Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Greenhouse Mafia Gagging Scientists? (Part 1)

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The ABC television program Four Corners promotes itself as “investigative TV journalism at its best”. It certainly has a reputation, and an ability to get its programs talked about even before they have been shown.

I have already received several emails and a phone call about tonight’s program which is titled The Greenhouse Mafia and by Janine Cohen.

I usually play tennis on a Monday night, but I will have to see if I can get out of this commitment so I can watch the program.

The preamble at the Four Corners website suggests a conspiracy is about to be uncovered, with comment including:

“Are Australians getting the whole truth on global warming?

Not according to evidence given to Four Corners, which returns with disturbing allegations about the power wielded by industry lobbyists, the self-proclaimed greenhouse “mafia”.

A whistleblower steps forward with claims that industry representatives have burrowed deep inside the federal bureaucracy in a successful bid to hijack greenhouse policy.

“Their influence over greenhouse policy in Australia is extraordinary”, he observes.“

Science in Australia has certainly become very politicised.

In my experience it is usually the ‘environment industry’ pulling the strings; click here for something of a review by Prof Bob Carter.

I received the following note from a government scientists recently on an issue unrelated to greenhouse:

“Most would not understand how much control over scientists there is.

When …[information deleted so scientists can not be identified]… they were “directed” from on high in overall scope. Comments at press conferences are rehearsed. Between the Minister’s Office and the operational senior scientist … [chain of command]… then to Deputy Director General, across to a policy group, then Public Affairs (press and spin), then the Minister’s minders, then the Minister and maybe Premier. If its hot maybe through [another Department mentioned here] and Premiers. Perhaps shot at by [another government department] in counter move by them. Briefs and public statements are written and rewritten. Some might argue it’s about responsibility and quality control – but it often becomes sinister.“

There is a real need for much more openness. Government scientists must be free to put the evidence and argue their case. Policy on environmental issues should be informed by the best science.

But I am wary of tonight’s program.

I do hope it is not just another industry bashing exercise. Their journalist Ticky Fullerton got it wrong on the Murray River and certainly botched the program on Tasmanian forestry; click here for my blog on ‘the forestry job’ and this article by Christian Kerr from Crikey on Four Corners titled the ABC’s Paralysis on Bias is a good read.

Neil Hewett

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Neil Hewett 4.JPG

One of Neil Hewett’s first contributions to this blog was a picture of a buttressed tree trunk. He has since made valuable contributions to discussion on a range of topics from whaling to the practicalities of powering a home in remote Far North Queensland.

Neil’s passion is ecotourism and he gives us some insights into Cooper Creek Wilderness in the following contribution – the first under my suggestion (see comment following this post) that we find out more about some of the contributors to this blog.

Neil writes:

When Queensland’s Wet Tropics World Heritage Area was inscribed on the 9th December 1988, Senator Graham Richardson imposed Australia’s international management obligations onto the title-holders of almost two-hundred parcels of freehold and leasehold land.

I was working as an outdoor educator in the north Queensland timber community of Ravenshoe at the time Richardson was being pelted with rocks by infuriated members of this disenfranchised community. I remember being unimpressed with the Minister’s recommendation that those who made the change to rainforest-based tourism would reap economic benefits beyond timber and as it has turned out, the promise of a prosperous Ravenshoe tourism economy remains unfulfilled. I have read more recently, perhaps even on Jennifer’s blog, that those images on prime-time TV of angry timber-workers throwing rocks was the political pay-dirt that won the support of the multitudes.

I spent the following seven years working as an outdoor educator in remote aboriginal homelands before returning to the Daintree rainforest, to become a co-founding director of Cooper Creek Wilderness; a private-sector World Heritage land manager.

The greatest challenge for Cooper Creek Wilderness is sustaining a conservation economy against the complete subsidisation of the 98% majority publicly-owned portion of the WHA. Government disregarding conservation management as a business activity relieves it of any obligation to competitive neutrality. Tourism is subsidised recurrently to the tune of millions of dollars to patronise publicly-owned rather than privately-owned portions of WHA.

This leaves us in an interesting position to observe directly the impacts of government on conservation management and particularly off-reserve. About 70% of Australia’s landscape is held under private interests, including indigenous landholders. This vast majority of Australia outside its system of protected area estate and yet it contains outstanding universal values in terms of biological diversity and ecological integrity.

Australia’s National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development encourages protection of these values and challenges for nature conservation, both inside and outside protected areas.

Off-reserve conservation requires the cooperation of landholders. Financial incentives through ecotourism have enormous potential to renumerate the care and presentation of natural and cultural assets by the most rightful and intimately knowledgeable beneficiaries.

Cooper Creek Wilderness has pursued such an objective since its inception. Its model of off-reserve conservation through ecotourism regulates access, enabling visitors to enjoy wilderness values under the informative supervision of an inhabitant. This perspective value-adds to the destination’s nature-based appeal. Visitors are amazed by the natural values but are also very interested in the interaction between human inhabitants and their natural environment and how they go about stewardship.

“User-pays” fully-finances the conservation management of the land without any cost to the taxpayer. The visitor is an active and willing participant in the achievement of Australia’s international obligations and as a consequence, the environment is protected for the livelihoods it provides its stewards, to perpetuity.

Neil is also a contributor to Online Opinion. Find out more about Cooper Creek Wilderness by clicking here.
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This post will be filed under a new category titled “people”.

As a reader and/or commentator at this blog you may like to tell us something about yourself? Contributions encouraged and you may use a ‘nom de plume’ …please email to jennifermarohasy@jennifermarohasy.com.

Also, I’m putting some notes together on ‘Boxer’ – the character from Orwell’s classic Animal Farm and also the Boxer who contributes to this blog site. Could someone who can draw possibly send me a caricature of ‘Boxer’ – something kind please?

Richard Lindzen on Hockey Sticks

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There has been more published in the last week about the hockey stick with summaries of what it all means at Real Climate and Climate Audit.

David J commented yesterday at this blog that,

It would seem the Hockey Stick “debate” is fast going the same way as the MSU “debate”.

I understand David’s comment to mean that more data and analysis is confirming that current warming is ‘unnatural’ and a consequence of global warming from greenhouse gases.

But the following comment from Richard Lindzen (see the second reason), sent as a letter to Benny Peiser, has got me wondering confused:

Dear Benny,

The concern over the hockey stick has always struck me as weird. There are several reasons for my impression:

1. There is no doubt that Europe and the North Atlantic were warmer than they are today for several centuries during the high middle ages. This is more than enough information to tell us that major climate changes can occur without the present level of industrialization — regardless of what happened to the global mean temperature.

2. Indeed, if the global mean temperature did not change while Europe and the North Atlantic underwent very substantial warming, this would imply a major change in the geographic pattern of
temperature. However, a major assumption in the hockey stick is that the patterns remain fixed. One is then left with the paradoxical conclusion that if the hockey results are right, the hockey stick analysis is wrong.

3. The medieval warm period in Europe was a period of high population, vibrant intellectual activity, and an absence of famine and plague. The onset of the little ice age was marked by famine, plague, and much reduced population. This suggests that warmth wasn’t all that bad. At the same time, the Renaissance and the intellectual flowering that followed all occurred before the end of the little ice age, suggesting that human abilities can rise above the problems posed by the environment.

In many ways, the whole story can be regarded as encouraging. Yet we focus on a couple of tenths of a degree in the global mean.

Best wishes,

Dick

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Richard S Lindzen is Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For more information visit http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen.htm .

Letter republished with permission from Benny Peiser.

Whales Fed to Dogs

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I received a note from marine ecologist Walter Starck this morning. He wrote,

Here’s an interesting news item on whaling. A growing stockpile of unsold whale meat would seem to indicate that the Japanese whaling effort is driven by political rather than commercial considerations. If the situation is really as depicted (always a big “if”) it seriously undermines the whole cultural importance argument.

Walter was refering to a piece in UnderWaterTimes.com that included the comment,

Some 1,035 tons of whale meat hit the market in Japan last year, a 65 percent increase from 1995, the Fisheries Agency says. And sluggish demand means inventories have almost doubled in five years to 2,704 tons in 2004.

And all of this before the most recent expedition to the Antarctic.

The article continues,

But the glut of whale meat hasn’t stopped the harpoon guns. Tokyo plans to kill – under a research program – some 1,070 minke whales in 2006, over 400 more than last year. Japan will also hunt 10 fin whales, and a total of 160 Bryde’s, sei and sperm whales, fisheries official Kenji Masuda said.

The International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986, approving limited hunts for research purposes a year later. Opponents have called Japan’s hunts merely a way for it to dodge the whaling ban.

The government, which distributes the meat and uses profits to fund research, is working to promote whale meat and secure new distribution channels.

“Even if we capture 2,000 whales a year for 100 years, it’s OK because whale numbers are growing,” the pamphlet says.

Some local governments have begun offering whale meat in school lunches.

Wakayama, a prefecture with a whale-hunting tradition 280 miles southwest of Tokyo, has been aggressive in getting youngsters to eat whale, introducing whale meals at 270 public schools in 2005.

Nutritionists have even developed child-friendly whale dishes, including whale meatballs, hamburgers and whale spaghetti bolognese, said Tetsuji Sawada of Wakayama’s education board.

Chimney Co., which runs the Hana No Mai eateries, acknowledges customers are wary of new whale dishes.

So there is more whale meat from the ‘research efforts’ than the Japanese can collectively stomach.

So, according to BBC News whale meat is being turned into dog food.

The dog food is apparently promoted as “organic” and fished “freshly out of the water”.

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Story updated here: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/001190.html

Blog Update, Comments and Rules

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I began this blog in April last year. More and more people are visiting the site. I was surprised to see that there were 7,458 unique visitors to the site last month (January 2006), they came a total of 20,677 times and looked at 59,939 pages generating 97,378 hits.

Last month the most popular posts were on whaling and of course climate change. I thank those who contributed to both discussions.

This blog is a forum that encourages diverse opinion. There is some truth in the comment by Walter Lippman, “Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.”

Interestingly very few of the people who visit this site ever make comment. Some readers tell me they enjoy reading the comments from others and learn from the debates. Others tell me they never read the comments because they are too often “ugly”, “ignorant” and “defamatory”.

Properly monitoring comments would be a full time job – a job for which I have neither the time, nor inclination. But given the growing readership and concern from some readers, I am going to start deleting more comments. It won’t always be fair – because properly monitoring comments would be a fulltime job. I may delete comments that are spam, abusive, defamatory, off-topic or repetitive.

I have looked at the rules at Online Opinion and there are some that are perhaps relevant to this blog including limiting the number of comments per person. At Online Opinion readers are allowed a maximum of five comments in any given 24 hour period and no more than two comments per thread in any given 24 hour period.

Now such rules could really limit debate and discussion at this blog!

So I don’t intend to implement them. However, if you want to make more than five posts in any given 24 hour period, it would be great if you really had something new, important and informative to say that sixth, seventh and eighth time.

On the issue of names, Ian Castles and Roger Kalla are real people who use their real names to comment at this blog. They have families and reputations. I know some people will insist on using a nom de plume – and perhaps for good reason – but they shouldn’t necessarily expect the same level of respect, at least not from me.

It is obviously much easier to be flippant when you have nothing, or very little, at risk. The person commenting anonymously can easily dismiss and discard any mistake or misleading comment – along with ‘the name’ they were using and email address they were using.

In closing, thanks for visiting this blog and for being apart of the information exchange. Do come back and please leave a comment.

Coffee Banned in 1777, GM Food Banned in 2006

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Banning genetically modified (GM) food is just another example of promoters of “incumbent products” seeking to restrict competition argues Calestous Juma in yesterday’s Financial Times:

Take coffee: in the 1500s Catholic bishops demonised coffee as “Satan’s drink” and urged a ban. It was competing with wine. In its defence, Pope Clement VIII proclaimed: “Why, this ‘Satan’s drink’ is so delicious it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it. We shall fool Satan by baptising it and making it a truly Christian beverage.”

More than a century later, coffee was pitted against tea as the incumbent English drink. To defeat the competition, King Charles II decreed the banning of coffeehouses in 1675 only to revoke the decision two days before it came into effect.

In Germany, coffee was outlawed or its sale severely restricted for economic reasons. “It is disgusting to notice the increase in the quantity of coffee used by my subjects, and the like amount of money that goes out of the country in consequence. My people must drink beer. His Majesty was brought up on beer, and so were his ancestors,” declared Frederick the Great in 1777.

Historical cases of technological competition were limited in their reach. Today’s global economy demands that governments find ways to ensure that the benefits of new technologies are widely shared. Judicial rulings will safeguard the integrity of international trading rules. But they will not guarantee consumer enthusiasm for products that threaten their settled ways.

Calestous Juma was writting about a WTO finding, published earlier this week, that the current European Union moratorium on GM food crops breaches trade rules, click here for earlier post.