2 Comments:

 Andrew said...

This methane red herring surfaced on the blog of the infamous (in Australian conservationist circles, anyway) Jennifer Marohasy.

The good Doctor works for the pro-market Institute of Public Affairs and her job is to promote any research (no matter how marginal) which debunks anything to do with conservation.

She claims the blog is entirely her hobby, and as such, it is not part of her conditions of employment with the IPA. For this she can have the benefit of the doubt, as she does provide a forum for debate and has allowed Greenpeace guest bloggers and those who wish to respond to have posts.

Her claim to take an evidence-based approach is partly true (ie, there could be a sustainable level of whaling, and therefore the moratorium should be lifted), but this generally falls over when placed in the real world, where market power, tragedy of the commons, politics and values are thrown into the mix and invariably sends nice theories awry. What's left becomes a soap box for pro-market spin, where all conservation is bad and all business is 'wise-use'.

Anyway, I digress.

Ms Marohasy leapt on the 'trees produce some methane therefore we shouldn't plant them' with glee. She argued that this was final nail in the coffin for Kyoto and John Howard had been inspired not to have signed all along.

While understanding the level of natural fluxes of greenhouse gas will always be essential to understanding anthropogenic forcings, I first thought was whole methane thing was more an argument for strengthening the emissions regime in Kyoto, not simply throwing up our hands and saying 'well, bugger it… there's little we can do…'

A week or so later, the Max Planck researcher was allowed to post his own response, stating that most (the media mainly) had misunderstood the implications of the research, and his conclusions. Overall, there is still net benefit in reforestation in capturing carbon of some 96%. Natural fluxes have been operating for 4,600 million years and life on the planet has adapted to cope with each change for at least half this time. It is the anthropogenic sources which threaten stability by their inducing of artificially high rates of climate change (in this case, warming) in a highly modified and curtailed landscape.

While Jen Marohasy's blog often provides some quite bullish comments (possibly from loggers, farmers and miners who are being made to act more responsibly), Jason, your link to Fox News was terrific; for a moment I thought it was satire...

If I read it right, the entire scientific establishment has been hook-winked by Leo Di Caprio's and the Wiggles’ superior wisdom on climate change. What a persuasive fellow…. (This was also a theme that ran through Michael Crichton's State of Fear. The errant celebrity, who couldn't see the error of his ways in believing this clap trap about global warming comes to a particularly gruesome end, straight out of parochial American attitudes about brutal jungle-dwelling barbarians. I would suggest you read it, but apart from gaining a perspective on what the sceptics are thinking, there is nothing to recommend it.)

And what’s all this about frogs? First Fox News assert that it’s probably field researchers and eco-tourists who are doing the damage, then they suggest we shouldn’t conclude that human’s are to blame for their decline. We can waste frogs, as long it’s not done by climate change.

Similarly, when Fox News reported the coral bleach currently occurring on the Great Barrier reef, no mention was made that the researchers argued that this is probably a manifestation of global warming. This was the thrust of most other media; but then that is just the outrageous left media bias, on a global scale!

On Flannery: yes it was an accessible and heart-felt book, particularly his comments re the level of global warming that we have already committed ourselves to by emissions thus far.

A recent report from the UK Government on dangerous climate change portrays a sorry story: the Chief Scientific Adviser suggests that there is now little chance in staying below the EU stated goal of 450 parts per million and a two degrees rise. While your average Brit pumps out masses more CO2 than your average Indian, it is the one major economy in the world which seems to be taking the whole climate regime seriously. No doubt because its economy is a little more sophisticated than Australia’s dig it up and sell it because there’s tonnes of it attitude.

However, I don’t share Flannery’s view that recourse to contract or tort law will solve anything. (See Bush’s State of Union address ‘environmental problems will not be solved by endless litigation’) While undoubtedly there has been some big wins for the little guy over the multi-national, the policy of divide and rule, driving a wedge between people as shareholders, employees, consumers and citizens will always create a weak regulatory framework where business can continually push the external cost of their operation onto the taxpayer/individual.

Ho Hum.

10:59 PM  

 Jason Dykes said...

Thanks for the excellent comment.

I have read some critiques of work about human-caused climate change, but as I came to them after reading the other stuff they've seemed pretty weak. Mind you, at least that means it doesn't take long to read them. For example, over the weekend it took less than 30 minutes to read the 95 page, The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of Climate Change 2001, by Vincent Gray.

5:59 PM  

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