Moving water at Sydney Uni

I have been wanting to write a blog post on this topic for a while as it sometimes baffles me how people can believe that the actions of humans would have no impact on climate or the environment. Senator Fielding’s recent scepticism of the global warming debate also falls in this category. Let me explain.

I was reading John Collee’s article in the newspaper: Prognosis for a planet. I agree, there has been very little action and lots of talk about climate change and time is running out fast.

The article’s main argument is that we are misinterpreting the speed with which the earth’s systems are changing. In particular we are underestimating the speed because we think in terms of linear processes; while the climate change process is exponential (i.e. rising much faster). John Collee argues that many health problems also develop exponentially and many natural processes in the human body and development occur exponentially.

Australia day has come and gone and one of the solutions in the puzzle in the SMH on that day was about Tank Stream. I was thinking about the arrival of the First Fleet in Australia and the difficulty they would have had coping with the variability of the climate. Particularly, since the descriptions on the fertility and climate of the land from Joseph Banks and James Cook had been so glowing. In fact, the Bureau of Meteorology’s Dr Neville Nicholls has identified the years 1790 – 1793 as an El Nino event. Given how we struggled with the last El Nino event, it would not be a surprise that Governor Philip and his men and women were in trouble.

I am bit early this week, but this is too ridiculous and needed reaction. During my regular browse of the news media on the internet I happened to stumble across Michael Duffy’s column from 8 november 2008 in the Sydney Morning Herald It is clear from the column that Mr. Duffy is a climate sceptic, and I have no problem with that issue. What I do have a problem with is the fact that he accuses Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of presenting inaccurate data during a recent seminar at the University of NSW. I am not with the University NSW and could have ignored this. But I am a researcher and this goes to the heart of scientific inquiry and I would be very concerned if a fellow scientist would publicly present fudged data. So I set out to investigate who was right, Mr. Duffy or Dr. Pachauri.

We are currently struggling to manage our water resources in Australia. Wetlands are drying out, acid sulphate soils are developing, river flows have been altered, water supplies in cities are under pressure. Much of current debate focuses on the effect of climate change, and sceptics and believers are battling it out on the newspaper pages. However, rather than getting stuck in a “tis” “tisnot” debate it might be more useful to see if we can disentangle management from climate effects.

First up I would ask the climate sceptics (yes that is you Miranda Devine) the following question: If you had to make a business decision and the general consensus among investment advisers was that is was 80 – 90% certain that the market would go one way or another, would you follow their advice? The current IPCC report estimates that it 80 – 90% certain that climate change is due to human influences…

I am sorry, but I have to write something about the pope’s visit. I mean, it dominated the news. This week more column space was taken up in the paper by world youth day and the pope’s visit than the government’s green paper on the “carbon pollution reduction scheme”. And, I must say, even for a non-catholic like myself, I am quite impressed. I read in the newspaper that 100 nuns had prayed for good weather, and behold! It was gorgeous for 6 days and only on the seventh day the skies loom gray and we might get a sprinkle. I am hoping the dear ladies can now please pray for a couple of deluges as we could use a bit of rain here in Australia.....

I have already covered this topic a bit but last Friday (13 June) I have just spent a whole day listening to talks about “facing climate change” and wanted to share some of what was discussed on this blog. If there was one clear message on the day it was: I cannot believe parliament is discussing 5 cent per litre in the petrol price if we have these issues to worry about! In fact, one of the panellists at the end of the day remarked: I am glad I will be dead in 2050! Not exactly encouraging and not exactly showing much confidence in scientists and society having or reaching any solutions. Is there anything we can do?