Antarctic Whale Wars 2010: claim and counter claim in pictures

Institute of Cetacean Research photograph allegedly showing impact

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society photograph of the Bob Barker

An estimated 9,000 minke whales have been slaughtered as part of the Japanese annual Antarctic whale hunt since 1988 according to an Asahi Shimbun article on 23 January 2010.

In the latest war of words over interaction between the whaling fleet and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, the Institute for Cetacean Research which runs the Southern Ocean whale hunts under the guise of 'scientific research' has claimed that its vessel Yushin Maru No. 3 was rammed by the anti-whaling boat Bob Barker and supplied photographs allegedly showing this encounter.

Sea Shepherd has released a counter claim stating that it was the Bob Barker which was intentionally rammed and damaged above the waterline.

Damage allegedly done to the Bob Barker during the collision

Land use in Australia and the 2010 federal election campaign

Certain rural landholders are trying to make land tenure an issue in the 2010 federal election.
These landowners are upset at state restrictions on their ability to clear land of native vegetation and hold an erroneous belief that the Australian Government has 'stolen' their ability to take advantage of any carbon credits this land might produce.
This drive to roll back state law by making the Federal Government politically uncomfortable in an election year may not be as easily undertaken as it first appeared, when the initial reaction to their announcement of a lead-off campaign rally was rather underwhelming in a regional area which has an established rural component in direct competition with a growing residential sector for occupation and use of coastal lands.

On 2 February 2010 The Daily Examiner published this editorial:

Farmers and land use

THE notion that farmers should be allowed to do whatever they like with 'their' land needs to be debunked.

The issue was highlighted during the past two months by Peter Spencer, who went on a hunger strike trying to get a Royal Commission into government policies preventing him from clearing vegetation from his land.

Without going into the rights and wrongs of his case, there are broader issues at play.

Forget vegetation for a moment and look at water.

If a water course runs through a farmer's land, does that give him or her the right to take whatever they like and leave other landholders downstream with nothing? Of course not. Water is considered a community resource and does not belong to any individual.

If a farmer or landholder proposed a toxic industry on their land, should no-one have the right to question that industry? Again, of course not.

All landholders, urban and rural, have to abide by local, state and federal government decisions that affect what they can do on 'their' land because what they do on 'their' land has an impact on others.

It is the same with land clearing.

No landholder should be able to clear swathes of vegetation from their land without first determining what effect that has on others around them.

That said, if a farmer buys land and the guidelines for the use of that land change, the community via its government should adequately compensate them for any commercial losses they suffer as a result of those changes.

But to suggest the community has no interest or right to determine what happens on private property is erroneous.

What farmers do on their land affects others.

And this letter to the editor in the same edition:

Giving credit to switched on farmers

A RECENT letter to the editor (January 23) asserted that Australian farmers don't receive any compensation for carbon credits sold here or overseas.

Now, I don't know what the writer had been told but this is not correct. Here is a simple explanation of the issue at hand.

"Carbon credits are a financial reward for activities that reduce the levels of carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere. There are a large number of different carbon trading schemes in the world, some of which date back to as early as 1995. A carbon trade can simply be an agreement between two parties. For the term 'carbon credits' to be used, the emission reduction or biosequestration to which the credits apply must be subject to verification by an accredited certificate provider." [Dr Christine Jones, March 2007]

There are many registered Australian companies offering carbon credits for sale and some farmers on freehold land are participating in creating these credits and getting paid for their efforts. The farmers who are taking advantage of emerging markets in relation to national and international greenhouse gas abatement targets are those who have done their research and decided to involve themselves - not just sit back and whinge about how bad things are.

When it comes to any carbon sequestration total which is credited to the national ledger by the United Nations under the Kyoto Protocol, neither the Commonwealth nor Australian states receive any saleable credits from this at all because this particular total is a simple inventory accounting device to measure the nation's adherence to its international undertakings, however, government entities can buy existing carbon credits on the open market to offset their own activities.

As for the NSW Native Vegetation Act also mentioned in that same letter, a little diligent research will show that the matter is not as straightforward as any speakers at the Lismore Cooee Meeting might have suggested.

This year is an election year and it behoves us all to be careful of the political aims and aspirations of vested interests.

Judith M. Melville, Yamba

White Ibis stand up to be counted and you can help on Sunday 7 February 2010

There is a state-wide community survey of the Ibis underway today and NSW North Coast residents can help by keeping their eyes open.

National Parks & Wildlife information:

The Australian white ibis, Threskionis molucca, is a highly visible native water bird in New South Wales.

What do they look like?

• Like all ibises, the Australian white ibis has a large, curved beak designed for probing.
• Their heads and necks are featherless and black, except for horizontal lines on the back of the head that vary in colour from pale pink to red.
• Their bodies in contrast are mainly white, apart from black tips to the longest flight feathers, black lacelike wing feathers and highly visible bare patches under the wings and on the breast that also vary in colour from pale pink to red.
• The legs are reddish brown to black in colour.
• Prior to the 1970s, the Australian white ibis did not breed in the Sydney region but followed the non-permanent waters of inland lakes and rivers, due to the extensive droughts and changes in water regime they have sought refuge in the coastal wetlands. Ibises have adapted well to the constant water and food supply available in urban environments and they are now a common site in our parklands where they feed on invertebrates (beetles etc) and crustaceans (yabbies etc).

How many are there? Help us find out!

The National Parks and Wildlife Service is trying to get a better understanding of the distribution and abundance of Australian white ibis at a statewide level. This will help us to develop conservation practices for these birds. One of the questions we are attempting to answer is how many of these birds are actually in New South Wales?

Since 2003, we have been running community ibis surveys. The surveys have taken place on a single day in summer. We have asked members of the public to tell us about their ibis sightings in Sydney over the day. Information from community members will help us to understand and manage these distinctive birds.

The next survey is on Sunday 7 February 2010, and you're invited to participate! If you see any white ibis on this day, anywhere in NSW, please let us know.

We need to know how many birds you have seen, along with the location and time of day. Some birds may have coloured bands on their legs or coloured wing tags, as shown in the pictures. Please provide as many details as possible about the colour of the bands or tags and their location on the bird.

To send the information to us, you can:

• Use our online sighting form; or
• Phone the Environment Line: 1300 361 967 Mon-Fri only.

Anti-climate change reading list for those nights you can't get to sleep because of the heat/intense cold/severe storm/sea surge/flooding/worry about the drought

Having a browse across the blogosphere I found EliRabbett asking about world wide web links your grandmother warned you about.
Here are just a few of the sites mentioned by his readers as either lukewarm on the issue of anthropomorphic global warming or committed to an anti-science stand on climate change:

The Lavosier Group
Junkscience.com
Still Waiting for Greenhouse (A Lukewarm View from Tasmania)
Global Warming
Cato Institute
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Greenhouse Warming: Fact, Hypothesis, or Myth?
Greening Earth Society
CO2 science. org
The National Centre for Public Policy Research
The Australian Environment Foundation
Institute of Public Affairs
Icecap
CO₂ and the "Greenhouse Effect" Doom
Science is Broken
International Climate Science Coalition
Bob Carter's webpage
Climate Police
Climate Audit
Australian Climate Science Coalition
The Marshal Institute
WattsUpWithThat?
Climate Observations
Joe Bastardi's European Blog
Denial Depot
CO2 and You

My contribution is to add the AgMates Community blog which gives house room to supporters of The Climate Sceptics Party and of course any party website which hosts the opinions of the Rt Hon. Tony Abbott would qualify.
Feel free to add to this list at your leisure!

Neutroodle green search engine is launched this month

Neutroodle has launched itself this month as a search engine with a green philosophy.
It is not the first or only Internet search engine which is advertising itself as green.
This is what this search engine promises:

Organisations should take responsibility for the entire impact of their online presence, including the energy used at the consumer end.......

Measure - each month independent climate change experts, CO2Stats, measure the impact of our website on the environment. They calculate the electricity used by all of the computers that view our website, the networks that transfer information around the world and the servers which host our data.

Manage - we take responsibility for the carbon emissions generated to produce all of this electricity as it represents the total footprint of our presence on the internet. CO2Stats determine the best way to offset this footprint, currently through the purchase of renewable energy certificates, effectively the entire process from end to end is powered by renewable energy.

Minimise - Having conducted a comprehensive analysis of our carbon footprint we then look for ways to reduce our emissions profile, not only will this help reduce emissions but it will save us money too.....

Iraq Inquiry damned in twenty sentences

AA Gill at The Times Online captures that moment when the British Iraq Inquiry chaired by Sir John Chilcot dropped its pants and flashed its flaws:

"Lord, I thought, he's finally gone and done it. He's left parochial politics and gone into intergalactic diplomacy and had a severe facelift. The skin was drawn tight, the mouth tugged into a morticised grin. It wasn't a good look.

Fear is nature's cosmetic surgeon. It had grabbed Tony Blair by the back of the neck, pulled and twisted.......

We were looking at a man who was looking at what he thought might just be his own personal Nuremberg trial.

Then Sir Roderic Lyne, one of the interrogating panel, stumbled into his warm-up question. Couched in the avuncular curlicues of academic politeness and mumbled deference, he propped himself up on the pillows of sub-clauses and caveats and something astonishing happened.

Across the table, like a CGI trick, a coup de théâtre: Blair's old face reappeared, emerging relaxed and confident, the eyebrows arched. It was the familiar mug the protesters outside in the rain were wearing as masks. The angst let go. Ladies and gentleman, fear has left the building.

He knew this wasn't going to be a war crimes tribunal: this wasn't even truth and reconciliation. This was the wine committee of his club, the senior common room of a honeycoloured college. He was on top of this. He was all over this......

The hours slid by and Blair grew more confident, flicking the pages of his notes, uncannily finding the date, the mot-juste he needed. The questions became woollier and thinner. Blair allowed himself the occasional smirk of disdain as he did keepy-uppies with the simpler lobs."

Sh*t happens....the sequel

The clouds are that fat that they are bumping along the tops of small hills and large tree tops, scratching their bottoms like wormy dogs.
The rain has been falling and, though welcome, has had one unfortunate result - the new toilet project has come to a sliding halt.
As soon as we empty the hole it fills up again.
Since we have an imposed halt to the project and all else failed we decided to read the instructions. It was a revelation.
The consensus was it might be a good idea to start following the installation instructions; I am not sure whether our mob will be able to resist the urge to improvise though!

Sh*t happens....a composting toilet story
Pic from Google Images