Comments (11)

By Les Scammell, April 23, 2011 10:34 pm

I know it sounds a little radical, whaling contributing to climate change. After all, whales live in the ocean and climate change is due to the amount of carbon in the upper atmosphere. However, if you follow my line of thought, you may wonder if there isn’t at least a loose connection between the two.

Whale in full flight

Climate change is said to be caused by a number of factors. The first is the amount of CO2 that we are pumping into our atmosphere. The second is the speed at which we are cutting down forests, in particular, old forests that have been around for thousands of years. Trees can help to reduce CO2 as they use this gas as part of their photosynthesis process.

Oceans have forests too in the form of phytoplankton. When the conditions are right, phytoplankton blooms can be clearly seen from the sky and like our land based forests, phytoplankton photosynthesize converting CO2 into food. Over the last 200 years phytoplankton blooms in the southern oceans have dropped dramatically and while the amount of CO2 not now being absorbed is hard to measure, there is bound to be some impact.

Researchers are now looking at these waters in an attempt to determine why these blooms have are no longer as large as they once were. The waters are relatively rich in nutrients – bar one – iron. For some reason there is a very low concentration of iron in those waters.

Is Whaling Really Necessary

Now here comes the association with whales. Like many land creatures, whales fertilize the oceans through their waste. The waste from whales is relatively high in iron, and iron that is accessible to life such as the phytoplankton. The twist goes further since whales feed on both phytoplankton and krill, a crustacean that also feeds on phytoplankton.

The association is there – fewer whales has resulted in less iron in the water. This has led to smaller blooms of phytoplankton and fewer krill.

Is this affecting climate change? That’s for the scientists to tell us. The big problem at present is that science is taking radical sides and it’s hard to really get at the truth. From my perspective, this may only have a marginal effect on climate change, but whaling is certainly having an affect on the overall biology of our southern oceans, and that cannot be good in the long run – all the more reason to ban whaling for the next fifty years – let’s allow the stocks of whales in our southern oceans to bloom once more – the phytoplankton may well bloom with them.

Comments (1)

By Les Scammell, March 2, 2011 9:52 am

Politicians love to grandstand, and it doesn’t matter side of the house they sit. Climate change is one of those issues that is very hot here in Australia. It has even led to death threats on certain politicians. You have to wonder whether or not the political grandstanding on both sides of politics is leading us to this.

The Gillard Labor government decided to announce what is really a carbon tax, although they tried very hard to hide that word ‘tax’ to begin with. On the other side of politics, we have had wild claims by the opposition leader that the tax will $1500 per month to electricity bills – this despite the fact that no tax rate has been hinted at yet. How he can use dollar amounts at present is beyond me.

We have a very simple and stark choice. We can say this debate is too hard and we’re going to leave it to our children, or their children, to fix the problem – and hope it’s not too late.

The second choice of course is take responsibility for the world we live in and to try and improve it so our children and grandchildren have a future.

For those that don’t want a carbon tax, or any other action, I want you to turn around to your children and say – ‘it’s not my problem, I’m going to leave it to you guys to sort out in twenty or thirty years’. Can you do it?

It’s time the politics stopped – it’s time the grandstanding stopped – it’s time the politicians got their acts together, sat down together, and drew up a bipartisan plan for the future. This issue is too big for the flip-flop politics of today. Tony Abbott was the first politician to suggest a carbon tax, and now he is backing away from it for no other reason than making a noise.

Australian politicians need to grow up and put Australia first. The citizens and business, both big and small, need certainty on this issue. The bottom line, whether Labor or Liberal introduce some scheme – it’s going to cost us – let’s just get it done!

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By Les Scammell, February 7, 2011 12:07 am

Hundreds of thousands of Australians in North Queensland battened down the hatches for what was to be Australia’s worst ever cyclone. Luckily for most, the cyclone crossed the coast in a less densely populated area. While Tully and surrounding areas bore the brunt, heavily populated areas like Cairns and Townsville were spared the full wrath of a category five event.

In the aftermath, we have to look at the planning that went into protecting people and property. In general terms, the planning and execution of those plans was faultless. For once, the Queensland Government and the supporting agencies got it all right. To date, there have been no deaths or serious injuries reported as a direct result of the cyclone. In fact, there has only been one report of a death, and that was caused indirectly – a young man losing life through asphyxiation, simply because he didn’t ventilate a room he was in that had an electric generator running.

There will most likely be some criticism leveled at the government when it comes to certain actions. Some will question whether or not Cairns hospital should have been totally evacuated. I have two comments to make on this – first, although Cairns was spared, if it hadn’t been, the hospital would have been empty so all resources could have been used to treat any injuries. Secondly, simply as an exercise in evacuation, it was a great success. Okay, the cyclone didn’t hit – it still made for a real life training exercise.

I am hearing calls for all North Queensland towns to have dedicated evacuations centers. I can see the point being made, but where would you build them, how big would they need to be, and how many would you build? Cairns and Townsville would each need five or six centers – possibly more. The second question is who would fund them? I like the response of the Queensland treasurer who has questioned the cost and feasibility of dedicated centers. Having centers that are dual purpose is another matter, and one I agree with.

These centers could be school halls or sporting halls. They would be used on a day to day basis for a range of activities, yet built to survive the worst that nature can throw at them.

For the people of North Queensland, most you dodged a bullet as they say. For those that didn’t, we are thinking of you. To the Queensland Government, you planned and executed those plans well – let’s hope you can do the same with the recovery. We’re in Gympie, and we had our dramas – but then, the whole state has suffered in some way this summer = it does prove one thing – Queenslanders are a tough mob, we’ll pick up the pieces and start all over again – keep smiling peoples.

Comments (1)

By Les Scammell, January 18, 2011 10:48 am

Australia can be a fabulous country to live in. We have it all – desert, rain forests, great beaches, the Great Barrier Reef, great seafood and a population that is, generally speaking, easy to get on with. Compared to the US and Europe, we have low crime rates, very low murder rates, and only one or two ghetto type suburbs, and they are slowly disappearing.

The Australian environment can be very harsh. We live for many years under drought conditions, and when the drought breaks, we are often inundated with heavy rain and widespread floods. Yet we continue to live along the coast and along rivers – knowing full well that floods are just around the corner. Do we build levees to help prevent floods? No, it will spoil our fun of the water. Do we build high-set homes to escape the floods? We used to, but not today.

When insurance companies refuse to cover us for floods – we wonder why. Australians do have to take some responsibility for their own actions. You choose to live in flood areas, then expect to get flooded. It’s a very simple equation really.

Dams are not the solution – learning to live within our environment is the solution. We do live in a lucky country – the biggest problem though is that we haven’t really learned how to live in this country. Perhaps one day we will.