internal debates about impartiality with senior news editors expressed misgivings that Planet Relief was too campaigning in nature and would have left the Corporation open to the charge of bias.” [see BBC Switches Off Climate Special]

“It is absolutely not the BBC’s job to save the planet,” warned Newsnight editor Peter Barron at the Edinburgh Festival last month.

According to Martin Durkin, director of The Great Global Warming Swindle,

“The BBC U-turn followed a flaming row at the Edinburgh International TV Festival where I was invited to speak and where I publicly denounced Horrocks (head of current affairs) and other BBC’s executives present in the most colourful terms. The press were there in numbers and ran the story the next day, and now Horrocks et al have abandoned their ghastly Planet Relief campaign. It just shows, it’s worth causing a fuss and being loud. I’m also speaking at the World Congress of Science Producers in New York in November. I’ll try to make as much trouble again.”

Whaling in the North – Part 3 from Ann Novek

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In the beginning of the Northern hemisphere spring , I asked if

1) Iceland would export Fin whales to Japan
2) Norway would fill its whaling quota

Now we know the answers to these questions.

Iceland will not renew its permits for commercial whaling due to lack of an export market to Japan .

And what about Norway?

According to Reuters:

“Norwegian whalers caught just over half their quota of 1,052 minke whales in 2007, a small rise from last year, but hunters and their opponents dispute whether regulations or dwindling demand cut back the catch”

Rune Frövik from the High North Alliance stated that whalers could have killed about 200 more minke whales if the Government haven’t imposed restrictions on whaling. ( Restrictions to whale in coastal areas).

According to Greenpeace Norway, few whales were hunted due to a lack of demand from Norwegians.

“Environmental group Greenpeace, which condemns whaling, said declining demand explained why fewer whales had been caught than the quota set by the Norwegian government allowed.

“Whalers have been stopped by economic interest because there is no market for whale meat in Norway or elsewhere. Even if they could catch more … they chose not to,” said Truls Gulowsen, manager of Greenpeace Norway”

But Rune has said that despite the regulations, 2007 had still proved to be a better season than 2006 for the whalers.

“Prices have increased, more volume has been caught. Weather conditions have been good compared to 2006.”

[from Ann Novek, Sweden]

CO2 Needs to Rise with Temperature for Chinese Food Security

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According to a new paper entitled Climate change and critical thresholds in China’s food security ** if global temperatures continue to rise it would appear imperative that CO2 concentration also continue to rise. Only if CO2 concentrations rise with temperature will China be able to adequately feed its growing population.

Read more here: http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V10/N36/B1.jsp

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** Climate change and critical thresholds in China’s food security by Xiong, W., Lin, E., Ju, H. and Xu, Y. (2007) In Climatic Change 81: 205-221.

Greenwashing River Red Gums

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Ecotourism Australia has thrown its weight behind the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council’s River Red Gum Forest Draft Proposal, claiming that it will open up important new ecotourism opportunities for the region.

However, another NGO, Timber Communities Australia, argues that as many as 400 families, whose livelihoods are dependent on access to these forests, will be adversely affected by the proposals.

Ecotourism Australia’s foray into the debate represents an expression of its mission to contribute to conservation solutions and projects; involving and providing benefits to local communities, but will those 400 families be the targeted beneficiaries?

My dubiousness reflects the pre-existing capacity of genuine ecotourism to access an already existing superb environment. Change of tenure to National Park is not prerequisite. What is does provide though, is subsidisation of the full costs of conservation and commercial operator relief of the requirement to improve the well-being of local people.

Genuine ecotourism is internationally defined as:

Responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people.

Ecotourism Australia is a membership-based organisation that is strongly representative of protected area managers and holders of commercial activity permits. It has adopted a different definition to the international standard:

Ecologically sustainable tourism with a primary focus on experiencing natural areas that fosters environmental and cultural understanding, appreciation and conservation.

The Oslo Statement on Ecotourism was recently produced at the Global Ecotourism Conference held in Norway 2007.

‘Ecotourism’ was recognized as being widely used, but also abused, as it is not sufficiently anchored to the definition. The ecotourism community, therefore, continues to face significant challenges in awareness building and education and actively working against greenwashing within the tourism industry.

Do Carbon ‘Offsets’ Work?

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Thanks to Marc Morano for alerting us to the article in the Los Angeles Times ‘Can you buy a greener conscience?‘

A budding industry sells ‘offsets’ of carbon emissions, investing in environmental projects. But there are doubts about whether it works.

By Alan Zarembo

September 2, 2007

The Oscar-winning film “An Inconvenient Truth” touted itself as the world’s first carbon-neutral documentary.

The producers said that every ounce of carbon emitted during production — from jet travel, electricity for filming and gasoline for cars and trucks — was counterbalanced by reducing emissions somewhere else in the world. It only made sense that a film about the perils of global warming wouldn’t contribute to the problem.

Co-producer Lesley Chilcott used an online calculator to estimate that shooting the film used 41.4 tons of carbon dioxide and paid a middleman, a company called Native Energy, $12 a ton, or $496.80, to broker a deal to cut greenhouse gases elsewhere. The film’s distributors later made a similar payment to neutralize carbon dioxide from the marketing of the movie.

It was a ridiculously good deal with one problem: So far, it has not led to any additional emissions reductions.

Beneath the feel-good simplicity of buying your way to carbon neutrality is a growing concern that the idea is more hype than solution.

According to Native Energy, money from “An Inconvenient Truth,” along with payments from others trying to neutralize their emissions, went to the developers of a methane collector on a Pennsylvanian farm and three wind turbines in an Alaskan village.

As it turned out, both projects had already been designed and financed, and the contributions from Native Energy covered only a minor fraction of their costs. “If you really believe you’re carbon neutral, you’re kidding yourself,” said Gregg Marland, a fossil-fuel pollution expert at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee who has been watching the evolution of the new carbon markets. “You can’t get out of it that easily.”

Read more.