Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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The Wilderness Society and Bushfire Management

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I have been critical of many environmental activists over the years on the grounds that they know what they are against, but they don’t know what they are for. For example, bushfire management systems developed by forestry agencies over many decades are savagely condemned, but no alternative system is offered up as a replacement.

I was therefore interested to see that the Wilderness Society News 173 (Winter 2008) contains a Six Point Action Plan that the Society says will “reduce bushfire risks and help to protect people, property, wildlife and their habitat”. They have done this because they assert that a “massive increase in hazard reduction burning and firebreaks is destroying nature, pushing wildlife closer to extinction and in many cases increasing the fire risk to people and properties by making areas more fire prone”.

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A Depression Would Reduce Carbon Emissions

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PREDICTIONS for the planet are dire indeed, if we do not drastically cut our carbon dioxide emissions in the very near future. 

In Australia, we will lose the Barrier Reef and the Kakadu wetlands, the Murray River will dry up completely and snow vanish from our Alpine regions.  Sea level could rise precipitously as the great ice sheets of Greenland and the Antarctic melt.

On the economic front, things have actually gone from bad to worse.  The sub-prime crisis has morphed into fears of a global recession, perhaps even a depression.  Bastions of United States capitalism such as General Motors now teeter on the brink of bankruptcy. Here in Australia, companies that run child-care centres and shopping malls are collapsing.  Even our iron ore shipments are now being cancelled by China. The world price of oil has plummeted 60 percent in just a few months – the reason is an anticipated reduction in global demand.

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Demetris Koutsoyiannis Awarded Darcy Medal

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The 2009 Darcy Medal will be awarded to Demetris Koutsoyiannis (http://

www.itia.ntua.gr/dk) has been awarded the The Darcy Medal (http://www.egu.eu/ index.phpid=48&file=henry_darcy_overview&cHash=8b0bfba456ff76b4e3164b1dbcfb8463).

 

He will give the Darcy Medal lecture on Thursday, April 23 2009, at 6.30 pm at the EGU 2009 in Vienna.

 

The EGU statetement about the Darcy Medal reads:

Henry Darcy Medal

 

This medal has been established by the Division on Hydrological Sciences in recognition of the scientific achievements of Henry Darcy.

It is reserved for individuals in recognition of their outstanding scientific contributions in water resources research and water resources engineering and management.

 

Censoring and the Internet

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Before this year’s Beijing Olympic Games, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd chastised the Chinese authorities for blocking full access to the internet for the assembled world media: “My attitude to our friends in China is very simple”, he said. “They should have nothing to fear by open digital links with the rest of the world during this important international celebration of sport.”

Although Rudd expressed no concern for the average Chinese web user being unable to view tens of thousands of banned websites, his intervention was nevertheless a welcome call for transparency and greater democracy.

But now the Rudd Government is working towards implementing an unworkable filtering process in Australia that suggests a misguided understanding of the internet and worrying tendency to censor an inherently anarchic system.

Read more here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8162