Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Uncategorized

Whaling in the North Part 1, 2008 – A Note from Ann Novek

By

Norwegian fisheries paper, Fiskeribladet, stated on March 13th, with the headline “ Scaling down whale purchase,” that Norway’s largest whale meat processing factory, Ellingsens, will scale down its purchase of whale meat.

The owner, Ulf Ellingsen stated, “Maybe we will buy whale meat, maybe not, but anyway it will be much less than previous years.”

Ellingsens factory runs mainly selling salmon. According to the paper, they are concerned that the whale hunt will finally die out, with fewer actors in every field.

“Whaling is in a downward spiral,” said the owner.

BBC stated on March 13th “Iceland whaling go-ahead likely.”

The Icelandic Minke Whalers Head said to BBC that the whaling industry is asking for a quota of about 100 minkes and some Fin whales.

Excerpt from BBC:

Stefan Asmundsson, a senior official in Iceland’s fisheries ministry and its commissioner to the International Whaling Commission (IWC), confirmed that the hunt was likely to go ahead.

“We are not expecting any big quotas, but we are likely to see in the relatively near future some quotas for minke whales.”

The Fisheries Minister is likely to make the final announcement within a month.

Cheers,
Ann Novek
Sweden

Carbon Rationing or Freedom

By

Australia has now ratified the Kyoto Protocol and when George Bush’s Presidency expires the United States is also likely to join up. Indeed all counties in the developed world will probably soon become parts of a carbon emissions trading scheme. But the gap between what is agreed and what is achieved in terms of reducing emissions is likely to be significant.

Speaking at the ‘2008 International Climate Change Conference’ in New York last week, the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, described the “robust relationship between carbon dioxide emissions and economic growth”. He went on to suggest there are three types of countries in Europe based on their emissions profile and level of economic growth. He talks about his speech in an article in The Australian (March 12, 2008).

He described the less developed countries of the European Union (EU), including Greece, as trying to catch-up economically and in the process, since the signing of Kyoto, increasing their level of carbon emissions by 53 per cent. The post communist countries are seeing their heavy industry disappear and are experiencing a decline in GDP and a drop in emissions of on average 33 per cent. Highly established countries like France and Germany have seen their emissions increase by about 4 per cent since Kyoto was signed.

President Klaus said “the dream” to reduce emissions in the EU by 70 per cent in the next 30 years could only be achieved if there was a dramatic de-industrialisation of Europe – likely associated with a dramatic drop in GDP, a significant drop in population, or a technological revolution.

Klaus questioned the extent to which carbon dioxide, as opposed to natural variability, has driven global warming over the last 100 years. He sees the imposition of carbon rationing through emissions trading as reminiscent of communist era European politics where radical economic change was imposed from above.

These sorts of views are often labelled as climate change scepticism – but it is more climate change realism.

Of course there are those who argue that given the imminent catastrophe of global warming we all need to make some sacrifices and if this requires some draconian top down social engineering, so be it.

Also at the conference in New York was Roy Spencer who leads a team analysing temperature and cloud data from NASA’s Aqua satellite which was launched in 2002. This satellite has, for the first time, enabled the collection of detailed data on cloud formation and evolution, and temperature anomalies in the tropics.

Much of the scientific uncertainty about the size of manmade global warming is related to how the climate system responds to some warming. The climate models suggest a strong positive feedback: that the warming effects of additional carbon dioxide will be amplified by increasing water vapour. But data from NASA’s Aqua Satellite indicates just the opposite – that warming has the effect of slightly reducing the total greenhouse effect by adjusting water vapour and cloud amounts, to keep it in proportion to the amount of available sunlight.

These findings published late last year are still being digested by the meteorological community: if correct it will mean that all current climate models used by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC) will require an overhaul.

Dr Spencer’s work supports President Klaus’ hunch that climate systems are more robust than the models suggest and that natural climate variability has been neglected in much of the research and discussion to date. The policy implications are considerable if, as Dr Spencer‘s work seems to indicate, the overhauled climate models eventually show greatly reduced future warming projections.

The conference in New York was attended by 500 so-called climate change sceptics, including meteorologists, geologists, astrophysicists, social anthropologists (studying group dynamics in the climate change community), polar bear specialists and of course lobbyists.

There was diversity of opinion among delegates at the conference as to the causes of global warming in the last 100 years, and also little consensus regarding the future of fossil fuels.

Benny Peiser from Liverpool University in the UK, acknowledged that governments worldwide had no real solutions to rising emission levels but that solutions would come through geo-engineering and the development of solar energy.

In contrast, Michael Economides from the University of Houston in the US suggested this was a pie in the sky fantasy. Professor Economides said the world was likely to continue to source most of its energy from fossil fuels for the foreseeable future.

Perhaps it all depends on the extent to which governments in developed countries, including Australia, are prepared to risk a fall in their GDP by insisting on a real reduction in carbon emissions before new low emissions technologies are in place.

Such social engineering, President Klaus warned, would be disastrous.

Instead, we perhaps have to restart the discussion about the very nature of government and about the relationship between the individual and society. Should governments let climate alarmists impose policies designed to limit an individual’s access to energy?

We do need to relearn the lessons from the collapse of communism nearly 20 years ago. It is not just about climatology; it is also about freedom.

————————
This article has been republished from On Line Opinion: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7124&page=0

I was a delegate at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, March 2-4, 2008, New York City.
You can read some of my blog posts on the conference at the following links:

February 25, 2008
The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change: I’m off to New York
https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/002787.html

March 03, 2008
Climate Change Conference, New York – Day 1, In Review
https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/002809.html

March 04, 2008
Climate Change Conference, New York – Day 2, In Review
https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/002813.html

March 06, 2008
Climate Change Conference, New York – Day 3, In Review
https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/002820.html

The Sacrificial Temptation of Global Warming

By

French physicist Dr. Serge Galam, director of research at the National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS) and member of a laboratory of Ecole Polytechnique, has published a new paper entitled: ‘Global Warming: the Sacrificial Temptation’

Abstract:

The claimed unanimity of the scientific community about the human culpability for global warming is questioned. Up today there exists no scientific proof of human culpability. It is not the number of authors of a paper, which validates its scientific content. The use of probability to assert the degree of certainty with respect the global warming problem is shown to be misleading. The debate about global warming has taken on emotional tones driven by passion and irrationality while it should be a scientific debate. The degree of hostility used to mull any dissonance voice demonstrates that the current debate has acquired a quasi-religious nature. Scientists are behaving as priests in their will “to save the planet”. We are facing a dangerous social phenomenon, which must be addressed from the social point of view. The current unanimity of citizens, scientists, journalists, intellectuals and politicians is intrinsically worrying. The calls to sacrifice our way of life to calm down the upset nature is an emotional ancestral reminiscence of archaic fears, which should be analyzed as such.

Conclusion:

To sum up above analysis of the social and human aspects of global warming, most caution should be taken to prevent opportunistic politicians, more and more numerous, to subscribe to the proposed temptation of a sacrifice frame in order to reinforce their power by canalizing these archaic fears that are reemerging. Let us keep in mind that in a paroxysm crisis of fear, opinions can be activated very quickly among millions of mobilized citizens, ready to act in the same direction, against the same enemy: it then enough to designate it. Such kind of phenomena should be studied within the new emerging field of sociophysics, in particular the dynamics of minority opinion spreading and the rumor propagation [6, 7, 8].

Nir Shaviv on “More Slurs from RealClimate.org”

By

Realclimate.org continues with its same line of attack. Wishfulclimate.org writers try again and again to concoct what appears to be deep critiques against skeptic arguments, but end up doing a very shallow job. All in the name of saving the world. How gallant of them.

A recap. According to realclimate.org, everything my “skeptic” friends and I say about the effect of cosmic rays and climate is wrong. In particular, all the evidence summarized in the box below is, well, a figment in the wild imagination of my colleagues and I. The truth is that the many arguments trying to discredit this evidence simply don’t hold water. The main motivation of these attacks is simply to oppose the theory which would remove the gist out of the arguments of the greenhouse gas global warming protagonists. Since there is no evidence which proves that 20th century warming is human in origin, the only logically possible way to convict humanity is to prove that there is no alternative explanation to the warming (e.g., see here). My motivation (as is the motivation of my serious colleagues) is simply to do the science as good as I can.

A brief summary of the evidence for a cosmic ray climate link:

Svensmark (1998) finds that there is a clear correlation between cosmic rays and cloud cover. Since the time he first discovered it, the correlation continued as it should (Svensmark, 2007). Here is all the other evidence which demonstrates that the observed solar/cloud cover correlation is based upon a real physical link.

1) Empirical Solar / CRF / Cloud Cover correlation: In principle, correlations between CRF variations and climate does not necessarily prove causality. However, the correlations include telltale signatures of the CRF-climate link, thus pointing to a causal link. In particular, the cloud cover variations exhibit the same 22-year asymmetry that the CRF has, but no other solar activity proxy (Fichtner et al., 2006 and refs. therein). Second, the cloud cover variations have the same latitudinal dependence as the CRF variations (Usoskin et al. 2004). Third, daily variations in the CRF, and which are mostly independent of the large scale activity in the sun appear to correlated with cloud variations as well (Harrison and Stephenson, 2006).

2) CRF variations unrelated to solar activity: In addition to solar induced modulations, the CRF also has solar-independent sources of variability. In particular, Shaviv (2002, 2003a) has shown that long term CRF variations arising from passages through the galactic spiral arms correlate with the almost periodic appearance of ice-age epochs on Earth. On longer time scales, the star formation rate in the Milky Way appears to correlate with glacial activity on Earth (Shaviv, 2003a), while on shorter time scale, there is some correlation between Earth magnetic field variations (which too modulate the CRF) and climate variability (Christl et al. 2004).

3) Experimental Results: Different experimental results (Harrison and Aplin, 2001, Eichkorn et al., 2003, Svensmark et al. 2007) demonstrate that the increase of atmospheric charge increases the formation of small condensation nuclei, thus indicating that atmospheric charge can play an important role (and bottleneck) in the formation of new cloud condensation nuclei.

4) Additional Evidence: Two additional results reveal consistency with the link. Yu (2002), carried out a theoretical analysis and demonstrated that the largest effect is expected on the low altitude clouds (as is observed). Shaviv (2005) empirically derived Earth’s climate sensitivity through comparison between the radiative forcing and the actual temperature variations. It was found that if the CRF/cloud cover forcing is included, the half dozen different time scales which otherwise give inconsistent climate sensitivities, suddenly all align with the same relatively low climate sensitivity, of 0.35±0.09°K/(W/m2).

A brief summary of why the attacks on the CRF/climate link are toothless:

1. The CRF / cloud cover link breaks down after 1994 (e.g., Farrar 2000). This supposed discrepancy arises because of a cross-satellite calibration problem in 1994. The problem is evident when considering for example the high altitude cloud data, which exhibits a jump larger than the variability before or after 1994. When the calibration problem is rectified, the significant CRF / cloud correlation continues unhindered (Marsh & Svensmark, 2003).

2. Large variations Earth’s magnetic field (for example, the Laschamp event and alike) should manifest themselves as climate variations. Their absence contradicts the CRF/cloud-cover link (e.g., Wagner et al. 2001). In principle, terrestrial magnetic field variations should indeed give rise to a temperature change, however, when the effect is quantified, the expected global temperature variations are found to be only of order 1°C (Shaviv 2005). This should be compared with the typically 5°C observed over the relevant time scales, of 104-105 yr. In other words, it is not trivial to find the CRF/climate signatures as is often presumed, but signatures do exist (e.g., Christl et al. 2004).

3. The Cloud cover data over the US (Udelhofen & Cess, 2001) or the cloud data following the Chernobyl accident (Sloan & Wolfendale 2007) does not exhibit variations expected from the CRF/cloud-cover link. These expectations rest on the assumption that the CRF climate link should operate relatively uniformly over the globe. However, the lower troposphere over land is filled with naturally occurring CCNs, such as dust particles. Thus, one would expect the link to operate primarily in the clean marine environments.

4. The secular solar activity is now decreasing, but the temperature is increasing. Hence, solar activity cannot be responsible for the recent temperature increase (Lockwood 2007). Indeed, the last solar cycle was weaker, and the associated CRF decrease was smaller. However, this argument assumes that there must be an instantaneous relation between solar activity and climate. In reality, the large heat capacity of the oceans acts as a “low pass filter” which releases previously absorbed heat. Moreover, heat absorbed over longer durations penetrates deeper into the oceans and thus requires longer durations to leave the system. This implies that some of the temperature increase is due to a previous “commitment”. In any case, some of the warming over the 20th century is certainly human. So having some human contribution does not invalidate a large solar forcing.

5. The work of Shaviv & Veizer (2003) was proven wrong. The work of Shaviv & Veizer attracted two published criticisms (Royer et al. 2004 and Rahmstorf et al. 2004). The first was a real scientific critic, where it was argued that the 18O/16O based temperature reconstructions (of Veizer et al. 2000) has an unaccounted systematic error, due to ocean pH, and hence the atmospheric pCO2 level. Shaviv (2005) considered this effect and showed that instead of an upper limit to the effect of CO2 doubling, of 1°C, Earth’s sensitivity increases to 1-1.5°C, but the basic conclusion that CRF appears to be the dominant climate driver remains valid (as later independently confirmed by Wallman 2004). Rahmstorf et al. 2004 published a comment stating that almost all Veizer and I did was wrong. We showed in our response why every comment is irrelevant or invalid. In their response to the rebuttal, Rahmstorf et al. did not address any of our rebuttal comments (I presume because they could not). Instead, they used faulty statistics to demonstrate that our results are statistically insignificant. (Basically, they used Bartlett’s formula for the effective number of degrees of freedom in a limit where the original derivation breaks down).

Anyway, the last slur says that my astronomical analysis is wrong. Well, I’ve got news. The argument raised by Jahnke and Benestad is irrelevant. It has two grave flaws to it.

First, the Milky way is not a typical two spiraled armed galaxy. It has four spiral arms. You can see them in a CO doppler map here. (Well, at least 3 arms separated by 90°. And unless the Milky Way is an amputee, a 4th should be behind the center of the galaxy). J & B also failed to tell their readers that all the 5 galaxies in the work they cited have a very dominant 2 armed structure. I wonder why they kept this detail to themselves. Thus, the conclusions of Krantz et al. 2003, as interesting as they are, are simply not applicable for the Milky Way.

Second point. Spirial arms can exist between the inner and outer Lindblad resonances (e.g., the galactic dynamics bible of Binney and Tremaine). If you force the 4 armed pattern to have a co-rotation radius near us (as J & S do), it will imply that the outer extent of the 4-armed pattern should be at roughly rout ~ 11 kpc. However, the patten is seen to extend out to about twice the solar-galactic radius (Shaviv, 2003 and references therein). Clearly, this would counter our theoretical understanding of spiral density waves.

Thus, B & J were wrong in their claims. Nevertheless, it turns out that surprisingly, they were not totally incorrect. Sounds strange? Well, it appear that the Milky Way has at least two independent sets of spiral arms, with two different pattern speeds. One is the above four spiral arms, which we traverse every 145 Myr on average. The second set is probably a two armed set which has a co-rotation radius near us (and hence we pass through it very rarely). This can be seen by carrying out a birth-place analysis of open clusters, as Naoz and Shaviv (2006) did. This result explains why over the years, different researchers tended to find two different pattern speeds, or evidence that we’re located near the co-rotation radius. We are, but not for the 4-armed spiral structure which we pass every 145 Myrs on average!

Incidentally, this is not the first time Jahnke tried to discredit my results. The previous time was when he unsuccessfully tried to debunk my meteoritic analysis. I wonder if this time was too prompted by a request from Stefan Rahmstorf.

To summarize, using the final paragraph of Jahnke and Benestad, we can say that:

Remarkably, the poor scientific basis of the attacks against the galactic cosmic ray hypothesis seems to be inversely related to the tenacity of the devout global warming protagonists all with a strong thrust of wanting to cast doubt on the possibility that natural climate drivers may have been important to 20th century temperature change.

From Nir Shaviv’s Sciencebits blog: ‘More slurs from realclimate.org’

References:

Christl M. et al., J. Atmos. Sol.-Terr. Phys., 66, 313, 2004

Eichkorn, S., et al., Geophys. Res. Lett., 29, 44, 2003

Farrar, P. D., Clim. Change, 47, 7, 2000

Fichtner, H., K. Scherer, & B. Heber, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 6, 10811, 2006

Lockwood, M., & C. Fröhlich, Proc. R. Soc. A doi:10.1098/ rspa.2007.1880; 2007

Harrison, R. G., and K. L. Aplin, Atmospheric condensation nuclei formation and high energy radiation, J. Atmos. Terr. Phys., 63, 1811–1819, 2001.

Harrison, R. G. and Stepehnson, D. B., Proc. Roy. Soc. A., doi:10.1098/rspa.2005.1628, 2005

Marsh, N., and H. Svensmark, J. Geophys. Res., 108, 4195, 2003

Naoz, S. and N. J. Shaviv, New Astronomy 12, 410, 2007

Rahmstorf, S. et al., Eos, Trans. AGU, 85(4), 38, 41, 2004. And the rebuttals

Royer, D. L. et al., GSA Today, 14(3), 4, 2004. And the rebuttals

Shaviv, N. J., New Astron., 8, 39–77, 2003a.

Shaviv, N. J., J. Geophys. Res.-Space, 108 (A12), 1437, 2003b

Shaviv, N. J., J. Geophys. Res., 110, A08105, 2005

Shaviv, N. J., and J. Veizer, GSA Today, 13(7), 4, 2003

Sloan, T., and A. W. Wolfendale, in Proceedings of the ICRC 2007 (also arXiv:0706.4294 [astro-ph])

Udelhofen, P. M., and R. D. Cess, Geophys. Res. Lett., 28, 2617, 2001

Usoskin, I. G., N. Marsh, G. A. Kovaltsov, K. Mursula and O. G. Gladysheva, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L16109, 2004

Shaviv, N. J., and J. Veizer, GSA Today, 13(7), 4, 2003

Svensmark, H., Phys. Rev. Lett, 81, 5027, 1998

Svensmark, H., Astron. Geophys., 58, 1.19-1.24., 2007

Veizer, J., Y. Godderis, and L. M. Francois, Nature, 408, 698, 2000

Wagner et al., J. Geophys. Res., 106, 3381, 2001

Wallman, K., Geochem. Geophys. Geosys, 5, Q06004, 2004

Yu, F., J. Geophy. Res., 107(A7), 10.1029/2001JA000248, 2002.

Jim Turnour on Political Leadership and Much More

By

I have just returned from the national capital, Canberra, where my brother Jim Turnour gave his maiden speech to the Australian federal parliament.

While Jim and I don’t agree on climate change – his views are more like those of David Jones, occasional commentator at this blog and Head of Climate Analysis Section, Australian Bureau of Meteorology – we do agree on many other issues. Last night in parliament Jim said:

“Political leaders and governments impact the daily lives of the citizens they represent. The good ones provide leadership and vision that can inspire great endeavour and achievement and that can heal historical pain and suffering.

Through legislation, they shape the foundations of the country and the society they envision. So the decisions we make in this parliament can improve the lives of every Australian, whether they know it or not. And I can think of no more important or rewarding work than to be part of a government ready to provide that leadership, to be part of a government ready to shape the foundations for a fairer and more prosperous society that ensures that every Australian—no matter their economic, social or cultural background—has the opportunity to participate fully and reach their potential.

This is the Labor ideal, and I am proud to be part of a Labor government. I therefore come to this parliament recognising the power that we as a government possess and determined not to waste the opportunity that I have been given to help shape a fairer and more prosperous Australia.

Jim Turnour_speaking_blog.jpg
Jim Turnour delivering his maiden speech to parliament

As the member for Leichhardt, I represent a large and diverse electorate, stretching from Saibai Island in the Torres Strait bordering Papua New Guinea, through Cape York Peninsula to and including the great city of Cairns. Leichhardt, more than any other seat in our federation, is a microcosm of Australia. It contains remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, small rural towns built on mining and agriculture, and popular tourist destinations like Cairns and Port Douglas.

Cairns is a rapidly growing regional city, with sprawling outer suburbs and inner city communities where old Queenslanders are making way for new unit developments. The population is expected to grow from 125,000 to 180,000 over the next 10 years. We have mortgage-belt aspirationals, bluecollar battlers, sea changers, tree changers, farmers, graziers, miners, Islanders, Aboriginals and, of course, strong migrant communities. The economy founded on agriculture and mining continues to diversify, with tourism, construction, marine, aviation, defence, film and education playing important roles in our developing regional economy.

It is no wonder that the many challenges confronting Australia in the 21st century are being experienced by communities in my electorate of Leichhardt. Businesses are crying out for skilled labour, and there is an urgent need for investment in roads and community infrastructure like sporting facilities and childcare centres. Our major hospital, the Cairns Base, experiences chronic bed shortages, and patients have to travel away to receive many specialist services, including oncology and cardiac procedures. Working families are struggling under rising interest rates, petrol and grocery prices. Many young people are, for the first time, starting to question whether they will ever be able to afford to buy their own home, while many Indigenous people are welfare dependent, have limited opportunities for full-time employment and suffer poor health and educational outcomes.

Climate change is also placing at risk our World Heritage Great Barrier Reef and Wet Tropics rainforest, our
agricultural industries and low lying coastal communities.

These are major challenges requiring long-term planning and investment, while for working families they are practical problems they face every day. I am proud to be part of a government that brings new leadership— that understands and responds to everyday problems but remains focused on ideas to build a modern Australia equipped for the 21st century. I am working hard to lend a helping hand on the everyday problems being faced by my constituents while building a long-term plan to tackle the challenges facing my communities. I am proud of the many local commitments I secured during the recent election campaign, including increased road funding for the Bruce Highway and Peninsula Development Road, and new health services through a GP superclinic, an MRI for Cairns Base Hospital and funding to improve oncology services.

In the tropical north our natural assets, our close proximity to Asia and the Pacific region and our tropical expertise provide us with unique opportunities to grow and strengthen our local economy. To take advantage of these opportunities and to prosper into the future Australia must remain a technologically advanced country. That is why the Rudd Labor government is investing in nation building infrastructure and an education revolution. Our high-speed fibre-to-the-node communications network will go beyond the capital cities and will connect our rural and regional communities to the global economy. If we unlock the creative potential of our population through education and training and have world-class infrastructure then we will be able to compete and do business anywhere in the world.

Our human creativity and access to world-class infrastructure is also key to our fight against climate change. Leichhardt is home to some of the world’s great natural wonders in the Great Barrier Reef and Daintree rainforest, which are both at risk from climate change. Island communities in the Torres Strait like Saibai and Boigu are also under threat from rising sea levels. The problem of climate change has arisen because of a failure of our market based economy to cost in pollution in the form of greenhouse gas emissions. This classic example of market failure has produced climate change that now poses a real threat to our environment, our local economy and our way of life. This problem requires practical local action and a global solution. An enormous challenge for our government will be how we intervene in the market to ensure that the real cost of greenhouse gas emissions is reflected in the market for fossil fuels. Getting this right will be critical not only to tackling climate change but to ensuring that our quality of life does not decline as we develop and adopt new renewable fuels and technologies to replace old ones.

The market based economy that, although not perfect, has allowed for the creation of so much of our wealth is also under threat from uncertainty in financial markets and the increasing power of global corporations. The uncertainty in financial markets generated through the United States sub-prime mortgage crisis is a factor in Australia’s rising interest rates. Financial markets have failed halfway around the world, yet the impacts are being felt by families with mortgages in Leichhardt and all across Australia.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, in a report into petrol prices released in December last year, found no evidence of price fixing by major oil companies but found that they were operating in a comfortable oligopoly. Labor has since announced a petrol commissioner to monitor prices and improve transparency in the fuel industry. Legislation to protect consumers from monopolistic market power and unethical behaviour in the marketplace is critical to our long-term economic and social prosperity.

Climate change, the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the domination of large corporations in the supply chain for basic goods and services like food and fuel underline the important role that governments must play in regulating markets so they create prosperity not only today but into the future for the broader community. Increasingly, though, regulating these markets requires agreements that cross national borders. We need leadership and a new effort to develop global solutions to the problem of market failure. Australia is well placed to play a leadership role in developing these solutions. To do this we must participate fully in the global community, and that is why it was so important for Australia to have signed the Kyoto protocol and joined the global effort to tackle climate change.

Critical to our long-term future is also our agenda for reform through the Council of Australian Governments. The fact that the federal and every state government is Labor provides us with a unique opportunity to put aside the blame game that we must not squander. In a report for the Business Council of Australia, Access Economics estimated that cost shifting, duplication and other inefficiencies in Commonwealth-state funding arrangements cost some $9 billion per year. Of this, $5 billion is related to spending inefficiencies, including around $1 billion in health related inefficiencies.
In areas like health, where there will always be more demand than funding, it is imperative that we make the best use of available resources. When we squander precious resources we make those who may be waiting for treatment suffer longer and we have fewer resources available to take much needed action to prevent people getting sick. New medical technologies have improved the quality of life of many people suffering debilitating illnesses and ensured that we all live longer and enjoy a better quality of life. The spiralling cost of these technologies, however, creates huge challenges for governments who want to ensure that it is not only the better off within the community who have access to these new treatments. Preventable diseases like diabetes and heart disease that develop over a person’s lifetime are also increasingly threatening the sustainability of our public healthcare system.

Reform is required to reduce waste and duplication and improve service delivery across government. This is not only an economic but a moral imperative in areas like health and Indigenous affairs.

Leichhardt is home to wonderful Indigenous cultures and the historic Mabo and Wik native title decisions. I would like to pay a special tribute to the numerous Indigenous traditional owners and elders from my electorate who have fought to maintain not only their culture and rights but those of other Indigenous Australians. In Leichhardt, like in other parts of Australia, Indigenous people statistically have poorer health and lower levels of education and are more likely to be on welfare or in jail than non-Indigenous Australians. It is no wonder that Indigenous life expectancy is 17 years less.
We need practical action by government in partnership with Indigenous communities to close this gap. We need an evidence based approach that holds people accountable and delivers action and real improvements in health and education and creates economic opportunities while tackling the debilitating impacts of welfare dependency and substance abuse.

We also need leadership that inspires and heals, and I am proud to be part of a government that has shown that leadership by apologising to the stolen generations as its first order of business during the opening of this parliament. It is this combination of leadership that touches a deep emotional chord and uplifts the human spirit and that, when combined with real and substantial practical action, starts us down the road to closing the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. As Paul Keating put it in his famous Redfern speech, how we respond to Indigenous Australia:
… is a fundamental test of our social goals and our national will: our ability to say to ourselves and the rest of the
world that Australia is a first rate social democracy, that we are what we should be … the land of the fair go and
the better chance.

I believe Australians believe in equality of opportunity, enshrined in what we term the ‘fair go’. We believe in a fair go that embodies rights and responsibilities. Australians expect everyone to get a fair go when it comes to the basics, including health, education and a job, but we also expect everyone to have a go and contribute depending on their ability and circumstances. We are practical people, common-sense people, who look for straight answers to the challenges we face in everyday life. ‘Does it work?’ and ‘is it fair?’ are simple but powerful values that Australians understand and that I learnt growing up.

I was born the third of four children. My parents, John and Joan Turnour, who are in the gallery today, grew small crops and ran cattle at Coomalie Creek, near Batchelor, 56 miles south of Darwin, in the Northern Territory during the 1950s and sixties. They established the block from scratch, building their house from home-made bricks, and experienced the hardships of bush life. My parents would make a career of pioneering, setting up properties firstly in Australia and then overseas in Indonesia and the Philippines. Dad is a do-it-yourself man who can fix pretty much anything with whatever is at hand; even the kitchen cupboards were fastened to the wall in one of our homes with eight-gauge wire. My Mum is an only child who came to Australia as a ten-pound Pom in 1952, aged 21. She never seems fazed by anything and has always been active in the local community, whether it is at the Country Women’s Association, the parents and friends association or the local church. I proudly carry her maiden name, Pearce, as my middle name. My parents were determined that all of us kids would get a good education.

I boarded at Brisbane Grammar School and subsequently went to the University of Queensland, where I graduated with degrees in agriculture and, later, economics. So I grew up with strong role models, surrounded by different cultures, learning to use what resources I had to find practical solutions to the challenges of everyday life. I was taught to treat people fairly, even if the world is not always fair. So thank you, Mum and Dad and my sisters Jennifer and Caroline, who are in the gallery today, and my brother, Matthew, for your love and support and the lessons learnt. The support of my family, my education and the practical skills I learnt growing up have held me in good stead throughout my working life.

For almost 20 years I built a career working with farmers and graziers for the Department of Primary Industries and as an agricultural consultant in Australia and overseas. Most recently I managed Operation Farm Clear, a large project that employed more than 200 people and assisted more than 1,000 farmers to recover following the devastation of severe Tropical Cyclone Larry.

Politics, though, has always interested me. At home we always talked about politics and I was at university at the end of the Bjelke-Petersen era and experienced the great mood for change that elected the Goss Labor government in Queensland. My younger sister, Caroline Turnour, has had the greatest influence over my political career. She told me to stop whingeing about John Howard back in 1998 and join the Labor Party. In 2001 she suggested I contact Senator Jan McLucas, who is in the chamber today, and work for a politician and see what it was really like. I was so glad my sister was there last year when I finally won after the disappointment of the 2004 campaign, so thank you, Caroline, for always being there and for your advice and support.

I want to pay tribute to my wife, Tiffany, who is in the gallery today. Politics is tough on families but she knows I love this job and how hard we have both worked to get here. I thank you, Tiffany, for the love and support you have given me and for the sacrifices you have made and the many more ahead.

To my beautiful daughter, Zoe Joan: the size of my electorate and its distance from Canberra means that I am going to miss some of your growing up. I am going to work hard not to miss too much and I hope that you appreciate and enjoy some of the unique experiences you will have as the daughter of a parliamentarian.

In Leichhardt we achieved a massive swing approaching 15 per cent and I want to thank my campaign and the Your Rights at Work campaign for the effort they put in. The timing was right and the national swing was on, but you do not achieve 15 per cent without a great local campaign. I was endorsed in April 2006 and we ran a mini-campaign later that year, thanks to the efforts of my campaign director, Mike Bailey, and Toni Fulton and the financial backing of the Cairns branch. This campaign leveraged off the national Your Rights at Work campaign and the local Where’s Warren? campaign, driven by Stuart Trail and the Electrical Trades Union. Stuart Trail would go on to become the ACTU Your Rights at Work coordinator in Leichhardt and there is no doubt that the community activism the entire union movement created on the ground in Leichhardt galvanised opposition to the Work Choices laws and drew people back to the Labor Party. Thank you, Stuart Trail and Kevin O’Sullivan, for leading the campaign and all the unionists who worked so hard to get rid of the Howard government. We could not have done it without you.

Leichhardt is an electorate of more than 150,000 square kilometres with diverse communities and it requires great logistical planning to run a good campaign. Lesley Clark, the former member for Barron River, came on board to coordinate the overall campaign in the last few months, enabling me to focus fully on my job as the candidate. Her knowledge and experience of marginal seat campaigning is only exceeded by her generosity of spirit when it comes to supporting the Labor Party. I could not have had anyone better running the local Labor campaign. She and Mike Bailey were ably supported by so many fantastic people, but I need to name a few who have supported me over many years or have given up so much of their time during the recent campaign. Thank you, Hazel Lees, for so professionally managing the finances.

Thank you, Cathy Lovern, my campaign director from 2004, who I have so often turned to and who has never let me down. Thankyous go to Jan Lahney, who is also in the gallery today, John Pratt, John Tuite, Sue Tom, John Thompson, Dorothy Grauer, Cam Muir, Jackie Clarkson, Alison Alloway, Andrew Lucas, Les Francis and all the others who have worked so hard on the campaign. A thankyou goes to Allen Ringland, who ran the best corflute campaign ever. John Adams did a great job organising the Cape and Torres Strait while Martin Hurst similarly did a great job organising the polling booths.

I want to pay tribute to my Senate colleague Jan McLucas, who is in the chamber today, for her support over many years. I learnt a great deal about politics while working for Jan—so thank you very much. I also want to thank my Senate colleague Claire Moore for her support during the recent campaign. State members Jason O’Brien, Steven Wettenhall, Warren Pitt and Desley Boyle have all supported me wherever they could. I look forward to working with them to improve the lives of the communities we represent. I also want to thank the Queensland and national ALP campaigns, who so ably supported our local effort.

Finally I want to pay tribute to the candidates and members who went before me. To Chris Lewis and Matt Trezise, who ran for Labor in 1998 and 2001: the time just wasn’t right. To John Gayler, Peter Dodd and Warren Entsch: I hope you are enjoying your retirement from parliament and thank you, John, for your support and advice.

I hope to have a long career in this place achieving good things for my communities and my country. Everything we achieve in life we achieve through the support of others and that is particularly the case when it comes to politics. I am so lucky to have had a supportive family growing up and now such a wonderful partner in Tiffany. I have great staff and a strong base of support in Leichhardt and I am now looking forward to working with members of this House and of the Senate and their staff over the years ahead because political leaders and governments really can make a difference!”

End of speech
——————————————

You can read more about Jim Turnour here:
http://www.jimturnour.com.au/
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/member.asp?id=HVV
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Turnour

Roger Pielke Sr on The Political Issue of Global Warming

By

Thus we have the reasoning as to why the science issues on Climate Science have been mostly ignored – the issue is not about climate science. The goal is to use the term “global warming” (with “climate change” used to make the concept cover all aspects of climate) not to ”motivate” change, but to force the public and policymakers to adopt specific policy and political actions that promotes particular agendas.

Clearly, this narrow approach is doomed to produce poor policy decisions. Unless the media starts to recognize this inappropriate use of climate science, we will continue down the road to many actions that will have unanticipated and undesirable consequences.

The above is an excerpt from Roger Pileke Sr’s Climate Science blog: ‘The Political Issue Of Global Warming’