Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Platypuses Can Live with Supermarkets

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There seems to be much excitment about the discovery of lots and lots of playtpuses at Maleny, 100 odd kms north of Brisbane, where some locals have been trying to stop the building of a Woolies for many, many months.

The ideas is that because there are Platypuses there should be no supermarket. Indeed according to ABC Online:

Opponents of the development of a major supermarket at Maleny, in south-east Queensland’s Sunshine Coast hinterland, are hailing extensive research they believe may sound the death knell for the development.

They say a team of scientists has irrefutable proof of a large colony of platypuses, living under the site and they have called on Environment Minister Desley Boyle to intervene to stop construction of the supermarket.

Under the Nature Conservation Act it is an offence to knowingly disturb a platypus habitat.

One of the scientists, Graham Kell, says more than 50 platypus burrows have been discovered on the site and all have been photographed and their location fixed by satellite tracking.

Mr Kell says it is a remarkable discovery.

“There’s a lot more activity at the proposed Woolworths site than I’ve seen in many regions before…the burrow activity at Maleny is just phenomenal,” he said.

Yeah, And isn’t the development well back from the watercourse and aren’t there platypuses in the Yarra as far downstream as the suburb of Heidelberg in Melbourne.

The idea that wild animals can’t coexist with development, and using the presence of wild animals to block development, may not be in the longer term interests of this and other platypus colonies.

Should Academics Play E-Politics?

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What role might Universities play in the “small-p politics” of the environment? This is the subject of a piece in today’s The Australian in which I am quoted as saying, academics should foster informed debate but not be “advocates of a particular perspective”.

Professor Peter Fairweather from Flinder’s University is quoted, “We (academics) have to primarily give the scientific view first because nobody else can really do that.”

I note the word “scientific view”. I would like to think it was a poor choice of words.

It seems to me that academics increasingly confuse evidence, facts, theories and hypothesis, from arguments, from knowledge. Then there is opinion and there are views. And then there is the truth.

The Professor goes on to suggest that, when scientists spoke in the policy debate they should make this clear since as citizens they did not “necessarily have any more importance than anyone else, because everyone’s got a view of what we should do policy-wise,” he said.

What waffle! There are views and views and views. But it requires discipline and knowledge to build a robust argument.

The piece in The Australian is reporting on a decision by the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee to consider a role for universities in environmental politics.

I do think it is good the issue is being considered. But let us not pretend that Universities are not already involved in environmental politics. I know a professor in a Life Science Faculty that has unashamably very publicly driven campaigns for WWF.

GM Food Crops (Part 3)

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Yesterday ABC radio’s The World Today ran a story on GM wheat as a solution to Western Australia’s salinity problems. While a general solution to salinity I am sure it is not, a salt tolerant/more salt tolerant wheat variety must be a welcome addition to the mix of varieties currently available.

I was aware of research at the South Australian-based Centre for Plant Functional Genomics (ACPFG) focused on developing new drought and frost tolerant varieties.

According to discussions I had with these researchers in SA about a year ago, frost tolerance has become an issue because plant breeders have been selecting for early maturing varieties in order to escape potential summer drought. But, this has now exposed crops to frost during flowering.

There is apparently variation for traits for frost and salt tolerance in the “crossable” gene pool for wheat and barley, but there are far better genes in other plants and these would need to be transferred via GM methods.

I am well known as ‘a fan’ of GM food crops.

I often repeat the statistic that 90 per cent of Queensland and NSW cotton growers now plant GM and use on average 88 per cent less insecticide than those growing conventional varieties.

It is perhaps less well know that I am genuinely puzzled by many people’s aversion to GM.

I can understand and respect the ethical arguments, but the “I hate corporations therefore I am against GM” seems rather trite.

And the argument that Monsanto is all powerful just doesn’t wash. That all State governments (except Queensland which has a climate unsuitable for canola) have now passed legislation banning the commercial production of GM food crops (cotton exempt in NSW on the basis it is grown primarily for fibre even though about 35 percent of the vegetable oil we eat in Australia is from cotton seed) as a direct consequence of the successfully Greenpeace campaign against Monsanto’s GM canola would suggest to me that it is Greenpeace, not Monsanto, that has most pull with State governments.

I do crave some really honest and informed public discussion on GM.

Monsanto

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“Monsanto is not alone in the research and development of crops designed to ward off destructive pests and disease, to require reduced pesticide applications, and to increase nutrition and yield in areas with traditionally poor showing for both.

Some of these pioneering life science research centers are for-profit firms. Some are government agencies. Others are academic institutions also working to find new ways to bolster the world’s food supply and alleviate hunger. In one form or another, these agriculture research operations are found in nations around the world: in China, Japan, Kenya, South Africa, Brazil, India, Australia, France, Switzerland, Germany, the U.S., etc. Burdensome local biases against intellectual freedom so necessary for science to thrive cause many of these firms to operate out of research centers located in the United States. One key component common to each grouping of scientists is how to achieve their goals without contributing more deleterious stress on the environment.

Regardless of the number of firms in the biotech field and despite the promise and products of this research, the harshest criticism, not praise, is reserved for Monsanto. …

Arguably, to characterize Monsanto’s century plus of labor as completely chivalrous, saintly and beyond reproach is to present only the “glass half full” portrait of the company and the chemical industry in general. The history of the field and firm is hardly free from legitimate environmental concerns. The most egregious include a horrific legacy of indifference in waste disposal. Admittedly most of the offensive practices by Monsanto and others took place during an era, before the birth of environmentalism in the 1970s, when newspaper empires embodied in the great dailies such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, when Members of Congress, the nations cities, factories and everyone else flushed raw sewage and piped every type of industrial and human waste into our waterways, forests, oceans and wild lands. It was an accepted practice with no evil to the earth intended. That’s just what everyone did without regard to the immediate or long-term consequences.”

The above text is from The International Foundation for the Conservation of Natural Resources website with the article at http://biotech.ifcnr.com/article.cfm?NewsID=500.

This is Part 2 of ‘GM Food Crops’. Part 1 was posted on 8th June.

Update: Nuclear, Forest & Cattle, &

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Pilliga-Goonoo

Pilliga-Goonoo forest communities want Premier Bob Carr to visit, but it doesn’t look like he will. They are lamenting job loses.

I reckon they would have a better chance of getting their jobs back if they focused on the environmental issues – the need for active management of these forests.

Alpine Grazing

In response to the Victorian government locking the mountain cattlemen out of the Alpine National Park the federal government appears to have successfully had the Park included on its National Heritage List under emergency provisions. The Victorian government has said cattle will still be banned. Which government will win this battle of the cattle?

Federal Labor AGainst Nuclear Debate

Federal Labor MPs have apparently shouted down New South Wales Premier Bob Carr’s call for a debate on the merits of nuclear power. The ALP’s state conference in Sydney is apparently set to reaffirm the party’s opposition to nuclear power with Peter Garrett saying it is an option not worth considering. Strong words.

Another Matter Altogether

Ian Beale PhD sent in the following thought: The trouble, at least on the surface, seems to be that any government department would rather spend a dollar on simulation than a dime on in-service testing, and the simulation frequently misses vital points while stressing irrelevancies.

Truth & Beauty

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Comment from Walter Stark PhD,

There is a most interesting essay by Rebeca Goldstein on Godel and the ‘Nature of Mathematical Truth’ at The Edge website.

It deals with the fundamental philosophical divide between those on the one side who accept that an objective reality does exist, that truth is defined by its consistency with objective reality and that beauty arises from the recognition of such truth, and those on the other who believe that reality,truth and beauty are ultimately our own constructions.

While the former pursue the discovery of truth, the latter aim to construct it in accord with whatever hopes, ideologies or ethics they deem desirable.

This same division seems to underlie much of my own dissention from various mainstream environmental concerns. What to the constructionists is a righteous crusade for the betterment of humankind appears to the realist an ugly disregard for truth and reality.

As for reality itself the SF writer Philip K. Dick said it well, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”

Goldstein’s essay is at http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge162.html.