This shouldn't be controversial. After all, it appears to be a repeated pattern around the world that in places like the Americas the arrival of modern human beings causes immense dislocation of the existing environment. It would certainly appear that in the Americas the disappearance of megafauna coincided with the colonisation of the continents by people. But here in Australia, as elsewhere, we still labour under the myth of the "noble savage" - the white middle class fantasy whereby our grief at a perceived loss of innocence and connexion with the natural world is psychologically projected onto primitive tribal peoples and cultures. It is a process where these societies are almost magically endowed with a so-called 'spiritual' relationship with nature. Some idiot at some point here actually said that the aboriginal people trod every inch of this vast land and yet disturbed nothing. Fuckwit. No, that's right, you arrive in a place that has never seen human beings before with a brain unlike anything seen in the history of the planet, armed with spears and the intelligence to plan ahead, and then also start to burn the country several times a year (instead of once every several years naturally), and that had no effect whatsoever! This story from the news.com site is interesting. I've taken the title of this post from it, but while the story also appeared in this morning's issue of The Australian, it did so with another heading - Humans get the rap for killing megafauna giants. So, in The Australian, despite the usual thing these days when an opportunity is never lost to remind us that the aborigines have been in this land for 50,000 years or so (and rightly so), a story about the extinction of Australia's megafauna 40-50,000 years ago does not mention the word aborigine once! Maybe a middle class sacred cow being saved from slaughter?
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Friday, January 22, 2010
Aborigines, not climate, killed megafauna - report
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Protozoans Against Intelligent Design
Tthough technically, I thought that the name protozoa had been dropped for something else. Never mind.)
The Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology has just published a very nice paper showing how the details of protist evolution "dispel the myths of intelligent design." Generally, protists are "unicellular eukaryotes that either exist as independent cells, or if they occur in colonies, do not show differentiation into tissues." Think amoebae or foraminifera.
Biologists Mark Farmer and Andrea Habura address various ID claims and show how the evolution of protists disprove them.
Full article here http://reason.com/blog/2010/01/21/protozoans-against-intelligent
Extra CO2 causing Amazon rainforests to expand?
From Greenie Watch http://antigreen.blogspot.com/:
They're gobbling up all that increasing CO2
Discussing: Gloor, M. et al. 2009. "Does the disturbance hypothesis explain the biomass increase in basin-wide Amazon forest plot data?" Global Change Biology 15: 2418-2430. Background The authors write that "analysis of earlier tropical plot data has suggested that large-scale changes in forest dynamics are currently occurring in Amazonia (Phillips and Gentry, 1994; Phillips et al., 2004), and that an increase in aboveground biomass has occurred, with increases in mortality tending to lag increases in growth (Phillips et al., 1998; Baker et al., 2004a,b; Lewis et al., 2004)." However, they state that this conclusion has recently been challenged by an overzealous application of the "Slow in, Rapid out" dictum, which relates to the fact that forest growth is a slow process, whereas mortality can be dramatic and singular in time, such that sampling over relatively short observation periods may miss these more severe events, leading to positively-biased estimates of aboveground biomass trends, when either no trend or negative trends actually exist. What was done Gloor et al. statistically characterize "the disturbance process in Amazon old-growth forests as recorded in 135 forest plots of the RAINFOR network up to 2006, and other independent research programs, and explore the consequences of sampling artifacts using a data-based stochastic simulator." What was learned The researchers report that "over the observed range of annual aboveground biomass losses, standard statistical tests show that the distribution of biomass losses through mortality follow an exponential or near-identical Weibull probability distribution and not a power law as assumed by others." In addition, they say that "the simulator was parameterized using both an exponential disturbance probability distribution as well as a mixed exponential-power law distribution to account for potential large-scale blow-down events," and that "in both cases, sampling biases turn out to be too small to explain the gains detected by the extended RAINFOR plot network." What it means Gloor et al. conclude that their results lend "further support to the notion that currently observed biomass gains for intact forests across the Amazon are actually occurring over large scales at the current time, presumably as a response to climate change," which in many of their earlier papers is explicitly stated to include the aerial fertilization effect of the historical increase in the air's CO2 content. More HERE (See the original for links, references etc.)Australia and the next global financial crisis
From the Business Spectator:
As sure as I wake up like clockwork at 2.30am every morning to stomp aimlessly around the house, raid the fridge, and bash out a few semi-conscious emails, there is going to be another global financial crisis in our lifetimes. And while I am not the gambling type, I would confidently wager that Australia is going to find itself in very serious strife. Because the next upheaval will likely originate in that industrialising, high-growth, politically unstable, and insensitive-to-the-rule-of-law region of the world that fixates Westerners like an irresistible narcotic: Asia (and China, more pointedly). And just as the transmission device for the recent contagion was banks that had overreached their domestic savings and loans domains and sucked far too hard on the impossible-for-myopic-management to ignore US lolly pop, history will inevitably repeat itself with the difference being that we substitute China for the US and Australian banks for their foreign cousins.
And:
Advocacy of these ideas, which would involve a lot of re-regulation, is not ordinarily associated with libertarians, neo-liberals, or those who subscribe to the so-called “Chicago school” that promulgates maximizing private market activity while paring back far less efficient public sector influences.
I was, therefore, surprised to come across a fairly forceful endorsement of the narrow banking model from Professor John Cochrane, who is one of the 'efficient markets' prophets and a doyen of the Chicago school. By way of interesting context, Cochrane, who is also a leading academic researcher, remains a firm believer in the two cornerstones of neo-classical economics that have come in for most criticism following the GFC: the related ‘rational expectations’ and ‘efficient markets’ hypotheses. Accordingly, Cochrane is a Republican-style champion of smaller government, extensive deregulation, and the belief that the public sector should get out of the way of private markets. Yet check out Cochrane’s views on how we should regulate banks in a post-GFC world, which are patently of the radical narrow-banking ilk (my emphasis added):The amphibious Asian mystery cat
 From the Nude Socialist: Species name: Prionailurus planiceps
Habitat: Wetlands and flood plains in Malaysia and neighbouring regions of south-east Asia
A cat with webbed feet? A cat that's happy to hang out in water? A stump-tailed, flat-headed cat that swims expertly and dines almost exclusively on fish? Such an animal exists – but it's on the last of its nine lives. Only cloning might give it another.
Everyone knows that domestic cats hate water: readers who own one and have tried to give it a bath will be painfully aware of the fact. But the flat-headed cat of south-east Asia throws what everyone knows out the window. An enthusiastic swimmer, more like a feline otter than a cat, it has various adaptations to an aquatic lifestyle.
However, despite its frolicking nature this elusive animal is severely threatened by habitat loss. Saving it from extinction might require a newly developed form of cloning. Miaowing mysteryAlthough about the same size as the familiar domestic cat
Here's what is known or guessed. As the name suggests, their heads are noticeably flattened compared with other cats – perhaps to streamline them for their life in the water. The feet are partially webbed. A relative, the fishing cat, also has part-webbed feet, but the flat-headed cat's are far more flipper-like. In fact, when a kitten was captured in Malaysia some years ago, its keepers found that it would play for hours in a basin of water. From what's been found in the stomachs of dead animals, it seems their diet was mainly fish, with the odd shellfish and frog thrown in. Brave new kittensClassified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as "endangered", extreme measures may be required to save it.
A new kind of cloning technology called intergeneric nuclear transfer could be the answer. The technique works by taking a nucleus from a skin cell of the animal to be cloned and transferring it into an emptied egg cell of a different, commoner species.
African wild cats have been born after developing in the eggs and wombs of domestic cats, and it may be possible to grow water buffaloes using the eggs of cows.
The technique, currently being attempted by Thai geneticists, could allow flat-headed cats to be grown in the lab, without the need for a breeding pair.
Journal reference: Theriogenology, DOI: 10.1016/j.theriogenology.2009.09.001
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, flat-headed cats have short stumpy tails, and their eyes are strikingly large. They Wednesday, January 20, 2010
It's not breast-milk that makes babies brainier. It's clever mothers.
From the Food & Health Skeptic http://john-ray.blogspot.com/:
Wow! I almost feel that someone has been listening to me
Breastfed babies are smarter because their mothers are clever, not because of the nutritional benefits of breast milk, a study suggests. Previous trials have shown that infants fed on formula milk tend to have lower intelligence and the IQ difference has frequently been put down to a deficit of an omega 3 fatty acid, known as DHA, that is normally found in lower concentrations in formula milk. However, scientists at the Univerisity of Southampton, found no evidence of a link between intelligence and breastfeeding once the mother’s social class and IQ were taken into account.Full article here http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article6996019.ece
Lord Monckton needs to cool down
Albrechtsen is right. Lord Monckton has done a fantastic job in campaigning against the exaggerated claims about the dangers of climate change.
But he also does have a tendency to get carried away rhetorically, and this can only be damaging.
Just as the these kinds of chickens are now starting to come home to roost for Al Gore, the IPCC and the rest of them.
"When Monckton talks about the science he is powerful. Watch on YouTube his kerb-side interview of a well-meaning Greenpeace follower on the streets of Copenhagen last month. With detailed data behind him, he asks whether she is aware that there has been no statistically significant change in temperatures for 15 years. No, she is not. Whether she is aware that there has in fact been global cooling in the past nine years? No, she is not. Whether she is aware that there has been virtually no change to the amount of sea ice? No, she does not. Whether, given her lack of knowledge about these facts, she is driven by faith, not facts. Yes, she is driven by faith, she says.
"To those with an open mind, Monckton's fact-based questions demand answers from our political leaders. To this end, he will impress his Australian audience over the next few days. Unfortunately, while Monckton has mastered the best arts of persuasion, he also succumbs to the worst of them when he engages in his made-for-the-stage histrionics."
Full article here http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/heated-moments-mar-monckton/story-e6frg6zo-1225821369435
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
CNN's Sanjay Gupta operates on 12yr old Haitian girl on the USS Carl Vinson
USS CARL VINSON, At sea (NNS) -- Noted neurosurgeon and CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Los Angeles Pediatric Hospital's Surgeon-in-Chief Dr. Henri Ford assisted USS Carl Vinson's medical team in emergency surgery to remove concrete debris from a 12-year old Haitian girl's skull Jan. 18.Ship's Surgeon, Lt. Cmdr (Dr.) Kathryn Berndt diagnosed the girl as having a 1.2 cm piece of concrete embedded in her skull which was removed the night she arrived. During the post-operation debrief, Berndt requested a neurosurgical consult. One well-known neurosurgeon in the region came to mind."Our senior medical officer, Doctor (Alfred) Shwayhat, told me about the situation and asked if I could track down Dr. Gupta," said Carl Vinson's Deputy Public Affairs Officer, Lt. j.g. Erik Schneider. "With the help of a CNN producer, we called CNN in Atlanta who then patched us through to Doctor Gupta in Port-au-Prince.""Someone got a hold of our international desk which is our world headquarters which we're in touch with every hour," said Gupta. "They said there was an urgent call from the Carl Vinson. So I put a call in to them and there was something about a head injury. I initially spoke to Doctor Berndt and she explained the situation." "It was literally, 'Paging Dr. Gupta off the coast of Haiti from the USS Carl Vinson,'" said Shwayhat. Following further consultation, a second surgery was deemed necessary. After the medical team irrigated the injury and provided the initial care, Berndt's team, assisted by Gupta and Ford, scrubbed in. Full story here Also ships of the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group and embarked elements of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit arrived off the coast of Haiti Jan. 19 to provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief for earthquake survivors and bolster relief operations already underway in support of Operation Unified Response. This sea-based force will bring added capabilities to aid the relief efforts without taxing the already strained infrastructure ashore. Comprised of heavy-lift and utility helicopters, trucks and humvees, assault amphibian vehicles, and logistics capabilities to include water purification and limited medical support, the 22nd MEU will further enhance the humanitarian relief efforts ashore.The 22nd MEU is a multimission capable force comprised of Aviation Combat Element, Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 461 (Reinforced); Logistics Combat Element, Combat Logistics Battalion 22; Ground Combat Element, Battalion Landing Team, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment; and its command element.In addition to Bataan, the Amphibious Relief Mission also includes USS Carter Hall, USS Fort McHenry, USS Gunston Hall and detachments from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 22, Helicopter Mine Countermeasure Squadron 15, Tactical Air Control Squadron 21, Fleet Surgical Team 8, Assault Craft Unit 4 and Beachmaster Unit 2. As has the cruiser the USS Normandy. It "will support relief efforts by providing air surveillance for the heavy air traffic in the area. The ship will also act as a ready deck, or an at sea platform able to accept helicopters on deck and provide refueling services." Finally, the USNS Grasp, a "Military Sealift Command rescue and salvage vessel, began dive operations with embarked U.S. Army's 544th Engineer Dive Team to assess the damage to the port facilities in order to reopen them for operations, allowing relief supplies and personnel additional access to provide aid." |
Ramesh turns heat on Pachauri over glacier melt scare
NEW DELHI: The furore over the validity of data used by UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has taken some of the sheen off the Nobel prize-winning institution's reputation.
A day after it emerged that IPCC's dire prediction that climate change would melt most Himalyan glaciers by 2035 was based on mere "speculation", environment minister Jairam Ramesh slammed the processes of the celebrated body saying "due diligence had not been followed by the Nobel peace prize winning body".
"The health of glaciers is a cause of grave concern but the IPCC's alarmist position that they would melt by 2035 was not based on an iota of scientific evidence," the environment minister said.
Full article at The Times of India
IPCC Ignored Warning That Glacier Forecast Was Wrong
PARIS - A top scientist said Monday he had warned in 2006 that a prediction of catastrophic loss of Himalayan glaciers, published months later by the UN's Nobel-winning climate panel, was badly wrong.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report said in 2007 it was "very likely" that the glaciers, which supply water to more than a billion people across Asia, would vanish by 2035 if global warming trends continued.
"This number is not just a little bit wrong, but far out of any order of magnitude," said Georg Kaser, an expert in tropical glaciology at the University of Innsbruck in Austria.
"It is so wrong that it is not even worth discussing," he told AFP in an interview.
Full article here
Monday, January 18, 2010
First there was Climategate, now Glaciergate & Watergate II!
The wheels continue to fall off the climate change bangwagon.
From today's The Australian:
In its 2007 report, the IPCC concluded: "Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the earth keeps warming at the current rate."
It was a sweeping, bold and alarmist prediction by the IPCC, and one that raised eyebrows among many of the small group of experts who study the behaviour of the world's glaciers.
But the IPCC defended its glacier claims vigorously, with IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri recently describing those who cast doubt upon them as practitioners of "voodoo science".
Yet today it is the powerful IPCC that stands accused of practising voodoo science in relation to its sweeping claims about the melting of Himalayan glaciers following revelations its apocalyptic predictions were based on little more than "speculation".
At face value, the disclosures by Britain's The Sunday Times (reprinted in The Australian yesterday) amount to one of the most serious failings yet seen in climate research.
Later in the same article:
"An Australian glacier expert, Cliff Ollier of the University of Western Australia, accuses the IPCC of being "deliberately alarmist" with its predictions about melting glaciers because he says the organisation has a vested interest in global warming. "Glaciers started to retreat in 1895 when there was no correlation to global warming," Ollier says. "Now we are seeing a general retreat on glaciers because we are coming out of an ice age, but there is nothing alarming about it. These retreats are not caused only by temperatures.""
Do read the whole article. As it turns out, despite what IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri says about them having "a very clear idea of what is happening" in the Himalayas, you'll find out just how little we actually know about what is happening there.
Elsewhere:
The IPCC: Hiding the Decline in the Future Global Population at Risk of Water Shortage
More Insidious than the Himalayan error
Guest post by: Indur M. Goklany
This concerns how the IPCC has cherry-picked only the nagative data when it comes to forecasting the possible effect of climate change on future water supplies.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
BBC weatherman accuses Met Office computer models of having a warm bias
From Greenie Watch http://antigreen.blogspot.com/:
Perish the thought!
A BBC weather forecaster has suggested that the Met Office's super-computer has a 'warm bias' which has stopped it predicting bitterly cold spells like the one we have just endured. Paul Hudson said the error may have crept into the computer's climate model as a result of successive years of milder weather. His claim was rejected by the Met Office but other experts said there could be flaws in the system, which was first developed 50 years ago. In a blog, the BBC Look North presenter writes: 'Clearly there is the rest of January and February to go, but such has been the intensity of the cold spell...it would take something remarkable for the Met Office's forecast (of a mild winter) to be right. 'It is also worth remembering that this comes off the back of the now infamous barbecue summer forecast. 'Could the model, seemingly with an inability to predict colder seasons, have developed a warm bias, after such a long period of milder than average years?' The Met Office produces its forecasts by feeding information from sources, including satellites and weather stations, into a 'climate model'. A set of complex equations then predict weather changes. Mr Hudson appears to be suggesting that data recorded over the past decade of warmer winters could be unduly influencing the computer's calculations. However, the Met Office denies this, saying 'any small biases' are automatically corrected before it issues seasonal forecasts. SOURCEWatts Up With That? was reporting the Indian glacier story last November
But, hey, it is always good when the legacy media finally catches up.
At least though this now takes the story to a much wider audience.
From this morning's The Australian:
THE peak UN body on climate change has been dealt another humiliating blow to its credibility after it was revealed a central claim of one of its benchmark reports - that most of the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 because of global warming - was based on a "speculative" claim by an obscure Indian scientist.
The 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming, appears to have simply adopted the untested opinions of the Indian glaciologist from a magazine article published in 1999.
The IPCC report claimed that the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish inside 30 years.
But the scientists behind the warning have now admitted it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC's report.
More here:
Is our children learnin' proper yet?
From Climate Skeptic:
Actually, I am just having fun with this. My guess is that this is a general college problem and not one limited to the atmospheric sciences, though I will say that my experience in engineering is that the “trendy sciences” (whatever the trend might be at the moment, when I was in school it was a new energy program) tend to attract students less prepared for mathematical rigor. Perhaps this is true of climate today? |
Saturday, January 16, 2010
History in a hurry: the first book about #Climategate is published
Electronic publishing has revolutionized the art of writing, now less than two months since it happened, we have the very first book about Climategate. My first story on Climategate appeared on November 19th, 2009: Breaking News Story: CRU has apparently been hacked – hundreds of files released I’ve read the book, and it appears to be an accurate and detailed portrayal of the history not only of the Climategate events and the players, but also of the events leading up to it. I’m flattered that this book mentions me and my surfacestations project several times. I was interviewed for the book, and this website is featured prominently–and they borrowed liberally from both the posts and the comments. For those of you that want to follow a detective story, this one has as the twists and turns of Mickey Spillane with a Hardy Boys approach to a matter of fact story line. I highly recommend it. This book is being published in electronic downloadable form, and is available for purchase online. You’ll recognize the authors as regulars here and at Climate Audit. Please consider purchasing this book, as it will provide funds to get Mosh out of the flat in San Francisco he shares with Charles The Moderator, who are becoming the climatic odd couple of our time. The rest of the post and details on how to get the book here. |
Friday, January 15, 2010
How Queensland Labor and the greenies shafted aboriginal people
One thing I found interesting in the article from aboriginal activist Noel Pearson below was how the Wilderness Society laid the groundwork for the introduction of the wild rivers legislation in Queensland. It provides yet another example of my belief that at heart most well established environmental organisations have, in effect, become businesses that use fear to market themselves. In a very real sense, fear is the product that they sell to well-meaning but naive city dwellers, especially the deracinated white middle-classes in inner city neighbourhoods and the credulous and inexperienced young. Pearson has been leading the campaign against this grubby backroom deal between the greenies and the Queensland Labor Party that has shafted and marginalised even further the aboriginal people of North Queensland. Hopefully at the next election all the green preferences that Labor bought with this betrayal of Indigenous Australia will not be enough to save it. And read about how the Wilderness Society was prepared to go quiet over one mine in the area, while screaming about another. Also, the farce that is "consultation" as practiced by government is revealed.
Read the full article here |
I've suspected that this whole "electrosensitivity" thing was crap...
I’VE SUSPECTED THAT THIS WHOLE “ELECTROSENSITIVITY” THING WAS CRAP, but here’s some evidence: “Residents in Craigavon, South Africa complained of ‘[h]eadaches, nausea, tinnitus, dry burning itchy skins, gastric imbalances and totally disrupted sleep patterns’ after an iBurst communications tower was put up in a local park. Symptoms subsided when the residents left the area, often to stay with family and thus evade their suffering. At a public meeting with the afflicted locals, the tower’s owners pledged to switch off the mast immediately to assess whether it was responsible for their ailments. One problem: the mast had already been switched off for six weeks. Lawyers representing the locals say their case against iBurst will continue on other grounds.” The Instapundit |
Why left-wing students should not support boycotts of Israel
From Harry's Place: The Alliance for Workers Liberty has produced a cogent argument for opposing the ‘Boycott Israel’ campaign from a Trotskyist-left-wing perspective. It supports a two-state solution as a means of guaranteeing self-determination for both nations. The argument calls for more constructive solidarity and the promotion of cooperation between the Palestinian and Israeli working class and progressive movements. It explains why the “apartheid” analogy is plain wrong when applied to Israel and explains the differences in outcomes and effects between the the current boycott call and past boycotts of South Africa. It concludes that a boycott of Israel will in fact be counter-productive, and profoundly damaging to the cause of Palestinian liberation. While I’m sure that both the pro-boycott crowd and some supporters of Israel will find much to disagree with, it is well worth a read.
Read the full article here. |
China will benefit from warming, at least this century
By Bjorn Lomborg
Later in the article:
Full article here via Greenie Watch |
Anti-Semitism and anti-Israel hatred on the Huffington Post
It is always an interesting exercise these days to note which sites moderate comments and what it takes to get you banned. I'm more inclined to allow an unrestricted free-for-all. I don't think you can automatically assume a congruence between the opinions of a commenter and a site. Though one of the reasons that Australian blogger Andrew Bolt seriously considered switching off his comments facility was the fact that an ABC "comedy" program trawled through over 300 comments left on one of his posts to pick out three or four to use as weapons against him. Yes, his site is moderated, but you'd think any reasonable person would firstly know that mistakes will be made and that things will slip through that shouldn't have, and that a few such comments have to be balanced against the rest. But as this post from the Powerline blog shows, the Huffington Post is more than happy to ban people it doesn't agree with, which makes the continued presence of people who make the most outrageously prejudiced and bigoted remarks about Jews all the more significant.
Full post here |
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