Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Virtual Science for Australian Drought Policy Review

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Australia could experience drought twice as often and the events will be twice as severe within 20 to 30 years, according to a new Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO report.

Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Tony Burke yesterday released the report commissioned by the Rudd Government as part of a review of national drought policy.

According to the media release:

“The overall review, announced in April, will help prepare farmers, rural communities and Australia’s primary industries for the challenges of climate change.

The Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO climatic report on future drought events – the first of its kind in Australia – will be considered as part of the drought policy review.

Key findings of the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO report include:

Under a high scenario, droughts could occur twice as often, cover twice the area and be more severe in key agricultural production areas;

The current definition of ‘Exceptional Circumstances’, which defines areas eligible to apply for Federal Government drought assistance, is out-of-date;

Temperatures currently defined as ‘exceptional’ are likely to occur, on average, once in every two years in many key agricultural production areas within the next 20 to 30 years;

We need better ways of getting information about climate change preparedness to farmers.”

So it seems the government is reverting to scenario-modelling to determine its drought policy and will focus on a worst case scenario by way of a high emissions scenario.

There is really nothing new in this approach, indeed in November 2004 then NSW Premier Bob Carr released a report by CSIRO entitled ‘Climate Change in New South Wales’ alerting us to the possiblity of more frequent droughts. Given this report was also based on scenario-modelling I suggested at the time in my The Land column that the CSIRO could have spiced the report up even more by scenario-modelling a war and a volcanic eruption into it.

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The Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO report ‘An assessment of the impact of climate change on the nature and frequency of exceptional climatic events’ is available at www.daff.gov.au/droughtpolicyreview.

Australians Deluded by Latest Climate Change Report

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Since the election of the Rudd Labor government last year Australians seem to be under some sort of delusion that what we do here in Australia will actually have an impact on global climate. These delusions seem to have increased with the release of the Garnaut Climate Change Review Draft Report last Friday.

The front page of the weekend edition of the Sydney Morning Herald suggests that unless we immediately start work on a carbon trading scheme to operate from 2010 – and accept that the price of petrol, gas, power and food will rise – then it will be the end of agriculture in the Murray-Darling Basin by 2100, 5.5 million people will be exposed to dengue virus, it will be the end of the Great Barrier Reef and the beginning of political instability in neighbouring countries.

This is simply not true.

Indeed even Ross Garnaut acknowledges in his report that for there to be any impact on global carbon dioxide levels, the world’s major economies must do something about their emissions. The Professor lists China, the US, the European Union, Indonesia, Brazil, Russia then India, as the world’s largest greenhouse emitters and in that order.

Emissions from Australia make up only about 1 percent of the world total. In reality, we are a nation of just 21 million people at the bottom of the world. There are 1.3 billion people in China (India 1.1 billion, US 304 million and Indonesia 231 million) and given China and most other developing countries have no intension of limiting their greenhouse gas emissions in the short to medium term atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases are likely to continue to increase.

And I am not conceding that the apparently elevated levels of carbon dioxide are driving global temperatures.

Indeed atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have increased significantly over the last few decades and global temperatures did increase over the period 1975 to 1998, but since then they appear to have plateaued.

The prediction was that 2007 would be really hot, but it wasn’t.

There has been a breakdown in the correlation between increasingly levels of carbon dioxide and global temperatures.

Instead of acknowledging this in his report Professor Garnaut has deferred to two fellows at the Australian National University who he describes as “eminent econometricians” and quotes them apparently concluding that “viewed from the perspective of 30 or 50 years ago, the temperature recorded in most of the last decade lie above the confidence band produced by any model that does not allow for a warming trend” (pg. 113).

Why doesn’t the Professor just acknowledge that over the last 10 years, viewed from now, there has been no global warming and that now is not the time to introduce a radical new emission trading scheme that is sure to force up the price of everything, particularly given that our big neighbours, including Indonesia with a population of 231 million, have no plans to do the same.

The bottom line is that the introduction of an emissions trading scheme into Australia is likely to deliver real economic hardship while delivering no environmental benefit. Indeed it is absurd to suggest that the introduction of an emissions trading scheme in Australia will have any impact on the environment of the Murray Darling Basin or the Great Barrier Reef.

Australians are indeed deluding themselves if they think that by simply paying more for their petrol, they can influence global temperature trends, never mind that there has been no warming for 10 years now.

Reluctant Recognition of Rainforest Heritage

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On the 11th July 1987, Australians voted the ALP and Bob Hawke into federal government. Labor’s campaign promise, to stop logging within Queensland’s Wet Tropical rainforests via World Heritage nomination, was well supported and true to its word, inscription was ratified a mere sixteen months later.

World Heritage listing for the area’s Cultural Heritage was not sought in Australia’s nomination. The listing of the Wet Tropics was for natural heritage only. The tenor of the nomination rather celebrated the extraordinary natural values as if they had been found, like a hidden treasure, for the remarkable good fortune of humankind. Their urgent protection, through the highest order of protection available to Australia, was justified by their discovery.

But for the people whose lives and livelihoods were a part of the nominated landscape, there was also dishonour and disenfranchisement. Under the nobility of World Heritage, domestic maneuverings usurped economic benefits and amenity towards emerging interests with lesser familiarity.

The indigenous peoples of the Wet Tropics, in particular, were offered tokenistic recognition of traditional ownership, but were structurally excluded from management authority. The fact that the very values identified for World Heritage listing remained a living testament to indigenous land management practices, was not only overlooked by Australia, it was also severed from continuity.

After more than twenty years of effort to convince Australia to re-nominate the Wet Tropics for Cultural Heritage values, indigenous interests have recently won the support of federal environment minister, the Hon. Peter Garrett MP, for inclusion on the National Heritage List; whilst not quite World Heritage, it is a step in that very direction.

Taken from the Wet Tropics Management Authority website: story places (natural features such as mountains, rivers, waterfalls, swimming holes, trees) are parts of the Wet Tropics landscape that are important to Rainforest Aboriginal people as they symbolise features that were created during the ancestral creation period (sometimes called the “Dreaming” or the “Dreamtime”). These places have powerful meaning and properties. They may be considered dangerous to approach or take resources from, except in prescribed ways or by the right person. These places must be respected, not damaged and must be managed carefully by the expert guidance of the relevant Traditional Owners.

Me and My ‘Shadow’

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Following the very sad and sudden death of our 12 year old Border Collie, we only managed two weeks without ‘man’s best friend’ before heading off to the Border Collie Trust kennels to look at homeless Collies/Collie crosses. So, on Sunday 29th June we completed all the paperwork and came home with very docile/nervous 18 month old Border Collie/Saluki cross who had been rescued from Ireland. A working dog crossed with a sighthound is known as a Lurcher.

We’ve renamed him ‘Shadow’ because he follows us around to the point where we are in danger of tripping over him! He’s never been trained and seems to have been abused in the past, so there is much work for us to do, but he is settling in well with us.

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Atmospheric CO2 Not So Scary – Wheel Out Ocean ‘Acidification’

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There are two articles of interest from a climate point of view in this week’s Science magazine. The first is entitled: ‘Large and Rapid Melt-Induced Velocity Changes in the Ablation Zone of the Greenland Ice Sheet’ by R. S. W. van de Wal et al.

The Abstract states:

Continuous Global Positioning System observations reveal rapid and large ice velocity fluctuations in the western ablation zone of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Within days, ice velocity reacts to increased meltwater production and increases by a factor of 4. Such a response is much stronger and much faster than previously reported. Over a longer period of 17 years, annual ice velocities have decreased slightly, which suggests that the englacial hydraulic system adjusts constantly to the variable meltwater input, which results in a more or less constant ice flux over the years. The positive-feedback mechanism between melt rate and ice velocity appears to be a seasonal process that may have only a limited effect on the response of the ice sheet to climate warming over the next decades.

The report concludes:

Longer observational records with high temporal resolution in other ablation areas of the ice sheet are necessary to test the importance of the positive-feedback mechanism between melt rates and ice velocities. At present, we cannot conclude that this feedback is important. We do see a significant increase of the ablation rate (Fig. 2), which is likely related to climate warming, but it remains to be seen if this is likely to be amplified by increasing annual ice velocities.

Moving on to Perspectives, Oceans: Carbon Emissions and Acidification by Richard E. Zeebe et al:

Much of the scientific and public focus on anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions has been on climate impacts. Emission targets have been suggested based primarily on arguments for preventing climate from shifting significantly from its preindustrial state. However, recent studies underline a second major impact of carbon emissions: ocean acidification. Over the past 200 years, the oceans have taken up ~40% of the anthropogenic CO2 emissions. This uptake slows the rise in atmospheric CO2 considerably, thus alleviating climate change caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. But it also alters ocean chemistry, with potentially serious consequences for marine life.

The authors conclude:

To monitor and quantify future changes in ocean chemistry and biogeochemical fluxes, intensified global-ocean carbon dioxide surveys in combination with carbon-cycle modeling will be necessary. Awareness must be raised among the public and policy-makers of the effects of ocean acidification and the steps required to control it. Ocean chemistry changes, and not only climate effects, should be taken into consideration when determining CO2 emission targets; such consideration is likely to weigh in favor of lower emission targets.

Meanwhile, join the red dots between the dates of James Hansen’s testimony to Congress in June 1988 and June 2008 – see if you can spot a tipping point:

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Figure lifted from Climate Audit.