Three Steps To Reducing Red Tape For Farmers

Red tape is destroying farming communities, yet the best the Turnbull government can do is launch another review.

At end of March, the government announced it would undertake a review into the red tape imposed on farmers by federal environmental regulation.

But this review, like most others, will end up providing a massive pay day for the bureaucrats who run it, only to sit on the shelf and gather dust for decades to come.

What is so troubling is that the government is not taking this issue seriously.

In announcing the review, the government said they would be "weeding out unnecessary red tape for farmers".

Red tape is more than just a few weeds that need to be pulled out.

Only root and branch reform, involving the total extermination of red tape, and the bureaucratic pests which impose it, will help restore prosperity and opportunity to the agricultural sector.

Here's how to do it.

Firstly, the Commonwealth government should announce a moratorium on all new rules being imposed on the agricultural sector for the next five years.  As it currently stands, many farmers are not even aware of the rules that apply to them.  And how could they be?  Seemingly every week a new rule is introduced at the local, state, or federal level.  Busy and productive landowners simply cannot keep up.  They haven't got all day to sit around reading the official government registrar of new rules when there are fields to be ploughed, cows to be miked, and livestock to be attended to.

Secondly, the Commonwealth government should remove itself from regulating the agricultural sector.  That sector is already heavily regulated at state and local levels.  Additional interference at the federal level just leads to more duplication and overlap.

Thirdly, the greatest red tape impost occurs at the state level through native vegetation regulation.  Such laws require private landowners to maintain or expand the extent of native vegetation on their private property.  This effectively results in the sterilisation of productive farmland, which can severely undermine the economic potential of that farmland and throw farmers and their families into chaos.

Moreover, this is greatly insulting to farmers.  They know far more than city-based bureaucrats about how to sustainably manage their farmland.  After all, many farmers have been on the land for generations.  They know what they are doing.  If green groups feel so strongly about native vegetation, then they should buy their own land, not force farmers to give up their livelihood.

While native vegetation regulation is a state issue, there is one thing the feds can do.  Whenever a state government sterilises privately held land to conserve native vegetation, the Commonwealth government should redirect a portion of the relevant state's GST share to the affected farmer.  This would rapidly change the incentives that state governments face, and ensure farmers are properly compensated for the forced sterilisation of their productive farmland.

But it's not just our farmers that are suffering under the weight of red tape.  Red tape in Australia is at a crisis point.  Each year red tape reduces economic output by a staggering $176 billion, which is 11 per cent of GDP.  This makes red tape Australia's largest industry.

Thanks to red tape and high taxes, business investment in Australia is just 12 per cent of GDP, which is lower than what it was during the economically hostile Whitlam years.  Wages growth is stagnating.  And more than 700,000 Australians are without work.

Now is not the time for another review.  Now is the time for action.  The Turnbull government must cut red tape to unleash to productive potential of Australia's farmers.

Tape tangle

CUTTING red-tape by adding red-tape:  failed ecological central planning continues as the NSW government changes its native vegetation laws.  Under proposed changes agricultural land would be demarcated according to risk to biodiversity.  Development would be allowed in "lower-risk" areas, but bound up in "higher-risk" areas.

Development on higher-risk areas would need to be offset by allocating other parts of that land for biodiversity purposes or paying into a biodiversity fund.

Many are rightly concerned about this proposal’s uncertainty.  There is no guarantee future governments would not further restrict farmers.  This uncertainty discourages investment.  A more fundamental issue is the deeply flawed belief bureaucrats can centrally plan society.

Centrally planning the environment fails for the same reasons as central economic planning.  Actions of individuals, combined with the environment’s dynamism cannot be forecast, measured or calculated.

We need a different approach to regulation — one that uses the environmental stewardship of farmers by protecting their property rights, promoting competition and facilitating economic growth.  Property rights give owners incentive to look after what they own.  Farmers know their livelihood depends on environmentally sustainable practice.

Competition fostered by free markets provides powerful incentive for land-users to economise land use and develop more efficient and environmentally friendly technology.  In the last century land used for agriculture has decreased, yet output has skyrocketed.

Discouraging productive land use will hamper growth, resulting in a worse environment.  The government’s proposed changes still rely on technocratic tinkering.  We are over-regulated.

I recently revealed red-tape costs our economy $176 billion annually.  These changes will not make a dent to this figure.  Policy-makers should think big and embrace reform that aligns commercial incentives with conservation interests.

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GM Could Save the Day for Future Fuels

For a long time now the doomsayers have been telling us we are about to run out of oil -- at least since the 1970s.  Now, with the world financial crisis, its price is actually dropping.

As mankind moved beyond the stone age before running out of stones, I suspect that we will move beyond the oil age before running out of oil.

Recently Royal Dutch Shell backed next generation biofuels with an expanded agreement with Codex.

The new agreement with Shell is about fast-tracking development of technology to convert lignocelluloses -- the stalk of corn plants, wheat straw, mallee crops, timber residues -- into ethanol.  It is about "better enzymes" to improve efficiency according to Graeme Sweeney, Shell Executive, Future-Fuels.

Shell has invested significantly in various alternative energies, but according to recent reports it's going to dump wind, solar and hydro power in favour of this research into biofuels.

If the research becomes a commercial reality there could be real opportunities for Australian agriculture which produces as much as 40 million tonnes of stubble each year.

First generation biofuels that convert crops such as corn, canola and sugarcane into ethanol are controversial because they pit food-needs against fuel production.

Stubble would seem a less controversial fuel source -- though it is of course highly valued as part of many minimum tillage agricultural systems.

There is another potential issue:  genetic modification (GM) may be involved in the development of the new technology.

In the past ten years the anti-GM lobby has been quite successful in Australia with bans on GM canola only recently lifted in NSW, Victoria and Western Australia.

The anti-GM Greenpeace campaign continues with a couple of Americans lecturing grain growers in recent weeks about why they shouldn't plant a crop North American farmers have been growing successfully for some time.

If Australia agriculture, is to not be left behind, the industry will perhaps need to be more embracing of new technologies into the future and start shedding some of its doomsayer hangers-on.

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Water Woe a Political Power Play

I have it on good advice, from the cabbie who drove me to the airport in Canberra recently, that South Australian senator Nick Xenophon is the most powerful politician in Australia.

Mr Xenophon is certainly demanding the attention of the most powerful politician officially, the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, by insisting on more water for South Australia in return for the passage of the economic stimulus package.

Now he is backing a possible constitutional challenge by South Australia to remove barriers to water trade in Victoria.

By backing this legal action, he will in effect be supporting the federal bureaucracy against the states -- presumably only because he believes it is the federal government that will act in the interests of South Australia.

Given its continual dominance of the national water agenda, it is probably a safe bet.

During the Howard years, South Australians, Nick Minchin and Alexandra Downer, ensured cabinet decisions, including on water, never disadvantaged them.

Now, South Australians can lay claim to not only Mr Xenophon, but also the federal Minister for Climate Change and Water, Penny Wong.

Then there is also Senator Sarah Hanson-Young who, also from South Australia, tends to chime in whenever Mr Xenophon takes the running on an issue.

Last Friday, she repeated Mr Xenophon's claim that the survival of South Australia's Lower Lakes and Coorong was dependent on the Federal Government taking control of the Murray River.

Of course it theoretically already has control through the new Murray-Darling Basin Authority.

But there's a snag:  neither Ms Wong or Mr Rudd can make it rain.

They can try and get more water from places where it is raining, like "Tooralee", down to South Australia, but it's a long way, and there will be significant losses along the way.

However, there is a simple solution to the problem of the lower lakes and Coorong:  they only need to open the barrages currently holding back the sea for the area to become flooded with seawater as it was when Charles Sturt first visited the area in 1830.

But if South Australia started solving its own problems, it might become irrelevant nationally and then they wouldn't have the most powerful politician in Australia.

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Sane voices amid climate hysteria

I have it on good advice that a well known independent thinker, British naturalist and television personality, David Bellamy, will be visiting Australia in April.

The professor will be speaking in Mittagong on April 4 at the invitation of the Royal Society of NSW and as a global warming sceptic.

On the question of scepticism he recently commented, "The first question most people ask me these days are how could all those global warmers have got it so wrong?  My answer is to remind them of the millennium bug, the dot com bubble and the credit crunch, together these have caused tens of thousands of the worlds' most highly paid and computer literate people to succumb to a mass hysteria."

On the financial crisis and the power of the consensus another Brit and former Cabinet Secretary (2002-2005), Lord Turnbull has commented it is a collective failure of all sorts of people -- the regulator, the bankers, the economic policy makers.

They had a particular view of the world and the things which should have acted as restraints:  the regulators, rating agencies, accounting, corporate governments -- none of that worked, because of the power of consensus.

On global warming and the consensus, former US vice-President, Al Gore has said, "Do you know any credible scientist who says wait a minute -- this hasn't been proven?  The debate's over.  The people who dispute the international consensus on global warming are in the same category now with the people who think the moon landing was staged on a movie lot in Arizona."

But wait, a man who has actually walked on the moon is now disputing the consensus on global warming.  That's right, former astronaut Harrison Schmitt, who walked on the moon, doesn't believe that humans are causing global warming.  He will speak at a conference of climate change sceptics in New York next month and in preconference publicity said, "I don't think the human effect [on climate] is significant compared to the natural effect".

According to Scottish poet, journalist, and song writer, Charles Mackay (1814-1889), men think in herds, go mad in herds and only recover their senses slowly and one by one.

May there be more sensible men after Professor Bellamy's visit to Mittagong on April 4.

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Crisis Gloom Equals Climate Boon

Last year Federal Minister for Climate Change and Water, Penny Wong, was telling Australians that the drought in the Murray-Darling was a consequence of global warming.  It was our fault because of green house gas (GHG) emissions including from Australians' general over-consumption and wasteful affluent lifestyles.

Indeed, predictions for the entire planet have been dire, with pleas, including from the Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, that we must change our ways and drastically cut our carbon dioxide emissions or we will lose not only the Murray-Darling, but the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu and snow from the High Country.

This year, with the financial crisis resulting in a general slowdown, there is a lot less "stuff" being produced, built, and moved about in Australia, and also in the US and China.

This must translate into fewer GHG emissions.  Furthermore, if, as many environmentalists suggest, the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible, less "stuff" is good news.

But instead of seeing the economic bad news, as good news for the environment, the Australian government has been handing out money with the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, begging first pensioners, and now the rest of us, to spend, spend, spend.

My mother is planning to do the right thing and buy a dishwasher with the cheque she received from the government just before Christmas.

All she perhaps needs to do now, in terms of following government advice, is stop serving beef at her dinner parties.

Government climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, was suggesting we should ditch cattle for kangaroos to reduce methane emissions.

If Mum did this, when she stacked that dishwasher after her next party she could perhaps be happy in the knowledge the meat she had served was from a low emissions source.

But should government on the one hand be suggesting low emission sources of food, and on the other suggesting Australians buy more "stuff"?

The reality is that you cannot have it both ways.

Given available sources of energy, economic activity and emissions are directly related.

The Federal government cannot be determined to maintain domestic growth above two percent, on the one hand, while at the same time telling us we are destroying the environment with our emissions.

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Farmers hit to "save" the reef -- and Anna

Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh, has indicated that she will run a campaign against farmers in coastal catchments adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef as part of her re-election strategy.

Or, as she puts it, she is going to "Save the Great Barrier Reef" by introducing tough new regulations on farming.

It will be difficult for the new Liberal National Party to support more regulation of a key section of its constituency, so it seems the Premier has a wedge issue likely to play to her favour in places like Brisbane.

There is no evidence of a big impact from farming on the reef.  There is a lot of evidence that farming practices have improved dramatically in the past century and this has been good for rivers and streams.

Historically sediment runoff was a problem, particularly before the advent of mechanical harvesting when sugarcane was grown on steep slopes.  Now the crop is only cultivated on flat land and with the adoption of green cane harvesting, including minimum tillage and mulching, levels of nutrient and sediment run-off are often equivalent to that from undisturbed rainforest.

But when it comes to farming and politics it can be difficult to distinguish reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda.

Readers of The Land may be surprised to learn that there was actually an increase in coral growth rates measured at the Great Barrier Reef during the 20th Century.

This was associated with warming sea temperatures, according to Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) researchers Janice Lough and Dave Barnes who have published detailed studies concluding that coral growth rates.

As well, growth rates actually decrease from north to south along the reef as temperatures cool markedly.

Two weeks ago a paper was published in the prestigious journal Science, also by AIMS researchers, but now suggesting that global warming is slowing coral growth.

The new findings make no mention of farming, but Premier Bligh was quick to comment that this was more reason for "new laws" against farming.

So all the good work done by farmers to reduce their impact on coastal ecosystems will be ignored in the race to secure green votes in urban electorates in Queensland this year.

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Global warming blame game gets furry

So many things are blamed on global warming.  A quick internet search of reported repercussions just beginning with "p", includes psychiatric illness, puffin decline, plankton blooms, polar bears drowning, polar bears cannibalistic and polar bears deaf.

Last week another was added when Professor Steven Williams from James Cook University, said a rare white possum might have disappeared as a consequence of global warming.

After some research of my own I discovered the "the white possum" is more commonly known as a lemuroid ringtail (Hemibelideus lemuroid) and is usually a charcoal brown colour.

Professor Williams' concerns are based on a 0.6 to 0.8°C temperature rise in Australia over the last 100 years or so and not seeing any white possums during recent expeditions to the Carbine Tablelands in Far North Queensland -- a place which was known to have had some rare white-furred individuals.

Much of the possum species' known preferred habitat (high altitude Far North Queensland), is extremely remote -- places like Thornton Peak, at an altitude of 1,374 metres are difficult to access and treacherous to navigate particularly at night when the possum is active and thus most likely to be sighted.

Indeed it would seem the professor's concern, that this may be the first mammal to go extinct as a result of global warming, could be considered somewhat premature.

Published research on lemuroid ringtails has concluded the species is most at risk from "habitat fragmentation" because they were reluctant to cross roads or even powerline corridors.

Apparently, rope bridges can help maintain "social integration and genetic diversity" in such cases.

Given the white possum prefers high altitude regions were there aren't many roads, spending money on rope bridges may be no more useful than Professor Williams claiming we must do something about global warming.

I suspect future generations will look back and scratch their heads in wonder at the extent to which our scientists became so utterly captivated by the current global warming hysteria.

You can find a complete list of things caused by global warming at http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

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Topsy-turvy temperature

So much of government policy is now about reducing carbon emissions on the basis that the earth is heating-up.

But measuring the earth's temperature is not easy.

The traditional way, still used by the United Kingdom's Meteorology Bureau and NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS), involves collating data from weather stations across the world.

These are based in places as cold as Siberia ranging through to the hot tropics of Indonesia.

The number of weather stations has changed with time and many weather stations, even in the United States, are not well maintained and positioned in wrong places -- including next to new air conditioning outlets.

There had been many stories in the local and international media suggesting that last month was unusually cold.

It snowed in the Blue Mountains, and again last weekend as far west as Orange.

London experienced its first October snow since 1922 -- ironically as the British Parliament debated a new climate change bill.

I saw a report of the "the worst snowstorm on record" in Tibet -- 144,400 head of livestock dead.

Then, contrary to expectations, GISS published a temperature anomaly for October showing global warming and not just a bit of warming.

It was reporting a +0.88°C -- the anomaly was the largest ever for October, and one of the steepest jumps in global temperatures ever recorded.

Two Internet web blogs, one run by US meteorologist, Anthony Watts, and another by Canadian statistician, Steve McIntyre, were quick to find one of the errors -- many temperature records from Russia were not based on October readings at all, but rather figures for September that had simply been carried across.

It is much colder in Siberia in October than in September.

The Goddard Institute admitted the blunder and admitted that it was the bloggers who had discovered it.

However, when GISS published the correction it was evident that while adjusting down the temperatures for Russia, they adjusted up the temperatures for Australia and the Canadian Arctic.

Apparently the Australian data was not in when GISS did the original analysis which begs the question:  What was the basis for the first guess estimates for Australia?

It seems extraordinary to me that governments across the globe are planning and implementing expensive and intrusive policies based on the notion the earth is warming, but there doesn't appear to be a lot of quality control on much of the data actually driving this mania.

An alternative to the weather station data is satellite data which has been collected since 1979 also by NASA.

But this doesn't show significant global warming and perhaps for this reason is rarely quoted by politicians and climate scientists who have hitched their reputations to the so-called climate crisis.

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Dont ditch cattle yet, science isnt settled

How many times have you heard it said, the science is settled, we will have catastrophic global warming unless we change our ways and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions?

While the "science might be settled" it does not seem to be well understood.

At least there has been a dramatic rise in key greenhouse gases in the past last two years, in particular methane, but temperatures have not gone up.

In fact, global temperatures are falling.  That's right -- falling.

While Australian farmers have been told they should make a transition from cows to kangaroos to reduce their greenhouse gas emission, in particular emissions of methane, it is increasingly unclear that such a dramatic action, even if it was undertaken, would have any effect on global methane levels.

The amount of methane in Earth's atmosphere shot up in 2007, bringing to an end a period of about a decade in which atmospheric levels of the potent greenhouse gas were essentially stable.

At least that's according to a team of scientists led by Matthew Rigby and Ronald Prinn at the esteemed Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with their findings about to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Methane in the atmosphere comes from a variety of sources including cattle, rice paddies, the coal industry.

It is destroyed by reaction with the hydroxyl free radical (OH), often referred to as the atmosphere's "cleanser."

A surprising feature of the recent surge in atmospheric methane levels is that it occurred almost simultaneously at all measurement locations across the world.

The scientists say a rise in northern hemispheric emissions may be due to the warm conditions observed in Siberia throughout 2007, potentially leading to increased bacterial emissions from wetland areas.  However, a potential cause for the increase in the southern hemisphere is less clear.

It was thought an explanation for the rise may lie, at least in part, with a drop in the concentrations of the methane-destroying OH.

Theoretical studies, however, indicated that if this had happened, the required global methane emissions rise would have been smaller and more strongly biased to the Northern Hemisphere, so this can't really explain the simultaneous rise in methane levels that have occurred all around the world either.

Indeed while the science of climate change is according to some "settled", there really is a lot we don't understand.

Not even our Federal Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, can guarantee that a dramatic change in how Australian farmers go about their business would have any effect on global temperatures.

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A misguided desire to save the bush

There has been much written about Australia's national character emerging from a bush ethos -- the idea that a specifically Australian outlook emerged first amongst workers in the Australian outback.  But few now have anything much to do with the bush.  They mostly live in cities, or close to the beach, and spend holiday time on the coast.

However, the concept there is an outback still looms large and successive federal governments have claimed they can save it.

The previous Howard government was going to save the Murray from salinity and largely achieved this through the construction of salt interception schemes.

The new Rudd Government plans to save the Murray from climate change.  This is perhaps a more ambitious undertaking.

The Rudd government was elected with the help of internet campaigners, GetUp, and this group recently joined-in with a major online campaign claiming to provide an opportunity for ordinary Australians to "keep the rivers flowing" and "save Australia's food bowl" through a few mouse clicks at the home computer.

In particular it seems many city-based Australians believe that there is no water because of over-allocation exacerbated by climate change and so if the Government buys back some water there will be more for the remaining farmers and this will "save the food bowl".

Certainly, much of outback Australia is under pressure from a series of dry years and reduced runoff, including pressure from changed land management practices.  But as some farmers explained on ABC television's Four Corners, you can't buy back rivers, not even with billions of dollars.  The reason -- water allocations are just air space until it rains.

Furthermore, only a few thousand hectares of the Government's recent purchase, Tooralee Station, involved irrigated agriculture and now the 91,000-hecatre lot will be converted to national park.

While the latest city-based internet campaign claims to be about "saving the food bowl" there is much precedence to suggest that government interference will only result in less agriculture generally and the redistribution of some water downstream when it does eventually flood.

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Roos for Ruminants but What about Rice

The Federal Government's climate change advisor, Professor Ross Garnaut, has suggested that reducing sheep and cattle numbers and replacing them with 175 million farmed kangaroos would help to dramatically reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.  This is because ruminant animals, like sheep and cattle, produce methane which is a potent greenhouse gas.

But of course there are other forms of agriculture that produce methane, in particular rice agriculture.  Furthermore, we all know that there are a lot of Chinese and they eat a lot of rice.  In the scheme of things, if Australians are to give up their lamb chops then perhaps there should also be some pressure brought to bear on the Chinese to stop eating rice.

Indeed while ruminant animals are thought to produce 93 million tonnes of methane per year globally, rice cultivation is not far behind at 60 million tonnes of methane annually.

Interestingly the world's wetlands dwarf both these sources of agricultural emissions, producing an estimated 145 million tonnes of methane each year.  Another natural source of methane is termites producing an estimate 20 million tonnes of methane each year.  But clearly in this age of environmental concern it will be sheep and rice that go before termites or wetlands.

It has been suggested that because methane production in flooded rice fields is a result of microbial activity in the anoxic environment of the flooded soils, that drier forms of rice cultivation could solve the problem.

Of course, all sorts of potential solutions are possible to all sorts of proposed problems.  Mr Garnaut could have even suggested that the Chinese start eating kangaroo.  Indeed Australia is a large country and we have a lot of greenhouse-neutral kangaroos.

A problem for the Australian kangaroo industry has not been a shortage of kangaroos, but rather the lack of a reliable market in large part because of animal rights campaigning against the killing of this perceived cute and cuddly creature.

Environmental personality, the late Steve Irwin, was even against the idea of farming Australian native animals and supported a campaign that forced David Beckham to stop wearing kangaroo skin soccer boots.

I am not averse to a good lamb chop, beef burger or kangaroo stew and there are better reasons than "climate change" for eating kangaroo -- nature's natural bounty.  But Australians and Chinese will first need to overcome some of our cultural aversions and the opposition of animal rights organisations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

Indeed the PETA cheer squad would probably prefer we all ate rice.

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Science Joins the Sub-Prime

Well known British scientist and commentator, Phillip Stott, recently described "global warming" as sub-prime science, sub-prime economics and sub-prime politics, and suggested it could well go down with the sub-prime mortgage.

Certainly, climate change has slid in importance with the stock market.  Indeed many commentators believe whether Democrat, Barack Obama, or Republican, John McCain, is elected president come November, it is now unlikely that an additional tax by way of a carbon trading scheme will be introduced into the US.

One of the more significant institutional proponents of carbon trading in the US, Lehman Brothers, has gone bankrupt.  Just last year that bank put out two major reports on global warming broadly embracing and promoting the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) agenda including emissions trading.  The second report entitled, The Business of Climate Change 11, went as far as to suggest that it will be possible to reach an international agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions within five years.

Lehman Brothers not only promoted global warming, but also various structured Asset Backed Securities (ABS) that many Local Governments in NSW purchased on the basis they were a good money earner and AAA rated.  But many of these highly rated securities incorporated low rated sub-prime mortgages and as a consequence some NSW Councils have lost a lot of money.

The risk of a climate crisis, like the risks associated with ABS, are calculated using complex computer models.  Like the models underpinning sub-prime mortgage securitisation, general circulation models (GCM) that are used to predict by how many degrees the world will warm, are too complex for the average punter to understand.

While some in the Australian agricultural sector have complained they are not included in preparations for the introduction of an emissions trading scheme in Australia, this may end up a blessing.  Indeed I am inclined to agree with Professor Stott that with global temperatures likely to cool during the next decade, with a world economy set in austere mode, and with the new politics of China, India and Brazil, the big Global Warming's boom days are surely coming to an end.

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Whale: It's Our Choice

It's free-range, organic and tastes like an exceptionally tender eye fillet, but it's unlikely to find its way onto the supermarket shelves in Australia.

I'm referring to whale steaks.

I was in Tokyo last week and I had the opportunity to try whale heart, tail, tongue and belly.

Before you condemn me for being so insensitive as to eat whale, consider the basis of your aversion.

Some people worry about whether a particular food tastes good, others whether it is healthy and those with an aversion to whaling, whether it is ethical.

I was in Japan for the 60th Anniversary Meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society -- an organisation which champions the idea of freedom.

The President of the Czech Republic is a member of the Society and spoke on global warming.

He said the problem of global warming is much more about the social sciences than about natural ones, more about economics than climatology, and more about a human being and his or her freedom than about an increase in the global mean temperatures by tenths of degrees Fahrenheit.

Which brings me back to the issue of whaling.  In the 1970s saving whales was the focus of global environmental campaigning.

According to my Japanese friends the campaign established a new social norm based on a myth, that all whales are endangered and that all whaling is evil, while not providing any effective solution to the many real environmental problems confronting the world.

Now environmentalists want to save the world from climate change and again they are seeking to create new social norms based on myth -- this time including the false logic that if Australians pay more for their petrol they can somehow make it rain in the Murray-Darling Basin.

More worrying for me is that these environmental campaigners want to take away our freedom to question these widely ingrained ideas.

Indeed anyone who now dares to doubt global warming in polite society risks being labelled a denier.

I respect the right of the really virtuous amongst us to refrain from eating whale and driving cars, but I don't want them to deny me the freedom to eat whale, drive my car or question the basis of their new found beliefs.

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Murray Water Demands from Downstream

South Australians live at the end of the long Murray River system and spend a lot of time fearing someone upstream will steal their water.

As far back as federation, South Australians sought to have their perceived rights to the Murray's water enshrined nationally, and now national agreements do specify how NSW and Victoria service South Australia's water entitlement.

During the Howard Government years, Cabinet Ministers from South Australia were quick to scuttle any proposal not suiting their water agenda.  For example, consider when the Commonwealth Standing Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries handed down an interim report in March 2004.  It stated that the scientific evidence did not support various claims for more environmental flow for South Australia and Alexander Downer, then Foreign Minister, quickly quashed the report's findings.

The new Rudd government appointed a South Australian Senator, Penny Wong, to the newly-created portfolio of Federal Water Minister, and it has only got better for South Australia when the new Senate was installed last week.

New Green's Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, vowed to "put the Murray River at the top of Canberra's agenda".  She is supported by Senator Nick Xenophon, who launched his campaign for the Senate in front of the giraffe enclosure at the Adelaide Zoo, explaining he had decided to run for federal politics so he could stick his neck out for South Australia.

He'd nominated water as an issue he wanted to "fight on".

Not surprisingly, during the first week of Senate, last week, an emergency Senate inquiry was established to audit water availability, with calls to transfer water from upstream to South Australia, and compulsory acquisitions from upstream for their lakes.

The demands are really quite extraordinary given the protracted drought.

Adelaide could actually become independent of the Murray by moving to waste water recycling and desalination.

The lower lakes could also be "saved" by simply opening the barrages and letting the area flood with seawater.

This would solve the developing environmental problem with acid sulphate soils but create problems for the communities who rely on the lakes as a source of freshwater.

Perhaps for this reason, because of local politics, this obvious environmental solution of opening the barrages continues to be avoided.

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More science less opinion on GM and rats

Another Look at GM Corn Seems Merited

Those who make their living from lobbying/marketing sometimes claim "perception is reality".  One topic that is attracting a lot of talk and perceptions now is genetically modified (GM) food crops which are controversial and present potential risks, but also have benefits.

Indeed, GM cotton has been grown in Australian for 12 years, and through the incorporation of the gene from a naturally occurring soil bacteria called Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) there has been an over 90 percent reduction in pesticide use in that crop.

The same Bt gene has been incorporated into corn, also providing insect resistance.

No GM corn has been approved for planting in Australia, but we import food derived from GM corn.

Last week Greenpeace demanded that the Federal Government ban the importation of products derived from the GM corn variety MON 863, claiming it to be a human health risk.

This follows an Austrian ban of the Bt variety following concerns raised by French scientist, Gilles-Eric Seralini, including in a paper published last year.

Dr Seralini re-analysed data from a 90-day rat-feeding study undertaken by Monsanto some years ago, claiming potential differences in growth rates and signs of liver and kidney damage in the rats fed the GM maize.

David Tribe, a Senior Lecturer, at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne, explains that "the Greenpeace-funded study by Dr Seralini looked at a large number (494) of different clinical comparisons and found small numbers of statistically significant differences with no consistent pattern."

At issue is the interpretation of the results from a single feeding trial with groups of just 20 rats.

Even Dr Seralini would like to see more experiments, concluding that with the present data it can't be concluded that GM corn MON863 (approved for use here in 2003;  see www.foodstandards.gov.au) is a safe product, but neither can it be concluded it is unsafe.

Given the controversy, the Federal Government should perhaps sponsor one of more comprehensive studies to get to the bottom of this issue.

At the moment there is much quoting of expert advice based on the disputed interpretation of very limited data which gives the perception there is an issue.

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Delusions of Grandeur in the Wake of Garnaut

Since the election of the Rudd Labor government last year, and now with the release of the Garnaut Climate Change Review's Draft Report last Friday, we seem to be under some sort of delusion that by adopting an emissions trading scheme we can have a significant impact on the global climate.

The new report is scathing of Australian agriculture, noting that "the contribution of the agriculture sector to Australia's greenhouse gas emissions is relatively large" (pg 210) and it shows agriculture, forestry and fisheries as having the largest emissions profile of any industry at 28.5 percent.

Emissions from agriculture could, of course, be eliminated by banning all food production.

Indeed, if you reduce the meaning of life to the amount of carbon produced, as the report's author Ross Garnaut, does, then banning agriculture is perhaps a reasonable theoretical proposition.

In reality, however, like the rest of us, Professor Garnaut needs to eat, and like it or not, most of our food comes from the agriculture sector.

He makes it clear that if an emission trading scheme in Australia is to have any impact on global climate, the world's major economies must also do something about their emissions listing China, the US, the European Union, Indonesia, Brazil, Russia then India, as the world's largest greenhouse emitters in that order.

Since agreeing to undertake the Review as a basis for the development of an emissions trading scheme in Australia, Professor Garnaut has been quick to point out he is an economist not a scientist, and that he just accepts the majority opinion on the science.

But he doesn't, and when it comes to the issue of global temperatures, instead of just accepting that over the last 10 years there has been no increase in average global temperatures, the professor states that experts have assured him that "the temperatures recorded in most of the last decade lie above the confidence level produced by any model that does not allow for a warming trend".

In short, Professor Garnaut has been long-winded (the report is nearly 600 pages) and has unnecessarily complicated various issues.

Then again if he just admitted that we don't really have a climate crisis (just a prolonged drought in the Murray-Darling), and that given Australia accounts for less than 1 percent of global emissions we are mostly irrelevant in the scheme of things, his work probably wouldn't be seen as all that important.

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Barrages Block Sense

Let's be honest:  a dry river is not necessarily an environmental catastrophe.  Last week we were warned that a leaked government report claims there is only six months to save the Murray-Darling Basin.

In response, the Federal Opposition leader, Brendan Nelson, called on the Prime Minister, Kelvin Rudd, to make a joint tour of the River Murray's lower lakes region.

Mr Nelson said he thought it was "very important that the leaders of this nation have a first-hand look at the environmental, economic and human catastrophe which is unfolding in the Lower Murray lakes".

The leaked report focused on the lower lakes, and as I have previously written (Acid Sulfate Blame Floating Upstream, The Land, May 15), a solution to many of the environmental problems at the Murray's mouth is to simply open the barrages and let the area flood with saltwater.

The barrages were built from the 1920s to keep the Southern Ocean out and to raise the lake level, including for boating.

These same barrages also facilitated the development of irrigated farming in this area, but they are unnatural.

If the barrages were now opened, irrigators dependent on freshwater from the lower lakes would need to be compensated.

But the alternative, continuing to send large quantities of water from the drought-drained reserves in the Hume and Dartmouth dams during this protracted big dry, is less viable.

Some argue that if a permanent weir was constructed just upstream of the lakes at Wellington and the barrages used under "an adaptive management regime", there could be water savings in the order of 750,000 megalitres a year.

Opening the barrages would take some pressure off the system, because less water would need to be allocated to South Australia, but the river could still run dry.

Indeed, it doesn't matter how many leaked government reports call for more water for environmental flows, if there's ongoing drought and the upstream dams runs dry, there will be simply no water for the river.

It would be an economic and human catastrophe for the many towns now dependent on the river for their water supply, but it would not necessarily be a catastrophe for the environment.

The River Murray in its natural state could be reduced to a chain of saline ponds.

Indeed, the idea that a river should be always brimming with freshwater is a very European concept -- in reality, alien to a land of drought and flooding rains.

So, let's be honest, many South Australians want to keep the barrages shut to the Southern Ocean and many Victorians and New South Welshmen want to keep the river full of water -- not to save the environment, but to avoid what Mr Nelson has described as a potential economic and social catastrophe.

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Pollies Cool on Warming Fixes

Last week the US Senate debated a 500-page global warming bill known as the Warner-Lieberman Cap-and-Trade bill.

The Democrats knew it would likely be vetoed by President George Bush, but they hoped to push it through the Senate anyway and in this way build further momentum for reducing America's greenhouse gas emissions.

But they weren't successful:  some Democrats refused to support it on the basis that it would push up petrol prices.

It was perhaps the worst possible time to introduce the legislation with oil prices doubling in the past 12 months and fear of a global fuel supply shortage.

Emissions trading is based on the theory that, by forcing up the price of fossil fuel, alternatives will be found.

But in reality biofuels can only supplement petroleum based products, and while there is always the option of natural gas and nuclear energy, both have their limitations right now.

So the reality is that an emission trading scheme (ETS) which puts a price tag on greenhouse carbon emissions - whether in the US or Australia -- is likely to just be an additional tax pushing fuel prices even higher.

Last week in the Australian federal parliament, Liberal member for the southern Perth seat of Tangney in Western Australia, Dennis Jensen, made the point that an emissions trading scheme, as proposed by the Rudd Labor Government, would not only push up petrol prices, but was based on the false belief that we have a climate crisis.

He said that the belief was based on pseudoscience and added global temperatures had not been increasing as predicted by computer models.

Dr Jensen, a former CSIRO researcher, quoted Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientist, Kevin Trenberth, explaining that, contrary to predictions, the lost heat is probably going back out to space with a number of natural thermostats, including clouds, reflecting sunlight and helping cool the planet.

Dr Jensen also referred to new data showing that not only has the global atmosphere stopped warming, but there has also been, if anything, a slight decrease in ocean temperatures.

The comments by Dr Jenson, and failure of the emission trading bill in the US Senate, follow defeat of climate alarmist, Ken Livingstone, in the recent London mayoral election.

It was claimed the mayoral poll would be a referendum on climate change policies which included more taxes.

The winner was the UK Conservative Party's Boris Johnson, who denies there is a climate crisis and a consequent need for more taxes on transport.

The Rudd Government can't realistically promise to both put maximum downward pressure on petrol prices and also to introduce its planned emissions trading scheme.  But will anyone listen to Dr Jensen in Canberra before it is too late?

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GM Good -- if doing nothing is worse

A summit on genetically modified (GM) crops held in Melbourne last week attracted lots of big names in this debate, including Western Australia's Julie Newman, who leads the Network of Concerned Farmers, and the deputy chief of CSIRO's Plant Industry division, T.J. Higgins.

But perhaps the most interesting presentation was from Lucy Carter, who talked about the ethical debate surrounding GM crops.

Dr Carter is from the School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics at the University of Queensland.  She has previously investigated the quality of arguments for and against the development and use of GM crop plants as part of her PhD.

She told the summit she had taken a pragmatic approach acknowledging that some applications of science are objectionable to some sectors of the community whose deeply-felt concerns should not be ignored.  Nevertheless she had sought to work through these concerns in a spirit of compromise, utility and resolution, recognizing that both proponents and opponents have vested interests in the regulation of GM.

Dr Carter recognised several strong themes in the debate including environmental concerns, in particular the impacts of gene flow;  end product labelling, risk and consumer autonomy;  food safety assessment;  developing world hunger and opportunities;  the "precautionary principle";  social, cultural and economic considerations;  the role of functional foods in the industrial world;  and naturalistic objections to GM.

The following assumptions were made:  GM confers several advantages over traditional agricultural methods;  GM can improve a plant's performance by increasing its tolerance to various environmental factors;  and agronomic traits such as pest resistance, herbicide tolerance and salinity tolerances have the potential to improve yield quantities and/or decrease input.

Dr Carter concluded that the expectation by organicists for absolute non-interference is unreasonable and unjustifiable and that the organic community cannot set standards that exclude other agriculturalists from taking part in legitimate agricultural activity.

But, in fact, they had, particularly with moratoriums banning the planting of GM food crops which are still in place in Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania.

Dr Carter also concluded that co-existence of GM and non-GM crops was possible, as has been demonstrated in the US.  She said co-existence was morally desirable;  conventional, organic and GM agriculture were not mutually exclusive enterprises, and the incommensurability claim made by the organic community was arbitrary.

Dr Carter also stated that GM has the potential to decrease future environmental degradation.

Because of this we could use the precautionary principle to justify GM use on the grounds that to do nothing might be worse for the present situation.

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