Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

What to Listen to, and Read, This Week

By

1. How to die?

“If we remove faith from the equation, voluntary euthanasia presents a difficulty for the conservative dislike of change. In the broad sweep of Western history it is new, or at least newly popular, which means a conservative should regard it with suspicion. And yet often it follows on another new action that conservatives are happy to embrace – the extension of life through medicine, to the point where it becomes agonising. Why should one change be accepted and not the other?”

Read more here from Michael Duffy at Quadrant Online: http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/qed/2011/02/simple-death
And look out for Michael’s new book ‘The Simple Death’.

2. Facebook

I’ve just been joined to a new Facebook group: Murray Darling Basin People Who Live in the Basin.  The group has been started by Peter Oataway a frustrated resident of the township of Hay on the Murrumbidgee River.    Are there other Facebook groups with an Australian rural focus?  If you know of one please provide the link as a comment.
 http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_188277774537703&id=188483771183770

3.  Blowering Dam Still Spilling  

Peter Oataway would like the Water Act changed so due consideration is given to rural communities in the Murray Darling Basin.   As Max Talbot wrote last week in The Land newspaper, the Act should also be changed to ensure the integration of Snowy Scheme water storages.  At the moment Snowy Hydro is still releasing from Lake Eucumbene and Blowering Dam is still spilling and as the hydrologists say: “a full dam doesn’t hold any water”.  More on this later in the week. 

4. Wind farming

I haven’t read: Why Wind Won’t Work?.  It’s a submission from the Carbon Sense Coalition to the Australian Senate Enquiry into Wind Farms.
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/why-wind-wont-work.pdf and http://www.carbon-sense.com/ 
But I’m passing along the link on request from Viv Forbes.

5. Consider this an open thread

Let other readers of this blog know what you are listening to, and reading, this week by way of a comment.

And consider donating to the continued operation of this blog.   There is an orange button at the top right hand corner of this page.    It’s about community, and access to information that is not politically correct or even fashionable.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. val majkus says

    I’m looking forward to hearing more on the Water Act and would like to hear more on how the MDBA consultants and the Tony Windsor road show meetings went

    but while waiting for that Roger Pielke Jnr’s take on the cost of reinsurance (caused no doubt by global warming) http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2011/02/tall-tales-in-new-york-times.html
    first para
    I’ve made peace with the fact that many people want to believe things utterly unsupported by data, such as what Elisabeth Rosenthal writes in today’s New York Times, that intense storms and floods have become three times more common and increasing damage from such events is evidence of human caused climate change. Of course, people believe a lot of silly things that data don’t support — like President Obama is a Muslim with a fake birth certificate, vaccines cause autism, and climate change is a hoax, just to name a few on a very long list. While such misplaced beliefs are always disconcerting, especially so to academics who actually study these issues, such misjudgments need not necessarily stand in the way of effective action. So it is not worth getting too worked up about tall tales.
    (last para)
    But, as Munch Re explains, they have been able to overcome the dearth of disasters because recent extreme events have allowed them to increase prices on coverage in a manner that not only counteracts recent losses to some degree, but even allows for “profitable growth.” As with most tall tales, the one about the financial plight of reinsurers dealing with a changed climate isn’t going away any time soon. It is just another bit of popular unreality that effective decision making will have to overcome.

    (maybe they should be eyeing off Queensland for more profitable growth)

  5. TonyfromOz says

    Yikes!
    This may not (or it may even) be related to any of the topics here at Jennifer’s Blog, but this Thread looks to be a general one.

    I’m an avid reader, and in 1992 I finally committed the time to reading ‘Atlas Shrugged’, and I’ve read it twice more since then, when I need a ‘pick me up’.

    For those among you who have read read the book, then you are intensely aware that it could never (effectively) be translated into a movie.
    However, that is exactly what is (finally) being planned, and thankfully, they are going to split it into numerous parts, three I suspect, so at least (some of) the real story can effectively be told using that genre.

    For those among you who have read the book, you will be aware of Hank Rearden, and the pivotal part he plays in the book.

    Well, (and here’s the Yikes! part) the role of Hank Rearden is being played by Grant Bowler, the Aussie (well New Zealander really) from Blue Heelers and narrator of Border Security.

    Here’s the link to the Trailer, and Part 1 is scheduled for mid April.

    http://www.atlasshruggedpart1.com/atlas-shrugged-movie-trailer

    Tony

    PS. If you want to commit to a really long book, which also turned into one of the best books I’ve ever read, try (Frank) Xavier Herbert’s ‘Poor Fellow My Country’.

  6. val majkus says

    More on Yasi
    the Dangers of Hype by Ken Stewart
    http://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/the-danger-of-hype/
    In other words Yasi was a strong Cat 3 or very low Cat 4, not Cat 5. There is no evidence for winds of 290km/hr . The danger from Cyclone Yasi was exaggerated and over-hyped.

    What’s the big deal? you may ask. Lives were saved.

    True. Hyping the danger was a good short term tactic and worked. However, this is not a good long term strategy in our fight to defend ourselves from nature’s extremes.

    The people of North Queensland may well say, “Well if that was 290 km/hr winds, the damage was bad, but not too bad. We’ll be right next time.”

    But the damage from a cyclone with real 290 km/hr winds will be well over a thousand times worse than that caused by Yasi.

    and check out what Warwick Hughes has to say http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=811&cpage=1#comment-25770

  7. cohenite says

    By way of a whinge and to express my continued astonishment I note the usual vitriol and unabashed hostility of the ABC comments to anything which questions the orthodox opinion of AGW;

    http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/43878.html

    Anything by Zibethicus, Rrogr or Mulga Mumblebrain makes my hair stand on end.

  8. Luke says

    No one is listening Cohers – go and clean up your Dad’s army web site over at Niche. Now if it were some femme fatale telling me it was a crock I might listen. Why are sceptics so old? All apparent on the Watts pensioner scaring tour of Oz.

  9. Derek Smith says

    Well um…..I’ve read some of my latest X-Men comics and I just got a graphic novel called ‘shepherds tale’ which gives the never before told back-story of shepherd book from the firefly series. I went an’ saw Tangled in 3D at the movies recently,…..I thought it was a great movie. And I did see True Grit on the weekend and I totally agree with Bolta on that one.
    Deep, cerebral type books?…………………………………………………..nup.

  10. val majkus says

    yep Derek, True Grit was great and the scenery was great too
    and Cohenite gotta agree
    why are the comments on AGW sites so vitriolic to sceptics
    Most sceptic sites I’ve been to are quite courteous on the other hand to AGWers

  11. Derek Smith says

    Cohers, I read that piece last week including about 400+ comments at the time. Totally agree with you. Just went back and found this comment revealing;
    “John, regardless of your belief about climate change, you are doing an excellent job for the environment. Strange thing is, that caring for the environment in respect to reduce greenhouse emissions requires people to perform more actions like yours. Why you are against it seems a little odd in that light. You may not believe in climate change, but you seem to behave in line with someone who does. Why not just state that you do not believe in it, but you do support actions which reduce emissions /because/ they are better for the world anyway? But well done all the same.”
    It really does come down to Ford or Holden for some people. My reading on this site suggests that the vast majority of bloggers are active environmentalists but you can’t convince alarmist of that.

  12. Luke says

    “Most sceptic sites I’ve been to are quite courteous on the other hand to AGWers”

    Woo hoo – what UTTER bunk – go to Nova’s or Bolt’s and pretend to be a warmista.

    You mean “faux” environmentalists.

  13. Derek Smith says

    OK Luke, I confess. I can no longer consider myself a lover of nature. I…….have…um….actually started pulling up Eucalypt saplings that I find within 50 meters of my house. I’ve started poisoning, yes POISONING those pretty yellow flowers with broad leaf rosettes just because they’re not native! I could go on and on…the list is endless! And the worst crime of all? I burn dead wood in my combustion heater JUST so I can have warm showers in winter. Oh the shame.

    Oh yeh, I killed a brown snake next to my house the other day, I’m definitely going to hell.

  14. spangled drongo says

    val,

    Thanks for that link to Ken Stewart. I go along with him on that.

    Derek,

    Those brown snakes are definitely a worry. The canetoads used to kill ’em here but not now.

  16. Luke says

    “What all of this shows is that many people simply cannot think rationally about climate change, nor do they have the capacity to diagnose proper information from nonsense. And once they pursue nonsense, it is very difficult to convince them that they are wrong. You cannot convince such people that Pat Michaels, Singer, Marano, etc don’t actually have anything to say, or that WUWT is a disinformation source. It’s not that the information to show they are nonsense is unavailable, it’s that the information MUST be wrong.

    It is also clear to me that climate scientists must now become babysitters to every half-baked idea out there, otherwise they are being dogmatic. They must write detailed responses to people who think the greenhouse effect isn’t real.

    It is also clear to me that the so-called ‘skeptics’ are allowed to make up whatever they want at will without consequence, and create a large but ill-thought out laundry list, and that we must play this game or else we’re being ‘dogmatic.’ If a climate scientist make one mistake, or a date gets screwed up in the middle of a 1000 page document about glaciers, it will receive international attention. However, if ‘skeptics’ toss out 8 conspiracy theories, 10 logical fallacies, and 17 arguments with ZERO thought put into them, then it is a good thing that we get to hear all sides. Then, when one item on the bucket list is knocked down, they can just jump to the next item. In the meantime, they are just as valid as everyone else’s idea, since the criteria for acceptance is 101% certainty in everything.” C Colose

  18. el gordo says

    Luke

    Watts and the other sceptical blogs serve a useful purpose in gathering information, they are the new media. For instance, over at WUWT they are discussing a paper (Bye et al. 2011) which adds weight to the theory of a 30 year ‘random walk’.

    This ties in very neatly with the 60 year cycles found in ice cores.

    There is also some talk about the UK Met downplaying the importance of the CET data and attempting to eliminate it altogether. The unpalatable truth needs to be aired:

    http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/cet_december2010.png

  19. val majkus says

    More on the MDBA
    (Cutting and pasting from the article)
    NORTH West NSW irrigators could save water for a fraction of the cost proposed in the Murray Darling Basin guide, the Windsor inquiry was told in Gunnedah yesterday.
    Namoi Councils’ water working group chairman Bruce Brown told the House Standing Committee on Regional Australia, savings could also be made without the devastating socio-economic impacts that could follow under the MDB plan.

    Six irrigator groups, the Caroona Coal Action Group and the joint Namoi Councils all made submissions arguing the inadequacy of the guide to the Murray Darling Basin Plan.

    There were no submissions in favour of the plan as it stands.

    Mr Brown told The Leader following the inquiry, all submissions had been constructive and progressive.

    “None of us wasted time telling the inquiry about the problems in the Water Act, the inaccuracies in the data the MDBA used to come up with their guide to the plan,” Mr Brown said.

    “It was taken as a given that the committee members have been told this over and again, and so we approached this trying to offer alternatives and a better approach.”

    Mr Brown told the inquiry everyone was supportive of the need to return some level of consumptive water use for environmental purposes.

    “The key question is how this can be achieved effectively whilst minimising the negative socio-economic impacts,” he said. He argued the on-market purchase of water caused excessive harmful social and economic impacts.

    “What is clear is that the on-market purchase of water entitlements is a very blunt policy instrument which provides for significant negative socio-economic impacts,” he said.

    The submission cited the Water Use Efficiency Project, which involved 35 groundwater irrigators in the Namoi.

    “The anticipated water savings were 6830 megalitres, for a total cost of $4.99 million, putting the average cost of ground water freed up at $730 per megalitre,” Mr Brown said.

    “To put this figure in perspective, groundwater entitlements have been traded at well in excess of $2000 per megalitre.”

    http://www.northerndailyleader.com.au/news/local/news/general/alternatives-for-flawed-plan/2075675.aspx

  21. el gordo says

    ‘Why is that you guys are always right and we are always wrong?’

    The scientists are getting bags of grant money, the politicians are scientifically illiterate and the msm is asleep at the wheel.

    That’s why, over at Luke’s thread, I have spent a lot of time disproving the validity of AGW. It should be the other way ’round.

  24. el gordo says

    On the evidence to hand, natural variability is dominant in SWWA. Sam is out of the picture and GHGs have no impact there, so the mechanism lies in the Indian Ocean.

    Cosmic ray bombardment of earth, when the sun is quiet, will produce more low lying cloud which has a cooling effect.

    This will take time to unravel because of the lag, but I support David Archibald’s belief that temperatures in the NH will be 2 degrees below average within a decade.

  25. John Sayers says

    Luke – the Movie “Home” has stunning photography.

    In the first 15mins they state:

    “In the great adventure of life on earth every species has a role to play, every species has it’s place, none is futile or harmful, they all balance out.”

    then they go on to blame man for everything – they go on about the Maldives sinking, Greenland melting etc. all the same old same old.

    Great photography but turn the sound off as it’s not worth listening to, well apart from an interesting but predictable music track.

  27. spangled drongo says

    “Spangles, are brown snakes now immune to cane toads?”

    eg,

    Sorry to be so late getting back but I don’t think so. I think that snakes generally are getting smarter and with good seasons they have more to choose from. I heard a story today that even a few quolls are surviving.

  28. Walter says

    I’m thinking of the Perth bushfires and wondering if anybody learned anything from Black Saturday in Victoria.? Apparently they didn’t because the same factors seem to have been in play on the left coast. Are any journos digging into this, or are mega-fires what we have to live with from now on.

  31. el gordo says

    Thanks for that anecdotal evidence on snakes and toads, spangles.

    Jo Nova is running the ‘Audit BoM’ story and it has been picked up by Watts. Big H/T to Ken Stewart, Chris Gillham, Andrew Barnham, Tony Cox, James Doogue, David Stockwell, as well as Cory Bernardi, Federal Senator for South Australia.

    Way to go!

  35. Larry Fields says

    A GENERALIZED SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS?
    by Larry Fields

    In an earlier article, Martin Hertzberg wrote:
    ‘There is an important point that was missed in your article about the Stefan-Boltzmann equation. Applying the argument to the “greenhouse gas” theory is quite simple: there can be no “back radiation” from the colder atmosphere to the warmer earth’s surface.  It violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics as it applies to radiative transfer…’
    http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2011/02/more-on-the-stefan-boltzmann-equation/

    As a counterweight, the scienceofdoom blog has a long post about the distinction between the real Second Law of Thermodynamics and what is described as the IMAGINARY Second Law of Thermodynamics. In order to make the point, scienceofdoom quotes several examples of descriptions of the real 2nd Law, taken from pre-global-warming-hysteria thermodynamics textbooks. Interestingly, none of these 2nd Law formulations from old standard textbooks prohibit back radiation. Well done, scienceofdoom.
    http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/10/07/amazing-things-we-find-in-textbooks-the-real-second-law-of-thermodynamics/

    While there is a discrepancy,vis-à-vis back radiation, between the traditional 2nd Law of Thermodynamics and Martin’s claim, it’s not necessarily a conversation-stopper. Although
    I tend to agree with scienceofdoom on this one specific point, there’s another possibility that we should consider: that Martin was proposing a GENERALIZED 2nd Law, without being explicit about it. Why not? Mathematicians do it all the time.

    Consider the Tractrix. This is a classical geometric shape, which is created as follows. Start with a toy on a taut string. Then walk in a straight line perpendicular to the original line segment defined by the string. The path taken by the toy is a Tractrix.

    “The area between the tractrix and its asymptote is πa2 / 2 which can be found using integration [the traditional approach] or Mamikon’s theorem.”
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tractrix#Properties

    The Wikipedia article should have mentioned that the tractrix is a special case of the Bicyclix. What is a Bicyclix? Suppose that you ride your bicycle through a long, shallow puddle. Then you make a right-angle turn onto a side-street. The crescent shape made by the wet bicycle tires on the dry pavement, as the rear wheel attempts to take a shortcut, in order to catch up with the front wheel, is a Bicyclix. Surprisingly, the area of the Bicyclix is path-independent; i.e. a gradual right-angle turn will yield the same area as a sharp right-angle turn.

    The area of the Bicyclix follows immediately from the Tangent Sweep Method, in Mamikon’s Theorem. In other words, the Bicyclix area theorem is a generalization of the Tractrix area theorem.

    So why can’t we do the same thing for the 2nd Law? Can we articulate and prove a valid generalization thereof? By the way, my shorthand for such a generalization–if it exists–is G2L.

    Graham Young raises an interesting idea. I’ll rephrase his point in the form of a question: For which putative G2L propositions, would an ordinary thermos be a counterexample? I hope that Graham follows up on this question, and goes into more detail.
    Comment from: Graham Young February 10th, 2011 at 10:59 pm

    A more obvious question. Farmers and other country-people pay more attention to the weather than city folk do. They are keenly aware that when there’s overcast at night following a sunny day, that the nighttime cloud cover tends to hold the heat in. Question: Does this fact put the kibosh on every possible G2L?

    Larry’s Scenarios.

    Suppose that two identical black body radiators, huge cubes having EXACTLY the same temperature, are facing each other, but are not touching. Everyone agrees that the NET heat flow between the two cubes is zero. But according to Martin’s controversial G2L proposal, there will be ZERO IR photons crossing the void between them. In other words, no IR photon exchange between the two cubes. Assuming that that’s the case, let’s add a new wrinkle.

    A bird with a small sensor attached to its leg flies horizontally, midway between the cubes. The bird and the sensor are considerably cooler than the cubes. Therefore the sensor will pick up IR photons from both cubes. This is consistent with G2L, and with the standard version of the 2nd Law. So far, so good. Let’s add a second wrinkle.

    The bird is flying at a relativistic speed–say 0.5c. Now the cubes must ‘aim’ their IR photons carefully, in order to hit the bird and the sensor. If the cubes ‘aim’ directly at the flying bird, they will miss their target, and hit each other. That would be a clear violation of Martin’s G2L.

    Not only do the cubes have sufficient consciousness to detect the bird and its small cargo, but they are able to aim their photons at a point ahead of the flying bird! Skeet shooting with photons requires a higher level of consciousness on the part of the cubes than does mere detecting and aiming. The cubes must now do elementary physics calculations! Now let’s add a third wrinkle.

    When it’s midway between the midpoints of the two cubes, the bird decides to change its heretofore horizontal course to a course having a slight downward angle . Now the cubes must be able to predict the bird’s decision! Not only do the cubes have bird-detection and physics-calculation abilities, but now they’re psychic as well!

    There are multiple logically equivalent formulations of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Moreover these equivalences are not intuitively obvious–at least to me. That said, I don’t know if it’s possible to generalize the 2nd Law. And I’m in no position to prove that ordinary inanimate objects do NOT have psychic abilities. However Martin’s proposed G2L–if true–strongly suggests that that is the case. If you enjoy astrology, you’ll love Martin’s ‘New Age’ G2L!

  37. el gordo says

    What happens in the Baltic Sea will illustrate the flaws in climate models. They predict a mean increase of 2–4 °C in the sea-surface temperature by the end of this century and the extent of sea-ice is expected to decrease by 50–80 % over the same period.

    This is unlikely to happen, but good news if it did. Warm water taxa would return in abundance.