Nov | 2014 | ConservationBytes.com

Why engaging in civil disobedience was my obligation as a scientist, parent and citizen

25 11 2014

Another engaging post from Alejandro Frid, Canadian ecologist and modern moral compass. I also recommend that you check out his new book ‘Storms and Stillness: An ecologist’s search for optimism through letters to his young daughter‘. See Alejandro’s previous posts on ConservationBytes.com here, here, here, here, here and here.

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Harper’s conservative government is working hard to turn Canada into a Petrostate. Their tactics include blatant inaction on climate change, dismantling environmental legislation, stripping government scientists from their ability to communicate research findings to the tax-paying public, and spying on citizens who, like me, dissent.

Consistent with these tactics, Harper tasked the National Energy Board (NEB) with examining whether building new pipelines that enable increased exploitation of bitumen from the Alberta tar sands is in the best interest of Canadians. Proposed infrastructure under current NEB “scrutiny” include the Trans Mountain pipeline by Houston-based Kinder Morgan, which would increase the capacity to transport tar sands bitumen to an export port in Vancouver, and the Northern Gateway pipeline, which would transport bitumen to the export port of Kitimat. The NEB has approved Northern Gateway and appears to be well on its way to doing the same for Trans Mountain.

The NEB, of course, is a blatant sham, a smokescreen, a club that exists solely to advance the interests of fossil fuel corporations. This assessment is consistent with the conclusion of Marc Eliesen, an industry insider who publically resigned as intervenor in the NEB Trans Mountain hearings, stating in the Globe and Mail that, “To me this is a farce: There is no way you can test the evidence if they won’t answer the basic questions. Unfortunately, this board is not objective. This board is biased.”

While the above quote speaks volumes, for many of us the real clincher is this. The NEB process considers only local impacts—oil spills and the like—while ignoring climate change. This is the equivalent of banning discourse on respiratory disease and asking, “Is it in the best interest of Canadians for the cigarette industry to market their product for toddlers, or would the plastic wrapping of cigarette cartons pose a choking hazard to that age group?” Read the rest of this entry »

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Tags: Canada, carbon, civil disobedience, climate change, climate disruption, divestment, fossil fuels, protest
Categories : conservation, pollution

Get serious about divestment

21 11 2014

We are a sensitive and conflict-avoiding lot, aren’t we? Most scientists I know absolutely dread reprisals of any form, whether they are from a colleague commenting on their work, a sensationalism-seeking journalist posing nasty questions, or a half-wit troll commenting on a blog feed. For all our swagger and intellectual superiority complexes, most of us would rather lock ourselves in a room and do our work without anyone bothering us.

Fortunately for the taxpayer, we should not and cannot be this way. As I’ve stated before, we have at the very least a moral obligation to divulge our results to as many people as possible because for the most part, they pay us. If you work in any applied form of science (most of us do) – such as conservation, for example – then your moral obligation to make your work public extends to the entirety of humanity and the planet. That’s a staggering responsibility, and one of the reasons I’ve embraced many other forms of communication beyond the bog-standard scientific publication outlets.

There are many great examples of impressive science advocates out there – a few that come to mind are people like inter alia Lesley Hughes, James Hansen, Michael Mann, Paul Ehrlich, Bill Laurance, Barry Brook, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Tony Barnosky, Gretchen Daily, Emma Johnston, Stuart Pimm, and Hugh Possingham. There are even others willing to go to extraordinary lengths to make an evidence-based protest against society’s more inane actions. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating – evidence-based advocacy can work.

To the topic at hand – I’ve been a little disappointed – to say the least – with the near-total silence emanating from my colleagues about the fossil-fuel divestment wave sweeping the world. While gaining traction worldwide, it wasn’t until The Australian National University took the bold move to divest (at least partially) from many of its fossil-fuel financial interests that it became a reality in Australia. Let’s face it – of all the types of institutions in our world, universities should be at the forefront of good, morally grounded and socially responsible investment strategies. They are, after all, meant to be filled with the most erudite, informed and cutting-edge people in the world, most of whom should have the best information at their fingertips regarding the precarious state of our environment. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 8 Comments »
Tags: advocacy, climate change, divest, divesting, divestment, fossil fuels, fossil-fuel industry, plutocracy
Categories : acidification, Australia, biodiversity, carbon, climate change, conservation, economics, environmental policy, investment, science, science communication

Give some flair to your scientific presentation

18 11 2014

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As the desert spring came to the great Centre Red,

Scores of sandalled folk from tin birds descend-ed.

Alice Town had been invaded,

Bearded alike and unshorn-legged.

They sat and stared at words and the odd trend.

Billies boiled to get them through to day’s end

They swapped bush stories that made good sense,

Trying to understand Aussie environments.

One bloke‘s tales caught the punters’ attention,

So this bush poet deserves special mention.

To standard rules he would not kowtow,

So his special science verse I present to you now.

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If none of that made any sense, then let me help you out. At the last Ecological Society of Australia meeting in Alice Springs, I witnessed a rather unique way to give a scientific presentation – via bush poetry. Dr. Dale Nimmo of Deakin University was particularly engaging, and he agreed to have his presentation poem reproduced here. Who said scientists were boring? Honourable mention too to Simon Watson for another audience-engaging, bush-poetry seminar (but I don’t have that to reproduce here). There also might be a slidecast of Dale’s presentation coming soon. For now, please enjoy the poetic delivery of science in text.

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The Old Grey Box of Heathcote Town

Dale Nimmo

Down around old Heathcote town, just east of Bendigo,

A big old grey box tree casts an eye.

The sallee fills the understory bright as sunlights glow,

As the silvereyes and thornbills flitter by.

This landscape, bruised and battered from 200 years of change,

Holds the secrets of a time lost somehow.

One of Jaara land, where lowan dug and dingoes howled,

The latter two, here, just distant memories now.

The gold rush came like bushfire, ring barked trees fell like boughs

Of the red gums scattered on the old flood plains,

That made way for sheep and cattle, while, fighting a losing battle,

rufous bettongs were never seen again.

When a man of English gentry, Professor Bennett was his name,

Found the woodlands to his aristocratic tastes.

Many days he’d venture in, binoculars under his chin,

He never let a single bird call go to waste.

While at the old St Arnaud Inn, over a couple pints of gin,

Bennet and a bloke called Radford got to talking.

Stealing horses was his game, but he’d give it all away,

To join Bennett in woodlands, bird walking

Read the rest of this entry »

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Tags: bush poetry, conference, ecology, riparian vegetation, scientific presentation
Categories : Australia, birds, conservation, decline, deforestation, drought, habitat loss, research, science, science communication

Innate cruelty and exploitation: does biodiversity stand a chance?

11 11 2014

Earlier this year I took my daughter to the South Australian Museum, as I often do on weekends. We usually have lunch at the Art Gallery, and then wander the various levels of the Museum at a pace suitable for a 7-year old. The South Australia biodiversity floor is her favourite.

Of course I’m a little biased in my opinion because I live in Adelaide, but in my attempt to be as objective as possible, I think we’re particularly fortunate to have this excellent museum at our doorstep. Not only are the exhibitions and displays top-notch, it is one of the most research-active museums in the country. In my opinion, it’s one of the best museums in Australia. To top it all off, admission is free.

However, this post isn’t about spruiking the museum – it’s about something deeply disturbing I experienced there during that visit earlier this year. In addition to the normal free displays, the Museum often has a special exhibition that one must pay to view. I often don’t bother with this, but on this particular occasion, the temporary exhibition called Ngintaka was free of charge.

Ngintaka was an eclectic mix of song, story, dance, painting and carving from the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY Lands) as told by Anangu Traditional Owners. While most of the displays were great, there was one that stood out in particular. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 5 Comments »
Tags: biodiversity, children, cruelty, ethics, museums, respect, South Australian Museum, values
Categories : Australia, biodiversity, conservation, education, exploitation

InvaCost – estimating the economic damage of invasive insects

7 11 2014

This is a blosh (rehash of someone else’s blog post) of Franck Courchamp‘s posts on an exciting new initiative of which I am excited to be a part. Incidentally, Franck’s spending the week here in Adelaide.

Don’t forgot to vote for the project to receive 50 000 € public-communication grant!

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Climate change will make winters milder and habitats climatically more suitable year-round for cold-blooded animals like insects, but there are many questions remaining regarding whether such insects will be able to invade other regions as the climate shifts. There are many nasty bugs out there.

For example, the Asian predatory wasp is an invasive hornet in Europe that butchers pollinating insects, especially bees, thereby affecting the production of many wild and cultivated plants. I hope that we all remember what Einstein said about pollinators:

If bees were to disappear, humans will disappear within a few years.

(we all should remember that because it’s one of the few things he said that most of us understood). The highly invasive red fire ant is feared for its impacts on biodiversity, agriculture and cattle breeding, and the thousands of anaphylactic shocks inflicted to people by painful stings every year (with hundreds of deaths). Between the USA and Australia, over US$10 billion is spent yearly on the control of this insect alone. Tiger mosquitoes are vectors of pathogens that cause dengue fever, chikungunya virus and of about 30 other viruses. We could go on.

Most of these nasty creatures are now unable to colonise northern regions of Europe or America, or southern regions of Australia, for example, because they cannot survive cold temperatures. But how will this change? Where, when and which species will invade with rising temperatures? What will be the costs in terms of species loss? In terms of agricultural or forestry loss? In terms of diseases to cattle, domestic animals and humans? What will be the death toll if insects that are vectors of malaria can establish in new, highly populated areas?

We’ve proposed to study these and others from a list of 20 of the worst invasive insect species worldwide, and we got selected (i.e., financed!) by the Fondation BNP Paribas. In addition, the Fondation BNP Paribas has selected five scientific programmes on climate change and will give 50,000 € (that’s US$62,000) to the one selected by the public, for a communication project on their scientific programme. This is why we need you to vote for our project: InvaCost. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 3 Comments »
Tags: BNP Paribas, Citizen science, climate change, Economics, Franck Courchamp, Global warming, insects, InvaCost, invasive species
Categories : agriculture, alien species, bioclimatic envelope, cattle, citizen science, climate change, climate shift, conservation, disease, ecology, economics, ecosystem, ecosystem services, environmental economics, Europe, food, health, invasive species, management, research, science, science communication

Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss XXVI

4 11 2014

Here are 8 more biodiversity cartoons (with a human population focus, given recent events) for your conservation-humour fix (see full stock of previous ‘Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss’ compendia here).

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