Wentworth Group calls revised Murray-Darling Basin Plan 'disgraceful'

The Draft Murray-Darling Basin Plan should be withdrawn because it does not provide the information required to make an informed decision on the future of the river system.

(Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, STATEMENT ON THE 2011 DRAFT MURRAY-DARLING BASIN PLAN, January 2012) 

The science used to establish the evidence for the 2,750 GL reduction is not only absent from the documentation, but even more disgraceful is that the science for the 2,750 GL reduction is not accorded the scientific scrutiny of transparent independent review.

It is impossible to assess the ecological outcomes from a reduction to extractions of 2,750 GL from the information in these tables. Subsequently it is impossible to assess the ecological implications for Ramsar sites, wetlands listed on the Directory of Important Wetlands of Australia as well as Commonwealth, State or Territory listed threatened species and/or ecological communities. Without the information to assess this, it is impossible to determine whether the draft Basin Plan complies with the Water Act.

There has been a significant investment of tax-payers money in the science of water management - both within the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and other institutions such as CSIRO, the e-Water CRC and the Murray-Darling Freshwater Research Centre. This scientific effort is more than sufficient to produce a high quality plan.

The Authority has either refused to take this information into account in setting the reduction targets or has chosen not to publish these results. If a commercial operation tried this sort of trick on the community in an Environmental Impact Statement it would be thrown out well before it saw the light of day.

In the absence of this critical information on the volumes of water needed to restore the health of the basin, it is impossible for the community, science or Parliament to understand its implications or have confidence it has any prospect of delivering a healthy working river.

The Australian community and our Parliamentary representatives have a right to this information and this statutory Authority has a responsibility to use this science when it develops a plan for restoring the long- term health of the Murray-Darling Basin. (STATEMENT ON THE 2011 DRAFT MURRAY-DARLING BASIN PLAN, page10)

North Coast Voices' SOPA Protest Blackout, 4pm AEST 18 January 2012

Anchor Resources Limited fined for environmental damage at Wild Cattle Creek test drilling sites

From A Clarence Valley Protest on 18 January 2011:

Click on image to enlarge

Snapshot of Anchor Resources Ltd report to the Australian Stock Exchange
published 17 January 2012

When the China Shandong Jinshunda Group acquired this Australian registered mining exploration company it apparently did not immediately react to the evidence of its own site inspections or act on landholder complaint/s.

It was served with a notice to remediate certain test drilling sites in its Wild Cattle Creek lease area by the NSW Department of Trade & Investment Resources & Energy and fined $2,500.

The cost of maintaining "No" and "Know Nothing"

In the first six months of 2011 Opposition Leader Tony Abbott cost Australian taxpayers $388,214.18 in parliamentary entitlement expenses over and above his salary, of which $14,343.68 was noted as Family Travel Costs.

In the preceding six months he appears to have listed $525,505.24 in entitlement expenses.

During the same time periods Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey cost taxpayers $250,835.66 and $200,433.44 respectively.

Given they both constantly question the economic credentials of the Gillard Government, perhaps Abbott and Hockey might like to finally certify their expenses covering 1 January to 30 June 2011, before moving on to give an account of the last half of that year.

Deaths of older Australians due to climate change not considered an important public health issue?

Apparently the prospect of deaths among the elderly due to temperature increases caused by climate change carry less weight than the prospect of deaths among younger people according to Adrian Barnett - whom I'm sure did not pause to think of how his words might be received by older Australians when he participated in this media release on January 16, 2012 concerning a recently published study he co-authored with the CSIRO's Dr. Xiaoming Wang and others:

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in conjunction with CSIRO has conducted a world-first study into the potential impact climate change will have on 'years of life lost' in Brisbane.
Associate Professor Adrian Barnett of QUT's Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation (IHBI) said while many other studies had examined death rates on hot and cold days, this was the first study to examine years of life lost.
"The results are startling," Professor Barnett said.
"Temperature-related deaths currently account for 6,572 years of life lost per year in Brisbane, which is more than the annual number of years of life lost to breast cancer of 3,733.
"The figure is so high because Brisbane has a very narrow comfort zone of a mean temperature between 20-25°C, on days when the temperature is above or below this range we tend to see an increase in years of life lost."
Years of life lost sums the life expectancy of all deaths according to age at death, so it gives more weight to younger deaths.
"We wanted to use years of life lost because we suspected that many temperature-related deaths were in the elderly, which would reduce the public health importance of temperature compared with other issues," Professor Barnett said.
"In fact we found the opposite, with a surprisingly high years of life lost figure."
Professor Barnett said things would only get worse as Climate Change continued.
"A 2°C increase in temperature in Brisbane between now and 2050 would result in an extra 381 years of life lost per year in Brisbane," he said.
"A 2°C increase in temperature is the figure the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says is dangerous but could be reached unless more aggressive measures are undertaken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
Professor Barnett said should temperatures increase beyond the 2°C mark the results would be catastrophic.
"A 4°C increase in temperature would result in an extra 3,242 years of life lost per year in Brisbane," he said.

In Cosmos Online on January 16, 2012:

Commenting on the study, Colin Butler of the Australian National University in Canberra said, "The 'years of life lost' approach is the real breakthrough in this paper," adding that he wishes he had thought of the idea himself. "They show that heat waves have a bigger effect on mortality in younger and middle-aged people than we would expect."

Abstract of the study The impact of temperature on years of life lost in Brisbane, Australia:

Temperature is an important determinant of health. A better knowledge of how temperature affects population health is important not only to the scientific community, but also to the decision-makers who develop and implement early warning systems and intervention strategies to mitigate the health effects of extreme temperatures1, 2. The temperature–health relationship is also of growing interest as climate change is projected to shift the overall temperature distribution higher3, 4. Previous studies have examined the relative risks of temperature-related mortality, but the absolute measure of years of life lost is also useful as it combines the number of deaths with life expectancy. Here we use years of life lost to provide a novel measure of the impact of temperature on mortality in Brisbane, Australia. We also project the future temperature-related years of life lost attributable to climate change. We show that the association between temperature and years of life lost is U-shaped, with increased years of life lost for cold and hot temperatures. The temperature-related years of life lost will worsen greatly if future climate change goes beyond a 2 °C increase and without any adaptation to higher temperatures. This study highlights that public health adaptation to climate change is necessary.

Twitter tweeters are not just pretty faces and amusing avatars

fill me up with.info reveals the political nature of Australian tweeters:

The research used two twitter profiles with embedded requests to complete the survey instrument.

One profile contacted active twitter users posting using relevant hashtags (#auspol, #qldpol, #nswpol, #actpol, #vicpol (excluding policing references), #taspol, #sapol (excluding Philippines references), #wapol, #ntpol), who used the words "Gillard" and "Abbott" in posts and users with "Australian politics" including in their bios (through the search engine tweepz.com). n=225

The second profile contacted a geographically disbursed group of Australians using the tweepz.com search tool to identify Australian Twitter users based on location. The survey research was undertaken between 14 December 2011 and 12 January 2012. n=110

Member for Clarence's website: an update

The lads at the local watering hole have started a tipping competition involving three local event. All that's required to enter their competition is to provide the dates when the following three events will occur.

1. Completion of the dual carriageway for the Pacific Highway,

2. The Member for Clarence, "Steve" Gulaptis' webpage is finished (a copy of it as it currently appears is shown below), and

3. The former and disgraced Member for Clarence appears in court in relation to his falsification of THAT statutory declaration.

One of the first really bad ideas of 2012?

From ABC TV AM program on January 13, 2012:

STEVEN GAINES: Scientists determine what the maximum sustainable harvest (of whales) could be and then the maximum quota. Shares for that quota would be allocated around to both countries and interests that want to whale and countries and interests that want to see whaling ended. Then it becomes a tradable market.

The article which raised this idea again - Whales for Sale

ABC TV News relocated Tabulam: can its residents seek relocation allowances?

The 7.00pm news on ABC TV provided a giggle at our place last night. In the weather report Tabulam, which we had been very confident was located on the upper Clarence in northern NSW, was reported to have had the heaviest rainfall in NSW with 70mm. That in itself wasn't earth-shattering news but the next bit was! According to the ABC, Tabulam is in the Hunter valley!

See Tabulam's latest weather observations here, courtesy of the Bureau of Meteorology.