Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Climate & Climate Change

David Bellamy on Being a Global Warming Sceptic

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“People such as former American vice-president Al Gore say that millions of us will die because of global warming, which I think is a pretty stupid thing to say if you’ve got no proof. And my opinion is that there is absolutely no proof that CO2 has anything to do with any impending catastrophe. The science has, quite simply, gone awry.”  Read more here.

The Fox Glacier is Advancing

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Hi Jennifer,

I believed that all glaciers are in retreat due to global warming.   But then I discovered, when I recently visited New Zealand, that I had been deceived.

In September we visited the Fox glacier on the West coast.  We passed a sign some kilometres from its face telling us that this marked where the glacier was in 1750.

When we reached the face we were told that the glacier stopped retreating in 1985 and is in fact now advancing at the rate of one metre a week.

I understand that the nearby Franz Jeseph Glacier has a similar history.

So I wonder what has been happening to other glaciers in the world in the last few hundred years not just the last 100 years.   Were they also in retreat as long ago as 1750?

Doug Killeen
Seymour, Australia

Indonesia’s Climate Follows the Sun

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CARBON dioxide is not an air pollutant. It is plant food. All life on Earth depends on it. It is natural. It forms the bubbles in bread, champagne, and Coca-Cola. You breathe it out, and plants breathe it in.

The Earth contains a lot of CO2, but the atmosphere contains so little that the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) rightly calls CO2 a “trace gas”. A scientific mystery is why the air does not hold more CO2 than it does. Half a billion years ago, there was almost 20 times today’s CO2 concentration.

Most farmers would prefer to grow crops under much-higher concentrations of CO2 than today’s 385 parts per million—less than 1/25 of 1 percent of the atmosphere. To feed the world, low CO2 concentration is not such a great idea. High concentrations are better, and they cause no harm. Experiments have shown that even delicate plants such as orchids thrive at CO2 concentrations of 10,000 ppm.

That is why U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia has declared that if CO2 is to be labeled an “air pollutant”, then so must Frisbees and flatulence.

[Read more…] about Indonesia’s Climate Follows the Sun

Climate Activist Seeks Damage in The Hague

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THE International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague is an independent, permanent court that tries persons accused of the most serious crimes of international concern, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.  

According to Mitchell Anderson writing at Desmog a class action lawsuit was filed last week in the ICC against national governments refusing to act on reducing carbon emissions.   The suit was filed by climate activist Danny Bloom who is asking for “US$1 billion dollars in damages on behalf of future generations of human beings on Earth – if there are any”.

Are you thinking this is sure to go nowhere? 

Well, remember in September a UK jury cleared six Greenpeace activists of criminal damages  accepting defence arguments that they had a “lawful excuse” when they vandalised the chimney stack because the carbon dioxide emissions from the Kingsnorth power plant are harmful to the environment of the Hoo Peninsula.   Under the UK’s Criminal Damage Act 1971 damage is condoned if it will prevent even greater damage.

Furthermore, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Dr James Hansen, flew to the UK to be an expert witness in the trial in support of the activists. 

Based on past form, Dr Hansen and many other high profile scientists with impeccable credentials will be lining up to support Mr Bloom.