Following are links to some interesting opinion pieces:
1. Lessons From the Lavender Boys
Denis Avery’s Hudson Institute
Thursday October 26, 2006
Researchers have finally found the first confirmed gender-bending consumer products: natural lavender oil, natural tea tree oil, and natural soybeans. The findings strongly say consumers should stop worrying over insignificant traces of man-made chemicals and be more wary of unregulated natural products.
Read the complete article: http://www.cgfi.org/cgficommentary/lessons-from-the-lavender-boys
2. The heroes and villains in the Great Climate Debate
Monika Sarder
Thursday October 26, 2006
More than any other documentary in the last decade, An Inconvenient Truth featuring Al Gore’s slide show purporting to put forward the unadulterated facts on climate change, has galvanised mainstream political interest. Actors, British moguls and undergraduates have all jumped on the bandwagon, with the most recent development being a court challenge to a Hunter Valley coal mine development by a Newcastle student.
The documentary highlights the problems that emerge when a scientific issue is hijacked by political interests. Increasingly high profile public figures are strongly weighing in and proposing purely political solutions with limited reference to the changing state of science. Public discussion of the science is critical if we are to formulate consensus and a national response to the issue. However it is important that the evidence is not presented in a distorted way. Read the complete article: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5066
3. Anti-DDT Movement Killing African Babies
Fiona Kobusingye-Boynes
Tuesday October 17, 2006
At long last, the World Health Organization and Uganda’s Health Ministry are again emphasizing DDT and other insecticides to control a disease that kills 110,000 Ugandans every year.
But instead of applauding the decision, anti-pesticide activists are attacking it with scare stories and lies. Every day that Paul Saoke, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Pesticide Action Network, and their allies keep our health officials from ending malaria, another 300 babies and mothers go to their graves. It’s like sending a jetliner filled with children and mothers crashing into the Rwenzori Mountains every day. Read the complete article: http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=24388
And Pinxi had the following advice when she sent in the link to the following article: “No matter what you post they'll end up debating climate science anyway - sumo wrestlers circling each other. It would be interesting if the usual commenters discussed AGW without arguing the finer details of the science in a futile quest for a certain position. Science flags an issue as potentially significant and science should continue to inform policy, but the policy-making process on an issue such as AGW has many considerations, of which science is only one. Now that AGW concerns are leading to a host of actions to mitigate and adapt, and now that AGW impacts are being bound up with other issues such as energy supply, water, food security, economic opportunities and international relations, we should be discussing those potential actions and their impacts, not just the narrow science.”
4. Unholy trinity set to drag us into the abyss
Ian Dunlop
Monday October 16, 2006
We are about to experience the convergence of three of the great issues confronting humanity. Climate change, the peaking of oil supply and water shortage are coming together in a manner which will profoundly alter our way of life, our institutions and our ability to prosper on this planet. Each is a major issue, but their convergence has received minimal attention. Read the complete article: http://www.smh.com.au/news/scorchedearth/unholy-trinity-set-to-drag-us-into-the-abyss/2006/10/15/1160850808623.html
5. Black and white lies
William J. Lines
Saturday October 14, 2006
AT a rainforest symposium in Cairns in 1987, Ian Lowe, head of science policy at Griffith University, argued that "there are general principles of resource management [that hunter-gatherer] societies embody, and from which we can learn if we have the perceptiveness and the humility to do so".
Read the complete article: http://theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20575396-28737,00.html
And brace yourself for this next week:
6. Tackle climate change or face deep recession, world's leaders warned
James Randerson,
Thursday October 26, 2006
Climate change could tilt the world's economy into the worst global recession in recent history, a report will warn next week. Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist with the World Bank, will warn that governments need to tackle the problem head-on by cutting emissions or face economic ruin. The findings, due to be released on Monday, Read the complete article here:
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1931542,00.html
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Most of the above links were sent in from readers of this blog, if you keep sending them I might try and make this a regular Friday thing.
Luke and Pinxi,
Admit it. You are in a corner, and you are being forced to admit that you prefer birds over Africans.
Typical Ford driver.
shiller we're not brainless idiots over in these parts so pls don't waste time with simplistic abstractions and misleading generalisations
So steve m,
You are either saying DDT will save no Africans whatsoever, or that the the lives saved does not justify the environmental impact.
If you are claiming the former, you are wrong. If you are claiming the latter, you are morally wrong.
Stern Review Released. Massive world reaction. Shills, all is lost.
Key scientific points:
An overwhelming body of scientific evidence now clearly indicates that climate change is a serious and urgent issue. The Earth’s climate is rapidly changing, mainly as a result of increases in greenhouse gases caused by human activities.
Most climate models show that a doubling of pre-industrial levels of greenhouse gases is very likely to commit the Earth to a rise of between 2 – 5°C in global mean temperatures. This level of greenhouse gases will probably be reached between 2030 and 2060. A warming of 5°C on a global scale would be far outside the experience of human civilisation and comparable to the difference between temperatures during the last ice age and today. Several new studies suggest up to a 20% chance that warming could be greater than 5°C.
If annual greenhouse gas emissions remained at the current level, concentrations would be more than treble pre-industrial levels by 2100, committing the world to 3 – 10°C warming, based on the latest climate projections.
Some impacts of climate change itself may amplify warming further by triggering the release of additional greenhouse gases. This creates a real risk of even higher temperature changes.
• Higher temperatures cause plants and soils to soak up less carbon from the atmosphere and cause permafrost to thaw, potentially releasing large quantities of methane.
• Analysis of warming events in the distant past indicates that such feedbacks could amplify warming by an additional 1 – 2°C by the end of the century.
Warming is very likely to intensify the water cycle, reinforcing existing patterns of water scarcity and abundance and increasing the risk of droughts and floods.
Rainfall is likely to increase at high latitudes, while regions with Mediterranean-like climates in both hemispheres will experience significant reductions in rainfall. Preliminary estimates suggest that the fraction of land area in extreme drought at any one time will increase from 1% to 30% by the end of this century. In other regions, warmer air and warmer oceans are likely to drive more intense storms, particularly hurricanes and typhoons.
As the world warms, the risk of abrupt and large-scale changes in the climate system will rise.
• Changes in the distribution of heat around the world are likely to disrupt ocean and atmospheric circulations, leading to large and possibly abrupt shifts in regional weather patterns.
• If the Greenland or West Antarctic Ice Sheets began to melt irreversibly, the rate of sea level rise could more than double, committing the world to an eventual sea level rise of 5 – 12 m over several centuries.
The body of evidence and the growing quantitative assessment of risks are now sufficient to give clear and strong guidance to economists and policy-makers in shaping a response.
Schiller says:
"Perhaps a compromise could be reached, whereby instead of 2.7 million deaths, we reduce the possibility of eggshell thinning by half and correspondingly have only 1.35 million dead annually.
If we could plug in a few other numbers, we could ascertain with some precision how many birds the average African is worth."
Typically brainless comment, Schiller, for two reasons. Firstly, the agricultural use of DDT sppeds up the development of DDT resistant insects. As you are probably aware, many mosquitos are already DDT resistant and we can thank DDT spruikers like you for that.
Secondly, if you wipe out insect eating birds then you effectively destroy a valuable biological control agent. This article gives you some idea of the consequences of wiping out biological control agents. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/reptiles/snakes_saving.html
That was late last year and it was a Greenpeacer, policy on the run. Where is GP policy on DDT?
However WWF still maintain that they want it banned, but just not yet?
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/toxics/problems/ddt/index.cfm
Shiller I recall reading an interview with the head of a prominent environmental NGO (it might have been WWF) where the interviewer was surprised that the head said that where using DDT can save human lives then it should be used.
So yet again another inaccurate generalisation about "the Greenies" from you Shiller. I think rog's on the money in saying these NGO's have a moderate position on DDT (gee twice in a row I've agreed with rog, but he's a soft touch on wildlife).
Greenpeace, WWF and Sierra Club have changed their policy to allow DDT and the EU will not ban product containing DDT if it falls under allowable levels.
Recommended Reviewers!
The AGW 'Scientific Peer Review Club'.- 'You scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours.'