In a media release Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, yesterday welcomed the World Heritage Committee’s consideration at its meeting in Quebec, Canada, of an expert report on Australia’s management of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.
The report, prepared by an expert mission sent by the World Heritage Committee to Tasmania in March, was based on extensive consultation, field research and rigorous examination of many long standing issues. Read more »
“If we are to understand the real state of the world, we need to focus on the fundamentals and we need to look at realities, not myths.” Bjorn Lomborg, 2001
According to geological history the earth has been warming for about 18,000 years and over this period sea levels have risen over 100 metres. Read more »
Last week the Council of Australian Governments signed an Intergovernmental Agreement for reform of the Murray-Darling Basin. The new plan involves spending $3.7 billion on water projects across the basin. Is this money well spent and how effective will it be ?
Michael Duffy invited me onto his ABC Radio National program 'Counterpoint' to discuss the issue this afternoon. You can listen here: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2008/2296327.htm. Read more »
Since the election of the Rudd Labor government last year Australians seem to be under some sort of delusion that what we do here in Australia will actually have an impact on global climate. These delusions seem to have increased with the release of the Garnaut Climate Change Review Draft Report last Friday. Read more »
Following the very sad and sudden death of our 12 year old Border Collie, we only managed two weeks without 'man's best friend' before heading off to the Border Collie Trust kennels to look at homeless Collies/Collie crosses. Read more »
There are two articles of interest from a climate point of view in this week's Science magazine. The first is entitled: 'Large and Rapid Melt-Induced Velocity Changes in the Ablation Zone of the Greenland Ice Sheet' by R. S. W. van de Wal et al.
The Abstract states: Read more »
Earlier this week, Clive Hamilton, Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, threatened to boycott Australian e-journal On Line Opinion because it publishes article by so-called 'climate change denialists'. Today, the journal's Chief Editor, Graham Young, responds: Read more »
Clive Hamilton, Professor of public ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, is leading an attack by left-leaning Australian academics on Graham Young and his e-journal On Line Opinion because it publishes article by so-called 'climate change denialists' including Tom Harris and John McLean.
Now is your opportunity to support Graham Young and On Line Opinion by making a donation here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/membership/ Read more »
The prediction of how much manmade global warming we will see in the future (as well as how much past warming was manmade) depends upon something called "climate sensitivity".
For many years, climate researchers have struggled to diagnose the Earth's climate sensitivity from measurements of the real climate system. It's almost a "holy grail" kind of search, because if we could discover the true value of the climate sensitivity, then we would basically know whether future global warming will be benign, catastrophic, or somewhere in between. Read more »
From Tuesday (1 July), businesses emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases will be required to monitor and measure the emissions ahead of reporting them to the Government by October next year.
Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong, said the requirements were part of Australia’s new National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting System.
“The National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting System will be an important part of our efforts to tackle climate change as we move to establish an emissions trading scheme,” Senator Wong said. Read more »
A new paper entitled: Does a Spin–Orbit Coupling Between the Sun and the Jovian Planets Govern the Solar Cycle? by Wilson et al has been published.
The Abstract states: Read more »
"The Carbon Sense Coalition today accused the big farming lobby groups, government departments, politicians and Ministers representing agriculture of ignoring science and abandoning farmers to unjustified carbon taxation.
The chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, claimed that there was no justification whatsoever for including emissions from farm animals in any carbon emissions tax scheme. Read more »
Large amounts of ozone -- around 50% more than predicted by the world's state-of-the-art climate models -- are being destroyed in the lower atmosphere over the tropical Atlantic Ocean. This startling discovery was made by a team of scientists from the UK's National Centre for Atmospheric Science and Universities of York and Leeds. It has particular significance because ozone in the lower atmosphere acts as a greenhouse gas and its destruction also leads to the removal of the third most abundant greenhouse gas; methane. Read more »
An international team of researchers was able to provide evidence of explosive volcanism in the deeps of the ice-covered Arctic Ocean for the first time. Researchers from an expedition to the Gakkel Ridge, led by the American Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), report in the current issue of the journal Nature that they discovered, with a specially developed camera, extensive layers of volcanic ash on the seafloor, which indicates a gigantic volcanic eruption. Read more »
I've often thought that maybe the Kyoto Protocol could have been more aptly named the 'Don Quixote Protocol.' Why? Read more »
There is an insightful short article in The Guardian by Irwin Stelzer, who is the director of the centre for economic policy studies at the Hudson Institute, and editor of the book Neoconservatism:
Gordon Brown is eager to prove that red is green, while David Cameron is urging voters to "vote blue, go green". So far, so good. But the prime minister is having some difficulty answering the question "How green are your taxes?" - while the leader of the opposition's promise to make green taxes "replacement taxes, not new taxes", contains more than a dash of Brownian stealth. Read more »
The Institute of Public Affairs invites you to the third Brisbane Club Lecture for 2008. Entitled 'Prescribing the right medicine for a city choked with congestion' the lecture is on Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 5pm in The Brisbane Club's The Oak Room (241 Adelaide Street, Brisbane CCBD).
After the talk, attendees are invited to come at their own expense to an informal dinner with Ken Willett at the nearby restaurant Zenbar at 7:00pm. Read more »
See Climate Audit: IPCC claim to have destroyed working documents violates objective, open and transparent process:
We’ve been following with interest David Holland’s efforts to obtain information on how IPCC review editors discharged their important duties under IPCC process, with the most recent progress report here. Here’s another update.
James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.
The Guardian: Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist
The majority of the British public is still not convinced that climate change is caused by humans - and many others believe scientists are exaggerating the problem, according to an exclusive poll for The Observer.
The Observer: Poll: most Britons doubt cause of climate change
Victorian premier John Brumby extolled the virtues of drought-tolerant GM wheat under development in Australia at an international biotechnology conference in the U.S., explicitly linking the new varieties and their potential to help combat climate change.
“Drought-tolerant wheat developed in Victoria is returning yields up to 20 per cent higher than non-GM control crops, Premier of Victoria John Brumby announced today at BIO 2008 in San Diego, California:” Read more »
The current global food “crisis” is not so much a consequence of natural resource constraints as it is a consequence of poor food policy decisions by government. That’s the headline in an article by Mick Keogh, Executive Director of the Australian Farm Institute, published on Monday by On Line Opinion.
I tend to agree with Mick. Read more »
Science Journal:
A Greener Greenland:
Natural Variability of Greenland Climate, Vegetation, and Ice Volume During the Past Million Years
Anne de Vernal* and Claude Hillaire-Marcel Read more »
CBS News have published an Associated Press (AP) story entitled: 'Today's Quakes Deadlier Than In Past,' Study: Seismic Activity 5 Times More Energetic Than 20 Years Ago Because Of Global Warming:
(AP) New research compiled by Australian scientist Dr. Tom Chalko shows that global seismic activity on Earth is now five times more energetic than it was just 20 years ago Read more »
A new paper has been published by Sicre et al in Earth and Planetary Science Letters entitled: Read more »
There is a new paper (in press) in the journal Climatic Change by Peter Sheenan of the Centre for Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia entitled: 'The new global growth path: implications for climate change analysis and policy'
The Abstract states: Read more »
Feral cats, along with wild dogs and foxes, are thought to have a devastating impact on populations of small native animals in parts of the Australian bush. But the future may be even bleaker with a larger and more ferocious breed of cat, known as the Savannah, expected to be introduced into Australia in the next five years.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald:
"More than 30 savannahs - which cost $5000 for a pet and $10,000 for a breeding animal - are expected to come to Australia in the next five years, with up to 16 now in US quarantine. Read more »
The first United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report had a Chapter headed "Validation of Climate Models". A similar Chapter occurred in the first draft of the Second Report. I commented that since no climate model has ever been validated, the word was inappropriate. The next draft had changed the Title, and the words "Validated" or "Validation" to "Evaluated" or "Evaluation" fifty times. Since then the word "validation" is never used, only "evaluate". Read more »
One of the most vexing things about climate change is the endless debate about temperatures. Did they rise, did they fall or were they pushed? At times it seems like a Monty Python sketch following either the Dead Parrot or the 5 or 10 Minute Argument... So began Part 1 of ‘A Note on Temperature Anomalies’ in which Tom Quirk looked at the correlation of the five temperature series and concluded that it is surprising to see the agreement achieved by two quite independent approaches. Read more »
One of the most vexing things about climate change is the endless debate about temperatures. Did they rise, did they fall or were they pushed? At times it seems like a Monty Python sketch following either the Dead Parrot or the 5 or 10 Minute Argument.
However it is possible to see some of the issues by looking at the correlation of the five temperature series that are advanced by the uppers or the downers. Read more »
"In just 16 months we have seen global cooling greater than the 0.7 degrees net warming recorded by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the whole of the 20th century. Yet it was on this figure more than anything else that the whole warmist theory has been based. Those IPCC computer models never predicted anything like this recent drop in temperatures. Read more »
Ann Novek lives in Sweden. She was once a medical student, but quit to work as a wildlife rehabilitator. She works mostly with birds, and has a special interest in helping birds affected by oil spills.
Ann has also been a supporter of this blog, sending in wildlife photographs and also information about whaling. My favourite wildlife photograph from Ann was probably of the Arctic Fox. Read more »
WASHINGTON - The Andes Mountains may have growth spurts, doubling their height in as little as 2 million to 4 million years, US researchers reported on Thursday.
Their findings suggest that current theories about plate tectonics -- the process that creates and moves continents, giving rise to mountain ranges -- may need updating... Read more »
1. Wall Street Journal – Climate Change Collapse – June 06, 2008. Read more »
Further to my recent article on how rising food prices will be good news for rural communities all over the world, The Land newspaper has carried an interesting report on how rising energy and fertiliser costs (Nitrogen is now $1000/tonne) have restored and reinforced the economics of growing nitrogen fixing cover crops in fallow rotation. Read more »
"It is interesting that Labor, during the election campaign, had lots of talk about plans for the future, but the reality, as delivered by the budget, shows a lack of vision and a lack of strategic planning or coherent direction. Before the election, the then Leader of the Opposition kept telling us that he had a plan for this and he had a plan for that. In reality, his only plan was to become Prime Minister. Read more »
I'm into my second year as a member of The Bumblebee Conservation Trust. I was considering burying a bumble bee nest box in my garden, but the other day I noticed that there is no need - the little critters have already made a nest utilising a pre-existing hole in a flower bed next to our conservatory. Read more »
"Genuine wilderness must embody a strong element of wildness and freedom.
It is not a nature park with paths and handrails and faux rustic signs warning of the obvious with myriad rules enforced by badged bureaucrats in uniform.
Real wilderness is also a state of mind which entails not only freedom but responsibility. It's a place where one may do as they wish but no one else is liable for the consequences. Read more »
"I HEAR on the scientific grapevine that CSIRO’s biggest problem when providing formal advice to the federal Government on the matter of climate change is to say nothing that can be interpreted as giving aid and comfort to the army of irresponsible sceptics out there who are doubtful about the dreadful consequences of global warming. Read more »
There is an interesting News Focus story in this week's Science journal, that helps to confirm the different climate histrories for the East and West Antarctic ice sheets - a phenomenon that persists in modern times:
ANTARCTICA: Freeze-Dried Findings Support a Tale of Two Ancient Climates
A surprising cache of ancient plant material adds evidence for divergent climate histories of the East and West Antarctic ice sheets over the past 14 million years Read more »
I find this really amusing for a number of reasons. I refer to an article in this week's Nature entitled 'A large discontinuity in the mid-twentieth century in observed global-mean surface temperature' by Thompson, Kennedy, Wallace and Phil Jones.
The abstract states: Read more »
There is a blog at www.fairwateruse.com.au with an article entitled 'Dr Jennifer Marohasy: what is her precise agenda?' suggesting my recent columns in The Land on the River Murray, in particular the situation in South Australia, are agenda driven. The fair-water blog doesn't explain what my agenda is, and doesn't allow comments, so I thought I might respond here. Read more »
"Absolute wilderness is those boundless places in the eye of the mind of the beholder where no human footprints can be found and for which all those enter there and become lost have no hope of rescue. Only the most reckless trapper or sibylline shaman venture into the wilderness, as a pebble falls to the bottom of the deepest pool, in the hope of returning to civilization with a fortune in furs or a secret wisdom or allegory thereof. Read more »
ELEVEN per cent of Mount Isa children have lead poisoning, a Queensland Health study has confirmed.
The results, released today in Mt Isa, confirm stories in The Australian in recent weeks and years.
The study shows that of 400 children aged one to four in the mining town, 45 had blood levels higher than 10 micrograms per decilitre.
Read more here: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23741342-601,00.html
story via: Stephen T. Thanks.
Australia's State of the Forests Report 2008 was launched by the Hon Tony Burke MP, and Commonwealth Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry on May 21, 2008. According to a media release from Forestry Tasmania:
“The Report is based on data from the public and private sectors and provides the most comprehensive review of the state of our forests ever undertaken,” said Dr Hans Drielsma, Forestry Tasmania’s Executive General Manager. Read more »
VICTORIA has suffered a 40 per cent plunge in autumn rainfall since 1950 and climate change is a key factor, a new report has found.
Herald Sun: Victorian Autumn rain down 40 per cent since 1950: CSIRO
Fluctuations in sea-surface temperatures to the north of Australia and changes in atmospheric circulation patterns over the sub-tropical Indian Ocean have been identified as key factors leading to declining rainfalls in south-eastern Australia since 1950. Read more »
Steve McIntyre's recent Ohio State University presentation is now available online. This is an excellent summary of the 'Hockey Stick' debate and the climate debate in general, which extends to 45 pages (including references).
The presentation concludes:
So where does that leave us? Read more »
According to Roger Pielke Sr, the answer is YES. He concludes: Thus the value of global warming of the last 4 years fails to agree with the IPCC projections (the values are not even close!). The agrument that this is too short of a time is spurious unless the modellers can account for where else in their model results the missing Joules went. Read more »
A MAJOR Australian energy company has decided not to wait for the start of a national emissions-trading scheme in 2010 and is offering to buy and sell future permits to its customers.
The Australian: AGL makes first trade in emissions scheme
When I first spotted this messy web, I could barely make out the spider. In its own right, it was tiny; a mere 3-4 mm long, but in the circumstances of its concealment, it was marvellously blended into the broader clutter of debris, at the centre of the stabilimentum (conspicuous feature of silk). Read more »
Hurricanes and tropical storms will become less frequent by the end of the century as a result of climate change, US researchers have suggested.
But the scientists added their data also showed that there would be a "modest increase" in the intensity of these extreme weather events.
The findings are at odds with some other studies, which forecast a greater number of hurricanes in a warmer world.
The researchers' results appear in the journal Nature Geoscience. Read more »
On Thursday the ABC ran a story from Greenpeace entitled Greenpeace says whalers stealing meat
by North Asia correspondent Shane McLeod:
In Japan, environmental group Greenpeace says it has uncovered evidence of widespread theft of whale meat from the country's scientific whaling program.
Greenpeace has intercepted a box of whale meat it says was illegally taken off the the whaling ship the Nisshin Maru by a member of its crew. Read more »
In the blue corner we have Roger Pielke Jr (Prometheus) and Lucia Liljegren (The Blackboard). In the red corner we have James Annan (James' Empty Blog) and Gavin Schmidt (RealClimate). Read more »
Quenching forest fires leads to more carbon in the air, says new research carried out in Californian forests. The discovery suggests that forests spared from fire may release more of the greenhouse gas into the air than they absorb.
Decades of suppressing natural fires has increased the number of surviving trees in California's forests. But this growth has been at the expense of larger trees, which are less resilient to drought and other stresses than smaller, younger trees, resulting in a decline in the total amount of carbon stored in these forests. Read more »
WASHINGTON, DC – Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, today expressed disappointment with the U.S. Department of Interior's final decision to list the polar bear as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. Read more »
I guess I was about 12 years old (1970) when I made a crude drawing of my design for an electric car. At school we had been told that oil was running out and I had been bought a new bicycle as a reward for passing the 11-plus exam, which allowed me to go to Grammer School. My bike was a 'state of the art' Raleigh RSW 16 in blue. Read more »
The Amazon rainforest, so crucial to the Earth's climate system, is coming under threat from cleaner air say prominent UK and Brazilian climate scientists in the journal Nature.
Science Daily: Amazon Under Threat From Cleaner Air
Report: CO2 from deforestation 'far outstrip damage caused by planes and automobiles and factories' Read more »
The price of meat, milk and other British farm products will have to rise to reflect the environmental cost of producing them, a government study has concluded.
A Cabinet Office review of food policy suggests that farmers and consumers should pay extra for farm goods that generate large amounts of greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide.
The proposal, the latest in a string of "green" plans that threaten to increase the cost of living, drew accusations that ministers were imposing taxes and regulations in the name of environmental policy. Read more »
"Until the 1990s, Australia had a series of separate regional power grids. We now have a system linked almost across the nation - a system which, when well managed, is cheaper and more reliable. In the late 1980s, governments finally came to see that the existing state monopoly power commissions were amazingly inefficient and hungry for great gobs of capital for new power stations and coal mines. Read more »
Australia could experience drought twice as often and the events will be twice as severe within 20 to 30 years, according to a new Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO report.
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Tony Burke yesterday released the report commissioned by the Rudd Government as part of a review of national drought policy.
According to the media release:
"The overall review, announced in April, will help prepare farmers, rural communities and Australia’s primary industries for the challenges of climate change. Read more »
On the 11th July 1987, Australians voted the ALP and Bob Hawke into federal government. Labor’s campaign promise, to stop logging within Queensland’s Wet Tropical rainforests via World Heritage nomination, was well supported and true to its word, inscription was ratified a mere sixteen months later. Read more »
The Australian media has been concentrating on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) of late. Today is the day that the draft (or should that be daft?) Garnaut Report on Climate Change is released.
ABC News: Garnaut urges emissions trading scheme 'without delay'
I gather from listening to the BBC 7.00am news on the way to work, that Japan is claiming that the terms of the Kyoto Protocol were loaded against them. The 1990 baseline favoured the likes of the UK and Germany - the Germans closed old, dirty, inefficient industry in the former East Germany, and the UK shut down much of its coal industry. Meanwhile, Japan had made big strides in energy efficiency in the 1980s. The moral of this story is clear - be careful what you sign up to. Even if implemented in full, which it won't be, the Kyoto Protocol will have no measureable effect on climate. Read more »
Hi Jennifer,
The shallows near Dobu Island off Papua and New Guinea have active underwater fumaroles pumping out virtually pure CO2. The sea grass is extraordinarily lush and healthy and there is very healthy coral reef a few metres away.
May 2008 in PNG at Dobu Island in the D'Entrecasteaux Group Read more »
There is an opinion piece in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald entitled 'Crying Need for Doubting Peter' in which Gerard Henderson suggests that even if carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are contributing to global warming it is unclear why a nation like Australia -- responsible for only 1 percent of the world's emissions -- should be an international leader in responding to climate change. Read more »
It’s an assertion repeated by politicians and climate campaigners the world over: “2,500 scientists of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agree that humans are causing a climate crisis.”
But it’s not true. And, for the first time ever, the public can now see the extent to which they have been misled. As lies go, it’s a whopper. Here’s the real situation.
Continue reading 'The UN climate change numbers hoax' over at OLO.
In an ongoing effort to get through to the Queensland Government, our local ratepayers association is considering a full-page advertisement in the environmental liftout of a local newspaper. It would include an open letter to the Premier of Queensland, the Hon. Anna Bligh MP:
Dear Madam Premier, Read more »
Let’s be honest: a dry river is not necessarily an environmental catastrophe. Read more »
Some of the personalities regularly featured on this blog will be on Australian television this Sunday morning talking with journalist Adam Shand about global warming.
The feature story on the Channel 9 Sunday Program will include comment from Tim Flannery, Robyn Williams, Don Aitkin and myself.
I gather the story could be on anytime from 7.30am - the program runs for a couple of hours.
'Climate: New ice age is on the way.' That was a headline from The Times newspaper on Read more »
