May 13, 2008

A grounded discussion of Global Warming

Check out this discussion by Bob Carter on YouTube Professor Carter's biography is here: Biography of Professor Robert (Bob) M. Carter
Bob Carter is a Research Professor at James Cook University (Queensland) and the University of Adelaide (South Australia). He is a palaeontologist, stratigrapher, marine geologist and environmental scientist with more than thirty years professional experience, and holds degrees from the University of Otago (New Zealand) and the University of Cambridge (England). He has held tenured academic staff positions at the University of Otago (Dunedin) and James Cook University (Townsville), where he was Professor and Head of School of Earth Sciences between 1981 and 1999.

Bob has wide experience in management and research administration, including service as Chair of the Earth Sciences Discipline Panel of the Australian Research Council, Chair of the national Marine Science and Technologies Committee, Director of the Australian Office of the Ocean Drilling Program, and Co-Chief Scientist on ODP Leg 181 (Southwest Pacific Gateways).
So academically, the guy is no slouch. Here is his article on Australia's Great Barrier Reef which many environmentalists are wringing their hands over:
The Great Barrier Reef is doing just fine: a precautionary tale
The matter of damage to the Great Barrier Reef by human activity has been much in the news lately. Current public perception is that the reef is being destroyed by one or all of land runoff, water turbidity, wonky holes, chemical pollution, crown-of thorns starfish outbreaks, tourist pressure, sea-level change and climate change, to name a few.

Against this background, the independent assessment by the Productivity Commission that "there is no conclusive evidence yet of water quality decline within the GBR lagoon or of any resulting damage to ecosystems" is particularly important, despite the mysterious "yet".

The Commission's conclusion agrees with studies completed in the 1990s by sedimentologists at James Cook University, and with more recent comprehensive environmental investigations in the Cairns' region. This research shows that muddy water is a normal natural phenomenon in all inshore reef waters, that inshore reefs thrive in such conditions, and that abundant space is available for the deposition of sediment before it will impact the main reef tract. At current rates of production, a direct sediment impact on the reef is going to take more than 100,000 years to occur, which is a little beyond the usual electoral cycle.
Much more at the website. Anyway, do yourself a favor and spend the ten minutes at YouTube Posted by DaveH at May 13, 2008 7:48 PM