Category: Archive

Premier Mike Rann on tour in Chile with BHP executive announces desalination plant to expand BHP Uranium mine at Olympic Dam. Full story.

A computer model to predict the impact of management changes on the ability of pastures to store carbon was part of an aim was for farmers to use figures on the amount of carbon stored as a basis for being paid to sequester carbon, as the carbon trading markets developed. That was the plan of the NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) – to find out how effective different pasture management and grazing systems are in storing carbon, reported The Land (29/3/2007, p. 49). Project leader and soil scientist, Dr Yin Chan, said the first step would be to glean data on carbon storage from two long-term agronomic trials the DPI had been running for more than 20 years in the Wagga Wagga district.

Rotations and crops: These were managing acid soils through efficient rotations and stable agriculture through wheat and legumes. The next step would be to seek co-operation in further investigations from farmers with good long-term paddock records of pasture management. Dr Chan said central and southern NSW had been chosen because of the long practice of ley-cropping, where a pasture phase was integrated with cropping. "The pasture phase is more efficient in increasing carbon in the soil," he said.

Process varies with use: When soils were cultivated, carbon was exposed to microbial activity which caused carbon dioxide to be released, though reduced or zero tillage could cut emissions. "But we have come to realise conservation tillage does not lead to a big increase in carbon storage in Australian conditions," Dr Chan said. He said perennial pastures such as phalaris and lucerne were likely to store more carbon than the annual pasture sub clover combination. "Annual pastures, like sub clover, have smaller and shallower root systems than the perennial pastures."

Farmers to be paid to store carbon: Dr Chan said soil samples had been collected for many years from the trials and the research team would look at different treatments, notably annual pasture versus perennial, limed versus unlimed, and permanent pasture versus crop. He said historical data from these trials would be analysed and used to calibrate a computer model to predict the impact of management changes on the ability of pastures to store carbon. He said the aim was for farmers to use figures on the amount of carbon stored as a basis for being paid to sequester carbon, as the carbon trading markets developed.

Enviro spinoffs: And the pasture management techniques likely to store more carbon would also improve soil health and have environmental spinoffs by helping to reduce dryland salinity and other land degradation problems. Technical officer for the soil physics lab at DPI’s Wagga Wagga Agricultural Institute, Albert Oates, said the paddock trials would also look at the impact of different grazing management regimes. If somebody has been practising cell grazing for 10 years then we could compare it against set stocking," he said.

Framers wanted for trials: Oates said the DPI was hoping to recruit 20 to 30 farmers in central and southern NSW for the project.

The Land, 29/3/2007, p.43

What Opposition leader Kevin Rudd proposes would do far more economic damage, sow far worse social chaos and directly hurt individual Australians more than the damage, we are still suffering from the disastrous Whitlam period in the 1970s, he said.

ALP for 60pc reduction by 2050: On 28 March 2007, Rudd restated that Labor would sign the Kyoto protocol on greenhouse gas emissions; and that its policy was to target a 60 per cent reduction in Australia’s emissions by 2050.

90pc reduction in emissions for each person: But let me give him one number: A target to cut total emissions by 60 per cent would mean something like a 90 per cent reduction in emissions for each person or unit of economic output. Could you really cut petrol use by 90 per cent? Electricity? And then essentially 90 per cent of everything else?

The Courier Mail, 29/3/2007, p.70

Muttonbirds are migratory birds, negotiating a 30,000 km round-trip every year in order to breed in the same burrow in southeast Australia.  This year’s shearwater hunting season will run from 31 March until 15 April. 

Animals Australia Executive Director, Glenys Oogjes, said, “Instead of being welcomed as an addition to Tasmanian wildlife, the chicks hatched in Tasmania will be taken from their borrows and brutally killed.  That they are killed simply for fun is appalling.”

During the recreational hunt, amateur ‘muttonbirders’ are permitted to remove and kill up to 25 chicks per day for the duration of the16-day open season; based on the 2006 figure of 1,058 hunter permits, this means that the Tasmanian government is permitting the potential annual slaughter of more than 420,000 chicks.   More than 200,000 more birds are permitted to be killed for the commercial hunt. 

Despite its status as an abundant species, the short-tailed shearwater is, like much of Australia’s wildlife, in danger from habitat loss and food shortages caused by global warming meaning that there is no guarantee of the long-term survival of the species.  In addition to the hundreds of thousands of birds killed in Tasmania, many thousands more die in fishing nets and in storms during migration.  There is also serious concern for the sustainability of the recreational hunt because of the enormous damage done to the fragile rookeries and sand dunes by muttonbirders. 

Ms Oogjes concluded, “The Tasmanian government must act to end this unjustified slaughter of these extraordinary birds. It is a dreadful blight on the image of Tasmania that birds that fly 15,000 kms to find a safe haven to hatch their chicks  in their state are rewarded with the brutal killing of their young.

“The Tasmanian government must come into line with current thinking and end this hunt. 

“Following their huge journey to Australia, these birds should be rewarded with protection, not met with a massacre”. 

On March 17, Uncle Joe shaved his head to help raise funds for the Leukemia foundation. Here are the before and after pictures. Sponsor Uncle Joe by clicking here

Before	After

No hoods. No electric shocks. No beatings. These Iranians clearly are a very uncivilised bunch

By Terry Jones

03/31/07 "The Guardian" — — I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives like this – allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be posted around the world – have the Iranians no concept of civilised behaviour? For God’s sake, what’s wrong with putting a bag over her head? That’s what we do with the Muslims we capture: we put bags over their heads, so it’s hard to breathe. Then it’s perfectly acceptable to take photographs of them and circulate them to the press because the captives can’t be recognised and humiliated in the way these unfortunate British service people are.

It is also unacceptable that these British captives should be made to talk on television and say things that they may regret later. If the Iranians put duct tape over their mouths, like we do to our captives, they wouldn’t be able to talk at all. Of course they’d probably find it even harder to breathe – especially with a bag over their head – but at least they wouldn’t be humiliated.
And what’s all this about allowing the captives to write letters home saying they are all right? It’s time the Iranians fell into line with the rest of the civilised world: they should allow their captives the privacy of solitary confinement. That’s one of the many privileges the US grants to its captives in Guantánamo Bay.

The true mark of a civilised country is that it doesn’t rush into charging people whom it has arbitrarily arrested in places it’s just invaded. The inmates of Guantánamo, for example, have been enjoying all the privacy they want for almost five years, and the first inmate has only just been charged. What a contrast to the disgraceful Iranian rush to parade their captives before the cameras!

What’s more, it is clear that the Iranians are not giving their British prisoners any decent physical exercise. The US military make sure that their Iraqi captives enjoy PT. This takes the form of exciting "stress positions", which the captives are expected to hold for hours on end so as to improve their stomach and calf muscles. A common exercise is where they are made to stand on the balls of their feet and then squat so that their thighs are parallel to the ground. This creates intense pain and, finally, muscle failure. It’s all good healthy fun and has the bonus that the captives will confess to anything to get out of it.

And this brings me to my final point. It is clear from her TV appearance that servicewoman Turney has been put under pressure. The newspapers have persuaded behavioural psychologists to examine the footage and they all conclude that she is "unhappy and stressed".

What is so appalling is the underhand way in which the Iranians have got her "unhappy and stressed". She shows no signs of electrocution or burn marks and there are no signs of beating on her face. This is unacceptable. If captives are to be put under duress, such as by forcing them into compromising sexual positions, or having electric shocks to their genitals, they should be photographed, as they were in Abu Ghraib. The photographs should then be circulated around the civilised world so that everyone can see exactly what has been going on.

As Stephen Glover pointed out in the Daily Mail, perhaps it would not be right to bomb Iran in retaliation for the humiliation of our servicemen, but clearly the Iranian people must be made to suffer – whether by beefing up sanctions, as the Mail suggests, or simply by getting President Bush to hurry up and invade, as he intends to anyway, and bring democracy and western values to the country, as he has in Iraq.

· Terry Jones is a film director, actor and Python – www.terry-jones.net

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2007