Jennifer Marohasy

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CSIRO Boss: Self-confessed “Scientific Numbskull”

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I woke up this morning a bit late, turned on the radio, and the first thing I heard was an ABC journalist referring to the new Australian of the Year as a self-confessed “scientific numbskull”.   I left the radio on just long enough to hear Simon McKeon confirm that he is indeed a “scientific numbskull”.  Then I turned the radio off.  

Enough bad news for one day I thought.

According to the Oxford Dictionary a numbskull is a stupid or foolish person.  But we know that Mr McKeon is not generally a foolish person.  He has managed to amass a great deal of wealth and play Australian politics so successfully that the Prime Minister recently nominated him our inspiration.

What I think Mr McKeon means is that he doesn’t know very much about science – that we shouldn’t expect him to be able to answer any hard scientific questions. 

Mr McKeon was recently appointed the head of the CSIRO – Australia’s premier scientific organization.   

Imagine if the head of one of our big banks, said she was a “financial numbskull”?  We wouldn’t tolerate it.  

So why is it OK for CSIRO to have as its head a “scientific numbskull”? 

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https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/2011/01/2011-australian-of-the-year-simon-mckeon/

Time to Listen to Stewart Franks?

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PROFESSOR Stewart Franks, a hydrologist at NSW’s University of Newcastle, warned in a peer-reviewed scientific article published in 2006 that the risk of serious flooding in southern Queensland and NSW increases significantly when a negative phase of the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation corresponds with a La Nina event.  The Australian Bureau of Meteorology, given these same conditions, forecast average rainfall last spring!

Skip to the audio and listen to Stewart Franks by clicking here: 

Steve Austin interviews Stewart Franks

[Read more…] about Time to Listen to Stewart Franks?

2011 Australian of the Year: Carbon Dioxide Caused Wind to Evaporate

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Today, January 26, is that day of the year when Australia’s have another holiday and are encouraged to get together with their mates for a beer or wine and to feel good about being Australian.  It is also the day when the ruling elite thrust somebody whose values they share upon us and we are forced to suffer comment from that person for the rest of the year – or stop listening to the ABC.   Today it is Simon McKeon.  He is the fellow Julia Gillard has nominated “Australian of the Year’.

McKeon optimizes the values of the new elite.   He is a bourgeoisie-bohemian*: throughout his life he has valued commerce and also worked to save the planet.  McKeon was a merchant banker and he is now a climate change activist – at the highest level.   

McKeon was recently appointed chairman of the CSIRO – officially Australia’s premier scientific organisation and an advocate for the introduction of a carbon price and emissions trading scheme. 

McKeon was also once a sailor and this has given him first hand experience of climate change phenomena.  Speaking to The Age newspaper in 2008 Mr McKeon explained that in the 1980s and 1990s a consistent wind blew from the southwest across Waratah Bay near Wilsons Promontory.   But since at least 2004 that wind has evaporated. This observation helped convince Mr McKeon to begin minimising carbon emissions and become a business community ambassador for Earth Hour and in particular to suggest businesses switch all their lights off for one hour every year.

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*read David Brooks’ book Bobos in Paradise

http://www.theage.com.au/news/environment/bank-chiefs-green-passion-helps-businesses-get-wind-of-switchoff/2008/02/24/1203788146632.html

Time to Reject AGW – And Bob Brown

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EVER the opportunist, Bob Brown, Leader of the Australian Greens, yesterday blamed the Brisbane floods on the coal industry for causing global warming. 

But there is no correlation between atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and rainfall or flooding, as measured by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, anywhere in Australia. 

There is, however, a correlation between patterns in the major atmospheric-oceanic oscillations and flood events. 

Stewart Franks, a hydrologist at the University of Newcastle, has shown that the usefulness of the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) as a predictor of flooding depends on whether or not a more complex phenomenon also measured by sea surface temperatures known as the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) is in a positive or negative phase. 

In a series of peer-reviewed papers published in the best international journals since 2003, Professor Franks has shown that when the IPO is negative, as it was from 1946 to 1977, then there is a much greater chance that there will be flooding rains if a La Nina forms. 

The IPO started to go negative in 1999, but an El Nino formed in 2001, and seven years of mostly drought followed – sustained by the El Nino conditions.  

In February 2009, Professor Franks commented at this weblog that the Australian climate showed signs of entering another wet phase and warned that governments should prepare for a return to a 20-40 year period where La Nina dominates.

Just over a year later, in April 2010, the negative IPO now entrenched, a strong La Nina began to form and flooding rains followed.

Indeed the explanation for the recent devastating flooding is not carbon dioxide, but inadequate infrastructure and warning systems in the face of a combination of La Nina conditions during a negative IPO, a monsoon trough and already saturated catchments.

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Better Planning for Extreme Floods Possible: A Note from Stewart Franks
February 27th, 2009
https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/2009/02/better-planning-for-extreme-floods-possible/

Bill Burrows on the Rockhampton Flood

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SOME of you would have heard of Australian rangeland ecologist, Dr Bill Burrows.  Bill, now retired, lives on the dunes at Emu Park with views of the flood plume flowing north from the Fitzroy River mouth.    According to Bill this has been one of the least dramatic and cleanest floods with only occasional frothing from pollution visible in the Coral Sea and, up to this time, much less debris washing up than even with the much smaller flood in 2006.  

Bill witnessed the 1954 flood (the second highest since Europeans arrived) which was still just receding when a young Queen Elizabeth visited Rockhampton on March 16 that year.   Bill’s father was a station ‘ringer’ during the 1918 flood; known locally as The Great Flood which peaked at 10.03 metres (almost one metre higher than this event).   In the scheme of things, according to Bill, the present case is just another flood and not a particularly severe one relative to 1954 or 1918 – and much cleaner than previous floods, perhaps because of improved land and river bank management.  

[Read more…] about Bill Burrows on the Rockhampton Flood

Aboriginal self-determination: The Whiteman’s dream – Gary Johns

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GARY Johns, a former colleague and friend of many years, has just had a book published by Connor Court entitled ‘Aboriginal self-determination: The Whiteman’s dream’.   I haven’t got my copy yet, so can’t provide a review, but no doubt it will be hard hitting.   Gary believes in integration, not self determination, for Australia’s aborigines.  According to Gary:

“Aboriginal self-determination is a white man’s dream. Those who continue to lobby for the grand experiment of aboriginal self-determination, long after its costs have been revealed, should say sorry to those the policy has harmed – every woman bashed, every man drunk out of his mind, every child molested, everyone without a job. Aborigines, especially those in remote Australia, need an exit strategy from the dream. The exit strategy outlined in this book destroys the rallying cry for culture. Instead, it shows that the way to self-determination is through individual dignity.”

Order your copy here: 
http://www.connorcourt.com/catalog1/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=7&products_id=155