Archive for February, 2007
An Inconvenient Oscar
Posted by jennifer, February 27th, 2007 - under Uncategorized.
Tags: Climate & Climate Change
Comments: 76
The documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, in which former Vice President Al Gore explains the current “climate crisis” and how Australia must sign the Kyoto Protocol to stop global warming, last night won an Oscar Award for best documentary film.
The Oscars are awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles and [...]
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The Language of Climate Change: A Note from Luke Walker
Posted by Luke Walker, February 27th, 2007 - under Uncategorized.
Tags: Climate & Climate Change
Comments: 85
Last night Australia’s “premier television current affairs program” Four Corners showed a documentary purportedly about the “campaign to deny the science of global warming”.
A regular reader and commentator at this blog, Luke Walker, emailed me the following comment on the program:
Hi Jennifer,
ABC Four Corners last night aired CBC’s news magazine show The Fifth Estate which [...]
Licola Flood: A Note from Ralph Barraclough
Posted by jennifer, February 26th, 2007 - under Uncategorized.
Tags: Floods
Comments: 18
Late last year there were terrible bushfires across north eastern Victoria. Max Rheese sent us a note suggesting there was a need for more prescribed burning.
Now there is isolated flooding.
Following is a note and some photographs from Ralph Barraclough a landholder and a fire brigade captain with land adjacent and surrounded by the Alpine [...]
Why Environmental Scientists Can’t Predict the Future: A New Book
Posted by jennifer, February 26th, 2007 - under Uncategorized.
Tags: Other
Comments: 63
There was a book review in The New York Times last week by Cornelia Dean which began:
“When coastal engineers decide whether to dredge sand and pump it onto an eroded beach, they use mathematical models to predict how much sand they will need, when and where they must apply it, the rate it will move [...]
GM Chickens for Therapeutic Drugs: A Note from Paul Williams
Posted by jennifer, February 24th, 2007 - under Uncategorized.
Tags: Biotechnology
Comments: 3
Hi Jennifer,
There has been quite a lot of discussion about Genetically Modified (GM) organisms related to vegetable products, but I wonder if readers are aware that GM, or transgenic animals are also a subject of study.
Here is a link to an article that describes the production of transgenic hens which can produce eggs containing therapeutic [...]
Whaling Mother Ship Being Repaired: A Note from Glenn Inwood
Posted by jennifer, February 24th, 2007 - under Uncategorized.
Tags: Plants and Animals
Comments: 172
I emailed Glenn Inwood yesterday. He is a spokesman for the Japanese whalers in the Antarctic whose mother ship the Nisshin Maru had to be evacuated last week after a fire broke out.
Greenpeace has been concerned the stricken ship could end up an ecological disaster with 1.3 million litres of fuel potentially leaking into [...]
Less Carbon, Less Kenyan Produce for Tesco
Posted by jennifer, February 23rd, 2007 - under Uncategorized.
Tags: Climate & Climate Change, Food & Farming
Comments: 64
Flying airplanes generates a lot of greenhouse gas emissions. So, according to the global warming doomsayers we should endeavor to fly less. Indeed according to a recent article at Grist.org the Bishop of London has proclaimed that it is a sin to fly on holidays.
British supermarket chain Tesco has extended the logic to [...]
New Open Renewable Not-For-Profit Energy Project: A Note from Robert Rohatensky
Posted by jennifer, February 22nd, 2007 - under Uncategorized.
Tags: Energy & Nuclear
Comments: 19
Hi Jennifer,
We are involved in a not-for-profit project to develop a system for clean, location independent and renewable electrical power generation that can be built from common materials.
The system design of the project is being managed in a not-for-profit and open manner and applies the same methodologies and principles that have made Linux and other [...]
Queensland Water for Southern Irrigators: The Bizarre Beattie-Bradfield Plan
Posted by jennifer, February 22nd, 2007 - under Uncategorized.
Tags: Water
Comments: 8
Just 2 years ago the Queensland government passed the Wild Rivers Act 2005. It’s purportedly about preserving the natural values of wild rivers through regulating future development while maintaining grazing, fishing and eco-tourism. The bottom-line is that the legislation was championed by activists to stop the further development of irrigation in north [...]
Professor Ian Lowe Wrong, But By Not Quite So Much
Posted by Alan Ashbarry, February 21st, 2007 - under Uncategorized.
Tags: Energy & Nuclear
Comments: 50
A couple of days ago I reported on a landmark decision in the Queensland Land and Resources Tribunal. It was decided that operations at a coal mine in central Queensland could be expanded without any of the conditions sought by two environmental groups, inparticular that mining giant Xstrata avoid, reduce or offset the greenhouse gas [...]


