Since last Sunday's feature story 'Australia's Salinity Crisis, What Crisis?', I've pondered whether Wendy Craik's claim on the program that decisions in the past were based on the best available information really hold's up to scrutiny.
If funding is secured on the basis of the best available information, even if it is subsequently shown to be wrong, then there is no case for deceit or fraud. However, if an organisation or individual secures public money on the perception that salt levels are rising, that dryland salinity is spreading, or that an area is at risk of salinity, while withholding information that shows the opposite to be true, then there is a case for fraud. And I would suggest the culprits be treated no differently to the former Enron executives.
Professor David Pannell, University of Western Australia, made the following comments at John Quiggin's blog in response to a question about how the scientists managed to be so wrong on salinity::
"I’ve spoken to people who know exactly how it happened. It was a mixture of several things: failure to anticipate the dire political consequences of defining salinity hazard in the broad way they did (although they were warned); succumbing to pressure to provide results despite a lack of data; and in at least one state, yes, a shameless determination to ride the political wave right to the money-laden beach."
It is not a well kept secret that senior Queensland bureacrats generated maps that falsely suggested large areas were at risk of dryland salinity simply to secure money from the federal government under the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality. If the same individuals were heading corporations, there would probably be more interest from the Australian media and other bloggers.
That's not to say there aren't some companies that have pocketed money from the same "political wave", to quote from one email received yesterday:
"The bad guys are not limited to the public sector either. Some of the worst abuses I've seen have been by private consulting firms shamelessly providing the answer that they perceived a state government wanted."
But the amount these companies have received is probably minuscule relative to what state governments have pocketed.
Last Sunday on Channel Nine, Nick Farrow and Ross Colthart went further than anyone has ever gone in exposing the politics of salinity in Australia. They began the program by suggesting that:
"Things are going badly wrong in public science."
Perhaps the next step is a judicial inquiry.
Luke says
"Well what a feeding frenzy. All so quick to judge ye on little evidence. Sounds like a kangaroo court to me."
Oh ye of little brain! How many kangaroos are you short in your top BSc paddock?
Is it the individual government scientists failing? or is it the management and funding of public science funding that is failing.
My observation is that funding for natural resource type research is drying up (some dissapering into the black hole of molecular biology). Under reducting funding there is pressure to get funds from whatever short term research is around hence, "often poorly conducted science done to 3 year deadlines" rather than the 20-30 years of long haul research actually needed (like used to happen at the Charleville lab once lead by Dr Beal) pitty its more or less totally closed down just when more research is being requested.
Today science is often managed and overseen by non scientists and policy officers who do not have a science background, no wonder there are stuff ups! I think it is systems failure not science failure.
The latest gossip from NSW is that the NSW gov stuffed their budget and had to sell off the buildings where the forestry managers and policy staff inhabited, now these manager types will move in and take big chunks of the forestry scientists research and office space.
Some comments re salinity from the upper end of the Murray Darling.
1. "In general (in Qld) areas recieving less than 600mm/yr are not usually at risk of salinity because insufficient rain falls to satisfy plant demand and recharge the groundwater".
Qld Salinity Management Handbook, (1997). Qld Dept Natural Resources.
The text goes into detail as to why, and the reasons for the difference from Mediterranean areas.
2.Qld Murray-Darling map with 600mm overlay (See link below) shows a large proportion of the Queensland Murray Darling with rainfall of less than 600mm
This information was obviously available prior to 2nd August 2002 when:-
3."On 2nd August 2002 industry representatives gathered with media at The Salinity Summit at Queensland's Parliament House to hear speeches from State Premier Peter Beattie, Federal Minister for Environment and Heritage Hon Dr David Kemp and others". (See link below)
Some commenters above should note that the Premier said (of the salinity hazard map) "Its METHODOLOGY has been checked and endorsed by the CSIRO, the National Land and Water Audit and AFFA. (Emphasisadded, See link below). This is NOT an endorsement of the results of this mapping by those organizations, as e.g..
"In March 2005 at the Australian Water Summit in Sydney I listened to a speaker from Geoscience Australia explain how technology used by the Queenslnd government to develop the salinity hazard maps and other maps used in catchment management planning were based on old technology. I queried this during the question session and Brian Spiers (a member of the Conference audience) volunteered that the Queensland scientists who put the original maps together were not skilled in the technology that they were using. This includes the map Premier Beattie said he stood by at the Summit and that he said CSIRO had endorsed". (See link below)
https://climatelab.com.au/blog/archives/000871.html
4. Personal Experience
- We live in an area mapped as bright red (high salinity hazard) with enough community owned data to point to negligable levels of salinity in the landscape.
- A local meeting (Mitchell, Qld) was informed that “if we weren't getting salinity from the Pacific, we were getting it from Lake Eyre”. Unfortunately for that scenario, there is a region about mid-way in which salt levels are so low that livestock not drinking artesian water should have salt supplementation. This area is mapped as moderate to high salinity hazard.
- As mentioned in this (and in a parallel) thread, this Qld salinity hazard map has been used as an obstacle to management of woody vegetation.
Neil, Science shouldn't be ignored, nor should there be greater authority to the "I think therefore it is" practicioners of any stamp if the requirement for weighting of risk weren't so often ignored in waving the precautionary principle.
The precautionary principle provides a statutory compliance requirement to disregard science.
Scientists seem to place relatively greater importance on defining themselves according to their academic credentials. On that basis, I would identify as an educator, but I very rarely do, even though it is essentially the professional function that I perform.
It seems that 'science' or that being a 'scientist' somehow confers a greater authority or credibility or indeed a more privileged access to the hidden secrets of the world, much as other religions claim.
The unfortunate truth is that they are merely human and as corruptible as any other in any other field of competitive endeavour.
Charles, You say, "Maurie, your input describes accurately what the Murray is supposed to be. It is a channel and a way to get the salt off the landmass and back into the ocean where it came from. Anything we do to hold it on the landmass results in what you call salinity. It is as simple as that, and planting trees and other perennial vegetation only holds it on the landmass and can only exacerbate what salinity is already there."
This sounds as though you might agree with the thrust of the non Govt WA group who have well thought out and detailed reports available at;
http://www.geocities.com/agritech_wa/
I am not aware they can get any traction for their interesting canal concepts.
Friends,
I've been advocating the notion that "fixing the system" is the way to resolve the salinity scandal, rather than busying ourselves with finger-pointing, so it's my responsibility to put forth a proposal.
As I said earlier, scientists are too vulnerable to the whims of bureaucrats and politicians to make it advisable for them to speak up when the facts are being abused.
So I propose that a tenure system be established for scientists in public research institutions. Tenured public scientists could have blown the salinity scheme out of the water a long time ago.
Schiller.
Just for those wanting to see the response from the CRC for Plant -based managemet of dry land salinity, here is their media realease, which raises a number of points both for and against the program.
Media Release, Sunday 28 May 2006
Salinity – too big to trivialise
The Cooperative Research Centre for Plant-based Management of Dryland Salinity (CRC Salinity) welcomes an informed discussion of the causes and impact of salinity in Australia.
However, Mr Kevin Goss, Chief Executive Officer of the CRC Salinity is concerned that the Sunday program screened on Channel 9 on 28 May might have left some viewers with incorrect perceptions of the significance of the salinity problem across Australia, the current understanding of how salinity should be managed, and the quality of public funded scientific research,.
“The National Land and Water Resources Audit (NLWRA) in 2001 was the basis for estimating the area of land salt-affected and the area at risk,” said Mr Goss. “This was the first ever attempt to quantify the problem and provided Australia with a very important wakeup call.
“The NLWRA also stimulated development of improved monitoring tools that suggest that the areas at risk in the eastern states might be less than at first expected. Already in Western Australia, the area of land at risk to salinity has been revised down from 6 million hectares to between 2.8 and 4.5 million hectares, with better tools. This is very good news indeed, but does not alter the fact that salinity is still a very real problem and extremely valuable assets are still at risk.
“The Sunday program made several allusions to widespread tree planting as if this was an erroneous and costly recipe being proposed by scientists. The reality is that the CRC Salinity and the National Dryland Salinity Program before it have consistently warned that such a blanket approach is impractical and could have adverse impact on the amount of water available to our rivers. This is well documented.
“The use of native grasses, highlighted in the Sunday program, and other perennial pastures are significant areas of the CRC’s research. Farmers and their industry bodies are very keen to join with the CRC in new perennial pasture research because they can see the potential to be more profitable, to improve soil health and to use more water, which assists the control of salinity.
“Likewise, sowing an annual crop into a perennial pasture (‘companion cropping’) as advocated by NSW farmer Colin Seis in the Sunday program is a strong component of our research.”
The CRC Salinity is a national collaborative institution involving researchers from three universities, seven state government agencies and CSIRO. It receives funding from these organisations and from the major agricultural industry bodies. Much of the research is done on farms in partnership with farmers.
“We welcome public discussion that continues to improve our understanding of salinity and what control strategies are successful,” said Mr Goss.
“The Sunday program stated that some scientists could only comment in a private capacity. To our knowledge no scientist from the CRC had even been approached for comment.”
ENDS
CONTACTS
Kevin Goss, CEO, CRC Salinity 0418 274 361
Dr Bruce Munday, Communications Manager, CRC Salinity (08) 8538 7075
http://www.crcsalinity.com.au
Hi guys.
I really don’t know much about the science of salinity in Australia. However I suspect that scientists working in that field are doing their best within the constraints of their situations. Climate scientists are also accused of being in it for the money, the international travel, etc. Below is a response that was made by one of the scientists at RealClimate to this issue:
Response: Money and perks! Hahahaha. How in the world did I miss out on those when I was a lead author for the Third Assessment report? Working on IPCC is a major drain on ones' time, and probably detracts from getting out papers that would help to get grants (not that we make money off of grants either, since those of us at national labs and universities are not paid salary out of grants for the most part.) We do it because it's work that has to be done. It's grueling and demanding, and not that much fun, and I can assure everybody that there is no remuneration involved. The only thing that might seem like a "perk" to those outside the process would be the international travel (about four trips per report), but these trips are anything but fun. Most of us have more opportunities than we need for international travel, research conferences like the Ascona one on Neoproterozoic climate are much more fun than IPCC, and anyway given all the necessary travel, most of us would rather have more time to spend at home with our families. When I went to New Zealand with IPCC, I spent all my time locked up in the hotel writing reports and having discussions with our chapter authors, then had to head right back to cover my teaching (and to make matters worse got stuck overnight in Los Angeles because of a Chicago snowstorm, missing a fantastic performance of Carmen by the Lyric Opera, for which I had subscription tickets). IPCC is important work, but it's not something one would wish on one's best friends. I'm very happy you liked the Darwin article, though. --raypierre]
My wife is a scientist in the field of nutrition. She has sat on plenty of government committees, etc and the most she got was some inadequate sitting fee and expenses paid. And when she got back to work, all her other work was still there. There is a bit of prestige with being a chosen expert, but that is about it and such prominence quickly fades.
As for the Institute of Public Affairs, I don’t know where their funding comes from. Maybe Jennifer can tell us? Secretiveness or lack of information can always lead to conspiracy theories which seem to be stock-in-trade here. I’ll admit such theories are propagated by both sides, however from my limited experience they are usually far from the mark.
All this being said I do appreciate Jennifer’s willingness to let opposing points of view stand although I may not like the way she sets the agenda
Charles - if you are willing to share the "soil attribute" technology - why not put up your system on a web site (like here for example if the sysadmin allows). How can we out there in the world know and appreciate your philosophy from a couple of seconds of TV footage. I am not wedded to the idea that all salinity has to be caused by rising groundwater. Obviously there are different systems. If you have a system that works and makes sense then so be it.