Author: Neville

It is hard to trust GM when it is in the grip of a few global giants

Don’t believe the hype: GM is in the grip of a few firms that profit from selling the chemicals they engineer their seeds to resist
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John Vidal

The Observer, Sunday 3 February 2013

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Kernels of seed corn sit in a tray after being tested inside a Monsanto lab in the US. Photograph: Daniel Acker/Getty Images

Thirty years ago, genetic engineers hoped new technology would revolutionise world farming and reduce or even eliminate the need for fertilisers and pesticides. It was a noble idea that deserved success.

But only promises came. In the 1990s the public was told genetic modification would increase yields enough to feed the world. Now in an age of climate change we hear that GM can reduce climate change emissions, improve drought tolerance, stimulate growth and eliminate poverty.

Perhaps all these benefits to society will one day accrue, but my fear, after tens of billions of dollars of public and private research and development money have been spent by some of the world’s most powerful companies, is that it has met a dead end.

Only a handful of GM food crops such as maize, soy and oilseed rape are grown widely and mostly in only a few countries.

Instead, the business is in the grip of a few global chemical companies who make their profits mostly from the sale of the chemicals they engineer their seeds to resist. After 30 years of public relations and backing by governments, the crops are still not trusted and food safety concerns will not go away.

Advocates say the science is settled after three trillion meals have produced little more than a few, possibly linked, allergic reactions. But critics respond that most of the foods are fed to animals, not humans, and no clinical trial of any genetically modified crop has ever been published.

Instead, the toxicity trials are designed and conducted in semi-secret by the companies themselves and the regulators have concentrated on the crops’ environmental effects. Any reports of serious illnesses are routinely batted away as “bad science”.

I fear much of the problem of trust stems from the chemical company Monsanto, which from the start has been the world’s largest producer, researcher and distributor of the crops. Its fierce use of patents, its heavy-handed lobbying of governments to deregulate markets, and its buying up of seed companies internationally have scared the public, raised concerns among small farmers the world over and denied the public the potential benefits.

In five years’ time, it is possible someone will manage to engineer GM crops to “fix” carbon and eliminate the need for pesticides. If the crops can then be seen to be without risk and be for the benefit of the public rather than for sheer corporate profit, then even organic farmers should not oppose them.

But so far the promoters of the technology have relied on political bullying to give us promises rather than better products.

In fact, advances in conventional farming have at least matched and possibly exceeded anything achieved by GM.

At a time when we desperately need new ideas to grow more food, genetic modification offers more chemicals, more expensive seeds and patents to protect corporates.

If the companies had really sought from the start to develop traits useful to people and farmers, rather than to create massive profits for themselves, it might now have become a technology to change the world.

As it is, I fear GM has proved beneficial for the few but held back the real debate on how to grow food without harming the environment or people.

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New rules force NSW Labor MPs to reveal taxable incomes

ABCUpdated February 3, 2013, 11:42 am

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As two former New South Wales Labor ministers prepare to face a corruption inquiry this week, the party is launching new rules to provide greater transparency about MPs’ incomes.

State Opposition Leader John Robertson will today travel to Parramatta to launch the new rules, which for the first time will force Labor MPs to reveal their taxable income.

At present, state politicians only have to identify their sources of income.

Labor MPs will also have to declare the pecuniary interests of their spouse or dependents, or any family member holding a contract with the State Government.

The plan was approved by shadow cabinet yesterday and will rule out Labor MPs from having second jobs.

Fairfax media is reporting that Labor’s deputy leader in the Upper House Adam Searle – who is a barrister – is appalled by the move.

The unveiling of the plan comes in the midst of the corruption inquiry into the granting of mining leases by the former Labor government.
Former ministers Ian Macdonald and Eddie Obeid are set to face the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) this week.

Queensland is a state of extreme weather, and there will be more on the horizon

by: Brian Williams
From: The Courier-Mail
February 03, 2013 12:00AM

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Bundaberg

Inundated: There is a big recovery ahead in Bundaberg. Source: Herald Sun

BARELY a week ago all the talk was of fires, cattle dying in the thousands and Queensland slipping into the deadly grip of drought.

Wouldn’t you know it, days later large slabs of the nation’s east coast were in flood, some record-breaking.

Since the Millennium Drought that took up much of the 2000s, Queensland’s weather has seesawed between floods, fires covering millions of hectares, cyclones and even a tremendous dust storm.

The latest shattering event ex-Cyclone Oswald was deemed remarkable by Weatherwatch forecaster Anthony Cornelius for the fact that as a cyclone it lasted but a few hours yet as a rain depression it swamped more than 2000km of coastline.

Travelling at 24km/h in the north, it eased to 10km/h, a speed slow enough to drench catchments as it tracked mostly along the heavily developed eastern fall of the Great Dividing Range from Cairns to Sydney.

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Huge southeast storm knocks out power
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More than 60cm of rain in 48 hours

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It seemed perverse, travelling at a painstaking pace as if it sought to achieve maximum impact. It succeeded, with the highest rainfall for the week a hard-to-believe 852mm at Glenlands, near Rockhampton.

Torrents of muddy water tore up 5000km of roads and will most likely soon tear up state and federal government budget plans.

Bundaberg and Laidley residents, raw and still hurting from the 2011 floods, faced a deluge. Brisbane and Ipswich missed the worst of it but damage in rural and regional areas is huge.

Weather bureau chief Rob Webb labels Oswald an extreme event but not unheard of.

He warns that such major climatic occurrences are part of living in the tropics and that we should be aware of our history.

“Just three weeks ago we were talking about fires and how late the monsoon was, then it arrived and what a burst,” he said.

“This was a big, record-breaking event by any measure but it’s happened before. Cyclone Joy (1990 and one-third of the state declared a disaster area) that crossed near Townsville did similar things.

“At the same time, Brisbane has had back-to-back floods in the past so these things are not out of the question.”

Oswald and other damaging events underline arguments by climate scientists over the past three decades that warming will produce worse droughts, more intense storms and cyclones, and greater floods.

CSIRO climate scientist Dr Debbie Abbs says much of the research has stood the test of time and shows that warming does play a role in weather patterns.

“We do expect more droughts but on the other side of the coin, when it rains we expect it to be much heavier and that’s basically because a warmer atmosphere holds more water,” Dr Abbs said.

“But you cannot put any one weather event down to climate change. It’s more to do with long-term trends.

“These sorts of events have been occurring for who knows how long. We know since European settlement of similar major events in Queensland such as 1893, 1974 and in the 1950s.”

One hypothesis that has changed is the belief that more cyclones will occur through warming.

Dr Abbs said this belief had since been discarded primarily because research had shown that warm oceans, while playing a role, were not quite so important to the formation of cyclones as previously thought.

Mr Webb does not relate these dramatic events directly to climate change but says the continent has warmed by about 1C in the past 100 years.

It is not yet clear whether warming will produce worse cyclones but at the very least people should expect more heatwaves such as occurred at Christmas.

Sick of hearing about floods, cyclones and storms? Head towards the interior and people will happily talk drought.

They are in the hard grind of pulling bogged stock out of failing dams, hand feeding, selling off cattle and watching crops fail.

Conditions have been so dry that residents of the southwest cotton town of St George evacuated from floods just 11 months ago are on water restrictions after the Balonne River stopped flowing.

Darling Downs residents at places such as Tara and Condamine have a similar story. These places were saved just two weeks ago by one of those intense storms that Dr Abbs talks about and have received some follow-up help from Oswald’s remains.

Balonne Shire Mayor Donna Stewart says St George has had virtually no rain since last February. In the past week Balonne has had one flow and a second is on the way.

“This is what the old hands call a dry flood,” Ms Stewart said. “We haven’t had a drop of rain and we’re still praying for a break in the drought. This will be good for irrigators but dams are still dry, people are feeding stock and graziers are cutting scrub. Talk about a land of contrasts.”

Cotton farmers abandoned more than 4000ha of plantings because of water shortages, and Primary Industries Minister John McVeigh warns that sorghum, pulse, peanut and mungbean crops have suffered.

Cotton Australia spokesman Michael Murray says it’s not clear yet how much crop will be lost but statewide production is 1.5 million bales, down from more than 2 million last season. Despite cutbacks, it’s still the state’s third-largest cotton crop due to water stored from two previous wet years.

Coastal sugarcane crops were struggling from the dry two weeks ago, only to be drowned and buffeted by strong winds over the past week.

Ms Stewart’s grain farm remains in trouble.

“We’re dry-land farmers and we planted 3000 acres (1214ha) of wheat and chickpeas in June and since then all we’ve had is 10mm,” she said.

In a continent as dry as Australia, it’s hard to knock rain. Oswald’s burst has boosted the Darling Downs, the south and parts of central Queensland and Mr Webb warns there is plenty of time left in the season for more cyclonic action.

Western Downs Mayor Ray Brown says these fickle and damaging patterns are a great warning for anyone who chooses to underestimate Mother Nature’s capabilities.

Ms Stewart agrees and says a major factor is that much of the inland has suffered weeks if not months of temperatures in excess of 40C that have toasted the landscape.

These bush mayors are right. There are lessons in these great weather events and one that stands out is what a huge place Queensland is.

Our climate ranges from tropical equatorial to temperate.

It shows that we should prepare for and expect that every now and then we will suffer its extremes, be they raging floods, terrifying cyclones, drought and maybe even a dusting of snow in Stanthorpe’s high country.

THE SCIENTISTS’ VIEW

CSIRO climate scientists say climate change involves long-term changes to underlying ocean and atmospheric patterns that generate extreme weather events as part of year-to-year climate variability.

Australia is likely to become warmer over coming decades, with a reduction in average annual rainfall in the southeast but there remains uncertainty about changes in average annual rainfall in Queensland, the Northern Territory and northern Western Australia.

A warming trend will include some cool years and many hot years and a drying trend will include some very wet years and many dry years.

In this highly variable climate, severe storms and extreme rainfall events are likely to be more intense, resulting in more severe flooding.

Knowing more about the occurrence of natural disasters will make for better preparation.

– Brian Williams is The Sunday-Mail’s environment reporter.

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Climate change will shake the Earth

A changing climate isn’t just about floods, droughts and heatwaves. It brings erupting volcanoes and catastrophic earthquakes too
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Bill McGuire

The Guardian, Sunday 26 February 2012 19.59 GMT

As the Earth’s crust buckles, volcanic activity will increase. Photograph: Corbis

The idea that a changing climate can persuade the ground to shake, volcanoes to rumble and tsunamis to crash on to unsuspecting coastlines seems, at first, to be bordering on the insane. How can what happens in the thin envelope of gas that shrouds and protects our world possibly influence the potentially Earth-shattering processes that operate deep beneath the surface? The fact that it does reflects a failure of our imagination and a limited understanding of the manner in which the different physical components of our planet – the atmosphere, the oceans, and the solid Earth, or geosphere – intertwine and interact.

Waking the Giant: How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes
by Bill McGuire

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If we think about climate change at all, most of us do so in a very simplistic way: so, the weather might get a bit warmer; floods and droughts may become more of a problem and sea levels will slowly creep upwards. Evidence reveals, however, that our planet is an almost unimaginably complicated beast, which reacts to a dramatically changing climate in all manner of different ways; a few – like the aforementioned – straightforward and predictable; some surprising and others downright implausible. Into the latter category fall the manifold responses of the geosphere.

The world we inhabit has an outer rind that is extraordinarily sensitive to change. While the Earth’s crust may seem safe and secure, the geological calamities that happen with alarming regularity confirm that this is not the case. Here in the UK, we only have to go back a couple years to April 2010, when the word on everyone’s lips was Eyjafjallajökull – the ice-covered Icelandic volcano that brought UK and European air traffic to a grinding halt. Less than a year ago, our planet’s ability to shock and awe headed the news once again as the east coast of Japan was bludgeoned by a cataclysmic combination of megaquake and tsunami, resulting – at a quarter of a trillion dollars or so – in the biggest natural-catastrophe bill ever.

In the light of such events, it somehow seems appropriate to imagine the Earth beneath our feet as a slumbering giant that tosses and turns periodically in response to various pokes and prods. Mostly, these are supplied by the stresses and strains associated with the eternal dance of a dozen or so rocky tectonic plates across the face of our world; a sedate waltz that proceeds at about the speed that fingernails grow. Changes in the environment too, however, have a key role to play in waking the giant, as growing numbers of geological studies targeting our post-ice age world have disclosed.

Between about 20,000 and 5,000 years ago, our planet underwent an astonishing climatic transformation. Over the course of this period, it flipped from the frigid wasteland of deepest and darkest ice age to the – broadly speaking – balmy, temperate world upon which our civilisation has developed and thrived. During this extraordinarily dynamic episode, as the immense ice sheets melted and colossal volumes of water were decanted back into the oceans, the pressures acting on the solid Earth also underwent massive change. In response, the crust bounced and bent, rocking our planet with a resurgence in volcanic activity, a proliferation of seismic shocks and burgeoning giant landslides.

The most spectacular geological effects were reserved for high latitudes. Here, the crust across much of northern Europe and North America had been forced down by hundreds of metres and held at bay for tens of thousands of years beneath the weight of sheets of ice 20 times thicker than the height of the London Eye. As the ice dissipated in soaring temperatures, the crust popped back up like a coiled spring released, at the same time tearing open major faults and triggering great earthquakes in places where they are unheard of today. Even now, the crust underpinning those parts of Europe and North America formerly imprisoned beneath the great continental ice sheets continues to rise – albeit at a far more sedate rate.

As last year’s events in Japan most ably demonstrated, when the ground shakes violently beneath the sea, a tsunami may not be far behind. These unstoppable walls of water are hardly a surprise when they happen within the so-called ring of fire that encompasses the Pacific basin but in the more tectonically benign North Atlantic their manifestation could reasonably be regarded as a bit of a shock. Nonetheless, there is plenty of good, hard evidence that this was the case during post-glacial times. Trapped within the thick layers of peat that pass for soil on Shetland – the UK’s northernmost outpost – are intrusions of sand that testify to the inland penetration of three tsunamis during the last 10,000 years.

Volcanic blasts too can be added to the portfolio of postglacial geological pandemonium; the warming climate being greeted by an unprecedented fiery outburst that wracked Iceland as its frozen carapace dwindled, and against which the recent ashy ejaculation from the island’s most unpronounceable volcano pales.

The huge environmental changes that accompanied the rapid post-glacial warming of our world were not confined to the top and bottom of the planet. All that meltwater had to go somewhere, and as the ice sheets dwindled, so the oceans grew. An astounding 52m cubic kilometres of water was sucked from the oceans to form the ice sheets, causing sea levels to plummet by about 130 metres – the height of the Wembley stadium arch. As the ice sheets melted so this gigantic volume of water was returned, bending the crust around the margins of the ocean basins under the enormous added weight, and provoking volcanoes in the vicinity to erupt and faults to rupture, bringing geological mayhem to regions remote from the ice’s polar fastnesses.

The breathtaking response of the geosphere as the great ice sheets crumbled might be considered as providing little more than an intriguing insight into the prehistoric workings of our world, were it not for the fact that our planet is once again in the throes an extraordinary climatic transformation – this time brought about by human activities. Clearly, the Earth of the early 21st century bears little resemblance to the frozen world of 20,000 years ago. Today, there are no great continental ice sheets to dispose of, while the ocean basins are already pretty much topped up. On the other hand, climate change projections repeatedly support the thesis that global average temperatures could rise at least as rapidly in the course of the next century or so as during post-glacial times, reaching levels at high latitudes capable of driving catastrophic breakup of polar ice sheets as thick as those that once covered much of Europe and North America. Could it be then, that if we continue to allow greenhouse gas emissions to rise unchecked and fuel serious warming, our planet’s crust will begin to toss and turn once again?

The signs are that this is already happening. In the detached US state of Alaska, where climate change has propelled temperatures upwards by more than 3C in the last half century, the glaciers are melting at a staggering rate, some losing up to 1km in thickness in the last 100 years. The reduction in weight on the crust beneath is allowing faults contained therein to slide more easily, promoting increased earthquake activity in recent decades. The permafrost that helps hold the state’s mountain peaks together is also thawing rapidly, leading to a rise in the number of giant rock and ice avalanches. In fact, in mountainous areas around the world, landslide activity is on the up; a reaction both to a general ramping-up of global temperatures and to the increasingly frequent summer heatwaves.

Whether or not Alaska proves to be the “canary in the cage” – the geological shenanigans there heralding far worse to come – depends largely upon the degree to which we are successful in reducing the ballooning greenhouse gas burden arising from our civilisation’s increasingly polluting activities, thereby keeping rising global temperatures to a couple of degrees centigrade at most. So far, it has to be said, there is little cause for optimism, emissions rocketing by almost 6% in 2010 when the world economy continued to bump along the bottom. Furthermore, the failure to make any real progress on emissions control at last December’s Durban climate conference ensures that the outlook is bleak. Our response to accelerating climate change continues to be consistently asymmetric, in the sense that it is far below the level that the science says is needed if we are to have any chance of avoiding the all-pervasive devastating consequences.

So what – geologically speaking – can we look forward to if we continue to pump out greenhouse gases at the current hell-for-leather rate? With resulting global average temperatures likely to be several degrees higher by this century’s end, we could almost certainly say an eventual goodbye to the Greenland ice sheet, and probably that covering West Antarctica too, committing us – ultimately – to a 10-metre or more hike in sea levels.

GPS measurements reveal that the crust beneath the Greenland ice sheet is already rebounding in response to rapid melting, providing the potential – according to researchers – for future earthquakes, as faults beneath the ice are relieved of their confining load. The possibility exists that these could trigger submarine landslides spawning tsunamis capable of threatening North Atlantic coastlines. Eastern Iceland is bouncing back too as its Vatnajökull ice cap fades away. When and if it vanishes entirely, new research predicts a lively response from the volcanoes currently residing beneath. A dramatic elevation in landslide activity would be inevitable in the Andes, Himalayas, European Alps and elsewhere, as the ice and permafrost that sustains many mountain faces melts and thaws.

Across the world, as sea levels climb remorselessly, the load-related bending of the crust around the margins of the ocean basins might – in time – act to sufficiently “unclamp” coastal faults such as California’s San Andreas, allowing them to move more easily; at the same time acting to squeeze magma out of susceptible volcanoes that are primed and ready to blow.

The bottom line is that through our climate-changing activities we are loading the dice in favour of escalating geological havoc at a time when we can most do without it. Unless there is a dramatic and completely unexpected turnaround in the way in which the human race manages itself and the planet, then long-term prospects for our civilisation look increasingly grim. At a time when an additional 220,000 people are lining up at the global soup kitchen each and every night; when energy, water and food resources are coming under ever-growing pressure, and when the debilitating effects of anthropogenic climate change are insinuating themselves increasingly into every nook and cranny of our world and our lives, the last thing we need is for the dozing subterranean giant to awaken.

Bill McGuire is professor of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London. Waking the Giant: How a Changing Climate Triggers Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Volcanoes is published by Oxford University Press.

Hear him on the Science Weekly podcast at guardian.co.uk/scienceweekly

Increases in Extreme Rainfall Linked to Global Warming

Feb. 1, 2013 — A worldwide review of global rainfall data led by the University of Adelaide has found that the intensity of the most extreme rainfall events is increasing across the globe as temperatures rise.

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In the most comprehensive review of changes to extreme rainfall ever undertaken, researchers evaluated the association between extreme rainfall and atmospheric temperatures at more than 8000 weather gauging stations around the world.

Lead author Dr Seth Westra said, “The results are that rainfall extremes are increasing on average globally. They show that there is a 7% increase in extreme rainfall intensity for every degree increase in global atmospheric temperature.

“Assuming an increase in global average temperature by 3 to 5 degrees Celsius by the end of the 21st century, this could mean very substantial increases in rainfall intensity as a result of climate change.”

Dr Westra, a Senior Lecturer with the University of Adelaide’s School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering and member of the Environment Institute, said trends in rainfall extremes were examined over the period from 1900 to 2009 to determine whether they were becoming more intense or occurring more frequently.

“The results show that rainfall extremes were increasing over this period, and appear to be linked to the increase in global temperature of nearly a degree which also took place over this time.

“If extreme rainfall events continue to intensify, we can expect to see floods occurring more frequently around the world.” Dr Westra said.

The strongest increases occurred in the tropical countries, although some level of increase seems to be taking place at the majority of weather gauging stations.

Dr Westra said, “Most of these tropical countries are very poor and thus not well placed to adapt to the increased risk of flooding, which puts them in a larger threat of devastation.”

This work is being published in the Journal of Climate.

The research also involved researchers from the University of New South Wales, Australia and the University of Victoria, Canada.

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handwriting expert called in by police to examine Craig Thomson evidence

STEVE LEWIS
The Daily Telegraph
February 01, 201311:00PM

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Federal Police carry evidence from the office of Craig Thomson’s electorate office. Picture: Waide Maguire Source: The Daily Telegraph

THE country’s pre-eminent handwriting expert is helping Victorian police as they try to prove fraud charges against Dobell MP Craig Thomson.

It is understood Paul Westwood, a principal of Forensic Document Services, has been hired to provide expert advice on key aspects of police evidence, including Mr Thomson’s handwriting and samples of his fingerprints taken when he was arrested on Thursday.

It appears Mr Thomson may be able to defer a court hearing – set down for Wednesday – until later this month.

Parliamentary rules allow federal MPs and senators to avoid appearing in court if parliament is sitting within five days of the court date.

Mr Thomson is scheduled to appear in a Melbourne court on Wednesday, during which the 149 fraud charges laid by police will be tabled.

If the matter is deferred, Mr Thomson would likely appear in court about a fortnight later.

It is understood police will use Mr Westwood’s forensic expertise to try to prove Mr Thomson spent more than $7000 of Health Services Union funds to pay for prostitutes and escort services while he was the union’s boss between 2002 and 2007.Mr Thomson told former Sydney broadcaster Michael Smith in August 2011 that his signature had been forged – as he fended off claims of using HSU funds to pay for hookers.

But Mr Westwood at the time said he had “not found any evidence” of forgery when asked by Mr Smith to examine samples of the MP’s handwriting.