Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Hybrid Cars Not That Energy Efficient

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In his latest book The Weather Makers, Tim Flannery suggests we can all do our bit for the environment including by considering buying a hybrid car.

However, according to CNW Marketing Research Inc. as reported at Auto Spectator, and they spent two years collecting data on the energy necessary to plan, build, sell, drive and dispose of a vehicle from initial concept to scrappage, well, hybrid cars are not that energy efficient:

“To put the data into understandable terms for consumers, it was translated into a “dollars per lifetime mile” figure. That is, the Energy Cost per mile driven.

The most Energy Expensive vehicle sold in the U.S. in calendar year 2005: Maybach at $11.58 per mile. The least expensive: Scion xB at $0.48 cents.

While neither of those figures is surprising, it is interesting that driving a hybrid vehicle costs more in terms of overall energy consumed than comparable non-hybrid vehicles.

For example, the Honda Accord Hybrid has an Energy Cost per Mile of $3.29 while the conventional Honda Accord is $2.18. Put simply, over the “Dust to Dust” lifetime of the Accord Hybrid, it will require about 50 percent more energy than the non-hybrid version.”

And I recently bought a little red manual Ford Fiesta (non-hybrid) as my 17 year old daughter is now learning to drive. She is doing OK, but I keep my eyes closed a bit.

Good News About Gouldian Finches

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Its good news that numbers of the endangered gouldian finch appear to be increasing in northern Australia.

Colleen O’Malley, from the Threatened Species Network, told ABC Online that:

“We’re talking birds in the vicinity of 200 to 400 in a flock, which is a really exciting thing that sort of harks back to the days when there were flocks of thousands of birds.”

And ABC Online were following up on a media release from WWF. WWF runs the threatened species network with public money.

Interestingly the WWF media release doesn’t come with a link to a full report or a chart showing bird numbers, but rather with a link to page where we are told WWF wants your help to find Gouldian finches in the wild and have produced the Gouldian Finch Sightings Kit. The kit does include some information on the ecology of the species in northern Australia.

More Claims & Counter Claims on Climate Change

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I received the following note,

“No one with any vestige of objectivity could read the following and still believe that Anthropogenic Global Warming remains the threat that is being proclaimed. Jennifer, you must comment on this in your blog. It will be most interesting to see how far the AGW faithful will go in the desperate desire to defend their faith. Based on advanced behavioural modeling I predict two forms of response. Some will just abandon any pretense of analysis and reject it entirely on the basis of its derivation from a source of which they disapprove. Others will simply ignore the evidence and cite IPCC scripture as irrefutable scientific proof.

I’m not going to comment – and I didn’t quite get through the three papers. But, anyway, following is the media release from the Washington-based Center for Science and Public Policy (CSPP) and links to the papers.

“The release of these papers comes at an opportune time,” says Robert Ferguson, executive director. “The current issue of TIME offers a series of essays reputedly about climate science, carrying the ominous head line: ‘Be Worried, Be Very Worried’. If viewed through a prism of current science, it should read: ‘Be Skeptical, Be Very Skeptical’. The entire series is ill-informed, biased and unacceptable for serious public policy decisions. It is, in short, nearly hysterical advocacy designed to frighten readers toward supporting far-reaching policy decisions that would be both harmful and useless.”

Concludes Ferguson, “For too long, Scientists who challenge alarming claims are rarely given voice by the media, and are often labeled as “skeptics” and dishonest fronts for “corporate polluters.” TIME has an explicit policy not to print anything contrary to the ‘end-of-the-world’ warming orthodoxy. What is truly ironic is that the purveyors of alarm are the real skeptics who cling to virtual alarm against widely accepted empirical findings.”

The first paper, “Issues in the Current State of Climate Science” is a guide for policy makers and opinion leaders. It explores the constantly shifting scientific literature of climate change, discussing what is and what is not known about such issues as melting polar caps, species migration and extinction, coral reefs, mosquito-borne diseases, extreme weather events, sea level rise, polar bears, great white sharks and butterflies. The paper concludes with a reprint of MIT Professor Richard Lindzen’s recent testimony to the UK House of Lords on the nature of the present climate debate, what is trivial and what is not. (see: http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20060331_issues.pdf)

The second paper, “Wind Farms Provide Negligible Useful Electricity” by Richard Courtney explains why wind farms for power generation can only provide negligible electricity to grid supply systems, make no significant reduction in pollution, cause significant environmental damage, increase the costs of electricity and create risks of power failures.
(see: http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20060331_wind.pdf)

The third paper, “An Assessment of Montreal COP/MOP 1” by Chris Horner explores the looking-glass legal world that is the Kyoto Protocol. It shows with pole-star clarity that Kyoto’s own long and tortured path toward approval manifests that enthusiastic support for its regime is not matched by a desire to codify it. (see: http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20060126_horner.pdf)

Explains Ferguson, “Sadly, alarmists exploit the observation that few laymen understand what global warming is all about. And most people (including scientists) can rarely follow 15 minute discussions of somewhat complex science; the conclusion of the listeners is that the objections are too obscure to challenge their basic prejudice. We trust that these papers will help develop an antidote to that malady.”

The journal Science has also been featuring articles on climate change. Last week I was sent copies of the latest papers. There was some discussion at the blog Real Climate.

When I read Real Climate it seems the modelers go it right, but then when I read the review paper by Richard Kerr (Science Vol 311 pgs. 1698 – 1701) it seems the models don’t accord with the observations?

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The following blog post was not uploaded until 12.30pm on 4th April.

Taz the Technician

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Taz, who also uses the pen name Bugger, has an opinion on most everything. A champion of the anecdotal he can hold his own in discussion on forestry, energy – but I’m not so sure about salinity.

I’d been wondering how Taz spent his time between growing up in Tasmania and retiring in Canberra, so I sent him an email and this was his reply:

“Technical history – Fitter, Machinist, Mechanic, Scientific Instrument Maker, Engineer, Technician, Technical Officer

Before retirement 1996, The Spectrum Management Agency – frequency assigning, licensing policy, major network rollout, implementation of device interference and immunity standards.

Previous; AFP technical support only, mostly in radio communications for routine & covert operations, VIP protection, also supported with our gear some UN and offshore operations.

ANU John Curtin School Medical Research, electronic instrument circuits for the late Professor Peter Gage

Last industrial site as contractor; Cleveland Tin, cassiterite and associated mineral recovery and concentration plant at Luina closed down in 1986. Other Mines were King Island Scheelite, Savage River ion ores, Renison (Bell) Goldfields tin separation and metal concentration.

Other freelance technical support in Tasmania, Education Dept. scientific instruments in high schools and colleges, UMT (Bonlac) reverse osmosis whey protein filtration, cheese making, milk drying, Bakeries, Glaxo opium poppy storage, Tasmanian (Adelaide, Seini) mushroom crops Spreyton, Blue Ribbon smoked small goods Camdale, various vegetable processors.

Simultaneously I sold fire protection door to door in these industries for importers like Firemaster & CIG. In this manner I visited most timber and logging operations.

Melbourne industrial scene; worked all over, natural gas & fuel, oil refineries & petro-chemical plants, ICI research, paper mills, hospitals, breweries, food processors, appliance makers, MMBW water supply & sewage treatment plants, Pilkington’s float glass plant.

Some special fields in industry, Pressure and Temperature measurements, Ph control in acid treatment, flow of slurries, effluents, furnaces and boilers, natural gas & super heated steam, evaporation, freezers, vacuum, chlorination, fluoridation, floatation, continuous cellulose web production, hazardous environments, radio propagation and reception, induction furnaces, nuclear devices, x-rays.

Other long term interests; Australian military aircraft production and aeronautical research at Fishermen’s Bend, Bushfires, Civil Construction, Electricity generation and distribution, Industrial noise & hearing defects, Materials recycling, Hand tools, Soils, Timber, Streams.

Major industrial achievement – my retirement, mostly intact with ten toes and fingers.”

Thanks Taz.

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Auditing of Environmental Policies: Request from Victorian Farmers

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I received the following note from a policy officer at the Victorian Farmers Federation:

“This may be of interest as it relates directly to your work regarding the importance of scientific accountability. It’s an extract from the Victorian Farmers Federation’s 2006-07 Pre-Budget Submission to the Victorian State Government. It can be found at www.vff.org.au.

2.4 Expansion of the Auditor-General’s Office

Environmental policies which are adopted, implemented and funded by government should always be based on credible scientific data. Unfortunately, all too often, government decisions in relation to environmental issues are made on the basis of political imperatives, rather than substantiated scientific evidence.

The Victorian farm community is extremely concerned with this changing trend in government decision making, as we believe it is a nationwide phenomenon which is affecting governments of all political persuasions. While this disquiet was initially founded upon concerns about poor policy development, we are now becoming more worried about the increasing cost of implementing and maintaining questionable environmental policies based on limited scientific justification.

A recent example of this problem in practice is the current situation facing farmers in Victorian in regards to our State’s native vegetation regulations. To date, neither the policies nor the regulations have ever been thoroughly audited by any notable authority. Despite the government’s insistence on enforcing the regulations implementation, the farm community has never been informed of what the true cost of this policy is, and if there has been any genuine attempt to quantify the environmental benefits which are supposedly to have resulted from its implementation.

It is the view of the VFF that environmental policies such as this should be subjected to a cost-benefit analysis which would investigate the true price of maintaining such a policy, with comparisons made to the expected community value attributed to its ongoing enforcement. Unfortunately, while the farm community would warmly welcome such an initiative, no organisation within government is currently equipped or empowered to undertake such a task.

As a result, the VFF would like the State Government to expand the functions, mandate and powers of the Auditor-Generals Office so that it can conduct regular audits of the scientific environmental advice and outcomes provided to and overseen by Government departments, agencies and statutory authorities.

The Auditor-Generals Office currently reports ‘to parliament and the community on the efficient and effective management of public sector resources, and provides assurance on the financial integrity of Victoria’s system of government[1]’. We believe that with adequate funding, support and direction, such an organisation would be ideally suited to conduct this important task.

Recommendation:
That the State Government expand the functions, mandate and powers of the Auditor-General’s Office to include regular audits of:
1. The scientific environmental advice provided to Government by various agencies and statutory authorities, and;
2. The environmental outcomes achieved by Department initiated programs.”

This submission seems rather relevant in the context of the following recent blog posts:
1. Exaggerated salinity predictions and absence of auditing of spending on salinity.
2. Spending on environmental flows to the Macquarie marshes given the levies on private land preventing water getting to the southern and northern nature reserves.

The Whale: A Fish in Japanese Eyes (Part 2)

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Whales&Jap_Komatsu.jpg

Most Australians love whales and abhor the idea of killing these magnificient creatures. In contrast there is a long tradition of killing and eating whales in Japan.

I am an Australian and I am interested in understanding the history and culture of whaling in Japan. I like challenging my beliefs and preconceptions and learning why and how different cultures harvest wildlife.

This is part 2 of ‘The Whale: A Fish in Japanese Eyes’ a series of readings from Whales and the Japanese by Masayki Komatsu and Shigeko Misaki:

“Some 4000 to 5500 years ago, in the earliest days of the Jomon Period, our ancestors were eating whale meat, as re-vealed by archaeological finds from around San Nai Maruyama, in Aomori Prefecture.

Large deposits of whale and dolphin bone have been discovered at these sites. In those days, there was no whaling as we know it today, rather the people made use of small whales that beached themselves, or drifted already dead to shore. Those whales were called yori kujira, or visiting whale, and were thought of as gifts from heaven.

There is considerable debate, depending on which period of our history we analyze, as to whether or not ancient Japanese people simply passively awaited yori kujira or went to sea to actively hunt whales. However, one thing is certain: Japanese have utilized whales and small cetaceans for food throughout our history, just as we have utilized all the sea’s resources such as seaweed, fish and shell-fish. However, even in the Jomon Period, there is evidence of some active whaling.

The remains of a Jomon Period village (from 4000 BC to 300 BC) unearthed in Noto Peninsula, in Ishikawa Prefecture, revealed a considerable deposit of whale and dolphin bone. It was found in such quantities as to indicate a high probability that the people of that region actively hunted whales and dolphins.”

To read Part 1, and the comments that followed, click here.