Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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CSIRO and BoM Report: Too Late to Avoid Warming

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Thanks to Luke Walker for alerting me to this:

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Too late to avoid warming: climate report

Sydney could face an annual temperature rise of up to 4.3 degrees by 2070, and a tripling of the number of days a year when the thermometer soars above 35 degrees, if global greenhouse gas emissions are not cut steeply, a new report has found.

It is too late for the city to avoid a warming of about 1 degree by 2030 as well as a 3 per cent reduction in annual rainfall because of polluting gases already in the atmosphere.

More droughts, fires, and severe weather events, and less rain and snow across the country are also on the horizon, according to the report, Climate Change in Australia, which contains the most detailed and up-to-date climate projections produced by the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology.

Its findings, released at the Greenhouse 2007 conference in Sydney this morning, include projections of up to 20 per cent more drought months over most of Australia by 2030.

Read the report ‘Climate Change in Australia’ here.

Report with animation here.

Oh, what a golden web she weaves …

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N.pilipes.jpg

I associate Golden Orb-weaving spiders (Nephila pilipes (syn. maculata)) with the hot period leading up to the wet. Adult females are particularly impressive in their gigantism, which increases relative to the equator. The image on the left has a male on the female’s abdomen.

They would appear to have a three-month life-cycle with an extraordinary growth rate in females; from ~1mm to full hand-span in six weeks.

Their webs are spectacular and so strong they can break the momentum of small birds and bats. I observed one spanning an expanse one night and was astonished to see a three dimensional film of silk (about 30mm in diameter) being played across currents, seemingly unaffected by gravity, to a tree some five-metres distant. The spider then pulled the film into a thread.

There seems to be two distinct morphs; the lighter-coloured variety being vastly out-numbered by the black and yellow variety. Each is viewed differently through the compound eyes of flying insects, producing different capture rates. At nightime, however, darkness is so complete that colour is of little relevance and different groups of flying/jumping insects abound. Nephilas can vary the strength and flexibility of their silk to meet the different challenges of crickets or flies.

They are eaten by cassowaries and most probably frogmouths.

A Note to Ian Mott on Global Warming And Coral Reefs

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Dear Ian,

The Center for Biological Diversity contends that staghorn coral and elkhorn coral are “the first, and to date only, species listed under the Endangered Species Act due to threats from global warming.” Kieran Suckling, the policy
director of the Center, “We think this victory on coral critical habitat actually moves the entire Endangered Species Act onto a firm legal foundation for challenging global-warming pollution.”

The Center for Science & Public Policy has published a report taking a closer look at the scientific evidence, which reveals that the impact of global warming on the overall health of coral species is likely to be positive–towards increased species diversity and richness and habitat expansion–and there is evidence that these changes are already underway.

The hope that this endangered species designation will somehow become a tool for global warming legislation is grossly misplaced. Global warming will likely be a benefit to elkhorn and staghorn corals, especially along the
Florida coast where increasing ocean temperatures should encourage coral reef development further and further northward.

The report is available at http://ff.org/images/stories/sciencecenter/coral_reefs_and_global_warming.pdf

Paul Georgia, Ph.D.
Center for Science & Public Policy
Frontiers of Freedom

James Hansen’s Blog

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Hansen’s blog is here.

A couple of sample extracts:

The deceit behind the attempts to discredit evidence of climate change reveals matters of importance. This deceit has a clear purpose: to confuse the public about the status of knowledge of global climate change, thus delaying effective action to mitigate climate change. The danger is that delay will cause tipping points to be passed, such that large climate impacts become inevitable, including the loss of all Arctic sea ice, destabilization of the West Antarctic ice sheet with disastrous sea level rise later this century, and extermination of a large fraction of animal and plant species. “Make no doubt, however, if tipping points are passed, if we, in effect, destroy Creation, passing on to our children, grandchildren, and the unborn a situation out of their control, the contrarians who work to deny and confuse will not be the principal culprits. The contrarians will be remembered as court jesters. … “The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children.”

Kin and Country – The Cape York Indigenous Conservation Agenda (Part II)

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The progress of the Cape York Conservation Agenda is carving a deepening rift between indigenous interests and those of metropolitan-based ‘green’ groups. Whilst the former lobbies for social engagement within real economies, the latter crusades for an often over-simplified notion of environmental protection. Over-arching this ideological tussle, government verily executes authority for the political rewards of popular support.

Considered a significant conservation achievement by the Wilderness Society, Queensland’s Wild Rivers Act was declared in 2005 for the stated purpose of preserving the natural values of rivers that have all, or almost all, of their natural values intact (in Cape York could have sufficed).

The more recently introduced Cape York Peninsula Heritage Bill 2007, purports to provide for the identification and cooperative and ecologically sustainable management of significant natural and cultural values of Cape York Peninsula. It also restores rights to the exercise or enjoyment of native title, under the amended provisions of the Wild Rivers Act and establishes a new class of protected area under the Nature Conservation Act 1992; namely national parks (Cape York Peninsula Aboriginal land).

The Queensland Government has offered an indigenous economic and employment package, including confirmation of 100 indigenous ranger positions and support for indigenous arts, culture and tourism enterprises. Of course, the nature of this support will greatly influence the outcome of the package.

Current arrangements on Cape York merely provide the public with an illusion of conservation for significant natural and cultural values. Reserves have been declared and land management agencies provided with statutory authority and budgetary allocations, but much of Cape York’s natural and cultural heritage is excluded from subsidized economies and tourism markets tend to go where the getting is more profitable.

The Cape Tribulation section of the Daintree National Park is a relevant example: Half-a-million visitors per year cross the Daintree River ferry, but commercial activity entitlements are almost exclusively held by operators from the abundantly developed accommodation hubs of Port Douglas and Cairns, whilst independent travelers are completely subsidized to enjoy access entitlements without any payment whatsoever.

The full gamut of government influence, including permit allocation and moratoria, subsidization on a tenure-exclusive basis and ecologically protective development impediments on non-government tenures, ensures that very little economic benefit goes to the community within the attraction. This paradox is fundamentally important to Australia.

If isolated communities are required to conserve their natural and cultural heritage values, without reverting the landscape to the kind of conflicting development that underpins the economies of regional accommodation centres, they must be provided with prosperous conservation economies.

Such a requirement would be achieved with far greater success, with the removal of contradictory influences. Indeed, if Australia was to invert its influences, so that commercial activity entitlements were exclusively issued to local operators and full-cost-recovery was required on public reserves only, whilst off-reserve conservation land-uses were subsidized to the full extent to provide visitors with the illusion of free-entry, change in tourism economies would swiftly swing in favour of the communities at the centre of conservation significance.