About
Summary
Jennifer Marohasy is an Australian biologist who holds unpopular opinions on a range of important environmental issues.
Dr Marohasy’s response to a barrage of questions from the television program Media Watch provides some insight into the depth of her knowledge on a range of issues, download here.
Dr Marohasy has a Bachelor of Science and a PhD from the University of Queensland, worked for twelve years as a scientist for the Queensland government, then six years as environmental manager for the Queensland sugar industry, and then five years as a researcher at the Melbourne-based Institute of Public Affairs. She is currently an Adjunct Research Fellow in the Centre for Plant and Water Science at Central Queensland University.
Dr Marohasy is sceptical of the consensus position on anthropogenic global warming. In her opinion there is no unifying theory of climate, the discipline is in its infancy and there are many drivers of climate change.
Dr Marohasy is often labeled a conservative and even right wing, particularly by those who disagree with her. Careful study of her methodology and opinions indicates she is in fact a utilitarian libertarian and an atheist.
Early years
Jennifer Marohasy was born Jennifer Joyce Turnour in Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia in 1963. Her parents were farmers at Coomalie Creek near the uranium mine of Rum Jungle. They grew tomatoes and pasture seed, ran buffaloes and cattle.
She started school at Batchelor, but by second grade the family had sold up and left the Northern Territory in a Holden station wagon towing a caravan.
After nearly a year of travelling with many months spent in beach front caravan parks, the family moved into a house nestled in the Conondale ranges overlooking the headwaters of the Mary River. That home is now the community centre for the alternative lifestyle village of Crystal Waters.
After Conondale, Jennifer was sent to Clayfield College, a boarding school in Brisbane, and during school holidays visited her parents in diverse locations mostly overseas. She was later moved to Brisbane Girls’ Grammar school where she completed her HSC then went on to complete a science degree at the University of Queensland majoring in Botany and Entomology.
Career
While at University Jennifer had a variety of jobs from interpreter for the Asian Development Bank in Indonesia to ‘bug checker’ on the Darling Downs in Australia.
On graduating she was employeed by the Alan Fletcher Research Station and within a couple of years was running their field station in Tulear in south west Madagascar. The success of the biological control project that she worked on in Madagascar is documented in ‘Reclaiming lost provinces: A century of weed biological control in Queensland’ (Queensland Dept of Natural Resources and Mines, 2005).
During the 1990s, Jennifer published in Australian and international scientific journals and completed a PhD.
In 1997 Jennifer switched from research to management taking up a position with the Queensland sugar industry.
In 2001, she became interested in environmental campaigns and, in particular, anomalies between fact and perception regarding the health of coastal river systems and the Great Barrier Reef.
In 2003, she signed a three year contract with the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) to work on Murray River issues. Her monograph ‘Myth and the Murray: Measuring the Real State of the River Environment’ is of enduring relevant and was published within the first six months of that appointment. Dr Marohasy has not worked for the IPA since late 2008.
During the recent drought in the Murray Darling she campaigned for 7.6 kms of concrete barrage separating the Murray’s Mouth and Coorong from the terminal coastal lakes, also known as the Lower Lakes, to be opened.
She is a foundation member of the Australian Environment Foundation and Myth and the Murray Group.
Whistleblower
During 2002-2003 Jennifer documented her concerns with the World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF) ‘Save the Reef Campaign’ including the perverse influence of this campaign on public policy in a long review entitled ‘WWF Says Jump, Government’s Ask How High” and short piece for the IPA Review in March 2003 entitled, ‘Deceit in the Name of Conservation’.
During 2003-2006 she showed that CSIRO had misled the Australian public on Murray River salinity issues and featured in a Channel 9 TV documentary with Ross Coulthard ‘Australia’s Salinity Crisis: What Crisis’.
Dr Marohasy’s initial interest in global warming was to better understand water policy. After attending the ‘2008 International Conference on Climate Change’ in New York she was interviewed by Michael Duffy from Australia’s ABC Radio National and discussed the last 10 years of temperature data and also output from NASA Aqua Satellite (Climate Change, Michael Duffy, March 17, 2008)
This interview was the focus of an opinion piece by Christopher Pearson in The Australian (Climate facts to warm to, Christopher Pearson, March 22, 2008) which was subsequently picked up by Fox News (Cooling Effect, Brit Hume, March 24, 2008).
On April 7, 2008, Dr Marohasy received leaked email correspondence between an activist, Jo Abbess, and BBC Environment reporter Roger Harrabin. After posting the email exchange at her weblog this news was picked up by many UK and US bloggers and then various news outlets including CNN’s Glen Beck Show.
Dr Marohasy was invited onto Australia’s popular Television show Q&A where she attempted to explain to Tim Flannery that there are alternative climate change theories – alternative to anthropogenic global warming driven by carbon dioxide. You can watch the exchange here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M7R7fAfpsk&feature=related .
Dr Marohasy applies her formal training in the scientific method to better understand contentious environmental issues:
1. She notes what is being said publicly.
2. She looks to see whether public pronouncements are supported by the available evidence.
3. She looks for correlations, being careful to always distinguish between out-put from computer models as opposed to observational data.
4. She seeks advice from experts who supported the ‘consensus’ on AGW as well as ‘sceptics’.
5. She tries to understand the physical processes that might explain real world observations.
She tries to restrict her analysis and comment to the data – not what may or may not motivate others to come to particular conclusions.
Publications
During the 1990s Jennifer published over a dozen scientific papers in International and Australian scientific journals and two book chapters including on weed biological control, insect and plant taxonomy, insect behavior, animal ecology and risk management.
With the sugar industry she wrote the first commodity specific code of practice endorsed under the Queensland Environment Protection Act 1994 and coordinated development of the sugar industry’s first best management practice manual.
She recently had published ‘Accessing environmental information relating to climate change: a case study under UK freedom of information legislation’ with John Abbot in British Law Journal, Environmental Law and Management (Issue 1, Volume 22).
Links to articles and lists of articles by Dr Marohasy can be accessed here: http://jennifermarohasy.com/publications/ .
Motivation
Jennifer Marohasy has always been interested in the environment – how it can be farmed, mined and harvested for food, fiber, timber, minerals and energy and also how wildlife and wilderness areas can best be protected.
Jennifer describes herself as a utilitarian libertarian and her blog is listed at the Australian libertarian’s homepage. [F.A. Hayek in his famous essay ‘Why I am not a Conservative’ explains the significant differences between Conservatives and the English Whig and the essay be extended to explain the difference between a Conservative and a Libertarian. Both Whigs and Libertarians oppose all arbitrary power.]
What is a scientist?
What do we mean by a ‘scientist’? According to the oxford dictionary it is “a person who is studying or has expert knowledge of one or more of the natural or physical sciences.” Jennifer’s expert knowledge in the area of entomology, in which she published during the 1990s, did not cease when she stopped publishing in that literature.
Moreover, the knowledge she accumulated from many years of working as a field biologist continues to provide a foundation from which to assess all kinds of data, including, for example, technical papers on tree rings as proxies for climate change.
Of course it is evident from the Climategate emails that a group, centered in the UK, will go to great lengths to deny so-called sceptics the opportunity to publish in the peer-reviewed literature including through the removal of editors and stacking of review committees.
The issue of excluding those who do not conform extends beyond climate science. Jennifer’s work on the Murray River, in particular the publication of ‘Received evidence for deterioration in water quality in the River Murray’, caused much grief within CSIRO Land and Water including the resignation of at least one member of staff and a reprimand from the then Federal Minister for Science and Technology.
A consequence was her subsequent exclusion by many within Australian academia and threats from the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS).
Of course it is difficult to publish in the peer-reviewed literature when ‘the union’ has you black-listed for being a whistle blower. On a more positive note.
Jennifer is now an adjunct research fellow at CQ University and back into publishing in the peer-reviewed literature with ‘Accessing environmental information relating to climate change: a case study under UK freedom of information legislation’ by John Abbot and Jennifer Marohasy recently published in Environmental Law and Management (Volume 22) and ‘Has the Herbicide Diuron Caused Mangrove Dieback: A Re-Examination of the Evidence’ recently published in Human and Ecological Risk Assessment (Volume 17). There are more in preparation and under peer review including with climate science journals. More information on Jennifer’s publications can be found here: http://jennifermarohasy.com/publications/ .
Pronunciation
Jennifer’s surname Marohasy is pronounced
“Mahr oh hassee”.
The first ‘a’ is long and the second ‘a’ is short.
Pictures
Picture of Jennifer Marohasy taken in 2008 when she lived in the Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia.
Portrait of Jennifer Marohasy taken in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, in early 2006.
Black and White also taken in Brisbane, Qld, Australia, in early 2006.
One New Year’s Eve Jennifer decided to try life as ‘a brunette’, and dyed her hair black, but her family and friends had trouble recognising her so after about six months she went back to blonde.