Jennifer Marohasy

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 [...]

For me, wilderness both resonates of human potential and also describes the ultimate expression of humanity. No other state of relations can be more admirable. Far from the notion of humankind and wilderness being mutually exclusive, I believe we must rather aspire to change for the benefit of wilderness and in so doing, restore to [...]

“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 [...]

It becomes so hypnotising, that I’ve just had to dive overboard into 15,000 feet of ultramarine indigo and let my boat sail on without me with no one on board.
Mind you, I had a long line trailing…….
I felt I was “the first that ever burst into that silent sea”.
[Spangled Drongo, May 2008 ]

Beyond Buyat Bay, [...]

“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.
One [...]

“Wilderness is mainly in the mind’s eye – to be a stranger in a strange land for a fraction of a second and create an other world where what is familiar and drab and safe is fleetingly unrecognisable yet beckons like a siren’s song. A place like home yet a place like no other.”
Posted by: [...]

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 [...]

“Why do we love to believe that mankind is a plague upon the Earth? We view anything and everything that happens in nature, no matter how barbaric, bloody, or destructive, as good. Indeed, the word ‘natural’ has no negative connotation at all.
If a volcano like Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines dumps millions of tons of [...]

Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer, the directors and producers of the documentary on mining and environmentalism, Mine Your Own Business, have just finished a new film ‘Not Evil Just Wrong’.
The trailer is now on you tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHMOEVRysWE
Their new focus appears to be global warming.

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:
“Data sets used to monitor the Earth’s climate indicate that the surface of the [...]