Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Uncategorized

Birdies Bye Bye: Joint Press Release by Prof David Bellamy and Mark Duchamp

By

We have received the following message from Israel :

“Following a press release last week it seems that several of the leading industrial companies in Israel are going to enter the wind business. These are deeply connected to leading politicians.

Our ministry of environment is quite hopeless. The future seems bleak.”

From Gibraltar, from Sicily, from the US, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, and now from Israel, day by day more bad news come in from the main bird migration flyways of the world. For windfarm developers think nothing of erecting their wind turbines in migration bottlenecks. Wind speed and maximisation of profit is their main concern.

Birds are killed by the large blades, whose tips revolve at speeds exceeding 100 mph while deceiving the victims by an appearance of slowness. In Sweden, one wind turbine is reported to have killed 895 birds in one year – ref : California Energy Commission, A Roadmap for PIER Research on Avian Collisions with Wind Turbines in California, Dec. 2002, quoting Benner et al. (1993).

They also get killed by their powerlines, which are built next to each windfarm to carry puny amounts of this very expensive, intermittent electricity to the grid en route to your homes. According to the report “Protecting Birds from Powerlines”, high tension lines may kill over 500 birds per km per year in migration zones – ref : Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats – Birdlife International (2003). Smaller windfarms may not require high tension lines, but overhead cables are still needed to connect to the distribution network, and they too maim and kill birds that collide in the fog, or at night, or while fleeing some danger.

In short : if someone wanted to set about exterminating the world’s migrating birds, placing windfarms in migration hotspots would be looked upon as best practice.

We are not doing any better in the UK. For instance, the “Bird Sensitivity Map to Provide Locational Guidance for Onshore Wind Farms in Scotland” designates practically the whole of the Western Isles as highly sensitive ; except for two areas, one of them being the site where a windfarm project is seeking approval (Pairc).

Yet the Pairc environmental statement predicts the possible death of 66 -165 golden eagles as a result of collisions with the giant blades. No other project in Scotland declares that it may kill so many eagles ; and the subject of migrating birds is poorly addressed.

The applicant for the Pairc windfarm is Scottish and Southern Energy.

The same map marks the whole of the Shetlands as highly sensitive, except for a few tiny yellow spots – presumably where Scottish & Southern Energy plans to erect more wind turbines. How on earth will migrating birds be able to avoid the giant rotors when adverse winds push them towards one of these “yellow spots” ? or when they fly or make landfall at night ?

Yet a bird society is actually supporting a large windfarm project on Shetland. Don’t they know the island is a crucially important staging post for migrating birds ?

Until these and many other pertinent questions are answered by the ornithological fraternity we ask that all those who cherish Britain’s heritage of migratory and other birds ask their favourite bird society why windfarms are allowed in migration corridors, e.g. in the Hebrides or in the Shetlands ? Also ask your electricity suppliers how much of the electricity supplied to your homes comes from wind. Details from BWEA’s web site indicate that windfarms only supply 1.5% of Britain’s electricity. Then ask yourselves if the slaughter of our birds is really necessary, and join the thousands who are already campaigning against the erection of these levitra wind monsters across Britain.

Co-signed on March 26th 2008 by :

Professor David Bellamy,
and Mark Duchamp.

Articles on Australia’s Carbon Canutism

By

THE Rudd Government is prepared to stare down a demand to compensate power producers for the effects of the carbon trading scheme foreshadowed in its review of climate change policy.

Power producers say that without structural assistance the value of their assets will fall sharply and investors will be reluctant to commit to new plants, causing power shortages.

The Australian, ‘No to carbon payout claims’

SINCE May 2002, when interest rates again started to rise, home loans in Australia have grown to about a trillion dollars today. Business borrowing has now passed $700 billion.

Were interest rates 3 per cent lower today, as they were in 2002, the national annual interest bill would be about $50 billion less. And although there may now be signs of changing buyer behaviours, such sustained lifts in interest costs have had little observable impact upon the appetites of households and businesses for debt, so far.

In the same period, petrol costs have increased by about 10 cents a litre per year. Were petrol prices the same today as in 2002, the national fuel bill would be $25 billion lower each year. Yet we are buying more cars, travelling further and using more petrol than ever before even as petrol prices continue to lift.

The Australian, ‘Helping neighbours is key to cuts’

STRIKING greenhouse gas reduction deals with big developing countries, particularly our trading partners, might be a better method of dealing with climate change than pursuing a plan focused on imposing increasing costs on domestic energy users.

Writing in the opinion page of The Australian today, leading corporate figure Ziggy Switkowski questions whether relying solely on a gradual build-up of energy costs is the most effective strategy for achieving reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Dr Switkowski’s entry into the debate comes as the Rudd Government formulates Canberra’s response to climate change, with its adviser Ross Garnaut arguing that the planned carbon-trading scheme should not compensate coal-fired power stations.

The Australian, Greenhouse deals ‘beat carbon trading’

Reminder: New Paper from the Virtual World: Stabilizing Climate Requires Near-Zero Emissions

Biodiesel from Trees in Queensland

By

Farmers in North Queensland are doing their bit to be environmentally friendly by investing in a tree that produces diesel.

Mike Jubow, a former cane farmer and now a nursery wholesaler, says diesel-producing trees are a long-term investment.

“If I’m lucky enough to live that long enough – I’m 64 now – it is going to take about 15 to 20 years before they are big enough to harvest the oil so that I can use them in a vehicle,” he said.

Read the entire ABC News article, ‘Qld farmers invest in diesel-producing trees’

There’s also a similar article in The Syndney Morning Herald, ‘Farmer planning diesel tree biofuel’

Ice Shelf Collapses with Crikey’s Credibility

By

There is an Australian e-journal that is popular with many government-types called crikey.com.au. Today the lead story began,

“A chunk of ice seven times the size of Manhattan (as big as the Isle of Man if you prefer a more Anglo-centric news source) is hanging by a thread to the main, still-frozen body of the western Antarctic. Satellite images are showing the rapid disintegration of a 41km x 2.5km ice chunk, a part of the Wilkins Ice Shelf that has been there for hundreds, maybe 1,500 years. It is happening, the scientific consensus seems to be, because the seas are getting warmer. It’s that greenhouse thing.

So, what to do? Blame China? No, we need to take individual responsibility. Wait on the Garnaut report? No, too little too late. We must act now … of course! Let’s turn some lights off on Saturday. For an hour. That’ll fix it. Meanwhile, click on the image below to watch a video of what Earth Hour is up against.” [end of quote]

Anyway, that’s about as clever as it gets even from the so-called alternative media and the story is much the same in The Australian.

Then of course there are the blogs, including some which actually provide data and background information to put the collapse of the icesheet in some context:

“In reality it and all the former shelves that collapsed are small and most near the Antarctic peninsula which sticks well out from Antarctica into the currents and winds of the South Atlantic and lies in a tectonically active region with surface and subsurface active volcanic activity. The vast continent has actually cooled since 1979…

“The full Wilkins 6,000 square mile ice shelf is just 0.39% of the current ice sheet (just 0.1% of the extent last September). Only a small portion of it between 1/10th-1/20th of Wilkins has separated so far, like an icicle falling off a snow and ice covered house. And this winter is coming on quickly. In fact the ice is returning so fast, it is running an amazing 60% ahead (4.0 vs 2.5 million square km extent) of last year when it set a new record. The ice extent is already approaching the second highest level for extent since the measurements began by satellite in 1979 and just a few days into the Southern Hemisphere winter and 6 months ahead of the peak. Wilkins like all the others that temporarily broke up will refreeze soon. We are very likely going to exceed last year’s record. Yet the world is left with the false impression Antarctica’s ice sheet is also starting to disappear.”

Read the complete blog post and check out meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo graphs at http://icecap.us/index.php/go/political-climate.

Then there is more information from Anthony Watt’s:

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/01/22/surprise-theres-an-active-volcano-under-antarctic-ice/

Map of volcanoes in Antarctica
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/antarcticvolcanoes2.jpg

This image is from NASA, and shows areas with greatest warming in Antarctica are near the peninsula and pacific ring of fire groups of volcanoes:
http://veimages.gsfc.nasa.gov//17529/antarctic_temps.AVH1982-2004.jpg

here is the original article
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17257

But now look at what Wikipedia has done to it:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Antarctic_temps.AVH1982-2004.jpg

They say ” they image is misleading…visit the discussion page”…okey dokey, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image_talk:Antarctic_temps.AVH1982-2004.jpg
and on that page they say “use alternative image” (GISS maps) instead which is this:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2007&month_last=09&sat=4&sst=1&type=trends&mean_gen=1212&year1=1951&year2=2004&base1=1951&base2=2006&radius=1200&pol=pol

And it STILL shows a big red area over the ataractic peninsula where volcanism is the strongest.
[end of quote from Anthony].

Thank goodness for the internet.

The IPCC: On The Run At Last by Bob Carter

By

UN climate body in panic mode as satellite temperatures turn down and a hard winter lashes both hemispheres

A soprano thrillingly hits her top-A, sighs with relief at achieving the desired effect, and moves on. But not the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) whose climate alarmism started to crescendo in 2001 in the Third Assessment Report (3AR) with the statement that “most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely (>66% probable) to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations”.

Recently, in their Fourth Assessment Report (4AR), and faced with their failure to convince the public that the sky is falling, the IPCC delivers even more preposterous advice in ever shriller tones, saying that “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely (>90% probable) due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations”. The wobble around top-A is clearly discernible.

The press, most of whom have firmly identified with the alarmist cause, continues to appease the Green gods by faithfully running IPCC’s now unrealistic scientific propaganda, thereby stoking public alarm; the science is a done deal, they say, and the time has come to stop talking. According to UK journalist, Geoffrey Lean, all that is lacking to solve the global warming “crisis” is political will from governments.

Well, thank the Lord for that lack. For the IPCC’s 2007 final Summary for Policymakers shows that the climate alarmists are at last on the run. Their evidence for dangerous, human-caused global warming, always slim, now lies exposed in tatters for all to see.

In contrast, the alternative, persuasive and non-alarmist view of climate change is well summarized in two recently issued and readily available documents. The first is a letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations, which was released at the UN’s Bali conference last December, supported by the signatures of 103 eminent professional persons. The second is the Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change, the release of which coincided with the launch of the International Climate Science Coalition at a major climate rationalist conference in New York in early March.

The evidence for dangerous global warming adduced by the IPCC has never been strong on empirical science. Endless circumstantial scare campaigns have been run about melting glaciers, more droughts and storms and floods, sea-level rise and polar bears, but all founder on one inescapable problem – as does Mr. Al Gore’s over-hyped science fiction film. And that is that we live on a naturally variable planet. Change is what planet Earth does on all scales, and so far not one of the alleged effects of human-caused global warming has been shown to lie outside normal planetary variation. Sea-level rising? Sure, it happens. And the appropriate response is adaptation, as the Dutch have known for centuries.

Stuck with the absence of empirical evidence for dangerous warming or abnormal change, in 2001 the IPCC turned to graphmanship, giving prominence in its 3AR to the so-called “hockey-stick” record of temperature over the last 1000 years. The hockey-stick graphic, which appeared to show dramatic increases of temperature during the 20th century compared with earlier times, has now been exposed as statistical chicanery and, thankfully, is nowhere to be seen in the 4AR.

No hockey-stick and no empirical evidence, what is a man to do? Well, obviously, turn to virtual reality rather than real reality: PlayStation 4 here we come.

The IPCC’s expensive and complex computer models can be programmed to produce any desired result, and it is therefore not surprising that they uniformly predict warming since 1990. Meanwhile, the real-world global average temperature has stubbornly refused to obey this stricture. It exhibits no significant increase since 1998, and the preliminary 2007 year-end temperature confirms the continuation of a temperature plateau since 1998 to which is now appended a cooling trend over the last 3 years.

Is global cooling next?

“Best fit” of yearly average temperature

Lower atmosphere global temperature differences (0C) from 1979 – 1998 average

untitled.bmp

“Global warming theory indicates that temperature rise due to increasing carbon dioxide emissions should be most prominent at heights of 5-10 km in the lower atmosphere; instead, more warming is occurring at the surface. For the lower atmosphere, the satellite data indicate that, since the 1998 El Nino when temperatures spiked 10C due to a rise in water vapour emissions (the principal “greenhouse gas”), global temperatures dropped sharply, then stabilized and now show signs of continuing down – is global cooling next? (data courtesy of Professors John Christy and Roy Spencer, University of Alabama , Huntsville ; a best-fitted spline curve represents longer term temperature trends).”

Read the entire Canada Free Press article here.

Dr. Bob Carter is a Research Professor at James Cook University, Queensland, Australia, who studies ancient environments and climate, and whose website is at http://members.iinet.net.au/~glrmc/new_page_1.htm

Whaling in the North Part II 2008 and Listen to a Humpback

By

1) The Icelandic Minke Whaler’s Association states on its website “A conceivable agreement within the IWC?”

A rough translation:

“There has been an intersessional IWC meeting in London in March. According to the Icelandic IWC Commissioner, Stefan Asmundsson, there are no proposals that the IWC will start to regulate commercial whaling, even if such hints/ rumours have circulated in the Icelandic media.

However, there is a will within the IWC for a change, as it is obvious that the current system doesn’t work in a satisfactory way.

The IWC was funded to manage whale hunting, through the Committee. There have been disagreements in the Scientific Committee, for example on humpback whaling, that has been banned since the 60’s.

The SC has however been united in many issues , for example re the minke whale stock around Iceland. The stock is robust and can be managed for whale hunting. The question is how large should the quota be.

The IWC must reach a compromise. It must start working in accordance with the original Convention it was based on. Otherwise the whaling nations must withdraw from the IWC and depend on its own scientists.

Listen to a humpback whale

2) The Norwegians are currently in the Southern Oceans conducting research on krill on the survey
ship “ the G.O Sars”. The Norwegians are one of the big actors in this field, with factory ships in the Southern Oceans.

To study the krill, platforms, sonar, hydrofons were launched. One of these platforms were visited by a curious humpback whale.

The humpbacks were very curious and approached the survey ship. It seemed according to the crew that
The Southern Hemisphere humpbacks did dare to come closer to the vessel than humpbacks in northern seas.

The SH humpbacks are as well bigger than the NH ones, and can reach 18 meter.

Listen to the humpback through the hydrofon ( scroll down to “ LYDKLIPP : KLICK FOR Å HORE! “ and click on the text! Amazing sounds that Libby might interpret?

Humpbacks dominate

3) As has been mentioned above, the survey or research ship , G.O Sars, is currently in the Southern Oceans, between Cape Town and the Antarctica.

They have observed lots of humpback whales, about 103 animals. The pods are about 2-4 whales, usually adults together with calves. The humpbacks are usually observed near the ice, where they consume krill. They can easily eat 500 kg in a short while / “ in a gulp”. Krill is the primary food during the summer season.

The humpbacks are also very curious about the research ship. The ship has observed sperm whales, minkes, humpbacks and Fins, according to the ships diary, states Norwegian fisheries paper, Fiskeribladet.

Cheers,
Ann Novek
Sweden